AT night, the lights of Kiev flashed from the high bluffs above the River Dnieper like jewels in a coronet, while the ice-bound river far below shone in the moonlight like a white satin train. But with the daylight the beauty passed like a strange dream, and you found an atmosphere of desolation all the more accentuated by the bleakness of the winter sky. The paint was chipping off the buildings, the shop windows were cracked and dirty, and every few blocks there were queues. The poverty was oppressive. It was irreconcilable with the fact that Kiev was the capital city of the Soviet Ukraine—an area almost as large as France—with the most fertile farm lands in Europe.
In that winter of 1938–9 many people believed that these farm lands were Germany’s ultimate aim. Not many months before, Hitler had declared that if “the unending cornfields of the Ukraine lay within Germany, under National Socialist leadership, the country (Germany) would swim in plenty”.
The Russians had taken note of this. Although the Ukrainian newspapers carried no hint of a threat from abroad, the city flowed with troops. The villages were honeycombed with G.P.U. agents and at night the factories were illuminated and guarded by watchmen to prevent any attempts at sabotage. Finally, all foreign consulates, with the exception of the Polish, had been abolished, and the region unofficially closed to tourists. Indeed, foreigners had become such a rarity that when Frank Hayne, the American assistant military attaché, and I wandered around the streets, we were regarded as a curiosity. In the shops, crowds collected around us to feel our clothes and ask us where we had bought our boots.
I was on my way out of Russia and had been given permission to leave via the Roumanian frontier, travelling through Kiev and Odessa en route. Frank, with a diplomatic passport, was able to travel where he liked and had come with me to take a look round. Six years ago, when the Soviet Government had adopted drastic methods in an attempt to collectivize the land, over six million people had died of starvation in the Ukraine. Now most of the kolkhozes were established, and Frank and I were interested in learning something of present conditions in order to get an indication of what resistance the Ukraine could offer against a German attack.
But the Soviet authorities seemed to have another view on the matter. From the moment our train pulled into Kiev we were surrounded by G.P.U. men and it looked as though we would have little opportunity of seeing anything. We were trailed by the police day and night, even when we inspected the mummies of the priests buried in the catacombs of an ancient monastery. This annoyed Frank more than anything else. He was a delightful, easy-going southerner from New Orleans, but he had a temper that could flare up forcefully and unexpectedly.
“Ah suppose they think we’re goin’ to start a Trotsky conspiracy among the mummies,” he said indignantly. “If those fellows tag on behind me much longer ah’m goin’ to take a crack at them. Ah don’t mind being followed, but ah object to having them step on mah heels!”
When we asked the authorities for permission to visit a collective farm we were refused with a series of polite excuses. First, the director was out of town for the day; then the farm machinery was under repair; and last, the roads were too bad to travel over. As there were no taxis or public cars, we were helpless. But the more our path was baulked the more determined we became to have our way.
In the end we visited a collective farm, but not with official consent. We finally called on the Polish Consul, a charming man by the name of Matusinski, and when he heard our plight, he placed his car and chauffeur at our disposal. We arranged for the chauffeur to pick us up at ten the next morning, and drive us to a farm about twenty miles from Kiev.
Our trip had certain dramatic features. First of all, we succeeded in eluding our G.P.U. men. We were wandering along near the hotel looking into the shop windows when the Polish car came by, and we hailed it in the middle of the street. When we got out on a deserted country road we looked back to find two police cars following us; but the chauffeurs were alone. We had left so quickly that our G.P.U. men, who had been hanging about in the hotel lobby (thinking we must make our arrangements through the porter), had missed the bus.
It was good to get into the country; the landscape, with its white plains and its bright blue cottages glistening in the sunshine, looked like a painting from another century. Peasant women with thick shawls wrapped around their heads trudged along the road pulling crude, home-made sledges stacked with wood and straw; once a horse-drawn sleigh came dashing past us, the driver’s face half smothered in an enormous fur cap. But soon we came upon a column of soldiers dragging some field guns, and the slosh of their boots in the snow and the roll of the artillery wheels jerked us back to the grim reality of 1939. According to Frank the soldiers were members of the 44th Ukrainian Division—a division I was to see more of in Finland. They were husky, clean-shaven men and their high boots and long thick coats offered a striking contrast to the shabby appearance of the peasants.
