We arrived at a little square off the Kusnetsky Most. It was obviously very new. The grass was just sprouting on the grass plots. The garden seats were new and the gravel on the paths was still rough and practically untrodden. But every seat was occupied and there were children already playing on the paths.
‘You see this little square?’ said my friend.
‘Yes,i I said. It is a pretty little square. It gives me great joy to see people lounging on seats in the heart of a city and children playing. Moscow is a pleasant place, entirely unlike London.’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘But let me tell you that this square is made on the site of a church.’
‘How pleasant!’ I cried in rapture. ‘That is entirely in keeping with my idea of civilisation.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ he said. ‘You have heard of course in England of the persecution of religion in Soviet Russia.’
I was pleased to hear of it,’ I replied. I have suffered all my life at the hands of organised religion. To desire revenge is human.’
‘But you will find,’ he said, ‘that there is no persecution. The situation is such. In Russia we no longer require the aid of superstitious practices. Except, of course, the old and ignorant and the parasites who made their living out of the old and ignorant, the priests.’
‘What is that magnificent new building in process of construction over there?’ I asked, pointing to an interesting red brick house that had already reached its tenth storey and looked like going farther. ‘Is it a new Communist church to take the place of the old Christian church? I have a theory of religion. One God is always deposed by another. He never gives place to vacuum or atheism.’
‘That is a romantic theory,’ said my friend, ‘disproved in this case by the fact that that building has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, but is concerned with the very matter-of-fact business of guarding the state and the revolution. That new building is for the workers in the G.P.U., our national police force.’
‘Really?’
‘Quite true.’
‘But then it has a religious significance.’
‘What is that other large and ugly building to the left ?’
‘That is the Commisariat of Foreign Affairs.’
‘And that statue?’
‘That is a monument to the memory of Djerjinsky, former chief of the G.P.U.’
It is an ugly monument and reminds me strangely of the artistic taste of the early Christians, just as the G.P.U. building reminds me of the barracks of the Swiss Guards at Rome and the Foreign Office of the College of Cardinals. Indeed I shall be greatly surprised if history does not prove that God, instead of being annihilated by the Russian Revolution, has merely assumed Russian nationality. I have been convinced for the past ten years that Dostoievsky was the father of the Russian Revolution.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he said.
I told you I was mad,’ I answered, with a laugh.
He also laughed and said:
‘Here is the bureau, in this building.’
We entered an office building opposite the new brick house of the Bolshevik Swiss Guards, mounted two flights of stairs and entered the office of the Bureau of Revolutionary Literature. The room was crowded with men and women, who gave me a reception worthy of a worthier person than myself. When I had shaken hands with everybody, I was seated at a table, given a sheet of paper and a pen and asked to state my position should capitalist Europe declare war on the Soviet Union.
In order to explain the situation to me, I was told that the Bureau had telegraphed to various prominent writers in Western Europe asking similar questions. George Bernard Shaw, when asked what would be his position, telegraphed in reply, ‘The hanging position.’
‘This is a nice how d’ye do,’ I said to myself. ‘God bless the Jesuits.’
For, upon my honour, I have no intention whatsoever of taking part in any war, great or small, in future, unless it be of my own making. I have had enough of war. I loathe war. I consider it a stupid, ungainly and unpleasant business, concerned with hunger, thirst, wet feet, lack of sleep, too much noise, disease, lice, wounds and horrible death. As far as I am concerned, war to end capitalism is war and unpleasant, just as much as the war in which I participated, which was the war to end war. The only people who want war are those who have no intention of taking part in war, people who are protected by their sex or their infirmities or their age or their position in society from ever toting a gun or a pack or a sheepskin. I, on the other hand, am like the wretched fellow whom I saw standing on the brink of the pier at Leningrad, a muit to whom somebody gives a gun and a pat on the back and sends the blighter shuddering but gallant to Hell. Bo! Bo! Catch me at it again. Shaw is too old to fight and I hope he enjoys being hanged; but if there is a cave anywhere, deep enough to withstand air bombs, I’m for it in case of hostilities.
I looked slyly around the room at the revolutionary writers of Moscow and saw that they were all intelligent above the ordinary, not the sort of people one would be likely to find up to their necks in mud and water on a night of heavy bombardment. Indeed, it was easy to see that they all belonged with one or two exceptions to the race that is chosen, for the last two thousand years, for commerce but not for war.
