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Broad of bottom.Without a cross,Without a cross.Our boys have gone to serve,In the Red Guard to serve,In the Red Guard to serve, . . .We will set the world aflame,Bitter woe to all bourzhooy,With blood will set the world aflame—Good Lord, give us thy blessing . . .March to the revolution's pace,We've a tireless foe to face.Forward, forward, the thundering beatOf the marching workers' feet.And the twelve,Unblessed,March ever onward,Ready for all,Pity for none . . .So they march with mighty tread,The twelve.Behind, the hungry mongrel.In front, with bloody banner,Unseen in snow storm,Unharmed by shot,With gentle gait above the storm,In the pearl quicksand snow,With aureole of roses white—In front—Jesus Christ." 13. Representative InstitutionsThe main reason for the failure of the liberal sectionof the educated minority and its type of representativegovernment was that tsarism had thwarted it soconsistently that it only got its chance in the mostdesperate circumstances imaginable, a maelstrom swirlingdownwards towards anarchy. It could make little appealto the past, and in appeal to the future was completelyoutdistanced by the Soviets. The basis of the ProvisionalGovernment was the national representativeparliament, the Duma, and the local representative1Alexander Blok, The Twelve (January 1918), the most famous poemof the Revolution. There is an English translation in Russian Poetry:An Anthology, by A. Yarmolinsky and Babette Deutsch (1923), fromwhich I have borrowed some of the lines quoted: also one by C. E.Bechhofer (1920).75