The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  Ironically, Lenin himself was a democrat. He once wrote, “Whoever tries to approach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at the most absurd and reactionary conclusion.” At best, he saw a dictatorship as temporary, until the proletariat attained economic and social prominence. At the worst, there would be in Russia a kind of democratic dictatorship, in that it represented the overwhelming majority of the population.

  Paul was willing to bend to achieve a worthy goal. But he wasn’t sure how much bending he could do without breaking. He simply was not the kind of diehard Marxist Social Democrat that Lenin usually surrounded himself with.

  But Paul was not surrounding Lenin much at all these days. Claiming poor health as an excuse, Paul had, since the congress, curbed his activities in the organization. His health, in fact, could be better, but it wouldn’t have proved a burden if he had been in a mental state to work in the way he knew was expected of him.

  If only—

  “Paul, you have that faraway look in your eyes again.”

  Paul’s head jerked up sharply. Mathilde’s approach had startled him, and he grinned sheepishly.

  “I made no promises,” he said.

  “Yes, but I had hoped this little excursion would help you lay aside your worries and inner debates for a while.”

  “Believe me, that’s what I want also. My endless thinking only seems to lead me around in a circle.”

  “Come with me—we’ll walk those thoughts out of your head.”

  “Or, talk them out?”

  “We shall see.”

  They walked for half an hour by the little stream, its gentle gurgling, mixed with the occasional rustling of leaves, providing an idyllic and relaxing setting for the couple’s afternoon stroll. Paul truly wanted nature to work its calming magic upon him. But he sensed the tension within him had a purpose that he must respect.

  A time of decision was coming—he must finally make the choice he had been putting off for years. Either he would stand wholeheartedly with Lenin, or . . .

  Well, if he knew what else, his decision would not be nearly as difficult.

  17

  Paul quietly sat with a glass of hot tea in his hand while Lenin read the article he had just finished for Iskra. They were in the kitchen of Lenin’s tiny flat in a working-class neighborhood of Geneva. The kitchen was the largest room of the house and served as the main meeting place for guests. It was usually a crowded and busy spot, furnished mostly with packing crates serving as chairs. A large enamel kettle filled with water sat on the stove, steaming and ready for the steady stream of visitors who often came unannounced.

  Paul had been glad when he arrived that only Lenin and his wife, Krupskaya, were present.

  Lenin glanced up from his reading and tapped the page with his pencil. “This statement here sounds rather conciliatory.”

  Paul leaned across the low “table” of crates and read the indicated statement. Lenin’s incisive observation was especially keen today.

  “It’s intended to be that way,” said Paul. “I still believe it is in the best interest of the party to find some common ground.”

  “I doubt that’s possible after the vicious depths to which Martov and his Mensheviks have sunk. I have tried—ask anyone! No one knows better than I what this rift is doing to our strength. Many of our supporters are reluctant to give us money. Several people no longer wish to offer their houses as secret meeting places. Even after my victory at the congress, I let the Mensheviks have a place on the board of Iskra. I even offered to resign. Krupskaya, isn’t it true? Haven’t I been in agony over this whole thing? Haven’t I tried everything?”

  Lenin went on for ten more minutes about the split and all its ramifications and repercussions. He took every opportunity to expound on this issue, usually with great passion, to anyone who would listen. Paul wondered if the most difficult part of the whole matter was the fact that Martov had been one of Lenin’s closest friends.

  Lenin was so obsessed by these affairs that he hardly took note of the momentous events in Russia. He had only mentioned the war briefly two or three times since it began, and that was only to say that the way things were going for Russia in Asia, the war would be a good boost to the revolution, for it would show the masses the ineptness of the Imperial government. It was the same with the entire exile population; any mention of the war was merely in passing.

  But the split in the party was another matter. All those in the emigré community—at least the Social Democrats—were depressed over the squabble. It seemed to dominate everything and even was being felt among party members in Russia. By comparison, the war was a mere speck of dust on the horizon.

  All at once Lenin leveled his narrow, piercing eyes at Paul. “Are you one of those conciliators, Pavlikov? I have no use for you, then. I’d rather have a small fish completely devoted to the cause than a big beetle I can’t depend upon.”

  Paul didn’t know how to answer the question, or even if Lenin wanted an answer. It sounded as if Lenin already knew. But Paul was spared immediate comment by a knock at the door.

  Three young men entered. Paul recognized one as Stephan Kaminsky from Katyk, the other two were named Chicherin and Lunacharsky. The room immediately filled with energetic chatter as Krupskaya placed glasses of tea in the visitors’ hands and they found crates on which to perch. Conversation quickly turned to party affairs. These men were unreserved Bolsheviks and devoted to Lenin.

  Paul himself could not help being caught up in the zestful spirit. Yes, he had his differences, but wasn’t that the nature of freedom, their very goal?

  They talked for over an hour. Lenin was making plans to start another newspaper as an alternative to Iskra, which had become pro-Menshevik. It was to be called Vperyod, or Forward. Money needed to be raised, and plans were being made for Lenin to begin a speaking tour to help the cause.