‘Why pick on me?’ I thought. ‘My teeth are bad and my liver is diseased. But still. ... I have only eight roubles and I’m far from home.’
So I wrote, God forgive me, having no intention of ever again firing a shot at anybody but my creditors:
‘Should capitalist Europe declare war on the Soviet Union, I’ll make war on capitalist Europe with every means in my power.’
This warlike statement was received with deafening applause and I grew rather sorry I was not of the stuff with which they make heroes. But in any case, my answer served its immediate purpose. The cashier at once paid me for a story which had been printed in the Bureau’s magazine five years previously. I was informed that on the following day the State Publishing House would pay me a thousand roubles on account of royalties due to me. Arrangements were made for getting me a room and I was given a guide to attend to all my wants and comforts.
I do not wish to infer that I would have been treated with discourtesy had I told the truth, that I would not have been paid my royalties and that I would have been left without a room or a guide. I merely want to point out how ungainly is the Russian method of greasing the palms of writers compared to the methods in vogue in capitalist countries, especially in England. The Russian method rather resembles the French method, where journalists are almost openly and in public subsidised by the government. In England recalcitrant writers are gently allowed to starve, unless they bow their heads to the British gods of good form and imperial expediency. It is much more subtle, the British method, and it does not leave such a bad taste in the mouths of sensitive persons; although it certainly leaves an extreme emptiness in the stomachs of persons who are too sensitive to be bought.
In the same manner, the whole Bureau of Revolutionary Literature appeared to me a crude and ungainly affair. Under the direction of the Russian Communist Party (the Keepers of the Word, the Communist Hierarchy), this organization aimed at uniting the principal writers of the world under its control, for the purpose of demoralizing capitalism and encouraging the working class of the world to make war on their oppressors. A perfectly laudable and admirable scheme, were it possible or intelligently carried out. But writers, especially creative writers, are curious individuals. They dislike any form of control and are continually at war with their wives, who try to keep them sober, tidy and industrious, with their publishers, who try to rob them, with their editors, who try to curb their passion for obscenity, and with the philistine public, which tries to censor their passion for life. When cthe situation is such’ in Western Europe, where a dying civilization grants liberal privileges to men of talent, how much more difficult must it be to govern men who are by nature anarchists, jealous of governance, by the rules of a community where a nascent civilization is being created in territories inhabited by people who are almost savage and therefore alien to liberal principles? In such a nascent civilization a strict censorship of conduct is necessary as well as a violent personal dictatorship. The citizens are for the most part peasants and submit peaceably to dictatorship, being ignorant of that development of personal initiative which breeds anarchy. Now the fault of the Russian Bureau of Revolutionary Literature is that it tries to govern civilised Europeans on the same principle that it governs uncivilised Russians; it tries to treat Europeans as if they were naive children like the Russians; which is impossible.
In any case, the Bureau was manned almost entirely by Jews and that race is notoriously dogmatic and fanatical. An organisation governed entirely by Jews is sure to be full of sound and fury, unless it has to deal entirely with Jews who love sound and fury. And Jews have never been able to understand the creative passion. No doubt they have given great artists to the world, but as a rule, Jewish men of genius are critics like Marx and fanatics like Jesus Christ rather than poets like Shakespeare. They prefer to push their genius down throats with violence and bitterness rather than let it enter passionately through the pores into the blood, in the intoxicating manner preferred by less intense races.
Jews analyse life. They document. They catalogue. They treat life as if it were a warehouse, stocked with goods for sale. They are bitten by the gad-fly of hysteria, whose poison they seek to eject from their system by continual appeals to one god after another; and in despair at the failure of their gods to cure them, they reject their gods almost as soon as they have created them. Whereas the lazy gentiles worship beauty for her own sake and are loath to dissect her and hold up her entrails to the microscope.
So here was this Bureau of Revolutionary Literature in Moscow, trying to harness literature to the wheels of Communism and trying to enrol me as one of its progandists. I said nothing against the idea. What the devil had it got to do with me? You can put a uniform on anybody but you cannot make him march unless his brain wills to move his feet.
