We drove to the Hotel Bristol, now the headquarters of the Jaroslavl Executive Committee, where Rostopchin, the president, discussed with Larin and Radek the programme arranged for the conference.It was then proposed that we should have something to eat, when a very curious state of affairs (and one extremely Russian) was revealed.Rostopchin admitted that the commissariat arrangements of the Soviet and its Executive Committee were very bad.But in the center of the town there is a nunnery which was very badly damaged during the bombardment and is now used as a sort of prison or concentration camp for a Labor Regiment.Peasants from the surrounding country who have refused to give up their proper contribution of corn, or leave otherwise disobeyed the laws, are, for punishment, lodged here, and made to expiate their sins by work.It so happens, Rostopchin explained, that the officer in charge of the prison feeding arrangements is a very energetic fellow, who had served in the old army in a similar capacity, and the meals served out to the prisoners are so much better than those produced in the Sovietheadquarters, that the members of the Executive Committee make a practice of walking over to the prison to dine.They invited us to do the same.Larin did not feel up to the walk, so he remained in the Soviet House to eat an inferior meal, while Radek and I, with Rostopchin and three other members of the local committee walked round to the prison.The bell tower of the old nunnery had been half shot away by artillery, and is in such a precarious condition that it is proposed to pull it down.But on passing under it we came into a wide courtyard surrounded by two- story whitewashed buildings that seemed scarcely to have suffered at all.We found the refectory in one of these buildings.It was astonishingly clean.There were wooden tables, of course without cloths, and each man had a wooden spoon and a hunk of bread.A great bowl of really excellent soup was put down in the middle of table, and we fell to hungrily enough.I made more mess on the table than any one else, because it requires considerable practice to convey almost boiling soup from a distant bowl to one's mouth without spilling it in a shallow wooden spoon four inches in diameter, and, having got it to one's mouth, to get any of it in without slopping over on either side.The regular diners there seemed to find no difficulty in it at all.One of the prisoners who mopped up after my disasters said I had better join them for a week, when I should find it quite easy.The soup bowl was followed by a fry of potatoes, quantities of which are grown in the district.For dealing with these I found the wooden spoon quite efficient.After that we had glasses of some sort of substitute for tea.
The Conference was held in the town theatre.There was a hint of comedy in the fact that the orchestra was playing the prelude to some very cheerful opera before the curtain rang up.Radek characteristically remarked that such music should be followed by something more sensational than a conference, proposed to me that we should form a tableau to illustrate the new peaceful policy of England with regard to Russia.As it was a party conference, I had really no right to be there, but Radek had arranged with Rostopchin that Ishould come in with himself, and be allowed to sit in the wings at the side of the stage.On the stage were Rostopchin, Radek, Larin andvarious members of the Communist Party Committee in the district.Everything was ready, but the orchestra went on with its jig music on the other side of the curtain.A message was sent to them.The music stopped with a jerk.The curtain rose, disclosing a crowded auditorium.Everbody stood up, both on the stage and in the theater, and sang, accompanied by the orchestra, first the "Internationale" and then the song for those who had died for the revolution.Then except for two or three politically minded musicians , the orchestra vanished away and the Conference began.
Unlike many of the meetings and conferences at which I have been present in Russia, this Jaroslavl Conference seemed to me to include practically none but men and women who either were or had been actual manual workers.I looked over row after row of faces in the theatre, and could only find two faces which I thought might be Jewish, and none that obviously belonged to the "intelligentsia." I found on inquiry that only three of the Communists present, excluding Radek and Larin, were old exiled and imprisoned revolutionaries of the educated class.Of these, two were on the platform.All the rest were from the working class.The great majority of them, of course, had joined the Communists in 1917, but a dozen or so had been in the party as long as the first Russian revolution of 1905.
Radek, who was tremendously cheered (his long imprisonment in Germany, during which time few in Russia thought that they would see him alive again, has made him something of a popular hero) made a long, interesting and pugnacious speech setting out the grounds on which the Central Committee base their ideas about Industrial Conscription.These ideas are embodied in the series of theses issued by the Central Committee in January (see p.134).Larin, who was very tired after the journey and patently conscious that Radek was a formidable opponent, made a speech setting out his reasons for differing with the Central Committee, and proposed an ingenious resolution, which, while expressing approval of the general position of the Committee, included four supplementary modificationswhich, as a matter of fact, nullified that position altogether.It was thenabout ten at night, and the Conference adjourned.We drove round to the prison in sledges, and by way of supper had some more soup and potatoes, and so back to the railway station to sleep in the cars.