Part 1

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RUSSIAN PORTRAITS

RUSSIAN PORTRAITS

BY CLARE SHERIDAN

JONATHAN CAPE 11 GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C.1 MCMXXI

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

CLARE SHERIDAN _Frontispiece_

“VICTORY, 1918” 13

KRASSIN (_bust_) 21

KAMENEFF (_bust_) 24

LITVINOFF AND HIS SON MISHA AT KRISTIANIA 49

BRIDGE BLOWN UP BY YUDENITCH 60

GUKOVSKI, HIS DAUGHTER, KAMENEFF AND MARINASHKY 63

MARINASHKY AND THE MINISTERIAL ROLLS-ROYCE 65

THE KREMLIN, SHOWING ENTRANCE TO THE KAMENEFFS’ APARTMENTS 67

BIG BELL, KREMLIN 70

COLONNADES OF THE ALEXANDER MEMORIAL 71

SERGE TROTSKY AND ALEXANDRE KAMENEFF 74

BRONZE EAGLE AT THE MUSÉE ALEXANDRE III. 76

BIG GUN AT THE KREMLIN 78

ROTHSTEIN 81

ST. SAVIOUR’S 83

ZINOVIEV (_bust_) 85

DZHIRJINSKY (_bust_) 88

MARGARET AND RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 90

CHURCH OF ST. BASIL 92

SPASSKY ENTRANCE TO THE KREMLIN 113

LENIN (_from a photograph_) 118

LENIN (_bust_) 119

TROTSKY (_from a drawing_) 124

NICHOLAS ANDREV 129

TROTSKY AT THE FRONT 140

TROTSKY (_bust_) 143

SENTRY OUTSIDE THE GUEST-HOUSE 158

LITVINOFF AT MOSCOW 181

STATUE OF DOSTOIEVSKY 182

STATUE, “THE THINKER” 183

THE SUKHAREFSKI MARKET 184

FOREWORD

_It is with deep apology that I venture to swell the ranks of those people who write their little books after their little visits to Russia._

_In defence I can only say that this was not written for publication. I have always kept a diary, in monotonous as in eventful days. In publishing a record of my stay in Moscow I am submitting to pressure without which I would not venture upon such a line. Mine is not the business of writing, nor are politics my concern: I went to Moscow where some portrait work was offered me._

_There are people in England who are indignant at my doing Lenin and Trotsky. There were people in Moscow who were horrified because I had done Churchill, and expressed a desire to do d’Annunzio, but as a portraitist I have nothing to do with politics; it is humanity that interests me, humanity with its force and its weakness, its ambitions and fears, its honesty and lack of scruples, its perfection and deformities._

_There are of course people who are pleasanter to work for than others, people in whose environment one feels happier and more at ease._

_In this diary are written freely the impressions of a guest among people who have been much talked about._

_From this point of view, and without any political pretentions, I offer it to whomsoever it may interest._

RUSSIAN PORTRAITS

AUGUST 14TH, 1920. _London._

According to Mr. Fisher’s instructions, I called on Mr. M--at his office at 10.30 and introduced myself.

He took me in a taxi to Bond Street to the office of Messrs. Kameneff and Krassin. We waited for about twenty minutes in an anti-chamber, and I had a certain melodramatic feeling. Here was I, at all events, in the outer den of these wild beasts who have been represented as ready to spring upon us and devour us! This movement that has caused consternation to the world, and these people so utterly removed from my environment, these myths of what seemed almost a great legend, I was now quite close to. Meanwhile the clerks in the office occupied my attention, they interested me as types, and I wondered about them, about exactly _what_ in their lives had made them into Bolsheviks, and what sort of mentality it was, and whether the scheme which they upheld was a workable concern.

At the same time Mr. M--put me straight on a few points, and all the inaccuracies about Bolshevism that people like myself have gleaned, so that I was fairly prepared and protected against appearing too ignorant and foolish.

