Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920–22)
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Library.Anarhija.Net The Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920–22) Alexander Berkman Alexander Berkman The Bolshevik Myth (Diary 1920–22) 1925 Retrieved on March 13th, 2009 from dwardmac.pitzer.edu The Bolshevik Myth, New York, Boni and Liveright, 1925. lib.anarhija.net 1925 Contents Preface ............................ 5 Chapter 1. The Log of the Transport “Buford” 7 Chapter 2: On Soviet Soil 20 Chapter 3. In Petrograd 24 Chapter 4. Moscow 34 Chapter 5. The Guest House 38 Chapter 6. Tchicherin and Karakhan 42 Chapter 7. The Market 47 Chapter 8. In the Moskkommune 53 Chapter 9. The Club on the Tverskaya 57 Chapter 10. A Visit to Peter Kropotkin 63 Chapter 11. Bolshevik Activities 67 Chapter 12. Sights and Views 73 Chapter 13. Lenin 79 2 the international proletariat to fatal will o’ the wisps exposed. The Chapter 14. On the Latvian Border 83 Bolshevik myth must be destroyed. I ................................ 83 I have decided to leave, Russia. II ................................ 88 III ............................... 92 IV ............................... 98 Chapter 15. Back in Petrograd 103 Chapter 16. Rest Homes for Workers 113 Chapter 17. The First of May 117 Chapter 18. The British Labor Mission 121 Chapter 19. The Spirit of Fanaticism 129 Chapter 20. Other People 138 Chapter 21. En Route to the Ukraina 144 Chapter 22. First Days in Kharkov 149 Chapter 23. In Soviet Institutions 159 Chapter 24. Yossif the Emigrant 166 Chapter 25. Nestor Makhno 173 Chapter 26. Prison and Concentration Camp 179 Chapter 27. Further South 186 Chapter 28. Fastov the Pogromed 189 Chapter 29. Kiev 199 294 3 Chapter 30. In Various Walks 205 broken. The Tcheka has made the resolution of the Executive Com- mittee of the Party ineffective. Chapter 31. The Tcheka 219 The Congresses are closed, and most of the delegates havede- parted. Chapter 32. Odessa: Life and Vision 223 September 17. — At noon today the hunger strikers were released from the Taganka, two months after the Government had pledged Chapter 33. Dark People 237 their liberation. The men look worn and old, withered by anguish Chapter 34. A Bolshevik Trial 245 and privation. They have been put under surveillance and forbidden to meet their comrades. It is said weeks will pass before opportunity Chapter 35. Returning to Petrograd 249 will be given them to leave the country. They are not permitted to work and they have no means of subsistence.3 The Tcheka declares Chapter 36. In the Far North 257 that no other politicals will be freed. Arrests of revolutionists are taking place throughout the country. Chapter 37. Early Days of 1921 261 September 30. — With bowed heart I seek a familiar bench in the park. Here little Fanya sat at my side. Her face was turned tothe Chapter 38. Kronstadt 266 sun, her whole being radiant with idealism. Her silvery laughter rang with the joy of youth and life, but I trembled for her safety at Chapter 39. Last Links in the Chain 280 every approaching step. “Do not fear,” she kept reassuring me, “no one will know me in my peasant disguise.” Now she is dead. Executed yesterday by the Tcheka as a “bandit.”4 Gray are the passing days. One by one the embers of hope have died out. Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in Octo- ber. The slogans of the Revolution are foresworn, its ideals stifled in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday is dooming mil- lions to death; the shadow of today hangs like a black pall over the country. Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot. The Revolution is dead; its spirit cries in the wilderness. High time the truth about the Bolsheviki were told. The whited sepulcher must be unmasked, the clay feet of the fetish beguiling 3 Not till January, 1922, were the released Taganka Anarchists deported to Germany. 4 Fanya Baron and Lev Tchorny, Anarchist poet and author, were executed with eight other prisoners by the Moscow Tcheka in September, 1921. 4 293 c. he demands more time at liberty for those to be Preface released, to enable them to recuperate before de- portation. Revolution breaks the social forms grown too narrow for man. It bursts the molds which constrict him the more solidified they July 14. — The hunger protest was terminated last night. The pris- become, and the more Life ever striving forward leaves them. In oners are momentarily expecting to be freed. Extremely weakened this dynamic process the Russian Revolution has gone further than and in highly nervous state after eleven days of striking. any previous revolution. Like a bombshell came Bukharin’s attack upon the Anarchists in The abolition of the established — politically and economically, the closing hour of the Trade Union Congress. Though not a dele- socially and ethically — the attempt to replace it with something gate, he