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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+Author: John Reed
+
+Release Date: December 16, 2000 [eBook #3076]
+[Most recently updated: March 3, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Norman Wolcott, with corrections by Andrew Sly and Stefan Malte Schumacher
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+[Redactor’s Note: The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices. The
+footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the Appendix No. and
+Section are referred to in the text in parentheses, the Appendices following
+the book text. There are 17 graphic figures in the text. These are indicated by
+a reference to the page number in the original book.]
+
+
+
+
+Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+by John Reed
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Preface
+ Notes and Explanations
+ Chapter 1. Background
+ Chapter 2. The Coming Storm
+ Chapter 3. On the Eve
+ Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government
+ Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead
+ Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation
+ Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front
+ Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution
+ Chapter 9. Victory
+ Chapter 10. Moscow
+ Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power
+ Chapter 12. The Peasants’ Congress
+ Appendices I - XII
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+This book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It
+does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November
+Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and
+soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands
+of the Soviets.
+
+Naturally most of it deals with “Red Petrograd,” the capital and heart
+of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
+in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
+intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.
+
+In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
+myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
+experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
+chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
+Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
+but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.
+
+Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
+is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
+set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
+the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
+afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
+until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
+it afterward?
+
+These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
+volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I trace the course of the
+Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I explain the
+origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
+of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
+structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the
+Brest-Litovsk negotiations….
+
+In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
+that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
+on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
+a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
+control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
+order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
+front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
+lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
+manufactures and transportation in 1916—all these we know now were part
+of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
+March Revolution.
+
+For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion
+incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
+of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
+the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
+improved.
+
+But the “honeymoon” was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
+political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
+it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
+France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
+England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
+industrial and agrarian democracy.
+
+William English Walling, in his book, “Russia’s Message,” an account of
+the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
+Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
+unanimously:
+
+They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
+Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
+might still continue to starve….
+
+The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
+dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
+studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
+about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
+oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
+the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
+take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near….
+
+They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
+institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
+anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
+class)….
+
+The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
+hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
+Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
+exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
+and Cripple Creek….
+
+And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
+Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
+triumph of Bolshevism.
+
+Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
+Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
+book, “The Birth of the Russian Democracy”: The Bolsheviks organised
+their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon
+Trotsky—Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming
+into power became evident almost immediately after the March
+Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a
+history of their steady growth….
+
+Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
+“ignorance” of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
+political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
+well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
+twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ Cooperative societies;
+and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
+organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
+world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
+application.
+
+William English Walling thus characterises them:
+
+The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
+write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
+condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
+intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
+equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
+people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
+Russia….
+
+Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
+arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
+struggle of the “respectable” elements against the brutal attacks of
+Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
+realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
+organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
+this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
+In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
+was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the
+Factory-Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw
+materials diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital
+punishment was restored and military defeat connived at.
+
+This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
+retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
+the Soviets.
+
+Between these two extremes, with the other factions which
+whole-heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
+“moderate” Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
+and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
+propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
+theories.
+
+Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
+Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution—that only a
+_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
+the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
+attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
+which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old régime. And so it
+followed that when the “moderate” Socialists were forced to assume the
+power, they were afraid to use it.
+
+They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
+economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
+the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
+therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
+first be a parliamentary state—though with some improvements on the
+Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
+collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.
+
+From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The “moderate”
+Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
+“moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
+obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
+the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.
+
+And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
+the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
+on the side of the propertied classes…. In almost every country in the
+world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.
+
+Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
+Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
+and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
+the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
+armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
+December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar….
+
+It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
+to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an “adventure.” Adventure it
+was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
+sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
+everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
+been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
+among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
+were there to put into operation workers’ control of industry. In every
+village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
+Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, prepared to assume the task
+of local administration.
+
+No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
+Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
+rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
+historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
+the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
+in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
+leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
+written this book.
+
+In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
+story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
+conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
+
+J. R.
+
+
+New York, January 1st 1919.
+
+
+
+Notes and Explanations
+
+
+To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian
+organisations—political groups, Committees and Central Committees,
+Soviets, Dumas and Unions—will prove extremely confusing. For this
+reason I am giving here a few brief definitions and explanations.
+
+Political Parties
+
+In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
+tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
+forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
+political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
+this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
+character of their constituencies can be noticed….
+
+1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
+once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
+underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_ came
+by degrees to stand for their political programme. Representatives in
+this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.
+
+2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name, Constitutional
+Democrats. Its official name is “Party of the People’s Freedom.” Under
+the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied classes, the _Cadets_
+were the great party of _political_ reform, roughly corresponding to
+the Progressive Party in America. When the Revolution broke out in
+March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first Provisional Government. The
+_Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April because it declared itself in
+favour of Allied imperialistic aims, including the imperialistic aims
+of the Tsar’s Government. As the Revolution became more and more a
+_social economic_ Revolution, the _Cadets_ grew more and more
+conservative. Its representatives in this book are: Miliukov, Vinaver,
+Shatsky.
+
+2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
+through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
+_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
+of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet. The
+_Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual leaders
+were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the more
+“modern” bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were intelligent
+enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by their own
+weapon—economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_ Lianozov,
+Konovalov.
+
+3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group). Numerically a
+small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the leaders of the
+Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants. Professing to be
+Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the interests of the petty
+bourgeoisie—clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By direct descent, inheritors of
+the compromising tradition of the Labour Group in the Fourth Imperial
+Duma, which was composed largely of peasant representatives. Kerensky
+was the leader of the _Trudoviki_ in the Imperial Duma when the
+Revolution of March, 1917, broke out. The _Populist Socialists_ are a
+nationalistic party. Their representatives in this book are:
+Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.
+
+4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
+Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
+question of tactics, into two factions—the Majority (Bolshinstvo), and
+the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names “Bolsheviki” and
+“Mensheviki”—“members of the majority” and “members of the minority.”
+These two wings became two separate parties, both calling themselves
+“Russian Social Democratic Labour Party,” and both professing to be
+Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the Bolsheviki were really the
+minority, becoming again the majority in September, 1917.
+
+a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
+believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
+Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
+first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the Socialist
+intellectuals, which means: all the means of education having been in
+the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals instinctively
+reacted to their training, and took the side of the propertied classes.
+Among their representatives in this book are: Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.
+
+b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
+_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with the
+propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the conservative
+Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the working-class
+advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member of this group.
+Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.
+
+c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in order to
+emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of “moderate” or
+“parliamentary” Socialism, which dominates the Mensheviki and the
+so-called Majority Socialists in all countries. The _Bolsheviki_
+proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and seizure of the reins
+of Government, in order to hasten the coming of Socialism by forcibly
+taking over industry, land, natural resources and financial
+institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly of the factory
+workers, but also of a large section of the poor peasants. The name
+“Bolshevik” can _not_ be translated by “Maximalist.” The Maximalists
+are a separate group. (See paragraph 5b). Among the leaders: Lenin,
+Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.
+
+d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the _Novaya
+Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very influential
+newspaper which was its organ. A little group of intellectuals with a
+very small following among the working-class, except the personal
+following of Maxim Gorky, its leader. Intellectuals, with almost the
+same programme as the _Mensheviki Internationalists,_ except that the
+_Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to be tied to either of the two great
+factions. Opposed the Bolshevik tactics, but remained in the Soviet
+Government. Other representatives in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.
+
+e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
+entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers of
+the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80’s, and its greatest
+theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely patriotic, too
+conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the Bolshevik _coup d’etat,
+Yedinstvo_ disappeared.
+
+5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the initials
+of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the peasants, the
+party of the Fighting Organisations—the Terrorists. After the March
+Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been Socialists. At
+that time it stood for the abolition of private property in land only,
+the owners to be compensated in some fashion. Finally the increasing
+revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the _Essaires_ to abandon the
+“compensation” clause, and led to the younger and more fiery
+intellectuals breaking off from the main party in the fall of 1917 and
+forming a new party, the _Left Socialist Revolutionary party._ The
+_Essaires,_ who were afterward always called by the radical groups
+_“Right Socialist Revolutionaries,”_ adopted the political attitude of
+the Mensheviki, and worked together with them. They finally came to
+represent the wealthier peasants, the intellectuals, and the
+politically uneducated populations of remote rural districts. Among
+them there was, however, a wider difference of shades of political and
+economic opinion than among the Mensheviki. Among their leaders
+mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz, Kerensky, Tchernov,
+“Babuschka” Breshkovskaya.
+
+a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing the
+Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at first were
+reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics. However, the _Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet Government, sharing
+the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of Agriculture. They withdrew
+from the Government several times, but always returned. As the peasants
+left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in increasing numbers, they joined the
+_Left Socialist Revolutionary party,_ which became the great peasant
+party supporting the Soviet Government, standing for confiscation
+without compensation of the great landed estates, and their disposition
+by the peasants themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin,
+Kamkov, Kalagayev.
+
+b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary party_
+in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant movement,
+demanding the immediate application of the maximum Socialist programme.
+Now an insignificant group of peasant anarchists.
+
+Parliamentary Procedure
+
+Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
+model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election of
+officers and the _presidium._
+
+The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of representatives
+of the groups and political factions represented in the assembly, in
+proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_ arranges the Order of
+Business, and its members can be called upon by the President to take
+the chair _pro tem._
+
+Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then debated,
+and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by the
+different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order of
+Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first half
+hour. On the plea of “emergency,” which the crowd almost always grants,
+anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any subject. The
+crowd controls the meeting, practically the only functions of the
+speaker being to keep order by ringing a little bell, and to recognise
+speakers. Almost all the real work of the session is done in caucuses
+of the different groups and political factions, which almost always
+cast their votes in a body and are represented by floor-leaders. The
+result is, however, that at every important new point, or vote, the
+session takes a recess to enable the different groups and political
+factions to hold a caucus.
+
+The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
+over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
+are: _“Prosim!_ Please! Go on!” _“Pravilno!”_ or _“Eto vierno!_ That’s
+true! Right!” _“Do volno!_ Enough!” _“Doloi!_ Down with him!” _“Posor!_
+Shame!” and _“Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!”
+
+Popular Organisations
+
+1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means “council.” Under the Tsar the
+Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
+the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
+with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
+economic organisations—the Soviet of Workers’, of Soldiers’, or of
+Peasants’ Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these bodies,
+and wherever else it occurs I have translated it “Council.”
+
+Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and village of
+Russia—and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny) Soviets_—there are
+also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or provincial) _Soviets,_
+and the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian _Soviets_ in the
+capital, called from its initials _Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, “Central
+Committees”).
+
+Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers’ and of Soldiers’ Deputies
+combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special matters
+concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers’ and the
+Soldiers’ Sections continued to meet separately. The _Soviets_ of
+Peasants’ Deputies did not join the other two until after the Bolshevik
+_coup d’etat._ They, too, were organised like the workers and soldiers,
+with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian Peasants’ _Soviets_ in
+the capital.
+
+2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian
+labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the
+Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These
+Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian
+Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in the
+capital.
+
+3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations
+created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control
+industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident
+upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to take
+over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also had
+their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at Petrograd,
+which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
+
+4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly “deliberative body.” The old
+Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution, in a
+democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The _City
+Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal Council,
+often called “Municipal Self-Government.” It was elected by direct and
+secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the masses
+during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in influence of
+all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the growing power
+of organisations based on _economic_ groups.
+
+5. _Zemstvos._ May be roughly translated “county councils.” Under the
+Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little administrative
+power, developed and controlled largely by intellectual Liberals among
+the land-owning classes. Their most important function was education
+and social service among the peasants. During the war the _Zemstvos_
+gradually took over the entire feeding and clothing of the Russian
+Army, as well as the buying from foreign countries, and work among the
+soldiers generally corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C.
+A. at the Front. After the March Revolution the _Zemstvos_ were
+democratized, with a view to making them the organs of local government
+in the rural districts. But like the _City Dumas,_ they could not
+compete with the _Soviets._
+
+6. _Cooperatives._ These were the workers’ and peasants’ Consumers’
+Cooperative societies, which had several million members all over
+Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and “moderate”
+Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported by the
+revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
+complete transference of means of production and distribution into the
+hands of the workers. After the March Revolution the _Cooperatives_
+spread rapidly, and were dominated by Populist Socialists, Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries, and acted as a conservative political
+force until the Bolshevik Revolution. However, it was the
+_Cooperatives_ which fed Russia when the old structure of commerce and
+transportation collapsed.
+
+7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the soldiers
+at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old regime
+officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps had its
+committee, over all of which was elected the _Army Committee._ The
+_Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General Staff. The
+administrative break-down in the army incident upon the Revolution
+threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of the work of
+the Quartermaster’s Department, and in some cases, even the command of
+troops.
+
+8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy.
+
+Central Committees
+
+In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every sort
+of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national congresses
+of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Soviets, Trade Unions,
+Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees—besides every branch
+of the military and naval service, Cooperatives, Nationalities, etc.
+Each of these conventions elected a Central Committee, or a Central
+Executive Committee, to guard its particular interests at the seat of
+Government. As the Provisional Government grew weaker, these Central
+Committees were forced to assume more and more administrative powers.
+
+The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:
+
+_Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor Miliukov
+and other Liberals established unions of professional men—doctors,
+lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one central
+organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of Unions_
+acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the _Union of
+Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the Government
+employees who went on strike against the authority of the Soviets.
+
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
+of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. So called from the initials of its
+name.
+
+_Tsentroflot._ “Centre-Fleet”—the Central Fleet Committee.
+
+_Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers’ Union.
+So called from the initials of its name.
+
+Other Organisations
+
+_Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_
+were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into
+existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed to
+keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all efforts
+of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or less
+unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red Guards_
+appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but full of
+Revolutionary zeal.
+
+_White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last stages of
+the Revolution, to defend private property from the Bolshevik attempt
+to abolish it. A great many of them were University students.
+
+_Tekhintsi._ The so-called “Savage Division” in the army, made up of
+Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to
+General Kornilov. The _Tekhintsi_ were noted for their blind obedience
+and their savage cruelty in warfare.
+
+_Death Battalions._ Or _Shock Battalions._ The Women’s Battalion is
+known to the world as the _Death Battalion,_ but there were many _Death
+Battalions_ composed of men. These were formed in the summer of 1917 by
+Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline and combative
+fire of the army by heroic example. The _Death Battalions_ were
+composed mostly of intense young patriots. These came for the most part
+from among the sons of the propertied classes.
+
+_Union of Officers._ An organisation formed among the reactionary
+officers in the army to combat politically the growing power of the
+Army Committees.
+
+_Knights of St. George._ The Cross of St. George was awarded for
+distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
+_“Knight of St. George.”_ The predominant influence in the organisation
+was that of the supporters of the military idea.
+
+_Peasants’ Union._ In 1905, the _Peasants’ Union_ was a revolutionary
+peasants’ organisation. In 1917, however, it had become the political
+expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight the growing power
+and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+Chronology and Spelling
+
+I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the
+former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.
+
+In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt to
+follow any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to give
+the spelling which would lead the English-speaking reader to the
+simplest approximation of their pronunciation.
+
+Sources
+
+Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also
+relied, however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred assorted
+Russian newspapers, covering almost every day of the time described, of
+files of the English paper, the _Russian Daily News,_ and of the two
+French papers, _Journal de Russie_ and _Entente._ But far more valuable
+than these is the _Bulletin de la Presse_ issued daily by the French
+Information Bureau in Petrograd, which reports all important
+happenings, speeches and the comment of the Russian press. Of this I
+have an almost complete file from the spring of 1917 to the end of
+January, 1918.
+
+Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every
+proclamation, decree and announcement posted on the walls of Petrograd
+from the middle of September, 1917, to the end of January, 1918. Also
+the official publication of all Government decrees and orders, and the
+official Government publication of the secret treaties and other
+documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when the
+Bolsheviki took it over.
+
+Ten Days That Shook The World
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+Background
+
+
+Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology
+visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by
+business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down.
+The Professor wrote an article about it, and then travelled around the
+country, visiting factory towns and peasant communities—where, to his
+astonishment, the Revolution seemed to be speeding up. Among the
+wage-earners and the land-working people it was common to hear talk of
+“all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers.” If the
+Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the whole Army
+talking Peace….
+
+The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both observations
+were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming more
+conservative, the masses of the people more radical.
+
+There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
+generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted too
+long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared by the
+dominant “moderate” Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See App. I,
+Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who supported the
+Provisional Government of Kerensky.
+
+On October 14th the official organ of the “moderate” Socialists said:
+
+The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old régime
+and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long enough.
+Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as rapidly as
+possible. As a great revolutionist put it, “Let us hasten, friends, to
+terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long will not gather
+the fruits….”
+
+
+Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
+stubborn feeling that the “first act” was not yet played out. On the
+front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
+could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the rear
+the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed for
+trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land; and the
+workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
+black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political exiles
+were being excluded from the country as “undesirable” citizens; and in
+some cases, men who returned from abroad to their villages were
+prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts committed in 1905.
+
+To the multiform discontent of the people the “moderate” Socialists had
+one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet in
+December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The Constituent
+Assembly was all well and good; but there were certain definite things
+for which the Russian Revolution had been made, and for which the
+revolutionary martyrs rotted in their stark Brotherhood Grave on Mars
+Field, that must be achieved Constituent Assembly or no Constituent
+Assembly: Peace, Land, and Workers’ Control of Industry. The
+Constituent Assembly had been postponed and postponed—would probably be
+postponed again, until the people were calm enough—perhaps to modify
+their demands! At any rate, here were eight months of the Revolution
+gone, and little enough to show for it….
+
+Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply
+deserting, the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great
+estates, the workers sabotaged and struck…. Of course, as was natural,
+the manufacturers, land-owners and army officers exerted all their
+influence against any democratic compromise….
+
+The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between ineffective
+reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from the Socialist
+Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers’ Committees henceforth to
+meet only after working hours. Among the troops at the front,
+“agitators” of opposition political parties were arrested, radical
+newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied—to revolutionary
+propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the Red Guard. Cossacks
+were sent to keep order in the provinces….
+
+These measures were supported by the “moderate” Socialists and their
+leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate with
+the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and went over
+to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers’ Control of
+Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In September, 1917,
+matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the
+country, Kerensky and the “moderate” Socialists succeeded in
+establishing a Government of Coalition with the propertied classes; and
+as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries lost the
+confidence of the people forever.
+
+An article in _Rabotchi Put_ (Workers’ Way) about the middle of
+October, entitled “The Socialist Ministers,” expressed the feeling of
+the masses of the people against the “moderate” Socialists:
+
+Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)
+
+Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General
+Polovtsev, checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of
+capital punishment in the army.
+
+Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their
+profits, and finished—and finished by an attempt to dissolve the
+Workers’ Committees in the shops and factories.
+
+Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the Land
+Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers’ and soldiers’ newspapers.
+
+Tchernov: signed the “Imperial” manifest, ordering the dissolution of
+the Finnish Diet.
+
+Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this
+saviour of the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due to
+reasons over which he had no control.
+
+Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the
+best workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.
+
+Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.
+
+Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his
+services is too long….
+
+A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
+resolution which began as follows:
+
+We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional
+Government of the “Socialist,” the political adventurer—Kerensky, as
+one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it
+the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on
+behalf of the bourgeoisie….
+
+
+The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki….
+
+Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers
+beating upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma
+to assume the supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the people,
+workers, soldiers and peasants, which forced every change in the course
+of the Revolution. They hurled the Miliukov Ministry down; it was their
+Soviet which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace terms—“No
+annexations, no indemnities, and the right of self-determination of
+peoples”; and again, in July, it was the spontaneous rising of the
+unorganised proletariat which once more stormed the Tauride Palace, to
+demand that the Soviets take over the Government of Russia.
+
+The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the head
+of the movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the rising,
+public opinion turned against them, and their leaderless hordes slunk
+back into the Viborg Quarter, which is Petrograd’s _St. Antoine._ Then
+followed a savage hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds were imprisoned,
+among them Trotzky, Madame Kollontai and Kameniev; Lenin and Zinoviev
+went into hiding, fugitives from justice; the Bolshevik papers were
+suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries raised the cry that the
+Bolsheviki were German agents, until people all over the world believed
+it.
+
+But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate its
+accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were
+discovered to be forgeries;[1] and one by one the Bolsheviki were
+released from prison without trial, on nominal or no bail-until only
+six remained. The impotence and indecision of the ever-changing
+Provisional Government was an argument nobody could refute. The
+Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses, “All Power to
+the Soviets!”—and they were not merely self-seeking, for at that time
+the majority of the Soviets was “moderate” Socialist, their bitter
+enemy.
+
+[1] Part of the famous “Sisson Documents”.
+
+But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
+workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
+programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the bourgeoisie,
+the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In July they were
+hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan workmen, the sailors
+of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been won almost entirely to
+their cause. The September municipal elections in the large cities (See
+App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18 per cent of the returns were
+Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary, against more than 70 per cent in
+June….
+
+There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
+that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central Army
+and Fleet Committees,[2] and the Central Committees of some of the
+Unions—notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
+Workers—opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These Central
+Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer, or even
+before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had an
+enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new elections.
+Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should have been called
+in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_[2] would not call the meeting, on
+the ground that the Constituent Assembly was only two months away, at
+which time, they hinted, the Soviets would abdicate. Meanwhile, one by
+one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the local Soviets all over the
+country, in the Union branches and the ranks of the soldiers and
+sailors. The Peasants’ Soviets remained still conservative, because in
+the sluggish rural districts political consciousness developed slowly,
+and the Socialist Revolutionary party had been for a generation the
+party which had agitated among the peasants…. But even among the
+peasants a revolutionary wing was forming. It showed itself clearly in
+October, when the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries split off,
+and formed a new political faction, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+[2] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of
+reaction were gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the Troitsky
+Farce theatre in Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called _Sins of
+the Tsar_ was interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who threatened to
+lynch the actors for “insulting the Emperor.” Certain newspapers began
+to sigh for a “Russian Napoleon.” It was the usual thing among
+bourgeois _intelligentzia_ to refer to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies
+(Rabotchikh Deputatov) as _Sabatchikh_ Deputatov—Dogs’ Deputies.
+
+On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist,
+Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the “Russian Rockefeller”—a Cadet
+by political faith.
+
+“Revolution,” he said, “is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign
+powers must intervene here—as one would intervene to cure a sick child,
+and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less improper,
+but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in their own
+countries—such contagious ideas as ‘proletarian dictatorship,’ and
+‘world social revolution’… There is a chance that this intervention may
+not be necessary. Transportation is demoralised, the factories are
+closing down, and the Germans are advancing. Starvation and defeat may
+bring the Russian people to their senses….”
+
+Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it
+would be impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the
+existence of the workers’ Shop Committees, or to allow the workers any
+share in the management of industry.
+
+“As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
+methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege
+declared, and the military commander of the district can deal with
+these gentlemen without legal formalities…. _Or if, for example, the
+Constituent Assembly manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be
+dispersed by force of arms….”_
+
+Winter was coming on—the terrible Russian winter. I heard business men
+speak of it so: “Winter was always Russia’s best friend. Perhaps now it
+will rid us of Revolution.” On the freezing front miserable armies
+continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways were
+breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses
+cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people,
+causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just after
+General Kornilov said publicly, “Must we pay with Riga the price of
+bringing the country to a sense of its duty?”[3]
+
+[3] See “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk” by John Reed. Boni and Liveright
+N.Y., 1919.
+
+To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to such
+a pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern Front who
+frankly preferred military disaster to cooperation with the Soldiers’
+Committees. The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the Cadet party
+told me that the break-down of the country’s economic life was part of
+a campaign to discredit the Revolution. An Allied diplomat, whose name
+I promised not to mention, confirmed this from his own knowledge. I
+know of certain coal-mines near Kharkov which were fired and flooded by
+their owners, of textile factories at Moscow whose engineers put the
+machinery out of order when they left, of railroad officials caught by
+the workers in the act of crippling locomotives….
+
+A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to the
+Revolution—even to the Provisional Government—and didn’t hesitate to
+say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
+conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of
+the Germans, bringing “law and order.”… One evening I spent at the
+house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at
+the table whether they preferred “Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki.” The vote
+was ten to one for Wilhelm…
+
+The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to pile
+up fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the corruption
+of Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded, or secretly
+sent out of the country to Sweden. In the first four months of the
+Revolution, for example, the reserve food-supplies were almost openly
+looted from the great Municipal warehouses of Petrograd, until the
+two-years’ provision of grain had fallen to less than enough to feed
+the city for one month…. According to the official report of the last
+Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government, coffee was bought
+wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles a pound, and the consumer in
+Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the stores of the large cities were
+tons of food and clothing; but only the rich could buy them.
+
+In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
+speculator—_maradior_ (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The three
+sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
+foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to mysterious
+parties in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest in a
+chocolate factory, which supplied the local Cooperative societies—on
+condition that the Cooperatives furnished him everything he needed. And
+so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound of black bread
+on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white bread, sugar, tea,
+candy, cake and butter…. Yet when the soldiers at the front could no
+longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how indignantly did this
+family scream “Cowards!”—how “ashamed” they were “to be Russians”… When
+finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned vast hoarded stores of
+provisions, what “Robbers” they were.
+
+Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
+unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and very
+active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned, for and
+against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky—whoever would pay…. In the
+darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such as the Black
+Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in some form or
+other.
+
+In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
+note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
+“All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
+millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
+bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
+speculation, treachery…. The Revolution is in danger, and with it the
+cause of the people all over the world!”
+
+The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between the
+Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March days,
+was about to culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the Middle Ages
+into the twentieth century, Russia showed the startled world two
+systems of Revolution—the political and the social—in mortal combat.
+
+What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after all
+these months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie should
+have better known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia will the
+“sickness” of Revolution have run its course….
+
+Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of another
+age, almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt ourselves
+to the newer, swifter life; just as Russian politics swung bodily to
+the Left—until the Cadets were outlawed as “enemies of the people,”
+Kerensky became a “counter-revolutionist,” the “middle” Socialist
+leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were too
+reactionary for their following, and men like Victor Tchernov, and even
+Maxim Gorky, belonged to the Right Wing….
+
+About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist Revolutionary
+leaders paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan, the British
+Ambassador, and implored him not to mention the fact that they had been
+there, because they were “considered too far Right.”
+
+“And to think,” said Sir George. “One year ago my Government instructed
+me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously Left!”
+
+September and October are the worst months of the Russian
+year—especially the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the
+shortening days, the rain fell drenching, incessant. The mud underfoot
+was deep, slippery and clinging, tracked everywhere by heavy boots, and
+worse than usual because of the complete break-down of the Municipal
+administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from the Gulf of Finland,
+and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At night, for motives of
+economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the street-lights were few and
+far between; in private dwellings and apartment-houses the electricity
+was turned on from six o’clock until midnight, with candles forty cents
+apiece and little kerosene to be had. It was dark from three in the
+afternoon to ten in the morning. Robberies and housebreakings
+increased. In apartment houses the men took turns at all-night guard
+duty, armed with loaded rifles. This was under the Provisional
+Government.
+
+Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
+from a pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a
+quarter-pound. Toward the end there was a week without any bread at
+all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month—if one
+could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a pound of
+tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten rubles—at least a
+dollar. There was milk for about half the babies in the city; most
+hotels and private houses never saw it for months. In the fruit season
+apples and pears sold for a little less than a ruble apiece on the
+street-corner….
+
+For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in _queue_
+long hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I
+have seen the _kvost_ (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly
+women, some with babies in their arms…. Carlyle, in his _French
+Revolution,_ has described the French people as distinguished above all
+others by their faculty of standing in _queue._ Russia had accustomed
+herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas the Blessed as
+long ago as 1915, and from then continued intermittently until the
+summer of 1917, when it settled down as the regular order of things.
+Think of the poorly-clad people standing on the iron-white streets of
+Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter! I have listened in the
+bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of discontent which from
+time to time burst up through the miraculous goodnature of the Russian
+crowd….
+
+Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays.
+Karsavina appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving
+Russia coming to see her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky
+they were reviving Meyerhold’s production of Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan
+the Terrible”; and at that performance I remember noticing a student of
+the Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up
+correctly between the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its
+eagles all erased…. The _Krivoye Zerkalo_ staged a sumptuous version of
+Schnitzler’s “Reigen.”
+
+Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated
+to Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the
+female _intelligentzia_ went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and
+the Easy Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for
+Theosophists. And the Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the first
+time in history, plastered the walls with announcements of gospel
+meetings, which amused and astounded Russian audiences….
+
+As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went on,
+ignoring the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made verses—but
+not about the Revolution. The realistic painters painted scenes from
+mediæval Russian history—anything but the Revolution. Young ladies from
+the provinces came up to the capital to learn French and cultivate
+their voices, and the gay young beautiful officers wore their
+gold-trimmed crimson _bashliki_ and their elaborate Caucasian swords
+around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of the minor bureaucratic set took
+tea with each other in the afternoon, carrying each her little gold or
+silver or jewelled sugar-box, and half a loaf of bread in her muff, and
+wished that the Tsar were back, or that the Germans would come, or
+anything that would solve the servant problem…. The daughter of a
+friend of mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman
+street-car conductor had called her “Comrade!”
+
+All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The
+servants one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were
+getting independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles,
+and as wages averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants
+refused to stand in _queue_ and wear out their shoes. But more than
+that. In the new Russia every man and woman could vote; there were
+working-class newspapers, saying new and startling things; there were
+the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The _izvoshtchiki_
+(cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in the Petrograd
+Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and refused
+tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which read, “No
+tips taken here—” or, “Just because a man has to make his living
+waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a tip!”
+
+At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers, and
+learned self-government through their committees. In the factories
+those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop Committees,[4]
+gained experience and strength and a realisation of their historical
+mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was learning to read,
+and _reading_—politics, economics, history—because the people wanted to
+_know…._ In every city, in most towns, along the Front, each political
+faction had its newspaper—sometimes several. Hundreds of thousands of
+pamphlets were distributed by thousands of organisations, and poured
+into the armies, the villages, the factories, the streets. The thirst
+for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a
+frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six
+months, went out every day tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature,
+saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand
+drinks water, insatiable. And it was not fables, falsified history,
+diluted religion, and the cheap fiction that corrupts—but social and
+economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky….
+
+[4] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle’s “flood of French speech” was a
+mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches—in theatres, circuses,
+school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters,
+barracks…. Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares,
+factories…. What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
+Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social
+Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever
+they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
+and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In
+railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu
+debate, everywhere….
+
+And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the
+men of two continents—conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives,
+Zemstvos,[5] nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the
+Democratic Conference, the Moscow Conference, the Council of the
+Russian Republic. There were always three or four conventions going on
+in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of speakers
+voted down, and every man free to express the thought that was in him….
+
+[5] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
+gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
+when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
+flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly, “Did
+you bring anything to _read?”_
+
+What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
+though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
+Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others—somewhat
+faded—floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms and
+eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the fierce
+_gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen militia
+patrolled the streets—still, there were many quaint anachronisms.
+
+For example, Peter the Great’s _Tabel o Rangov—_Table of Ranks—which he
+rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
+everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with the
+insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about five
+o’clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old gentlemen
+in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the huge,
+barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating perhaps
+how great a mortality among their superiors would advance them to the
+coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy Councillor,
+with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension, and possibly
+the Cross of St. Anne….
+
+There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
+came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
+not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
+Tsar’s service!
+
+It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
+disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
+unrolled….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+The Coming Storm
+
+
+In September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself
+military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the
+mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the
+Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were implicated; even
+Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II, Sect. 1) Savinkov, summoned
+to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the Socialist
+Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was arrested by the
+Soldiers’ Committees. Generals were dismissed, Ministers suspended from
+their functions, and the Cabinet fell.
+
+Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party of
+the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries, ordered him
+to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and threatened to
+resign from the Cabinet if the Socialists insisted. However, popular
+feeling ran so high that for the moment he did not dare oppose it, and
+a temporary Directorate of Five of the old Ministers, with Kerensky at
+the head, assumed the power until the question should be settled.
+
+The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist groups—“moderates”
+as well as revolutionists—in a passionate impulse of self-defence.
+There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government must be created,
+responsible to the elements supporting the Revolution. So the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ invited the popular organisations to send delegates to a
+Democratic Conference, which should meet at Petrograd in September.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ three factions immediately appeared. The
+Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be
+summoned, and that they take over the power. The “centre” Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki
+Internationalists under Martov, and the “centre” Mensheviki,[6]
+represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely Socialist
+Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the right wing
+Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under Avksentiev
+and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be represented in
+the new Government.
+
+[6] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd
+Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities
+followed suit.
+
+Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ decided that after all they feared the danger of Kornilov
+less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of representation
+in the Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2) admitting more
+delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other conservative bodies.
+Even this packed assembly at first voted for a _Coalition Government
+without the Cadets._ Only Kerensky’s open threat of resignation, and
+the alarming cries of the “moderate” Socialists that “the Republic is
+in danger” persuaded the Conference, by a small majority, to declare in
+favour of the principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to
+sanction the establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament,
+without any legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the
+Russian Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes
+practically controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they
+occupied a disproportionate number of seats.
+
+The fact is that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ no longer represented the rank and
+file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no intention
+of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called. Its official
+organ, _Izviestia_ (News), began to hint that the function of the
+Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II, Sect. 3) and that they
+might soon be dissolved… At this time, too, the new Government
+announced as part of its policy the liquidation of “irresponsible
+organisations”—i.e. the Soviets.
+
+The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to meet
+at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of Russia. At
+the same time they withdrew from the Council of the Russian Republic,
+stating that they would not participate in a “Government of Treason to
+the People.” (See App. II, Sect. 4)
+
+The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring tranquillity
+to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now in a position of
+power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that the Government had no
+legal right to declare Russia a republic. They demanded stern measures
+in the Army and Navy to destroy the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Committees,
+and denounced the Soviets. On the other side of the chamber the
+Mensheviki Internationalists and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+advocated immediate peace, land to the peasants, and workers’ control
+of industry—practically the Bolshevik programme.
+
+I heard Martov’s speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the desk
+of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking in a
+voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger toward
+the right benches:
+
+“You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait for
+a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon postponing
+peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian army, until
+Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the different
+imperialist groups…. You are trying to impose upon the Russian people a
+policy dictated by the interests of the bourgeoisie. The question of
+peace should be raised without delay…. You will see then that not in
+vain has been the work of those whom you call German agents, of those
+Zimmerwaldists[7] who in all the lands have prepared the awakening of
+the conscience of the democratic masses….”
+
+[7] Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
+Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation in the
+International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland, in 1915.
+
+Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries
+wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the pressure of the rising
+dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility divided the chamber into
+irreconcilable groups.
+
+This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the Allied
+Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of foreign policy….
+
+Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
+earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May, 1917,
+the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, had proclaimed the famous Russian
+peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a conference
+to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised for August; then
+postponed until September; then until October; and now it was fixed for
+November 10th.
+
+The Provisional Government suggested two representatives—General
+Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of
+Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and drew
+up a manifesto, the famous _nakaz_—(See App. II, Sect. 5) instructions.
+The Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and his _nakaz;_ the
+Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law in the British House
+of Commons, in answer to a question, responded coldly, “As far as I
+know the Paris Conference will not discuss the aims of the war at all,
+but only the methods of conducting it….”
+
+At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the Bolsheviki
+cried, “See where the compromising tactics of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!”
+
+Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia’s armies
+stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their hundreds
+upon hundreds of delegations, crying “Peace! Peace!”
+
+I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great
+popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous night
+after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny lights
+hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the steep sweep
+of grimy benches to the very roof—soldiers, sailors, workmen, women,
+all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A soldier was
+speaking—from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division, wherever and
+whatever that was:
+
+“Comrades,” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and
+despairing gestures. “The people at the top are always calling upon us
+to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are
+left unmolested.
+
+“We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve
+on our Staff? Well we’re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we
+invite them into our Government….
+
+“The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
+Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the
+capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the
+Revolution then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to
+force me.’
+
+“When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the
+workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have
+something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it!”
+
+In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less soldier
+speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring that if the
+Government did not make an energetic effort to get peace, the army
+would leave the trenches and go home.
+
+The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
+
+“We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must
+give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be left
+only empty trenches. Peace or supplies… either let the Government end
+the war or support the Army….”
+
+For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
+
+“The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to the
+enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
+counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the
+Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even to
+talk of such things, and at the same time doesn’t give us enough food
+to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with….”
+
+From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See App.
+II, Sect. 6)…
+
+News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the
+discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with
+Soldiers’ Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused an
+order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had been
+surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and many
+killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)…
+
+On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the
+Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear
+Terestchenko’s declaration of the Government’s foreign policy, awaited
+with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and exhausted land.
+
+A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high
+cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See
+App. II, Sect. 8) Nothing…. Only the same platitudes about crushing
+German militarism with the help of the Allies—about the “state
+interests” of Russia, about the “embarrassment” caused by Skobeliev’s
+_nakaz._ He ended with the key-note:
+
+“Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
+happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders of
+a great ideal, and children of a great power.”
+
+Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a “strong” imperialist
+policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that the Government
+would press for peace…. I reproduce an editorial in _Rabotchi i Soldat_
+(Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet:
+
+THE GOVERNMENT’S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES
+
+
+The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually told
+the trenches the following:
+
+1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but
+with the Governments.)
+
+2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
+impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the
+Governments of our Allies.
+
+3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair.
+(He did not mention the consequences.)
+
+4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister
+has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations? What
+about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet? (See App.
+II, Sect. 9) The parleying of the British king with exiled
+counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention all
+this.)
+
+5. The _nakaz_ to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don’t like it and the
+Russian diplomats don’t like it. In the Allied Conference we must all
+‘speak one language.’
+
+And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is,
+faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When the
+Allies permit.
+
+That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
+
+Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague
+outlines of a sinister power—the Cossacks. _Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life),
+Gorky’s paper, called attention to their activities:
+
+At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot down
+the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to follow
+him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have passed to
+an active political offensive (against it). From the back-ground of the
+Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the front of the stage….
+
+
+Kaledin, _ataman_ of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
+Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He
+flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack
+armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his
+power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination.
+More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council of
+the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the newly-formed
+Cossack Section of the Soviets….
+
+In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon Kerensky,
+arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be dropped, and
+reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the Soviets.
+Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported to have
+said, “In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a tyrant….
+As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not depend upon the
+Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they exist at all.”
+
+At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British
+ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of “the free
+Cossack people.”
+
+In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been established.
+The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State. The Soviets of
+Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by armed Cossacks, and
+the headquarters of the Coal Miners’ Union at Kharkov raided. In all
+its manifestations the Cossack movement was anti-Socialist and
+militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great land-owners, like
+Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and Bardizhe, and it was
+backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of Moscow….
+
+Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland,
+White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became
+bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes,
+claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At
+Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the
+Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded the
+withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev extended the
+boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the richest agricultural
+lands of South Russia, as far east as the Urals, and began the
+formation of a national army. Premier Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate
+peace with Germany—and the Provisional Government was helpless.
+Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded separate Constituent Assemblies. And in
+all these countries there was the beginning of a bitter struggle
+between the authorities and the local Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies….
+
+Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers
+were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast, aimless tides
+over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and Tver Governments,
+tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the repressive measures
+of the Government, were burning manor-houses and massacring
+land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed Moscow, Odessa and
+the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was paralysed; the army was
+starving and in the big cities there was no bread.
+
+The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary factions,
+could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported the interests
+of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to restore order among
+the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent, Government authorities
+suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the Economic Council, established
+to rebuild the shattered economic life of the country, came to a
+deadlock between the opposing forces of capital and labour, and was
+dissolved by Kerensky. The old régime military men, backed by Cadets,
+demanded that harsh measures be adopted to restore discipline in the
+Army and the Navy. In vain Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister
+of Marine, and General Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only
+a new, voluntary, democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the
+soldiers’ and sailors’ Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
+recommendations were ignored.
+
+The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The trial
+of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois press
+defended him, speaking of him as “the great Russian patriot.” Burtzev’s
+paper, _Obshtchee Dielo_ (Common Cause), called for a dictatorship of
+Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
+
+I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the Council
+of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled face, eyes
+near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard streaked with
+grey.
+
+“Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We should
+get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the Germans.
+Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the bunglers are
+the German agents. Kornilov should have won….”
+
+On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
+Purishkevitch’s _Narodny Tribun_ (People’s Tribune), _Novaya Rus_ (New
+Russia), and _Zhivoye Slovo_ (Living Word), openly advocated the
+extermination of the revolutionary democracy….
+
+On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German squadron
+in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in danger, the
+Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the capital. First
+the great munitions works were to go, distributed widely throughout
+Russia; and then the Government itself was to move to Moscow. Instantly
+the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the Government was abandoning the
+Red Capital in order to weaken the Revolution. Riga had been sold to
+the Germans; now Petrograd was being betrayed!
+
+The bourgeois press was joyful. “At Moscow,” said the Cadet paper
+_Ryetch_ (Speech), “the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
+atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists.” Rodzianko,
+leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in _Utro Rossii_
+(The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the Germans
+would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets and get rid
+of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:
+
+Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, “Let God take care
+of Petrograd.” They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central
+revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that I
+rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will bring
+nothing but disaster upon Russia….
+    With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be
+    destroyed…. But there will be nothing to regret; most of the
+    battleships are completely demoralised….
+
+
+In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation
+was repudiated.
+
+Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a
+thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not only
+by the Government but by all the “moderate” Socialists. The Central
+Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of the Trade
+Unions, the Peasants’ Soviets, but most of all the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting. _Izviestia_ and _Golos
+Soldata_ (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers founded by the Petrograd
+Soviet but now in the hands of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ fiercely assailed it,
+as did the entire artillery of the Socialist Revolutionary party press,
+_Dielo Naroda_ (People’s Cause) and _Volia Naroda_ (People’s Will).
+
+Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to
+committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees, instructing
+them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn public
+resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the democracy was
+opposed to the meeting so near the date of the Constituent Assembly,
+representatives from the Front, from the Union of Zemstvos, the
+Peasants’ Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of Officers, Knights of
+St. George, Death Battalions,[8] protesting…. The Council of the
+Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval. The entire machinery
+set up by the Russian Revolution of March functioned to block the
+Congress of Soviets….
+
+[8] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat—the
+workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were
+already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the industrial
+workers, the _Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti_—Factory-Shop Committees;
+and the insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some places the
+people, prevented from electing their regular Soviet delegates, held
+rump meetings and chose one of their number to go to Petrograd. In
+others they smashed the old obstructionist committees and formed new
+ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved and cracked the crust which had
+been slowly hardening on the surface of revolutionary fires dormant all
+those months. Only an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets….
+
+Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and factories,
+violently denouncing “this Government of civil war.” One Sunday we
+went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through oceans of mud,
+between stark factories and immense churches, to _Obukhovsky Zavod,_ a
+Government munitions-plant out on the Schlüsselburg Prospekt.
+
+The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge
+unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed
+around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber
+and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and
+thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the
+sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the mass
+of simple faces upturned to us.
+
+Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face of
+an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the Soviets.
+Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its enemies, who
+were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the army, creating
+opportunities for a new Konilov.
+
+A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
+“Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are
+dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to
+America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution until
+they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until the peoples
+of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers to rise and
+fight for the Social Revolution!”
+
+Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: “Now is the time
+for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we must get
+used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us. They are trying
+to provoke us. But let them know that they can go too far—that if they
+dare to lay their hands upon the organisations of the proletariat we
+will sweep them away like scum from the face of the earth!”
+
+The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
+_Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ (Soldier), there appeared a new paper for
+the peasants, _Derevenskaya Byednota_ (Village Poorest), poured out in
+a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, _Rabotchi i Soldat._
+Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
+
+The fourth year’s campaign will mean the annihilation of the army and
+the country…. There is danger for the safety of Petrograd….
+Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people’s misfortunes…. The
+peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the
+landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive
+expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are
+threatened with starvation…. The bourgeoisie and its Generals want to
+restore a blind discipline in the army…. Supported by the bourgeoisie,
+the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up the meeting of the
+Constituent Assembly….
+
+
+The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the
+country…. This paper stands for the people and by the people—the poor
+classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be saved
+by the completion of the Revolution… and for this purpose the full
+power must be in the hands of the Soviets….
+
+This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets—both in
+the capital and in the provinces.
+
+Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
+
+Landlord estates—without compensation—to the peasants.
+
+Workers’ control over industrial production.
+
+A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
+
+It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same paper—the
+organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as German agents:
+
+The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead people,
+wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the German
+workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than we do, to…
+stand up against this damned war!
+
+This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would speak
+really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and would
+appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German troops,
+fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German language….
+Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over Germany….
+
+In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the
+chamber deepened day by day.
+
+“The propertied classes,” cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, “want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the
+State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The
+revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy….”
+
+Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists, spoke
+against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of the
+Cadets: “We must have immediately strong discipline in the army…. Since
+the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist that it is a crime
+to undertake social and economic reforms in war-time. We are committing
+that crime, and yet I am not the enemy of these reforms, because I am a
+Socialist.”
+
+Cries from the Left, “We don’t believe you!” Mighty applause from the
+Right….
+
+Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to tell
+the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to realise
+that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian territory.
+
+Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national unity,
+once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him coldly,
+interrupting with ironical remarks.
+
+Smolny Institute, headquarters of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and of the
+Petrograd Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the
+wide Neva. I went there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a
+groaning noise through the cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with
+people. At the end of the line rose the graceful smoke-blue cupolas of
+Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful; and beside it the
+great barracks like façade of Smolny Institute, two hundred yards long
+and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved hugely in stone
+still insolent over the entrance….
+
+Under the old régime a famous convent-school for the daughters of the
+Russian nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the Institute had
+been taken over by the revolutionary organisations of workers and
+soldiers. Within were more than a hundred huge rooms, white and bare,
+on their doors enamelled plaques still informing the passerby that
+within was “Ladies’ Class-room Number 4” or “Teachers’ Bureau”; but
+over these hung crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the vitality of the
+new order: “Central Committee of the Petrograd Soviet” and
+_“Tsay-ee-kah”_ and “Bureau of Foreign Affairs”; “Union of Socialist
+Soldiers,” “Central Committee of the All-Russian Trade Unions,”
+“Factory-Shop Committees,” “Central Army Committee”; and the central
+offices and caucus-rooms of the political parties….
+
+The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were thronged
+with hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent under the
+weight of huge bundles of newspapers, proclamations, printed propaganda
+of all sorts. The sound of their heavy boots made a deep and incessant
+thunder on the wooden floor…. Signs were posted up everywhere:
+“Comrades! For the sake of your health, preserve cleanliness!” Long
+tables stood at the head of the stairs on every floor, and on the
+landings, heaped with pamphlets and the literature of the different
+political parties, for sale….
+
+The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a
+dining-room. For two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to dinner,
+and stood in line with a thousand others, waiting to get to the long
+serving-tables, where twenty men and women were ladling from immense
+cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and piles of _kasha,_ slabs of
+black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin cup. From a basket one
+grabbed a greasy wooden spoon…. The benches along the wooden tables
+were packed with hungry proletarians, wolfing their food, plotting,
+shouting rough jokes across the room….
+
+[Graphic, page 33: text of placard in russian, translation follows]
+
+COMRADES FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH, PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.
+
+
+Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the _Tsay-ee-kah—_
+though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly buttered
+and endless glasses of tea….
+
+In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of meetings,
+the former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room lighted by
+glazed-white chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate electric bulbs, and
+divided by two rows of massive columns; at one end a dais, flanked with
+two tall many-branched light standards, and a gold frame behind, from
+which the Imperial portrait had been cut. Here on festal occasions had
+been banked brilliant military and ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting
+for Grand Duchesses….
+
+Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials
+Committee for the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the new
+delegates come in—burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black blouses, a
+few long-haired peasants. The girl in charge—a member of Plekhanov’s
+_Yedinstvo_[9] group—smiled contemptuously. “These are very different
+people from the delegates to the first _Siezd_ (Congress),” she
+remarked. “See how rough and ignorant they look! The Dark People….” It
+was true; the depths of Russia had been stirred, and it was the bottom
+which came uppermost now. The Credentials Committee, appointed by the
+old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was challenging delegate after delegate, on the
+ground that they had been illegally elected. Karakhan, member of the
+Bolshevik Central Committee, simply grinned. “Never mind,” he said,
+“When the time comes we’ll see that you get your seats….”
+
+[9] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ said:
+
+The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called to
+attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break up the
+Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that delegates
+had better leave Petrograd…. Pay no attention to these lies…. Great
+days are coming….
+
+It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2, so
+the opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the whole
+country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
+their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
+organisations to elect as many “moderate” Socialist delegates as
+possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants’
+Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants’ Congress, to meet
+December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers might
+take…
+
+What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that there
+would be an armed “demonstration,” a _vystuplennie_—“coming out” of the
+workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary press prophesied
+insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest the Petrograd Soviet,
+or at least to prevent the meeting of the Congress. Such sheets as
+_Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik massacre.
+
+Gorky’s paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
+reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
+necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the parties
+of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
+
+As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
+long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
+advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements appeal
+to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the battle to
+seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most profound strata
+of the people….
+
+Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers were
+inciting the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however, would
+prepare the way for a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to deny the
+rumours. Potressov, in the Menshevik _Dien_ (Day), published a
+sensational story, accompanied by a map, which professed to reveal the
+secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.
+
+As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II,
+Sect. 10) proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
+“moderate” and conservative factions and the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ denouncing
+any “demonstrations,” imploring the workers and soldiers not to listen
+to agitators. For instance, this from the Military Section of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended
+_vystuplennie._ What is the source of these rumours? What organisation
+authorises these agitators who preach insurrection? The Bolsheviki, to
+a question addressed to them in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ denied that they
+have anything to do with it…. But these rumours themselves carry with
+them a great danger. It may easily happen that, not taking into
+consideration the state of mind of the majority of the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads will call out part of the
+workers and soldiers on the streets, inciting them to an uprising…. In
+this fearful time through which revolutionary Russia is passing, any
+insurrection can easily turn into civil war, and there can result from
+it the destruction of all organisations of the proletariat, built up
+with so much labour…. The counter-revolutionary plotters are planning
+to take advantage of this insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open
+the front to Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly…. Stick
+stubbornly to your posts! Do not come out!
+
+On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev, a
+little man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He was not
+at all sure that enough delegates would come. “If there _is_ a
+Congress,” he said, “it will represent the overwhelming sentiment of
+the people. If the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be, we
+shall demand that the power be given to the Soviets, and the
+Provisional Government must resign….”
+
+Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion, was
+more definite. “The ‘Lieber-Dans’ and the other compromisers are
+sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its
+meeting,—well, then we are realists enough not to depend on _that!_”
+
+Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the following
+items culled from the newspapers of the day:
+
+Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal
+Guard Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.
+
+The _yunkers_ of the Officers’ Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo and
+Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to Petrograd.
+Oranienbaum _yunkers_ arrive in the city.
+
+Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed in
+the Winter Palace.
+
+
+Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by the
+Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the Petrograd
+workmen.
+
+At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a
+resolution demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.
+
+This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days,
+when everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody knew
+just what.
+
+At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October
+30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the
+Soviet contemplated armed insurention as “an attempt of the
+reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets…. The
+Petrograd Soviet,” he declared, “had not ordered any _uystuplennie._ If
+it is necessary we shall do so, and we will be supported by the
+Petrogruad garrison…. They (the Government) are preparing a
+counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an offensive which will be
+merciless and decisive.”
+
+It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a demonstration,
+but the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was considering the
+question of insurrection. All night long the 23d they met. There were
+present all the party intellectuals, the leaders—and delegates of the
+Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone of the intellectuals Lenin and
+Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even the military men opposed it. A
+vote was taken. Insurrection was defeated!
+
+Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. “I speak for
+the Petrograd proletariat,” he said, harshly. “We are in favour of
+insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you
+allow the Soviets to be destroyed, _we’re through with you!_” Some
+soldiers joined him…. And after that they voted again—insurrection
+won….
+
+However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev
+and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the
+morning of October 31st appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ the first instalment
+of Lenin’s “Letter to the Comrades,” (See App. II, Sect. 11) one of the
+most audacious pieces of political propaganda the world has ever seen.
+In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments in favour of
+insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev and Riazonov.
+
+“Either we must abandon our slogan, ‘All Power to the Soviets,’” he
+wrote, “or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle
+course….”
+
+That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a
+brilliant, bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of the
+Republic, branding the Skobeliev _nakaz_ as pro-German, declaring that
+the “revolutionary democracy” was destroying Russia, sneering at
+Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred German diplomacy
+to Russian…. The Left benches were one roaring tumult all through….
+
+On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the
+success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of
+the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two
+laws, one for giving the land temporarily to the peasants, and the
+other for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. The next day
+Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the army. That same afternoon
+was opened with great ceremony the first session of the new “Commission
+for Strengthening the Republican Régime and Fighting Against Anarchy
+and Counter-Revolution”—of which history shows not the slightest
+further trace…. The following morning with two other correspondents I
+interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)—the last time he received
+journalists.
+
+“The Russian people,” he said, bitterly, “are suffering from economic
+fatigue—and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world thinks that
+the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken. The Russian
+Revolution is just beginning….” Words more prophetic, perhaps, than he
+knew.
+
+Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of
+October, at which I was present. The “moderate” Socialist
+intellectuals, officers, members of Army Committees, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+were there in force. Against them rose up workmen, peasants and common
+soldiers, passionate and simple.
+
+A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused by
+the arrest of the Land Committees. “This Kerensky is nothing but a
+shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners),” he cried. “They know that
+at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so they are
+trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!”
+
+A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
+were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that there
+was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he declared,
+had discovered huge hidden supplies.
+
+“It is a _provocatzia,”_ said he. “They want to starve us—or drive us
+to violence!”
+
+Among the soldiers one began, “Comrades! I bring you greetings from the
+place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!”
+
+Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with a
+roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
+fighting, and now risen from the dead.
+
+“The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
+Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed us….
+The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be held
+exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone it will
+be cursed—and not only platonic curses either, for the Army has guns
+too….”
+
+He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in the
+Fifth Army. “The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the
+Bolsheviki. Our papers are not allowed to circulate in the trenches.
+Our speakers are arrested—”
+
+“Why don’t you speak about the lack of bread?” shouted another soldier.
+
+“Man shall not live by bread alone,” answered Tchudnovsky, sternly….
+
+Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a Menshevik
+_oboronetz._ “It isn’t the question of who has the power. The trouble
+is not with the Government, but with the war…. and the war must be won
+before any change—” At this, hoots and ironical cheers. “These
+Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!” The hall rocked with laughter.
+“Let us for a moment forget the class struggle—” But he got no farther.
+A voice yelled, “Don’t you wish we would!”
+
+Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the factories
+the committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles, couriers came
+and went, the Red Guard[10] drilled…. In all the barracks meetings
+every night, and all day long interminable hot arguments. On the
+streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy evening, pouring in slow
+voluble tides up and down the Nevsky, fighting for the newspapers….
+Hold-ups increased to such an extent that it was dangerous to walk down
+side streets…. On the Sadovaya one afternoon I saw a crowd of several
+hundred people beat and trample to death a soldier caught stealing….
+Mysterious individuals circulated around the shivering women who waited
+in _queue_ long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews
+had cornered the food supply—and that while the people starved, the
+Soviet members lived luxuriously….
+
+[10] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates,
+demanding everybody’s pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed all
+day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the floor,
+wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a thousand
+people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd Soviet….
+
+Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with champagne
+flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the centre of the city
+at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down,
+crowded the cafés….
+
+Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes….
+
+And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under grey
+skies rushing faster and faster toward—what?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+On the Eve
+
+
+In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there
+comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses,
+and every refusal to act excites their contempt….
+
+The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky’s public
+denial that the Government had any such intention was met with hoots of
+derision.
+
+Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried _Rabotchi
+Put),_ the Government of “provisional” bourgeois tries to get free by
+giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
+Petrograd, and that it didn’t wish to surrender the capital….
+
+In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the preamble
+of the I. W. W. constitution: “The working class and the employing
+class have nothing in common.” Dispersed by Cossacks, some were locked
+out by the mine-owners, and the rest declared a general strike.
+Minister of Commerce and Industry Konovalov appointed his assistant,
+Orlov, with plenary powers, to settle the trouble. Orlov was hated by
+the miners. But the _Tsay-ee-kah_ not only supported his appointment,
+but refused to demand that the Cossacks be recalled from the Don
+Basin….
+
+This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The
+Bolsheviki, having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some
+political prisoners. With the sanction of the Government Commissar the
+Municipal Duma called in troops from Minsk, and bombarded the Soviet
+headquarters with artillery. The Bolsheviki yielded, but as they left
+the building Cossacks attacked them, crying, “This is what we’ll do to
+all the other Bolshevik Soviets, including those of Moscow and
+Petrograd!” This incident sent a wave of panic rage throughout Russia….
+
+In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North,
+presided over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it
+resolved that all power should be assumed by the All-Russian Congress;
+and concluded by greeting the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding them
+rejoice, for the hour of their liberation was at hand. At the same time
+the first All-Russian Conference of Factory-Shop Committees (See App.
+III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the Soviets, and continued
+significantly,
+
+After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the working-class
+wants to see the democratic régime triumphant in the sphere of its
+productive activity. This is best expressed by Workers’ Control over
+industrial production, which naturally arose in the atmosphere of
+economic decomposition created by the criminal policy of the dominating
+classes….
+
+The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky,
+Minister of Ways and Communications….
+
+In the name of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Skobeliev insisted that the _nakaz_
+be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against
+the sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign….
+
+General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the
+army, only came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals….
+
+On November 3d Burtzev’s _Obshtchee Dielo_ came out with great
+headlines:
+
+Citizens! Save the fatherland!
+
+I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission for
+National Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the
+principal persons responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to
+sign a separate peace, independently of the Allies.
+
+That is treason to Russia!
+
+Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even
+examined Verkhovsky’s proposition.
+
+“You might think,” said Terestchenko, “that we were in a madhouse!”
+
+The members of the Commission were astounded at the General’s words.
+
+General Alexeyev wept.
+
+No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!
+
+Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us
+concerning the words of Verkhovsky.
+
+Citizens, arise!
+
+Russia is being sold!
+
+Save her!
+
+What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to
+offer peace, because the Russian army could fight no longer….
+
+Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky was
+given “indefinite leave of absence for ill-health,” and left the
+Government. _Obshtchee Dielo_ was suppressed….
+
+Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd
+Soviet, with immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly to
+raise money for the organisation and the press; really, to make a
+demonstration of strength. Suddenly it was announced that on the same
+day the Cossacks would hold a _Krestny Khod_—Procession of the Cross—in
+honour of the Ikon of 1612, through whose miraculous intervention
+Napoleon had been driven from Moscow. The atmosphere was electric; a
+spark might kindle civil war. The Petrograd Soviet issued a manifesto,
+headed “Brothers—Cossacks!”
+
+You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers. This
+plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies, the
+oppressors, the privileged classes—generals, bankers, landlords, former
+officials, former servants of the Tsar…. We are hated by all grafters,
+rich men, princes, nobles, generals, including your Cossack generals.
+They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd Soviet and crush
+the Revolution….
+
+On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious
+procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every
+individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession. We
+do not interfere in this matter, nor do we obstruct anybody…. However,
+we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the pretext of
+a _Krestni Khod,_ your Kaledins do not instigate you against workmen,
+against soldiers….
+
+The procession was hastily called off….
+
+In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the
+Bolsheviki were preaching, “All Power to the Soviets!” and agents of
+the Dark Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the Jews,
+shop-keepers, Socialist leaders….
+
+On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression—on the
+other Lenin’s great voice roaring, “Insurrection!…. We cannot wait any
+longer!”
+
+Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2) _Birjevya
+Viedomosti_ (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik propaganda an
+attack on “the most elementary principles of society—personal security
+and the respect for private property.”
+
+[Graphic, page 46: Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their
+_Krestny Khod_—the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
+calendar). “Brothers—Cossacks!” it begins. “The Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies addresses you.”
+
+But it was the “moderate” Socialist journals which were the most
+hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) “The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous
+enemies of the Revolution,” declared _Dielo Naroda._ Said the Menshevik
+_Dien,_ “The Government ought to defend itself and defend us.”
+Plekhanov’s paper, _Yedinstvo_ (Unity) (See App. III, Sect. 4), called
+the attention of the Government to the fact that the Petrograd workers
+were being armed, and demanded stern measures against the Bolsheviki.
+
+Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the Municipal
+administration broke down. The columns of the morning papers were
+filled with accounts of the most audacious robberies and murders, and
+the criminals were unmolested.
+
+On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing
+battle with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found them.
+
+On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of
+Petrograd, issued a proclamation:
+
+Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing,
+irresponsible appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still
+being spread around Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and disorder
+increase.
+
+This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and
+hinders the systematic work of the Government and the Municipal
+Institutions.
+
+In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my
+country, I command:
+
+1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and
+within the territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to the
+Municipality, to the Commissars, and to the militia, in the guarding of
+Government institutions.
+
+2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District
+Commander and the representatives of the city militia, and the taking
+of measures for the arrest of criminals and deserters.
+
+3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
+demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters of
+the Second Commander of the city.
+
+4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all
+armed forces at hand.
+
+5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted
+searches in houses and unwarranted arrests.
+
+6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under charge
+to the Staff of the Petrograd Military District.
+
+I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their help
+to the commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they are
+charged.
+
+In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government
+was fully aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient force
+to cope with any demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He accused
+_Novaya Rus_ and _Robotchi Put_ of both doing the same kind of
+subversive work. “But owing to the absolute freedom of the press,” he
+added, “the Government is not in a position to combat printed
+lies.[11]….” Declaring that these were two aspects of the same
+propaganda, which had for its object the counter-revolution, so
+ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:
+
+“I am a doomed man, it doesn’t matter what happens to me, and I have
+the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
+unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!”
+
+[11] This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had
+suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to do so
+again.
+
+On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had
+arrived. Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a
+hundred and seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were
+Bolsheviki…. Four hundred constituted a quorum, and the Congress was
+only three days off….
+
+I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get
+in. Double rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside
+the front door there was a long line of people waiting to be let in,
+four at a time, to be questioned as to their identity and their
+business. Passes were given out, and the pass system was changed every
+few hours; for spies continually sneaked through….
+
+[Graphic, page 49: Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]
+
+Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)
+
+  Military Revolutionary Committee
+           attached to the
+  Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D.
+        Commandant’s office
+  16th November, 1917
+               No. 955
+           Smolny Institute
+
+PASS
+
+
+Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of the American
+Socialist press, until December 1, the right of free entry into Smolny
+Institute. Commandant Adjutant
+
+One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife just
+ahead of me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched through
+his pockets, but could find no pass.
+
+“Never mind,” he said finally. “You know me. My name is Trotzky.”
+
+“You haven’t got a pass,” answered the soldier stubbornly.
+
+“You cannot go in. Names don’t mean anything to me.”
+
+“But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet.”
+
+“Well,” replied the soldier, “if you’re as important a fellow as that
+you must at least have one little paper.”
+
+Trotzky was very patient. “Let me see the Commandant,” he said. The
+soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb the
+Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally to the
+soldier in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to him. “My
+name is Trotzky,” he repeated.
+
+“Trotzky?” The other soldier scratched his head. “I’ve heard the name
+somewhere,” he said at length. “I guess it’s all right. You can go on
+in, comrade….”
+
+In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, who explained to me what the new Government would be like.
+
+“A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed
+through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the
+Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic
+will, just as the Tsar’s Government did. The initiative of the new
+society shall come from below…. The form of the Government will be
+modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
+Party. The new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ responsible to frequent meetings of the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the parliament; the various
+Ministries will be headed by _collegia_—committees—instead of by
+Ministers, and will be directly responsible to the Soviets….”
+
+On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in the
+attic of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room he sat
+on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were necessary;
+he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The substance of
+his talk, in his own words, I give here:
+
+“The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is
+in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with
+the _oborontsi_ parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees revolts
+of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land; and all
+over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is
+evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only possible by means
+of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way by which the
+bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the bourgeoisie lacks….
+The Army is with us. The conciliators and pacifists, Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all authority—because the
+struggle between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers
+and the employers, between the soldiers and the officers, has become
+more bitter, more irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted
+action of the popular mass, only by the victory of proletarian
+dictatorship, can the Revolution be achieved and the people saved….
+
+“The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people—perfect
+in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and objects. Based
+directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in the factories,
+and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the
+Revolution.
+
+“There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets—and
+only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of
+all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of the
+Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution
+militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the
+people. Between the two camps there are no groups of serious
+importance…. It is the _lutte finale._ The bourgeois counter-revolution
+organises all its forces and waits for the moment to attack us. Our
+answer will be decisive. We will complete the work scarcely begun in
+March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair….”
+
+He went on to speak of the new Government’s foreign policy:
+
+“Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all
+fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace terms.
+The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement depends on the
+quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create
+here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for
+immediate peace in Europe; for this Government will address itself
+directly and immediately to all peoples, over the heads of their
+Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of the conclusion of
+peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the direction
+of ‘no annexations, no indemnities, the right of self-determination of
+peoples,’ and a _Federated Republic of Europe._…
+
+“At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats,
+but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe—the United
+States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer
+suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national
+frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then
+Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of
+Europe can give peace to the world.” He smiled—that fine, faintly
+ironical smile of his. “But without the action of the European masses,
+these ends cannot be realised—now….”
+
+Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly
+on the streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white
+collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and
+openly.
+
+The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to
+the front.
+
+The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had taken
+a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned the tide
+in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies,
+and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
+
+Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional
+Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd garrison
+which answered, “If you are not capable of defending the capital,
+conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and make room for
+a People’s Government which can do both….”
+
+It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the
+attitude of the Petrograd garrison. The Government’s plan was to
+replace the garrison regiments with “dependable” troops—Cossacks, Death
+Battalions. The Army Committees, the “moderate” Socialists and the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation was
+carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact that for
+eight months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy life in
+the barracks of the capital, while their exhausted comrades in the
+trenches starved and died.
+
+Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison
+regiments were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for the
+hardships of a winter campaign. But there were other reasons why they
+refused to go. The Petrograd Soviet feared the Government’s intentions,
+and from the Front came hundreds of delegates, chosen by the common
+soldiers, crying, “It is true we need reinforcements, but more
+important, we must know that Petrograd and the Revolution are
+well-guarded…. Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we will hold the
+front!”
+
+On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the
+Petrograd Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military
+Committee to decide the whole question. The next day a meeting of the
+Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which
+immediately proclaimed a boycott of the bourgeois newspapers, and
+condemned the _Tsay-ee-kah_ for opposing the Congress of Soviets. On
+the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky proposed
+that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+“We ought,” he said, “to create our special organisation to march to
+battle, and if necessary to die….” It was decided to send to the front
+two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from the garrison, to
+confer with the Soldiers’ Committees and the General Staff.
+
+At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov,
+commander of the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he had
+ordered the Petrograd garrison to the trenches, and that was all. The
+garrison committee was not allowed to leave Petrograd….
+
+A delegation of the Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked
+that a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd
+District. Refused. The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be
+issued without the approval of the Soldiers’ Section. Refused. The
+delegates were roughly told, “We only recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah._ We
+do not recognise you; if you break any laws, we shall arrest you.”
+
+On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd regiments
+passed a resolution: _“The Petrograd garrison no longer recognises the
+Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our Government. We will
+obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet, through the Military
+Revolutionary Committee.”_ The local military units were ordered to
+wait for instructions from the Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd
+Soviet.
+
+Next day the _Tsay-ee-kah_ summoned its own meeting, composed largely
+of officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and
+detailed Commissars in all quarters of the city.
+
+A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:
+
+Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the
+Petrograd garrison promises it complete support in all its actions, to
+unite more closely the front and the rear in the interests of the
+Revolution.
+
+The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary proletariat
+it assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in Petrograd. Every
+attempt at provocation on the part of the Kornilovtsi or the
+bourgeoisie will be met with merciless resistance.
+
+Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+peremptorily summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control. To
+all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or
+proclamations without the Committee’s authorisation. Armed Commissars
+visited the Kronversk arsenal and seized great quantities of arms and
+ammunition, halting a shipment of ten thousand bayonets which was being
+sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of Kaledin….
+
+Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the
+Committee would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky
+himself sent Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on
+the Staff. The Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour later
+General Manikovsky, acting Minister of war, countermanded the offer….
+
+Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by
+the appearance of a placard signed, “Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.”
+
+To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are
+mobilising their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets and break the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the
+_pogromists_ may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for
+trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the
+city against counter-revolutionary and _pogrom_ attempts.
+
+The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The
+population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators
+and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At the
+first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets of
+Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be wiped off
+the face of the earth!
+
+Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and
+self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
+
+List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee….
+
+On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting
+behind closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor
+outside the door; and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was going
+on.
+
+Lenin spoke: “November 6th will be too early. We must have an
+all-Russian basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to
+the Congress will not have arrived…. On the other hand, November 8th
+will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it
+is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift,
+decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets, so
+that we may say to it, ‘Here is the power! What are you going to do
+with it?’”
+
+In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual,
+once an officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and
+exile, a certain Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and
+chess-player; he was drawing careful plans for the seizure of the
+capital.
+
+On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of
+the most loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were ordered
+to Petrograd. The _yunker_ artillery was drawn into the Winter Palace.
+Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance in the streets, for the first
+time since the July days. Polkovnikov issued order after order,
+threatening to repress all insubordination with the “utmost energy.”
+Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the worst-hated member of the
+Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to keep order in Petrograd; he
+named as assistants two men no less unpopular, Rutenburg and
+Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and Finland were declared in a state
+of siege—upon which the bourgeois _Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked
+ironically:
+
+Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has no
+moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to use
+force…. In the most favourable circumstances it can only negotiate with
+any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no farther….
+
+Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to see
+what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic. Bitter
+debate on Terestchenko’s foreign policy. Echoes of the
+Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the Italian
+ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso disaster….
+
+As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
+aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, “The remedy for
+Bolshevism is bullets!” Turning to the Cadets he cried, “That’s what
+_you_ think, too!”
+
+Voices from the Right, “Yes! Yes!”
+
+“Yes, I know you think so,” answered Karelin, hotly. “But you haven’t
+the courage to try it!”
+
+Then Skobeliev, looking like a matinée idol with his soft blond beard
+and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
+_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
+“Resignation! Resignation!” He insisted that the delegates of the
+Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common point
+of view—his own. A few words about the restoration of discipline in the
+army, about war to victory…. Tumult, and over the stubborn opposition
+of the truculent Left, the Council of the Republic passed to the simple
+order of the day.
+
+There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats—empty since that first day
+when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I went
+down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter wrangling,
+no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate this high,
+cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was wrecked—on the same
+rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the Miliukov Ministry…. The
+doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, “I don’t know what is becoming
+of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and Bolsheviki and Trudoviki….
+This Ukraine and this Finland and the German imperialists and the
+English imperialists. I am forty-five years old, and in all my life I
+never heard so many words as in this place….”
+
+In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
+dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet party.
+I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
+_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.
+
+“They are cattle—_canaille,”_ he answered. “They will not dare, or if
+they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it will
+not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power in the
+Constituent Assembly….
+
+“But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
+Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
+chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with
+the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional project…. We
+will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such as you have in
+the United States. In the lower chamber will be territorial
+representatives; in the upper, representatives of the liberal
+professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives—and Trade Unions….”
+
+Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud
+underfoot soaked through my shoes. Two companies of _yunkers_ passed
+swinging up the Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and
+singing an oldtime crashing chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing
+under the Tsar…. At the first cross-street I noticed that the City
+Militiamen were mounted, and armed with revolvers in bright new
+holsters; a little group of people stood silently staring at them. At
+the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin, “Will the
+Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?” paying for it with one of the
+stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars crawled
+past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
+Theodore P. Shonts green with envy…. Along the sidewalk a row of
+deserters in uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds….
+
+Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the latest
+papers, and knots of people were trying to make out the multitudes of
+appeals (See App. III, Sect. 6) and proclamations pasted in every flat
+place; from the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Peasants’ Soviets, the “moderate”
+Socialist parties, the Army Committees—threatening, cursing, beseeching
+the workers and soldiers to stay home, to support the Government….
+
+An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On
+every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing
+soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the wide-spaced
+street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed endlessly…. It
+is always like that in Petrograd just before trouble….
+
+The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no sign
+from the Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the workmen
+in the factories…. We went to a moving picture show near the Kazan
+Cathedral—a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down front
+were some soldiers and sailors, staring at the screen in childlike
+wonder, totally unable to comprehend why there should be so much
+violent running about, and so much homicide….
+
+From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the
+Military Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the
+chairmanship of a tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He
+stopped, as he passed, to shake hands rather bashfully.
+
+“Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us,” said he, with a pleased
+grin. “A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was ordered by the
+Government to come to Petrograd. The men were suspicious, so they
+stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a delegation to us. ‘What’s the
+matter?’ they asked. ‘What have you got to say? We have just passed a
+resolution, “All Power to the Soviets.”’… The Military Revolutionary
+Committee sent back word, ‘Brothers! We greet you in the name of the
+Revolution. Stay where you are until further instructions!’”
+
+All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the
+factories and barracks was established by means of military
+telephonograph apparatus….
+
+A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the
+door waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest
+quarters of the city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform of
+a lieutenant, said in French, “Everything is ready to move at the push
+of a button….”
+
+There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain
+conceived the strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar
+filthy, drunk with loss of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced
+soldier, always smiling, with his violent gestures and tumbling speech;
+and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor with the placid face. These were
+the men of the hour—and of other hours to come.
+
+Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov,
+signing orders on the Government Arsenal for arms—one hundred and fifty
+rifles for each factory…. Delegates waited in line, forty of them….
+
+In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One showed
+me a revolver. “The game is on,” he said, and his face was pale.
+“Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us or be
+finished….”
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the
+great hall Trotzky was just finishing.
+
+“We are asked,” he said, “if we intend to have a _vystuplennie._ I can
+give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd Soviet feels that
+at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the hands
+of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be accomplished by the
+All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed demonstration is necessary will
+depend on… those who wish to interfere with the All-Russian Congress….
+
+“We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
+Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only
+awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really
+popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now,
+to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take… into its hands
+that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom of the
+people. If, however, the Government wants to utilise the short period
+it is expected to live—twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two
+hours—to attack us, then we shall answer with counter-attacks, blow for
+blow, steel for iron!”
+
+Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had
+agreed to send representatives into the Military Revolutionary
+Committee….
+
+As I left Smolny, at three o’clock in the morning, I noticed that two
+rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and
+that strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by
+street-corners. Bill Shatov[12] came bounding up the steps. “Well,” he
+cried, “We’re off! Kerensky sent the _yunkers_ to close down our
+papers, _Soldat_ and _Rabotchi Put._ But our troops went down and
+smashed the Government seals, and now we’re sending detachments to
+seize the bourgeois newspaper offices!” Exultantly he slapped me on the
+shoulder, and ran in….
+
+[12] Well known in the American labor movement.
+
+On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose office
+was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the walls,
+hysterical appeals to the people to remain “calm.” Polkovnikov emitted
+_prikaz_ after _prikaz:_
+
+I order all military units and detachments to remain in their barracks
+until further orders from the Staff of the Military District…. All
+officers who act without orders from their superiors will be
+court-martialled for mutiny. I forbid absolutely any execution by
+soldiers of instructions from other organisations….
+
+The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the
+papers _Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat,_ and
+decreed the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the
+members of the Military Revolutionary Committee….
+
+As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of _yunker_ artillery
+came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up before the
+Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was unusually
+animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the door, and
+motors full of officers were coming and going…. The censor was very
+much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he said, had just
+gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his resignation. I hurried
+down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the end of that passionate and
+almost incoherent speech of Kerensky’s, full of self-justification and
+bitter denunciation of his enemies.
+
+“I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series
+of articles published in _Rabotchi Put_ by Ulianov-Lenin, a state
+criminal who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find…. This state
+criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to
+repeat the experience of the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the
+immediate necessity for an armed rising…. Moreover, other Bolshevik
+leaders have taken the floor in a series of meetings, and also made an
+appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly should be noticed the
+activity of the present president of the Petrograd Soviet,
+Bronstein-Trotzky….
+
+“I ought to bring to your notice… that the expressions and the style of
+a whole series of articles in _Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ resemble
+absolutely those of _Novaya Rus…._ We have to do not so much with the
+movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation of
+the political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the
+population, a sort of organisation whose object it is to provoke in
+Russia, cost what it may, an inconscient movement of destruction and
+pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at
+Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, which will
+cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia….
+
+“… By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
+extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very
+favourable.” (Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin’s
+article.):
+
+Think of it!… The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without
+newspapers, without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet…. They are
+opposed by the incredible hostility of all classes of society—and yet
+the German comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of newspapers,
+freedom of meeting, the majority of the Soviets, we, the best-placed
+international proletarians of the entire world, can we refuse to
+support the German revolutionists and insurrectionary organisations?…
+
+Kerensky then continued:
+
+“The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
+perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain now
+in Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head of
+which is, in the eyes of this party, ‘a usurper and a man who has sold
+himself to the bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky….’
+
+“… The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
+German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they open
+the Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends…. Little
+matter to the Provisional Government the motives of these people,
+little matter if they act consciously or unconsciously; but in any
+case, from this tribune, in full consciousness of my responsibility, I
+quality such acts of a Russian political party as acts of treason to
+Russia!
+
+“… I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
+immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
+arrests.” (Uproar from the Left.) “Listen to me!” he cried in a
+powerful voice. “At the moment when the state is in danger, because of
+conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and
+myself among others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life,
+the honour and the independence of Russia….”
+
+At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.
+
+“I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to
+the regiments. Here is the contents.” Reading: _“‘The Petrograd Soviet
+of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies is menaced. We order immediately the
+regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await new orders. All
+delay or non-execution of this order will be considered as an act of
+treason to the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee. For
+the President, Podvoisky. The Secretary, Antonov.’_
+
+“In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
+existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the
+front to the regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm….
+
+“I say ‘populace’ intentionally, because the conscious democracy and
+its _Tsay-ee-kah,_ all the Army organisations, all that free Russia
+glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
+Russian democracy, protests against these things….
+
+“I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction
+that the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
+liberty—that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future,
+will find unanimous support except among those who have never dared to
+face the truth….
+
+“… The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
+citizens of the State to use their political rights…. But now the
+Provisional Government…. declares: in this moment those elements of the
+Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift their
+hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same time
+threatening to open the front to Germany, must be liquidated with
+decision!…
+
+“Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a
+firm power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and
+honour will triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them….”
+
+All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When the
+Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with
+perspiration, and strode out with his suite of officers, speaker after
+speaker from the Left and Centre attacked the Right, all one angry
+roaring. Even the Socialist Revolutionaries, through Gotz:
+
+“The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
+exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series of
+popular demands which have received no satisfaction up to now…. The
+questions of peace, land and the democratization of the army ought to
+be stated in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant or worker would
+have the least doubt that our Government is attempting, firmly and
+infallibly, to solve them….
+
+“We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are
+ready to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to the
+last drop of our blood—if only the Provisional Government, on all these
+burning questions, will speak the clear and precise words awaited by
+the people with such impatience….”
+
+Then Martov, furious:
+
+“The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
+‘populace’ when it is question of the movement of important sections of
+the proletariat and the army—although led in the wrong direction—are
+nothing but an incitement to civil war.”
+
+The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted
+practically to a vote of lack of confidence.
+
+1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days past
+has for its object a _coup d’etat,_ threatens to provoke civil war,
+creates conditions favourable to _pogroms_ and counterrevolution, the
+mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces, such as the Black
+Hundreds, which will inevitably bring about the impossibility of
+convoking the Constituent, will cause a military catastrophe, the death
+of the Revolution, paralyse the economic life of the country and
+destroy Russia;
+
+2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by
+delay in passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions
+caused by the war and the general disorder. It is necessary before
+everything to promulgate at once a decree transmitting the land to the
+peasants’ Land Committees, and to adopt an energetic course of action
+abroad in proposing to the Allies to proclaim their peace terms and to
+begin peace-parleys;
+
+3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and _pogromist_ movements, it
+is indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these
+movements, and for this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of
+Public Safety, composed of representatives of the Municipality and the
+organs of the revolutionary democracy, acting in contact with the
+Provisional Government….
+
+It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries all rallied to this resolution…. When Kerensky saw it,
+however, he summoned Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain. If it
+expressed a lack of confidence in the Provisional Government, he begged
+Avksentiev to form a new Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev, the leaders
+of the “compromisers,” performed their last compromise…. They explained
+to Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of the Government!
+
+At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with
+fixed bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the
+occupants, and ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd
+had gathered to watch them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged
+to the Government or the Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in front
+of the Kazan Cathedral the same thing was happening, machines being
+directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six sailors with rifles came
+along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation with two of the
+soldiers. On the sailors’ hat bands were _Avrora_ and _Zaria
+Svobody,_—the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic
+Fleet. One of them said, “Cronstadt is coming!”… It was as if, in 1792,
+on the streets of Paris, some one had said: “The Marseillais are
+coming!” For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors, convinced
+Bolsheviki and not afraid to die….
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ was just out, all its front page one huge
+proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!
+
+The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The
+Kornilovists of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs
+_yunkers_ and volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum _yunkers_ and the
+Tsarskoye Selo volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high treason
+is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet…. The campaign of
+the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets on the eve of its opening, against the Constituent
+Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is guarding the
+Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is directing the
+repulse of the conspirators’ attack. The entire garrison and
+proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of the people a
+crushing blow.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:
+
+1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with
+the Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall meet
+in continuous session, concentrating in their hands all information
+about the plans of the conspirators.
+
+2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
+Committee.
+
+3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit and
+five from each Ward Soviet.
+
+4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the
+All-Russian Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an
+extraordinary meeting.
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.
+
+A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers
+and workers.
+
+But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.
+
+The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be
+crushed.
+
+No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline,
+determination!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of
+storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to
+take part in the debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six,
+eight, twelve hours a day….
+
+I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik delegates
+were holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the speaker hidden
+by the crowd: “The compromisers say that we are isolated. Pay no
+attention to them. Once it begins they must be dragged along with us,
+or else lose their following….”
+
+Here he held up a piece of paper. “We are dragging them! A message has
+just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They say
+that they condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks us
+they will not oppose the cause of the proletariat!” Exultant shouting….
+
+As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a
+monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that new
+Congress which would mean its own ruin—and perhaps the ruin of the
+revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only
+members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ could vote….
+
+It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak,
+in a tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.
+
+“The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours,” he
+said. “The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
+democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await
+bloodshed in the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to
+destroy, not only our homogeneous Government, but the Revolution
+itself….
+
+“The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
+Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of
+the Revolution…” (Cries, “That’s a lie!)” “The counter-revolutionists
+are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and massacres…. If there
+is any _vystuplennie,_ there will be no Constituent Assembly….” (Cries,
+“Lie! Shame!”)
+
+“It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the
+Petrograd garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff…. You
+must obey the orders of the Staff and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ elected by
+you. All Power to the Soviets—that means death! Robbers and thieves are
+waiting for the moment to loot and burn…. When you have such slogans
+put before you, ‘Enter the houses, take away the shoes and clothes from
+the bourgeoisie—’” (Tumult. Cries, “No such slogan! A lie! A lie!”)
+“Well, it may start differently, but it will end that way!
+
+“The _Tsay-ee-kah_ has full power to act, and must be obeyed…. We are
+not afraid of bayonets…. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ will defend the Revolution
+with its body….” (Cries, “It was a dead body long ago!”)
+
+Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard screaming,
+as he pounded the desk, “Those who are urging this are committing a
+crime!”
+
+Voice: “You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power and
+turned it over to the bourgeoisie!”
+
+Gotz, ringing the chairman’s bell: “Silence, or I’ll have you put out!”
+
+Voice: “Try it!” (Cheers and whistling.)
+
+“Now concerning our policy about peace.” (Laughter.) “Unfortunately
+Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war. There is
+going to be peace, but not permanent peace—not a democratic peace….
+To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed, we
+passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to the
+Land Committees and immediate peace negotiations….” (Laughter, and
+cries, “Too late!”)
+
+Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave
+of roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house,
+thunderous. His thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in
+its expression of malicious irony.
+
+“Dan’s tactics prove that the masses—the great, dull, indifferent
+masses—are absolutely with him!” (Titantic mirth.) He turned toward the
+chairman, dramatically. “When we spoke of giving the land to the
+peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, ‘If they don’t
+give it to you, take it yourselves!’ and the peasants followed our
+advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago….
+
+“I don’t think Kerensky’s order to suspend the death penalty in the
+army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by the
+Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him….
+
+“To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
+Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik…. The time may come
+when Dan will say that the flower of the Revolution participated in the
+rising of July 16th and 18th…. In Dan’s resolution to-day at the
+Council of the Republic there was no mention of enforcing discipline in
+the army, although that is urged in the propaganda of his party….
+
+“No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have
+left the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries
+conquered the Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it to
+the Cadets….
+
+“Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
+Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the down-trodden
+masses revolt, it is their right….”
+
+Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
+laughter.
+
+“Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
+until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this…. the
+seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the Revolution….
+Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself opposed to what he
+is now advocating….” (Cries, “Enough! Down with him!”)
+
+Martov, constantly interrupted: “The Internationalists are not opposed
+to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they disapprove of
+the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment to seize the
+power….”
+
+Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
+seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
+uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
+Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the hall,
+shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government….
+
+Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
+the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
+provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
+creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
+Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
+peasants and beginning peace negotiations….
+
+Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ on
+the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of the
+Congress. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ was practically dead, he said, and the
+resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power….
+
+“As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!” Whereupon
+all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was passed….
+
+Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle slung
+from his shoulder.
+
+“We’re moving!” (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but with
+satisfaction. “We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
+Minister of Religions. They’re down cellar now. One regiment is on the
+march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph Agency,
+another the State Bank. The Red Guard is out….”
+
+On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red Guard—a
+huddled group of boys in workmen’s clothes, carrying guns with
+bayonets, talking nervously together.
+
+Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle
+fire, where the _yunkers_ were trying to open the bridges over the
+Neva, to prevent the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg quarter
+from joining the Soviet forces in the centre of the city; and the
+Cronstadt sailors were closing them again….
+
+Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic
+hive….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+The Fall of the Provisional Government
+
+
+Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed from
+Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day. In front
+of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were standing at
+the closed gates.
+
+“What side do you belong to?” I asked. “The Government?”
+
+“No more Government,” one answered with a grin, “_Slava Bogu!_ Glory to
+God!” That was all I could get out of him….
+
+The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small boys
+hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed even
+less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the day
+before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had blossomed
+out on the walls during the night—to the peasants, to the soldiers at
+the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:
+
+FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
+
+
+The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
+meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public Safety,
+composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and representatives
+of the following revolutionary democratic organizations: The
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasant Deputies,
+the Army organisations, the _Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and
+others.
+
+Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
+building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
+
+November 7th, 1917.
+
+Though I didn’t realize it then, this was the Duma’s declaration of war
+against the Bolsheviki.
+
+I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed on
+sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a second-hand
+copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on large-sized sheets in
+the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_ had huge headlines: “ALL
+POWER—TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD!
+LAND!” The leading article was signed “Zinoviev,”—Lenin’s companion in
+hiding. It began:
+
+Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
+democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the present
+situation.
+
+Either—the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
+crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger and
+death….
+
+Or—the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
+workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
+complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
+capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
+assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
+workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
+nonsensical war!…
+
+_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
+capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
+Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the Cossacks
+undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of Chief of the
+City Militia Meyer; arrests, counter-arrests, skirmishes between
+clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red Guards. (See App. IV,
+Sect. 1)
+
+On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
+asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
+shoulders in a tired manner and replied, “_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
+knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they won’t
+be able to hold it more than three days. They haven’t the men to run a
+government. Perhaps it’s a good thing to let them try—that will furnish
+them….”
+
+The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac’s Square was picketed by
+armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young officers,
+walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors wouldn’t let
+them leave….
+
+Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
+scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
+around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian Republic
+met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of soldiers,
+rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.
+
+“_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!” snapped one, while another went running
+toward the door.
+
+At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a red
+flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: “S.R.S.D.” (_Soviet
+Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained toward St.
+Isaac’s. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth of Novaya
+Ulitza—boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile of lumber
+barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a neighbouring
+wood-pile were being built up along the front of the building to form
+breastworks….
+
+“Is there going to be any fighting?” I asked.
+
+“Soon, soon,” answered a soldier, nervously. “Go away, comrade, you’ll
+get hurt. They will come from that direction,” pointing toward the
+Admiralty.
+
+“Who will?”
+
+“That I couldn’t tell you, brother,” he answered, and spat.
+
+Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
+sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian Republic.
+“We walked in there,” he said, “and filled all the doors with comrades.
+I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz who sat in the
+president’s chair. ‘No more Council,’ I says. ‘Run along home now!’”
+
+There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get around
+to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling sailor
+stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, “If you were Saint
+Michael himself, comrade, you couldn’t pass here!” Through the glass of
+the door I made out the distorted face and gesticulating arms of a
+French correspondent, locked in….
+
+Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform of a
+general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in the face.
+
+“I am General Alexeyev,” he cried. “As your superior officer and as a
+member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to pass!”
+The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the corner of his
+eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew very agitated when
+he saw who it was and saluted before he realised what he was doing.
+
+“_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_—your High Excellency—” he stammered,
+in the manner of the old régime, “Access to the Palace is strictly
+forbidden—I have no right—”
+
+An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
+apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
+armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
+Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.
+
+“I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night,” said I, pointing
+to them.
+
+“Oh,” he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
+“The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
+minds….”
+
+Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn up,
+and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could reach.
+
+We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All the
+entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a cordon of
+troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by an uneasy
+throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who seemed to be
+carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it in front of the
+main gateway, everything was quiet.
+
+We couldn’t make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
+pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
+approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
+our American passports, saying “Official business!” and shouldered
+through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in their
+brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars, politely
+took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the dark, gloomy
+corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old attendants were
+lounging about, and in front of Kerensky’s door a young officer paced
+up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if we could interview the
+Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his heels.
+
+“No, I am sorry,” he replied in French. “Alexander Feodorvitch is
+extremely occupied just now….” He looked at us for a moment. “In fact,
+he is not here….”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
+there wasn’t enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to the
+English Hospital and borrow some.”
+
+“Are the Ministers here?”
+
+“They are meeting in some room—I don’t know where.’
+
+“Are the Bolsheviki coming?”
+
+“Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call every
+minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have _yunkers_
+in the front of the Palace. Through that door there.”
+
+“Can we go in there?”
+
+“No. Certainly not. It is not permitted.” Abruptly he shook hands all
+around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in a
+temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside. On the
+other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for that the vast
+spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An old _shveitzar_
+ran up. “No, _barin,_ you must not go in there.”
+
+“Why is the door locked?”
+
+“To keep the soldiers in,” he answered. After a few minutes he said
+something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
+unlocked the door.
+
+Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said nothing.
+At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with gilded
+cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several smaller
+ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the parquetted floor
+lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon which occasional
+soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a litter of
+cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with expensive
+French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps of
+the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of
+tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle of white
+Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace. They looked
+at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room after room,
+until at last we came out into a series of great state-salons, fronting
+their long and dirty windows on the Square. The walls were covered with
+huge canvases in massive gilt frames—historical battle-scenes…. “12
+October 1812” and “6 November 1812” and “16/28 August 1813.” … One had
+a gash across the upper right hand corner.
+
+The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
+from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
+window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.
+
+As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me from
+the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent French,
+“I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are foreigners.”
+He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he removed his cap.
+
+“Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs—Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
+absolutely at your service.” It did not seem to occur to him that there
+was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering through
+the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to complain of the
+state of Russia.
+
+“Not only these Bolsheviki,” he said, “but the fine traditions of the
+Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all students
+in the officers’ training schools. But are they gentlemen? Kerensky
+opened the officers’ schools to the ranks, to any soldier who could
+pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who are
+contaminated by the Revolution….”
+
+Without consequence he changed the subject. “I am very anxious to go
+away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
+Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
+you my address.” In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a piece
+of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
+still—“_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
+Peterhof._”
+
+“We had a review this morning early,” he went on, as he guided us
+through the rooms and explained everything. “The Women’s Battalion
+decided to remain loyal to the Government.”
+
+“Are the women soldiers in the Palace?”
+
+“Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won’t be hurt if any
+trouble comes.” He sighed. “It is a great responsibility,” said he.
+
+For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square before
+the Palace, where three companies of long-coated _yunkers_ were drawn
+up under arms, being harangued by a tall, energetic-looking officer I
+recognised as Stankievitch, chief Military Commissar of the Provisional
+Government. After a few minutes two of the companies shouldered arms
+with a clash, barked three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across
+the Square, disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.
+
+“They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange,” said some one.
+Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said they
+had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their names—Robert
+Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian. But now they
+didn’t want to be officers any more, because officers were very
+unpopular. They didn’t seem to know what to do, as a matter of fact,
+and it was plain that they were not happy.
+
+But soon they began to boast. “If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
+them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But if
+we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
+himself….”
+
+At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on the
+Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces, and
+the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
+direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
+grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, “Here they come! Here they
+come!” … But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The _izvoshtchiki_
+came back, the people lying down stood up. Through the Red Arch
+appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step, one of them
+supported by two comrades.
+
+It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the Square
+had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government buildings
+seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner, and right in
+the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face, came up and
+insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the back of the house,
+because they were going to put out the lights in the café. “There will
+be much shooting,” he said.
+
+When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
+one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
+stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
+pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing and
+was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and sailors
+stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked back up to the
+Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered staring at the
+brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud tones.
+
+“No, comrades,” one was saying. “How can we shoot at them? The Women’s
+Battalion is in there—they will say we have fired on Russian women.”
+
+As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
+corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
+
+“Come on!” he yelled. “Let’s go on through and attack!”
+
+The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
+above the roaring engine. “The Committee says to wait. They have got
+artillery behind the wood-piles in there….”
+
+Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and there
+were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams, the
+crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
+moving-picture shows—life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
+Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre—all theatres were open—but it was too
+exciting out of doors….
+
+In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
+Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers wheeling
+into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various uniforms were
+coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great deal of talking….
+
+Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
+corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
+Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
+street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their fists
+at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers argued
+feebly, with embarrassed grins…. Armoured cars went up and down the
+street, named after the first Tsars—Oleg, Rurik, Svietoslav—and daubed
+with huge red letters, “R. S. D. R. P.” _(Rossiskaya Partia_)[13]. At
+the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an armful of newspapers, and was
+immediately stormed by frantic people, offering a rouble, five roubles,
+ten roubles, tearing at each other like animals. It was _Rabotchi i
+Soldat,_ announcing the victory of the Proletarian Revolution, the
+liberation of the Bolsheviki still in prison, calling upon the Army
+front and rear for support… a feverish little sheet of four pages,
+running to enormous type, containing no news….
+
+[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
+
+On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had gathered,
+staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny red spark
+glowed and waned.
+
+“See!” said a tall peasant, pointing to it. “It is a provocator.
+Presently he will fire on the people….” Apparently no one thought of
+going to investigate.
+
+The massive façade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
+from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in
+the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
+elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying from
+the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the
+outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At the inner
+gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly
+spelled out our passes and looked us up and down. The canvas covers had
+been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway,
+and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd
+of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines
+going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder
+of feet, calling, shouting…. There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A
+crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and
+round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their
+shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_
+pinched flat, a leader or so—Lunatcharsky, Kameniev—hurrying along in
+the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
+and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of
+the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev—a quick moving little
+man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without
+preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution just passed:
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, saluting the
+victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
+particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
+complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
+less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
+well.
+
+The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers’ and
+Peasants’ Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be
+created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
+proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
+march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country can
+be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
+
+The new Workers’ and Peasants’ Government will propose immediately a
+just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
+
+It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
+the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen’s control over
+production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a
+general control over the banks, which it will transform into a state
+monopoly.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies calls upon the
+workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and
+all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its
+conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will
+assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of
+Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the
+countries of Western Europe will aid us in conducting the cause of
+Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
+
+“You consider it won then?”
+
+He lifted his shoulders. “There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
+just beginning….”
+
+On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
+looking black and biting his grey beard. “It’s insane! Insane!” he
+shouted. “The European working-class won’t move! All Russia—” He waved
+his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had both
+opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin’s terrible
+tongue….
+
+It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
+Government no longer existed.
+
+“The characteristic of bourgeois governments,” he said, “is to deceive
+the people. We, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
+Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are
+going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the
+needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants.”
+
+Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
+world-wide Social Revolution…. And Zinoviev, crying, “This day we have
+paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible
+blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and
+particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner….”
+
+Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the
+victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be
+marching against Petrograd—a delegation must be sent to tell them the
+truth.
+
+Cries, “You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets!”
+
+Trotzky, coldly, “The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has
+been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!”
+
+So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamorous
+mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers,
+packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every
+window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of
+the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or
+wild exultation the ringing of the chairman’s bell. There was no heat
+in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies. A foul blue
+cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air.
+Occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the
+comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry
+“Don’t smoke, comrades!” and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist
+delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him.
+Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights’ sleepless work
+on the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_—for the last
+time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the
+first days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of
+the first period of the Russian revolution, which these men had
+attempted to guide in careful ways…. The three greatest of them were
+not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country towns all
+doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had contemptuously
+retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with
+consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken,
+who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence
+for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido,
+Fillipovsky,—white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the
+second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over
+their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot,
+holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a
+long arm…. It was 10.40 P. M.
+
+Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon’s
+uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by
+the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door….
+
+“We have the power in our hands,” he began sadly, stopped for a moment,
+and then went on in a low voice. “Comrades! The Congress of Soviets in
+meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary
+moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it
+unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become
+much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a member of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our party comrades are in
+the Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute
+the duty put on them by the _Tsay-ee-kah.”_ (Confused uproar.)
+
+“I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies open!”
+
+The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
+Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was decided to
+base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to
+their feet protesting. A bearded soldier shouted at them, “Remember
+what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_ were the minority!” Result—14
+Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1
+Internationalist (Gorky’s group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre
+Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take part in the
+presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the
+Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain
+circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering
+applause and hoots. One voice, “Renegades, you call yourselves
+Socialists!” A representative of the Ukrainean delegates demanded, and
+received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped down, and in
+their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame
+Kollentai, Nogin…. The hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared,
+these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less than four months
+ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of
+insurrection!
+
+The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of Power;
+second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky,
+rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all factions, it
+was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet,
+then to give the floor to members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the
+different parties, and finally to pass to the order of the day.
+
+But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of
+the crowd, persistent, disquieting,—the dull shock of guns. People
+looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came
+over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, “The civil
+war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful
+settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint
+we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war. Our brothers
+are being shot down in the streets! At this moment, when before the
+opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of Power is being
+settled by means of a military plot organised by one of the
+revolutionary parties—” for a moment he could not make himself heard
+above the noise, “All of the revolutionary parties must face the fact!
+The first _vopros_ (question) before the Congress is the question of
+Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in
+the streets!… We must create a power which will be recognised by the
+whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the
+revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the
+developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst
+of counter-revolution…. The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in
+the formation of a united democratic authority…. We must elect a
+delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist parties and
+organisation….”
+
+Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and
+the delegates, screaming at each other…. So, with the crash of
+artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new
+Russia was being born.
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
+supported Martov’s proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
+that the All-Russian Peasants’ Soviets had refused to send delegates to
+the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
+invitation. “Some delegates are present,” he said. “I move that they be
+given votes.” Accepted.
+
+Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded the
+floor. “The political hypocrites who control this Congress,” he
+shouted, “told us we were to settle the question of Power—and it is
+being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
+being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
+the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party which
+has risked such an adventure!” Uproar. Followed him Gharra: “While we
+are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a battle on in the
+streets…. The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki refuse to be
+involved in what is happening, and call upon all public forces to
+resist the attempt to capture the power….” Kutchin, delegate of the
+12th Army and representative of the Troudoviki: “I was sent here only
+for information, and I am returning at once to the Front, where all the
+Army Committees consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only
+three weeks before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of
+the Army and a crime against the people—!” Shouts of “Lie! You lie!”…
+When he could be heard again, “Let’s make an end of this adventure in
+Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
+save the country and the Revolution!” As he went down the aisle in the
+midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him, threatening….
+Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee, speaking suavely
+and persuasively: “I speak for the delegates from the Front. The Army
+is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and furthermore, the Army
+does not consider the Congress of Soviets necessary at this time, only
+three weeks before the opening of the Constituent—” shouts and
+stamping, always growing more violent. “The Army does not consider that
+the Congress of Soviets has the necessary authority—” Soldiers began to
+stand up all over the hall.
+
+“Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?” they cried.
+
+“The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army, the
+Second F— regiment, the First N— Regiment, the Third S— Rifles….”
+
+“When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the soldiers!
+What do the soldiers say about it?” Jeers and hoots.
+
+“We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has happened
+and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise all
+self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
+Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress…. The place to
+fight is out on the streets!”
+
+Immense bawling outcry. “You speak for the Staff—not for the Army!”
+
+“I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!”
+
+“Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!” were hurled at him.
+
+On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
+possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with the
+Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which would
+find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed for several
+minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the Menshevik
+declaration:
+
+“Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid of
+the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
+parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and therefore
+withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to meet for
+discussion of the situation!”
+
+“Deserter!” At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
+Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard protesting
+against the bombardment of the Winter Palace…. “We are opposed to this
+kind of anarchy….”
+
+Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
+flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
+hand:
+
+“Comrades!” he cried and there was a hush. “My _familia_ (name) is
+Peterson—I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
+statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
+statements would have some value _if their authors had been
+representatives of the Army_—” Wild applause. _“But they do not
+represent the soldiers!”_ Shaking his fist. “The Twelfth Army has been
+insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great Soviet and
+the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_ our Committee
+refused to call a meeting of the representatives of the masses until
+the end of September, so that the reactionaries could elect their own
+false delegates to this Congress. I tell you now, the Lettish soldiers
+have many times said, ‘No more resolutions! No more talk! We want
+deeds—the Power must be in our hands!’ Let these impostor delegates
+leave the Congress! The Army is not with them!”
+
+The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
+stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon, the
+delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after hammer-blow had
+fallen from that tribune, welding them together but beating them down.
+Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising against them? Was it true
+that the Army was marching on Petrograd? Then this clear-eyed young
+soldier had spoken, and in a flash they knew it for the truth…. _This_
+was the voice of the soldiers—the stirring millions of uniformed
+workers and peasants were men like them, and their thoughts and
+feelings were the same…
+
+More soldiers … Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
+they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
+that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
+they stood for division according to political parties, and not groups.
+“Hundreds of delegates from the Front,” he said, “are being elected
+without the participation of the soldiers because the Army Committees
+are no longer the real representatives of the rank and file….”
+Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk could not
+represent the Army in this congress,—but only the high command. “The
+real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their hearts the
+transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they expect very
+much from it!”… The tide was turning.
+
+Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish Social
+Democrats—his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling with rage.
+
+“What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
+_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!” He raised his voice and
+hand. “Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn’t permit us to remain
+here and be responsible for these crimes. Because the firing on the
+Winter Palace doesn’t cease, the Municipal Duma together with the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Executive Committee
+of the Peasants’ Soviet, has decided to perish with the Provisional
+Government, and we are going with them! Unarmed we will expose our
+breasts to the machine guns of the Terrorists…. We invite all delegates
+to this Congress—” The rest was lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and
+curses which rose to a hellish pitch as fifty delegates got up and
+pushed their way out….
+
+Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, “Keep your seats and we’ll go on
+with our business!” And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel face,
+letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, “All these so-called
+Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki, Socialist
+Revolutionaries, _Bund_—let them go! They are just so much refuse which
+will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!”
+
+Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
+Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
+offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. “In this way we have done
+everything possible to avoid blood-shed….”
+
+We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where the
+Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed, engulfing and
+spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars armed with power
+of life and death to all the corners of the city, amid the buzz of the
+telephonographs. The door opened, a blast of stale air and cigarette
+smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of dishevelled men bending over a
+map under the glare of a shaded electric-light…. Comrade
+Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a mop of pale yellow hair,
+made out passes for us.
+
+When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one huge
+park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of which
+could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great motor-truck
+stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine. Men were tossing
+bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside them.
+
+“Where are you going?” I shouted.
+
+“Down-town—all over—everywhere!” answered a little workman, grinning,
+with a large exultant gesture.
+
+We showed our passes. “Come along!” they invited. “But there’ll
+probably be shooting—” We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a
+raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on
+top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate, and
+then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the
+workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top
+speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side…. One man
+tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of papers
+into the air. We imitated him, plunging down through the dark street
+with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind. The late
+passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around bonfires on the
+corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them. Sometimes armed men
+loomed up ahead, crying “_Shtoi!_” and raising their guns, but our
+chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible and we hurtled on….
+
+I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light
+read:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
+
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into
+the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands
+at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
+
+The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a
+democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land,
+labor control over production, creation of a Soviet Government—that
+cause is securely achieved.
+
+LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
+
+
+_Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+_Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies._
+
+[Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows]
+
+Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the
+Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our
+calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just after
+the surrender of the Winter Palace.
+
+A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a
+goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, “Look out! Here the provocators
+always shoot from the windows!” We turned into Znamensky Square, dark
+and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy’s brutal statue and
+swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles ready,
+peering at the windows. Behind us the street was alive with people
+running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and the
+nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter and
+more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly lighted.
+Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line of sailors,
+who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed down, and we
+climbed out.
+
+It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina Canal,
+under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn across the
+Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column of fours. There
+were about three or four hundred of them, men in frock coats,
+well-dressed women, officers—all sorts and conditions of people. Among
+them we recognised many of the delegates from the Congress, leaders of
+the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries; Avksentiev, the lean,
+red-bearded president of the Peasants’ Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky’s
+spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and at the head white-bearded old
+Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies
+in the Provisional Government, arrested that morning and released. I
+caught sight of Malkin, reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ “Going
+to die in the Winter Palace,” he shouted cheerfully. The procession
+stood still, but from the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and
+Prokopovitch were bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
+
+“We demand to pass!” they cried. “See, these comrades come from the
+Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the Winter
+Palace!”
+
+The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an enormous
+hand, frowning. “I have orders from the Committee not to let anybody go
+to the Winter Palace,” he grumbled. “But I will send a comrade to
+telephone to Smolny….”
+
+“We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether you
+permit us or not!” cried old Schreider, very much excited.
+
+“I have orders—” repeated the sailor sullenly.
+
+“Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!” came from all sides.
+“We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on Russians and
+comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!”
+
+“No,” said the sailor, looking stubborn, “I can’t allow you to pass.”
+
+“What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?”
+
+“No, I’m not going to shoot people who haven’t any guns. We won’t shoot
+unarmed Russian people….”
+
+“We will go forward! What can you do?”
+
+“We will do something,” replied the sailor, evidently at a loss. “We
+can’t let you pass. We will do something.”
+
+“What will you do? What will you do?”
+
+Another sailor came up, very much irritated. “We will spank you!” he
+cried, energetically. “And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go home
+now, and leave us in peace!”
+
+At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment, Prokopovitch
+had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella, he made a
+speech:
+
+“Comrades and citizens!” he said. “Force is being used against us! We
+cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant men! It
+is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
+switchmen—” (What he meant by “switchmen” I never discovered.) “Let us
+return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the country and
+the Revolution!”
+
+Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and back
+up the Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage of the
+diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the direction of
+the Winter Palace.
+
+Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of soldiers
+and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan Cathedral a
+three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street, slewed sideways
+from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs. Soldiers were standing
+in every doorway talking in low tones and peering down toward the
+Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: “It is possible that we have
+done wrong….” At the corners patrols stopped all passersby—and the
+composition of these patrols was interesting, for in command of the
+regular troops was invariably a Red Guard…. The shooting had ceased.
+
+Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: “The _yunkers_
+have sent word they want us to go and get them out!” Voices began to
+give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a dark mass moving
+forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the clinking of arms.
+We fell in with the first ranks.
+
+Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we
+poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in a
+low voice: “Look out, comrades! Don’t trust them. They will fire,
+surely!” In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching
+together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the Alexander
+Column.
+
+“How many of you did they kill?” I asked.
+
+“I don’t know. About ten….”
+
+After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army
+seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow
+forward. By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the Winter
+Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three hundred men
+were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers. Over the barricade
+of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside gave a triumphant
+shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown down by the _yunkers_
+who had stood there. On both sides of the main gateway the doors stood
+wide open, light streamed out, and from the huge pile came not the
+slightest sound.
+
+Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right
+hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of
+the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. A
+number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards
+and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of
+their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain
+plates, glassware…. One man went strutting around with a bronze clock
+perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers,
+which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody
+cried, “Comrades! Don’t touch anything! Don’t take anything! This is
+the property of the People!” Immediately twenty voices were crying,
+“Stop! Put everything back! Don’t take anything! Property of the
+People!” Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were
+snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the
+bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
+cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
+spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be
+heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, “Revolutionary
+discipline! Property of the People….”
+
+We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There
+order was also being established. “Clear the Palace!” bawled a Red
+Guard, sticking his head through an inner door. “Come, comrades, let’s
+show that we’re not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the Palace
+except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted.”
+
+Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in their
+hands. Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen and paper.
+Shouts of “All out! All out!” were heard far and near within, and the
+Army began to pour through the door, jostling, expostulating, arguing.
+As each man appeared he was seized by the self-appointed committee, who
+went through his pockets and looked under his coat. Everything that was
+plainly not his property was taken away, the man at the table noted it
+on his paper, and it was carried into a little room. The most amazing
+assortment of objects were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of
+ink, bed-spreads worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small
+oil-painting, desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap,
+clothes of every description, blankets. One Red Guard carried three
+rifles, two of which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four
+portfolios bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
+surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the committee
+explained that stealing was not worthy of the people’s champions; often
+those who had been caught turned around and began to help go through
+the rest of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
+
+_Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee seized
+upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the search with remarks
+like, “Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists! Counter-revolutionists! Murderers
+of the People!” But there was no violence done, although the _yunkers_
+were terrified. They too had their pockets full of small plunder. It
+was carefully noted down by the scribe, and piled in the little room….
+The _yunkers_ were disarmed. “Now, will you take up arms against the
+People any more?” demanded clamouring voices.
+
+“No,” answered the _yunkers,_ one by one. Whereupon they were allowed
+to go free.
+
+We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the big
+Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. “Who are you anyway?”
+he asked. “How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys? (There were
+five of us, two women.)
+
+“_Pazhal’st’, touarishtchi!_ Way, Comrades!” A soldier and a Red Guard
+appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards with
+fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen men in
+civilian dress—the members of the Provisional Government. First came
+Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking sullenly at
+the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply around; he stared at
+us with cold fixity…. They passed in silence; the victorious
+insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only a few angry
+mutterings. It was only later that we learned how the people in the
+street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired—but the sailors
+brought them safely to Peter-Paul….
+
+In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was still a
+great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found apartments in
+the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of _yunkers_ which
+did not exist. We went upstairs and wandered through room after room.
+This part of the Palace had been entered also by other detachments from
+the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues, tapestries and rugs of
+the great state apartments were unharmed; in the offices, however,
+every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the papers scattered over
+the floor, and in the living rooms beds had been stripped of their
+coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The most highly prized loot was
+clothing, which the working people needed. In a room where furniture
+was stored we came upon two soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish
+leather upholstery from chairs. They explained it was to make boots
+with….
+
+The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms stood
+nervously about, from force of habit repeating, “You can’t go in there,
+_barin!_ It is forbidden—” We penetrated at length to the gold and
+malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the Ministers had
+been in session all that day and night, and where the _shveitzari_ had
+betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table covered with green
+baize was just as they had left it, under arrest. Before each empty
+seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were scribbled over with
+beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of proclamations and
+manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as their futility became
+evident, and the rest of the sheet covered with absent-minded
+geometrical designs, as the writers sat despondently listening while
+Minister after Minister proposed chimerical schemes. I took one of
+these scribbled pages, in the hand writing of Konovalov, which read,
+“The Provisional Government appeals to all classes to support the
+Provisional Government—”
+
+All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
+surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the Front
+and with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the Ministry of
+War early in the morning, but they did not know of the military
+telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone line
+connecting it with the Winter Palace. In that attic a young officer sat
+all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals and
+proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put on his
+hat and walked calmly out of the building….
+
+Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn’t notice a
+change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As we
+strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by the time
+we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the afternoon
+with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after us. One giant
+of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with sullen suspicion.
+
+[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
+
+Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by A.I.
+Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional
+Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the situation
+became more and more evident. The geometrical figure beneath was
+probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for the end.
+
+“Who are you?” he growled. “What are you doing here?” The others massed
+slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter. _“Provocatori!”_ I
+heard somebody say. “Looters!” I produced our passes from the Military
+Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took them gingerly, turned them
+upside down and looked at them without comprehension. Evidently he
+could not read. He handed them back and spat on the floor. _“Bumagi!_
+Papers!” said he with contempt. The mass slowly began to close in, like
+wild cattle around a cowpuncher on foot. Over their heads I caught
+sight of an officer, looking helpless, and shouted to him. He made for
+us, shouldering his way through.
+
+“I’m the Commissar,” he said to me. “Who are you? What is it?” The
+others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
+
+“You are foreigners?” he rapidly asked in French. “It is very
+dangerous….” Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
+“Comrades!” he cried. “These people are foreign comrades—from America.
+They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen about the
+bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army!”
+
+“How do you know that?” replied the big soldier. “I tell you they are
+provocators! They say they came here to observe the revolutionary
+discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been wandering freely
+through the Palace, and how do we know they haven’t got their pockets
+full of loot?”
+
+_“Pravilno!”_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
+
+“Comrades! Comrades!” appealed the officer, sweat standing out on his
+forehead. “I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Do
+you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are signed with the
+same names that are signed to my pass!”
+
+He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening onto
+the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going through
+pockets… “You have narrowly escaped,” he kept muttering, wiping his
+face.
+
+“What happened to the Women’s Battalion?” we asked.
+
+“Oh—the women!” He laughed. “They were all huddled up in a back room.
+We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them—many were in
+hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the Finland
+Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they have a camp.
+(See App. IV, Sect. 4)….”
+
+We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure armies
+on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river, where loomed
+the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout…. Underfoot the
+sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the cornice of the
+Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_ had struck; that
+was the only damage done by the bombardment….
+
+It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
+street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only signs
+of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires. The city
+was quiet—probably never so quiet in its history; on that night not a
+single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
+
+But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the
+galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed,
+red-shrouded Imperial portraits. About a hundred people were grouped
+around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the
+Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the
+anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution. And as we looked on,
+the Committee for Salvation was formed—that Committee which was to
+develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki, appearing, in
+the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name, and sometimes as
+the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public Safety….
+
+Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet
+delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets,
+old Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the Republic—among
+whom Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the convention of
+Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ was
+still in office…. An appeal to the country was drafted.
+
+We hailed a cab. “Where to?” But when we said “Smolny,” the
+_izvoshtchik_ shook his head. _“Niet!”_ said he, “there are devils….”
+It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver willing to
+take us—and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two blocks away.
+
+The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and
+around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly
+asking everybody the latest news. The corridors were full of hurrying
+men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In some of the committee-rooms people lay
+sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them. In spite of the seceding
+delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with people, roaring like
+the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading the list of arrested
+Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted with thunderous
+applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter; Rutenburg came in for less;
+and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a storm of hoots, angry cries,
+cheers burst forth…. It was announced that Tchudnovsky had been
+appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
+
+Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded face
+convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his fist on
+the presidium table.
+
+“We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of
+the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do you
+know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom
+fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into Peter-Paul
+prison—the historical tomb of Liberty?” In the uproar he pounded and
+yelled. Another delegate climbed up beside him, and pointed at the
+presidium.
+
+“Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit
+quietly here while the _Okhrana_ of the Bolsheviki tortures their
+leaders?”
+
+Trotzky was gesturing for silence. “These ‘comrades’ who are now caught
+plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer Kerensky—is
+there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July 16th and 18th
+they didn’t use much ceremony with us!” With a triumphant ring in his
+voice he cried, “Now that the _oborontsi_ and the faint-hearted have
+gone, and the whole task of defending and saving the Revolution rests
+on our shoulders, it is particularly necessary to work—work—work! We
+have decided to die rather than give up!”
+
+Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered with
+the mud of his ride. “The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on guard at the
+gates of Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee!” Wild cheers. “The Cycle Corps sent from the
+front has arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are now with us; they
+recognise the power of the Soviets, the necessity of immediate transfer
+of land to the peasants and industrial control to the workers. The
+Fifth Battalion of Cyclists, stationed at Tsarskoye, is ours….”
+
+Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of
+delirious enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered
+_three days before_ from the South-west front to the “defence of
+Petrograd.” They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and at
+the station of Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth
+Battalion from Tsarskoye. A joint meeting was held, and it was
+discovered that “among the cyclists not a single man was found willing
+to shed the blood of his brothers, or to support a Government of
+bourgeois and land-owners!”
+
+Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect a
+special committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war. “There
+isn’t any peaceful solution!” bellowed the crowed. “Victory is the only
+solution!” The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the Mensheviki
+Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of Jocular insults.
+There was no longer any panic fear…. Kameniev from the platform shouted
+after them, “The Mensheviki Internationalists claimed ‘emergency’ for
+the question of a ‘peaceful solution,’ but they always voted for
+suspension of the order of the day in favour of declarations of
+factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It is evident,” finished
+Kameniev, “that the withdrawal of all these renegades was decided upon
+beforehand!”
+
+The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and
+proceed to the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all
+Russia:
+
+TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS
+
+
+The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the Soviets.
+There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the will of the
+great majority of the workers’, soldiers and peasants, based upon the
+triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and soldiers, the Congress
+assumes the Power.
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the
+Provisional Government are already arrested.
+
+The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic peace
+to all nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will assure
+the free transfer of landlord, crown and monastery lands to the Land
+Committees, defend the soldiers rights, enforcing a complete
+democratisation of the Army, establish workers’ control over
+production, ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the
+proper date, take means to supply bread to the cities and articles of
+first necessity to the villages, and secure to all nationalities living
+in Russia a real right to independent existence.
+
+The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to the
+Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, which must
+enforce revolutionary order.
+
+The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful and
+steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the revolutionary Army
+will know how to defend the Revolution against all attacks of
+Imperialism, until the new Government shall have brought about the
+conclusion of the democratic peace which it will directly propose to
+all nations. The new Government will take all necessary steps to secure
+everything needful to the revolutionary Army, by means of a determined
+policy of requisition and taxation of the propertied classes, and also
+to improve the situation of soldiers’ families.
+
+The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to lead
+troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by Kerensky, have
+sided with the insurgent People.
+
+Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on
+guard!
+
+Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against
+Petrograd!
+
+Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution
+and democratic peace is in your hands!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of_ _Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies._ _Delegates from the Peasants’ Soviets._
+
+It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue,
+climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
+
+“Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings to
+the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military
+Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the
+Northern Front!” Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other.
+“General Tchermissov has recognised the Committee-Commissar of the
+Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!”
+
+So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the
+Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and thrust
+the _coup d’etat_ upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was all great
+Russia to win—and then the world! Would Russia follow and rise? And the
+world—what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a red world-tide?
+
+Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill.
+There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent
+streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn
+grey-rising over Russia….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+Plunging Ahead
+
+
+Thursday, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest excitement
+and confusion, a whole nation heaving up in long hissing swells of
+storm. Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands of people
+retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work. In Petrograd
+the street-cars were running, the stores and restaurants open, theatres
+going, an exhibition of paintings advertised…. All the complex routine
+of common life—humdrum even in war-time—proceeded as usual. Nothing is
+so astounding as the vitality of the social organism—how it persists,
+feeding itself, clothing itself, amusing itself, in the face of the
+worst calamities….
+
+The air was full of rumours about Kerensky, who was said to have raised
+the Front, and to be leading a great army against the capital. _Volia
+Naroda_ published a _prikaz_ launched by him at Pskov:
+
+The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place the
+country on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of our
+entire will, our courage and the devotion of every one of us, to win
+through the terrible trial which the fatherland is undergoing….
+
+Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government—if one
+is formed—every one ought to remain at his post and fulfil his duty
+toward bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least
+interference with existing Army organisations can bring on irreparable
+misfortunes, by opening the Front to the enemy. Therefore it is
+indispensable to preserve at any price the morale of the troops, by
+assuring complete order and the preservation of the Army from new
+shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between officers and
+their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and Commissars, in the name
+of the safety of the country, to stay at their posts, as I myself
+retain the post of Supreme Commander, until the Provisional Government
+of the Republic shall declare its will….
+
+In answer, this placard on all the walls:
+
+FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
+
+
+“The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch,
+Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Kerensky has fled. All Army organisations are ordered to
+take every measure for the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his
+conveyance to Petrograd.
+
+“All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious crime
+against the state.”
+
+With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled,
+throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V, Sect.
+1)… Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the Peasant
+Land Committees imprisoned by the Provisional Government were declared
+free. Capital punishment in the army was abolished. Government
+employees were ordered to continue their work, and threatened with
+severe penalties if they refused. All pillage, disorder and speculation
+were forbidden under pain of death. Temporary Commissars were appointed
+to the various Ministries: Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotzky;
+Interior and Justice, Rykov; Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky;
+Public Welfare, Madame Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications,
+Riazanov; Navy, the sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro;
+Theatres, Muraviov; State Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of
+Petrograd, Lieutenant Nesterov; for the Northern Front, Pozern….
+
+To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To the
+railway workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the
+transport of food to the cities and the front…. In return, they were
+promised representation in the Ministry of Ways and Communications.
+
+Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against
+Petrograd. They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary
+workers and soldiers of the capital. Do not believe a word that is said
+by our common enemies, the land-owners and the capitalists.
+
+At our Congress are represented all the conscious organisations of
+workers, soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also to
+welcome into its midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the Black
+Band, henchmen of the land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are our
+enemies.
+
+They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the
+Cossacks. This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords
+that the Revolution will confiscate the land to give it to the people.
+
+Organise Soviets of Cossacks’ Deputies! Join with the Soviets of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!
+
+Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and that
+you do not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary Russia!…
+
+Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people. Send
+your delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us…. The Cossacks of
+the Petrograd garrison, to their honour, have not justified the hope of
+the People’s enemies….
+
+Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you a
+fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the
+soldiers, workers and peasants of all Russia!
+
+On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up, hand-bills
+scattered everywhere, newspapers—screaming and cursing and prophesying
+evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press—all other weapons
+being in the hands of the Soviets.
+
+First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!
+
+
+Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th the
+Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the Provisional
+Government, dispersed the Council of the Republic, and proclaimed an
+illegal power. Such violence committed against the Government of
+revolutionary Russia at the moment of its greatest external danger, is
+an indescribable crime against the fatherland.
+
+The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause of
+national defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace so
+greatly desired.
+
+Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country to
+the horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the failure of
+the Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the republican régime and
+transmit to the People forever their right to the land.
+
+Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on the
+night of November 7th, takes the initiative in forming a new
+Provisional Government; which, basing itself on the forces of
+democracy, will conduct the country to the Constituent Assembly and
+save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The Committee for
+Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognise the power of
+violence. Do not obey its orders!
+
+Rise for the defence of the country and Revolution!
+
+Support the Committee for Salvation!
+
+Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of
+Petrograd, the _Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress),_ the Executive Committee
+of the Peasants’ Soviets, and from the Congress itself the Front group,
+the factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki, Populist
+Socialists, Unified Social Democrats, and the group “Yedinstvo.”
+
+Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki
+_oborontsi,_ Peasants’ Soviets again; from the Central Army Committee,
+the _Tsentroflot_….
+
+… Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will
+trample on our liberty. Black Hundred _pogroms_ will spread over
+Russia, if we all—conscious workers, soldiers, citizens—do not unite….
+
+Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of immediate
+peace—is a lie! The promise of bread—a hoax! The promise of land—a
+fairy tale!…
+
+They were all in this manner.
+
+Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of
+power has been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone…. They concealed
+their plot from the other Socialist parties composing the Soviet….
+
+You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution
+will profit by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will
+deprive you of land and freedom….
+
+The newspapers were as violent.
+
+Our duty (said the _Dielo Naroda_) is to unmask these traitors to the
+working-class. Our duty is to mobilise all our forces and mount guard
+over the cause of the Revolution!…
+
+_Izviestia,_ for the last time speaking in the name of the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ threatened awful retribution.
+
+As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no
+Congress of Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private conference
+of the Bolshevik faction! And in that case, they have no right to
+cancel the powers of the _Tsay-ee-kah_….
+
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ while pleading for a new Government that should unite
+all the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the Congress,
+and pointed out that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one thing very
+clearly: that all illusions about coalition with the bourgeoisie were
+henceforth demonstrated vain…
+
+_Rabotchi Put_ blossomed out as _Pravda,_ Lenin’s newspaper which had
+been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
+
+Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of
+the clique of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the
+bourgeois gang….
+
+The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
+
+The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary elements
+of Petrograd.
+
+The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and assure
+the realisation of the popular programme…
+
+What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally, adopted
+a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a sort of
+contemptuous “I—told—you—so” to the other parties. Influential Cadets
+were to be seen hovering around the Municipal Duma, and on the
+outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other than that, the
+bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour—which could not far off. That the
+Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three days never occurred
+to anybody—except perhaps to Lenin, Trotzky, the Petrograd workers and
+the simpler soldiers….
+
+In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the Duma
+sitting in _permanence,_ tempestuous, grouping around it all the forces
+of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with his white hair
+and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny the night before, to
+protest in the name of the Municipal Self-Government. “The Duma, being
+the only existing legal Government in the city, elected by equal,
+direct and secret suffrage, would not recognise the new power,” he had
+told Trotzky. And Trotzky had answered, “There is a constitutional
+remedy for that. The Duma can be dissolved and re-elected….” At this
+report there was a furious outcry.
+
+“If one recognises a Government by bayonet,” continued the old man,
+addressing the Duma, “well, we have one; but I consider legitimate only
+a Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by the
+usurpation of a minority!” Wild applause on all benches except those of
+the Bolsheviki. Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced that the
+Bolsheviki already were violating Municipal autonomy by appointing
+Commissars in many departments.
+
+The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that the
+decision of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed up the
+action of the Bolsheviki.
+
+“You!” he cried. “You are not the real representative of the people of
+Petrograd!” Shrieks of “Insult! Insult!” The old Mayor, with dignity,
+reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest possible popular
+vote. “Yes,” he answered, “but that was a long time ago—like the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_—like the Army Committee.”
+
+“There has been no new Congress of Soviets!” they yelled at him.
+
+“The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of
+counter-revolution—” Uproar. “—and we demand a re-election of the
+Duma….” Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber, followed by cries of
+“German agents! Down with the traitors!”
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, then demanded that all Municipal functionaries who
+had consented to be Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+be discharged from their position and indicted. Schreider was on his
+feet, putting a motion to the effect that the Duma protested against
+the menace of the Bolsheviki to dissolve it, and as the legal
+representative of the population, it would refuse to leave its post.
+
+Outside, the Alexander Hall was crowded for the meeting of the
+Committee for Salvation, and Skobeliev was again speaking. “Never yet,”
+he said, “was the fate of the Revolution so acute, never yet did the
+question of the existence of the Russian state excite so much anxiety,
+never yet did history put so harshly and categorically the question—is
+Russia to be or not to be! The great hour for the salvation of the
+Revolution has arrived, and in consciousness thereof we observe the
+close union of the live forces of the revolutionary democracy, by whose
+organised will a centre for the salvation of the country and the
+Revolution has already been created….” And much of the same sort. “We
+shall die sooner than surrender our post!”
+
+Amid violent applause it was announced that the Union of Railway
+Workers had joined the Committee for Salvation. A few moments later the
+Post and Telegraph Employees came in; then some Mensheviki
+Internationalists entered the hall, to cheers. The Railway men said
+they did not recognise the Bolsheviki and had taken the entire railroad
+apparatus into their own hands, refusing to entrust it to any
+usurpatory power. The Telegraphers’ delegate declared that the
+operators had flatly refused to work their instruments as long as the
+Bolshevik Commissar was in the office. The Postmen would not deliver or
+accept mail at Smolny…. All the Smolny telephones were cut off. With
+great glee it was reported how Uritzky had gone to the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs to demand the secret treaties, and how Neratov had put
+him out. The Government employees were all stopping work….
+
+It was war—war deliberately planned, Russian fashion; war by strike and
+sabotage. As we sat there the chairman read a list of names and
+assignments; so-and-so was to make the round of the Ministries; another
+was to visit the banks; some ten or twelve were to work the barracks
+and persuade the soldiers to remain neutral—“Russian soldiers, do not
+shed the blood of your brothers!”; a committee was to go and confer
+with Kerensky; still others were despatched to provincial cities, to
+form branches of the Committee for Salvation, and link together the
+anti-Bolshevik elements.
+
+The crowd was in high spirits. “These Bolsheviki _will_ try to dictate
+to the _intelligentzia?_ We’ll show them!”… Nothing could be more
+striking than the contrast between this assemblage and the Congress of
+Soviets. There, great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy workmen,
+peasants—poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle for
+existence; here the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary
+leaders—Avksentievs, Dans, Liebers,—the former Socialist
+Ministers—Skobelievs, Tchernovs,—rubbed shoulders with Cadets like oily
+Shatsky, sleek Vinaver; with journalists, students, intellectuals of
+almost all camps. This Duma crowd was well-fed, well-dressed; I did not
+see more than three proletarians among them all….
+
+News came. Kornilov’s faithful _Tekhintsi_[14] had slaughtered his
+guards at Bykhov, and he had escaped. Kaledin was marching north…. The
+Soviet of Moscow had set up a Military Revolutionary Committee, and was
+negotiating with the commandant of the city for possession of the
+arsenal, so that the workers might be armed.
+
+[14] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+With these facts was mixed an astounding jumble of rumours,
+distortions, and plain lies. For instance, an intelligent young Cadet,
+formerly private secretary to Miliukov and then to Terestchenko, drew
+us aside and told us all about the taking of the Winter Palace.
+
+“The Bolsheviki were led by German and Austrian officers,” he affirmed.
+
+“Is that so?” we replied, politely. “How do you know?”
+
+“A friend of mine was there and saw them.”
+
+“How could he tell they were German officers?”
+
+“Oh, because they wore German uniforms!”
+
+There were hundreds of such absurd tales, and they were not only
+solemnly published by the anti-Bolshevik press, but believed by the
+most unlikely persons—Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki who had
+always been distinguished by their sober devotion to facts….
+
+But more serious were the stories of Bolshevik violence and terrorism.
+For example, it was said printed that the Red Guards had not only
+thoroughly looted the Winter Palace, but that they had massacred the
+_yunkers_ after disarming them, had killed some of the Ministers in
+cold blood; and as for the woman soldiers, most of them had been
+violated, and many had committed suicide because of the tortures they
+had gone through…. All these stories were swallowed whole by the crowd
+in the Duma. And worse still, the mothers and fathers of the students
+and of the women read these frightful details, _often accompanied by
+lists of names,_ and toward nightfall the Duma began to be besieged by
+frantic citizens….
+
+A typical case is that of Prince Tumanov, whose body, it was announced
+in many newspapers, had been found floating in the Moika Canal. A few
+hours later this was denied by the Prince’s family, who added that the
+Prince was under arrest so the press identified the dead man as General
+Demissov. The General having also come to life, we investigated, and
+could find no trace of any body found whatever….
+
+As we left the Duma building two boy scouts were distributing
+hand-bills (See App. V, Sect. 2) to the enormous crowd which blocked
+the Nevsky in front of the door—a crowd composed almost entirely of
+business men, shop-keepers, _tchinouniki,_ clerks. One read!
+
+FROM THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+
+The Municipal Duma in its meeting of October 26th, in view of the
+events of the day decrees: To announce the inviolability of private
+dwellings. Through the House Committees it calls upon the population of
+the town of Petrograd to meet with decisive repulse all attempts to
+enter by force private apartments, not stopping at the use of arms, in
+the interests of the self-defence of citizens.
+
+Up on the corner of the Liteiny, five or six Red Guards and a couple of
+sailors had surrounded a news-dealer and were demanding that he hand
+over his copies of the Menshevik _Rabot-chaya Gazeta_ (Workers’
+Gazette). Angrily he shouted at them, shaking his fist, as one of the
+sailors tore the papers from his stand. An ugly crowd had gathered
+around, abusing the patrol. One little workman kept explaining doggedly
+to the people and the news-dealer, over and over again, “It has
+Kerensky’s proclamation in it. It says we killed Russian people. It
+will make bloodshed….”
+
+Smolny was tenser than ever, if that were possible. The same running
+men in the dark corridors, squads of workers with rifles, leaders with
+bulging portfolios arguing, explaining, giving orders as they hurried
+anxiously along, surrounded by friends and lieutenants. Men literally
+out of themselves, living prodigies of sleeplessness and work-men
+unshaven, filthy, with burning eyes, who drove upon their fixed purpose
+full speed on engines of exaltation. So much they had to do, so much!
+Take over the Government, organise the City, keep the garrison loyal,
+fight the Duma and the Committee for Salvation, keep out the Germans,
+prepare to do battle with Kerensky, inform the provinces what had
+happened, Propagandise from Archangel to Vladivostok…. Government and
+Municipal employees refusing to obey their Commissars, post and
+telegraph refusing them communication, railroads stonily ignoring their
+appeals for trains, Kerensky coming, the garrison not altogether to be
+trusted, the Cossacks waiting to come out…. Against them not only the
+organised bourgeoisie, but all the other Socialist parties except the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries, a few Mensheviki Internationalists and
+the Social Democrat Internationalists, and even they undecided whether
+to stand by or not. With them, it is true, the workers and the
+soldier-masses—the peasants an unknown quantity—but after all the
+Bolsheviki were a political faction not rich in trained and educated
+men….
+
+Riazanov was coming up the front steps, explaining in a sort of
+humorous panic that he, Commissar of Commerce, knew nothing whatever of
+business. In the upstairs cafe sat a man all by himself in the corner,
+in a goat-skin cape and clothes which had been—I was going to say
+“slept in,” but of course he hadn’t slept—and a three days’ growth of
+beard. He was anxiously figuring on a dirty envelope, and biting his
+pencil meanwhile. This was Menzhinsky, Commissar of Finance, whose
+qualifications were that he had once been clerk in a French bank…. And
+these four half-running down the hall from the office of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and scribbling on bits of paper as they
+run—these were Commissars despatched to the four corners of Russia to
+carry the news, argue, or fight—with whatever arguments or weapons came
+to hand….
+
+The Congress was to meet at one o’clock, and long since the great
+meeting-hall had filled, but by seven there was yet no sign of the
+presidium…. The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions were
+in session in their own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin and
+Trotzky had fought against compromise. A considerable part of the
+Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way so far as to create a joint
+all-Socialist government. “We can’t hold on!” they cried.
+
+“Too much is against us. We haven’t got the men. We will be isolated,
+and the whole thing will fall.” So Kameniev, Riazanov and others.
+
+But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. “Let the
+compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won’t give
+way an inch. If there are comrades here who haven’t the courage and the
+will to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of the cowards
+and conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we shall go on.”
+
+At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist
+Revolutionaries to say that they would remain in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+“See!” said Lenin. “They are following!”
+
+A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an
+Anarchist who was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me that
+we go and find out what had become of the presidium. There was nobody
+in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ office, nor in the bureau of the Petrograd Soviet.
+From room to room we wandered, through vast Smolny. Nobody seemed to
+have the slightest idea where to find the governing body of the
+Congress. As we went my companion described his ancient revolutionary
+activities, his long and pleasant exile in France…. As for the
+Bolsheviki, he confided to me that they were common, rude, ignorant
+persons, without aesthetic sensibilities. He was a real specimen of the
+Russian _intelligentzia_…. So he came at last to Room 17, office of the
+Military Revolutionary Committee, and stood there in the midst of all
+the furious coming and going. The door opened, and out shot a squat,
+flat-faced man in a uniform without insignia, who seemed to be
+smiling—which smile, after a minute, one saw to be the fixed grin of
+extreme fatigue. It was Krylenko.
+
+My friend, who was a dapper, civilized-looking young man, gave a cry of
+pleasure and stepped forward.
+
+“Nicolai Vasilievitch!” he said, holding out his hand. “Don’t you
+remember me, comrade? We were in prison together.”
+
+Krylenko made an effort and concentrated his mind and sight. “Why yes,”
+he answered finally, looking the other up and down with an expression
+of great friendliness. “You are S—. _Zdra’stvuitye!_” They kissed.
+“What are you doing in all this?” He waved his arm around.
+
+“Oh, I’am just looking on…. You seem very successful.”
+
+“Yes,” replied Krylenko, with a sort of doggedness, “The proletarian
+Revolution is a great success.” He laughed. “Perhaps—perhaps, however,
+we’ll meet in prison again!”
+
+When we got out into the corridor again my friend went on with his
+explanations. “You see, I’m a follower of Kropotkin. To us the
+Revolution is a great failure; it has not aroused the patriotism of the
+masses. Of course that only proves that the people are not ready for
+Revolution….”
+
+It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the
+entrance of the presidium, with Lenin—great Lenin—among them. A short,
+stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders, bald and
+bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous mouth, and heavy
+chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to bristle with the
+well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his
+trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to be the idol of a mob,
+loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in history have been. A
+strange popular leader—a leader purely by virtue of intellect;
+colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without
+picturesque idiosyncrasies—but with the power of explaining profound
+ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined
+with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity.
+
+Kameniev was reading the report of the actions of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee; abolition of capital punishment in the Army,
+restoration of the free right of propaganda, release of officers and
+soldiers arrested for political crimes, orders to arrest Kerensky and
+confiscation of food supplies in private store-houses…. Tremendous
+applause.
+
+Again the representative of the _Bund._ The uncompromising attitude of
+the Bolsheviki would mean the crushing of the Revolution; therefore,
+the _Bund_ delegates must refuse any longer to sit in the Congress.
+Cries from the audience, “We thought you walked out last night! How
+many times are you going to walk out?”
+
+Then the representative of the Mensheviki Internationalists. Shouts,
+“What! You here still?” The speaker explained that only part of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress; the rest were going
+to stay—
+
+“We consider it dangerous and perhaps even mortal for the Revolution to
+transfer the power to the Soviets”—Interruptions—“but we feel it our
+duty to remain in the Congress and vote against the transfer here!”
+
+Other speakers followed, apparently without any order. A delegate of
+the coal-miners of the Don Basin called upon the Congress to take
+measures against Kaledin, who might cut off coal and food from the
+capital. Several soldiers just arrived from the Front brought the
+enthusiastic greetings of their regiments…. Now Lenin, gripping the
+edge of the reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel over
+the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to the
+long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it finished,
+he said simply, “We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist
+order!” Again that overwhelming human roar.
+
+“The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise
+peace…. We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent
+countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms—no annexations, no
+indemnities, and the right of self-determination of peoples. At the
+same time, according to our promise, we shall publish and repudiate the
+secret treaties…. The question of War and Peace is so clear that I
+think that I may, without preamble, read the project of a Proclamation
+to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries….”
+
+His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his voice
+was hoarse—not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that way
+after years and years of speaking—and went on monotonously, with the
+effect of being able to go on forever…. For emphasis he bent forward
+slightly. No gestures. And before him, a thousand simple faces looking
+up in intent adoration.
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL THE BELLIGERENT
+NATIONS.
+
+
+The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, created by the revolution of
+November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’
+and Peasants’ Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent peoples and to
+their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just and
+democratic peace.
+
+The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is desired
+by the immense majority of the workers and the labouring classes,
+exhausted and depleted by the war—that peace which the Russian workers
+and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist monarchy, have not
+ceased to demand categorically—immediate peace without annexations
+(that is to say, without conquest of foreign territory, without
+forcible annexation of other nationalities), and without indemnities.
+
+The Government of Russia Proposes to all the belligerent peoples
+immediately to conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing to
+enter upon the decisive steps of negotiations aiming at such a peace,
+at once, without the slightest delay, before the definitive
+ratification of all the conditions of such a peace by the authorised
+assemblies of the people of all countries and of all nationalities.
+
+By annexation or conquest of foreign territory, the Government
+means—conformably to the conception of democratic rights in general,
+and the rights of the working-class in particular—all union to a great
+and strong State of a small or weak nationality, without the voluntary,
+clear and precise expression of its consent and desire; whatever be the
+moment when such an annexation by force was accomplished, whatever be
+the degree civilisation of the nation annexed by force or maintained
+outside the frontiers of another State, no matter if that nation be in
+Europe or in the far countries across the sea.
+
+If any nation is retained by force within the limits of another State;
+if, in spite of the desire expressed by it, (it matters little if that
+desire be expressed by the press, by popular meetings, decisions of
+political parties, or by disorders and riots against national
+oppression), that nation is not given the right of deciding by free
+vote—without the slightest constraint, after the complete departure of
+the armed forces of the nation which has annexed it or wishes to annex
+it or is stronger in general—the form of its national and political
+organisation, such a union constitutes an annexation—that is to say,
+conquest and an act of violence.
+
+To continue this war in order to permit the strong and rich nations to
+divide among themselves the weak and conquered nationalities is
+considered by the Government the greatest possible crime against
+humanity; and the Government solemnly proclaims its decision to sign a
+treaty of peace which will put an end to this war upon the above
+conditions, equally fair for all nationalities without exception.
+
+The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, expressing before the whole
+country its firm decision to conduct all the negotiations in the light
+of day before the people, and will proceed immediately to the full
+publication of all secret treaties confirmed or concluded by the
+Government of land-owners and capitalists, from March until November
+7th, 1917. All the clauses of the secret treaties which, as occur in a
+majority of cases, have for their object to procure advantages and
+privileges for Russian capitalists, to maintain or augment the
+annexations of the Russian imperialists, are denounced by the
+Government immediately and without discussion.
+
+In proposing to all Governments and all peoples to engage in public
+negotiations for peace, the Government declares itself ready to carry
+on these negotiations by telegraph, by post, or by pourparlers between
+the representatives of the different countries, or at a conference of
+these representatives. To facilitate these pourparlers, the Government
+appoints its authorised representatives in the neutral countries.
+
+The Government proposes to all the governments and to the peoples of
+all the belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice, at
+the same time suggesting that the armistice ought to last three months,
+during which time it is perfectly possible, not only to hold the
+necessary pourparlers between the representatives of all the nations
+and nationalities without exception drawn into the war or forced to
+take part in it, but also to convoke authorised assemblies of
+representatives of the people of all countries, for the purpose of the
+definite acceptance of the conditions of peace.
+
+In addressing this offer of peace to the Governments and to the peoples
+of all the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers’ and
+Peasants’ Government of Russia addresses equally and in particular the
+conscious workers of the three nations most devoted to humanity and the
+three most important nations among those taking part in the present
+war—England, France, and Germany. The workers of these countries have
+rendered the greatest services to the cause of progress and of
+Socialism. The splendid examples of the Chartist movement in England,
+the series of revolutions, of world-wide historical significance,
+accomplished by the French proletariat—and finally, in Germany, the
+historic struggle against the Laws of Exception, an example for the
+workers of the whole world of prolonged and stubborn action, and the
+creation of the formidable organisations of German proletarians—all
+these models of proletarian heroism, these monuments of history, are
+for us a sure guarantee that the workers of these countries will
+understand the duty imposed upon them to liberate humanity from the
+horrors and consequences of war; and that these workers, by decisive,
+energetic and continued action, will help us to bring to a successful
+conclusion the cause of peace—and at the same time, the cause of the
+liberation of the exploited working masses from all slavery and all
+exploitation.
+
+When the grave thunder of applause had died away, Lenin spoke again:
+
+“We propose to the Congress to ratify this declaration. We address
+ourselves to the Governments as well as to the peoples, for a
+declaration which would be addressed only to the peoples of the
+belligerent countries might delay the conclusion of peace. The
+conditions of peace, drawn up during the armistice, will be ratified by
+the Constituent Assembly. In fixing the duration of the armistice at
+three months, we desire to give to the peoples as long a rest as
+possible after this bloody extermination, and ample time for them to
+elect their representatives. This proposal of peace will meet with
+resistance on the part of the imperialist governments—we don’t fool
+ourselves on that score. But we hope that revolution will soon break
+out in all the belligerent countries; that is why we address ourselves
+especially to the workers of France, England and Germany….
+
+“The revolution of November 6th and 7th,” he ended, “has opened the era
+of the Social Revolution…. The labour movement, in the name of peace
+and Socialism, shall win, and fulfil its destiny….”
+
+There was something quiet and powerful in all this, which stirred the
+souls of men. It was understandable why people believed when Lenin
+spoke….
+
+By crowd vote it was quickly decided that only representatives of
+political factions should be allowed to speak on the motion and that
+speakers should be limited to fifteen minutes.
+
+First Karelin for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. “Our faction had
+no opportunity to propose amendments to the text of the proclamation;
+it is a private document of the Bolsheviki. But we will vote for it
+because we agree with its spirit….”
+
+For the Social Democrats Internationalists Kramarov, long,
+stoop-shouldered and near-sighted—destined to achieve some notoriety as
+the Clown of the Opposition. Only a Government composed of all the
+Socialist parties, he said, could possess the authority to take such
+important action. If a Socialist coalition were formed, his faction
+would support the entire programme; if not, only part of it. As for the
+proclamation, the Internationalists were in thorough accord with its
+main points….
+
+Then one after another, amid rising enthusiasm; Ukrainean Social
+Democracy, support; Lithuanian Social Democracy, support; Populist
+Socialists, support; Polish Social Democracy, support; Polish
+Socialists support—but would prefer a Socialist coalition; Lettish
+Social Democracy, support…. Something was kindled in these men. One
+spoke of the “coming World-Revolution, of which we are the
+advance-guard”; another of “the new age of brotherhood, when all the
+peoples will become one great family….” An individual member claimed
+the floor. “There is contradiction here,” he said. “First you offer
+peace without annexations and indemnities, and then you say you will
+consider all peace offers. To consider means to accept….”
+
+Lenin was on his feet. “We want a just peace, but we are not afraid of
+a revolutionary war…. Probably the imperialist Governments will not
+answer our appeal—but we shall not issue an ultimatum to which it will
+be easy to say no…. If the German proletariat realises that we are
+ready to consider all offers of peace, that will perhaps be the last
+drop which overflows the bowl—revolution will break out in Germany….
+
+“We consent to examine all conditions of peace, but that doesn’t mean
+that we shall accept them…. For some of our terms we shall fight to the
+end—but possibly for others will find it impossible to continue the
+war…. Above all, we want to finish the war….”
+
+It was exactly 10:35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the
+proclamation to hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his
+hand against, but the sudden sharp outburst around him brought it
+swiftly down…. Unanimous.
+
+Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet, mumbling
+together into the smooth lifting unison of the _Internationale._ A
+grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child. Alexandra Kollontai
+rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound rolled through the
+hall, burst windows and doors and seared into the quiet sky. “The war
+is ended! The war is ended!” said a young workman near me, his face
+shining. And when it was over, as we stood there in a kind of awkward
+hush, some one in the back of the room shouted, “Comrades! Let us
+remember those who have died for liberty!” So we began to sing the
+Funeral March, that slow, melancholy and yet triumphant chant, so
+Russian and so moving. The _Internationale_ is an alien air, after all.
+The Funeral March seemed the very soul of those dark masses whose
+delegates sat in this hall, building from their obscure visions a new
+Russia—and perhaps more.
+
+You fell in the fatal fight
+
+For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the people….
+
+You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
+
+You suffered in horrible prisons,
+
+You went to exile in chains….
+
+Without a word you carried your chains because you could not ignore
+your suffering brothers,
+
+Because you believed that justice is stronger than the sword….
+
+The time will come when your surrendered life will count
+
+That time is near; when tyranny falls the people will rise, great and
+free!
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+You are followed by the new and fresh army ready to die and to suffer….
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+At your grave we swear to fight, to work for freedom and the people’s
+happiness….
+
+For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March, in their cold
+Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of
+thousands had died in the prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It had
+not come as they expected it would come, nor as the _intelligentzia_
+desired it; but it had come—rough, strong, impatient of formulas,
+contemptuous of sentimentalism; real….
+
+Lenin was reading the Decree on Land:
+
+(1.) All private ownership of land is abolished immediately without
+compensation.
+
+(2.) All land-owners’ estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown, to
+monasteries, church lands with all their live stock and inventoried
+property, buildings and all appurtenances, are transferred to the
+disposition of the township Land Committees and the district Soviets of
+Peasants’ Deputies until the Constituent Assembly meets.
+
+(3.) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated property which from
+now on belongs to the whole People, is regarded as a serious crime,
+punishable by the revolutionary tribunals. The district Soviets of
+Peasants’ Deputies shall take all necessary measures for the observance
+of the strictest order during the taking over of the land-owners’
+estates, for the determination of the dimensions of the plots of land
+and which of them are subject to confiscation, for the drawing up of an
+inventory of the entire confiscated property, and for the strictest
+revolutionary protection of all the farming property on the land, with
+all buildings, implements, cattle, supplies of products, etc., passing
+into the hands of the People.
+
+(4.) For guidance during the realisation of the great land reforms
+until their final resolution by the Constituent Assembly, shall serve
+the following peasant _nakaz_ (See App. V, Sect. 3) (instructions),
+drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasant _nakazi_ by the editorial
+board of the “_Izviestia_ of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants’
+Deputies,” and published in No.88 of said _“Izviestia”_ (Petrograd,
+No.88, August 19th, 1917).
+
+The lands of peasants and of Cossacks serving in the Army shall not be
+confiscated.
+
+“This is not,” explained Lenin, “the project of former Minister
+Tchernov, who spoke of ‘erecting a frame-work’ and tried to realise
+reforms from above. From below, on the spot, will be decided the
+questions of division of the land. The amount of land received by each
+peasant will vary according to the locality….
+
+“Under the Provisional Government, the _pomieshtchiki_ flatly refused
+to obey the orders of the Land Committees—those Land Committees
+projected by Lvov, brought into existence by Shingariov, and
+administered by Kerensky!”
+
+Before the debates could begin a man forced his way violently through
+the crowd in the aisle and climbed upon the platform. It was Pianikh,
+member of the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets, and he was
+mad clean through.
+
+“The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants’
+Deputies protests against the arrest of our comrades, the Ministers
+Salazkin and Mazlov!” he flung harshly in the faces of the crowd, “We
+demand their instant release! They are now in Peter-Paul fortress. We
+must have immediate action! There is not a moment to lose!”
+
+Another followed him, a soldier with disordered beard and flaming eyes.
+“You sit here and talk about giving the land to the peasants, and you
+commit an act of tyrants and usurpers against the peasants’ chosen
+representatives! I tell you—” he raised his fist, “If one hair of their
+heads is harmed, you’ll have a revolt on your hands!” The crowd stirred
+confusedly.
+
+Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted
+with a roar. “Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided to
+release the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers, Mazlov,
+Salazkin, Gvozdov and Maliantovitch—on principle. That they are still
+in Peter-Paul is only because we have had so much to do…. They will,
+however, be detained at their homes under arrest until we have
+investigated their complicity in the treacherous acts of Kerensky
+during the Kornilov affair!”
+
+“Never,” shouted Pianikh, “in any revolution have such things been seen
+as go on here!”
+
+“You are mistaken,” responded Trotzky. “Such things have been seen even
+in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in the July
+days…. When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by the doctor’s
+orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents of the Tsar’s
+secret police!” The peasants withdrew, muttering, followed by ironical
+hoots.
+
+The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on the
+Land Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not vote on
+the question until after discussion. The Peasants’ Soviets should be
+consulted….
+
+The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
+
+Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the peasants:
+“We must do honour to a political party which puts such an act into
+effect the first day, without jawing about it!”
+
+A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and sheep-skin
+coat, bowing to all corners of the hall. “I wish you well, comrades and
+citizens,” he said. “There are some Cadets walking around outside. You
+arrested our Socialist peasants—why not arrest them?”
+
+This was the signal for a debate of excited peasants. It was precisely
+like the debate of soldiers of the night before. Here were the real
+proletarians of the land….
+
+“Those members of our Executive Committee, Avksentiev and the rest,
+whom we thought were the peasants’ protectors—they are only Cadets too!
+Arrest them! Arrest them!”
+
+Another, “Who are these Pianikhs, these Avksentievs? They are not
+peasants at all! They only wag their tails!”
+
+How the crowd rose to them, recognising brothers!
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries proposed a half-hour intermission.
+As the delegates streamed out, Lenin stood up in his place.
+
+“We must not lose time, comrades! News all-important to Russia must be
+on the press to-morrow morning. No delay!”
+
+And above the hot discussion, argument, shuffling of feet could be
+heard the voice of an emissary of the Military Revolutionary Committee,
+crying, “Fifteen agitators wanted in room 17 at once! To go to the
+Front!”…
+
+It was almost two hours and a half later that the delegates came
+straggling back, the presidium mounted the platform, and the session
+recommenced by the reading of telegrams from regiment after regiment,
+announcing their adhesion to the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+In leisurely manner the meeting gathered momentum. A delegate from the
+Russian troops on the Macedonian front spoke bitterly of their
+situation. “We suffer there more from the friendship of our ‘Allies’
+than from the enemy,” he said. Representatives of the Tenth and Twelfth
+Armies, just arrived in hot haste, reported, “We support you with all
+our strength!” A peasant-soldier protested against the release of “the
+traitor Socialists, Mazlov and Salazkin”; as for the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets, it should be arrested _en
+masse!_Here was real revolutionary talk…. A deputy from the Russian
+Army in Persia declared he was instructed to demand all power to the
+Soviets…. A Ukrainean officer, speaking in his native tongue: “There is
+no nationalism in this crisis…. _Da zdravstvuyet_ the proletarian
+dictatorship of all lands!” Such a deluge of high and hot thoughts that
+surely Russia would never again be dumb!
+
+Kameniev remarked that the anti-Bolshevik forces were trying to stir up
+disorders everywhere, and read an appeal of the Congress to all the
+Soviets of Russia:
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,
+including some Peasants’ Deputies, calls upon the local Soviets to take
+immediate energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Jewish action and all _pogroms,_ whatever they may be. The honour
+of the Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Revolution demands that no
+_pogrom_ be tolerated.
+
+The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the sailors
+have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+Workers, soldiers and peasants, you should follow everywhere the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+Comrade soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of assuring real
+revolutionary order.
+
+All revolutionary Russia and the entire world have their eyes on us….
+
+At two o’clock the Land Decree was put to vote, with only one against
+and the peasant delegates wild with joy…. So plunged the Bolsheviki
+ahead, irresistible, over-riding hesitation and opposition—the only
+people in Russia who had a definite programme of action while the
+others talked for eight long months.
+
+Now arose a soldier, gaunt, ragged and eloquent, to protest against the
+clause of the _nakaz_ tending to deprive military deserters from a
+share in village land allotments. Bawled at and hissed at first, his
+simple, moving speech finally made silence. “Forced against his will
+into the butchery of the trenches,” he cried, “which you yourselves, in
+the Peace decree, have voted senseless as well as horrible, he greeted
+the Revolution with hope of peace and freedom. Peace? The Government of
+Kerensky forced him again to go forward into Galicia to slaughter and
+be slaughtered; to his pleas for peace, Terestchenko simply laughed….
+Freedom? Under Kerensky he found his Committees suppressed, his
+newspapers cut off, his party speakers put in prison…. At home in his
+village, the landlords were defying his Land Committees, jailing his
+comrades…. In Petrograd the bourgeoisie, in alliance with the Germans,
+were sabotaging the food and ammunition for the Army…. He was without
+boots, or clothes…. Who forced him to desert? The Government of
+Kerensky, which you have overthrown!” At the end there was applause.
+
+But another soldier hotly denounced it: “The Government of Kerensky is
+not a screen behind which can be hidden dirty work like desertion!
+Deserters are scoundrels, who run away home and leave their comrades to
+die in the trenches alone! Every deserter is a traitor, and should be
+punished….” Uproar, shouts of _“Do volno! Teesche!”_ Kameniev hastily
+proposed to leave the matter to the Government for decision. (See App.
+V, Sect. 4)
+
+At 2.30 A. M. fell a tense hush. Kameniev was reading the decree of the
+Constitution of Power:
+
+Until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, a provisional Workers’
+and Peasants’ Government is formed, which shall be named the Council of
+People’s Commissars. (See App. V, Sect. 5)
+
+The administration of the different branches of state activity shall be
+intrusted to commissions, whose composition shall be regulated to
+ensure the carrying out of the programme of the Congress, in close
+union with the mass-organisations of working-men, working-women,
+sailors, soldiers, peasants and clerical employees. The governmental
+power is vested in a _collegium_ made up of the chairmen of these
+commissions, that is to say, the Council of People’s Commissars.
+
+Control over the activities of the People’s Commissars, and the right
+to replace them, shall belong to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of
+Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, and its Central Executive
+Committee.
+
+Still silence; as he read the list of Commissars, bursts of applause
+after each name, Lenin’s and Trotzky’s especially.
+
+_President of the Council:_ Vladimir Ulianov _(Lenin)_
+
+_Interior:_ A. E. Rykov
+
+_Agriculture:_ V. P. Miliutin
+
+_Labour:_ A. G. Shliapnikov
+
+_Military and Naval Affairs_—a committee composed of V. A.
+
+_Avseenko (Antonov),_ N. V. Krylenko, and F. M. Dybenko.
+
+_Commerce and Industry:_ V. P. Nogin
+
+_Popular Education:_ A. V. Lunatcharsky
+
+_Finance:_ E. E. Skvortsov _(Stepanov)_
+
+_Foreign Affairs:_ L. D. Bronstein _(Trotzky)_
+
+_Justice:_ G. E. Oppokov _(Lomov)_
+
+_Supplies:_ E. A. Teodorovitch
+
+_Post and Telegraph:_ N. P. Avilov _(Gliebov)_
+
+_Chairman for Nationalities:_ I. V. Djougashvili _(Stalin)_
+
+_Railroads:_ To be filled later.
+
+There were bayonets at the edges of the room, bayonets pricking up
+among the delegates; the Military Revolutionary Committee was arming
+everybody, Bolshevism was arming for the decisive battle with Kerensky,
+the sound of whose trumpets came up the south-west wind…. In the
+meanwhile nobody went home; on the contrary hundreds of newcomers
+filtered in, filling the great room solid with stern-faced soldiers and
+workmen who stood for hours and hours, indefatigably intent. The air
+was thick with cigarette smoke, and human breathing, and the smell of
+coarse clothes and sweat.
+
+Avilov of the staff of _Novaya Zhizn_ was speaking in the name of the
+Social Democrat Internationalists and the remnant of the Mensheviki
+Internationalists; Avilov, with his young, intelligent face, looking
+out of place in his smart frock-coat.
+
+“We must ask ourselves where we are going…. The ease with which the
+Coalition Government was upset cannot be explained by the strength of
+the left wing of the democracy, but only by the incapacity of the
+Government to give the people peace and bread. And the left wing cannot
+maintain itself in power unless it can solve these questions….
+
+“Can it give bread to the people? Grain is scarce. The majority of the
+peasants will not be with you, for you cannot give them the machinery
+they need. Fuel and other primary necessities are almost impossible to
+procure….
+
+“As for peace, that will be even more difficult. The allies refused to
+talk with Skobeliev. They will never accept the proposition of a peace
+conference from _you._ You will not be recognised either in London and
+Paris, or in Berlin….
+
+“You cannot count on the effective help of the proletariat of the
+Allied countries, because in most countries it is very far from the
+revolutionary struggle; remember, the Allied democracy was unable even
+to convoke the Stockholm Conference. Concerning the German Social
+Democrats, I have just talked with Comrade Goldenberg, one of our
+delegates to Stockholm; he was told by the representatives of the
+Extreme Left that revolution in Germany was impossible during the
+war….” Here interruptions began to come thick and fast, but Avilov kept
+on.
+
+“The isolation of Russia will fatally result either in the defeat of
+the Russian Army by the Germans, and the patching up of a peace between
+the Austro-German coalition and the Franco-British coalition _at the
+expense of Russia_—or in a separate peace with Germany.
+
+“I have just learned that the Allied ambassadors are preparing to
+leave, and that Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution are
+forming in all the cities of Russia….
+
+“No one party can conquer these enormous difficulties. The majority of
+the people, supporting a government of Socialist coalition, can alone
+accomplish the Revolution….
+
+“He then read the resolution of the two factions:
+
+Recognising that for the salvation of the conquests of the Revolution
+it is indispensable immediately to constitute a government based on the
+revolutionary democracy organised in the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’
+and Peasants’ Deputies, recognising moreover that the task of this
+government is the quickest possible attainment of peace, the transfer
+of the land into the hands of the agrarian committees, the organisation
+of control over industrial production, and the convocation of the
+Constituent Assembly on the date decided, the Congress appoints an
+executive committee to constitute such a government after an agreement
+with the groups of the democracy which are taking part in the Congress.
+
+In spite of the revolutionary exaltation of the triumphant crowd,
+Avilov’s cool tolerant reasoning had shaken them. Toward the end, the
+cries and hisses died away, and when he finished there was even some
+clapping.
+
+Karelin followed him—also young, fearless, whose sincerity no one
+doubted—for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of Maria
+Spiridonova, the party which almost alone followed the Bolsheviki, and
+which represented the revolutionary peasants.
+
+“Our party has refused to enter the Council of People’s Commissars
+because we do not wish forever to separate ourselves from the part of
+the revolutionary army which left the Congress, a separation which
+would make it impossible for us to serve as intermediaries between the
+Bolsheviki and the other groups of the democracy…. And that is our
+principal duty at this moment. We cannot sustain any government except
+a government of Socialist coalition….
+
+“We protest, moreover, against the tyrannical conduct of the
+Bolsheviki. Our Commissars have been driven from their posts. Our only
+organ, _Znamia Truda_ (Banner of Labour), was forbidden to appear
+yesterday….
+
+“The Central Duma is forming a powerful Committee for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, to fight you. Already you are isolated, and
+your Government is without the support of a single other democratic
+group….
+
+And now Trotzky stood upon the raised tribune, confident and
+dominating, with that sarcastic expression about his mouth which was
+almost a sneer. He spoke, in a ringing voice, and the great crowd rose
+to him.
+
+“These considerations on the dangers of isolation of our party are not
+new. On the eve of insurrection our fatal defeat was also predicted.
+Everybody was against us; only a faction of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries of the left was with us in the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. How is it that we were able to overturn the Government
+almost without bloodshed?…. That fact is the most striking proof that
+we _were not isolated._ In reality the Provisional Government was
+isolated; the democratic parties which march against us were isolated,
+are isolated, and forever cut off from the proletariat!
+
+“They speak of the necessity for a coalition. There is only one
+coalition possible—the coalition of the workers, soldiers and poorest
+peasants; and it is our party’s honour to have realised that
+coalition…. What sort of coalition did Avilov mean? A coalition with
+those who supported the Government of Treason to the People? Coalition
+doesn’t always add to strength. For example, could we have organised
+the insurrection with Dan and Avksentiev in our ranks?” Roars of
+laughter.
+
+“Avksentiev gave little bread. Will a coalition with the _oborontsi_
+furnish more? Between the peasants and Avksentiev, who ordered the
+arrest of the Land Committees, we choose the peasants! Our Revolution
+will remain the classic revolution of history….
+
+“They accuse us of repelling an agreement with the other democratic
+parties. But is it we who are to blame? Or must we, as Karelin put it,
+blame it on a ‘misunderstanding’? No, comrades. When a party in full
+tide of revolution, still wreathed in powder-smoke, comes to say, ‘Here
+is the Power—take it!’—and when those to whom it is offered go over to
+the enemy, that is not a misunderstanding…. that is a declaration of
+pitiless war. And it isn’t we who have declared war….
+
+“Avilov menaces us with failure of our peace efforts—if we remain
+‘isolated.’ I repeat, I don’t see how a coalition with Skobeliev, or
+even Terestchenko, can help us to get peace! Avilov tries to frighten
+us by the threat of a peace at our expense. And I answer that in any
+case, if Europe continues to be ruled by the imperialist bourgeoisie,
+revolutionary Russia will inevitably be lost….
+
+“There are only two alternatives; either the Russian Revolution will
+create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers will
+destroy the Russian Revolution!”
+
+They greeted him with an immense crusading acclaim, kindling to the
+daring of it, with the thought of championing mankind. And from that
+moment there was something conscious and decided about the
+insurrectionary masses, in all their actions, which never left them.
+
+But on the other side, too, battle was taking form. Kameniev recognised
+a delegate from the Union of Railway Workers, a hardfaced, stocky man
+with an attitude of implacable hostility. He threw a bombshell.
+
+“In the name of the strongest organisation in Russia I demand the right
+to speak, and I say to you: the _Vikzhel_ charges me to make known the
+decision of the Union concerning the constitution of Power. The Central
+Committee refuses absolutely to support the Bolsheviki if they persist
+in isolating themselves from the whole democracy of Russia!” Immense
+tumult all over the hall.
+
+“In 1905, and in the Kornilov days, the Railway Workers were the best
+defenders of the Revolution. But you did not invite us to your
+Congress—” Cries, “It was the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ which did not invite
+you!” The orator paid no attention. “We do not recognise the legality
+of this Congress; since the departure of the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries there is not a legal quorum…. The Union supports the
+old _Tsay-ee-Kah,_ and declares that the Congress has no right to elect
+a new Committee….
+
+“The Power should be a Socialist and revolutionary Power, responsible
+before the authorised organs of the entire revolutionary democracy.
+Until the constitution of such a power, the Union of Railway Workers,
+which refuses to transport counter-revolutionary troops to Petrograd,
+at the same time forbids the execution of any order whatever without
+the consent of the _Vikzhel._ The _Vikzhel_ also takes into its hands
+the entire administration of the railroads of Russia.”
+
+At the end he could hardly be heard for the furious storm of abuse
+which beat upon him. But it was a heavy blow—that could be seen in the
+concern on the faces of the presidium. Kameniev, however, merely
+answered that there could be no doubt of the legality of the Congress,
+as even the quorum established by the old _Tsay-ee-Kah_ was exceeded—in
+spite of the secession of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolution
+arises….
+
+Then came the vote on the Constitution of Power, which carried the
+Council of People’s Commissars into office by an enormous majority….
+
+The election of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the new parliament of the
+Russian Republic, took barely fifteen minutes. Trotzky announced its
+composition: 100 members, of which 70 Bolsheviki…. As for the peasants,
+and the seceding factions, places were to be reserved for them. “We
+welcome into the Government all parties and groups which will adopt our
+programme,” ended Trotzky.
+
+And thereupon the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was dissolved,
+so that the members might hurry to their homes in the four corners of
+Russia and tell of the great happenings….
+
+It was almost seven when we woke the sleeping conductors and motor-men
+of the street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers’ Union always kept
+waiting at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their homes. In the
+crowded car there was less happy hilarity than the night before, I
+thought. Many looked anxious; perhaps they were saying to themselves,
+“Now we are masters, how can we do our will?”
+
+At our apartment-house we were held up in the dark by an armed patrol
+of citizens and carefully examined. The Duma’s proclamation was doing
+its work….
+
+The landlady heard us come in, and stumbled out in a pink silk wrapper.
+
+The House Committee has again asked that you take your turn on
+guard-duty with the rest of the men,” she said.
+
+“What’s the reason for this guard-duty?”
+
+“To protect the house and the women and children.”
+
+“Who from?”
+
+“Robbers and murderers.”
+
+“But suppose there came a Commissar from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to search for arms?”
+
+“Oh, that’s what they’ll _say_ they are…. And besides, what’s the
+difference?”
+
+I solemnly affirmed that the Consul had forbidden all American citizens
+to carry arms—especially in the neighbourhood of the Russian
+_intelligentzia_….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+The Committee for Salvation
+
+
+Friday, November 9th….
+
+Novotcherkask, November 8th.
+
+In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose
+the Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd… the
+Cossack Government declares that it considers these acts criminal and
+absolutely inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend all
+their support to the Provisional Government, which is a government of
+coalition. Because of these circumstances, and until the return of the
+Provisional Government to power, and the restoration of order in
+Russia, I take upon myself, beginning November 7th, all the power in
+that which concerns the region of the Don.
+
+Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
+
+_President of the Government of the Cossack Troops._
+
+_Prikaz_ of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
+
+I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme
+Commander of all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare that
+I am at the head of regiments from the Front who have remained faithful
+to the fatherland.
+
+I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who
+through mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to
+the country and the Revolution, to return to their duty without delay.
+
+This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
+
+Signed: _Minister-President of the Provisional_
+_Government and Supreme Commander_
+A. F. KERENSKY.
+
+
+Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern Front:
+
+The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without
+bloodshed. Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky and
+Ismailovsky regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and joined
+the Government troops.
+
+I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible. The
+Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to retreat….
+
+Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the
+night. Detachments of the two regiments mentioned—not the sailors—while
+wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed been surrounded
+by Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not true that they had
+joined the Government troops. At this very moment crowds of them,
+bewildered and ashamed, were up at Smolny trying to explain. They did
+not think the Cossacks were so near…. They had tried to argue with the
+Cossacks….
+
+Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary
+front. The garrisons of all the little towns southward had split
+hopelessly, bitterly into two factions—or three: the high command being
+on the side of Kerensky, in default of anything stronger, the majority
+of the rank and file with the Soviets, and the rest unhappily wavering.
+
+Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command the
+defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain, Muraviov, the
+same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions during the summer,
+and had once been heard to advise the Government that “it was too
+lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped out.” A man of military
+mind, who admired power and audacity, perhaps sincerely….
+
+Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all
+shops and stores should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and
+apartments should be put at the disposal of the Committee….
+
+For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from
+provincial Russia and the outside world. The railway men and
+telegraphers refused to transmit their despatches, the postmen would
+not handle their mail. Only the Government wireless at Tsarskoye Selo
+launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to the four corners of
+heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of the City Duma
+on speeding trains half across the earth; and two aeroplanes, laden
+with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front….
+
+But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a
+swiftness surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed
+resolutions of support; Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the
+telegraph station, only to be driven out by delegates to the Congress
+of Cossacks, which happened to be meeting there; in Kazan, a Military
+Revolutionary Committee arrested the local garrison staff and the
+Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far Krasnoyarsk, in
+Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control of the Municipal
+institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was aggravated by a great
+strike of leather-workers on one side, and a threat of general lock-out
+on the other, the Soviets had voted overwhelmingly to support the
+action of the Bolsheviki in Petrograd…. Already a Military
+Revolutionary Committee was functioning.
+
+Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the
+industrial workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the
+officers, _yunkers_ and middle class generally were on the side of the
+Government—as were the bourgeois Cadets and the “moderate” Socialist
+parties. In all these towns sprang up Committees for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, arming for civil war….
+
+Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the process
+had begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and giving
+birth to a sort of forecast of the new order, had ended by merely
+perpetuating the hollow structure of the old regime. Now, however, the
+Bolsheviki, in one night, had dissipated it, as one blows away smoke.
+Old Russia was no more; human society flowed molten in primal heat, and
+from the tossing sea of flame was emerging the class struggle, stark
+and pitiless—and the fragile, slowly-cooling crust of new planets….
+
+In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the Ministries
+of Labour and of Supplies—the only two created by the all-Socialist
+Government of August.
+
+If ever men stood alone the “handful of Bolsheviki” apparently stood
+alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them. (See
+App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military Revolutionary
+Committee struck—for its life. “_De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et
+toujours de l’audace_….” At five in the morning the Red Guards entered
+the printing office of the City Government, confiscated thousands of
+copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma, and suppressed the official
+Municipal organ—the _Viestnik Gorodskovo Samoupravleniya_ (Bulletin of
+the Municipal Self-Government). All the bourgeois newspapers were torn
+from the presses, even the _Golos Soldata,_ journal of the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_—which, however, changing its name to _Soldatski Golos,_
+appeared in an edition of a hundred thousand copies, bellowing rage and
+defiance:
+
+The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have
+suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance long.
+The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you, Messrs. the
+Bolsheviki! We shall see!…
+
+As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street
+before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there stood
+Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one surrounded by
+about a hundred men and women—clerks, students, shopkeepers,
+_tchinovniki_—shaking their fists and bawling insults and menaces. On
+the steps stood boy-scouts and officers, distributing copies of the
+_Soldatski Golos._ A workman with a red band around his arm and a
+revolver in his hand stood trembling with rage and nervousness in the
+middle of a hostile throng at the foot of the stairs, demanding the
+surrender of the papers…. Nothing like this, I imagine, ever occurred
+in history. On one side a handful of workmen and common soldiers, with
+arms in their hands, representing a victorious insurrection—and
+perfectly miserable; on the other a frantic mob made up of the kind of
+people that crowd the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering,
+abusing, shouting, “Traitors! Provocators! _Opritchniki!_”[15]
+
+[15] Savage body-guards if Ivan the Terrible, 17th century.
+
+The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands
+lettered in red, “Militia of the Committee of Public Safety,” and half
+a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all commotion.
+Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. “They’re going to dissolve
+the Duma,” he said. “The Bolshevik Commissar is with the Mayor now.” As
+we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying out. He had been to demand
+that the Duma recognise the Council of peoples’ Commissars, and the
+Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
+
+In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
+gesticulating—Government officials, intellectuals, journalists, foreign
+correspondents, French and British officers…. “The City Engineer
+pointed to them triumphantly. “The Embassies recognise the Duma as the
+only power now,” he explained. “For these Bolshevik murderers and
+robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is rallying to us….
+
+In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for Salvation.
+Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the tribune, reporting,
+to immense applause, new adhesions to the Committee; Executive
+Committee of Peasants’ Soviets, old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Central Army
+Committee, _Tsentroflot,_ Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary and Front
+group delegates from the Congress of Soviets, Central Committees of the
+Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties.
+“Yedinstvo” group, Peasants’ Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos,
+Municipalities, Post and Telegraph Unions, _Vikzhel,_ Council of the
+Russian Republic, Union of Unions,[16] Merchants’ and Manufacturers’
+Association….
+
+[16] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+“…. The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
+dictatorship—and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but _against_
+the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to feel
+revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the
+Revolution….
+
+“The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
+demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution…. If rumours
+are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to
+profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs, it
+is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of
+democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will follow
+troubles from the Left….
+
+“The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens
+buying the _Golos Soldata_ and newsboys selling the _Rabotchaya Gazeta_
+are arrested in the streets….
+
+“The hour of resolutions has passed…. Let those who have no longer
+faith in the Revolution retire…. To establish a united power, we must
+again restore the prestige of the Revolution….
+
+“Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved—or we shall
+perish!”
+
+The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single
+proletarian anywhere in sight….
+
+Then Weinstein:
+
+“We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly
+grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation—then we can pass from
+the defensive to action!”
+
+The _Vikzhel_ representative announced that his organisation was taking
+the initiative in forming the new Government, and its delegates were
+now discussing the matter with Smolny…. Followed a hot discussion: were
+the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new Government? Martov pleaded for
+their admission; after all, he said, they represented an important
+political party. Opinions were very much divided upon this, the right
+wing Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist
+Socialists, the Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly
+against….
+
+“They have betrayed Russia,” one speaker said. “They have started civil
+war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must be
+mercilessly crushed….”
+
+Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the Cadets.
+
+We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who had
+walked out of the Democratic Conference together with the Bolsheviki,
+that night when Tseretelli and the “compromisers” forced Coalition upon
+the democracy of Russia.
+
+“You here?” I asked him.
+
+His eyes flashed fire. “Yes!” he cried. “I left the Congress with my
+party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years and
+more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their methods are
+intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants…. When the
+peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes before they are
+done for.”
+
+“But the peasants—will they act? Doesn’t the Land decree settle the
+peasants? What more do they want?”
+
+“Ah, the Land decree!” he said furiously. “Yes, do you know what that
+Land decree is? It is _our_ decree—it is the Socialist Revolutionary
+programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after the most careful
+compilation of the wishes of the peasants themselves. It is an
+outrage….”
+
+“But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
+peasants’ wishes, why will they oppose it?”
+
+“You don’t understand! Don’t you see that the peasants will immediately
+realise that it is all a trick—that these usurpers have stolen the
+Socialist Revolutionary programme?”
+
+I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
+
+He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction.
+“Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised the
+counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The Revolution
+is lost.”
+
+“But won’t you defend the Revolution?”
+
+“Of course we will defend it—to the last drop of our blood. But we
+won’t cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way….”
+
+“But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the city.
+Won’t you join with them?”
+
+“Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won’t support the
+Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the Bolsheviki
+are equally enemies of the Revolution.”
+
+“Which do you prefer—Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?”
+
+“It is not a question to be discussed!” he burst out impatiently. “I
+tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are to
+blame. But listen—why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is
+coming…. Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive…. Already
+Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new Government. But we
+have them now—they are absolutely impotent…. We shall not cooperate….”
+
+Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard, finally
+exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it, wounding a
+young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into a cab,
+surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices floated up
+to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile appeared around
+the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this way and that.
+Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd crowds do, falling
+down and lying still in the street, piled in the gutters, heaped up
+behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to the steps of the Duma
+and a man stuck his head out of the turret, demanding the surrender of
+the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts jeered and scuttled into the
+building. After a moment the automobile wheeled undecidedly around and
+went off up the Nevsky, while some hundreds of men and women picked
+themselves up and began to dust their clothes….
+
+Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of
+_Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them….
+
+A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
+
+“Here’s a proclamation from Krasnov!” he cried. Everybody crowded
+around. “Get it printed—get it printed quick, and around to the
+barracks!”
+
+By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of the
+troops concentrated under Petrograd.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of the
+Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have remained
+faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to guard
+inviolable your oath of Cossack—I call upon you to save Petrograd from
+anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save Russia from the
+indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men, bought by the gold
+of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.
+
+The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great
+days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the
+edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with the
+help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help of the
+Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all the
+Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its ranks,
+and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people, has sworn
+to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the Troublous Times
+of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered Moscow, menaced by the
+Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your Government still exists….
+
+The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt.
+Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German mentality
+with which they regard Russia—stricken down but not yet
+surrendered—have alienated from them the entire people.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd;
+send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their
+country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of
+innocent blood.
+
+Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the building
+was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red band around
+his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he left and old
+Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.
+
+“A special meeting of the Duma!” he cried. “Immediately!”
+
+In the big hall proceedings were halted. “All members of the Duma for a
+special meeting!”
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+“I don’t know—going to arrest us—going to dissolve the Duma—arresting
+members at the door—” so ran the excited comments.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor announced
+that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting all exit and
+entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest and the dispersal
+of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned speeches from members,
+and even from the galleries, responded. The freely-elected City
+Government could not be dissolved by _any_ power; the Mayor’s person
+and that of all the members were inviolable; the tyrants, the
+provocators, the German agents should never be recognised; as for these
+threats to dissolve us, let them try—only over our dead bodies shall
+they seize this chamber, where like the Roman senators of old we await
+with dignity the coming of the Goths….
+
+Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by
+telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the
+Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with
+representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the
+so-called Council of People’s Commissars. Resolution, to address
+another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the
+defence of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in
+permanent session….
+
+In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had
+telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee
+said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the
+troops would be withdrawn….
+
+As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very
+agitated.
+
+“Are you going to dissolve the Duma?” I asked.
+
+“My God, no!” he answered. “It is all a mistake. I told the Mayor this
+morning that the Duma would be left alone….”
+
+Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of
+cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted, and
+the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions.
+
+“Who are you? Where do you come from?” asked a fat old man with a cigar
+in his mouth.
+
+“Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets against
+the damn’ bourgeoisie!”
+
+“Ah!” were furious cries. “Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik Cossacks!”
+
+A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. “The
+garrison is turning!” he muttered in my ear. “It’s the beginning of the
+end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the tide? Come
+on!” He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we followed.
+
+“What regiment is it?”
+
+“The _brunnoviki_….” Here was indeed serious trouble. The _brunnoviki_
+were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation; whoever
+controlled the _brunnoviki_ controlled the city. “The Commissars of the
+Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been talking to them. There’s
+a meeting on to decide….
+
+“Decide what? Which side they’ll fight on?”
+
+“Oh, no. That’s not the way to do it. They’ll never fight against the
+Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral—and then the _yunkers_ and
+Cossacks—”
+
+The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two
+sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to their
+indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light burned dimly,
+high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose lofty pilasters and
+rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around dimly squatted the
+monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood alone in the centre of
+the place, under the light, and round it were gathered some two
+thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the immensity of that
+imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen of the Soldiers’
+Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the car, and from the
+central turret a soldier was speaking. This was Khanjunov, who had been
+president of last summer’s all-Russian Congress of _Brunnoviki._ A
+lithe, handsome figure in his leather coat with lieutenant’s
+shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently for neutrality.
+
+“It is an awful thing,” he said, “for Russians to kill their Russian
+brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
+shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign enemy
+in battles which will go down in history! What have we, soldiers, got
+to do with these squabbles of political parties? I will not say to you
+that the Provisional Government was a democratic Government; we want no
+coalition with the bourgeoisie—no. But we must have a Government of the
+united democracy, or Russia is lost! With such a Government there will
+be no need for civil war, and the killing of brother by brother!”
+
+This sounded reasonable—the great hall echoed to the crash of hands and
+voices.
+
+A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, “Comrades!” he
+cried, “I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all: there
+must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace, whether it be
+the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow. Peace! We at the
+front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight either Germans or
+Russians—” With that he leaped down, and a sort of confused agonised
+sound rose up from all that surging mass, which burst into something
+like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik _oboronetz,_ tried to say
+that the war must go on until the Allies were victorious.
+
+“You talk like Kerensky!” shouted a rough voice.
+
+A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to,
+muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen men
+trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood
+staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their brows
+wrinkled with the effort of thought, sweat standing out on their
+foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of children
+and the faces of epic warriors….
+
+Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full of
+hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their mood. For
+the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of common thoughts,
+thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the world, as if it depended
+on them whether the Revolution were to live or die….
+
+Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of
+approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned,
+persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn’t he an officer, and an
+_oboronotz,_ however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from
+Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, “And are _you_ going to give
+us peace, working-man?” Near us some men, many of them officers, formed
+a sort of _claque_ to cheer the advocates of Neutrality. They kept
+shouting, “Khanjunov! Khanjunov!” and whistled insultingly when the
+Bolsheviki tried to speak.
+
+Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile began
+to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation. The
+audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great mass
+tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the officers,
+wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
+
+“Comrades!” he cried, “Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak to
+us.” An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of _“Prosim! Prosim!
+Dolby!_ Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!” in the midst of which the
+People’s Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the side of the
+car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and pulled from below
+and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then walked out on the
+radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked around smiling, a squat,
+short-legged figure, bare-headed, without insignia on his uniform.
+
+The _claque_ near me kept up a fearful shouting, “Khanjunov! We want
+Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!” The whole
+place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche
+bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way through.
+
+“Who is breaking up our meeting?” they shouted. “Who is whistling
+here?” The _claque,_ rudely burst asunder, went flying—nor did it
+gather again….
+
+“Comrade soldiers!” began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue. “I
+cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any sleep for
+four nights….
+
+“I don’t need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don’t need to tell you
+that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
+successful in the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Revolution, by the help of you
+and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever
+the power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to
+all the peoples, and that has already been done—to-day!” Tumultuous
+applause.
+
+“You are asked to remain neutral—to remain neutral while the _yunkers_
+and the Death Battalions, who are _never_ neutral, shoot us down in the
+streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky—or perhaps some other of
+the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don. Kerensky is coming from the
+front. Kornilov is raising the _Tekhintsi_ to repeat his attempt of
+August. All these Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries who call
+upon you now to prevent civil war—how have they retained the power
+except by civil war, that civil war which has endured ever since last
+July, and in which they constantly stood on the side of the
+bourgeoisie, as they do now?
+
+“How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The question
+is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov, the
+Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers…. They
+tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the workers,
+the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The Government is in
+your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia belongs to you. Will you
+give it back?”
+
+While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will, and
+as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke through
+the tired voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a hundred hands
+reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces of the hall gave
+back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
+
+Khanjunov tried to speak again, but “Vote! Vote! Vote!” they cried. At
+length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the _brunnoviki_
+withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war. All
+those in favour should go to the right; those opposed, to the left.
+There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then the
+crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one another, to
+the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid mass rushing across the
+dirt floor in the faint light…. Near us about fifty men were left
+stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the high roof shook under
+the shock of victorious roaring, they turned and rapidly walked out of
+the building—and, some of them, out of the Revolution….
+
+Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the
+district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos,
+watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing,
+threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all the locals of
+every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships
+of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of
+Russian men staring up at speakers all over the vast country, workmen,
+peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so hard to understand and to
+choose, thinking so intensely—and deciding so unanimously at the end.
+So was the Russian Revolution….
+
+Up at Smolny the new Council of People’s Commissars was not idle.
+Already the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in
+thousands through the city streets that night, and shipped in bales by
+every train southward and east:
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies with
+participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People’s Commissars
+decrees:
+
+1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at the
+date determined upon—November 12.
+
+2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government, Soviets
+of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, and soldiers’
+organisations on the front should make every effort to assure free and
+regular elections at the date determined upon.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, _The President
+of the Council of People’s Commissars_,
+
+VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+
+In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of the
+Council of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council, he
+said, did not consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable to
+continue its labours until it secured a new meeting-place. In the
+meanwhile, its Committee of Elders had determined to enter _en masse_
+the Committee for Salvation…. This, I may remark parenthetically, is
+the last time history mentions the Council of the Russian Republic….
+
+Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries,
+the _Vikzhel,_ the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth
+time reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik
+usurpers. A _yunker_ who had been in the Winter Palace told a
+highly-coloured tale of the heroism of himself and his comrades, and
+disgraceful conduct of the Red Guards—all of which was devoutly
+believed. Somebody read aloud an account in the Socialist Revolutionary
+paper _Narod,_ which stated that five hundred million rubles’ worth of
+damage had been done in the Winter Palace, and describing in great
+detail the loot and breakage.
+
+From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The four
+Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had gone to
+Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of Marine was
+deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take charge under
+the authority of the Council of People’s Commissars; and the old seaman
+had consented…. Kerensky was advancing north from Gatchina, the
+Bolshevik garrisons falling back before him. Smolny had issued another
+decree, enlarging the powers of the City Dumas to deal with food
+supplies.
+
+This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin, the
+usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal garage,
+entered the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the Supply
+Committees and the distribution of food—he presumed to define the
+limits of power of the free, independent, autonomous City Government!
+One member, shaking his fist, moved to cut off the food of the city if
+the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with the Supply Committees…. Another,
+representative of the Special Supply Committee, reported that the food
+situation was very grave, and asked that emissaries be sent out to
+hasten food trains.
+
+Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering. The
+Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats on the
+Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to continue the
+propaganda….
+
+Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: “Comrades and citizens! I
+have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger.
+Fourteen _yunkers_ of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and
+tortured by the Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are
+threatening to lynch the Ministers!” There was a whirlwind of
+indignation and horror, which only grew more violent when a stocky
+little woman dressed in grey demanded the floor, and lifted up her
+hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran revolutionist
+and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
+
+“That is a lie and a provocation!” she said, unmoved at the torrent of
+abuse. “The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, which has abolished the
+death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand that this story be
+investigated, at once; if there is any truth in it, the Government will
+take energetic measures!”
+
+A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately
+appointed, and with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As we
+followed them out, the Duma was appointing another commission to meet
+Kerensky—to try and avoid bloodshed when he entered the capital….
+
+It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of the
+fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare electric
+lights along the side of the church where lie the tombs of the Tsars,
+beneath the slender golden spire and the chimes, which, for months,
+continued to play _Bozhe Tsaria Khrani_[17] every day at noon…. The
+place was deserted; in most of the windows there were not even lights.
+Occasionally we bumped into a burly figure stumbling along in the dark,
+who answered questions with the usual, _“Ya nieznayu.”_
+
+[17] “God Save the Tsar.”
+
+[Graphic, page 166: Pass to Reed from Department of Prisons translation
+follows]
+
+Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to visit
+freely all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
+
+  Commissar
+  Chief Bureau of Prisons
+  6th of November, 1917.
+        No. 213
+  Petrograd, Smolny
+  Institute, room No. 56—
+
+PASS To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED,
+to visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and
+Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition of
+the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the purpose of
+stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy. Chief
+Commissar Secretary
+
+On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that
+living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their lives
+or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional
+Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now the
+Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional Government.
+
+A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a little
+house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and soldiers were
+sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a samovar steamed
+cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality, offering tea. The
+commandant was not in; he was escorting a commission of
+_“sabotazhniki”_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who insisted that
+the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to amuse them very
+much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed, dissipated-looking
+little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat, biting his moustache
+and staring around him like a cornered rat. He had just been arrested.
+Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him, that he was a Minister or
+something…. The little man didn’t seem to hear it; he was evidently
+terrified, although the occupants of the room showed no animosity
+whatever toward him.
+
+I went across and spoke to him in French. “Count Tolstoy,” he answered,
+bowing stiffly. “I do not understand why I was arrested. I was crossing
+the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these—of these—persons
+held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional Government attached to
+the General Staff, but in no sense a member of the Government…”
+
+“Let him go,” said a sailor. “He’s harmless….”
+
+“No,” responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. “We must ask
+the commandant.”
+
+“Oh, the commandant!” sneered the sailor. “What did you make a
+revolution for? To go on obeying officers?”
+
+A _praporshtchik_ of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
+insurrection started. “The _polk_ (regiment) was on duty at the General
+Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were standing
+guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man—I don’t remember his name—well,
+they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the Staff was
+having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For example, they
+heard orders to bring the Gatchina _yunkers_ to Petrograd by night, and
+an order for the Cossacks to be ready to march in the morning…. The
+principal points in the city were to be occupied before dawn. Then
+there was the business of opening the bridges. But when they began to
+talk about surrounding Smolny, then Ivan Pavlovitch couldn’t stand it
+any longer. That minute there was a good deal of coming and going, so
+he slipped out and came down to the guard-room, leaving the other
+comrade to pick up what he could.
+
+“I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles full
+of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan
+Pavlovitch told me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the
+morning. The secretary of the regimental Committee was there, so we
+told him and asked what to do.
+
+“‘Arrest everybody coming and going!’ he says. So we began to do it. In
+an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom we sent up
+to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary Committee wasn’t
+ready; they didn’t know what to do; and pretty soon back came the order
+to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else. Well, we ran all the
+way to Smolny, and I guess we talked for an hour before they finally
+saw that it was war. It was five o’clock when we got back to the Staff,
+and by that time most of them were gone. But we got a few, and the
+garrison was all on the march….”
+
+A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had
+happened in his district on the great day of the rising. “We didn’t
+have any machine-guns over there,” he said, laughing, “and we couldn’t
+get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of the _Uprava_
+(Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at once that there
+was lying in the meeting-room of the _Uprava_ a machinegun which had
+been captured from the Germans. So he and I and another comrade went
+there. The Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries were having a
+meeting. Well, we opened the door and walked right in on them, as they
+sat around the table—twelve or fifteen of them, three of us. When they
+saw us they stopped talking and just stared. We walked right across the
+room, uncoupled the machine-gun; Comrade Zalkind picked up one part, I
+the other, we put them on our shoulders and walked out—and not a single
+man said a word!”
+
+“Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?” asked a third man, a
+sailor. “Along about eleven o’clock we found out there weren’t any more
+_yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and filtered up
+the different stairways one by one, or in little bunches. When we got
+to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us up and took away our
+guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little by little, until we had
+a majority. Then we turned around and took away the _yunkers’_ guns….”
+
+Just then the commandant entered—a merry-looking young non-commissioned
+officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles of sleeplessness
+under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner, who at once began
+to explain.
+
+“Oh, yes,” interrupted the other. “You were one of the committee who
+refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we don’t
+want you, citizen. Apologies—” He opened the door and waved his arm for
+Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others, especially the Red
+Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor remarked triumphantly,
+_“Vot!_ There! Didn’t I say so?”
+
+Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a
+committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they
+said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn’t even
+enough to keep a man from being hungry. “Why should the
+counter-revolutionists be treated so well?”
+
+“We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits,” answered the
+commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going about
+that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the Ministers
+threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to be able to
+prove to the world—?”
+
+“No,” said the young soldier, irritably. “I am not going to disturb the
+prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up—they were
+sure we were going to massacre them…. Most of the _yunkers_ have been
+released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow.” He turned
+abruptly away.
