“Whenever you are tempted to feel concerned about the execution of the Czar and his family,” said a friendly Communist, “think about the millions of innocent human beings who have recently lost their lives through the policies of that man and his ministers. And call to your mind the vast hosts of martyrs who have fallen victims to the cruelties of his predecessors.”
The advice was well-meant but unnecessary. I have already said that it would be impossible to forget the martyrs of the Revolution and the tortures of those grand idealists of Russia. The visit in Petrograd to the graves of some of them is an incident in a wide experience in many countries, the memory of which will stay with me to the end of my days. It was so sincere, yet so dramatic.
A large open space in the heart of the city called the Field of Mars, and devoted in the old times to military reviews and the drilling of troops, is being converted by the Communists into a fine memorial of the heroes of the Revolution who have lost their lives in some prominent fashion in the struggle for freedom. Voluntary labour and the labour of the Red Army is digging up the hard soil and planting beautiful trees in symmetrical designs. In the middle of this large tract a simple stone memorial has been erected. It is not a flaunting column shouting to the sky, but it takes the form of a low, solid, granite wall, enclosing in four sections with rounded corners a burial ground. The spaces between the sections permit people to enter. From all parts of Russia the bodies have been brought and are laid just inside the wall and all the way round. A footpath follows the wall and encloses the graves on the other side. The centre of the square is at present a grass-plot with flowers and shrubs. The whole thing is naturally on a very large scale.
One lovely evening, after a most enthusiastic gathering inside the People’s Hall, we were taken in a decorated tramcar to see the Martyrs’ Memorial. I have experienced nothing in my life so moving and impressive. A great crowd from the meeting accompanied us, and stood in silent groups outside the wall whilst we walked slowly round. The eyes of the leaders shone with the light of a great pride and a deep passion as they approached one by one the graves of their honoured dead. The pride melted into tears at some of the graves, when we stopped in our walk and sang slowly a verse of the plaintive martyrs’ hymn, a sad and haunting melody with just a single note of triumph in it. One after another the heroes were pointed out to us. Here was a man who had been tortured to death. Here was one who was shot by hired Government assassins. Here lay one who was blown to bits by his own bomb; here a tender girl who gave up her life for the cause.
The tears were quickly dried. Russian revolutionaries do not weep easily. Instead of tears a hard glitter filled the eyes of a fierce fellow. “But we will be avenged,” he shouted. “For every one of our comrades who has died like this we will send ten of the bourgeois to their graves.” I shuddered in the presence of a terrible fanaticism. Poor ghosts! If they could rise from the dead would they not tell us to make no more human sacrifices to their memory? Would they not speak to us of a better way?
I tried hard to get a copy of the mournful song we sang on this and many occasions subsequently. I was several times promised it but it never came. The words I never knew for they were Russian, but the melody I captured and I give it as it printed itself upon my mind. It will be recognised by Russian readers.
SONG OF THE MARTYRS
This habit of seeing ghosts brought me a good deal of chaff not only from the Communists but from my own friends. One of the Communists made a speech in defence of violent methods and gave a sidelook at me when he reminded the British Delegates that “once on a time the British Government made its king shorter by a head,” as did the people of France.