I went to Moscow early in 1923 as British representative to the Communist International, or the Comintern as it was called more briefly. I was a bit diffident about accepting this job because I regarded myself as an apprentice in Communist Party work. My wife and daughter came with me and I left my two sons with my sister, so the arrangements were quite good. I liked the job very much. I was living in the heart of the revolutionary political world. I was meeting people who knew much better than I the main world political events and could interpret them much better. I was taking part in discussion with leading working-class politicians from all over the world, all with their special problems, and if at times I could not make a contribution at least I could listen and learn.
In the Comintern I did a fair amount of foreign work. Because I had a British passport, I was better able to cross frontiers and move about freely than many of the other foreign representatives. At this time, the Comintern was very much in its formative period and the communist parties of the various countries had serious conflicts of opinion on many political questions. There were many commissions in the work of the Comintern, trying to smooth the way and deal with the problems.
Troubles had grown in the Swedish Communist Party and the Comintern sent a delegation of which I was a member to help to sort things out. In Sweden I was known as Comrade XR (Executive Representative). Half the Swedish party were really right-wing social democrats, both in theory and action.
The party was led by Seth Hoglund, a social democrat who certainly put no R in revolution but had a very good anti war record. The party was split in two; the left-wing section was the more aggressive and was able to retain control of the party paper. Hoglund was a likeable chap, not in any way vicious but a true social democrat and for quiet, steady reform. The leadership afterwards passed to Samuelson and some others, but they too quarrelled and some left the party.
At this time Scandinavia was very important. Politically, despite some setbacks, the left forces were making good progress. There was also another practical reason. The Norwegian party had a good standing among the seamen, which enabled comrades to get across the seas illegally. Bill Gallacher, Sylvia Pankhurst and a number of others crossed the North Sea in this way. Irish sailors did the same before Eire became a state, ready to smuggle people across on the Irish boats. De Valera was got out of Lincoln Gaol and smuggled across in this way.
Many people with whom I worked and whom I met during my time at the Comintern are now dead. A few are still alive. Some made their political mark, some dropped out of political life in the development of the struggle, because being a Communist in politics is never easy, no matter in which country you are domiciled.
Naturally the reader will ask what I thought of Stalin. I always speak of people as I find them. I worked with Stalin on a commission on Germany after the defeat of the German party in 1923. I found him a quiet, painstaking and efficient chairman. He chaired the commission which was composed of members from all parties resident in Moscow and from the Russian party, which was represented by Kuibishev, who later became Minister for Planning in the Soviet Union. The discussion in the commission went on for weeks, and one interesting point was that after every session the delegates and their interpreters met singly with Stalin to make sure that if they had not spoken during the discussion, he would be aware of their views. In this way I had several talks with Stalin. I remember that one particular discussion he and I had dealt with the way in which the German party central committee worked. In my opinion there was too much bureaucracy and I said that certain changes in work should be considered. The Comintern could not enforce changes, since the national parties were independent; but the Comintern could, and did, make suggestions. At the end of our tête-a-tête Stalin made a number of pointed remarks and agreed with me on the need for change, but there was a great battle of personalities in the German party at that time. The need for unity was so important that one had to cut the suit according to the cloth and not seek changes that might possibly widen the division.
This commission usually started work about midnight. As a rule I was getting ready for bed when the telephone would ring, and then it was down to the Kremlin for an all-night sitting. They did not rush it, these people. Many of the Kremlin lads were long-distance men. I remember one night Terricini- the delegate from Italy I think his first name was Angelico, but he was certainly no angel -was delivering his point of view in French and doing it very well. He had been at it for over an hour and a half when Stalin intervened to say,
“Tovaritch Terricini, French is a beautiful language to listen to but it is now three o’clock in the morning.” Terricini nodded to show he had heard and then continued with his speech, as if no intervention had been made.
During this German commission discussion, some leading members of the German party went after Clara Zetkin; they baited her unmercifully and this really sickened me. It was an exhibition of political cannibalism that should never be tolerated in working-class politics. Clara Zetkin may have had some weaknesses and faults we all have but she had many decades of selfless working-class struggle behind her and a great reputation both in the international communist movement and in Germany. I protested vigorously against the manner in which some of the German comrades were acting and, with several other delegates supporting me, Stalin said, “We hold a high opinion of Clara Zetkin, our Russian women have learned much from her work, and we will not permit this type of vilification.”
Radek was another member of the Comintern with whom I worked in close association When the first Labour Government was formed in January 1924, Radek, Theodore Roth-stein, Clara Zetkin, some others and myself, worked on a manifesto to be published in Britain in the name of the Communist International. Radek was the most remarkable reader I have ever come across. He had an insatiable appetite for newspapers and had a wide and fundamental knowledge of world politics. Lenin’s criticism of Radek was that he read too many bourgeois newspapers and I think he inferred that Radek was influenced by them. But Radek was most helpful to me. He was also a humorist with a ready answer to any question. He wore long side-whiskers, like the Ancient Mariner, but one day when I met him they were shaved off. “Oh, what’s happened to the growth?” I asked. “Got to go to Germany so I must have a disguise,” he replied. Another time when I was having a difference of opinion with Walton Newbold, who was once Communist M.P. for Motherwell, and was lamenting about it, he said, “Never mind Newbold, Bob, he not only sits on his arse, he sits on his brains as well.”
