The ears in the back of his head told him that he was clean. No reason why anybody should be following him anyway. He’d only just arrived, they hadn’t been expecting him, and were not yet used to seeing him around. Yesterday, they’d been trailing the man he was to meet, not Shlyapnikov himself.
At least relations with the Petersburg Committee were now more or less friendly. All last winter the Petersburgers had been at daggers drawn with the CC. When Shlyapnikov, newly co-opted onto the CC, had turned up they had been reluctant even to recognize him. From their own point of view they were right. But the immediate result was the sort of squabble you always got with intellectuals. Who should be put on the Bureau of the Central Committee? The Petersburgers wanted to pack it with members of their own committee. Shlyapnikov had other ideas. There was more to Russia than just Petersburg. He didn’t just put forward names he’d thought up himself, he had brought a ready-made list of candidates from abroad, but he found on arrival that either they were not in Petersburg at all or else they were lying low somewhere on the outskirts, like Steklov at Mustamyaki, and wouldn’t be drawn in. Or else their line was “different from ours.” The Petersburgers made even bigger demands: wanted him to reveal his means of communication with the Party abroad and with the provinces in case he, Shlyapnikov, got caught. That’s asking a lot! We’ll get caught one of these days, but you’ll come to grief before we do. Then the Petersburgers started throwing insults around: Shlyapnikov’s playing the dictator! Shlyapnikov wants to be in sole command! No, I don’t want to, but I’m compelled to. That’s how these squabbles always started. Shlyapnikov had seen it happen to others, but hadn’t managed to avoid it himself, it began with personalities and developed into a theoretical argument. The dispute devolved on Problems of Insurance, as if the whole future of the Russian Revolution depended on that moribund journal. The Petersburg Committee passed a resolution condemning the journal’s editors. The Insurance men barked back like mad dogs. The Petersburg Committee passed another resolution, this time against Shlyapnikov. The Bureau of the Central Committee spoke out against the Petersburg Committee. The Petersburgers chose new editors for the journal, and accused Shlyapnikov of bypassing the PC in his dealings with members of the organization (so what am I supposed to do, sit around twiddling my thumbs?), of taking no steps to convene an all-Russian Party conference (and a fat lot you’ve done about it!), of distributing consignments of literature from abroad without reference to the Petersburg Committee (and who lugged the bales around on his own back that time in Norway?). There was no end to their nonsense. The whole of last winter had passed them by while they were wrangling. There were only a couple of dozen activists, all of them workingmen, yet they were incapable of making peace with each other.
That was one of the reasons for his sudden flight abroad in February. That, and the fact that the sleuths were hard on his heels, so that he could go out only at dusk and meet people only by night. Besides, he had itchy feet—he had this constant urge to be where he might be needed more.
When you walk and keep walking your worries weigh less heavily, you walk off all the things that were troubling you, and relax.
Shlyapnikov had time to spare before his next meeting, so he trudged steadily up Great Sampsonyevsky Prospect, which runs in a straight line for many versts.
The ears in the back of his head still told him that no one was following.
There were more people than usual on Great Sampsonyevsky Prospect. The workers were not at work. Some of them were loafing around in the street, others were standing in line for their womenfolk at butcher shops and dairies.
He covered the ground steadily and was soon approaching the hallowed places where he had worked for so long. In 1914, for instance, when he was the “Frenchman.”
Such an amusing idea! A French turner with a French passport showing up in Petersburg to earn the big money. If they docked five kopecks an hour from his pay he threatened to walk out: we’ve got laws in the West, let me tell you! He concealed his identity from most of his fellow workers, but at Lessner’s and Ericsson’s they crowded around to listen when—suppressing his broad northern Russian accent, and amazing them with his rapid progress in Russian—he talked about Lenin or Martov, almost legendary figures to them. It was easy for him, taking advantage of his position as a “foreigner” to pass through the cordons of policemen, who saluted as they offered their solicitous warnings, and plunge into the outer darkness of the Vyborg side, into a raging storm of revolutionary songs accompanied by accordions, where the police themselves feared to tread. What a 14th of July that was! How high were their hopes! And a few days later, still the same “Frenchman” with the dyed mustache and the bowler hat, he had clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms as he watched, with mingled pride and pain, workers reporting to recruiting offices, carrying red banners, and also, alas, imperial flags, the banners of the proletariat capitulating to international chauvinism. The only retort the “Frenchman” could make was to keep his hat on when “God Save the Tsar” arose from under the banners.
Yet again his feet measured the Petersburg pavements. This time nobody was looking for him, comparing him with photographs, he was clean. Anyway, his mustache was different and he was dressed differently. Even if he bumped into somebody who knew him well he would not be recognized.
There’s the “Russian Renault,” over to the left. To the right there, beyond Flyugov Lane, is the low fence damaged the other day by the mutinous 181st Regiment. The fence has been mended and reinforced with new posts.
Reservists drilling on the parade ground again, as if nothing had happened.
