The day before we left Norway, the captain of a little Norwegian mail-boat that lay alongside came aboard to inspect our ship. Afterwards he invited the doctor and myself to come aboard his ship for a glass of good beer from Bergen. We did so. His beer was excellent. It was odd to see the difference between his ship and ours. His saloon was furnished like the drawing room of an old family hotel. There were rugs and clocks and anti-macassars and antlers and all manner of unnecessary ornaments. He himself was a kindly old father of a family, restrained in speech, shy of expressing a decided opinion, mild in his attitude towards life, a man who fitted beautifully into his groove, was happy, did his duty well and wished for no change.
How different he was from the doctor! While I talked to the captain, the doctor fidgeted about, refused to drink his beer, scowled and continually tried to turn the conversation into controversial channels. More than ever he looked like a man who had no time to waste, a man interested in amusement solely as an experience, a greedy, ambitious fellow driven on by an insatiable passion. Suddenly he jumped to his feet and cried:
‘I very much like inspect your ship, captain.’
The captain bowed and said it would give him great pleasure.
‘But please excuse my little old ship’ he said. ‘She is very old and out of date like myself. Of course, I love her. I have been married to her for a long time. But I am not blind to her faults.’
‘So?’ said the doctor gloomily. ‘We regard ship simply as social tool. Not in such a way as human being. Old machines with us are scrapped.’
‘Alas!’ said the captain. ‘It’s becoming like that all over the world. But some of us. . .’
His voice ended in a mumble as we went along an alley-way. He showed us the quarters for the first and second class passengers and then suggested leading us back into the saloon for another glass of beer. But the doctor insisted on seeing the crew’s quarters. It was obvious that the old skipper was not very enthusiastic, but he led the way down into the bowels of the little ship, into an evil-smelling hole where one could hardly breathe. There, in a tiny room, a number of sombre men were huddled together, living in a state of sordidness that shocked me and made the captain blush.
I hated seeing those fine Norwegian seamen put to shame by being inspected like wild animals or criminals. One poor fellow was washing his feet in a filthy bucket. The expression on his face was humiliating.
As the captain led us back to the saloon, he said:
‘You see, on this little ship there is no room for. . .
‘Yes?’ cried the doctor gruffly. ‘I understand. On capitalist ship there is room only for profit-making cargo and for first class passengers. For workers there is only such a place, a hole near ship’s bottom, with bilge, where situation is very much against laws of Soviet hygiene. It is terrible. Goodbye. Thank you very much.’
On our way back to the ship he kept smiling.
‘The situation is such,’ he said. ‘Such an old fool has no social life. He loves ship but he does not love his brothers the crew.’
‘That is only natural,’ I said. ‘If he loses the ship he cannot get another very probably. But he can get a different crew very probably every day in the week.’
‘But that is inhuman,’ he said.
I was going to argue with him when I suddenly remembered that it was both useless and immoral to argue with a man who has a religion. And yet one cannot help smiling at the inconsistency of Marxian logic. For if a man’s attitude towards life is governed by his economic position in life, surely it would have been immoral for the captain to care more for the crew than for the ship. And if there is no god all things are equally just and permissible, the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalist as well as the revolutionary activities of the proletariat, the slaughter of revolutionaries by the police as well as the slaughter of the bourgeoisie by the red terror.
The captain was very angry at the speed with which his ship was loaded. As a matter of fact the capitalists of Odda managed to get him out of port on the eve of the first of May. Wondering why he was not in a hurry to get to Leningrad with his cargo as soon as possible, in order to help finish the Five Year Plan in four years, I questioned him on the matter. He smiled and said:
‘Very good fun May day. Rival processions of Communists and Social Democrats. I would like very much to see it.’
But we had our own demonstration at sea. The stewardesses painted revolutionary slogans on banners and these were hung up.
‘What sort of celebration are we going to have?’ I asked the chief mate.
