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 Emmas.” That moniker applied to the old-time revolutionary women who came of age around the turn of the 20^th century and who blossomed in the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, particularly its Bolshevik phase and a bit later in the time of the defense of the revolution in the few year period of the civil war against the national and international White Guards. 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. So that source might have been the genesis of the term but in any case here is a story from Frank, or really a  sketch of a story since a lot was, and is, unknown about her exploits, of one such Red Emma, Nana Kamkov, who held her own in the dark days of the defense 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. They had gone home together at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution when any savvy troops wishing to live long enough to take advantage of the new land proclamation were abandoning the trenches in droves, had farmed their newly Soviet-provided land, had subsequently dispossessed of that land by Orlov, the previous owner of the estate that had been been divvied up to provide small peasant farms, 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 was 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 laughed 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 somewhere 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.