1919
I.B. Rad
[Poem baed on incident describe by Chiam Potok in
“The Gates of November, Chronicles of the Slepak Family”]
In 1919, Solomon “Sam” Slepak,
heading a Siberian Peoples Militia,
linked up with Bolshevik partisans
under Nicholas Triapitsin
who, in greeting “Sam,”
invited him to a girlfriendıs birthday party.
That evening,
when Triapitsin was dancing with his sweetheart,
Sam had his men surround the building,
then, drawing his pistol,
arrested an astonished Triapitsin;
ostensibly, because, while drunk,
Triapitsin had made a few
ideologically incorrect remarks.
So, after a hasty trial
with no lawyers, no defense, no appeal,
the “counter revolutionaries,”
Triapstin, his girlfriend, and fellow officers,
were unceremoniously shot,
then dumped into a nearby river.
Such is how rebellions go,
seldom all neat and tidy or heroic;
but rather, just as if
when it comes to that human barbecue called revolution,
“Blood is the best sauce!*”
*Title of satirical drawing by George Grosz, 1919
