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Streaming Databases
Unifying Batch and Stream Processing

Hubert Dulay and Ralph M. Debusmann

Streaming Databases
by Hubert Dulay and Ralph M. Debusmann

Copyright © 2024 Hubert Dulay and Ralph M. Debusmann. All

rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway

North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or

sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for
most titles (http://oreilly.com). For more information, contact
our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or
[email protected].

Acquisitions Editor: Aaron Black

Development Editor: Rita Fernando

Production Editor: Katherine Tozer

Copyeditor: Emily Wydeven

Proofreader: Krsta Technology Solutions

Indexer: BIM Creatives, LLC

 Interior Designer: David Futato

Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery

Illustrator: Kate Dullea

August 2024: First Edition

Revision History for the First Edition

2024-08-08: First Release

See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781098154837
for release details.

The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media,

Inc. Streaming Databases, the cover image, and related trade
dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.

The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and
do not represent the publisher’s views. While the publisher and
the authors have used good faith efforts to ensure that the
information and instructions contained in this work are
accurate, the publisher and the authors disclaim all
responsibility for errors or omissions, including without
limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of
or reliance on this work. Use of the information and
instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If any
code samples or other technology this work contains or
describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual
property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that
your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.
978-1-098-15483-7

[LSI]
Foreword
Pioneering a new category of software systems is the dream of
many software engineers. I feel very fortunate for the
opportunity to work on ksqlDB early on, even before it was
called ksqlDB, and before the category of streaming databases
was generally known. When I first heard that Ralph and Hubert
were writing a book dedicated to streaming databases, I was
naturally interested right away.

So what is a streaming database? Database systems have many

different flavors, from traditional relational databases to XML,
graph, object, vector, and NoSQL databases. Many of these are
well known and have been established for many decades.
Streaming, or stream processing, is much less established,
although it has seen a steep adoption rate in the industry over
the past decade or so, led by the rise of Apache Kafka as the de
facto streaming platform.

Historically, stream processing was considered difficult, and

only larger organizations with dedicated teams of streaming
experts could master it. The same was true for data processing
and computing 50 years ago, before SQL and relational
database systems were invented to allow nontechnical users to
work with data stored in computer systems. Now, SQL is the
lingua franca of data processing.

Streaming databases are the next step in the evolution of

stream processing. They unify well-established techniques from
database systems with the new paradigms from the streaming
world to simplify stream processing and enable nontechnical
users to work with data in motion, similar to what we are used
to when we query data at rest.

Database systems are designed to solve specific problems. The

two main categories of database systems, online transaction
processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP)
systems, were not originally designed for internet-scale
applications.

With the rise of “big data” at the beginning of the third

millennium, new systems such as MapReduce were invented to
meet the increased scaling requirements. However, those new
systems were developed by technical experts for technical
experts, and they moved us away from the familiarity of SQL.

With the invention of data lakes, the first child of the “big data”
era, it was quickly realized that SQL was needed to enable
nontechnical users to make the most of these new technologies.
As a result, SQL was reintroduced, and nowadays, all modern
data lakes use SQL to query the stored data.

Data streaming, as the second child of the “big data” era,

followed the same trend: first, stream processing systems were
built by experts for experts without the support of SQL. It
wasn’t long until SQL and database technologies were
introduced to enable nontechnical users to use these new
streaming systems. This development led to streaming
databases and the waves of innovation that followed.

As more people realize the significance of streaming databases

in the world of stream processing and database technology,
they will need guidance on how to use them with their existing
systems. Stream processing, as this book puts it, adds a new
plane between the operational plane (OLTP) and the analytical
plane (OLAP). The streaming plane opens up a rich area of
possibilities for the future of data systems.

In this book, Hubert and Ralph discuss the three different

starting points for streaming databases:

Stream processing systems that adopt database technologies

and SQL
 Database systems that are extended to incorporate streaming
concepts
Data lakes (which already adopted SQL) that are extended to
use streaming capabilities

These three gave rise to a variety of different streaming

databases, each with its own limitations and optimized for
different use cases. This raises the question: which system
should we use for what use case, and what are the trade-offs?

Following Jay Kreps’ prediction that “companies are becoming

software,” we have an exciting future in data processing ahead
of us with streaming databases at its very core. The
simplifications that streaming databases and streaming SQL
offer allow many more nontechnical users to adopt stream
processing, which will lead the way for streaming to become
ubiquitous.

We are still early in the era of streaming databases, and it’s

exciting to observe the current trends and discover newly built
systems.

This book provides an excellent entry point for learning about

all these cutting-edge innovations and the zoo of options, which
is typical for the early days of a new era. If you want to learn
even more about streaming databases, check out Hubert and
Ralph’s podcast on Spotify, simply called “Hubert’s Podcast.”
They interviewed many different people in the streaming and
data space in preparation for this book, and it’s a gem by itself.

