Ten Days That Shook the World

sc

mmittee, with a fierce intens

mber

Committees, to all Soviets of Workers', Sold

exander Feodorvitch Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We demand that Kerensky be arrested, and that he be ordered,

gn

; the Committee of Yunkers of the Petrograd detachme

Commissar

t Revolutionary party-proudly claiming Kerensky as a member-all passionately

te it sounded-with blood-red flags over the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers who had defended "Red Petrograd." In the bitter dusk they tra

shop-keepers, clerks, agents. The other Socialist parties hated the Bolsheviki with an implacable hatred. On the side of the Soviets were

came echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov, Novgorod, Vinnitza-where the streets had run with

te and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful tales. Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in flames; the church of Vasili Blazhei

rt of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout sounded the shock of guns crashing in the fa

ssion of the Council of People's Commissars, and rushed from the room, crying, "I

r of resignation was pub

by people arriving from Mos

bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered the most important art treasures o

here has reached a pit

t? What mor

o endure these horrors. It is impossible to work

ving the Council of

this decision. But I can bear

the Kremlin surrendered, and were allowed to m

of Public Safet

ms. In the Military Schools are retained only the arms necessary for instruction; all others are surrendered

2, a special commission is appointed, consisting of representative

s shall immediately give order to cease firing and halt all military

aty, all prisoners made by the

s to seek their dead; the barricades in the streets were being removed. Instead of diminishing, however, the stories of de

artificial city. Moscow is real Russia, Russia as it was and will be; in Moscow we would g

apital…. When the train backed into the station, a mob of shabby soldiers, all carrying huge sacks of eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured into all the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a compartment, but almost imm

varishtchi. They have come thirty thousand versts t

terward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied by two stout, w

ng peasant songs; and in the corridor, so jammed that it was impossible to pass, violent political debates raged all night long. Occasionally the conductor came through, as a matter of habit, looking for tickets. He found very few except ou

ere was nothing but the packed train, jolting and stopping, and occasional stations where a ravenous mob swooped down on the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it clean…. At one of these halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the

nce, interminably arguing about everything from the situation in Petrograd to the British Trade-Union system, and disputing loudly with the few boorzhui who were on board. Before we reac

straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed him our papers from Smolny, he lost his temper and declared that he was no Bolshevik, that he represented the Committee o

woke up a grotesquely-padded izvostchik asleep upright on the

e a sleigh nowadays," he went on. We could not beat him down below fifty…. As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted streets, he recounted his adventures during the six days' fighting. "Driving along, or waiting for a fare on the corner," he said, "all of a

few arc-lights were burning, only a few pedestrians hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from

but all the windows are shot out. If the

htened that all they could say was, "No, no, there is no room! There is no room!" On the main streets, where the great banking-houses and mercantile houses lay, the Bolshevik art

gs of foreigners…. On the top floor the manager showed us where shrapnel had shattered several windows. "The animals!" said he, shaking his first at im

name, "I Eat Nobody," and Tolstoy's picture prominen

ries of lofty ante-rooms, hung with red-shrouded pictures in gold frames, to the splendid state salon, with its magnificent crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of talk, underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines, filled the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were unrolled, serpentining across th

sses, wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march with

sheviki anything!" he exclaimed. "They compromise from sheer habit.

: Questionaire for

ionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the requisition of clothing for th

d known as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he w

lin when the yunkers came the first time. They shut me up in the cellar and swiped my o

e Mayor, and Minor, president of the Duma, had directed the activities of the Committee of Public Safety and the troops. Riabtsev, Commandant of the city, a man of democratic instincts, had hesitat

he regiment held a meeting to decide what action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neut

he soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs…. There was a fearful wrangle over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiment

throng of little boys were gathered there-street waifs who used to be newsboys. Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they waited until the fir

went to the Dvoriansko

olsheviki were to meet

e others who had left

mis

me, to audiences of officers and glittering ladies, amateur p

ore the workers arrived; the working-class quarters were on the outskirts of the town, and no street-cars were running. But about midnight they began to clump up the stairs, in

ad deserted his post while the battle was raging. As for the bourgeois press, here in Moscow there was no more bourgeois press; even the City Duma had been dissolved. (See App. X, Sect. 4) Bukharin stood up, savage, logical

e 254: Pass t

ting the Kremlin, the representatives of the American Socialist party attached to the Socialist

, its bright-coloured, convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in the darkness. There was no sign of any damage…. Along one side of the square the dark towers and walls of the K

e we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty yards lo

d Grave," he explained. "To-morrow we shall bury here

, and the earth-mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the night was thick

s in a sling, from a bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. "You foreigners look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a medi?val monarchy," said he. "But w

, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red Square a dark knot of men came hurrying. The

in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn laid bare the great Square,

red red banners-the Central Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague stirring sound deepened and became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The city was rising. We set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping overhead. The little street chapels along our way were locked and dark, as was the Chapel of

d silent and cold were the churches; the priests had disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial, there had been no sacrament for

yed at home-but for other reasons. This was the Day of the

otted with people, thousands of them. I remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Cha

f the dirt-mountains. Already several men were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who h

ng up, playing the Internationale, and spontaneously the song caught and spread like wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin wall gigantic banners unroll

-like blood-of the coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women who sobbed and screamed,

all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering, knots of crepe hanging from the top-and some Anarchist flags, black with white letters. The band was playi

, riding at salute, and artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black-forever, it seemed. The

them were women-squat, strong proletarian women. Behind the dead came other women-women young and broken, or old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt anima

the Nikolskaya, a river of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous prophecies, agains

al March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like strange, multi-coloure

moaning women, looking back with awful intensity as they we

ts to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more b