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By Root 2315 0

one-track idea and according to the Moscow formula. The official interviews added no new note. It gave us time to look for the tabooed part of the population. Inadvertently we came upon two of that class and by their aid met a larger group held together by their common fate, though widely separated in ideas. Our discovery was two women, one of them the daughter of Vladimir Korolenko,29 the last of the old school of Russian writers. The other was the head of the “Save the Children” organization, founded in 1914 and continued through all the vicissitudes of the intervening years. They invited us to their home, where we came in contact with others of their circle. They were of the old radical intelligentsia that had always been dedicated to the enlightenment and succour of the Russian masses. They were not able to reconcile themselves to the dictatorship, they frankly admitted; nor were they actively engaged against it. In fact, they were co-operating economically with the Bolsheviki and working in the social welfare departments. Nevertheless they were being persecuted as sabotazhniky and the “Save the Children” society had been repeatedly raided by the local authorities as a counter-revolutionary body. This in spite of Lunacharsky’s express permission to continue their work.

Henry remarked to our hosts that, no matter what might be said against the Bolsheviki, they could not be charged with neglecting the children. They were doing more in that direction than any other country. Why, then, the need of private welfare associations? Our hostesses smiled sadly. They had no intention whatever, they said, to deprecate the sincerity of the Bolsheviki in relation to the child. They had done much for it and would no doubt do still more. That referred, however, only to a privileged class of children. The destitute ones had alarmingly increased in numbers, and thousands were constantly added. Prostitution, venereal diseases, and every form of crime were rampant among the children of even tender age, and pregnancies frequent among girls of ten and eight. The more thoughtful Communists were aware that the scourge could not be cured by political decrees or the Cheka. [ ... ]

Vladimir Korolenko was convalescing after a severe illness and not accessible to visitors. His daughter promised, however, to see her father about us and invited us to come to the home of her parents the next day.

In the evening I called on Mme X, chairman of the Political Red Cross. In the past the organization had been aiding the political victims of the Romanovs. I was interested to learn what they were being permitted to do by the new regime. Mme X was a beautiful woman with snowy white hair and large, tender blue eyes. She was the best type of the old Russian idealist, rarely met with nowadays. Warmth, kindliness, and utmost hospitality had been their characteristics, and my hostess had lost none of these qualities, although she had lived through every phase of misery since 1914. It was a hot evening and we sat out on the little balcony, with the puffing samovar between us. The bright moon and the glowing coal in the large tea-urn lent romance to the scene. But our conversation was of Russian reality, of the unfortunates who had filled the Tsar’s dungeons and places of exile. The activities of her group were more limited now, the old lady informed me. They were becoming more circumscribed all the time and harassed by many difficulties for reasons that had not existed in the past. The dictatorship and the persecution of everyone even remotely suspected of disagreement with the regime robbed the politicals of their former ethical status and the high regard they had enjoyed in all but the most reactionary circles. Now they were denounced as bandits, counter-revolutionists, and enemies of the people. [ ... ]

I related to her my great shock on first learning of the Jesuitical methods resorted to by the Bolsheviki to slay their opponents, and my long struggle against crediting such things. I told her of my interview with Lenin and his contention that only bandits