The Red Gods

by Christopher Nicole

  Sonia gazed straight in front of her. But then they came to another compound filled with women and children, again begging or screaming, or just weeping against the wire. “The local commander determined that the sexes should be segregated,” Trotsky said. “He said that if they were herded together all the women would become pregnant within days. As if it matters when they are going to be shot anyway.”

  Sonia paused. “You can’t be serious. All of these people? Women and children?”

  “They are all Tsarists.”

  “You have asked them that? All of them?”

  Trotsky grinned and held her elbow to urge her onwards; their escort was waiting for them. “They have been denounced.”

  “You cannot shoot people on a simple denunciation,” Sonia protested. She almost added “not even you”, but that would merely annoy him.

  “There is sufficient other evidence.”

  “You’ll be saying next that Tomykin is a Tsarist simply because Alexei once stayed at his hotel!”

  “I have that in mind,” Trotsky said. “When he can be replaced. Good hotel managers are hard to find.”

  Sonia gasped in horror, but one of their escort had opened a door set in a high stone wall and she was ushered inside. She stood in a bare corridor; she guessed there had once been a portrait of the late Tsar on the wall opposite, but it had been removed. Now she was on familiar territory, even if she had never been here before. All prison corridors smelt the same, a mixture of disinfectant, human sweat and human fear as well. And all prison corridors sounded the same too, the dull thump of the gaolers’ boots, the distant murmur of sound, most of it desperate.

  She had never entered a place like this as a visitor before, only as someone who was about to add to the smell of sweat and fear, the desperate sounds. Her nostrils dilated, but Trotsky was again grasping her elbow to urge her forward, and now their escort was opening another door. Sonia took a deep breath as she entered the room. It was not large and contained but a desk and a chair. Again, deja vu: this was an interrogation room.

  Here the smell was ever stronger, for against the far wall, secured by his wrists and ankles to an iron frame, was a man. His wrists were fastened above his head, but his head came up as they entered, and he endeavoured to stand. He was naked, tall and strongly built, perhaps a trifle overweight; his sagging chest and stomach bore the bloody weals of a recent savage beating. He was not young, there was grey in the close-cropped hair, and his face was tired, but that might have been pain. Sonia remembered that face well; once it had stared at her from behind its monocle, with all the arrogance of supreme power.

  “Anton Michaelin,” Trotsky said. “Late colonel in the Leningrad Okhrana. I think you know the colonel, Sonia.”

  “Yes,” Sonia said. “I know the colonel.”

  They stared at each other. When he had last stared at her she had been the one naked, and he had been about to practice all manner of obscenities upon her body. But even as she had writhed and screamed she had been telling herself to survive, and who knows, one day...Michaelin managed a smile. “You have prospered, Princess,” he said, articulating with difficulty: his lips were cut and swollen and he had lost several teeth.

  Sonia turned away. “What is he doing here?”

  “He managed to escape from Leningrad during the last days of the Provisional Government. Then he disappeared entirely. We thought he was dead, but it seems he made his way down here to fight for the Whites, and lacked the wit, or the courage, to commit suicide when we forced our way into the city.”

  “So now you are going to hang him.”

  “In due course. I wondered if there might be something you would wish to do to him first.” Sonia turned back to the naked man. Michaelin licked his lips. “He had you in his cells,” Trotsky said. “We all know what happened to those interrogated by the Okhrana. Did he not force broken glass up your anus?”

  “No,” Sonia said. “I think he meant to, but the Countess Patricia told him everything he wanted to know. So he only used water. But water can be just as unpleasant as broken glass.”

  “So you must hate him very much,” Trotsky suggested.

  Sonia continued to stare at Michaelin. He expected the very worst, especially as her gaze dropped to his half-erect penis. This was the one man she had always hated. But he was such a pitiable figure, and she had seen so much, experienced so much, that hatred seemed absurd. Besides, Michaelin had never actually used those masculine weapons of his to rape her. “Would you not like to cut them off?” Trotsky asked.

  Sonia turned away. “No,” she said. “Shoot him, or hang him. But do it now. Do not torture him any more.”