As we drove along, the countryside became more and more deserted, but we jounced through snow and mud, across incredible roads; over one particularly nasty bit we looked back to see both our police cars stuck in a snowdrift. We whooped with delight at this piece of luck and a mile or so farther on reached our collective farm—unescorted.
A more desolate sight would be hard to imagine. It was a small village of perhaps two dozen cottages on either side of a narrow lane; and the lane was a sea of mud. The fences in front of the cottages were sagging, the walls dilapidated and the roofs in a bad state of repair. There was not a soul to be seen.
“Now that we’re here, what do we do?” asked Frank.
“We’re going in to talk to the people. And you must do the interpreting!”
“But we can’t just burst into people’s houses!”
“Why not? We’ll never be lucky enough to escape from the G.P.U. again.”
“Good Lord!” said Frank. “Before we’re through with this trip, I’ll be the journalist and you’ll be the military attaché.”
We walked through mud that oozed up over our boots, pushed our way through a rickety gate and walked round to the back of the cottage. We banged on the door and a few minutes later a frightened-looking woman opened it. She might have been any age. She had wispy, blondish-grey hair that hung in strands about her face, red hands and a dirty smock. She stared at us in bewilderment. Frank explained we were Americans who were making a trip through Russia, but the words seemed to make no impression, for she just stood there gazing at us dumbly. We asked her if we could come in and she moved aside and opened the door. The cottage consisted of two rooms: the floors and walls were bare and the only furniture was three stools, a cupboard and a table. In one corner of the room was a large porcelain stove; two babies, bundled up in cloth, were sleeping on top of it.
Conversation was difficult as the woman didn’t talk, but just kept staring at us. We asked her what conditions were like and if she had plenty of food.
Her face brightened at this. “Oh yes,” she replied. “We have bread.” She hurried over to the table, lifted a cloth, and showed us a plate of black bread. As far as we could see there was no other food in the house. We left with her still staring after us and walked down the road to another cottage.
This was a more lively affair, for inside we found a family of eleven people, ranging from a grandmother to a child of four. The grandmother was a very old woman. She had a yellow, withered face, but a pair of incredibly bright eyes; it soon became apparent that she was still very much the matriarch of the household. She was tremendously excited at our arrival, dragged two stools from the corner, and, chuckling and bowing, told us to sit down.
“What have you got in your hat?” she said, pointing at me.
Frank said it was a veil.
“But what’s it for?”
The difficulty of an explanation was avoided, for her attention suddenly shifted to my silk stockings. She knelt down and felt them. “Aren’t you cold?”
We asked her about conditions in the village and she nodded her head in satisfaction and gave us the same answer we had heard in the first cottage: there was bread. Then she chuckled and added there was vodka as well.
The cottage was as bare of furniture as the first one. When we asked where everybody slept she pushed open the back door and pointed to a loft filled with hay. Near the door there were two ikons hanging on the wall. Frank commented on them.
“I didn’t think you kept those any more.”
The old woman laughed. “The younger people don’t have them, but I like them. They’re so bright.”
In the meanwhile, the rest of the family clustered round, the children staring at us with their fingers in their mouths. One of the boys suddenly darted into the next room and came back with a battered accordion. He squatted on the floor and began to play, while two of the girls clasped hands and did a little dance. The grandmother said something: one of them broke off, ran over to the cupboard and pulled out a dress. It was made of homespun cloth, painstakingly embroidered with flowers. She slipped into it, her sister did the buttons up, and then resumed the dance.
When we were ready to leave, the grandmother called our attention to a small faded snapshot tacked on the wall. She said it was a picture of herself taken many years ago, then pointed to Frank’s camera and remarked how wonderful it would be to have a new one. We suggested a family group and at this the cottage went into an uproar. The boys knelt down to clean their shoes, the girls began to smooth their hair, and the mother wiped her children’s faces. Finally, they lined up outside the cottage, their expressions tense and nervous. When the camera clicked a sigh of relief swept through the group. They surged forward while we wrote down their address, then one by one shook hands and said good-bye.
When we reached the car again we discovered that news of our arrival had spread through the village. All along the lane neighbours were hanging over their fences discussing the event. Our Polish chauffeur told us the police cars had just arrived, and the drivers were reporting us to the farm director. He advised us to pay our respects immediately.
