- from ‘Harper’s Weekly’ January 29, 1916
- 'Russia Organizing for Victory'
- by Samuel N. Harper
An American in Russian Poland
the Czar visiting a munitions factory
Professor Harper, head of the Russian department at Chicago University, and friend of leading Russians of all political groups, is as well equipped as any man in America to report the real situation. He has just returned from Russia and has written for "Harper's Weekly" a series of articles, of which this is the first
"We are fighting an armed people, and we in turn must become an armed people. This fact was not realized during the first year of the war. We thought we could defeat the enemy merely with an army. It is only since July last that we began really to prepare and arm ourselves for the task in hand. The mobilization of all the forces of the country for victory is of comparatively recent date, but is progressing well."
This summary of the situation was given me by General Kuropatkin, the leader of the Russian forces in the Russo-Japanese war. He himself is an evidence of the real mobilization of Russia, an answer to the demand for the mobilization of the whole country made only six months ago, for in spite of his years he then asked for and received an army corps. I was spending the afternoon at an observation point, from which they were directing the artillery fire; the General had been spending the day in the front trenches and learned of my visit. By telephone he invited me to the staff headquarters for dinner, and the evening was passed in discussion of the war and international politics.
My recent visit to Russia was of short duration, but it was my tenth trip to Russia, and I spent the ten weeks looking up the friends I had been making the last ten years. I arrived in Petrograd the first week of October. The Duma had been set down the fifteenth of September. The delegation from the public institutions in Moscow had not received the invitation to present themselves to their sovereign, for which they had petitioned. The supply of sugar in the capital was low, and long lines of people crowded many of the streets, waiting to buy the one pound of sugar allowed to each purchaser. The new paper money had just been issued—the smaller silver coins had disappeared somewhere, and we were given postage stamps for the ten, fifteen and twenty kopeck denominations. The bits of paper were blown from your fingers as you tried to pay your cabman. I was frankly discouraged when I looked up my first friends.
"Clear out of here as quickly as you can," was their immediate advice when they saw my state of mind. "Petrograd is full of intrigues and pessimism; the atmosphere here is bad; this is not Russia. Go to Moscow and see how they are working and feel the spirit there. And if you have come to see what Russia is like in wartime, to feel the real Russia, then you certainly must go to the front. The real Russia is at the front." That is how I happened to be discussing the situation with General Kuropatkin, at the headquarters of his army corps, not more than four miles from the advanced trenches. For all my Russian friends were most insistent that I go to the front, and I put myself in their hands and asked them to secure the permission.
While I waited for the pass to be issued—it took five weeks to secure it—I followed the advice of my friends on the other point and left Petrograd. I went to Moscow, to study the work of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union and the All-Russian Municipality Union. In Petrograd I had already looked an on the War Trade Committee, at
the headquarters from which the representatives of private manufacturing interests in Russia were organizing the "mobilization of industry." These three institutions are Russia organizing for victory. They work with and through another institution, which is only beginning to function—the Central Cooperative Committee—a still more recent effort to organize the more democratic forces of the country, the peasants and workmen in their cooperative societies.
Of these four institutions the Zemstvo Union is perhaps the most important, the best organized, and the one that was able to give a certain measure of assistance from the very beginning of the war. Its president, Prince Lvov, had already shown his skill for organization during the Russo-Japanese war, when he worked along similar lines. We have here a union of local provincial self-government. Over three hundred provincial councils are directed by the main committee of the Union. The history of the development of the Zemstvo Union is the best illustration of the progress of the organization for victory.
At the very outbreak of war these councils formed their union and offered their services to the government, and from the very beginning the Zemstva were allowed to help with some of the problems raised by the war. To them was intrusted the care of the family where the husband and father was called to the colors. The Zemstvo is closer to the village than the official, and the peasants are represented in the Zemstvo assemblies and boards. It was natural that the Zemstvo assume the administration of this difficult problem. It is generally agreed that the commissary department of the Russian army has proven reasonably efficient. This department saw the possibility, in fact the need of using the local government bodies. The food supplies from the villages came more regularly as a result of the cooperation of the Zemstvo.
After the first months of the war the number of wounded overwhelmed the army hospitals. The Zemstva had been organizing hospitals in the country districts for decades. The Union now organized hospital corps, to work in the army itself; equipped sanitary trains to bring the wounded from the front; and organized hospitals all over the country, to which it distributed the wounded soldiers. Similar work was done by other institutions and by private individuals. I emphasize the Zemstvo work simply to illustrate the gradual extension of the activities of this organization. Also one must note that the Union had to offer its services, and that these were accepted only after some hesitation. The Union ordered and secured medical supplies even from America.
As the recruits flowed westward, to join their regiments, they had to be fed along the route. The Zemstvo Union asked to be allowed to establish feeding points, which soon appeared at the very front. The Union helped to feed the refugees driven eastward from their homes as the army retreated. The sappers engaged in digging trenches did not always come within the regiment commissary; the Union assumed the responsibility of feeding these men. Finally the Zemstvo Union, organized sapper corps of its own, and dug trenches for the army. And all the time the local Zemstva were trying to mobilize the household industries of the agricultural districts, for various kinds of army equipment.