+
+“Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?”
+
+The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded. “They
+are still out in the hall,” he said carelessly.
+
+Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light of
+an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
+
+“Mr. Mayor,” I said, “we are American correspondents. Will you please
+tell us officially the result of your investigations?”
+
+He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
+
+“There is no truth in the reports,” he said slowly. “Except for the
+incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here, they
+have been treated with every consideration. As for the _yunkers,_ not
+one has received the slightest injury….”
+
+Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable
+column of soldiers shuffled in silence—to battle with Kerensky. In dim
+back streets automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and there
+was furtive activity in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants’
+Soviet, in a certain apartment of a huge building on the Nevsky, and in
+the _Injinierny Zamok_ (School of Engineers); the Duma was
+illuminated….
+
+In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed
+baleful fire, pounding like an over-loaded dynamo….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+The Revolutionary Front
+
+
+Saturday, November 10th….
+
+Citizens!
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will not tolerate
+any violation of revolutionary order….
+
+Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be severely
+punished….
+
+Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will destroy
+without mercy any looter or instigator of disorder….
+
+Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken
+fight. By night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and on
+the corners soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires,
+laughing and singing. In the daytime great crowds gathered on the
+sidewalks listening to interminable hot debates between students and
+soldiers, business men and workmen.
+
+Citizens stopped each other on the street.
+
+“The Cossacks are coming?”
+
+“No….”
+
+“What’s the latest?”
+
+“I don’t know anything. Where’s Kerensky?”
+
+“They say only eight versts from Petrograd…. Is it true that the
+Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship _Avrora?”_
+
+“They say so….”
+
+Only the walls screamed, and the few newspapers; denunciation, appeal,
+decree….
+
+An enormous poster carried the hysterical manifesto of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets:
+
+….They (the Bolsheviki) dare to say that they are supported by the
+Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, and that they are speaking on behalf of
+the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies….
+
+Let all working-class Russia know that this is a LIE, AND THAT ALL THE
+WORKING PEASANTS—in the person of—the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
+ALL-RUSSIAN SOVIETS OF PEASANTS’ DEPUTIES—refutes with indignation all
+participation of the organised peasantry in this criminal violation of
+the will of the working-classes….
+
+From the Soldier Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+The insane attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of collapse. The
+garrison is divided…. The Ministries are on strike and bread is getting
+scarcer. All factions except the few Bolsheviki have left the Congress.
+The Bolsheviki are alone….
+
+We call upon all sane elements to group themselves around the Committee
+for Salvation of Country and Revolution, and to prepare themselves
+seriously to be ready at the first call of the Central Committee….
+
+In a hand-bill the Council of the Republic recited its wrongs:
+
+Ceding to the force of bayonets, the Council of the Republic has been
+obliged to separate, and temporarily to interrupt its meetings.
+
+The usurpers, with the words “Liberty and Socialism” on their lips,
+have set up a rule of arbitrary violence. They have arrested the
+members of the Provisional Government, closed the newspapers, seized
+the printing-shops….This power must be considered the enemy of the
+people and the Revolution; it is necessary to do battle with it, and to
+pull it down….
+
+The Council of the Republic, until the resumption of its labours,
+invites the citizens of the Russian Republic to group themselves around
+the….local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, which
+are organising the overthrow of the Bolsheviki and the creation of a
+Government capable of leading the country to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+_Dielo Naroda_ said:
+
+A revolution is a rising of all the people…. But here what have we?
+Nothing but a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky….
+Their decrees and their appeals will simply add to the museum of
+historical curiosities….
+
+And _Narodnoye Slovo_(People’s Word-Populist Socialist):
+
+“Workers’ and Peasants’ Government?” That is only a pipedream; nobody,
+either in Russia or in the countries of our Allies, will recognise this
+“Government”—or even in the enemy countries….
+
+The bourgeois press had temporarily disappeared…._Pravada_ had an
+account of the first meeting of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ now the
+parliament of the Russian Soviet Republic. Miliutin, Commissar of
+Agriculture, remarked that the Peasants’ Executive Committee had called
+an All-Russian Peasant Congress for December 13th.
+
+“But we cannot wait,” he said. “We must have the backing of the
+peasants. I propose that _we_ call the Congress of Peasants, and do it
+immediately….” The Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed. An Appeal to
+the Peasants of Russia was hastily drafted, and a committee of five
+elected to carry out the project.
+
+The question of detailed plans for distributing the land, and the
+question of Workers’ Control of Industry, were postponed until the
+experts working on them should submit a report.
+
+Three decrees (See App. VII, Sect. 1) were read and approved: first,
+Lenin’s “General Rules For the Press,” ordering the suppression of all
+newspapers inciting to resistance and disobedience to the new
+Government, inciting to criminal acts, or deliberately perverting the
+news; the Decree of Moratorium for House-rents; and the Decree
+Establishing a Workers’ Militia. Also orders, one giving the Municipal
+Duma power to requisition empty apartments and houses, the other
+directing the unloading of freight cars in the railroad terminals, to
+hasten the distribution of necessities and to free the badly-needed
+rolling-stock….
+
+Two hours later the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets was
+sending broadcast over Russia the following telegram:
+
+The arbitrary organisation of the Bolsheviki, which is called “Bureau
+of Organisation for the National Congress of Peasants,” is inviting all
+the Peasants’ Soviets to send delegates to the Congress at Petrograd….
+
+The Executive Committee of the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies declares
+that it considers, now as well as before, that it would be dangerous to
+take away from the provinces at this moment the forces necessary to
+prepare for elections to the Constituent Assembly, which is the only
+salvation of the working-class and the country. We confirm the date of
+the Congress of Peasants, _December 13th._
+
+At the Duma all was excitement, officers coming and going, the Mayor in
+conference with the leaders of the Committee for Salvation. A
+Councillor ran in with a copy of Kerensky’s proclamation, dropped by
+hundreds from an aeroplane low flying down the Nevsky, which threatened
+terrible vengeance on all who did not submit, and ordered soldiers to
+lay down their arms and assemble immediately in Mars Field.
+
+The Minister-President had taken Tsarskoye Selo, we were told, and was
+already in the Petrograd campagna, five miles away. He would enter the
+city to-morrow—in a few hours. The Soviet troops in contact with his
+Cossacks were said to be going over to the Provisional Government.
+Tchernov was somewhere in between, trying to organise the “neutral”
+troops into a force to halt the civil war.
+
+In the city the garrison regiments were leaving the Bolsheviki, they
+said. Smolny was already abandoned…. All the Governmental machinery had
+stopped functioning. The employees of the State Bank had refused to
+work under Commissars from Smolny, refused to pay out money to them.
+All the private banks were closed. The Ministries were on strike. Even
+now a committee from the Duma was making the rounds of business houses,
+collecting a fund to pay the salaries of the strikers….
+
+Trotzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered the
+clerks to translate the Decree on Peace into foreign languages; six
+hundred functionaries had hurled their resignations in his face….
+Shliapnikov, Commissar of Labour, had commanded all the employees of
+his Ministry to return to their places within twenty-four hours, or
+lose their places and their pension-rights; only the door-servants had
+responded…. Some of the branches of the Special Food Supply Committee
+had suspended work rather than submit to the Bolsheviki…. In spite of
+lavish promises of high wages and better conditions, the operators at
+the Telephone Exchange would not connect Soviet headquarters….
+
+The Socialist Revolutionary Party had voted to expel all members who
+had remained in the Congress of Soviets, and all who were taking part
+in the insurrection….
+
+News from the provinces. Moghilev had declared against the Bolsheviki.
+At Kiev the Cossacks had overthrown the Soviets and arrested all the
+insurrectionary leaders. The Soviet and garrison of Luga, thirty
+thousand strong, affirmed its loyalty to the Provisional Government,
+and appealed to all Russia to rally around it. Kaledin had dispersed
+all Soviets and Unions in the Don Basin, and his forces were moving
+north….
+
+Said a representative of the Railway Workers: “Yesterday we sent a
+telegram all over Russia demanding that war between the political
+parties cease at once, and insisting on the formation of a coalition
+Socialist Government. Otherwise we shall call a strike to-morrow
+night…. In the morning there will be a meeting of all factions to
+consider the question. The Bolsheviki seem anxious for an agreement….”
+
+“If they last that long!” laughed the City Engineer, a stout, ruddy
+man….
+
+As we came up to Smolny—not abandoned, but busier than ever, throngs of
+workers and soldiers running in and out, and doubled guards
+everywhere—we met the reporters for the bourgeois and “moderate”
+Socialist papers.
+
+“Threw us out!” cried one, from _Volia Naroda._ “Bonch-Bruevitch came
+down to the Press Bureau and told us to leave! Said we were spies!”
+They all began to talk at once: “Insult! Outrage! Freedom of the
+press!”
+
+In the lobby were great tables heaped with stacks of appeals,
+proclamations and orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+Workmen and soldiers staggered past, carrying them to waiting
+automobiles.
+
+One began:
+
+TO THE PILLORY!
+
+
+In this tragic moment through which the Russian masses are living, the
+Mensheviki and their followers and the Right Socialist Revolutionaries
+have betrayed the working-class. They have enlisted on the side of
+Kornilov, Kerensky and Savinkov….
+
+They are printing orders of the traitor Kerensky and creating a panic
+in the city, spreading the most ridiculous rumours of mythical
+victories by that renegade….
+
+Citizens! Don’t believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the
+People’s Revolution…. Premier Kerensky and his followers await speedy
+and well-deserved punishment….
+
+We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the
+enmity of all workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they are
+trying to rivet the ancient chains. They will never be able to wash
+from their bodies the stain of the people’s hatred and contempt.
+
+Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!…
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters,
+room 17 on the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the
+narrow space in front of the railing was crowded with well-dressed
+persons, outwardly respectful but inwardly full of murder—bourgeois who
+wanted permits for their automobiles, or passports to leave the city,
+among them many foreigners…. Bill Shatov and Peters were on duty. They
+suspended all other business to read us the latest bulletins.
+
+The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous
+support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the new
+Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions—enthusiastic support.
+The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military Revolutionary
+Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military Revolutionary
+Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from the Soviets of
+Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk, Sevastopol…. The Finland
+Division, the new Committees of the Fifth and Twelfth Armies, offer
+allegiance….
+
+From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two companies on
+duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but the Arsenal is
+in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his _yunkers._ The Revolutionary
+Committee demanded arms for the workers, and Riabtsev parleyed with
+them until this morning, when suddenly he sent an ultimatum to the
+Committee, ordering Soviet troops to surrender and the Committee to
+disband. Fighting has begun….
+
+In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny’s Commissars at once. The
+_Tsentroflot,_ refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of
+Cronstadt sailors, and a new _Tsentroflot_ set up, supported by the
+Baltic and the Black Sea battleships….
+
+But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition, a
+feeling of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky’s Cossacks were coming fast;
+they had artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop Committees,
+his face drawn and yellow, assured me that there was a whole army corps
+of them, but he added, fiercely, “They’ll never take us alive!”
+Petrovsky laughed weariedly, “To-morrow maybe we’ll get a sleep—a long
+one….” Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded face, said, “What
+chance have we? All alone…. A mob against trained soldiers!”
+
+South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the
+garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided—half
+voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back on
+the capital in the wildest disorder.
+
+In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
+
+FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.
+
+
+_To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in Chief,
+Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all._
+
+The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to
+every one everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary
+Petrograd have voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the armies
+of the former Government, the Government of Treason, and that the
+soldiers have been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee to
+retreat. The troops of a free people do not retreat nor do they
+surrender.
+
+Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between
+themselves and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take a
+more convenient position, which is at present so strong that if
+Kerensky and his companions in arms should even increase their forces
+ten times, still there would be no cause for anxiety. The spirit of our
+troops is excellent.
+
+In Petrograd all is quiet.
+
+_Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.
+
+As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a
+paper in his hand, looking like a corpse.
+
+“Send this,” said he.
+
+TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS’ DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP COMMITTEES
+
+
+The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to the
+capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush mercilessly
+the counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and its conquests.
+
+The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the
+immediate support of the workers.
+
+WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES:
+
+
+1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the digging
+of trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of wire
+entanglements.
+
+2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at the
+factories this shall be done immediately.
+
+3. All common and barbed wire available must be assembled, and also all
+implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of barricades.
+
+4. All available arms must be taken.
+
+5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE
+READY TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.
+
+
+_Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker’s and Soldiers’ Deputies,_
+
+People’s Commissar LEON TROTZKY.
+
+_Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.
+
+As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey horizon
+factory whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound, full of
+foreboding. By tens of thousands the working-people poured out, men and
+women; by tens of thousands the humming slums belched out their dun and
+miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was in danger! Cossacks! South and
+southwest they poured through the shabby streets toward the Moskovsky
+Gate, men, women and children, with rifles, picks, spades, rolls of
+wire, cartridge-belts over their working clothes…. Such an immense,
+spontaneous outpouring of a city never was seen! They rolled along
+torrent-like, companies of soldiers borne with them, guns,
+motor-trucks, wagons—the revolutionary proletariat defending with its
+breast the capital of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic!
+
+Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick
+glasses magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort,
+stood leaning against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a
+shabby raglan. A great bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth,
+prowled restlessly about, absently toying with an enormous blue-steel
+revolver, which never left his hand. These were Antonov and Dybenko.
+
+Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the
+running-board. The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would get
+scratched, he said. True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile was
+commandeered from a bourgeois; true, the bicycles were for the use of
+orderlies. But the chauffeur’s professional pride was revolted…. So the
+bicycles were abandoned….
+
+The People’s Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the
+revolutionary front—wherever that was. Could we go with them? Certainly
+not. The automobile only held five—the two Commissars, two orderlies
+and the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of mine, whom I will
+call Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor could any argument
+dislodge him….
+
+I see no reason to doubt Trusishka’s story of the journey. As they went
+down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They might be out
+three or four days, in a country indifferently well provisioned. They
+stopped the car. Money? The Commissar of War looked through his
+pockets—he hadn’t a kopek. The Commissar of Marine was broke. So was
+the chauffeur. Trusishka bought the provisions….
+
+Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.
+
+“What shall we do?” asked Antonov.
+
+“Commandeer another machine!” suggested Dybenko, waving his revolver.
+Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a passing
+machine, driven by a soldier.
+
+“I want that machine,” said Antonov.
+
+“You won’t get it,” responded the soldier.
+
+“Do you know who I am?” Antonov produced a paper upon which was written
+that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the
+Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him without question.
+
+“I don’t care if you’re the devil himself,” said the soldier, hotly.
+“This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment, and we’re
+carrying ammunition in it, and you can’t have it….”
+
+The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old
+battered taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble private
+cars were registered in the name of foreign consulates, so as to be
+safe from requisition.) From the interior of this was dislodged a fat
+citizen in an expensive fur coat, and the party continued on its way.
+
+Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called for
+the commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the town,
+where some few hundred workmen had dug trenches and were waiting for
+the Cossacks.
+
+“Everything all right here, comrade?” asked Antonov.
+
+“Everything perfect, comrade,” answered the commandant.
+
+“The troops are in excellent spirits…. Only one thing—we have no
+ammunition….”
+
+“In Smolny there are two billion rounds,” Antonov told him. “I will
+give you an order.” He felt in his pockets. “Has any one a piece of
+paper?”
+
+Dybenko had none—nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his
+note-book….
+
+“Devil! I have no pencil!” cried Antonov. “Who’s got a pencil?”
+Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd….
+
+We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the
+Nevsky, as we passed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with
+bayonets and some without. The early twilight of winter was falling.
+Heads up they tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four,
+without music, without drums. A red flag crudely lettered in gold,
+“Peace! Land!” floated over them. They were very young. The expression
+on their faces was that of who know they are going to die….
+Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk watched
+them pass, in hateful silence….
+
+[Graphic, page 184: Pass to the Northern Front]
+
+This pass was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days
+after the Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel to
+the Northern front—and an added note on the back extends the permission
+to all fronts. It will be noticed that the speaks of the _Petersburg_,
+instead of the _Petrograd_ Soviet; it was the fashion among
+thorough-going internationalists to abolish all names which smacked of
+“patriotism”; but at the same time, it would not do to restore the
+“Saint.”…
+                      (Translation)
+  Executive Committee
+  Petrograd Soviet of
+  Workers’ and Soldiers’
+       Deputies
+    Military Section
+  28th October, 1917
+      No. 1435
+                      CERTIFICATE
+
+The present certificate is given to the representative of the American
+Social Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED. The Military
+Revolutionary Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Deputies gives him the right of free travel through the
+entire Northern front, for the purpose of reporting to our American
+comrades—internationalists concerning events in Russia.
+                              For the President
+                              For the Secretary
+
+At the railroad station nobody knew just where Kerensky was, or where
+the front lay. Trains went no further, however, than Tsarskoye….
+
+Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden with
+bundles and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik rising.
+Outside of that, however, one would never have realised that civil war
+was rending mighty Russia in two, and that the train was headed into
+the zone of battle. Through the window we could see, in the
+swiftly-deepening darkness, masses of soldiers going along the muddy
+road toward the city, flinging out their arms in argument. A
+freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires, was
+halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the glow
+of the city’s lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled
+distantly along a far-flung suburb….
+
+Tsarskoye Selo station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here and
+there talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty track in
+the direction of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side they were
+on. “Well,” said one, “we don’t exactly know the rights of the matter….
+There is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we do not consider
+it right for Russian men to be shooting Russian men.”
+
+In the station commandant’s office was a big, jovial, bearded common
+soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our
+credentials from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly for
+the Soviets, but bewildered.
+
+“The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A
+Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the
+Cossacks arrived.”
+
+“The Cossacks are here then?”
+
+He nodded, gloomily. “There has been a battle. The Cossacks came early
+in the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men, and
+killed about twenty-five.”
+
+“Where are the Cossacks?”
+
+“Well, they didn’t get this far. I don’t know just where they are. Off
+that way….” He waved his arm vaguely westward.
+
+We had dinner—an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be got
+in Petrograd—in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French officer who
+had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet there, he said.
+Kerensky held the town. “Ah, these Russians,” he went on, “they are
+original! What a civil war! Everything except the fighting!”
+
+We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood two
+soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by about
+a hundred business men, Government officials and students, who attacked
+them with passionate argument and epithet. The soldiers were
+uncomfortable and hurt, like children unjustly scolded.
+
+A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the uniform
+of a student, was leading the attack.
+
+“You realise, I presume,” he said insolently, “that by taking up arms
+against your brothers you are making yourselves the tools of murderers
+and traitors?”
+
+“Now brother,” answered the soldier earnestly, “you don’t understand.
+There are two classes, don’t you see, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie. We—”
+
+“Oh, I know that silly talk!” broke in the student rudely. “A bunch of
+ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few catch-words. You
+don’t understand what they mean. You just echo them like a lot of
+parrots.” The crowd laughed. “I’m a Marxian student. And I tell you
+that this isn’t Socialism you are fighting for. It’s just plain
+pro-German anarchy!”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know,” answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from his
+brow. “You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am only a
+simple man. But it seems to me—”
+
+“I suppose,” interrupted the other contemptuously, “that you believe
+Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?”
+
+“Yes, I do,” answered the soldier, suffering.
+
+“Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in a
+closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know much about that,” answered the soldier stubbornly,
+“but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to hear, and all
+the simple men like me. Now there are two classes, the bourgeoisie and
+the proletariat—”
+
+“You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schlüsselburg for
+revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
+revolutionists and singing ‘God Save the Tsar!’ My name is Vasili
+Georgevitch Panyin. Didn’t you ever hear of me?”
+
+“I’m sorry to say I never did,” answered the soldier with humility.
+“But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero.”
+
+“I am,” said the student with conviction. “And I am opposed to the
+Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now how
+do you account for that?”
+
+The soldier scratched his head. “I can’t account for it at all,” he
+said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. “To me it
+seems perfectly simple—but then, I’m not well educated. It seems like
+there are only two classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie—”
+
+“There you go again with your silly formula!” cried the student.
+
+“—only two classes,” went on the soldier, doggedly.
+
+“And whoever isn’t on one side is on the other…”
+
+We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far
+between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung
+over the place—as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a
+political No Man’s Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly
+lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public bath;
+for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes itself.
+I haven’t the slightest doubt that Soviet troops and Cossacks mingled
+in the places where these ceremonies were performed.
+
+The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the
+streets. A frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the
+Soviet, and hurried on. It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal
+palaces, fronting the Park. The windows were dark, the door locked. A
+soldier, lounging about with his hands in the top of his trousers,
+looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion. “The Soviet went away two
+days ago,” said he. “Where?” A shrug. _“Nie znayu._ I don’t know.”
+
+A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated. From
+within came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a soldier
+and a sailor came down the street, hand in hand. I showed them my pass
+from Smolny. “Are you for the Soviets?” I asked. They did not answer,
+but looked at each other in a frightened way.
+
+“What is going on in there?” asked the sailor, pointing to the
+building.
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack.
+Inside a great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of chairs, a
+stage being built.
+
+A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks
+came out. “What do you want?” she asked.
+
+“Is there a performance to-night?” said the sailor, nervously.
+
+“There will be private theatricals Sunday night,” she answered
+severely. “Go away.”
+
+We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they
+seemed frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.
+
+We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast,
+dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges looming
+uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the fountains.
+At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat unceasingly from an
+artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of observation, and looked up
+to encounter the sullen, suspicious gaze of half a dozen gigantic armed
+soldiers, who stared moodily down from a grassy terrace. I climbed up
+to them. “Who are you?” I asked.
+
+“We are the guard,” answered one. They all looked very depressed, as
+undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night
+argument and debate.
+
+“Are you Kerensky’s troops, or the Soviets’?”
+
+There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each other.
+Then, “We are neutral,” said he.
+
+We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the
+Palace enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a
+door in a curving white wing of the Palace said that the commandant was
+inside.
+
+In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a
+two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking. They
+were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn’t slept. To one, an oldish
+man with a white beard, his uniform studded with decorations, who was
+pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our Bolshevik papers.
+
+He seemed surprised. “How did you get here without being killed?” he
+asked politely. “It is very dangerous in the streets just now.
+Political passion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was a
+battle this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning.
+Kerensky is to enter the town at eight o’clock.”
+
+“Where are the Cossacks?”
+
+“About a mile over that way.” He waved his arm.
+
+“And you will defend the city against them?”
+
+“Oh dear no.” He smiled. “We are holding the city for Kerensky.” Our
+hearts sank, for our passes stated that we were revolutionary to the
+core. The Colonel cleared his throat. “About those passes of yours,” he
+went on. “Your lives will be in danger if you are captured. Therefore,
+if you want to see the battle, I will give you an order for rooms in
+the officers’ hotel, and if you will come back here at seven o’clock in
+the morning, I will give you new passes.”
+
+“So you are for Kerensky?” we said.
+
+“Well, not exactly _for_ Kerensky.” The Colonel hesitated. “You see,
+most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and to-day, after
+the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd, taking
+the artillery with them. You might say that none of the _soldiers_ are
+for Kerensky; but some of them just don’t want to fight at all. The
+_officers_ have almost all gone over to Kerensky’s forces, or simply
+gone away. We are—ahem—in a most difficult position, as you see….”
+
+We did not believe that there would be any battle…. The Colonel
+courteously sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station. He
+was from the South, born of French immigrant parents in Bessarabia.
+“Ah,” he kept saying, “it is not the danger or the hardships I mind,
+but being so long, three years, away from my mother….”
+
+Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold dark
+toward Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers gesticulating
+in the light of fires, and of clusters of armoured cars halted together
+at cross-roads, the chauffeurs hanging out of the turrets and shouting
+to each other….
+
+All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of soldiers
+and Red Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the Commissars of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee hurried from one group to another,
+trying to organise a defence….
+
+Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the
+Nevsky. Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station could
+be heard far-off cannonade. In the _yunker_ schools there was feverish
+activity. Duma members went from barracks to barracks, arguing and
+pleading, narrating fearful stories of Bolshevik violence—massacre of
+the _yunkers_ in the Winter Palace, rape of the women soldiers, the
+shooting of the girl before the Duma, the murder of Prince Tumanov…. In
+the Alexander Hall of the Duma building the Committee for Salvation was
+in special session; Commissars came and went, running…. All the
+journalists expelled from Smolny were there, in high spirits. They did
+not believe our report of conditions in Tsarskoye. Why, everybody knew
+that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky’s hands, and that the Cossacks were now
+at Pulkovo. A committee was being elected to meet Kerensky at the
+railway station in the morning….
+
+One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the counter-revolution
+would begin at midnight. He showed me two proclamations, one signed by
+Gotz and Polkovnikov, ordering the _yunker_ schools, soldier
+convalescents in the hospitals, and the Knights of St. George to
+mobilise on a war footing and wait for orders from the Committee for
+Salvation; the other from the Committee for Salvation itself, which
+read as follows:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd!
+
+The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting to
+civil war in the rear.
+
+Do not dig their provocatory appeals!
+
+Do not dig trenches!
+
+Down with the traitorous barricades!
+
+Lay down your arms!
+
+Soldiers, return to your barracks!
+
+The war begun in Petrograd—is the death of the Revolution!
+
+In the name of liberty, land, and peace, unite around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution!
+
+As we left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and desperate,
+came marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen
+prisoners—members of the local branch of the Council of Cossacks,
+caught red-handed plotting counter-revolution in their headquarters….
+
+A soldier, accompanied by a small boy with a pail of paste, was
+sticking up great flaring notices:
+
+By virtue of the present, the city of Petrograd and its suburbs are
+declared in a state of siege. All assemblies or meetings in the
+streets, and generally in the open air, are forbidden until further
+orders.
+
+N. PODVOISKY, President of the Military
+
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+As we went home the air was full of confused sound—automobile horns,
+shouts, distant shots. The city stirred uneasily, wakeful.
+
+In the small hours of the morning a company of _yunkers,_ disguised as
+soldiers of the Semionovsky Regiment, presented themselves at the
+Telephone Exchange just before the hour of changing guard. They had the
+Bolshevik password, and took charge without arousing suspicion. A few
+minutes later Antonov appeared, making a round of inspection. Him they
+captured and locked in a small room. When the relief came it was met by
+a blast of rifle-fire, several being killed.
+
+Counter-revolution had begun…
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+Counter-Revolution
+
+
+Next morning, Sunday the 11th, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo,
+Kerensky (See App. VIII, Sect. 1) himself riding a white horse and all
+the church-bells clamouring. From the top of a little hill outside the
+town could be seen the golden spires and many-coloured cupolas, the
+sprawling grey immensity of the capital spread along the dreary plain,
+and beyond, the steely Gulf of Finland.
+
+There was no battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in the
+morning he sent word to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay down
+their arms. The soldiers replied that they would remain neutral, but
+would not disarm. Kerensky gave them ten minutes in which to obey. This
+angered the soldiers; for eight months they had been governing
+themselves by committee, and this smacked of the old régime…. A few
+minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the barracks, killing
+eight men. From that moment there were no more “neutral” soldiers in
+Tsarskoye….
+
+Petrograd woke to bursts of rifle-fire, and the tramping thunder of men
+marching. Under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow. At dawn
+the Military Hotel and the Telegraph Agency had been taken by large
+forces of _yunkers,_ and bloodily recaptured. The Telephone Station was
+besieged by sailors, who lay behind barricades of barrels, boxes and
+tin sheets in the middle of the Morskaya, or sheltered themselves at
+the corner of the Gorokhovaya and of St. Isaac’s Square, shooting at
+anything that moved. Occasionally an automobile passed in and out,
+flying the Red Cross flag. The sailors let it pass….
+
+Albert Rhys Williams was in the Telephone Exchange. He went out with
+the Red Cross automobile, which was ostensibly full of wounded. After
+circulating about the city, the car went by devious ways to the
+Mikhailovsky _yunker_ school, headquarters of the counter-revolution. A
+French officer, in the court-yard, seemed to be in command…. By this
+means ammunition and supplies were conveyed to the Telephone Exchange.
+Scores of these pretended ambulances acted as couriers and ammunition
+trains for the _yunkers._
+
+Five or six armoured cars, belonging to the disbanded British Armoured
+Car Division, were in their hands. As Louise Bryant was going along St.
+Isaac’s Square one came rolling up from the Admiralty, on its way to
+the Telephone Exchange. At the corner of the Gogolia, right in front of
+her, the engine stalled. Some sailors ambushed behind wood-piles began
+shooting. The machine-gun in the turret of the thing slewed around and
+spat a hail of bullets indiscriminately into the wood-piles and the
+crowd. In the archway where Miss Bryant stood seven people were shot
+dead, among them two little boys. Suddenly, with a shout, the sailors
+leaped up and rushed into the flaming open; closing around the monster,
+they thrust their bayonets into the loop-holes, again and again,
+yelling… The chauffeur pretended to be wounded, and they let him go
+free—to run to the Duma and swell the tale of Bolshevik
+atrocities….Among the dead was a British Officer….
+
+Later the newspapers told of another French officer, captured in a
+_yunker_ armoured car and sent to Peter-Paul. The French Embassy
+promptly denied this, but one of the City Councillors told me that he
+himself had procured the officer’s release from prison….
+
+Whatever the official attitude of the Allied Embassies, individual
+French and British officers were active these days, even to the extent
+of giving advice at executive sessions of the Committee for Salvation.
+
+All day long in every quarter of the city there were skirmishes between
+_yunkers_ and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars…. Volleys,
+single shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could be heard, far
+and near. The iron shutters of the shops were drawn, but business still
+went on. Even the moving-picture shows, all outside lights dark, played
+to crowded houses. The street-cars ran. The telephones were all
+working; when you called Central, shooting could be plainly heard over
+the wire…. Smolny was cut off, but the Duma and the Committee for
+Salvation were in constant communication with all the _yunker_ schools
+and with Kerensky at Tsarskoye.
+
+At seven in the morning the Vladimir _yunker_ school was visited by a
+patrol of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, who gave the _yunkers_
+twenty minutes to lay down their arms. The ultimatum was rejected. An
+hour later the _yunkers_ got ready to march, but were driven back by a
+violent fusillade from the corner of the Grebetskaya and the Bolshoy
+Prospekt. Soviet troops surrounded the building and opened fire, two
+armoured cars cruising back and forth with machine guns raking it. The
+_yunkers_ telephoned for help. The Cossacks replied that they dare not
+come, because a large body of sailors with two cannon commanded their
+barracks. The Pavlovsk school was surrounded. Most of the Mikhailov
+_yunkers_ were fighting in the streets….
+
+At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to
+surrender was met by the _yunkers_ shooting down two of the Soviet
+delegates under the white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great
+holes were torn in the walls of the school. The _yunkers_ defended
+themselves desperately; shouting waves of Red Guards, assaulting,
+crumpled under the withering blast…. Kerensky telephoned from Tsarskoye
+to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened a
+tornado of steel and flame against the battered building. Their own
+officers could not stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar from
+Smolny named Kirilov tried to halt it; he was threatened with lynching.
+The Red Guards’ blood was up.
+
+At half-past two the _yunkers_ hoisted a white flag; they would
+surrender if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised. With a
+rush and a shout thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured through
+windows, doors and holes in the wall. Before it could be stopped five
+_yunkers_ were beaten and stabbed to death. The rest, about two
+hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under escort, in small groups so as
+to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one party, killing eight
+more _yunkers_…. More than a hundred Red Guards and soldiers had
+fallen….
+
+Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors were
+marching toward the _Injinierny Zamok_—the Engineers’ school. A dozen
+members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls of the
+latest proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several did not
+come back…. All the other schools surrendered without resistance, and
+the _yunkers_ were sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and Cronstadt….
+
+The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik
+armoured car appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking,
+the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro; the _yunkers_ tore from
+their uniforms all distinguishing marks, and one offered Williams
+_anything_ for the loan of his overcoat, as a disguise…. “They will
+massacre us! They will massacre us!” they cried, for many of them had
+given their word at the Winter Palace not to take up arms against the
+People. Williams offered to mediate if Antonov were released. This was
+immediately done; Antonov and Williams made speeches to the victorious
+sailors, inflamed by their many dead—and once more the _yunkers_ went
+free…. All but a few, who in their panic tried to flee over the roofs,
+or to hide in the attic, and were found and hurled into the street.
+
+Tired, bloody, triumphant, the sailors and workers swarmed into the
+switchboard room, and finding so many pretty girls, fell back in an
+embarrassed way and fumbled with awkward feet. Not a girl was injured,
+not one insulted. Frightened, they huddled in the corners, and then,
+finding themselves safe, gave vent to their spite. “Ugh! The dirty,
+ignorant people! The fools!”… The sailors and Red Guards were
+embarrassed. “Brutes! Pigs!” shrilled the girls, indignantly putting on
+their coats and hats. Romantic had been their experience passing up
+cartridges and dressing the wounds of their dashing young defenders,
+the _yunkers,_ many of them members of noble families, fighting to
+restore their beloved Tsar! These were just common workmen, peasants,
+“Dark People.”…
+
+The Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, little Vishniak,
+tried to persuade the girls to remain. He was effusively polite. “You
+have been badly treated,” he said. “The telephone system is controlled
+by the Municipal Duma. You are paid sixty rubles a month, and have to
+work ten hours and more…. From now on all that will be changed. The
+Government intends to put the telephones under control of the Ministry
+of Posts and Telegraphs. Your wages will be immediately raised to one
+hundred and fifty rubles, and your working-hours reduced. As members of
+the working-class you should be happy—”
+
+Members of the _working-class_ indeed! Did he mean to infer that there
+was anything in common between these—these animals—and _us?_ Remain?
+Not if they offered a thousand rubles!… Haughty and spiteful the girls
+left the place….
+
+The employees of the building, the line-men and labourers—they stayed.
+But the switch-boards must be operated—the telephone was vital…. Only
+half a dozen trained operators were available. Volunteers were called
+for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers, workers. The six girls
+scurried backward and forward, instructing, helping, scolding…. So,
+crippled, halting, but _going,_ the wires slowly began to hum. The
+first thing was to connect Smolny with the barracks and the factories;
+the second, to cut off the Duma and the _yunker_ schools…. Late in the
+afternoon word of it spread through the city, and hundreds of bourgeois
+called up to scream, “Fools! Devils! How long do you think you will
+last? Wait till the Cossacks come!”
+
+Dusk was already falling. On the almost deserted Nevsky, swept by a
+bitter wind, a crowd had gathered before the Kazan Cathedral,
+continuing the endless debate; a few workmen, some soldiers and the
+rest shop-keepers, clerks and the like.
+
+“But Lenin won’t get Germany to make peace!” cried one.
+
+A violent young soldier replied. “And whose fault is it? Your damn
+Kerensky, dirty bourgeois! To hell with Kerensky! We don’t want him! We
+want Lenin….”
+
+Outside the Duma an officer with a white arm-band was tearing down
+posters from the wall, swearing loudly. One read:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+At this dangerous hour, when the Municipal Duma ought to use every
+means to calm the population, to assure it bread and other necessities,
+the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the Cadets, forgetting their
+duty, have turned the Duma into a counter-revolutionary meeting, trying
+to raise part of the population against the rest, so as to facilitate
+the victory of Kornilov-Kerensky. Instead of doing their duty, the
+Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the Cadets have transformed the
+Duma into an arena of political attack upon the Soviets of Workers’,
+Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, against the revolutionary Government
+of peace, bread and liberty.
+
+Citizens of Petrograd, we, the Bolshevik Municipal Councillors elected
+by you—we want you to know that the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and
+the Cadets are engaged in counter-revolutionary action, have forgotten
+their duty, and are leading the population to famine, to civil war. We,
+elected by 183,000 votes, consider it our duty to bring to the
+attention of our constituents what is going on in the Duma, and declare
+that we disclaim all responsibility for the terrible but inevitable
+consequences….
+
+Far away still sounded occasional shots, but the city lay quiet, cold,
+as if exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall the Duma session was coming to an end. Even the
+truculent Duma seemed a little stunned. One after another the
+Commissars reported—capture of the Telephone Exchange, street-fighting,
+the taking of the Vladimir school…. “The Duma,” said Trupp, “is on the
+side of the democracy in its struggle against arbitrary violence; but
+in any case, whichever side wins, the Duma will always be against
+lynchings and torture….”
+
+Konovski, Cadet, a tall old man with a cruel face: “When the troops of
+the legal Government arrive in Petrograd, they will shoot down these
+insurgents, and that will not be lynching!” Protests all over the hall,
+even from his own party.
+
+Here there was doubt and depression. The counter-revolution was being
+put down. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary party
+had voted lack of confidence in its officers; the left wing was in
+control; Avksentiev had resigned. A courier reported that the Committee
+of Welcome sent to meet Kerensky at the railway station had been
+arrested. In the streets could be heard the dull rumble of distant
+cannonading, south and southwest. Still Kerensky did not come…
+
+Only three newspapers were out—_Pravda, Dielo Naroda_ and _Novaya
+Zhizn._ All of them devoted much space to the new “coalition”
+Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet
+without either Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had made
+concessions. A purely Socialist Government was taking shape—all
+elements except the bourgeoisie. As for _Pravda,_ it sneered:
+
+We ridicule these coalitions with political parties whose most
+prominent members are petty journalists of doubtful reputation; our
+“coalition” is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary Army with
+the poor peasants…
+
+On the walls a vainglorious announcement of the _Vikzhel,_ threatening
+to strike if both sides did not compromise:
+
+The conquerors of these riots, the saviours of the wreck of our
+country, these will be neither the Bolsheviki, nor the Committee for
+Salvation, nor the troops of Kerensky—but we, the Union of Railwaymen…
+
+Red Guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the
+railways; as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself
+incapable of holding the power…
+
+We refuse to lend our services to any party which does not act by
+authority of … a Government based on the confidence of all the
+democracy….
+
+Smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible humanity
+in action.
+
+In Trade Union headquarters Lozovsky introduced me to a delegate of the
+Railway Workers of the Nicolai line, who said that the men were holding
+huge mass-meetings, condemning the action of their leaders.
+
+“All power to the Soviets!” he cried, pounding on the table. “The
+_oborontsi_ in the Central Committee are playing Kornilov’s game. They
+tried to send a mission to the Stavka, but we arrested them at Minsk….
+Our branch has demanded an All-Russian Convention, and they refuse to
+call it….”
+
+The same situation as in the Soviets, the Army Committees. One after
+another the various democratic organisations, all over Russia, were
+cracking and changing. The Cooperatives were torn by internal
+struggles; the meetings of the Peasants’ Executive broke up in stormy
+wrangling; even among the Cossacks there was trouble….
+
+On the top floor the Military Revolutionary Committee was in full
+blast, striking and slacking not. Men went in, fresh and vigorous;
+night and day and night and day they threw themselves into the terrible
+machine; and came out limp, blind with fatigue, hoarse and filthy, to
+fall on the floor and sleep…. The Committee for Salvation had been
+outlawed. Great piles of new proclamations (See App. VIII, Sect. 2)
+littered the floor:
+
+… The conspirators, who have no support among the garrison or the
+working-class, above all counted on the suddenness of their attack.
+Their plan was discovered in time by Sub-Lieutenant Blagonravov, thanks
+to the revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the Red Guard, whose
+name shall be made public. At the centre of the plot was the Committee
+for Salvation. Colonel Polkovnikov was in command of their forces, and
+the orders were signed by Gotz, former member of the Provisional
+Government, allowed at liberty on his word of honour….
+
+Bringing these facts to the attention of the Petrograd population, the
+Military Revolutionary Committee orders the arrest of all concerned in
+the conspiracy, who shall be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal….
+
+From Moscow, word that the _yunkers_ and Cossacks had surrounded the
+Kremlin and ordered the Soviet troops to lay down their arms. The
+Soviet forces complied, and as they were leaving the Kremlin, were set
+upon and shot down. Small forces of Bolsheviki had been driven from the
+Telephone and Telegraph offices; the _yunkers_ now held the centre of
+the city. … But all around them the Soviet troops were mustering.
+Street-fighting was slowly gathering way; all attempts at compromise
+had failed…. On the side of the Soviet, ten thousand garrison soldiers
+and a few Red Guards; on the side of the Government, six thousand
+_yunkers,_ twenty-five hundred Cossacks and two thousand White Guards.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting, and next door the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+acting on the decrees and orders (See App. VIII, Sect. 3) which came
+down in a steady stream from the Council of People’s Commissars in
+session upstairs; on the Order in Which Laws Are to be Ratified and
+Published, Establishing an Eight hour Days for Workers, and
+Lunatcharsky’s “Basis for a System of Popular Education.” Only a few
+hundred people were present at the two meetings, most of them armed.
+Smolny was almost deserted, except for the guards, who were busy at the
+hall windows, setting up machine-guns to command the flanks of the
+building.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ a delegate of the _Vikzhel_ was speaking: “We
+refuse to transport the troops of either party…. We have sent a
+committee to Kerensky to say that if he continues to march on Petrograd
+we will break his lines of communication….”
+
+He made the usual plea for a conference of all the Socialist parties to
+form a new Government….
+
+Kameniev answered discreetly. The Bolsheviki would be very glad to
+attend the conference. The centre of gravity, however, lay not in
+composition of such a Government, but in its acceptance of the
+programme of the Congress of Soviets.
+
+… The _Tsay-ee-kah_ had deliberated on the declaration made by the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats Internationalists,
+and had accepted the proposition of proportional representation at the
+conference, even including delegates from the Army Committees and the
+Peasants’ Soviets….
+
+In the great hall, Trotzky recounted the events of the day.
+
+“We offered the Vladimir _yunkers_ a chance to surrender,” he said. “We
+wanted to settle matters without bloodshed. But now that blood has been
+spilled there is only one way—pitiless struggle. It would be childish
+to think we can win by any other means…. The moment is decisive.
+Everybody must cooperate with the Military Revolutionary Committee,
+report where there are stores of barbed wire, benzine, guns…. We’ve won
+the power; now we must keep it!”
+
+The Menshevik Yoffe tried to read his party’s declaration, but Trotzky
+refused to allow “a debate about principle.”
+
+“Our debates are now in the streets,” he cried. “The decisive step has
+been taken. We all, and I in particular, take the responsibility for
+what is happening….”
+
+Soldiers from the front, from Gatchina, told their stories. One from
+the Death Battalion, Four Hundred Eighty-first Artillery: “When the
+trenches hear of this, they will cry, ‘This is _our_ Government!’” A
+_yunker_ from Peterhof said that he and two others had refused to march
+against the Soviets; and when his comrades had returned from the
+defence of the Winter Palace they appointed him their Commissar, to go
+to Smolny and offer their services to the _real_ Revolution….
+
+Then Trotzky again, fiery, indefatigable, giving orders, answering
+questions.
+
+“The petty bourgeoisie, in order to defeat the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, would combine with the devil himself!” he said once. Many
+cases of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. “No drinking,
+comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the evening,
+except the regular guards. All places suspected of having stores of
+liquor should be searched, and the liquor destroyed. (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 4) No mercy to the sellers of liquor….”
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from the
+Viborg section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped out
+hurriedly.
+
+“For each revolutionist killed,” said Trotzky, “we shall kill five
+counter-revolutionists!”
+
+Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds
+pouring in. In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng
+surged back and forth before the bulletin board, where was posted a
+list of _yunkers_ killed in the day’s fighting—or supposed to be
+killed, for most of the dead afterward turned up safe and sound…. Up in
+the Alexander Hall the Committee for Salvation held forth. The gold and
+red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous, the familiar faces of the
+Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals, the hard eyes and
+bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats, officials of the old
+régime, and well-dressed women….
+
+The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the
+tribune—over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces
+and leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the
+applause of the “nice” people of Petrograd, of the officers, the rich,
+the great names of politics—girl after girl, to narrate her sufferings
+at the hands of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty to all that
+was old, established and powerful….
+
+The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said
+hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their actions;
+propaganda was making headway.
+
+[Graphic, page 205: Proclamation for “wine pogroms”]
+
+Revolutionary law and order. A proclamation of the Finland Regiment, in
+December, 1917, announcing desperate remedies for “wine pogroms.” For
+translation see Appendix 5.
+
+… Emissaries came and went, reporting horrible deeds by the Bolsheviki,
+interceding to save the _yunkers,_ busily investigating….
+
+“The Bolsheviki,” said Trupp, “will be conquered by moral force, and
+not by bayonets…..”
+
+Meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front. The enemy had
+brought up armoured trains, mounted with cannon. The Soviet forces,
+mostly raw Red Guards, were without officers and without a definite
+plan. Only five thousand regular soldiers had joined them; the rest of
+the garrison was either busy suppressing the _yunker_ revolt, guarding
+the city, or undecided what to do. At ten in the evening Lenin
+addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments, who voted
+overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was elected to
+serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the morning the
+regiments left their barracks in full battle array…. Going home I saw
+them pass, swinging along with the regular tread of veterans, bayonets
+in perfect alignment, through the deserted streets of the conquered
+city….
+
+At the same time, in the headquarters of the _Vikzhel_ down on the
+Sadovaya, the conference of all the Socialist parties to form a new
+Government was under way. Abramovitch, for the centre Mensheviki, said
+that there should be neither conquerors nor conquered—that bygones
+should be bygones. …In this were agreed all the left wing parties. Dan,
+speaking in the name of the right Mensheviki, proposed to the
+Bolsheviki the following conditions for a truce: The Red Guard to be
+disarmed, and the Petrograd garrison to be placed at the orders of the
+Duma; the troops of Kerensky not to fire a single shot or arrest a
+single man; a Ministry of all the Socialist parties _except the
+Bolsheviki._ For Smolny Riazanov and Kameniev declared that a coalition
+ministry of all parties was acceptable, but protested at Dan’s
+proposals. The Socialist Revolutionaries were divided; but the
+Executive Committee of the Peasants’s Soviets and the Populist
+Socialists flatly refused to admit the Bolsheviki…. After bitter
+quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a workable plan….
+
+All that night the commission wrangled, and all the next day, and the
+next night. Once before, on the 9th of November, there had been a
+similar effort at conciliation, led by Martov and Gorky; but at the
+approach of Kerensky and the activity of the Committee for Salvation,
+the right wing of the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries and
+Populist Socialists suddenly withdrew. Now they were awed by the
+crushing of the _yunker_ rebellion…
+
+Monday the 12th was a day of suspense. The eyes of all Russia were
+fixed on the grey plain beyond the gates of Petrograd, where all the
+available strength of the old order faced the unorganised power of the
+new, the unknown. In Moscow a truce had been declared; both sides
+parleyed, awaiting the result in the capital. Now the delegates to the
+Congress of Soviets, hurrying on speeding trains to the farthest
+reaches of Asia, were coming to their homes, carrying the fiery cross.
+In wide-spreading ripples news of the miracle spread over the face of
+the land, and in its wake towns, cities and far villages stirred and
+broke, Soviets and Military Revolutionary Committees against Dumas,
+Zemstvos and Government Commissars—Red Guards against White—street
+fighting and passionate speech…. The result waited on the word from
+Petrograd….
+
+Smolny was almost empty, but the Duma was thronged and noisy. The old
+Mayor, in his dignified way, was protesting against the Appeal of the
+Bolshevik Councillors.
+
+“The Duma is not a centre of counter-revolution,” he said, warmly. “The
+Duma takes no part in the present struggle between the parties. But at
+a time when there is no legal power in the land, the only centre of
+order is the Municipal Self-Government. The peaceful population
+recognises this fact; the foreign Embassies recognise only such
+documents as are signed by the Mayor of the town. The mind of a
+European does not admit of any other situation, as the Municipal
+self-government is the only organ which is capable of protecting the
+interests of the citizens. The City is bound to show hospitality, to
+all organisations which desire to profit by such hospitality, and
+therefore the Duma cannot prevent the distribution of any newspapers
+whatever within the Duma building. The sphere of our work is
+increasing, and we must be given full liberty of action, and our rights
+must be respected by both parties….
+
+“We are perfectly neutral. When the Telephone Exchange was occupied by
+the _yunkers_ Colonel Polkovnikov ordered the telephones to Smolny
+disconnected, but I protested, and the telephones were kept going….”
+
+At this there was ironic laughter from the Bolshevik benches, and
+imprecations from the right.
+
+“And yet,” went on Schreider, “they look upon us as
+counter-revolutionaries and report us to the population. They deprive
+us of our means of transport by taking away our last motor-cars. It
+will not be our fault if there is famine in the town. Protests are of
+no use….”
+
+Kobozev, Bolshevik member of the Town Board, was doubtful whether the
+Military Revolutionary Committee had requisitioned the Municipal
+automobiles. Even granting the fact, it was probably done by some
+unauthorised individual, in the emergency.
+
+“The Mayor,” he continued, “tells us that we must not make political
+meetings out of the Duma. But every Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda, and at the door
+they distribute their illegal newspapers, _Iskri_ (Sparks), _Soldatski
+Golos_ and _Rabotchaya Gazeta,_ inciting to insurrection. What if we
+Bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers here? But this
+shall not be, for we respect the Duma. We have not attacked the
+Municipal Self-Government, and we shall not do so. But you have
+addressed an Appeal to the population, and we are entitled also to do
+so….”
+
+Followed him Shingariov, Cadet, who said that there could be no common
+language with those who were liable to be brought before the Attorney
+General for indictment, and who must be tried on the charge of
+treason…. He proposed again that all Bolshevik members should be
+expelled from the Duma. This was tabled, however, for there were no
+personal charges against the members, and they were active in the
+Municipal administration.
+
+Then two Mensheviki Internationalists, declaring that the Appeal of the
+Bolshevik Councillors was a direct incitement to massacre. “If
+everything that is against the Bolsheviki is counter-revolutionary,”
+said Pinkevitch, “then I do not know the difference between revolution
+and anarchy…. The Bolsheviki are depending upon the passions of the
+unbridled masses; we have nothing but moral force. We will protest
+against massacres and violence from both sides, as our task is to find
+a peaceful issue.”
+
+“The notice posted in the streets under the heading ‘To the Pillory,’
+which calls upon the people to destroy the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries,” said Nazariev, “is a crime which you, Bolsheviki,
+will not be able to wash away. Yesterday’s horrors are but a preface to
+what you are preparing by such a proclamation…. I have always tried to
+reconcile you with the other parties, but at present I feel for you
+nothing but contempt!”
+
+The Bolshevik Councillors were on their feet, shouting angrily,
+assailed by hoarse, hateful voices and waving arms….
+
+Outside the hall I ran into the City Engineer, the Menshevik Gomberg
+and three or four reporters. They were all in high spirits.
+
+“See!” they said. “The cowards are afraid of us. They don’t dare arrest
+the Duma! Their Military Revolutionary Committee doesn’t dare to send a
+Commissar into this building. Why, on the corner of the Sadovaya
+to-day, I saw a Red Guard try to stop a boy selling _Soldatski Golos_….
+The boy just laughed at him, and a crowd of people wanted to lynch the
+bandit. It’s only a few hours more, now. Even if Kerensky wouldn’t come
+they haven’t the men to run a Government. Absurd! I understand they’re
+even fighting among themselves at Smolny!”
+
+A Socialist Revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside. “I know where
+the Committee for Salvation is hiding,” he said. “Do you want to go and
+talk with them?”
+
+By this time it was dusk. The city had again settled down to
+normal—shop-shutters up, lights shining, and on the streets great
+crowds of people slowly moving up and down and arguing….
+
+At Number 86 Nevsky we went through a passage into a courtyard,
+surrounded by tall apartment buildings. At the door of apartment 229 my
+friend knocked in a peculiar way. There was a sound of scuffling; an
+inside door slammed; then the front door opened a crack and a woman’s
+face appeared. After a minute’s observation she led us in—a
+placid-looking, middle-aged lady who at once cried, “Kyril, it’s all
+right!” In the dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and
+there were plates full of bread and raw fish, a man in uniform emerged
+from behind the window-curtains, and another, dressed like a workman,
+from a closet. They were delighted to meet an American reporter. With a
+certain amount of gusto both said that they would certainly be shot if
+the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give me their names, but
+both were Socialist Revolutionaries….
+
+“Why,” I asked, “do you publish such lies in your newspapers?”
+
+Without taking offence the officer replied, “Yes, I know; but what can
+we do?” He shrugged. “You must admit that it is necessary for us to
+create a certain frame of mind in the people….”
+
+The other man interrupted. “This is merely an adventure on the part of
+the Bolsheviki. They have no intellectuals…. The Ministries won’t
+work…. Russia is not a city, but a whole country…. Realising that they
+can only last a few days, we have decided to come to the aid of the
+strongest force opposed to them—Kerensky—and help to restore order.”
+
+“That is all very well,” I said. “But why do you combine with the
+Cadets?”
+
+The pseudo-workman smiled frankly. “To tell you the truth, at this
+moment the masses of the people are following the Bolsheviki. We have
+no following—now. We can’t mobilise a handful of soldiers. There are no
+arms available…. The Bolsheviki are right to a certain extent; there
+are at this moment in Russia only two parties with any force—the
+Bolsheviki and the reactionaries, who are all hiding under the
+coat-tails of the Cadets. The Cadets think they are using us; but it is
+really we who are using the Cadets. When we smash the Bolsheviki we
+shall turn against the Cadets….”
+
+“Will the Bolsheviki be admitted into the new Government?”
+
+He scratched his head. “That’s a problem,” he admitted. “Of course if
+they are not admitted, they’ll probably do this all over again. At any
+rate, they will have a chance to hold the balance of power in the
+Constituent—that is, if there _is_ a Constituent.”
+
+“And then, too,” said the officer, “that brings up the question of
+admitting the Cadets into the new Government—and for the same reasons.
+You know the Cadets do not really want the Constituent Assembly—not if
+the Bolsheviki can be destroyed now.” He shook his head. “It is not
+easy for us Russians, politics. You Americans are born politicians; you
+have had politics all your lives. But for us—well, it has only been a
+year, you know!”
+
+“What do you think of Kerensky?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, Kerensky is guilty of the sins of the Provisional Government,”
+answered the other man. “Kerensky himself forced us to accept coalition
+with the bourgeoisie. If he had resigned, as he threatened, it would
+have meant a new Cabinet crisis only sixteen weeks before the
+Constituent Assembly, and that we wanted to avoid.”
+
+“But didn’t it amount to that anyway?”
+
+“Yes, but how were we to know? They tricked us—the Kerenskys and
+Avksentievs. Gotz is a little more radical. I stand with Tchernov, who
+is a real revolutionist…. Why, only to-day Lenin sent word that he
+would not object to Tchernov entering the Government.
+
+“We wanted to get rid of the Kerensky Government too, but we thought it
+better to wait for the Constituent…. At the beginning of this affair I
+was with the Bolsheviki, but the Central Committee of my party voted
+unanimously against it—and what could I do? It was a matter of party
+discipline….
+
+“In a week the Bolshevik Government will go to pieces; if the Socialist
+Revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait, the Government would
+fall into their hands. But if we wait a week the country will be so
+disorganised that the German imperialists will be victorious. That is
+why we began our revolt with only two regiments of soldiers promising
+to support us—and they turned against us…. That left only the
+_yunkers_….”
+
+“How about the Cossacks?”
+
+The officer sighed. “They did not move. At first they said they would
+come out if they had infantry support. They said moreover that they had
+their men with Kerensky, and that they were doing their part…. Then,
+too, they said that the Cossacks were always accused of being the
+hereditary enemies of democracy…. And finally, ‘The Bolsheviki promise
+that they will not take away our land. There is no danger to us. We
+remain neutral.’”
+
+During this talk people were constantly entering and leaving—most of
+them officers, their shoulder-straps torn off. We could see them in the
+hall, and hear their low, vehement voices. Occasionally, through the
+half-drawn portières, we caught a glimpse of a door opening into a
+bath-room, where a heavily-built officer in a colonel’s uniform sat on
+the toilet, writing something on a pad held in his lap. I recognised
+Colonel Polkovnikov, former commandant of Petrograd, for whose arrest
+the Military Revolutionary Committee would have paid a fortune.
+
+“Our programme?” said the officer. “This is it. Land to be turned over
+to the Land Committees. Workmen to have full representation in the
+control of industry. An energetic peace programme, but not an ultimatum
+to the world such as the Bolsheviki issued. The Bolsheviki cannot keep
+their promises to the masses, even in the country itself. We won’t let
+them…. They stole our land programme in order to get the support of the
+peasants. That is dishonest. If they had waited for the Constituent
+Assembly—”
+
+“It doesn’t matter about the Constituent Assembly!” broke in the
+officer. “If the Bolsheviki want to establish a Socialist state here,
+we cannot work with them in any event! Kerensky made the great mistake.
+He let the Bolsheviki know what he was going to do by announcing in the
+Council of the Republic that he had ordered their arrest….
+
+“But what,” I said, “do you intend to do now?”
+
+The two men looked at one another. “You will see in a few days. If
+there are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not
+compromise with the Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced
+to….”
+
+Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging
+with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping along
+the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness the long miles to
+Smolny.
+
+Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall, looking
+worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were having their
+effect. For instance, the Council of People’s Commissars had promised
+to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov, the functionary in charge,
+had disappeared, taking the documents with him. They were supposed to
+be hidden in the British Embassy….
+
+Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. “Without money,”
+said Menzhinsky, “we are helpless. The wages of the railroad men, of
+the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid…. The banks are
+closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut. All
+the bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work….
+
+“But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults, and
+there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open
+to-morrow, or we will open them ourselves!”
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men,
+Trotzky reporting:
+
+“The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo.” (Sharp, exultant
+cheering.) “But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy fighting
+is going on. All available forces must be hurried there….
+
+“From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the _yunkers,_
+and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends upon
+Petrograd.
+
+“At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are provoking great
+enthusiasm. Kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of Petrograd
+burning and bloody, of women and children massacred by the Bolsheviki.
+But no one believes him….
+
+“The cruisers _Oleg, Avrora_ and _Respublica_ are anchored in the Neva,
+their guns trained on the approaches to the city….”
+
+“Why aren’t you out there with the Red Guards?” shouted a rough voice.
+
+“I’m going now!” answered Trotzky, and left the platform. His face a
+little paler than usual, he passed down the side of the room,
+surrounded by eager friends, and hurried out to the waiting automobile.
+
+Kameniev now spoke, describing the proceedings of the reconciliation
+conference. The armistice conditions proposed by the Mensheviki, he
+said, had been contemptuously rejected. Even the branches of the
+Railwaymen’s Union had voted against such a proposition….
+
+“Now that we’ve won the power and are sweeping all Russia,” he
+declared, “all they ask of us are three little things: 1. To surrender
+the power. 2. To make the soldiers continue the war. 3. To make the
+peasants forget about the land….”
+
+Lenin appeared for a moment, to answer the accusations of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries:
+
+“They charge us with stealing their land programme…. If that is so, we
+bow to them. It is good enough for us….”
+
+So the meeting roared on, leader after leader explaining, exhorting,
+arguing, soldier after soldier, workman after workman, standing up to
+speak his mind and his heart…. The audience flowed, changing and
+renewed continually. From time to time men came in, yelling for the
+members of such and such a detachment, to go to the front; others,
+relieved, wounded, or coming to Smolny for arms and equipment, poured
+in….
+
+It was almost three o’clock in the morning when, as we left the hall,
+Holtzman, of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came running down
+the hall with a transfigured face.
+
+“It’s all right!” he shouted, grabbing my hands. “Telegram from the
+front. Kerensky is smashed! Look at this!”
+
+He held out a sheet of paper, scribbled hurriedly in pencil, and then,
+seeing we couldn’t read it, he declaimed aloud:
+
+Pulkovo. Staff. 2.10 A.M.
+
+The night of October 30th to 31st will go down in history. The attempt
+of Kerensky to move counter-revolutionary troops against the capital of
+the Revolution has been decisively repulsed. Kerensky is retreating, we
+are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workers of Petrograd have
+shown that they can and will with arms in their hands enforce the will
+and authority of the democracy. The bourgeoisie tried to isolate the
+revolutionary army. Kerensky attempted to break it by the force of the
+Cossacks. Both plans met a pitiful defeat.
+
+The grand idea of the domination of the worker and peasant democracy
+closed the ranks of the army and hardened its will. All the country
+from now on will be convinced that the Power of the Soviets is no
+ephemeral thing, but an invincible fact…. The repulse of Kerensky is
+the repulse of the land-owners, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovists in
+general. The repulse of Kerensky is the confirmation of the right of
+the people to a peaceful free life, to land, bread and power. The
+Pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the cause of
+the Workers’ and Peasants’s Revolution. There is no return to the past.
+Before us are struggles, obstacles and sacrifices. But the road is
+clear and victory is certain.
+
+Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Power can be proud of their Pulkovo
+detachment, acting under the command of Colonel Walden. Eternal memory
+to those who fell! Glory to the warriors of the Revolution, the
+soldiers and the officers who were faithful to the People!
+
+Long live revolutionary, popular, Socialist Russia!
+
+In the name of the Council,
+
+L. TROTZKY, People’s Commissar….
+
+Driving home across Znamensky Square, we made out an unusual crowd in
+front of the Nicolai Railway Station. Several thousand sailors were
+massed there, bristling with rifles.
+
+Standing on the steps, a member of the _Vikzhel_ was pleading with
+them.
+
+“Comrades, we cannot carry you to Moscow. We are neutral. We do not
+carry troops for either side. We cannot take you to Moscow, where
+already there is terrible civil war….”
+
+All the seething Square roared at him; the sailors began to surge
+forward. Suddenly another door was flung wide; in it stood two or three
+brakeman, a fireman or so.
+
+“This way, comrades!” cried one. “We will take you to Moscow—or
+Vladivostok, if you like! Long live the Revolution!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+Victory
+
+
+_Order Number I_
+
+To the Troops of the Pulkovo Detachment.
+
+November 13, 1917. 38 minutes past 9 a. m.
+
+After a cruel fight the troops of the Pulkovo detachment completely
+routed the counter-revolutionary forces, who retreated from their
+positions in disorder, and under cover of Tsarskoye Selo fell back
+toward Pavlovsk II and Gatchina.
+
+Our advanced units occupied the northeastern extremity of Tsarskoye
+Selo and the station Alexandrovskaya. The Colpinno detachment was on
+our left, the Krasnoye Selo detachment to our right.
+
+I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify its
+approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
+
+Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side, and
+to take up the railroad as far as Dno.
+
+The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions occupied
+by them, arranging trenches and other defensive works.
+
+They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno and
+Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief for
+the Defence of Petrograd.
+
+Signed,
+
+_Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the
+Counter-revolutionary Troops of Kerensky,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
+
+Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd
+campagna was full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without
+food, without artillery, without a plan. What had fused that
+disorganised mass of undisciplined Red Guards, and soldiers without
+officers, into an army obedient to its own elected high command,
+tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack cavalry?
+(See App. IX, Sect. 1)
+
+People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The ragged
+armies of the French Revolution are not forgotten—Valmy and the Lines
+of Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were _yunkers,_
+Cossacks, land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds—the Tsar come again,
+_Okhrana_ and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible menace of the
+Germans…. Victory, in the words of Carlyle, meant “Apotheosis and
+Millennium without end!”
+
+Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd elected
+its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and two
+officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint. Colonel
+Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command—an efficient man, but to be
+carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and Krasnoye
+Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size as the
+stragglers came in from the surrounding country—mixed soldiers, sailors
+and Red Guards, parts of regiments, infantry, cavalry and artillery all
+together, and a few armoured cars.
+
+Day broke, and the pickets of Kerensky’s Cossacks came in touch.
+Scattered rifle-fire, summons to surrender. Over the bleak plain on the
+cold quiet air spread the sound of battle, falling upon the ears of
+roving bands as they gathered about their little fires, waiting…. So it
+was beginning! They made toward the battle; and the worker hordes
+pouring out along the straight roads quickened their pace…. Thus upon
+all the points of attack automatically converged angry human swarms, to
+be met by Commissars and assigned positions, or work to do. This was
+_their_ battle, for _their_ world; the officers in command were elected
+by _them._ For the moment that incoherent multiple will was one will….
+
+Those who participated in the fighting described to me how the sailors
+fought until they ran out of cartridges, and then stormed; how the
+untrained workmen rushed the charging Cossacks and tore them from their
+horses; how the anonymous hordes of the people, gathering in the
+darkness around the battle, rose like a tide and poured over the
+enemy…. Before midnight of Monday the Cossacks broke and were fleeing,
+leaving their artillery behind them, and the army of the proletariat,
+on a long ragged front, moved forward and rolled into Tsarskoye, before
+the enemy had a chance to destroy the great Government wireless
+station, from which now the Commissars of Smolny were hurling out to
+the world paeans of triumph….
+
+TO ALL SOVIETS OF WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES
+
+
+The 12th of November, in a bloody combat near Tsarskoye Selo, the
+revolutionary army defeated the counter-revolutionary troops of
+Kerensky and Kornilov. In the name of the Revolutionary Government I
+order all regiments to take the offensive against the enemies of the
+revolutionary democracy, and to take all measures to arrest Kerensky,
+and also to oppose any adventure which might menace the conquests of
+the Revolution and the victory of the proletariat.
+
+Long live the Revolutionary Army!
+MURAVIOV.
+
+News from the provinces….
+
+At Sevastopol the local Soviet had assumed the power; a huge meeting of
+the sailors on the battleships in the harbour had forced their officers
+to line up and swear allegiance to the new Government. At Nizhni
+Novgorod the Soviet was in control. From Kazan came reports of a battle
+in the streets, _yunkers_ and a brigade of artillery against the
+Bolshevik garrison….
+
+Desperate fighting had broken out again in Moscow. The _yunkers_ and
+White Guards held the Kremlin and the centre of the town, beaten upon
+from all sides by the troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+The Soviet artillery was stationed in Skobeliev Square, bombarding the
+City Duma building, the Prefecture and the Hotel Metropole. The
+cobblestones of the Tverskaya and Nikitskaya had been torn up for
+trenches and barricades. A hail of machine-gun fire swept the quarters
+of the great banks and commercial houses. There were no lights, no
+telephones; the bourgeois population lived in the cellars…. The last
+bulletin said that the Military Revolutionary Committee had delivered
+an ultimatum to the Committee of Public Safety, demanding the immediate
+surrender of the Kremlin, or bombardment would follow.
+
+“Bombard the Kremlin?” cried the ordinary citizen. “They dare not!”
+
+From Vologda to Chita in far Siberia, from Pskov to Sevastopol on the
+Black Sea, in great cities and little villages, civil war burst into
+flame. From thousands of factories, peasant communes, regiments and
+armies, ships on the wide sea, greetings poured into
+Petrograd—greetings to the Government of the People.
+
+The Cossack Government at Novotcherkask telegraphed to Kerensky, _“The
+Government of the Cossack troops invites the Provisional Government and
+the members of the Council of the Republic to come, if possible, to
+Novotcherkask, where we can organise in common the struggle against the
+Bolsheviki.”_
+
+In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors and
+the _Tsentrobalt_ (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet), jointly
+proclaimed a state of siege, and declared that all attempts to
+interfere with the Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to its
+orders, would be severely repressed. At the same time the Finnish
+Railway Union called a countrywide general strike, to put into
+operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of June, 1917,
+dissolved by Kerensky….
+
+Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden
+sidewalk from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating
+snow-flakes fluttering down from the grey, windless sky. “Snow!” cried
+the soldier at the door, grinning with delight. “Good for the health!”
+Inside, the long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed deserted. No one
+moved in all the enormous pile. A deep, uneasy sound came to my ears,
+and looking around, I noticed that everywhere on the floor, along the
+walls, men were sleeping. Rough, dirty men, workers and soldiers,
+spattered and caked with mud, sprawled alone or in heaps, in the
+careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged bandages marked with
+blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered about…. The victorious
+proletarian army!
+
+In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk.
+The air was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed. A
+battered samovar, cold, stood on the counter, and many glasses holding
+dregs of tea. Beside them lay a copy of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee’s last bulletin, upside down, scrawled with painful
+hand-writing. It was a memorial written by some soldier to his comrades
+fallen in the fight against Kerensky, just as he had set it down before
+falling on the floor to sleep. The writing was blurred with what looked
+like tears….
+
+Alexei Vinogradov
+
+D. Maskvin
+
+S. Stolbikov
+
+A. Voskressensky
+
+D. Leonsky
+
+D. Preobrazhensky
+
+V. Laidansky
+
+M. Berchikov
+
+These men were drafted into the Army on November 15th, 1916. Only three
+are left of the above.
+
+Mikhail Berchikov
+
+Alexei Voskressensky
+
+Dmitri Leonsky
+
+_Sleep, Warrior eagles, sleep with peaceful soul._
+
+_You have deserved, our own ones, happiness and_
+
+_Eternal peace. Under the earth of the grave_
+
+_You have straitly closed your ranks. Sleep, Citizens!_
+
+Only the Military Revolutionary Committee still functioned, unsleeping.
+Skripnik, emerging from the inner room, said that Gotz had been
+arrested, but had flatly denied signing the proclamation of the
+Committee for Salvation, as had Avksentiev; and the Committee for
+Salvation itself had repudiated the Appeal to the garrison. There was
+still disafiection among the city regiments, Skripnik reported; the
+Volhynsky Regiment had refused to fight against Kerensky.
+
+Several detachments of “neutral” troops, with Tchernov at their head,
+were at Gatchina, trying to persuade Kerensky to halt his attack on
+Petrograd.
+
+Skripnik laughed. “There can be no ‘neutrals’ now,” he said. “We’ve
+won!” His sharp, bearded face glowed with an almost religious
+exaltation. “More than sixty delegates have arrived from the Front,
+with assurances of support by all the armies except the troops on the
+Rumanian front, who have not been heard from. The Army Committees have
+suppressed all news from Petrograd, but we now have a regular system of
+couriers….”
+
+[Graphic, page 224: Certificate approving telegram transmission]
+
+Order given me at Staff headquarters by command of the Council of
+People’s Commissars, to transmit the first despatch out of Perograd
+after the November Revolution, over the Government wires to America.
+                      (Translation)
+       STAFF
+  Military Revolutionary
+     Commitee
+  Sov. W. & S. D.
+  2 November, 1917
+     No. 1860
+                      CERTIFICATE
+Is given by the present to the journalist of the New York Socialist
+press JOHN REED, that the text of the telegram (herewith) has been
+examined by the Government of People’s Commissars, and there is no
+objection to its transmission, and also it is recommended that all
+cooperate in every way to transmit same to its destination.
+                      For the Commander in Chief, ANTONOV
+                      Chief of Staff, VLAD. BONCH-BRUEVITCH
+
+Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the
+all-night session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but
+happy. “Already the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit us
+into the new Government,” he told me. “The right wing groups are
+frightened by the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of
+panic, that we dissolve them before going any further. … We have
+accepted the proposition of the _Vikzhel_ to form a homogeneous
+Socialist Ministry, and they’re working on that now. You see, it all
+springs from our victory. When we were down, they would’t have us at
+any price; not everybody’s in favour of some agreement with the
+Soivets…. What we need is a really decisive victory. Kerensky wants an
+armistice, but he’ll have to surrender (See App. IX, Sect. 2) ….”
+
+That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign journalist
+who asked Trotzky what statement he had to make to the world, Trotzky
+replied: “At this moment the only statement possible is the one we are
+making through the mouths of our cannon!”
+
+But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of victory;
+the question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as had been
+ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union of Bank
+Employees had held a meeting and declared a formal strike. Smolny had
+demanded some thirty-five millions of rubles from the State Bank, and
+the cashier had locked the vaults, only paying out money to the
+representatives of the Provisional Government. The reactionaries were
+using the State Bank as a political weapon; for instance, when the
+_Vikzhel_ demanded money to pay the salaries of the employees of the
+Government railroads, it was told to apply to Smolny….
+
+I went to the State Bank to see the new Commissar, a redhaired
+Ukrainean Bolshevik named Petrovitch. He was trying to bring order out
+of the chaos in which affairs had been left by the striking clerks. In
+all the offices of the huge place perspiring volunteer workers,
+soldiers and sailors, their tongues sticking out of their mouths in the
+intensity of their effort, were poring over the great ledgers with a
+bewildered air….
+
+The Duma building was crowded. There were still isolated cases of
+defiance toward the new Government, but they were rare. The Central
+Land Committee had appealed to the Peasants, ordering them not to
+recognise the Land Decree passed by the Congress of the Soviets,
+because it would cause confusion and civil war. Mayor Schreider
+announced that because of the Bolshevik insurrection, the elections to
+the Constituent Assembly would have to be indefinitely postponed.
+
+Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the
+ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App.
+IX, Sect. 3)—second, the creation of a new Government. There was no
+longer any talk of “destroying the Bolsheviki”—and very little about
+excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist Socialists
+and the Peasants’ Soviets. Even the Central Army Committee at the
+_Stavka,_ the most determined enemy of Smolny, telephoned from
+Moghilev: “If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is necessary to come
+to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree to admit them _in a
+minority_ to the Cabinet.”
+
+_Pravda,_ ironically calling attention to Kerensky’s “humanitarian
+sentiments,” published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:
+
+In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all the
+democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all military
+action against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has been sent to
+enter into negotiations. Take all measures to stop the useless shedding
+of blood.
+
+The _Vikzhel_ sent a telegram to all Russia:
+
+The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the representatives
+of both the belligerent parties, who admit the necessity of an
+agreement, protest energetically against the use of political terrorism
+in the civil war, especially when it is carried on between different
+factions of the revolutionary democracy, and declare that political
+terrorism, in whatever form, is in contradiction to the very idea of
+the negotiations for a new Government….
+
+[Graphic, page 227: Leaflet]
+
+Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik
+insurrection, containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated
+bourgeoisie and the “moderate” Socialist leaders, Called, “How THE
+BOORZHUI (BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER.”
+
+Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina. In
+the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final
+settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People’s
+Council, composed of about four hundred members—seventy-five
+representing Smolny, seventy-five the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and the rest
+split up among the Town Dumas, the Trade Unions, Land Committees and
+political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as the new Premier. Lenin and
+Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded….
+
+About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver of
+an ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with him?
+Certainly! He was a volunteer, a University student, and as we rolled
+down the street shouted over his shoulder to me phrases of execrable
+German: _“Also, gut! Wir nach die Kasernen zu essen gehen!”_ I made out
+that there would be lunch at some barracks.
+
+On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by
+military buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by
+one window. At a long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers,
+eating _shtchi_ (cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden
+spoons, and talking loudly with much laughter.
+
+“Welcome to the Battalion Committee of the Sixth Reserve Engineers’
+Battalion!” cried my friend, and introduced me as an American
+Socialist. Whereat every one rose to shake my hand, and one old soldier
+put his arms around me and gave me a hearty kiss. A wooden spoon was
+produced and I took my place at the table. Another tub, full of
+_kasha,_ was brought in, a huge loaf of black bread, and of course the
+inevitable tea-pots. At once every one began asking me questions about
+America: Was it true that people in a free country sold their votes for
+_money?_ If so, how did they get what they wanted? How about this
+“Tammany”? Was it true that in a free country a little group of people
+could control a whole city, and exploited it for their personal
+benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even under the Tsar such things
+could not happen in Russia; true, here there was always graft, but to
+buy and sell a whole city full of people! And in a free country! Had
+the people no revolutionary feeling? I tried to explain that in my
+country people tried to change things by law.
+
+“Of course,” nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke French.
+“But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the capitalist
+class must control the legislatures and the courts. How then can the
+people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do not know your
+country; but to me it is incredible….”
+
+I said that I was going to Tsarskoye Selo. “I, too,” said Baklanov,
+suddenly. “And I—and I—” The whole roomful decided on the spot to go to
+Tsarskoye Selo.
+
+Just then came a knock on the door. It opened, and in it stood the
+figure of the Colonel. No one rose, but all shouted a greeting. “May I
+come in?” asked the Colonel. “_Prosim! Prosim!_” they answered
+heartily. He entered, smiling, a tall, distinguished figure in a
+goat-skin cape embroidered with gold. “I think I heard you say that you
+were going to Tsarskoye Selo, comrades,” he said. “Could I go with
+you?”
+
+Baklanov considered. “I do not think there is anything to be done here
+to-day,” he answered. “Yes, comrade, we shall be very glad to have
+you.” The Colonel thanked him and sat down, filling a glass of tea.
+
+In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel’s pride, Baklanov
+explained to me. “You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We
+control the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel is
+delegated by us to command. In action his orders must be obeyed, but he
+is strictly responsible to us. In barracks he must ask our permission
+before taking any action…. You might call him our Executive Officer….”
+
+Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles—“we might meet some
+Cossacks, you know”—and we all piled into the ambulance, together with
+three great bundles of newspapers for the front. Straight down the
+Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny Prospekt. Next to me sat a
+youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all
+European languages with equal fluency. He was a member of the Battalion
+Committee.
+
+“I am not a Bolshevik,” he assured me, emphatically. “My family is a
+very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a Cadet….”
+
+“But how—?” I began, bewildered.
+
+“Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my
+political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I do
+not believe in opposing the will of the majority…. I have refused to
+take any action in the present civil war, however, for I do not believe
+in taking up arms against my brother Russians….”
+
+“Provocator! Kornilovitz!” the others cried at him gaily, slapping him
+on the shoulder….
+
+Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate,
+covered with golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the
+names of Tsars, we sped out on the wide straight highway, grey with the
+first light fall of snow. It was thronged with Red Guards, stumbling
+along on foot toward the revolutionary front, shouting and singing; and
+others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most of them seemed to be
+mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and bandoleers, others
+wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands—the bowed, toil-worn women of
+the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out of step, with an
+affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors, grim-looking; children
+with bundles of food for their fathers and mothers; all these, coming
+and going, trudged through the whitened mud that covered the cobbles of
+the highway inches deep. We passed cannon, jingling southward with
+their caissons; trucks bound both ways, bristling with armed men;
+ambulances full of wounded from the direction of the battle, and once a
+peasant cart, creaking slowly along, in which sat a white-faced boy
+bent over his shattered stomach and screaming monotonously. In the
+fields on either side women and old men were digging trenches and
+stringing barbed wire entanglements.
+
+Back northward the clouds rolled away dramatically, and the pale sun
+came out. Across the flat, marshy plain Petrograd glittered. To the
+right, white and gilded and coloured bulbs and pinnacles; to the left,
+tall chimneys, some pouring out black smoke; and beyond, a lowering sky
+over Finland. On each side of us were churches, monasteries….
+Occasionally a monk was visible, silently watching the pulse of the
+proletarian army throbbing on the road.
+
+At Pulkovo the road divided, and there we halted in the midst of a
+great crowd, where the human streams poured from three directions,
+friends meeting, excited and congratulatory, describing the battle to
+one another. A row of houses facing the cross-roads was marked with
+bullets, and the earth was trampled into mud half a mile around. The
+fighting had been furious here…. In the near distance riderless Cossack
+horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the plain had died long ago.
+Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard was trying to ride one,
+falling off again and again, to the childlike delight of a thousand
+rough men.
+
+The left road, along which the remnants of the Cossacks had retreated,
+led up a little hill to a hamlet, where there was a glorious view of
+the immense plain, grey as a windless sea, tumultuous clouds towering
+over, and the imperial city disgorging its thousands along all the
+roads. Far over to the left lay the little hill of Kranoye Selo, the
+parade-ground of the Imperial Guards’ summer camp, and the Imperial
+Dairy. In the middle distance nothing broke the flat monotony but a few
+walled monasteries and convents, some isolated factories, and several
+large buildings with unkempt grounds that were asylums and orphanages….
+
+“Here,” said the driver, as we went on over a barren hill, “here was
+where Vera Slutskaya died. Yes, the Bolshevik member of the Duma. It
+happened early this morning. She was in an automobile, with Zalkind and
+another man. There was a truce, and they started for the front
+trenches. They were talking and laughing, when all of a sudden, from
+the armoured train in which Kerensky himself was riding, somebody saw
+the automobile and fired a cannon. The shell struck Vera Slutskaya and
+killed her….”
+
+And so we came into Tsarskoye, all bustling with the swaggering heroes
+of the proletarian horde. Now the palace where the Soviet had met was a
+busy place. Red Guards and sailors filled the court-yard, sentries
+stood at the doors, and a stream of couriers and Commissars pushed in
+and out. In the Soviet room a samovar had been set up, and fifty or
+more workers, soldiers, sailors and officers stood around, drinking tea
+and talking at the top of their voices. In one corner two clumsy-handed
+workingmen were trying to make a multigraphing machine go. At the
+centre table, the huge Dybenko bent over a map, marking out positions
+for the troops with red and blue pencils. In his free hand he carried,
+as always, the enormous bluesteel revolver. Anon he sat himself down at
+a typewriter and pounded away with one finger; every little while he
+would pause, pick up the revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber.
+
+A couch lay along the wall, and on this was stretched a young workman.
+Two Red Guards were bending over him, but the rest of the company did
+not pay any attention. In his breast was a hole; through his clothes
+fresh blood came welling up with every heart-beat. His eyes were closed
+and his young, bearded face was greenish-white. Faintly and slowly he
+still breathed, with every breath sighing, _“Mir boudit! Mir boudit!_
+(Peace is coming! Peace is coming!)”
+
+Dybenko looked up as we came in. “Ah,” he said to Baklanov. “Comrade,
+will you go up to the Commandant’s headquarters and take charge? Wait;
+I will write you credentials.” He went to the typewriter and slowly
+picked out the letters.
+
+The new Commandant of Tsarskoye Selo and I went toward the Ekaterina
+Palace, Baklanov very excited and important. In the same ornate, white
+room some Red Guards were rummaging curiously around, while my old
+friend, the Colonel, stood by the window biting his moustache. He
+greeted me like a long-lost brother. At a table near the door sat the
+French Bessarabian. The Bolsheviki had ordered him to remain, and
+continue his work.
+
+“What could I do?” he muttered. “People like myself cannot fight on
+either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may
+instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob…. I only regret that
+I am so far from my mother in Bessarabia!”
+
+Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant.
+“Here,” said the Colonel nervously, “are the keys to the desk.”
+
+A Red Guard interrupted. “Where’s the money?” he asked rudely. The
+Colonel seemed surprised. “Money? Money? Ah, you mean the chest. There
+it is,” said the Colonel, “just as I found it when I took possession
+three days ago. Keys?” The Colonel shrugged. “I have no keys.”
+
+The Red Guard sneered knowingly. “Very convenient,” he said.
+
+“Let us open the chest,” said Baklanov. “Bring an axe. Here is an
+American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what he
+finds there.”
+
+I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.
+
+“Let’s arrest him,” said the Red Guard, venomously. “He is Kerensky’s
+man. He has stolen the money and given it to Kerensky.”
+
+Baklanov did not want to. “Oh, no,” he said. “It was the Kornilovitz
+before him. He is not to blame.
+
+“The devil!” cried the Red Guard. “He is Kerensky’s man, I tell you. If
+_you_ won’t arrest him, then _we_ will, and we’ll take him to Petrograd
+and put him in Peter-Paul, where he belongs!” At this the other Red
+Guards growled assent. With a piteous glance at us the Colonel was led
+away….
+
+Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the
+front. Half a dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two,
+under command of a huge workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to
+come along. Red Guards issued from headquarters, each of them
+staggering under an arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled
+with _grubit_—which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five times
+as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A three-inch
+cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the truck with bits of
+rope and wire.
+
+We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck
+swaying from side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the
+other, and the _grubit_ bombs went rolling back and forth over our
+feet, fetching up against the sides of the car with a crash.
+
+The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me with
+questions about America. “Why did America come into the war? Are the
+American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What is the
+situation in the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman to San
+Francisco?” and other, very difficult to answer, all delivered in a
+shout above the roaring of the truck, while we held on to each other
+and danced amid the caroming bombs.
+
+Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the road
+before us, shouted _“Shtoi!”_ and threw up their guns.
+
+We paid no attention. “The devil take you!” cried the Red Guards. “We
+don’t stop for anybody! We’re Red Guards!” And we thundered imperiously
+on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about the
+internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters….
+
+About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and
+slowed down.
+
+“Where’s the front, brothers?”
+
+The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. “This morning,” he
+said, “it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn thing
+isn’t anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we couldn’t
+find it.”
+
+They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been about
+a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and shouted
+to the chauffeur to stop.
+
+“Firing!” he said. “Do you hear it?” For a moment dead silence, and
+then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid succession.
+Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very much excited
+now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the truck was nearly
+opposite the place where the firing had come from. Descending, we
+spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went stealthily into the
+forest.
+
+Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around until
+it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.
+
+It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the tree-trunks
+were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun. Not a thing
+moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering under our
+feet. Was it an ambush?
+
+We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and paused.
+Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a small fire,
+perfectly oblivious.
+
+Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. _“Zra’zvuitye,_ comrades!” he
+greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a truck-load of
+_grubit_ bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled to their feet.
+
+“What was the shooting going on around here?”
+
+One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, “Why we were just
+shooting a rabbit or two, comrade….”
+
+The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day. At
+the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving their
+rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.
+
+“Passes, comrades!”
+
+The Red Guards raised a great clamour. “We are Red Guards. We don’t
+need any passes…. Go on, never mind them!”
+
+But a sailor objected. “This is wrong, comrades. We must have
+revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came
+along in a truck and said: ‘We don’t need any passes?’ The comrades
+don’t know you.”
+
+At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and
+soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced his
+dirty _bumaga_ (paper). All were alike except mine, which had been
+issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries declared that
+I must go with them. The Red Guards objected strenuously, but the
+sailor who had spoken first insisted. “This comrade we know to be a
+true comrade,” he said. “But there are orders of the Committee, and
+these orders must be obeyed. That is revolutionary discipline….”
+
+In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and
+watched it disappear careening down the road, all the company waving
+farewell. The soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then
+led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me
+suddenly; they were going to shoot me!
+
+In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only sign
+of life was smoke from the chimney of a _datchya,_ a rambling wooden
+house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers were
+walking out into the road. Desperately I ran after them.
+
+“But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!”
+
+They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.
+
+“It is different from the others,” said one, sullenly. “We cannot read,
+brother.”
+
+I took him by the arm. “Come!” I said. “Let’s go to that house. Some
+one there can surely read.” They hesitated. “No,” said one. The other
+looked me over. “Why not?” he muttered. “After all, it is a serious
+crime to kill an innocent man.”
+
+We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short, stout
+woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, “I don’t know
+anything about them! I don’t know anything about them!” One of my
+guards held out the pass. She screamed. “Just to read it, comrade.”
+Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
+
+The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the American
+Social-Democracy, an internationalist….
+
+Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation. “We
+must take you to the Regimental Committee,” they said. In the
+fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road. Occasionally
+we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded me with looks of
+menace, handling my pass around and arguing violently as to whether or
+not I should be killed….
+
+It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye Selo
+Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A number
+of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions. A spy? A
+provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a great, bare
+room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots on the floor,
+where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards, talking, singing,
+and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by Kerensky’s cannon….
+
+I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups, who
+turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly and
+then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate. “Comrades!
+Comrades!” yelled one of my guards. “Committee! Committee!” The throng
+halted, banked around me, muttering. Out of them shouldered a lean
+youth, wearing a red arm-band.
+
+“Who is this?” he asked roughly. The guards explained. “Give me the
+paper!” He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he
+smiled and handed me the pass. “Comrades, this is an American comrade.
+I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the Regiment….” A
+sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and they pressed
+forward to shake my hand.
+
+“You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to the
+Officers’ Club, where there are some who speak your language….”
+
+He led me across the court-yard to the door of another building. An
+aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a Lieutenant,
+was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking hands, went back.
+
+“I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service,” said the
+Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a
+ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On the
+second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from the
+hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre of
+which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their gold-
+and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial
+decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me
+beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard.
+Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any
+officers’ mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?
+
+“You are not Bolsheviki?” I asked Morovsky.
+
+A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing
+furtively at the orderly.
+
+“No,” answered my friend. “There is only one Bolshevik officer in this
+regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a Menshevik.
+Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist Revolutionary
+of the right wing…. I should say that most of the officers in the Army
+are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in democracy; they believe
+that they must follow the soldier-masses….”
+
+Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on the
+table. The rest crowded around to see.
+
+“Here,” said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, “were our positions
+this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?”
+
+Captain Kherlov pointed. “According to orders, we occupied the position
+along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o’clock.”
+
+Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the Chairman
+of the Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They joined the
+group behind the Colonel, peering at the map.
+
+“Good,” said the Colonel. “Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten
+kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up
+advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the present
+line, strengthening the positions by—”
+
+“If you please,” interrupted the Chairman of the Regimental Committee.
+“The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to engage the
+Cossacks north of Gatchina in the morning. A crushing defeat is
+necessary. Kindly make the proper dispositions.”
+
+There was a short silence. The Colonel again turned to the map. “Very
+well,” he said, in a different voice. “Stepan Georgevitch, you will
+please—” Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his orders,
+while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then withdrew, and
+ten minutes later returned with the orders typewritten, and one carbon
+copy. The Chairman of the Committee studied the map with a copy of the
+orders before him.
+
+“All right,” he said, rising. Folding the carbon copy, he put it in his
+pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal taken
+from his pocket, and presented it to the Colonel….
+
+Here was the Revolution!
+
+I returned to the Soviet palace in Tsarskoye in the Regimental Staff
+automobile. Still the crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors pouring
+in and out, still the choking press of trucks, armoured cars, cannon
+before the door, and the shouting, the laughter of unwonted victory.
+Half a dozen Red Guards forced their way through, a priest in the
+middle. This was Father Ivan, they said, who had blessed the Cossacks
+when they entered the town. I heard afterward that he was shot…. (See
+App. IX, Sect. 4)
+
+Dybenko was just coming out, giving rapid orders right and left. In his
+hand he carried the big revolver. An automobile stood with racing
+engine at the kerb. Alone, he climbed in the rear seat, and was off-off
+to Gatchina, to conquer Kerensky.
+
+Toward nightfall he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and went on
+afoot. What Dybenko told the Cossacks nobody knows, but the fact is
+that General Krasnov and his staff and several thousand Cossacks
+surrendered, and advised Kerensky to do the same. (See App. IX, Sect.
+5)
+
+As for Kerensky—I reprint here the deposition made by General Krasnov
+on the morning of November 14th:
+
+“Gatchina, November 14, 1917. To-day, about three o’clock (A. M.), I
+was summoned by the Supreme Commander (Kerensky). He was very agitated,
+and very nervous.
+
+“‘General,’ he said to me, ‘you have betrayed me. Your Cossacks declare
+categorically that they will arrest me and deliver me to the sailors.’
+
+“‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘there is talk of it, and I know that you have no
+sympathy anywhere.’
+
+“‘But the officers say the same thing.’
+
+“‘Yes, most of all it is the officers who are discontented with you.’
+
+“‘What shall I do? I ought to commit suicide!’
+
+“‘If you are an honorable man, you will go immediately to Petrograd
+with a white flag, you will present yourself to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and enter into negotiations as Chief of the
+Provisional Government.’
+
+“‘All right. I will do that, General.’
+
+“‘I will give you a guard and ask that a sailor go with you.’
+
+“‘No, no, not a sailor. Do you know whether it is true that Dybenko is
+here?’
+
+“‘I don’t know who Dybenko is.’
+
+“‘He is my enemy.
+
+“‘There is nothing to do. If you play for high stakes you must know how
+to take a chance.’
+
+“‘Yes. I’ll leave to-night!’
+
+“‘Why? That would be a flight. Leave calmly and openly, so that every
+one can see that you are not running away.’
+
+“‘Very well. But you must give me a guard on which I can count.’
+
+“‘Good.’
+
+“I went out and called the Cossack Russkov, of the Tenth Regiment of
+the Don, and ordered him to pick out ten Cossacks to accompany the
+Supreme Commander. Half an hour later the Cossacks came to tell me that
+Kerensky was not in his quarters, that he had run away.
+
+“I gave the alarm and ordered that he be searched for, supposing that
+he could not have left Gatchina, but he could not be found….”
+
+And so Kerensky fled, alone, “disguised in the uniform of a sailor,”
+and by that act lost whatever popularity he had retained among the
+Russian masses….
+
+I went back to Petrograd riding on the front seat of an auto truck,
+driven by a workman and filled with Red Guards. We had no kerosene, so
+our lights were not burning. The road was crowded with the proletarian
+army going home, and new reserves pouring out to take their places.
+Immense trucks like ours, columns of artillery, wagons, loomed up in
+the night, without lights, as we were. We hurtled furiously on,
+wrenched right and left to avoid collisions that seemed inevitable,
+scraping wheels, followed by the epithets of pedestrians.
+
+Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital,
+immeasurably more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of jewels
+heaped on the barren plain.
+
+The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the
+other he swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture.
+
+“Mine!” he cried, his face all alight. “All mine now! My Petrograd!”
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+Moscow
+
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee, with a fierce intensity, followed
+up its victory:
+
+November 14th.
+
+To all Army, corps, divisional and regimental Committees, to all
+Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, to all, all,
+all.
+
+Conforming to the agreement between the Cossacks, _yunkers,_ soldiers,
+sailors and workers, it has been decided to arraign Alexander
+Feodorvitch Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We demand that
+Kerensky be arrested, and that he be ordered, in the name of the
+organisations hereinafter mentioned, to come immediately to Petrograd
+and present himself to the tribunal.
+
+Signed,
+
+_The Cossacks of the First Division of Ussuri Cavalry; the Committee of
+Yunkers of the Petrograd detachment of Franc-Tireurs; the delegate of
+the Fifth Army._
+
+People’s Commissar DYBENKO.
+
+The Committee for Salvation, the Duma, the Central Committee of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party—proudly claiming Kerensky as a member—all
+passionately protested that he could only be held responsible to the
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+On the evening of November 16th I watched two thousand Red Guards swing
+down the Zagorodny Prospekt behind a military band playing the
+_Marseillaise_—and how appropriate it sounded—with blood-red flags over
+the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers who had
+defended “Red Petrograd.” In the bitter dusk they tramped, men and
+women, their tall bayonets swaying; through streets faintly lighted and
+slippery with mud, between silent crowds of bourgeois, contemptuous but
+fearful….
+
+All were against them—business men, speculators, investors,
+land-owners, army officers, politicians, teachers, students,
+professional men, shop-keepers, clerks, agents. The other Socialist
+parties hated the Bolsheviki with an implacable hatred. On the side of
+the Soviets were the rank and file of the workers, the sailors, all the
+undemoralised soldiers, the landless peasants, and a few—a very
+few—intellectuals….
+
+From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate
+street-fighting burst like a wave, news of Kerensky’s defeat came
+echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov,
+Novgorod, Vinnitza—where the streets had run with blood; Moscow, where
+the Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last strong-hold
+of the bourgeoisie—the Kremlin.
+
+“They are bombarding the Kremlin!” The news passed from mouth to mouth
+in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror. Travellers
+from “white and shining little mother Moscow” told fearful tales.
+Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in flames; the
+church of Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky Cathedral
+crumbling down; the Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin tottering; the Duma
+burned to the ground. (See App. X, Sect. 1)
+
+Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful
+blasphemy in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout
+sounded the shock of guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox
+Church, and pounding to dust the sanctuary of the Russian nation….
+
+On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into
+tears at the session of the Council of People’s Commissars, and rushed
+from the room, crying, “I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the monstrous
+destruction of beauty and tradition….”
+
+That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the
+newspapers:
+
+I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has
+happened there.
+
+The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the
+Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered
+the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under
+artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
+
+The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
+
+What is left? What more can happen?
+
+I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these
+horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts which
+drive me mad!
+
+That is why I am leaving the Council of People’s Commissars.
+
+I fully realise the gravity of this decision. But I can bear no more….
+(See App. X, Sect. 2)
+
+That same day the White Guards and _yunkers_ in the Kremlin
+surrendered, and were allowed to march out unharmed. The treaty of
+peace follows:
+
+1. The Committee of Public Safety ceases to exist.
+
+2. The White Guard gives up its arms and dissolves. The officers retain
+their swords and regulations side-arms. In the Military Schools are
+retained only the arms necessary for instruction; all others are
+surrendered by the _yunkers._ The Military Revolutionary Committee
+guarantees the liberty and inviolability of the person.
+
+3. To settle the question of disarmament, as set forth in section 2, a
+special commission is appointed, consisting of representatives from all
+organisations which took part in the peace negotiations.
+
+4. From the moment of the signature of this peace treaty, both parties
+shall immediately give order to cease firing and halt all military
+operations, taking measures to ensure punctual obedience to this order.
+
+5. At the signature of the treaty, all prisoners made by the two
+parties shall be released….
+
+For two days now the Bolsheviki had been in control of the city. The
+frightened citizens were creeping out of their cellars to seek their
+dead; the barricades in the streets were being removed. Instead of
+diminishing, however, the stories of destruction in Moscow continued to
+grow…. And it was under the influence of these fearful reports that we
+decided to go there.
+
+Petrograd, after all, in spite of being for a century the seat of
+Government, is still an artificial city. Moscow is real Russia, Russia
+as it was and will be; in Moscow we would get the true feeling of the
+Russian people about the Revolution. Life was more intense there.
+
+For the past week the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, aided
+by the rank and file of the Railway Workers, had seized control of the
+Nicolai Railroad, and hurled trainload after trainload of sailors and
+Red Guards southwest…. We were provided with passes from Smolny,
+without which no one could leave the capital…. When the train backed
+into the station, a mob of shabby soldiers, all carrying huge sacks of
+eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured into all
+the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing onto the
+roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a compartment, but
+almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered…. There was room for
+only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the conductor joined
+us—but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to bother about the
+comfort of a lot of _boorzhui_ (bourgeois)? We produced the passes from
+Smolny; instantly the soldiers changed their attitude.
+
+“Come, comrades,” cried one, “these are American _tovarishtchi._ They
+have come thirty thousand versts to see our Revolution, and they are
+naturally tired….”
+
+With polite and friendly apologies the soldiers began to leave. Shortly
+afterward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied by two
+stout, well-dressed Russians, who had bribed the conductor and locked
+their door….
+
+About seven o’clock in the evening we drew out of the station, an
+immense long train drawn by a weak little locomotive burning wood, and
+stumbled along slowly, with many stops. The soldiers on the roof kicked
+with their heels and sang whining peasant songs; and in the corridor,
+so jammed that it was impossible to pass, violent political debates
+raged all night long. Occasionally the conductor came through, as a
+matter of habit, looking for tickets. He found very few except ours,
+and after a half-hour of futile wrangling, lifted his arms despairingly
+and withdrew. The atmosphere was stifling, full of smoke and foul
+odours; if it hadn’t been for the broken windows we would doubtless
+have smothered during the night.
+
+In the morning, hours late, we looked out upon a snowy world. It was
+bitter cold. About noon a peasant woman got on with a basket-full of
+bread-chunks and a great can of luke warm coffee-substitute. From then
+on until dark there was nothing but the packed train, jolting and
+stopping, and occasional stations where a ravenous mob swooped down on
+the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it clean…. At one of these
+halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the seceding Commissars, who were
+returning to Moscow to put their grievances before their own Soviet,
+and further along was Bukharin, a short, red-bearded man with the eyes
+of a fanatic—“more Left than Lenin,” they said of him….
+
+Then the three strokes of the bell and we made a rush for the train,
+worming our way through the packed and noisy aisle…. A good-natured
+crowd, bearing the discomfort with humorous patience, interminably
+arguing about everything from the situation in Petrograd to the British
+Trade-Union system, and disputing loudly with the few _boorzhui_ who
+were on board. Before we reached Moscow almost every car had organised
+a Committee to secure and distribute food, and these Committees became
+divided into political factions, who wrangled over fundamental
+principles….
+
+The station at Moscow was deserted. We went to the office of the
+Commissar, in order to arrange for our return tickets. He was a sullen
+youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed him our
+papers from Smolny, he lost his temper and declared that he was no
+Bolshevik, that he represented the Committee of Public Safety…. It was
+characteristic—in the general turmoil attending the conquest of the
+city, the chief railway station had been forgotten by the victors….
+
+Not a cab in sight. A few blocks down the street, however, we woke up a
+grotesquely-padded _izvostchik_ asleep upright on the box of his little
+sleigh. “How much to the centre of the town?”
+
+He scratched his head. “The _barini_ won’t be able to find a room in
+any hotel,” he said. “But I’ll take you around for a hundred rubles….”
+Before the Revolution it cost _two!_ We objected, but he simply
+shrugged his shoulders. “It takes a good deal of courage to drive a
+sleigh nowadays,” he went on. We could not beat him down below fifty….
+As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted streets, he recounted
+his adventures during the six days’ fighting. “Driving along, or
+waiting for a fare on the corner,” he said, “all of a sudden _pooff!_ a
+cannon ball exploding here, _pooff!_ a cannon ball there, _ratt-ratt!_
+a machine-gun…. I gallop, the devils shooting all around. I get to a
+nice quiet street and stop, doze a little, _pooff!_ another cannon
+ball, _ratt-ratt_…. Devils! Devils! Devils! Brrr!”
+
+In the centre of the town the snow-piled streets were quiet with the
+stillness of convalescence. Only a few arc-lights were burning, only a
+few pedestrians hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from the
+great plain, cutting to the bone. At the first hotel we entered an
+office illuminated by two candles.
+
+“Yes, we have some very comfortable rooms, but all the windows are shot
+out. If the _gospodin_ does not mind a little fresh air….”
+
+Down the Tverskaya the shop-windows were broken, and there were
+shell-holes and torn-up paving stones in the street. Hotel after hotel,
+all full, or the proprietors still so frightened that all they could
+say was, “No, no, there is no room! There is no room!” On the main
+streets, where the great banking-houses and mercantile houses lay, the
+Bolshevik artillery had been indiscriminately effective. As one Soviet
+official told me, “Whenever we didn’t know just where the _yunkers_ and
+White Guards were, we bombarded their pocketbooks….”
+
+At the big Hotel National they finally took us in; for we were
+foreigners, and the Military Revolutionary Committee had promised to
+protect the dwellings of foreigners…. On the top floor the manager
+showed us where shrapnel had shattered several windows. “The animals!”
+said he, shaking his first at imaginary Bolsheviki. “But wait! Their
+time will come; in just a few days now their ridiculous Government will
+fall, and then we shall make them suffer!”
+
+We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name, “I Eat
+Nobody,” and Tolstoy’s picture prominent on the walls, and then sallied
+out into the streets.
+
+The headquarters of the Moscow Soviet was in the palace of the former
+Governor-General, an imposing white building fronting Skobeliev Square.
+Red Guards stood sentry at the door. At the head of the wide, formal
+stairway, whose walls were plastered with announcements of
+committee-meetings and addresses of political parties, we passed
+through a series of lofty ante-rooms, hung with red-shrouded pictures
+in gold frames, to the splendid state salon, with its magnificent
+crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of talk,
+underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines, filled
+the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were unrolled,
+serpentining across the parqueted floor and over tables, at which sat
+half a hundred women, cutting and sewing streamers and banners for the
+Funeral of the Revolutionary Dead. The faces of these women were
+roughened and scarred with life at its most difficult; they worked now
+sternly, many of them with eyes red from weeping…. The losses of the
+Red Army had been heavy.
+
+At a desk in one corner was Rogov, an intelligent, bearded man with
+glasses, wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march
+with the Central Executive Committee in the funeral procession next
+morning….
+
+“It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki anything!” he exclaimed. “They compromise from sheer habit.
+Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the
+_yunkers!”_
+
+[Graphic, page 251: Questionaire for the Bourgeoioisie]
+
+Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow
+Military Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the
+requisition of clothing for the Army and the poor workers. For
+translation see Appendix 3. (See App. X, Sect. 3)
+
+Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and _shapka,_ whose
+face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known as the
+watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the great
+Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the Moscow
+Metal-Workers’ Union, and a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee during the fighting….
+
+“You see me!” he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. “I was with the
+boys in the Kremlin when the _yunkers_ came the first time. They shut
+me up in the cellar and swiped my overcoat, my money, watch and even
+the ring on my finger. This is all I’ve got to wear!”
+
+From him I learned many details of the bloody six-day battle which had
+rent Moscow in two. Unlike in Petrograd, in Moscow the City Duma had
+taken command of the _yunkers_ and White Guards. Rudnev, the Mayor, and
+Minor, president of the Duma, had directed the activities of the
+Committee of Public Safety and the troops. Riabtsev, Commandant of the
+city, a man of democratic instincts, had hesitated about opposing the
+Military Revolutionary Committee; but the Duma had forced him…. It was
+the Mayor who had urged the occupation of the Kremlin; “They will never
+dare fire on you there,” he said….
+
+One garrison regiment, badly demoralised by long inactivity, had been
+approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what
+action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and
+continue its present activities—which consisted in peddling rubbers and
+sunflower seeds!
+
+“But worst of all,” said Melnichansky, “we had to organise while we
+were fighting. The other side knew just what it wanted; but here the
+soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs…. There was a fearful
+wrangle over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiments talked
+for days before they decided what to do; and when the officers suddenly
+deserted us, we had no battle-staff to give orders….”
+
+Vivid little pictures he gave me. On a cold grey day he had stood at a
+corner of the Nikitskaya, which was swept by blasts of machine-gun
+fire. A throng of little boys were gathered there—street waifs who used
+to be newsboys. Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they waited
+until the firing slackened, and then tried to run across the street….
+Many were killed, but the rest dashed backward and forward, laughing,
+daring each other….
+
+Late in the evening I went to the _Dvorianskoye Sobranie_—the Nobles’
+Club—where the Moscow Bolsheviki were to meet and consider the report
+of Nogin, Rykov and the others who had left the Council of People’s
+Commissars.
+
+The meeting-place was a theatre, in which, under the old régime, to
+audiences of officers and glittering ladies, amateur presentations of
+the latest French comedy had once taken place.
+
+At first the place filled with the intellectuals—those who lived near
+the centre of the town. Nogin spoke, and most of his listeners were
+plainly with him. It was very late before the workers arrived; the
+working-class quarters were on the outskirts of the town, and no
+street-cars were running. But about midnight they began to clump up the
+stairs, in groups of ten or twenty—big, rough men, in coarse clothes,
+fresh from the battle-line, where they had fought like devils for a
+week, seeing their comrades fall all about them.
+
+Scarcely had the meeting formally opened before Nogin was assailed with
+a tempest of jeers and angry shouts. In vain he tried to argue, to
+explain; they would not listen. He had left the Council of People’s
+Commissars; he had deserted his post while the battle was raging. As
+for the bourgeois press, here in Moscow there was no more bourgeois
+press; even the City Duma had been dissolved. (See App. X, Sect. 4)
+Bukharin stood up, savage, logical, with a voice which plunged and
+struck, plunged and struck…. Him they listened to with shining eyes.
+Resolution, to support the action of the Council of People’s
+Commissars, passed by overwhelming majority. So spoke Moscow….
+
+[Graphic, page 254: Pass to the Kremlin]
+
+By this the Military Revolutionary Commitee requests to give a pass for
+the purpose of investigating the Kremlin, the representatives of the
+American Socialist party attached to the Socialist press, comrades Reed
+and Bryant. Chief of the Military Revolutionary Committee For the
+Secretary
+
+Late in the night we went through the empty streets and under the
+Iberian Gate to the great Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The
+church of Vasili Blazheiny loomed fantastic, its bright-coloured,
+convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in the darkness. There was no
+sign of any damage…. Along one side of the square the dark towers and
+walls of the Kremlin stood up. On the high walls flickered redly the
+light of hidden flames; voices reached us across the immense place, and
+the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over.
+
+Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall.
+Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen
+feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers
+were digging in the light of huge fires.
+
+A young student spoke to us in German. “The Brotherhood Grave,” he
+explained. “To-morrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians who
+died for the Revolution.”
+
+He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and
+shovels, and the earth—mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the night
+was thick with stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall towered up
+immeasurably.
+
+“Here in this holy place,” said the student, “holiest of all Russia, we
+shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars, our
+Tsar—the People—shall sleep….” His arm was in a sling, from a
+bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. “You foreigners
+look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a mediæval
+monarchy,” said he. “But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant
+in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the
+world capitalism was Emperor…. Russian revolutionary tactics are
+best….”
+
+As we left, the workers in the pit, exhausted and running with sweat in
+spite of the cold, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red Square a
+dark knot of men came hurrying. They swarmed into the pits, picked up
+the tools and began digging, digging, without a word….
+
+So, all the long night volunteers of the People relieved each other,
+never halting in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn
+laid bare the great Square, white with snow, and the yawning brown pits
+of the Brotherhood Grave, quite finished.
+
+We rose before sunrise, and hurried through the dark streets to
+Skobeliev Square. In all the great city not a human being could be
+seen; but there was a faint sound of stirring, far and near, like a
+deep wind coming. In the pale half-light a little group of men and
+women were gathered before the Soviet headquarters, with a sheaf of
+gold-lettered red banners—the Central Executive Committee of the Moscow
+Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague stirring sound deepened and
+became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The city was rising. We
+set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping overhead. The little
+street chapels along our way were locked and dark, as was the Chapel of
+the Iberian Virgin, which each new Tsar used to visit before he went to
+the Kremlin to crown himself, and which, day or night, was always open
+and crowded, and brilliant with the candles of the devout gleaming on
+the gold and silver and jewels of the ikons. Now, for the first time
+since Napoleon was in Moscow, they say, the candles were out.
+
+The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance
+from Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the
+Kremlin. Dark and silent and cold were the churches; the priests had
+disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial, there
+had been no sacrament for the dead, nor were any prayers to be said
+over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon, Metropolitan of Moscow, was
+soon to excommunicate the Soviets….
+
+Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at
+home—but for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the rumour
+of whose coming was thunderous as surf….
+
+Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the
+vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I remarked
+that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always before the
+passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice it….
+
+We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin wall,
+and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men were
+there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected Commandant
+of Moscow—a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a gentle face.
+
+Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people
+poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the poor
+and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the
+_Internationale,_ and spontaneously the song caught and spread like
+wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin
+wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters
+in gold and in white, saying, “Martyrs of the Beginning of World Social
+Revolution,” and “Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the World.”
+
+A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far
+quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were
+arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the Gate,
+the blare of their banners, and the dull red—like blood—of the coffins
+they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood and daubed
+with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who marched with
+tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women who sobbed and
+screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces. Some of the
+coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others were covered
+with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier’s hat nailed on the
+top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial flowers….
+
+Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession
+slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless
+stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering,
+knots of crepe hanging from the top—and some Anarchist flags, black
+with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral
+March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people, standing
+uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs….
+
+Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their
+coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and artillery
+batteries, the cannon wound with red and black—forever, it seemed.
+Their banners said, “Long live the Third International!” or “We Want an
+Honest, General, Democratic Peace!”
+
+Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the
+grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down
+into the pit. Many of them were women—squat, strong proletarian women.
+Behind the dead came other women—women young and broken, or old,
+wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to follow
+their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and shrieked when
+compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each other so!
+
+All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the
+Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river
+of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous
+prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,—under the
+eyes of the world’s workers and their descendants forever….
+
+One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell,
+and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played the
+Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless
+branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like
+strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in
+the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding sound,
+audible beneath the singing….
+
+The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning
+women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from the
+great Square ebbed the proletarian tide….
+
+I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed
+priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom
+more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory
+to die….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)
+
+
+DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI, Sect.
+2)
+
+… The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed the
+right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination.
+
+The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this
+inalienable right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and
+definitely.
+
+Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People’s
+Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in the
+question of Nationalities, the following principles:
+
+(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.
+
+(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, even
+to the point of separation and the formation of an independent state.
+
+(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious
+privileges and disabilities.
+
+(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic groups
+inhabiting the territory of Russia.
+
+Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a Commission
+on Nationalities.
+
+In the name of the Russian Republic,
+
+People’s Commissar for Nationalities
+
+YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN
+
+
+President of the Council of People’s Commissars
+
+V. ULIANOV (LENIN)
+
+
+The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent
+Republic, as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at
+Helsingfors. Independent “Governments” spring up in Siberia and the
+Caucasus. The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered together
+the Polish troops in the Russian army, abolished their Committees and
+established an iron discipline….
+
+All these “Governments” and “movements” had two characteristics in
+common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and they feared
+and detested Bolshevism….
+
+Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People’s
+Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order. Decree
+on Social Insurance, on Workers’ Control, Regulations for Volost Land
+Committees, Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of Courts and the
+Creation of People’s Tribunals…. (See App. XI, Sect. 3)
+
+Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, “joyfully to
+greet the new Government of the People.”
+
+In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from the
+trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates, thin and
+grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in it. Some
+pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing…. Red Guards
+came to mount guard. All the soldiers turned to look, curiously, as if
+they had heard of them but never seen them. They laughed good-naturedly
+and pressed out of line to slap the Red Guards on the back, with
+half-joking, half-admiring remarks….
+
+The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the
+churches of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as
+Lenin himself told the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ that was “only the beginning of
+the conquest of power.” Deprived of arms, the opposition, which still
+controlled the economic life of the country, settled down to organise
+disorganisation, with all the Russian genius for cooperative action—to
+obstruct, cripple and discredit the Soviets.
+
+The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by the
+banks and commercial establishments. Every move of the Bolsheviki to
+take over the Government apparatus was resisted.
+
+Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries
+refused to recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors were
+forced, resigned. He demanded the keys of the archives; only when he
+brought workmen to force the locks were they given up. Then it was
+discovered that Neratov, former assistant Foreign Minister, had
+disappeared with the Secret Treaties….
+
+Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It was
+bitterly cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all the
+hundreds of employees, not one would show him where the office of the
+Minister was….
+
+Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar of Public
+Welfare—the department of charities and public institutions—was
+welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the functionaries in the
+Ministry. Immediately the poor of the great cities, the inmates of
+institutions, were plunged in miserable want: delegations of starving
+cripples, of orphans with blue, pinched faces, besieged the building.
+With tears streaming down her face, Kollontai arrested the strikers
+until they should deliver the keys of the office and the safe; when she
+got the keys, however, it was discovered that the former Minister,
+Countess Panina, had gone off with all the funds, which she refused to
+surrender except on the order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App.
+XI, Sect. 4)
+
+In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry
+of Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees, summoned to
+return or forfeit their positions and their pensions, either stayed
+away or returned to sabotage…. Almost all the _intelligentzia_ being
+anti-Bolshevik, there was nowhere for the Soviet Government to recruit
+new staffs….
+
+The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open for
+speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left,
+secreting the books and removing the funds. All the employees of the
+State Bank struck except the clerks in charge of the vaults and the
+manufacture of money, who refused all demands from Smolny and privately
+paid out huge sums to the Committee for Salvation and the City Duma.
+
+Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to
+insist upon the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The
+first time, the City Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders were present in imposing numbers, and spoke so
+gravely of the consequences that the Commissar was frightened. The
+second time he arrived with a warrant, which he proceeded to read aloud
+in due form; but some one called his attention to the fact that it had
+no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect for
+“documents” forced him again to withdraw….
+
+The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that all
+record of the financial relations of Russia with foreign countries was
+lost.
+
+The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned
+public utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when
+the Bolsheviki, compelled by the desperate needs of the city
+population, attempted to help or to control the public service, all the
+employees went on strike immediately, and the Duma flooded Russia with
+telegrams about Bolshevik “violation of Municipal autonomy.”
+
+At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of War
+and Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the Army
+Committees and the high command blocked the Soviets in every way
+possible, even to the extent of neglecting the troops at the front. The
+_Vikzhel_ was hostile, refusing to transport Soviet troops; every
+troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out by force, and railway
+officials had to be arrested each time—whereupon the _Vikzhel_
+threatened an immediate general strike unless they were released….
+
+Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the
+factories of Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three weeks;
+the _Vikzhel_ announced that trains must cease running by December
+first; there was food for three days only in Petrograd, and no more
+coming in; and the Army on the Front was starving…. The Committee for
+Salvation, the various Central Committees, sent word all over the
+country, exhorting the population to ignore the Government decrees. And
+the Allied Embassies were either coldly indifferent, or openly
+hostile….
+
+The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next
+morning under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime. (See
+App. XI, Sect. 5) Even _Novaya Zhizn_ characterised it as “a
+combination of demagoguery and impotence.”
+
+From day to day (it said) the Government of the People’s Commissars
+sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having
+easily conquered the power… the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.
+
+Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are
+unable at the same time to create a new one which might work easily and
+freely according to the theories of social experimenters.
+
+Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn’t enough men to run their
+growing party—a work above all of speakers and writers; where then are
+they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and complicated
+functions of government?
+
+The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with
+decrees, each one more radical and more “socialist” than the last. But
+in this exhibition of Socialism on Paper—more likely designed for the
+stupefaction of our descendants—there appears neither the desire nor
+the capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!
+
+Meanwhile the _Vikzhel’s_ Conference to Form a New Government continued
+to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in principle to
+the basis of the Government; the composition of the People’s Council
+was being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively chosen, with Tchernov
+as Premier; the Bolsheviki were admitted in a large minority, but Lenin
+and Trotzky were barred. The Central Committees of the Menshevik and
+Socialist Revolutionary parties, the Executive Committee of the
+Peasant’s Soviets, resolved that, although unalterably opposed to the
+“criminal politics” of the Bolsheviki, they would, “in order to halt
+the fratricidal bloodshed,” not oppose their entrance into the People’s
+Council.
+
+The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the
+Soviets everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting of
+the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted that the
+Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the other Socialist
+parties; otherwise they would withdraw from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee and the _Tsay-ee-kah._ Malkin said, “The news from Moscow,
+where our comrades are dying on both sides of the barricades,
+determines us to bring up once more the question of organisation of
+power, and it is not only our right to do so, but our duty…. We have
+won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here within the walls of
+Smolny Institute, and to speak from this tribune. After the bitter
+internal party struggle, we shall be obliged, if you refuse to
+compromise, to pass to open battle outside…. We must propose to the
+democracy terms of an acceptable compromise….”
+
+After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned with
+a resolution, read by Kameniev:
+
+The _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it necessary that there enter into the
+Government representatives of _all the Socialist parties composing the
+Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies who recognise the
+conquests of the Revolution of November 7th—that is to say, the
+establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on peace, land,
+workers’ control over industry, and the arming of the working-class._
+The _Tsay-ee-kah_ therefore resolves to propose negotiations concerning
+the constitution of the Government to all parties _of the Soviet,_ and
+insists upon the following conditions as a basis:
+
+The Government is responsible to the _Tsay-ee-kah._ The _Tsay-ee-kah_
+shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150 delegates of the Soviets
+of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies shall be added 75 delegates of the
+_Provincial_ Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, 80 from the Front
+organisations of the Army and Navy, 40 from the Trade Unions (25 from
+the various All-Russian Unions, in proportion to their importance, 10
+from the _Vikzhel,_ and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50
+delegates from the Socialist groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the
+Ministry itself, at least one-half the portfolios must be reserved to
+the Bolsheviki. The Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs
+must be given to the Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of
+Petrograd and Moscow must remain in the hands of delegates of the
+Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.
+
+The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of all
+Russia.
+
+It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and
+Trotzky.
+
+Kameniev explained. “The so-called ‘People’s Council,’” he said,
+“proposed by the Conference, would consist of about 420 members, of
+which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides, there would be delegates
+from the counter-revolutionary old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ 100 members chosen by
+the Municipal Dumas—Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates from the Peasants’
+Soviets—appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the old Army Committees,
+who no longer represent the soldier masses.
+
+“We refuse to admit the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and also the representatives
+of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the Peasants’ Soviets shall
+be elected by the Congress of Peasants, which we have called, and which
+will at the same time elect a new Executive Committee. The proposal to
+exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a proposal to decapitate our party, and we
+do not accept it. And finally, we see no necessity for a ‘People’s
+Council’ anyway; the Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ represents them in their real proportions among the
+masses….”
+
+Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his
+party would vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right to
+modify certain details, such as the representation of the peasants, and
+demanding that the Ministry of Agriculture be reserved for the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries. This was agreed to….
+
+Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a
+question about the formation of the new Government:
+
+“I don’t know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
+negotiations…. However, I don’t think that they are of great
+importance….”
+
+That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The delegates
+of the City Duma withdrew….
+
+But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a formidable
+opposition to Lenin’s policy was growing. On the night of November 17th
+the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the
+Constituent Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with
+“political terrorism.”
+
+“The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be
+modified. They had their reason during the struggle, but now they have
+no further excuse. The press should be free, except for appeals to riot
+and insurrection.”
+
+In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the
+following resolution:
+
+The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars concerning the Press
+is herewith repealed.
+
+Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to
+decision of a special tribunal, elected by the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+proportionally to the strength of the different parties represented;
+and this tribunal shall have the right also to reconsider measures of
+repression already taken.
+
+This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.
+
+Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of the
+Press be postponed until after some compromise between the Socialist
+parties had been reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.
+
+“The revolution which is now being accomplished,” went on Avanessov,
+“has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as private
+property that we must examine the question of the Press….”
+
+Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by purely
+military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the checking
+of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary as a measure
+of transition toward the establishment of a new régime with regard to
+the Press—a régime under which the capitalist owners of
+printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and exclusive
+manufacturers of public opinion.
+
+We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing plants
+and supplies of paper, which should become the property of the Soviets,
+both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the political parties
+and groups can make use of the facilities of printing in proportion to
+the actual strength of the ideas they represent—in other words,
+proportionally to the number of their constituents.
+
+The reëstablishment of the so-called “freedom of the press,” the simple
+return of printing presses and paper to the capitalists,—poisoners of
+the mind of the people—this would be an inadmissible surrender to the
+will of capital, a giving up of one of the most important conquests of
+the Revolution; in other words, it would be a measure of unquestionably
+counter-revolutionary character.
+
+Proceeding from the above, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ categorically rejects all
+propositions aiming at the reëstablishment of the old régime in the
+domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of view of
+the Council of People’s Commissars on this question, against
+pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices, or
+by evident surrender to the interests of the counter-revolutionary
+bourgeoisie.
+
+The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts from
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation from the
+insurgent Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting. “Three weeks
+ago the Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of the freedom of the
+Press… The arguments in this resolution suggest singularly the point of
+view of the old Black Hundreds and the censors of the Tsarist
+régime—for they also talked of ‘poisoners of the mind of the people.’”
+
+Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He distinguished
+between the Press during the civil war, and the Press after the
+victory. “During civil war the right to use violence belongs only to
+the oppressed….” (Cries of “Who’s the oppressed now? Cannibal!”).
+
+“The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the
+newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing of
+the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence….” Then passing to
+the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
+
+“The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
+should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of business….
+The rule of the democracy which is being established in Russia demands
+that the domination of the Press by private property must be abolished,
+just as the domination of industry by private property…. The power of
+the Soviets should confiscate all printing-plants.” (Cries, “Confiscate
+the printing-shop of _Pravda!_”)
+
+“The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
+Otherwise it isn’t worth while for us to take the power! Each group of
+citizens should have access to print shops and paper…. The ownership of
+print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers and peasants, and
+only afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which are in a minority…. The
+passing of the power into the hands of the Soviets will bring about a
+radical transformation of the essential conditions of existence, and
+this transformation will necessarily be evident in the Press…. If we
+are going to nationalise the banks, can we then tolerate the financial
+journals? The old régime must die; that must be understood once and for
+all….” Applause and angry cries.
+
+Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon this
+important question, which should be left to a special committee. Again,
+passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
+
+Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
+slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a hammer-blow.
+“The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still with us;
+consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of repression
+against the Press.
+
+“We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of
+power we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois
+newspapers would mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a
+Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward—or go
+back. He who now talks about the ‘freedom of the Press’ goes backward,
+and halts our headlong course toward Socialism.
+
+“We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first
+revolution threw off the yoke of Tsarism. _If the first revolution had
+the right to suppress the Monarchist papers,_ then we have the right to
+suppress the bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate the question
+of the freedom of the Press from the other questions of the class
+struggle. We have promised to close these newspapers, and we shall do
+it. The immense majority of the people is with us!
+
+“Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to
+suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch as
+they appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the Soviet
+Government. However, we shall not permit them, under the pretence of
+freedom of the Socialist press, to obtain, through the secret support
+of the bourgeoisie, a monopoly of printing-presses, ink and paper….
+These essentials must become the property of the Soviet Government, and
+be apportioned, first of all, to the Socialist parties in strict
+proportion to their voting strength….”
+
+Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was carried
+by 34 to 24. Among the minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov and
+Lozovsky, who declared that it was impossible for them to vote against
+any restriction on the freedom of the Press.
+
+Upon this the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared they could no
+longer be responsible for what was being done, and withdrew from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and all other positions of executive
+responsibility.
+
+Five members—Nogin, Rykov, Miliutin, Teodorovitch and
+Shiapnikov—resigned from the Council of People’s Commissars, declaring:
+
+We are in favour of a Socialist Government composed of all the parties
+in the Soviets. We consider that only the creation of such a Government
+can possibly guarantee the results of the heroic struggle of the
+working-class and the revolutionary army. Outside of that, there
+remains only one way: the constitution of a purely Bolshevik Government
+by means of political terrorism. This last is the road taken by the
+Council of People’s Commissars. We cannot and will not follow it. We
+see that this leads directly to the elimination from political life of
+many proletarian organisations, to the establishment of an
+irresponsible régime, and to the destruction of the Revolution and the
+country. We cannot take the responsibility for such a policy, and we
+renounce before the _Tsay-ee-kah_ our function as People’s Commissars.
+
+Other Commissars, without resigning their positions, signed the
+declaration—Riazanov, Derbychev of the Press Department, Arbuzov, of
+the Government Printing-plant, Yureniev, of the Red Guard, Feodorov, of
+the Commissariat of Labour, and Larin, secretary of the Section of
+Elaboration of Decrees.
+
+At the same time Kameniev, Rykov, Miliutin, Zinoviev and Nogin resigned
+from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, making public their
+reasons:
+
+… The constitution of such a Government (composed of all the parties of
+the Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the coming
+famine, the destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists, to assure
+the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the proper time, and to
+apply effectively the programme adopted by the Congress of Soviets….
+
+We cannot accept the responsibility for the disastrous policy of the
+Central Committee, carried on against the will of an enormous majority
+of the proletariat and the soldiers, who are eager to see the rapid end
+of the bloodshed between the different political parties of the
+democracy…. We renounce our title as members of the Central Committee,
+in order to be able to say openly our opinion to the masses of workers
+and soldiers….
+
+We leave the Central Committee at the moment of victory; we cannot
+calmly look on while the policy of the chiefs of the Central Committee
+leads toward the loss of the fruits of victory and the crushing of the
+proletariat….
+
+The masses of the workers, the soldiers of the garrison, stirred
+restlessly, sending their delegations to Smolny, to the Conference for
+Formation of the New Government, where the break in the ranks of the
+Bolsheviki caused the liveliest joy.
+
+But the answer of the Leninites was swift and ruthless. Shliapnikov and
+Teodorovitch submitted to party discipline and returned to their posts.
+Kameniev was stripped of his powers as president of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+and Sverdlov elected in his place. Zinoviev was deposed as president of
+the Petrograd Soviet. On the morning of the 5th, _Pravda_ contained a
+ferocious proclamation to the people of Russia, written by Lenin, which
+was printed in hundreds of thousands of copies, posted on the walls
+everywhere, and distributed over the face of Russia.
+
+The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave the majority to the
+Bolshevik party. Only a Government formed by this party can therefore
+be a Soviet Government. And it is known to all that the Central
+Committee of the Bolshevik party, a few hours before the formation of
+the new Government and before proposing the list of its members to the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, invited to its meeting three of the
+most eminent members of the Left Socialist Revolutionary group,
+comrades Kamkov, Spiro and Karelin, and ASKED THEM to participate in
+the new Government. We regret infinitely that the invited comrades
+refused; we consider their refusal inadmissible for revolutionists and
+champions of the working-class; we are willing at any time to include
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in the Government; but we declare
+that, as the party of the majority at the second All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, we are entitled and BOUND before the people to form a
+Government….
+
+… Comrades! Several members of the Central Committee of our party and
+the Council of People’s Commissars, Kameniev, Zinoviev, Nogin, Rykov,
+Miliutin and a few others left yesterday, November 17th, the Central
+Committee of our party, and the last three, the Council of People’s
+Commissars….
+
+The comrades who left us acted like deserters, because they not only
+abandoned the posts entrusted to them, but also disobeyed the direct
+instructions of the Central Committee of our party, to the effect that
+they should await the decisions of the Petrograd and Moscow party
+organisations before retiring. We blame decisively such desertion. We
+are firmly convinced that all conscious workers, soldiers and peasants,
+belonging to our party or sympathising with it, will also disapprove of
+the behaviour of the deserters….
+
+Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and Zinoviev,
+even before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as deserters and
+strike-breakers, by voting at the decisive meeting of the Central
+Committee, October 23d, 1917, against the insurrection; and even AFTER
+the resolution passed by the Central Committee, they continued their
+campaign at a meeting of the party workers…. But the great impulse of
+the masses, the great heroism of millions of workers, soldiers and
+peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front, in the trenches, in the
+villages, pushed aside the deserters as a railway train scatters
+saw-dust….
+
+Shame upon those who are of little faith, hesitate, who doubt, who
+allow themselves to be frightened by the bourgeoisie, or who succumb
+before the cries of the latter’s direct or indirect accomplices! There
+is NOT A SHADOW of hesitation in the MASSES of Petrograd, Moscow, and
+the rest of Russia….
+
+… We shall not submit to any ultimatums from small groups of
+intellectuals which are not followed by the masses, which are
+PRACTICALLY only supported by Kornilovists, Savinkovists, _yunkers,_
+and so forth….
+
+The response from the whole country was like a blast of hot storm. The
+insurgents never got a chance to “say openly their opinion to the
+masses of workers and soldiers.” Upon the _Tsay-ee-kah_ rolled in like
+breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the “deserters.” For days
+Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees, from the
+front, from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. “Why did they dare
+leave the Government? Were they paid by the bourgeoisie to destroy the
+Revolution? They must return and submit to the decisions of the Central
+Committee!”
+
+Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great
+soldier meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by representatives
+of all the political parties. By a vast majority Lenin’s policy was
+sustained, and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were told that they
+must enter the government…. _See next page._
+
+The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all
+Ministers and _yunkers_ be released, that all newspapers be allowed
+full freedom, that the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put under
+command of the Duma. To this Smolny answered that all the Socialist
+Ministers and also all but a very few _yunkers_ had been already set
+free, that all newspapers were free except the bourgeois press, and
+that the Soviet would remain in command of the armed forces…. On the
+19th the Conference to Form a New Government disbanded, and the
+opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev, where, under the wing
+of the General Staff, they continued to form Government after
+Government, until the end….
+
+[Graphic, page 276: Meeting announcement]
+
+Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a
+meeting of representatives of the garrison regiments, called to
+consider the question of forming a new Government. For translation see
+App. XI, Sect. 6.
+
+Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the
+_Vikzhel._ An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers
+called upon them to force the _Vikzhel_ to surrender its powers. On the
+15th, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ following its procedure toward the peasants,
+called an All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for December 1st; the
+_Vikzhel_ immediately called its own Congress for two weeks later. On
+November 16th, the _Vikzhel_ members took their seats in the
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ On the night of December 2d, at the opening session of
+the All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ formally
+offered the post of Commissar of Ways and Communications to the
+_Vikzhel_—which accepted….
+
+Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their
+attention to problems of practical administration. First of all the
+city, the country, the Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red
+Guards scoured the warehouses, the railway terminals, even the barges
+in the canals, unearthing and confiscating thousands of _poods_ of food
+held by private speculators. Emissaries were sent to the provinces,
+where with the assistance of the Land Committees they seized the
+store-houses of the great grain-dealers. Expeditions of sailors,
+heavily armed, were sent out in groups of five thousand, to the South,
+to Siberia, with roving commissions to capture cities still held by the
+White Guards, establish order, and _get food._ Passenger traffic on the
+Trans-Siberian Railroad was suspended for two weeks, while thirteen
+trains, loaded with bolts of cloth and bars of iron assembled by the
+Factory-Shop Committees, were sent out eastward, each in charge of a
+Commissar, to barter with the Siberian peasants for grain and
+potatoes….
+
+Kaledin being in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel
+question became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in
+theatres, shops and restaurants, cut down the number of street cars,
+and confiscated the private stores of fire-wood held by the
+fuel-dealers…. And when the factories of Petrograd were about to close
+down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet turned over to
+the workers two hundred thousand _poods_ from the bunkers of
+battle-ships….
+
+Toward the end of November occurred the “wine-pogroms” (See App. XI,
+Sect. 7)—looting of the wine-cellars—beginning with the plundering of
+the Winter Palace vaults. For days there were drunken soldiers on the
+streets…. In all this was evident the hand of the
+counter-revolutionists, who distributed among the regiments plans
+showing the location of the stores of liquor. The Commissars of Smolny
+began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing disorder,
+followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red Guards…. Finally
+the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out companies of sailors with
+machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon the rioters, killing many; and
+by executive order the wine-cellars were invaded by Committees with
+hatchets, who smashed the bottles—or blew them up with dynamite….
+
+Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at the
+headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the old
+Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective Revolutionary
+Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to deal with petty
+crime….
+
+The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving business,
+were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown into jail.
+(See App. XI, Sect. 8)…
+
+Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted itself
+a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois
+households, and reporting all information to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing. In this way was
+discovered the Monarchist plot led by former Duma-member Purishkevitch
+and a group of nobles and officers, who had planned an officers’
+uprising, and had written a letter inviting Kaledin to Petrograd. (See
+App. XI, Sect. 9)…. In this way was unearthed the conspiracy of the
+Petrograd Cadets, who were sending money and recruits to Kaledin….
+
+Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his
+flight, returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who
+began their publication in _Pravda,_ scandalising the world….
+
+[Graphic, page 279: Proclamation]
+
+Bolshevik order. A proclamation of the Committee to Fight against
+Pogroms, attached to the Petrograd Soviet. For translation see App. XI,
+Sect. 11.
+
+The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree (See App. XI,
+Sect. 10) making advertisements a monopoly of the official Government
+newspaper. At this all the other papers suspended publication as a
+protest, or disobeyed the law and were closed…. Only three weeks later
+did they finally submit.
+
+Still the strike of the Ministries went on, still the sabotage of the
+old officials, the stoppage of normal economic life. Behind Smolny was
+only the will of the vast, unorganised popular masses; and with them
+the Council of People’s Commissars dealt, directing revolutionary
+mass-action against its enemies. In eloquent proclamations, (See App.
+XI, Sect. 12) couched in simple words and spread over Russia, Lenin
+explained the Revolution, urged the people to take the power into their
+own hands, by force to break down the resistance of the propertied
+classes, by force to take over the institutions of Government.
+Revolutionary order. Revolutionary discipline! Strict accounting and
+control! No strikes! No loafing!
+
+[Graphic, page 281: Appeal to work hard]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Council of Professional
+Unions, and the Petrograd Council of Factory Shop Committees, to the
+Workers of Petrograd, urging them to work hard and not to strike. For
+translation see App. XI, Sect. 13.
+
+On the 20th of November the Military Revolutionary Committee issued a
+warning:
+
+The rich classes oppose the power of the Soviets—the Government of
+workers, soldiers and peasants. Their sympathisers halt the work of the
+employees of the Government and the Duma, incite strikes in the banks,
+try to interrupt communication by the railways, the post and the
+telegraph….
+
+We warn them that they are playing with fire. The country and the Army
+are threatened with famine. To fight against it, the regular
+functioning of all services is indispensable. The Workers’ and
+Peasants’ Government is taking every measure to assure the country and
+the Army all that is necessary. Opposition to these measures is a crime
+against the People. We warn the rich classes and their sympathisers
+that, if they do not cease their sabotage and their provocation in
+halting the transportation of food, they will be the first to suffer.
+They will be deprived of the right of receiving food. All the reserves
+which they possess will be requisitioned. The property of the principal
+criminals will be confiscated.
+
+We have done our duty in warning those who play with fire.
+
+We are convinced that in case decisive measures become necessary, we
+shall be solidly supported by all workers, soldiers, and peasants.
+
+On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a
+sheet headed “EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION”:
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars has received an urgent telegram from
+the Staff of the Northern Front….
+
+“There must be no further delay; do not let the Army die of hunger; the
+armies of the Northern Front have not received a crust of bread now for
+several days, and in two or three days they will not have any more
+biscuits—which are being doled out to them from reserve supplies until
+now never touched…. Already delegates from all parts of the Front are
+talking of a necessary removal of part of the Army to the rear,
+foreseeing that in a few days there will be headlong flight of the
+soldiers, dying from hunger, ravaged by the three years’ war in the
+trenches, sick, insufficiently clothed, bare-footed, driven mad by
+superhuman misery.”
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee brings this to the notice of the
+Petrograd garrison and the workers of Petrograd. The situation at the
+Front demands the most urgent and decisive measures. … Meanwhile the
+higher functionaries of the Government institutions, banks, railroads,
+post and telegraph, are on strike and impeding the work of the
+Government in supplying the Front with provisions…. Each hour of delay
+may cost the life of thousands of soldiers. The counter-revolutionary
+functionaries are the most dishonest criminals toward their hungry and
+dying brethren on the Front….
+
+The MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE GIVES THESE CRIMINALS A LAST
+WARNING. In event of the least resistance or opposition on their part,
+the harshness of the measures which will be adopted against them will
+correspond to the seriousness of their crime….
+
+The masses of workers and soldiers responded by a savage tremor of
+rage, which swept all Russia. In the capital the Government and bank
+employees got out hundreds of proclamations and appeals (See App. XI,
+Sect. 14), protesting, defending themselves, such as this one:
+
+TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.
+
+THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!
+
+WHY?
+
+
+Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State Bank
+has made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the People’s
+Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on November 27th THEY
+DEMANDED TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any indication as to where this
+money was to go.
+
+… We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people’s
+property. We stopped work.
+
+CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people’s money,
+acquired by your labour, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the
+people’s property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall
+immediately resume work.
+
+EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.
+
+
+From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the
+Special Supply Committee, declarations that the Military Revolutionary
+Committee made it impossible for the employees to work, appeals to the
+population to support them against Smolny…. But the dominant worker and
+soldier did not believe them; it was firmly fixed in the popular mind
+that the employees were sabotaging, starving the Army, starving the
+people…. In the long bread lines, which as formerly stood in the iron
+winter streets, it was not _the Government_ which was blamed, as it had
+been under Kerensky, but the _tchinovniki,_ the sabotageurs; for the
+Government was _their_ Government, _their_ Soviets—and the
+functionaries of the Ministries were against it….
+
+At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant
+organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the decrees
+of the Council of People’s Commissars, voting again and again not to
+recognise the Soviet Government, openly cooperating with the new
+counter-revolutionary “Governments” set up at Moghilev…. On the 17th of
+November, for example, the Committee for Salvation addressed “all
+Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all democratic and revolutionary
+organisations of peasants, workers, soldiers and other citizens,” in
+these words:
+
+Do not recognise the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle against
+it.
+
+Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who will
+unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian Committee for
+Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself….
+
+Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd (See
+App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the Bolsheviki; so
+that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed out that the Duma
+ought to be re-elected, as it no longer represented the political
+composition of the Petrograd population…. At the same time floods of
+resolutions from workers’ organisations, from military units, even from
+the peasants in the surrounding country, poured in upon the Duma,
+calling it “counter-revolutionary, Kornilovitz,” and demanding that it
+resign. The last days of the Duma were stormy with the bitter demands
+of the Municipal workers for decent living wages, and the threat of
+strikes….
+
+On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of
+People’s Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the
+Petrograd City Duma:
+
+In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected
+September 2d, … has definitely lost the right to represent the
+population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state of
+mind and its aspirations … and in view of the fact that the personnel
+of the Duma majority, although having lost all political following,
+continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
+counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the
+Government—the Council of People’s Commissars considers it its duty to
+invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the
+policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
+
+To this end the Council of People’s Commissars resolves:
+
+(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect
+November 30th, 1917.
+
+(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall
+remain at their posts and fulfil the duties confided to them, until
+their places shall be filled by representatives of the new Duma.
+
+(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties;
+those who leave the service of their own accord shall be considered
+discharged.
+
+(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed for
+December 9th, 1917….
+
+(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917, at
+two o’clock.
+
+(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who intentionally
+harm or destroy the property of the Municipality, shall be immediately
+arrested and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunals….
+
+The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it would
+“defend its position to the last drop of its blood,” and appealing
+desperately to the population to save their “own elected City
+Government.” But the population remained indifferent or hostile. On the
+31st Mayor Schreider and several members were arrested, interrogated,
+and released. That day and the next the Duma continued to meet,
+interrupted frequently by Red Guards and sailors, who politely
+requested the assembly to disperse. At the meeting of December 2d, an
+officer and some sailors entered the Nicolai Hall while a member was
+speaking, and ordered the members to leave, or force would be used.
+They did so, protesting to the last, but finally “ceding to violence.”
+
+The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the
+“Moderate” Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely Bolshevik….
+
+There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the
+“republics” of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely
+anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the Governments
+were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and entering upon
+campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and expelling
+Russian troops. The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of all southern
+Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and supplies. Both
+Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret negotiations with the
+Germans, and were promptly recognised by the Allied Governments, which
+loaned them huge sums of money, joining with the propertied classes to
+create counter-revolutionary centres of attack upon Soviet Russia. In
+the end, when Bolshevism had conquered in both these countries, the
+defeated bourgeoisie called in the Germans to restore them to power….
+
+But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal
+and two-headed—the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev, where
+General Dukhonin had assumed command.
+
+[Graphic, page 287: Education Proclamation]
+
+Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the City
+Duma, concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the
+Christmas holidays. The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed
+almost entirely of Bolsheviki. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.
+
+The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against the
+Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory workers.
+Hundreds of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council of People’s
+Commissars issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See App. XI, Sect.
+16) explaining what the Soviet Government was, how the propertied
+classes, the _tchin ovniki,_ landlords, bankers and their allies, the
+Cossack princes, land-owners and Generals, were trying to destroy the
+Revolution, and prevent the confiscation of their wealth by the people.
+
+On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see Trotzky
+and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet Government did
+not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the peasants of Great
+Russia? “No,” answered Trotzky. The Cossacks deliberated for a while.
+“Well,” they asked, “does the Soviet Government intend to confiscate
+the estates of our great Cossack land-owners and divide them among the
+working Cossacks?” To this Lenin replied. “That,” he said, “is for
+_you_ to do. We shall support the working Cossacks in all their
+actions…. The best way to begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will
+be given representation in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and then it will be
+_your_ Government, too….”
+
+The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General Kaledin
+received a deputation from his troops. “Will you,” they asked, “promise
+to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords among the working
+Cossacks?”
+
+“Only over my dead body,” responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing his
+army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And the
+Cossack movement was no more….
+
+Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ the
+“moderate” Socialist leaders—from Avksentiev to Tchernov—the active
+chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the reactionary officers. The
+Staff steadily refused to recognise the Council of People’s Commissars.
+It had united about it the Death Battalions, the Knights of St. George,
+and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and secret touch with
+the Allied military attachès, and with the Kaledin movement and the
+Ukrainean Rada….
+
+The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of
+November 8th, in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a general
+armistice.
+
+On November 20th Trotzky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors:
+(See App. XI, Sect. 18)
+
+I have the honour to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets… on November 8th constituted a new Government of
+the Russian Republic, in the form of the Council of People’s
+Commissars. The President of this Government is Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin.
+The direction of Foreign Affairs has been entrusted to me, People’s
+Commissar for Foreign Affairs….
+
+In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian
+Congress, of the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace
+without annexations or indemnities, based on the right of
+self-determination of peoples, I have the honour to request you to
+consider that document as a formal proposal of an immediate armistice
+on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace negotiations; a
+proposal which the authorised Government of the Russian Republic
+addresses at the same time to all the belligerent peoples and their
+Governments.
+
+Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem of
+the Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for
+peace, like all the other peoples exhausted and drained by this
+unexampled butchery….
+
+The same night the Council of People’s Commissars telegraphed to
+General Dukhonin:
+
+… The Council of People’s Commissars considers it indispensable without
+delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the powers, both
+enemy and Allied. A declaration conforming to this decision has been
+sent by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the representatives of the
+Allied powers at Petrograd.
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,… to
+propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease
+hostilities, and enter into negotiations for peace.
+
+In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers, the
+Council of People’s Commissars orders you:
+
+1. To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all
+steps in the pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy armies.
+
+2. Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by
+the Council of People’s Commissars.
+
+The Allied Ambassadors received Trotzky’s note with contemptuous
+silence, accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full of
+spite and ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterised openly as
+an act of treason….
+
+As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he was
+communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey the
+order. Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated from “a
+Government sustained by the Army and the country.”
+
+By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme
+Commander, and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his tactics
+of appealing to the masses, Lenin sent a radio to all regimental,
+divisional and corps Committees, to all soldiers and sailors of the
+Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with Dukhonin’s refusal, and
+ordering that “the regiments on the front shall elect delegates to
+begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite their
+positions….”
+
+On the 23d, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on
+instructions from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin, in
+which he was solemnly warned not to “violate the conditions of the
+treaties concluded between the Powers of the Entente.” The note went on
+to say that if a separate armistice with Germany were concluded, that
+act “would result in the most serious consequences” to Russia. This
+communication Dukhonin at once sent out to all the soldiers’
+Committees….
+
+Next morning Trotzky made another appeal to the troops, characterising
+the note of the Allied representatives as a flagrant interference in
+the internal affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt “to force by threats
+the Russian Army and the Russian people to continue the war in
+execution of the treaties concluded by the Tsar….”
+
+From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App. XI,
+Sect. 19) denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary officers
+about him, denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered at Moghilev,
+rousing, from one end of the thousand-mile Front to the other, millions
+of angry, suspicious soldiers. And at the same time Krylenko,
+accompanied by three detachments of fanatical sailors, set out for the
+_Stavka,_ breathing threats of vengeance, (See App. XI, Sect. 20) and
+received by the soldiers everywhere with tremendous ovations—a
+triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee issued a declaration in
+favour of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops moved upon
+Moghilev….
+
+On December 2d the garrison of Moghilev rose and seized the city,
+arresting Dukhonin and the Army Committee, and going out with
+victorious red banners to meet the new Supreme Commander. Krylenko
+entered Moghilev next morning, to find a howling mob gathered about the
+railway-car in which Dukhonin had been imprisoned. Krylenko made a
+speech in which he implored the soldiers not to harm Dukhonin, as he
+was to be taken to Petrograd and judged by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+When he had finished, suddenly Dukhonin himself appeared at the window,
+as if to address the throng. But with a savage roar the people rushed
+the car, and falling upon the old General, dragged him out and beat him
+to death on the platform….
+
+So ended the revolt of the _Stavka_….
+
+Immensely strengthened by the collapse of the last important stronghold
+of hostile military power in Russia, the Soviet Government began with
+confidence the organisation of the state. Many of the old functionaries
+flocked to its banner, and many members of other parties entered the
+Government service. The financially ambitious, however, were checked by
+the decree on Salaries of Government Employees, fixing the salaries of
+the People’s Commissars—the highest—at five hundred rubles (about fifty
+dollars) a month…. The strike of Government Employees, led by the Union
+of Unions, collapsed, deserted by the financial and commercial
+interests which had been backing it. The bank clerks returned to their
+jobs….
+
+With the decree on the Nationalisation of Banks, the formation of the
+Supreme Council of People’s Economy, the putting into practical
+operation of the Land decree in the villages, the democratic
+reorganisation of the Army, and the sweeping changes in all branches of
+the Government and of life,—with all these, effective only by the will
+of the masses of workers, soldiers and peasants, slowly began, with
+many mistakes and hitches, the moulding of proletarian Russia.
+
+Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other
+political leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism,
+did the Bolsheviki conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence of
+a small clique. If the masses all over Russia had not been ready for
+insurrection it must have failed. The only reason for Bolshevik success
+lay in their accomplishing the vast and simple desires of the most
+profound strata of the people, calling them to the work of tearing down
+and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of falling ruins,
+cooperating with them to erect the frame-work of the new….
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+The Peasants’ Congress
+
+
+It was on November 18th that the snow came. In the morning we woke to
+window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling thick
+that it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was gone; in a
+twinkling the gloomy city became white, dazzling. The _droshki_ with
+their padded coachmen turned into sleights, bounding along the uneven
+street at headlong speed, their drivers’ beards stiff and frozen…. In
+spite of Revolution, all Russia plunging dizzily into the unknown and
+terrible future, joy swept the city with the coming of the snow.
+Everybody was smiling; people ran into the streets, holding out their
+arms to the soft, falling flakes, laughing. Hidden was all the
+greyness; only the gold and coloured spires and cupolas, with
+heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed through the white snow.
+
+Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and
+rheumatism of the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew gay,
+and the very Revolution ran swifter….
+
+I sat one evening in a _traktir_—a kind of lower-class inn—across the
+street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud place called
+“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” much frequented by Red Guards. They crowded it
+now, packed close around the little tables with their dirty
+table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place with foul
+cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about crying
+_“Seichass! Seichass!_ In a minute! Right away!”
+
+In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the
+assembly, which interrupted him at every few words.
+
+“You are no better than murderers!” he cried. “Shooting down your
+Russian brothers on the streets!”
+
+“When did we do that?” asked a worker.
+
+“Last Sunday you did it, when the _yunkers_—”
+
+“Well, didn’t they shoot us?” One man exhibited his arm in a sling.
+“Haven’t I got something to remember them by, the devils?”
+
+The captain shouted at the top of his voice. “You should remain
+neutral! You should remain neutral! Who are you to destroy the legal
+Government? Who is Lenin? A German—”
+
+“Who are you? A counter-revolutionist! A provocator!” they bellowed at
+him.
+
+When he could make himself heard the captain stood up. “All right!”
+said he. “You call yourselves the people of Russia. But you’re _not_
+the people of Russia. The _peasants_ are the people of Russia. Wait
+until the peasants—”
+
+“Yes,” they cried, “wait until the peasants speak. We know what the
+peasants will say…. Aren’t they workingmen like ourselves?”
+
+In the long run, everything depended upon the peasants. While the
+peasants had been politically backward, still they had their own
+peculiar ideas, and they constituted more than eighty per cent of the
+people of Russia. The Bolsheviki had a comparatively small following
+among the peasants; and a permanent dictatorship of Russia by the
+industrial workers was impossible…. The traditional peasant party was
+the Socialist Revolutionary party; of all the parties now supporting
+the Soviet Government, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were the
+logical inheritors of peasant leadership—and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, who were at the mercy of the organised city
+proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants….
+
+Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land decree,
+one of the first actions of the new _Tsay-ee-kah_ had been to call a
+Congress of Peasants, over the head of the Executive Committee of the
+Peasants’ Soviets. A few days later was issued detailed Regulations for
+the _Volost_ (Township) Land Committees, followed by Lenin’s
+“Instruction to Peasants,” (See App. XII, Sect. 1) which explained the
+Bolshevik revolution and the new Government in simple terms; and on
+November 16th, Lenin and Miliutin published the “Instructions to
+Provincial Emissaries,” of whom thousands were sent by the Soviet
+Government into the villages.
+
+1. Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the
+emissary should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive
+Committees of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
+Deputies, to whom he should make a report on the agrarian laws, and
+then demand that a joint plenary session of the Soviets be summoned….
+
+2. He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province.
+
+a. Has the land-owners’ property been taken over, and if so, in what
+districts?
+
+b. Who administers the confiscated land—the former proprietor, or the
+Land Committees?
+
+c. What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the
+farm-animals?
+
+3. Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented?
+
+4. How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under
+cultivation differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an
+average minimum?
+
+5. The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received the
+land, it is imperative that they increase the amount of cultivated land
+as quickly as possible, and that they hasten the sending of grain to
+the cities, as the only means of avoiding famine.
+
+6. What are the measures projected or put into effect for the transfer
+of land from the land-owners to the Land Committees and similar bodies
+appointed by the Soviets?
+
+7. It is desirable that agricultural properties well appointed and well
+organised should be administered by Soviets composed of the regular
+employees of those properties, under the direction of competent
+agricultural scientists.
+
+All through the villages a ferment of change was going on, caused not
+only by the electrifying action of the Land decree, but also by
+thousands of revolutionary-minded peasant-soldiers returning from the
+front…. These men, especially, welcomed the call to a Congress of
+Peasants.
+
+Like the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ in the matter of the second Congress of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets, the Executive Committee tried to
+prevent the Peasant Congress summoned by Smolny. And like the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ finding its resistance futile, the Executive Committee
+sent frantic telegrams ordering the election of Conservative delegates.
+Word was even spread among the peasants that the Congress would meet at
+Moghilev, and some delegates went there; but by November 23d about four
+hundred had gathered in Petrograd, and the party caucuses had begun….
+
+The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma
+building, and the first vote showed that more than half of all the
+delegates were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki
+controlled a bare fifth, the conservative Socialist Revolutionaries a
+quarter, and all the rest were united only in their opposition to the
+old Executive Committee, dominated by Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky and
+Peshekhonov….
+
+The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual
+clamour; deep, stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry
+groups. To the right was a sprinkling of officers’ epaulettes, and the
+patriarchal, bearded faces of the older, more substantial peasants; in
+the centre were a few peasants, non-commissioned officers, and some
+soldiers; and on the left almost all the delegates wore the uniforms of
+common soldiers. These last were the young generation, who had been
+serving in the army…. The galleries were thronged with workers—who, in
+Russia, still remember their peasant origin….
+
+Unlike the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Executive Committee, in opening the
+session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the official
+Congress was called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of applause and
+angry cries, the speaker declared that this gathering was merely
+“Extraordinary Conference”… But the “Extraordinary Conference” soon
+showed its attitude toward the Executive Committee by electing as
+presiding officer Maria Spiridonova, leader of the Left Socialist
+Revolution aries.
+
+Most of the first day was taken up by a violent debate as to whether
+the representatives of _Volost_ Soviets should be seated, or only
+delegates from the Provincial bodies; and just as in the Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Congress, an overwhelming majority declared in favour of the
+widest possible representation. Whereupon the old Executive Committee
+left the hall….
+
+Almost immediately it was evident that most of the delegates were
+hostile to the Government of the People’s Commissars. Zinoviev,
+attempting to speak for the Bolsheviki, was hooted down, and as he left
+the platform, amid laughter, there were cries, “There’s how a People’s
+Commissar sits in a mudpuddle!”
+
+“We Left Socialist Revolutionaries refuse,” cried Nazariev, a delegate
+from the Provinces, “to recognise this so-called Workers’ and Peasants’
+Government until the peasants are represented in it. At present it is
+nothing but a dictatorship of the workers…. We insist upon the
+formation of a new Government which will represent the entire
+democracy!”
+
+The reactionary delegates shrewdly fostered this feeling, declaring, in
+the face of protests from the Bolshevik benches, that the Council of
+People’s Commissars intended either to control the Congress or dissolve
+it by force of arms—an announcement which was received by the peasants
+with bursts of fury….
+
+On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes
+the room went mad. “Down with him!” they shrieked. “We will not listen
+to any of your People’s Commissars! We don’t recognise your
+Government!”
+
+Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands, his
+little eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally, except
+for the right side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself out
+somewhat.
+
+“I do not come here as a member of the Council of People’s Commissars,”
+said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside, “but as a member
+of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this Congress.” And he held
+his credentials up to that all might see them.
+
+“However,” he went on, in an unmoved voice, “nobody will deny that the
+present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik party—”
+he had to wait a moment, “so that for all purposes it is the same
+thing….” Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour, but the
+centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
+
+Lenin’s argument was simple. “Tell me frankly, you peasants, to whom we
+have given the lands of the _pomieshtchiki;_ do you want now to prevent
+the workers from getting control of industry? This is class war. The
+_pomieshtchiki_ of course oppose the peasants, and the manufactures
+oppose the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of the proletariat
+to be divided? Which side will you be on?
+
+“We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat—of the peasant
+proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat. We, the Bolsheviki,
+are the protectors of the Soviets—of the Peasants’ Soviets as well as
+those of the Workers and Soldiers. The present Government is a
+Government of Soviets; we have not only invited the Peasants’ Soviets
+to join that Government, but we have also invited representatives of
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter the Council of People’s
+Commissars….
+
+“The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people—of the
+workers in the factories and mines, of the workers in the fields.
+Anybody who attempts to destroy the Soviets is guilty of an
+anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary act. And I serve notice here
+on you, comrades _Right_ Socialist Revolutionaries—and on you, Messrs.
+Cadets—that if the Constituent Assembly attempts to destroy the
+Soviets, we shall not permit the Constituent Assembly to do this
+thing!”
+
+On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from
+Moghilev, summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months before
+considered an extreme revolutionist, and very popular with the
+peasants, he was now called to check the dangerous drift of the
+Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival Tchernov was arrested and
+taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation, he was released.
+
+His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for
+leaving the Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered the
+hall, welcomed with great applause by the majority, and the hoots and
+jeers of the Bolsheviki.
+
+“Comrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the
+Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the Peasant
+delegates of the armies of the Western Front, and I know very little
+about the insurrection which occurred here—”
+
+Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, “Yes, you were away—for a few
+minutes!” Fearful tumult. Cries, “Down with the Bolsheviki!”
+
+Tchernov continued. “The accusation that I helped lead an army on
+Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such an
+accusation come from? Show me the source!”
+
+Zinoviev: “_Izviestia_ and _Dielo Naroda_—your own paper—that’s where
+it comes from!”
+
+Tchernov’s wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish
+beard, became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on. “I
+repeat, I know practically nothing about what has happened here, and I
+did not lead any army except this army, (he pointed to the peasant
+delegates), which I am largely responsible for bringing here!”
+Laughter, and shouts of “Bravo!”
+
+“Upon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made against
+me there…. After a brief conversation I left—and that’s all! Let any
+one present make such an accusation!”
+
+An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking their
+fists and yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell them
+down.
+
+“This is an outrage, not a session!” cried Tchernov, and he left the
+hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorder….
+
+Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was
+agitating all minds. By declaring the assembly “Extraordinary
+Conference,” it had been planned to block the reelection of the
+Executive Committee. But this worked both ways; the Left Socialist
+Revolutionists decided that if the Congress had no power over the
+Executive Committee, then the Executive Committee had no power over the
+Congress. On November 25th the assembly resolved that the powers of the
+Executive Committee be assumed by the Extraordinary Conference, in
+which only members of the Executive who had been elected as delegates
+might vote….
+
+The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki, the
+resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive
+Committee, whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in the
+assembly.
+
+On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed
+the differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the
+history of the Land question during the Revolution. The first Congress
+of Peasants’ Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and formal
+resolution in favour of putting the landed estates immediately into the
+hands of the Land Committees. But the directors of the Revolution, and
+the bourgeois in the Government, had insisted that the question could
+not be solved until the Constituent Assembly met…. The second period of
+the Revolution, the period of “compromise,” was signalled by the
+entrance of Tchernov into the Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that
+now the practical solution of the Land question would begin; but in
+spite of the imperative decision of the first Peasant Congress, the
+reactionaries and conciliators in the Executive Committee had prevented
+any action. This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders, which
+appeared as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on
+the part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of
+the Revolution—they tried to turn words into action….
+
+“The recent events,” said the orator, “do not indicate a simple riot,
+or a ‘Bolshevik adventure,’ but on the contrary, a real popular rising,
+which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole country….
+
+“The Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land
+question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by
+force, they committed a profound error…. From the first days, the
+Bolsheviki declared that the peasants should take over the land ‘by
+revolutionary mass action.’ This is nothing but anarchy; the land can
+be taken over in an organised manner…. For the Bolsheviki it was
+important that the problems of the Revolution should be solved in the
+quickest possible manner—but the Bolsheviki were not interested in
+_how_ these problems were to be solved….
+
+“The Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its
+fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasants’ Congress. Why
+then did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that
+Congress? Because the Council of People’s Commissars wanted to hasten
+the settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent Assembly
+would have nothing to do….
+
+“But also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt practical
+measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the Regulations for
+Land Committees, thus creating a strange situation; for the Council of
+People’s Commissars abolished private property in land, but the
+Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based on private
+property…. However, no harm has been done by that; for the Land
+Committees are paying no attention to the Soviet decrees, but are
+putting into operation their own practical decisions—decisions based on
+the will of the vast majority of the peasants….
+
+“These Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution of
+the Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly alone….
+But will the Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of the Russian
+peasants? Of that we cannot be sure…. All we can be sure of is that the
+revolutionary determination of the peasants is now aroused, and that
+the Constituent will be _forced_ to settle the Land question the way
+the peasants want it settled…. The Constituent Assembly will not dare
+to break with the will of the people….”
+
+Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. “At this
+moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but the
+question of Social Revolution—not only here in Russia, but all over the
+world. The Land question cannot be solved independently of the other
+problems of the Social Revolution…. For example, the confiscation of
+the landed estates will provoke the resistance not only of Russian
+land-owners, but also of foreign capital—with whom the great landed
+properties are connected through the intermediary of the banks….
+
+“The ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense
+oppression, and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the
+most important step of our Revolution. But it cannot be separated from
+the other steps, as is clearly manifested by the stages through which
+the Revolution has had to pass. The first stage was the crushing of
+autocracy and the crushing of the power of the industrial capitalists
+and land-owners, whose interests are closely related. The second stage
+was the strengthening of the Soviets and the political compromise with
+the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries lies
+in the fact that at that time they did not oppose the policy of
+compromise, because they held the theory that the consciousness of the
+masses was not yet fully developed….
+
+“_If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development
+of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at
+least five hundred years_…. The Socialist political party—this is the
+vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow itself to be halted by
+the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses,
+using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative…. But in order
+to lead the wavering, the comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+themselves must stop hesitating….
+
+“In July last a series of open breaks began between the popular masses
+and the ‘compromisers’; but now, in November, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to Avksentiev, who is
+pulling the people with his little finger…. If Compromise continues,
+the Revolution disappears. No compromise with the bourgeoisie is
+possible; its power must be absolutely crushed….
+
+“We Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not given
+up the abolition of private property in the land, and we do not intend
+to do so. We adopted the Regulations for Land Committees,—which are
+_not_ based on private property at all—because we want to accomplish
+the popular will in the way the people have themselves decided to do
+it, so as to draw closer the coalition of all the elements who are
+fighting for the Social Revolution.
+
+“We invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that coalition,
+insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and that they
+break with the ‘conciliators’ of their party….
+
+“As far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the
+preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will
+depend on the revolutionary determination of the masses. I say, ‘Count
+on that revolutionary determination, but don’t forget your gun!’”
+
+Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The Peasants’ Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November
+8th… approves of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of
+the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
+
+The Peasants’ Congress… invites all peasants unanimously to sustain
+that law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same time
+invites the peasants to appoint to posts and positions of
+responsibility only persons who have proved, not by words but by acts,
+their entire devotion to the interests of the exploited
+peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend these
+interests against all resistance on the part of the great land-owners,
+the capitalists, their partisans and accomplices….
+
+The Peasants’ Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction that
+the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the Land
+decree can only be successful through the triumph of the Workers’
+Social Revolution, which began November 7th, 1917; for only the Social
+Revolution can accomplish the definite transfer, without possibility of
+return, of the land to the peasant-workers, the confiscation of model
+farms and their surrender to the peasant communes, the confiscation of
+agricultural machinery belonging to the great land-owners, the
+safe-guarding of the interests of the agricultural workers by the
+complete abolition of wage-slavery, the regular and methodical
+distribution among all regions of Russia of the products of agriculture
+and industry, and the seizure of the banks (without which the
+possession of land by the whole people would be impossible, after the
+abolition of private property), and all sorts of assistance by the
+State to the workers….
+
+For these reasons the Peasants’ Congress sustains entirely the
+Revolution of November 7th… as a social revolution, and expresses its
+unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever modifications are
+necessary, but without any hesitation, the social transformation of the
+Russian Republic.
+
+The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social Revolution,
+which alone will secure the lasting success and the complete
+realisation of the Land decree, is the close union of the
+peasant-workers with the industrial working-class, with the proletariat
+of all advanced countries. From now on, in the Russian Republic, all
+the organisation and administration of the State, from top to bottom,
+must rest on that union. That union, crushing all attempts, direct or
+indirect, open or dissimulated, to return to the policy of conciliation
+with the bourgeoisie—conciliation, damned by experience, with the
+chiefs of bourgeois politics—can alone insure the victory of Socialism
+throughout the world….
+
+The reactionaries of the Executive Committee no longer dared openly to
+appear. Tchernov, however, spoke several times, with a modest and
+winning impartiality. He was invited to sit on the platform…. On the
+second night of the Congress an anonymous note was handed up to the
+chairman, requesting that Tchernov be made honorary President. Ustinov
+read the note aloud, and immediately Zinoviev was on his feet,
+screaming that this was a trick of the old Executive Committee to
+capture the convention; in a moment the hall was one bellowing mass of
+waving arms and angry faces, on both sides…. Nevertheless, Tchernov
+remained very popular.
+
+In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution,
+the Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly, both
+times restrained by their leaders…. It seemed to me as if the Congress
+were hopelessly deadlocked.
+
+But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already
+going on between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviki
+at Smolny. At first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had demanded
+that there be a Government composed of all the Socialist parties in and
+out of the Soviets, to be responsible to a People’s Council, composed
+of an equal number of delegates from the Workers’ and Soldiers’
+organisation, and that of the Peasants, and completed by
+representatives of the City Dumas and the Zemstvos; Lenin and Trotzky
+were to be eliminated, and the Military Revolutionary Committee and
+other repressive organs dissolved.
+
+Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night struggle,
+an agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of 108 members,
+was to be augumented by 108 members elected proportionally from the
+Peasants’ Congress; by 100 delegates elected directly from the Army and
+the Fleet; and by 50 representatives of the Trade Unions (35 from the
+general Unions, 10 Railway Workers, and 5 from the Post and Telegraph
+Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos were dropped. Lenin and Trotzky
+remained in the Government, and the Military Revolutionary Committee
+continued to function.
+
+The sessions of the Congress had now been removed to the Imperial Law
+School building, Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants’ Soviets.
+There in the great meeting-hall the delegates gathered on Wednesday
+afternoon. The old Executive Committee had withdrawn, and was holding a
+rump convention of its own in another room of the same building, made
+up of bolting delegates and representatives of the Army Committees.
+
+Tchernov went from one meeting to the other, keeping a watchful eye on
+the proceedings. He knew that an agreement with the Bolsheviki was
+being discussed, but he did not know that it had been concluded.
+
+He spoke to the rump convention. “At present, when everybody is in
+favour of forming an all-Socialist Government, many people forget the
+first Ministry, which was _not_ a coalition Government, and in which
+there was only one Socialist—Kerensky; a Government which, in its time,
+was very popular. Now people accuse Kerensky; they forget that he was
+raised to power, not only by the Soviets, but also by the popular
+masses….
+
+“Why did public opinion change toward Kerensky? The savages set up gods
+to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their prayers is
+not answered…. That is what is happening at this moment…. Yesterday
+Kerensky; to-day Lenin and Trotzky; another to-morrow….
+
+“We have proposed to both Kerensky and the Bolsheviki to retire from
+the power. Kerensky has accepted—to-day he announced from his
+hiding-place that he has resigned as Premier; but the Bolsheviki wish
+to retain the power, and they do not know how to use it….
+
+“If the Bolsheviki succeed, or if they fail, the fate of Russia will
+not be changed. The Russian villages understand perfectly what they
+want, and they are now carrying out their own measures…. The villages
+will save us in the end….”
+
+In the meanwhile, in the great hall Ustinov had announced the agreement
+between the Peasants’ Congress and Smolny, received by the delegates
+with the wildest joy. Suddenly Tchernov appeared, and demanded the
+floor.
+
+“I understand,” he began, “that an agreement is being concluded between
+the Peasants’ Congress and Smolny. Such an agreement would be illegal,
+seeing that the true Congress of Peasants’ Soviets does not meet until
+next week….
+
+“Moreover, I want to warn you now that the Bolsheviki will never accept
+your demands….”
+
+He was interrupted by a great burst of laughter; and realising the
+situation, he left the platform and the room, taking his popularity
+with him….
+
+Late in the afternoon of Thursday, November 16th, the Congress met in
+extraordinary session. There was a holiday feeling in the air; on every
+face was a smile…. The remainder of the business before the assembly
+was hurried through, and then old Nathanson, the white-bearded dean of
+the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries, his voice trembling and
+tears in his eyes, read the report of the “wedding” of the Peasants’
+Soviets with the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets. At every mention of
+the word “union” there was ecstatic applause…. At the end Ustinov
+announced the arrival rival of a delegation from Smolny, accompanied by
+representatives of the Red Army, greeted with a rising ovation. One
+after another a workman, a soldier and a sailor took the floor, hailing
+them.
+
+Then Boris Reinstein, delegate of the American Socialist Labor Party:
+“The day of the union of the Congress of Peasants and the Soviets of
+Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies is one of the great days of the
+Revolution. The sound of it will ring with resounding echoes throughout
+the whole world—in Paris, in London, and across the ocean—in New York.
+This union will fill with happiness the hearts of all toilers.
+
+“A great idea has triumphed. The West, and America, expected from
+Russia, from the Russian proletariat, something tremendous…. The
+proletariat of the world is waiting for the Russian Revolution, waiting
+for the great things that it is accomplishing….”
+
+Sverdlov, president of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ greeted them. And with the
+shout, “Long live the end of civil war! Long live the United
+Democracy!” the peasants poured out of the building.
+
+It was already dark, and on the ice—covered snow glittered the pale
+light of moon and star. Along the bank of the canal were drawn up in
+full marching order the soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment, with their
+band, which broke into the _Marseillaise._ Amid the crashing
+full-throated shouts of the soldiers, the peasants formed in line,
+unfurling the great red banner of the Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian Peasants’ Soviets, embroidered newly in gold, “Long live
+the union of the revolutionary and toiling masses!” Following were
+other banners; of the District Soviets—of Putilov Factory, which read,
+“We bow to this flag in order to create the brotherhood of all people!”
+
+From somewhere torches appeared, blazing orange in the night, a
+thousand times reflected in the facets of the ice, streaming out
+smokily over the throng as it moved down the bank of the Fontanka
+singing, between crowds that stood in astonished silence.
+
+“Long live the Revolutionary Army! Long live the Red Guard! Long live
+the Peasants!”
+
+So the great procession wound through the city, growing and unfurling
+ever new red banners lettered in gold. Two old peasants, bowed with
+toil, were walking hand in hand, their faces illumined with child-like
+bliss.
+
+“Well,” said one, “I’d like to see them take away our land again,
+_now!_”
+
+Near Smolny the Red Guard was lined up on both sides of the street,
+wild with delight. The other old peasant spoke to his comrade, “I am
+not tired,” he said. “I walked on air all the way!”
+
+On the steps of Smolny about a hundred Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
+were massed, with their banner, dark against the blaze of light
+streaming out between the arches. Like a wave they rushed down,
+clasping the peasants in their arms and kissing them; and the
+procession poured in through the great door and up the stairs, with a
+noise like thunder….
+
+In the immense white meeting-room the _Tsay-ee-kah_ was waiting, with
+the whole Petrograd Soviet and a thousand spectators beside, with that
+solemnity which attends great conscious moments in history.
+
+Zinoviev announced the agreement with the Peasants’ Congress, to a
+shaking roar which rose and burst into storm as the sound of music
+blared down the corridor, and the head of the procession came in. On
+the platform the presidium rose and made place for the Peasants’
+presidium, the two embracing; behind them the two banners were
+intertwined against the white wall, over the empty frame from which the
+Tsar’s picture had been torn….
+
+Then opened the “triumphal session.” After a few words of welcome from
+Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and hair
+drawn flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher, took
+the tribune—the most loved and the most powerful woman in all Russia.
+
+“… Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has
+never known…. All workers’ movements in the past have been defeated.
+But the present movement is international, and that is why it is
+invincible. There is no force in the world which can put out the fire
+of the Revolution! The old world crumbles down, the new world begins….”
+
+Then Trotzky, full of fire: “I wish you welcome, comrades peasants! You
+come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which holds the
+heart of the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of workers is now
+concentrated in this hall…. There is now only one master of the Russian
+land: the union of the workers, soldiers and peasants….”
+
+With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats, till
+then contemptuous of Russia’s invitation to an armistice, which had
+been accepted by the Central Powers.
+
+“A new humanity will be born of this war…. In this hall we swear to
+workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are
+broken, then it will be in defending our flag….”
+
+Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where
+Dukhonin was preparing to resist the Council of People’s Commissars.
+“Let Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not deal
+gently with those who bar the road to peace!”
+
+Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and Krushinsky,
+member of the _Vikzhel,_ said, “From this moment, when the union of all
+true Socialists is realised, the whole army of railway workers places
+itself absolutely at the disposition of the revolutionary democracy!”
+And Lunatcharsky, almost weeping, and Proshian, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, and finally Saharashvili, for the United Social
+Democrats Internationalists, composed of members of the Martov’s and of
+Gorky’s groups, who declared:
+
+“We left the _Tsay-ee-kah_ because of the uncompromising policy of the
+Bolsheviki, and to force them to make concessions in order to realise
+the union of all the revolutionary democracy. Now that that union is
+brought about, we consider it a sacred duty to take our places once
+more in the _Tsay-ee-kah_…. We declare that all those who have
+withdrawn from the _Tsay-ee-kah_ should now return.”
+
+Stachkov, a dignified old peasant of the presidium of the Peasants’
+Congress, bowed to the four corners of the room. “I greet you with the
+christening of a new Russian life and freedom!”
+
+Gronsky, in the name of the Polish Social Democracy; Skripnik, for the
+Factory-Shop Committees; Tifonov, for the Russian soldiers at Salonika;
+and others, interminably, speaking out of full hearts, with the happy
+eloquence of hopes fulfilled….
+
+It was late in the night when the following resolution was put and
+passed unanimously:
+
+“The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ united in extraordinary session with the Petrograd
+Soviet and the Peasants’ Congress, confirms the Land and Peace decrees
+adopted by the second Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies, and also the decree on Workers’ Control adopted by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+“The joint session of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Peasants’ Congress
+expresses its firm conviction that the union of workers, soldiers and
+peasants, this fraternal union of all the workers and all exploited,
+will consolidate the power conquered by them, that it will take all
+revolutionary measures to hasten the passing of the power into the
+hands of the working-class in other countries, and that it will assure
+in this manner the lasting accomplishment of a just peace and the
+victory of Socialism.” (See App. XI, Sect. 2)
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
+
+1.
+
+
+_Oborontsi_—“Defenders.” All the “moderate” Socialist groups adopted or
+were given this name, because they consented to the continuation of the
+war under Allied leadership, on the ground that it was a war of
+National Defence. The Bolsheviki, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries,
+the Mensheviki Internationalists (Martov’s faction), and the Social
+Democrats Internationalists (Gorky’s group) were in favour of forcing
+the Allies to declare democratic war-aims, and to offer peace to
+Germany on those terms….
+
+2.
+WAGES AND COST OF LIVING BEFORE AND DURING THE REVOLUTION
+
+
+The following tables of wages and costs were compiled, in October,
+1917, by a joint Committee from the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and the
+Moscow section of the Ministry of Labour, and published in _Novaya
+Zhizn,_ October 26th, 1917:
+
+_Wages Per Day_—(_Rubles and kopeks_)
+
+     _Trade_                     _July_ 1914     _July_ 1916     _August_ 1917
+     Carpenter, Cabinet maker     1.60—2.          4.  —6.          8.50
+     Terrassier                   1.30—1.50        3.  —3.50
+     Mason, plasterer             1.70—2.35        4.  —6.          8.
+     Painter, upholsterer         1.80—2.20        3.  —5.50        8.
+     Blacksmith                   1.  —2.25        4.  —5.          8.50
+     Chimney sweep                1.50—2.          4.  —5.50        7.50
+     Locksmith                     .90—2.          3.50—6.          9.
+     Helper                       1.  —1.50        2.50—4.50        8.
+
+In spite of numerous stories of gigantic advances in wages immediately
+following the Revolution of March, 1917, these figures, which were
+published by the Ministry of Labour as characteristic of conditions all
+over Russia, show that wages did not rise immediately after the
+Revolution, but little by little. On an average, wages increased
+slightly more than 500 per cent….
+
+But at the same time the value of the ruble fell to less than one-third
+its former purchasing power, and the cost of the necessities of life
+increased enormously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow, where
+food was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd:
+
+_Cost of Food—(Rubles and Kopeks)_
+
+_August_ 1914     _August_ 1917     _% Increase_ Black
+bread     _(Fund)_     .02 1/2     .12     330 White
+bread     _(Fund)_     .05     .20     300 Beef     _(Fund)_     .22
+     1.10     400 Veal     _(Fund)_     .26      2.15     727
+Pork     _(Fund)_     .23     2.     770
+Herring     _(Fund)_     .06     .52     767
+Cheese     _(Fund)_     .40     3.50     754
+Butter     _(Fund)_     .48     3.20     557
+Eggs     (Doz.)     .30     1.60     443
+Milk     _(Krushka)_     .07     .40     471
+
+On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent
+more than wages.
+
+As for the other necessities, the price of these increased
+tremendously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the Moscow
+Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, and accepted as correct by the Ministry of
+Supplies of the Provisional Government.
+
+_Cost of Other Necessities_—(_Rubles and Kopeks_)
+
+_August_ 1914     _August_ 1917     % _Increase_ Calico     _(Arshin)_     
+.11     1.40     1173 Cotton cloth     _(Arshin)_     .15     2.     1233
+Dress Goods     _(Arshin)_     2.     40.     1900 Castor
+Cloth     _(Arshin)_     6.     80.     1233 Men’s
+Shoes     (Pair)     12.     144.     1097 Sole
+Leather          20.     400.     1900
+Rubbers     (Pair)     2.50     15.     500 Men’s
+Clothing     (Suit)     40.     400.–455.     900–1109
+Tea     _(Fund)_     4.50     18.     300
+Matches     (Carton)     .10     .50     400
+Soap     _(Pood)_     4.50     40.     780
+Gasoline     _(Vedro)_     1.70     11.     547
+Candles     _(Pood)_     8.50     100.     1076
+Caramel     _(Fund)_     .30     4.50     1400 Fire
+Wood     (Load)     10.     120.     1100
+Charcoal          .80     13.     1525 Sundry Metal
+Ware          1.     20.     1900
+
+On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about
+1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries. The
+difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and
+merchants.
+
+In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily wage
+of a skilled industrial worker—for example, a steel-worker in the
+Putilov Factory—was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits were
+enormous…. I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton Woollen
+Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that while
+wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his profits had
+gone up _900 per cent._
+
+3.
+THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
+
+
+The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional
+Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the
+bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in
+politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon:
+
+“The capitalists, … seeing that the position of the Government was
+untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades
+practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally
+overpower the working-class. This method is the so-called ‘Coalition
+Ministry,’ composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist
+camp.
+
+“In those countries where political freedom and democracy have existed
+side by side with the revolutionary movement of the workers—for example
+in England and France—the capitalists make use of this subterfuge, and
+very successfully too. The ‘Socialist’ leaders, upon entering the
+Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads, puppets, simply a
+shield for the capitalists, a tool with which to defraud the workers.
+The ‘democratic’ and ‘republican’ capitalists in Russia set in motion
+this very same scheme. The Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki
+fell victim to it, and on June 1st a ‘Coalition’ Ministry, with the
+participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov,
+Zarudny and Nikitin became an accomplished fact….”—_Problems of the
+Revolution._
+
+4.
+SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
+
+
+In the first week of October, 1917, _Novaya Zhizn_ published the
+following comparative table of election results, pointing out that this
+meant the bankruptcy of the policy of Coalition with the propertied
+classes. “If civil war can yet be avoided, it can only be done by a
+united front of all the revolutionary democracy….”
+
+_Elections for the Moscow Central and Ward Dumas._
+
+                              June 1917     September 1917
+Socialist Revolutionaries     58 Members     14 Members
+Cadets                        17 Members     30 Members
+Mensheviki                    12 Members     4 Members
+Bolsheviki                    11 Members     47 Members
+
+5.
+GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE REACTIONARIES
+
+
+September 18th. The Cadet Shulgin, writing in a Kiev newspaper, said
+that the Provisional Government’s declaration that Russia was a
+Republic constituted a gross abuse of its powers. “We cannot admit
+either a Republic, or the present Republican Government…. And we are
+not sure that we want a Republic in Russia….”
+
+October 23d. At a meeting of the Cadet party held at Riazan, M.
+Dukhonin declared, “On March 1st we must establish a Constitutional
+Monarchy. We must not reject the legitimate heir to the throne, Mikhail
+Alexandrovitch….”
+
+October 27th. Resolution passed by the Conference of Business Men at
+Moscow:
+
+“The Conference… insists that the Provisional Government take the
+following immediate measures in the Army:
+
+“1. Forbidding of all political propaganda; the Army must be out of
+politics.
+
+“2. Propaganda of antinational and international ideas and theories
+deny the necessity for armies, and hurt discipline; it should be
+forbidden, and all propagandists punished….
+
+“3. The function of the Army Committees must be limited to economic
+questions exclusively. All their decisions should be confirmed by their
+superior officers, who have the right to dissolve the Committees at any
+time….
+
+“4. The salute to be reestablished, and made obligatory. Full
+reestablishment of disciplinary power in the hands of officers, with
+right of review of sentence….
+
+“5. Expulsion from the Corps of Officers of those who dishonour it by
+participating in the movement of the soldier-masses, which teaches them
+disobedience…. Reestablishment for this purpose of the Courts of
+Honor….
+
+“6. The Provisional Government should take the necessary measures to
+make possible the return to the army of Generals and other officers
+unjustly discharged under the influence of Committees, and other
+irresponsible organisations….”
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II
+
+1.
+
+
+The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming volume,
+“Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.” The responsibility of Kerensky for the
+situation which gave rise to Kornilov’s attempt is now pretty clearly
+established. Many apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of
+Kornilov’s plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then
+crushed him. Even Mr. A. J. Sack, in his book, “The Birth of the
+Russian Democracy,” says:
+
+“Several things… are almost certain. The first is that Kerensky knew
+about the movement of several detachments from the Front toward
+Petrograd, and it is possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of
+War, realising the growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them….”
+
+The only flaw in that argument is that there was no “Bolshevist danger”
+at that time, the Bolsheviki still being a powerless minority in the
+Soviets, and their leaders in jail or hiding.
+
+2.
+DEMOCRATIC CONFERENCE
+
+
+When the Democratic Conference was first proposed to Kerensky, he
+suggested an assembly of all the elements in the nation—“the live
+forces,” as he called them—including bankers, manufacturers,
+land-owners, and representatives of the Cadet party. The Soviet
+refused, and drew up the following table of representation, which
+Kerensky agreed to:
+
+    100 delegates     All-Russian Soviets Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
+    100 delegates     All-Russian Soviets Peasants’ Deputies
+    50 delegates      Provincial Soviets Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
+    50 delegates      Peasants’ District Land Committees
+    100 delegates     Trade Unions
+    84 delegates      Army Committees at the Front
+    150 delegates     Workers’ and Peasants’ Cooperative Societies
+    20 delegates      Railway Workers’ Union
+    10 delegates      Post and Telegraph Workers’ Union
+    20 delegates      Commercial Clerks
+    15 delegates      Liberal Professions—Doctors, Lawyers, Journalists, etc.
+    50 delegates      Provincial Zemstvos
+    59 delegates      Nationalist Organisations—Poles, Ukraineans, etc.
+
+This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final disposition
+of delegates was:
+
+    300 delegates     All-Russian Soviets Workers’, Soldiers’ & Peasants’ Deputies
+    300 delegates     Cooperative Societies
+    300 delegates     Municipalities
+    150 delegates     Army Committees at the Front
+    150 delegates     Provincial Zemstvos
+    200 delegates     Trade Unions
+    100 delegates     Nationalist Organisations
+    200 delegates     Several small groups
+
+3.
+THE FUNCTION OF THE SOVIETS IS ENDED
+
+
+On September 28th, 1917, _Izviestia,_ organ of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional
+Ministry:
+
+“At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all classes
+of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future liberal
+parliamentary régime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the Constituent
+Assembly, which will solve all questions of fundamental law, and whose
+composition will be essentially democratic. The function of the Soviets
+is at an end, and the time is approaching when they must retire, with
+the rest of the revolutionary machinery, from the stage of a free and
+victorious people, whose weapons shall hereafter be the peaceful ones
+of political action.”
+
+The leading article of _Izviestia_ for October 23d was called, “The
+Crisis in the Soviet Organisations.” It began by saying that travellers
+reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere. “This is
+natural,” said the writer. “For the people are becoming interested in
+the more permanent legislative organs—the Municipal Dumas and the
+Zemstvs….
+
+“In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets
+were best organised, they did not take in all the democratic elements….
+The majority of the intellectuals did not participate, and many workers
+also; some of the workers because they were politically backward,
+others because the centre of gravity for them was in their Unns…. We
+cannot deny that these organisations are firmly united with the masses,
+whose everyday needs are better served by them….
+
+“That the local democratic administrations are being energetically
+organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by universal
+suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority than the
+Soviets. Not a single democrat will see anything wrong in this….
+
+“… Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and
+more democratic way than the elections to the Soviets… All classes are
+represented in the Municipalities…. And as soon as the local
+Self-Governments begin to organise life in the Municipalities, the rôle
+of the local Soviets naturally ends….
+
+“… There are two factors in the falling off of interest in the Soviets.
+The first we may attribute to the lowering of political interest in the
+masses; the second, to the growing effort of provincial and local
+governing bodies to organise the building of new Russia…. The more the
+tendency lies in this latter direction, the sooner disappears the
+significance of the Soviets….
+
+“We ourselves are being called the ‘undertakers’ of our own
+organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in
+constructing the new Russia….
+
+“When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic régime fell, we set up the
+Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary
+shelter. Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent
+edifice of a new system, and naturally the people will gradually leave
+the barracks for more comfortable quarters.”
+
+4.
+TROTZKY’S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
+
+
+“The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ was to do away with the irresponsible personal
+government which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible
+government which would be capable of finishing the war, and ensure the
+calling of the Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the meanwhile
+behind the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery, by deals
+between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the Menshevik
+and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the opposite result
+from the officially announced purpose. A power was created around which
+and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs playing leading parts.
+The irresponsibility of the Government is offically proclaimed, when it
+is announced that the Council of the Russian Republic is to be a
+_consultative_ and not _legislative_ body. In the eighth month of the
+Revolution, the irresponsible Government creates a cover for itself in
+this new edition of Bieligen’s Duma.
+
+“The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a
+proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country,
+that many of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the
+Cadet party, which until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government to
+be responsible to the State Duma—this same Cadet party secured the
+independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have as
+favourable position than they have in this Council, and they will not
+be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+“If the propertied classes were really getting ready for the
+Constituent Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no reason for
+establishing the irresponsibility of the Government at this time. The
+whole truth is that the bourgeoisie, which directs the policies of the
+Provisional Government, has for its aim to break the Constituent
+Assembly. At present this is the main purpose of the propertied
+classes, which control our entire national policy—external and
+internal. In the industrial, agrarian and supply departments the
+politics of the propertied classes, acting with the Government,
+increases the natural disorganisation caused by the war. The propertied
+classes, which are provoking a peasants’ revolt! The propertied
+classes, which are provoking civil war, and openly hold their course on
+the bony hand of hunger, with which they intend to overthrow the
+Revolution and finish with the Constituent Assembly!
+
+“No less criminal also is the international policy of the bourgeoisie
+and its Government. After forty months of war, the capital is
+threatened with mortal danger. In reply to this arises a plan to move
+the Government to Moscow. The idea of abandoning the capital does not
+stir the indignation of the bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is
+accepted as a natural part of the general policy designed to promote
+counter-revolutionary conspiracy. … Instead of recognising that the
+salvation of the country lies in concluding peace, instead of throwing
+openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out peoples, over
+the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the continuation of
+the war impossible,—the Provisional Government, by order of the Cadets,
+the Counter-Revolutionists and the Allied Imperialists, without sense,
+without purpose and without a plan, continues to drag on the murderous
+war, sentencing to useless death new hundreds of thousands of soldiers
+and sailors, and preparing to give up Petrograd, and to wreck the
+Revolution. At a time when Bolshevik soldiers and sailors are dying
+with other soldiers and sailors as a result of the mistakes and crimes
+of others, the so-called Supreme Commander (Kerensky) continues to
+suppress the Bolshevik press. The leading parties of the Council are
+acting as a voluntary cover for these policies.
+
+“We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce that with
+this Government of Treason to the People we have nothing in common. We
+have nothing in common with the work of these Murderers of the People
+which goes on behind official curtains. We refuse either directly or
+indirectly to cover up one day of this work. While Wilhelm’s troops are
+threatening Petrograd, the Government of Kerensky and Kornilov is
+preparing to run away from Petrograd and turn Moscow into a base of
+counter-revolution!
+
+“We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their guard. Leaving
+this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom of the workers,
+peasants and soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd is in danger! The
+Revolution is in danger! The Government has increased the danger—the
+ruling classes intensify it. Only the people themselves can save
+themselves and the country.
+
+“We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest, democratic
+peace! All power to the Soviets! All land to the people! Long live the
+Constituent Assembly!”
+
+5.
+THE “NAKAZ” TO SKOBELIEV
+
+
+_Resumé_
+
+
+(Passed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and given to Skobeliev as an instruction
+for the representative of the Russian Revolutionary democracy at the
+Paris Conference.)
+
+The peace treaty must be based on the principle, “No annexations, no
+indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples.”
+
+_Territorial Problems_
+
+
+(1) Evacuation of German troops from invaded Russia. Full right of
+self-determination to Poland, Lithuania and Livonia.
+
+(2) For Turkish Armenia autonomy, and later complete
+self-determination, as soon as local Governments are established.
+
+(3) The question of Alsace-Lorraine to be solved by a plebiscite, after
+the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
+
+(4) Belgium to be restored. Compensation for damages from an
+international fund.
+
+(5) Serbia and Montenegro to be restored, and aided by an international
+relief fund. Serbia to have an outlet on the Adriatic. Bosnia and
+Herzegovina to be autonomous.
+
+(6) The disputed provinces in the Balkans to have provisional autonomy,
+followed by a plebiscite.
+
+(7) Rumania to be restored, but forced to give complete
+self-determination to the Dobrudja…. Rumania must be forced to execute
+the clauses of the Berlin Treaty concerning the Jews, and recognise
+them as Rumanian citizens.
+
+(8) In Italia Irridenta a provisional autonomy, followed by a
+plebiscite to determine state dependence.
+
+(9) The German colonies to be returned.
+
+(10) Greece and Persia to be restored.
+
+_Freedom of the Seas_
+
+
+All straits opening into inland seas, as well as the Suez and Panama
+Canals, are to be neutralised. Commercial shipping to be free. The
+right of privateering to be abolished. The torpedoing of commercial
+ships to be forbidden.
+
+_Indemnities_
+
+
+All combatants to renounce demands for any indemnities, either direct
+or indirect—as, for instance, charges for the maintenance of prisoners.
+Indemnities and contributions collected during the war must be
+refunded.
+
+_Economic Terms_
+
+
+Commercial treaties are not to be a part of the peace terms. Every
+country must be independent in its commercial relations, and must not
+be obliged to, or prevented from, concluding an economic treaty, by the
+Treaty of Peace. Nevertheless, all nations should bind themselves, by
+the Peace Treaty, not to practise an economic blockade after the war,
+nor to form separate tariff agreements. The right of most favoured
+nation must be given to all countries without distinction.
+
+_Guarantees of Peace_
+
+
+Peace is to be concluded at the Peace Conference by delegates elected
+by the national representative institutions of each country. The peace
+terms are to be confirmed by these parliaments.
+
+Secret diplomacy is to be abolished; all parties are to bind themselves
+not to conclude any secret treaties. Such treaties are declared in
+contradiction to international law, and void. All treaties, until
+confirmed by the parliaments of the different nations, are to be
+considered void.
+
+Gradual disarmament both on land and sea, and the establishment of a
+militia system. The “League of Nations” advanced by President Wilson
+may become a valuable aid to international law, provided that (a), all
+nations are to be obliged to participate in it with equal rights, and
+(b), international politics are to be democratised.
+
+_Ways to Peace_
+
+
+The Allies are to announce immediately that they are willing to open
+peace negotiations as soon as the enemy powers declare their consent to
+the renunciation of all forcible annexations.
+
+The Allies must bind themselves not to begin any peace negotiations,
+nor to conclude peace, except in a general Peace Conference with the
+participation of delegates from all the neutral countries.