Matthias J. Sax

Technical Lead,

Kafka Streams Engineering Team at Confluent

Apache Committer and PMC member

(Kafka, Flink, Storm)

Reno, NV, May 2024

Preface
In this book, we go beyond the boundaries of traditional batch
processing and seamlessly integrate the dynamic world of
streaming data. If you come from the streaming world, we
provide a database perspective for stream processing.
Streaming databases bridge the gap between data at rest and
data in motion.

Drawing inspiration from Martin Kleppmann’s seminal work

on “turning the database inside out,” we flip the narrative to
“bringing streaming systems back into the database.” Through
this paradigm shift, we can first unravel the intricate layers of
stream processing before we find familiar abstractions that
make real-time streaming more accessible and understandable
to developers, regardless of their familiarity with streaming
technologies.

Our exploration delves into the core principles of streaming

databases, exposing how they empower developers to take on
real-time data processing use cases within the familiar confines
of a database environment. Focusing on practicality and
usability, we unveil how streaming databases democratize real-
time data analytics, paving the way for innovative applications
and insights.

Whether you’re a seasoned database engineer or a novice

developer, this book guides you to unlocking the full potential of
streaming databases and embracing the future of data
processing.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames,

and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to

refer to program elements such as variable or function
names, databases, data types, environment variables,
statements, and keywords.

Constant width bold

 Shows commands or other text that should be typed
literally by the user.

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied

values or by values determined by context.

NOTE

This element signifies a general note.

WARNING

This element indicates a warning or caution.

Using Code Examples

Supplemental material (code examples, exercises, etc.) is
available for download at https://github.com/hdulay/streaming-
databases.

If you have a technical question or a problem using the code

examples, please send email to [email protected].
This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, if
example code is offered with this book, you may use it in your
programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for
permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of
the code. For example, writing a program that uses several
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Selling or distributing examples from O’Reilly books does
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Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this
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We appreciate, but generally do not require, attribution. An

attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and
ISBN. For example: “Streaming Databases by Hubert Dulay and
Ralph M. Debusmann (O’Reilly). Copyright 2024 Hubert Dulay
and Ralph M. Debusmann, 978-1-098-15483-7.”

If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or
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[email protected].
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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 CHAPTER XXI
KIEV

