Reds Page #10

She says, "My husband just died.

I want to sell his jacket."

He says,

"What's the matter with the pants?"

She says, "The pants, I wear."

The Russian border.

The Russian border.

He's already fighting for three months.

Now he joined the Bolsheviks

and he's not going to fight anymore.

I don't think he's afraid.

There are many Bolsheviks in the army.

And the Bolsheviks will stop the war.

He's 14 years old.

The Communists obviously wanted

peace. Rightly so.

Because the country was completely

unable to sustain a war.

There was treason

and there was corruption.

There was everything under the sun.

But certainly...

There was certainly no possibility

of conducting a war.

Kerensky was anxious to conduct it,

produce some battalions of women

who were going to go and fight.

Jack Reed!

Alex, what the hell are you doing here?

- You have someone to meet you?

- No.

Then what luck I am here!

- Lois?

- Yes.

Alex Gomberg.

- Looking for accommodation?

- No. Just a hotel.

More good luck.

I know of an empty apartment.

You have transportation?

No problem. Follow me.

A lot of people had an idea

that Utopia was growing up.

I could not blame them

for being pro-Bolshevik,

but I wasn't.

The one person

who was awfully ignorant about Russia

- was Beatrice Webb.

- Yes, she was.

She didn't know a thing.

Do not be misled by the quiet

in the streets.

Underneath is great tension.

Alex, how much time

has the Kerensky government got left?

Any day now, the Bolsheviks will strike.

Fantastic, isn't it?

A quiet street,

and yet we are in the heart of Petrograd.

Give him four rubles.

Jack, Lois. Lucky for you, I am here.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks again.

Only one bed? That's a double.

Single. That's a single!

This is where I'II...

This is good for me. I can just...

Good.

I don't mind this at all.

He's calling for an insurrection,

isn't he?

Day and night. Day and night.

"Another insurrection will ruin Russia."

"Another insurrection will save Russia."

"The war is ruining Russia."

"Without England or France,

Russia will be isolated."

"The Bolsheviks are ruining Russia."

Lois, lucky for you, I am here.

Louise.

- This is the line for bread.

- Yes.

There's another line for boots.

And there is still another line for cards

on which they'll get the boots

in two, three months.

Did we have to get rid of the czar

to stand in line for bread?

- What does that mean?

- I don't know.

Vosstanie means "Insurrection,"

and "Kerensky" means "Kerensky,"

and Bolsheviki means Bolshevik.

So I think it calls for an insurrection

by the Bolsheviks

against the Kerensky government

and the kornilovtsy.

- What's a kornilovtsy?

- Louise, I'm not that fluent in Russian.

Look, if they buy this,

they're gonna cut you down

to 400 or 500 words, aren't they?

- That starts out like you got 5,000.

- Where would you cut?

I'd lose this. I'd lose this.

But what's your lead?

Oh, I know what you think.

You think the strongman line.

Well, I just don't know if you're gonna

take anybody's breath away

with that for a lead. You know?

You're right.

It's too long, it's too general.

And the strongman line

is the best lead.

You've been right

about something else, too.

The Bolsheviks will take Russia

out of the war.

- Good night.

- Night.

"In the streets the talk

is of peace and bread.

"Neither of which

Kerensky has provided."

"Everybody knows that

something is going to happen,

"Everybody knows that

something is going to happen,

"but nobody knows just what."

Yes?

I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian.

I'm English.

"Petrograd does not sleep.

"At night, the arguments grow louder

and the crowds thicken."

"Nobody is satisfied with Kerensky.

"The far right wants a strongman,

the far left wants peace.

"Everyone waits to see

what the Bolsheviks will do."

"It is not easy to write fairly about

the Bolshevik leader Lenin.

"He is absorbed, cold,

impatient of interruptions."

- You're editorializing here.

- I never editorialize.

- At the end.

- You're right. Cut it.

What I don't understand is...

Why did you take out the piece

about the gunshot? It was very good.

- It is good, isn't it?

- Yeah.

Put it back in for me.

Mr. Zinoviev, do you still feel

that the timing is wrong

for a Bolshevik insurrection?

"I interviewed Zinoviev at Smolny.

"He'd been in hiding with Lenin."

...had another whole decade,

less than a day.

"His style is still that of a man in hiding.

"We hear Trotsky speak at Smolny.

"If Lenin represents thought,

Trotsky represents action.

"He is essentially an agitator."

"The meeting hall at Smolny

was packed. At one point,

"someone in the platform

asked the comrades not to smoke,

"and everybody, including the smokers

took up the cry,

"'Don't smoke, comrades! '

And then they went on smoking."

"At the point Trotsky said,

'We are trying to avoid insurrection,

"'but if the Kerensky government

attacks us,

"'we shall answer blow by blow,'

"the audience broke into wild cheers."

"Lenin is a strange popular leader,

a leader purely by virtue of intellect.

"Colorless, humorless,

uncompromising,

"he seems to have

none of Trotsky's force of personality

"or his gift for phrasemaking,

and yet it is Lenin who is the architect."

Kerensky is some socialist, huh?

"The Winter Palace of the czar, where

Kerensky's government holds office,

- "is vast and magnificent..."

- "It is quiet in the Winter Palace.

"There's no sign here

of the strikes and lockouts

"that convulse Moscow and Odessa.

"No evidence that

transportation is paralyzed,

"that the army is starving

and in the big cities, there is no bread."

"Kerensky is full of old-world manners

and charm, totally unlike Lenin."

"'Provisional government will last,'

Kerensky said during the interview,

"'in spite of the Bolsheviks.'"

"He seemed bitter, defensive."

since January the 1st.

That's 14% of the Russian army. I...

I'm sort of braising the cabbage.

'Cause I thought it'd be a nice change.

You know that house

where Rhys Williams is staying?

Evidently, the banker's daughter

came home in hysterics the other night,

'cause some woman streetcar

conductor called her "comrade."

So after dinner, they all voted

they preferred the Germans

to the Bolsheviks by 10-to-one.

Anyway, the Social Revolutionaries

asked the British ambassador

to please not to mention their visit,

because they were already considered

too far to the right.

And you know,

it's the same group of people

you couldn't even see a year ago,

'cause they were too far to the left.

Karsavina is dancing tonight.

And, oh, Manny Komroff says

that Charlie Chaplin will be...

Jack...

Thanks for bringing me here.

Will they strike?

Do you speak English?

Do you speak English?

Do you speak English?

Do you speak English?

Do you speak English?

Do you speak English?

- Do you speak English?

- Yes.

Will they strike?

- New York?

- Yes.

- You know Broome Street?

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