In
Honor Of Women’s History Month- In Nana Kamkov’s Time- For All The Red
Emmas
From
The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Frank Jackman was not sure where or when he first
heard the term “Red Emma” applied to the old- time revolutionary women who came
of age around the turn of the 20th century and who blossomed in the
time of the Russian revolution, particularly its Bolshevik phase and of the time
of the defense of the revolution in the few year period of the civil war
against the national and international White Guards which only ended in 1921.
He did know that Emma Goldman the old bomb-throwing (at least in her mind)
firebrand anarchist and early defender (and early non-defender) of the
Bolshevik experiment bore that sobriquet and so that might have been the
genesis of the term but in any case here is the story, or really sketch of a
story since a lot was unknown about her exploits, of one such Red Emma, Nana
Kamkov, who held her own in the dark days of the Russian revolution of the eve
of the decisive battle for Kazan…
Nana Kamkov’s name first became known to revolutionary
history indirectly through her membership in the remnants of a red peasant
brigade fighting the Whites in the Russian Civil War around 1919 , a bare
platoon at that point whose core were five peasant soldiers from Omsk who had been
conscripted and fought together for the Czar in the disastrous World War I
battles, gone home at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, farmed their newly Soviet-provided
land, were subsequently dispossessed of that land by Orlov the previous owner
when the White Guards came through Omsk , and in reaction they had joined the
Reds in 1919 to get that land back. After several engagements crisscrossing
Central Russia they, the remnant anyhow, found themselves in soon to be
besieged Kazan. Nana had been assigned to their unit in the crush of
organizational tangles preparing for the defense of Kazan. Nana had also been
caught inside Kazan at a time when that locale was being besieged by White
Guard forces, particularly the feared Czech Legion that was running amok from
Siberia to the Urals in their attempts to get home. Previously Nana’s story, the
story of a mere slip of girl of sixteen, had been submerged as part of the story of this unit, a unit now led by one
of the peasant soldiers, Vladimir Suslov, but further research found that she
deserved, more than deserved, additional
recognition in her own right
Yes, Nana Kamkov, deserved a better fate that to written off as some play
thing for some loutish peasant boy, Grunsha Zanoff by name, no matter how Red Army brave
he was just that moment and no matter how peasant handsome he was, and he was,
to Nana’s eyes. Nana had come off the land as a child, land in Omsk and as fate
would have it also Orlov’s land, when after the last revolution, the one in
1905, the government encouraged capitalist exploitation of the land in order to
break down the backward-looking peasant communes. Her parents had abandoned the
land and had travelled to live in Kazan and her father had set up shop as a
locksmith, a good one. Nana had gone school and had been an outstanding student
if somewhat socially backward, she had not been like the other girls boy-crazy,
although she confessed in one girlish moment to a classmate that she thought
some Prince Charming would see her on the Kazan streets, be immediately smitten
by her purposeful carriage and carry her off to some golden palace but that was
just a moment’s thought. Nana though desperately
wanted to become an engineer although the family resources precluded such a
fate.
One day in the summer of 1917 at
the height of the revolutionary fervor she ran across a Bolshevik agitator in the
central square of Kazan (later killed in Kiev fighting off some White Guards in
that location) who told her, young impressionable her, aged fourteen, no more,
that if the Soviets survived she would be able to pursue her engineering
career, hell, the Bolsheviks would encourage it.
From that time Nana had been a
single-minded Red Guard soldier performing many dangerous tasks (involving
setting off explosives, some espionage work and so on, the specifics
unfortunately have been lost despite further inquiry) until the Whites
threatened Kazan and she was trapped in the city and had joined Vladimir’s
remnants as a result of various organizational tangles. And there she spied Grunsha
among his soldiers, loutish, foolish Grunsha, although handsome she admitted.
Perhaps it was the time of her time, perhaps she still had a little foolish
schoolgirl notion to be with a man, to be a woman, just in case things didn’t
work out and she was killed, or worse, executed but one cold night she snuggled
up to the sleeping Grunsha and that was that. And she was not sorry although
she blushed, blushed profusely when Grunsha’s comrades from home would see them
together and knowingly laugh they knew had happened. She had thereafter taken
him under her wing and was teaching him to read and to think about things, big
idea things, how to work that land back in Omsk better, more scientifically, just
in case they weren’t killed, or worse executed. Practical young woman, very
practical. And so young Nana entered the red pantheon, and maybe she would drag
young Grunsha along too.
Just as she was instructing
Grunsha in some Gogol short story a messenger came to their line, a messenger
from the river in front of Kazan, from the wind- swept Volga. The message said
that Trotsky himself , Trotsky of the phantom armored train rushing to this and
that front, seemingly everywhere at the same time, a man that put fear in the
hearts of whites and reds alike, had decided to fight and die before Kazan if
necessary to save the revolution, to save their precious land. Vladimir and his
comrades, including our Red Emma, Red Emma who if the truth be told despite her
tender years of sweet sixteen was the best soldier of the lot, and should have
been the commissar except those lumpish peasants would not have listened to
her, reaffirmed their blood oath. They were not sure of Lenin, thinking him a
little too smart, and maybe he had something up his sleeve, maybe he was just
another Jew, he looked the part with that bald head of his, but stout-hearted
Trotsky, if he was willing to die then what else could they do but stand. If
they must die they would die in defense of Kazan, and maybe just maybe somebody
would hear of their story, the story of five peasant boys and a pretty
red-hearted city girl as brave as they, and lift their heads and roar back
too.
And so young Nana entered the red
pantheon, and maybe she would drag young Grunsha along too...
And hence this Women’s History
Month contribution.
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