The conference in the Kremlin ended with the usual singing
and a photograph. Some time before the end, when
Trotsky had just finished speaking and had left the tribune,
there was a squeal of protest from the photographer who
had just trained his apparatus. Some one remarked "The
Dictatorship of the Photographer," and, amid general
laughter, Trotsky had to return to the tribune and stand
silent while the unabashed photographer took two pictures.
The founding of the Third International had been
proclaimed in the morning papers, and an extraordinary
meeting in the Great Theatre announced for the evening. I
got to the theatre at about five, and had difficulty in getting
in, though I had a special ticket as a correspondent. There
were queues outside all the doors. The Moscow Soviet was
there, the Executive Committee, representatives of the
Trades Unions and the Factory Committees, etc. The huge
theatre and the platform were crammed, people standing in
the aisles and even packed close together in the wings of
the stage. Kamenev opened the meeting by a solemn
announcement of the founding of the Third
International in the Kremlin. There was a roar of applause
from the audience, which rose and sang the "International"
in a way that I have never heard it sung since the
All-Russian Assembly when the news came of the strikes in
Germany during the Brest negotiations. Kamenev then
spoke of those who had died on the way, mentioning
Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, and the whole theatre
stood again while the orchestra played, "You fell as
victims." Then Lenin spoke. If I had ever thought that
Lenin was losing his personal popularity, I got my answer
now. It was a long time before he could speak at all,
everybody standing and drowning his attempts to speak
with roar after roar of applause. It was an extraordinary,
overwhelming scene, tier after tier crammed with workmen,
the parterre filled, the whole platform and the wings. A
knot of workwomen were close to me, and they almost
fought to see him, and shouted as if each one were
determined that he should hear her in particular. He spoke
as usual, in the simplest way, emphasizing the fact that the
revolutionary struggle everywhere was forced to use the
Soviet forms. "We declare our solidarity with
the aims of the Sovietists," he read from an Italian
paper, and added, "and that was when they did not
know what our aims were, and before we had an
established programme ourselves." Albrecht made
a very long reasoned speech for Spartacus, which
was translated by Trotsky. Guilbeau, seemingly a mere
child, spoke of the socialist movement in France. Steklov
was translating him when I left. You must remember that I
had had nearly two years of such meetings, and am not a
Russian. When I got outside the theatre, I found at each
door a disappointed crowd that had been unable to get in.
The proceedings finished up next day with a review in the
Red Square and a general holiday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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