Hell Without Pardon
From The Journal of Natasha Morozov 1917-18
“We, who have been swept in a rocky boat
Under the hem of an overcoat.
We who have spent starry nights
In a heavenly garden,
For us, beloved sisters
Hell without pardon!”
- Marina Tsvetaeva, March 1915
We wait, trembling in the bitter cold. The unfamiliar streets of Petrograd loom out of the early morning mist which settles around Finlyandsky train station. There are hundreds of us here, brought in from all over Russia on the night trains, women who want to fight; my passionate sisters. Sofia sent me a poem, the first night we met, by Marina Tsvetaeva, which talked about my passionate sisters. Now I recall it as hundreds of women ready to march on the city of Petrograd.
This whole war has been about waiting. Waiting for the soldiers to return home, waiting for the news of the deaths of all but one of my six brothers. Four of them were killed in the first few months of the war at that fateful Battle of Tannenberg where over 30,000 of Russia’s boys lost their lives. We have been waiting, waiting for the end of winter, waiting for peace. Waiting for the revolution.
But today, today, today. I am told today is the day we stop waiting and start deciding. At the Bolshevik study group yesterday there was a discussion about the true meaning of International Women’s day, and my passionate sisters stood up and decided that enough was enough. Women all over Europe were fighting for their suffrage and winning, and yet we could not fight for our own liberty? We were being ruled by incompetence, and we were starving. Revolution waits in the wings of the stage of Russia, while peace waits for no man.
They dropped the posters through the doors late last night, calling for revolution in Petrograd. All the posters from the last few months called Russia to donate money to soldiers, like the freedom loan poster that threatened all of Russia’s cold streets. These were nothing like the desperate call for strikes that fluttered into peoples postboxes and minds. They tell us that our country was being financially stretched by the war, an economy in tatters; our people having barely two rubles to rub together, our soldiers without boots on their feet or ammunition in their guns, our children starving, and yet that Nemetskiy Tsarina would be wearing the best pearls and mink furs, cataloguing each lace collar in her wardrobe.
The morning sun is breaking through the mist, it is bright and fills us with warmth and hope as I sit huddled by the Street-Cars, amongst the bags of flour destined for the kitchens of the Tsar’s palace. This war is about the people, but today’s fight is about the bread. Whispers are running around the city like wildfire as the textile workers lay down their tools in the factories, wrap their headscarves around their faces against the cold and march for their bread.
An older woman reaches down to grab ahold of my hand, ‘Stand up, daughter,’ she says, she is holding a placard that proclaims Кормите детей защитников Родины; feed the children of the defenders of the motherland. I knew her, I realised suddenly as she turned her back on me and hurried on to warn the others hidden that it was time. That was the widowed mother of my childhood friend Nikolas, who died during the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Together we started to make our way down Academician Lebedev Street, towards the river. Textile workers were streaming out of the factories, peasant women in their hundreds, wrapped in ragged coats with starving eyes were joining us, and then came students, and even aristocracy in their furs were joining the rabble and marching down the street, women, children and men were taking to the streets with cries of ‘Bread!’ and ‘Down with the tsar!’
We felt strong, meaningful and powerful in our masses. I could see the pride on the face of a wrinkled old man as we stepped in sync towards Nevsky Prospekt, the rod-straight backs of the textile workers, with their bloody fingers, fire in their eyes. This is what it meant to a part of something, to make change happen with our feet and our voices. My nerves were singing as we crossed over the icy river Neva, as the Cossacks barred our way on the bridge. My nerves were singing as we watched the angry Vyborg Textile workers throw bricks through the windows of empty grocery stores, and my nerves were singing as the men of the Dumas mutinied and joined our rebellion. My nerves sang for my passionate sisters as they bravely cried Kill us all if you dare! Better to be shot than to starve to death!
We are no longer waiting for the tsar to be overthrown, waiting for the end of the war, nor waiting to starve to death. We are no longer waiting, we are fighting.
***
The next part of Natasha's diary which survived was an entry from eight months later.
