I was at Novocherkassk in December.
Remember the guardhouse on the principal avenue there? They say it was built by Ataman Platov in the time of Alexander the Blessed—a small building in the 'Empire' style.
I can shut my eyes, Vadim Petrovich, and see before me the steps of this portico, running with blood.... As I passed it I heard a terrible shriek—the shriek of a man under torture. In the daytime, in the middle of the capital of the Don.... I went nearer.
There was a crowd— Cossacks standing by their horses, in front of the guardhouse.
They were all looking on in silence—floggings were going on at the pillars, to intimidate the population.
They were taking two at a time from the convoys, workers arrested for sympathizing—only for sympathizing, mind you—with the Bolsheviks.
'Their wrists were immediately twisted and bound to the pillars, and four sturdy Cossacks were lashing them on the backs and buttocks.
The whip whistled, and, first fragments of shirts and trousers, and then pieces of flesh, flew up into the air, and blood streamed down the steps, like at a slaughter house.... I'm not easily shocked, but this time I was.... Their cries were terrible. People don't shriek like that from physical pain alone...."
Roshchin listened to him with lowered eyelids.
His fingers trembled as they held the cigarette.
Tetkin scratched at a mustard stain on the tablecloth.
"And there you are—the Ataman is no longer alive, the flower of the Cossack nobility lie buried in the gully outside the town, the blood on the steps cries for vengeance.
The power of the poor... I myself don't care whether I make boot polish or do something else... I escaped with my life from the world war, and the only thing I value is the breath of life. Excuse the phrase. I read a lot of books in the trenches, and my phrases have become literary.... So you see...." (He glanced towards the door and lowered his voice.) "I reconcile myself to any regime so long as I see people are happy... I'm not a Bolshevik, understand that, Vadim Petrovich...." (Again his hands spread imploringly over his chest.) "I myself don't need much—a bit of bread, a pinch of tobacco, and genuine spiritual contacts...." (He smiled apologetically.) "But that's just the point—the workers grumble, not to mention the man in the street.... Have you heard of Comrade Broinitsky, the Military Commissar?
My advice is—if you see his car—hide!
He came to the top immediately after the taking of Rostov.
At the slightest word he shouts:
'Comrade Lenin knows my worth, I'll send a personal telegram to Comrade Lenin....' He's surrounded himself with the criminal element, who are continually carrying out requisitions and taking people out to be shot.
They strip anyone they meet at night.
He behaves like a bandit.... Disgraceful!
And where does the requisitioned property go?
And the Revolutionary Committee can't do a thing with him, you know!
They're afraid.... I don't believe he's a man of principle. He does more harm than good to the proletarian cause...." (But here Tetkin, seeing he had gone rather far, turned aside, gave a sniff, and again, this time without a word, laid his hand on his chest.)
"I don't understand you, Colonel," said Roshchin coldly.
"The Broinitskys and their lot are 96 carat Soviet power. We don't try to justify them, we fight them at the peril of our lives...."
"In whose name?" asked Tetkin quickly.
"In the name of Great Russia, Colonel!"
"And what's that?
Excuse me—I speak as a fool: Great Russia according to whose conception?
I should like you to be a little more precise.
That of Petrograd society?
That's one meaning. Or that of the infantry regiment in which you and I served, dying heroically on the barbed-wire entanglements?
Or that of the Moscow Commercial Conference? Remember how Ryabushinsky sobbed over Great Russia in the Bolshoi Theatre?
That's a third meaning.
Or that of a worker who realizes the greatness of Russia on holidays, as he sees it from the dirty tavern?
Or that of the hundred million peasants who...."
"What the devil...." (Katya gave Roshchin's hand a quick squeeze under the table.) "Excuse me, Colonel!
Till now I knew that Russia was called one sixth of the earth's surface, inhabited by a people with a great history.... Perhaps that's not the Bolshevik view.... I ask your pardon...." (He gave a bitter laugh, suppressing with difficulty his swelling irritation.)
"That's precisely my view. I'm filled with pride. Personally I'm quite satisfied when I read the history of the Russian State.
But the hundred million peasants haven't read those books.
And they're not filled with pride.
They wish to have their own history, to be developed, not in the past, but in the future.... The history of prosperity ... and there's nothing to be done about it.
And they have leaders—the proletariat.
These go still further—they are venturing to create what you might call world history.... There's nothing to be done about that, either.... You accuse me of Bolshevism, Vadim Petrovich. I accuse myself of mere passive contemplation— a grave fault.
But my excuse is the prostration setting in after life in the trenches.
In time I hope to become more active and then, perhaps, I shall not refute your accusation...."
Tetkin bristled up, and drops of sweat stood out on his flushed skull.
Roshchin hastily put on his coat, fastening the hooks in the wrong eyes.
Katya, her face creased with anxiety, looked from her husband to Tetkin.
After a painful pause Roshchin said:
"I regret to have lost a comrade.