Six red months in Russia E-Book

Louise Bryant

• Herausgeber: Synapse Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Louise Bryant (1885-1936), american feminist, political activist, and journalist married writer John Reed, the worlwide known author of Ten days that shook the world, in 1916. She had an adventurous life and covered as well the events of russian revolution. She met russian leaders such as Katherine Breshkovsky, Maria Spiridonova, Alexander Kerensky, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and wrote about them. Her stories, distributed by Hearst during and after her trips to Petrograd and Moscow, appeared in newspapers across the United States and Canada in the years immediately following World War I. The collection of articles coming out from this experience were collected in the book Six red months in Russia, now published in an economic and pocket edition by Bi Classics. It is an enthusiastic and deep account of one of the most relevant events of the twentieth century, examined from a female perspective. An extraordinary historical document that will surprise the readers.

Leseprobe

SIX RED MONTHS IN RUSSIA

An observers account of Russia before and during the proletarian dictatorship

Louise Bryant

© 2019 Synapse Publishing

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

I. ON THE WAY TO RUSSIA

II. FROM THE FRONTIER TO PETROGRAD

III. PETROGRAD

IV. SMOLNY

V. EXPLANATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

VI. THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

VII. THE PREPARLIAMENT AND THE SOVIET OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC

VIII. THE FALL OF THE WINTER PALACE

IX. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

X. KATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY

XI. KERENSKY

XII. TWO MINISTERS OF WELFARE-PANINA AND KOLLONTAY

XIII. LENINE AND TROTSKY

XIV. A TRIUMVIRATE-ANTONOFF, KRYLENKO, DUBENKO

XV. MARIE SPIRODONOVA

XVI. FROM ONE ARMY TO THE OTHER

XVII. RED GUARDS AND COSSACKS

XVIII. THE RED BURIAL

XIX. REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL

XX. THE FOREIGN OFFICE

XXI. WOMEN SOLDIERS

XXII. FREE SPEECH

XXIII. STREET FIGHTING

XXIV. MEN OF HONOUR

XXV. GERMAN PROPAGANDA

XXVI. RUSSIAN CHILDREN

XXVII. THE DECLINE OF THE CHURCH

XXVIII. ODDS AND ENDS OF REVOLUTION

XXIX. A TALK WITH THE ENEMY

XXX. SHOPPING IN GERMANY

XXXI. ADVENTURES AS A BOLSHEVIK COURIER

Introduction

I ASK a favour of him who reads this bundle of stories, gathered together on the edge of Asia, in that mystic land of white nights in summer and long black days in winter, where events only heretofore dreamed or vaguely planned for future ages have suddenly come to be. I ask the reader to remember his tolerant mood when he sits himself down under his shaded lamp of an evening to read certain lovely old legends, to remember how deliberately he gets himself out of this world into another as unlike our own as the pale moon. He should recall that in reading ancient lore he does so with an open mind, calmly, never once throwing down his book and cursing because some ancient king has marched with all his gallant warriors into another country without so much as a passport from the State Department.

We have here in America an all too obvious and objectionable prejudice against Russia. And this, you will agree, is born of fear. In Russia something strange and foreboding has occurred, it threatens to undo our present civilisation and instinctively we fear change--for better or for worse. We hug our comforts, our old habits of life, our old values.... There are those among us who whisper that this change will mean darkness and chaos, there are those who claim it is but a golden light which, starting from a little flame, shall circle the earth and make it glow with happiness. All that is not for me to say. I am but a messenger who lays his notes before you, attempting to give you a picture of what I saw and what you would have seen if you had been with me.

In that half year of which I write 1 felt as if I were continually witnessing events which might properly come some centuries later. I was continually startled and surprised. And yet I should have been prepared for surprises. All of us have felt the deep undercurrents that are turning the course of the steady tide. The great war could not leave an unchanged world in its wake--certain movements of society were bound to be pushed forward, others retarded. I speak particularly of Socialism.

