We might have lived indefinitely in our railway carriage had it not happened to be a very good one. The Polish soldiers and Russian refugees in the long lines of captured echelons which stretched far beyond Krasnoyarsk were not disturbed, because they occupied simple teplyushki, and some of them have not perhaps been disturbed even yet. But one day a warning came to us in some vague way that our carriage was wanted. We were not told what to do with ourselves or where to go, and no help was offered us for the removal of our baggage or the finding of quarters in the town.

I was struck to some extent on this occasion, and was very much struck on subsequent occasions, by a curious impersonality in Bolshevism. Orders seemed to arise vaguely, like opinions, amid the Communist mass, and to reach one in some haphazard way. One could not trace them back to any authorized source, but as a rule one lost no time in obeying, for there were but too many examples of how swiftly disobedience was punished.

This feeling that one is dealing with an impersonality persists, in spite of the numerous signed decrees issued daily by Commissars, for half those Commissars are men of no account, who do not know what they have signed or why they signed it. And they are changed so often that few of the general public get to learn anything about them except their names or succeed in disentangling their personality from the obscure, composite personality of the dark mass out of which they suddenly arise and into which, after a short time, they as suddenly vanish. During three weeks four changes took place, for instance, in the Governorship of Krasnoyarsk, and there were similarly frequent changes in some of the other Government departments.

These Red functionaries arise on the gloomy stream of Bolshevism like bubbles which burst in a few moments and give place to other bubbles. The great Communist chiefs in Moscow may seem to be exceptions, but even Lenin and Derzhinsky, as well as several other Red leaders who are Russian, believe firmly in the Tolstoyan doctrine that the individual, however eminent in station, is nothing, and that the mass is everything—the mass being of course the Bolshevik Secret Society of 604,000 men. I found at Moscow that both those leaders feel themselves very often to be nothing but blind instruments of a force which may finally rend them. Meanwhile they are occasionally as afraid of it as a mediæval Sultan might be afraid of a movement against him among his guards, a movement based on the suspicion that he trafficked with the infidel or kept not the Law of the Prophet. Trotsky’s sudden weakening in connection with the Labour Army is a case in point.

The removal of our baggage was a great difficulty, for we were six versts from Krasnoyarsk, and izvoshchiks would not leave the town owing to their fear of being commandeered by the Reds. And then there was the further difficulty that, as all Omsk money had been annulled on that day by a decree of the Soviet Government and as we had practically no other kind of money, we could not pay the izvoshchiks even if they came. Finally, thanks to the help of Mr. Yates, a British refugee from Ekaterinburg whom Horrocks had chanced to meet at the railway station, we secured the services of a sufficient number of izvoshchiks by promising, on my suggestion, to pay them partly in clothes, blankets, soap, and other goods.

But no sooner had we loaded up our sleighs than a number of villainous-looking Red soldiers gathered round them and started pulling us and our things about, evidently with the intention of picking a quarrel with us and then looting our belongings. We appealed in this emergency to the Red soldier who had been the first to enter our carriage on our arrival and who was now apparently in command at Bugatch. Having just examined all our belongings and passed them, he was as irritated as we were with those strangers who imposed a veto on our departure. Addressing them with a sternness and dignity worthy of a Roman Tribune, he asked them by what authority they were acting. Evidently taken aback, the Reds lied shamelessly about their conduct towards us, and, mumbling something about our being English and supporters of Kolchak, they gradually slunk away. Towards evening, and without any other misadventure, we reached the quarters that Horrocks and Yates had found for us in town.

All this work was very difficult, exhausting, and nerve-racking owing to the confusion which prevailed; and Horrocks deserves the greatest credit for the way he toiled for us, not only on this occasion, but throughout the whole course of our journey and in Krasnoyarsk. To mention a few of the difficulties. First of all there was that curious impersonality of which I have already spoken. Every official professed to be a servant of the people, and referred us lower down to them, instead of higher up. As, owing to their training, our officers were unable to think in such terms, it may be imagined what a paralyzing effect this attitude had on them. The military chiefs of the Red Army were still more helpless and cautious. Owing to the influx of Reds, refugees, and disbanded White troops, it was almost impossible to find a vacant room in the town; and, even if a room was found, we were liable to be turned out of it unless we got a written order from the Quartering Committee. This order it was difficult to get owing to the great number of people who were trying to get one at the same time. There was no foreign consul to appeal to except a minor employee of the Norwegian consulate, and he himself was in trouble, for he told us that a Commissar had visited him and said: “By our law you are not entitled to all these rooms. Clear out within six hours or we will throw you and your chattels into the street!”

