Six Red Months in Russia by Louise Bryant (1885-1936). New York: George H. Doran Company, 1918.

SIX RED MONTHS IN RUSSIA
LOUISE BRYANT

SIX RED MONTHS
IN RUSSIA

An Observer's Account of Russia Before and
During the Proletarian Dictatorship

BY
LOUISE BRYANT

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1918
By George H. Doran Company

Printed in the United States of America

KATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY
GRANDMOTHER OF THE REVOLUTION

Acknowledgments are due to the Philadelphia Public Ledger and other numerous newspapers and magazines throughout the United States, Canada and South America for permission to reprint these articles.

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 [Page x] 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 I 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 [Page xi] 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. . . .

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

SIX RED MONTHS IN RUSSIA

SIX RED MONTHS IN RUSSIA

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 re-establish 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 Riga 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 then 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 have 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.

GENERAL KORNILOFF
WHO HEADED THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN SEPTEMBER.

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 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, can. not 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 Vetcherneie 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 Kaiser 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 Kaiser 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. . . .

In Petrograd one of the things that strike coldness to one's heart are the long lines of scantily clad people standing in the bitter cold waiting to buy bread, milk, sugar or tobacco. From four o'clock in the morning they begin to stand there, while it is still black night. Often after standing in line for hours the supplies run out. Most of the time only one-fourth pound of bread for two days was allowed; and the soggy black peasant's bread is the staff of life in Russia–it is not a "trimming" like our American bread. Cabbage is also a staple diet.

On my second night in Petrograd I met a Russian from New York. We strolled up and down the Nevsky Prospect. All Russia promenades the Nevsky; it is one of the great streets of the world. My friend wanted to be hospitable as all Russians are, but he was very poor. We passed a little booth and spied a few bars of American chocolate–5c bars. He enquired the price–seven rubles! With true Russian recklessness he paid out his last kopeck and said: "Come, let us walk up and down once again, it is only a mile. . . . "

Petrograd with food for three days was not tragic or sad. Russians accept hardships uncomplainingly. When I first went there I was inclined to put it down to servility, but now I believe it to be because they have unconquerable spirit. Weeks at a stretch the street cars would not run. People walked great distances without a murmur and the life of the city went on as usual. It would have upset New York completely, especially if it happened as it did in Petrograd that while the street cars were stopped, lights and water also were turned off and it was almost impossible to get fuel to keep warm.

The most remarkable thing about Russians is this wonderful persistence. Theatres somehow managed to run two or three times a week. The Nevsky after midnight was as amusing and interesting as Fifth Avenue in the afternoon. The cafés had nothing to serve but weak tea and sandwiches but they were always full. A wide range of costumes made the picture infinitely more interesting. There is practically no "fashion" in Russia. Men and women wear what they please. At one table would be sitting a soldier with his fur hat pulled over one ear, across from him a Red Guard in rag-tags, next a Cossack in a gold and black uniform, earrings in his ears, silver chains around his neck, or a man from the Wild Division, recruited from one of the most savage tribes of the Caucasus, wearing his sombre, flowing cape. . . .

And the girls that frequented these places were by no means all prostitutes, although they talked to everybody. Prostitution as an institution has not been recognised since the first revolution. The degrading "Yellow Tickets" were destroyed and many of the women became nurses and went to the front or sought other legal employment. Russian women are peculiar in regard to dress. If they are interested in revolution, they almost invariably refuse to think of dress at all and go about looking noticeably shabby–if they are not interested they care exceedingly for clothes and manage to array themselves in the most fantastic "inspirations."

I shall always remember Karsavina, the most beautiful dancer in the world, in those meagre days, dancing to a packed house. It was a marvellous audience; an audience in rags; an audience that had gone without bread to buy the cheap little tickets. I think Karsavina must have wondered what it would be like to dance before that tired, undernourished crowd instead of her once glittering and exclusive little band of nobles.

When she came on it was as hushed as death. And how she danced and how they followed her! Russians know dancing as the Italians know their operas; every little beautiful trick they appreciate to the utmost. "Bravo! Bravo!" roared ten thousand throats. And when she had finished they could not let her go–again and again and again she had to come back until she was wilted like a tired butterfly. Twenty, thirty times she returned, bowing, smiling, pirouetting, until we lost count. . . . Then the people filed out into the damp winter night, pulling their thin cloaks about them.

In Petrograd were flags–all red. Even the statue of Catherine the Great in the little square before the Alexandrinsky Theatre did not escape. There stood Catherine with all her favourite courtiers sitting at her feet and on Catherine's sceptre waved a red flag! These little visible signs of the revolution were everywhere. Great blotches marked the places where imperial insignia had been torn from the buildings. Mild mannered guards patrolled the principal corners, trying not to offend anybody. And over it all stalked King Hunger while a chill autumn rain soaked into the half-fed shivering throngs that hurried along, lifting their faces and beholding a vision of world democracy. . . .

CHAPTER IV

SMOLNY

SMOLNY INSTITUTE, headquarters of the Bolsheviki, is on the edge of Petrograd. Years ago it was considered "way out in the country," but the city grew out to meet it, engulfed it and finally claimed it as its own. Smolny is an enormous place; the great main building stretches in a straight line for hundreds of feet with an ell jutting out at each end and forming a sort of elongated court. Close up to the north ell snuggles the lovely little Smolny Convent with its dull blue dome with the silver stars. Once young ladies of noble birth from all over Russia came here to receive a "proper" education.

I came to know Smolny well while I was in Russia. I saw it change from a lonely, deserted barracks into a busy humming hive, heart and soul of the last revolution. I watched the leaders once accused, hunted and imprisoned raised by the mass of the people of all Russia to the highest places in the nation. They were borne along on the whirling wind of radicalism that swept and is still sweeping Russia and they themselves did not know how long or how well they would be able to ride that whirlwind. . . .

Smolny was always a strange place. In the cavernous, dark hallways where here and there flickered a pale electric light, thousands and thousands of soldiers and sailors and factory workers tramped in their heavy, mud-covered boots every day. All the world seemed to have business at Smolny and the polished white floors over which once tripped the light feet of careless young ladies became dark and dirt-stained and the great building shook with the tread of the proletariat. . . .

I ate many of my meals in the great mess hall on the ground floor with the soldiers. There were long, rough wooden tables and wooden benches and a great air of friendliness pervaded everywhere. You were always welcome at Smolny if you were poor and you were hungry. We ate with wooden spoons, the kind the Russian soldiers carry in their big boots, and all we had to eat was cabbage soup and black bread. We were always thankful for it and always afraid that perhaps to-morrow there would not be even that. . . . We stood in long lines at the noon hour chattering like children. "So you are an American, Tavarishe, well, how does it go now in America?" they would say to me.

Upstairs in a little room tea was served night and day. Trotsky used to come there and Kollontay and Spiradonova and Kaminoff and Volodarysky and all the rest except Lenine. I never saw Lenine at either of these places. He held aloof and only appeared at the largest meetings and no one got to know him very well. But the others I mentioned would discuss events with us. In fact, they were very generous about giving out news.

In all the former classrooms typewriters ticked incessantly. Smolny worked twenty-four hours a day. For weeks Trotsky never left the building. He ate and slept and worked in his office on the third floor and strings of people came in every hour of the day to see him. All the leaders were frightfully overworked, they looked haggard and pale from loss of sleep.

In the great white hall, once the ball-room, with its graceful columns and silver candelabra, delegates from the Soviets all over Russia met in all night sessions. Men came straight from the first line trenches, straight from the fields and the factories. Every race in Russia met there as brothers. Men poured out their souls at these meetings and they said beautiful and terrible things. I will give you an example of the speeches of the soldiers:

A tired, emaciated little soldier mounts the rostrum. He is covered with mud from head to foot and with old blood stains. He blinks in the alarming light. It is the first speech he has ever made in his life and he begins it in a shrill hysterical shout:

"Tavarishi! I come from the place where men are digging their graves and calling them trenches! We are forgotten out there in the snow and the cold. We are forgotten while you sit here and discuss politics! I tell you the army can't fight much longer! Something's got to be done! Something's got to be done! The officers won't work with the soldiers' committees and the soldiers are starving and the Allies won't have a conference. I tell you something's got to be done or the soldiers are going home! "

Then the peasants would get up and plead for their land. The Land Committees, they claimed, were being arrested by the Provisional Government; they had a religious feeling about land. They said they would fight and die for the land, but they would not wait any longer. If it was not given to them now they would go out and take it.