Socialism is here, whether we like it or not--just as woman suffrage is here--and it spreads with the years. In Russia the socialist state is an accomplished fact. We can never again call it an idle dream of long-haired philosophers. And if that growth has resembled the sudden upshooting of a mushroom, if it must fall because it is premature, it is nevertheless real and must have tremendous effect on all that follows. Everything considered, there is just as much reason to believe that the Soviet Republic of Russia will stand as that it will fall. The most significant fact is that it will not fall from inside pressure. Only outside, foreign, hostile intervention can destroy it.

On the grey horizon of human existence looms a great giant called Working Class Consciousness. He treads with thunderous step through all the countries of the world. There is no escape, we must go out and meet him. It all depends on us whether he will turn into a loathsome, ugly monster demanding human sacrifices or whether he shall be the saviour of mankind. We must use great foresight, patience, understanding.... We must somehow make an honest effort to understand what is happening in Russia.

And I who saw the dawn of a new world can only present my fragmentary and scattered evidence to you with a good deal of awe. I feel as one who went forth to gather pebbles and found pearls. ...

CHAPTER I:ON THE WAY TO RUSSIA

WHEN the news of the Russian revolution flared out across the front pages of all the newspapers in the world, I made up my mind to go to Russia. I did it suddenly without thinking at all. By force of habit I put down my two pennies at a little corner newsstand and the newsdealer handed me an evening paper. There with the great city roaring around me I read the first account, a warm feeling of deep happiness spreading over me.

I had been walking with a young Russian from the East Side. Now I turned to speak to him, but he was staring at the large black letters crazily, his eyes bulging from his head. Suddenly he grabbed the paper out of my hand and ran madly through the streets. Three days later I met him--he was still embracing everybody, weeping and telling them the good news. He had spent three years in Siberia....

Early in August I left America on the Danish steamer United States. From my elevation on the first-class deck the first night out I could hear returning exiles in the steerage singing revolutionary songs. In the days that followed I spent most of my time down there; they were the only people on the boat who weren't bored to death. There were about a hundred of them, mostly Jews from the Pale. Hunted, robbed, mistreated in every conceivable manner before they fled to America, they had somehow maintained the greatest love for the land of their birth. I could not understand it then. I do now. Russia lays strong hold on the affections of even the foreign visitor.

It was a long way back to Russia for these people. We were held up in Halifax a week on their account. Every morning British officers came on board and examined and re-examined. Pitiful incidents occurred. There was an old woman who clung frantically to some letters from a dead son. She secreted them in all sorts of strange places and brought down suspicion upon herself. There was a youth they decided to detain--he threw himself face downward on the deck and sobbed loudly like a child. The whole lot of them were in a state of nervous terror; Russia was so near and yet so far. And they were held up again and again-at Christiania, at Stockholm, at Haparanda. I saw one of the men in Petrograd five months later. He had just gotten through. ...

After we left Stockholm my own curiosity grew every hour. As our train rushed on through the vast, untouched forests of northern Sweden I could scarcely contain myself. Soon I should see how this greatest and youngest of democracies was learning to walk--to stretch itself--to feel its strength--unshackled! We were to watch that brave attempt of the new republic to establish itself with widely varying emotions, we miscellaneous folk, who were gathered together for a few hours.

The day we reached the border every one on the train was up bustling about with the first light, getting ready for the change. The rain beat mournfully against the car windows as we ate our frugal meal of sour black bread and weak coffee. Most of us had been a month on the way and we were travel-weary. We wondered vaguely what had happened in Russia--no news had leaked into Sweden since the half-credited story about the German advance on Riga.

The little ferry-boat gliding over dark, muddy waters between Haparanda and Tornea, carrying the same trainload of passengers and piled high with baggage, landed us on the edge of Finland on a cheerless grey September morning. A steady drizzle added to our discomfort. As soon as we stepped off the boat I caught my first glimpse of the Russian army; great giants of men, mostly workers and peasants, in old, dirt-coloured uniforms from which every emblem of Tsardom had been carefully removed. Brass buttons with the Imperial insignia, gold and silver epaulettes, decorations, all were replaced by a simple arm-band or a bit of red cloth. I noticed that all of them smoked, that they did not salute and that sentries, looking exceedingly droll, were sitting on chairs. Military veneer seemed to have vanished. What had taken its place?

