Yashka · Part III · Chapter 10 (2/2)

“Now you have two enemies,” resumed the speaker. “One is foreign and the other is of your own race. You can’t fight both at once. If we continue the war the enemy at your back will rob you of the freedom, the land and the rights that the revolution has won for you. Therefore, we must have peace with the Germans in order to be able to fight these bourgeois vampires. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes! Yes! It’s the truth! It’s the truth! We want peace! We are tired of the war!” came in a chorus from every side.

The passions of the soldiers were inflamed. The delegate was right, they said. If they remained in the trenches they would be robbed of the land and of the fruits of the new freedom, they argued heatedly among themselves. My heart ached when I saw the effect of the orator’s words. All the impression of Krylov’s speech had been effaced. The very same men who so enthusiastically responded to his appeal to do their duty now applauded just as fervidly, if not more so, the appeal of the delegate for a fratricidal war. It maddened me. I could not control myself.

“You stupid fools!” I burst out. “You can be turned one minute one way and the next minute the opposite way. Didn’t you cheer Krylov when he said truly that the Kaiser was our enemy and that we must drive him out of Russia first before we can have peace? And now you have been incited to start a civil war so that the Kaiser can simply walk over Russia and get the whole country into his power. This is war! War, you understand, war! And in war there can be no compromise with the enemy. Give him an inch and he will take a mile! Come, let us get to work. Let us fulfil our duty.”

There was a commotion among the soldiers. Some expressed their dissatisfaction loudly.

“Why stand here and listen to this silly baba?” said one.

“Give her a blow!” shouted another.

“Kick her!” cried a third.

In a moment I was being roughly handled. Blows were showered on me from every side.

“What are you doing? Why, it’s Yashka! Have you gone crazy?” I heard a friendly voice appeal to the men. Other comrades hurried to my aid and I was rescued without suffering much injury. But I decided to ask for leave to go home and get away from this war without warfare. I would not be thwarted by the Commander. No, not this time.

The following day Michael Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, arrived at our sector. We were formed for review, and although the men were somewhat lax in discipline they made up for it in enthusiasm. Rodzianko was given a tumultuous welcome as he appeared before the crowd.

“The responsibility for Russia,” he said, “which rested before on the shoulders of the Tsar and his Government now rests on the people, on you. This is what freedom means. It means that we must, of our own good will, defend the country against the foe. It means that we must all work together, forget our differences and quarrels and present a solid front to the Germans. They are subtle and hypocritical. They give you fair words but their hearts are full of hatred. They claim to be your brothers, but they are your enemies. They seek to divide us so that it will be easier for them to destroy our liberty and country.”

“True! True! Right! Right! It is so! It is so!” the throng voiced its approval.

“Free Russia will never be secure until the Kaiser’s soldiers are driven out of Russia,” the speaker continued. “We must, therefore, prepare for a general offensive to win a great victory. We must work together with our Allies who are helping us to defeat the Germans. We must respect and obey our officers, as there can be no army without chiefs, just as there can be no flock without a shepherd.”

“Correct! Correct! Well said! It’s the truth! It’s the truth!” the soldiers shouted from every corner.

“Now, my friends, tell me what you think of launching an attack against the enemy?” asked the President of the Duma. “Are you ready to advance and die, if necessary, to secure our precious freedom?”

“Yes, we are! We will go!” thundered the thousands present.

Then Orlov, the chairman of the Regimental Committee, a man of education, rose to answer for the rank and file. He expressed what all of us at the front had in our minds:

“Yes, we are ready to strike. But we want those millions of soldiers in the rear, who spread all over the country, overflowing the cities, overcrowding all the railroads and doing nothing, to be sent back to the front. Let us advance all together. The time for speeches has passed. We want action, or we will go home.”

Comrade Orlov was boisterously acclaimed. Indeed, he said what we all so keenly felt. It wasn’t just to the men in the trenches to allow hundreds of thousands of their comrades to keep holiday in the rear without interruption. Rodzianko agreed with us. He would do his best to remedy this injustice, he promised. But, privately, in reply to the insistent questions of the officers why the golden opportunity for an offensive was being wasted, he confessed that the Provisional Government and the Duma were powerless.

“It is the Soviet, Kerensky and its other leading spirits, who have the decision in such matters,” he said. “They are shaping the policy of the country. I have urged them not to delay, but to order a general attack immediately.”

Chairman Orlov then presented me to Rodzianko with a little speech in which he recounted my record since the beginning of the war. The President of the Duma was greatly surprised and moved.

“I want to bend the knee to this woman,” he said, shaking my hand warmly. He then asked what was my feeling about conditions at the front. I gave vent to the bitterness that was in my heart.

“I can’t stand this new order of things. The soldiers don’t fight the Germans any more. My object in joining the army was to defend the country. Now, it is impossible to do so. There is nothing left for me, therefore, but to go away.”

“But where shall you go?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose I shall go home. My father is old, and my mother is ailing, and they are almost reduced to begging for bread.”

Rodzianko patted me on the shoulder.

“Come to me in Petrograd, little heroine, and I will see what I can do for you.”

I joyfully accepted the invitation, and told my comrades that I should be leaving soon. I was provided with a new outfit and one hundred roubles by the Commander. The news spread that Yashka was going away and about a thousand soldiers, many of whose lives I had saved in battle, presented me with a testimonial.

A thousand signatures! They were all the names of dear comrades who were attached to me by ties of fire and blood. There was a record, on that long scroll, of every battle which we had fought and of every episode of lifesaving and self-sacrifice in which I had taken part. It made my heart beat with joy and my eyes fill with tears, while deep in my soul something ached and yearned.

It was May, but there was autumn in my breast. There was autumn also in the heart of Mother Russia. The sunshine was dazzling. The fields and the forests rioted in all the glories of spring. There was peace in the trenches, calm in No Man’s Land. My country was still celebrating joyously the festival of the newly-born Freedom. It was scarcely two months old, this child of generations of pain and suffering. It came into being with the first warm wind, and how deep were the forces that it aroused in us, how infinite the promises it carried! My people still entertained the wonderful illusions of those first days. It was spring, the beginning of eternal spring to them.

But my heart pined. All joy was dead in it. I heard the autumn winds howling. I felt instinctively an immense tragedy developing, and my soul went out to Mother Russia.

The entire Regiment was formed in line so that I could bid them farewell. I addressed them as follows:

“You know how I love you, how I have cared for you. Who picked you up on the field of battle? Yashka. Who dressed your wounds under fire? Yashka. Who braved with you all dangers and shared with you all privations? A baba, Yashka. I bore with your insults and rejoiced in your caresses. I knew how to receive them both, because I knew your souls. I could endure anything with you, but I cannot endure this any longer. I cannot bear fraternization with the enemy. I cannot bear these incessant meetings. I cannot bear this endless chain of orators and their empty phrases. It is time to act. The time for talk is gone. Otherwise, it will be too late. Our country and freedom are perishing.

“Nevertheless, I love you and want to part from you as a friend.”

Here I stopped. I could not go on. My comrades gave me a hearty goodbye. They were sorry, very sorry, to lose me, they said, but of course I was entitled to my opinion of the situation. They assured me that they respected me as ever and that, when they had been at home on leave, they had always told their mothers to pray for me. And they swore that they would always be ready to lay down their lives for me.

The Commander placed his carriage at my disposal to go to the railway station. A delegate from the Regiment was leaving the same day for Petrograd, and we went together. As the horses started, tearing me away from the men, who clasped my hands and wished me luck and Godspeed, something tore a big hole in my heart, and the world seemed desolate.⁠ ⁠…