Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/204

188 Till at last the flesh came.

Bolshevism came, drowning the monarchists in a sea of blood, issuing new pass-words founded upon the destruction of Russia.

The Commissars of the people, Dzierjynski, Wolodarski, and Pavlunovski of the Cheka offered the bloody hecatomb, murdering all who believed in the great powerful Russia, in the return to the old order.

Special detachments of Finns, Letts, Hungarians, Germans, and Chinese were at their disposal, and for their protection against the efforts of "counter-revolution."

Sailors of the fleet, inflamed by propaganda, hewed down their officers with axes, tore them to pieces, drowned them in the sea at Wiborg, till their bodies formed dams. They broke up and robbed their ships, and sold the machinery, guns, and scrap metal on the markets in the capital and in Finland.

Blood flowed in streams, covering with a scarlet veil the "bloodless" revolution which was dreamt of and discussed at the British Embassy in Petrograd.

The new lord—Bolshevism—achieved great things during the five years, while throwing out to the civilised countries lofty slogans, bold, new words, and dazzling them with its energy, alacrity, and determination.

It conquered its enemies with the armed hand, destroyed Russia till she was laid bare, dying, imbued with blood; it changed the political configuration of