Russka: The Novel of Russia

  One of these, just above Alexander, especially caught his attention. It was a large historical picture of Ivan the Terrible. The mighty Tsar was standing in a long robe of gold brocade edged with fur; in his hand was a heavy staff, and his fearsome eyes were glaring down accusingly, straight at Nicolai Bobrov. As well they might, thought Alexander, considering his father’s disgraceful errand.

  For Nicolai had come to sell the merchant his estate.

  It wasn’t really his fault. He couldn’t hold out any longer. He was in good company too. Since the troubles began in the countryside last year, landowners all over Russia had been selling off. Suvorin, moreover, had offered him an excellent price for the place. ‘More than it’s worth,’ he reminded his furious son. But now, seeing the boy’s miserable face, he looked down awkwardly at the long table and muttered: ‘I’m sorry.’

  Vladimir Suvorin did not keep them waiting long. He swept into the room with his lawyer, embraced Nicolai warmly, gave Alexander’s arm a friendly squeeze, and in a moment the papers were all on the table before them.

  Suvorin was in a good mood. He had long considered having a country retreat near his factories at Russka. In recent years, also, he had become interested in Russian crafts. ‘I’m going to set up some workshops for woodcarving and pottery on the estate,’ he had told Nicolai. ‘And a little museum for folk art, too.’ Now, seeing the father and son standing gloomily before him, he understood perfectly what was passing in their minds.

  ‘Your father’s made a wise decision,’ he said firmly to Alexander. ‘Though I want the estate for my museum, I shan’t be able to make it pay any more than he could.’ He smiled. ‘All the wise men are selling, my friends, and only fools like me are buying.’ Turning back to Nicolai he remarked: ‘Naturally, my friend, I rather envy you. You’re free as a bird now. You should make a tour of Europe. All the Russians are doing it, and nobles like you are treated with great respect in Paris and Monte Carlo. You should show your son the world.’

  But even these kindly words failed to draw a smile from Alexander. Not that he felt any resentment towards the industrialist – quite the reverse. All he knew was this: the Bobrovs had held estates as long as Russia had existed; his father, with his liberal ideas, had lost them. His father had failed in his duty. And looking with renewed admiration at Suvorin he thought once more: How I wish you were my father.

  But now Vladimir was beckoning. ‘Enough of business, my friends. It is time to meet our other guests.’

  Mrs Suvorin’s entertaining was justly famous. Everyone came to her house. Artists, musicians and writers were especially welcome. But the aristocracy did not disdain the merchant’s hospitality and even a proud St Petersburg sophisticate like Prince Shcherbatov was a regular visitor. The Suvorin influence spread everywhere – theatres, journals, art schools. Even a strange young man named Diaghilev, who seemed to want to make himself a one-man ambassador for Russian art and culture, found patronage and encouragement in the Suvorin house. Indeed, of Russia’s celebrities, perhaps only Tolstoy, for some reason, had never come there.

  Mrs Suvorin liked her guest-list to have a theme, and this evening was no exception.

  ‘Tonight,’ Vladimir had murmured to Nicolai Bobrov as they went into the huge salon, ‘will be all about politics.’

  It was certainly appropriate. The political events of the last nine months had been astonishing. All the previous summer the situation had grown worse while the Tsar delayed. There had been constant terrorist acts, and industrial trouble. ‘Why the devil won’t he listen to the zemstvos?’ Nicolai would fume. But still the Tsar remained undecided. And then, in October, the unthinkable had happened. There had been a general strike. For ten, terrible days, as winter approached, nothing had moved in the entire Russian empire. The government had been completely powerless. ‘Either we shall have reform,’ Nicolai had declared, ‘or we’re all going to die.’ And then at last the Tsar had given way. He would grant the people a parliament – the Duma. ‘At last,’ Nicolai had explained, ‘that poor man has seen some sense. We’ll have a constitutional monarchy, like England. We’ll be civilized, like the west.’

  Except that this was Russia.

