CHAPTER XII
GEORGIA OF THE CAUCASUS
M. Camille Huysmans persuaded me to accept the Georgian invitation. “The Georgians want you to come very particularly because you were in Russia recently. They want someone who can make comparisons between the Bolshevik Government of Russia and the Social Democratic Government of their own country. It would be helpful to them, and would be interesting and useful to you.”
The delegation was selected from the Second International. Besides myself, Mr. J. R. Macdonald and Mr. Tom Shaw were invited from Great Britain; Messieurs Vandervelde, de Brouckere and Huysmans from Belgium; Messieurs Renaudel, Marquet and Inghels from France; and Herr Kautsky and his wife from Germany. Several Georgians and Russians with their wives were also of the party, and we were joined in Paris by Madame Vandervelde and Madame Huysmans and her daughter. The Kautskys joined us in Rome, travelling thither from Vienna.
Camille Huysmans would have to occupy a central position in any picture of the personalities of the present-day European Socialist Movement. His is a figure of more than ordinary interest. He is tall and slender, with an attractive mop of fair, curly hair. He possesses a keenly intellectual face, like that of Lasalle, delicate featured, but with a slightly cruel mouth. His eyes are restless and his general movements, except in speaking in public, are nervous. He has an extraordinary capacity for organization, and speaks four or five languages with equal fluency. His knowledge of the history and the present position of the world movement for Socialism is unrivalled.
His knowledge of the private histories as well as the public records of his Socialist colleagues in all lands is also very complete; which makes him a terror to evildoers. I have heard attributed to this knowledge the fact that the Russian Bolsheviks have left him severely alone. It certainly cannot be because he has spared them, for his hatred of their undemocratic form of government he has cried from the housetops.
His is the artistic temperament, and he is passionately fond of music and the drama. He loathes all the naked ugliness and stupid self-repression that passes for Puritanism in the minds of the soured and disappointed. He professes no personal religion, but temperamental leanings towards the forms of Roman Catholic worship are discernible in the expression of his general views of life. The pictures, the colour, the incense, the music of the æsthetic temples of every great Faith would probably be implicit in his scheme of things, for the sheer beauty of them.
I have a great liking and admiration for the secretary of the Second International; but it requires a sense of humour and a certain gift of scepticism to make him understood of the great mass of his more sober Saxon comrades. “You can as easily make an Englishman musical as a Belgian moral,” he said gaily into the shocked ears of at least two English persons present, delighted to be taken seriously when he only wanted to draw us into a debate. His eyes twinkled mischievously as he spoke. He is the Puck of the International, the tormenting imp who likes nothing better than to stab with little darts of irony the self-important people who take life too seriously.
On public occasions he appears the most self-possessed of men; but he told me once that he suffers an agony of nervousness when called upon to meet strangers. His public speech sparkles with wit. He can laugh, sing, dance and shout with the abandon of a schoolboy; but when some piece of stiff business arises and he has to calm a raging storm of passion between two sets of nationals in a conference his peculiar genius shows itself, and he restores order and amity with the hand and voice of a master. Without Camille Huysmans the ship of the International would sail very unsteadily upon the turbulent waters of present-day politics. Huysmans is a member of the Belgian Parliament, and if there be anything in present signs and portents he is marked out by circumstance and his own commanding abilities to play a prominent part in shaping the future fortunes of his gallant little country.
“La petite Sara,” as his gifted young daughter was called by the Georgians, helps her father, whom she adores. She has his charming personality and marvellous facility for languages, with an added seriousness and self-sufficiency, if not a slight stubbornness of character, which will not detract but rather add to the quality of her international work. She is a very pretty girl, with large, serious grey eyes, dark fringed, and a complexion of cream and roses. All the young men of the party fell in love with her and lived in hourly, jealous fear lest some dancing Georgian rival should persuade her to marry him and carry her off to his mountain home.
M. Louis de Brouckere, tall, handsome and dignified, another of our Belgian companions, is the perfect scholar and gentleman. Could more and better be added to that?
M. Emile Vandervelde, the Belgian Minister for Justice, is a portly figure with a ruddy complexion and wonderful blue eyes, clear and limpid as a child’s. He is slightly deaf, which obliges him to lean and strain to catch the words of a speaker. He professes not to speak English, but that is all nonsense. He both speaks and understands it very well. His wife is an Englishwoman.
Of French he is a master. He is one of the greatest of living orators. As chairman of the Delegation he spoke on almost every occasion. So perfect is his art, so entirely matchless is his choice and use of word and phrase, so magnificent the roll and crescendo of his argument that his listeners stood fascinated as he spoke, or leaned forward in their chairs, their faces aglow with enjoyment of gesture and speech, even when they did not understand a word. To the understanding the speech was ever a marvel of beauty and delight, holding them spellbound to the last triumphant word and overpowering gesture. The theme in Georgia was the same for us all, and for all occasions: sympathy for the Georgians in their effort to build up peacefully and on Social-Democratic lines the Socialist Republic; offers of help in our various home countries; condemnation of Bolshevism; praise of Internationalism.
