• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2552 0

to do anything. We were among the latter. [...] The actual workers of the relief, however, were the foreign bodies that had meantime organized their aid. The workers of Russia and the majority of the non-Communist population were performing superhuman labour to succour the famine-stricken districts. The intelligentsia accomplished miracles. In their capacity as physicians, nurses, and distributors of supplies scores of them sacrificed themselves. Many died of exposure and infection, and a number were even killed by the dark and crazed people whom they had come to help. With millions of lives devoured by the famine, the loss of a few hundred bourgeois was hardly worth noticing by the Government. It was more important for the world revolution that the Soviet regime suddenly discovered the wealth contained in the churches. It could have been confiscated before without much protest from the peasantry. But now the expropriation of the Church treasures added fuel to the fires of hate which the dictatorship had engendered in all classes of the people. Another demonstration of the continued revolutionary zeal of the Communist State was to order its own members to deliver forthwith all the valuables they had in their possession, even to the last trinket. It was a shock to learn that Communists should be suspected by their own party of hoarding jewelry or other valuables. But apparently there actually were such members. [...]

The famine continued its devastating march. But Moscow was far from the stricken region, and great events were being prepared for within its gates. Three international congresses were to take place: those of the Communist International, of the Women’s Organizations, and of the Red Trade Unions. A number of buildings adjoining the Hotel de Luxe were being renovated and the city cleaned up and decorated for the occasion. The blue and gold of the cupolas on the forty times forty churches intermingled with the scarlet hues of the bunting and flags. All was ready for the reception of the foreign delegates and visitors from every part of the world.

Among the early arrivals were two I.W.W. delegates from America, Williams and Cascaden. Others also soon came, among them Ella Reeves Bloor, William Z. Foster,42 and William D. Haywood. How could “Big Bill” come, we wondered, for we knew that he was out on twenty-thousand-dollar bail and under sentence of twenty years’ imprisonment. Was it possible that he had jumped his bond? Sasha was inclined to believe it; he had lost faith in Bill since 1914, when the latter had shown himself weakkneed during the free-speech fights that Sasha had conducted in New York. I defended Bill hotly, pointing out that our actions are not always to be judged so easily. “Not even your own, old man,” I said. But Sasha refused to come with me to the hotel where Haywood was lodged. “He will come to us if he is really anxious to see us,” he declared. I laughed at such ceremony with Bill.

Bill Haywood had often been under our roof, by day and by night, always our welcome guest, our comrade in many battles, though not sharing the same ideas. I hastened to the Hotel de Luxe, where the most favoured delegates were quartered, to find the old war-horse, of whom I had always been very fond. Bill received me in the same warm and genial manner that had captured all his friends. In fact, he immediately embraced me, before the whole crowd. A roar went up from the boys, who began teasing Bill for keeping it secret that E.G. was among his many lady-loves. He laughed good-naturedly and drew me down to a seat at his side. I had come only for a moment, I told him, just to welcome him and to tell him where and when he could find us. I still could give him a cup of coffee “as black as night, as sweet as love, as strong as revolutionary zeal.” Bill smiled in remembrance. “I’ll come tomorrow,” he said. [...]

Sasha was out when Bill arrived in the late afternoon the following day. My visitor transferred me back to America, my old arena of so many years’ effort. I plied him with questions about my friends, about Stella