James Elroy Flecker - "Forty Two Poems"

Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield - "Young Captain Jack"

Lyda Farrington Krausé - "We Ten"

Frederik van Eeden - "The Bride of Dreams"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ten Days That Shook the World

J >> John Reed >> Ten Days That Shook the World




The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance
from Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the
Kremlin. Dark and silent and cold were the churches; the priests had
disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial,
there had been no sacrament for the dead, nor were any prayers to be
said over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon, Metropolitan of
Moscow, was soon to excommunicate the Soviets....

Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at
home-but for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the
rumour of whose coming was thunderous as surf....

Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the
vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I
remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always
before the passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice
it....

We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin
wall, and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men
were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected
Commandant of Moscow-a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a
gentle face.

Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people
poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the
poor and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the
_Internationale,_ and spontaneously the song caught and spread like
wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin
wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters
in gold and in white, saying, "Martyrs of the Beginning of World
Social Revolution," and "Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the
World."

A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far
quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were
arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the
Gate, the blare of their banners, and the dull red-like blood-of the
coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood
and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who
marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women
who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces.
Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others
were covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier's hat
nailed on the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial
flowers....

Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession
slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless
stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering,
knots of crepe hanging from the top-and some Anarchist flags, black
with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral
March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people,
standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs....

Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their
coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and
artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black-forever, it
seemed. Their banners said, "Long live the Third International!" or
"We Want an Honest, General, Democratic Peace!"

Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the
grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down
into the pit. Many of them were women-squat, strong proletarian
women. Behind the dead came other women-women young and broken, or
old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to
follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and
shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each
other so!

All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the
Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river
of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous
prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,-under the
eyes of the world's workers and their descendants forever....

One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell,
and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played
the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless
branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like
strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in
the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding
sound, audible beneath the singing....

The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning
women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from
the great Square ebbed the proletarian tide....

I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed
priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a
kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it
was a glory to die....

Chapter XI

The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI,
Sect. 2)

... The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed
the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination.

The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this
inalienable right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and
definitely.

Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People's
Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in
the question of Nationalities, the following principles:

(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.

(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination,
even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent
state.

(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious
privileges and disabilities.

(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic
groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.

Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a
Commission on Nationalities.

In the name of the Russian Republic,

People's Commissar for Nationalities

YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN

President of the Council of People's Commissars

V. ULIANOV (LENIN)

The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent
Republic, as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at
Helsingfors. Independent "Governments" spring up in Siberia and the
Caucasus. The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered
together the Polish troops in the Russian army, abolished their
Committees and established an iron discipline....

All these "Governments" and "movements" had two characteristics in
common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and they
feared and detested Bolshevism....

Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People's
Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order.
Decree on Social Insurance, on Workers' Control, Regulations for
Volost Land Committees, Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of
Courts and the Creation of People's Tribunals.... (See App. XI, Sect.
3)

Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, "joyfully to
greet the new Government of the People."

In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from
the trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates,
thin and grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in
it. Some pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing....
Red Guards came to mount guard. All the soldiers turned to look,
curiously, as if they had heard of them but never seen them. They
laughed good-naturedly and pressed out of line to slap the Red
Guards on the back, with half-joking, half-admiring remarks....

The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the
churches of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as
Lenin himself told the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ that was "only the beginning
of the conquest of power." Deprived of arms, the opposition, which
still controlled the economic life of the country, settled down to
organise disorganisation, with all the Russian genius for
cooperative action-to obstruct, cripple and discredit the Soviets.

The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by
the banks and commercial establishments. Every move of the
Bolsheviki to take over the Government apparatus was resisted.

Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries
refused to recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors
were forced, resigned. He demanded the keys of the archives; only
when he brought workmen to force the locks were they given up. Then
it was discovered that Neratov, former assistant Foreign Minister,
had disappeared with the Secret Treaties....

Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It
was bitterly cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all
the hundreds of employees, not one would show him where the office
of the Minister was....

Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar of
Public Welfare-the department of charities and public
institutions-was welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the
functionaries in the Ministry. Immediately the poor of the great
cities, the inmates of institutions, were plunged in miserable want:
delegations of starving cripples, of orphans with blue, pinched
faces, besieged the building. With tears streaming down her face,
Kollontai arrested the strikers until they should deliver the keys
of the office and the safe; when she got the keys, however, it was
discovered that the former Minister, Countess Panina, had gone off
with all the funds, which she refused to surrender except on the
order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App. XI, Sect. 4)

In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the
Ministry of Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees,
summoned to return or forfeit their positions and their pensions,
either stayed away or returned to sabotage.... Almost all the
_intelligentzia_ being anti-Bolshevik, there was nowhere for the
Soviet Government to recruit new staffs....