Thus the Bolsheviks used for the good of the people, as they professed, the same laws of violence as the German militarists had used for the good of the army. In fact, if the word “proletariat” were substituted everywhere for the word “army,” a good deal of Bernhardi’s best-known book could have been written by a Bolshevik. But it must be borne in mind that, in the mouths of the Bolsheviks, the word “proletariat” means 604,000 men, only 70,000 of whom are workmen.

Further difficulties were due to the fewness and inexperience of the Bolshevik officials who had, so far, put in an appearance, to their excessive addiction to Red Tape, and, at the same time, to their well-meant but foolish practice of making themselves personally accessible to every citizen—a practice which led to their wasting all the day on trifles and having no time left for really important work. I speak only of the civil officials: the army had its own organization, which worked rather well. I afterwards discovered, in Moscow and elsewhere, that this attempt to do too much is the outstanding fault of the Bolsheviks in their policy and in their practice. Obsessed by a dazzling apparition which they think to be near and accessible, they are rushing madly forward in the darkness, ignoring all insuperable physical obstacles and trampling down all moral laws.

On arriving at our destination we paid off our izvoshchiks (drivers), but one of them, to whom we had given a fur coat for his services, soon returned in charge of a Red soldier and restored it to us. He was in a state of alarm, and said that the soldier had declared that since our clothes were, like everything else in Russia, the property of the State, we could not give away State property, and the izvoshchik could not receive such property. The soldier was illogical, however, for he allowed us to pay the man in Omsk roubles, which were absolutely valueless.

Our quarters consisted of one small room and a passage in a very crowded building belonging to the Zemsky Soyuz, and they were a very tight fit. At night we slept, some of us on our camp-beds, and some of us on wooden shelves arranged in tiers, one above the other, after the fashion prevalent in the lowest-class Chinese “doss” houses in Hong Kong. All the other rooms in the house were crowded with Russian refugees of both sexes and of every age from one to seventy, all sleeping together at night on shelves such as we had. For several nights I and some of my companions had to sleep amongst them, and it was an unpleasant experience owing to the foul air and to the disagreeable habit one sleeper had of gnashing his teeth all night long.

Some of the refugees were of a refined type and had evidently been accustomed to a life of ease, but they were quite apathetic and so poor that they could not even buy a newspaper. The middle-class Russian does not, as a rule, bear misfortunes well. He seems to have no backbone, he collapses altogether, and he makes no effort to get up again. Meanwhile he indulges in the most virulent abuse, not of the Bolshevik who is standing over him with a club, but of the foreign nations who are trying to help him to his feet again. A querulous old White General who had drifted in amongst us was of this type. I discovered later on, in Russia, that there are ex-landowners who, though they are still allowed to inhabit a corner of their ancestral mansions, have not sufficient energy left to wash their own faces. Such helplessness could not occur under similar circumstances in England or America; and, though Christianity teaches pity for the weak, I do not believe that it obliges us to put this class back into its old position.

After we had been in our new quarters for a few days cases of sickness, said to be typhus, occurred in the adjoining rooms; while, among our own little party, two officers and one man contracted contagious skin diseases for which isolation was indispensable but impossible.

The skin diseases spread amongst us, and, after my departure from Krasnoyarsk three weeks later, all our officers caught typhus. This was the disease we dreaded most, and, though we managed to get baths once a week and to keep our persons tolerably clean, we were always in great danger of catching it from the Russians.

This was trouble Number One. Trouble Number Two was our impecuniosity. We had over 100,000 roubles in Omsk notes with us, but, as I have already said, the Bolsheviks had declared all Omsk money worthless, and it did become absolutely worthless. Our 100,000 roubles would not buy us as much as a packet of cigarettes. The White officers, who had brought millions of roubles with them in Omsk notes, were left absolutely destitute, but, as the local Bolshevik workmen were also hard hit, bread was issued free, as a temporary measure, to everybody. Horrocks applied for it on our behalf and got it, but a prominent local Bolshevik told me that this free distribution would not last long. Our position might, therefore, become critical at any moment, for money was essential not only to purchase food but also to buy fuel, which was quite as indispensable as food. Money was also necessary to pay for medical attendance to the sick members of our party, but the Communists provided medicines free, not to us alone, but to everybody.

To add to our troubles an official notice suddenly appeared ordering all White officers and functionaries in Krasnoyarsk to register, within three days, at the Town Commandant’s, and stating that those who omitted to do so would be “shot without trial.” Although, properly speaking, this notice did not apply to us, it was pretty certain that ninety-nine Reds out of a hundred who found us without papers would regard us as White officers “within the meaning of the Act,” and would shoot us out of hand. All the authorities whom we consulted on the subject were unanimously of this opinion. Among them was a Czech intelligence officer who was posing as a Russian private and who wanted to pose as a British officer. He had called on us in order to enlist our aid, and his wife, a beautiful young Russian lady, who accompanied him begged us with tears in her eyes to help. But when we explained the danger of our own position, she ceased to urge us, and her husband, who knew the Reds thoroughly and had lived among them, warned us that, if we did not register, we should run a terrible risk of being shot.

