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| − | | + | <FONT COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><BR> |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><A HREF="images/Robins01.jpg"><FONT SIZE="+1"
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| − | FACE="Times"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/Robins01tn.jpg" WIDTH="57"
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| − | HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></FONT></A><FONT
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| − | COLOR="#0000ff" SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><BR>
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| | COL. RAYMOND ROBINS</FONT> | | COL. RAYMOND ROBINS</FONT> |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">Harper & Brothers | + | <CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">Harper & Brothers |
| | Publishers<BR> | | Publishers<BR> |
| − | New York and London</FONT> | + | New York and London</FONT></center><br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER>Published February, 1920 | + | <CENTER>Published February, 1920</center> |
| | | | |
| | <br><br> | | <br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME="TC"></A><FONT SIZE="+2">CONTENTS</FONT> | + | <CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">CONTENTS</FONT></center><br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="1" CELLPADDING="5" | + | <center> |
| − | WIDTH="423">
| + | [[I. THE ARRIVAL OF THE SOVIET ]]<br><br> |
| − | THE ARRIVAL OF THE SOVIET</FONT></TD> | |
| | | | |
| − | TROTZKY'S PLANS FOR SOVIET RUSSIA</FONT></TD> | + | [[II. TROTZKY'S PLANS FOR SOVIET RUSSIA]] <br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE BREST-LITOVSK PEACE</FONT></TD> | + | [[III. THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE BREST-LITOVSK PEACE]] <br><br> |
| − | </TR>
| + | [[IV. THE PERSONALITY AND POWER OF NIKOLAI LENIN]]<br><br> |
| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="6%">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="Robins4.htm">IV.</A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="86%" VALIGN="TOP"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">THE
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| − | PERSONALITY AND POWER OF NIKOLAI LENIN</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="6%">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1"><A HREF="Robins5.htm">V.</A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="86%" VALIGN="TOP"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">THE
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| − | BOLSHEVIK "BOMB"</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | </TABLE>
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| | | | |
| − | <br><br><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">.</FONT> | + | [[V. THE BOLSHEVIK "BOMB"]]<br><br></center> |
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">ILLUSTRATIONS</FONT> | + | <CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">ILLUSTRATIONS</FONT></center><br><br> |
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="1" CELLPADDING="5"
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| − | WIDTH="500">
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins01.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins01tn.jpg" WIDTH="57" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">COL. RAYMOND ROBINS</FONT> </TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins02.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins02tn.jpg" WIDTH="138" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">KRYLENKO---HEAD
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| − | OF THE RED ARMY</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins03.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins03tn.jpg" WIDTH="113" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">LEON TROTZKY</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins04.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins04tn.jpg" WIDTH="107" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">NIKOLAI LENIN</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins05.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins05tn.jpg" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="99" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">ON THE ROAD TO MOSCOW</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins06.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins06tn.jpg" WIDTH="109" HEIGHT="144" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN
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| − | OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins07.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins07tn.jpg" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="81" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">COLONEL ROBINS STANDING
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| − | IN THE FRONT OF THE CAR THAT CARRIED THE AMERICAN FLAG EVERY
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| − | DAY THROUGH REVOLUTIONARY PETROGRAD AND MOSCOW</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | <TR>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="34%" VALIGN="TOP">
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| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times"><A HREF="images/Robins08.jpg"><IMG
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| − | SRC="thumbnails/Robins08tn.jpg" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="114" ALIGN="BOTTOM"
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| − | BORDER="1" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A></FONT></TD>
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| − | <TD WIDTH="66%"><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">MAY-DAY PARADE,
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| − | MOSCOW</FONT></TD>
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| − | </TR>
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| − | </TABLE>
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| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+1" FACE="Times">.</FONT> | + | <center> |
| | + | [[Image: Raymond_Robins1.jpg |resize 200 px]]COL. RAYMOND ROBINS<br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+4"></FONT><A NAME="1"></A><FONT SIZE="+4">I</FONT>
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| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER><FONT SIZE="+2">THE ARRIVAL OF THE SOVIET</FONT>
| + | KRYLENKO---HEAD OF THE RED<br> ARMY<br><br> |
| − | | + | |
| − | <br><br>WITH Bolshevism triumphant at Budapest and at Munich, and with
| + | LEON TROTZKY <br><br> |
| − | a Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies in session at Berlin,
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| − | Raymond Robins began to narrate to me his personal experiences
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| − | and his observations of the dealings of the American government
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| − | with Bolshevism at Petrograd and at Moscow.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But he was not merely an observer of those dealings. He was
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| − | a participant in them. Month after month he acted as the unofficial
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| − | representative of the American ambassador to Russia in conversations,
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| − | and negotiations with the government of Lenin.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Throughout that period he saw Lenin personally three times
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| − | (on an average) a week. Incidentally, the degree of eagerness
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| − | felt by the Allied and American governments to make Lenin's acquaintance
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| − | and to learn his actual character and his actual purpose, good
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| − | or bad, may be judged from the fact that during all those months
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| − | Col. Raymond Robins of the American Red Cross was the only Allied
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| − | or American officer who ever actually had personal conferences
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| − | with Lenin.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Lenin speaks English fluently. He was talking one day about
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| − | Russia's industrial backwardness and he made a saying which Robins
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| − | now calls especially to mind.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Russia's backwardness in industry is a grave handicap to Russian
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| − | Socialism. Russia is poorly prepared for the socialist experiment.
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| − | Lenin knew this. Whatever else he may be, he is a man of knowledge,
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| − | of great knowledge, a laborious student and scholar. He was speaking
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| − | of the prospects of Socialism in Russia, and he said:
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"The flame of the Socialist revolution may die down here.
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| − | But we will keep it at its height till it spreads to countries
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| − | more developed. The most developed country is Germany. When you
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| − | see a Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies at Berlin, you
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| − | will know that the proletarian world revolution is born."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>We see that Council to-day, and we see Allied and American
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| − | diplomacy considering it and striving, in one way and another,
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| − | to deal with it. That is why Colonel Robins is especially moved
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| − | to speak at this moment. He saw the diplomatic methods which failed
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| − | to deal successfully with Bolshevism at Petrograd and Moscow,
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| − | and he feels that he has every reason of practical experience
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| − | to believe that they will equally fail at Berlin and at Budapest
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| − | and at Munich and at every other place where they may be tried.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The failure at Petrograd and at Moscow was complete. The United
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| − | States went away from Petrograd and from Moscow diplomatically
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| − | vanquished. Colonel Robins ventures to state the fundamental reason
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| − | for our discomfiture. But, before stating that reason, I must,
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| − | in one respect, state him.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He is the most anti-Bolshevik person I have ever known, in
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| − | way of thought; and I have known him for seventeen years. When
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| − | he says now that in his judgment the economic system of Bolshevism
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| − | is morally unsound and industrially unworkable, he says only what
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| − | I have heard him say in every year of our acquaintance since 1902.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He was living then at a settlement in Chicago called the Chicago
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| − | Commons. It had an open forum called, I think I remember, the
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| − | Free Floor. On that Free Floor, and in little halls on North Clark
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| − | Street, and in all sorts of other places, Robins and I heard all
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| − | sorts of Bolshevik oratory in the Chicago of the early innocent
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| − | twentieth century. We did not need to wait for the developments
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| − | of the year 1919 in order to know that Bolshevism, after all,
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| − | was not invented during the Great War by the German General Staff
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| − | as a war measure. We heard Bolshevism in Chicago, all of it---the
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| − | Dictatorship of the Proletariate, the Producers' Republic, the
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| − | Election of Legislators by Industries, the Abolition of All Classes
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| − | Except the Working-class---absolutely all of it, in the oratory
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| − | of sincere and eloquent fanatics almost two decades ago. And it
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| − | existed long before we heard it.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But Raymond Robins' favorite intellectual pursuit was to go
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| − | after it with all the arguments he could think of. In forums and
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| − | in halls and at that earnest gathering of local truth-seekers
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| − | called the Friday Lunch Club he never missed an opportunity to
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| − | argue against Bolshevism and against every other form of Socialism.
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| − | I remember that once, when he heard from some false source that
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| − | I was about to make the hideous mistake of joining the Socialist
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| − | party, he kept me up till two o'clock in the morning, making me
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| − | one of his best public orations, all to myself, to dissuade me.
