In the relations of a weak Government
and a rebellious people
there comes a time when every act of the authorities
exasperates the masses,
and every refusal to act excites their contempt.
-Jack Reed
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 14, 1918
Greenwich Village – Home of Jack Reed and Louise Bryant
After a short conversation with Louise Bryant, wife of John Reed, a reporter recently conducted an interview with Mr. Reed in the couple’s Greenwich apartment. Both Bryant and Reed were witnesses to the Bolshevik Revolution during their tour of duty there as war correspondents.
From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of May 5, 1918:
TWO MONTHS LONGER OF KERENSKY AND GERMANY WOULD HAVE
RULED RUSSIA, SAYS JOHN REED
—–
Lenine and Trotzky Will Go Down Under 10,000 Feet the Moment
They Stop Representing the Masses-
People of the Bread Lines Real Rulers of Russia.
—–
Korniloff Allowed Riga to Fall to Scare the People Into Action-
If Kerensky Came Back the People Would Kill Him-
Lies About Bolsheviki Have Seriously Damaged
the American Cause in Russia.
—–
The half-starved men and women on the bread lines are the rulers of Russia. The crowd is the government. The faction of which Kerensky was the head, once looked upon by the world as radical, became, comparatively, as conservative as Taft in his second campaign. This faction did not represent the crowd, so it fell, leaving Kerensky with about as much influence in Russia as one William Jennings Bryan has here. If Kerensky should return to Russia he would be killed. If he and his supporters and remained in power two months longer every city in Russia would have been under German control. Korniloff planned the fall of Riga to frighten the Russian people into action, and admitted it publicly. The Kerensky government, when the people threatened to take its power from it, practiced sabotage on the food supplies of the people, fomented strikes in the manufacturing plants, and closed down factories.
So, among many other things, says John Reed, war correspondent, soldier of fortune, unswerving Socialist, Bolshevik, Harvard graduate, friend and co-worker of Lenine and Trotzky, and the young American, who was some time ago reported as having been sent to America by Trotzky to act as American Consul General for the Bolsheviki. He returned to this country one day last week to face trial with Max Eastman, Art Young and others of the former editors of The Masses, who have been indicted on a charge of conspiring to encourage resistance to the draft.
Mrs. Reed Deplores Lies About Bolsheviki.
It was Lenine and Trotzky, Bolsheviki, who got President Wilson’s most important message to Congress into Germany and spread it among the German soldiers as propaganda. Had it not been for them German soldiers would never have heard the President’s exposition of America’s attitude toward the German people. Lenine also printed and spread in Germany a million and more copies of a paper aimed to arouse the German soldiers to revolt. The German forces that made the last attack on the Russian front were composed of volunteers. Those who had been on that front up to that time refused to fight against their friends, the Russians. If the newspapers of America were in German pay they could not do more harm to the American cause in Russia than they have done from time to time in printing lies that have been sent them concerning the Bolsheviki. Some of these lies have been the work of subtle German agents, who cleverly twist the truth in order to damage America in the eyes of Russia. German agents in Russia are not of the bold, crude kind who buy Russian opinion with gold. If you offered a Bolshevik money he would kill you as a German agent. One sympathetic Socialist was almost bayoneted when out of pity, he offered poor, ragged, half-starved Russian soldiers cigarettes. Kerensky was a very sick man, he had only one lung and one kidney, had to keep himself going on morphine and whiskey, and often, in the middle of a speech or conversation, he would burst out crying.
So, among many other things, says Louise Bryant, newspaper correspondent, friend of Kerensky and the Bolsheviki and wife of John Reed. She returned some time ago from Russia, where she had been since October.
All this she and her husband said in their rooms in Greenwich Village a few days ago.
Reed Came Home Solely to Go on Trial.
“He came back solely to go on trial,” said his gray-eyed wife at intervals as she pounded out on a typewriter articles to be published in a hundred or so newspapers throughout the country.
He had not been notified of his indictment with the rest-he read it in a newspaper that reached him. He would rather have stayed in Russia, but it is not pleasant to have an indictment hanging over your head. Not that they thought any the less of him in Russia for that but it is unpleasant.
John Reed had upon his arrival refused to talk for the newspapers but finally consented to do so. But he was busy and hard to find. He would be back in an hour, his wife said. Meanwhile she talked entertainingly of Russia and the Russian people whom she come to love. And in the intervals when she stopped to give her attention to the typewriter The Eagle representative looked about the room.
It was not the sort of room one sees in Brooklyn-not exactly-but a beautiful room. Light gray painted wall, white woodwork, red floor and innumerable colorful ultra-modern paintings spotting the walls with blue and yellow, red and varied tints. Here a dead black bookcase with points of purple, there a purple chair, close by a small futuristically painted table covered with smoking things, newspapers and a copy of the Liberator. It was a lucid sort of room, rich in color.