M. Vandervelde is one of the most brilliant supporters of the Temperance Movement. He is by preference a total abstainer, although he is often placed by his public life and on foreign travel in circumstances where it is very difficult to indulge his taste. In some of those Eastern lands the water is tainted with germs and poisonous to the last degree. When it comes to a choice between typhoid and alcohol, the choice usually falls upon alcohol! Sometimes bitter offence is given where it is highly important good feeling should be maintained if a guest declines to drink wine with a host; incredible in these days, but true; impossible in this country now, but in Eastern Europe of the greatest frequency.
It was in the company of this distinguished statesman that I visited the wine-cellars on the estate in central Georgia of an exiled Russian Grand Duke. We entered the vast chambers led by smocked peasants carrying torches. They bowed till their beards almost swept the ground as we thanked them for their pains. Vast, gloomy, mysterious in the light of the flaming torches, the cellars were not so attractive, we thought, as the enchanting garden under the moon, and the voices of the villagers singing their folk songs on the lawn; so we left the rest of the company and sought the road back to the palace ourselves.
“What do you think will happen at the next election in Belgium?” I asked my companion.
He shrugged his shoulders and spread his small, white hands with an expressive gesture. “I cannot tell. There will probably be little change. I shall have to be home by then.”
The sound of the music came through the trees, guiding our steps. “I should like to understand Belgian politics better,” was more than a polite observation on my part. It represented a genuine regret that I was so ignorant.
“The Belgian Socialist point of view was not understood during the war by the English comrades,” said the Minister. “And even now we are roundly abused for joining the Government, even by a section in Belgium. It is always the dividing line. Shall we stand outside and be simply a propaganda body? Or, having secured a certain position and membership, shall we take the responsibility for carrying out as far as we can our political doctrines, recognizing that in a composite Government we can go neither so fast nor so far as we might wish? The workers’ party in Belgium is now the largest party in the State. Can the largest party in the State refuse to share the responsibility of helping in the country’s government? Camille thinks not. I have thought not. Now I sometimes doubt the line we should take. We shall see how things develop; what the result of the election is. But you must come to Belgium and tell us about Russia, and we will show you anything and tell you anything you wish to know.”
At this point we emerged from the thick wood into full view of the palace. Servants were lighting paper lanterns. The clatter of plates and cutlery spoke of the coming revel. The choristers burst into a new song as we approached. The bright moon lit up the magnificent range of mountains in the distance. It was fairyland come true, making the things of this world, its dirty politics and mean diplomacy, look small and poor.
A tall English blonde of very great charm of manner when she chooses is Madame Vandervelde. When she does not so choose she can be ruder in three languages than any woman of my acquaintance knows how to be in one! I do not in the least complain of her conduct to me. We got on extremely well. We were sufficiently candid with each other to be able to maintain to the end a good comradeship in spite of the very trying circumstance of joint sleeping quarters. My one quarrel with my fellow-countrywoman was on account of the number of trunks she carried. It was almost impossible to turn round in that small state room because of the array of bags, boxes, suit-cases, hat-trunks piled into the room and occupying every available inch of space. One member of our party, the little French bride of a Georgian physician, who was carrying her trousseau to her new home in Tiflis, lost on the Italian railway a trunk containing two thousand pounds’ worth of valuable hand-made clothes, laces and household goods which she never recovered. An old empty trunk with her original label attached was found in its place. It may be the effect of the war. If four Prime Ministers in Paris can steal several colonies in Africa, if fat profiteers can rob the dying Austrian children in their thousands of their food, surely one little Italian railway porter can annex one trunk without blame? Whatever the reason, it is certainly true that, on more than one continental railway at the present time, the only way you can assure the arrival of your trunk at its destination is by sitting on it.
Madame Vandervelde contrived to bring all her goods safe into port without sitting on them. She pressed into her service the gallant men of the party. There are some women—and my friend is one of them—who by reason of their presence of mind and absence of conscience can command the services at all times and in all circumstances of even the men who dislike them. And apparently there are men who like being kicked!
But I do not want to imply that any man on this trip found his service a trial. I am sure the beautiful Lalla commanded the whole-hearted service of her numerous cavaliers. They liked her free manners and fascinating personality. They delighted in her racy talk, daring jests and semi-Bohemian tastes. The least that ought to be said about her is that her impish delight in shocking people and in saying teasing things kept the whole company titillating with expectant amusement or nervous fear. Nobody could be dull in her society; and, after all, dullness, which is always a nuisance, becomes a positive crime on an excursion of this sort, which compels twenty persons to live very closely together in ship or train for fifty days and nights.
Of the remaining women of the party, Madame Huysmans is a pretty dark woman, full of gentle kindnesses and not without the gift of humour. Madame Dvarzaladze is a magnificent beauty of the gipsy type. Madame Skobeloff, one time a prima donna at the Petrograd Opera House, was the very incarnation of her favourite heroine—Carmen—and by the skilful glances of her glorious black eyes and her coquettish manner brought the passionate lady off the stage to live amongst us for several days.
