Every blow was well judged, but why was he so exasperated with Aleksandr Ivanych? Something had been riling Svechin ever since Guchkov’s arrival. His jest downstairs, about “hatching a plot,” perhaps? Or his mention of the Young Turks? Svechin did not like to be reminded of them. He lashed out again, unsparingly.
“You and your little brothers, the Kadets, are so proud of the way you’re rocking Russia and throwing her off balance. Watch out it doesn’t all come crashing down on your heads.”
Guchkov didn’t take offense but spread his fingers, silently appealing to Vorotyntsev for justice. How could anyone call the Kadets his broth ers, when he had been fighting them for eleven years without a break? He knew too much about the subject, and it was far too complicated to be discussed one-dimensionally. His status didn’t permit him to make excuses for himself to these officers, and it would look like malicious gossip if he said that Milyukov lacked the courage of his convictions, was not straightforward in his actions, and would ruin anything he put his hand to. And if he said that the Fourth Duma was capable neither of cooperating with the government, as the Third Duma had, nor of quarreling with it effectively, it would look as if he felt aggrieved that he had not been elected himself. (You can’t always keep up with your own motivation: perhaps what had prompted his rebellious moves, and made a conspirator of him last autumn, was precisely that—the failure of the Moscow public to elect him even as a member of the proposed deputation to the Tsar. A year ago almost to the day, 7 November, Guchkov had proposed that he and those “little brothers” should unite to provoke the final breach with the regime. But to no avail. The Kadets’ desire to form a government themselves always prevailed over their readiness to take risks. It had taken a whole year of whispering in private apartments just to save the Progressive Bloc.)
Guchkov had a characteristic pose: he held his hand, palm downward, like the peak of a cap, over his eyes, as though shading them from the excessively strong overhead light, or to aid concentration, rested his elbow on the table, and sat looking at the officers.
In this posture the energetic Guchkov looked even more ineffectual than the Kadets. Perhaps in a career of uncompromising awkwardness he had bumped his head against too many walls?
Svechin, red in the face as only a stout fellow who has drunk a little too much can be, showed no mercy.
“They and you alike are destabilizing Russia. I don’t know which of you is worse. You’re all patriots, you all want victory, and want it without risk to yourselves. Those letters of yours bode no good, anything but.”
Vorotyntsev’s heart-to-heart with Svechin had just been getting underway when Guchkov had interrupted. And now that the three of them could be having the most interesting of discussions Svechin had gone berserk. Still, his harsh words had helped Vorotyntsev to see the letter in a different light—to see its affinity with the Kadet newspapers. You could say that the Kadets and Guchkov were trying to outshout each other.
Confused and uncertain, he did nothing to restrain Svechin. The two officers had been drinking and Guchkov had not—and so there was a difference in temperature and in loudness.
Svechin went on, louder than necessary: “It’s the same with Sukhomlinov. He’s an idiot, of course, and a fly-by-night, and he was out of his depth at the War Ministry, but you stopped at nothing to bring him down, in a fight you use fair means or foul, hit wherever it hurts most.”
“It can be like that,” Guchkov said with a faint smile.
“You don’t stop to think about Russia herself! And then what was all that Myasoedov business, the spy who wasn’t a spy? In the middle of a war you played spy games around the War Ministry—just to topple the minister. How could you bring yourself to do it?”
“The man’s been proved to be a spy,” Guchkov said, looking colder, sterner.
Vorotyntsev could see that Svechin was about to launch into a heated argument. He himself knew nothing much about the Myasoedov affair, what he had read in the papers was pretty vague, and he would have been interested to hear more about it, but he did not want the whole conversation to break down at that point.
“The important thing,” he said, cutting Svechin short, “is not who is denounced by Guchkov, but what Guchkov has done in real terms for the army.”
Svechin was, as a rule, a self-controlled skeptic, but once roused there was no holding him.
“Another thing, Aleksandr Ivanovich, you’d do better not to pamper the War Industry Committees the way you do. You’re always cooking up some congress or other.”
Guchkov, looking hurt, lowered his shading hand.