The director’s headquarters were in a large cottage, a few yards back from the lane, known as an ‘agitation point’. We walked in to find him in conversation with a uniformed militia man. Both of them gave us hostile looks and demanded our papers. But Frank’s diplomatic passport evidently made an impression, for after questioning us for ten or fifteen minutes, they finally let us go.
On the way home we looked back and saw the police cars following us; this time they each contained three G.P.U. men. Where they all came from still remains a Soviet mystery.
* * *
Before we left Kiev we said good-bye to Mr. Matusinski, the Polish Consul, who had been so kind to us. Six months later, when the Russians marched into Poland, he was called out of his bed at midnight, and taken to police headquarters for questioning. What sort of a third degree he was put through no one knows, for he was never seen again. When the Soviet authorities were questioned about this brutal act, they disclaimed any knowledge of his whereabouts and suggested that perhaps he had met with an “accident”. They offered, ironically, to make a search for the body.
* * *
In Odessa, Frank and I met two British sailors who had come into port on a cargo ship carrying oranges from Valencia. They were an amusing pair. The first mate was a tall, lumbering Lancashire man and the engineer a wiry little Cockney. We invited them to have supper with us, but when the bill came they drew large wads of roubles out of their pockets and insisted on paying. With the exchange at twenty-five roubles to the pound Frank and I were astonished, but the engineer explained that the moment they stepped ashore Russians had begun bartering for their clothes.
“A thousand roubles for my pants, five hundred for my coat and a hundred for my socks. If I hadn’t thought I’d be arrested for indecency I’d have stripped in the middle of the street. Instead, I went back to the ship and dug up all the old shirts and sweaters I could find, and now we’re living like a couple of millionaires.”
“Yes. And you wouldn’t believe how far these things will go.” The first mate dug deeply into his pockets and drew out three oranges. “In this country they’re as good as diamond bracelets,” he chortled. “You’ve no idea how fast you can get acquainted. Perhaps I shouldn’t boast, but I’ve already had two proposals of marriage—one from the girl at the restaurant and the other from the cook at the club.”
The engineer interrupted to explain that the girls were so anxious to get away from Russia, any foreigners would do.
“Well, personal appearances count a little,” insisted the first mate, slightly ruffled.
The pair had had many hazardous experiences running the Spanish blockade; once their ship had been bombed and sunk in Barcelona harbour, but they had promptly signed up with the crew of another. There was little danger of their being converted to Communism, for although they had travelled to many out-of-the-way places, they seemed to regard Russia as the strangest of them all.
“On the whole,” said the first mate, “foreigners are a pretty loony lot. There’s no stability about them, if you know what I mean. But as for this Russian system where you can win a girl with an orange, it’s definitely queer.”
“At least, we’re saving a lot of money,” interrupted the engineer. “When we get back to Marseilles we can stock up on sweets for the kids in Barcelona.”
The Spanish War came to an end three months later, and I often wondered what happened to the pair. The first mate said when it was over he was going to buy a cottage in England and settle down; but I suppose both of them are still on the high seas—this time running the blockade of the German U-boats.
* * *
Odessa was as desolate as Kiev, but it was warmer. The streets ran with mud, for the snow was melting, but in the country you could see the first signs of spring. The Intourist guides were more accommodating than they had been in Kiev and arranged to take us to several factories and farms, but, unfortunately, our programme was upset by a final encounter with the G.P.U.
When foreigners travel in Russia they must arrange their itinerary in advance and get special permits which are marked with the exact number of hours they wish to remain in each town. Although my visa for the Soviet Union didn’t expire for another week, my pass for Odessa was stamped one day. Mr. Schmidt had told me if I wished to change my plans in any way, to notify the local police and they would make the proper readjustments. But when I applied for a forty-eight hours’ extension for Odessa the authorities sent back my card with the reply that since Moscow had stamped it for one day, one day it must remain. The telephone lines were government-controlled, so we were unable to ring up the Foreign Office ourselves, but sent back a message asking the police to get in touch with Mr. Schmidt, who, we assured them, would straighten out the matter. But the police, smothered by the red tape of bureaucracy, had no intention of using any initiative. Back came the irritating comment that one day was one day. As Frank was travelling on a diplomatic pass, he was all right, but I was ordered to leave not later than eight in the morning.
Frank telegraphed to Mr. Schmidt and Chip Bohlen—although we had little chance of getting a reply in less than twenty-four hours—and sent the police a second message saying that I flatly refused to leave. “That will show them they can’t push us around as though we were Russians,” he said angrily.