  The first Duma of the Russian state was organized as follows. Elections were held in which most Russian men could vote, but they did so grouped by class, each class able to send only so many deputies. The arithmetic of this system meant that each vote of a gentleman like Bobrov was worth that of three merchants, fifteen peasants, or forty-five urban workers. At the very time when the voting was taking place, however, the government also issued a package known by the old-fashioned title of Fundamental Laws. These added a second chamber on top of the first, half appointed by the Tsar and the rest selected by the most conservative elements. This effectively hamstrung the Duma. ‘Just in case they wanted to do anything,’ Nicolai Bobrov commented wryly. Even if the two houses were in agreement, they still had no real control over the bureaucracy who actually ran the empire. Further, the Tsar confirmed the autocracy, reserved the right to dissolve the Duma at his pleasure and affirmed that, whenever the Duma was not in session, he could govern by emergency decree as he saw fit.

  ‘In short,’ Nicolai had summarized, as these measures became known, ‘it’s very Russian. It’s a parliament – and it isn’t. It can talk – but it can’t act. The Tsar gives – and the Tsar takes away.’

  Why then, as he walked into Mrs Suvorin’s drawing room that evening, should he have been so pleased? The answer was: two simple reasons. First the Socialists had boycotted the entire proceedings, and so put up few candidates; second, the Tsar’s assumption that the majority of the gentry and of the peasants would be loyal and vote for conservative candidates was completely wrong. The overwhelming majority voted against the regime – and returned a large number of progressive liberals. ‘And do you know,’ Nicolai declared gleefully to his wife, ‘I’m not sure next time I won’t stand myself.’ And so as he entered the room, he looked about him with interest.

  Mrs Suvorin greeted him pleasantly. ‘I have done my work well,’ she smiled. ‘We have someone from almost every political party here.’

  Nicolai smiled. It was typical of the situation in tsarist Russia that at present almost all the political parties remained, technically, illegal. The Duma was beginning its deliberations arranged in parties which, officially, did not exist!

  Her claim was true. Nicolai soon identified men of impeccable right-wing credentials who wanted the Duma abolished. ‘Friends for you,’ he said with a grin to his son. There were conservative liberals who wanted the Duma to cooperate with the Tsar; and there were men like himself, Constitutional Democrats, known as Cadets for short, who were determined to push the Tsar towards a proper democracy. ‘And what about the parties of the left?’ he asked her.

  There were two of these nowadays. There were the Socialist Revolutionaries, who represented the peasants, but some of whom were unfortunately dedicated to terrorism. ‘I’m short there,’ his hostess remarked lightly. ‘Though if a bomb goes off, I suppose I’ll know I had one after all.’ And there was the party of the workers, the Social Democrats. ‘And there I have done better. Come and meet my brother-in-law: Professor Peter Suvorin.’

  Peter and Rosa Suvorin did not often come to his brother’s huge house. Not that they were unwelcome: the two brothers were fond of each other; but their ways had long since parted. Rosa and Mrs Suvorin had little to say to each other, and Peter found that there was a subtle patronage towards him in her manner which plainly said: ‘I shall be charming, of course, but you are a poor, unfortunate creature.’ Indeed, but for one circumstance the two families might scarcely have met at all: and this was the friendship of their children.

  Three children had been born to Rosa, but only one had lived: Dimitri, a dark-haired little boy three years Nadezhda’s senior. They had first met one Christmas when Nadezhda was three, and had at once taken a liking to each other. Since the girl constantly asked for him, Dimitri was frequ
ently invited, although for some reason Mrs Suvorin never cared to let her daughter go to her cousin’s modest house. But it seemed to please her to see the children together and she would say to Rosa, with obvious sincerity: ‘It’s so nice for Nadezhda to have another child to play with.’

  But tonight Mrs Suvorin had been positively anxious to see the Marxist professor. ‘He is my link to all these people on the far left,’ she had said to her husband. ‘And I think it’s time I came to understand them better.’

