The thrilling story of John Reed’s journey to Moscow in the winter of 1919 through White Finland as told by a Red Guardist who assisted him.

‘Ten Days In The Life of John Reed’ from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 28. February 13, 1926.

A Finnish Red Guardist, a Communist, tells the following story of the attempt of John Reed to break the blockade in 1919.

THE well-known sound of the Fiat automobile is heard in the winter night. The man was a nightly guest in the frontier camp.

-Hello, boys!

-Zdorovoye!

There is a dark man with him. He does not speak our Finnish language, and he does not know much Russian. He sits silently and observes the frontier guards. The moon is shining. The cold is striking heavy blows at the trees and the corners of the log-house. The nightly shooting has not yet started. Revolutionary work is going on. The scouts on skis are watching the movements of the enemy, shooting and getting shot at. The strange war-fronts of the border—there is no war, no peace, but a continuous danger from ambush.

-Here is a comrade sent by Vladimir Ilyitch himself, a foreign comrade. He has tried to cross the border at several places in order to leave for home. Now we must help him.

-Difficult to cross now. The watch-dogs of white Finland are awake. But maybe we can give them the slip.

-“Maybe” is not the right word now. The fate of American comrades cannot be risked on any uncertainties.

-We’ll do our best.

And so the responsibility for the stranger comrade is laid on the shoulders of the revolutionary frontiersmen.

Night is progressing in the frontier camp. Messengers are coming and going. They bring and take away newspapers and letters. Codes are deciphered. War is going on all around our socialist country. This is the only window to the outside world. And it must be held open by a crack, and at this crack the comrades sit earnestly studying the news of the world.

-Can you speak English?

-Very little, but let’s try Russian.

And then there begins a discussion in which words in several languages are used.

-Comrade, are you able to use skis?

-I don’t know. Maybe I can do it well.  never tried.

-I see. Tomorrow morning you will begin a hard exercise.

-ls there no other way to get through?

-No. You must ski ten miles behind the pilots, and very fast, because the watch-dogs will be after you.

Reed sits thinking. He says:

-I have learned many things in this world, but now it seems that the revolution demands something new.

-So it seems. These northern morasses are such that you can go over them only with skis. The revolutionists in other climates may have their own ways.

The American comrade considers this at length. The next morning he is put on skis and staffs are put in his hands. He says: Maybe I can smoke a pipe first.—This is granted. He lights his pipe and starts skiing. But in a moment he is sprawling in the snow. He says something in his own language. The Finns give their advice.

-Not so hurried. Take It easy. First this foot, bend your body for ward a little, keep your balance and let your staffs help you. It is the simplest thing in the world.

The stranger does not understand half of their advice. He is trying his best. The sweat is pouring from his forehead.

-The theory of the revolution was never so hard for me as this, he says. When is your lunch-time?

-Well, we can go in for that, but then you have to start again.

Bread and herring are consumed with great appetite. Then tea and talk.

-Come on, somebody, he says in English.

-Poidiom! the others suggest in Russian.

There is not much progress. Always, after a short while, Reed Is down in the snow. This goes on. He sits in the snow, desperate, and looks at the others.

If the victory of the revolution depends on my ability to ski, it will be hazardous, he says, but the others encourage him:

-It can be learned. And the art of revolution can be learned. This is one kind of international exercise. Old man Ilyitch in the Kremlin does his part and we are doing our stuff. As the jokes of the boys are translated to Reed, he laughs with them and tries again.

At twilight they stop. Then the Finnish bath—-the steam from hot

stones and bath-whisks of birch branches. And hotter and hotter. When they are reddened, they plunge into the snow and come back. Reed is looking on. He tries to take the bath, but cannot stand it.

-ls this necessary for revolutionary training, too? he asks.

They answer that this is not as necessary as skiing—there is room for bargaining here.

-Slava Bogu, thank god—he says, and rubs his sore hands with soap. After the bath there is supper and then they yield the best place, on the oven, to their guest. But the boys are preparing for something else.

-Where are the boys going? Asks Reed. So heavily armed!

-To the frontier to scout. If you  don’t sleep very heavily you’ll learn something about frontier life.

The stranger lies on the oven, smoking his pipe and musing.

But he wonders still more when the snow-covered men come in later with heavy bags. From these come papers—Finnish, Scandinavian, Italian, and all languages. There are Communist, socialist, right and left wing, radical, liberal, black, red, white, pink, many-colored. (Politically, of course).

-Hey, the world’s news, Comrade Reed! the men cry as they take the papers from the bags and put others in their place. The men are leaving for Petersburg and the frontier.

This is the blockade of Soviet Russia, —the men laugh,—the mail boycott.

Comrade Reed shakes his head.— I never saw such a post-office, he admits. Then he lies down comfortably and begins to read the papers.

Three o’clock. It is time for the revolutionary smugglers to go over the border. Papers of the revolutionary country, leaflets in several languages, and letters to all corners of the world. Names are called, the Comintern is mentioned, the guns are loaded, Mausers, Nagans, Parabellums. Hand-grenades in pockets. Pipes are lighted and then these sincere men on their road. In the cold night, in the frontier forests.

-Where did they all go? Comrade Reed asks.

-Over the frontier.

-Are they going all together?

