The Dissolution of Petrograd

DEAR MARGARET, —

Cut off, as I have been since the spring of 1918, from all my friends in England and Scotland, I must seem to you now as one who has returned from the Land of the Dead. And truly I feel, since my release from the terrors of Soviet Russia, that I have escaped from an existence hardly better than death. Of all my dreadful experiences in Petrograd I cannot write, but I must tell you of some which, here in far-off America, still haunt me like awful nightmares.

After the Revolution of February, 1917, and particularly after the fall of Kerensky, eight or nine months later, the position of the moneyed classes became rapidly desperate, and I soon found myself in a precarious situation. What a change had come over my fortunes! Here I was, the elderly widow of a Russian naval officer, British by birth but Russian by marriage. My husband had left me at his death with an ample income from several investments which seemed perfectly secure. In my long years of residence in Petrograd I had come to love the beautiful city, and I had no intention of leaving it. Why should I? In Petrograd I had friends, possessions, money, servants, and heart’s ease but for my husband’s death. I could look forward to declining years of comfortable leisure.

Then came the Revolution and Bolshevist rule, and my prospects melted like mist in the sun. My investments became worthless, my chattels were nationalized. I dismissed my last servant, and soon I was suffering privations and hardships I had never dreamed of, and living amid horrors that I had never seen in my wildest delirium.

Of the political and social changes that took place in Russia, and of the ruin into which the poor country rapidly sank, you have read much in recent months, for the Bolsheviki could not conceal these changes forever. I will tell you, therefore, of only some of the things I saw and some of the hardships I suffered in Petrograd. This account I have taken pains to make simple and unvarnished. As I look back now upon my experiences, I do so without spite or resentment against the misguided people who were the cause of so much sorrow. Perhaps my sufferings have made me apathetic; but it seems to me now as if I and the Jean Sokoloff of the last two or three years in Russia were not the same person.

At the beginning everybody spoke of the Revolution as bloodless, and so it was — at first; but, later, dreadful tragedies were enacted. All police officers and government officials who showed loyalty to the Tsar were immediately shot. Not far from my house nine were executed on the second day of the Revolution. For a long time it was quite unsafe to go out into the streets, as there was a great deal of shooting; quick-firing guns were mounted on high buildings, and no one knew when there might be a rain of bullets. In the Nevsky Prospect and other principal streets motor-lorries, bristling with rifles and quick-firing guns and packed with students and other revolutionists, caused excitement and terrorized the people.

The opening of the prisons and the release of all criminals made both life and property very unsafe, especially since there were no police officers. Robberies were frequent, and after dark pedestrians were often stripped of their boots and their upper garments. One lady whom I knew was coming home one evening wearing a long coat of black Persian lamb. Two men stopped her and asked her if she wished to buy a fur coat. She replied that she did not require to, as she had the one she was wearing. ’Why,’they said, ‘that is the very one we mean’; and as she did not have the money to redeem it, they took it from her. At length the people took matters into their own hands, and when they caught a robber, they lynched him straight away, and threw his body into a canal. A decree was issued that everybody over sixteen was to take his turn as night-watchman. That is, if a house was rented in seven flats, let us say, each flat had to provide a watch for one night in the week.

I shall never forget my first experience as watchman. Imagine me, an elderly lady with no bloodthirsty ideas whatever, sitting at the great gate which led to the inner court, with a loaded gun across my knees! My watch was from 11 P.M. to 4 A.M., and I was under instructions to shoot if anybody refused to give his name or to tell why he wished admission. I was far more afraid of the gun than I was of any robber who might appear; and taking pity on me, our old house-porter hung up a battered teatray near me, and, giving me a stick, told me to bang on the tray if I needed help. Fortunately, I did not have to make use of either the gun or the tray.

On another occasion, the good old porter did me an even more valuable service. A decree was issued that no one renting a house could claim for himself more than two rooms at most; the rest of the house, furnished and with the use of the kitchen, must be given to whoever from the working class might want to use it. Soon there appeared at my door a workingwoman, dirty and unkempt, but arrogant, who demanded that I give up a certain number of rooms to her. The house-porter told the woman and the Bolshevist official who supported her in her demand, that I had a male lodger; I showed them some of my husband’s clothes and a man’s hat and walking-stick which I had laid out in one of the rooms, and the porter exhibited a false entry which he had made in the house-book. The invaders were satisfied and departed.

