Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/47



HE spring and summer of 1917 was a series of demonstrations. In this Russia always excelled. Now the processions were longer, led not by priests but by the people, with red banners instead of ikons, and instead of church hymns, songs of revolution.

Who can forget Petrograd of July first! Soldiers in drab and olive, horsemen in blue and gold, white-bloused sailors from the fleet, black-bloused workmen from the mills, girls in vari-colored waists, surging thru the main arteries of the city. On each marcher a streamer, a flower, a riband of red; scarlet kerchiefs around the women's heads, red rubashkas on the men. Above, like crimson foam, sparkled and tossed a thousand banners of red.

As this human river flowed it sang.

Three years before I had seen the German war machine rolling down the valley of the Meuse on its drive towards Paris. The cliffs resounded then to ten thousand lusty German voices singing "Deutschland über Alles," while ten thousand boots struck the pavement in unison. It was powerful but mechanical, and, like every act of those grey columns, ordered from above.