  She knew a little about the Social Democrats. She was aware that they had split, in recent years, into two camps, the smaller of which was the more extreme. ‘With typical Russian confusion,’ Vladimir had remarked, ‘the majority call themselves the little party, and the minority call themselves the big party – the Bolsheviks.’ Mrs Suvorin was sure that kindly Peter must belong to the less extreme majority, but she was curious about the Bolsheviks, and a few days before had asked him: ‘Do you know any of these fellows? What are they like? Could you bring one to our house?’ To which Peter had replied: ‘I do know such a man who’s in Moscow at present. But I don’t suppose he’d come.’ ‘Ask him anyway,’ she had requested, which Peter had done.

  Nicolai Bobrov was curious to meet Peter Suvorin, whom he only vaguely remembered from his youth; and the two men found they liked each other. ‘We Cadets,’ Bobrov assured him, ‘are going to oppose the Tsar all the way until he gives us a real democracy.’

  ‘We both want that,’ Peter agreed pleasantly. ‘But we want democracy to usher in the revolution, and you want it to avoid the revolution!’ In answer to Nicolai’s further question he gave his opinions of the future freely. ‘The workers’ organization will be the key to everything now,’ he explained. ‘And the Marxist’s job is to keep them political, committed to a Socialist revolution when the time is ripe.’

  ‘Who will do that?’ Bobrov asked.

  ‘In the western provinces, the Jewish workers’ organization, the Bund,’ Peter answered. He was sorry that his earlier efforts to persuade the eager young Jewish reformers not to follow their own path had failed. But he could not deny that the Jewish Bund had been solid and strong in the months of crisis; and they were good Marxists.

  ‘And in the rest of Russia?’

  Peter smiled. ‘The new workers’ committees. They got started last year and they’re very effective. Political cells in every city. They’re the answer.’

  ‘What do you call them?’ Nicolai asked.

  ‘We call them Soviets,’ the professor replied.

  Nicolai shrugged. It seemed to him that if the Duma did its work well, these Soviets would soon be forgotten.

  While they talked, he found himself, from time to time, watching his host and hostess as they moved in their separate paths about the room. There was no doubt about it, they were very good at managing these things. Mrs Suvorin was stately. She had a knack of moving from group to group with a quiet grace that earned the respect of every woman, and left every man surreptitiously gazing after her. She flirts by not flirting, he realized. As for Vladimir, the men liked and respected him, but with the women, one could see, he had a special talent. Why was it that they seemed to flush with pleasure when he talked to them? After observing him a little while, Nicolai thought he saw. He understands the way they think, he decided. He gets inside their minds. It was another facet of his extraordinary intelligence, and Nicolai suddenly wondered: Is he unfaithful to her, perhaps? He had no doubt that many women in the room would gladly have encouraged any interest Suvorin showed.

  Nicolai was still musing in this manner when he noticed that Vladimir was talking to Rosa Suvorin. Nicolai also noticed that Vladimir’s usual comfortable smile had disappeared. His face wore a look of tender concern and he was speaking to her earnestly. Whatever was he saying with such urgency? Peter too was now looking at his wife with puzzlement. Rosa, looking suddenly very pale and tired, was shaking her head, apparently resisting him. Then, giving her arm a gentle squeeze, Vladimir moved away, while Rosa suddenly turned away towards a window. To Nicolai Bobrov, and no doubt to Peter, it seemed rather strange. And Nicolai would have thought more about it if, at this moment, something had not happened to deflect everyone’s attention.

  For now the door opened and a new figure appeared. It was Yevgeny Popov.

  Young Alexander Bobrov had found himself standing beside Vladimir at the moment when Popov entered and, for once, he heard even the perfectly controlled industrialist gasp with surprise.

  ‘Well I’m damned!’ He glanced down at Alexander. ‘It’s the fellow we saw during the strike.’

  It was indeed. The red-headed man they had called Ivanov. ‘Will you throw him out?’ Alexander whispered.

  ‘No.’ The industrialist smiled. ‘Don’t you remember, my friend, I wanted to talk to him then; and now here he is. Life is wonderful indeed.’ And with outstretched hand he strode across the room to where the revolutionary was standing, and smiled. ‘Welcome.’

  But if this action took the youth by surprise, it was nothing to his horror when, a moment later, the red-head walked over to his father, embraced him warmly, and then, when Mrs Suvorin asked in confusion: ‘You two know each other?’ replied calmly, ‘Oh, yes. We go back together a long way.’