Things began to happen as soon as we landed. One woman in her excitement began speaking German. Then when it was discovered that her passport bore no visé from Stockholm she was hustled roughly back over the line. She called out as she went that she had no money, that no one had told her she needed a visé and that she had three starving children in Russia. Her thin, hysterical voice trailed back brokenly.

A tall, white-bearded patriarch, returning after an enforced absence of thirty years, rushed from one soldier to another.

"How are you, my dears? What town are you from? How long have you been here? Ah, I am glad to be back!"

Thus he ran on, not waiting or expecting an answer. The soldiers smiled indulgently, although for some mysterious reason they were in a dead serious mood. At length one of them made a gesture of impatience.

"Listen, Little Grandfather," he said severely but not unkindly, "are you not aware that there are other things to think about in Russia just now besides family re-unions?"

The old man caught some deep significance behind his words and looked pitifully bewildered. He had been a dealer in radical books in London for many years and he had been buried in these books. He was not prepared for action; he was coming home to a millennium to die at peace in free, contented and joyful Russia. Now a premonition of fear flitted over his old face. He clutched nervously at the soldier's arm.

"What is it you have to tell me?" he cried. "Is Russia not free? What begins now but happiness and peace?"

"Now begins work," shouted several soldiers. "Now begins more fighting and more dying! You old ones will never understand that the job is by no means finished. Are there not enemies without and traitors within? .. ."

The old exile appeared suddenly shrunken and tired. "Tell me," he whispered, "what the trouble is."

For answer they pointed to a sign-board upon which a large, new notice was pasted and we joined an agitated little group and read:

"TO ALL-ALL-ALL:

"On the 26th of August (September 8th, our time) General Korniloff despatched to me, Duma member V. N. Lvov, with a demand to give him over supreme military and civilian power, saying that he will form a new government to rule the country. I verified the authority of this Duma member by direct telephonic communication with General Korniloff. I saw in this demand addressed to the Provisional Government the desire of a certain class of the Russian people to take advantage of the desperate situation of our nation, to reestablish that system of order which would be in contradiction to the acquisition of our Revolution; and therefore the Provisional Government considered it necessary for the salvation of the country, of liberty and democratic government, to take all measures to secure order in the country and by any means suppress all attempts to usurp the supreme power in the State and to usurp the rights won by our citizens in the Revolution. These measures I put into operation and will inform the Nation more fully of them. At the same time, I ordered General Korniloff to hand over the command to General Klembovsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front,defending the way to Petrograd· And herewith I appoint General Klembovsky Commander-in-Chief of all the Russian Armies. The City of Petrograd and the Petrograd District is declared under martial law by action of this telegram. I appeal to all citizens that they should conserve the peace and order so necessary for the salvation of the country and to all the officers of the army and fleet I appeal to accomplish their duties in defending the Nation from the external enemy.

"(Signed) PREMIER KERENSKY."

So I had arrived on the crest of a counter-revolution! Korniloff was marching on Petrograd. Petrograd was in a state of siege. Trenches were at that very moment being dug outside the city. The telegram from Kerensky was two days old. What had happened since then? Wild rumour followed wild rumour. In fact, such exaggeration abounded that the whole outlook of the country was completely changed in each overheated report. We walked up and down the station under heavy guard, like prisoners. ...

Everything was in confusion; passports and luggage were examined over and over. I was marched into a small, cold, badly lit room, guarded by six soldiers with long, business-like looking bayonets. In the room was a stocky Russian girl. She motioned for me to remove my clothes. This I did, wondering. Once they were off she ordered me to put them on again without any examination. I was curious. "It's just a rule," she said, smiling at my incomprehension.