M. Dvarzaladze conducted the expedition on behalf of his Government, and was the kindest of hosts. M. Skobeloff assisted him. The latter is as fair as his wife is dark, with the Russian breadth both of figure and of face, and a mass of light silky hair brushed back from a square forehead. He was Minister of Commerce in the Kerensky Government. Something in his speech and manner gave the impression that he regretted a little the Bolshevik Government, and would have liked to participate in it; but I was confidently assured that I was mistaken.
M. Nazarov, as a student in Petrograd, embraced Bolshevism with great enthusiasm. When student days ended he came back to his original faith of Social Democracy. He acted as secretary to the expedition and was, without a single exception, the most consistently courteous and considerate person I have known who has ever occupied so difficult and thankless a position. Early and late he was engaged in looking after the comfort of everybody. Pestered to the verge of insanity, as he must have been with the requests of various members of the delegation, his manners never for an instant forsook him, and the remembrance of him alone would make the visit to Georgia unforgettable.
Of the three delegates from France, M. Inghels is the typical bluff and substantial Trade Union leader, a representative of the textile workers; M. Marquet is tall and slim and elegant, faultless in dress, of impeccable manners, leaving on the mind the impression of easy victories with women; M. Renaudel has already appeared in these pages, the man of robust proportions and prodigious appetite, of matchless eloquence in speaking, with a voice of great beauty.
There remain only the English delegates to describe, and one of these was a Scotsman, Mr. J. R. Macdonald, of the dark eyes and wavy hair of silvery grey, of the calm judgment and austere outlook upon life so valuable to the leader of men, and so necessary for the safeguarding of inexperienced Labour representatives in England come new and defenceless against the seductions of wily enemies in the House of Commons; and Mr. Tom Shaw of the Lancashire Textile Unions, stout and ruddy complexioned, full of fun and good-natured banter, the best of travelling companions and the kindest of men.
The delegates met in Paris at a dinner given to them by M. Tseretelli, the Georgian Minister. Preliminary to this was the tiresome and disgusting business of inoculation. The wily Georgians had said nothing about this in Geneva. Had we known then of the ravages of the pest, and had we been told we must be inoculated against bubonic plague, it might have affected our decision about going. For some time we resisted; but on the very earnest solicitations of our friends, and because it was suggested that by not being vaccinated we might endanger the lives of other people, we weakly yielded and consented to allow ourselves to be ill-treated in this peculiarly objectionable manner! I have never been able to reconcile myself to the deliberate poisoning of my blood at intervals during my life, and have always felt triumphant when the healthy blood I inherited from plain-living and high-thinking ancestors refused to be poisoned by the filthy injections.
The journey from Paris to Rome occupied two days, with a change of train at Turin. The one memorable thing about this journey was the descent through the Mont Cenis Tunnel into the Italian valley, with its villas and vineyards and sun-steeped fields.
We stayed a couple of days in Rome awaiting the date for sailing and to complete the passport business. Into those two swift days we crowded as much sight-seeing as possible—the Forum, the Coliseum, St. Peter’s Church and the Appian Way. There are some travellers whose sole happiness lies in being able to boast of having seen something which nobody else has seen, or to have got ahead of the party by doing something it never occurred to the others to do. You praise the sunset. “Ah, but you should have seen it an hour ago,” is the remark which cools your enthusiasm. You are pleased with the dinner. “But it is nothing like so good as yesterday’s,” is the observation which robs you of half your pleasure. You are enraptured with the song. “Oh, he’s gone off lately. You should have heard him a year ago,” is the comment that leaves you flat and disappointed.
“How wonderful is the Coliseum!” exclaimed one of the delegates to the rest of us.
“But did you see it by moonlight? No? Then you have not seen it. You must see it by moonlight if you really want to see the Coliseum.” And we left Rome with the feeling that there was nothing to be done but to return to Rome to see the Coliseum by moonlight, or our visit to the city would be mere fruitless folly.
I discovered the Corso to be no place for a woman walking alone. As a matter of fact, reputable Italian women do not walk in the streets of Rome unattended, particularly at night. I was ignorant of this, or had forgotten it, and did as I am accustomed to do in my own country, when I speedily discovered one difference between an English and an Italian city which pleasantly distinguishes the former; for there are very few places in England where a modest woman going about her legitimate business unattended would be stopped and spoken to in a familiar way in a public thoroughfare. In the streets of Rome the sun at midday is, apparently, no guarantee of impunity for women from the annoying familiarities of unknown and undesirable men.
Taranto, the port of sailing, is a quaint old city of antiquarian interest situated on a beautiful bay. The museum is filled with ancient statuary and pottery excavated from the ruins of a still older city, dating back to the days of the ancients. We spent some hours in the building, examining the tessellated tiles and old Greek vases under the guidance of the elderly curator, who, as he said good-bye to us, broke two delicious pink roses off the rose tree in the courtyard, and, with a graceful old-world bow, his hand upon his heart, gave one each to Miss Huysmans and myself.