“And who do you think is performing your industrial miracle if not the War Industry Committees? I’m proud of my participation in them.”
“But why do you rip us off? Why do you charge us double? Why does a gun from a state factory cost seven thousand and one of yours twelve? All you civic-minded people are busy forcing up prices, via the ministry. You build factories where they aren’t needed, so as to ruin state enterprises. And what concern of yours are the railway plans for 1922? Why have you got Social Democrats on your committees? Don’t tell us they’re rooting for victory! Maybe they’re nosing out the best way to blow everything up?”
“You mean the Workers’ Group? The whole idea is that it’s better to let them sit in with me as assistants and consultants than to have them tramping the streets with red flags. What are we supposed to do if the regime … I know this regime of ours: the government is incapable of doing anything itself, yet doesn’t want help when it’s offered. With a regime like this, victory will be impossible if we don’t intervene.”
What did he mean by “intervene”? Was he thinking only of the War Industry Committees? Vorotyntsev was all eyes, trying to see beneath the surface, to miss nothing. But there it was again! How it grated! “Everything for victory!” But “for victory” did not necessarily mean “for Russia.” (And if the war effort is as badly organized as Guchkov’s letter says, dare we continue?)
“Put yourself in the government’s place and you’ll really have something to howl about!” Even the chair was too stationary for Svechin and he started rocking it onto its back legs. “The government wouldn’t be worth a damn if it gave way to you all along the line. And that still goes whether the ministers of the day are out-and-out reactionaries or ultraliberals. They’re the ministers—they have to govern, not the parliamentary speechmakers or the War Industry Committees. As things are, every congress you arbitrarily convene meets only to put pressure on the government and demand the universal franchise. When you people talk about fulfilling your civic duty to your motherland you mean working to overthrow the regime.”
Like a great round boulder rolling downhill and coming to rest right under your feet, blocking your way, Svechin had cut across and ruined the meeting with Guchkov to which Vorotyntsev had so eagerly looked forward. Hopeless to try to check him now that the drink was going to his head. And—damn it—much of what he said was right. The government really was incompetent, and that was what was so horrible.
Guchkov answered calmly, apparently oblivious of Svechin’s brusqueness.
“However, if organized society is engaged in serving the motherland, it naturally demands political rights for itself at the same time.”
Svechin, in a dark fury, rocked back on his chair and said, “They have simply sensed that the regime lacks support and started scrambling for power. If the regime shows weakness—seize it by the throat! Change the state structure to suit them, right in the middle of a war; that’s what they’re asking! They must be out of their minds!”
Svechin’s answer was for Guchkov—but perhaps it was meant for Vorotyntsev too? Perhaps Svechin was answering in advance the thoughts he was not ready to voice?
Well, if it isn’t the system that needs changing, what is it? Suppose that, without a change of monarch, we have a new government—should it be composed of Kadets? Not worth exerting yourself for them. These were the important things they should be
discussing, but the conversation had gone off the rails. Now that a lucky change of circumstances had brought them together he must not part from Guchkov with nothing resolved. But, given Guchkov’s unique situation, only he himself could broach the subject.
Guchkov adjusted his pince-nez before his prominent eyes and said, “Well, winning the war with such an incompetent government is indeed impossible!”
Of course he was thinking of something! A plan for some sort of coup must surely be ripening in such a mind!
“What must we do to win, then?” The legs of Svechin’s chair struck the floor with a sound like the gnashing of teeth. “Set thatches on fire?”
This was where the bouillon was brought in, with a dish of hot pies. Those smells! Vorotyntsev and Svechin had each downed a bowl of fish soup earlier, but they happily ladled out the bouillon. And took a swig of that long-forgotten ice-cold vodka to help it down. Gr-r-r-r-reat!
All this had a soothing effect on Svechin. He stopped rocking.
Guchkov also sipped a little hot bouillon, with an invalid’s enjoyment.
“Of course not,” he said when the waiter had left. “I’m completely against arson and that sort of thing. That is just what the Kadets won’t understand—that you must not sow thoughts of revolution among the masses.”
Vorotyntsev could not have been more pleased: Guchkov was not passively waiting for upheavals, as the Kadets were, he wanted action to prevent them. Just what Vorotyntsev had hoped to hear.