Mrs. Reed excused herself when the smell of noonday food had grown too tempting and disappeared into the other end of the apartment whence a moment later came sounds of knives and forks and dishes. Soon there was the sound of someone on the stairs, a voice said, “Hello, Jack!” and John Reed hurried in.
No One Would Take Reed for a Bolshevik.
An attractive looking young man he is, who might well be a senior in college except that he seems more thoughtful and his clothes show fewer signs of a desire to look tidy. And he hardly seemed the sort of man one would take for a Bolshevik, no long hair or black beard, you know, no crazy light in his green-gray eyes, no bombs sticking out of his pockets to frighten one and spoil the hang of his coat. None of that sort of thing at all.
He had to talk a moment with his wife.
“Excuse me a second, will you?” he said. “I haven’t eaten either. I haven’t time to eat,” said he. “But I’ve had some beer. It’s all right.”
Ah, here at last were signs of a reprehensible nature! The fellow drinks beer! And when he came back to talk, other Bolshevik characteristics developed. He smoked many cigarettes, his cigarette fingers were seen to be yellow with nicotine, and he said damn occasionally. A fellow to be avoided, obviously.
“What has become of Kerensky, Milyukoff, Rodzianko, Korniloff, Lvoff, Tereshtchenko and all the rest of those who came out on top in the first phase of the revolution?” he was asked. “What has happened to the Russian army?”
“That is an interesting question,” he answered, “and will take some time to answer.”
Discusses Russian Politics.
First of all, you must remember that the Russian people are not at all interested in a political revolution merely. Their training and their thought ever since 1830 have led them to look forward to something different. There are eighteen political factions in Russia and seventeen of them are Socialistic. The Cadet party, that is, Milyukoff and the men of the Duma that became leaders in the first phase of the revolution, wanted a political revolution. This party is composed of peasant landowners superintendents, foremen in factories, small shopkeepers and clerks, doctors, lawyers and other professional men, government employees who did not support the Czar, and people of that sort, who constitute the liberal bourgeoisie. In the March revolution the Cadet party was not in favor of a complete revolution. The Duma majority wanted a limited monarchy, a constitutional government with ministers responsible to the government of Russia as in France and England. They first approached the Czarovitch and Grand Duke Michail with that end in view.
But they failed. Their failure was caused by the fact that 200,000, 300,000-more than that-peasants, soldiers and workmen rose in Petrograd and carried the revolution much father than the men of the Duma wanted it to be carried.
The workmen demanded that the Duma take control. The Duma did not want to. It debated the question for twenty-four hours, and then gave in rather than dissolve entirely. And then, in order to keep control, they had to appeal to the Council of Soldiers and Workmen’s Deputies. That is, they had to secure the help of the Socialists.
Clashes Under Dual System of Government.
That brought about a dual system of government. On the one hand was the Soviet, the workmen and soldiers, on the other the Duma, protagonists of a political democracy tending toward government by the Duma. Behind the Duma were the Zemstvos-that is, the landlords, lawyers, teachers and people of that type; the bourgeoisie. The two factions, the Soviet, the guardians of the revolutionary traditions and the bourgeoisie, who wanted to stop the revolution, were continually clashing.
Kerensky was chosen to lead because he was a Socialist and it was thought he could keep both factions in hand. He started as one of the soviet, and it became his fixed idea and the idea of all the Socialist groups that Socialism could not be brought to Russia just yet.
While this coalition continued, neither the Socialists nor the bourgeoisie wing accomplished any constructive work, for there was no co-operation.
The masses wanted something and wanted it badly. They were out to get three things. First, they demanded negotiation for peace, they wanted pressure to be brought to bear on the Allies and on Germany with a view to ending the war. Second, they wanted the land for the people, the peasants. That was not merely a Bolshevik idea; it had been the demand in Russia, even among the bourgeoisic, ever since 1860. Third, the masses wanted the industries to be managed by the workmen. The bourgeoisie came out flatly with a refusal to stand for any one of the three. Kerensky and other Socialists were dragged along with the bourgeoisie because they thought they would be lost without them. So they swung over to a position of toleration.
Masses Desert Kerensky.
The masses stood this until September and then began to swing to the Bolshevik program in hundreds of thousands. They threw the Kerensky crowd from the leadership, refusing to back their rule unless the Socialists were allowed to acquire for the people the three things they wanted most.
The bourgeoisie had gained sufficient strength while in power to control food supplies, the industries and the railroads. They even went so far as to declare that a republic would be illegal. The Kerensky faction gave in to the bourgeoisie and voted to continue the coalition. Then the masses deserted and the Bolshevik revolution was the result.
There were no troops on the side of Kerensky except a few Cossacks, shock troops and the women’s regiments. Nowhere in Russia were the soldiers with them except in Moscow, where the bourgeoisie fought the Bolsheviki on the streets. In Petrograd only eleven people were killed, it was so one-sided.
