The first act revealed the stern and heroic Communist maintaining his views despite the reproaches of father and mother and the nagging of his wife.  It showed also the Anarchist brother (as might be expected from the Bolshevik hostility to Anarchism) as an unruly, lazy, ne’er-do-well, with a passionate love for Sonia, the young bourgeoise, which was likely to become dangerous if not returned.  She, on the other hand, obviously preferred the Communist.  It was clear that he returned her love, but it was not quite clear that he would wish the relation to be anything more than platonic comradeship in the service of their common ideal.  An unsuccessful strike, bringing want and danger from the police, together with increasing jealousy on the part of the Anarchist, led up to the tragic denouement.  I was not quite definite as to how this was brought about.  All violent action was performed off the stage, and this made the plot at times difficult to follow.  But it seemed that the Anarchist in a jealous rage forged a letter from his brother to bring Sonia to a rendezvous, and there murdered her, at the same time betraying his brother to the police.  When the latter came to effect his arrest, and accuse him also, as the most likely person, of the murder, the Anarchist was seized with remorse and confessed.  Both were therefore led away together.  Once the plot is sketched, the play calls for no comment.  It had not great merit, though it is unwise to hazard a judgment on a play whose dialogue was not fully interpreted, but it was certainly real, and the link between audience and performers was established as it never seemed to be in the professional theatre.  After the performance, the floor was cleared for dancing, and the audience were in a mood of thorough enjoyment.

The pageant of the “World Commune,” which was performed at the opening of the Third International Congress in Petrograd, was a still more important and significant phenomenon.  I do not suppose that anything of the kind has been staged since the days of the mediaeval mystery plays.  It was, in fact, a mystery play designed by the High Priests of the Communist faith to instruct the people.  It was played on the steps of an immense white building that was once the Stock Exchange, a building with a classical colonnade on three sides of it, with a vast flight of steps in front, that did not extend the whole width of the building but left at each side a platform that was level with the floor of the colonnade.  In front of this building a wide road ran from a bridge over one arm of the river to a bridge over the other, so that the stretches of water and sky on either side seemed to the eye of imagination like the painted wings of a gigantic stage.  Two battered red columns of fantastic design, that were once light towers to guide ships, stood on either side midway between the extremities of the building and the water, but on the opposite side of the road.  These two towers