Khortiza, October 20, 1919

Our telephone division, eight men in all, has been with us for three weeks. They are more decent than others, if one may speak of decency in connection with these people. Among them there are some non-peasants, and even some idling students who never could make good.

Gradually they become tame in our house. So far we have been able to appease their desires, above all their gluttony; and now they draw in their claws as beasts of prey in similar cases would do. Our yard has little to attract them, for it is no farmer’s yard with stables and grain barns.

They live at random in a careless way. When they have had a good meal, and we have succeeded in warming their rooms sufficiently, and the student hammers on the keys of the piano,—then they are even willing to jest with children.

Sometimes we overcome our feeling of repugnance and sit in their midst. We are glad when they act decently toward us. We then discover that they, although rotten, are human beings with human emotions. In homes where the colonists persisted in a reserved manner the armed men remained beasts of prey, as they were at the beginning. Of? course, I must say that we were fortunate in getting these telephone-men; they have had some schooling, and that makes them appear a little more polished. Yesterday when an armed cossack, wrapped in a wonderful fur which he had stolen somewhere, entered our house and was ordering preserved tomatoes, pickles, ham and eggs, and Marguerite, not being able to satisfy him, was in danger of life, then it was our telephonists who chased him away.

One of our men is called Ivan. Ivan is, strangely enough, poorly clothed; quite differently from the others. I asked him once what reason there was for this. He did not want to rob, he said. What, I said to myself, is it possible? He surely must be the white raven among the black ones. Indeed, it proved to be so.

One day I was sitting in the adjoining room and heard how they made fun of Ivan. “How foolish,” somebody said, “to go around with worn-out clothes and torn boots. You did not secure even a warm overcoat.” Ivan laughed and joked in return. Since then I became especially interested in him.

He was not an Anarchist, he told me, when alone with me. He was a true Bolshevik. He had joined the Anarchists, he explained, because he lived in a region where the Whites had seized the rule and had tried to mobilize him for their army. Thus his intention was to go over to the Bolsheviks as soon as the battle line would be drawn near to where he was. He did not want to be considered an Anarchist at all.

Ivan is not dull, but he is weak. He does not try to influence his comrades toward a better judgment.

He speaks with much respect and heartfelt concern of his mother and his sister-teacher left behind. There is, in spite of all, some culture in this man. And he is humorous, too. It is not satiric mockery but good-natured humor. After all, you feel a kind of sympathy with him. Even we, who almost have forgotten laughter, cannot but be amused.

Ivan is lazy beyond measure; the lice nearly eat him; he scratches himself, but never stops to think of cleaning up. The parasites have sucked out almost all of his blood, it seems, but he just lets them have their way. He simply laughs when we admonish him to get rid of these vermin. He does not dislike lice. He recently said jokingly, “I would not kill the capitalists either, although they are worse than lice. I would be ready to perish at any time if only the idea of communism would be safe.” A unique Bolshevik, at any rate! He is not typical of the Communists in Russia. They do not want to be martyrs; they want to dominate. Ivan is honest; I cannot but believe there is not a trace of selfishness in him. Who can cast a stone at this man?

The others are not of his kind. And yet it is a group different from the rest.

Fedya, too, pretends to condemn the actions of the Makhno-Anarchists. He, it seems, feels some remorse after all. He did not like to go with these people, for he left his young wife behind. He is longing for her, and he cares, too, because he has had no word from her since he left. He comes from Guliay-Polye, the large town where Makhno is at home. That is the reason why they call that town Makhnograd in analogy with Petrograd. At his central station there, Makhno began his work. Fedya tells me that he was compelled to join Makhno to save his life and property, for Makhno had begun to exterminate all people who were not on his side. He considered everyone his adversary who did not join his ranks.

Makhno is unusually cunning and energetic. They say he has worked twelve years in Siberia in a penitentiary, and that it was there where his insatiable thirst for revenge arose. He never hesitates to act upon his principle. As he was deliberating with Grigorieff, a popular adventurer in the Ukraine, he shot down his rival. That was the simplest solution. Human life counts for nothing with him.

