Right: V. I. Lenin presides the First Congress of the Third International (March 2-6, 1919)
Sources: Left: Volume 28, page 16. Right: webpage. Both were edited with Lunapic
1. COMRADE WORKERS, FORWARD TO THE LAST, DECISIVE FIGHT!
[...]
A wave of kulak revolts is sweeping across Russia. The kulak hates the Soviet government as much as he does poison and is prepared to strangle and massacre hundreds of thousands of workers. We know very well that if the kulaks were to gain the upper hand they would slaughter hundreds of thousands of workers ruthlessly, in alliance with landowners and capitalists, restore back-breaking conditions for the workers, abolish the eight-hour day and hand back the mills and factories to the capitalists.
That was the case in all previous European revolutions when, as a result of the weakness of the workers, the kulaks succeeded in turning a republic back to a monarchy, a working people's government back to the despotic exploiters, rich and parasites. That is what happened before our very eyes in Latvia, Finland, the Ukraine and Georgia. Everywhere the avaricious bloated and bestial kulaks joined hands with landowners and capitalists against the workers and the poor generally. Everywhere the kulaks wreaked their vengeance on the working class with incredible ferocity. Everywhere they joined hands with the foreign capitalists against the workers of their own country.
That is how the Cadets, the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have been acting: we have only to remember their exploits in "Czechoslovakia".1
That is also the way the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in their crass stupidity and spinelessness acted when they rebelled in Moscow and thereby assisted the whiteguards in Yaroslavl and the Czechs and the Whites in Kazan. No wonder these Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were praised by Kerensky and his friends, the French imperialists.
There is no doubt about it. The kulaks are rabid foes of the Soviet government. Either the kulaks massacre vast numbers of workers or the workers suppress the revolts of the predatory kulaks ruthlessly. There can be no middle course. Peace is out of the question: even if he has quarrelled with the landowner, the tsar or the priest, the kulak can easily come to terms with them, but with the working class never.
That is why we call the fight against the kulaks the last decisive fight. That does not mean no more kulak revolts or no more attacks on the Soviet government by foreign capitalism. The words "the last fight" imply that the last and most numerous exploiting class of our country has rebelled against us.
The kulaks are the most brutal, callous and savage exploiters who, in the history of other countries, have time and again restored the power of the landowners, tsars, priests and capitalists. Although the kulaks are more numerous than landowners or capitalists they are a minority of the population nonetheless.
Let us assume that there are about fifteen million peasant families in Russia, as there were before the robbers deprived Russia of the Ukraine and other territories. Of these fifteen million, probably ten million are poor peasants who make a living by selling their labour or are in bondage to the rich or do not have grain surpluses and were the most impoverished by the burden of war. About three million must be regarded as middle peasants. Barely two million are kulaks, rich peasants, grain profiteers. These bloodsuckers have grown rich on the want of the people during the war; they raked in thousands and hundreds of thousands of rubles by raising the price of grain and other products. These spiders have grown fat at the expense of peasants ruined by the war, at the expense of starving workers. These leeches have sucked the blood of working people and grown richer as workers in cities and factories starved. These vampires amassed the landed estates and continued to enslave the poor peasants.2
Ruthless war on the kulaks! Death to them! Hatred and contempt for the parties that defend them: the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and today's Left Socialist-Revolutionaries! The workers must crush with an iron fist the revolts of the kulaks who are allying with foreign capitalists against the working people of their own country.3
[...]
2. THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR.
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How my mother saw me off to war (1918) |
March of the Drozdovsky Regiment (1919) |
3. LETTER TO AMERICAN WORKERS.1
Comrades! A Russian Bolshevik who took part in the 1905 Revolution and who lived in your country for many years afterward has offered to convey my letter to you. I have accepted his proposal all the more gladly because presently American revolutionary workers must play the exceptionally important role of uncompromising enemies of American imperialism—the freshest, strongest and latest imperialism to join the worldwide slaughter of nations for the division of capitalist profits.