The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open
for speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left,
secreting the books and removing the funds. All the employees of the
State Bank struck except the clerks in charge of the vaults and the
manufacture of money, who refused all demands from Smolny and
privately paid out huge sums to the Committee for Salvation and the
City Duma.

Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to
insist upon the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The
first time, the City Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist
Revolutionary leaders were present in imposing numbers, and spoke so
gravely of the consequences that the Commissar was frightened. The
second time he arrived with a warrant, which he proceeded to read
aloud in due form; but some one called his attention to the fact
that it had no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect
for "documents" forced him again to withdraw....

The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that
all record of the financial relations of Russia with foreign
countries was lost.

The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned
public utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when
the Bolsheviki, compelled by the desperate needs of the city
population, attempted to help or to control the public service, all
the employees went on strike immediately, and the Duma flooded
Russia with telegrams about Bolshevik "violation of Municipal
autonomy."

At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of
War and Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the
Army Committees and the high command blocked the Soviets in every
way possible, even to the extent of neglecting the troops at the
front. The _Vikzhel_ was hostile, refusing to transport Soviet
troops; every troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out by
force, and railway officials had to be arrested each time-whereupon
the _Vikzhel_ threatened an immediate general strike unless they
were released....

Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the
factories of Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three
weeks; the _Vikzhel_ announced that trains must cease running by
December first; there was food for three days only in Petrograd, and
no more coming in; and the Army on the Front was starving.... The
Committee for Salvation, the various Central Committees, sent word
all over the country, exhorting the population to ignore the
Government decrees. And the Allied Embassies were either coldly
indifferent, or openly hostile....

The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next
morning under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime.
(See App. XI, Sect. 5) Even _Novaya Zhizn_ characterised it as "a
combination of demagoguery and impotence."

From day to day (it said) the Government of the People's Commissars
sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having
easily conquered the power... the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.

Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are
unable at the same time to create a new one which might work easily
and freely according to the theories of social experimenters.

Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn't enough men to run
their growing party-a work above all of speakers and writers; where
then are they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and
complicated functions of government?

The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with
decrees, each one more radical and more "socialist" than the last.
But in this exhibition of Socialism on Paper-more likely designed
for the stupefaction of our descendants-there appears neither the
desire nor the capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!

Meanwhile the _Vikzhel's_ Conference to Form a New Government
continued to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in
principle to the basis of the Government; the composition of the
People's Council was being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively
chosen, with Tchernov as Premier; the Bolsheviki were admitted in a
large minority, but Lenin and Trotzky were barred. The Central
Committees of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, the
Executive Committee of the Peasant's Soviets, resolved that,
although unalterably opposed to the "criminal politics" of the
Bolsheviki, they would, "in order to halt the fratricidal
bloodshed," not oppose their entrance into the People's Council.

The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the
Soviets everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting
of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted
that the Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the
other Socialist parties; otherwise they would withdraw from the
Military Revolutionary Committee and the _Tsay-ee-kah._ Malkin said,
"The news from Moscow, where our comrades are dying on both sides of
the barricades, determines us to bring up once more the question of
organisation of power, and it is not only our right to do so, but
our duty.... We have won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here
within the walls of Smolny Institute, and to speak from this
tribune. After the bitter internal party struggle, we shall be
obliged, if you refuse to compromise, to pass to open battle
outside.... We must propose to the democracy terms of an acceptable
compromise...."

After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned
with a resolution, read by Kameniev:

The _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it necessary that there enter into the
Government representatives of _all the Socialist parties composing
the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies who
recognise the conquests of the Revolution of November 7th-that is to
say, the establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on
peace, land, workers' control over industry, and the arming of the
working-class._ The _Tsay-ee-kah_ therefore resolves to propose
negotiations concerning the constitution of the Government to all
parties _of the Soviet,_ and insists upon the following conditions
as a basis:

The Government is responsible to the _Tsay-ee-kah._ The
_Tsay-ee-kah_ shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150
delegates of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall be
added 75 delegates of the _Provincial_ Soviets of Peasants'
Deputies, 80 from the Front organisations of the Army and Navy, 40
from the Trade Unions (25 from the various All-Russian Unions, in
proportion to their importance, 10 from the _Vikzhel,_ and 5 from
the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50 delegates from the Socialist
groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the Ministry itself, at least
one-half the portfolios must be reserved to the Bolsheviki. The
Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs must be given to
the Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow
must remain in the hands of delegates of the Moscow and Petrograd
Soviets.

