Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter 14 (2/2)

This incident betrays the true sentiments of the Bolshevist leaders toward the Russians. They despise the people over whom they rule. They regard themselves as of superior type, a sort of cream of humanity, the “vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat,” as they often call themselves. The Tsarist Government, except in its final degenerate days, was at least Russian in its sympathies. The kernel of the Russian tragedy lies not in the brutality of the Extraordinary Commission, nor even in the suppression of every form of freedom, but in the fact that the Revolution, which dawned so auspiciously and promised so much, has actually given Russia a government utterly alienated from the sympathies, aspirations, and ideals of the nation.

The Bolshevist leader would find but few disputants of his admission that Bolshevist power rests to a large extent on Jewish brains and Chinese bayonets. But his gratitude for the stupidity of the Russian people is misplaced. The Russian people have shown not stupidity but eminent wisdom in repudiating both Communism and the alternative to it presented by the landlords and the generals. Their tolerance of the Red in preference to the White is based upon the conviction, universal throughout Russia, that the Red is a merely passing phenomenon. Human nature decrees this, but there was no such guarantee against the Whites with the support of the Allies behind them. A people culturally and politically immature like the Russians may not easily be able to embody in a formula the longings that stir the hidden depths of their souls, but you cannot on this account call them stupid. The Bolsheviks are all formula⁠—empty formula⁠—and no soul. The Russians are all soul with no formula. They possess no developed system of self-expression outside the arts. To the Bolshevik the letter is all in all. He is the slave of his shibboleths. To the Russian the letter is nothing; it is only the spirit that matters. More keenly than is common in the Western world he feels that the kingdom of heaven is to be found not in politics or creeds of any sort or kind, but simply within each one of us as individuals.

The man who says: “The Russians are a nation of fools,” assumes a prodigious responsibility. You cannot call a people stupid who in a single century have raised themselves from obscurity to a position of preeminence in the arts, literature, and philosophy. And whence did this galaxy of geniuses from Glinka to Scriabin and Stravinsky, or such as Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and the host of others whose works have so profoundly affected the thought of the last half-century⁠—whence did they derive their inspiration if not from the common people around them? The Russian nation, indeed, is not one of fools, but of potential geniuses. But the trend of their genius is not that of Western races. It lies in the arts and philosophy and rarely descends to the more sordid realms of politics and commerce.

Yet, in spite of a reputation for unpracticalness, the Russians have shown the world at least one supreme example of economic organization. It is forgotten nowadays that Russia deserves an equal share in the honours of the Great War. She bore the brunt of the first two years of it and made possible the long defence of the Western front. And it is forgotten (if ever it was fully recognized) that while corruption at Court and treachery in highest military circles were leading Russia to perdition, the provisioning of the army and of the cities was upheld heroically, with chivalrous self-sacrifice, and with astonishing proficiency, by the one great democratic and popularly controlled organization Russia has ever possessed, to wit, the Union of Cooperative Societies. The almost incredible success of the Russian cooperative movement was due, I believe, more than anything else to the spirit of devotion that actuated its leaders. It is futile to point, as some do, to exceptional cases of malpractices. When an organization springs up with mushroom growth, as did the Russian cooperatives, defects are bound to arise. The fact remains that by the time the Revolution came, the Russian cooperative societies were not only supplying the army but also providing for the needs of almost the entire nation with an efficiency unsurpassed in any other country.

The Bolsheviks waged a ruthless and desperate war against public cooperation. The Cooperative Unions represented an organization independent of the State and could therefore not be tolerated under a Communist regime. But, like religion, cooperation could never be completely uprooted. On the contrary, their own administration being so incompetent, the Bolsheviks have on many occasions been compelled to appeal to what was left of the cooperative societies to help them out, especially in direct dealings with the peasantry. So that, although free cooperation is entirely suppressed, the shell of the former great organization exists in a mutilated form, and offers hope for its resuscitation in the future when all cooperative leaders are released from prison. There are many ways of reducing the Russian problem to simple terms, and not the least apt is a struggle between Cooperation and Coercion.