  “We must have a mouthpiece for the party, an organ to spread our message!” Lenin exclaimed.

  Paul thought of the name of the paper—Forward! That’s really what it was all about, moving forward. That’s what Lenin was doing. And what Paul wanted to do. He had been working toward this goal for nearly thirty years, had sacrificed and suffered much in order to see the dream of freedom for Russia realized. True, he often felt as if he were acting out the title to Lenin’s recent pamphlet, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back,” but the path he had chosen had never been easy. Why should he expect it to be any different now?

  He and this small band of revolutionaries were attempting to radically change an entire nation, the largest nation in the world. More than that, they were trying to topple a system that had reigned for nearly three hundred years! It was pure delusion to think they could do so without some compromise of ideals. Even Lenin was known to compromise occasionally, especially when he knew it would benefit the greater goals. In fact, Lenin had probably compromised some of his “ideals” by working with Paul all these years. After all, Paul had criticized Marxism and expressed doubts about the idea of a “popular dictatorship.” But Lenin knew Paul was a level-headed, dedicated man, and no matter what he said about “fish” and “beetles,” such men were hard to find, especially one who could write as well as Paul.

  When a lull came in the lively conversation, Paul rose to leave. Mathilde had expected him home an hour ago.

  Lenin held out Paul’s article. “Are you willing to work on this, Paul?”

  “Yes, Ilyich, I am.”

  “I’d like to use it in the first issue of Vperyod.”

  “I want to be part of it.”

  “No conciliation?”

  “You know, Ilyich, I am dedicated completely—my whole heart!—to the revolution. If that’s not enough for you, then you are asking the impossible.”

  Lenin chuckled. “I always knew you were a good man, my friend. I’ll try not to wear you out with the impossible.”

  “Then good day to you all,” Paul said as he gathered up his hat a
nd coat.

  “Give our regards to Mathilde,” Lenin called as Paul left.

  Paul felt good as he walked away, even lighthearted. He had finished his article and taken it to Lenin that day with the express purpose of trying to resolve some of his inner conflicts. He had feared the resolution would take the form of a break with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Now he could go on, do the work he wanted to do—needed to do—and not fuss with minor inconsistencies. Leave that to the Martovs and others. Paul had better things to do.

  He kissed his wife passionately when he arrived home. After she caught her breath, she examined him closely.

  “Ilyich and Krupskaya send their regards,” Paul said casually.

  “Is that all? I thought perhaps the revolution had already taken place.”

  Paul laughed. “Not without me, it won’t!”

  “You’re the only one who ever doubted that, my dear.”

  “Do you mind if I desert you for a while this afternoon? I have work to do—a lot of work.”

  Mathilde watched with pleasure as her husband sat at his desk. How glad she was that the people who had the flat before them had left it behind! It made up for the sparsity of other furnishings, and even added warmth to the room that doubled as both parlor and study. Paul shoved aside a couple of large volumes he had been studying—Locke’s Two Treatises on Civil Government and a compilation of Thoreau’s writings open to the essay, “Civil Disobedience.” He laid several sheets of paper on the cleared area, then took up his pen and began writing with an inspired speed.

  Mathilde smiled. She was pleased with the intense set of his mouth and the glint in his eyes. Could it be her husband had finally found his calling?

  18

  Mukden, a teeming collection of a million inhabitants jammed into an area of about four square miles, was a little too far from the action to suit Daniel. The drab town had only one claim to fame—a graveyard. Well, in reality, the graveyard was the Imperial Tombs of the Manchu Dynasty, but they were literally nothing to write home about. Still, all correspondents had been evacuated to Mukden, and here he was resigned to await a new assignment.

  Daniel and several other correspondents were residing in a Buddhist temple. Considering some of the second-rate inns he had been forced to rent in Manchuria, he should have appreciated the peace and cleanliness of the place. But he was coming up with fewer and fewer dispatches to send home, and he was anxious for a story with some meat in it. During the day he roamed about town cornering officers, especially those that appeared to have newly arrived, attempting to extract from them any news of action at the front. The correspondents were starting to behave like hungry vultures.

  One day near the beginning of August, Daniel had been about his usual business. A morning downpour had kept him indoors, but the minute the rains stopped, he had taken to the streets and had spoken to several Russian soldiers. Then he made his way to the Green Dragon Inn, near the East Gate, where the newspaper correspondents often congregated to refresh themselves, exchange gossip, and hopefully hear the latest war news.

  Entering the inn, Daniel went to a table where several reporters were seated. He knew them all well, and they greeted him enthusiastically. He ordered an ale and reclined in a vacant chair.

  “That rain did nothing for the heat,” Daniel said, mopping his perspiring brow.

  “At least it dampened the dust a bit,” said William Greener, a British correspondent for the Times.

  “Give it an hour!” complained Dick Little of the Chicago Tribune.

