Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (e books free to read TXT) 📕

“What could I do?” he muttered. “People like myself cannot fight on either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob…. I only regret that I am so far from my mother in Bessarabia!”

Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant. “Here,” said the Colonel nervously, “are the keys to the desk.”

A Red Guard interrupted. “Where’s the money?” he asked rudely. The Colonel seemed surprised. “Money? Money? Ah, you mean the chest. There it is,” said the Colonel, “just as I found it when I took possession three days ago. Keys?” The Colonel shrugged. “I have no keys.”

The Red Guard sneered knowingly. “Very convenient,” he said.

“Let us open the chest,” said Baklanov. “Bring an axe. Here is an American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what he finds there.”

I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.

“Let’s arrest him,” said the Red Guard, venomously. “He is Kerensky’s man. He has stolen the money and given it to Kerensky.”

Baklanov did not want to. “Oh, no,” he said. “It was the Kornilovitz before him. He is not to blame.

“The devil!” cried the Red Guard. “He is Kerensky’s man, I tell you. If you won’t arrest him, then we will, and we’ll take him to Petrograd and put him in Peter-Paul, where he belongs!” At this the other Red Guards growled assent. With a piteous glance at us the Colonel was led away….

Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the front. Half a dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two, under command of a huge workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to come along. Red Guards issued from headquarters, each of them staggering under an arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled with grubit-which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the truck with bits of rope and wire.

We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck swaying from side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the other, and the grubit bombs went rolling back and forth over our feet, fetching up against the sides of the car with a crash.

The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me with questions about America. “Why did America come into the war? Are the American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What is the situation in the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman to San Francisco?” and other, very difficult to answer, all delivered in a shout above the roaring of the truck, while we held on to each other and danced amid the caroming bombs.

Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the road before us, shouted “Shtoi!” and threw up their guns.

We paid no attention. “The devil take you!” cried the Red Guards. “We don’t stop for anybody! We’re Red Guards!” And we thundered imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about the internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters….

About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and slowed down.

“Where’s the front, brothers?”

The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. “This morning,” he said, “it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn thing isn’t anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we couldn’t find it.”

They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been about a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and shouted to the chauffeur to stop.

“Firing!” he said. “Do you hear it?” For a moment dead silence, and then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very much excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the truck was nearly opposite the place where the firing had come from. Descending, we spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went stealthily into the forest.

Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around until it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.

It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun. Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering under our feet. Was it an ambush?

We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and paused. Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a small fire, perfectly oblivious.

Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. “Zra’zvuitye, comrades!” he greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a truck-load of grubit bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled to their feet.

“What was the shooting going on around here?”

One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, “Why we were just shooting a rabbit or two, comrade….”

The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day. At the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.

“Passes, comrades!”

The Red Guards raised a great clamour. “We are Red Guards. We don’t need any passes…. Go on, never mind them!”

But a sailor objected. “This is wrong, comrades. We must have revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came along in a truck and said: ‘We don’t need any passes?’ The comrades don’t know you.”

At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced his dirty bumaga (paper). All were alike except mine, which had been issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries declared that I must go with them. The Red Guards objected strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first insisted. “This comrade we know to be a true comrade,” he said. “But there are orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed. That is revolutionary discipline….”

In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and watched it disappear careening down the road, all the company waving farewell. The soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me suddenly; they were going to shoot me!

In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only sign of life was smoke from the chimney of a datchya, a rambling wooden house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers were walking out into the road. Desperately I ran after them.

“But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary Committee!”

They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.

“It is different from the others,” said one, sullenly. “We cannot read, brother.”

I took him by the arm. “Come!” I said. “Let’s go to that house. Some one there can surely read.” They hesitated. “No,” said one. The other looked me over. “Why not?” he muttered. “After all, it is a serious crime to kill an innocent man.”

We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short, stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, “I don’t know anything about them! I don’t know anything about them!” One of my guards held out the pass. She screamed. “Just to read it, comrade.” Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:

The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the American Social-Democracy, an internationalist….

Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation. “We must take you to the Regimental Committee,” they said. In the fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road. Occasionally we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded me with looks of menace, handling my pass around and arguing violently as to whether or not I should be killed….

It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions. A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards, talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by Kerensky’s cannon….

I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups, who turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly and then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate. “Comrades! Comrades!” yelled one of my guards. “Committee! Committee!” The throng halted, banked around me, muttering. Out of them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red arm-band.

“Who is this?” he asked roughly. The guards explained. “Give me the paper!” He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he smiled and handed me the pass. “Comrades, this is an American comrade. I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the Regiment….” A sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and they pressed forward to shake my hand.

“You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to the Officers’ Club, where there are some who speak your language….”

He led me across the courtyard to the door of another building. An aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a Lieutenant, was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking hands, went back.

“I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service,” said the Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On the second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from the hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre of which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their gold-and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard. Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any officers’ mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?

“You are not Bolsheviki?” I asked Morovsky.

A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing furtively at the orderly.

“No,” answered my friend. “There is only one Bolshevik officer in this regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist Revolutionary of the right wing…. I should say that most of the officers in the Army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in democracy; they believe that they must follow the soldier-masses….”

Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on the table. The rest crowded around to see.

“Here,” said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, “were our positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?”

Captain Kherlov pointed. “According to orders, we occupied the position along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o’clock.”

Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the Chairman of the Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They joined the group behind the Colonel, peering at the map. map. | |

“Good,” said the Colonel. “Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the present line, strengthening the positions by—”