Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [470]
Her claim was true. Nicolai soon identified men of impeccable right-wing credentials who wanted the Duma abolished. ‘Friends for you,’ he said with a grin to his son. There were conservative liberals who wanted the Duma to cooperate with the Tsar; and there were men like himself, Constitutional Democrats, known as Cadets for short, who were determined to push the Tsar towards a proper democracy. ‘And what about the parties of the left?’ he asked her.
There were two of these nowadays. There were the Socialist Revolutionaries, who represented the peasants, but some of whom were unfortunately dedicated to terrorism. ‘I’m short there,’ his hostess remarked lightly. ‘Though if a bomb goes off, I suppose I’ll know I had one after all.’ And there was the party of the workers, the Social Democrats. ‘And there I have done better. Come and meet my brother-in-law: Professor Peter Suvorin.’
Peter and Rosa Suvorin did not often come to his brother’s huge house. Not that they were unwelcome: the two brothers were fond of each other; but their ways had long since parted. Rosa and Mrs Suvorin had little to say to each other, and Peter found that there was a subtle patronage towards him in her manner which plainly said: ‘I shall be charming, of course, but you are a poor, unfortunate creature.’ Indeed, but for one circumstance the two families might scarcely have met at all: and this was the friendship of their children.
Three children had been born to Rosa, but only one had lived: Dimitri, a dark-haired little boy three years Nadezhda’s senior. They had first met one Christmas when Nadezhda was three, and had at once taken a liking to each other. Since the girl constantly asked for him, Dimitri was frequently invited, although for some reason Mrs Suvorin never cared to let her daughter go to her cousin’s modest house. But it seemed to please her to see the children together and she would say to Rosa, with obvious sincerity: ‘It’s so nice for Nadezhda to have another child to play with.’
But tonight Mrs Suvorin had been positively anxious to see the Marxist professor. ‘He is my link to all these people on the far left,’ she had said to her husband. ‘And I think it’s time I came to understand them better.’
She knew a little about the Social Democrats. She was aware that they had split, in recent years, into two camps, the smaller of which was the more extreme. ‘With typical Russian confusion,’ Vladimir had remarked, ‘the majority call themselves the little party, and the minority call themselves the big party – the Bolsheviks.’ Mrs Suvorin was sure that kindly Peter must belong to the less extreme majority, but she was curious about the Bolsheviks, and a few days before had asked him: ‘Do you know any of these fellows? What are they like? Could you bring one to our house?’ To which Peter had replied: ‘I do know such a man who’s in Moscow at present. But I don’t suppose he’d come.’ ‘Ask him anyway,’ she had requested, which Peter had done.
Nicolai Bobrov was curious to meet Peter Suvorin, whom he only vaguely remembered from his youth; and the two men found they liked each other. ‘We Cadets,’ Bobrov assured him, ‘are going to oppose the Tsar all the way until he gives us a real democracy.’
‘We both want that,’ Peter agreed pleasantly. ‘But we want democracy to usher in the revolution, and you want it to avoid the revolution!’ In answer to Nicolai’s further question he gave his opinions of the future freely. ‘The workers’ organization will be the key to everything now,’ he explained. ‘And the Marxist’s job is to keep them political, committed to a Socialist revolution when the time is ripe.’
‘Who will do that?’ Bobrov asked.
‘In the western provinces, the Jewish workers’ organization, the Bund,’ Peter answered. He was sorry that his earlier efforts to persuade the eager young Jewish reformers not to follow their own path had failed. But he could not deny that the Jewish Bund had been solid and strong in the months of crisis; and they were good Marxists.
‘And in the rest of Russia?