Charles Recht, left wing labor lawyer from New York who became the official representative of the Soviet Union to the United States after the deportation of Ludwig Martens in 1922 until official recognition in 1933, travels to Moscow for the fifth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. And he has a helluva time with Max Eastman and Claude McKay as they meet an unbelievable array of leading Communists on the streets, cafes, homes, and theaters of the city; see Trotsky speak on Red Square, bump into old comrades from the States and observe the Red Capital in its day.

‘Moscow on November 7th’ by Charles Recht from Soviet Russia Pictorial (New York). Vol. 8 No. 3. March, 1923.

THE latest journalistic vogue is to flatter our friends by capitalizing their names in a newspaper column. We feel that it may be permissible to follow the style in recording a day spent with friends in the Red Capital.

Thus we set down for posterity that early on the 7th of November, the birthday of the Soviet Republic, we arose on the Sophiskaya Nabrezhnaya No. 14, and breakfasted in the company of ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS, MAX EASTMAN and CLAUDE MCKAY, and discussed the things we planned to’ see that day. We also started a dispute with the redoubtable Max on a fine point of “Russian grammar, in the course of which he succeeded in showing his superiority. They say that he will soon be able to conjugate “I love” in Russian as he did in Italian at Genoa.

Then we betook ourselves to the quarters of GREGORY WEINSTEIN, who lives with his friend, philosopher and guide, Comrade KAGAN and roused these guardians of the Anglo-American Division of the Foreign Office. There we remained, chiding the aforementioned important chinovniks, while under the window bands of soldiers and paraders were already passing. After rallying these stragglers we went back, calling on DR. ARMAND HAMMER and his brother, VICTOR HAMMER, whose Ford car was to convey us to the Red Square. En tour we picked up MEYER BLOOMFIELD, a Boston social worker, and after crossing the bridge we had to go on foot again showing our passes to many sentries. On the way we met Comrade GORBUNOV, who is a secretary of the “Sovnarkom” (Council of People’s Commissars) and also secretary to Comrade LENIN. He was accompanied by Comrade LEZHAVA, who is the presiding officer of the Concessions Committee.

We got to the Red Square and to the Grand Stand thereat just as TROTSKY began to speak. We thereupon mounted a bench and took several shots at the Commissar of War—with our camera, that is to say. He spoke about an hour, and never have we heard an orator of such vigor, composure and downright ability. His voice is so powerful, that the buildings around the Square echoed his every word. When he began to speak the sky was overcast but while he spoke the sun came out. During the preceding week it had been raining every day, but on this day of days the rain ceased and the weather was intermittently cloudy and sunny. Trotsky commented on the fact that even the weatherman smiled on the communist success. The speech was quiet, but sustained in its confident and joyful note: “We are stronger today than we have ever been. All the Kolchaks, Denikins, Wrangels are gone. Our army is in a better condition, and our population, thanks to that army, is beginning to enjoy the fruits of peace.”

Back of him were the graves of the men who fell in the revolution, including our own beloved John Reed. And the square was filled with soldiers, cannon, tanks, cavalry, workers and civilians ready to defile in front of the reviewing stands as soon as the speeches were over. Just a couple of days prior to the holiday the Japanese had cleared out of Vladivostok and Russia was again a contiguous stretch from the Baltic to the Pacific. So there was glory for the army and glory for the young Republic which was rising vigorously out of its tattered fame and going in felt boots to wonderful Moscow ballets, with Moscow’s plentiful chrysanthemums in her hair. While we were being warmed by the sight and the speeches and frozen by the sharp winds which attacked our feet turn by turn we looked around and noticed Comrades LITVINOV and KARAKHAN, the big guns of the Foreign Office, standing not far’ away from us, so we grinned a greeting and continued to waste films in the effort to snap a galloping cavalry regiment with insufficient light. Later on we walked over to Comrade VOLODIN, who is attached to the liaison office of the Soviet Government which is working with the American Relief Administration. He was standing with COLONEL HASKELL, head of the A.R.A. in Moscow, and his assistant, MR. MANGAN, late of the New York County Supreme Court, but now of Moscow. We also, while falling off the bench, tried to look pleasant at MRS. BELLA COHEN SPEWACK, wife of the New York World correspondent. Both of them we knew as former reporters of the New York Call, for which Mrs. Spewack wrote under the penname of “Pippa.” After we recovered our balance we stumbled into Comrade BIELIK, secretary to Comrade TOMSKY of the Red Tracie Union International, on whom we tried to exercise our Russian despite the fact that our mouth was frozen. We also noticed young SELDES, correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, trying to take pictures, so we rushed over to explain some details of how not to take pictures.