  His father was a friend of this creature. It seemed to Alexander that there was no limit to Nicolai’s foolishness and disloyalty.

  The little group which gathered around Popov eyed him with curiosity. Nicolai in particular, seeing his old acquaintance in this strange new setting, looked on with some amusement, while Mrs Suvorin, gazing at his calm, rather detached expression and comparing him with her Marxist brother-in-law, quickly came to the conclusion: This is a very different sort of man. He recognizes no barriers.

  ‘You wanted a Bolshevik,’ Peter said to her wryly. ‘Here he is.’

  And Mrs Suvorin smiled.

  ‘You are welcome indeed,’ she said. Which was certainly true. For, excellent though the company always was at her house, Mrs Suvorin knew that recently she had been missing out on something: the true revolutionaries.

  In a later age it would be called radical chic, this fashion amongst some of the privileged classes of inviting revolutionaries to their home, and even making contributions to their cause. A few industrialists, convinced that the Tsar was on a road to catastrophe, may have courted the revolutionaries as a kind of insurance policy against the future. But others of the rich and idle certainly did so only because they thought it amusing, or smart, or perhaps to receive a little frisson from the knowledge that they were playing with fire. Mrs Suvorin had always eschewed these activities before, but recently she had feared that, without an occasional revolutionary, her salons might begin to look a trifle dowdy. She needed Popov, therefore: he completed her arrangements.

  And, it had to be said, he made himself rather agreeable. It was evident at once that he was well-informed. He had recently returned from the Socialists’ latest congress, held in Stockholm; and while he was obviously careful about what he said, he seemed quite willing to answer questions. To Mrs Suvorin’s enquiry about the Bolsheviks, he was very straightforward.

  ‘The difference between the Bolsheviks and the rest of the Social Democrats – the Mensheviks as we call them – is not that large. We all want a Socialist society; we all follow Marx; but there are disputes about tactics.’ He smiled at Peter Suvorin. ‘And sometimes personalities.’ He reeled off the names of some of the Menshevik leaders: young Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg in Poland, various others. ‘But it’s the Bolshevik leader who really makes the split, though.’ He grinned. ‘That’s my friend Lenin. He never compromises about anything.’

  ‘And who is he, this Lenin?’ Nicolai Bobrov asked. ‘I don’t know a thing about him.’

  ‘Oh, but you do,’ Popov smiled. ‘For you’ve already met him – fifteen years ago, on a train. Remember?’

  ‘The lawyer? The Chuvash lawyer with an estate by the Volga?’

  ‘One and the same. He’
s been living in exile most of the time. He’s in hiding now, because the authorities don’t seem to like him. But he’s the man behind the Bolsheviks.’

  ‘And what does he want? What makes him different?’

  ‘He writes carelessly,’ Popov replies, ‘but the key to Lenin lies in his book. That’s his manifesto.’ And he told them a little about it.

  This all-important work had been written only four years before, and smuggled into Russia from Germany; but already, for most revolutionaries, it had become a bible. Choosing the same title as the little novel which had so inspired the previous generation of radicals, he had called it What Is To Be Done. It was not so much a political tract as an instruction manual – on how to make a revolution. ‘Marxism tells us the old order will collapse,’ Popov smiled. ‘Lenin tells us how to give it a push.’ And then carefully: ‘Roughly speaking, our Menshevik friends want to wait until the masses are ready to create the Socialist order of a new and just society. We Bolsheviks are sceptical. We think that a small and highly organized cadre is needed to push for the great change in society. It’s only tactics: but we believe the masses will need leading, that’s all.’

  ‘Some of us think,’ Peter Suvorin observed, ‘that Lenin regards the workers as nothing more than cannon fodder.’

  To his surprise, however, Popov nodded. ‘It’s probably true,’ he replied. Then, smiling again: ‘That’s part of his greatness.’

  For a moment or two the little group was silent, digesting what Popov had said. Then Nicolai Bobrov slowly spoke.

  ‘I can see your point about the masses needing leaders, and you may be right. But isn’t there a danger of such a group becoming too powerful – a sort of dictatorship?’