And the factory workers told of the sabotage of the bourgeoisie, how they were ruining the delicate machinery so that the workmen could not run the factories; they were shutting down the mills so they would starve. It was not true, they cried, that the workers were getting fabulous sums. They couldn't live on what they got!

Over and over and over like the beat of the surf came the cry of all starving Russia: "Peace, land and bread! "

It would be very unjust to blame the leaders for any steps they took; my observation was that they were always pushed into these actions by the great will of the majority. It is certainly foolish also to think that the peasants were isolated from Smolny. One of the most spectacular events that happened in Petrograd after the revolution was the two-mile parade of peasants from 6 Fontanka, where they were having the meeting of the All-Russian Peasants' Congress, to Smolny, just to show their approval of that institution.

So many different organisations had offices in Smolny. There worked the now famous Military Revolutionary Committee in Room 17, on the top floor. This committee, which performed some extraordinary feats during the first days of the Bolshevik uprising, was headed by Lazarimov, an eighteen-year-old boy. It was a throbbing room; couriers came and went, foreigners stood in line to get passes to leave the country, suspects were brought in. . . .

Antonoff, the War Minister, had an office in Smolny, as well as Krylenko and Dubenko, so it was the nerve centre for the army and navy, as well as the political centre.

In the corridors were stacks of literature which the people gobbled up eagerly. Pamphlets, books and official newspapers of the Bolshevik party like Rabotchi Poot and the Isvestia by the thousands were disposed of daily.

Soldiers, dead-weary, slept in the halls and on chairs and benches in unused rooms. Others stood alert and on guard before all sorts of committee rooms, and if you didn't have a pass like the one reproduced in this book you didn't get in. The passes were changed frequently to keep out spies.

PASS TO SMOLNY. TRANSLATION: MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF THE SOLDIERS' AND PEASANTS' DEPUTIES.
PASS No. 43. To the building of the Smolny Institute.
Tovaritche Louise Bryant.
A representative of the American Press.
Committee on Personnel–S. Peters.
December 4, 1917.

In many windows were machine guns pointing blind eyes into the cold winter air. Rifles were stacked along the walls, and on the stone steps before the main entrance were several cannon. In the court were armoured cars ready for action. Smolny was always well guarded by volunteers.

No matter how late the meetings lasted, and they usually broke up about 4 o'clock in the morning, the street-car employees kept the cars waiting. When the heaviest snowstorms blocked up the traffic, soldiers and sailors and working women came out on the streets and kept the tracks clear to Smolny. Often it was the only line running in the city.

I have heard that Smolny was the bought establishment of the German imperialists. I have tried to give a true picture of Smolny. It was not the kind of place in which an imperialist of any sort would have been comfortable. I never heard any leader or any of the thousands of soldiers, workers or peasants who came there express one trace of sympathy for the German Government. They have, however, the same feeling that President Wilson has about speaking to the people of Austria and Germany over the heads of their autocratic military leaders. And how successful they are in this must one day be obvious to a doubting world.

CHAPTER V

EXPLANATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES

EVERY change or development of the political situation in Russia will appear vague and incomprehensible unless one understands the essential points of the various political parties and has some definite idea of the way a Soviet government works. In order to do so it is not at all necessary to go into the fine points of Socialism, which the average reader probably has neither time nor inclination for, but just to get a broad general idea. In writing this I do not write as a Socialist, but as a layman speaking to laymen. I attempt to give no pointers to students of political economy. They will be familiar with this outline and much more.

The first thing to remember is that all the important political parties in Russia are Socialist parties–except the Cadets.

The Cadet party is the party of the propertied classes; it has no force of arms and no great mass of people. At one time the only accredited legal party which stood for fairness and reform, as the revolution progressed it lost in influence and fell rapidly into ill repute.

RUSSIAN POLITICAL PARTIES

Marie Spirodonova, in speaking of the Cadets, said: "It is impossible at the present moment to be anything more reactionary than a Cadet. The reason is simple. No one dares to come out openly in favour of a monarchy or to say he is hostile to Socialism, so naturally all these people hide behind the Cadet party–claim to be Cadets, although they are not actually members and they do their best to destroy it. That is why the party that was once an honest, liberal party has become the Black Hundred organisation–hated and despised."

Katherine Breshkovsky, in one of her speeches, expressed much the same opinion. "As regards our capitalists, great and small, I must tell you that upon them rests a great, bloody sin. I am impartial–you know the class I come from–I repeat our enemy at home is just this merchant and capitalist class."

In trying to compare the deep chasm between the mass of the people in Russia and our own people where lines are hardly discernible, we must remember that in Russia over 80 per cent. of the people are proletariat or semi-proletariat. That is, they are either entirely without property or they have such small holdings that they are unable to exist from them. On the other hand–after the revolution the propertied classes refused to co-operate in any way with the democratic organisations of the masses. They bent every effort to break down those institutions.

Often our press speaks of the Socialist Revolutionists or the Mensheviki as if they were "reasonable" and conservative parties as opposed to the radical Bolsheviki. They commonly speak of the Bolsheviki as Anarchists and as Maximalists. All these ideas are far from correct. The Mensheviki and the Bolsheviki are branches of the same party and until 1903 they worked together. They still have precisely the same programme, but they differ as to tactics. They are both Social Democrats–Marxians. They got their names because of the split. The majority of the party went with the Bolsheviki and the minority went with the Mensheviki. That is what their names mean–majoritists and minoritists. Both stand for the socialization of the industry and the land. They differ in tactics.

In October, 1917, the Bolsheviki accepted the Socialist Revolutionists' land programme. This was to provisionally divide the land but at the same time to abolish all private ownership of land.

The Socialist Revolutionists–the party of the peasants–is by far the greatest party in Russia. In 1917 this party also split. It is now divided into two groups known as the Socialist Revolutionists and the Left Socialist Revolutionists–representing the conservative and the radical wings.

The right wing of the Socialist Revolutionists and the Mensheviki–like the Cadets–have at present no following and no force of arms. The active masses have gone to the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionists which works with the Bolsheviki and upholds the Soviet Government.

This moving of the masses away from the moderate groups is largely due to the policy of a government composed of Socialists and bourgeoisie which led to a denial of the desires of the Russian masses–peace, land and control of industry.

In a modern revolution all middle parties disappear or become unimportant. In Russia, where the proletariat is armed, the proletariat becomes the only real influential body. The Bolsheviki are in power because they bow to the will of the masses. The Bolsheviki would be overthrown the very moment they did not express that will.

There are other small Socialist groups in Russia–namely, the Mensheviki Internationalists, a branch of the Menshevik party; Iedinstvo, Plechanov's party, the extreme war party of the Mensheviki; Troudoviki or Populist Socialists, a semi-Socialist party; United Social Democrat Internationalists (Gorki's party), etc.

The Maximalists are a small group–an offshoot of the Socialist Revolutionist party. Their programme is practically agrarian Anarchism.

That the Bolsheviki are not Anarchists but Socialists with a political instead of an entirely economic programme is best demonstrated by the fact that they opposed the attempted irresponsible confiscation of property by the Anarchists with force of arms.

The Soviet Government

The Soviets were such a natural form of organisation for the Russian masses to take because of their long experience with primitive communistic institutions. They owe their strong hold on the people to the fact that they are the most democratic and sensitive political organs that have ever been invented.

The Soviet is an organ of direct proportional representation based on small units of the population with one representative to every 500. It is elected by equal suffrage, secret ballot, with full right of recall. A Soviet is not elected at regular periods. The separate delegates, however, can be recalled and re-elected by their constituents at any time. Therefore, the complexion of the Soviet immediately registers the feeling of the masses of the population. Soviets are based directly on the workers in the factories, the soldiers in the trenches and the peasants in the fields.

Every town has a joint Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies: The different wards of the towns also have soviets. Provinces, counties and some villages have Peasants' Soviets. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is made up of delegates from the provincial soviets, which also may be directly elected, the proportion being one delegate to each 25,000.

