Living My Life - Emma Goldman [252]
But again the bureaucracy blocked every move initiated without them. Difficulties began to appear in the most unexpected quarters. Officials were too busy to aid Sasha’s work, and, after all, wholesome eating-places were not so important in the scale of the world revolution that was expected to break out momentarily. It was absurd to lay stress on immediate amelioration in the face of the general situation. At best it could have no vital effect on the course of the Revolution. And Berkman could do more important work. He should not busy himself as a reformer. It was most disappointing, for everyone had thought him to be a revolutionist of steel and iron. It was naive of Berkman to claim that feeding the masses was the first concern of the Revolution, the care of the people, their contentment and joy, its main hope and safety, and indeed its only raison d’être and moral meaning. Such sentimentality was the purest bourgeois ideology. The Red Army and the Cheka were the strength of the Revolution, and its best defence. The capitalist world knew it and was trembling before the might of armed Russia.
One more hope perished, like the preceding ones. [... ] Sasha’s determination and strength had never been greater. My Yiddish perseverance also refused to surrender. All Soviet streams do not lead to the same muddy pools, we thought. [ ... ]
I talked to the wife of Lashevich, Zinoviev’s friend, high in the Bolshevik councils, about the condition of the hospitals. I was a trained nurse and I should be happy to give my services in improving them. She volunteered to call the matter to the attention of Comrade Pervoukhin, the Petrograd Board of Health Commissar. Weeks passed before I received word to call on him. I hastened to the Board of Health.
A trained nurse, months in Russia already and yet not assigned to him for service, Pervoukhin exclaimed. I should have known that he was desperately in need of just such aid. The hospitals were in a wretched condition; there was great scarcity of dispensaries and a lack of trained help, not to speak of the dearth of medical facilities and surgical instruments. [... ] He would take me for the first tour of inspection as soon as I was ready to start. Could I report to him in the morning?
[...] I would do my utmost, of course, I could promise him that. He would expect nothing else from a tovarishtch, he replied, from an old revolutionist and Communist, as he had been informed. I was indeed a Communist, I assented, but of the anarchist school. Oh yes, he understood that, but there was really no difference. Many anarchists had realized this and they were entirely with the party, working with the Bolsheviki and doing finely. “I also am with you,” I said, “in the defence of the Revolution, even to my last breath.” Not with the Communism of the dictatorship, however, I explained. I had not been able to reconcile myself to that, for I could not see the remotest relationship between the coerced and forced form of State communism and that of the free and voluntary co-operation of anarchist communism.
I had so often seen Communists on such occasions instantly alter their tone and manner that I was not surprised at the sudden change in Commissar Pervoukhin. The kindly physician so deeply concerned in the people’s health, the humanitarian who had a moment previously so lamented his lack of nurses to minister to the ill and afflicted, immediately became the political fanatic fairly oozing antagonism and resentment. Did my differing view-point matter in the care of the sick, or did he think it would affect my usefulness as a nurse, I inquired. He forced a sickly smile, replying that in Soviet Russia everyone who wants to work is welcome. His ideas are not questioned, provided he is a true revolutionist