Page:My Further Disillusionment In Russia.djvu/162

 CHAPTER XI

THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC RESORTS TO DEPORTATION

HE Tcheka had succeeded In terrorizing the whole people. The only exceptions were the politicals, whose courage and devotion to their ideals defied the Bolsheviki as it had the Romanovs. I knew many of those brave spirits, and I saw in them the only hope to sustain one amid the general wreckage. They were the living proof of the powerlessness of terror against an Ideal.

Typical of this class was a certain Anarchist who had long been sought for by the Tcheka as an important Makhnovetz. He was a member of the military staff of the revolutionary povstantsi of the Ukraina and the close friend and counsellor of Makhno. He had already known him intimately when they were together in katorga in the days of the Tsar. He had shared all the hardships and danger of the povstantsi life and participated in their campaigns against the 136