  “Sonia!” exclaimed Olga Krupskaya, as she still liked to be known, even though she had been Lenin’s wife now for a dozen years. “It has been a long time.” Sonia was distressed, because whatever she had suffered, and she had always thought that a great deal, it had clearly been a longer time for Olga. She remembered a young woman in her early twenties, not pretty by any means, but attractive because of her tremendous energy and enthusiasm. Now she looked a prematurely aged woman, her straggling red hair streaked with grey, her bulging eyes indicative of her thyroid problem.

  She allowed herself to be embraced, while looking past Olga at the man she had known as Vladimir Ulianov, before he had adopted a pseudonym and become famous. The years had been even more brutal with Lenin than with his wife. He wore a flat cap, which he did not doff as he kissed her; she knew, because Trotsky had told her, that he never took off his cap because he was ashamed of his baldness. Nowadays he wore a beard, perhaps as compensation for his inability to grow hair on his head, hut this too, as red as his hair had been as a young man, was streaked with grey. More critical, however, than the hair, or lack of it, were the stress lines streaking away from eyes and mouth, even threatening to overwhelm the dominant square chin. He hugged her close. “I have read, and heard, so much about you, Sonia.”

  “I am sure you have not heard as much about me as I have about you, Vladimir,” she replied.

  “Vladimir,” he said. “Do you know how long it is since anyone called me Vladimir? But you are looking magnificent!”

  “As are you, Vladimir,” she lied.

  Lenin smiled. “I am tired. There is so much to be done.”

  Sonia looked past him at a young man, extremely good-looking in a dark fashion. “This is my bodyguard,” Lenin explained. “Andrei Gosykin.”

  The young man clicked his heels and kissed Sonia’s fingers. “This is a great honour, Comrade Bolugayevska.” Sonia gained an impression of immense physical and mental power, carefully controlled. He was a man to be afraid of. At least, if one was not an old friend of the Party Chairman, or the mistress of the Commissar for War.

  Lenin kissed her again, then turned to Trotsky, patiently waiting. “Leon! Show me your conquest.”

  They drove round the city in an open tourer, Trotsky in the front beside the driver, Lenin in the back seated between the two women, Andrei Gosykin standing on the running board; Sonia realised that Lenin was even more frightened of being assassinated than Trotsky. But the ‘eager’ crowds had been carefully marshalled by the Red soldiers, and there was nothing but cheers. “So much to be done,” Lenin repeated. “Kiev is the cradle of Russian civilisation. It must be restored to greatness. Tell me, Leon, I am told that you have captured that Tsarist monster Michaelin. What are you going to do with him?”

  “I have already done it,” Trotsky said. “He was hanged yesterday.”

  “That is a pity,” Lenin said. “There was no trial?” Sonia turned her head, sharply. She had not expected Lenin to be interested in such things. “A good show trial is splendid propaganda,” he explained.

  “But he would still have been hanged.”

  “Well, of course, the man was a thug. But it would have been nice to have seen him on trial.”

  “Tell me about Gosykin,” Sonia said, as they dressed for dinner.

  “Why are you interested?
” Trotsky asked.

  “Because I think he is a man with a future.”

  “Not him. He is not really Lenin’s bodyguard, he is Lenin’s personal assassin. Whenever Nicolai wishes to see the back of someone, he tells Gosykin so, and the person simply disappears. He will end his days on the gallows.”

  “And you are afraid of him.”

  Trotsky grinned. “I am Commissar for War.”

  “Electricity,” Lenin declared, “is the key to the future. Do you understand this, Sonia?”

  They sat at dinner in the hotel. The dining room had been cleared, save for the waiters and the guards, and the four people seated in the centre of the huge room, while Tomykin hovered, wringing his hands; Sonia wondered if he understood by how slender a thread his life hung? She recalled dining here, eight years ago, with Prince Alexei and the Countess Anna, in a room full of people, a-glitter with pearls and diamonds and plunging decolletages, but none so glittering as the Bolugayevska women. Had that world ever really existed she wondered as she gazed at Krupskaya’s drab skirt and blouse. She at least was wearing a gown, but it was high-necked and modest and she wore no jewellery; Trotsky was a Puritan in public and he had warned her that Lenin was even more so. “Does electricity not require a great deal of energy?” she asked.