***
Evening, Petrograd, October 25th 1917
I opened a letter from Sofia today, it had finally arrived, lost in the post for the many months since she moved away from Moscow, just like I did, south to Sudak after the failure of the July Offensive drowned Moscow in a river of sorrow. They say that now almost 2 million of our soldiers have given up the fight on the Eastern Front. And many more of the aristocracy are moving away; it’s strange reading this letter, so full of her passionate voice, many months after we have both discovered new loves, new reasons to continue fighting. I was told that she moved far away with that actress of hers, Lyudmila Erarskaya.
The letter starts; My dearest darling Natasha, the world seems empty without you, and yet we continue to strive for liberty for an empty world. The ground here is different, it’s warmer already and the summer has barely begun. The execution of the Romanovs was well received in Sudak, but even here we hear that the Bolsheviks are weak and unstable. I am continuing the fight for suffrage, with the League for Women’s Equality, we are taking the final proposal to the provisional government in Petrograd in a week’s time, July the 20th. I hope you will be there to see me, utterly beloved. While you fight for the revolution I am fighting for suffrage. I am writing an opera for the great Alexander Spendiarov, and when I dream up the melodies all I can think of is you...
What am I doing after all this time, she asks me? I got the news of the almost bloodless coup this evening, my fiance bringing in the news with the first dusting of snow on his boots. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and their Bolshevik Red Guards have seized the Winter Palace from the hands of the Provisional Government. He tells me as he takes off his overcoat and snowy boots and hangs them to dry by the fire, that, triggered by Kerensky attempts to silence the revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks have taken over the Provisional Government’s position and our country is set to become the world’s first communist state. I bring the crumpled, tear-stained letter to the light of the fireplace, and read it again. There are many words and phrases missing - lost in time by the censors who take our postage and smear their black ink across her words. But what is left I hold in my heart, gently cradling the last of her love.
Continue believing, my beloved, believe in what you want our country to look like when that white dove of peace finally drops her olive branch on the doorstep of the motherland. We all know that our fight, that the home front is an even greater battle than that which our boys face on the Eastern front.
And in the end, although her parting saddens me, I know that we both got what we were fighting for; love and liberty.
***
Here Natasha recorded more of the letter, but her handwriting has smudged and worn away for several pages until this point.
***
I remember, not that long ago as I was walking, wrapped up in shawls to meet my fiance on the battlements of the Winter Palace a soldier stopped me, loyal to Kerensky, but when I looked at his hard, weather-worn face, he was merely a boy cadet, barely older than I. ‘Stop right there sister’, he said, ‘where do you think you are going?’ I glanced up at his cold blue eyes from under my headscarf and whispered. ‘To drink the infernal tar.’ A fleeting smile passes over what would have once been a pretty, boyish face, now grey, stony and silent. ‘Marina Tsvetaeva?’ he asks. It’s strange that poetry can bring people together even in the darkest of times. War changes us. It creates death, destruction and despair, it hardens the softest of us, and makes the weak brave, and yet it still cannot censor love.
Note: This is historical fiction. Many of the events and people are real. Natasha Morozov is a fictional character of my own creation, but Sofia is based on the Russian poet Sophia Parnok. The actress Lyudmila Erarskaya was a real person in the life of Parnok, as was the composer Alexander Spendiarov. All dates are shown in the format of the Julian Calendar that was used in Russia until Feb 1918.
I remember, not that long ago as I was walking, wrapped up in shawls to meet my fiance on the battlements of the Winter Palace a soldier stopped me, loyal to Kerensky, but when I looked at his hard, weather-worn face, he was merely a boy cadet, barely older than I. ‘Stop right there sister’, he said, ‘where do you think you are going?’ I glanced up at his cold blue eyes from under my headscarf and whispered. ‘To drink the infernal tar.’ A fleeting smile passes over what would have once been a pretty, boyish face, now grey, stony and silent. ‘Marina Tsvetaeva?’ he asks. It’s strange that poetry can bring people together even in the darkest of times. War changes us. It creates death, destruction and despair, it hardens the softest of us, and makes the weak brave, and yet it still cannot censor love.
Note: This is historical fiction. Many of the events and people are real. Natasha Morozov is a fictional character of my own creation, but Sofia is based on the Russian poet Sophia Parnok. The actress Lyudmila Erarskaya was a real person in the life of Parnok, as was the composer Alexander Spendiarov. All dates are shown in the format of the Julian Calendar that was used in Russia until Feb 1918.
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