+
+All obstacles to the Stockholm Socialist Conference are to be removed,
+and passports are to be given immediately to all delegates of parties
+and organisations who wish to participate.
+
+(The Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets also issued a
+_nakaz,_ which differs little from the above.)
+
+6.
+PEACE AT RUSSIA’S EXPENSE
+
+
+The Ribot revelations of Austria’s peace-offer to France; the so-called
+“Peace Conference” at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer of 1917, in
+which delegates participated from all belligerent countries,
+representing large financial interests in all these countries; and the
+attempted negotiations of an English agent with a Bulgarian church
+dignitary; all pointed to the fact that there were strong currents, on
+both sides, favourable to patching up a peace at the expense of Russia.
+In my next book, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I intend to treat this
+matter at some length, publishing several secret documents discovered
+in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Petrograd.
+
+7.
+RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE
+
+
+_Official Report of the Provisional Government._
+
+“From the time the news of the Russian Revolution reached Paris,
+Russian newspapers of extreme tendencies immediately began to appear;
+and these newspapers, as well as individuals, freely circulated among
+the soldier masses and began a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading
+false news which appeared in the French journals. In the absence of all
+official news, and of precise details, this campaign provoked
+discontent among the soldiers. The result was a desire to return to
+Russia, and a hatred toward the officers.
+
+“Finally it all turned into rebellion. In one of their meetings, the
+soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to drill, since they had decided to
+fight no more. It was decided to isolate the rebels, and General
+Zankievitch ordered all soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government to
+leave the camp of Courtine, and to carry with them all ammunition. On
+June 25th the order was executed; there remained at the camp only the
+soldiers who said they would submit ‘conditionally’ to the Provisional
+Government. The soldiers at the camp of Courtine received several times
+the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies abroad, of
+Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and of several
+distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them, but these
+attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp insisted that
+the rebels lay down their arms, and, in sign of submission, march in
+good order to a place called Clairvaux. The order was only partially
+obeyed; first 500 men went out, of whom 22 were arrested; 24 hours
+later about 6,000 followed…. About 2,000 remained….
+
+“It was decided to increase the pressure; their rations were
+diminished, their pay was cut off, and the roads toward the village of
+Courtine were guarded by French soldiers. General Zankievitch, having
+discovered that a Russian artillery brigade was passing through France,
+decided to form a mixed detachment of infantry and artillery to reduce
+the rebels. A deputation was sent to the rebels; the deputation
+returned several hours later, convinced of the futility of the
+negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch sent an ultimatum to
+the rebels demanding that they lay down their arms, and menacing in
+case of refusal to open fire with artillery if the order was not obeyed
+by September 3d at 10 o’clock.
+
+“The order not being executed, a light fire of artillery was opened on
+the place at the hour agreed upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and the
+rebels were warned that the bombardment would become more intense. In
+the night of September 3d 160 men surrendered. September 4th the
+artillery bombardment recommenced, and at 11 o’clock, after 36 shells
+had been fired, the rebels raised two white flags and began to leave
+the camp without arms. By evening 8,300 men had surrendered. 150
+soldiers who remained in the camp opened fire with machine-guns that
+night. The 5th of September, to make an end of the affair, a heavy
+barrage was laid on the camp, and our soldiers occupied it little by
+little. The rebels kept up a heavy fire with their machine-guns.
+September 6th, at 9 o’clock, the camp was entirely occupied…. After the
+disarmament of the rebels, 81 arrests were made….”
+
+Thus the report. From secret documents discovered in the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs, however, we know that the account is not strictly
+accurate. The first trouble arose when the soldiers tried to form
+Committees, as their comrades in Russia were doing. They demanded to be
+sent back to Russia, which was refused; and then, being considered a
+dangerous influence in France, they were ordered to Salonika. They
+refused to go, and the battle followed…. It was discovered that they
+had been left in camp without officers for about two months, and badly
+treated, before they became rebellious. All attempts to find out the
+name of the “Russian artillery brigade” which had fired on them were
+futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it to be inferred
+that French artillery was used….
+
+After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were shot
+in cold blood.
+
+8.
+TERESTCHENKO’S SPEECH (_Resumé_)
+
+
+“… The questions of foreign policy are closely related to those of
+national defence…. And so, if in questions of national defence you
+think it is necessary to hold session in secret, also in our foreign
+policy we are sometimes forced to observe the same secrecy….
+
+“German diplomacy attempts to influence public opinion…. Therefore the
+declarations of directors of great democratic organisations who talk
+loudly of a revolutionary Congress, and the impossibility of another
+winter campaign, are dangerous…. All these declarations cost human
+lives….
+
+“I wish to speak merely of governmental logic, without touching the
+questions of the honour and dignity of the State. From the point of
+view of logic, the foreign policy of Russia ought to be based on a real
+comprehension of the _interests_ of Russia…. These interests mean that
+it is impossible that our country remain alone, and that the present
+alignment of forces with us, (the Allies), is satisfactory…. All
+humanity longs for peace, but in Russia no one will permit a
+humiliating peace which would violate the State interests of our
+fatherland!”
+
+The orator pointed out that such a peace would for long years, if not
+for centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the
+world, and would inevitably cause new wars.
+
+“All remember the days of May, when the fraternisation on our Front
+threatened to end the war by a simple cessation of military operations,
+and lead the country to a shameful separate peace… and what efforts it
+was necessary to use to make the soldier masses at the front understand
+that it was not by this method that the Russian State must end the war
+and guarantee its interest….”
+
+He spoke of the miraculous effect of the July offensive, what strength
+it gave to the words of Russian ambassadors abroad, and the despair in
+Germany caused by the Russian victories. And also, the disillusionment
+in Allied countries which followed the Russian defeat….
+
+“As to the Russian Government, it adhered strictly to the formula of
+May, ‘No annexations and no punitive indemnities.’ We consider it
+essential not only to proclaim the self-determination of peoples, but
+also to renounce imperialist aims….”
+
+Germany is continually trying to make peace. The only talk in Germany
+is of peace; she knows she cannot win.
+
+“I reject the reproaches aimed at the Government which allege that
+Russian foreign policy does not speak clearly enough about the aims of
+the war….
+
+“If the question arises as to what ends the Allies are pursuing, it is
+indispensable first to demand what aims the Central Powers have agreed
+upon….
+
+“The desire is often heard that we publish the details of the treaties
+which bind the Allies; but people forget that, up to now, we do not
+know the treaties which bind the Central Powers….”
+
+Germany, he said, evidently wants to separate Russia from the West by a
+series of weak buffer-states.
+
+“This tendency to strike at the vital interests of Russia must be
+checked….
+
+“And will the Russian democracy, which has inscribed on its banner the
+rights of nations to dispose of themselves, allow calmly the
+continuation of oppression upon the most civilised peoples (in
+Austria-Hungary)?
+
+“Those who fear that the Allies will try to profit by our difficult
+situation, to make us support more than our share of the burden of war,
+and to solve the questions of peace at our expense, are entirely
+mistaken…. Our enemy looks upon Russia as a market for its products.
+The end of the war will leave us in a feeble condition, and with our
+frontier open the flood of German products can easily hold back for
+years our industrial development. Measures must be taken to guard
+against this….
+
+“I say openly and frankly: the combination of forces which unites us to
+the Allies is _favourable to the interests of Russia…._ It is therefore
+important that our views on the questions of war and peace shall be in
+accord with the views of the Allies as clearly and precisely as
+possible…. To avoid all misunderstanding, I must say frankly that
+Russia must present at the Paris Conference _one point of view…._”
+
+He did not want to comment on the _nakaz_ to Skobeliev, but he referred
+to the Manifesto of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, just published in
+Stockholm. This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of Lithuania and
+Livonia; “but that is clearly impossible,” said Terestchenko, “for
+Russia must have free ports on the Baltic all the year round….
+
+“In this question the problems of foreign policy are also closely
+related to interior politics, for if there existed a strong sentiment
+of unity of all great Russia, one would not witness the repeated
+manifestations, everywhere, of a desire of peoples to separate from the
+Central Government…. Such separations are contrary to the interests of
+Russia, and the Russian delegates cannot raise the issue….”
+
+9.
+THE BRITISH FLEET (_etc._)
+
+
+At the time of the naval battle of the Gulf of Riga, not only the
+Bolsheviki, but also the Ministers of the Provisional Government,
+considered that the British Fleet had deliberately abandoned the
+Baltic, as one indication of the attitude so often expressed publicly
+by the British press, and semi-publicly by British representatives in
+Russia, “Russia’s finished! No use bothering about Russia!”
+
+See interview with Kerensky (Appendix 13).
+
+GENERAL GURKO was a former Chief of Staff of the Russian armies under
+the Tsar. He was a prominent figure in the corrupt Imperial Court.
+After the Revolution, he was one of the very few persons exiled for his
+political and personal record. The Russian naval defeat in the Gulf of
+Riga coincided with the public reception, by King George in London, of
+General Gurko, a man whom the Russian Provisional Government considered
+dangerously pro-German as well as reactionary!
+
+10.
+APPEALS AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+
+_To Workers and Soldiers_
+
+
+“Comrades! The Dark Forces are increasingly trying to call forth in
+Petrograd and other towns DISORDERS AND _Pogroms._ Disorder is
+necessary to the Dark Forces, for disorder will give them an
+opportunity for crushing the revolutionary movement in blood. Under the
+pretext of establishing order, and of protecting the inhabitants, they
+hope to establish the domination of Kornilov, which the revolutionary
+people succeeded in suppressing not long ago. Woe to the people if
+these hopes are realised! The triumphant counter-revolution will
+destroy the Soviets and the Army Committees, will disperse the
+Constituent Assembly, will stop the transfer of the land to the Land
+Committees, will put an end to all the hopes of the people for a speedy
+peace, and will fill all the prisons with revolutionary soldiers and
+workers.
+
+“In their calculations, the counter-revolutionists and Black Hundred
+leaders are counting on the serious discontent of the unenlightened
+part of the people with the disorganisation of the food-supply, the
+continuation of the war, and the general difficulties of life. They
+hope to transform every demonstration of soldiers and workers into a
+_pogrom,_ which will frighten the peaceful population and throw it into
+the arms of the Restorers of Law and Order.
+
+“Under such conditions every attempt to organise a demonstration in
+these days, although for the most laudable object, would be a crime.
+All conscious workers and soldiers who are displeased with the policy
+of the Government will only bring injury to themselves and to the
+Revolution if they indulge in demonstrations.
+
+“THEREFORE THE _Tsay-ee-kah_ ASKS ALL WORKERS NOT TO OBEY ANY CALLS TO
+DEMONSTRATE.
+
+“WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! DO NOT YIELD TO PROVOCATION! REMEMBER YOUR DUTY
+TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO THE REVOLUTION! DO NOT BREAK THE UNITY OF THE
+REVOLUTIONARY FRONT BY DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH ARE BOUND TO BE
+UNSUCCESSFUL!”
+
+
+_The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Deputies (Tsay-ee-kah)_
+
+_Russian Social Democratic Labour Party_ THE DANGER IS NEAR! To All
+Workers and Soldiers (_Read and Hand to Others_)
+
+_Comrades Workers and Soldiers!_
+
+“Our country is in danger. On account of this danger our freedom and
+our Revolution are passing through difficult days. The enemy is at the
+gates of Petrograd. The disorganisation is growing with every hours. It
+becomes more and more difficult to obtain bread for Petrograd. All, of
+from the smallest to the greatest, must redouble their efforts, must
+endeavour to arrange things properly…. We must save our country, save
+freedom…. More arms and provisions for the Army! Bread—for the great
+cities. Order and organisation in the country….
+
+“And in these terrible critical days rumours creep about that SOMEWHERE
+a demonstration is being prepared, that SOME ONE is calling on the
+soldiers and workers to destroy revolutionary peace and order….
+_Rabotchi Put,_ the newspaper of the Bolsheviki, is pouring oil on the
+flames: it flattering, trying to please the unenlightened people,
+tempting the worker and soldiers, urging them on against the
+Government, promising them mountains of good things…. The confiding,
+ignorant men believe, they do not reason…. And from the other side come
+also rumours—rumours that the Dark Forces, the friends of the Tsar, the
+German spies, are rubbing their hands with glee. They are ready to join
+the Bolsheviki, and with them fan the disorders into civil war.
+
+“The Bolsheviki and the ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them
+cry senselessly: ‘Down with the Government! All power to the Soviets!’
+And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm will egg the
+on; ‘Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the markets, devastate
+the shops, pillage the wine stores! Slay, burn, rob!’
+
+“And then will begin a terrible confusion, a war between one part of
+the people and the other. All will become still more disorganised, and
+perhaps once more blood will be shed on the streets of the capital. And
+then what then?
+
+“Then, the road to Petrograd will be open to Wilhelm. Then, no bread
+will come to Petrograd, the children will die of hunger. Then, the Army
+as the front will remain without support, our brothers in the trenches
+will be delivered to the fire of the enemy. Then, Russia will lose all
+prestige in other countries, our money will lose its value; everything
+will be so dear as to make life impossible. Then, the long awaited
+Constituent Assembly will be postponed—it will be impossible to convene
+it in time. And then—Death to the Revolution, Death to our Liberty….
+
+“Is it this that you want, workers and soldiers? No! If you do not then
+go, go to the ignorant people seduced by the betrayers, and tell them
+the whole truth, which we have told you!
+
+“Let all know that EVERY MAN WHO IN THESE TERRIBLE DAYS CALLS ON YOU TO
+COME OUT IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, IS EITHER A SECRET
+SERVANT OF THE TSAR, A PROVOCATOR, OR AN UNWISE ASSISTANT OF THE
+ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, OR A PAID SPY OF WILHELM!
+
+“Every conscious worker revolutionist, every conscious peasant, every
+revolutionary soldier, all who understand what harm a demonstration or
+a revolt against the Government might cause to the people, must join
+together and not allow the enemies of the people to destroy our
+freedom.”
+
+_The Petrograd Electoral Committee of the Mensheviki-oborontzi._
+
+11.
+LENIN’s “LETTER TO THE COMRADES”
+
+
+This series of articles appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ several days
+running, at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I give
+here only extracts from two instalments:
+
+1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the
+people, and that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.
+
+“Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers,
+pedants, or simply don’t want to look the real situation in the face.
+In the last elections we received in all the country more than fifty
+per cent of all thevotes….
+
+“The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants’ revolution.
+In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian uprising with
+wonderful political results…. Even _Dielo Naroda_ has been scared into
+yelling that the land must be turned over to the peasants, and not only
+the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council of the Republic, but also
+the Government itself, has been similarly affected. Another valuable
+result was the bringing of bread which had been hoarded by the
+_pomieshtchiki_ to the railroad stations in that province. The
+_Russkaya Volia_ had to admit that the stations were filled with bread
+after the peasants’ rising….
+
+“2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and the
+bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Constituent
+Assembly.
+
+“Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as
+regards workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of
+the bourgeoisie. If _yunkers_ and Cossacks say they will fight, you
+believe them; if workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is the
+distinction between such doubts and siding politically with the
+bourgeoisie?
+
+“Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe
+Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not
+strong enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break
+the Constituent. But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the
+Constituent by sabotage, by lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by
+opening the front to the Germans. This has already been done in the
+case of Riga….
+
+“3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government to
+force the calling of the Constituent Assembly, and to suppress any
+further Kornilov attempts.
+
+“Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of ‘All Power to the
+Soviets.’ Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the
+question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes in
+the faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have ‘promised’ to call the
+Constituent Assembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the calling
+of the Constituent is guaranteed, and its success assured.
+
+“Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the ‘Lieber-Dans.’ Either
+we must drop ‘All Power to the Soviets’ or make an insurrection; there
+is no middle course.”
+
+“4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos
+want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our
+heroic soldiers and sailors.
+
+“Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the
+Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of
+Kornilovtsi. If the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give up
+Petrograd, it can do it doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements with
+the Germans or the British; open the fronts. It can sabotage the Army’s
+food supply. At all these doors has it knocked.
+
+“We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the Revolution.
+Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and truthfully served
+the bourgeoisie for years…. Half the Lieber-Dans are cowardly
+compromisers; half of them simple fatalists….”
+
+“5. We’re getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the
+Constituent Assembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play
+everything on one card?”
+
+“Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical
+experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called and
+trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the voting of
+the Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or beat
+Wilhelm…. The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd cannot be
+decided by waiting for the Constituent Assembly. Hunger is not waiting.
+The peasants’ Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals who ran away did
+not wait.
+
+“Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals
+and generals, do not take an interest in voting.
+
+“6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our
+strength. But why should we risk everything by making an attempt
+ourselves?
+
+“Answer: History doesn’t repeat. ‘Perhaps Kornilov will some day make
+an attempt!’ What a serious base for proletarian action! But suppose
+Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what
+then? This attitude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary party
+on one of the bourgeoisie’s former mistakes.
+
+“Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the
+dictatorship of the proletariat—either that or the dictatorship of
+Kornilov.
+
+“Let us wait, comrades, for—a miracle!”
+
+12.
+MILIUKOV’s SPEECH (_Resumé_)
+
+
+“Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our
+principal task, and that, to assure it, we must have discipline in the
+Army and order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a power
+capable of daring, not only by persuasion, but also by force…. The germ
+of all our evils comes from the point of view, original, truly Russian,
+concerning foreign policy, which passes for the Internationalist point
+of view.
+
+“The noble Lenin only imitates the noble Keroyevsky when he holds that
+from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the aged
+West, and which will replace the old banner of doctrinary Socialism by
+the new direct action of starving masses—and that will push humanity
+forward and force it to break in the doors of the social paradise….”
+
+These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would
+bring about the decomposition of the whole capitalist régime. Starting
+from that point of view, they were able to commit the unconscious
+treason, in wartime, of calmly telling the soldiers to abandon the
+trenches, and instead of fighting the external enemy, creating internal
+civil war and attacking the proprietors and capitalists….
+
+Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left, demanding
+what Socialist had ever advised such action….
+
+“Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat
+can condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and break
+down the dictatorship of these cliques…. Not by an accord between
+Governments for a limitation of armaments, but by the disarming of
+these Governments and the radical democratisation of the military
+system….”
+
+He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government
+as Ministers with the avowed purpose of carrying on the class struggle!
+
+“The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated
+these gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it
+was for Russia, and sent us some apostles of the Universal
+Conflagration….
+
+“The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no art
+of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the
+Allies, ‘We want nothing, we haven’t anything to fight with!’ And then
+our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the brotherhood of
+peoples will be accomplished!”
+
+Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that
+even Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of “that
+unhappy document which will forever be your indictment.” He then
+attacked Skobeliev, whose position in foreign assemblies, where he
+would appear as a Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy
+of his Government, would be so strange that people would say, “What’s
+that gentleman carrying, and what shall we talk to him about?” As for
+the _nakaz,_ Miliukov said that he himself was a pacifist; that he
+believed in the creation of an International Arbitration Board, and the
+necessity for a limitation of armaments, and parliamentary control over
+secret diplomacy, which did not mean the abolition of secret diplomacy.
+
+As for the Socialist ideas in the _nakaz,_ which he called “Stockholm
+ideas”—peace without victory, the right of self-determination of
+peoples, and renunciation of the economic war—
+
+“The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of
+those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish to
+say, ‘to the successes of the Revolution,’ because I believe that the
+defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the
+Revolution….
+
+“The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One had
+only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be
+convinced that, in this hall, the influence of the revolutionary
+democracy on foreign policy is so strong, that the Minister does not
+dare to speak face to face with it about the honour and dignity of
+Russia!
+
+“We can see, in the _nakaz_ of the Soviets, that the ideas of the
+Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction—that of
+Utopianism, and that of German interests….”
+
+Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the
+President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded by
+popular assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to undertake
+peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced annexations, were
+pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal declaration bound
+only him who made it…. “Anyway, we will imitate the Germans before we
+will imitate the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies….”
+
+The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia were
+symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia,
+supported, said Miliukov, by German money…. Amid bedlam from the Left,
+he contrasted the clauses of the _nakaz_ concerning Alsace-Lorraine,
+Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the nationalities in
+Germany and Austria. The _nakaz_ embraced the German and Austrian point
+of view, said Miliukov.
+
+Passing to Terestchenko’s speech, he contemptuously accused him of
+being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to think
+in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must belong to
+Russia….
+
+“You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
+fighting, and that when he does know, he’ll fight…. It is true that the
+soldier doesn’t know why he is fighting, but now you have told him that
+there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no national
+interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends….”
+
+Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the assistance of
+America, “will yet save the cause of humanity,” he ended:
+
+“Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the West,
+who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only begin to
+enter, with ill-assured and hesitating steps! Long live our brave
+Allies!”
+
+13.
+INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY
+
+
+The Associated Press man tried his hand. “Mr. Kerensky,” he began, “in
+England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution——”
+
+“Yes, I know,” interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. “Abroad the
+Revolution is no longer fashionable!”
+
+“What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?”
+
+“That is a foolish question to ask.” Kerensky was annoyed. “Russia
+entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she bore
+the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater than
+those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the right
+to demand of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms to bear.”
+He stopped for a moment and stared at his interlocutor. “You are asking
+why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the Russians are asking
+where is the British fleet—with German battle-ships in the Gulf of
+Riga?” Again he ceased suddenly, and as suddenly burst out. “The
+Russian Revolution hasn’t failed and the revolutionary Army hasn’t
+failed. It is not the Revolution which caused disorganisation in the
+army—that disorganisation was accomplished years ago, by the old
+regime. Why aren’t the Russians fighting? I will tell you. Because the
+masses of the people are economically exhausted,—and because they are
+disillusioned with the Allies!”
+
+The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United
+States, and in a few days sent back by the American State Department,
+with a demand that it be “altered.” This Kerensky refused to do; but it
+was done by his secretary, Dr. David Soskice—and, thus purged of all
+offensive references to the Allies, was given to the press of the
+world….
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III
+
+1.
+
+RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES
+
+
+_Workers’ Control_
+
+1. (See page 43)
+
+2. The organisation of Workers’ Control is a manifestation of the same
+healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are party
+organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in employment,
+Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary clubs in the
+sphere of culture.
+
+3. The working-class has much more interest in the proper and
+uninterrupted operation of factories… than the capitalist class.
+Workers’ Control is a better security in this respect for the interests
+of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary will of the
+owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for material
+profits or political privileges. Therefore Workers’ Control is demanded
+by the proletariat not only in their own interest, but in the interest
+of the whole country, and should be supported by the revolutionary
+peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.
+
+4. Considering the hostile attitude of the majority of the capitalist
+class toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper distribution
+of raw materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient management of
+factories, is impossible without Workers’ Control.
+
+5. Only Workers’ Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the
+workers’ conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social
+meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a firm
+self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour’s possible
+productivity.
+
+6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace
+basis, and the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well
+as among the different factories, can be accomplished without great
+disturbances only by means of the democratic self-government of the
+workers themselves…. Therefore the realisation of Workers’ Control is
+an indispensable preliminary to the demobilisation of industry.
+
+7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social
+Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers’ Control on a national
+scale, in order to bring results, must extend to all capitalist
+concerns, and not be organised accidentally, without system; it must be
+well-planned, and not separated from the industrial life of the country
+as a whole.
+
+8. The economic life of the country—agriculture, industry, commerce and
+transport—must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so as to
+satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide masses of
+the people; it must be approved by their elected representatives, and
+carried out under the direction of these representatives by means of
+national and local organisations.
+
+9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried
+out under supervision of the peasants’ and land-workers’ organisations;
+that relating to industry, trade and transport operated by
+wage-earners, by means of Workers’ Control; the natural organs of
+Workers’ Control inside the industrial plant will be the Factory-Shop
+and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the Trade Unions.
+
+10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for the
+majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on all the
+owners of plants employing this kind of labour in the given district.
+
+11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and management
+of the Trade Unions, as class organisations acting within the limits of
+the whole industrial plan, and in accordance with it.
+
+12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to
+begin legal action against all employers who violate labour contracts
+or labour legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in
+any branch of labour.
+
+13. On all questions relating to Workers’ Control over production,
+distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the
+workers of individual establishments through their Factory-Shop
+Committees.
+
+14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales,
+refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for
+abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar
+problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled
+exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee,
+which has the right to exclude from participation in the discussion any
+members of the factory administration.
+
+15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the
+supplying of the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour power
+and technical staff (including equipment), and all other supplies and
+arrangements, and also to assure the factory’s adherence to the general
+industrial plan. The factory administration is obliged to surrender to
+the organs of Workers’ Control, for their aid and information, all data
+concerning the business; to make it possible to verify this data, and
+to produce the books of the company upon demand of the Factory-Shop
+Committee.
+
+16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by
+the Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts,
+which cannot be investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall be
+referred to the district central organisation of Factory-Shop
+Committees charged with the particular branch of labour involved, which
+shall discuss the matter with the institutions charged with the
+execution of the general industrial plan, and find means to deal with
+the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the factory.
+
+17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must
+be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to
+facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come
+within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an effective
+plan of distribution among the different factories of orders, raw
+materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to facilitate
+cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by trades.
+
+18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop
+Committees represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial
+and local institutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general
+industrial plan, and to organise economic relations between the towns
+and the villages (workers and peasants). They also possess final
+authority for the management of Factory-Shop Committees and Trade
+Unions, so far as Workers’ Control in their district is concerned, and
+they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning workers’ discipline
+in the routine of production—which regulations, however, must be
+approved by vote of the workers themselves.
+
+2.
+
+THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+
+_Russkaya Volia,_ October 28. “The decisive moment approaches…. It is
+decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us… a second edition
+of the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that with their
+plans and intentions, with their impertinent policy of wishing to
+separate themselves from everything consciously national, they have
+been definitely defeated….
+
+“What are the chances of Bolshevik success?
+
+“It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support
+is the… ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they
+work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop….
+
+“The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself
+morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a
+clearly-defined attitude toward the Bolsheviki….
+
+“And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal power,
+and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated as
+mutineers and traitors….”
+
+_Birzhevya Viedomosti,_ October 28. “Now that the Bolsheviki have
+separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle
+against them is very much simpler—and it is not reasonable, in order to
+fight against Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation. The
+Government should not even allow the manifestation….
+
+“The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts
+punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their
+authors would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are
+carrying on is not a political struggle against the Government, or even
+for the power; it is propaganda for anarchy, massacres, and civil war.
+This propaganda must be extirpated at its roots; it would be strange to
+wait, in order to begin action against an agitation for _pogroms,_
+until the _pogroms_ actually occurred….”
+
+_Novoye Vremya,_ November 1. “… Why is the Government excited only
+about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets), and not
+about September 12th, or October 3d?
+
+“This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and
+that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our
+Allies smart….
+
+“Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the
+Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one attempted
+to put out the Russian conflagration?
+
+“There were other things to do….
+
+“The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It
+crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every
+one is now asking, ‘Did it ever exist?”
+
+3.
+
+MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+
+_Dielo Naroda,_ October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). “The most
+frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they
+impute exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary
+Government all the calamities which the masses are so cruelly
+suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from
+objective causes.
+
+“They make golden promises to the masses, knowing in advance that they
+can fulfil none of them; they lead the masses on a false trail,
+deceiving them as to the source of all their troubles….
+
+“The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution….”
+
+_Dien,_ October 30 (Menshevik). “Is this really ‘the freedom of the
+press’? Every day _Novaya Rus_ and _Rabotchi Put_ openly incite to
+insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns actual
+crimes. Every day they urge _pogroms_…. Is that ‘the freedom of the
+press’?…
+
+“The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the right
+to insist that the Government machinery does not remain passive while
+the threat of bloody riots endangers the lives of its citizens….”
+
+4.
+
+“YEDINSTVO”
+
+
+Plekhanov’s paper, _Yedinstvo,_ suspended publication a few weeks after
+the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report,
+_Yedinstvo_ was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an
+announcement in the last number admitted that it was unable to continue
+_because there were too few subscribers_….
+
+5.
+
+WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?
+
+
+The French newspaper _Entente_ of Petrograd, on November 15th,
+published an article of which the following is a part:
+
+“The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government of
+Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.
+
+“This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong.
+Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which
+triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators—no!
+
+“No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously,
+without mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they
+multiplied their agitation, intensified their propaganda in the
+factories, the barracks, at the Front, in the country, everywhere, even
+fixing in advance the date of their taking up arms, the date of their
+seizure of the power….
+
+“_They_—conspirators? Never….”
+
+6.
+
+APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+
+_From the Central Army Committee_
+
+“… Above everything we insist upon the inflexible execution of the
+organised will of the majority of the people, expressed by the
+Provisional Government in accord with the Council of the Republic and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ as organ of the popular power….
+
+“Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when a
+Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin of
+the country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a
+counter-revolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms….
+
+“The interests of private groups and classes should be submitted to a
+single interest—that of augmenting industrial production, and
+distributing the necessities of life with fairness….
+
+“All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all
+deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do auxiliary
+service in the rear of the Army….
+
+“We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators
+of the people’s will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour
+detachments to work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under
+enemy fire….”
+
+7.
+
+EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH
+
+
+Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops
+of the bourgeois press, where they printed _Rabotchi Put, Soldat,_ and
+various proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia was
+ordered to clear these places, but found the offices barricaded, and
+armed men defending them. Soldiers who were ordered to attack the
+print-shops refused.
+
+About midnight a Colonel with a company of _yunkers_ arrived at the
+club “Free Mind,” with a warrant to arrest the editor of _Rabotchi
+Put._ Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and
+threatened to lynch the _yunkers._ The Colonel thereupon begged that he
+and the _yunkers_ be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for
+safety. This request was granted.
+
+At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied
+the Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward
+morning the Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o’clock the Telephone
+Exchange. At dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a
+cordon of troops was drawn about the Winter Palace.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV
+
+1.
+
+EVENTS OF NOVEMBER 7TH
+
+
+From 4 A. M. until dawn Kerensky remained at the Petrograd Staff
+Headquarters, sending orders to the Cossacks and to the _yunkers_ in
+the Officers’ Schools in and around Petrograd—all of whom answered that
+they were unable to move.
+
+Colonel Polkovnikov, Commandant of the City, hurried between the Staff
+and the Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky gave an
+order to open the bridges; three hours passed without any action, and
+then an officer and five men went out on their own initiative, and
+putting to flight a picket of Red Guards, opened the Nicolai Bridge.
+Immediately after they left, however, some sailors closed it again.
+
+Kerensky ordered the print-shop of _Rabotchi Put_ to be occupied. The
+officer detailed to the work was promised a squad of soldiers; two
+hours later he was promised some _yunkers;_ then the order was
+forgotten.
+
+An attempt was made to recapture the Post Office and the Telegraph
+Agency; a few shots were fired, and the Government troops announced
+that they would no longer oppose the Soviets.
+
+To a delegation of _yunkers_ Kerensky said, “As chief of the
+Provisional Government and as Supreme Commander I know nothing, I
+cannot advise you; but as a veteran revolutionist, I appeal to you,
+young revolutionists, to remain at your posts and defend the conquests
+of the Revolution.”
+
+Orders of Kishkin, November 7th:
+
+“By decree of the Provisional Government…. I am invested with
+extraordinary powers for the reestablishment of order in Petrograd, in
+complete command of all civil and military authorities….”
+
+“In accordance with the powers conferred upon me by the Provisional
+Government, I herewith relieve from his functions as Commandant of the
+Petrograd Military District Colonel George Polkovnikov….”
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Appeal to the Population_ signed by Vice-Premier Konovalov, November
+7th:
+
+“Citizens! Save the fatherland, the republic and your freedom. Maniacs
+have raised a revolt against the only governmental power chosen by the
+people, the Provisional Government….
+
+“The members of the Provisional Government fulfil their duty, remain at
+their post, and continue to work for the good of the fatherland, the
+reestablishment of order, and the convocation of the Constituent
+Assembly, future sovereign of Russia and of all the Russian peoples….
+
+“Citizens, you must support the Provisional Government. You must
+strengthen its authority. You must oppose these maniacs, with whom are
+joined all enemies of liberty and order, and the followers of the
+Tsarist régime, in order to wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy the
+conquests of the Revolution, and the future of our dear fatherland….
+
+“Citizens! Organise around the Provisional Government for the defence
+of its temporary authority, in the name of order and the happiness of
+all peoples….”
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Proclamation of the Provisional Government._
+
+“The Petrograd Soviet…. has declared the Provisional Government
+overthrown, and has demanded that the Governmental power be turned over
+to it, under threat of bombarding the Winter Palace with the cannon of
+Peter-Paul Fortress, and of the cruiser _Avrora,_ anchored in the Neva.
+
+“The Government can surrender its authority only to the Consituent
+Assembly; for that reason it has decided not to submit, and to demand
+aid from the population and the Army. A telegram has been sent to the
+_Stavka;_ and an answer received says that a strong detachment of
+troops is being sent….
+
+“Let the Army and the People reject the irresponsible attempts of the
+Bolsheviki to create a revolt in the rear….”
+
+About 9 A. M. Kerensky left for the Front….
+
+Toward evening two soldiers on bicycles presented themselves at the
+Staff Headquarters, as delegates of the garrison of Peter-Paul
+Fortress. Entering the meeting-room of the Staff, where Kishkin,
+Rutenburg, Paltchinski, General Bagratouni, Colonel Paradielov and
+Count Tolstoy were gathered, they demanded the immediate surrender of
+the Staff; threatening, in case of refusal, to bombard headquarters….
+After two panicky conferences the Staff retreated to the Winter Palace,
+and the headquarters were occupied by Red Guards….
+
+Late in the afternoon several Bolshevik armoured cars cruised around
+the Palace Square, and Soviet soldiers tried unsuccessfully to parley
+with the _yunkers_….
+
+Firing on the Palace began about 7 o’clock in the evening….
+
+At 10 P. M. began an artillery bombardment from three sides, in which
+most of the shells were blanks, only three small shrapnels striking the
+façade of the Palace….
+
+2.
+
+KERENSKY IN FLIGHT
+
+
+Leaving Petrograd in the morning of November 7th, Kerensky arrived by
+automobile at Gatchina, where he demanded a special train. Toward
+evening he was in Ostrov, Province of Pskov. The next morning,
+extraordinary session of the local Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Depulies, with participation of Cossack delegates—there being 6,000
+Cossacks at Ostrov.
+
+Kerensky spoke to the assembly, appealing for aid against the
+Bolsheviki, and addressed himself almost exclusively to the Cossacks.
+The soldier delegates protested.
+
+“Why did you come here?” shouted voices. Kerensky answered, “To ask the
+Cossacks’ assistance in crushing the Bolshevik insurrection!” At this
+there were violent protestations, which increased when he continued, “I
+broke the Kornilov attempt, and I will break the Bolsheviki!” The noise
+became so great that he had to leave the platform….
+
+The soldier deputies and the Ussuri Cossacks decided to arrest
+Kerensky, but the Don Cossacks prevented them, and got him away by
+train…. A Military Revolutionary Committee, set up during the day,
+tried to inform the garrison of Pskov; but the telephone and telegraph
+lines were cut….
+
+Kerensky did not arrive at Pskov. Revolutionary soldiers had cut the
+railway line, to prevent troops being sent against the capital. On the
+night of November 8th he arrived by automobile at Luga, where he was
+well received by the Death Battalions stationed there.
+
+Next day he took train for the South-West Front, and visited the Army
+Committee at headquarters. The Fifth Army, however, was wild with
+enthusiasm over the news of the Bolshevik success, and the Army
+Committee was unable to promise Kerensky any support.
+
+From there he went to the _Stavka,_ at Moghilev, where he ordered ten
+regiments from different parts of the Front to move against Petrograd.
+The soldiers almost unanimously refused; and those regiments which did
+start halted on the way. About five thousand Cossacks finally followed
+him….
+
+3.
+
+LOOTING OF THE WINTER PALACE
+
+
+I do not mean to maintain that there was no looting, in the Winter
+Palace. Both after and _before_ the Winter Palace fell, there was
+considerable pilfering. The statement of the Socialist Revolutionary
+paper _Narod,_ and of members of the City Duma, to the effect that
+precious objects to the value of 500,000,000 rubles had been stolen,
+was, however, a gross exaggeration.
+
+The most important art treasures of the Palace—paintings, statues,
+tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,—had been transferred to Moscow
+during the month of September; and they were still in good order in the
+basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the capture of the
+Kremlin by Bolshevik troops. I can personally testify to this….
+
+Individuals, however, especially the general public, which was allowed
+to circulate freely through the Winter Palace for several days after
+its capture, made away with table silver, clocks, bedding, mirrors and
+some odd vases of valuable porcelain and semi-precious stone, to the
+value of about $50,000.
+
+The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission,
+composed of artists and archæologists, to recover the stolen objects.
+On November 1st two proclamations were issued:
+
+“CITIZENS OF PETROGRAD!
+
+
+“We urgently ask all citizens to exert every effort to find whatever
+possible of the objects stolen from the Winter Palace in the night of
+November 7-8, and to forward them to the Commandant of the Winter
+Palace.
+
+“Receivers of stolen goods, antiquarians, and all who are proved to be
+hiding such objects will be held legally responsible and punished with
+all severity.
+
+“_Commissars for the Protection of Museums and Artistic Collections,_
+“G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.”
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+“TO REGIMENTAL AND FLEET COMMITTEES
+
+
+“In the night of November 7-8, in the Winter Palace, which is the
+inalienable property of the Russian people, valuable objects of art
+were stolen.
+
+“We urgently appeal to all to exert every effort, so that the stolen
+objects are returned to the Winter Palace.
+
+“_Commissars_….
+    “G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.”
+
+About half the loot was recovered, some of it in the baggage of
+foreigners leaving Russia.
+
+A conference of artists and archæologists, held at the suggestion of
+Smolny, appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter
+Palace treasures, which was given complete charge of the Palace and of
+all artistic collections and State museums in Petrograd. On November
+16th the Winter Palace was closed to the public while the inventory was
+being made….
+
+During the last week in November a decree was issued by the Council of
+People’s Commissars, changing the name of the Winter Palace to
+“People’s Museum,” entrusting it to the complete charge of the
+artistic-archæological commission, and declaring that henceforth all
+Governmental activities within its wall were prohibited….
+
+4.
+
+RAPE OF THE WOMEN’S BATTALION
+
+
+Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts of
+sensational stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press, and
+told in the City Duma, about the fate of the Women’s Battalion
+defending the Palace. It was said that some of the girl-soldiers had
+been thrown from the windows into the street, most of the rest had been
+violated, and many had committed suicide as a result of the horrors
+they had gone through.
+
+The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On
+November 16th the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters of
+the Women’s Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had been
+at first taken to the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and that
+there some of them had been badly treated; but that at present most of
+them were at Levashovo, and the rest scattered about the city in
+private houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the commission, testified
+drily that _none_ of the women had been thrown out of the windows of
+the Winter Palace, that _none_ were wounded, that three had been
+violated, and that one had committed suicide, leaving a note which said
+that she had been “disappointed in her ideals.”
+
+On November 21st the Military Revolutionary Committee officially
+dissolved the Women’s Battalion, at the request of the girls
+themselves, who returned to civilian clothes.
+
+In Louise Bryant’s book, “Six Red Months in Russia,” there is an
+interesting description of the girl-soldiers during this time.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND PROCLAMATIONS
+
+
+_From the Military Revolutionary Committee,_ November 8:
+
+“To All Army Committees and All Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies.
+
+“The Petrograd garrison has overturned the Government of Kerensky,
+which had risen against the Revolution and the People…. In sending this
+news to the Front and the country, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+requests all soldiers to keep vigilant watch on the conduct of
+officers. Officers who do not frankly and openly declare for the
+Revolution should be immediately arrested as enemies.
+
+“The Petrograd Soviet interprets the programme of the new Government
+as: immediate proposals of a general democratic peace, the immediate
+transfer of great landed estates to the peasants, and the honest
+convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The people’s revolutionary
+Army must not permit troops of doubtful morale to be sent to Petrograd.
+Act by means of arguments, by means of moral suasion—but if that fails,
+halt the movement of troops by implacable force.
+
+“The present order must be immediately read to all military units of
+every branch of the service. Whoever keeps the knowledge of this order
+from the soldier-masses…. commits a serious crime against the
+Revolution, and will be punished with all the rigour of revolutionary
+law.
+
+“Soldiers! For peace, bread, land, and popular government!”
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+“To All Front and Rear Army, Corps, Divisional, Regimental and Company
+Committees, and All Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
+Deputies.
+
+“Soldiers and Revolutionary Officers!
+
+“The Military Revolutionary Committee, by agreement with the majority
+of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, has decreed that General
+Kornilov and all the accomplices of his conspiracy shall be brought
+immediately to Petrograd, for incarceration in Peter-Paul Fortress and
+arraignment before a military revolutionary court-martial….
+
+“All who resist the execution of this decree are declared by the
+Committee to be traitors to the Revolution, and their orders are
+herewith declared null and void.”
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee Attached to the Petrograd Soviet
+of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+“To all Provincial and District Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and
+Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+“By resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, all arrested
+members of Land Committees are immediately set free. The Commissars who
+arrested them are to be arrested.
+
+“From this moment all power belongs to the Soviets. The Commissars of
+the Provisional Government are removed. The presidents of the various
+local Soviets are invited to enter into direct relations with the
+revolutionary Government.”
+
+_Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+2.
+
+PROTEST OF THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+
+“The Central City Duma, elected on the most democratic principles, has
+undertaken the burden of managing Municipal affairs and food supplies
+at the time of the greatest disorganisation. At the present moment the
+Bolshevik party, three weeks before the elections to the Constituent
+Assembly, and in spite of the menace of the external enemy, having
+removed by armed force the only legal revolutionary authority, is
+making an attempt against the rights and independence of the Municipal
+Self-Government, demanding submission to its Commissars and its illegal
+authority.
+
+“In this terrible and tragic moment the Petrograd City Duma, in the
+face of its constituents, and of all Russia, declares loudly that it
+will not submit to any encroachments on its rights and its
+independence, and will remain at the post of responsibility to which it
+has been called by the will of the population of the capital.
+
+“The Central City Duma of Petrograd appeals to all Dumas and Zemstvos
+of the Russian Republic to rally to the defence of one of the greatest
+conquests of the Russian Revolution—the independence and inviolability
+of popular self-government.”
+
+3.
+
+LAND DECREE—PEASANTS’ “NAKAZ”
+
+
+The Land question can only be permanently settled by the general
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+The most equitable solution of the Land question should be as follows:
+
+1. The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land
+cannot be sold, nor leased, nor mortgaged, nor alienated in any way.
+All dominical lands, lands attached to titles, lands belonging to the
+Emperor’s cabinet, to monasteries, churches, possession lands, entailed
+lands, private estates, communal lands, peasant free-holds, and others,
+are confiscated without compensation, and become national property, and
+are placed at the disposition of the workers who cultivate them.
+
+Those who are damaged because of this social transformation of the
+rights of property are entitled to public aid during the time necessary
+for them to adapt themselves to the new conditions of existence.
+
+2. All the riches beneath the earth—ores, oil, coal, salt, etc.—as well
+as forests and waters having a national importance, become the
+exclusive property of the State. All minor streams, lakes and forests
+are placed in the hands of the communities, on condition of being
+managed by the local organs of government.
+
+3. All plots of land scientifically cultivated—gardens, plantations,
+nurseries, seed-plots, green-houses, and others—shall not be divided,
+but transformed into model farms, and pass into the hands of the State
+or of the community, according to their size and importance.
+
+Buildings, communal lands and villages with their private gardens and
+their orchards remain in the hands of their present owners; the
+dimensions of these plots and the rate of taxes for their use shall be
+fixed by law.
+
+4. All studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and
+bird-breeding establishments, and others, are confiscated and become
+national property, and are transferred either to the State or to the
+community, according to their size and importance.
+
+All questions of compensation for the above are within the competence
+of the Constituent Assembly.
+
+5. All inventoried agricultural property of the confiscated lands,
+machinery and live-stock, are transferred without compensation to the
+State or the community, according to their quantity and importance.
+
+The confiscation of such machinery or live-stock shall not apply to the
+small properties of peasants.
+
+6. The right to use the land is granted to all citizens, without
+distinction of sex, who wish to work the land themselves, with the help
+of their families, or in partnership, and only so long as they are able
+to work. No hired labour is permitted.
+
+In the event of the incapacity for work of a member of the commune for
+a period of two years, the commune shall be bound to render him
+assistance during this time by working his land in common.
+
+Farmers who through old age or sickness have permanently lost the
+capacity to work the land themselves, shall surrender their land and
+receive instead a Government pension.
+
+7. The use of the land should be equalised—that is to say, the land
+shall be divided among the workers according to local conditions, the
+unit of labour and the needs of the individual.
+
+The way in which land is to be used may be individually determined
+upon: as homesteads, as farms, by communes, by partnerships, as will be
+decided by the villages and settlements.
+
+8. All land upon its confiscation is pooled in the general People’s
+Land Fund. Its distribution among the workers is carried out by the
+local and central organs of administration, beginning with the village
+democratic organisations and ending with the central provincial
+institutions—with the exception of urban and rural cooperative
+societies.
+
+The Land Fund is subject to periodical redistribution according to the
+increase of population and the development of productivity and rural
+economy.
+
+In case of modification of the boundaries of allotments, the original
+centre of the allotment remains intact.
+
+The lands of persons retiring from the community return to the Land
+Fund; providing that near relatives of the persons retiring, or friends
+designated by them, shall have preference in the redistribution of
+these lands.
+
+When lands are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for
+manuring or improving the land, which has not been exhausted, shall be
+reimbursed.
+
+If in some localities the Land Fund is insufficient to satisfy the
+local population, the surplus population should emigrate.
+
+The organisation of the emigration, also the costs thereof, and the
+providing of emigrants with the necessary machinery and live-stock,
+shall be the business of the State.
+
+The emigration shall be carried out in the following order: first, the
+peasants without land who express their wish to emigrate; then the
+undesirable members of the community, deserters, etc., and finally, by
+drawing lots on agreement.
+
+All which is contained in this _nakaz,_ being the expression of the
+indisputable will of the great majority of conscious peasants of
+Russia, is declared to be a temporary law, and until the convocation of
+the Constituent Assembly, becomes effective immediately so far as is
+possible, and in some parts of it gradually, as will be determined by
+the District Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+4.
+
+THE LAND AND DESERTERS
+
+
+The Government was not forced to make any decision concerning the
+rights of deserters to the land. The end of the war and the
+demobilisation of the army automatically removed the deserter problem….
+
+5.
+
+THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS
+
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars was at first composed entirely of
+Bolsheviki. This was not entirely the fault of the Bolsheviki, however.
+On November 8th they offered portfolios to members of the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, who declined. See page 273. {of original
+volume}
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND DENUNCIATIONS
+
+
+Appeal to all Citizens and to the Military Organisations of the
+Socialist Revolutionary Party.
+
+“The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete
+failure. The garrison is disaffected…. The Ministries are idle, bread
+is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the
+Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts,
+acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace,
+arbitrary arrests—all these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have
+aroused against them the resentment of the majority of the sailors and
+soldiers. The _Tsentroflot_ refuses to submit to the orders of the
+Bolsheviki….
+
+“We call upon all sane elements to gather around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution; to take serious measures to be
+ready, at the first call of the Central Committee of the Party, to act
+against the counter-revolutionists, who will doubtless attempt to
+profit by these troubles provoked by the Bolshevik adventure, and to
+watch closely the external enemy, who also would like to take advantage
+of this opportune moment when the Front is weakened….”
+
+_The Military Section of the Central Committee of the Socialist
+Revolutionary Party._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+From _Pravda:_
+
+“What is Kerensky?
+
+“A usurper, whose place is in Peter-Paul prison, with Kornilov and
+Kishkin.
+
+“A criminal and a traitor to the workers, soldiers and peasants, who
+believed in him.
+
+“Kerensky? A murderer of soldiers!
+
+“Kerensky? A public executioner of peasants!
+
+“Kerensky? A strangler of workers!
+
+“Such is the second Kornilov who now wants to butcher Liberty!”
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
+
+1.
+
+TWO DECREES
+
+
+_On the Press_
+
+In the serious decisive hour of the Revolution and the days immediately
+following it, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is compelled to
+adopt a series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press of
+all shades.
+
+Immediately on all sides there are cries that the new Socialist
+authority is in this violating the essential principles of its own
+programme by an attempt against the freedom of the press.
+
+The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government calls the attention of the
+population to the fact that in our country, behind this liberal shield,
+is hidden the opportunity for the wealthier classes to seize the lion’s
+share of the whole press, and by this means to poison the popular mind
+and bring confusion into the consciousness of the masses.
+
+Every one knows that the bourgeois press is one of the most powerful
+weapons of the bourgeoisie. Especially in this critical moment, when
+the new authority of the workers and peasants is in process of
+consolidation, it is impossible to leave it in the hands of the enemy,
+at a time when it is not less dangerous than bombs and machine-guns.
+This is why temporary and extraordinary measures have been adopted for
+the purpose of stopping the flow of filth and calumny in which the
+yellow and green press would be glad to drown the young victory of the
+people.
+
+As soon as the new order is consolidated, all administrative measures
+against the press will be suspended; full liberty will be given it
+within the limits of responsibility before the law, in accordance with
+the broadest and most progressive regulations….
+
+Bearing in mind, however, the fact that any restrictions of the freedom
+of the press, even in critical moments, are admissible only within the
+bounds of necessity, the Council of People’s Commissars decrees as
+follows:
+
+1. The following classes of newspapers shall be subject to closure: (a)
+Those inciting to open resistance or disobedience to the Workers’ and
+Peasants’ Government; (b) Those creating confusion by obviously and
+deliberately perverting the news; (c) Those inciting to acts of a
+criminal character punishable by the laws.
+
+2. The temporary or permanent closing of any organ of the press shall
+be carried out only by virtue of a resolution of the Council of
+People’s Commissars.
+
+3. The present decree is of a temporary nature, and will be revoked by
+a special _ukaz_ when normal conditions of public life are
+re-established.
+
+_President of the Council of People’s Commissars,_
+
+VLADIMIR ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Workers’ Militia_
+
+1. All Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies shall form a Workers’
+Militia.
+
+2. This Workers’ Militia shall be entirely at the orders of the Soviets
+of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
+
+3. Military and civil authorities must render every assistance in
+arming the workers and in supplying them with technical equipment, even
+to the extent of requisitioning arms belonging to the War Department of
+the Government.
+
+4. This decree shall be promulgated by telegraph. Petrograd, November
+10, 1917.
+
+_People’s Commissar of the Interior_
+
+A. I. RYKOV.
+
+
+This decree encouraged the formation of companies of Red Guards all
+over Russia, which became the most valuable arm of the Soviet
+Government in the ensuing civil war.
+
+2.
+
+THE STRIKE FUND
+
+
+The fund for the striking Government employees and bank clerks was
+subscribed by banks and business houses of Petrograd and other cities,
+and also by foreign corporations doing business in Russia. All who
+consented to strike against the Bolsheviki were paid full wages, and in
+some cases their pay was increased. It was the realisation of the
+strike fund contributors that the Bolsheviki were firmly in power,
+followed by their refusal to pay strike benefits, which finally broke
+the strike.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
+
+1.
+
+KERENSKY’S ADVANCE
+
+
+On November 9th Kerensky and his Cossacks arrived at Gatchina, where
+the garrison, hopelessly split into two factions, immediately
+surrendered. The members of the Gatchina Soviet were arrested, and at
+first threatened with death; later they were released on good
+behaviour.
+
+The Cossack advance-guards, practically unopposed, occupied Pavlovsk,
+Alexandrovsk and other stations, and reached the outskirts of Tsarskoye
+Selo next morning—November 10th. At once the garrison divided into
+three groups—the officers, loyal to Kerenskly; part of the soldiers and
+non-commissioned officers, who declared themselves “neutral”; and most
+of the rank and file, who were for the Bolsheviki. The Bolshevik
+soldiers, who were without leaders or organisation, fell back toward
+the capital. The local Soviet also withdrew to the village of Pulkovo.
+
+From Pulkovo six members of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet went with an
+automobile-load of proclamations to Gatchina, to propagandise the
+Cossacks. They spent most of the day going around Gatchina from one
+Cossack barracks to another, pleading, arguing and explaining. Toward
+evening some officers discovered their presence and they were arrested
+and brought before General Krasnov, who said, “You fought against
+Kornilov; now you are opposing Kerensky. I’ll have you all shot!”
+
+After reading aloud to them the order appointing him commander-in-chief
+of the Petrograd District, Krasnov asked if they were Bolsheviki. They
+replied in the affirmative—upon which Krasnov went away; a short time
+later an officer came and set them free, saying that it was by order of
+General Krasnov….
+
+In the meanwhile delegations continued to arrive from Petrograd; from
+the Duma, the Committee for Salvation, and, last of all, from the
+_Vikzhel._ The Union of Railway Workers insisted that some agreement be
+reached to halt the civil war, and demanded that Kerensky treat with
+the Bolsheviki, and that he stop the advance on Petrograd. In case of
+refusal, the _Vikzhel_ threatened a general strike at midnight of
+November 11th.
+
+Kerensky asked to be allowed to discuss the matter with the Socialist
+Ministers and with the Committee for Salvation. He was plainly
+undecided.
+
+On the 11th Cossack outposts reached Krasnoye Selo, from which the
+local Soviet and the heterogeneous forces of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee precipitately retired, some of them surrendering…. That night
+they also touched Pulkovo, where the first real resistance was
+encountered….
+
+Cossacks deserters began to dribble into Petrograd, declaring that
+Kerensky had lied to them, that he had spread broadcast over the front
+proclamations which said that Petrograd was burning, that the
+Bolsheviki had invited the Germans to come in, and that they were
+murdering women and children and looting indiscriminately….
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately sent out some dozens
+of “agitators,” with thousands of printed appeals, to inform the
+Cossacks of the real situation….
+
+2.
+
+PROCLAMATIONS OF THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+
+“To All Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+“The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and
+Peasants’ Deputies charges the local Soviets immediately to take the
+most energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Semitic disturbances, and all _pogroms_ of whatever nature. The
+honour of the workers’, peasants’ and soldiers’ Revolution cannot
+tolerate any disorders….
+
+“The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the sailors
+have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+“Workers, soldiers, and peasants, everywhere you should follow the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+“Comrades soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of keeping real
+revolutionary order.
+
+“All revolutionary Russia and the whole world have their eyes on you….”
+
+“The All-Russian Congress of Soviets decrees:
+
+“To abolish capital punishment at the Front, which was reintroduced by
+Kerensky.
+
+“Complete freedom of propaganda is to be re-established in the country.
+All soldiers and revolutionary officers now under arrest for so-called
+political ‘crimes’ are at once to be set free.”
+
+“The ex-Premier Kerensky, overthrown by the people, refuses to submit
+to the Congress of Soviets and attempts to struggle against the legal
+Government elected by the All-Russian Congress—the Council of People’s
+Commissars. The Front has refused to aid Kerensky. Moscow has rallied
+to the new Government. In many cities (Minsk, Moghilev, Kharkov) the
+power is in the hands of the Soviets. No infantry detachment consents
+to march against the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, which, in
+accord with the firm will of the Army and the people, has begun peace
+negotiations and has given the land to the peasants….
+
+“We give public warning that if the Cossacks do not halt Kerensky, who
+has deceived them and is leading them against Petrograd, the
+revolutionary forces will rise with all their might for the defence of
+the precious conquests of the Revolution—Peace and Land.
+
+“Citizens of Petrograd! Kerensky fled from the city, abandoning the
+authority to Kishkin, who wanted to surrender the capital to the
+Germans; Rutenburg, of the Black Band, who sabotaged the Municipal Food
+Supply; and Paltchinsky, hated by the whole democracy. Kerensky has
+fled, abandoning you to the Germans, to famine, to bloody massacres.
+The revolting people have arrested Kerensky’s Ministers, and you have
+seen how the order and supplying of Petrograd at once improved.
+Kerensky, at the demand of the aristocrat proprietors, the capitalists,
+speculators, marches against you for the purpose of giving back the
+land to the land-owners, and continuing the hated and ruinous war.
+
+“Citizens of Petrograd! We know that the great majority of you are in
+favour of the people’s revolutionary authority, against the Kornilovtsi
+led by Kerensky. Do not be deceived by the lying declarations of the
+impotent bourgeois conspirators, who will be pitilessly crushed.
+
+“Workers, soldiers, peasants! We call upon you for revolutionary
+devotion and discipline.
+
+“Millions of peasants and soldiers are with us.
+
+“The victory of the people’s Revolution is assured!”
+
+3.
+
+ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’s COMMISSARS
+
+In this book I am giving only such decrees as are in my opinion
+pertinent to the Bolshevik conquest of power. The rest belong to a
+detailed account of the Structure of the Soviet State, for which I have
+no place in this work. This will be dealt with very fully in the second
+volume, now in preparation, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.”
+
+_Concerning Dwelling-Places_
+
+1. The independent Municipal Self-Governments have the right to
+sequestrate all unoccupied or uninhabited dwelling-places.
+
+2. The Municipalities may, according to laws and arrangements
+established by them, install in all available lodgings citizens who
+have no place to live, or who live in congested or unhealthy lodgings.
+
+3. The Municipalities may establish a service of inspection of
+dwelling-places, organise it and define its powers.
+
+4. The Municipalities may issue orders on the institution of House
+Committees, define their organisation, their powers and give them
+juridical authority.
+
+5. The Municipalities may create Housing Tribunals, define their powers
+and their authority.
+
+6. This decree is promulgated by telegraph.
+
+_People’s Commissar of the Interior,_
+
+A. I. RYKOV.
+
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Social Insurance_
+
+The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of
+complete Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and
+village poor. The Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the
+capitalists, as well as the Government of coalition and conciliation,
+failed to realise the desires of the workers with regard to Social
+Insurance.
+
+The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, relying upon the support of the
+Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, announces to the
+working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that it will
+immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the formulas
+proposed by the Labour organisations:
+
+1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for all
+urban and rural poor.
+
+2. Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity, such
+as illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood, orphanage, and
+unemployment.
+
+3. All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.
+
+4. Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working capacity
+and unemployment.
+
+5. Complete workers’ self-government of all Insurance institutions.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,
+                                _The People’s Commissar of Labour,_
+                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Popular Education_
+
+Citizens of Russia!
+
+With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for
+the first time the real power.
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this
+power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People’s
+Commissars.
+
+By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed People’s
+Commissar of Education.
+
+The work of guiding in general the people’s education, inasmuch as it
+remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent Assembly
+meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People’s Education, whose
+chairman and executive is the People’s Commissar.
+
+Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission? How
+is its sphere of competence determined?
+
+_The General Line of Educational Activity:_ Every genuinely democratic
+power must, in the domain of education, in a country where illiteracy
+and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the struggle against
+this darkness. It must acquire in the shortest time _universal
+literacy,_ by organising a network of schools answering to the demands
+of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal, obligatory and free
+tuition for all, and establish at the same time a series of such
+teachers’ institutes and seminaries as will in the shortest time
+furnish a powerful army of people’s teachers so necessary for the
+universal instruction of the population of our boundless Russia.
+
+_Decentralisation:_ The State Commission on People’s Education is by no
+means a central power governing the institutions of instruction and
+education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be
+transferred to the organs of local self-government. The independent
+work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own
+initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full
+autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres.
+
+The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to
+organise resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and
+private institutions, particularly to those with a class-character
+established by the workers.
+
+_The State Committee on People’s Education:_ A whole series of
+invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the
+Revolution by the State Committee for People’s Education, a tolerably
+democratic body as to its composition, and rich in experts. The State
+Commission sincerely desires the collaboration of this Committee.
+
+It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the
+request at once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee
+for the fulfilment of the following programme:
+
+1. The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the
+sense of greater democratisation.
+
+2. The revision of the Committee’s rights in the sense of widening
+them, and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State
+institute for the elaboration of law projects calculated to reorganise
+public instruction and education in Russia upon democratic principles.
+
+3. The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws
+already created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact that
+in editing them the Committee had to take into account the bourgeois
+spirit of previous Ministries, which obstructed it even in this its
+narrowed form.
+
+After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any
+bureaucratic red tape, in the revolutionary order.
+
+_The Pedagogues and the Societists:_ The State Commission welcomes the
+pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the
+people—the masters of the country.
+
+No one measure in the domain of the people’s education ought to be
+adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who
+represent the pedagogues.
+
+On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached
+exclusively through the cooperation of specialists. This refers as well
+to reforms of the institutes of general education.
+
+The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces—this is how
+the Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State
+Committee, and in all its activities.
+
+As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the
+teachers’ status, and first of all of those very poor though almost
+most important contributors to the work of culture—the elementary
+school teachers. Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and
+at any cost. The proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an
+increase of salary to one hundred rubles per month. It would be a
+disgrace any longer to keep in poverty the teachers of the overwhelming
+majority of the Russian people.
+
+But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal
+elementary instruction. It must endeavour to organise a uniform secular
+school of several grades. The ideal is, equal and if possible higher
+education for all the citizens. So long as this idea has not been
+realised for all, the natural transition through all the schooling
+grades up to the university—a transition to a higher stage—must depend
+entirely upon the pupil’s aptitude, and not upon the resources of his
+family.
+
+The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is
+particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal,
+imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must
+remember that education will serve them as the greatest instrument in
+their struggle for a better lot and for a spiritual growth. However
+needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people’s budget, the
+expenses on education must stand high. A large educational budget is
+the pride and glory of a nation. The free and enfranchised peoples of
+Russia will not forget this.
+
+The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a
+thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.
+Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing
+position of a man who cannot read and write. The school for adults must
+occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular instruction.
+
+_Instruction and Education:_ One must emphasise the difference between
+instruction and education.
+
+Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to
+his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the
+individual is being “educated” throughout life, is being formed, grows
+richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
+
+The toiling masses of the people—the workmen, the peasants, the
+soldiers—are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But
+they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the
+intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it to
+them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here by
+only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social position,
+so different from the position of those ruling classes and
+intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own
+ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
+of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own
+fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear
+world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There is
+no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our
+nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The
+building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
+
+Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.
+What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the
+masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their parts
+a general human importance. They suffer radical changes with every
+far-reaching class upheaval.
+
+Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also
+among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement
+has arisen; workers’ and soldiers’ organisations of this kind are
+multiplying rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the
+road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular
+government in the domain of democratic education.
+
+_The Constituent Assembly_ will doubtless soon begin its work. It alone
+can permanently establish the order of national and social life in our
+country, and at the same time the general character of the organisation
+of popular education.
+
+Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really
+democratic character of the Constituent Assembly is assured. The line
+which the State Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will
+follow, will hardly suffer any modification under the influence of the
+Constituent Assembly. Without pre-determining it, the new People’s
+Government considers itself within its rights in enacting in this
+domain a series of measures which aim at enriching and enlightening as
+soon as possible the spiritual life of the country.
+
+_The Ministry:_ The present work must in the interim proceed through
+the Ministry of the People’s Education. Of all the necessary
+alterations in its composition and construction the State Commission
+will have charge, elected by the Executive Committee of the Soviets and
+the State Committee. Of course the order of State authority in the
+domain of the people’s education will be established by the Constituent
+Assembly. Until then, the Ministry must play the part of the executive
+apparatus for both the State Committee and the State Commission for
+People’s Education.
+
+The pledge of the country’s safety lies in the cooperation of all its
+vital and genuinely democratic forces.
+
+We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the
+honest enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its
+painful crisis, and through complete democracy to the reign of
+Socialism and the brotherhood of nations.
+
+_People’s Commissar on Education,_
+
+A. V. LUNACHARSKY.
+
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Order in Which the Laws Are to be Ratified and Published._
+
+1. Until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the enacting and
+publishing of laws shall be carried out in the order decreed by the
+present Provisional Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government, elected by the
+All-Russian Congress of Workers’, Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
+
+2. Every bill is presented for consideration of the Government by the
+respective Ministry, signed by the duly authorised People’s Commissar;
+or it is presented by the legislative section attached to the
+Government, signed by the chief of the section.
+
+3. After its ratification by the Government, the decree in its final
+edition, in the name of the Russian Republic, is signed by the
+president of the Council of People’s Commissars, or for him by the
+People’s Commissar who presented it for the consideration of the
+Government, and is then published.
+
+4. The date of publishing it in the official “Gazette of the
+Provisional Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government,” is the date of its
+becoming law.
+
+5. In the decree there may be appointed a date, other than the date of
+publication, on which it shall become law, or it may be promulgated by
+telegraph; in which case it is to be regarded in every locality as
+becoming law upon the publication of the telegram.
+
+6. The promulgation of legislative acts of the government by the State
+Senate is abolished. The Legislative Section attached to the Council of
+People’s Commissars issues periodically a collection of regulations and
+orders of the government which possess the force of law.
+
+7. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’,
+Peasants’, and Soldiers’ Deputies _(Tsay-ee-kah)_ has at all times the
+right to cancel, alter or annul any of the Government decrees.
+
+_In the name of the Russian Republic, the President of the Council of
+People’s Commissars,_
+
+V. ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+
+4.
+
+THE LIQUOR PROBLEM
+
+
+_Order Issued by the Military Revolutonary Committee_
+
+1. Until further order the production of alcohol and alcoholic drinks
+is prohibited.
+
+2. It is ordered to all producers of alcohol and alcoholic drinks to
+inform not later than on the 27th inst. of the exact site of their
+stores.
+
+3. All culprits against this order will be tried by a Military
+Revolutionary Court.
+
+THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE.
+
+
+5.
+
+ORDER NO. 2
+
+
+_From the Committee of the Finland Guard Reserve Regiment to all House
+Committees and to the citizens of Vasili Ostrov._
+
+The bourgeoisie has chosen a very sinister method of fighting against
+the proletariat; it has established in various parts of the city huge
+wine depots, and distributes liquor among the soldiers, in this manner
+attempting to sow dissatisfaction in the ranks of the Revolutionary
+army.
+
+It is herewith ordered to all house committees, that at 3 o’clock, the
+time set for posting this order, they shall in person and secretly
+notify the President of the Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment,
+concerning the amount of wine in their premises.
+
+Those who violate this order will be arrested and given trial before a
+merciless court, and their property will be confiscated, and the stock
+of wine discovered will be
+
+BLOWN UP WITH DYNAMITE
+
+
+2 hours after this warning,
+
+because more lenient measures, as experience has shown, do not bring
+the desired results.
+
+REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WARNING BEFORE THE EXPLOSIONS.
+
+
+_Regimental Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment._
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
+
+1.
+
+MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE. BULLETIN NO. 2
+
+
+November 12th, in the evening, Kerensky sent a proposition to the
+revolutionary troops—“to lay down their arms.” Kerensky’s men opened
+artillery fire. Our artillery answered and compelled the enemy to be
+silent. The Cossacks assumed the offensive. The deadly fire of the
+sailors, the Red Guards and the soldiers forced the Cossacks to
+retreat. Our armoured cars rushed in among the ranks of the enemy. The
+enemy is fleeing. Our troops are in pursuit. The order has been given
+to arrest Kerensky. Tsarskoye Selo has been taken by the revolutionary
+troops.
+
+_The Lettish Riflemen:_ The Military Revolutionary Committee has
+received precise information that the valiant Lettish Riflemen have
+arrived from the Front and taken up a position in the rear of
+Kerensky’s bands.
+
+_From the Staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The seizure of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo by Kerensky’s detachments is
+to be explained by the complete absence of artillery and machine-guns
+in these places, whereas Kerensky’s cavalry was provided with artillery
+from the beginning. The last two days were days of enforced work for
+our Staff, to provide the necessary quantity of guns, machine-guns,
+field telephones, etc., for the revolutionary troops. When this
+work—with the energetic assistance of the District Soviets and the
+factories (the Putilov Works, Obukhov and others)—was accomplished, the
+issue of the expected encounter left no place for doubt: on the side of
+the revolutionary troops there was not only a surplus in quantity and
+such a powerful material base as Petrograd, but also an enormous moral
+advantage. All the Petrograd regiments moved out to the positions with
+tremendous enthusiasm. The Garrison Conference elected a Control
+Commission of five soldiers, thus securing a complete unity between the
+commander in chief and the garrison. At the Garrison Conference it was
+unanimously decided to begin decisive action.
+
+The artillery fire on the 12th of November developed with extraordinary
+force by 3 P.M. The Cossacks were completely demoralised. A
+parliamentarian came from them to the staff of the detachment at
+Krasnoye Selo, and proposed to stop the firing, threatening otherwise
+to take “decisive” measures. He was answered that the firing would
+cease when Kerensky laid down his arms.
+
+In the developing encounter all sections of the troops—the sailors,
+soldiers and the Red Guards—showed unlimited courage. The sailors
+continued to advance until they had fired all their cartridges. The
+number of casualties has not been established yet, but it is larger on
+the part of the counter-revolutionary troops, who experienced great
+losses through one of our armoured cars.
+
+Kerensky’s staff, fearing that they would be surrounded, gave the order
+to retreat, which retreat speedily assumed a disorderly character. By
+11-12 P.M., Tsarkoye Selo, including the wireless station, was entirely
+occupied by the troops of the Soviets. The Cossacks retreated towards
+Gatchina and Colpinno.
+
+The morale of the troops is beyond all praise. The order has been given
+to pursue the retreating Cossacks. From the Tsarskoye Selo station a
+radio-telegram was sent immediately to the Front and to all local
+Soviets throughout Russia. Further details will be communicated….
+
+2.
+
+EVENTS OF THE 13TH IN PETROGRAD
+
+
+Three regiments of the Petrograd garrison to take any part in the
+battle against Kerensky. On the morning of the 13th they summoned to a
+joint conference sixty delegates from the Front, in order to find some
+way to stop the civil war. This conference appointed a committee to go
+and persuade Kerensky’s troops to lay down their arms. They proposed to
+ask the Government soldiers the following questions: (1) Will the
+soldiers and Cossacks of Kerensky recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah_ as the
+repository of Governmental power, responsible to the Congress of
+Soviets? (2) Will the soldiers and Cossacks accept the decrees of the
+second Congress of Soviets? (3) Will they accept the Land and Peace
+decrees? (4) Will they agree to cease hostilities and return to their
+units? (5) Will they consent to the arrest of Kerensky, Krasnov and
+Savinkov?
+
+At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev said, “It would be
+foolish to think that this committee could finish affair. The enemy can
+only be broken by force. However, it would be a crime for us not to try
+every peaceful means to bring the Cossacks over to us…. What we need is
+a military victory…. The news of an armistice is premature. Our Staff
+will be ready to conclude an armistice when the enemy can no longer do
+any harm….
+
+“At present, the influence of our victory is creating new political
+conditions…. To-day the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit
+the Bolsheviki into the new Government…. A decisive victory is
+indispensable, so that those who hesitate will have no further
+hesitation….”
+
+At the City Duma all attention was concentrated on the formation of the
+new Government. In many factories and barracks already Revolutionary
+Tribunals were operating, and the Bolsheviki were threatening to set up
+more of these, and try Gotz and Avksentiev before them. Dan proposed
+that an ultimatum be sent demanding the abolition of these
+Revolutionary Tribunals, or the other members of the Conference would
+immediately break off all negotiations with the Bolsheviki.
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, declared that the Municipality ought not to take
+part in any agreement with the Bolsheviki…. “Any agreement with the
+maniacs is impossible until they lay down their arms and recognise the
+authority of independent courts of law….”
+
+Yartsev, for the _Yedinstvo_ group, declared that any agreement with
+the Bolsheviki would be equivalent to a Bolshevik victory….
+
+Mayor Schreider, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, stated that he was
+opposed to all agreement with the Bolsheviki…. “As for a Government,
+that ought to spring from the popular will; and since the popular will
+has been expressed in the municipal elections, the popular will which
+can create a Government is actually concentrated in the Duma….”
+
+After other speakers, of which only the representative of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists was in favour of considering the admission
+of the Bolsheviki into the new Government, the Duma voted to continue
+its representatives in the _Vikzhel’s_ conference, but to insist upon
+the restoration of the Provisional Government before everything, and to
+exclude the Bolsheviki from the new power….
+
+3.
+
+TRUCE. KRASNOV’s ANSWER TO THE COMMITTEE FOR SALVATION
+
+“In answer to your telegram proposing an immediate armistice, the
+Supreme Commander, not wishing further futile bloodshed, consents to
+enter into negotiations and to establish relations between the armies
+of the Government and the insurrectionists. He proposes to the General
+Staff of the insurrectionists to recall its regiments to Petrograd, to
+declare the line Ligovo-Pulkovo-Colpinno neutral, and to allow the
+advance-guards of the Government cavalry to enter Tsarskoye Selo, for
+the purpose of establishing order. The answer to this proposal must be
+placed in the hands of our envoys before eight o’clock to-morrow
+morning.
+
+KRASNOV.”
+
+
+4.
+
+EVENTS AT TSARSKOYE SELO
+
+
+On the evening that Kerensky’s troops retreated from Tsarskoye Selo,
+some priests organised a religious procession through the streets of
+the town, making speeches to the citizens in which they asked the
+people to support the rightful authority, the Provisional Government.
+When the Cossacks had retreated, and the first Red Guards entered the
+town, witnesses reported that the priests had incited the people
+against the Soviets, and had said prayers at the grave of Rasputin,
+which lies behind the Imperial Palace. One of the priests, Father Ivan
+Kutchurov, was arrested and shot by the infuriated Red Guards….
+
+Just as the Red Guards entered the town the electric lights were shut
+off, plunging the streets in complete darkness. The director of the
+electric light plant, Lubovitch, was arrested by the Soviet troops and
+asked why he had shut off the lights. He was found some time later in
+the room where he had been imprisoned with a revolver in his hand and a
+bullet hole in his temple.
+
+The Petrograd anti-Bolshevik papers came out next day with headlines,
+“Plekhanov’s temperature 39 degrees!” Plekhanov lived at Tsarskoye
+Selo, where he was lying ill in bed. Red Guards arrived at the house
+and searched it for arms, questioning the old man.
+
+“What class of society do you belong to?” they asked him.
+
+“I am a revolutionist,” answered Plekhanov, “who for forty years has
+devoted his life to the struggle for liberty!”
+
+“Anyway,” said a workman, “you have now sold yourself to the
+bourgeoisie!”
+
+The workers no longer knew Plekhanov, pioneer of the Russian Social
+Democracy!
+
+5.
+
+APPEAL OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+
+“The detachments at Gatchina, deceived by Kerensky, have laid down
+their arms and decided to arrest Kerensky. That chief of the
+counter-revolutionary campaign has fled. The Army, by an enormous
+majority, has pronounced in favour of the second All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, and of the Government which it has created. Scores of
+delegates from the Front have hastened to Petrograd to assure the
+Soviet Government of the Army’s fidelity. No twisting of the facts, no
+calumny against the revolutionary workers, soldiers, and peasants, has
+been able to defeat the People. The Workers’ and Soldiers’ Revolution
+is victorious….
+
+“The _Tsay-ee-kah_ appeals to the troops which march under the flag of
+the counter-revolution, and invites them immediately to lay down their
+arms—to shed no longer the blood of their brothers in the interests of
+a handful of land-owners and capitalists. The Workers’, Soldiers’ and
+Peasants’ Revolution curses those who remain even for a moment under
+the flag of the People’s enemies….
+
+“Cossacks! Come over to the rank of the victorious People! Railwaymen,
+postmen, telegraphers—all, all support the new Government of the
+People!”
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
+
+1.
+
+DAMAGE TO THE KREMLIN
+
+
+I myself verified the damage to the Kremlin, which I visited
+immediately after the bombardment. The Little Nicolai Palace, a
+building of no particular importance, which was occupied occasionally
+by receptions of one of the Grand Duchesses, had served as barracks for
+the _yunkers._ It was not only bombarded, but pretty well sacked;
+fortunately there was nothing in it of particular historical value.
+
+Usspensky Cathedral had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but except
+for a few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The frescoes on
+the porch of Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly damaged by a shell.
+Another shell hit the corner of Ivan Veliki. Tchudovsky Monastery was
+hit about thirty times, but only one shell went through a window into
+the interior, the others breaking the brick window-moulding and the
+roof cornices.
+
+The clock over the Spasskaya Gate was smashed. Troitsky Gate was
+battered, but easily reparable. One of the lower towers had lost its
+brick spire.
+
+The church of St. Basil was untouched, as was the great Imperial
+Palace, with all the treasures of Moscow and Petrograd in its cellar,
+and the crown jewels in the Treasury. These places were not even
+entered.
+
+2.
+
+LUNATCHARSKY’s DECLARATION
+
+“Comrades! You are the young masters of the country, and although now
+you have much to do and think about, you must know how to defend your
+artistic and scientific treasures.
+
+“Comrades! That which is happening at Moscow is a horrible, irreparable
+misfortune…. The People in its struggle for the power has mutilated our
+glorious capital.
+
+“It is particularly terrible in these days of violent struggle, of
+destructive warfare, to be Commissar of Public Education. Only the hope
+of the victory of Socialism, the source of a new and superior culture,
+brings me comfort. On me weighs the responsibility of protecting the
+artistic wealth of the people…. Not being able to remain at my post,
+where I had no influence, I resigned. My comrades, the other
+Commissars, considered this resignation inadmissible. I shall therefore
+remain at my post…. And moreover, I understand that the damage done to
+the Kremlin is not as serious as has been reported….
+
+“But I beg you, comrades, to give me your support…. Preserve for
+yourselves and your descendants the beauty of our land; be the
+guardians of the property of the People.
+
+“Soon, very soon, even the most ignorant, who have been held in
+ignorance so long, will awake and understand what a source of joy,
+strength and wisdom is art….”
+
+3.
+
+QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE BOURGEOISIE
+
+
+[Graphic, page 354]
+
+4.
+
+REVOLUTIONARY FINANCIAL MEASURE
+
+
+_Order_
+
+In virtue of the powers vested in me by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee attached to the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
+Deputies, I decree:
+
+1. All banks with branches, the Central State Savings Bank with
+branches, and the savings banks at the Post and Telegraph offices are
+to be opened beginning November 22nd, from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M. until
+further order.
+
+2. On current accounts and on the books of the savings banks, payments
+will be made by the above mentioned institutions, of not more than 150
+rubles for each depositor during the course of the next week.
+
+3. Payments of amounts exceeding 150 rubles a week on current accounts
+and savings banks books, also payments on other accounts of all kinds
+will be allowed during the next three days—November 22nd, 23d, and
+24th, only in the following cases:
+
+(a) On the accounts of military organisations for the satisfaction of
+their needs;
+
+(b) For the payment of salaries of employees and the earnings of
+workers according to the tables and lists certified by the Factory
+Committees or Soviets of Employees, and attested by the signatures of
+the Commissars, or the representatives of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and the district Military Revolutionary Committees.
+
+4. Not more than 150 rubles are to be paid against drafts; the
+remaining sums are to be entered on current account, payments on which
+are to be made in the order established by the present decree.
+
+5. All other banking operations are prohibited during these three days.
+
+6. The receipt of money on all accounts is allowed for any amount.
+
+7. The representatives of the Finance Council for the certification of
+the authorisations indicated in clause 3 will hold their office in the
+building of the Stock Exchange, Ilyinka Street, from 10 A. M. to 2 P.
+M.
+
+8. The Banks and Savings Banks shall send the totals of daily cash
+operations by 5 P. M. to the headquarters of the Soviet, Skobeliev
+Square, to the Military Revolutionary Committee, for the Finance
+Council.
+
+9. All employees and managers of credit institutions of all kinds who
+refuse to comply with this decree shall be responsible as enemies of
+the Revolution and of the mass of the population, before the
+Revolutionary Tribunals. Their names shall be published for general
+information.
+
+10. For the control of the operations of Branches of the Savings Banks
+and Banks within the limits of this decree, the district Military
+Revolutionary Committees shall elect three representatives and appoint
+their place of business.
+
+_Fully-authorised Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+S. SHEVERDIN-MAKSIMENKO.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
+
+1.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER
+
+
+This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It
+covers the time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and
+armistice with the Germans, and the beginning of the Peace negotiations
+at Brest-Litovsk, as well as the period in which were laid the
+foundations of the Soviet State.
+
+However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and
+interpret these very important historical events, which require more
+space. They are therefore reserved for another volume, “Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk.”
+
+In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet
+Government’s attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and
+sketched its successive conquests of hostile domestic elements—which
+process was temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of
+Brest-Litovsk.
+
+2.
+
+PREAMBLE—DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA
+
+
+The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the
+common banner of Emancipation.
+
+The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners,
+for there is no longer the landowner’s property right in the land—it
+has been abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated from
+the power of autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth be
+elective and subject to recall. The workingmen are being emancipated
+from the whims and arbitrary will of the capitalists, for henceforth
+there will be established the control of the workers over mills and
+factories. Everything living and capable of life is being emancipated
+from the hateful shackles.
+
+There remain only the peoples of Russia, who have suffered and are
+suffering oppression and arbitrariness, and whose emancipation must
+immediately be begun, whose liberation must be effected resolutely and
+definitely.
+
+During the period of Tsarism the peoples of Russia were systematically
+incited against one another. The result of such a policy are known:
+massacres and _pogroms_ on the one hand, slavery of peoples on the
+other.
+
+There can be and there must be no return to this disgraceful policy.
+Henceforth the policy of a voluntary and honest union of the peoples of
+Russia must be substituted.
+
+In the period of imperialism, after the March revolution, when the
+power was transferred into the hands of the Cadet bourgeoisie, the
+naked policy of provocation gave way to one of cowardly distrust of the
+peoples of Russia, to a policy of fault-finding, of meaningless
+“freedom” and “equality” of peoples. The results of such a policy are
+known: the growth of national enmity, the impairment of mutual
+confidence.
+
+An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust,
+of fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by an
+open and honest policy leading to the complete mutual confidence of the
+peoples of Russia. Only as the result of such a trust can there be
+formed an honest and lasting union of the peoples of Russia. Only as
+the result of such a union can the workers and peasants of the peoples
+of Russia be cemented into one revolutionary force able to resist all
+attempts on the part of the imperialist-annexationist bourgeoisie.
+
+3.
+
+DECREES
+
+
+_On the Nationalisation of the Banks_
+
+In the interest of the regular organisation of the national economy, of
+the thorough eradication of bank speculation and the complete
+emancipation of the workers, peasants, and the whole labouring
+population from the exploitation of banking capital, and with a view to
+the establishment of a single national bank of the Russian Republic
+which shall serve the real interests of the people and the poorer
+classes, the Central Executive Committee _(Tsay-ee-kah)_ resolves:
+
+1. The banking business is declared a state monopoly.
+
+2. All existing private joint-stock banks and banking offices are
+merged in the State Bank.
+
+3. The assets and liabilities of the liquidated establishments are
+taken over by the State Bank.
+
+4. The order of the merger of private banks in the State Bank is to be
+determined by a special decree.
+
+5. The temporary administration of the affairs of the private banks is
+entrusted to the board of the State Bank.
+
+6. The interests of the small depositors will be safeguarded.
+
+                        *   *   *   *   *
+
+_On the Equality of Rank of All Military Men_
+
+In realisation of the will of the revolutionary people regarding the
+prompt and decisive abolition of all remnants of former inequality in
+the Army, the Council of People’s Commissars decrees:
+
+1. All ranks and grades in the Army, beginning with the rank of
+Corporal and ending with the rank of General, are abolished. The Army
+of the Russian Republic consists now of free and equal citizens,
+bearing the honourable title of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
+
+2. All privileges connected with the former ranks and grades, also all
+outward marks of distinction, are abolished.
+
+3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
+
+4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are
+abolished.
+
+5. With the abolition of the rank of officer, all separate officers’
+organisations are abolished.
+
+Note.—Orderlies are left only for headquarters, chanceries, Committees
+and other Army organisations.
+
+      _President of the Council of People’s Commissars,_
+                    VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+      _People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+                    N. KRYLENKO.
+
+      _People’s Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+                    N. PODVOISKY.
+
+      _Secretary of the Council,_
+                    N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+_On the Elective Principle and the Organisation of Authority in the
+Army_
+
+1. The army serving the will of the toiling people is subject to its
+supreme representative—the Council of People’s Commissars.
+
+2. Full authority within the limits of military units and combinations
+is vested in the respective Soldiers’ Committees and Soviets.
+
+3. Those phases of the life and activity of the troops which are
+already under the jurisdiction of the Committees are now formally
+placed in their direct control. Over such branches of activity which
+the Committees cannot assume, the control of the Soldiers’ Soviets is
+established.
+
+4. The election of commanding Staff and officers is introduced. All
+commanders up to the commanders of regiments, inclusive, are elected by
+general suffrage of squads, platoons, companies, squadrons, batteries,
+divisions (artillery, 2-3 batteries), and regiments. All commanders
+higher than the commander of a regiment, and up to the Supreme
+Commander, inclusive, are elected by congresses or conferences of
+Committees.
+
+Note.—By the term “conference” must be understood a meeting of the
+respective Committees together with delegates of committees one degree
+lower in rank. (Such as a “conference” of Regimental Committees with
+delegates from Company Committees.—Author.)
+
+5. The elected commanders above the rank of commander of regiment must
+be confirmed by the nearest Supreme Committee.
+
+Note. In the event of a refusal by a Supreme Committee to confirm an
+elected commander, with a statement of reasons for such refusal, a
+commander elected by the lower Committee a second time must be
+confirmed.
+
+6. The commanders of Armies are elected by Army congresses. Commanders
+of Fronts are elected by congresses of the respective Fronts.
+
+7. To posts of a technical character, demanding special knowledge or
+other practical preparation, namely: doctors, engineers, technicians,
+telegraph and wireless operators, aviators, automobilists, etc., only
+such persons as possess the required special knowledge may be elected,
+by the Committees of the units of the respective services.
+
+8. Chiefs of Staff must be chosen from among persons with special
+military training for that post.
+
+9. All other members of the Staff are appointed by the Chief of Staff,
+and confirmed by the respective congresses.
+
+Note.—All persons with special training must be listed in a special
+list.
+
+10. The right is reserved to retire from the service all commanders on
+active service who are not elected by the soldiers to any post, and who
+consequently are ranked as privates.
+
+11. All other functions beside those pertaining to the command, with
+the exception of posts in the economic departments, are filled by
+appointment of the respective elected commanders.
+
+12. Detailed instructions regarding the elections of the commanding
+Staff will be published separately.
+
+_President of the Council of People’s Commissars._
+
+VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+
+_People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+
+N. KRYLENKO.
+
+
+_People’s Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+
+N. PODVOISKY.
+
+
+_Secretary of the Council,_
+
+N. GORBUNOV.
+
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Abolition of Classes and Titles_
+
+1. All classes and class divisions, all class privileges and
+delimitations, all class organisations and institutions and all civil
+ranks are abolished.
+
+2. All classes of society (nobles, merchants, petty bourgeois, etc.),
+and all titles (Prince, Count and others), and all denominations of
+civil rank (Privy State Councillor, and others), are abolished, and
+there is established the general denomination of Citizen of the Russian
+Republic.
+
+3. The property and institutions of the classes of nobility are
+transferred to the corresponding autonomous Zemstvos.
+
+4. The property of merchant and bourgeois organisations is transferred
+immediately to the Municipal Self-Governments.
+
+5. All class institutions of any sort, with their property, their rules
+of procedure, and their archives, are transferred to the administration
+of the Municipalities and Zemstvos.
+
+6. All articles of existing laws applying to these matters are herewith
+repealed.
+
+7. The present decree becomes effective on the day it is published and
+applied by the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+The present decree has been confirmed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at the
+meeting of November 23d, 1917, and signed by:
+
+_President of the Tsay-ee-kah,_
+
+SVERDLOV.
+
+
+_President of the Council of People’s Commissars,_
+
+VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+
+_Executive of the Council of People’s Commissars,_
+
+V. BONCH-BRUEVITCH.
+
+
+_Secretary of the Council,_
+
+N. GORBUNOV.
+
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+On December 3d the Council of People’s Commissars resolved “to reduce
+the salaries of functionaries and employees in all Government
+institutions and establishments, general or special, without
+exception.”
+
+To begin with, the Council fixed the salary of a People’s Commissar at
+500 rubles per month, with 100 rubles additional for each grown member
+of the family incapable of work….
+
+This was the highest salary paid to any Government official….
+
+4.
+
+Countess Panina was arrested and brought to trial before the first
+Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal. The trial is described in the chapter
+on “Revolutionary Justice” in my forthcoming volume, “Kornilov to
+Brist-Litovsk.” The prisoner was sentenced to “return the money, and
+then be liberated to the public contempt.” In other words, she was set
+free!
+
+5.
+
+RIDICULE OF THE NEW RÉGIME
+
+
+From _Drug Naroda_ (Menshevik), November 18th:
+
+“The story of the ‘immediate peace’ of the Bolsheviki reminds us of a
+joyous moving-picture film…. Neratov runs—Trotzky pursues; Neratov
+climbs a wall, Trotzky too; Neratov dives into the water—Trotzky
+follows; Neratov climbs onto the roof—Trotzky right behind him; Neratov
+hides under the bed—and Trotzky has him! He has him! Naturally, peace
+is immediately signed….
+
+“All is empty and silent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The
+couriers are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression….
+
+“How about arresting an ambassador and signing an armistice or a Peace
+Treaty with him? But they are strange folk, these ambassadors. They
+keep silent just as if they had heard nothing. Hola, hola, England,
+France, Germany! We have signed an armistice with you! Is it possible
+that you know nothing about it? Nevertheless, it has been published in
+all the papers and posted on all the walls. On a Bolshevik’s word of
+honour, Peace has been signed. We’re not asking much of you; you just
+have to write two words….
+
+“The ambassadors remain silent. The Powers remain silent. All is empty
+and silent in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+“‘Listen,’ says Robespierre-Trotzky to his assistant Marat-Uritzky,
+‘run over to the British Ambassador’s, tell him we’re proposing peace!’
+
+“‘Go yourself,’ says Marat-Uritzky. ‘He’s not receiving.’
+
+“‘Telephone him, then.’
+
+“‘I’ve tried. The receiver’s off the hook.’
+
+“‘Send him a telegram.’
+
+“‘I did.’
+
+“‘Well, with what result?’
+
+“Marat-Uritzky sighs and does not answer. Robespierre-Trotzky spits
+furiously into the corner….
+
+“‘Listen, Marat,’ recommences Trotzky, after a moment. ‘We must
+absolutely show that we’re conducting an active foreign policy. How can
+we do that?’
+
+“‘Launch another decree about arresting Neratov,’ answers Uritzky, with
+a profound air.
+
+“‘Marat, you’re a blockhead!’ cries Trotzky. All of a sudden he arises,
+terrible and majestic, looking at this moment like Robespierre.
+
+“‘Write, Uritzky!’ he says with severity. ‘Write a letter to the
+British ambassador, a registered letter with receipt demanded. Write! I
+also will write! The peoples of the world await an immediate peace!’
+
+“In the enormous and empty Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to be heard
+only the sound of two typewriters. With his own hands Trotzky is
+conducting an active foreign policy….”
+
+6.
+
+ON THE QUESTION OF AN AGREEMENT
+
+
+To the Attention of All Workers and All Soldiers.
+
+November 11th, in the club of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was held an
+extraordinary meeting of representatives of all the units of the
+Petrograd garrison.
+
+The meeting was called upon the initiative of the Preobrazhensky and
+Semionovsky Regiments, for the discussion of the question as to which
+Socialist parties are for the power of the Soviets, which are against,
+which are for the people, which against, and if an agreement between
+them is possible.
+
+The representatives of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ of the Municipal Duma, of the
+Avksentiev Peasants’ Soviets, and of all the political parties from the
+Bolsheviki to the Populist Socialists, were invited to the meeting.
+
+After long deliberation, having heard the declarations of all parties
+and organisations, the meeting by a tremendous majority of votes agreed
+that only the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries are for
+the people, and that all the other parties are only attempting, under
+cover of seeking an agreement, to deprive the people of the conquests
+won in the days of the great Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolution of
+November.
+
+Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the
+Petrograd garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:
+
+“The garrison conference, summoned at the initiative of the Semionovsky
+and Preobrazhensky Regiments, on hearing the representatives of all the
+Socialist parties and popular organisations on the question of an
+agreement between the different political parties finds that:
+
+“1. The representatives of the _Tasy-ee-kah,_ the representatives of
+the Bolshevik party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared
+definitely that they stand for a Government of the Soviets, for the
+decrees on Land, Peace and Workers’ Control of Industry, and that upon
+this platform they are willing to agree with all the Socialist parties.
+
+“2. At the same time the representatives of the other parties
+(Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries) either gave no answer at all,
+or declared simply that they were opposed to the power of the Soviets
+and against the decrees on Land, Peace and Workers’ Control.
+
+“In view of this the meeting resolves:
+
+“‘1. To express severe censure of all parties which, under cover of an
+agreement, wish practically to annul the popular conquests of the
+Revolution of November.
+
+“2. To express full confidence in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Council of
+People’s Commissars, and to promise them complete support.’
+
+“At the same time the meeting deems it necessary that the comrades Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries should enter the People’s Government.”
+
+7.
+
+WINE “POGROMS”
+
+
+It was afterward discovered that there was a regular organisation,
+maintained by the Cadets, for provoking rioting among the soldiers.
+There would be telephone messages to the different barracks, announcing
+that wine was being given away at such and such an address, and when
+the soldiers arrived at the spot an individual would point out the
+location of the cellar….
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars appointed a Commissar for the Fight
+Against Drunkenness, who, besides mercilessly putting down the wine
+riots, destroyed hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquor. The Winter
+Palace cellars, containing rare vintages valued at more than five
+million dollars, were at first flooded, and then the liquor was removed
+to Cronstadt and destroyed.
+
+In this work the Cronstadt sailors, “flower and pride of the
+revolutionary forces,” as Trotzky called them, acquitted themselves
+with iron self-dicipline….
+
+8.
+
+SPECULATORS
+
+
+Two orders concerning them:
+
+_Council of People’s Commissars_
+
+_To the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The disorganisation of the food supply created by the war, and the lack
+of system, is becoming to the last degree acute, thanks to the
+speculators, marauders and their followers on the railways, in the
+steamship offices, forwarding offices, etc.
+
+Taking advantage of the nation’s greatest misfortunes, these criminal
+spoliators are playing with the health and life of millions of soldiers
+and workers, for their own benefit.
+
+Such a situation cannot be borne a single day longer.
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars proposes to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee to take the most decisive measures towards the
+uprooting of speculation, sabotage, hiding of supplies, fraudulent
+detention of cargoes, etc.
+
+All persons guilty of such actions shall be subject, by special orders
+of the Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest and
+confinement in the prisons of Cronstadt, pending their arraignment
+before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+All the popular organisations are invited to cooperate in the struggle
+against the spoliators of food supplies.
+
+                _President of the Council of People’s Commissaries._
+                                        V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Accepted for execution,
+        _Military Revolutionary Committee attached to
+         the C. E. C. of the Soviets of W. & S. Deputies._
+
+Petrograd, Nov. 23d, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To All Honest Citizens_
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee Decrees:_
+
+Spoliators, marauders, speculators, are declared to be enemies of the
+People….
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee proposes to all public
+organisations, to all honest citizens: to inform the Military
+Revolutionary Committee immediately of all cases of spoliation,
+marauding, speculation, which become known to them.
+
+The struggle against this evil is the business of all honest people.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee expects the support of all to whom
+the interests of the People are dear.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee will be merciless in pursuit of
+speculators and marauders.
+
+THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+
+Petrograd, Dec. 2d, 1917.
+
+9.
+
+PURISHKEVITCH’s LETTER TO KALEDIN
+
+“The situation at Petrograd is desperate. The city is cut off from the
+outside world and is entirely in the power of the Bolsheviki…. People
+are arrested in the streets, thrown into the Neva, drowned and
+imprisoned without any charge. Even Burtzev is shut up in Peter-Paul
+fortress, under strict guard.
+
+“The organisation at whose head I am is working without rest to unite
+all the officers and what is left of the _yunker_ schools, and to arm
+them. The situation cannot be saved except by creating regiments of
+officers and _yunkers._ Attacking with these regiments, and having
+gained a first success, we could later gain the aid of the garrison
+troops; but without that first success it is impossible to count on a
+single soldier, because thousands of them are divided and terrorised by
+the scum which exists in every regiment. Most of the Cossacks are
+tainted by Bolshevik propaganda, thanks to the strange policy of
+General Dutov, who allowed to pass the moment when by decisive action
+something could have been obtained. The policy of negotiations and
+concessions has borne its fruits; all that is respectable is
+persecuted, and it is the _plebe_ and the criminals who dominate—and
+nothing can be done except by shooting and hanging them.
+
+“We are awaiting you here, General, and at the moment of your arrival,
+we shall advance with all the forces at our disposal. But for that we
+must establish some communication with you, and before all, clear up
+the following points:
+
+“(1) Do you know that in your name all officers who could take part in
+the fight are being invited to leave Petrograd on the pretext of
+joining you?
+
+“(2) About when can we count on your arrival at Petrograd? We should
+like to know in order to coordinate our actions.
+
+“In spite of the criminal inaction of the conscious people here, which
+allowed the yoke of Bolshevism to be laid upon us—in spite of the
+extraordinary pig—headedness of the majority of officers, so difficult
+to organise—we believe in spite of all that Truth is on our side, and
+that we shall conquer the vicious and criminal forces who say that they
+are acting for motives of love of country and in order to save it.
+Whatever comes, we shall not permit ourselves to be struck down, and
+shall remain firm until the end.”
+
+Purishkevitch, being brought to trial before the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, was given a short prison term….
+
+10.
+
+DECREE ON THE MONOPOLY OF ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+
+1. The printing of advertisements, in newspapers, books, bill-boards,
+kiosks, in offices and other establishments is declared to be a State
+monopoly.
+
+2. Advertisements may only be published in the organs of the
+Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government at Petrograd, and in the
+organs of local Soviets.
+
+3. The proprietors of newspapers and advertising offices, as well as
+all employees of such establishments, should remain at their posts
+until the transfer of the advertisement business to the Government….
+superintending the uninterrupted continuation of their houses, and
+turning over to the Soviets all private advertising and the sums
+received therefor, as well as all accounts and copy.
+
+4. All managers of publications and businesses dealing with paid
+advertising, as well as their employees and workers, shall agree to
+hold a City Congress, and to join, first the City Trade Unions, and
+then the All-Russian Unions, to organise more thoroughly and justly the
+advertising business in the Soviet publications, as well as to prepare
+better rules for the public utility of advertising.
+
+5. All persons found guilty of having concealed documents or money, or
+having sabotaged the regulations indicated in paragraphs 3 and 4, will
+be punished by a sentence of not more than three years’ imprisonment,
+and all their property will be confiscated.
+
+6. The paid insertion of advertisements…. in private publications, or
+under a masqued form, will also be severely penalised.
+
+7. Advertising offices are confiscated by the Government, the owners
+being entitled to compensation in cases of necessity. Small
+proprietors, depositors and stock-holders of the confiscated
+establishments will be reimbursed for all moneys held by them in the
+concern.
+
+8. All buildings, officers, counters, and in general every
+establishment doing a business in advertising, should immediately
+inform the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of its address,
+and proceed to the transfer of its business, under penalty of the
+punishment indicated in paragraph 5.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People’s
+                        Commissars,_
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _People’s Commissar for Public Instruction,_
+                                        A. V. LUNATCHARSKY.
+
+_Secretary of the Council,_
+
+N. GORBUNOV.
+
+
+11.
+
+OBLIGATORY ORDINANCE
+
+
+1. The city of Petrograd is declared to be in a state of siege.
+
+2. All assemblies, meetings and congregations on the streets and
+squares are prohibited.
+
+3. Attempts to loot wine-cellars, warehouses, factories, stores,
+business premises, private dwellings, etc., etc., _will be stopped by
+machine-gun fire without warning._
+
+4. House Committees, doormen, janitors and Militiamen are charged with
+the duty of keeping strict order in all houses, courtyards and in the
+streets, and house-doors and carriage-entrances must be locked at 9
+o’clock in the evening, and opened at 7 o’clock in the morning. After 9
+o’clock in the evening only tenants may leave the house, under strict
+control of the House Committees.
+
+5. Those guilty of the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of
+alcoholic liquor, and also those guilty of the violation of sections 2
+and 4, will be immediately arrested and subjected to the most severe
+punishment.
+
+Petrograd, 6th of December, 3 o’clock in the night.
+
+_Committee to Fight Against Pogroms, attached to the Executive
+Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies._
+
+12.
+
+TWO PROCLAMATIONS
+
+
+Lenin, To _the People of Russia:_
+
+“Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants—all toilers!
+
+“The Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolution has won at Petrograd, at
+Moscow…. From the Front and the villages arrive every day, every hour,
+greetings to the new Government…. The victory of the Revolution…. is
+assured, seeing that it is sustained by the majority of the people.
+
+“It is entirely understandable that the proprietors and the
+capitalists, the employees and functionaries closely allied with the
+bourgeoisic—in a word, all the rich and all those who join hands with
+them—regard the new Revolution with hostility, oppose its success,
+threaten to halt the activity of the banks, and sabotage or obstruct
+the work of other establishments…. Every conscious worker understands
+perfectly that we cannot avoid this hostility, because the high
+officials have set themselves against the People and do not wish to
+abandon their posts without resistance. But the working classes are not
+for one moment afraid of that resistance. The majority of the people
+are for us. For us are the majority of the workers and the oppressed of
+the whole world. We have justice on our side. Our ultimate victory is
+certain.
+
+“The resistance of the capitalists and high officials will be broken.
+No one will be deprived of his property without a special law on the
+nationalisation of banks and financial syndicates. This law is in
+preparation. Not a worker will lose a single kopek; on the contrary, he
+will be assisted. Without at this moment establishing the new taxes,
+the new Government considers one of its primary duties to make a severe
+accounting and control on the reception of taxes decreed by the former
+régime….
+
+“Comrades workers! Remember that you yourselves direct the Government.
+No one will help you unless you organise yourselves and take into your
+own hands the affairs of the State. Your Soviets are now the organs of
+governmental power…. Strengthen them, establish a severe revolutionary
+control, pitilessly crush the attempts at anarchy on the part of
+drunkards, brigands, counter-revolutionary _yunkers_ and Kornilovists.
+
+“Establish a strict control over production and the accounting for
+products. Arrest and turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal of the
+People every one who injures the property of the People, by sabotage in
+production, by concealment of grain-reserves, reserves of other
+products, by retarding the shipments of grain, by bringing confusion
+into the railroads, the posts and the telegraphs, or in general
+opposing the great work of bringing Peace and transferring the Land to
+the peasants….
+
+“Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants—all toilers!
+
+“Take immediately all local power into your hands…. Little by little,
+with the consent of the majority of peasants, we shall march firmly and
+unhesitatingly toward the victory of Socialism, which will fortify the
+advance-guards of the working-class of the most civilised Countries,
+and give to the peoples an enduring peace, and free them from every
+slavery and every exploitation.”
+
+13.
+
+_“To All Workers of Petrograd!_
+
+“Comrades! The Revolution is winning—the revolution has won. All the
+power has passed over to our Soviets. The first weeks are the most
+difficult ones. The broken reaction must be finally crushed, a full
+triumph must be secured to our endeavours. The working-class ought
+to—must—show in these days THE GREATEST FIRMNESS AND ENDURANCE, in
+order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People’s
+Government of Soviets. In the next few days decrees on the Labour
+question will be issued, and among the very first will be the decree on
+Workers’ Control over the production and regulation of Industry.
+
+“STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE WORKER MASSES IN PETROGRAD NOW CAN
+ONLY DO HARM.
+
+
+“We ask you to cease immediately all economic and political strikes, to
+take up your work, and do it in perfect order. The work in the
+factories and all the industries is necessary for the new Government of
+Soviets, because any interruption of this work will only create new
+difficulties for us, and we have enough as it is. All to your places.
+
+“The best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these days—is
+by doing your job.
+
+“LONG LIVE THE IRON FIRMNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT! LONG LIVE THE
+REVOLUTION!”
+
+
+_Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D._
+
+_Petrograd Council of Trade Unions._
+
+_Petrograd Council of Factory-Shop Committees._
+
+14.
+
+APPEALS AND COUNTER-APPEALS
+
+
+_From the Employees of the State and private Banks To the Population of
+Petrograd:_
+
+“Comrades workers, soldiers and citizens!
+
+“The Military Revolutionary Committee in an ‘extraordinary notice’ is
+accusing the workers of the State and private banking and other
+institutions of ‘impeding the work of the Government, directed towards
+the ensuring of the Front with provisions.’
+
+“Comrades and citizens, do not believe this calumny, brought against
+us, who are part of the general army of labour.
+
+“However difficult it be for us to work under the constant threat of
+interference by acts of violence in our hard-working life, however
+depressing it be to know that our Country and the Revolution are on the
+verge of ruin, we, nevertheless, all of us, from the highest to the
+lowest, employees, _artelshtchiki,_ counters, labourers, couriers,
+etc., are continuing to fulfil our duties which are connected with the
+ensuring of provisions and munitions to the Front and country.
+
+“Counting upon your lack of information, comrades workers and soldiers,
+in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited against
+workers like yourselves, because it is desirable to divert the
+responsibility for the starving and dying brother-soldiers at the Front
+from the guilty persons to the innocent workers who are accomplishing
+their duty under the burden of general poverty and disorganisation.
+
+“REMEMBER, WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! THE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALWAYS STOOD UP FOR
+AND WILL ALWAYS STAND UP FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE TOILING PEOPLE, PART
+OF WHICH THEY ARE THEMSELVES, AND NOT A SINGLE KOPEK NECESSARY FOR THE
+FRONT AND THE WORKERS HAS EVER BEEN DETAINED AND WILL NOT BE DETAINED
+BY THE EMPLOYEES.
+
+
+“From November 6th to November 23d, i.e., during 17 days, 500 million
+rubles were dispatched to the Front, and 120 millions to Moscow,
+besides the sums sent to other towns.
+
+“Keeping guard over the wealth of the people, the master of which can
+be only the Constituent Assembly, representing the whole nation, the
+employees refuse to give out money for purposes which are unknown to
+them.
+
+“DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALUMNIATORS CALLING YOU TO TAKE THE LAW INTO YOUR
+OWN HANDS!”
+
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Union of Employees of the State
+Bank._
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Trade Union of Employees of Credit
+Institutions._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the Population of Petrograd._
+
+“CITIZENS: Do not believe the falsehood which irresponsible people are
+trying to suggest to you by spreading terrible calumnies against the
+employees of the Ministry of Supplies and the workers in other Supply
+organisations who are labouring in these dark days for the salvation of
+Russia. Citizens! In posted placards you are called upon to lynch us,
+we are accused falsely of sabotage and strikes, we are blamed for all
+the woes and misfortunes that the people are suffering, although we
+have been striving indefatigably and uninterruptedly, and are still
+striving, to save the Russian people from the horrors of starvation.
+Notwithstanding all that we are bearing as citizens of unhappy Russia,
+we have not for one hour abandoned our heavy and responsible work of
+supplying the Army and population with provisions.
+
+“The image of the Army, cold and hungry, saving our very existence by
+its blood and its tortures, does not leave us for a single moment.
+
+“Citizens! If we have survived the blackest days in the life and
+history of our people, if we have succeeded in preventing famine in
+Petrograd, if we have managed to procure to the suffering army bread
+and forage by means of enormous, almost superhuman, efforts, it is
+because we have honestly continued and are still continuing to do our
+work….
+
+“To the ‘last warning’ of the usurpers of the power we reply: It is not
+for you who are leading the country to ruin to threaten us who are
+doing all we can not to allow the country to perish. We are not afraid
+of threats; before us stands the sacred image of tortured Russia. We
+will continue our work of supplying the Army and the people with bread
+to our last efforts, so long as you will not prevent us from
+accomplishing our duty to our country. In the contrary case the Army
+and the people will stand before the horrors of famine, but the
+responsibility therefor belongs to the perpetrators of violence.
+
+_Executive Committee of the Employees of the Ministry of Supplies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the_ Tchinovniki (_Government Officials_).
+
+It is notified hereby, that all officials and persons who have quitted
+the service in Government and public institutions or have been
+dismissed for sabotage or for having failed to report for work on the
+day fixed, and who have nevertheless received their salary paid in
+advance for the time they have not served, are bound to return such
+salary not later than on November 27th, 1917, to those institutions
+where they were in service.
+
+In the event of this not being done, these persons will be rendered
+answerable for stealing the Treasury’s property and tried by the
+Military Revolutionary Court.
+
+_The Military-Revolutionary Committee._
+
+December 7th, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_From the Special Board for the Supplies_ CITIZENS
+
+“The conditions of our work for the supplying of Petrograd are getting
+more and more difficult every day.
+
+“The interference with our work—which is so ruinous to our business—of
+the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee is still
+continuing.
+
+“THEIR ARBITRARY ACTS, their annulling of our orders, MAY LEAD TO A
+CATASTROPHE.
+
+“Seals have been affixed to one of the cold storages where the meat and
+butter destined for the population are kept, and we cannot regulate the
+temperature SO THAT THE PRODUCTS WOULD NOT BE SPOILT.
+
+“One carload of potatoes and one carload of cabbages have been seized
+and carried away no one knows where to.
+
+“Cargoes which are not liable to requisition (_khalva_) are
+requisitioned by the Commissars and, as was the case one day, five
+boxes of _khalva_ were seized by the Commissar for his own use.
+
+“WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO DISPOSE OF OUR STORAGES, where the
+self-appointed Commissars do not allow the cargoes to be taken out, and
+terrorise our employees, threatening them with arrest.
+
+“ALL THAT IS GOING ON IN PETROGRAD IS KNOWN IN THE PROVINCES, AND FROM
+THE DON, FROM SIBERIA, FROM VORONEZH AND OTHER PLACES PEOPLE ARE
+REFUSING TO SEND FLOUR AND BREAD.
+
+“THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER.
+
+
+“The work is simply falling out of our hands.
+
+“OUR DUTY is to let the population know of this.
+
+“To the last possibility we will remain on guard of the interests of
+the population.
+
+“WE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO AVOID THE ONCOMING FAMINE, BUT IF UNDER THESE
+DIFFICULT CONDITIONS OUR WORK IS COMPELLED TO STOP, LET THE PEOPLE KNOW
+THAT IT IS NOT OUR FAULT….”
+
+
+15.
+ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN PETROGRAD
+
+
+There were nineteen tickets in Petrograd. The results are as follows,
+published November 30th:
+
+         _Party_                                        _Vote_
+    Populist Socialists                                 19,109
+    Cadets                                              245,006
+    Christian Democrats                                 3,707
+    Bolsheviki                                          424,027
+    Socialist Universalists                             158
+    S. D. and S. R. Ukrainean and Jewish Workers        4,219
+    League of Women’s Rights                            5,310
+    Socialist Revolutionaries (_oborontsi_)             4,696
+    Left Socialist Revolutionaries                      152,230
+    League of the People’s Development                  385
+    Radical Democrats                                   413
+    Orthodox Parishes                                   24,139
+    Feminine League for Salvation of Country            318
+    Independent League of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants   4,942
+    Christian Democrats (Catholic)                      14,382
+    Unified Social Democrats                            11,740
+    Mensheviki                                          17,427
+    _Yedinstvo_ group                                   1,823
+    League of Cossack Troops                            6,712
+
+
+16.
+FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’s COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING COSSACKS
+
+
+_“Brothers-Cossacks._
+
+“You are being deceived. You are being incited against the People. You
+are told that the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies
+are your enemies, that they want to take away your Cossack land, your
+Cossack ‘liberty’. Don’t believe it, Cossacks…. Your own Generals and
+landowners are deceiving you, in order to keep you in darkness and
+slavery. We, the Council of People’s Commissars, address ourselves to
+you, Cossacks, with these words. Read them attentively and judge
+yourselves which is the truth and which is cruel deceit. The life and
+service of a Cossack were always bondage and penal servitude. At the
+first call of the authorities a Cossack always had to saddle his horse
+and ride out on campaign. All his military equipment a Cossack had to
+provide with his own hardly earned means. A Cossack is on service, his
+farm is going to rack and ruin. Is such a condition fair? No, it must
+be altered for ever. THE COSSACKS MUST BE FREED FROM BONDAGE. The new
+People’s Soviet power is willing to come to the assistance of the
+toiling Cossacks. It is only necessary that the Cossacks themselves
+should resolve to abolish the old order, that they should refuse
+submission to their slave-driver officers, land-owners, rich men, that
+they should throw off the cursed yoke from their necks. Arise,
+Cossacks! Unite! The Council of People’s Commissars calls upon you to
+enter a new, fresh, more happy life.
+
+“In November and December in Petrograd there were All-Russian
+Congresses of Soviets of Soldiers’, Workers’, and Peasants’ Deputies.
+These Congresses transferred all the authority in the different
+localities into the hands of the Soviets, i.e., into the hands of men
+elected by the People. From now on there must be in Russia no rulers or
+functionaries who command the People from above and drive them. The
+People create the authority themselves. A General has no more rights
+than a soldier. All are equal. Consider, Cossacks, is this wrong or
+right? We are calling upon you, Cossacks, to join this new order and to
+create your own Soviets of Cossacks’ Deputies. To such Soviets all the
+power must belong in the different localities. Not to _hetmans_ with
+the rank of General, but to the elected representatives of the toiling
+Cossacks, to your own trustworthy reliable men.
+
+“The All-Russian Congresses of Soldiers’, Workers’, and Peasants’
+Deputies have passed a resolution to transfer all landowners’ land into
+the possession of the toiling people. Is not that fair, Cossacks? The
+Kornilovs, Kaledins, Dutovs, Karaulovs, Bardizhes, all defend with
+their whole souls the interests of the rich men, and they are ready to
+drown Russia in blood if only the lands remain in the hands of the
+landowners. But you, the toiling Cossacks, do not you suffer yourselves
+from poverty, oppression and lack of land? How many Cossacks are there
+who have more than 4-5 _dessiatins_ per head? But the landowners, who
+have thousands of _dessiatins_ of their own land, wish besides to get
+into their hands the lands of the Cossack Army. According to the new
+Soviet laws, the lands of Cossack landowners must pass without
+compensation into the hands of the Cossack workers, the poorer
+Cossacks. You are being told that the Soviets wish to take away your
+lands from you. Who is frightening you? The rich Cossacks, who know
+that the Soviet AUTHORITY WISHES TO transfer the landowners’ lands to
+you. Choose then, Cossacks, for whom will you stand: for the Kornilovs
+and Kaledins, for the Generals and rich men, or for the Soviets of
+Peasants’, Soldiers’, Workers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies.
+
+“THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’s COMMISSARS elected by the All-Russian Congress
+HAS PROPOSED TO ALL NATIONS AN IMMEDIATE ARMISTICE AND AN HONOURABLE
+DEMOCRATIC PEACE WITHOUT LOSS OR DETRIMENT TO ANY NATION. All the
+capitalists, landowners, Generals-Kornilovists have risen against the
+peaceful policy of the Soviets. The war was bringing them profits,
+power, distinctions. And to you, Cossack privates? You were perishing
+without reason, without purpose, like your brothers-soldiers and
+sailors. It will soon be three years and a half that this accursed war
+has gone on, a war devised by the capitalists and landowners of all
+countries for their own profit, their world robberies. To the toiling
+Cossacks the war has only brought ruin and death. The war has drained
+all the resources from Cossack farm life. The only salvation for the
+whole of our country and for the Cossacks in particular is a prompt and
+honest peace. The Council of People’s Commissars has declared to all
+Governments and peoples: We do not want other people’s property, and we
+do not wish to give away our own. Peace without annexations and without
+indemnities. Every nation must decide its own fate. There must be no
+oppressing of one nation by another. Such is the honest, democratic,
+People’s peace which the Council of People’s Commissars is proposing to
+all Governments, to all peoples, allies and enemies. And the results
+are visible: ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT AN ARMISTICE HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.
+
+“The soldier’s and the Cossack’s blood is not flowing there any more.
+Now, Cossacks, decide: do you wish to continue this ruinous, senseless,
+criminal slaughter? Then support the Cadets, the enemies of the people,
+support Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, who drove you into the
+offensive of July 1st; support Kornilov, who introduced capital
+punishment for soldiers and Cossacks at the front. BUT IF YOU WISH A
+PROMPT AND HONEST PEACE, THEN ENTER THE RANKS OF THE SOVIETS AND
+SUPPORT THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’s COMMISSARS.
+
+“Your fate, Cossacks, lies in your own hands. Our common foes, the
+landowners, capitalists, officers-Kornilovists, bourgeois newspapers,
+are deceiving you and driving you along the road to ruin. In Orenburg,
+Dutov has arrested the Soviet and disarmed the garrison. Kaledin is
+threatening the Soviets in the province of the Don. He has declared the
+province to be in a state of war and is assembling his troops. Karaulov
+is shooting the local tribes in the Caucasus. The Cadet bourgeoisie is
+supplying them with its millions. Their common aim is to suppress the
+People’s Soviets, to crush the workers and peasants, to introduce again
+the discipline of the whip in the army, and to eternalise the bondage
+of the toiling Cossacks.
+
+“Our revolutionary troops are moving to the Don and the Ural in order
+to put an end to this criminal revolt against the people. The
+commanders of the revolutionary troops have received orders not to
+enter into any negotiations with the mutinous Generals, to act
+decisively and mercilessly.
+
+“Cossacks! On you depends now whether your brothers’ blood is to flow
+still. We are holding out our hand to you. Join the whole people
+against its enemies. Declare Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, Karaulov and all
+their aiders and abettors to be the enemies of the people, traitors and
+betrayers. Arrest them with your own forces and turn them over into the
+hands of the Soviet authority, which will judge them in open and public
+Revolutionary Tribunal. Cossacks! Form Soviets of Cossacks’ Deputies.
+Take into your toil-worn hands the management of all the affairs of the
+Cossacks. Take away the lands of your own wealthy landowners. Take over
+their grain, their inventoried property and live-stock for the
+cultivation of the lands of the toiling Cossacks, who are ruined by the
+war.
+
+“Forward, Cossacks, to the fight for the common cause of the people!
+
+“Long live the toiling Cossacks!
+
+“Long live the union of the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants and
+workers!
+
+“Long live the power of the Soviets of Cossacks’, Soldiers’, Workers’
+and Peasants’ Deputies.
+
+“Down with the war! Down with the landowners and the
+Kornilovist-Generals!
+
+“Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of peoples!”
+
+_Council of People’s Commissars._
+
+17.
+
+FROM THE COMMISSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION ATTACHED TO THE CENTRAL CITY
+DUMA
+
+
+“Comrades Workingmen and Workingwomen!
+
+“A few days before the holidays, a strike has been declared by the
+teachers of the public schools. The teachers side with the bourgeoisie
+against the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.
+
+“Comrades, organise parents’ committees and pass resolutions against
+the strike of the teachers. Propose to the Ward Soviets of Workers’ and
+Soldiers’ Deputies, the Trade Unions, the Factory-Shop and Party
+Committees, to organise protest meetings. Arrange with your own
+resources Christmas trees and entertainments for the children, and
+demand the opening of the schools, after the holidays, at the date
+which will be set by the Duma.
+
+“Comrades, strengthen your position in matters of public education,
+insist on the control of the proletarian organisations over the
+schools.”
+
+_Commission on Public Education attached to the Central City Duma._
+
+18.
+
+DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+
+The notes issued by Trotzky to the Allies and to the neutral powers, as
+well as the note of the Allied military Attachés to General Dukhonin,
+are too voluminous to give here. Moreover they belong to another phase
+of the history of the Soviet Republic, with which this book has nothing
+to do—the foreign relations of the Soviet Government. This I treat at
+length in the next volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.”
+
+19.
+
+APPEALS TO THE FRONT AGAINST DUKHONIN
+
+
+“… The struggle for peace has met with the resistance of the
+bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary Generals…. From the accounts
+in the newspapers, at the _Stavka_ of former Supreme Commander Dukhonin
+are gathering the agents and allies of the bourgeoisie, Verkhovski,
+Avksentiev, Tchernov, Gotz, Tseretelli, etc. It seems even that they
+want to form a new power against the Soviets.
+
+“Comrades soldiers! All the persons we have mentioned have been
+Ministers already. They have acted in accord with Kerensky and the
+bourgeoisie. They are responsible for the offensive of July 1st and for
+the prolongation of the war. They promised the land to the peasants and
+then arrested the Land Committees. They reestablished capital
+punishment for soldiers. They obey the orders of French, English and
+American financiers….
+
+“General Dukhonin, for having refused to obey orders of the Council of
+People’s Commissars, has been dismissed from his position as Supreme
+Commander…. For answer he is circulating among the troops the note from
+the Military Attachés of the Allied imperialist Powers, and attempting
+to provoke a counter-revolution….
+
+“Do not obey Dukhonin! Pay no attention to his provocation! Watch him
+and his group of counter-revolutionary Generals carefully….”
+
+20.
+
+FROM KRYLENKO
+
+
+_Order Number Two_
+
+“… The ex-Supreme Commander, General Dukhonin, for having opposed
+resistance to the execution of orders, for criminal action susceptible
+of provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the People. All
+persons who support Dukhonin will be arrested, without respect to their
+social or political position or their past. Persons equipped with
+special authority will operate these arrests. I charge General
+Manikhovsky with the execution of the above-mentioned dispositions….”
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII
+
+1.
+
+INSTRUCTION TO PEASANTS
+
+
+In answer to the numerous enquiries coming from peasants, it is hereby
+explained that the whole power in the country is from now on held by
+the Soviets of the Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies. The
+Workers’ Revolution, after having conquered in Petrograd and in Moscow,
+is now conquering in all other centres of Russia. The Workers’ and
+Peasants’ Government safeguards the interests of the masses of
+peasantry, the poorest of them; it is with the majority of peasants and
+workers against the landowners, and against the capitalists.
+
+Hence the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, and before all the District
+Soviets, and subsequently those of the Provinces, are from now on and
+until the Constituent Assembly meets, full-powered bodies of State
+authority in their localities. All landlords’ titles to the land are
+cancelled by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. A decree
+regarding the land has already been issued by the present Provisional
+Workers’ and Peasants’ Government. On the basis of the above decree all
+lands hitherto belonging to landlords now pass entirely and wholly into
+the hands of the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies. The _Volost_ (a group
+of several villages forms a _Volost_) Land Committees are immediately
+to take over all land from the landlords, and to keep a strict account
+over it, watching that order be maintained, and that the whole estate
+be well guarded, seeing that from now on all private estates become
+public property and must therefore be protected by the people
+themselves.
+
+All orders given by the _Volost_ Land Committees, adopted with the
+assent of the District Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, in fulfilment of
+the decrees issued by the revolutionary power, are absolutely legal and
+are to be forthwith and irrefutably brought into execution.
+
+The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government appointed by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets has received the name of the Council of
+People’s Commissars.
+
+The Council of People’s Commissars summons the Peasants to take the
+whole power into their hands in every locality.
+
+The workers will in every way absolutely and entirely support the
+peasants, arrange for them all that is required in connection with
+machines and tools, and in return they request the peasants to help
+with the transport of grain.
+
+_President of the Council of People’s Commissars,_ V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Petrograd, November 18th, 1917.
+
+2.
+
+The full-powered Congress of Peasants’ Soviets met about a week later,
+and continued for several weeks. Its history is merely an expanded
+version of the history of the “Extraordinary Conference.” At first the
+great majority of the delegates were hostile to the Soviet Government,
+and supported the reactionary wing. Several days later the assembly was
+supporting the moderates with Tchernov. And several days after that the
+vast majority of the Congress were voting for the faction of Maria
+Spiridonova, and sending their representatives into the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+at Smolny…. The Right Wing then walked out of the Congress and called a
+Congress of its own, which went on, dwindling from day to day, until it
+finally dissolved….
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Ten Days That Shook the World</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Reed</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 16, 2000 [eBook #3076]<br />
+[Most recently updated: March 3, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Norman Wolcott, with corrections by Andrew Sly and Stefan Malte Schumacher</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***</div>
+
+<p class="letter">
+[Redactor&rsquo;s Note: The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices. The
+footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the Appendix No. and
+Section are referred to in the text in parentheses, the Appendices following
+the book text. There are 17 graphic figures in the text. These are indicated by
+a reference to the page number in the original book.]
+</p>
+
+<h1>Ten Days That Shook the World</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by John Reed</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref01">Preface</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#pref02">Notes and Explanations</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">Chapter 1. Background</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">Chapter 2. The Coming Storm</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">Chapter 3. On the Eve</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">Chapter 9. Victory</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">Chapter 10. Moscow</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">Chapter 12. The Peasants&rsquo; Congress</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">Appendices I - XII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref01"></a>Preface</h2>
+
+<p>
+This book is a slice of intensified history&mdash;history as I saw it. It does
+not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November Revolution,
+when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state
+power of Russia and placed it in the hands of the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naturally most of it deals with &ldquo;Red Petrograd,&rdquo; the capital and
+heart of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place in
+Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser intensity, at
+different intervals of time, all over Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine myself to
+a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and experienced, and those
+supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two chapters briefly outlining the
+background and causes of the November Revolution. I am aware that these two
+chapters make difficult reading, but they are essential to an understanding of
+what follows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What is
+Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki set up? If
+the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before the November
+Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms afterward? And if the
+bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly until the danger of Bolshevism
+became apparent, why did they champion it afterward?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another volume,
+&ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,&rdquo; I trace the course of the Revolution
+up to and including the German peace. There I explain the origin and functions
+of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution of popular sentiment, the
+dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the structure of the Soviet state, and
+the course and outcome of the Brest-Litovsk negotiations….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand that
+Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised on November
+7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of a process which
+began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in control of the
+Tsar&rsquo;s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in order to make a
+separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the front, which had caused
+the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the lack of food in the army and in
+the great cities, the break-down of manufactures and transportation in
+1916&mdash;all these we know now were part of a gigantic campaign of sabotage.
+This was halted just in time by the March Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion incident
+upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions of the
+world&rsquo;s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both the
+internal situation and the combative power of the army actually improved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the &ldquo;honeymoon&rdquo; was short. The propertied classes wanted merely
+a political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give it to
+them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like France or the
+United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like England. On the other hand,
+the masses of the people wanted real industrial and agrarian democracy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+William English Walling, in his book, &ldquo;Russia&rsquo;s Message,&rdquo; an
+account of the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
+Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost unanimously:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
+Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they might still
+continue to starve….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent, dogmatic, nor
+unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has studied them, and alone
+of the workers of the world he has learned about them from actual experience.
+He is ready and willing to fight his oppressor, the capitalist class, to a
+finish. But he does not ignore the existence of other classes. He merely asks
+that the other classes take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that
+draws near….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political institutions
+were preferable to their own, but they were not very anxious to exchange one
+despot for another (i.e., the capitalist class)….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
+hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every Russian
+jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in exchange for the
+doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields and Cripple Creek….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
+Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the triumph of
+Bolshevism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information Bureau,
+which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his book, &ldquo;The
+Birth of the Russian Democracy&rdquo;: The Bolsheviks organised their own
+cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotsky&mdash;Minister of
+Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming into power became evident
+almost immediately after the March Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki,
+after the Revolution, is a history of their steady growth….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
+&ldquo;ignorance&rdquo; of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
+political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very well
+trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than twelve million
+members of the Russian consumers&rsquo; Cooperative societies; and the Soviets
+themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their organising genius. Moreover,
+there is probably not a people in the world so well educated in Socialist
+theory and its practical application.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+William English Walling thus characterises them:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and write. For
+many years the country has been in such a disturbed condition that they have
+had the advantage of leadership not only of intelligent individuals in their
+midst, but of a large part of the equally revolutionary educated class, who
+have turned to the working people with their ideas for the political and social
+regeneration of Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by arguing that
+the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a struggle of the
+&ldquo;respectable&rdquo; elements against the brutal attacks of Bolshevism.
+However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they realised the growth in
+power of the popular revolutionary organisations, undertook to destroy them and
+to halt the Revolution. To this end the propertied classes finally resorted to
+desperate measures. In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets,
+transportation was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the
+Factory-Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw materials
+diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital punishment was
+restored and military defeat connived at.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki retorted by
+preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between these two extremes, with the other factions which whole-heartedly or
+half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called &ldquo;moderate&rdquo;
+Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and several smaller
+parties. These groups were also attacked by the propertied classes, but their
+power of resistance was crippled by their theories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that Russia was
+not economically ripe for a social revolution&mdash;that only a
+<i>political</i> revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
+the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any attempt
+to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of which some ruthless
+opportunist might restore the old régime. And so it followed that when the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists were forced to assume the power, they were
+afraid to use it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
+economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with the rest
+of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally, therefore, they agreed
+with the propertied classes that Russia must first be a parliamentary
+state&mdash;though with some improvements on the Western democracies. As a
+consequence, they insisted upon the collaboration of the propertied classes in
+the Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The &ldquo;moderate&rdquo;
+Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers
+being obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while the
+propertied classes grew more and more insistent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise, the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting on the side
+of the propertied classes…. In almost every country in the world to-day the
+same phenomenon is visible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the Bolsheviki were
+the only party in Russia with a constructive program and the power to impose it
+on the country. If they had not succeeded to the Government when they did,
+there is little doubt in my mind that the armies of Imperial Germany would have
+been in Petrograd and Moscow in December, and Russia would again be ridden by a
+Tsar….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government, to speak
+of the Bolshevik insurrection as an &ldquo;adventure.&rdquo; Adventure it was,
+and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon, sweeping into
+history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast
+and simple desires. Already the machinery had been set up by which the land of
+the great estates could be distributed among the peasants. The Factory-Shop
+Committees and the Trade Unions were there to put into operation workers&rsquo;
+control of industry. In every village, town, city, district and province there
+were Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies,
+prepared to assume the task of local administration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the Russian
+Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the rise of the
+Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as historians search the
+records for the minutest details of the story of the Paris Commune, so they
+will want to know what happened in Petrograd in November, 1917, the spirit
+which animated the people, and how the leaders looked, talked and acted. It is
+with this in view that I have written this book.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the story of
+those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious
+reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+J. R.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+New York, January 1st 1919.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="pref02"></a>Notes and Explanations</h2>
+
+<p>
+To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian organisations&mdash;political
+groups, Committees and Central Committees, Soviets, Dumas and Unions&mdash;will
+prove extremely confusing. For this reason I am giving here a few brief
+definitions and explanations.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Political Parties</h3>
+
+<p>
+In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen tickets in
+Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as forty; but the
+following summary of the aims and composition of political parties is limited
+to the groups and factions mentioned in this book. Only the essence of their
+programmes and the general character of their constituencies can be noticed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. <i>Monarchists,</i> of various shades, <i>Octobrists,</i> etc. These
+once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
+underground, or their members joined the <i>Cadets,</i> as the <i>Cadets</i>
+came by degrees to stand for their political programme. Representatives in this
+book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. <i>Cadets.</i> So-called from the initials of its name, Constitutional
+Democrats. Its official name is &ldquo;Party of the People&rsquo;s
+Freedom.&rdquo; Under the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied
+classes, the <i>Cadets</i> were the great party of <i>political</i> reform,
+roughly corresponding to the Progressive Party in America. When the Revolution
+broke out in March, 1917, the <i>Cadets</i> formed the first Provisional
+Government. The <i>Cadet</i> Ministry was overthrown in April because it
+declared itself in favour of Allied imperialistic aims, including the
+imperialistic aims of the Tsar&rsquo;s Government. As the Revolution became
+more and more a <i>social economic</i> Revolution, the <i>Cadets</i> grew more
+and more conservative. Its representatives in this book are: Miliukov, Vinaver,
+Shatsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2a. <i>Group of Public Men.</i> After the <i>Cadets</i> had become unpopular
+through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the <i>Group of
+Public Men</i> was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the <i>Group of Public
+Men</i> were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet. The <i>Group</i>
+declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual leaders were men like
+Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the more &ldquo;modern&rdquo;
+bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were intelligent enough to realise
+that the Soviets must be fought by their own weapon&mdash;economic
+organisation. Typical of the <i>Group:</i> Lianozov, Konovalov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. <i>Populist Socialists,</i> or <i>Trudoviki</i> (Labour Group). Numerically
+a small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the leaders of the
+Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants. Professing to be Socialists,
+the <i>Populists</i> really supported the interests of the petty
+bourgeoisie&mdash;clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By direct descent, inheritors of
+the compromising tradition of the Labour Group in the Fourth Imperial Duma,
+which was composed largely of peasant representatives. Kerensky was the leader
+of the <i>Trudoviki</i> in the Imperial Duma when the Revolution of March,
+1917, broke out. The <i>Populist Socialists</i> are a nationalistic party.
+Their representatives in this book are: Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. <i>Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.</i> Originally Marxian
+Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the question
+of tactics, into two factions&mdash;the Majority (Bolshinstvo), and the
+Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names &ldquo;Bolsheviki&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;Mensheviki&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;members of the majority&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;members of the minority.&rdquo; These two wings became two separate
+parties, both calling themselves &ldquo;Russian Social Democratic Labour
+Party,&rdquo; and both professing to be Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905
+the Bolsheviki were really the minority, becoming again the majority in
+September, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+a. <i>Mensheviki.</i> This party includes all shades of Socialists who believe
+that society must progress by natural evolution toward Socialism, and that the
+working-class must conquer political power first. Also a nationalistic party.
+This was the party of the Socialist intellectuals, which means: all the means
+of education having been in the hands of the propertied classes, the
+intellectuals instinctively reacted to their training, and took the side of the
+propertied classes. Among their representatives in this book are: Dan, Lieber,
+Tseretelli.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+b. <i>Mensheviki Internationalists.</i> The radical wing of the
+<i>Mensheviki,</i> internationalists and opposed to all coalition with the
+propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the conservative
+Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the working-class advocated by
+the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member of this group. Among their leaders:
+Martov, Martinov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+c. <i>Bolsheviki.</i> Now call themselves the <i>Communist Party,</i> in order
+to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; or &ldquo;parliamentary&rdquo; Socialism, which
+dominates the Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all
+countries. The <i>Bolsheviki</i> proposed immediate proletarian insurrection,
+and seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of
+Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources and
+financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly of the factory
+workers, but also of a large section of the poor peasants. The name
+&ldquo;Bolshevik&rdquo; can <i>not</i> be translated by
+&ldquo;Maximalist.&rdquo; The Maximalists are a separate group. (See paragraph
+5b). Among the leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+d. <i>United Social Democrats Internationalists.</i> Also called the <i>Novaya
+Zhizn</i> (New Life) group, from the name of the very influential newspaper
+which was its organ. A little group of intellectuals with a very small
+following among the working-class, except the personal following of Maxim
+Gorky, its leader. Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the
+<i>Mensheviki Internationalists,</i> except that the <i>Novaya Zhizn</i> group
+refused to be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik
+tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives in this
+book: Avilov, Kramarov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+e. <i>Yedinstvo.</i> A very small and dwindling group, composed almost entirely
+of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers of the Russian
+Social Democratic movement in the 80&rsquo;s, and its greatest theoretician.
+Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely patriotic, too conservative even for
+the Mensheviki. After the Bolshevik <i>coup d&rsquo;etat, Yedinstvo</i>
+disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. <i>Socialist Revolutionary party.</i> Called <i>Essaires</i> from the
+initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the peasants, the
+party of the Fighting Organisations&mdash;the Terrorists. After the March
+Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been Socialists. At that time
+it stood for the abolition of private property in land only, the owners to be
+compensated in some fashion. Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of
+peasants forced the <i>Essaires</i> to abandon the &ldquo;compensation&rdquo;
+clause, and led to the younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from
+the main party in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the <i>Left
+Socialist Revolutionary party.</i> The <i>Essaires,</i> who were afterward
+always called by the radical groups <i>&ldquo;Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries,&rdquo;</i> adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki,
+and worked together with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier
+peasants, the intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of
+remote rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of
+shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki. Among their
+leaders mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz, Kerensky, Tchernov,
+&ldquo;Babuschka&rdquo; Breshkovskaya.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+a. <i>Left Socialist Revolutionaries.</i> Although theoretically sharing the
+Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at first were
+reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics. However, the <i>Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries</i> remained in the Soviet Government, sharing the
+Cabinet portfolios, especially that of Agriculture. They withdrew from the
+Government several times, but always returned. As the peasants left the ranks
+of the <i>Essaires</i> in increasing numbers, they joined the <i>Left Socialist
+Revolutionary party,</i> which became the great peasant party supporting the
+Soviet Government, standing for confiscation without compensation of the great
+landed estates, and their disposition by the peasants themselves. Among the
+leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin, Kamkov, Kalagayev.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+b. <i>Maximalists.</i> An off-shoot of the <i>Socialist Revolutionary party</i>
+in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant movement, demanding
+the immediate application of the maximum Socialist programme. Now an
+insignificant group of peasant anarchists.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Parliamentary Procedure</h3>
+
+<p>
+Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental model
+rather than our own. The first action is usually the election of officers and
+the <i>presidium.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>presidium</i> is a presiding committee, composed of representatives of
+the groups and political factions represented in the assembly, in proportion to
+their numbers. The <i>presidium</i> arranges the Order of Business, and its
+members can be called upon by the President to take the chair <i>pro tem.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each question (<i>vopros</i>) is stated in a general way and then debated, and
+at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by the different factions,
+and each one voted on separately. The Order of Business can be, and usually is,
+smashed to pieces in the first half hour. On the plea of
+&ldquo;emergency,&rdquo; which the crowd almost always grants, anybody from the
+floor can get up and say anything on any subject. The crowd controls the
+meeting, practically the only functions of the speaker being to keep order by
+ringing a little bell, and to recognise speakers. Almost all the real work of
+the session is done in caucuses of the different groups and political factions,
+which almost always cast their votes in a body and are represented by
+floor-leaders. The result is, however, that at every important new point, or
+vote, the session takes a recess to enable the different groups and political
+factions to hold a caucus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers, over-riding the
+plans of the <i>presidium.</i> Among the customary cries are:
+<i>&ldquo;Prosim!</i> Please! Go on!&rdquo; <i>&ldquo;Pravilno!&rdquo;</i> or
+<i>&ldquo;Eto vierno!</i> That&rsquo;s true! Right!&rdquo; <i>&ldquo;Do
+volno!</i> Enough!&rdquo; <i>&ldquo;Doloi!</i> Down with him!&rdquo;
+<i>&ldquo;Posor!</i> Shame!&rdquo; and <i>&ldquo;Teesche!</i> Silence! Not so
+noisy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3>Popular Organisations</h3>
+
+<p>
+1. <i>Soviet.</i> The word <i>soviet</i> means &ldquo;council.&rdquo; Under the
+Tsar the Imperial Council of State was called <i>Gosudarstvennyi Soviet.</i>
+Since the Revolution, however, the term <i>Soviet</i> has come to be associated
+with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class economic
+organisations&mdash;the Soviet of Workers&rsquo;, of Soldiers&rsquo;, or of
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these bodies,
+and wherever else it occurs I have translated it &ldquo;Council.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the local <i>Soviets,</i> elected in every city, town and village of
+Russia&mdash;and in large cities, also Ward <i>(Raionny)
+Soviets</i>&mdash;there are also the <i>oblastne</i> or <i>gubiernsky</i>
+(district or provincial) <i>Soviets,</i> and the Central Executive Committee of
+the All-Russian <i>Soviets</i> in the capital, called from its initials
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> (See below, &ldquo;Central Committees&rdquo;).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost everywhere the <i>Soviets</i> of Workers&rsquo; and of Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special matters
+concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers&rsquo; and the
+Soldiers&rsquo; Sections continued to meet separately. The <i>Soviets</i> of
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies did not join the other two until after the Bolshevik
+<i>coup d&rsquo;etat.</i> They, too, were organised like the workers and
+soldiers, with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian Peasants&rsquo;
+<i>Soviets</i> in the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. <i>Trade Unions.</i> Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian labour
+unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the Bolshevik
+Revolution had from three to four million members. These Unions were also
+organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian Federation of Labour, which
+had its Central Executive Committee in the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. <i>Factory-Shop Committees.</i> These were spontaneous organisations created
+in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control industry, taking
+advantage of the administrative break-down incident upon the Revolution. Their
+function was by revolutionary action to take over and run the factories. The
+<i>Factory-Shop Committees</i> also had their All-Russian organisation, with a
+Central Committee at Petrograd, which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. <i>Dumas.</i> The word <i>duma</i> means roughly &ldquo;deliberative
+body.&rdquo; The old Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the
+Revolution, in a democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917.
+The <i>City Duma</i> referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal
+Council, often called &ldquo;Municipal Self-Government.&rdquo; It was elected
+by direct and secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the masses
+during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in influence of all
+purely <i>political</i> representation in the fact of the growing power of
+organisations based on <i>economic</i> groups.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. <i>Zemstvos.</i> May be roughly translated &ldquo;county councils.&rdquo;
+Under the Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little
+administrative power, developed and controlled largely by intellectual Liberals
+among the land-owning classes. Their most important function was education and
+social service among the peasants. During the war the <i>Zemstvos</i> gradually
+took over the entire feeding and clothing of the Russian Army, as well as the
+buying from foreign countries, and work among the soldiers generally
+corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C. A. at the Front. After the
+March Revolution the <i>Zemstvos</i> were democratized, with a view to making
+them the organs of local government in the rural districts. But like the
+<i>City Dumas,</i> they could not compete with the <i>Soviets.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. <i>Cooperatives.</i> These were the workers&rsquo; and peasants&rsquo;
+Consumers&rsquo; Cooperative societies, which had several million members all
+over Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported
+by the revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
+complete transference of means of production and distribution into the hands of
+the workers. After the March Revolution the <i>Cooperatives</i> spread rapidly,
+and were dominated by Populist Socialists, Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, and acted as a conservative political force until the
+Bolshevik Revolution. However, it was the <i>Cooperatives</i> which fed Russia
+when the old structure of commerce and transportation collapsed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. <i>Army Committees.</i> The <i>Army Committees</i> were formed by the
+soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old regime
+officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps had its
+committee, over all of which was elected the <i>Army Committee.</i> The
+<i>Central Army Committee</i> cooperated with the General Staff. The
+administrative break-down in the army incident upon the Revolution threw upon
+the shoulders of the <i>Army Committees</i> most of the work of the
+Quartermaster&rsquo;s Department, and in some cases, even the command of
+troops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. <i>Fleet Committees.</i> The corresponding organisations in the Navy.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Central Committees</h3>
+
+<p>
+In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every sort of
+organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national congresses of
+Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, Trade Unions,
+Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees&mdash;besides every branch
+of the military and naval service, Cooperatives, Nationalities, etc. Each of
+these conventions elected a Central Committee, or a Central Executive
+Committee, to guard its particular interests at the seat of Government. As the
+Provisional Government grew weaker, these Central Committees were forced to
+assume more and more administrative powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Union of Unions.</i> During the Revolution of 1905, Professor Miliukov and
+other Liberals established unions of professional men&mdash;doctors, lawyers,
+physicians, etc. These were united under one central organisation, the <i>Union
+of Unions.</i> In 1905 the <i>Union of Unions</i> acted with the revolutionary
+democracy; in 1917, however, the <i>Union of Unions</i> opposed the Bolshevik
+uprising, and united the Government employees who went on strike against the
+authority of the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies. So called from the initials of its
+name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Tsentroflot.</i> &ldquo;Centre-Fleet&rdquo;&mdash;the Central Fleet
+Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Vikzhel.</i> All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers&rsquo;
+Union. So called from the initials of its name.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Other Organisations</h3>
+
+<p>
+<i>Red Guards.</i> The armed factory workers of Russia. The <i>Red Guards</i>
+were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into existence
+again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed to keep order in the
+city. At that time they were armed, and all efforts of the Provisional
+Government to disarm them were more or less unsuccessful. At every great crisis
+in the Revolution the <i>Red Guards</i> appeared on the streets, untrained and
+undisciplined, but full of Revolutionary zeal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>White Guards.</i> Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last stages of
+the Revolution, to defend private property from the Bolshevik attempt to
+abolish it. A great many of them were University students.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Tekhintsi.</i> The so-called &ldquo;Savage Division&rdquo; in the army, made
+up of Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to General
+Kornilov. The <i>Tekhintsi</i> were noted for their blind obedience and their
+savage cruelty in warfare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Death Battalions.</i> Or <i>Shock Battalions.</i> The Women&rsquo;s
+Battalion is known to the world as the <i>Death Battalion,</i> but there were
+many <i>Death Battalions</i> composed of men. These were formed in the summer
+of 1917 by Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline and
+combative fire of the army by heroic example. The <i>Death Battalions</i> were
+composed mostly of intense young patriots. These came for the most part from
+among the sons of the propertied classes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Union of Officers.</i> An organisation formed among the reactionary officers
+in the army to combat politically the growing power of the Army Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Knights of St. George.</i> The Cross of St. George was awarded for
+distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
+<i>&ldquo;Knight of St. George.&rdquo;</i> The predominant influence in the
+organisation was that of the supporters of the military idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Peasants&rsquo; Union.</i> In 1905, the <i>Peasants&rsquo; Union</i> was a
+revolutionary peasants&rsquo; organisation. In 1917, however, it had become the
+political expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight the growing
+power and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Chronology and Spelling</h3>
+
+<p>
+I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the former
+Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt to follow
+any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to give the spelling
+which would lead the English-speaking reader to the simplest approximation of
+their pronunciation.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Sources</h3>
+
+<p>
+Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also relied,
+however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred assorted Russian
+newspapers, covering almost every day of the time described, of files of the
+English paper, the <i>Russian Daily News,</i> and of the two French papers,
+<i>Journal de Russie</i> and <i>Entente.</i> But far more valuable than these
+is the <i>Bulletin de la Presse</i> issued daily by the French Information
+Bureau in Petrograd, which reports all important happenings, speeches and the
+comment of the Russian press. Of this I have an almost complete file from the
+spring of 1917 to the end of January, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every proclamation,
+decree and announcement posted on the walls of Petrograd from the middle of
+September, 1917, to the end of January, 1918. Also the official publication of
+all Government decrees and orders, and the official Government publication of
+the secret treaties and other documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs when the Bolsheviki took it over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ten Days That Shook The World
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Chapter I<br />
+Background</h2>
+
+<p>
+Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology visiting
+Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by business men and
+intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down. The Professor wrote an
+article about it, and then travelled around the country, visiting factory towns
+and peasant communities&mdash;where, to his astonishment, the Revolution seemed
+to be speeding up. Among the wage-earners and the land-working people it was
+common to hear talk of &ldquo;all land to the peasants, all factories to the
+workers.&rdquo; If the Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the
+whole Army talking Peace….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both observations were
+correct. The property-owning classes were becoming more conservative, the
+masses of the people more radical.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a feeling among business men and the <i>intelligentzia</i> generally
+that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted too long; that things
+should settle down. This sentiment was shared by the dominant
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist groups, the <i>oborontsi</i> (See App. I,
+Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who supported the
+Provisional Government of Kerensky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 14th the official organ of the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists
+said:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old régime and the
+creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long enough. Now it is time
+to go on to the second, and to play it as rapidly as possible. As a great
+revolutionist put it, &ldquo;Let us hasten, friends, to terminate the
+Revolution. He who makes it last too long will not gather the fruits….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a stubborn
+feeling that the &ldquo;first act&rdquo; was not yet played out. On the front
+the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who could not get used
+to treating their men like human beings; in the rear the Land Committees
+elected by the peasants were being jailed for trying to carry out Government
+regulations concerning the land; and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the
+factories were fighting black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning
+political exiles were being excluded from the country as
+&ldquo;undesirable&rdquo; citizens; and in some cases, men who returned from
+abroad to their villages were prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts
+committed in 1905.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the multiform discontent of the people the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists
+had one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet in
+December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The Constituent Assembly
+was all well and good; but there were certain definite things for which the
+Russian Revolution had been made, and for which the revolutionary martyrs
+rotted in their stark Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field, that must be achieved
+Constituent Assembly or no Constituent Assembly: Peace, Land, and
+Workers&rsquo; Control of Industry. The Constituent Assembly had been postponed
+and postponed&mdash;would probably be postponed again, until the people were
+calm enough&mdash;perhaps to modify their demands! At any rate, here were eight
+months of the Revolution gone, and little enough to show for it….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply deserting,
+the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great estates, the workers
+sabotaged and struck…. Of course, as was natural, the manufacturers,
+land-owners and army officers exerted all their influence against any
+democratic compromise….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between ineffective reforms
+and stern repressive measures. An edict from the Socialist Minister of Labour
+ordered all the Workers&rsquo; Committees henceforth to meet only after working
+hours. Among the troops at the front, &ldquo;agitators&rdquo; of opposition
+political parties were arrested, radical newspapers closed down, and capital
+punishment applied&mdash;to revolutionary propagandists. Attempts were made to
+disarm the Red Guard. Cossacks were sent to keep order in the provinces….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These measures were supported by the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists and
+their leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate with
+the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and went over to the
+Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers&rsquo; Control of Industry,
+and a Government of the working-class. In September, 1917, matters reached a
+crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists succeeded in establishing a Government of
+Coalition with the propertied classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An article in <i>Rabotchi Put</i> (Workers&rsquo; Way) about the middle of
+October, entitled &ldquo;The Socialist Ministers,&rdquo; expressed the feeling
+of the masses of the people against the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General Polovtsev,
+checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of capital punishment in
+the army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their profits,
+and finished&mdash;and finished by an attempt to dissolve the Workers&rsquo;
+Committees in the shops and factories.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the Land
+Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers&rsquo; and soldiers&rsquo;
+newspapers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tchernov: signed the &ldquo;Imperial&rdquo; manifest, ordering the dissolution
+of the Finnish Diet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this saviour of
+the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due to reasons over which
+he had no control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the best
+workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his services
+is too long….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
+resolution which began as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional Government of
+the &ldquo;Socialist,&rdquo; the political adventurer&mdash;Kerensky, as one
+who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it the
+revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on behalf of the
+bourgeoisie….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers beating
+upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma to assume the
+supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the people, workers, soldiers and
+peasants, which forced every change in the course of the Revolution. They
+hurled the Miliukov Ministry down; it was their Soviet which proclaimed to the
+world the Russian peace terms&mdash;&ldquo;No annexations, no indemnities, and
+the right of self-determination of peoples&rdquo;; and again, in July, it was
+the spontaneous rising of the unorganised proletariat which once more stormed
+the Tauride Palace, to demand that the Soviets take over the Government of
+Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the head of the
+movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the rising, public opinion
+turned against them, and their leaderless hordes slunk back into the Viborg
+Quarter, which is Petrograd&rsquo;s <i>St. Antoine.</i> Then followed a savage
+hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds were imprisoned, among them Trotzky, Madame
+Kollontai and Kameniev; Lenin and Zinoviev went into hiding, fugitives from
+justice; the Bolshevik papers were suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries
+raised the cry that the Bolsheviki were German agents, until people all over
+the world believed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate its
+accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were discovered to be
+forgeries;[1] and one by one the Bolsheviki were released from prison without
+trial, on nominal or no bail-until only six remained. The impotence and
+indecision of the ever-changing Provisional Government was an argument nobody
+could refute. The Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses,
+&ldquo;All Power to the Soviets!&rdquo;&mdash;and they were not merely
+self-seeking, for at that time the majority of the Soviets was
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist, their bitter enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[1] Part of the famous &ldquo;Sisson Documents&rdquo;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate programme. And so,
+while the <i>oborontsi</i> Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries involved
+themselves in compromise with the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki rapidly captured
+the Russian masses. In July they were hunted and despised; by September the
+metropolitan workmen, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had
+been won almost entirely to their cause. The September municipal elections in
+the large cities (See App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18 per cent of
+the returns were Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary, against more than 70
+per cent in June….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact that the
+Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central Army and Fleet
+Committees,[2] and the Central Committees of some of the Unions&mdash;notably,
+the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway Workers&mdash;opposed the
+Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These Central Committees had all been
+elected in the middle of the summer, or even before, when the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries had an enormous following; and they delayed or
+prevented any new elections. Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets
+of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, the All-Russian Congress
+<i>should have been called in September;</i> but the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>[2]
+would not call the meeting, on the ground that the Constituent Assembly was
+only two months away, at which time, they hinted, the Soviets would abdicate.
+Meanwhile, one by one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the local Soviets all
+over the country, in the Union branches and the ranks of the soldiers and
+sailors. The Peasants&rsquo; Soviets remained still conservative, because in
+the sluggish rural districts political consciousness developed slowly, and the
+Socialist Revolutionary party had been for a generation the party which had
+agitated among the peasants…. But even among the peasants a revolutionary wing
+was forming. It showed itself clearly in October, when the left wing of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries split off, and formed a new political faction, the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[2] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of reaction were
+gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the Troitsky Farce theatre in
+Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called <i>Sins of the Tsar</i> was
+interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who threatened to lynch the actors for
+&ldquo;insulting the Emperor.&rdquo; Certain newspapers began to sigh for a
+&ldquo;Russian Napoleon.&rdquo; It was the usual thing among bourgeois
+<i>intelligentzia</i> to refer to the Soviets of Workers&rsquo; Deputies
+(Rabotchikh Deputatov) as <i>Sabatchikh</i> Deputatov&mdash;Dogs&rsquo;
+Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist, Stepan
+Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the &ldquo;Russian Rockefeller&rdquo;&mdash;a
+Cadet by political faith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Revolution,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is a sickness. Sooner or later the
+foreign powers must intervene here&mdash;as one would intervene to cure a sick
+child, and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less improper,
+but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in their own
+countries&mdash;such contagious ideas as &lsquo;proletarian
+dictatorship,&rsquo; and &lsquo;world social revolution&rsquo;… There is a
+chance that this intervention may not be necessary. Transportation is
+demoralised, the factories are closing down, and the Germans are advancing.
+Starvation and defeat may bring the Russian people to their senses….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it would be
+impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the existence of the
+workers&rsquo; Shop Committees, or to allow the workers any share in the
+management of industry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
+methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege declared,
+and the military commander of the district can deal with these gentlemen
+without legal formalities…. <i>Or if, for example, the Constituent Assembly
+manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be dispersed by force of
+arms….&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winter was coming on&mdash;the terrible Russian winter. I heard business men
+speak of it so: &ldquo;Winter was always Russia&rsquo;s best friend. Perhaps
+now it will rid us of Revolution.&rdquo; On the freezing front miserable armies
+continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways were breaking
+down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses cried out that
+the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people, causing defeat on the
+Front. Riga had been surrendered just after General Kornilov said publicly,
+&ldquo;Must we pay with Riga the price of bringing the country to a sense of
+its duty?&rdquo;[3]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[3] See &ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk&rdquo; by John Reed. Boni and
+Liveright N.Y., 1919.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to such a
+pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern Front who frankly
+preferred military disaster to cooperation with the Soldiers&rsquo; Committees.
+The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the Cadet party told me that the
+break-down of the country&rsquo;s economic life was part of a campaign to
+discredit the Revolution. An Allied diplomat, whose name I promised not to
+mention, confirmed this from his own knowledge. I know of certain coal-mines
+near Kharkov which were fired and flooded by their owners, of textile factories
+at Moscow whose engineers put the machinery out of order when they left, of
+railroad officials caught by the workers in the act of crippling locomotives….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to the
+Revolution&mdash;even to the Provisional Government&mdash;and didn&rsquo;t
+hesitate to say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
+conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of the
+Germans, bringing &ldquo;law and order.&rdquo;… One evening I spent at the
+house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at the table
+whether they preferred &ldquo;Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki.&rdquo; The vote was
+ten to one for Wilhelm…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to pile up
+fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the corruption of
+Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded, or secretly sent out of
+the country to Sweden. In the first four months of the Revolution, for example,
+the reserve food-supplies were almost openly looted from the great Municipal
+warehouses of Petrograd, until the two-years&rsquo; provision of grain had
+fallen to less than enough to feed the city for one month…. According to the
+official report of the last Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government,
+coffee was bought wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles a pound, and the
+consumer in Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the stores of the large cities were
+tons of food and clothing; but only the rich could buy them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
+speculator&mdash;<i>maradior</i> (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The
+three sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
+foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to mysterious parties
+in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest in a chocolate factory,
+which supplied the local Cooperative societies&mdash;on condition that the
+Cooperatives furnished him everything he needed. And so, while the masses of
+the people got a quarter pound of black bread on their bread cards, he had an
+abundance of white bread, sugar, tea, candy, cake and butter…. Yet when the
+soldiers at the front could no longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion,
+how indignantly did this family scream &ldquo;Cowards!&rdquo;&mdash;how
+&ldquo;ashamed&rdquo; they were &ldquo;to be Russians&rdquo;… When finally the
+Bolsheviki found and requisitioned vast hoarded stores of provisions, what
+&ldquo;Robbers&rdquo; they were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces, unchanged
+since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and very active. The agents
+of the notorious <i>Okhrana</i> still functioned, for and against the Tsar, for
+and against Kerensky&mdash;whoever would pay…. In the darkness, underground
+organisations of all sorts, such as the Black Hundreds, were busy attempting to
+restore reaction in some form or other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear note
+sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki, &ldquo;All Power
+to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of millions on millions
+of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land, bread, an end to the senseless
+war, an end to secret diplomacy, speculation, treachery…. The Revolution is in
+danger, and with it the cause of the people all over the world!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between the Soviets
+and the Government, which had begun in the first March days, was about to
+culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the Middle Ages into the twentieth
+century, Russia showed the startled world two systems of Revolution&mdash;the
+political and the social&mdash;in mortal combat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after all these
+months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie should have better
+known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia will the &ldquo;sickness&rdquo;
+of Revolution have run its course….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of another age,
+almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt ourselves to the newer,
+swifter life; just as Russian politics swung bodily to the Left&mdash;until the
+Cadets were outlawed as &ldquo;enemies of the people,&rdquo; Kerensky became a
+&ldquo;counter-revolutionist,&rdquo; the &ldquo;middle&rdquo; Socialist
+leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were too reactionary for
+their following, and men like Victor Tchernov, and even Maxim Gorky, belonged
+to the Right Wing….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist Revolutionary leaders
+paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador, and
+implored him not to mention the fact that they had been there, because they
+were &ldquo;considered too far Right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; said Sir George. &ldquo;One year ago my Government
+instructed me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously
+Left!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+September and October are the worst months of the Russian year&mdash;especially
+the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the shortening days, the rain
+fell drenching, incessant. The mud underfoot was deep, slippery and clinging,
+tracked everywhere by heavy boots, and worse than usual because of the complete
+break-down of the Municipal administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from
+the Gulf of Finland, and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At night,
+for motives of economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the street-lights were few
+and far between; in private dwellings and apartment-houses the electricity was
+turned on from six o&rsquo;clock until midnight, with candles forty cents
+apiece and little kerosene to be had. It was dark from three in the afternoon
+to ten in the morning. Robberies and housebreakings increased. In apartment
+houses the men took turns at all-night guard duty, armed with loaded rifles.
+This was under the Provisional Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell from a
+pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a quarter-pound.
+Toward the end there was a week without any bread at all. Sugar one was
+entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month&mdash;if one could get it at all,
+which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a pound of tasteless candy cost
+anywhere from seven to ten rubles&mdash;at least a dollar. There was milk for
+about half the babies in the city; most hotels and private houses never saw it
+for months. In the fruit season apples and pears sold for a little less than a
+ruble apiece on the street-corner….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in <i>queue</i> long
+hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I have seen the
+<i>kvost</i> (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly women, some with
+babies in their arms…. Carlyle, in his <i>French Revolution,</i> has described
+the French people as distinguished above all others by their faculty of
+standing in <i>queue.</i> Russia had accustomed herself to the practice, begun
+in the reign of Nicholas the Blessed as long ago as 1915, and from then
+continued intermittently until the summer of 1917, when it settled down as the
+regular order of things. Think of the poorly-clad people standing on the
+iron-white streets of Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter! I have
+listened in the bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of discontent which
+from time to time burst up through the miraculous goodnature of the Russian
+crowd….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays. Karsavina
+appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving Russia coming to see
+her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky they were reviving
+Meyerhold&rsquo;s production of Tolstoy&rsquo;s &ldquo;Death of Ivan the
+Terrible&rdquo;; and at that performance I remember noticing a student of the
+Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up correctly between
+the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its eagles all erased…. The
+<i>Krivoye Zerkalo</i> staged a sumptuous version of Schnitzler&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Reigen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated to
+Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the female
+<i>intelligentzia</i> went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and the Easy
+Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for Theosophists. And the
+Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the first time in history, plastered the
+walls with announcements of gospel meetings, which amused and astounded Russian
+audiences….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went on, ignoring
+the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made verses&mdash;but not about
+the Revolution. The realistic painters painted scenes from mediæval Russian
+history&mdash;anything but the Revolution. Young ladies from the provinces came
+up to the capital to learn French and cultivate their voices, and the gay young
+beautiful officers wore their gold-trimmed crimson <i>bashliki</i> and their
+elaborate Caucasian swords around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of the minor
+bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon, carrying each her
+little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and half a loaf of bread in her
+muff, and wished that the Tsar were back, or that the Germans would come, or
+anything that would solve the servant problem…. The daughter of a friend of
+mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car
+conductor had called her &ldquo;Comrade!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The servants
+one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were getting
+independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles, and as wages
+averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants refused to stand in
+<i>queue</i> and wear out their shoes. But more than that. In the new Russia
+every man and woman could vote; there were working-class newspapers, saying new
+and startling things; there were the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The
+<i>izvoshtchiki</i> (cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in
+the Petrograd Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and
+refused tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which read,
+&ldquo;No tips taken here&mdash;&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Just because a man has to
+make his living waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a
+tip!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers, and learned
+self-government through their committees. In the factories those unique Russian
+organisations, the Factory-Shop Committees,[4] gained experience and strength
+and a realisation of their historical mission by combat with the old order. All
+Russia was learning to read, and <i>reading</i>&mdash;politics, economics,
+history&mdash;because the people wanted to <i>know….</i> In every city, in most
+towns, along the Front, each political faction had its
+newspaper&mdash;sometimes several. Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were
+distributed by thousands of organisations, and poured into the armies, the
+villages, the factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long
+thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny
+Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons, car-loads,
+train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter
+like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And it was not fables, falsified
+history, diluted religion, and the cheap fiction that corrupts&mdash;but social
+and economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[4] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle&rsquo;s &ldquo;flood of French
+speech&rdquo; was a mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches&mdash;in
+theatres, circuses, school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union
+headquarters, barracks…. Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village
+squares, factories…. What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
+Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social Democrats,
+Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever they had to say, as
+long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd, and all over Russia, every
+street-corner was a public tribune. In railway trains, street-cars, always the
+spurting up of impromptu debate, everywhere….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the men of two
+continents&mdash;conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives, Zemstvos,[5]
+nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the Democratic Conference,
+the Moscow Conference, the Council of the Russian Republic. There were always
+three or four conventions going on in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to
+limit the time of speakers voted down, and every man free to express the
+thought that was in him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[5] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where gaunt and
+bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and when they saw us
+they started up, with their pinched faces and the flesh showing blue through
+their torn clothing, demanding eagerly, &ldquo;Did you bring anything to
+<i>read?&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what though the
+statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky Theatre bore a little
+red flag in its hand, and others&mdash;somewhat faded&mdash;floated from all
+public buildings; and the Imperial monograms and eagles were either torn down
+or covered up; and in place of the fierce <i>gorodovoye</i> (city police) a
+mild-mannered and unarmed citizen militia patrolled the streets&mdash;still,
+there were many quaint anachronisms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For example, Peter the Great&rsquo;s _Tabel o Rangov&mdash;_Table of
+Ranks&mdash;which he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway.
+Almost everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with the
+insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about five
+o&rsquo;clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old gentlemen
+in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the huge, barrack-like
+Ministries or Government institutions, calculating perhaps how great a
+mortality among their superiors would advance them to the coveted <i>tchin</i>
+(rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy Councillor, with the prospect of
+retirement on a comfortable pension, and possibly the Cross of St. Anne….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution came to a
+meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was not admitted because
+he did not wear the prescribed livery of the Tsar&rsquo;s service!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and disintegration
+that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses unrolled….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>Chapter II<br />
+The Coming Storm</h2>
+
+<p>
+In September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself military
+dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the mailed fist of the
+bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the Revolution. Some of the Socialist
+Ministers were implicated; even Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II,
+Sect. 1) Savinkov, summoned to explain to the Central Committee of his party,
+the Socialist Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was arrested
+by the Soldiers&rsquo; Committees. Generals were dismissed, Ministers suspended
+from their functions, and the Cabinet fell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party of the
+bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries, ordered him to exclude
+the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and threatened to resign from the
+Cabinet if the Socialists insisted. However, popular feeling ran so high that
+for the moment he did not dare oppose it, and a temporary Directorate of Five
+of the old Ministers, with Kerensky at the head, assumed the power until the
+question should be settled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist
+groups&mdash;&ldquo;moderates&rdquo; as well as revolutionists&mdash;in a
+passionate impulse of self-defence. There must be no more Kornilovs. A new
+Government must be created, responsible to the elements supporting the
+Revolution. So the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> invited the popular organisations to send
+delegates to a Democratic Conference, which should meet at Petrograd in
+September.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> three factions immediately appeared. The Bolsheviki
+demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be summoned, and that they
+take over the power. The &ldquo;centre&rdquo; Socialist Revolutionaries, led by
+Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and
+Spiridonova, the Mensheviki Internationalists under Martov, and the
+&ldquo;centre&rdquo; Mensheviki,[6] represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in
+demanding a purely Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the
+head of the right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries
+under Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be
+represented in the new Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[6] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, and
+the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities followed suit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> decided that after all they feared the danger of Kornilov
+less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of representation in the
+Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2) admitting more delegates from the
+Cooperative Societies and other conservative bodies. Even this packed assembly
+at first voted for a <i>Coalition Government without the Cadets.</i> Only
+Kerensky&rsquo;s open threat of resignation, and the alarming cries of the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists that &ldquo;the Republic is in danger&rdquo;
+persuaded the Conference, by a small majority, to declare in favour of the
+principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to sanction the establishment
+of a sort of consultative Parliament, without any legislative power, called the
+Provisional Council of the Russian Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied
+classes practically controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they
+occupied a disproportionate number of seats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact is that the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> no longer represented the rank and file
+of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, due in September. It had no intention of calling this Congress or
+of allowing it to be called. Its official organ, <i>Izviestia</i> (News), began
+to hint that the function of the Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II,
+Sect. 3) and that they might soon be dissolved… At this time, too, the new
+Government announced as part of its policy the liquidation of
+&ldquo;irresponsible organisations&rdquo;&mdash;i.e. the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to meet at
+Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of Russia. At the same
+time they withdrew from the Council of the Russian Republic, stating that they
+would not participate in a &ldquo;Government of Treason to the People.&rdquo;
+(See App. II, Sect. 4)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring tranquillity to the
+ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now in a position of power, became
+arrogant. The Cadets declared that the Government had no legal right to declare
+Russia a republic. They demanded stern measures in the Army and Navy to destroy
+the Soldiers&rsquo; and Sailors&rsquo; Committees, and denounced the Soviets.
+On the other side of the chamber the Mensheviki Internationalists and the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries advocated immediate peace, land to the peasants, and
+workers&rsquo; control of industry&mdash;practically the Bolshevik programme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I heard Martov&rsquo;s speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the desk of
+the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking in a voice so
+hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger toward the right benches:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait for a
+more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon postponing peace until
+later, until nothing is left of the Russian army, until Russia becomes the
+subject of bargaining between the different imperialist groups…. You are trying
+to impose upon the Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the
+bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay…. You will
+see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom you call German
+agents, of those Zimmerwaldists[7] who in all the lands have prepared the
+awakening of the conscience of the democratic masses….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[7] Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the Socialists of
+Europe, so-called because of their participation in the International
+Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland, in 1915.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries wavered,
+irresistibly forced to the left by the pressure of the rising dissatisfaction
+of the masses. Deep hostility divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the Allied
+Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of foreign policy….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the earliest
+possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May, 1917, the Petrograd
+Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, had
+proclaimed the famous Russian peace-conditions. They had demanded that the
+Allies hold a conference to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised
+for August; then postponed until September; then until October; and now it was
+fixed for November 10th.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government suggested two representatives&mdash;General
+Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of Foreign
+Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and drew up a manifesto,
+the famous <i>nakaz</i>&mdash;(See App. II, Sect. 5) instructions. The
+Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and his <i>nakaz;</i> the Allied
+ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law in the British House of Commons, in
+answer to a question, responded coldly, &ldquo;As far as I know the Paris
+Conference will not discuss the aims of the war at all, but only the methods of
+conducting it….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the Bolsheviki cried,
+&ldquo;See where the compromising tactics of the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries have led them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia&rsquo;s armies
+stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their hundreds upon
+hundreds of delegations, crying &ldquo;Peace! Peace!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great popular
+meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous night after night. The
+bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny lights hanging from a thin wire,
+was packed from the ring up the steep sweep of grimy benches to the very
+roof&mdash;soldiers, sailors, workmen, women, all listening as if their lives
+depended upon it. A soldier was speaking&mdash;from the Five Hundred and
+Forty-eight Division, wherever and whatever that was:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades,&rdquo; he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face
+and despairing gestures. &ldquo;The people at the top are always calling upon
+us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left
+unmolested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve on
+our Staff? Well we&rsquo;re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we invite
+them into our Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The soldier says, &lsquo;Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
+Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the
+capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the
+Revolution then I&rsquo;ll go out and fight without capital punishment to force
+me.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers,
+and the power to the Soviets, then we&rsquo;ll know we have something to fight
+for, and we&rsquo;ll fight for it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less soldier
+speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring that if the
+Government did not make an energetic effort to get peace, the army would leave
+the trenches and go home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must give
+us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be left only empty
+trenches. Peace or supplies… either let the Government end the war or support
+the Army….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to the
+enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
+counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the Revolution
+would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even to talk of such
+things, and at the same time doesn&rsquo;t give us enough food to live on, or
+enough ammunition to fight with….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See App. II, Sect.
+6)…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the discontent. The
+First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with Soldiers&rsquo;
+Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused an order to go to
+Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had been surrounded and starved,
+and then fired on by artillery, and many killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the Marinsky
+palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear Terestchenko&rsquo;s
+declaration of the Government&rsquo;s foreign policy, awaited with such
+terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and exhausted land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high cheek-bones,
+suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See App. II, Sect. 8)
+Nothing…. Only the same platitudes about crushing German militarism with the
+help of the Allies&mdash;about the &ldquo;state interests&rdquo; of Russia,
+about the &ldquo;embarrassment&rdquo; caused by Skobeliev&rsquo;s <i>nakaz.</i>
+He ended with the key-note:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
+happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders of a great
+ideal, and children of a great power.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a &ldquo;strong&rdquo;
+imperialist policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that the
+Government would press for peace…. I reproduce an editorial in <i>Rabotchi i
+Soldat</i> (Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE GOVERNMENT&rsquo;S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually told the
+trenches the following:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but with the
+Governments.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
+impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the Governments of
+our Allies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair. (He did
+not mention the consequences.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister has in his
+possession very important declarations. (Declarations? What about deeds? What
+about the behaviour of the British fleet? (See App. II, Sect. 9) The parleying
+of the British king with exiled counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The
+Minister did not mention all this.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. The <i>nakaz</i> to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don&rsquo;t like it and the
+Russian diplomats don&rsquo;t like it. In the Allied Conference we must all
+&lsquo;speak one language.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is, faith in
+the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When the Allies permit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague outlines of a
+sinister power&mdash;the Cossacks. <i>Novaya Zhizn</i> (New Life),
+Gorky&rsquo;s paper, called attention to their activities:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot down the
+people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to follow him. From
+passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have passed to an active
+political offensive (against it). From the back-ground of the Revolution they
+have suddenly advanced to the front of the stage….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kaledin, <i>ataman</i> of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
+Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He flatly
+refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack armies lay at
+Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his power that the
+Government was forced to ignore his insubordination. More than that, it was
+compelled formally to recognise the Council of the Union of Cossack Armies, and
+to declare illegal the newly-formed Cossack Section of the Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon Kerensky,
+arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be dropped, and
+reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the Soviets. Kerensky agreed
+to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported to have said, &ldquo;In the eyes of
+the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a tyrant…. As for the Provisional
+Government, not only does it not depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it
+regrettable that they exist at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British ambassador,
+treating with him boldly as representatives of &ldquo;the free Cossack
+people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been established. The
+Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State. The Soviets of
+Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by armed Cossacks, and the
+headquarters of the Coal Miners&rsquo; Union at Kharkov raided. In all its
+manifestations the Cossack movement was anti-Socialist and militaristic. Its
+leaders were nobles and great land-owners, like Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals
+Dutov, Karaulov and Bardizhe, and it was backed by the powerful merchants and
+bankers of Moscow….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland, White
+Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became bolder. The
+local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes, claimed autonomy,
+refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At Helsingfors the Finnish Senate
+declined to loan money to the Provisional Government, declared Finland
+autonomous, and demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada
+at Kiev extended the boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the richest
+agricultural lands of South Russia, as far east as the Urals, and began the
+formation of a national army. Premier Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate peace
+with Germany&mdash;and the Provisional Government was helpless. Siberia, the
+Caucasus, demanded separate Constituent Assemblies. And in all these countries
+there was the beginning of a bitter struggle between the authorities and the
+local Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were
+deserting the front and beginning to move in vast, aimless tides over the face
+of the land. The peasants of Tambov and Tver Governments, tired of waiting for
+the land, exasperated by the repressive measures of the Government, were
+burning manor-houses and massacring land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs
+convulsed Moscow, Odessa and the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was
+paralysed; the army was starving and in the big cities there was no bread.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary factions, could do
+nothing: when forced to act it always supported the interests of the propertied
+classes. Cossacks were sent to restore order among the peasants, to break the
+strikes. In Tashkent, Government authorities suppressed the Soviet. In
+Petrograd the Economic Council, established to rebuild the shattered economic
+life of the country, came to a deadlock between the opposing forces of capital
+and labour, and was dissolved by Kerensky. The old régime military men, backed
+by Cadets, demanded that harsh measures be adopted to restore discipline in the
+Army and the Navy. In vain Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister of
+Marine, and General Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only a new,
+voluntary, democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the soldiers&rsquo;
+and sailors&rsquo; Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
+recommendations were ignored.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The trial of
+Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois press defended him,
+speaking of him as &ldquo;the great Russian patriot.&rdquo; Burtzev&rsquo;s
+paper, <i>Obshtchee Dielo</i> (Common Cause), called for a dictatorship of
+Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the Council of the
+Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled face, eyes near-sighted
+behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard streaked with grey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We should
+get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the Germans. Bunglers,
+bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the bunglers are the German agents.
+Kornilov should have won….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
+Purishkevitch&rsquo;s <i>Narodny Tribun</i> (People&rsquo;s Tribune), <i>Novaya
+Rus</i> (New Russia), and <i>Zhivoye Slovo</i> (Living Word), openly advocated
+the extermination of the revolutionary democracy….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German squadron in the
+Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in danger, the Provisional
+Government drew up plans for evacuating the capital. First the great munitions
+works were to go, distributed widely throughout Russia; and then the Government
+itself was to move to Moscow. Instantly the Bolsheviki began to cry out that
+the Government was abandoning the Red Capital in order to weaken the
+Revolution. Riga had been sold to the Germans; now Petrograd was being
+betrayed!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bourgeois press was joyful. &ldquo;At Moscow,&rdquo; said the Cadet paper
+<i>Ryetch</i> (Speech), &ldquo;the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
+atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists.&rdquo; Rodzianko,
+leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in <i>Utro Rossii</i>
+(The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the Germans would be a
+blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets and get rid of the revolutionary
+Baltic Fleet:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, &ldquo;Let God take care of
+Petrograd.&rdquo; They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central revolutionary
+organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that I rejoice if all these
+organisations are destroyed; for they will bring nothing but disaster upon
+Russia….<br />
+    With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be destroyed…. But
+there will be nothing to regret; most of the battleships are completely
+demoralised….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation was
+repudiated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a thunder-cloud, shot
+through with lightnings. It was opposed, not only by the Government but by all
+the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists. The Central Army and Fleet Committees,
+the Central Committees of some of the Trade Unions, the Peasants&rsquo;
+Soviets, but most of all the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> itself, spared no pains to
+prevent the meeting. <i>Izviestia</i> and <i>Golos Soldata</i> (Voice of the
+Soldier), newspapers founded by the Petrograd Soviet but now in the hands of
+the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> fiercely assailed it, as did the entire artillery of
+the Socialist Revolutionary party press, <i>Dielo Naroda</i> (People&rsquo;s
+Cause) and <i>Volia Naroda</i> (People&rsquo;s Will).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to committees
+in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees, instructing them to halt or
+delay elections to the Congress. Solemn public resolutions against the
+Congress, declarations that the democracy was opposed to the meeting so near
+the date of the Constituent Assembly, representatives from the Front, from the
+Union of Zemstvos, the Peasants&rsquo; Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of
+Officers, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions,[8] protesting…. The Council
+of the Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval. The entire machinery set
+up by the Russian Revolution of March functioned to block the Congress of
+Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[8] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat&mdash;the workmen,
+common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were already Bolshevik;
+then there were the organisations of the industrial workers, the
+<i>Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti</i>&mdash;Factory-Shop Committees; and the
+insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some places the people, prevented
+from electing their regular Soviet delegates, held rump meetings and chose one
+of their number to go to Petrograd. In others they smashed the old
+obstructionist committees and formed new ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved
+and cracked the crust which had been slowly hardening on the surface of
+revolutionary fires dormant all those months. Only an spontaneous mass-movement
+could bring about the All-Russian Congress of Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and factories,
+violently denouncing &ldquo;this Government of civil war.&rdquo; One Sunday we
+went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through oceans of mud, between
+stark factories and immense churches, to <i>Obukhovsky Zavod,</i> a Government
+munitions-plant out on the Schlüsselburg Prospekt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge unfinished
+building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed around a scaffolding
+draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber and bricks, perched high upon
+shadowy girders, intent and thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and
+again burst the sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon
+the mass of simple faces upturned to us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face of an
+artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the Soviets. Nothing else
+could guarantee the Revolution against its enemies, who were deliberately
+ruining the country, ruining the army, creating opportunities for a new
+Konilov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
+&ldquo;Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are
+dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to America, that
+the Russians will never give up their Revolution until they die. We will hold
+the fort with all our strength until the peoples of the world rise and help us!
+Tell the American workers to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: &ldquo;Now is the time
+for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we must get used to
+it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us. They are trying to provoke us.
+But let them know that they can go too far&mdash;that if they dare to lay their
+hands upon the organisations of the proletariat we will sweep them away like
+scum from the face of the earth!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
+<i>Rabotchi Put</i> and <i>Soldat</i> (Soldier), there appeared a new paper for
+the peasants, <i>Derevenskaya Byednota</i> (Village Poorest), poured out in a
+daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, <i>Rabotchi i Soldat.</i> Its
+leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+The fourth year&rsquo;s campaign will mean the annihilation of the army and the
+country…. There is danger for the safety of Petrograd…. Counter-revolutionists
+rejoice in the people&rsquo;s misfortunes…. The peasants brought to desperation
+come out in open rebellion; the landlords and Government authorities massacre
+them with punitive expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen
+are threatened with starvation…. The bourgeoisie and its Generals want to
+restore a blind discipline in the army…. Supported by the bourgeoisie, the
+Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up the meeting of the Constituent
+Assembly….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the country….
+This paper stands for the people and by the people&mdash;the poor classes,
+workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be saved by the completion
+of the Revolution… and for this purpose the full power must be in the hands of
+the Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets&mdash;both in the
+capital and in the provinces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Landlord estates&mdash;without compensation&mdash;to the peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Workers&rsquo; control over industrial production.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same paper&mdash;the
+organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as German agents:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead people, wants to
+push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the German workmen, soldiers
+and peasants, who want peace not less than we do, to… stand up against this
+damned war!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would speak really
+for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and would appeal over the
+heads of the diplomats directly to the German troops, fill the German trenches
+with proclamations in the German language…. Our airmen would spread these
+proclamations all over Germany….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the chamber
+deepened day by day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The propertied classes,&rdquo; cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, &ldquo;want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the State
+to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The revolutionary parties are
+absolutely against this policy….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists, spoke against
+giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of the Cadets: &ldquo;We
+must have immediately strong discipline in the army…. Since the beginning of
+the war I have not ceased to insist that it is a crime to undertake social and
+economic reforms in war-time. We are committing that crime, and yet I am not
+the enemy of these reforms, because I am a Socialist.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cries from the Left, &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t believe you!&rdquo; Mighty applause
+from the Right….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to tell the army
+what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to realise that the first
+task was to drive the enemy from Russian territory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national unity, once
+bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him coldly, interrupting
+with ironical remarks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smolny Institute, headquarters of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> and of the Petrograd
+Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the wide Neva. I went
+there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a groaning noise through the
+cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with people. At the end of the line rose the
+graceful smoke-blue cupolas of Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful;
+and beside it the great barracks like façade of Smolny Institute, two hundred
+yards long and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved hugely in
+stone still insolent over the entrance….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under the old régime a famous convent-school for the daughters of the Russian
+nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the Institute had been taken over
+by the revolutionary organisations of workers and soldiers. Within were more
+than a hundred huge rooms, white and bare, on their doors enamelled plaques
+still informing the passerby that within was &ldquo;Ladies&rsquo; Class-room
+Number 4&rdquo; or &ldquo;Teachers&rsquo; Bureau&rdquo;; but over these hung
+crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the vitality of the new order:
+&ldquo;Central Committee of the Petrograd Soviet&rdquo; and
+<i>&ldquo;Tsay-ee-kah&rdquo;</i> and &ldquo;Bureau of Foreign Affairs&rdquo;;
+&ldquo;Union of Socialist Soldiers,&rdquo; &ldquo;Central Committee of the
+All-Russian Trade Unions,&rdquo; &ldquo;Factory-Shop Committees,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Central Army Committee&rdquo;; and the central offices and caucus-rooms
+of the political parties….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were thronged with
+hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent under the weight of huge
+bundles of newspapers, proclamations, printed propaganda of all sorts. The
+sound of their heavy boots made a deep and incessant thunder on the wooden
+floor…. Signs were posted up everywhere: &ldquo;Comrades! For the sake of your
+health, preserve cleanliness!&rdquo; Long tables stood at the head of the
+stairs on every floor, and on the landings, heaped with pamphlets and the
+literature of the different political parties, for sale….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a dining-room. For
+two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to dinner, and stood in line with a
+thousand others, waiting to get to the long serving-tables, where twenty men
+and women were ladling from immense cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and
+piles of <i>kasha,</i> slabs of black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin
+cup. From a basket one grabbed a greasy wooden spoon…. The benches along the
+wooden tables were packed with hungry proletarians, wolfing their food,
+plotting, shouting rough jokes across the room….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 33: text of placard in russian, translation follows]
+</p>
+
+<h5>COMRADES FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH, PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.</h5>
+
+<p>
+Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the <i>Tsay-ee-kah&mdash;</i>
+though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly buttered and
+endless glasses of tea….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of meetings, the
+former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room lighted by glazed-white
+chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate electric bulbs, and divided by two rows
+of massive columns; at one end a dais, flanked with two tall many-branched
+light standards, and a gold frame behind, from which the Imperial portrait had
+been cut. Here on festal occasions had been banked brilliant military and
+ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting for Grand Duchesses….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials Committee for
+the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the new delegates come
+in&mdash;burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black blouses, a few long-haired
+peasants. The girl in charge&mdash;a member of Plekhanov&rsquo;s
+<i>Yedinstvo</i>[9] group&mdash;smiled contemptuously. &ldquo;These are very
+different people from the delegates to the first <i>Siezd</i>
+(Congress),&rdquo; she remarked. &ldquo;See how rough and ignorant they look!
+The Dark People….&rdquo; It was true; the depths of Russia had been stirred,
+and it was the bottom which came uppermost now. The Credentials Committee,
+appointed by the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> was challenging delegate after
+delegate, on the ground that they had been illegally elected. Karakhan, member
+of the Bolshevik Central Committee, simply grinned. &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;When the time comes we&rsquo;ll see that you get your
+seats….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[9] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Rabotchi i Soldat</i> said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called to
+attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break up the
+Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that delegates had
+better leave Petrograd…. Pay no attention to these lies…. Great days are
+coming….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2, so the
+opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the whole country was now
+aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, realising that they
+were defeated, suddenly changed their tactics and began to wire frantically to
+their provincial organisations to elect as many &ldquo;moderate&rdquo;
+Socialist delegates as possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of
+the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants&rsquo;
+Congress, to meet December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and
+soldiers might take…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that there would be
+an armed &ldquo;demonstration,&rdquo; a <i>vystuplennie</i>&mdash;&ldquo;coming
+out&rdquo; of the workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary press
+prophesied insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest the Petrograd
+Soviet, or at least to prevent the meeting of the Congress. Such sheets as
+<i>Novaya Rus</i> advocated a general Bolshevik massacre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gorky&rsquo;s paper, <i>Novaya Zhizn,</i> agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
+reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if necessary
+they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the parties of the
+revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so long as the
+resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no advantage in passing
+to the attack. But if the hostile elements appeal to force, then the
+revolutionary democracy should enter the battle to seize the power, and it will
+be sustained by the most profound strata of the people….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers were inciting
+the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however, would prepare the way for
+a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to deny the rumours. Potressov, in the
+Menshevik <i>Dien</i> (Day), published a sensational story, accompanied by a
+map, which professed to reveal the secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II, Sect. 10)
+proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; and conservative factions and the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i>
+denouncing any &ldquo;demonstrations,&rdquo; imploring the workers and soldiers
+not to listen to agitators. For instance, this from the Military Section of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended <i>vystuplennie.</i>
+What is the source of these rumours? What organisation authorises these
+agitators who preach insurrection? The Bolsheviki, to a question addressed to
+them in the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> denied that they have anything to do with it….
+But these rumours themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily
+happen that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the majority of
+the workers, soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads will call out part of
+the workers and soldiers on the streets, inciting them to an uprising…. In this
+fearful time through which revolutionary Russia is passing, any insurrection
+can easily turn into civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of
+all organisations of the proletariat, built up with so much labour…. The
+counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of this
+insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open the front to Wilhelm, and wreck
+the Constituent Assembly…. Stick stubbornly to your posts! Do not come out!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev, a little
+man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He was not at all sure
+that enough delegates would come. &ldquo;If there <i>is</i> a Congress,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;it will represent the overwhelming sentiment of the people. If
+the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be, we shall demand that the
+power be given to the Soviets, and the Provisional Government must
+resign….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion, was more
+definite. &ldquo;The &lsquo;Lieber-Dans&rsquo; and the other compromisers are
+sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its meeting,&mdash;well,
+then we are realists enough not to depend on <i>that!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the following items
+culled from the newspapers of the day:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal Guard
+Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>yunkers</i> of the Officers&rsquo; Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo
+and Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to Petrograd.
+Oranienbaum <i>yunkers</i> arrive in the city.
+</p>
+
+<h5>Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed in the
+Winter Palace.</h5>
+
+<p>
+Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by the
+Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the Petrograd workmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a resolution
+demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days, when
+everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody knew just what.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October 30th,
+Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the Soviet
+contemplated armed insurention as &ldquo;an attempt of the reactionaries to
+discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets…. The Petrograd Soviet,&rdquo; he
+declared, &ldquo;had not ordered any <i>uystuplennie.</i> If it is necessary we
+shall do so, and we will be supported by the Petrogruad garrison…. They (the
+Government) are preparing a counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an
+offensive which will be merciless and decisive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a demonstration, but the
+Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was considering the question of
+insurrection. All night long the 23d they met. There were present all the party
+intellectuals, the leaders&mdash;and delegates of the Petrograd workers and
+garrison. Alone of the intellectuals Lenin and Trotzky stood for insurrection.
+Even the military men opposed it. A vote was taken. Insurrection was defeated!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. &ldquo;I speak for
+the Petrograd proletariat,&rdquo; he said, harshly. &ldquo;We are in favour of
+insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you allow the
+Soviets to be destroyed, <i>we&rsquo;re through with you!</i>&rdquo; Some
+soldiers joined him…. And after that they voted again&mdash;insurrection won….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev and
+Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the morning of
+October 31st appeared in <i>Rabotchi Put</i> the first instalment of
+Lenin&rsquo;s &ldquo;Letter to the Comrades,&rdquo; (See App. II, Sect. 11) one
+of the most audacious pieces of political propaganda the world has ever seen.
+In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments in favour of insurrection, taking
+as text the objections of Kameniev and Riazonov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Either we must abandon our slogan, &lsquo;All Power to the
+Soviets,&rsquo;&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;or else we must make an insurrection.
+There is no middle course….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a brilliant,
+bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of the Republic, branding
+the Skobeliev <i>nakaz</i> as pro-German, declaring that the
+&ldquo;revolutionary democracy&rdquo; was destroying Russia, sneering at
+Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred German diplomacy to
+Russian…. The Left benches were one roaring tumult all through….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the success of
+the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of the Government and
+the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two laws, one for giving the land
+temporarily to the peasants, and the other for pushing an energetic foreign
+policy of peace. The next day Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the
+army. That same afternoon was opened with great ceremony the first session of
+the new &ldquo;Commission for Strengthening the Republican Régime and Fighting
+Against Anarchy and Counter-Revolution&rdquo;&mdash;of which history shows not
+the slightest further trace…. The following morning with two other
+correspondents I interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)&mdash;the last
+time he received journalists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Russian people,&rdquo; he said, bitterly, &ldquo;are suffering from
+economic fatigue&mdash;and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world
+thinks that the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken. The
+Russian Revolution is just beginning….&rdquo; Words more prophetic, perhaps,
+than he knew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of October,
+at which I was present. The &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist intellectuals,
+officers, members of Army Committees, the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> were there in
+force. Against them rose up workmen, peasants and common soldiers, passionate
+and simple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused by the
+arrest of the Land Committees. &ldquo;This Kerensky is nothing but a shield to
+the <i>pomieshtchiki</i> (landowners),&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;They know that
+at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so they are trying to
+destroy the Constituent Assembly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents were
+closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that there was no fuel
+or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he declared, had discovered huge
+hidden supplies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a <i>provocatzia,&rdquo;</i> said he. &ldquo;They want to starve
+us&mdash;or drive us to violence!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the soldiers one began, &ldquo;Comrades! I bring you greetings from the
+place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with a roar of
+welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July fighting, and now
+risen from the dead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
+Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed us…. The
+masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be held exactly when it
+was called for, and those who dare to postpone it will be cursed&mdash;and not
+only platonic curses either, for the Army has guns too….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in the Fifth
+Army. &ldquo;The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the Socialist
+Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the Bolsheviki. Our papers
+are not allowed to circulate in the trenches. Our speakers are
+arrested&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you speak about the lack of bread?&rdquo; shouted
+another soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Man shall not live by bread alone,&rdquo; answered Tchudnovsky,
+sternly….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a Menshevik
+<i>oboronetz.</i> &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t the question of who has the power. The
+trouble is not with the Government, but with the war…. and the war must be won
+before any change&mdash;&rdquo; At this, hoots and ironical cheers.
+&ldquo;These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!&rdquo; The hall rocked with
+laughter. &ldquo;Let us for a moment forget the class struggle&mdash;&rdquo;
+But he got no farther. A voice yelled, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you wish we
+would!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the factories the
+committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles, couriers came and went, the
+Red Guard[10] drilled…. In all the barracks meetings every night, and all day
+long interminable hot arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward
+gloomy evening, pouring in slow voluble tides up and down the Nevsky, fighting
+for the newspapers…. Hold-ups increased to such an extent that it was dangerous
+to walk down side streets…. On the Sadovaya one afternoon I saw a crowd of
+several hundred people beat and trample to death a soldier caught stealing….
+Mysterious individuals circulated around the shivering women who waited in
+<i>queue</i> long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had
+cornered the food supply&mdash;and that while the people starved, the Soviet
+members lived luxuriously….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[10] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates, demanding
+everybody&rsquo;s pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed all day and all
+night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the floor, wherever they could
+find room. Upstairs in the great hall a thousand people crowded to the
+uproarious sessions of the Petrograd Soviet….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with champagne flowing
+and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the centre of the city at night
+prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down, crowded the
+cafés….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under grey skies
+rushing faster and faster toward&mdash;what?
