The Bolshevik Myth by Alexander Berkman — Read

I like the feel of the hard snow singing under my feet. The streets are alive with people -- a striking contrast to Petrograd, which gave me the impression of a graveyard. The narrow sidewalks are crooked and slippery, and everybody walks in the middle of the street. Rarely does a streetcar pass, though an auto creaks by occasionally. The people are better dressed than in Petrograd and do not look so pale and exhausted. More soldiers are about and persons clad in leather. Cheka men, I am told. Almost everybody carries a bundle on his back or pulls a little sleigh loaded with a bag of potatoes dripping a blackish fluid. They walk with a preoccupied air and roughly push their way ahead.

Turning the corner into the Miasnitskaya Street, I noticed a large yellow poster on the wall. My eye caught the word Prikaz in big red letters. Prikaz -- order -- instinctively the expression associated itself in my mind with the old regime. The poster was couched in the familiar style, "I command," "I order," repeating themselves with the frequency usual in the old police proclamations. "I command the citizens of Moscow," I read. Citizens? I sought the date. It was marked January 15, 1920, and was signed by the Commissar of Militia. The Prikaz vividly recalled the gendarmes and the Cossack order of things, and I resented it. The Revolution should find another language, I thought.