secured the platform and in the name of the Communist different, is the reflex of man’s changed needs, of the awakened Party denounced the hunger strikers as counter-revolutionists. The consciousness of the people. Back of revolution are the millions of whole Anarchist movement of Russia, he declared, is criminal ban- living humans who embody its inner spirit, who feel, think, and ditism waging warfare against the Soviet Republic; it is identical have their being in it. To them revolution is not a mere change of ex- with Makhno and his povstantsi who are exterminating Commu- ternals: it implies the complete dislocation of life, the shattering of nists and fighting against the Revolution. dominant traditions, the annulment of accepted standards. The ha- The session was thrown into an uproar. The majority of delegates bitual, measured step of existence is interrupted, accustomed crite- resented this breach of faith in view of the tacit agreement to elimi- rions become inoperative, former precedents are void. Existence is nate the matter from the Congress. But the chairman refused toper- forced into uncharted channels; every action demands self-reliance; mit a rejoinder, declaring the subject closed. A storm of indignation every detail calls for new, independent decision. The typical, the fa- swept the house. miliar, have disappeared; dissolved is the coherence and interrela- The insistence of the Congress at last compelled a hearing, anda tion of the parts that formerly constituted one whole. New values French delegate took the floor to reply to Bukharin’s charges. Inthe are to be created. name of the Revolution he solemnly protested against the sinister This inner life of revolution, which is its sole meaning, has almost Machiavelian diplomacy of the Bolsheviki. To attack the opposition entirely been neglected by writers on the Russian Revolution. Many at the closing of the Congress, without an opportunity of defense, books have been published about that tremendous social upheaval, he declared, was an act of perfidy unworthy of a revolutionary party. but seldom do they strike its true keynote. They treat of the fall and Its sole purpose was to prejudice the departing delegates against the rise of institutions, of the new State and its structure, of constitu- revolutionary minority and justify continued political persecution; tions and laws — of the exclusively external manifestations, which its obviously desired effect to annul the conciliatory efforts ofthe nearly make one forget the living millions who continue to exist, to joint Committee. be, under all changing conditions. August 10. — Days and weeks are passing; the politicals still re- Justly Taine said that in studying the French Revolution he found main in prison. The conferences of the Joint Committee have prac- statistics and data, official documents and edicts least illuminative tically ceased — rarely can the representatives of the Government of the real character of the period. Its significant expression, its be induced to attend. The promises of Lenin and Lunatcharsky are deeper sense, he discovered in the lives, thoughts, and feelings of 292 5 the people, in their personal reactions as portrayed in the memoirs, 4. The comrades going abroad will be permitted two journals, and letters of contemporaries. or three days at liberty before their departure, to The present work is compiled from the Diary which I keptduring enable them to arrange their affairs. my two years’ stay in Russia. It is the chronicle of an intense expe- 5. They will not be allowed to return to Russia with- rience, of impressions and observations noted down day by day, in out the consent of the Soviet Government. different parts of the country, among various walks of life. Most of the names are deleted, for the obvious reason of protecting the 6. Most of these conditions are contained in the let- persons in question. ter received by this delegation from the Central So far as I know it is the only journal kept in Russia during those Committee of the Communist Party, signed by momentous years (1920–1922). It was a rather difficult task, as those Trotsky. familiar with Russian conditions will understand. But long practice 7. The foreign comrades have been authorized tosee in such matters — keeping memoranda even in prison — enabled to it that these conditions are properly carried me to preserve my Diary through many vicissitudes and searches, out. and get it safely out of the country. Its Odyssey was adventurous (Signatures) and eventful. After having journeyed through Russia for two years, the Diary succeeded in crossing the border, only to be lost before ORLANDI it could join me. There followed an anxious hunt through several LEVAL Spain European lands, and when hope of locating my notebooks was al- SIROLLE most given up, they were discovered in the attic of a very much frightened old lady in Germany. But that is another story.