Some time after this experience I was obliged to give up my home and rent a room in the dwelling of a friend. As my investments had become worthless, I had applied, many months before my removal, for permission to sell my furniture; as all property had become nationalized, I could not sell my own chattels without a permit. This was finally granted to me on the ground that I was a widow. Shortly after I had moved to my friend’s house, we experienced our first armed raid. We were roused from our beds at about two in the morning by five armed men and two women, who said they had come to search for firearms. They nosed into every corner and examined all photographs. My husband’s photograph in naval uniform they left, after I had told them that he was dead; but the photographs of King George and King Edward and the Tsar they tore into bits and stamped under foot. Some money and jewelry I had hidden behind pictures and among the tea in the teacaddy. These valuables they did not discover, and, strange to say, they examined all my boxes excepting the one in which I had packed what table silver I had not yet sold. After an hour and a half they left. Everything was turned upside-down: bedding, pillows, books, clothing — all were heaped in the middle of the floor.

In a few weeks we had a second midnight raid; but this time they were searching for incriminating documents and did not disturb any of our personal belongings. In November, 1919, we experienced the worst raid of all. Every letter or scrap of written matter my friend and I possessed was taken from us, and we were also relieved of whatever personal effects appealed to the invaders. From me they took all my husband’s medals and decorations. I begged them to allow me to keep the crosses of Saint Anna and of Stanislav as a remembrance of him, but they refused saying, ‘No one has orders now, and we need the gold.’ After searching for nearly two hours, they ordered my friend to get on some clothes, as she must go with them. They took her away at four o’clock in the morning, and she was kept in prison for three months. At the end of that time she was released; but she was never given the satisfaction of knowing why she was arrested.

I was most fortunate, as I was arrested only once and was not then sent to prison. When I came home one day, a soldier arrested me at my door and marched me off to a hall where there were several other prisoners. There we were detained for eight hours, and then released without any explanation as to the cause of our arrest.

One did not have to be in prison to know what hunger means. Those of us who were not imprisoned learned the lesson only too well. Lack of food became more and more acute, and the prices were such that it was impossible to earn enough in one day to buy even a pound of black bread. Milk cost 250 rubles a bottle, and was well watered at that. Potatoes were 200 rubles a pound, and were often half-frozen. Tea and coffee cost thousands of rubles the pound. For a time I drank an infusion of black-currant leaves and also of cranberry leaves, which would have been quite pleasant if I could have had any sugar. The Bolsheviki opened soupkitchens, for which each person received a monthly ticket on application to a certain department of the Soviet. Often I have stood for a long, long time in a queue, waiting with a pitcher to receive a portion of soup, which was simply water, with some cabbage-leaves or pieces of frozen potato floating in it. For this the charge was eight rubles. Hunger made me glad to eat this soup, but there were days when it smelled so bad, especially when they had added herring heads to it, that I gave it to someone in the queue, or poured it out.

The members of the working class received a special ticket and got a second dish, perhaps some potatoes or a salt herring; but these extras were denied to the Intelligentsia, who suffered far more than did the workers. Sometimes, when it was impossible to procure bread, many of us used to buy turnips and eat them raw as a substitute. You will be surprised that we did not boil them, but we found them more satisfying when raw. As they were very dear, we could not afford to buy more than a few. Some who were hungry even made soup of fresh green grass. This I never tried, but soup made of rhubarb leaves I found could be eaten. At first, when we still had coffee, we used to mix a little flour with the coffee-grounds, and make cookies; but I must say that I could eat these only when I was very hungry. The Intelligentsia could receive on their bread-cards only two ounces per day; and when it was possible to buy any extra, the price was exorbitant. The working class was allowed much more. Any extra bread could be bought only by chance on the street, from peasants, or in the open market, and often there was more sawdust and minced straw in it than flour. Frequently, when the Bolsheviki ran out of flour, so that they were unable to give us bread on our bread-cards, they substituted oats; but the amount was so meagre that, when we ground it down, very little flour came out.

All stores and shops were closed, and one could buy only in the open markets. Butter in 1919 sold at 2800 rubles per pound, and bacon at 3000. Peasants brought in milk and produce from the country and bartered it for clothing. They did not want money, as they said there was nothing to buy with it. It was sad to see ladies standing in the market, bartering or selling their beautiful dresses and linen to get money for food. As long as they had things to sell, they got good prices; but what was to be done, once they had parted with all their belongings? It was no uncommon thing to see peasant women wearing beautiful fur coats and exquisite evening dresses and also jewelry, probably received in exchange for food.

