In order to build the new, we must dismantle the old. So we believed. We must clear the wide world of this bourgeois clutter. We must throw Tsarist culture out of the steamer of modernism. We must smash, destroy, sweep away… until we are left with the pure white rooms of the future. The world around us was emptying. Possessions were lost to the four winds, and the Russian people themselves were cleared away. They were scattered by fear or need, abroad or to the countryside.
At the same time people disappeared within Moscow too. Typhus and dysentery and hunger gathered up many. But many vanished quietly into Cheka buildings: the garage on the Varsonofievsky, the sheds near the Church of the Resurrection and, most of all, the cellar of the Yakov company building on the Lubyanka, which became known as the ‘Ship of Death’. Since the end of August, when the Red Terror was announced, these places had started to fill up and overflow. Shooting could be heard all night long in Petrovsky Park, and the labour brigades of former people who had previously been put to work clearing rubble from the streets or feeding the furnaces at the electricity station were now given the job of digging graves.
Many prisoners were genuine opponents of the regime, of course, and there were always rumours of plots. At the Bolshoi Theatre someone took advantage of a power cut to scatter anti-Bolshevik leaflets from the balcony onto the stalls… there was pandemonium. The Civil War was still pressing in on us from five sides – in Siberia and the north, on the Volga, in the south, and just outside the gates of Petrograd – and there was a view that many of these prisoners were hostages of war. But we also knew that others crowded into the cellar on the Lubyanka were just the flotsam and jetsam of events. We knew that many of the secret police officers were thugs, perhaps even insane, and they fuelled their nights with cocaine.
We knew these things, but we did not discuss them as we did every other aspect of the Revolution. When you are carrying a huge, delicate and precious thing between you – when your future, all your hopes depend on it – a certain concentration is needed. ‘Don’t be distracted,’ Slavkin told us. Stray doubts, or too much emphasis on the problems of the Revolution, could distort the whole project. Unhelpful questions about the victims of the Cheka, for example, or the over-zealous actions of the Red Army in the villages, or the Bolsheviks’ ban on workers’ strikes, could poison the atmosphere and be fatal to the work of the commune. Self-control is a vital element in any communal activity; and although we failed in many areas to control ourselves sufficiently, on this topic, that of the Revolution’s dark side, we were rather successful.
I have rarely discussed this aspect of our Revolution even after leaving Russia, throughout my life in London. During my years of political activism, at my Socialist reading groups and women’s groups and marches and demos, I’ve been asked endlessly about my experiences in Russia. I mentioned already that even my memories of the October Revolution used to upset people – they weren’t the correct memories. The same went for other details of life in the Soviet Union, some of which I have never told until now. Socialists couldn’t afford to listen, they couldn’t afford to doubt. They had devoted too much already to the cause. Slavkin’s remark came to mind: ‘Revolution will redeem all these sacrifices.’ If, however, one doubted the Revolution, none of our sacrifices made any sense at all.
Now I am finally laying down the burden of silence, I am confessing, and I find myself awake in the middle of the night, feeling like a traitor to the cause. Oh, I can see already that my husband was right – the truth will carry out its surgery on my ragged old heart. I can feel already the almost sensual relief of blurting everything out, even the most shameful parts that I’ve been terrified of revealing, all my weaknesses and petty inhumanities. But what about the people who are being told, the dedicated Socialists – what effect will it have on them? And what about Sophy? I am almost eighty now, alone, and my only daughter is my greatest comfort in the world. I am afraid that this story can only cause her pain and confusion. I dread the thought that it will take her from me.
We slept little enough that night and by six o’clock Sonya, Slavkin and I were already in the hall of Narkompros, where Pasha worked. Slavkin thought it might be useful to have me with them as a foreigner – perhaps thinking of the magical effect my British passport had had on the militia when, long before, they had come to search the house. I thought he also knew I was good in a crisis, whereas Sonya was shaky and close to tears.
At the Narkompros we waited in a crowd of petitioners hoping for a hearing. Lunacharsky had only just moved from Petrograd to Moscow and he was impossible to see. At any rate, I knew Slavkin would insist we wait our turn. He always used to say in these situations, ‘How do we know what urgent business occupies these fellows?’
‘Oh, Gerty,’ Sonya kept whispering, ‘please, convince him that we must hurry!’
I did no such thing. However, after a few minutes Sonya spotted a colleague of Pasha’s called Bokin and flung herself on him.
‘I’m just the person you need. I’ll talk to the Commissar immediately,’ he announced, leading us into his office. Slavkin to my surprise made no objection, and we followed in the wake of Sonya’s grateful babble.
As always there was tremendous bustle and excitement at the Narkompros, people rushing in and out, banging of doors, posters laid out all over the floor, and so on. After an hour and a half of fidgeting about, I couldn’t help wondering out loud whether we had been right to believe Bokin. ‘After all, we might have been better off without pulling strings, just waiting in the queue like the other petitioners.’
Sonya jumped up, her face set. ‘I’m not sitting here any longer.’
Bokin, we discovered, was standing in the corridor in the midst of a heated discussion about poster distribution.
‘Comrade Bokin, forgive me for interrupting,’ burst in Sonya, thrusting herself between him and his colleagues, ‘but you said you could speak to the Commissar straight away! Comrade Kobelev has been wrongfully arrested by the Cheka – you know as well as I how hasty they can be in their judgements…’
Shame-faced, Bokin hurried us into another ante-room. ‘Here, here, just a moment, I have mentioned it to him.’
‘No! We won’t wait another “just a moment”!’ Sonya shouted. Tears were pouring down her face, she could barely speak.
‘Shh, Sonya,’ I tried to calm her, glancing at Slavkin for his approval. ‘This behaviour won’t help.’
She pushed my hand away and turned to Slavkin. ‘Nikita, how can you let this happen? They’ll shoot them!’
‘Nonsense, Sonya, don’t exaggerate,’ I told her sharply.
‘No,’ Slavkin spoke up suddenly. ‘Sonya’s right. Bokin, you could have blood on your hands if you don’t take us straight to the Commissar.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But… the other petitioners?’ I couldn’t help saying.
‘The other petitioners can go to hell,’ spat Sonya. ‘And why don’t you go with them? You seem to care about them more than you do about Pasha…’
‘Come on, Bokin, we’re following you,’ snapped Slavkin, taking Sonya’s hand. ‘Let’s go!’
They hurried off through the warren of offices.
‘Ugh, Bokin,’ said his colleague, watching their backs disappear. ‘Like a piece of puff pastry.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You know what he promised me last week? He’d have public-health posters up in Vladimir, Kostroma and Yaroslavl by Saturday. Now I’ve just found them still in boxes a week later.’ He sighed gloomily. ‘I don’t know where Bokin is taking your friends. The Comrade Commissar isn’t even here. He’s gone back to Petrograd for a few days.’