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| − | He would go to any distance out of his way in order to save any
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| − | brand from the Socialist burning.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>To-day, because he opposes American and Allied military intervention
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| − | in Russia, certain hasty or malevolent persons try to stamp the
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| − | stigma of Bolshevism on him. I only ask: how many of those persons
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| − | have ever said one word against Bolshevism where to say it was
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| − | dangerous? Robins spoke against Bolshevism in Petrograd itself.
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| − | He labored against Bolshevism., and is publicly recorded to have
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| − | labored against it, all through the period while Russia was making
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| − | its choice between Kerensky and Lenin. Robins has been consistently
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| − | and continuously anti-Bolshevik, in America and in Russia; but
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| − | he saw the failure of our diplomacy in Russia; and he had a chance
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| − | to perceive the reason, the instructive reason.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He calls it the Indoor Mind.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The Indoor Mind goes to a country like Russia, where 7 per
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| − | cent. of the population had been masters of everything. It finds
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| − | the 7 per cent. swept out of mastery and the 93 per cent. in full
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| − | control, with twelve million rifles in their hands. But it gives
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| − | itself to the 7 per cent. It gives itself to drawing-rooms, dinner-parties,
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| − | tea-tables, palaces, boulevard restaurants. There it hears at
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| − | last about a thing called a Soviet. But what does it hear?
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>It hears that the Soviet is a deliberately wicked and artificial
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| − | thing. It hears that the Petrograd Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers'
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| − | Deputies, and the Moscow Soviet, and the Irkutsk Soviet, and all
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| − | the other Soviets springing up at almost every cross-roads all
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| − | over the fifteen hundred miles from Archangel to Odessa and all
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| − | over the six thousand miles from Kiev to Vladivostok, are produced
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| − | by the machinations of the agents of the Kaiser. They are a German
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| − | intrigue. That is what the Indoor Mind hears, and it believes
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| − | it.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>And what turns out to be the fact? The fact, as proved by events
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| − | subsequent, soon subsequent, turns out to be that these Soviets,
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| − | instead of being a mere German intrigue, were a tidal wave of
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| − | irresistible popular emotion, as spontaneous, as Russian, as a
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| − | folk-song on the Volga.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Never, says Robins, never in this age of emotions of peoples,
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| − | in this age of movements of populations, will diplomacy be able
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| − | to deal with foreign politics till it discards the Indoor for
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| − | the Outdoor Mind.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins' duties in Russia took him outdoors. By fate, by chance,
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| − | he was obliged to go out among the Russian people. He was used
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| − | to outdoors and to people. When I first knew him he had lately
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| − | returned from gold-hunting in Alaska, where he had hunted successfully
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| − | enough to be able to live in modesty during the rest of life without
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| − | any further such hunting anywhere; and on the night on which he
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| − | unnecessarily saved me from Socialism he departed, after three
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| − | hours' sleep, to open up the Chicago Municipal Lodging House where
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| − | he did his best to restore broken men to a sound life. He had
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| − | known miners and he had known vagrants, and he had known fanatical
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| − | Socialist reformers, and he had known solid middle-class reformers
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| − | in the course of his labors with the Municipal Voters' League
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| − | for the return of honest aldermen to the Chicago City Council.
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| − | He had been a down-on-the-ground precinct-by-precinct political
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| − | worker. Going outdoors in Russia did not hurt him.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Through going outdoors, he found the Soviet---he knocked his
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| − | shins against it---when diplomats were only hearing about it.
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| − | The Bolsheviks afterward, in order to capture Russia, had to capture
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| − | the Soviet. The Soviet turned out to be the strategic, the vital,
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| − | thing. Robins' narrative begins therefore with the adventures
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| − | through which the Soviet was revealed to him.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Certain hints of the Soviet were borne to the members of the
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| − | American Red Cross Mission even while they were still in Siberia
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| − | on their way from Vladivostok to Petrograd. At the Siberian town
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| − | of Chita, just over the Chinese frontier, they were stopped and
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| − | examined by a local government acting on its own responsibility.
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| − | It called itself a Soviet. It consisted simply of elected representatives
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| − | of local workmen and of local soldiers.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins was not at that time the commander of the Red Cross
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| − | Mission. But it was supposed, or hoped, that his familiarity with
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| − | the labor movement in America might enable him to say the fitting
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| − | word to the labor movement in Chita; and he was visited by a stroke
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| − | of great good fortune.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He remembered the day when he had taken part in a movement
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| − | in Chicago for preventing certain Russian political refugees from
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| − | getting deported from America back to Russia. He remembered the
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| − | American Political Refugee Defense League, and Christian Rudowitz
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| − | and Anton Pouren. They were not criminals. They were political
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| − | opponents of the Czar. Robins was able to stand up in their country
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| − | now, at Chita, and tell the story of their experiences in America.
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| − | He had been secretary of the league formed to help them; and they
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| − | had been helped. They were not deported back to Russia. They were
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| − | permitted to remain in America. America was true to its tradition
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| − | as an asylum, a secure asylum, for refugees whose crime was love
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| − | of liberty. It was the theme for a good speech, and Robins was
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| − | diplomatically fortunate in being able to make it, but he could
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| − | not help reflecting on the curiousness of the forcible stopping
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| − | of an official train by a local government.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>It was merely local, and it was altogether extra-legal. The
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| − | legal government was the Kerensky government. The Kerensky government,
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| − | centered at Petrograd, was operated locally through Dumas and
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| − | Zemstvos and so on. This Soviet was a volunteer thing, really
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| − | a private thing. But Robins was soon to find out that even under
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| − | Kerensky it was the thing with authority, with power.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The train proceeded westward and passed through Irkutsk; and
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| − | then, at Krasnoyarsk, there was again a Soviet. The rumor came
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| − | that this Soviet would also stop the train. The managers of the
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| − | train dodged. They waited for a certainly clear track and for
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| − | a quiet hour in early dawn, and they dashed through Krasnoyarsk
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| − | without stopping. This Soviet at Krasnoyarsk was reported to be
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| − | Bolshevik. Bolshevism had triumphed in a remote provincial town
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| − | at a time when yet it could not raise itself to strike in Petrograd.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The American Red Cross Mission arrived in Petrograd on August
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| − | 7, 1917. Bolshevism was far indeed from triumph there. Trotzky
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| − | was still, or had lately been, in jail. Lenin was in virtual hiding.
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| − | On August 8th there was a conference between the American Red
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| − | Cross and Kerensky; and then, on days soon following, Robins met
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| − | Miliukov and Kornilov and Madame Breshko-Breshkovskaya and Prince
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| − | Kropotkin; and all his immediate personal official associations
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| − | in his Red Cross work came to be with the supporters of the Kerensky
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| − | government against the Bolsheviks; and he thought no more about
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| − | the Bolsheviks or indeed about the Soviet till his work obliged
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| − | him to make a trip out of Petrograd.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He had been assigned by the commander of the Red Cross Mission,
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| − | Col. Frank G. Billings, to work particularly at the problem of
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| − | food-supply and at the problem of war refugees. There were many
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| − | war refugees in southern Russia. Robins was despatched to southern
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| − | Russia. "There," as he says, "I first really sensed
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| − | the new power, the new social binder, which was growing into existence
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| − | all over outdoors in Russia."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He came to Ekaterinoslav on the Dnieper, not far from the Black
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| − | Sea; and he came to Kharkov; and he found Soviets. He found them
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| − | feared by the 7 per cent.---the 7 per cent. who used to have a
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| − | monopoly of mastery; and he found them bitterly hated and despised.