Some ladies, friends of mine, who were formerly well to do, had to sell flowers and newspapers in the street, to earn a livelihood. All women under fifty years of age had to take their turn at sweeping the snow on the streets, breaking up the ice, and emptying the dust-bins.

There were so many sick that the hospitals were over-crowded. The lack of even the most necessary medicines was great. In former times Germany provided great quantities of the medicaments used. Doctors were scarce, as so many had been sent to the front. Typhus, of course, was raging and claimed many victims. A friend of mine, who went to one of the hospitals to identify a relative who had died, told me that, in the mortuary, the bodies were stacked from floor to ceiling, like logs of wood, and many of them much decomposed. The difficulty was to get a sufficient supply of coffins. Two bodies were placed in each coffin, which was merely a few boards of wood roughly nailed together. One could often see carts piled up with these coffins, which were taken outside of the city, where the bodies were put into a pit and the coffins brought back to be used for the bodies of other victims. Those whose friends died at home had to convey the coffins themselves to the cemetery, either on a sledge or otherwise.

The funeral of a Bolshevik was a very grand affair. The coffin was always covered with bright-red cloth, the hearse also being draped in red, and with wreaths from which scarlet ribbons were suspended. There was always a band, and a procession with many red banners flying. Processions bearing red banners, eulogizing Communism or Bolshevism and denouncing the old régime, were a common sight.

The suffering of poor animals was also terrible, and horses dropped dead on the street from starvation. The fodder was so bad that horses that were starving would turn away from it. Behind the house where I lived the Bolsheviki had a number of horses stabled. Every week I saw several dead ones carried out; and one of the soldiers who cared for the animals told me that there was not a scrap of woodwork left within reach of the horses, because they had gnawed it all away in their hunger. If a dead horse were left in the street at night, by the next day nothing would be left of it but the ribs and perhaps the head, upon which some gaunt dog would be gnawing. People had come in the night and taken away all other parts of the carcass for food. Many ate cats and dogs, and said the flesh tasted good.

Many a night I was not able to sleep for hunger. But lack of food was not my only privation. Before the Revolution I had never known what it was to be cold indoors; wood, which was used for fuel in Petrograd, was plentiful and cheap. During my last two winters there, there was great suffering caused by lack of fuel. In Finland and parts of Russia there was plenty of wood, cut and ready to be sent to the cities; but the transportation system had broken down completely. This want of wood became more and more acute; many wooden dwelling-houses were pulled down, and all wooden fencing around gardens and wooden walks was utilized for fuel. More than once I was thankful when I could buy an old beam, tie a rope around my waist, and drag it home to be sawed up into short pieces. We were permitted to buy only a small quantity each month and had to show the paper with the date of the preceding purchase, which was compared with the entry in the official books. Often I have left the house in pitch darkness (no lights in the streets), at four o’clock on a winter’s morning, to get my place in the queue at the wood-store, so as to be one of the first to be attended to when the office opened at ten o’clock. It was no joke to wait six hours with the temperature below zero. Sometimes the soldiers who were on duty would admit us to a room they had and permit us to warm ourselves for a few minutes. By ten o’clock there were hundreds in line, and when you reached the window you were given only a piece of paper which entitled you to receive the wood on a specified day. Think of what this meant to poor mothers who had to leave young children at home for hours! One poor woman in the queue one morning had a sick baby which she could not leave at home; it died in her arms before she reached the window.

The shortage of food and the other privations all helped to make us more sympathetic toward one another, and we did all in our power to help one another. One of my pupils (for I was trying to keep body and soul together by teaching English) was a Russian naval officer; he used to bring me occasionally a small piece of bread which he had left over. He was serving under t he Bolsheviki — under compulsion, like so many others. It was his plan to learn to speak English and then to try to escape from Russia. To my great sorrow, for he was my favorite pupil and could converse fairly well in English, he was arrested by his masters and sent away to Cologda. I never could find out the reason for his arrest or hear anything further about him. He once told me that, if he were arrested, he would take his own life; and I often wonder if he is still alive.

I was deeply touched one day by a workingwoman’s bringing me a teaspoonful of dry tea. This was a wonderful present , as she had only a very small quantity, which had been given to her, and tea was at a premium. I did not wish to accept it, but she insisted, because sometimes I had helped her and her children with a little food, and had once procured a situation for her.

