Saturday, April 12, 1919 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE The Russian Proletariat in Action with thrones proa great where ing and IS a commonplace that great poets and artists By Eadmonn MacAlpine ets. suddenly realized that the devout Rusmust first die to gain recognition from the world.
sian people no longer needed priests to pray them into The comparative truth of this lies in the play of TEN Days That SHOOK THE WORLD, by John Reed, heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more competition, petty jealousy, personal interests and the Boni and Liveriglt, New York, pp. 371. Price 00 net. bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die. In the bitter dusk they tramped, living personalities of the artists in question, and parthing men and women, their tall in the childish tendency to glorify the past and future with mud, between while belittling the present. And so it is with the soldier announced that the All Russian Peasants Sostreets faintly lighted and sli Yonets swaying; through viets lad refused to send delegates to the Congress; silent crowds of bourgeois, contemptous but fearhappenings of our times. The American Revolution, he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal inthe exploits of the ragged, starved Conteniental Army; vitation Some delegates are present, he said. returns to facts, facts from all sides. He apparently the French Revolution, the upsurge of the French move that they be given votes.
feels that they are the greatest propagandists, and only people their cry of Liberty, Equality, Fratern Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionnow and then does the artist break away from the ity, the Paris Commune, the swing of the down ately demanded the floor. The political lypocrites artist historian, and become the passionate painter trodden masses into action stir the blood and make who control this Congress, he shouted, told us we the ascending soul of the people.
the reader sigh for the days when history was being were to settle the question of Power and it is being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens. The whole tenor of the book shows that Reed underwritten in letters of fame. The fall of the Bastile calls to our youth and we name it a great episode.
Blows are being struck against the Winter Palace, and stood the significance of the revolution, that he was it is hy such blows that the nails are being driven into But in our own day the crash of falling calls able to see the great idealism of the masses beneath the the coffin of the political party which has risked such forth a whimpering protest that the dust gets into our an adventure! Uproar. Followed him Gharra: While horror of the bloody struggle, that he glimpsed the we are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a beauty of the new world in the midst of the ruins of eyes.
battle on in the streets. The Socialist Revolutionthe old, even the workers, who raked the beauty of John Reed is one of the more fortunate of our aries and the Mensheviki refuse to be involved in what the Kremlin with their cannons, saw in the falling masgeneration fortunate in being privileged to witness is happening, and call upon all public forces to resist of the attempt to capture the power.
onry the rise of the living beauty the greatest act in history and more fortunate still in human freedom Kutchin, with delegate of the 12th being gifted and so overcame the traditions of centuries. And it eyes impervious to the dust while of the Trudoviki: was sent liere only for information, Army and representative is this understanding, this deep insight, that stamps we are fortunate that he can paint in vivid words the and am returning at once to the front, where all the truth in every line of the work. The writer tells all picture that he saw. Many persons have witnessed Army Committees consider that the taking of power the Russian Revolution and a few of them have been loy the Soviets, only three weeks before the Constituent that he saw, he endeavors to hide nothing.
word craftsmen, but invariably they have come back Assembly, is a stab in the back of the Army and a Ile paints the crudity of the peasant, the roughness to tell of the motes within their eyes.
crime against the people shouts of Lie! You Lie. When he could be heard again. Let make an end of of the worker, the hardness of the soldier. He uses In his book, Ten Days that Shook the World, Reed this adventure in Petrograd! call upon all delegates the language of the people, he portrays their inability to leave this hall in order to save the country and the is frankly a partisan of the ssian workers, peasants to understand the fine points of and at the same Revolution As he went down the aisle in the midst time their firm and soldiers. He is an avowe admirer of Lenin and grasp of fundamentals, the reiteration of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him, threatTrotzky, he has a good natured, contemptous tolerance when ening. Then Kintchuk, an officer with a long brown of the soldier pitted against the university stugoatee, speaking suavely and persuasively: speak for for the inability of the Menshevik and Right Social dent: There are two classes, don you see, the the delegates from the Front. The Army is imperfectly Revolutionary leaders and letariat and the hourgeoisie, only two classes, and whoan open dislike for the represented in this Congress, and furthermore, the policies, tactics and personalities of the spokesmen of ever isn on one side is on the other.
He feels no Army is does not consider the Congress of Soviets necthe bourgeois parties. He senses the tragedy of Ke essary at this time, anly three weeks before the opening necessity to smooth over the rough places. the suspirensky, an undertone of sympathy runs through the of the Constituent shouts and stamping, always cion, the violent passions, the uncouthness all are in passage dealing with his failure sympathy with the growing more violent. Soldiers began to stand up the book. And whose fault is it? your damn Kerall over the hall.
individual, regret for the weakness of a Reed makes no secret of where his figure Who are you speaking for? What do you reprewant him! We want Lenin. Or again: number sent? they cried.
of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager has his finger on the pulse of the Russian masses, he The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of feels the grandeur of their struggle, he recognizes that the Fifth Army, the Second Regiinent. the First Regiment, the Third Rifles.
stair and emerged into a great, bare room with a of their mistakes and marvels that they are so few. When were you elected? You represent the office floor, ers, not the soldiers. What do the soldiers say about about a thousand soldiers were were playing cards it? Jeers and hoots.
striving after new life, though he senses the immensity talking, singing of the task they have undertaken, he remembers that We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for way, and a sudden silence. stood in the doorran among the groups, who what has happened and is happening.
