It is to his oratorical skill rather than any administrative ability that Zinoviev owes his prominence. His rhetoric is of a peculiar order. He is unrivalled in his appeal to the ignorant mob, but, judging by his speeches, logic is unknown to him, and on no thinking audience could he produce any impression beyond that of wonderment at his uncommon command of language, ready though cheap witticisms, and inexhaustible fund of florid and vulgar invective. Zinoviev is, in fact, the consummate gutter-demagogue. He is a coward, shirked office in November, 1917, fearing the instability of the Bolshevist coup, has since been chief advocate of all the insaner aspects of Bolshevism, and is always the first to lose his head and fly into a panic when danger-clouds appear on any horizon.
Removing his hat, Zinoviev approached the rail, and stood there in his rich fur coat until someone down below gave a signal to cheer. Then he began to speak in the following strain:
“Comrades! Wherefore are we gathered here today? What mean this tribune and this concourse of people? Is it to celebrate a triumph of world revolution, to hail another conquest over the vicious ogre of Capitalism? Alas, no! Today we mourn the two greatest heroes of our age, murdered deliberately, brutally, and in cold blood by blackguard capitalist agents. The German Government, consisting of the social-traitor Scheidemann and other supposed Socialists, the scum and dregs of humanity, have sold themselves like Judas Iscariot for thirty shekels of silver to the German bourgeoisie, and at the command of the capitalists ordered their paid hirelings foully to murder the two chosen representatives of the German workers and peasants …” and so on.
I never listened to Zinoviev without recalling a meeting in the summer of 1917 when he was the chief speaker. He had just returned to Russia with a group of other Bolshevist leaders (very few of whom were present during the revolution) and was holding incendiary meetings in out-of-the-way places. He was thin and slim and looked the typical Jewish student of any Russian university. But after a year’s fattening on the Russian proletariat he had swelled not only politically but physically, and his full, handsome features and flowing bushy hair spoke of anything but privation.
Contrary to custom, Zinoviev’s speech was short. It must have been cold, speaking in the chilly wind, and in any case there were not many people to talk to.
The next speaker was more novel—Herr Otto Pertz, president of the German Soviet of Petrograd. Why a German Soviet continued to live and move and have its being in Petrograd, or what its functions were, nobody seemed to know. The comings and goings of unsere deutsche Genossen appeared to be above criticism and were always a mystery. Herr Otto Pertz was tall, clean shaven, Germanly tidy, and could not speak Russian.
“Genossen! heute feiern wir—” he began, and proceeded to laud the memory of the fallen heroes and to foretell the coming social revolution in Germany. The dastardly tyrants of Berlin, insolently styling themselves Socialists, would shortly be overthrown. Kapitalismus, Imperialismus, in fact everything but Kommunismus, would be demolished. He had information that within a week or two Spartacus (the German Bolshevist group), with all Germany behind it, would successfully seize power in Berlin and join in a triumphant and indissoluble alliance with the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.
As Otto Pertz commenced his oration a neatly dressed little lady of about fifty, who stood at my side near the foot of the tribune, looked up eagerly at the speaker. Her eyes shone brightly and her breath came quickly. Seeing I had noticed her she said timidly, “Spricht er nicht gut? Sagen Sie doch, spricht er nicht gut?”
To which I of course replied, “Sehr gut,” and she relapsed bashfully into admiration of Otto, murmuring now and again, “Ach! es ist doch wahr, nicht?” with which sentiment also I would agree.
The crowd listened patiently, as the Russian crowd always listens, whoever speaks, and on whatever subject. The soldiers shivered and wondered what the speaker was talking about. His speech was not translated.
But when Otto Pertz ceased there was a commotion in the throng. For some moments I was at a loss as to what was in progress, until at last a passage was made and, borne on valiant Communist shoulders, a guy, the special attraction of the day, was produced. The effigy, made of pasteboard, represented a ferocious-looking German with Kaiser-like moustachios, clothed in evening dress, and bearing across its chest in large letters on cardboard the name of the German Socialist,
Scheidemann.
At the same time an improvised gallows was thrust over the balustrade of the tribune. Amid curses, jeers, and execrations, the moustachioed effigy was raised aloft. Eager hands attached the dangling loop and there it hung, most abject, most melancholy, encased in evening dress, and black trousers with hollow extremities flapping in the breeze.
The crowd awoke and tittered and even the soldiers smiled. Dmitri, I could see, was laughing outright. This was after all worth coming to see. Kerosene was poured on the dangling Scheidemann and he was set alight. There were laughter, howls, and fanfares. Zinoviev, in tragic pose, with uplifted arm and pointed finger, cried hoarsely, “Thus perish traitors!” The bugles blew. The people, roused with delight, cheered lustily. Only the wretched Scheidemann was indifferent to the interest he was arousing, as with a stony glare on his cardboard face he soared aloft amid sparks and ashes into eternity.
Crowd psychology, I mused as I walked away, has been an important factor on all public occasions since the revolution, but appreciated to the full only by the Bolsheviks. Everyone who was in Russia in 1917 and who attended political meetings when free speech became a possibility remembers how a speaker would get up and speak, loudly applauded by the whole audience; then another would rise and say
