Who would believe? For eight years, long before the Russian Revolution and Russian socialism, from 1871 to 1979, in the midst of America - the state of Kansas - a communist commune of Cedar Vale was established. While Lenin was only being born, the American communist cell had already begun to publish a newspaper The Progressive Communist - not some Bolshevik or Menshevik, but Communist, right from the very beginning!

The founders of communism in this part of America were former Russian émigrés.

In Missouri, the communards almost got tarred and feathered

Cedar Vale is a small village in southern Kansas. There's a school, several stores, a hospital - just like anywhere else in America. The downtown area consists of old brick buildings, worn by time. The streets are nearly empty.

Near a supermarket, I met a young student, 20 years of age, and asked him what he knew about the development of communist ideology in his historic home town. He smiled at me in amusement  - he has never even heard of it. The store's proprietor, a senior woman, too, had never known of the fact. There is a small museum in the village, started as a volunteer organization. One of its leaders, Donald Cox, lived in Cedar Vale all his life for 70 years, but was oblivious to the communist community's existence. Other town dwellers were likewise unable to say anything corroborative. Everyone's lack of knowledge comes as no surprise, for all villagers were born 40-50 years following the commune's disintegration. It was only Ernestine Leonard, nearly 75 years old, who at last recalled that her parents talked to her about it. Even she, however, remembered nothing specific, and provided no clear details.

This all notwithstanding, it is precisely there, in southeast Kansas, that the longest-standing communist cell of the 19th century lived and worked. The area surrounding the town, which once belonged to the commune, has up to the present day retained its name among the locals:  “the commune's place.”

William Frey is considered to be the founder of the commune. His real name is Vladimir Konstantinovich Geints. He came to America in 1868. According to American historians, Frey was of aristocratic origin. He served in the Czar's Army and later worked as a professor of mathematics and astronomy. Russian sources indicate that he was a son of a “russified” officer who came to Russia from somewhere in the Baltic region. He studied in an artillery school and then in the Academy of  Russia's General Headquarters, pursuing geodesic studies. Frey frequently traveled about Russia. The ideas of I. Turgenev and L. Tolstoy had a considerable impact on his development. It was thanks to them that he felt compelled to talk of a necessary social revolution.

Just as with any other matter, Frey approached his new idea with great diligence: he thought it imperative to start the upbringing of future revolutionaries from their very births. It is also said that, while still in Russia, he often read articles about the first communes in America.

With this all in mind, 32-year-old Frey left his home country in 1868 in the company of his wife, Maria Slavinskaia. At first, they briefly sojourned in Germany, and then, moved to the United States, where more freedom and creativity was available for materializing their aspirations. However, at the beginning, the Russian aristocrat had to experience the taste of proletarian bread to the fullest, repeatedly changing several jobs. It was there, close to St. Louis, that he changed his last name like every other immigrant who came with him. All of them wanted to become closer to the Americans. Validated information exists confirming Frey’s employment in one of the offices in St. Louis for 60 dollars a month. In contrast, one of his comrades, Brook, worked on a farm together with his wife for only 25 dollars of monthly salary. Whatever the situation was, these Russian immigrants always looked up to the ideas that brought them across the ocean - land, house, and work for their own profit. Paradoxically, those three guidelines - typical of even present-day American ideals - were the reason of their settling in the Oneida community near St. Louis, Missouri. In his application for joining the commune, Frey gave himself the title of an astronomer. The main cause for leaving Russia, Frey said, was that the communists there were widely persecuted by the government (Just imagine, Lenin was not even born yet). In the same application he openly wrote that he considers "communism, based on liberal principles, the single means for healing chaos, under the conditions of which our society exists."

An American, Alexander Longley, a former type-setter of a publishing company, was elected as the head of the commune. The communards agreed that, upon being accepted to the commune, everyone would pay $ 100 for an adult and $ 50 for a child. After the money was collected, the members bought 160 acres of fertile land in Missouri and embarked on the realization of their project. All principles that had gone into the foundation of their activity were communist in nature - common property, joint labor, lack of monetary transactions within the society, as well as of money itself. Every member of the commune had the right of criticizing any other during a public assembly. It, however, was to be done in a friendly fashion, or, at the very least, without anger.

