p When the gendarmes arrested the Moscow committee they did not find any incriminating documents nor did their search of Sverdlov’s flat or their interrogations reveal anything.

p I have before me the record of one of his last interrogations, dated 13 January 1910; it now belongs to the USSR Museum of the 46 Revolution. It shows, incidentally, that this 25-year-old man was in police custody for the seventh time. The record is brief; it consists of one sentence, written in a clear firm hand: ’I hereby refuse to testify, Yakov Sverdlov.’ This meant that the charges had to be based on the reports of informers, which no court would accept as sufficient evidence. Sentences of imprisonment, convict labour and exile for life could only be given by a court. The police had to content themselves with exile by administrative order.

p In all the years he spent in prison and exile, it was rare for Sverdlov to ask a personal favour of the tsarist administration. But the idea of going abroad had seized him again, this time so strongly that he wrote on 17 March 1910 to the police department:

p ’Shortly before my arrest I spent three and a half years in prison, which did considerable harm to my already weak constitution. The spring weather has further impaired the condition of my lungs.

p ’On these grounds I request the Police Department not to exile me to some distant part of the Empire, if such is to be my sentence, but to permit me to emigrate. ’

p Sverdlov’s file also includes a certificate from Kolesnikov, the prison doctor, who could hardly be accused of over-indulgence towards Bolsheviks, stating that ’Sverdlov suffers from chronic catarrh of the upper left lung, apparently tubercular in origin’. But despite this the request was not granted.

p The police had no intention of letting him emigrate now that they had caught him. It was fine that he was ill, and all the better if it was serious; they counted on illness taking its toll in the dreadful Siberian environment where so many dedicated champions of the working class perished, victims of some grave illness from which they could easily have recovered if their conditions had been even slightly improved.

p I heard from Sverdlov regularly up to December 1909, when we suddenly lost touch. Fearing that he had been arrested, I took a week’s leave and went to Moscow, where I met his sister, Sara, who confirmed my suspicions. Sverdlov was in the police cells on Arbat street. It seemed so unfair that he had enjoyed only three months of freedom after three and a half years in jail.

p I asked to see him, if only briefly, but was refused. Even close relatives needed official permission and we were not even legally married. I persisted in going to the police station, and standing in the yard for hours in the snow, not really knowing what I was hoping for. But one day my patience was rewarded—Sverdlov saw me and had time to shout that he was going to be exiled, that I was to keep calm and wait for news. Then they dragged him away from the window.

p On 31 March 1910 the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to Narym territory for three years. The following August I was taking a holiday in Ekaterinburg, when who should appear but Sverdlov! He had escaped after less than four months in exile.

p He did not plan to stay in Ekaterinburg, for he valued every moment of freedom, was desperate to make contact with the Central Committee and get back to work. Besides, he was known in the town; it would be terribly risky to stay, especially now that he was a fugitive. We left immediately for Perm, intending to go on from there as soon as we could.

p During his brief time in Ekaterinburg Sverdlov had met a few of his old colleagues, including Mikhail Permyakov, who gave him his own passport, which he used until he was arrested again.

p The scenery on the boat ride from Perm to Nizhni Novgorod along the Kama and Volga rivers was truly lovely. Sverdlov had long wanted to make this trip and it was all the more wonderful because we did it together.

After a few days in Nizhni Novgorod, where we stayed with Sverdlov’s father, whom he had not seen for over five years, we proceeded to Moscow. Sverdlov had an arrangement to meet one of the leaders of the regional Party group. Not wanting to take any unnecessary risks, he asked me to go to the rendezvous in his stead. After numerous attempts I still had not succeeded in making contact with this comrade; we never knew whether he had been arrested or had simply gone away. A week passed; there was no point in staying and my leave was almost over. We went on to Petersburg.