Clare Sheridan

“ It is such a contrast to almost every other sitter, who is restless, hurried and fidgety. Krassin is sphinx-like; he sits erect, his head up, and his pointed, bearded chin sticking defiantly out at an angle, and his mouth tightly shut. He has no smile like Kameneff, and his piercing eyes just looked at me impassively while I worked. It was rather uncanny.
Krassin is a Siberian. He explained to me that his father was a Government local official when he married his mother who was a peasant, and one of twenty-two children. He himself was the eldest of seven, and was brought up in Siberia. ”

“ A motor met us at Ryde and took us to his house, seven miles. On arrival we flung ourselves down in the sun on the grass of the tennis-court. And after tea, as we lay full length on rugs, our heads leaning on the grassy bank behind us, and the sun gradually sinking lower and lower, Kameneff for over an hour told us the history of the Russian Revolution. ”

“ We arrived at Newcastle at midnight on the 19th. Steaming up the Tyne at night is wonderful, all the arc lights throwing into relief great machinery and construction. The activity and work looked colossal. How can Russia fight this iron industrialism? As soon as we had glided alongside the quay, and I had touched English soil once more, I was not left in doubt one moment as to the truth of Kameneff’s premonitions. ”

“ The Bolshevik is a new phenomenon, but the anti-Bolshevik is merely history repeating itself. We read of the same condition of mind in England after the Napoleonic wars; the same fear of French Revolutionary ideas, and same action and reactions.
Yet, if people would only realise it, Revolutions are not caused by propaganda, nor by plots. In Russia the Revolution failed every time it was organised. ”

“ The mere fact of being under the wing of a man like Kameneff, and bound for Russia, seems to make people talk to me as if I were a man. It is a great comfort no longer to meet people on a social or superficial ground. ”

“ The Soviet system does not do it to spite them, or because it enjoys their discomfiture. Only peace with the world can ameliorate their sufferings, and Russia is not at war with the world, the world is at war with Russia. ”

“ I do not mean that I am a Communist, nor that I think it is a practical theory, perhaps it is not, but it seems to me, nevertheless, that the Russian people get gratis a good many privileges, such as education, lodging, food, railways, theatres, even postage, and a standard wage thrown in. If the absence of prosperity is marked, the absence of poverty is remarkable. The people’s sufferings are chiefly caused by lack of food, fuel and clothing. ”

“ Civilisation has put on so many garments that one has trouble in getting down to reality. One needs to throw off civilisation and to begin anew, and begin better, and all that is required is just courage. What Lenin thinks about nations applies to individuals. Before reconstruction can take place there must be a revolution to obliterate everything in one that existed before. ”

“ I feel that it is almost worth while to preserve the impression of our hours of individual work, collaboration and quietude, silently guarded by a sentry with fixed bayonet outside the door. To let in the light of day would be to spoil it.
There is a French saying: “On n’est pas toujours né dans son pays.” It equally follows that all are not born in their rightful sphere. Trotsky is one of these. ”

“ They cry with our sorrows, they laugh with our joys. But Russia seems numb. I wonder if it has always been so or whether the people have lived through years of such horror that they have become insensible to pain.
Happily no salute was fired. The last time the machine guns rattled at a burial I heard them in my studio, which is just the other side of the wall. On that occasion the old porter who takes care of me at the Kremlin told me that his wife nearly died of heart failure—she thought the “Whites” had come. Probably it affects other jumpy people in the same way. ”

“ Alexinsky says in his “Modern Russia”: “Seek for the cause of Revolution neither in the ardent propaganda of the Revolutionists—nor in the bad qualities of monarchs and their advisers, but in the deep and silent operation of certain forces, which lead new social classes{202} upon the stage of history.” It is futile to waste hate upon these forces, or to call them Lenin and Trotsky, when really it is the law of evolution and change that is demonstrating in certain parts of the earth. ”

