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Birdseye Views of Far Lands

<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> <h3>The Home of Bolshevism—Russia</h3> Of All the countries in Europe, conditions in Russia are perhaps most deplorable. With the granary of the world her people have the least food. A few years ago her laws were the most rigid of all countries, now she is nearest without law of any of them. With all her boundless resources, she is as helpless as a child. Like poor old blind Samson, she has lost her strength and is a pitiful sight to behold. But the purpose of this article is not to recount the horrors the war brought to Russia. I would much rather tell something about the people as I saw them just before the war, and their country and cities in times of peace. Some day these people will have a stable government. They have suffered for a long time, but out of it all will come a purified people and a government in which the people will have some rights and privileges worth while. The writer of these lines does not pose as a prophet, but will say that in twenty-five years Russia will have the best government in Europe. The Russian people are a race of farmers. When the war broke out eighty-five per cent of the people lived in the country. Although a nation having one-sixth of the earth's surface, yet she has only a few large cities. It is actually said that years ago people had to be chained in the cities to keep them from moving to the country. The people, as a rule, are honest-hearted, hard-working people, who have never had a chance. They are ignorant and often superstitious. They have been used to hardship and cruelty. In the old days a man was beaten three hours a day for debt and after a month sold as a slave if no one came to his rescue. Thieves and other criminals were hanged, beheaded, broken on a wheel, drowned under the ice or whipped to death. "Sorcerers were roasted alive in cages; traitors were tortured by iron hooks which tore their sides into a thousand pieces; false coiners had to swallow molten metal," says one writer. Woman was considered the property of man and her glory was to obey her husband as a slave obeys his master. No eyes could look upon her face and she was shut up like a prisoner. They used to think that if a husband beat his wife it was the sign he loved her. The Russian proverb says: "I love thee like my soul, but I beat thee like my jacket." Never will I forget the time spent in Moscow. The great center of the city is the Kremlin Palace and at the time of my visit it contained riches untold. Of course, the Bolshevists have looted it long before this. In it at that time was the largest gun ever made before the war, but it had never been fired. Also the largest bell ever cast was there, but this had never been rung. In front of this palace is the famous Red Square, and this has no doubt been red with blood many times during these terrible years of Bolshevist rule. If the very stones upon which people walk could speak, a wave of horror would sweep around the world. Perhaps the most curious church in the world is that of Saint Basil the Blessed, which is in the city of Moscow. It has nearly a dozen spires most curiously built and no one seeing it can ever forget it. It is said that the eyes of the Italian architect who built it were put out so he could never build another like it. The Russian people are very religious and Moscow is their sacred city. At the sight of the glittering crosses the peasants coming into the city for the first time would often fall upon their faces and weep. This sacred city has passed through some horrible times. Famine has raged and the ravages of hunger caused parents to eat the flesh of their own children. Pestilence at one time stalked through the city like a mighty conqueror and a hundred and twenty thousand people perished before it could be checked. Nearly the entire city has gone up in smoke on more than one occasion and yet it still lives. When I was there its streets were ablaze with electric lights at night and thronged with shopping multitudes by day, but all this is changed at this time. If we can believe the historian, orgies have taken place in this city that would make it, for the time being, a rival of Hades itself. When the Russians turn against a man their hatred knows no bounds. In one case they caught a pretender for the throne and almost continuously for three days they tortured him in every imaginable way, shape and form. After he was finally killed they were so afraid that he might come to life that they took his body, burned it to ashes, loaded them in a cannon and fired it, scattering them to the four winds. One of the empresses of Russia became enraged at one of the princes whose wife had died and she compelled him to marry an old ugly woman whose nickname was "Pickled Pork." One historian says: "The marriage festival was celebrated with great pomp: representatives of every tribe and nation in the Empire took part, with native costumes and musical instruments: some rode on camels, some on deer, others were drawn by oxen, dogs and swine. The bridal couple were borne in a cage on an elephant's back. A palace was built entirely of ice for their reception. It was ornamented with ice pillars and statues, and lighted by panes of thin ice. The door and window posts were painted to represent green marble: droll pictures on linen were placed in ice frames. All the furniture, the chairs, the mirrors, even the bridal couch, were ice. By an ingenious use of naphtha the ice chandeliers were lighted and the ice logs on the ice grates were made to burn! At the gates two dolphins of ice poured forth fountains of flame: vessels filled with frosty flowers, trees with foliage and birds, and a life-sized elephant with a frozen Persian on its back adorned the yard. Ice cannon and mortars guarded the doors and fired a salute. The bride and groom had to spend the night in their glacial palace." For centuries the common people of Russia were afraid to open their