Owing to the many difficulties and delays the journey from Fastov to
Kiev lasted six days and was a continuous nightmare. The railway
situation was appalling. At every station scores of freight cars
clogged the lines. Nor were they loaded with provisions to feed the
starving cities; they were densely packed with human cargo among
whom the sick were a large percentage. All along the route the
waiting rooms and platforms were filled with crowds, bedraggled and
dirty. Even more ghastly were the scenes at night. Everywhere
masses of desperate people, shouting and struggling to gain a
foothold on the train. They resembled the damned of Dante's
Inferno, their faces ashen gray in the dim light, all frantically fighting
for a place. Now and then an agonized cry would ring through the
night and the already moving train would come to a halt: somebody
had been thrown to his death under the wheels.
It was a relief to reach Kiev. We had expected to find the city almost
in ruins, but we were pleasantly disappointed. When we left
Petrograd the Soviet Press contained numerous stories of vandalism
committed by Poles before evacuating Kiev. They had almost
demolished the famous ancient cathedral in the city, the papers
wrote, destroyed the water works and electric stations, and set fire
to several parts of the city. Tchicherin and Lunacharsky issued
passionate appeals to the cultured people of the world in protest
against such barbarism. The crime of the Poles against Art was
compared with that committed by the Germans in Rheims, whose
celebrated cathedral had been injured by Prussian artillery. We were,
therefore, much surprised to find Kiev in even better condition than
Petrograd. In fact, the city had suffered very little, considering the
numerous changes of government and the accompanying military
operations. It is true that some bridges and railroad tracks had been
blown up on the outskirts of the city, but Kiev itself was almost
unharmed. People looked at us in amazement when we made
inquiries about the condition of the cathedral: they had not heard
the Moscow report.
Unlike our welcome in Kharkov and Poltava, Kiev proved a
disappointment. The secretary of the Ispolkom was not very amiable
and appeared not at all impressed by Zinoviev's signature on our
credentials. Our secretary succeeded in seeing the chairman of the
Executive Committee, but returned very discouraged: that high
official was too impatient to listen to her representations. He was
busy, he said, and could not be troubled. It was decided that I try
my luck as an American, with the result that the chairman finally
agreed to give us access to the available material. It was a sad
reflection on the irony of life. America was in league with world
imperialism to starve and crush Russia. Yet it was sufficient to
mention that one came from America to find the key to everything
Russian. It was pathetic, and rather distasteful to make use of that
key.
In Kiev antagonism to Communism was intense, even the local
Bolsheviki being bitter against Moscow. It was out of the question
for anyone coming from "the centre" to secure their coöperation
unless armed with State powers. The Government employees in
Soviet institutions took no interest in anything save their rations.
Bureaucratic indifference and incompetence in Ukraina were even
worse than in Moscow and were augmented by nationalistic
resentment against the "Russians." It was true also of Kharkov and
Poltava, though in a lesser degree. Here the very atmosphere was
charged with distrust and hatred of everything Muscovite. The
deception practised on us by the chairman of the Educational
Department of Kharkov was characteristic of the resentment almost
every Ukrainian official felt toward Moscow. The chairman was a
Ukrainian to the core, but he could not openly ignore our credentials
signed by Zinoviev and Lunacharsky. He promised to aid our efforts
but he disliked the idea of Petrograd "absorbing" the historic
material of the Ukraina. In Kiev there was no attempt to mask the
opposition to Moscow. One was made to feel it everywhere. But the
moment the magic word "America" was spoken and the people
made to understand that one was not a Communist, they became
interested and courteous, even confidential. The Ukrainian
Communists were also no exception.
The information and documents collected in Kiev were of the same
character as the data gathered in former cities. The system of
education, care of the sick, distribution of labour and so forth were
similar to the general Bolshevik scheme. "We follow the Moscow
plan," said a Ukrainian teacher, "with the only difference that in our
schools the Ukrainian language is taught together with Russian." The
people, and especially the children, looked better fed and clad than
those of Russia proper: food was comparatively more plentiful and
cheaper. There were show schools as in Petrograd and Moscow, and
no one apparently realized the corrupting effect of such
discrimination upon the teachers as well as the children. The latter
looked with envy upon the pupils of the favoured schools and
believed that they were only for Communist children, which in reality
was not the case. The teachers, on the other hand, knowing how
little attention was paid to ordinary schools, were negligent in their
work. All tried to get a position in the show schools which were
enjoying special and varied rations.
The chairman of the Board of Health was an alert and competent
man, one of the few officials in Kiev who showed interest in the
Expedition and its work. He devoted much time to explaining to us
the methods of his organization and pointing out interesting places
to visit and the material which could be collected for the Museum.
He especially called our attention to the Jewish hospital for crippled
children.
I found the latter in charge of a cultivated and charming man, Dr. N
——. For twenty years he had been head of the hospital and he took
interest as well as pride in showing us about his institution and
relating its history.
The hospital had formerly been one of the most famous in Russia,
the pride of the local Jews who had built and maintained it. But
within recent years its usefulness had become curtailed owing to the
frequent changes of government. It had been exposed to
persecution and repeated pogroms. Jewish patients critically ill were
often forced out of their beds to make room for the favourites of this