At this very moment American multimillionaires, those modern slaveowners, have turned an exceptionally tragic page over in the bloody history of bloody imperialism by giving their approval (direct or indirect, open or underhanded, makes no difference) to the armed expedition of the brutal Anglo-Japanese imperialists bent on throttling the first socialist republic.
[...]
The American multimillionaires were perhaps the richest of all and geographically the most secure. They have gained more than all the rest. They have made tributaries of every country, even the wealthier ones. They have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars. And every dollar is sullied with the filth of the secret treaties between Britain and her "allies" or between Germany and her vassals (treaties for the division of the spoils, "mutual aid" treaties for oppressing workers and persecuting internationalist socialists). Every dollar is sullied with the filth of "profitable" war contracts which in every country made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And every dollar is stained with blood from that ocean of blood shed by the ten million killed and the twenty million maimed in the great, noble, liberating and holy war to decide whether British or German robbers get most of the spoils, whether British or German thugs are foremost in throttling the weak nations of the world.
While the German robbers broke all records of war atrocities, the British have broken all records not only in the number of colonies they have grabbed but also in the subtlety of their disgusting hypocrisy. This very day British, French and American bourgeois newspapers are spreading in millions and millions of copies lies and slander about Russia and justifying the predatory expedition against her hypocritically on a plea of "protecting" Russia from the Germans!
[...]
The old bourgeois-democratic constitutions waxed eloquent about formal equality and the right of assembly, but our proletarian and peasant Soviet Constitution casts aside the hypocrisy of formal equality.
When bourgeois republicans overturned royal thrones they did not fret over formal equality between monarchists and republicans. Similarly when overthrowing the bourgeoisie, only traitors or idiots can demand a formal equality of rights for the bourgeoisie.
"Freedom of assembly" for workers and peasants is not worth a farthing if the best meeting places belong to the bourgeoisie. Our Soviets confiscated the good buildings in town and country and transferred all of them to workers and peasants for their unions and meetings. Such is our freedom of assembly...for the working people!
That is the meaning and content of our Soviet, our socialist Constitution! That is why we are all so firmly convinced that no matter what misfortunes may lie ahead, our Republic of Soviets will be invincible. It is invincible because every blow dealt by frenzied imperialism, every defeat inflicted on us by the international bourgeoisie, rouses more and more workers and peasants to the fight and teaches them, on the back of enormous sacrifice, steels them and spawns renewed heroism on a massive scale.
[...]
Presently we are, as it were, inside a besieged fortress waiting for other detachments of the world socialist revolution to come to our succor. Those detachments exist, are more numerous than ours, are ripening, growing, strengthening even as the imperialist brutality continues. [...] Slowly but surely the workers are adopting communist Bolshevik tactics and heading to the proletarian revolution, which is the only one capable of saving dying culture and dying mankind.
In short, we are invincible because the world proletarian revolution is invincible.
4. SPEECH AT A MEETING AT THE FORMER MICHELSON WORKS ON AUGUST 31, 1918.1
[...]
Similarly the realities of life have taught workers that, as long as the landowners are snugly installed in their mansions and magic castles, the right of assembly will not exist and will mean, if anything, the right to assemble only in the world to come. You will agree that to promise the workers freedom while leaving the mansions, land, factories and all the wealth in the hands of the capitalists and landowners hardly has anything to do with liberty and equality.
We have only one maxim, one slogan: All who work have the right to enjoy the benefits of life. Idlers and parasites who suck the blood of the working people must be deprived of these benefits. And we proclaim: Everything for the workers, everything for the working people!
We know how hard it is to achieve all this, we are acquainted with the furious resistance the bourgeoisie are putting up, but we believe in the ultimate victory of the workers. They are bound to win because they were capable of extricating themselves from the terrible woes of the imperialist holocaust and of constructing the new edifice of socialist revolution on the ruins of the one they demolished.
