SHE TALKED ABOUT RUSSIA

"We believe that the people of Russia must themselves solve the problems of their political and social life, but we believe also that as we in the United States, at the beginning of our national life and at a crisis in our history were glad to receive sympathy and help from other nations, so now we should be glad to give such sympathy and help to the Russian people in their struggle for freedom." This was the beginning line of the address written in 1905 by Jack London and his friend, Anna Strunsky. January 9, 1905, the day many Russian workers were massacred, caused a movement of protest in the distant America. To Anna Strunsky, a dark-eyed, brave young woman and inspirational speaker, this became an invitation to support the Russian Revolution movement.

With Jack London, she wrote a book about love, The Kempton-Wace Letters. She was a good psychologist and was free of formal style and prudishness. "It is easy for her to find ways with people. Her knowledge is vast. She is joy and fun to be around. She is Russian. . . ." said London, describing Strunsky. I also read a letter written by the founder of the Socialist Party in the United States, Eugene Debs. In that letter, he characterized Strunsky as a courageous teammate, who was ready to give her energy for the good of the people.

What if Strunsky were still alive? I checked, talked to local people and was told that she moved from San Francisco, possibly to New York. I soon found myself sitting in a small, cozy room in an old house in New York. Two charming young women smiled at me from a portrait on the wall. These were Anna Strunsky's daughters. In front of me sat Strunsky herself, an energetic woman with gray hair and young eyes.

"I met Jack London for the first time at a lecture on a Paris Commune in the fall of 1899. I noticed him when he came closer to the tribune to greet the speaker. One of my friends whispered into my ear: 'I can introduce you if you want. This is Jack London, who makes speeches on the streets of Oakland. He traveled to the Klondike and now writes stories.' We shook hands and started talking about something. I felt some inexplicable joy! For me, this was equal to meeting with young Lassel, or Karl Marx, or Byron himself. Some inner feeling was telling me that here is a historical person standing in front of me. How did I know that? I can't tell you. However, it proved to be true. London really is among the immortals. Back then, he was standing in front of me — a young, twenty-two-year-old man with big blue eyes and a beautiful, ready-to-give-a-smile mouth. His eyebrows, nose, features of his face and strong neck carried a classical symmetry. His figure indicated physical strength, although he was shorter than the average American.

"He was dressed in a soft sweater and gray pants. Our friendship began on that very day. You could say that this relationship was a struggle. We argued a lot, trying to convince each other. The idea of writing a book together came to us in our discussion during a trip on a yacht, in the company of Bess, Jack's first wife, and Charmian.

"London was youth itself, an embodiment of adventure. He was a poet and a philosopher, a true friend. He was also capable of great love. He came out from the same chasm that devoured millions of people of his generation. Very emotional by nature, he forced himself to stick with the chosen path. He lived according a very a strict schedule. His norm in writing was a thousand words a day, edited and typed.

"He devoted his evenings to reading of works in science, history, and sociology and called it a construction of a scientific background. In his leisure time, he used to fence and swim. He was a great swimmer. Many hours Jack London spent flying kites, of which he had a whole collection.

"When young, Jack wrote a lot of poetry. His poetry had a Miltonian element of beauty in it, which carried over into his prose. It was no wonder that London's prose became an example of English language and style in the universities of Russia and the Sorbonne.

"Jack was determined to write poetry, but poets were usually subjected to starvation unless they had some other source of living. Therefore, he put off poetry until better times, when he would have fame and money. However, when poetry had been put off again, death came to him before he was able to fulfill himself as a poet." Anna Strunsky obviously was excited — she spoke rapidly, her hands moved nervously on the table with papers and photographs. The memories rushed across her mind faster than she could tell them. She gave me several pages of her memoirs written shortly after London's death. The following is an excerpt from her memoirs:

"I see him as if he is here. With one hand, he holds a handle of the bicycle. In the other — a big bouquet of yellow roses picked from his garden. His hat sits on the back of his head, showing his thick auburn hair. An incredibly manly and handsome guy — kindness and wisdom in his eyes do not quite match his youthfulness. I see him on a May morning, on the patio covered with ivy. He watches two singing birds. He was a captive of beauty — beauty of birds and flowers, sea and sky, and beauty of cold Arctic desert. Nobody could say with more assertiveness — 'Oh, I've really lived!'" I asked Mrs. Anna Strunsky to remember the time of Russian Revolution of 1905.

"Do not call me 'Mrs. Strunsky,' just Anna," she corrected me. "Mrs. Strunsky sounds too formal."

In her letter prior to our meeting, Strunsky addressed me as "comrade"; here, in the house, she just called me "Vil." I did not feel comfortable calling her by her first name. So, I addressed her with "Dear Anna Strunsky."

"It was a difficult time,"— she continued her story. "We were raising money for Russian Revolutionaries. I wrote leaflets, which were distributed among Russian sailors. In 1906, a year after the Bloody Sunday of January 9th, my husband and I asked Gorky to sign a manifesto to socialists all over the world regarding this event. He signed it. My future husband, English Walling, a famous Socialist, left to go to St. Petersburg in 1905. From there, he sent us articles. He also wrote a truthful book about things in Russia. Together with my sister, Rose, I went to St. Petersburg in December of that year. In October of 1907, tsarist guards had arrested my husband and me and some Finnish Revolutionaries. Soon, however, we were released, since we were American citizens and they did not have any valid reason to keep us under arrest."

Anna showed me some photos made in Russia. There was also a leaflet, a caricature: The tsar sits on the throne covered with people's blood. She talked about visiting Leo Tolstoy at his estate at Yasnaya Polyana: "He showed us his house and talked about Socialism, love, war, piece, and revolution. We tried to make sense out of what was going on in Russia. I presented Tolstoy with the book Jack and I wrote together, The Kempton-Wace Letters." Anna talked some more about books. Her favorite writers were Shakespeare, Dante, Whitman, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Thomas Hardy. She read Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, and was deeply affected by Voynich's novel Gadfly. She almost knew it by heart.

I helped her come down from the 5th floor, and we went out for dinner at a small Italian cafe located in the lower part of the building. It was peaceful there. Even the pictures of "beatniks," American bohemia, did not spoil the coziness of this place. We ate spaghetti with mushrooms and cheese, and drank coffee. Anna openly showed her happiness at the news about her book. It had been 30 years since The Kempton-Wace Letters was translated to Russian and published in the Collected Works of Jack London.

It was already late — nobody ever came into the cafe at that hour. Anna continued her story. She was an active member of a society for racial equality. I had to remind her that the spaghetti would get cold if she did not eat it. I felt incredible warmth toward this woman, who devoted her life to serving the good of the people. She came from her summerhouse, changing trains and taking a steamboat to meet with me, a Jack London fan, a person from the land of her ancestors. Anna Strunsky gave me the original of Gorky's letter to her husband that had never been published. She also gave me copies of London's letters. In return, I presented her with a volume of the Russian publication of London's works and several books in English, also published in the Soviet Union. These were books on our ballets, cinema, with pictures of our cities. I signed one of the picture albums, "To Anna Strunsky from one of the Russians, with great respect and gratitude for the kindness and help you gave Russian people in hard times of their history. July, 1959."