Platten’s brow is convulsed, his eyes strained and bewildered. How difficult, how terribly difficult it is to master the lofty science of socialism! These grandiose formulas somehow refuse to fit in with your own poor limited experience. War is a fraud and neutrality is a fraud—so neutrality is just as bad as war? … But a sideways glance at your comrades shows you that they understand it all, and you are ashamed to admit that you don’t, so you pretend.
(It was not just facile phrasemongering. He had brought forth these ideas in a fit of inspiration on his journey across Austria, written a definitive summary of them when he reached Bern, introduced them in a Central Committee manifesto, then defended them in his tussle with Plekhanov at Lausanne. You could know your Marxism inside out and still not find the answer when a real crisis burst upon you: the man who finds it makes an original discovery. In the autumn of 1914, when four-fifths of Europe’s Socialists had taken a stand in defense of the fatherland, while one-fifth timidly bleated “for peace,” Lenin alone in the ranks of world socialism had pointed the way for the others: for war!—but a different war!—and immediately!!)
Lenin too has a mug of beer in front of him. The Swiss politician at the tavern table is a species he can’t endure, but this is the ritual. Bronski looks sleepy and imperturbable as always. But Radek, with the black whiskers that run from ear to ear under his chin, with his hornrimmed glasses, his quick glance, and his buckteeth, restlessly switching his eternally smoking black pipe from corner to corner of his mouth—Radek has heard it all before, and now finds it too elementary, too tame, and too slow.
“… The petty ambition of petty states to stand aloof from the great battles of world history …”
Platten is quietly floundering, trying not to give himself away. The idea of world revolution is easy to understand but it is so difficult to apply to his Switzerland. His mind consents. Since they have avoided the universal bloodbath, they mustn’t sit calmly by but summon the people to class battles. But his heart is unreasonable: it is good that in those houses clinging to the mountain ledges peasants can live in peace, that the men are all at home, that grass is mown in the meadows four times in a summer, however steep the slopes may be, that the tall barns will be filled to the roof with the store of hay, that the tinkling of hundreds of little bells, sheep bells and cow bells, sounds from spur to spur, as though the mountains themselves were ringing.
“… The narrow-minded egoism of privileged small nations …”
The plodding walk of herdsmen. Now and then, the deafening crack of a bullwhip on the stony road, echoing through the folds in the hills. Water troughs at mountain springs, long enough for twenty cows to drink. Shifting winds over swaying grass, shifting mists steaming over wooded gorges, and when sunlight breaks through the rain, there may be no room for the rainbow’s arc, and it will stand upright like a pillar on the mountain. The quiet inscription on a hostel in the wilderness: “The motherland shelters her children with her forest cloak.”
“… Industry bound up with tourism … Your bourgeoisie trades in the beauties of the Alps, and your opportunists help them at it …”
Platten gives up his attempt at concealment, and innocently, trustingly, his face reflects his doubts.
Lenin has noticed! From where he sits at the corner of the table—the only older man among all those youngsters, looking well over fifty—he strikes home with a swift, shrewd, sideways thrust.
“… A republic of lackeys! That’s what Switzerland is!”
The keynote of his harangue.
Radek guffaws happily, deftly switches his pipe—the fingering is different every time—and sucks in imposing quantities of damp smoke. Willi mischievously tries to catch Teacher’s eye, his long hands writhing impatiently: encore! encore!
Platten isn’t arguing. Platten is merely puzzled. Perhaps his country is like an ornate hotel, but lackeys are obsequious, fussing and fawning, while the Swiss are staid and dignified. Even ministers’ wives don’t keep lackeys, but beat their own carpets.
(But it had never been known for a letter to go astray in Switzerland, and the libraries were magnificently run: books were sent without charge and immediately to remote pensions in the mountains.)
“… Sops for docile workers in the form of social reforms—to persuade them not to overthrow the bourgeoisie …”
It has taken three weeks of effort to arrange this meeting and they have finally got them all together on the evening of Friday, the third—the eve of the Party Congress. Radek has been a great help, made himself very useful.
