Part 9 (2/2)
CHAPTER XVII
MY CAMPAIGN
I held my first meeting in the repairing shop at Irkutsk at 3 P.M., March 4. It was a big crowd of working men and women. The Russian women work on the railways in such employments as carriage and wagon cleaners, snow and ice shovellers, and even repairing gangs on different sections of the line have a sprinkling of the fair s.e.x.
This audience listened to an explanation of the rise of the trade union movement in England with the greatest attention. The large majority accepted the proposition I tried to expound, that no question could be settled by the disputants merely killing each other off; but there were present about half a dozen members of the International World Workers, slouch-hatted, unshaven, and exactly true to type as seen at meetings in East London, Liverpool or Glasgow. These were not workmen employed on the railway; one kept a barber's shop, one was a teacher, one a Russian doctor, and one a Russian solicitor; but they were the officials of the only form of union that exists in Russian Siberia, a revolutionary circle composed of the very worst elements in the towns, bound together by one common purpose, the spoliation and a.s.sa.s.sination of every decent man, whether bourgeois or workman, who refuses to support a policy of anarchy. These five or six determined ruffians formed a kind of Blood Brotherhood, and behind a veil of anonymity issued mandates to, and in the name of, the Russian workmen, which, backed up by a system of murderous terrorism, the workmen were powerless to resist. It was quite a usual thing to find each morning dead men of all cla.s.ses in the streets who had been murdered during the night by members of these circles. There was no system of law or police; every vestige of justice was uprooted, and these crimes went unpunished. The irony of it was that these acts were avowedly done in the interest of progress and reform and in the sacred name of Labour!
The Irkutsk Circle asked questions which were not calculated to elicit a single fact connected with labour, either in Russia or England, but were just the usual clap-trap monkey business, such as:
”Why should we be satisfied with half, when we have the bourgeoisie down and can take all?”
”Why should we allow law to be re-established, which was always used by the few to rob the many?”
”Surely it is less unjust to allow the many to continue to rob the few?”
”In destroying the landlord and capitalist are not the Russian proletariat merely taking back its own property?”
”Is it not a fact that the more systematically and effectively we annihilate the bourgeois and landlord cla.s.s, and all the inst.i.tutions belonging to them, the easier it will be to erect the new order?”
These are all very subtle and difficult to answer briefly at a meeting of Russian workmen, not one of whom can read or write. It was wonderful foresight which placed Madame Frank, the editress of the _Russian Army_, as correspondent for this labour mission. She fastened on to each question in turn and gave instance after instance of how the suggestions they contained had worked out in practice, to the total destruction of all that was good and honourable in Russia. Then with magnificent play on the words ”the new order” in the last question, she drew a picture of this _new order_ as exhibited in practice in that part of Russia under Bolshevik control. The influence of this little lady upon these simple Russian workmen was really remarkable. It was quite evident that the workmen would prefer the old regime to the new if Bolshevik tyranny is the only possible outcome of the new order.
Our next stop was Imokentievskaya, where the head of the works looked as though he would have preferred execution rather than take part in a workmen's meeting. The professionals had been left behind, and the audience was composed entirely of the railway workers. They presented many characteristics of the average English workmen and hungrily received information relating to the methods of the best organised English trade unions. They had no idea of the things we had done and the progress we had made in bettering the working conditions of labour generally. Their professional leaders had disposed of the British movement by describing our organisation as ”bourgeois trade unions,” and always referred to our trade union activities as though we were organised and internally managed by the capitalist. They were surprised to learn that we were the only exclusively working-cla.s.s organisation in the world; that the officials must have worked at the trade whose society they managed; that we did not, like themselves, allow doctors, lawyers, and mere politicians to manage our affairs, but insisted upon having our trade unions in our own hands. One real old ”Russky”
engine-driver asked: ”If the English workmen found it so advantageous to keep their organisations exclusively working-cla.s.s, why did not the Germans do the same?” I answered, ”When a movement starts wrong it is very difficult to put it right; that outsiders all over the world struggle for a place in the trade unions, and if once they get in they either break themselves or the union rather than get out, and those who can't get in hang on outside like limpets and refuse to be kicked off; that the Russian workmen in organising their trade unions must start right and keep them free of every element except the working cla.s.s.”
We stopped at Zema, the scene of a sharp encounter with armed strikers a few months previous. The meeting in the works was a great success. It was remarkable to find that though in my previous meeting with these workmen I took the att.i.tude of a military dictator, they showed no resentment and had rigidly observed the agreement which had been entered into at the point of the bayonet. They were delighted to find that I, too, had performed my part of the contract in not forgetting their interests when opportunity presented itself.
Nesniodinsk was not on my list, but a special request having been presented for me to address the workmen there, we made the necessary arrangements and visited this place on Sunday, March 8. It was perhaps the largest meeting held up to that point. The official heads had caused a special platform to be erected in a huge engine-repairing shop, and themselves took the greatest interest in the whole proceeding. It was a very hara.s.sing business, but if as an outcome the seed of orderly progress was sown, the effort was entirely worth while.
Our carriage was fastened to the rear of a slow-moving train going west, and we did not arrive at Kansk till the evening of the 10th.