The All-Russian Soviet usually meets about every three months. It elects a Central Executive Committee which is the Parliament of the Country. The Central Executive Committee consists of nearly 300 members. The People's Commissars which are the Cabinet or Ministry, of which Trotsky is one, Lunarcharsky another, and so on, are elected by the Central Executive Committee. The Commissars are simply men at the head of a collegium for every department of the government. Lenine is the chairman of the Commissars.

The whole purpose of the Soviets is not simply a territorial representation, but also a class body–a body representing one class mainly–the working class.

The Soviets are the only organised force in Russia that is definitely anti-German. No further explanation is necessary than to say that they are opposed on every point and the two governments cannot exist side by side.

Another important point to remember is that both the Provisional Governments existed only so long as they were tolerated by the Soviets.

CHAPTER VI

THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS

WHEN the counter-revolution, headed by General Korniloff, was at its height and Russia, bewildered by internal and external enemies, rushed frantically this way and that and in her confusion allowed the fall of Riga, the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets demanded the holding of a Democratic Congress, which was to be a fore-runner of the Constituent Assembly and was to make further counter-revolution impossible.

Accordingly about a month later 1600 delegates from all parts of Russia answered the summons. It was a cold mid-September evening, and the rain glistened on the pavements and splashed down from the great statue of Catherine in the leafy little square before the entrance of the Alexandrinsky Theatre, as the delegates filed past the long lines of soldiers, solemnly presented their cards and disappeared into the brilliantly lighted interior of the immense building.

Our little army of reporters, of which about six spoke English, went around to the stage door at the back, climbed up many dark stairs, down many more, tip-toed behind the wings and finally emerged into the orchestra pit, where places were arranged for us.

On the stage sat the presidium at long tables, behind them the entire Petrograd Soviet and in the main theatre and galleries sat the delegates. Almost every revolutionary leader was present, and there were representatives from the All-Russian Soviets of Soldiers and Workmen, the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants, Provisional Delegates of the Soldiers and Workmen's Soviets, Delegates of the Peasants' Regional Soviets, Labor Unions, Army Committees at the Front, Workmen's and Peasants' Co-operatives, Railroad Employees, Postal and Telegraph Employees, Commercial Employees, Liberal Professions (doctors, lawyers, etc.), Zemstvos, Cossacks, Press, and Nationalist Organisations, including Ukranians, Poles, Jews, Letts, Lithuanians, etc. No body just like it had ever met in Russia before.

The boxes which were formerly retained exclusively for members of the Tsar's family, were filled with foreign diplomats and other distinguished visitors. Hanging from these boxes were flaming revolutionary banners. The royal arms and other imperial insignia had been torn from the walls, leaving startling grey patches in the rich gold, ivory and crimson colour scheme. We scarcely had time to glance about before the Congress was formally opened by President Tcheidze, and Kerensky came forward to make his address. All day rumours had been flying about Petrograd that he would not be present and that he disapproved of the Congress. One felt all over the house the suppressed excitement created by his appearance.

Only persons of great intensity can make an audience hold its breath in just the way Kerensky did as he walked quickly across the stage. He was clad in a plain brown soldier's suit without so much as a brass button or an epaulette to mark him Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army and Navy and Minister-President of the Russian Republic. Somehow all this unpretentiousness accentuated the dignity of his position. It was characteristic that he should ignore the speakers' rostrum and proceed to the runway leading from the main floor to the stage. It produced an effect of unusual intimacy between the speaker and his audience.

"At the Moscow Conference," he began, "I was in an official capacity and my scope was limited, but here I am Tavarish–comrade. There are people here who connect me with that terrible affair. . . " (referring to the Korniloff counter-revolution).

He was interrupted by shouts of "Yes, there are people here who do!"

Kerensky stepped back as if struck, and all the enthusiasm went out of his face. One was shocked by the extreme sensitiveness of the man after so many years of revolutionary struggle. Deeply conscious of the coldness, the hostility even of his audience, he played on it skilfully–with oratory, with pleading, with a strange unabated inward energy. His face and his voice and his words became tragic and desolate, changed slowly and became fire-lit, radiating, triumphant; before the magnificent range of his emotion all opposition was at last swept away. . . .

"After all, it doesn't matter what you think about me –all that matters is the revolution. We are here for other business than to heap personal recriminations upon one another!"

Yes, that was true and everybody in the audience felt it for the time he was speaking. When he finished they rose in a tremendous ovation.

Dramatically he stepped from the stage, traversed the long aisle in the centre of the theatre, mounted the Tsar's own box and raising his right hand as if to drink a toast, spoke again: "Long live the Democratic Republic and the Revolutionary Army!" And the crowd shouted back: "Long live Kerensky!"

This was the last ovation Kerensky ever got. If the Russians had the temperament of the Italians or of the French, I think they would have worshipped Kerensky; but Russians are never convinced by phrases and they are not hero worshippers. They were disappointed in Kerensky's speech. He was charming, but he had not told them anything. There were many details about the Korniloff affair which they wished straightened up in their minds, they also wanted desperately to know what had been done about a conference of the Allies to discuss war aims, and he had not mentioned it. An hour after his departure his influence was gone, and they threw themselves into the struggle of deciding the issues for which they had come.

For nine days the Democratic Congress continued. Hundreds of delegates spoke in that time. They had much to say, for how long they had endured silence! At first, the Chairman tried to limit their speeches, but the audience raised a loud clamour: "Let them say everything they have come here to say!"

It was amazing how they could do it. I recall the words of their countryman, Tshaadaev: "Great things have always come from the wilderness." Often a peasant, who had never made a speech in his life, would give a long sustained talk of an hour's duration and keep the close attention of his audience. Not one speaker had stage fright. Few used notes and every man was a poet. They said the most beautiful and simple things; they knew in their innermost hearts what they wanted and how they wanted it. The gigantic problem was to weave a general satisfactory programme from their widely divergent desires. Whenever the chairman announced recess, we would all rush out into the corridors and eat sandwiches and drink tea. The sessions often lasted until 4 in the morning, but the hunger for truth and the liquefaction of difficulties never lessened. There was the same earnest groping for solutions in the grey dawn as in the flaring sunset. . . .

Some events and some personalities stand out sharply from that long fortnight of oratory, when the representatives of over fifty races and 180 million of people spoke all that was in their hearts. I remember a tall, handsome Cossack, who stood before the assembly and, blushing with shame, cried out: "The Cossacks are tired of being policemen! Why must we forever settle the quarrels of others?"

I remember the dark, striking Georgian who rebuked the speaker who preceded him because he desired national independence from Russia for his small nationality. "We seek no separate independence," he said, "when Russia is free, Georgia will also be free!"

There was a gentle-looking peasant-soldier who gave solemn warning: "Mark this down well, the peasants will never lay down their arms until they receive their land!"

And the nurse who came to describe conditions at the front, how she broke down and could only sob: "Oh, my poor soldiers!"

There was a stern little delegate who arose and said: "I am from Lettgallia. . . " and who was interrupted by serious interrogations of "Where is that?" and "Is that in Russia?"

They had a slow, ridiculous way of counting votes; it wasted hours. I spoke to one of my neighbours about it, saying we had quite simple methods of doing these things in America. "Oh, time is roubles here," he said, referring to the low exchange, and the correspondents roared with laughter.

As the Congress progressed one had time to note some of the visitors. Mrs. Kerensky was one. She sat in the first gallery, dressed always in black, pale and wistful. Only once did she make audible comment. It was when a Bolshevik was severely criticising the Provisional Government. Almost involuntarily she exclaimed: "Da volna!–enough! "

In one of the boxes sat Madame Lebedev, Prince Kropotkin's daughter. She had been so long a part of London society that she appears more English than Russian. She frankly protested against all radical measures and she possessed the only lorgnette in the Democratic Congress; it was the subject of much conversation and not a little resentment among the peasant delegates.

There were a number of Americans in the diplomatic box, including members of the Red Cross Mission. Colonel Thompson and Colonel Raymond Robbins were present at nearly every session and took a lively interest. Robbins often came down to the reporters' quarters and discussed the situation with us.

Among the strong personalities of the delegates were the three sick men–Tcheidze, Tseretelli, Martoff, all suffering from, and in dangerous stages of, tuberculosis. Tcheidze is a Georgian, eagle-eyed, past middle age–a remarkable chairman whose ready wit always was able to subdue the sudden uproars that continually threatened the life of the Congress. It was noticeable that on the only night he was too ill to attend the serious split with the Bolsheviki occurred. Tcheidze is a Menshevik and was at one time a University professor.