It was a very close thing. Almost looked like the beginning … But wasn’t. As you say, Yurka, it’s always a gamble …
As it turned out, there was never any intention of court-martialing those soldiers. Nor were the sailors ever in danger of capital punishment under Article 102. Sixteen of the twenty had been acquitted outright. As Shlyapnikov had since been told, it was just that Sokolov, their defense counsel, needed a helping hand to wangle an acquittal. So he had …
While you …
Ah, Sanyok, Sanyok, Sasha would say, with a reproving tap on the cheek, your naïveté will be the death of you, you’ll come a cropper one of these days, with that simplemindedness of yours. A revolutionary can’t afford to be so simpleminded.
(Lenin had said the same: “Aleksandr, you’re too trusting, too much of an optimist.”)
You and Sokolov met quite by chance. And Sokolov must have made it all up as he went along. And it took you three minutes to fall for it. Hook, line, and sinker.
Got overexcited, didn’t you!
The Petersburg proletariat had responded to the Party with a strike at all the main enterprises. The Party had decided—so the proletariat struck! Just how it should be! Just what was needed! The proletariat rose up as soon as the first leaflet reached them. We’re a power in the land!
Now sixteen of the twenty sailors were at liberty. But the factories were closed down. Closed down by you, the representative of the Central Committee. Better not admit your mistake out loud; there would be a great howl of triumph from the Gvozdevites, now rabid defenders of the fatherland. They’d have a field day.
The idea had been to give the military court a bit of a fright: stay out a day or two, then go back.
But then came the lockout. There was nowhere to go back to. If workers did show up at their factories the police drove them away.
That was not the worst of it. Sheets of yellowish paper, the wretched stuff you got in the third year of the war, were pasted up on the locked gates of the Renault and New Lessner factories and all the others. People walked up to the gates and stood just long enough to read the message. You could join them without attracting attention … but you already knew it by heart.
CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE PETROGRAD MILITARY DISTRICT
10 November 1916
TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE … FACTORY
By order of the Com
mander of the Military District workers in your factory born in 1896 and 1897 and eligible for military service are hereby deprived of deferment and are to report immediately for active service in the armed forces. You are to forward lists of the workers concerned to the military commandant and to the local police station, and give severance pay to those liable for call-up immediately.
That was three days ago, but there were no festive send-offs, no white bundles, no wailing women to be seen, and it was very doubtful whether men really were being paid off: what kind of idiot would go along to a closed factory to collect severance pay? And even if the list had been sent to the area commandant, that was not the end of it, since area commandants had their own job to do, and could grant draftees deferments to go and work in another factory. (This was where Gvozdev’s group could be useful for once.) Even when conscripts were in their army greatcoats employers might have second thoughts and send them back to their benches.
True, only the two youngest age groups, who hadn’t really had time to become workers anyway, were being called up. But if you did nothing about it, if you gave in to the military jackboot, the workers’ movement in Russia was done for.
So we didn’t give in—and the result is all these gloomy men wandering up and down the Great Sampsonyevsky Prospect at loose ends.
It’s a lockout! Get out, all of you!
The decrepit regime has dug in its heels. Has dared to act for once.
That was the real surprise: that they had screwed up their courage. It was so long since they’d shown any.
He had miscalculated there.
He trudged along, on legs as heavy as they had been when he reached Uleaborg.
He was proud all the same. What strength they had! You couldn’t count exactly, it changed every day. There were factories, and strikes, and nothing was known of them two hundred yards away except by the factory inspectors. So what if it was only 60,000, not 120,000—that was still a hell of a lot! Could those pencil peddlers in Copenhagen possibly imagine anything on this scale in Russia?
The sensible thing for the victorious proletariat to do now was to retreat in good order. But no, they were paralyzed by the lockout and the call-up.
It was terrifying. He had never faced an ordeal like this. One move could wreck everything. He had tried to tell them that it was too soon to fight, that they weren’t ready. And then rushed into battle himself.
Threading a screw was slow and painstaking work. Gauging the diameter. Gauging the speed. A few turns in reverse to clear away the swarf. Then greasing it.
A fool could easily make a mess of it. Just one twist too many.
So what was the solution? Beg for mercy? From the factory owners? From the authorities? Sacrifice the conscripts? And those who had been fired?
That was no solution. Right or wrong, there was only one way to go now, straight ahead.
Once battle is joined, the only way out is straight ahead!
But the worm gnawed at his guilty breast, though he alone knew his guilt. Sanka, Sanka, you should have kept your cool!
His feet felt heavier all the time. And they were wet through.
And he was short of sleep. And his belly was empty. It was about time he ate something.
Litovskaya Street, Helsingfors Lane, the Moscow Regiment’s Barracks. Walk a little faster past Ericsson’s—somebody might recognize you … The same notice was there, outside Ericsson’s … He knew every alleyway in that area without looking at names. And every courtyard without looking through the entrance.
