New-York tribune., 1918-09-15
A Picture of Soviet
Russia

80 hiLE Americas attitude toward
w the situation in Russia is still
IN the formative STAGE" Charles John
ston writes in "The North American
Review" II think that I can render a
substantial service to publicg opinion
here by transcribing a picture of the
Russia with which we must deal. as
painted by Frenchman of great in
sight and literary power, one of those
extraordinarily lucid minds whose clear
and critical spirit Clemenceau once de-
scribed in a happy epigram.'
The Frenchman referred. to is Serge
de Chessin, and he calls his description
The evening twilight of capital
Mr.. Johnston writes:
"He begins by drawing vivid compari.
son between dying Petrograd and one of
those winter scenes so affected by Russian
artists, IN which their tendency toward
traglcal decay expresses itself; miserable
villages wrapped in snow, vague silhouettes
OF churches in the white immensity, vii
lage road SCARED by ruts, losing itself in
the lnfnltude of the dead steppes
us not the aspect of the streets the truest
mirror of political regime? he asks, and
then he draws a telling contrast between
the stately vistas of Petrograd, even in the
weeks before the revo. Ation, and the ghastly
squalor Of Soviet Petrograd. But even un-
der the magnificent stage setting mounted
by the Cars lay concealed the incurable
neurasthenla of people without moral or
soclal resistance, the brutalties of an -
crate proletarat, its anarchical fermenta-
ton, all the ugly things which the mutter-
ing revolution was preparing to bring forth.
These dregs have to-day come to the sur
face. One would say that, under the murky
SKY, was passing a procession Of dead souls.
The dull eyes, the heavy faces the stoop-
ing figures announce a frightful apathy.
For many hours, for whole days and nights,
men, women and children with empty bas-
kets on their arms, waiting, bent and hag-
gard before the shops. Sometimes exhaus-
ton trlumphs over these mournful efforts
OF endurance, and the victim falls. dying OF
starvation under the hallucinated eyes of an
Indifferent crowd After the crises Of cpl
lepsy which have convulsed the capital
nothing any longer creates astonishment
neither coffins heaped in dozens on mud
cart, on their way to the common ditch, nor
the food spectators dragged along the
streets wearing under their chns pla
card: 1 am thief,' nor the everlasting rat
tie of rifles, nor the daily lynchngs, where
the lamppost takes the place Of the gal
lows, nor the ladies of the old nobility sell
ing newspapers, nor generals picking up
crusts, nor the carron rotting on the side
walks "Panis ct circensesi" The crowds
of Petrograd, injurious after so many cir
Gus shows, ask now only for bread and
little rest. Their political stupor is 50
complete that, during the tragica days q
the German offensive, when the shriekng
OF sirens announced the mobilization of the
Red Guard and enemy airplanes buzzed
over the city, the crowds continued, deaf 70
all national or revolutionary convulsions'
their eternal sentry march before the food
shops. This nightmare nihilism was unbroken
even by the signature of catastrophe
peace. While Russia was being crucihed
the crowd continued TO haggle over its rc''
ten herrings and unspeakable bread. In the
external aspect as in its spirit, the capita
OF the militant revolution, the hearth o.
world socialism, recalls those wretched Rus
sian provincial towns engulfed in coma
which Gorky had described with such morts
Sadness"