  “But energy is what we possess in abundance,” Lenin explained. “Water! We have a huge number of fast-running rivers. We are going to harness all of that energy, and turn it into electricity. Then we will have the most viable industrial system in the world. Coal! Bah! Coal is history. Now tell me the truth about Patricia. One hears nothing but rumour.”

  Sonia remembered that Lenin had always held Patricia Bolugayevska Cromb in the highest regard, no doubt because like so many people in his position he was an inverted snob, and liked to recall that he had once been an intimate of an aristocrat. “Patricia was torn to pieces, quite literally, by a mob of deserting soldiers.”

  “Oh, the poor woman!” Krupskaya said.

  “Tsarist swine,” Lenin said. “I hope they were all shot.”

  “They were actually Reds,” Sonia said. “But they were all shot, certainly. By my ex-husband.”

  Lenin glared at her, and Trotsky gave a nervous chuckle. “She is always teasing, Comrade.”

  Lenin decided not to take offence, instead looked across the room. “What does that fellow want, Leon?”

  Trotsky turned his head to glance at the huge double doors, one of which had been opened to admit an officer, who was standing there looking embarrassed as he was searched by Gosykin. Trotsky got up and went to the man, took from him a sheet of paper and studied it. Then he returned to the table. “I must leave, with respect, Comrade. Sonia, go and pack your things. We must be on our way in an hour.”

  Lenin raised his eyebrows. “Is there something the matter?”

  “The Whites have captured Voronezh and are advancing on Tula.”

  “Tula?” Lenin set down his wine glass with a thump. “Tula is only two hundred miles south of Moscow!”

  “Yes,” Trotsky said. “I must get over there immediately.”

  “And I must get back to Moscow.” Lenin stood up. “How did this happen, Leon?”

  “Someone has failed us,” Trotsky said. “I will find out who.”

  “And have him shot. Shoot them all. It is the only treatment these traitors understand.”

  My God, Sonia thought: he is scared out of his wits. “I will do what has to be done, Comrade,” Trotsky assured him.

  Sonia sat alone in their sleeping compartment as the train hurtled through the night; they were travelling north-east, because Voronezh was actually farther to the north than Kiev. Tula was even farther north, two hundred miles from Moscow! Could the brief Red reign be coming to an end? It certainly appeared so. She opened the curtains and looked out at the night streaming by. A compartment away Trotsky was studying his maps with his aides — but beyond the train the night was utterly dark. Even when they hurtled through towns and villages and past deserted platforms, there were no lights. Most of these places had been abandoned in the ebb and flow of fighting; those people who remained had no fuel. Lenin’s electricity had not yet penetrated this far south. She wondered if it ever would.

  The train hissed to a halt, and Sonia hastily drew the blinds. This was not merely from modesty; the situation was in such chaos it was impossible to tell if they were going to be attacked. With this in mind she turned down the lamp as well. If there was an enemy out there, they could shoot at other parts of the train. She listened to the tramp of boots, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves beside the tracks, the sound of men shouting. But there was no point in getting excited about it. Sonia had become very fatalistic; it was the only way to survive in this mad world in which she found herself.

  The train was stopped for more than an hour, and she nodded off, to awake with a start when it moved again. Almost immediately the light came on and Trotsky entered. Sonia sat up. “What has happened?”

  “Orel has fallen.” He took off his cap and belts.

  “But...my God...”

  “Oh, they were getting set to panic. Lenin will panic when he hears the news.”

  “But you are not worried? What are we going to do?”

  “Wrangel is advancing too fast. So is Krasnov. They have stuck their necks out, and I am going to chop them off,” Trotsky told her. He kicked off his boots and took off his jacket, but did not undress further, then climbed on to the upper bunk. “Go back to sleep. We will be in Tula at dawn.”

  Sonia did not sleep again. Tula, she knew, was north-east of Orel. That meant they were crossing the head of the White Russian Army, and it could be at no great distance. When, at dawn, they rumbled into the town, she could see the evidence of defeat. Tula was a mass of men, with materiel abandoned and blocking the roads, the men wandering around clamouring for command. Trotsky rolled out of his bunk, pulled on his boots and put on his jacket. “Stay here,” he said.