“ I sat and talked until the car arrived to take me home, and from what Litvinoff said and from what I had seen in that flash, I have learned something of the personality of Tchicherin.
He is an abnormal man, living month after month in that Foreign Office with closed windows and never going out. He insists on having a bedroom there, as he says he has not time to go home to sleep. He works all night, and if a telegram comes in the day he has to be awakened. His nights are days and his days are not entirely nights. He has no idea of time and does not realise that other people live differently. ”

“ I have never minded carrying my own wood, but I did think that one of the two men—Borodin who was telephoning, or Boris, who was idling in a Louis XVI chair as I passed through the drawing-room, might have opened the doors for me.{173}
Because they did not I most unforgivably lost my temper, and said I was glad that I was an English woman and not a Russian man. The effect of my attack was different on each of them.
Boris said, “But it is quite right you should carry your own wood. Communism means that each should help himself.” ”

“ No doubt they thought it presumptuous of me to come to Russia and expect to model Lenin! They certainly did not seem to think he would sit to me. Kameneff had warned me that most of the artists I should meet would not be Bolsheviks, so that probably the students I met were not, but thought that I was. One of them, a girl and more friendly than the rest, said to me in French: “If you are a friend of those in power I suppose you will get some food; we are expected to work here all day from 9 in the morning till 6 at night without any.” ”

“ Comrade Alexandre came to see me at 9 p.m., to tell me that he could not arrange with Trotsky for sittings. I gathered that Trotsky had been emphatic and brusque in his refusal, but after all, I have done Lenin, and he is the one who counts most. I can go back to England without the head of Trotsky, but I could not have gone without the head of Lenin. I have accomplished what I came for, and so to hell with Trotsky!
Alexandre said he could only stay ten minutes, but he left at midnight. He talked Communism the whole time. ”

“ He said: “There is no further news of a General Election, but if Lloyd George asks for an Election it will be on anti-Bolshevism, and he may win. The Capitalists, the Court, and the Military, all are behind him and Churchill.”
I asked him if he were not mistaken in his estimate of the power and popularity of Winston, and the importance and influence of the Court.
He got fiery. “It is an intellectual bourgeois pose to say that the King does not count. He counts very much. He is the head of the Army. He is the bourgeois figurehead, and he represents a great deal, and Churchill is backed by him.” ”

“ I have drifted about with Andrev, and in his spare moments with Maxim Litvinoff. On his way to work at midday he first takes me in his car to the place I want to photograph. At 5 o’clock he comes back and has tea with me, brings his portfolio and works in my room till 7. Then he starts out again to meetings. I have interesting talks with him and learn a good deal. He smiles tolerantly when my bourgeois breeding breaks out. But he says I am getting better. Even Rothstein has grown to treat me more seriously.
To-day my fourth day of rest began to rouse in me a fresh energy. ”

“ Oh! the dark passages and the stuffy offices; they smelt as if the air belonged to bygone ages. I am sure no fresh air ever leaks in. From there to the military store to obtain an overcoat. They lent me a new one; it was an enormous goatskin. More smells! No living goat ever could have smelt stronger. Andrev, staggering under the weight and the unwieldy size, carried it to my studio to await the soldier’s arrival to-morrow. The room reeks{163} of it. My idea is a statuette—only in Russia could one find such a silhouette. ”

“ We were delayed in starting by John Reed, the American Communist, who came to see him on some business. He is a well-built good-looking young man, who has given up everything at home to throw his heart and life into work here. I understand the Russian spirit, but what strange force impels an apparently normal young man from the United States? There also arrived to waylay us a painter called Rosenfeld, who wore canvas shoes like a peasant, and kissed Kameneff on his arrival. ”

“ There are no meals to look forward to, and comfort cannot be sought in a hot bath. When one has seen all the galleries, and they are open only half a day, and some of them not every day, and when one has walked over cobblestones until one’s feet ache, there is nothing more to be done. One must have work to do. Perhaps I should be calmer if I had already accomplished Lenin, but my anxiety is lest I should have to wait weary weeks. ”