Then some other newspapermen came by and one of them, MR. FARBMAN, the well known English correspondent, introduced a tallish young fellow who turned out to be HENRY ALSBERG, the writer, now head of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Moscow. We found that we had much to talk about, so we stuck together a while and then at DR. HAMMER’S suggestion we returned home, after having witnessed three hours of the grandest parade imaginable. On the way we met a number of Americans principally for former deportation clients whom the American Government had given this opportunity to see the Red Square and everything. Among these were LIPPMAN and ABRAMS. The former goes to the Agricultural College and the latter is manager of a modern steam laundry which we warrant does superfine work. We saw Comrade KARL RADEK on the way, taking the RADEK BABY GIRL home. Also one of the speakers, Comrade KATAYAMA, who looked very fit in a Red Army uniform.

Then home and lunched with Comrades Kagan and Weinstein, who were getting their luncheon in two sections, re-enforcing themselves for the diplomatic luncheon which Comrade CHICHERIN was giving that afternoon to all the diplomats at the house we were staying in. Our time was taken up explaining to Kagan and Weinstein that in their Prince Alberts they looked fit to kill. Not being diplomats, and therefore unused to luncheons in two sections, we went to the house of LUDWIG MARTENS, him whom in America we called “the most cross examined man in America without being cross.” We had tea with him, his wife ANIUTA MIHAILOVSKY MARTENS, the sister of our friend, DR. MIHAILOVSKY of New York, and his nephew GEORGE, one of the most accomplished young men in Moscow.

We were invited by Comrade OSCAR BOLDVIN and his wife FANYA and his assistant, GRISHA SHKOLNIK, to discuss industrial immigration, which we did cheerfully. We returned home and after dragging our way through drifts and drifts of diplomatic and semi-diplomatic overcoats, hats and galoshes piled in the halls, reached our room. The luncheon was over and we prepared for dinner which we hurriedly consumed, and with WILLIAMS, EASTMAN, BLOOMFIELD, KAGAN and WEINSTEIN we hurried to the Bolshoi Theater where the speeches of the day were to be made.

We carried a card as correspondent of The Freeman and were therefore labeled as journalist. We did not mind that so much, but we could not find the stall to which the journalists were assigned until we saw some others of the fraternity, particularly GRAUDEN of the United Press and MCCULLAUGH of the New York Herald. So finally we got in with all of the he- and she-journalists immediately under the platform and got our notebook ready so as to look the part. We heard KAMENEV, KALININ, CLARA ZETKIN, SMERAL, ZINOVIEV, RADEK, and many others. In a box to our left was CHICHERIN, in the uniform of a Red Army private. While he was being applauded he blushed. We never had seen a blushing diplomat before, so we grabbed for our camera, but all the films had been spoiled during the day and we missed the chance to spoil another. About eleven, while speeches were still being made, we slipped back to the hotel. About one in the morning we went out again and watched the fireworks leap over the Kremlin walls.

And thus did we labor hard to make the Soviet Government permanent and prosperous.

Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1919, published by the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia and replaced The Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia. In lieu of an Embassy the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was the official voice of the Soviets in the US. Soviet Russia was published as the official organ of the RSGB until February 1922 when Soviet Russia became to the official organ of The Friends of Soviet Russia, becoming Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1923. There is no better US-published source for information on the Soviet state at this time, and includes official statements, articles by prominent Bolsheviks, data on the Soviet economy, weekly reports on the wars for survival the Soviets were engaged in, as well as efforts to in the US to lift the blockade and begin trade with the emerging Soviet Union.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/srp/v8n03-mar-1923-sov-rus-pict.pdf