Svechin spoke in a more conciliatory tone. “They don’t understand some things, Aleksandr Ivanych, but others they understand better than you. I can tell you from personal experience that we sometimes act on other people’s ideas without realizing it. We don’t notice that we are under their influence. You, now, imagine that you are carrying through a bold, independent program, whereas in reality you are unthinkingly acting in accordance with some Masonic scheme. Honestly and truly now—although I don’t suppose you’ll tell me—are you a Mason yourself?”
He was joking, of course. Or was he? He stared hard at Guchkov.
Guchkov’s face was guileless, his brow untroubled, and he laughed in turn.
“Honestly and truly, I personally was never invited to join or if I ever was it wasn’t meant seriously. I sense that some people are joining something or other for some reason. But I would never join myself. I am a monarchist, and that in itself is reason enough for not being a Mason. Freemasonry is moral corruption: you look people in the eyes and lie to them. An unmanly game. Whatever it is you want to do you should act openly, straightforwardly—why all this hole-and-corner stuff, why the masks? As I see it, you can make history and you can explain history without Masonic secrets. You can strive to bring about great historical changes by straightforward, clearly visible actions.”
Well said, indeed! And if Guchkov had really not been invited to join those only dimly visible and vaguely frightening Masons, they dwindled into something cowering in a corner.
It was always the same with Svechin. After a drink or two with friends he became more contrary than ever, and used rougher language than he would have permitted himself on duty.
“Still, you mustn’t be so pleased with yourself, Aleksandr Ivanych. Without ever joining them, you can, involuntarily and unconsciously, support a line which, Masonic or not, is certainly Jewish. You think you’re independent, but …”
“M-e-e-e?”
“You-ou-ou! It’s a knack the Jews have. Every crucial situation, every important person—they’ll be there manipulating. That nobody Rasputin—once he became influential, there they were, all over him. As for you … Think about it. Is your attitude toward the government any different from theirs? And they don’t give a damn what becomes of Russia.”
Guchkov planted his elbows firmly on the table.
“That, in fact, is one of the things which divide us from the Kadets.”
“How, exactly?” Svechin asked challengingly.
“I’ll tell you. To hear the Kadets talk, the Jewish question is just about the most important political question of all. It stands at the head of their political program. According to the Kadets, the main aim of the war is equality of rights for the Jews, not the continued existence of Russia, her very survival. On that point all Kadets are as one man. In the first three Dumas they blocked legislation on equal rights for the peasants—demanding a simultaneous grant of equal rights to the Jews—and ended by scrapping the whole thing. The Kadets can’t get it into their heads that these two reforms are not equally urgent for Russia. Nor equally overdue. Whereas we …”
Svechin dismissed all this with a wave of his big hand. “You’re no less obsessed with them. All the lawyers are Jews. All those in the press gallery of the Duma are Jews. If they are so downtrodden, how is it that the task of expressing and influencing public opinion is entrusted to them? A few puny right-wing papers are financed by dubious money, but does the whole liberal press rely on clean money? Where does the money come from? It’s Jewish money, of course. Which means that they control the papers. Just look at the names of the publishers. It’s not quite two years since the Pale of Settlement ceased to exist and the two capitals and all the other towns are teeming with them. As of this year sixty or even eighty percent of the students in some universities will be Jewish. Commerce has thrown its doors wide open to them, and all trade passes through their hands. Take the Putyatin works—rotten shrapnel, by the way, it’s produced by Rabinovich, who’s paid Putyatin for the use of his name. How many factories like that does your War Industry Committees have? And Jewish sugar merchants are shipping Russian sugar to Germany on the sly! Oppressed? The hell they are! They’re like a compressed spring. It will snap back one of these days—and the impact will be terrible!”
Guchkov raised a restraining finger. “A spring snaps back,” he said, still carefully excluding all trace of excitement from his voice, “when it is compressed too far. Just don’t press too hard.”