At last the word came and we were ushered into the office of Mr. Kameneff who received me amiably and smilingly. We started off almost immediately, in French, and discussed the subject of his being willing to sit to me. I then asked him if a Soviet Government had obliterated Art in Russia. He looked at me for a moment in astonishment, and then said: “_Mais non!_ Artists are the most privileged class.”

I asked if they were able to earn a living wage? He replied that they were paid higher than the Government Ministers. He gave me fully to understand that Russia is most appreciative of Art and Talent, and is anxious to surround itself with culture.

He decided that the bust had better be started soon, as one never knew what might happen from one moment to the next, “what caprice of Monsieur Lloyd George” might elect to send him out of the country at a moment’s notice, so we decided on the following Tuesday at 10 a.m. Mr. Kameneff then took us downstairs to Krassin’s office. Mr. Krassin seemed very busy and pre-occupied, had someone in the room, and

didn’t quite know what I had come about, but he agreed to sit to me on the following Wednesday at 10 a.m.

AUGUST 17TH.

Kameneff arrived almost punctually at 10 a.m. for an hour, but he stayed till 1 o’clock, and we talked for the whole three hours almost without stopping. I do not know how I managed to work and talk so much. My mind was really more focussed on the discussion, and the work was done subconsciously. At all events when the three hours were ended, I had produced a likeness.

There is very little modelling in his face, it is a perfect oval, and his nose is straight with the line of his forehead, but turns up slightly at the end, which is a pity. It is difficult to make him look serious, as he smiles all the time. Even when his mouth is severe his eyes laugh.

My “Victory” was unveiled when he arrived and he noticed it at once. I told him it represented the Victory of the Allies, and he exclaimed: “But no! It is the Victory of all the ages. What pain! What suffering! What exhaustion!” He then added that it was the best bit of Peace propaganda that he had seen.

We had wonderful conversations. He told me all kinds of details of the Soviet legislation, their ideals and aims. Their first care, he told me, is for the children, they are the future citizens and require every protection. If parents are too poor to bring up their children, the State will clothe, feed, harbour and educate them until fourteen years old, legitimate and illegitimate alike, and they do not need to be lost to their parents, who can see them whenever they wish. This system, he said, had doubled the percentage of marriages (civil of course), and it had also allayed a good deal of crime--for what crimes are not committed to destroy illegitimate children?

He described the enforced education of all classes--he told of the concerts they organise for their workmen, and of their appreciation of Bach and Wagner.

They have had to abandon (already!) the idea that all should be paid alike. Admitting that some are physically able to work longer and better than others, therefore there have to be grades of payment, and when great talent shows itself, “_cela merite d’être recompensé_.”

Chaliapin, who used to have the title of “Artist to the Court,” is now called “The Artist of the People.” Chaliapin, I gathered, was a very popular figure.

After awhile, Kameneff let drop a suggestion which did not fall on barren ground--he threw it out apparently casually, but in order, I believe, to see how I reacted to it. I had just been telling him that I had all my life had a love of Russian literature, Russian music, Russian dancing, Russian art, and he said, “You should come to Russia.”

I said that I had always dreamed it--and that perhaps--who knows--someday....

He said, “You can come with me, and I will get you sittings from Lenin and Trotsky.”

I thought he was joking, and hesitated a moment, then I said: “Let me know when you are going to start, and I will be ready in half an hour.”

He offered to telegraph immediately to Moscow for permission.

AUGUST 18TH.

Krassin arrived at 10 a.m., and found me reading the papers, sitting on the seat outside the door. Like Kameneff, he stayed till 1 o’clock. He has a beautiful head, and he sat almost sphinx-like, severe and expressionless most of the time. We talked of course, but his French is less good than Kameneff’s, and we broke into occasional German--it was a good mix-up, but we said all we wanted to say.

Kameneff had talked to him about me, and had told him of the project of my going to Moscow. I said nothing about it until he mentioned it.

