The King's Commisar

'I believe,' said Sverdlov, 'that you have already met Comrade Goloshchokin?'

We did not shake hands; he did not offer and nor did I. Cool nods were exchanged, no more. I thought to myself that no man looking for a travelling companion would readily look in Goloshchokin's direction, but there was clearly nothing to be done.

'When do we go?' I asked.

'When I tell you. But soon,' Sverdlov said.

We left on the ninth. There was trouble on the rail line east, so we were warned to anticipate delays, and we encountered them, too, but there was no great discomfort. As princes had travelled in former times, so commissars journeyed now: Goloshchokin and I had a first-class carriage for just the two of us, bathroom, dining-room, bedrooms and all, so that it was barely necessary for us to meet, though we did of course, driven into each other's company by an absence of reading matter and a surfeit of flat country beyond the window glass.

I had thought him poisonous on first meeting and nothing I heard from him then changed that impression. For a start, the man was, though a revolutionary by disposition, a dentist by training, and I have never for the life of me understood the impulse that drives a man to pass years in study in order to spend the rest of his life peering into reeking mouths filled with rotting teeth. He could talk though. Maybe it was the cry of his profession, 'Open wide,' ringing forever in his ears, but his mouth barely closed. He was a boozer too, which helped. They are, you know, these politicians they're all talkers and all fond of the bottle. And braggarts, too. Aside from Lenin and Trotsky, Sverdlov was the top man in Russia then, so I got Sverdlov by the earful. Hearing him blether on about Sverdlov's house (he'd been staying there in Moscow) was like hearing women talk about dresses; he remembered every stitch, colour and texture: odd for a Red revolutionary, if you ask me. But I learned other things too, and they had a nasty significance, some of them. For one thing, he didn't want the Romanovs released, no matter what advantage to the state. 'Yet I must obey,' he said.

'Obedience is the lesson all Russia must learn.'

'Obedience to whom?' I asked.

'To the Party.'

'That means Lenin,' I said. 'Why not say so?'

But he wouldn't have it. He was an intelligent man, but he parroted and distorted as they all do. His orders were from the Party, not from Sverdlov - even though I knew the opposite. Still, they were clear enough and sounded simple, but as Goloshchokin talked I realized they weren't.

'There'll be no snags this time?' I asked.

'How can there be,' he wanted to know, 'when it is all arranged within the Party? A procedure has been set out, Comrade Yakovlev -' he persisted in calling me Yakovlev, though his English was good and he knew my name - 'and it will be followed.'

Then he got into his cups and the braggart floated up through the vodka. So I asked about conditions inside the House of Special Purpose.

'Better, much better now.' Goloshchokin said, and belched.

'Now-why now?'

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a page from a signal pad. 'Read it.'

So I read:

Beloborodov to Sverdlov and Goloshchokin - Moscow

syromolotov has gone to reorganize according centre's instruction, no cause for alarm, avdeyev removed. moskhin arrested. yurovsky replaces

AVDEYEV. INTERNAL GUARD REPLACED.-July 4

'You see?' he demanded thickly.

'Who are these people? Who's this Avdeyev? Why has Moskhin been arrested?'

'Avdeyev commanded the guard inside the House of Special Purpose. He's been removed.'

'Goon.'

'The man's r thief. Barbarous anyway. Couldn't keep his men: n order. There were complaints.'

I poured vodka into his glass. 'Complaints?'

'Behaviour towards the prisoners, especially the young girls. Can't have it. The new society must be -'

and he belched again - 'must be better.'

Bit by bit I got it out of him. Moshkin was Avdeyev's deputy and as bad as his master.

'Yurovsky - what about him?'

Goloshchokin grunted. 'Jewish,' he said, as if that explained much.

'So?’ I asked.

'He's bitter. We're all bitter, but he was in the army in the Ukraine. Cossack trouble.'

'So?' I asked again.

'Pogrom - you need to ask?'

'Not in the army, surely?'

'Some village,' Goloshchokin said. 'When we made him Regional Commissar for Justice he thanked us with tears in his eyes. The Tsar controlled the Cossacks, that's what he said, and it would be a privilege -'

he smiled -'to sentence him to death. And to carry it out personally!'

I said incredulously, 'And he's in charge at the house?'

Goloshchokin giggled. 'Don't worry. Yurovsky's a good Communist.'

He was slipping into sleep and I let him go over. But I disliked deeply the sound of what I had heard. Avdeyev's toughs making free of the Imperial Family's possessions and insulting the Grand Duchesses was bad enough; but now they were all in the hands of a man who not only had a lust for vengeance but, as Commissar for Justice, had the power to sentence. And, as gaoler, the opportunity to carry it out. Yet I slept soundly enough, and next day we continued our journey across the great flat plain. Once when the train stopped, at Kazan, Goloshchokin said, 'The holy city.'

'This is?' I said, looking out of the window. 'Why?'

'Because here Lenin was a student.' He was perfectly serious. 'In years to come it will be a place of pilgrimage.'

'Really,' I said, and he gave me a look and jumped down from the train and went to the telegraph office. A message awaited him and he came back to the carriage frowning over it.

I said, 'Trouble?'

'The Whites have Omsk and are approaching Ekaterinburg. It doesn't look as though they can be held.'

'What's the Red strength?'

He looked at me grimly. 'Not enough. It's not just the Whites we fight - the Czech Legion is there.'

'So withdraw,' I said.

He smiled faintly. 'Oh, we shall - until they're dog-tired of advancing. And then -' He drew his finger across his throat. 'But in the meantime, Yakovlev, there'll be those who'll want to kill the Romanovs to stop them falling into White hands.'

In truth, Goloshchokin's mind was concentrated less upon the Imperial Family than upon the defence of the entire region which was now governed by the Urals Oblast Soviet; he served upon that body as Commissar for War, and war was certainly moving steadily and remorselessly towards him. When we arrived at the station at Ekaterinburg on July 12th, the chairman himself stood, fat and impatient, upon the platform as the train steamed in.

'It's good you're back,' Beloborodov told Goloshchokin. 'The military situation is causing great anxiety!'

His eyes rested but briefly upon me, and though recognition snowed, he did not speak to me. Moments later, by which time all three of us were in a Mercedes car, driving away from the station towards the Hotel Americana, Beloborodov returned to military affairs. It was clear he was a worried man, and with reason, for the Bolsheviks had a wild beast loose in their midst that was like to devour them. It was a beast moreover of their own creation. For when the treaty at Brest-Litovsk produced peace between Germany and Russia, all the Czech forces fighting on the Allied side in Russia were withdrawn and put on trains to journey to Vladivostok and thence home. But they objected when attempts were made to disarm them. The Czechs then overpowered their guards, reformed themselves into the Czech Legion, joined up with the Bolsheviks' White Russian enemies, and set to fighting with a will against the Reds. Arriving at the Hotel Americana, we went direct to a small meeting-room on the mezzanine floor where several members of the Urals Soviet were gathered. An easel held a large-scale map of the area, and beside it stood a man in uniform khaki, seemingly explaining.