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>Chapter III<br />
+On the Eve</h2>
+
+<p>
+In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a
+time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every
+refusal to act excites their contempt….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky&rsquo;s public
+denial that the Government had any such intention was met with hoots of
+derision.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried <i>Rabotchi
+Put),</i> the Government of &ldquo;provisional&rdquo; bourgeois tries to get
+free by giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
+Petrograd, and that it didn&rsquo;t wish to surrender the capital….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the preamble of the
+I. W. W. constitution: &ldquo;The working class and the employing class have
+nothing in common.&rdquo; Dispersed by Cossacks, some were locked out by the
+mine-owners, and the rest declared a general strike. Minister of Commerce and
+Industry Konovalov appointed his assistant, Orlov, with plenary powers, to
+settle the trouble. Orlov was hated by the miners. But the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>
+not only supported his appointment, but refused to demand that the Cossacks be
+recalled from the Don Basin….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The Bolsheviki,
+having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some political prisoners.
+With the sanction of the Government Commissar the Municipal Duma called in
+troops from Minsk, and bombarded the Soviet headquarters with artillery. The
+Bolsheviki yielded, but as they left the building Cossacks attacked them,
+crying, &ldquo;This is what we&rsquo;ll do to all the other Bolshevik Soviets,
+including those of Moscow and Petrograd!&rdquo; This incident sent a wave of
+panic rage throughout Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North, presided
+over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it resolved that all
+power should be assumed by the All-Russian Congress; and concluded by greeting
+the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding them rejoice, for the hour of their
+liberation was at hand. At the same time the first All-Russian Conference of
+Factory-Shop Committees (See App. III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the
+Soviets, and continued significantly,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the working-class wants
+to see the democratic régime triumphant in the sphere of its productive
+activity. This is best expressed by Workers&rsquo; Control over industrial
+production, which naturally arose in the atmosphere of economic decomposition
+created by the criminal policy of the dominating classes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky, Minister
+of Ways and Communications….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> Skobeliev insisted that the <i>nakaz</i>
+be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against the
+sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the army, only
+came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 3d Burtzev&rsquo;s <i>Obshtchee Dielo</i> came out with great
+headlines:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens! Save the fatherland!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission for National
+Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the principal persons
+responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to sign a separate peace,
+independently of the Allies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is treason to Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even examined
+Verkhovsky&rsquo;s proposition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You might think,&rdquo; said Terestchenko, &ldquo;that we were in a
+madhouse!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The members of the Commission were astounded at the General&rsquo;s words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+General Alexeyev wept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us concerning the
+words of Verkhovsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens, arise!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Russia is being sold!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Save her!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to offer peace,
+because the Russian army could fight no longer….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky was given
+&ldquo;indefinite leave of absence for ill-health,&rdquo; and left the
+Government. <i>Obshtchee Dielo</i> was suppressed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd Soviet, with
+immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly to raise money for the
+organisation and the press; really, to make a demonstration of strength.
+Suddenly it was announced that on the same day the Cossacks would hold a
+<i>Krestny Khod</i>&mdash;Procession of the Cross&mdash;in honour of the Ikon
+of 1612, through whose miraculous intervention Napoleon had been driven from
+Moscow. The atmosphere was electric; a spark might kindle civil war. The
+Petrograd Soviet issued a manifesto, headed
+&ldquo;Brothers&mdash;Cossacks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers. This plan of
+Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies, the oppressors, the
+privileged classes&mdash;generals, bankers, landlords, former officials, former
+servants of the Tsar…. We are hated by all grafters, rich men, princes, nobles,
+generals, including your Cossack generals. They are ready at any moment to
+destroy the Petrograd Soviet and crush the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious procession.
+It is a question of the free consciousness of every individual whether he will
+or will not take part in this procession. We do not interfere in this matter,
+nor do we obstruct anybody…. However, we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see
+to it that under the pretext of a <i>Krestni Khod,</i> your Kaledins do not
+instigate you against workmen, against soldiers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The procession was hastily called off….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the Bolsheviki were
+preaching, &ldquo;All Power to the Soviets!&rdquo; and agents of the Dark
+Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the Jews, shop-keepers,
+Socialist leaders….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression&mdash;on the
+other Lenin&rsquo;s great voice roaring, &ldquo;Insurrection!…. We cannot wait
+any longer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2) <i>Birjevya
+Viedomosti</i> (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik propaganda an attack on
+&ldquo;the most elementary principles of society&mdash;personal security and
+the respect for private property.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 46: Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their <i>Krestny
+Khod</i>&mdash;the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
+calendar). &ldquo;Brothers&mdash;Cossacks!&rdquo; it begins. &ldquo;The
+Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies addresses
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist journals which were the most
+hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) &ldquo;The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous
+enemies of the Revolution,&rdquo; declared <i>Dielo Naroda.</i> Said the
+Menshevik <i>Dien,</i> &ldquo;The Government ought to defend itself and defend
+us.&rdquo; Plekhanov&rsquo;s paper, <i>Yedinstvo</i> (Unity) (See App. III,
+Sect. 4), called the attention of the Government to the fact that the Petrograd
+workers were being armed, and demanded stern measures against the Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the Municipal
+administration broke down. The columns of the morning papers were filled with
+accounts of the most audacious robberies and murders, and the criminals were
+unmolested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing battle
+with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of Petrograd,
+issued a proclamation:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing, irresponsible
+appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still being spread around
+Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and disorder increase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and hinders the
+systematic work of the Government and the Municipal Institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my country, I
+command:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and within the
+territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to the Municipality, to
+the Commissars, and to the militia, in the guarding of Government institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District Commander and
+the representatives of the city militia, and the taking of measures for the
+arrest of criminals and deserters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
+demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters of the
+Second Commander of the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all armed
+forces at hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted searches in
+houses and unwarranted arrests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under charge to the
+Staff of the Petrograd Military District.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their help to the
+commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they are charged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government was fully
+aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient force to cope with any
+demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He accused <i>Novaya Rus</i> and
+<i>Robotchi Put</i> of both doing the same kind of subversive work. &ldquo;But
+owing to the absolute freedom of the press,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;the
+Government is not in a position to combat printed lies.[11]….&rdquo; Declaring
+that these were two aspects of the same propaganda, which had for its object
+the counter-revolution, so ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a doomed man, it doesn&rsquo;t matter what happens to me, and I
+have the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
+unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[11] This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had suppressed
+Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to do so again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had arrived.
+Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a hundred and
+seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were Bolsheviki…. Four hundred
+constituted a quorum, and the Congress was only three days off….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get in. Double
+rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside the front door there
+was a long line of people waiting to be let in, four at a time, to be
+questioned as to their identity and their business. Passes were given out, and
+the pass system was changed every few hours; for spies continually sneaked
+through….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 49: Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary Committee,
+giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+  Military Revolutionary Committee<br />
+           attached to the<br />
+  Petrograd Soviet of W. &amp; S. D.<br />
+        Commandant&rsquo;s office<br />
+  16th November, 1917<br />
+               No. 955<br />
+           Smolny Institute
+</p>
+
+<h5>PASS</h5>
+
+<p>
+Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of the American Socialist
+press, until December 1, the right of free entry into Smolny Institute.
+Commandant Adjutant
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife just ahead of
+me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched through his pockets, but
+could find no pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; he said finally. &ldquo;You know me. My name is
+Trotzky.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t got a pass,&rdquo; answered the soldier stubbornly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You cannot go in. Names don&rsquo;t mean anything to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; replied the soldier, &ldquo;if you&rsquo;re as important a
+fellow as that you must at least have one little paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky was very patient. &ldquo;Let me see the Commandant,&rdquo; he said. The
+soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb the
+Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally to the soldier
+in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to him. &ldquo;My name is
+Trotzky,&rdquo; he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Trotzky?&rdquo; The other soldier scratched his head. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+heard the name somewhere,&rdquo; he said at length. &ldquo;I guess it&rsquo;s
+all right. You can go on in, comrade….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, who
+explained to me what the new Government would be like.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed through
+the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the Provisional
+Government obstructs the action of the local democratic will, just as the
+Tsar&rsquo;s Government did. The initiative of the new society shall come from
+below…. The form of the Government will be modelled on the Constitution of the
+Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The new <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> responsible
+to frequent meetings of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the
+parliament; the various Ministries will be headed by
+<i>collegia</i>&mdash;committees&mdash;instead of by Ministers, and will be
+directly responsible to the Soviets….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in the attic
+of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room he sat on a rough
+chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were necessary; he talked rapidly
+and steadily, for more than an hour. The substance of his talk, in his own
+words, I give here:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is
+in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with the
+<i>oborontsi</i> parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees revolts of
+peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land; and all over the
+country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is evident. This
+domination by the bourgeoisie is only possible by means of civil war. The
+Kornilov method is the only way by which the bourgeoisie can control. But it is
+force which the bourgeoisie lacks…. The Army is with us. The conciliators and
+pacifists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all
+authority&mdash;because the struggle between the peasants and the landlords,
+between the workers and the employers, between the soldiers and the officers,
+has become more bitter, more irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted
+action of the popular mass, only by the victory of proletarian dictatorship,
+can the Revolution be achieved and the people saved….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the
+people&mdash;perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and
+objects. Based directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in the
+factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the
+Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been an attempt to create a power without the
+Soviets&mdash;and only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary
+schemes of all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of
+the Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution
+militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the people.
+Between the two camps there are no groups of serious importance…. It is the
+<i>lutte finale.</i> The bourgeois counter-revolution organises all its forces
+and waits for the moment to attack us. Our answer will be decisive. We will
+complete the work scarcely begun in March, and advanced during the Kornilov
+affair….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on to speak of the new Government&rsquo;s foreign policy:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all fronts,
+and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace terms. The quantity of
+democracy we get in the peace settlement depends on the quantity of
+revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create here a Government of
+the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for
+this Government will address itself directly and immediately to all peoples,
+over the heads of their Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of
+the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the
+direction of &lsquo;no annexations, no indemnities, the right of
+self-determination of peoples,&rsquo; and a <i>Federated Republic of
+Europe.</i>…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats, but
+by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe&mdash;the United States of
+Europe&mdash;that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices.
+Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to
+remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work.
+Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.&rdquo; He
+smiled&mdash;that fine, faintly ironical smile of his. &ldquo;But without the
+action of the European masses, these ends cannot be realised&mdash;now….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly on the
+streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white collars on, the
+real insurrection took its way quite naturally and openly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to the front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had taken a
+prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned the tide in the
+great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, and
+hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional Government
+talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd garrison which answered,
+&ldquo;If you are not capable of defending the capital, conclude peace; if you
+cannot conclude peace, go away and make room for a People&rsquo;s Government
+which can do both….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the attitude of
+the Petrograd garrison. The Government&rsquo;s plan was to replace the garrison
+regiments with &ldquo;dependable&rdquo; troops&mdash;Cossacks, Death
+Battalions. The Army Committees, the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialists and the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation was
+carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact that for eight
+months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy life in the barracks of
+the capital, while their exhausted comrades in the trenches starved and died.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison regiments
+were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for the hardships of a
+winter campaign. But there were other reasons why they refused to go. The
+Petrograd Soviet feared the Government&rsquo;s intentions, and from the Front
+came hundreds of delegates, chosen by the common soldiers, crying, &ldquo;It is
+true we need reinforcements, but more important, we must know that Petrograd
+and the Revolution are well-guarded…. Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we
+will hold the front!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the Petrograd
+Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military Committee to decide the
+whole question. The next day a meeting of the Soldiers&rsquo; Section of the
+Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which immediately proclaimed a boycott of
+the bourgeois newspapers, and condemned the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> for opposing the
+Congress of Soviets. On the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet,
+Trotzky proposed that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. &ldquo;We ought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to create our special
+organisation to march to battle, and if necessary to die….&rdquo; It was
+decided to send to the front two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from
+the garrison, to confer with the Soldiers&rsquo; Committees and the General
+Staff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov, commander of
+the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he had ordered the Petrograd
+garrison to the trenches, and that was all. The garrison committee was not
+allowed to leave Petrograd….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A delegation of the Soldiers&rsquo; Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked that
+a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd District. Refused.
+The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be issued without the approval of
+the Soldiers&rsquo; Section. Refused. The delegates were roughly told,
+&ldquo;We only recognise the <i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> We do not recognise you; if
+you break any laws, we shall arrest you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd regiments passed
+a resolution: <i>&ldquo;The Petrograd garrison no longer recognises the
+Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our Government. We will obey
+only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet, through the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.&rdquo;</i> The local military units were ordered to wait for
+instructions from the Soldiers&rsquo; Section of the Petrograd Soviet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> summoned its own meeting, composed largely of
+officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and detailed
+Commissars in all quarters of the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Petrograd
+garrison promises it complete support in all its actions, to unite more closely
+the front and the rear in the interests of the Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary proletariat it
+assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in Petrograd. Every attempt at
+provocation on the part of the Kornilovtsi or the bourgeoisie will be met with
+merciless resistance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee peremptorily
+summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control. To all printing plants
+it gave orders not to publish any appeals or proclamations without the
+Committee&rsquo;s authorisation. Armed Commissars visited the Kronversk arsenal
+and seized great quantities of arms and ammunition, halting a shipment of ten
+thousand bayonets which was being sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of
+Kaledin….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the Committee
+would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky himself sent
+Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on the Staff. The
+Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour later General Manikovsky,
+acting Minister of war, countermanded the offer….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by the
+appearance of a placard signed, &ldquo;Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are mobilising
+their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and break
+the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the <i>pogromists</i> may attempt to
+call upon the people of Petrograd for trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd
+Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies takes upon itself the
+guarding of revolutionary order in the city against counter-revolutionary and
+<i>pogrom</i> attempts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The population
+is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators and take them to the
+Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At the first attempt of the Dark
+Forces to make trouble on the streets of Petrograd, whether robbery or
+fighting, the criminals will be wiped off the face of the earth!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and self-possession. The
+cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting behind
+closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor outside the door;
+and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was going on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin spoke: &ldquo;November 6th will be too early. We must have an all-Russian
+basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to the Congress will not
+have arrived…. On the other hand, November 8th will be too late. By that time
+the Congress will be organised, and it is difficult for a large organised body
+of people to take swift, decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the
+Congress meets, so that we may say to it, &lsquo;Here is the power! What are
+you going to do with it?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual, once an
+officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and exile, a certain
+Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and chess-player; he was drawing
+careful plans for the seizure of the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of the most
+loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were ordered to Petrograd.
+The <i>yunker</i> artillery was drawn into the Winter Palace. Patrols of
+Cossacks made their appearance in the streets, for the first time since the
+July days. Polkovnikov issued order after order, threatening to repress all
+insubordination with the &ldquo;utmost energy.&rdquo; Kishkin, Minister of
+Public Instruction, the worst-hated member of the Cabinet, was appointed
+Special Commissar to keep order in Petrograd; he named as assistants two men no
+less unpopular, Rutenburg and Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and Finland
+were declared in a state of siege&mdash;upon which the bourgeois <i>Novoye
+Vremya</i> (New Times) remarked ironically:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has no moral
+authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to use force…. In the
+most favourable circumstances it can only negotiate with any one who consents
+to parley. Its authority goes no farther….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to see what was
+happening in the Council of the Russian Republic. Bitter debate on
+Terestchenko&rsquo;s foreign policy. Echoes of the Burtzev-Verkhovski affair.
+All the diplomats present except the Italian ambassador, who everybody said was
+prostrated by the Carso disaster….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading aloud an
+editorial from the London <i>Times</i> which said, &ldquo;The remedy for
+Bolshevism is bullets!&rdquo; Turning to the Cadets he cried,
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what <i>you</i> think, too!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voices from the Right, &ldquo;Yes! Yes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I know you think so,&rdquo; answered Karelin, hotly. &ldquo;But you
+haven&rsquo;t the courage to try it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Skobeliev, looking like a matinée idol with his soft blond beard and wavy
+yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet <i>nakaz.</i>
+Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of &ldquo;Resignation!
+Resignation!&rdquo; He insisted that the delegates of the Government and of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> to Paris should have a common point of view&mdash;his own. A
+few words about the restoration of discipline in the army, about war to
+victory…. Tumult, and over the stubborn opposition of the truculent Left, the
+Council of the Republic passed to the simple order of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats&mdash;empty since that first day
+when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I went down the
+stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter wrangling, no real voice
+from the rough world outside could penetrate this high, cold hall, and that the
+Provisional Government was wrecked&mdash;on the same rock of War and Peace that
+had wrecked the Miliukov Ministry…. The doorman grumbled as he put on my coat,
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what is becoming of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki
+and Bolsheviki and Trudoviki…. This Ukraine and this Finland and the German
+imperialists and the English imperialists. I am forty-five years old, and in
+all my life I never heard so many words as in this place….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a dapper
+frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet party. I asked him
+what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik <i>vystuplennie.</i> He
+shrugged, sneering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are cattle&mdash;<i>canaille,&rdquo;</i> he answered. &ldquo;They
+will not dare, or if they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of
+view it will not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power
+in the Constituent Assembly….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
+Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am chairman
+of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with the Provisional
+Government, to work out a constitutional project…. We will have a legislative
+assembly of two chambers, such as you have in the United States. In the lower
+chamber will be territorial representatives; in the upper, representatives of
+the liberal professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives&mdash;and Trade Unions….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud underfoot
+soaked through my shoes. Two companies of <i>yunkers</i> passed swinging up the
+Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and singing an oldtime crashing
+chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing under the Tsar…. At the first
+cross-street I noticed that the City Militiamen were mounted, and armed with
+revolvers in bright new holsters; a little group of people stood silently
+staring at them. At the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin,
+&ldquo;Will the Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?&rdquo; paying for it with
+one of the stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars
+crawled past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
+Theodore P. Shonts green with envy…. Along the sidewalk a row of deserters in
+uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the latest papers,
+and knots of people were trying to make out the multitudes of appeals (See App.
+III, Sect. 6) and proclamations pasted in every flat place; from the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo;
+Socialist parties, the Army Committees&mdash;threatening, cursing, beseeching
+the workers and soldiers to stay home, to support the Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On every
+corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing soldiers and
+students. Night came swiftly down, the wide-spaced street-lights flickered on,
+the tides of people flowed endlessly…. It is always like that in Petrograd just
+before trouble….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no sign from the
+Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the workmen in the factories….
+We went to a moving picture show near the Kazan Cathedral&mdash;a bloody
+Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down front were some soldiers and
+sailors, staring at the screen in childlike wonder, totally unable to
+comprehend why there should be so much violent running about, and so much
+homicide….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the Military
+Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the chairmanship of a
+tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He stopped, as he passed, to
+shake hands rather bashfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us,&rdquo; said he, with a
+pleased grin. &ldquo;A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was ordered
+by the Government to come to Petrograd. The men were suspicious, so they
+stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a delegation to us. &lsquo;What&rsquo;s
+the matter?&rsquo; they asked. &lsquo;What have you got to say? We have just
+passed a resolution, &ldquo;All Power to the Soviets.&rdquo;&rsquo;… The
+Military Revolutionary Committee sent back word, &lsquo;Brothers! We greet you
+in the name of the Revolution. Stay where you are until further
+instructions!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the factories and
+barracks was established by means of military telephonograph apparatus….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the door
+waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest quarters of the
+city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform of a lieutenant, said in
+French, &ldquo;Everything is ready to move at the push of a button….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain conceived the
+strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar filthy, drunk with loss
+of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced soldier, always smiling, with his
+violent gestures and tumbling speech; and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor
+with the placid face. These were the men of the hour&mdash;and of other hours
+to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov, signing
+orders on the Government Arsenal for arms&mdash;one hundred and fifty rifles
+for each factory…. Delegates waited in line, forty of them….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One showed me a
+revolver. &ldquo;The game is on,&rdquo; he said, and his face was pale.
+&ldquo;Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us or be
+finished….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the great hall
+Trotzky was just finishing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are asked,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if we intend to have a
+<i>vystuplennie.</i> I can give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd
+Soviet feels that at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into
+the hands of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be accomplished by
+the All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed demonstration is necessary will
+depend on… those who wish to interfere with the All-Russian Congress….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
+Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only awaits
+the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really popular Government.
+But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now, to-day. We hope that the
+All-Russian Congress will take… into its hands that power and authority which
+rests upon the organised freedom of the people. If, however, the Government
+wants to utilise the short period it is expected to live&mdash;twenty-four,
+forty-eight, or seventy-two hours&mdash;to attack us, then we shall answer with
+counter-attacks, blow for blow, steel for iron!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had agreed to
+send representatives into the Military Revolutionary Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I left Smolny, at three o&rsquo;clock in the morning, I noticed that two
+rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and that
+strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by street-corners.
+Bill Shatov[12] came bounding up the steps. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he cried,
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re off! Kerensky sent the <i>yunkers</i> to close down our
+papers, <i>Soldat</i> and <i>Rabotchi Put.</i> But our troops went down and
+smashed the Government seals, and now we&rsquo;re sending detachments to seize
+the bourgeois newspaper offices!&rdquo; Exultantly he slapped me on the
+shoulder, and ran in….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[12] Well known in the American labor movement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose office was in
+the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the walls, hysterical
+appeals to the people to remain &ldquo;calm.&rdquo; Polkovnikov emitted
+<i>prikaz</i> after <i>prikaz:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I order all military units and detachments to remain in their barracks until
+further orders from the Staff of the Military District…. All officers who act
+without orders from their superiors will be court-martialled for mutiny. I
+forbid absolutely any execution by soldiers of instructions from other
+organisations….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the papers
+<i>Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put</i> and <i>Soldat,</i> and decreed
+the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the members of the
+Military Revolutionary Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of <i>yunker</i> artillery
+came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up before the Palace.
+The great red building of the General Staff was unusually animated, several
+armoured automobiles ranked before the door, and motors full of officers were
+coming and going…. The censor was very much excited, like a small boy at a
+circus. Kerensky, he said, had just gone to the Council of the Republic to
+offer his resignation. I hurried down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the
+end of that passionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky&rsquo;s, full
+of self-justification and bitter denunciation of his enemies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series of
+articles published in <i>Rabotchi Put</i> by Ulianov-Lenin, a state criminal
+who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find…. This state criminal has
+invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to repeat the experience of
+the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the immediate necessity for an armed
+rising…. Moreover, other Bolshevik leaders have taken the floor in a series of
+meetings, and also made an appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly
+should be noticed the activity of the present president of the Petrograd
+Soviet, Bronstein-Trotzky….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I ought to bring to your notice… that the expressions and the style of a
+whole series of articles in <i>Rabotchi Put</i> and <i>Soldat</i> resemble
+absolutely those of <i>Novaya Rus….</i> We have to do not so much with the
+movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation of the
+political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the population, a sort
+of organisation whose object it is to provoke in Russia, cost what it may, an
+inconscient movement of destruction and pillage; for given the state of mind of
+the masses, any movement at Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible
+massacres, which will cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
+extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very favourable.&rdquo;
+(Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin&rsquo;s article.):
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Think of it!… The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without newspapers,
+without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet…. They are opposed by the
+incredible hostility of all classes of society&mdash;and yet the German
+comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of newspapers, freedom of meeting,
+the majority of the Soviets, we, the best-placed international proletarians of
+the entire world, can we refuse to support the German revolutionists and
+insurrectionary organisations?…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky then continued:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
+perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain now in
+Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head of which is, in
+the eyes of this party, &lsquo;a usurper and a man who has sold himself to the
+bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky….&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
+German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they open the
+Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends…. Little matter to
+the Provisional Government the motives of these people, little matter if they
+act consciously or unconsciously; but in any case, from this tribune, in full
+consciousness of my responsibility, I quality such acts of a Russian political
+party as acts of treason to Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
+immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
+arrests.&rdquo; (Uproar from the Left.) &ldquo;Listen to me!&rdquo; he cried in
+a powerful voice. &ldquo;At the moment when the state is in danger, because of
+conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and myself among
+others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life, the honour and the
+independence of Russia….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to the
+regiments. Here is the contents.&rdquo; Reading: <i>&ldquo;&lsquo;The Petrograd
+Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies is menaced. We order
+immediately the regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await new orders.
+All delay or non-execution of this order will be considered as an act of
+treason to the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee. For the
+President, Podvoisky. The Secretary, Antonov.&rsquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
+existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the front to the
+regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say &lsquo;populace&rsquo; intentionally, because the conscious
+democracy and its <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> all the Army organisations, all that free
+Russia glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
+Russian democracy, protests against these things….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction that
+the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
+liberty&mdash;that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future, will
+find unanimous support except among those who have never dared to face the
+truth….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
+citizens of the State to use their political rights…. But now the Provisional
+Government…. declares: in this moment those elements of the Russian nation,
+those groups and parties who have dared to lift their hands against the free
+will of the Russian people, at the same time threatening to open the front to
+Germany, must be liquidated with decision!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a firm
+power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and honour will
+triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When the
+Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with perspiration, and
+strode out with his suite of officers, speaker after speaker from the Left and
+Centre attacked the Right, all one angry roaring. Even the Socialist
+Revolutionaries, through Gotz:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
+exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series of popular
+demands which have received no satisfaction up to now…. The questions of peace,
+land and the democratization of the army ought to be stated in such a fashion
+that no soldier, peasant or worker would have the least doubt that our
+Government is attempting, firmly and infallibly, to solve them….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are ready
+to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to the last drop of
+our blood&mdash;if only the Provisional Government, on all these burning
+questions, will speak the clear and precise words awaited by the people with
+such impatience….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Martov, furious:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
+&lsquo;populace&rsquo; when it is question of the movement of important
+sections of the proletariat and the army&mdash;although led in the wrong
+direction&mdash;are nothing but an incitement to civil war.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted practically to
+a vote of lack of confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days past has for
+its object a <i>coup d&rsquo;etat,</i> threatens to provoke civil war, creates
+conditions favourable to <i>pogroms</i> and counterrevolution, the mobilization
+of counter-revolutionary forces, such as the Black Hundreds, which will
+inevitably bring about the impossibility of convoking the Constituent, will
+cause a military catastrophe, the death of the Revolution, paralyse the
+economic life of the country and destroy Russia;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by delay in
+passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions caused by the war and
+the general disorder. It is necessary before everything to promulgate at once a
+decree transmitting the land to the peasants&rsquo; Land Committees, and to
+adopt an energetic course of action abroad in proposing to the Allies to
+proclaim their peace terms and to begin peace-parleys;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and <i>pogromist</i> movements, it is
+indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these movements, and for
+this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of Public Safety, composed of
+representatives of the Municipality and the organs of the revolutionary
+democracy, acting in contact with the Provisional Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries all
+rallied to this resolution…. When Kerensky saw it, however, he summoned
+Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain. If it expressed a lack of
+confidence in the Provisional Government, he begged Avksentiev to form a new
+Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev, the leaders of the
+&ldquo;compromisers,&rdquo; performed their last compromise…. They explained to
+Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of the Government!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with fixed
+bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the occupants, and
+ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd had gathered to watch
+them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged to the Government or the
+Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in front of the Kazan Cathedral the same
+thing was happening, machines being directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six
+sailors with rifles came along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation
+with two of the soldiers. On the sailors&rsquo; hat bands were <i>Avrora</i>
+and <i>Zaria Svobody,</i>&mdash;the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of
+the Baltic Fleet. One of them said, &ldquo;Cronstadt is coming!&rdquo;… It was
+as if, in 1792, on the streets of Paris, some one had said: &ldquo;The
+Marseillais are coming!&rdquo; For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand
+sailors, convinced Bolsheviki and not afraid to die….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Rabotchi i Soldat</i> was just out, all its front page one huge
+proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The Kornilovists
+of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs <i>yunkers</i> and
+volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum <i>yunkers</i> and the Tsarskoye Selo
+volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high treason is being contemplated
+against the Petrograd Soviet…. The campaign of the counter-revolutionists is
+being directed against the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on the eve of its
+opening, against the Constituent Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd
+Soviet is guarding the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is
+directing the repulse of the conspirators&rsquo; attack. The entire garrison
+and proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of the people a
+crushing blow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with the
+Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall meet in
+continuous session, concentrating in their hands all information about the
+plans of the conspirators.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
+Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit and five
+from each Ward Soviet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the All-Russian
+Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an extraordinary meeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers and
+workers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be crushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline, determination!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long live the Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Military Revolutionary Committee.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of storm,
+delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to take part in the
+debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six, eight, twelve hours a day….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik delegates were
+holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the speaker hidden by the
+crowd: &ldquo;The compromisers say that we are isolated. Pay no attention to
+them. Once it begins they must be dragged along with us, or else lose their
+following….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here he held up a piece of paper. &ldquo;We are dragging them! A message has
+just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They say that they
+condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks us they will not oppose
+the cause of the proletariat!&rdquo; Exultant shouting….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a monstrous dun
+mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> had
+finally decided to welcome the delegates to that new Congress which would mean
+its own ruin&mdash;and perhaps the ruin of the revolutionary order it had
+built. At this meeting, however, only members of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> could
+vote….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak, in a
+tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
+democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await bloodshed in
+the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to destroy, not only our
+homogeneous Government, but the Revolution itself….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
+Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of the
+Revolution…&rdquo; (Cries, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lie!)&rdquo; &ldquo;The
+counter-revolutionists are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and
+massacres…. If there is any <i>vystuplennie,</i> there will be no Constituent
+Assembly….&rdquo; (Cries, &ldquo;Lie! Shame!&rdquo;)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the Petrograd
+garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff…. You must obey the orders
+of the Staff and of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> elected by you. All Power to the
+Soviets&mdash;that means death! Robbers and thieves are waiting for the moment
+to loot and burn…. When you have such slogans put before you, &lsquo;Enter the
+houses, take away the shoes and clothes from the
+bourgeoisie&mdash;&rsquo;&rdquo; (Tumult. Cries, &ldquo;No such slogan! A lie!
+A lie!&rdquo;) &ldquo;Well, it may start differently, but it will end that way!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> has full power to act, and must be obeyed…. We
+are not afraid of bayonets…. The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> will defend the Revolution
+with its body….&rdquo; (Cries, &ldquo;It was a dead body long ago!&rdquo;)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard screaming, as he
+pounded the desk, &ldquo;Those who are urging this are committing a
+crime!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voice: &ldquo;You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power and
+turned it over to the bourgeoisie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gotz, ringing the chairman&rsquo;s bell: &ldquo;Silence, or I&rsquo;ll have you
+put out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voice: &ldquo;Try it!&rdquo; (Cheers and whistling.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now concerning our policy about peace.&rdquo; (Laughter.)
+&ldquo;Unfortunately Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war.
+There is going to be peace, but not permanent peace&mdash;not a democratic
+peace…. To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed, we
+passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to the Land
+Committees and immediate peace negotiations….&rdquo; (Laughter, and cries,
+&ldquo;Too late!&rdquo;)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave of
+roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house, thunderous. His
+thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in its expression of
+malicious irony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dan&rsquo;s tactics prove that the masses&mdash;the great, dull,
+indifferent masses&mdash;are absolutely with him!&rdquo; (Titantic mirth.) He
+turned toward the chairman, dramatically. &ldquo;When we spoke of giving the
+land to the peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, &lsquo;If they
+don&rsquo;t give it to you, take it yourselves!&rsquo; and the peasants
+followed our advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think Kerensky&rsquo;s order to suspend the death penalty
+in the army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by the
+Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
+Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik…. The time may come when Dan
+will say that the flower of the Revolution participated in the rising of July
+16th and 18th…. In Dan&rsquo;s resolution to-day at the Council of the Republic
+there was no mention of enforcing discipline in the army, although that is
+urged in the propaganda of his party….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have left
+the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries conquered the
+Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it to the Cadets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
+Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the down-trodden masses
+revolt, it is their right….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
+until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this…. the seizure of
+power by the masses means the tragic end of the Revolution…. Trotzky, as a
+Social Democratic theorist, is himself opposed to what he is now
+advocating….&rdquo; (Cries, &ldquo;Enough! Down with him!&rdquo;)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Martov, constantly interrupted: &ldquo;The Internationalists are not opposed to
+the transmission of power to the democracy, but they disapprove of the methods
+of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment to seize the power….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of the
+Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to seize the
+office of <i>Izviestia</i> and censor the paper. The wildest uproar followed.
+Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard. Delegates of the Army and the
+Baltic Fleet stood up all over the hall, shouting that the Soviet was
+<i>their</i> Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to the
+workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to provocations to
+demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately creating a Committee of
+Public Safety, and asking the Provisional Government at once to pass decrees
+transferring the land to the peasants and beginning peace negotiations….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> on the
+eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of the Congress. The
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> was practically dead, he said, and the resolution was simply
+a trick to bolster up its waning power….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!&rdquo;
+Whereupon all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was passed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle slung from
+his shoulder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;re moving!&rdquo; (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but
+with satisfaction. &ldquo;We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
+Minister of Religions. They&rsquo;re down cellar now. One regiment is on the
+march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph Agency, another
+the State Bank. The Red Guard is out….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red Guard&mdash;a
+huddled group of boys in workmen&rsquo;s clothes, carrying guns with bayonets,
+talking nervously together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle fire, where
+the <i>yunkers</i> were trying to open the bridges over the Neva, to prevent
+the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg quarter from joining the Soviet
+forces in the centre of the city; and the Cronstadt sailors were closing them
+again….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic hive….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>Chapter IV<br />
+The Fall of the Provisional Government</h2>
+
+<p>
+Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed from
+Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day. In front of the
+State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were standing at the closed gates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What side do you belong to?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;The
+Government?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No more Government,&rdquo; one answered with a grin, &ldquo;<i>Slava
+Bogu!</i> Glory to God!&rdquo; That was all I could get out of him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small boys hanging
+on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed even less uneasiness
+among the street crowds than there had been the day before. A whole crop of new
+appeals against insurrection had blossomed out on the walls during the
+night&mdash;to the peasants, to the soldiers at the front, to the workmen of
+Petrograd. One read:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary meeting of
+November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public Safety, composed of members
+of the Central and Ward Dumas, and representatives of the following
+revolutionary democratic organizations: The <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> the All-Russian
+Executive Committee of Peasant Deputies, the Army organisations, the
+<i>Tsentroflot,</i> the Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the building of
+the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 7th, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though I didn&rsquo;t realize it then, this was the Duma&rsquo;s declaration of
+war against the Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I bought a copy of <i>Rabotchi Put,</i> the only newspaper which seemed on
+sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a second-hand copy of
+<i>Dien.</i> The Bolshevik paper, printed on large-sized sheets in the
+conquered office of the <i>Russkaya Volia,</i> had huge headlines: &ldquo;ALL
+POWER&mdash;TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD!
+LAND!&rdquo; The leading article was signed
+&ldquo;Zinoviev,&rdquo;&mdash;Lenin&rsquo;s companion in hiding. It began:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest democrat
+realises that there are only two alternatives to the present situation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Either&mdash;the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord crew,
+and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger and death….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Or&mdash;the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
+workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a complete
+abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the capitalists, immediate
+proposal of a just peace. Then the land is assured to the peasants, then
+control of industry is assured to the workers, then bread is assured to the
+hungry, then the end of this nonsensical war!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Dien</i> contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
+capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph Agency;
+the Peterhof <i>yunkers</i> unable to reach Petrograd; the Cossacks undecided;
+arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of Chief of the City Militia Meyer;
+arrests, counter-arrests, skirmishes between clashing patrols of soldiers,
+<i>yunkers</i> and Red Guards. (See App. IV, Sect. 1)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
+<i>oboronetz,</i> secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I asked
+him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his shoulders in a
+tired manner and replied, &ldquo;<i>Tchort znayet!</i> The devil knows! Well,
+perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they won&rsquo;t be able to
+hold it more than three days. They haven&rsquo;t the men to run a government.
+Perhaps it&rsquo;s a good thing to let them try&mdash;that will furnish
+them….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac&rsquo;s Square was picketed by
+armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young officers, walking up
+and down or muttering together; the sailors wouldn&rsquo;t let them leave….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a scattered burst
+of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on around the Marinsky
+Palace, where the Council of the Russian Republic met. Diagonally across the
+wide square was drawn a line of soldiers, rifles ready, staring at the hotel
+roof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Provacatzia!</i> Shot at us!&rdquo; snapped one, while another went
+running toward the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a red flag
+flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: &ldquo;S.R.S.D.&rdquo; (<i>Soviet
+Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov</i>); all the guns trained toward St.
+Isaac&rsquo;s. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth of Novaya
+Ulitza&mdash;boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile of lumber
+barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a neighbouring wood-pile were
+being built up along the front of the building to form breastworks….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there going to be any fighting?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon, soon,&rdquo; answered a soldier, nervously. &ldquo;Go away,
+comrade, you&rsquo;ll get hurt. They will come from that direction,&rdquo;
+pointing toward the Admiralty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who will?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I couldn&rsquo;t tell you, brother,&rdquo; he answered, and spat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A sailor was
+telling of the end of the Council of the Russian Republic. &ldquo;We walked in
+there,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and filled all the doors with comrades. I went up
+to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz who sat in the president&rsquo;s
+chair. &lsquo;No more Council,&rsquo; I says. &lsquo;Run along home
+now!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get around to the
+door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling sailor stopped me, and
+when I showed my pass, just said, &ldquo;If you were Saint Michael himself,
+comrade, you couldn&rsquo;t pass here!&rdquo; Through the glass of the door I
+made out the distorted face and gesticulating arms of a French correspondent,
+locked in….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform of a
+general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in the face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am General Alexeyev,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;As your superior officer
+and as a member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to
+pass!&rdquo; The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the corner
+of his eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew very agitated when
+he saw who it was and saluted before he realised what he was doing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo</i>&mdash;your High
+Excellency&mdash;&rdquo; he stammered, in the manner of the old régime,
+&ldquo;Access to the Palace is strictly forbidden&mdash;I have no
+right&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing apparently with
+great amusement. A few minutes later another, with armed soldiers on the front
+seat, full of arrested members of the Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish
+member of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the
+Square.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night,&rdquo; said I,
+pointing to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
+&ldquo;The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
+minds….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn up, and
+behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could reach.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All the entrances
+to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a cordon of troops stretched
+clear across the western end, besieged by an uneasy throng of citizens. Except
+for far-away soldiers who seemed to be carrying wood out of the Palace
+courtyard and piling it in front of the main gateway, everything was quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We couldn&rsquo;t make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
+pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we approached
+another part of the line with an important air and showed our American
+passports, saying &ldquo;Official business!&rdquo; and shouldered through. At
+the door of the Palace the same old <i>shveitzari,</i> in their brass-buttoned
+blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars, politely took our coats and hats,
+and we went up-stairs. In the dark, gloomy corridor, stripped of its
+tapestries, a few old attendants were lounging about, and in front of
+Kerensky&rsquo;s door a young officer paced up and down, gnawing his moustache.
+We asked if we could interview the Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his
+heels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I am sorry,&rdquo; he replied in French. &ldquo;Alexander
+Feodorvitch is extremely occupied just now….&rdquo; He looked at us for a
+moment. &ldquo;In fact, he is not here….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know, there
+wasn&rsquo;t enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to the English
+Hospital and borrow some.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are the Ministers here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are meeting in some room&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know where.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are the Bolsheviki coming?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call every
+minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have <i>yunkers</i> in
+the front of the Palace. Through that door there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can we go in there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Certainly not. It is not permitted.&rdquo; Abruptly he shook hands
+all around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in a temporary
+partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside. On the other side were
+voices, and somebody laughing. Except for that the vast spaces of the old
+Palace were silent as the grave. An old <i>shveitzar</i> ran up. &ldquo;No,
+<i>barin,</i> you must not go in there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why is the door locked?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To keep the soldiers in,&rdquo; he answered. After a few minutes he said
+something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We unlocked
+the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said nothing. At the
+end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with gilded cornices and enormous
+crystal lustres, and beyond it several smaller ones, wainscoted with dark wood.
+On both sides of the parquetted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and
+blankets, upon which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a
+litter of cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with
+expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps
+of the <i>yunker</i>-schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of
+tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle of white Burgundy,
+evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace. They looked at us with
+astonishment as we marched past, through room after room, until at last we came
+out into a series of great state-salons, fronting their long and dirty windows
+on the Square. The walls were covered with huge canvases in massive gilt
+frames&mdash;historical battle-scenes…. &ldquo;12 October 1812&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;6 November 1812&rdquo; and &ldquo;16/28 August 1813.&rdquo; … One had a
+gash across the upper right hand corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks, from the
+look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on window-sills, rifles
+stacked between the mattresses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me from the
+region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent French, &ldquo;I
+see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are foreigners.&rdquo; He
+was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he removed his cap.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs&mdash;Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
+absolutely at your service.&rdquo; It did not seem to occur to him that there
+was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering through the
+defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to complain of the state of
+Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not only these Bolsheviki,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but the fine
+traditions of the Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all
+students in the officers&rsquo; training schools. But are they gentlemen?
+Kerensky opened the officers&rsquo; schools to the ranks, to any soldier who
+could pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who are contaminated
+by the Revolution….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without consequence he changed the subject. &ldquo;I am very anxious to go away
+from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army. Will you please
+go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give you my address.&rdquo; In
+spite of our protestations he wrote it on a piece of paper, and seemed to feel
+better at once. I have it still&mdash;&ldquo;<i>Oranien-baumskaya Shkola
+Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya Peterhof.</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We had a review this morning early,&rdquo; he went on, as he guided us
+through the rooms and explained everything. &ldquo;The Women&rsquo;s Battalion
+decided to remain loyal to the Government.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are the women soldiers in the Palace?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won&rsquo;t be hurt if any
+trouble comes.&rdquo; He sighed. &ldquo;It is a great responsibility,&rdquo;
+said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square before the
+Palace, where three companies of long-coated <i>yunkers</i> were drawn up under
+arms, being harangued by a tall, energetic-looking officer I recognised as
+Stankievitch, chief Military Commissar of the Provisional Government. After a
+few minutes two of the companies shouldered arms with a clash, barked three
+sharp shouts, and went swinging off across the Square, disappearing through the
+Red Arch into the quiet city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange,&rdquo; said some one.
+Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said they had
+entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their names&mdash;Robert Olev,
+Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian. But now they didn&rsquo;t want
+to be officers any more, because officers were very unpopular. They
+didn&rsquo;t seem to know what to do, as a matter of fact, and it was plain
+that they were not happy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But soon they began to boast. &ldquo;If the Bolsheviki come we shall show them
+how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But if we should be
+overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for himself….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on the Square
+all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces, and the
+<i>izvoshtchiki,</i> standing on the corners, galloped in every direction.
+Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there, grabbing up guns,
+rifle-belts and shouting, &ldquo;Here they come! Here they come!&rdquo; … But
+in a few minutes it quieted down again. The <i>izvoshtchiki</i> came back, the
+people lying down stood up. Through the Red Arch appeared the <i>yunkers,</i>
+marching a little out of step, one of them supported by two comrades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the Square had all
+disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government buildings seemed deserted. We
+went into the Hotel France for dinner, and right in the middle of soup the
+waiter, very pale in the face, came up and insisted that we move to the main
+dining-room at the back of the house, because they were going to put out the
+lights in the café. &ldquo;There will be much shooting,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for one
+flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this stood a big
+armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke pouring out of it. A small
+boy had climbed up the side of the thing and was looking down the barrel of a
+machine gun. Soldiers and sailors stood around, evidently waiting for
+something. We walked back up to the Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was
+gathered staring at the brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud
+tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, comrades,&rdquo; one was saying. &ldquo;How can we shoot at them?
+The Women&rsquo;s Battalion is in there&mdash;they will say we have fired on
+Russian women.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the corner, and
+a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come on!&rdquo; he yelled. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go on through and
+attack!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard above the
+roaring engine. &ldquo;The Committee says to wait. They have got artillery
+behind the wood-piles in there….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and there were no
+lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams, the crowds, the lighted
+shop-windows and the electric signs of the moving-picture shows&mdash;life
+going on as usual. We had tickets to the Ballet at the Marinsky
+Theatre&mdash;all theatres were open&mdash;but it was too exciting out of
+doors….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police Bridge,
+and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers wheeling into position a
+three-inch field-gun. Men in various uniforms were coming and going in an
+aimless way, and doing a great deal of talking….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every corner
+immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion. Pickets of a dozen
+soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the street-crossings, red-faced old men
+in rich fur coats shook their fists at them, smartly-dressed women screamed
+epithets; the soldiers argued feebly, with embarrassed grins…. Armoured cars
+went up and down the street, named after the first Tsars&mdash;Oleg, Rurik,
+Svietoslav&mdash;and daubed with huge red letters, &ldquo;R. S. D. R. P.&rdquo;
+<i>(Rossiskaya Partia</i>)[13]. At the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an
+armful of newspapers, and was immediately stormed by frantic people, offering a
+rouble, five roubles, ten roubles, tearing at each other like animals. It was
+<i>Rabotchi i Soldat,</i> announcing the victory of the Proletarian Revolution,
+the liberation of the Bolsheviki still in prison, calling upon the Army front
+and rear for support… a feverish little sheet of four pages, running to
+enormous type, containing no news….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had gathered, staring
+up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny red spark glowed and waned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See!&rdquo; said a tall peasant, pointing to it. &ldquo;It is a
+provocator. Presently he will fire on the people….&rdquo; Apparently no one
+thought of going to investigate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The massive façade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and from every
+street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in the gloom.
+Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous elephant-coloured
+armoured automobile, with two red flags flying from the turret, lumbered out
+with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the outer gate the Red Guards had
+built themselves a bon-fire. At the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the
+light of which the sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and
+down. The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each
+side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their
+breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard,
+engines going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder
+of feet, calling, shouting…. There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd
+came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black fur
+hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders, soldiers in rough
+dirt-coloured coats and grey fur <i>shapki</i> pinched flat, a leader or
+so&mdash;Lunatcharsky, Kameniev&mdash;hurrying along in the centre of a group
+all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces, and bulging portfolios under
+their arms. The extraordinary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I
+stopped Kameniev&mdash;a quick moving little man, with a wide, vivacious face
+set close to his shoulders. Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of
+the resolution just passed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, saluting
+the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
+particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and complete
+cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has less blood been
+spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be
+created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial proletariat of
+the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will march firmly toward
+Socialism, the only means by which the country can be spared the miseries and
+unheard-of horrors of war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government will propose immediately
+a just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer the land
+to the peasants. It will establish workmen&rsquo;s control over production and
+distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a general control over
+the banks, which it will transform into a state monopoly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies calls upon
+the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and all
+their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its conviction
+that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will assure complete
+revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is
+convinced that the proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us
+in conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You consider it won then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He lifted his shoulders. &ldquo;There is much to do. Horribly much. It is just
+beginning….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions, looking
+black and biting his grey beard. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s insane! Insane!&rdquo; he
+shouted. &ldquo;The European working-class won&rsquo;t move! All
+Russia&mdash;&rdquo; He waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and
+Kameniev had both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin&rsquo;s
+terrible tongue….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional Government no longer
+existed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The characteristic of bourgeois governments,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;is
+to deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we
+are going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the
+needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying world-wide
+Social Revolution…. And Zinoviev, crying, &ldquo;This day we have paid our debt
+to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible blow at the war, a
+terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the
+Executioner….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the
+victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be marching
+against Petrograd&mdash;a delegation must be sent to tell them the truth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cries, &ldquo;You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky, coldly, &ldquo;The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has
+been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamorous mob at
+the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers, packed immovably
+in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every window-sill, and even the edge
+of the platform, the representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia
+waited in anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the
+chairman&rsquo;s bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of
+unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass
+and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in authority mounted the
+tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all,
+took up the cry &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t smoke, comrades!&rdquo; and went on smoking.
+Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me
+beside him. Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights&rsquo;
+sleepless work on the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the platform sat the leaders of the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>&mdash;for the
+last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the first
+days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of the first period
+of the Russian revolution, which these men had attempted to guide in careful
+ways…. The three greatest of them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front
+through country towns all doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who
+had contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with
+consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken, who,
+nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence for a lost
+cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido,
+Fillipovsky,&mdash;white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the
+second <i>siezd</i> of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over
+their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot, holding
+in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a long arm…. It was
+10.40 P. M.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon&rsquo;s
+uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by the
+scuffling and disputing of the people at the door….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have the power in our hands,&rdquo; he began sadly, stopped for a
+moment, and then went on in a low voice. &ldquo;Comrades! The Congress of
+Soviets in meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary
+moment that you will understand why the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> considers it
+unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become much
+clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a member of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> and that at this very moment our party comrades are in the
+Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put
+on them by the <i>Tsay-ee-kah.&rdquo;</i> (Confused uproar.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies open!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about. Avanessov
+announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was decided to base the presidium upon
+proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded
+soldier shouted at them, &ldquo;Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when
+<i>we</i> were the minority!&rdquo; Result&mdash;14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist
+Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1 Internationalist (Gorky&rsquo;s group).
+Hendelmann, for the right and centre Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they
+refused to take part in the presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the
+Mensheviki; and from the Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the
+verification of certain circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium.
+Scattering applause and hoots. One voice, &ldquo;Renegades, you call yourselves
+Socialists!&rdquo; A representative of the Ukrainean delegates demanded, and
+received, a place. Then the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> stepped down, and in their
+places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame Kollentai, Nogin…. The
+hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared, these Bolsheviki, from a
+despised and hunted sect less than four months ago, to this supreme place, the
+helm of great Russia in full tide of insurrection!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of Power; second,
+War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky, rising, announced
+that upon agreement of the bureau of all factions, it was proposed to hear and
+discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members
+of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> and the different parties, and finally to pass to the
+order of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of the
+crowd, persistent, disquieting,&mdash;the dull shock of guns. People looked
+anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came over them.
+Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, &ldquo;The civil war is
+beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful settlement of the
+crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint we must urgently discuss a
+means of averting civil war. Our brothers are being shot down in the streets!
+At this moment, when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question
+of Power is being settled by means of a military plot organised by one of the
+revolutionary parties&mdash;&rdquo; for a moment he could not make himself
+heard above the noise, &ldquo;All of the revolutionary parties must face the
+fact! The first <i>vopros</i> (question) before the Congress is the question of
+Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in the
+streets!… We must create a power which will be recognised by the whole
+democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary
+democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war,
+the result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution…. The
+possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a united democratic
+authority…. We must elect a delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist
+parties and organisation….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and the
+delegates, screaming at each other…. So, with the crash of artillery, in the
+dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new Russia was being born.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats supported
+Martov&rsquo;s proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced that the
+All-Russian Peasants&rsquo; Soviets had refused to send delegates to the
+Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal invitation.
+&ldquo;Some delegates are present,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I move that they be
+given votes.&rdquo; Accepted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded the floor.
+&ldquo;The political hypocrites who control this Congress,&rdquo; he shouted,
+&ldquo;told us we were to settle the question of Power&mdash;and it is being
+settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are being struck
+against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that the nails are being
+driven into the coffin of the political party which has risked such an
+adventure!&rdquo; Uproar. Followed him Gharra: &ldquo;While we are here
+discussing propositions of peace, there is a battle on in the streets…. The
+Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki refuse to be involved in what is
+happening, and call upon all public forces to resist the attempt to capture the
+power….&rdquo; Kutchin, delegate of the 12th Army and representative of the
+Troudoviki: &ldquo;I was sent here only for information, and I am returning at
+once to the Front, where all the Army Committees consider that the taking of
+power by the Soviets, only three weeks before the Constituent Assembly, is a
+stab in the back of the Army and a crime against the people&mdash;!&rdquo;
+Shouts of &ldquo;Lie! You lie!&rdquo;… When he could be heard again,
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s make an end of this adventure in Petrograd! I call upon all
+delegates to leave this hall in order to save the country and the
+Revolution!&rdquo; As he went down the aisle in the midst of a deafening noise,
+people surged in upon him, threatening…. Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long
+brown goatee, speaking suavely and persuasively: &ldquo;I speak for the
+delegates from the Front. The Army is imperfectly represented in this Congress,
+and furthermore, the Army does not consider the Congress of Soviets necessary
+at this time, only three weeks before the opening of the
+Constituent&mdash;&rdquo; shouts and stamping, always growing more violent.
+&ldquo;The Army does not consider that the Congress of Soviets has the
+necessary authority&mdash;&rdquo; Soldiers began to stand up all over the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?&rdquo; they cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army, the
+Second F&mdash; regiment, the First N&mdash; Regiment, the Third S&mdash;
+Rifles….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the soldiers!
+What do the soldiers say about it?&rdquo; Jeers and hoots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has happened
+and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise all self-conscious
+revolutionary forces for the salvation of the Revolution! The Front group will
+leave the Congress…. The place to fight is out on the streets!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immense bawling outcry. &ldquo;You speak for the Staff&mdash;not for the
+Army!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!&rdquo; were hurled at
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only possibility
+of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with the Provisional
+Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which would find support in all
+strata of society. He could not proceed for several minutes. Raising his voice
+to a shout he read the Menshevik declaration:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid of
+the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and parties, we
+find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and therefore withdraw, inviting
+the other groups to follow us and to meet for discussion of the
+situation!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deserter!&rdquo; At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
+Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard protesting against
+the bombardment of the Winter Palace…. &ldquo;We are opposed to this kind of
+anarchy….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with flashing
+eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his hand:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades!&rdquo; he cried and there was a hush. &ldquo;My <i>familia</i>
+(name) is Peterson&mdash;I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard
+the statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these statements
+would have some value <i>if their authors had been representatives of the
+Army</i>&mdash;&rdquo; Wild applause. <i>&ldquo;But they do not represent the
+soldiers!&rdquo;</i> Shaking his fist. &ldquo;The Twelfth Army has been
+insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great Soviet and the Army
+Committee, but just as your own <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> our Committee refused to
+call a meeting of the representatives of the masses until the end of September,
+so that the reactionaries could elect their own false delegates to this
+Congress. I tell you now, the Lettish soldiers have many times said, &lsquo;No
+more resolutions! No more talk! We want deeds&mdash;the Power must be in our
+hands!&rsquo; Let these impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is not
+with them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session, stunned by
+the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon, the delegates had
+hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after hammer-blow had fallen from that
+tribune, welding them together but beating them down. Did they stand then
+alone? Was Russia rising against them? Was it true that the Army was marching
+on Petrograd? Then this clear-eyed young soldier had spoken, and in a flash
+they knew it for the truth…. <i>This</i> was the voice of the
+soldiers&mdash;the stirring millions of uniformed workers and peasants were men
+like them, and their thoughts and feelings were the same…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More soldiers … Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that they had
+only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and that <i>the
+Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,</i> as they stood for
+division according to political parties, and not groups. &ldquo;Hundreds of
+delegates from the Front,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;are being elected without the
+participation of the soldiers because the Army Committees are no longer the
+real representatives of the rank and file….&rdquo; Lukianov, crying that
+officers like Kharash and Khintchuk could not represent the Army in this
+congress,&mdash;but only the high command. &ldquo;The real inhabitants of the
+trenches want with all their hearts the transfer of Power into the hands of the
+Soviets, and they expect very much from it!&rdquo;… The tide was turning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came Abramovitch, for the <i>Bund,</i> the organ of the Jewish Social
+Democrats&mdash;his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling with rage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
+<i>Bund</i> group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!&rdquo; He raised his voice and
+hand. &ldquo;Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn&rsquo;t permit us to
+remain here and be responsible for these crimes. Because the firing on the
+Winter Palace doesn&rsquo;t cease, the Municipal Duma together with the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Executive Committee of the
+Peasants&rsquo; Soviet, has decided to perish with the Provisional Government,
+and we are going with them! Unarmed we will expose our breasts to the machine
+guns of the Terrorists…. We invite all delegates to this Congress&mdash;&rdquo;
+The rest was lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and curses which rose to a
+hellish pitch as fifty delegates got up and pushed their way out….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, &ldquo;Keep your seats and we&rsquo;ll go
+on with our business!&rdquo; And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel face,
+letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, &ldquo;All these so-called
+Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries,
+<i>Bund</i>&mdash;let them go! They are just so much refuse which will be swept
+into the garbage-heap of history!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City Duma the
+Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to offer negotiations to
+the Winter Palace. &ldquo;In this way we have done everything possible to avoid
+blood-shed….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where the Military
+Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed, engulfing and spitting out
+panting couriers, despatching Commissars armed with power of life and death to
+all the corners of the city, amid the buzz of the telephonographs. The door
+opened, a blast of stale air and cigarette smoke rushed out, we caught a
+glimpse of dishevelled men bending over a map under the glare of a shaded
+electric-light…. Comrade Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a mop of
+pale yellow hair, made out passes for us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one huge park of
+arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of which could be heard the
+far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great motor-truck stood there, shaking to
+the roar of its engine. Men were tossing bundles into it, and others receiving
+them, with guns beside them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; I shouted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Down-town&mdash;all over&mdash;everywhere!&rdquo; answered a little
+workman, grinning, with a large exultant gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We showed our passes. &ldquo;Come along!&rdquo; they invited. &ldquo;But
+there&rsquo;ll probably be shooting&mdash;&rdquo; We climbed in; the clutch
+slid home with a raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled
+backward on top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate,
+and then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the workmen
+with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top speed down the
+Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side…. One man tore the wrapping from
+a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of papers into the air. We imitated him,
+plunging down through the dark street with a tail of white papers floating and
+eddying out behind. The late passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols
+around bonfires on the corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them.
+Sometimes armed men loomed up ahead, crying &ldquo;<i>Shtoi!</i>&rdquo; and
+raising their guns, but our chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible and
+we hurtled on….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light read:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into the
+hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at
+the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a
+democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land, labor
+control over production, creation of a Soviet Government&mdash;that cause is
+securely achieved.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Military Revolutionary Committee</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Petrograd Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the Military
+Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our calendar), which we
+helped to distribute from a motor-truck just after the surrender of the Winter
+Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a goat-skin
+Caucasian cape, snapped, &ldquo;Look out! Here the provocators always shoot
+from the windows!&rdquo; We turned into Znamensky Square, dark and almost
+deserted, careened around Trubetskoy&rsquo;s brutal statue and swung down the
+wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles ready, peering at the windows.
+Behind us the street was alive with people running and stooping. We could no
+longer hear the cannon, and the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the
+city the quieter and more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all
+brightly lighted. Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line of
+sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed down, and we
+climbed out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina Canal, under
+an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn across the Nevsky, blocking
+the way to a crowd of people in column of fours. There were about three or four
+hundred of them, men in frock coats, well-dressed women, officers&mdash;all
+sorts and conditions of people. Among them we recognised many of the delegates
+from the Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries;
+Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets,
+Sarokin, Kerensky&rsquo;s spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and at the head
+white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and Prokopovitch, Minister of
+Supplies in the Provisional Government, arrested that morning and released. I
+caught sight of Malkin, reporter for the <i>Russian Daily News.</i>
+&ldquo;Going to die in the Winter Palace,&rdquo; he shouted cheerfully. The
+procession stood still, but from the front of it came loud argument. Schreider
+and Prokopovitch were bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We demand to pass!&rdquo; they cried. &ldquo;See, these comrades come
+from the Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the Winter
+Palace!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an enormous hand,
+frowning. &ldquo;I have orders from the Committee not to let anybody go to the
+Winter Palace,&rdquo; he grumbled. &ldquo;But I will send a comrade to
+telephone to Smolny….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether you
+permit us or not!&rdquo; cried old Schreider, very much excited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have orders&mdash;&rdquo; repeated the sailor sullenly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!&rdquo; came from all
+sides. &ldquo;We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on Russians
+and comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the sailor, looking stubborn, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t allow
+you to pass.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m not going to shoot people who haven&rsquo;t any guns. We
+won&rsquo;t shoot unarmed Russian people….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will go forward! What can you do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will do something,&rdquo; replied the sailor, evidently at a loss.
+&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t let you pass. We will do something.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do? What will you do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another sailor came up, very much irritated. &ldquo;We will spank you!&rdquo;
+he cried, energetically. &ldquo;And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go home
+now, and leave us in peace!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment, Prokopovitch had
+mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella, he made a speech:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades and citizens!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Force is being used
+against us! We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant
+men! It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
+switchmen&mdash;&rdquo; (What he meant by &ldquo;switchmen&rdquo; I never
+discovered.) &ldquo;Let us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of
+saving the country and the Revolution!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and back up the
+Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage of the diversion we
+slipped past the guards and set off in the direction of the Winter Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of soldiers and Red
+Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan Cathedral a three-inch field-gun
+lay in the middle of the street, slewed sideways from the recoil of its last
+shot over the roofs. Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low
+tones and peering down toward the Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying:
+&ldquo;It is possible that we have done wrong….&rdquo; At the corners patrols
+stopped all passersby&mdash;and the composition of these patrols was
+interesting, for in command of the regular troops was invariably a Red Guard….
+The shooting had ceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: &ldquo;The
+<i>yunkers</i> have sent word they want us to go and get them out!&rdquo;
+Voices began to give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a dark mass
+moving forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the clinking of arms. We
+fell in with the first ranks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we poured
+through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in a low voice:
+&ldquo;Look out, comrades! Don&rsquo;t trust them. They will fire,
+surely!&rdquo; In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching together,
+and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the Alexander Column.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How many of you did they kill?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. About ten….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army seemed
+reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow forward. By this
+time, in the light that streamed out of all the Winter Palace windows, I could
+see that the first two or three hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few
+scattered soldiers. Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping
+down inside gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown
+down by the <i>yunkers</i> who had stood there. On both sides of the main
+gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the huge pile
+came not the slightest sound.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right hand
+entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of the East wing,
+from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. A number of huge packing
+cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously,
+battering them open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets,
+curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware…. One man went strutting around
+with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich
+feathers, which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when
+somebody cried, &ldquo;Comrades! Don&rsquo;t touch anything! Don&rsquo;t take
+anything! This is the property of the People!&rdquo; Immediately twenty voices
+were crying, &ldquo;Stop! Put everything back! Don&rsquo;t take anything!
+Property of the People!&rdquo; Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and
+tapestry were snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away
+the bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
+cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
+spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be heard
+growing fainter and fainter in the distance, &ldquo;Revolutionary discipline!
+Property of the People….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There order was
+also being established. &ldquo;Clear the Palace!&rdquo; bawled a Red Guard,
+sticking his head through an inner door. &ldquo;Come, comrades, let&rsquo;s
+show that we&rsquo;re not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the Palace
+except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in their hands.
+Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen and paper. Shouts of
+&ldquo;All out! All out!&rdquo; were heard far and near within, and the Army
+began to pour through the door, jostling, expostulating, arguing. As each man
+appeared he was seized by the self-appointed committee, who went through his
+pockets and looked under his coat. Everything that was plainly not his property
+was taken away, the man at the table noted it on his paper, and it was carried
+into a little room. The most amazing assortment of objects were thus
+confiscated; statuettes, bottles of ink, bed-spreads worked with the Imperial
+monogram, candles, a small oil-painting, desk blotters, gold-handled swords,
+cakes of soap, clothes of every description, blankets. One Red Guard carried
+three rifles, two of which he had taken away from <i>yunkers;</i> another had
+four portfolios bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
+surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the committee
+explained that stealing was not worthy of the people&rsquo;s champions; often
+those who had been caught turned around and began to help go through the rest
+of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Yunkers</i> came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee seized upon
+them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the search with remarks like,
+&ldquo;Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists! Counter-revolutionists! Murderers of the
+People!&rdquo; But there was no violence done, although the <i>yunkers</i> were
+terrified. They too had their pockets full of small plunder. It was carefully
+noted down by the scribe, and piled in the little room…. The <i>yunkers</i>
+were disarmed. &ldquo;Now, will you take up arms against the People any
+more?&rdquo; demanded clamouring voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered the <i>yunkers,</i> one by one. Whereupon they were
+allowed to go free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the big Red
+Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. &ldquo;Who are you anyway?&rdquo;
+he asked. &ldquo;How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys? (There were five
+of us, two women.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Pazhal&rsquo;st&rsquo;, touarishtchi!</i> Way, Comrades!&rdquo; A
+soldier and a Red Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other
+guards with fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen men in
+civilian dress&mdash;the members of the Provisional Government. First came
+Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking sullenly at the
+floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply around; he stared at us with
+cold fixity…. They passed in silence; the victorious insurrectionists crowded
+to see, but there were only a few angry mutterings. It was only later that we
+learned how the people in the street wanted to lynch them, and shots were
+fired&mdash;but the sailors brought them safely to Peter-Paul….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was still a great
+deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found apartments in the vast
+edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of <i>yunkers</i> which did not
+exist. We went upstairs and wandered through room after room. This part of the
+Palace had been entered also by other detachments from the side of the Neva.
+The paintings, statues, tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were
+unharmed; in the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked,
+the papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had been
+stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The most highly
+prized loot was clothing, which the working people needed. In a room where
+furniture was stored we came upon two soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish
+leather upholstery from chairs. They explained it was to make boots with….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms stood nervously
+about, from force of habit repeating, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t go in there,
+<i>barin!</i> It is forbidden&mdash;&rdquo; We penetrated at length to the gold
+and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the Ministers had
+been in session all that day and night, and where the <i>shveitzari</i> had
+betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table covered with green baize was
+just as they had left it, under arrest. Before each empty seat was pen and ink
+and paper; the papers were scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action,
+rough drafts of proclamations and manifestos. Most of these were scratched out,
+as their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered with
+absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat despondently listening
+while Minister after Minister proposed chimerical schemes. I took one of these
+scribbled pages, in the hand writing of Konovalov, which read, &ldquo;The
+Provisional Government appeals to all classes to support the Provisional
+Government&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
+surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the Front and
+with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the Ministry of War early
+in the morning, but they did not know of the military telegraph office in the
+attic, nor of the private telephone line connecting it with the Winter Palace.
+In that attic a young officer sat all day, pouring out over the country a flood
+of appeals and proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put
+on his hat and walked calmly out of the building….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn&rsquo;t notice a change
+in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As we strolled from
+room to room a small group followed us, until by the time we reached the great
+picture-gallery where we had spent the afternoon with the <i>yunkers,</i> about
+a hundred men surged in after us. One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his
+face dark with sullen suspicion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by A.I.
+Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional Government, and
+then scratched out as the hopelessness of the situation became more and more
+evident. The geometrical figure beneath was probably idly drawn while the
+Ministers were waiting for the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; he growled. &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo;
+The others massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter.
+<i>&ldquo;Provocatori!&rdquo;</i> I heard somebody say. &ldquo;Looters!&rdquo;
+I produced our passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee. The soldier
+took them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without
+comprehension. Evidently he could not read. He handed them back and spat on the
+floor. <i>&ldquo;Bumagi!</i> Papers!&rdquo; said he with contempt. The mass
+slowly began to close in, like wild cattle around a cowpuncher on foot. Over
+their heads I caught sight of an officer, looking helpless, and shouted to him.
+He made for us, shouldering his way through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m the Commissar,&rdquo; he said to me. &ldquo;Who are you? What
+is it?&rdquo; The others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are foreigners?&rdquo; he rapidly asked in French. &ldquo;It is very
+dangerous….&rdquo; Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
+&ldquo;Comrades!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;These people are foreign
+comrades&mdash;from America. They have come here to be able to tell their
+countrymen about the bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the
+proletarian army!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How do you know that?&rdquo; replied the big soldier. &ldquo;I tell you
+they are provocators! They say they came here to observe the revolutionary
+discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been wandering freely through
+the Palace, and how do we know they haven&rsquo;t got their pockets full of
+loot?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>&ldquo;Pravilno!&rdquo;</i> snarled the others, pressing forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! Comrades!&rdquo; appealed the officer, sweat standing out on
+his forehead. &ldquo;I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Do
+you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are signed with the same names
+that are signed to my pass!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening onto the Neva
+quay, before which stood the usual committee going through pockets… &ldquo;You
+have narrowly escaped,&rdquo; he kept muttering, wiping his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What happened to the Women&rsquo;s Battalion?&rdquo; we asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;the women!&rdquo; He laughed. &ldquo;They were all huddled up
+in a back room. We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them&mdash;many
+were in hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the Finland
+Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they have a camp. (See
+App. IV, Sect. 4)….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure armies on the
+move, electric with patrols. From across the river, where loomed the darker
+mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout…. Underfoot the sidewalk was littered
+with broken stucco, from the cornice of the Palace where two shells from the
+battleship <i>Avrora</i> had struck; that was the only damage done by the
+bombardment….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the street-lights were
+again shining, the cannon gone, and the only signs of war were Red Guards and
+soldiers squatting around fires. The city was quiet&mdash;probably never so
+quiet in its history; on that night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single
+robbery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the galleried
+Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed, red-shrouded Imperial
+portraits. About a hundred people were grouped around the platform, where
+Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the Committee of Public Safety be
+expanded, so as to unite all the anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge
+organisation, to be called the Committee for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution. And as we looked on, the Committee for Salvation was
+formed&mdash;that Committee which was to develop into the most powerful enemy
+of the Bolsheviki, appearing, in the next week, sometimes under its own
+partisan name, and sometimes as the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public
+Safety….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet delegates,
+members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, old
+Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the Republic&mdash;among whom
+Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the convention of Soviets was not a
+legal convention, that the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> was still in office…. An
+appeal to the country was drafted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We hailed a cab. &ldquo;Where to?&rdquo; But when we said &ldquo;Smolny,&rdquo;
+the <i>izvoshtchik</i> shook his head. <i>&ldquo;Niet!&rdquo;</i> said he,
+&ldquo;there are devils….&rdquo; It was only after weary wandering that we
+found a driver willing to take us&mdash;and he wanted thirty rubles, and
+stopped two blocks away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and around the
+still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly asking everybody the
+latest news. The corridors were full of hurrying men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In
+some of the committee-rooms people lay sleeping on the floor, their guns beside
+them. In spite of the seceding delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with
+people, roaring like the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading the list of
+arrested Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted with thunderous
+applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter; Rutenburg came in for less; and at
+the mention of Paltchinsky, a storm of hoots, angry cries, cheers burst forth….
+It was announced that Tchudnovsky had been appointed Commissar of the Winter
+Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded face convulsed
+with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his fist on the presidium
+table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of the
+Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do you know that
+four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom fighting against tyranny
+of the Tsar, have been flung into Peter-Paul prison&mdash;the historical tomb
+of Liberty?&rdquo; In the uproar he pounded and yelled. Another delegate
+climbed up beside him, and pointed at the presidium.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit quietly
+here while the <i>Okhrana</i> of the Bolsheviki tortures their leaders?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky was gesturing for silence. &ldquo;These &lsquo;comrades&rsquo; who are
+now caught plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer
+Kerensky&mdash;is there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July 16th
+and 18th they didn&rsquo;t use much ceremony with us!&rdquo; With a triumphant
+ring in his voice he cried, &ldquo;Now that the <i>oborontsi</i> and the
+faint-hearted have gone, and the whole task of defending and saving the
+Revolution rests on our shoulders, it is particularly necessary to
+work&mdash;work&mdash;work! We have decided to die rather than give up!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered with the mud
+of his ride. &ldquo;The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on guard at the gates of
+Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!&rdquo; Wild cheers. &ldquo;The Cycle Corps sent from the front has
+arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are now with us; they recognise the
+power of the Soviets, the necessity of immediate transfer of land to the
+peasants and industrial control to the workers. The Fifth Battalion of
+Cyclists, stationed at Tsarskoye, is ours….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of delirious
+enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered <i>three days
+before</i> from the South-west front to the &ldquo;defence of Petrograd.&rdquo;
+They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and at the station of
+Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth Battalion from Tsarskoye. A
+joint meeting was held, and it was discovered that &ldquo;among the cyclists
+not a single man was found willing to shed the blood of his brothers, or to
+support a Government of bourgeois and land-owners!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect a special
+committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war. &ldquo;There
+isn&rsquo;t any peaceful solution!&rdquo; bellowed the crowed. &ldquo;Victory
+is the only solution!&rdquo; The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of Jocular
+insults. There was no longer any panic fear…. Kameniev from the platform
+shouted after them, &ldquo;The Mensheviki Internationalists claimed
+&lsquo;emergency&rsquo; for the question of a &lsquo;peaceful solution,&rsquo;
+but they always voted for suspension of the order of the day in favour of
+declarations of factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It is
+evident,&rdquo; finished Kameniev, &ldquo;that the withdrawal of all these
+renegades was decided upon beforehand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and proceed to
+the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all Russia:
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the
+Soviets. There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the will of
+the great majority of the workers&rsquo;, soldiers and peasants, based upon the
+triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and soldiers, the Congress assumes
+the Power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the Provisional
+Government are already arrested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic peace to all
+nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will assure the free transfer
+of landlord, crown and monastery lands to the Land Committees, defend the
+soldiers rights, enforcing a complete democratisation of the Army, establish
+workers&rsquo; control over production, ensure the convocation of the
+Constituent Assembly at the proper date, take means to supply bread to the
+cities and articles of first necessity to the villages, and secure to all
+nationalities living in Russia a real right to independent existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to the Soviets
+of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, which must
+enforce revolutionary order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful and
+steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the revolutionary Army will
+know how to defend the Revolution against all attacks of Imperialism, until the
+new Government shall have brought about the conclusion of the democratic peace
+which it will directly propose to all nations. The new Government will take all
+necessary steps to secure everything needful to the revolutionary Army, by
+means of a determined policy of requisition and taxation of the propertied
+classes, and also to improve the situation of soldiers&rsquo; families.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to lead troops
+against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by Kerensky, have sided with the
+insurgent People.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on guard!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against Petrograd!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution and
+democratic peace is in your hands!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long live the Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of</i> <i>Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.</i> <i>Delegates from the Peasants&rsquo;
+Soviets.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue, climbed to the
+tribune with a telegram in his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings to
+the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military Revolutionary
+Committee which has taken over the command of the Northern Front!&rdquo;
+Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other. &ldquo;General Tchermissov has
+recognised the Committee-Commissar of the Provisional Government Voitinsky has
+resigned!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the Petrograd
+Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and thrust the <i>coup
+d&rsquo;etat</i> upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was all great Russia
+to win&mdash;and then the world! Would Russia follow and rise? And the
+world&mdash;what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a red world-tide?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill. There was
+only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent streets, dimming the
+watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn grey-rising over Russia….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>Chapter V<br />
+Plunging Ahead</h2>
+
+<p>
+Thursday, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest excitement and
+confusion, a whole nation heaving up in long hissing swells of storm.
+Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands of people retired at a
+prudent hour, got up early, and went to work. In Petrograd the street-cars were
+running, the stores and restaurants open, theatres going, an exhibition of
+paintings advertised…. All the complex routine of common life&mdash;humdrum
+even in war-time&mdash;proceeded as usual. Nothing is so astounding as the
+vitality of the social organism&mdash;how it persists, feeding itself, clothing
+itself, amusing itself, in the face of the worst calamities….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The air was full of rumours about Kerensky, who was said to have raised the
+Front, and to be leading a great army against the capital. <i>Volia Naroda</i>
+published a <i>prikaz</i> launched by him at Pskov:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place the country
+on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of our entire will, our
+courage and the devotion of every one of us, to win through the terrible trial
+which the fatherland is undergoing….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government&mdash;if one is
+formed&mdash;every one ought to remain at his post and fulfil his duty toward
+bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least interference with
+existing Army organisations can bring on irreparable misfortunes, by opening
+the Front to the enemy. Therefore it is indispensable to preserve at any price
+the morale of the troops, by assuring complete order and the preservation of
+the Army from new shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between
+officers and their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and Commissars, in the
+name of the safety of the country, to stay at their posts, as I myself retain
+the post of Supreme Commander, until the Provisional Government of the Republic
+shall declare its will….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In answer, this placard on all the walls:
+</p>
+
+<h5>FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch,
+Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+Kerensky has fled. All Army organisations are ordered to take every measure for
+the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his conveyance to Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious crime
+against the state.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled, throwing off
+orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V, Sect. 1)… Kornilov was
+ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the Peasant Land Committees imprisoned
+by the Provisional Government were declared free. Capital punishment in the
+army was abolished. Government employees were ordered to continue their work,
+and threatened with severe penalties if they refused. All pillage, disorder and
+speculation were forbidden under pain of death. Temporary Commissars were
+appointed to the various Ministries: Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotzky;
+Interior and Justice, Rykov; Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky; Public
+Welfare, Madame Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications, Riazanov; Navy,
+the sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro; Theatres, Muraviov; State
+Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of Petrograd, Lieutenant Nesterov;
+for the Northern Front, Pozern….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To the railway
+workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the transport of food to
+the cities and the front…. In return, they were promised representation in the
+Ministry of Ways and Communications.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against Petrograd.
+They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary workers and soldiers
+of the capital. Do not believe a word that is said by our common enemies, the
+land-owners and the capitalists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At our Congress are represented all the conscious organisations of workers,
+soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also to welcome into its
+midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the Black Band, henchmen of the
+land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are our enemies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the Cossacks.
+This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords that the Revolution
+will confiscate the land to give it to the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Organise Soviets of Cossacks&rsquo; Deputies! Join with the Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and that you do
+not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary Russia!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people. Send your
+delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us…. The Cossacks of the Petrograd
+garrison, to their honour, have not justified the hope of the People&rsquo;s
+enemies….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you a
+fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the soldiers,
+workers and peasants of all Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up, hand-bills
+scattered everywhere, newspapers&mdash;screaming and cursing and prophesying
+evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press&mdash;all other weapons being
+in the hands of the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution,
+flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!</h5>
+
+<p>
+Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th the
+Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the Provisional Government,
+dispersed the Council of the Republic, and proclaimed an illegal power. Such
+violence committed against the Government of revolutionary Russia at the moment
+of its greatest external danger, is an indescribable crime against the
+fatherland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause of national
+defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace so greatly desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country to the
+horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the failure of the
+Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the republican régime and transmit to
+the People forever their right to the land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the Committee
+for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on the night of November
+7th, takes the initiative in forming a new Provisional Government; which,
+basing itself on the forces of democracy, will conduct the country to the
+Constituent Assembly and save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The
+Committee for Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognise the power
+of violence. Do not obey its orders!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rise for the defence of the country and Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Support the Committee for Salvation!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of Petrograd,
+the <i>Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress),</i> the Executive Committee of the
+Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, and from the Congress itself the Front group, the
+factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki, Populist Socialists, Unified
+Social Democrats, and the group &ldquo;Yedinstvo.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki
+<i>oborontsi,</i> Peasants&rsquo; Soviets again; from the Central Army
+Committee, the <i>Tsentroflot</i>….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will trample on
+our liberty. Black Hundred <i>pogroms</i> will spread over Russia, if we
+all&mdash;conscious workers, soldiers, citizens&mdash;do not unite….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of immediate
+peace&mdash;is a lie! The promise of bread&mdash;a hoax! The promise of
+land&mdash;a fairy tale!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were all in this manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of power has
+been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone…. They concealed their plot from the
+other Socialist parties composing the Soviet….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution will profit
+by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will deprive you of land and
+freedom….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The newspapers were as violent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our duty (said the <i>Dielo Naroda</i>) is to unmask these traitors to the
+working-class. Our duty is to mobilise all our forces and mount guard over the
+cause of the Revolution!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Izviestia,</i> for the last time speaking in the name of the old
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> threatened awful retribution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no Congress of
+Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private conference of the Bolshevik
+faction! And in that case, they have no right to cancel the powers of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Novaya Zhizn,</i> while pleading for a new Government that should unite all
+the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the Congress, and pointed out
+that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one thing very clearly: that all
+illusions about coalition with the bourgeoisie were henceforth demonstrated
+vain…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Rabotchi Put</i> blossomed out as <i>Pravda,</i> Lenin&rsquo;s newspaper
+which had been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of the clique
+of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the bourgeois gang….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary elements of
+Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and assure the
+realisation of the popular programme…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally, adopted a
+detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a sort of contemptuous
+&ldquo;I&mdash;told&mdash;you&mdash;so&rdquo; to the other parties. Influential
+Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal Duma, and on the outskirts
+of the Committee for Salvation. Other than that, the bourgeoisie lay low,
+biding its hour&mdash;which could not far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain
+in power longer than three days never occurred to anybody&mdash;except perhaps
+to Lenin, Trotzky, the Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the Duma sitting
+in <i>permanence,</i> tempestuous, grouping around it all the forces of
+opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with his white hair and beard,
+was describing his visit to Smolny the night before, to protest in the name of
+the Municipal Self-Government. &ldquo;The Duma, being the only existing legal
+Government in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not
+recognise the new power,&rdquo; he had told Trotzky. And Trotzky had answered,
+&ldquo;There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can be dissolved and
+re-elected….&rdquo; At this report there was a furious outcry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If one recognises a Government by bayonet,&rdquo; continued the old man,
+addressing the Duma, &ldquo;well, we have one; but I consider legitimate only a
+Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by the usurpation of
+a minority!&rdquo; Wild applause on all benches except those of the Bolsheviki.
+Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced that the Bolsheviki already were
+violating Municipal autonomy by appointing Commissars in many departments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that the decision
+of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed up the action of the
+Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;You are not the real representative of the
+people of Petrograd!&rdquo; Shrieks of &ldquo;Insult! Insult!&rdquo; The old
+Mayor, with dignity, reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest
+possible popular vote. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;but that was a
+long time ago&mdash;like the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>&mdash;like the Army
+Committee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been no new Congress of Soviets!&rdquo; they yelled at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of
+counter-revolution&mdash;&rdquo; Uproar. &ldquo;&mdash;and we demand a
+re-election of the Duma….&rdquo; Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber,
+followed by cries of &ldquo;German agents! Down with the traitors!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shingariov, Cadet, then demanded that all Municipal functionaries who had
+consented to be Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee be
+discharged from their position and indicted. Schreider was on his feet, putting
+a motion to the effect that the Duma protested against the menace of the
+Bolsheviki to dissolve it, and as the legal representative of the population,
+it would refuse to leave its post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside, the Alexander Hall was crowded for the meeting of the Committee for
+Salvation, and Skobeliev was again speaking. &ldquo;Never yet,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;was the fate of the Revolution so acute, never yet did the question of
+the existence of the Russian state excite so much anxiety, never yet did
+history put so harshly and categorically the question&mdash;is Russia to be or
+not to be! The great hour for the salvation of the Revolution has arrived, and
+in consciousness thereof we observe the close union of the live forces of the
+revolutionary democracy, by whose organised will a centre for the salvation of
+the country and the Revolution has already been created….&rdquo; And much of
+the same sort. &ldquo;We shall die sooner than surrender our post!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Amid violent applause it was announced that the Union of Railway Workers had
+joined the Committee for Salvation. A few moments later the Post and Telegraph
+Employees came in; then some Mensheviki Internationalists entered the hall, to
+cheers. The Railway men said they did not recognise the Bolsheviki and had
+taken the entire railroad apparatus into their own hands, refusing to entrust
+it to any usurpatory power. The Telegraphers&rsquo; delegate declared that the
+operators had flatly refused to work their instruments as long as the Bolshevik
+Commissar was in the office. The Postmen would not deliver or accept mail at
+Smolny…. All the Smolny telephones were cut off. With great glee it was
+reported how Uritzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the
+secret treaties, and how Neratov had put him out. The Government employees were
+all stopping work….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was war&mdash;war deliberately planned, Russian fashion; war by strike and
+sabotage. As we sat there the chairman read a list of names and assignments;
+so-and-so was to make the round of the Ministries; another was to visit the
+banks; some ten or twelve were to work the barracks and persuade the soldiers
+to remain neutral&mdash;&ldquo;Russian soldiers, do not shed the blood of your
+brothers!&rdquo;; a committee was to go and confer with Kerensky; still others
+were despatched to provincial cities, to form branches of the Committee for
+Salvation, and link together the anti-Bolshevik elements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowd was in high spirits. &ldquo;These Bolsheviki <i>will</i> try to
+dictate to the <i>intelligentzia?</i> We&rsquo;ll show them!&rdquo;… Nothing
+could be more striking than the contrast between this assemblage and the
+Congress of Soviets. There, great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy workmen,
+peasants&mdash;poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle for existence;
+here the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary leaders&mdash;Avksentievs, Dans,
+Liebers,&mdash;the former Socialist Ministers&mdash;Skobelievs,
+Tchernovs,&mdash;rubbed shoulders with Cadets like oily Shatsky, sleek Vinaver;
+with journalists, students, intellectuals of almost all camps. This Duma crowd
+was well-fed, well-dressed; I did not see more than three proletarians among
+them all….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+News came. Kornilov&rsquo;s faithful <i>Tekhintsi</i>[14] had slaughtered his
+guards at Bykhov, and he had escaped. Kaledin was marching north…. The Soviet
+of Moscow had set up a Military Revolutionary Committee, and was negotiating
+with the commandant of the city for possession of the arsenal, so that the
+workers might be armed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[14] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With these facts was mixed an astounding jumble of rumours, distortions, and
+plain lies. For instance, an intelligent young Cadet, formerly private
+secretary to Miliukov and then to Terestchenko, drew us aside and told us all
+about the taking of the Winter Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolsheviki were led by German and Austrian officers,&rdquo; he
+affirmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so?&rdquo; we replied, politely. &ldquo;How do you know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A friend of mine was there and saw them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How could he tell they were German officers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, because they wore German uniforms!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were hundreds of such absurd tales, and they were not only solemnly
+published by the anti-Bolshevik press, but believed by the most unlikely
+persons&mdash;Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki who had always been
+distinguished by their sober devotion to facts….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But more serious were the stories of Bolshevik violence and terrorism. For
+example, it was said printed that the Red Guards had not only thoroughly looted
+the Winter Palace, but that they had massacred the <i>yunkers</i> after
+disarming them, had killed some of the Ministers in cold blood; and as for the
+woman soldiers, most of them had been violated, and many had committed suicide
+because of the tortures they had gone through…. All these stories were
+swallowed whole by the crowd in the Duma. And worse still, the mothers and
+fathers of the students and of the women read these frightful details, <i>often
+accompanied by lists of names,</i> and toward nightfall the Duma began to be
+besieged by frantic citizens….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A typical case is that of Prince Tumanov, whose body, it was announced in many
+newspapers, had been found floating in the Moika Canal. A few hours later this
+was denied by the Prince&rsquo;s family, who added that the Prince was under
+arrest so the press identified the dead man as General Demissov. The General
+having also come to life, we investigated, and could find no trace of any body
+found whatever….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we left the Duma building two boy scouts were distributing hand-bills (See
+App. V, Sect. 2) to the enormous crowd which blocked the Nevsky in front of the
+door&mdash;a crowd composed almost entirely of business men, shop-keepers,
+<i>tchinouniki,</i> clerks. One read!
+</p>
+
+<h5>FROM THE MUNICIPAL DUMA</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Municipal Duma in its meeting of October 26th, in view of the events of the
+day decrees: To announce the inviolability of private dwellings. Through the
+House Committees it calls upon the population of the town of Petrograd to meet
+with decisive repulse all attempts to enter by force private apartments, not
+stopping at the use of arms, in the interests of the self-defence of citizens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up on the corner of the Liteiny, five or six Red Guards and a couple of sailors
+had surrounded a news-dealer and were demanding that he hand over his copies of
+the Menshevik <i>Rabot-chaya Gazeta</i> (Workers&rsquo; Gazette). Angrily he
+shouted at them, shaking his fist, as one of the sailors tore the papers from
+his stand. An ugly crowd had gathered around, abusing the patrol. One little
+workman kept explaining doggedly to the people and the news-dealer, over and
+over again, &ldquo;It has Kerensky&rsquo;s proclamation in it. It says we
+killed Russian people. It will make bloodshed….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smolny was tenser than ever, if that were possible. The same running men in the
+dark corridors, squads of workers with rifles, leaders with bulging portfolios
+arguing, explaining, giving orders as they hurried anxiously along, surrounded
+by friends and lieutenants. Men literally out of themselves, living prodigies
+of sleeplessness and work-men unshaven, filthy, with burning eyes, who drove
+upon their fixed purpose full speed on engines of exaltation. So much they had
+to do, so much! Take over the Government, organise the City, keep the garrison
+loyal, fight the Duma and the Committee for Salvation, keep out the Germans,
+prepare to do battle with Kerensky, inform the provinces what had happened,
+Propagandise from Archangel to Vladivostok…. Government and Municipal employees
+refusing to obey their Commissars, post and telegraph refusing them
+communication, railroads stonily ignoring their appeals for trains, Kerensky
+coming, the garrison not altogether to be trusted, the Cossacks waiting to come
+out…. Against them not only the organised bourgeoisie, but all the other
+Socialist parties except the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, a few Mensheviki
+Internationalists and the Social Democrat Internationalists, and even they
+undecided whether to stand by or not. With them, it is true, the workers and
+the soldier-masses&mdash;the peasants an unknown quantity&mdash;but after all
+the Bolsheviki were a political faction not rich in trained and educated men….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Riazanov was coming up the front steps, explaining in a sort of humorous panic
+that he, Commissar of Commerce, knew nothing whatever of business. In the
+upstairs cafe sat a man all by himself in the corner, in a goat-skin cape and
+clothes which had been&mdash;I was going to say &ldquo;slept in,&rdquo; but of
+course he hadn&rsquo;t slept&mdash;and a three days&rsquo; growth of beard. He
+was anxiously figuring on a dirty envelope, and biting his pencil meanwhile.
+This was Menzhinsky, Commissar of Finance, whose qualifications were that he
+had once been clerk in a French bank…. And these four half-running down the
+hall from the office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and scribbling on
+bits of paper as they run&mdash;these were Commissars despatched to the four
+corners of Russia to carry the news, argue, or fight&mdash;with whatever
+arguments or weapons came to hand….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Congress was to meet at one o&rsquo;clock, and long since the great
+meeting-hall had filled, but by seven there was yet no sign of the presidium….
+The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions were in session in their
+own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin and Trotzky had fought against
+compromise. A considerable part of the Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way
+so far as to create a joint all-Socialist government. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t
+hold on!&rdquo; they cried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Too much is against us. We haven&rsquo;t got the men. We will be
+isolated, and the whole thing will fall.&rdquo; So Kameniev, Riazanov and
+others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. &ldquo;Let the
+compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won&rsquo;t give way
+an inch. If there are comrades here who haven&rsquo;t the courage and the will
+to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of the cowards and
+conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we shall go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist Revolutionaries to
+say that they would remain in the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See!&rdquo; said Lenin. &ldquo;They are following!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an Anarchist who
+was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me that we go and find out
+what had become of the presidium. There was nobody in the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>
+office, nor in the bureau of the Petrograd Soviet. From room to room we
+wandered, through vast Smolny. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea where
+to find the governing body of the Congress. As we went my companion described
+his ancient revolutionary activities, his long and pleasant exile in France….
+As for the Bolsheviki, he confided to me that they were common, rude, ignorant
+persons, without aesthetic sensibilities. He was a real specimen of the Russian
+<i>intelligentzia</i>…. So he came at last to Room 17, office of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and stood there in the midst of all the furious coming
+and going. The door opened, and out shot a squat, flat-faced man in a uniform
+without insignia, who seemed to be smiling&mdash;which smile, after a minute,
+one saw to be the fixed grin of extreme fatigue. It was Krylenko.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My friend, who was a dapper, civilized-looking young man, gave a cry of
+pleasure and stepped forward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nicolai Vasilievitch!&rdquo; he said, holding out his hand.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you remember me, comrade? We were in prison together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Krylenko made an effort and concentrated his mind and sight. &ldquo;Why
+yes,&rdquo; he answered finally, looking the other up and down with an
+expression of great friendliness. &ldquo;You are S&mdash;.
+<i>Zdra&rsquo;stvuitye!</i>&rdquo; They kissed. &ldquo;What are you doing in
+all this?&rdquo; He waved his arm around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;am just looking on…. You seem very successful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Krylenko, with a sort of doggedness, &ldquo;The
+proletarian Revolution is a great success.&rdquo; He laughed.
+&ldquo;Perhaps&mdash;perhaps, however, we&rsquo;ll meet in prison again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we got out into the corridor again my friend went on with his
+explanations. &ldquo;You see, I&rsquo;m a follower of Kropotkin. To us the
+Revolution is a great failure; it has not aroused the patriotism of the masses.
+Of course that only proves that the people are not ready for
+Revolution….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the entrance of the
+presidium, with Lenin&mdash;great Lenin&mdash;among them. A short, stocky
+figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders, bald and bulging. Little
+eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now,
+but already beginning to bristle with the well-known beard of his past and
+future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him.
+Unimpressive, to be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders
+in history have been. A strange popular leader&mdash;a leader purely by virtue
+of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without
+picturesque idiosyncrasies&mdash;but with the power of explaining profound
+ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined with
+shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev was reading the report of the actions of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee; abolition of capital punishment in the Army, restoration of the free
+right of propaganda, release of officers and soldiers arrested for political
+crimes, orders to arrest Kerensky and confiscation of food supplies in private
+store-houses…. Tremendous applause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again the representative of the <i>Bund.</i> The uncompromising attitude of the
+Bolsheviki would mean the crushing of the Revolution; therefore, the
+<i>Bund</i> delegates must refuse any longer to sit in the Congress. Cries from
+the audience, &ldquo;We thought you walked out last night! How many times are
+you going to walk out?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the representative of the Mensheviki Internationalists. Shouts,
+&ldquo;What! You here still?&rdquo; The speaker explained that only part of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress; the rest were going
+
+to stay&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We consider it dangerous and perhaps even mortal for the Revolution to
+transfer the power to the Soviets&rdquo;&mdash;Interruptions&mdash;&ldquo;but
+we feel it our duty to remain in the Congress and vote against the transfer
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other speakers followed, apparently without any order. A delegate of the
+coal-miners of the Don Basin called upon the Congress to take measures against
+Kaledin, who might cut off coal and food from the capital. Several soldiers
+just arrived from the Front brought the enthusiastic greetings of their
+regiments…. Now Lenin, gripping the edge of the reading stand, letting his
+little winking eyes travel over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently
+oblivious to the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it
+finished, he said simply, &ldquo;We shall now proceed to construct the
+Socialist order!&rdquo; Again that overwhelming human roar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise peace….
+We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent countries upon the
+basis of the Soviet terms&mdash;no annexations, no indemnities, and the right
+of self-determination of peoples. At the same time, according to our promise,
+we shall publish and repudiate the secret treaties…. The question of War and
+Peace is so clear that I think that I may, without preamble, read the project
+of a Proclamation to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his voice was
+hoarse&mdash;not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that way after
+years and years of speaking&mdash;and went on monotonously, with the effect of
+being able to go on forever…. For emphasis he bent forward slightly. No
+gestures. And before him, a thousand simple faces looking up in intent
+adoration.
+</p>
+
+<h5>PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL THE BELLIGERENT
+NATIONS.</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government, created by the revolution of
+November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;,
+Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent
+peoples and to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just
+and democratic peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is desired by the
+immense majority of the workers and the labouring classes, exhausted and
+depleted by the war&mdash;that peace which the Russian workers and peasants,
+after having struck down the Tsarist monarchy, have not ceased to demand
+categorically&mdash;immediate peace without annexations (that is to say,
+without conquest of foreign territory, without forcible annexation of other
+nationalities), and without indemnities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government of Russia Proposes to all the belligerent peoples immediately to
+conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing to enter upon the decisive
+steps of negotiations aiming at such a peace, at once, without the slightest
+delay, before the definitive ratification of all the conditions of such a peace
+by the authorised assemblies of the people of all countries and of all
+nationalities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By annexation or conquest of foreign territory, the Government
+means&mdash;conformably to the conception of democratic rights in general, and
+the rights of the working-class in particular&mdash;all union to a great and
+strong State of a small or weak nationality, without the voluntary, clear and
+precise expression of its consent and desire; whatever be the moment when such
+an annexation by force was accomplished, whatever be the degree civilisation of
+the nation annexed by force or maintained outside the frontiers of another
+State, no matter if that nation be in Europe or in the far countries across the
+sea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If any nation is retained by force within the limits of another State; if, in
+spite of the desire expressed by it, (it matters little if that desire be
+expressed by the press, by popular meetings, decisions of political parties, or
+by disorders and riots against national oppression), that nation is not given
+the right of deciding by free vote&mdash;without the slightest constraint,
+after the complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has
+annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general&mdash;the form of
+its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes an
+annexation&mdash;that is to say, conquest and an act of violence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To continue this war in order to permit the strong and rich nations to divide
+among themselves the weak and conquered nationalities is considered by the
+Government the greatest possible crime against humanity; and the Government
+solemnly proclaims its decision to sign a treaty of peace which will put an end
+to this war upon the above conditions, equally fair for all nationalities
+without exception.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, expressing before the whole country
+its firm decision to conduct all the negotiations in the light of day before
+the people, and will proceed immediately to the full publication of all secret
+treaties confirmed or concluded by the Government of land-owners and
+capitalists, from March until November 7th, 1917. All the clauses of the secret
+treaties which, as occur in a majority of cases, have for their object to
+procure advantages and privileges for Russian capitalists, to maintain or
+augment the annexations of the Russian imperialists, are denounced by the
+Government immediately and without discussion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In proposing to all Governments and all peoples to engage in public
+negotiations for peace, the Government declares itself ready to carry on these
+negotiations by telegraph, by post, or by pourparlers between the
+representatives of the different countries, or at a conference of these
+representatives. To facilitate these pourparlers, the Government appoints its
+authorised representatives in the neutral countries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government proposes to all the governments and to the peoples of all the
+belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice, at the same time
+suggesting that the armistice ought to last three months, during which time it
+is perfectly possible, not only to hold the necessary pourparlers between the
+representatives of all the nations and nationalities without exception drawn
+into the war or forced to take part in it, but also to convoke authorised
+assemblies of representatives of the people of all countries, for the purpose
+of the definite acceptance of the conditions of peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In addressing this offer of peace to the Governments and to the peoples of all
+the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo;
+Government of Russia addresses equally and in particular the conscious workers
+of the three nations most devoted to humanity and the three most important
+nations among those taking part in the present war&mdash;England, France, and
+Germany. The workers of these countries have rendered the greatest services to
+the cause of progress and of Socialism. The splendid examples of the Chartist
+movement in England, the series of revolutions, of world-wide historical
+significance, accomplished by the French proletariat&mdash;and finally, in
+Germany, the historic struggle against the Laws of Exception, an example for
+the workers of the whole world of prolonged and stubborn action, and the
+creation of the formidable organisations of German proletarians&mdash;all these
+models of proletarian heroism, these monuments of history, are for us a sure
+guarantee that the workers of these countries will understand the duty imposed
+upon them to liberate humanity from the horrors and consequences of war; and
+that these workers, by decisive, energetic and continued action, will help us
+to bring to a successful conclusion the cause of peace&mdash;and at the same
+time, the cause of the liberation of the exploited working masses from all
+slavery and all exploitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the grave thunder of applause had died away, Lenin spoke again:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We propose to the Congress to ratify this declaration. We address
+ourselves to the Governments as well as to the peoples, for a declaration which
+would be addressed only to the peoples of the belligerent countries might delay
+the conclusion of peace. The conditions of peace, drawn up during the
+armistice, will be ratified by the Constituent Assembly. In fixing the duration
+of the armistice at three months, we desire to give to the peoples as long a
+rest as possible after this bloody extermination, and ample time for them to
+elect their representatives. This proposal of peace will meet with resistance
+on the part of the imperialist governments&mdash;we don&rsquo;t fool ourselves
+on that score. But we hope that revolution will soon break out in all the
+belligerent countries; that is why we address ourselves especially to the
+workers of France, England and Germany….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The revolution of November 6th and 7th,&rdquo; he ended, &ldquo;has
+opened the era of the Social Revolution…. The labour movement, in the name of
+peace and Socialism, shall win, and fulfil its destiny….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was something quiet and powerful in all this, which stirred the souls of
+men. It was understandable why people believed when Lenin spoke….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By crowd vote it was quickly decided that only representatives of political
+factions should be allowed to speak on the motion and that speakers should be
+limited to fifteen minutes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First Karelin for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. &ldquo;Our faction had no
+opportunity to propose amendments to the text of the proclamation; it is a
+private document of the Bolsheviki. But we will vote for it because we agree
+with its spirit….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the Social Democrats Internationalists Kramarov, long, stoop-shouldered and
+near-sighted&mdash;destined to achieve some notoriety as the Clown of the
+Opposition. Only a Government composed of all the Socialist parties, he said,
+could possess the authority to take such important action. If a Socialist
+coalition were formed, his faction would support the entire programme; if not,
+only part of it. As for the proclamation, the Internationalists were in
+thorough accord with its main points….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then one after another, amid rising enthusiasm; Ukrainean Social Democracy,
+support; Lithuanian Social Democracy, support; Populist Socialists, support;
+Polish Social Democracy, support; Polish Socialists support&mdash;but would
+prefer a Socialist coalition; Lettish Social Democracy, support…. Something was
+kindled in these men. One spoke of the &ldquo;coming World-Revolution, of which
+we are the advance-guard&rdquo;; another of &ldquo;the new age of brotherhood,
+when all the peoples will become one great family….&rdquo; An individual member
+claimed the floor. &ldquo;There is contradiction here,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;First you offer peace without annexations and indemnities, and then you
+say you will consider all peace offers. To consider means to accept….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin was on his feet. &ldquo;We want a just peace, but we are not afraid of a
+revolutionary war…. Probably the imperialist Governments will not answer our
+appeal&mdash;but we shall not issue an ultimatum to which it will be easy to
+say no…. If the German proletariat realises that we are ready to consider all
+offers of peace, that will perhaps be the last drop which overflows the
+bowl&mdash;revolution will break out in Germany….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We consent to examine all conditions of peace, but that doesn&rsquo;t
+mean that we shall accept them…. For some of our terms we shall fight to the
+end&mdash;but possibly for others will find it impossible to continue the war….
+Above all, we want to finish the war….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was exactly 10:35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the proclamation to
+hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his hand against, but the
+sudden sharp outburst around him brought it swiftly down…. Unanimous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet, mumbling together
+into the smooth lifting unison of the <i>Internationale.</i> A grizzled old
+soldier was sobbing like a child. Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears
+back. The immense sound rolled through the hall, burst windows and doors and
+seared into the quiet sky. &ldquo;The war is ended! The war is ended!&rdquo;
+said a young workman near me, his face shining. And when it was over, as we
+stood there in a kind of awkward hush, some one in the back of the room
+shouted, &ldquo;Comrades! Let us remember those who have died for
+liberty!&rdquo; So we began to sing the Funeral March, that slow, melancholy
+and yet triumphant chant, so Russian and so moving. The <i>Internationale</i>
+is an alien air, after all. The Funeral March seemed the very soul of those
+dark masses whose delegates sat in this hall, building from their obscure
+visions a new Russia&mdash;and perhaps more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You fell in the fatal fight
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the people….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You suffered in horrible prisons,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You went to exile in chains….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without a word you carried your chains because you could not ignore your
+suffering brothers,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Because you believed that justice is stronger than the sword….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The time will come when your surrendered life will count
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That time is near; when tyranny falls the people will rise, great and free!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+You are followed by the new and fresh army ready to die and to suffer….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At your grave we swear to fight, to work for freedom and the people&rsquo;s
+happiness….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March, in their cold Brotherhood
+Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of thousands had died in the
+prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It had not come as they expected it would
+come, nor as the <i>intelligentzia</i> desired it; but it had come&mdash;rough,
+strong, impatient of formulas, contemptuous of sentimentalism; real….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin was reading the Decree on Land:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(1.) All private ownership of land is abolished immediately without
+compensation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(2.) All land-owners&rsquo; estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown, to
+monasteries, church lands with all their live stock and inventoried property,
+buildings and all appurtenances, are transferred to the disposition of the
+township Land Committees and the district Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies
+until the Constituent Assembly meets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(3.) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated property which from now on
+belongs to the whole People, is regarded as a serious crime, punishable by the
+revolutionary tribunals. The district Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies shall
+take all necessary measures for the observance of the strictest order during
+the taking over of the land-owners&rsquo; estates, for the determination of the
+dimensions of the plots of land and which of them are subject to confiscation,
+for the drawing up of an inventory of the entire confiscated property, and for
+the strictest revolutionary protection of all the farming property on the land,
+with all buildings, implements, cattle, supplies of products, etc., passing
+into the hands of the People.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(4.) For guidance during the realisation of the great land reforms until their
+final resolution by the Constituent Assembly, shall serve the following peasant
+<i>nakaz</i> (See App. V, Sect. 3) (instructions), drawn up on the basis of 242
+local peasant <i>nakazi</i> by the editorial board of the
+&ldquo;<i>Izviestia</i> of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants&rsquo;
+Deputies,&rdquo; and published in No.88 of said <i>&ldquo;Izviestia&rdquo;</i>
+(Petrograd, No.88, August 19th, 1917).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lands of peasants and of Cossacks serving in the Army shall not be
+confiscated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is not,&rdquo; explained Lenin, &ldquo;the project of former
+Minister Tchernov, who spoke of &lsquo;erecting a frame-work&rsquo; and tried
+to realise reforms from above. From below, on the spot, will be decided the
+questions of division of the land. The amount of land received by each peasant
+will vary according to the locality….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under the Provisional Government, the <i>pomieshtchiki</i> flatly
+refused to obey the orders of the Land Committees&mdash;those Land Committees
+projected by Lvov, brought into existence by Shingariov, and administered by
+Kerensky!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the debates could begin a man forced his way violently through the crowd
+in the aisle and climbed upon the platform. It was Pianikh, member of the
+Executive Committee of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, and he was mad clean
+through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants&rsquo;
+Deputies protests against the arrest of our comrades, the Ministers Salazkin
+and Mazlov!&rdquo; he flung harshly in the faces of the crowd, &ldquo;We demand
+their instant release! They are now in Peter-Paul fortress. We must have
+immediate action! There is not a moment to lose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another followed him, a soldier with disordered beard and flaming eyes.
+&ldquo;You sit here and talk about giving the land to the peasants, and you
+commit an act of tyrants and usurpers against the peasants&rsquo; chosen
+representatives! I tell you&mdash;&rdquo; he raised his fist, &ldquo;If one
+hair of their heads is harmed, you&rsquo;ll have a revolt on your hands!&rdquo;
+The crowd stirred confusedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted with a
+roar. &ldquo;Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided to release
+the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers, Mazlov, Salazkin, Gvozdov
+and Maliantovitch&mdash;on principle. That they are still in Peter-Paul is only
+because we have had so much to do…. They will, however, be detained at their
+homes under arrest until we have investigated their complicity in the
+treacherous acts of Kerensky during the Kornilov affair!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; shouted Pianikh, &ldquo;in any revolution have such things
+been seen as go on here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; responded Trotzky. &ldquo;Such things have been
+seen even in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in the
+July days…. When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by the
+doctor&rsquo;s orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents of the
+Tsar&rsquo;s secret police!&rdquo; The peasants withdrew, muttering, followed
+by ironical hoots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on the Land
+Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not vote on the question
+until after discussion. The Peasants&rsquo; Soviets should be consulted….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the peasants:
+&ldquo;We must do honour to a political party which puts such an act into
+effect the first day, without jawing about it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and sheep-skin coat,
+bowing to all corners of the hall. &ldquo;I wish you well, comrades and
+citizens,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There are some Cadets walking around outside.
+You arrested our Socialist peasants&mdash;why not arrest them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the signal for a debate of excited peasants. It was precisely like the
+debate of soldiers of the night before. Here were the real proletarians of the
+land….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those members of our Executive Committee, Avksentiev and the rest, whom
+we thought were the peasants&rsquo; protectors&mdash;they are only Cadets too!
+Arrest them! Arrest them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another, &ldquo;Who are these Pianikhs, these Avksentievs? They are not
+peasants at all! They only wag their tails!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How the crowd rose to them, recognising brothers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries proposed a half-hour intermission. As the
+delegates streamed out, Lenin stood up in his place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must not lose time, comrades! News all-important to Russia must be on
+the press to-morrow morning. No delay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And above the hot discussion, argument, shuffling of feet could be heard the
+voice of an emissary of the Military Revolutionary Committee, crying,
+&ldquo;Fifteen agitators wanted in room 17 at once! To go to the Front!&rdquo;…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was almost two hours and a half later that the delegates came straggling
+back, the presidium mounted the platform, and the session recommenced by the
+reading of telegrams from regiment after regiment, announcing their adhesion to
+the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In leisurely manner the meeting gathered momentum. A delegate from the Russian
+troops on the Macedonian front spoke bitterly of their situation. &ldquo;We
+suffer there more from the friendship of our &lsquo;Allies&rsquo; than from the
+enemy,&rdquo; he said. Representatives of the Tenth and Twelfth Armies, just
+arrived in hot haste, reported, &ldquo;We support you with all our
+strength!&rdquo; A peasant-soldier protested against the release of &ldquo;the
+traitor Socialists, Mazlov and Salazkin&rdquo;; as for the Executive Committee
+of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, it should be arrested _en masse!_Here was real
+revolutionary talk…. A deputy from the Russian Army in Persia declared he was
+instructed to demand all power to the Soviets…. A Ukrainean officer, speaking
+in his native tongue: &ldquo;There is no nationalism in this crisis…. <i>Da
+zdravstvuyet</i> the proletarian dictatorship of all lands!&rdquo; Such a
+deluge of high and hot thoughts that surely Russia would never again be dumb!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev remarked that the anti-Bolshevik forces were trying to stir up
+disorders everywhere, and read an appeal of the Congress to all the Soviets of
+Russia:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies, including some Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, calls upon the local Soviets
+to take immediate energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Jewish action and all <i>pogroms,</i> whatever they may be. The honour of
+the Workers&rsquo;, Peasants&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Revolution demands that
+no <i>pogrom</i> be tolerated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the sailors have
+maintained complete order in the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Workers, soldiers and peasants, you should follow everywhere the example of the
+workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Comrade soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of assuring real
+revolutionary order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All revolutionary Russia and the entire world have their eyes on us….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At two o&rsquo;clock the Land Decree was put to vote, with only one against and
+the peasant delegates wild with joy…. So plunged the Bolsheviki ahead,
+irresistible, over-riding hesitation and opposition&mdash;the only people in
+Russia who had a definite programme of action while the others talked for eight
+long months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now arose a soldier, gaunt, ragged and eloquent, to protest against the clause
+of the <i>nakaz</i> tending to deprive military deserters from a share in
+village land allotments. Bawled at and hissed at first, his simple, moving
+speech finally made silence. &ldquo;Forced against his will into the butchery
+of the trenches,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;which you yourselves, in the Peace
+decree, have voted senseless as well as horrible, he greeted the Revolution
+with hope of peace and freedom. Peace? The Government of Kerensky forced him
+again to go forward into Galicia to slaughter and be slaughtered; to his pleas
+for peace, Terestchenko simply laughed…. Freedom? Under Kerensky he found his
+Committees suppressed, his newspapers cut off, his party speakers put in
+prison…. At home in his village, the landlords were defying his Land
+Committees, jailing his comrades…. In Petrograd the bourgeoisie, in alliance
+with the Germans, were sabotaging the food and ammunition for the Army…. He was
+without boots, or clothes…. Who forced him to desert? The Government of
+Kerensky, which you have overthrown!&rdquo; At the end there was applause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But another soldier hotly denounced it: &ldquo;The Government of Kerensky is
+not a screen behind which can be hidden dirty work like desertion! Deserters
+are scoundrels, who run away home and leave their comrades to die in the
+trenches alone! Every deserter is a traitor, and should be punished….&rdquo;
+Uproar, shouts of <i>&ldquo;Do volno! Teesche!&rdquo;</i> Kameniev hastily
+proposed to leave the matter to the Government for decision. (See App. V, Sect.
+4)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At 2.30 A. M. fell a tense hush. Kameniev was reading the decree of the
+Constitution of Power:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, a provisional Workers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Government is formed, which shall be named the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars. (See App. V, Sect. 5)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The administration of the different branches of state activity shall be
+intrusted to commissions, whose composition shall be regulated to ensure the
+carrying out of the programme of the Congress, in close union with the
+mass-organisations of working-men, working-women, sailors, soldiers, peasants
+and clerical employees. The governmental power is vested in a <i>collegium</i>
+made up of the chairmen of these commissions, that is to say, the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Control over the activities of the People&rsquo;s Commissars, and the right to
+replace them, shall belong to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo;, Peasants&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, and its Central
+Executive Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still silence; as he read the list of Commissars, bursts of applause after each
+name, Lenin&rsquo;s and Trotzky&rsquo;s especially.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Council:</i> Vladimir Ulianov <i>(Lenin)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Interior:</i> A. E. Rykov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Agriculture:</i> V. P. Miliutin
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Labour:</i> A. G. Shliapnikov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Military and Naval Affairs</i>&mdash;a committee composed of V. A.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Avseenko (Antonov),</i> N. V. Krylenko, and F. M. Dybenko.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Commerce and Industry:</i> V. P. Nogin
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Popular Education:</i> A. V. Lunatcharsky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Finance:</i> E. E. Skvortsov <i>(Stepanov)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Foreign Affairs:</i> L. D. Bronstein <i>(Trotzky)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Justice:</i> G. E. Oppokov <i>(Lomov)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Supplies:</i> E. A. Teodorovitch
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Post and Telegraph:</i> N. P. Avilov <i>(Gliebov)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Chairman for Nationalities:</i> I. V. Djougashvili <i>(Stalin)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Railroads:</i> To be filled later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were bayonets at the edges of the room, bayonets pricking up among the
+delegates; the Military Revolutionary Committee was arming everybody,
+Bolshevism was arming for the decisive battle with Kerensky, the sound of whose
+trumpets came up the south-west wind…. In the meanwhile nobody went home; on
+the contrary hundreds of newcomers filtered in, filling the great room solid
+with stern-faced soldiers and workmen who stood for hours and hours,
+indefatigably intent. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and human
+breathing, and the smell of coarse clothes and sweat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Avilov of the staff of <i>Novaya Zhizn</i> was speaking in the name of the
+Social Democrat Internationalists and the remnant of the Mensheviki
+Internationalists; Avilov, with his young, intelligent face, looking out of
+place in his smart frock-coat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must ask ourselves where we are going…. The ease with which the
+Coalition Government was upset cannot be explained by the strength of the left
+wing of the democracy, but only by the incapacity of the Government to give the
+people peace and bread. And the left wing cannot maintain itself in power
+unless it can solve these questions….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can it give bread to the people? Grain is scarce. The majority of the
+peasants will not be with you, for you cannot give them the machinery they
+need. Fuel and other primary necessities are almost impossible to procure….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As for peace, that will be even more difficult. The allies refused to
+talk with Skobeliev. They will never accept the proposition of a peace
+conference from <i>you.</i> You will not be recognised either in London and
+Paris, or in Berlin….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You cannot count on the effective help of the proletariat of the Allied
+countries, because in most countries it is very far from the revolutionary
+struggle; remember, the Allied democracy was unable even to convoke the
+Stockholm Conference. Concerning the German Social Democrats, I have just
+talked with Comrade Goldenberg, one of our delegates to Stockholm; he was told
+by the representatives of the Extreme Left that revolution in Germany was
+impossible during the war….&rdquo; Here interruptions began to come thick and
+fast, but Avilov kept on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The isolation of Russia will fatally result either in the defeat of the
+Russian Army by the Germans, and the patching up of a peace between the
+Austro-German coalition and the Franco-British coalition <i>at the expense of
+Russia</i>&mdash;or in a separate peace with Germany.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have just learned that the Allied ambassadors are preparing to leave,
+and that Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution are forming in all
+the cities of Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No one party can conquer these enormous difficulties. The majority of
+the people, supporting a government of Socialist coalition, can alone
+accomplish the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He then read the resolution of the two factions:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Recognising that for the salvation of the conquests of the Revolution it is
+indispensable immediately to constitute a government based on the revolutionary
+democracy organised in the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, recognising moreover that the task of this government
+is the quickest possible attainment of peace, the transfer of the land into the
+hands of the agrarian committees, the organisation of control over industrial
+production, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date
+decided, the Congress appoints an executive committee to constitute such a
+government after an agreement with the groups of the democracy which are taking
+part in the Congress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of the revolutionary exaltation of the triumphant crowd,
+Avilov&rsquo;s cool tolerant reasoning had shaken them. Toward the end, the
+cries and hisses died away, and when he finished there was even some clapping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Karelin followed him&mdash;also young, fearless, whose sincerity no one
+doubted&mdash;for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of Maria
+Spiridonova, the party which almost alone followed the Bolsheviki, and which
+represented the revolutionary peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our party has refused to enter the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars
+because we do not wish forever to separate ourselves from the part of the
+revolutionary army which left the Congress, a separation which would make it
+impossible for us to serve as intermediaries between the Bolsheviki and the
+other groups of the democracy…. And that is our principal duty at this moment.
+We cannot sustain any government except a government of Socialist coalition….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We protest, moreover, against the tyrannical conduct of the Bolsheviki.
+Our Commissars have been driven from their posts. Our only organ, <i>Znamia
+Truda</i> (Banner of Labour), was forbidden to appear yesterday….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Central Duma is forming a powerful Committee for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, to fight you. Already you are isolated, and your
+Government is without the support of a single other democratic group….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And now Trotzky stood upon the raised tribune, confident and dominating, with
+that sarcastic expression about his mouth which was almost a sneer. He spoke,
+in a ringing voice, and the great crowd rose to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These considerations on the dangers of isolation of our party are not
+new. On the eve of insurrection our fatal defeat was also predicted. Everybody
+was against us; only a faction of the Socialist Revolutionaries of the left was
+with us in the Military Revolutionary Committee. How is it that we were able to
+overturn the Government almost without bloodshed?…. That fact is the most
+striking proof that we <i>were not isolated.</i> In reality the Provisional
+Government was isolated; the democratic parties which march against us were
+isolated, are isolated, and forever cut off from the proletariat!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They speak of the necessity for a coalition. There is only one coalition
+possible&mdash;the coalition of the workers, soldiers and poorest peasants; and
+it is our party&rsquo;s honour to have realised that coalition…. What sort of
+coalition did Avilov mean? A coalition with those who supported the Government
+of Treason to the People? Coalition doesn&rsquo;t always add to strength. For
+example, could we have organised the insurrection with Dan and Avksentiev in
+our ranks?&rdquo; Roars of laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Avksentiev gave little bread. Will a coalition with the <i>oborontsi</i>
+furnish more? Between the peasants and Avksentiev, who ordered the arrest of
+the Land Committees, we choose the peasants! Our Revolution will remain the
+classic revolution of history….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They accuse us of repelling an agreement with the other democratic
+parties. But is it we who are to blame? Or must we, as Karelin put it, blame it
+on a &lsquo;misunderstanding&rsquo;? No, comrades. When a party in full tide of
+revolution, still wreathed in powder-smoke, comes to say, &lsquo;Here is the
+Power&mdash;take it!&rsquo;&mdash;and when those to whom it is offered go over
+to the enemy, that is not a misunderstanding…. that is a declaration of
+pitiless war. And it isn&rsquo;t we who have declared war….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Avilov menaces us with failure of our peace efforts&mdash;if we remain
+&lsquo;isolated.&rsquo; I repeat, I don&rsquo;t see how a coalition with
+Skobeliev, or even Terestchenko, can help us to get peace! Avilov tries to
+frighten us by the threat of a peace at our expense. And I answer that in any
+case, if Europe continues to be ruled by the imperialist bourgeoisie,
+revolutionary Russia will inevitably be lost….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There are only two alternatives; either the Russian Revolution will
+create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers will destroy
+the Russian Revolution!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They greeted him with an immense crusading acclaim, kindling to the daring of
+it, with the thought of championing mankind. And from that moment there was
+something conscious and decided about the insurrectionary masses, in all their
+actions, which never left them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But on the other side, too, battle was taking form. Kameniev recognised a
+delegate from the Union of Railway Workers, a hardfaced, stocky man with an
+attitude of implacable hostility. He threw a bombshell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the name of the strongest organisation in Russia I demand the right
+to speak, and I say to you: the <i>Vikzhel</i> charges me to make known the
+decision of the Union concerning the constitution of Power. The Central
+Committee refuses absolutely to support the Bolsheviki if they persist in
+isolating themselves from the whole democracy of Russia!&rdquo; Immense tumult
+all over the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In 1905, and in the Kornilov days, the Railway Workers were the best
+defenders of the Revolution. But you did not invite us to your
+Congress&mdash;&rdquo; Cries, &ldquo;It was the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> which
+did not invite you!&rdquo; The orator paid no attention. &ldquo;We do not
+recognise the legality of this Congress; since the departure of the Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries there is not a legal quorum…. The Union supports
+the old <i>Tsay-ee-Kah,</i> and declares that the Congress has no right to
+elect a new Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Power should be a Socialist and revolutionary Power, responsible
+before the authorised organs of the entire revolutionary democracy. Until the
+constitution of such a power, the Union of Railway Workers, which refuses to
+transport counter-revolutionary troops to Petrograd, at the same time forbids
+the execution of any order whatever without the consent of the <i>Vikzhel.</i>
+The <i>Vikzhel</i> also takes into its hands the entire administration of the
+railroads of Russia.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end he could hardly be heard for the furious storm of abuse which beat
+upon him. But it was a heavy blow&mdash;that could be seen in the concern on
+the faces of the presidium. Kameniev, however, merely answered that there could
+be no doubt of the legality of the Congress, as even the quorum established by
+the old <i>Tsay-ee-Kah</i> was exceeded&mdash;in spite of the secession of the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolution arises….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then came the vote on the Constitution of Power, which carried the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars into office by an enormous majority….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The election of the new <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> the new parliament of the Russian
+Republic, took barely fifteen minutes. Trotzky announced its composition: 100
+members, of which 70 Bolsheviki…. As for the peasants, and the seceding
+factions, places were to be reserved for them. &ldquo;We welcome into the
+Government all parties and groups which will adopt our programme,&rdquo; ended
+Trotzky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thereupon the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was dissolved, so that
+the members might hurry to their homes in the four corners of Russia and tell
+of the great happenings….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was almost seven when we woke the sleeping conductors and motor-men of the
+street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers&rsquo; Union always kept waiting
+at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their homes. In the crowded car there
+was less happy hilarity than the night before, I thought. Many looked anxious;
+perhaps they were saying to themselves, &ldquo;Now we are masters, how can we
+do our will?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At our apartment-house we were held up in the dark by an armed patrol of
+citizens and carefully examined. The Duma&rsquo;s proclamation was doing its
+work….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The landlady heard us come in, and stumbled out in a pink silk wrapper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The House Committee has again asked that you take your turn on guard-duty with
+the rest of the men,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the reason for this guard-duty?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To protect the house and the women and children.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who from?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Robbers and murderers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But suppose there came a Commissar from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to search for arms?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, that&rsquo;s what they&rsquo;ll <i>say</i> they are…. And besides,
+what&rsquo;s the difference?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I solemnly affirmed that the Consul had forbidden all American citizens to
+carry arms&mdash;especially in the neighbourhood of the Russian
+<i>intelligentzia</i>….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>Chapter VI<br />
+The Committee for Salvation</h2>
+
+<p>
+Friday, November 9th….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Novotcherkask, November 8th.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose the
+Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd… the Cossack
+Government declares that it considers these acts criminal and absolutely
+inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend all their support to the
+Provisional Government, which is a government of coalition. Because of these
+circumstances, and until the return of the Provisional Government to power, and
+the restoration of order in Russia, I take upon myself, beginning November 7th,
+all the power in that which concerns the region of the Don.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Government of the Cossack Troops.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Prikaz</i> of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme Commander of
+all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare that I am at the head of
+regiments from the Front who have remained faithful to the fatherland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who through
+mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to the country and
+the Revolution, to return to their duty without delay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Signed: <i>Minister-President of the Provisional</i><br />
+<i>Government and Supreme Commander</i><br />
+A. F. K<small>ERENSKY</small>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern Front:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without bloodshed.
+Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky and Ismailovsky
+regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and joined the Government
+troops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible. The
+Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to retreat….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the night.
+Detachments of the two regiments mentioned&mdash;not the sailors&mdash;while
+wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed been surrounded by
+Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not true that they had joined the
+Government troops. At this very moment crowds of them, bewildered and ashamed,
+were up at Smolny trying to explain. They did not think the Cossacks were so
+near…. They had tried to argue with the Cossacks….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary front. The
+garrisons of all the little towns southward had split hopelessly, bitterly into
+two factions&mdash;or three: the high command being on the side of Kerensky, in
+default of anything stronger, the majority of the rank and file with the
+Soviets, and the rest unhappily wavering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command the defence
+of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain, Muraviov, the same Muraviov who
+had organised the Death Battalions during the summer, and had once been heard
+to advise the Government that &ldquo;it was too lenient with the Bolsheviki;
+they must be wiped out.&rdquo; A man of military mind, who admired power and
+audacity, perhaps sincerely….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new orders of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all shops and stores
+should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and apartments should be put at
+the disposal of the Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from provincial Russia
+and the outside world. The railway men and telegraphers refused to transmit
+their despatches, the postmen would not handle their mail. Only the Government
+wireless at Tsarskoye Selo launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to
+the four corners of heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of
+the City Duma on speeding trains half across the earth; and two aeroplanes,
+laden with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a swiftness
+surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed resolutions of support;
+Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the telegraph station, only to be
+driven out by delegates to the Congress of Cossacks, which happened to be
+meeting there; in Kazan, a Military Revolutionary Committee arrested the local
+garrison staff and the Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far
+Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control of the
+Municipal institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was aggravated by a
+great strike of leather-workers on one side, and a threat of general lock-out
+on the other, the Soviets had voted overwhelmingly to support the action of the
+Bolsheviki in Petrograd…. Already a Military Revolutionary Committee was
+functioning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the industrial
+workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the officers, <i>yunkers</i>
+and middle class generally were on the side of the Government&mdash;as were the
+bourgeois Cadets and the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist parties. In all these
+towns sprang up Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, arming for
+civil war….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the process had
+begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and giving birth to a sort
+of forecast of the new order, had ended by merely perpetuating the hollow
+structure of the old regime. Now, however, the Bolsheviki, in one night, had
+dissipated it, as one blows away smoke. Old Russia was no more; human society
+flowed molten in primal heat, and from the tossing sea of flame was emerging
+the class struggle, stark and pitiless&mdash;and the fragile, slowly-cooling
+crust of new planets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the Ministries of Labour
+and of Supplies&mdash;the only two created by the all-Socialist Government of
+August.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If ever men stood alone the &ldquo;handful of Bolsheviki&rdquo; apparently
+stood alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them. (See
+App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+struck&mdash;for its life. &ldquo;<i>De l&rsquo;audace, encore de
+l&rsquo;audace, et toujours de l&rsquo;audace</i>….&rdquo; At five in the
+morning the Red Guards entered the printing office of the City Government,
+confiscated thousands of copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma, and
+suppressed the official Municipal organ&mdash;the <i>Viestnik Gorodskovo
+Samoupravleniya</i> (Bulletin of the Municipal Self-Government). All the
+bourgeois newspapers were torn from the presses, even the <i>Golos Soldata,</i>
+journal of the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>&mdash;which, however, changing its name
+to <i>Soldatski Golos,</i> appeared in an edition of a hundred thousand copies,
+bellowing rage and defiance:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have suppressed
+the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance long. The country will
+know the truth! It will appreciate you, Messrs. the Bolsheviki! We shall see!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street before the
+Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there stood Red Guards and
+sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one surrounded by about a hundred men and
+women&mdash;clerks, students, shopkeepers, <i>tchinovniki</i>&mdash;shaking
+their fists and bawling insults and menaces. On the steps stood boy-scouts and
+officers, distributing copies of the <i>Soldatski Golos.</i> A workman with a
+red band around his arm and a revolver in his hand stood trembling with rage
+and nervousness in the middle of a hostile throng at the foot of the stairs,
+demanding the surrender of the papers…. Nothing like this, I imagine, ever
+occurred in history. On one side a handful of workmen and common soldiers, with
+arms in their hands, representing a victorious insurrection&mdash;and perfectly
+miserable; on the other a frantic mob made up of the kind of people that crowd
+the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering, abusing, shouting,
+&ldquo;Traitors! Provocators! <i>Opritchniki!</i>&rdquo;[15]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[15] Savage body-guards if Ivan the Terrible, 17th century.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands lettered
+in red, &ldquo;Militia of the Committee of Public Safety,&rdquo; and half a
+dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all commotion. Captain
+Gomberg was coming down the stairs. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re going to dissolve the
+Duma,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The Bolshevik Commissar is with the Mayor
+now.&rdquo; As we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying out. He had been to
+demand that the Duma recognise the Council of peoples&rsquo; Commissars, and
+the Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
+gesticulating&mdash;Government officials, intellectuals, journalists, foreign
+correspondents, French and British officers…. &ldquo;The City Engineer pointed
+to them triumphantly. &ldquo;The Embassies recognise the Duma as the only power
+now,&rdquo; he explained. &ldquo;For these Bolshevik murderers and robbers it
+is only a question of hours. All Russia is rallying to us….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for Salvation.
+Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the tribune, reporting, to
+immense applause, new adhesions to the Committee; Executive Committee of
+Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> Central Army Committee,
+<i>Tsentroflot,</i> Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary and Front group
+delegates from the Congress of Soviets, Central Committees of the Menshevik,
+Socialist Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties. &ldquo;Yedinstvo&rdquo;
+group, Peasants&rsquo; Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos, Municipalities, Post and
+Telegraph Unions, <i>Vikzhel,</i> Council of the Russian Republic, Union of
+Unions,[16] Merchants&rsquo; and Manufacturers&rsquo; Association….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[16] See Notes and Explanations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;…. The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
+dictatorship&mdash;and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but
+<i>against</i> the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to feel
+revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
+demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution…. If rumours are true
+that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to profit by events in
+order to march on Petrograd with other designs, it is only one more proof that
+we must establish a solid base of democratic government. Otherwise, troubles
+with the Right will follow troubles from the Left….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens buying
+the <i>Golos Soldata</i> and newsboys selling the <i>Rabotchaya Gazeta</i> are
+arrested in the streets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The hour of resolutions has passed…. Let those who have no longer faith
+in the Revolution retire…. To establish a united power, we must again restore
+the prestige of the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved&mdash;or we shall
+perish!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single proletarian
+anywhere in sight….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Weinstein:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly grouped
+in support of the Committee for Salvation&mdash;then we can pass from the
+defensive to action!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>Vikzhel</i> representative announced that his organisation was taking
+the initiative in forming the new Government, and its delegates were now
+discussing the matter with Smolny…. Followed a hot discussion: were the
+Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new Government? Martov pleaded for their
+admission; after all, he said, they represented an important political party.
+Opinions were very much divided upon this, the right wing Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist Socialists, the Cooperatives
+and the bourgeois elements being bitterly against….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They have betrayed Russia,&rdquo; one speaker said. &ldquo;They have
+started civil war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must be
+mercilessly crushed….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the Cadets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who had walked
+out of the Democratic Conference together with the Bolsheviki, that night when
+Tseretelli and the &ldquo;compromisers&rdquo; forced Coalition upon the
+democracy of Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You here?&rdquo; I asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His eyes flashed fire. &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I left the Congress
+with my party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years and
+more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their methods are
+intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants…. When the peasants
+begin to act, then it is a question of minutes before they are done for.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the peasants&mdash;will they act? Doesn&rsquo;t the Land decree
+settle the peasants? What more do they want?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, the Land decree!&rdquo; he said furiously. &ldquo;Yes, do you know
+what that Land decree is? It is <i>our</i> decree&mdash;it is the Socialist
+Revolutionary programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after the most
+careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants themselves. It is an
+outrage….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
+peasants&rsquo; wishes, why will they oppose it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand! Don&rsquo;t you see that the peasants will
+immediately realise that it is all a trick&mdash;that these usurpers have
+stolen the Socialist Revolutionary programme?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction. &ldquo;Yes.
+Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised the
+counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The Revolution is
+lost.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But won&rsquo;t you defend the Revolution?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course we will defend it&mdash;to the last drop of our blood. But we
+won&rsquo;t cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the city.
+Won&rsquo;t you join with them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won&rsquo;t support
+the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the Bolsheviki are
+equally enemies of the Revolution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which do you prefer&mdash;Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not a question to be discussed!&rdquo; he burst out impatiently.
+&ldquo;I tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are to
+blame. But listen&mdash;why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is coming….
+Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive…. Already Smolny has sent
+delegates inviting us to form a new Government. But we have them now&mdash;they
+are absolutely impotent…. We shall not cooperate….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard, finally
+exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it, wounding a young girl
+in the arm. We could see her being lifted into a cab, surrounded by an excited
+throng, the clamour of whose voices floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an
+armoured automobile appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns
+sluing this way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd
+crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the gutters,
+heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to the steps of the Duma
+and a man stuck his head out of the turret, demanding the surrender of the
+<i>Soldatski Golos.</i> The boy-scouts jeered and scuttled into the building.
+After a moment the automobile wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the
+Nevsky, while some hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to
+dust their clothes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of <i>Soldatski
+Golos,</i> looking for places to hide them….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a proclamation from Krasnov!&rdquo; he cried. Everybody
+crowded around. &ldquo;Get it printed&mdash;get it printed quick, and around to
+the barracks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of the troops
+concentrated under Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of the
+Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have remained
+faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to guard inviolable your
+oath of Cossack&mdash;I call upon you to save Petrograd from anarchy, from
+famine, from tyranny, and to save Russia from the indelible shame to which a
+handful of ignorant men, bought by the gold of Wilhelm, are trying to submit
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great days of
+March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the edifice in which it
+held its meetings. However the Government, with the help of the Front armies,
+faithful to their duty, with the help of the Council of Cossacks, which has
+united under its command all the Cossacks and which, strong with the morale
+which reigns in its ranks, and acting in accordance with the will of the
+Russian people, has sworn to serve the country as its ancestors served it in
+the Troublous Times of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered Moscow,
+menaced by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your Government still
+exists….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt. Their acts
+of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German mentality with which they
+regard Russia&mdash;stricken down but not yet surrendered&mdash;have alienated
+from them the entire people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd; send me
+your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their country and who are
+not, that there may be avoided an effusion of innocent blood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the building was
+surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red band around his arm,
+demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he left and old Schreider came out of
+his office, red and pale by turns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A special meeting of the Duma!&rdquo; he cried.
+&ldquo;Immediately!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the big hall proceedings were halted. &ldquo;All members of the Duma for a
+special meeting!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;going to arrest us&mdash;going to dissolve the
+Duma&mdash;arresting members at the door&mdash;&rdquo; so ran the excited
+comments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor announced that
+troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting all exit and entrance, and
+that a Commissar had threatened arrest and the dispersal of the Municipal Duma.
+A flood of impassioned speeches from members, and even from the galleries,
+responded. The freely-elected City Government could not be dissolved by
+<i>any</i> power; the Mayor&rsquo;s person and that of all the members were
+inviolable; the tyrants, the provocators, the German agents should never be
+recognised; as for these threats to dissolve us, let them try&mdash;only over
+our dead bodies shall they seize this chamber, where like the Roman senators of
+old we await with dignity the coming of the Goths….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by telegraph.
+Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the Chairman of the Duma to
+enter into any relations whatever with representatives of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee or with the so-called Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars. Resolution, to address another appeal to the population of
+Petrograd to stand up for the defence of their elected town government.
+Resolution, to remain in permanent session….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had telephoned
+to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee said that no orders
+had been given to surround the Duma, that the troops would be withdrawn….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very agitated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you going to dissolve the Duma?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My God, no!&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;It is all a mistake. I told the
+Mayor this morning that the Duma would be left alone….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of cyclists came
+riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted, and the crowd pressed in
+and deluged them with questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you? Where do you come from?&rdquo; asked a fat old man with a
+cigar in his mouth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets against the
+damn&rsquo; bourgeoisie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; were furious cries. &ldquo;Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik
+Cossacks!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. &ldquo;The
+garrison is turning!&rdquo; he muttered in my ear. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the
+beginning of the end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the
+tide? Come on!&rdquo; He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What regiment is it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>brunnoviki</i>….&rdquo; Here was indeed serious trouble. The
+<i>brunnoviki</i> were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation;
+whoever controlled the <i>brunnoviki</i> controlled the city. &ldquo;The
+Commissars of the Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been talking to
+them. There&rsquo;s a meeting on to decide….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Decide what? Which side they&rsquo;ll fight on?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, no. That&rsquo;s not the way to do it. They&rsquo;ll never fight
+against the Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral&mdash;and then the
+<i>yunkers</i> and Cossacks&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two sentinels
+tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to their indignant
+expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light burned dimly, high up near the
+roof of the enormous hall, whose lofty pilasters and rows of windows vanished
+in the gloom. Around dimly squatted the monstrous shapes of the armoured cars.
+One stood alone in the centre of the place, under the light, and round it were
+gathered some two thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the immensity
+of that imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen of the
+Soldiers&rsquo; Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the car, and
+from the central turret a soldier was speaking. This was Khanjunov, who had
+been president of last summer&rsquo;s all-Russian Congress of
+<i>Brunnoviki.</i> A lithe, handsome figure in his leather coat with
+lieutenant&rsquo;s shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently for
+neutrality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is an awful thing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;for Russians to kill their
+Russian brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
+shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign enemy in
+battles which will go down in history! What have we, soldiers, got to do with
+these squabbles of political parties? I will not say to you that the
+Provisional Government was a democratic Government; we want no coalition with
+the bourgeoisie&mdash;no. But we must have a Government of the united
+democracy, or Russia is lost! With such a Government there will be no need for
+civil war, and the killing of brother by brother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This sounded reasonable&mdash;the great hall echoed to the crash of hands and
+voices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, &ldquo;Comrades!&rdquo; he
+cried, &ldquo;I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all: there
+must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace, whether it be the
+Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow. Peace! We at the front
+cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight either Germans or
+Russians&mdash;&rdquo; With that he leaped down, and a sort of confused
+agonised sound rose up from all that surging mass, which burst into something
+like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik <i>oboronetz,</i> tried to say
+that the war must go on until the Allies were victorious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You talk like Kerensky!&rdquo; shouted a rough voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to, muttering
+uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen men trying so hard to
+understand, to decide. They never moved, stood staring with a sort of terrible
+intentness at the speaker, their brows wrinkled with the effort of thought,
+sweat standing out on their foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent
+clear eyes of children and the faces of epic warriors….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full of hate.
+They liked him no more than the other. It was not their mood. For the moment
+they were lifted out of the ordinary run of common thoughts, thinking in terms
+of Russia, of Socialism, the world, as if it depended on them whether the
+Revolution were to live or die….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of approval, or
+anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned, persuasive and
+sympathetic. But wasn&rsquo;t he an officer, and an <i>oboronotz,</i> however
+much he talked of peace? Then a workman from Vasili Ostrov, but him they
+greeted with, &ldquo;And are <i>you</i> going to give us peace,
+working-man?&rdquo; Near us some men, many of them officers, formed a sort of
+<i>claque</i> to cheer the advocates of Neutrality. They kept shouting,
+&ldquo;Khanjunov! Khanjunov!&rdquo; and whistled insultingly when the
+Bolsheviki tried to speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile began to
+discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation. The audience shouted
+to know what was the matter, and all the great mass tossed and stirred. A
+soldier, held back by one of the officers, wrenched himself loose and held up
+his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to
+speak to us.&rdquo; An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of
+<i>&ldquo;Prosim! Prosim! Dolby!</i> Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!&rdquo;
+in the midst of which the People&rsquo;s Commissar for Military Affairs
+clambered up the side of the car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and
+pulled from below and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then walked out
+on the radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked around smiling, a squat,
+short-legged figure, bare-headed, without insignia on his uniform.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>claque</i> near me kept up a fearful shouting, &ldquo;Khanjunov! We want
+Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!&rdquo; The whole
+place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche bearing down
+upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is breaking up our meeting?&rdquo; they shouted. &ldquo;Who is
+whistling here?&rdquo; The <i>claque,</i> rudely burst asunder, went
+flying&mdash;nor did it gather again….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrade soldiers!&rdquo; began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue.
+&ldquo;I cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any sleep for
+four nights….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don&rsquo;t need
+to tell you that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
+successful in the Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Revolution, by the help of
+you and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever the
+power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to all the
+peoples, and that has already been done&mdash;to-day!&rdquo; Tumultuous
+applause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are asked to remain neutral&mdash;to remain neutral while the
+<i>yunkers</i> and the Death Battalions, who are <i>never</i> neutral, shoot us
+down in the streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky&mdash;or perhaps some
+other of the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don. Kerensky is coming from
+the front. Kornilov is raising the <i>Tekhintsi</i> to repeat his attempt of
+August. All these Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries who call upon you
+now to prevent civil war&mdash;how have they retained the power except by civil
+war, that civil war which has endured ever since last July, and in which they
+constantly stood on the side of the bourgeoisie, as they do now?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The question is
+very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov, the Mensheviki,
+Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers…. They tell us that their
+objects are good. On the other side are the workers, the soldiers and sailors,
+the poorest peasants. The Government is in your hands. You are the masters.
+Great Russia belongs to you. Will you give it back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will, and as he
+went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke through the tired
+voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a hundred hands reached up to
+help him down, and the great dim spaces of the hall gave back the surf of sound
+that beat upon him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Khanjunov tried to speak again, but &ldquo;Vote! Vote! Vote!&rdquo; they cried.
+At length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the <i>brunnoviki</i>
+withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary Committee, and
+declare their neutrality in the present civil war. All those in favour should
+go to the right; those opposed, to the left. There was a moment of hesitation,
+a still expectancy, and then the crowd began to surge faster and faster,
+stumbling over one another, to the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid
+mass rushing across the dirt floor in the faint light…. Near us about fifty men
+were left stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the high roof shook under
+the shock of victorious roaring, they turned and rapidly walked out of the
+building&mdash;and, some of them, out of the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the
+district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos,
+watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing, threatening,
+entreating. And then imaging the same in all the locals of every labour union,
+in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian
+fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at
+speakers all over the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors,
+trying so hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely&mdash;and
+deciding so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up at Smolny the new Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars was not idle. Already
+the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in thousands through the
+city streets that night, and shipped in bales by every train southward and
+east:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies
+with participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars decrees:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at the date
+determined upon&mdash;November 12.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government, Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, and
+soldiers&rsquo; organisations on the front should make every effort to assure
+free and regular elections at the date determined upon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, <i>The President of the
+Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars</i>,
+</p>
+
+<h5>VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.</h5>
+
+<p>
+In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of the Council
+of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council, he said, did not
+consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable to continue its labours
+until it secured a new meeting-place. In the meanwhile, its Committee of Elders
+had determined to enter <i>en masse</i> the Committee for Salvation…. This, I
+may remark parenthetically, is the last time history mentions the Council of
+the Russian Republic….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries, the
+<i>Vikzhel,</i> the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth time
+reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik usurpers. A
+<i>yunker</i> who had been in the Winter Palace told a highly-coloured tale of
+the heroism of himself and his comrades, and disgraceful conduct of the Red
+Guards&mdash;all of which was devoutly believed. Somebody read aloud an account
+in the Socialist Revolutionary paper <i>Narod,</i> which stated that five
+hundred million rubles&rsquo; worth of damage had been done in the Winter
+Palace, and describing in great detail the loot and breakage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The four
+Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had gone to
+Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of Marine was
+deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take charge under the
+authority of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars; and the old seaman had
+consented…. Kerensky was advancing north from Gatchina, the Bolshevik garrisons
+falling back before him. Smolny had issued another decree, enlarging the powers
+of the City Dumas to deal with food supplies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin, the
+usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal garage, entered
+the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the Supply Committees and the
+distribution of food&mdash;he presumed to define the limits of power of the
+free, independent, autonomous City Government! One member, shaking his fist,
+moved to cut off the food of the city if the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with
+the Supply Committees…. Another, representative of the Special Supply
+Committee, reported that the food situation was very grave, and asked that
+emissaries be sent out to hasten food trains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering. The
+Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats on the Neva were
+shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to continue the propaganda….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: &ldquo;Comrades and citizens! I
+have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger. Fourteen
+<i>yunkers</i> of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and tortured by the
+Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are threatening to lynch the
+Ministers!&rdquo; There was a whirlwind of indignation and horror, which only
+grew more violent when a stocky little woman dressed in grey demanded the
+floor, and lifted up her hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran
+revolutionist and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a lie and a provocation!&rdquo; she said, unmoved at the torrent
+of abuse. &ldquo;The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government, which has
+abolished the death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand that this
+story be investigated, at once; if there is any truth in it, the Government
+will take energetic measures!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately appointed, and
+with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As we followed them out, the
+Duma was appointing another commission to meet Kerensky&mdash;to try and avoid
+bloodshed when he entered the capital….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of the
+fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare electric lights
+along the side of the church where lie the tombs of the Tsars, beneath the
+slender golden spire and the chimes, which, for months, continued to play
+<i>Bozhe Tsaria Khrani</i>[17] every day at noon…. The place was deserted; in
+most of the windows there were not even lights. Occasionally we bumped into a
+burly figure stumbling along in the dark, who answered questions with the
+usual, <i>&ldquo;Ya nieznayu.&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[17] &ldquo;God Save the Tsar.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 166: Pass to Reed from Department of Prisons translation
+follows]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to visit freely
+all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+  Commissar<br />
+  Chief Bureau of Prisons<br />
+  6th of November, 1917.<br />
+        No. 213<br />
+  Petrograd, Smolny<br />
+  Institute, room No. 56&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PASS To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED, to visit
+all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and Cronstadt, for the
+purpose of generally investigating the condition of the prisoners, and for
+thorough social information for the purpose of stopping the flood of newspaper
+lies against demorcracy. Chief Commissar Secretary
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that living
+grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their lives or their reason
+in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional Government had in turn shut up
+the Ministers of the Tsar, and now the Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of
+the Provisional Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a little house
+near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and soldiers were sitting
+around a hot room full of smoke, in which a samovar steamed cheerfully. They
+welcomed us with great cordiality, offering tea. The commandant was not in; he
+was escorting a commission of <i>&ldquo;sabotazhniki&rdquo;</i> (sabotageurs)
+from the City Duma, who insisted that the <i>yunkers</i> were all being
+murdered. This seemed to amuse them very much. At one side of the room sat a
+bald-headed, dissipated-looking little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat,
+biting his moustache and staring around him like a cornered rat. He had just
+been arrested. Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him, that he was a
+Minister or something…. The little man didn&rsquo;t seem to hear it; he was
+evidently terrified, although the occupants of the room showed no animosity
+whatever toward him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went across and spoke to him in French. &ldquo;Count Tolstoy,&rdquo; he
+answered, bowing stiffly. &ldquo;I do not understand why I was arrested. I was
+crossing the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these&mdash;of
+these&mdash;persons held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional Government
+attached to the General Staff, but in no sense a member of the
+Government…&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him go,&rdquo; said a sailor. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s harmless….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. &ldquo;We
+must ask the commandant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, the commandant!&rdquo; sneered the sailor. &ldquo;What did you make
+a revolution for? To go on obeying officers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A <i>praporshtchik</i> of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
+insurrection started. &ldquo;The <i>polk</i> (regiment) was on duty at the
+General Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were standing
+guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man&mdash;I don&rsquo;t remember his
+name&mdash;well, they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the
+Staff was having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For example,
+they heard orders to bring the Gatchina <i>yunkers</i> to Petrograd by night,
+and an order for the Cossacks to be ready to march in the morning…. The
+principal points in the city were to be occupied before dawn. Then there was
+the business of opening the bridges. But when they began to talk about
+surrounding Smolny, then Ivan Pavlovitch couldn&rsquo;t stand it any longer.
+That minute there was a good deal of coming and going, so he slipped out and
+came down to the guard-room, leaving the other comrade to pick up what he
+could.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles full
+of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan Pavlovitch told
+me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the morning. The secretary of the
+regimental Committee was there, so we told him and asked what to do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Arrest everybody coming and going!&rsquo; he says. So we began to
+do it. In an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom we sent
+up to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary Committee wasn&rsquo;t
+ready; they didn&rsquo;t know what to do; and pretty soon back came the order
+to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else. Well, we ran all the way to
+Smolny, and I guess we talked for an hour before they finally saw that it was
+war. It was five o&rsquo;clock when we got back to the Staff, and by that time
+most of them were gone. But we got a few, and the garrison was all on the
+march….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had happened in
+his district on the great day of the rising. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t have any
+machine-guns over there,&rdquo; he said, laughing, &ldquo;and we couldn&rsquo;t
+get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of the <i>Uprava</i>
+(Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at once that there was lying
+in the meeting-room of the <i>Uprava</i> a machinegun which had been captured
+from the Germans. So he and I and another comrade went there. The Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries were having a meeting. Well, we opened the door
+and walked right in on them, as they sat around the table&mdash;twelve or
+fifteen of them, three of us. When they saw us they stopped talking and just
+stared. We walked right across the room, uncoupled the machine-gun; Comrade
+Zalkind picked up one part, I the other, we put them on our shoulders and
+walked out&mdash;and not a single man said a word!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?&rdquo; asked a third
+man, a sailor. &ldquo;Along about eleven o&rsquo;clock we found out there
+weren&rsquo;t any more <i>yunkers</i> on the Neva side. So we broke in the
+doors and filtered up the different stairways one by one, or in little bunches.
+When we got to the top of the stairs the <i>yunkers</i> held us up and took
+away our guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little by little, until we had
+a majority. Then we turned around and took away the <i>yunkers&rsquo;</i>
+guns….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then the commandant entered&mdash;a merry-looking young non-commissioned
+officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles of sleeplessness under his
+eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner, who at once began to explain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; interrupted the other. &ldquo;You were one of the
+committee who refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we
+don&rsquo;t want you, citizen. Apologies&mdash;&rdquo; He opened the door and
+waved his arm for Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others, especially the
+Red Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor remarked triumphantly,
+<i>&ldquo;Vot!</i> There! Didn&rsquo;t I say so?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a committee of
+the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they said, were getting the
+same food as the guards, when there wasn&rsquo;t even enough to keep a man from
+being hungry. &ldquo;Why should the counter-revolutionists be treated so
+well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits,&rdquo; answered the
+commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going about that
+the <i>yunkers</i> were being tortured, and the lives of the Ministers
+threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to be able to prove to
+the world&mdash;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the young soldier, irritably. &ldquo;I am not going to
+disturb the prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them
+up&mdash;they were sure we were going to massacre them…. Most of the
+<i>yunkers</i> have been released anyway, and the rest will go out
+to-morrow.&rdquo; He turned abruptly away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded. &ldquo;They are
+still out in the hall,&rdquo; he said carelessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light of an oil
+lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Mayor,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;we are American correspondents. Will
+you please tell us officially the result of your investigations?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is no truth in the reports,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;Except
+for the incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here, they
+have been treated with every consideration. As for the <i>yunkers,</i> not one
+has received the slightest injury….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable column of
+soldiers shuffled in silence&mdash;to battle with Kerensky. In dim back streets
+automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and there was furtive activity
+in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviet, in a certain
+apartment of a huge building on the Nevsky, and in the <i>Injinierny Zamok</i>
+(School of Engineers); the Duma was illuminated….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed baleful fire,
+pounding like an over-loaded dynamo….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Chapter VII<br />
+The Revolutionary Front</h2>
+
+<p>
+Saturday, November 10th….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will not tolerate any
+violation of revolutionary order….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be severely
+punished….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will destroy without
+mercy any looter or instigator of disorder….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken fight. By
+night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and on the corners
+soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires, laughing and singing. In
+the daytime great crowds gathered on the sidewalks listening to interminable
+hot debates between students and soldiers, business men and workmen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens stopped each other on the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Cossacks are coming?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the latest?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything. Where&rsquo;s Kerensky?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say only eight versts from Petrograd…. Is it true that the
+Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship <i>Avrora?&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say so….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only the walls screamed, and the few newspapers; denunciation, appeal, decree….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An enormous poster carried the hysterical manifesto of the Executive Committee
+of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+….They (the Bolsheviki) dare to say that they are supported by the Soviets of
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, and that they are speaking on behalf of the Soviets
+of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let all working-class Russia know that this is a LIE, AND THAT ALL THE WORKING
+PEASANTS&mdash;in the person of&mdash;the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
+ALL-RUSSIAN SOVIETS OF PEASANTS&rsquo; DEPUTIES&mdash;refutes with indignation
+all participation of the organised peasantry in this criminal violation of the
+will of the working-classes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the Soldier Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The insane attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of collapse. The garrison is
+divided…. The Ministries are on strike and bread is getting scarcer. All
+factions except the few Bolsheviki have left the Congress. The Bolsheviki are
+alone….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We call upon all sane elements to group themselves around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution, and to prepare themselves seriously to be
+ready at the first call of the Central Committee….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a hand-bill the Council of the Republic recited its wrongs:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ceding to the force of bayonets, the Council of the Republic has been obliged
+to separate, and temporarily to interrupt its meetings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The usurpers, with the words &ldquo;Liberty and Socialism&rdquo; on their lips,
+have set up a rule of arbitrary violence. They have arrested the members of the
+Provisional Government, closed the newspapers, seized the printing-shops….This
+power must be considered the enemy of the people and the Revolution; it is
+necessary to do battle with it, and to pull it down….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of the Republic, until the resumption of its labours, invites the
+citizens of the Russian Republic to group themselves around the….local
+Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, which are organising the
+overthrow of the Bolsheviki and the creation of a Government capable of leading
+the country to the Constituent Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Dielo Naroda</i> said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A revolution is a rising of all the people…. But here what have we? Nothing but
+a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky…. Their decrees and their
+appeals will simply add to the museum of historical curiosities….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And <i>Narodnoye Slovo</i>(People&rsquo;s Word-Populist Socialist):
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government?&rdquo; That is only a
+pipedream; nobody, either in Russia or in the countries of our Allies, will
+recognise this &ldquo;Government&rdquo;&mdash;or even in the enemy countries….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bourgeois press had temporarily disappeared….<i>Pravada</i> had an account
+of the first meeting of the new <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> now the parliament of the
+Russian Soviet Republic. Miliutin, Commissar of Agriculture, remarked that the
+Peasants&rsquo; Executive Committee had called an All-Russian Peasant Congress
+for December 13th.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we cannot wait,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We must have the backing of
+the peasants. I propose that <i>we</i> call the Congress of Peasants, and do it
+immediately….&rdquo; The Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed. An Appeal to
+the Peasants of Russia was hastily drafted, and a committee of five elected to
+carry out the project.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The question of detailed plans for distributing the land, and the question of
+Workers&rsquo; Control of Industry, were postponed until the experts working on
+them should submit a report.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three decrees (See App. VII, Sect. 1) were read and approved: first,
+Lenin&rsquo;s &ldquo;General Rules For the Press,&rdquo; ordering the
+suppression of all newspapers inciting to resistance and disobedience to the
+new Government, inciting to criminal acts, or deliberately perverting the news;
+the Decree of Moratorium for House-rents; and the Decree Establishing a
+Workers&rsquo; Militia. Also orders, one giving the Municipal Duma power to
+requisition empty apartments and houses, the other directing the unloading of
+freight cars in the railroad terminals, to hasten the distribution of
+necessities and to free the badly-needed rolling-stock….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two hours later the Executive Committee of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets was
+sending broadcast over Russia the following telegram:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The arbitrary organisation of the Bolsheviki, which is called &ldquo;Bureau of
+Organisation for the National Congress of Peasants,&rdquo; is inviting all the
+Peasants&rsquo; Soviets to send delegates to the Congress at Petrograd….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Executive Committee of the Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies declares
+that it considers, now as well as before, that it would be dangerous to take
+away from the provinces at this moment the forces necessary to prepare for
+elections to the Constituent Assembly, which is the only salvation of the
+working-class and the country. We confirm the date of the Congress of Peasants,
+<i>December 13th.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the Duma all was excitement, officers coming and going, the Mayor in
+conference with the leaders of the Committee for Salvation. A Councillor ran in
+with a copy of Kerensky&rsquo;s proclamation, dropped by hundreds from an
+aeroplane low flying down the Nevsky, which threatened terrible vengeance on
+all who did not submit, and ordered soldiers to lay down their arms and
+assemble immediately in Mars Field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Minister-President had taken Tsarskoye Selo, we were told, and was already
+in the Petrograd campagna, five miles away. He would enter the city
+to-morrow&mdash;in a few hours. The Soviet troops in contact with his Cossacks
+were said to be going over to the Provisional Government. Tchernov was
+somewhere in between, trying to organise the &ldquo;neutral&rdquo; troops into
+a force to halt the civil war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the city the garrison regiments were leaving the Bolsheviki, they said.
+Smolny was already abandoned…. All the Governmental machinery had stopped
+functioning. The employees of the State Bank had refused to work under
+Commissars from Smolny, refused to pay out money to them. All the private banks
+were closed. The Ministries were on strike. Even now a committee from the Duma
+was making the rounds of business houses, collecting a fund to pay the salaries
+of the strikers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered the clerks to
+translate the Decree on Peace into foreign languages; six hundred functionaries
+had hurled their resignations in his face…. Shliapnikov, Commissar of Labour,
+had commanded all the employees of his Ministry to return to their places
+within twenty-four hours, or lose their places and their pension-rights; only
+the door-servants had responded…. Some of the branches of the Special Food
+Supply Committee had suspended work rather than submit to the Bolsheviki…. In
+spite of lavish promises of high wages and better conditions, the operators at
+the Telephone Exchange would not connect Soviet headquarters….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Socialist Revolutionary Party had voted to expel all members who had
+remained in the Congress of Soviets, and all who were taking part in the
+insurrection….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+News from the provinces. Moghilev had declared against the Bolsheviki. At Kiev
+the Cossacks had overthrown the Soviets and arrested all the insurrectionary
+leaders. The Soviet and garrison of Luga, thirty thousand strong, affirmed its
+loyalty to the Provisional Government, and appealed to all Russia to rally
+around it. Kaledin had dispersed all Soviets and Unions in the Don Basin, and
+his forces were moving north….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Said a representative of the Railway Workers: &ldquo;Yesterday we sent a
+telegram all over Russia demanding that war between the political parties cease
+at once, and insisting on the formation of a coalition Socialist Government.
+Otherwise we shall call a strike to-morrow night…. In the morning there will be
+a meeting of all factions to consider the question. The Bolsheviki seem anxious
+for an agreement….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they last that long!&rdquo; laughed the City Engineer, a stout, ruddy
+man….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came up to Smolny&mdash;not abandoned, but busier than ever, throngs of
+workers and soldiers running in and out, and doubled guards everywhere&mdash;we
+met the reporters for the bourgeois and &ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist
+papers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Threw us out!&rdquo; cried one, from <i>Volia Naroda.</i>
+&ldquo;Bonch-Bruevitch came down to the Press Bureau and told us to leave! Said
+we were spies!&rdquo; They all began to talk at once: &ldquo;Insult! Outrage!
+Freedom of the press!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the lobby were great tables heaped with stacks of appeals, proclamations and
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Workmen and soldiers staggered
+past, carrying them to waiting automobiles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One began:
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO THE PILLORY!</h5>
+
+<p>
+In this tragic moment through which the Russian masses are living, the
+Mensheviki and their followers and the Right Socialist Revolutionaries have
+betrayed the working-class. They have enlisted on the side of Kornilov,
+Kerensky and Savinkov….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They are printing orders of the traitor Kerensky and creating a panic in the
+city, spreading the most ridiculous rumours of mythical victories by that
+renegade….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens! Don&rsquo;t believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the
+People&rsquo;s Revolution…. Premier Kerensky and his followers await speedy and
+well-deserved punishment….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the enmity of all
+workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they are trying to rivet the
+ancient chains. They will never be able to wash from their bodies the stain of
+the people&rsquo;s hatred and contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters, room 17 on
+the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the narrow space in front
+of the railing was crowded with well-dressed persons, outwardly respectful but
+inwardly full of murder&mdash;bourgeois who wanted permits for their
+automobiles, or passports to leave the city, among them many foreigners…. Bill
+Shatov and Peters were on duty. They suspended all other business to read us
+the latest bulletins.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous support.
+Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the new Government.
+Central Committee of the Trade Unions&mdash;enthusiastic support. The garrison
+and squadron at Reval elect Military Revolutionary Committees to cooperate, and
+despatch troops. Military Revolutionary Committees control in Pskov and Minsk.
+Greetings from the Soviets of Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk,
+Sevastopol…. The Finland Division, the new Committees of the Fifth and Twelfth
+Armies, offer allegiance….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two companies on duty in the
+Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but the Arsenal is in the hands of
+Colonel Diabtsev and his <i>yunkers.</i> The Revolutionary Committee demanded
+arms for the workers, and Riabtsev parleyed with them until this morning, when
+suddenly he sent an ultimatum to the Committee, ordering Soviet troops to
+surrender and the Committee to disband. Fighting has begun….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny&rsquo;s Commissars at once. The
+<i>Tsentroflot,</i> refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of Cronstadt
+sailors, and a new <i>Tsentroflot</i> set up, supported by the Baltic and the
+Black Sea battleships….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition, a feeling
+of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky&rsquo;s Cossacks were coming fast; they had
+artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop Committees, his face drawn
+and yellow, assured me that there was a whole army corps of them, but he added,
+fiercely, &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll never take us alive!&rdquo; Petrovsky laughed
+weariedly, &ldquo;To-morrow maybe we&rsquo;ll get a sleep&mdash;a long
+one….&rdquo; Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded face, said, &ldquo;What
+chance have we? All alone…. A mob against trained soldiers!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the garrisons of
+Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided&mdash;half voting to remain
+neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back on the capital in the wildest
+disorder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
+</p>
+
+<h5>FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in Chief,
+Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to every one
+everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary Petrograd have
+voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the armies of the former
+Government, the Government of Treason, and that the soldiers have been ordered
+by the Military Revolutionary Committee to retreat. The troops of a free people
+do not retreat nor do they surrender.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between themselves
+and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take a more convenient
+position, which is at present so strong that if Kerensky and his companions in
+arms should even increase their forces ten times, still there would be no cause
+for anxiety. The spirit of our troops is excellent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Petrograd all is quiet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District,</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a paper in his
+hand, looking like a corpse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Send this,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS&rsquo; DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP
+COMMITTEES</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to the
+capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush mercilessly the
+counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and its conquests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the immediate
+support of the workers.
+</p>
+
+<h5>WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES:</h5>
+
+<p>
+1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the digging of
+trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of wire entanglements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at the
+factories this shall be done immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. All common and barbed wire available must be assembled, and also all
+implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of barricades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. All available arms must be taken.
+</p>
+
+<h5>5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE READY
+TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker&rsquo;s and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies,</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People&rsquo;s Commissar LEON TROTZKY.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee,</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey horizon factory
+whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound, full of foreboding. By tens
+of thousands the working-people poured out, men and women; by tens of thousands
+the humming slums belched out their dun and miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was
+in danger! Cossacks! South and southwest they poured through the shabby streets
+toward the Moskovsky Gate, men, women and children, with rifles, picks, spades,
+rolls of wire, cartridge-belts over their working clothes…. Such an immense,
+spontaneous outpouring of a city never was seen! They rolled along
+torrent-like, companies of soldiers borne with them, guns, motor-trucks,
+wagons&mdash;the revolutionary proletariat defending with its breast the
+capital of the Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Republic!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick glasses
+magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort, stood leaning
+against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a shabby raglan. A great
+bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth, prowled restlessly about,
+absently toying with an enormous blue-steel revolver, which never left his
+hand. These were Antonov and Dybenko.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the running-board.
+The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would get scratched, he said.
+True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile was commandeered from a bourgeois;
+true, the bicycles were for the use of orderlies. But the chauffeur&rsquo;s
+professional pride was revolted…. So the bicycles were abandoned….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The People&rsquo;s Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the
+revolutionary front&mdash;wherever that was. Could we go with them? Certainly
+not. The automobile only held five&mdash;the two Commissars, two orderlies and
+the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of mine, whom I will call
+Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor could any argument dislodge him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I see no reason to doubt Trusishka&rsquo;s story of the journey. As they went
+down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They might be out three
+or four days, in a country indifferently well provisioned. They stopped the
+car. Money? The Commissar of War looked through his pockets&mdash;he
+hadn&rsquo;t a kopek. The Commissar of Marine was broke. So was the chauffeur.
+Trusishka bought the provisions….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo; asked Antonov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Commandeer another machine!&rdquo; suggested Dybenko, waving his
+revolver. Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a passing
+machine, driven by a soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I want that machine,&rdquo; said Antonov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You won&rsquo;t get it,&rdquo; responded the soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you know who I am?&rdquo; Antonov produced a paper upon which was
+written that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the
+Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him without question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care if you&rsquo;re the devil himself,&rdquo; said the
+soldier, hotly. &ldquo;This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment,
+and we&rsquo;re carrying ammunition in it, and you can&rsquo;t have it….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old battered
+taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble private cars were
+registered in the name of foreign consulates, so as to be safe from
+requisition.) From the interior of this was dislodged a fat citizen in an
+expensive fur coat, and the party continued on its way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called for the
+commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the town, where some few
+hundred workmen had dug trenches and were waiting for the Cossacks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everything all right here, comrade?&rdquo; asked Antonov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Everything perfect, comrade,&rdquo; answered the commandant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The troops are in excellent spirits…. Only one thing&mdash;we have no
+ammunition….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Smolny there are two billion rounds,&rdquo; Antonov told him.
+&ldquo;I will give you an order.&rdquo; He felt in his pockets. &ldquo;Has any
+one a piece of paper?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dybenko had none&mdash;nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his note-book….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Devil! I have no pencil!&rdquo; cried Antonov. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s got a
+pencil?&rdquo; Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the Nevsky, as
+we passed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with bayonets and some
+without. The early twilight of winter was falling. Heads up they tramped in the
+chill mud, irregular lines of four, without music, without drums. A red flag
+crudely lettered in gold, &ldquo;Peace! Land!&rdquo; floated over them. They
+were very young. The expression on their faces was that of who know they are
+going to die…. Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk
+watched them pass, in hateful silence….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 184: Pass to the Northern Front]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This pass was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days after the
+Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel to the Northern
+front&mdash;and an added note on the back extends the permission to all fronts.
+It will be noticed that the speaks of the <i>Petersburg</i>, instead of the
+<i>Petrograd</i> Soviet; it was the fashion among thorough-going
+internationalists to abolish all names which smacked of
+&ldquo;patriotism&rdquo;; but at the same time, it would not do to restore the
+&ldquo;Saint.&rdquo;…<br />
+                      (Translation)<br />
+  Executive Committee<br />
+  Petrograd Soviet of<br />
+  Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;<br />
+       Deputies<br />
+    Military Section<br />
+  28th October, 1917<br />
+      No. 1435<br />
+                      CERTIFICATE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The present certificate is given to the representative of the American Social
+Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED. The Military Revolutionary
+Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies gives him the right of free travel through the entire Northern front,
+for the purpose of reporting to our American comrades&mdash;internationalists
+concerning events in Russia.<br />
+                              For the President<br />
+                              For the Secretary
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the railroad station nobody knew just where Kerensky was, or where the front
+lay. Trains went no further, however, than Tsarskoye….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden with bundles
+and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik rising. Outside of that,
+however, one would never have realised that civil war was rending mighty Russia
+in two, and that the train was headed into the zone of battle. Through the
+window we could see, in the swiftly-deepening darkness, masses of soldiers
+going along the muddy road toward the city, flinging out their arms in
+argument. A freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires,
+was halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the glow of
+the city&rsquo;s lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled distantly
+along a far-flung suburb….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tsarskoye Selo station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here and there
+talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty track in the direction
+of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side they were on. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo;
+said one, &ldquo;we don&rsquo;t exactly know the rights of the matter…. There
+is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we do not consider it right for
+Russian men to be shooting Russian men.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the station commandant&rsquo;s office was a big, jovial, bearded common
+soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our credentials
+from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly for the Soviets, but
+bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A
+Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the Cossacks
+arrived.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Cossacks are here then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded, gloomily. &ldquo;There has been a battle. The Cossacks came early in
+the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men, and killed about
+twenty-five.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are the Cossacks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, they didn&rsquo;t get this far. I don&rsquo;t know just where they
+are. Off that way….&rdquo; He waved his arm vaguely westward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had dinner&mdash;an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be got
+in Petrograd&mdash;in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French officer who
+had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet there, he said. Kerensky
+held the town. &ldquo;Ah, these Russians,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;they are
+original! What a civil war! Everything except the fighting!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood two
+soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by about a
+hundred business men, Government officials and students, who attacked them with
+passionate argument and epithet. The soldiers were uncomfortable and hurt, like
+children unjustly scolded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the uniform of a
+student, was leading the attack.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You realise, I presume,&rdquo; he said insolently, &ldquo;that by taking
+up arms against your brothers you are making yourselves the tools of murderers
+and traitors?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now brother,&rdquo; answered the soldier earnestly, &ldquo;you
+don&rsquo;t understand. There are two classes, don&rsquo;t you see, the
+proletariat and the bourgeoisie. We&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I know that silly talk!&rdquo; broke in the student rudely. &ldquo;A
+bunch of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few catch-words.
+You don&rsquo;t understand what they mean. You just echo them like a lot of
+parrots.&rdquo; The crowd laughed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a Marxian student. And I
+tell you that this isn&rsquo;t Socialism you are fighting for. It&rsquo;s just
+plain pro-German anarchy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, I know,&rdquo; answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from
+his brow. &ldquo;You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am only a
+simple man. But it seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; interrupted the other contemptuously, &ldquo;that you
+believe Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I do,&rdquo; answered the soldier, suffering.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in a
+closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know much about that,&rdquo; answered the soldier
+stubbornly, &ldquo;but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to hear,
+and all the simple men like me. Now there are two classes, the bourgeoisie and
+the proletariat&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schlüsselburg for
+revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down revolutionists and
+singing &lsquo;God Save the Tsar!&rsquo; My name is Vasili Georgevitch Panyin.
+Didn&rsquo;t you ever hear of me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to say I never did,&rdquo; answered the soldier with
+humility. &ldquo;But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great
+hero.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said the student with conviction. &ldquo;And I am opposed
+to the Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now how
+do you account for that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldier scratched his head. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t account for it at
+all,&rdquo; he said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes.
+&ldquo;To me it seems perfectly simple&mdash;but then, I&rsquo;m not well
+educated. It seems like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There you go again with your silly formula!&rdquo; cried the student.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&mdash;only two classes,&rdquo; went on the soldier, doggedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And whoever isn&rsquo;t on one side is on the other…&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far between, and
+where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung over the place&mdash;as
+of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a political No Man&rsquo;s
+Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly lighted and crowded, and a
+line formed at the doors of the public bath; for it was Saturday night, when
+all Russia bathes and perfumes itself. I haven&rsquo;t the slightest doubt that
+Soviet troops and Cossacks mingled in the places where these ceremonies were
+performed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the streets. A
+frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the Soviet, and hurried on.
+It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal palaces, fronting the Park. The
+windows were dark, the door locked. A soldier, lounging about with his hands in
+the top of his trousers, looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion.
+&ldquo;The Soviet went away two days ago,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Where?&rdquo;
+A shrug. <i>&ldquo;Nie znayu.</i> I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated. From within
+came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a soldier and a sailor
+came down the street, hand in hand. I showed them my pass from Smolny.
+&ldquo;Are you for the Soviets?&rdquo; I asked. They did not answer, but looked
+at each other in a frightened way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is going on in there?&rdquo; asked the sailor, pointing to the
+building.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack. Inside a
+great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of chairs, a stage being
+built.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks came out.
+&ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is there a performance to-night?&rdquo; said the sailor, nervously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There will be private theatricals Sunday night,&rdquo; she answered
+severely. &ldquo;Go away.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they seemed
+frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast, dark
+gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges looming uncertainly
+in the night, and soft water splashing from the fountains. At one place, where
+a ridiculous iron swan spat unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were
+suddenly aware of observation, and looked up to encounter the sullen,
+suspicious gaze of half a dozen gigantic armed soldiers, who stared moodily
+down from a grassy terrace. I climbed up to them. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; I
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are the guard,&rdquo; answered one. They all looked very depressed,
+as undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night argument
+and debate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you Kerensky&rsquo;s troops, or the Soviets&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each other. Then,
+&ldquo;We are neutral,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the Palace
+enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a door in a curving
+white wing of the Palace said that the commandant was inside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a two-sided
+fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking. They were pale and
+distracted, and evidently hadn&rsquo;t slept. To one, an oldish man with a
+white beard, his uniform studded with decorations, who was pointed out as the
+Colonel, we showed our Bolshevik papers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed surprised. &ldquo;How did you get here without being killed?&rdquo;
+he asked politely. &ldquo;It is very dangerous in the streets just now.
+Political passion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was a battle
+this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning. Kerensky is to enter
+the town at eight o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where are the Cossacks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About a mile over that way.&rdquo; He waved his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you will defend the city against them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh dear no.&rdquo; He smiled. &ldquo;We are holding the city for
+Kerensky.&rdquo; Our hearts sank, for our passes stated that we were
+revolutionary to the core. The Colonel cleared his throat. &ldquo;About those
+passes of yours,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Your lives will be in danger if you
+are captured. Therefore, if you want to see the battle, I will give you an
+order for rooms in the officers&rsquo; hotel, and if you will come back here at
+seven o&rsquo;clock in the morning, I will give you new passes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So you are for Kerensky?&rdquo; we said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, not exactly <i>for</i> Kerensky.&rdquo; The Colonel hesitated.
+&ldquo;You see, most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and
+to-day, after the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd,
+taking the artillery with them. You might say that none of the <i>soldiers</i>
+are for Kerensky; but some of them just don&rsquo;t want to fight at all. The
+<i>officers</i> have almost all gone over to Kerensky&rsquo;s forces, or simply
+gone away. We are&mdash;ahem&mdash;in a most difficult position, as you
+see….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We did not believe that there would be any battle…. The Colonel courteously
+sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station. He was from the South,
+born of French immigrant parents in Bessarabia. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he kept
+saying, &ldquo;it is not the danger or the hardships I mind, but being so long,
+three years, away from my mother….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold dark toward
+Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers gesticulating in the light
+of fires, and of clusters of armoured cars halted together at cross-roads, the
+chauffeurs hanging out of the turrets and shouting to each other….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of soldiers and Red
+Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the Commissars of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee hurried from one group to another, trying to organise a
+defence….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the Nevsky.
+Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station could be heard
+far-off cannonade. In the <i>yunker</i> schools there was feverish activity.
+Duma members went from barracks to barracks, arguing and pleading, narrating
+fearful stories of Bolshevik violence&mdash;massacre of the <i>yunkers</i> in
+the Winter Palace, rape of the women soldiers, the shooting of the girl before
+the Duma, the murder of Prince Tumanov…. In the Alexander Hall of the Duma
+building the Committee for Salvation was in special session; Commissars came
+and went, running…. All the journalists expelled from Smolny were there, in
+high spirits. They did not believe our report of conditions in Tsarskoye. Why,
+everybody knew that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky&rsquo;s hands, and that the
+Cossacks were now at Pulkovo. A committee was being elected to meet Kerensky at
+the railway station in the morning….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the counter-revolution would
+begin at midnight. He showed me two proclamations, one signed by Gotz and
+Polkovnikov, ordering the <i>yunker</i> schools, soldier convalescents in the
+hospitals, and the Knights of St. George to mobilise on a war footing and wait
+for orders from the Committee for Salvation; the other from the Committee for
+Salvation itself, which read as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting to civil
+war in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Do not dig their provocatory appeals!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Do not dig trenches!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down with the traitorous barricades!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lay down your arms!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soldiers, return to your barracks!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The war begun in Petrograd&mdash;is the death of the Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of liberty, land, and peace, unite around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and desperate, came
+marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen prisoners&mdash;members of
+the local branch of the Council of Cossacks, caught red-handed plotting
+counter-revolution in their headquarters….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A soldier, accompanied by a small boy with a pail of paste, was sticking up
+great flaring notices:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By virtue of the present, the city of Petrograd and its suburbs are declared in
+a state of siege. All assemblies or meetings in the streets, and generally in
+the open air, are forbidden until further orders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+N. PODVOISKY, President of the Military
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Revolutionary Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we went home the air was full of confused sound&mdash;automobile horns,
+shouts, distant shots. The city stirred uneasily, wakeful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the small hours of the morning a company of <i>yunkers,</i> disguised as
+soldiers of the Semionovsky Regiment, presented themselves at the Telephone
+Exchange just before the hour of changing guard. They had the Bolshevik
+password, and took charge without arousing suspicion. A few minutes later
+Antonov appeared, making a round of inspection. Him they captured and locked in
+a small room. When the relief came it was met by a blast of rifle-fire, several
+being killed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Counter-revolution had begun…
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>Chapter VIII<br />
+Counter-Revolution</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next morning, Sunday the 11th, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo, Kerensky
+(See App. VIII, Sect. 1) himself riding a white horse and all the church-bells
+clamouring. From the top of a little hill outside the town could be seen the
+golden spires and many-coloured cupolas, the sprawling grey immensity of the
+capital spread along the dreary plain, and beyond, the steely Gulf of Finland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in the morning
+he sent word to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay down their arms. The
+soldiers replied that they would remain neutral, but would not disarm. Kerensky
+gave them ten minutes in which to obey. This angered the soldiers; for eight
+months they had been governing themselves by committee, and this smacked of the
+old régime…. A few minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the barracks,
+killing eight men. From that moment there were no more &ldquo;neutral&rdquo;
+soldiers in Tsarskoye….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd woke to bursts of rifle-fire, and the tramping thunder of men
+marching. Under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow. At dawn the
+Military Hotel and the Telegraph Agency had been taken by large forces of
+<i>yunkers,</i> and bloodily recaptured. The Telephone Station was besieged by
+sailors, who lay behind barricades of barrels, boxes and tin sheets in the
+middle of the Morskaya, or sheltered themselves at the corner of the
+Gorokhovaya and of St. Isaac&rsquo;s Square, shooting at anything that moved.
+Occasionally an automobile passed in and out, flying the Red Cross flag. The
+sailors let it pass….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Albert Rhys Williams was in the Telephone Exchange. He went out with the Red
+Cross automobile, which was ostensibly full of wounded. After circulating about
+the city, the car went by devious ways to the Mikhailovsky <i>yunker</i>
+school, headquarters of the counter-revolution. A French officer, in the
+court-yard, seemed to be in command…. By this means ammunition and supplies
+were conveyed to the Telephone Exchange. Scores of these pretended ambulances
+acted as couriers and ammunition trains for the <i>yunkers.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five or six armoured cars, belonging to the disbanded British Armoured Car
+Division, were in their hands. As Louise Bryant was going along St.
+Isaac&rsquo;s Square one came rolling up from the Admiralty, on its way to the
+Telephone Exchange. At the corner of the Gogolia, right in front of her, the
+engine stalled. Some sailors ambushed behind wood-piles began shooting. The
+machine-gun in the turret of the thing slewed around and spat a hail of bullets
+indiscriminately into the wood-piles and the crowd. In the archway where Miss
+Bryant stood seven people were shot dead, among them two little boys. Suddenly,
+with a shout, the sailors leaped up and rushed into the flaming open; closing
+around the monster, they thrust their bayonets into the loop-holes, again and
+again, yelling… The chauffeur pretended to be wounded, and they let him go
+free&mdash;to run to the Duma and swell the tale of Bolshevik atrocities….Among
+the dead was a British Officer….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later the newspapers told of another French officer, captured in a
+<i>yunker</i> armoured car and sent to Peter-Paul. The French Embassy promptly
+denied this, but one of the City Councillors told me that he himself had
+procured the officer&rsquo;s release from prison….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whatever the official attitude of the Allied Embassies, individual French and
+British officers were active these days, even to the extent of giving advice at
+executive sessions of the Committee for Salvation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All day long in every quarter of the city there were skirmishes between
+<i>yunkers</i> and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars…. Volleys, single
+shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could be heard, far and near. The
+iron shutters of the shops were drawn, but business still went on. Even the
+moving-picture shows, all outside lights dark, played to crowded houses. The
+street-cars ran. The telephones were all working; when you called Central,
+shooting could be plainly heard over the wire…. Smolny was cut off, but the
+Duma and the Committee for Salvation were in constant communication with all
+the <i>yunker</i> schools and with Kerensky at Tsarskoye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At seven in the morning the Vladimir <i>yunker</i> school was visited by a
+patrol of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, who gave the <i>yunkers</i> twenty
+minutes to lay down their arms. The ultimatum was rejected. An hour later the
+<i>yunkers</i> got ready to march, but were driven back by a violent fusillade
+from the corner of the Grebetskaya and the Bolshoy Prospekt. Soviet troops
+surrounded the building and opened fire, two armoured cars cruising back and
+forth with machine guns raking it. The <i>yunkers</i> telephoned for help. The
+Cossacks replied that they dare not come, because a large body of sailors with
+two cannon commanded their barracks. The Pavlovsk school was surrounded. Most
+of the Mikhailov <i>yunkers</i> were fighting in the streets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to surrender was
+met by the <i>yunkers</i> shooting down two of the Soviet delegates under the
+white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great holes were torn in the walls of
+the school. The <i>yunkers</i> defended themselves desperately; shouting waves
+of Red Guards, assaulting, crumpled under the withering blast…. Kerensky
+telephoned from Tsarskoye to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened a tornado
+of steel and flame against the battered building. Their own officers could not
+stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar from Smolny named Kirilov tried to
+halt it; he was threatened with lynching. The Red Guards&rsquo; blood was up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At half-past two the <i>yunkers</i> hoisted a white flag; they would surrender
+if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised. With a rush and a shout
+thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured through windows, doors and holes in
+the wall. Before it could be stopped five <i>yunkers</i> were beaten and
+stabbed to death. The rest, about two hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under
+escort, in small groups so as to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one
+party, killing eight more <i>yunkers</i>…. More than a hundred Red Guards and
+soldiers had fallen….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors were marching
+toward the <i>Injinierny Zamok</i>&mdash;the Engineers&rsquo; school. A dozen
+members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls of the latest
+proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several did not come back…. All
+the other schools surrendered without resistance, and the <i>yunkers</i> were
+sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and Cronstadt….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik armoured car
+appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking, the frightened
+telephone girls ran to and fro; the <i>yunkers</i> tore from their uniforms all
+distinguishing marks, and one offered Williams <i>anything</i> for the loan of
+his overcoat, as a disguise…. &ldquo;They will massacre us! They will massacre
+us!&rdquo; they cried, for many of them had given their word at the Winter
+Palace not to take up arms against the People. Williams offered to mediate if
+Antonov were released. This was immediately done; Antonov and Williams made
+speeches to the victorious sailors, inflamed by their many dead&mdash;and once
+more the <i>yunkers</i> went free…. All but a few, who in their panic tried to
+flee over the roofs, or to hide in the attic, and were found and hurled into
+the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tired, bloody, triumphant, the sailors and workers swarmed into the switchboard
+room, and finding so many pretty girls, fell back in an embarrassed way and
+fumbled with awkward feet. Not a girl was injured, not one insulted.
+Frightened, they huddled in the corners, and then, finding themselves safe,
+gave vent to their spite. &ldquo;Ugh! The dirty, ignorant people! The
+fools!&rdquo;… The sailors and Red Guards were embarrassed. &ldquo;Brutes!
+Pigs!&rdquo; shrilled the girls, indignantly putting on their coats and hats.
+Romantic had been their experience passing up cartridges and dressing the
+wounds of their dashing young defenders, the <i>yunkers,</i> many of them
+members of noble families, fighting to restore their beloved Tsar! These were
+just common workmen, peasants, &ldquo;Dark People.&rdquo;…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, little Vishniak, tried
+to persuade the girls to remain. He was effusively polite. &ldquo;You have been
+badly treated,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The telephone system is controlled by the
+Municipal Duma. You are paid sixty rubles a month, and have to work ten hours
+and more…. From now on all that will be changed. The Government intends to put
+the telephones under control of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Your
+wages will be immediately raised to one hundred and fifty rubles, and your
+working-hours reduced. As members of the working-class you should be
+happy&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Members of the <i>working-class</i> indeed! Did he mean to infer that there was
+anything in common between these&mdash;these animals&mdash;and <i>us?</i>
+Remain? Not if they offered a thousand rubles!… Haughty and spiteful the girls
+left the place….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The employees of the building, the line-men and labourers&mdash;they stayed.
+But the switch-boards must be operated&mdash;the telephone was vital…. Only
+half a dozen trained operators were available. Volunteers were called for; a
+hundred responded, sailors, soldiers, workers. The six girls scurried backward
+and forward, instructing, helping, scolding…. So, crippled, halting, but
+<i>going,</i> the wires slowly began to hum. The first thing was to connect
+Smolny with the barracks and the factories; the second, to cut off the Duma and
+the <i>yunker</i> schools…. Late in the afternoon word of it spread through the
+city, and hundreds of bourgeois called up to scream, &ldquo;Fools! Devils! How
+long do you think you will last? Wait till the Cossacks come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dusk was already falling. On the almost deserted Nevsky, swept by a bitter
+wind, a crowd had gathered before the Kazan Cathedral, continuing the endless
+debate; a few workmen, some soldiers and the rest shop-keepers, clerks and the
+like.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But Lenin won&rsquo;t get Germany to make peace!&rdquo; cried one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A violent young soldier replied. &ldquo;And whose fault is it? Your damn
+Kerensky, dirty bourgeois! To hell with Kerensky! We don&rsquo;t want him! We
+want Lenin….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside the Duma an officer with a white arm-band was tearing down posters from
+the wall, swearing loudly. One read:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this dangerous hour, when the Municipal Duma ought to use every means to
+calm the population, to assure it bread and other necessities, the Right
+Socialist Revolutionaries and the Cadets, forgetting their duty, have turned
+the Duma into a counter-revolutionary meeting, trying to raise part of the
+population against the rest, so as to facilitate the victory of
+Kornilov-Kerensky. Instead of doing their duty, the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets have transformed the Duma into an arena of
+political attack upon the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, against the revolutionary Government of peace, bread
+and liberty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens of Petrograd, we, the Bolshevik Municipal Councillors elected by
+you&mdash;we want you to know that the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Cadets are engaged in counter-revolutionary action, have forgotten their duty,
+and are leading the population to famine, to civil war. We, elected by 183,000
+votes, consider it our duty to bring to the attention of our constituents what
+is going on in the Duma, and declare that we disclaim all responsibility for
+the terrible but inevitable consequences….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far away still sounded occasional shots, but the city lay quiet, cold, as if
+exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Nicolai Hall the Duma session was coming to an end. Even the truculent
+Duma seemed a little stunned. One after another the Commissars
+reported&mdash;capture of the Telephone Exchange, street-fighting, the taking
+of the Vladimir school…. &ldquo;The Duma,&rdquo; said Trupp, &ldquo;is on the
+side of the democracy in its struggle against arbitrary violence; but in any
+case, whichever side wins, the Duma will always be against lynchings and
+torture….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Konovski, Cadet, a tall old man with a cruel face: &ldquo;When the troops of
+the legal Government arrive in Petrograd, they will shoot down these
+insurgents, and that will not be lynching!&rdquo; Protests all over the hall,
+even from his own party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here there was doubt and depression. The counter-revolution was being put down.
+The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary party had voted lack of
+confidence in its officers; the left wing was in control; Avksentiev had
+resigned. A courier reported that the Committee of Welcome sent to meet
+Kerensky at the railway station had been arrested. In the streets could be
+heard the dull rumble of distant cannonading, south and southwest. Still
+Kerensky did not come…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only three newspapers were out&mdash;<i>Pravda, Dielo Naroda</i> and <i>Novaya
+Zhizn.</i> All of them devoted much space to the new &ldquo;coalition&rdquo;
+Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet without either
+Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had made concessions. A purely
+Socialist Government was taking shape&mdash;all elements except the
+bourgeoisie. As for <i>Pravda,</i> it sneered:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We ridicule these coalitions with political parties whose most prominent
+members are petty journalists of doubtful reputation; our
+&ldquo;coalition&rdquo; is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary Army
+with the poor peasants…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the walls a vainglorious announcement of the <i>Vikzhel,</i> threatening to
+strike if both sides did not compromise:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conquerors of these riots, the saviours of the wreck of our country, these
+will be neither the Bolsheviki, nor the Committee for Salvation, nor the troops
+of Kerensky&mdash;but we, the Union of Railwaymen…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Red Guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the railways;
+as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself incapable of holding the
+power…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We refuse to lend our services to any party which does not act by authority of
+… a Government based on the confidence of all the democracy….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible humanity in
+action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Trade Union headquarters Lozovsky introduced me to a delegate of the Railway
+Workers of the Nicolai line, who said that the men were holding huge
+mass-meetings, condemning the action of their leaders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All power to the Soviets!&rdquo; he cried, pounding on the table.
+&ldquo;The <i>oborontsi</i> in the Central Committee are playing
+Kornilov&rsquo;s game. They tried to send a mission to the Stavka, but we
+arrested them at Minsk…. Our branch has demanded an All-Russian Convention, and
+they refuse to call it….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same situation as in the Soviets, the Army Committees. One after another
+the various democratic organisations, all over Russia, were cracking and
+changing. The Cooperatives were torn by internal struggles; the meetings of the
+Peasants&rsquo; Executive broke up in stormy wrangling; even among the Cossacks
+there was trouble….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the top floor the Military Revolutionary Committee was in full blast,
+striking and slacking not. Men went in, fresh and vigorous; night and day and
+night and day they threw themselves into the terrible machine; and came out
+limp, blind with fatigue, hoarse and filthy, to fall on the floor and sleep….
+The Committee for Salvation had been outlawed. Great piles of new proclamations
+(See App. VIII, Sect. 2) littered the floor:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… The conspirators, who have no support among the garrison or the
+working-class, above all counted on the suddenness of their attack. Their plan
+was discovered in time by Sub-Lieutenant Blagonravov, thanks to the
+revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the Red Guard, whose name shall be made
+public. At the centre of the plot was the Committee for Salvation. Colonel
+Polkovnikov was in command of their forces, and the orders were signed by Gotz,
+former member of the Provisional Government, allowed at liberty on his word of
+honour….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bringing these facts to the attention of the Petrograd population, the Military
+Revolutionary Committee orders the arrest of all concerned in the conspiracy,
+who shall be tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Moscow, word that the <i>yunkers</i> and Cossacks had surrounded the
+Kremlin and ordered the Soviet troops to lay down their arms. The Soviet forces
+complied, and as they were leaving the Kremlin, were set upon and shot down.
+Small forces of Bolsheviki had been driven from the Telephone and Telegraph
+offices; the <i>yunkers</i> now held the centre of the city. … But all around
+them the Soviet troops were mustering. Street-fighting was slowly gathering
+way; all attempts at compromise had failed…. On the side of the Soviet, ten
+thousand garrison soldiers and a few Red Guards; on the side of the Government,
+six thousand <i>yunkers,</i> twenty-five hundred Cossacks and two thousand
+White Guards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting, and next door the new <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i>
+acting on the decrees and orders (See App. VIII, Sect. 3) which came down in a
+steady stream from the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars in session
+upstairs; on the Order in Which Laws Are to be Ratified and Published,
+Establishing an Eight hour Days for Workers, and Lunatcharsky&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Basis for a System of Popular Education.&rdquo; Only a few hundred
+people were present at the two meetings, most of them armed. Smolny was almost
+deserted, except for the guards, who were busy at the hall windows, setting up
+machine-guns to command the flanks of the building.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> a delegate of the <i>Vikzhel</i> was speaking:
+&ldquo;We refuse to transport the troops of either party…. We have sent a
+committee to Kerensky to say that if he continues to march on Petrograd we will
+break his lines of communication….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made the usual plea for a conference of all the Socialist parties to form a
+new Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev answered discreetly. The Bolsheviki would be very glad to attend the
+conference. The centre of gravity, however, lay not in composition of such a
+Government, but in its acceptance of the programme of the Congress of Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> had deliberated on the declaration made by the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats Internationalists, and had
+accepted the proposition of proportional representation at the conference, even
+including delegates from the Army Committees and the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the great hall, Trotzky recounted the events of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We offered the Vladimir <i>yunkers</i> a chance to surrender,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;We wanted to settle matters without bloodshed. But now that blood
+has been spilled there is only one way&mdash;pitiless struggle. It would be
+childish to think we can win by any other means…. The moment is decisive.