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| − | He was told that in these Soviets, assuming to practise the arts
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| − | of government, were men who just a few minutes before had been
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| − | common miners. This news perhaps did not work on Robins in the
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| − | manner intended. His horror was perhaps modified by the reflection
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| − | that he himself had been in his youth a common miner.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He used to work twelve hours a day, and in the winter-time
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| − | he went down underground before the sun was up, and he ate lunch
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| − | with the mules, and he came back to the surface after the sun
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| − | had set, and he never saw the sun at all for weeks, and he got
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| − | a dollar a day, and he is frank to admit that he needed no agitator
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| − | to tell him he was working hard and getting little for it and
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| − | had a grievance. I dare say that he calculated that these Russians
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| − | could likewise perceive grievances and could likewise perceive
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| − | the desirability of a little organization without being entirely
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| − | dependent upon agitators for the idea.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But they had gone quite beyond a little organization in Kharkov.
| |
| − | They had gone quite beyond the making of trade-unions. These organizations
| |
| − | of workmen and of peasants, in Kharkov and its neighborhood, were
| |
| − | veritably governments.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>When Robins wanted to get anything really done he had to go
| |
| − | and talk to them and make arrangements with them. His pockets
| |
| − | were full of Kerensky credentials. They were full of authorizations
| |
| − | from the government of Petrograd. When he presented any such document,
| |
| − | he was treated kindly, but he was treated rather pityingly, as
| |
| − | if he were a child showing a letter from Santa Claus, authorizing
| |
| − | him to have a train. It happened that Robins did want a train.
| |
| − | He wanted several trains, to carry his Red Cross supplies. "But,"
| |
| − | said people, "if you really want trains, you must see the
| |
| − | men in the Soviet."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>And it was so. The Soviet was master now. From the Soviet,
| |
| − | not from the regular authorities, Robins got the trains and also
| |
| − | the farm-wagons that he needed. If the men in the Soviet said
| |
| − | he could have the farm-wagons, he had them. If they said a train
| |
| − | could set forward, it set forward. And if they said it could not
| |
| − | set forward, it could not and did not set forward.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>By proof of fact these Soviets had authority. They had the
| |
| − | power. Robins went back to Petrograd much more enlightened. but
| |
| − | also much more disturbed.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>On his way back he passed through Moscow. He had passed through
| |
| − | Moscow before, on his way out down south to Ekaterinoslav and
| |
| − | Kharkov. The great Moscow All-Russian Conference of August, 1917,
| |
| − | had then just been in session. Its results now recurred to him
| |
| − | with redoubled force.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>There were two chief results. The first was seen in the demeanor
| |
| − | of a certain set of delegates. They sat by themselves compactly.
| |
| − | They behaved compactly. Alone in the great hall they seemed to
| |
| − | constitute a body of opinion knowing exactly what it wanted and
| |
| − | knowing exactly how it proposed to get it. In the midst of a Russia
| |
| − | of irresolution and of indecision they were clear and emphatic.
| |
| − | They were ominous. They were the delegates from the Soldiers'
| |
| − | and Workmen's Soviets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The other result was smaller, but more dramatic, and it had
| |
| − | consequences more immediate.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>On the last day of the conference there was a scene coming
| |
| − | close to a physical encounter. A group of Cossack officers were
| |
| − | challenged in statement by Kerensky. They challenged him in turn.
| |
| − | There was a storm of words, short, sharp. In its lightning the
| |
| − | cleavage stood clear between Kornilov, the Cossack, the general
| |
| − | soon to lead a revolt for "law and order and discipline,"
| |
| − | and Kerensky, the man in office, the man forced to compromise
| |
| − | between the wishes of the Allies for "law and order and discipline"
| |
| − | and the wishes of the Russian people for bread and land and peace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>By the time Robins got back to Petrograd the Kornilov revolt | |
| − | was in full swing. That is, it was swinging as much as it ever
| |
| − | did or could. The Allied embassies and missions had been able
| |
| − | to hear it about to swing thunderingly through the whole country
| |
| − | from the Black to the White seas. Instead, it barely moved. It
| |
| − | simply creaked and stopped. As Robins puts it, the Indoor Mind
| |
| − | had guessed wrong again.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>In the Allied embassies and missions, Robins goes on to point | |
| − | out, there were numbers of men of the highest native ability and
| |
| − | of immense experience and of the finest character and patriotism.
| |
| − | It was their business to judge public events. That was their specialty.
| |
| − | They were in Russia to guide their governments regarding the facts
| |
| − | of Russian affairs. They earned their living doing just that sort
| |
| − | of thing. Yet virtually every one of them, in sympathy, in policy,
| |
| − | in influence, was with Kornilov. Virtually every one of them put
| |
| − | his money, so to speak, on Kornilov. And they were all wrong.
| |
| − | They were betting the diplomatic favor of their countries on a
| |
| − | horse that had no chance.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>In the mean time there was in Russia an American business man,
| |
| − | a copper operator. He wore an American uniform. He had become,
| |
| − | for the time being, a colonel, in command of an American mission.
| |
| − | He was head of the American Red Cross in Petrograd. Colonel Billings,
| |
| − | the first head, had been obliged to return to America. He was
| |
| − | succeeded in Petrograd by Col. William B. Thompson.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Colonel Thompson never took any stock in the Kornilov adventure
| |
| − | at any time at any price. He was not a trained observer of foreign
| |
| − | political affairs. He was a copper man. He was a financier. He
| |
| − | was absolutely without diplomatic experience. Yet he went diplomatically
| |
| − | absolutely right. Quite naturally, says Robins. Colonel Thompson
| |
| − | used the methods of simple human inquiry, the methods of outdoor
| |
| − | fact, instead of the methods of indoor gossip and surmise. By
| |
| − | dwelling on fact he helped Robins to see that adventures like
| |
| − | Kornilov's were impossible in Russia at that time.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Kornilov was appealing to the sentiment of law and order and
| |
| − | discipline, and he needed a middle class. There was no such class
| |
| − | in Russia. There was the 7 per cent., and there was the 93 per
| |
| − | cent., and there was virtually nothing in between. The 93 per
| |
| − | cent. were not interested in law and order. They were interested
| |
| − | in the land-control and in the factory-control they thought they
| |
| − | ought to have. They were an under class, rising, and willing to
| |
| − | rise, by violence. They were not a middle class, resting on acquired
| |
| − | property and responsive to a law-and-order program. There was
| |
| − | no such class, and there was no such response, in Russia. The
| |
| − | Allies were whistling to it, but Colonel Thompson knew it would
| |
| − | not come because it was not there.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>It might not have been expected that Thompson and Robins would
| |
| − | come to an agreement about Russia. But they did. They came to
| |
| − | an absolute agreement. They agreed with regard to the prospects
| |
| − | of the march of Kornilov, and they agree now with regard to the
| |
| − | whole Russian situation in general. It is remarkable, and it is
| |
| − | also among the most convincing circumstances in the record. They
| |
| − | came to the same view from widely separated stations of vision.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>As Robins says, they look at life from altogether different
| |
| − | windows.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Thompson is a man of great wealth, of great Wall Street wealth,
| |
| − | a supporter and an organizer of the effort to get the Republican
| |
| − | nomination for Elihu Root in 1916. When he first heard that Robins
| |
| − | was to go to Russia with him, he revived to say: "That uplifter!
| |
| − | That labor agitator! In the Red Cross Mission?" He was not
| |
| − | pleased. Robins, for his part, is willing to say that Thompson
| |
| − | and he did not come to their first meeting with any profound feelings
| |
| − | of mutual esteem. They soon found, though, that they agreed on
| |
| − | one thing fully. They agreed that you could not abolish facts
| |
| − | by sitting and dreaming in palaces. They agreed that you could
| |
| − | not make an army for Kornilov in Russia by sitting and imagining
| |
| − | a social class and a political motive which outdoors in Russia
| |
| − | did not exist.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Kornilov arrived in Pskov, on his way to Petrograd, with only
| |
| − | 40,000 men. The next morning 20,000 of these 40,000 refused to
| |
| − | go farther. Kornilov surrendered. Not a shot was fired. Kornilov's
| |
| − | army was simply poisoned and disintegrated by the new Soviet culture.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>It was the Soviet, not Kerensky, that won. Kerensky was in
| |
| − | the Winter Palace. The Soviet was in Smolny Institute. Kerensky
| |
| − | issued a proclamation, and effectively ceased. Smolny vigorously
| |
| − | acted. It was from Smolny, not from the Winter Palace, that the
| |
| − | orders issued which brought sailors down to Petrograd from Kronstadt
| |
| − | and bivouacked them in the Field of Mars. It was from Smolny,
| |
| − | not from the Winter Palace, that the energy came which dug trenches
| |
| − | in front of Petrograd and lined the tops of Petrograd's buildings
| |
| − | with machine guns. It was from Smolny that Bolshevik sailors went
| |
| − | to the Winter Palace and dismissed the Cadet Guards there on watch
| |
| − | and took their places and guarded Kerensky himself. Finally, and
| |
| − | overwhelmingly, it was from Smolny that the arguments went out,
| |
| − | the propaganda, the words, the philosophy, which disintegrated
| |
| − | and dispersed Kornilov's army more than rifles or threats of rifles.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Even the Mohammedans took part in that combat of words. Robins
| |
| − | has led a life of amazements, but there has been no more amazed
| |
| − | moment in it than when he learned that the Executive Committee
| |
| − | of the All-Russian Mohammedan Soviet was taking a hand in repelling
| |
| − | Kornilov by going out from Petrograd through delegates to have
| |
| − | a little philosophical chat on class-consciousness with the "Savage
| |
| − | Division" of Mohammedans in Kornilov's army.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>These methods, taken together, were successful. Kornilov's
| |
| − | soldiers did not fight. It was a bloodless folk-victory. It was
| |
| − | a victory for the Revolution. It was a victory for the Soviet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Thereafter men's eyes turned increasingly toward the Soviet
| |
| − | and toward Smolny. Smolny, in Petrograd, was seen to be the nursing
| |
| − | source and the radiating center of power. But whatever helped
| |
| − | the Soviets helped the Bolsheviks. Just as the Soviet was more
| |
| − | energetic and definite than the rest of Russia, so the Bolsheviks
| |
| − | were more energetic and definite and purposeful than the rest
| |
| − | of the Soviet. And Robins soon had a new and disheartening exhibition
| |
| − | of their constantly enlarging power and skill.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>An All-Russian Congress was called. It bore the name of Democratic
| |
| − | Conference. It did not represent simply the soldiers and workmen
| |
| − | and peasants. It represented other groups as well. It had delegates
| |
| − | from the zemstvos and from the food committees and from the co-operative
| |
| − | societies and from the municipalities. It met toward the end of
| |
| − | September.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>At first the government got on quite well with it. Kerensky
| |
| − | made it a speech, and was enormously applauded. The conference
| |
| − | seemed to be for the government. It seemed to be for the war.
