"The International" was played as the younger officers, who are nearly all Communists.
After the inspection Trotzky made a speech to the troops, touching on the needs and opportunities of Russia. He has a splendid ringing voice. I doubt if there was a person in the vast Red Square outside the range of it. Recently I read in one issue of the New York Times that he was fatally afflicted with cancer, and in another that he was dying of tuberculosis of the throat. But he was the healthiest looking sick man I have seen for a long time. To have made oneself heard in that vast open air gathering was a real achievement physically. Representatives of many other countries also spoke. Trotzsky seemed much affected by the occasion and often led in the cheering.
Following the speech-making there came a great parade. There were fully 60,000 people in line. It was a combined military, naval and civil affair. In other countries the armed forces rarely or never condescend to march with civilians. This is because they are things apart from the life of the people. But not so in Russia; there the Red Army is as much of a working-class institution as the trade unions or the co-operatives. They are proud of it and it is of them. In this kaleidoscopic demonstration it sandwiched itself among a mass of civilian organizations of school children, university students, civil guards, trade unions, factory groups, etc. It was a veritable outpouring of the proletariat.
A prime feature of the parade, and to the foreigners the most interesting one, was the Communist Party groups from the various sections about Moscow. The Communist Party enjoys a tremendous prestige in Russia. It is generally conceded to be the embodiment of the revolution; the driving force that has carried it on through incredible difficulties. Here were the members of this marvelous organization, which I have described in a previous chapter. And they were plain and unromantic enough in appearance. Just common workingmen and women with the flame of revolution burning in their hearts and good rifles on their shoulders. Confirmed revolutionists and idealists to the last one, they are the shock troops of the revolution. No capitalist country possesses armed forces which, man for man, could meet them successfully in battle. It
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