+Everybody must cooperate with the Military Revolutionary Committee, report
+where there are stores of barbed wire, benzine, guns…. We&rsquo;ve won the
+power; now we must keep it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Menshevik Yoffe tried to read his party&rsquo;s declaration, but Trotzky
+refused to allow &ldquo;a debate about principle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our debates are now in the streets,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;The decisive
+step has been taken. We all, and I in particular, take the responsibility for
+what is happening….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Soldiers from the front, from Gatchina, told their stories. One from the Death
+Battalion, Four Hundred Eighty-first Artillery: &ldquo;When the trenches hear
+of this, they will cry, &lsquo;This is <i>our</i> Government!&rsquo;&rdquo; A
+<i>yunker</i> from Peterhof said that he and two others had refused to march
+against the Soviets; and when his comrades had returned from the defence of the
+Winter Palace they appointed him their Commissar, to go to Smolny and offer
+their services to the <i>real</i> Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Trotzky again, fiery, indefatigable, giving orders, answering questions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The petty bourgeoisie, in order to defeat the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, would combine with the devil himself!&rdquo; he said once. Many cases
+of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. &ldquo;No drinking,
+comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the evening, except the
+regular guards. All places suspected of having stores of liquor should be
+searched, and the liquor destroyed. (See App. VIII, Sect. 4) No mercy to the
+sellers of liquor….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from the Viborg
+section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped out hurriedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For each revolutionist killed,&rdquo; said Trotzky, &ldquo;we shall kill
+five counter-revolutionists!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds pouring in.
+In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng surged back and forth
+before the bulletin board, where was posted a list of <i>yunkers</i> killed in
+the day&rsquo;s fighting&mdash;or supposed to be killed, for most of the dead
+afterward turned up safe and sound…. Up in the Alexander Hall the Committee for
+Salvation held forth. The gold and red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous,
+the familiar faces of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals,
+the hard eyes and bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats, officials of the
+old régime, and well-dressed women….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the
+tribune&mdash;over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces and
+leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the applause of the
+&ldquo;nice&rdquo; people of Petrograd, of the officers, the rich, the great
+names of politics&mdash;girl after girl, to narrate her sufferings at the hands
+of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty to all that was old, established
+and powerful….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said hopefully
+that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their actions; propaganda was
+making headway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 205: Proclamation for &ldquo;wine pogroms&rdquo;]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Revolutionary law and order. A proclamation of the Finland Regiment, in
+December, 1917, announcing desperate remedies for &ldquo;wine pogroms.&rdquo;
+For translation see Appendix 5.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… Emissaries came and went, reporting horrible deeds by the Bolsheviki,
+interceding to save the <i>yunkers,</i> busily investigating….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolsheviki,&rdquo; said Trupp, &ldquo;will be conquered by moral
+force, and not by bayonets…..&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front. The enemy had brought up
+armoured trains, mounted with cannon. The Soviet forces, mostly raw Red Guards,
+were without officers and without a definite plan. Only five thousand regular
+soldiers had joined them; the rest of the garrison was either busy suppressing
+the <i>yunker</i> revolt, guarding the city, or undecided what to do. At ten in
+the evening Lenin addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments, who
+voted overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was elected to
+serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the morning the regiments
+left their barracks in full battle array…. Going home I saw them pass, swinging
+along with the regular tread of veterans, bayonets in perfect alignment,
+through the deserted streets of the conquered city….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time, in the headquarters of the <i>Vikzhel</i> down on the
+Sadovaya, the conference of all the Socialist parties to form a new Government
+was under way. Abramovitch, for the centre Mensheviki, said that there should
+be neither conquerors nor conquered&mdash;that bygones should be bygones. …In
+this were agreed all the left wing parties. Dan, speaking in the name of the
+right Mensheviki, proposed to the Bolsheviki the following conditions for a
+truce: The Red Guard to be disarmed, and the Petrograd garrison to be placed at
+the orders of the Duma; the troops of Kerensky not to fire a single shot or
+arrest a single man; a Ministry of all the Socialist parties <i>except the
+Bolsheviki.</i> For Smolny Riazanov and Kameniev declared that a coalition
+ministry of all parties was acceptable, but protested at Dan&rsquo;s proposals.
+The Socialist Revolutionaries were divided; but the Executive Committee of the
+Peasants&rsquo;s Soviets and the Populist Socialists flatly refused to admit
+the Bolsheviki…. After bitter quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a
+workable plan….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that night the commission wrangled, and all the next day, and the next
+night. Once before, on the 9th of November, there had been a similar effort at
+conciliation, led by Martov and Gorky; but at the approach of Kerensky and the
+activity of the Committee for Salvation, the right wing of the Mensheviki,
+Socialist Revolutionaries and Populist Socialists suddenly withdrew. Now they
+were awed by the crushing of the <i>yunker</i> rebellion…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monday the 12th was a day of suspense. The eyes of all Russia were fixed on the
+grey plain beyond the gates of Petrograd, where all the available strength of
+the old order faced the unorganised power of the new, the unknown. In Moscow a
+truce had been declared; both sides parleyed, awaiting the result in the
+capital. Now the delegates to the Congress of Soviets, hurrying on speeding
+trains to the farthest reaches of Asia, were coming to their homes, carrying
+the fiery cross. In wide-spreading ripples news of the miracle spread over the
+face of the land, and in its wake towns, cities and far villages stirred and
+broke, Soviets and Military Revolutionary Committees against Dumas, Zemstvos
+and Government Commissars&mdash;Red Guards against White&mdash;street fighting
+and passionate speech…. The result waited on the word from Petrograd….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smolny was almost empty, but the Duma was thronged and noisy. The old Mayor, in
+his dignified way, was protesting against the Appeal of the Bolshevik
+Councillors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Duma is not a centre of counter-revolution,&rdquo; he said, warmly.
+&ldquo;The Duma takes no part in the present struggle between the parties. But
+at a time when there is no legal power in the land, the only centre of order is
+the Municipal Self-Government. The peaceful population recognises this fact;
+the foreign Embassies recognise only such documents as are signed by the Mayor
+of the town. The mind of a European does not admit of any other situation, as
+the Municipal self-government is the only organ which is capable of protecting
+the interests of the citizens. The City is bound to show hospitality, to all
+organisations which desire to profit by such hospitality, and therefore the
+Duma cannot prevent the distribution of any newspapers whatever within the Duma
+building. The sphere of our work is increasing, and we must be given full
+liberty of action, and our rights must be respected by both parties….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are perfectly neutral. When the Telephone Exchange was occupied by
+the <i>yunkers</i> Colonel Polkovnikov ordered the telephones to Smolny
+disconnected, but I protested, and the telephones were kept going….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this there was ironic laughter from the Bolshevik benches, and imprecations
+from the right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; went on Schreider, &ldquo;they look upon us as
+counter-revolutionaries and report us to the population. They deprive us of our
+means of transport by taking away our last motor-cars. It will not be our fault
+if there is famine in the town. Protests are of no use….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kobozev, Bolshevik member of the Town Board, was doubtful whether the Military
+Revolutionary Committee had requisitioned the Municipal automobiles. Even
+granting the fact, it was probably done by some unauthorised individual, in the
+emergency.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Mayor,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;tells us that we must not make
+political meetings out of the Duma. But every Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda, and at the door they
+distribute their illegal newspapers, <i>Iskri</i> (Sparks), <i>Soldatski
+Golos</i> and <i>Rabotchaya Gazeta,</i> inciting to insurrection. What if we
+Bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers here? But this shall not
+be, for we respect the Duma. We have not attacked the Municipal
+Self-Government, and we shall not do so. But you have addressed an Appeal to
+the population, and we are entitled also to do so….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Followed him Shingariov, Cadet, who said that there could be no common language
+with those who were liable to be brought before the Attorney General for
+indictment, and who must be tried on the charge of treason…. He proposed again
+that all Bolshevik members should be expelled from the Duma. This was tabled,
+however, for there were no personal charges against the members, and they were
+active in the Municipal administration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then two Mensheviki Internationalists, declaring that the Appeal of the
+Bolshevik Councillors was a direct incitement to massacre. &ldquo;If everything
+that is against the Bolsheviki is counter-revolutionary,&rdquo; said
+Pinkevitch, &ldquo;then I do not know the difference between revolution and
+anarchy…. The Bolsheviki are depending upon the passions of the unbridled
+masses; we have nothing but moral force. We will protest against massacres and
+violence from both sides, as our task is to find a peaceful issue.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The notice posted in the streets under the heading &lsquo;To the
+Pillory,&rsquo; which calls upon the people to destroy the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries,&rdquo; said Nazariev, &ldquo;is a crime which you,
+Bolsheviki, will not be able to wash away. Yesterday&rsquo;s horrors are but a
+preface to what you are preparing by such a proclamation…. I have always tried
+to reconcile you with the other parties, but at present I feel for you nothing
+but contempt!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolshevik Councillors were on their feet, shouting angrily, assailed by
+hoarse, hateful voices and waving arms….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside the hall I ran into the City Engineer, the Menshevik Gomberg and three
+or four reporters. They were all in high spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See!&rdquo; they said. &ldquo;The cowards are afraid of us. They
+don&rsquo;t dare arrest the Duma! Their Military Revolutionary Committee
+doesn&rsquo;t dare to send a Commissar into this building. Why, on the corner
+of the Sadovaya to-day, I saw a Red Guard try to stop a boy selling
+<i>Soldatski Golos</i>…. The boy just laughed at him, and a crowd of people
+wanted to lynch the bandit. It&rsquo;s only a few hours more, now. Even if
+Kerensky wouldn&rsquo;t come they haven&rsquo;t the men to run a Government.
+Absurd! I understand they&rsquo;re even fighting among themselves at
+Smolny!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Socialist Revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside. &ldquo;I know where the
+Committee for Salvation is hiding,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you want to go and
+talk with them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time it was dusk. The city had again settled down to
+normal&mdash;shop-shutters up, lights shining, and on the streets great crowds
+of people slowly moving up and down and arguing….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Number 86 Nevsky we went through a passage into a courtyard, surrounded by
+tall apartment buildings. At the door of apartment 229 my friend knocked in a
+peculiar way. There was a sound of scuffling; an inside door slammed; then the
+front door opened a crack and a woman&rsquo;s face appeared. After a
+minute&rsquo;s observation she led us in&mdash;a placid-looking, middle-aged
+lady who at once cried, &ldquo;Kyril, it&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; In the
+dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and there were plates full of
+bread and raw fish, a man in uniform emerged from behind the window-curtains,
+and another, dressed like a workman, from a closet. They were delighted to meet
+an American reporter. With a certain amount of gusto both said that they would
+certainly be shot if the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give me their
+names, but both were Socialist Revolutionaries….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;do you publish such lies in your
+newspapers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without taking offence the officer replied, &ldquo;Yes, I know; but what can we
+do?&rdquo; He shrugged. &ldquo;You must admit that it is necessary for us to
+create a certain frame of mind in the people….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other man interrupted. &ldquo;This is merely an adventure on the part of
+the Bolsheviki. They have no intellectuals…. The Ministries won&rsquo;t work….
+Russia is not a city, but a whole country…. Realising that they can only last a
+few days, we have decided to come to the aid of the strongest force opposed to
+them&mdash;Kerensky&mdash;and help to restore order.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is all very well,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But why do you combine with
+the Cadets?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pseudo-workman smiled frankly. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, at this moment
+the masses of the people are following the Bolsheviki. We have no
+following&mdash;now. We can&rsquo;t mobilise a handful of soldiers. There are
+no arms available…. The Bolsheviki are right to a certain extent; there are at
+this moment in Russia only two parties with any force&mdash;the Bolsheviki and
+the reactionaries, who are all hiding under the coat-tails of the Cadets. The
+Cadets think they are using us; but it is really we who are using the Cadets.
+When we smash the Bolsheviki we shall turn against the Cadets….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will the Bolsheviki be admitted into the new Government?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He scratched his head. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a problem,&rdquo; he admitted.
+&ldquo;Of course if they are not admitted, they&rsquo;ll probably do this all
+over again. At any rate, they will have a chance to hold the balance of power
+in the Constituent&mdash;that is, if there <i>is</i> a Constituent.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then, too,&rdquo; said the officer, &ldquo;that brings up the
+question of admitting the Cadets into the new Government&mdash;and for the same
+reasons. You know the Cadets do not really want the Constituent
+Assembly&mdash;not if the Bolsheviki can be destroyed now.&rdquo; He shook his
+head. &ldquo;It is not easy for us Russians, politics. You Americans are born
+politicians; you have had politics all your lives. But for us&mdash;well, it
+has only been a year, you know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do you think of Kerensky?&rdquo; I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, Kerensky is guilty of the sins of the Provisional Government,&rdquo;
+answered the other man. &ldquo;Kerensky himself forced us to accept coalition
+with the bourgeoisie. If he had resigned, as he threatened, it would have meant
+a new Cabinet crisis only sixteen weeks before the Constituent Assembly, and
+that we wanted to avoid.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But didn&rsquo;t it amount to that anyway?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, but how were we to know? They tricked us&mdash;the Kerenskys and
+Avksentievs. Gotz is a little more radical. I stand with Tchernov, who is a
+real revolutionist…. Why, only to-day Lenin sent word that he would not object
+to Tchernov entering the Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We wanted to get rid of the Kerensky Government too, but we thought it
+better to wait for the Constituent…. At the beginning of this affair I was with
+the Bolsheviki, but the Central Committee of my party voted unanimously against
+it&mdash;and what could I do? It was a matter of party discipline….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In a week the Bolshevik Government will go to pieces; if the Socialist
+Revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait, the Government would fall into
+their hands. But if we wait a week the country will be so disorganised that the
+German imperialists will be victorious. That is why we began our revolt with
+only two regiments of soldiers promising to support us&mdash;and they turned
+against us…. That left only the <i>yunkers</i>….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How about the Cossacks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officer sighed. &ldquo;They did not move. At first they said they would
+come out if they had infantry support. They said moreover that they had their
+men with Kerensky, and that they were doing their part…. Then, too, they said
+that the Cossacks were always accused of being the hereditary enemies of
+democracy…. And finally, &lsquo;The Bolsheviki promise that they will not take
+away our land. There is no danger to us. We remain neutral.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this talk people were constantly entering and leaving&mdash;most of them
+officers, their shoulder-straps torn off. We could see them in the hall, and
+hear their low, vehement voices. Occasionally, through the half-drawn
+portières, we caught a glimpse of a door opening into a bath-room, where a
+heavily-built officer in a colonel&rsquo;s uniform sat on the toilet, writing
+something on a pad held in his lap. I recognised Colonel Polkovnikov, former
+commandant of Petrograd, for whose arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee
+would have paid a fortune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our programme?&rdquo; said the officer. &ldquo;This is it. Land to be
+turned over to the Land Committees. Workmen to have full representation in the
+control of industry. An energetic peace programme, but not an ultimatum to the
+world such as the Bolsheviki issued. The Bolsheviki cannot keep their promises
+to the masses, even in the country itself. We won&rsquo;t let them…. They stole
+our land programme in order to get the support of the peasants. That is
+dishonest. If they had waited for the Constituent Assembly&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter about the Constituent Assembly!&rdquo; broke in
+the officer. &ldquo;If the Bolsheviki want to establish a Socialist state here,
+we cannot work with them in any event! Kerensky made the great mistake. He let
+the Bolsheviki know what he was going to do by announcing in the Council of the
+Republic that he had ordered their arrest….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;do you intend to do now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two men looked at one another. &ldquo;You will see in a few days. If there
+are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not compromise with the
+Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced to….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging with
+people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping along the ground,
+which crawled with agonising slowness the long miles to Smolny.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall, looking
+worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were having their effect.
+For instance, the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars had promised to publish
+the Secret Treaties; but Neratov, the functionary in charge, had disappeared,
+taking the documents with him. They were supposed to be hidden in the British
+Embassy….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. &ldquo;Without
+money,&rdquo; said Menzhinsky, &ldquo;we are helpless. The wages of the
+railroad men, of the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid…. The banks
+are closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut. All the
+bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults, and
+there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open to-morrow, or we
+will open them ourselves!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men, Trotzky
+reporting:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo.&rdquo; (Sharp,
+exultant cheering.) &ldquo;But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy
+fighting is going on. All available forces must be hurried there….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the
+<i>yunkers,</i> and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends upon
+Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are provoking great
+enthusiasm. Kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of Petrograd burning
+and bloody, of women and children massacred by the Bolsheviki. But no one
+believes him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The cruisers <i>Oleg, Avrora</i> and <i>Respublica</i> are anchored in
+the Neva, their guns trained on the approaches to the city….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why aren&rsquo;t you out there with the Red Guards?&rdquo; shouted a
+rough voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going now!&rdquo; answered Trotzky, and left the platform. His
+face a little paler than usual, he passed down the side of the room, surrounded
+by eager friends, and hurried out to the waiting automobile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev now spoke, describing the proceedings of the reconciliation
+conference. The armistice conditions proposed by the Mensheviki, he said, had
+been contemptuously rejected. Even the branches of the Railwaymen&rsquo;s Union
+had voted against such a proposition….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now that we&rsquo;ve won the power and are sweeping all Russia,&rdquo;
+he declared, &ldquo;all they ask of us are three little things: 1. To surrender
+the power. 2. To make the soldiers continue the war. 3. To make the peasants
+forget about the land….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin appeared for a moment, to answer the accusations of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They charge us with stealing their land programme…. If that is so, we
+bow to them. It is good enough for us….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the meeting roared on, leader after leader explaining, exhorting, arguing,
+soldier after soldier, workman after workman, standing up to speak his mind and
+his heart…. The audience flowed, changing and renewed continually. From time to
+time men came in, yelling for the members of such and such a detachment, to go
+to the front; others, relieved, wounded, or coming to Smolny for arms and
+equipment, poured in….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was almost three o&rsquo;clock in the morning when, as we left the hall,
+Holtzman, of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came running down the hall
+with a transfigured face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; he shouted, grabbing my hands.
+&ldquo;Telegram from the front. Kerensky is smashed! Look at this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He held out a sheet of paper, scribbled hurriedly in pencil, and then, seeing
+we couldn&rsquo;t read it, he declaimed aloud:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pulkovo. Staff. 2.10 A.M.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night of October 30th to 31st will go down in history. The attempt of
+Kerensky to move counter-revolutionary troops against the capital of the
+Revolution has been decisively repulsed. Kerensky is retreating, we are
+advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workers of Petrograd have shown that they
+can and will with arms in their hands enforce the will and authority of the
+democracy. The bourgeoisie tried to isolate the revolutionary army. Kerensky
+attempted to break it by the force of the Cossacks. Both plans met a pitiful
+defeat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The grand idea of the domination of the worker and peasant democracy closed the
+ranks of the army and hardened its will. All the country from now on will be
+convinced that the Power of the Soviets is no ephemeral thing, but an
+invincible fact…. The repulse of Kerensky is the repulse of the land-owners,
+the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovists in general. The repulse of Kerensky is the
+confirmation of the right of the people to a peaceful free life, to land, bread
+and power. The Pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the
+cause of the Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo;s Revolution. There is no return
+to the past. Before us are struggles, obstacles and sacrifices. But the road is
+clear and victory is certain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Power can be proud of their Pulkovo
+detachment, acting under the command of Colonel Walden. Eternal memory to those
+who fell! Glory to the warriors of the Revolution, the soldiers and the
+officers who were faithful to the People!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long live revolutionary, popular, Socialist Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the Council,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+L. TROTZKY, People&rsquo;s Commissar….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Driving home across Znamensky Square, we made out an unusual crowd in front of
+the Nicolai Railway Station. Several thousand sailors were massed there,
+bristling with rifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Standing on the steps, a member of the <i>Vikzhel</i> was pleading with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades, we cannot carry you to Moscow. We are neutral. We do not carry
+troops for either side. We cannot take you to Moscow, where already there is
+terrible civil war….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the seething Square roared at him; the sailors began to surge forward.
+Suddenly another door was flung wide; in it stood two or three brakeman, a
+fireman or so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This way, comrades!&rdquo; cried one. &ldquo;We will take you to
+Moscow&mdash;or Vladivostok, if you like! Long live the Revolution!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>Chapter IX<br />
+Victory</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>Order Number I</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the Troops of the Pulkovo Detachment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 13, 1917. 38 minutes past 9 a. m.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a cruel fight the troops of the Pulkovo detachment completely routed the
+counter-revolutionary forces, who retreated from their positions in disorder,
+and under cover of Tsarskoye Selo fell back toward Pavlovsk II and Gatchina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Our advanced units occupied the northeastern extremity of Tsarskoye Selo and
+the station Alexandrovskaya. The Colpinno detachment was on our left, the
+Krasnoye Selo detachment to our right.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify its
+approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side, and to take
+up the railroad as far as Dno.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions occupied by them,
+arranging trenches and other defensive works.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno and
+Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief for the
+Defence of Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Signed,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the Counter-revolutionary
+Troops of Kerensky,</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd campagna was
+full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without food, without artillery,
+without a plan. What had fused that disorganised mass of undisciplined Red
+Guards, and soldiers without officers, into an army obedient to its own elected
+high command, tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack
+cavalry? (See App. IX, Sect. 1)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The ragged armies of
+the French Revolution are not forgotten&mdash;Valmy and the Lines of
+Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were <i>yunkers,</i> Cossacks,
+land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds&mdash;the Tsar come again, <i>Okhrana</i>
+and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible menace of the Germans…. Victory,
+in the words of Carlyle, meant &ldquo;Apotheosis and Millennium without
+end!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee returning
+desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd elected its Committee of
+Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and two officers, all certified free
+from counter-revolutionary taint. Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in
+command&mdash;an efficient man, but to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at
+Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments,
+increased in size as the stragglers came in from the surrounding
+country&mdash;mixed soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, parts of regiments,
+infantry, cavalry and artillery all together, and a few armoured cars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Day broke, and the pickets of Kerensky&rsquo;s Cossacks came in touch.
+Scattered rifle-fire, summons to surrender. Over the bleak plain on the cold
+quiet air spread the sound of battle, falling upon the ears of roving bands as
+they gathered about their little fires, waiting…. So it was beginning! They
+made toward the battle; and the worker hordes pouring out along the straight
+roads quickened their pace…. Thus upon all the points of attack automatically
+converged angry human swarms, to be met by Commissars and assigned positions,
+or work to do. This was <i>their</i> battle, for <i>their</i> world; the
+officers in command were elected by <i>them.</i> For the moment that incoherent
+multiple will was one will….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those who participated in the fighting described to me how the sailors fought
+until they ran out of cartridges, and then stormed; how the untrained workmen
+rushed the charging Cossacks and tore them from their horses; how the anonymous
+hordes of the people, gathering in the darkness around the battle, rose like a
+tide and poured over the enemy…. Before midnight of Monday the Cossacks broke
+and were fleeing, leaving their artillery behind them, and the army of the
+proletariat, on a long ragged front, moved forward and rolled into Tsarskoye,
+before the enemy had a chance to destroy the great Government wireless station,
+from which now the Commissars of Smolny were hurling out to the world paeans of
+triumph….
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO ALL SOVIETS OF WORKERS&rsquo; AND SOLDIERS&rsquo; DEPUTIES</h5>
+
+<p>
+The 12th of November, in a bloody combat near Tsarskoye Selo, the revolutionary
+army defeated the counter-revolutionary troops of Kerensky and Kornilov. In the
+name of the Revolutionary Government I order all regiments to take the
+offensive against the enemies of the revolutionary democracy, and to take all
+measures to arrest Kerensky, and also to oppose any adventure which might
+menace the conquests of the Revolution and the victory of the proletariat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long live the Revolutionary Army!<br />
+MURAVIOV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+News from the provinces….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Sevastopol the local Soviet had assumed the power; a huge meeting of the
+sailors on the battleships in the harbour had forced their officers to line up
+and swear allegiance to the new Government. At Nizhni Novgorod the Soviet was
+in control. From Kazan came reports of a battle in the streets, <i>yunkers</i>
+and a brigade of artillery against the Bolshevik garrison….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Desperate fighting had broken out again in Moscow. The <i>yunkers</i> and White
+Guards held the Kremlin and the centre of the town, beaten upon from all sides
+by the troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee. The Soviet artillery was
+stationed in Skobeliev Square, bombarding the City Duma building, the
+Prefecture and the Hotel Metropole. The cobblestones of the Tverskaya and
+Nikitskaya had been torn up for trenches and barricades. A hail of machine-gun
+fire swept the quarters of the great banks and commercial houses. There were no
+lights, no telephones; the bourgeois population lived in the cellars…. The last
+bulletin said that the Military Revolutionary Committee had delivered an
+ultimatum to the Committee of Public Safety, demanding the immediate surrender
+of the Kremlin, or bombardment would follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Bombard the Kremlin?&rdquo; cried the ordinary citizen. &ldquo;They dare
+not!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Vologda to Chita in far Siberia, from Pskov to Sevastopol on the Black
+Sea, in great cities and little villages, civil war burst into flame. From
+thousands of factories, peasant communes, regiments and armies, ships on the
+wide sea, greetings poured into Petrograd&mdash;greetings to the Government of
+the People.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Cossack Government at Novotcherkask telegraphed to Kerensky, <i>&ldquo;The
+Government of the Cossack troops invites the Provisional Government and the
+members of the Council of the Republic to come, if possible, to Novotcherkask,
+where we can organise in common the struggle against the Bolsheviki.&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors and the
+<i>Tsentrobalt</i> (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet), jointly proclaimed
+a state of siege, and declared that all attempts to interfere with the
+Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to its orders, would be severely
+repressed. At the same time the Finnish Railway Union called a countrywide
+general strike, to put into operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of
+June, 1917, dissolved by Kerensky….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden sidewalk
+from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating snow-flakes fluttering
+down from the grey, windless sky. &ldquo;Snow!&rdquo; cried the soldier at the
+door, grinning with delight. &ldquo;Good for the health!&rdquo; Inside, the
+long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed deserted. No one moved in all the
+enormous pile. A deep, uneasy sound came to my ears, and looking around, I
+noticed that everywhere on the floor, along the walls, men were sleeping.
+Rough, dirty men, workers and soldiers, spattered and caked with mud, sprawled
+alone or in heaps, in the careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged
+bandages marked with blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered about…. The
+victorious proletarian army!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk. The air
+was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed. A battered
+samovar, cold, stood on the counter, and many glasses holding dregs of tea.
+Beside them lay a copy of the Military Revolutionary Committee&rsquo;s last
+bulletin, upside down, scrawled with painful hand-writing. It was a memorial
+written by some soldier to his comrades fallen in the fight against Kerensky,
+just as he had set it down before falling on the floor to sleep. The writing
+was blurred with what looked like tears….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alexei Vinogradov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D. Maskvin
+</p>
+
+<p>
+S. Stolbikov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A. Voskressensky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D. Leonsky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+D. Preobrazhensky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+V. Laidansky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+M. Berchikov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These men were drafted into the Army on November 15th, 1916. Only three are
+left of the above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mikhail Berchikov
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alexei Voskressensky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dmitri Leonsky
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Sleep, Warrior eagles, sleep with peaceful soul.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>You have deserved, our own ones, happiness and</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Eternal peace. Under the earth of the grave</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>You have straitly closed your ranks. Sleep, Citizens!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only the Military Revolutionary Committee still functioned, unsleeping.
+Skripnik, emerging from the inner room, said that Gotz had been arrested, but
+had flatly denied signing the proclamation of the Committee for Salvation, as
+had Avksentiev; and the Committee for Salvation itself had repudiated the
+Appeal to the garrison. There was still disafiection among the city regiments,
+Skripnik reported; the Volhynsky Regiment had refused to fight against
+Kerensky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Several detachments of &ldquo;neutral&rdquo; troops, with Tchernov at their
+head, were at Gatchina, trying to persuade Kerensky to halt his attack on
+Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Skripnik laughed. &ldquo;There can be no &lsquo;neutrals&rsquo; now,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve won!&rdquo; His sharp, bearded face glowed with an
+almost religious exaltation. &ldquo;More than sixty delegates have arrived from
+the Front, with assurances of support by all the armies except the troops on
+the Rumanian front, who have not been heard from. The Army Committees have
+suppressed all news from Petrograd, but we now have a regular system of
+couriers….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 224: Certificate approving telegram transmission]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Order given me at Staff headquarters by command of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars, to transmit the first despatch out of Perograd after
+the November Revolution, over the Government wires to America.<br />
+                      (Translation)<br />
+       STAFF<br />
+  Military Revolutionary<br />
+     Commitee<br />
+  Sov. W. &amp; S. D.<br />
+  2 November, 1917<br />
+     No. 1860<br />
+                      CERTIFICATE<br />
+Is given by the present to the journalist of the New York Socialist press JOHN
+REED, that the text of the telegram (herewith) has been examined by the
+Government of People&rsquo;s Commissars, and there is no objection to its
+transmission, and also it is recommended that all cooperate in every way to
+transmit same to its destination.<br />
+                      For the Commander in Chief, ANTONOV<br />
+                      Chief of Staff, VLAD. BONCH-BRUEVITCH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the all-night
+session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but happy. &ldquo;Already
+the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit us into the new
+Government,&rdquo; he told me. &ldquo;The right wing groups are frightened by
+the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of panic, that we dissolve
+them before going any further. … We have accepted the proposition of the
+<i>Vikzhel</i> to form a homogeneous Socialist Ministry, and they&rsquo;re
+working on that now. You see, it all springs from our victory. When we were
+down, they would&rsquo;t have us at any price; not everybody&rsquo;s in favour
+of some agreement with the Soivets…. What we need is a really decisive victory.
+Kerensky wants an armistice, but he&rsquo;ll have to surrender (See App. IX,
+Sect. 2) ….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign journalist who asked
+Trotzky what statement he had to make to the world, Trotzky replied: &ldquo;At
+this moment the only statement possible is the one we are making through the
+mouths of our cannon!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of victory; the
+question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as had been ordered by the
+Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union of Bank Employees had held a
+meeting and declared a formal strike. Smolny had demanded some thirty-five
+millions of rubles from the State Bank, and the cashier had locked the vaults,
+only paying out money to the representatives of the Provisional Government. The
+reactionaries were using the State Bank as a political weapon; for instance,
+when the <i>Vikzhel</i> demanded money to pay the salaries of the employees of
+the Government railroads, it was told to apply to Smolny….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went to the State Bank to see the new Commissar, a redhaired Ukrainean
+Bolshevik named Petrovitch. He was trying to bring order out of the chaos in
+which affairs had been left by the striking clerks. In all the offices of the
+huge place perspiring volunteer workers, soldiers and sailors, their tongues
+sticking out of their mouths in the intensity of their effort, were poring over
+the great ledgers with a bewildered air….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duma building was crowded. There were still isolated cases of defiance
+toward the new Government, but they were rare. The Central Land Committee had
+appealed to the Peasants, ordering them not to recognise the Land Decree passed
+by the Congress of the Soviets, because it would cause confusion and civil war.
+Mayor Schreider announced that because of the Bolshevik insurrection, the
+elections to the Constituent Assembly would have to be indefinitely postponed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the ferocity of
+the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App. IX, Sect.
+3)&mdash;second, the creation of a new Government. There was no longer any talk
+of &ldquo;destroying the Bolsheviki&rdquo;&mdash;and very little about
+excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist Socialists and the
+Peasants&rsquo; Soviets. Even the Central Army Committee at the <i>Stavka,</i>
+the most determined enemy of Smolny, telephoned from Moghilev: &ldquo;If, to
+constitute the new Ministry, it is necessary to come to an understanding with
+the Bolsheviki, we agree to admit them <i>in a minority</i> to the
+Cabinet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Pravda,</i> ironically calling attention to Kerensky&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;humanitarian sentiments,&rdquo; published his despatch to the Committee
+for Salvation:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all the
+democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all military action
+against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has been sent to enter into
+negotiations. Take all measures to stop the useless shedding of blood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>Vikzhel</i> sent a telegram to all Russia:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the representatives of both
+the belligerent parties, who admit the necessity of an agreement, protest
+energetically against the use of political terrorism in the civil war,
+especially when it is carried on between different factions of the
+revolutionary democracy, and declare that political terrorism, in whatever
+form, is in contradiction to the very idea of the negotiations for a new
+Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 227: Leaflet]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik insurrection,
+containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated bourgeoisie and the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist leaders, Called, &ldquo;How THE BOORZHUI
+(BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina. In the
+Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final settlement. It had
+even been decided to elect a Provisional People&rsquo;s Council, composed of
+about four hundred members&mdash;seventy-five representing Smolny, seventy-five
+the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> and the rest split up among the Town Dumas, the
+Trade Unions, Land Committees and political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as
+the new Premier. Lenin and Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver of an
+ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with him? Certainly! He
+was a volunteer, a University student, and as we rolled down the street shouted
+over his shoulder to me phrases of execrable German: <i>&ldquo;Also, gut! Wir
+nach die Kasernen zu essen gehen!&rdquo;</i> I made out that there would be
+lunch at some barracks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by military
+buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by one window. At a
+long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers, eating <i>shtchi</i>
+(cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden spoons, and talking loudly
+with much laughter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Welcome to the Battalion Committee of the Sixth Reserve Engineers&rsquo;
+Battalion!&rdquo; cried my friend, and introduced me as an American Socialist.
+Whereat every one rose to shake my hand, and one old soldier put his arms
+around me and gave me a hearty kiss. A wooden spoon was produced and I took my
+place at the table. Another tub, full of <i>kasha,</i> was brought in, a huge
+loaf of black bread, and of course the inevitable tea-pots. At once every one
+began asking me questions about America: Was it true that people in a free
+country sold their votes for <i>money?</i> If so, how did they get what they
+wanted? How about this &ldquo;Tammany&rdquo;? Was it true that in a free
+country a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited it
+for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even under the Tsar
+such things could not happen in Russia; true, here there was always graft, but
+to buy and sell a whole city full of people! And in a free country! Had the
+people no revolutionary feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people
+tried to change things by law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke
+French. &ldquo;But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the
+capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How then can the
+people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do not know your country;
+but to me it is incredible….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I said that I was going to Tsarskoye Selo. &ldquo;I, too,&rdquo; said Baklanov,
+suddenly. &ldquo;And I&mdash;and I&mdash;&rdquo; The whole roomful decided on
+the spot to go to Tsarskoye Selo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then came a knock on the door. It opened, and in it stood the figure of
+the Colonel. No one rose, but all shouted a greeting. &ldquo;May I come
+in?&rdquo; asked the Colonel. &ldquo;<i>Prosim! Prosim!</i>&rdquo; they
+answered heartily. He entered, smiling, a tall, distinguished figure in a
+goat-skin cape embroidered with gold. &ldquo;I think I heard you say that you
+were going to Tsarskoye Selo, comrades,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Could I go with
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Baklanov considered. &ldquo;I do not think there is anything to be done here
+to-day,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Yes, comrade, we shall be very glad to have
+you.&rdquo; The Colonel thanked him and sat down, filling a glass of tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel&rsquo;s pride, Baklanov
+explained to me. &ldquo;You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We control
+the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel is delegated by us
+to command. In action his orders must be obeyed, but he is strictly responsible
+to us. In barracks he must ask our permission before taking any action…. You
+might call him our Executive Officer….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles&mdash;&ldquo;we might meet
+some Cossacks, you know&rdquo;&mdash;and we all piled into the ambulance,
+together with three great bundles of newspapers for the front. Straight down
+the Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny Prospekt. Next to me sat a
+youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all
+European languages with equal fluency. He was a member of the Battalion
+Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not a Bolshevik,&rdquo; he assured me, emphatically. &ldquo;My
+family is a very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a
+Cadet….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how&mdash;?&rdquo; I began, bewildered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my
+political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I do not
+believe in opposing the will of the majority…. I have refused to take any
+action in the present civil war, however, for I do not believe in taking up
+arms against my brother Russians….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Provocator! Kornilovitz!&rdquo; the others cried at him gaily, slapping
+him on the shoulder….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate, covered with
+golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the names of Tsars, we sped
+out on the wide straight highway, grey with the first light fall of snow. It
+was thronged with Red Guards, stumbling along on foot toward the revolutionary
+front, shouting and singing; and others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most
+of them seemed to be mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and
+bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands&mdash;the bowed,
+toil-worn women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out of step, with an
+affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors, grim-looking; children with
+bundles of food for their fathers and mothers; all these, coming and going,
+trudged through the whitened mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches
+deep. We passed cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound
+both ways, bristling with armed men; ambulances full of wounded from the
+direction of the battle, and once a peasant cart, creaking slowly along, in
+which sat a white-faced boy bent over his shattered stomach and screaming
+monotonously. In the fields on either side women and old men were digging
+trenches and stringing barbed wire entanglements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Back northward the clouds rolled away dramatically, and the pale sun came out.
+Across the flat, marshy plain Petrograd glittered. To the right, white and
+gilded and coloured bulbs and pinnacles; to the left, tall chimneys, some
+pouring out black smoke; and beyond, a lowering sky over Finland. On each side
+of us were churches, monasteries…. Occasionally a monk was visible, silently
+watching the pulse of the proletarian army throbbing on the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Pulkovo the road divided, and there we halted in the midst of a great crowd,
+where the human streams poured from three directions, friends meeting, excited
+and congratulatory, describing the battle to one another. A row of houses
+facing the cross-roads was marked with bullets, and the earth was trampled into
+mud half a mile around. The fighting had been furious here…. In the near
+distance riderless Cossack horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the plain
+had died long ago. Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard was trying to ride
+one, falling off again and again, to the childlike delight of a thousand rough
+men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The left road, along which the remnants of the Cossacks had retreated, led up a
+little hill to a hamlet, where there was a glorious view of the immense plain,
+grey as a windless sea, tumultuous clouds towering over, and the imperial city
+disgorging its thousands along all the roads. Far over to the left lay the
+little hill of Kranoye Selo, the parade-ground of the Imperial Guards&rsquo;
+summer camp, and the Imperial Dairy. In the middle distance nothing broke the
+flat monotony but a few walled monasteries and convents, some isolated
+factories, and several large buildings with unkempt grounds that were asylums
+and orphanages….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said the driver, as we went on over a barren hill,
+&ldquo;here was where Vera Slutskaya died. Yes, the Bolshevik member of the
+Duma. It happened early this morning. She was in an automobile, with Zalkind
+and another man. There was a truce, and they started for the front trenches.
+They were talking and laughing, when all of a sudden, from the armoured train
+in which Kerensky himself was riding, somebody saw the automobile and fired a
+cannon. The shell struck Vera Slutskaya and killed her….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so we came into Tsarskoye, all bustling with the swaggering heroes of the
+proletarian horde. Now the palace where the Soviet had met was a busy place.
+Red Guards and sailors filled the court-yard, sentries stood at the doors, and
+a stream of couriers and Commissars pushed in and out. In the Soviet room a
+samovar had been set up, and fifty or more workers, soldiers, sailors and
+officers stood around, drinking tea and talking at the top of their voices. In
+one corner two clumsy-handed workingmen were trying to make a multigraphing
+machine go. At the centre table, the huge Dybenko bent over a map, marking out
+positions for the troops with red and blue pencils. In his free hand he
+carried, as always, the enormous bluesteel revolver. Anon he sat himself down
+at a typewriter and pounded away with one finger; every little while he would
+pause, pick up the revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A couch lay along the wall, and on this was stretched a young workman. Two Red
+Guards were bending over him, but the rest of the company did not pay any
+attention. In his breast was a hole; through his clothes fresh blood came
+welling up with every heart-beat. His eyes were closed and his young, bearded
+face was greenish-white. Faintly and slowly he still breathed, with every
+breath sighing, <i>&ldquo;Mir boudit! Mir boudit!</i> (Peace is coming! Peace
+is coming!)&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dybenko looked up as we came in. &ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; he said to Baklanov.
+&ldquo;Comrade, will you go up to the Commandant&rsquo;s headquarters and take
+charge? Wait; I will write you credentials.&rdquo; He went to the typewriter
+and slowly picked out the letters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new Commandant of Tsarskoye Selo and I went toward the Ekaterina Palace,
+Baklanov very excited and important. In the same ornate, white room some Red
+Guards were rummaging curiously around, while my old friend, the Colonel, stood
+by the window biting his moustache. He greeted me like a long-lost brother. At
+a table near the door sat the French Bessarabian. The Bolsheviki had ordered
+him to remain, and continue his work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What could I do?&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;People like myself cannot
+fight on either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may
+instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob…. I only regret that I am so
+far from my mother in Bessarabia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant.
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said the Colonel nervously, &ldquo;are the keys to the
+desk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Red Guard interrupted. &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the money?&rdquo; he asked
+rudely. The Colonel seemed surprised. &ldquo;Money? Money? Ah, you mean the
+chest. There it is,&rdquo; said the Colonel, &ldquo;just as I found it when I
+took possession three days ago. Keys?&rdquo; The Colonel shrugged. &ldquo;I
+have no keys.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Red Guard sneered knowingly. &ldquo;Very convenient,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us open the chest,&rdquo; said Baklanov. &ldquo;Bring an axe. Here
+is an American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what he
+finds there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s arrest him,&rdquo; said the Red Guard, venomously. &ldquo;He
+is Kerensky&rsquo;s man. He has stolen the money and given it to
+Kerensky.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Baklanov did not want to. &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was the
+Kornilovitz before him. He is not to blame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The devil!&rdquo; cried the Red Guard. &ldquo;He is Kerensky&rsquo;s
+man, I tell you. If <i>you</i> won&rsquo;t arrest him, then <i>we</i> will, and
+we&rsquo;ll take him to Petrograd and put him in Peter-Paul, where he
+belongs!&rdquo; At this the other Red Guards growled assent. With a piteous
+glance at us the Colonel was led away….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the front. Half a
+dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two, under command of a huge
+workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to come along. Red Guards issued from
+headquarters, each of them staggering under an arm-load of small,
+corrugated-iron bombs, filled with <i>grubit</i>&mdash;which, they say, is ten
+times as strong, and five times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into
+the truck. A three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the
+truck with bits of rope and wire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck swaying from
+side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the other, and the
+<i>grubit</i> bombs went rolling back and forth over our feet, fetching up
+against the sides of the car with a crash.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me with
+questions about America. &ldquo;Why did America come into the war? Are the
+American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What is the situation in
+the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman to San Francisco?&rdquo; and
+other, very difficult to answer, all delivered in a shout above the roaring of
+the truck, while we held on to each other and danced amid the caroming bombs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the road before
+us, shouted <i>&ldquo;Shtoi!&rdquo;</i> and threw up their guns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We paid no attention. &ldquo;The devil take you!&rdquo; cried the Red Guards.
+&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t stop for anybody! We&rsquo;re Red Guards!&rdquo; And we
+thundered imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about the
+internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and slowed down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the front, brothers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. &ldquo;This morning,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn thing
+isn&rsquo;t anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we
+couldn&rsquo;t find it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been about a mile
+further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and shouted to the chauffeur
+to stop.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Firing!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you hear it?&rdquo; For a moment dead
+silence, and then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid
+succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very much
+excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the truck was nearly
+opposite the place where the firing had come from. Descending, we spread out,
+and every man carrying his rifle, went stealthily into the forest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around until it
+aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the tree-trunks were a
+pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun. Not a thing moved, except the
+ice of little woodland pools shivering under our feet. Was it an ambush?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and paused. Beyond,
+in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a small fire, perfectly
+oblivious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. <i>&ldquo;Zra&rsquo;zvuitye,</i>
+comrades!&rdquo; he greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a
+truck-load of <i>grubit</i> bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled to
+their feet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What was the shooting going on around here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, &ldquo;Why we were just
+shooting a rabbit or two, comrade….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day. At the
+first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving their rifles. We
+slowed down, and stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Passes, comrades!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Red Guards raised a great clamour. &ldquo;We are Red Guards. We don&rsquo;t
+need any passes…. Go on, never mind them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a sailor objected. &ldquo;This is wrong, comrades. We must have
+revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came along in a
+truck and said: &lsquo;We don&rsquo;t need any passes?&rsquo; The comrades
+don&rsquo;t know you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and soldiers
+joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced his dirty
+<i>bumaga</i> (paper). All were alike except mine, which had been issued by the
+Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries declared that I must go with them.
+The Red Guards objected strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first
+insisted. &ldquo;This comrade we know to be a true comrade,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But there are orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed.
+That is revolutionary discipline….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and watched it
+disappear careening down the road, all the company waving farewell. The
+soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then led me to a wall,
+against which they placed me. It flashed upon me suddenly; they were going to
+shoot me!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only sign of life
+was smoke from the chimney of a <i>datchya,</i> a rambling wooden house a
+quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers were walking out into the
+road. Desperately I ran after them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is different from the others,&rdquo; said one, sullenly. &ldquo;We
+cannot read, brother.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I took him by the arm. &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go to
+that house. Some one there can surely read.&rdquo; They hesitated.
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said one. The other looked me over. &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; he
+muttered. &ldquo;After all, it is a serious crime to kill an innocent
+man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short, stout woman
+opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+anything about them! I don&rsquo;t know anything about them!&rdquo; One of my
+guards held out the pass. She screamed. &ldquo;Just to read it, comrade.&rdquo;
+Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the American
+Social-Democracy, an internationalist….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation. &ldquo;We
+must take you to the Regimental Committee,&rdquo; they said. In the
+fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road. Occasionally we met
+squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded me with looks of menace,
+handling my pass around and arguing violently as to whether or not I should be
+killed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles,
+low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A number of soldiers
+slouching at the entrance asked eager questions. A spy? A provocator? We
+mounted a winding stair and emerged into a great, bare room with a huge stove
+in the centre, and rows of cots on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers
+were playing cards, talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole
+made by Kerensky&rsquo;s cannon….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups, who turned
+and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly and then with a rush,
+thundering, with faces full of hate. &ldquo;Comrades! Comrades!&rdquo; yelled
+one of my guards. &ldquo;Committee! Committee!&rdquo; The throng halted, banked
+around me, muttering. Out of them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red
+arm-band.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who is this?&rdquo; he asked roughly. The guards explained. &ldquo;Give
+me the paper!&rdquo; He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then
+he smiled and handed me the pass. &ldquo;Comrades, this is an American comrade.
+I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the Regiment….&rdquo; A
+sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and they pressed forward to
+shake my hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to the
+Officers&rsquo; Club, where there are some who speak your language….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He led me across the court-yard to the door of another building. An
+aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a Lieutenant, was
+entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking hands, went back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service,&rdquo; said the
+Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a ceremonial
+staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On the second floor
+billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from the hall. We entered the
+dining-room, at a long table in the centre of which sat about twenty officers
+in full uniform, wearing their gold- and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and
+crosses of Imperial decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a
+place for me beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard.
+Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any
+officers&rsquo; mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are not Bolsheviki?&rdquo; I asked Morovsky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing furtively at
+the orderly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered my friend. &ldquo;There is only one Bolshevik
+officer in this regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a
+Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist
+Revolutionary of the right wing…. I should say that most of the officers in the
+Army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in democracy; they believe
+that they must follow the soldier-masses….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on the table.
+The rest crowded around to see.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here,&rdquo; said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, &ldquo;were our
+positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Captain Kherlov pointed. &ldquo;According to orders, we occupied the position
+along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o&rsquo;clock.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the Chairman of the
+Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They joined the group behind the
+Colonel, peering at the map.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good,&rdquo; said the Colonel. &ldquo;Now the Cossacks have fallen back
+ten kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up
+advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the present line,
+strengthening the positions by&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you please,&rdquo; interrupted the Chairman of the Regimental
+Committee. &ldquo;The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to
+engage the Cossacks north of Gatchina in the morning. A crushing defeat is
+necessary. Kindly make the proper dispositions.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a short silence. The Colonel again turned to the map. &ldquo;Very
+well,&rdquo; he said, in a different voice. &ldquo;Stepan Georgevitch, you will
+please&mdash;&rdquo; Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his
+orders, while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then withdrew, and
+ten minutes later returned with the orders typewritten, and one carbon copy.
+The Chairman of the Committee studied the map with a copy of the orders before
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said, rising. Folding the carbon copy, he put it in
+his pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal taken from
+his pocket, and presented it to the Colonel….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here was the Revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I returned to the Soviet palace in Tsarskoye in the Regimental Staff
+automobile. Still the crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors pouring in and
+out, still the choking press of trucks, armoured cars, cannon before the door,
+and the shouting, the laughter of unwonted victory. Half a dozen Red Guards
+forced their way through, a priest in the middle. This was Father Ivan, they
+said, who had blessed the Cossacks when they entered the town. I heard
+afterward that he was shot…. (See App. IX, Sect. 4)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dybenko was just coming out, giving rapid orders right and left. In his hand he
+carried the big revolver. An automobile stood with racing engine at the kerb.
+Alone, he climbed in the rear seat, and was off-off to Gatchina, to conquer
+Kerensky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward nightfall he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and went on afoot.
+What Dybenko told the Cossacks nobody knows, but the fact is that General
+Krasnov and his staff and several thousand Cossacks surrendered, and advised
+Kerensky to do the same. (See App. IX, Sect. 5)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Kerensky&mdash;I reprint here the deposition made by General Krasnov on
+the morning of November 14th:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gatchina, November 14, 1917. To-day, about three o&rsquo;clock (A. M.),
+I was summoned by the Supreme Commander (Kerensky). He was very agitated, and
+very nervous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;General,&rsquo; he said to me, &lsquo;you have betrayed me. Your
+Cossacks declare categorically that they will arrest me and deliver me to the
+sailors.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; I answered, &lsquo;there is talk of it, and I know
+that you have no sympathy anywhere.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;But the officers say the same thing.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes, most of all it is the officers who are discontented with
+you.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;What shall I do? I ought to commit suicide!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;If you are an honorable man, you will go immediately to Petrograd
+with a white flag, you will present yourself to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and enter into negotiations as Chief of the Provisional
+Government.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;All right. I will do that, General.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I will give you a guard and ask that a sailor go with you.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;No, no, not a sailor. Do you know whether it is true that Dybenko
+is here?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I don&rsquo;t know who Dybenko is.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;He is my enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;There is nothing to do. If you play for high stakes you must know
+how to take a chance.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Yes. I&rsquo;ll leave to-night!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Why? That would be a flight. Leave calmly and openly, so that
+every one can see that you are not running away.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Very well. But you must give me a guard on which I can
+count.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Good.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I went out and called the Cossack Russkov, of the Tenth Regiment of the
+Don, and ordered him to pick out ten Cossacks to accompany the Supreme
+Commander. Half an hour later the Cossacks came to tell me that Kerensky was
+not in his quarters, that he had run away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I gave the alarm and ordered that he be searched for, supposing that he
+could not have left Gatchina, but he could not be found….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And so Kerensky fled, alone, &ldquo;disguised in the uniform of a
+sailor,&rdquo; and by that act lost whatever popularity he had retained among
+the Russian masses….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I went back to Petrograd riding on the front seat of an auto truck, driven by a
+workman and filled with Red Guards. We had no kerosene, so our lights were not
+burning. The road was crowded with the proletarian army going home, and new
+reserves pouring out to take their places. Immense trucks like ours, columns of
+artillery, wagons, loomed up in the night, without lights, as we were. We
+hurtled furiously on, wrenched right and left to avoid collisions that seemed
+inevitable, scraping wheels, followed by the epithets of pedestrians.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital, immeasurably
+more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of jewels heaped on the barren
+plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the other he
+swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mine!&rdquo; he cried, his face all alight. &ldquo;All mine now! My
+Petrograd!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>Chapter X<br />
+Moscow</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee, with a fierce intensity, followed up its
+victory:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 14th.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To all Army, corps, divisional and regimental Committees, to all Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, to all, all, all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Conforming to the agreement between the Cossacks, <i>yunkers,</i> soldiers,
+sailors and workers, it has been decided to arraign Alexander Feodorvitch
+Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We demand that Kerensky be arrested,
+and that he be ordered, in the name of the organisations hereinafter mentioned,
+to come immediately to Petrograd and present himself to the tribunal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Signed,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Cossacks of the First Division of Ussuri Cavalry; the Committee of
+Yunkers of the Petrograd detachment of Franc-Tireurs; the delegate of the Fifth
+Army.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People&rsquo;s Commissar DYBENKO.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Committee for Salvation, the Duma, the Central Committee of the Socialist
+Revolutionary party&mdash;proudly claiming Kerensky as a member&mdash;all
+passionately protested that he could only be held responsible to the
+Constituent Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the evening of November 16th I watched two thousand Red Guards swing down
+the Zagorodny Prospekt behind a military band playing the
+<i>Marseillaise</i>&mdash;and how appropriate it sounded&mdash;with blood-red
+flags over the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers who
+had defended &ldquo;Red Petrograd.&rdquo; In the bitter dusk they tramped, men
+and women, their tall bayonets swaying; through streets faintly lighted and
+slippery with mud, between silent crowds of bourgeois, contemptuous but
+fearful….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All were against them&mdash;business men, speculators, investors, land-owners,
+army officers, politicians, teachers, students, professional men, shop-keepers,
+clerks, agents. The other Socialist parties hated the Bolsheviki with an
+implacable hatred. On the side of the Soviets were the rank and file of the
+workers, the sailors, all the undemoralised soldiers, the landless peasants,
+and a few&mdash;a very few&mdash;intellectuals….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate street-fighting
+burst like a wave, news of Kerensky&rsquo;s defeat came echoing back the
+immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov, Novgorod,
+Vinnitza&mdash;where the streets had run with blood; Moscow, where the
+Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last strong-hold of the
+bourgeoisie&mdash;the Kremlin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are bombarding the Kremlin!&rdquo; The news passed from mouth to
+mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror. Travellers
+from &ldquo;white and shining little mother Moscow&rdquo; told fearful tales.
+Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in flames; the church of
+Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky Cathedral crumbling down; the
+Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin tottering; the Duma burned to the ground. (See
+App. X, Sect. 1)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful blasphemy
+in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout sounded the shock of
+guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox Church, and pounding to dust the
+sanctuary of the Russian nation….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into tears at the
+session of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars, and rushed from the room,
+crying, &ldquo;I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the monstrous destruction of
+beauty and tradition….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the newspapers:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has happened
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the Assumption, are
+being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered the most important art
+treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under artillery fire. There are
+thousands of victims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What is left? What more can happen?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these horrors. It is
+impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts which drive me mad!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That is why I am leaving the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I fully realise the gravity of this decision. But I can bear no more…. (See
+App. X, Sect. 2)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That same day the White Guards and <i>yunkers</i> in the Kremlin surrendered,
+and were allowed to march out unharmed. The treaty of peace follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The Committee of Public Safety ceases to exist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The White Guard gives up its arms and dissolves. The officers retain their
+swords and regulations side-arms. In the Military Schools are retained only the
+arms necessary for instruction; all others are surrendered by the
+<i>yunkers.</i> The Military Revolutionary Committee guarantees the liberty and
+inviolability of the person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. To settle the question of disarmament, as set forth in section 2, a special
+commission is appointed, consisting of representatives from all organisations
+which took part in the peace negotiations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. From the moment of the signature of this peace treaty, both parties shall
+immediately give order to cease firing and halt all military operations, taking
+measures to ensure punctual obedience to this order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. At the signature of the treaty, all prisoners made by the two parties shall
+be released….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two days now the Bolsheviki had been in control of the city. The frightened
+citizens were creeping out of their cellars to seek their dead; the barricades
+in the streets were being removed. Instead of diminishing, however, the stories
+of destruction in Moscow continued to grow…. And it was under the influence of
+these fearful reports that we decided to go there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd, after all, in spite of being for a century the seat of Government,
+is still an artificial city. Moscow is real Russia, Russia as it was and will
+be; in Moscow we would get the true feeling of the Russian people about the
+Revolution. Life was more intense there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the past week the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, aided by the
+rank and file of the Railway Workers, had seized control of the Nicolai
+Railroad, and hurled trainload after trainload of sailors and Red Guards
+southwest…. We were provided with passes from Smolny, without which no one
+could leave the capital…. When the train backed into the station, a mob of
+shabby soldiers, all carrying huge sacks of eatables, stormed the doors,
+smashed the windows, and poured into all the compartments, filling up the
+aisles and even climbing onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way
+into a compartment, but almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered….
+There was room for only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the conductor
+joined us&mdash;but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to bother about the
+comfort of a lot of <i>boorzhui</i> (bourgeois)? We produced the passes from
+Smolny; instantly the soldiers changed their attitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come, comrades,&rdquo; cried one, &ldquo;these are American
+<i>tovarishtchi.</i> They have come thirty thousand versts to see our
+Revolution, and they are naturally tired….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With polite and friendly apologies the soldiers began to leave. Shortly
+afterward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied by two stout,
+well-dressed Russians, who had bribed the conductor and locked their door….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About seven o&rsquo;clock in the evening we drew out of the station, an immense
+long train drawn by a weak little locomotive burning wood, and stumbled along
+slowly, with many stops. The soldiers on the roof kicked with their heels and
+sang whining peasant songs; and in the corridor, so jammed that it was
+impossible to pass, violent political debates raged all night long.
+Occasionally the conductor came through, as a matter of habit, looking for
+tickets. He found very few except ours, and after a half-hour of futile
+wrangling, lifted his arms despairingly and withdrew. The atmosphere was
+stifling, full of smoke and foul odours; if it hadn&rsquo;t been for the broken
+windows we would doubtless have smothered during the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the morning, hours late, we looked out upon a snowy world. It was bitter
+cold. About noon a peasant woman got on with a basket-full of bread-chunks and
+a great can of luke warm coffee-substitute. From then on until dark there was
+nothing but the packed train, jolting and stopping, and occasional stations
+where a ravenous mob swooped down on the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it
+clean…. At one of these halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the seceding
+Commissars, who were returning to Moscow to put their grievances before their
+own Soviet, and further along was Bukharin, a short, red-bearded man with the
+eyes of a fanatic&mdash;&ldquo;more Left than Lenin,&rdquo; they said of him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the three strokes of the bell and we made a rush for the train, worming
+our way through the packed and noisy aisle…. A good-natured crowd, bearing the
+discomfort with humorous patience, interminably arguing about everything from
+the situation in Petrograd to the British Trade-Union system, and disputing
+loudly with the few <i>boorzhui</i> who were on board. Before we reached Moscow
+almost every car had organised a Committee to secure and distribute food, and
+these Committees became divided into political factions, who wrangled over
+fundamental principles….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The station at Moscow was deserted. We went to the office of the Commissar, in
+order to arrange for our return tickets. He was a sullen youth with the
+shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed him our papers from Smolny, he
+lost his temper and declared that he was no Bolshevik, that he represented the
+Committee of Public Safety…. It was characteristic&mdash;in the general turmoil
+attending the conquest of the city, the chief railway station had been
+forgotten by the victors….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a cab in sight. A few blocks down the street, however, we woke up a
+grotesquely-padded <i>izvostchik</i> asleep upright on the box of his little
+sleigh. &ldquo;How much to the centre of the town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He scratched his head. &ldquo;The <i>barini</i> won&rsquo;t be able to find a
+room in any hotel,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll take you around for a
+hundred rubles….&rdquo; Before the Revolution it cost <i>two!</i> We objected,
+but he simply shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;It takes a good deal of courage to
+drive a sleigh nowadays,&rdquo; he went on. We could not beat him down below
+fifty…. As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted streets, he recounted
+his adventures during the six days&rsquo; fighting. &ldquo;Driving along, or
+waiting for a fare on the corner,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;all of a sudden
+<i>pooff!</i> a cannon ball exploding here, <i>pooff!</i> a cannon ball there,
+<i>ratt-ratt!</i> a machine-gun…. I gallop, the devils shooting all around. I
+get to a nice quiet street and stop, doze a little, <i>pooff!</i> another
+cannon ball, <i>ratt-ratt</i>…. Devils! Devils! Devils! Brrr!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the centre of the town the snow-piled streets were quiet with the stillness
+of convalescence. Only a few arc-lights were burning, only a few pedestrians
+hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from the great plain, cutting to
+the bone. At the first hotel we entered an office illuminated by two candles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we have some very comfortable rooms, but all the windows are shot
+out. If the <i>gospodin</i> does not mind a little fresh air….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Down the Tverskaya the shop-windows were broken, and there were shell-holes and
+torn-up paving stones in the street. Hotel after hotel, all full, or the
+proprietors still so frightened that all they could say was, &ldquo;No, no,
+there is no room! There is no room!&rdquo; On the main streets, where the great
+banking-houses and mercantile houses lay, the Bolshevik artillery had been
+indiscriminately effective. As one Soviet official told me, &ldquo;Whenever we
+didn&rsquo;t know just where the <i>yunkers</i> and White Guards were, we
+bombarded their pocketbooks….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the big Hotel National they finally took us in; for we were foreigners, and
+the Military Revolutionary Committee had promised to protect the dwellings of
+foreigners…. On the top floor the manager showed us where shrapnel had
+shattered several windows. &ldquo;The animals!&rdquo; said he, shaking his
+first at imaginary Bolsheviki. &ldquo;But wait! Their time will come; in just a
+few days now their ridiculous Government will fall, and then we shall make them
+suffer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name, &ldquo;I Eat
+Nobody,&rdquo; and Tolstoy&rsquo;s picture prominent on the walls, and then
+sallied out into the streets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The headquarters of the Moscow Soviet was in the palace of the former
+Governor-General, an imposing white building fronting Skobeliev Square. Red
+Guards stood sentry at the door. At the head of the wide, formal stairway,
+whose walls were plastered with announcements of committee-meetings and
+addresses of political parties, we passed through a series of lofty ante-rooms,
+hung with red-shrouded pictures in gold frames, to the splendid state salon,
+with its magnificent crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of
+talk, underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines, filled
+the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were unrolled, serpentining
+across the parqueted floor and over tables, at which sat half a hundred women,
+cutting and sewing streamers and banners for the Funeral of the Revolutionary
+Dead. The faces of these women were roughened and scarred with life at its most
+difficult; they worked now sternly, many of them with eyes red from weeping….
+The losses of the Red Army had been heavy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At a desk in one corner was Rogov, an intelligent, bearded man with glasses,
+wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march with the Central
+Executive Committee in the funeral procession next morning….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki anything!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;They compromise from sheer
+habit. Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the
+<i>yunkers!&rdquo;</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 251: Questionaire for the Bourgeoioisie]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow Military
+Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the requisition of
+clothing for the Army and the poor workers. For translation see Appendix 3.
+(See App. X, Sect. 3)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and <i>shapka,</i> whose
+face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known as the
+watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the great Standard
+Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the Moscow
+Metal-Workers&rsquo; Union, and a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee during the fighting….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see me!&rdquo; he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. &ldquo;I was
+with the boys in the Kremlin when the <i>yunkers</i> came the first time. They
+shut me up in the cellar and swiped my overcoat, my money, watch and even the
+ring on my finger. This is all I&rsquo;ve got to wear!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From him I learned many details of the bloody six-day battle which had rent
+Moscow in two. Unlike in Petrograd, in Moscow the City Duma had taken command
+of the <i>yunkers</i> and White Guards. Rudnev, the Mayor, and Minor, president
+of the Duma, had directed the activities of the Committee of Public Safety and
+the troops. Riabtsev, Commandant of the city, a man of democratic instincts,
+had hesitated about opposing the Military Revolutionary Committee; but the Duma
+had forced him…. It was the Mayor who had urged the occupation of the Kremlin;
+&ldquo;They will never dare fire on you there,&rdquo; he said….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One garrison regiment, badly demoralised by long inactivity, had been
+approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what action to
+take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and continue its present
+activities&mdash;which consisted in peddling rubbers and sunflower seeds!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But worst of all,&rdquo; said Melnichansky, &ldquo;we had to organise
+while we were fighting. The other side knew just what it wanted; but here the
+soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs…. There was a fearful wrangle
+over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiments talked for days before
+they decided what to do; and when the officers suddenly deserted us, we had no
+battle-staff to give orders….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vivid little pictures he gave me. On a cold grey day he had stood at a corner
+of the Nikitskaya, which was swept by blasts of machine-gun fire. A throng of
+little boys were gathered there&mdash;street waifs who used to be newsboys.
+Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they waited until the firing slackened,
+and then tried to run across the street…. Many were killed, but the rest dashed
+backward and forward, laughing, daring each other….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the evening I went to the <i>Dvorianskoye Sobranie</i>&mdash;the
+Nobles&rsquo; Club&mdash;where the Moscow Bolsheviki were to meet and consider
+the report of Nogin, Rykov and the others who had left the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meeting-place was a theatre, in which, under the old régime, to audiences
+of officers and glittering ladies, amateur presentations of the latest French
+comedy had once taken place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At first the place filled with the intellectuals&mdash;those who lived near the
+centre of the town. Nogin spoke, and most of his listeners were plainly with
+him. It was very late before the workers arrived; the working-class quarters
+were on the outskirts of the town, and no street-cars were running. But about
+midnight they began to clump up the stairs, in groups of ten or
+twenty&mdash;big, rough men, in coarse clothes, fresh from the battle-line,
+where they had fought like devils for a week, seeing their comrades fall all
+about them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Scarcely had the meeting formally opened before Nogin was assailed with a
+tempest of jeers and angry shouts. In vain he tried to argue, to explain; they
+would not listen. He had left the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars; he had
+deserted his post while the battle was raging. As for the bourgeois press, here
+in Moscow there was no more bourgeois press; even the City Duma had been
+dissolved. (See App. X, Sect. 4) Bukharin stood up, savage, logical, with a
+voice which plunged and struck, plunged and struck…. Him they listened to with
+shining eyes. Resolution, to support the action of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars, passed by overwhelming majority. So spoke Moscow….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 254: Pass to the Kremlin]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this the Military Revolutionary Commitee requests to give a pass for the
+purpose of investigating the Kremlin, the representatives of the American
+Socialist party attached to the Socialist press, comrades Reed and Bryant.
+Chief of the Military Revolutionary Committee For the Secretary
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the night we went through the empty streets and under the Iberian Gate
+to the great Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The church of Vasili Blazheiny
+loomed fantastic, its bright-coloured, convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in
+the darkness. There was no sign of any damage…. Along one side of the square
+the dark towers and walls of the Kremlin stood up. On the high walls flickered
+redly the light of hidden flames; voices reached us across the immense place,
+and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall. Climbing
+these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty
+yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers were digging in the light of
+huge fires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A young student spoke to us in German. &ldquo;The Brotherhood Grave,&rdquo; he
+explained. &ldquo;To-morrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians who
+died for the Revolution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and shovels, and
+the earth&mdash;mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the night was thick with
+stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall towered up immeasurably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here in this holy place,&rdquo; said the student, &ldquo;holiest of all
+Russia, we shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars, our
+Tsar&mdash;the People&mdash;shall sleep….&rdquo; His arm was in a sling, from a
+bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. &ldquo;You foreigners
+look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a mediæval
+monarchy,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But we saw that the Tsar was not the only
+tyrant in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the
+world capitalism was Emperor…. Russian revolutionary tactics are best….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As we left, the workers in the pit, exhausted and running with sweat in spite
+of the cold, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red Square a dark knot of
+men came hurrying. They swarmed into the pits, picked up the tools and began
+digging, digging, without a word….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So, all the long night volunteers of the People relieved each other, never
+halting in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn laid bare the
+great Square, white with snow, and the yawning brown pits of the Brotherhood
+Grave, quite finished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We rose before sunrise, and hurried through the dark streets to Skobeliev
+Square. In all the great city not a human being could be seen; but there was a
+faint sound of stirring, far and near, like a deep wind coming. In the pale
+half-light a little group of men and women were gathered before the Soviet
+headquarters, with a sheaf of gold-lettered red banners&mdash;the Central
+Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague
+stirring sound deepened and became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The
+city was rising. We set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping overhead.
+The little street chapels along our way were locked and dark, as was the Chapel
+of the Iberian Virgin, which each new Tsar used to visit before he went to the
+Kremlin to crown himself, and which, day or night, was always open and crowded,
+and brilliant with the candles of the devout gleaming on the gold and silver
+and jewels of the ikons. Now, for the first time since Napoleon was in Moscow,
+they say, the candles were out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance from
+Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the Kremlin. Dark and
+silent and cold were the churches; the priests had disappeared. There were no
+popes to officiate at the Red Burial, there had been no sacrament for the dead,
+nor were any prayers to be said over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon,
+Metropolitan of Moscow, was soon to excommunicate the Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at home&mdash;but
+for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the rumour of whose coming
+was thunderous as surf….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the vast Red
+Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I remarked that as the
+throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always before the passerby had crossed
+himself, they did not seem to notice it….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin wall, and
+stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men were there, among
+them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected Commandant of Moscow&mdash;a
+tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a gentle face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people poured,
+thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the poor and the
+toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the <i>Internationale,</i>
+and spontaneously the song caught and spread like wind-ripples on a sea, slow
+and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin wall gigantic banners unrolled to the
+ground; red, with great letters in gold and in white, saying, &ldquo;Martyrs of
+the Beginning of World Social Revolution,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Long Live the
+Brotherhood of Workers of the World.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far quarters
+of the city the workers of the different factories were arriving, with their
+dead. They could be seen coming through the Gate, the blare of their banners,
+and the dull red&mdash;like blood&mdash;of the coffins they carried. These were
+rude boxes, made of unplaned wood and daubed with crimson, borne high on the
+shoulders of rough men who marched with tears streaming down their faces, and
+followed by women who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead
+faces. Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others were
+covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier&rsquo;s hat nailed on
+the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial flowers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession slowly
+moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless stream of banners,
+all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering, knots of crepe hanging from
+the top&mdash;and some Anarchist flags, black with white letters. The band was
+playing the Revolutionary Funeral March, and against the immense singing of the
+mass of people, standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with
+sobs….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their coffins, too,
+and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and artillery batteries, the cannon
+wound with red and black&mdash;forever, it seemed. Their banners said,
+&ldquo;Long live the Third International!&rdquo; or &ldquo;We Want an Honest,
+General, Democratic Peace!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the grave, and
+the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down into the pit. Many of
+them were women&mdash;squat, strong proletarian women. Behind the dead came
+other women&mdash;women young and broken, or old, wrinkled women making noises
+like hurt animals, who tried to follow their sons and husbands into the
+Brotherhood Grave, and shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The
+poor love each other so!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the Iberian Gate
+and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river of red banners,
+bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous prophecies, against a
+back-ground of fifty thousand people,&mdash;under the eyes of the world&rsquo;s
+workers and their descendants forever….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell, and still
+the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played the Funeral March,
+and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless branches of the trees above
+the grave the wreaths were hung, like strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two
+hundred men began to shovel in the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins
+with a thudding sound, audible beneath the singing….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning women,
+looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from the great Square
+ebbed the proletarian tide….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to
+pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than
+any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Chapter XI<br />
+The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)</h2>
+
+<p>
+DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI, Sect. 2)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed the right of
+the peoples of Russia to self-determination.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this inalienable
+right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and definitely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in the
+question of Nationalities, the following principles:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, even to the
+point of separation and the formation of an independent state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious privileges and
+disabilities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic groups
+inhabiting the territory of Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a Commission on
+Nationalities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the Russian Republic,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+People&rsquo;s Commissar for Nationalities
+</p>
+
+<h5>YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN</h5>
+
+<p>
+President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars
+</p>
+
+<h5>V. ULIANOV (LENIN)</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent Republic,
+as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at Helsingfors.
+Independent &ldquo;Governments&rdquo; spring up in Siberia and the Caucasus.
+The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered together the Polish troops
+in the Russian army, abolished their Committees and established an iron
+discipline….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All these &ldquo;Governments&rdquo; and &ldquo;movements&rdquo; had two
+characteristics in common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and
+they feared and detested Bolshevism….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order. Decree on Social
+Insurance, on Workers&rsquo; Control, Regulations for Volost Land Committees,
+Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of Courts and the Creation of
+People&rsquo;s Tribunals…. (See App. XI, Sect. 3)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, &ldquo;joyfully to greet
+the new Government of the People.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from the
+trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates, thin and
+grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in it. Some pointed out
+the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing…. Red Guards came to mount guard.
+All the soldiers turned to look, curiously, as if they had heard of them but
+never seen them. They laughed good-naturedly and pressed out of line to slap
+the Red Guards on the back, with half-joking, half-admiring remarks….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the churches
+of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as Lenin himself told
+the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> that was &ldquo;only the beginning of the conquest of
+power.&rdquo; Deprived of arms, the opposition, which still controlled the
+economic life of the country, settled down to organise disorganisation, with
+all the Russian genius for cooperative action&mdash;to obstruct, cripple and
+discredit the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by the banks
+and commercial establishments. Every move of the Bolsheviki to take over the
+Government apparatus was resisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries refused to
+recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors were forced, resigned.
+He demanded the keys of the archives; only when he brought workmen to force the
+locks were they given up. Then it was discovered that Neratov, former assistant
+Foreign Minister, had disappeared with the Secret Treaties….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It was bitterly
+cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all the hundreds of
+employees, not one would show him where the office of the Minister was….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar of Public
+Welfare&mdash;the department of charities and public institutions&mdash;was
+welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the functionaries in the Ministry.
+Immediately the poor of the great cities, the inmates of institutions, were
+plunged in miserable want: delegations of starving cripples, of orphans with
+blue, pinched faces, besieged the building. With tears streaming down her face,
+Kollontai arrested the strikers until they should deliver the keys of the
+office and the safe; when she got the keys, however, it was discovered that the
+former Minister, Countess Panina, had gone off with all the funds, which she
+refused to surrender except on the order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App.
+XI, Sect. 4)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of
+Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees, summoned to return or
+forfeit their positions and their pensions, either stayed away or returned to
+sabotage…. Almost all the <i>intelligentzia</i> being anti-Bolshevik, there was
+nowhere for the Soviet Government to recruit new staffs….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open for
+speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left, secreting the
+books and removing the funds. All the employees of the State Bank struck except
+the clerks in charge of the vaults and the manufacture of money, who refused
+all demands from Smolny and privately paid out huge sums to the Committee for
+Salvation and the City Duma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to insist upon
+the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The first time, the City
+Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary leaders were present
+in imposing numbers, and spoke so gravely of the consequences that the
+Commissar was frightened. The second time he arrived with a warrant, which he
+proceeded to read aloud in due form; but some one called his attention to the
+fact that it had no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect for
+&ldquo;documents&rdquo; forced him again to withdraw….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that all record
+of the financial relations of Russia with foreign countries was lost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned public
+utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when the Bolsheviki,
+compelled by the desperate needs of the city population, attempted to help or
+to control the public service, all the employees went on strike immediately,
+and the Duma flooded Russia with telegrams about Bolshevik &ldquo;violation of
+Municipal autonomy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of War and
+Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the Army Committees and
+the high command blocked the Soviets in every way possible, even to the extent
+of neglecting the troops at the front. The <i>Vikzhel</i> was hostile, refusing
+to transport Soviet troops; every troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out
+by force, and railway officials had to be arrested each time&mdash;whereupon
+the <i>Vikzhel</i> threatened an immediate general strike unless they were
+released….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the factories of
+Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three weeks; the <i>Vikzhel</i>
+announced that trains must cease running by December first; there was food for
+three days only in Petrograd, and no more coming in; and the Army on the Front
+was starving…. The Committee for Salvation, the various Central Committees,
+sent word all over the country, exhorting the population to ignore the
+Government decrees. And the Allied Embassies were either coldly indifferent, or
+openly hostile….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next morning
+under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime. (See App. XI, Sect.
+5) Even <i>Novaya Zhizn</i> characterised it as &ldquo;a combination of
+demagoguery and impotence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From day to day (it said) the Government of the People&rsquo;s Commissars sinks
+deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having easily conquered
+the power… the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are unable at
+the same time to create a new one which might work easily and freely according
+to the theories of social experimenters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn&rsquo;t enough men to run their
+growing party&mdash;a work above all of speakers and writers; where then are
+they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and complicated functions
+of government?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with decrees, each
+one more radical and more &ldquo;socialist&rdquo; than the last. But in this
+exhibition of Socialism on Paper&mdash;more likely designed for the
+stupefaction of our descendants&mdash;there appears neither the desire nor the
+capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the <i>Vikzhel&rsquo;s</i> Conference to Form a New Government
+continued to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in principle to
+the basis of the Government; the composition of the People&rsquo;s Council was
+being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively chosen, with Tchernov as Premier;
+the Bolsheviki were admitted in a large minority, but Lenin and Trotzky were
+barred. The Central Committees of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary
+parties, the Executive Committee of the Peasant&rsquo;s Soviets, resolved that,
+although unalterably opposed to the &ldquo;criminal politics&rdquo; of the
+Bolsheviki, they would, &ldquo;in order to halt the fratricidal
+bloodshed,&rdquo; not oppose their entrance into the People&rsquo;s Council.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the Soviets
+everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted that the
+Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the other Socialist parties;
+otherwise they would withdraw from the Military Revolutionary Committee and the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> Malkin said, &ldquo;The news from Moscow, where our
+comrades are dying on both sides of the barricades, determines us to bring up
+once more the question of organisation of power, and it is not only our right
+to do so, but our duty…. We have won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here
+within the walls of Smolny Institute, and to speak from this tribune. After the
+bitter internal party struggle, we shall be obliged, if you refuse to
+compromise, to pass to open battle outside…. We must propose to the democracy
+terms of an acceptable compromise….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned with a
+resolution, read by Kameniev:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> considers it necessary that there enter into the
+Government representatives of <i>all the Socialist parties composing the
+Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies who
+recognise the conquests of the Revolution of November 7th&mdash;that is to say,
+the establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on peace, land,
+workers&rsquo; control over industry, and the arming of the working-class.</i>
+The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> therefore resolves to propose negotiations concerning
+the constitution of the Government to all parties <i>of the Soviet,</i> and
+insists upon the following conditions as a basis:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government is responsible to the <i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>
+shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150 delegates of the Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies shall be added 75 delegates of the
+<i>Provincial</i> Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, 80 from the Front
+organisations of the Army and Navy, 40 from the Trade Unions (25 from the
+various All-Russian Unions, in proportion to their importance, 10 from the
+<i>Vikzhel,</i> and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50 delegates
+from the Socialist groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the Ministry itself,
+at least one-half the portfolios must be reserved to the Bolsheviki. The
+Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs must be given to the
+Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow must remain in
+the hands of delegates of the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of all Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and Trotzky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kameniev explained. &ldquo;The so-called &lsquo;People&rsquo;s
+Council,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;proposed by the Conference, would
+consist of about 420 members, of which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides,
+there would be delegates from the counter-revolutionary old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i>
+100 members chosen by the Municipal Dumas&mdash;Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates
+from the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets&mdash;appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the
+old Army Committees, who no longer represent the soldier masses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We refuse to admit the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> and also the
+representatives of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the Peasants&rsquo;
+Soviets shall be elected by the Congress of Peasants, which we have called, and
+which will at the same time elect a new Executive Committee. The proposal to
+exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a proposal to decapitate our party, and we do not
+accept it. And finally, we see no necessity for a &lsquo;People&rsquo;s
+Council&rsquo; anyway; the Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> represents them in their real proportions among the
+masses….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his party would
+vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right to modify certain
+details, such as the representation of the peasants, and demanding that the
+Ministry of Agriculture be reserved for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+This was agreed to….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a question about
+the formation of the new Government:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
+negotiations…. However, I don&rsquo;t think that they are of great
+importance….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The delegates of the
+City Duma withdrew….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a formidable
+opposition to Lenin&rsquo;s policy was growing. On the night of November 17th
+the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting of the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the Constituent
+Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with &ldquo;political
+terrorism.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be modified.
+They had their reason during the struggle, but now they have no further excuse.
+The press should be free, except for appeals to riot and insurrection.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the following
+resolution:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The decree of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars concerning the Press is
+herewith repealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to decision of a
+special tribunal, elected by the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> proportionally to the
+strength of the different parties represented; and this tribunal shall have the
+right also to reconsider measures of repression already taken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of the Press
+be postponed until after some compromise between the Socialist parties had been
+reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The revolution which is now being accomplished,&rdquo; went on
+Avanessov, &ldquo;has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as
+private property that we must examine the question of the Press….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by purely military
+needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the checking of
+counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary as a measure of
+transition toward the establishment of a new régime with regard to the
+Press&mdash;a régime under which the capitalist owners of printing-presses and
+of paper cannot be the all-powerful and exclusive manufacturers of public
+opinion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing plants and
+supplies of paper, which should become the property of the Soviets, both in the
+capital and in the provinces, so that the political parties and groups can make
+use of the facilities of printing in proportion to the actual strength of the
+ideas they represent&mdash;in other words, proportionally to the number of
+their constituents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reëstablishment of the so-called &ldquo;freedom of the press,&rdquo; the
+simple return of printing presses and paper to the capitalists,&mdash;poisoners
+of the mind of the people&mdash;this would be an inadmissible surrender to the
+will of capital, a giving up of one of the most important conquests of the
+Revolution; in other words, it would be a measure of unquestionably
+counter-revolutionary character.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Proceeding from the above, the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> categorically rejects all
+propositions aiming at the reëstablishment of the old régime in the domain of
+the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of view of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars on this question, against pretentions and ultimatums
+dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices, or by evident surrender to the
+interests of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts from the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation from the insurgent
+Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting. &ldquo;Three weeks ago the
+Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of the freedom of the Press… The
+arguments in this resolution suggest singularly the point of view of the old
+Black Hundreds and the censors of the Tsarist régime&mdash;for they also talked
+of &lsquo;poisoners of the mind of the people.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He distinguished between
+the Press during the civil war, and the Press after the victory. &ldquo;During
+civil war the right to use violence belongs only to the oppressed….&rdquo;
+(Cries of &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the oppressed now? Cannibal!&rdquo;).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the newspapers
+are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing of the newspapers is
+a legitimate measure of defence….&rdquo; Then passing to the question of the
+Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
+should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of business…. The rule
+of the democracy which is being established in Russia demands that the
+domination of the Press by private property must be abolished, just as the
+domination of industry by private property…. The power of the Soviets should
+confiscate all printing-plants.&rdquo; (Cries, &ldquo;Confiscate the
+printing-shop of <i>Pravda!</i>&rdquo;)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
+Otherwise it isn&rsquo;t worth while for us to take the power! Each group of
+citizens should have access to print shops and paper…. The ownership of
+print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers and peasants, and only
+afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which are in a minority…. The passing of
+the power into the hands of the Soviets will bring about a radical
+transformation of the essential conditions of existence, and this
+transformation will necessarily be evident in the Press…. If we are going to
+nationalise the banks, can we then tolerate the financial journals? The old
+régime must die; that must be understood once and for all….&rdquo; Applause and
+angry cries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Karelin declared that the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> had no right to pass upon this
+important question, which should be left to a special committee. Again,
+passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke slowly,
+choosing his words; each sentence falling like a hammer-blow. &ldquo;The civil
+war is not yet finished; the enemy is still with us; consequently it is
+impossible to abolish the measures of repression against the Press.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of power
+we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois newspapers would
+mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark
+time; one must always go forward&mdash;or go back. He who now talks about the
+&lsquo;freedom of the Press&rsquo; goes backward, and halts our headlong course
+toward Socialism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first revolution
+threw off the yoke of Tsarism. <i>If the first revolution had the right to
+suppress the Monarchist papers,</i> then we have the right to suppress the
+bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate the question of the freedom of
+the Press from the other questions of the class struggle. We have promised to
+close these newspapers, and we shall do it. The immense majority of the people
+is with us!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to
+suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch as they
+appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the Soviet Government.
+However, we shall not permit them, under the pretence of freedom of the
+Socialist press, to obtain, through the secret support of the bourgeoisie, a
+monopoly of printing-presses, ink and paper…. These essentials must become the
+property of the Soviet Government, and be apportioned, first of all, to the
+Socialist parties in strict proportion to their voting strength….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was carried by 34 to 24. Among the
+minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov and Lozovsky, who declared that it was
+impossible for them to vote against any restriction on the freedom of the
+Press.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon this the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared they could no longer be
+responsible for what was being done, and withdrew from the Military
+Revolutionary Committee and all other positions of executive responsibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Five members&mdash;Nogin, Rykov, Miliutin, Teodorovitch and
+Shiapnikov&mdash;resigned from the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,
+declaring:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are in favour of a Socialist Government composed of all the parties in the
+Soviets. We consider that only the creation of such a Government can possibly
+guarantee the results of the heroic struggle of the working-class and the
+revolutionary army. Outside of that, there remains only one way: the
+constitution of a purely Bolshevik Government by means of political terrorism.
+This last is the road taken by the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars. We
+cannot and will not follow it. We see that this leads directly to the
+elimination from political life of many proletarian organisations, to the
+establishment of an irresponsible régime, and to the destruction of the
+Revolution and the country. We cannot take the responsibility for such a
+policy, and we renounce before the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> our function as
+People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other Commissars, without resigning their positions, signed the
+declaration&mdash;Riazanov, Derbychev of the Press Department, Arbuzov, of the
+Government Printing-plant, Yureniev, of the Red Guard, Feodorov, of the
+Commissariat of Labour, and Larin, secretary of the Section of Elaboration of
+Decrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the same time Kameniev, Rykov, Miliutin, Zinoviev and Nogin resigned from
+the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, making public their reasons:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… The constitution of such a Government (composed of all the parties of the
+Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the coming famine, the
+destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists, to assure the convocation of
+the Constituent Assembly at the proper time, and to apply effectively the
+programme adopted by the Congress of Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We cannot accept the responsibility for the disastrous policy of the Central
+Committee, carried on against the will of an enormous majority of the
+proletariat and the soldiers, who are eager to see the rapid end of the
+bloodshed between the different political parties of the democracy…. We
+renounce our title as members of the Central Committee, in order to be able to
+say openly our opinion to the masses of workers and soldiers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We leave the Central Committee at the moment of victory; we cannot calmly look
+on while the policy of the chiefs of the Central Committee leads toward the
+loss of the fruits of victory and the crushing of the proletariat….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The masses of the workers, the soldiers of the garrison, stirred restlessly,
+sending their delegations to Smolny, to the Conference for Formation of the New
+Government, where the break in the ranks of the Bolsheviki caused the liveliest
+joy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the answer of the Leninites was swift and ruthless. Shliapnikov and
+Teodorovitch submitted to party discipline and returned to their posts.
+Kameniev was stripped of his powers as president of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> and
+Sverdlov elected in his place. Zinoviev was deposed as president of the
+Petrograd Soviet. On the morning of the 5th, <i>Pravda</i> contained a
+ferocious proclamation to the people of Russia, written by Lenin, which was
+printed in hundreds of thousands of copies, posted on the walls everywhere, and
+distributed over the face of Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave the majority to the Bolshevik
+party. Only a Government formed by this party can therefore be a Soviet
+Government. And it is known to all that the Central Committee of the Bolshevik
+party, a few hours before the formation of the new Government and before
+proposing the list of its members to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets,
+invited to its meeting three of the most eminent members of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionary group, comrades Kamkov, Spiro and Karelin, and ASKED THEM to
+participate in the new Government. We regret infinitely that the invited
+comrades refused; we consider their refusal inadmissible for revolutionists and
+champions of the working-class; we are willing at any time to include the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries in the Government; but we declare that, as the party
+of the majority at the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, we are entitled
+and BOUND before the people to form a Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… Comrades! Several members of the Central Committee of our party and the
+Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars, Kameniev, Zinoviev, Nogin, Rykov,
+Miliutin and a few others left yesterday, November 17th, the Central Committee
+of our party, and the last three, the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The comrades who left us acted like deserters, because they not only abandoned
+the posts entrusted to them, but also disobeyed the direct instructions of the
+Central Committee of our party, to the effect that they should await the
+decisions of the Petrograd and Moscow party organisations before retiring. We
+blame decisively such desertion. We are firmly convinced that all conscious
+workers, soldiers and peasants, belonging to our party or sympathising with it,
+will also disapprove of the behaviour of the deserters….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and Zinoviev, even
+before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as deserters and strike-breakers, by
+voting at the decisive meeting of the Central Committee, October 23d, 1917,
+against the insurrection; and even AFTER the resolution passed by the Central
+Committee, they continued their campaign at a meeting of the party workers….
+But the great impulse of the masses, the great heroism of millions of workers,
+soldiers and peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front, in the trenches, in
+the villages, pushed aside the deserters as a railway train scatters saw-dust….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shame upon those who are of little faith, hesitate, who doubt, who allow
+themselves to be frightened by the bourgeoisie, or who succumb before the cries
+of the latter&rsquo;s direct or indirect accomplices! There is NOT A SHADOW of
+hesitation in the MASSES of Petrograd, Moscow, and the rest of Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… We shall not submit to any ultimatums from small groups of intellectuals
+which are not followed by the masses, which are PRACTICALLY only supported by
+Kornilovists, Savinkovists, <i>yunkers,</i> and so forth….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The response from the whole country was like a blast of hot storm. The
+insurgents never got a chance to &ldquo;say openly their opinion to the masses
+of workers and soldiers.&rdquo; Upon the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> rolled in like
+breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the &ldquo;deserters.&rdquo; For
+days Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees, from the front,
+from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. &ldquo;Why did they dare leave
+the Government? Were they paid by the bourgeoisie to destroy the Revolution?
+They must return and submit to the decisions of the Central Committee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great soldier
+meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by representatives of all the
+political parties. By a vast majority Lenin&rsquo;s policy was sustained, and
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries were told that they must enter the
+government…. <i>See next page.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all Ministers and
+<i>yunkers</i> be released, that all newspapers be allowed full freedom, that
+the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put under command of the Duma. To
+this Smolny answered that all the Socialist Ministers and also all but a very
+few <i>yunkers</i> had been already set free, that all newspapers were free
+except the bourgeois press, and that the Soviet would remain in command of the
+armed forces…. On the 19th the Conference to Form a New Government disbanded,
+and the opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev, where, under the wing
+of the General Staff, they continued to form Government after Government, until
+the end….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 276: Meeting announcement]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a meeting of
+representatives of the garrison regiments, called to consider the question of
+forming a new Government. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 6.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the <i>Vikzhel.</i>
+An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers called upon them to
+force the <i>Vikzhel</i> to surrender its powers. On the 15th, the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> following its procedure toward the peasants, called an
+All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for December 1st; the <i>Vikzhel</i>
+immediately called its own Congress for two weeks later. On November 16th, the
+<i>Vikzhel</i> members took their seats in the <i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i> On the night
+of December 2d, at the opening session of the All-Russian Congress of Railway
+Workers, the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> formally offered the post of Commissar of Ways
+and Communications to the <i>Vikzhel</i>&mdash;which accepted….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their attention to
+problems of practical administration. First of all the city, the country, the
+Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red Guards scoured the warehouses, the
+railway terminals, even the barges in the canals, unearthing and confiscating
+thousands of <i>poods</i> of food held by private speculators. Emissaries were
+sent to the provinces, where with the assistance of the Land Committees they
+seized the store-houses of the great grain-dealers. Expeditions of sailors,
+heavily armed, were sent out in groups of five thousand, to the South, to
+Siberia, with roving commissions to capture cities still held by the White
+Guards, establish order, and <i>get food.</i> Passenger traffic on the
+Trans-Siberian Railroad was suspended for two weeks, while thirteen trains,
+loaded with bolts of cloth and bars of iron assembled by the Factory-Shop
+Committees, were sent out eastward, each in charge of a Commissar, to barter
+with the Siberian peasants for grain and potatoes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kaledin being in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel question
+became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in theatres, shops and
+restaurants, cut down the number of street cars, and confiscated the private
+stores of fire-wood held by the fuel-dealers…. And when the factories of
+Petrograd were about to close down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic
+Fleet turned over to the workers two hundred thousand <i>poods</i> from the
+bunkers of battle-ships….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward the end of November occurred the &ldquo;wine-pogroms&rdquo; (See App.
+XI, Sect. 7)&mdash;looting of the wine-cellars&mdash;beginning with the
+plundering of the Winter Palace vaults. For days there were drunken soldiers on
+the streets…. In all this was evident the hand of the counter-revolutionists,
+who distributed among the regiments plans showing the location of the stores of
+liquor. The Commissars of Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not
+stop the growing disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red
+Guards…. Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out companies of
+sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon the rioters, killing
+many; and by executive order the wine-cellars were invaded by Committees with
+hatchets, who smashed the bottles&mdash;or blew them up with dynamite….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at the
+headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the old Militia. In
+all quarters of the city small elective Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by
+the workers and soldiers to deal with petty crime….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving business, were
+surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown into jail. (See App. XI,
+Sect. 8)…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted itself a vast
+spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois households, and
+reporting all information to the Military Revolutionary Committee, which struck
+with an iron hand, unceasing. In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot
+led by former Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who
+had planned an officers&rsquo; uprising, and had written a letter inviting
+Kaledin to Petrograd. (See App. XI, Sect. 9)…. In this way was unearthed the
+conspiracy of the Petrograd Cadets, who were sending money and recruits to
+Kaledin….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his flight,
+returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who began their
+publication in <i>Pravda,</i> scandalising the world….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 279: Proclamation]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bolshevik order. A proclamation of the Committee to Fight against Pogroms,
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 11.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree (See App. XI, Sect.
+10) making advertisements a monopoly of the official Government newspaper. At
+this all the other papers suspended publication as a protest, or disobeyed the
+law and were closed…. Only three weeks later did they finally submit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still the strike of the Ministries went on, still the sabotage of the old
+officials, the stoppage of normal economic life. Behind Smolny was only the
+will of the vast, unorganised popular masses; and with them the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars dealt, directing revolutionary mass-action against
+its enemies. In eloquent proclamations, (See App. XI, Sect. 12) couched in
+simple words and spread over Russia, Lenin explained the Revolution, urged the
+people to take the power into their own hands, by force to break down the
+resistance of the propertied classes, by force to take over the institutions of
+Government. Revolutionary order. Revolutionary discipline! Strict accounting
+and control! No strikes! No loafing!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 281: Appeal to work hard]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Council of Professional Unions,
+and the Petrograd Council of Factory Shop Committees, to the Workers of
+Petrograd, urging them to work hard and not to strike. For translation see App.
+XI, Sect. 13.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 20th of November the Military Revolutionary Committee issued a warning:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rich classes oppose the power of the Soviets&mdash;the Government of
+workers, soldiers and peasants. Their sympathisers halt the work of the
+employees of the Government and the Duma, incite strikes in the banks, try to
+interrupt communication by the railways, the post and the telegraph….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We warn them that they are playing with fire. The country and the Army are
+threatened with famine. To fight against it, the regular functioning of all
+services is indispensable. The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government is
+taking every measure to assure the country and the Army all that is necessary.
+Opposition to these measures is a crime against the People. We warn the rich
+classes and their sympathisers that, if they do not cease their sabotage and
+their provocation in halting the transportation of food, they will be the first
+to suffer. They will be deprived of the right of receiving food. All the
+reserves which they possess will be requisitioned. The property of the
+principal criminals will be confiscated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have done our duty in warning those who play with fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We are convinced that in case decisive measures become necessary, we shall be
+solidly supported by all workers, soldiers, and peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a sheet headed
+&ldquo;EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION&rdquo;:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars has received an urgent telegram from
+the Staff of the Northern Front….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There must be no further delay; do not let the Army die of hunger; the
+armies of the Northern Front have not received a crust of bread now for several
+days, and in two or three days they will not have any more biscuits&mdash;which
+are being doled out to them from reserve supplies until now never touched….
+Already delegates from all parts of the Front are talking of a necessary
+removal of part of the Army to the rear, foreseeing that in a few days there
+will be headlong flight of the soldiers, dying from hunger, ravaged by the
+three years&rsquo; war in the trenches, sick, insufficiently clothed,
+bare-footed, driven mad by superhuman misery.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee brings this to the notice of the Petrograd
+garrison and the workers of Petrograd. The situation at the Front demands the
+most urgent and decisive measures. … Meanwhile the higher functionaries of the
+Government institutions, banks, railroads, post and telegraph, are on strike
+and impeding the work of the Government in supplying the Front with
+provisions…. Each hour of delay may cost the life of thousands of soldiers. The
+counter-revolutionary functionaries are the most dishonest criminals toward
+their hungry and dying brethren on the Front….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE GIVES THESE CRIMINALS A LAST WARNING. In
+event of the least resistance or opposition on their part, the harshness of the
+measures which will be adopted against them will correspond to the seriousness
+of their crime….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The masses of workers and soldiers responded by a savage tremor of rage, which
+swept all Russia. In the capital the Government and bank employees got out
+hundreds of proclamations and appeals (See App. XI, Sect. 14), protesting,
+defending themselves, such as this one:
+</p>
+
+<h5>TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.</h5>
+
+<h5>THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!</h5>
+
+<h5>WHY?</h5>
+
+<p>
+Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State Bank has
+made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the People&rsquo;s
+Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on November 27th THEY DEMANDED
+TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any indication as to where this money was to go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people&rsquo;s property.
+We stopped work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people&rsquo;s money,
+acquired by your labour, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the
+people&rsquo;s property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall
+immediately resume work.
+</p>
+
+<h5>EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.</h5>
+
+<p>
+From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the Special Supply
+Committee, declarations that the Military Revolutionary Committee made it
+impossible for the employees to work, appeals to the population to support them
+against Smolny…. But the dominant worker and soldier did not believe them; it
+was firmly fixed in the popular mind that the employees were sabotaging,
+starving the Army, starving the people…. In the long bread lines, which as
+formerly stood in the iron winter streets, it was not <i>the Government</i>
+which was blamed, as it had been under Kerensky, but the <i>tchinovniki,</i>
+the sabotageurs; for the Government was <i>their</i> Government, <i>their</i>
+Soviets&mdash;and the functionaries of the Ministries were against it….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant organ, the
+Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the decrees of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars, voting again and again not to recognise the Soviet
+Government, openly cooperating with the new counter-revolutionary
+&ldquo;Governments&rdquo; set up at Moghilev…. On the 17th of November, for
+example, the Committee for Salvation addressed &ldquo;all Municipal
+Governments, Zemstvos, and all democratic and revolutionary organisations of
+peasants, workers, soldiers and other citizens,&rdquo; in these words:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Do not recognise the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle against it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who will unite
+all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian Committee for Salvation in
+the tasks which it has set itself….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd (See App. XI,
+Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the Bolsheviki; so that even the
+Mensheviki Internationalists pointed out that the Duma ought to be re-elected,
+as it no longer represented the political composition of the Petrograd
+population…. At the same time floods of resolutions from workers&rsquo;
+organisations, from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding
+country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it &ldquo;counter-revolutionary,
+Kornilovitz,&rdquo; and demanding that it resign. The last days of the Duma
+were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers for decent living
+wages, and the threat of strikes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee dissolved
+the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the Petrograd City Duma:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected September 2d, …
+has definitely lost the right to represent the population of Petrograd, being
+in complete disaccord with its state of mind and its aspirations … and in view
+of the fact that the personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all
+political following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
+counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and peasants, to
+sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the Government&mdash;the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars considers it its duty to invite the population of the
+capital to pronounce judgment on the policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this end the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars resolves:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect November
+30th, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall remain at
+their posts and fulfil the duties confided to them, until their places shall be
+filled by representatives of the new Duma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties; those who
+leave the service of their own accord shall be considered discharged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed for
+December 9th, 1917….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917, at two
+o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who intentionally harm or
+destroy the property of the Municipality, shall be immediately arrested and
+brought before the Revolutionary Tribunals….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it would
+&ldquo;defend its position to the last drop of its blood,&rdquo; and appealing
+desperately to the population to save their &ldquo;own elected City
+Government.&rdquo; But the population remained indifferent or hostile. On the
+31st Mayor Schreider and several members were arrested, interrogated, and
+released. That day and the next the Duma continued to meet, interrupted
+frequently by Red Guards and sailors, who politely requested the assembly to
+disperse. At the meeting of December 2d, an officer and some sailors entered
+the Nicolai Hall while a member was speaking, and ordered the members to leave,
+or force would be used. They did so, protesting to the last, but finally
+&ldquo;ceding to violence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the
+&ldquo;Moderate&rdquo; Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely
+Bolshevik….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the
+&ldquo;republics&rdquo; of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely
+anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the Governments were
+gathering troops which could be depended upon, and entering upon campaigns of
+crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and expelling Russian troops. The
+Ukrainean Rada had taken command of all southern Russia, and was furnishing
+Kaledin reinforcements and supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning
+secret negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognised by the
+Allied Governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining with the
+propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centres of attack upon
+Soviet Russia. In the end, when Bolshevism had conquered in both these
+countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called in the Germans to restore them to
+power….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal and
+two-headed&mdash;the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev, where General
+Dukhonin had assumed command.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 287: Education Proclamation]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the City Duma,
+concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the Christmas holidays.
+The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed almost entirely of Bolsheviki.
+For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against the
+Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory workers. Hundreds
+of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars
+issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See App. XI, Sect. 16) explaining what
+the Soviet Government was, how the propertied classes, the <i>tchin ovniki,</i>
+landlords, bankers and their allies, the Cossack princes, land-owners and
+Generals, were trying to destroy the Revolution, and prevent the confiscation
+of their wealth by the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see Trotzky and
+Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet Government did not intend
+to divide the Cossack lands among the peasants of Great Russia?
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; answered Trotzky. The Cossacks deliberated for a while.
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; they asked, &ldquo;does the Soviet Government intend to
+confiscate the estates of our great Cossack land-owners and divide them among
+the working Cossacks?&rdquo; To this Lenin replied. &ldquo;That,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;is for <i>you</i> to do. We shall support the working Cossacks in
+all their actions…. The best way to begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will
+be given representation in the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> and then it will be
+<i>your</i> Government, too….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General Kaledin received
+a deputation from his troops. &ldquo;Will you,&rdquo; they asked,
+&ldquo;promise to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords among the
+working Cossacks?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Only over my dead body,&rdquo; responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing
+his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And the
+Cossack movement was no more….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> the
+&ldquo;moderate&rdquo; Socialist leaders&mdash;from Avksentiev to
+Tchernov&mdash;the active chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the
+reactionary officers. The Staff steadily refused to recognise the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars. It had united about it the Death Battalions, the
+Knights of St. George, and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and
+secret touch with the Allied military attachès, and with the Kaledin movement
+and the Ukrainean Rada….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of November 8th,
+in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a general armistice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 20th Trotzky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors: (See App.
+XI, Sect. 18)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have the honour to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets… on November 8th constituted a new Government of the Russian
+Republic, in the form of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars. The
+President of this Government is Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin. The direction of
+Foreign Affairs has been entrusted to me, People&rsquo;s Commissar for Foreign
+Affairs….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian Congress, of
+the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace without annexations or
+indemnities, based on the right of self-determination of peoples, I have the
+honour to request you to consider that document as a formal proposal of an
+immediate armistice on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace
+negotiations; a proposal which the authorised Government of the Russian
+Republic addresses at the same time to all the belligerent peoples and their
+Governments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem of the
+Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for peace, like all
+the other peoples exhausted and drained by this unexampled butchery….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The same night the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars telegraphed to General
+Dukhonin:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+… The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars considers it indispensable without
+delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the powers, both enemy and
+Allied. A declaration conforming to this decision has been sent by the
+Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the representatives of the Allied powers at
+Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,… to
+propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease hostilities, and
+enter into negotiations for peace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers, the Council
+of People&rsquo;s Commissars orders you:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all steps in the
+pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy armies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by the
+Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Allied Ambassadors received Trotzky&rsquo;s note with contemptuous silence,
+accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full of spite and
+ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterised openly as an act of treason….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he was
+communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey the order.
+Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated from &ldquo;a
+Government sustained by the Army and the country.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme Commander,
+and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his tactics of appealing to the
+masses, Lenin sent a radio to all regimental, divisional and corps Committees,
+to all soldiers and sailors of the Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with
+Dukhonin&rsquo;s refusal, and ordering that &ldquo;the regiments on the front
+shall elect delegates to begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite
+their positions….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 23d, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on instructions
+from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin, in which he was solemnly
+warned not to &ldquo;violate the conditions of the treaties concluded between
+the Powers of the Entente.&rdquo; The note went on to say that if a separate
+armistice with Germany were concluded, that act &ldquo;would result in the most
+serious consequences&rdquo; to Russia. This communication Dukhonin at once sent
+out to all the soldiers&rsquo; Committees….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning Trotzky made another appeal to the troops, characterising the note
+of the Allied representatives as a flagrant interference in the internal
+affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt &ldquo;to force by threats the Russian
+Army and the Russian people to continue the war in execution of the treaties
+concluded by the Tsar….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App. XI, Sect. 19)
+denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary officers about him,
+denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered at Moghilev, rousing, from one
+end of the thousand-mile Front to the other, millions of angry, suspicious
+soldiers. And at the same time Krylenko, accompanied by three detachments of
+fanatical sailors, set out for the <i>Stavka,</i> breathing threats of
+vengeance, (See App. XI, Sect. 20) and received by the soldiers everywhere with
+tremendous ovations&mdash;a triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee
+issued a declaration in favour of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops
+moved upon Moghilev….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On December 2d the garrison of Moghilev rose and seized the city, arresting
+Dukhonin and the Army Committee, and going out with victorious red banners to
+meet the new Supreme Commander. Krylenko entered Moghilev next morning, to find
+a howling mob gathered about the railway-car in which Dukhonin had been
+imprisoned. Krylenko made a speech in which he implored the soldiers not to
+harm Dukhonin, as he was to be taken to Petrograd and judged by the
+Revolutionary Tribunal. When he had finished, suddenly Dukhonin himself
+appeared at the window, as if to address the throng. But with a savage roar the
+people rushed the car, and falling upon the old General, dragged him out and
+beat him to death on the platform….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So ended the revolt of the <i>Stavka</i>….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immensely strengthened by the collapse of the last important stronghold of
+hostile military power in Russia, the Soviet Government began with confidence
+the organisation of the state. Many of the old functionaries flocked to its
+banner, and many members of other parties entered the Government service. The
+financially ambitious, however, were checked by the decree on Salaries of
+Government Employees, fixing the salaries of the People&rsquo;s
+Commissars&mdash;the highest&mdash;at five hundred rubles (about fifty dollars)
+a month…. The strike of Government Employees, led by the Union of Unions,
+collapsed, deserted by the financial and commercial interests which had been
+backing it. The bank clerks returned to their jobs….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the decree on the Nationalisation of Banks, the formation of the Supreme
+Council of People&rsquo;s Economy, the putting into practical operation of the
+Land decree in the villages, the democratic reorganisation of the Army, and the
+sweeping changes in all branches of the Government and of life,&mdash;with all
+these, effective only by the will of the masses of workers, soldiers and
+peasants, slowly began, with many mistakes and hitches, the moulding of
+proletarian Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other political
+leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism, did the Bolsheviki
+conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence of a small clique. If the
+masses all over Russia had not been ready for insurrection it must have failed.
+The only reason for Bolshevik success lay in their accomplishing the vast and
+simple desires of the most profound strata of the people, calling them to the
+work of tearing down and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of
+falling ruins, cooperating with them to erect the frame-work of the new….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>Chapter XII<br />
+The Peasants&rsquo; Congress</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was on November 18th that the snow came. In the morning we woke to
+window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling thick that it
+was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was gone; in a twinkling the
+gloomy city became white, dazzling. The <i>droshki</i> with their padded
+coachmen turned into sleights, bounding along the uneven street at headlong
+speed, their drivers&rsquo; beards stiff and frozen…. In spite of Revolution,
+all Russia plunging dizzily into the unknown and terrible future, joy swept the
+city with the coming of the snow. Everybody was smiling; people ran into the
+streets, holding out their arms to the soft, falling flakes, laughing. Hidden
+was all the greyness; only the gold and coloured spires and cupolas, with
+heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed through the white snow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and rheumatism of
+the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew gay, and the very
+Revolution ran swifter….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I sat one evening in a <i>traktir</i>&mdash;a kind of lower-class
+inn&mdash;across the street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud
+place called &ldquo;Uncle Tom&rsquo;s Cabin,&rdquo; much frequented by Red
+Guards. They crowded it now, packed close around the little tables with their
+dirty table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place with foul
+cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about crying
+<i>&ldquo;Seichass! Seichass!</i> In a minute! Right away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the assembly,
+which interrupted him at every few words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are no better than murderers!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Shooting down
+your Russian brothers on the streets!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When did we do that?&rdquo; asked a worker.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Last Sunday you did it, when the <i>yunkers</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, didn&rsquo;t they shoot us?&rdquo; One man exhibited his arm in a
+sling. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I got something to remember them by, the
+devils?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The captain shouted at the top of his voice. &ldquo;You should remain neutral!
+You should remain neutral! Who are you to destroy the legal Government? Who is
+Lenin? A German&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you? A counter-revolutionist! A provocator!&rdquo; they bellowed
+at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he could make himself heard the captain stood up. &ldquo;All right!&rdquo;
+said he. &ldquo;You call yourselves the people of Russia. But you&rsquo;re
+<i>not</i> the people of Russia. The <i>peasants</i> are the people of Russia.
+Wait until the peasants&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; they cried, &ldquo;wait until the peasants speak. We know
+what the peasants will say…. Aren&rsquo;t they workingmen like
+ourselves?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the long run, everything depended upon the peasants. While the peasants had
+been politically backward, still they had their own peculiar ideas, and they
+constituted more than eighty per cent of the people of Russia. The Bolsheviki
+had a comparatively small following among the peasants; and a permanent
+dictatorship of Russia by the industrial workers was impossible…. The
+traditional peasant party was the Socialist Revolutionary party; of all the
+parties now supporting the Soviet Government, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries were the logical inheritors of peasant leadership&mdash;and the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were at the mercy of the organised city
+proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land decree, one of
+the first actions of the new <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> had been to call a Congress of
+Peasants, over the head of the Executive Committee of the Peasants&rsquo;
+Soviets. A few days later was issued detailed Regulations for the <i>Volost</i>
+(Township) Land Committees, followed by Lenin&rsquo;s &ldquo;Instruction to
+Peasants,&rdquo; (See App. XII, Sect. 1) which explained the Bolshevik
+revolution and the new Government in simple terms; and on November 16th, Lenin
+and Miliutin published the &ldquo;Instructions to Provincial Emissaries,&rdquo;
+of whom thousands were sent by the Soviet Government into the villages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the emissary
+should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets
+of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, to whom he
+should make a report on the agrarian laws, and then demand that a joint plenary
+session of the Soviets be summoned….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+a. Has the land-owners&rsquo; property been taken over, and if so, in what
+districts?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+b. Who administers the confiscated land&mdash;the former proprietor, or the
+Land Committees?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+c. What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the
+farm-animals?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under cultivation
+differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an average minimum?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received the land, it
+is imperative that they increase the amount of cultivated land as quickly as
+possible, and that they hasten the sending of grain to the cities, as the only
+means of avoiding famine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. What are the measures projected or put into effect for the transfer of land
+from the land-owners to the Land Committees and similar bodies appointed by the
+Soviets?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. It is desirable that agricultural properties well appointed and well
+organised should be administered by Soviets composed of the regular employees
+of those properties, under the direction of competent agricultural scientists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All through the villages a ferment of change was going on, caused not only by
+the electrifying action of the Land decree, but also by thousands of
+revolutionary-minded peasant-soldiers returning from the front…. These men,
+especially, welcomed the call to a Congress of Peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Like the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> in the matter of the second Congress of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Soviets, the Executive Committee tried to
+prevent the Peasant Congress summoned by Smolny. And like the old
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> finding its resistance futile, the Executive Committee sent
+frantic telegrams ordering the election of Conservative delegates. Word was
+even spread among the peasants that the Congress would meet at Moghilev, and
+some delegates went there; but by November 23d about four hundred had gathered
+in Petrograd, and the party caucuses had begun….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma building, and
+the first vote showed that more than half of all the delegates were Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki controlled a bare fifth, the
+conservative Socialist Revolutionaries a quarter, and all the rest were united
+only in their opposition to the old Executive Committee, dominated by
+Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky and Peshekhonov….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual clamour; deep,
+stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry groups. To the right was a
+sprinkling of officers&rsquo; epaulettes, and the patriarchal, bearded faces of
+the older, more substantial peasants; in the centre were a few peasants,
+non-commissioned officers, and some soldiers; and on the left almost all the
+delegates wore the uniforms of common soldiers. These last were the young
+generation, who had been serving in the army…. The galleries were thronged with
+workers&mdash;who, in Russia, still remember their peasant origin….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unlike the old <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> the Executive Committee, in opening the
+session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the official Congress was
+called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of applause and angry cries, the
+speaker declared that this gathering was merely &ldquo;Extraordinary
+Conference&rdquo;… But the &ldquo;Extraordinary Conference&rdquo; soon showed
+its attitude toward the Executive Committee by electing as presiding officer
+Maria Spiridonova, leader of the Left Socialist Revolution aries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most of the first day was taken up by a violent debate as to whether the
+representatives of <i>Volost</i> Soviets should be seated, or only delegates
+from the Provincial bodies; and just as in the Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Congress, an overwhelming majority declared in favour of the
+widest possible representation. Whereupon the old Executive Committee left the
+hall….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost immediately it was evident that most of the delegates were hostile to
+the Government of the People&rsquo;s Commissars. Zinoviev, attempting to speak
+for the Bolsheviki, was hooted down, and as he left the platform, amid
+laughter, there were cries, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s how a People&rsquo;s Commissar
+sits in a mudpuddle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We Left Socialist Revolutionaries refuse,&rdquo; cried Nazariev, a
+delegate from the Provinces, &ldquo;to recognise this so-called Workers&rsquo;
+and Peasants&rsquo; Government until the peasants are represented in it. At
+present it is nothing but a dictatorship of the workers…. We insist upon the
+formation of a new Government which will represent the entire democracy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reactionary delegates shrewdly fostered this feeling, declaring, in the
+face of protests from the Bolshevik benches, that the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars intended either to control the Congress or dissolve it by force of
+arms&mdash;an announcement which was received by the peasants with bursts of
+fury….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes the room
+went mad. &ldquo;Down with him!&rdquo; they shrieked. &ldquo;We will not listen
+to any of your People&rsquo;s Commissars! We don&rsquo;t recognise your
+Government!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands, his little
+eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally, except for the right
+side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself out somewhat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do not come here as a member of the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars,&rdquo; said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside,
+&ldquo;but as a member of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this
+Congress.&rdquo; And he held his credentials up to that all might see them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;However,&rdquo; he went on, in an unmoved voice, &ldquo;nobody will deny
+that the present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik
+party&mdash;&rdquo; he had to wait a moment, &ldquo;so that for all purposes it
+is the same thing….&rdquo; Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour,
+but the centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin&rsquo;s argument was simple. &ldquo;Tell me frankly, you peasants, to
+whom we have given the lands of the <i>pomieshtchiki;</i> do you want now to
+prevent the workers from getting control of industry? This is class war. The
+<i>pomieshtchiki</i> of course oppose the peasants, and the manufactures oppose
+the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of the proletariat to be divided?
+Which side will you be on?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat&mdash;of the
+peasant proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat. We, the Bolsheviki,
+are the protectors of the Soviets&mdash;of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets as well
+as those of the Workers and Soldiers. The present Government is a Government of
+Soviets; we have not only invited the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets to join that
+Government, but we have also invited representatives of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries to enter the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people&mdash;of
+the workers in the factories and mines, of the workers in the fields. Anybody
+who attempts to destroy the Soviets is guilty of an anti-democratic and
+counter-revolutionary act. And I serve notice here on you, comrades
+<i>Right</i> Socialist Revolutionaries&mdash;and on you, Messrs.
+Cadets&mdash;that if the Constituent Assembly attempts to destroy the Soviets,
+we shall not permit the Constituent Assembly to do this thing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from Moghilev,
+summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months before considered an
+extreme revolutionist, and very popular with the peasants, he was now called to
+check the dangerous drift of the Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival
+Tchernov was arrested and taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation,
+he was released.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for leaving the
+Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered the hall, welcomed with
+great applause by the majority, and the hoots and jeers of the Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the
+Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the Peasant delegates
+of the armies of the Western Front, and I know very little about the
+insurrection which occurred here&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, &ldquo;Yes, you were away&mdash;for a
+few minutes!&rdquo; Fearful tumult. Cries, &ldquo;Down with the
+Bolsheviki!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tchernov continued. &ldquo;The accusation that I helped lead an army on
+Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such an
+accusation come from? Show me the source!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zinoviev: &ldquo;<i>Izviestia</i> and <i>Dielo Naroda</i>&mdash;your own
+paper&mdash;that&rsquo;s where it comes from!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tchernov&rsquo;s wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish beard,
+became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on. &ldquo;I repeat,
+I know practically nothing about what has happened here, and I did not lead any
+army except this army, (he pointed to the peasant delegates), which I am
+largely responsible for bringing here!&rdquo; Laughter, and shouts of
+&ldquo;Bravo!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made against me
+there…. After a brief conversation I left&mdash;and that&rsquo;s all! Let any
+one present make such an accusation!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking their fists and
+yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell them down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is an outrage, not a session!&rdquo; cried Tchernov, and he left
+the hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorder….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was agitating
+all minds. By declaring the assembly &ldquo;Extraordinary Conference,&rdquo; it
+had been planned to block the reelection of the Executive Committee. But this
+worked both ways; the Left Socialist Revolutionists decided that if the
+Congress had no power over the Executive Committee, then the Executive
+Committee had no power over the Congress. On November 25th the assembly
+resolved that the powers of the Executive Committee be assumed by the
+Extraordinary Conference, in which only members of the Executive who had been
+elected as delegates might vote….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki, the
+resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive Committee,
+whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in the assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed the
+differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the history of the
+Land question during the Revolution. The first Congress of Peasants&rsquo;
+Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and formal resolution in favour of
+putting the landed estates immediately into the hands of the Land Committees.
+But the directors of the Revolution, and the bourgeois in the Government, had
+insisted that the question could not be solved until the Constituent Assembly
+met…. The second period of the Revolution, the period of
+&ldquo;compromise,&rdquo; was signalled by the entrance of Tchernov into the
+Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that now the practical solution of the
+Land question would begin; but in spite of the imperative decision of the first
+Peasant Congress, the reactionaries and conciliators in the Executive Committee
+had prevented any action. This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders,
+which appeared as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on
+the part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of the
+Revolution&mdash;they tried to turn words into action….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The recent events,&rdquo; said the orator, &ldquo;do not indicate a
+simple riot, or a &lsquo;Bolshevik adventure,&rsquo; but on the contrary, a
+real popular rising, which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole
+country….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land
+question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by force, they
+committed a profound error…. From the first days, the Bolsheviki declared that
+the peasants should take over the land &lsquo;by revolutionary mass
+action.&rsquo; This is nothing but anarchy; the land can be taken over in an
+organised manner…. For the Bolsheviki it was important that the problems of the
+Revolution should be solved in the quickest possible manner&mdash;but the
+Bolsheviki were not interested in <i>how</i> these problems were to be solved….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its
+fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasants&rsquo; Congress. Why then
+did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that Congress?
+Because the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars wanted to hasten the
+settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent Assembly would have
+nothing to do….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt practical
+measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the Regulations for Land
+Committees, thus creating a strange situation; for the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars abolished private property in land, but the
+Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based on private property….
+However, no harm has been done by that; for the Land Committees are paying no
+attention to the Soviet decrees, but are putting into operation their own
+practical decisions&mdash;decisions based on the will of the vast majority of
+the peasants….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution of the
+Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly alone…. But will the
+Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of the Russian peasants? Of that we
+cannot be sure…. All we can be sure of is that the revolutionary determination
+of the peasants is now aroused, and that the Constituent will be <i>forced</i>
+to settle the Land question the way the peasants want it settled…. The
+Constituent Assembly will not dare to break with the will of the
+people….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. &ldquo;At this
+moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but the question of
+Social Revolution&mdash;not only here in Russia, but all over the world. The
+Land question cannot be solved independently of the other problems of the
+Social Revolution…. For example, the confiscation of the landed estates will
+provoke the resistance not only of Russian land-owners, but also of foreign
+capital&mdash;with whom the great landed properties are connected through the
+intermediary of the banks….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense oppression,
+and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the most important step of
+our Revolution. But it cannot be separated from the other steps, as is clearly
+manifested by the stages through which the Revolution has had to pass. The
+first stage was the crushing of autocracy and the crushing of the power of the
+industrial capitalists and land-owners, whose interests are closely related.
+The second stage was the strengthening of the Soviets and the political
+compromise with the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries lies in the fact that at that time they did not oppose the
+policy of compromise, because they held the theory that the consciousness of
+the masses was not yet fully developed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development
+of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five
+hundred years</i>…. The Socialist political party&mdash;this is the vanguard of
+the working-class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of
+education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets
+as organs of revolutionary initiative…. But in order to lead the wavering, the
+comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries themselves must stop hesitating….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In July last a series of open breaks began between the popular masses
+and the &lsquo;compromisers&rsquo;; but now, in November, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to Avksentiev, who is pulling
+the people with his little finger…. If Compromise continues, the Revolution
+disappears. No compromise with the bourgeoisie is possible; its power must be
+absolutely crushed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not given up
+the abolition of private property in the land, and we do not intend to do so.
+We adopted the Regulations for Land Committees,&mdash;which are <i>not</i>
+based on private property at all&mdash;because we want to accomplish the
+popular will in the way the people have themselves decided to do it, so as to
+draw closer the coalition of all the elements who are fighting for the Social
+Revolution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that coalition,
+insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and that they break with
+the &lsquo;conciliators&rsquo; of their party….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the
+preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will depend on the
+revolutionary determination of the masses. I say, &lsquo;Count on that
+revolutionary determination, but don&rsquo;t forget your gun!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Peasants&rsquo; Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November 8th…
+approves of the Provisional Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government of
+the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets
+of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Peasants&rsquo; Congress… invites all peasants unanimously to sustain that
+law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same time invites the
+peasants to appoint to posts and positions of responsibility only persons who
+have proved, not by words but by acts, their entire devotion to the interests
+of the exploited peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend
+these interests against all resistance on the part of the great land-owners,
+the capitalists, their partisans and accomplices….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Peasants&rsquo; Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction that
+the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the Land decree can
+only be successful through the triumph of the Workers&rsquo; Social Revolution,
+which began November 7th, 1917; for only the Social Revolution can accomplish
+the definite transfer, without possibility of return, of the land to the
+peasant-workers, the confiscation of model farms and their surrender to the
+peasant communes, the confiscation of agricultural machinery belonging to the
+great land-owners, the safe-guarding of the interests of the agricultural
+workers by the complete abolition of wage-slavery, the regular and methodical
+distribution among all regions of Russia of the products of agriculture and
+industry, and the seizure of the banks (without which the possession of land by
+the whole people would be impossible, after the abolition of private property),
+and all sorts of assistance by the State to the workers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For these reasons the Peasants&rsquo; Congress sustains entirely the Revolution
+of November 7th… as a social revolution, and expresses its unalterable will to
+put into operation, with whatever modifications are necessary, but without any
+hesitation, the social transformation of the Russian Republic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social Revolution, which
+alone will secure the lasting success and the complete realisation of the Land
+decree, is the close union of the peasant-workers with the industrial
+working-class, with the proletariat of all advanced countries. From now on, in
+the Russian Republic, all the organisation and administration of the State,
+from top to bottom, must rest on that union. That union, crushing all attempts,
+direct or indirect, open or dissimulated, to return to the policy of
+conciliation with the bourgeoisie&mdash;conciliation, damned by experience,
+with the chiefs of bourgeois politics&mdash;can alone insure the victory of
+Socialism throughout the world….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reactionaries of the Executive Committee no longer dared openly to appear.
+Tchernov, however, spoke several times, with a modest and winning impartiality.
+He was invited to sit on the platform…. On the second night of the Congress an
+anonymous note was handed up to the chairman, requesting that Tchernov be made
+honorary President. Ustinov read the note aloud, and immediately Zinoviev was
+on his feet, screaming that this was a trick of the old Executive Committee to
+capture the convention; in a moment the hall was one bellowing mass of waving
+arms and angry faces, on both sides…. Nevertheless, Tchernov remained very
+popular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution, the
+Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly, both times
+restrained by their leaders…. It seemed to me as if the Congress were
+hopelessly deadlocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already going on
+between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviki at Smolny. At
+first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had demanded that there be a
+Government composed of all the Socialist parties in and out of the Soviets, to
+be responsible to a People&rsquo;s Council, composed of an equal number of
+delegates from the Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; organisation, and that of
+the Peasants, and completed by representatives of the City Dumas and the
+Zemstvos; Lenin and Trotzky were to be eliminated, and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee and other repressive organs dissolved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night struggle, an
+agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of 108 members, was to be
+augumented by 108 members elected proportionally from the Peasants&rsquo;
+Congress; by 100 delegates elected directly from the Army and the Fleet; and by
+50 representatives of the Trade Unions (35 from the general Unions, 10 Railway
+Workers, and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos
+were dropped. Lenin and Trotzky remained in the Government, and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee continued to function.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sessions of the Congress had now been removed to the Imperial Law School
+building, Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets. There in the
+great meeting-hall the delegates gathered on Wednesday afternoon. The old
+Executive Committee had withdrawn, and was holding a rump convention of its own
+in another room of the same building, made up of bolting delegates and
+representatives of the Army Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tchernov went from one meeting to the other, keeping a watchful eye on the
+proceedings. He knew that an agreement with the Bolsheviki was being discussed,
+but he did not know that it had been concluded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke to the rump convention. &ldquo;At present, when everybody is in favour
+of forming an all-Socialist Government, many people forget the first Ministry,
+which was <i>not</i> a coalition Government, and in which there was only one
+Socialist&mdash;Kerensky; a Government which, in its time, was very popular.
+Now people accuse Kerensky; they forget that he was raised to power, not only
+by the Soviets, but also by the popular masses….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did public opinion change toward Kerensky? The savages set up gods
+to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their prayers is not
+answered…. That is what is happening at this moment…. Yesterday Kerensky;
+to-day Lenin and Trotzky; another to-morrow….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have proposed to both Kerensky and the Bolsheviki to retire from the
+power. Kerensky has accepted&mdash;to-day he announced from his hiding-place
+that he has resigned as Premier; but the Bolsheviki wish to retain the power,
+and they do not know how to use it….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the Bolsheviki succeed, or if they fail, the fate of Russia will not
+be changed. The Russian villages understand perfectly what they want, and they
+are now carrying out their own measures…. The villages will save us in the
+end….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile, in the great hall Ustinov had announced the agreement between
+the Peasants&rsquo; Congress and Smolny, received by the delegates with the
+wildest joy. Suddenly Tchernov appeared, and demanded the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;that an agreement is being
+concluded between the Peasants&rsquo; Congress and Smolny. Such an agreement
+would be illegal, seeing that the true Congress of Peasants&rsquo; Soviets does
+not meet until next week….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Moreover, I want to warn you now that the Bolsheviki will never accept
+your demands….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was interrupted by a great burst of laughter; and realising the situation,
+he left the platform and the room, taking his popularity with him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the afternoon of Thursday, November 16th, the Congress met in
+extraordinary session. There was a holiday feeling in the air; on every face
+was a smile…. The remainder of the business before the assembly was hurried
+through, and then old Nathanson, the white-bearded dean of the left wing of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, his voice trembling and tears in his eyes, read the
+report of the &ldquo;wedding&rdquo; of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets with the
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Soviets. At every mention of the word
+&ldquo;union&rdquo; there was ecstatic applause…. At the end Ustinov announced
+the arrival rival of a delegation from Smolny, accompanied by representatives
+of the Red Army, greeted with a rising ovation. One after another a workman, a
+soldier and a sailor took the floor, hailing them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Boris Reinstein, delegate of the American Socialist Labor Party:
+&ldquo;The day of the union of the Congress of Peasants and the Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies is one of the great days of the
+Revolution. The sound of it will ring with resounding echoes throughout the
+whole world&mdash;in Paris, in London, and across the ocean&mdash;in New York.
+This union will fill with happiness the hearts of all toilers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A great idea has triumphed. The West, and America, expected from Russia,
+from the Russian proletariat, something tremendous…. The proletariat of the
+world is waiting for the Russian Revolution, waiting for the great things that
+it is accomplishing….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sverdlov, president of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> greeted them. And with the
+shout, &ldquo;Long live the end of civil war! Long live the United
+Democracy!&rdquo; the peasants poured out of the building.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was already dark, and on the ice&mdash;covered snow glittered the pale light
+of moon and star. Along the bank of the canal were drawn up in full marching
+order the soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment, with their band, which broke into
+the <i>Marseillaise.</i> Amid the crashing full-throated shouts of the
+soldiers, the peasants formed in line, unfurling the great red banner of the
+Executive Committee of the All-Russian Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, embroidered
+newly in gold, &ldquo;Long live the union of the revolutionary and toiling
+masses!&rdquo; Following were other banners; of the District Soviets&mdash;of
+Putilov Factory, which read, &ldquo;We bow to this flag in order to create the
+brotherhood of all people!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From somewhere torches appeared, blazing orange in the night, a thousand times
+reflected in the facets of the ice, streaming out smokily over the throng as it
+moved down the bank of the Fontanka singing, between crowds that stood in
+astonished silence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live the Revolutionary Army! Long live the Red Guard! Long live the
+Peasants!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So the great procession wound through the city, growing and unfurling ever new
+red banners lettered in gold. Two old peasants, bowed with toil, were walking
+hand in hand, their faces illumined with child-like bliss.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said one, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d like to see them take away our
+land again, <i>now!</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Near Smolny the Red Guard was lined up on both sides of the street, wild with
+delight. The other old peasant spoke to his comrade, &ldquo;I am not
+tired,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I walked on air all the way!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the steps of Smolny about a hundred Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies were massed, with their banner, dark against the blaze of light
+streaming out between the arches. Like a wave they rushed down, clasping the
+peasants in their arms and kissing them; and the procession poured in through
+the great door and up the stairs, with a noise like thunder….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the immense white meeting-room the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> was waiting, with the
+whole Petrograd Soviet and a thousand spectators beside, with that solemnity
+which attends great conscious moments in history.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Zinoviev announced the agreement with the Peasants&rsquo; Congress, to a
+shaking roar which rose and burst into storm as the sound of music blared down
+the corridor, and the head of the procession came in. On the platform the
+presidium rose and made place for the Peasants&rsquo; presidium, the two
+embracing; behind them the two banners were intertwined against the white wall,
+over the empty frame from which the Tsar&rsquo;s picture had been torn….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then opened the &ldquo;triumphal session.&rdquo; After a few words of welcome
+from Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and hair drawn
+flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher, took the
+tribune&mdash;the most loved and the most powerful woman in all Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has never
+known…. All workers&rsquo; movements in the past have been defeated. But the
+present movement is international, and that is why it is invincible. There is
+no force in the world which can put out the fire of the Revolution! The old
+world crumbles down, the new world begins….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Trotzky, full of fire: &ldquo;I wish you welcome, comrades peasants! You
+come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which holds the heart of
+the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of workers is now concentrated in
+this hall…. There is now only one master of the Russian land: the union of the
+workers, soldiers and peasants….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats, till then
+contemptuous of Russia&rsquo;s invitation to an armistice, which had been
+accepted by the Central Powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A new humanity will be born of this war…. In this hall we swear to
+workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are broken,
+then it will be in defending our flag….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where Dukhonin
+was preparing to resist the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars. &ldquo;Let
+Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not deal gently with
+those who bar the road to peace!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and Krushinsky, member
+of the <i>Vikzhel,</i> said, &ldquo;From this moment, when the union of all
+true Socialists is realised, the whole army of railway workers places itself
+absolutely at the disposition of the revolutionary democracy!&rdquo; And
+Lunatcharsky, almost weeping, and Proshian, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, and finally Saharashvili, for the United Social Democrats
+Internationalists, composed of members of the Martov&rsquo;s and of
+Gorky&rsquo;s groups, who declared:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We left the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> because of the uncompromising policy of
+the Bolsheviki, and to force them to make concessions in order to realise the
+union of all the revolutionary democracy. Now that that union is brought about,
+we consider it a sacred duty to take our places once more in the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i>…. We declare that all those who have withdrawn from the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> should now return.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stachkov, a dignified old peasant of the presidium of the Peasants&rsquo;
+Congress, bowed to the four corners of the room. &ldquo;I greet you with the
+christening of a new Russian life and freedom!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gronsky, in the name of the Polish Social Democracy; Skripnik, for the
+Factory-Shop Committees; Tifonov, for the Russian soldiers at Salonika; and
+others, interminably, speaking out of full hearts, with the happy eloquence of
+hopes fulfilled….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was late in the night when the following resolution was put and passed
+unanimously:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> united in extraordinary session with the
+Petrograd Soviet and the Peasants&rsquo; Congress, confirms the Land and Peace
+decrees adopted by the second Congress of Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, and also the decree on Workers&rsquo; Control adopted
+by the <i>Tsay-ee-kah.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The joint session of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> and the Peasants&rsquo;
+Congress expresses its firm conviction that the union of workers, soldiers and
+peasants, this fraternal union of all the workers and all exploited, will
+consolidate the power conquered by them, that it will take all revolutionary
+measures to hasten the passing of the power into the hands of the working-class
+in other countries, and that it will assure in this manner the lasting
+accomplishment of a just peace and the victory of Socialism.&rdquo; (See App.
+XI, Sect. 2)
+</p>
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h3><a name="chap13"></a>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<p class="center">
+1.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Oborontsi</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Defenders.&rdquo; All the &ldquo;moderate&rdquo;
+Socialist groups adopted or were given this name, because they consented to the
+continuation of the war under Allied leadership, on the ground that it was a
+war of National Defence. The Bolsheviki, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries,
+the Mensheviki Internationalists (Martov&rsquo;s faction), and the Social
+Democrats Internationalists (Gorky&rsquo;s group) were in favour of forcing the
+Allies to declare democratic war-aims, and to offer peace to Germany on those
+terms….
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+2.<br />
+WAGES AND COST OF LIVING BEFORE AND DURING THE REVOLUTION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following tables of wages and costs were compiled, in October, 1917, by a
+joint Committee from the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and the Moscow section of
+the Ministry of Labour, and published in <i>Novaya Zhizn,</i> October 26th,
+1917:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Wages Per Day</i>&mdash;(<i>Rubles and kopeks</i>)
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td><i>Trade</i></td><td><i>July</i> 1914</td><td><i>July</i>
+1916</td><td><i>August</i> 1917</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Carpenter,
+Cabinet-maker</td><td>1.60&mdash;2.</td><td>4.&mdash;6.</td><td>8.50 </td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Terrassier</td><td>1.30&mdash;1.50</td><td>3.&mdash;3.50</td><td></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Mason,
+plasterer</td><td>1.70&mdash;2.35</td><td>4.&mdash;6.</td><td>8.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Painter,
+upholsterer</td><td>1.80&mdash;2.20</td><td>3.&mdash;5.50</td><td>8.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Blacksmith</td><td>1.&mdash;2.25</td><td>4.&mdash;5.</td><td>8.50</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Chimney-sweep</td><td>1.50&mdash;2.</td><td>4.&mdash;5.50</td><td>7.50
+</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Locksmith</td><td>.90&mdash;2.</td><td>3.50&mdash;6.</td><td>9.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Helper</td><td>1.&mdash;1.50</td><td>2.50&mdash;4.50</td><td>8.</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+In spite of numerous stories of gigantic advances in wages immediately
+following the Revolution of March, 1917, these figures, which were published by
+the Ministry of Labour as characteristic of conditions all over Russia, show
+that wages did not rise immediately after the Revolution, but little by little.
+On an average, wages increased slightly more than 500 per cent….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at the same time the value of the ruble fell to less than one-third its
+former purchasing power, and the cost of the necessities of life increased
+enormously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow, where food
+was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd:
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Cost of Food&mdash;(Rubles and Kopeks)</i>
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td></td><td></td><td><i>August</i> 1914</td><td><i>August</i>
+1917</td><td><i>% Increase</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Black bread</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.02
+1/2</td><td>.12</td><td>330</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>White bread</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.05</td><td>.20</td><td>300</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Beef</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.22 </td><td>1.10</td><td>400</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Veal</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.26 </td><td>2.15</td><td>727</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Pork</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.23</td><td>2.</td><td>770</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Herring</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.06</td><td>.52</td><td>767</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Cheese</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.40</td><td>3.50</td><td>754</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Butter</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.48</td><td>3.20</td><td>557</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Eggs</td><td>(Doz.)</td><td>.30</td><td>1.60</td><td>443</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Milk</td><td><i>(Krushka)</i></td><td>.07</td><td>.40</td><td>471</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent more than
+wages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the other necessities, the price of these increased tremendously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the Moscow Soviet
+of Workers&rsquo; Deputies, and accepted as correct by the Ministry of Supplies
+of the Provisional Government.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Cost of Other Necessities</i>&mdash;(<i>Rubles and Kopeks</i>)
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td></td><td></td><td><i>August</i> 1914</td><td><i>August</i> 1917</td><td>%
+<i>Increase</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Calico</td><td><i>(Arshin)</i></td><td> .11</td><td>1.40</td><td>1173</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Cotton
+cloth</td><td><i>(Arshin)</i></td><td>.15</td><td>2.</td><td>1233</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Dress
+Goods</td><td><i>(Arshin)</i></td><td>2.</td><td>40.</td><td>1900</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Castor
+Cloth</td><td><i>(Arshin)</i></td><td>6.</td><td>80.</td><td>1233</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Men&rsquo;s Shoes</td><td>(Pair)</td><td>12.</td><td>144.</td><td>1097</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Sole Leather</td><td></td><td>20.</td><td>400.</td><td>1900</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Rubbers</td><td>(Pair)</td><td>2.50</td><td>15.</td><td>500</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Men&rsquo;s
+Clothing</td><td>(Suit)</td><td>40.</td><td>400.–455.</td><td>900–1109</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Tea</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>4.50</td><td>18.</td><td>300</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Matches</td><td>(Carton)</td><td>.10</td><td>.50</td><td>400</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Soap</td><td><i>(Pood)</i></td><td>4.50</td><td>40.</td><td>780</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Gasoline</td><td><i>(Vedro)</i></td><td>1.70</td><td>11.</td><td>547</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Candles</td><td><i>(Pood)</i></td><td>8.50</td><td>100.</td><td>1076</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Caramel</td><td><i>(Fund)</i></td><td>.30</td><td>4.50</td><td>1400</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Fire Wood</td><td>(Load)</td><td>10.</td><td>120.</td><td>1100</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Charcoal</td><td></td><td>.80</td><td>13.</td><td>1525</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Sundry Metal Ware</td><td></td><td>1.</td><td>20.</td><td>1900</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about 1,109 per
+cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries. The difference, of
+course, went into the pockets of speculators and merchants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily wage of a
+skilled industrial worker&mdash;for example, a steel-worker in the Putilov
+Factory&mdash;was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits were enormous…. I
+was told by one of the owners of the Thornton Woollen Mills, an English concern
+on the outskirts of Petrograd, that while wages had increased about 300 per
+cent in his factory, his profits had gone up <i>900 per cent.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+3.<br />
+THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional Government of
+July to realise their programme in coalition with the bourgeois Ministers, is
+an illuminating example of class struggle in politics. Says Lenin, in
+explanation of this phenomenon:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The capitalists, … seeing that the position of the Government was
+untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades practised
+by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally overpower the
+working-class. This method is the so-called &lsquo;Coalition Ministry,&rsquo;
+composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist camp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In those countries where political freedom and democracy have existed
+side by side with the revolutionary movement of the workers&mdash;for example
+in England and France&mdash;the capitalists make use of this subterfuge, and
+very successfully too. The &lsquo;Socialist&rsquo; leaders, upon entering the
+Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads, puppets, simply a shield for
+the capitalists, a tool with which to defraud the workers. The
+&lsquo;democratic&rsquo; and &lsquo;republican&rsquo; capitalists in Russia set
+in motion this very same scheme. The Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki
+fell victim to it, and on June 1st a &lsquo;Coalition&rsquo; Ministry, with the
+participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny
+and Nikitin became an accomplished fact….&rdquo;&mdash;<i>Problems of the
+Revolution.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+4.<br />
+SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the first week of October, 1917, <i>Novaya Zhizn</i> published the following
+comparative table of election results, pointing out that this meant the
+bankruptcy of the policy of Coalition with the propertied classes. &ldquo;If
+civil war can yet be avoided, it can only be done by a united front of all the
+revolutionary democracy….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Elections for the Moscow Central and Ward Dumas.</i>
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td></td><td><i>June</i> 1917</td><td><i>September</i> 1917</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Socialist Revolutionaries</td><td>58 Members</td><td>14 Members</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Cadets</td><td>17 Members</td><td>30 Members</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Mensheviki</td><td>12 Members</td><td>4 Members</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Bolsheviki</td><td>11 Members</td><td>47 Members</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="center">
+5.<br />
+GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE REACTIONARIES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+September 18th. The Cadet Shulgin, writing in a Kiev newspaper, said that the
+Provisional Government&rsquo;s declaration that Russia was a Republic
+constituted a gross abuse of its powers. &ldquo;We cannot admit either a
+Republic, or the present Republican Government…. And we are not sure that we
+want a Republic in Russia….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+October 23d. At a meeting of the Cadet party held at Riazan, M. Dukhonin
+declared, &ldquo;On March 1st we must establish a Constitutional Monarchy. We
+must not reject the legitimate heir to the throne, Mikhail
+Alexandrovitch….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+October 27th. Resolution passed by the Conference of Business Men at Moscow:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Conference… insists that the Provisional Government take the
+following immediate measures in the Army:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;1. Forbidding of all political propaganda; the Army must be out of
+politics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;2. Propaganda of antinational and international ideas and theories deny
+the necessity for armies, and hurt discipline; it should be forbidden, and all
+propagandists punished….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;3. The function of the Army Committees must be limited to economic
+questions exclusively. All their decisions should be confirmed by their
+superior officers, who have the right to dissolve the Committees at any time….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;4. The salute to be reestablished, and made obligatory. Full
+reestablishment of disciplinary power in the hands of officers, with right of
+review of sentence….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;5. Expulsion from the Corps of Officers of those who dishonour it by
+participating in the movement of the soldier-masses, which teaches them
+disobedience…. Reestablishment for this purpose of the Courts of Honor….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;6. The Provisional Government should take the necessary measures to make
+possible the return to the army of Generals and other officers unjustly
+discharged under the influence of Committees, and other irresponsible
+organisations….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<p class="center">
+1.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming volume,
+&ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.&rdquo; The responsibility of Kerensky for the
+situation which gave rise to Kornilov&rsquo;s attempt is now pretty clearly
+established. Many apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of Kornilov&rsquo;s
+plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then crushed him. Even Mr.
+A. J. Sack, in his book, &ldquo;The Birth of the Russian Democracy,&rdquo;
+says:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Several things… are almost certain. The first is that Kerensky knew
+about the movement of several detachments from the Front toward Petrograd, and
+it is possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of War, realising the
+growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only flaw in that argument is that there was no &ldquo;Bolshevist
+danger&rdquo; at that time, the Bolsheviki still being a powerless minority in
+the Soviets, and their leaders in jail or hiding.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+2.<br />
+DEMOCRATIC CONFERENCE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the Democratic Conference was first proposed to Kerensky, he suggested an
+assembly of all the elements in the nation&mdash;&ldquo;the live forces,&rdquo;
+as he called them&mdash;including bankers, manufacturers, land-owners, and
+representatives of the Cadet party. The Soviet refused, and drew up the
+following table of representation, which Kerensky agreed to:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td>100 delegates</td><td>All-Russian Soviets Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>100 delegates</td><td>All-Russian Soviets Peasants&rsquo; Deputies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>50 delegates</td><td>Provincial Soviets Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>50 delegates</td><td>Peasants&rsquo; District Land Committees</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>100 delegates</td><td>Trade Unions </td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>84 delegates</td><td>Army Committees at the Front</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>150 delegates</td><td>Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Cooperative
+Societies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>20 delegates</td><td>Railway Workers&rsquo; Union</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>10 delegates</td><td>Post and Telegraph Workers&rsquo; Union</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>20 delegates</td><td>Commercial Clerks</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>15 delegates</td><td>Liberal Professions&mdash;Doctors, Lawyers,
+Journalists, etc.</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>50 delegates</td><td>Provincial Zemstvos</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>59 delegates</td><td>Nationalist Organisations&mdash;Poles, Ukraineans,
+etc.</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final disposition of
+delegates was:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td>300 delegates</td><td>All-Russian Soviets Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo;
+&amp; Peasants&rsquo; Deputies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>300 delegates</td><td>Cooperative Societies</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>300 delegates</td><td>Municipalities</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>150 delegates</td><td>Army Committees at the Front</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>150 delegates</td><td>Provincial Zemstvos</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>200 delegates</td><td>Trade Unions</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>100 delegates</td><td>Nationalist Organisations</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>200 delegates</td><td>Several small groups</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="center">
+3.<br />
+THE FUNCTION OF THE SOVIETS IS ENDED
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On September 28th, 1917, <i>Izviestia,</i> organ of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i>
+published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional Ministry:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all classes
+of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future liberal parliamentary
+régime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the Constituent Assembly, which will
+solve all questions of fundamental law, and whose composition will be
+essentially democratic. The function of the Soviets is at an end, and the time
+is approaching when they must retire, with the rest of the revolutionary
+machinery, from the stage of a free and victorious people, whose weapons shall
+hereafter be the peaceful ones of political action.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The leading article of <i>Izviestia</i> for October 23d was called, &ldquo;The
+Crisis in the Soviet Organisations.&rdquo; It began by saying that travellers
+reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere. &ldquo;This is
+natural,&rdquo; said the writer. &ldquo;For the people are becoming interested
+in the more permanent legislative organs&mdash;the Municipal Dumas and the
+Zemstvs….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets were
+best organised, they did not take in all the democratic elements…. The majority
+of the intellectuals did not participate, and many workers also; some of the
+workers because they were politically backward, others because the centre of
+gravity for them was in their Unns…. We cannot deny that these organisations
+are firmly united with the masses, whose everyday needs are better served by
+them….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That the local democratic administrations are being energetically
+organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by universal
+suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority than the Soviets. Not
+a single democrat will see anything wrong in this….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and more
+democratic way than the elections to the Soviets… All classes are represented
+in the Municipalities…. And as soon as the local Self-Governments begin to
+organise life in the Municipalities, the rôle of the local Soviets naturally
+ends….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… There are two factors in the falling off of interest in the Soviets.
+The first we may attribute to the lowering of political interest in the masses;
+the second, to the growing effort of provincial and local governing bodies to
+organise the building of new Russia…. The more the tendency lies in this latter
+direction, the sooner disappears the significance of the Soviets….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We ourselves are being called the &lsquo;undertakers&rsquo; of our own
+organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in constructing
+the new Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic régime fell, we set up the
+Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary shelter.
+Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent edifice of a new
+system, and naturally the people will gradually leave the barracks for more
+comfortable quarters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+4.<br />
+TROTZKY&rsquo;S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> was to do away with the irresponsible personal government
+which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible government which would
+be capable of finishing the war, and ensure the calling of the Constituent
+Assembly at the given time. In the meanwhile behind the back of the Democratic
+Conference, by trickery, by deals between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the
+leaders of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the
+opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power was created
+around which and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs playing leading
+parts. The irresponsibility of the Government is offically proclaimed, when it
+is announced that the Council of the Russian Republic is to be a
+<i>consultative</i> and not <i>legislative</i> body. In the eighth month of the
+Revolution, the irresponsible Government creates a cover for itself in this new
+edition of Bieligen&rsquo;s Duma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a
+proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country, that many
+of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the Cadet party, which
+until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government to be responsible to the
+State Duma&mdash;this same Cadet party secured the independence Assembly the
+propertied classes will no doubt have as favourable position than they have in
+this Council, and they will not be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent
+Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the propertied classes were really getting ready for the Constituent
+Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no reason for establishing the
+irresponsibility of the Government at this time. The whole truth is that the
+bourgeoisie, which directs the policies of the Provisional Government, has for
+its aim to break the Constituent Assembly. At present this is the main purpose
+of the propertied classes, which control our entire national
+policy&mdash;external and internal. In the industrial, agrarian and supply
+departments the politics of the propertied classes, acting with the Government,
+increases the natural disorganisation caused by the war. The propertied
+classes, which are provoking a peasants&rsquo; revolt! The propertied classes,
+which are provoking civil war, and openly hold their course on the bony hand of
+hunger, with which they intend to overthrow the Revolution and finish with the
+Constituent Assembly!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No less criminal also is the international policy of the bourgeoisie and
+its Government. After forty months of war, the capital is threatened with
+mortal danger. In reply to this arises a plan to move the Government to Moscow.
+The idea of abandoning the capital does not stir the indignation of the
+bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is accepted as a natural part of the general
+policy designed to promote counter-revolutionary conspiracy. … Instead of
+recognising that the salvation of the country lies in concluding peace, instead
+of throwing openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out peoples,
+over the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the continuation of
+the war impossible,&mdash;the Provisional Government, by order of the Cadets,
+the Counter-Revolutionists and the Allied Imperialists, without sense, without
+purpose and without a plan, continues to drag on the murderous war, sentencing
+to useless death new hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors, and
+preparing to give up Petrograd, and to wreck the Revolution. At a time when
+Bolshevik soldiers and sailors are dying with other soldiers and sailors as a
+result of the mistakes and crimes of others, the so-called Supreme Commander
+(Kerensky) continues to suppress the Bolshevik press. The leading parties of
+the Council are acting as a voluntary cover for these policies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce that with this
+Government of Treason to the People we have nothing in common. We have nothing
+in common with the work of these Murderers of the People which goes on behind
+official curtains. We refuse either directly or indirectly to cover up one day
+of this work. While Wilhelm&rsquo;s troops are threatening Petrograd, the
+Government of Kerensky and Kornilov is preparing to run away from Petrograd and
+turn Moscow into a base of counter-revolution!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their guard. Leaving
+this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom of the workers, peasants and
+soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd is in danger! The Revolution is in danger!
+The Government has increased the danger&mdash;the ruling classes intensify it.
+Only the people themselves can save themselves and the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest, democratic peace!
+All power to the Soviets! All land to the people! Long live the Constituent
+Assembly!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+5.<br />
+THE &ldquo;NAKAZ&rdquo; TO SKOBELIEV
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Resumé</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(Passed by the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> and given to Skobeliev as an instruction for
+the representative of the Russian Revolutionary democracy at the Paris
+Conference.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The peace treaty must be based on the principle, &ldquo;No annexations, no
+indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Territorial Problems</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(1) Evacuation of German troops from invaded Russia. Full right of
+self-determination to Poland, Lithuania and Livonia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(2) For Turkish Armenia autonomy, and later complete self-determination, as
+soon as local Governments are established.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(3) The question of Alsace-Lorraine to be solved by a plebiscite, after the
+withdrawal of all foreign troops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(4) Belgium to be restored. Compensation for damages from an international
+fund.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(5) Serbia and Montenegro to be restored, and aided by an international relief
+fund. Serbia to have an outlet on the Adriatic. Bosnia and Herzegovina to be
+autonomous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(6) The disputed provinces in the Balkans to have provisional autonomy,
+followed by a plebiscite.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(7) Rumania to be restored, but forced to give complete self-determination to
+the Dobrudja…. Rumania must be forced to execute the clauses of the Berlin
+Treaty concerning the Jews, and recognise them as Rumanian citizens.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(8) In Italia Irridenta a provisional autonomy, followed by a plebiscite to
+determine state dependence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(9) The German colonies to be returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(10) Greece and Persia to be restored.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Freedom of the Seas</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All straits opening into inland seas, as well as the Suez and Panama Canals,
+are to be neutralised. Commercial shipping to be free. The right of
+privateering to be abolished. The torpedoing of commercial ships to be
+forbidden.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Indemnities</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All combatants to renounce demands for any indemnities, either direct or
+indirect&mdash;as, for instance, charges for the maintenance of prisoners.
+Indemnities and contributions collected during the war must be refunded.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Economic Terms</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Commercial treaties are not to be a part of the peace terms. Every country must
+be independent in its commercial relations, and must not be obliged to, or
+prevented from, concluding an economic treaty, by the Treaty of Peace.
+Nevertheless, all nations should bind themselves, by the Peace Treaty, not to
+practise an economic blockade after the war, nor to form separate tariff
+agreements. The right of most favoured nation must be given to all countries
+without distinction.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Guarantees of Peace</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peace is to be concluded at the Peace Conference by delegates elected by the
+national representative institutions of each country. The peace terms are to be
+confirmed by these parliaments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Secret diplomacy is to be abolished; all parties are to bind themselves not to
+conclude any secret treaties. Such treaties are declared in contradiction to
+international law, and void. All treaties, until confirmed by the parliaments
+of the different nations, are to be considered void.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gradual disarmament both on land and sea, and the establishment of a militia
+system. The &ldquo;League of Nations&rdquo; advanced by President Wilson may
+become a valuable aid to international law, provided that (a), all nations are
+to be obliged to participate in it with equal rights, and (b), international
+politics are to be democratised.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Ways to Peace</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Allies are to announce immediately that they are willing to open peace
+negotiations as soon as the enemy powers declare their consent to the
+renunciation of all forcible annexations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Allies must bind themselves not to begin any peace negotiations, nor to
+conclude peace, except in a general Peace Conference with the participation of
+delegates from all the neutral countries.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All obstacles to the Stockholm Socialist Conference are to be removed, and
+passports are to be given immediately to all delegates of parties and
+organisations who wish to participate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(The Executive Committee of the Peasants&rsquo; Soviets also issued a
+<i>nakaz,</i> which differs little from the above.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+6.<br />
+PEACE AT RUSSIA&rsquo;S EXPENSE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Ribot revelations of Austria&rsquo;s peace-offer to France; the so-called
+&ldquo;Peace Conference&rdquo; at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer of
+1917, in which delegates participated from all belligerent countries,
+representing large financial interests in all these countries; and the
+attempted negotiations of an English agent with a Bulgarian church dignitary;
+all pointed to the fact that there were strong currents, on both sides,
+favourable to patching up a peace at the expense of Russia. In my next book,
+&ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,&rdquo; I intend to treat this matter at some
+length, publishing several secret documents discovered in the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs at Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+7.<br />
+RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Official Report of the Provisional Government.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From the time the news of the Russian Revolution reached Paris, Russian
+newspapers of extreme tendencies immediately began to appear; and these
+newspapers, as well as individuals, freely circulated among the soldier masses
+and began a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading false news which appeared in
+the French journals. In the absence of all official news, and of precise
+details, this campaign provoked discontent among the soldiers. The result was a
+desire to return to Russia, and a hatred toward the officers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Finally it all turned into rebellion. In one of their meetings, the
+soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to drill, since they had decided to fight
+no more. It was decided to isolate the rebels, and General Zankievitch ordered
+all soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government to leave the camp of Courtine,
+and to carry with them all ammunition. On June 25th the order was executed;
+there remained at the camp only the soldiers who said they would submit
+&lsquo;conditionally&rsquo; to the Provisional Government. The soldiers at the
+camp of Courtine received several times the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of
+the Russian Armies abroad, of Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and
+of several distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them, but these
+attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp insisted that the rebels
+lay down their arms, and, in sign of submission, march in good order to a place
+called Clairvaux. The order was only partially obeyed; first 500 men went out,
+of whom 22 were arrested; 24 hours later about 6,000 followed…. About 2,000
+remained….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was decided to increase the pressure; their rations were diminished,
+their pay was cut off, and the roads toward the village of Courtine were
+guarded by French soldiers. General Zankievitch, having discovered that a
+Russian artillery brigade was passing through France, decided to form a mixed
+detachment of infantry and artillery to reduce the rebels. A deputation was
+sent to the rebels; the deputation returned several hours later, convinced of
+the futility of the negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch sent an
+ultimatum to the rebels demanding that they lay down their arms, and menacing
+in case of refusal to open fire with artillery if the order was not obeyed by
+September 3d at 10 o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The order not being executed, a light fire of artillery was opened on
+the place at the hour agreed upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and the rebels
+were warned that the bombardment would become more intense. In the night of
+September 3d 160 men surrendered. September 4th the artillery bombardment
+recommenced, and at 11 o&rsquo;clock, after 36 shells had been fired, the
+rebels raised two white flags and began to leave the camp without arms. By
+evening 8,300 men had surrendered. 150 soldiers who remained in the camp opened
+fire with machine-guns that night. The 5th of September, to make an end of the
+affair, a heavy barrage was laid on the camp, and our soldiers occupied it
+little by little. The rebels kept up a heavy fire with their machine-guns.
+September 6th, at 9 o&rsquo;clock, the camp was entirely occupied…. After the
+disarmament of the rebels, 81 arrests were made….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus the report. From secret documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs, however, we know that the account is not strictly accurate. The first
+trouble arose when the soldiers tried to form Committees, as their comrades in
+Russia were doing. They demanded to be sent back to Russia, which was refused;
+and then, being considered a dangerous influence in France, they were ordered
+to Salonika. They refused to go, and the battle followed…. It was discovered
+that they had been left in camp without officers for about two months, and
+badly treated, before they became rebellious. All attempts to find out the name
+of the &ldquo;Russian artillery brigade&rdquo; which had fired on them were
+futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it to be inferred that
+French artillery was used….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were shot in cold
+blood.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+8.<br />
+TERESTCHENKO&rsquo;S SPEECH (<i>Resumé</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… The questions of foreign policy are closely related to those of
+national defence…. And so, if in questions of national defence you think it is
+necessary to hold session in secret, also in our foreign policy we are
+sometimes forced to observe the same secrecy….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;German diplomacy attempts to influence public opinion…. Therefore the
+declarations of directors of great democratic organisations who talk loudly of
+a revolutionary Congress, and the impossibility of another winter campaign, are
+dangerous…. All these declarations cost human lives….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish to speak merely of governmental logic, without touching the
+questions of the honour and dignity of the State. From the point of view of
+logic, the foreign policy of Russia ought to be based on a real comprehension
+of the <i>interests</i> of Russia…. These interests mean that it is impossible
+that our country remain alone, and that the present alignment of forces with
+us, (the Allies), is satisfactory…. All humanity longs for peace, but in Russia
+no one will permit a humiliating peace which would violate the State interests
+of our fatherland!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The orator pointed out that such a peace would for long years, if not for
+centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the world, and would
+inevitably cause new wars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All remember the days of May, when the fraternisation on our Front
+threatened to end the war by a simple cessation of military operations, and
+lead the country to a shameful separate peace… and what efforts it was
+necessary to use to make the soldier masses at the front understand that it was
+not by this method that the Russian State must end the war and guarantee its
+interest….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He spoke of the miraculous effect of the July offensive, what strength it gave
+to the words of Russian ambassadors abroad, and the despair in Germany caused
+by the Russian victories. And also, the disillusionment in Allied countries
+which followed the Russian defeat….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As to the Russian Government, it adhered strictly to the formula of May,
+&lsquo;No annexations and no punitive indemnities.&rsquo; We consider it
+essential not only to proclaim the self-determination of peoples, but also to
+renounce imperialist aims….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Germany is continually trying to make peace. The only talk in Germany is of
+peace; she knows she cannot win.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I reject the reproaches aimed at the Government which allege that
+Russian foreign policy does not speak clearly enough about the aims of the
+war….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the question arises as to what ends the Allies are pursuing, it is
+indispensable first to demand what aims the Central Powers have agreed upon….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The desire is often heard that we publish the details of the treaties
+which bind the Allies; but people forget that, up to now, we do not know the
+treaties which bind the Central Powers….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Germany, he said, evidently wants to separate Russia from the West by a series
+of weak buffer-states.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This tendency to strike at the vital interests of Russia must be
+checked….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And will the Russian democracy, which has inscribed on its banner the
+rights of nations to dispose of themselves, allow calmly the continuation of
+oppression upon the most civilised peoples (in Austria-Hungary)?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Those who fear that the Allies will try to profit by our difficult
+situation, to make us support more than our share of the burden of war, and to
+solve the questions of peace at our expense, are entirely mistaken…. Our enemy
+looks upon Russia as a market for its products. The end of the war will leave
+us in a feeble condition, and with our frontier open the flood of German
+products can easily hold back for years our industrial development. Measures
+must be taken to guard against this….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say openly and frankly: the combination of forces which unites us to
+the Allies is <i>favourable to the interests of Russia….</i> It is therefore
+important that our views on the questions of war and peace shall be in accord
+with the views of the Allies as clearly and precisely as possible…. To avoid
+all misunderstanding, I must say frankly that Russia must present at the Paris
+Conference <i>one point of view….</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did not want to comment on the <i>nakaz</i> to Skobeliev, but he referred to
+the Manifesto of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, just published in Stockholm.
+This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of Lithuania and Livonia; &ldquo;but
+that is clearly impossible,&rdquo; said Terestchenko, &ldquo;for Russia must
+have free ports on the Baltic all the year round….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this question the problems of foreign policy are also closely related
+to interior politics, for if there existed a strong sentiment of unity of all
+great Russia, one would not witness the repeated manifestations, everywhere, of
+a desire of peoples to separate from the Central Government…. Such separations
+are contrary to the interests of Russia, and the Russian delegates cannot raise
+the issue….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+9.<br />
+THE BRITISH FLEET (<i>etc.</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the time of the naval battle of the Gulf of Riga, not only the Bolsheviki,
+but also the Ministers of the Provisional Government, considered that the
+British Fleet had deliberately abandoned the Baltic, as one indication of the
+attitude so often expressed publicly by the British press, and semi-publicly by
+British representatives in Russia, &ldquo;Russia&rsquo;s finished! No use
+bothering about Russia!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+See interview with Kerensky (Appendix 13).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GENERAL GURKO was a former Chief of Staff of the Russian armies under the Tsar.
+He was a prominent figure in the corrupt Imperial Court. After the Revolution,
+he was one of the very few persons exiled for his political and personal
+record. The Russian naval defeat in the Gulf of Riga coincided with the public
+reception, by King George in London, of General Gurko, a man whom the Russian
+Provisional Government considered dangerously pro-German as well as
+reactionary!
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+10.<br />
+APPEALS AGAINST INSURRECTION
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>To Workers and Soldiers</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! The Dark Forces are increasingly trying to call forth in
+Petrograd and other towns DISORDERS AND <i>Pogroms.</i> Disorder is necessary
+to the Dark Forces, for disorder will give them an opportunity for crushing the
+revolutionary movement in blood. Under the pretext of establishing order, and
+of protecting the inhabitants, they hope to establish the domination of
+Kornilov, which the revolutionary people succeeded in suppressing not long ago.
+Woe to the people if these hopes are realised! The triumphant
+counter-revolution will destroy the Soviets and the Army Committees, will
+disperse the Constituent Assembly, will stop the transfer of the land to the
+Land Committees, will put an end to all the hopes of the people for a speedy
+peace, and will fill all the prisons with revolutionary soldiers and workers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In their calculations, the counter-revolutionists and Black Hundred
+leaders are counting on the serious discontent of the unenlightened part of the
+people with the disorganisation of the food-supply, the continuation of the
+war, and the general difficulties of life. They hope to transform every
+demonstration of soldiers and workers into a <i>pogrom,</i> which will frighten
+the peaceful population and throw it into the arms of the Restorers of Law and
+Order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under such conditions every attempt to organise a demonstration in these
+days, although for the most laudable object, would be a crime. All conscious
+workers and soldiers who are displeased with the policy of the Government will
+only bring injury to themselves and to the Revolution if they indulge in
+demonstrations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;THEREFORE THE <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> ASKS ALL WORKERS NOT TO OBEY ANY CALLS
+TO DEMONSTRATE.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! DO NOT YIELD TO PROVOCATION! REMEMBER YOUR
+DUTY TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO THE REVOLUTION! DO NOT BREAK THE UNITY OF THE
+REVOLUTIONARY FRONT BY DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH ARE BOUND TO BE
+UNSUCCESSFUL!&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and
+Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies (Tsay-ee-kah)</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Russian Social Democratic Labour Party</i> THE DANGER IS NEAR! To All
+Workers and Soldiers (<i>Read and Hand to Others</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Comrades Workers and Soldiers!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our country is in danger. On account of this danger our freedom and our
+Revolution are passing through difficult days. The enemy is at the gates of
+Petrograd. The disorganisation is growing with every hours. It becomes more and
+more difficult to obtain bread for Petrograd. All, of from the smallest to the
+greatest, must redouble their efforts, must endeavour to arrange things
+properly…. We must save our country, save freedom…. More arms and provisions
+for the Army! Bread&mdash;for the great cities. Order and organisation in the
+country….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And in these terrible critical days rumours creep about that SOMEWHERE a
+demonstration is being prepared, that SOME ONE is calling on the soldiers and
+workers to destroy revolutionary peace and order…. <i>Rabotchi Put,</i> the
+newspaper of the Bolsheviki, is pouring oil on the flames: it flattering,
+trying to please the unenlightened people, tempting the worker and soldiers,
+urging them on against the Government, promising them mountains of good
+things…. The confiding, ignorant men believe, they do not reason…. And from the
+other side come also rumours&mdash;rumours that the Dark Forces, the friends of
+the Tsar, the German spies, are rubbing their hands with glee. They are ready
+to join the Bolsheviki, and with them fan the disorders into civil war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolsheviki and the ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them cry
+senselessly: &lsquo;Down with the Government! All power to the Soviets!&rsquo;
+And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm will egg the on;
+&lsquo;Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the markets, devastate the
+shops, pillage the wine stores! Slay, burn, rob!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And then will begin a terrible confusion, a war between one part of the
+people and the other. All will become still more disorganised, and perhaps once
+more blood will be shed on the streets of the capital. And then what then?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, the road to Petrograd will be open to Wilhelm. Then, no bread will
+come to Petrograd, the children will die of hunger. Then, the Army as the front
+will remain without support, our brothers in the trenches will be delivered to
+the fire of the enemy. Then, Russia will lose all prestige in other countries,
+our money will lose its value; everything will be so dear as to make life
+impossible. Then, the long awaited Constituent Assembly will be
+postponed&mdash;it will be impossible to convene it in time. And
+then&mdash;Death to the Revolution, Death to our Liberty….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it this that you want, workers and soldiers? No! If you do not then
+go, go to the ignorant people seduced by the betrayers, and tell them the whole
+truth, which we have told you!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let all know that EVERY MAN WHO IN THESE TERRIBLE DAYS CALLS ON YOU TO
+COME OUT IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, IS EITHER A SECRET SERVANT OF
+THE TSAR, A PROVOCATOR, OR AN UNWISE ASSISTANT OF THE ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, OR
+A PAID SPY OF WILHELM!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every conscious worker revolutionist, every conscious peasant, every
+revolutionary soldier, all who understand what harm a demonstration or a revolt
+against the Government might cause to the people, must join together and not
+allow the enemies of the people to destroy our freedom.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Petrograd Electoral Committee of the Mensheviki-oborontzi.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+11.<br />
+LENIN&rsquo;s &ldquo;LETTER TO THE COMRADES&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This series of articles appeared in <i>Rabotchi Put</i> several days running,
+at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I give here only
+extracts from two instalments:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the people, and
+that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers, pedants,
+or simply don&rsquo;t want to look the real situation in the face. In the last
+elections we received in all the country more than fifty per cent of all
+thevotes….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants&rsquo;
+revolution. In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian uprising with
+wonderful political results…. Even <i>Dielo Naroda</i> has been scared into
+yelling that the land must be turned over to the peasants, and not only the
+Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council of the Republic, but also the
+Government itself, has been similarly affected. Another valuable result was the
+bringing of bread which had been hoarded by the <i>pomieshtchiki</i> to the
+railroad stations in that province. The <i>Russkaya Volia</i> had to admit that
+the stations were filled with bread after the peasants&rsquo; rising….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and the
+bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Constituent Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as regards
+workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of the bourgeoisie.
+If <i>yunkers</i> and Cossacks say they will fight, you believe them; if
+workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is the distinction between such
+doubts and siding politically with the bourgeoisie?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe
+Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not strong
+enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break the Constituent.
+But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the Constituent by sabotage, by
+lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by opening the front to the Germans. This
+has already been done in the case of Riga….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government to
+force the calling of the Constituent Assembly, and to suppress any further
+Kornilov attempts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of &lsquo;All Power to the
+Soviets.&rsquo; Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the
+question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes in the
+faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have &lsquo;promised&rsquo; to call the
+Constituent Assembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the calling of the
+Constituent is guaranteed, and its success assured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the
+&lsquo;Lieber-Dans.&rsquo; Either we must drop &lsquo;All Power to the
+Soviets&rsquo; or make an insurrection; there is no middle course.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos
+want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our heroic
+soldiers and sailors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the
+Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of Kornilovtsi. If
+the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give up Petrograd, it can do it
+doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements with the Germans or the British;
+open the fronts. It can sabotage the Army&rsquo;s food supply. At all these
+doors has it knocked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the Revolution.
+Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and truthfully served the
+bourgeoisie for years…. Half the Lieber-Dans are cowardly compromisers; half of
+them simple fatalists….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;5. We&rsquo;re getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the
+Constituent Assembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play everything
+on one card?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical
+experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called and
+trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the voting of the
+Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or beat Wilhelm…. The issue
+of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd cannot be decided by waiting for the
+Constituent Assembly. Hunger is not waiting. The peasants&rsquo; Revolution is
+not waiting. The Admirals who ran away did not wait.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals and
+generals, do not take an interest in voting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our strength.
+But why should we risk everything by making an attempt ourselves?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Answer: History doesn&rsquo;t repeat. &lsquo;Perhaps Kornilov will some
+day make an attempt!&rsquo; What a serious base for proletarian action! But
+suppose Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what
+then? This attitude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary party on one
+of the bourgeoisie&rsquo;s former mistakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the
+dictatorship of the proletariat&mdash;either that or the dictatorship of
+Kornilov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us wait, comrades, for&mdash;a miracle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+12.<br />
+MILIUKOV&rsquo;s SPEECH (<i>Resumé</i>)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our
+principal task, and that, to assure it, we must have discipline in the Army and
+order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a power capable of daring,
+not only by persuasion, but also by force…. The germ of all our evils comes
+from the point of view, original, truly Russian, concerning foreign policy,
+which passes for the Internationalist point of view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The noble Lenin only imitates the noble Keroyevsky when he holds that
+from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the aged West, and
+which will replace the old banner of doctrinary Socialism by the new direct
+action of starving masses&mdash;and that will push humanity forward and force
+it to break in the doors of the social paradise….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would bring about
+the decomposition of the whole capitalist régime. Starting from that point of
+view, they were able to commit the unconscious treason, in wartime, of calmly
+telling the soldiers to abandon the trenches, and instead of fighting the
+external enemy, creating internal civil war and attacking the proprietors and
+capitalists….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left, demanding what
+Socialist had ever advised such action….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat can
+condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and break down the
+dictatorship of these cliques…. Not by an accord between Governments for a
+limitation of armaments, but by the disarming of these Governments and the
+radical democratisation of the military system….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government as Ministers with
+the avowed purpose of carrying on the class struggle!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated these
+gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it was for Russia,
+and sent us some apostles of the Universal Conflagration….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no art
+of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the Allies,
+&lsquo;We want nothing, we haven&rsquo;t anything to fight with!&rsquo; And
+then our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the brotherhood of
+peoples will be accomplished!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that even
+Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of &ldquo;that unhappy
+document which will forever be your indictment.&rdquo; He then attacked
+Skobeliev, whose position in foreign assemblies, where he would appear as a
+Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy of his Government, would be
+so strange that people would say, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that gentleman carrying,
+and what shall we talk to him about?&rdquo; As for the <i>nakaz,</i> Miliukov
+said that he himself was a pacifist; that he believed in the creation of an
+International Arbitration Board, and the necessity for a limitation of
+armaments, and parliamentary control over secret diplomacy, which did not mean
+the abolition of secret diplomacy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for the Socialist ideas in the <i>nakaz,</i> which he called
+&ldquo;Stockholm ideas&rdquo;&mdash;peace without victory, the right of
+self-determination of peoples, and renunciation of the economic war&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of
+those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish to say,
+&lsquo;to the successes of the Revolution,&rsquo; because I believe that the
+defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the Revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One had
+only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to be convinced
+that, in this hall, the influence of the revolutionary democracy on foreign
+policy is so strong, that the Minister does not dare to speak face to face with
+it about the honour and dignity of Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We can see, in the <i>nakaz</i> of the Soviets, that the ideas of the
+Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction&mdash;that of
+Utopianism, and that of German interests….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the President,
+Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded by popular
+assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to undertake peace negotiations
+as soon as the enemy had renounced annexations, were pro-German. Recently
+Kuhlman said that a personal declaration bound only him who made it….
+&ldquo;Anyway, we will imitate the Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia were
+symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia, supported, said
+Miliukov, by German money…. Amid bedlam from the Left, he contrasted the
+clauses of the <i>nakaz</i> concerning Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia,
+with those treating of the nationalities in Germany and Austria. The
+<i>nakaz</i> embraced the German and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing to Terestchenko&rsquo;s speech, he contemptuously accused him of being
+afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to think in terms of
+the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must belong to Russia….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
+fighting, and that when he does know, he&rsquo;ll fight…. It is true that the
+soldier doesn&rsquo;t know why he is fighting, but now you have told him that
+there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no national interests, and
+that we are fighting for alien ends….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the assistance of America,
+&ldquo;will yet save the cause of humanity,&rdquo; he ended:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the West,
+who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only begin to enter,
+with ill-assured and hesitating steps! Long live our brave Allies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+13.<br />
+INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Associated Press man tried his hand. &ldquo;Mr. Kerensky,&rdquo; he began,
+&ldquo;in England and France people are disappointed with the
+Revolution&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I know,&rdquo; interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. &ldquo;Abroad the
+Revolution is no longer fashionable!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped
+fighting?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That is a foolish question to ask.&rdquo; Kerensky was annoyed.
+&ldquo;Russia entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she
+bore the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater than
+those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the right to demand
+of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms to bear.&rdquo; He stopped
+for a moment and stared at his interlocutor. &ldquo;You are asking why the
+Russians have stopped fighting, and the Russians are asking where is the
+British fleet&mdash;with German battle-ships in the Gulf of Riga?&rdquo; Again
+he ceased suddenly, and as suddenly burst out. &ldquo;The Russian Revolution
+hasn&rsquo;t failed and the revolutionary Army hasn&rsquo;t failed. It is not
+the Revolution which caused disorganisation in the army&mdash;that
+disorganisation was accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren&rsquo;t
+the Russians fighting? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are
+economically exhausted,&mdash;and because they are disillusioned with the
+Allies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United States, and
+in a few days sent back by the American State Department, with a demand that it
+be &ldquo;altered.&rdquo; This Kerensky refused to do; but it was done by his
+secretary, Dr. David Soskice&mdash;and, thus purged of all offensive references
+to the Allies, was given to the press of the world….
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Workers&rsquo; Control</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. (See page 43)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The organisation of Workers&rsquo; Control is a manifestation of the same
+healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are party
+organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in employment,
+Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary clubs in the sphere of
+culture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The working-class has much more interest in the proper and uninterrupted
+operation of factories… than the capitalist class. Workers&rsquo; Control is a
+better security in this respect for the interests of modern society, of the
+whole people, than the arbitrary will of the owners, who are guided only by
+their selfish desire for material profits or political privileges. Therefore
+Workers&rsquo; Control is demanded by the proletariat not only in their own
+interest, but in the interest of the whole country, and should be supported by
+the revolutionary peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. Considering the hostile attitude of the majority of the capitalist class
+toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper distribution of raw
+materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient management of factories, is
+impossible without Workers&rsquo; Control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. Only Workers&rsquo; Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the
+workers&rsquo; conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social
+meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a firm
+self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour&rsquo;s possible
+productivity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace basis, and
+the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well as among the
+different factories, can be accomplished without great disturbances only by
+means of the democratic self-government of the workers themselves…. Therefore
+the realisation of Workers&rsquo; Control is an indispensable preliminary to
+the demobilisation of industry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social Democratic
+Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers&rsquo; Control on a national scale, in order
+to bring results, must extend to all capitalist concerns, and not be organised
+accidentally, without system; it must be well-planned, and not separated from
+the industrial life of the country as a whole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. The economic life of the country&mdash;agriculture, industry, commerce and
+transport&mdash;must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so as to
+satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide masses of the
+people; it must be approved by their elected representatives, and carried out
+under the direction of these representatives by means of national and local
+organisations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried out under
+supervision of the peasants&rsquo; and land-workers&rsquo; organisations; that
+relating to industry, trade and transport operated by wage-earners, by means of
+Workers&rsquo; Control; the natural organs of Workers&rsquo; Control inside the
+industrial plant will be the Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the
+labour market, the Trade Unions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for the
+majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on all the owners
+of plants employing this kind of labour in the given district.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and management of the
+Trade Unions, as class organisations acting within the limits of the whole
+industrial plan, and in accordance with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to begin legal
+action against all employers who violate labour contracts or labour
+legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in any branch of
+labour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+13. On all questions relating to Workers&rsquo; Control over production,
+distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the workers of
+individual establishments through their Factory-Shop Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales, refusal of
+work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for abrogating agreements,
+disputes with the administration, and similar problems of the internal life of
+the factory, must be settled exclusively according to the findings of the
+Factory-Shop Committee, which has the right to exclude from participation in
+the discussion any members of the factory administration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the supplying of
+the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour power and technical staff
+(including equipment), and all other supplies and arrangements, and also to
+assure the factory&rsquo;s adherence to the general industrial plan. The
+factory administration is obliged to surrender to the organs of Workers&rsquo;
+Control, for their aid and information, all data concerning the business; to
+make it possible to verify this data, and to produce the books of the company
+upon demand of the Factory-Shop Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by the
+Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts, which cannot be
+investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall be referred to the
+district central organisation of Factory-Shop Committees charged with the
+particular branch of labour involved, which shall discuss the matter with the
+institutions charged with the execution of the general industrial plan, and
+find means to deal with the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the
+factory.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns must be
+accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order to facilitate
+control over the whole branch of industry, so as to come within the general
+industrial plan; and so as to create an effective plan of distribution among
+the different factories of orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour
+power; and also to facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are
+organised by trades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop Committees
+represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial and local
+institutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general industrial plan, and
+to organise economic relations between the towns and the villages (workers and
+peasants). They also possess final authority for the management of Factory-Shop
+Committees and Trade Unions, so far as Workers&rsquo; Control in their district
+is concerned, and they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning
+workers&rsquo; discipline in the routine of production&mdash;which regulations,
+however, must be approved by vote of the workers themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Russkaya Volia,</i> October 28. &ldquo;The decisive moment approaches…. It
+is decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us… a second edition of
+the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that with their plans and
+intentions, with their impertinent policy of wishing to separate themselves
+from everything consciously national, they have been definitely defeated….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are the chances of Bolshevik success?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support is
+the… ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they work upon it
+by a demagogy which nothing can stop….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself
+morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a
+clearly-defined attitude toward the Bolsheviki….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal power,
+and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated as mutineers and
+traitors….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Birzhevya Viedomosti,</i> October 28. &ldquo;Now that the Bolsheviki have
+separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle against them
+is very much simpler&mdash;and it is not reasonable, in order to fight against
+Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation. The Government should not
+even allow the manifestation….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts
+punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their authors
+would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are carrying on is not
+a political struggle against the Government, or even for the power; it is
+propaganda for anarchy, massacres, and civil war. This propaganda must be
+extirpated at its roots; it would be strange to wait, in order to begin action
+against an agitation for <i>pogroms,</i> until the <i>pogroms</i> actually
+occurred….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Novoye Vremya,</i> November 1. &ldquo;… Why is the Government excited only
+about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets), and not about
+September 12th, or October 3d?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and
+that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our Allies
+smart….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the
+Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one attempted to put
+out the Russian conflagration?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were other things to do….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It
+crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every one is
+now asking, &lsquo;Did it ever exist?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<h5>MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Dielo Naroda,</i> October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). &ldquo;The most
+frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they impute
+exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary Government all the
+calamities which the masses are so cruelly suffering; when as a matter of fact
+these calamities spring from objective causes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They make golden promises to the masses, knowing in advance that they
+can fulfil none of them; they lead the masses on a false trail, deceiving them
+as to the source of all their troubles….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Dien,</i> October 30 (Menshevik). &ldquo;Is this really &lsquo;the freedom
+of the press&rsquo;? Every day <i>Novaya Rus</i> and <i>Rabotchi Put</i> openly
+incite to insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns
+actual crimes. Every day they urge <i>pogroms</i>…. Is that &lsquo;the freedom
+of the press&rsquo;?…
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the right
+to insist that the Government machinery does not remain passive while the
+threat of bloody riots endangers the lives of its citizens….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;YEDINSTVO&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+Plekhanov&rsquo;s paper, <i>Yedinstvo,</i> suspended publication a few weeks
+after the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report,
+<i>Yedinstvo</i> was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an announcement
+in the last number admitted that it was unable to continue <i>because there
+were too few subscribers</i>….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5.
+</p>
+
+<h5>WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?</h5>
+
+<p>
+The French newspaper <i>Entente</i> of Petrograd, on November 15th, published
+an article of which the following is a part:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government of
+Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong.
+Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which triumph
+over their adversaries. Conspirators&mdash;no!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously, without
+mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they multiplied their
+agitation, intensified their propaganda in the factories, the barracks, at the
+Front, in the country, everywhere, even fixing in advance the date of their
+taking up arms, the date of their seizure of the power….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>They</i>&mdash;conspirators? Never….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Central Army Committee</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… Above everything we insist upon the inflexible execution of the
+organised will of the majority of the people, expressed by the Provisional
+Government in accord with the Council of the Republic and the
+<i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> as organ of the popular power….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when a
+Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin of the
+country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a
+counter-revolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The interests of private groups and classes should be submitted to a
+single interest&mdash;that of augmenting industrial production, and
+distributing the necessities of life with fairness….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all
+deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do auxiliary service
+in the rear of the Army….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators of
+the people&rsquo;s will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour detachments to
+work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under enemy fire….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7.
+</p>
+
+<h5>EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH</h5>
+
+<p>
+Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops of the
+bourgeois press, where they printed <i>Rabotchi Put, Soldat,</i> and various
+proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia was ordered to clear
+these places, but found the offices barricaded, and armed men defending them.
+Soldiers who were ordered to attack the print-shops refused.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About midnight a Colonel with a company of <i>yunkers</i> arrived at the club
+&ldquo;Free Mind,&rdquo; with a warrant to arrest the editor of <i>Rabotchi
+Put.</i> Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and
+threatened to lynch the <i>yunkers.</i> The Colonel thereupon begged that he
+and the <i>yunkers</i> be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for safety.
+This request was granted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied the
+Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward morning the
+Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o&rsquo;clock the Telephone Exchange. At
+dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a cordon of troops was
+drawn about the Winter Palace.
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>EVENTS OF NOVEMBER 7TH</h5>
+
+<p>
+From 4 A. M. until dawn Kerensky remained at the Petrograd Staff Headquarters,
+sending orders to the Cossacks and to the <i>yunkers</i> in the Officers&rsquo;
+Schools in and around Petrograd&mdash;all of whom answered that they were
+unable to move.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Colonel Polkovnikov, Commandant of the City, hurried between the Staff and the
+Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky gave an order to open the
+bridges; three hours passed without any action, and then an officer and five
+men went out on their own initiative, and putting to flight a picket of Red
+Guards, opened the Nicolai Bridge. Immediately after they left, however, some
+sailors closed it again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky ordered the print-shop of <i>Rabotchi Put</i> to be occupied. The
+officer detailed to the work was promised a squad of soldiers; two hours later
+he was promised some <i>yunkers;</i> then the order was forgotten.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An attempt was made to recapture the Post Office and the Telegraph Agency; a
+few shots were fired, and the Government troops announced that they would no
+longer oppose the Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To a delegation of <i>yunkers</i> Kerensky said, &ldquo;As chief of the
+Provisional Government and as Supreme Commander I know nothing, I cannot advise
+you; but as a veteran revolutionist, I appeal to you, young revolutionists, to
+remain at your posts and defend the conquests of the Revolution.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Orders of Kishkin, November 7th:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By decree of the Provisional Government…. I am invested with
+extraordinary powers for the reestablishment of order in Petrograd, in complete
+command of all civil and military authorities….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In accordance with the powers conferred upon me by the Provisional
+Government, I herewith relieve from his functions as Commandant of the
+Petrograd Military District Colonel George Polkovnikov….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Appeal to the Population</i> signed by Vice-Premier Konovalov, November 7th:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens! Save the fatherland, the republic and your freedom. Maniacs
+have raised a revolt against the only governmental power chosen by the people,
+the Provisional Government….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The members of the Provisional Government fulfil their duty, remain at
+their post, and continue to work for the good of the fatherland, the
+reestablishment of order, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly,
+future sovereign of Russia and of all the Russian peoples….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens, you must support the Provisional Government. You must
+strengthen its authority. You must oppose these maniacs, with whom are joined
+all enemies of liberty and order, and the followers of the Tsarist régime, in
+order to wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy the conquests of the
+Revolution, and the future of our dear fatherland….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens! Organise around the Provisional Government for the defence of
+its temporary authority, in the name of order and the happiness of all
+peoples….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Proclamation of the Provisional Government.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Petrograd Soviet…. has declared the Provisional Government
+overthrown, and has demanded that the Governmental power be turned over to it,
+under threat of bombarding the Winter Palace with the cannon of Peter-Paul
+Fortress, and of the cruiser <i>Avrora,</i> anchored in the Neva.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Government can surrender its authority only to the Consituent
+Assembly; for that reason it has decided not to submit, and to demand aid from
+the population and the Army. A telegram has been sent to the <i>Stavka;</i> and
+an answer received says that a strong detachment of troops is being sent….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let the Army and the People reject the irresponsible attempts of the
+Bolsheviki to create a revolt in the rear….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About 9 A. M. Kerensky left for the Front….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Toward evening two soldiers on bicycles presented themselves at the Staff
+Headquarters, as delegates of the garrison of Peter-Paul Fortress. Entering the
+meeting-room of the Staff, where Kishkin, Rutenburg, Paltchinski, General
+Bagratouni, Colonel Paradielov and Count Tolstoy were gathered, they demanded
+the immediate surrender of the Staff; threatening, in case of refusal, to
+bombard headquarters…. After two panicky conferences the Staff retreated to the
+Winter Palace, and the headquarters were occupied by Red Guards….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Late in the afternoon several Bolshevik armoured cars cruised around the Palace
+Square, and Soviet soldiers tried unsuccessfully to parley with the
+<i>yunkers</i>….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Firing on the Palace began about 7 o&rsquo;clock in the evening….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At 10 P. M. began an artillery bombardment from three sides, in which most of
+the shells were blanks, only three small shrapnels striking the façade of the
+Palace….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>KERENSKY IN FLIGHT</h5>
+
+<p>
+Leaving Petrograd in the morning of November 7th, Kerensky arrived by
+automobile at Gatchina, where he demanded a special train. Toward evening he
+was in Ostrov, Province of Pskov. The next morning, extraordinary session of
+the local Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Depulies, with
+participation of Cossack delegates&mdash;there being 6,000 Cossacks at Ostrov.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky spoke to the assembly, appealing for aid against the Bolsheviki, and
+addressed himself almost exclusively to the Cossacks. The soldier delegates
+protested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo; shouted voices. Kerensky answered,
+&ldquo;To ask the Cossacks&rsquo; assistance in crushing the Bolshevik
+insurrection!&rdquo; At this there were violent protestations, which increased
+when he continued, &ldquo;I broke the Kornilov attempt, and I will break the
+Bolsheviki!&rdquo; The noise became so great that he had to leave the
+platform….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The soldier deputies and the Ussuri Cossacks decided to arrest Kerensky, but
+the Don Cossacks prevented them, and got him away by train…. A Military
+Revolutionary Committee, set up during the day, tried to inform the garrison of
+Pskov; but the telephone and telegraph lines were cut….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky did not arrive at Pskov. Revolutionary soldiers had cut the railway
+line, to prevent troops being sent against the capital. On the night of
+November 8th he arrived by automobile at Luga, where he was well received by
+the Death Battalions stationed there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day he took train for the South-West Front, and visited the Army Committee
+at headquarters. The Fifth Army, however, was wild with enthusiasm over the
+news of the Bolshevik success, and the Army Committee was unable to promise
+Kerensky any support.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From there he went to the <i>Stavka,</i> at Moghilev, where he ordered ten
+regiments from different parts of the Front to move against Petrograd. The
+soldiers almost unanimously refused; and those regiments which did start halted
+on the way. About five thousand Cossacks finally followed him….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<h5>LOOTING OF THE WINTER PALACE</h5>
+
+<p>
+I do not mean to maintain that there was no looting, in the Winter Palace. Both
+after and <i>before</i> the Winter Palace fell, there was considerable
+pilfering. The statement of the Socialist Revolutionary paper <i>Narod,</i> and
+of members of the City Duma, to the effect that precious objects to the value
+of 500,000,000 rubles had been stolen, was, however, a gross exaggeration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most important art treasures of the Palace&mdash;paintings, statues,
+tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,&mdash;had been transferred to Moscow
+during the month of September; and they were still in good order in the
+basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the capture of the Kremlin
+by Bolshevik troops. I can personally testify to this….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Individuals, however, especially the general public, which was allowed to
+circulate freely through the Winter Palace for several days after its capture,
+made away with table silver, clocks, bedding, mirrors and some odd vases of
+valuable porcelain and semi-precious stone, to the value of about $50,000.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission, composed of
+artists and archæologists, to recover the stolen objects. On November 1st two
+proclamations were issued:
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;CITIZENS OF PETROGRAD!</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We urgently ask all citizens to exert every effort to find whatever
+possible of the objects stolen from the Winter Palace in the night of November
+7-8, and to forward them to the Commandant of the Winter Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Receivers of stolen goods, antiquarians, and all who are proved to be
+hiding such objects will be held legally responsible and punished with all
+severity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Commissars for the Protection of Museums and Artistic
+Collections,</i> &ldquo;G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;TO REGIMENTAL AND FLEET COMMITTEES</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the night of November 7-8, in the Winter Palace, which is the
+inalienable property of the Russian people, valuable objects of art were
+stolen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We urgently appeal to all to exert every effort, so that the stolen
+objects are returned to the Winter Palace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Commissars</i>….<br />
+    &ldquo;G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About half the loot was recovered, some of it in the baggage of foreigners
+leaving Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A conference of artists and archæologists, held at the suggestion of Smolny,
+appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter Palace treasures,
+which was given complete charge of the Palace and of all artistic collections
+and State museums in Petrograd. On November 16th the Winter Palace was closed
+to the public while the inventory was being made….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the last week in November a decree was issued by the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars, changing the name of the Winter Palace to
+&ldquo;People&rsquo;s Museum,&rdquo; entrusting it to the complete charge of
+the artistic-archæological commission, and declaring that henceforth all
+Governmental activities within its wall were prohibited….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>RAPE OF THE WOMEN&rsquo;S BATTALION</h5>
+
+<p>
+Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts of sensational
+stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press, and told in the City Duma,
+about the fate of the Women&rsquo;s Battalion defending the Palace. It was said
+that some of the girl-soldiers had been thrown from the windows into the
+street, most of the rest had been violated, and many had committed suicide as a
+result of the horrors they had gone through.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On November
+16th the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters of the Women&rsquo;s
+Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had been at first taken to
+the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and that there some of them had been
+badly treated; but that at present most of them were at Levashovo, and the rest
+scattered about the city in private houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the
+commission, testified drily that <i>none</i> of the women had been thrown out
+of the windows of the Winter Palace, that <i>none</i> were wounded, that three
+had been violated, and that one had committed suicide, leaving a note which
+said that she had been &ldquo;disappointed in her ideals.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On November 21st the Military Revolutionary Committee officially dissolved the
+Women&rsquo;s Battalion, at the request of the girls themselves, who returned
+to civilian clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Louise Bryant&rsquo;s book, &ldquo;Six Red Months in Russia,&rdquo; there is
+an interesting description of the girl-soldiers during this time.