The value of human life is at present still lower here in the Ukraine than it is in Northern Russia. Is it not a common reaction among the Russians? To tell the truth, the Ukrainians are Slavs by race as well as the others, and there is very little difference between them, in spite of all ridicule now made by some nationalists. The Russians as well as the Ukrainians are known throughout the world as patient; they discuss things endlessly before acting upon them. These same people have suddenly become extremely aggressive. The Makhno-Anarchists, at least, never discuss; their invariable command, in entering, always is, “No negotiation.” (nye rasgovarivaty!) But perhaps I should not generalize this observation. It is true, indeed, the less corrupted Anarchists do philosophize for hours when they are fed and warm. That is true with regard to Ivan and Fedya. These two are gradually becoming normal. They even asked for books to read. And strange to say, they have been reading now for days in the works of Turgenieff and Lermontoff.

The fat one—thus we call one peasant who belongs to the telephone detachment—has taken pleasure in dressing well. He wears very good boots, which arc always shining. His suit is made of enviably good English cloth. He got it after a successful battle with the Whites who are being supported by the English. After a long military service he has lost almost all the clumsy peasant-like behavior. My friends have more confidence in him than in the others. But as he claims to have joined the Anarchists without any reason whatsoever, I do not trust him. He boasts that his father owns a big farm and that he provided him with a horse, when he joined Makhno. It might well be true. We found out that there are many wealthy peasants among these Anarchists. They remain like others for a while in the horde, and when they think that they have gathered enough prey they return home with horses and clothes. Some others of the rich peasants follow Makhno just because they want to save themselves.

Yesterday there was at our house an awful drunkard with the harsh voice typical of that kind of people. They say, he owns rich mines somewhere around Taganrog. After those have been taken from him, his character has revealed just a common robber.

There are many others fanatically possessed by hatred of the Whites. They, indeed, made themselves detested by the whole peasantry. Since we are regarded as partisans of the Whites—although this accusation is false—they pitilessly treat us as their enemies. Partly, of course, their enmity originated in wartime when propaganda was directed against all Russians of foreign descent. The high wave of nationalism swept away even the Russian peasants in the remote villages. Nationalistic fanaticism always blinds those possessed by it. So these colonists, the most loyal citizens of Russia, were denounced as enemies.

I recall an event of a few months ago. It is characteristic of the Whites and explains at the same time the uprising of the peasants.

I arrived one day at the railway station N. K. My place of destination was about twenty miles away. No man could be found who would dare to drive with a horse team over the steppes at night. So I had to remain in the village until the next morning. At the station there had also arrived a train with guardsmen of the Whites, who claimed to restore public order in these regions they were just occupying. And this was the way they enforced good order into the villages: they burned down several houses to punish the rioters. The same men robbed me in the street in the village where they were in power. I was going further to find a place for the night. Soon I met three officers and told them what their soldiers had done to me. But they did not take the matter seriously, replying that they lived under the same conditions as all riot armies.

One of them turned to me as the others went on and said confidentially: “Had we sooner tried to meet the demands of the people this deep moral ruin would not have come over Russia. Too late we realize our fault.”

I was glad of this man’s sound judgment. But was it right to accept the corruption with resignation? Or should one conclude that the permission for pillage was a confession that they were willing to let the soldiers do the same thing which had been their own privilege under the old order of things? Who knows? But it is a matter of fact that all moral conceptions now are confused. It was known, of course, throughout the world that in Russia the conceptions of the wrong of stealing never were equal to those in Western Europe. Who had not heard of huge corruption in civil and military government, or of the fatal inclination for stealing in general? The colonists always complained of being robbed of horses, grain, and other things.

Never, however, had this crime grown so wild and so general. That is the result of war and revolution.

Quo vadis, poor Russia? Those men of Russia, who were godfathers at the birth of these conditions surely were not aware what the consequences would be.

And as to my own situation, what is it all about, this philosophizing? Is it the process of acclimatizing? No, no upright man accustoms himself to slavery! …