he is to play the role of historian and concerns himturned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began self with facts. And this is the power of the book. At intervals in the alnost continuous disturbance Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be move, slowly and then with a rush, thundering, with he lets events tell their own story, and he backs the faces full of hate. Comrades! Comrades. yelled one heard protesting against the bombardment of the Winstory with a mass of documentary evidence.
ter Palace. We are opposed to this kind of anof my guards. Committee. Committee! The throng archy.
bankerl round me, muttering. Out of them shouldered Among all the works written around the revolution Scarcely had he stepped clown than a young, leana lean youth, wearing, a red arm band. Who is this?
this is the book that will live after the passions of the faced soklier, with flashing cyes, leaped to the plat he asked roughly.
moment have died down; it is a history of actual hapforun, and dramatically lifted his hand It is evident that Reed is a journalist, he has the penings. history, written not in the dry as dust Comrades! he cried and there was a hush. My language of the conventional historian, but in the vigfamilia (name) is Peterson speak for the Second journalistic greed for knowledge. Everyone he meets Lettish Rifles. You have heard the statements of two has opinions about what is happening and he is internevertheless historyA The living history off the world representatives of the Army Committees; these stateested in those opinions. He devotes as much space ments would have some value if their authors had been to what the cab driver thought of a particular inportend of the events he witnessed, who saw, beneath representatives of the Army. Wilt apualuse. But cident as to what one of the participants felt. He they do not represent the Army. Shaking his fist.
the confusion and turmoil of bloody revolution, the The Twelfth Army has been insisting for a long time jumps the reader from an all night debate, where the great soul of the centuries long oppressed masses upon the re election of the Great Soviet and the Army fate of the revolution hung in the balance, to the reacCommittees, but just as your own Tsay oe Kah, our tions of his bourgeois landlady, who was firmly congroping towards the light of a new day.
Committee refused to call a meeting of the represent vinced that the Bolsheviki were devils. He listens atives of the mas Reed presents the picture in all its confuson, he CIK of September, so that to snatches of street corner arguments, he reports the reactionaries could clect their own false delegates piles event upon event in breathless succession. He to this Congress. tell you now, the Lettish solliers stump speakers, he talks with palace footmen, who jumps. om the council ball, where a thousand deleg lave inany times said, No more resolutions! No more have not realized that their occupation is gone, he ates debate, to the barricades, where bullet and bayonet talk! We want deeds the Power must be in our goes with Krylenko to swing the wavering regiments translate debate into action. He travels to the front hands Let these impostor delegates leave the Con to the revolution, and he talks with the girl telephone line trenches of the external front, visits the soldiers gress! The army is not with them!
operators.
Soviets and hears their deliberations, sups with the The hall rocked with cheering.
He gets the thousand angles of the struggle and sets officers and learns their opinions, returns to Petrothem And then he shows the currents merging into the the straws blowing in the wind. but always be grad.
down, giving the confusion of the great upheaval, central stream and sweeping onwards leaving futile In vivid paragraphs he traces the currents swirling erdies in its wakethe order that lay underneath before the reader.
in the various congresses, conventions and committees He watches the straws as they whirl in the little cyclthat were in continuous session throughout the first. In the first moments of the session, stunned by ones, sometimes he follows them round till they drop days of the proletarian revolution the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon, to earth or are blown over the house tops, but ever the delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer blow he follows the forward sweep of the wind. declare the first session of the Second Congress after hammer blow had fallen from that tribune, weldof Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies open; ing them together Tout locating them down. Did The book is what it purports to be a history of a they stand then alon Was Russia rising slice of the revolution. The writer knew that the The election of the presidium took place amid stir and against them? Was it true that the Army was events lhe was witnessing were transforming the world; moving about. Avanessov announced that by agreement marching on Petrograd? Then this clear eyed young but he concerns himself not at all with how the world of the Bolsheviki, Left Social Revolutionaries and Men soldier had spoken, and in a flash they knew it for the sheviki Internationalists, it was decided to base the truth. This was the voice of the soldiers the liked the operating shaken but he feels no necessity He knew that the outside world presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki stirring millions of uniformeal workers and peasants leaped to their feet protesting. bearded soldier were men like them, and their thoughts and feclings for easing the shock nearly all the other writers have shouted at them, Remember what you did to us Bolshewere the same.
taken the world feelings into consideration. Reed viki when we were the minority. the old Tsay eekah stepped down, and in their places appeared Trotzky, The whole undertone of the book show Reed tells what happened.
Kamieniev, Lunatcharsky, Madam Kollentai, Nogin.
ork is bound to meet with adverse comment, This work is The hall rose thundering.
intense sympathy with the revolution, Occasionally it breaks out in lightning flashes: Now there was all chiefly because people do not like the truth, but even The the day, said Kamenier.
great Russia to win and then the world! Woull the most hostite critic will praise the vividness and But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of the crowd, persistent; disquieting, Russia follow and rise? And the world what of it? swing of the book, and the mass of documentary evidthe dull shock of guns. Penple looked anxiously toward Would the peoples answer and rise, it real world tile? ence that is appended will silence all but the most the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came over Old Russia was no more: human susiety Howed audacious. Mr. Sisson miglit refute the documents.
them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely.
molten in primal heat, and from the tossing sea of The publishers announce the early publication of The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first fame was emerging the class struggle, stark and piti another volume from Reed pen, Kornilov to Brestquestion must be a peaceful seulement.
less and the fragile, slowly cooling crust of new plan Litovsk, we await its appearance with impatience.
uinti keeps