Kamenev, Zinoviev and other leaders of the Soviet party, Dimitrov from Bulgaria, Pieck from Germany and many others from other countries, I met both at work and socially, but as a rule the discussion was mainly political. I never found it easy or even practicable to discuss everyday “common-place” happenings through an interpreter. Language to me was always a great barrier and I am sure it is for everyone.
Radek was the one who spoke all languages. I heard him speak and communicate with ease with people of many nationalities. I never knew how many languages he spoke. He was a Pole by birth. He once said to me, “Bob, there are good Jews and bad Jews, and the worst of the bad Jews are Polish Jews and I am one of them.” I don’t think the part about Polish Jews is right, nor in my contact with Radek was it true of him. In Moscow, in all his work with me, he was a most able and helpful member of the Comintern.
Naturally, apart from the leading comrades I got to know in the course of my work, I also met the ordinary Russian people. A group of Russians I got to know fairly well consisted of teachers. This happened somewhat accidentally. One day my wife and I were having a walk in the suburbs, and as we passed a school the children were coming out. Some of the children, observing by our dress that we were foreigners, asked us questions. When they found out that we were British, a number of them had to try out their English on us. Because of this incident we became very well acquainted with the school and the teachers. I took any English delegations that came to Moscow to the school, and through this the pupils became the proud possessors of footballs, boots, sweaters and other sports equipment. I found the children most friendly and com-paniable, with no sullen shyness, and the teachers were born to their jobs aunties and uncles they were called. The school owned a huge boar, a real Goliath. One day I said to one of the children,
“Big boar.” “Da, bolshoi -bolshoi Curzon!”
(Lord Curzon was the most notorious anti-Russian British statesman of the period, the originator of the attempt to enforce the Curzon line).
Another school I used to visit was a school for musically gifted girls. The teacher was the first flautist of the Bolshoi Orchestra. The children gathered round in the most natural way and sang and played spontaneously, everything from folk drama to grand opera. Watching these girls, I began to realise the inborn musical understanding and appreciation of the Russian people, which has endured for centuries.
I remember the first time in my life I heard community singing. It was at the Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow in 1924 I was wandering around with Jim Larkin, the leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, and we saw some people congregating near some seats. We strolled over to see what was happening. Out comes a fellow with a corduroy jacket and a pair of high boots curled up like a concertina. He stepped on to a small platform and started to sing, and away went the audience in wonderful community sing-ing. I couldn’t follow the words but there was no mistaking the real genuine feeling and natural musical ability of the crowd.
For the citizens of Moscow, however, it was not all singing and playing. Moscow was a political city, everyone talked politics. Even in the armed forces, the aim was to have politically understanding soldiers, sailors and airmen. Our party was a patron of some Russian regiments, and so got to know the officers and men. It was this political consciousness on the part of the Soviet soldiers, brought about by intense political discussions of day-to-day events, that created the understanding of the necessity to fight for the independence of the Soviet Union and the determination to crush the Nazi invaders in World War Two.
On the political side, I naturally attended conferences and meetings of the Russian Communist Party, and met with Russians from Stalin downwards. What struck me from the beginning was the business sense of the Russian political workers, very few of whom were business men. In these early days of Soviet rule, blacksmiths, mechanics, textile and other workers were pitchforked into top political jobs and had to adapt themselves to new work, sometimes dealing with old managements in production and, more important, themselves forming new managements in the big new factories. I remember Milnechesneski, who was an ordinary worker, telling me one day he was the biggest textile owner in the world -he had just been put in charge of the cotton textile industry.
In the countryside, many of the peasants were illiterate but, of course, while illiteracy is a great disadvantage, it does not mean lack of intelligence. The Russian peasant, who was intelligent enough to revolt against -and end serfdom, was also intelligent enough to combine with the Russian working class to end capitalism and also to end illiteracy among the peasant masses in the Soviet Union.
It was during my time in Moscow that a great tragedy befell the international working-class movement.
Lenin died in January 1924. I remember this well because I was then a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern which was summoned immediately: firstly, to hear the announcement of Lenin’s death and also to make all the necessary arrangements for the funeral.
Harry Pollitt came over immediately from Britain to represent the British Communist Party at the funeral. It was desperately cold and both Harry and I felt it very much. It was forty degrees below zero. Fires were kindled in the streets and I remember seeing the militiamen’s horses going over and sticking their noses in the fire to melt the icicles. We were as cold as the horses but at least we could pull down our fur caps and peer out occasionally to see where we were going.