| |
| − | But then the generalship of the Bolsheviks began to tell. In the
| |
| − | notes Robins made at the time I find he jotted down the "platform
| |
| − | generalship" of the Bolsheviks and their "real work
| |
| − | with delegates." They worked really, realistically. They
| |
| − | were not content with orations. They argued man to man, on the
| |
| − | floor, getting votes. They were tireless, on the floor as well
| |
| − | as on the platform. And there, on that platform, Robins had his
| |
| − | first sight of Trotzky.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Trotzky was walking up and down. The spectacle of that platform,
| |
| − | as I get it from Robins, could be said to be arranged in three
| |
| − | tiers. First, farthest toward the back, was the presiding officer,
| |
| − | the chairman. Below him was a row of men at a table. These men
| |
| − | were the "Presidium." They were delegates selected from
| |
| − | the different groups sitting in the convention to represent all
| |
| − | groups together and to keep a sort of composite neutral watch
| |
| − | on the proceedings. Russians seem to have a passion for proportional
| |
| − | representation. At their conventions they like to have a proportionally
| |
| − | selected "Presidium." There it sat in a long row. It
| |
| − | was the second tier. Finally, below it, between it and the audience,
| |
| − | was the speaker. It was Trotzky.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He was walking up and down, slowly and calmly. He was not speaking.
| |
| − | It was impossible for him to speak. People in the audience were
| |
| − | speaking. They were speaking to him; and they were speaking severely
| |
| − | and loudly. The words they used were "pro-German" and
| |
| − | "German agent" and "spy" and " traitor."
| |
| − | They roared. Trotzky walked up and down, and stopped, and pulled
| |
| − | a cigarette from his pocket, and pulled a match, and lighted the
| |
| − | cigarette, and smoked, and walked up and down. One man in the
| |
| − | audience, to Robins' personal knowledge, had a gun with which,
| |
| − | as he confided to his friends, he would shoot Trotzky as soon
| |
| − | as Trotzky appeared. He did not shoot. Trotzky smoked for quite
| |
| − | a while. Then, when there was a lull, he raised his arm and lashed
| |
| − | that audience into complete subjugated silence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins has heard many speakers. It has been part of his occupation
| |
| − | to speak; and it has been almost part of his occupation to listen
| |
| − | to speakers, to seek them out in order to listen to them. He has
| |
| − | listened to them in this country and abroad. Besides himself practising
| |
| − | the arts of public speaking on street corners and in ward conventions
| |
| − | and in the pulpits of churches on Sunday mornings and in world-tours
| |
| − | of the Men-and-Religion-Forward-Movement and in trade-union councils,
| |
| − | and elsewhere, he has professionally watched those arts in others.
| |
| − | Even his enemies will admit him to be a judge of speaking.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>I gather from him that he is obliged to make a professional
| |
| − | bow to Trotzky. He says that as a speaker he has never seen Trotzky's
| |
| − | equal in the conquering of an audience, in the carrying off of
| |
| − | it, on flights of passion, or flights of the mystery of the instant
| |
| − | weaving of patterns of words. Trotsky has cleverness, and he has
| |
| − | vehemence. He sprays the poison of his ideas upon his hearers
| |
| − | with a penetrating force which even Robins' sophisticated attention
| |
| − | was stunned by. Robins could detest nobody's ideas more than Trotzky's.
| |
| − | The one man is an individualist and a preacher of religion. The
| |
| − | other is a communist and a preacher of materialism. Their one
| |
| − | point of contact is oratory. On that point Robins is inclined
| |
| − | to regard Trotzky as unfortunately the world's champion performer.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Facing the Democratic Conference, Trotzky did not even bother
| |
| − | to refer to the words "pro-German" and "German
| |
| − | agent" and "spy" and "traitor." He paid
| |
| − | no attention to them. He plunged straight into Bolshevism and
| |
| − | into the Bolshevik program, and spoke for the program; and it
| |
| − | began to win. Through Trotzky, through Kamenev, through Riazanov,
| |
| − | through Stecklov, through hard work, through hard talk it began
| |
| − | to win. Before that convention was over, among delegates who had
| |
| − | started pro-government, the Bolsheviks had almost won an open
| |
| − | anti-government victory.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>As it was, they won a covert victory. They succeeded in getting
| |
| − | the convention to vote down a resolution in favor of "Coalition
| |
| − | with the Cadets"---that is, a resolution in favor of the
| |
| − | Kerensky kind of government. They succeeded in getting the convention
| |
| − | to refrain from indorsing the "Cadet Coalition" idea.
| |
| − | And they succeeded in securing the withdrawal of the resolution
| |
| − | in favor of the war. It was withdrawn under their fire. Their
| |
| − | spirit dominated the close of the conference. For Robins, for
| |
| − | any pro-war man, for any man as nationalist as Robins, it was
| |
| − | an ending most miserable, most foreboding.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The audience stood, unregardful of national Russia. The resolution
| |
| − | for the war was gone. It was buried. The audience stood and sang
| |
| − | the song, the hymn, called "The International." They
| |
| − | sang it for their message. It was their word. They had no word
| |
| − | for Russia. They had no word for the army. They had no word for
| |
| − | the fight against the Germans. They had "The International."
| |
| − | It might have been sung in Germany. It is to-day being sung in
| |
| − | Germany. It was sung that night in Petrograd with the souls of
| |
| − | the singers. It was the symbol of the triumph, covert and indirect,
| |
| − | but still a triumph, of the Bolsheviks in that Democratic Congress
| |
| − | of All Russia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins listened, and went away, and went to work. He went to
| |
| − | work against the Bolsheviks. Or, rather, he went to work against
| |
| − | the peace movement in Russia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins expresses himself strongly at this point. He wants to
| |
| − | be perfectly sure that he does not in any way give the impression
| |
| − | that the peace movement in Russia was simply a movement of Bolshevik
| |
| − | propaganda or simply a movement of any other sort of propaganda.
| |
| − | He has just one hesitation. He knows, and he keeps on saying,
| |
| − | that the full truth about Russia is not under any one man's hat.
