Though by no means a military man, he had been entrusted with this assignment out of respect for his revolutionary record, for his ordeals and terms in prison, and also on the assumption that, as a former cooperator, he must be well acquainted with the mood of the peasant masses in rebellion-gripped western Siberia. And in the given matter, this supposed familiarity was more important than military knowledge.
The change of political convictions had made Kostoed unrecognizable. It had altered his appearance, movements, manners. No one remembered that he was ever bald and bearded in former times. But maybe it was all false? The party prescribed strict secrecy for him. His underground nicknames were Berendey and Comrade Lidochka.
When the noise raised by Vdovichenko’s untimely announcement of his agreement with the read-out points of the instructions subsided, Kostoed went on:
“With the aim of the fullest possible involvement of the growing movement of the peasant masses, it is necessary to establish connections immediately with all partisan detachments located in the area of the provincial committee.”
Further on, Kostoed spoke of arranging meeting places, passwords, ciphers, and means of communication. Then he again passed on to details.
“Inform the detachments of those points where the White institutions and organizations have supplies of arms, clothing, and food, where they keep large sums of money and the system of their keeping.
“There is need to work out in full detail the questions of the internal organization of the detachments, of leadership, of military-comradely discipline, of conspiracy, of the connection of the detachments with the outside world, of relations with the local populace, of the military-revolutionary field court, of the tactics of sabotage on enemy territory, such as the destruction of bridges, railway lines, steamboats, barges, stations, workshops and their technical equipment, the telegraph, mines, food supplies.”
Liberius listened, listened, and finally could not bear it. All this seemed like dilettantish nonsense to him, with no relation to reality. He said:
“A beautiful lecture. I’ll make note of it. Obviously, it must all be accepted without objection, so as not to lose the support of the Red Army.”
“Naturally.”
“But, blast it all, what am I to do with your childish little crib, my most excellent Lidochka, when my forces, consisting of three regiments including artillery and cavalry, have long been on the march and are splendidly beating the enemy?”
“What charm! What strength!” thought Kostoed.
Tiverzin interrupted the argument. He did not like Liberius’s disrespectful tone. He said:
“Excuse me, comrade lecturer. I’m not sure. I may have written down one of the points of the instructions incorrectly. I’ll read it. I want to make certain: ‘It is highly desirable to involve former frontline troops in the committee, men who were at the front during the revolution and took part in the soldiers’ organizations. It is desirable to have one or two noncommissioned officers and a military technician on the committee.’ Have I written that down correctly, Comrade Kostoed?”
“Yes, correctly. Word for word. Yes.”
“In that case allow me to make the following observation. This point about military specialists disturbs me. We workers who took part in the revolution of 1905 are not used to trusting army men. Counterrevolution always worms its way in with them.”
Voices rang out all around:
“Enough! The resolution! The resolution! It’s time to break up. It’s late.”
“I agree with the opinion of the majority,” Vdovichenko inserted in a rumbling bass. “To put it poetically, it’s precisely like this. Civil institutions should grow from below, on democratic foundations, the way tree layers are set in the ground and take root. They can’t be hammered in from above like fenceposts. That was the mistake of the Jacobin dictatorship, which is why the Convention was crushed by the Thermidorians.”9
“It’s clear as day,” Svirid supported the friend of his wanderings, “a little child could understand it. We should have thought earlier, but now it’s too late. Now our business is to fight and smash our way through. Groan and bend. Otherwise what is it, you swing and back away? You cooked it, you eat it. You’ve jumped in the water, don’t shout that you’re drowning.”
“The resolution! The resolution!” demands came from all sides. There was a little more talk, with less and less observable coherence, with no rhyme or reason, and at dawn the meeting was closed. They went off one by one with all precaution.
7
There was a picturesque place on the highway. Situated on steep banks and separated by the swift river Pazhinka, the town of Kuteiny Posad descending from above and the motley-looking village of Maly Ermolai below almost touched each other. In Kuteiny they were seeing off new recruits taken into the service; in Maly Ermolai, under the chairmanship of Colonel Strese, the selection committee went on with its work, after the Easter break, certifying the young men of the village and some adjacent areas liable to be called up. On the occasion of the levy, there were mounted militia and Cossacks in the village.
It was the third day of the unseasonably late Easter and the unseasonably early spring, quiet and warm. Tables with refreshments for the departing recruits stood outside in Kuteiny, under the open sky, along the edge of the road, so as not to hinder traffic. They were put together not quite in a straight line, and stretched out like a long, irregular gut under white tablecloths that went down to the ground.
The new conscripts were treated to potluck. The main food was leftovers from the Easter table: two smoked hams, several kulichi, two or three paschas.10 Down the whole length of the table stood bowls of salted mushrooms, cucumbers, and pickled cabbage, plates of homemade, thickly sliced village bread, wide platters of colored eggs piled up high. They were mostly pink and light blue.
The grass around the tables was littered with picked-off eggshells—light blue, pink, and, on the inside, white. Light blue and pink were the boys’ shirts showing from under their suit jackets. Light blue and pink were the young girls’ dresses. Light blue was the sky. Pink were the clouds floating across the sky, as slowly and orderly as if the sky were floating with them.
Pink was the shirt, tied with a silk sash, on Vlas Pakhomovich Galuzin, when he—briskly stamping the heels of his boots and kicking his feet to left and right—ran down the high porch steps of the Pafnutkins’ house to the tables—the Pafnutkins’ house stood on a little hill above the tables—and began:
“This glass of the people’s home brew I drink to you, dear lads, in place of champagne. Many years to you, many years to you departing young men!11 Gentlemen recruits! I wish to congratulate you on many other points and respects. Give me your attention. The way of the cross that stretches like a long road before you is to staunchly defend the motherland from violators who have flooded the motherland’s fields with fratricidal blood. The people cherished bloodless discussions of the conquests of the revolution, but the Bolshevik Party being servants of foreign capital, its sacred dream, the Constituent Assembly, is dispersed by the crude force of the bayonet, and blood flows in a defenseless stream. Young departing men! Raise higher the violated honor of Russian arms, as being indebted to our honorable allies, we have covered ourselves in shame, observing, in the wake of the Reds, Germany and Austria again insolently raising their heads. God is with us, dear lads,” Galuzin was still saying, but already shouts of “Hurrah” and demands that Vlas Pakhomovich be carried in triumph drowned out his words. He put his glass to his lips and began taking small sips of the raw, poorly distilled liquid. The drink did not afford him any pleasure. He was used to grape wines of a more delicate bouquet. But the consciousness of the sacrifice offered to society filled him with a sense of satisfaction.