To which I of course replied, “Sehr gut,” and she relapsed bashfully into admiration of Otto, murmuring now and again, “Ach! es ist doch wahr, nicht?” with which sentiment also I would agree.
The crowd listened patiently, as the Russian crowd always listens, whoever speaks, and on whatever subject. The soldiers shivered and wondered what the speaker was talking about. His speech was not translated.
But when Otto Pertz ceased there was a commotion in the throng. For some moments I was at a loss as to what was in progress, until at last a passage was made and, borne on valiant Communist shoulders, a guy, the special attraction of the day, was produced. The effigy, made of pasteboard, represented a ferocious-looking German with Kaiser-like moustachios, clothed in evening dress, and bearing across its chest in large letters on cardboard the name of the German Socialist,
SCHEIDEMANN.
At the same time an improvised gallows was thrust over the balustrade of the tribune. Amid curses, jeers, and execrations, the moustachioed effigy was raised aloft. Eager hands attached the dangling loop and there it hung, most abject, most melancholy, encased in evening dress, and black trousers with hollow extremities flapping in the breeze.
The crowd awoke and tittered and even the soldiers smiled. Dmitri, I could see, was laughing outright. This was after all worth coming to see. Kerosene was poured on the dangling Scheidemann and he was set alight. There were laughter, howls, and fanfares. Zinoviev, in tragic pose, with uplifted arm and pointed finger, cried hoarsely, “Thus perish traitors!” The bugles blew. The people, roused with delight, cheered lustily. Only the wretched Scheidemann was indifferent to the interest he was arousing, as with a stony glare on his cardboard face he soared aloft amid sparks and ashes into eternity.
Crowd psychology, I mused as I walked away, has been an important factor on all public occasions since the revolution, but appreciated to the full only by the Bolsheviks. Everyone who was in Russia in 1917 and who attended political meetings when free speech became a possibility remembers how a speaker would get up and speak, loudly applauded by the whole audience; then another would rise and say the precise opposite, rewarded with equally vociferous approbation; followed again by a third who said something totally at variance with the first two, and how the enthusiasm would increase in proportion to the uncertainty as to who was actually right. The crowds were just like little children. Totally unaccustomed to free speech, they appeared to imagine that anybody who spoke must ipso facto be right. But just when the people, after the Bolshevist coup d’état, were beginning to demand reason in public utterance and deeds instead of promises, down came a super-Tsarist Bolshevist censorship like a huge candle-snuffer and clapping itself on the flame of public criticism, snuffed it out altogether.
Public demonstrations, however, were made an important item in the curriculum of the Bolshevist administration, and soon became as compulsory as military service. I record the above one not because of its intrinsic interest (it really had very little), but because it was, I believe, one of the last occasions on which it was left to the public to make the demonstration a success or not, and regiments were merely “invited.”
I made my way to Stepanovna’s in the hope of meeting Dmitri. He came in toward the close of the afternoon, and I asked him if he had enjoyed the demonstration.
“Too cold,” he replied; “they ought to have had it on a warmer day.”