I Walked up and down the corridor several times after the train had left the station. I observed that nearly all the passengers carried portfolios.
‘Ha!’ I thought. ‘Who are these people? A Government commission of some sort returning to Moscow?’
They were all young Russian men, except a few foreigners whom I noticed and two young women, very richly dressed, apparently film actresses.
I grew curious about the portfolios. At last I managed to get into conversation with a young fellow who was lounging before the door of my compartment apparently trying to pick up the actresses who occupied the compartment next door. When the actresses closed their door, preparing to go to sleep, this young man banged the window with his fist and said the Russian equivalent of ‘damn’. Then he winked at me. He was a tall fellow, well built, seemingly devoid of melancholy and fanaticism.
‘Irish,’ I replied.
‘Shake hands,’ he said. I love the Irish. I was ten years in the United States. I had numbers of Irish friends there. Yours is a very revolutionary race.’
‘On the contrary,’ I said. ‘The Irish are the most reactionary people in Europe, except, perhaps, the Spaniards and the Albanians.’
‘But how?’ he said. ‘They were the first people to revolt against the war. They have fought bravely against British Imperialism.’
It all depends,’ I said, ‘on what you mean by the word revolutionary’.
‘You are interesting,’ he said. I propose to sit in your compartment and discuss these questions with you.’
‘With pleasure,’ I said. ‘And I want to ask you why everybody carries a portfolio.’
Another gentleman (or rather comrade) was in the compartment. He occupied the lower bunk.
‘My name is Shatov,’ said the first. ‘This is Kotpov.’
‘My name is O’Flaherty,’ I said.
‘Are you an engineer or a journalist?’ said Mr. Kotpov.
I am a novelist,’ I answered.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Please tell me what is the reaction of English intellectuals to the Indian situation.’
I am afraid,’ I said, ‘that I have not taken the trouble to find out.’
‘Too bad,’ said Mr. Kotpov, ‘because the Indian situation interests us very much in Russia.’
Mr. Kotpov was a slight and very exquisite young man with a little, trimmed moustache. He smelt of perfume and his hands were beautifully manicured. He spoke English correctly, though with a French accent.
It is extraordinary,’ said Mr. Shatov, ‘but he says that the Irish are not a revolutionary race. Please explain that to us.’
‘Ah! The Irish,’ said Mr. Kotpov, ‘have an interesting folk literature and of course Mr. Shaw. There are also in that country very interesting stone buildings of great antiquity. I have read of them in a German publication of some importance. But please tell me what is the attitude of Irish intellectuals towards our treatment of national minorities. You must understand that in our Union we have developed local languages and have, indeed, organised languages among minorities which had previously dialects.’
‘Shut up Alyosha,’ said Mr. Shatov. I want to know what he means by saying the Irish are not revolutionary. I hate the English. Don’t you hate the English?’
‘That is ridiculous,’ said Mr. Kotpov. It is utterly impossible to hate such a large human aggregation as the English. Also it is uncivilised. The English are a great race. You will agree with me Mr. Flaxy?’
‘Taken as a whole,’ I said, ‘it is probable that the English are the most remarkable people the world has yet seen.’
‘Damn lie,’ said Mr. Shatov. It is a shame to hear an Irishman say that. You are Anglicised.’
‘You are a ridiculous fellow Sascha,’ said Mr. Kotpov. It is firmly established among intellectuals all over the world that the achievements of the English in culture are unequalled by the achievements of any other race. Also in the matter of commerce, industry and government they have led the world for several hundreds of years. And even in such things as sport they have continued the policy of the Greeks. And even by their creation of that remarkable human being “the gentleman,” they are outstanding.’
‘But British Imperialism,’ said Mr. Shatov, ‘is the most cruel tyranny the world has ever seen. Shut up Alyosha. I want to ask him what he means by the word revolutionary and whether he supports British Imperialism.’
‘Judging the question purely from an intellectual point of view,’ said Mr. Kotpov, ‘we must admit that the English were acting in accordance with the morality of the time when they began their career of plunder and the oppression of other races. But. . . .’
‘Let him speak,’ said Mr. Shatov. ‘What do you mean by revolutionary?’
‘Well!’ I said. I consider that a race is revolutionary when its social activities tend to increase man’s power over the forces of nature and to widen his comprehension of the universe. Examined from this point of view it will be seen that the English are extremely revolutionary, at least until quite recently. As Mr. Kotpov has stated, they led the world for a long time in culture, as well as in commerce, industry, and the science of government.’
‘But that is not revolutionary,’ said Mr, Shatov. ‘That is another word, progressive.’