Taranto comprises two towns, the old and the new. The new is set upon a hill, the old lies about the port. The new has an American look about its new white stone-fronted buildings, the old has the stamp of the Middle Ages upon it. The streets of the old are winding and so narrow that the people on opposite sides of the streets can in some cases shake hands from their bedroom windows. They are paved with cobblestones, and there are no sidewalks. The houses have tiny windows and the top storeys project. The shops, as a rule, have no windows at all, but are open to the street along the whole of their front. Some of the cafés are underground cellars. Men and women meet in the shops for gossip, and in the cafés for scandal and politics. Work is leisurely. The men are mostly engaged in fishing, net-making and basket-weaving. The women wear native peasant dress, bright coloured, and attend to their houses or help the men with the nets. Donkeys are numberless. Huge masses of fruit, notably grapes and water melons, are piled up on the stalls and barrows that line the street fronting the sea. It is a city of amazing picturesqueness, astounding squalor and incredible smells.
Our ship was an Austrian vessel, part of the Italian share in the spoils of war. Her commander was an easy-going Italian with a tremendous admiration for Lord Fisher. He refused to promise us fine weather, and, even as we entreated, the sun entered a cloud which, before evening, had spread gloomily over the whole sky!
We sailed pleasantly amongst the Greek Islands, sighting Corinth and Athens and the Hill of Mars. We steamed slowly through the canal cut through the Isthmus of Corinth, a marvellous feat of engineering. We crept gently past Gallipoli and gazed with dim eyes on the graves of the gallant dead. The sea near the shore was full of ships, sunk by the fire from the Turkish forts, and the captain told us that here careful navigation was very necessary and we might not go nearer the land; but with the aid of field-glasses we marked the blasted hillsides and battered fortifications of the Turk. Here and there a broken gun rusted on its side in the scorched and trampled grass. Hearts felt sick for the sacrifice that the politicians were threatening to make vain, and we silently renewed our vows to devote our lives to the building up of such international organization as should make such sacrifices unnecessary in the future.
On the fourth day after leaving Taranto we sighted Constantinople. This city was the most completely satisfying of all my childhood’s dreams come true. I recollect how disappointing to me was my first glimpse of the Niagara Falls. So it has been with many of my friends. Such beauty as that grows upon one, but at the first visit one expects too much. One expects something more and bigger than can be taken in with a single glance of the eye, a wilderness of waters, something stupendous, to send one reeling! One sees a vast and steady tumbling, a roar like a Tube train entering a tunnel, and feels the lack of mystery. I am inclined to think the injury is done by the aggressive and vulgar civilization all round: the tawdry town, the eating-houses, the electric-power stations, the street cars, the vendors of toys and ice-cream and picture post cards and penny buns. Seen and heard in the vast spaces and awful silence of a desert it would be altogether different.
Constantinople fulfilled every wish, satisfied every expectation. Magnificently set upon its several hills it appeared the queen of cities enthroned above the worshipping waters, crowned by the moon, and glittering with ten thousand jewels of ten thousand shimmering lights. By day her beauty changed. Unlike Moscow, whose domes and minarets gleam golden in the sun, those of Constantinople have lost their radiance, but they stand out nobly against the clearest of blue skies, the mosques on the hills of Stamboul competing for praise with the vast modern palaces at the water’s edge. The Golden Horn, classic symbol of plenty, was crowded with shipping, a pleasing contrast to the stagnation of Astrakhan.
The streets of Constantinople are a kaleidoscope, a mass of jostling humanity, white and black and brown. The Turkish fez predominates. The dark-skinned Jew and the cunning Greek vie with the crafty Armenian in the business of stripping the guileless stranger of his money. Thick-lipped Nubians are as common as flies. Black-veiled Turkish women add a distinctive note to the scene. Water-carriers sell their water to thirsty traders in carpets and embroideries. Anatolian peasants bring their fruits to sell. Turkish princes flash past in shabby automobiles. Gay French officers on horseback menace the careless foot-traveller. Young British officers on polo ponies rush laughingly by. The big hotels are filled with the usual crowd of foreign Military Mission folk, big business men, pseudo-politicians; youthful, very youthful diplomats and soldiers, profiteers, adventurers, wives of officers and women of the underworld—gay, charming, lovely and dangerous. No sign there of the bitter hate that sits on the brow of the Turkish café habitué, who deems the least tolerable part of his burden the position of dominance over him given to his ancient insolent enemy, the corrupt and perfidious Greek.
I shall write more about our doings in Constantinople later. We sailed through the Bosphorus in a calm sea and into the dreaded Black Sea after the third day. The beauty of the Bosphorus suggests the exquisite reaches of the Rhine with its ancient castles and woody crags, but with a gentle softness for the Rhine’s proud strength. The Black Sea belied its name, and our passage was without a break in its comfort and content.
