Freepedia is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about Bessie Beattyl.

Bessie Beatty was born in 1886. Employed by Fremont Older of the San Francisco Bulletin, Beatty visited Russia in 1917 with John Reed and Louise Bryant. Her book on the Russian Revolution, The Red Heart of Russia, was published in 1919. Beatty died in 1947.

 

Bessie Beatty: Spartacus Biography

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Bessie Beatty

 

 

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(1) Bessie Beatty met Leon Trotsky for the first time on 25th October, 1917.

We stood there for a few moments, talking of inconsequential things, but all of us charged with the tensity of the hour. There was keen intelligence here, nerve, a certain uncompromising streak of iron, a sense of power; yet I little suspected I was talking to the man whose name within a few brief weeks would be a familiar word on every tongue - the most talked of human being in an age of spectacular figures.

 

(2) Bessie Beatty wrote about how the Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace on 7th November, 1917, in her book, The Red Heart of Russia (1919).

At the head of the winding staircase groups of frightened women were gathered, searching the marble lobby below with troubled eyes. Nobody seemed to know what had happened. The Battalion of Death had walked out in the night, without firing so much as a single shot. Each floor was crowded with soldiers and Red Guards, who went from room to room, searching for arms, and arresting officers suspected of anti-Bolshevik sympathies. The landings were guarded by sentries, and the lobby was swarming with men in faded uniforms. Two husky, bearded peasant soldiers were stationed behind the counter, and one in the cashier's office kept watch over the safe. Two machine-guns poked their ominous muzzles through the entryway

(3) In her book The Red Heart of Russia, Bessie Beatty described how the Red Guards left their factories in order to defend the Bolshevik Revolution from the threatened attack by troops led by Alexander Kerensky.

The factory gates opened wide, and the amazing army of the Red Guard, ununiformed, untrained, and certainly unequipped for battle with the traditional backbone of the Russian military, marched away to defend the revolutionary capital and the victory of the proletariat.

Women walked by the side of men, and small boys tagged along on the fringes of the procession. Some of the factory girls wore red crosses upon the sleeves of their thin jackets, and packed a meague kitbag of bandages and first-aid accessories. Most of them carried shovels with which to did trenches.

(4) Bessie Beatty was in Petrograd when the Bolsheviks threatened to close down the Constituent Assembly in January, 1918.

We drove along the Liteiny in the direction of the firing. At the Kirochnaya, we came suddenly upon a group of Red Guards and soldiers, brandishing ominous guns. They rushed about, tossing orders at one another, their faces flushed with excitement.

"Murderers! Murderers!" shouted a woman, shaking a fist in their direction.

"Murderers! Murderers!" echoed a dozen other women, who turned blazing eyes upon them.

Scattered all over the snow were broken and splintered poles - all that remained of the proud banners that a few minutes before had proclaimed "All Power to the Constituent Assembly."

 

(5) Bessie Beatty was in the Constituent Assembly when it was closed down in January, 1918.

"Why should we wait?" We should arrest all! We should kill the counter-revolutionist Chernov!" came in angry murmurs from factory workers and soldiers.

The delegates looked from one to another. Some one moved a resolution to adjourn until five that afternoon. It was promptly adopted.

The murmurs of "Counter-revolutionist!" grew louder and louder. The soldiers and sailors flocked down the stairs, and crowded round the delegates. Some of the Bolshevik members who had remained in the ballroom surrounded Chernov, and took him in safety through the hostile throng to the gate.