The People's Train (38 page)

My central character, Artem (Tom) Samsurov, is based on an escaped Russian prisoner named Artem Sergeev (or Sergeiev, Sergeyev or Sergeyeff) who lived in Brisbane with other Russian escapees and exiles, and worked as a labourer, newspaper editor and activist there for between six and seven years in the second decade of the twentieth century. I encountered his story, by accident, in an article by Tom Poole and Eric Fried,
Artem: A Bolshevik in Brisbane
from the
Australian Journal of Politics and History
(see Acknowledgements). Like Samsurov, Sergeev was in regular trouble with the Queensland police and spent time in Boggo Road jail. Suvarov is his fictional fellow-escapee and friend, and Artem Sergeev in reality had many such friends. Like my character Samsurov, Sergeev returned to Russia in mid-1917, in time to be elected to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, and participate in the October revolution and the coming Russian Civil War.

He attracted a number of Australian socialists to Russia, but none as early as 1917, so that Paddy Dykes is entirely my creation, though based on a characteristic Australian working-class radical of his time. On the same principle, all the characters we know on an intimate level in the Australian section of the book are fictional, but – I hope – not unlikely for that period of ferment in Brisbane, in Australia, in the world. The Australian politicians mentioned or met occasionally are real politicians.

In the Russian section of the book, most characters are fictional, though again – one hopes – characteristic. But of course the major Bolshevik and other political figures are real, from Kerensky to Lenin to Zinoviev to Kollontai to Trotsky to Antonov-Ovseenko to Koba (Stalin) to Martov, and so on. The remarkable family of the Alliluyevs were also real people of the Bolshevik revolution. The American, Reed, encountered late in the book is obviously John Reed, author of
Ten Days that Shook the World.
Slatkin is fictional but his story is based upon the real case of the Bolsheviks V. K. Taratula and A. M Andrikanis, who were ordered by Lenin to court and marry two heiresses to enlarge his party coffers. Trofimova, the Abrasova sisters, Federev, and other intimate associates are utterly fictional.

Sergeev was buried beneath the wall of the Kremlin after a hero’s death, which occurred some years after the events of this novel, but I would like to keep my narrative powder dry on the details, since I hope that if a handful of people have enjoyed this story, I might continue it with the adventures of Artem, Tasha Abrasova, Suvarov and Paddy Dykes through the Civil War to the tormented Russia beyond, in which Sergeev perished.

Though they are not to be blamed for flaws in the text, I thank in most earnest terms the following enthusiastic collaborators in this book:

Silvie Smetkova, who translated many documents concerning Artem Sergeiev, who was the model for Artem Samsurov;

my agent, Fiona Inglis;

the first reader of this book in manuscript, Judy Keneally;

my publisher, Meredith Curnow;

the editor of first recourse, Jo Jarrah;

the copy-editors, Heather Curdie and Ali Lavau;

Simon Sebag Montefiore, eminent historian of Russia, who read the book for obvious solecisms.

May they all flourish. Works to which the author owes a debt include:

V.I. Astakova, et al.,
Tovarishck Artem, Vospomilia o Fedore Andreeviche Sergeive (Artem)
(Kharkov 1975)

Orlando Figes,
A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891– 1924
(London 1996)

Maxim Gorky,
My Childhood
(London 1966)

V.I. Lenin,
What is to be Done?
(Moscow 1970)

Stuart Macintyre,
The Reds
(Sydney 1998)

Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Young Stalin
(London 2007)

Vladimir Nasedkin,
Fifteen Years a World Wanderer
(Moscow 1960s)

Tom Poole and Eric Fried,
Artem: A Bolshevik in Brisbane,
including a translation of Artem’s
Australia the Lucky Country,
from
Australian Journal of Politics and History,
vol. 31, no. 2 (1985)

Poole and Fried research boxes relating to Australian radicalism at the time of Sergeiev and beyond, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, including the political memoirs of Tom Pikunov, another Tsarist escapee

Christopher Read,
Lenin
(New York 2005)

John Reed,
Ten Days that Shook the World,
e-book but also New York 1962 and other editions

Robert Service,
Lenin
(London 2000)

Robert Service,
Stalin
(London 2005)

Ian Turner,
Industrial Labour and Politics
(Melbourne 1965)