1. Arise, ye starvelings, from your slumbers, Arise, ye criminals of
want, For reason in revolt now thunders, And at last ends the age of cant.
Now away with all superstitions, Servile masses, arise! arise! We’ll
change forthwith the old conditions, And spurn the dust to win the prize.
Chorus.
Then, comrades, come rally, the last fight let us face, The Internationalé,
Unites the human race, Then, comrades, come rally, The
last fight let us face, The Internationalé Unites the human race.
2. These kings defile us with their powder,
We want no war within the land;
Let soldiers strike: for peace call louder,
Lay down arms and join hand in hand.
Should these vile monsters still determine,
Heroes to make us in despite;
They’ll know full soon the kind of vermin
Our bullets hit in this last fight!
Chorus: Then comrades, etc.
CHAPTER V
The Communists
Accompanying the British Delegation were two British journalists, one representing a great Liberal daily and the other a well-known Radical weekly journal. At Reval we were joined by an American writer. Later a French and an Italian journalist were added to the number. Later still came a German writer on the scene; and in addition a considerable number of Swedes and Norwegians who had come to Russia to make a special study of industrial life, with a view to organising assistance from Sweden of the various big constructive plans contemplated by the Russian Government. We were all housed under the same roof, fed at the same tables, carried about in the same fleet of automobiles and subjected to the same supervision during the visit to Petrograd and Moscow.
Radios sent out by delegates and journalists were censored by the Authorities, who have sole control of all the means of communication with the outer world, a very natural state of affairs in a country at war with so many enemies. Very natural, also, is it that in this, as in other ways, the Russian Government should exactly copy the methods of other Governments in selecting for world-distribution those messages which tell in its favour. It must certainly be conceded in their behalf that never in the history of mankind has the public Press been used to pervert the truth and exaggerate the evil more than for the purposes of destroying the detested Communist régime.
But of this monopoly of the wires by the Government we were ourselves occasionally the victims, the smiling and amused victims I may say; as when a fiery speech on true Bolshevist lines by an eloquent Britisher, unable to resist his atmosphere, was flashed around the world, whilst a more sober utterance was treated with contemptuous disregard.
I remember one little incident which caused those of us who were aware of it the greatest entertainment as evidencing the methods of some of the more timid and consequently the more autocratic of the Communists. The representative of the Daily News and the American journalist wished to extend their trip on the Volga and to go down to Astrakhan. To do this it was necessary to have permission from the Foreign Office. They drew up a telegram and handed it to the Commissioner in charge of our party, who smilingly assured them that the telegram should be sent and that they might expect the reply in a few hours. They waited. The point at which the Delegation was to leave the ship and return to Moscow was reached. They approached the Commissioner and asked him if there were any news for them.