‘You see,’ he said. ‘Jews march up and down ship with red flags.’
I saw no Jews marching on the waters with banners. But we had a special meal for all the crew in the dining room. The Jews made speeches, giving thanks for the successful propaganda made in Norway, for the cargo that had been secured for the fulfilment of the Five Year Plan in four years and praying for the speedy deliverance of the worker from the bondage of capitalism.
And then we sailed out of the European Egypt into the Promised Land of Russia.
Chapter VI
I Reach The Promised Land
As we approached Leningrad I began to Feel nervous. Although I had by now become exceedingly friendly with the crew (except with the female third mate, who remained aloof, possibly in order to make an impression on me), the feeling of discomfort I experienced on joining the ship increased almost to a state of fear. There were positively no grounds for it but it persisted in spite of all my efforts to become a Bolshevik.
I thought the captain became more sinister as we approached Russia. The air of intrigue increased. Josef, the gossip, began to frequent my company on deck, whispering more mischievous tittle tattle. He told me among other things that the chief mate had been lampooned in the ship’s wall paper for having got drunk and conducted himself in a lecherous and counter-revolutionary manner with the foreign engineers at Odda. I heard of quarrels between the chief engineer and the captain. I heard of dissatisfaction among the crew about food. Even the doctor, that revolutionary of spotless integrity, was accused.
‘Oh! Yes!’ said Josef. ‘On this ship he is a proletarian and he mixes with the crew on an equal footing. But if he meets the common members of the crew in the streets of Leningrad, he passes by without salutation. Just a casual nod as to a servant.’
And then, in order to turn his mischievous conversation into a joke, he said to me:
‘I see you are learning the Russian alphabet. How many letters are there?’
‘Twenty-eight, I think. But I’m not sure.’
‘Never mind’ said he. ‘Only seven are necessary.’
‘Why? How do you mean?’
‘I and A for the automatic telephone. C and P for the Communist Party. G, P and U for the rest of us.’
Then he skipped off singing.
It was the dynamic power of Russia that the ship began to feel. Just as the ship’s power disintegrated on approaching Norway, so it now disintegrated on approaching Russia. Before, it was sapped by something lifeless, which it could not infuse with its own vitality. Now it was swallowed by a turbulent force, into which it rushed whirling. That was the force that terrified me and which caused all the murmurs of discontent aboard the ship.
The weather being fine, the men had target practice every day on deck. Shore rations were distributed. They prepared for going on shore exactly like soldiers going into camp.
I was looking over the side as we passed a small island off the Baltic coast. The captain approached me and said:
‘Come on the bridge with me. I want to show you something on that island.’
I went on the bridge and examined the island through his glasses. I could see nothing but a forest that came down almost to the water’s edge. I told him so.
‘Ha!’ he cried in a sinister tone. ‘You can see nothing. It’s well concealed, their bloody plot. But I tell you, although you see only trees and a deserted place, this island is anothe
r Heligoland, bought by the bourgeoisie to make war on Soviet Russia. It was bought by the English from this bloody little republic that was once part of the Russian Empire and is now paid by the English to act as a buffer state against the advance of the Soviet Union. The bloody swine are building an aerodrome on it. They are preparing to jump on us from that place, to murder our women and children and destroy our machines with their bombs. Ha!’
He struck the rail a violent blow and cried:
‘But we’ll drive the bastards back, as our forefathers drove back Napoleon and the combined forces of Imperialist Europe. The Soviet Union is indestructible. We shall fight them to the last peasant and to the last hut and to the last crust of black bread.’
I could see no hangars. I saw no activity whatsoever on the island. If there were any Englishmen there, they must have been lying asleep in the forest or having a game of billiards somewhere in a cave. But perhaps the captain was right and that there were Englishmen hiding in the trees. On the other hand, it is equally possible that the captain’s imagination was running away with him. His subconscious desire to conquer Europe may have prompted him to believe that the English were aware of this desire and wished to forestall it.
