I attempt in the following pages to give some account of my experiences among the Bolsheviks from January to April of the year 1920. My story is neither Propaganda for Bolshevism nor Propaganda against it. I simply give all the facts, whether they tell against Communism or in its favour; and, if I indulge in deductions from those facts, my readers are at liberty to draw whatever other deductions they like. The main thing is that all the facts be placed before them; and that I have tried my best to do. The result may possibly be that this book will displease not only the Bolsheviks, but also those equally fanatical anti-Bolsheviks who believe that Lenin and Trotsky lead lives of phenomenal debauchery, that cannibalism is common in Moscow, that all Russian women have been nationalized, that the Red Army is composed of Letts and Chinese who have to be driven into action by means of whips and machine-guns, and that anyone who disputes these facts is a Bolshevik himself. I really hate Bolshevism as much as these people do, but I also hate Propaganda in so far as that word means the selection of all the facts supporting a certain theory, and the deliberate suppression of all the facts which tell against that theory, or vice versa. Even during the Great War Propaganda probably did more harm than good to every nation which made use of it. Laughed at by the soldiers, distrusted by the general public, regarded with unspeakable contempt by independent journalists, it was too often used merely for the purpose of screening Governments which had miscalculated and Generals who had blundered. The only good Propaganda is propaganda of the truth; it is amazing that none of the belligerent Governments ever recognized the tremendous advantages such a form of Propaganda possesses over the other kind. Of that other kind my own experiences as a combatant at the Front during the war showed me the futility and even danger. I will briefly narrate two of these experiences.

A raid was once made on German trenches in Serbia with the object of ascertaining if the Germans were still there or had been replaced by Bulgarians. It was a successful raid, so successful in fact that, instead of withdrawing the raiding-party from the German trenches, G.H.Q. left them there some twelve hours while it tried to think out a scheme for pushing on still further, with the result that they were subjected to a murderous bombardment and finally driven out with heavy loss by a counter-attack. An English newspaper correspondent on the spot wrote a perfectly correct description of this operation, giving well-deserved praise to the brave Welsh and Lancashire battalions which had carried it out, but also telling, quite simply, how they had been forced to retire. As all the second part of his description was eliminated by the Censor, nothing appeared in the British Press but a one-sided report conveying the impression that the British had established themselves permanently in the German trenches. The effect of this report on the survivors of the raid and on the whole Salonika Army was bad; it seriously shook the confidence of our troops in the optimistic official reports from all the other Fronts, more especially as the German account of this particular operation, which was published in the English newspapers, was absolutely accurate.

My second instance is from Kolchak’s Army. In June, 1919, a Russian Colonel who had escaped from the Bolsheviks delivered a lecture on Bolshevism at Omsk, under the auspices of Admiral Kolchak. It was an able, restrained, and crushing condemnation of the Soviet Government, but the speaker admitted, what is quite true, that the Reds work extremely hard. This admission infuriated one of the audience, an old “dug-out” Tsarist General, who forthwith jumped to his feet and interrupted the lecturer by loud and violent protestations that he had not come there to hear the Bolsheviks praised. He finally left the hall in a terrible rage, and five months later he was running for his life from Omsk owing to the fact that Kolchak’s whole army had crumbled to pieces, because most of its leaders had made no attempt during the year they ruled Siberia to emulate the tireless industry of the Reds.

The Bolshevik Government would not now be in existence were it not for two facts: (1) Intervention, which united all Russians and led to the creation of the Red Army; (2) injudicious and exaggerated anti-Bolshevik Propaganda, which created among the working-classes a certain sympathy for the Reds, and finally paralyzed intervention. Every London editor and every British politician knows that unduly violent attacks even on a criminal tend, in this country, to cause a reaction in his favour, especially if some of the charges are found to be false; and I have often wished, most fervently, after reading descriptions of Muscovite cannibalism, that there was an advocatus diaboli at every editor’s elbow. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, would inflict far greater injury on Bolshevism than the most appalling exaggerations and diatribes. Had it not been for these exaggerations and diatribes, and the suspicion that they were partly due to the preponderance of the aristocratic and capitalist interests in our Press, all British workmen would have realized long ago that, instead of being the underdog, the Reds are merely a gang of adventurers who have deprived the Russian Proletariat of all liberty and brought discredit on the cause of democracy in every part of the world. They would have seen that the things which they admire in Bolshevism are not Bolshevik at all, but are borrowed without acknowledgment from Tsarist times and from Russian Liberal parties. Ten years ago there were in the principal towns of Russia free theatres for the people and many splendid orphanages, but the Reds now point out these theatres and orphanages to visitors as if they had founded them. The very name Soviet is not Bolshevik, and the Soviet system dates from a period long anterior to 1917. As Prince Kropotkin points out in his letter to the Western Democracies published last July in the British Press, the Bolsheviks have been bitter opponents of the Soviet system, which they have in fact destroyed. The craze for education and the breaking down of class barriers for which the Reds take all the credit are due to the Russian Liberals who ruled Russia after the abdication of the Tsar. Lenin has, in fact, stolen the thunder of the Revolution, but this must not lead us to describe that particular thunder as the voice of the Devil, when it is really the voice at the great Russian people. It was this mistake which ruined Kolchak and Denikin. There is plenty of pure Bolshevik thunder let loose from the Kremlin, and that we can all denounce as much as we like, for it is directed not only against Christianity, but also against democracy.