And in fact forces are converging everywhere. Now that we have abolished the private ownership of land, the workers of town and country are rapidly merging. And in the West too we see workers' class-consciousness awakening. The British, French, Italian and other workers are making more and more appeals and demands indicating the approaching triumph of the world revolution.
And our task today is to carry on with our revolutionary work and to scorn the hypocrisy, insolent outcries and lamentations of the predatory bourgeoisie. We must pit all we have on the Czech front so as to crush this whole gang who put up liberty and equality as a smokescreen to conceal the shooting down of hundreds and thousands of workers and peasants.
We have only one alternative: victory or death!
5. GREETINGS TO THE RED ARMY ON THE CAPTURE OF KAZAN.
Hearty greetings to the Red Army on its wonderful victory.
May it serve as a pledge that the alliance of workers and revolutionary peasants will finish off the bourgeoisie, smash every resistance by the exploiters and ensure the victory of socialism all over the world.
Long live the worldwide workers' revolution!
Lenin
6. SPEECH ON RED OFFICERS' DAY NOVEMBER 24, 1918.
(Thunderous applause, singing of the Internationale)
Greetings on behalf of the People's Commissars.
Whenever I think about the tasks of our army and Red officers, I recall something that happened in a train on Finnish Railways not so long ago. I noticed that the passengers were smiling at something an old Finnish woman was saying, so I asked someone to translate her words. She was comparing the revolutionary soldiers to the old soldiers and saying that the former protected the poor whereas the latter used to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landowners. "Formerly the poor man had to pay heavily for every stick of wood he took without permission," the old woman said. "But when you meet a soldier in the woods nowadays he'll even give you a hand with your bundle of sticks. You don't have to fear the man with the gun any more," she said. I think it would be hard to imagine a better tribute to the Red Army than that one.
Most of the old officers were spoiled and depraved darling sons of capitalists who had nothing in common with the private soldier. So now in building our new army we must draw our officers solely from the people. Only Red officers will be respected by the soldiers and be able to strengthen socialism in our army. Such an army will be invincible.
7. CONCLUDING SPEECH AT THE FIRST CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL ON MARCH 6, 1919.1
[...]
No matter how much the bourgeoisie of the whole world rages, how many Spartacists and Bolsheviks they deport, jail or even kill, it will no longer help them. It will only serve to enlighten the masses, rid them of the old bourgeois-democratic prejudices and steel them in struggle. The victory of the proletarian revolution on a worldwide scale is assured. The founding of an international Soviet republic is on the way.
(Stormy applause)
March 2, 1919, was the opening day, attended by fifty-two delegates (thirty-four with the right to vote, the rest with the right to speak but not to vote). The following Communist and Socialist parties, groups and organizations were represented: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia, Armenia and the Volga German region; the Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party, the Norwegian Social-Democratic Party, the Swiss Social-Democratic Party (the Opposition), the Balkan Revolutionary Social-Democratic Federation; the Joint Group of the Eastern peoples of Russia, the Zimmerwald Left wing of France; Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist groups; the Dutch Social-Democratic group; the Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labour Party of America; the Socialist Workers' Party of China; the Korean Workers' Union; Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Persian sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern peoples, and the Zimmerwald Commission.
Lenin's theses and report on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat attracted much attention. The theses in Russian and German were circulated among the delegates.
At the third session on March 4, Lenin read out his theses and substantiated their last two points in his report. The Conference approved the theses unanimously and handed them to the Bureau for wide circulation. The question was raised of founding the Communist International in view of the fact that many new delegations had arrived. The delegates from the Communist Party of German Austria, the Left Social-Democratic Party of Sweden, the Balkan Revolutionary Social-Democratic Federation and the Hungarian Communist Party moved "to constitute the Conference as the Third International and to adopt the name of Communist International." That same day a unanimous motion dissolved the Zimmerwald association.