Tseretelli is also a Georgian and a Menshevik, and next to Kerensky, at that time, was undoubtedly the most powerful man in Russia. Tseretelli's manner and his whole appearance are so Asiatic that he looks almost absurd in a trim, business suit; it is impossible not to picture him in long flowing robes. He was a member of the Third Duma and his health was broken by seven years of hard labour in Siberia.

Martoff is grey and worn, his voice always husky from throat trouble. He is much beloved by his constituents and is known everywhere as a brilliant writer. Exiled in France for many years, he became one of the principal figures in the labour movement there. He is a Menshevik Internationalist by politics.

TCHEIDZE
CHAIRMAN OF THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS AND THE PREPARLIAMENT

Flashing out of that remarkable gathering was the striking personality of Leon Trotsky, like a Marat; vehement, serpent-like, he swayed the assembly as a strong wind stirs the long grass. No other man creates such an uproar, such hatred at the slightest utterance, uses such stinging words and yet underneath it all carries such a cool head. In striking contrast was another Bolshevik leader, Kameneff, who reminded me of Lincoln Steffens. His way of expressing his opinions was as mild as Trotsky's was violent, sharp and inflammatory.

There was the young War Minister, Verkovsky, known as the only man in Russia who ever was on time at an appointment. He is one of the most honest and sincere persons I ever met. It was he who first had the idea of democratising the army; it was he who insisted that the Allies be informed of the alarming morale of the Russian army; he was a better fighter than a talker. For his frankness he was dismissed from office by the Provisional Government.

Not by any means to be overlooked were the twenty-three regularly elected women-delegates, notable among them Marie Spirodonova, the most politically powerful woman in Russia or in the world, and the only woman the soldiers and peasants are sentimental about.

The one thing that the Congress completely agreed upon and instructed the Preparliament which was to follow it to do, was to issue an appeal to the peoples of the world reaffirming the Soviets' formula of last spring for peace "without annexations and indemnities" on the basis of self determination of peoples.

A particularly noticeable sore point in all the speeches was the subject of capital punishment in the army; it was always causing an unpleasant stir. The sentiment of the gathering was firmly against the re-establishment, but it was never actually put to a vote.

The quarrel over coalition wrecked the assembly and almost broke Russia.

A resolution put up by Trotsky and reading: We are in favour of coalition of all democratic elements–except the Cadets carried overwhelmingly and showed the real feeling of the country. Every one knows now that it was the most tragic thing in the world that that decision was not left.

Unfortunately just after the resolution was passed word was brought that Kerensky was about to announce his new cabinet containing representatives of the Cadet party and several Moscow business men known to be particularly out of harmony with socialistic aims. Tseretelli hurried to the Winter Palace and told Kerensky that he dare not ignore the will of the Congress; that without the sanction of the Democratic Congress, the formation of such a cabinet would lead directly to civil war.

The next morning Kerensky appeared before the Presidium, and threatening to resign, painted such a tragic picture of the condition of the country, that the Presidium returned to the Congress with a resolution to immediately constitute the Preparliament with full power to authorise the constitution of a coalition government, if it thought absolutely necessary, and to admit into its own ranks representatives of the bourgeoisie proportional to their representatives in the cabinet.

Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and other politicians upholding the Provisional Government, spoke again and again for the measure. Lunarcharsky and Kameneff spoke against the wording, claiming that Tseretelli had not read the same motion which had been agreed upon at the meeting of the Presidium. Whereupon Tseretelli's usual self-control deserted him and he cried: "The next time I deal with Bolsheviki I will insist on having a notary and two secretaries!"

The Bolshevik Nagine shouted back that he would give Tseretelli five minutes to retract his words, and Tseretelli remaining stubbornly silent, the Bolsheviki used this as an excuse for bolting the assembly. They left the hall amid the most tremendous uproar. Men ran into the hallways, screaming, pleading, weeping. . . .

This split over coalition marked the beginning and the end of many things, and was a real blow to the democratic forces brought together for self-protection during the Korniloff attempt. When the measure was finally voted on the delegates were not allowed a secret ballot and those who voted for coalition sacrificed their political careers. Just over night a terrific change came over that once peaceful gathering. When Spirodonova got up and told her peasants that this measure cheated them out of their land, a sullen, ominous roar followed her words. As I watched that change it came to me what the passage of the measure really meant. It meant civil war, it meant a great swinging of the masses to the banners of the Bolsheviki, it meant new leaders pushed to the surface who would do the bidding of the people and old leaders hurled into oblivion, it meant the beginning of class struggle and the end of political revolution. . . .

The next evening coalition passed by a small majority and the delegates filed out into the rain singing, after having arraigned the elections of the Preparliament.

CHAPTER VII

THE PREPARLIAMENT AND THE SOVIET OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC

THE first meeting of the Preparliament took place in the shabby old hall of the Petrograd City Duma on September 23, and showed that the moderate socialist machine was still in control by the election of Tcheidze as President. Another indication of the drift toward the right wing was the decision to discuss the question of the constitution of the government in secret session, in face of the combined protest of the Bolsheviki, Menshevik Internationalists and the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionists.

During the secret session Tseretelli arrived from the Winter Palace with a report of the alliance, hastily concluded, between the moderate socialists and the bourgeoisie, announcing the bourgeoisie would enter the Preparliament in the proportion of 100 members to each 120 democratic members; that a coalition government would be formed; and that the government would not be responsible to the Preparliament. Then, coalition being a fact, everybody entered into violent debates upon the subject, which were terminated by "Babushka"–Katherine Breshkovsky–announcing in a trembling voice at 2 o'clock in the morning that coalition was right because human life itself is based on the principle of coalition. . . .

The next day a heated debate took place upon the question of the death penalty in the army, followed by passionate addresses by every one altogether upon coalition, the dissolution of the Duma, peace, the threatening railroad strike and the land question which ended in the resolution of the Socialist Revolutionists insisting that the first task of the new government should be the immediate placing of the land under the authority of the General Peasant Land Committees.

At one time such pandemonium reigned that a violent discussion between Trotsky and Tcheidze ended because neither one could hear what the other was saying. In the lull that followed Babushka rebuked the delegates, saying that they had come together to save Russia and that not a single step had been taken.

Avksentieff, at that time president of the Peasants' Soviets, but now completely out of power, declared that if the land amendment had anything to do with endangering coalition the Socialist Revolutionists would retire it. The whole matter was finally disposed of by the representative of the Land Committee himself who got up and remarked bitterly that the whole business was utter absurdity and that the Peasants' Land Committee would have nothing to do with it, whereupon the resolution was rejected. At six o'clock in the morning the delegates went wearily home. . . .

The next morning Tseretelli announced that the official name of the Preparliament would be the "Council of the Russian Republic," and that it would meet in the Marinsky Palace after a few days.

Thus ended the first attempt to establish absolute democratic power in Russia.

The Council of the Russian Republic

Ever since the split of the democratic forces over coalition with the bourgeoisie, which first definitely manifested itself at the Democratic Congress, a new revolution, deeper and in every way more significant than the first, hung like a thundercloud over Russia.

For weeks the Council of the Russian Republic held futile sessions. On the very first evening the Bolsheviki, through their spokesman, Trotsky, hurled a bomb into the gathering from which it never recovered. They accused the sens element–propertied classes–of being represented out of proportion to their numbers as shown from the elections held all over the country, and charged them with the deliberate intention of ruining the Revolution; appealing to the soldiers, workers, peasants of all Russia to be on their guard, the Bolsheviki left the Council never to return.

After that the Council sat day after day a hostile, divided house, unable to carry out a single measure. The Mensheviki, Menshevik Internationalists, Right and Left Socialist Revolutionists, sat on one side, the Cadets on the other, and the vote on every important measure was a tie. Orators from the right got up and heaped recriminations on the left, orators from the left screamed curses on the right. And all this time the mass of the people left their old parties and joined the ranks of the Bolsheviki. Louder grew the cry: All power to the Soviets!

Every few days Kerensky would appear and make impassioned addresses without any effect whatever. He would be received coldly and listened to with indifference; the Cadets often choosing this particular time to read their papers. During one of the last speeches he made in the Marinsky Palace, begging them to forget their differences and somehow pull together until the Constituent Assembly, he was so overcome with the hopelessness of the situation that he rushed from the platform, and having gained his seat, wept openly before the whole assembly.

