Red Dusk and the Morrow quotes

It was finally decided that I alone should determine how and by what route I should regain access to Russia and how I should despatch reports.

“Don’t go and get killed,” said the Chief in conclusion, smiling.

“You will put him through the ciphers,” he added to the colonel, “and take him to the laboratory to learn the inks and all that.”

Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, wrote Virgil. (I used to write that on my Latin books at school—I hated Latin.) “Perhaps some day it will amuse you to remember even these things”—cold comfort, though, in a scrape and with your neck in a noose.

Yet these escapades are amusing⁠—afterwards.

At last the train stopped at Rajajoki, the last station on the Finnish side of the frontier. It was a pitch-dark night with no moon.

I looked curiously across at the gloomy buildings and the dull, twinkling lights on the other bank.

That was my Promised Land over there, but it was flowing not with milk and honey but with blood.

The Finnish sentry stood at his post at the bar of the frontier bridge, and twenty paces away, on the other side, was the Red sentry.

“They won’t notice it,” he said, “but if you prefer—”

“Give him an Ukrainian name,” suggested one of the other Finns, “he talks rather like a Little Russian.”

Ukrainia, or Little Russia, is the southwest district of European Russia, where a dialect with an admixture of Polish is talked.

Multitudinous stamped papers of any description were a great asset in travelling, but a big coloured seal was a talisman that levelled all obstacles. The wording and even language of the document were of secondary importance.

A friend of mine once travelled from Petrograd to Moscow with no other passport than a receipted English tailor’s bill.

This “certificate of identification” had a big printed heading with the name of the tailor, some English postage stamps attached, and a flourishing signature in red ink.

Nothing, of course, could be safer!

S volkami zhitj, po voltchi vitj, as the Russians say. “If you must live amongst wolves, then howl, too, as the wolves do!”

“Now for the signatures and seal,” said the Finn. “Tihonov and Friedmann used to sign these papers, though it don’t matter much, it’s only the seal that counts.” From some Soviet papers on the table he selected one with two signatures from which to copy.

Yes, my life, I suddenly realized, had had an aim—it was to stand here on the threshold of the city that was my home, homeless, helpless, and friendless, one of the common crowd. That was it—one of the common crowd!

I wanted not the theories of theorists, nor the doctrines of doctrinaires, but to see what the greatest social experiment the world has ever witnessed did for the common crowd.

And, strangely buoyant, I stepped lightly out of the station into the familiar streets.

Someone was admitted and the door closed. I heard men’s voices and boots tramping along the passage. Convinced now that a search was to be made I fished feverishly in my pockets to get out my passport for demonstration, when—into the room burst Melnikoff!

Never was I so dumbfounded in my life!

Melnikoff was dressed in other clothes than I had seen him in when we last parted and he wore spectacles which altered his appearance considerably.

“You get plenty of vodka?” I asked.

“You get plenty of everything if you keep your wits about you,” said Zorinsky.

“Even without joining the Communist Party. I am not a Communist,” he added (somehow I had not suspected it), “but still I keep that door open. What I am afraid of is that the Bolsheviks may begin to make their Communists work.

The faintest signs of sedition are immediately reported to the Cheka by its secret agents disguised as workers, the ringleaders are then “eliminated” from the factory under pretext of being conscripted elsewhere, and they are frequently never heard of again.

The Extraordinary Commission overshadows all else in Red Russia.

No individual is free from its all-perceiving eye.

But standing on the wooden boards of the rough platform I easily discerned the massive figure, pushing and scrambling amid a horde of peasants toward the already overcrowded coaches. Might is right in Red Russia, as everywhere else.

The Soviet Government has not yet nationalized muscle.

I watched a huge bulk of sheepskin, with a dangling and bouncing grey sack, raise itself by some mysterious process of elevation above the heads and shoulders of the seething mass around and transplant itself on to the buffers.

“My regards to Elena Ivanovna.”

The telephone was an inestimable boon, but one that had to be employed with extreme caution.

From time to time at moments of panic the Government would completely stop the telephone service, causing immense inconvenience and exasperating the population whom they were trying to placate.

Though he does not cross himself, the true Bolshevik bows down in spirit to the images of Marx and kindred revolutionaries with an obsequiousness unexcelled by devotees of the church.