or that régime. The officers of the Denikin army were most brutal.
They drove the Jewish patients out into the street, subjected them
to indignities and abuse, and would have killed them had it not been
for the intercession of the hospital staff who at the risk of their own
lives protected the sick. It was only the fact that the majority of the
staff were Gentiles that saved the hospital and its inmates. But the
shock resulted in numerous deaths and many patients were left with
shattered nerves.
The doctor also related to me the story of some of the patients,
most of them victims of the Fastov pogroms. Among them were
children between the ages of six and eight, gaunt and sickly looking,
terror stamped on their faces. They had lost all their kin, in some
cases the whole family having been killed before their eyes. These
children often waked at night, the physician said, in fright at their
horrible dreams. Everything possible was being done for them, but
so far the unfortunate children had not been freed from the memory
of their terrible experiences at Fastov. The doctor pointed out a
group of young girls between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, the
worst victims of the Denikin pogrom. All of them had been
repeatedly outraged and were in a mutilated state when they came
to the hospital; it would take years to restore them to health. The
doctor emphasized the fact that no pogroms had taken place during
the Bolshevik régime. It was a great relief to him and his staff to
know that his patients were no longer in such danger. But the
hospital had other difficulties. There was the constant interference
by political Commissars and the daily struggle for supplies. "I spend
most of my time in the various bureaus," he said, "instead of
devoting myself to my patients. Ignorant officials are given power
over the medical profession, continuously harassing the doctors in
their work." The doctor himself had been repeatedly arrested for
sabotage because of his inability to comply with the numerous
decrees and orders, frequently mutually contradictory. It was the
result of a system in which political usefulness rather than
professional merit played the main rôle. It often happened that a
first-class physician of well-known repute and long experience would
be suddenly ordered to some distant part to place a Communist
doctor in his position. Under such conditions the best efforts were
paralysed. Moreover, there was the general suspicion of the
intelligentsia, which was a demoralizing factor. It was true that many
of that class had sabotaged, but there were also those who did
heroic and self-sacrificing work. The Bolsheviki, by their
indiscriminate antagonism toward the intelligentsia as a class,
roused prejudices and passions which poisoned the mainsprings of
the cultural life of the country. The Russian intelligentsia had with its
very blood fertilized the soil of the Revolution, yet it was not given it
to reap the fruits of its long struggle. "A tragic fate," the doctor
remarked; "unless one forget it in his work, existence would be
impossible."
The institution for crippled children proved a very model and modern
hospital, located in the heart of a large park. It was devoted to the
marred creatures with twisted limbs and deformed bodies, victims of
the great war, disease, and famine. The children looked aged and
withered; like Father Time, they had been born old. They lay in rows
on clean white beds, baking in the warm sun of the Ukrainian
summer. The head physician, who guided us through the institution,
seemed much beloved by his little charges. They were eager and
pleased to see him as he approached each helpless child and bent
over affectionately to make some inquiries about its health. The
hospital had been in existence for many years and was considered
the first of its kind in Russia. Its equipment for the care of deformed
and crippled children was among the most modern. "Since the war
and the Revolution we feel rather behind the times," the doctor said;
"we have been cut off from the civilized world for so many years.
But in spite of the various government changes we have striven to
keep up our standards and to help the unfortunate victims of strife
and disease." The supplies for the institution were provided by the
Government and the hospital force was exposed to no interference,
though I understood from the doctor that because of his political
neutrality he was looked upon by the Bolsheviki as inclined to
counter-revolution.
The hospital contained a large number of children; some of those
who could walk about studied music and art, and we had the
opportunity of attending an informal concert arranged by the
children and their teachers in our honour. Some of them played the
balalaika in a most artistic manner, and it was consoling to see those
marred children finding forgetfulness in the rhythm of the folk
melodies of the Ukraina.
Early during our stay in Kiev we learned that the most valuable
material for the Museum was not to be found in the Soviet
institutions, but that it was in the possession of other political groups
and private persons. The best statistical information on pogroms, for
instance, was in the hands of a former Minister of the Rada régime
in the Ukraina. I succeeded in locating the man and great was my
surprise when, upon learning my identity, he presented me with
several copies of the Mother Earth magazine I had published in
America. The ex-Minister arranged a small gathering to which were
invited some writers and poets and men active in the Jewish
Kulturliga to meet several members of our Expedition. The gathering
consisted of the best elements of the local Jewish intelligentsia. We
discussed the Revolution, the Bolshevik methods, and the Jewish
problem. Most of those present, though opposed to the Communist
theories, were in favour of the Soviet Government. They felt that the
Bolsheviki, in spite of their many blunders, were striving to further
the interests of Russia and the Revolution. At any rate, under the
Communist régime the Jews were not exposed to the pogroms
practised upon them by all the other régimes of Ukraina. Those
Jewish intellectuals argued that the Bolsheviki at least permitted the
Jews to live, and that they were therefore to be preferred to any
other governments and should be supported by the Jews. They were