I was put in charge of a comrade, who spoke English very well. He was a very charming fellow, very intense and very enthusiastic, eminently learned in literature, master of some six or seven languages, an ardent communist, twenty-five years of age, Levit by name. He at once proceeded to explain to me the construction and objective of the Bureau. He was slim and tall. He had a pale, intellectual countenance and he wore pince-nez, and spoke as if he were at the telephone trying to explain to a police-sergeant that his house had just been robbed.
‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘the situation is such. This Bureau is such a place. It is the centre of a world organisation to co-ordinate the activities of proletarian writers. This is the foreign section of the Bureau. We have centres, similar to this, in Tchecho-Slovakia, Germany, France and in many other countries. All foreign writers coming into Russia come to us and we give them information, and guidance, except such as are entirely bourgeois, which go to the society for cultural relations. Such people, which we cannot very well forbid to come, are nevertheless brought around by that other society, so that they may see what is best and be unable to tell too many lies.’
‘Good God!’ I thought. If he only knew my real purpose!’
In the same way,’ he continued, ‘all foreign books translated into Russian pass through our hands and such books are translated as we consider useful to the proletarian revolution and only such. We also publish in our magazine such stories and articles by foreign writers as are useful for our proletariat. The situation is such. There is also, of course, in Russia, the Bureau of Proletarian Writers, which is under the direction of this Bureau, because all writers must be organised and literature must play a revolutionary role in building up the Soviet Union and also help greatly with the Five Year Plan. Later you shall see all that. Now we shall go at first to a cinema with all the comrades and then arrange about your room and other things.’
However, I had to remain in the room while a long argument went on about something which I could not understand. This lasted an hour and there seemed to be no reason why it should not last for ever. Everybody talked at once and there seemed to be nobody in charge, although there was a secretary and treasurer and various other officials present. This intrigued me, especially as every once in a while somebody approached and jocularly told me in bad French what an anarchist I was and that I would do well to study a little proletarian discipline. What damned humbug!
The noise got on my nerves to such an extent that I felt utterly dazed when they all finally dashed out of the Bureau into the street, on the way to the Sovkino studio, where the film was to be shown. On the way we met a troupe of German actors and actresses who were also going to the film. It was, in fact, shown for their benefit. They were playing in Moscow just then. We all went together.
Moving in the same anarchical fashion, with a great deal of shouting and laughter, we arrived finally at the showroom (I could not for the life of me say where it was or how we got there, for even though I enquired several times as to names of streets and other things, the last thing one can get in Russia is a plain answer to a plain question). Still shouting and laughing, we all sat down and the film was thrown on the screen. The shouting and the laughter continued.
I love this new art of the cinematograph. No other art can give such a respite from reality, which is sometimes a torture, being the consciousness of poverty, sorrow or pain. In the gloom of the cinema theatre one can dream in peace, in silence, although one is surrounded by people, while the farthest ends of the earth are brought to one’s immediate vision. In the theatre where living actors are on the stage, the dream illusion is not sufficiently strong, as the flesh and blood of the actors thrust themselves into the foreground. But on the screen all is an illusion, everything is remote and completely detached from one’s immediate environment. One is spying on an imitation of life, concealed and unknown.
For that reason, I hate films that are educational or dogmatic and I hate being spoken to when in a film theatre. The dream illusion is destroyed. For that reason also, I cannot understand the craze of our intellectuals for the modern Russian film. All of them that I have seen amuse me less than the wild films of cowboy life which used to be such a popular export from the Hollywood studios; certainly much less interesting than the early comic films of Chaplin and the serious products of the German studios.
All modern Russian films that I have seen are based on a theory of some sort. Art, on the other hand, is not based on a theory, nor on any preconceived dogma; but it springs out of life and is brought to life by a vision in the mind of the artist, which, in itself, comes into the mind from a wild fever in the bowels and is inexplicable. To me this Russian deification of the mass as the sole material for artistic creation is atavistic drivel, the child of mediocrity, which, in its jealousy of genius, throws itself on the bosom of the mob. Neither is it anything new, but an intense form of the decadent theories current in western European capitals in the years immediately preceding the War. In art, ambitious theories are always a sign of impotence and laziness and mediocrity.