| |
| − | The full truth about Russia, for even any one month of the one
| |
| − | fateful year 1917, may not be known till after decades of research
| |
| − | by hundreds of inquirers. But Robins is willing to say, and does
| |
| − | say:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"If I do not know more about the opinions of the common
| |
| − | soldiers and of the common workmen who made the Bolshevik revolution
| |
| − | of 1917 than any other <I>foreign representative </I>then in Russia,
| |
| − | it is because my intelligence was not equal to my opportunities."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He had the opportunities, and he did not neglect them. When
| |
| − | he saw that Trotzky was a power in the Democratic Conference he
| |
| − | did not evade him. He went to where he was. He walked up to him
| |
| − | and talked to him, just as in Chicago, when he was head resident
| |
| − | of the Northwestern University Settlement and afterward member
| |
| − | of the City Board of Education, and then member of the City Charter
| |
| − | Convention and chairman of the State Committee of the Progressive
| |
| − | party, he talked to more different sorts of people, radical and
| |
| − | reactionary, sacred and profane, than anybody else had ever collected
| |
| − | into one acquaintance. More even than being a professional speaker
| |
| − | and preacher, Robins is a professional collector of people and
| |
| − | of people's opinions and ideas. Having seen him gather them in
| |
| − | Chicago, all the way from the white right wing of the City Club
| |
| − | to the red left wing of the Chicago Federation of Labor, I can
| |
| − | readily see him, with his characteristic gait, as of an Indian
| |
| − | on the trail, gathering them tirelessly in Russia---and systematically.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Every day he had before him on his desk, translated by a corps
| |
| − | of Russian assistants, all the opinions of all the Russian newspapers
| |
| − | regarding any matter of interest to America. He suffered nothing
| |
| − | in the way of printed opinion to escape him; and he also gave
| |
| − | himself to the study of that much more elusive kind of opinion,
| |
| − | spoken opinion.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He studied it especially among the workmen and among the peasants
| |
| − | in the organization destined to speak the final revolutionary
| |
| − | word about Russia---the workmen and peasants in the great demobilizing
| |
| − | Russian army. He noticed in that army a certain number of heavily
| |
| − | armored motor-cars. They were fortress-cars. They amounted to
| |
| − | tanks. Robins watched them roll down the streets of Petrograd
| |
| − | and compared them with civilian pedestrians, and even with military
| |
| − | machine-gunners, and he regarded those tanks as the center of
| |
| − | physical power in revolutionary Petrograd. In many other parts
| |
| − | of the army he now had friends who carried to him continuously
| |
| − | the spoken words of the private soldiers. But he was especially
| |
| − | careful to have friends in the tank corps.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He communicated with private soldiers and they communicated
| |
| − | with him. Some of the things he learned from them I shall soon
| |
| − | relate. They gave him the knowledge he most valued. He knew Kerensky's
| |
| − | government through scores of intimate official conferences with
| |
| − | members of it regarding the work of the Red Cross. But he was
| |
| − | most especially and particularly careful to know the feelings
| |
| − | of the rank and file of the Russian 93 per cent.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Therefore with some confidence he ventures to say that he knew
| |
| − | something about the peace movement among the Russian soldiers,
| |
| − | as well as something about the Bolshevik propaganda among them,
| |
| − | and he gives it as his considered opinion that the Bolshevik propaganda
| |
| − | was indeed urgent and active, but that, after all, it was much
| |
| − | like the case of a man blowing with his breath in the same direction
| |
| − | with a full-grown natural tornado.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Unless that fact is considered and frankly faced and admitted,
| |
| − | says Robins, it is impossible to understand what happened afterward
| |
| − | or what is happening now. A thick darkness of misery, of mental
| |
| − | misery and of physical misery, more than any darkness of propaganda,
| |
| − | was driving Russia toward peace. If we could even begin to take
| |
| − | the measure of that misery, we could then also begin in some slight
| |
| − | fashion to take the measure of the shut-eyed and shut-hearted
| |
| − | stupidity which attributes the agonized convulsions of peoples
| |
| − | in Russia and in Hungary and in Austria and in Germany to agitators
| |
| − | and to pamphlets.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>In Russian the industrial directing brain of the country was
| |
| − | almost gone. Much of it had been German. When the war came, the
| |
| − | Germans went. Some of them went back to Germany; and some of them
| |
| − | sank down into Russia and lived submerged. In either case they
| |
| − | ceased to help to manage Russian business for Russia.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Then came forward the Russian part of the 7 per cent., the
| |
| − | truly Russian part of it, out of the nobility, out of the universities,
| |
| − | out of the professions, out of businesses. They volunteered to
| |
| − | help organize the food-supply and the clothes-supply, and even
| |
| − | the munitions-supply. Their spirit was magnificent and their service
| |
| − | invaluable. They saved Russia from collapse and ruin during the
| |
| − | first two and a half years of the war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But then came the revolution, and then came the Soviet, and
| |
| − | then the whole 7 per cent. became suspect. To the Soviet the whole
| |
| − | 7 per cent., as a mass, was counter-revolutionary. The Soviet
| |
| − | wanted "the fruits of the revolution." It wanted all
| |
| − | land for the people. It wanted all industry for the people. It
| |
| − | wanted outright Socialism, and wanted it at once. The 7 per cent.
| |
| − | did not. The Soviet excluded the 7 per cent. But the Soviet was
| |
| − | coming to rule Russia. Even under Kerensky, as Robins had seen
| |
| − | at Kharkov, and as he now saw at Petrograd, the Soviet was coming
| |
| − | to be the real government. Therefore, when the 7 per cent. was
| |
| − | excluded from the Soviet, it was excluded, more and more, from
| |
| − | the real government, from the real direction of Russia. Russia,
| |
| − | having lost the German part of its directing brain, now began
| |
| − | to lose most of the experienced native Russian part of it. More
| |
| − | and more it had no directing brain at all, no brain experienced
| |
| − | and skilled in the technical directing processes necessary to
| |
| − | the production and distribution of commodities.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>So Russia began to lack food and raiment and fuel. In its great
| |
| − | centers of population and of demand and of need, Russia began
| |
| − | to be underfed and underclad and underwarmed. It began to suffer,
| |
| − | at first slightly, then horribly. It stood in the gale of the
| |
| − | World War with an empty stomach, shivering and angry. And the
| |
| − | Allies said, "Fight!"
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins heard the answer.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He heard it in his translations of the newspapers. He heard
| |
| − | it in his reports from his friends and agents in the army. He
| |
| − | heard it with his own cars during his own numerous visits to army
| |
| − | barracks. It was the well-known answer. It was, emphatically and
| |
| − | simply:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"Who made us fight? The Czar. What did the Czar want?
| |
| − | The Dardanelles. What do we care about the Dardanelles? Nothing."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"Why do the Germans fight? Because the Kaiser makes them."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"Why do the Allies fight? Because their rulers make them,
| |
| − | by conscription. What do their rulers want? They want Syria for
| |
| − | France and Mesopotamia for England and some Greek islands for
| |
| − | Italy. When we ask them why, when we ask them to speak their full
| |
| − | mind, they say this is no time for speaking."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"We will speak. We will speak to everybody. We will speak
| |
| − | to the Germans. They are workers and peasants, too. Nine out of
| |
| − | ten of them are workers and peasants. We do not want their land.
| |
| − | They do not want ours. We will speak to them, and when we speak
| |
| − | to them and tell them what is in our hearts, they will not fight
| |
| − | us any more. Why should they?"
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Perhaps only Russian peasants, if one may believe what one
| |
| − | conventionally hears about them, could have been so beautiful
| |
| − | and so silly. Of course, the day may come when beauty will fill
| |
| − | the world, and the silliness of men is said to be one of the means
| |
| − | of Providence to the dawning of that day. There is some such hint
| |
| − | in Scripture. But no such day was shining in 1917. In 1917 Robins
| |
| − | was solidly certain that Ludendorff's troops would not lay down
| |
| − | their arms at the approach of arguing Soviets, even if the Mohammedan
| |
| − | Soviet went along with its most cogent and convincing thoughts.
| |
| − | Robins cast about, therefore, for arguments with which to combat
| |
| − | the arguments of this fanatical but natural peace movement and
| |
| − | with which to persuade the Russian soldiers that it was really
| |
| − | actually practically necessary for them to fight.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The Allies, of course, were conducting a propaganda in Russia.
