In Memory of M. S. Glazman

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Today is already the fourth day that a nightmarish cloud has hung over all those who knew Glazman and have learned of his death. Glazman — firm and courageous, great in endurance despite his physical frailty, totally devoted to the revolution — Glazman has shot himself.

He was expelled from the party by the Moscow Control Commission. The Central Committee has already ruled the expulsion an error. The investigation into this error is taking its course. But between the expulsion and the acknowledgment of error, Glazman had time to shoot himself. Despite his firm self-possession, despite his exceptional moral courage, this error proved more than Glazman could bear. It was too monstrous. Glazman shot himself. This is something that no longer can be reversed.

Glazman joined — or rather, grew to be part of — the Bolshevik Party during the civil war. He was a stenographer by training and a fine one. But everything Glazman did he did well, attentively, accurately, conscientiously, and through to the end. It was this quality of his* the highest level of integrity in work, that attracted people to him, above all those who knew how to appreciate this precious quality. In Glazman’s case, being conscientious about his work did not mean adopting an officious attitude. There was nothing of the time-server or chair-warmer in him, although a goodly half of his work was pure office routine. He was a revolutionist and a party activist. His conscientiousness in work expressed his sense of revolutionary duty, which permeated him through and through. Frail and infirm in — appearance, Glazman was an unremitting worker. Not that he never grew tired. The ashen color of his face and dark circles under his eyes often told how terribly tired he was. But he refused to acknowledge fatigue. Unhurriedly and even, from the look of it, phlegmatically, he literally devoured work. It would be good to have a count of the number of working hours Glazman put in during his six years’ service to the revolution: They would be enough to account for twenty years in the lives of many, very many, other people.

Glazman was asked to join our military train as a stenographer in August 1918, that is, the same month the train was being fitted out for the Kazan campaign. Prom that time on there was hardly a moment when Glazman and I were not together. His life and his work — and his life was summed up in his work — went on before my eyes. He became my closest collaborator. The authority of this small, sickly person, with his quiet movements and weak, always even-toned voice, was recognized by everyone. It was the authority of moral strength, revolutionary duty, honesty, and supreme selflessness. Even Glazman’s stenographic work, through force of circumstance, took on the nature of a heroic feat: for three years he was compelled to take most of his shorthand in a railroad car on a train going full tilt. I can still see his thin, bony back bent over the desk in our car. The train is rocking so badly that it is hard to keep one’s feet in front of the swaying map suspended from the ceiling. Glazman is glued to his chair; the movements of his small, thin hand are barely detectible. But he is completely absorbed in his work. And so he remains — for hours, sometimes all day, sometimes all night, even more often, all day and night. Articles, orders, conversations over the open wire — everything went through his hands. When he would bring a stack of decoded materials to be checked and signed, it was rare that a mistake, misunderstanding, or omission appeared. Glazman was all attention, all conscientiousness; he greatly disliked errors. Fate willed that he fall victim to an error.

Glazman was not only a stenographer and secretary. He was a soldier of the revolution, and not in the figurative, but in the most immediate and literal sense. He knew how to use a rifle, a pistol, and an automatic pistol, and use them well. He was obliged to carry out many an assignment in combat and under fire. At especially difficult moments, when the troop detachment of the train had to disembark to plug a hole in the front, Glazman would say: “Request permission to go with the detachment.” And though it was difficult to be left without him, one could not refuse. The tall fur hat, the papakha, sat ludicrously on this small and always close-cropped head. The triple-bore rifle seemed out of proportion to his small size and sunken chest. The pince-nez beneath the papakha violated military appearances even more. But this was a true soldier, a quiet, calm, even-tempered hero, unaware of his heroism.

Slowly, it would almost seem phlegmatically, he descended the steps of the train. But after a week or two he would be back. And once again his hand would trace out the ever so tiny hieroglyphics at the desk in the railroad car rushing along at sixty miles an hour.

Glazman was for a long time the secretary of the Military Revolutionary Council. He would sit motionless as though indifferent to the proceedings. But he heard everything, grasped the essence of everything, understood everything. The necessary information was always in his hands the minute it was needed. He would catch up suggestions on the fly. He worked noiselessly and without talking, but with what remarkable accuracy!

A countless number of tasks passed through his hands, involving party, military, personal, or incidental matters. How many assignments he was given during congresses, conferences, and other gatherings! He noted down everything, and carried it out or saw to its completion — and in every task and every assignment he displayed remarkable sensitivity and personal tact, and always distinguished correctly between what was important and what was not, what was true and what false. Each time information of a party nature was needed, I was astonished anew to see how well he remembered all the resolutions and discussions of party congresses and how closely he followed party literature.

Surely it will not be out of place for me to say how much of my own work was linked with the labors of this inestimable friend and comrade-in-arms. All my literary work of the past six years was done in constant collaboration with Glazman. His part in this collaboration went far beyond mere stenographic transcription. No, he was always at the heart of the matter, collecting materials, finding sources, references, quotations. With what endearing shyness he would give his suggestions, invariably well thought out, serious, and valuable.

Recently he did a great deal of work on preparing for publication my two-volume book 1917. He dug untiringly through newspapers and archival material, discovering unsigned articles and resolutions, checking and comparing. I was struck by the accuracy of his judgment, the rightness of his guesses. He looked terribly exhausted, but he did not wish to leave for a vacation until he had brought the work to completion. I left Moscow on August 20. The evening of September 21 received from Glazman a list of questions on a number of literary matters. How far I was at the time from thinking that the author of those questions was no longer alive! The next day came a telegram: “Today Glazman committed suicide after learning of his expulsion from the party.” That blow came as too much of a shock for him. An enemy bullet at the front he could expect; the further advance of his tuberculosis he could and did expect; but he did not and could not expect expulsion from the party. That was a blow he could not endure.

The expulsion of Glazman has been ruled an error by a higher party body. He was buried today — the day these lines are written — as a revolutionary, a party member, a Bolshevik, that is, as what he was in life.

To the grave has gone a priceless individual — pure, firm, never ingratiating or sly. One of those on whom the party could rely under the most trying circumstances. People like Glazman remain true to the end. What a loss! What sorrow to all who knew him! He has gone from us in such a terrible way — our dear, quiet, steady Glazman, Forgive us, young friend, that we did not protect and save you.