May Day Sorrow

As the first streak of dawn lightens the black night on Russia's May Day, the Spirit of the Proletariat is wont to drink deeply the bumper of exotic freedom to which the Bolsheviki adhere and stalk forth for a day of celebration.

Not so this year. In the capital city, Moscow, under the shadow of the Kremlin walls, which still typify the former power and resplendence of the Autocrats of All the Russias, a crowd of mourning people filed past a jet black tomb in never ending procession.

The only sounds which disturbed the solemnity of the day were the strains of sombre music, the almost inaudible swish of lowered flags and the tramp, tramp, tramp of thousands of Bolshevik feet as bands played, flags were dipped and the people marched by the last resting place of Nikolai Lenin, Autocrat of All the Soviet Russias.