The difference in the two creeds lies in this: that whereas the orthodox Christian venerates saintly lives according to their degree of unworldliness, individual goodness, and spiritual sanctity, the Bolsheviks revere their saints for the vehemence with which they promoted the class war, fomented discontent, and preached worldwide revolution.

To what extent humanity suffered as the result of the decease of the two German Communists, I am unable to judge, but their loss was regarded by the revolutionary leaders as a catastrophe of the first magnitude.

Kerosene was poured on the dangling Scheidemann and he was set alight. There were laughter, howls, and fanfares. Zinoviev, in tragic pose, with uplifted arm and pointed finger, cried hoarsely, “Thus perish traitors!” The bugles blew. The people, roused with delight, cheered lustily.

Only the wretched Scheidemann was indifferent to the interest he was arousing, as with a stony glare on his cardboard face he soared aloft amid sparks and ashes into eternity.

Crowd psychology, I mused as I walked away, has been an important factor on all public occasions since the revolution, but appreciated to the full only by the Bolsheviks.

When I repeated the substance of Otto Pertz’s predictions, all three of my companions were listening spellbound and with mouths agape. There was a long pause, which at length Stepanovna broke.

“Is it really possible,” she exclaimed, slowly, and apparently in utter bewilderment, “that the Germans⁠—are⁠—such⁠—fools?”

“Evasive, Doctor, very evasive,” I said, as we sat over tea and a few dry biscuits the Doctor had procured from somewhere. “Yesterday evening he gave me some interesting information about industrial developments, alteration of railway administration, and changes in the Red fleet;

The one article of clothing which I frequently changed and of which I had a diverse stock was headgear.

It is surprising how headdress can impart character (or the lack of it) to one’s appearance.

Donning my most bourgeois fur cap, polishing my leather breeches and brushing my jacket, I proceeded on the following day to my former home, entering by the yard as Varia had done and ringing at the back door.

It seemed impossible that I should escape! Looking backward I saw the group round the sledge. The Reds, dismounted, were examining the driver; in a moment they would renew the pursuit, and I should be spotted at once, running over the ice.

The ice, where completely windswept, formed great patches as black as ink.

My clothes were dark. I ran into the middle of a big black patch and looked at my boots. I could not see them!

Slowly and imperceptibly I rose, first on all fours, then kneeling, and finally standing upright. The riders and the sledge were gone, and I was alone.

Only the stars twinkled, as much as to say: “It’s all over! ’Twas a narrow squeak, wasn’t it? but a miss is as good as a mile!”

It must have been a weird, bedraggled figure that stumbled, seven or eight hours later, up the steep bank of the Finnish shore.

Russia, my son, wants a Master—a Master who will restore order, and not that things should be as they are now, with every scoundrel pretending to be master. That is what Russia wants!”

A “master”⁠—now one of the most dangerous words to use in Russia, because it is the most natural!

“Do you mean—a ‘Tsar’?” I queried, hesitatingly. But Uncle Egor merely shrugged his shoulders. He had said his say.

I never saw Uncle Egor again. I sometimes wonder what has become of him. I suppose he is still there, and he is the winner!

The Russian peasant is the ultimate master of the Russian Revolution, as the Bolsheviks are learning to their pain.

Once I did set out, several months later, to invoke his help in escaping pursuit, but had to turn back.

I never heard it corroborated except by the Doctor, who didn’t know Zorinsky, but I had no reason to doubt it. It certainly tallied with my own experiences. And he was only one of several. As Ivan Sergeievitch observed:

“There are not a few Zorinskys, I fear, and they are the ruin and shame of our class.”

Twice, later, I was reminded acutely of this singular personage, who, as it transpired, did return to Russia.

A portion of the recruits were taken to the Nicholas Station and told they were going out of town to manoeuvre.

Imagine their feelings when they discovered that they were locked into the cars, promptly despatched to the front, and (still in civilian clothes) thrust straight into the firing line!

Every man of the Red army is supposed to have taken the following oath:

which being interpreted means:

“Down with Lenin and horseflesh, give us a tsar and pork!”

As the disturbances developed, typewritten leaflets began to be distributed containing resolutions passed at the various meetings.