All those who understood the condition of Russia at that time knew that Kerensky was the symbol of a fictitious union of parties, but how long he could remain so no one could foretell. He was ill and carrying the weight of all Russia on his frail shoulders. Moreover, he had been betrayed by the very Cadets he had worked so hard to keep in the government. The Bolsheviki were offering a definite programme containing the wishes nearest to the hearts of the people, and the people were going over to the Bolsheviki.

One thing might have saved that pitiful Preparliament even in the last days, and that was the Allied Conference to Discuss War Aims which new Russia had demanded at the beginning of the revolution and which was to be held in June, was postponed to September, then to November, and finally, apparently, given up altogether. With the final decision of the Allies and the now famous speech of Bonar Law, the last shred of influence of the Council of the Russian Republic disappeared. All Russia was slowly starving, another terrible winter was coming on, and there was nothing definite to hang their hopes on. Kerensky himself was not unaware of the danger or of the confusion. He told me himself a few days before the Provisional Government fell, that the people had lost confidence and were too economically tired to put up further effective resistance against the Germans.

"The Constituent Assembly must be the deciding factor, one way or the other," he said. He hoped that he could hold the country together until then, but I do not think for a moment that he thought he could hold it any longer. I do not think he dared prophesy what would come out of the Constituent when it did meet.

On the 25th of October the meeting of the All-Russian Soviets was due to be held in Petrograd. That that tremendously powerful body would demand immediate action on all the burning issues there was no doubt and that if the Provisional Government refused those demands they would take over the power there was also no doubt. Kerensky believed that he ought to prevent this meeting by any means possible, even by force of arms. He did not realise how far the Bolshevik influence had spread. The masses moved fast in those days and the army had gone solidly Bolshevik.

Kerensky took into account, however, that the Petrograd garrison was composed largely of Bolsheviki and so on the 14th of October he ordered this garrison to the front to be replaced by troops less Bolshevik. Naturally, the Petrograd garrison protested and appealed to the Petrograd Soviet. The Petrograd Soviet appointed a commission to go to the front and confer with General Tcherimissov, and demand of him that if he did send regiments to replace the Petrograd garrison the Petrograd Soviet should be allowed to choose them. This General Tcherimissov flatly refused, saying that he was the Commander-in-Chief of the army and that his orders should be obeyed.

In the meantime members of the Petrograd garrison held a meeting and elected the now famous Military Revolutionary Committee, and demanded that a representative of the committee be allowed in the General Staff of the Petrograd District. This proposition the Petrograd Staff refused to consider. In reply the Petrograd garrison declared that it would take no orders from anybody unless countersigned by the Military Revolutionary Committee, as they maintained that the General Staff was secretly taking measures to violently disperse the meeting of the All-Russian Soviets.

On the 23rd of October Kerensky announced before the Council of the Republic that an order had been issued for the arrest of the Military Revolutionary Committee. The next night several of the members of the Pavlovsk regiment secreted themselves in the office of the General Staff and discovered that plans were being made to seize the city with the aid of the Junker regiments, and forcibly prevent the meeting of the All-Russian Soviets scheduled for the following day. That night Kerensky ordered all the extreme radical papers and the extreme conservative papers suppressed. But it was too late; it was like sweeping back the sea with a broom. The Soviets had become the ultimate political expression of the popular will, and the Bolsheviki were the champions of the Soviets.

After the Pavlovsk regiment discovered the plans of the Provisional Government, they set sentries and began to arrest all persons entering or leaving the General Staff. Before this time the Junkers had begun to seize automobiles and take them to the Winter Palace. They also seized the editorial offices and the printing shops of the Bolshevik papers. During all this confusion a meeting of the old Executive Committee of the Soviets was taking place at Smolny. The old Central Executive Committee was composed largely of Mensheviki and Left Socialist Revolutionists, and the new delegates were almost solidly Bolshevik. There was nothing to do but speedily elect a new Central Executive Committee.

The next afternoon I started out as usual to attend the regular session of the Council of the Russian Republic. One glance around the square before the Marinsky Palace assured me that the long looked for storm of civil war had come. Soldiers and sailors were guarding the little bridges over the Moika, a great crowd of sailors were at the door of the palace and barricades were being hastily constructed. Word flew round that they were arresting the Council of the Republic. As a matter of fact no one thought the Council of the Republic was important enough to arrest. What really happened was tragically funny. A big Cronstadt sailor marched into the great elaborate red and gold assembly chamber and announced in a loud voice "No more Council! Go along home!" And the Council went–disappearing forever as an influence in the political life of Russia.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FALL OF THE WINTER PALACE

OCTOBER 24th was crowded with events. After the ludicrous disbanding of the Council of the Russian Republic at 2 o'clock in the afternoon by the Cronstadt sailors, with two other Americans, John Reed and Albert Rhys Williams, I started for the Winter Palace to find out what was happening to Kerensky.

Junker guards were everywhere. They let us pass after solemnly examining our American passports. Once past the guards we were at liberty to roam all over the palace and so we went directly to Kerensky's office. In the ante-room we found one of his smart-looking aides who greeted us in an agitated manner. Babushka, he told us, had gone two days before and Kerensky had also fled after an embarrassing experience which might have caused his capture. At the last moment he found that he did not have enough gasoline for his automobile, and couriers had to be sent into the Bolshevik lines. . . .

Everybody in the palace was tremendously excited; they were expecting an attack at any minute and no one knew just what to do. There was very little ammunition and it was only a matter of hours before they would have to give up. The Winter Palace was cut off from all outside help and the ministers of the Provisional Government were inside. . . .

When we left Kerensky's office we walked straight to the front of the palace. Here were hundreds of Junkers all armed and ready. Straw beds were on the floor and a few were sleeping, huddled up on their blankets. They were all young and friendly and said they had no objection to our being in the battle; in fact, the idea rather amused them.

For three hours we were there. I shall never forget those poor, uncomfortable, unhappy boys. They had been reared and trained in officers' schools, and now they found themselves without a court, without a Tsar, without all the traditions they believed in. The Miliukov government was bad enough, the Provisional government was worse and now this terrible proletarian dictatorship. . . . It was too much; they couldn't stand it.

A little group of us sat down on a window ledge. One of them said he wanted to go to France "where people lived decently." Another enquired the best method to get into the American army. One of them was not over eighteen. He told me that in case they were not able to hold the palace, he was "keeping one bullet for himself." All the others declared that they were doing the same.

Some one suggested that we exchange keepsakes. We brought out our little stores. I recall a silver Caucasian dagger, a short sword presented by the Tsar and a ring with this inscription: "God, King and Lady." When conversation lagged they took us away to show us the "Gold Room" of which they were very proud. They said that it was one of the finest rooms in all Europe. All the talk was sprinkled with French phrases just to prove they were really cultured. Russia had moved several centuries beyond these precious young men. . . .

Once while we were quietly chatting, a shot rang out and in a moment there was the wildest confusion; Junkers hurried in every direction. Through the front windows we could see people running and falling flat on their faces. We waited for five minutes, but no troops appeared and no further firing occurred. While the Junkers were still standing with their guns in their hands, a solitary figure emerged, a little man, dressed in ordinary citizen's clothes, carrying a huge camera. He proceeded across the Square until he reached the point where he would be a good target for both sides and there, with great deliberation, he began to adjust his tripod and take pictures of the women soldiers who were busy turning the winter supply of wood for the Palace into a flimsy barricade before the main entrance. There were about two hundred of them and about fifteen hundred Junkers in the whole place. There was absolutely no food and a very small supply of ammunition.

At five-thirty we decided to go to Smolny to be present at the opening of the much-talked-of meeting of the All-Russian Soviets.

As we crossed under the Red Arch we met a group of Bolshevik soldiers who were discussing the best means of taking the Palace. "The bad part is," said one, "that the Women's Battalion is on guard there and they will say we shot Russian women. . . . "

At Smolny a hot battle of words was being waged between the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionists on one side and the Left Socialist Revolutionists, Bolsheviki and Menshevik Internationalists on the other. The former were claiming that all important matters must be put off until after the Constituent Assembly. But the majority of the gathering would not listen to them. Finally, an inspired speaker declared that the cruiser Aurora was at that very moment shelling the Winter Palace, and if the whole uprising was not stopped at once, the delegates from the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionist Parties, together with certain members of the City Duma, would march unarmed through the firing lines and die with the Provisional Government.