There were British officers here and they advised me not to proceed. "The Germans have taken Rigs and are already across the Dvina; when they get to Petrograd they will cut you in pieces!" With such gloomy predictions I left the frontier town and sped onward through flat, monotonous Finland.

CHAPTER II:FROM THE FRONTIER TO PETROGRAD

NOBODY believed that our train would ever really reach Petrograd. In case it was stopped I had made up my mind to walk, so I was extremely grateful for every mile that we covered. It was a ridiculous journey, more like something out of an extravagant play than anything in real life.

Next to my compartment was a General, super-refined, painfully neat, with waxed moustachios. There were several monarchists, a diplomatic courier, three aviators of uncertain political opinion and, further along, a number of political exiles who had been held up in Sweden for a month and were the last to return at the expense of the new government. Rough, almost ragged soldiers climbed aboard continually, looked us over and departed. Often they hesitated before the General's door and regarded him suspiciously, never at any time did they honour him with the slightest military courtesy. He sat rigid in his seat and stared back at them coldly. Every one was too agitated to be silent or even discreet. At every station we all dashed out to enquire the news and buy papers.

At one place we were informed that the Cossacks were all with Korniloff as well as the artillery; the people were helpless. At this alarming news the monarchists began to assert themselves. They confided to me in just what manner they thought the revolutionary leaders ought to be publicly tortured and finally given death sentences.

The next rumour had it that Kerensky had been murdered and all Russia was in a panic; in Petrograd the streets were running blood. The returning exiles looked pale and wretched. So this was their joyful home-coming! They sighed but they were exceedingly brave. "Ah, well, we will fight it all over again!" they said with marvellous determination. I made no comments. I was conscious of an odd sense of loneliness; I was an alien in a strange land.

At all the stations soldiers were gathered in little knots of six and seven; talking, arguing, gesticulating. Once a big, bewhiskered mujik thrust his head in at a car window, pointed menacingly at a well-dressed passenger and bellowed interrogatively, "Burzhouee" (Bourgeoise). He looked very comical, yet no one laughed. ...

We had become so excited we could scarcely keep our seats. We crowded into the narrow corridor, peering out at the desolate country, reading our papers and conjecturing ...

All this confusion seemed to whet our appetites. At Helsingfors we saw heaping dishes of food in the railway restaurant. A boy at the door explained the procedure: first we must buy little tickets and then we could eat as much as we pleased. To our astonishment the cashier refused the Russian money which we had so carefully obtained before leaving Sweden.

"But this is ridiculous!" I told the cashier. "Finland is part of Russia! Why shouldn't you take this money?"

Flames shot up in her eyes. "It will not long be a part of Russia!" she snapped. "Finland shall be a republic!" Here was a brand new situation. How fast they came now, these complications.

Feeling utterly at a loss, we strolled up and down, complaining bitterly. Once we found we could not buy food, our hunger grew alarmingly. We were saved by a passenger from another car who had plenty of Finnish marks and was willing to take our rubles.

At Wiborg we felt the tension was deep and ominous. We were suddenly afraid to enquire the news of the crowds on the platform. There were literally hundreds of soldiers, their faces haggard, in the half light of late afternoon. The scraps of conversation we caught sent shivers over us.

"All the generals ought to be killed!" "We must rid ourselves of the bourgeoisie!" "No, that is not right." "I am not in favour of that!" "All killing is wrong...."

A pale, slight youth, standing close beside me, unexpectedly blurted out in a sort of stage whisper, "It was terrible. ... I heard them screaming!"

I questioned him anxiously. "Heard who? Heard who?"

"The officers! The bright, pretty officers! They stamped on their faces with heavy boots, dragged them through the mud... threw them in the canal." He looked up and down fearfully, his words coming in jerks. "They have just finished it now," he said, still whispering, "they have killed fifty, and I hare heard them screaming."