A deeper significance is attached in Russia to the word “Cooperation” than is usual in western countries. The Russian Cooperative Unions up to the time when the Bolsheviks seized power by no means limited their activities to the mere acquisition and distribution of the first necessities of life. They had also their own press organs, independent and well-informed, they were opening scholastic establishments, public libraries and reading-rooms, and they were organizing departments of Public Health and Welfare. Russian Cooperation must be understood in the widest possible sense of mutual aid and the dissemination of mental and moral as well as of physical sustenance. It is a literal application on a wide social scale of the exhortation to do unto others as you would that they should do to you. This comprehensive and idealistic movement was the nearest expression yet manifested of the Russian social ideal, and I believe that, whatever the outward form of the future constitution of Russia may be, in essence it will resolve itself into a Cooperative Commonwealth.

There is one factor in the Russian problem which is bound to play a large part in its solution, although it is the most indefinite. I mean the power of emotionalism. Emotionalism is the strongest trait of the Russian character and it manifests itself most often, especially in the peasantry, in religion. The calculated efforts of the Bolsheviks to suppress religion were shattered on the rocks of popular belief. Their categorical prohibition to participate in or attend any religious rites was ultimately confined solely to Communists, who when convicted of attending divine services are liable to expulsion from the privileged ranks for “tarnishing the reputation of the party.” As regards the general populace, to proclaim that Christianity is “the opium of the people” is as far as the Communists now dare go in their dissuasions. But the people flock to church more than ever they did before, and this applies not only to the peasants and factory hands but also to the bourgeoisie, who it was thought were growing indifferent to religion. This is not the first time that under national affliction the Russian people have sought solace in higher things. Under the Tartar yoke they did the same, forgetting their material woes in the creation of many of those architectural monuments, often quaint and fantastic but always impressive, in which they now worship. I will not venture to predict what precisely may be the outcome of the religious revival which undoubtedly is slowly developing, but will content myself with quoting the words of a Moscow workman, just arrived from the Red capital, whom I met in the northern Ukraine in November, 1920. “There is only one man in the whole of Russia,” said this workman, “whom the Bolsheviks fear from the bottom of their hearts, and that is Tihon, the Patriarch of the Russian Church.”

A story runs of a Russian peasant, who dreamt that he was presented with a huge bowl of delicious gruel. But, alas, he was given no spoon to eat it with. And he awoke. And his mortification at having been unable to enjoy the gruel was so great that on the following night, in anticipation of a recurrence of the same dream, he was careful to take with him to bed a large wooden spoon to eat the gruel with when next it should appear.

The untouched plate of gruel is like the priceless gift of liberty presented to the Russian people by the Revolution. Was it, after all, to be expected that after centuries of despotism, and amid circumstances of world cataclysm, the Russian nation would all at once be inspired with knowledge of how to use the newfound treasure, and of the duties and responsibilities that accompany it? But I am convinced that during these dark years of affliction the Russian peasant is, so to speak, fashioning for himself a spoon, and when again the dream occurs, he will possess the wherewithal to eat his gruel. Much faith is needed to look ahead through the black night of the present and see the dawn, but eleven years of life amongst all classes from peasant to courtier have perhaps infected me with a spark of that patriotic love which, despite an affectation of pessimism and self-deprecation, does almost invariably glow deep down in the heart of every Russian. I make no excuse for concluding this book with the oft-quoted lines of “the people’s poet,” Tyutchev, who said more about his country in four simple lines than all other poets, writers, and philosophers together. In their simplicity and beauty the lines are quite untranslatable, and my free adaptation to the English, which must needs be inadequate, I append with apologies to all Russians:

Umom Rossii nie poniatj;

Arshinom obshchym nie izmieritj;

U niei osobiennaya statj⁠—

V Rossiu mozhno tolko vieritj.

Seek not by Reason to discern

The soul of Russia: or to learn

Her thoughts by measurements designed

For other lands. Her heart, her mind,

Her ways in suffering, woe, and need,

Her aspirations and her creed,

Are all her own⁠—

Depths undefined,

To be discovered, fathomed, known

By Faith alone.