Living My Life - Emma Goldman [249]
Sasha was speaking to Peter of the maze of revolutionary contradictions we had found in Russia, the varied interpretations we had heard of the causes of the crying evils, and our interview with Lenin. We were eager to hear Peter’s view-point and get his reactions to the situation. He replied that it was what it had always been to Marxism and its theories. He had foreseen its dangers and he had always warned against them. All anarchists had done so, and he himself had dealt with them in nearly every one of his writings. True, none of us had fully realized to what proportions the Marxian menace would grow. Perhaps it was not so much Marxism as the Jesuitical spirit of its dogmas. The Bolsheviki were poisoned by it, their dictatorship surpassing the autocracy of the Inquisition. Their power was strengthened by the blustering statesmen of Europe. The blockade, the Allied support of the counter-revolutionary elements, the intervention, and all the other attempts to crush the Revolution had resulted in silencing every protest against Bolshevik tyranny within Russia itself. “Is there no one to speak out against it?” I demanded, “no one whose voice would carry weight? Yours, for instance, dear comrade?” Peter smiled sadly. I would know better, he said, after I had been awhile longer in the country. The gag was the most complete in the world. He had protested, of course, and so had others, among them the venerable Vera Figner,21 as well as Maxim Gorki on several occasions. It had no effect whatever, nor was it possible to do any writing with the Cheka constantly at one’s door. One could not keep “incriminating” things in one’s house nor expose others to the peril of discovery. It was not fear; it was the realization of the futility and impossibility of reaching the world from the inner prisons of the Cheka. The main drawback, however, was the enemies surrounding Russia. Anything said or written against the Bolsheviki was bound to be interpreted by the outside world as an attack upon the Revolution and as alignment with the reactionary forces. The anarchists in particular were between two fires. They could not make peace with the formidable power of the Kremlin, nor could they join hands with the enemies of Russia. Their only alternative at present, it seemed to Peter, was to find some work of direct benefit to the masses. He was glad that we had decided on that. “Ridiculous of Lenin to want to bind you to the apron-strings of the party,” he declared. “It shows how far mere shrewdness is from wisdom. No one can deny Lenin’s shrewdness, but neither in his attitude to the peasants nor in his appraisal of those within or outside the reach of corruption has he shown real judgment or sagacity.”
It was growing late and Sophie had been trying to prevail upon Peter to retire. But he persistently declined. [... ] Gentle and gallant was our Peter even in his fatigue. Nothing would do but he must see us to the exit and once more clasp us lovingly to his heart.
Our train was not to start till two a.m., and it was only eleven. The woman porter was fast asleep. She had forgotten to look after the fire, and the car was bitterly cold. The boys set to work over the stove, but it would yield nothing except smoke. Meanwhile Lansbury, wrapped up to his ears in his great fur coat, held forth on what a pity it was that Peter Kropotkin’s age disqualified him from taking an active part in Soviet affairs. Living away from the centre, Kropotkin was not in a position to do justice to the grandiose achievements of the Bolsheviki, he reiterated. I was almost frozen and too miserable