Once the train moved again we pieced together our fragments of news and made out the following story:

Early the day before had arrived messages from Kerensky, ordering the troops to Petrograd to defend the city. The officers had received the messages but remained silent and gave no orders. The soldiers had grown suspicious. They mumbled together and their mumblings had become a roar. At some one's suggestion, they marched in a body and searched for the messages. The messages were found. Their worst suspicions were confirmed. Rage and revenge swept them away. They did not stop to separate innocent from guilty. The officers were sympathisers of Korniloff, they were aristocrats, they were enemies of the revolution! In quick, wild anger they dealt out terrible punishment.

The details of the massacre were exceedingly ugly, but no description of mine is necessary. Every Russian writer who has ever written about mob violence has described the swift terribleness of these scenes with amazing frankness. Realising that the most serious of all dissolution and revolt is military mutiny, our hearts fluttered at the unutterable possibilities....

We were interrupted in our reflections by a wail from the Russian courier who found himself in a curious dilemma. "What shall I do?" he asked of us dismally. "I have been nearly a month at sea and God knows what has happened to my unfortunate country in that time. God knows what is happening now. If I deliver my papers to the wrong faction it will be fatal!"

It was past midnight when we stopped at Beeloostrov. It was the last station. We were so certain all along that we would never get to Petrograd that we were not surprised now when soldiers came on board and ordered us all out. We soon found, however, that it was just another tiresome examination. Crowded into a great bare room, we stood shivering nervously while our baggage was hurled pell-mell into another. As our names were called we submitted our passports, answered questions, wrote down our nationality, our religion, our purpose in Russia, and hurried to unlock our trunks for the impatient soldiers.

The officers startled us by beginning to confiscate all sorts of ordinary things. We protested as much as we dared. In explanation they replied that a new order had just come in prohibiting medicines, cosmetics and what-not.

Next to me in line was an indignant princess whose luggage contained many precious "aids to beauty," all of which had already been passed hurriedly by bashful censors and custom officials many times before. But that unreasonable new order upset everything; rouge-sticks followed rare perfumes, French powder, brilliantine, hair-dye--all were thrown roughly into a great unpainted box, a box whose contents grew rapidly higher and higher, a box that had the magic power to change what was art in one's hand-bag into rubbish in its insatiable maw.

The princess pleaded with the soldiers, used feminine wiles, burst into hysterical weeping. Poor, unhappy princess, forty, with a flirtatious husband, handsome and twenty-three! The situation was far too subtle for these crude defenders of the revolution! Only an old monarchist dared to be sympathetic, but I noted that he took care to be sympathetic in English, a language few of his countrymen understand.

"Madame," he remarked testily, "there is a strong hint of stupid morality in all this. You must remember that to the uncultured all implements of refinement are considered immoral!"

The husband offered tardy consolation. "Be calm, my darling, you shall have all these things again." Unfortunately he would never be able to make good his promise, for in these rough days of the new order cosmetics are not considered important and Russian ladies are forced to go "au natural."

We arrived in Petrograd at three in the morning prepared for anything but the apparent order and the deep enveloping stillness that comes before dawn. My friends of the train soon scattered and were lost in the night, and I stood there in the great station confused, with what was left of my baggage.

Presently a young soldier came running. "Aftmobile?" he enquired in a honeyed voice. "Aftmobile?" I nodded assent, not knowing what else to do and in a moment we were outside before a big grey car. In the car was another soldier, also young and pleasant. I gave them the name of a hotel some one had told me about--the Angleterre.

So we were off whirling through the deserted streets. Here and there we encountered sentries who called out sharply, received the proper word, and allowed us to pass. I was consumed with curiosity. These soldiers wore neither arm-bands nor bits of ribbon. I had no way of knowing who or what they were...One of them wanted to be entertaining, so he began to tell me about the first days of the revolution and how wonderful it was.

"The crowd raised a man on their shoulders," he said, "when they saw the Cossacks coming. And the man shouted,'If you have come to destroy the revolution, shoot me first,' and the Cossacks replied, 'We do not shoot our brothers.' Some of the old people who remembered how long the Cossacks had been our enemies almost went mad with joy."