‘But as far as you are concerned,’ I replied, ‘since, I presume, you are a Russian Bolshevik, the word progressive is contained in the word revolutionary. The Russian Revolution, in the mind of every Russian Bolshevik, means not only the overthrow of one government and the establishment of another, but the progressive evolution of human society from an inferior state of civilisation to a superior state of civilisation.’
‘That is so,’ said Mr. Kotpov.
‘A political revolution may be reactionary as well as progressive.’
‘That is so,’ said Mr. Kotpov.
‘But for the purpose of our discussion we are not concerned with merely political revolutions but with the development of the human race. And under the heading of revolutions I would place the discovery of the steam engine as of equal importance with the overthrow of monarchy in favour of republicanism.’
‘You are getting mixed up,’ said Mr. Kotpov. ‘You are getting away from the point. Are you prepared to defend British Imperialism or do you condemn it? That is the point.’
I want to get this point cleared up first,’ I said. ‘From my point of view a race living under an autocracy may be as revolutionary as one living under a constitution as democratic and libertarian as the present Russian constitution.’
‘That is entirely ridiculous,’ said Mr. Shatov.
‘Not if you remember my definition of the word revolutionary.’
‘You are playing with words,’ said Mr. Shatov.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Kotpov. ‘Although I have an unprejudiced mind when dealing with intellectual ideas, I must say that in this instance I must differ with you. The existence of autocracy is always a bar to progress.’
‘Shut up Alyosha,’ said Shatov.
‘Allow me to continue,’ I said. ‘Ah forms of government are, in themselves, equally useful as far as progress, in our sense, is concerned. The form of government of a community depends entirely on the community’s state of development and forms of government in a single community almost invariably change in accordance with the community’s development. Indeed, all the forms of government that we know, from Communism to autocracy, existed at one time or other during the last twenty thousand years. It is also quite possible that the same forms of government, monarchy, Communism, republicanism, will exist twenty thousand years hence. But the total of man’s knowledge is, materially, greater now than it was twenty thousand years ago and twenty thousand years from now it shall be still greater. That is what is of importance.’
‘But classes,’ cried Shatov, ‘and the exploitation. . . .’
‘Hold on a moment,’ I said. I shall ask you a question about classes and about portfolios later. Let us finish with the question of British Imperialism. We find that in all periods of recorded history a community with more energy, cunning and intelligence than its neighbour set up a hegemony in the course of its development and expansion. Some, like the Romans, established an empire by conquest. Others, like the Greeks, built up an Empire by commercial exploitation. But in all cases, the Imperial communities built up great civilisations and cultures. Indeed, imperialism and culture and civilisation have been until now inseparable and almost synonymous. Even the Italian republics of the Renaissance period were little commercial empires who paid Crusaders to make trade routes to the East. In fine, when you accuse the British Empire of being cruel and tyrannical, it is just the same as accusing an oak tree of being a cruel tyrant, because the destruction of neighbouring smaller plants is necessary to its growth. One might say that the exploitation and oppression of India’s millions was necessary for the production of Darwin, Newton and Shelley, by providing that luxury and leisure and pride of being which are the background to the flowering of genius. Nor should I, as an Irishman, deplore the conquest of Ireland if that conquest helped to inspire the proud genius of Shakespeare.’
‘What amazing logic!’ said Mr. Shatov. ‘You are a reactionary. You believe, then, in the justice of capitalism, in the exploitation of one class by another, as well as the oppression of one country by another?’
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Tell me the meaning of the portfolios which I see in this carriage.’
‘Oh! This,’ said Mr. Kotpov, touching his portfolio. In Russia it is usual for officials, clerks, journalists and such middle class people. . .
‘Shut up Alyosha,’ said Shatov. ‘There is no middle class. . . .’
‘But it is simply to explain to this foreigner,’cried Kotpov, ‘that. . . .’
I see,’ I cried. ‘Then you two are officials?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Kotpov. ‘We are what you call civil servants.’
‘Then already in the Soviet Union,’ I cried, ‘classes have come into existence.’
‘How do you mean?’ cried the now furious Shatov.
‘Well! There are two classes on this train. I looked into the lower class carriage and it was rather dreadful, whereas this first class carriage is very comfortable. You fellows with portfolios travel in one. The class without portfolios travels in the other.’
They began to speak at the same time, Messrs. Shatov and Kotpov, explaining that all could travel in the first class carriage if they wanted to do so.
‘But the point is,’ I said, ‘that they don’t do so, either because they can’t afford to do so, or because they would not feel at home, being used to certain conditions. In that manner I see that the possession of portfolios gives a certain class of Soviet citizens privileges and ambitions not enjoyed by the mass. That is the beginning of a . .