That night we went to the local ballet and when we got back to the hotel the porter told us the police were waiting to see us. We went into the manager’s room and found a strapping G.P.U. man in uniform. Frank painstakingly re-explained the situation, but the officer sat there shaking his head and stubbornly repeating: “One day is one day.”
“Now, look here,” said Frank, “I’ve had about enough of the Soviet police force. If you want to straighten out the matter all you have to do is to lift the telephone and ring Moscow, but it’s a waste of time ordering us about. If the lady doesn’t want to leave she’s not going to leave. Do you understand? Now, we’ll ask her. You don’t want to leave, do you?”
“No,” I said weakly.
“There! You heard her yourself. She doesn’t want to leave. What are you going to do about it?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s final?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then she must be prepared for the consequences.”
The G.P.U. man gave me a menacing look and left the room.
“You don’t mind, do you?” said Frank. “We must keep the Stars and Stripes flying.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But not from the inside of a concentration camp.”
I don’t suppose anyone had ever talked to the G.P.U. like that before. In the hall we saw the manager whispering to one of the porters, evidently telling him about the episode; both were grinning from ear to ear.
The next forty-eight hours in Odessa were slightly disconcerting, for although we had a telegram from Chip Bohlen saying he would do his best, we heard nothing from Mr. Schmidt. No further messages came from the police, but each time we went out of the hotel I expected to arrive back to find a posse waiting for us. The day finally came for Frank to leave for Moscow and for me to leave for Roumania. The trip to the frontier town of Tiraspol was a three-hour journey, and, although Frank assured me I would be all right, I feared I might be intercepted on the way.
On the train I noticed a plain-clothes man obviously following me. This was not out of the ordinary, but my heart sank when I reached Tiraspol and found the G.P.U. man that Frank had quarrelled with waiting for me in the customs house. He gave me a look that seemed filled with meaning, told me to leave my bags and identification papers and to wait in the restaurant while he examined them.
I sat down at a table and ordered some tea and a bun. Suddenly I looked up to see the plain-clothes man standing over me, a smile on his face.
“I speak English,” he said.
I thought this was the prelude to an arrest, but he pulled up a chair and I discovered he was only seeking an opportunity to practise his English. In Russia, languages are evidently taught with an eye on propaganda, for although he spoke only pidgin-English his vocabulary was sufficient to express the party line. This is the conversation we had.
“Russia good country. You English?”
“No. American.”
“Unemployment in America?”
“Yes. Some.” (Not wishing to let the home team down.)
“Bourgeois government.” (Pause.) “Unemployment in England, too?”
“Yes. Some.”
“Bourgeois government.” (Pause.) “Bourgeois government, always unemployment. In Russia, workers’ government, no unemployment.”
I asked him if he considered Germany’s government a bourgeois one, and he said that he did.
“Well, they haven’t any unemployment. How do you explain that?”
He lifted his hands in consternation. “Oh, mustn’t talk about Germany. Germany very bad country. Many concentration camps.” He shook his head gloomily, got up, bowed, and left.
My worries were needless, for after an hour I was called back to the customs office and my papers and bags were politely handed back. Evidently Mr. Schmidt had intervened. Most surprising of all was the G.P.U. man, who shook my hand and bade me return to the Soviet Union again!
I left on a musical comedy train. It was painted bright green with chintz curtains and flower-pots in the windows. It was used only to run back and forth across the frontier, and especially designed to impress the Roumanians. I was the only passenger on the train, and when we reached the frontier the guards got off and only the engineer and an assistant remained—the Soviet Union trusted few of its people on foreign soil.
Under ordinary circumstances, Tighina would probably seem a drab little town, but on that particular afternoon it had a glamour all its own. Everything was so bright: the bowls of fruit in the restaurant; the waitress’s green ear-rings; the red ribbon round the cat’s neck; the gaudy photograph of King Carol on the wall; the blue and white check tablecloth. The windows were shining, the floors were clean, and everybody looked plump and cheerful. The Kremlin was a long way off.
* * *
On the way back to England I travelled across Roumania, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France. During that long trip I thought a good deal about the misery and inhumanity I had seen under totalitarian régimes. I had seen the extremists on both sides of the war in Spain; I had seen Nazism in Germany, Communism in Russia. And I knew more than ever that I believed in democracy.