fearful of the growth of anti-Semitism in Russia and were horrified at
the possibility of the Bolsheviki being overthrown. Wholesale
slaughter of the Jews would undoubtedly follow, they believed.
Some of the younger set held a different view. The Bolshevik régime
had resulted in increased hatred toward the Jews, they said, for the
masses were under the impression that most of the Communists
were Jews. Communism stood for forcible tax-collection, punitive
expeditions, and the Tcheka. Popular opposition to the Communists
therefore expressed itself in the hatred of the whole Jewish race.
Thus Bolshevik tyranny had added fuel to the latent anti-Semitism of
the Ukraina. Moreover, to prove that they were not discriminating in
favour of the Jews, the Bolsheviki had gone to the other extreme
and frequently arrested and punished Jews for things that the
Gentiles could do with impunity. The Bolsheviki also fostered and
endowed cultural work in the south in the Ukrainian language, while
at the same time they discouraged such efforts in the Jewish
language. It was true that the Kulturliga was still permitted to exist,
but its work was hampered at every step. In short, the Bolsheviki
permitted the Jews to live, but only in a physical sense. Culturally,
they were condemned to death. The Yevkom (Jewish Communist
Section) was receiving, of course, every advantage and support from
the Government, but then its mission was to carry the gospel of the
proletarian dictatorship to the Jews of the Ukraina. It was significant
that the Yevkom was more anti-Semitic than the Ukrainians
themselves. If it had the power it would pogrom every non-
Communist Jewish organization and destroy all Jewish educational
efforts. This young element emphasized that they did not favour the
overthrow of the Bolshevik Government; but they could not support
it, either.
I felt that both Jewish factions took a purely nationalistic view of the
Russian situation. I could well understand their personal attitude, the
result of their own suffering and the persecution of the Jewish race.
Still, my chief concern was the Revolution and its effects upon
Russia as a whole. Whether the Bolsheviki should be supported or
not could not depend merely on their attitude to the Jews and the
Jewish question. The latter was surely a very vital and pressing
issue, especially in the Ukraina; yet the general problem involved
was much greater. It embraced the complete economic and social
emancipation of the whole people of Russia, the Jews included. If
the Bolshevik methods and practices were not imposed upon them
by the force of circumstances, if they were conditioned in their own
theories and principles, and if their sole object was to secure their
own power, I could not support them. They might be innocent of
pogroms against the Jews, but if they were pogroming the whole of
Russia then they had failed in their mission as a revolutionary party.
I was not prepared to say that I had reached a clear understanding
of all the problems involved, but my experience so far led me to
think that it was the basic Bolshevik conception of the Revolution
which was false, its practical application necessarily resulting in the
great Russian catastrophe of which the Jewish tragedy was but a
minor part.
My host and his friends could not agree with my viewpoint: we
represented opposite camps. But the gathering was nevertheless
intensely interesting and it was arranged that we meet again before
our departure from the city.
Returning to our car one day I saw a detachment of Red Army
soldiers at the railway station. On inquiry I found that foreign
delegates were expected from Moscow and that the soldiers had
been ordered out to participate in a demonstration in their honour.
Groups of the uniformed men stood about discussing the arrival of
the mission. There were many expressions of dissatisfaction because
the soldiers had been kept waiting so long. "These people come to
Russia just to look us over," one of the Red Army men said; "do they
know anything about us or are they interested in how we live? Not
they. It's a holiday for them. They are dressed up and fed by the
Government, but they never talk to us and all they see is how we
march past. Here we have been lying around in the burning sun for
hours while the delegates are probably being feasted at some other
station. That's comradeship and equality for you!"
I had heard such sentiments voiced before, but it was surprising to
hear them from soldiers. I thought of Angelica Balabanova, who was
accompanying the Italian Mission, and I wondered what she would
think if she knew how the men felt. It had probably never occurred
to her that those "ignorant Russian peasants" in military uniform had
looked through the sham of official demonstrations.
The following day we received an invitation from Balabanova to
attend a banquet given in honour of the Italian delegates. Anxious to
meet the foreign guests, several members of our Expedition
accepted the invitation.
The affair took place in the former Chamber of Commerce building,
profusely decorated for the occasion. In the main banquet hall long
tables were heavily laden with fresh-cut flowers, several varieties of
southern fruit, and wine. The sight reminded one of the feasts of the
old bourgeoisie, and I could see that Angelica felt rather
uncomfortable at the lavish display of silverware and wealth. The
banquet opened with the usual toasts, the guests drinking to Lenin,
Trotsky, the Red Army, and the Third International, the whole
company rising as the revolutionary anthem was intoned after each
toast, with the soldiers and officers standing at attention in good old
military style.
Among the delegates were two young French Anarcho-syndicalists.
They had heard of our presence in Kiev and had been looking for us
all day without being able to locate us. After the banquet they were
immediately to leave for Petrograd, so that we had only a short time
at our disposal. On our way to the station the delegates related that
they had collected much material on the Revolution which they
intended to publish in France. They had become convinced that all
was not well with the Bolshevik régime: they had come to realize
that the dictatorship of the proletariat was in the exclusive hands of
the Communist Party, while the common worker was enslaved as
much as ever. It was their intention, they said, to speak frankly