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEALS AND PROCLAMATIONS</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Military Revolutionary Committee,</i> November 8:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To All Army Committees and All Soviets of Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Petrograd garrison has overturned the Government of Kerensky, which
+had risen against the Revolution and the People…. In sending this news to the
+Front and the country, the Military Revolutionary Committee requests all
+soldiers to keep vigilant watch on the conduct of officers. Officers who do not
+frankly and openly declare for the Revolution should be immediately arrested as
+enemies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Petrograd Soviet interprets the programme of the new Government as:
+immediate proposals of a general democratic peace, the immediate transfer of
+great landed estates to the peasants, and the honest convocation of the
+Constituent Assembly. The people&rsquo;s revolutionary Army must not permit
+troops of doubtful morale to be sent to Petrograd. Act by means of arguments,
+by means of moral suasion&mdash;but if that fails, halt the movement of troops
+by implacable force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The present order must be immediately read to all military units of
+every branch of the service. Whoever keeps the knowledge of this order from the
+soldier-masses…. commits a serious crime against the Revolution, and will be
+punished with all the rigour of revolutionary law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soldiers! For peace, bread, land, and popular government!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To All Front and Rear Army, Corps, Divisional, Regimental and Company
+Committees, and All Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soldiers and Revolutionary Officers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Military Revolutionary Committee, by agreement with the majority of
+the workers, soldiers, and peasants, has decreed that General Kornilov and all
+the accomplices of his conspiracy shall be brought immediately to Petrograd,
+for incarceration in Peter-Paul Fortress and arraignment before a military
+revolutionary court-martial….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All who resist the execution of this decree are declared by the
+Committee to be traitors to the Revolution, and their orders are herewith
+declared null and void.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Military Revolutionary Committee Attached to the Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To all Provincial and District Soviets of Workers&rsquo;,
+Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, all arrested
+members of Land Committees are immediately set free. The Commissars who
+arrested them are to be arrested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From this moment all power belongs to the Soviets. The Commissars of the
+Provisional Government are removed. The presidents of the various local Soviets
+are invited to enter into direct relations with the revolutionary
+Government.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Military Revolutionary Committee.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>PROTEST OF THE MUNICIPAL DUMA</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Central City Duma, elected on the most democratic principles, has
+undertaken the burden of managing Municipal affairs and food supplies at the
+time of the greatest disorganisation. At the present moment the Bolshevik
+party, three weeks before the elections to the Constituent Assembly, and in
+spite of the menace of the external enemy, having removed by armed force the
+only legal revolutionary authority, is making an attempt against the rights and
+independence of the Municipal Self-Government, demanding submission to its
+Commissars and its illegal authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In this terrible and tragic moment the Petrograd City Duma, in the face
+of its constituents, and of all Russia, declares loudly that it will not submit
+to any encroachments on its rights and its independence, and will remain at the
+post of responsibility to which it has been called by the will of the
+population of the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Central City Duma of Petrograd appeals to all Dumas and Zemstvos of
+the Russian Republic to rally to the defence of one of the greatest conquests
+of the Russian Revolution&mdash;the independence and inviolability of popular
+self-government.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<h5>LAND DECREE&mdash;PEASANTS&rsquo; &ldquo;NAKAZ&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Land question can only be permanently settled by the general Constituent
+Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The most equitable solution of the Land question should be as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land cannot be
+sold, nor leased, nor mortgaged, nor alienated in any way. All dominical lands,
+lands attached to titles, lands belonging to the Emperor&rsquo;s cabinet, to
+monasteries, churches, possession lands, entailed lands, private estates,
+communal lands, peasant free-holds, and others, are confiscated without
+compensation, and become national property, and are placed at the disposition
+of the workers who cultivate them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those who are damaged because of this social transformation of the rights of
+property are entitled to public aid during the time necessary for them to adapt
+themselves to the new conditions of existence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All the riches beneath the earth&mdash;ores, oil, coal, salt, etc.&mdash;as
+well as forests and waters having a national importance, become the exclusive
+property of the State. All minor streams, lakes and forests are placed in the
+hands of the communities, on condition of being managed by the local organs of
+government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. All plots of land scientifically cultivated&mdash;gardens, plantations,
+nurseries, seed-plots, green-houses, and others&mdash;shall not be divided, but
+transformed into model farms, and pass into the hands of the State or of the
+community, according to their size and importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Buildings, communal lands and villages with their private gardens and their
+orchards remain in the hands of their present owners; the dimensions of these
+plots and the rate of taxes for their use shall be fixed by law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. All studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and bird-breeding
+establishments, and others, are confiscated and become national property, and
+are transferred either to the State or to the community, according to their
+size and importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All questions of compensation for the above are within the competence of the
+Constituent Assembly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. All inventoried agricultural property of the confiscated lands, machinery
+and live-stock, are transferred without compensation to the State or the
+community, according to their quantity and importance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The confiscation of such machinery or live-stock shall not apply to the small
+properties of peasants.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The right to use the land is granted to all citizens, without distinction of
+sex, who wish to work the land themselves, with the help of their families, or
+in partnership, and only so long as they are able to work. No hired labour is
+permitted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the event of the incapacity for work of a member of the commune for a period
+of two years, the commune shall be bound to render him assistance during this
+time by working his land in common.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farmers who through old age or sickness have permanently lost the capacity to
+work the land themselves, shall surrender their land and receive instead a
+Government pension.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. The use of the land should be equalised&mdash;that is to say, the land shall
+be divided among the workers according to local conditions, the unit of labour
+and the needs of the individual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The way in which land is to be used may be individually determined upon: as
+homesteads, as farms, by communes, by partnerships, as will be decided by the
+villages and settlements.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. All land upon its confiscation is pooled in the general People&rsquo;s Land
+Fund. Its distribution among the workers is carried out by the local and
+central organs of administration, beginning with the village democratic
+organisations and ending with the central provincial institutions&mdash;with
+the exception of urban and rural cooperative societies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Land Fund is subject to periodical redistribution according to the increase
+of population and the development of productivity and rural economy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In case of modification of the boundaries of allotments, the original centre of
+the allotment remains intact.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lands of persons retiring from the community return to the Land Fund;
+providing that near relatives of the persons retiring, or friends designated by
+them, shall have preference in the redistribution of these lands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When lands are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for manuring or
+improving the land, which has not been exhausted, shall be reimbursed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If in some localities the Land Fund is insufficient to satisfy the local
+population, the surplus population should emigrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The organisation of the emigration, also the costs thereof, and the providing
+of emigrants with the necessary machinery and live-stock, shall be the business
+of the State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The emigration shall be carried out in the following order: first, the peasants
+without land who express their wish to emigrate; then the undesirable members
+of the community, deserters, etc., and finally, by drawing lots on agreement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All which is contained in this <i>nakaz,</i> being the expression of the
+indisputable will of the great majority of conscious peasants of Russia, is
+declared to be a temporary law, and until the convocation of the Constituent
+Assembly, becomes effective immediately so far as is possible, and in some
+parts of it gradually, as will be determined by the District Soviets of
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE LAND AND DESERTERS</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Government was not forced to make any decision concerning the rights of
+deserters to the land. The end of the war and the demobilisation of the army
+automatically removed the deserter problem….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE&rsquo;S COMMISSARS</h5>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars was at first composed entirely of
+Bolsheviki. This was not entirely the fault of the Bolsheviki, however. On
+November 8th they offered portfolios to members of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, who declined. See page 273. {of original volume}
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEALS AND DENUNCIATIONS</h5>
+
+<p>
+Appeal to all Citizens and to the Military Organisations of the Socialist
+Revolutionary Party.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete
+failure. The garrison is disaffected…. The Ministries are idle, bread is
+lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the Congress of
+Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts, acts of vandalism and
+pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace, arbitrary arrests&mdash;all
+these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have aroused against them the
+resentment of the majority of the sailors and soldiers. The <i>Tsentroflot</i>
+refuses to submit to the orders of the Bolsheviki….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We call upon all sane elements to gather around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution; to take serious measures to be ready, at
+the first call of the Central Committee of the Party, to act against the
+counter-revolutionists, who will doubtless attempt to profit by these troubles
+provoked by the Bolshevik adventure, and to watch closely the external enemy,
+who also would like to take advantage of this opportune moment when the Front
+is weakened….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Military Section of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary
+Party.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From <i>Pravda:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is Kerensky?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A usurper, whose place is in Peter-Paul prison, with Kornilov and
+Kishkin.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A criminal and a traitor to the workers, soldiers and peasants, who
+believed in him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kerensky? A murderer of soldiers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kerensky? A public executioner of peasants!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Kerensky? A strangler of workers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Such is the second Kornilov who now wants to butcher Liberty!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>TWO DECREES</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Press</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the serious decisive hour of the Revolution and the days immediately
+following it, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is compelled to adopt a
+series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press of all shades.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Immediately on all sides there are cries that the new Socialist authority is in
+this violating the essential principles of its own programme by an attempt
+against the freedom of the press.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government calls the attention of the
+population to the fact that in our country, behind this liberal shield, is
+hidden the opportunity for the wealthier classes to seize the lion&rsquo;s
+share of the whole press, and by this means to poison the popular mind and
+bring confusion into the consciousness of the masses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every one knows that the bourgeois press is one of the most powerful weapons of
+the bourgeoisie. Especially in this critical moment, when the new authority of
+the workers and peasants is in process of consolidation, it is impossible to
+leave it in the hands of the enemy, at a time when it is not less dangerous
+than bombs and machine-guns. This is why temporary and extraordinary measures
+have been adopted for the purpose of stopping the flow of filth and calumny in
+which the yellow and green press would be glad to drown the young victory of
+the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as the new order is consolidated, all administrative measures against
+the press will be suspended; full liberty will be given it within the limits of
+responsibility before the law, in accordance with the broadest and most
+progressive regulations….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bearing in mind, however, the fact that any restrictions of the freedom of the
+press, even in critical moments, are admissible only within the bounds of
+necessity, the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars decrees as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The following classes of newspapers shall be subject to closure: (a) Those
+inciting to open resistance or disobedience to the Workers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Government; (b) Those creating confusion by obviously and
+deliberately perverting the news; (c) Those inciting to acts of a criminal
+character punishable by the laws.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The temporary or permanent closing of any organ of the press shall be
+carried out only by virtue of a resolution of the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The present decree is of a temporary nature, and will be revoked by a
+special <i>ukaz</i> when normal conditions of public life are re-established.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>VLADIMIR ULIANOV (LENIN).</h5>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On Workers&rsquo; Militia</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. All Soviets of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies shall form a
+Workers&rsquo; Militia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. This Workers&rsquo; Militia shall be entirely at the orders of the Soviets
+of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. Military and civil authorities must render every assistance in arming the
+workers and in supplying them with technical equipment, even to the extent of
+requisitioning arms belonging to the War Department of the Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. This decree shall be promulgated by telegraph. Petrograd, November 10, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>People&rsquo;s Commissar of the Interior</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>A. I. RYKOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+This decree encouraged the formation of companies of Red Guards all over
+Russia, which became the most valuable arm of the Soviet Government in the
+ensuing civil war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE STRIKE FUND</h5>
+
+<p>
+The fund for the striking Government employees and bank clerks was subscribed
+by banks and business houses of Petrograd and other cities, and also by foreign
+corporations doing business in Russia. All who consented to strike against the
+Bolsheviki were paid full wages, and in some cases their pay was increased. It
+was the realisation of the strike fund contributors that the Bolsheviki were
+firmly in power, followed by their refusal to pay strike benefits, which
+finally broke the strike.
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>KERENSKY&rsquo;S ADVANCE</h5>
+
+<p>
+On November 9th Kerensky and his Cossacks arrived at Gatchina, where the
+garrison, hopelessly split into two factions, immediately surrendered. The
+members of the Gatchina Soviet were arrested, and at first threatened with
+death; later they were released on good behaviour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Cossack advance-guards, practically unopposed, occupied Pavlovsk,
+Alexandrovsk and other stations, and reached the outskirts of Tsarskoye Selo
+next morning&mdash;November 10th. At once the garrison divided into three
+groups&mdash;the officers, loyal to Kerenskly; part of the soldiers and
+non-commissioned officers, who declared themselves &ldquo;neutral&rdquo;; and
+most of the rank and file, who were for the Bolsheviki. The Bolshevik soldiers,
+who were without leaders or organisation, fell back toward the capital. The
+local Soviet also withdrew to the village of Pulkovo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Pulkovo six members of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet went with an
+automobile-load of proclamations to Gatchina, to propagandise the Cossacks.
+They spent most of the day going around Gatchina from one Cossack barracks to
+another, pleading, arguing and explaining. Toward evening some officers
+discovered their presence and they were arrested and brought before General
+Krasnov, who said, &ldquo;You fought against Kornilov; now you are opposing
+Kerensky. I&rsquo;ll have you all shot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After reading aloud to them the order appointing him commander-in-chief of the
+Petrograd District, Krasnov asked if they were Bolsheviki. They replied in the
+affirmative&mdash;upon which Krasnov went away; a short time later an officer
+came and set them free, saying that it was by order of General Krasnov….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meanwhile delegations continued to arrive from Petrograd; from the Duma,
+the Committee for Salvation, and, last of all, from the <i>Vikzhel.</i> The
+Union of Railway Workers insisted that some agreement be reached to halt the
+civil war, and demanded that Kerensky treat with the Bolsheviki, and that he
+stop the advance on Petrograd. In case of refusal, the <i>Vikzhel</i>
+threatened a general strike at midnight of November 11th.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky asked to be allowed to discuss the matter with the Socialist Ministers
+and with the Committee for Salvation. He was plainly undecided.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 11th Cossack outposts reached Krasnoye Selo, from which the local Soviet
+and the heterogeneous forces of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+precipitately retired, some of them surrendering…. That night they also touched
+Pulkovo, where the first real resistance was encountered….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cossacks deserters began to dribble into Petrograd, declaring that Kerensky had
+lied to them, that he had spread broadcast over the front proclamations which
+said that Petrograd was burning, that the Bolsheviki had invited the Germans to
+come in, and that they were murdering women and children and looting
+indiscriminately….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately sent out some dozens of
+&ldquo;agitators,&rdquo; with thousands of printed appeals, to inform the
+Cossacks of the real situation….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>PROCLAMATIONS OF THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To All Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo;
+Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo;
+and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies charges the local Soviets immediately to take the
+most energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary anti-Semitic
+disturbances, and all <i>pogroms</i> of whatever nature. The honour of the
+workers&rsquo;, peasants&rsquo; and soldiers&rsquo; Revolution cannot tolerate
+any disorders….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the sailors
+have maintained complete order in the capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Workers, soldiers, and peasants, everywhere you should follow the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of keeping real
+revolutionary order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All revolutionary Russia and the whole world have their eyes on
+you….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The All-Russian Congress of Soviets decrees:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To abolish capital punishment at the Front, which was reintroduced by
+Kerensky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Complete freedom of propaganda is to be re-established in the country.
+All soldiers and revolutionary officers now under arrest for so-called
+political &lsquo;crimes&rsquo; are at once to be set free.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ex-Premier Kerensky, overthrown by the people, refuses to submit to
+the Congress of Soviets and attempts to struggle against the legal Government
+elected by the All-Russian Congress&mdash;the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars. The Front has refused to aid Kerensky. Moscow has rallied to the
+new Government. In many cities (Minsk, Moghilev, Kharkov) the power is in the
+hands of the Soviets. No infantry detachment consents to march against the
+Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government, which, in accord with the firm
+will of the Army and the people, has begun peace negotiations and has given the
+land to the peasants….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We give public warning that if the Cossacks do not halt Kerensky, who
+has deceived them and is leading them against Petrograd, the revolutionary
+forces will rise with all their might for the defence of the precious conquests
+of the Revolution&mdash;Peace and Land.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens of Petrograd! Kerensky fled from the city, abandoning the
+authority to Kishkin, who wanted to surrender the capital to the Germans;
+Rutenburg, of the Black Band, who sabotaged the Municipal Food Supply; and
+Paltchinsky, hated by the whole democracy. Kerensky has fled, abandoning you to
+the Germans, to famine, to bloody massacres. The revolting people have arrested
+Kerensky&rsquo;s Ministers, and you have seen how the order and supplying of
+Petrograd at once improved. Kerensky, at the demand of the aristocrat
+proprietors, the capitalists, speculators, marches against you for the purpose
+of giving back the land to the land-owners, and continuing the hated and
+ruinous war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens of Petrograd! We know that the great majority of you are in
+favour of the people&rsquo;s revolutionary authority, against the Kornilovtsi
+led by Kerensky. Do not be deceived by the lying declarations of the impotent
+bourgeois conspirators, who will be pitilessly crushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Workers, soldiers, peasants! We call upon you for revolutionary devotion
+and discipline.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Millions of peasants and soldiers are with us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The victory of the people&rsquo;s Revolution is assured!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE&rsquo;s COMMISSARS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this book I am giving only such decrees as are in my opinion pertinent to
+the Bolshevik conquest of power. The rest belong to a detailed account of the
+Structure of the Soviet State, for which I have no place in this work. This
+will be dealt with very fully in the second volume, now in preparation,
+&ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Concerning Dwelling-Places</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The independent Municipal Self-Governments have the right to sequestrate all
+unoccupied or uninhabited dwelling-places.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The Municipalities may, according to laws and arrangements established by
+them, install in all available lodgings citizens who have no place to live, or
+who live in congested or unhealthy lodgings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The Municipalities may establish a service of inspection of dwelling-places,
+organise it and define its powers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. The Municipalities may issue orders on the institution of House Committees,
+define their organisation, their powers and give them juridical authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. The Municipalities may create Housing Tribunals, define their powers and
+their authority.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. This decree is promulgated by telegraph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>People&rsquo;s Commissar of the Interior,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>A. I. RYKOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On Social Insurance</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of complete
+Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and village poor. The
+Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the capitalists, as well as the
+Government of coalition and conciliation, failed to realise the desires of the
+workers with regard to Social Insurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government, relying upon the support of
+the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies,
+announces to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that
+it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the formulas
+proposed by the Labour organisations:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for all urban
+and rural poor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity, such as
+illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood, orphanage, and
+unemployment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working capacity and
+unemployment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. Complete workers&rsquo; self-government of all Insurance institutions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,<br />
+                                <i>The People&rsquo;s Commissar of
+Labour,</i><br />
+                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On Popular Education</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Citizens of Russia!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for the first
+time the real power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this power both
+to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed People&rsquo;s
+Commissar of Education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The work of guiding in general the people&rsquo;s education, inasmuch as it
+remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent Assembly meets,
+entrusted to a Commission on the People&rsquo;s Education, whose chairman and
+executive is the People&rsquo;s Commissar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission? How is its
+sphere of competence determined?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The General Line of Educational Activity:</i> Every genuinely democratic
+power must, in the domain of education, in a country where illiteracy and
+ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the struggle against this darkness.
+It must acquire in the shortest time <i>universal literacy,</i> by organising a
+network of schools answering to the demands of modern pedagogics; it must
+introduce universal, obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the
+same time a series of such teachers&rsquo; institutes and seminaries as will in
+the shortest time furnish a powerful army of people&rsquo;s teachers so
+necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our boundless
+Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Decentralisation:</i> The State Commission on People&rsquo;s Education is by
+no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction and
+education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be transferred to
+the organs of local self-government. The independent work of the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own initiative cultural
+educational organisations, must be given full autonomy, both by the State
+centre and the Municipal centres.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to organise
+resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and private
+institutions, particularly to those with a class-character established by the
+workers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The State Committee on People&rsquo;s Education:</i> A whole series of
+invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the Revolution by
+the State Committee for People&rsquo;s Education, a tolerably democratic body
+as to its composition, and rich in experts. The State Commission sincerely
+desires the collaboration of this Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the request at
+once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee for the fulfilment of
+the following programme:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the sense of
+greater democratisation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. The revision of the Committee&rsquo;s rights in the sense of widening them,
+and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State institute for the
+elaboration of law projects calculated to reorganise public instruction and
+education in Russia upon democratic principles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws already
+created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact that in editing them
+the Committee had to take into account the bourgeois spirit of previous
+Ministries, which obstructed it even in this its narrowed form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any bureaucratic
+red tape, in the revolutionary order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Pedagogues and the Societists:</i> The State Commission welcomes the
+pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the people&mdash;the
+masters of the country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one measure in the domain of the people&rsquo;s education ought to be
+adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who represent
+the pedagogues.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached exclusively
+through the cooperation of specialists. This refers as well to reforms of the
+institutes of general education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces&mdash;this is how the
+Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State Committee, and
+in all its activities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the
+teachers&rsquo; status, and first of all of those very poor though almost most
+important contributors to the work of culture&mdash;the elementary school
+teachers. Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and at any cost. The
+proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an increase of salary to one
+hundred rubles per month. It would be a disgrace any longer to keep in poverty
+the teachers of the overwhelming majority of the Russian people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal elementary
+instruction. It must endeavour to organise a uniform secular school of several
+grades. The ideal is, equal and if possible higher education for all the
+citizens. So long as this idea has not been realised for all, the natural
+transition through all the schooling grades up to the university&mdash;a
+transition to a higher stage&mdash;must depend entirely upon the pupil&rsquo;s
+aptitude, and not upon the resources of his family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is
+particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal,
+imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must remember that
+education will serve them as the greatest instrument in their struggle for a
+better lot and for a spiritual growth. However needful it may be to curtail
+other articles of the people&rsquo;s budget, the expenses on education must
+stand high. A large educational budget is the pride and glory of a nation. The
+free and enfranchised peoples of Russia will not forget this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a thorough
+establishment of school education for children and youths. Adults, too, will be
+anxious to save themselves from the debasing position of a man who cannot read
+and write. The school for adults must occupy a conspicuous place in the general
+plan of popular instruction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Instruction and Education:</i> One must emphasise the difference between
+instruction and education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to his pupil.
+Education is a creative process. The personality of the individual is being
+&ldquo;educated&rdquo; throughout life, is being formed, grows richer in
+content, stronger and more perfect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The toiling masses of the people&mdash;the workmen, the peasants, the
+soldiers&mdash;are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But they
+are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the intellectuals
+nor any other power outside of themselves can give it to them. The school, the
+book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may here by only aids. They have their own
+ideas, formed by their social position, so different from the position of those
+ruling classes and intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have
+their own ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
+of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own fashion,
+the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear world-conception
+permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There is no more superb or
+beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our nearest descendants will be both
+witnesses and participants: The building by collective Labour of its own
+general, rich and free soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element. What is
+more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the masses
+themselves; for science and art have only in some of their parts a general
+human importance. They suffer radical changes with every far-reaching class
+upheaval.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also among the
+peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement has arisen;
+workers&rsquo; and soldiers&rsquo; organisations of this kind are multiplying
+rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the road before them is
+the first task of a revolutionary and popular government in the domain of
+democratic education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Constituent Assembly</i> will doubtless soon begin its work. It alone
+can permanently establish the order of national and social life in our country,
+and at the same time the general character of the organisation of popular
+education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really democratic
+character of the Constituent Assembly is assured. The line which the State
+Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will follow, will hardly suffer
+any modification under the influence of the Constituent Assembly. Without
+pre-determining it, the new People&rsquo;s Government considers itself within
+its rights in enacting in this domain a series of measures which aim at
+enriching and enlightening as soon as possible the spiritual life of the
+country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Ministry:</i> The present work must in the interim proceed through the
+Ministry of the People&rsquo;s Education. Of all the necessary alterations in
+its composition and construction the State Commission will have charge, elected
+by the Executive Committee of the Soviets and the State Committee. Of course
+the order of State authority in the domain of the people&rsquo;s education will
+be established by the Constituent Assembly. Until then, the Ministry must play
+the part of the executive apparatus for both the State Committee and the State
+Commission for People&rsquo;s Education.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pledge of the country&rsquo;s safety lies in the cooperation of all its
+vital and genuinely democratic forces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the honest
+enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its painful crisis, and
+through complete democracy to the reign of Socialism and the brotherhood of
+nations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>People&rsquo;s Commissar on Education,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>A. V. LUNACHARSKY.</h5>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Order in Which the Laws Are to be Ratified and Published.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the enacting and
+publishing of laws shall be carried out in the order decreed by the present
+Provisional Workmen&rsquo;s and Peasants&rsquo; Government, elected by the
+All-Russian Congress of Workers&rsquo;, Peasants&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Every bill is presented for consideration of the Government by the
+respective Ministry, signed by the duly authorised People&rsquo;s Commissar; or
+it is presented by the legislative section attached to the Government, signed
+by the chief of the section.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. After its ratification by the Government, the decree in its final edition,
+in the name of the Russian Republic, is signed by the president of the Council
+of People&rsquo;s Commissars, or for him by the People&rsquo;s Commissar who
+presented it for the consideration of the Government, and is then published.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. The date of publishing it in the official &ldquo;Gazette of the Provisional
+Workmen&rsquo;s and Peasants&rsquo; Government,&rdquo; is the date of its
+becoming law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. In the decree there may be appointed a date, other than the date of
+publication, on which it shall become law, or it may be promulgated by
+telegraph; in which case it is to be regarded in every locality as becoming law
+upon the publication of the telegram.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The promulgation of legislative acts of the government by the State Senate
+is abolished. The Legislative Section attached to the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars issues periodically a collection of regulations and orders of the
+government which possess the force of law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;,
+Peasants&rsquo;, and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies <i>(Tsay-ee-kah)</i> has at all
+times the right to cancel, alter or annul any of the Government decrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>In the name of the Russian Republic, the President of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>V. ULIANOV-LENIN.</h5>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE LIQUOR PROBLEM</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Order Issued by the Military Revolutonary Committee</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. Until further order the production of alcohol and alcoholic drinks is
+prohibited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. It is ordered to all producers of alcohol and alcoholic drinks to inform not
+later than on the 27th inst. of the exact site of their stores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. All culprits against this order will be tried by a Military Revolutionary
+Court.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE.</h5>
+
+<p>
+5.
+</p>
+
+<h5>ORDER NO. 2</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Committee of the Finland Guard Reserve Regiment to all House
+Committees and to the citizens of Vasili Ostrov.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bourgeoisie has chosen a very sinister method of fighting against the
+proletariat; it has established in various parts of the city huge wine depots,
+and distributes liquor among the soldiers, in this manner attempting to sow
+dissatisfaction in the ranks of the Revolutionary army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is herewith ordered to all house committees, that at 3 o&rsquo;clock, the
+time set for posting this order, they shall in person and secretly notify the
+President of the Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment, concerning the amount
+of wine in their premises.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those who violate this order will be arrested and given trial before a
+merciless court, and their property will be confiscated, and the stock of wine
+discovered will be
+</p>
+
+<h5>BLOWN UP WITH DYNAMITE</h5>
+
+<p>
+2 hours after this warning,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+because more lenient measures, as experience has shown, do not bring the
+desired results.
+</p>
+
+<h5>REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WARNING BEFORE THE EXPLOSIONS.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Regimental Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment.</i>
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE. BULLETIN NO. 2</h5>
+
+<p>
+November 12th, in the evening, Kerensky sent a proposition to the revolutionary
+troops&mdash;&ldquo;to lay down their arms.&rdquo; Kerensky&rsquo;s men opened
+artillery fire. Our artillery answered and compelled the enemy to be silent.
+The Cossacks assumed the offensive. The deadly fire of the sailors, the Red
+Guards and the soldiers forced the Cossacks to retreat. Our armoured cars
+rushed in among the ranks of the enemy. The enemy is fleeing. Our troops are in
+pursuit. The order has been given to arrest Kerensky. Tsarskoye Selo has been
+taken by the revolutionary troops.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Lettish Riflemen:</i> The Military Revolutionary Committee has received
+precise information that the valiant Lettish Riflemen have arrived from the
+Front and taken up a position in the rear of Kerensky&rsquo;s bands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The seizure of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo by Kerensky&rsquo;s detachments is
+to be explained by the complete absence of artillery and machine-guns in these
+places, whereas Kerensky&rsquo;s cavalry was provided with artillery from the
+beginning. The last two days were days of enforced work for our Staff, to
+provide the necessary quantity of guns, machine-guns, field telephones, etc.,
+for the revolutionary troops. When this work&mdash;with the energetic
+assistance of the District Soviets and the factories (the Putilov Works,
+Obukhov and others)&mdash;was accomplished, the issue of the expected encounter
+left no place for doubt: on the side of the revolutionary troops there was not
+only a surplus in quantity and such a powerful material base as Petrograd, but
+also an enormous moral advantage. All the Petrograd regiments moved out to the
+positions with tremendous enthusiasm. The Garrison Conference elected a Control
+Commission of five soldiers, thus securing a complete unity between the
+commander in chief and the garrison. At the Garrison Conference it was
+unanimously decided to begin decisive action.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The artillery fire on the 12th of November developed with extraordinary force
+by 3 P.M. The Cossacks were completely demoralised. A parliamentarian came from
+them to the staff of the detachment at Krasnoye Selo, and proposed to stop the
+firing, threatening otherwise to take &ldquo;decisive&rdquo; measures. He was
+answered that the firing would cease when Kerensky laid down his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the developing encounter all sections of the troops&mdash;the sailors,
+soldiers and the Red Guards&mdash;showed unlimited courage. The sailors
+continued to advance until they had fired all their cartridges. The number of
+casualties has not been established yet, but it is larger on the part of the
+counter-revolutionary troops, who experienced great losses through one of our
+armoured cars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kerensky&rsquo;s staff, fearing that they would be surrounded, gave the order
+to retreat, which retreat speedily assumed a disorderly character. By 11-12
+P.M., Tsarkoye Selo, including the wireless station, was entirely occupied by
+the troops of the Soviets. The Cossacks retreated towards Gatchina and
+Colpinno.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morale of the troops is beyond all praise. The order has been given to
+pursue the retreating Cossacks. From the Tsarskoye Selo station a
+radio-telegram was sent immediately to the Front and to all local Soviets
+throughout Russia. Further details will be communicated….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>EVENTS OF THE 13TH IN PETROGRAD</h5>
+
+<p>
+Three regiments of the Petrograd garrison to take any part in the battle
+against Kerensky. On the morning of the 13th they summoned to a joint
+conference sixty delegates from the Front, in order to find some way to stop
+the civil war. This conference appointed a committee to go and persuade
+Kerensky&rsquo;s troops to lay down their arms. They proposed to ask the
+Government soldiers the following questions: (1) Will the soldiers and Cossacks
+of Kerensky recognise the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> as the repository of Governmental
+power, responsible to the Congress of Soviets? (2) Will the soldiers and
+Cossacks accept the decrees of the second Congress of Soviets? (3) Will they
+accept the Land and Peace decrees? (4) Will they agree to cease hostilities and
+return to their units? (5) Will they consent to the arrest of Kerensky, Krasnov
+and Savinkov?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev said, &ldquo;It would be
+foolish to think that this committee could finish affair. The enemy can only be
+broken by force. However, it would be a crime for us not to try every peaceful
+means to bring the Cossacks over to us…. What we need is a military victory….
+The news of an armistice is premature. Our Staff will be ready to conclude an
+armistice when the enemy can no longer do any harm….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At present, the influence of our victory is creating new political
+conditions…. To-day the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit the
+Bolsheviki into the new Government…. A decisive victory is indispensable, so
+that those who hesitate will have no further hesitation….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the City Duma all attention was concentrated on the formation of the new
+Government. In many factories and barracks already Revolutionary Tribunals were
+operating, and the Bolsheviki were threatening to set up more of these, and try
+Gotz and Avksentiev before them. Dan proposed that an ultimatum be sent
+demanding the abolition of these Revolutionary Tribunals, or the other members
+of the Conference would immediately break off all negotiations with the
+Bolsheviki.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shingariov, Cadet, declared that the Municipality ought not to take part in any
+agreement with the Bolsheviki…. &ldquo;Any agreement with the maniacs is
+impossible until they lay down their arms and recognise the authority of
+independent courts of law….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yartsev, for the <i>Yedinstvo</i> group, declared that any agreement with the
+Bolsheviki would be equivalent to a Bolshevik victory….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mayor Schreider, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, stated that he was opposed
+to all agreement with the Bolsheviki…. &ldquo;As for a Government, that ought
+to spring from the popular will; and since the popular will has been expressed
+in the municipal elections, the popular will which can create a Government is
+actually concentrated in the Duma….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After other speakers, of which only the representative of the Mensheviki
+Internationalists was in favour of considering the admission of the Bolsheviki
+into the new Government, the Duma voted to continue its representatives in the
+<i>Vikzhel&rsquo;s</i> conference, but to insist upon the restoration of the
+Provisional Government before everything, and to exclude the Bolsheviki from
+the new power….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TRUCE. KRASNOV&rsquo;s ANSWER TO THE COMMITTEE FOR SALVATION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In answer to your telegram proposing an immediate armistice, the Supreme
+Commander, not wishing further futile bloodshed, consents to enter into
+negotiations and to establish relations between the armies of the Government
+and the insurrectionists. He proposes to the General Staff of the
+insurrectionists to recall its regiments to Petrograd, to declare the line
+Ligovo-Pulkovo-Colpinno neutral, and to allow the advance-guards of the
+Government cavalry to enter Tsarskoye Selo, for the purpose of establishing
+order. The answer to this proposal must be placed in the hands of our envoys
+before eight o&rsquo;clock to-morrow morning.
+</p>
+
+<h5>KRASNOV.&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>EVENTS AT TSARSKOYE SELO</h5>
+
+<p>
+On the evening that Kerensky&rsquo;s troops retreated from Tsarskoye Selo, some
+priests organised a religious procession through the streets of the town,
+making speeches to the citizens in which they asked the people to support the
+rightful authority, the Provisional Government. When the Cossacks had
+retreated, and the first Red Guards entered the town, witnesses reported that
+the priests had incited the people against the Soviets, and had said prayers at
+the grave of Rasputin, which lies behind the Imperial Palace. One of the
+priests, Father Ivan Kutchurov, was arrested and shot by the infuriated Red
+Guards….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just as the Red Guards entered the town the electric lights were shut off,
+plunging the streets in complete darkness. The director of the electric light
+plant, Lubovitch, was arrested by the Soviet troops and asked why he had shut
+off the lights. He was found some time later in the room where he had been
+imprisoned with a revolver in his hand and a bullet hole in his temple.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Petrograd anti-Bolshevik papers came out next day with headlines,
+&ldquo;Plekhanov&rsquo;s temperature 39 degrees!&rdquo; Plekhanov lived at
+Tsarskoye Selo, where he was lying ill in bed. Red Guards arrived at the house
+and searched it for arms, questioning the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What class of society do you belong to?&rdquo; they asked him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a revolutionist,&rdquo; answered Plekhanov, &ldquo;who for forty
+years has devoted his life to the struggle for liberty!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anyway,&rdquo; said a workman, &ldquo;you have now sold yourself to the
+bourgeoisie!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The workers no longer knew Plekhanov, pioneer of the Russian Social Democracy!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEAL OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The detachments at Gatchina, deceived by Kerensky, have laid down their
+arms and decided to arrest Kerensky. That chief of the counter-revolutionary
+campaign has fled. The Army, by an enormous majority, has pronounced in favour
+of the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and of the Government which it
+has created. Scores of delegates from the Front have hastened to Petrograd to
+assure the Soviet Government of the Army&rsquo;s fidelity. No twisting of the
+facts, no calumny against the revolutionary workers, soldiers, and peasants,
+has been able to defeat the People. The Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo;
+Revolution is victorious….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> appeals to the troops which march under the flag
+of the counter-revolution, and invites them immediately to lay down their
+arms&mdash;to shed no longer the blood of their brothers in the interests of a
+handful of land-owners and capitalists. The Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Revolution curses those who remain even for a moment under the
+flag of the People&rsquo;s enemies….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cossacks! Come over to the rank of the victorious People! Railwaymen,
+postmen, telegraphers&mdash;all, all support the new Government of the
+People!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>DAMAGE TO THE KREMLIN</h5>
+
+<p>
+I myself verified the damage to the Kremlin, which I visited immediately after
+the bombardment. The Little Nicolai Palace, a building of no particular
+importance, which was occupied occasionally by receptions of one of the Grand
+Duchesses, had served as barracks for the <i>yunkers.</i> It was not only
+bombarded, but pretty well sacked; fortunately there was nothing in it of
+particular historical value.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Usspensky Cathedral had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but except for a
+few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The frescoes on the porch of
+Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly damaged by a shell. Another shell hit the
+corner of Ivan Veliki. Tchudovsky Monastery was hit about thirty times, but
+only one shell went through a window into the interior, the others breaking the
+brick window-moulding and the roof cornices.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clock over the Spasskaya Gate was smashed. Troitsky Gate was battered, but
+easily reparable. One of the lower towers had lost its brick spire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The church of St. Basil was untouched, as was the great Imperial Palace, with
+all the treasures of Moscow and Petrograd in its cellar, and the crown jewels
+in the Treasury. These places were not even entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LUNATCHARSKY&rsquo;s DECLARATION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! You are the young masters of the country, and although now you
+have much to do and think about, you must know how to defend your artistic and
+scientific treasures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! That which is happening at Moscow is a horrible, irreparable
+misfortune…. The People in its struggle for the power has mutilated our
+glorious capital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is particularly terrible in these days of violent struggle, of
+destructive warfare, to be Commissar of Public Education. Only the hope of the
+victory of Socialism, the source of a new and superior culture, brings me
+comfort. On me weighs the responsibility of protecting the artistic wealth of
+the people…. Not being able to remain at my post, where I had no influence, I
+resigned. My comrades, the other Commissars, considered this resignation
+inadmissible. I shall therefore remain at my post…. And moreover, I understand
+that the damage done to the Kremlin is not as serious as has been reported….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I beg you, comrades, to give me your support…. Preserve for
+yourselves and your descendants the beauty of our land; be the guardians of the
+property of the People.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soon, very soon, even the most ignorant, who have been held in ignorance
+so long, will awake and understand what a source of joy, strength and wisdom is
+art….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<h5>QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE BOURGEOISIE</h5>
+
+<p>
+[Graphic, page 354]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<h5>REVOLUTIONARY FINANCIAL MEASURE</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Order</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In virtue of the powers vested in me by the Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Moscow Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, I
+decree:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. All banks with branches, the Central State Savings Bank with branches, and
+the savings banks at the Post and Telegraph offices are to be opened beginning
+November 22nd, from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M. until further order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. On current accounts and on the books of the savings banks, payments will be
+made by the above mentioned institutions, of not more than 150 rubles for each
+depositor during the course of the next week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. Payments of amounts exceeding 150 rubles a week on current accounts and
+savings banks books, also payments on other accounts of all kinds will be
+allowed during the next three days&mdash;November 22nd, 23d, and 24th, only in
+the following cases:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(a) On the accounts of military organisations for the satisfaction of their
+needs;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(b) For the payment of salaries of employees and the earnings of workers
+according to the tables and lists certified by the Factory Committees or
+Soviets of Employees, and attested by the signatures of the Commissars, or the
+representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and the district
+Military Revolutionary Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. Not more than 150 rubles are to be paid against drafts; the remaining sums
+are to be entered on current account, payments on which are to be made in the
+order established by the present decree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. All other banking operations are prohibited during these three days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The receipt of money on all accounts is allowed for any amount.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. The representatives of the Finance Council for the certification of the
+authorisations indicated in clause 3 will hold their office in the building of
+the Stock Exchange, Ilyinka Street, from 10 A. M. to 2 P. M.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. The Banks and Savings Banks shall send the totals of daily cash operations
+by 5 P. M. to the headquarters of the Soviet, Skobeliev Square, to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, for the Finance Council.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9. All employees and managers of credit institutions of all kinds who refuse to
+comply with this decree shall be responsible as enemies of the Revolution and
+of the mass of the population, before the Revolutionary Tribunals. Their names
+shall be published for general information.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+10. For the control of the operations of Branches of the Savings Banks and
+Banks within the limits of this decree, the district Military Revolutionary
+Committees shall elect three representatives and appoint their place of
+business.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Fully-authorised Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>S. SHEVERDIN-MAKSIMENKO.</h5>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER</h5>
+
+<p>
+This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It covers the
+time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and armistice with the
+Germans, and the beginning of the Peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, as well
+as the period in which were laid the foundations of the Soviet State.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and interpret
+these very important historical events, which require more space. They are
+therefore reserved for another volume, &ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet Government&rsquo;s
+attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and sketched its
+successive conquests of hostile domestic elements&mdash;which process was
+temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<h5>PREAMBLE&mdash;DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA</h5>
+
+<p>
+The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the common
+banner of Emancipation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners, for there
+is no longer the landowner&rsquo;s property right in the land&mdash;it has been
+abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated from the power of
+autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth be elective and subject to
+recall. The workingmen are being emancipated from the whims and arbitrary will
+of the capitalists, for henceforth there will be established the control of the
+workers over mills and factories. Everything living and capable of life is
+being emancipated from the hateful shackles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There remain only the peoples of Russia, who have suffered and are suffering
+oppression and arbitrariness, and whose emancipation must immediately be begun,
+whose liberation must be effected resolutely and definitely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the period of Tsarism the peoples of Russia were systematically incited
+against one another. The result of such a policy are known: massacres and
+<i>pogroms</i> on the one hand, slavery of peoples on the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There can be and there must be no return to this disgraceful policy. Henceforth
+the policy of a voluntary and honest union of the peoples of Russia must be
+substituted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the period of imperialism, after the March revolution, when the power was
+transferred into the hands of the Cadet bourgeoisie, the naked policy of
+provocation gave way to one of cowardly distrust of the peoples of Russia, to a
+policy of fault-finding, of meaningless &ldquo;freedom&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;equality&rdquo; of peoples. The results of such a policy are known: the
+growth of national enmity, the impairment of mutual confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust, of
+fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by an open and
+honest policy leading to the complete mutual confidence of the peoples of
+Russia. Only as the result of such a trust can there be formed an honest and
+lasting union of the peoples of Russia. Only as the result of such a union can
+the workers and peasants of the peoples of Russia be cemented into one
+revolutionary force able to resist all attempts on the part of the
+imperialist-annexationist bourgeoisie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3.
+</p>
+
+<h5>DECREES</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Nationalisation of the Banks</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the interest of the regular organisation of the national economy, of the
+thorough eradication of bank speculation and the complete emancipation of the
+workers, peasants, and the whole labouring population from the exploitation of
+banking capital, and with a view to the establishment of a single national bank
+of the Russian Republic which shall serve the real interests of the people and
+the poorer classes, the Central Executive Committee <i>(Tsay-ee-kah)</i>
+resolves:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The banking business is declared a state monopoly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All existing private joint-stock banks and banking offices are merged in the
+State Bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The assets and liabilities of the liquidated establishments are taken over
+by the State Bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. The order of the merger of private banks in the State Bank is to be
+determined by a special decree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. The temporary administration of the affairs of the private banks is
+entrusted to the board of the State Bank.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The interests of the small depositors will be safeguarded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *   *   *   *   *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Equality of Rank of All Military Men</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In realisation of the will of the revolutionary people regarding the prompt and
+decisive abolition of all remnants of former inequality in the Army, the
+Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars decrees:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. All ranks and grades in the Army, beginning with the rank of Corporal and
+ending with the rank of General, are abolished. The Army of the Russian
+Republic consists now of free and equal citizens, bearing the honourable title
+of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All privileges connected with the former ranks and grades, also all outward
+marks of distinction, are abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. With the abolition of the rank of officer, all separate officers&rsquo;
+organisations are abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note.&mdash;Orderlies are left only for headquarters, chanceries, Committees
+and other Army organisations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+      <i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i><br />
+                    VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+      <i>People&rsquo;s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,</i><br />
+                    N. KRYLENKO.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+      <i>People&rsquo;s Commissar for Military Affairs,</i><br />
+                    N. PODVOISKY.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+      <i>Secretary of the Council,</i><br />
+                    N. GORBUNOV.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Elective Principle and the Organisation of Authority in the Army</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. The army serving the will of the toiling people is subject to its supreme
+representative&mdash;the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Full authority within the limits of military units and combinations is
+vested in the respective Soldiers&rsquo; Committees and Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. Those phases of the life and activity of the troops which are already under
+the jurisdiction of the Committees are now formally placed in their direct
+control. Over such branches of activity which the Committees cannot assume, the
+control of the Soldiers&rsquo; Soviets is established.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. The election of commanding Staff and officers is introduced. All commanders
+up to the commanders of regiments, inclusive, are elected by general suffrage
+of squads, platoons, companies, squadrons, batteries, divisions (artillery, 2-3
+batteries), and regiments. All commanders higher than the commander of a
+regiment, and up to the Supreme Commander, inclusive, are elected by congresses
+or conferences of Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note.&mdash;By the term &ldquo;conference&rdquo; must be understood a meeting
+of the respective Committees together with delegates of committees one degree
+lower in rank. (Such as a &ldquo;conference&rdquo; of Regimental Committees
+with delegates from Company Committees.&mdash;Author.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. The elected commanders above the rank of commander of regiment must be
+confirmed by the nearest Supreme Committee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note. In the event of a refusal by a Supreme Committee to confirm an elected
+commander, with a statement of reasons for such refusal, a commander elected by
+the lower Committee a second time must be confirmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The commanders of Armies are elected by Army congresses. Commanders of
+Fronts are elected by congresses of the respective Fronts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. To posts of a technical character, demanding special knowledge or other
+practical preparation, namely: doctors, engineers, technicians, telegraph and
+wireless operators, aviators, automobilists, etc., only such persons as possess
+the required special knowledge may be elected, by the Committees of the units
+of the respective services.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. Chiefs of Staff must be chosen from among persons with special military
+training for that post.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9. All other members of the Staff are appointed by the Chief of Staff, and
+confirmed by the respective congresses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Note.&mdash;All persons with special training must be listed in a special list.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+10. The right is reserved to retire from the service all commanders on active
+service who are not elected by the soldiers to any post, and who consequently
+are ranked as privates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+11. All other functions beside those pertaining to the command, with the
+exception of posts in the economic departments, are filled by appointment of
+the respective elected commanders.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+12. Detailed instructions regarding the elections of the commanding Staff will
+be published separately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>People&rsquo;s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>N. KRYLENKO.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>People&rsquo;s Commissar for Military Affairs,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>N. PODVOISKY.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Secretary of the Council,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>N. GORBUNOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>On the Abolition of Classes and Titles</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1. All classes and class divisions, all class privileges and delimitations, all
+class organisations and institutions and all civil ranks are abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All classes of society (nobles, merchants, petty bourgeois, etc.), and all
+titles (Prince, Count and others), and all denominations of civil rank (Privy
+State Councillor, and others), are abolished, and there is established the
+general denomination of Citizen of the Russian Republic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The property and institutions of the classes of nobility are transferred to
+the corresponding autonomous Zemstvos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. The property of merchant and bourgeois organisations is transferred
+immediately to the Municipal Self-Governments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. All class institutions of any sort, with their property, their rules of
+procedure, and their archives, are transferred to the administration of the
+Municipalities and Zemstvos.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. All articles of existing laws applying to these matters are herewith
+repealed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. The present decree becomes effective on the day it is published and applied
+by the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The present decree has been confirmed by the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> at the meeting
+of November 23d, 1917, and signed by:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Tsay-ee-kah,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>SVERDLOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Executive of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>V. BONCH-BRUEVITCH.</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Secretary of the Council,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>N. GORBUNOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On December 3d the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars resolved &ldquo;to
+reduce the salaries of functionaries and employees in all Government
+institutions and establishments, general or special, without exception.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To begin with, the Council fixed the salary of a People&rsquo;s Commissar at
+500 rubles per month, with 100 rubles additional for each grown member of the
+family incapable of work….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the highest salary paid to any Government official….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Countess Panina was arrested and brought to trial before the first Supreme
+Revolutionary Tribunal. The trial is described in the chapter on
+&ldquo;Revolutionary Justice&rdquo; in my forthcoming volume, &ldquo;Kornilov
+to Brist-Litovsk.&rdquo; The prisoner was sentenced to &ldquo;return the money,
+and then be liberated to the public contempt.&rdquo; In other words, she was
+set free!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5.
+</p>
+
+<h5>RIDICULE OF THE NEW RÉGIME</h5>
+
+<p>
+From <i>Drug Naroda</i> (Menshevik), November 18th:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The story of the &lsquo;immediate peace&rsquo; of the Bolsheviki reminds
+us of a joyous moving-picture film…. Neratov runs&mdash;Trotzky pursues;
+Neratov climbs a wall, Trotzky too; Neratov dives into the water&mdash;Trotzky
+follows; Neratov climbs onto the roof&mdash;Trotzky right behind him; Neratov
+hides under the bed&mdash;and Trotzky has him! He has him! Naturally, peace is
+immediately signed….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All is empty and silent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The couriers
+are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How about arresting an ambassador and signing an armistice or a Peace
+Treaty with him? But they are strange folk, these ambassadors. They keep silent
+just as if they had heard nothing. Hola, hola, England, France, Germany! We
+have signed an armistice with you! Is it possible that you know nothing about
+it? Nevertheless, it has been published in all the papers and posted on all the
+walls. On a Bolshevik&rsquo;s word of honour, Peace has been signed.
+We&rsquo;re not asking much of you; you just have to write two words….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The ambassadors remain silent. The Powers remain silent. All is empty
+and silent in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Listen,&rsquo; says Robespierre-Trotzky to his assistant
+Marat-Uritzky, &lsquo;run over to the British Ambassador&rsquo;s, tell him
+we&rsquo;re proposing peace!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Go yourself,&rsquo; says Marat-Uritzky. &lsquo;He&rsquo;s not
+receiving.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Telephone him, then.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I&rsquo;ve tried. The receiver&rsquo;s off the hook.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Send him a telegram.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;I did.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, with what result?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marat-Uritzky sighs and does not answer. Robespierre-Trotzky spits
+furiously into the corner….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Listen, Marat,&rsquo; recommences Trotzky, after a moment.
+&lsquo;We must absolutely show that we&rsquo;re conducting an active foreign
+policy. How can we do that?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Launch another decree about arresting Neratov,&rsquo; answers
+Uritzky, with a profound air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Marat, you&rsquo;re a blockhead!&rsquo; cries Trotzky. All of a
+sudden he arises, terrible and majestic, looking at this moment like
+Robespierre.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Write, Uritzky!&rsquo; he says with severity. &lsquo;Write a
+letter to the British ambassador, a registered letter with receipt demanded.
+Write! I also will write! The peoples of the world await an immediate
+peace!&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the enormous and empty Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to be heard
+only the sound of two typewriters. With his own hands Trotzky is conducting an
+active foreign policy….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6.
+</p>
+
+<h5>ON THE QUESTION OF AN AGREEMENT</h5>
+
+<p>
+To the Attention of All Workers and All Soldiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+November 11th, in the club of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was held an
+extraordinary meeting of representatives of all the units of the Petrograd
+garrison.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meeting was called upon the initiative of the Preobrazhensky and
+Semionovsky Regiments, for the discussion of the question as to which Socialist
+parties are for the power of the Soviets, which are against, which are for the
+people, which against, and if an agreement between them is possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The representatives of the <i>Tsay-ee-kah,</i> of the Municipal Duma, of the
+Avksentiev Peasants&rsquo; Soviets, and of all the political parties from the
+Bolsheviki to the Populist Socialists, were invited to the meeting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After long deliberation, having heard the declarations of all parties and
+organisations, the meeting by a tremendous majority of votes agreed that only
+the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries are for the people, and
+that all the other parties are only attempting, under cover of seeking an
+agreement, to deprive the people of the conquests won in the days of the great
+Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Revolution of November.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the Petrograd
+garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The garrison conference, summoned at the initiative of the Semionovsky
+and Preobrazhensky Regiments, on hearing the representatives of all the
+Socialist parties and popular organisations on the question of an agreement
+between the different political parties finds that:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;1. The representatives of the <i>Tasy-ee-kah,</i> the representatives of
+the Bolshevik party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared definitely
+that they stand for a Government of the Soviets, for the decrees on Land, Peace
+and Workers&rsquo; Control of Industry, and that upon this platform they are
+willing to agree with all the Socialist parties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;2. At the same time the representatives of the other parties
+(Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries) either gave no answer at all, or
+declared simply that they were opposed to the power of the Soviets and against
+the decrees on Land, Peace and Workers&rsquo; Control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In view of this the meeting resolves:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;1. To express severe censure of all parties which, under cover of
+an agreement, wish practically to annul the popular conquests of the Revolution
+of November.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;2. To express full confidence in the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> and the Council
+of People&rsquo;s Commissars, and to promise them complete support.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the same time the meeting deems it necessary that the comrades Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries should enter the People&rsquo;s Government.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7.
+</p>
+
+<h5>WINE &ldquo;POGROMS&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+It was afterward discovered that there was a regular organisation, maintained
+by the Cadets, for provoking rioting among the soldiers. There would be
+telephone messages to the different barracks, announcing that wine was being
+given away at such and such an address, and when the soldiers arrived at the
+spot an individual would point out the location of the cellar….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars appointed a Commissar for the Fight
+Against Drunkenness, who, besides mercilessly putting down the wine riots,
+destroyed hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquor. The Winter Palace
+cellars, containing rare vintages valued at more than five million dollars,
+were at first flooded, and then the liquor was removed to Cronstadt and
+destroyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this work the Cronstadt sailors, &ldquo;flower and pride of the
+revolutionary forces,&rdquo; as Trotzky called them, acquitted themselves with
+iron self-dicipline….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8.
+</p>
+
+<h5>SPECULATORS</h5>
+
+<p>
+Two orders concerning them:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>To the Military Revolutionary Committee</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disorganisation of the food supply created by the war, and the lack of
+system, is becoming to the last degree acute, thanks to the speculators,
+marauders and their followers on the railways, in the steamship offices,
+forwarding offices, etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Taking advantage of the nation&rsquo;s greatest misfortunes, these criminal
+spoliators are playing with the health and life of millions of soldiers and
+workers, for their own benefit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a situation cannot be borne a single day longer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars proposes to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to take the most decisive measures towards the uprooting of
+speculation, sabotage, hiding of supplies, fraudulent detention of cargoes,
+etc.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All persons guilty of such actions shall be subject, by special orders of the
+Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest and confinement in the
+prisons of Cronstadt, pending their arraignment before the Revolutionary
+Tribunal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the popular organisations are invited to cooperate in the struggle against
+the spoliators of food supplies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                <i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissaries.</i><br />
+                                        V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Accepted for execution,<br />
+        <i>Military Revolutionary Committee attached to<br />
+         the C. E. C. of the Soviets of W. &amp; S. Deputies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd, Nov. 23d, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>To All Honest Citizens</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Military Revolutionary Committee Decrees:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Spoliators, marauders, speculators, are declared to be enemies of the People….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee proposes to all public organisations, to
+all honest citizens: to inform the Military Revolutionary Committee immediately
+of all cases of spoliation, marauding, speculation, which become known to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The struggle against this evil is the business of all honest people. The
+Military Revolutionary Committee expects the support of all to whom the
+interests of the People are dear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Military Revolutionary Committee will be merciless in pursuit of
+speculators and marauders.
+</p>
+
+<h5>THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE</h5>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd, Dec. 2d, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+9.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PURISHKEVITCH&rsquo;s LETTER TO KALEDIN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The situation at Petrograd is desperate. The city is cut off from the
+outside world and is entirely in the power of the Bolsheviki…. People are
+arrested in the streets, thrown into the Neva, drowned and imprisoned without
+any charge. Even Burtzev is shut up in Peter-Paul fortress, under strict guard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The organisation at whose head I am is working without rest to unite all
+the officers and what is left of the <i>yunker</i> schools, and to arm them.
+The situation cannot be saved except by creating regiments of officers and
+<i>yunkers.</i> Attacking with these regiments, and having gained a first
+success, we could later gain the aid of the garrison troops; but without that
+first success it is impossible to count on a single soldier, because thousands
+of them are divided and terrorised by the scum which exists in every regiment.
+Most of the Cossacks are tainted by Bolshevik propaganda, thanks to the strange
+policy of General Dutov, who allowed to pass the moment when by decisive action
+something could have been obtained. The policy of negotiations and concessions
+has borne its fruits; all that is respectable is persecuted, and it is the
+<i>plebe</i> and the criminals who dominate&mdash;and nothing can be done
+except by shooting and hanging them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are awaiting you here, General, and at the moment of your arrival, we
+shall advance with all the forces at our disposal. But for that we must
+establish some communication with you, and before all, clear up the following
+points:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;(1) Do you know that in your name all officers who could take part in
+the fight are being invited to leave Petrograd on the pretext of joining you?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;(2) About when can we count on your arrival at Petrograd? We should like
+to know in order to coordinate our actions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In spite of the criminal inaction of the conscious people here, which
+allowed the yoke of Bolshevism to be laid upon us&mdash;in spite of the
+extraordinary pig&mdash;headedness of the majority of officers, so difficult to
+organise&mdash;we believe in spite of all that Truth is on our side, and that
+we shall conquer the vicious and criminal forces who say that they are acting
+for motives of love of country and in order to save it. Whatever comes, we
+shall not permit ourselves to be struck down, and shall remain firm until the
+end.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Purishkevitch, being brought to trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, was
+given a short prison term….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+10.
+</p>
+
+<h5>DECREE ON THE MONOPOLY OF ADVERTISEMENTS</h5>
+
+<p>
+1. The printing of advertisements, in newspapers, books, bill-boards, kiosks,
+in offices and other establishments is declared to be a State monopoly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Advertisements may only be published in the organs of the Provisional
+Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government at Petrograd, and in the organs
+of local Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The proprietors of newspapers and advertising offices, as well as all
+employees of such establishments, should remain at their posts until the
+transfer of the advertisement business to the Government…. superintending the
+uninterrupted continuation of their houses, and turning over to the Soviets all
+private advertising and the sums received therefor, as well as all accounts and
+copy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. All managers of publications and businesses dealing with paid advertising,
+as well as their employees and workers, shall agree to hold a City Congress,
+and to join, first the City Trade Unions, and then the All-Russian Unions, to
+organise more thoroughly and justly the advertising business in the Soviet
+publications, as well as to prepare better rules for the public utility of
+advertising.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. All persons found guilty of having concealed documents or money, or having
+sabotaged the regulations indicated in paragraphs 3 and 4, will be punished by
+a sentence of not more than three years&rsquo; imprisonment, and all their
+property will be confiscated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. The paid insertion of advertisements…. in private publications, or under a
+masqued form, will also be severely penalised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+7. Advertising offices are confiscated by the Government, the owners being
+entitled to compensation in cases of necessity. Small proprietors, depositors
+and stock-holders of the confiscated establishments will be reimbursed for all
+moneys held by them in the concern.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+8. All buildings, officers, counters, and in general every establishment doing
+a business in advertising, should immediately inform the Soviet of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies of its address, and proceed to the
+transfer of its business, under penalty of the punishment indicated in
+paragraph 5.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        <i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s
+Commissars,</i><br />
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        <i>People&rsquo;s Commissar for Public
+Instruction,</i><br />
+                                        A. V. LUNATCHARSKY.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Secretary of the Council,</i>
+</p>
+
+<h5>N. GORBUNOV.</h5>
+
+<p>
+11.
+</p>
+
+<h5>OBLIGATORY ORDINANCE</h5>
+
+<p>
+1. The city of Petrograd is declared to be in a state of siege.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. All assemblies, meetings and congregations on the streets and squares are
+prohibited.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. Attempts to loot wine-cellars, warehouses, factories, stores, business
+premises, private dwellings, etc., etc., <i>will be stopped by machine-gun fire
+without warning.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. House Committees, doormen, janitors and Militiamen are charged with the duty
+of keeping strict order in all houses, courtyards and in the streets, and
+house-doors and carriage-entrances must be locked at 9 o&rsquo;clock in the
+evening, and opened at 7 o&rsquo;clock in the morning. After 9 o&rsquo;clock in
+the evening only tenants may leave the house, under strict control of the House
+Committees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+5. Those guilty of the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of alcoholic
+liquor, and also those guilty of the violation of sections 2 and 4, will be
+immediately arrested and subjected to the most severe punishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd, 6th of December, 3 o&rsquo;clock in the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Committee to Fight Against Pogroms, attached to the Executive Committee of
+the Soviet of Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+12.
+</p>
+
+<h5>TWO PROCLAMATIONS</h5>
+
+<p>
+Lenin, To <i>the People of Russia:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants&mdash;all toilers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Revolution has won at Petrograd,
+at Moscow…. From the Front and the villages arrive every day, every hour,
+greetings to the new Government…. The victory of the Revolution…. is assured,
+seeing that it is sustained by the majority of the people.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is entirely understandable that the proprietors and the capitalists,
+the employees and functionaries closely allied with the bourgeoisic&mdash;in a
+word, all the rich and all those who join hands with them&mdash;regard the new
+Revolution with hostility, oppose its success, threaten to halt the activity of
+the banks, and sabotage or obstruct the work of other establishments…. Every
+conscious worker understands perfectly that we cannot avoid this hostility,
+because the high officials have set themselves against the People and do not
+wish to abandon their posts without resistance. But the working classes are not
+for one moment afraid of that resistance. The majority of the people are for
+us. For us are the majority of the workers and the oppressed of the whole
+world. We have justice on our side. Our ultimate victory is certain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The resistance of the capitalists and high officials will be broken. No
+one will be deprived of his property without a special law on the
+nationalisation of banks and financial syndicates. This law is in preparation.
+Not a worker will lose a single kopek; on the contrary, he will be assisted.
+Without at this moment establishing the new taxes, the new Government considers
+one of its primary duties to make a severe accounting and control on the
+reception of taxes decreed by the former régime….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades workers! Remember that you yourselves direct the Government. No
+one will help you unless you organise yourselves and take into your own hands
+the affairs of the State. Your Soviets are now the organs of governmental
+power…. Strengthen them, establish a severe revolutionary control, pitilessly
+crush the attempts at anarchy on the part of drunkards, brigands,
+counter-revolutionary <i>yunkers</i> and Kornilovists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Establish a strict control over production and the accounting for
+products. Arrest and turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal of the People
+every one who injures the property of the People, by sabotage in production, by
+concealment of grain-reserves, reserves of other products, by retarding the
+shipments of grain, by bringing confusion into the railroads, the posts and the
+telegraphs, or in general opposing the great work of bringing Peace and
+transferring the Land to the peasants….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants&mdash;all toilers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Take immediately all local power into your hands…. Little by little,
+with the consent of the majority of peasants, we shall march firmly and
+unhesitatingly toward the victory of Socialism, which will fortify the
+advance-guards of the working-class of the most civilised Countries, and give
+to the peoples an enduring peace, and free them from every slavery and every
+exploitation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+13.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>&ldquo;To All Workers of Petrograd!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades! The Revolution is winning&mdash;the revolution has won. All
+the power has passed over to our Soviets. The first weeks are the most
+difficult ones. The broken reaction must be finally crushed, a full triumph
+must be secured to our endeavours. The working-class ought
+to&mdash;must&mdash;show in these days THE GREATEST FIRMNESS AND ENDURANCE, in
+order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People&rsquo;s
+Government of Soviets. In the next few days decrees on the Labour question will
+be issued, and among the very first will be the decree on Workers&rsquo;
+Control over the production and regulation of Industry.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE WORKER MASSES IN PETROGRAD NOW CAN
+ONLY DO HARM.</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We ask you to cease immediately all economic and political strikes, to
+take up your work, and do it in perfect order. The work in the factories and
+all the industries is necessary for the new Government of Soviets, because any
+interruption of this work will only create new difficulties for us, and we have
+enough as it is. All to your places.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these
+days&mdash;is by doing your job.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;LONG LIVE THE IRON FIRMNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT! LONG LIVE THE
+REVOLUTION!&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Petrograd Soviet of W. &amp; S. D.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Petrograd Council of Trade Unions.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Petrograd Council of Factory-Shop Committees.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+14.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEALS AND COUNTER-APPEALS</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Employees of the State and private Banks To the Population of
+Petrograd:</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades workers, soldiers and citizens!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Military Revolutionary Committee in an &lsquo;extraordinary
+notice&rsquo; is accusing the workers of the State and private banking and
+other institutions of &lsquo;impeding the work of the Government, directed
+towards the ensuring of the Front with provisions.&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades and citizens, do not believe this calumny, brought against us,
+who are part of the general army of labour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;However difficult it be for us to work under the constant threat of
+interference by acts of violence in our hard-working life, however depressing
+it be to know that our Country and the Revolution are on the verge of ruin, we,
+nevertheless, all of us, from the highest to the lowest, employees,
+<i>artelshtchiki,</i> counters, labourers, couriers, etc., are continuing to
+fulfil our duties which are connected with the ensuring of provisions and
+munitions to the Front and country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Counting upon your lack of information, comrades workers and soldiers,
+in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited against workers like
+yourselves, because it is desirable to divert the responsibility for the
+starving and dying brother-soldiers at the Front from the guilty persons to the
+innocent workers who are accomplishing their duty under the burden of general
+poverty and disorganisation.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;REMEMBER, WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! THE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALWAYS STOOD UP
+FOR AND WILL ALWAYS STAND UP FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE TOILING PEOPLE, PART OF
+WHICH THEY ARE THEMSELVES, AND NOT A SINGLE KOPEK NECESSARY FOR THE FRONT AND
+THE WORKERS HAS EVER BEEN DETAINED AND WILL NOT BE DETAINED BY THE
+EMPLOYEES.</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;From November 6th to November 23d, i.e., during 17 days, 500 million
+rubles were dispatched to the Front, and 120 millions to Moscow, besides the
+sums sent to other towns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Keeping guard over the wealth of the people, the master of which can be
+only the Constituent Assembly, representing the whole nation, the employees
+refuse to give out money for purposes which are unknown to them.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALUMNIATORS CALLING YOU TO TAKE THE LAW INTO
+YOUR OWN HANDS!&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Central Board of the All-Russian Union of Employees of the State Bank.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Central Board of the All-Russian Trade Union of Employees of Credit
+Institutions.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>To the Population of Petrograd.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;CITIZENS: Do not believe the falsehood which irresponsible people are
+trying to suggest to you by spreading terrible calumnies against the employees
+of the Ministry of Supplies and the workers in other Supply organisations who
+are labouring in these dark days for the salvation of Russia. Citizens! In
+posted placards you are called upon to lynch us, we are accused falsely of
+sabotage and strikes, we are blamed for all the woes and misfortunes that the
+people are suffering, although we have been striving indefatigably and
+uninterruptedly, and are still striving, to save the Russian people from the
+horrors of starvation. Notwithstanding all that we are bearing as citizens of
+unhappy Russia, we have not for one hour abandoned our heavy and responsible
+work of supplying the Army and population with provisions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The image of the Army, cold and hungry, saving our very existence by its
+blood and its tortures, does not leave us for a single moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Citizens! If we have survived the blackest days in the life and history
+of our people, if we have succeeded in preventing famine in Petrograd, if we
+have managed to procure to the suffering army bread and forage by means of
+enormous, almost superhuman, efforts, it is because we have honestly continued
+and are still continuing to do our work….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To the &lsquo;last warning&rsquo; of the usurpers of the power we reply:
+It is not for you who are leading the country to ruin to threaten us who are
+doing all we can not to allow the country to perish. We are not afraid of
+threats; before us stands the sacred image of tortured Russia. We will continue
+our work of supplying the Army and the people with bread to our last efforts,
+so long as you will not prevent us from accomplishing our duty to our country.
+In the contrary case the Army and the people will stand before the horrors of
+famine, but the responsibility therefor belongs to the perpetrators of
+violence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Executive Committee of the Employees of the Ministry of Supplies.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>To the</i> Tchinovniki (<i>Government Officials</i>).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is notified hereby, that all officials and persons who have quitted the
+service in Government and public institutions or have been dismissed for
+sabotage or for having failed to report for work on the day fixed, and who have
+nevertheless received their salary paid in advance for the time they have not
+served, are bound to return such salary not later than on November 27th, 1917,
+to those institutions where they were in service.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the event of this not being done, these persons will be rendered answerable
+for stealing the Treasury&rsquo;s property and tried by the Military
+Revolutionary Court.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>The Military-Revolutionary Committee.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+December 7th, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>From the Special Board for the Supplies</i> CITIZENS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The conditions of our work for the supplying of Petrograd are getting
+more and more difficult every day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The interference with our work&mdash;which is so ruinous to our
+business&mdash;of the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee is
+still continuing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;THEIR ARBITRARY ACTS, their annulling of our orders, MAY LEAD TO A
+CATASTROPHE.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Seals have been affixed to one of the cold storages where the meat and
+butter destined for the population are kept, and we cannot regulate the
+temperature SO THAT THE PRODUCTS WOULD NOT BE SPOILT.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One carload of potatoes and one carload of cabbages have been seized and
+carried away no one knows where to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cargoes which are not liable to requisition (<i>khalva</i>) are
+requisitioned by the Commissars and, as was the case one day, five boxes of
+<i>khalva</i> were seized by the Commissar for his own use.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO DISPOSE OF OUR STORAGES, where the
+self-appointed Commissars do not allow the cargoes to be taken out, and
+terrorise our employees, threatening them with arrest.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;ALL THAT IS GOING ON IN PETROGRAD IS KNOWN IN THE PROVINCES, AND
+FROM THE DON, FROM SIBERIA, FROM VORONEZH AND OTHER PLACES PEOPLE ARE REFUSING
+TO SEND FLOUR AND BREAD.</h5>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER.</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The work is simply falling out of our hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;OUR DUTY is to let the population know of this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To the last possibility we will remain on guard of the interests of the
+population.
+</p>
+
+<h5>&ldquo;WE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO AVOID THE ONCOMING FAMINE, BUT IF UNDER
+THESE DIFFICULT CONDITIONS OUR WORK IS COMPELLED TO STOP, LET THE PEOPLE KNOW
+THAT IT IS NOT OUR FAULT….&rdquo;</h5>
+
+<p class="center">
+15.<br />
+ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN PETROGRAD
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were nineteen tickets in Petrograd. The results are as follows, published
+November 30th:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" border="1" >
+
+<tr>
+<td><i>Party</i></td><td><i>Vote</i></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Populist Socialists</td><td>19,109</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Cadets</td><td>245,006</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Christian Democrats</td><td>3,707</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Bolsheviki</td><td>424,027</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Socialist Universalists</td><td>158</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>S. D. and S. R. Ukrainean and Jewish Workers</td><td>4,219</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>League of Women&rsquo;s Rights </td><td>5,310</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Socialist Revolutionaries (<i>oborontsi</i>)</td><td>4,696</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Left Socialist Revolutionaries</td><td>152,230</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>League of the People&rsquo;s Development</td><td>385</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Radical Democrats</td><td>413</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Orthodox Parishes</td><td>24,139</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Feminine League for Salvation of Country</td><td>318</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Independent League of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants</td><td>4,942</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Christian Democrats (Catholic) </td><td>14,382</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Unified Social Democrats </td><td>11,740</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Mensheviki</td><td>17,427</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td><i>Yedinstvo</i> group</td><td>1,823</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>League of Cossack Troops</td><td>6,712</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p class="center">
+16.<br />
+FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE&rsquo;s COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING COSSACKS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>&ldquo;Brothers-Cossacks.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are being deceived. You are being incited against the People. You
+are told that the Soviets of Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo; and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies are your enemies, that they want to take away your
+Cossack land, your Cossack &lsquo;liberty&rsquo;. Don&rsquo;t believe it,
+Cossacks…. Your own Generals and landowners are deceiving you, in order to keep
+you in darkness and slavery. We, the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,
+address ourselves to you, Cossacks, with these words. Read them attentively and
+judge yourselves which is the truth and which is cruel deceit. The life and
+service of a Cossack were always bondage and penal servitude. At the first call
+of the authorities a Cossack always had to saddle his horse and ride out on
+campaign. All his military equipment a Cossack had to provide with his own
+hardly earned means. A Cossack is on service, his farm is going to rack and
+ruin. Is such a condition fair? No, it must be altered for ever. THE COSSACKS
+MUST BE FREED FROM BONDAGE. The new People&rsquo;s Soviet power is willing to
+come to the assistance of the toiling Cossacks. It is only necessary that the
+Cossacks themselves should resolve to abolish the old order, that they should
+refuse submission to their slave-driver officers, land-owners, rich men, that
+they should throw off the cursed yoke from their necks. Arise, Cossacks! Unite!
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars calls upon you to enter a new, fresh,
+more happy life.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In November and December in Petrograd there were All-Russian Congresses
+of Soviets of Soldiers&rsquo;, Workers&rsquo;, and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+These Congresses transferred all the authority in the different localities into
+the hands of the Soviets, i.e., into the hands of men elected by the People.
+From now on there must be in Russia no rulers or functionaries who command the
+People from above and drive them. The People create the authority themselves. A
+General has no more rights than a soldier. All are equal. Consider, Cossacks,
+is this wrong or right? We are calling upon you, Cossacks, to join this new
+order and to create your own Soviets of Cossacks&rsquo; Deputies. To such
+Soviets all the power must belong in the different localities. Not to
+<i>hetmans</i> with the rank of General, but to the elected representatives of
+the toiling Cossacks, to your own trustworthy reliable men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The All-Russian Congresses of Soldiers&rsquo;, Workers&rsquo;, and
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies have passed a resolution to transfer all
+landowners&rsquo; land into the possession of the toiling people. Is not that
+fair, Cossacks? The Kornilovs, Kaledins, Dutovs, Karaulovs, Bardizhes, all
+defend with their whole souls the interests of the rich men, and they are ready
+to drown Russia in blood if only the lands remain in the hands of the
+landowners. But you, the toiling Cossacks, do not you suffer yourselves from
+poverty, oppression and lack of land? How many Cossacks are there who have more
+than 4-5 <i>dessiatins</i> per head? But the landowners, who have thousands of
+<i>dessiatins</i> of their own land, wish besides to get into their hands the
+lands of the Cossack Army. According to the new Soviet laws, the lands of
+Cossack landowners must pass without compensation into the hands of the Cossack
+workers, the poorer Cossacks. You are being told that the Soviets wish to take
+away your lands from you. Who is frightening you? The rich Cossacks, who know
+that the Soviet AUTHORITY WISHES TO transfer the landowners&rsquo; lands to
+you. Choose then, Cossacks, for whom will you stand: for the Kornilovs and
+Kaledins, for the Generals and rich men, or for the Soviets of Peasants&rsquo;,
+Soldiers&rsquo;, Workers&rsquo; and Cossacks&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE&rsquo;s COMMISSARS elected by the All-Russian
+Congress HAS PROPOSED TO ALL NATIONS AN IMMEDIATE ARMISTICE AND AN HONOURABLE
+DEMOCRATIC PEACE WITHOUT LOSS OR DETRIMENT TO ANY NATION. All the capitalists,
+landowners, Generals-Kornilovists have risen against the peaceful policy of the
+Soviets. The war was bringing them profits, power, distinctions. And to you,
+Cossack privates? You were perishing without reason, without purpose, like your
+brothers-soldiers and sailors. It will soon be three years and a half that this
+accursed war has gone on, a war devised by the capitalists and landowners of
+all countries for their own profit, their world robberies. To the toiling
+Cossacks the war has only brought ruin and death. The war has drained all the
+resources from Cossack farm life. The only salvation for the whole of our
+country and for the Cossacks in particular is a prompt and honest peace. The
+Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars has declared to all Governments and
+peoples: We do not want other people&rsquo;s property, and we do not wish to
+give away our own. Peace without annexations and without indemnities. Every
+nation must decide its own fate. There must be no oppressing of one nation by
+another. Such is the honest, democratic, People&rsquo;s peace which the Council
+of People&rsquo;s Commissars is proposing to all Governments, to all peoples,
+allies and enemies. And the results are visible: ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT AN
+ARMISTICE HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The soldier&rsquo;s and the Cossack&rsquo;s blood is not flowing there
+any more. Now, Cossacks, decide: do you wish to continue this ruinous,
+senseless, criminal slaughter? Then support the Cadets, the enemies of the
+people, support Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, who drove you into the
+offensive of July 1st; support Kornilov, who introduced capital punishment for
+soldiers and Cossacks at the front. BUT IF YOU WISH A PROMPT AND HONEST PEACE,
+THEN ENTER THE RANKS OF THE SOVIETS AND SUPPORT THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE&rsquo;s
+COMMISSARS.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your fate, Cossacks, lies in your own hands. Our common foes, the
+landowners, capitalists, officers-Kornilovists, bourgeois newspapers, are
+deceiving you and driving you along the road to ruin. In Orenburg, Dutov has
+arrested the Soviet and disarmed the garrison. Kaledin is threatening the
+Soviets in the province of the Don. He has declared the province to be in a
+state of war and is assembling his troops. Karaulov is shooting the local
+tribes in the Caucasus. The Cadet bourgeoisie is supplying them with its
+millions. Their common aim is to suppress the People&rsquo;s Soviets, to crush
+the workers and peasants, to introduce again the discipline of the whip in the
+army, and to eternalise the bondage of the toiling Cossacks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Our revolutionary troops are moving to the Don and the Ural in order to
+put an end to this criminal revolt against the people. The commanders of the
+revolutionary troops have received orders not to enter into any negotiations
+with the mutinous Generals, to act decisively and mercilessly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cossacks! On you depends now whether your brothers&rsquo; blood is to
+flow still. We are holding out our hand to you. Join the whole people against
+its enemies. Declare Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, Karaulov and all their aiders
+and abettors to be the enemies of the people, traitors and betrayers. Arrest
+them with your own forces and turn them over into the hands of the Soviet
+authority, which will judge them in open and public Revolutionary Tribunal.
+Cossacks! Form Soviets of Cossacks&rsquo; Deputies. Take into your toil-worn
+hands the management of all the affairs of the Cossacks. Take away the lands of
+your own wealthy landowners. Take over their grain, their inventoried property
+and live-stock for the cultivation of the lands of the toiling Cossacks, who
+are ruined by the war.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forward, Cossacks, to the fight for the common cause of the people!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live the toiling Cossacks!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live the union of the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants and workers!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live the power of the Soviets of Cossacks&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo;,
+Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Down with the war! Down with the landowners and the
+Kornilovist-Generals!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of peoples!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+17.
+</p>
+
+<h5>FROM THE COMMISSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION ATTACHED TO THE CENTRAL CITY
+DUMA</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades Workingmen and Workingwomen!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A few days before the holidays, a strike has been declared by the
+teachers of the public schools. The teachers side with the bourgeoisie against
+the Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades, organise parents&rsquo; committees and pass resolutions
+against the strike of the teachers. Propose to the Ward Soviets of
+Workers&rsquo; and Soldiers&rsquo; Deputies, the Trade Unions, the Factory-Shop
+and Party Committees, to organise protest meetings. Arrange with your own
+resources Christmas trees and entertainments for the children, and demand the
+opening of the schools, after the holidays, at the date which will be set by
+the Duma.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades, strengthen your position in matters of public education,
+insist on the control of the proletarian organisations over the schools.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Commission on Public Education attached to the Central City Duma.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+18.
+</p>
+
+<h5>DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT</h5>
+
+<p>
+The notes issued by Trotzky to the Allies and to the neutral powers, as well as
+the note of the Allied military Attachés to General Dukhonin, are too
+voluminous to give here. Moreover they belong to another phase of the history
+of the Soviet Republic, with which this book has nothing to do&mdash;the
+foreign relations of the Soviet Government. This I treat at length in the next
+volume, &ldquo;Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+19.
+</p>
+
+<h5>APPEALS TO THE FRONT AGAINST DUKHONIN</h5>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… The struggle for peace has met with the resistance of the bourgeoisie
+and the counter-revolutionary Generals…. From the accounts in the newspapers,
+at the <i>Stavka</i> of former Supreme Commander Dukhonin are gathering the
+agents and allies of the bourgeoisie, Verkhovski, Avksentiev, Tchernov, Gotz,
+Tseretelli, etc. It seems even that they want to form a new power against the
+Soviets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Comrades soldiers! All the persons we have mentioned have been Ministers
+already. They have acted in accord with Kerensky and the bourgeoisie. They are
+responsible for the offensive of July 1st and for the prolongation of the war.
+They promised the land to the peasants and then arrested the Land Committees.
+They reestablished capital punishment for soldiers. They obey the orders of
+French, English and American financiers….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;General Dukhonin, for having refused to obey orders of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars, has been dismissed from his position as Supreme
+Commander…. For answer he is circulating among the troops the note from the
+Military Attachés of the Allied imperialist Powers, and attempting to provoke a
+counter-revolution….
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do not obey Dukhonin! Pay no attention to his provocation! Watch him and
+his group of counter-revolutionary Generals carefully….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+20.
+</p>
+
+<h5>FROM KRYLENKO</h5>
+
+<p>
+<i>Order Number Two</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;… The ex-Supreme Commander, General Dukhonin, for having opposed
+resistance to the execution of orders, for criminal action susceptible of
+provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the People. All persons who
+support Dukhonin will be arrested, without respect to their social or political
+position or their past. Persons equipped with special authority will operate
+these arrests. I charge General Manikhovsky with the execution of the
+above-mentioned dispositions….&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<p>
+1.
+</p>
+
+<h5>INSTRUCTION TO PEASANTS</h5>
+
+<p>
+In answer to the numerous enquiries coming from peasants, it is hereby
+explained that the whole power in the country is from now on held by the
+Soviets of the Workers&rsquo;, Soldiers&rsquo;, and Peasants&rsquo; Deputies.
+The Workers&rsquo; Revolution, after having conquered in Petrograd and in
+Moscow, is now conquering in all other centres of Russia. The Workers&rsquo;
+and Peasants&rsquo; Government safeguards the interests of the masses of
+peasantry, the poorest of them; it is with the majority of peasants and workers
+against the landowners, and against the capitalists.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence the Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, and before all the District
+Soviets, and subsequently those of the Provinces, are from now on and until the
+Constituent Assembly meets, full-powered bodies of State authority in their
+localities. All landlords&rsquo; titles to the land are cancelled by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets. A decree regarding the land has already been
+issued by the present Provisional Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo;
+Government. On the basis of the above decree all lands hitherto belonging to
+landlords now pass entirely and wholly into the hands of the Soviets of
+Peasants&rsquo; Deputies. The <i>Volost</i> (a group of several villages forms
+a <i>Volost</i>) Land Committees are immediately to take over all land from the
+landlords, and to keep a strict account over it, watching that order be
+maintained, and that the whole estate be well guarded, seeing that from now on
+all private estates become public property and must therefore be protected by
+the people themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All orders given by the <i>Volost</i> Land Committees, adopted with the assent
+of the District Soviets of Peasants&rsquo; Deputies, in fulfilment of the
+decrees issued by the revolutionary power, are absolutely legal and are to be
+forthwith and irrefutably brought into execution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Workers&rsquo; and Peasants&rsquo; Government appointed by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets has received the name of the Council of
+People&rsquo;s Commissars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars summons the Peasants to take the whole
+power into their hands in every locality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The workers will in every way absolutely and entirely support the peasants,
+arrange for them all that is required in connection with machines and tools,
+and in return they request the peasants to help with the transport of grain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>President of the Council of People&rsquo;s Commissars,</i> V. ULIANOV
+(LENIN).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Petrograd, November 18th, 1917.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The full-powered Congress of Peasants&rsquo; Soviets met about a week later,
+and continued for several weeks. Its history is merely an expanded version of
+the history of the &ldquo;Extraordinary Conference.&rdquo; At first the great
+majority of the delegates were hostile to the Soviet Government, and supported
+the reactionary wing. Several days later the assembly was supporting the
+moderates with Tchernov. And several days after that the vast majority of the
+Congress were voting for the faction of Maria Spiridonova, and sending their
+representatives into the <i>Tsay-ee-kah</i> at Smolny…. The Right Wing then
+walked out of the Congress and called a Congress of its own, which went on,
+dwindling from day to day, until it finally dissolved….
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 3076-h.htm or 3076-h.zip</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/7/3076/</div>
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+This etext was produced by Normal Wolcott.
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+
+
+Ten Days that Shook the World
+
+by John Reed
+
+
+
+
+[Redactor's Note: This document uses the ISO 8891-1 Latin1 character
+set (Windows). The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices.
+The footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the
+Appendix No. and Section are referred to in the text in parentheses,
+the Appendices following the book text. Liberal use is made of italics,
+and these have been indicated by bracketing italic text with the
+underscore character "_".  Line length is 70-72 characters. A number of
+graphics occur in the text, these are referred to by number as
+"Graphic", etc. The Figures themselves are in a separate file. To
+facilitate conversion to a word-processing format, an attempt has been
+made to end each line with a space.
+
+Graphics: There are 17 graphic figures in the text. These are indicated
+by a reference to the page number in the original book. These figures
+are available elsewhere (www.geocities.com/norm_90) where images of the
+pages involved are available in tiff or pdf format. These are--
+page 33 46      49      96      104     166     184     205
+        224     227     251     254     276     279     281
+        287     354
+
+Epilogue: The original book of this text had a number of newspaper
+clipings from the 1920's and 1930's included. Most of these relate to
+the violent deaths encountered by those playing a part in this book.
+Others reveal that Eisenstein made a film of "Ten Days". Stalin, who is
+not mentioned in the book, suppressed the work. Louise Bryant,
+mentioned in the text, was married to John Reed, and after his death
+married William Bullitt in 1923 (divorced 1930) and died in Paris in
+1936 at age 41. Mr. Bullitt was the first ambassador to Russia in the
+Roosevelt administration, and later to France. Harvard University
+accepted a commissioned portrait of Reed in 1935 from a group of his
+classmates and hung it in Adams House, site of the boarding house where
+Reed lived at Harvard. ]
+
+                     Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+                            by John Reed
+
+                         Table of Contents
+
+                Preface.
+
+                Notes and Explanations.
+
+                Chapter 1. Background.
+
+                Chapter 2. The Coming Storm.
+
+                Chapter 3. On the Eve.
+
+                Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government.
+
+                Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead.
+
+                Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation.
+
+                Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front.
+
+                Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution.
+
+                Chapter 9. Victory.
+
+                Chapter 10. Moscow.
+
+                Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power.
+
+                Chapter 12. The Peasants� Congress.
+
+                Appendices I - XII
+
+
+                             Preface
+
+THIS book is a slice of intensified history�history as I saw it. It
+does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November
+Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and
+soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands
+of the Soviets.
+
+Naturally most of it deals with �Red Petrograd,� the capital and heart
+of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
+in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
+intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.
+
+In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
+myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
+experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
+chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
+Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
+but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.
+
+Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
+is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
+set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
+the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
+afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
+until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
+it afterward?
+
+These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
+volume, �Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,� I trace the course of the
+Revolution up to and including the German  peace. There I explain the
+origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
+of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
+structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the Brest-
+Litovsk negotiations�.
+
+In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
+that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
+on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
+a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
+control of the Tsar�s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
+order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
+front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
+lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
+manufactures and transportation in 1916�all these we know now were part
+of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
+March Revolution.
+
+For the first few months of the new r�gime, in spite of the confusion
+incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
+of the world�s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
+the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
+improved.
+
+But the �honeymoon� was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
+political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
+it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
+France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
+England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
+industrial and agrarian democracy.
+
+William English Walling, in his book, �Russia�s Message,� an account of
+the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
+Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
+unanimously:
+
+They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
+Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
+might still continue to starve�.
+
+The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
+dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
+studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
+about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
+oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
+the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
+take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near�.
+
+They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
+institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
+anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
+class)�.
+
+The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
+hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
+Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
+exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
+and Cripple Creek�.
+
+And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
+Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
+triumph of Bolshevism.
+
+Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
+Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
+book, �The Birth of the Russian Democracy�: The Bolsheviks organised
+their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotsky�
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming into
+power became evident almost immediately after the March Revolution. The
+history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a history of their
+steady growth�.
+
+Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
+�ignorance� of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
+political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
+well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
+twelve million members of the Russian consumers� Cooperative societies;
+and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
+organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
+world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
+application.
+
+William English Walling thus characterises them:
+
+The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
+write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
+condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
+intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
+equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
+people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
+Russia�.
+
+Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
+arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
+struggle of the �respectable� elements against the brutal attacks of
+Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
+realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
+organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
+this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
+In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
+was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the Factory-
+Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw materials
+diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital punishment
+was restored and military defeat connived at.
+
+This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
+retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
+the Soviets.
+
+Between these two extremes, with the other factions which whole-
+heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
+�moderate� Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
+and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
+propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
+theories.
+
+Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
+Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution�that only a
+_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
+the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
+attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
+which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old r�gime. And so it
+followed that when the �moderate� Socialists were forced to assume the
+power, they were afraid to use it.
+
+They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
+economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
+the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
+therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
+first be a parliamentary state�though with some improvements on the
+Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
+collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.
+
+From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The �moderate�
+Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
+�moderate� Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
+obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
+the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.
+
+And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
+the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
+on the side of the propertied classes�. In almost every country in the
+world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.
+
+Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
+Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
+and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
+the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
+armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
+December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar�.
+
+It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
+to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an �adventure.� Adventure it
+was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
+sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
+everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
+been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
+among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
+were there to put into operation workers� control of industry. In every
+village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
+Workers�, Soldiers� and Peasants� Deputies, prepared to assume the task
+of local administration.
+
+No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
+Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
+rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
+historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
+the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
+in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
+leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
+written this book.
+
+In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
+story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
+conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
+                                        J. R.
+    New York, January 1st 1919.
+
+
+                        Notes and Explanations
+
+To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian
+organisations-political groups, Committees and Central Committees,
+Soviets, Dumas and Unions-will prove extremely confusing. For this
+reason I am giving here a few brief definitions and explanations.
+
+                        Political Parties
+
+In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
+tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
+forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
+political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
+this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
+character of their constituencies can be noticed....
+
+  1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
+once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
+underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_
+came by degrees to stand for their political programme.
+Representatives in this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.
+
+  2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name,
+Constitutional Democrats. Its official name is "Party of the People's
+Freedom." Under the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied
+classes, the _Cadets_ were the great party of _political_ reform,
+roughly corresponding to the Progressive Party in America. When the
+Revolution broke out in March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first
+Provisional Government. The _Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April
+because it declared itself in favour of Allied imperialistic aims,
+including the imperialistic aims of the Tsar's Government. As the
+Revolution became more and more a _social economic_ Revolution, the
+_Cadets_ grew more and more conservative. Its representatives in this
+book are: Miliukov, Vinaver, Shatsky.
+
+  2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
+through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
+_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
+of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet.
+The _Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual
+leaders were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the
+more "modern" bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were
+intelligent enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by
+their own weapon-economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_
+Lianozov, Konovalov.
+
+  3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group).
+Numerically a small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the
+leaders of the Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants.
+Professing to be Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the
+interests of the petty bourgeoisie-clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By
+direct descent, inheritors of the compromising tradition of the
+Labour Group in the Fourth Imperial Duma, which was composed largely
+of peasant representatives. Kerensky was the leader of the
+_Trudoviki_ in the Imperial Duma when the Revolution of March, 1917,
+broke out. The _Populist Socialists_ are a nationalistic party. Their
+representatives in this book are: Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.
+
+  4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
+Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
+question of tactics, into two factions-the Majority (Bolshinstvo),
+and the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names
+"Bolsheviki" and "Mensheviki"-"members of the majority" and "members
+of the minority." These two wings became two separate parties, both
+calling themselves "Russian Social Democratic Labour Party," and both
+professing to be Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the
+Bolsheviki were really the minority, becoming again the majority in
+September, 1917.
+
+  a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
+believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
+Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
+first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the
+Socialist intellectuals, which means: all the means of education
+having been in the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals
+instinctively reacted to their training, and took the side of the
+propertied classes. Among their representatives in this book are:
+Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.
+
+  b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
+_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with the
+propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the
+conservative Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the
+working-class advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member
+of this group. Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.
+
+  c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in
+order to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of
+"moderate" or "parliamentary" Socialism, which dominates the
+Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all countries.
+The _Bolsheviki_ proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and
+seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of
+Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources
+and financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly
+of the factory workers, but also of a large section of the poor
+peasants. The name "Bolshevik" can _not_ be translated by
+"Maximalist." The Maximalists are a separate group. (See paragraph
+5b). Among the leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.
+
+  d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the
+_Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very
+influential newspaper which was its organ. A little group of
+intellectuals with a very small following among the working-class,
+except the personal following of Maxim Gorky, its leader.
+Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the _Mensheviki
+Internationalists,_ except that the _Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to
+be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik
+tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives
+in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.
+
+  e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
+entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers
+of the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80's, and its
+greatest theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely
+patriotic, too conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the
+Bolshevik _coup d'etat, Yedinstvo_ disappeared.
+
+  5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the
+initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the
+peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations-the Terrorists.
+After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been
+Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private
+property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion.
+Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the
+_Essaires_ to abandon the "compensation" clause, and led to the
+younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party
+in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the _Left Socialist
+Revolutionary party._ The _Essaires,_ who were afterward always
+called by the radical groups _"Right Socialist Revolutionaries,"_
+adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together
+with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the
+intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote
+rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of
+shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki.
+Among their leaders mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz,
+Kerensky, Tchernov, "Babuschka" Breshkovskaya.
+
+  a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing
+the Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at
+first were reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics.
+However, the _Left Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet
+Government, sharing the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of
+Agriculture. They withdrew from the Government several times, but
+always returned. As the peasants left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in
+increasing numbers, they joined the _Left Socialist Revolutionary
+party,_ which became the great peasant party supporting the Soviet
+Government, standing for confiscation without compensation of the
+great landed estates, and their disposition by the peasants
+themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin, Kamkov,
+Kalagayev.
+
+  b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary
+party_ in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant
+movement, demanding the immediate application of the maximum
+Socialist programme. Now an insignificant group of peasant
+anarchists.
+
+                        Parliamentary Procedure
+
+Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
+model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election
+of officers and the _presidium._
+
+  The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of
+representatives of the groups and political factions represented in
+the assembly, in proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_
+arranges the Order of Business, and its members can be called upon by
+the President to take the chair _pro tem._
+
+  Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then
+debated, and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by
+the different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order
+of Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first
+half hour. On the plea of "emergency," which the crowd almost always
+grants, anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any
+subject. The crowd controls the meeting, practically the only
+functions of the speaker being to keep order by ringing a little
+bell, and to recognise speakers. Almost all the real work of the
+session is done in caucuses of the different groups and political
+factions, which almost always cast their votes in a body and are
+represented by floor-leaders. The result is, however, that at every
+important new point, or vote, the session takes a recess to enable
+the different groups and political factions to hold a caucus.
+
+  The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
+over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
+are: _"Prosim!_ Please! Go on!" _"Pravilno!"_ or _"Eto vierno!_
+That's true! Right!" _"Do volno!_ Enough!" _"Doloi!_ Down with him!"
+_"Posor!_ Shame!" and _"Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!"
+
+                        Popular Organisations
+
+1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means "council." Under the Tsar the
+Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
+the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
+with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
+economic organisations-the Soviet of Workers', of Soldiers', or of
+Peasants' Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these
+bodies, and wherever else it occurs I have translated it "Council."
+
+  Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and
+village of Russia-and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny)
+Soviets_-there are also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or
+provincial) _Soviets,_ and the Central Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian _Soviets_ in the capital, called from its initials
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, "Central Committees").
+
+  Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers' and of Soldiers'
+Deputies combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special
+matters concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers'
+and the Soldiers' Sections continued to meet separately. The
+_Soviets_ of Peasants' Deputies did not join the other two until
+after the Bolshevik _coup d'etat._ They, too, were organised like the
+workers and soldiers, with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian
+Peasants' _Soviets_ in the capital.
+
+  2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian
+labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the
+Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These
+Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian
+Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in
+the capital.
+
+  3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations
+created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control
+industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident
+upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to
+take over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also
+had their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at
+Petrograd, which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
+
+  4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly "deliberative body." The
+old Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution,
+in a democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The
+_City Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal
+Council, often called "Municipal Self-Government." It was elected by
+direct and secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the
+masses during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in
+influence of all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the
+growing power of organisations based on _economic_ groups.
+
+  5. _Zemstvos._ May be roughly translated "county councils." Under
+the Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little
+administrative power, developed and controlled largely by
+intellectual Liberals among the land-owning classes. Their most
+important function was education and social service among the
+peasants. During the war the _Zemstvos_ gradually took over the
+entire feeding and clothing of the Russian Army, as well as the
+buying from foreign countries, and work among the soldiers generally
+corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C. A. at the Front.
+After the March Revolution the _Zemstvos_ were democratized, with a
+view to making them the organs of local government in the rural
+districts. But like the _City Dumas,_ they could not compete with the
+_Soviets._
+
+  6. _Cooperatives._ These were the workers' and peasants' Consumers'
+Cooperative societies, which had several million members all over
+Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and "moderate"
+Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported by the
+revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
+complete transference of means of production and distribution into
+the hands of the workers. After the March Revolution the
+_Cooperatives_ spread rapidly, and were dominated by Populist
+Socialists, Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and acted as a
+conservative political force until the Bolshevik Revolution. However,
+it was the _Cooperatives_ which fed Russia when the old structure of
+commerce and transportation collapsed.
+
+  7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the
+soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old
+regime officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps
+had its committee, over all of which was elected the _Army
+Committee._ The _Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General
+Staff. The administrative break-down in the army incident upon the
+Revolution threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of
+the work of the Quartermaster's Department, and in some cases, even
+the command of troops.
+
+  8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy.
+
+                        Central Committees
+
+In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every
+sort of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national
+congresses of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Soviets, Trade
+Unions, Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees-besides
+every branch of the military and naval service, Cooperatives,
+Nationalities, etc. Each of these conventions elected a Central
+Committee, or a Central Executive Committee, to guard its particular
+interests at the seat of Government. As the Provisional Government
+grew weaker, these Central Committees were forced to assume more and
+more administrative powers.
+
+  The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:
+
+  _Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor
+Miliukov and other Liberals established unions of professional
+men-doctors, lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one
+central organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of
+Unions_ acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the
+_Union of Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the
+Government employees who went on strike against the authority of the
+Soviets.
+
+  _Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. So called from the
+initials of its name.
+
+  _Tsentroflot._ "Centre-Fleet"-the Central Fleet Committee.
+
+  _Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers'
+Union. So called from the initials of its name.
+
+                        Other Organisations
+
+_Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_
+were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into
+existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed
+to keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all
+efforts of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or
+less unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red
+Guards_ appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but
+full of Revolutionary zeal.
+
+  _White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last
+stages of the Revolution, to defend private property from the
+Bolshevik attempt to abolish it. A great many of them were University
+students.
+
+  _Tekhintsi._ The so-called "Savage Division" in the army, made up
+of Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to
+General Kornilov. The _Tekhintsi_ were noted for their blind
+obedience and their savage cruelty in warfare.
+
+  _Death Battalions._ Or _Shock Battalions._ The Women's Battalion is
+known to the world as the _Death Battalion,_ but there were many
+_Death Battalions_ composed of men. These were formed in the summer
+of 1917 by Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline
+and combative fire of the army by heroic example. The _Death
+Battalions_ were composed mostly of intense young patriots. These
+came for the most part from among the sons of the propertied classes.
+
+  _Union of Officers._ An organisation formed among the reactionary
+officers in the army to combat politically the growing power of the
+Army Committees.
+
+  _Knights of St. George._ The Cross of St. George was awarded for
+distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
+_"Knight of St. George."_ The predominant influence in the
+organisation was that of the supporters of the military idea.
+
+  _Peasants' Union._ In 1905, the _Peasants' Union_ was a
+revolutionary peasants' organisation. In 1917, however, it had become
+the political expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight
+the growing power and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+                        Chronology and Spelling
+
+I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the
+former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.
+
+  In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt
+to follow any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to
+give the spelling which would lead the English-speaking reader to the
+simplest approximation of their pronunciation.
+
+                        Sources
+
+Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also
+relied, however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred
+assorted Russian newspapers, covering almost every day of the time
+described, of files of the English paper, the _Russian Daily News,_
+and of the two French papers, _Journal de Russie_ and _Entente._ But
+far more valuable than these is the _Bulletin de la Presse_ issued
+daily by the French Information Bureau in Petrograd, which reports
+all important happenings, speeches and the comment of the Russian
+press. Of this I have an almost complete file from the spring of 1917
+to the end of January, 1918.
+
+  Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every
+proclamation, decree and announcement posted on the walls of
+Petrograd from the middle of September, 1917, to the end of January,
+1918. Also the official publication of all Government decrees and
+orders, and the official Government publication of the secret
+treaties and other documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs when the Bolsheviki took it over.
+
+                  Ten Days That Shook The World
+
+                              Chapter I
+
+                             Background
+
+TOWARD the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology
+visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by
+business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down.
+The Professor wrote an article about it, and then travelled around
+the country, visiting factory towns and peasant communities-where, to
+his astonishment, the Revolution seemed to be speeding up. Among the
+wage-earners and the land-working people it was common to hear talk
+of "all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers." If the
+Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the whole Army
+talking Peace....
+
+The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both
+observations were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming
+more conservative, the masses of the people more radical.
+
+There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
+generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted
+too long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared
+by the dominant "moderate" Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See
+App. I, Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who
+supported the Provisional Government of Kerensky.
+
+On October 14th the official organ of the "moderate" Socialists said:
+
+The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old
+r�gime and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long
+enough. Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as
+rapidly as possible. As a great revolutionist put it, "Let us hasten,
+friends, to terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long
+will not gather the fruits...."
+
+Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
+stubborn feeling that the "first act" was not yet played out. On the
+front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
+could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the
+rear the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed
+for trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land;
+and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
+black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political
+exiles were being excluded from the country as "undesirable"
+citizens; and in some cases, men who returned from abroad to their
+villages were prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts
+committed in 1905.
+
+To the multiform discontent of the people the "moderate" Socialists
+had one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet
+in December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The
+Constituent Assembly was all well and good; but there were certain
+definite things for which the Russian Revolution had been made, and
+for which the revolutionary martyrs rotted in their stark Brotherhood
+Grave on Mars Field, that must be achieved Constituent Assembly or no
+Constituent Assembly: Peace, Land, and Workers' Control of Industry.
+The Constituent Assembly had been postponed and postponed-would
+probably be postponed again, until the people were calm
+enough-perhaps to modify their demands! At any rate, here were eight
+months of the Revolution gone, and little enough to show for it....
+
+Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply
+deserting, the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great
+estates, the workers sabotaged and struck.... Of course, as was
+natural, the manufacturers, land-owners and army officers exerted all
+their influence against any democratic compromise....
+
+The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between
+ineffective reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from the
+Socialist Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers' Committees
+henceforth to meet only after working hours. Among the troops at the
+front, "agitators" of opposition political parties were arrested,
+radical newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied-to
+revolutionary propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the Red
+Guard. Cossacks were sent to keep order in the provinces....
+
+These measures were supported by the "moderate" Socialists and their
+leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate
+with the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and
+went over to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers'
+Control of Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In
+September, 1917, matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming
+sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the "moderate" Socialists
+succeeded in establishing a Government of Coalition with the
+propertied classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever.
+
+An article in _Rabotchi Put_ (Workers' Way) about the middle of
+October, entitled "The Socialist Ministers," expressed the feeling of
+the masses of the people against the "moderate" Socialists:
+
+Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)
+
+Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General
+Polovtsev, checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of
+capital punishment in the army.
+
+Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their
+profits, and finished-and finished by an attempt to dissolve the
+Workers' Committees in the shops and factories.
+
+Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the
+Land Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers' and soldiers'
+newspapers.
+
+Tchernov: signed the "Imperial" manifest, ordering the dissolution of
+the Finnish Diet.
+
+Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this
+saviour of the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due
+to reasons over which he had no control.
+
+Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the
+best workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.
+
+Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.
+
+Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his
+services is too long....
+
+A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
+resolution which began as follows:
+
+We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional
+Government of the "Socialist," the political adventurer-Kerensky, as
+one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it
+the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on
+behalf of the bourgeoisie....
+
+The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki....
+
+Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers
+beating upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma
+to assume the supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the
+people, workers, soldiers and peasants, which forced every change in
+the course of the Revolution. They hurled the Miliukov Ministry down;
+it was their Soviet which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace
+terms-"No annexations, no indemnities, and the right of
+self-determination of peoples"; and again, in July, it was the
+spontaneous rising of the unorganised proletariat which once more
+stormed the Tauride Palace, to demand that the Soviets take over the
+Government of Russia.
+
+The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the
+head of the movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the
+rising, public opinion turned against them, and their leaderless
+hordes slunk back into the Viborg Quarter, which is Petrograd's _St.
+Antoine._ Then followed a savage hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds
+were imprisoned, among them Trotzky, Madame Kollontai and Kameniev;
+Lenin and Zinoviev went into hiding, fugitives from justice; the
+Bolshevik papers were suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries
+raised the cry that the Bolsheviki were German agents, until people
+all over the world believed it.
+
+But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate
+its accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were
+discovered to be forgeries; [*] and one by one the Bolsheviki were
+[*Part of the famous "Sisson Documents"]
+released from prison without trial, on nominal or no bail-until only
+six remained. The impotence and indecision of the ever-changing
+Provisional Government was an argument nobody could refute. The
+Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses, "All Power
+to the Soviets!"-and they were not merely self-seeking, for at that
+time the majority of the Soviets was "moderate" Socialist, their
+bitter enemy.
+
+But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
+workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
+programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the
+bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In
+July they were hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan
+workmen, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been
+won almost entirely to their cause. The September municipal elections
+in the large cities (See App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18
+per cent of the returns were Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary,
+against more than 70 per cent in June....
+
+There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
+that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central
+Army and Fleet Committees, [*] and the Central Committees of some of
+[*See Notes and Explanations.]
+the Unions-notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
+Workers-opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These
+Central Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer,
+or even before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had
+an enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new
+elections. Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should
+have been called in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_ [*] would not
+[*See Notes and Explanations.]
+call the meeting, on the ground that the Constituent Assembly was
+only two months away, at which time, they hinted, the Soviets would
+abdicate. Meanwhile, one by one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the
+local Soviets all over the country, in the Union branches and the
+ranks of the soldiers and sailors. The Peasants' Soviets remained
+still conservative, because in the sluggish rural districts political
+consciousness developed slowly, and the Socialist Revolutionary party
+had been for a generation the party which had agitated among the
+peasants.... But even among the peasants a revolutionary wing was
+forming. It showed itself clearly in October, when the left wing of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries split off, and formed a new political
+faction, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of
+reaction were gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the
+Troitsky Farce theatre in Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called
+_Sins of the Tsar_ was interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who
+threatened to lynch the actors for "insulting the Emperor." Certain
+newspapers began to sigh for a "Russian Napoleon." It was the usual
+thing among bourgeois _intelligentzia_ to refer to the Soviets of
+Workers' Deputies (Rabotchikh Deputatov) as _Sabatchikh_
+Deputatov-Dogs' Deputies.
+
+On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist,
+Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the "Russian Rockefeller"-a
+Cadet by political faith.
+
+"Revolution," he said, "is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign
+powers must intervene here-as one would intervene to cure a sick
+child, and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less
+improper, but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in
+their own countries-such contagious ideas as 'proletarian
+dictatorship,' and 'world social revolution'... There is a chance that
+this intervention may not be necessary. Transportation is
+demoralised, the factories are closing down, and the Germans are
+advancing. Starvation and defeat may bring the Russian people to
+their senses...."
+
+Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it
+would be impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the
+existence of the workers' Shop Committees, or to allow the workers
+any share in the management of industry.
+
+"As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
+methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege
+declared, and the military commander of the district can deal with
+these gentlemen without legal formalities.... _Or if, for example, the
+Constituent Assembly manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be
+dispersed by force of arms...."_
+
+Winter was coming on-the terrible Russian winter. I heard business
+men speak of it so: "Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps
+now it will rid us of Revolution." On the freezing front miserable
+armies continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways
+were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate
+masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the
+people, causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just
+after General Kornilov said publicly, "Must we pay with Riga the
+price of bringing the country to a sense of its duty?" [*]
+[* See "Kornilov to Brest-Litvosk" by John Reed. Boni and Liveright
+N.Y., 1919]
+
+To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to
+such a pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern
+Front who frankly preferred military disaster to cooperation with the
+Soldiers' Committees. The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the
+Cadet party told me that the break-down of the country's economic
+life was part of a campaign to discredit the Revolution. An Allied
+diplomat, whose name I promised not to mention, confirmed this from
+his own knowledge. I know of certain coal-mines near Kharkov which
+were fired and flooded by their owners, of textile factories at
+Moscow whose engineers put the machinery out of order when they left,
+of railroad officials caught by the workers in the act of crippling
+locomotives....
+
+A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to
+the Revolution-even to the Provisional Government-and didn't hesitate
+to say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
+conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of
+the Germans, bringing "law and order."... One evening I spent at the
+house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at
+the table whether they preferred "Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki." The
+vote was ten to one for Wilhelm...
+
+The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to
+pile up fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the
+corruption of Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded,
+or secretly sent out of the country to Sweden. In the first four
+months of the Revolution, for example, the reserve food-supplies were
+almost openly looted from the great Municipal warehouses of
+Petrograd, until the two-years' provision of grain had fallen to less
+than enough to feed the city for one month.... According to the
+official report of the last Minister of Supplies in the Provisional
+Government, coffee was bought wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles
+a pound, and the consumer in Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the
+stores of the large cities were tons of food and clothing; but only
+the rich could buy them.
+
+In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
+speculator_-maradior_ (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The three
+sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
+foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to
+mysterious parties in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest
+in a chocolate factory, which supplied the local Cooperative
+societies-on condition that the Cooperatives furnished him everything
+he needed. And so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound
+of black bread on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white
+bread, sugar, tea, candy, cake and butter.... Yet when the soldiers at
+the front could no longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how
+indignantly did this family scream "Cowards!"-how "ashamed" they were
+"to be Russians"... When finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned
+vast hoarded stores of provisions, what "Robbers" they were.
+
+Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
+unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and
+very active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned,
+for and against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky-whoever would
+pay.... In the darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such
+as the Black Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in
+some form or other.
+
+In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
+note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
+"All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
+millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
+bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
+speculation, treachery.... The Revolution is in danger, and with it the
+cause of the people all over the world!"
+
+The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between
+the Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March
+days, was about to culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the
+Middle Ages into the twentieth century, Russia showed the startled
+world two systems of Revolution-the political and the social-in
+mortal combat.
+
+What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after
+all these months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie
+should have better known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia
+will the "sickness" of Revolution have run its course....
+
+Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of
+another age, almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt
+ourselves to the newer, swifter life; just as Russian politics swung
+bodily to the Left-until the Cadets were outlawed as "enemies of the
+people," Kerensky became a "counter-revolutionist," the "middle"
+Socialist leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were
+too reactionary for their following, and men like Victor Tchernov,
+and even Maxim Gorky, belonged to the Right Wing....
+
+About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan,
+the British Ambassador, and implored him not to mention the fact that
+they had been there, because they were "considered too far Right."
+
+"And to think," said Sir George. "One year ago my Government
+instructed me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously
+Left!"
+
+September and October are the worst months of the Russian
+year-especially the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the
+shortening days, the rain fell drenching, incessant. The mud
+underfoot was deep, slippery and clinging, tracked everywhere by
+heavy boots, and worse than usual because of the complete break-down
+of the Municipal administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from the
+Gulf of Finland, and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At
+night, for motives of economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the
+street-lights were few and far between; in private dwellings and
+apartment-houses the electricity was turned on from six o'clock until
+midnight, with candles forty cents apiece and little kerosene to be
+had. It was dark from three in the afternoon to ten in the morning.
+Robberies and housebreakings increased. In apartment houses the men
+took turns at all-night guard duty, armed with loaded rifles. This
+was under the Provisional Government.
+
+Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
+from a pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a
+quarter-pound. Toward the end there was a week without any bread at
+all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month-if
+one could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a
+pound of tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten rubles-at
+least a dollar. There was milk for about half the babies in the city;
+most hotels and private houses never saw it for months. In the fruit
+season apples and pears sold for a little less than a ruble apiece on
+the street-corner....
+
+For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in _queue_
+long hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I
+have seen the _kvost_ (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly
+women, some with babies in their arms.... Carlyle, in his _French
+Revolution,_ has described the French people as distinguished above
+all others by their faculty of standing in _queue._ Russia had
+accustomed herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas
+the Blessed as long ago as 1915, and from then continued
+intermittently until the summer of 1917, when it settled down as the
+regular order of things. Think of the poorly-clad people standing on
+the iron-white streets of Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter!
+I have listened in the bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of
+discontent which from time to time burst up through the miraculous
+goodnature of the Russian crowd....
+
+Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays.
+Karsavina appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving
+Russia coming to see her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky
+they were reviving Meyerhold's production of Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan
+the Terrible"; and at that performance I remember noticing a student
+of the Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up
+correctly between the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its
+eagles all erased.... The _Krivoye Zerkalo_ staged a sumptuous version
+of Schnitzler's "Reigen."
+
+Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated
+to Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the
+female _intelligentzia_ went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and
+the Easy Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for
+Theosophists. And the Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the
+first time in history, plastered the walls with announcements of
+gospel meetings, which amused and astounded Russian audiences....
+
+As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went
+on, ignoring the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made
+verses-but not about the Revolution. The realistic painters painted
+scenes from medi�val Russian history-anything but the Revolution.
+Young ladies from the provinces came up to the capital to learn
+French and cultivate their voices, and the gay young beautiful
+officers wore their gold-trimmed crimson _bashliki_ and their
+elaborate Caucasian swords around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of
+the minor bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon,
+carrying each her little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and
+half a loaf of bread in her muff, and wished that the Tsar were back,
+or that the Germans would come, or anything that would solve the
+servant problem.... The daughter of a friend of mine came home one
+afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car conductor had
+called her "Comrade!"
+
+All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The
+servants one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were
+getting independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles,
+and as wages averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants
+refused to stand in _queue_ and wear out their shoes. But more than
+that. In the new Russia every man and woman could vote; there were
+working-class newspapers, saying new and startling things; there were
+the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The _izvoshtchiki_
+(cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in the
+Petrograd Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and
+refused tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which
+read, "No tips taken here-" or, "Just because a man has to make his
+living waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a
+tip!"
+
+At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers,
+and learned self-government through their committees. In the
+factories those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop
+Committees, [*] gained experience and strength and a realisation of
+[* See Notes and Explanations]
+their historical mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was
+learning to read, and _reading-_politics, economics, history-because
+the people wanted to _know...._ In every city, in most towns, along the
+Front, each political faction had its newspaper-sometimes several.
+Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed by thousands of
+organisations, and poured into the armies, the villages, the
+factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted,
+burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny
+Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons,
+car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia
+absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And
+it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap
+fiction that corrupts-but social and economic theories, philosophy,
+the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky....
+
+Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle's "flood of French speech" was a
+mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches-in theatres, circuses,
+school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters,
+barracks.... Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares,
+factories.... What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
+Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social
+Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever
+they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
+and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In
+railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu
+debate, everywhere....
+
+And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the
+men of two continents-conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives,
+Zemstvos, [*] nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the
+[* See Notes and Explanations]
+Democratic Conference, the Moscow Conference, the Council of the
+Russian Republic. There were always three or four conventions going
+on in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of
+speakers voted down, and every man free to express the thought that
+was in him....
+
+We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
+gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
+when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
+flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly,
+"Did you bring anything to _read?"_
+
+What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
+though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
+Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others-somewhat
+faded-floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms
+and eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the
+fierce _gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen
+militia patrolled the streets-still, there were many quaint
+anachronisms.
+
+For example, Peter the Great's _Tabel o Rangov-_Table of Ranks-which
+he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
+everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with
+the insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about
+five o'clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old
+gentlemen in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the
+huge, barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating
+perhaps how great a mortality among their superiors would advance
+them to the coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy
+Councillor, with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension,
+and possibly the Cross of St. Anne....
+
+There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
+came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
+not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
+Tsar's service!
+
+It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
+disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
+unrolled....
+
+                              Chapter II
+
+                          The Coming Storm
+
+IN September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself
+military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the
+mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the
+Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were implicated; even
+Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II, Sect. 1) Savinkov,
+summoned to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was
+arrested by the Soldiers' Committees. Generals were dismissed,
+Ministers suspended from their functions, and the Cabinet fell.
+
+Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party
+of the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries,
+ordered him to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and
+threatened to resign from the Cabinet if the Socialists insisted.
+However, popular feeling ran so high that for the moment he did not
+dare oppose it, and a temporary Directorate of Five of the old
+Ministers, with Kerensky at the head, assumed the power until the
+question should be settled.
+
+The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist
+groups-"moderates" as well as revolutionists-in a passionate impulse
+of self-defence. There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government
+must be created, responsible to the elements supporting the
+Revolution. So the _Tsay-ee-kah_ invited the popular organisations
+to send delegates to a Democratic Conference, which should meet at
+Petrograd in September.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ three factions immediately appeared. The
+Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be
+summoned, and that they take over the power. The "centre" Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki
+Internationalists under Martov, and the "centre" Mensheviki, [*]
+[* See Notes and Explanations.]
+represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely
+Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the
+right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under
+Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be
+represented in the new Government.
+
+Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd
+Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities
+followed suit.
+
+Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ decided that after all they feared the danger of
+Kornilov less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of
+representation in the Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2)
+admitting more delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other
+conservative bodies. Even this packed assembly at first voted for a
+_Coalition Government without the Cadets._ Only Kerensky's open
+threat of resignation, and the alarming cries of the "moderate"
+Socialists that "the Republic is in danger" persuaded the
+Conference, by a small majority, to declare in favour of the
+principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to sanction the
+establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament, without any
+legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the Russian
+Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes practically
+controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they occupied
+a disproportionate number of seats.
+
+The fact is that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ no longer represented the rank
+and file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no
+intention of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called.
+Its official organ, _Izviestia_ (News), began to hint that the
+function of the Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II, Sect. 3)
+and that they might soon be dissolved... At this time, too, the new
+Government announced as part of its policy the liquidation of
+"irresponsible organisations"-i.e. the Soviets.
+
+The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to
+meet at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of
+Russia. At the same time they withdrew from the Council of the
+Russian Republic, stating that they would not participate in a
+"Government of Treason to the People." (See App. II, Sect. 4)
+
+The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring
+tranquillity to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now
+in a position of power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that
+the Government had no legal right to declare Russia a republic. They
+demanded stern measures in the Army and Navy to destroy the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Committees, and denounced the Soviets. On the
+other side of the chamber the Mensheviki Internationalists and the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries advocated immediate peace, land to
+the peasants, and workers' control of industry-practically the
+Bolshevik programme.
+
+I heard Martov's speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the
+desk of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking
+in a voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger
+toward the right benches:
+
+"You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait
+for a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon
+postponing peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian
+army, until Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the
+different imperialist groups.... You are trying to impose upon the
+Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the
+bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay....
+You will see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom
+you call German agents, of those Zimmerwaldists [*] who in all the
+[* Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
+Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation
+in the International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,
+in 1915]
+lands have prepared the awakening of the conscience of the
+democratic masses...."
+
+Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the
+pressure of the rising dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility
+divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.
+
+This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the
+Allied Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of
+foreign policy....
+
+Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
+earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May,
+1917, the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries,had proclaimed the famous Russian
+peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a
+conference to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised
+for August; then postponed until September; then until October; and
+now it was fixed for November 10th.
+
+The Provisional Government suggested two representatives-General
+Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of
+Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and
+drew up a manifesto, the famous _nakaz_- (See App. II, Sect. 5)
+instructions. The Provisional Government  objected to Skobeliev and
+his _nakaz;_ the Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law
+in the British House of Commons, in answer to a question, responded
+coldly, "As far as I know the Paris Conference will not discuss the
+aims of the war at all, but only the methods of conducting it...."
+
+At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the
+Bolsheviki cried, "See where the compromising tactics of the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!"
+
+Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia's
+armies stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their
+hundreds upon hundreds of delegations, crying "Peace! Peace!"
+
+I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great
+popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous
+night after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny
+lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the
+steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof-soldiers, sailors,
+workmen, women, all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A
+soldier was speaking-from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division,
+wherever and whatever that was:
+
+"Comrades," he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face
+and despairing gestures. "The people at the top are always calling
+upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have
+everything are left unmolested.
+
+"We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to
+serve on our Staff? Well we're at war with the capitalists too, and
+yet we invite them into our Government....
+
+"The soldier says, 'Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
+Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it
+the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am
+defending the Revolution then I'll go out and fight without capital
+punishment to force me.'
+
+"When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the
+workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have
+something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"
+
+In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less
+soldier speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring
+that if the Government did not make an energetic effort to get
+peace, the army would leave the trenches and go home.
+
+The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
+
+"We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must
+give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be
+left only empty trenches. Peace or supplies... either let the
+Government end the war or support the Army...."
+
+For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
+
+"The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to
+the enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
+counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the
+Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even
+to talk of such things, and at the same time doesn't give us enough
+food to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with...."
+
+From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See
+App. II, Sect. 6)...
+
+News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the
+discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with
+Soldiers' Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused
+an order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had
+been surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and
+many killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)...
+
+On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the
+Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear
+Terestchenko's declaration of the Government's foreign policy,
+awaited with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and
+exhausted land.
+
+A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high
+cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See
+App. II, Sect. 8) Nothing.... Only the same platitudes about crushing
+German militarism with the help of the Allies-about the "state
+interests" of Russia, about the "embarrassment" caused by
+Skobeliev's _nakaz._ He ended with the key-note:
+
+"Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
+happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders
+of a great ideal, and children of a great power."
+
+Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a "strong"
+imperialist policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that
+the Government would press for peace.... I reproduce an editorial in
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ (Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik
+Petrograd Soviet:
+
+THE GOVERNMENT'S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES
+
+The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually
+told the trenches the following:
+
+1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but
+with the Governments.)
+
+2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
+impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the
+Governments of our Allies.
+
+3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair.
+(He did not mention the consequences.)
+
+4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister
+has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations?
+What about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet?
+(See App. II, Sect. 9) The parleying of the British king with exiled
+counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention
+all this.)
+
+5. The _nakaz_ to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don't like it and the
+Russian diplomats don't like it. In the Allied Conference we must
+all 'speak one language.'
+
+And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is,
+faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When
+the Allies permit.
+
+That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
+
+Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague
+outlines of a sinister power-the Cossacks. _Novaya Zhizn_ (New
+Life), Gorky's paper, called attention to their activities:
+
+At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot
+down the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to
+follow him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have
+passed to an active political offensive (against it). From the
+back-ground of the Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the
+front of the stage....
+
+Kaledin, _ataman_ of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
+Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He
+flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack
+armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his
+power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination.
+More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council
+of the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the
+newly-formed Cossack Section of the Soviets....
+
+In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon
+Kerensky, arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be
+dropped, and reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the
+Soviets. Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported
+to have said, "In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a
+tyrant.... As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not
+depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they
+exist at all."
+
+At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British
+ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of "the free
+Cossack people."
+
+In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been
+established. The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State.
+The Soviets of Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by
+armed Cossacks, and the headquarters of the Coal Miners' Union at
+Kharkov raided. In all its manifestations the Cossack movement was
+anti-Socialist and militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great
+land-owners, like Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and
+Bardizhe, and it was backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of
+Moscow....
+
+Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland,
+White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became
+bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes,
+claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At
+Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the
+Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded
+the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev
+extended the boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the
+richest agricultural lands of South Russia, as far east as the
+Urals, and began the formation of a national army. Premier
+Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate peace with Germany-and the
+Provisional Government was helpless. Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded
+separate Constituent Assemblies. And in all these countries there
+was the beginning of a bitter struggle between the authorities and
+the local Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies....
+
+Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of
+soldiers were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast,
+aimless tides over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and
+Tver Governments, tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the
+repressive measures of the Government, were burning manor-houses and
+massacring land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed
+Moscow, Odessa and the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was
+paralysed; the army was starving and in the big cities there was no
+bread.
+
+The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary
+factions, could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported
+the interests of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to
+restore order among the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent,
+Government authorities suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the
+Economic Council, established to rebuild the shattered economic life
+of the country, came to a deadlock between the opposing forces of
+capital and labour, and was dissolved by Kerensky. The old r�gime
+military men, backed by Cadets, demanded that harsh measures be
+adopted to restore discipline in the Army and the Navy. In vain
+Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister of Marine, and General
+Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only a new, voluntary,
+democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the soldiers' and
+sailors' Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
+recommendations were ignored.
+
+The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The
+trial of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois
+press defended him, speaking of him as "the great Russian patriot."
+Burtzev's paper, _Obshtchee Dielo_ (Common Cause), called for a
+dictatorship of Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
+
+I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the
+Council of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled
+face, eyes near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard
+streaked with grey.
+
+"Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We
+should get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the
+Germans. Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the
+bunglers are the German agents. Kornilov should have won...."
+
+On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
+Purishkevitch's _Narodny Tribun_ (People's Tribune), _Novaya Rus_
+(New Russia), and _Zhivoye Slovo_ (Living Word), openly advocated
+the extermination of the revolutionary democracy....
+
+On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German
+squadron in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in
+danger, the Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the
+capital. First the great munitions works were to go, distributed
+widely throughout Russia; and then the Government itself was to move
+to Moscow. Instantly the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the
+Government was abandoning the Red Capital in order to weaken the
+Revolution. Riga had been sold to the Germans; now Petrograd was
+being betrayed!
+
+The bourgeois press was joyful. "At Moscow," said the Cadet paper
+_Ryetch_ (Speech), "the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
+atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists." Rodzianko,
+leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in _Utro
+Rossii_ (The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the
+Germans would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets
+and get rid of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:
+
+Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, "Let God take
+care of Petrograd." They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central
+revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that
+I rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will
+bring nothing but disaster upon Russia....
+
+With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be
+destroyed.... But there will be nothing to regret; most of the
+battleships are completely demoralised....
+
+In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation
+was repudiated.
+
+Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a
+thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not
+only by the Government but by all the "moderate" Socialists. The
+Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of
+the Trade Unions, the Peasants' Soviets, but most of all the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting.
+_Izviestia_ and _Golos Soldata_ (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers
+founded by the Petrograd Soviet but now in the hands of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ fiercely assailed it, as did the entire artillery of
+the Socialist Revolutionary party press, _Dielo Naroda_ (People's
+Cause) and _Volia Naroda_ (People's Will).
+
+Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to
+committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees,
+instructing them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn
+public resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the
+democracy was opposed to the meeting so near the date of the
+Constituent Assembly, representatives from the Front, from the Union
+of Zemstvos, the Peasants' Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of
+Officers, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions, [*] protesting....
+[*See Notes and Explanations.]
+The Council of the Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval.
+The entire machinery set up by the Russian Revolution of March
+functioned to block the Congress of Soviets....
+
+On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat-the
+workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were
+already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the
+industrial workers, the _Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti-_
+Factory-Shop Committees; and the insurgent Army and Fleet
+organisations. In some places the people, prevented from electing
+their regular Soviet delegates, held rump meetings and chose one of
+their number to go to Petrograd. In others they smashed the old
+obstructionist committees and formed new ones. A ground-swell of
+revolt heaved and cracked the crust which had been slowly hardening
+on the surface of revolutionary fires dormant all those months. Only
+an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets....
+
+Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and
+factories, violently denouncing "this Government of civil war." One
+Sunday we went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through
+oceans of mud, between stark factories and immense churches, to
+_Obukhovsky Zavod,_ a Government munitions-plant out on the
+Schl�sselburg Prospekt.
+
+The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge
+unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed
+around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber
+and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and
+thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the
+sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the
+mass of simple faces upturned to us.
+
+Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face
+of an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the
+Soviets. Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its
+enemies, who were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the
+army, creating opportunities for a new Konilov.
+
+A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
+"Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We
+are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word
+to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution
+until they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until
+the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers
+to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!"
+
+Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: "Now is the
+time for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we
+must get used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us.
+They are trying to provoke us. But let them know that they can go
+too far-that if they dare to lay their hands upon the organisations
+of the proletariat we will sweep them away like scum from the face
+of the earth!"
+
+The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
+_Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ (Soldier), there appeared a new paper
+for the peasants, _Derevenskaya Byednota_ (Village Poorest), poured
+out in a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, _Rabotchi
+i Soldat._ Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
+
+The fourth year's campaign will mean the annihilation of the army
+and the country.... There is danger for the safety of Petrograd....
+Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people's misfortunes.... The
+peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the
+landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive
+expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are
+threatened with starvation.... The bourgeoisie and its Generals want
+to restore a blind discipline in the army.... Supported by the
+bourgeoisie, the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up
+the meeting of the Constituent Assembly....
+
+The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the
+country.... This paper stands for the people and by the people-the
+poor classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be
+saved by the completion of the Revolution... and for this purpose the
+full power must be in the hands of the Soviets....
+
+This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets-both in
+the capital and in the provinces.
+
+Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
+
+Landlord estates-without compensation-to the peasants.
+
+Workers' control over industrial production.
+
+A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
+
+It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same
+paper-the organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as
+German agents:
+
+The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead
+people, wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the
+German workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than
+we do, to... stand up against this damned war!
+
+This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would
+speak really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and
+would appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German
+troops, fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German
+language.... Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over
+Germany....
+
+In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the
+chamber deepened day by day.
+
+"The propertied classes," cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, "want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the
+State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The
+revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy...."
+
+Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists,
+spoke against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of
+the Cadets: "We must have immediately strong discipline in the
+army.... Since the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist
+that it is a crime to undertake social and economic reforms in
+war-time. We are committing that crime, and yet I am not the enemy
+of these reforms, because I am a Socialist."
+
+Cries from the Left, "We don't believe you!" Mighty applause from
+the Right....
+
+Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to
+tell the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to
+realise that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian
+territory.
+
+Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national
+unity, once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him
+coldly, interrupting with ironical remarks.
+
+Smolny Institute, headquarters of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and of the
+Petrograd Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the
+wide Neva. I went there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a
+groaning noise through the cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with
+people. At the end of the line rose the graceful smoke-blue cupolas
+of Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful; and beside it
+the great barracks like fa�ade of Smolny Institute, two hundred
+yards long and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved
+hugely in stone still insolent over the entrance....
+
+Under the old r�gime a famous convent-school for the daughters of
+the Russian nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the
+Institute had been taken over by the revolutionary organisations of
+workers and soldiers. Within were more than a hundred huge rooms,
+white and bare, on their doors enamelled plaques still informing the
+passerby that within was "Ladies' Class-room Number 4" or "Teachers'
+Bureau"; but over these hung crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the
+vitality of the new order: "Central Committee of the Petrograd
+Soviet" and _"Tsay-ee-kah"_ and "Bureau of Foreign Affairs"; "Union
+of Socialist Soldiers," "Central Committee of the All-Russian Trade
+Unions," "Factory-Shop Committees," "Central Army Committee"; and
+the central offices and caucus-rooms of the political parties....
+
+The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were
+thronged with hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent
+under the weight of huge bundles of newspapers, proclamations,
+printed propaganda of all sorts. The sound of their heavy boots made
+a deep and incessant thunder on the wooden floor.... Signs were posted
+up everywhere: "Comrades! For the sake of your health, preserve
+cleanliness!" Long tables stood at the head of the stairs on every
+floor, and on the landings, heaped with pamphlets and the literature
+of the different political parties, for sale....
+
+The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a
+dining-room. For two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to
+dinner, and stood in line with a thousand others, waiting to get to
+the long serving-tables, where twenty men and women were ladling
+from immense cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and piles of
+_kasha,_ slabs of black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin
+cup. From a basket one grabbed a greasy wooden spoon.... The benches
+along the wooden tables were packed with hungry proletarians,
+wolfing their food, plotting, shouting rough jokes across the room....
+
+
+[Graphic page-33 -- text of placard in russian, translation follows]
+
+COMRADES
+FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH,
+PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.
+
+Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the _Tsay-ee-kah-_
+though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly
+buttered and endless glasses of tea....
+
+In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of
+meetings, the former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room
+lighted by glazed-white chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate
+electric bulbs, and divided by two rows of massive columns; at one
+end a dais, flanked with two tall many-branched light standards, and
+a gold frame behind, from which the Imperial portrait had been cut.
+Here on festal occasions had been banked brilliant military and
+ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting for Grand Duchesses....
+
+Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials
+Committee for the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the
+new delegates come in-burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black
+blouses, a few long-haired peasants. The girl in charge-a member of
+Plekhanov's _Yedinstvo_ [*] group-smiled contemptuously. "These are
+[* See Notes and Explanations]
+very different people from the delegates to the first _Siezd_
+(Congress)," she remarked. "See how rough and ignorant they look!
+The Dark People...." It was true; the depths of Russia had been
+stirred, and it was the bottom which came uppermost now. The
+Credentials Committee, appointed by the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was
+challenging delegate after delegate, on the ground that they had
+been illegally elected. Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, simply grinned. "Never mind," he said, "When the time
+comes we'll see that you get your seats...."
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ said:
+
+The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called
+to attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break
+up the Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that
+delegates had better leave Petrograd.... Pay no attention to these
+lies.... Great days are coming....
+
+It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2,
+so the opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the
+whole country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
+their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
+organisations to elect as many "moderate" Socialist delegates as
+possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants' Congress, to meet
+December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers
+might take...
+
+What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that
+there would be an armed "demonstration," a _vystuplennie_-"coming
+out" of the workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary
+press prophesied insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest
+the Petrograd Soviet, or at least to prevent the meeting of the
+Congress. Such sheets as _Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik
+massacre.
+
+Gorky's paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
+reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
+necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the
+parties of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
+
+As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
+long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
+advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements
+appeal to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the
+battle to seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most
+profound strata of the people....
+
+Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers
+were inciting the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however,
+would prepare the way for a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to
+deny the rumours. Potressov, in the Menshevik _Dien_ (Day),
+published a sensational story, accompanied by a map, which professed
+to reveal the secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.
+
+As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II,
+Sect. 10) proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
+"moderate" and conservative factions and the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denouncing any "demonstrations," imploring the workers and soldiers
+not to listen to agitators. For instance, this from the Military
+Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended
+_vystuplennie._ What is the source of these rumours? What
+organisation authorises these agitators who preach insurrection? The
+Bolsheviki, to a question addressed to them in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denied that they have anything to do with it.... But these rumours
+themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily happen
+that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the
+majority of the workers, soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads
+will call out part of the workers and soldiers on the streets,
+inciting them to an uprising.... In this fearful time through which
+revolutionary Russia is passing, any insurrection can easily turn
+into civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of all
+organisations of the proletariat, built up with so much labour.... The
+counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of
+this insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open the front to
+Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly.... Stick stubbornly to
+your posts! Do not come out!
+
+On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev,
+a little man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He
+was not at all sure that enough delegates would come. "If there _is_
+a Congress," he said, "it will represent the overwhelming sentiment
+of the people. If the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be,
+we shall demand that the power be given to the Soviets, and the
+Provisional Government must resign...."
+
+Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion,
+was more definite. "The 'Lieber-Dans' and the other compromisers are
+sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its
+meeting,-well, then we are realists enough not to depend on _that!"_
+
+Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the
+following items culled from the newspapers of the day:
+
+Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal
+Guard Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.
+
+The _yunkers_ of the Officers' Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo
+and Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to
+Petrograd. Oranienbaum _yunkers_ arrive in the city.
+
+Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed
+in the Winter Palace.
+
+Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by
+the Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the
+Petrograd workmen.
+
+At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a
+resolution demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.
+
+This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days,
+when everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody
+knew just what.
+
+At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October
+30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the
+Soviet contemplated armed insurention as "an attempt of the
+reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets.... The
+Petrograd Soviet," he declared, "had not ordered any _uystuplennie._
+If it is necessary we shall do so, and we will be supported by the
+Petrogruad garrison.... They (the Government) are preparing a
+counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an offensive which will
+be merciless and decisive."
+
+It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a
+demonstration, but the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was
+considering the question of insurrection. All night long the 23d
+they met. There were present all the party intellectuals, the
+leaders-and delegates of the Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone
+of the intellectuals Lenin and Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even   urrection. Even   |          |
+the military men opposed it. A vote was taken. Insurrection was
+defeated!
+
+Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. "I speak
+for the Petrograd proletariat," he said, harshly. "We are in favour
+of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if
+you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, _we're through with you!"_
+Some soldiers joined him.... And after that they voted
+again-insurrection won....
+
+However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev
+and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the
+morning of October 31st appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ the first
+instalment of Lenin's "Letter to the Comrades," (See App. II, Sect.
+11) one of the most audacious pieces of political propaganda the
+world has ever seen. In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments
+in favour of insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev
+and Riazonov.
+
+"Either we must abandon our slogan, 'All Power to the Soviets,' " he
+wrote, "or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle
+course...."
+
+That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a
+brilliant, bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of
+the Republic, branding the Skobeliev _nakaz_ as pro-German,
+declaring that the "revolutionary democracy" was destroying Russia,
+sneering at Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred
+German diplomacy to Russian.... The Left benches were one roaring
+tumult all through....
+
+On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the
+success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of
+the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two
+laws, one for giving the land temporarily to the peasants, and the
+other for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. The next day
+Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the army. That same
+afternoon was opened with great ceremony the first session of the
+new "Commission for Strengthening the Republican R�gime and Fighting
+Against Anarchy and Counter-Revolution"-of which history shows not
+the slightest further trace.... The following morning with two other
+correspondents I interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)-the
+last time he received journalists.
+
+"The Russian people," he said, bitterly, "are suffering from
+economic fatigue-and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world
+thinks that the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken.
+The Russian Revolution is just beginning...." Words more prophetic,
+perhaps, than he knew.
+
+Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of
+October, at which I was present. The "moderate" Socialist
+intellectuals, officers, members of Army Committees, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ were there in force. Against them rose up workmen,
+peasants and common soldiers, passionate and simple.
+
+A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused
+by the arrest of the Land Committees. "This Kerensky is nothing but
+a shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners)," he cried. "They know
+that at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so
+they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!"
+
+A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
+were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that
+there was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he
+declared, had discovered huge hidden supplies.
+
+"It is a _provocatzia,"_ said he. "They want to starve us-or drive
+us to violence!"
+
+Among the soldiers one began, "Comrades! I bring you greetings from
+the place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!"
+
+Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with
+a roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
+fighting, and now risen from the dead.
+
+"The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
+Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed
+us.... The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be
+held exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone
+it will be cursed-and not only platonic curses either, for the Army
+has guns too...."
+
+He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in
+the Fifth Army. "The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the
+Bolsheviki. Our papers are not allowed to circulate in the trenches.
+Our speakers are arrested-"
+
+"Why don't you speak about the lack of bread?" shouted another
+soldier.
+
+"Man shall not live by bread alone," answered Tchudnovsky, sternly....
+
+Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a
+Menshevik _oboronetz._ "It isn't the question of who has the power.
+The trouble is not with the Government, but with the war.... and the
+war must be won before any change-" At this, hoots and ironical
+cheers. "These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!" The hall rocked
+with laughter. "Let us for a moment forget the class struggle-" But
+he got no farther. A voice yelled, "Don't you wish we would!"
+
+Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the
+factories the committe-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles,
+couriers came and went, the Red Guard [*] drilled.... In all the
+[* See Notes and Explanations]
+barracks meetings every night, and all day long interminable hot
+arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy
+evening, pouring in slow voluble tides up and down the Nevsky,
+fighting for the newspapers.... Hold-ups increased to such an extent
+that it was dangerous to walk down side streets.... On the Sadovaya
+one afternoon I saw a crowd of several hundred people beat and
+trample to death a soldier caught stealing.... Mysterious individuals
+circulated around the shivering women who waited in _queue_ long
+cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered
+the food supply-and that while the people starved, the Soviet
+members lived luxuriously....
+
+At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates,
+demanding everybody's pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed
+all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the
+floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a
+thousand people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd
+Soviet....
+
+Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with
+champagne flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the
+centre of the city at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs
+walked up and down, crowded the caf�s....
+
+Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes....
+
+And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under
+grey skies rushing faster and faster toward-what?
+
+                              Chapter III
+
+                              On the Eve
+
+IN the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there
+comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the
+masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt....
+
+The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky's
+public denial that the Government had any such intention was met with
+hoots of derision.
+
+Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried _Rabotchi
+Put),_ the Government of "provisional" bourgeois tries to get free by
+giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
+Petrograd, and that it didn't wish to surrender the capital....
+
+In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the
+preamble of the I. W. W. constitution: "The working class and the
+employing class have nothing in common." Dispersed by Cossacks, some
+were locked out by the mine-owners, and the rest declared a general
+strike. Minister of Commerce and Industry Konovalov appointed his
+assistant, Orlov, with plenary powers, to settle the trouble. Orlov
+was hated by the miners. But the _Tsay-ee-kah_ not only supported his
+appointment, but refused to demand that the Cossacks be recalled from
+the Don Basin....
+
+This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The
+Bolsheviki, having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some
+political prisoners. With the sanction of the Government Commissar
+the Municipal Duma called in troops from Minsk, and bombarded the
+Soviet headquarters with artillery. The Bolsheviki yielded, but as
+they left the building Cossacks attacked them, crying, "This is what
+we'll do to all the other Bolshevik Soviets, including those of
+Moscow and Petrograd!" This incident sent a wave of panic rage
+throughout Russia....
+
+In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North,
+presided over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it
+resolved that all power should be assumed by the All-Russian
+Congress; and concluded by greeting the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding
+them rejoice, for the hour of their liberation was at hand. At the
+same time the first All-Russian Conference of Factory-Shop Committees
+(See App. III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the Soviets, and
+continued significantly,
+
+After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the
+working-class wants to see the democratic r�gime triumphant in the
+sphere of its productive activity. This is best expressed by Workers'
+Control over industrial production, which naturally arose in the
+atmosphere of economic decomposition created by the criminal policy
+of the dominating classes....
+
+The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky,
+Minister of Ways and Communications....
+
+In the name of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Skobeliev insisted that the _nakaz_
+be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against
+the sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign....
+
+General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the
+army, only came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals....
+
+On November 3d Burtzev's _Obshtchee Dielo_ came out with great
+headlines:
+
+Citizens! Save the fatherland!
+
+I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission
+for National Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the
+principal persons responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to
+sign a separate peace, independently of the Allies.
+
+That is treason to Russia!
+
+Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even
+examined Verkhovsky's proposition.
+
+"You might think," said Terestchenko, "that we were in a madhouse!"
+
+The members of the Commission were astounded at the General's words.
+
+General Alexeyev wept.
+
+No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!
+
+Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us
+concerning the words of Verkhovsky.
+
+Citizens, arise!
+
+Russia is being sold!
+
+Save her!
+
+What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to
+offer peace, because the Russian army could fight no longer....
+
+Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky
+was given "indefinite leave of absence for illhealth," and left the
+Government. _Obshtchee Dielo_ was suppressed....
+
+Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd
+Soviet, with immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly
+to raise money for the organisation and the press; really, to make a
+demonstration of strength. Suddenly it was announced that on the same
+day the Cossacks would hold a _Krestny Khod_-Procession of the
+Cross-in honour of the Ikon of 1612, through whose miraculous
+intervention Napoleon had been driven from Moscow. The atmosphere was
+electric; a spark might kindle civil war. The Petrograd Soviet issued
+a manifesto, headed "Brothers-Cossacks!"
+
+You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers.
+This plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies,
+the oppressors, the privileged classes-generals, bankers, landlords,
+former officials, former servants of the Tsar.... We are hated by all
+grafters, rich men, princes, nobles, generals, including your Cossack
+generals. They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd
+Soviet and crush the Revolution....
+
+On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious
+procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every
+individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession.
+We do not interfere in this matter, nor do we obstruct anybody....
+However, we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the
+pretext of a _Krestni Khod,_ your Kaledins do not instigate you
+against workmen, against soldiers....
+
+The procession was hastily called off....
+
+In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the
+Bolsheviki were preaching, "All Power to the Soviets!" and agents of
+the Dark Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the
+Jews, shop-keepers, Socialist leaders....
+
+On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression-on
+the other Lenin's great voice roaring, "Insurrection!.... We cannot
+wait any longer!"
+
+Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2)
+_Birjevya Viedomosti_ (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik
+propaganda an attack on "the most elementary principles of
+society-personal security and the respect for private property."
+
+[Graphic page-46 Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their
+_Krestny Khod_-the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
+calendar). "Brothers-Cossacks!" it begins. "The Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies addresses you."
+
+But it was the "moderate" Socialist journals which were the most
+hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) "The Bolsheviki are the most
+dangerous enemies of the Revolution," declared _Dielo Naroda._ Said
+the Menshevik _Dien,_ "The Government ought to defend itself and
+defend us." Plekhanov's paper, _Yedinstvo_ (Unity) (See App. III,
+Sect. 4), called the attention of the Government to the fact that the
+Petrograd workers were being armed, and demanded stern measures
+against the Bolsheviki.
+
+Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the
+Municipal administration broke down. The columns of the morning
+papers were filled with accounts of the most audacious robberies and
+murders, and the criminals were unmolested.
+
+On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing
+battle with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found
+them.
+
+On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of
+Petrograd, issued a proclamation:
+
+Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing,
+irresponsible appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still
+being spread around Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and
+disorder increase.
+
+This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and
+hinders the systematic work of the Government and the Municipal
+Institutions.
+
+In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my
+country, I command:
+
+1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and
+within the territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to
+the Municipality, to the Commissars, and to the militia, in the
+guarding of Government institutions.
+
+2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District
+Commander and the representatives of the city militia, and the taking
+of measures for the arrest of criminals and deserters.
+
+3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
+demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters
+of the Second Commander of the city.
+
+4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all
+armed forces at hand.
+
+5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted
+searches in houses and unwarranted arrests.
+
+6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under
+charge to the Staff of the Petrograd Military District.
+
+I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their
+help to the commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they
+are charged.
+
+In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government
+was fully aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient
+force to cope with any demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He
+accused _Novaya Rus_ and _Robotchi Put_ of both doing the same kind
+of subversive work. "But owing to the absolute freedom of the press,"
+he added, "the Government is not in a position to combat printed
+lies. [*]...." Declaring that these were two aspects of the same
+[* This was not quite candid.  The Provisional Gevernment had
+suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to
+do so again.]
+propaganda, which had for its object the counter-revolution, so
+ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:
+
+"I am a doomed man, it doesn't matter what happens to me, and I have
+the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
+unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!"
+
+On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had
+arrived. Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a
+hundred and seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were
+Bolsheviki.... Four hundred constituted a quorum, and the Congress was
+only three days off....
+
+I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get
+in. Double rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside
+the front door there was a long line of people waiting to be let in,
+four at a time, to be questioned as to their identity and their
+business. Passes were given out, and the pass system was changed
+every few hours; for spies continually sneaked through....
+
+[Graphic page-49  Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]
+
+Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)
+
+Military Revolutionary Committee
+           attached to the
+Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D.
+        Commandant's office
+16th November, 1917
+               No. 955
+           Smolny Institute
+
+              PASS
+
+Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of
+the American Socialist press, until December 1, the right of free
+entry into Smolny Institute. Commandant
+                               Adjutant
+
+One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife
+just ahead of me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched
+through his pockets, but could find no pass.
+
+"Never mind," he said finally. "You know me. My name is Trotzky."
+
+"You haven't got a pass," answered the soldier stubbornly.
+
+"You cannot go in. Names don't mean anything to me."
+
+"But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet."
+
+"Well," replied the soldier, "if you're as important a fellow as that
+you must at least have one little paper."
+
+Trotzky was very patient. "Let me see the Commandant," he said. The
+soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb
+the Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally
+to the soldier in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to
+him. "My name is Trotzky," he repeated.
+
+"Trotzky?" The other soldier scratched his head. "I've heard the name
+somewhere," he said at length. "I guess it's all right. You can go on
+in, comrade...."
+
+In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, who explained to me what the new Government would be like.
+
+"A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed
+through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the
+Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic
+will, just as the Tsar's Government did. The initiative of the new
+society shall come from below.... The form of the Government will be
+modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
+Party. The new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ responsible to frequent meetings of the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the parliament; the various
+Ministries will be headed by _collegia_-committees-instead of by
+Ministers, and will be directly responsible to the Soviets....
+
+On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in
+the attic of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room
+he sat on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were
+necessary; he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The
+substance of his talk, in his own words, I give here:
+
+"The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie
+is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition
+with the _oborontsi_ parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees
+revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land;
+and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same
+disgust is evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only
+possible by means of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way
+by which the bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the
+bourgeoisie lacks.... The Army is with us. The conciliators and
+pacifists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all
+authority-because the struggle between the peasants and the
+landlords, between the workers and the employers, between the
+soldiers and the officers, has become more bitter, more
+irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted action of the popular
+mass, only by the victory of proletarian dictatorship, can the
+Revolution be achieved and the people saved....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the
+people-perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and
+objects. Based directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in
+the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone
+of the Revolution.
+
+"There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets-and
+only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of
+all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of
+the Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the
+counter-revolution militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent
+the cause of the people. Between the two camps there are no groups of
+serious importance.... It is the _lutte finale._ The bourgeois
+counter-revolution organises all its forces and waits for the moment
+to attack us. Our answer will be decisive. We will complete the work
+scarcely begun in March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair...."
+
+He went on to speak of the new Government's foreign policy:
+
+"Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all
+fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace
+terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement
+depends on the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe.
+If we create here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a
+powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for this Government
+will address itself directly and immediately to all peoples, over the
+heads of their Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of
+the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will
+be in the direction of 'no annexations,# no indemnities, the right of
+self-determination of peoples,' and a _Federated Republic of Europe._...
+
+"At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats,
+but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe-the United
+States of Europe-that is what must be. National autonomy no longer
+suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national
+frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then
+Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of
+Europe can give peace to the world." He smiled-that fine, faintly
+ironical smile of his. "But without the action of the European
+masses, these ends cannot be realised-now...."
+
+Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly
+on the streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white
+collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and
+openly.
+
+The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to
+the front.
+
+The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had
+taken a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned
+the tide in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers'
+Deputies, and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
+
+Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional
+Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd
+garrison which answered, "If you are not capable of defending the
+capital, conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and
+make room for a People's Government which can do both...."
+
+It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the
+attitude of the Petrograd garrison. The Government's plan was to
+replace the garrison regiments with "dependable" troops-Cossacks,
+Death Battalions. The Army Committees, the "moderate" Socialists and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation
+was carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact
+that for eight months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy
+life in the barracks of the capital, while their exhausted comrades
+in the trenches starved and died.
+
+Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison
+regiments were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for
+the hardships of a winter campaign. But there were other reasons why
+they refused to go. The Petrograd Soviet feared the Government's
+intentions, and from the Front came hundreds of delegates, chosen by
+the common soldiers, crying, "It is true we need reinforcements, but
+more important, we must know that Petrograd and the Revolution are
+well-guarded.... Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we will hold the
+front!"
+
+On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the
+Petrograd Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military
+Committee to decide the whole question. The next day a meeting of the
+Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which
+immediately proclaimed a boycott of the bourgeois newspapers, and
+condemned the _Tsay-ee-kah_ for opposing the Congress of Soviets. On
+the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky proposed
+that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. "We ought," he said, "to create our special organisation
+to march to battle, and if necessary to die...." It was decided to send
+to the front two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from the
+garrison, to confer with the Soldiers' Committees and the General
+Staff.
+
+At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov,
+commander of the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he
+had ordered the Petrograd garrison to the trenches, and that was all.
+The garrison committee was not allowed to leave Petrograd....
+
+A delegation of the Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked
+that a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd
+District. Refused. The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be
+issued without the approval of the Soldiers' Section. Refused. The
+delegates were roughly told, "We only recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah._ We
+do not recognise you; if you break any laws, we shall arrest you."
+
+On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd
+regiments passed a resolution: _"The Petrograd garrison no longer
+recognises the Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our
+Government. We will obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet,
+through the Military Revolutionary Committee."_ The local military
+units were ordered to wait for instructions from the Soldiers'
+Section of the Petrograd Soviet.
+
+Next day the _Tsay-ee-kah_ summoned its own meeting, composed largely
+of officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and
+detailed Commissars in all quarters of the city.
+
+A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:
+
+Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the
+Petrograd garrison promises it complete support in all its actions,
+to unite more closely the front and the rear in the interests of the
+Revolution.
+
+The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary
+proletariat it assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in
+Petrograd. Every attempt at provocation on the part of the
+Kornilovtsi or the bourgeoisie will be met with merciless resistance.
+
+Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+peremptorily summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control.
+To all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or
+proclamations without the Committee's authorisation. Armed Commissars
+visited the Kronversk arsenal and seized great quantities of arms and
+ammunition, halting a shipment of ten thousand bayonets which was
+being sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of Kaledin....
+
+Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the
+Committee would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky
+himself sent Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on
+the Staff. The Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour
+later General Manikovsky, acting Minister of war, countermanded the
+offer....
+
+Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by
+the appearance of a placard signed, "Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies."
+
+To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are
+mobilising their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets and break the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the
+_pogromists_ may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for
+trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the
+city against counter-revolutionary and _pogrom_ attempts.
+
+The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The
+population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators
+and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At
+the first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets
+of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be
+wiped off the face of the earth!
+
+Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and
+self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
+
+List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee....
+
+On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting
+behind closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor
+outside the door; and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was
+going on.
+
+Lenin spoke: "November 6th will be too early. We must have an
+all-Russian basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to
+the Congress will not have arrived.... On the other hand, November 8th
+will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it
+is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift,
+decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets,
+so that we may say to it, 'Here is the power! What are you going to
+do with it?'"
+
+In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual,
+once an officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and
+exile, a certain Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and
+chess-player; he was drawing careful plans for the seizure of the
+capital.
+
+On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of
+the most loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were
+ordered to Petrograd. The _yunker_ artillery was drawn into the
+Winter Palace. Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance in the
+streets, for the first time since the July days. Polkovnikov issued
+order after order, threatening to repress all insubordination with
+the "utmost energy." Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the
+worsthated member of the Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to
+keep order in Petrograd; he named as assistants two men no less
+unpopular, Rutenburg and Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and
+Finland were declared in a state of siege-upon which the bourgeois
+_Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked ironically:
+
+Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has
+no moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to
+use force.... In the most favourable circumstances it can only
+negotiate with any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no
+farther....
+
+Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to see
+what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic. Bitter
+debate on Terestchenko's foreign policy. Echoes of the
+Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the
+Italian ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso
+disaster....
+
+As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
+aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, "The remedy
+for Bolshevism is bullets!" Turning to the Cadets he cried, "That's
+what _you_ think, too!"
+
+Voices from the Right, "Yes! Yes!"
+
+"Yes, I know you think so," answered Karelin, hotly. "But you haven't
+the courage to try it!"
+
+Then Skobeliev, looking like a matin�e idol with his soft blond beard
+and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
+_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
+"Resignation! Resignation!" He insisted that the delegates of the
+Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common
+point of view-his own. A few words about the restoration of
+discipline in the army, about war to victory.... Tumult, and over the
+stubborn opposition of the truculent Left, the Council of the
+Republic passed to the simple order of the day.
+
+There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats-empty since that first
+day when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I
+went down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter
+wrangling, no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate
+this high, cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was
+wrecked-on the same rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the
+Miliukov Ministry.... The doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, "I
+don't know what is becoming of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and
+Bolsheviki and Trudoviki.... This Ukraine and this Finland and the
+German imperialists and the English imperialists. I am forty-five
+years old, and in all my life I never heard so many words as in this
+place...."
+
+In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
+dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet
+party. I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
+_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.
+
+"They are cattle-_canaille,"_ he answered. "They will not dare, or if
+they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it
+will not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power
+in the Constituent Assembly....
+
+"But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
+Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
+chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction
+with the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional
+project.... We will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such
+as you have in the United States. In the lower chamber will be
+territorial representatives; in the upper, representatives of the
+liberal professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives-and Trade Unions...."
+
+Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud
+underfoot soaked through my shoes. Two companies of _yunkers_ passed
+swinging up the Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and
+singing an oldtime crashing chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing
+under the Tsar.... At the first cross-street I noticed that the City
+Militiamen were mounted, and armed with revolvers in bright new
+holsters; a little group of people stood silently staring at them. At
+the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin, "Will the
+Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?" paying for it with one of the
+stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars crawled
+past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
+Theodore P. Shonts green with envy.... Along the sidewalk a row of
+deserters in uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds....
+
+Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the
+latest papers, and knots of people were trying to make out the
+multitudes of appeals (See App. III, Sect. 6) and proclamations
+pasted in every flat place; from the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Peasants'
+Soviets, the "moderate" Socialist parties, the Army
+Committees-threatening, cursing, beseeching the workers and soldiers
+to stay home, to support the Government....
+
+An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On
+every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered;
+arguing soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the
+wide-spaced street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed
+endlessly.... It is always like that in Petrograd just before trouble....
+
+The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no
+sign from the Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the
+workmen in the factories.... We went to a moving picture show near the
+Kazan Cathedral-a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down
+front were some soldiers and sailors, staring at the screen in
+childlike wonder, totally unable to comprehend why there should be so
+much violent running about, and so much homicide....
+
+From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the
+Military Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the
+chairmanship of a tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He
+stopped, as he passed, to shake hands rather bashfully.
+
+"Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us," said he, with a
+pleased grin. "A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was
+ordered by the Government to come to Petrograd. The men were
+suspicious, so they stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a
+delegation to us. 'What's the matter?' they asked. 'What have you got
+to say? We have just passed a resolution, "All Power to the
+Soviets."'... The Military Revolutionary Committee sent back word,
+'Brothers! We greet you in the name of the Revolution. Stay where you
+are until further instructions!'"
+
+All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the
+factories and barracks was established by means of military
+telephonograph apparatus....
+
+A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the
+door waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest
+quarters of the city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform
+of a lieutenant, said in French, "Everything is ready to move at the
+push of a button...."
+
+There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain
+conceived the strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar
+filthy, drunk with loss of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced
+soldier, always smiling, with his violent gestures and tumbling
+speech; and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor with the placid face.
+These were the men of the hour-and of other hours to come.
+
+Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov,
+signing orders on the Government Arsenal for arms-one hundred and
+fifty rifles for each factory.... Delegates waited in line, forty of
+them....
+
+In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One
+showed me a revolver. "The game is on," he said, and his face was
+pale. "Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us
+or be finished...."
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the
+great hall Trotzky was just finishing.
+
+"We are asked," he said, "if we intend to have a _vystuplennie._ I
+can give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd Soviet feels
+that at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the
+hands of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be
+accomplished by the All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed
+demonstration is necessary will depend on... those who wish to
+interfere with the All-Russian Congress....
+
+"We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
+Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only
+awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really
+popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now,
+to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take... into its
+hands that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom
+of the people. If, however, the Government wants to utilise the short
+period it is expected to live-twenty-four, forty eight, or
+seventy-two hours-to attack us, then we shall answer with
+counter-attacks, blow for blow, steel for iron!"
+
+Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had
+agreed to send representatives into the Military Revolutionary
+Committee....
+
+As I left Smolny, at three o'clock in the morning, I noticed that two
+rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and
+that strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by
+street-corners. Bill Shatov [*] came bounding up the steps. "Well," he
+[* Well known in the American labor movement.]
+cried, "We're off! Kerensky sent the _yunkers_ to close down our
+papers, _Soldat_ and _Rabotchi Put._ But our troops went down and
+smashed the Government seals, and now we're sending detachments to
+seize the bourgeois newspaper offices!" Exultantly he slapped me on
+the shoulder, and ran in....
+
+On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose
+office was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the
+walls, hysterical appeals to the people to remain "calm." Polkovnikov
+emitted _prikaz_ after _prikaz:_
+
+I order all military units and detachments to remain in their
+barracks until further orders from the Staff of the Military
+District.... All officers who act without orders from their superiors
+will be court-martialled for mutiny. I forbid absolutely any
+execution by soldiers of instructions from other organisations....
+
+The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the
+papers _Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat,_ and
+decreed the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the
+members of the Military Revolutionary Committee....
+
+As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of _yunker_
+artillery came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up
+before the Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was
+unusually animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the
+door, and motors full of officers were coming and going.... The censor
+was very much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he
+said, had just gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his
+resignation. I hurried down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the
+end of that passionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky's,
+full of self-justification and bitter denunciation of his enemies.
+
+"I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series
+of articles published in _Rabotchi Put_ by Ulianov-Lenin, a state
+criminal who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find.... This state
+criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to
+repeat the experience of the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the
+immediate necessity for an armed rising.... Moreover, other Bolshevik
+leaders have taken the floor in a series of meetings, and also made
+an appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly should be noticed
+the activity of the present president of the Petrograd Soviet,
+Bronstein-Trotzky....
+
+"I ought to bring to your notice... that the expressions and the style
+of a whole series of articles in _Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ resemble
+absolutely those of _Novaya Rus...._ We have to do not so much with the
+movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation
+of the political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the
+population, a sort of organisation whose object it is to provoke in
+Russia, cost what it may, an inconscient movement of destruction and
+pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at
+Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, which will
+cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia....
+
+"... By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
+extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very
+favourable." (Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin's
+article.):
+
+Think of it!... The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without
+newspapers, without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet.... They are
+opposed by the incredible hostility of all classes of society-and yet
+the German comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of
+newspapers, freedom of meeting, the majority of the Soviets, we, the
+best-placed international proletarians of the entire world, can we
+refuse to support the German revolutionists and insurrectionary
+organisations?...
+
+Kerensky then continued:
+
+"The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
+perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain
+now in Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head
+of which is, in the eyes of this party, 'a usurper and a man who has
+sold himself to the bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky....'
+
+"... The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
+German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they
+open the Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends....
+Little matter to the Provisional Government the motives of these
+people, little matter if they act consciously or unconsciously; but
+in any case, from this tribune, in full consciousness of my
+responsibility, I quality such acts of a Russian political party as
+acts of treason to Russia!
+
+"... I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
+immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
+arrests." (Uproar from the Left.) "Listen to me!" he cried in a
+powerful voice. "At the moment when the state is in danger, because
+of conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and
+myself among others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life,
+the honour and the independence of Russia...."
+
+At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.
+
+"I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to
+the regiments. Here is the contents." Reading: _"'The Petrograd
+Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is menaced. We order
+immediately the regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await
+new orders. All delay or non-execution of this order will be
+considered as an act of treason to the Revolution. The Military
+Revolutionary Committee. For the President, Podvoisky. The Secretary,
+Antonov.'_
+
+"In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
+existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the
+front to the regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm....
+
+"I say 'populace' intentionally, because the conscious democracy and
+its _Tsay-ee-kah,_ all the Army organisations, all that free Russia
+glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
+Russian democracy, protests against these things....
+
+"I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction
+that the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
+liberty-that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future,
+will find unanimous support except among those who have never dared
+to face the truth....
+
+"... The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
+citizens of the State to use their political rights.... But now the
+Provisional Government.... declares: in this moment those elements of
+the Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift
+their hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same
+time threatening to open the front to Germany, must be liquidated
+with decision!...
+
+"Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a
+firm power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and
+honour will triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them...."
+
+All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When
+the Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with
+perspiration, and strode out with his suite of officers, speaker
+after speaker from the Left and Centre attacked the Right, all one
+angry roaring. Even the Socialist Revolutionaries, through Gotz:
+
+"The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
+exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series
+of popular demands which have received no satisfaction up to now....
+The questions of peace, land and the democratization of the army
+ought to be stated in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant or
+worker would have the least doubt that our Government is attempting,
+firmly and infallibly, to solve them....
+
+"We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are
+ready to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to
+the last drop of our blood-if only the Provisional Government, on all
+these burning questions, will speak the clear and precise words
+awaited by the people with such impatience...."
+
+Then Martov, furious:
+
+"The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
+'populace' when it is question of the movement of important sections
+of the proletariat and the army-although led in the wrong
+direction-are nothing but an incitement to civil war."
+
+The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted
+practically to a vote of lack of confidence.
+
+1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days
+past has for its object a _coup d'etat,_ threatens to provoke civil
+war, creates conditions favourable to _pogroms_ and
+counterrevolution, the mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces,
+such as the Black Hundreds, which will inevitably bring about the
+impossibility of convoking the Constituent, will cause a military
+catastrophe, the death of the Revolution, paralyse the economic life
+of the country and destroy Russia;
+
+2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by
+delay in passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions
+caused by the war and the general disorder. It is necessary before
+everything to promulgate at once a decree transmitting the land to
+the peasants' Land Committees, and to adopt an energetic course of
+action abroad in proposing to the Allies to proclaim their peace
+terms and to begin peace-parleys;
+
+3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and _pogromist_ movements,
+it is indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these
+movements, and for this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of
+Public Safety, composed of representatives of the Municipality and
+the organs of the revolutionary democracy, acting in contact with the
+Provisional Government....
+
+It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries all rallied to this resolution.... When Kerensky saw
+it, however, he summoned Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain.
+If it expressed a lack of confidence in the Provisional Government,
+he begged Avksentiev to form a new Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev,
+the leaders of the "compromisers," performed their last compromise....
+They explained to Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of
+the Government!
+
+At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with
+fixed bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the
+occupants, and ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd
+had gathered to watch them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged
+to the Government or the Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in
+front of the Kazan Cathedral the same thing was happening, machines
+being directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six sailors with rifles
+came along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation with two
+of the soldiers. On the sailors' hat bands were _Avrora_ and _Zaria
+Svobody,_-the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic
+Fleet. One of them said, "Cronstadt is coming!"... It was as if, in
+1792, on the streets of Paris, some one had said: "The Marseillais
+are coming!" For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors,
+convinced Bolsheviki and not afraid to die....
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ was just out, all its front page one huge
+proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!
+
+The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The
+Kornilovists of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs
+_yunkers_ and volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum _yunkers_ and the
+Tsarskoye Selo volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high
+treason is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet.... The
+campaign of the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets on the eve of its opening, against
+the Constituent Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is
+guarding the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is
+directing the repulse of the conspirators' attack. The entire
+garrison and proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of
+the people a crushing blow.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:
+
+1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with
+the Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall
+meet in continuous session, concentrating in their hands all
+information about the plans of the conspirators.
+
+2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
+Committee.
+
+3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit
+and five from each Ward Soviet.
+
+4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the
+All-Russian Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an
+extraordinary meeting.
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.
+
+A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers
+and workers.
+
+But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.
+
+The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be
+crushed.
+
+No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline,
+determination!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of
+storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to
+take part in the debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six,
+eight, twelve hours a day....
+
+I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik
+delegates were holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the
+speaker hidden by the crowd: "The compromisers say that we are
+isolated. Pay no attention to them. Once it begins they must be
+dragged along with us, or else lose their following...."
+
+Here he held up a piece of paper. "We are dragging them! A message
+has just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They
+say that they condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks
+us they will not oppose the cause of the proletariat!" Exultant
+shouting....
+
+As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a
+monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that
+new Congress which would mean its own ruin-and perhaps the ruin of
+the revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only
+members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ could vote....
+
+It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak,
+in a tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.
+
+"The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours," he
+said. "The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
+democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await
+bloodshed in the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to
+destroy, not only our homogeneous Government, but the Revolution
+itself....
+
+"The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
+Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of
+the Revolution..." (Cries, "That's a lie!)" "The counter-revolutionists
+are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and massacres.... If
+there is any _vystuplennie,_ there will be no Constituent Assembly...."
+(Cries, "Lie! Shame!")
+
+"It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the
+Petrograd garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff.... You
+must obey the orders of the Staff and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ elected by
+you. All Power to the Soviets-that means death! Robbers and thieves
+are waiting for the moment to loot and burn.... When you have such
+slogans put before you, 'Enter the houses, take away the shoes and
+clothes from the bourgeoisie-'" (Tumult. Cries, "No such slogan! A
+lie! A lie!") "Well, it may start differently, but it will end that
+way!
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah_ has full power to act, and must be obeyed.... We are
+not afraid of bayonets.... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ will defend the Revolution
+with its body...." (Cries, "It was a dead body long ago!")
+
+Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard
+screaming, as he pounded the desk, "Those who are urging this are
+committing a crime!"
+
+Voice: "You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power
+and turned it over to the bourgeoisie!"
+
+Gotz, ringing the chairman's bell: "Silence, or I'll have you put
+out!"
+
+Voice: "Try it!" (Cheers and whistling.)
+
+"Now concerning our policy about peace." (Laughter.) "Unfortunately
+Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war. There is
+going to be peace, but not permanent peace-not a democratic peace....
+To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed,
+we passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to
+the Land Committees and immediate peace negotiations...." (Laughter,
+and cries, "Too late!")
+
+Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave
+of roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house,
+thunderous. His thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in
+its expression of malicious irony.
+
+"Dan's tactics prove that the masses-the great, dull, indifferent
+masses-are absolutely with him!" (Titantic mirth.) He turned toward
+the chairman, dramatically. "When we spoke of giving the land to the
+peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, 'If they don't
+give it to you, take it yourselves!' and the peasants followed our
+advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago....
+
+"I don't think Kerensky's order to suspend the death penalty in the
+army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by
+the Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him....
+
+"To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
+Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik.... The time may
+come when Dan will say that the flower of the Revolution participated
+in the rising of July 16th and 18th.... In Dan's resolution to-day at
+the Council of the Republic there was no mention of enforcing
+discipline in the army, although that is urged in the propaganda of
+his party....
+
+"No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have
+left the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries
+conquered the Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it
+to the Cadets....
+
+"Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
+Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the
+down-trodden masses revolt, it is their right...."
+
+Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
+laughter.
+
+"Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
+until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this.... the
+seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the
+Revolution.... Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself
+opposed to what he is now advocating...." (Cries, "Enough! Down with
+him!")
+
+Martov, constantly interrupted: "The Internationalists are not
+opposed to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they
+disapprove of the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment
+to seize the power...."
+
+Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
+seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
+uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
+Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the
+hall, shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government....
+
+Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
+the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
+provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
+creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
+Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
+peasants and beginning peace negotiations....
+
+Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+on the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of
+the Congress. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ was practically dead, he said, and
+the resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power....
+
+"As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!"
+Whereupon all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was
+passed....
+
+Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle
+slung from his shoulder.
+
+"We're moving!" (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but with
+satisfaction. "We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
+Minister of Religions. They're down cellar now. One regiment is on
+the march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph
+Agency, another the State Bank. The Red Guard is out...."
+
+On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red
+Guard-a huddled group of boys in workmen's clothes, carrying guns
+with bayonets, talking nervously together.
+
+Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle
+fire, where the _yunkers_ were trying to open the bridges over the
+Neva, to prevent the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg
+quarter from joining the Soviet forces in the centre of the city; and
+the Cronstadt sailors were closing them again....
+
+Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic
+hive....
+
+                              Chapter IV
+
+                    The Fall of the Provisional Government
+
+WEDNESDAY, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed
+from Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day.
+In front of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were
+standing at the closed gates.
+
+"What side do you belong to?" I asked. "The Government?"
+
+"No more Government," one answered with a grin, "_Slava Bogu!_ Glory
+to God!" That was all I could get out of him....
+
+The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small
+boys hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed
+even less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the
+day before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had
+blossomed out on the walls during the night-to the peasants, to the
+soldiers at the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:
+
+FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
+
+The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
+meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public
+Safety, composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and
+representatives of the following revolutionary democratic
+organizations: The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive
+Committee of Peasant Deputies, the Army organisations, the
+_Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and others.
+
+Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
+building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
+
+November 7th, 1917.
+
+Though I didn't realize it then, this was the Duma's declaration of
+war against the Bolsheviki.
+
+I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed
+on sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a
+second-hand copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on
+large-sized sheets in the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_
+had huge headlines: "ALL POWER-TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS
+AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD! LAND!" The leading article was signed
+"Zinoviev,"-Lenin's companion in hiding. It began:
+
+Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
+democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the
+present situation.
+
+Either-the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
+crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger
+and death....
+
+Or-the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
+workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
+complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
+capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
+assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
+workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
+nonsensical war!...
+
+_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
+capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
+Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the
+Cossacks undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of
+Chief of the City Militia Meyer;  arrests, counter-arrests,
+skirmishes between clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red
+Guards. (See App. IV, Sect. 1)
+
+On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
+asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
+shoulders in a tired manner and replied, "_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
+knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they
+won't be able to hold it more than three days. They haven't the men
+to run a government. Perhaps it's a good thing to let them try-that
+will furnish them...."
+
+The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac's Square was picketed
+by armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young
+officers, walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors
+wouldn't let them leave....
+
+Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
+scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
+around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian
+Republic met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of
+soldiers, rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.
+
+"_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!" snapped one, while another went running
+toward the door.
+
+At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a
+red flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: "S.R.S.D."
+(_Soviet Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained
+toward St. Isaac's. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth
+of Novaya Ulitza-boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile
+of lumber barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a
+neighbouring wood-pile were being built up along the front of the
+building to form breastworks....
+
+"Is there going to be any fighting?" I asked.
+
+"Soon, soon," answered a soldier, nervously. "Go away, comrade,
+you'll get hurt. They will come from that direction," pointing
+toward the Admiralty.
+
+"Who will?"
+
+"That I couldn't tell you, brother," he answered, and spat.
+
+Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
+sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian
+Republic. "We walked in there," he said, "and filled all the doors
+with comrades. I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz
+who sat in the president's chair. 'No more Council,' I says. 'Run
+along home now!"'                                                    |
+
+There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get
+around to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling
+sailor stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, "If you
+were Saint Michael himself, comrade, you couldn't pass here!"
+Through the glass of the door I made out the distorted face and
+gesticulating arms of a French correspondent, locked in....
+
+Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform
+of a general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in
+the face.
+
+"I am General Alexeyev," he cried. "As your superior officer and as
+a member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to
+pass!" The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the
+corner of his eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew
+very agitated when he saw who it was and saluted before he realised
+what he was doing.
+
+"_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_-your High Excellency-" he
+stammered, in the manner of the old r�gime, "Access to the Palace is
+strictly forbidden--I have no right-"
+
+An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
+apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
+armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
+Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.
+
+"I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night," said I,
+pointing to them.
+
+"Oh," he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
+"The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
+minds...."
+
+Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn
+up, and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All
+the entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a
+cordon of troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by
+an uneasy throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who
+seemed to be carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it
+in front of the main gateway, everything was quiet.
+
+We couldn't make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
+pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
+approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
+our American passports, saying "Official business!" and shouldered
+through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in
+their brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars,
+politely took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the
+dark, gloomy corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old
+attendants were lounging about, and in front of Kerensky's door a
+young officer paced up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if
+we could interview the Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his
+heels.
+
+"No, I am sorry," he replied in French. "Alexander Feodorvitch is
+extremely occupied just now...." He looked at us for a moment. "In
+fact, he is not here...."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
+there wasn't enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to
+the English Hospital and borrow some."
+
+"Are the Ministers here?"
+
+"They are meeting in some room-I don't know where.'
+
+"Are the Bolsheviki coming?"
+
+"Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call
+every minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have
+_yunkers_ in the front of the Palace. Through that door there."
+
+"Can we go in there?"
+
+"No. Certainly not. It is not permitted." Abruptly he shook hands
+all around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in
+a temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside.
+On the other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for
+that the vast spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An
+old _shveitzar_ ran up. "No, _barin,_ you must not go in there."
+
+"Why is the door locked?"
+
+"To keep the soldiers in," he answered. After a few minutes he said
+something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
+unlocked the door.
+
+Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said
+nothing. At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with
+gilded cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several
+smaller ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the
+parquetted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon
+which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a
+litter of cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles
+with expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red
+shoulder-straps of the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale
+atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle
+of white Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace.
+They looked at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room
+after room, until at last we came out into a series of great
+state-salons, fronting their long and dirty windows on the Square.
+The walls were covered with huge canvases in massive gilt
+frames-historical battle-scenes.... "12 October 1812" and "6 November
+1812" and "16/28 August 1813." ... One had a gash across the upper
+right hand corner.
+
+The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
+from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
+window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.
+
+As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me
+from the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent
+French, "I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are
+foreigners." He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he
+removed his cap.
+
+"Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs-Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
+absolutely at your service." It did not seem to occur to him that
+there was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering
+through the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to
+complain of the state of Russia.
+
+"Not only these Bolsheviki," he said, "but the fine traditions of
+the Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all
+students in the officers' training schools. But are they gentlemen?
+Kerensky opened the officers' schools to the ranks, to any soldier
+who could pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who
+are contaminated by the Revolution...."
+
+Without consequence he changed the subject. "I am very anxious to go
+away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
+Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
+you my address." In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a
+piece of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
+still-"_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
+Peterhof._"
+
+"We had a review this morning early," he went on, as he guided us
+through the rooms and explained everything. "The Women's Battalion
+decided to remain loyal to the Government."
+
+"Are the women soldiers in the Palace?"
+
+"Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won't be hurt if any
+trouble comes." He sighed. "It is a great responsibility," said he.
+
+For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square
+before the Palace, where three companies of long-coated _yunkers_
+were drawn up under arms, being harangued by a tall,
+energetic-looking officer I recognised as Stankievitch, chief
+Military Commissar of the Provisional Government. After a few
+minutes two of the companies shouldered arms with a clash, barked
+three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across the Square,
+disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.
+
+"They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange," said some one.
+Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said
+they had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their
+names-Robert Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian.
+But now they didn't want to be officers any more, because officers
+were very unpopular. They didn't seem to know what to do, as a
+matter of fact, and it was plain that they were not happy.
+
+But soon they began to boast. "If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
+them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But
+if we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
+himself...."
+
+At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on
+the Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces,
+and the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
+direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
+grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, "Here they come! Here
+they come!" ... But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The
+_izvoshtchiki_ came back, the people lying down stood up. Through
+the Red Arch appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step,
+one of them supported by two comrades.
+
+It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the
+Square had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government
+buildings seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner,
+and right in the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face,
+came up and insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the
+back of the house, because they were going to put out the lights in
+the caf�. "There will be much shooting," he said.
+
+When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
+one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
+stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
+pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing
+and was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and
+sailors stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked
+back up to the Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered
+staring at the brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud
+tones.
+
+"No, comrades," one was saying. "How can we shoot at them? The
+Women's Battalion is in there-they will say we have fired on Russian
+women."
+
+As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
+corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
+
+"Come on!" he yelled. "Let's go on through and attack!"
+
+The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
+above the roaring engine. "The Committee says to wait. They have got
+artillery behind the wood-piles in there...."
+
+Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and
+there were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams,
+the crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
+moving-picture shows-life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
+Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre-all theatres were open-but it was too
+exciting out of doors....
+
+In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
+Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers
+wheeling into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various
+uniforms were coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great
+deal of talking....
+
+Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
+corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
+Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
+street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their
+fists at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers
+argued feebly, with embarrassed grins.... Armoured cars went up and
+down the street, named after the first Tsars-Oleg, Rurik,
+Svietoslav-and daubed with huge red letters, "R. S. D. R. P."
+_(Rossiskaya Partia_) [*]. At the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an
+[* (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).]
+armful of newspapers, and was immediately stormed by frantic people,
+offering a rouble, five roubles, ten roubles, tearing at each other
+like animals. It was _Rabotchi i Soldat,_ announcing the victory of
+the Proletarian Revolution, the liberation of the Bolsheviki still
+in prison, calling upon the Army front and rear for support... a
+feverish little sheet of four pages, running to enormous type,
+containing no news....
+
+On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had
+gathered, staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny
+red spark glowed and waned.
+
+"See!" said a tall peasant, pointing to it. "It is a provocator.
+Presently he will fire on the people...." Apparently no one thought of
+going to investigate.
+
+The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
+from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim
+in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
+elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying
+from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and
+at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At
+the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the
+sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down.
+The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on
+each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike
+from their breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the
+trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare,
+dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling,
+shouting.... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came
+pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black
+fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders,
+soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_ pinched
+flat, a leader or so-Lunatcharsky, Kameniev-hurrying along in the
+centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
+and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting
+of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev-a quick moving
+little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders.
+Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution
+just passed:
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, saluting
+the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
+particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
+complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
+less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
+well.
+
+The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers' and
+Peasants' Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will
+be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
+proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
+march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country
+can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
+
+The new Workers' and Peasants' Government will propose immediately a
+just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
+
+It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
+the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen's control over
+production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set
+up a general control over the banks, which it will transform into a
+state monopoly.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies calls upon
+the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their
+energy and all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet
+expresses its conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor
+peasants, will assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to
+the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the
+proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us in
+conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
+
+"You consider it won then?"
+
+He lifted his shoulders. "There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
+just beginning....
+
+On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
+looking black and biting his grey beard. "It's insane! Insane!" he
+shouted. "The European working-class won't move! All Russia-" He
+waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had
+both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin's terrible
+tongue....
+
+It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
+Government no longer existed.
+
+"The characteristic of bourgeois governments," he said, "is to
+deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in
+history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim
+but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants."
+
+Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
+world-wide Social Revolution.... And Zinoviev, crying, "This day we
+have paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a
+terrible blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the
+imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner....
+
+Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing
+the victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said
+to be marching against Petrograd-a delegation must be sent to tell
+them the truth.
+
+Cries, "You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets!"
+
+Trotzky, coldly, "The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
+has been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and
+soldiers!"
+
+So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the
+clamorous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white
+chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides,
+perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the
+representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in
+anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's
+bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of
+unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose
+from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in
+authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke;
+then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke,
+comrades!" and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from
+the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and
+filthy, he was reeling from three nights' sleepless work on the
+Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_-for the
+last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled
+from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was
+the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these
+men had attempted to guide in careful ways.... The three greatest of
+them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country
+towns all doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had
+contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to
+sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also
+mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his
+beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber,
+Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky,-white-faced, hollow-eyed and
+indignant. Below them the second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets
+boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary
+Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of
+insurrection and striking with a long arm.... It was 10.40 P. M.
+
+Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon's
+uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken
+by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door....
+
+"We have the power in our hands," he began sadly, stopped for a
+moment, and then went on in a low voice. "Comrades! The Congress of
+Soviets in meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an
+extraordinary moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech.
+This will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am
+a member of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our
+party comrades are in the Winter Palace under bombardment,
+sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put on them by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah."_ (Confused uproar.)
+
+"I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies open!"
+
+The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
+Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was
+decided to base the presidium upon proportionality. Several
+Mensheviki leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded soldier
+shouted at them, "Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_
+were the minority!" Result-14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist
+Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1 Internationalist (Gorky's
+group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre Socialist
+Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take part in the
+presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the
+Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain
+circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering
+applause and hoots. One voice, "Renegades, you call yourselves
+Socialists!" A representative of the Ukrainean delegates demanded,
+and received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped down, and
+in their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame
+Kollentai, Nogin.... The hall rose, thundering. How far they had
+soared, these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less than
+four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in
+full tide of insurrection!
+
+The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of
+Power; second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly.
+Lozovsky, rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all
+factions, it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the
+Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ and the different parties, and finally to pass to the
+order of the day.
+
+But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult
+of the crowd, persistent, disquieting,-the dull shock of guns.
+People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of
+fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely,
+"The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a
+peaceful settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political
+standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war.
+Our brothers are being shot down in the streets! At this moment,
+when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of
+Power is being settled by means of a military plot organised by one
+of the revolutionary parties-" for a moment he could not make
+himself heard above the noise, "All of the revolutionary parties
+must face the fact! The first _vopros_ (question) before the
+Congress is the question of Power, and this question is already
+being settled by force of arms in the streets!... We must create a
+power which will be recognised by the whole democracy. If the
+Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it
+must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the
+result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution....
+The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a
+united democratic authority.... We must elect a delegation to
+negotiate with the other Socialist parties and organisation....
+
+Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows,
+and the delegates, screaming at each other.... So, with the crash of
+artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring,
+new Russia was being born.
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
+supported Martov's proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
+that the All-Russian Peasants' Soviets had refused to send delegates
+to the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
+invitation. "Some delegates are present," he said. "I move that they
+be given votes." Accepted.
+
+Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded
+the floor. "The political hypocrites who control this Congress," he
+shouted, "told us we were to settle the question of Power-and it is
+being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
+being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
+the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party
+which has risked such an adventure!" Uproar. Followed him Gharra:
+"While we are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a
+battle on in the streets.... The Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki refuse to be involved in what is happening, and call upon
+all public forces to resist the attempt to capture the power...."
+Kutchin, delegate of the 12th Army and representative of the
+Troudoviki: "I was sent here only for information, and I am
+returning at once to the Front, where all the Army Committees
+consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only three weeks
+before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of the Army
+and a crime against the people-!" Shouts of "Lie! You lie!"... When he
+could be heard again, "Let's make an end of this adventure in
+Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
+save the country and the Revolution!" As he went down the aisle in
+the midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him,
+threatening.... Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee,
+speaking suavely and persuasively: "I speak for the delegates from
+the Front. The Army is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and
+furthermore, the Army does not consider the Congress of Soviets
+necessary at this time, only three weeks before the opening of the
+Constituent-" shouts and stamping, always growing more violent. "The
+Army does not consider that the Congress of Soviets has the
+necessary authority-" Soldiers began to stand up all over the hall.
+
+"Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?" they cried.
+
+"The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army,
+the Second F- regiment, the First N- Regiment, the Third S- Rifles...."
+
+"When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the
+soldiers! What do the soldiers say about it?" Jeers and hoots.
+
+"We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has
+happened and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise
+all self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
+Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress.... The place to
+fight is out on the streets!"
+
+Immense bawling outcry. "You speak for the Staff-not for the Army!"
+
+"I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!"
+
+"Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!" were hurled at him.
+
+On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
+possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with
+the Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which
+would find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed
+for several minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the
+Menshevik declaration:
+
+"Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid
+of the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
+parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and
+therefore withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to
+meet for discussion of the situation!"
+
+"Deserter!" At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
+Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard
+protesting against the bombardment of the Winter Palace.... "We are
+opposed to this kind of anarchy...."
+
+Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
+flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
+hand:
+
+"Comrades!" he cried and there was a hush. "My _familia_ (name) is
+Peterson-I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
+statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
+statements would have some value _if their authors had been
+representatives of the Army_-" Wild applause. _"But they do not
+represent the soldiers!"_ Shaking his fist. "The Twelfth Army has
+been insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great
+Soviet and the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+our Committee refused to call a meeting of the representatives of
+the masses until the end of September, so that the reactionaries
+could elect their own false delegates to this Congress. I tell you
+now, the Lettish soldiers have many times said, 'No more
+resolutions! No more talk! We want deeds-the Power must be in our
+hands!' Let these impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is
+not with them!"
+
+The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
+stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon,
+the delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after
+hammer-blow had fallen from that tribune, welding them together but
+beating them down. Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising
+against them? Was it true that the Army was marching on Petrograd?
+Then this clear-eyed young soldier had spoken, and in a flash they
+knew it for the truth.... _This_ was the voice of the soldiers-the
+stirring millions of uniformed workers and peasants were men like
+them, and their thoughts and feelings were the same...
+
+More soldiers ... Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
+they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
+that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
+they stood for division according to political parties, and not
+groups. "Hundreds of delegates from the Front," he said, "are being
+elected without the participation of the soldiers because the Army
+Committees are no longer the real representatives of the rank and
+file...." Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk
+could not represent the Army in this congress,-but only the high
+command. "The real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their
+hearts the transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they
+expect very much from it!"... The tide was turning.
+
+Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish
+Social Democrats-his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling
+with rage.
+
+"What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
+_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!" He raised
+his voice and hand. "Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn't
+permit us to remain here and be responsible for these crimes.
+Because the firing on the Winter Palace doesn't cease, the Municipal
+Duma together with the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and
+the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviet, has decided to
+perish with the Provisional Government, and we are going with them!
+Unarmed we will expose our breasts to the machine guns of the
+Terrorists.... We invite all delegates to this Congress-" The rest was
+lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and curses which rose to a hellish
+pitch as fifty delegates got up and pushed their way out....
+
+Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, "Keep your seats and we'll go
+on with our business!" And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel
+face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, "All these
+so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki,
+Socialist Revolutionaries, _Bund_-let them go! They are just so much
+refuse which will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!"
+
+Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
+Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
+offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. "In this way we have done
+everything possible to avoid blood-shed...."
+
+We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where
+the Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed,
+engulfing and spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars
+armed with power of life and death to all the corners of the city,
+amid the buzz of the telephonographs. The door opened, a blast of
+stale air and cigarette smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of
+dishevelled men bending over a map under the glare of a shaded
+electric-light.... Comrade Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a
+mop of pale yellow hair, made out passes for us.
+
+When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one
+huge park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of
+which could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great
+motor-truck stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine. Men were
+tossing bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside
+them.
+
+"Where are you going?" I shouted.
+
+"Down-town-all over-everywhere!" answered a little workman,
+grinning, with a large exultant gesture.
+
+We showed our passes. "Come along!" they invited. "But there'll
+probably be shooting-" We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a
+raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on
+top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate,
+and then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the
+workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top
+speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side.... One
+man tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of     l handfuls of     |          |
+papers into the air. We imitated him, plunging down through the dark
+street with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind.
+The late passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around
+bonfires on the corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them.
+Sometimes armed men loomed up ahead, crying "_Shtoi!_" and raising
+their guns, but our chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible
+and we hurtled on....
+
+I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light
+read:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed
+into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and
+Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which
+stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
+
+The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of
+a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the
+land, labor control over production, creation of a Soviet
+Government-that cause is securely achieved.
+
+LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
+
+_Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+_Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+[Graphic page-96 Proclamation in Russian, title follows]                                              | _   111_ |
+
+Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the
+Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our
+calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just
+after the surrender of the Winter Palace.
+
+A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a
+goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, "Look out! Here the provocators
+always shoot from the windows!" We turned into Znamensky Square,
+dark and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy's brutal statue
+and swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles
+ready, peering at the windows. Behind us the street was alive with
+people running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and
+the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter
+and more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly
+lighted. Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line
+of sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed
+down, and we climbed out.
+
+It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina
+Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn
+across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column
+of fours. There were about three or four hundred of them, men in
+frock coats, well-dressed women, officers-all sorts and conditions
+of people. Among them we recognised many of the delegates from the
+Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries;
+Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants'
+Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky's spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and
+at the head white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and
+Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government,
+arrested that morning and released. I caught sight of Malkin,
+reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ "Going to die in the Winter
+Palace," he shouted cheerfully. The procession stood still, but from
+the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and Prokopovitch were
+bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
+
+"We demand to pass!" they cried. "See, these comrades come from the
+Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the
+Winter Palace!"
+
+The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an
+enormous hand, frowning. "I have orders from the Committee not to
+let anybody go to the Winter Palace," he grumbled. "But I will send
+a comrade to telephone to Smolny...."
+
+"We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether
+you permit us or not!" cried old Schreider, very much excited.
+
+"I have orders-" repeated the sailor sullenly.
+
+"Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!" came from all
+sides. "We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on
+Russians and comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!"
+
+"No," said the sailor, looking stubborn, "I can't allow you to pass."
+
+"What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to shoot people who haven't any guns. We won't
+shoot unarmed Russian people...."
+
+"We will go forward! What can you do?"
+
+"We will do something,"replied the sailor, evidently at a loss. "We
+can't let you pass. We will do something."
+
+"What will you do? What will you do?"
+
+Another sailor came up, very much irritated. "We will spank you!" he
+cried, energetically. "And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go
+home now, and leave us in peace!"
+
+At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment,
+Prokopovitch had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella,
+he made a speech:
+
+"Comrades and citizens!" he said. "Force is being used against us!
+We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant
+men! It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
+switchmen-" (What he meant by "switchmen" I never discovered.) "Let
+us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the
+country and the Revolution!"
+
+Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and
+back up the Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage
+of the diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the
+direction of the Winter Palace.
+
+Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of
+soldiers and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan
+Cathedral a three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street,
+slewed sideways from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs.
+Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low tones and
+peering down toward the Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: "It
+is possible that we have done wrong...." At the corners patrols
+stopped all passersby-and the composition of these patrols was
+interesting, for in command of the regular troops was invariably a
+Red Guard.... The shooting had ceased.
+
+Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: "The
+_yunkers_ have sent word they want us to go and get them out!"
+Voices began to give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a
+dark mass moving forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the
+clinking of arms. We fell in with the first ranks.