This came as a complete surprise to many of the delegates who were to be sacrificed, but nevertheless a number of them impulsively followed the speaker; others sat uneasily in their seats looking as if they felt this was carrying party principles altogether too far. The affair, dramatic as it was, did not have much effect on the general assembly; five minutes after the delegates left the hall they proceeded with their regular business. The soldiers seemed to think it was a particularly good joke and kept slapping each other on the back and guffawing.

Of course we followed the bolting delegates.

All the street cars had stopped and it was two miles to the Winter Palace. A huge motor truck was just leaving Smolny. We hailed it and climbed on board. We found we had for companions several sailors and soldiers and a man from the Wild Division, wearing his picturesque, long black cape. They warned us gaily that we'd probably all get killed, and they told me to take off a yellow hatband, as there might be sniping.

Their mission was to distribute leaflets all over town, and especially along the Nevsky Prospect. The leaflets were piled high over the floor of the truck together with guns and ammunition. As we rattled along through the wide, dim-lit streets, they scattered the leaflets to eager crowds. People scrambled over the cobbles fighting for copies. We could only make out the headlines in the half-light:

Citizens! The Provisional Government is deposed. State Power has passed into the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker' and Soldiers' Deputies. "

Before I left Smolny I had secured a pass from the new famous Military Revolutionary Committee My pass read:

"No. 1

"Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives Tavarishe Louise Bryant free passage through the city.

"Signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and stamped by the Military Division."

FIRST PASS ISSUED BY THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE ON THE NIGHT THAT THE BOLSHEVIKI CAME INTO POWER IN RUSSIA.
Translation:
PASS I. Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives Tovaritche Louise Bryant free passage through the city.
Signed by the Chairman and Secretary of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Where the Ekaterina Canal crosses the Nevsky, guards informed the driver that we could go no further. So we jumped down and found ourselves witnesses to as fantastic a political performance as ever took place in history.

Huddled together in the middle of the Nevsky were the delegates of the Socialist Revolutionist and Menshevik Parties. Unto themselves they had since gathered various wives and friends and those members of the city Duma who were not Bolsheviki, Left Socialist Revolutionists or Menshevik Internationalists–so that their number was something over two hundred. It was then two o'clock in the morning. . . .

For a time, I confess, we were all pretty much impressed by these would-be martyrs; any body of unarmed people protesting against armed force is bound to be impressive. In a little while, however, we couldn't help wondering why they didn't go ahead and die as long as they had made up their minds to it; and especially since the Winter Palace and the Provisional Government might be captured at any moment.

When we began to talk to the martyrs we were surprised to find that they were very particular about the manner in which they were to die–and not only that but they were trying to persuade the sailor guards that they had been given permission to pass by the Military Revolutionary Committee. If our respect for their bravery weakened, our interest in the uniqueness of their political tricks grew a good deal; it was clear that the last thing the delegates wanted to do was to die, although they kept shouting that they did at the top of their voices. "Let us pass! Let us sacrifice ourselves!" they cried like bad children.

Only twenty husky sailors barred the way. And to all arguments they continued stubborn and unmoved. "Go home and take poison," they advised the clamouring statesmen, "but don't expect to die here. We have orders not to allow it."

"What will you do if we suddenly push forward?" asked one of the delegates.

"We may give you a good spanking," answered the sailors, "but we will not kill one of you–not by a damn sight!"

This seemed to settle the business. Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies, walked to the head of the company and announced in a trembling voice: "Comrades: Let us return, let us refuse to be killed by switchmen! " Just exactly what he meant by that was too much for my simple American brain, but the martyrs seemed to understand perfectly, for off they marched in the direction from which they had come and took up headquarters in the city Duma.

When we showed our passes, it was like magic, the sailors smiled and let us go forward without a word. At the Red Arch, soldiers informed us that the Winter Palace had just surrendered. We ran across the Square after the Bolshevik troops, a few bullets whistled by, but it was impossible to tell from which direction they came. Every window was lit up as if for a fête and we could see people moving about inside. Only a small entrance was open and we poured through the narrow door.

Inside the Junkers were being disarmed and given their liberty. They had to file past the door through which we had come. When those we had been with in the afternoon recognised us they waved friendly greetings. They looked relieved that it was all over, they had forgotten about the "one bullet" they were keeping for themselves. . . .

The Ministers of the Provisional Government were betrayed by the employees in the palace, and they were quickly hauled out of all sorts of secret back rooms and passages. They were sent to Peter and Paul fortress. We sat on a long bench by the door and watched them going out. Tereschenko impressed me more than the others. He looked so ridiculous and out of place; he was so well groomed and so outraged.

The Woman's Regiment, amounting to about two hundred, were also disarmed and told to go home and put on female attire.

Every one leaving the palace was searched, no matter on what side he was. There were priceless treasures all about and it was a great temptation to pick up souvenirs. I have always been glad that I was present that night because so many stories have come out about the looting. It was so natural that there should have been looting and so commendable that there was none.

A young Bolshevik lieutenant stood by the only unlocked door, and in front of him was a great table. Two soldiers did the searching. The Lieutenant delivered a sort of sermon while this was going on. I wrote down part of his speech: "Comrades, this is the people's palace. This is our palace. Do not steal from the people. . . . Do not disgrace the people. . . . "

It was amusing to see what those great, simple soldiers had taken–the broken handle of a Chinese sword, a wax candle, a coat-hanger, a blanket, a worn sofa-cushion. . . . They laid them out all together, their faces red with shame. And not one thing was of the least value!

About five o'clock the same morning we left the Winter Palace and called at the City Duma. Here we found the indignant and no longer self-sacrificing politicians furiously forming what they ingeniously chose to call the "Committee for Saving the Country and the Revolution."

Soon after it fell into their hands, the Soviet government turned the Winter Palace into a People's Museum.

CHAPTER IX

THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

I BELIEVE we are more confused over the Constituent Assembly than over most things that have happened in Russia. And there is good reason for that confusion. Following the political developments as closely as I did in those days, I found it difficult enough to understand. Here were the radical parties for months shouting for the Constituent–in fact, ever since the first revolution. At last it was called, suddenly dissolved, and not a ripple in the country!

Of course the outstanding reason was that the Constituent voted against the Soviets. And that was a pretty fair test of the Soviets. If any power in Russia could have broken the Soviets it would have been the Constituent and the Constituent vanished at the first attempt.

How did it happen? asked a surprised world. By bayonets? Yes and no. It happened because the people were with the Soviets and the bayonets were in the hands of the people; there was no force to oppose the Soviets.

The Constituent Assembly delegates were elected on lists made up in September and the Constituent Assembly was not called until the following January. The elections were held in November. The method of Russian elections is this: to vote for party and programme, the candidates being nominated by the Central Committee of the party. Now the majority of the Constituent Assembly delegates were Socialist Revolutionists and before the elections came the Socialist-Revolutionist party had split. The majority of the members went with the party of the left, but the Central Executive Committee was still dominated by the right. Therefore, the Delegates to the Constituent Assembly did not represent the real feeling of the country at that time. Moreover, the elections were held two weeks after the Bolshevik insurrection, when the country had not yet completely moved to the left; Bolshevism had not yet accomplished itself. By January, when the Constituent met, the country had swung. In other words, elections were held for the supreme organ of the kind of government which was out of existence.

Marie Spirodonova, who keeps in closer touch with the peasants than any one I know in Russia, told me that many of the peasants did not vote at all and the delegates did not want to come. The one thing that was clear in their minds was that the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies should still go on, no matter what the Constituent Assembly did. . . . It took four or five weeks for the wave of Bolshevism to hit some of the various centres, but when it did, this was the result produced. As far as I could gather from every source of information available, the people demanded: all power to the Soviets –and this was not qualified by anything.

An All-Russian Peasants' Conference was held in Petrograd shortly after the Bolshevik uprising. The majority of the delegates came right Socialist Revolutionists–in three days they had joined the left wing; had elected Spirodonova president and gone over to the Soviets, marching in a body to Smolny. There were two All-Russian Peasants' assemblies–both did the same thing.

