Bessie
Beatty was born in 1886. Employed by Fremont
Older of the San Francisco Bulletin,
Beatty visited Russia in 1917 with John
Reed and Louise Bryant. Her book on
the Russian Revolution, The
Red Heart of Russia, was published in 1919. Beatty died
in 1947.
(1) Bessie Beatty met Leon
Trotsky for the first time on 25th October, 1917.
We stood
there for a few moments, talking of inconsequential things, but all
of us charged with the tensity of the hour. There was keen intelligence
here, nerve, a certain uncompromising streak of iron, a sense of power;
yet I little suspected I was talking to the man whose name within
a few brief weeks would be a familiar word on every tongue - the most
talked of human being in an age of spectacular figures.
(2)
Bessie Beatty wrote about how the Bolsheviks took over the Winter
Palace on 7th November, 1917, in her book, The Red Heart of Russia
(1919).
At the
head of the winding staircase groups of frightened women were gathered,
searching the marble lobby below with troubled eyes. Nobody seemed
to know what had happened. The Battalion of Death had walked out in
the night, without firing so much as a single shot. Each floor was
crowded with soldiers and Red Guards, who went from room to room,
searching for arms, and arresting officers suspected of anti-Bolshevik
sympathies. The landings were guarded by sentries, and the lobby was
swarming with men in faded uniforms. Two husky, bearded peasant soldiers
were stationed behind the counter, and one in the cashier's office
kept watch over the safe. Two machine-guns poked their ominous muzzles
through the entryway
(3) In her book The Red Heart of Russia,
Bessie Beatty described how the Red Guards
left their factories in order to defend the Bolshevik Revolution from
the threatened attack by troops led by Alexander
Kerensky.
The factory
gates opened wide, and the amazing army of the Red Guard, ununiformed,
untrained, and certainly unequipped for battle with the traditional
backbone of the Russian military, marched away to defend the revolutionary
capital and the victory of the proletariat.
Women walked
by the side of men, and small boys tagged along on the fringes of
the procession. Some of the factory girls wore red crosses upon the
sleeves of their thin jackets, and packed a meague kitbag of bandages
and first-aid accessories. Most of them carried shovels with which
to did trenches.
(4) Bessie Beatty was in Petrograd when the
Bolsheviks threatened to close down
the Constituent Assembly in January, 1918.
We drove
along the Liteiny in the direction of the firing. At the Kirochnaya,
we came suddenly upon a group of Red Guards and soldiers, brandishing
ominous guns. They rushed about, tossing orders at one another, their
faces flushed with excitement.
"Murderers!
Murderers!" shouted a woman, shaking a fist in their direction.
"Murderers!
Murderers!" echoed a dozen other women, who turned blazing eyes
upon them.
Scattered
all over the snow were broken and splintered poles - all that remained
of the proud banners that a few minutes before had proclaimed "All
Power to the Constituent Assembly."
(5)
Bessie Beatty was in the Constituent Assembly
when it was closed down in January, 1918.
"Why
should we wait?" We should arrest all! We should kill the counter-revolutionist
Chernov!" came in angry murmurs from factory workers and soldiers.
The delegates
looked from one to another. Some one moved a resolution to adjourn
until five that afternoon. It was promptly adopted.
The murmurs
of "Counter-revolutionist!" grew louder and louder. The
soldiers and sailors flocked down the stairs, and crowded round the
delegates. Some of the Bolshevik members who had remained in the ballroom
surrounded Chernov, and took him in safety through the hostile throng
to the gate.
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