(When Radek was nice, he was really nice, a super pal. At present there was no living without him. And how well he spoke and wrote German! He took the sharpest bends in the road with ease—there was no need to waste time explaining. A scoundrel, but a brilliant one—such people were invaluable. But at times he was loathsome. In Bern they had avoided meeting, communicated through the mail, and in February broken off relations forever. At the Kienthal Conference he had spoken like an out-and-out provocateur.)
“… The Swiss people are more cruelly hungry every day, and risk being drawn into the war and killed in the interests of capitalism …”
Nobs’s skeptical amber cigarette holder balances unaided on his nether lip.
(What a business it had been, starting, without a single supporter in Europe, the struggle for the renewal of the International, or rather its demolition and the construction of a new, Third International. At one minute scraping together any of the Bolshevik émigrés who would agree to come; the next, rallying with Grimm’s help three dozen women—the International Conference of Socialist Women—and, since he could hardly attend in person to give them the guidance they needed, sitting for three days in the café of the Volkshaus while Inessa, Nadya, and Zinka Lilina ran to report and ask for instructions.)
“… Will you go to the slaughter for interests which are foreign to your own? Or will you instead make great sacrifices for socialism, for the interests of nine-tenths of mankind?”
(Then there was the International Socialist Youth Conference. They had mustered fewer than a score, mostly people who had evaded the call-up and were sure to be against the war, and again he had sat in the same café for three days, while Inessa and Safarov trotted to him for instructions. This was when Willi had appeared on the scene.)
If you’re twenty-seven, with ten turbulent years of the youth movement behind you—meetings, organizations, conferences, demonstrations … And if, among your peers, you discover that you have a voice, courage, luck—people listen to you, you rise step by step as though to a platform where you can be seen better, and suddenly find yourself in demand as a public speaker, delegate, secretary … And the party leaders immediately try to draw you into their orbit, and urge you not to listen to that Asiatic with his wild ideas, yet it is from him and from the incendiary Trotsky that you always learn what is right and what matters!
“… ‘Defense of the fatherland’ is a fraud on the people, and can never be ‘war for democracy.’ And Switzerland is no different …”
Twenty-seven! The things he’d been through! His mother’s early death, beatings from his stepmother, beatings from his father, serving in his father’s tavern, playing cards and talking politics with the customers, at the washtub under his stepmother’s eye, always suffering because his clothes were ragged and his boots the wrong size, drawn into propaganda work while he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, emigration to Zurich when he was only twenty to work as a pharmacist’s dispenser and join in all the class battles …
In the reddish light from the lamp Münzenberg’s devoted and determined face is trustful and expectant. The tempered strength of his will shows in the sharp jut of his narrow chin. His brows are knit in an eager frown of welcome for revolutionary ideas. He has already often done as Lenin said and the results have been good. He rallied more than two thousand people for a Youth Day on the Zürichberg and led them through the city singing the “Internationale,” waving red flags and shou
ting, “Down with the war!” He had earned an invitation to Kienthal and joined Lenin in signing the resolution of the left.
“… In Switzerland too, ‘defense of the fatherland’ is a humbugging phrase. It paves the way for the massacre of workers and small peasants …”
Schmidt from Winterthur, an ungainly figure at the far end of the bench, is puzzled and peers past his neighbors to say, “The war can’t affect our country, we’re neutral …”
“Ah, but Switzerland may enter the war at any moment!”
Nobs chews his amber holder under his fluffy blond mustache. He smiles like an amiable cat, but his eyes are mistrustful and a tuft of hair stands up like a question mark.
“Of course, refusal to defend the fatherland makes exceptionally high demands on revolutionary consciousness!”