Here a film was thrown on the screen dealing with the naval revolt at Kronstadt during the revolution of 1917. Its sole importance was that it dealt with the revolution of 1917, which is an historical event of great importance. Even so, I was prepared to enjoy it, but my friend Levit insisted on translating the sub-titles in a loud voice, right into my ear. At the same time two other guides were translating the sub-titles into German for the benefit of the Germans, while still another guide was translating the sub-titles into Japanese for the benefit of a Japanese visitor. The others, at the same time, were carrying on conversations, passing loud remarks on the film and laughing. The guides tried to shout one another down and sometimes argued about the translations. I tried to stop my guide, saying I was not interested in the sub-titles. But he refused to stop, being obviously solely interested in shouting down his rivals and showing off his knowledge of English. Finally, in order to escape, I whispered in his ear that I wanted to go to the lavatory.
‘But certainly,’ said comrade Levit, ‘we shall go-’
Straightaway, we fetched my kit from the Grand Hotel and brought it to The House of the East, where a room had already been found for me. I was given a magnificent room, larger than most flats in London and Paris. In fact, it was a suite of rooms all in one, for there were two large alcoves, curtained off, one containing two small beds and the other being a dressing room. The main room was furnished as a sitting room. I appreciated the civilised motives which inspired the two beds; as if the management understood that I might very easily get married at any moment during the day or night.
It was seven o’clock by the time we had finished arrangements about my room and as I had eaten nothing since breakfast, I suggested a meal.
‘Wonderful,’ said my friend. ‘We shall eat at the House of the Press.’
He had no objection to Isvostiks, so I was at last able to satisfy my craving for a ride in one. I found it very pleasant. One is almost on a level with the street, not enclosed in any way, able to observe the pedestrians and the scenery in comfort, owing to the extremely slow motion of the horse, and yet persuaded that the journey is being made at the greatest possible speed by the furious oaths and whippings of the driver. On the way my friend told me a great deal about himself.
‘You see,’ he said, pointing at Moscow with a circular wave of his arms, ‘this city is not suitable for the building of socialism. It is, like many European writers, a mass of nonsense, all twists and turns and very much irregularity. All this very probably must be torn down and a new city built in its place. All the streets must be torn up, the cobble stones taken away and the holes filled up and the surface covered with asphalt. The districts must be organised on a rational basis. Communal housing systems must be made, department stores built, everything on a mass scale as is necessary for socialism, and the ideas of proletarian culture and hygiene, put into practice by the introduction of so-tospeak rus in urbe and local facilities for the satisfaction of the mass craving for art and such things of the intellect. So you see, the situation is such, immense work is to be done, not only here but in all the Union. And we all look upon ourselves as soldiers in this great, and I may say holy, war, to build a beautiful life, which is socialism. It is an immense work. Sometimes I shudder and sweat when I think of this immense work.’
Here he shuddered and put his hand on his heart.
‘But already,’ he cried, ‘the work has begun.’
At that moment the cab jolted violently and the horse, whipped fiercely, dashed aside to avoid a huge hole in the ground.
‘See,’ cried my friend excitedly. ‘This hole was not there this morning but already during the day it has been made. Wonderful.’
We turned a corner and halted. Instead of a thoroughfare there was a great mountain of earth and stones. The driver cursed and turned back to go another way.
‘Everywhere,’ cried my friend excitedly, ‘holes are made and streets torn up in order to put down asphalt. It is wonderful. In two years Moscow shall be all asphalt. In ten years every sign of the old city shall be swept away and a new socialist city shall be built. Wonderful. Hey!’
We were thrown into one another’s arms and one wheel went into the air, as the cab escaped another hole by the skin of its teeth. Before we could recover our balance another cab dashed into ours and a furious whipping and cursing began, which lasted for three minutes, ending in the victory of our driver over his enemy, who fled in confusion.
It’s terrible,’ cried my friend. ‘Why don’t they get Ford taxis and abolish this anarchy?’
But almost immediately he became enthusiastic once more as our cab found a street that was not torn up and jolted along peacefully at the rate of a mile an hour.
I must talk to you about your books,’ he continued. I like them. They are very good, but here in Russia you must learn a new ideology. Then they shall be better. You must now begin to write for the revolution. Otherwise, literature is useless. For myself, I am such a person, what you call a bookworm, a critic. I am such a man, who reads everything, a walking bookshop. My speciality is English literature of the nineteenth century. But I also have studied English literature of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries. But especially the nineteenth century is interesting for us in Russia, as it was in that period that England became an industrial country. Therefore, the literature of that period must bear a relation to our present needs, when we are building our industries. You see that among us everything is intelligently organised. That bloody fellow! What is he doing?’