The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of
all Russia.

It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and
Trotzky.

Kameniev explained. "The so-called 'People's Council,'" he said,
"proposed by the Conference, would consist of about 420 members, of
which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides, there would be
delegates from the counter-revolutionary old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ 100
members chosen by the Municipal Dumas-Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates
from the Peasants' Soviets-appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the
old Army Committees, who no longer represent the soldier masses.

"We refuse to admit the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and also the
representatives of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the
Peasants' Soviets shall be elected by the Congress of Peasants,
which we have called, and which will at the same time elect a new
Executive Committee. The proposal to exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a
proposal to decapitate our party, and we do not accept it. And
finally, we see no necessity for a 'People's Council' anyway; the
Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the _Tsay-ee-kah_
represents them in their real proportions among the masses...."

Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his
party would vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right
to modify certain details, such as the representation of the
peasants, and demanding that the Ministry of Agriculture be reserved
for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. This was agreed to....

Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a
question about the formation of the new Government:

"I don't know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
negotiations.... However, I don't think that they are of great
importance...."

That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The
delegates of the City Duma withdrew....

But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a
formidable opposition to Lenin's policy was growing. On the night of
November 17th the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting
of the _Tsay-ee-kah._

Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the
Constituent Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with
"political terrorism."

"The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be
modified. They had their reason during the struggle, but now they
have no further excuse. The press should be free, except for appeals
to riot and insurrection."

In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the
following resolution:

The decree of the Council of People's Commissars concerning the
Press is herewith repealed.

Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to
decision of a special tribunal, elected by the _Tsay-ee-kah_
proportionally to the strength of the different parties represented;
and this tribunal shall have the right also to reconsider measures
of repression already taken.

This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left
Socialist Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.

Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of
the Press be postponed until after some compromise between the
Socialist parties had been reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.

"The revolution which is now being accomplished," went on Avanessov,
"has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as private
property that we must examine the question of the Press...."

Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:

The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by
purely military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the
checking of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary
as a measure of transition toward the establishment of a new régime
with regard to the Press-a régime under which the capitalist owners
of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and
exclusive manufacturers of public opinion.

We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing
plants and supplies of paper, which should become the property of
the Soviets, both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the
political parties and groups can make use of the facilities of
printing in proportion to the actual strength of the ideas they
represent-in other words, proportionally to the number of their
constituents.

The reëstablishment of the so-called "freedom of the press," the
simple return of printing presses and paper to the
capitalists,-poisoners of the mind of the people-this would be an
inadmissible surrender to the will of capital, a giving up of one of
the most important conquests of the Revolution; in other words, it
would be a measure of unquestionably counter-revolutionary character.

Proceeding from the above, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ categorically rejects
all propositions aiming at the reëstablishment of the old régime in
the domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of
view of the Council of People's Commissars on this question, against
pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices,
or by evident surrender to the interests of the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts
from the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation
from the insurgent Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting.
"Three weeks ago the Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of
the freedom of the Press... The arguments in this resolution suggest
singularly the point of view of the old Black Hundreds and the
censors of the Tsarist régime-for they also talked of 'poisoners of
the mind of the people.'"

Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He
distinguished between the Press during the civil war, and the Press
after the victory. "During civil war the right to use violence
belongs only to the oppressed...." (Cries of "Who's the oppressed now?
Cannibal!").

"The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the
newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing
of the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence...." Then passing
to the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:

"The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of
business.... The rule of the democracy which is being established in
Russia demands that the domination of the Press by private property
must be abolished, just as the domination of industry by private
property.... The power of the Soviets should confiscate all
printing-plants." (Cries, "Confiscate the printing-shop of
_Pravda!_")

"The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
Otherwise it isn't worth while for us to take the power! Each group
of citizens should have access to print shops and paper.... The
ownership of print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers
and peasants, and only afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which
are in a minority.... The passing of the power into the hands of the
Soviets will bring about a radical transformation of the essential
conditions of existence, and this transformation will necessarily be
evident in the Press.... If we are going to nationalise the banks, can
we then tolerate the financial journals? The old régime must die;
that must be understood once and for all...." Applause and angry cries.

Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon
this important question, which should be left to a special
committee. Again, passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.

Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a
hammer-blow. "The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still
with us; consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of
repression against the Press.

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