(All his life he had been the leader of a minority, pitting himself with a handful of followers against all the rest, and aggressive tactics had been essential. His tactics were to whittle down the majority resolution as far as he could—and then still not accept it! Either you record our opinion in the minutes or we leave! … But you’re in the minority, why are you dictating to us? … All right—we’re leaving! A breakdown! A public brawl! A disgrace! … That was how it had been at all those conferences, and there had never been a majority that hadn’t weakened. The wind always blows from the far left! No Socialist in the world could afford to ignore that fact. That was why Grimm was so unsure of himself, and why he had hurriedly called the Zimmerwald Conference.)
“… Not a single penny for a regular army, not even in Switzerland! …”
“Not even in peacetime?”
“Even in peacetime Socialists must vote against military credits for the bourgeois state!”
(Lenin had had to wait a long time for his invitation to Zimmerwald, and had been very depressed. Grimm might not summon him, and it would be quite unseemly to force himself on them. What sort of conference would it be anyway? A bunch of silly shits would get together and declare themselves “for peace and against annexations.” For peace—he couldn’t bear to hear those words! … Meanwhile, he had discreetly used his influence to insinuate as many of his supporters as he could into the list of delegates. Those who were against their own governments—they would be the nucleus of a left International! … But they could muster only eight: himself, Grishka, and Radek, that was three, Platten, one Latvian, and three Scandinavians. Still, the whole of the “old” International, fifty years after its foundation, had barely filled the four wagons that carried the participants into the mountains so as not to attract the attention of the authorities, who in fact noticed neither the arrival of the delegates in Switzerland nor their dispersal. They had learned of it only from the foreign press.)
“But the special character of Switzerland …”
“Special character nothing! Switzerland is just another imperialist country!”
Platten recoils. His brow is an open book. He struggles to bring the creases of astonishment under control. His unregenerate heart rebels: our Switzerland may be a tiny country, but surely it is a very special one. Since the three cantons were first united, have we ever annexed anybody? With intense mental effort he strives to accept these advanced ideas. His big, strong, helpless hands lie palm upward on the table.
(Platten was good material to work on. Through Platten alone he could bring the whole Zurich organization into line. If only he would work harder at educating himself.)
“And so we, the Zimmerwald left, are now completely unanimous: we reject defense of the fatherland!”
Some of the awkward squad didn’t understand.
“But if we reject defense of the fatherland, are we to leave the country defenseless?”
“A radically incorrect formulation! The right way to put it is this: either we let ourselves be killed in the interests of the world imperialist bourgeoisie or, at the cost of fewer casualties, we carry out a socialist revolution in Switzerland—the only way to deliver the Swiss masses from rising prices and hunger!”
(In Zimmerwald he had hardly spoken at all, but had directed his left-wing supporters from the shadows. That was the most effective way to deploy his forces. The speechmaking could be safely left to Radek—he’d be witty, resourceful, relaxed, self-confident. His own duty as leader was to weld his small group more firmly together. An ordinary enemy is only half an enemy. But the man who used to be with us and suddenly wobbles off the line is doubly our enemy! We must hit him first and hardest! But it is better to anticipate trouble and prime your followers in caucus between sessions.)
“… The disgusting thing about pacifists is that they dream of peace without a socialist revolution.”
Radek is always ready for marching orders. His pockets bulge with newspapers, books, all he needs for a day: if he has to hurry off to a revolution he can go as he is. How interesting he finds it all!!!
(But the rogue needed watching. He might change sides, might betray, at any minute. And he sometimes got things wrong—trying to reconcile Grimm and Platten, for instance, when it was important to keep them quarreling.)
“… Revolution is absolutely essential for the elimination of war …”
Just look at Bronski, dozing again. He might as well not be here at all. He is only needed so that we have enough people. When his vote is wanted, it will be there. And when required he will say what is required. (Yes, he is stupid. But there are so few of us that every one counts.)
“… Only a socialist system can deliver mankind from war …”
Difficult to say whether Nobs really approves. His eyes and lips sympathize, but his ears are still and his brow is unruffled. Yet he is editor in chief of the main left-wing paper and is effortlessly advancing to the commanding heights of the Party. They all have great need of him.