This time the cab had got into a hole and was trying to get out again; but that was difficult as one of the wheels kept slipping along a tram track that had been exposed by the street excavations. A number of workmen engaged in digging the street looked on with amusement; but finally a couple of them helped the driver to lift the wheel on to the untorn surface. We moved on.
‘You see,’ said my friend, ‘the Five Year Plan is everywhere, in the streets as well as in the factories and fields.’
‘Don’t you find it uncomfortable?’ I said. ‘I mean, in order to carry out the Five Year Plan, you have to put up with all sorts of discomfort, in moving from one place to another, in the matter of food and cigarettes and clothes.’
‘Comrade,’ he cried, ‘the situation is such. For all good citizens of the Soviet Union, these discomforts and hardships are a pleasure. And more especially for citizens like myself. I must tell you I was not always a proletarian. My parents belonged to the bourgeoisie. Even I myself was such a dreadful type, that I opposed the revolution when the time of the great famine came. Then I realised that my position was incorrect, seeing that the whole capitalist world was in league with the whites and the social revolutionaries against the Communists. So I have since been a Bolshevik. I am not a member of the Party and therefore cannot call myself a Communist. But I hope one day, perhaps, the proletariat is going to forgive me my ancestry and my past errors and take me into the Party. To that end I work hard and try to annihilate in my nature all defects. I try all the time to annihilate my personality and to become absorbed in the mass. I try very hard to cease to be an individual and to become a unit in the broad bosom of the masses. I try to forget completely that I am such a one, Theodore Levit, and I would like just to call myself by a number and to work without recognition, work day and night, all the time, until my death, so that finally, this great crime shall be forgiven and I shall become completely a brother of the lowest and most humble proletarian, who is greater than I, even though he does nothing but stand so, with his arms folded, greater because he has not sinned like I and he is a pure proletarian.’
‘Christ!’ I thought. ‘How little it has changed in two thousand years, this religion of seeking God through self-effacement!’
‘Therefore comrade,’ he continued, almost in a state of frenzy, ‘the situation is such. To suffer is a pleasure for me. And very many Russian intellectuals are like, being of bourgeois ancestry. In our Bureau there are many such. They also struggle to annihilate their personality and to learn how to suffer with the masses. For us it is even necessary to be more eager than the masses, because we are on trial. In that way, we are watch dogs of the revolution, as somebody has said. One day, on a tramcar, I heard three workers talking about the shortage of food in a loud voice, complaining in a counter-revolutionary manner that it was difficult to get butter. At the next stop I called a militia man and these three men were brought to the militia post where I made a statement against them. In such a way we are the watch dogs of the revolution. But now we have arrived and eating shall take place.’
The House of the Press, or as we should call it, the Press Club was open to everybody connected with journalism and publishing in Moscow. Here the members could have their meals and amuse themselves at billiards and other games. It was not a very ornate place, its restaurant being rather like those foreign restaurants in Bloomsbury frequented by the younger intellectuals. But the food was excellent and the atmosphere was pleasant. Over some excellent soup, roast goose and vodka, my friend continued to enlighten me on the subject of Soviet intellectuals.
In Russia we have no use for the bohemian writer,’ he said. ‘We look upon the writer as a worker, like a carpenter or a dock labourer. Therefore he is paid by the number of words he writes and he must write a certain number of words every month in order to live. Just as the carpenter must make a fixed number of chairs or tables. It is better so.’
It is difficult to believe that,’ I said. ‘Do novelists, for instance, all write a certain number of words a month and do they get paid by the word?’
‘All get paid that way,’ he said. ‘A novel is paid for at the rate of one thousand roubles for six typographical pages. It does not matter if the writer is famous or not, all get paid alike. In England it is different.’
‘But do all writers get paid just one thousand roubles for the complete rights of their books?’
‘Oh! No,’ he said. ‘The situation is such. This money is paid on publication. Then if another edition is published another thousand roubles is paid. Each edition counts as one book. Also in Russia there is no monopoly. A writer may sell his book several times, if he can find publishers for it.’
‘But that amounts to the same thing as in England/ I said. ‘The popular writer can get rich while the unpopular writer merely gets one thousand roubles per book.’
It is so,’ he said. ‘But there are other means of preventing the popular writer from getting too rich.’
