Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- Soviet Union
Just one more case, because it is typical of many. This man was a
real exile, and for eleven years he had lived in Chicago. Born in a
small city of western Russia, he joined, when still a youth, what was
known as the Bund, a socialist propagandist circle of Jewish young men
and women. The youth’s parents, quiet, orthodox people, knew nothing
of his activities, nor of the revolutionary literature of which he
was custodian and which he had concealed in the sand bags piled up
around the cottage to keep out the winter cold. On May 31, 1905, the
Tavarishi, or comrades, in his town organized a small demonstration
against the celebration of the Czar’s birthday. The next day the
police began searching houses and making arrests among the youth of
the town, and they found the books hidden in the sandbags. The boy
fled, and found refuge in the next town. Money was raised, a passport
forged and the youth finally got to England via Germany. He didn’t like
England and in 1906 he crossed to the United States. He didn’t like the
United States either, and his whole career in Chicago was a history of
agitation and rebellion. He was one of the founders of a socialist
Sunday school in Mayor Thompson’s town, where children of tender years
are given a thorough education in Bolshevik first principles.
When the Russian revolution broke and Russian consuls all over the
world advertised for exiles to be taken back to Russia’s heart, this
man presented himself as one of the returners. He showed me the
certificate issued by the Russian consulate in Chicago. It says that it
was issued in accordance with the orders of the provisional government
and records that the said ---- ---- was paid the sum of $157.25 and
was given transportation from Chicago to Petrograd, via the Pacific
Ocean and the Trans-Siberian railroad. At Vladivostock he received more
money, and on his arrival in Petrograd he was given a small weekly
allowance in addition to his free lodgings. He had a good time on the
journey, he said. There was a band at most of the stations where the
train stopped, crowds, flowers and much cheering. It was agreeable to
get back to Petrograd also and be met by a committee. But the habit
of hating governments was so settled in his system that within a
week he was talking against the one that had paid his way back, and
he was talking hard against the one which had taken him in and given
him a free education and a job and a chance to establish a socialist
Sunday school with perfect impunity. He was in with all the Bolshevik
activities except one. He had no stomach for fighting. The spirit was
willing but the flesh was weak. It got to a point where it was hard to
be a Bolshevik in good standing and never do any gun work, so this
exile determined to go back to Chicago. When I knew him he was haunting
the committees and various ministries trying to persuade them to give
him the money with which to return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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