At this point Captain Martel, a French intelligence officer and fellow-prisoner, came to see us, and he took exactly the same view of our position as the Czech. His opinion also was entitled to be heard with respect, for he was a native of Moscow, had lived there under the Bolsheviks, and spoke Russian as well as he spoke French. It was rather curious, by the way, that while these two able specialists in Bolshevism had a most profound horror of it, the younger members of our British party, who did not speak Russian and had only been a few months in Siberia, laughed at Bolshevism as a bogey whose terrors had been much exaggerated. It seemed that the more one knew about the system the more one dreaded and distrusted it, and that the less one knew about it the less one feared it. I myself had been favourably impressed by the Reds on the occasion of our capture, but, as I got to know them better, I gradually came first to dislike them and then to hate them, until, after my experiences in Moscow, I left Russia with a feeling of relief such as I had never before experienced on leaving any country.

I had been greatly impressed at first by the unique opportunity that chance had thrown in my way of studying Bolshevism at close quarters from a point of view that nobody else had had, and I was determined to utilize it to the full. When, afterwards, I came to Moscow and was well received and offered every facility for the investigation of a system of government such as the world has never before seen, I planned not one but three books about it. The more I learned, however, the greater grew my horror of that vast and formidable conspiracy which aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of our Christian civilization. The higher the veil was lifted the more intense became my fear of the monstrous figure whose lineaments were being gradually disclosed. I saw that the Communists aimed at bringing about universal chaos, and pursued that aim with a directness, an unscrupulousness, and an ability which left the German militarists of 1914 far behind. This vision so appalled me that all journalistic and literary ambitions were quenched in an intense desire to get out of the country at any cost and as soon as possible.

The danger of Bolshevism grows on one like the danger of earthquakes. Foreigners just arrived in Japan laugh at the Japanese who, though a very brave people, rush out into the open as soon as the terrible earth-tremors begin, but by the time they have been forty years in the country and have learned what earthquakes really are, they themselves are the first to run.

It was late in the evening when we had this conversation with Captain Martel and the Czech, and, as the Town Commandant’s office was closed, we could do nothing save promise that we would use our utmost endeavours to get registered next day. This gives me an opportunity, therefore, to break my narrative in order to say something about Captain Martel.

This brilliant young Frenchman, who had been cut off in the same way as ourselves, but in another echelon, had visited us in our carriage a few days after our capture and had promised on that occasion to come and live with us. He never did so, however, and finally managed to get sent off to Tomsk alone, his reason for thus dropping us being, I think, the perfectly legitimate one that we were, on the whole, too unsuspicious, too little secretive, and too difficult to convince of the extreme danger of Bolshevism. No class of man in the world is so joyously frank and open as young English subalterns and soldiers—I say “English” instead of “British,” for the Scots and the Irish are of a secretive and suspicious nature, though the one is curtly and the other volubly uncommunicative. This transparent candour suits well the smooth, merry faces of the English young, and is quite in keeping with their bright cricket fields and their rolling downs, but it is out of place among the bearded Bolsheviks and in the dark forests of Russia.

Martel told us that, though correct, the leaders of the Red Army were absolutely powerless to help. He had therefore gone among the civilian Commissars, and these he found to be nearly all very fanatical and bitter. He thought he had made good friends with one Commissar who was moderate and reasonable, but then that one met another who was fanatical, with the result that he began to fear for himself, cut Martel “dead,” and would have nothing more to do with him.

The poor Frenchman managed, however, to ingratiate himself with another Commissar, but perhaps the word “ingratiate” is too strong, for though the Bolshevik allowed Martel to sleep in a corner of his room, he hardly ever spoke to him; and when, in the morning, the guest greeted his host with a cheery “Bonjour, camarade,” the host never answered a word, but only glared at him. Finally, one day, the Commissar flew into a sudden rage apropos of nothing at all and ordered Martel to clear out at once. When the Frenchman began packing his few things together, the Commissar’s infant child, of whom the guest had been very fond, began to weep and to cry, “Thou art not going to drive away the French uncle.” The child even got hold of the “French uncle’s” coat in its determination to keep him; and the Commissar, seeing this, relented and allowed Martel to stay on.

Martel’s stories conveyed to me an impression of fierce fanaticism such as had prevailed among the Turks in Stamboul in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and reminded me strongly of some books written about their experiences by Christians who fell into the hands of the Ottomans at that time. Those were the good old days when the Sultan graciously signified his disapproval of a foreign ambassador by having him literally kicked downstairs whenever he called at the Sublime Porte; and when it was a frequent experience of the corps diplomatique to be bound hand and foot and thrown into the Tower of Blood at the Golden Gate.