But Shatov jumped to his feet and began to become offensive. He was calmed by Kotpov and induced to leave the compartment. Kotpov himself was none too friendly. We went to bed hardly on speaking terms. That did not worry me, for I had made a wonderful discovery, of a new class hitherto unknown (or at least uncatalogued) in human society, the Bearers of Portfolios.
I admit that portfolios are carried in Western Europe, especially in France, by different classes of human beings, who do not become socially distinct by the act of carrying portfolios. But here in Russia, it seemed that the carriage of portfolios definitely meant that the bearer was a government official of some sort of other, a member of the superior class.
As I lay on my bed, I meditated with morose satisfaction on the ingenuity of man, who is such a bitter enemy of equality that he is prepared to descend to the lowest depths and to the most base forms of cunning in order to establish class distinctions. So that here in Russia, where the greatest experiment in social equality ever made by man is in full force, the more intelligent of the citizens have chosen the portfolio as the heraldic sign of nobility. The possession of money would but bring the possessor under the suspicion of the secret police. The possession of a title of nobility would mean imprisonment, death or dishonour. Eminence in literature, science, art, or politics necessitates the cultivation of an exaggerated humility, in order to escape the jealousy of the mass, which is the custodian of the theory of equality. But even an equalitarian mass must have some form of government and government is always administered by a body of officials. So this body of officials, the civil service, chose an innocent-looking black satchel as the emblem of its aristocratic state.
Then I realised that this satchel was strange and ridiculous merely because it was new. As a coat of arms it was no more ridiculous than a pair of lions rampant, or an eagle with outstretched wings, or a sword held by a mailed fist, or any of the other heraldic emblems of nobility. ‘Lord of the Satchel.’ In what way was that title more ridiculous than many titles current among us, for instance ‘the keeper of the match-box?’
Indeed I was pleased by the existence of this new Communist aristocracy and by the degree of information and culture manifested by the aristocrats I had met. For I hate vacuum and monotony. A country where everybody is equal means that everybody is forced to be as barbarous and un-mannered as the most brutal. Whereas there is always hope for a group of human beings who set a standard of superiority for themselves.
I also, as I lay in bed thinking, began to understand the structure of the new Russia, that society which I felt convinced was destined to conquer Europe and the world. I already knew of the position occupied in that country by the Communist Party and its feeder organisations, the Young Communists and the infant Pioneers. These organisations, so to speak, would be the Church of the new society, the Keepers of the Word, a Hierarchy entrusted with the definition of social morality and that spiritual ambition, which in former and less enlightened societies was given the name of religion. But the real power would lie with the Bearers of Portfolios, those worldly officials who pull the strings of government, the Keepers of the National Ledgers and Tasters of the National Luxuries. At one moment or another they might be subsidiary to the soldiers, the Keepers of the Sword, but inevitably soldiers get weary of war and disintegrate, whereas officials never get tired of their ledgers or portfolios.
Russia, then, would definitely set a new fashion in government, not the vulgar conception of the Western European bourgeoisie of a country run by untrousered Bolsheviks, bearded, lousy and paidophagic; but an extraordinary human society run by civil servants, under the aegis of the Portfolio, that contraption which, among us, is associated at times with bohemianism, when used by artists to carry their drawing sheets.
The only danger I foresaw, as I lay in bed thinking, was that the Bearers of Portfolios might allow themselves to be governed too long by the Keepers of the Word or of the Sword, as happened in Turkey, during the height of the Sublime Porte’s empire. I mean that in Turkey the Civil Service was looked upon as an inferior profession, which was fit only for Greeks and other Christians. But Russia’s ancient respect for officialdom did not point towards a similar error on the part of the Bolsheviks.
‘That is all to the good,’ I thought as I fell asleep. I have a high regard for the honesty and efficiency of Civil Servants. Now I feel more secure and resigned to the destruction of Europe. For, mark you, when they conquer London, these Bearers of Portfolios won’t omit to take note of the titles of my books in the British Museum. Civil Servants catalogue everything.’
When I awoke, the first thing I thought of was the fact that I had only eight roubles in my pocket. I looked at Mr. Kotpov. He was already washed and shaved and busy powdering his face. He seemed to have lost all memory of the unpleasantness of the previous night.
‘Desolate country/ he said, pointing towards the window.
I looked out. It was certainly desolate, my first view of the Russian countryside, bleak, dreary, monotonous, flat, savage, marshy.
It is strange how alien the earth looks a long distance from one’s native country. It does not smell. One feels hostile to it, jealous of acknowledging its beauty.
We were approaching the outskirts of Moscow. Instead of thatched villages, we were passing rather ornate wooden houses. They looked weather-beaten.
‘Are these buildings post-revolutionary?’ I asked my companion.
