The Bolshevik Myth · Chapter
En Route to the Ukraine explained
The narrator describes the chaotic journey south to Ukraine in July 1920, with desperate crowds besieging the train at every station.
What happens
The narrator describes the chaotic journey south to Ukraine in July 1920, with desperate crowds besieging the train at every station. The region has suffered fourteen regime changes since 1917, leaving it in a state of perpetual uncertainty, fear, and primitive survival instincts. The expedition travels in a conspicuous red car marked as the 'Extraordinary Commission of the Museum of the Revolution,' carrying supplies from the Winter Palace. The population lives in dread of White terror, Red terror, pogroms, and famine, with ethical values dissolved and only hunger and fear as guiding forces.
Themes in this chapter
Economic Collapse and Survival
Industrial activity is paralyzed, the financial system is in chaos with multiple currencies, and the population is driven by the instinct of self-preservation and the desperate search for food.
Human Suffering and Dehumanization
The people live in perpetual fear, ethical values are dissolved, and primitive passions hold sway. Stories of fiendish murder, rapine, and inhuman cruelty are on everyone's lips.
Terror and Violence
Both White and Red terror are indiscriminate and disastrous. The Ukraine is described as a 'veritable man-eater' that has left ruin, despair, and horror in its wake.
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict
The nationalistic Rada fought Kerensky's government, and pogroms against Jews are a recurring feature of the civil war violence.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
Chairman of the expedition, traveling to Ukraine to collect revolutionary museum materials.
- Emma Goldman
Treasurer of the expedition, part of the six-person party heading south.
- Henry Alsberg
American correspondent accompanying the expedition with Zinoviev's permission.
- Zinoviev
Granted permission for Henry Alsberg to join the expedition.
- Nestor Makhno
Legendary figure whose name is invoked in the panic-stricken atmosphere of the Ukraine.
- Petlura
Dictator whose Directorium was driven out by rebel peasants and the Red Army.
- Skoropadsky
Hetman who ruled Ukraine under German occupation after the Brest Treaty.
- Marusya
Legendary figure mentioned alongside Makhno and Stchooss in the atmosphere of panic.
Key passages
“The instincts of hunger and fear have become the sole leitmotif of thought, feeling, and action.”
Hunger and fear now drive every thought, emotion, and action.
Describes the psychological state of the population in the war-torn Ukraine.
“Internecine strife has marched through the Ukraine like a veritable man-eater, devouring, devastating, and leaving ruin, despair, and horror in its wake.”
Civil war has ravaged Ukraine like a monster, consuming everything and leaving only destruction and terror.
Vivid metaphor for the devastation of the Ukrainian civil war.
“It is a dense, surging human sea moved by the one passion of securing a foothold on the already moving train.”
The crowd is a frantic mass of people driven solely by the need to get onto the moving train.
Describes the desperate scramble for transportation at the stations.
“Uncertainty is all-pervading and persistent: it is the only definite, actual reality.”
Uncertainty is constant and inescapable, the only thing that is truly real.
Captures the pervasive sense of instability in the region.