In July Russians learned the cause of the Galician disaster, and saw the reason for the forced retreat from Poland. "We had no ammunition" was the explanation cried abroad and through the country. The War-Trade Committees were established, to organize the larger industrial plants for the manufacture of ammunition. The Zemstvo Union joined in the cry of "mobilization of industry," and set about to convert the smaller factories, scattered here and there in the agricultural districts, for the manufacture of shells.
Thus through the Zemstvo Union—the Municipality Union, the War Trade Committee and the Cooperative Committee work along similar and supplementary lines —the country has come into actual touch with the army, the "front" has been extended back, so that even Moscow considers itself practically at the front.
The work of these public, as opposed to bureaucratic, institutions has been carried on under great difficulties. In the first place there was a lack of men—all the best men had gone to the front, and the Russian has had little opportunity for training in public work and administration. Also, though these organizations did not use the situation to work for political power, did not play politics, the very existence and especially the gradual extension of these unions had enormous political significance, and promised to have still more simply as time went on. In these organizations thousands were able for the first time to participate in public affairs. This was all very clearly seen by certain groups, whose policy had been to monopolize the administration of public affairs in Russia. Obstacles were deliberately put in the way of this mobilization of the country by several departments of the government. But other departments supported the efforts of the public, and the workers kept on working. They were working for the army, and they refused to be discouraged or turned aside. "They may be able to interfere with our work, but they cannot spoil it," was the answer I always received to my constant inquiries on this point.
The army appreciates what these institutions are doing, and protects them. At one point en the front, hardly two miles from the line, I visited a regiment which had just come out from the trenches, for a week of rest in the reserve. They were situated near a village, in a thick wood where they were well concealed and protected. In the village I saw a large building, and over the door the sign," All-Russian Zemstvo Union." I entered and found a well-equipped Russian bath. Soldiers fresh and dirty from the trenches were lying contentedly in the steaming room. As they emerged from the steam, they received fresh linen and a cup of tea with biscuits. I understood then why the army had supported and protected the Zemstvo Union, against those who had refused to show full confidence in their work and patriotism.
In the country districts the peasants have often been slightly hostile to the Zemstvo. Though the Zemstvo gives them schools and hospitals, better roads, and seed and machinery at lower prices, it means more taxes, and it is controlled by the "masters," the landed gentry. The! traditions of serfdom, abolished only fifty years ago, still have force, and the Zemstva have not succeeded in bridging the gap between the educated, propertied classes and the peasantry, though many have striven for years to establish a real bond of union here. On this last trip I asked one old peasant about the Zemstvo work in wartime. "The masters are working for our sons, who are fighting at the front," was his simple answer.
I went to the small provincial town of S. I stopped with the president of the Zemstvo Board. The Marshall of Nobility of the district arrived by the same train. The next morning we were awakened at an unusually early hour, as I remembered the habits of the household. By nine o'clock we were ready to start out. On my previous visits to this same district, they always showed me the Peasant Industry Store established by the Zemstvo, or the bookstore they had equipped to supply books and reading matter to the peasants. But on this morning I was taken across the river, to a site where a large building was under construction and nearly completed. The president, full of pride and enthusiasm, explained, "This is a converted and enlarged factory. In two months we shall be making hand-grenades and small shell for the army." In this same town I saw an enormous storeroom full of soldiers' boots. The village cobblers had been mobilized by the Zemstvo, and the boots were shipped direct to the active army from this small provincial town.
For three days I watched the work of organization in this district, sitting in at the many committee meetings held in the Zemstvo building, where landowner, peasant, merchant and official discussed and planned together. And all the problems under discussion had a direct bearing on the prosecution of the war. During my visit the governor of the province arrived, after giving due warning. There was some anxiety as to the object of this unexpected honor; no one knew just why he was coming. But he had come down simply to get into closer touch with the local workers, to talk matters over with them. Here was cooperation between bureaucracy and society and mutual confidence on the basis of a common task.
I was told that the governor upbraided the head of one institution for his lack of system and energy, saying, "What will the American professor think of your place if he looks into your side of the work?" For of course much of this organization is very ragged, if one judges it according to our western standards. As compared with the Russia I have known these last years, it was a new Russia, accomplishing wonders in spite of difficulties of all kinds. I questioned many officers about the terrible retreat from Warsaw. They explained frankly, "We had no ammunition. We could not fight with guns and artillery, for we had no cartridges and shells. We had only spirit." It was to feel that "spirit" that I went to the army. After a week in the army I saw whence the workers I had seen in the rear received their enthusiasm and their zeal: "We are organizing for victory. We are working for the army." This is the spirit of Russia today. Russia is not disheartened by the disasters of last summer and fall. For the "mobilization of the whole country," the "arming of the people" did not start till the beginning of the second year of the war.
