Fall of Giants

From his elevated viewpoint he saw that the atmosphere in the street had changed. People were more drunk, and on every block there were one or two passed out in doorways. He was startled to see men and women doing a lot more than just kissing in the alleyways. Everyone had a gun: clearly the mob had raided other arsenals and perhaps arms factories too. At every intersection there were crashed cars, some with ambulances and doctors attending to the injured. Children as well as adults were on the streets, the small boys having a particularly good time, stealing food and smoking cigarettes and playing in abandoned automobiles.

Grigori saw a fur shop being looted with an efficiency that appeared professional, and he spotted Trofim, a former associate of Lev’s, carrying armfuls of coats out of the store and loading them onto a handcart, watched by another crony of Lev’s, the dishonest policeman Fyodor, now wearing a peasant-style overcoat to hide his uniform. The city’s criminals saw the revolution as an opportunity.

After a while Grigori’s men put him down. The afternoon light was growing dim, and several bonfires had been lit in the street. People gathered around them, drinking and singing songs.

Grigori was appalled to see a boy of about ten take a pistol from a soldier who had passed out. It was a long-barreled Luger P08 machine pistol, a gun issued to German artillery crew: the soldier must have taken it from a prisoner at the front. The boy held it in both hands, grinning, and pointed it at the man on the ground. As Grigori moved to take the gun away, the boy pulled the trigger, and a bullet thudded into the drunk soldier’s chest. The boy screamed, but in his fright he kept the trigger pulled back, so that the machine pistol continued firing. The recoil jerked the boy’s arms upward, and he sprayed bullets, hitting an old woman and another soldier, until the eight-round magazine was empty. Then he dropped the gun.

Before Grigori could react to this horror he heard a shout, and turned. In the doorway of a closed hat shop, a couple were having full sexual intercourse. The woman had her back to the wall and her skirt up around her waist, her legs spread apart and her booted feet firmly planted on the ground. The man, who wore the uniform of a corporal, stood between her legs, knees bent, trousers unbuttoned, thrusting. Grigori’s platoon stood around them cheering.

The man appeared to reach his climax. He withdrew hastily, turned away, and buttoned his fly, while the woman pushed her skirts down. A soldier called Igor said: “Wait a minute-my turn!” He pulled up the woman’s skirts, showing her white legs.

The others cheered.

“No!” the woman said, and tried to push him away. She was drunk, but not helpless.

Igor was a short, wiry man of unexpected strength. He pushed her up against the wall and grabbed her wrists. “Come on,” he said. “One soldier’s as good as another.”

The woman struggled, but two other soldiers grabbed her and held her still.

Her original partner said: “Hey, leave her alone!”

“You’ve had your turn, now it’s mine,” said Igor, unbuttoning.

Grigori was revolted by this scene. “Stop it!” he shouted.

Igor gave him a challenging look. “Are you giving me an order as an officer, Grigori Sergeivich?”

“Not as an officer-as a human being!” Grigori said. “Come on, Igor, you can see she doesn’t want you. There are plenty more women.”

“I want this one.” Igor looked around. “We all want this one-don’t we, boys?”

Grigori stepped forward and stood with his hands on his hips. “Are you men, or dogs?” he cried. “The woman said no!” He put his arm around the angry Igor. “Tell me something, comrade,” he said. “Is there anywhere around here where a man can get a drink?”

Igor grinned, the soldiers cheered, and the woman slipped away.

Grigori said: “I see a small hotel across the street. Shall we ask the proprietor whether, by any chance, he has any vodka?”

The men cheered again, and they all went into the hotel.

In the lobby a frightened proprietor was serving free beer. Grigori thought he was wise. It took men longer to drink beer than vodka, and they were less likely to become violent.

He accepted a glass and drank a mouthful. His elation had vanished. He felt as if he had been drunk and sobered up. The incident with the woman in the doorway had appalled him, and the small boy firing the machine pistol had been horrendous. Revolution was not a simple matter of throwing off your chains. There were dangers in arming the people. Allowing soldiers to commandeer the cars of the bourgeoisie was almost as lethal. Even the apparently harmless freedom to kiss anyone who took your fancy had led, in a few hours, to Grigori’s platoon attempting a gang rape.

It could not go on.

There had to be order. Grigori did not want to go back to the old days, of course. The tsar had given them bread queues, brutal police, and soldiers without boots. But there had to be freedom without chaos.