He yawned. He was rather bored in the morning. He had become a typical Civil Servant, rather dull and tired.
‘No,’ he said. ‘They are pre-war. Now they are mostly used by city workers who live in the country to get away from the noise.’
‘So there is noise in Moscow,’ I said. ‘That’s rather cheerful.’
‘How?’
‘There was no noise in Leningrad.’
‘Ah! Of course,’ said Mr. Kotpov. ‘A foreigner would find Leningrad rather passe and provincial. Indeed, I’m afraid it has no future. It is like Odessa and other towns important under the old regime. Out of date, of no special value for our new requirements. The tendency in a highly organised and efficient modern industrial state is for the important cities to spring up about the centres of industrial raw material. For that reason, Baku, Stalingrad and Rostov are growing at terrific speed, while Leningrad is moribund, or merely active because of the presence therein of a highly conscious proletariat, a legacy from the old regime. Our mineral wealth and the chief areas of our agricultural wealth are in the south. So Russia turns towards the south.’
‘Ha!’ I cried. I thought so. Through India, Persia, Bessarabia.’
‘Eh?’ he said.
‘What of Moscow?’ I countered.
Mr. Kotpov smiled.
‘Moscow is the centre of government,’ he said. It has immense traditional interest for our peasants. It is worth preserving for that reason although it will cost a great deal to regularise it, to turn it, for instance, into a pattern city like Buenos Ayres.’
‘You mean to say that the government definitely stays in Moscow in order to show the peasants that there is no difference between the Bolshevik government and the traditional Russian governments of the Tsars, the Little Fathers?’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Kotpov, as he began to pare his nails. It is something quite sociological that I had in mind.’
He yawned and said a little later:
‘The week-end habit is growing among us as in England. Everybody tries to have a cottage in the country. You’ll find hardly any peasant life in the neighbourhood of Moscow. The city is stretching. But unfortunately there is a great lack of tennis and golf clubs in the country. We are too centralised at present. One has to go into the city for all one’s amusements. It is tragic’
‘Yes,’ I thought. ‘His type is already perfectly standardised. He says “everybody tries to have a cottage in the country” with the same air that an English middle class person would say that “everybody is out of town in August.” There is no hope for the proletariat. Plus ga change, plus c’est la mime chose.’
Just for fun I asked Mr. Kotpov what he thought of the possibility of a world revolution. He seemed to have lost all interest overnight in the Indian question and in the attitude of Irish intellectuals towards the Russian treatment of national minorities.
‘Yes,’ he said, with a sigh of boredom. ‘The world crisis is becoming more acute abroad. However, our internal situation is so interesting at present, what with the Five Year Plan, especially the collectivisation of the peasants, that one has little time to speculate idly about foreign affairs.’
Woe to the proletariat of Battersea and Alexandrplatz. I tried Mr. Kotpov on every conceivable subject, in the hope of getting some slight message of encouragement to bring back to my friends in Battersea and Ringsend, but I might as well have tried a Civil Servant in Whitehall for all the signs of revolutionary fervour I discovered in Mr. Kotpov. On the other hand, his manners were perfect, his information considerable and his general culture infinitely superior to that of his English replicas, who set off for London every morning from Coulsdon and other places, with copies of the Times.
‘Moscow!’ cried Mr. Kotpov suddenly, jumping to his feet and seizing his portfolio.
‘Good God!’ I cried. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘Pardon me?’ said Mr. Kotpov.
I mean to say that I have not prepared my mind to receive the proper impression of arrival in Moscow.’
‘Hm!’ said Mr. Kotpov, looking at me in a disdainful fashion.
I could see that he had by now come to the conclusion that I was a disreputable character, one whose acquaintance it was not desirable to cultivate. I felt that he disapproved of my dress, my manners, my language and my general attitude towards life; that he was convinced I had not been to a proper school and that my relatives were under a cloud. Indeed, when he bowed coldly and took his portfolio and his suitcase out into the corridor among his friends and equals, I felt that I was arriving in Moscow as a proletarian and that I had no hope of being received in portfolio drawingrooms.
‘There you are, you fool,’ I said to myself. ‘You have come all this way for nothing. For you have arrived in Moscow without seeing that wonderful effect of golden domes in sunlight which all writers rave about on approaching this wonderful city. You besotted fellow, your eyes can only see the ruins of locomotives and goods waggons, three bearded peasants sitting on a ruined truck, two goats trying to eat a tin canister and a rich growth of grass between railway tracks. Nobody will ever believe that this is Moscow. A golden dome! My kingdom for a golden dome.’
But I’m blowed if I could see anything more than I have related. It was less impressive than arriving at Mullingar or Wolverhampton.