John Reed

“ The poor love each other so!
All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,-under the eyes of the world's workers and their descendants forever....
One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell, and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. ”

“ Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
What is left? What more can happen?
I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts which drive me mad!
That is why I am leaving the Council of People's Commissars. ”

“ From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate street-fighting burst like a wave, news of Kerensky's defeat came echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov, Novgorod, Vinnitza-where the streets had run with blood; Moscow, where the Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last strong-hold of the bourgeoisie-the Kremlin.
"They are bombarding the Kremlin!" The news passed from mouth to mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror. Travellers from "white and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful tales. Thousands killed ”

“ Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and shapka, whose face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the Moscow Metal-Workers' Union, and a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee during the fighting....
"You see me!" he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. "I was with the boys in the Kremlin when the yunkers came the first time. ”

“ Behind the dead came other women-women young and broken, or old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. ”

“ He invited us to march with the Central Executive Committee in the funeral procession next morning....
"It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki anything!" he exclaimed. "They compromise from sheer habit. Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the yunkers!"
[Graphic page-251 Questionairre for the Bourgeoioisie]
Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow Military Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the requisition of clothing for the Army and the poor workers. ”