The Conference formulated the policy statement of the Communist International whose main points were these:
(1) the replacement of the capitalist by the communist social system is inevitable;
(2) a proletarian revolution is required to overthrow bourgeois governments;
(3) the bourgeois state must be superseded by a Soviet-style proletarian state to ensure the transition to a communist society.
8. LENIN AT WORK.
The American Government has issued an official declaration stating that the aim of its intervention in Russia is to protect the Czech-Slavs from erstwhile Austrian-German prisoners of war and to enable the former to constitute a Government. To this end America will send aid to the healthy elements of Russia, not only through Vladivostok but through Archangel and the Murmansk coast. American troops will guard Russian armouries and collaborate with the French and British governments. The American government proposes to Japan that it send military reinforcements to Vladivostok in order to secure the rearguard of the advancing Czech-Slavs. The Japanese Cabinet concurs on condition that these principles be advertised on the official declaration to be published by the American Federal Government.
Basilea: Reports from Moscow state that the Bolsheviks and the Soviets have sought Germany's help in combating the Czech-Slavs and in countering the Allied intervention by expelling them from Vladivostok at all costs.
Petrograd: The Soviets have published an order of the day ordering a million soldiers to join the Germans in a fight against the Czechoslovaks. It has also ordained the persecution of Socialist-Revolutionaries for being enemies of the Soviets.
Berne: Reports from Moscow say that the situation of the Bolsheviks worsens. Lenin and Trotsky, afraid, asked the Germans for protection and moved to Kronstadt together with the rest of the commissars that conform the maximalist cabinet. News from Archangel say that the Red Guard retreats there too.
Amsterdam: Reports from Moscow say that Lenin's troops were routed. The Soviets were given unlimited powers to deal with enemies of the revolution.
Amsterdam: A general uprising has taken place in Petrograd motivated by the "horrible" high prices of basic items. Mobs wandered over the city shouting, "Down with the Germans!" Police intervened and a bloody confrontation ensued which left hundreds dead or wounded.
Nauen: A Russian girl named "Dora Kaple" assassinated Lenin in Moscow with several shots of a revolver. Dora is a native of Kiev and had been sentenced to thirteen years in prison for a similar offence in 1907. The Amsterdam press says that Lenin's assassination is the work of Right Socialist-Revolutionaries abetted by the Allies.
Further details on Lenin's assassination. After the attempt on his life Lenin was taken to the Hall of the People at the Kremlin. The assassination stirred the people deeply and serious disorders are feared. The organ of the Soviets says that the assassination was perpetrated on August 30 at 9:00 PM by girls belonging to the educated class. As Lenin left after speaking at a workers' rally in the Michelson Factory, two women approached him to ask about the importation of food. Then they fired three shots, wounding him fatally. The Soviet newspaper asks workers to stay calm and attributes the assassination to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and to the Entente. The girl guilty of the crime has been arrested.
Samara: The Soviets' organ publishes a manifesto to the workers signed by "Sovellof" (?): "We do not doubt that the attempt is exclusively the work of Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign agents. The working class must respond with ruthless terrorism."
London: A Russian radiogram dated Moscow 7:00 PM and received in the Admiralty states that Lenin has slept in relative peace. It may be said, broadly speaking, that he is in better and stronger shape.
London: The latest reports confirm that Lenin died at 10:00 PM.
Petrograd: A German steamship arrived in the harbour, the first to do so since the outbreak of the [First World] war.
Paris: News from Moscow that French nationals under 48 years old will be detained caused great dismay. France declared that all the Bolshevik leaders will be held responsible for the measure.
Italians to Siberia. Italian forces have arrived in Siberia to fight alongside the Allied troops operating there.
Stockholm: General Ivanov who had commanded the Russian front has been appointed chief commander of the Don Cossacks.
Stockholm: Seven Austrian regiments that operated in Russia refused the order to go back to the Italian front.