“There you are, you see.” Stubborn, mocking, impossible Svechin was rocking on his chair, and on his hobbyhorse again. “You pander to them. You join them in lambasting the government and the Sovereign. Would you ever have the nerve to say one-eighth as much against them? No, never! And why? That’s what should be called ‘Judophobia’! Downtrodden, are they?! They’ll show us who’s boss one of these days! Whoever lets the chosen people on board soon finds himself shipping water. Russia will be another of their victims.”
“No, no, no!” Vorotyntsev felt it was time to butt in. “No, no. Don’t try to twist the facts. If we’re losing our way and heading downhill fast, we have ourselves to blame.” He was vexed that this rare occasion was again taking such a futile turn and looked like ending nowhere. “I’ve observed for many years past that the Jewish question is such a thorny one, with so many ramifications, that whatever the subject there’s no avoiding it. There’s no solution either, yet nobody is indifferent to it. At the same time …”
Guchkov took off his pince-nez to wipe them. Painstaking inspection of them seemed to absorb his attention completely. Without pince-nez he looked sicker and sadder, but also more profoundly thoughtful.
“It is,” he said, “a subtle peculiarity of the Jewish question that you are drawn into it willy-nilly, and find yourself helplessly admitting that it is the greatest, the most acute, most urgent, and most characteristic of all our problems. No other subject so conclusively determines our judgment of a person, of his political and even his moral profile. We find ourselves thinking that when, and only when, the Jewish problem is solved the state’s other problems will all be easy to resolve.” Guchkov smiled. “The Kadets, now, have let themselves be taken in, and swallowed all that. But you too, Viktor Andreich, have fallen victim—to the opposite way of looking at it.”
The simplest way of distracting them from this argument was to hurry them along to a simple solution. Vorotyntsev took up where Guchkov had left off, speaking quickly.
“Everybody is in such a hurry to occ
upy one of two extreme positions on the Jewish question, ignoring all others. For some people the Jews are an undifferentiated mass of noble sufferers, who must be loved without exception. Not even individual Jews may be censured, since any reproach will reflect on them all. For others, all Jews are sinister and malicious conspirators, you must hate them in the mass and may not like even individuals without arousing suspicion. Any attempt to qualify these judgments, any reluctance either to detest heartily or to love dearly every single one of them, is indignantly repulsed by both sides. But there are thousands of questions on which only the middle view is fruitful. Surely, gentlemen, this is a question on which we should take a middle position. I for one claim to stand firmly in the middle. I will most decidedly never consent to hand Russia over to the condescending leadership of the Jews—even if it is only intellectual leadership. But I have no ill will toward them, and no desire to oppress them.”
“In other words, you’d give them their head?” Svechin thundered, with undiminished asperity. “They’ll soon show you who’s boss! That’s the secret, don’t you see? They cannot and never will accept equality. Give them an inch and they’ll be on top of you in no time!”
“I think, perhaps,” Guchkov said, concentrating on the problem, contemplating his pince-nez as though they were the greatest of riddles, “that I too occupy the middle ground. What I and … certain like-minded people think is this. The Jews have been sent to us for a purpose. Not every country has six million of them, but we have. The destinies of the Russian and the Jew were meant, for whatever reason, to intertwine. Whether they will ever be disentwined I do not know. The spiteful glee of a Herzenstein, who called the burning of manor houses ‘rural illuminations,’ makes him of course an alien soul. What made that so painful for us was that those Russian peasants didn’t realize what they were doing, didn’t realize that Russia was burning and wrecking herself, while a member of the Russian parliament … well, he’s dead now … Then again, I shall not claim that the Jews in general love us. And for my part I confess that I have no great love for them. Still, they have been sent to us. And since the state is ours we have to make this entwinement generally acceptable. But in Europe, you say … Europe has treated them more harshly than we have. The Pale of Settlement? When it existed it did nothing at all to hinder the rapid growth of Jewish trade, industry, and banking. Our country is dependent in time of war on international Jewish money. And, oh yes, they are all-powerful in the periodical press. Art criticism and theater criticism are both in their hands. They must not be admitted to officer rank—that would endanger the national spirit. Not that this is one of their ambitions. Nor must they be allowed to own great landed estates. But none of this means that we should oppress them.”
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