  The men continued to chat as Daniel’s ale arrived. No major campaigns were afoot, only a few skirmishes. The Japanese advance up the railway had halted after Telissu because of supply shortage. The biggest news had come a few days ago, when the Japanese took the important Motienling Pass. Until then the mountains had proved a formidable barrier to the Japanese invasion of the Liaotung Peninsula. The Russians had tenaciously held all the passes, but the Japanese army, deployed in three strategic positions, was numerous and strong. And Kuropatkin, the Russian commander in chief, had weakened his forces considerably by sending a fifth of his troops to bolster the defense of Port Arthur, a gesture that garnered him some criticism.

  Daniel had heard it all before and let his mind wander to more pleasant topics. Mariana Remizov. He still could not believe his good fortune in running into her here. How many times over the years had he imagined seeing her again? He hated to admit what a romantic dope he was at heart. But she had done something that no other woman had ever done; she had touched his heart in a way that he still could only begin to fathom.

  For one thing, as he had realized when his father died, she had been a friend. All the other girls he had known before and since Mariana had been merely romantic liaisons—girls to date, take to parties, kiss when he could get them alone, and generally to woo and charm. He had done, or tried to do, all those things with Mariana, of course, but something happened between wooing and dating that had quite surprised him. Mariana had talked to him—really talked, not the banal chatter he had experienced with other girls. She had shared her heart and even her soul with him, and in a way he would never understand, she had gotten him to do the same. Not a man to wear his heart on his sleeve, he had told Mariana more about himself than he had to any other person. He had tried to kiss her a couple times, but she had been engaged to that oaf Kaminsky and had discouraged his romantic intentions. In the long run, the friendship that ensued had been better than a romance. He had never had a real friend before Mariana.

  Too late, he realized that friendship was fragile. Only after he arrived back in America did he begin to understand just what his relationship with Mariana had meant. His father’s death had made him acutely aware of lost opportunities. There had been so much more he had wanted to say to his father, but it was all forever left unsaid.

  With Mariana, at least, there had been a possibility of recapturing what they had shared. But his unanswered letters had put an end to that hope. He might be persistent in reporting, but her rejection was too hard even for him to take. And later, after he had slipped away from his pursuit of God, he would have been too embarrassed to see her.

  Then, suddenly, there she was.

  Finding her, way out here, was almost like another miracle. But why would God perform miracles for the likes of him? It did make him think twice—he was certainly no heathen, even if he hadn’t given much time to spiritual matters recently. Daniel had even found himself whispering a brief prayer of thanksgiving after first encountering Mariana. He might not be a fanatic, but he did like to give credit where credit was due.

  And that same night after he had parted from Mariana, Daniel had promised—whether to God or just to himself, he didn’t know—that he would take better care of their relationship this time. Whether their friendship blossomed into romance or not, he was determined not to mess it up again.

  No need to rush things, though. She had to learn to trust him again. But Daniel had learned his lesson and wasn’t about to make any more mistakes with Mariana.

  What they needed was more days like those few they had spent together in the field hospital. Mariana had worked a lot, but they had found time to be together. Perhaps not like in St. Petersburg—you could hardly go picnicking in a war zone. But they made the best of it. He smiled when he thought of one evening in particular. Mariana had gotten off duty late, about ten at night. Daniel ran into her on the way to the mess tent for a late supper. She had looked so beautiful—her uniform was stained and wrinkled, her hair was pulled back haphazardly, and damp strands tumbled into her eyes. But to Daniel she looked exquisite. This was no pampered society girl. She was very much a participant in life, and Daniel found that enormously attractive.

  In the mess tent there was nothing left to eat but cold meat pies, bread, and hot tea. But at least they were almost alone; only three other people were hungry enough to eat at that hour.

  Mariana put a greasy pie on a plate and wrinkled her nose distastefully. “Mayb
e if I close my eyes I can imagine we are sitting under a tree in a garden, enjoying my father’s cook’s delicious food.”

  “Okay, my lady,” Daniel said, “close your eyes, and let’s see what happens.”

  While Mariana’s eyes were shut, Daniel hastily set to work. He grabbed a cook’s apron hanging from a hook, spread it on a table, then took the tallest glass he could find, filled it with a couple of wooden spoons and a spatula, and placed it in the center of the apron.

  “Voila, madame! Come join me on the banks of the Neva.” Mariana opened her eyes and giggled. “See the lovely flowers—” He gestured toward the glass. “And listen to the river rushing by!”

  “This is absolutely wonderful, Daniel! Just what I needed.” Mariana set her plate down and slipped onto the bench. Daniel got them both glasses of tea.

  The conversation turned to more serious matters as Mariana talked about her hospital work, her patients, things she was learning. Daniel listened.

  “It can get pretty intense here,” she said. “There are moments when I wonder if I’ll make it.”

  “If anyone can do it, you will, Mariana.”

  “I have to keep reminding myself of how certain I was that this is where God wanted me to go.”

  She talked about God so naturally, as she would about her mama or her papa. He almost asked her about it, but stopped himself when he remembered where such a question might lead. He wasn’t ready to reveal his inadequacies in this area. Still, his silence left him frustrated.