We rested for a day outside the port of Trebizond. There, to our amazement, was flying the red flag of the Bolsheviks, whose co-operation with Kemal Pasha had evidently not been misreported by the Press. Kemal’s headquarters were in Trebizond. Several boat-loads of Bolsheviks in khaki uniforms and peaked caps came to inspect the ship. Some came on board. They were perfectly civil. No attempt was made to interfere with the passengers, who were strongly urged by the chief officer on board not to risk a landing. We took on board many new passengers here and at a previous stopping-place, the name of which escapes me. These were of various nationalities, chiefly Turks, with their carefully segregated and veiled womankind carrying large quantities of fruit, and themselves hauling on board loads of wonderful Turkey carpets. A few long-bearded Greeks and swarthy Jews were amongst the new-comers, and several fascinating black-eyed children. These people shared the lower deck with the sheep and goats. The sheep were penned, but the goats escaped, leaping all over the deck and chewing to tatters the sailcloth and the ropes, to the anger of the sailors, who, with all their nimbleness, were no match for the goats.
Below in the hold were the horned cattle, bellowing their protest at two days and nights of painful thirst in their hot and crowded quarters. The way in which these poor beasts were treated made us sick. They were hauled from the small boats on to the ship and into the hold suspended by the horns from the ship’s crane. Their eyes bulged out of their heads, their legs beat the air as they swung up and then down, their heavy bodies pulling at their horns. A young Englishwoman expressed her detestation of the performance in a full company, when, with a grin, a facetious foreign gentleman exclaimed with his hand upon his heart: “Ah, mademoiselle, you English, you have pity for ze poor animals but none for ze poor men. We break our hearts for ze mademoiselle and she care not. But ze horses, ze cats and ze dogs, she adores zem. It is desolating.” And he made a frantic gesture of despair.
“What do you say to the idiots who talk like that?” I inquired, sorry for the cause of that angry flush on her pretty face.
“I say nothing,” she replied; “but I begin to feel thankful that our quarrel with the German people is only skin deep.”
One night more and we were in Batoum, beautifully situated on the slopes and at the foot of great, wooded hills which make a sombre background to the white houses. As the noise of the ship’s engines ceased, distant strains of music crept into our ears. It came from the shore, which was black with people. I grew nervous and apprehensive. I opened the cabin door. I strained forward anxiously to hear. I was not mistaken. My first fear was realized. It was the “International,” the song which brought Russia back to mind, the jingling melody that I had heard, at a modest computation, a thousand times in Russia alone!
I rushed to the ship’s side and, borrowing a field-glass, stared out to shore. Yes, yes, it was all there, the familiar circus; the bands, the crowds, the carriages, the flowers, the red flags and bunting, the photographer and cinema operator—all so kind and well-intentioned. I looked at Tom Shaw; he grinned back at me. There was nothing to be done but resign ourselves to the inevitable and look as pleased as we could.
We clambered down the ship’s side on a shaky, swinging ladder to the waiting tender and steamed away to shore. The kindest of welcomes awaited us. Our arms were filled with flowers, and after the usual courteous preliminaries we were led off amidst deafening cheers to receive the official welcome at the City Hall.
The City Fathers gave us greeting in a few short and well-chosen phrases to which Mr. J. R. Macdonald suitably responded. We then proceeded for a similar function to the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party. Five thousand people assembled in the street to be introduced to us. The introductions were made from a balcony. Each delegate was brought forward separately and named, with certain of his gifts and exploits. Then the crowd yelled with delight. M. Vandervelde on our behalf acknowledged the courtesy and struck the international note, and we were released for lunch and a subsequent tour of the city’s chief points of interest.
The tightness about my heart left me after the first hour amongst these happy people. What, I asked myself, had I really been afraid of? I had feared to see a starving company drawn up in stiff lines giving us welcome by compulsion. I remembered how, in Petrograd, loss of work or of ration was the punishment for non-attendance at these formal ceremonies. The cruel fatigue of many hours of waiting in biting wind or blistering sun was the price paid there by thousands of underfed and underclad workmen and women for a sight of the foreign delegates. I felt it quite impossible to endure this sort of thing again.
But in Georgia it was different. The experience in Batoum was the same everywhere. There was no compulsion to meet us. The people came because they wanted to come. They moved freely amongst us, without restraint of speech or manner, laughing, shouting, singing. The brown-eyed children climbed into our laps. They shyly played with our watches or examined our clothes. In all those merry faces turned up at us on the balcony I saw not one look of bitterness, no tightening of thin lips, no burning hate in the eyes. One jolly giant, whose curly grey-black hair waved a head’s breadth above the crowd, led the cheering, which was caught up by the crowd in unmistakable sincerity. They ran by the side of our carriages, flinging red roses into them and blowing kisses to us as we gathered up the roses and pinned them to our coats as the red emblem of international solidarity.