The Bolshevik leaders did not know how much power the Constituent Assembly would have, but as time went on one thing was clear–the Soviets and the Constituent Assembly absolutely cancelled each other. The main difference between the two bodies was that the Constituent Assembly included the Cadets, which the November revolution had been made to put down.

I was present at the opening of Constituent; it was a terrific performance from beginning to end. About eight o'clock the delegates assembled and the air fairly crackled with excitement. It had been extremely hard to obtain tickets and the Tauride palace was jammed. I sat directly over the presidium in a little gallery reserved for reporters.

Lindhagen, the Socialist mayor of Stockholm, strolled by and whispered to us: "It is going to be a regular wild west show. . . every one is carrying a gun."

Victor Tchernoff, once so powerful with the peasants but discredited because he stood for coalition at the Democratic Congress, was elected President. Whenever he spoke he was hissed and booed by the left. Tseretelli was the only Constituent Assembly member listened to by both sides with respect. Tseretelli is a great man, the finest of all the moderate socialist party leaders. Why Kerensky and not Tseretelli was made head of the nation under the Provisional Government I could never understand. Tseretelli towers above Kerensky as Lincoln does over Buchanan or Cleveland. But middle parties and their leaders can never stand in time of revolution and Tseretelli went down with all the rest.

TCHERNOFF
CHAIRMAN OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

In opening the Constituent Assembly, Sverdlov, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets–the new parliament–read the following declaration, which the Soviet Government demanded should be adopted by the Constituent as its working basis:

"DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED PEOPLE

I

1. Russia is to be declared a republic of the workers', soldiers' and peasants' Soviets. All power in the cities and in the country belongs to the Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is based on the free federation of free peoples, on the federation of national Soviet republics.

II

Assuming as its duty the destruction of all exploitation of the workers, the complete abolition of the class system of society, and the placing of society upon a socialistic basis, and the ultimate bringing about of victory for Socialism in every country, the Constituent Assembly further decides:

1. That the socialization of land be realised, private ownership of land be abolished, all the land be proclaimed common property of the people, and turned over to the toiling masses without compensation on the basis of equal right to the use of land.

All forests, mines and waters, which are of social importance, as well as all living and other forms of property, and all agricultural enterprises are declared national property.

2. To confirm the decree of the Soviets concerning the inspection of working conditions, the highest department of national economy, which is the first step in achieving the ownership by the Soviets of the factories, mines, railroads and means of production and transportation.

3. To confirm the decree of the Soviets transferring all banks to the ownership of the Soviet Republic, as one of the steps in the freeing of the toiling masses from the yoke of capitalism.

4. To enforce general compulsory labour, in order to destroy the class of parasites, and to reorganise the economic life.

In order to make the power of the toiling masses secure and to prevent the restoration of the rule of the exploiters, the toiling masses will be armed and a Red Guard composed of workers and peasants formed, and the exploiting classes shall be disarmed.

III

1. Declaring its firm determination to make society free from the chaos of capitalism and imperialism, which has drenched the country in blood in this most criminal war of all wars, the Constituent Assembly accepts completely the policy of the Soviets, whose duty it is to publish all secret treaties, to organise the most extensive fraternisation between the workers and peasants of the warring armies, and by revolutionary methods to bring about a democratic peace among all the belligerent nations without annexations and indemnities, on the basis of the free self-determination of nations–at any price.

2. For this purpose the Constituent Assembly declares its complete separation from the brutal policy of the bourgeoisie, which furthers the well-being of the exploiters in a few selected nations by enslaving hundreds of millions of the toiling peoples of the colonies and the small nations generally.

The Constituent Assembly accepts the policy of the Council of People's Commissars in giving complete independence to Finland, in beginning the withdrawal of troops from Persia, and in declaring for Armenia the right of self-determination.

A blow at international financial capital is the Soviet decree which annuls foreign loans made by the governments of the Tsar, the land-owners and the bourgeoisie. The Soviet government is to continue firmly on this road until the final victory from the yoke of capitalism is won through international workers' revolt.

As the Constituent Assembly was elected on the basis of lists of candidates nominated before the November revolution, when the people as a whole could not yet rise against their exploiters, and did not know how powerful would be the strength of the exploiters in defending their privileges, and had not yet begun to create a socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers it, even from a formal point of view, unjust to oppose the Soviet power. The Constituent Assembly is of the opinion that at this moment, in the decisive hour of the struggle of the people against their exploiters, the exploiters must not have a seat in any Government organisation or institution. The power completely and without exception belongs to the people and its authorised representatives–the workers', soldiers' and peasants' Soviets.

Supporting the Soviet rule and accepting the orders of the Council of People's Commissars, the Constituent Assembly acknowledges its duty to outline a form for the reorganisation of society.

Striving at the same time to organise a free and voluntary, and thereby also a complete and strong union among the toiling classes of all the Russian nations, the Constituent Assembly limits itself to outlining the basis of the federation of Russian Soviet Republics, leaving to the people, to the workers and soldiers, to decide for themselves, in their own Soviet meetings, if they are willing and on what conditions they prefer, to join the federated government and other federations of Soviet enterprise.

These general principles are to be published without delay, and the official representatives of the Soviets are required to read them at the opening of the Constituent Assembly."

At two o'clock in the morning of November 19th, the "Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People" was put to a vote, and defeated. The spokesman of the Bolshevik party demanded the floor, and read for his faction the following statement:

"The great majority of the toiling masses of Russia, the workers, peasants and soldiers, have demanded that the Constituent Assembly recognise the results of the great October revolution, the decrees of the Soviets regarding land, peace and inspection of working conditions, and above all that it recognise the Soviet government. Fulfilling this demand of the great majority of the Russian working-class, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee has proposed to the Constituent Assembly that the Assembly acknowledge this demand as binding upon it. In accordance with the demands of the bourgeoisie, however, the majority of the Constituent Assembly has refused to accede to this proposal, thereby throwing the gage of battle to the whole of toiling Russia. The Socialist-Revolutionary right wing, the party of Kerensky, Avksentieff and Tchernoff, has obtained the majority of the Constituent Assembly. This party, which calls itself a Socialist Revolutionist party, is directing the fight of the bourgeoisie against the workers' revolution, and is in reality a bourgeois counter-revolutionary party. In its present state the Constituent Assembly is a result of the relative party power in force before the great October revolution. The present counter-revolutionary majority of the Constituent Assembly, elected on the basis of obsolete party lists, is trying to resist the movement of the workers and peasants. The day's discussions have clearly shown that the Socialist Revolutionist party of the Right, as in the time of Kerensky, makes concessions to the people, promises them everything, but in reality has decided to fight against the Soviet government, against the socialist measures giving the land and all its appurtenances to the peasants without compensation, nationalising the banks, and cancelling the national debt.

Without wishing for a moment to condone the crimes of the enemies of the people, we announce that we withdraw from the Constituent Assembly, in order to allow the Soviet power finally to decide the question of its relations with the counter-revolutionary section of the Constituent Assembly."

Thereupon the Bolsheviki, Left Socialist Revolutionists and Unified Social Democrat Internationalists left the chamber. The remaining delegates continued to make speeches, but there was no heart in what they said; without the radical elements, the Constituent was dead. At three o'clock they passed the following resolution to be sent broadcast to the whole world:

RUSSIA'S FORM OF GOVERNMENT

In the name of the peoples who compose the Russian State, the All-Russian Constituent Assembly proclaims the Russian state to be the Russian Democratic Federated Republic, uniting indissolubly into one whole the peoples and territories which are sovereign within the limits prescribed by the Federal Constitution.

LAWS REGARDING LAND OWNERSHIP

1. The right to privately own land within the boundaries of the Russian Republic is hereby abolished forever.

2. All the land within the boundaries of the Russian Republic, with all mines, forests and waters, is hereby declared the property of the nation.

3. The Republic has the right to control all land, with all the mines, forests, and waters thereof, through the central and local administration, in accordance with the regulation provided by the present law.

4. The autonomous provinces of the Russian Republic have title to land on the basis of the present law and in accordance with the Federal Constitution.

5. The tasks of the central and local governments as regards the use of lands, mines, forest and waters are:

a. The creation of conditions conducive to the best possible utilisation of the country's natural resources and the highest possible development of its productive forces.

b. The fair distribution of all natural wealth among the people.

