Jimmie Higgins Part 38

"I've been through it all," said Jimmie. "What can we do?"

"Propaganda!" cried Kalenkin. "For de first time we have plenty money for propaganda--all de money in Russia for propaganda!

Ever'vere in de vorld we reach de vorkers--everyvere we cry to dem: Rise! Rise and break your chains! You tink dey vill not hear us, tovaris.h.!.+ De capitalists know dey vill hear us, dey tremble, so dey send armies to beat us. Dey tink de armies vill obey--always--is it not so?"

"They think the Russian people will rise against you."

At which the little man laughed, a wild hilarious laugh. "Ve have got our own government! For de first time in Russia, de first time in de vorld, de vorkers rule; and dey tink we rise against ourselves! Dey put up--vat you call it--puppets, vat dey call Socialists, dey make a government here in Archangel, vat dey call Russian! Dey fool demselves, but dey don't fool de Russians!"

"They think this government will spread," said Jimmie.

"It vill spread just so far as de armies go--just so far. But in Russia, all de people come together--all are Bolsheviki, ven dey see de foreign armies coming. And vy, tovarish? Because dey know vat it means ven capitalists come to make new governments for Russia. It means bonds--de French, de British debt! You know?"

"Sure, I know," said Jimmie.

"It is billions, fifteen billions of roubles to France alone. De Bolsheviki have said, 'Ve do not pay dem so quick.' And for vy? Vat did dey do vit dat money! Dey loaned it to de Tsar, and for vat? To make slaves out of de Russian people, to put dem in armies and make dem fight de j.a.panese, to make police-force and send hundert thousand Russian Socialists to Siberia! Is it not so? And Russian Socialists pay such debts? Not so quick! Ve say, 'Ve had nothing to do vit such money! You loaned it to de Tsar, now you collect it from de Tsar! But dey say, 'You must pay!' And dey send armies, to take de land of Russia, to take de oil and de coal and de gold. So, tovaris.h.!.+ Dey vill put down de Soviets! But if so, dey must take ever' town, ever' village in Russia--and all de time we make propaganda vit de soldiers, we make it vit Frenchmen and Englishmen and Americans, just like we make it vit Germans!"

VII

The little man had made a long speech, and was exhausted; the coughing seized him, and he pressed his hands to his chest, and his white face flushed red in the firelight. The woman brought him water to drink, and stood by him with a hand on his shoulder; her broad peasant's face, deeply lined with care, quivered at every spasm of the man's. Jimmie quivered, too, sitting there watching, and facing in his own soul a mighty destiny. He knew the situation now, he knew his own duty. It was perfectly plain, perfectly simple--his whole life had been one long training for it. Something cried out in him, in the words of another proletarian martyr, "Let this cup pa.s.s from Me!" But he stilled the voice of his weakness, and after a while he said: "Tell me what to do, comrade."

Kalenkin asked, "You have made propaganda in America?"

"Sure," said Jimmie. "I went to jail once for makin' a speech on the street."

And the other went to a corner of the cabin, and dug under half a dozen cabbages, and brought out a packet. It contained leaflets, a couple of hundred perhaps, and the Jew handed one to Jimmie, explaining, "Dey ask me, 'How shall we make de Americans understand?' I say, 'Dey must know how ve make propaganda vit de Germans.' I say, 'Print de proclamations vat we give to de German troops, and make English translation, so de Americans and de Englishmen can read.' You tink dat help?"

Jimmie took the leaflet and moved the lamp a bit nearer and read:

"Proclamation of the Army Committee of the Russian Twelfth Army (Bolshevik), posted throughout the city of Riga during its evacuation by the Russians:

"German Soldiers!

"The Russian soldiers of the Twelfth Army draw your attention to the fact that you are carrying on a war for autocracy against Revolution, freedom and justice. The victory of Wilhelm will be death to democracy and freedom. We withdraw from Riga, but we know that the forces of the Revolution will ultimately prove themselves more powerful than the force of cannons. We know that in the long run your conscience will overcome everything, and that the German soldiers, with the Russian Revolutionary Army, will march to the victory of freedom. You are at present stronger than we are, but yours is only the victory of brute force. The moral force is on our side. History will tell that the German proletarians went against their revolutionary brothers, and that they forgot international working-cla.s.s solidarity. This crime you can expiate only by one means. You must understand your own and at the same time the universal interests, and strain all your immense power against imperialism, and go hand-in-hand with us--toward life and liberty!"

Jimmie looked up.

"Vat you tink of it?" cried Kalenkin, eagerly.

"Fine!" cried Jimmie. "The very thing they need! n.o.body can object to that. It's a fact, it's what the Bolsheviki are doing."

The other smiled grimly. "Tovarish, if dey find you vit dat paper, dey shoot you like a dog! Dey shoot us all!"

"But why?"

"Because it is Bolshevik."

Jimmie wanted to say. "But it's true!" However, he realized how naive that would sound. So he waited, while Kalenkin went on:

"You show it only to men you can trust. You hide de copies, you take vun and make it dirty, so you say, 'I find it in de street.' See, iss it so de Bolsheviki fight de Kaiser? If it iss so, vy do we need to fight dem? So you give dese; and some day I come vit someting new."

Jimmie agreed that that was the way to set about it. He folded up a score of the leaflets and stowed them in an inside pocket of his jacket, and put on his heavy overcoat and gloves, which he wished he could give to the sick, half-starved and half-frozen Bolshevik. He patted him rea.s.suringly on the back, and said: "You trust me, comrade; I'll hand them out, and they'll bring results, too, I'll bet."

"You don't tell about me!" exclaimed Kalenkin with fierce intensity.

To which Jimmie answered. "Not if they boil me alive."

CHAPTER XXVI

JIMMIE HIGGINS DISCOVERS HIS SOUL

I

Jimmie went to supper in the mess-hall; but the piles of steaming hot food choked him--he was thinking of the half-starved little Jew.

The thirty pieces of silver in the pocket of his army jacket burned each a separate hole. Like the Judas of old, he wanted to hang himself, and he took a quick method of doing it.

Next to him at the table sat a motor-cyclist who had been a union plumber before the war, and had agreed with Jimmie that working-men were going to get their jobs back or would make the politicians sweat for it. On the way out from the meal, Jimmie edged this fellow off and remarked, "Say, I've got somethin' interestin'."

Now interesting things were rare here under the Arctic Circle.

"What's that?" asked the plumber.

"I was walkin' on the street," said Jimmie, "an' I seen a printed paper in the gutter. It's a copy of the proclamation the Bolsheviki have made to the German soldiers, an' that they're givin' out in the German trenches."

"By heck!" said the plumber. "What's in it?"

"Why, it calls on them to rise against the Kaiser--to do what the Russians have done."

"Can you read German?" asked the other.

"Naw," said Jimmie. "This is in English."

"But what's it doin' in English?"

"I'm sure I dunno."