So in such ways we tried to cheer one another. Often, when one did show a little kindness, one was repaid fourfold or more. I remember that once, when crossing the Nicholas Bridge, I came upon an elderly lady struggling to carry a very heavy bag. I asked her in what direction she was going, and as it was not very far from my own destination, I carried the bag home for her. When she thanked me at parting, she said, ‘I hope that, if ever you have to carry something that is too heavy for you, you also will meet some kind person to help you.’ A few days later I had to bring to my home some wood which was very heavy. I tried to carry it on my back, but found it beyond my strength to do so, as my house was quite a good distance away. Just as I was sitting on a doorstep wondering whatever I should do, a soldier came along, and I summoned up my courage to ask if he would help me, even for a short distance. He immediately picked up the wood, slung it on his back, and asked me where I lived. When I told him, he said, ‘I can easily go by that street.’ He took me right to the door of ray house, and when I offered him money, he refused. ‘I was only too glad to help you,’he said; ‘I should not like to see my mother carry such a load.’ The old lady’s wish for me was not long in being realized.

On the streets one seldom encountered an old person, all having died from malnutrition. Some elderly people, unable to work and add to their small incomes, suffered terribly, as food prices were impossible. In the homes for old men and women, where, under the old régime, they were well fed, many deaths from starvation took place every week.

One thing the Bolsheviki tried to do was to feed the children. They had no use for old people and even said openly that they ought to die; but they had to think of the rising generation, for the future of the country. At the schools, children received a free dinner, which consisted of soup and a good piece of black bread, or often some cooked cereal. Of course, there was no fat in the food and little nourishment for growing children. Then the Bolsheviki tried to nationalize the children, asking the parents to give them up at a certain age, that they might be brought up and educated in colonies and trained in all the principles of Bolshevism. When I left, in 1920, they were trying to carry this out; but the parents objected, so I do not know what success they met with later. One mother said to me, ‘Where is the joy of motherhood if I must give up my child whenever his infancy is over?’

With all my suffering I cannot but feel that God dealt mercifully with me. I will give you one instance of this. On Christmas Eve, 1918, I was alone and without a scrap of food in the house. As I thought back over my past happy life and the loved ones who had gone from me, I naturally felt much depressed. How I could manage to live to the New Year, I could not imagine. Before retiring to rest that night, I asked God to send me some food. The next morning, at eight o’clock, the back-door bell rang; and when I opened the door, I saw standing there an old servant who had served me faithfully for seventeen years, but whom I had had to dismiss several months previously because of my inability to feed her. Her people were farmers in Poland. She said that she had come to spend Christmas with me and that she had brought with her some provisions, such as black bread, flour, and a little bacon, and some sugar and potatoes. Truly, this was an answer to prayer. In those trying times we learned to live by the day and to rest on the promise, ‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be.'

Many whom I knew, who were serving under the Bolsheviki, were merely doing so to earn a livelihood, and it was indeed hard for them to serve such masters. In fact, many were at the point of starvation when they accept ed positions under the Soviet. As one put it, ‘To all appearances we are Red, but we are just like red radishes; scratch us but a little and we are white underneath.'

Of course, you know that in Russia the custom of giving tips (or, as it is called there, tea-money) was carried to great lengths. If you dined with friends, or paid a call, you were expected to tip the servant who removed your overcoat or wrap. At Christmas and Easter the dvoriks, postmen, chimney-sweeps, and men who polished your floors, all called upon you, to receive their teamoney. I heard a very good story relative to this habit of tipping. After the Revolution, everyone was supposed to be on the same level — no distinction of class. The working class was delighted with this equality. An officer who frequently visited at the house of some friends, had been in the habit of giving the house-porter a liberal tip each time. On his first visit after the Revolution, the porter met him with the greeting, ‘Well, comrade, how are you?’ and shook him by the hand. The officer, returning the handshake, answered, ‘Thank you, comrade, I am well.’ At the conclusion of the visit, when the porter opened the door for the officer, the latter held out his hand and said, ‘Good-bye. Of course, now we are comrades, it is impossible for me to offer you a tip.’ The man was so taken aback that his hand dropped to his side and his jaw fell with astonishment. In this case, he did not appreciate the equality.

In 1919 quite a number of British and other subjects escaped without passes from the Bolsheviki, who had forbidden anyone to leave Petrograd. Those who escaped did so by the back door, as it was called in Russia, that is, illegally, through Finland. There was a secret society which, for large sums of money, arranged these escapes, taking the fugitives across the ice. It was a hazardous journey, and no one could undertake it with children, as they had long distances to walk, and often had to crawl on their hands and knees, or lie flat in a bog, while the Bolsheviki were throwing searchlights on the frontier. All fugitives had to wear some covering of white over their clothes, so as to be less liable to be seen on the white snow. I met one lady in Finland who had thus escaped. Her experiences had been so terrible that her eyeballs stuck out, from the nervous strain she had undergone.