London: A Russian radiogram received by our communications equipment states that Lenin is improving noticeably and that the peril to his life is nearly over.
London: Lenin's health improved markedly in the morning; his fever is almost gone.
The situation in Russia. Many "volunteers" were shot in reprisals. Thirty-four major landlords were also shot in response to the attempt on Lenin's life.
Now that the term "bolshevism" is in vogue and people quail before a possible invasion of the whole of Europe by the "red wave," it is convenient, I believe, to make a few reflections on this mortal epidemic whose symptoms in man resemble very much those of rabies. Where did Bolshevism egress from? Was it born in Russia as a consequence of the terrible autocracy of the Czars? Is its rapid spread due to the corruption and crass ignorance of a half-savage population who feels its shackles opening? Both causes have contributed powerfully to the spread of the infection, but many Spaniards perhaps ignore at this hour that Bolshevism (which they surmise is a reflection of the Entente's doctrines) was concocted to get rid of the Russian foe and that those miserable bloodthirsty men, Lenin and Trotsky, were the agents provocateur of Wilhem II in a betrayed and chaotic Russia.
* * *
When the Russian Revolution burst out—the countries of the Entente erred when they saluted its bright flashes as a dawn rather than a blood-coloured twilight—Germany did not waste time. It made Lenin the fanatic and other Bolshevik companions cross its territory into unhinged Russia. The deadly symptoms of the new malady did not take long to manifest and turn the former Empire of the Czars into a vast lunatic asylum.
The tragic travesty of liberty was from a German perspective a rousing success. Lenin and Trotsky handed their country over at Brest-Litovsk as Judas did Jesus of old ... with the only difference that nowadays this type of treachery usually costs more than thirty coins.
Today, witnessing Germany's defeat, Lenin and his band of Apaches toss the agreement while German troops returning from Russia come infected with Bolshevism.
* * *
The Russian Revolution has been a bitter lesson for the Entente. The Entente saluted with too much cheerfulness and levity what it thought was simply the liberation of an oppressed people. Today it discovers, astonished, that democracy is not compatible with crass ignorance, sectarianism, anarchy and plunder. The Entente thought itself betrayed by the Czar's Court; now it finds out that murderous Bolshevism is effectively the one that betrayed it, sold Russia out at Brest-Litovsk and turned on the Allies, persecuting and slaying their representatives and sympathizers.
Witnessing the perverse dictatorship of the "maximalists" and Russia's current chaos, many disillusioned dreamers will say what Madame Roland said before the revolutionary guillotine, "O Liberty! How many crimes are committed in thy name!"
It's not possible to deny that the remedy was worse than the illness. If the Russia of the Czars was bad for its autocracy, its "knout" and its Siberian penitentiaries it was lenient if compared with the policies of Lenin and his Red Guards. It was said that Russia of the Grand Dukes was rotten. I say that the entire Russian people were rotten. Otherwise it's impossible to comprehend the present degradation and cowardice displayed by all social classes under the oppressive yoke of today's tyrants, a thousand times fiercer than yesterday's.
And this goes to show once more, in case we didn't know, that it's relatively easy to start a revolution but not so easy to channel it and even less to buffer it. Let this be an example for all the democratic politicians and writers of every country. Those who rupture the levees holding back the "red wave" are whirled away by its rushing current and drown as its first victims. Those who originally dreamed of a constitutional Monarchy and later of a democratic Republic in Russia also proved incapable of containing the avalanche of maximalist fury. Kerensky the prolix politician attempted to ride out the red wave and he too sank in its murky waters. Since then an immense fratricidal war consumes Russia and "Equality" and "Fraternity" fulfill their levelling mission only by sowing death in equal amounts without distinction of class, age or gender until some Thermidor arrives that banishes the butchers.
Yes, the Russia of Bolshevism has made the Russia of the Czars look good. And this is because a population is not redeemed simply by changing a slogan or a regime.