In rare instances one might find students and teachers, generally women of the soft, dreamy, mentally weak type, but perfectly sincere and disinterested.

Most women Communists of the lower ranks resembled ogresses.

In the early days membership of the party, which rapidly came to resemble a political aristocracy, was regarded as an inestimable privilege worth great trouble and cost to obtain. The magic word “Communist” inspired fear and secured admission and preference everywhere.

The Bolshevist spokesmen frankly avowed they had completely forgotten the workers, and a great campaign was opened to draw them into the party. “The watchword ‘Open the party doors to the workers,’ ” said Pravda on July 25, 1919, “has been forgotten.

Workers get ‘pickled’ as soon as they join

”—which meant they become Communists and entirely lose their individuality as workers. Zinoviev wrote a long proclamation to toilers explaining who the Communists were and their objects.

In fact one of the demands frequently put forward during strikes is for a restoration, side by side with the free cooperative societies, of the soviet system which is now virtually suppressed.

Paradoxical though it be, Bolshevism is in reality the complete negation of the soviet system.

It is by no means impossible that the downfall of the Communists may result in a healthy effort being made to set the soviets to work in some form for the first time.

In spite of this, halfway through the meeting the room was full of smoke. Following the example of others, I doffed my coat and, removing my belt, pulled up my shirt and flapped it up and down by way of ventilation.

Performed en gros this operation was hardly conducive to the purification of the atmosphere.

I secured a seat at the back whence I could see everything. My neighbour was a woman, a dishevelled little creature who seemed much embarrassed by her surroundings. Every time anyone rose to speak she asked me who it was.

I secured a seat at the back whence I could see everything.

My neighbour was a woman, a dishevelled little creature who seemed much embarrassed by her surroundings.

Every time anyone rose to speak she asked me who it was. While we waited for the proceedings to begin she confided to me in answer to my question that she was a guest, like myself.

An orchestra stationed in one corner of the hall struck up the “Internationale.” Everyone rose.

Another orchestra up in the balcony also struck up the “Internationale,” but two beats later and failed to catch up. You listened to and sang with the one you were nearest to.

“At the instance of the Communist Party,” proceeded Evdokimov in a clear voice, “I propose the following members for election to the executive committee.” He read out forty names, all Communists. “Those in favour raise their hands.” A sea of hands rose. “Who is against?”

He was not a rough-looking fellow. I had a strange impulse to exclaim bitterly: “Comrade, tell me, how long will this revolution last?” But what was the good?

Though everybody asks it, this is the one question nobody can answer.

My path lay along the beautiful river. The stream flowed fast—faster than I walked. It seemed to me to be getting ever faster. It was like the Revolution—this river—flowing with an inexorable, ever-swifter, endless tide.

My path lay along the beautiful river. The stream flowed fast—faster than I walked. It seemed to me to be getting ever faster.

It was like the Revolution⁠—this river⁠—flowing with an inexorable, ever-swifter, endless tide.

To my fevered fancy it became a roaring torrent tearing all before it, like the rapids of Niagara; not, however, snowy white, but Red, Red, Red.

As in a dream, we pushed out with the last of the crowd, moved hastily along the platform, and dived into the hustling mass of soldiers and peasant men and women filling the waiting-room. Here only did we speak to each other.

The same words came⁠—mechanically and dryly, as if unreal: “They overlooked us!”

An hour later we were ensconced in a freight train which was to take us the last ten miles to the location of our artillery brigade. The train was almost empty and the three of us had a boxcar to ourselves.

The romantic beauty of September dawn smiled on a world made ugly only by wars and rumours of wars. When the sun rose our frail bark was far out in the middle of a fairy lake.

The ripples, laughing as they lapped, whispered secrets of a universe where rancour, jealousies, and strife were never known.

Only away to the north the guns began ominously booming. My companions were happy, and they laughed and sang merrily as they punted and baled. But my heart was in the land I had left, a land of sorrow, suffering, and despair;

A situation has arisen in which Russia must make herself completely dependent for rescue upon the countries against which her governors have declared a ruthless political war.

The Communists are between the devil and the deep sea.

To say “Russia first” is equivalent to abandoning hope of the world revolution, for Russia can only be restored by capitalistic and bourgeois enterprise.