All Power to the Soviets

“All Power to the Soviets” is the slogan attached to the Maximalists’ takeover of the government in Petrograd. In the novel, the phrase arrives as news read in New York, and marks a sharp turn for Ben Compton and Helen Mauer: their immediate anxiety about arrest and flight gives way to the hope that workers elsewhere may resist the war and the order sustaining it.

Appearance in the News

The slogan reaches Ben Compton and Helen Mauer the morning after they leave their room in New Jersey for New York. They have taken a room on East 8th Street under the name Mr. and Mrs. Gold, carrying about a hundred dollars in savings. In a small pastry shop on 2nd Avenue, Ben returns from the newsstand with the report that the Maximalists have taken control of the government in Petrograd under the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” The expression is presented as part of a political announcement in the newspaper, not as a phrase either of them coins or speaks aloud.

Meaning for Ben and Helen

For Helen, the news seems almost too good to be true: she sees it as the beginning of world revolution and imagines that workers will recognize the war as directed against them, prompting other armies to mutiny. Her response gives the slogan an immediate human consequence: a distant political change becomes a reason to hope that the war’s victims might act collectively. Ben takes her hand beneath the table, turning that shared hope toward action rather than escape.

From Flight to Commitment

Before reading the news, Ben fears that his antiwar remarks at work could expose him to prosecution under the Espionage Act, and he tells Helen that he intends to go to Mexico. Afterward, he reverses course. He says he would rather go to jail than run away and credits Helen with helping him resist what he calls cowardice; in his formulation, a person cannot stand alone. The slogan therefore stands at the hinge between their frightened departure and their renewed decision to work for their cause.