ALVARO ALCALA GALIANO
The revolution in Baviera. News from Munich inform that the socialists have proclaimed a revolutionary state. The population and the Army joined in.
London: Reports from The Hague say that revolution has broken out in Berlin. The capital is controlled by the insurgents. Many public buildings are on fire. A Soviet of Workers and Soldiers is established in the Grand Duchy of Brandenburg. Revolution has broken out in Hamburg to tragic strains; revolutionaries disarmed the local police and control the city. The execution of officers continues in Kiel. Also very grave news from Austria say that bloody demonstrations there demanded the abdication of the Kaiser and of Emperor Charles.
Copenhaguen: Reports from Helsinfors state that three Russian warships based in Kronstadt shelled the Finnish coast. The vessels flew the red flag and their barrage lasted three hours.
Berlin: A great public Assembly with the participation of the King of Norway passed a resolution in favour of creating a league of all the free peoples to make future war impossible; the Assembly also stated that now more than ever is the right moment to bring this ideal about.
Stockholm: Diplomats of neutral and Allied countries are being arbitrarily detained in Petrograd and Moscow and subjected to all types of harassment. Spain's representative managed to escape after enduring "enormous abuses." The situation is unsustainable. Anarchy grows by the hour.
Basilea: It's been agreed that the capital of the new Germany will be moved from Berlin to Weimar.
Copenhaguen: News from Helsinfors state that Lenin showed up at the Finnish border seeking asylum.
Stockholm: The Bolshevik Governement of Russia declared that the socialist homeland is in danger and set up a dictatorial Soviet presided over by Lenin and having Trotsky as supreme commander of the Armed Forces.
Washington: The number of female employees in Yankee railways has reached the one-hundred-thousand peg since the start of the [First World] war.
Delayed telegraph service from Madrid, dated January 7. Titov the Russian socialist declared in London that the Bolsheviks are ruining Russia. They slay and destroy whatever contravenes their wishes, foreboding a general destruction and a complete wreck of economic life, and annihilating the educated classes of the Russian civilization. The Bolsheviks have banned all newspapers except theirs.
London: The British Government intends to keep some military forces in Russia.
Helsingfors: News from Petrograd paint a truly tragic picture. Several clusters of Bolsheviks fleeing Russia have shown up at the Finnish border. They say that the situation in their country is worse than can be imagined and that lawlessness reaches nearly unbelievable levels, being truly horrendous. Famine, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases cause great havoc in Petrograd. People are dying on the streets. There are no health services, so "macabre sights" are frequent. There is no more clothing on sale. As many citizens are dressed in tatters, the intense cold of the month of December spiked the death toll. Meagre quantities of oatmeal and sardines is the only food left in the warehouses; a sardine sells for twenty rubles. All other foodstuffs have long ago vanished. The working class is very displeased with the maximalist administration and stages "untoward incidents" on a daily basis.
Berlin: The final draft of the armistice was concluded yesterday.
Estonia: Bolshevik prisoners stated that all the officers in Petrograd under sixty years old were drafted or shot. The bridges and the railway stations of Petrograd were mined by the Bolsheviks in case they should need to vacate the city.
Against the Bolsheviks. Large field armies occupy southern Russia. One made up of a hundred and eighty thousand men, mostly Cossacks, is led by General Denikin; another Cossack army, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, is led by General "Jarasnouf" (?). Both armies have virtually cleaned the Caucasus of Bolsheviks. Their main goal is to link up with General Krasnov of the Siberian Army.
Copenhaguen: News from Helsingfors say that famine triggered grave disorders in Petrograd. Ten thousand people demanding bread marched through the streets. Troops opened fire on the hungry crowds.
Barcelona: Many kiosks today sell postcards bearing Lenin's portrait [these were days of proletarian agitation in the city].