+
+Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we
+poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in
+a low voice: "Look out, comrades! Don't trust them. They will fire,
+surely!" In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching
+together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the
+Alexander Column.
+
+"How many of you did they kill?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know. About ten...."
+
+After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army
+seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow
+forward. By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the
+Winter Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three
+hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers.
+Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside
+gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown
+down by the _yunkers_ who had stood there. On both sides of the main
+gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the
+huge pile came not the slightest sound.
+
+Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right
+hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of
+the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and
+stair-cases. A number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon
+these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them
+open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets,
+curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware.... One man went
+strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder;
+another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his
+hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, "Comrades!
+Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of
+the People!" Immediately twenty voices were crying, "Stop! Put
+everything back! Don't take anything! Property of the People!" Many
+hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched
+from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze
+clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
+cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
+spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be
+heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, "Revolutionary
+discipline! Property of the People...."
+
+We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There
+order was also being established. "Clear the Palace!" bawled a Red
+Guard, sticking his head through an inner door. "Come, comrades,
+let's show that we're not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the
+Palace except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted."
+
+Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in
+their hands. Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen
+and paper. Shouts of "All out! All out!" were heard far and near
+within, and the Army began to pour  through the door, jostling,
+expostulating, arguing. As each man appeared he was seized by the
+self-appointed committee, who went through his pockets and looked
+under his coat. Everything that was plainly not his property was
+taken away, the man at the table noted it on his paper, and it was
+carried into a little room. The most amazing assortment of objects
+were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of ink, bed-spreads
+worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small oil-painting,
+desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap, clothes of every
+description, blankets. One Red Guard carried three rifles, two of
+which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four portfolios
+bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
+surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the
+committee explained that stealing was not worthy of the people's
+champions; often those who had been caught turned around and began
+to help go through the rest of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
+
+_Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee
+seized upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the search
+with remarks like, "Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists!
+Counter-revolutionists! Murderers of the People!" But there was no
+violence done, although the _yunkers_ were terrified. They too had
+their pockets full of small plunder. It was carefully noted down by
+the scribe, and piled in the little room.... The _yunkers_ were
+disarmed. "Now, will you take up arms against the People any more?"
+demanded clamouring voices.
+
+"No," answered the _yunkers,_ one by one. Whereupon they were
+allowed to go free.
+
+We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the
+big Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. "Who are you
+anyway?" he asked. "How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys?
+(There were five of us, two women.)
+
+"_Pazhal'st', touarishtchi!_ Way, Comrades!" A soldier and a Red
+Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards
+with fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen
+men in civilian dress-the members of the Provisional Government.
+First came Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking
+sullenly at the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply
+around; he stared at us with cold fixity.... They passed in silence;
+the victorious insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only
+a few angry mutterings. It was only later that we learned how the
+people in the street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired-but
+the sailors brought them safely to Peter-Paul....
+
+In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was
+still a great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found
+apartments in the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of
+_yunkers_ which did not exist. We went upstairs and wandered through
+room after room. This part of the Palace had been entered also by
+other detachments from the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues,
+tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were unharmed; in
+the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the
+papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had
+been stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The
+most highly prized loot was clothing, which the working people
+needed. In a room where furniture was stored we came upon two
+soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish leather upholstery from
+chairs. They explained it was to make boots with....
+
+The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms
+stood nervously about, from force of habit repeating, "You can't go
+in there, _barin!_ It is forbidden-" We penetrated at length to the
+gold and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the
+Ministers had been in session all that day and night, and where the
+_shveitzari_ had betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table
+covered with green baize was just as they had left it, under arrest.
+Before each empty seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were
+scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of
+proclamations and manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as
+their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered
+with absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat
+despondently listening while Minister after Minister proposed
+chimerical schemes. I took one of these scribbled pages, in the hand
+writing of Konovalov, which read, "The Provisional Government
+appeals to all classes to support the Provisional Government-"
+
+All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
+surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the
+Front and with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the
+Ministry of War early in the morning, but they did not know of the
+military telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone
+line connecting it with the Winter Palace. In that attic a young
+officer sat all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals
+and proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put
+on his hat and walked calmly out of the building....
+
+Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn't notice a
+change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As
+we strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by
+the time we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the
+afternoon with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after
+us. One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with
+sullen suspicion.
+
+[Graphic page-104  Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
+
+Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by
+A.I. Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional
+Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the
+situation became more and more evident. The geometrical figure
+beneath was probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for
+the end.
+
+"Who are you?" he growled. "What are you doing here?" The others
+massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter.
+_"Provocatori!"_ I heard somebody say. "Looters!" I produced our
+passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took
+them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without
+comprehension. Evidently he could not read. He handed them back and
+spat on the floor. _"Bumagi!_ Papers!" said he with contempt. The
+mass slowly began to close in, like wild cattle around a cowpuncher
+on foot. Over their heads I caught sight of an officer, looking
+helpless, and shouted to him. He made for us, shouldering his way
+through.
+
+"I'm the Commissar," he said to me. "Who are you? What is it?" The
+others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
+
+"You are foreigners?" he rapidly asked in Franch. "It is very
+dangerous...." Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
+"Comrades!" he cried. "These people are foreign comrades-from
+America. They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen
+about the bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the
+proletarian army!"
+
+"How do you know that?" replied the big soldier. "I tell you they
+are provocators! They say they came here to observe the
+revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been
+wandering freely through the Palace, and how do we know they haven't
+got their pockets full of loot?"
+
+_"Pravilno!"_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
+
+"Comrades! Comrades!" appealed the officer, sweat standing out on
+his forehead. "I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Do you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are
+signed with the same names that are signed to my pass!"
+
+He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening
+onto the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going
+through pockets... "You have narrowly escaped," he kept muttering,
+wiping his face.
+
+"What happened to the Women's Battalion?" we asked.
+
+"Oh-the women!" He laughed. "They were all huddled up in a back
+room. We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them-many were
+in hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the
+Finland Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they
+have a camp. (See App. IV, Sect. 4)....
+
+We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure
+armies on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river,
+where loomed the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout....
+Underfoot the sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the
+cornice of the Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_
+had struck; that was the only damage done by the bombardment....
+
+It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
+street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only
+signs of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires.
+The city was quiet-probably never so quiet in its history; on that
+night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
+
+But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the
+galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed,
+red-shrouded Imperial portraits. About a hundred people were grouped
+around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the
+Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the
+anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution. And as we looked
+on, the Committee for Salvation was formed-that Committee which was
+to develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki,
+appearing, in the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name,
+and sometimes as the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public
+Safety....
+
+Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet
+delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets, old Prokopovitch, and even members of the  Council of the
+Republic-among whom Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the
+convention of Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ was still in office.... An appeal to the country was
+drafted.
+
+We hailed a cab. "Where to?" But when we said "Smolny," the
+_izvoshtchik_ shook his head. _"Niet!"_ said he, "there are
+devils...." It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver
+willing to take us-and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two
+blocks away.
+
+The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and
+around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly
+asking everybody the latest news. The corridors were full of
+hurrying men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In some of the committee-rooms
+people lay sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them. In spite
+of the seceding delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with
+people, roaring like the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading
+the list of arrested Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted
+with thunderous applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter;
+Rutenburg came in for less; and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a
+storm of hoots, angry cries, cheers burst forth.... It was announced
+that Tchudnovsky had been appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
+
+Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded
+face convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his
+fist on the presidium table.
+
+"We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of
+the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do
+you know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom
+fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into
+Peter-Paul prison-the historical tomb of Liberty?" In the uproar he
+pounded and yelled. Another delegate climbed up beside him, and
+pointed at the presidium.
+
+"Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit
+quietly here while the _Okhrana_ of the Bolsheviki tortures their
+leaders?"
+
+Trotzky was gesturing for silence. "These 'comrades' who are now
+caught plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer
+Kerensky-is there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July
+16th and 18th they didn't use much ceremony with us!" With a
+triumphant ring in his voice he cried, "Now that the _oborontsi_ and
+the faint-hearted have gone, and the whole task of defending and
+saving the Revolution rests on our shoulders, it is particularly
+necessary to work-work-work! We have decided to die rather than give
+up!"
+
+Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered
+with the mud of his ride. "The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on
+guard at the gates of Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee!" Wild cheers. "The Cycle Corps
+sent from the front has arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are
+now with us; they recognise the power of the Soviets, the necessity
+of immediate transfer of land to the peasants and industrial control
+to the workers. The Fifth Battalion of Cyclists, stationed at
+Tsarskoye, is ours....
+
+Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of
+delirious enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered
+_three days before_ from the South-west front to the "defence of
+Petrograd." They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and
+at the station of Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth
+Battalion from Tsarskoye. A joint meeting was held, and it was
+discovered that "among the cyclists not a single man was found
+willing to shed the blood of his brothers, or to support a
+Government of bourgeois and land-owners!"
+
+Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect
+a special committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war.
+"There isn't any peaceful solution!" bellowed the crowed. "Victory
+is the only solution!" The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of
+Jocular insults. There was no longer any panic fear.... Kameniev from
+the platform shouted after them, "The Mensheviki Internationalists
+claimed 'emergency' for the question of a 'peaceful solution,' but
+they always voted for suspension of the order of the day in favour
+of declarations of factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It
+is evident," finished Kameniev, "that the withdrawal of all these
+renegades was decided upon beforehand!"
+
+The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and
+proceed to the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all
+Russia:
+
+TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS
+
+The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the
+Soviets. There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the
+will of the great majority of the workers', soldiers and peasants,
+based upon the triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and
+soldiers, the Congress assumes the Power.
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the
+Provisional Government are already arrested.
+
+The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic
+peace to all nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will
+assure the free transfer of landlord, crown and monastery lands to
+the Land Committees, defend the soldiers rights, enforcing a
+complete democratisation of the Army, establish workers' control
+over production, ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly
+at the proper date, take means to supply bread to the cities and
+articles of first necessity to the villages, and secure to all
+nationalities living in Russia a real right to independent existence.
+
+The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to
+the Soviets of Workers,' Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, which
+must enforce revolutionary order.
+
+The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful
+and steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the
+revolutionary Army will know how to defend the Revolution against
+all attacks of Imperialism, until the new Government shall have
+brought about the conclusion of the democratic peace which it will
+directly propose to all nations. The new Government will take all
+necessary steps to secure everything needful to the revolutionary
+Army, by means of a determined policy of requisition and taxation of
+the propertied classes, and also to improve the situation of
+soldiers' families.
+
+The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to
+lead troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by
+Kerensky, have sided with the insurgent People.
+
+Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on
+guard!
+
+Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against
+Petrograd!
+
+Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution
+and democratic peace is in your hands!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of_
+_Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+_Delegates from the Peasants' Soviets._
+
+It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue,
+climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
+
+"Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings
+to the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military
+Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the
+Northern Front!" Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other.
+"General Tchermissov has recognised the Committee-Commissar of the
+Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!"
+
+So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the
+Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and
+thrust the _coup d'etat_ upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was
+all great Russia to win-and then the world! Would Russia follow and
+rise? And the world-what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a
+red world-tide?
+
+Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill.
+There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent
+streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn
+grey-rising over Russia....
+
+                              Chapter V
+
+                            Plunging Ahead
+
+THURSDAY, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest
+excitement and confusion, a whole nation having up in long hissing
+swells of storm. Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands
+of people retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work.
+In Petrograd the street-cars were running, the stores and
+restaurants open, theatres going, an exhibition of paintings
+advertised.... All the complex routine of common life-humdrum even in
+war-time-proceeded as usual. Nothing is so astounding as the
+vitality of the social organism-how it persists, feeding itself,
+clothing itself, amusing itself, in the face of the worst
+calamities....
+
+The air was full of rumours about Kerensky, who was said to have
+raised the Front, and to be leading a great army against the
+capital. _Volia Naroda_ published a _prikaz_ launched by him at
+Pskov:
+
+The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place
+the country on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of
+our entire will, our courage and the devotion of every one of us, to
+win through the terrible trial which the fatherland is undergoing....
+
+Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government-if
+one is formed-every one ought to remain at his post and fulfil his
+duty toward bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least
+interference with existing Army organisations can bring on
+irreparable misfortunes, by opening the Front to the enemy.
+Therefore it is indispensable to preserve at any price the morale of
+the troops, by assuring complete order and the preservation of the
+Army from new shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between
+officers and their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and
+Commissars, in the name of the safety of the country, to stay at
+their posts, as I myself retain the post of Supreme Commander, until
+the Provisional Government of the Republic shall declare its will....
+
+In answer, this placard on all the walls:
+
+FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
+
+"The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch,
+Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Kerensky has fled. All Army organisations are ordered to
+take every measure for the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his
+conveyance to Petrograd.
+
+"All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious
+crime against the state."
+
+With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled,
+throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V,
+Sect. 1)... Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the
+Peasant Land Committees imprisoned by the Provisional Government
+were declared free. Capital punishment in the army was abolished.
+Government employees were ordered to continue their work, and
+threatened with severe penalties if they refused. All pillage,
+disorder and speculation were forbidden under pain of death.
+Temporary Commissars were appointed to the various Ministries:
+Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotzky; Interior and Justice, Rykov;
+Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky; Public Welfare, Madame
+Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications, Riazanov; Navy, the
+sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro; Theatres, Muraviov;
+State Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of Petrograd,
+Lieutenant Nesterov; for the Northern Front, Pozern....
+
+To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To
+the railway workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the
+transport of food to the cities and the front.... In return, they were
+promised representation in the Ministry of Ways and Communications.
+
+Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against
+Petrograd. They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary
+workers and soldiers of the capital. Do not believe a word that is
+said by our common enemies, the land-owners and the capitalists.
+
+At our Congress are represented all the conscious organisations of
+workers, soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also
+to welcome into its midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the
+Black Band, henchmen of the land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are
+our enemies.
+
+They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the
+Cossacks. This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords
+that the Revolution will confiscate the land to give it to the
+people.
+
+Organise Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies! Join with the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies!
+
+Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and
+that you do not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary
+Russia!...
+
+Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people.
+Send your delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us.... The
+Cossacks of the Petrograd garrison, to their honour, have not
+justified the hope of the People's enemies....
+
+Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you
+a fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the
+soldiers, workers and peasants of all Russia!
+
+On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up,
+hand-bills scattered everywhere, newspapers-screaming and cursing
+and prophesying evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press-all
+other weapons being in the hands of the Soviets.
+
+First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!
+
+Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th
+the Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the
+Provisional Government, dispersed the Council of the Republic, and
+proclaimed an illegal power. Such violence committed against the
+Government of revolutionary Russia at the moment of its greatest
+external danger, is an indescribable crime against the fatherland.
+
+The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause
+of national defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace
+so greatly desired.
+
+Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country
+to the horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the
+failure of the Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the
+republican r�gime and transmit to the People forever their right to
+the land.
+
+Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on
+the night of November 7th, takes the initiative in forming a new
+Provisional Government; which, basing itself on the forces of
+democracy, will conduct the country to the Constituent Assembly and
+save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The Committee for
+Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognise the power of
+violence. Do not obey its orders!
+
+Rise for the defence of the country and Revolution!
+
+Support the Committee for Salvation!
+
+Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of
+Petrograd, the _Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress),_ the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, and from the Congress itself the
+Front group, the factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki,
+Populist Socialists, Unified Social Democrats, and the group
+"Yedinstvo."
+
+Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki
+_oborontsi,_ Peasants' Soviets again; from the Central Army
+Committee, the _Tsentroflot_....
+
+... Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will
+trample on our liberty. Black Hundred _pogroms_ will spread over
+Russia, if we all-conscious workers, soldiers, citizens-do not
+unite....
+
+Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of
+immediate peace-is a lie! The promise of bread-a hoax! The promise
+of land-a fairy tale!...
+
+They were all in this manner.
+
+Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of
+power has been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone.... They concealed
+their plot from the other Socialist parties composing the Soviet....
+
+You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution
+will profit by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will
+deprive you of land and freedom....
+
+The newspapers were as violent.
+
+Our duty (said the _Dielo Naroda_) is to unmask these traitors to
+the working-class. Our duty is to mobilise all our forces and mount
+guard over the cause of the Revolution!...
+
+_Izviestia,_ for the last time speaking in the name of the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ threatened awful retribution.
+
+As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no
+Congress of Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private
+conference of the Bolshevik faction! And in that case, they have no
+right to cancel the powers of the _Tsay-ee-kah_....
+
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ while pleading for a new Government that should
+unite all the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the
+Congress, and pointed out that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one
+thing very clearly: that all illusions about coalition with the
+bourgeoisie were henceforth demonstrated vain...
+
+_Rabotchi Put_ blossomed out as _Pravda,_ Lenin's newspaper which
+had been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
+
+Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of
+the clique of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the
+bourgeois gang....
+
+The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
+
+The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary
+elements of Petrograd.
+
+The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and
+assure the realisation of the popular programme...
+
+What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally,
+adopted a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a
+sort of contemptuous "I-told-you-so" to the other parties.
+Influential Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal
+Duma, and on the outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other
+than that, the bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour-which could not
+far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three
+days never occurred to anybody-except perhaps to Lenin, Trotzky, the
+Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers....
+
+In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the
+Duma sitting in _permanence,_ tempestuous, grouping around it all
+the forces of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with
+his white hair and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny the
+night before, to protest in the name of the Municipal
+Self-Government. "The Duma, being the only existing legal Government
+in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not
+recognise the new power," he had told Trotzky. And Trotzky had
+answered, "There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can
+be dissolved and re-elected...." At this report there was a furious
+outcry.
+
+"If one recognises a Government by bayonet," continued the old man,
+addressing the Duma, "well, we have one; but I consider legitimate
+only a Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by
+the usurpation of a minority!" Wild applause on all benches except
+those of the Bolsheviki. Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced
+that the Bolsheviki already were violating Municipal autonomy by
+appointing Commissars in many departments.
+
+The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that
+the decision of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed
+up the action of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You are not the real representative of the people
+of Petrograd!" Shrieks of "Insult! Insult!" The old Mayor, with
+dignity, reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest
+possible popular vote. "Yes," he answered, "but that was a long time
+ago-like the _Tsay-ee-kah_-like the Army Committee."
+
+"There has been no new Congress of Soviets!" they yelled at him.
+
+"The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of
+counter-revolution-" Uproar. "-and we demand a re-election of the
+Duma...." Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber, followed by cries
+of "German agents! Down with the traitors!"
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, then demanded that all Municipal functionaries
+who had consented to be Commissars of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee be discharged from their position and indicted. Schreider
+was on his feet, putting a motion to the effect that the Duma
+protested against the menace of the Bolsheviki to dissolve it, and
+as the legal representative of the population, it would refuse to
+leave its post.
+
+Outside, the Alexander Hall was crowded for the meeting of the
+Committee for Salvation, and Skobeliev was again speaking. "Never
+yet," he said, "was the fate of the Revolution so acute, never yet
+did the question of the existence of the Russian state excite so
+much anxiety, never yet did history put so harshly and categorically
+the question-is Russia to be or not to be! The great hour for the
+salvation of the Revolution has arrived, and in consciousness
+thereof we observe the close union of the live forces of the
+revolutionary democracy, by whose organised will a centre for the
+salvation of the country and the Revolution has already been
+created...." And much of the same sort. "We shall die sooner than
+surrender our post!"
+
+Amid violent applause it was announced that the Union of Railway
+Workers had joined the Committee for Salvation. A few moments later
+the Post and Telegraph Employees came in; then some Mensheviki
+Internationalists entered the hall, to cheers. The Railway men said
+they did not recognise the Bolsheviki and had taken the entire
+railroad apparatus into their own hands, refusing to entrust it to
+any usurpatory power. The Telegraphers' delegate declared that the
+operators had flatly refused to work their instruments as long as
+the Bolshevik Commissar was in the office. The Postmen would not
+deliver or accept mail at Smolny.... All the Smolny telephones were
+cut off. With great glee it was reported how Uritzky had gone to the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the secret treaties, and how
+Neratov had put him out. The Government employees were all stopping
+work....
+
+It was war-war deliberately planned, Russian fashion; war by strike
+and sabotage. As we sat there the chairman read a list of names and
+assignments; so-and-so was to make the round of the Ministries;
+another was to visit the banks; some ten or twelve were to work the
+barracks and persuade the soldiers to remain neutral-"Russian
+soldiers, do not shed the blood of your brothers!"; a committee was
+to go and confer with Kerensky; still others were despatched to
+provincial cities, to form branches of the Committee for Salvation,
+and link together the anti-Bolshevik elements.
+
+The crowd was in high spirits. "These Bolsheviki _will_ try to
+dictate to the _intelligentzia?_ We'll show them!"... Nothing could be
+more striking than the contrast between this assemblage and the
+Congress of Soviets. There, great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy
+workmen, peasants-poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle
+for existence; here the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary
+leaders-Avksentievs, Dans, Liebers,-the former Socialist
+Ministers-Skobelievs, Tchernovs,-rubbed shoulders with Cadets like
+oily Shatsky, sleek Vinaver; with journalists, students,
+intellectuals of almost all camps. This Duma crowd was well-fed,
+well-dressed; I did not see more than three proletarians among them
+all....
+
+News came. Kornilov's faithful _Tekhintsi_  [*] had slaughtered his
+[* See Notes and Explanations]
+guards at Bykhov, and he had escaped. Kaledin was marching north....
+The Soviet of Moscow had set up a Military Revolutionary Committee,
+and was negotiating with the commandant of the city for possession
+of the arsenal, so that the workers might be armed.
+
+With these facts was mixed an astounding jumble of rumours,
+distortions, and plain lies. For instance, an intelligent young
+Cadet, formerly private secretary to Miliukov and then to
+Terestchenko, drew us aside and told us all about the taking of the
+Winter Palace.
+
+"The Bolsheviki were led by German and Austrian officers," he
+affirmed.
+
+"Is that so?" we replied, politely. "How do you know?"
+
+"A friend of mine was there and saw them."
+
+"How could he tell they were German officers?"
+
+"Oh, because they wore German uniforms!"
+
+There were hundreds of such absurd tales, and they were not only
+solemnly published by the anti-Bolshevik press, but believed by the
+most unlikely persons-Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki who
+had always been distinguished by their sober devotion to facts....
+
+But more serious were the stories of Bolshevik violence and
+terrorism. For example, it was said printed that the Red Guards had
+not only thoroughly looted the Winter Palace, but that they had
+massacred the _yunkers_ after disarming them, had killed some of the
+Ministers in cold blood; and as for the woman soldiers, most of them
+had been violated, and many had committed suicide because of the
+tortures they had gone through.... All these stories were swallowed
+whole by the crowd in the Duma. And worse still, the mothers and
+fathers of the students and of the women read these frightful
+details, _often accompanied by lists of names,_ and toward nightfall
+the Duma began to be besieged by frantic citizens....
+
+A typical case is that of Prince Tumanov, whose body, it was
+announced in many newspapers, had been found floating in the Moika
+Canal. A few hours later this was denied by the Prince's family, who
+added that the Prince was under arrest so the press identified the
+dead man as General Demissov. The General having also come to life,
+we investigated, and could find no trace of any body found whatever....
+
+As we left the Duma building two boy scouts were distributing
+hand-bills (See App. V, Sect. 2) to the enormous crowd which blocked
+the Nevsky in front of the door-a crowd composed almost entirely of
+business men, shop-keepers, _tchinouniki,_ clerks. One read!
+
+FROM THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+The Municipal Duma in its meeting of October 26th, in view of the
+events of the day decrees: To announce the inviolability of private
+dwellings. Through the House Committees it calls upon the population
+of the town of Petrograd to meet with decisive repulse all attempts
+to enter by force private apartments, not stopping at the use of
+arms, in the interests of the self-defence of citizens.
+
+Up on the corner of the Liteiny, five or six Red Guards and a couple
+of sailors had surrounded a news-dealer and were demanding that he
+hand over his copies of the Menshevik _Rabot-chaya Gazeta_ (Workers'
+Gazette). Angrily he shouted at them, shaking his fist, as one of
+the sailors tore the papers from his stand. An ugly crowd had
+gathered around, abusing the patrol. One little workman kept
+explaining doggedly to the people and the news-dealer, over and over
+again, "It has Kerensky's proclamation in it. It says we killed
+Russian people. It will make bloodshed...."
+
+Smolny was tenser than ever, if that were possible. The same running
+men in the dark corridors, squads of workers with rifles, leaders
+with bulging portfolios arguing, explaining, giving orders as they
+hurried anxiously along, surrounded by friends and lieutenants. Men
+literally out of themselves, living prodigies of sleeplessness and
+work-men unshaven, filthy, with burning eyes, who drove upon their
+fixed purpose full speed on engines of exaltation. So much they had
+to do, so much! Take over the Government, organise the City, keep
+the garrison loyal, fight the Duma and the Committee for Salvation,
+keep out the Germans, prepare to do battle with Kerensky, inform the
+provinces what had happened, Propagandise from Archangel to
+Vladivostok.... Government and Municipal employees refusing to obey
+their Commissars, post and telegraph refusing them communication,
+railroads roads stonily ignoring their appeals for trains, Kerensky
+coming, the garrison not altogether to be trusted, the Cossacks
+waiting to come out.... Against them not only the organised
+bourgeoisie, but all the other Socialist parties except the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, a few Mensheviki Internationalists and
+the Social Democrat Internationalists, and even they undecided
+whether to stand by or not. With them, it is true, the workers and
+the soldier-masses-the peasants an unknown quantity-but after all
+the Bolsheviki were a political faction not rich in trained and
+educated men....
+
+Riazanov was coming up the front steps, explaining in a sort of
+humorous panic that he, Commissar of Commerce, knew nothing whatever
+of business. In the upstairs cafe sat a man all by himself in the
+corner, in a goat-skin cape and clothes which had been-I was going
+to say "slept in," but of course he hadn't slept-and a three days'
+growth of beard. He was anxiously figuring on a dirty envelope, and
+biting his pencil meanwhile. This was Menzhinsky, Commissar of
+Finance, whose qualifications were that he had once been clerk in a
+French bank.... And these four half-running down the hall from the
+office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and scribbling on
+bits of paper as they run-these were Commissars despatched to the
+four corners of Russia to carry the news, argue, or fight-with
+whatever arguments or weapons came to hand....
+
+The Congress was to meet at one o'clock, and long since the great
+meeting-hall had filled, but by seven there was yet no sign of the
+presidium.... The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions
+were in session in their own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin
+and Trotzky had fought against compromise. A considerable part of
+the Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way so far as to create a
+joint all-Socialist government. "We can't hold on!" they cried.
+
+"Too much is against us. We haven't got the men. We will be
+isolated, and the whole thing will fall." So Kameniev, Riazanov and
+others.
+
+But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. "Let the
+compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won't
+give way an inch. If there are comrades here who haven't the courage
+and the will to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of
+the cowards and conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we
+shall go on."
+
+At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist
+Revolutionaries to say that they would remain in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+"See!" said Lenin. "They are following!"
+
+A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an
+Anarchist who was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me
+that we go and find out what had become of the presidium. There was
+nobody in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ office, nor in the bureau of the
+Petrograd Soviet. From room to room we wandered, through vast
+Smolny. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea where to find the
+governing body of the Congress. As we went my companion described
+his ancient revolutionary activities, his long and pleasant exile in
+France.... As for the Bolsheviki, he confided to me that they were
+common, rude, ignorant persons, without aesthetic sensibilities. He
+was a real specimen of the Russian _intelligentzia_.... So he came at
+last to Room 17, office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and
+stood there in the midst of all the furious coming and going. The
+door opened, and out shot a squat, flat-faced man in a uniform
+without insignia, who seemed to be smiling-which smile, after a
+minute, one saw to be the fixed grin of extreme fatigue. It was
+Krylenko.
+
+My friend, who was a dapper, civilized-looking young man, gave a cry
+of pleasure and stepped forward.
+
+"Nicolai Vasilievitch!" he said, holding out his hand. "Don't you
+remember me, comrade? We were in prison together."
+
+Krylenko made an effort and concentrated his mind and sight. "Why
+yes," he answered finally, looking the other up and down with an
+expression of great friendliness. "You are S-. _Zdra'stvuitye!_"
+They kissed. "What are you doing in all this?" He waved his arm
+around.
+
+"Oh, I'am just looking on.... You seem very successful."
+
+"Yes," replied Krylenko, with a sort of doggedness, "The proletarian
+Revolution is a great success." He laughed. "Perhaps-perhaps,
+however, we'll meet in prison again!"
+
+When we got out into the corridor again my friend went on with his
+explanations. "You see, I'am a follower of Kropotkin. To us the
+Revolution is a great failure; it has not aroused the patriotism of
+the masses. Of course that only proves that the people are not ready
+for Revolution...."
+
+It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the
+entrance of the presidium, with Lenin-great Lenin-among them. A
+short, stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders,
+bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous
+mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to
+bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in
+shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to
+be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in
+history have been. A strange popular leader-a leader purely by
+virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and
+detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies-but with the power of
+explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete
+situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual
+audacity.
+
+Kameniev was reading the report of the actions of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee; abolition of capital punishment in the
+Army, restoration of the free right of propaganda, release of
+officers and soldiers arrested for political crimes, orders to
+arrest Kerensky and confiscation of food supplies in private
+store-houses.... Tremendous applause.
+
+Again the representative of the _Bund._ The uncompromising attitude
+of the Bolsheviki would mean the crushing of the Revolution;
+therefore, the _Bund_ delegates must refuse any longer to sit in the
+Congress. Cries from the audience, "We thought you walked out last
+night! How many times are you going to walk out?"
+
+Then the representative of the Mensheviki Internationalists. Shouts,
+"What! You here still?" The speaker explained that only part of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress; the rest were going
+to stay-
+
+"We consider it dangerous and perhaps even mortal for the Revolution
+to transfer the power to the Soviets"-Interruptions-"but we feel it
+our duty to remain in the Congress and vote against the transfer
+here!"
+
+Other speakers followed, apparently without any order. A delegate of
+the coal-miners of the Don Basin called upon the Congress to take
+measures against Kaledin, who might cut off coal and food from the
+capital. Several soldiers just arrived from the Front brought the
+enthusiastic greetings of their regiments.... Now Lenin, gripping the
+edge of the reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel
+over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to
+the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it
+finished, he said simply, "We shall now proceed to construct the
+Socialist order!" Again that overwhelming human roar.
+
+"The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise
+peace.... We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent
+countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms-no annexations, no
+indemnities, and the right of self-determination of peoples. At the
+same time, according to our promise, we shall publish and repudiate
+the secret treaties.... The question of War and Peace is so clear that
+I think that I may, without preamble, read the project of a
+Proclamation to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries...."
+
+His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his
+voice was hoarse-not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that
+way after years and years of speaking-and went on monotonously, with
+the effect of being able to go on forever.... For emphasis he bent
+forward slightly. No gestures. And before him, a thousand simple
+faces looking up in intent adoration.
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL THE BELLIGERENT
+NATIONS.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created by the revolution of
+November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent peoples and
+to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just
+and democratic peace.
+
+The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is
+desired by the immense majority of the workers and the labouring
+classes, exhausted and depleted by the war-that peace which the
+Russian workers and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist
+monarchy, have not ceased to demand categorically-immediate peace
+without annexations (that is to say, without conquest of foreign
+territory, without forcible annexation of other nationalities), and
+without indemnities.
+
+The Government of Russia Proposes to all the belligerent peoples
+immediately to conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing
+to enter upon the decisive steps of negotiations aiming at such a
+peace, at once, without the slightest delay, before the definitive
+ratification of all the conditions of such a peace by the authorised
+assemblies of the people of all countries and of all nationalities.
+
+By annexation or conquest of foreign territory, the Government
+means-conformably to the conception of democratic rights in general,
+and the rights of the working-class in particular-all union to a
+great and strong State of a small or weak nationality, without the
+voluntary, clear and precise expression of its consent and desire;
+whatever be the moment when such an annexation by force was
+accomplished, whatever be the degree civilisation of the nation
+annexed by force or maintained outside the frontiers of another
+State, no matter if that nation be in Europe or in the far countries
+across the sea.
+
+If any nation is retained by force within the limits of another
+State; if, in spite of the desire expressed by it, (it matters
+little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular
+meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots
+against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of
+deciding by free vote-without the slightest constraint, after the
+complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has
+annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general-the form
+of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes
+an annexation-that is to say, conquest and an act of violence.
+
+To continue this war in order to permit the strong and rich nations
+to divide among themselves the weak and conquered nationalities is
+considered by the Government the greatest possible crime against
+humanity; and the Government solemnly proclaims its decision to sign
+a treaty of peace which will put an end to this war upon the above
+conditions, equally fair for all nationalities without exception.
+
+The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, expressing before the
+whole country its firm decision to conduct all the negotiations in
+the light of day before the people, and will proceed immediately to
+the full publication of all secret treaties confirmed or concluded
+by the Government of land-owners and capitalists, from March until
+November 7th, 1917. All the clauses of the secret treaties which, as
+occur in a majority of cases, have for their object to procure
+advantages and privileges for Russian capitalists, to maintain or
+augment the annexations of the Russian imperialists, are denounced
+by the Government immediately and without discussion.
+
+In proposing to all Governments and all peoples to engage in public
+negotiations for peace, the Government declares itself ready to
+carry on these negotiations by telegraph, by post, or by pourparlers
+between the representatives of the different countries, or at a
+conference of these representatives. To facilitate these
+pourparlers, the Government appoints its authorised representatives
+in the neutral countries.
+
+The Government proposes to all the governments and to the peoples of
+all the belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice, at
+the same time suggesting that the armistice ought to last three
+months, during which time it is perfectly possible, not only to hold
+the necessary pourparlers between the representatives of all the
+nations and nationalities without exception drawn into the war or
+forced to take part in it, but also to convoke authorised assemblies
+of representatives of the people of all countries, for the purpose
+of the definite acceptance of the conditions of peace.
+
+In addressing this offer of peace to the Governments and to the
+peoples of all the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers'
+and Peasants' Government of Russia addresses equally and in
+particular the conscious workers of the three nations most devoted
+to humanity and the three most important nations among those taking
+part in the present war-England, France, and Germany. The workers of
+these countries have rendered the greatest services to the cause of
+progress and of Socialism. The splendid examples of the Chartist
+movement in England, the series of revolutions, of world-wide
+historical significance, accomplished by the French proletariat-and
+finally, in Germany, the historic struggle against the Laws of
+Exception, an example for the workers of the whole world of
+prolonged and stubborn action, and the creation of the formidable
+organisations of German proletarians-all these models of proletarian
+heroism, these monuments of history, are for us a sure guarantee
+that the workers of these countries will understand the duty imposed
+upon them to liberate humanity from the horrors and consequences of
+war; and that these workers, by decisive, energetic and continued
+action, will help us to bring to a successful conclusion the cause
+of peace-and at the same time, the cause of the liberation of the
+exploited working masses from all slavery and all exploitation.
+
+When the grave thunder of applause had died away, Lenin spoke again:
+
+"We propose to the Congress to ratify this declaration. We address
+ourselves to the Governments as well as to the peoples, for a
+declaration which would be addressed only to the peoples of the
+belligerent countries might delay the conclusion of peace. The
+conditions of peace, drawn up during the armistice, will be ratified
+by the Constituent Assembly. In fixing the duration of the armistice
+at three months, we desire to give to the peoples as long a rest as
+possible after this bloody extermination, and ample time for them to
+elect their representatives. This proposal of peace will meet with
+resistance on the part of the imperialist governments-we don't fool
+ourselves on that score. But we hope that revolution will soon break
+out in all the belligerent countries; that is why we address
+ourselves especially to the workers of France, England and Germany....
+
+"The revolution of November 6th and 7th," he ended, "has opened the
+era of the Social Revolution.... The labour movement, in the name of
+peace and Socialism, shall win, and fulfil its destiny....
+
+There was something quiet and powerful in all this, which stirred
+the souls of men. It was understandable why people believed when
+Lenin spoke...."
+
+By crowd vote it was quickly decided that only representatives of
+political factions should be allowed to speak on the motion and that
+speakers should be limited to fifteen minutes.
+
+First Karelin for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. "Our faction
+had no opportunity to propose amendments to the text of the
+proclamation; it is a private document of the Bolsheviki. But we
+will vote for it because we agree with its spirit...."
+
+For the Social Democrats Internationalists Kramarov, long,
+stoop-shouldered and near-sighted-destined to achieve some notoriety
+as the Clown of the Opposition. Only a Government composed of all
+the Socialist parties, he said, could possess the authority to take
+such important action. If a Socialist coalition were formed, his
+faction would support the entire programme; if not, only part of it.
+As for the proclamation, the Internationalists were in thorough
+accord with its main points....
+
+Then one after another, amid rising enthusiasm; Ukrainean Social
+Democracy, support; Lithuanian Social Democracy, support; Populist
+Socialists, support; Polish Social Democracy, support; Polish
+Socialists support-but would prefer a Socialist coalition; Lettish
+Social Democracy, support.... Something was kindled in these men. One
+spoke of the "coming World-Revolution, of which we are the
+advance-guard"; another of "the new age of brotherhood, when all the
+peoples will become one great family...." An individual member claimed
+the floor. "There is contradiction here," he said. "First you offer
+peace without annexations and indemnities, and then you say you will
+consider all peace offers. To consider means to accept...."
+
+Lenin was on his feet. "We want a just peace, but we are not afraid
+of a revolutionary war.... Probably the imperialist Governments will
+not answer our appeal-but we shall not issue an ultimatum to which
+it will be easy to say no.... If the German proletariat realises that
+we are ready to consider all offers of peace, that will perhaps be
+the last drop which overflows the bowl-revolution will break out in
+Germany....
+
+"We consent to examine all conditions of peace, but that doesn't
+mean that we shall accept them.... For some of our terms we shall
+fight to the end-but possibly for others will find it impossible to
+continue the war.... Above all, we want to finish the war...."
+
+It was exactly 10:35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the
+proclamation to hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his
+hand against, but the sudden sharp outburst around him brought it
+swiftly down.... Unanimous.
+
+Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet,
+mumbling together into the smooth lifting unison of the
+_Internationale._ A grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child.
+Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound
+rolled through the hall, burst windows and doors and seared into the
+quiet sky. "The war is ended! The war is ended!" said a young
+workman near me, his face shining. And when it was over, as we stood
+there in a kind of awkward hush, some one in the back of the room     ck of the room     |          |
+shouted, "Comrades! Let us remember those who have died for
+liberty!" So we began to sing the Funeral March, that slow,
+melancholy and yet triumphant chant, so Russian and so moving. The
+_Internationale_ is an alien air, after all. The Funeral March
+seemed the very soul of those dark masses whose delegates sat in
+this hall, building from their obscure visions a new Russia-and
+perhaps more.
+
+You fell in the fatal fight
+
+For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the people....
+
+You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
+
+You suffered in horrible prisons,
+
+You went to exile in chains....
+
+Without a word you carried your chains because you could not ignore
+your suffering brothers,
+
+Because you believed that justice is stronger than the sword....
+
+The time will come when your surrendered life will count
+
+That time is near; when tyranny falls the people will rise, great
+and free!
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+You are followed by the new and fresh army ready to die and to
+suffer....
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+At your grave we swear to fight, to work for freedom and the
+people's happiness....
+
+For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March, in their cold
+Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of
+thousands had died in the prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It
+had not come as they expected it would come, nor as the
+_intelligentzia_ desired it; but it had come-rough, strong,
+impatient of formulas, contemptuous of sentimentalism; real....
+
+Lenin was reading the Decree on Land:
+
+(1.) All private ownership of land is abolished immediately without
+compensation.
+
+(2.) All land_owners' estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown,
+to monasteries, church lands with all their live stock and
+inventoried property, buildings and all appurtenances, are
+transferred to the disposition of the township Land Committees and
+the district Soviets of Peasants' Deputies until the Constituent
+Assembly meets.
+
+(3.) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated property which from
+now on belongs to the whole People, is regarded as a serious crime,
+punishable by the revolutionary tribunals. The district Soviets of
+Peasants' Deputies shall take all necessary measures for the
+observance of the strictest order during the taking over of the
+land-owners' estates, for the determination of the dimensions of the
+plots of land and which of them are subject to confiscation, for the
+drawing up of an inventory of the entire confiscated property, and
+for the strictest revolutionary protection of all the farming
+property on the land, with all buildings, implements, cattle,
+supplies of products, etc., passing into the hands of the People.
+
+(4.) For guidance during the realisation of the great land reforms
+until their final resolution by the Constituent Assembly, shall
+serve the following peasant _nakaz_ (See App. V, Sect. 3)
+(instructions), drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasant _nakazi_
+by the editorial board of the "_Izviestia_ of the All-Russian Soviet
+of Peasants' Deputies," and published in No.88 of said _"Izviestia"_
+(Petrograd, No.88, August 19th, 1917).
+
+The lands of peasants and of Cossacks serving in the Army shall not
+be confiscated.
+
+"This is not," explained Lenin, "the project of former Minister
+Tchernov, who spoke of 'erecting a frame-work' and tried to realise
+reforms from above. From below, on the spot, will be decided the
+questions of division of the land. The amount of land received by
+each peasant will vary according to the locality....
+
+"Under the Provisional Government, the _pomieshtchiki_ flatly
+refused to obey the orders of the Land Committees-those Land
+Committees projected by Lvov, brought into existence by Shingariov,
+and administered by Kerensky!"
+
+Before the debates could begin a man forced his way violently
+through the crowd in the aisle and climbed upon the platform. It was
+Pianikh, member of the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets,
+and he was mad clean through.
+
+"The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies protests against the arrest of our comrades, the Ministers
+Salazkin and Mazlov!" he flung harshly in the faces of the crowd,
+"We demand their instant release! They are now in Peter-Paul
+fortress. We must have immediate action! There is not a moment to
+lose!"
+
+Another followed him, a soldier with disordered beard and flaming
+eyes. "You sit here and talk about giving the land to the peasants,
+and you commit an act of tyrants and usurpers against the peasants'
+chosen representatives! I tell you-" he raised his fist, "If one
+hair of their heads is harmed, you'll have a revolt on your hands!"
+The crowd stirred confusedly.
+
+Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted
+with a roar. "Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided
+to release the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers,
+Mazlov, Salazkin, Gvozdov and Maliantovitch-on principle. That they
+are still in Peter-Paul is only because we have had so much to do....
+They will, however, be detained at their homes under arrest until we
+have investigated their complicity in the treacherous acts of
+Kerensky during the Kornilov affair!"
+
+"Never," shouted Pianikh, "in any revolution have such things been
+seen as go on here!"
+
+"You are mistaken," responded Trotzky. "Such things have been seen
+even in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in
+the July days.... When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by
+the doctor's orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents
+of the Tsar's secret police!" The peasants withdrew, muttering,
+followed by ironical hoots.
+
+The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on
+the Land Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not
+vote on the question until after discussion. The Peasants' Soviets
+should be consulted....
+
+The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
+
+Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the
+peasants: "We must do honour to a political party which puts such an
+act into effect the first day, without jawing about it!"
+
+A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and
+sheep-skin coat, bowing to all corners of the hall. "I wish you
+well, comrades and citizens," he said. "There are some Cadets
+walking around outside. You arrested our Socialist peasants-why not
+arrest them?"
+
+This was the signal for a debate of excited peasants. It was
+precisely like the debate of soldiers of the night before. Here were
+the real proletarians of the land....
+
+"Those members of our Executive Committee, Avksentiev and the rest,
+whom we thought were the peasants' protectors-they are only Cadets
+too! Arrest them! Arrest them!"
+
+Another, "Who are these Pianikhs, these Avksentievs? They are not
+peasants at all! They only wag their tails!"
+
+How the crowd rose to them, recognising brothers!
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries proposed a half-hour
+intermission. As the delegates streamed out, Lenin stood up in his
+place.
+
+"We must not lose time, comrades! News all-important to Russia must
+be on the press to-morrow morning. No delay!"
+
+And above the hot discussion, argument, shuffling of feet could be
+heard the voice of an emissary of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, crying, "Fifteen agitators wanted in room 17 at once! To
+go to the Front!"hellip;
+
+It was almost two hours and a half later that the delegates came
+straggling back, the presidium mounted the platform, and the session
+recommenced by the reading of telegrams from regiment after
+regiment, announcing their adhesion to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+In leisurely manner the meeting gathered momentum. A delegate from
+the Russian troops on the Macedonian front spoke bitterly of their
+situation. "We suffer there more from the friendship of our 'Allies'
+than from the enemy," he said. Representatives of the Tenth and
+Twelfth Armies, just arrived in hot haste, reported, "We support you
+with all our strength!" A peasant-soldier protested against the
+release of "the traitor Socialists, Mazlov and Salazkin"; as for the
+Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, it should be arrested
+_en masse!_Here was real revolutionary talk.... A deputy from the
+Russian Army in Persia declared he was instructed to demand all
+power to the Soviets.... A Ukrainean officer, speaking in his native
+tongue: "There is no nationalism in this crisis.... _Da zdravstvuyet_
+the proletarian dictatorship of all lands!" Such a deluge of high
+and hot thoughts that surely Russia would never again be dumb!
+
+Kameniev remarked that the anti-Bolshevik forces were trying to stir
+up disorders everywhere, and read an appeal of the Congress to all
+the Soviets of Russia:
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies, including some Peasants' Deputies, calls upon the local
+Soviets to take immediate energetic measures to oppose all
+counter-revolutionary anti-Jewish action and all _pogroms,_ whatever
+they may be. The honour of the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
+Revolution demands that no _pogrom_ be tolerated.
+
+The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+Workers, soldiers and peasants, you should follow everywhere the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+Comrade soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of assuring real
+revolutionary order.
+
+All revolutionary Russia and the entire world have their eyes on us....
+
+At two o'clock the Land Decree was put to vote, with only one
+against and the peasant delegates wild with joy.... So plunged the
+Bolsheviki ahead, irresistible, over-riding hesitation and
+opposition-the only people in Russia who had a definite programme of
+action while the others talked for eight long months.
+
+Now arose a soldier, gaunt, ragged and eloquent, to protest against
+the clause of the _nakaz_ tending to deprive military deserters from
+a share in village land allotments. Bawled at and hissed at first,
+his simple, moving speech finally made silence. "Forced against his
+will into the butchery of the trenches," he cried, "which you
+yourselves, in the Peace decree, have voted senseless as well as
+horrible, he greeted the Revolution with hope of peace and freedom.
+Peace? The Government of Kerensky forced him again to go forward
+into Galicia to slaughter and be slaughtered; to his pleas for
+peace, Terestchenko simply laughed.... Freedom? Under Kerensky he
+found his Committees suppressed, his newspapers cut off, his party
+speakers put in prison.... At home in his village, the landlords were
+defying his Land Committees, jailing his comrades.... In Petrograd the
+bourgeoisie, in alliance with the Germans, were sabotaging the food
+and ammunition for the Army.... He was without boots, or clothes.... Who
+forced him to desert? The Government of Kerensky, which you have
+overthrown!" At the end there was applause.
+
+But another soldier hotly denounced it: "The Government of Kerensky
+is not a screen behind which can be hidden dirty work like
+desertion! Deserters are scoundrels, who run away home and leave
+their comrades to die in the trenches alone! Every deserter is a
+traitor, and should be punished...." Uproar, shouts of _"Do volno!
+Teesche!"_ Kameniev hastily proposed to leave the matter to the
+Government for decision. (See App. V, Sect. 4)
+
+At 2.30 A. M. fell a tense hush. Kameniev was reading the decree of
+the Constitution of Power:
+
+Until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, a provisional
+Workers' and Peasants' Government is formed, which shall be named
+the Council of People's Commissars. (See App. V, Sect. 5)
+
+The administration of the different branches of state activity shall
+be intrusted to commissions, whose composition shall be regulated to
+ensure the carrying out of the programme of the Congress, in close
+union with the mass-organisations of working-men, working-women,
+sailors, soldiers, peasants and clerical employees. The governmental
+power is vested in a _collegium_ made up of the chairmen of these
+commissions, that is to say, the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+Control over the activities of the People's Commissars, and the
+right to replace them, shall belong to the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, and its
+Central Executive Committee.
+
+Still silence; as he read the list of Commissars, bursts of applause
+after each name, Lenin's and Trotzky's especially.
+
+_President of the Council:_ Vladimir Ulianov _(Lenin)_
+
+_Interior:_ A. E. Rykov
+
+_Agriculture:_ V. P. Miliutin
+
+_Labour:_ A. G. Shliapnikov
+
+_Military and Naval Affairs_-a committee composed of V. A.
+
+_Avseenko (Antonov),_ N. V. Krylenko, and F. M. Dybenko.
+
+_Commerce and Industry:_ V. P. Nogin
+
+_Popular Education:_ A. V. Lunatcharsky
+
+_Finance:_ E. E. Skvortsov _(Stepanov)_
+
+_Foreign Affairs:_ L. D. Bronstein _(Trotzky)_
+
+_Justice:_ G. E. Oppokov _(Lomov)_
+
+_Supplies:_ E. A. Teodorovitch
+
+_Post and Telegraph:_ N. P. Avilov _(Gliebov)_
+
+_Chairman for Nationalities:_ I. V. Djougashvili _(Stalin)_
+
+_Railroads:_ To be filled later.
+
+There were bayonets at the edges of the room, bayonets pricking up
+among the delegates; the Military Revolutionary Committee was arming
+everybody, Bolshevism was arming for the decisive battle with
+Kerensky, the sound of whose trumpets came up the south-west wind....
+In the meanwhile nobody went home; on the contrary hundreds of
+newcomers filtered in, filling the great room solid with stern-faced
+soldiers and workmen who stood for hours and hours, indefatigably
+intent. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and human breathing,
+and the smell of coarse clothes and sweat.
+
+Avilov of the staff of _Novaya Zhizn_ was speaking in the name of
+the Social Democrat Internationalists and the remnant of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists; Avilov, with his young, intelligent
+face, looking out of place in his smart frock-coat.
+
+"We must ask ourselves where we are going.... The ease with which the
+Coalition Government was upset cannot be explained by the strength
+of the left wing of the democracy, but only by the incapacity of the
+Government to give the people peace and bread. And the left wing
+cannot maintain itself in power unless it can solve these questions....
+
+"Can it give bread to the people? Grain is scarce. The majority of
+the peasants will not be with you, for you cannot give them the
+machinery they need. Fuel and other primary necessities are almost
+impossible to procure....
+
+"As for peace, that will be even more difficult. The allies refused
+to talk with Skobeliev. They will never accept the proposition of a
+peace conference from _you._ You will not be recognised either in
+London and Paris, or in Berlin....
+
+"You cannot count on the effective help of the proletariat of the
+Allied countries, because in most countries it is very far from the
+revolutionary struggle; remember, the Allied democracy was unable
+even to convoke the Stockholm Conference. Concerning the German
+Social Democrats, I have just talked with Comrade Goldenberg, one of
+our delegates to Stockholm; he was told by the representatives of
+the Extreme Left that revolution in Germany was impossible during
+the war...." Here interruptions began to come thick and fast, but
+Avilov kept on.
+
+"The isolation of Russia will fatally result either in the defeat of
+the Russian Army by the Germans, and the patching up of a peace
+between the Austro-German coalition and the Franco-British coalition
+_at the expense of Russia_-or in a separate peace with Germany.
+
+"I have just learned that the Allied ambassadors are preparing to
+leave, and that Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution
+are forming in all the cities of Russia....
+
+"No one party can conquer these enormous difficulties. The majority
+of the people, supporting a government of Socialist coalition, can
+alone accomplish the Revolution....
+
+"He then read the resolution of the two factions:
+
+Recognising that for the salvation of the conquests of the
+Revolution it is indispensable immediately to constitute a
+government based on the revolutionary democracy organised in the
+Soviets of Workers,' Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, recognising
+moreover that the task of this government is the quickest possible
+attainment of peace, the transfer of the land into the hands of the
+agrarian committees, the organisation of control over industrial
+production, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the
+date decided, the Congress appoints an executive committee to
+constitute such a government after an agreement with the groups of
+the democracy which are taking part in the Congress.
+
+In spite of the revolutionary exaltation of the triumphant crowd,
+Avilov's cool tolerant reasoning had shaken them. Toward the end,
+the cries and hisses died away, and when he finished there was even
+some clapping.
+
+Karelin followed him-also young, fearless, whose sincerity no one
+doubted-for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of Maria
+Spiridonova, the party which almost alone followed the Bolsheviki,
+and which represented the revolutionary peasants.
+
+"Our party has refused to enter the Council of People's Commissars
+because we do not wish forever to separate ourselves from the part
+of the revolutionary army which left the Congress, a separation
+which would make it impossible for us to serve as intermediaries
+between the Bolsheviki and the other groups of the democracy.... And
+that is our principal duty at this moment. We cannot sustain any
+government except a government of Socialist coalition....
+
+"We protest, moreover, against the tyrannical conduct of the
+Bolsheviki. Our Commissars have been driven from their posts. Our
+only organ, _Znamia Truda_ (Banner of Labour), was forbidden to
+appear yesterday....
+
+"The Central Duma is forming a powerful Committee for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, to fight you. Already you are isolated, and
+your Government is without the support of a single other democratic
+group....
+
+And now Trotzky stood upon the raised tribune, confident and
+dominating, with that sarcastic expression about his mouth which was
+almost a sneer. He spoke, in a ringing voice, and the great crowd
+rose to him.
+
+"These considerations on the dangers of isolation of our party are
+not new. On the eve of insurrection our fatal defeat was also
+predicted. Everybody was against us; only a faction of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries of the left was with us in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee. How is it that we were able to overturn the
+Government almost without bloodshed?.... That fact is the most
+striking proof that we _were not isolated._ In reality the
+Provisional Government was isolated; the democratic parties which
+march against us were isolated, are isolated, and forever cut off
+from the proletariat!
+
+"They speak of the necessity for a coalition. There is only one
+coalition possible-the coalition of the workers, soldiers and
+poorest peasants; and it is our party's honour to have realised that
+coalition.... What sort of coalition did Avilov mean? A coalition with
+those who supported the Government of Treason to the People?
+Coalition doesn't always add to strength. For example, could we have
+organised the insurrection with Dan and Avksentiev in our ranks?"
+Roars of laughter.
+
+"Avksentiev gave little bread. Will a coalition with the _oborontsi_
+furnish more? Between the peasants and Avksentiev, who ordered the
+arrest of the Land Committees, we choose the peasants! Our
+Revolution will remain the classic revolution of history....
+
+"They accuse us of repelling an agreement with the other democratic
+parties. But is it we who are to blame? Or must we, as Karelin put
+it, blame it on a 'misunderstanding'? No, comrades. When a party in
+full tide of revolution, still wreathed in powder-smoke, comes to
+say, 'Here is the Power-take it!'-and when those to whom it is
+offered go over to the enemy, that is not a misunderstanding.... that
+is a declaration of pitiless war. And it isn't we who have declared
+war....
+
+"Avilov menaces us with failure of our peace efforts-if we remain
+'isolated.' I repeat, I don't see how a coalition with Skobeliev, or
+even Terestchenko, can help us to get peace! Avilov tries to
+frighten us by the threat of a peace at our expense. And I answer
+that in any case, if Europe continues to be ruled by the imperialist
+bourgeoisie, revolutionary Russia will inevitably be lost....
+
+"There are only two alternatives; either the Russian Revolution will
+create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers
+will destroy the Russian Revolution!"
+
+They greeted him with an immense crusading acclaim, kindling to the
+daring of it, with the thought of championing mankind. And from that
+moment there was something conscious and decided about the
+insurrectionary masses, in all their actions, which never left them.
+
+But on the other side, too, battle was taking form. Kameniev
+recognised a delegate from the Union of Railway Workers, a
+hardfaced, stocky man with an attitude of implacable hostility. He
+threw a bombshell.
+
+"In the name of the strongest organisation in Russia I demand the
+right to speak, and I say to you: the _Vikzhel_charges me to make
+known the decision of the Union concerning the constitution of
+Power. The Central Committee refuses absolutely to support the
+Bolsheviki if they persist in isolating themselves from the whole
+democracy of Russia!" Immense tumult all over the hall.
+
+"In 1905, and in the Kornilov days, the Railway Workers were the
+best defenders of the Revolution. But you did not invite us to your
+Congress-" Cries, "It was the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ which did not invite
+you!" The orator paid no attention. "We do not recognise the
+legality of this Congress; since the departure of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries there is not a legal quorum.... The Union
+supports the old _Tsay-ee-Kah,_ and declares that the Congress has
+no right to elect a new Committee....
+
+"The Power should be a Socialist and revolutionary Power,
+responsible before the authorised organs of the entire revolutionary
+democracy. Until the constitution of such a power, the Union of
+Railway Workers, which refuses to transport counter-revolutionary
+troops to Petrograd, at the same time forbids the execution of any
+order whatever without the consent of the _Vikzhel._ The _Vikzhel_
+also takes into its hands the entire administration of the railroads
+of Russia."
+
+At the end he could hardly be heard for the furious storm of abuse
+which beat upon him. But it was a heavy blow-that could be seen in
+the concern on the faces of the presidium. Kameniev, however, merely
+answered that there could be no doubt of the legality of the
+Congress, as even the quorum established by the old _Tsay-ee-Kah_
+was exceeded-in spite of the secession of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolution arises....
+
+Then came the vote on the Constitution of Power, which carried the
+Council of People's Commissars into office by an enormous majority....
+
+The election of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the new parliament of the
+Russian Republic, took barely fifteen minutes. Trotzky announced its
+composition: 100 members, of which 70 Bolsheviki.... As for the
+peasants, and the seceding factions, places were to be reserved for
+them. "We welcome into the Government all parties and groups which
+will adopt our programme," ended Trotzky.
+
+And thereupon the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was
+dissolved, so that the members might hurry to their homes in the
+four corners of Russia and tell of the great happenings....
+
+It was almost seven when we woke the sleeping conductors and
+motor-men of the street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers' Union
+always kept waiting at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their
+homes. In the crowded car there was less happy hilarity than the
+night before, I thought. Many looked anxious; perhaps they were
+saying to themselves, "Now we are masters, how can we do our will?"
+
+At our apartment-house we were held up in the dark by an armed
+patrol of citizens and carefully examined. The Duma's proclamation
+was doing its work....
+
+The landlady heard us come in, and stumbled out in a pink silk
+wrapper.
+
+The House Committee has again asked that you take your turn on
+guard-duty with the rest of the men," she said.
+
+"What's the reason for this guard-duty?"
+
+"To protect the house and the women and children."
+
+"Who from?"
+
+"Robbers and murderers."
+
+"But suppose there came a Commissar from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to search for arms?"
+
+"Oh, that's what they'll _say_ they are.... And besides, what's the
+difference?"
+
+I solemnly affirmed that the Consul had forbidden all American
+citizens to carry arms-especially in the neighbourhood of the
+Russian _intelligentzia_....
+
+                              Chapter VI
+
+                      The Committee for Salvation
+
+FRIDAY, November 9th....
+
+Novotcherkask, November 8th.
+
+In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose
+the Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd... the
+Cossack Government declares that it considers these acts criminal
+and absolutely inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend
+all their support to the Provisional Government, which is a
+government of coalition. Because of these circumstances, and until
+the return of the Provisional Government to power, and the
+restoration of order in Russia, I take upon myself, beginning
+November 7th, all the power in that which concerns the region of the
+Don.
+
+Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
+
+_President of the Government of the Cossack Troops._
+
+_Prikaz_ of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
+
+I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme
+Commander of all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare
+that I am at the head of regiments from the Front who have remained
+faithful to the fatherland.
+
+I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who
+through mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to
+the country and the Revolution, to return to their duty without
+delay.
+
+This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
+
+Signed: _Minister-President of the Provisional_
+
+_Government and Supreme Commander_
+
+A. F. KERENSKY.
+
+Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern
+Front:
+
+The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without
+bloodshed. Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky
+and Ismailovsky regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and
+joined the Government troops.
+
+I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to
+retreat....
+
+Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the
+night. Detachments of the two regiments mentioned-not the
+sailors-while wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed
+been surrounded by Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not
+true that they had joined the Government troops. At this very moment
+crowds of them, bewildered and ashamed, were up at Smolny trying to
+explain. They did not think the Cossacks were so near.... They had
+tried to argue with the Cossacks....
+
+Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary
+front. The garrisons of all the little towns southward had split
+hopelessly, bitterly into two factions-or three: the high command
+being on the side of Kerensky, in default of anything stronger, the
+majority of the rank and file with the Soviets, and the rest
+unhappily wavering.
+
+Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command
+the defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain,
+Muraviov, the same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions
+during the summer, and had once been heard to advise the Government
+that "it was too lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped
+out." A man of military mind, who admired power and audacity,
+perhaps sincerely....
+
+Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all
+shops and stores should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and
+apartments should be put at the disposal of the Committee....
+
+For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from
+provincial Russia and the outside world. The railway men and
+telegraphers refused to transmit their despatches, the postmen would
+not handle their mail. Only the Government wireless at Tsarskoye
+Selo launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to the four
+corners of heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of
+the City Duma on speeding trains half across the earth; and two
+aeroplanes, laden with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front....
+
+But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a
+swiftness surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed
+resolutions of support; Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the
+telegraph station, only to be driven out by delegates to the
+Congress of Cossacks, which happened to be meeting there; in Kazan,
+a Military Revolutionary Committee arrested the local garrison staff
+and the Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far
+Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control
+of the Municipal institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was
+aggravated by a great strike of leather-workers on one side, and a
+threat of general lock-out on the other, the Soviets had voted
+overwhelmingly to support the action of the Bolsheviki in
+Petrograd.... Already a Military Revolutionary Committee was
+functioning.
+
+Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the
+industrial workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the
+officers, _yunkers_ and middle class generally were on the side of
+the Government-as were the bourgeois Cadets and the "moderate"
+Socialist parties. In all these towns sprang up Committees for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution, arming for civil war....
+
+Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the
+process had begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and
+giving birth to a sort of forecast of the new order, had ended by
+merely perpetuating the hollow structure of the old regime. Now,
+however, the Bolsheviki, in one night, had dissipated it, as one
+blows away smoke. Old Russia was no more; human society flowed
+molten in primal heat, and from the tossing sea of flame was
+emerging the class struggle, stark and pitiless-and the fragile,
+slowly-cooling crust of new planets....
+
+In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the
+Ministries of Labour and of Supplies-the only two created by the
+all-Socialist Government of August.
+
+If ever men stood alone the "handful of Bolsheviki" apparently stood
+alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them.
+(See App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military
+Revolutionary Committee struck-for its life. _"De l'audace, encore
+de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_.... At five in the morning the
+Red Guards entered the printing office of the City Government,
+confiscated thousands of copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma,
+and suppressed the official Municipal organ-the _Viestnik Gorodskovo
+Samoupravleniya_ (Bulletin of the Municipal Self-Government). All
+the bourgeois newspapers were torn from the presses, even the _Golos
+Soldata,_ journal of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_-which, however, changing
+its name to _Soldatski Golos,_ appeared in an edition of a hundred
+thousand copies, bellowing rage and defiance:
+
+The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have
+suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance
+long. The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you,
+Messrs. the Bolsheviki! We shall see!...
+
+As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street
+before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there
+stood Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one
+surrounded by about a hundred men and women-clerks, students,
+shopkeepers, _tchinovniki_-shaking their fists and bawling insults
+and menaces. On the steps stood boy-scouts and officers,
+distributing copies of the _Soldatski Golos._ A workman with a red
+band around his arm and a revolver in his hand stood trembling with
+rage and nervousness in the middle of a hostile throng at the foot
+of the stairs, demanding the surrender of the papers.... Nothing like
+this, I imagine, ever occurred in history. On one side a handful of
+workmen and common soldiers, with arms in their hands, representing
+a victorious insurrection-and perfectly miserable; on the other a
+frantic mob made up of the kind of people that crowd the sidewalks
+of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering, abusing, shouting,
+"Traitors! Provocators! _Opritchniki!_ [*]"
+[* Savage body-guards if Ian the Terrible, 17th century]
+
+The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands
+lettered in red, "Militia of the Committee of Public Safety," and
+half a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all
+commotion. Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. "They're
+going to dissolve the Duma," he said. "The Bolshevik Commissar is
+with the Mayor now." As we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying
+out. He had been to demand that the Duma recognise the Council of
+peoples' Commissars, and the Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
+
+In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
+gesticulating-Government officials, intellectuals, journalists,
+foreign correspondents, French and British officers.... "The City
+Engineer pointed to them triumphantly. "The Embassies recognise the
+Duma as the only power now," he explained. "For these Bolshevik
+murderers and robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is
+rallying to us....
+
+In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for
+Salvation. Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the
+tribune, reporting, to immense applause, new adhesions to the
+Committee; Executive Committee of Peasants' Soviets, old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ Central Army Committee, _Tsentroflot,_ Menshevik,
+Socialist Revolutionary and Front group delegates from the Congress
+of Soviets, Central Committees of the Menshevik, Socialist
+Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties. "Yedinstvo" group,
+Peasants' Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos, Municipalities, Post and
+Telegraph Unions, _Vikzhel,_ Council of the Russian Republic, Union
+of Unions,  [*] Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association....
+[* See Notes and Explanations.]
+
+".... The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
+dictatorship-and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but
+_against_ the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to
+feel revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the
+Revolution....
+
+"The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
+demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution.... If rumours
+are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to
+profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs,
+it is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of
+democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will
+follow troubles from the Left....
+
+"The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens
+buying the _Golos Soldata_ and newsboys selling the _Rabotchaya
+Gazeta_ are arrested in the streets....
+
+"The hour of resolutions has passed.... Let those who have no longer
+faith in the Revolution retire.... To establish a united power, we
+must again restore the prestige of the Revolution....
+
+"Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved-or we shall
+perish!"
+
+The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single
+proletarian anywhere in sight....
+
+Then Weinstein:
+
+"We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly
+grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation-then we can pass
+from the defensive to action!"
+
+The _Vikzhel_ representative announced that his organisation was
+taking the initiative in forming the new Government, and its
+delegates were now discussing the matter with Smolny.... Followed a
+hot discussion: were the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new
+Government? Martov pleaded for their admission; after all, he said,
+they represented an important political party. Opinions were very
+much divided upon this, the right wing Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist Socialists, the
+Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly against....
+
+"They have betrayed Russia," one speaker said. "They have started
+civil war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must
+be mercilessly crushed...."
+
+Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the
+Cadets.
+
+We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who
+had walked out of the Democratic Conference to gether with the
+Bolsheviki, that night when Tseretelli and the "compromisers" forced
+Coalition upon the democracy of Russia.
+
+"You here?" I asked him.
+
+His eyes flashed fire. "Yes!" he cried. "I left the Congress with my
+party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years
+and more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their
+methods are intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants....
+When the peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes
+before they are done for."
+
+"But the peasants-will they act? Doesn't the Land decree settle the
+peasants? What more do they want?"
+
+"Ah, the Land decree!" he said furiously. "Yes, do you know what
+that Land decree is? It is _our_ decree-it is the Socialist
+Revolutionary programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after
+the most careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants
+themselves. It is an outrage...."
+
+"But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
+peasants' wishes, why will they oppose it?"
+
+"You don't understand! Don't you see that the peasants will
+immediately realise that it is all a trick-that these usurpers have
+stolen the Socialist Revolutionary programme?"
+
+I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
+
+He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction.
+"Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised
+the counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The
+Revolution is lost."
+
+"But won't you defend the Revolution?"
+
+"Of course we will defend it-to the last drop of our blood. But we
+won't cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way...."
+
+"But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the
+city. Won't you join with them?"
+
+"Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won't support
+the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the
+Bolsheviki are equally enemies of the Revolution."
+
+"Which do you prefer-Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?"
+
+"It is not a question to be discussed!" he burst out impatiently. "I
+tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are
+to blame. But listen-why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is
+comming.... Day after tomorrow we shall pass to the offensive....
+Already Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new
+Government. But we have them now-they are absolutely impotent.... We
+shall not cooperate...."
+
+Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard,
+finally exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it,
+wounding a young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into
+a cab, surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices
+floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile
+appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this
+way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd
+crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the
+gutters, heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to
+the steps of the Duma and a man stuck his head out of the turret,
+demanding the surrender of the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts
+jeered and scuttled into the building. After a moment the automobile
+wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the Nevsky, while some
+hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to dust
+their clothes....
+
+Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of
+_Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them....
+
+A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
+
+"Here's a proclamation from Krasnov!" he cried. Everybody crowded
+around. "Get it printed-get it printed quick, and around to the
+barracks!"
+
+By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of
+the troops concentrated under Petrograd.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of
+the Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have
+remained faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to
+guard inviolable your oath of Cossack-I call upon you to save
+Petrograd from anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save
+Russia from the indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men,
+bought by the gold of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.
+
+The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great
+days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the
+edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with
+the help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help
+of the Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all
+the Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its
+ranks, and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people,
+has sworn to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the
+Troublous Times of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered
+Moscow, menaced by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your
+Government still exists....
+
+The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt.
+Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German
+mentality with which they regard Russia-stricken down but not yet
+surrendered-have alienated from them the entire people.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd;
+send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their
+country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of
+innocent blood.
+
+Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the
+building was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red
+band around his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he
+left and old Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.
+
+"A special meeting of the Duma!" he cried. "Immediately!"
+
+In the big hall proceedings were halted. "All members of the Duma
+for a special meeting!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I don't know-going to arrest us-going to dissolve the
+Duma-arresting members at the door-" so ran the excited comments.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor
+announced that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting
+all exit and entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest
+and the dispersal of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned
+speeches from members, and even from the galleries, responded. The
+freely-elected City Government could not be dissolved by _any_
+power; the Mayor's person and that of all the members were
+inviolable; the tyrants, the provocators, the German agents should
+never be recognised; as for these threats to dissolve us, let them
+try-only over our dead bodies shall they seize this chamber, where
+like the Roman senators of old we await with dignity the coming of
+the Goths....
+
+Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by
+telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the
+Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with
+representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the
+so-called Council of People's Commissars. Resolution, to address
+another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the
+defence of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in
+permanent session....
+
+In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had
+telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee
+said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the
+troops would be withdrawn....
+
+As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very
+agitated.
+
+"Are you going to dissolve the Duma?" I asked.
+
+"My God, no!" he answered. "It is all a mistake. I told the Mayor
+this morning that the Duma would be left alone....
+
+Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of
+cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted,
+and the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions.
+
+"Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked a fat old man with a
+cigar in his mouth.
+
+"Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets
+against the damn' bourgeoisie!"
+
+"Ah!" were furious cries. "Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik Cossacks!"
+
+A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. "The
+garrison is turning!" he muttered in my ear. "It's the beginning of
+the end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the tide?
+Come on!" He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we
+followed.
+
+"What regiment is it?"
+
+"The _brunnoviki_...." Here was indeed serious trouble. The
+_brunnoviki_ were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation;
+whoever controlled the _brunnoviki_ controlled the city. "The
+Commissars of the Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been
+talking to them. There's a meeting on to decide....
+
+"Decide what? Which side they'll fight on?"
+
+"Oh, no. That's not the way to do it. They'll never fight against
+the Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral-and then the
+_yunkers_ and Cossacks-"
+
+The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two
+sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to
+their indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light
+burned dimly, high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose
+lofty pilasters and rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around
+dimly squatted the monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood
+alone in the centre of the place, under the light, and round it were
+gathered some two thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the
+immensity of that imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen
+of the Soldiers' Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the
+car, and from the central turret a soldier was speaking. This was
+Khanjunov, who had been president of last summer's all-Russian
+Congress of _Brunnoviki._ A lithe, handsome figure in his leather
+coat with lieutenant's shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently
+for neutrality.
+
+"It is an awful thing," he said, "for Russians to kill their Russian
+brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
+shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign
+enemy in battles which will go down in history! What have we,
+soldiers, got to do with these squabbles of political parties? I
+will not say to you that the Provisional Government was a democratic
+Government; we want no coalition with the bourgeoisie-no. But we
+must have a Government of the united democracy, or Russia is lost!
+With such a Government there will be no need for civil war, and the
+killing of brother by brother!"
+
+This sounded reasonable-the great hall echoed to the crash of hands
+and voices.
+
+A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, "Comrades!" he
+cried, "I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all:
+there must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace,
+whether it be the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow.
+Peace! We at the front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight
+either Germans or Russians-" With that he leaped down, and a sort of
+confused agonised sound rose up from all that surging mass, which
+burst into something like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ tried to say that the war must go on until the Allies
+were victorious.
+
+"You talk like Kerensky!" shouted a rough voice.
+
+A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to,
+muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen
+men trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood
+staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their
+brows wrinkled with the effort of thought, sweat standing out on
+their foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of
+children and the faces of epic warriors....
+
+Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full
+of hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their
+mood. For the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of
+common thoughts, thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the
+world, as if it depended on them whether the Revolution were to live
+or die....
+
+Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of
+approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned,
+persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn't he an officer, and an
+_oboronotz,_ however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from
+Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, "And are _you_ going to
+give us peace, working-man?" Near us some men, many of them
+officers, formed a sort of _claque_ to cheer the advocates of
+Neutrality. They kept shouting, "Khanjunov! Khanjunov!" and whistled
+insultingly when the Bolsheviki tried to speak.
+
+Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile
+began to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation.
+The audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great
+mass tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the
+officers, wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
+
+"Comrades!" he cried, "Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak
+to us." An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of _"Prosim!
+Prosim! Dolby!_ Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!" in the midst of
+which the People's Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the
+side of the car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and
+pulled from below and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then
+walked out on the radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked
+around smiling, a squat, short-legged figure, bare-headed, with-out
+insignia on his uniform.
+
+The _claque_ near me kept up a fearful shouting, "Khanjunov! We want
+Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!" The whole
+place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche
+bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way
+through.
+
+"Who is breaking up our meeting?" they shouted. "Who is whistling
+here?" The _claque,_ rudely burst asunder, went flying-nor did it
+gather again....
+
+"Comrade soliders!" began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue.
+"I cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any
+sleep for four nights....
+
+"I don't need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don't need to tell
+you that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
+successful in the Workers' and Soldiers' Revolution, by the help of
+you and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have of you and of
+all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever the
+power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to
+all the peoples, and that has already been done-to-day!" Tumultuous
+applause.
+
+"You are asked to remain neutral--to remain neutral while the
+_yunkers_ and the Death Battalions, who are _never_ neutral, shoot
+us down in the streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky-or
+perhaps some other of the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don.
+Kerensky is coming from the front. Kornilov is raising the
+_Tekhintsi_ to repeat his attempt of August. All these Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries who call upon you now to prevent civil
+war-how have they retained the power except by civil war, that civil
+war which has endured ever since last July, and in which they
+constantly stood on the side of the bourgeoisie, as they do now?
+
+"How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The
+question is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov,
+the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers....
+They tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the
+workers, the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The
+Government is in your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia
+belongs to you. Will you give it back?"
+
+While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will,
+and as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke
+through the tired voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a
+hundred hands reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces
+of the hall gave back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
+
+Khanjunov tried to speak again, but "Vote! Vote! Vote!" they cried.
+At length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the _brunnoviki_
+withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war.
+All those in favour should go to the right; those opposed, to the
+left. There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then
+the crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one
+another, to the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid mass
+rushing across the dirt floor in the faint light.... Near us about
+fifty men were left stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the
+high roof shook under the shock of victorious roaring, they turned
+and rapidly walked out of the building-and, some of them, out of the
+Revolution....
+
+Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city,
+the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless
+Krylenkos, watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place,
+arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all
+the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on
+the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the
+hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over
+the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so
+hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely-and deciding
+so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution....
+
+Up at Smolny the new Council of People's Commissars was not idle.
+Already the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in
+thousands through the city streets that night, and shipped in bales
+by every train southward and east:
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
+with participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People's
+Commissars decrees:
+
+1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at
+the date determined upon-November 12.
+
+2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government,
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, and soldiers'
+organisations on the front should make every effort to assure free
+and regular elections at the date determined upon.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, _The
+President of the Council of People's Commissars_,
+
+VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of
+the Council of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council,
+he said, did not consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable
+to continue its labours until it secured a new meeting-place. In the
+meanwhile, its Committee of Elders had determined to enter _en
+masse_ the Committee for Salvation.... This, I may remark
+parenthetically, is the last time history mentions the Council of
+the Russian Republic....
+
+Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries,
+the _Vikzhel,_ the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth
+time reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik
+usurpers. A _yunker_ who had been in the Winter Palace told a
+highly-coloured tale of the heroism of himself and his comrades, and
+disgraceful conduct of the Red Guards-all of which was devoutly
+believed. Somebody read aloud an account in the Socialist
+Revolutionary paper _Narod,_ which stated that five hundred million
+rubles' worth of damage had been done in the Winter Palace, and
+describing in great detail the loot and breakage.
+
+From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The
+four Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had
+gone to Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of
+Marine was deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take
+charge under the authority of the Council of People's Commissars;
+and the old seaman had consented.... Kerensky was advancing north from
+Gatchina, the Bolshevik garrisons falling back before him. Smolny
+had issued another decree, enlarging the powers of the City Dumas to
+deal with food supplies.
+
+This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin,
+the usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal
+garage, entered the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the
+Supply Committees and the distribution of food-he presumed to define
+the limits of power of the free, independent, autonomous City
+Government! One member, shaking his fist, moved to cut off the food
+of the city if the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with the Supply
+Committees.... Another, representative of the Special Supply
+Committee, reported that the food situation was very grave, and
+asked that emissaries be sent out to hasten food trains.
+
+Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering.
+The Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders
+of the Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats
+on the Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to
+continue the propaganda....
+
+Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: "Comrades and citizens!
+I have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger.
+Fourteen _yunkers_ of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and
+tortured by the Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are
+threatening to lynch the Ministers!" There was a whirlwind of
+indignation and horror, which only grew more violent when a stocky
+little woman dressed in grey demanded the floor, and lifted up her
+hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran revolutionist
+and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
+
+"That is a lie and a provocation!" she said, unmoved at the torrent
+of abuse. "The Workers' and Peasants' Government, which has
+abolished the death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand
+that this story be investigated, at once; if there is any truth in
+it, the Government will take energetic measures!"
+
+A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately
+appointed, and with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As
+we followed them out, the Duma was appointing another commission to
+meet Kerensky--to try and avoid bloodshed when he entered the
+capital....
+
+It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of
+the fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare
+electric lights along the side of the church where lie the tombs of
+the Tsars, beneath the slender golden spire and the chimes, which,
+for months, continued to play _Bozhe Tsaria Khrani [*]_ every day at
+[* "God Save the Tsar."
+noon.... The place was deserted; in most of the windows there were not
+even lights. Occasionally we bumped into a burly figure stumbling
+along in the dark, who answered questions with the usual, _"Ya
+nieznayu."_
+
+[Graphic page-166 Pass to Reed fromDepartment of Prisons
+   translation follows]
+
+Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to
+visit freely all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
+
+Commissar
+Chief Bureau of Prisons
+6th of November, 1917.
+        No. 213
+Petrograd, Smolny
+Institute, room No. 56-
+
+                      PASS
+To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED, to
+visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and
+Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition
+of the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the
+purpose of stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy.
+       Chief Commissar
+       Secretary
+
+On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that
+living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their
+lives or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional
+Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now
+the Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional
+Government.
+
+A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a
+little house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and
+soldiers were sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a
+samovar steamed cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality,
+offering tea. The commandant was not in; he was escorting a
+commission of _"sabotazhniki"_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who
+insisted that the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to
+amuse them very much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed,
+dissipated-looking little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat,
+biting his moustache and staring around him like a cornered rat. He
+had just been arrested. Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him,
+that he was a Minister or something.... The little man didn't seem to
+hear it; he was evidently terrified, although the occupants of the
+room showed no animosity whatever toward him.
+
+I went across and spoke to him in French. "Count Tolstoy," he
+answered, bowing stiffly. "I do not understand why I was arrested. I
+was crossing the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these-of
+these-persons held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional
+Government attached to the General Staff, but in no sense a member
+of the Government..."
+
+"Let him go,"said a sailor. "He's harmless...."
+
+"No," responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. "We must
+ask the commandant."
+
+"Oh, the commandant!" sneered the sailor. "What did you make a
+revolution for? To go on obeying officers?"
+
+A _praporshtchik_ of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
+insurrection started. "The _polk_ (regiment) was on duty at the
+General Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were
+standing guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man-I don't remember his
+name-well, they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the
+Staff was having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For   any things. For   |          |
+example, they heard orders to bring the Gatchina _yunkers_ to
+Petrograd by night, and an order for the Cossacks to be ready to
+march in the morning.... The principal points in the city were to be
+occupied before dawn. Then there was the business of opening the
+bridges. But when they began to talk about surrounding Smolny, then
+Ivan Pavlovitch couldn't stand it any longer. That minute there was
+a good deal of coming and going, so he slipped out and came down to
+the guard-room,leaving the other comrade to pick up what he could.
+
+"I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles
+full of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan
+Pavlovitch told me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the
+morning. The secretary of the regimental Committee was there, so we
+told him and asked what to do.
+
+"'Arrest everybody coming and going!#' he says. So we began to do
+it. In an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom
+we sent up to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary
+Committee wasn't ready; they didn't know what to do; and pretty soon
+back came the order to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else.
+Well, we ran all the way to Smolny, and I guess we talked for an
+hour before they finally saw that it was war. It was five o'clock
+when we got back to the Staff, and by that time most of them were
+gone. But we got a few, and the garrison was all on the march...."
+
+A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had
+happened in his district on the great day of the rising. "We didn't
+have any machine-guns over there," he said, laughing, "and we
+couldn't get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of
+the _Uprava_ (Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at
+once that there was lying in the meeting-room of the _Uprava_ a
+machinegun which had been captured from the Germans. So he and I and
+another comrade went there. The Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries were having a meeting. Well, we opened the door and
+walked right in on them, as they sat around the table-twelve or
+fifteen of them, three of us. When they saw us they stopped talking
+and just stared. We walked right across the room, uncoupled the
+machine-gun; Comrade Zalkind picked up one part, I the other, we put
+them on our shoulders and walked out-and not a single man said a
+word!"
+
+"Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?" asked a third man,
+a sailor. "Along about eleven o'clock we found out there weren't any
+more _yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and
+filtered up the different stairways one by one, or in little
+bunches. When we got to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us
+up and took away our guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little
+by little, until we had a majority. Then we turned around and took
+away the _yunkers'_ guns...."
+
+Just then the commandant entered-a merry-looking young
+non-commissioned officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles
+of sleeplessness under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner,
+who at once began to explain.
+
+"Oh, yes," interrupted the other. "You were one of the committee who
+refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we
+don't want you, citizen. Apologies-" He opened the door and waved
+his arm for Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others,
+especially the Red Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor
+remarked triumphantly, _"Vot!_ There! Didn't I say so?"
+
+Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a
+committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they
+said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn't
+even enough to keep a man from being hungry. "Why should the
+counter-revolutionists be treated so well?"
+
+"We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits," answered the
+commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going
+about that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the
+Ministers threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to
+be able to prove to the world-?"
+
+"No," said the young soldier, irritably. "I am not going to disturb
+the prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up-they
+were sure we were going to massacre them.... Most of the _yunkers_
+have been released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow." He
+turned abruptly away.
+
+"Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?"
+
+The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded.
+"They are still out in the hall," he said carelessly.
+
+Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light
+of an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
+
+"Mr. Mayor," I said, "we are American correspondents. Will you
+please tell us officially the result of your investigations?"
+
+He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
+
+"There is no truth in the reports," he said slowly. "Except for the
+incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here,
+they have been treated with every consideration. As for the
+_yunkers,_ not one has received the slightest injury...."
+
+Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable
+column of soldiers shuffled in silence-to battle with Kerensky. In
+dim back streets automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and
+there was furtive activity in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the
+Peasants' Soviet, in a certain apartment of a huge building on the
+Nevsky, and in the _Injinierny Zamok_ (School of Engineers); the
+Duma was illuminated....
+
+In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed
+baleful fire, pounding like an over-loaded dynamo....
+
+                              Chapter VII
+
+                          The Revolutionary Front
+
+SATURDAY, November 10th....
+
+Citizens!
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will not
+tolerate any violation of revolutionary order....
+
+Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be
+severely punished....
+
+Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will
+destroy without mercy any looter or instigator of disorder....
+
+Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken
+fight. By night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and
+on the corners soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires,
+laughing and singing. In the daytime great crowds gathered on the
+sidewalks listening to interminable hot debates between students and
+soldiers, business men and workmen.
+
+Citizens stopped each other on the street.
+
+"The Cossacks are coming?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I don't know anything. Where's Kerensky?"
+
+"They say only eight versts from Petrograd.... Is it true that the
+Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship _Avrora?"_
+
+"They say so...."
+
+Only the walls screamed, and the few newspapers; denunciation,
+appeal, decree....
+
+An enormous poster carried the hysterical manifesto of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasant' Soviets:
+
+....They (the Bolsheviki) dare to say that they are supported by the
+Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, and that they are speaking on behalf
+of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies....
+
+Let all working-class Russia know that this is a LIE, AND THAT ALL
+THE WORKING PEASANTS-in the person of-the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
+ALL-RUSSIAN SOVIETS OF PEASANTS' DEPUTIES-refutes with indignation
+all participation of the organised peasantry in this criminal
+violation of the will of the working-classes....
+
+From the Soldier Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+The insane attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of collapse. The
+garrison is divided.... The Ministries are on strike and bread is
+getting scarcer. All factions except the few Bolsheviki have left
+the Congress. The Bolsheviki are alone....
+
+We call upon all sane elements to group themselves around the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, and to prepare
+themselves seriously to be ready at the first call of the Central
+Committee....
+
+In a hand-bill the Council of the Republic recited its wrongs:
+
+Ceding to the force of bayonets, the Council of the Republic has
+been obliged to separate, and temporarily to interrupt its meetings.
+
+The usurpers, with the words "Liberty and Socialism" on their lips,
+have set up a rule of arbitrary violence. They have arrested the
+members of the Provisional Government, closed the newspapers, seized
+the printing-shops....This power must be considered the enemy of the
+people and the Revolution; it is necessary to do battle with it, and
+to pull it down....
+
+The Council of the Republic, until the resumption of its labours,
+invites the citizens of the Russian Republic to group themselves
+around the....local Committees for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, which are organising the overthrow of the Bolsheviki and
+the creation of a Government capable of leading the country to the
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+_Dielo Naroda_said:
+
+A revolution is a rising of all the people.... But here what have we?
+Nothing but a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky....
+Their decrees and their appeals will simply add to the museum of
+historical curiosities....
+
+And _Narodnoye Slovo_(People'sWord-PopulistSocialist):
+
+"Workers' and Peasants' Government?" That is only a pipedream;
+nobody, either in Russia or in the countries of our Allies, will
+recognise this "Government"-or even in the enemy countries....
+
+The bourgeois press had temporarily disappeared...._Pravada_ had an
+account of the first meeting of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ now the
+parliament of the Russian Soviet Republic. Miliutin, Commissar of
+Agriculture, remarked that the Peasants' Executive Committee had
+called an All-Russian Peasant Congress for December 13th.
+
+"But we cannot wait," he said. "We must have the backing of the
+peasants. I propose that _we_ call the Congress of Peasants, and do
+it immediately...." The Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed. An
+Appeal to the Peasants of Russia was hastily drafted, and a
+committee of five elected to carry out the project.
+
+The question of detailed plans for distributing the land, and the
+question of Workers' Control of Industry, were postponed until the
+experts working on them should submit a report.
+
+Three decrees (See App. VII, Sect. 1) were read and approved: first,
+Lenin's "General Rules For the Press," ordering the suppression of
+all newspapers inciting to resistance and disobedience to the new
+Government, inciting to criminal acts, or deliberately perverting
+the news; the Decree of Moratorium for House-rents; and the Decree
+Establishing a Workers' Militia. Also orders, one giving the
+Municipal Duma power to requisition empty apartments and houses, the
+other directing the unloading of freight cars in the railroad
+terminals, to hasten the distribution of necessities and to free the
+badly-needed rolling-stock....
+
+Two hours later the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets was
+sending broadcast over Russia the following telegram:
+
+The arbitrary organisation of the Bolsheviki, which is called
+"Bureau of Organisation for the National Congress of Peasants,"is
+inviting all the Peasants' Soviets to send delegates to the Congress
+at Petrograd....
+
+The Executive Committee of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies
+declares that it considers, now as well as before, that it would be
+dangerous to take away from the provinces at this moment the forces
+necessary to prepare for elections to the Constituent Assembly,
+which is the only salvation of the working-class and the country. We
+confirm the date of the Congress of Peasants, _December 13th._
+
+At the Duma all was excitement, officers coming and going, the Mayor
+in conference with the leaders of the Committee for Salvation. A
+Councillor ran in with a copy of Kerensky's proclamation, dropped by
+hundreds from an aeroplane low flying down the Nevsky, which
+threatened terrible vengeance on all who did not submit, and ordered
+soldiers to lay down their arms and assemble immediately in Mars
+Field.
+
+The Minister-President had taken Tsarskoye Selo, we were told, and
+was already in the Petrograd campagna, five miles away. He would
+enter the city to-morrow-in a few hours. The Soviet troops in
+contact with his Cossacks were said to be going over to the
+Provisional Government. Tchernov was somewhere in between, trying to
+organise the "neutral" troops into a force to halt the civil war.
+
+In the city the garrison regiments were leaving the Bolsheviki, they
+said. Smolny was already abandoned.... All the Governmental machinery
+had stopped functioning. The employees of the State Bank had refused
+to work under Commissars from Smolny, refused to pay out money to
+them. All the private banks were closed. The Ministries were on
+strike. Even now a committee from the Duma was making the rounds of
+business houses, collecting a fund to pay the salaries of the
+strikers....
+
+Trotzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered the
+clerks to translate the Decree on Peace into foreign languages; six
+hundred functionaries had hurled their resignations in his face....
+Shliapnikov, Commissar of Labour, had commanded all the employees of
+his Ministry to return to their places within twenty-four hours, or
+lose their places and their pension-rights; only the door-servants
+had responded.... Some of the branches of the Special Food Supply
+Committee had suspended work rather than submit to the Bolsheviki....
+In spite of lavish promises of high wages and better conditions, the
+operators at the Telephone Exchange would not connect Soviet
+headquarters....
+
+The Socialist Revolutionary Party had voted to expel all members who
+had remained in the Congress of Soviets, and all who were taking
+part in the insurrection....
+
+News from the provinces. Moghilev had declared against the
+Bolsheviki. At Kiev the Cossacks had overthrown the Soviets and
+arrested all the insurrectionary leaders. The Soviet and garrison of
+Luga, thirty thousand strong, affirmed its loyalty to the
+Provisional Government, and appealed to all Russia to rally around
+it. Kaledin had dispersed all Soviets and Unions in the Don Basin,
+and his forces were moving north....
+
+Said a representative of the Railway Workers: "Yesterday we sent a
+telegram all over Russia demanding that war between the political
+parties cease at once, and insisting on the formation of a coalition
+Socialist Government. Otherwise we shall call a strike to-morrow
+night.... In the morning there will be a meeting of all factions to
+consider the question. The Bolsheviki seem anxious for an
+agreement...."
+
+"If they last that long!" laughed the City Engineer, a stout, ruddy
+man....
+
+As we came up to Smolny-not abandoned, but busier than ever, throngs
+of workers and soldiers running in and out, and doubled guards
+everywhere-we met the reporters for the bourgeois and "moderate"
+Socialist papers.
+
+"Threw us out!" cried one, from _Volia Naroda._ "Bonch-Bruevitch
+came down to the Press Bureau and told us to leave! Said we were
+spies!" They all began to talk at once: "Insult! Outrage! Freedom of
+the press!"
+
+In the lobby were great tables heaped with stacks of appeals,
+proclamations and orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+Workmen and soldiers staggered past, carrying them to waiting
+automobiles.
+
+One began:
+
+TO THE PILLORY!
+
+In this tragic moment through which the Russian masses are living,
+the Mensheviki and their followers and the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries have betrayed the working-class. They have enlisted
+on the side of Kornilov, Kerensky and Savinkov....
+
+They are printing orders of the traitor Kerensky and creating a
+panic in the city, spreading the most ridiculous rumours of mythical
+victories by that renegade....
+
+Citizens! Don't believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the
+People's Revolution.... Premier Kerensky and his followers await
+speedy and well-deserved punishment....
+
+We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the
+enmity of all workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they
+are trying to rivet the ancient chains. They will never be able to
+wash from their bodies the stain of the people's hatred and contempt.
+
+Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!...
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters,
+room 17 on the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the
+narrow space in front of the railing was crowded with well-dressed
+persons, outwardly respectful but inwardly full of murder-bourgeois
+who wanted permits for their automobiles, or passports to leave the
+city, among them many foreigners.... Bill Shatov and Peters were on
+duty. They suspended all other business to read us the latest
+bulletins.
+
+The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous
+support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the
+new Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions-enthusiastic
+support. The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military
+Revolutionary Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military
+Revolutionary Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from
+the Soviets of Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk,
+Sevastopol.... The Finland Division, the new Committees of the Fifth
+and Twelfth Armies, offer allegiance....
+
+From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two
+companies on duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but
+the Arsenal is in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his _yunkers._
+The Revolutionary Committee demanded arms for the workers, and
+Riabtsev parleyed with them until this morning, when suddenly he
+sent an ultimatum to the Committee, ordering Soviet troops to
+surrender and the Committee to disband. Fighting has begun....
+
+In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny's Commissars at once. The
+_Tsentroflot,_ refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of
+Cronstadt sailors, and a new _Tsentroflot_ set up, supported by the
+Baltic and the Black Sea battleships....
+
+But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition,
+a feeling of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky's Cossacks were coming
+fast; they had artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop
+Committees, his face drawn and yellow, assured me that there was a
+whole army corps of them, but he added, fiercely, "They'll never
+take us alive!" Petrovsky laughed weariedly, "To-morrow maybe we'll
+get a sleep-a long one...." Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded
+face, said, "What chance have we? All alone.... A mob against trained
+soldiers!"
+
+South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the
+garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided-half
+voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back
+on the capital in the wildest disorder.
+
+In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
+
+FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.
+
+_To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in
+Chief, Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all._
+
+The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to
+every one everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary
+Petrograd have voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the
+armies of the former Government, the Government of Treason, and that
+the soldiers have been ordered by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to retreat. The troops of a free people do not retreat nor
+do they surrender.
+
+Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between
+themselves and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take
+a more convenient position, which is at present so strong that if
+Kerensky and his companions in arms should even increase their
+forces ten times, still there would be no cause for anxiety. The
+spirit of our troops is excellent.
+
+In Petrograd all is quiet.
+
+_Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.
+
+As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a
+paper in his hand, looking like a corpse.
+
+"Send this," said he.
+
+TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP
+COMMITTEES
+
+The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to
+the capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush
+mercilessly the counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and
+its conquests.
+
+The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the
+immediate support of the workers.
+
+WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES:
+
+1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the
+digging of trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of
+wire entanglements.
+
+2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at
+the factories this shall be done immediately.
+
+3. All common and barbed wire available must be assembled, and also
+all implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of
+barricades.
+
+4. All available arms must be taken.
+
+5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE
+READY TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.
+
+_Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker's and Soldiers'
+Deputies,_
+
+People's Commissar LEON TROTZKY.
+
+_Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.
+
+As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey
+horizon factory whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound,
+full of foreboding. By tens of thousands the working-people poured
+out, men and women; by tens of thousands the humming slums belched
+out their dun and miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was in danger!
+Cossacks! South and southwest they poured through the shabby streets
+toward the Moskovsky Gate, men, women and children, with rifles,
+picks, spades, rolls of wire, cartridge-belts over their working
+clothes.... Such an immense, spontaneous outpouring of a city never
+was seen! They rolled along torrent-like, companies of soldiers
+borne with them, guns, motor-trucks, wagons-the revolutionary
+proletariat defending with its breast the capital of the Workers'
+and Peasants' Republic!
+
+Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick
+glasses magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort,
+stood leaning against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a
+shabby raglan. A great bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth,
+prowled restlessly about, absently toying with an enormous
+blue-steel revolver, which never left his hand. These were Antonov
+and Dybenko.
+
+Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the
+running-board. The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would
+get scratched, he said. True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile
+was commandeered from a bourgeois; true, the bicycles were for the
+use of orderlies. But the chauffeur's professional pride was
+revolted.... So the bicycles were abandoned....
+
+The People's Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the
+revolutionary front-wherever that was. Could we go with them?
+Certainly not. The automobile only held five-the two Commissars, two
+orderlies and the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of
+mine, whom I will call Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor
+could any argument dislodge him....
+
+I see no reason to doubt Trusishka's story of the journey. As they
+went down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They
+might be out three or four days, in a country indifferently well
+provisioned. They stopped the car. Money? The Commissar of War
+looked through his pockets-he hadn't a kopek. The Commissar of
+Marine was broke. So was the chauffeur. Trusishka bought the
+provisions....
+
+Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Commandeer another machine!" suggested Dybenko, waving his
+revolver. Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a
+passing machine, driven by a soldier.
+
+"I want that machine," said Antonov.
+
+"You won't get it," responded the soldier.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" Antonov produced a paper upon which was
+written that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the
+armies of the Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him
+without question.
+
+"I don't care if you're the devil himself," said the soldier, hotly.
+"This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment, and we're
+carrying ammunition in it, and you can't have it...."
+
+The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old
+battered taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble
+private cars were registered in the name of foreign consulates, so
+as to be safe from requisition.) From the interior of this was
+dislodged a fat citizen in an expensive fur coat, and the party
+continued on its way.
+
+Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called
+for the commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the
+town, where some few hundred workmen had dug trenches and were
+waiting for the Cossacks.
+
+"Everything all right here, comrade?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Everything perfect, comrade," answered the commandant.
+
+"The troops are in excellent spirits.... Only one thing-we have no
+ammunition...."
+
+"In Smolny there are two billion rounds," Antonov told him. "I will
+give you an order." He felt in his pockets. "Has any one a piece of
+paper?"
+
+Dybenko had none-nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his
+note-book....
+
+"Devil! I have no pencil!" cried Antonov. "Who's got a pencil?"
+Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd....
+
+We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the
+Nevsky, as we passed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with
+bayonets and some without. The early twilight of winter was falling.
+Heads up they tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four,
+without music, without drums. A red flag crudely lettered in gold,
+"Peace! Land!" floated over them. They were very young. The
+expression on their faces was that of who know they are going to
+die.... Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk
+watched them pass, in hateful silence....
+
+[Graphic page-184  Pass to the Northern Front]
+
+This pass was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days
+after the Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel
+to the Northern front-and an added note on the back extends the
+permission to all fronts. It will be noticed that the speaks of the
+_Petersburg_, instead of the _Petrograd_ Soviet; it was the fashion
+among thorough-going internationalists to abolish all names which
+smacked of "patriotism"; but at the same time, it would not do to
+restore the "Saint."...
+                      (Translation)
+Executive Committee
+Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers'
+     Deputies
+  Military Section
+28th October, 1917
+    No. 1435
+                      CERTIFICATE
+The present certificate is given to the representative of the
+American Social Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives him the right of free travel
+through the entire Northern front, for the purpose of reporting to
+our American comrades-internationalists concerning events in Russia.
+                              For the President
+                              For the Secretary
+
+At the railroad station nobody knew just where Kerensky was, or
+where the front lay. Trains went no further, however, than
+Tsarskoye....
+
+Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden
+with bundles and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik
+rising. Outside of that, however, one would never have realised that
+civil war was rending mighty Russia in two, and that the train was
+headed into the zone of battle. Through the window we could see, in
+the swiftly-deepening darkness, masses of soldiers going along the
+muddy road toward the city, flinging out their arms in argument. A
+freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires, was
+halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the
+glow of the city's lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled
+distantly along a far-flung suburb....
+
+Tsarskoye Selo-station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here
+and there talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty
+track in the direction of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side
+they were on. "Well," said one, "we don't exactly know the rights of
+the matter.... There is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we
+do not consider it right for Russian men to be shooting Russian men."
+
+In the station commandant's office was a big, jovial, bearded common
+soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our
+credentials from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly
+for the Soviets, but bewildered.
+
+"The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A
+Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the
+Cossacks arrived."
+
+"The Cossacks are here then?"
+
+He nodded, gloomily. "There has been a battle. The Cossacks came
+early in the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men,
+and killed about twenty-five."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"Well, they didn't get this far. I don't know just where they are.
+Off that way...." He waved his arm vaguely westward.
+
+We had dinner-an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be
+got in Petrograd-in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French
+officer who had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet
+there, he said. Kerensky held the town. "Ah, these Russians," he
+went on, "they are original! What a civil war! Everything except the
+fighting!"
+
+We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood
+two soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by
+about a hundred business men, Government officials and students, who
+attacked them with passionate argument and epithet. The soldiers
+were uncomfortable and hurt, like children unjustly scolded.
+
+A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the
+uniform of a student, was leading the attack.
+
+"You realise, I presume," he said insolently, "that by taking up
+arms against your brothers you are making your-selves the tools of
+murderers and traitors?"
+
+"Now brother,"answered the soldier earnestly, "you don't understand.
+There are two classes, don't you see, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie. We--"
+
+"Oh, I know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch
+of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few
+catch-words. You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them
+like a lot of parrots." The crowd laughed. "I'm a Marxian student.
+And I tell you that this isn't Socialism you are fighting for. It's
+just plain pro-German anarchy!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from
+his brow. "You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am
+only a simple man. But it seems to me--"
+
+"I suppose," interrupted the other contemptuously, "that you believe
+Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?"
+
+"Yes, I do," answered the soldier, suffering.
+
+"Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in
+a closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?"
+
+"Well, I don't know much about that," answered the soldier
+stubbornly, "but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to
+hear, and all the simple men like me. Now there are two classes, the
+bourgeoisie and the proletariat--"
+
+"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schl�sselburg
+for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
+revolutionists and singing 'God Save the Tsar!' My name is Vasili
+Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility.
+"But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."
+
+"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the
+Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now
+how do you account for that?"
+
+The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it at all," he
+said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. "To me
+it seems perfectly simple-but then, I'm not well educated. It seems
+like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie--"
+
+"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.
+
+"--only two classes," went on the soldier, doggedly.
+
+ldquo;And whoever isn't on one side is on the other..."
+
+We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far
+between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung
+over the place-as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a
+political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly
+lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public
+bath; for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes
+itself. I haven't the slightest doubt that Soviet troops and
+Cossacks mingled in the places where these ceremonies were performed.
+
+The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the
+streets. A frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the
+Soviet, and hurried on. It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal
+palaces, fronting the Park. The windows were dark, the door locked.
+A soldier, lounging about with his hands in the top of his trousers,
+looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion. "The Soviet went away
+two days ago," said he. "Where?" A shrug. _"Nie znayu._ I don't
+know."
+
+A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated.
+From within came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a
+soldier and a sailor came down the street, hand in hand. I showed
+them my pass from Smolny. "Are you for the Soviets?" I asked. They
+did not answer, but looked at each other in a frightened way.
+
+"What is going on in there?" asked the sailor, pointing to the
+building.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack.
+Inside a great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of
+chairs, a stage being built.
+
+A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks
+came out. "What do you want?" she asked.
+
+"Is there a performance to-night?" said the sailor, nervously.
+
+"There will be private theatricals Sunday night," she answered
+severely. "Go away."
+
+We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they
+seemed frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.
+
+We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast,
+dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges
+looming uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the
+fountains. At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat
+unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of
+observation, and looked up to encounter the sullen, suspicious gaze
+of half a dozen gigantic armed soldiers, who stared moodily down
+from a grassy terrace. I climbed up to them. "Who are you?" I asked.
+
+"We are the guard," answered one. They all looked very depressed, as
+undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night
+argument and debate.
+
+"Are you Kerensky's troops, or the Soviets'?"
+
+There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each
+other. Then, "We are neutral," said he.
+
+We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the
+Palace enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a
+door in a curving white wing of the Palace said that the commandant
+was inside.
+
+In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a
+two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking.
+They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one,
+an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with
+decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our
+Bolshevik papers.
+
+He seemed surprised. "How did you get here without being killed?" he
+asked politely. "It is very dangerous in the streets just now.
+Political passion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was
+a battle this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning.
+Kerensky is to enter the town at eight o'clock."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"About a mile over that way." He waved his arm.
+
+"And you will defend the city against them?"
+
+"Oh dear no." He smiled. "We are holding the city for Kerensky." Our
+hearts sank, for our passes stated that we were revolutionary to the
+core. The Colonel cleared his throat. "About those passes of yours,"
+he went on. "Your lives will be in danger if you are captured.
+Therefore, if you want to see the battle, I will give you an order
+for rooms in the officers' hotel, and if you will come back here at
+seven o'clock in the morning, I will give you new passes."
+
+"So you are for Kerensky?" we said.
+
+"Well, not exactly _for_ Kerensky." The Colonel hesitated. "You see,
+most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and to-day,
+after the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd,
+taking the artillery with them. You might say that none of the
+_soldiers_ are for Kerensky; but some of them just don't want to
+fight at all. The _officers_ have almost all gone over to Kerensky's
+forces, or simply gone away. We are-ahem-in a most difficult
+position, as you see...."
+
+We did not believe that there would be any battle.... The Colonel
+courteously sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station.
+He was from the South, born of French immigrant parents in
+Bessarabia. "Ah," he kept saying, "it is not the danger or the
+hardships I mind, but being so long, three years, away from my
+mother...."
+
+Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold
+dark toward Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers
+gesticulating in the light of fires, and of clusters of armoured
+cars halted together at cross-roads, the chauffeurs hanging out of
+the turrets and shouting to each other....
+
+All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of
+soldiers and Red Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the
+Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee hurried from one
+group to another, trying to organise a defence....
+
+Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the
+Nevsky. Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station
+could be heard far-off cannonade. In the _yunker_ schools there was
+feverish activity. Duma members went from barracks to barracks,
+arguing and pleading, narrating fearful stories of Bolshevik
+violence-massacre of the _yunkers_ in the Winter Palace, rape of the
+women soldiers, the shooting of the girl before the Duma, the murder
+of Prince Tumanov.... In the Alexander Hall of the Duma building the
+Committee for Salvation was in special session; Commissars came and
+went, running.... All the journalists expelled from Smolny were there,
+in high spirits. They did not believe our report of conditions in
+Tsarskoye. Why, everybody knew that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky's
+hands, and that the Cossacks were now at Pulkovo. A committee was
+being elected to meet Kerensky at the railway station in the
+morning....
+
+One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the
+counter-revolution would begin at midnight. He showed me two
+proclamations, one signed by Gotz and Polkovnikov, ordering the
+_yunker_ schools, soldier convalescents in the hospitals, and the
+Knights of St. George to mobilise on a war footing and wait for
+orders from the Committee for Salvation; the other from the
+Committee for Salvation itself, which read as follows:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd!  nary Petrograd!  |          |
+
+The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting
+to civil war in the rear.
+
+Do not dig their provocatory appeals!
+
+Do not dig trenches!
+
+Down with the traitorous barricades!
+
+Lay down your arms!
+
+Soldiers, return to your barracks!
+
+The war begun in Petrograd-is the death of the Revolution!
+
+In the name of liberty, land, and peace, unite around the Committee
+for Salvation of Country and Revolution!
+
+As we left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and
+desperate, came marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen
+prisoners-members of the local branch of the Council of Cossacks,
+caught red-handed plotting counter-revolution in their headquarters....
+
+A soldier, accompanied by a small boy with a pail of paste, was
+sticking up great flaring notices:
+
+By virtue of the present, the city of Petrograd and its suburbs are
+declared in a state of siege. All assemblies or meetings in the
+streets, and generally in the open air, are forbidden until further
+orders.
+
+N. PODVOISKY, President of the Military
+
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+As we went home the air was full of confused sound-automobile horns,
+shouts, distant shots. The city stirred uneasily, wakeful.
+
+In the small hours of the morning a company of _yunkers,_ disguised
+as soldiers of the Semionovsky Regiment, presented themselves at the
+Telephone Exchange just before the hour of changing guard. They had
+the Bolshevik password, and took charge without arousing suspicion.
+A few minutes later Antonov appeared, making a round of inspection.
+Him they captured and locked in a small room. When the relief came
+it was met by a blast of rifle-fire, several being killed.
+
+Counter-revolution had begun...
+
+                              Chapter VIII
+
+                            Counter-Revolution
+
+NEXT morning, Sunday the 11th, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo,
+Kerensky (See App. VIII, Sect. 1) himself riding a white horse and
+all the church-bells clamouring. From the top of a little hill
+outside the town could be seen the golden spires and many-coloured
+cupolas, the sprawling grey immensity of the capital spread along
+the dreary plain, and beyond, the steely Gulf of Finland.
+
+There was no battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in
+the morning he sent word to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay
+down their arms. The soldiers replied that they would remain
+neutral, but would not disarm. Kerensky gave them ten minutes in
+which to obey. This angered the soldiers; for eight months they had
+been governing themselves by committee, and this smacked of the old
+r�gime.... A few minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the
+barracks, killing eight men. From that moment there were no more
+"neutral" soldiers in Tsarskoye....
+
+Petrograd woke to bursts of rifle-fire, and the tramping thunder of
+men marching. Under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow. At
+dawn the Military Hotel and the Telegraph Agency had been taken by
+large forces of _yunkers,_ and bloodily recaptured. The Telephone
+Station was besieged by sailors, who lay behind barricades of
+barrels, boxes and tin sheets in the middle of the Morskaya, or
+sheltered themselves at the corner of the Gorokhovaya and of St.
+Isaac's Square, shooting at anything that moved. Occasionally an
+automobile passed in and out, flying the Red Cross flag. The sailors
+let it pass....
+
+Albert Rhys Williams was in the Telephone Exchange. He went out with
+the Red Cross automobile, which was ostensibly full of wounded.
+After circulating about the city, the car went by devious ways to
+the Mikhailovsky _yunker_ school, headquarters of the
+counter-revolution. A French officer, in the court-yard, seemed to
+be in command.... By this means ammunition and supplies were conveyed
+to the Telephone Exchange. Scores of these pretended ambulances
+acted as couriers and ammunition trains for the _yunkers._
+
+Five or six armoured cars, belonging to the disbanded British
+Armoured Car Division, were in their hands. As Louise Bryant was
+going along St. Isaac's Square one came rolling up from the
+Admiralty, on its way to the Telephone Exchange. At the corner of
+the Gogolia, right in front of her, the engine stalled. Some sailors
+ambushed behind wood-piles began shooting. The machine-gun in the
+turret of the thing slewed around and spat a hail of bullets
+indiscriminately into the wood-piles and the crowd. In the archway
+where Miss Bryant stood seven people were shot dead, among them two
+little boys. Suddenly, with a shout, the sailors leaped up and
+rushed into the flaming open; closing around the monster, they
+thrust their bayonets into the loop-holes, again and again, yelling...
+The chauffeur pretended to be wounded, and they let him go free-to
+run to the Duma and swell the tale of Bolshevik atrocities....Among
+the dead was a British Officer....
+
+Later the newspapers told of another French officer, captured in a
+_yunker_ armoured car and sent to Peter-Paul. The French Embassy
+promptly denied this, but one of the City Councillors told me that
+he himself had procured the officer's release from prison....
+
+Whatever the official attitude of the Allied Embassies, individual
+French and British officers were active these days, even to the
+extent of giving advice at executive sessions of the Committee for
+Salvation.
+
+All day long in every quarter of the city there were skirmishes
+between _yunkers_ and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars....
+Volleys, single shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could
+be heard, far and near. The iron shutters of the shops were drawn,
+but business still went on. Even the moving-picture shows, all
+outside lights dark, played to crowded houses. The street-cars ran.
+The telephones were all working; when you called Central, shooting
+could be plainly heard over the wire.... Smolny was cut off, but the
+Duma and the Committee for Salvation were in constant communication
+with all the _yunker_ schools and with Kerensky at Tsarskoye.
+
+At seven in the morning the Vladimir _yunker_ school was visited by
+a patrol of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, who gave the _yunkers_
+twenty minutes to lay down their arms. The ultimatum was rejected.
+An hour later the _yunkers_ got ready to march, but were driven back
+by a violent fusillade from the corner of the Grebetskaya and the
+Bolshoy Prospekt. Soviet troops surrounded the building and opened
+fire, two armoured cars cruising back and forth with machine guns
+raking it. The _yunkers_ telephoned for help. The Cossacks replied
+that they dare not come, because a large body of sailors with two
+cannon commanded their barracks. The Pavlovsk school was surrounded.
+Most of the Mikhailov _yunkers_ were fighting in the streets....
+
+At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to
+surrender was met by the _yunkers_ shooting down two of the Soviet
+delegates under the white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great
+holes were torn in the walls of the school. The _yunkers_ defended
+themselves desperately; shouting waves of Red Guards, assaulting,
+crumpled under the withering blast.... Kerensky telephoned from
+Tsarskoye to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened
+a tornado of steel and flame against the battered building. Their
+own officers could not stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar
+from Smolny named Kirilov tried to halt it; he was threatened with
+lynching. The Red Guards' blood was up.
+
+At half-past two the _yunkers_ hoisted a white flag; they would
+surrender if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised.
+With a rush and a shout thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured
+through windows, doors and holes in the wall. Before it could be
+stopped five _yunkers_ were beaten and stabbed to death. The rest,
+about two hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under escort, in small
+groups so as to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one party,
+killing eight more _yunkers_.... More than a hundred Red Guards and
+soldiers had fallen....
+
+Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors
+were marching toward the _Injinierny Zamok_-the Engineers' school. A
+dozen members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls
+of the latest proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several
+did not come back.... All the other schools surrendered without
+resistance, and the _yunkers_ were sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and
+Cronstadt....
+
+The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik
+armoured car appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking,
+the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro; the _yunkers_ tore
+from their uniforms all distinguishing marks, and one offered
+Williams _anything_ for the loan of his overcoat, as a disguise....
+"They will massacre us! They will massacre us!" they cried, for many
+of them had given their word at the Winter Palace not to take up
+arms against the People. Williams offered to mediate if Antonov were
+released. This was immediately done; Antonov and Williams made
+speeches to the victorious sailors, inflamed by their many dead-and
+once more the _yunkers_ went free.... All but a few, who in their
+panic tried to flee over the roofs, or to hide in the attic, and
+were found and hurled into the street.
+
+Tired, bloody, triumphant, the sailors and workers swarmed into the
+switchboard room, and finding so many pretty girls, fell back in an
+embarrassed way and fumbled with awkward feet. Not a girl was
+injured, not one insulted. Frightened, they huddled in the corners,
+and then, finding themselves safe, gave vent to their spite. "Ugh!
+The dirty, ignorant people! The fools!"... The sailors and Red Guards
+were embarrassed. "Brutes! Pigs!" shrilled the girls, indignantly
+putting on their coats and hats. Romantic had been their experience
+passing up cartridges and dressing the wounds of their dashing young
+defenders, the _yunkers,_ many of them members of noble families,
+fighting to restore their beloved Tsar! These were just common
+workmen, peasants, "Dark People."...
+
+The Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, little
+Vishniak, tried to persuade the girls to remain. He was effusively
+polite. "You have been badly treated," he said. "The telephone
+system is controlled by the Municipal Duma. You are paid sixty
+rubles a month, and have to work ten hours and more.... From now on
+all that will be changed. The Government intends to put the
+telephones under control of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.
+Your wages will be immediately raised to one hundred and fifty
+rubles, and your working-hours reduced. As members of the
+working-class you should be happy--"
+
+Members of the _working-class_ indeed! Did he mean to infer that
+there was anything in common between these-these animals-and _us?_
+Remain? Not if they offered a thousand rubles!... Haughty and spiteful
+the girls left the place....
+
+The employees of the building, the line-men and labourers-they
+stayed. But the switch-boards must be operated-the telephone was
+vital.... Only half a dozen trained operators were available.
+Volunteers were called for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers,
+workers. The six girls scurried backward and forward, instructing,
+helping, scolding.... So, crippled, halting, but _going,_ the wires
+slowly began to hum. The first thing was to connect Smolny with the
+barracks and the factories; the second, to cut off the Duma and the
+_yunker_ schools.... Late in the afternoon word of it spread through
+the city, and hundreds of bourgeois called up to scream, "Fools!
+Devils! How long do you think you will last? Wait till the Cossacks
+come!"
+
+Dusk was already falling. On the almost deserted Nevsky, swept by a
+bitter wind, a crowd had gathered before the Kazan Cathedral,
+continuing the endless debate; a few workmen, some soldiers and the
+rest shop-keepers, clerks and the like.
+
+"But Lenin won't get Germany to make peace!" cried one.
+
+A violent young soldier replied. "And whose fault is it? Your damn
+Kerensky, dirty bourgeois! To hell with Kerensky! We don't want him!
+We want Lenin...."
+
+Outside the Duma an officer with a white arm-band was tearing down
+posters from the wall, swearing loudly. One read:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+At this dangerous hour, when the Municipal Duma ought to use every
+means to calm the population, to assure it bread and other
+necessities, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the Cadets,
+forgetting their duty, have turned the Duma into a
+counter-revolutionary meeting, trying to raise part of the
+population against the rest, so as to facilitate the victory of
+Kornilov-Kerensky. Instead of doing their duty, the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets have transformed the Duma into an
+arena of political attack upon the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, against the revolutionary Government of
+peace, bread and liberty.
+
+Citizens of Petrograd, we, the Bolshevik Municipal Councillors
+elected by you-we want you to know that the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets are engaged in counter-revolutionary
+action, have forgotten their duty, and are leading the population to
+famine, to civil war. We, elected by 183,000 votes, consider it our
+duty to bring to the attention of our constituents what is going on
+in the Duma, and declare that we disclaim all responsibility for the
+terrible but inevitable consequences....
+
+Far away still sounded occasional shots, but the city lay quiet,
+cold, as if exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall the Duma session was coming to an end. Even the
+truculent Duma seemed a little stunned. One after another the
+Commissars reported-capture of the Telephone Exchange,
+street-fighting, the taking of the Vladimir school.... "The Duma,"
+said Trupp, "is on the side of the democracy in its struggle against
+arbitrary violence; but in any case, whichever side wins, the Duma
+will always be against lynchings and torture...."
+
+Konovski, Cadet, a tall old man with a cruel face: "When the troops
+of the legal Government arrive in Petrograd, they will shoot down
+these insurgents, and that will not be lynching!" Protests all over
+the hall, even from his own party.
+
+Here there was doubt and depression. The counter-revolution was
+being put down. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary
+party had voted lack of confidence in its officers; the left wing
+was in control; Avksentiev had resigned. signed. A courier reported
+that the Committee of Welcome sent to meet Kerensky at the railway
+station had been arrested. In the streets could be heard the dull
+rumble of distant cannonading, south and southwest. Still Kerensky
+did not come...
+
+Only three newspapers were out-_Pravda, Dielo Naroda_ and _Novaya
+Zhizn._ All of them devoted much space to the new "coalition"
+Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet
+without either Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had
+made concessions. A purely Socialist Government was taking shape-all
+elements except the bourgeoisie. As for _Pravda,_ it sneered:
+
+We ridicule these coalitions with political parties whose most
+prominent members are petty journalists of doubtful reputation; our
+"coalition" is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary Army
+with the poor peasants...
+
+On the walls a vainglorious announcement of the _Vikzhel,_
+threatening to strike if both sides did not compromise:
+
+The conquerors of these riots, the saviours of the wreck of our
+country, these will be neither the Bolsheviki, nor the Committee for
+Salvation, nor the troops of Kerensky-but we, the Union of
+Railwaymen...
+
+Red Guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the
+railways; as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself
+incapable of holding the power...
+
+We refuse to lend our services to any party which does not act by
+authority of ... a Government based on the confidence of all the
+democracy....
+
+Smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible
+humanity in action.
+
+In Trade Union headquarters Lozovsky introduced me to a delegate of
+the Railway Workers of the Nicolai line, who said that the men were
+holding huge mass-meetings, condemning the action of their leaders.
+
+"All power to the Soviets!" he cried, pounding on the table.
+"The_oborontsi_ in the Central Committee are playing
+Ko&rgrave;nilov's game. They tried to send a mission to the Stavka,
+but we arrested them at Minsk.... Our branch has demanded an
+All-Russian Convention, and they refuse to call it...."
+
+The same situation as in the Soviets, the Army Committees. One after
+another the various democratic organisations, all over Russia, were
+cracking and changing. The Cooperatives were torn by internal
+struggles; the meetings of the Peasants' Executive broke up in
+stormy wrangling; even among the Cossacks there was trouble....
+
+On the top floor the Military Revolutionary Committee was in full
+blast, striking and slacking not. Men went in, fresh and vigorous;
+night and day and night and day they threw themselves into the
+terrible machine; and came out limp, blind with fatigue, hoarse and
+filthy, to fall on the floor and sleep.... The Committee for Salvation
+had been outlawed. Great piles of new proclamations (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 2) littered the floor:
+
+... The conspirators, who have no support among the garrison or the
+working-class, above all counted on the suddenness of their attack.
+Their plan was discovered in time by Sub-Lieutenant Blagonravov,
+thanks to the revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the Red Guard,
+whose name shall be made public. At the centre of the plot was the
+Committee for Salvation. Colonel Polkovnikov was in command of their
+forces, and the orders were signed by Gotz, former member of the
+Provisional Government, allowed at liberty on his word of honour....
+
+Bringing these facts to the attention of the Petrograd population,
+the Military Revolutionary Committee orders the arrest of all
+concerned in the conspiracy, who shall be tried before the
+Revolutionary Tribunal....
+
+From Moscow, word that the _yunkers_ and Cossacks had surrounded the
+Kremlin and ordered the Soviet troops to lay down their arms. The
+Soviet forces complied, and as they were leaving the Kremlin, were
+set upon and shot down. Small forces of Bolsheviki had been driven
+from the Telephone and Telegraph offices; the _yunkers_ now held the
+centre of the city. ... But all around them the Soviet troops were
+mustering. Street-fighting was slowly gathering way; all attempts at
+compromise had failed.... On the side of the Soviet, ten thousand
+garrison soldiers and a few Red Guards; on the side of the
+Government, six thousand _yunkers,_ twenty-five hundred Cossacks and
+two thousand White Guards.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting, and next door the new
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ acting on the decrees and orders (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 3) which came down in a steady stream from the Council of
+People's Commissars in session upstairs; on the Order in Which Laws
+Are to be Ratified and Published, Establishing an Eight hour Days
+for Workers, and Lunatcharsky's "Basis for a System of Popular
+Education." Only a few hundred people were present at the two
+meetings, most of them armed. Smolny was almost deserted, except for
+the guards, who were busy at the hall windows, setting up
+machine-guns to command the flanks of the building.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ a delegate of the _Vikzhel_ was speaking: "We
+refuse to transport the troops of either party.... We have sent a
+committee to Kerensky to say that if he continues to march on
+Petrograd we will break his lines of communication...."
+
+He made the usual plea for a conference of all the Socialist parties
+to form a new Government....
+
+Kameniev answered discreetly. The Bolsheviki would be very glad to
+attend the conference. The centre of gravity, however, lay not in
+composition of such a Government, but in its acceptance of the
+programme of the Congress of Soviets.
+
+... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ had deliberated on the declaration made by the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats
+Internationalists, and had accepted the proposition of proportional
+representation at the conference, even including delegates from the
+Army Committees and the Peasants' Soviets....
+
+In the great hall, Trotzky recounted the events of the day.
+
+"We offered the Vladimir _yunkers_ a chance to surrender," he said.
+"We wanted to settle matters without bloodshed. But now that blood
+has been spilled there is only one way-pitiless struggle. It would
+be childish to think we can win by any other means.... The moment is
+decisive. Everybody must cooperate with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, report where there are stores of barbed wire, benzine,
+guns.
+
+... We've won the power; now we must keep it!"
+
+The Menshevik Yoffe tried to read his party's declaration, but
+Trotzky refused to allow "a debate about principle."
+
+"Our debates are now in the streets," he cried. "The decisive step
+has been taken. We all, and I in particular, take the responsibility
+for what is happening...."
+
+Soldiers from the front, from Gatchina, told their stories. One from
+the Death Battalion, Four Hundred Eighty-first Artillery: "When the
+trenches hear of this, they will cry, 'This is _our_ Government!'" A
+_yunker_ from Peterhof said that he and two others had refused to
+march against the Soviets; and when his comrades had returned from
+the defence of the Winter Palace they appointed him their Commissar,
+to go to Smolny and offer their services to the _real_ Revolution....
+
+Then Trotzky again, fiery, indefatigable, giving orders, answering
+questions.
+
+"The petty bourgeoisie, in order to defeat the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, would combine with the devil himself!" he said once. Many
+cases of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. "No
+drinking, comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the
+evening, except the regular guards. All places suspected of having
+stores of liquor should be searched, and the liquor destroyed. (See
+App. VIII, Sect. 4) No mercy to the sellers of liquor...."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from
+the Viborg section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped
+out hurriedly.
+
+"For each revolutionist killed," said Trotzky, "we shall kill five
+counter-revolutionists!"
+
+Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds
+pouring in. In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng
+surged back and forth before the bulletin board, where was posted a
+list of _yunkers_ killed in the day's fighting-or supposed to be
+killed, for most of the dead afterward turned up safe and sound.... Up
+in the Alexander Hall the Committee for Salvation held forth. The
+gold and red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous, the familiar
+faces of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals,
+the hard eyes and bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats,
+officials of the old r�gime, and well-dressed women....
+
+The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the
+tribune-over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces
+and leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the
+applause of the "nice" people of Petrograd, of the officers, the
+rich, the great names of politics-girl after girl, to narrate her
+sufferings at the hands of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty
+to all that was old, established and powerful....
+
+The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said
+hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their
+actions; propaganda was making headway.
+
+[Graphic page-205 Proclamation for "wine pogroms" ]
+
+Revolutionary law and order. A proclamation of the Finland Regiment,
+in December, 1917, announcing desperate remedies for "wine pogroms."
+For translation see Appendix 5.
+
+... Emissaries came and went, reporting horrible deeds by the
+Bolsheviki, interceding to save the _yunkers,_ busily investigating....
+
+"The Bolsheviki," said Trupp, "will be conquered by moral force, and
+not by bayonets....."
+
+Meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front. The enemy had
+brought up armoured trains, mounted with cannon. The Soviet forces,
+mostly raw Red Guards, were without officers and without a definite
+plan. Only five thousand regular soldiers had joined them; the rest
+of the garrison was either busy suppressing the _yunker_ revolt,
+guarding the city, or undecided what to do. At ten in the evening
+Lenin addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments, who
+voted overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was
+elected to serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the
+morning the regiments left their barracks in full battle array....
+Going home I saw them pass, swinging along with the regular tread of
+veterans, bayonets in perfect alignment, through the deserted
+streets of the conquered city....
+
+At the same time, in the headquarters of the _Vikzhel_ down on the
+Sadovaya, the conference of all the Socialist parties to form a new
+Government was under way. Abramovitch, for the centre Mensheviki,
+said that there should be neither conquerors nor conquered-that
+bygones should be bygones. ...In this were agreed all the left wing
+parties. Dan, speaking in the name of the right Mensheviki, proposed
+to the Bolsheviki the following conditions for a truce: The Red
+Guard to be disarmed, and the Petrograd garrison to be placed at the
+orders of the Duma; the troops of Kerensky not to fire a single shot
+or arrest a single man; a Ministry of all the Socialist parties
+_except the Bolsheviki._ For Smolny Riazanov and Kameniev declared
+that a coalition ministry of all parties was acceptable, but
+protested at Dan's proposals. The Socialist Revolutionaries were
+divided; but the Executive Committee of the Peasants's Soviets and
+the Populist Socialists flatly refused to admit the Bolsheviki....
+After bitter quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a
+workable plan....
+
+All that night the commission wrangled, and all the next day, and
+the next night. Once before, on the 9th of November, there had been
+a similar effort at conciliation, led by Martov and Gorky; but at
+the approach of Kerensky and the activity of the Committee for
+Salvation, the right wing of the Mensheviki, Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Populist Socialists suddenly withdrew. Now they
+were awed by the crushing of the _yunker_ rebellion...
+
+Monday the 12th was a day of suspense. The eyes of all Russia were
+fixed on the grey plain beyond the gates of Petrograd, where all the
+available strength of the old order faced the unorganised power of
+the new, the unknown. In Moscow a truce had been declared; both
+sides parleyed, awaiting the result in the capital. Now the
+delegates to the Congress of Soviets, hurrying on speeding trains to
+the farthest reaches of Asia, were coming to their homes, carrying
+the fiery cross. In wide-spreading ripples news of the miracle
+spread over the face of the land, and in its wake towns, cities and
+far villages stirred and broke, Soviets and Military Revolutionary
+Committees against Dumas, Zemstvos and Government Commissars-Red
+Guards against White-street fighting and passionate speech.... The
+result waited on the word from Petrograd....
+
+Smolny was almost empty, but the Duma was thronged and noisy. The
+old Mayor, in his dignified way, was protesting against the Appeal
+of the Bolshevik Councillors.
+
+"The Duma is not a centre of counter-revolution," he said, warmly.
+"The Duma takes no part in the present struggle between the parties.
+But at a time when there is no legal power in the land, the only
+centre of order is the Municipal Self-Government. The peaceful
+population recognises this fact; the foreign Embassies recognise
+only such documents as are signed by the Mayor of the town. The mind
+of a European does not admit of any other situation, as the
+Municipal self-government is the only organ which is capable of
+protecting the interests of the citizens. The City is bound to show
+hospitality, to all organisations which desire to profit by such
+hospitality, and therefore the Duma cannot prevent the distribution
+of any newspapers whatever within the Duma building. The sphere of
+our work is increasing, and we must be given full liberty of action,
+and our rights must be respected by both parties....
+
+"We are perfectly neutral. When the Telephone Exchange was occupied
+by the _yunkers_ Colonel Polkovnikov ordered the telephones to
+Smolny disconnected, but I protested, and the telephones were kept
+going...."
+
+At this there was ironic laughter from the Bolshevik benches, and
+imprecations from the right.
+
+"And yet," went on Schreider, "they look upon us as
+counter-revolutionaries and report us to the population. They
+deprive us of our means of transport by taking away our last
+motor-cars. It will not be our fault if there is famine in the town.
+Protests are of no use...."
+
+Kobozev, Bolshevik member of the Town Board, was doubtful whether
+the Military Revolutionary Committee had requisitioned the Municipal
+automobiles. Even granting the fact, it was probably done by some
+unauthorised individual, in the emergency.
+
+"The Mayor," he continued, "tells us that we must not make political
+meetings out of the Duma. But every Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda, and at the
+door they distribute their illegal newspapers, _Iskri_ (Sparks),
+_Soldatski Golos_ and _Rabotchaya Gazeta,_ inciting to insurrection.
+What if we Bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers
+here? But this shall not be, for we respect the Duma. We have not
+attacked the Municipal Self-Government, and we shall not do so. But
+you have addressed an Appeal to the population, and we are entitled
+also to do so....
+
+Followed him Shingariov, Cadet, who said that there could be no
+common language with those who were liable to be brought before the
+Attorney General for indictment, and who must be tried on the charge
+of treason.... He proposed again that all Bolshevik members should be
+expelled from the Duma. This was tabled, however, for there were no
+personal charges against the members, and they were active in the
+Municipal administration.
+
+Then two Mensheviki Internationalists, declaring that the Appeal of
+the Bolshevik Councillors was a direct incitement to massacre. "If
+everything that is against the Bolsheviki is counter-revolutionary,"
+said Pinkevitch, "then I do not know the difference between
+revolution and anarchy.... The Bolsheviki are depending upon the
+passions of the unbridled masses; we have nothing but moral force.
+We will protest against massacres and violence from both sides, as
+our task is to find a peaceful issue."
+
+"The notice posted in the streets under the heading 'To the
+Pillory,' which calls upon the people to destroy the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries," said Nazariev, "is a crime which you,
+Bolsheviki, will not be able to wash away. Yesterday's horrors are
+but a preface to what you are preparing by such a proclamation.... I
+have always tried to reconcile you with the other parties, but at
+present I feel for you nothing but contempt!"
+
+The Bolshevik Councillors were on their feet, shouting angrily,
+assailed by hoarse, hateful voices and waving arms....
+
+Outside the hall I ran into the City Engineer, the Menshevik Gomberg
+and three or four reporters. They were all in high spirits.
+
+"See!" they said. "The cowards are afraid of us. They don't dare
+arrest the Duma! Their Military Revolutionary Committee doesn't dare
+to send a Commissar into this building. Why, on the corner of the
+Sadovaya to-day, I saw a Red Guard try to stop a boy selling
+_Soldatski Golos_.... The boy just laughed at him, and a crowd of
+people wanted to lynch the bandit. It's only a few hours more, now.
+Even if Kerensky wouldn't come they haven't the men to run a
+Government. Absurd! I understand they're even fighting among
+themselves at Smolny!"
+
+A Socialist Revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside. "I know
+where the Committee for Salvation is hiding," he said. "Do you want
+to go and talk with them?"
+
+By this time it was dusk. The city had again settled down to
+normal-shop-shutters up, lights shining, and on the streets great
+crowds of people slowly moving up and down and arguing....
+
+At Number 86 Nevsky we went through a passage into a courtyard,
+surrounded by tall apartment buildings. At the door of apartment 229
+my friend knocked in a peculiar way. There was a sound of scuffling;
+an inside door slammed; then the front door opened a crack and a
+woman's face appeared. After a minute's observation she led us in-a
+placid-looking, middle-aged lady who at once cried, "Kyril, it's all
+right!" In the dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and
+there were plates full of bread and raw fish, a man in uniform
+emerged from behind the window-curtains, and another, dressed like a
+workman, from a closet. They were delighted to meet an American
+reporter. With a certain amount of gusto both said that they would
+certainly be shot if the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give
+me their names, but both were Socialist Revolutionaries....
+
+"Why," I asked, "do you publish such lies in your newspapers?"
+
+Without taking offence the officer replied, "Yes, I know; but what
+can we do?" He shrugged. "You must admit that it is necessary for us
+to create a certain frame of mind in the people...."
+
+The other man interrupted. "This is merely an adventure on the part
+of the Bolsheviki. They have no intellectuals. ... The Ministries
+won't work.... Russia is not a city, but a whole country.... Realising
+that they can only last a few days, we have decided to come to the
+aid of the strongest force opposed to them-Kerensky-and help to
+restore order."
+
+"That is all very well," I said. "But why do you combine with the
+Cadets?"
+
+The pseudo-workman smiled frankly. "To tell you the truth, at this
+moment the masses of the people are following the Bolsheviki. We
+have no following-now. We can't mobilise a handful of soldiers.
+There are no arms available.... The Bolsheviki are right to a certain
+extent; there are at this moment in Russia only two parties with any
+force-the Bolsheviki and the reactionaries, who are all hiding under
+the coat-tails of the Cadets. The Cadets think they are using us;
+but it is really we who are using the Cadets. When we smash the
+Bolsheviki we shall turn against the Cadets...."
+
+"Will the Bolsheviki be admitted into the new Government?"
+
+He scratched his head. "That's a problem," he admitted. "Of course
+if they are not admitted, they'sll probably do this all over again.
+At any rate, they will have a chance to hold the balance of power in
+the Constituent-that is, if there _is_ a Constituent."
+
+"And then, too," said the officer, "that brings up the question of
+admitting the Cadets into the new Government-and for the same
+reasons. You know the Cadets do not really want the Constituent
+Assembly-not if the Bolsheviki can be destroyed now." He shook his
+head. "It is not easy for us Russians, politics. You Americans are
+born politicians; you have had politics all your lives. But for
+us-well, it has only been a year, you know!"
+
+"What do you think of Kerensky?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, Kerensky is guilty of the sins of the Provisional Government,"
+answered the other man. "Kerensky himself forced us to accept
+coalition with the bourgeoisie. If he had resigned, as he
+threatened, it would have meant a new Cabinet crisis only sixteen
+weeks before the Constituent Assembly, and that we wanted to avoid."
+
+"But didn't it amount to that anyway?"
+
+"Yes, but how were we to know? They tricked us-the Kerenskys and
+Avksentievs. Gotz is a little more radical. I stand with Tchernov,
+who is a real revolutionist.... Why, only to-day Lenin sent word that
+he would not object to Tchernov entering the Government.
+
+"We wanted to get rid of the Kerensky Government too, but we thought
+it better to wait for the Constituent.... At the beginning of this
+affair I was with the Bolsheviki, but the Central Committee of my
+party voted unanimously against it-and what could I do? It was a
+matter of party discipline....
+
+"In a week the Bolshevik Government will go to pieces; if the
+Socialist Revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait, the
+Government would fall into their hands. But if we wait a week the
+country will be so disorganised that the German imperialists will be
+victorious. That is why we began our revolt with only two regiments
+of soldiers promising to support us-and they turned against us....
+That left only the _yunkers_...."
+
+"How about the Cossacks?"
+
+The officer sighed. "They did not move. At first they said they
+would come out if they had infantry support. They said moreover that
+they had their men with Kerensky, and that they were doing their
+part.... Then, too, they said that the Cossacks were always accused of
+being the hereditary enemies of democracy.... And finally, 'The
+Bolsheviki promise that they will not take away our land. There is
+no danger to us. We remain neutral.'"
+
+During this talk people were constantly entering and leaving-most of
+them officers, their shoulder-straps torn off. We could see them in
+the hall, and hear their low, vehement voices. Occasionally, through
+the half-drawn porti�res, we caught a glimpse of a door opening into
+a bath-room, where a heavily-built officer in a colonel's uniform
+sat on the toilet, writing something on a pad held in his lap. I
+recognised Colonel Polkovnikov, former commandant of Petrograd, for
+whose arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee would have paid a
+fortune.
+
+"Our programme?" said the officer. "This is it. Land to be turned
+over to the Land Committees. Workmen to have full representation in
+the control of industry. An energetic peace programme, but not an
+ultimatum to the world such as the Bolsheviki issued. The Bolsheviki
+cannot keep their promises to the masses, even in the country
+itself. We won't let them.... They stole our land programme in order
+to get the support of the peasants. That is dishonest. If they had
+waited for the Constituent Assembly-"
+
+"It doesn't matter about the Constituent Assembly!" broke in the
+officer. "If the Bolsheviki want to establish a Socialist state
+here, we cannot work with them in any event! Kerensky made the great
+mistake. He let the Bolsheviki know what he was going to do by
+announcing in the Council of the Republic that he had ordered their
+arrest....
+
+"But what," I said, "do you intend to do now?"
+
+The two men looked at one another. "You will see in a few days. If
+there are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not
+compromise with the Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced
+to...."
+
+Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging
+with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping
+along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness the long
+miles to Smolny.
+
+Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall,
+looking worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were
+having their effect. For instance, the Council of People's
+Commissars had promised to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov,
+the functionary in charge, had disappeared, taking the documents
+with him. They were supposed to be hidden in the British Embassy....
+
+Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. "Without money,"
+said Menzhinsky, "we are helpless. The wages of the railroad men, of
+the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid.... The banks are
+closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut.
+All the bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work....
+
+"But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults,
+and there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open
+to-morrow, or we will open them ourselves!"
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men,
+Trotzky reporting:
+
+"The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo." (Sharp, exultant
+cheering.) "But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy
+fighting is going on. All available forces must be hurried there....
+
+"From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the
+_yunkers,_ and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends
+upon Petrograd.
+
+"At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are provoking great
+enthusiasm. Kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of
+Petrograd burning and bloody, of women and children massacred by the
+Bolsheviki. But no one believes him....
+
+"The cruisers _Oleg, Avrora_ and _Respublica_ are anchored in the
+Neva, their guns trained on the approaches to the city...."
+
+"Why aren't you out there with the Red Guards?" shouted a rough
+voice.
+
+"I'm going now!" answered Trotzky, and left the platform. His face a
+little paler than usual, he passed down the side of the room,         e room,         |          |
+surrounded by eager friends, and hurried out to the waiting
+automobile.
+
+Kameniev now spoke, describing the proceedings of the reconciliation
+conference. The armistice conditions proposed by the Mensheviki, he
+said, had been contemptuously rejected. Even the branches of the
+Railwaymen's Union had voted against such a proposition....
+
+"Now that we've won the power and are sweeping all Russia," he
+declared, "all they ask of us are three little things: 1. To
+surrender the power. 2. To make the soldiers continue the war. 3. To
+make the peasants forget about the land...."
+
+Lenin appeared for a moment, to answer the accusations of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries:
+
+"They charge us with stealing their land programme.... If that is so,
+we bow to them. It is good enough for us...."
+
+So the meeting roared on, leader after leader explaining, exhorting,
+arguing, soldier after soldier, workman after workman, standing up
+to speak his mind and his heart.... The audience flowed, changing and
+renewed continually. From time to time men came in, yelling for the
+members of such and such a detachment, to go to the front; others,
+relieved, wounded, or coming to Smolny for arms and equipment,
+poured in....
+
+It was almost three o'clock in the morning when, as we left the
+hall, Holtzman, of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came
+running down the hall with a transfigured face.
+
+"It's all right!" he shouted, grabbing my hands. "Telegram from the
+front. Kerensky is smashed! Look at this!"
+
+He held out a sheet of paper, scribbled hurriedly in pencil, and
+then, seeing we couldn't read it, he declaimed aloud:
+
+Pulkovo. Staff. 2.10 A.M.
+
+The night of October 30th to 31st will go down in history. The
+attempt of Kerensky to move counter-revolutionary troops against the
+capital of the Revolution has been decisively repulsed. Kerensky is
+retreating, we are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workers of
+Petrograd have shown that they can and will with arms in their hands
+enforce the will and authority of the democracy. The bourgeoisie
+tried to isolate the revolutionary army. Kerensky attempted to break
+it by the force of the Cossacks. Both plans met a pitiful defeat.
+
+The grand idea of the domination of the worker and peasant democracy
+closed the ranks of the army and hardened its will. All the country
+from now on will be convinced that the Power of the Soviets is no
+ephemeral thing, but an invincible fact.... The repulse of Kerensky is
+the repulse of the land-owners, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovists
+in general. The repulse of Kerensky is the confirmation of the right
+of the people to a peaceful free life, to land, bread and power. The
+Pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the cause
+of the Workers' and Peasants's Revolution. There is no return to the
+past. Before us are struggles, obstacles and sacrifices. But the
+road is clear and victory is certain.
+
+Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Power can be proud of their
+Pulkovo detachment, acting under the command of Colonel Walden.
+Eternal memory to those who fell! Glory to the warriors of the
+Revolution, the soldiers and the officers who were faithful to the
+People!
+
+Long live revolutionary, popular, Socialist Russia!
+
+In the name of the Council,
+
+L. TROTZKY, People's Commissar....
+
+Driving home across Znamensky Square, we made out an unusual crowd
+in front of the Nicolai Railway Station. Several thousand sailors
+were massed there, bristling with rifles.
+
+Standing on the steps, a member of the _Vikzhel_ was pleading with
+them.
+
+"Comrades, we cannot carry you to Moscow. We are neutral. We do not
+carry troops for either side. We cannot take you to Moscow, where
+already there is terrible civil war...."
+
+All the seething Square roared at him; the sailors began to surge
+forward. Suddenly another door was flung wide; in it stood two or
+three brakeman, a fireman or so.
+
+"This way, comrades!" cried one. "We will take you to Moscow-or
+Vladivostok, if you like! Long live the Revolution!"
+
+                              Chapter IX
+
+                               Victory
+
+_Order Number I_
+
+To the Troops of the Pulkovo Detachment.
+
+November 13, 1917. 38 minutes past 9 a. m.
+
+After a cruel fight the troops of the Pulkovo detachment completely
+routed the counter-revolutionary forces, who retreated from their
+positions in disorder, and under cover of Tsarskoye Selo fell back
+toward Pavlovsk II and Gatchina.
+
+Our advanced units occupied the northeastern extremity of Tsarskoye
+Selo and the station Alexandrovskaya. The Colpinno detachment was on
+our left, the Krasnoye Selo detachment to our right.
+
+I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify
+its approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
+
+Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side,
+and to take up the railroad as far as Dno.
+
+The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions
+occupied by them, arranging trenches and other defensive works.
+
+They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno
+and Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief
+for the Defence of Petrograd.
+
+Signed,
+
+_Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the
+Counter-revolutionary Troops of Kerensky,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
+
+Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd
+campagna was full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without
+food, without artillery, without a plan. What had fused that
+disorganised mass of undisciplined Red Guards, and soldiers without
+officers, into an army obedient to its own elected high command,
+tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack
+cavalry? (See App. IX, Sect. 1)
+
+People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The
+ragged armies of the French Revolution are not forgotten-Valmy and
+the Lines of Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were
+_yunkers,_ Cossacks, land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds-the Tsar
+come again, _Okhrana_ and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible
+menace of the Germans.... Victory, in the words of Carlyle, meant
+"Apotheosis and Millennium without end!"
+
+Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd
+elected its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and
+two officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint.
+Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command-an efficient man, but
+to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and
+Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size
+as the stragglers came in from the surrounding country-mixed
+soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, parts of regiments, infantry,
+cavalry and artillery all together, and a few armoured cars.
+
+Day broke, and the pickets of Kerensky's Cossacks came in touch.
+Scattered rifle-fire, summons to surrender. Over the bleak plain on
+the cold quiet air spread the sound of battle, falling upon the ears
+of roving bands as they gathered about their little fires, waiting....
+So it was beginning! They made toward the battle; and the worker
+hordes pouring out along the straight roads quickened their pace....
+Thus upon all the points of attack automatically converged angry
+human swarms, to be met by Commissars and assigned positions, or
+work to do. This was _their_ battle, for _their_ world; the officers
+in command were elected by _them._ For the moment that incoherent
+multiple will was one will....
+
+Those who participated in the fighting described to me how the
+sailors fought until they ran out of cartridges, and then stormed;
+how the untrained workmen rushed the charging Cossacks and tore them
+from their horses; how the anonymous hordes of the people, gathering
+in the darkness around the battle, rose like a tide and poured over
+the enemy.... Before midnight of Monday the Cossacks broke and were
+fleeing, leaving their artillery behind them, and the army of the
+proletariat, on a long ragged front, moved forward and rolled into
+Tsarskoye, before the enemy had a chance to destroy the great
+Government wireless station, from which now the Commissars of Smolny
+were hurling out to the world paeans of triumph....
+
+TO ALL SOVIETS OF WORKERS' AND SOLDIERS' DEPUTIES
+
+The 12th of November, in a bloody combat near Tsarskoye Selo, the
+revolutionary army defeated the counter-revolutionary troops of
+Kerensky and Kornilov. In the name of the Revolutionary Government I
+order all regiments to take the offensive against the enemies of the
+revolutionary democracy, and to take all measures to arrest
+Kerensky, and also to oppose any adventure which might menace the
+conquests of the Revolution and the victory of the proletariat.
+
+Long live the Revolutionary Army!
+MURAVIOV.
+
+News from the provinces....
+
+At Sevastopol the local Soviet had assumed the power; a huge meeting
+of the sailors on the battleships in the harbour had forced their
+officers to line up and swear allegiance to the new Government. At
+Nizhni Novgorod the Soviet was in control. From Kazan came reports
+of a battle in the streets, _yunkers_ and a brigade of artillery
+against the Bolshevik garrison....
+
+Desperate fighting had broken out again in Moscow. The _yunkers_ and
+White Guards held the Kremlin and the centre of the town, beaten
+upon from all sides by the troops of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. The Soviet artillery was stationed in Skobeliev Square,
+bombarding the City Duma building, the Prefecture and the Hotel
+Metropole. The cobblestones of the Tverskaya and Nikitskaya had been
+torn up for trenches and barricades. A hail of machine-gun fire
+swept the quarters of the great banks and commercial houses. There
+were no lights, no telephones; the bourgeois population lived in the
+cellars.... The last bulletin said that the Military Revolutionary
+Committee had delivered an ultimatum to the Committee of Public
+Safety, demanding the immediate surrender of the Kremlin, or
+bombardment would follow.
+
+"Bombard the Kremlin?" cried the ordinary citizen. "They dare not!"
+
+From Vologda to Chita in far Siberia, from Pskov to Sevastopol on
+the Black Sea, in great cities and little villages, civil war burst
+into flame. From thousands of factories, peasant communes, regiments
+and armies, ships on the wide sea, greetings poured into
+Petrograd-greetings to the Government of the People.
+
+The Cossack Government at Novotcherkask telegraphed to Kerensky,
+_"The Government of the Cossack troops invites the Provisional
+Government and the members of the Council of the Republic to come,
+if possible, to Novotcherkask, where we can organise in common the
+struggle against the Bolsheviki."_
+
+In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors
+and the _Tsentrobalt_ (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet),
+jointly proclaimed a state of siege, and declared that all attempts
+to interfere with the Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to
+its orders, would be severely repressed. At the same time the
+Finnish Railway Union called a countrywide general strike, to put
+into operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of June, 1917,
+dissolved by Kerensky....
+
+Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden
+sidewalk from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating
+snow-flakes fluttering down from the grey, windless sky. "Snow!"
+cried the soldier at the door, grinning with delight. "Good for the
+health!" Inside, the long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed
+deserted. No one moved in all the enormous pile. A deep, uneasy
+sound came to my ears, and looking around, I noticed that everywhere
+on the floor, along the walls, men were sleeping. Rough, dirty men,
+workers and soldiers, spattered and caked with mud, sprawled alone
+or in heaps, in the careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged
+bandages marked with blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered
+about.... The victorious proletarian army!
+
+In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk.
+The air was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed.
+A battered samovar, cold, stood on the counter, and many glasses
+holding dregs of tea. Beside them lay a copy of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee's last bulletin, upside down, scrawled with
+painful hand-writing. It was a memorial written by some soldier to
+his comrades fallen in the fight against Kerensky, just as he had
+set it down before falling on the floor to sleep. The writing was
+blurred with what looked like tears....
+
+Alexei Vinogradov
+
+D. Maskvin
+
+S. Stolbikov
+
+A. Voskressensky
+
+D. Leonsky
+
+D. Preobrazhensky
+
+V. Laidansky
+
+M. Berchikov
+
+These men were drafted into the Army on November 15th, 1916. Only
+three are left of the above.
+
+Mikhail Berchikov
+
+Alexei Voskressensky
+
+Dmitri Leonsky
+
+_Sleep, Warrior eagles, sleep with peaceful soul._
+
+_You have deserved, our own ones, happiness and_
+
+_Eternal peace. Under the earth of the grave_
+
+_You have straitly closed your ranks. Sleep, Citizens!_
+
+Only the Military Revolutionary Committee still functioned,
+unsleeping. Skripnik, emerging from the inner room, said that Gotz
+had been arrested, but had flatly denied signing the proclamation of
+the Committee for Salvation, as had Avksentiev; and the Committee
+for Salvation itself had repudiated the Appeal to the garrison.
+There was still disafiection among the city regiments, Skripnik
+reported; the Volhynsky Regiment had refused to fight against
+Kerensky.
+
+Several detachments of "neutral" troops, with Tchernov at their
+head, were at Gatchina, trying to persuade Kerensky to halt his
+attack on Petrograd.
+
+Skripnik laughed. "There can be no 'neutrals' now," he said. "We've
+won!" His sharp, bearded face glowed with an almost religious
+exaltation. "More than sixty delegates have arrived from the Front,
+with assurances of support by all the armies except the troops on
+the Rumanian front, who have not been heard from. The Army
+Committees have suppressed all news from Petrograd, but we now have
+a regular system of couriers...."
+
+[Graphic page-224 Certificate approving telegram transmission]
+Order given me at Staff headquarters by command of the Council of
+People's Commissars, to transmit the first despatch out of Perograd
+after the November Revolution, over the Government wires to America.
+                      (Translation)
+       STAFF
+Military Revolutionary
+     Commitee
+Sov. W. & S. D.
+2 November, 1917
+     No. 1860
+                      CERTIFICATE
+Is given by the present to the journalist of
+the New York Socialist press JOHN REED, that the text of the
+telegram (herewith) has been examined by the Government of People's
+Commissars, and there is no objection to its transmission, and also
+it is recommended that all cooperate in every way to transmit same
+to its destination.
+                      For the Commander in Chief, ANTONOV
+                      Chief of Staff, VLAD. BONCH-BRUEVITCH
+
+Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the
+all-night session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but
+happy. "Already the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit
+us into the new Government," he told me. "The right wing groups are
+frightened by the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of
+panic, that we dissolve them before going any further. ... We have
+accepted the proposition of the _Vikzhel_ to form a homogeneous
+Socialist Ministry, and they're working on that now. You see, it all
+springs from our victory. When we were down, they would't have us at
+any price; not everybody's in favour of some agreement with the
+Soivets.... What we need is a really decisive victory. Kerensky wants
+an armistice, but he'll have to surrender (See App. IX, Sect. 2) ...."
+
+That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign
+journalist who asked Trotzky what statement he had to make to the
+world, Trotzky replied: "At this moment the only statement possible
+is the one we are making through the mouths of our cannon!"
+
+But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of
+victory; the question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as
+had been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union
+of Bank Employees had held a meeting and declared a formal strike.
+Smolny had demanded some thirty-five millions of rubles from the
+State Bank, and the cashier had locked the vaults, only paying out
+money to the representatives of the Provisional Government. The
+reactionaries were using the State Bank as a political weapon; for
+instance, when the _Vikzhel_ demanded money to pay the salaries of
+the employees of the Government railroads, it was told to apply to
+Smolny....
+
+I went to the State Bank to see the new Commissar, a redhaired
+Ukrainean Bolshevik named Petrovitch. He was trying to bring order
+out of the chaos in which affairs had been left by the striking
+clerks. In all the offices of the huge place perspiring volunteer
+workers, soldiers and sailors, their tongues sticking out of their
+mouths in the intensity of their effort, were poring over the great
+ledgers with a bewildered air....
+
+The Duma building was crowded. There were still isolated cases of
+defiance toward the new Government, but they were rare. The Central
+Land Committee had appealed to the Peasants, ordering them not to
+recognise the Land Decree passed by the Congress of the Soviets,
+because it would cause confusion and civil war. Mayor Schreider
+announced that because of the Bolshevik insurrection, the elections
+to the Constituent Assembly would have to be indefinitely postponed.
+
+Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the
+ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App.
+IX, Sect. 3)-second, the creation of a new Government. There was no
+longer any talk of "destroying the Bolsheviki"-and very little about
+excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist
+Socialists and the Peasants' Soviets. Even the Central Army
+Committee at the _Stavka,_ the most determined enemy of Smolny,
+telephoned from Moghilev: "If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is
+necessary to come to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree
+to admit them _in a minority_ to the Cabinet."
+
+_Pravda,_ ironically calling attention to Kerensky's "humanitarian
+sentiments," published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:
+
+In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all
+the democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all
+military action against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has
+been sent to enter into negotiations. Take all measures to stop the
+useless shedding of blood.
+
+The _Vikzhel_ sent a telegram to all Russia:
+
+The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the
+representatives of both the belligerent parties, who admit the
+necessity of an agreement, protest energetically against the use of
+political terrorism in the civil war, especially when it is carried
+on between different factions of the revolutionary democracy, and
+declare that political terrorism, in whatever form, is in
+contradiction to the very idea of the negotiations for a new
+Government....
+
+[Graphic page-227 Leaflet ]
+
+Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik
+insurrection, containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated
+bourgeoisie and the "moderate" Socialist leaders, Called, "How THE
+BOORZHUI (BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER."
+
+Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina.
+In the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final
+settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People's
+Council, composed of about four hundred members-seventy-five
+representing Smolny, seventy-five the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and the
+rest split up among the Town Dumas, the Trade Unions, Land
+Committees and political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as the new
+Premier. Lenin and Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded....
+
+About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver
+of an ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with
+him? Certainly! He was a volunteer, a University student, and as we
+rolled down the street shouted over his shoulder to me phrases of
+execrable German: _"Also, gut! Wir nach die Kasernen zu essen
+gehen!"_ I made out that there would be lunch at some barracks.
+
+On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by
+military buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by
+one window. At a long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers,
+eating _shtchi_ (cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden
+spoons, and talking loudly with much laughter.
+
+"Welcome to the Battalion Committee of the Sixth Reserve Engineers'
+Battalion!" cried my friend, and introduced me as an American
+Socialist. Whereat every one rose to shake my hand, and one old
+soldier put his arms around me and gave me a hearty kiss. A wooden
+spoon was produced and I took my place at the table. Another tub,
+full of _kasha,_ was brought in, a huge loaf of black bread, and of
+course the inevitable tea-pots. At once every one began asking me
+questions about America: Was it true that people in a free country
+sold their votes for _money?_ If so, how did they get what they
+wanted? How about this "Tammany"? Was it true that in a free country
+a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited
+it for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even
+under the Tsar such things could not happen in Russia; true, here
+there was always graft, but to buy and sell a whole city full of
+people! And in a free country! Had the people no revolutionary
+feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people tried to
+change things by law.
+
+"Of course," nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke
+French. "But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the
+capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How
+then can the people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do
+not know your country; but to me it is incredible...."
+
+I said that I was going to Tsarskoye Selo. "I, too," said Baklanov,
+suddenly. "And I-and I-" The whole roomful decided on the spot to go
+to Tsarskoye Selo.
+
+Just then came a knock on the door. It opened, and in it stood the
+figure of the Colonel. No one rose, but all shouted a greeting. "May
+I come in?" asked the Colonel. "_Prosim! Prosim!_" they answered
+heartily. He entered, smiling, a tall, distinguished figure in a
+goat-skin cape embroidered with gold. "I think I heard you say that
+you were going to Tsarskoye Selo, comrades," he said. "Could I go
+with you?"
+
+Baklanov considered. "I do not think there is anything to be done
+here to-day," he answered. "Yes, comrade, we shall be very glad to
+have you." The Colonel thanked him and sat down, filling a glass of
+tea.
+
+In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel's pride, Baklanov
+explained to me. "You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We
+control the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel
+is delegated by us to command. In action his orders must be obeyed,
+but he is strictly responsible to us. In barracks he must ask our
+permission before taking any action.... You might call him our
+Executive Officer...."
+
+Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles-"we might meet
+some Cossacks, you know"-and we all piled into the ambulance,
+together with three great bundles of newspapers for the front.
+Straight down the Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny
+Prospekt. Next to me sat a youth with the shoulder-straps of a
+Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all European languages with equal
+fluency. He was a member of the Battalion Committee.
+
+"I am not a Bolshevik," he assured me, emphatically. "My family is a
+very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a Cadet...."
+
+"But how--?" I began, bewildered.
+
+"Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my
+political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I
+do not believe in opposing the will of the majority.... I have refused
+to take any action in the present civil war, however, for I do not
+believe in taking up arms against my brother Russians...."
+
+"Provocator! Kornilovitz!" the others cried at him gaily, slapping
+him on the shoulder....
+
+Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate,
+covered with golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the
+names of Tsars, we sped out on the wide straight highway, grey with
+the first light fall of snow. It was thronged with Red Guards,
+stumbling along on foot toward the revolutionary front, shouting and
+singing; and others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most of them
+seemed to be mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and
+bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands-the
+bowed, toil-worm women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out
+of step, with an affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors,
+grim-looking; children with bundles of food for their fathers and
+mothers; all these, coming and going, trudged through the whitened
+mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches deep. We passed
+cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound both
+ways, bristling with armed men; ambulances full of wounded from the
+direction of the battle, and once a peasant cart, creaking slowly
+along, in which sat a white-faced boy bent over his shattered
+stomach and screaming monotonously. In the fields on either side
+women and old men were digging trenches and stringing barbed wire
+entanglements.
+
+Back northward the clouds rolled away dramatically, and the pale sun
+came out. Across the flat, marshy plain Petrograd glittered. To the
+right, white and gilded and coloured bulbs and pinnacles; to the
+left, tall chimneys, some pouring out black smoke; and beyond, a
+lowering sky over Finland. On each side of us were churches,
+monasteries.... Occasionally a monk was visible, silently watching the
+pulse of the proletarian army throbbing on the road.
+
+At Pulkovo the road divided, and there we halted in the midst of a
+great crowd, where the human streams poured from three directions,
+friends meeting, excited and congratulatory, describing the battle
+to one another. A row of houses facing the cross-roads was marked
+with bullets, and the earth was trampled into mud half a mile
+around. The fighting had been furious here.... In the near distance
+riderless Cossack horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the
+plain had died long ago. Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard
+was trying to ride one, falling off again and again, to the
+childlike delight of a thousand rough men.
+
+The left road, along which the remnants of the Cossacks had
+retreated, led up a little hill to a hamlet, where there was a
+glorious view of the immense plain, grey as a windless sea,
+tumultuous clouds towering over, and the imperial city disgorging
+its thousands along all the roads. Far over to the left lay the
+little hill of Kranoye Selo, the parade-ground of the Imperial
+Guards' summer camp, and the Imperial Dairy. In the middle distance
+nothing broke the flat monotony but a few walled monasteries and
+convents, some isolated factories, and several large buildings with
+unkempt grounds that were asylums and orphanages....
+
+"Here," said the driver, as we went on over a barren hill, "here was
+where Vera Slutskaya died. Yes, the Bolshevik member of the Duma. It
+happened early this morning. She was in an automobile, with Zalkind
+and another man. There was a truce, and they started for the front
+trenches. They were talking and laughing, when all of a sudden, from
+the armoured train in which Kerensky himself was riding, somebody
+saw the automobile and fired a cannon. The shell struck Vera
+Slutskaya and killed her...."
+
+And so we came into Tsarskoye, all bustling with the swaggering
+heroes of the proletarian horde. Now the palace where the Soviet had
+met was a busy place. Red Guards and sailors filled the court-yard,
+sentries stood at the doors, and a stream of couriers and Commissars
+pushed in and out. In the Soviet room a samovar had been set up, and
+fifty or more workers, soldiers, sailors and officers stood around,
+drinking tea and talking at the top of their voices. In one corner
+two clumsy-handed workingmen were trying to make a multigraphing
+machine go. At the centre table, the huge Dybenko bent over a map,
+marking out positions for the troops with red and blue pencils. In
+his free hand he carried, as always, the enormous bluesteel
+revolver. Anon he sat himself down at a typewriter and pounded away
+with one finger; every little while he would pause, pick up the
+revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber.
+
+A couch lay along the wall, and on this was stretched a young
+workman. Two Red Guards were bending over him, but the rest of the
+company did not pay any attention. In his breast was a hole; through
+his clothes fresh blood came welling up with every heart-beat. His
+eyes were closed and his young, bearded face was greenish-white.
+Faintly and slowly he still breathed, with every breath sighing,
+_"Mir boudit! Mir boudit!_ (Peace is coming! Peace is coming!)"
+
+Dybenko looked up as we came in. "Ah," he said to Baklanov.
+"Comrade, will you go up to the Commandant's headquarters and take
+charge? Wait; I will write you credentials." He went to the
+typewriter and slowly picked out the letters.
+
+The new Commandant of Tsarskoye Selo and I went toward the Ekaterina
+Palace, Baklanov very excited and important. In the same ornate,
+white room some Red Guards were rummaging curiously around, while my
+old friend, the Colonel, stood by the window biting his moustache.
+He greeted me like a long-lost brother. At a table near the door sat
+the French Bessarabian. The Bolsheviki had ordered him to remain,
+and continue his work.
+
+"What could I do?" he muttered. "People like myself cannot fight on
+either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may
+instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob.... I only regret
+that I am so far from my mother in Bessarabia!"
+
+Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant.
+"Here," said the Colonel nervously, "are the keys to the desk."
+
+A Red Guard interrupted. "Where's the money?" he asked rudely. The
+Colonel seemed surprised. "Money? Money? Ah, you mean the chest.
+There it is," said the Colonel, "just as I found it when I took
+possession three days ago. Keys?" The Colonel shrugged. "I have no
+keys."
+
+The Red Guard sneered knowingly. "Very convenient," he said.
+
+"Let us open the chest," said Baklanov. "Bring an axe. Here is an
+American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what
+he finds there."
+
+I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.
+
+"Let's arrest him," said the Red Guard, venomously. "He is
+Kerensky's man. He has stolen the money and given it to Kerensky."
+
+Baklanov did not want to. "Oh, no," he said. "It was the Kornilovitz
+before him. He is not to blame.
+
+"The devil!" cried the Red Guard. "He is Kerensky's man, I tell you.
+If _you_ won't arrest him, then _we_ will, and we'll take him to
+Petrograd and put him in Peter-Paul, where he belongs!" At this the
+other Red Guards growled assent. With a piteous glance at us the
+Colonel was led away....
+
+Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the
+front. Half a dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two,
+under command of a huge workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to
+come along. Red Guards issued from headquarters, each of them
+staggering under an arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled
+with _grubit_-which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five
+times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A
+three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the
+truck with bits of rope and wire.
+
+We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck
+swaying from side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the
+other, and the _grubit_ bombs went rolling back and forth over our
+feet, fetching up against the sides of the car with a crash.
+
+The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me
+with questions about America. "Why did America come into the war?
+Are the American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What
+is the situation in the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman
+to San Francisco?" and other, very difficult to answer, all
+delivered in a shout above the roaring of the truck, while we held
+on to each other and danced amid the caroming bombs.
+
+Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the
+road before us, shouted _"Shtoi!"_ and threw up their guns.
+
+We paid no attention. "The devil take you!" cried the Red Guards.
+"We don't stop for anybody! We're Red Guards!" And we thundered
+imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about
+the internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters....
+
+About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and
+slowed down.
+
+"Where's the front, brothers?"
+
+The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. "This morning,"
+he said, "it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn
+thing isn't anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we
+couldn't find it."
+
+They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been
+about a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and
+shouted to the chauffeur to stop.
+
+"Firing!" he said. "Do you hear it?" For a moment dead silence, and
+then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid
+succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very
+much excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the
+truck was nearly opposite the place where the firing had come from.
+Descending, we spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went
+stealthily into the forest.
+
+Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around
+until it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.
+
+It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the
+tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun.
+Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering
+under our feet. Was it an ambush?
+
+We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and
+paused. Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a
+small fire, perfectly oblivious.
+
+Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. _"Zra'zvuitye,_ comrades!"
+he greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a
+truck-load of _grubit_ bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled
+to their feet.
+
+"What was the shooting going on around here?"
+
+One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, "Why we were just
+shooting a rabbit or two, comrade...."
+
+The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day.
+At the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving
+their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.
+
+"Passes, comrades!"
+
+The Red Guards raised a great clamour. "We are Red Guards. We don't
+need any passes.... Go on, never mind them!"
+
+But a sailor objected. "This is wrong, comrades. We must have
+revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came
+along in a truck and said: 'We don't need any passes?' The comrades
+don't know you."
+
+At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and
+soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced
+his dirty _bumaga_ (paper). All were alike except mine, which had
+been issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries
+declared that I must go with them. The Red Guards objected
+strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first insisted. "This
+comrade we know to be a true comrade," he said. "But there are
+orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed. That is
+revolutionary discipline...."
+
+In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and
+watched it disappear careening down the road, all the company waving
+farewell. The soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then
+led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me
+suddenly; they were going to shoot me!
+
+In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only
+sign of life was smoke from the chimney of a _datchya,_ a rambling
+wooden house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers
+were walking out into the road. Desperately I ran after them.
+
+"But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!"
+
+They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.
+
+"It is different from the others," said one, sullenly. "We cannot
+read, brother."
+
+I took him by the arm. "Come!" I said. "Let's go to that house. Some
+one there can surely read." They hesitated. "No," said one. The
+other looked me over. "Why not?" he muttered. "After all, it is a
+serious crime to kill an innocent man."
+
+We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short,
+stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, "I don't
+know anything about them! I don't know anything about them!" One of
+my guards held out the pass. She screamed. "Just to read it,
+comrade." Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
+
+The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the
+American Social-Democracy, an internationalist....
+
+Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation.
+"We must take you to the Regimental Committee," they said. In the
+fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road.
+Occasionally we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded
+me with looks of menace, handling my pass around and arguing
+violently as to whether or not I should be killed....
+
+It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye
+Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A
+number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions.
+A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a
+great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots
+on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards,
+talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by
+Kerensky's cannon....
+
+I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups,
+who turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly
+and then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate.
+"Comrades! Comrades!" yelled one of my guards. "Committee!
+Committee!" The throng halted, banked around me, muttering. Out of
+them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red arm-band.
+
+"Who is this?" he asked roughly. The guards explained. "Give me the
+paper!" He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he
+smiled and handed me the pass. "Comrades, this is an American
+comrade. I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the
+Regiment...." A sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and
+they pressed forward to shake my hand.
+
+"You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to
+the Officers' Club, where there are some who speak your language...."
+
+He led me across the court-yard to the door of another building. An
+aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a
+Lieutenant, was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking
+hands, went back.
+
+"I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service," said the
+Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a
+ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On
+the second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from
+the hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre
+of which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their
+gold- and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial
+decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me
+beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard.
+Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any
+officers' mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?
+
+"You are not Bolsheviki?" I asked Morovsky.
+
+A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing
+furtively at the orderly.
+
+"No," answered my friend. "There is only one Bolshevik officer in
+this regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a
+Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist
+Revolutionary of the right wing.... I should say that most of the
+officers in the Army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in
+democracy; they believe that they must follow the soldier-masses...."
+
+Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on
+the table. The rest crowded around to see.
+
+"Here," said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, "were our
+positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?"
+
+Captain Kherlov pointed. "According to orders, we occupied the
+position along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o'clock."
+
+Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the
+Chairman of the Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They
+joined the group behind the Colonel, peering at the map.              map.              |          |
+
+"Good," said the Colonel. "Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten
+kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up
+advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the
+present line, strengthening the positions by--"
+
+"If you please," interrupted the Chairman of the Regimental
+Committee. "The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to
+engage the Cossacks north of Gatchina in the morning. A crushing
+defeat is necessary. Kindly make the proper dispositions."
+
+There was a short silence. The Colonel again turned to the map.
+"Very well," he said, in a different voice. "Stepan Georgevitch, you
+will please--" Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his
+orders, while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then
+withdrew, and ten minutes later returned with the orders
+typewritten, and one carbon copy. The Chairman of the Committee
+studied the map with a copy of the orders before him.
+
+"All right," he said, rising. Folding the carbon copy, he put it in
+his pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal
+taken from his pocket, and presented it to the Colonel....
+
+Here was the Revolution!
+
+I returned to the Soviet palace in Tsarskoye in the Regimental Staff
+automobile. Still the crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors
+pouring in and out, still the choking press of trucks, armoured
+cars, cannon before the door, and the shouting, the laughter of
+unwonted victory. Half a dozen Red Guards forced their way through,
+a priest in the middle. This was Father Ivan, they said, who had
+blessed the Cossacks when they entered the town. I heard afterward
+that he was shot.... (See App. IX, Sect. 4)
+
+Dybenko was just coming out, giving rapid orders right and left. In
+his hand he carried the big revolver. An automobile stood with
+racing engine at the kerb. Alone, he climbed in the rear seat, and
+was off-off to Gatchina, to conquer Kerensky.
+
+Toward nightfall he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and went
+on afoot. What Dybenko told the Cossacks nobody knows, but the fact
+is that General Krasnov and his staff and several thousand Cossacks
+surrendered, and advised Kerensky to do the same. (See App. IX,
+Sect. 5)
+
+As for Kerensky-I reprint here the deposition made by General
+Krasnov on the morning of November 14th:
+
+"Gatchina, November 14, 1917. To-day, about three o'clock (A. M.), I
+was summoned by the Supreme Commander (Kerensky). He was very
+agitated, and very nervous.
+
+"'General,' he said to me, 'you have betrayed me. Your Cossacks
+declare categorically that they will arrest me and deliver me to the
+sailors.'
+
+"'Yes,' I answered, 'there is talk of it, and I know that you have
+no sympathy anywhere.'
+
+"'But the officers say the same thing.'
+
+"'Yes, most of all it is the officers who are discontented with you.'
+
+"'What shall I do? I ought to commit suicide!'
+
+"'If you are an honorable man, you will go immediately to Petrograd
+with a white flag, you will present yourself to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and enter into negotiations as Chief of the
+Provisional Government.'
+
+"'All right. I will do that, General.'
+
+"'I will give you a guard and ask that a sailor go with you.'
+
+"'No, no, not a sailor. Do you know whether it is true that Dybenko
+is here?'
+
+"'I don't know who Dybenko is.'
+
+"'He is my enemy.
+
+"'There is nothing to do. If you play for high stakes you must know
+how to take a chance.'
+
+"'Yes. I'll leave to-night!'
+
+"'Why? That would be a flight. Leave calmly and openly, so that
+every one can see that you are not running away.'
+
+"'Very well. But you must give me a guard on which I can count.'
+
+"'Good.'
+
+"I went out and called the Cossack Russkov, of the Tenth Regiment of
+the Don, and ordered him to pick out ten Cossacks to accompany the
+Supreme Commander. Half an hour later the Cossacks came to tell me
+that Kerensky was not in his quarters, that he had run away.
+
+"I gave the alarm and ordered that he be searched for, supposing
+that he could not have left Gatchina, but he could not be found...."
+
+And so Kerensky fled, alone, "disguised in the uniform of a sailor,"
+and by that act lost whatever popularity he had retained among the
+Russian masses....
+
+I went back to Petrograd riding on the front seat of an auto truck,
+driven by a workman and filled with Red Guards. We had no kerosene,
+so our lights were not burning. The road was crowded with the
+proletarian army going home, and new reserves pouring out to take
+their places. Immense trucks like ours, columns of artillery,
+wagons, loomed up in the night, without lights, as we were. We
+hurtled furiously on, wrenched right and left to avoid collisions
+that seemed inevitable, scraping wheels, followed by the epithets of
+pedestrians.
+
+Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital,
+immeasurably more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of
+jewels heaped on the barren plain.
+
+The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the
+other he swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture.
+
+"Mine!" he cried, his face all alight. "All mine now! My Petrograd!"
+
+
+                              Chapter X
+
+                                Moscow
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee, with a fierce intensity,
+followed up its victory:
+
+November 14th.
+
+To all Army, corps, divisional and regimental Committees, to all
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, to all, all,
+all.
+
+Conforming to the agreement between the Cossacks, _yunkers,_
+soldiers, sailors and workers, it has been decided to arraign
+Alexander Feodorvitch Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We
+demand that Kerensky be arrested, and that he be ordered, in the name
+of the organisations hereinafter mentioned, to come immediately to
+Petrograd and present himself to the tribunal.
+
+Signed,
+
+_The Cossacks of the First Division of Ussuri Cavalry; the Committee
+of Yunkers of the Petrograd detachment of Franc-Tireurs; the delegate
+of the Fifth Army._
+
+People's Commissar DYBENKO.
+
+The Committee for Salvation, the Duma, the Central Committee of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party-proudly claiming Kerensky as a
+member-all passionately protested that he could only be held
+responsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+On the evening of November 16th I watched two thousand Red Guards
+swing down the Zagorodny Prospekt behind a military band playing the
+_Marseillaise_-and how appropriate it sounded-with blood-red flags
+over the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers
+who had defended "Red Petrograd." In the bitter dusk they tramped,
+men and women, their tall bayonets swaying; through streets faintly
+lighted and slippery with mud, between silent crowds of bourgeois,
+contemptuous but fearful....
+
+All were against them-business men, speculators, investors,
+land-owners, army officers, politicians, teachers, students,
+professional men, shop-keepers, clerks, agents. The other Socialist
+parties hated the Bolsheviki with an implacable hatred. On the side
+of the Soviets were the rank and file of the workers, the sailors,
+all the undemoralised soldiers, the landless peasants, and a few-a
+very few-intellectuals....
+
+From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate
+street-fighting burst like a wave, news of Kerensky's defeat came
+echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov,
+Novgorod, Vinnitza-where the streets had run with blood; Moscow,
+where the Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last
+strong-hold of the bourgeoisie-the Kremlin.
+
+"They are bombarding the Kremlin!" The news passed from mouth to
+mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror.
+Travellers from "white and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful
+tales. Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in
+flames; the church of Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky
+Cathedral crumbling down; the Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin
+tottering; the Duma burned to the ground. (See App. X, Sect. 1)
+
+Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful
+blasphemy in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout
+sounded the shock of guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox
+Church, and pounding to dust the sanctuary of the Russian nation....
+
+On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into
+tears at the session of the Council of People's Commissars, and
+rushed from the room, crying, "I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the
+monstrous destruction of beauty and tradition...."
+
+That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the
+newspapers:
+
+I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has
+happened there.
+
+The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the
+Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered
+the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under
+artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
+
+The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
+
+What is left? What more can happen?
+
+I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these
+horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts
+which drive me mad!
+
+That is why I am leaving the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+I fully realise the gravity of this decision. But I can bear no
+more.... (See App. X, Sect. 2)
+
+That same day the White Guards and _yunkers_ in the Kremlin
+surrendered, and were allowed to march out unharmed. The treaty of
+peace follows:
+
+1. The Committee of Public Safety ceases to exist.
+
+2. The White Guard gives up its arms and dissolves. The officers
+retain their swords and regulations side-arms. In the Military
+Schools are retained only the arms necessary for instruction; all
+others are surrendered by the _yunkers._ The Military Revolutionary
+Committee guarantees the liberty and inviolability of the person.
+
+3. To settle the question of disarmament, as set forth in section 2,
+a special commission is appointed, consisting of representatives from
+all organisations which took part in the peace negotiations.
+
+4. From the moment of the signature of this peace treaty, both
+parties shall immediately give order to cease firing and halt all
+military operations, taking measures to ensure punctual obedience to
+this order.
+
+5. At the signature of the treaty, all prisoners made by the two
+parties shall be released....
+
+For two days now the Bolsheviki had been in control of the city. The
+frightened citizens were creeping out of their cellars to seek their
+dead; the barricades in the streets were being removed. Instead of
+diminishing, however, the stories of destruction in Moscow continued
+to grow.... And it was under the influence of these fearful reports
+that we decided to go there.
+
+Petrograd, after all, in spite of being for a century the seat of
+Government, is still an artificial city. Moscow is real Russia,
+Russia as it was and will be; in Moscow we would get the true feeling
+of the Russian people about the Revolution. Life was more intense
+there.
+
+For the past week the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee,
+aided by the rank and file of the Railway Workers, had seized control
+of the Nicolai Railroad, and hurled trainload after trainload of
+sailors and Red Guards southwest.... We were provided with passes from
+Smolny, without which no one could leave the capital.... When the train
+backed into the station, a mob of shabby soldiers, all carrying huge
+sacks of eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured
+into all the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing
+onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a
+compartment, but almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered....
+There was room for only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the
+conductor joined us-but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to
+bother about the comfort of a lot of _boorzhui_ (bourgeois)? We
+produced the passes from Smolny; instantly the soldiers changed their
+attitude.
+
+"Come, comrades," cried one, "these are American _tovarishtchi._ They
+have come thirty thousand versts to see our Revolution, and they are
+naturally tired...."
+
+With polite and friendly apologies the soldiers began to leave.
+Shortly afterward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied
+by two stout, well-dressed Russians, who had bribed the conductor and
+locked their door....
+
+About seven o'clock in the evening we drew out of the station, an
+immense long train drawn by a weak little locomotive burning wood,
+and stumbled along slowly, with many stops. The soldiers on the roof
+kicked with their heels and sang whining peasant songs; and in the
+corridor, so jammed that it was impossible to pass, violent political
+debates raged all night long. Occasionally the conductor came
+through, as a matter of habit, looking for tickets. He found very few
+except ours, and after a half-hour of futile wrangling, lifted his
+arms despairingly and withdrew. The atmosphere was stifling, full of
+smoke and foul odours; if it hadn't been for the broken windows we
+would doubtless have smothered during the night.
+
+In the morning, hours late, we looked out upon a snowy world. It was
+bitter cold. About noon a peasant woman got on with a basket-full of
+bread-chunks and a great can of luke warm coffee-substitute. From
+then on until dark there was nothing but the packed train, jolting
+and stopping, and occasional stations where a ravenous mob swooped
+down on the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it clean.... At one of
+these halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the seceding Commissars, who
+were returning to Moscow to put their grievances before their own
+Soviet,  1and further along was Bukharin, a short, red-bearded man
+with the eyes of a fanatic-"more Left than Lenin," they said of him....
+
+Then the three strokes of the bell and we made a rush for the train,
+worming our way through the packed and noisy aisle.... A good-natured
+crowd, bearing the discomfort with humorous patience, interminably
+arguing about everything from the situation in Petrograd to the
+British Trade-Union system, and disputing loudly with the few
+_boorzhui_ who were on board. Before we reached Moscow almost every
+car had organised a Committee to secure and distribute food, and
+these Committees became divided into political factions, who wrangled
+over fundamental principles....
+
+The station at Moscow was deserted. We went to the office of the
+Commissar, in order to arrange for our return tickets. He was a
+sullen youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed
+him our papers from Smolny, he lost his temper and declared that he
+was no Bolshevik, that he represented the Committee of Public
+Safety.... It was characteristic-in the general turmoil attending the
+conquest of the city, the chief railway station had been forgotten by
+the victors....
+
+Not a cab in sight. A few blocks down the street, however, we woke up
+a grotesquely-padded _izvostchik_ asleep upright on the box of his
+little sleigh. "How much to the centre of the town?"
+
+He scratched his head. "The _barini_ won't be able to find a room in
+any hotel," he said. "But I'll take you around for a hundred
+rubles...." Before the Revolution it cost _two!_ We objected, but he
+simply shrugged his shoulders. "It takes a good deal of courage to
+drive a sleigh nowadays," he went on. We could not beat him down
+below fifty.... As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted
+streets, he recounted his adventures during the six days' fighting.
+"Driving along, or waiting for a fare on the corner," he said, "all
+of a sudden _pooff!_ a cannon ball exploding here, _pooff!_ a cannon
+ball there, _ratt-ratt!_ a machine-gun.... I gallop, the devils
+shooting all around. I get to a nice quiet street and stop, doze a
+little, _pooff!_ another cannon ball, _ratt-ratt_.... Devils! Devils!
+Devils! Brrr!"
+
+In the centre of the town the snow-piled streets were quiet with the
+stillness of convalescence. Only a few arc-lights were burning, only
+a few pedestrians hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from
+the great plain, cutting to the bone. At the first hotel we entered
+an office illuminated by two candles.
+
+"Yes, we have some very comfortable rooms, but all the windows are
+shot out. If the _gospodin_ does not mind a little fresh air...."
+
+Down the Tverskaya the shop-windows were broken, and there were
+shell-holes and torn-up paving stones in the street. Hotel after
+hotel, all full, or the proprietors still so frightened that all they
+could say was, "No, no, there is no room! There is no room!" On the
+main streets, where the great banking-houses and mercantile houses
+lay, the Bolshevik artillery had been indiscriminately effective. As
+one Soviet official told me, "Whenever we didn't know just where the
+_yunkers_ and White Guards were, we bombarded their pocketbooks...."
+
+At the big Hotel National they finally took us in; for we were
+foreigners, and the Military Revolutionary Committee had promised to
+protect the dwellings of foreigners.... On the top floor the manager
+showed us where shrapnel had shattered several windows. "The
+animals!" said he, shaking his first at imaginary Bolsheviki. "But
+wait! Their time will come; in just a few days now their ridiculous
+Government will fall, and then we shall make them suffer!"
+
+We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name, "I Eat
+Nobody," and Tolstoy's picture prominent on the walls, and then
+sallied out into the streets.
+
+The headquarters of the Moscow Soviet was in the palace of the former
+Governor-General, an imposing white building fronting Skobeliev
+Square. Red Guards stood sentry at the door. At the head of the wide,
+formal stairway, whose walls were plastered with announcements of
+committee-meetings and addresses of political parties, we passed
+through a series of lofty ante-rooms, hung with red-shrouded pictures
+in gold frames, to the splendid state salon, with its magnificent
+crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of talk,
+underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines,
+filled the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were
+unrolled, serpentining across the parqueted floor and over tables, at
+which sat half a hundred women, cutting and sewing streamers and
+banners for the Funeral of the Revolutionary Dead. The faces of these
+women were roughened and scarred with life at its most difficult;
+they worked now sternly, many of them with eyes red from weeping....
+The losses of the Red Army had been heavy.
+
+At a desk in one corner was Rogov, an intelligent, bearded man with
+glasses, wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march
+with the Central Executive Committee in the funeral procession next
+morning....
+
+"It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki anything!" he exclaimed. "They compromise from sheer
+habit. Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the
+_yunkers!"_
+
+[Graphic page-251 Questionairre for the Bourgeoioisie]
+
+Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow
+Military Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the
+requisition of clothing for the Army and the poor workers. For
+translation see Appendix 3. (See App. X, Sect. 3)
+
+Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and _shapka,_
+whose face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known
+as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the
+great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the
+Moscow Metal-Workers' Union, and a Commissar of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee during the fighting....
+
+"You see me!" he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. "I was with
+the boys in the Kremlin when the _yunkers_ came the first time. They
+shut me up in the cellar and swiped my overcoat, my money, watch and
+even the ring on my finger. This is all I've got to wear!"
+
+From him I learned many details of the bloody six-day battle which
+had rent Moscow in two. Unlike in Petrograd, in Moscow the City Duma
+had taken command of the _yunkers_ and White Guards. Rudnev, the
+Mayor, and Minor, president of the Duma, had directed the activities
+of the Committee of Public Safety and the troops. Riabtsev,
+Commandant of the city, a man of democratic instincts, had hesitated
+about opposing the Military Revolutionary Committee; but the Duma had
+forced him.... It was the Mayor who had urged the occupation of the
+Kremlin; "They will never dare fire on you there," he said....
+
+One garrison regiment, badly demoralised by long inactivity, had been
+approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what
+action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and
+continue its present activities-which consisted in peddling rubbers
+and sunflower seeds!
+
+"But worst of all," said Melnichansky, "we had to organise while we
+were fighting. The other side knew just what it wanted; but here the
+soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs.... There was a
+fearful wrangle over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiments
+talked for days before they decided what to do; and when the officers
+suddenly deserted us, we had no battle-staff to give orders...."
+
+Vivid little pictures he gave me. On a cold grey day he had stood at
+a corner of the Nikitskaya, which was swept by blasts of machine-gun
+fire. A throng of little boys were gathered there-street waifs who
+used to be newsboys. Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they
+waited until the firing slackened, and then tried to run across the
+street.... Many were killed, but the rest dashed backward and forward,
+laughing, daring each other....
+
+Late in the evening I went to the _Dvorianskoye Sobranie_-the Nobles'
+Club-where the Moscow Bolsheviki were to meet and consider the report
+of Nogin, Rykov and the others who had left the Council of People's
+Commissars.
+
+The meeting-place was a theatre, in which, under the old r�gime, to
+audiences of officers and glittering ladies, amateur presentations of
+the latest French comedy had once taken place.
+
+At first the place filled with the intellectuals-those who lived near
+the centre of the town. Nogin spoke, and most of his listeners were
+plainly with him. It was very late before the workers arrived; the
+working-class quarters were on the outskirts of the town, and no
+street-cars were running. But about midnight they began to clump up
+the stairs, in groups of ten or twenty-big, rough men, in coarse
+clothes, fresh from the battle-line, where they had fought like
+devils for a week, seeing their comrades fall all about them.
+
+Scarcely had the meeting formally opened before Nogin was assailed
+with a tempest of jeers and angry shouts. In vain he tried to argue,
+to explain; they would not listen. He had left the Council of
+People's Commissars; he had deserted his post while the battle was
+raging. As for the bourgeois press, here in Moscow there was no more
+bourgeois press; even the City Duma had been dissolved. (See App. X,
+Sect. 4) Bukharin stood up, savage, logical, with a voice which
+plunged and struck, plunged and struck.... Him they listened to with
+shining eyes. Resolution, to support the action of the Council of
+People's Commissars, passed by overwhelming majority. So spoke
+Moscow....
+
+[Graphic page-254 Pass to the Kremlin]
+By this the Military Revolutionary Commitee requests to give a pass
+for the purpose of investigating the Kremlin, the representatives of
+the American Socialist party attached to the Socialist press,
+comrades Reed and Bryant.
+              Chief of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+                              For the Secretary
+
+Late in the night we went through the empty streets and under the
+Iberian Gate to the great Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The
+church of Vasili Blazheiny loomed fantastic, its bright-coloured,
+convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in the darkness. There was no
+sign of any damage.... Along one side of the square the dark towers and
+walls of the Kremlin stood up. On the high walls flickered redly the
+light of hidden flames; voices reached us across the immense place,
+and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over.
+
+Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall.
+Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen
+feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and
+workers were digging in the light of huge fires.
+
+A young student spoke to us in German. "The Brotherhood Grave," he
+explained. "To-morrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians
+who died for the Revolution."
+
+He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and
+shovels, and the earth-mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the
+night was thick with stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall
+towered up immeasurably.
+
+"Here in this holy place," said the student, "holiest of all Russia,
+we shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars,
+our Tsar-the People-shall sleep...." His arm was in a sling, from a
+bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. "You foreigners
+look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a medi�val
+monarchy," said he. "But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant
+in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the
+world capitalism was Emperor.... Russian revolutionary tactics are
+best...."
+
+As we left, the workers in the pit, exhausted and running with sweat
+in spite of the cold, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red
+Square a dark knot of men came hurrying. They swarmed into the pits,
+picked up the tools and began digging, digging, without a word....
+
+So, all the long night volunteers of the People relieved each other,
+never halting in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn
+laid bare the great Square, white with snow, and the yawning brown
+pits of the Brotherhood Grave, quite finished.
+
+We rose before sunrise, and hurried through the dark streets to
+Skobeliev Square. In all the great city not a human being could be
+seen; but there was a faint sound of stirring, far and near, like a
+deep wind coming. In the pale half-light a little group of men and
+women were gathered before the Soviet headquarters, with a sheaf of
+gold-lettered red banners-the Central Executive Committee of the
+Moscow Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague stirring sound
+deepened and became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The city
+was rising. We set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping
+overhead. The little street chapels along our way were locked and
+dark, as was the Chapel of the Iberian Virgin, which each new Tsar
+used to visit before he went to the Kremlin to crown himself, and
+which, day or night, was always open and crowded, and brilliant with
+the candles of the devout gleaming on the gold and silver and jewels
+of the ikons. Now, for the first time since Napoleon was in Moscow,
+they say, the candles were out.
+
+The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance
+from Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the
+Kremlin. Dark and silent and cold were the churches; the priests had
+disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial,
+there had been no sacrament for the dead, nor were any prayers to be
+said over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon, Metropolitan of
+Moscow, was soon to excommunicate the Soviets....
+
+Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at
+home-but for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the
+rumour of whose coming was thunderous as surf....
+
+Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the
+vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I
+remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always
+before the passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice
+it....
+
+We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin
+wall, and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men
+were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected
+Commandant of Moscow-a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a
+gentle face.
+
+Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people
+poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the
+poor and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the
+_Internationale,_ and spontaneously the song caught and spread like
+wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin
+wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters
+in gold and in white, saying, "Martyrs of the Beginning of World
+Social Revolution," and "Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the
+World."
+
+A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far
+quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were
+arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the
+Gate, the blare of their banners, and the dull red-like blood-of the
+coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood
+and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who
+marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women
+who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces.
+Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others
+were covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier's hat
+nailed on the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial
+flowers....
+
+Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession
+slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless
+stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering,
+knots of crepe hanging from the top-and some Anarchist flags, black
+with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral
+March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people,
+standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs....
+
+Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their
+coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and
+artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black-forever, it
+seemed. Their banners said, "Long live the Third International!" or
+"We Want an Honest, General, Democratic Peace!"
+
+Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the
+grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down
+into the pit. Many of them were women-squat, strong proletarian
+women. Behind the dead came other women-women young and broken, or
+old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to
+follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and
+shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each
+other so!
+
+All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the
+Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river
+of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous
+prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,-under the
+eyes of the world's workers and their descendants forever....
+
+One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell,
+and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played
+the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless
+branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like
+strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in
+the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding
+sound, audible beneath the singing....
+
+The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning
+women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from
+the great Square ebbed the proletarian tide....
