would be granted the parliamentary vote and be an effective force for social
reform.
Accompanied by Jessie Kenney, Emmeline left for Petrograd in early June,
due to sail on the same boat as Ramsay MacDonald. She was elated when two
leaders of the patriotic Seamen’s Union, Captain Tupper and Havelock Wilson,
greeted her at the quay with the news that the crew refused to sail until
MacDonald disembarked.^9 She not only abhorred his pacifist views but had
long held contempt for his class-ridden, dismissive comments on window-
breaking expeditions by militant women, as on one occasion when he had said,
‘I have the very strongest objection to childishness masquerading as revolution.
... I wish the working women of the country who really care for the vote ...
would come to London and tell these pettifogging middle-class damsels who are
going out with little hammers in their muffs that if they do not go home they
will get their heads broken.’^10
Arriving on 18 June in Petrograd, where red flags were flying from govern-
ment offices and most other buildings, Emmeline and Jessie were met by
Professor Thomas Masaryk, a friend of Christabel’s; he had booked rooms for
them in the Hotel Angleterre. Soon to become the first president of
Czechoslovakia, Masaryk was in Russia in an attempt to form into independent
divisions the many thousands of Czechoslovak troops who had deserted from
the Austro-Hungarian army.^11 On the advice of Dr. Anna Shabanova, President
of the All Russian Women’s Union, the two women soon moved to the Hotel
Astoria which was considered safer since many military and naval personnel
were staying there. They were told that their balcony, which looked out over
the imposing St. Isaac’s Square, was the one from which the Kaiser had threat-
ened to address the Russian people when the German army marched into
Petrograd.^12
Emmeline’s role as the leader of the British women’s militant movement was
well known in Russia since her autobiography, My own story, had been widely
read in its Russian translation, even in girls’ high schools; in particular, the
stand she had taken against the British government had been much admired.
She soon gathered around her a devoted group of women who helped in any
way they could, especially in regard to the food shortage. The helpers waited
patiently in queues to buy the white bread Emmeline needed since the black
variety had proved indigestible, further exacerbating the gastric problems from
which she was still suffering, owing to her imprisonments. When the hotel staff
went on strike, the Russian friends came round tidying the rooms, foraging for
food, and making tea on a primus stove lent by a soldier. The interpreters
assigned to Emmeline visited each day, bringing the Russian papers which they
would read and translate.
A steady stream of visitors came to the hotel or left their cards, including a
British chaplain, a Commissioner of the British Red Cross, aristocrats and
Embassy officials, Lady Egerton, Lady Muriel Paget (who was in charge of an
Anglo-Russian hospital and had sailed on the same ship as Emmeline and
WAR EMISSARY TO RUSSIA