Be that as it may, the island, with its suggestion of secret plots, and wars, hangars, and Englishmen hiding in trees, increased my terror of Russia.
That afternoon my terror became still more intense. On entering the saloon for afternoon tea, I was startled to hear the Leningrad Broadcasting Station. A choir of revolutionary maidens and youths was singing revolutionary songs in Leningrad. Those officers who were listening clapped their hands in unison with the beat of the chorus. Their eyes glittered with excitement and they struck the table violently as the air halted suddenly on a high note, in the strange wild manner of Russian songs. Like all Russian songs, the air was melancholy, but ecstatic and triumphant.
I was exalted by the singing. I could see people wandering over vast plains, searching. I heard the wind singing in the long faded grasses of the steppes. It was a voice weary of wandering, melancholy with suffering, but triumphant in sight of its goal. It was the voice of the children of Russia coming out of the land of bondage, out of servitude, out of savagery, out of subjection to the brutal vastness of their country. It was the voice of a people who had found a prophet and listened to his exhortation and rose up in a mass, united, enthused by his genius. What a tumult! What a host of marching men and women! Famine thins them by millions but they march, pressed on by great hordes in their rear. Their blood is dark like their earth. Their passions are fierce. They are simple like children and savage like the wolves in their forests. Their dancing is barbaric. Their singing is a wild chant, full of the earth’s richness, but terrible to our ears, like the crying of animals in a forest afar off. It is an avalanche, this downpour of countless millions, pouring down on Europe, singing, dancing, wailing, lean with hunger.
The choir ceased. There was a pause during which I remained entranced. Then a man began to speak.
‘Young Communists . . . the industrialisation . . . the socialisation . . . Soviet Union . . . capitalism . . . foreign . . . Lenin . . . your role . . . our revolution . . . our party . . . victory. . . ,.’
Although I could only understand an occasional word, his meaning was plain as if he had spoken in English. It was a pattern speech, exactly like the speeches I had heard on board the ship. It was a war cry urging on these youths to the conquest of the world. What power machinery has given to the apostles of this new religion! For to the unlettered multitudes of Russia, this wireless speech, carried on the empty air, must appear a greater miracle than the rumour of water being changed into wine by a former prophet. Always repeating the same message as from a new Koran:
‘The machine is God and Lenin is his prophet. All power to the proletariat. There are two classes, the working class and the capitalist class. Down with the bourgeoisie. Liquidate illiteracy.’
A host of slogans that are handed down from the prophet Lenin, as the rather foolish sentences of the Koran were handed down from the prophet Mahomed to urge on the Moslems. Phew! The Russian bear is no longer to be mocked, nor must jokes be cracked about his shaggy beard and the lice that were always with him, poor wretch, before he discovered this new god.
The captain sat beside me at tea and talked proudly of the power of wireless.
‘It is only when I return from abroad to the Soviet Union,’ he said, ‘that I realise what wonderful use can be made of wireless. In England and in other bourgeois countries, wireless is used principally to broadcast useless entertainment. In our Union it is used entirely for propaganda, to consolidate existing revolutionary victories and to spread the revolution. I am proud that wireless is a Russian invention. A naval officer invented it, but the Tsar’s government was too stupid to use it, so Marconi got the patent. But that does not matter. Now wireless is doing greater work in Russia than in rest of the world. It is showing our youth the way to travel. We have cleared the foundations. We have destroyed Tsarism. They shall build socialism.’
‘And capitalist Europe? It’s not yet in ruins.’ ‘It shall be brought to ruins. On its ruins perhaps the Soviet Union will engage in the final war, against the Iron Heel of America.’
When I came on deck in the morning we were abreast of Kronstadt. It was my first view of Russian territory and it was not impressive. It was more like an ambitious ruin than the naval headquarters of a great country. The docks were there, the buildings, the monuments; but life seemed to be extinct. Looking at it, I felt ashamed of myself for believing that Russia harboured within its being the dynamic force to conquer the world.
