Just before Christmas, on December 21, 1917, a strange freighter pulled into Elliott Bay in Seattle. This vessel bore an unfamiliar flag—a red flag. This was a Russian ship, the Shilka, out of Vladivostok, Russia. Only a few weeks before, on November 7, the Bolshevik Revolution had taken place in Russia and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, proclaimed a workers' and farmers' state.