There are in Bolshevism noble phrases and splendid schemes which are not especially Bolshevik at all, but are borrowed from the movement that overthrew the Tsar and all he stood for. Had the Reds never appeared on the scene, those phrases would have been lived up to and those theories carried into practice, and the majority of people in England would have applauded. Now that the Reds have taken possession of them, we in England are too much inclined to regard them as typically Bolshevik, and to condemn them wholesale. One out of the combination of forces which hurled Kolchak from Omsk and Denikin from Ekaterinodar was the same force that had hurled Nicholas the Second from his throne, and, though it is harnessed at present to the war-chariot of Bolshevism, it should be our aim not to keep it there permanently, but to unharness it, remove its apprehensions, and make it understand that we sympathize fully with its fierce hatred of autocracy and militarism and with all its legitimate aspirations. So far, unfortunately, we have done exactly the opposite.

That there are publications in this country which omit everything that tells against the Bolsheviks is unhappily true; and things have, in fact, come to such a pass that it would be easier and more profitable to publish a book giving either side of the question than to publish a book giving both sides. On the one hand, there are British organizations which would buy whole editions of books which were from beginning to end one long tirade against Bolshevism, and Russian organizations which would promise very dazzling rewards, at a period which cannot now be remote, to the authors of such books. On the other hand, there is—well, an organization which gives away jewelry; and, between the two of them, poor John Bull is in a position which really excites my pity.

If any reader is kind enough to remark that an author who, under these circumstances, caters for neither of these extreme parties deserves credit, I would at once assure him that practically all the credit is due to the publisher who accepts such an author’s book, especially at a time like the present, when the publishing trade has to contend with such great and unprecedented difficulties.

I have stated above that intervention and anti-Bolshevik Propaganda helped the Bolsheviks rather than injured them. Had it not been for intervention there would be no sympathy for the Reds in this country, and there would be no Red Army in Russia. The Bolsheviks are Pacifists and anti-Militarists who were enabled to seize the reins of power through their denunciation of war, and they could never have induced a single soldier to fight for them if they had not been attacked from the outside. Their military helplessness in 1918 was ludicrous. Sometimes a dozen armed Czechs captured towns with a population of 50,000. The Czech conquest of Siberia was like the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Had the Bolsheviks been let alone they would have been overthrown a year ago by some movement originating inside Russia. Russian Communism is like a top kept spinning by external propulsion. Once the external action ceases, the top will fall. Bolshevism is contrary to human nature. It can no more persist in time of peace than a cone at rest can stand on its apex.

Several of my most sensational experiences I have had to omit, as even the most discreet account of them would compromise people who are still in Russia; but I have made a full report of these experiences to the proper authorities in this country. Other experiences I can never publish so long as there is a Bolshevik Government in Russia.

I might add that the publication of this book has been delayed by the continued detention of my fellow-prisoners in Siberia. I felt that it would be inadvisable for me to publish it until they had all crossed the frontier—firstly, because the fact that they had helped me to escape might have brought down on them the vengeance of the Bolsheviks; and, secondly, because a message received from them last February indicated that somebody who had joined them after my departure was impersonating me, with the intention apparently of leaving Russia under my name. As I explain in the text, I had been registered at Krasnoyarsk both as an officer and as a civilian. When the civilian went to Moscow, my comrades had apparently got somebody to play the part of the officer; and it was very good for me that they did so, as the prisoners had to report once a week, and as, if my absence had been discovered, my peregrinations as an alleged journalist would soon have been cut short.

I have not had time, since my return from Russia, to read any of the numerous accounts which have been written about the present condition of that country, so that the picture which I here draw has this merit at least, that it is taken direct from nature and not copied from other drawings. In fact, most of the book was written by me in shorthand during my journey from Krasnoyarsk, and my stay in Ekaterinburg and Moscow. I can also claim, I think, to be the only foreigner who has circulated freely in Red Siberia and Red Russia without having had a Bolshevik “guide” attached to him or Bolshevik preparations made to receive him. In Krasnoyarsk, Ekaterinburg, and for some time in Moscow, the Bolsheviks completely lost track of me, and, in my Siberian fur cap and dilapidated sheepskin coat, I wandered wherever I liked. The best testimonial I ever received to the perfection of my “make-up” was the undisguised incredulity with which that excellent clergyman, the Rev. Frank North, received me in Moscow. “You mean to tell me that you are a British officer!” he cried three times, each time in a so much louder tone of voice, and with such increased emphasis on the personal pronouns, that his final shout might almost be described as a roar of indignation.

Several of the following chapters have already appeared in various periodicals, especially the Nineteenth Century and the Fortnightly Review; and I thank the various editors in question for their permission to reprint those contributions. I must also thank my friend Professor Francis de Zulueta, of All Souls College, Oxford, for his invaluable assistance in seeing this book through the press during my absence from England.

Francis McCullagh.

London,
October, 1920.