Kansk is the most easterly point of the area of revolt and a fairly large depot for the railway. Some interesting facts about the revolt were picked up from the railway officials. The revolt began suddenly on December 26, at the same time that it broke out in Omsk and Kolumsino, and at first was aimed at the possession of the railway. The military guard at Kansk consisted of one officer and fifty men. The officer posted his sentries at different points some distance away, and the soldiers who acted as his personal guard awoke to find their sleeping-place and arms in the possession of half a dozen armed men. The marauders shouted ”Your officer is dead,” and ordered the men to lie still while they removed the rifles. This done, they proceeded to the quarters of the officer, who, finding his men already disarmed, bolted without firing a shot. The total strength of the Bolsheviks was fifteen men, and these fifteen held the station and a town of over five thousand inhabitants up to ransom for twenty-six hours! At the end of that time a squadron of Cossacks approached, and the Bolsheviks left, taking with them about 80,000 roubles belonging to the railway and post office. During their short stay they committed all sorts of barbarities.
They murdered the railway school-mistress and tortured her husband by stripping him and pouring cold water over his naked body, finally driving him out into the snow, where he quickly froze to death. The charge against their two victims in this case was that they, by their calling, were teaching the youth of Russia to become young _bourgeoisie_, instead of leaving all men and women equal as nature intended.
This garden of autocracy grows some strange plants. These banditti, known in England as Bolsheviks, are entrenched not more than 60 versts distant, protected from Koltchak's vengeance by the deep snows of the Siberian winter, which make it impossible to operate away from the railway.
We held a splendid meeting of the workmen in the enormous workshop, remarkable for the quiet enthusiasm and the evident hope of better times. It was quite clear to me that the Russian workmen were tired of the Revolution. They were promised an Eldorado and realised h.e.l.l instead. They merely wanted to be shown a way out of the social nightmare. They pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to me and the English workmen for whom I spoke.
We started for Krasnoyarsk on the 12th, and before long found it necessary to get the machine guns and hospital equipment ready for instant use. After standing to arms all night we arrived, at midday on the 13th, at Klukvinah, the Russian Headquarters, and discovered that the Government forces had driven the enemy back from the railway, and that the remainder of our journey to Krasnoyarsk would be practically safe. We arrived about 9.15 P.M. on Wednesday, the 13th.
Colonel Frank, Madame Frank, myself and the Czech interpreter, Vladimir, were pa.s.sing through the station on our return from the town about 12.30 midnight, when a rather exciting incident occurred. The station commandant approached Colonel Frank and appealed to him for help to send home a party of Serbian soldiers who had procured drink without payment at the point of their swords and revolvers, and had stripped a young woman pa.s.senger and exposed her for their orgies. Other b.e.s.t.i.a.l things were alleged against them, but no one had so far dared to interfere to restore order. After a moment's consideration Colonel Frank decided to go into the buffet and ask them to go quietly home, and if they refused, to secure force to arrest and remove them. I naturally followed.
It was a big stone-floored room with the door at one end and a long bar at the other. The alleged Serbian soldiers were seated in a cl.u.s.ter on the right in front of the bar at the far end of the room. Colonel Frank advanced to them and said, ”Brothers, you have had enough to drink, you are keeping all the attendants from their proper rest; it is time for you to go home.” It was like an electric shock. About a dozen of the ruffians sprang to their feet hurling every possible Slavonic epithet at this brave Russian officer who was merely performing a public duty. One dark-visaged Serb cavalryman drew his sword and tried a lunge at the colonel across the table, and while the colonel watched this infuriated aborigine a Serbian officer close behind Frank tore the epaulette from the colonel's uniform and trampled it underfoot, shouting, ”Death to this officer of the old regime!”
I picked up the epaulette just as the other Serb, sword in one hand and revolver in the other, edged round the tables to the centre of the room for his attack upon my liaison officer. I did not think of drawing my own weapon, and so far it was man to man. Colonel Frank kept his eye fixed upon his antagonist, and now advanced towards him, ordering him to put down his arms and leave the room. But the Serb was out for blood and made a slash at the _polkovnika's_ head, the full force of which he evaded by ducking, though the sword severed the chin strap and b.u.t.ton of his cap and carved its way through the thick band before it glanced up off the skull, helped by his right hand, which had been raised to turn the blow. At the same instant Colonel Frank fired point blank at the man's face; the bullet entered the open mouth and came out of the cheek, which merely infuriated the man more. Up to this moment the man had only used his sword, but now he began to raise his revolver. Before he could raise it hip high, however, the colonel shot him through the heart.
Though the revolver dropped from his helpless hand, he crouched for one instant and sprang, clutching at the colonel's face, while four or five of his fellow Serbs attacked the colonel from behind. The foremost of these ruffians, a Serbian officer, fired at the back of the colonel's head and missed, but his second shot struck Colonel Frank on the left temple at the moment his real a.s.sailant had made his death spring, and down they both went, apparently dead, the Serbian on top. The other Serbs sprang forward to finish the Russian officer with the usual ugly dagger which Serbian robbers always carry. The body of the dead Serb, however, formed a complete s.h.i.+eld, and this, coupled with the fact that we all thought the colonel dead, saved him from mutilation.
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