p I had been separated from Sverdlov for eighteen months, most of which time I had spent in Ekaterinburg under police surveillance. I stayed longer than I intended to, for the baby was born there, but in the autumn of 1911 I took the child and ran away.

p While in Moscow, without papers or permission, I stayed with a friend, Sanya Anisimova. The idea of going to Sverdlov came to me there but, as a boat put in at Maksimkin Yar only twice a year, I knew that it was impossible, especially as the baby was less than a year old then.

p Sverdlov wrote to me a lot from Narym, mostly on personal subjects. When I sent the first photographs of baby Andrei, he replied:

p ’The photos along with what you tell me make me so proud, so happy. I have been showing this work of art to all and sundry... I sometimes wonder what I will mean to him, being with him so rarely. Will I be there when he takes his first steps? Will I be there when he becomes aware of the world around him and begins to ask questions? I have been doing a lot of thinking...’

p He had written earlier from Maksimkin Yar:

p ’Thousands of miles, but sometimes it feels like no distance at all... I used to mull over our relationship, but I hardly ever do that now. So little together, so long apart—a day of joy, months of misery. Does it really make sense to stay together? To answer that question I had to answer another: Does it make sense to ask a question like that? The obvious answer is that life is not measured by the passage of time but by the intensity with which we live. And there is no doubt that 62 we have both developed as a result of being together... I think we can both be sure that we would and should do the same if we had our time over again.’

p It is true that we were not often together: while he was in prison or exile in one place, I was being held in another. When we were released, we sometimes managed to stay together for a few months, but more often it was a question of weeks or days.

p While in Petersburg I received the letter from Narym telling me that we would meet soon, though not in Siberia. I waited through the spring and summer of 1912 but Sverdlov did not come and I heard no more from him. I did not know what to think but was sure that it was pointless to wait any longer. I collected some money from comrades and set off.

p Having reached Tomsk with no problem, I sailed down the Ob to Kolpashevo, where I judged Sverdlov to be from his last letter. I was warmly greeted by the Bolsheviks there but they had bad news for me; a day or two before Sverdlov had been sent to Tomsk prison. I was dreadfully upset; in leaving Tomsk I had been increasing my distance from my husband, not decreasing it! There was nothing for it but to return. I was so impatient that I paid no heed to their pleas to wait until the situation was clarified somewhat; I had to get to Tomsk in a hurry, especially as the river would not be. navigable much longer.

p The exiles, seeing that their pleas were in vain, gave me what they could in the way of clothes and other essentials and put me on the steamer. I would have had a bad time in Tomsk, alone in an unfamiliar town, with a baby and almost destitute, if it had not been for the Naumovs, whom I had known as a girl in Ekaterinburg.

p An soon as I could, I went to make enquiries and try to arrange a meeting with Sverdlov. A gandarme colonel agreed to speak to me, and when I told him I was Sverdlov’s wife and had come with our baby to be near my husband, he began to behave with uncommon courtesy. Accepting that I was Sverdlov’s wife without any documentary proof, he arranged a meeting, and what a meeting—not in the office in front of everybody, with a grille between us, but in Sverdlov’s cell, alone together.

p I was ready to run straight to the prison but it was late. I do not know how I got through the night; I only remember that my head was full of nonsense and I could not sleep.

p In the morning I set out with the drowsy baby in my arms. The prison gate creaked open but the office was deserted because I had come so early. As the minutes passed Andrei began to whimper with hunger. At last someone came, I went through the final formalities and 63 found myself in a dark corridor. The keys rattled in the lock; the door swung open...

p Sverdlov was taking his ’morning constitutional”, striding rapidly from corner to corner of his cell—six paces each way—unaware that I was even in Tomsk. At the sound of the key he turned his head, expecting to see the warder’s tiresomely familiar features. Instead he saw me and little Andrei, and froze in his tacks. The door closed behind me. We were alone.

p I can say little about that meeting because I remember so little— only that it seemed to last a few seconds, not the hour that it really was. I no longer know which of us did more talking, who asked the most questions, who replied. Andrei did not let us forget that he was there too; in the gloom of that Tomsk solitary confinement cell Sverdlov first laid eyes on his eighteen-month-old son.

p The key sounded again in the lock all too soon. I took Andrei to the Naumovs’ and fed him quickly, then went straight to the gendarme office. I spoke to the same colonel, who was again considerate and kind. He said that he would try to have Sverdlov sent from prison back to exile if I would go with him, taking the baby.

p That explained everything! The ’kind and considerate’ gendarmes had read Sverdlov’s letters, knew that he was boundlessly devoted to us, longed to be with us, and calculated that we would be more effective in holding him there than any guard—which only shows how little they understood the Bolshevik mentality. Naturally I agreed and the following day the Governor of Tomsk Province received this dispatch:

’l beg leave to request the transfer of Sverdlov to Parabel, in view of the imminent discontinuance of river traffic. Sverdlov’s wife has arrived with an eighteen-month-old child. She volunteers to remain in exile with him.’

p

p Parabel was about three miles from the river but they considered that too close; maybe he was a family man, but there was no point in putting temptation in his way. They also felt that it would be easier to watch him in a smaller place than Parabel, where there were dozens of exiles. They sent us to a godforsaken hamlet of four or five houses called Kostyrevaya.

p We rented a room in a peasant’s house and, although there were problems and money was very short, we did not do badly. Sverdlov took over the housework, always doing the cooking and usually the washing, and I had to fight to be allowed even to help. It was not just that he had looked after himself in prison and exile for years; it was a question of principle. For a genuine Bolshevik the equality of women and their emancipation from housework was a matter for action, not words.

p Sverdlov spent a lot of time with our son. It was as if he wanted to make up to him for the years they had been apart and also to store up fond memories for the future.

p He rarely left Kostyrevaya, even to go to Parabel; he seemed to be quietly contented with his lot, having dismissed once and for all the idea of escape. At first his guards looked in on us two or three times a day but they always found him at home playing with the baby or doing the housework, and began to relax. Appearances were deceptive, of course; Sverdlov had started to plan his escape almost as soon as we arrived. He loved us but never for a moment forgot that his place was in the frontline of the revolution that was daily gaining ground among the Russian proletariat. He could not let us tie him down when the Party needed him, in that climactic year of 1912.

p By an extreme effort of will he managed to maintain the calm appearance of a man satisfied with life but he concealed nothing from me.

p I had not seen him for almost two years. It struck me, as he strode around our room telling me—and the peacefully sleeping baby—all his plans, how much he had matured in that time. I attributed it to his experiences in exile: his diligent study of theoretical texts, the organising that he had done under extremely difficult circumstances, his contact with Party groups in Russia and careful assessment of their needs, and his constant association with a group of politically mature working people who were courageously bearing the burden of their exile in Narym. His mental scope, as a result, was wider, his understanding of the political situation sounder, his comprehension of the Party’s problems deeper. And this made it harder to sit in idleness.

p We agreed that if he got away safely, he would let me know. I would go to Tomsk with Andrei and wait to hear from him again.

His fifth escape was a success. I soon heard that he was beyond Tomsk. Our comrades again gave my son and myself some basic necessities and we left for Kolpashevo, where we spent two days with the Dilevsky sisters. A letter reached us in Tomsk and we went to join Sverdlov in Petersburg.