Ten Days that Shook the World

I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die….

So, with the crash of artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born.

Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted, and the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions. "Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked a fat old man with a cigar in his mouth. "Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets against the damn' bourgeoisie!

The ladies of the minor bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon, carrying each her little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and half a loaf of bread in her muff, and wished that the Tsar were back, or that the Germans would come, or anything that would solve the servant problem…. The daughter of a friend of mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car conductor had called her "Comrade!

Carlyle, in his French Revolution, has described the French people as distinguished above all others by their faculty of standing in queue. Russia had accustomed herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas the Blessed as long ago as 1915, and from then continued intermittently until the summer of 1917, when it settled down as the regular order of things.

The Federated Republic of Europe--the United States of Europe--that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world...But without the action of the European masses, these ends cannot be realized...now.

Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos, watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely-and deciding so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution….

Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program and the power to impose it on the country.

In 1917 there were more than twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ Cooperative societies; and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical application.

Two weeks later General Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. 'Will you,' the asked, 'promise to divide the estates of the Cossack landlords among the working Cossacks?' 'Only over my dead body,' responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And the Cossack movement was no more...

Nếu chủ nghĩa xã hội chỉ có thể thực hiện khi tất cả mọi người không trừ một ai đều đã tới một trình độ phát triển đầy đủ thì có lẽ phải năm trăm năm nữa chúng ta mới thấy chủ nghĩa xã hội.

Lý do độc nhất dẫn đến thắng lợi của những người Bôn-sê-vích là đã thực hiện những nguyện vọng rộng lớn và giản đơn của các tầng lớp cơ bản nhất trong nhân dân, kêu gọi họ phá tan cái cũ và sau đó, trong khói bụi của sự sụp đổ này, cộng tác với họ để dựng lên cái mới...

Làm cách mạng không thể chần chừ được, phải luôn luôn tiến lên phía trước, nếu không sẽ lùi về phía sau.

We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name ‘I Eat Nobody,’ and Tolstoy's picture prominent on the walls, and then sallied out into the streets.

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….

During civil war the right to use violence belongs only to the oppressed....

You foreigners look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a mediæval monarchy," said he. "But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the world capitalism was Emperor.... Russian revolutionary tactics are best....

The "moderate" Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the "moderate" Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.