The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-05-22


only cents per day per person. 1t Is only ono
of the many vital centers of contact with the peas
ants that the Russian workers have established
The Winter Palace.
THIS great palace, home of the cars since
Peter the Great, was built in 1735. 1t was
burned in 1887 and later rebuilt. 1t Is located
on the banks Of the Neva 1t was in the vast
courtyard of this palace that took place the
slaughter on Bloody Sunday in 1905, when the
priest GapOn, led thousands of workers to the
palace to ask the car for redress of their griev
ances. 1t was also the scene of the orgies Of the
decadent Russian royalty. 1t is fitted out in
ostentatious splendor, but it lacks the oriental
gorgeousness and barbaric garishness of the M r.
COW palaces. Now the whole palace is a museuh
One large section is a museum of revolutionary
history. This contains pictures, documents, and
relics of all the struggles against autocracy from
the uprising of the Decemberists, a century ago,
to the overthrow of the Kerensky government
in 1917. There is a "life-szed" reproduction of
cell in the SchIusselberg fortress, with seven
wax figures of prisoners. The cell is constructed
of material taken from the old fortress. There
are numberess pictures of strikes, executions,
terrorist acts, of prison scenes, underground
party life, of workers leaders, of revolutionary
struggles, etc. A visit through this section of
the museum is education in the long and bitter
struggle of the Russian workers for emancipa-
| ton.
The luxurious living rooms of the palace re-
main just as they were before the revolution.
They are vast treasurehouse of rich objects of
art. Even in the heat of the revolutionary strug-
gle little was stolen; close check-up is possible
because of the existence of books, apparently
designed to prevent thievery by the former serv-
ants, which contain detailed diagrams of each
room and exact descriptions and locations of
every object in them. Only few pictures Of
particularly hated members Of the royalty, show
ed any mutilatiOn. Everything was intact The
clock and calendar in the room Of Alexander II
indicated the exact minute when he was killed,
3 "a p. m, March 31st, 1881. 1t was in the spa
ciOus and rich apartments of Nicholas III thatI
Kerensky maintained the headquarters Of hisI
government.
The st. Peter and ST. Paul Fortress.
THIS Infamous prison, often hailed "the cradle
= of the revolution" because so many of the
workers leaders were confined there, sprawls on
the banks of the Neva opposite the Winter Pal
ace. It's TALL needeike spire is the highest built
point in Soviet Russia. The fortress was con-
structed by Peter the Great in 1903. The first
political prisoner to be kept there the son of
Peter the Great, whom the latter wanted to get
rid of. For than 200 years thereafter the
fortress was used to confne political prisoners
At this place were executed the Decembersits
rebels 100 years ago. The prison was used espec-
tally to incarcerate the revolutionary youth. 1t
has been described as a great spider which lived
on the blood of the best youth of Russia. Wei
visited the cells of Kropotkin, Gorky, Trotsky, ]
and many others who had been active in the
struggle upward of the Russian working class.
The st. Peter and st. Paul fortress was an
especially horrible prison. All the prisoners
kept in solitary confinement. To prevent them
from communicating with each other, the en-
gineers made the walls of solid stone three feet
thick. But this was in vain. Even the slightest
tapping of ones finger nail on the wall is audi
BILE in the next cell. The prisoners talked with
each other through sort of Morse code, in spite
of the harshest punishments for so doing This
was their only relief. The place was tomblike
in its silence. Even the corridors, where the
guards walked wera heavily carnatad IN Hill all