about these matters to their comrades at home and to substantiate
their attitude by the material in their possession. "Do you expect to
get the documents out?" I asked La Petit, one of the delegates. "You
don't mean that I might be prevented from taking out my own
notes," he replied. "The Bolsheviki would not dare to go so far—not
with foreign delegates, at any rate." He seemed so confident that I
did not care to pursue the subject further. That night the delegates
left Kiev and a short time afterward they departed from Russia. They
were never seen alive again. Without making any comment upon
their disappearance I merely want to mention that when I returned
to Moscow several months later it was generally related that the two
Anarcho-syndicalists, with several other men who had accompanied
them, were overtaken by a storm somewhere off the coast of
Finland, and were all drowned. There were rumours of foul play,
though I am not inclined to credit the story, especially in view of the
fact that together with the Anarcho-syndicalists also perished a
Communist in good standing in Moscow. But their disappearance
with all the documents they had collected has never been
satisfactorily explained.
The rooms assigned to the members of our Expedition were located
in a house within a passage leading off the Kreschatik, the main
street of Kiev. It had formerly been the wealthy residential section of
the city and its fine houses, though lately neglected, still looked
imposing. The passage also contained a number of shops, ruins of
former glory, which catered to the well-to-do of the neighbourhood.
Those stores still had good supplies of vegetables, fruit, milk, and
butter. They were owned mostly by old Jews whose energies could
not be applied to any other usefulness—Orthodox Jews to whom the
Revolution and the Bolsheviki were a bête noire, because that had
"ruined all business." The little shops barely enabled their owners to
exist; moreover, they were in constant danger of Tcheka raids, on
which occasions the provisions would be expropriated. The
appearance of those stores did not justify the belief that the
Government would find it worth while raiding them. "Would not the
Tcheka prefer to confiscate the goods of the big delicatessen and
fruit stores on the Kreschatik?" I asked an old Jew storekeeper. "Not
at all," he replied; "those stores are immune because they pay heavy
taxes."
The morning following the banquet I went down to the little grocery
store I used to do my shopping in. The place was closed, and I was
surprised to find that not one of the small shops near by was open.
Two days later I learned that the places had all been raided on the
eve of the banquet in order to feast the foreign delegates. I
promised myself never to attend another Bolshevik banquet.
Among the members of the Kulturliga I met a man who had lived in
America, but for several years now was with his family in Kiev. His
home proved one of the most hospitable during my stay in the
south, and as he had many callers belonging to various social classes
I was able to gather much information about the recent history of
Ukraina. My host was not a Communist: though critical of the
Bolshevik régime, he was by no means antagonistic. He used to say
that the main fault of the Bolsheviki was their lack of psychological
perception. He asserted that no government had ever such a great
opportunity in the Ukraina as the Communists. The people had
suffered so much from the various occupations and were so
oppressed by every new régime that they rejoiced when the
Bolsheviki entered Kiev. Everybody hoped that they would bring
relief. But the Communists quickly destroyed all illusions. Within a
few months they proved themselves entirely incapable of
administering the affairs of the city; their methods antagonized the
people, and the terrorism of the Tcheka turned even the friends of
the Communists to bitter enmity. Nobody objected to the
nationalization of industry and it was of course expected that the
Bolsheviki would expropriate. But when the bourgeoisie had been
relieved of its possessions it was found that only the raiders
benefited. Neither the people at large nor even the proletarian class
gained anything. Precious jewellery, silverware, furs, practically the
whole wealth of Kiev seemed to disappear and was no more heard
of. Later members of the Tcheka strutted about the streets with their
women gowned in the finery of the bourgeoisie. When private
business places were closed, the doors were locked and sealed and
guards placed there. But within a few weeks the stores were found
empty. This kind of "management" and the numerous new laws and
edicts, often mutually conflicting, served the Tcheka as a pretext to
terrorize and mulct the citizens and aroused general hatred against
the Bolsheviki. The people had turned against Petlura, Denikin, and
the Poles. They welcomed the Bolsheviki with open arms. But the
last disappointed them as the first.
"Now we have gotten used to the situation," my host said, "we just
drift and manage as best we can." But he thought it a pity that the
Bolsheviki lost such a great chance. They were unable to hold the
confidence of the people and to direct that confidence into
constructive channels. Not only had the Bolsheviki failed to operate
the big industries: they also destroyed the small kustarnaya work.
There had been thousands of artisans in the province of Kiev, for
instance; most of them had worked by themselves, without
exploiting any one. They were independent producers who supplied
a certain need of the community. The Bolsheviki in their reckless
scheme of nationalization suspended those efforts without being
able to replace them by aught else. They had nothing to give either
to the workers or to the peasants. The city proletariat faced the
alternative of starving in the city or going back to the country. They
preferred the latter, of course. Those who could not get to the
country engaged in trade, buying and selling jewellery, for instance.
Practically everybody in Russia had become a tradesman, the
Bolshevik Government no less than private speculators. "You have
no idea of the amount of illicit business carried on by officials in
Soviet institutions," my host informed me; "nor is the army free from
it. My nephew, a Red Army officer, a Communist, has just returned
from the Polish front. He can tell you about these practices in the
army."
