From Clare Sheridan’s Diary

AUGUST 14TH, 1920.   London.
    According to Mr. Fisher’s instructions, I called on Mr. M— at his office at 10.30 and introduced myself.

He took me in a taxi to Bond Street to the office of Messrs. Kameneff and Krassin. We waited for about twenty minutes in an antechamber . . .

At last the word came and we were ushered into the office of Mr. Kameneff who received me amiably and smilingly. We started off almost immediately, in French, and discussed the subject of his being willing to sit to me. . . .

He decided that the bust had better be started soon, as one never knew what might happen from one moment to the next, “what caprice of Monsieur Lloyd George” might elect to send him out of the country at a moment’s notice, so we decided on the following Tuesday at 10 a.m. Mr. Kameneff then took us downstairs to Krassin’s office. Mr. Krassin seemed very busy and preoccupied, had someone in the room, and didn’t quite know what I had come about, but he agreed to sit to me on the following Wednesday at 10 a.m.

AUGUST 17TH, 1920. Tuesday.
    Kamenev arrived almost punctually at 10 a.m., for an hour, but he stayed till 1 o’clock, and we talked for the whole three hours almost without stoping. . . .

After awhile Kameneff let drop a suggestion which did not fall on barren ground—he threw it out apparently causally, but I believe to see how I reacted to It. I had just been telling him that I had all my life a love of Russian literature, Russian music, Russian dancing, Russian art, and he said, “You should come to Russia.”

I said I had always dreamed it . . . .

He said : “You can come with me and I will get you sittings from Lenin and Trotsky.”

I thought he was joking, and hesitated a moment, then I said : “Let me know when you are going to start and I will be ready in half an hour.”

He offered to telegraph immediately to Moscow for permission !!

AUGUST 18, 1921, Wednesday.
    Krassin arrived at 10 A.M. and found me reading the papers, sitting on the seat outside the door. Like Kamenev, he stayed till 1 o’clock. . . . His French is less good than Kamenev’s and we broke into occasional German . . .

Kamenev had talked to him about me, and had told him of the project of my going to Moscow. I said nothing about it until he mentioned it.

What impresses me about these two men is their impassive imperturbability . . .

AUGUST 22ND, 1920. Sunday.
    Twelve hours with Kamenev !!!

He arrived at 11 A. M. with a huge album of photographs of the Revolution . . .

At 4 o’clock we went to Trafalgar Square to see what was going on. The Council of Action were having a meeting. Kamenev assured me he must not go near the platform, or be recognized by his friends, as he was under promise to the Government to take no part in demonstrations, nor to do any propaganda work. However, I dragged him by the hand to the outskirts of the crowd, and for no reason that I can explain, the shout went up : “Gangway for speakers,” and a channel opened up before us and we were rushed along it.

Happily for Kamenev, there was a hitch as we approached the platform. The crowd thought a policeman was favoritizing us, and getting us to the platform, and a youngish man said, “Stop that, policeman, this is a democratic meeting !” For a while I felt the hostility of the people around me.

One of the speakers, referring to the spirit of 1914, said we had given our husbands and sons then, but we didn’t mean over to give them again, and I, thinking of my boy, Dick, joined in the shouts of “Never, never!” with some feelings, and I felt the atmosphere kindlier around me after that. When Lansbury tried to speak he was acclaimed with cheers and had to wait patiently while they sang : “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and cheered him again.

He seemed to me to talk less of “Class” and more of “Cause.” Just for a second he paused, saying, “What we have to do, is to stop. . . .” I filled in the gap with “Mesopotamia.” Whereupon the crowd shouted: “Hear ! hear!” and “God bless you !” After that I was one of them. Then some one recognized Kamenev and the whisper went round and spread like wildfire. The men on either side of him asked if they might announce he was there, to which he answered a most emphatic “No.”

When Lansbury had finished speaking there was an appeal for money for the “Cause.” It was interesting to watch the steady rain of coins, and very touching to see how the poor gave their pennies. Lansbury buried his face in his hat to shield himself from the metallic rain.

Comment  This “Cause” had eventually brought about approximately 66 million people dead in the Soviet Union (according to some Russian sources) and 70-80 million people dead in the Red China (according to some Chinese sources). — (WPT).

After that we went away, and a gangway was made for us, and all along the whisper went of “Kamenev,”  . . .

We took a taxi and drove to Hampton Court, and there went outside the garden and into the park to get away from the Sunday crowd. We sat on his coat on the grass in the middle of an open space . . .

We talked about the meeting, and of the magnetism of a crowd. He noticed my suppressed excitement, for I had blood to the head. If we had been rushed to the platform I could have spoken to the people, I’m sure I could. He said he had been terribly moved to speak, and it had been a great effort to hold back.

We talked and talked . . .

It was a very successful evening, and we came back by the last train to Waterloo, still talking, chiefly about that impending and all absorbing visit to Moscow, and we parted on my doorstep at a quarter to midnight.

AUGUST 24TH, 1920. Tuesday.
    I felt ill, but got up early, expecting Krassin at 10, but at 10 I got a telephone message to the effect that neither Mr. Krassin nor Mr. Kamenev could see me to-day as the political crisis had caused a deluge of work.

Lloyd George at Lucerne had taken exception to the clause in the Russian Peace Terms, demanding that the Polish Civic Militia should be drawn from the working classes. This they say is an infringement of the liberty of Poland. Truth to tell, it’s the Polish success over the Red Army that has caused this diplomatic volte face. However, this is too big a subject to go into here.

At dinner time Kamenev telephoned me it was his first breathing space, and could he come and see me. I asked him to take pot-luck for dinner, and he arrived, a battered and worn fighting man. Full of indignation . . .

He stayed till 11, and said he felt better. It was very still here, and the peace did him good. There may be a “state of war” in a few days, and as things now stand they all depart on Friday. Great excitement, as I shall go with them.

AUGUST 15TH, 1920. Wednesday.
    Krassin gave me my second sitting at 5 P.M. and stayed till 7 : 30. I heard all the latest news. . . .

AUGUST 26TH, 1920. Thursday.
    Krassin offered me a third sitting and came again at 5 and stayed till after 7. War is averted, and he assures me that Kamenev under no excuse can possibly leave for Russia before a fortnight. . . .

AUGUST 27TH, 1920. Friday.
    Kamenev came at eleven to give me a last sitting. He was in a much happier frame of mind, chuckling over Tchitcherin’s reply to Lloyd George, which is an impudent bit of propaganda work, and ALL the papers HAVE to publish it because it is official !

Comment  Ms. Sheridan apparently did think all this to be rather funny. (Please see my comment above.)  Rosenfeld (Kamenev)’s chuckling was presumably quite genuine. He could have no faintest idea that he was gloating over a propaganda ‘victory’ by a regime which had him eventually executed, in Moscow on 25th August, 1936 (data got in the Internet). — (WPT).

Russian Portraits by Clare Sheridan
London : Jonathan Cape, 1921.
( Or : ) Mayfair to Moscow — Clare Sheridan’s Diary.
New York : Boni and Liveright, 1921.