"They are bombarding the Kremlin!" The news passed from mouth to
mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror.
Travellers from "white and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful
tales. Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in
flames; the church of Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky
Cathedral crumbling down; the Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin
tottering; the Duma burned to the ground. (See App. X, Sect. 1)
Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful
blasphemy in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout
sounded the shock of guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox
Church, and pounding to dust the sanctuary of the Russian nation....
On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into
tears at the session of the Council of People's Commissars, and
rushed from the room, crying, "I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the
monstrous destruction of beauty and tradition...."
That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the
newspapers:
I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has
happened there.
The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the
Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered
the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under
artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
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