Yes, and that was why he felt so miserable. Not because he, the chairman of the All-Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, had—probably—made a mistake, not because of the consequences this might have for the Party, and indeed for Russia as a whole—no, simply because those factory gates were closed. Closed against the workers. Closed by you, Sasha. Closed to the workers by you.
Before he had known a single socialist, before he had read a single brochure, he already had one dream: someday, God willing, I’ll be a fully trained craftsman. Just let me master the use of the lathe, and I’ll get by anywhere! This hope had taken him to Vacha, to Sormovo, to the naval dockyards on the Neva (adding a year to his age on his passport), and to the Semyannikov factory. But he had been driven off course—sent to inculcate political awareness in older workers by bouncing bolts off their heads. He was fired and blacklisted. After that it was downhill all the way—into the revolutionary movement, into one jail and another. Downhill the going was somehow easier, but his dream still urged him upward. To become a metalworker, first class! To work with his hands till the day he died!
And here you are with eyes always watchful, ears on the alert, a good pair of legs, a head on your shoulders. And a good pair of hands—that’s the main thing. Your happiest days are still those spent not on committees, at strike meetings, in demonstrations, or with émigré politicians, no, it’s when you walk into some place that’s all cheerful noise and cogs and pinions and crankshafts and helical gears, and you know every move you need to make, and do it your own way, and hear simple words of praise from the old hands, then from the foreman—that’s where you really feel at home! And every Saturday you slide into your pocket coins as heavy as only those earned by honest labor ever are.
Later, you worked with German, French, and English turners. A different International from the one that attends congresses in dickey shirts, this was the grass-roots, the original International, in smocks and work jackets and gaiters, covered with grease spots, shuffling through metal shavings along workshop aisles, and what your ear didn’t catch your eyes would make up for, and you walked proudly about the Wembley factory—"first turner,” qualified mechanic—a fine craftsman with the whole world as your fatherland.
And now you’ve closed the gates to others.
How? Why?
Ah, at last. Baburin Street. So where’s that café? Hunger gnaws at your belly like a wolf!
The café is full of warm smells—cabbage, meat, fried onions, bread fresh from the oven—lovely! Nobody takes his overcoat off in this place. You sit with your cap on your knees. Is he here yet? Ah, there he is, against that partition. Fellow with restless eyes, rather a stupid face, Kayurov is his name. Eyes wander to the trays on the tables. What do they eat here? Croquettes and potatoes. Macaroni with meatballs. Thick soup. Goulash. Eat all you can. Don’t begrudge yourself. If you get hungry on a day like this you could foul everything up.
“Hello there.”
“Hello.”
Ordinary type, this Kayurov, narrow-shouldered, middle-sized, just a pattern maker, not a real craftsman. But grab you by the throat as soon as look at you. And he can yell as loud as the next man.
Doesn’t matter what we say, or how loud. At the other tables they’re all busy with their own conversations, eating, adding up the bill. Not listening to us, we’re just two friends, no different from the rest.
“You clean?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“What d’you take me for?”
Kayurov was as offhand about that as about everything else. So cocksure he might not have noticed. And a bit too excitable. You’d never think he’s eight years older than me. Close-shaven. Or maybe he can’t grow a beard.
Huddled over their plates, Kayurov already eating, Shlyapnikov waiting, they get down to business, keeping their voices low.
“There’s no other choice. We call a general strike as of tomorrow. All over Petersburg. Our demands are: end the lockout and cancel the call-up.”
“The men know already. Word’s gotten around.”
“So will they go for it? Can we pull it off?”
“Ericsson’s is all right, of course. And both Lessners.”
Goes without saying. They’re locked out anyway. Can’t do anything else.
“I mean those who’re still at work. The factories around them. Which do you know about?”
“Gerhard’s. Morgan’s. Rosenkranz.”
“Small
fry!”
“Maybe, but it all adds up! Then there’s Lütsch and Tschescher, electrical appliances. Kmyadt’s, dyes. Grigoriev’s, cooked meats.”
“But will everybody join in?”
“You bet they will.”
If anybody else had said it Shlyapnikov would have believed him. But this one was too fond of big talk.
“What about the Arsenal?”
Kayurov wouldn’t risk a guess.
“I don’t know.”
“And the textile mills? Sampsonyevskaya, Nevskaya?”
“We’re waiting to hear.”
Waiting, that way it can all run into the ground. And you will be held responsible. You personally. And you have half a day left to make up your mind. You always think an appeal to the political awareness of the workers will suffice. But the stakes are high, you’ll be saying “just one last time” yet again.
Then, firmly, in his voice of command. “We must pull it off at all costs. If they won’t walk out you’ll have to drive them out—with nuts and bolts if necessary. The leaflets will be ready this evening, send somebody around to the Pavlovs’ after eight. Distribute them overnight. The morning shift must be held up everywhere. In the street, at the factory gates, on the steps—anywhere, just as long as you stop them. If you don’t we’ll lose everything.”
November 1916 Page 124