6. The rights of individuals and institutions to land, mines, forests and waters are restricted merely to utilisation by said individuals and institutions

7. The use of all mines, forests, land and waters is free to all citizens of the Russian Republic, regardless of nationality or creed. This includes all unions of citizens, also governmental and public institutions.

8. The right to use the land is to be acquired and discontinued on the basis prescribed by this fundamental law.

9. All titles to land at present held by the individuals, association and institutions are abolished in so far as they contradict this law.

10. All land, mines, forests, waters, at present owned by and otherwise in the possession of individuals, associations and institutions, are confiscated without compensation for the loss incurred.

DEMOCRATIC PEACE

In the name of the peoples of the Russian Republic, the All-Russian Constituent Assembly expresses the firm will of the people to immediately discontinue the war and conclude a just and general peace, appeals to the Allied countries proposing to define jointly the exact terms of the democratic peace acceptable to all the belligerent nations, in order to present these terms, in behalf of the Allies, to the governments fighting against the Russian Republic and her Allies.

The Constituent Assembly firmly believes that the attempts of the peoples of Russia to end the disastrous war will meet with a unanimous response on the part of the peoples and the Governments of the Allied countries, and that by common efforts a speedy peace will be attained, which will safeguard the well being and dignity of all the belligerent countries.

The Constituent Assembly resolves to elect from its midst an authorised delegation which will carry on negotiations with the representatives of the Allied countries and which will present the appeal to jointly formulate terms upon which a speedy termination of the war will be possible, as well as for the purpose of carrying out the decisions of the Constituent Assembly regarding the question of peace negotiations with the countries fighting against us.

This delegation, which is to be under the guidance of the Constituent Assembly, is to immediately start fulfilling the duties imposed upon it.

Expressing, in the names of the peoples of Russia, its regret that the negotiations with Germany which were started without preliminary agreement with the Allied countries, have assumed the character of negotiations for a separate peace, the Constituent Assembly, in the name of the peoples of the Federated Republic, while continuing the armistice, accepts the further carrying on of the negotiations with the countries warring against us in order to work towards a general democratic peace which shall be in accordance "with the people's will and protect Russia's interests."

And now the wily Russian politicians over here in the face of this historic document, tell us that the Socialist Revolutionists of the Right and the Mensheviki are standing for war! They want us to put down the Soviets so they can go on fighting. There is no doubt in the world that Russia must push the Germans over her borders. But why should we waste a lot of energy putting down a popular government to perform that task, when we can help the government that is in power to do the same thing? At the Constituent Assembly the moderate socialist parties stood for confiscation of landed property without compensation and for immediate peace.The Soviets can go no further than that; and there is no reason to believe that the advocates of the Constituent could have brought in the Allies while continuing the armistice begun by the Bolsheviki, there is no reason to believe that they would have made a less disastrous peace with the Germans; there is even reason to believe that the peace might have been more terrible than it was, because the Soviets had on their side whatever force of arms there was.

If we are out of harmony with the Soviets–we must necessarily be also out of harmony with the wishes of the Constituent. That is why I, for one, do not see the use of splitting hairs over this matter of approval. The principal problem for America is whether or not she desires friendship with Russia, and friendship was never improved by mixing in family quarrels.

An hour after the passing of the above resolution of the Constituent Assembly–it was then four in the morning–the Cronstadt sailors who were on guard began to murmur among themselves. They were tired and they wanted to go home. Finally one cleared his throat and said: "All the good people have gone, why don't you go? The guards want to get some sleep. . . . " So ended the Constituent.

To quote an English colleague: "The Assembly died like the Tsardom, and the coalition before it. Not any one of the three showed in the manner of its dying that it retained any right to live."

CHAPTER X

KATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY

KATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY! What richness of romance that name recalls. What tales of a young enthusiast who dared to express herself under the menacing tyranny of a Russian Tsar. An aristocrat who gave up everything for her people; a Jeanne d'Arc who led the masses to freedom by education instead of bayonets; hunted, imprisoned, tortured, almost half a century exiled in the darkness of Siberia, brought back under the flaming banners of revolution, honoured as no other woman of modern times has been honoured, misunderstanding and misunderstood, deposed again, broken. . . Katherine Breshkovsky's life was one of sorrow, of disappointment, of disillusionment, but it was a full life. And when the quarrels of the hour are swept aside her page in history will be one of honour and she will be known to all posterity by that most beautiful name on the long records of aspiring mankind–known always as "Babushka," the Grandmother of the Revolution.

For many years Katherine Breshkovsky has been well known in America; it was to sympathetic America that she always came for assistance. Even in prison she kept in touch with her numerous admirers and champions in this country. I felt a sort of vague connection with her because she knew friends of mine at home, so she was one of the first persons I sought out when I reached Petrograd. Cheap tales, gathered by unsympathetic persons and scattered broadcast abroad, told of her triumphant entrance into Petrograd and Moscow, her brilliant installation on the throne of the Tsar in the Winter Palace, which was rumoured to be draped all in red, how she sat there enjoying the drunken revels of the Anarchists that constantly surrounded her.

I had all this in mind the morning I first went there. Crossing under the famous Red Arch I came out upon the beautiful Winter Palace Square, which is one of the most impressive squares in the world. The immense red buildings stretch away endlessly, giving one the idea of deliberate lavishness on the part of the builder, as if he wanted to demonstrate to an astonished world that there was no limit to his magnificence and his power.

I stopped at the main entrance and asked for Babushka. "Babushka?" repeated the guard. "Go round to the side gate." At the side gate I found other guards who directed me through a little garden and I finally entered the palace by a sort of back door.

The svetzars here told me to climb the stairs to the top floor, and Babushka's room was the last door along the corridor. The Tsar's private elevator, which he had built in recent years, did not work any more and the stairway wound round and round the elevator shaft.

I was ushered right into her room, which was very small–about the size of an ordinary hotel bedroom. There was a desk in one corner, a table and a long couch, several chairs and a bed. It was the kind of room you would pay two or three dollars a night for in an American hotel. Babushka came forward and shook hands with me.

"You look like an American," she said. "Now, did you come all the way from America to see what we're doing with our revolution?"

We sat down on the couch and Babushka went on talking about America, of which she seemed particularly fond. She mentioned many well known writers here, and called them "her children." I said, "How does it seem to be here in the palace?"

"Why," she answered artlessly and without hesitation, "I don't like it at all. There is something about palaces that makes me think of prison. Whenever I go out in the corridor–did you notice the corridor?–I have a feeling that I must be back in prison–it's so gloomy and forbidding and dark. Personally, I'd love to have a little house somewhere, with plants in the window and as much sun coming in as possible. I'd like to rest. . . . But I stay here because 'this man' wants me to." "This man" was Kerensky.

There was a touching friendship between Babushka and Kerensky. In the swift whirl of events the old grandmother was in danger of being forgotten, after people got over celebrating the downfall of the Romanoffs. But Kerensky did not forget. He made her think that she was very necessary to the new government of Russia. He asked her advice on all sorts of things, but whether he ever took it or not is very doubtful. He paid her public homage on many occasions and she loved him like a son.

I saw Babushka a good many times after that and found why she lived in this back room on the top floor of the Winter Palace. First, it was because she chose to live there. They had offered her the choice of the beautiful apartments and she had refused anything but this simple room. She insisted on having her bed and all her belongings crammed into the tiny place, and ate all her meals there. I don't know whether it was her long years in prison that made her assume this peculiar attitude, or if it was just because she was a simple woman and very close to the people. She wrote a little biography of herself on the way back from Siberia in which she said:

"When I think back upon my past life I, first of all, see myself as a tiny five-year-old girl, who was suffering all the time, whose heart was breaking for some one else; now for the driver, then again for the chamber-maid, or the labourer or the oppressed peasant–for at that time there was still serfdom in Russia. The impression of the grief of the people had entered so deeply into my child's soul that it did not leave me during the whole of my life."

Very pathetic, indeed, was her description of what it was like to be free. This feeling she never knew until the news of the revolution was brought to her. "The longer the war lasted," she wrote, "the more terrible were its consequences, the brighter were the basenesses of the Russian Government. The cleaner was the unavoidableness of the democracies of all countries getting conscious, the nearer was also our Revolution.

"I was waiting for the ringing of the bells announcing freedom, and I was wondering