Reds Page #14

I'm going to be asked...

All right, thank you.

All right, comrades, since

the first question I'm gonna be asked

by the Comintern is gonna be

about membership eligibility,

I think I'm gonna have to be very clear

what our position is

in relation to

the Foreign Language Federation.

I'm gonna have to say exactly

what our requirements are

as opposed to any other group,

and I think we'll have to make it clear

on our Platform Committee

and be very clear in the manifesto.

- Good luck in Moscow, Jack!

- Okay, Harry.

Well, I guess you boys think

you can run a newspaper without me.

Hello, Jessie.

Good girl.

- Hello.

- Hello.

Let me make it easy for you, Jack.

I'm not going with you.

And if you go, I'm not sure I'll be here

when you get back.

Louise, you know, the Comintern

doesn't know Edmund or Alfred

from the New York Yankees.

They know me.

Somebody's got to go over there

who's got a background.

We'd be back by Christmas.

We can't merge with Fraina.

We can't deal with him

on membership eligibility.

He wouldn't accept half of our people.

The man is gonna do nothing

but alienate himself

from any potential

broad base of support.

He's sociologically isolated,

programmatically he's impossible

to deal with...

You mean he's a foreigner?

Don't do that, Louise.

Six months ago, you were friends.

These people can barely speak English.

They don't even want to be integrated

into American life.

The Foreign Language Federations

aren't gonna create Bolshevism

in America any more

than eating borscht will.

Being Russian

doesn't make a revolution.

Do you think the American workers

are gonna be led

by the Russian federations?

Or an insular Italian like Louis Fraina?

He has no possibility

of leading a revolution in this country.

Unlike you?

I'm just saying

that the revolution in this country

is not gonna be led by immigrants.

Revolution? In this country?

When, Jack? Just after Christmas?

Well, what do you think

we could've done with the steel strike

if we'd been ready?

with a unified theory and program

leading 365,000 steelworkers?

What it takes is leadership.

And we gotta get it

by getting recognition from Moscow.

- I have to go.

- You don't have to go.

You want to go. You want to go running

all over the world ranting and raving

and making resolutions

and organizing caucuses.

What's the difference

between the Communist Party

and the Communist Labor Party

except that you're running one

and he's running the other?

- I've made a commitment.

- To what?

To the fine distinction between

which half of the left of the left

is recognized by Moscow as

the real Communist Party in America?

To petty political squabbling between

humorless and hack politicians

just wasting their time

on left-wing dogma?

To getting the endorsement

of a committee in Russia

you call the International

for your group of 14 intellectual friends

in the basement

who are supposed to tell the workers

of this country what they want,

whether they want it or not?

Write, Jack.

You're not a politician, you're a writer.

And your writing has done more

for the revolution

than 20 years of this infighting can do,

and you know it.

You're an artist, Jack.

Don't go.

Don't run away

from what you do the best.

Jack.

I'll be back by Christmas.

I'm going into the city.

When do you leave?

Tomorrow.

- I see.

- I'll be back by Christmas.

Will you be here?

I don't know. I'll see you when I see you.

Here. Your passport and papers.

Your name's James Gormley.

Go now!

Well, Mrs. Reed. Sit down.

What can I do for you?

Hello, Gene. How are you?

Fine. And you?

I'm fine.

Sit down.

- How's Jack?

- He's fine. He's in Russia.

- Is he?

- Yes.

He's trying to get recognition

from the Comintern

for the Communist Labor Party.

You see, they've split

into two different factions.

And you?

Left alone with your work again?

No.

Well, actually, yes,

but my work is different now.

I do a lot of lecturing

about what I saw in Russia.

Ah, yes, Russia.

Russia's been good for you and Jack.

Given you a way to meet people,

given him a reason to leave home.

Russia.

Russia.

Are you really that cynical,

or are you angry with me?

I'm really that cynical.

Why would I be angry with you?

Gene, if you'd been to Russia,

you'd never be cynical

about anything again.

You would have seen

people transformed. Ordinary people.

Louise, something in me tightens when

an American intellectual's eyes shine

and they start to talk to me

about the Russian people.

- Wait...

- Something in me says, "Watch it.

"A new version of Irish Catholicism

is being offered for your faith."

- It's not like that.

- And I wonder why

a lovely wife like Louise Reed

who's just seen the brave new world

is sitting around

with a cynical bastard like me

instead of trotting all over Russia

with her idealistic husband.

It's almost worth being converted.

Well, I was wrong to come.

You and Jack have a lot of

middle-class dreams for two radicals.

Jack dreams that he can hustle

the American working man,

whose one dream is to be rich enough

not to have to work,

into a revolution led by his party.

And you dream that if you discuss

the revolution with a man

before you go to bed with him,

it'll be missionary work rather than sex.

I'm sorry to see you and Jack

so serious about your sports.

It's particularly disappointing

in you, Louise.

You had a lighter touch

when you were touting free love.

Boy, you've become quite the critic,

haven't you, Gene?

Just leaned back and analyzed us all.

Duplicitous women who tout free love

and then get married,

power-mad journalists

who join the revolution

instead of observing it,

middle-class radicals

who come looking for sex

and then talk about Russia.

It must seem so contemptible

to a man like you

who has the courage to sit on his ass

and observe human inadequacy

from the inside of a bottle.

Well, I've never seen you

do anything for anyone.

I've never seen you

give anything to anyone,

so I can understand why you might

suspect the motives of those who have.

But whatever Jack's motives are, how...

I seem to have touched a wound.

You're a wounding son of a b*tch,

and whatever I've done to you,

you've made me pay for it.

Louise.

Jessie!

Hey, Jess, come on! Come here, Jess.

Jessie, come here.

Jessie.

Jessie?

Jessie?

- Oh!

- Good evening.

By the order of the Attorney General

of the United States,

A. Mitchell Palmer,

I have a warrant here

for the arrest of one John Silas Reed.

Look upstairs, Frank.

- Arrest for what?

- Sedition.

- Where is he?

- What do you mean by sedition?

Lady, don't ask me.

Ask Woodrow Wilson.

Just tell me where he is.

I don't suppose there's a chance

of you being a Bolshevik agitator,

is there?

Why don't you just look around,

and see how agitated you get?

In 1919,

there were no more

than four or five Americans

who got into Russia

because the country was surrounded

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