-Some alone, some together, whatever tactics are needed.

-ls this the way I must go, too?

-The very same way.—

-Are there not “white” watchmen on the border?

-Surely. Why else would they need those arms!

-ls there fighting sometimes?

-Very often.

-Isn’t it possible to dodge them?

-Sometimes it is; we always try.

-And when you don’t succeed? Will they shoot?

-They will—and they got shot at, too.

-And you force your way, don’t you?

-Sometimes we have to.

-That’s a tough job!

-Yes, that’s frontier life. There’s the blockade, and the window must be kept open a crack.

-And it’s your business to do that?

-Yes, and your business is to learn to ski.

-But what if I don’t learn?

-You must. Exactly as those newspapers and letters and books must go over the border.

-I understand. I must learn. I must practise…

The sound of rapid shooting out side interrupts the conversation. The camp watchman seizes his gun from the wall, grabs up some hand-grenades, and goes out info the dark night. The frontier peace is .again disturbed; the comrades are in need of help. The shooting goes on for fully half an hour. The machine-gun joins in. Half a dozen bomb explosions are heard. Then everything calms down, and the peace of the forest is undisturbed.

John Reed has gotten up from his bunk; he paces alone in the room, and listens anxiously to the shooting. The place and the events are strange to him, and he does not know what is happening. His mind runs like this: Why don’t the comrades send a message? Why didn’t they take me out to fight the common enemy? I can shoot too, and I want to. I could have been of use out there.

Listen—there are sounds outside. All the comrades but one are coming in. Silently the men put down their weapons and take off their coats. Not a word is said. They have done their night’s work and are ready for rest.

Reed looks at the comrades for a long time. When he sees that they are not going to tell him, he begins: What was the shooting about?

-The whites opened fire when our messengers crossed.

-Did they hit you?

-One of the comrades was left on the ice, and we didn’t get his body, either.

-Did the messengers come hack?

-Yes.

-But I don’t see them.

-Why should they come here? They had to cross the border, you know.

-But how could they do that when the whites were shooting?

-Very simple. They took another road. The whites can’t watch every where.

-How did they dare to try after they had been thrown back?

Well, how does the red army try again when it’s thrown back? We have to get things going. And the fight was between the frontiersmen, you see, not the messengers. We did the shooting with the whites and drew away the attention of their scouts on skis, and in that time the boys got across the river. They detoured for a few miles, and are safe now.

-And the dead comrade? What about him?

The whites got him when he fell close to their lines.

-Too bad.

-Yes, but such things happen. We will lake some of them in our expeditions, and bury them in the morasses, as they’re doing to our comrade, and then we’re quits.

-Hm!

-What did you say. Comrade Reed?

-I only said “Hm!”

-Well, I think it’s time to go to bed. You have hard exercise tomorrow, you know.

And soon the boys are snoring, but the stranger is thinking things over. Strange, this frontier life.

It is bitter cold next morning, but the skiing practise goes on. The pupil learns the ABC of skiing. Encouraged by this success, he is eager to ski all day. In the evening he eats like a wolf, and goes to his bunk early.

But his experience is not enough for the trip across. You have to run fast if you want to get by the enemy. The boys know It and do not let Reed cross yet. A sudden disturbance at the border Interferes with his starting out the next night. There follow a few days of practise, and then comes the night when he is to start. Every thing is ready, the pilots are there, the scouts ski around until they have discovered no one for a period of eight hours.

They step into their skis and start off. The trail goes down to a river brink. There is a little hollow and the skiers gain speed. Comrade Reed loses his balance and tumbles into the snow. Silently ho crawls up and tries again with the same result. The pilots begin to get nervous. The frontiersmen fall silent.

-Well, someone says.

-This won’t do. We’ll be observed before we’re across.

They explain these things to the American.

-Let me go across, he says anxiously.

-No, you can’t go. We are re sponsible for the people who cross and we can’t let them be killed uselessly.

-I’ll never learn any better. For three months I’ve tried to cross the border, in the west and in the south. Let me cross now.

-We can’t. The discussion is closed, comrade. In two days you will cross.

-But I won’t learn any better.

-But you will cross in spite of that. We have already taken steps for another means of getting across.

Reed calms down and goes back to the camp. He eats, muses, sleeps—

Then one evening comes a man with a sleigh, with sheepskins and mittens. After a few minutes John Reed is in the sleigh and like a peasant from the neighboring country. Every-one must he made to think that this is a wealthy farmer and hie hired man. The snow is whirling when the horse pulls out. The miles spin out behind the sleigh, the winter night is silent, nobody disturbs the peace of the forest. Once they stop to change their horse for a still better one. The night ends, and the twenty five mile road is at an end too.

-This is high speed, Reed had said, but the Finnish boy had not answered a word.

Now they are in a farm-house on the Finnish side. Comrade Reed gets food and rest, and in the afternoon he takes a bath. Then a second-class ticket for the train, and he gives a receipt, written in English, to the pilot, to show the comrades on the other side that he is safe.

The train starts and ten days of have passed.

The Saturday Supplement, later changed to a Sunday Supplement, of the Daily Worker was a place for longer articles with debate, international focus, literature, and documents presented. The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n028-supplement-feb-13-1926-DW-LOC.pdf