What impresses me about these two men is their impassive imperturbability, their calm, and their patience. I suppose it is the race, or else that they learnt calm when they were prisoners in Siberia. It is such a contrast to almost every other sitter, who is restless, hurried and fidgety. Krassin is sphinx-like; he sits erect, his head up, and his pointed, bearded chin sticking defiantly out at an angle, and his mouth tightly shut. He has no smile like Kameneff, and his piercing eyes just looked at me impassively while I worked. It was rather uncanny.

Krassin is a Siberian. He explained to me that his father was a Government local official when he married his mother who was a peasant, and one of twenty-two children. He himself was the eldest of seven, and was brought up in Siberia.

At 1 o’clock I thanked him profusely for sitting so long and so well, and he seemed quite surprised at my stopping, and said: “You have done with me?”

I explained that I had to catch a train, so, having swallowed a fish and some plums, I rushed down the alley to my taxi, pursued by Rigamonti who abandoned his marble chisel and carried my suit-case and hurled in some last things to me. I just caught the 1.50 at Waterloo, for Godalming, to stay two days with the Midletons.[1]

AUGUST 21ST.

I got back to the studio about midday to find a huge bunch of roses and the following note from Kameneff:--

_London, 21 Août._

_Chère Madame_,

_Je vous prie la permission de mettre ces roses rouges aux pieds de votre belle statue de la Victoire._

_Bien à vous_,

_L. K._

I did so, and when he came at about 4 o’clock to sit, I thanked him, but said that they were not red and that it was a pity. He looked as if he didn’t quite understand, and said: “Yes, they are red--red for the blood of Victory.” The sentiment was right, but he is colour blind, the roses were pink! I did not argue.

At about 5 o’clock S---- L----, walked in unexpectedly, and was very surprised and interested to find Kameneff, who was no less interested at hearing from S---- L---- that Archbishop Mannix is his guest, and I got a good innings at my work while these two talked together.

Kameneff and I dined later at the Café Royal, and then went on to a Revue, which was very bad, but the audience laughed a good deal, and Kameneff wondered at their childish appreciation of rubbish.

AUGUST 22ND.

Twelve hours with Kameneff!!!

He arrived at 11 a.m. with a huge album of photographs of the Revolution, very interesting. After looking at it he sat to me for an hour. We then lunched at Claridges’. After lunch we went for a taxi drive along the Embankment, and passing the Tate Gallery, went in. It is being re-arranged, but we found the Burne-Jones’ that Kameneff was looking for. He stood for a long time before “The King and the Beggar-maid.” I suppose that in the new system all the beggar-maids are queens, and that the real kings sit at their feet.

At 4 o’clock we went to Trafalgar Square to see what was going on. The Council of Action were having a meeting. Kameneff assured me that he must not go near the platform, or be recognised by his friends, as he was under promise to the Government to take no part in demonstrations, nor to do any propaganda work. However, I dragged him by the hand to the outskirts of the crowd, and for no reason that I can explain, the shout went up, “Gangway for speakers,” and a channel opened up before us, and we were rushed along it. Happily for Kameneff, there was a hitch as we approached the platform. The crowd thought that a policeman was favouring us unduly, and getting us to the platform, and a youngish man said: “Stop that, policeman, this is a democratic meeting” and tried to prevent us going any farther. For awhile I felt the hostility of the people around me.

One of the speakers, referring to the spirit of 1914, said that we had given our husbands and sons then, but that we did not mean ever to give them again, and, I, thinking of Dick, joined in the shouts of “Never, never!” with some feeling, and I felt the atmosphere kindlier around me after that. When Lansbury tried to speak, he was acclaimed with cheers, and had to wait patiently while they sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and cheered him again.