mouths. Detectives were everywhere and half of the people exiled to Siberia had no idea what they had committed. One of the secret service men might visit a peasant home disguised as a tramp or agent. Allowed into the humble home he would examine the books on the table if any were there, and should he find a sentence tabooed by the government, the farmer who gave the stranger a place to eat and sleep would likely be exiled, although he had never read a line in the book. I have seen these detectives on trains, at depots, in hotels, always watching everybody. No proprietor of a hotel would keep a stranger over night without the guest's passport in his possession. One of these secret service men might come in at midnight and if he found a stranger or even a name on the register without an accompanying passport, the landlord might have to go to prison and of course they took no chances. As soon as I registered at a hotel in Moscow the landlord had to have my passport in his possession. All things considered it is not at all surprising that when the restraint was removed the people went to the greatest possible extreme. It is not surprising that they all wanted to talk and speechify. Every man had some grievance or something to talk about. While the peasants were honest and trusted each other, yet there have developed so many traitors that now they do not know who they can trust. The great mass of people are like a lot of sheep without a shepherd and can be led or driven in any direction. Of all people, they are perhaps most to be pitied. A Russian gentleman recently expressed his conviction to the writer that the only hope for the country is in the church people. They are very religious and the Orthodox church was rich in priceless treasure and lands. But the Bolshevists looted and robbed the churches, which of course enraged the people. They were held in check by alluring promises, but these promises were not fulfilled and their eyes are now opened and they will rise up, so this man hopes, and overthrow Bolshevism. One thing is certain and that is that the Bolshevist leaders have recently made all kinds of concessions to the people. As the darkest days in the history of the Chosen Race in Bible times was when "every man did what was right in his own eyes," so these Russian folks have been passing through just such a time. There has not been any law to speak of and every man has been doing as he pleases with everything he could get his hands on. But as Russia has produced some of the master minds of the ages some of us believe that some of these times a leader will appear who will bring order out of chaos. As a rule, in the days agone, when the people of a great nation were really ready for a mighty step forward the good Lord raised up a man to lead them. Passing the great estate of Tolstoi I could not help thinking of one of his marvelous word pictures and as it concerns everyone of us it will not be out of place to call attention to it here. As the story goes a youth had fallen heir to his father's estate and this taste of wealth made him crazy for the lands adjoining the little homestead. One fine morning this young man was greeted in the highway by a fine looking nobleman who said he had taken a liking to him and had decided to give him all the land he could cover during one day. As they stood at the corner of the little homestead at the grave of his father the stranger said to the young man: "You may start now and walk all day, but at sundown you must be back here at your father's grave." Without even stopping to tell his wife the good news, or bid her and their little child good-bye, the young man started. At first thought he decided to cover a tract six miles square which would mean a walk of twenty-four miles, but he had only gotten well started when the plan was enlarged to a square of nine miles. The morning was so cool and fine and he felt so strong that he increased it to twelve miles and still later he made it a square of fifteen miles, which would mean a walk of sixty miles before sundown. By noon he had made the thirty miles but so great was his fear of failure he decided not to stop for lunch. An hour later he saw an old man at a wayside spring, but felt that he must not stop even for a drink of water and rushed on his way. By the middle of the afternoon he had discarded his coat and a little later threw away his shirt. An hour before sunset it was a race for life. His heart had almost stopped beating and his eyes began to bulge from their sockets. As the sun touched the horizon he was still many rods from the starting point. With all the strength of both body and soul he lunged forward and just as the sun went out of sight he staggered across the line and fell into the arms of the stranger who was there to meet him, but when he fell he was dead. "I promised him," said the stranger, "all the ground he could cover. Strictly speaking, it is about two feet wide and six feet long. And I drew the line here at his father's grave because I thought he would rather have the land he could cover close to his father than to have it anywhere else." "Then the stranger—death—slipped away," says Dr. Hillis, who tells the story, saying: "I always keep my pledge." So they buried the man with the land-hunger. The Russian people have just gotten a taste of liberty and are as crazy as was the man with the land-hunger. All hope and trust that they will see their condition before the nation comes to a death struggle, but they have passed the meridian and entered the dangerous part of the day and if the leader does not soon come who can stop their onward sweep, they will be in the last great struggle and the death rattle will be heard. But terrible as the situation is at this writing, however, there are some signs of a better day, and as long as there is life there is hope. Some of us still believe that the day will come when Russia will be a mighty and powerful nation. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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