He ceased speaking. Mysteriously out of the darkness the bells in all the churches began to boom over the sleeping city, a sort of wild barbaric tango of bells, like nothing else I had ever heard. ...

CHAPTER III:PETROGRAD

THE sleepy porter of the Hotel Angleterre I fumbled his keys and finally got the door open. My two soldiers rode away waving their hands cheerfully; I never saw them again. The porter took my passport and put it in the safe without looking at it and shuffled along upstairs ahead of me until we reached a large vault-like suite on the third floor.

It was four o'clock and not for many hours would it be light--Petrograd is very far north to a New Yorker. By December when things had reached such a desperate state that we seldom had artificial light at all, because there was no coal to run the power plants, we seemed to live in perpetual darkness. I have often purchased, in the deserted churches, holy candles which were designated to be burned before the shrines of saints but which were carried home surreptitiously in order to see to write. But in October the lights were still running. When the porter pressed the button I blinked painfully under the dazzling blaze of sparkling old-fashioned crystal candelabra.

I looked around at the great unfriendly room in which I found myself. It was all gold and mahogany with old blue draperies; most of the furniture was still wearing its summer garments. I had a feeling that no one had lived in this room for years--it had a musty, unused smell. Lost in a remote corner of the room adjoining was my bed and beyond that an enormous bath-tub, cut out of solid granite, coldly reflected the light.

For all this elegance? "Thirty rubles," the porter murmured, still half awake.

There was a large sign above my bed forbidding me to speak German--the penalty being fifteen hundred rubles. I had no desire to break the law. It seemed a lot to pay for so small amount of enjoyment, I thought as I slid bravely down between the icy sheets and fell into a dead slumber.

I was awakened by loud knocks on my door. A burly Russian entered and began to bellow about my baggage. I rubbed my eyes and tried to make out what language he was speaking and suddenly I realised--he was speaking German! I pointed to the sign and he shook with laughter.

I found out afterwards that no one pays any attention to signs in Russia. They read the signs and then use their own judgment. Take language, for instance. Few foreigners ever learn to speak Russian; on the other hand, they are very apt to have at least a smattering of French or German. Solution: speak the language you understand. If you tell them German is an enemy language they will tell you that they are not at war with the language. Furthermore, they have found their use of it very valuable in getting over propaganda into Austria and Germany.

Just across from my window, St. Isaac's Cathedral loomed blackly and I watched the bellringers in the ponderous cupolas, bell-ropes tied to elbows, knees, feet and hands, making the maddest music with great and little bells. The people passing looked up also and occasionally one crossed himself.

Out on the streets I wandered aimlessly noting the contents of the little shops now pitifully empty. It is curious the things that remain in a starving and besieged city. There was only food enough to last three days, there were no warm clothes at all and I passed window after window full of flowers, corsets, dog-collars and false hair!

This absurd combination can be accounted for without much scientific investigation. The corsets were of the most expensive, out-of-date, wasp-waist variety and the women who wear them have largely disappeared from the capital.

The reason for the false hair and dog collars was equally plain. About a third of the women of the towns wear their hair short and there is no market for the tons of beautiful hair in the shops, marked down to a few rubles. An enterprising dealer in such goods could make a fortune by exporting the gold, brown and auburn tresses of the shorn and emancipated female population of Russia and selling them in America, France or some other backward country where women still cling to hairpins.

As for the dog collars, just imagine any one being a dog-fancier or even a fondler of dogs to the extent of purchasing a gold-rimmed or a diamond-studded collar while a Revolutionary Tribunal is sitting just around the corner. Whatever class lines there were among dogs fell with the Tsar.

And the masses of flowers. Horticulture had reached a high state of development before the revolution. This was especially true of exotic flowers because of the extravagant tastes of the upper classes. With the change in government the demand for these luxuries abruptly ceased; but there were still the hot-houses, there were still the old gardeners. It is impossible to break off old established things in the twinkling of an eye. Habits of trade are as hard to break as any other habits of life. So the shops continued to be filled with flowers. On the Morskaya where so much bitter street fighting occurred were three flower-shops --in them were displayed always the rarest varieties of orchids. And in those turbulent January days suddenly appeared--white lilacs!