‘How?’ I said.
It is a Russian method,’ he said, but refused to disclose the method.
From other sources, I learned this method, which is an ingenious one. It was the case of a writer called Boris Pilniak which disclosed the method. Pilniak was an efficient and popular writer who prospered exceedingly. He bought himself a house and stocked it with choice furniture, which he found in the antique shops of Moscow. He took holidays abroad where he lived comfortably on his foreign royalties, as his books were also popular in central Europe. He brought from abroad choice raiment and other amenities, which his Soviet brothers were unable to procure. In a word, Comrade Pilniak began to lead a life which resembled remarkably that of a rich bourgeois writer in England, America or France. He thus aroused the jealousy of his brother writers and of the government, who were forced by law to starve on three hundred roubles a month. Becoming conceited by too much prosperity, he wrote a novel which was a trifle too daring. The government officials, seeing their chance of putting him in his proper place, refused to publish the manuscript in Russia, but allowed it to be exported to Germany, where it was received with enthusiasm by the Russian counter-revolutionary groups and published broadcast in serial form in their newspapers. These newspapers being imported into Russia were used by the government as a proof that Pilniak was a counter-revolutionary in tendency. The man was disgraced. His popularity disappeared and he is again a struggling Soviet writer.
‘Tell me,’ said comrade Levit suddenly, ‘the exact meaning of the word piobrach and whether it is an Irish or a Scotch word?’
It means piping,’ I said, ‘from piob, meaning pipe, a musical instrument popular among the Irish Gaels. It is an Irish word and not a Scotch word, as there is no such thing as a Scotch word properly speaking, except such local corruptions of the Irish and English languages as have come to be regarded as a Scottish dialect. Northern Scotland was conquered and colonised by the Irish Gaels and given the Irish language. The difference between Irish and Scotch is merely the difference between proper English, as spoken in England and American English, as spoken by Americans. Even though the difference between proper English and American is large, it is not yet sufficiently great to allow the Americans the honour of having created a new language. And in any case, English must always remain the property of the English. It could never become the property of the Americans. Neither could Irish become the property of the Scotch.’
I shall take that down,’ said comrade Levit, excitedly. It is an extremely important statement. For the situation is such. I am now engaged in a violent struggle with another comrade, a great scoundrel, who also specialises in English literature. He is such a man. A great fool. He makes such mistakes. He claims that Peacock was a greater novelist than Defoe. This I will admit. Peacock is greater than the Defoe of Robinson Crusoe. But the Defoe of Moll Flanders is a writer of monstrous size, while Peacock is only, so to speak, entertaining and on a level with such men as Meredith. And he also makes such mistakes. He translates the name Gertrude Atherton into Russian as if the a in Atherton were pronounced short as in bad, instead of long as in the exclamation eh. It is a foolish error and shows great ignorance. I shall at once write an article on the word piobrach.’
During the remainder of the evening, I was unable to get as much information from him about Russian intellectuals and their position in the new society as I wished, for I had unfortunately stirred into activity the chief enthusiasm of his life. But he amazed me by his knowledge of books, writers, and in fact of everything to be found in museums, libraries, art galleries all over the world. Although he had never set foot in England, indeed he had never left Russia, he knew the British Museum almost as well as Richard GarneIt must have known its library. The most obscure English writers were familiar to him. At one moment he discoursed on the origin of the Limerick. At the next he became enthusiastic over the researches of Dr. McNeill into ancient Irish sagas. Now and again, he pulled himself together and tried to relate his enthusiasm for scholarship to the Five Year Plan and the industrialisation of the Soviet Union, but he soon relapsed.
It is terrible,’ he cried once, waving his arms in despair, ‘the housing crisis. Now I can hardly enter my room because of my books and it is impossible to get a second room. Because of my books I have to lead the life of a bachelor, being married only one night every week. At first I was a married man, but three wives, one after the other, all refused to share my love for these invaluable possessions, which are books. Therefore, I now am a bachelor except one night every week, I marry in order to liquidate these congestions of the human body.’