We spent a pleasant afternoon in the Botanical Gardens, rich with every kind of tropical and semi-tropical fruit. The head gardener boasted with joyous pride the possession of sixty different varieties of orange. There they hung, yellow and tempting. Visions of Southern California surged up, the blue Pacific at San Diego, and the big glowing orange broken off the tree, ripe and delicious, for the daily breakfast. From the figs and grapes, the lemons and bananas of these gardens, we proceeded to the tea plantations and the bamboo woods, and saw two infant industries developing themselves, the one under the care of a skilled Japanese. Georgia’s industry needs development on modern lines, with modern machinery and by modern methods. At present production is slow and old fashioned. A common sight on a Georgian landscape is a wooden plough, hand guided, drawn by eight pair of stout oxen. This is mediæval.
In the evening we were entertained by the Batoum Municipality to a dinner on the enclosed veranda of a large public ballroom. A Georgian dinner is a thing to be remembered, and this, the first of many, lingers pleasantly in the mind. Flowers and climbing plants adorned the glass-covered veranda on the outside, palms and flowering trees decorated and scented it within. The long table accommodated two hundred guests. At one end of the room a choir sang songs, and an orchestra made merry music whilst we ate. Course followed course of the most deliciously cooked food. Enormous epergnes, filled with glowing peaches of incredible size and huge black grapes, adorned the table at frequent intervals of space. There were sparkling wines of rich vintage and various colours, exquisite in the soft light from the shaded lamps. This dinner could not have been surpassed for the completeness of its appointments by the most expensive mountain hotel in America. Torrents of summer rain and vivid flashes of lightning added to the sense of comfort and jollity within.
The speeches at a Georgian banquet are delivered between the courses. After the speeches, before the speeches, furtively during the speeches, the toasts are called. Never in the world was there anything like this mad passion for toasting one another. Every guest is toasted at least once. The health of every lady is drunk at least ten times! If the wine does not give out, absent friends and popular causes, the cook in the kitchen and the butler in the pantry supply excellent excuses for a further riot of toasting. Conversation waxes louder and more excited with every glass. Eyes begin to shine with the moving spirit of alcohol. Strange stories of gallant adventure are told aloud. Wild gestures are flung about. Out of the storm of confused tongues and frantic gesticulations, from the far end of the table comes a faint voice softly singing a slow song. Others take up the strain. In less than two minutes the entire table is singing, each person roaring his accompaniment at the very pitch of his voice. This song sounds like a Scottish psalm tune, but it is the Georgian equivalent to “He’s a jolly good fellow.” It is very impressive and runs something like this; I give it from ear:
Georgian “Toast” Song
Very slowly.
Perhaps twenty times in one evening this song is started and taken up by the company. Each time it is a compliment directed at some special guest, and concludes with the clinking of glasses and a roar of cheers for the honoured one, who bows his appreciation of the kindly courtesy.
A distinguished general of the ancien régime was my vis-à-vis. He delicately complimented me upon the few words those gallant Georgians would have me say, and afterwards sent to Tiflis a large basket of delicious red roses for the ladies of our party. On my right sat several young nobles in the handsome native costume. They wore long grey coats, full skirted and with belts at the waist. Underneath was a high-necked blouse, buttoned at the front. Each side of the coat was ornamented at the breast with a row of pockets for single cartridges. Ornamental cartridge-cases were fitted into these pockets. The round hats were of white astrakhan, and they wore soft leather Russian boots which came high in the leg and were seamless and unlaced. Each carried a dagger at his side, with richly chased silver handle. When the spirits of the company had risen sufficiently high, two of these young princes rose and danced a graceful Georgian dance down the whole length of the corridor and back on the other side. The guests accompanied with a monotonous clap, humming softly a suitable melody. One arm held gracefully above the head, the left hand on the hip, the feet moving intricately and delicately, the body swaying ever so slightly from the hips and seeming to float upon the polished surface of the floor, there is nothing that dance resembled so much as a sailing ship on a placid lake gently moved by a soft wind.
The absence of rancour, the atmosphere of friendliness, the fellowship and intimacy of it all, charmed us, and we left for the night train and Tiflis with regret at having to part so soon with these new friends.
The special train had been a royal train. It was replete with every comfort. There were bathrooms even, and an excellent kitchen. The food department was in the hands of a Russian family, a widowed mother and three children. They were a family of good birth whose fallen fortunes had been relieved in this way by the Social Democrats as a reward for saving the life of the President, always in danger from the violent extremists of both sorts. The mother was a stout, comfortable body, and the girls beautiful creatures of the Slavonic type.
We were received in the waiting room at Tiflis by the President, M. Jordania, and his suite. The floor was carpeted with rich and costly rugs. On the walls hung portraits of Karl Marx and the principal Georgian Socialists. An orderly crowd waited outside and cheered us as we left for our quarters in the residence of the departed American Commissioner.