In America I had believed in democracy because I had been taught to, but now I believed in it because I had learned what it meant. It meant the right of the majority to rule and the right of the minority to exist. This last seemed to me the most important of all, for wherever the minority has the right to exist, men can think and speak according to their conscience.
I had heard people argue that “freedom of speech” was a misused privilege; that on the whole it was a small deprivation to be forbidden to criticize the government. But “the government” was not an abstract term. The government was the clothes you wore; the cigarettes you smoked; the food you ate; the schools you went to; the books you read; the streets you walked along. It conditioned your thoughts and fashioned your ambitions. When you surrendered your right to oppose the government, you surrendered your right to live as a human being.
I had also heard it argued that the mass of people were not fit to guide their own destiny and it was therefore proper for the State to be unobstructed in directing the lives of their people for the common good. Those words the “State” were always misleading. The State was a group of men. And I knew I didn’t believe any group of men infallible enough to be awarded powers that could not be checked. The totalitarian régimes boasted of the swiftness of their administration; when they plunged into war, I thought, that would be swift, too.
War seemed a certainty, and I knew the forces gathering to oppose each other were not merely the forces of Imperialism. It was man versus the ant-heap. As an American, I might be neutral; but as a human being, it was already my fight.
* * *
It didn’t take long to become re-acclimated to the electric atmosphere of the continent. I spent only twelve hours in Berlin, dined with Charlie Post, an American business man, and took the night express to London. About midnight I was awakened by the shuffle of footsteps and the sound of voices. The door of my compartment was flung open and three Nazi storm troopers walked in. One of them addressed me in English and said he would have to search my bags. But first he asked me the name of the man who had taken me to the station. I told him and he shook his head.
“He was not an American. He was a Russian. You were speaking Russian to him on the station platform.”
I told him I couldn’t speak a word of Russian, but he smiled unbelievingly, and proceeded to rip my suitcases to pieces.
I don’t know yet what they were searching for. The porter told me later they had also questioned him, asking if he had overheard me speaking Russian. They said they had been ordered to make the search by their headquarters in Berlin. It was four weeks before the Germans marched into Prague, and I can only imagine that, with the move impending, there were instructions to watch all foreigners closely; the fact that I had been travelling through the Ukraine, Roumania and Poland—territory regarded as “German spheres of interest”—might have led them to suspect me of being a spy.
Whatever the explanation, they pulled everything out of my suitcases until the compartment looked as though a tornado had hit it. They pounced on the Marxist literature I had. “Ach so! You are a member of the Communist party?”
They wrote down the titles of the books but to my surprise returned them, and told me that at the next stop a woman would board the train to search the bed. The leader of the group evidently had orders to remain in the compartment lest I hide anything, for he leaned against the wall and lighted a cigarette. He was a good-looking young man, not more than twenty-five years old, but with the arrogant manner swagger his uniform suggested. His voice rang through the quiet sleeping-car.
“So you are on your way to England. Well, you tell Mr. Chamberlain from us that if he tries to block our way in Europe any longer” (Mr. Chamberlain was at this time predicting a golden era of peace) “he’ll have a war on his hands. We don’t want a war but we’ll fight. We aren’t going to sit back taking orders from anybody. Germany is too big to be strangled.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, I don’t know. But somewhere. We need more room.”
“What about the Ukraine?”
“What’s it like there?”
I described it and he suddenly grinned. “I don’t think you’re a Communist, after all. It would be a fine country for Germany, wouldn’t it? It would give us all the things we need. But, personally, I would like to have a farm in Africa.” His tone became almost confiding. “I’m tired of my job here. I would like to take my wife to Africa, where it’s nice and warm, and have a cottage with some chickens. The English don’t pay any attention to their colonies, but we would take trouble over them. And we deserve them. We’re a nation of eighty million people.”
He elaborated this theme for some time. The more he talked the more genial he became. When the customs woman came aboard he evidently told her to cut the search short, for she only half pulled back the bedclothes, looked beneath the pillow, then bowed apologetically and left.
The storm trooper came back into the compartment, said perhaps he would run into me on the train again one day, heiled Hitler, and departed.
I drew a sigh of relief and took out my passport. Eagles look the same the world over, but the one stamped on the cover was a tough old bird. Tougher, I thought, than the German eagle. At least, so far.