“ In Russia one makes no plans, things happen when they happen! With a rashness that nearly proved reckless, I distributed my few belongings among my friends. To a lady doctor-friend of Andrev who had been nice to me, I left all my stockings, a box of soap, a skirt, a jersey and my cloth overcoat. To the maids in the house, my shoes and goloshes, workbag, jersey, fur-lined dressing jacket, pair of gloves, and hat. To Rothstein, as a parting gift, my hot-water bottle and medicine case. ”

“ At first I suspected a most agitating State Council, but it turned out to be merely a discussion as to where we should have supper. Finally it was decided that we should go to the apartment in an hotel where the wife of a Comrade would look after us. Off we went on foot over cobblestones. The streets were full of people who moved like shadows, and one could only see faces when they passed the glare of a lighted doorway. We followed along in couples. At my side was Alexandre Kameneff, a nice boy and friendly, but he could only talk Russian. ”

“ Here the terror of the Whites is as great as is, on the other side, the terror of the Reds! The poor people do not want any more fighting. I think they are quite indifferent as to who rules them, they want only Peace.
When I got back I found Maxim Litvinoff, who also had been at the funeral and had looked for me in the crowd in vain. He says that he has arranged with Tchicherin that I am to begin him to-morrow. ”

“ I asked Andrev why he had to be paid so much. Andrev explained that he is the only moulder in Moscow, so he can ask what he likes: “He says he will work for this and not for that,” and Andrev held a thousand rouble note in one hand and a hundred rouble note in the other. “But it is all the same really, only it is a different pattern,” and he laughed. Certainly money has no value here, and no meaning. At 8 o’clock I went back again to the War Commissariat in Trotsky’s car. ”

“ But I do not look forward to working at the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.{155} It is the Hotel Metropole, in the Place de la Révolution, and although it will not be necessary to have a pass, and there will be none of the sentry difficulties as with Lenin and Trotsky, the drain-smells are such that one climbs the stairs two at a time holding one’s breath! There are bits of the Kremlin that are enough to kill the healthiest person, but the Metropole baffles all description. ”

“ He seems to be strong morally, to a degree of adamant. He is calm, sincere, dignified, proud, without self-consciousness and without vanity, and scientific in his analysis of things and people. Eyes that are unflinching and bewilderingly direct, nostrils that dilate with sensitiveness, a mouth that looks hard until it smiles, and a chin full of determination.
August 26th.
Krassin offered me a third sitting, and came again at 5.0 and stayed till after 7.0. War is averted, and he assures me that Kameneff under no excuse can possibly leave for Russia for a fortnight. ”

“ We have just this moment come along the quay-side at Bergen. We are not to land until to-morrow morning. The crossing has been wonderful; as calm as a lake the whole way.
I have a cabin for three all to myself, there are very few people on board. It is as comfortable as a yacht. The only fellow traveller with whom we have spoken is an American, calling himself Comrade Costello. He reports for the Federated Press. A very keen journalist, typically American, and one who does not allow the grass to grew under his feet.
For an hour this afternoon I acted as interpreter between him and Kameneff. ”

“ The obliteration of all social life is a boon. There are no invitations by telephone to accept, refuse, or make decisions about. There is no perplexity about the choice of apparel, nor letters by post that have to be answered. There is leisure to read, leisure to think, leisure to observe. ”

“ It was a conversation that confirms the general idea I have met in others since I have been here. I know these men are idealists and selfless. I did not know these qualities could go hand in hand with atheism.
On this point, Litvinoff corrected me. He did not even want to be regarded as an idealist. That was too unpractical. “We are idealistic materialists,” he said. To prove their tolerance of religious thought, the churches are all open. But to enter the sacred gateway which leads to the Red Square it was necessary, in pre-Revolution days, for men to pass uncovered. ”

“ While I was looking round, Kameneff turned up; he told me to make a list of my requirements, and then carried me off in a car and was able to stay with me until 2 o’clock. These moments together snatched in between work are so rare that one almost values them. He told me I was to go to a meeting at the theatre in the evening, and promised that I should be in a box near the stage so that I could see well. He was to address the meeting on the subject of his visit to England. ”