Our first business in Tiflis was to attend the special session of Parliament called in our honour, to hear a speech of welcome from each of the eight political parties represented in that Parliament. The Georgian Parliament is elected on a franchise which gives every man and woman of twenty the vote. At the last election, which was conducted on a basis of strictest proportional representation, 102 Social Democrats were elected out of a total of 130. The nationalities represented by this 130 are six, and there are five women in the House. The secretary to the Speaker is also a woman, and a very able one. Distinctions of sex do not exist in Georgian politics or in Georgian industry. Equal pay for equal work is the ruling economic dictum.
For the purposes of an election the whole country, with a population of about 4,000,000, is one constituency. As a natural corollary of this the districts have almost unlimited powers of self-government. The model is a combination of Swiss and British. There is no second Chamber. The President of the Republic is also the Prime Minister. He is elected annually, and cannot hold office for more than two consecutive years. Elections are organized and carried through by national and local Election Commissions. The twenty-one members of the national Election Commission are elected by the Members of Parliament. The insane, the criminal, deserters from the army and insolvents may not vote.
The domestic policy of the Socialist Government of Georgia is the gradual socialization of land and industry. Having guaranteed themselves as far as possible from enemies within the State by establishing themselves upon a thoroughly democratic basis, they have sought to accomplish what was expected of them by disturbing as little as might be the private interests and ordinary pursuits of the citizens.
They have established a system of peasant proprietorship. This it was less difficult to do than might have been expected on account of the fact that 90 per cent. of the land had already been mortgaged by spendthrift proprietors. The law establishing the land in the hands of the peasants was finally promulgated on January 25, 1919. The amount of land allowed to each peasant is strictly limited to seven acres, or thirty-five acres for a family of five. The old landlord may have his seven acres if he will cultivate it himself, or within his own family. I met landlords who submitted cheerfully to the new system and noble ladies who rejoiced in their new-found economic liberties.
But again I say, a knowledge of newer methods of production is necessary to make the rich soil yield all that it is capable of yielding, and quantities of machinery must be imported if the area of soil under cultivation is to be increased. Only 24 per cent. of the land in Georgia was cultivated as against 31.5 per cent. in Russia, 55 per cent. in France and 57.4 per cent. in Italy in pre-war days.
There is an excellent Co-operative Movement in Georgia which is working up a national co-operative scheme of production and distribution for the peasants. By this means it is hoped to guard the interests of the consumer, so apt to be at the mercy of the cultivators of the soil in a country of fallen exchanges, and at the same time leave the peasants free in the possession and cultivation of their land.
No attempt, so far as I could discover, has been made to destroy private industry and individual enterprise, nor even to interfere with either beyond the need for protecting the vital interests of the workers and the necessity for safeguarding the interests and liberties of the country. The shops and bazaars of Tiflis were open, not closed and their windows boarded up as in Moscow and Petrograd. The principal streets of Tiflis and Batoum were a pleasant contrast to the Nevski Prospect.
The Ministry of Labour consists of two Commissars. For its purposes Georgia is divided into four districts: Tiflis, Koutais, Sokhum and Batoum. The officials of the Ministry are chosen from candidates elected by the Trade Unions. This important department has five sections: (1) the Chamber of Tariffs, which fixes wages and salaries; this is controlled by a committee comprising ten employers, ten workpeople and one representative of the Ministry of Labour; (2) the Chamber of Reconciliation; it is not obligatory that an employer or union should appeal to this body for help in the settlement of a dispute, but once having appealed its decision is binding upon both; (3) The Commission of Insurance, which insures workpeople against accidents of all kinds; (4) The Committee of Relief, which insures against sickness and old age, and (5) The Labour Exchange, for the supply and regulation of labour. There is a universal eight hours’ day in Georgia. Overtime is permitted in certain circumstances, but must be paid for at the rate of a time and a half. Holidays are fixed by law, and those who are obliged to work in holiday time must be remunerated with a double wage. Employers who dismiss workpeople must provide compensation, a law which does not invariably work out happily for workpeople or for masters.
The price of bread in the open market at the time of our visit was 30 roubles a pound. For the workers the same bread was 5 roubles. It was possible for us to buy 3,800 roubles with an English pound.
All this interesting information was given to us during numerous and protracted interviews with members of Government departments and Trade Union officials. The most distinguished of this number was M. Jordania, the President Prime Minister. He is a man of tall and stately and even aristocratic bearing. But there is not the slightest shadow of doubt of his democratic sympathies and real belief in Socialism. He wears a well-trimmed beard, has fine dark eyes and sensitive, shapely hands. He speaks well and clearly, has a rich fund of humour and is adored by his people.
We had the pleasure of meeting the President’s aged mother in her simple home at Goria. She was dressed in the native woman’s dress, a stiff, black silk skirt, very full and touching the ground all round. A long-sleeved jacket covered the embroidered blouse. Over her head she wore a white veil which was attached to a black velvet circlet fixed squarely on the head. The veil fell down the back almost to the edge of the skirt. On either side of the sweet old face were old-fashioned ringlets, a part of the general costume and style of the women. This tiny old lady of lovely and hospitable spirit could not understand or appreciate a subdivision of land which robbed her loved son of a large part of his patrimony; but with gentle firmness he pointed out that the new law was for all alike, the rich as well as the poor, and that those who had more must give to those who had none.