Stockholm: The situation is "most serious" in Petrograd due to the lack of food. Workers demonstrate against the government, which recalls troops from Estonia to defend a capital it wishes to abandon. Peasant uprisings multiply. Bolshevik reprisals in the large centers are ruthless, but the committees created by Lenin are being dissolved nonetheless. The current trends guarantee that the term of the Soviet government will be "very short."
Berlin: The German press publishes articles in favour of the unification of Germany and German Austria.
Lisbon: A thousand and five hundred Portuguese officers and soldiers have returned home from Germany.
Helsingfors: Six thousand Putilov workers went on strike; they demand an end to the fratricidal war consuming Russia and an agreement among all political parties to bring peace and free trade.
Petrograd: The Bolsheviks keep indulging in all kinds of excesses and rampages. They loot houses and warehouses and steal all kinds of goods and utensils. Numerous gangs of thieves made up of former Lithuanian convicts rob passersby in the streets and murder those who resist.
News of the invitation extended by President Wilson to the competing Russian governments to attend a Princes' Islands Conference in the Sea of Marmora was broadcast in Petrograd three days after the radiogram arrived. Newspapers ran a special issue under the headline, "Wholesale capitulation of the bourgeoisie." Lenin telegraphed Petrograd, "Our triumph is complete. Wilson, George and Clemenceau sue for peace. They propose an armistice and invite us to a conference."
London: News from Petrograd say that the typhus epidemic assumes "terrifying" proportions. Thousands of people are sick. The Soviets created an extraordinary commission to deal with the epidemic, but the famine makes all their efforts vain.
Princes face a firing squad. An extraordinary Bolshevik commission sentenced Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, uncle of the former Czar, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, cousin, Grand Duke Dmitry Konstantinovich and Grand Duke George Mikhailovich to death by firing squad.
Fighting in the capital. A mutiny of soldiers in Petrograd took on a "most grave" character. Calm was restored although it is believed that the "Samenhoff" (?) Guard Regiment went over to the rebels. Machine-gun nests are everywhere. Many civilian combatant corpses lie on the streets. The city was shelled several times by the artillery.
Kronstadt: According to foreign residents arrived from Russia the situation in Moscow is "horrible." All stores are closed except those subsidized by the Soviets. Nothing can be purchased without showing a special card reserved exclusively for the Bolsheviks. There is no bread, clothing or coal. A pound of bread sells for 250 Francs. Churches were converted to dance halls frequented by prostitutes. Russian bureaucrats back from Germany and Austria are forced to enlist in the Red Army. Those who refuse to do so are deprived of food and clothes until they enlist. Officers previously part of the general staff are forced to enlist and their families are taken hostage.
London: Famine and misery reign in Russia and thousands of people perish. The owners of funeral homes can not cope with the demand for coffins. Food is so scarce that cats are sold for 12 shillings each in Moscow and Petrograd. Illnesses caused by the famine are manifold. Over the past week many British nationals returned from Russia sick with hunger and privation. Epidemics spread in "horrific" fashion, particularly typhus and tuberculosis. As of three weeks ago two hundred poeple die daily in Petrograd from starvation. The few men and women venturing outdoors look scrawny except for bulging hands and faces. Many people are sick with dropsy. The winter season is truly unbearable without oil or tinder. The streets are shrouded in darkness, letting scoundrels commit all kinds of excesses. The dearth of coal adds to the distress. Only very wealthy individuals, among the favourites and parasites who surround Lenin and Trotsky, have access to the few foodstuffs left. The Kremlin is a depot of foodstuffs, fuel and tinder for the Bolshevik managers; the distribution of food is unjust and selfish, destined only for retinue and staff. Bread rations are made from four types of cereal and from powdered barley used to feed horses. Meat, milk and vegetables still on sale are incredibly expensive. Every morning the streets appear covered with corpses: women, men and children dead from famine or cold.
Petrograd: It is said that the maximalist furor has reached such a climax that Lenin himself was arrested for three days on suspicion of having sold out to the bourgeoisie.
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