The whole community lived in one small house. Downstairs were the kitchen, a storage cellar, and a library (the commune constantly received new books and newspapers). Upstairs were the bedrooms. The furniture in the house was self-manufact-ured; barrels served the settlers as chairs. The general attitude was unpretentious and patient. The earned money added to the savings for paying debts on the land. Milk and wheat bread were allowed only to children. The adults ate round corn cakes, beans, cucumbers, and potatoes. Everyone was working towards the communist goal and prepared to suffer whatever deprivation it took. A tight schedule was created for reaching communism. Waking up at five o'clock, the men went to the fields, while the women occupied themselves with the children. Breakfast  at 6, dinner  at 12, supper at 6:30. After the evening meal, everyone could go about his own concerns - reading, writing, or just talking.

On Sundays, something similar to the party's congresses was conducted - results were outlined and future plans were set.

In 1870, after almost two years of its existence, the commune already had 15 adults and 10 children. It is quite possible that it would further progress and develop at the same rate, if not for political disagreements. One of the communards started preaching the principles of "free love." (I was unsuccessful in detecting weather he - named Spaulding - was of Russian or American decent.) After several of his discussions, the community's head, Longley, broke away from his group and returned to his publishing company. The German farmers, who lived nearby wanted to exercise vigilante justice on Spa-ulding. They wanted to coat him with tar and throw him into chicken feathers. The supporter of "free love," however, had enough time to flee.

As a result of the commune's downfall, Frey moved to Kansas.

The commune of Cedar Vale

In mid December 1870, three men, Frey, Brook, and Brigs set off in the direction of Kansas. There, near a small town with a romantic name, Cedar Vale, they took three portions of land from the Osage Indian tribe. (To this day, it is  unclear weather they fought for the land or simply "expropriated" it - communist habits.) In all, they settled. In the early days, they stayed with one American farmer. Two of the Russians were working on a dug-out; the third one was a cook and a baker. When the dwelling was ready in February of the following year, they decided to bring their wives there.   

Evidently, the relocation of the Russian emigrants was a really picturesque sight. The women, holding long switches in their hands, were driving a cow on clear days and quiet nights through forests and prairies.  The settler's ship-wagon, propelled by canvas sails, traversed the Midwestern states. Holding nine chickens aboard, the carriage with women arrived in Cedar Vale in early March. On the day of this landing, everyone went swimming in a nearby creek and Brook baked delicious bread. That evening, there was an impressive feast for the immigrants - they ate bread, beans, apples, and drank such beverages as milk and even tea with sugar. The six of them situated themselves in that small dug-out without windows. Its length was little more than 10 feet, width - about 6, height - 5 feet.

It was in this crushing narrowness that the most renowned commune of the 19th century began. Among the many names with which the locals referred to the settlement were titles such as The Progressive Community and The Commune of Frey.

What the Russian Bolsheviks spoke of 30-40 years after, Frey and his friends carried out in actuality in America. The main principle of the commune would seem quite familiar to those who lived in the socialist USSR: "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." This is not even socialism, where "to each according to his labor," but direct communism - one can take as much of anything as he wants. Why go through all the preparatory stages? Other ideologies of the commune were elegantly stated in its other mottos: "Liberty, equality, fraternity" and "All for one and one for all." The American commune openly acknowledged the equality of women's rights, long before women were officially allowed to vote in 1920.

The communards supported monogamy, but were inclined to ease the procedure of divorce for spouses. This kind of dialectics was rather interesting and self-canceling, for a person could theoretically divorce and remarry everyday.

But these sexual problems were not causing major disputes among the pioneering communists. Frey wanted to conduct a grand social experiment, the primary task of which was fully rejecting the values of individualism. The communard had to forget such expressions as "this is my business," and "don't be nosy." Everything was common: the property, business affairs, and even private life. The communists had the right of intervening into personal lives - even sexual - of any of the commune's members at any time. For instance, the communards collectively regulated the number of childbirths that could take place in their society.

