Yashka · Part IV · Chapter 20 (1/3)

XX

I Set Out on a Mission

The Vasilievs were the only people I could go to in Moscow. They lived on the outskirts of the city. I made an attempt to walk to their house, but was too weak to proceed more than two blocks. There was a cabman near at hand, but he wanted twenty-five roubles to take me to my friends. I tried to bargain, offering fifteen, but he would not hear of it. As I had no money, I finally hired the cab in the hope that Daria Maximovna would pay for it. The alternative was to remain where I was.

Madame Vasilieva received me as if I were her own daughter. She was overwhelmed with joy at my release. I was too weak and worn out to appreciate fully my miraculous deliverance from torture and death. I was given some light food, and Daria Maximovna began to prepare a bath for me. I had not changed my undergarments for several weeks, and my body was blacker than it ever had been during my life in the trenches. My skin was in a terrible condition from vermin. The bath was a greater relief at the moment than my release itself. And the long hours of sleep following it were even more welcome. I doubt if sleep ever tasted sweeter to anyone.

It was impossible to remain long as a guest in Moscow in those early days of March, 1918. Stepan lived away from his home, as he and his parents held widely divergent views in regard to the political situation. The family consisted of Daria Maximovna, her husband and the younger son. The daughter, Tonetchka, was married and lived elsewhere. The three Vasilievs received daily a pound and one-eighth of bread! The weekly meat ration was a pound and a half. I, therefore, promptly realized what a burden I was bound to be. But I could not make up my mind where to go and what to do. The Vasilievs offered to buy me a ticket home, but the document I had from the Soldiers’ Section was in itself a ticket.

I recalled that some of my wounded girls had been sent to Moscow, to be quartered in the Home for Invalids, and I thought of looking them up. I took a walk to the city. When I approached the block in which the Home was situated, I noticed a crowd in the street, largely composed of soldiers, holding meetings of indignation. When I reached the Home I saw a number of wounded soldiers, some of them without legs or arms, dispersed about the front grounds.

On inquiry I learned that the Bolshevist authorities had turned the hundreds of crippled inmates of the Home into the street. Many of them, including my girls, had already disappeared, some no doubt being forced to beg, others being cared for by charitable people and societies. But still a goodly number remained, crying, cursing Lenin and Trotsky, and asking passersby for food and shelter. It was a pathetic sight. The cruelty of the order made one’s blood boil. It was evidently an act of wanton brutality. The excuse that the Government needed the building was certainly no justification for it.

There were about two hundred soldiers in the crowd, and I stopped to listen to their conversation. All of them had been attracted to the place by the complaints of the ejected invalids. Their talk came as a revelation to me. They were in a mutinous spirit, stirred up against the regime of Lenin and Trotsky. For several hours I lingered round the various groups, sometimes taking part in the discussions.

“See what you have brought about by your own acts. You have shamefully beaten and killed your officers. You have forgotten God and destroyed the Church. Now, this is the result of your deeds.” In some such manner I would address the men, and they would answer somewhat as follows:

“We believed that by overthrowing our officers and the wealthy class, we should have plenty of bread and land. But now the factories are demolished and there is no work. We are terrorized by the Red Guards, who are recruited mostly from drunkards and criminals. If there are any honest soldiers among them, it is because hunger and poverty force them to enlist in order to escape starvation. If we demand justice and fair play, we are shot down by the Red executioners. And all the while the Germans are advancing into Russia, and nobody is sent to fight them, our real enemies.”

At these words I crossed myself, thanking the Almighty for the deep change He had wrought in the minds of the people.

The crowd became so excited that the authorities were notified and a detachment of the Red Guard was sent to suppress it. It arrived suddenly and warned us to disperse by firing a volley into the air. The gathering separated and vanished from the street. A group of about ten soldiers, including myself, rushed into a neighbouring courtyard and continued the conversation there behind the gates.

“See, what you get now! If you were armed, they would not dare to treat you like that. They made you surrender your arms and now oppress you worse than the Tsar. Who ever heard of a thousand sick persons being thrown out into the street under the old regime?” I asked.