In the intervals of discoursing on his pet subjects, he showed me the Press Club and later The House of Hertzen, which has been given by the government to writers as a club. This is the house that figured in War and Peace, as the home of Count Rostov. It was, in fact, the residence of a Polish nobleman, living in Russia, and the man’s coat-of-arms still stands over the door. It has been largely rebuilt, but the exterior still remains exactly what it was in Tolstoy’s time, with the difference that the stables are in ruins and the great courtyard in a state of great disorder. I was also amused to see the old stairway. It would be impossible to find as mean a staircase in a London tenement house. I could only come to the conclusion, from looking at it and mounting it, that the Russian aristocracy in the nineteenth century was much more primitive than Russian writers cared to admit.
But the present proprietors of the house struck me as even more peculiar in their habits and ideas than the most insane Russian aristocrats of the old regime. There are in England and America (especially in the latter country) ridiculous institutions for the manufacture of writers, schools of journalism and courses in dramatic art and such things. But even the wildest insanities born of the American love of mass production and of standardisation could not equal the Russian insanity as explained to me proudly by comrade Levit.
As we went from one room to another, he explained the purpose of each room in a few words, interrupting for a moment his more important remarks on Western European culture.
‘This room,’ he would say, ‘is such a place. Here there is always silence or only whispers. You see it is arranged in such a way. It is large. The colours sombre. The woodwork is smooth and not adorned. All is straight lines and there are no curves, which leads to romanticism and mysticism. Straight lines produce realism. Through the windows may be seen various tall buildings, also in straight lines, factories and such useful social structures, to give the impression of social creative energy. Indeed from this room one may see many buildings of the Five Year Plan. Therefore in this room writing is done by young writers who are learning to write. Older writers who are already qualified as Soviet writers give them assistance and instruction in the proper social attitude and the art of writing. The situation is such. At present there are no writers at work, because this is the scheduled time for social recreation. In another room I shall show you this.’
In another room he showed me a large chart on the wall and explained its meaning. There were statistics of the number of writers in the Soviet Union, divided into males and females and further divided into various categories, poets, novelists, dramatists and journalists. But a much more interesting item was the schedule for the daily-routine of a writer at work. The writer must arise at seven-thirty. He must spend twenty-five minutes at physical exercises. Then he must meditate for half an hour on his work for the day. Then he has breakfast, which takes half an hour. Then he lounges for an hour over a cigarette or two, making further reflections. Then he works for two hours. Then he walks or takes some other exercise for an hour. Afterwards there were three hours spent in conversation, a further three hours spent in working and some time for social duties. I cannot remember the whole routine correctly, but it aroused horror in me.
‘This,’ cried comrade Levit, cis part of the scheme for the liquidation of anarchy in literary production. It is a war on bohemianism and individualism. The situation is such within the Soviet Union and it is much better than in Western Europe. When one thinks how such a great writer as Baudelaire was ruined by the lack of such discipline it is sad.’
‘But is it a success?’ I asked. ‘Do all writers submit to this discipline?’
He paused for a moment and then said:
I hope so. Indeed I hope so. But the situation is such. Our generation is still infected with the poison of our bourgeois upbringing. The next generation shall be organised in such a manner. Then individualism shall finally disappear.’
‘But where did this idea come from? Did it originate with the writers themselves or did the government impose it on the writers?’
‘Comrade,’ he cried, ‘please understand that such a situation cannot exist that the government interferes with the freedom of writers. The writers themselves govern this building and all it contains through the Federation of Writers, which is a trade union and a member of the Russian Federation of Trade Unions, like all other worker organisations. Of course, members of the Party are on the committee, but then members of the Party are on all such committees.’
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘how do you explain the suicide of Mayakovsky, if such discipline exists?’
‘We shall go,’ he said suddenly. ‘That is a question which must be discussed to-morrow. I shall think of it. Because the suicide of Mayakovsky is a serious question which I have not for myself analysed. Indeed, as I mentioned Baudelaire just now, so also is the case of Mayakovsky something which it is difficult to analyse. The situation is such. Poetry, like romantic love, is a strange disease and perhaps it is a form of insanity which cannot be organised. But in any case, we shall discuss it to-morrow, while on our way to the police office about your passport. At this moment, I should prefer to have your view as to the effect of the rise of the proletariat in England on the poetry of Shelley. Here in Russia, at this moment, we are attempting a scientific examination of world literature, with special emphasis on the role played by social movements in creating the genius of writers. I myself have written a thesis on Defoe in that relation. Now the case of Shelley is beginning to arouse my interest.’
Finally, he left me at one o’clock in the morning and I got into bed, where I fell asleep at once.