| |
| − | All governments were conducting propaganda everywhere, and whining
| |
| − | because other governments were conducting it. The propaganda of
| |
| − | the Allies in Russia was simple. It was simple-minded. It proceeded
| |
| − | on the theory that what the Russians wanted to be sure of was
| |
| − | that the Allies would win.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The fact was that what the Russians wanted to be sure of was
| |
| − | that the Allies were fighting for good ends and not simply for
| |
| − | territorial ends. The Allied propaganda, perhaps, did not even
| |
| − | know that fact. It assumed that the Russians were looking for
| |
| − | the band-wagon, and that if they saw that the Allies had it, they
| |
| − | would at once climb back aboard on the Allied side.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Therefore the Allies got out propaganda in Russia dealing almost
| |
| − | entirely with their terrific physical strength. France had better
| |
| − | artillery, and presumably more of it, than any other nation in
| |
| − | the world. The British fleet sailed the seas defiant and dominant
| |
| − | and undefeatable. America was sending airplanes to Europe in numbers
| |
| − | to darken the skies. America, in hundreds of shipyards, was building
| |
| − | thousands of ships to carry millions of men to Europe in a few
| |
| − | months. The Allies were bound to win. The Russian soldiers looked
| |
| − | and said, "Let them." They said: "We have lost
| |
| − | more men than all of them put together. We have taken our turn
| |
| − | at it. If they are so strong, let them go ahead and finish it."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>This sort of thing, the American Red Cross Mission thought,
| |
| − | was a dead loss. Colonel Thompson decided to try to organize a
| |
| − | new effort. He gathered together a group of representative and
| |
| − | powerful Russians. It was agreed that a great educational work,
| |
| − | a great and friendly and legitimate educational work, could be
| |
| − | and ought to be conducted among the Russian people. The aim of
| |
| − | it should be to show the Russian people that on their own behalf,
| |
| − | without any reference to the Allies, it was necessary for them
| |
| − | to fight the German Kaiser.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Colonel Thompson's enterprise rested on a frank acceptance
| |
| − | of the Russian Revolution. He perceived, as a fact, that the Russian
| |
| − | peasant was not interested in "saving" the Allies. The
| |
| − | Russian peasant did not think of the Allies as his allies. He
| |
| − | thought of them as the Czar's allies. He saw no reason for being
| |
| − | "loyal" to them. The Russian peasant and the Russian
| |
| − | workman, Colonel Thompson perceived, were interested, really,
| |
| − | in just one thing---the revolution and the fruits of the revolution.
| |
| − | He proposed, therefore, through writers writing very simply, and
| |
| − | through speakers speaking very simply, to go to them and say:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"The one imperialistic power which is next door to you,
| |
| − | and which is able to conquer you and which is actually trying
| |
| − | to conquer you, is the power of the Central Powers. Its soldiers
| |
| − | are advancing. You cannot stop them with Socialism. They knew
| |
| − | Socialism before you knew it. They are hypnotized by the Kaiser
| |
| − | and by false patriotism. They are mad. They keep coming on; and
| |
| − | with them, as you know, as you can see, on comes the old day once
| |
| − | again in Russia. Wherever the Germans go, the old day goes with
| |
| − | them. Back of the German bayonets are your own Russian barons,
| |
| − | returning to take from you the land which is yours by the Revolution.
| |
| − | Back of the German bayonets are your own old industrial masters,
| |
| − | returning to give you the old twelve hours a day and the old two
| |
| − | rubles a day instead of the eight hours and the fifteen rubles
| |
| − | of the Revolution. Back of the Kaiser is the Czar, the Kaiser's
| |
| − | kin, returning to destroy the Revolution itself. To keep the Czar
| |
| − | down, to keep the revolution up, you must fight the Kaiser."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Truer words, in the light of that moment, it would manifestly
| |
| − | have been difficult to frame. Colonel Thompson proposed to have
| |
| − | them written and spoken throughout Russia. The Russian members
| |
| − | of this new committee were in full agreement with him. They were
| |
| − | persons of a standing certainly unimpeachable. They were:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | <br><br>Madame Catherine Breshko-Breshkovskaya, grandmother of the
| |
| − | revolution, anti-Bolshevik.
| |
| − | <br><br>Nicholas Tchaikovsky, leader of the peasant co-operatives,
| |
| − | afterward head (under the Allies) of the Government of the North
| |
| − | in the Archangel district, anti-Bolshevik.
| |
| − | <br><br>Lazarov, formerly manager of the revolutionary "underground
| |
| − | station" in Switzerland, anti-Bolshevik.
| |
| − | <br><br>General Neuslochowsky, one of the most trusted of Kerensky's
| |
| − | generals, anti-Bolshevik.
| |
| − | <br><br>David Soskice, Kerensky's private secretary, anti-Bolshevik.</BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Such was the committee. It was strong in personnel, but it
| |
| − | was weak in money. Colonel Thompson attended to that detail. He
| |
| − | provided money to the extent of a million dollars. He deposited,
| |
| − | in a bank at Petrograd, to be drawn on by the committee, an immediate
| |
| − | fund of a million dollars out of his own private fortune.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Some people are saying now that the money Colonel Thompson
| |
| − | contributed to affairs in Russia was contributed to the Bolshevik
| |
| − | movement. They made this statement in an effort to argue against
| |
| − | Colonel Thompson's conclusions and recommendations regarding American
| |
| − | policy toward Russia. The effort may be legitimate, but the statement
| |
| − | is not. Colonel Robins says:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"I repeat to you what I said to the Senate Committee under
| |
| − | oath. Colonel Thompson never contributed one cent in Russia to
| |
| − | the Bolsheviks. But he did contribute one million dollars against
| |
| − | the Bolsheviks. He contributed one million dollars of his own
| |
| − | money to an organization for educating the Russian people to see
| |
| − | the menace and the peril of the peace the Bolsheviks were advocating."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>That organization got under way. The Kerensky government co-operated.
| |
| − | Men were released from the civil service and from the army, men
| |
| − | of character and of persuasiveness, to go out and spread the truth---the
| |
| − | truth expressed in the indubitable fact that a victory for Germany
| |
| − | would be a victory for the counter-revolution.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>One million dollars, however, though enough for starting, was
| |
| − | not enough for continuing. The project was one for the reeducation
| |
| − | of a whole people. No private fortune was adequate to it. Colonel
| |
| − | Thompson, therefore, cabled to Washington.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>In cabling he explained his enterprise and he also explained
| |
| − | the need of it in the Russia of the moment, dwelling on the danger
| |
| − | that Russia might be hurried into peace and Bolshevism within
| |
| − | a short time unless Russian public opinion could be reached and
| |
| − | changed. He asked for one million dollars within ten days and
| |
| − | for three million dollars a month thereafter during a period of
| |
| − | three months.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He cabled. A week passed. Two weeks passed. Three weeks passed.
| |
| − | Then a voice was heard from Washington saying that the idea suggested
| |
| − | by Colonel Thompson was being carefully analyzed in Washington,
| |
| − | and might be adopted, but that in any case a perfectly good representative
| |
| − | of the Committee on Public Information would soon be on his way
| |
| − | to Petrograd.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>When the representative of the Committee on Public Information
| |
| − | arrived in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks had been in power in Petrograd
| |
| − | and in full control of the whole Russian situation for more than
| |
| − | two weeks.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Deprived of support from Washington, Colonel Thompson's Russian
| |
| − | Committee was obliged to revise its work and to taper it off.
| |
| − | In the mean time the peace movement and the Soviet movement and
| |
| − | the Bolshevik movement were all of them every day growing stronger.
| |
| − | Robins now had an especially good opportunity to watch them. He
| |
| − | began to make regular scheduled public speeches to meetings of
| |
| − | soldiers.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He had already spoken to soldiers occasionally; but on September
| |
| − | 18, 1917, he began to speak to them daily, and he continued to
| |
| − | speak daily until the Bolshevik revolution broke and stopped him.
| |
| − | At armories, at arsenals, at barracks, in Petrograd and in the
| |
| − | environs of Petrograd, he stood up and spoke at length through
| |
| − | an interpreter, telling his hearers about America and about America's
| |
| − | government, and about the reasons why America went into the war.
| |
| − | He carried his message to many thousands of Russian workmen and
| |
| − | peasants still in the army, and they were interested.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>They were interested particularly in the subject of education
| |
| − | in America. Our Western state universities amazed and delighted
| |
| − | them. The fact that a poor boy could go all the way through the
| |
| − | common school and then through the high school and then through
| |
| − | the university, paying no tuition anywhere and getting a whole
| |
| − | education by free grant of the state for the future benefit of
| |
| − | the state in citizenship, was thrilling to them. Robins made the
| |
| − | most of our democratic opportunities in education and of all our
| |
| − | other democratic opportunities for individual advancement. He
| |
| − | also made the most of the democratic support given in America
| |
| − | to the war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He would call his hearers' attention to the fact that our business
| |
| − | men did not need to go into the war to make money. They were already
| |
| − | making money, large quantities of it, selling goods to the Allies;
| |
| − | and they were making it without having to pay any war taxes of
| |
| − | their own to their own government at Washington. Now, having gone
| |
| − | into the war, they would have to pay heavy war taxes. That fact
| |
| − | proved that our motive in entering the war was not commercial.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>His hearers would listen attentively. Robins would speak for
| |
| − | thirty minutes, and would then answer questions for two hours.
| |
| − | After testing audiences in many parts of the world, Robins has
| |
| − | come to the conclusion that a Russian audience can stand more
| |
| − | punishment than any other audience living. The peasants and workmen
| |
| − | who listened to him in armories and arsenals and barracks were
| |
| − | willing to listen, and also to talk, to the end. Some of their
| |
| − | questions, some of their statements, I have copied out, and I
| |
| − | here reproduce from Robins' notes.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, please say that we are grateful to the American
| |
| − | Red Cross for its brotherly help."