He seemed to me to talk less of “Class” and more of “Cause.” Just for a second he paused when saying, “What we have to do, is to stop----” I filled in the gap with “Mesopotamia.” Whereupon the crowd shouted “Here, here!” and “God bless you!” After that I was one of them. Then someone recognised Kameneff, and the whisper went round and spread like wildfire. The men on either side of him asked if they might announce that he was there, to which he answered a most emphatic “No.”

When Lansbury had finished speaking, there was an appeal for money for the “Cause.” It was interesting to watch the steady rain of coins, and very touching were the pennies of the poor. Lansbury buried his face in his hat for protection.

After that we went away, and a gangway was made for us, and all along the whisper went of “Kameneff,” and the faces that looked at us were radiant as though they beheld a saviour.

We took a taxi and drove to Hampton Court, and went into the park, to get away from the Sunday crowd. We sat on Kameneff’s coat on the grass in the middle of an open space, and the air was heavy and the sun fitful, as though a storm impended. The distant elms were heavy green, and there was a great stillness and calm.

We talked about the meeting, and of the magnetism of a crowd. He noticed my suppressed excitement, for I had blood to the head! If we had been rushed to the platform, I could have

spoken to the people, I am sure that I could. He said that he had been terribly moved to speak, and that it had been a great effort to hold back.

We talked and talked, and then some rain drops forced us to get up and return to the Mitre hotel for dinner. After dinner, the weather cleared, and we had a lovely hour and a half in a boat on the river. There was a three-quarter moon, and the water reflected the pink lights from the Chinese lanterns of the houseboats. From the garden of Hampton Court, rose up what seemed to be a giant cypress tree, silhouetted against the dusk, and the reflection of it doubled its height. It was like something in Italy. I rowed the boat, which I loved doing, and Kameneff hummed Volga boatman-songs. Or else we broke back into discussions, and then he forgot that he was steering, and we had several slight collisions, and narrow escapes from more serious ones!

It was a very successful evening, and we came back by the last train to Waterloo, _still_ talking, chiefly about that impending and all absorbing visit to Moscow, and we parted on my doorstep at a quarter to midnight.

AUGUST 24TH.

I felt ill, but got up early, expecting Krassin at 10 o’clock, but at 10 o’clock I got a telephone message to the effect that neither Krassin nor Kameneff could see me to-day, as the political crisis had caused a deluge of work.

Lloyd George at Lucerne had taken exception to the clause in the Russian Peace Terms demanding that the Polish Civic Militia should be drawn from the working classes. This they say is an infringement of the liberty of Poland. Truth to tell, it is the Polish success over the Red Army that has caused this diplomatic _volte-face_. However, that is too long to go into here.

At dinner time Kameneff telephoned to me that he at last had time to spare, and could he come and see me. I asked him to take pot-luck for dinner, and he arrived, a battered and worn fighting man, full of indignation, but still full of fight, and hope, and belief.

He stayed till 11, and said that he felt better. It was very still here, and the peace did him good. There may be a “State of War” in a few days, and as things now stand, they all depart on Friday. Great excitement, as I shall go with them.

AUGUST 25TH.

Krassin gave me my second sitting at 5 p.m., and stayed till 7.30. I heard all the latest news. He’s a delightful man, never have I done a head that I admired more. He seems to be strong morally, to a degree of adamant. He is calm, sincere, dignified, proud, without self-consciousness and without vanity, and scientific in his analysis of things and people. Eyes that are unflinching and bewilderingly direct, nostrils that dilate with sensitiveness, a mouth that looks hard until it smiles, and a chin full of determination.

AUGUST 26TH.

Krassin offered me a third sitting, and came again at 5.0 and stayed till after 7.0. War is averted, and he assures me that Kameneff under no excuse can possibly leave for Russia for a fortnight. I did not sleep much, waking up with the exclamation “Partons! Partons!” for if we do not get away for a fortnight, I shall have to keep my engagement on September 10th at Oxford with the Birkenheads to do F. E., and then I shall not get to Russia before my exhibition.