I was particularly eager to talk to the young officer. In my travels I
had met many soldiers, and I found that most of them had retained
the old slave psychology and bowed absolutely to military discipline.
Some, however, were very wide awake and could see clearly what
was happening about them. A certain small element in the Red Army
was entirely transformed by the Revolution. It was proof of the
gestation of new life and new forms which set Russia apart from the
rest of the world, notwithstanding Bolshevik tyranny and oppression.
For that element the Revolution had a deep significance. They saw
in it something vital which even the daily decrees could not
compress within the narrow Communist mould. It was their attitude
and general sentiment that the Bolsheviki had not kept faith with the
people. They saw the Communist State growing at the cost of the
Revolution, and some of them even went so far as to voice the
opinion that the Bolsheviki had become the enemies of the
Revolution. But they all felt that for the time being they could do
nothing. They were determined to dispose of the foreign enemies
first. "Then," they would say, "we will face the enemy at home."
The Red Army officer proved a fine-looking young fellow very deeply
in earnest. At first he was disinclined to talk, but in the course of the
evening he grew less embarrassed and expressed his feelings freely.
He had found much corruption at the front, he said. But it was even
worse at the base of supplies where he had done duty for some
time. The men at the front were practically without clothes or shoes.
The food was insufficient and the Army was ravaged by typhoid and
cholera. Yet the spirit of the men was wonderful. They fought
bravely, enthusiastically, because they believed in their ideal of a free
Russia. But while they were fighting and dying for the great cause,
the higher officers, the so-called tovaristchi, sat in safe retreat and
there drank and gambled and got rich by speculation. The supplies
so desperately needed at the front were being sold at fabulous
prices to speculators.
The young officer had become so disheartened by the situation, he
had thought of committing suicide. But now he was determined to
return to the front. "I shall go back and tell my comrades what I
have seen," he said; "our real work will begin when we have
defeated foreign invasion. Then we shall go after those who are
trading away the Revolution."
I felt there was no cause to despair so long as Russia possessed
such spirits.
I returned to my room to find our secretary waiting to report the
valuable find she had made. It consisted of rich Denikin material
stacked in the city library and apparently forgotten by everybody.
The librarian, a zealous Ukrainian nationalist, refused to permit the
"Russian" Museum to take the material, though it was of no use to
Kiev, literally buried in an obscure corner and exposed to danger and
ruin. We decided to appeal to the Department of Education and to
apply the "American amulet." It grew to be a standing joke among
the members of the Expedition to resort to the "amulet" in difficult
situations. Such matters were always referred to Alexander Berkman
and myself as the "Americans."
It required considerable persuasion to interest the chairman in the
matter. He persisted in refusing till I finally asked him: "Are you
willing that it become known in America that you prefer to have
valuable historical material rot away in Kiev rather than give it to the
Petrograd Museum, which is sure to become a world centre for the
study of the Russian Revolution and where Ukraina is to have such
an important part?" At last the chairman issued the required order
and our Expedition took possession of the material, to the great
elation of our secretary, to whom the Museum represented the most
important interest in life.
In the afternoon of the same day I was visited by a woman
Anarchist who was accompanied by a young peasant girl,
confidentially introduced as the wife of Makhno. My heart stood still
for a moment: the presence of that girl in Kiev meant certain death
were she discovered by the Bolsheviki. It also involved grave danger
to my landlord and his family, for in Communist Russia harbouring—
even if unwittingly—a member of the Makhno povstantsi often
incurred the worst consequences. I expressed surprise at the young
woman's recklessness in thus walking into the very jaws of the
enemy. But she explained that Makhno was determined to reach us;
he would trust no one else with the message, and therefore she had
volunteered to come. It was evident that danger had lost all terror
for her. "We have been living in constant peril for years," she said
simply.
Divested of her disguise, she revealed much beauty. She was a
woman of twenty-five, with a wealth of jet-black hair of striking
lustre. "Nestor had hoped that you and Alexander Berkman would
manage to come, but he waited in vain," she began. "Now he sent
me to tell you about the struggle he is waging and he hopes that
you will make his purpose known to the world outside." Late into the
night she related the story of Makhno which tallied in all important
features with that told us by the two Ukrainian visitors in Petrograd.
She dwelt on the methods employed by the Bolsheviki to eliminate
Makhno and the agreements they had repeatedly made with him,
every one of which had been broken by the Communists the
moment immediate danger from invaders was over. She spoke of the
savage persecution of the members of the Makhno army and of the
numerous attempts of the Bolsheviki to trap and kill Nestor. That
failing, the Bolsheviki had murdered his brother and had
exterminated her own family, including her father and brother. She
praised the revolutionary devotion, the heroism and endurance of
the povstantsi in the face of the greatest difficulties, and she
entertained us with the legends the peasants had woven about the
personality of Makhno. Thus, for instance, there grew up among the
country folk the belief that Makhno was invulnerable because he had
never been wounded during all the years of warfare, in spite of his
practice of always personally leading every charge.
She was a good conversationalist, and her tragic story was relieved
by bright touches of humour. She told many anecdotes about the
exploits of Makhno. Once he had caused a wedding to be celebrated
in a village occupied by the enemy. It was a gala affair, everybody