These strange left-overs of another time cropped up everywhere making sharp contrasts. There were the men, for instance, who stood outside of the palaces and the big hotels, peacock feathers in their round Chinese-looking caps and wearing green, gold or scarlet sashes. Their duty had been to assist people who alighted from carriages, but now grand personages never arrived, and still they stood there, their sashes bedraggled and faded, their feathers ragged and forlorn. As helpless they were as the old negroes of the South who clung to their slavery after the emancipation.

And in contrast were the waiters bustling about in the restaurants inside of the very buildings where the svetzars stood before the doors like courtiers without a court. They ran their restaurants co-operatively and at every table was a curt little notice.

"Just because a man must make his living by being a waiter do not insult him by offering him a tip."

Petrograd is impressive, vast and solid. New York's high buildings have a sort of tall flimsiness about them that is not sinister; Petrograd looks as if it were built by a giant who had no regard for human life. The rugged strength of Peter the Great is in all the broad streets, the mighty open spaces, the great canals curving through the city, the rows and rows of palaces and the immense facades of government buildings. Even such exquisite bits of architecture as the graceful gold spires of the old Admiralty building and the round blue-green domes of the Turquoise Mosque, cannot break that heaviness....

Built by the cruel wilfulness of an autocrat, over the bodies of thousands of slaves, against the unanimous will of all grades of society, this huge artificial city, by a peculiar irony has become the heart of world revolution; has become Red Petrograd!

There were wonderful tales about the defeat of Korniloff and what they described as a "new kind of fighting." Every one was anxious to tell his version of how the scouts went out and met the army of the counter-revolutionists and fraternised with them and overcame them "with talk" so that they refused to fight and turned against their leaders. There was little variation, in short, the story was this:

The scouts came upon the hostile army encamped for the night and went among them saying: "Why have you come to destroy the revolution?" The hostile army indignantly denied the charge, claiming that they had been sent to "save" the revolution. So the scouts continued to argue. "Do not believe the lies your leaders tell you. We are both fighting for the same thing. Come to Petrograd with us and sit in our councils, learn the truth, and you will abandon this Korniloff who is attempting to betray you."

Accordingly delegates were sent to Petrograd. When they reported to their regiments the two armies joined as brothers.

While all this fraternising was going on and no one was sure of its results, revolutionists in Petrograd worked feverishly. In one place they told me that they had manufactured a whole cannon in thirty hours and the trenches that encircled the city were dug over night.

Ugly tales went round about the fall of Riga. Most Russians, with fairly good reason, believe that it was sold out. It fell just after General Korniloff said in public: "Must we pay with Riga the price of bringing the country to its senses?"

No one ever explained the reason for the vague order given to the retreating Russian army: "Go north and turn to the left!" Bewildered soldiers retreated in confusion for days without officers or further instructions, finally entrenching themselves, forming Soldiers' Committees, beginning to fight again....

Officers returning a week or two afterwards told an amazing story. It was printed in the conservative paper Yetcherneie Vremya and I heard it twice myself from men who were captured, and I believe it to be true. When Riga fell many prisoners were taken. It was towards the end of the week. On Sunday there were services at which the Raiser appeared and made a speech to the Russian soldiers. He called them "dogs" and berated them for killing their officers whom he claimed were brave and admirable gentlemen, commanding his respect. Consistent with Prussian military ideals, he made a practical demonstration by allowing the officers full freedom and issuing orders that the common soldiers should have little food and hard work and in certain cases a flogging. The hundreds of thousands of tubercular Russian prisoners now returning to Russia are evidence of how well the instructions were carried out. In his speech to the soldiers in the church the Raiser said: "Pray for the government of Alexander III., not for your present disgraceful government."

That evening he dined the officers and they came back into Russia and explained that we did not "understand" the Kaiser....