I worked hard, and Krassin’s head is finished. I think it good. Sydney[2] came to see me after dinner, and we talked fantastically about Russia, and what it might or might not lead to.

He is terribly interested.

AUGUST 27TH.

Kameneff came at 11.0 to give me a last sitting. He was in a much happier frame of mind, chuckling over Tchicherin’s reply to Lloyd George, which is an impudent bit of propaganda work, and _all_ the papers _have_ to publish it because it is official.

I awakened this morning with an excited and tired feeling, my hands trembling, which I have never known before. Kameneff arrived in much the same condition. He talked politics and got excited and worked up and produced the quizzical frown that I wanted. I worked well, and absolutely changed the whole personality of his bust, which I think he liked.

He promised, incidentally, not to wait here two weeks, but says that he will start _not later_ than next Friday. I wonder if he keeps his promises.

Peter[3] turned up with a girl, which disturbed the sitting and I felt more and more hectic, what with the difficulties and the battle of it, and knowing that it was the last sitting, and feeling dead beat, and having finally to stop for lunch.

We lunched with Sydney Cooke at Claridges’. I introduced them to each other, and we are going to stay with Sydney at his house in the Isle of Wight, for the week-end. Like all good foreigners, Kameneff expressed a desire, some days ago, to see the Isle of Wight. So we arranged to go--I

could not therefore go to my beloved Dick,[4] but I sent him a crocodile by Peter, to compensate for my absence.

Dined with Aunt Jennie,[5] she has laryngitis, and looked very ill. She asked me what new work I was engaged on, but I took good care not to mention either Russians or Russia.

In the course of conversation, she told me that I was being criticised as having too much freedom. I chuckled over this, as I visualised to myself the great band of people who grudge one that freedom, because they have not got it, and because they know that freedom counts above rubies.

I said to Aunt Jennie, “And how is that grave condition of things, that dangerous “Liberty” going to be rectified? I am a widow, and earn my living, how is it to be otherwise ordered?”

She had no suggestion, it would have been obviously out of place to suggest re-marriage, which in fact is the only way of ending it, of ending everything, liberty, work, and my happiness, which is dependent on my work.

AUGUST 28TH.

I left the studio in a state of chaos, Smith being in the midst of casting the busts of Kameneff and Krassin. I felt a wonderful sensation of relief at these being finished, and the Victory also. Everything for the moment is finished, until I begin something new. And who will that be, I wonder?

Kameneff picked me up at 12.15 and we caught the 12.50 from Waterloo to Portsmouth. Sydney met us at the harbour and escorted us to his house on the Isle of Wight, near Newport. A very attractive journey across, as it was warm and calm weather. A motor met us at Ryde and took us to his house, seven miles. On arrival we flung ourselves down in the sun on the grass of the tennis-court. And after tea, as we lay full length on rugs, our heads leaning on the grassy bank behind us, and the sun gradually sinking lower and lower, Kameneff for over an hour told us the history of the Russian Revolution.

He told it to us haltingly, stumbling along in his bad French, wrestling with words and phrases, but always conveying his meaning and above all conjuring up the most graphic pictures, making us see with his eyes, live over the days with him, and know all the people concerned. He is amazingly forceful and eloquent.

We sat silent and spellbound. He began as far back as twenty years ago, with the first efforts of himself and Lenin, Trotsky and Krassin. He described their secret organisations, their discoveries, their secrets, his months and years of prison, first in cells, then in Siberia--but long before he had finished, our dinner was announced, and we went in just as we were, to eat. The spell for the moment was broken, and though Kameneff did not again that evening resume the tale of the Revolution, he did most of the evening’s talking.

He described to us shortly, but vividly, the individuality and psychology of Lenin. There were others also whose names I cannot recall. One I remember was Dzhirjinsky, the President of the Extraordinary Commission, a man turned to stone through years of _traveaux forcés_, an ascetic and a fanatic, whom the Soviet selected as organiser and head of “La Terreur.”