  Sonia dressed, but was happy to obey him; her experiences had given her a lifelong abhorrence of mobs, and mobs of defeated soldiers were the worst of all. However, she opened the compartment door a fraction so that she could hear what was going on; it was her fate being decided as much as anyone’s. “Where is he?” she heard Trotsky demand.

  “Waiting, Comrade Commissar.”

  “Send him in.”

  Boots clumped on the wooden floor, and a man said, “Comrade Commissar!” His voice trembled.

  “Tell me what happened,” Trotsky said.

  “The Whites took us by surprise, Comrade Commissar.” The man’s voice was high with anxiety. “We did not expect them to come on so fast; we knew their supply trains were some distance back. My people panicked. I did what I could, but it was necessary to pull out.”

  “Did you cut the railway line?”

  “Yes, Comrade Commissar. We tore up the track for at least a mile. I have done everything I could.”

  “A mile,” Trotsky commented. “And during the retreat your men became a rabble.”

  “I will rally them, Comrade Commissar. I will...”

  “You will be shot,” Trotsky told him. “Now.”

  “But Comrade Commissar...”

  “Take him away,” Trotsky said. “Put him against a wall before his men and shoot him. Now.”

  “Comrade Commissar!” the man screamed, and then Sonia heard him gasp as someone hit him.

  “Round up all the men who fled from Orel,” Trotsky commanded. “And shoot every tenth man. Do it now.”

  Sonia gasped in horror. “Is Tuchachevsky here yet?”

  “General Tuchachevsky is outside, Comrade Commissar.”

  “Send him in.”

  Sonia frowned. Tuchachevsky, a brilliant young officer who had been a cadet in the Tsarist army before opting to kill his superiors and fight for the Reds, had been commanding against Kolchak in Siberia, so far as she knew. Now she again heard boots clumping on the floor. “Comrade Commissar!”

  Tuchachev
sky’s voice was harsh; he had Mongol ancestry, although Sonia knew that unlike many of that race he was a big man.

  “You got here very quickly,” Trotsky remarked.

  “When my commander sends for me, I come,” Tuchachevsky said. Sonia heard his breath rush out as he smiled. “I used an aeroplane.”

  “Brilliant,” Trotsky said. “Is Kolchak still retreating?”

  Tuchachevsky smiled again. “I do not believe he will stop until he reaches Vladivostok.”

  “Excellent. You will hand over your command, and take command here. Look at this map.” Sonia heard the crackle of paper. “Wrangel is in Voronezh, here. The Whites have also advanced and taken Orel, here. I believe that is the Army of the Don, and it may be under Denikin’s personal command, although I am not certain. In front of him I have what is presently a rabble, here in Tula. But there is an army here, in Tambov.” Another thump. “You will take command of that army and strike south-west, aiming to contact the Whites south of Voronezh. Having contacted them, you will continue to advance. Remember this.”

  “And if Denikin continues to advance against you, before I can strike?”

  “If he advances, I will retreat, while I lick this army back into shape.”

  There was a brief silence while Tuchachevsky studied the map. “You will not be able to retreat very far,” he commented at last. “Or you will be fighting in the streets of Moscow.”

  “I do not consider that a possibility,” Trotsky said. “First because it will not take me that long to return this army to its duty, and secondly because I do not consider it possible for Denikin to continue to advance. My information is that he is several days ahead of his supply trains, and our people have torn up the lines in their retreat, south of Voronezh. The enemy is in a difficult situation. He cannot advance further without replenishing, and he dare not retreat for fear of the effect that would have on the morale of his troops. I would say he is obliged to stand still, and wait for the track to be repaired and his supply train to catch up with him. That gives us perhaps a week and is why you will cut across south of Voronezh, avoiding a general engagement, and threaten to reach the railway and cut his line of communication with the Crimea, permanently. If you can cut it, then we have him. But even if you cannot, he will be forced to retreat to prevent you from doing so, and once that army of his starts to retreat it will disintegrate. We will destroy him. Do you understand me?”