Kronstadt looked like a fresh corpse, which still retains the form of human beauty, but is rapidly becoming a mass of corruption. All the great buildings were still intact, shining in the morning light, all the great offices of Tsarist imperial power. But they were desolate and unkempt. The great docks that were capable of holding scores and scores of ships lay empty. The quays were deserted. All was as silent and forbidding as a great city whose inhabitants have been suddenly cut down by a plague. The destruction of war had not been there, to cheer the mind with an impression of fierce conflict. There was nothing to cheer the mind; just a sad memory that a great empire had passed that way, had used this port as its mouth and then disappeared. A wretched flotilla of Soviet destroyers only increased the impression of miserable desolation. There was a cruiser at anchor as we passed. The men were at exercise on her decks. Our men cheered. The naval men waved their caps. It was revolutionary but sadly lacking in dignity.
We lay for a little while waiting for a pilot. My eyes became attuned to the strangeness of the scene. Then it did not look so desolate. At least I began to understand the desolation. It was not, perhaps, a sign of Russian weakness, but of a change in Russian policy. By looking back over Russian history an interesting theory sprang into my mind with the vividness of a drama. It was that the whole of Russian history, from the beginning of the Tsarist period to the present day and on into the future, is a direct continuation of the will to conquer the world. When the Romanoffs took charge of the savage Russian hordes, it was but natural that their eyes turned towards their native Europe. By the defeat of Sweden, they were enabled to build their headquarters at the mouth of the Neva, a city completely European, where their people were enabled to assimilate European culture, take part in the affairs of Europe and begin to plunder its intelligence. Thither they brought all its philosophies, its literature, its art, its mechancial inventions. They built a fleet and quartered it here at Kronstadt. Then came the Great War, when all the great European nations struggled for hegemony. Down swept the Russian hordes into Germany and Austria and Poland. They were driven back, slaughtered by the million. The Tsars were overthrown. But the Russian colossus reorganised itself and crept away towards the East, away from these doorways into Europe which the European Tsars had built. The wise Lenin, armed with all the newest ideas of European statecraft, retired on Mosc
ow with his people and began a new policy of Russian expansion, towards the East.
Woe to Europe! The ruins of Kronstadt are no guarantee that the Russian bear has mortally wounded himself in his revolutionary debauch. Rather has he become more dangerous, now that he has realised the sea is not his proper element, but that he must sprawl over land to hug his enemies.
The pilot came aboard. We began to prepare for going ashore. Now an interesting question confronted me. Were the stewardesses and the steward human or would they refuse a tip? I first consulted the doctor.
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘whether tipping is permitted in Soviet Union?’
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘It is forbidden. It is considered crime against personal dignity for union member to take tips.’
‘Splendid,’ I said. ‘Travelling must be cheap in the Soviet Union.’
I began with the steward, when I was paying my drink bill. Although I gave him quite a small tip, the wretch threw his arms around my neck and kissed me with great violence on both cheeks. Shuddering with disgust, I pushed him away, but he burst into tears and went on talking for at least ten minutes.
‘Most immoral,’ I thought as I went to look for Dunya.
I tried her with a larger tip, thinking that its size would terrify her, either making her feel it was a bribe or a compromise with her virtue. She accepted it with a cold smile and pocketed the money dexterously, like one who was born to it.
‘Exceedingly immoral,’ I thought, as I sought the other stewardesses.
I had already begun to repent of my experiment as I thrust a pound note, in as brazen a manner as possible, into the face of one of the younger stewardesses. She smiled delightfully, took it between the tips of her fingers and slipped it into the pocket of her apron.
‘Not only immoral but exceedingly expensive,’ I thought, as I rushed to my cabin in order to avoid demoralising my purse and the third stewardess.
I Went to Russia Page 7