Page:The Descent of Bolshevism.djvu/21

 could be sanctioned only by some such religion as Mazdakism. "He was not nice in point of conscience," as one historian puts it; nor was he happy on the throne. His brother and his courtiers cast an enchantment upon his crown and, as soon as he became a Mazdakite, they whisked it away. And he was cast into prison as a warning to Mazdak and his followers. But the warning was of no avail; for in addition to a prophet and a king, the movement gained the support of a queen. Kobad's wife became an ardent Mazdakite. And by smiling assent to the jailer one night, she succeeded in having her husband, hidden in a mattress, carried away. This was a signal triumph for the new cult. And Mazdak, son of Bambadan, thereafter called himself the Sign, the Demonstration, the Word, the Redeemer.

And his followers set out zealously, violently to prove themselves faithful to his creed. Everything was to be held in common, "Goods, Women, Children and the Rest." And for more than fifty years