I was one of the delegation of the Comintern chosen to go to Gorky, where Lenin had died, to accompany his body back to Moscow. We left by train from Moscow at about 5am and then travelled by peasant sleigh from Gorky Station to Lenin’s house. From the station you could see the house down in the valley, but the road to it so twisted and turned that even by sleigh it took us a long time to reach it. At the house Lenin was laid on a bed wearing an ordinary Red Army man’s uniform with the Order of Lenin pinned to his breast. The house was full of people: leading members of the Russian Communist Party, of the Comintern, delegates from the factories and the professions, and amongst them all wandered a big black cat who had been a very great favourite with Lenin.
The body was placed in the coffin and carried to the station en route for Moscow. Leading men from the party and the factories took turns to carry the coffin. On the journey, at every station, on the way, thousands of people waited to see the train pass. I do not think I ever saw so many tear-stained faces in my life. It was a very moving demonstration of the love the ordinary people for this great man.
When we got to Moscow I realised for the first time in my life what a mass demonstration really meant. Not a demonstration that was called, but one that came. Every conceivable foot of space was occupied. A great mass of people followed the coffin as it was borne from the station to the Dom Soyus (Hall of the Trade Unions), and from every side street and opening, mass upon mass of people converged with the main stream or waited their turn to do so. At the same time the digging was proceeding on the site of the mausoleum, so there was blasting and picking going on. All these streets were crowded with sad-eyed mourners. Every shop and hotel and all central places were ordered to keep open twenty-four hours a day so that people overcome by the cold could go in and thaw out.
Moscow has witnessed many varied scenes in her many centuries of troubled history; her ancient records must be filled with historic incidents, but never had such scenes been witnessed as during the days of Lenin’s lying in state and funeral. The Dom Soyus, a former palace of nobility, once the setting for the glitter and pomp of the aristocratic Tsarist circles, was the place where Lenin lay. Here his own people, the working masses of Russia, could pay their last tribute to the mighty leader of the Russian working class and the world proletariat. “Our Comrade Lenin” everyone said, as if he were a father or a brother.
For four days and nights, for mile after mile, people queued four abreast to pass the bier on which Lenin lay. Along with Harry Pollitt I took a turn on the guard of honour. I remember I was with Chicherin. The bier was surrounded by wreaths of flowers of every description, sent from all over Russia and indeed from all over the world. The magnificent hall with its white marble walls was a blaze of light, contrasting with the deep varied hues of the flowers, and on the balcony the band of the Red Guards played music befitting such a solemn occasion.
Delegations from all over Russia streamed into Moscow, joined the endless queues, and placed their wreaths as they passed the bier. But there were no kings or queens, no aristocrats and their ladies, no great admirals or field marshals with glittering medals. Only the endless stream of workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors with their wives and families. The queues never seemed to get less. Over a million had passed the bier and still the queues remained. It had been decided that on Saturday the doors must close at 12 noon. But on Saturday afternoon there were still hundreds of thousands of people waiting with banners and wreaths, still train after train arrived, pouring the delegations into Moscow from north, south, east and west. Every minute messages from all over the world came, telling the world-wide grief at the passing of this great working-class leader. Certainly, no king, no emperor, no bloody tsar has been honoured as Lenin, the leader of the world working class.
At 7am on Sunday came the final parting. Around the coffin stood the leaders of the Russian Communist Party and the Communist International, and with them, keeping her last vigil, was Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and constant companion during thirty years of struggle. Lenin’s body was borne to the Red Square. As the coffin was raised the orchestra wailed the funeral march. After this a moment’s silence, then the International burst out, strongly and boldly sung. I thought then, this is the answer to the enemies of Leninism whose death was rekindling the hopes of new triumphs for imperialism. this is the answer of Lenin’s pupils, the Russian workers and peasants.
As the coffin was carried into the streets, crowds formed behind it. Leaders of the Party and trade unions took turns to shoulder the coffin along the Kremlin walls to the centre of the Red Square where the raised tribune was placed. The people filed past in millions until 4pm. Then silence just before the cannons crashed out the salute with a roar which could be heard in every corner of the world; factory sirens in every Russian city and village took up the salute; men, women and children stood still in silent homage. In every country throughout the world the workers paid their last respects to a great leader, who from small groups of Marxists had led the Russian workers forward to the formation of a mighty Communist Party and a mighty workers’ Republic and had laid the foundation by his leadership for a mighty Communist International.
The coffin was carried into the Mausoleum, Lenin’s final resting place. Queues formed again to pass the bier. It went on all night, all the next day and every day since. the years have passed and still the Russian workers and peasants and the visitors to Moscow from foreign lands pass the bier to pay homage to Lenin, the great working-class leader whose genius guided the people of downtrodden Russia and millions far beyond it, to break their chains and march to the not-so-distant communist society
Breaking the Fetters 