He needs them too, though. Nobs knows perfectly well that the wind always blows from the left. Small as their group is, it may change the course of the whole Swiss Party. Only he doesn’t want them to be a millstone around his neck.
“… It is illogical for anyone who aims at ending the war to reject socialist revolution …”
(When Liebknecht’s letter was read to the Zimmerwald Conference, Lenin had sprung to his feet shouting: “CIVIL WAR IS A SPLENDID THING!” Caution is all very well nine times out of ten, but the tenth time you must overstep the mark. Take the proletarian slogan—"fraternization”—to the trenches! Preach class struggle to the troops. Tell them to turn their bayonets against their fellow countrymen! THE AGE OF THE BAYONET IS AT HAND! It was risky, of course, for an émigré in a neutral country to carry on like this, but he had always gotten away with it. At Zimmerwald, though, that foul German crook Ledebour had said, “You can put your name to it here, because you’re safe. Why don’t you go to Russia and send your signature?” That was the level of debate with such people!)
“… The Swiss Party is stubbornly stuck in the rut of strict legality and is making no preparations for revolutionary mass struggle …”
From the counter with its two potbellied old barrels and its dozens of colorful bottles a waiter with blunt Swiss features is slowly carrying golden tankards and dark red glasses and tumblers to the table. From the serving hatch another waiter brings yellow trays with thin brown slices of smoked sausage and plates of roast meat or fish. Swiss bellies are unhurriedly packing away inordinately lavish Swiss helpings, each enough for four. And at every glutton’s elbow a second helping is keeping warm over a little flame.
“… The socialist reorganization of Switzerland is perfectly feasible and urgently necessary. Capitalism is completely ripe for transformation into socialism—here and now …”
(At the last session of the Zimmerwald Conference, from midday on all through the night, the left had raised a storm over each amendment, demanded at every turn that its dissenting opinion be recorded, and by these means shifted the revolution considerably to the left. They hadn’t, of course, succeeded in putting through either the “Civil War” or “A
New International” resolution. Still, the Zimmerwald left had emerged as a new wing of the international movement, and Lenin was no longer a mere Russian sectarian, but its chief. The official leadership, however, had remained with the centrists and the hero of the conference in newspapers throughout the world was Grimm. Though not much more than thirty, he was already on the Executive Committee of the International, because he was hand in glove with the opportunists. Lenin had been visiting or living in Switzerland for twenty years on and off, long before Grimm was ever heard of.)
Willi’s thin, eager face. He agrees, agrees completely; but it is essential for him to understand exactly what must be done, and where to start.
“In Switzerland it will be necessary to expropriate … a maximum of … thirty thousand bourgeois at the very most. And of course to seize all the banks right away. And Switzerland will then be a proletarian country.”
From his place by the pillar, Lenin observes them obliquely, his domed brow inclined, bringing the full pressure of his mind and his hard gaze to bear on them, skillfully checking how much each of them has taken in. His thinner hair is a richer red in the light from the lantern.
“Strike at the roots of the present social order by concrete action. And now!”
That is the step which Socialists everywhere find so difficult. Nobs screws up his eyes as though in pain. Even the proletarian from Winterthur looks a bit down in the mouth. And Mimiola’s high starched collar is choking him.
A fine fellow, our Ulyanov, but much too extreme. Nowhere on earth, let alone in Switzerland or Italy, would you find anyone so extreme.
It is hard, so hard on them.
Lenin’s gaze slides rapidly, restlessly over all those heads, so different, yet all so nearly his for the taking.
They all dread his lethal sarcasm.
(When you can’t force something through a narrow opening it often helps to pile on extra weight.)
He addresses the table at large, simultaneously pursuing each of the six Swiss in his thoughts. His voice is tense, but lacking in resonance—it seems always to get lost in his chest, his larynx, or his mouth, and it slurs the r’s.
November 1916 Page 75