In a quiet part of the garden is a sacred spot where a loved child lies buried. It is beautifully kept, and a garden seat facing the west is placed near the grave. We bent our heads at this sacred family shrine in a common feeling of sympathy and understanding.
The foreign policy of this Socialist Republic is better understood when a little of its history is known. The Georgians are a race of enormous antiquity. Their exact origin is still a matter of dispute amongst the savants. It is now generally believed they are descended from the ancient Babylonians. They are certainly not Slavs. Nor is their language a Slavonic language. They are usually a dark-skinned race, tall and graceful, with aquiline features and flashing black or dark brown eyes. The typical Georgian man is superbly handsome, passionate in love and brave in war. The typical Georgian woman has a world reputation for beauty, too often blighted, as in most countries of fighting men, by the hard tasks which ought to be done by men.
A treaty with Catherine the Great guaranteeing their independence to the Georgians did not save them from definite annexation to the Russian Empire in 1801. Since then it has been a hundred years of struggle for freedom for a gallant people whose unfortunate land lay in the route of march towards the realization of Russia’s age-long ambition, the possession of Constantinople and the command of the Straits.
In the hope of achieving their freedom through the overthrow of the Czars the Georgian Socialists took part in the abortive Revolution of 1905. As a result their leaders were either thrown into prison or exiled to Siberia. Then followed a period of terrible repression and reaction. When the Revolution of 1917 came the Georgians helped it, and some of them took office in the Kerensky Ministry.
Kerensky’s magnetic personality and very real gifts of eloquence and idealism could not hold a position difficult enough by reason of the war, but made immeasurably more difficult, in fact impossible, by the disastrous policy of the Allies towards Russia and the unscrupulous machinations of the Bolshevik Party within the country. The mild policy of the Kerensky regime left Lenin and Trotsky, with other leaders of the Bolsheviks, free to subvert the loyalty of the soldiers in burning speeches in the streets of Petrograd. Kerensky fell and fled, and Lenin assumed his position. But not until May of 1918 was the independence of Georgia duly recognized by Russia.
This recognition was always half-hearted and unreal. It was looked upon as a temporary necessity meant to relieve the Bolshevik Government of one complication in their very dangerous international situation. With a cynicism unsurpassed by any Foreign Office of a capitalist country a Bolshevik dignitary in Moscow informed me that neither Azerbaijan nor Georgia must expect to continue independent of the Moscow Government. Russia must have the oil of Baku. It was a necessity of her very existence; and Georgia was too important for Bolshevik policy in the East for them to allow either of these countries permanently to be independent. So long as Georgia remained non-Bolshevik, she was a stumbling-block in the path of that policy. If she became Bolshevik absolute independence became a matter of no importance. She then entered directly into the Workers’ Confederation for the world-wide destruction of the capitalist system, and national boundaries lost their significance in such an enterprise.
The Georgians desire, for economic reasons and for mutual defence, the establishment of a Federation of Caucasian Republics. With the idea of creating this they called three conferences in 1918, 1919 and 1920 respectively, with the sister republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The breakdown of the conference in 1918 was due to the Armenians, whose timidity or reluctance to take any definite and independent action could not be overborne. They declined during the second conference to make a definite alliance to prevent the return of the Czars. In 1920 Azerbaijan was intransigeant under the pressure of the Bolsheviks. These conferences were abortive as to their purpose, but useful for preparing the ground for future action. A Treaty of Transit with Armenia was actually signed.
Tchicherine in Moscow, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, invited the Georgians to join in the attack against Denikin. This their policy of strict neutrality forbade. On the same ground they had refused help from both the English and the Germans, the one eager to employ anybody against the Bolsheviks, the other ready to engage anybody against the Allies. The Bolsheviks, angry at this refusal to help them, invaded Georgia from Vladicaucasia on May 17, 1920, but were successfully repulsed. So far so good. But we saw clearly when we were in Georgia, and at every point, that the situation there was anything but stable. From the Kemalists on the one hand and the Bolsheviks on the other, the population was in constant danger. The young general who accompanied our expeditions travelled almost literally with his hand upon his sword, and the statesmen were full of care and anxiety.
The main points in the foreign policy of this young Socialist Government besides that of strict neutrality, which has already been mentioned, and the establishment of normal relations with the Western world, are the recognition of Georgia’s independence by the Allies and the inclusion of Georgia in the League of Nations. They strongly desire federation with the other Caucasian republics. Some of them anticipate with clear intelligence the time when they will be compelled by economic necessities and the development of internationalism in politics to enter one of the large political systems, possibly Russia; but before that happens—and when it happens it must come peacefully—they want to see Russia quit of all her tyrants, Czarist and Bolshevik alike, and established upon a genuine, democratic basis with a representative National Assembly.
