Reds Monologues

A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.

I don't want to play in your yard, I don't like you anymore, You'll be sorry when you see me, Sliding down our cellar door, You can't holler down our rain barrel, You can't climb our apple tree, I don't want to play in your yard, If you won't be good to me

On the subject of decency, Senator, the Bolsheviks took power with the slogan, "an end to the war." Within six months, they made good their promise to the Russian people. Now, the present President of the United States of America went to this country in 1916, on a "no war" ticket. Within six months, he'd taken us into the war, and 115,000 young Americans didn't come back. If that's how decent, God-fearing Christians behave, give me atheists anytime.

By the way, Senator Overman, in Russia, women have the vote, which is more than you can say for this country.

Gene, if you'd been to Russia, you'd never be cynical about anything again. You would have seen people transformed. Ordinary people.

Jack and I are both perfectly capable of living with our beliefs. But I think someone as romantic as you would be destroyed by them. And I don't want that to happen. It would upset Jack too much.

He has the freedom to do the things that he wants to and so do I. And I think anyone who's afraid of that kind of freedom is really only afraid of his own emptiness.

Excuse me. Excuse me, now here's the thing. I'd be a God damned fool not to take you up on this offer. So, here's what I want. I want to sign my own name to my own stories and I don't want to use a double byline. I want to be responsible for my own time and my own actions. I want to be referred to as Miss Bryant, and not Mrs. Reed, and I want to keep an account of every cent we spend so that I can pay you back. Now, I assume you know that I'm not going to sleep with you, so just don't confuse the issue by bringing it up. That's it.

You don't have to go. You want to go. You want to go running all over the world ranting and raving and making resolutions and organizing caucuses. What's the difference between the Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party except that you're running one and he's running the other?

To what? To the fine distinction between which half of the left of the left is recognized by Moscow as the real Communist Party in America? To petty political squabbling between humorless and hack politicians just wasting their time on left-wing dogma? To getting the endorsement of a committee in Russia you call the international for your group of 14 intellectual friends in the basement who are supposed to tell the workers of this country what they want, whether they want it or not? Write, Jack. You're not a politician, you're a writer. And your writing has done more for the revolution than 20 years of this infighting can do, and you know it.

Boy, you've become quite the critic, haven't you, Gene? Just leaned back and analyzed us all. Duplicitous women who tout free love and then get married, power-mad journalists who join the revolution instead of observing it, middle-class radicals who come looking for sex and then talk about Russia. It must seem so contemptible to a man like you who has the courage to sit on his ass and observe human inadequacy from the inside of a bottle. Well, I've never seen you do anything for anyone. I've never seen you give anything to anyone, so I can understand why you might suspect the motives of those who have. But whatever Jack's motives are, how...

All right, Miss Bryant, do you want an interview? Write this down. Are you naïve enough to think containing German militarism has anything to do with this war? Don't you understand that England and France own the world economy and Germany just wants a piece of it? Keep writing, Miss Bryant. Miss Bryant, can't you grasp that J. P. Morgan has loaned England and France a billion dollars? And if Germany wins, he won't get it back! More coffee? America'd be entering the war to protect J. P. Morgan's money. If he loses, we'll have a depression. So the real question is, why do we have an economy where the poor have to pay so the rich won't lose money?

You don't get to rewrite what I write.

What did you think this thing was gonna be? A revolution by consensus where we all sat down and agreed over a cup of coffee?

Look, what does a capitalist do? Let me ask you that, Mike. Huh? Tell me. I mean, what does he make, besides money? I don't know what he makes. The workers do all the work, don't they? Well, what if they got organized?

Zinoviev, you don't think a man can be an individual and be true to the collective, or speak for his own country and speak for the International at the same time, or love his wife and still be faithful to the revolution. You don't have a "self" to give.

You separate a man from what he loves most, what you do is purge what's unique in him. And when you purge what's unique in him, you purge dissent. And when you purge dissent, you kill the revolution! Dissent IS revolution!

Freedom, Mrs. Trullinger? I'd like to know what your idea of freedom is. Having your own studio? Walk..

There's a foreman of a logging camp, he's trying to hire a crew. You know, and he goes down a long line of very big men and he gets to a little man in the back and he says, "Who the hell are you? What're you doing here? Don't you know that I need men who can chop down dozens of trees a day? Where the hell have you ever worked before?" And the little man says, "Well, I worked in the Sahara forest." And the foreman says, "You mean the Sahara desert." And the little man says, "Yes, sure, now!"

You know, I can argue with cops, I can fight with generals. I can't deal with a bureaucrat.

Economic freedom for women means sexual freedom, and sexual freedom means birth control.

Maybe if you took yourself a little more seriously, other people would, too.

Why do you even expect to be taken seriously if you're not writing about serious things? I don't understand that.

With everything that's happening in the world today, you decide to sit down and write a piece on the influence of the God damned armory show of 1913! Are people supposed to take that seriously?

I'm sort of braising the cabbage. 'Cause I thought it'd be a nice change. You know that house where Rhys Williams is staying? Evidently, the banker's daughter came home in hysterics the other night, 'cause some woman streetcar conductor called her "Comrade." So after dinner, they all voted they preferred the Germans to the Bolsheviks by 10-to-1. Anyway, the social revolutionaries asked the British ambassador to please not to mention their visit, because they were already considered too far to the right. And, you know, it's the same group of people you couldn't even see a year ago, 'cause they were too far to the left. Karsavina is dancing tonight. And, oh, Manny Komroff says that Charlie Chaplin movie...

You thought, you thought, you thought. Try not to think too much, Eddie. Not when your comrades are depending on you.

Louise, you know, the Comintern doesn't know Edmund or Alfred from the New York Yankees. They know me. Somebody's got to go over there who's got a background.

These people can barely speak English. They don't even want to be integrated into American life. The Foreign Language Federations aren't gonna create Bolshevism in America any more than eating borscht will.

It's not happening the way we thought it would. It's not happening the way we wanted it to, but it's happening.