“Yes, we have been betrayed. It is clear now. The Germans are taking away all our bread, occupying our land, destroying our country, demanding all our money and possessions. We have been betrayed,” nodded several men.

“Ah, so you are beginning to see the truth!”

“Yes, we are,” declared one fellow. “A month ago I wouldn’t have talked to you. I was then the chairman of a local Soviet. But I see what it all means now. We are being arrested, searched, robbed, terrorized by the Red Guard mercenaries. I would, myself, shoot Lenin and Trotsky for this outrageous treatment of the hospital patients. A month ago I was a fool, but I see now that I was all wrong in my ideas about you and other opponents of the Bolsheviks. You are not an enemy of the people, but a friend.”

Accompanied by a couple of soldiers I walked away. One of them told me he had seen one of my girls begging, after she had been turned out of the Home. My heart ached at the thought, but I was absolutely without means. What could I have done for her? We reached the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and I remembered the vow I had made to have a public mass celebrated in commemoration of my miraculous escape from death.

I took leave of my companions and entered the church. There were about five or six hundred people there. On that very day, I believe, the order was promulgated separating the Church from the State. All the devout members of the Cathedral came to the Communion service that afternoon.

I went to see the deacon in the vestry and told him of the miracle that had been vouchsafed me and the vow I had made. I did not fail to mention the fact that I was penniless and could not pay for the service. At the conclusion of the Communion, the priest announced:

“There has just come here a Christian woman who has suffered greatly for the country and whose name is known throughout the land. A miracle saved her in a desperate moment. God listened to her prayers and sent her an old friend, whose life she had once saved, on the eve of her execution. The execution was postponed. She then prayed to God again, and a divine voice informed her that her life would be spared. She vowed to offer public prayers in this Cathedral in the event of her release. The Lord mercifully granted her freedom, and she is now here to fulfil the vow.”

The priest then asked the deacon to bring me up to the altar. When I was led there, a murmur went through the assembly:

“Heavens! It’s Bochkareva!”

Candles were lit and for fifteen minutes prayers of praise to the Lord were read, glorifying His name.

I returned to the Vasilievs by tram. On the car there were many soldiers, and again their conversation cheered me up.

“A fine end we have come to! The Germans are moving nearer and nearer, and here they are shooting and arresting the people!” the men said to one another. “Why don’t they send the Red Guard to resist the enemy? We are being sold to the Germans.”

This was my second encounter with sober-minded soldiers in one day. I arrived at Daria Maximovna’s in high spirits. The awakening of the Russian soldier had begun!

I had left my medals and crosses in Petrograd before starting out on the fateful errand. Borrowing some money from Madame Vasilieva, I went to Petrograd to fetch them. The railway carriage in which I travelled was packed with about a hundred and fifty soldiers. But they were no longer the cutthroats, the incensed and revengeful ruffians of two months ago. They did not threaten. They did not brag. The kindness of their true natures had again asserted itself. They even made a place for me, inviting me to sit down.

“Please, Madame Bochkareva,” they said, “take this seat.”

“Thank you, comrades,” I answered.

“No, don’t call us comrades any more. It’s a disgrace now. The comrades are at present fleeing from the front, while the Germans are threatening Moscow,” some of them remarked.

I felt among friends. This comradeship was what endeared the Russian soldier to my heart. Not the comradeship of the agitators, not the comradeship so loudly proclaimed in the Bolshevik manifestos and proclamations, but the true comradeship that had made the three years in the trenches the happiest of my life. That old spirit again filled the air. It was almost too good to be true. After the nightmare of revolutions and terror, it seemed like a dream. The soldiers were actually cursing Bolshevism, denouncing Lenin and Trotsky!

“How has it come about that you all talk so sensibly?” I asked.

“Because the Germans are advancing on Moscow, and Lenin and Trotsky don’t even raise a finger to stop them,” came the answer. “A soldier has escaped from Kiev and has just telegraphed that the Germans are seizing Russians and sending them to Germany to help to fight against the Allies. Lenin and Trotsky told us that the Allies were our enemies. We now see that they are our friends.”

Another soldier, who had been home on leave, told of an armed Red Guard detachment that had descended on his village one fine day and robbed the peasants of all the bread they had, the product of their sweat and toil, exposing them to starvation.