attending. While the people were making merry on the market place
and the soldiers were succumbing to the temptation of drink,
Makhno's men surrounded the village and easily routed the superior
forces stationed there. Having taken a town it was always Makhno's
practice to compel the rich peasants, the kulaki, to give up their
surplus wealth, which was then divided among the poor, Makhno
keeping a share for his army. Then he would call a meeting of the
villagers, address them on the purposes of the povstantsi
movement, and distribute his literature.
Late into the night the young woman related the story of Makhno
and makhnovstchina. Her voice, held low because of the danger of
the situation, was rich and mellow, her eyes shone with the intensity
of emotion. "Nestor wants you to tell the comrades of America and
Europe," she concluded, "that he is one of them—an Anarchist
whose aim is to defend the Revolution against all enemies. He is
trying to direct the innate rebellious spirit of the Ukrainian peasant
into organized Anarchist channels. He feels that he cannot
accomplish it himself without the aid of the Anarchists of Russia. He
himself is entirely occupied with military matters, and he has
therefore invited his comrades throughout the country to take
charge of the educational work. His ultimate plan is to take
possession of a small territory in Ukraina and there establish a free
commune. Meanwhile, he is determined to fight every reactionary
force."
Makhno was very anxious to confer personally with Alexander
Berkman and myself, and he proposed the following plan. He would
arrange to take any small town or village between Kiev and Kharkov
where our car might happen to be. It would be carried out without
any use of violence, the place being captured by surprise. The
stratagem would have the appearance of our having been taken
prisoners, and protection would be guaranteed to the other
members of the Expedition. After our conference we would be given
safe conduct to our car. It would at the same time insure us against
the Bolsheviki, for the whole scheme would be carried out in military
manner, similar to a regular Makhno raid. The plan promised a very
interesting adventure and we were anxious for an opportunity to
meet Makhno personally. Yet we could not expose the other
members of the Expedition to the risk involved in such an
undertaking. We decided not to avail ourselves of the offer, hoping
that another occasion might present itself to meet the povstantsi
leader.
Makhno's wife had been a country school teacher; she possessed
considerable information and was intensely interested in all cultural
problems. She plied me with questions about American women,
whether they had really become emancipated and enjoyed equal
rights. The young woman had been with Makhno and his army for
several years, but she could not reconcile herself to the primitive
attitude of her people in regard to woman. The Ukrainian woman,
she said, was considered an object of sex and motherhood only.
Nestor himself was no exception in this matter. Was it different in
America? Did the American woman believe in free motherhood and
was she familiar with the subject of birth control?
It was astonishing to hear such questions from a peasant girl. I
thought it most remarkable that a woman born and reared so far
from the scene of woman's struggle for emancipation should yet be
so alive to its problems. I spoke to the girl of the activities of the
advanced women of America, of their achievements and of the work
yet to be done for woman's emancipation. I mentioned some of the
literature dealing with these subjects. She listened eagerly. "I must
get hold of something to help our peasant women. They are just
beasts of burden," she said.
Early the next morning we saw her safely out of the house. The
same day, while visiting the Anarchist club, I witnessed a peculiar
sight. The club had recently been reopened after having been raided
by the Tcheka. The local Anarchists met in the club rooms for study
and lectures; Anarchist literature was also to be had there. While
conversing with some friends I noticed a group of prisoners passing
on the street below. Just as they neared the Anarchist headquarters
several of them looked up, having evidently noticed the large sign
over the club rooms. Suddenly they straightened up, took off their
caps, bowed, and then passed on. I turned to my friends. "Those
peasants are probably makhnovstsi" they said; "the Anarchist
headquarters are sacred precincts to them." How exceptional the
Russian soul, I thought, wondering whether a group of American
workers or farmers could be so imbued with an ideal as to express it
in the simple and significant way the makhnovstsi did. To the
Russian his belief is indeed an inspiration.
Our stay in Kiev was rich in varied experiences and impressions. It
was a strenuous time during which we met people of different social
strata and gathered much valuable information and material. We
closed our visit with a short trip on the river Dniepr to view some of
the old monasteries and cathedrals, among them the celebrated
Sophievski and Vladimir. Imposing edifices, which remained intact
during all the revolutionary changes, even their inner life continuing
as before. In one of the monasteries we enjoyed the hospitality of
the sisters who treated us to real Russian tea, black bread, and
honey. They lived as if nothing had happened in Russia since 1914;
it was as if they had passed the last years outside of the world. The
monks still continued to show to the curious the sacred caves of the
Vladimir Cathedral and the places where the saints had been walled
in, their ossified bodies now on exhibition. Visitors were daily taken
through the vaults, the accompanying priests pointing out the cells
of the celebrated martyrs and reciting the biographies of the most
important of the holy family. Some of the stories related were
wonderful beyond all human credence, breathing holy superstition
with every pore. The Red Army soldiers in our group looked rather
dubious at the fantastic tales of the priests. Evidently the Revolution
had influenced their religious spirit and developed a sceptical
attitude toward miracle workers.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY
DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA ***

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