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, please send our brotherly greetings to the
| |
| − | working-men of America and tell them it is our deep wish that
| |
| − | they support us by sympathy with our emancipation."
| |
| − | <br><br>There would be many such expressions, but they would be followed
| |
| − | by questions showing an instinctive suspicion of "capitalism"
| |
| − | everywhere, including America.
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, we hear that in America strikes are broken
| |
| − | by using policemen and soldiers against them. Is this true? Why
| |
| − | is it true?"
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, are there any workmen and peasants in the American
| |
| − | government? Are there any Socialists? How many? "
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, in America does not the capitalist get the
| |
| − | surplus value of the labor of the working-man?"</BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The intention of such questions was unmistakable; and then,
| |
| − | passing to the war, there would be questions indicating a profound
| |
| − | dissatisfaction with Allied, and also with American, diplomacy.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, why does the American government refuse passports
| |
| − | to Socialists who wish to go to Stockholm to talk with the Socialists
| |
| − | of the world?"
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, why does America support France and England
| |
| − | in their desire for annexations, and why does it not urge them,
| |
| − | as we urge them, to adopt the principle of no annexations and
| |
| − | of the self-determination of all peoples? "
| |
| − | <br><br>"Comrade, why do not the Allies, why does not America,
| |
| − | make a full and frank and direct reply to the questions asked
| |
| − | by Russia regarding the aims of the war?"</BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>So they went on, always, in the end, toward revealing their
| |
| − | anti-war drift. Always, in the end, they showed their distrust
| |
| − | of all "capitalistic governments," and their suspicion
| |
| − | that the aims of the Allies were selfish and sinister, and their
| |
| − | essential conviction that the war was a "bourgeois"
| |
| − | war, and that the Russian proletariate had no proper place in
| |
| − | it. They would usually express these views very politely, but
| |
| − | sometimes they were restive, and now and then they seemed inclined
| |
| − | to rise and sweep Robins from their presence.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>He was speaking one night in a great military building at Gachina,
| |
| − | some thirty miles from Petrograd. He has reason to remember that
| |
| − | building distinctly. It had a high, curved, dark roof; and it
| |
| − | was lighted flaringly and yet dismally, with spots of brilliance
| |
| − | and with great areas of shadow, by oil-flame torches. The speaker's
| |
| − | stand was reached by a ladder. Robins climbed the ladder and got
| |
| − | into the stand and spoke.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>I dare say he contrasted strongly with the Russians before
| |
| − | him. He is among the Americans on whom the American climate and
| |
| − | environment have perhaps already had a physical effect. His complexion
| |
| − | is quite dark, with not a little in it, I should say, of a coppery
| |
| − | coloring; and his black hair has an Indian straightness; and his
| |
| − | eyes have the searchingness of the forest and the prairie; and
| |
| − | the contours of his face have a weathered suggestion of the modeling
| |
| − | done by America on the faces of those who preceded us in our present
| |
| − | hunting-grounds; and, finally, perhaps just by chance, perhaps
| |
| − | in order to mislead the observer into making groundless generalizations
| |
| − | about climate and environment and into seeing resemblances which
| |
| − | do not exist, it happens that his very oratory, in its gestures
| |
| − | and in its actual words, in the simplicity of them, and in the
| |
| − | art which turns simplicity gradually into stateliness, is that
| |
| − | of a sachem traditionally addressing an assembled tribe. In Russia
| |
| − | he was perhaps at least unusual.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>At Gachina, however, he was not popular. But he was not surprised.
| |
| − | Everywhere, among all the soldiers, his arguments had been growing
| |
| − | in unpopularity. So, feeling quite accustomed by now to a certain
| |
| − | hostility, he persevered.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>On the subject of American institutions he was listened to
| |
| − | in silence, not without some respect; but on the subject of American
| |
| − | diplomacy and of Allied diplomacy he began to be interrupted;
| |
| − | and on the subject of the war in general and of Russia's participation
| |
| − | in it he began to be mobbed. Masses of men seemed to rise in a
| |
| − | black wave toward the stand. There Robins stood, with a Russian
| |
| − | officer, high and dry, but not happy, while great shouts of "Imperialists"
| |
| − | came at them and a great multitude of arms waved the shouts on.
| |
| − | Robins did his immediate best to get those arms to subside. After
| |
| − | a while, when they seemed less numerous and less earnest, he called
| |
| − | to the Russian officer for the ladder, and he descended. And then
| |
| − | he got an evidence of a certain peculiar boisterous good humor
| |
| − | in Russian people.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>As he made his way across the hall toward the door at the other
| |
| − | end of it, he saw a compact group of soldiers running at him.
| |
| − | He thought he knew their purpose. But he was in error. Instead
| |
| − | of being picked up on their bayonets, he was picked up in their
| |
| − | arms, and they began to treat him to the ceremony which they visit
| |
| − | upon their leaders on occasions of special approval and affection.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>They tossed him in the air and caught him, and tossed him and
| |
| − | caught him again, and then again and again. With the second or
| |
| − | third toss he began to perceive that he was not being killed.
| |
| − | He was being applauded! Seldom, I imagine, has he had more satisfaction
| |
| − | in surviving to say: "Gentlemen, I thank you."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But those soldiers were not for the war. They wanted to show
| |
| − | Robins that no personal hard feelings were being entertained,
| |
| − | but they were not for the war. At Gachina and at virtually every
| |
| − | other armory and arsenal and barracks that Robins visited his
| |
| − | hearers were cold to the war. Coming back from addressing the
| |
| − | Machine-Gun Corps at Stalna on October 22d, I find he made this
| |
| − | despairing note in his diary: "The war is dead in the heart
| |
| − | of the Russian soldier."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The one thing living in that heart was the revolution, and
| |
| − | the one thing toward which that heart turned for the full success
| |
| − | of the revolution was the Soviet. Lenin and Trotzky put those
| |
| − | two facts together---the revolution, the Soviet. By that combination
| |
| − | they opened the door to their triumph.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins expresses it by saying that the Bolsheviks won Russia
| |
| − | with five words. They said, "All Power to the Soviet."
| |
| − | It was a formula, a slogan, that had nothing to do directly with
| |
| − | land or with industry or with war and peace. It had to do simply
| |
| − | and entirely with what sort of government Russia should have.
| |
| − | Lenin and Trotzky realistically perceived that the Soviet, at
| |
| − | that time, in fact, was Russia's one effective public authority;
| |
| − | and they unswervingly proclaimed that it should be supreme. Over
| |
| − | and over again, tirelessly, they said, "All Power to the
| |
| − | Soviet! " Other things might or might not be. One thing,
| |
| − | said Lenin and Trotzky, had to be. "<I>All</I> <I>Power to
| |
| − | the Soviet."</I>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Toward the end of October Robins' special friend in the tank
| |
| − | corps came to him and made a report, showing that now in the tank
| |
| − | corps there was the same sentiment that there was in the rest
| |
| − | of the army. He said:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"The men are still divided about half and half between
| |
| − | liking Kerensky and liking Lenin. But they are unanimous on one
| |
| − | point. They are unanimously for the Soviet."