Now the whole attitude of affairs had changed. Milyukoff, Kerensky and that group had become as conservative as Taft at the time of his second campaign. The idea of a political instead of a social democracy became the conservative idea. Those who had been in power first now assumed a position on the right, the conservative wing. Those in favor of an industrial democracy took the center, became the radicals, and beyond them, on the left wing, the anarchists and syndicalists lined up. The Socialist state was in power.
After the Bolshevik revolution some of Kerensky’s associates went to the British Ambassador and asked him not to mention their names. “A year ago,” said the British Ambassador, “my Government told me not to receive Milyukoff because he was too radical.”
Says Korniloff Sacrificed Riga to Scare the People.
When the bourgeoisie party had seen that the workmen were getting strong they realized that it had become a question of class, which meant the loss of their property. Without property, they knew, they would be without power. So the Cadets set out to starve out the Bolshevik revolution. They disorganized the railroads more than they were already demoralized, shut down factories, fomented strikes, bored holes in the mechanism of th engines on the roads; in other words, practiced sabotage against the people. There are any number of trials for sabotage now going on in Russia. Also they caused the fall of Riga by denuding it of guns and taking away its airplanes. I have a document from Korniloff telling just why Riga was allowed to fall. He said publicly that its fall would scare the people into action.
The Kerensky Government made use of the secret police against the people. It decided on war to a finish and the only people it kicked out were the pro-Germans. The old landowners were given supreme power.
Whole Revolution Carried on By the Masses, Says Reed.
When Korniloff tried to seize the power he was defeated by the rise of the proletariat. Workmen arrested their foremen, peasants took the landowners into custody, the soldiers their officers. In less than a month the masses became the rulers. The Bolsheviki abandoned Kerensky and his followers and they were left on a sort of island of hate between two factions, where they had no following at all.
The whole revolution was carried on by the masses. It was the masses who marched to the Winter Palace and forced the resignation of the Duma Ministry. It was the masses who, after Kerensky’s offensive, rose again and showed the whole world that they had not approved of the advance in Galicia. It was the masses who defeated Korniloff and made the Bolshevik insurrection, ended the dual system of government and completed the revolution which had begun in the seventies, first came to light in 1905 and kept moving toward a socialistic state which was accomplished in November, 1917.
You cannot understand Russia, and this revolution unless you have stood in the bread lines with the starved people. During the Kerensky government the people in the bread lines cursed Kerensky for all the evils going on in Russia. During the Bolshevik revolution, though the bread lines were longer and food scarcer, the people in the lines cursed the bourgeoisie and attributed to its machinations all the evils they were suffering. They did this because the bread lines were the government of Russia.
There is no ruler in Russia except the crowd. The moment Lenine and Trotzky stop representing the crowd they will go down under ten thousand feet. The crowd trusts nobody.
Why, at the Bolshevik secret conference before the insurrection, at which conference I was present, all the leaders except Lenine and Trotzky were against the insurrection. But the workmen said, “If you do not revolt we’ll leave you.”
Bolsheviki Inherited Starved Army.
Nicholas II destroyed the Russian Army in 1916, and Kerensky destroyed it again in 1917. The Bolsheviki inherited a starved army that had only three rounds of ammunition per man with which to flight, nothing to eat but carrots they could dig from the fields behind the lines, an army that had been betrayed by its officers and had its food supplies sabotaged by the men power.
If the Kerensky government had lasted two months longer Germany would be in control in every city in Russia. Kerensky is now somewhere outside of Russia. If he came back they would kill him, for he imposed the death penalty upon them, making it possible for men to be shot down by their officers, and failed to represent what they stood for.
When Trotzky and Lenine came into the leadership Lenine wanted to sign peace terms immediately and give Russia a chance to rest, believing that meanwhile it would be possible to carry on a campaign of propaganda with results that would make further fighting unnecessary. Trotzky on the other hand wanted to drag out peace negotiations interminably, hoping that in doing so Russia could get her aims and the principles for and upon which she was struggling so clearly set before the Allies and the German people that there would be a general readjustment.
There are very few people in prison in Russia because of their opinions. There is nobody there who is not charged with instigating revolt against the Soviet government or with sabotage or with publishing lies which would cause trouble and result in deaths.
[Photograph added.]
SOURCE
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
(New York, New York)
-May 5, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/55298725/
IMAGE
John Reed, Louise Bryant, Nov 1916
http://spartacus-educational.com/Jreed.htm
http://spartacus-educational.com/Jbryant.htm
See also:
The Liberator
(New York, New York)
(Scroll down to individual issues and click on “Red Russia” series by John Reed.)
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/
Tag: John Reed
https://weneverforget.org/tag/john-reed/
Tag: Louise Bryant
https://weneverforget.org/tag/louise-bryant/
Tag: Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917
https://weneverforget.org/tag/russian-bolshevik-revolution-of-1917/
Alexander Kerensky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kerensky
Russian Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution