Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as Your, myself, yourself, me

He comes to Soviet Russia exultant, ready to ignore doctrinal differences and work for the Revolution, and finds himself instead learning its daily texture: surrogat tea, thin soup, and the anxious glance at an empty chair that means more for the rest. His American crackers and condensed milk make him briefly a benefactor at a communal table where Ukrainians hoard salo wrapped in Tsarist police circulars. His growing doubt is the book's engine, turning a pilgrimage into a reckoning.

Nestor Makhno

supporting

Also known as Makhno, young Makhno

To peasants of the South he is their truest friend, one of their own; to Moscow he is a bandit and counterrevolutionary; to the anarchists at the communal table he is the Revolution's last living expression. He proclaims free speech and empty jails wherever he takes a town, and refuses Trotsky's order to march against the Poles, seeing in it a scheme to strip his district of defenders. Whether he is liberator or warlord is the argument the narrator cannot settle.

Lenin

major

Also known as XIII Lenin, ↩ Lenin

The narrator arrives believing Lenin's own assertion that he and his followers are ultimately anarchists, that political power is only a temporary means. That faith is the premise of the whole journey, and every requisition, prison, and silenced press chips at it. Lenin never needs to appear in a scene to dominate it: he is the standard against which the Revolution's drift is measured.

Chicherin

supporting

Also known as VI Chicherin

He turns night into day in a cold office, shawl slipping onto his papers, snapping at a clerk over a confused draft and then snatching it away to retype himself. He asks the narrator how soon revolution might come to America, and calls him pessimistic for doubting it. His feverish, threadbare devotion to recognition and lifting the blockade embodies the besieged state's strange blend of exhaustion and zeal.

Zinoviev

supporting

Also known as Tovarish Zinoviev, tovarish

He belongs to the tier of Bolshevik leadership the narrator encounters as the Revolution's public face, invoked with the easy familiarity of comrades who preside over meetings and circles. Around him cluster the small human comedies of the new order: the servant turned presiding Bolshevik, the samovar, the shared tovarish. His presence marks how thoroughly the party has become the state's ruling apparatus.

Peter Kropotkin

supporting

Also known as Kropotkin, Peter

He looks tired and weak, exhausted by the mere presence of visitors, and the narrator fears he may not live long under such conditions. That the Ukraine's anarchists and even Makhno must smuggle him provisions is a quiet indictment of the Revolution he spent his life imagining. His frailty gives the narrator's disillusion a human face: the old ideal starving in the city that claims to have realized it.

Karakhan

minor

Soviet diplomat and deputy to Chicherin.

Alexander Berkman

supporting

Also known as Berkman, Comrade Berkman

An anarchist veteran of the American movement, Berkman returns to revolutionary Russia only to watch the Bolsheviks strangle the revolution he came to serve.

Emma Goldman

supporting

Also known as Emma

Berkman's fiery companion, Goldman laughs easily and grieves hard, measuring the Revolution by the fate of imprisoned comrades like Spiridonova.

Trotsky

minor

Bolshevik leader and founder of the Red Army.

Radek

minor

Bolshevik politician and journalist.

Kamenev

minor

Bolshevik leader and chairman of the Moscow Soviet.

Lunacharsky

minor

Also known as Comrade Lunacharsky

People's Commissar for Education and culture.

Angelica Balabanova

minor

Also known as Balabanova

Italian socialist and Comintern official.

Bertrand Russell

minor

Also known as Russell

British philosopher visiting Soviet Russia.

Yossif

supporting

Also known as XXIV Yossif

Known as the Emigrant, Yossif is a beloved Ukrainian anarchist organizer whose sunny idealism curdles into militant faith in Makhno's peasant uprising.

Moishe

minor

Also known as Reb Moishe

A Jewish character encountered by the narrator.

Dr. G⸺

minor

Also known as G⸺

A doctor who appears in the narrative.

Tovarish Karus

minor

Also known as Karus, tovarish

A Bolshevik official encountered by the narrator.

The Chekist

minor

Also known as the young Chekist

A member of the Cheka secret police.

Tovarish Drozdov

minor

Also known as Drozdov

A Bolshevik official or comrade.

Liza Zorin

minor

Also known as Zorin, Liza

A woman encountered by the narrator.

Lena

minor

Also known as Poor Lena

A woman encountered by the narrator.

Burov

minor

A character in the narrative.

Ethel Bernstein

minor

Also known as Miss Ethel Bernstein

An American woman visiting Russia.

Bakaiev

minor

A Bolshevik official.

Gallina

minor

A woman encountered by the narrator.

Mr. Berkshire

minor

Also known as Berkshire

A British visitor to Russia.

Novikov

minor

Also known as Comrade Novikov

A Bolshevik official.

Mme. Lunacharskaya

minor

Also known as Lunacharskaya

Wife of Lunacharsky.

The Colonel

minor

A military officer encountered by the narrator.

Big Samuel

minor

Also known as Sam

A Jewish character encountered by the narrator.

Semyon Petrovitch

minor

Also known as Semyon

A character in the narrative.

Bianki

minor

A character in the narrative.

Fanya Baron

minor

Also known as Baron, little Fanya

An anarchist woman encountered by the narrator.

N⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

Little Vera

minor

Also known as Vera

A young girl encountered by the narrator.

Rostchin

minor

A character in the narrative.

Krestinsky

minor

A Bolshevik official.

Lansbury

minor

British Labour politician visiting Russia.

Petlura

minor

Also known as Dictator Petlura

Ukrainian nationalist leader.

Kalinin

minor

Also known as President Kalinin

Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

Maria Spiridonova

minor

Also known as Spiridonova

Left Socialist Revolutionary leader.

Henry Alsberg

minor

Also known as Alsberg

American journalist and relief worker.

Bukharin

minor

Bolshevik leader and theorist.

K⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

Tchaikovsky

minor

A character in the narrative.

Skoropadsky

minor

Also known as Hetman Skoropadsky

Ukrainian hetman during the civil war.

Askarev

minor

Also known as the Universalist Askarev

A universalist thinker encountered by the narrator.

Astrov

minor

Also known as ↩ Astrov

A character in the narrative.

Sergei

minor

Also known as the Kharitonensky Sergei

A character in the narrative.

Louise Bryant

minor

Also known as Louise

American journalist and wife of John Reed.

Jack Reed

minor

Also known as Reed

American journalist and author of Ten Days That Shook the World.

Pashkevitch

minor

A character in the narrative.

Bill Shatov

minor

Also known as Shatov, Bill

An American-born Bolshevik and engineer.

Nadya

minor

A woman known to the narrator.

R⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

D⸺

minor

Also known as The young Bundist

A young Bundist encountered by the narrator.

Yasha

minor

A character in the narrative.

Sasha

minor

A character in the narrative.

T⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

Pyotr Vassilitch

minor

Also known as Pyotr

A character in the narrative.

Stepan

minor

A character in the narrative.

Dr. L⸺

minor

Also known as young L⸺, L⸺

A young doctor encountered by the narrator.

X⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

Ataman Grigoriev

minor

Also known as Grigoriev, The Ataman

Ukrainian ataman who rebelled against the Bolsheviks.

Kolya

minor

A character in the narrative.

Kerensky

minor

Former head of the Russian Provisional Government.

Antselovitch

minor

A Bolshevik official.

Tchernenko

minor

A character in the narrative.

Peters

minor

A Cheka official.

Mariusa

minor

A woman encountered by the narrator.

V⸺

minor

A character whose name is redacted.

Lilina

minor

Also known as tovarish Lilina

A Bolshevik woman official.

Vanya

minor

A character in the narrative.

Count Pirro

minor

Also known as Pirro

An Italian count encountered by the narrator.

Kulakov

minor

A character in the narrative.

Vladimir

minor

A character in the narrative.

Old Peter

minor

An elderly character encountered by the narrator.

Semyon Voskov

minor

Also known as Voskov

A Bolshevik official.

Victor Chernov

minor

Also known as Chernov

Leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

Marusya

minor

A woman encountered by the narrator.

Joffe

minor

Soviet diplomat.

Demian Bedni

minor

Bolshevik poet and propagandist.