“The people are hungry, that’s why they join the Red Guard,” one of the men remarked. “At least then they get food and arms with which to plunder. It is getting so that no one is safe unless he belongs to the Red Guard.”

“But why don’t you do something?” I addressed myself to them. “Everywhere I see the people are indignant, but they do nothing to cast off the yoke.”

“We have demanded more than once the resignation of Lenin and Trotsky. There were large majorities against them at several elections. But they are supported by the Red Guard and keep themselves in power in spite of the will of the people. The peasants are against them almost to a man.”

“The more reason why you should act,” I said. “Something ought to be done!”

“What? Tell us what!” several inquired.

“Even to get together, for instance, and reestablish the front!” I suggested.

“We would, but we have nobody we can trust to lead us. All our good people are fighting among themselves,” they argued. “Besides, we should need arms and food.”

“You just said that the Allies were our friends. Suppose we asked them to send us arms and food and help us to reorganize the front, would you be willing to fight the Germans again?” I inquired.

“Yes,” answered some, “we would.”

“No,” replied others; “what if the Allies got into Russia and wanted to take advantage of us, like the Germans?”

“Well, you must elect your own leader to cooperate with the Allies only on condition that we fight till we defeat the enemy and finish the war,” I proposed.

“But whom could we choose as our leader?” the men persisted. “All our chiefs are divided. Some are reputed to be monarchists. Others are said to be exploiters of the poor working people. Others are declared to be German agents. Where could we find a man who did not belong to one or other of these parties?”

“What if I, for instance, took charge, and became your leader?” I ventured to ask. “Would you follow me?”

“Yes, yes!” they cried. “We could trust you. You are a peasant yourself. But what could you do?”

“What could I do? You know that these scoundrels are destroying Russia. The Germans are seizing everything they can lay hold on. I would try to restore the front!”

“But how?” they asked.

At this moment, the idea of going to America originated in my mind. We had all heard that America was now one of the Allies.

“What if I should go to America to ask there for help?” I ventured.

My companions all burst out laughing. America is so remote and so unreal to the Russian peasant. It did not sound like a practical proposition to the soldiers. But they raised only one objection.

“How would you ever get there? The Bolsheviks and Red Guards will never let you out of the country,” they said.

“But if I did get there and to the other Allies,” I insisted, “and came back with an army and equipment, would you join me then, and would you persuade all your friends to come with you?”

“Yes, we would! Yes! We know that you could not be bought. You are one of us!” they shouted.

“In that event, I will go to America!” I announced resolutely, there and then making up my mind to go. The soldiers would not believe me. When we reached Petrograd, and I parted from them affectionately, with their blessings following me, I did not forget to warn them to remember their pledge upon hearing of my return from foreign lands with troops.

I spent only a few hours in Petrograd and did not go to see General X. I got my war decorations from the woman friend with whom I had left them, and saw only a few of my acquaintances. I told all of them of the great change in the state of mind of the soldiers, and they were delighted.

“Thank God!” they exclaimed. “If the soldiers are waking up, then Russia will yet be saved.”

After dinner I took a train back to Moscow. As usual, soldiers formed the bulk of the passengers. I listened to their discussions attentively, although this time I took no part in them, as there were a few Bolsheviks among the men, and I did not wish to divulge my plans. I heard many curse Lenin and Trotsky, and all expressed their willingness to go to fight the Germans. One fellow asked:

“How could you fight them, without leaders and organization?”

“Ah, that’s the trouble,” answered several at once. “We have no leaders. If some appeared and only appealed to us, we would make short work of the Bolsheviks and drive the Germans out of Russia.”

I said nothing, but I took good note of their words. The people were groping for light. It strengthened my determination to go to the Allied countries in search of help for Russia. But it was necessary to evolve some plan whereby I could get out of the country. A happy thought then occurred to me: I would make my destination the home of my valued friend, Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst in London.

Upon my arrival at Moscow, I announced to the Vasilievs my decision to go to London. It was explained to me that the only way out of Russia lay through Vladivostok, and that I should have to cross America before coming to England. That suited me perfectly.