Later, the commune built itself a house of walnut wood. The number of members fluctuated around 15. The men, just like in Missouri, went to work in the field, the women … went together with the men and helped. They created a vegetable garden. On Sundays, the Russian émigrés were paid a visit by Anglo-Saxon immigrants. The Russians seemed to them unusual. The two groups were very close; they hosted celebrations together.

According to various sources, the material standing of Cedar Vale's community was anywhere from poor to fine. Some historians suggest that the summer's work provided sufficient reserves for the winter. They had enough corn, pumpkins, beans and turnips. They kept three cows and over thirty chickens. The commune received magazines and newspapers from New York. Another opinion, expressed by a famous Russian writer V. Korolenko, after his visit to the commune, was that the people there lived in broke-down houses with cracked walls, no ceilings, and roofs full of holes. It was extremely cold inside the houses. The people were in bitter need not only for food, but also, for clothes, shoes, tools, and even dishes. These objects were sent to America in 1873 by Frey's brother who lived in St. Petersburg.

Many famous people from Russia visited the commune. For example, the brother of a famous critic N. A. Dobrolubov, V. A. Dobrolubov stayed with the New World's communist society. Such important figures of Russian social life as writer G. A. Machtet, sculptor F. F. Kamenskiy, and socialist revolutionary N. V. Tchaikovski also came to Cedar Vale. Frey's brother-in-law, too, arrived and later wrote several articles about America and the commune for The Patriotic Notes.

The colony reached its peak of maturity in the middle seventies. At that time, Frey was successful in obtaining enough paper for a newspaper and published a monthly tabloid titled The Progressive Communist. Although the paper's circulation was not very big, all area farmers read it every time. It was Frey himself that set the type for the newspaper and printed it in a publishing house nearby. Yearly subscription to this publication cost only 50 cents. The newspaper was a part of the initiator's large-scale plan to establish like communities around the world to create a perfect life.

At about the same time, three other communist cells were created in southern Kansas at Silkvile, Urbana, and Fort Scott. They existed for considerably shorter time, when compared to Frey's Commune.

The leaders of the new-born communism set a dim tone to life. They did not inform the newly-accepted members that it would be necessary to break themselves and to deny life's pleasures. Frey said that "a man, incapable of sustaining such a life, loves his belly more than his convictions." Simultaneously, they were realists to some degree and understood that the communards' life was unbearable for other people.

The commune disintegrated in 1879, after being in existence for eight years. The reasons, as usual, lay in the matters of ideology.

At first, Frey discovered his own wife to be a supporter of "free love," finding  a present from one of the community's visitors. At that time, Maria (Frey's wife) was even forced to leave the commune for some time.

Secondly, the communards had to be vegetarians, and were disallowed to drink coffee and alcoholic beverages. It was prohibited to drink tea, as well as to use salt or sugar. With all this, everybody was obligated to work eleven hours each day. Bearing a physical stress of such magnitude together with malnutrition from a strictly vegetable diet, some of the communards were discouraged in their advance towards communism. Some simply went back to Russia.

Thirdly, some of them could not withstand Frey's eccentricities - in particular, his cruelty. They couldn't watch how, in the winter, he poured cold water over his own daughter's head. He also beat his daughter even if she made mistakes of no consequence in performing her tasks. Everyone eventually tired of his autocratic and authoritarian governing style and fled, leaving the communist leader in loneliness.

Nonetheless, the longest-standing communist community in the history of all utopian societies was achieved.

Frey died in 1888, not having witnessed the greatest communist experiment the world would see yet. He tried to dedicate his last years to the realization of the communist idea. Regretfully, he did not have enough time to make a large-scale expansion. Perhaps the world could have recognized the horrors of the communist system 20-30 years in advance and rejected them forever.

By the way, it is only now that the silliness and idiocy of these ideas is evident to us. At that time, however, - in 1886 - Frey came to Russia and met with Lev Tolstoy in Yasnaia Poliana. He was guest of the renowned writer for almost a week. Later, Tolstoy recalled Frey many times and thought him to be "a person, who by his moral qualities was one of the most fabulous men of our, and not only our, century." Even the great minds make mistakes.