Many and strange were the subterfuges employed to get out of Russia. A Scotch friend of mine, who had married a Russian and thus become a Russian subject, got permission to leave with her three little children, by going before the Soviet with her husband. There they asked to be divorced. A few questions were asked them, one of which was, if the mother wished the children. She answered ‘Yes,’ and a paper was written out, for which they paid the small sum of ten rubles, according them the divorce, and giving back to my friend her British nationality, so that she was able to leave the country with her three little ones in April, 1920. The husband, of course, had to remain behind; but it was easier for a man to get along alone, than if he had a wife and children to feed.

In the early part of 1920, when I saw different parties of British refugees finally being permitted to leave Russia while I was detained as a Russian subject because of my marriage, I lost all hope of ever getting away. By this time my health was much impaired; my feet and legs, and often my face, were badly swollen, and at times I felt so giddy that it was hard for me to get along. Owing to physical weakness, I suppose, I became quite apathetic and did not seem to care what became of me, although I realized that I could not live through another such winter as the last, since I had already parted with nearly all my belongings and would have nothing to supplement my earnings. Early in April we were told that the Bolsheviki wore considering the advisability of allowing the British-born widows of Russian subjects to leave the country, and a few days later a decree was published according this permission. In five days we must leave with some other refugees. Permits and passes had to be obtained. No books or written matter of any kind could be taken with us, and I even had to get the Soviet stamp put on my Bible, and on some photographs that I wished to take with me.

I cannot tell you all the details of my journey out of Russia, for it is a long story. About two in the afternoon of April 13, we finally approached the point near the frontier where persons and luggage were to be examined. The examination was very thorough: all the women were undressed, their shoes and stockings taken off, and even their hair taken down. Even so, many managed to smuggle their diamonds through, and I was able to slip into my box an old glove containing a pair of large solitaire diamond earrings belonging to a friend. I was fortunate in being one of the last, to be examined, and so I was allowed to pass more easily.

After the examination we were taken by a train a little farther, to the frontier line, which is determined by a swift and narrow running stream. It is utterly impossible to describe our feelings as we stepped from the bridge on the other side and stood once again on free soil. Many hearts were full of thankfulness to God, who had delivered us from the power and tyranny of the Bolsheviki. It was difficult to realize the fact that now they could no longer harm us, and we need have no more fears, or nights of terror when sleep forsook our eyes from the dread of arrest. When we crossed the frontier, we were greeted by members of the British Red Cross, who congratulated us warmly on our escape. With them were some British and Irish officers who had just been released from prisons in Moscow. One of their number, belonging to a Highland regiment, wore tartan; and when I saw this bit of transplanted Scotland, my eyes filled with tears and my weak knees grew weaker with emotion. I doubt if the pipes of Lucknow created greater emotion in any breast than did that plaid in mine.

I turned to Janet MacDonald, who had come out of Russia with me after much suffering and imprisonment. The tears were rolling down her cheeks. She buried her face on my shoulder and sobbed out in a transport of joy, ‘O Jean, Jean, the tartan breeks, the tartan breeks!’

There is little more to tell. From the frontier we were taken to Terioki on the Gulf of Finland, where we were all examined by a doctor and detained in quarantine for a month. At the end of the month we were taken to Helsingfors, the seaport of Finland, and there embarked on the transport Dongola for Southampton.

Just outside of London was a home for Russian refugees. To this home we were all taken, and here I remained for some weeks until I could inquire about my Scottish relatives and friends. I had not heard from them for years, and undoubtedly some of the letters they wrote to me were among the thousands that were stacked in a huge pile in the courtyard of the General Post Office in Petrograd and eventually burned. A small box contained all my earthly possessions, and, as I looked at it, I came more and more to realize the uncertainty of riches and the need of setting our affections on things above. After several months I finally received my naturalization papers and was again a British subject; and in January, 1921, I left England for America, to visit my only brother in far-off Montana.

Here, amid the changing majesty of these mountains, my mind often turns back to dear Russia, and the tears fill my eyes. I spent many years there in a happy home; and the soil in which I laid my loved ones to rest will ever be sacred. Now the newspapers are bringing tales of more suffering and more famine in that unhappy country. May the good God save Russia, and guide the hearts and hands that would rescue her and bring her out of her distress!