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>What was the lesson in that situation? Robins could see only
| |
| − | one lesson anywhere in it. Colonel Thompson could see only one.
| |
| − | It ran for them about as follows:
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Kerensky is for the war. Therefore we Americans, we Allies,
| |
| − | want Kerensky to stay in office. But the Soviet is the power.
| |
| − | Russia will not stay in the war except through the power that
| |
| − | really rules it---except, that is, through the Soviet. Therefore
| |
| − | Kerensky must accept the Soviet and, with his authority, with
| |
| − | his reputation, lead it---and lead it, if he can, his way, forward
| |
| − | into the war.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>It was the one possible plan in reason, but it turned out to
| |
| − | be altogether not possible in practice. Kerensky, to be sure,
| |
| − | seemed willing enough. He seemed to understand the situation.
| |
| − | He seemed to be doubtful of just one thing. He seemed to be doubtful
| |
| − | of the willingness of the Allies. He seemed to be doubtful of
| |
| − | their willingness to recognize the existence of the Soviet.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Colonel Thompson decided to test the Allies out. He invited
| |
| − | certain Allied representatives to meet him in his rooms at the
| |
| − | Hotel Europe. They came, and they expressed the sentiments which
| |
| − | were the final sentence of death in the Kerensky chapter in the
| |
| − | history of Russia.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>At that meeting, at half past two in the afternoon of Friday,
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| − | November 2, 1917, there were present the following men:
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| − | | |
| − | <BLOCKQUOTE>
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| − | <br><br>General Knox, military attaché to the British embassy
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| − | at Petrograd and chief of the British Military Mission.
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| − | <br><br>General Niselle, holding the same position at Petrograd for
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| − | the French.
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| − | <br><br>General Judson, holding the same position for the Americans.
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| − | <br><br>General Neuslochowsky, for Kerensky.
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| − | <br><br>David Soskice, for Kerensky.
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| − | <br><br>Colonel Thompson, and, as his aide, Major (not yet Colonel)
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| − | Robins.</BLOCKQUOTE>
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Colonel Thompson opened the meeting by making a brief statement
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| − | of the crisis and of the instant need of action. Then General
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| − | Knox took the floor.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>General Knox was not interested in the Soviet. He wanted to
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| − | talk about the Kerensky government. He did so. He narrated the
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| − | Kerensky government's historic frailties and futilities, at length.
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| − | Everybody present knew them, but General Knox wished to remind
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| − | everybody present. In particular he seemed to wish to remind General
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| − | Neuslochowsky and Mr. Soskice. He left nothing out. At any rate,
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| − | he seemed to Robins to leave nothing out.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But then General Niselle took the floor. He remembered several
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| − | faults of the Kerensky government which General Knox had forgotten.
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| − | He mentioned them. With the Soviet knocking at the ramparts, General
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| − | Niselle remembered all the troubles inside the ramparts. General
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| − | Judson, the American general, was an entirely different sort of
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| − | person. General Niselle, bound by the chains of his environment,
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| − | seemed to remain a perfect indoor person to the finish. He finished
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| − | by reciting the Russian military disaster at Tarnopol and by expressing
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| − | the view that Russian soldiers were cowardly dogs.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Both Russians present, General Neuslochowsky and Mr. Soskice,
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| − | left the room. They would listen no longer. They departed red,
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| − | and also seeing red. They were through.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>But General Knox was not through. He entered on a colloquy
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| − | with Robins which I think I can exactly recite.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>General Knox was thoroughly honest, thoroughly patriotic, thoroughly
| |
| − | intelligent. He simply apparently had not informed himself. When
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| − | Robins thinks of General Knox's opinions and statements on that
| |
| − | day in the Hotel Europe, he is inclined to grasp at the thought
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| − | that every diplomatic and military mission in the world ought
| |
| − | to get a cable every morning saying, "Unless you go outdoors
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| − | to-day, unless you find something outdoors to-day, among the common
| |
| − | people of the country to which you are accredited, you will be
| |
| − | dismissed at nightfall."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>General Knox said to Robins, "You are wasting Colonel
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| − | Thompson's money."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"If I am, General," said Robins, "he knows all
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| − | about it."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"You should have been with Kornilov," said General
| |
| − | Knox.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"You were with him," said Robins.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>The General flushed. "Well," he said, that effort
| |
| − | may have been premature. But I am not interested in the Kerensky
| |
| − | sort of government. Too weak. What's wanted is a military dictatorship.
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| − | What's wanted is Cossacks. These people need a whip. A dictatorship's
| |
| − | the thing."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins expressed the fear that they might get a dictatorship
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| − | in Russia quite different from the kind of dictatorship General
| |
| − | Knox was thinking of.
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"What?" said the General. "You mean Lenin and
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| − | Trotzky? Bolsheviks? That soap-box talk? Colonel Robins, you are
| |
| − | not a military man. I'll tell you what we do with such people.
| |
| − | We shoot them."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>Robins was a bit roused probably by this time. "You do,"
| |
| − | said he, "if you catch them. But you will have to do some
| |
| − | catching. You will have to catch several million. General, I am
| |
| − | not a military man. But you are not up against a military situation.
| |
| − | You are up against a folks' situation."
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| − | | |
| − | <br><br>"We shoot them," he repeated.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>That was Friday. On Monday, three days later, the Bolsheviks
| |
| − | took the Fortress of Peter and Paul in Petrograd, and also the
| |
| − | Arsenal. On Tuesday, Robins spoke for the war at the Orenbaum
| |
| − | barracks, and the Bolsheviks did better. They took the telegraph
| |
| − | station and the telephone station and the principal railway station.
| |
| − | On Wednesday, in the evening, Robins stood on a bridge across
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| − | the Neva and watched Bolshevik sailors from Bolshevik ships firing
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| − | shells in the air to explode over Kerensky's Winter Palace.
| |
| − | | |
| − | <br><br>For Robins it seemed just about the end of the world. He was
| |
| − | seeing Kerensky go down and Russia go down and the war against
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| − | Germany go down, and therefore the whole world go down, with everything
| |
| − | humanly supremely worth while in it defeated and lost. So he thought
| |
| − | at the time. A mighty nation, and the world with it, was falling
| |
| − | to pieces before his eyes under the fire of a new and incalculable
| |
| − | social engine---the Russian Soviet.
| |
| | | | |
| − | <br><br>He looked around for General Knox to shoot these Soviet people, | + | NIKOLAI LENIN <br><br> |
| − | or for some other stern resistance to them. There was none. That
| |
| − | morning at two o'clock, at Smolny, the Soviet people met in their
| |
| − | Second All-Russian Congress and decreed All Power to the Soviet
| |
| − | and All Land to the People and All Industry to the People and
| |
| − | elected to power the man---Lenin---who has held that power from
| |
| − | that moment in November of 1917 to this moment in April of 1919.
| |
| | | | |
| − | <br><br>But on the bridge across the Neva Robins made up his mind to | + | ON THE ROAD TO MOSCOW <br><br> |
| − | a policy. He made up his mind that no matter where the power went
| |
| − | he would follow it and look at it and see if in any way it could
| |
| − | be made to serve the war and to serve the cause of the Allies
| |
| − | and of the United States. Adopting that policy and executing it,
| |
| − | he came to the next chapter of his experiences---an intimate acquaintance,
| |
| − | such as no other American or Allied representative for a long
| |
| − | time even tried to get, with the government of Lenin.<HR ALIGN=LEFT>
| |
| | | | |
| − | <BLOCKQUOTE>
| + | SVERDLOV, CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, <br>ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS <br><br> |
| − | <br><br><A HREF="Robins2.htm"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25"
| |
| − | HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"><FONT
| |
| − | SIZE="+1">Chapter Two</FONT></A>
| |
| − | <br><br><A HREF="Robins2.htm"><IMG SRC="thumbnails/2b.gif" WIDTH="25"
| |
| − | HEIGHT="24" ALIGN="MIDDLE" BORDER="0" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3"></A><FONT
| |
| − | SIZE="+1"><A HREF="#TC">Table of Contents</A></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
| |
| | | | |
| − | <P ALIGN=CENTER>. | + | COLONEL ROBINS STANDING IN THE<br> FRONT OF THE CAR THAT CARRIED<br> THE AMERICAN FLAG EVERY DAY<br> THROUGH REVOLUTIONARY <br>PETROGRAD AND MOSCOW <br><br> |
| | | | |
| − | </BODY> | + | MAY-DAY PARADE, MOSCOW</center> |
| − | </HTML> | + | <hr> |
COL. RAYMOND ROBINS