+
+I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed
+priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a
+kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it
+was a glory to die....
+
+                              Chapter XI
+
+                The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)
+
+DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI,
+Sect. 2)
+
+... The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed
+the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination.
+
+The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this
+inalienable right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and
+definitely.
+
+Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People's
+Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in
+the question of Nationalities, the following principles:
+
+(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.
+
+(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination,
+even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent
+state.
+
+(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious
+privileges and disabilities.
+
+(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic
+groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.
+
+Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a
+Commission on Nationalities.
+
+In the name of the Russian Republic,
+
+People's Commissar for Nationalities
+
+YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN
+
+President of the Council of People's Commissars
+
+V. ULIANOV (LENIN)
+
+The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent
+Republic, as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at
+Helsingfors. Independent "Governments" spring up in Siberia and the
+Caucasus. The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered
+together the Polish troops in the Russian army, abolished their
+Committees and established an iron discipline....
+
+All these "Governments" and "movements" had two characteristics in
+common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and they
+feared and detested Bolshevism....
+
+Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People's
+Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order.
+Decree on Social Insurance, on Workers' Control, Regulations for
+Volost Land Committees, Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of
+Courts and the Creation of People's Tribunals.... (See App. XI, Sect.
+3)
+
+Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, "joyfully to
+greet the new Government of the People."
+
+In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from
+the trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates,
+thin and grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in
+it. Some pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing....
+Red Guards came to mount guard. All the soldiers turned to look,
+curiously, as if they had heard of them but never seen them. They
+laughed good-naturedly and pressed out of line to slap the Red
+Guards on the back, with half-joking, half-admiring remarks....
+
+The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the
+churches of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as
+Lenin himself told the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ that was "only the beginning
+of the conquest of power." Deprived of arms, the opposition, which
+still controlled the economic life of the country, settled down to
+organise disorganisation, with all the Russian genius for
+cooperative action-to obstruct, cripple and discredit the Soviets.
+
+The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by
+the banks and commercial establishments. Every move of the
+Bolsheviki to take over the Government apparatus was resisted.
+
+Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries
+refused to recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors
+were forced, resigned. He demanded the keys of the archives; only
+when he brought workmen to force the locks were they given up. Then
+it was discovered that Neratov, former assistant Foreign Minister,
+had disappeared with the Secret Treaties....
+
+Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It
+was bitterly cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all
+the hundreds of employees, not one would show him where the office
+of the Minister was....
+
+Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar of
+Public Welfare-the department of charities and public
+institutions-was welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the
+functionaries in the Ministry. Immediately the poor of the great
+cities, the inmates of institutions, were plunged in miserable want:
+delegations of starving cripples, of orphans with blue, pinched
+faces, besieged the building. With tears streaming down her face,
+Kollontai arrested the strikers until they should deliver the keys
+of the office and the safe; when she got the keys, however, it was
+discovered that the former Minister, Countess Panina, had gone off
+with all the funds, which she refused to surrender except on the
+order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App. XI, Sect. 4)
+
+In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the
+Ministry of Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees,
+summoned to return or forfeit their positions and their pensions,
+either stayed away or returned to sabotage.... Almost all the
+_intelligentzia_ being anti-Bolshevik, there was nowhere for the
+Soviet Government to recruit new staffs....
+
+The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open
+for speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left,
+secreting the books and removing the funds. All the employees of the
+State Bank struck except the clerks in charge of the vaults and the
+manufacture of money, who refused all demands from Smolny and
+privately paid out huge sums to the Committee for Salvation and the
+City Duma.
+
+Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to
+insist upon the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The
+first time, the City Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders were present in imposing numbers, and spoke so
+gravely of the consequences that the Commissar was frightened. The
+second time he arrived with a warrant, which he proceeded to read
+aloud in due form; but some one called his attention to the fact
+that it had no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect
+for "documents" forced him again to withdraw....
+
+The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that
+all record of the financial relations of Russia with foreign
+countries was lost.
+
+The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned
+public utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when
+the Bolsheviki, compelled by the desperate needs of the city
+population, attempted to help or to control the public service, all
+the employees went on strike immediately, and the Duma flooded
+Russia with telegrams about Bolshevik "violation of Municipal
+autonomy."
+
+At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of
+War and Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the
+Army Committees and the high command blocked the Soviets in every
+way possible, even to the extent of neglecting the troops at the
+front. The _Vikzhel_ was hostile, refusing to transport Soviet
+troops; every troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out by
+force, and railway officials had to be arrested each time-whereupon
+the _Vikzhel_ threatened an immediate general strike unless they
+were released....
+
+Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the
+factories of Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three
+weeks; the _Vikzhel_ announced that trains must cease running by
+December first; there was food for three days only in Petrograd, and
+no more coming in; and the Army on the Front was starving.... The
+Committee for Salvation, the various Central Committees, sent word
+all over the country, exhorting the population to ignore the
+Government decrees. And the Allied Embassies were either coldly
+indifferent, or openly hostile....
+
+The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next
+morning under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime.
+(See App. XI, Sect. 5) Even _Novaya Zhizn_ characterised it as "a
+combination of demagoguery and impotence."
+
+From day to day (it said) the Government of the People's Commissars
+sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having
+easily conquered the power... the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.
+
+Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are
+unable at the same time to create a new one which might work easily
+and freely according to the theories of social experimenters.
+
+Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn't enough men to run
+their growing party-a work above all of speakers and writers; where
+then are they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and
+complicated functions of government?
+
+The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with
+decrees, each one more radical and more "socialist" than the last.
+But in this exhibition of Socialism on Paper-more likely designed
+for the stupefaction of our descendants-there appears neither the
+desire nor the capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!
+
+Meanwhile the _Vikzhel's_ Conference to Form a New Government
+continued to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in
+principle to the basis of the Government; the composition of the
+People's Council was being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively
+chosen, with Tchernov as Premier; the Bolsheviki were admitted in a
+large minority, but Lenin and Trotzky were barred. The Central
+Committees of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, the
+Executive Committee of the Peasant's Soviets, resolved that,
+although unalterably opposed to the "criminal politics" of the
+Bolsheviki, they would, "in order to halt the fratricidal
+bloodshed," not oppose their entrance into the People's Council.
+
+The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the
+Soviets everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted
+that the Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the
+other Socialist parties; otherwise they would withdraw from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and the _Tsay-ee-kah._ Malkin said,
+"The news from Moscow, where our comrades are dying on both sides of
+the barricades, determines us to bring up once more the question of
+organisation of power, and it is not only our right to do so, but
+our duty.... We have won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here
+within the walls of Smolny Institute, and to speak from this
+tribune. After the bitter internal party struggle, we shall be
+obliged, if you refuse to compromise, to pass to open battle
+outside.... We must propose to the democracy terms of an acceptable
+compromise...."
+
+After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned
+with a resolution, read by Kameniev:
+
+The _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it necessary that there enter into the
+Government representatives of _all the Socialist parties composing
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies who
+recognise the conquests of the Revolution of November 7th-that is to
+say, the establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on
+peace, land, workers' control over industry, and the arming of the
+working-class._ The _Tsay-ee-kah_ therefore resolves to propose
+negotiations concerning the constitution of the Government to all
+parties _of the Soviet,_ and insists upon the following conditions
+as a basis:
+
+The Government is responsible to the _Tsay-ee-kah._ The
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150
+delegates of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall be
+added 75 delegates of the _Provincial_ Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies, 80 from the Front organisations of the Army and Navy, 40
+from the Trade Unions (25 from the various All-Russian Unions, in
+proportion to their importance, 10 from the _Vikzhel,_ and 5 from
+the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50 delegates from the Socialist
+groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the Ministry itself, at least
+one-half the portfolios must be reserved to the Bolsheviki. The
+Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs must be given to
+the Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow
+must remain in the hands of delegates of the Moscow and Petrograd
+Soviets.
+
+The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of
+all Russia.
+
+It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and
+Trotzky.
+
+Kameniev explained. "The so-called 'People's Council,'" he said,
+"proposed by the Conference, would consist of about 420 members, of
+which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides, there would be
+delegates from the counter-revolutionary old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ 100
+members chosen by the Municipal Dumas-Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates
+from the Peasants' Soviets-appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the
+old Army Committees, who no longer represent the soldier masses.
+
+"We refuse to admit the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and also the
+representatives of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the
+Peasants' Soviets shall be elected by the Congress of Peasants,
+which we have called, and which will at the same time elect a new
+Executive Committee. The proposal to exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a
+proposal to decapitate our party, and we do not accept it. And
+finally, we see no necessity for a 'People's Council' anyway; the
+Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+represents them in their real proportions among the masses...."
+
+Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his
+party would vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right
+to modify certain details, such as the representation of the
+peasants, and demanding that the Ministry of Agriculture be reserved
+for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. This was agreed to....
+
+Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a
+question about the formation of the new Government:
+
+"I don't know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
+negotiations.... However, I don't think that they are of great
+importance...."
+
+That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The
+delegates of the City Duma withdrew....
+
+But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a
+formidable opposition to Lenin's policy was growing. On the night of
+November 17th the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the
+Constituent Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with
+"political terrorism."
+
+"The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be
+modified. They had their reason during the struggle, but now they
+have no further excuse. The press should be free, except for appeals
+to riot and insurrection."
+
+In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the
+following resolution:
+
+The decree of the Council of People's Commissars concerning the
+Press is herewith repealed.
+
+Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to
+decision of a special tribunal, elected by the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+proportionally to the strength of the different parties represented;
+and this tribunal shall have the right also to reconsider measures
+of repression already taken.
+
+This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.
+
+Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of
+the Press be postponed until after some compromise between the
+Socialist parties had been reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.
+
+"The revolution which is now being accomplished," went on Avanessov,
+"has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as private
+property that we must examine the question of the Press...."
+
+Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by
+purely military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the
+checking of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary
+as a measure of transition toward the establishment of a new r�gime
+with regard to the Press-a r�gime under which the capitalist owners
+of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and
+exclusive manufacturers of public opinion.
+
+We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing
+plants and supplies of paper, which should become the property of
+the Soviets, both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the
+political parties and groups can make use of the facilities of
+printing in proportion to the actual strength of the ideas they
+represent-in other words, proportionally to the number of their
+constituents.
+
+The re�stablishment of the so-called "freedom of the press," the
+simple return of printing presses and paper to the
+capitalists,-poisoners of the mind of the people-this would be an
+inadmissible surrender to the will of capital, a giving up of one of
+the most important conquests of the Revolution; in other words, it
+would be a measure of unquestionably counter-revolutionary character.
+
+Proceeding from the above, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ categorically rejects
+all propositions aiming at the re�stablishment of the old r�gime in
+the domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of
+view of the Council of People's Commissars on this question, against
+pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices,
+or by evident surrender to the interests of the
+counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
+
+The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts
+from the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation
+from the insurgent Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting.
+"Three weeks ago the Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of
+the freedom of the Press... The arguments in this resolution suggest
+singularly the point of view of the old Black Hundreds and the
+censors of the Tsarist r�gime-for they also talked of 'poisoners of
+the mind of the people.'"
+
+Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He
+distinguished between the Press during the civil war, and the Press
+after the victory. "During civil war the right to use violence
+belongs only to the oppressed...." (Cries of "Who's the oppressed now?
+Cannibal!").
+
+"The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the
+newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing
+of the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence...." Then passing
+to the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
+
+"The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
+should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of
+business.... The rule of the democracy which is being established in
+Russia demands that the domination of the Press by private property
+must be abolished, just as the domination of industry by private
+property.... The power of the Soviets should confiscate all
+printing-plants." (Cries, "Confiscate the printing-shop of
+_Pravda!_")
+
+"The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
+Otherwise it isn't worth while for us to take the power! Each group
+of citizens should have access to print shops and paper.... The
+ownership of print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers
+and peasants, and only afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which
+are in a minority.... The passing of the power into the hands of the
+Soviets will bring about a radical transformation of the essential
+conditions of existence, and this transformation will necessarily be
+evident in the Press.... If we are going to nationalise the banks, can
+we then tolerate the financial journals? The old r�gime must die;
+that must be understood once and for all...." Applause and angry cries.
+
+Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon
+this important question, which should be left to a special
+committee. Again, passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
+
+Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
+slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a
+hammer-blow. "The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still
+with us; consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of
+repression against the Press.
+
+"We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of
+power we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois
+newspapers would mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a
+Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward-or go
+back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the Press' goes
+backward, and halts our headlong course toward Socialism.
+
+"We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first
+revolution threw off the yoke of Tsarism. _If the first revolution
+had the right to suppress the Monarchist papers,_ then we have the
+right to suppress the bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate
+the question of the freedom of the Press from the other questions of
+the class struggle. We have promised to close these newspapers, and
+we shall do it. The immense majority of the people is with us!
+
+"Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to
+suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch
+as they appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the
+Soviet Government. However, we shall not permit them, under the
+pretence of freedom of the Socialist press, to obtain, through the
+secret support of the bourgeoisie, a monopoly of printing-presses,
+ink and paper.... These essentials must become the property of the
+Soviet Government, and be apportioned, first of all, to the
+Socialist parties in strict proportion to their voting strength...."
+
+Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was
+carried by 34 to 24. Among the minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov
+and Lozovsky, who declared that it was impossible for them to vote
+against any restriction on the freedom of the Press.
+
+Upon this the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared they could no
+longer be responsible for what was being done, and withdrew from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and all other positions of
+executive responsibility.
+
+Five members-Nogin, Rykov, Miliutin, Teodorovitch and
+Shiapnikov-resigned from the Council of People's Commissars,
+declaring:
+
+We are in favour of a Socialist Government composed of all the
+parties in the Soviets. We consider that only the creation of such a
+Government can possibly guarantee the results of the heroic struggle
+of the working-class and the revolutionary army. Outside of that,
+there remains only one way: the constitution of a purely Bolshevik
+Government by means of political terrorism. This last is the road
+taken by the Council of People's Commissars. We cannot and will not
+follow it. We see that this leads directly to the elimination from
+political life of many proletarian organisations, to the
+establishment of an irresponsible r�gime, and to the destruction of
+the Revolution and the country. We cannot take the responsibility
+for such a policy, and we renounce before the _Tsay-ee-kah_ our
+function as People's Commissars.
+
+Other Commissars, without resigning their positions, signed the
+declaration-Riazanov, Derbychev of the Press Department, Arbuzov, of
+the Government Printing-plant, Yureniev, of the Red Guard, Feodorov,
+of the Commissariat of Labour, and Larin, secretary of the Section
+of Elaboration of Decrees.
+
+At the same time Kameniev, Rykov, Miliutin, Zinoviev and Nogin
+resigned from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, making
+public their reasons:
+
+... The constitution of such a Government (composed of all the parties
+of the Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the
+coming famine, the destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists,
+to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the proper
+time, and to apply effectively the programme adopted by the Congress
+of Soviets....
+
+We cannot accept the responsibility for the disastrous policy of the
+Central Committee, carried on against the will of an enormous
+majority of the proletariat and the soldiers, who are eager to see
+the rapid end of the bloodshed between the different political
+parties of the democracy.... We renounce our title as members of the
+Central Committee, in order to be able to say openly our opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers....
+
+We leave the Central Committee at the moment of victory; we cannot
+calmly look on while the policy of the chiefs of the Central
+Committee leads toward the loss of the fruits of victory and the
+crushing of the proletariat....
+
+The masses of the workers, the soldiers of the garrison, stirred
+restlessly, sending their delegations to Smolny, to the Conference
+for Formation of the New Government, where the break in the ranks of
+the Bolsheviki caused the liveliest joy.
+
+But the answer of the Leninites was swift and ruthless. Shliapnikov
+and Teodorovitch submitted to party discipline and returned to their
+posts. Kameniev was stripped of his powers as president of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and Sverdlov elected in his place. Zinoviev was
+deposed as president of the Petrograd Soviet. On the morning of the
+5th, _Pravda_ contained a ferocious proclamation to the people of
+Russia, written by Lenin, which was printed in hundreds of thousands
+of copies, posted on the walls everywhere, and distributed over the
+face of Russia.
+
+The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave the majority to the
+Bolshevik party. Only a Government formed by this party can
+therefore be a Soviet Government. And it is known to all that the
+Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, a few hours before the
+formation of the new Government and before proposing the list of its
+members to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, invited to its
+meeting three of the most eminent members of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionary group, comrades Kamkov, Spiro and Karelin, and ASKED
+THEM to participate in the new Government. We regret infinitely that
+the invited comrades refused; we consider their refusal inadmissible
+for revolutionists and champions of the working-class; we are
+willing at any time to include the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in
+the Government; but we declare that, as the party of the majority at
+the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, we are entitled and
+BOUND before the people to form a Government....
+
+... Comrades! Several members of the Central Committee of our party
+and the Council of People's Commissars, Kameniev, Zinoviev, Nogin,
+Rykov, Miliutin and a few others left yesterday, November 17th, the
+Central Committee of our party, and the last three, the Council of
+People's Commissars....
+
+The comrades who left us acted like deserters, because they not only
+abandoned the posts entrusted to them, but also disobeyed the direct
+instructions of the Central Committee of our party, to the effect
+that they should await the decisions of the Petrograd and Moscow
+party organisations before retiring. We blame decisively such
+desertion. We are firmly convinced that all conscious workers,
+soldiers and peasants, belonging to our party or sympathising with
+it, will also disapprove of the behaviour of the deserters....
+
+Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and
+Zinoviev, even before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as
+deserters and strike-breakers, by voting at the decisive meeting of
+the Central Committee, October 23d, 1917, against the insurrection;
+and even AFTER the resolution passed by the Central Committee, they
+continued their campaign at a meeting of the party workers.... But the
+great impulse of the masses, the great heroism of millions of
+workers, soldiers and peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front,
+in the trenches, in the villages, pushed aside the deserters as a
+railway train scatters saw-dust....
+
+Shame upon those who are of little faith, hesitate, who doubt, who
+allow themselves to be frightened by the bourgeoisie, or who succumb
+before the cries of the latter's direct or indirect accomplices!
+There is NOT A SHADOW of hesitation in the MASSES of Petrograd,
+Moscow, and the rest of Russia....
+
+... We shall not submit to any ultimatums from small groups of
+intellectuals which are not followed by the masses, which are
+PRACTICALLY only supported by Kornilovists, Savinkovists, _yunkers,_
+and so forth....
+
+The response from the whole country was like a blast of hot storm.
+The insurgents never got a chance to "say openly their opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers." Upon the _Tsay-ee-kah_ rolled
+in like breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the "deserters."
+For days Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees,
+from the front, from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. "Why
+did they dare leave the Government? Were they paid by the
+bourgeoisie to destroy the Revolution? They must return and submit
+to the decisions of the Central Committee!"
+
+Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great
+soldier meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by
+representatives of all the political parties. By a vast majority
+Lenin's policy was sustained, and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were told that they must enter the government.... _See next page._
+
+The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all
+Ministers and _yunkers_ be released, that all newspapers be allowed
+full freedom, that the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put
+under command of the Duma. To this Smolny answered that all the
+Socialist Ministers and also all but a very few _yunkers_ had been
+already set free, that all newspapers were free except the bourgeois
+press, and that the Soviet would remain in command of the armed
+forces.... On the 19th the Conference to Form a New Government
+disbanded, and the opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev,
+where, under the wing of the General Staff, they continued to form
+Government after Government, until the end....
+
+[Graphic  Page-276 Meeting announcement]
+
+Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a
+meeting of representatives of the garrison regiments, called to
+consider the question of forming a new Government. For translation
+see App. XI, Sect. 6.
+
+Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the
+_Vikzhel._ An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers
+called upon them to force the _Vikzhel_ to surrender its powers. On
+the 15th, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ following its procedure toward the
+peasants, called an All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for
+December 1st; the _Vikzhel_ immediately called its own Congress for
+two weeks later. On November 16th, the _Vikzhel_ members took their
+seats in the _Tsay-ee-kah._ On the night of December 2d, at the
+opening session of the All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ formally offered the post of Commissar of Ways and
+Communications to the _Vikzhel_-which accepted....
+
+Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their
+attention to problems of practical administration. First of all the
+city, the country, the Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red
+Guards scoured the warehouses, the railway terminals, even the
+barges in the canals, unearthing and confiscating thousands of
+_poods_  1 of food held by private speculators. Emissaries were sent
+to the provinces, where with the assistance of the Land Committees
+they seized the store-houses of the great grain-dealers. Expeditions
+of sailors, heavily armed, were sent out in groups of five thousand,
+to the South, to Siberia, with roving commissions to capture cities
+still held by the White Guards, establish order, and _get food._
+Passenger traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was suspended for
+two weeks, while thirteen trains, loaded with bolts of cloth and
+bars of iron assembled by the Factory-Shop Committees, were sent out
+eastward, each in charge of a Commissar, to barter with the Siberian
+peasants for grain and potatoes....
+
+Kaledin being in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel
+question became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in
+theatres, shops and restaurants, cut down the number of street cars,
+and confiscated the private stores of fire-wood held by the
+fuel-dealers.... And when the factories of Petrograd were about to
+close down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet turned
+over to the workers two hundred thousand _poods_ from the bunkers of
+battle-ships....
+
+Toward the end of November occurred the "wine-pogroms" (See App. XI,
+Sect. 7)-looting of the wine-cellars-beginning with the plundering
+of the Winter Palace vaults. For days there were drunken soldiers on
+the streets.... In all this was evident the hand of the
+counter-revolutionists, who distributed among the regiments plans
+showing the location of the stores of liquor. The Commissars of
+Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing
+disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red
+Guards.... Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out
+companies of sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon
+the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars
+were invaded by Committees with hatchets, who smashed the bottles-or
+blew them up with dynamite....
+
+Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at
+the headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the
+old Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective
+Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to
+deal with petty crime....
+
+The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving
+business, were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown
+into jail. (See App. XI, Sect. 8)...
+
+Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted
+itself a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois
+households, and reporting all information to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing.
+In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot led by former
+Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who
+had planned an officers' uprising, and had written a letter inviting
+Kaledin to Petrograd. (See App. XI, Sect. 9).... In this way was
+unearthed the conspiracy of the Petrograd Cadets, who were sending
+money and recruits to Kaledin....
+
+Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his
+flight, returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who
+began their publication in _Pravda,_ scandalising the world....
+
+[Graphic Page-279 Proclamation ]
+
+Bolshevik order. A proclamation of the Committee to Fight against
+Pogroms, attached to the Petrograd Soviet. For translation see
+App. XI, Sect. 11.
+
+The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree (See App.
+XI, Sect. 10) making advertisements a monopoly of the official
+Government newspaper. At this all the other papers suspended
+publication as a protest, or disobeyed the law and were closed....
+Only three weeks later did they finally submit.
+
+Still the strike of the Ministries went on, still the sabotage of
+the old officials, the stoppage of normal economic life. Behind
+Smolny was only the will of the vast, unorganised popular masses;
+and with them the Council of People's Commissars dealt, directing
+revolutionary mass-action against its enemies. In eloquent
+proclamations, (See App. XI, Sect. 12) couched in simple words and
+spread over Russia, Lenin explained the Revolution, urged the people
+to take the power into their own hands, by force to break down the
+resistance of the propertied classes, by force to take over the
+institutions of Government. Revolutionary order. Revolutionary
+discipline! Strict accounting and control! No strikes! No loafing!
+
+[Graphic Page-281 Appeal to work hard ]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Council of
+Professional Unions, and the Petrograd Council of Factory Shop
+Committees, to the Workers of Petro. grad, urging them to work hard
+and not to strike. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 13.
+
+On the 20th of November the Military Revolutionary Committee issued
+a warning:
+
+The rich classes oppose the power of the Soviets-the Government of
+workers, soldiers and peasants. Their sympathisers halt the work of
+the employees of the Government and the Duma, incite strikes in the
+banks, try to interrupt communication by the railways, the post and
+the telegraph....
+
+We warn them that they are playing with fire. The country and the
+Army are threatened with famine. To fight against it, the regular
+functioning of all services is indispensable. The Workers' and
+Peasants' Government is taking every measure to assure the country
+and the Army all that is necessary. Opposition to these measures is
+a crime against the People. We warn the rich classes and their
+sympathisers that, if they do not cease their sabotage and their
+provocation in halting the transportation of food, they will be the
+first to suffer. They will be deprived of the right of receiving
+food. All the reserves which they possess will be requisitioned. The
+property of the principal criminals will be confiscated.
+
+We have done our duty in warning those who play with fire.
+
+We are convinced that in case decisive measures become necessary, we
+shall be solidly supported by all workers, soldiers, and peasants.
+
+On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a
+sheet headed "EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION":
+
+The Council of People's Commissars has received an urgent telegram
+from the Staff of the Northern Front....
+
+"There must be no further delay; do not let the Army die of hunger;
+the armies of the Northern Front have not received a crust of bread
+now for several days, and in two or three days they will not have
+any more biscuits-which are being doled out to them from reserve
+supplies until now never touched.... Already delegates from all parts
+of the Front are talking of a necessary removal of part of the Army
+to the rear, foreseeing that in a few days there will be headlong
+flight of the soldiers, dying from hunger, ravaged by the three
+years' war in the trenches, sick, insufficiently clothed,
+bare-footed, driven mad by superhuman misery."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee brings this to the notice of
+the Petrograd garrison and the workers of Petrograd. The situation
+at the Front demands the most urgent and decisive measures. ...
+Meanwhile the higher functionaries of the Government institutions,
+banks, railroads, post and telegraph, are on strike and impeding the
+work of the Government in supplying the Front with provisions.... Each
+hour of delay may cost the life of thousands of soldiers. The
+counter-revolutionary functionaries are the most dishonest criminals
+toward their hungry and dying brethren on the Front....
+
+The MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE GIVES THESE CRIMINALS A LAST
+WARNING. In event of the least resistance or opposition on their
+part, the harshness of the measures which will be adopted against
+them will correspond to the seriousness of their crime....
+
+------------------+----------+
+
+The masses of workers and soldiers responded by a savage tremor of
+rage, which swept all Russia. In the capital the Government and bank
+employees got out hundreds of proclamations and appeals (See App.
+XI, Sect. 14), protesting, defending themselves, such as this one:
+
+TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.
+
+THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!
+
+WHY?
+
+Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State
+Bank has made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the
+People's Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on
+November 27th THEY DEMANDED TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any
+indication as to where this money was to go.
+
+... We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people's
+property. We stopped work.
+
+CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people's money,
+acquired by your labour, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the
+people's property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall
+immediately resume work.
+
+EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.
+
+From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the
+Special Supply Committee, declarations that the Military
+Revolutionary Committee made it impossible for the employees to
+work, appeals to the population to support them against Smolny.... But
+the dominant worker and soldier did not believe them; it was firmly
+fixed in the popular mind that the employees were sabotaging,
+starving the Army, starving the people.... In the long bread lines,
+which as formerly stood in the iron winter streets, it was not _the
+Government_ which was blamed, as it had been under Kerensky, but the
+_tchinovniki,_ the sabotageurs; for the Government was _their_
+Government, _their_ Soviets-and the functionaries of the Ministries
+were against it....
+
+At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant
+organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the
+decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, voting again and
+again not to recognise the Soviet Government, openly cooperating
+with the new counter-revolutionary "Governments" set up at
+Moghilev.... On the 17th of November, for example, the Committee for
+Salvation addressed "all Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all
+democratic and revolutionary organisations of peasants, workers,
+soldiers and other citizens," in these words:
+
+Do not recognise the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle
+against it.
+
+Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who
+will unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian
+Committee for Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself....
+
+Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd
+(See App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the
+Bolsheviki; so that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed
+out that the Duma ought to be re-elected, as it no longer
+represented the political composition of the Petrograd population....
+At the same time floods of resolutions from workers' organisations,
+from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding
+country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it "counter-revolutionary,
+Kornilovitz," and demanding that it resign. The last days of the
+Duma were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers
+for decent living wages, and the threat of strikes....
+
+On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of
+People's Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the
+Petrograd City Duma:
+
+In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected
+September 2d, ... has definitely lost the right to represent the
+population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state
+of mind and its aspirations ... and in view of the fact that the
+personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all political
+following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
+counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the
+Government-the Council of People's Commissars considers it its duty
+to invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the
+policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
+
+To this end the Council of People's Commissars resolves:
+
+(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect
+November 30th, 1917.
+
+(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall
+remain at their posts and fulfil the duties confided to them, until
+their places shall be filled by representatives of the new Duma.
+
+(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties;
+those who leave the service of their own accord shall be considered
+discharged.
+
+(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed
+for December 9th, 1917....
+
+(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917,
+at two o'clock.
+
+(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who
+intentionally harm or destroy the property of the Municipality,
+shall be immediately arrested and brought before the Revolutionary
+Tribunals....
+
+The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it
+would "defend its position to the last drop of its blood," and
+appealing desperately to the population to save their "own elected
+City Government." But the population remained indifferent or
+hostile. On the 31st Mayor Schreider and several members were
+arrested, interrogated, and released. That day and the next the Duma
+continued to meet, interrupted frequently by Red Guards and sailors,
+who politely requested the assembly to disperse. At the meeting of
+December 2d, an officer and some sailors entered the Nicolai Hall
+while a member was speaking, and ordered the members to leave, or
+force would be used. They did so, protesting to the last, but
+finally "ceding to violence."
+
+The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the
+"Moderate" Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely
+Bolshevik....
+
+There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the
+"republics" of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely
+anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the
+Governments were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and
+entering upon campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and
+expelling Russian troops. The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of
+all southern Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and
+supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret
+negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognised by the
+Allied Governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining
+with the propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centres
+of attack upon Soviet Russia. In the end, when Bolshevism had
+conquered in both these countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called
+in the Germans to restore them to power....
+
+But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal
+and two-headed-the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev,
+where General Dukhonin had assumed command.
+
+Graphic Page-287 Education Proclamation]
+
+Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the
+City Duma, concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the
+Christmas holidays. The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed
+almost entirely of Bolsheviki. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.
+
+The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against
+the Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory
+workers. Hundreds of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council
+of People's Commissars issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See
+App. XI, Sect. 16) explaining what the Soviet Government was, how
+the propertied classes, the _tchin ovniki,_ landlords, bankers and
+their allies, the Cossack princes, land-owners and Generals, were
+trying to destroy the Revolution, and prevent the confiscation of
+their wealth by the people.
+
+On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see
+Trotzky and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet
+Government did not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the
+peasants of Great Russia? "No," answered Trotzky. The Cossacks
+deliberated for a while. "Well," they asked, "does the Soviet
+Government intend to confiscate the estates of our great Cossack
+land-owners and divide them among the working Cossacks?" To this
+Lenin replied. "That," he said, "is for _you_ to do. We shall
+support the working Cossacks in all their actions.... The best way to
+begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will be given representation
+in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and then it will be _your_ Government, too....
+
+The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General
+Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. "Will you," they
+asked, "promise to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords
+among the working Cossacks?"
+
+"Only over my dead body," responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing
+his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And
+the Cossack movement was no more....
+
+Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ the
+"moderate" Socialist leaders-from Avksentiev to Tchernov-the active
+chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the reactionary officers. The
+Staff steadily refused to recognise the Council of People's
+Commissars. It had united about it the Death Battalions, the Knights
+of St. George, and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and
+secret touch with the Allied military attach�s, and with the Kaledin
+movement and the Ukrainean Rada....
+
+The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of
+November 8th, in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a
+general armistice.
+
+On November 20th Trotzky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors:
+(See App. XI, Sect. 18)
+
+I have the honour to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets... on November 8th constituted a new
+Government of the Russian Republic, in the form of the Council of
+People's Commissars. The President of this Government is Vladimir
+Ilyitch Lenin. The direction of Foreign Affairs has been entrusted
+to me, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs....
+
+In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian
+Congress, of the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace
+without annexations or indemnities, based on the right of
+self-determination of peoples, I have the honour to request you to
+consider that document as a formal proposal of an immediate
+armistice on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace
+negotiations; a proposal which the authorised Government of the
+Russian Republic addresses at the same time to all the belligerent
+peoples and their Governments.
+
+Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem
+of the Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for
+peace, like all the other peoples exhausted and drained by this
+unexampled butchery....
+
+The same night the Council of People's Commissars telegraphed to
+General Dukhonin:
+
+... The Council of People's Commissars considers it indispensable
+without delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the
+powers, both enemy and Allied. A declaration conforming to this
+decision has been sent by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the
+representatives of the Allied powers at Petrograd.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,...
+to propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease
+hostilities, and enter into negotiations for peace.
+
+In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers,
+the Council of People's Commissars orders you:
+
+1. To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all
+steps in the pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy
+armies.
+
+2. Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by
+the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+The Allied Ambassadors received Trotzky's note with contemptuous
+silence, accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full
+of spite and ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterised
+openly as an act of treason....
+
+As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he
+was communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey
+the order. Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated
+from "a Government sustained by the Army and the country."
+
+By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme
+Commander, and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his
+tactics of appealing to the masses, Lenin sent a radio to all
+regimental, divisional and corps Committees, to all soldiers and
+sailors of the Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with Dukhonin's
+refusal, and ordering that "the regiments on the front shall elect
+delegates to begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite
+their positions...."
+
+On the 23d, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on
+instructions from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin,
+in which he was solemnly warned not to "violate the conditions of
+the treaties concluded between the Powers of the Entente." The note
+went on to say that if a separate armistice with Germany were
+concluded, that act "would result in the most serious consequences"
+to Russia. This communication Dukhonin at once sent out to all the
+soldiers' Committees....
+
+Next morning Trotzky made another appeal to the troops,
+characterising the note of the Allied representatives as a flagrant
+interference in the internal affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt
+"to force by threats the Russian Army and the Russian people to
+continue the war in execution of the treaties concluded by the
+Tsar...."
+
+From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App.
+XI, Sect. 19) denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary
+officers about him, denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered
+at Moghilev, rousing, from one end of the thousand-mile Front to the
+other, millions of angry, suspicious soldiers. And at the same time
+Krylenko, accompanied by three detachments of fanatical sailors, set
+out for the _Stavka,_ breathing threats of vengeance, (See App. XI,
+Sect. 20) and received by the soldiers everywhere with tremendous
+ovations-a triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee issued a
+declaration in favour of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops
+moved upon Moghilev....
+
+On December 2d the garrison of Moghilev rose and seized the city,
+arresting Dukhonin and the Army Committee, and going out with
+victorious red banners to meet the new Supreme Commander. Krylenko
+entered Moghilev next morning, to find a howling mob gathered about
+the railway-car in which Dukhonin had been imprisoned. Krylenko made
+a speech in which he implored the soldiers not to harm Dukhonin, as
+he was to be taken to Petrograd and judged by the Revolutionary
+Tribunal. When he had finished, suddenly Dukhonin himself appeared
+at the window, as if to address the throng. But with a savage roar
+the people rushed the car, and falling upon the old General, dragged
+him out and beat him to death on the platform....
+
+So ended the revolt of the _Stavka_....
+
+Immensely strengthened by the collapse of the last important
+stronghold of hostile military power in Russia, the Soviet
+Government began with confidence the organisation of the state. Many
+of the old functionaries flocked to its banner, and many members of
+other parties entered the Government service. The financially
+ambitious, however, were checked by the decree on Salaries of
+Government Employees, fixing the salaries of the People's
+Commissars-the highest-at five hundred rubles (about fifty dollars)
+a month.... The strike of Government Employees, led by the Union of
+Unions, collapsed, deserted by the financial and commercial
+interests which had been backing it. The bank clerks returned to
+their jobs....
+
+With the decree on the Nationalisation of Banks, the formation of
+the Supreme Council of People's Economy, the putting into practical
+operation of the Land decree in the villages, the democratic
+reorganisation of the Army, and the sweeping changes in all branches
+of the Government and of life,-with all these, effective only by the
+will of the masses of workers, soldiers and peasants, slowly began,
+with many mistakes and hitches, the moulding of proletarian Russia.
+
+Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other
+political leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism,
+did the Bolsheviki conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence
+of a small clique. If the masses all over Russia had not been ready
+for insurrection it must have failed. The only reason for Bolshevik
+success lay in their accomplishing the vast and simple desires of
+the most profound strata of the people, calling them to the work of
+tearing down and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of
+falling ruins, cooperating with them to erect the frame-work of the
+new....
+
+                              Chapter XII
+
+                        The Peasants' Congress
+
+IT was on November 18th that the snow came. In the morning we woke
+to window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling
+thick that it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was
+gone; in a twinkling the gloomy city became white, dazzling. The
+_droshki_ with their padded coachmen turned into sleights, bounding
+along the uneven street at headlong speed, their drivers' beards
+stiff and frozen.... In spite of Revolution, all Russia plunging
+dizzily into the unknown and terrible future, joy swept the city
+with the coming of the snow. Everybody was smiling; people ran into
+the streets, holding out their arms to the soft, falling flakes,
+laughing. Hidden was all the greyness; only the gold and coloured
+spires and cupolas, with heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed
+through the white snow.
+
+Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and
+rheumatism of the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew
+gay, and the very Revolution ran swifter....
+
+I sat one evening in a _traktir_-a kind of lower-class inn-across
+the street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud place
+called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," much frequented by Red Guards. They
+crowded it now, packed close around the little tables with their
+dirty table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place
+with foul cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about
+crying _"Seichass! Seichass!_ In a minute! Right away!"
+
+In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the
+assembly, which interrupted him at every few words.
+
+"You are no better than murderers!" he cried. "Shooting down your
+Russian brothers on the streets!"
+
+"When did we do that?" asked a worker.
+
+"Last Sunday you did it, when the _yunkers_--"
+
+"Well, didn't they shoot us?" One man exhibited his arm in a sling.
+"Haven't I got something to remember them by, the devils?"
+
+The captain shouted at the top of his voice. "You should remain
+neutral! You should remain neutral! Who are you to destroy the legal
+Government? Who is Lenin? A German--"
+
+"Who are you? A counter-revolutionist! A provocator!" they bellowed
+at him.
+
+When he could make himself heard the captain stood up. "All right!"
+said he. "You call yourselves the people of Russia. But you're _not_
+the people of Russia. The _peasants_ are the people of Russia. Wait
+until the peasants--"
+
+"Yes," they cried, "wait until the peasants speak. We know what the
+peasants will say.... Aren't they workingmen like ourselves?"
+
+In the long run, everything depended upon the peasants. While the
+peasants had been politically backward, still they had their own
+peculiar ideas, and they constituted more than eighty per cent of
+the people of Russia. The Bolsheviki had a comparatively small
+following among the peasants; and a permanent dictatorship of Russia
+by the industrial workers was impossible.... The traditional peasant
+party was the Socialist Revolutionary party; of all the parties now
+supporting the Soviet Government, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were the logical inheritors of peasant leadership-and the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, who were at the mercy of the organised
+city proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants....
+
+Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land
+decree, one of the first actions of the new _Tsay-ee-kah_ had been
+to call a Congress of Peasants, over the head of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets. A few days later was issued
+detailed Regulations for the _Volost_ (Township) Land Committees,
+followed by Lenin's "Instruction to Peasants," (See App. XII, Sect.
+1) which explained the Bolshevik revolution and the new Government
+in simple terms; and on November 16th, Lenin and Miliutin published
+the "Instructions to Provincial Emissaries," of whom thousands were
+sent by the Soviet Government into the villages.
+
+1. Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the
+emissary should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive
+Committees of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies, to whom he should make a report on the agrarian laws, and
+then demand that a joint plenary session of the Soviets be summoned....
+
+2. He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province.
+
+a. Has the land-owners' property been taken over, and if so, in what
+districts?
+
+b. Who administers the confiscated land-the former proprietor, or
+the Land Committees?
+
+c. What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the
+farm-animals?
+
+3. Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented?
+
+4. How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under
+cultivation differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an
+average minimum?
+
+5. The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received
+the land, it is imperative that they increase the amount of
+cultivated land as quickly as possible, and that they hasten the
+sending of grain to the cities, as the only means of avoiding famine.
+
+6. What are the measures projected or put into effect for the
+transfer of land from the land-owners to the Land Committees and
+similar bodies appointed by the Soviets?
+
+7. It is desirable that agricultural properties well appointed and
+well organised should be administered by Soviets composed of the
+regular employees of those properties, under the direction of
+competent agricultural scientists.
+
+All through the villages a ferment of change was going on, caused
+not only by the electrifying action of the Land decree, but also by
+thousands of revolutionary-minded peasant-soldiers returning from
+the front.... These men, especially, welcomed the call to a Congress
+of Peasants.
+
+Like the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ in the matter of the second Congress of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets, the Executive Committee tried to
+prevent the Peasant Congress summoned by Smolny. And like the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ finding its resistance futile, the Executive
+Committee sent frantic telegrams ordering the election of
+Conservative delegates. Word was even spread among the peasants that
+the Congress would meet at Moghilev, and some delegates went there;
+but by November 23d about four hundred had gathered in Petrograd,
+and the party caucuses had begun....
+
+The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma
+building, and the first vote showed that more than half of all the
+delegates were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki
+controlled a bare fifth, the conservative Socialist Revolutionaries
+a quarter, and all the rest were united only in their opposition to
+the old Executive Committee, dominated by Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky
+and Peshekhonov....
+
+The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual
+clamour; deep, stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry
+groups. To the right was a sprinkling of officers' epaulettes, and
+the patriarchal, bearded faces of the older, more substantial
+peasants; in the centre were a few peasants, non-commissioned
+officers, and some soldiers; and on the left almost all the
+delegates wore the uniforms of common soldiers. These last were the
+young generation, who had been serving in the army.... The galleries
+were thronged with workers-who, in Russia, still remember their
+peasant origin....
+
+Unlike the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Executive Committee, in opening
+the session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the
+official Congress was called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of
+applause and angry cries, the speaker declared that this gathering
+was merely "Extraordinary Conference"... But the "Extraordinary
+Conference" soon showed its attitude toward the Executive Committee
+by electing as presiding officer Maria Spiridonova, leader of the
+Left Socialist Revolution aries.
+
+Most of the first day was taken up by a violent debate as to whether
+the representatives of _Volost_ Soviets should be seated, or only
+delegates from the Provincial bodies; and just as in the Workers'
+and Soldiers' Congress, an overwhelming majority declared in favour
+of the widest possible representation. Whereupon the old Executive
+Committee left the hall....
+
+Almost immediately it was evident that most of the delegates were
+hostile to the Government of the People's Commissars. Zinoviev,
+attempting to speak for the Bolsheviki, was hooted down, and as he
+left the platform, amid laughter, there were cries, "There's how a
+People's Commissar sits in a mudpuddle!"
+
+"We Left Socialist Revolutionaries refuse," cried Nazariev, a
+delegate from the Provinces, "to recognise this so-called Workers'
+and Peasants' Government until the peasants are represented in it.
+At present it is nothing but a dictatorship of the workers.... We
+insist upon the formation of a new Government which will represent
+the entire democracy!"
+
+The reactionary delegates shrewdly fostered this feeling, declaring,
+in the face of protests from the Bolshevik benches, that the Council
+of People's Commissars intended either to control the Congress or
+dissolve it by force of arms-an announcement which was received by
+the peasants with bursts of fury....
+
+On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes
+the room went mad. "Down with him!" they shrieked. "We will not
+listen to any of your People's Commissars! We don't recognise your
+Government!"
+
+Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands,
+his little eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally,
+except for the right side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself
+out somewhat.
+
+"I do not come here as a member of the Council of People's
+Commissars," said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside,
+"but as a member of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this
+Congress." And he held his credentials up to that all might see them.
+
+"However," he went on, in an unmoved voice, "nobody will deny that
+the present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik
+party-" he had to wait a moment, "so that for all purposes it is the
+same thing...." Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour,
+but the centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
+
+Lenin's argument was simple. "Tell me frankly, you peasants, to whom
+we have given the lands of the _pomieshtchiki;_ do you want now to
+prevent the workers from getting control of industry? This is class
+war. The _pomieshtchiki_ of course oppose the peasants, and the
+manufactures oppose the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of
+the proletariat to be divided? Which side will you be on?
+
+"We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat-of the peasant
+proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat. We, the
+Bolsheviki, are the protectors of the Soviets-of the Peasants'
+Soviets as well as those of the Workers and Soldiers. The present
+Government is a Government of Soviets; we have not only invited the
+Peasants' Soviets to join that Government, but we have also invited
+representatives of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter the
+Council of People's Commissars....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people-of
+the workers in the factories and mines, of the workers in the
+fields. Anybody who attempts to destroy the Soviets is guilty of an
+anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary act. And I serve notice
+here on you, comrades _Right_ Socialist Revolutionaries-and on you,
+Messrs. Cadets-that if the Constituent Assembly attempts to destroy
+the Soviets, we shall not permit the Constituent Assembly to do this
+thing!"
+
+On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from
+Moghilev, summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months
+before considered an extreme revolutionist, and very popular with
+the peasants, he was now called to check the dangerous drift of the
+Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival Tchernov was arrested and
+taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation, he was released.
+
+His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for
+leaving the Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered
+the hall, welcomed with great applause by the majority, and the
+hoots and jeers of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"Comrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the
+Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the
+Peasant delegates of the armies of the Western Front, and I know
+very little about the insurrection which occurred here--"
+
+Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, "Yes, you were away-for a
+few minutes!" Fearful tumult. Cries, "Down with the Bolsheviki!"
+
+Tchernov continued. "The accusation that I helped lead an army on
+Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such
+an accusation come from? Show me the source!"
+
+Zinoviev: "_Izviestia_ and _Dielo Naroda_-your own paper -that's
+where it comes from!"
+
+Tchernov's wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish
+beard, became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on.
+"I repeat, I know practically nothing about what has happened here,
+and I did not lead any army except this army, (he pointed to the
+peasant delegates), which I am largely responsible for bringing
+here!" Laughter, and shouts of "Bravo!"
+
+"Upon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made
+against me there.... After a brief conversation I left-and that's all!
+Let any one present make such an accusation!"
+
+An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking
+their fists and yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell
+them down.
+
+"This is an outrage, not a session!" cried Tchernov, and he left the
+hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorder....
+
+Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was
+agitating all minds. By declaring the assembly "Extraordinary
+Conference," it had been planned to block the reelection of the
+Executive Committee. But this worked both ways; the Left Socialist
+Revolutionists decided that if the Congress had no power over the
+Executive Committee, then the Executive Committee had no power over
+the Congress. On November 25th the assembly resolved that the powers
+of the Executive Committee be assumed by the Extraordinary
+Conference, in which only members of the Executive who had been
+elected as delegates might vote....
+
+The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki,
+the resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive
+Committee, whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in
+the assembly.
+
+On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed
+the differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the
+history of the Land question during the Revolution. The first
+Congress of Peasants' Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and
+formal resolution in favour of putting the landed estates
+immediately into the hands of the Land Committees. But the directors
+of the Revolution, and the bourgeois in the Government, had insisted
+that the question could not be solved until the Constituent Assembly
+met.... The second period of the Revolution, the period of
+"compromise,"was signalled by the entrance of Tchernov into the
+Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that now the practical solution
+of the Land question would begin; but in spite of the imperative
+decision of the first Peasant Congress, the reactionaries and
+conciliators in the Executive Committee had prevented any action.
+This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders, which appeared
+as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on the
+part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of
+the Revolution-they tried to turn words into action....
+
+"The recent events," said the orator, "do not indicate a simple
+riot, or a 'Bolshevik adventure,' but on the contrary, a real
+popular rising, which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole
+country....
+
+"The Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land
+question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by
+force, they committed a profound error.... From the first days, the
+Bolsheviki declared that the peasants should take over the land 'by
+revolutionary massaction.' This is nothing but anarchy; the land can
+be taken over in an organised manner.... For the Bolsheviki it was
+important that the problems of the Revolution should be solved in
+the quickest possible manner-but the Bolsheviki were not interested
+in _how_ these problems were to be solved....
+
+"The Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its
+fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasants' Congress. Why
+then did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that
+Congress? Because the Council of People's Commissars wanted to
+hasten the settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent
+Assembly would have nothing to do....
+
+"But also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt
+practical measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the
+Regulations for Land Committees, thus creating a strange situation;
+for the Council of People's Commissars abolished private property in
+land, but the Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based
+on private property.... However, no harm has been done by that; for
+the Land Committees are paying no attention to the Soviet decrees,
+but are putting into operation their own practical
+decisions-decisions based on the will of the vast majority of the
+peasants....
+
+"These Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution
+of the Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly
+alone.... But will the Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of
+the Russian peasants? Of that we cannot be sure.... All we can be sure
+of is that the revolutionary determination of the peasants is now
+aroused, and that the Constituent will be _forced_ to settle the
+Land question the way the peasants want it settled.... The Constituent
+Assembly will not dare to break with the will of the people...."
+
+Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. "At
+this moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but
+the question of Social Revolution-not only here in Russia, but all
+over the world. The Land question cannot be solved independently of
+the other problems of the Social Revolution.... For example, the
+confiscation of the landed estates will provoke the resistance not
+only of Russian land-owners, but also of foreign capital-with whom
+the great landed properties are connected through the intermediary
+of the banks....
+
+"The ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense
+oppression, and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the
+most important step of our Revolution. But it cannot be separated
+from the other steps, as is clearly manifested by the stages through
+which the Revolution has had to pass. The first stage was the
+crushing of autocracy and the crushing of the power of the
+industrial capitalists and land-owners, whose interests are closely
+related. The second stage was the strengthening of the Soviets and
+the political compromise with the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries lies in the fact that at that time
+they did not oppose the policy of compromise, because they held the
+theory that the consciousness of the masses was not yet fully
+developed....
+
+_"If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual
+development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see
+Socialism for at least five hundred years_.... The Socialist political
+party-this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow
+itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average,
+but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of
+revolutionary initiative.... But in order to lead the wavering, the
+comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries themselves must stop
+hesitating....
+
+"In July last a series of open breaks began between the popular
+masses and the 'compromisers'; but now, in November, the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to
+Avksentiev, who is pulling the people with his little finger.... If
+Compromise continues, the Revolution disappears. No compromise with
+the bourgeoisie is possible; its power must be absolutely crushed....
+
+"We Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not
+given up the abolition of private property in the land, and we do
+not intend to do so. We adopted the Regulations for Land
+Committees,-which are _not_ based on private property at all-because
+we want to accomplish the popular will in the way the people have
+themselves decided to do it, so as to draw closer the coalition of
+all the elements who are fighting for the Social Revolution.
+
+"We invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that
+coalition, insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and
+that they break with the 'conciliators' of their party....
+
+"As far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the
+preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will
+depend on the revolutionary determination of the masses. I say,
+'Count on that revolutionary determination, but don't forget your
+gun!'"
+
+Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The Peasants' Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November
+8th... approves of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government
+of the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+The Peasants' Congress... invites all peasants unanimously to sustain
+that law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same
+time invites the peasants to appoint to posts and positions of
+responsibility only persons who have proved, not by words but by
+acts, their entire devotion to the interests of the exploited
+peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend these
+interests against all resistance on the part of the great
+land-owners, the capitalists, their partisans and accomplices....
+
+The Peasants' Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction
+that the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the
+Land decree can only be successful through the triumph of the
+Workers' Social Revolution, which began November 7th, 1917; for only
+the Social Revolution can accomplish the definite transfer, without
+possibility of return, of the land to the peasant-workers, the
+confiscation of model farms and their surrender to the peasant
+communes, the confiscation of agricultural machinery belonging to
+the great land-owners, the safe-guarding of the interests of the
+agricultural workers by the complete abolition of wage-slavery, the
+regular and methodical distribution among all regions of Russia of
+the products of agriculture and industry, and the seizure of the
+banks (without which the possession of land by the whole people
+would be impossible, after the abolition of private property), and
+all sorts of assistance by the State to the workers....
+
+For these reasons the Peasants' Congress sustains entirely the
+Revolution of November 7th... as a social revolution, and expresses
+its unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever
+modifications are necessary, but without any hesitation, the social
+transformation of the Russian Republic.
+
+The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social
+Revolution, which alone will secure the lasting success and the
+complete realisation of the Land decree, is the close union of the
+peasant-workers with the industrial working-class, with the
+proletariat of all advanced countries. From now on, in the Russian
+Republic, all the organisation and administration of the State, from
+top to bottom, must rest on that union. That union, crushing all
+attempts, direct or indirect, open or dissimulated, to return to the
+policy of conciliation with the bourgeoisie-conciliation, damned by
+experience, with the chiefs of bourgeois politics-can alone insure
+the victory of Socialism throughout the world....
+
+The reactionaries of the Executive Committee no longer dared openly
+to appear. Tchernov, however, spoke several times, with a modest and
+winning impartiality. He was invited to sit on the platform.... On the
+second night of the Congress an anonymous note was handed up to the
+chairman, requesting that Tchernov be made honorary President.
+Ustinov read the note aloud, and immediately Zinoviev was on his
+feet, screaming that this was a trick of the old Executive Committee
+to capture the convention; in a moment the hall was one bellowing
+mass of waving arms and angry faces, on both sides.... Nevertheless,
+Tchernov remained very popular.
+
+In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution,
+the Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly,
+both times restrained by their leaders.... It seemed to me as if the
+Congress were hopelessly deadlocked.
+
+But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already
+going on between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Bolsheviki at Smolny. At first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+had demanded that there be a Government composed of all the
+Socialist parties in and out of the Soviets, to be responsible to a
+People's Council, composed of an equal number of delegates from the
+Workers' and Soldiers' organisation, and that of the Peasants, and
+completed by representatives of the City Dumas and the Zemstvos;
+Lenin and Trotzky were to be eliminated, and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee and other repressive organs dissolved.
+
+Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night
+struggle, an agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of
+108 members, was to be augumented by 108 members elected
+proportionally from the Peasants' Congress; by 100 delegates elected
+directly from the Army and the Fleet; and by 50 representatives of
+the Trade Unions (35 from the general Unions, 10 Railway Workers,
+and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos
+were dropped. Lenin and Trotzky remained in the Government, and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee continued to function.
+
+The sessions of the Congress had now been removed to the Imperial
+Law School building, Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants'
+Soviets. There in the great meeting-hall the delegates gathered on
+Wednesday afternoon. The old Executive Committee had withdrawn, and
+was holding a rump convention of its own in another room of the same
+building, made up of bolting delegates and representatives of the
+Army Committees.
+
+Tchernov went from one meeting to the other, keeping a watchful eye
+on the proceedings. He knew that an agreement with the Bolsheviki
+was being discussed, but he did not know that it had been concluded.
+
+He spoke to the rump convention. "At present, when everybody is in
+favour of forming an all-Socialist Government, many people forget
+the first Ministry, which was _not_ a coalition Government, and in
+which there was only one Socialist-Kerensky; a Government which, in
+its time, was very popular. Now people accuse Kerensky; they forget
+that he was raised to power, not only by the Soviets, but also by
+the popular masses....
+
+"Why did public opinion change toward Kerensky? The savages set up
+gods to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their
+prayers is not answered.... That is what is happening at this moment....
+Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotzky; another to-morrow....
+
+"We have proposed to both Kerensky and the Bolsheviki to retire from
+the power. Kerensky has accepted-to-day he announced from his
+hiding-place that he has resigned as Premier; but the Bolsheviki
+wish to retain the power, and they do not know how to use it....
+
+"If the Bolsheviki succeed, or if they fail, the fate of Russia will
+not be changed. The Russian villages understand perfectly what they
+want, and they are now carrying out their own measures.... The
+villages will save us in the end...."
+
+In the meanwhile, in the great hall Ustinov had announced the
+agreement between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny, received by the
+delegates with the wildest joy. Suddenly Tchernov appeared, and
+demanded the floor.
+
+"I understand," he began, "that an agreement is being concluded
+between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny. Such an agreement would
+be illegal, seeing that the true Congress of Peasants' Soviets does
+not meet until next week....
+
+"Moreover, I want to warn you now that the Bolsheviki will never
+accept your demands...."
+
+He was interrupted by a great burst of laughter; and realising the
+situation, he left the platform and the room, taking his popularity
+with him....
+
+Late in the afternoon of Thursday, November 16th, the Congress met
+in extraordinary session. There was a holiday feeling in the air; on
+every face was a smile.... The remainder of the business before the
+assembly was hurried through, and then old Nathanson, the
+white-bearded dean of the left wing of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries, his voice trembling and tears in his eyes, read the
+report of the "wedding" of the Peasants' Soviets with the Workers'
+and Soldiers' Soviets. At every mention of the word "union" there
+was ecstatic applause.... At the end Ustinov announced the arrival
+rival of a delegation from Smolny, accompanied by representatives of
+the Red Army, greeted with a rising ovation. One after another a
+workman, a soldier and a sailor took the floor, hailing them.
+
+Then Boris Reinstein, delegate of the American Socialist Labor
+Party: "The day of the union of the Congress of Peasants and the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is one of the great days
+of the Revolution. The sound of it will ring with resounding echoes
+throughout the whole world-in Paris, in London, and across the
+ocean-in New York. This union will fill with happiness the hearts of
+all toilers.
+
+"A great idea has triumphed. The West, and America, expected from
+Russia, from the Russian proletariat, something tremendous.... The
+proletariat of the world is waiting for the Russian Revolution,
+waiting for the great things that it is accomplishing...."
+
+Sverdlov, president of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ greeted them. And with the
+shout, "Long live the end of civil war! Long live the United
+Democracy!" the peasants poured out of the building.
+
+It was already dark, and on the ice-covered snow glittered the pale
+light of moon and star. Along the bank of the canal were drawn up in
+full marching order the soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment, with
+their band, which broke into the _Marseillaise._ Amid the crashing
+full-throated shouts of the soldiers, the peasants formed in line,
+unfurling the great red banner of the Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian Peasants' Soviets, embroidered newly in gold, "Long live
+the union of the revolutionary and toiling masses!" Following were
+other banners; of the District Soviets-of Putilov Factory, which
+read, "We bow to this flag in order to create the brotherhood of all
+people!"
+
+From somewhere torches appeared, blazing orange in the night, a
+thousand times reflected in the facets of the ice, streaming out
+smokily over the throng as it moved down the bank of the Fontanka
+singing, between crowds that stood in astonished silence.
+
+"Long live the Revolutionary Army! Long live the Red Guard! Long
+live the Peasants!"
+
+So the great procession wound through the city, growing and
+unfurling ever new red banners lettered in gold. Two old peasants,
+bowed with toil, were walking hand in hand, their faces illumined
+with child-like bliss.
+
+"Well," said one, "I'd like to see them take away our land again,
+_now!_
+
+Near Smolny the Red Guard was lined up on both sides of the street,
+wild with delight. The other old peasant spoke to his comrade, "I am
+not tired," he said. "I walked on air all the way!"
+
+On the steps of Smolny about a hundred Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies were massed, with their banner, dark against the blaze of
+light streaming out between the arches. Like a wave they rushed
+down, clasping the peasants in their arms and kissing them; and the
+procession poured in through the great door and up the stairs, with
+a noise like thunder....
+
+In the immense white meeting-room the _Tsay-ee-kah_ was waiting,
+with the whole Petrograd Soviet and a thousand spectators beside,
+with that solemnity which attends great conscious moments in history.
+
+Zinoviev announced the agreement with the Peasants' Congress, to a
+shaking roar which rose and burst into storm as the sound of music
+blared down the corridor, and the head of the procession came in. On
+the platform the presidium rose and made place for the Peasants'
+presidium, the two embracing; behind them the two banners were
+intertwined against the white wall, over the empty frame from which
+the Tsar's picture had been torn....
+
+Then opened the "triumphal session." After a few words of welcome
+from Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and
+hair drawn flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher,
+took the tribune-the most loved and the most powerful woman in all
+Russia.
+
+"... Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has
+never known.... All workers' movements in the past have been defeated.
+But the present movement is international, and that is why it is
+invincible. There is no force in the world which can put out the
+fire of the Revolution! The old world crumbles down, the new world
+begins...."
+
+Then Trotzky, full of fire: "I wish you welcome, comrades peasants!
+You come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which
+holds the heart of the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of
+workers is now concentrated in this hall.... There is now only one
+master of the Russian land: the union of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants...."
+
+With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats,
+till then contemptuous of Russia's invitation to an armistice, which
+had been accepted by the Central Powers.
+
+"A new humanity will be born of this war.... In this hall we swear to
+workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are
+broken, then it will be in defending our flag...."
+
+Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where
+Dukhonin was preparing to resist the Council of People's Commissars.
+"Let Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not
+deal gently with those who bar the road to peace!"
+
+Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and
+Krushinsky, member of the _Vikzhel,_ said, "From this moment, when
+the union of all true Socialists is realised, the whole army of
+railway workers places itself absolutely at the disposition of the
+revolutionary democracy!" And Lunatcharsky, almost weeping, and
+Proshian, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and finally
+Saharashvili, for the United Social Democrats Internationalists,
+composed of members of the Martov's and of Gorky's groups, who
+declared:
+
+"We left the _Tsay-ee-kah_ because of the uncompromising policy of
+the Bolsheviki, and to force them to make concessions in order to
+realise the union of all the revolutionary democracy. Now that that
+union is brought about, we consider it a sacred duty to take our
+places once more in the _Tsay-ee-kah_.... We declare that all those
+who have withdrawn from the _Tsay-ee-kah_ should now return."
+
+Stachkov, a dignified old peasant of the presidium of the Peasants'
+Congress, bowed to the four corners of the room. "I greet you with
+the christening of a new Russian life and freedom!"
+
+Gronsky, in the name of the Polish Social Democracy; Skripnik, for
+the Factory-Shop Committees; Tifonov, for the Russian soldiers at
+Salonika; and others, interminably, speaking out of full hearts,
+with the happy eloquence of hopes fulfilled....
+It was late in the night when the following resolution was put and
+passed unanimously:
+
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ united in extraordinary session with the
+Petrograd Soviet and the Peasants' Congress, confirms the Land and
+Peace decrees adopted by the second Congress of Soviets of Workers'
+and Soldiers' Deputies, and also the decree on Workers' Control
+adopted by the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+"The joint session of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Peasants' Congress
+expresses its firm conviction that the union of workers, soldiers
+and peasants, this fraternal union of all the workers and all
+exploited, will consolidate the power conquered by them, that it
+will take all revolutionary measures to hasten the passing of the
+power into the hands of the working-class in other countries, and
+that it will assure in this manner the lasting accomplishment of a
+just peace and the victory of Socialism."(See App. XI, Sect. 2)
+
+                        APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
+
+                                 1.
+
+_Oborontsi_��Defenders.� All the �moderate� Socialist groups adopted
+or were given this name, because they consented to the continuation
+of the war under Allied leadership, on the ground that it was a war
+of National Defence. The Bolsheviki, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, the Mensheviki Internationalists (Martov�s faction),
+and the Social Democrats Internationalists (Gorky�s group) were in
+favour of forcing the Allies to declare democratic war-aims, and to
+offer peace to Germany on those terms�.
+
+                                  2.
+
+        WAGES AND COST OF LIVING BEFORE AND DURING THE REVOLUTION
+
+The following tables of wages and costs were compiled, in October,
+1917, by a joint Committee from the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and
+the Moscow section of the Ministry of Labour, and published in
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ October 26th, 1917:
+
+                _Wages Per Day_�(_Rubles and kopeks_)
+
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| _Trade_                | _July_ 1914 | _July_ 1916 | _August_ 1917 |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Carpenter,             | 1.60�2.     | 4.�6.       | 8.50          |
+| Cabinet-maker          |             |             |               |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Terrassier             | 1.30�1.50   | 3.�3.50     |               |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Mason, plasterer       | 1.70�2.35   | 4.�6.       | 8.            |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Painter, upholsterer   | 1.80�2.20   | 3.�5.50     | 8.            |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Blacksmith             | 1.�2.25     | 4.�5.       | 8.50          |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Chimney-sweep          | 1.50�2.     | 4.�5.50     | 7.50          |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Locksmith              | .90�2.      | 3.50�6.     | 9.            |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+| Helper                 | 1.�1.50     | 2.50�4.50   | 8.            |
++------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+
+In spite of numerous stories of gigantic advances in wages
+immediately following the Revolution of March, 1917, these figures,
+which were published by the Ministry of Labour as characteristic of
+conditions all over Russia, show that wages did not rise immediately
+after the Revolution, but little by little. On an average, wages
+increased slightly more than 500 per cent�.
+
+But at the same time the value of the ruble fell to less than
+one-third its former purchasing power, and the cost of the
+necessities of life increased enormously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow,
+where food was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd:
+
+_Cost of Food�(Rubles and Kopeks)_
+
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ |             | _August_ 1914 | _August_ 1917 | _% Increase_ |     |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Black bread | _(Fund)_      | .02 1/2       | .12          | 330 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | White bread | _(Fund)_      | .05           | .20          | 300 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Beef        | _(Fund)_      | .22           | 1.10         | 400 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Veal        | _(Fund)_      | .26           | 2.15         | 727 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Pork        | _(Fund)_      | .23           | 2.           | 770 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Herring     | _(Fund)_      | .06           | .52          | 767 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Cheese      | _(Fund)_      | .40           | 3.50         | 754 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Butter      | _(Fund)_      | .48           | 3.20         | 557 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Eggs        | (Doz.)        | .30           | 1.60         | 443 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+ | Milk        | _(Krushka)_   | .07           | .40          | 471 |
+ +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+
+On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent
+more than wages.
+
+As for the other necessities, the price of these increased
+tremendously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the
+Moscow Soviet of Workers� Deputies, and accepted as correct by the
+Ministry of Supplies of the Provisional Government.
+
+        _Cost of Other Necessities_�(_Rubles and Kopeks_)
+
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+|             | _August_ 1914 | _August_    | _%          |          |
+|             |               | 1917        | Increase_   |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Calico      | _(Arshin)_    | .11         | 1.40        | 1173     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Cotton      | _(Arshin)_    | .15         | 2.          | 1233     |
+| cloth       |               |             |             |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Dress Goods | _(Arshin)_    | 2.          | 40.         | 1900     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Castor      | _(Arshin)_    | 6.          | 80.         | 1233     |
+| Cloth       |               |             |             |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Men�s Shoes | (Pair)        | 12.         | 144.        | 1097     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Sole        |               | 20.         | 400.        | 1900     |
+| Leather     |               |             |             |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Rubbers     | (Pair)        | 2.50        | 15.         | 500      |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Men�s       | (Suit)        | 40.         | 400. �455.  | 900�1109 |
+| Clothing    |               |             |             |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Tea         | _(Fund)_      | 4.50        | 18.         | 300      |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Matches     | (Carton)      | .10         | .50         | 400      |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Soap        | _(Pood)_      | 4.50        | 40.         | 780      |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Gasoline    | _(Vedro)_     | 1.70        | 11.         | 547      |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Candles     | _(Pood)_      | 8.50        | 100.        | 1076     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Caramel     | _(Fund)_      | .30         | 4.50        | 1400     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Fire Wood   | (Load)        | 10.         | 120.        | 1100     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Charcoal    |               | .80         | 13.         | 1525     |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+| Sundry      |               | 1.          | 20.         | 1900     |
+| Metal Ware  |               |             |             |          |
++-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+
+On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about
+1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries.
+The difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and
+merchants.
+
+In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily
+wage of a skilled industrial worker�for example, a steel-worker in
+the Putilov Factory�was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits
+were enormous�. I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton
+Woollen Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that
+while wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his
+profits had gone up _900 per cent._
+
+                                 3.
+
+                        THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
+
+The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional
+Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the
+bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in
+politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon:
+
+�The capitalists, � seeing that the position of the Government was
+untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades
+practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally
+overpower the working-class. This method is the so-called �Coalition
+Ministry,� composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist
+camp.
+
+�In those countries where political freedom and democracy have
+existed side by side with the revolutionary movement of the
+workers�for example in England and France�the capitalists make use of
+this subterfuge, and very successfully too. The �Socialist� leaders,
+upon entering the Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads,
+puppets, simply a shield for the capitalists, a tool with which to
+defraud the workers. The �democratic� and �republican� capitalists in
+Russia set in motion this very same scheme. The Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Mensheviki fell victim to it, and on June 1st a
+�Coalition� Ministry, with the participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli,
+Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny and Nikitin became an
+accomplished fact�.��_Problems of the Revolution._
+
+                                 4.
+
+                SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
+
+In the first week of October, 1917, _Novaya Zhizn_ published the
+following comparative table of election results, pointing out that
+this meant the bankruptcy of the policy of Coalition with the
+propertied classes. �If civil war can yet be avoided, it can only be
+done by a united front of all the revolutionary democracy�.�
+
+_Elections for the Moscow Central and Ward Dumas_. Reed, John. 1922.
+Ten Days That Shook the World
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+      | _June_ 1917_September_ 1917 |            |            |
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+      | Socialist Revolutionaries   | 58 Members | 14 Members |
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+      | Cadets                      | 17 Members | 30 Members |
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+      | Mensheviki                  | 12 Members | 4 Members  |
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+      | Bolsheviki                  | 11 Members | 47 Members |
+      +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+
+                                 5.
+
+                GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE REACTIONARIES
+
+September 18th. The Cadet Shulgin, writing in a Kiev newspaper, said
+that the Provisional Government�s declaration that Russia was a
+Republic constituted a gross abuse of its powers. �We cannot admit
+either a Republic, or the present Republican Government�. And we are
+not sure that we want a Republic in Russia�.�
+
+October 23d. At a meeting of the Cadet party held at Riazan, M.
+Dukhonin declared, �On March 1st we must establish a Constitutional
+Monarchy. We must not reject the legitimate heir to the throne,
+Mikhail Alexandrovitch�.�
+
+October 27th. Resolution passed by the Conference of Business Men at
+Moscow:
+
+�The Conference� insists that the Provisional Government take the
+following immediate measures in the Army:
+
+�1. Forbidding of all political propaganda; the Army must be out of
+politics.
+
+�2. Propaganda of antinational and international ideas and theories
+deny the necessity for armies, and hurt discipline; it should be
+forbidden, and all propagandists punished�.
+
+�3. The function of the Army Committees must be limited to economic
+questions exclusively. All their decisions should be confirmed by
+their superior officers, who have the right to dissolve the
+Committees at any time�.
+
+�4. The salute to be reestablished, and made obligatory. Full
+reestablishment of disciplinary power in the hands of officers, with
+right of review of sentence�.
+
+�5. Expulsion from the Corps of Officers of those who dishonour it by
+participating in the movement of the soldier-masses, which teaches
+them disobedience�. Reestablishment for this purpose of the Courts of
+Honor�.
+
+�6. The Provisional Government should take the necessary measures to
+make possible the return to the army of Generals and other officers
+unjustly discharged under the influence of Committees, and other
+irresponsible organisations�.�
+
+
+                       APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II
+
+                                 1.
+
+The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming volume,
+�Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.� The responsibility of Kerensky for the
+situation which gave rise to Kornilov�s attempt is now pretty clearly
+established. Many apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of
+Kornilov�s plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then
+crushed him. Even Mr. A. J. Sack, in his book, �The Birth of the
+Russian Democracy,� says:
+
+�Several things� are almost certain. The first is that Kerensky knew
+about the movement of several detachments from the Front toward
+Petrograd, and it is possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of
+War, realising the growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them�.�
+
+The only flaw in that argument is that there was no �Bolshevist
+danger� at that time, the Bolsheviki still being a powerless minority
+in the Soviets, and their leaders in jail or hiding.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                        DEMOCRATIC CONFERENCE
+
+When the Democratic Conference was first proposed to Kerensky, he
+suggested an assembly of all the elements in the nation��the live
+forces,� as he called them�including bankers, manufacturers,
+land-owners, and representatives of the Cadet party. The Soviet
+refused, and drew up the following table of representation, which
+Kerensky agreed to:
+
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers� and Soldiers�         |
+|               | Deputies                                           |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Peasants� Deputies             |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 50 delegates  | Provincial Soviets Workers� and Soldiers� Deputies |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 50 delegates  | Peasants� District Land Committees                 |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 100 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 84 delegates  | Army Committees at the Front                       |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 150 delegates | Workers� and Peasants� Cooperative Societies       |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 20 delegates  | Railway Workers� Union                             |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 10 delegates  | Post and Telegraph Workers� Union                  |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 20 delegates  | Commercial Clerks                                  |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 15 delegates  | Liberal Professions�Doctors, Lawyers,              |
+|               | Journalists, etc.                                  |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 50 delegates  | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 59 delegates  | Nationalist Organisations�Poles, Ukraineans, etc.  |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final
+disposition of delegates was:
+
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 300 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers�, Soldiers� &          |
+|               | Peasants� Deputies                                 |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 300 delegates | Cooperative Societies                              |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 300 delegates | Municipalities                                     |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 150 delegates | Army Committees at the Front                       |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 150 delegates | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 200 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 100 delegates | Nationalist Organisations                          |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+| 200 delegates | Several small groups                               |
++---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+                                 3.
+
+                THE FUNCTION OF THE SOVIETS IS ENDED
+
+On September 28th, 1917, _Izviestia,_ organ of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional
+Ministry:
+
+�At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all
+classes of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future
+liberal parliamentary r�gime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the
+Constituent Assembly, which will solve all questions of fundamental
+law, and whose composition will be essentially democratic. The
+function of the Soviets is at an end, and the time is approaching
+when they must retire, with the rest of the revolutionary machinery,
+from the stage of a free and victorious people, whose weapons shall
+hereafter be the peaceful ones of political action.�
+
+The leading article of _Izviestia_ for October 23d was called, �The
+Crisis in the Soviet Organisations.� It began by saying that
+travellers reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere.
+�This is natural,� said the writer. �For the people are becoming
+interested in the more permanent legislative organs�the Municipal
+Dumas and the Zemstvs�.
+
+�In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets
+were best organised, they did not take in all the democratic
+elements�. The majority of the intellectuals did not participate, and
+many workers also; some of the workers because they were politically
+backward, others because the centre of gravity for them was in their
+Unns�. We cannot deny that these organisations are firmly united with
+the masses, whose everyday needs are better served by them�.
+
+�That the local democratic administrations are being energetically
+organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by
+universal suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority
+than the Soviets. Not a single democrat will see anything wrong in
+this�.
+
+�� Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and
+more democratic way than the elections to the Soviets� All classes
+are represented in the Municipalities�. And as soon as the local
+Self-Governments begin to organise life in the Municipalities, the
+r�le of the local Soviets naturally ends�.
+
+�� There are two factors in the falling off of interest in the
+Soviets. The first we may attribute to the lowering of political
+interest in the masses; the second, to the growing effort of
+provincial and local governing bodies to organise the building of new
+Russia�. The more the tendency lies in this latter direction, the
+sooner disappears the significance of the Soviets�.
+
+�We ourselves are being called the �undertakers� of our own
+organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in
+constructing the new Russia�.
+
+�When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic r�gimeell, we set up the
+Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary
+shelter. Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent
+edifice of a new system, and naturally the people will gradually
+leave the barracks for more comfortable quarters.�
+
+                                 4.
+
+        TROTZKY�S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIN REPUBLIC
+
+�The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ was to do away with the irresponsible personal
+government which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible
+government which would be capable of finishing the war, and ensure
+the calling of the Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the
+meanwhile behind the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery,
+by deals between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the
+Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the
+opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power was
+created around which and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs
+playing leading parts. The irresponsibility of the Government is
+offically proclaimed, when it is announced that the Council of the
+Russian Republic is to be a _consultative_ and not _legislative_
+body. In the eighth month of the Revolution, the irresponsible
+Government creates a cover for itself in this new edition of
+Bieligen�s Duma.
+
+�The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a
+proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country,
+that many of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the
+Cadet party, which until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government
+to be responsible to the State Duma�this same Cadet party secured the
+independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have as
+favourable position than they have in this Council, and they will not
+be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+�If the propertied classes were really getting ready for the
+Constituent Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no reason for
+establishing the irresponsibility of the Government at this time. The
+whole truth is that the bourgeoisie, which directs the policies of
+the Provisional Government, has for its aim to break the Constituent
+Assembly. At present this is the main purpose of the propertied
+classes, which control our entire national policy�external and
+internal. In the industrial, agrarian and supply departments the
+politics of the propertied classes, acting with the Government,
+increases the natural disorganisation caused by the war. The
+propertied classes, which are provoking a peasants� revolt! The
+propertied classes, which are provoking civil war, and openly hold
+their course on the bony hand of hunger, with which they intend to
+overthrow the Revolution and finish with the Constituent Assembly!
+
+�No less criminal also is the international policy of the bourgeoisie
+and its Government. After forty months of war, the capital is
+threatened with mortal danger. In reply to this arises a plan to move
+the Government to Moscow. The idea of abandoning the capital does not
+stir the indignation of the bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is
+accepted as a natural part of the general policy designed to promote
+counter-revolutionary conspiracy. � Instead of recognising that the
+salvation of the country lies in concluding peace, instead of
+throwing openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out
+peoples, over the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the
+continuation of the war impossible,�the Provisional Government, by
+order of the Cadets, the Counter-Revolutionists and the Allied
+Imperialists, without sense, without purpose and without a plan,
+continues to drag on the murderous war, sentencing to useless death
+new hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors, and preparing to
+give up Petrograd, and to wreck the Revolution. At a time when
+Bolshevik soldiers and sailors are dying with other soldiers and
+sailors as a result of the mistakes and crimes of others, the
+so-called Supreme Commander (Kerensky) continues to suppress the
+Bolshevik press. The leading parties of the Council are acting as a
+voluntary cover for these policies.
+
+�We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce that with
+this Government of Treason to the People we have nothing in common.
+We have nothing in common with the work of these Murderers of the
+People which goes on behind official curtains. We refuse either
+directly or indirectly to cover up one day of this work. While
+Wilhelm�s troops are threatening Petrograd, the Government of
+Kerensky and Kornilov is preparing to run away from Petrograd and
+turn Moscow into a base of counter-revolution!
+
+�We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their guard.
+Leaving this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom of the
+workers, peasants and soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd is in danger!
+The Revolution is in danger! The Government has increased the
+danger�the ruling classes intensify it. Only the people themselves
+can save themselves and the country.
+
+�We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest, democratic
+peace! All power to the Soviets! All land to the people! Long live
+the Constituent Assembly!�
+
+                                 5.
+
+                        THE �NAKAZ� TO SKOBELIEV
+                                _Resum�_
+
+(Passed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and given to Skobeliev as an instruction
+for the representative of the Russian Revolutionary democracy at the
+Paris Conference.)
+
+The peace treaty must be based on the principle, �No annexations, no
+indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples.�
+
+                _Territorial Problems_
+
+(1) Evacuation of German troops from invaded Russia. Full right of
+self-determination to Poland, Lithuania and Livonia.
+
+(2) For Turkish Armenia autonomy, and later complete
+self-determination, as soon as local Governments are established.
+
+(3) The question of Alsace-Lorraine to be solved by a plebiscite,
+after the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
+
+(4) Belgium to be restored. Compensation for damages from an
+international fund.
+
+(5) Serbia and Montenegro to be restored, and aided by an
+international relief fund. Serbia to have an outlet on the Adriatic.
+Bosnia and Herzegovina to be autonomous.
+
+(6) The disputed provinces in the Balkans to have provisional
+autonomy, followed by a plebiscite.
+
+(7) Rumania to be restored, but forced to give complete
+self-determination to the Dobrudja�. Rumania must be forced to
+execute the clauses of the Berlin Treaty concerning the Jews, and
+recognise them as Rumanian citizens.
+
+(8) In Italia Irridenta a provisional autonomy, followed by a
+plebiscite to determine state dependence.
+
+(9) The German colonies to be returned.
+
+(10) Greece and Persia to be restored.
+
+                _Freedom of the Seas_
+
+All straits opening into inland seas, as well as the Suez and Panama
+Canals, are to be neutralised. Commercial shipping to be free. The
+right of privateering to be abolished. The torpedoing of commercial
+ships to be forbidden.
+
+                _Indemnities_
+
+All combatants to renounce demands for any indemnities, either direct
+or indirect�as, for instance, charges for the maintenance of
+prisoners. Indemnities and contributions collected during the war
+must be refunded.
+
+                _Economic Terms_
+
+Commercial treaties are not to be a part of the peace terms. Every
+country must be independent in its commercial relations, and must not
+be obliged to, or prevented from, concluding an economic treaty, by
+the Treaty of Peace. Nevertheless, all nations should bind
+themselves, by the Peace Treaty, not to practise an economic blockade
+after the war, nor to form separate tariff agreements. The right of
+most favoured nation must be given to all countries without
+distinction.
+
+                _Guarantees of Peace_
+
+Peace is to be concluded at the Peace Conference by delegates elected
+by the national representative institutions of each country. The
+peace terms are to be confirmed by these parliaments.
+
+Secret diplomacy is to be abolished; all parties are to bind
+themselves not to conclude any secret treaties. Such treaties are
+declared in contradiction to international law, and void. All
+treaties, until confirmed by the parliaments of the different
+nations, are to be considered void.
+
+Gradual disarmament both on land and sea, and the establishment of a
+militia system. The �League of Nations� advanced by President Wilson
+may become a valuable aid to international law, provided that (a),
+all nations are to be obliged to participate in it with equal rights,
+and (b), international politics are to be democratised.
+
+                _Ways to Peace_
+
+The Allies are to announce immediately that they are willing to open
+peace negotiations as soon as the enemy powers declare their consent
+to the renunciation of all forcible annexations.
+
+The Allies must bind themselves not to begin any peace negotiations,
+nor to conclude peace, except in a general Peace Conference with the
+participation of delegates from all the neutral countries.
+
+All obstacles to the Stockholm Socialist Conference are to be
+removed, and passports are to be given immediately to all delegates
+of parties and organisations who wish to participate.
+
+(The Executive Committee of the Peasants� Soviets also issued a
+_nakaz,_ which differs little from the above.)
+
+                                 6.
+
+                        PEACE AT RUSSIA�S EXPENSE
+
+The Ribot revelations of Austria�s peace-offer to France; the
+so-called �Peace Conference� at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer
+of 1917, in which delegates participated from all belligerent
+countries, representing large financial interests in all these
+countries; and the attempted negotiations of an English agent with a
+Bulgarian church dignitary; all pointed to the fact that there were
+strong currents, on both sides, favourable to patching up a peace at
+the expense of Russia. In my next book, �Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,�
+I intend to treat this matter at some length, publishing several
+secret documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at
+Petrograd.
+
+                                 7.
+
+                     RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE
+
+_Official Report of the Provisional Government._
+
+�From the time the news of the Russian Revolution reached Paris,
+Russian newspapers of extreme tendencies immediately began to appear;
+and these newspapers, as well as individuals, freely circulated among
+the soldier masses and began a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading
+false news which appeared in the French journals. In the absence of
+all official news, and of precise details, this campaign provoked
+discontent among the soldiers. The result was a desire to return to
+Russia, and a hatred toward the officers.
+
+�Finally it all turned into rebellion. In one of their meetings, the
+soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to drill, since they had decided
+to fight no more. It was decided to isolate the rebels, and General
+Zankievitch ordered all soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government
+to leave the camp of Courtine, and to carry with them all ammunition.
+On June 25th the order was executed; there remained at the camp only
+the soldiers who said they would submit �conditionally� to the
+Provisional Government. The soldiers at the camp of Courtine received
+several times the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian
+Armies abroad, of Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and of
+several distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them, but
+these attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp insisted
+that the rebels lay down their arms, and, in sign of submission,
+march in good order to a place called Clairvaux. The order was only
+partially obeyed; first 500 men went out, of whom 22 were arrested;
+24 hours later about 6,000 followed�. About 2,000 remained�.
+
+�It was decided to increase the pressure; their rations were
+diminished, their pay was cut off, and the roads toward the village
+of Courtine were guarded by French soldiers. General Zankievitch,
+having discovered that a Russian artillery brigade was passing
+through France, decided to form a mixed detachment of infantry and
+artillery to reduce the rebels. A deputation  was sent to the rebels;
+the deputation returned several hours later, convinced of the
+futility of the negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch
+sent an ultimatum to the rebels demanding that they lay down their
+arms, and menacing in case of refusal to open fire with artillery if
+the order was not obeyed by September 3d at 10 o�clock.
+
+�The order not being executed, a light fire of artillery was opened
+on the place at the hour agreed upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and
+the rebels were warned that the bombardment would become more
+intense. In the night of September 3d 160 men surrendered. September
+4th the artillery bombardment recommenced, and at 11 o�clock, after
+36 shells had been fired, the rebels raised two white flags and began
+to leave the camp without arms. By evening 8,300 men had surrendered.
+150 soldiers who remained in the camp opened fire with machine-guns
+that night. The 5th of September, to make an end of the affair, a
+heavy barrage was laid on the camp, and our soldiers occupied it
+little by little. The rebels kept up a heavy fire with their
+machine-guns. September 6th, at 9 o�clock, the camp was entirely
+occupied�. After the disarmament of the rebels, 81 arrests were
+made�.�
+
+Thus the report. From secret documents discovered in the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs, however, we know that the account is not strictly
+accurate. The first trouble arose when the soldiers tried to form
+Committees, as their comrades in Russia were doing. They demanded to
+be sent back to Russia, which was refused; and then, being considered
+a dangerous influence in France, they were ordered to Salonika. They
+refused to go, and the battle followed�. It was discovered that they
+had been left in camp without officers for about two months, and
+badly treated, before they became rebellious. All attempts to find
+out the name of the �Russian artillery brigade� which had fired on
+them were futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it to
+be inferred that French artillery was used�.
+
+After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were
+shot in cold blood.
+
+                                 8.
+
+                      TERESTCHENKO�S SPEECH_ (Resum�_)
+
+�� The questions of foreign policy are closely related to those of
+national defence�. And so, if in questions of national defence you
+think it is necessary to hold session in secret, also in our foreign
+policy we are sometimes forced to observe the same secrecy�.
+
+�German diplomacy attempts to influence public opinion�. Therefore
+the declarations of directors of great democratic organisations who
+talk loudly of a revolutionary Congress, and the impossibility of
+another winter campaign, are dangerous�. All these declarations cost
+human lives�.
+
+�I wish to speak merely of governmental logic, without touching the
+questions of the honour and dignity of the State. From the point of
+view of logic, the foreign policy of Russia ought to be based on a
+real comprehension of the _interests_ of Russia�. These interests
+mean that it is impossible that our country remain alone, and that
+the present alignment of forces with us, (the Allies), is
+satisfactory�. All humanity longs for peace, but in Russia no one
+will permit a humiliating peace which would violate the State
+interests of our fatherland!�
+
+The orator pointed out that such a peace would for long years, if not
+for centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the
+world, and would inevitably cause new wars.
+
+�All remember the days of May, when the fraternisation on our Front
+threatened to end the war by a simple cessation of military
+operations, and lead the country to a shameful separate peace� and
+what efforts it was necessary to use to make the soldier masses at
+the front understand that it was not by this method that the Russian
+State must end the war and guarantee its interest�.�
+
+He spoke of the miraculous effect of the July offensive, what
+strength it gave to the words of Russian ambassadors abroad, and the
+despair in Germany caused by the Russian victories. And also, the
+disillusionment in Allied countries which followed the Russian
+defeat�.
+
+�As to the Russian Government, it adhered strictly to the formula of
+May, �No annexations and no punitive indemnities.� We consider it
+essential not only to proclaim the self-determination of peoples, but
+also to renounce imperialist aims�.�
+
+Germany is continually trying to make peace. The only talk in Germany
+is of peace; she knows she cannot win.
+
+�I reject the reproaches aimed at the Government which allege that
+Russian foreign policy does not speak clearly enough about the aims
+of the war�.
+
+�If the question arises as to what ends the Allies are pursuing, it
+is indispensable first to demand what aims the Central Powers have
+agreed upon�.
+
+�The desire is often heard that we publish the details of the
+treaties which bind the Allies; but people forget that, up to now, we
+do not know the treaties which bind the Central Powers�.�
+
+Germany, he said, evidently wants to separate Russia from the West by
+a series of weak buffer-states.
+
+�This tendency to strike at the vital interests of Russia must be
+checked�.
+
+�And will the Russian democracy, which has inscribed on its banner
+the rights of nations to dispose of themselves, allow calmly the
+continuation of oppression upon the most civilised peoples (in
+Austria-Hungary)?
+
+�Those who fear that the Allies will try to profit by our difficult
+situation, to make us support more than our share of the burden of
+war, and to solve the questions of peace at our expense, are entirely
+mistaken�. Our enemy looks upon Russia as a market for its products.
+The end of the war will leave us in a feeble condition, and with our
+frontier open the flood of German products can easily hold back for
+years our industrial development. Measures must be taken to guard
+against this�.
+
+�I say openly and frankly: the combination of forces which unites us
+to the Allies is _favourable to the interests of Russia�._ It is
+therefore important that our views on the questions of war and peace
+shall be in accord with the views of the Allies as clearly and
+precisely as possible�. To avoid all misunderstanding, I must say
+frankly that Russia must present at the Paris Conference _one point
+of view�._�
+
+He did not want to comment on the _nakaz_ to Skobeliev, but he
+referred to the Manifesto of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, just
+published in Stockholm. This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of
+Lithuania and Livonia; �but that is clearly impossible,� said
+Terestchenko, �for Russia must have free ports on the Baltic all the
+year round�.
+
+�In this question the problems of foreign policy are also closely
+related to interior politics, for if there existed a strong sentiment
+of unity of all great Russia, one would not witness the repeated
+manifestations, everywhere, of a desire of peoples to separate from
+the Central Government�. Such separations are contrary to the
+interests of Russia, and the Russian delegates cannot raise the
+issue�.�
+
+                                 9.
+
+                       THE BRITISH FLEET (_etc._)
+
+At the time of the naval battle of the Gulf of Riga, not only the
+Bolsheviki, but also the Ministers of the Provisional Government,
+considered  that the British Fleet had deliberately abandoned the
+Baltic, as one indication of the attitude so often expressed publicly
+by the British press, and semi-publicly by British representatives in
+Russia, �Russia�s finished! No use bothering about Russia!�
+
+See interview with Kerensky (Appendix 13).
+
+GENERAL GURKO was a former Chief of Staff of the Russian armies under
+the Tsar. He was a prominent figure in the corrupt Imperial Court.
+After the Revolution, he was one of the very few persons exiled for
+his political and personal record. The Russian naval defeat in the
+Gulf of Riga coincided with the public reception, by King George in
+London, of General Gurko, a man whom the Russian Provisional
+Government considered dangerously pro-German as well as reactionary!
+
+                                10.
+
+                     APPEALS AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+                        _To Workers and Soldiers_
+
+�Comrades! The Dark Forces are increasingly trying to call forth in
+Petrograd and other towns DISORDERS AND _Pogroms._ Disorder is
+necessary to the Dark Forces, for disorder will give them an
+opportunity for crushing the revolutionary movement in blood. Under
+the pretext of establishing order, and of protecting the inhabitants,
+they hope to establish the domination of Kornilov, which the
+revolutionary people succeeded in suppressing not long ago. Woe to
+the people if these hopes are realised! The triumphant
+counter-revolution will destroy the Soviets and the Army Committees,
+will disperse the Constituent Assembly, will stop the transfer of the
+land to the Land Committees, will put an end to all the hopes of the
+people for a speedy peace, and will fill all the prisons with
+revolutionary soldiers and workers.
+
+�In their calculations, the counter-revolutionists and Black Hundred
+leaders are counting on the serious discontent of the unenlightened
+part of the people with the disorganisation of the food-supply, the
+continuation of the war, and the general difficulties of life. They
+hope to transform every demonstration of soldiers and workers into a
+_pogrom,_ which will frighten the peaceful population and throw it
+into the arms of the Restorers of Law and Order.
+
+�Under such conditions every attempt to organise a demonstration in
+these days, although for the most laudable object, would be a crime.
+All conscious workers and soldiers who are displeased with the policy
+of the Government will only bring injury to themselves and to the
+Revolution if they indulge in demonstrations.
+
+�THEREFORE THE _Tsay-ee-kah_ ASKS ALL WORKERS NOT TO OBEY ANY CALLS
+TO DEMONSTRATE.
+
+�WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! DO NOT YIELD TO PROVOCATION! REMEMBER YOUR
+DUTY TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO THE REVOLUTION! DO NOT BREAK THE UNITY OF
+THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT BY DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH ARE BOUND TO BE
+UNSUCCESSFUL!�
+
+_The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers� and
+Soldiers� Deputies (Tsay-ee-kah)_
+
+_Russian Social Democratic Labour Party_
+THE DANGER IS NEAR!
+To All Workers and Soldiers
+(_Read and Hand to Others_)
+
+_Comrades Workers and Soldiers!_
+
+�Our country is in danger. On account of this danger our freedom and
+our Revolution are passing through difficult days. The enemy is at
+the gates of Petrograd. The disorganisation is growing with every
+hours. It becomes more and more difficult to obtain bread for
+Petrograd. All, of from the smallest to the greatest, must redouble
+their efforts, must endeavour to arrange things properly�. We must
+save our country, say freedom�. More arms and provisions for the
+Army! Bread�for the great cities. Order and organisation in the
+country�.
+
+�And in these terrible critical days rumours creep about that
+SOMEWHERE a demonstration is being prepared, that SOME ONE is calling
+on the soldiers and workers to destroy revolutionary peace and
+order�. _Rabotchi Put,_ the newspaper of the Bolsheviki, is pouring
+oil on the flames: it flattering, trying to please the unenlightened
+people, tempting the worker and soldiers, urging them on against the
+Government, promising them mountains of good things�. The confiding,
+ignorant men believe, they do not reason�. And from the other side
+come also rumours�rumours that the Dark Forces, the friends of the
+Tsar, the German spies, are rubbing their hands with glee. They are
+ready to join the Bolsheviki, and with them fan the disorders into
+civil war.
+
+�The Bolsheviki and the ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them
+cry senselessly: �Down with the Government! All power to the
+Soviets!� And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm
+will egg the on; �Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the
+markets, devastate the shops, pillage the wine stores! Slay, burn,
+rob!�
+
+�And then will begin a terrible confusion, a war between one part of
+the people and the other. All will become still more disorganised,
+and perhaps once more blood will be shed on the streets of the
+capital. And then what then?
+
+�Then, the road to Petrograd will be open to Wilhelm. Then, no bread
+will come to Petrograd, the children will die of hunger. Then, the
+Army as the front will remain without support, our brothers in the
+trenches will be delivered to the fire of the enemy. Then, Russia
+will lose all prestige in other countries, our money will lose its
+value; everything will be so dear as to make life impossible. Then,
+the long awaited Constituent Assembly will be postponed�it will be
+impossible to convene it in time. And then�Death to the Revolution,
+Death to our Liberty�.
+
+�Is it this that you want, workers and soldiers? No! If you do not
+then go, go to the ignorant people seduced by the betrayers, and tell
+them the whole truth, which we have told you!
+
+�Let all know that EVERY MAN WHO IN THESE TERRIBLE DAYS CALLS ON YOU
+TO COME OUT IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, IS EITHER A SECRET
+SERVANT OF THE TSAR, A PROVOCATOR, OR AN UNWISE ASSISTANT OF THE
+ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, OR A PAID SPY OF WILHELM!
+
+�Every conscious worker revolutionist, every conscious peasant, every
+revolutionary soldier, all who understand what harm a demonstration
+or a revolt against the Government might cause to the people, must
+join together and not allow the enemies of the people to destroy our
+freedom.�
+
+_The Petrograd Electoral Committee of the Mensheviki-oborontzi._
+
+                                11.
+
+                    LENIN�s �LETTER TO THE COMRADES�
+
+This series of articles appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ several days
+running, at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I
+give here only extracts from two instalments:
+
+1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the
+people, and that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.
+
+�Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers,
+pedants, or simply don�t want to look the real situation in the face.
+In the last elections we received in all the country more than fifty
+per cent of all thevotes�.
+
+�The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants�
+revolution. In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian
+uprising with wonderful political results�. Even _Dielo Naroda_ has
+been scared into yelling that the land must be turned over to the
+peasants, and not only the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council
+of the Republic, but also the Government itself, has been similarly
+affected. Another valuable result was the bringing of bread which had
+been hoarded by the _pomieshtchiki_ to the railroad stations in that
+province. The _Russkaya Volia_ had to admit that the stations were
+filled with bread after the peasants� rising�.
+
+�2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and
+the bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Constituent
+Assembly.
+
+�Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as
+regards workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of
+the bourgeoisie. If _yunkers_ and Cossacks say they will fight, you
+believe them; if workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is
+the distinction between such doubts and siding politically with the
+bourgeoisie?
+
+�Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe
+Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not
+strong enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break
+the Constituent. But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the
+Constituent by sabotage, by lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by
+opening the front to the Germans. This has already been done in the
+case of Riga�.
+
+�3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government
+to force the calling of the Constituent Assembly, and to suppress any
+further Kornilov attempts.
+
+�Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of �All Power to the
+Soviets.� Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the
+question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes
+in the faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have �promised� to call the
+Constituent Assembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the
+calling of the Constituent is guaranteed, and its success assured.
+
+�Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the �Lieber-Dans.� Either
+we must drop �All Power to the Soviets� or make an insurrection;
+there is no middle course.�
+
+�4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos
+want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our
+heroic soldiers and sailors.
+
+�Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the
+Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of
+Kornilovtsi. If the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give
+up Petrograd, it can do it doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements
+with the Germans or the British; open the fronts. It can sabotage the
+Army�s food supply. At all these doors has it knocked.
+
+�We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the
+Revolution. Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and
+truthfully served the bourgeoisie for years�. Half the Lieber-Dans
+are cowardly compromisers; half of them simple fatalists�.�
+
+�5. We�re getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the
+Constituent Assembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play
+everything on one card?�
+
+�Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical
+experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called
+and trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the
+voting of the Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or
+beat Wilhelm�. The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd
+cannot be decided by waiting for the Constituent Assembly. Hunger is
+not waiting. The peasants� Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals
+who ran away did not wait.
+
+�Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals
+and generals, do not take an interest in voting.
+
+�6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our
+strength. But why should we risk everything by making an attempt
+ourselves?
+
+�Answer: History doesn�t repeat. �Perhaps Kornilov will some day make
+an attempt!� What a serious base for proletarian action! But suppose
+Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what
+then? This attitude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary
+party on one of the bourgeoisie�s former mistakes.
+
+�Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the
+dictatorship of the proletariat�either that or the dictatorship of
+Kornilov.
+
+�Let us wait, comrades, for�a miracle!�
+
+                                12.
+
+                      MILIUKOV�s SPEECH (_Resum�_)
+
+�Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our
+principal task, and that, to assure it, we must have discipline in
+the Army and order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a
+power capable of daring, not only by persuasion, but also by force�.
+The germ of all our evils comes from the point of view, original,
+truly Russian, concerning foreign policy, which passes for the
+Internationalist point of view.
+
+�The noble Lenin only imitates the noble Keroyevsky when he holds
+that from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the
+aged West, and which will replace the old banner of doctrinary
+Socialism by the new direct action of starving masses�and that will
+push humanity forward and force it to break in the doors of the
+social paradise�.�
+
+These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would
+bring about the decomposition of the whole capitalist r�gime.
+Starting from that point of view, they were able to commit the
+unconscious treason, in wartime, of calmly telling the soldiers to
+abandon the trenches, and instead of fighting the external enemy,
+creating internal civil war and attacking the proprietors and
+capitalists�.
+
+Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left,
+demanding what Socialist had ever advised such action�.
+
+�Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat
+can condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and
+break down the dictatorship of these cliques�. Not by an accord
+between Governments for a limitation of armaments, but by the
+disarming of these Governments and the radical democratisation of the
+military system�.�
+
+He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government
+as Ministers with the avowed purpose of carrying on the class
+struggle!
+
+�The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated
+these gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it
+was for Russia, and sent us some apostles of the Universal
+Conflagration�.
+
+�The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no
+art of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the
+Allies, �We want nothing, we haven�t anything to fight with!� And
+then our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the
+brotherhood of peoples will be accomplished!�
+
+Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that
+even Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of �that
+unhappy document which will forever be your indictment.� He then
+attacked Skobeliev, whose position in foreign assemblies, where he
+would appear as a Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy
+of his Government, would be so strange that people would say, �What�s
+that gentleman carrying, and what shall we talk to him about?� As for
+the _nakaz,_ Miliukov said that he himself was a pacifist; that he
+believed in the creation of an International Arbitration Board, and
+the necessity for a limitation of armaments, and parliamentary
+control over secret diplomacy, which did not mean the abolition of
+secret diplomacy.
+
+As for the Socialist ideas in the _nakaz,_ which he called �Stockholm
+ideas��peace without victory, the right of self-determination of
+peoples, and renunciation of the economic war�
+
+�The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of
+those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish
+to say, �to the successes of the Revolution,� because I believe that
+the defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the
+Revolution�.
+
+�The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One
+had only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+to be convinced that, in this hall, the influence of the
+revolutionary democracy on foreign policy is so strong, that the
+Minister does not dare to speak face to face with it about the honour
+and dignity of Russia!
+
+�We can see, in the _nakaz_ of the Soviets, that the ideas of the
+Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction�that of
+Utopianism, and that of German interests�.
+
+Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the
+President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded
+by popular assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to
+undertake peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced
+annexations, were pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal
+declaration bound only him who made it�. �Anyway, we will imitate the
+Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of Workers� and Soldiers�
+Deputies�.�
+
+The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia
+were symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia,
+supported, said Miliukov, by German money�. Amid bedlam from the
+Left, he contrasted the clauses of the _nakaz_ concerning
+Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the
+nationalities in Germany and Austria. The _nakaz_ embraced the German
+and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.
+
+Passing to Terestchenko�s speech, he contemptuously accused him of
+being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to
+think in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must
+belong to Russia�.
+
+�You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
+fighting, and that when he does know, he�ll fight�. It is true that
+the soldier doesn�t know why he is fighting, but now you have told
+him that there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no
+national interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends�.�
+
+Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the assistance of
+America, �will yet save the cause of humanity,� he ended:
+
+�Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the
+West, who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only
+begin to enter, with ill-assured and hesitating steps! Long live our
+brave Allies!�
+
+                                13.
+
+                        INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY
+
+The Associated Press man tried his hand. �Mr. Kerensky,� he began,
+�in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution���
+
+�Yes, I know,� interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. �Abroad the
+Revolution is no longer fashionable!�
+
+�What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?�
+
+�That is a foolish question to ask.� Kerensky was annoyed. �Russia
+entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she bore
+the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater
+than those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the
+right to demand of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms
+to bear.� He stopped for a moment and stared at his interlocutor.
+�You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the
+Russians are asking where is the British fleet�with German
+battle-ships in the Gulf of Riga?� Again he ceased suddenly, and as
+suddenly burst out. �The Russian Revolution hasn�t failed and the
+revolutionary Army hasn�t failed. It is not the Revolution which
+caused disorganisation in the army�that disorganisation was
+accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren�t the Russians
+fighting? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are
+economically exhausted,�and because they are disillusioned with the
+Allies!�
+
+The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United
+States, and in a few days sent back by the American State Department,
+with a demand that it be �altered.� This Kerensky refused to do; but
+it was done by his secretary, Dr. David Soskice�and, thus purged of
+all offensive references to the Allies, was given to the press of the
+world�.
+
+
+
+                      APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III
+
+                                 1.
+
+                RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES
+
+                        _Workers� Control_
+
+1. (See Ppage 43)
+2. The organisation of Workers� Control is a manifestation of the
+same healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are
+party organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in
+employment, Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary
+clubs in the sphere of culture.
+
+3. The working-class has much more interest in the proper and
+uninterrupted operation of factories� than the capitalist class.
+Workers� Control is a better security in this respect for the
+interests of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary
+will of the owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for
+material profits or political privileges. Therefore Workers� Control
+is demanded by the proletariat not only in their own interest, but in
+the interest of the whole country, and should be supported by the
+revolutionary peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.
+
+4. Considering the hostile attitude of the majority of the capitalist
+class toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper
+distribution of raw materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient
+management of factories, is impossible without Workers� Control.
+
+5. Only Workers� Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the
+workers� conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social
+meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a
+firm self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour�s
+possible productivity.
+
+6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace
+basis, and the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well
+as among the different factories, can be accomplished without great
+disturbances only by means of the democratic self-government of the
+workers themselves�. Therefore the realisation of Workers� Control is
+an indispensable preliminary to the demobilisation of industry.
+
+7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social
+Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers� Control on a national
+scale, in order to bring results, must extend to all capitalist
+concerns, and not be organised accidentally, without system; it must
+be well-planned, and not separated from the industrial life of the
+country as a whole.
+
+8. The economic life of the country�agriculture, industry, commerce
+and transport�must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so
+as to satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide
+masses of the people; it must be approved by their elected
+representatives, and carried out under the direction of these
+representatives by means of national and local organisations.
+
+9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried
+out under supervision of the peasants� and land-workers�
+organisations; that relating to industry, trade and transport
+operated by wage-earners, by means of Workers� Control; the natural
+organs of Workers� Control inside the industrial plant will be the
+Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the
+Trade Unions.
+
+10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for
+the majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on
+all the owners of plants employing this kind of labour in the given
+district.
+
+11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and
+management of the Trade Unions, as class organisations acting within
+the limits of the whole industrial plan, and in accordance with it.
+
+12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to
+begin legal action against all employers who violate labour contracts
+or labour legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in
+any branch of labour.
+
+13. On all questions relating to Workers� Control over production,
+distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the
+workers of individual establishments through their Factory-Shop
+Committees.
+
+14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales,
+refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for
+abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar
+problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled
+exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee,
+which has the right to exclude from participation in the discussion
+any members of the factory administration.
+
+15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the
+supplying of the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour
+power and technical staff (including equipment), and all other
+supplies and arrangements, and also to assure the factory�s adherence
+to the general industrial plan. The factory administration is obliged
+to surrender to the organs of Workers� Control, for their aid and
+information, all data concerning the business; to make it possible to
+verify this data, and to produce the books of the company upon demand
+of the Factory-Shop Committee.
+
+16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by
+the Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts,
+which cannot be investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall
+be referred to the district central organisation of Factory-Shop
+Committees charged with the particular branch of labour involved,
+which shall discuss the matter with the institutions charged with the
+execution of the general industrial plan, and find means to deal with
+the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the factory.
+
+17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns
+must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order
+to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to
+come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an
+effective plan of distribution among the different factories of
+orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to
+facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by
+trades.
+
+18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop
+Committees represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial
+and  local institutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general
+industrial plan, and to organise economic relations between the towns
+and the villages (workers and peasants). They also possess final
+authority for the management of Factory-Shop Committees and Trade
+Unions, so far as Workers� Control in their district is concerned,
+and they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning workers�
+discipline in the routine of production�which regulations, however,
+must be approved by vote of the workers themselves.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Russkaya Volia,_ October 28. �The decisive moment approaches�. It is
+decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us� a second
+edition of the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that
+with their plans and intentions, with their impertinent policy of
+wishing to separate themselves from everything consciously national,
+they have been definitely defeated�.
+
+�What are the chances of Bolshevik success?
+
+�It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support
+is the� ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they
+work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop�.
+
+�The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself
+morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a
+clearly-defined attitude toward the Bolsheviki�.
+
+�And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal
+power, and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated
+as mutineers and traitors�.�
+
+_Birzhevya Viedomosti,_ October 28. �Now that the Bolsheviki have
+separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle
+against them is very much simpler�and it is not reasonable, in order
+to fight against Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation.
+The Government should not even allow the manifestation�.
+
+�The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts
+punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their
+authors would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are
+carrying on is not a political struggle against the Government, or
+even for the power; it is propaganda for anarchy, massacres, and
+civil war. This propaganda must be extirpated at its roots; it would
+be strange to wait, in order to begin action against an agitation for
+_pogroms,_ until the _pogroms_ actually occurred�.�
+
+_Novoye Vremya,_ November 1. �hellip; Why is the Government excited
+only about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets),
+and not about September 12th, or October 3d?
+
+�This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and
+that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our
+Allies smart�.
+
+�Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the
+Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one
+attempted to put out the Russian conflagration?
+
+�There were other things to do�.
+
+�The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It
+crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every
+one is now asking, �Did it ever exist?�
+
+                                 3.
+
+                MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Dielo Naroda,_ October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). �The most
+frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they
+impute  exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary
+Government all the calamities which the masses are so cruelly
+suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from
+objective causes.
+
+�They make golden promises to the masses, knowing in advance that
+they can fulfil none of them; they lead the masses on a false trail,
+deceiving them as to the source of all their troubles�.
+
+�The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution�.�
+
+_Dien,_ October 30 (Menshevik). �Is this really �the freedom of the
+press�? Every day _Novaya Rus_ and _Rabotchi Put_ openly incite to
+insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns
+actual crimes. Every day they urge _pogroms_�. Is that �the freedom
+of the press�?�
+
+�The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the
+right to insist that the Government machinery does not remain passive
+while the threat of bloody riots endangers the lives of its
+citizens�.�
+
+                                 4.
+
+                            �YEDINSTVO�
+
+Plekhanov�s paper, _Yedinstvo,_ suspended publication a few weeks
+after the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report,
+_Yedinstvo_ was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an
+announcement in the last number admitted that it was unable to
+continue _because there were too few subscribers_�.
+
+                                 5.
+
+                WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?
+
+The French newspaper _Entente_ of Petrograd, on November 15th,
+published an article of which the following is a part:
+
+�The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government
+of Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.
+
+�This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong.
+Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which
+triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators�no!
+
+�No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously,
+without mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they
+multiplied their agitation, intensified their propaganda in the
+factories, the barracks, at the Front, in the country, everywhere,
+even fixing in advance the date of their taking up arms, the date of
+their seizure of the power�.
+
+�_They_�conspirators? Never�.�
+
+                                 6.
+
+                    APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION
+                _From the Central Army Committee_
+
+�� Above everything we insist upon the inflexible execution of the
+organised will of the majority of the people, expressed by the
+Provisional Government in accord with the Council of the Republic and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ as organ of the popular power�.
+
+�Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when
+a Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin
+of the country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a
+counter-revolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms�.
+
+�The interests of private groups and classes should be submitted to a
+single interest�that of augmenting industrial production, and
+distributing the necessities of life with fairness�.
+
+�All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all
+deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do
+auxiliary service in the rear of the Army�.
+
+�We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators
+of the people�s will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour
+detachments to work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under
+enemy fire�.�
+
+                                 7.
+
+                EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH
+
+Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops
+of the bourgeois press, where they printed _Rabotchi Put, Soldat,_
+and various proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia
+was ordered to clear these places, but found the offices barricaded,
+and armed men defending them. Soldiers who were ordered to attack the
+print-shops refused.
+
+About midnight a Colonel with a company of _yunkers_ arrived at the
+club �Free Mind,� with a warrant to arrest the editor of _Rabotchi
+Put._ Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and
+threatened to lynch the _yunkers._ The Colonel thereupon begged that
+he and the _yunkers_ be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for
+safety. This request was granted.
+
+At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied
+the Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward
+morning the Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o�clock the Telephone
+Exchange. At dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a
+cordon of troops was drawn about the Winter Palace.
+
+
+                       APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV
+
+                                 1.
+
+                        EVENTS OF NOVEMBER 7TH
+
+From 4 A. M. until dawn Kerensky remained at the Petrograd Staff
+Headquarters, sending orders to the Cossacks and to the _yunkers_ in
+the Officers� Schools in and around Petrograd�all of whom answered
+that they were unable to move.
+
+Colonel Polkovnikov, Commandant of the City, hurried between the
+Staff and the Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky
+gave an order to open the bridges; three hours passed without any
+action, and then an officer and five men went out on their own
+initiative, and putting to flight a picket of Red Guards, opened the
+Nicolai Bridge. Immediately after they left, however, some sailors
+closed it again.
+
+Kerensky ordered the print-shop of _Rabotchi Put_ to be occupied. The
+officer detailed to the work was promised a squad of soldiers; two
+hours later he was promised some _yunkers;_ then the order was
+forgotten.
+
+An attempt was made to recapture the Post Office and the Telegraph
+Agency; a few shots were fired, and the Government troops announced
+that they would no longer oppose the Soviets.
+
+To a delegation of _yunkers_ Kerensky said, �As chief of the
+Provisional Government and as Supreme Commander I know nothing, I
+cannot advise you; but as a veteran revolutionist, I appeal to you,
+young revolutionists, to remain at your posts and defend the
+conquests of the Revolution.�
+
+Orders of Kishkin, November 7th:
+
+�By decree of the Provisional Government�. I am invested with
+extraordinary powers for the reestablishment of order in Petrograd,
+in complete command of all civil and military authorities�.�
+
+�In accordance with the powers conferred upon me by the Provisional
+Government, I herewith relieve from his functions as Commandant of
+the Petrograd Military District Colonel George Polkovnikov�.�
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Appeal to the Population_ signed by Vice-Premier Konovalov, November
+7th:
+
+�Citizens! Save the fatherland, the republic and your freedom.
+Maniacs have raised a revolt against the only governmental power
+chosen by the people, the Provisional Government�.
+
+�The members of the Provisional Government fulfil their duty, remain
+at their post, and continue to work for the good of the fatherland,
+the reestablishment of order, and the convocation of the Constituent
+Assembly, future sovereign of Russia and of all the Russian peoples�.
+
+�Citizens, you must support the Provisional Government. You must
+strengthen its authority. You must oppose these maniacs, with whom
+are joined all enemies of liberty and order, and the followers of the
+Tsarist r�gime, in order to wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy
+the conquests of the Revolution, and the future of our dear
+fatherland�.
+
+�Citizens! Organise around the Provisional Government for the defence
+of its temporary authority, in the name of order and the happiness of
+all peoples�.�
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Proclamation of the Provisional Government._
+
+�The Petrograd Soviet�. has declared the Provisional Government
+overthrown, and has demanded that the Governmental power be turned
+over to it, under threat of bombarding the Winter Palace with the
+cannon of Peter-Paul Fortress, and of the cruiser _Avrora,_ anchored
+in the Neva.
+
+�The Government can surrender its authority only to the Consituent
+Assembly; for that reason it has decided not to submit, and to demand
+aid from the population and the Army. A telegram has been sent to the
+_Stavka;_ and an answer received says that a strong detachment of
+troops is being sent�.
+
+�Let the Army and the People reject the irresponsible attempts of the
+Bolsheviki to create a revolt in the rear�.�
+
+About 9 A. M. Kerensky left for the Front�.
+
+Toward evening two soldiers on bicycles presented themselves at the
+Staff Headquarters, as delegates of the garrison of Peter-Paul
+Fortress. Entering the meeting-room of the Staff, where Kishkin,
+Rutenburg, Paltchinski, General Bagratouni, Colonel Paradielov and
+Count Tolstoy were gathered, they demanded the immediate surrender of
+the Staff; threatening, in case of refusal, to bombard headquarters�.
+After two panicky conferences the Staff retreated to the Winter
+Palace, and the headquarters were occupied by Red Guards�.
+
+Late in the afternoon several Bolshevik armoured cars cruised around
+the Palace Square, and Soviet soldiers tried unsuccessfully to parley
+with the _yunkers_�.
+
+Firing on the Palace began about 7 o�clock in the evening�.
+
+At 10 P. M. began an artillery bombardment from three sides, in which
+most of the shells were blanks, only three small shrapnels striking
+the facade of the Palace�.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                        KERENSKY IN FLIG{HT  -ed.}
+
+Leaving Petrograd in the morning of November 7th, Kerensky arrived by
+automobile at Gatchina, where he demanded a special train. Toward
+evening he was in Ostrov, Province of Pskov. The next morning,
+extraordinary  session of the local Soviet of Workers� and Soldiers�
+Depulies, with participation of Cossack delegates�there being 6,000
+Cossacks at Ostrov.
+
+Kerensky spoke to the assembly, appealing for aid against the
+Bolsheviki, and addressed himself almost exclusively to the Cossacks.
+The soldier delegates protested.
+
+�Why did you come here?� shouted voices. Kerensky answered, �To ask
+the Cossacks� assistance in crushing the Bolshevik insurrection!� At
+this there were violent protestations, which increased when he
+continued, �I broke the Kornilov attempt, and I will break the
+Bolsheviki!� The noise became so great that he had to leave the
+platform�.
+
+The soldier deputies and the Ussuri Cossacks decided to arrest
+Kerensky, but the Don Cossacks prevented them, and got him away by
+train�. A Military Revolutionary Committee, set up during the day,
+tried to inform the garrison of Pskov; but the telephone and
+telegraph lines were cut�.
+
+Kerensky did not arrive at Pskov. Revolutionary soldiers had cut the
+railway line, to prevent troops being sent against the capital. On
+the night of November 8th he arrived by automobile at Luga, where he
+was well received by the Death Battalions stationed there.
+
+Next day he took train for the South-West Front, and visited the Army
+Committee at headquarters. The Fifth Army, however, was wild with
+enthusiasm over the news of the Bolshevik success, and the Army
+Committee was unable to promise Kerensky any support.
+
+From there he went to the _Stavka,_ at Moghilev, where he ordered ten
+regiments from different parts of the Front to move against
+Petrograd. The soldiers almost unanimously refused; and those
+regiments which did start halted on the way. About five thousand
+Cossacks finally followed him�.
+
+                                 3.
+
+                    LOOTING OF THE WINTER PALACE
+
+I do not mean to maintain that there was no looting, in the Winter
+Palace. Both after and _before_ the Winter Palace fell, there was
+considerable pilfering. The statement of the Socialist Revolutionary
+paper _Narod,_ and of members of the City Duma, to the effect that
+precious objects to the value of 500,000,000 rubles had been stolen,
+was, however, a gross exaggeration.
+
+The most important art treasures of the Palace�paintings, statues,
+tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,�had been transferred to
+Moscow during the month of September; and they were still in good
+order in the basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the
+capture of the Kremlin by Bolshevik troops. I can personally testify
+to this�.
+
+Individuals, however, especially the general public, which was
+allowed to circulate freely through the Winter Palace for several
+days after its capture, made away with table silver, clocks, bedding,
+mirrors and some odd vases of valuable porcelain and semi-precious
+stone, to the value of about $50,000.
+
+The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission,
+composed of artists and arch�ologists, to recover the stolen objects.
+On November 1st two proclamations were issued:
+
+                        �CITIZENS OF PETROGRAD!
+
+�We urgently ask all citizens to exert every effort to find whatever
+possible of the objects stolen from the Winter Palace in the night of
+November 7-8, and to forward them to the Commandant of the Winter
+Palace.
+
+�Receivers of stolen goods, antiquarians, and all who are proved to
+be hiding such objects will be held legally responsible and punished
+with all severity.
+
+�_Commissars for the Protection of Museums and Artistic Collections,_
+                                �G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.�
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                    �TO REGIMENTAL AND FLEET COMMITTEES
+
+�In the night of November 7-8, in the Winter Palace, which is the
+inalienable property of the Russian people, valuable objects of art
+were stolen.
+
+�We urgently appeal to all to exert every effort, so that the stolen
+objects are returned to the Winter Palace.
+
+�_Commissars_�.
+                                �G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM.�
+
+About half the loot was recovered, some of it in the baggage of
+foreigners leaving Russia.
+
+A conference of artists and arch�ologists, held at the suggestion of
+Smolny, appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter
+Palace treasures, which was given complete charge of the Palace and
+of all artistic collections and State museums in Petrograd. On
+November 16th the Winter Palace was closed to the public while the
+inventory was being made�.
+
+During the last week in November a decree was issued by the Council
+of People�s Commissars, changing the name of the Winter Palace to
+�People�s Museum,� entrusting it to the complete charge of the
+artistic-arch�ological commission, and declaring that henceforth all
+Governmental activities within its wall were prohibited�.
+
+                                 4.
+
+                    RAPE OF THE WOMEN�S BATTALION
+
+Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts of
+sensational stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press, and
+told in the City Duma, about the fate of the Women�s Battalion
+defending the Palace. It was said that some of the girl-soldiers had
+been thrown from the windows into the street, most of the rest had
+been violated, and many had committed suicide as a result of the
+horrors they had gone through.
+
+The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On
+November 16th the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters of
+the Women�s Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had
+been at first taken to the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and
+that there some of them had been badly treated; but that at present
+most of them were at Levashovo, and the rest scattered about the city
+in private houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the commission,
+testified drily that _none_ of the women had been thrown out of the
+windows of the Winter Palace, that _none_ were wounded, that three
+had been violated, and that one had committed suicide, leaving a note
+which said that she had been �disappointed in her ideals.�
+
+On November 21st the Military Revolutionary Committee officially
+dissolved the Women�s Battalion, at the request of the girls
+themselves, who returned to civilian clothes.
+
+In Louise Bryant�s book, �Six Red Months in Russia,� there is an
+interesting description of the girl-soldiers during this time.
+
+
+                        APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V
+
+                                 1.
+
+                        APPEALS AND PROCLAMATIONS
+
+_From the Military Revolutionary Committee,_ November 8:
+
+�To All Army Committees and All Soviets of Soldiers� Deputies.
+
+�The Petrograd garrison has overturned the Government of Kerensky,
+which had risen against the Revolution and the People�. In sending
+this news to the Front and the country, the Military Revolutionary
+Committee requests all soldiers to keep vigilant watch on the conduct
+of officers. Officers who do not frankly and openly declare for the
+Revolution should be immediately arrested as enemies.
+
+�The Petrograd Soviet interprets the programme of the new Government
+as: immediate proposals of a general democratic peace, the immediate
+transfer of great landed estates to the peasants, and the honest
+convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The people�s revolutionary
+Army must not permit troops of doubtful morale to be sent to
+Petrograd. Act by means of arguments, by means of moral suasion�but
+if that fails, halt the movement of troops by implacable force.
+
+�The present order must be immediately read to all military units of
+every branch of the service. Whoever keeps the knowledge of this
+order from the soldier-masses�. commits a serious crime against the
+Revolution, and will be punished with all the rigour of revolutionary
+law.
+
+�Soldiers! For peace, bread, land, and popular government!�
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+�To All Front and Rear Army, Corps, Divisional, Regimental and
+Company Committees, and All Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and
+Peasants� Deputies.
+
+�Soldiers and Revolutionary Officers!
+
+�The Military Revolutionary Committee, by agreement with the majority
+of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, has decreed that General
+Kornilov and all the accomplices of his conspiracy shall be brought
+immediately to Petrograd, for incarceration in Peter-Paul Fortress
+and arraignment before a military revolutionary court-martial�.
+
+�All who resist the execution of this decree are declared by the
+Committee to be traitors to the Revolution, and their orders are
+herewith declared null and void.�
+
+          _The Military Revolutionary Committee Attached to the Petrograd
+                        Soviet of Workers� and Soldiers� Deputies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+�To all Provincial and District Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and
+Peasants� Deputies.
+
+�By resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, all arrested
+members of Land Committees are immediately set free. The Commissars
+who arrested them are to be arrested.
+
+�From this moment all power belongs to the Soviets. The Commissars of
+the Provisional Government are removed. The presidents of the various
+local Soviets are invited to enter into direct relations with the
+revolutionary Government.�
+
+                                _Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+                                 2.
+
+                PROTEST OF THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+�The Central City Duma, elected on the most democratic principles,
+has undertaken the burden of managing Municipal affairs and food
+supplies at the time of the greatest disorganisation. At the present
+moment the Bolshevik party, three weeks before the elections to the
+Constituent Assembly, and in spite of the menace of the external
+enemy, having removed by armed force the only legal revolutionary
+authority, is making an attempt against the rights and independence
+of the Municipal Self-Government, demanding submission to its
+Commissars and its illegal authority.
+
+�In this terrible and tragic moment the Petrograd City Duma, in the
+face of its constituents, and of all Russia, declares loudly that it
+will not submit to any encroachments on its rights and its
+independence, and will remain at the post of responsibility to which
+it has been called by the will of the population of the capital.
+
+�The Central City Duma of Petrograd appeals to all Dumas and Zemstvos
+of the Russian Republic to rally to the defence of one of the
+greatest conquests of the Russian Revolution�the independence and
+inviolability of popular self-government.�
+
+                                 3.
+
+                LAND DECREE�PEASANTS� �NAKAZ�
+
+The Land question can only be permanently settled by the general
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+The most equitable solution of the Land question should be as follows:
+
+1. The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land
+cannot be sold, nor leased, nor mortgaged, nor alienated in any way.
+All dominical lands, lands attached to titles, lands belonging to the
+Emperor�s cabinet, to monasteries, churches, possession lands,
+entailed lands, private estates, communal lands, peasant free-holds,
+and others, are confiscated without compensation, and become national
+property, and are placed at the disposition of the workers who
+cultivate them.
+
+Those who are damaged because of this social transformation of the
+rights of property are entitled to public aid during the time
+necessary for them to adapt themselves to the new conditions of
+existence.
+
+2. All the riches beneath the earth�ores, oil, coal, salt, etc.�as
+well as forests and waters having a national importance, become the
+exclusive property of the State. All minor streams, lakes and forests
+are placed in the hands of the communities, on condition of being
+managed by the local organs of government.
+
+3. All plots of land scientifically cultivated�gardens, plantations,
+nurseries, seed-plots, green-houses, and others�shall not be divided,
+but transformed into model farms, and pass into the hands of the
+State or of the community, according to their size and importance.
+
+Buildings, communal lands and villages with their private gardens and
+their orchards remain in the hands of their present owners; the
+dimensions of these plots and the rate of taxes for their use shall
+be fixed by law.
+
+4. All studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and
+bird-breeding establishments, and others, are confiscated and become
+national property, and are transferred either to the State or to the
+community, according to their size and importance.
+
+All questions of compensation for the above are within the competence
+of the Constituent Assembly.
+
+5. All inventoried agricultural property of the confiscated lands,
+machinery  and live-stock, are transferred without compensation to
+the State or the community, according to their quantity and
+importance.
+
+The confiscation of such machinery or live-stock shall not apply to
+the small properties of peasants.
+
+6. The right to use the land is granted to all citizens, without
+distinction of sex, who wish to work the land themselves, with the
+help of their families, or in partnership, and only so long as they
+are able to work. No hired labour is permitted.
+
+In the event of the incapacity for work of a member of the commune
+for a period of two years, the commune shall be bound to render him
+assistance during this time by working his land in common.
+
+Farmers who through old age or sickness have permanently lost the
+capacity to work the land themselves, shall surrender their land and
+receive instead a Government pension.
+
+7. The use of the land should be equalised�that is to say, the land
+shall be divided among the workers according to local conditions, the
+unit of labour and the needs of the individual.
+
+The way in which land is to be used may be individually determined
+upon: as homesteads, as farms, by communes, by partnerships, as will
+be decided by the villages and settlements.
+
+8. All land upon its confiscation is pooled in the general People�s
+Land Fund. Its distribution among the workers is carried out by the
+local and central organs of administration, beginning with the
+village democratic organisations and ending with the central
+provincial institutions�with the exception of urban and rural
+cooperative societies.
+
+The Land Fund is subject to periodical redistribution according to
+the increase of population and the development of productivity and
+rural economy.
+
+In case of modification of the boundaries of allotments, the original
+centre of the allotment remains intact.
+
+The lands of persons retiring from the community return to the Land
+Fund; providing that near relatives of the persons retiring, or
+friends designated by them, shall have preference in the
+redistribution of these lands.
+
+When lands are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for
+manuring or improving the land, which has not been exhausted, shall
+be reimbursed.
+
+If in some localities the Land Fund is insufficient to satisfy the
+local population, the surplus population should emigrate.
+
+The organisation of the emigration, also the costs thereof, and the
+providing of emigrants with the necessary machinery and live-stock,
+shall be the business of the State.
+
+The emigration shall be carried out in the following order: first,
+the peasants without land who express their wish to emigrate; then
+the undesirable members of the community, deserters, etc., and
+finally, by drawing lots on agreement.
+
+All which is contained in this _nakaz,_ being the expression of the
+indisputable will of the great majority of conscious peasants of
+Russia, is declared to be a temporary law, and until the convocation
+of the Constituent Assembly, becomes effective immediately so far as
+is possible, and in some parts of it gradually, as will be determined
+by the District Soviets of Peasants� Deputies.
+
+                                 4.
+
+                        THE LAND AND DESERTERS
+
+The Government was not forced to make any decision concerning the
+rights of deserters to the land. The end of the war and the
+demobilisation of the army automatically removed the deserter
+problem�.
+
+                                 5.
+
+                THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE�S COMMISSARS
+
+The Council of People�s Commissars was at first composed entirely of
+Bolsheviki. This was not entirely the fault of the Bolsheviki,
+however. On November 8th they offered portfolios to members of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who declined. See page 273. {of original
+volume}
+
+
+                       APPENDIX  TO CHAPTER VI
+
+                                 1.
+
+                        APPEALS AND DENUNCIATIONS
+
+Appeal to all Citizens and to the Military Organisations of the
+Socialist Revolutionary Party.
+
+�The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete
+failure. The garrison is disaffected�. The Ministries are idle, bread
+is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the
+Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts,
+acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace,
+arbitrary arrests�all these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have
+aroused against them the resentment of the majority of the sailors
+and soldiers. The _Tsentroflot_ refuses to submit to the orders of
+the Bolsheviki�.
+
+�We call upon all sane elements to gather around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution; to take serious measures to be
+ready, at the first call of the Central Committee of the Party, to
+act against the counter-revolutionists, who will doubtless attempt to
+profit by these troubles provoked by the Bolshevik adventure, and to
+watch closely the external enemy, who also would like to take
+advantage of this opportune moment when the Front is weakened�.�
+
+                _The Military Section of the Central Committee of
+                        the Socialist Revolutionary Party._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+From _Pravda:_
+
+�What is Kerensky?
+
+�A usurper, whose place is in Peter-Paul prison, with Kornilov and
+Kishkin.
+
+�A criminal and a traitor to the workers, soldiers and peasants, who
+believed in him.
+
+�Kerensky? A murderer of soldiers!
+
+�Kerensky? A public executioner of peasants!
+
+�Kerensky? A strangler of workers!
+
+�Such is the second Kornilov who now wants to butcher Liberty!�
+
+
+                      APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
+
+                                 1.
+
+                            TWO DECREES
+
+                            _On the Press_
+
+In the serious decisive hour of the Revolution and the days
+immediately following it, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is
+compelled to adopt a series of measures against the
+counter-revolutionary press of all shades.
+
+Immediately on all sides there are cries that the new Socialist
+authority is in this violating the essential principles of its own
+programme by an attempt against the freedom of the press.
+
+The Workers� and Peasants� Government calls the attention of the
+population to the fact that in our country, behind this liberal
+shield, is hidden the opportunity for the wealthier classes to seize
+the lion�s share of the whole press, and by this means to poison the
+popular mind and bring confusion into the consciousness of the masses.
+
+Every one knows that the bourgeois press is one of the most powerful
+weapons of the bourgeoisie. Especially in this critical moment, when
+the new authority of the workers and peasants is in process of
+consolidation, it is impossible to leave it in the hands of the
+enemy, at a time when it is not less dangerous than bombs and
+machine-guns. This is why temporary and extraordinary measures have
+been adopted for the purpose of stopping the flow of filth and
+calumny in which the yellow and green press would be glad to drown
+the young victory of the people.
+
+As soon as the new order is consolidated, all administrative measures
+against the press will be suspended; full liberty will be given it
+within the limits of responsibility before the law, in accordance
+with the broadest and most progressive regulations�.
+
+Bearing in mind, however, the fact that any restrictions of the
+freedom of the press, even in critical moments, are admissible only
+within the bounds of necessity, the Council of People�s Commissars
+decrees as follows:
+
+1. The following classes of newspapers shall be subject to closure:
+(a) Those inciting to open resistance or disobedience to the Workers�
+and Peasants� Government; (b) Those creating confusion by obviously
+and deliberately perverting the news; (c) Those inciting to acts of a
+criminal character punishable by the laws.
+
+2. The temporary or permanent closing of any organ of the press shall
+be carried out only by virtue of a resolution of the Council of
+People�s Commissars.
+
+3. The present decree is of a temporary nature, and will be revoked
+by a special _ukaz_ when normal conditions of public life are
+re-established.
+
+                       _President of the Council of People�s Commissars,_
+
+                                                VLADIMIR ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                        _On Workers� Militia_
+
+1. All Soviets of Workers� and Soldiers� Deputies shall form a
+Workers� Militia.
+
+2. This Workers� Militia shall be entirely at the orders of the
+Soviets of Workers� and Soldiers� Deputies.
+
+3. Military and civil authorities must render every assistance in
+arming the workers and in supplying them with technical equipment,
+even to the extent of requisitioning arms belonging to the War
+Department of the Government.
+
+4. This decree shall be promulgated by telegraph. Petrograd, November
+10, 1917.
+
+                                _People�s Commissar of the Interior_
+
+                                                A. I. RYKOV.
+
+This decree encouraged the formation of companies of Red Guards all
+over Russia, which became the most valuable arm of the Soviet
+Government in the ensuing civil war.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                        THE STRIKE FUND
+
+The fund for the striking Government employees and bank clerks was
+subscribed by banks and business houses of Petrograd and other
+cities, and also by foreign corporations doing business in Russia.
+All who consented to strike against the Bolsheviki were paid full
+wages, and in some cases their pay was increased. It was the
+realisation of the strike fund contributors that the Bolsheviki were
+firmly in power, followed by their refusal to pay strike benefits,
+which finally broke the strike.
+
+                      APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
+
+                                 1.
+
+                        KERENSKY�S ADVANCE
+
+On November 9th Kerensky and his Cossacks arrived at Gatchina, where
+the garrison, hopelessly split into two factions, immediately
+surrendered. The members of the Gatchina Soviet were arrested, and at
+first threatened with death; later they were released on good
+behaviour.
+
+The Cossack advance-guards, practically unopposed, occupied Pavlovsk,
+Alexandrovsk and other stations, and reached the outskirts of
+Tsarskoye Selo next morning�November 10th. At once the garrison
+divided into three groups�the officers, loyal to Kerenskly; part of
+the soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who declared themselves
+�neutral�; and most of the rank and file, who were for the
+Bolsheviki. The Bolshevik soldiers, who were without leaders or
+organisation, fell back toward the capital. The local Soviet also
+withdrew to the village of Pulkovo.
+
+From Pulkovo six members of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet went with an
+automobile-load of proclamations to Gatchina, to propagandise the
+Cossacks. They spent most of the day going around Gatchina from one
+Cossack barracks to another, pleading, arguing and explaining. Toward
+evening some officers discovered their presence and they were
+arrested and brought before General Krasnov, who said, �You fought
+against Kornilov; now you are opposing Kerensky. I�ll have you all
+shot!�
+
+After reading aloud to them the order appointing him
+commander-in-chief of the Petrograd District, Krasnov asked if they
+were Bolsheviki. They replied in the affirmative�upon which Krasnov
+went away; a short time later an officer came and set them free,
+saying that it was by order of General Krasnov�.
+
+In the meanwhile delegations continued to arrive from Petrograd; from
+the Duma, the Committee for Salvation, and, last of all, from the
+_Vikzhel._ The Union of Railway Workers insisted that some agreement
+be reached to halt the civil war, and demanded that Kerensky treat
+with the Bolsheviki, and that he stop the advance on Petrograd. In
+case of refusal, the _Vikzhel_ threatened a general strike at
+midnight of November 11th.
+
+Kerensky asked to be allowed to discuss the matter with the Socialist
+Ministers and with the Committee for Salvation. He was plainly
+undecided.
+
+On the 11th Cossack outposts reached Krasnoye Selo, from which the
+local Soviet and the heterogeneous forces of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee precipitately retired, some of them
+surrendering�. That night they also touched Pulkovo, where the first
+real resistance was encountered�.
+
+Cossacks deserters began to dribble into Petrograd, declaring that
+Kerensky had lied to them, that he had spread broadcast over the
+front proclamations which said that Petrograd was burning, that the
+Bolsheviki  had invited the Germans to come in, and that they were
+murdering women and children and looting indiscriminately�.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately sent out some dozens
+of �agitators,� with thousands of printed appeals, to inform the
+Cossacks of the real situation�.
+
+                                 2.
+
+        PROCLAMATIONS OF THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+�To All Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and Peasants� Deputies.
+
+�The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and
+Peasants� Deputies charges the local Soviets immediately to take the
+most energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Semitic disturbances, and all _pogroms_ of whatever nature. The
+honour of the workers�, peasants� and soldiers� Revolution cannot
+tolerate any disorders�.
+
+�The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+�Workers, soldiers, and peasants, everywhere you should follow the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+�Comrades soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of keeping real
+revolutionary order.
+
+�All revolutionary Russia and the whole world have their eyes on
+you�.�
+
+�The All-Russian Congress of Soviets decrees:
+
+�To abolish capital punishment at the Front, which was reintroduced
+by Kerensky.
+
+�Complete freedom of propaganda is to be re-established in the
+country. All soldiers and revolutionary officers now under arrest for
+so-called political �crimes� are at once to be set free.�
+
+�The ex-Premier Kerensky, overthrown by the people, refuses to submit
+to the Congress of Soviets and attempts to struggle against the legal
+Government elected by the All-Russian Congress�the Council of
+People�s Commissars. The Front has refused to aid Kerensky. Moscow
+has rallied to the new Government. In many cities (Minsk, Moghilev,
+Kharkov) the power is in the hands of the Soviets. No infantry
+detachment consents to march against the Workers� and Peasants�
+Government, which, in accord with the firm will of the Army and the
+people, has begun peace negotiations and has given the land to the
+peasants�.
+
+�We give public warning that if the Cossacks do not halt Kerensky,
+who has deceived them and is leading them against Petrograd, the
+revolutionary forces will rise with all their might for the defence
+of the precious conquests of the Revolution�Peace and Land.
+
+�Citizens of Petrograd! Kerensky fled from the city, abandoning the
+authority to Kishkin, who wanted to surrender the capital to the
+Germans; Rutenburg, of the Black Band, who sabotaged the Municipal
+Food Supply; and Paltchinsky, hated by the whole democracy. Kerensky
+has fled, abandoning you to the Germans, to famine, to bloody
+massacres. The revolting people have arrested Kerensky�s Ministers,
+and you have seen how the order and supplying of Petrograd at once
+improved. Kerensky, at the demand of the aristocrat proprietors, the
+capitalists, speculators, marches against you for the purpose of
+giving back the land to the land-owners, and continuing the hated and
+ruinous war.
+
+�Citizens of Petrograd! We know that the great majority of you are in
+favour of the people�s revolutionary authority, against the
+Kornilovtsi led by Kerensky. Do not be deceived by the lying
+declarations of the impotent bourgeois conspirators, who will be
+pitilessly crushed.
+
+�Workers, soldiers, peasants! We call upon you for revolutionary
+devotion and discipline.
+
+�Millions of peasants and soldiers are with us.
+
+�The victory of the people�s Revolution is assured!�
+
+                                 3.
+
+                ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE�s COMMISSARS
+
+In this book I am giving only such decrees as are in my opinion
+pertinent to the Bolshevik conquest of power. The rest belong to a
+detailed account of the Structure of the Soviet State, for which I
+have no place in this work. This will be dealt with very fully in the
+second volume, now in preparation, �Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.�
+
+                _Concerning Dwelling-Places_
+
+1. The independent Municipal Self-Governments have the right to
+sequestrate all unoccupied or uninhabited dwelling-places.
+
+2. The Municipalities may, according to laws and arrangements
+established by them, install in all available lodgings citizens who
+have no place to live, or who live in congested or unhealthy lodgings.
+
+3. The Municipalities may establish a service of inspection of
+dwelling-places, organise it and define its powers.
+
+4. The Municipalities may issue orders on the institution of House
+Committees, define their organisation, their powers and give them
+juridical authority.
+
+5. The Municipalities may create Housing Tribunals, define their
+powers and their authority.
+
+6. This decree is promulgated by telegraph.
+
+                                _People�s Commissar of the Interior,_
+
+                                                A. I. RYKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                        _On Social Insurance_
+
+The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of
+complete Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and
+village poor. The Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the
+capitalists, as well as the Government of coalition and conciliation,
+failed to realise the desires of the workers with regard to Social
+Insurance.
+
+The Workers� and Peasants� Government, relying upon the support of
+the Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and Peasants� Deputies, announces
+to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that
+it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the
+formulas proposed by the Labour organisations:
+
+1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for
+all urban and rural poor.
+
+2. Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity,
+such as illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood,
+orphanage, and unemployment.
+
+3. All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.
+
+4. Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working
+capacity and unemployment.
+
+5. Complete workers� self-government of all Insurance institutions.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,
+                                _The People�s Commissar of Labour,_
+                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                        _On Popular Education_
+
+Citizens of Russia!
+
+With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for
+the first time the real power.
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this
+power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People�s
+Commissars.
+
+By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed
+People�s Commissar of Education.
+
+The work of guiding in general the people�s education, inasmuch as it
+remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent
+Assembly meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People�s Education,
+whose chairman and executive is the People�s Commissar.
+
+Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission?
+How is its sphere of competence determined?
+
+_The General Line of Educational Activity:_ Every genuinely
+democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where
+illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the
+struggle against this darkness. It must acquire in the shortest time
+_universal literacy,_ by organising a network of schools answering to
+the demands of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal,
+obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the same time a
+series of such teachers� institutes and seminaries as will in the
+shortest time furnish a powerful army of people�s teachers so
+necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our
+boundless Russia.
+
+_Decentralisation:_ The State Commission on People�s Education is by
+no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction
+and education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be
+transferred to the organs of local self-government. The independent
+work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own
+initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full
+autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres.
+
+The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to
+organise resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and
+private institutions, particularly to those with a class-character
+established by the workers.
+
+_The State Committee on People�s Education:_ A whole series of
+invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the
+Revolution by the State Committee for People�s Education, a tolerably
+democratic body as to its composition, and rich in experts. The State
+Commission sincerely desires the collaboration of this Committee.
+
+It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the
+request at once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee
+for the fulfilment of the following programme:
+
+1. The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the
+sense of greater democratisation.
+
+2. The revision of the Committee�s rights in the sense of widening
+them, and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State
+institute for the elaboration of law projects calculated to
+reorganise public instruction and education in Russia upon democratic
+principles.
+
+3. The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws
+already created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact
+that in editing them the Committee had to take into account the
+bourgeois spirit of previous Ministries, which obstructed it even in
+this its narrowed form.
+
+After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any
+bureau-cratic red tape, in the revolutionary order.
+
+_The Pedagogues and the Societists:_ The State Commission welcomes
+the pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the
+people�the masters of the country.
+
+No one measure in the domain of the people�s education ought to be
+adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who
+represent the pedagogues.
+
+On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached
+exclusively through the cooperation of specialists. This refers as
+well to reforms of the institutes of general education.
+
+The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces�this is how
+the Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State
+Committee, and in all its activities.
+
+As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the
+teachers� status, and first of all of those very poor though almost
+most important contributors to the work of culture�the elementary
+school teachers. Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and
+at any cost. The proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an
+increase of salary to one hundred rubles per month. It would be a
+disgrace any longer to keep in poverty the teachers of the
+overwhelming majority of the Russian people.
+
+But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal
+elementary instruction. It must endeavour to organise a uniform
+secular school of several grades. The ideal is, equal and if possible
+higher education for all the citizens. So long as this idea has not
+been realised for all, the natural transition through all the
+schooling grades up to the university�a transition to a higher
+stage�must depend entirely upon the pupil�s aptitude, and not upon
+the resources of his family.
+
+The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is
+particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal,
+imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must
+remember that education will serve them as the greatest instrument in
+their struggle for a better lot and for a spiritual growth. However
+needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people�s budget,
+the expenses on education must stand high. A large educational budget
+is the pride and glory of a nation. The free and enfranchised peoples
+of Russia will not forget this.
+
+The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a
+thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.
+Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing
+position of a man who cannot read and write. The school for adults
+must occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular
+instruction.
+
+_Instruction and Education:_ One must emphasise the difference
+between instruction and education.
+
+Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to
+his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the
+individual is being �educated� throughout life, is being formed,
+grows richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
+
+The toiling masses of the people�the workmen, the peasants, the
+soldiers�are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But
+they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the
+intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it
+to them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may
+here by only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social
+position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and
+intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own
+ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
+of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own
+fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear
+world-conception permeated with the class-idea  of the workers. There
+is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our
+nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The
+building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
+
+Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.
+What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the
+masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their
+parts a general human importance. They suffer radical changes with
+every far-reaching class upheaval.
+
+Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also
+among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement
+has arisen; workers� and soldiers� organisations of this kind are
+multiplying rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the
+road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular
+government in the domain of democratic education.
+
+_The Constituent Assembly_ will doubtless soon begin its work. It
+alone can permanently establish the order of national and social life
+in our country, and at the same time the general character of the
+organisation of popular education.
+
+Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really
+democratic character of the Constituent Assembly is assured. The line
+which the State Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will
+follow, will hardly suffer any modification under the influence of
+the Constituent Assembly. Without pre-determining it, the new
+People�s Government considers itself within its rights in enacting in
+this domain a series of measures which aim at enriching and
+enlightening as soon as possible the spiritual life of the country.
+
+_The Ministry:_ The present work must in the interim proceed through
+the Ministry of the People�s Education. Of all the necessary
+alterations in its composition and construction the State Commission
+will have charge, elected by the Executive Committee of the Soviets
+and the State Committee. Of course the order of State authority in
+the domain of the people�s education will be established by the
+Constituent Assembly. Until then, the Ministry must play the part of
+the executive apparatus for both the State Committee and the State
+Commission for People�s Education.
+
+The pledge of the country�s safety lies in the cooperation of all its
+vital and genuinely democratic forces.
+
+We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the
+honest enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its
+painful crisis, and through complete democracy to the reign of
+Socialism and the brotherhood of nations.
+
+                                _People�s Commissar on Education,_
+
+                                        A. V. LUNACHARSKY.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+    _On the Order in Which the Laws Are to be Ratified and Published._
+
+1. Until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the enacting
+and publishing of laws shall be carried out in the order decreed by
+the present Provisional Workmen�s and Peasants� Government, elected
+by the All-Russian Congress of Workers�, Peasants� and Soldiers�
+Deputies.
+
+2. Every bill is presented for consideration of the Government by the
+respective Ministry, signed by the duly authorised People�s
+Commissar; or it is presented by the legislative section attached to
+the Government, signed by the chief of the section.
+
+3. After its ratification by the Government, the decree in its final
+edition, in the name of the Russian Republic, is signed by the
+president of the Council of People�s Commissars, or for him by the
+People�s Commissar who presented it for the consideration of the
+Government, and is then published.
+
+4. The date of publishing it in the official �Gazette of the
+Provisional Workmen�s and Peasants� Government,� is the date of its
+becoming law.
+
+5. In the decree there may be appointed a date, other than the date
+of publication, on which it shall become law, or it may be
+promulgated by telegraph; in which case it is to be regarded in every
+locality as becoming law upon the publication of the telegram.
+
+6. The promulgation of legislative acts of the government by the
+State Senate is abolished. The Legislative Section attached to the
+Council of People�s Commissars issues periodically a collection of
+regulations and orders of the government which possess the force of
+law.
+
+7. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers�,
+Peasants�, and Soldiers� Deputies _(Tsay-ee-kah)_ has at all times
+the right to cancel, alter or annul any of the Government decrees.
+
+_In the name of the Russian Republic, the President of the Council of
+People�s Commissars,_
+
+                                        V. ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+                                 4.
+
+                        THE LIQUOR PROBLEM
+
+        _Order Issued by the Military Revolutonary Committee_
+
+1. Until further order the production of alcohol and alcoholic drinks
+is prohibited.
+
+2. It is ordered to all producers of alcohol and alcoholic drinks to
+inform not later than on the 27th inst. of the exact site of their
+stores.
+
+3. All culprits against this order will be tried by a Military
+Revolutionary Court.
+
+                                THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE.
+
+                                 5.
+
+                           ORDER NO. 2
+
+_From the Committee of the Finland Guard Reserve Regiment to all
+House Committees and to the citizens of Vasili Ostrov._
+
+The bourgeoisie has chosen a very sinister method of fighting against
+the proletariat; it has established in various parts of the city huge
+wine depots, and distributes liquor among the soldiers, in this
+manner attempting to sow dissatisfaction in the ranks of the
+Revolutionary army.
+
+It is herewith ordered to all house committees, that at 3 o�clock,
+the time set for posting this order, they shall in person and
+secretly notify the President of the Committee of the Finland Guard
+Regiment, concerning the amount of wine in their premises.
+
+Those who violate this order will be arrested and given trial before
+a merciless court, and their property will be confiscated, and the
+stock of wine discovered will be
+
+                        BLOWN UP WITH DYNAMITE
+
+                        2 hours after this warning,
+
+because more lenient measures, as experience has shown, do not bring
+the desired results.
+
+REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WARNING BEFORE THE EXPLOSIONS.
+
+                _Regimental Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment._
+
+
+                       APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
+
+                                 1.
+
+                MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE. BULLETIN NO. 2
+
+November 12th, in the evening, Kerensky sent a proposition to the
+revolutionary troops��to lay down their arms.� Kerensky�s men opened
+artillery fire. Our artillery answered and compelled the enemy to be
+silent. The Cossacks assumed the offensive. The deadly fire of the
+sailors, the Red Guards and the soldiers forced the Cossacks to
+retreat. Our armoured cars rushed in among the ranks of the enemy.
+The enemy is fleeing. Our troops are in pursuit. The order has been
+given to arrest Kerensky. Tsarskoye Selo has been taken by the
+revolutionary troops.
+
+_The Lettish Riflemen:_ The Military Revolutionary Committee has
+received precise information that the valiant Lettish Riflemen have
+arrived from the Front and taken up a position in the rear of
+Kerensky�s bands.
+
+_From the Staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The seizure of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo by Kerensky�s detachments
+is to be explained by the complete absence of artillery and
+machine-guns in these places, whereas Kerensky�s cavalry was provided
+with artillery from the beginning. The last two days were days of
+enforced work for our Staff, to provide the necessary quantity of
+guns, machine-guns, field telephones, etc., for the revolutionary
+troops. When this work�with the energetic assistance of the District
+Soviets and the factories (the Putilov Works, Obukhov and others)�was
+accomplished, the issue of the expected encounter left no place for
+doubt: on the side of the revolutionary troops there was not only a
+surplus in quantity and such a powerful material base as Petrograd,
+but also an enormous moral advantage. All the Petrograd regiments
+moved out to the positions with tremendous enthusiasm. The Garrison
+Conference elected a Control Commission of five soldiers, thus
+securing a complete unity between the commander in chief and the
+garrison. At the Garrison Conference it was unanimously decided to
+begin decisive action.
+
+The artillery fire on the 12th of November developed with
+extraordinary force by 3 P.M. The Cossacks were completely
+demoralised. A parliamentarian came from them to the staff of the
+detachment at Krasnoye Selo, and proposed to stop the firing,
+threatening otherwise to take �decisive� measures. He was answered
+that the firing would cease when Kerensky laid down his arms.
+
+In the developing encounter all sections of the troops�the sailors,
+soldiers and the Red Guards�showed unlimited courage. The sailors
+continued to advance until they had fired all their cartridges. The
+number of casualties has not been established yet, but it is larger
+on the part of the counter-revolutionary troops, who experienced
+great losses through one of our armoured cars.
+
+Kerensky�s staff, fearing that they would be surrounded, gave the
+order to retreat, which retreat speedily assumed a disorderly
+character. By 11-12 P.M., Tsarkoye Selo, including the wireless
+station, was entirely occupied by the troops of the Soviets. The
+Cossacks retreated towards Gatchina and Colpinno.
+
+The morale of the troops is beyond all praise. The order has been
+given to pursue the retreating Cossacks. From the Tsarskoye Selo
+station a radio-telegram was sent immediately to the Front and to all
+local Soviets throughout Russia. Further details will be
+communicated�.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                    EVENTS OF THE 13TH IN PETROGRAD
+
+Three regiments of the Petrograd garrison to take any part in the
+battle against Kerensky. On the morning of the 13th they summoned to
+a joint conference sixty delegates from the Front, in order to find
+some way to stop the civil war. This conference appointed a committee
+to go and persuade Kerensky�s troops to lay down their arms. They
+proposed to ask the Government soldiers the following questions: (1)
+Will the soldiers and Cossacks of Kerensky recognise the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ as the repository of Governmental power, responsible to
+the Congress of Soviets? (2) Will the soldiers and Cossacks accept
+the decrees of the second Congress of Soviets? (3) Will they accept
+the Land and Peace decrees? (4) Will they agree to cease hostilities
+and return to their units? (5) Will they consent to the arrest of
+Kerensky, Krasnov and Savinkov?
+
+At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev said, �It would be
+foolish to think that this committee could finish affair. The enemy
+can only be broken by force. However, it would be a crime for us not
+to try every peaceful means to bring the Cossacks over to us�. What
+we need is a military victory�. The news of an armistice is
+premature. Our Staff will be ready to conclude an armistice when the
+enemy can no longer do any harm�.
+
+�At present, the influence of our victory is creating new political
+conditions�. To-day the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined are
+inclined to admit the Bolsheviki into the new Government�. A decisive
+victory is indispensable, so that those who hesitate will have no
+further hesitation�.�
+
+At the City Duma all attention was concentrated on the formation of
+the new Government. In many factories and barracks already
+Revolutionary Tribunals were operating, and the Bolsheviki were
+threatening to set up more of these, and try Gotz and Avksentiev
+before them. Dan proposed that an ultimatum be sent demanding the
+abolition of these Revolutionary Tribunals, or the other members of
+the Conference would immediately break off all negotiations with the
+Bolsheviki.
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, declared that the Municipality ought not to take
+part in any agreement with the Bolsheviki�. �Any agreement with the
+maniacs is impossible until they lay down their arms and recognise
+the authority of independent courts of law�.�
+
+Yartsev, for the _Yedinstvo_ group, declared that any agreement with
+the Bolsheviki would be equivalent to a Bolshevik victory�.
+
+Mayor Schreider, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, stated that he
+was opposed to all agreement with the Bolsheviki�. �As for a
+Government, that ought to spring from the popular will; and since the
+popular will has been expressed in the municipal elections, the
+popular will which can create a Government is actually concentrated
+in the Duma�.�
+
+After other speakers, of which only the representative of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists was in favour of considering the
+admission of the Bolsheviki into the new Government, the Duma voted
+to continue its representatives in the _Vikzhel�s_ conference, but to
+insist upon the restoration of the Provisional Government before
+everything, and to exclude the Bolsheviki from the new power�.
+
+                                 3.
+
+        TRUCE. KRASNOV�s ANSWER TO THE COMMITTEE FOR SALVATION
+
+�In answer to your telegram proposing an immediate armistice, the
+Supreme Commander, not wishing further futile bloodshed, consents to
+enter into negotiations and to establish relations between the armies
+of the Government and the insurrectionists. He proposes to the
+General Staff of the insurrectionists to recall its regiments to
+Petrograd, to declare the line Ligovo-Pulkovo-Colpinno neutral, and
+to allow the advance-guards of the Government cavalry to enter
+Tsarskoye Selo, for the purpose of establishing order. The answer to
+this proposal must be placed in the hands of our envoys before eight
+o�clock to-morrow morning.
+
+                                                KRASNOV.�
+
+                                 4.
+
+                        EVENTS AT TSARSKOYE SELO
+
+On the evening that Kerensky�s troops retreated from Tsarskoye Selo,
+some priests organised a religious procession through the streets of
+the town, making speeches to the citizens in which they asked the
+people to support the rightful authority, the Provisional Government.
+When the Cossacks had retreated, and the first Red Guards entered the
+town, witnesses reported that the priests had incited the people
+against the Soviets, and had said prayers at the grave of Rasputin,
+which lies behind the Imperial Palace. One of the priests, Father
+Ivan Kutchurov, was arrested and shot by the infuriated Red Guards�.
+
+Just as the Red Guards entered the town the electric lights were shut
+off, plunging the streets in complete darkness. The director of the
+electric light plant, Lubovitch, was arrested by the Soviet troops
+and asked why he had shut off the lights. He was found some time
+later in the room where he had been imprisoned with a revolver in his
+hand and a bullet hole in his temple.
+
+The Petrograd anti-Bolshevik papers came out next day with headlines,
+�Plekhanov�s temperature 39 degrees!� Plekhanov lived at Tsarskoye
+Selo, where he was lying ill in bed. Red Guards arrived at the house
+and searched it for arms, questioning the old man.
+
+�What class of society do you belong to?� they asked him.
+
+�I am a revolutionist,� answered Plekhanov, �who for forty years has
+devoted his life to the struggle for liberty!�
+
+�Anyway,� said a workman, �you have now sold yourself to the
+bourgeoisie!�
+
+The workers no longer knew Plekhanov, pioneer of the Russian Social
+Democracy!
+
+                                 5.
+
+                    APPEAL OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+�The detachments at Gatchina, deceived by Kerensky, have laid down
+their arms and decided to arrest Kerensky. That chief of the
+counter-revolutionary campaign has fled. The Army, by an enormous
+majority, has pronounced in favour of the second All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, and of the Government which it has created. Scores of
+delegates from the Front have hastened to Petrograd to assure the
+Soviet Government of the Army�s fidelity. No twisting of the facts,
+no calumny against the revolutionary workers, soldiers, and peasants,
+has been able to defeat the People. The Workers� and Soldiers�
+Revolution is victorious�.
+
+�The _Tsay-ee-kah_ appeals to the troops which march under the flag
+of the counter-revolution, and invites them immediately to lay down
+their arms�to shed no longer the blood of their brothers in the
+interests of a handful of land-owners and capitalists. The Workers�,
+Soldiers� and Peasants� Revolution curses those who remain even for a
+moment under the flag of the People�s enemies�.
+
+�Cossacks! Come over to the rank of the victorious People!
+Railwaymen, postmen, telegraphers�all, all support the new Government
+of the People!�
+
+
+                        APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
+
+                                 1.
+
+                        DAMAGE TO THE KREMLIN
+
+I myself verified the damage to the Kremlin, which I visited
+immediately after the bombardment. The Little Nicolai Palace, a
+building of no particular importance, which was occupied occasionally
+by receptions of one of the Grand Duchesses, had served as barracks
+for the _yunkers._ It was not only bombarded, but pretty well sacked;
+fortunately there was nothing in it of particular historical value.
+
+Usspensky Cathedral had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but
+except for a few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The
+frescoes on the porch of Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly
+damaged by a shell. Another shell hit the corner of Ivan Veliki.
+Tchudovsky Monastery was hit about thirty times, but only one shell
+went through a window into the interior, the others breaking the
+brick window-moulding and the roof cornices.
+
+The clock over the Spasskaya Gate was smashed. Troitsky Gate was
+battered, but easily reparable. One of the lower towers had lost its
+brick spire.
+
+The church of St. Basil was untouched, as was the great Imperial
+Palace, with all the treasures of Moscow and Petrograd in its cellar,
+and the crown jewels in the Treasury. These places were not even
+entered.
+
+                                 2.
+
+                        LUNATCHARSKY�s DECLARATION
+
+�Comrades! You are the young masters of the country, and although now
+you have much to do and think about, you must know how to defend your
+artistic and scientific treasures.
+
+�Comrades! That which is happening at Moscow is a horrible,
+irreparable misfortune�. The People in its struggle for the power has
+mutilated our glorious capital.
+
+�It is particularly terrible in these days of violent struggle, of
+destructive warfare, to be Commissar of Public Education. Only the
+hope of the victory of Socialism, the source of a new and superior
+culture, brings me comfort. On me weighs the responsibility of
+protecting the artistic wealth of the people�. Not being able to
+remain at my post, where I had no influence, I resigned. My comrades,
+the other Commissars, considered this resignation inadmissible. I
+shall therefore remain at my post�. And moreover, I understand that
+the damage done to the Kremlin is not as serious as has been
+reported�.
+
+�But I beg you, comrades, to give me your support�. Preserve for
+yourselves and your descendants the beauty of our land; be the
+guardians of the property of the People.
+
+�Soon, very soon, even the most ignorant, who have been held in
+ignorance so long, will awake and understand what a source of joy,
+strength and wisdom is art�.�
+
+
+
+                                 3.
+
+                    QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE BOURGEOISIE
+
+[Graphic page-354]
+
+                                 4.
+
+                    REVOLUTIONARY FINANCIAL MEASURE
+                                _Order_
+
+In virtue of the powers vested in me by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee attached to the Moscow Soviet of Workers� and Soldiers�
+Deputies, I decree:
+
+1. All banks with branches, the Central State Savings Bank with
+branches, and the savings banks at the Post and Telegraph offices are
+to be opened beginning November 22nd, from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M. until
+further order.
+
+2. On current accounts and on the books of the savings banks,
+payments will be made by the above mentioned institutions, of not
+more than 150 rubles for each depositor during the course of the next
+week.
+
+3. Payments of amounts exceeding 150 rubles a week on current
+accounts and savings banks books, also payments on other accounts of
+all kinds will be allowed during the next three days�November 22nd,
+23d, and 24th, only in the following cases:
+
+(a) On the accounts of military organisations for the satisfaction of
+their needs;
+
+(b) For the payment of salaries of employees and the earnings of
+workers according to the tables and lists certified by the Factory
+Committees or Soviets of Employees, and attested by the signatures of
+the Commissars, or the representatives of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and the district Military Revolutionary Committees.
+
+4. Not more than 150 rubles are to be paid against drafts; the
+remaining sums are to be entered on current account, payments on
+which are to be made in the order established by the present decree.
+
+5. All other banking operations are prohibited during these three
+days.
+
+6. The receipt of money on all accounts is allowed for any amount.
+
+7. The representatives of the Finance Council for the certification
+of the authorisations indicated in clause 3 will hold their office in
+the building of the Stock Exchange, Ilyinka Street, from 10 A. M. to
+2 P. M.
+
+8. The Banks and Savings Banks shall send the totals of daily cash
+operations by 5 P. M. to the headquarters of the Soviet, Skobeliev
+Square, to the Military Revolutionary Committee, for the Finance
+Council.
+
+9. All employees and managers of credit institutions of all kinds who
+refuse to comply with this decree shall be responsible as enemies of
+the Revolution and of the mass of the population, before the
+Revolutionary Tribunals. Their names shall be published for general
+information.
+
+10. For the control of the operations of Branches of the Savings
+Banks and Banks within the limits of this decree, the district
+Military Revolutionary Committees shall elect three representatives
+and appoint their place of business.
+
+     _Fully-authorised Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+                                        S. SHEVERDIN-MAKSIMENKO.
+
+
+                       APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
+
+                                 1.
+
+                    LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER
+
+This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It
+covers the time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and
+armistice with the Germans, and the beginning of the Peace
+negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, as well as the period in which were
+laid the foundations of the Soviet State.
+
+However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and
+interpret these very important historical events, which require more
+space. They are therefore reserved for another volume, "Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk."
+
+In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet
+Government's attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and
+sketched its successive conquests of hostile domestic elements�which
+process was temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of
+Brest-Litovsk.
+
+                                 2.
+
+        PREAMBLE�DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA
+
+The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the
+common banner of Emancipation.
+
+The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners,
+for there is no longer the landowner's property right in the land�it
+has been abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated
+from the power of autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth
+be elective and subject to recall. The workingmen are being
+emancipated from the whims and arbitrary will of the capitalists, for
+henceforth there will be established the control of the workers over
+mills and factories. Everything living and capable of life is being
+emancipated from the hateful shackles.
+
+There remain only the peoples of Russia, who have suffered and are
+suffering oppression and arbitrariness, and whose emancipation must
+immediately be begun, whose liberation must be effected resolutely
+and definitely.
+
+During the period of Tsarism the peoples of Russia were
+systematically incited against one another. The result of such a
+policy are known: massacres and _pogroms_ on the one hand, slavery of
+peoples on the other.
+
+There can be and there must be no return to this disgraceful policy.
+Henceforth the policy of a voluntary and honest union of the peoples
+of Russia must be substituted.
+
+In the period of imperialism, after the March revolution, when the
+power was transferred into the hands of the Cadet bourgeoisie, the
+naked policy of provocation gave way to one of cowardly distrust of
+the peoples of Russia, to a policy of fault-finding, of meaningless
+"freedom" and "equality" of peoples. The results of such a policy are
+known: the growth of national enmity, the impairment of mutual
+confidence.
+
+An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust,
+of fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by
+an open and honest policy leading to the complete mutual confidence
+of the peoples of Russia. Only as the result of such a trust can
+there be formed an honest and lasting union of the peoples of Russia.
+Only as the result of such a union can the workers and peasants of
+the peoples of Russia be cemented into one revolutionary force able
+to resist all attempts on the part of the imperialist-annexationist
+bourgeoisie.
+
+                                 3.
+
+                              DECREES
+                _On the Nationalisation of the Banks_
+
+In the interest of the regular organisation of the national economy,
+of the thorough eradication of bank speculation and the complete
+emancipation of the workers, peasants, and the whole labouring
+population from the exploitation of banking capital, and with a view
+to the establishment of a single national bank of the Russian
+Republic which shall serve the real interests of the people and the
+poorer classes, the Central Executive Committee _(Tsay-ee-kah)_
+resolves:
+
+1. The banking business is declared a state monopoly.
+
+2. All existing private joint-stock banks and banking offices are
+merged in the State Bank.
+
+3. The assets and liabilities of the liquidated establishments are
+taken over by the State Bank.
+
+4. The order of the merger of private banks in the State Bank is to
+be determined by a special decree.
+
+5. The temporary administration of the affairs of the private banks
+is entrusted to the board of the State Bank.
+
+6. The interests of the small depositors will be safeguarded.
+
+                        *   *   *   *   *
+
+                _On the Equality of Rank of All Military Men_
+
+In realisation of the will of the revolutionary people regarding the
+prompt and decisive abolition of all remnants of former inequality in
+the Army, the Council of People's Commissars decrees:
+
+1. All ranks and grades in the Army, beginning with the rank of
+Corporal and ending with the rank of General, are abolished. The Army
+of the Russian Republic consists now of free and equal citizens,
+bearing the honourable title of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
+
+2. All privileges connected with the former ranks and grades, also
+all outward marks of distinction, are abolished.
+
+3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
+
+4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are
+abolished.
+
+5. With the abolition of the rank of officer, all separate officers'
+organisations are abolished.
+
+Note.�Orderlies are left only for headquarters, chanceries,
+Committees and other Army organisations.
+
+                _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+                                        N. KRYLENKO.
+
+                _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+                                        N. PODVOISKY.
+
+                _Secretary of the Council,_
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+_On the Elective Principle and the Organisation of Authority in the
+Army_
+
+1. The army serving the will of the toiling people is subject to its
+supreme representative�the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+2. Full authority within the limits of military units and
+combinations is vested in the respective Soldiers' Committees and
+Soviets.
+
+3. Those phases of the life and activity of the troops which are
+already under the jurisdiction of the Committees are now formally
+placed in their direct control. Over such branches of activity which
+the Committees cannot assume, the control of the Soldiers' Soviets is
+established.
+
+4. The election of commanding Staff and officers is introduced. All
+commanders up to the commanders of regiments, inclusive, are elected
+by general suffrage of squads, platoons, companies, squadrons,
+batteries, divisions (artillery, 2-3 batteries), and regiments. All
+commanders higher than the commander of a regiment, and up to the
+Supreme Commander, inclusive, are elected by congresses or
+conferences of Committees.
+
+Note.�By the term "conference" must be understood a meeting of the
+respective Committees together with delegates of committees one
+degree lower in rank. (Such as a "conference" of Regimental
+Committees with delegates from Company Committees.�Author.)
+
+5. The elected commanders above the rank of commander of regiment
+must be confirmed by the nearest Supreme Committee.
+
+Note. In the event of a refusal by a Supreme Committee to confirm an
+elected commander, with a statement of reasons for such refusal, a
+commander elected by the lower Committee a second time must be
+confirmed.
+
+6. The commanders of Armies are elected by Army congresses.
+Commanders of Fronts are elected by congresses of the respective
+Fronts.
+
+7. To posts of a technical character, demanding special knowledge or
+other practical preparation, namely: doctors, engineers, technicians,
+telegraph  and wireless operators, aviators, automobilists, etc.,
+only such persons as possess the required special knowledge may be
+elected, by the Committees of the units of the respective services.
+
+8. Chiefs of Staff must be chosen from among persons with special
+military training for that post.
+
+9. All other members of the Staff are appointed by the Chief of
+Staff, and confirmed by the respective congresses.
+
+Note.�All persons with special training must be listed in a special
+list.
+
+10. The right is reserved to retire from the service all commanders
+on active service who are not elected by the soldiers to any post,
+and who consequently are ranked as privates.
+
+11. All other functions beside those pertaining to the command, with
+the exception of posts in the economic departments, are filled by
+appointment of the respective elected commanders.
+
+12. Detailed instructions regarding the elections of the commanding
+Staff will be published separately.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People's Commissars._
+
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+
+                                        N. KRYLENKO.
+
+                        _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+
+                                        N. PODVOISKY.
+
+                        _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                _On the Abolition of Classes and Titles_
+
+1. All classes and class divisions, all class privileges and
+delimitations, all class organisations and institutions and all civil
+ranks are abolished.
+
+2. All classes of society (nobles, merchants, petty bourgeois,
+etc.),and all titles (Prince, Count and others), and all
+denominations of civil rank (Privy State Councillor, and others), are
+abolished, and there is established the general denomination of
+Citizen of the Russian Republic.
+
+3. The property and institutions of the classes of nobility are
+transferred to the corresponding autonomous Zemstvos.
+
+4. The property of merchant and bourgeois organisations is
+transferred immediately to the Municipal Self-Governments.
+
+5. All class institutions of any sort, with their property, their
+rules of procedure, and their archives, are transferred to the
+administration of the Municipalities and Zemstvos.
+
+6. All articles of existing laws applying to these matters are
+herewith repealed.
+
+7. The present decree becomes effective on the day it is published
+and applied by the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+The present decree has been confirmed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at the
+meeting of November 23d, 1917, and signed by:
+
+                        _President of the Tsay-ee-kah,_
+
+                                        SVERDLOV.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _Executive of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+                                        V. BONCH-BRUEVITCH.
+
+                        _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+On December 3d the Council of People's Commissars resolved "to reduce
+the salaries of functionaries and employees in all Government
+institutions and establishments, general or special, without
+exception."
+
+To begin with, the Council fixed the salary of a People's Commissar
+at 500 rubles per month, with 100 rubles additional for each grown
+member of the family incapable of work�.
+
+This was the highest salary paid to any Government official�.
+
+                                 4.
+
+Countess Panina was arrested and brought to trial before the first
+Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal. The trial is described in the chapter
+on "Revolutionary Justice" in my forthcoming volume, "Kornilov to
+Brist- Litovsk." The prisoner was sentenced to "return the money, and
+then be liberated to the public contempt." In other words, she was
+set free!
+
+                                 5.
+
+                        RIDICULE OF THE NEW R�GIME
+
+        From _Drug Naroda_ (Menshevik), November 18th:
+
+"The story of the 'immediate peace' of the Bolsheviki reminds us of a
+joyous moving-picture film�. Neratov runs�Trotzky pursues; Neratov
+climbs a wall, Trotzky too; Neratov dives into the water�Trotzky
+follows; Neratov climbs onto the roof�Trotzky right behind him;
+Neratov hides under the bed�and Trotzky has him! He has him!
+Naturally, peace is immediately signed�.
+
+"All is empty and silent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The
+couriers are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression�.
+
+"How about arresting an ambassador and signing an armistice or a
+Peace Treaty with him? But they are strange folk, these ambassadors.
+They keep silent just as if they had heard nothing. Hola, hola,
+England, France, Germany! We have signed an armistice with you! Is it
+possible that you know nothing about it? Nevertheless, it has been
+published in all the papers and posted on all the walls. On a
+Bolshevik's word of honour, Peace has been signed. We're not asking
+much of you; you just have to write two words�.
+
+"The ambassadors remain silent. The Powers remain silent. All is
+empty and silent in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+"'Listen,' says Robespierre-Trotzky to his assistant Marat-Uritzky,
+'run over to the British Ambassador's, tell him we're proposing
+peace!'
+
+"'Go yourself,' says Marat-Uritzky. 'He's not receiving.'
+
+"'Telephone him, then.'
+
+"'I've tried. The receiver's off the hook.'
+
+"'Send him a telegram.'
+
+"'I did.'
+
+"'Well, with what result?'
+
+"Marat-Uritzky sighs and does not answer. Robespierre-Trotzky spits
+furiously into the corner�.
+
+"'Listen, Marat,' recommences Trotzky, after a moment. 'We must
+absolutely show that we're conducting an active foreign policy. How
+can we do that?'
+
+"'Launch another decree about arresting Neratov,' answers Uritzky,
+with a profound air.
+
+"'Marat, you're a blockhead!' cries Trotzky. All of a sudden he
+arises, terrible and majestic, looking at this moment like
+Robespierre.
+
+"'Write, Uritzky!' he says with severity. 'Write a letter to the
+British ambassador, a registered letter with receipt demanded. Write!
+I also will write! The peoples of the world await an immediate peace!'
+
+"In the enormous and empty Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to be
+heard only the sound of two typewriters. With his own hands Trotzky
+is conducting an active foreign policy�."
+
+                                 6.
+
+                ON THE QUESTION OF AN AGREEMENT
+
+To the Attention of All Workers and All Soldiers.
+
+November 11th, in the club of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was held
+an extraordinary meeting of representatives of all the units of the
+Petrograd garrison.
+
+The meeting was called upon the initiative of the Preobrazhensky and
+Semionovsky Regiments, for the discussion of the question as to which
+Socialist parties are for the power of the Soviets, which are
+against, which are for the people, which against, and if an agreement
+between them is possible.
+
+The representatives of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ of the Municipal Duma, of
+the Avksentiev Peasants' Soviets, and of all the political parties
+from the Bolsheviki to the Populist Socialists, were invited to the
+meeting.
+
+After long deliberation, having heard the declarations of all parties
+and organisations, the meeting by a tremendous majority of votes
+agreed that only the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries are for the people, and that all the other parties
+are only attempting, under cover of seeking an agreement, to deprive
+the people of the conquests won in the days of the great Workers' and
+Peasants' Revolution of November.
+
+Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the
+Petrograd garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:
+
+"The garrison conference, summoned at the initiative of the
+Semionovsky and Preobrazhensky Regiments, on hearing the
+representatives of all the Socialist parties and popular
+organisations on the question of an agreement between the different
+political parties finds that:
+
+"1. The representatives of the _Tasy-ee-kah,_ the representatives of
+the Bolshevik party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared
+definitely that they stand for a Government of the Soviets, for the
+decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control of Industry, and that
+upon this platform they are willing to agree with all the Socialist
+parties.
+
+"2. At the same time the representatives of the other parties
+(Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries) either gave no answer at all,
+or declared simply that they were opposed to the power of the Soviets
+and against the decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control.
+
+"In view of this the meeting resolves:
+
+"'1. To express severe censure of all parties which, under cover of
+an agreement, wish practically to annul the popular conquests of the
+Revolution of November.
+
+"2. To express full confidence in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Council
+of People's Commissars, and to promise them complete support.'
+
+"At the same time the meeting deems it necessary that the comrades
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries should enter the People's Government."
+
+                                 7.
+
+                           WINE "POGROMS"
+
+It was afterward discovered that there was a regular organisation,
+maintained by the Cadets, for provoking rioting among the soldiers.
+There would be telephone messages to the different barracks,
+announcing that wine was being given away at such and such an
+address, and when the soldiers arrived at the spot an individual
+would point out the location of the cellar�.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars appointed a Commissar for the
+Fight Against Drunkenness, who, besides mercilessly putting down the
+wine riots, destroyed hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquor. The
+Winter Palace cellars, containing rare vintages valued at more than
+five million dollars, were at first flooded, and then the liquor was
+removed to Cronstadt and destroyed.
+
+In this work the Cronstadt sailors, "flower and pride of the
+revolutionary forces," as Trotzky called them, acquitted themselves
+with iron selfdicipline�.
+
+                                 8.
+
+                            SPECULATORS
+
+Two orders concerning them:
+
+                _Council of People's Commissars_
+
+                _To the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The disorganisation of the food supply created by the war, and the
+lack of system, is becoming to the last degree acute, thanks to the
+speculators, marauders and their followers on the railways, in the
+steamship offices, forwarding offices, etc.
+
+Taking advantage of the nation's greatest misfortunes, these criminal
+spoliators are playing with the health and life of millions of
+soldiers and workers, for their own benefit.
+
+Such a situation cannot be borne a single day longer.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars proposes to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee to take the most decisive measures towards
+the uprooting of speculation, sabotage, hiding of supplies,
+fraudulent detention of cargoes, etc.
+
+All persons guilty of such actions shall be subject, by special
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest
+and confinement in the prisons of Cronstadt, pending their
+arraignment before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+All the popular organisations are invited to cooperate in the
+struggle against the spoliators of food supplies.
+
+                _President of the Council of People's Commissaries._
+                                        V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Accepted for execution,
+                _Military Revolutionary Committee attached to
+                the C. E. C. of the Soviets of W. & S. Deputies._
+
+Petrograd, Nov. 23d, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                    _To All Honest Citizens_
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee Decrees:_
+
+Spoliators, marauders, speculators, are declared to be enemies of the
+People�.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee proposes to all public
+organisations, to all honest citizens: to inform the Military
+Revolutionary Committee immediately of all cases of spoliation,
+marauding, speculation, which become known to them.
+
+The struggle against this evil is the business of all honest people.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee expects the support of all to
+whom the interests of the People are dear.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee will be merciless in pursuit of
+speculators and marauders.
+
+                                THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+Petrograd, Dec. 2d, 1917.
+
+                                 9.
+
+                    PURISHKEVITCH's LETTER TO KALEDIN
+
+"The situation at Petrograd is desperate. The city is cut off from
+the outside world and is entirely in the power of the Bolsheviki�.
+People are arrested in the streets, thrown into the Neva, drowned and
+imprisoned without any charge. Even Burtzev is shut up in Peter-Paul
+fortress, under strict guard.
+
+"The organisation at whose head I am is working without rest to unite
+all the officers and what is left of the _yunker_ schools, and to arm
+them. The situation cannot be saved except by creating regiments of
+officers and _yunkers._ Attacking with these regiments, and having
+gained a first success, we could later gain the aid of the garrison
+troops; but without that first success it is impossible to count on a
+single soldier, because thousands of them are divided and terrorised
+by the scum which exists in every regiment. Most of the Cossacks are
+tainted by Bolshevik propaganda, thanks to the strange policy of
+General Dutov, who allowed to pass the moment when by decisive action
+something could have been obtained. The policy of negotiations and
+concessions has borne its fruits; all that is respectable is
+persecuted, and it is the _plebe_ and the criminals who dominate�and
+nothing can be done except by shooting and hanging them.
+
+"We are awaiting you here, General, and at the moment of your
+arrival, we shall advance with all the forces at our disposal. But
+for that we must establish some communication with you, and before
+all, clear up the following points:
+
+"(1) Do you know that in your name all officers who could take part
+in the fight are being invited to leave Petrograd on the pretext of
+joining you?
+
+"(2) About when can we count on your arrival at Petrograd? We should
+like to know in order to coordinate our actions.
+
+"In spite of the criminal inaction of the conscious people here,
+which allowed the yoke of Bolshevism to be laid upon us�in spite of
+the extraordinary pig�headedness of the majority of officers, so
+difficult to organise� we believe in spite of all that Truth is on
+our side, and that we shall conquer the vicious and criminal forces
+who say that they are acting for motives of love of country and in
+order to save it. Whatever comes, we shall not permit ourselves to be
+struck down, and shall remain firm until the end."
+
+Purishkevitch, being brought to trial before the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, was given a short prison term�.
+
+                                10.
+
+                DECREE ON THE MONOPOLY OF ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+1. The printing of advertisements, in newspapers, books, bill-boards,
+kiosks, in offices and other establishments is declared to be a State
+monopoly.
+
+2. Advertisements may only be published in the organs of the
+Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government at Petrograd, and in
+the organs of local Soviets.
+
+3. The proprietors of newspapers and advertising offices, as well as
+all employees of such establishments, should remain at their posts
+until the transfer of the advertisement business to the Government�.
+superintending the uninterrupted continuation of their houses, and
+turning over to  the Soviets all private advertising and the sums
+received therefor, as well as all accounts and copy.
+
+4. All managers of publications and businesses dealing with paid
+advertising, as well as their employees and workers, shall agree to
+hold a City Congress, and to join, first the City Trade Unions, and
+then the All-Russian Unions, to organise more thoroughly and justly
+the advertising business in the Soviet publications, as well as to
+prepare better rules for the public utility of advertising.
+
+5. All persons found guilty of having concealed documents or money,
+or having sabotaged the regulations indicated in paragraphs 3 and 4,
+will be punished by a sentence of not more than three years'
+imprisonment, and all their property will be confiscated.
+
+6. The paid insertion of advertisements�. in private publications, or
+under a masqued form, will also be severely penalised.
+
+7. Advertising offices are confiscated by the Government, the owners
+being entitled to compensation in cases of necessity. Small
+proprietors, depositors and stock-holders of the confiscated
+establishments will be reimbursed for all moneys held by them in the
+concern.
+
+8. All buildings, officers, counters, and in general every
+establishment doing a business in advertising, should immediately
+inform the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of its address,
+and proceed to the transfer of its business, under penalty of the
+punishment indicated in paragraph 5.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _People's Commissar for Public Instruction,_
+                                        A. V. LUNATCHARSKY.
+
+                        _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                                11.
+
+                        OBLIGATORY ORDINANCE
+
+1. The city of Petrograd is declared to be in a state of siege.
+
+2. All assemblies, meetings and congregations on the streets and
+squares are prohibited.
+
+3. Attempts to loot wine-cellars, warehouses, factories, stores,
+business premises, private dwellings, etc., etc., _will be stopped by
+machine-gun fire without warning._
+
+4. House Committees, doormen, janitors and Militiamen are charged
+with the duty of keeping strict order in all houses, courtyards and
+in the streets, and house-doors and carriage-entrances must be locked
+at 9 o'clock in the evening, and opened at 7 o'clock in the morning.
+After 9 o'clock in the evening only tenants may leave the house,
+under strict control of the House Committees.
+
+5. Those guilty of the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of
+alcoholic liquor, and also those guilty of the violation of sections
+2 and 4, will be immediately arrested and subjected to the most
+severe punishment.
+
+Petrograd, 6th of December, 3 o'clock in the night.
+
+        _Committee to Fight Against Pogroms, attached to the Executive
+        Committee of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+                                12.
+
+                        TWO PROCLAMATIONS
+
+Lenin, To _the People of Russia:_
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants�all toilers!
+
+"The Workers' and Peasants' Revolution has won at Petrograd, at
+Moscow�. From the Front and the villages arrive every day, every
+hour, greetings to the new Government�. The victory of the
+Revolution�. is assured, seeing that it is sustained by the majority
+of the people.
+
+"It is entirely understandable that the proprietors and the
+capitalists, the employees and functionaries closely allied with the
+bourgeoisic�in a word, all the rich and all those who join hands with
+them�regard the new Revolution with hostility, oppose its success,
+threaten to halt the activity of the banks, and sabotage or obstruct
+the work of other establishments�. Every conscious worker understands
+perfectly that we cannot avoid this hostility, because the high
+officials have set themselves against the People and do not wish to
+abandon their posts without resistance. But the working classes are
+not for one moment afraid of that resistance. The majority of the
+people are for us. For us are the majority of the workers and the
+oppressed of the whole world. We have justice on our side. Our
+ultimate victory is certain.
+
+"The resistance of the capitalists and high officials will be broken.
+No one will be deprived of his property without a special law on the
+nationalisation of banks and financial syndicates. This law is in
+preparation. Not a worker will lose a single kopek; on the contrary,
+he will be assisted. Without at this moment establishing the new
+taxes, the new Government considers one of its primary duties to make
+a severe accounting and control on the reception of taxes decreed by
+the former r�gime�.
+
+"Comrades workers! Remember that you yourselves direct the
+Government. No one will help you unless you organise yourselves and
+take into your own hands the affairs of the State. Your Soviets are
+now the organs of governmental power�. Strengthen them, establish a
+severe revolutionary control, pitilessly crush the attempts at
+anarchy on the part of drunkards, brigands, counter-revolutionary
+_yunkers_ and Kornilovists.
+
+"Establish a strict control over production and the accounting for
+products. Arrest and turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal of the
+People every one who injures the property of the People, by sabotage
+in production, by concealment of grain-reserves, reserves of other
+products, by retarding the shipments of grain, by bringing confusion
+into the railroads, the posts and the telegraphs, or in general
+opposing the great work of bringing Peace and transferring the Land
+to the peasants�.
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants�all toilers!
+
+"Take immediately all local power into your hands�. Little by little,
+with the consent of the majority of peasants, we shall march firmly
+and unhesitatingly toward the victory of Socialism, which will
+fortify the advance-guards of the working-class of the most civilised
+Countries, and give to the peoples an enduring peace, and free them
+from every slavery and every exploitation."
+
+                                13.
+
+_"To All Workers of Petrograd!_
+
+"Comrades! The Revolution is winning�the revolution has won. All the
+power has passed over to our Soviets. The first weeks are the most
+difficult ones. The broken reaction must be finally crushed, a full
+triumph must be secured to our endeavours. The working-class ought
+to�must�show in these days THE GREATEST FIRMNESS AND ENDURANCE, in
+order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People's
+Government of Soviets. In the next few days decrees on the Labour
+question will be issued, and among the very first will be the decree
+on Workers' Control over the production and regulation of Industry.
+
+"STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE WORKER MASSES IN PETROGRAD NOW CAN
+ONLY DO HARM.
+
+"We ask you to cease immediately all economic and political strikes,
+to  take up your work, and do it in perfect order. The work in the
+factories and all the industries is necessary for the new Government
+of Soviets, because any interruption of this work will only create
+new difficulties for us, and we have enough as it is. All to your
+places.
+
+"The best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these
+days�is by doing your job.
+
+"LONG LIVE THE IRON FIRMNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT! LONG LIVE THE
+REVOLUTION!"
+
+                        _Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Trade Unions._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Factory-Shop Committees._
+
+
+                                14.
+
+                    APPEALS AND COUNTER-APPEALS
+
+_From the Employees of the State and private Banks To the Population
+of Petrograd:_
+
+�Comrades workers, soldiers and citizens!
+
+�The Military Revolutionary Committee in an �extraordinary notice� is
+accusing the workers of the State and private banking and other
+institutions of �impeding the work of the Government, directed
+towards the ensuring of the Front with provisions.�
+
+�Comrades and citizens, do not believe this calumny, brought against
+us, who are part of the general army of labour.
+
+�However difficult it be for us to work under the constant threat of
+interference by acts of violence in our hard-working life, however
+depressing it be to know that our Country and the Revolution are on
+the verge of ruin, we, nevertheless, all of us, from the highest to
+the lowest, employees, _artelshtchiki,_ counters, labourers,
+couriers, etc., are continuing to fulfil our duties which are
+connected with the ensuring of provisions and munitions to the Front
+and country.
+
+�Counting upon your lack of information, comrades workers and
+soldiers, in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited
+against workers like yourselves, because it is desirable to divert
+the responsibility for the starving and dying brother-soldiers at the
+Front from the guilty persons to the innocent workers who are
+accomplishing their duty under the burden of general poverty and
+disorganisation.
+
+�REMEMBER, WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! THE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALWAYS STOOD UP
+FOR AND WILL ALWAYS STAND UP FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE TOILING PEOPLE,
+PART OF WHICH THEY ARE THEMSELVES, AND NOT A SINGLE KOPEK NECESSARY
+FOR THE FRONT AND THE WORKERS HAS EVER BEEN DETAINED AND WILL NOT BE
+DETAINED BY THE EMPLOYEES.
+
+�From November 6th to November 23d, i.e., during 17 days, 500 million
+rubles were dispatched to the Front, and 120 millions to Moscow,
+besides the sums sent to other towns.
+
+�Keeping guard over the wealth of the people, the master of which can
+be only the Constituent Assembly, representing the whole nation, the
+employees refuse to give out money for purposes which are unknown to
+them.
+
+�DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALUMNIATORS CALLING YOU TO TAKE THE LAW INTO
+YOUR OWN HANDS!�
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Union of Employees of the State
+Bank._
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Trade Union of Employees of Credit
+Institutions._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                    _To the Population of Petrograd._
+
+�CITIZENS: Do not believe the falsehood which irresponsible people
+are trying to suggest to you by spreading terrible calumnies against
+the employees of the Ministry of Supplies and the workers in other
+Supply organisations who are labouring in these dark days for the
+salvation of Russia. Citizens! In posted placards you are called upon
+to lynch us, we are accused falsely of sabotage and strikes, we are
+blamed for all the woes and misfortunes that the people are
+suffering, although we have been striving indefatigably and
+uninterruptedly, and are still striving, to save the Russian people
+from the horrors of starvation. Notwithstanding all that we are
+bearing as citizens of unhappy Russia, we have not for one hour
+abandoned our heavy and responsible work of supplying the Army and
+population with provisions.
+
+�The image of the Army, cold and hungry, saving our very existence by
+its blood and its tortures, does not leave us for a single moment.
+
+�Citizens! If we have survived the blackest days in the life and
+history of our people, if we have succeeded in preventing famine in
+Petrograd, if we have managed to procure to the suffering army bread
+and forage by means of enormous, almost superhuman, efforts, it is
+because we have honestly continued and are still continuing to do our
+work�.
+
+�To the �last warning� of the usurpers of the power we reply: It is
+not for you who are leading the country to ruin to threaten us who
+are doing all we can not to allow the country to perish. We are not
+afraid of threats; before us stands the sacred image of tortured
+Russia. We will continue our work of supplying the Army and the
+people with bread to our last efforts, so long as you will not
+prevent us from accomplishing our duty to our country. In the
+contrary case the Army and the people will stand before the horrors
+of famine, but the responsibility therefor belongs to the
+perpetrators of violence.
+
+                _Executive Committee of the Employees of the
+                                Ministry of Supplies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+                _To the_ Tchinovniki (_Government Officials_).
+
+It is notified hereby, that all officials and persons who have
+quitted the service in Government and public institutions or have
+been dismissed for sabotage or for having failed to report for work
+on the day fixed, and who have nevertheless received their salary
+paid in advance for the time they have not served, are bound to
+return such salary not later than on November 27th, 1917, to those
+institutions where they were in service.
+
+In the event of this not being done, these persons will be rendered
+answerable for stealing the Treasury�s property and tried by the
+Military Revolutionary Court.
+
+                                _The Military-Revolutionary Committee._
+
+December 7th, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_From the Special Board for the Supplies_
+CITIZENS
+
+�The conditions of our work for the supplying of Petrograd are
+getting more and more difficult every day.
+
+�The interference with our work�which is so ruinous to our
+business�of the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee is
+still continuing.
+
+�THEIR ARBITRARY ACTS, their annulling of our orders, MAY LEAD TO A
+CATASTROPHE.
+
+�Seals have been affixed to one of the cold storages where the meat
+and butter destined for the population are kept, and we cannot
+regulate the temperature SO THAT THE PRODUCTS WOULD NOT BE SPOILT.
+
+�One carload of potatoes and one carload of cabbages have been seized
+and carried away no one knows where to.
+
+�Cargoes which are not liable to requisition (_khalva_) are
+requisitioned by the Commissars and, as was the case one day, five
+boxes of _khalva_ were seized by the Commissar for his own use.
+
+�WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO DISPOSE OF OUR STORAGES, where the
+selfappointed Commissars do not allow the cargoes to be taken out,
+and terrorise our employees, threatening them with arrest.
+
+�ALL THAT IS GOING ON IN PETROGRAD IS KNOWN IN THE PROVINCES, AND
+FROM THE DON, FROM SIBERIA, FROM VORONEZH AND OTHER PLACES PEOPLE ARE
+REFUSING TO SEND FLOUR AND BREAD.
+
+�THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER.
+
+�The work is simply falling out of our hands.
+
+�OUR DUTY is to let the population know of this.
+
+�To the last possibility we will remain on guard of the interests of
+the population.
+
+�WE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO AVOID THE ONCOMING FAMINE, BUT IF UNDER
+THESE DIFFICULT CONDITIONS OUR WORK IS COMPELLED TO STOP, LET THE
+PEOPLE KNOW THAT IT IS NOT OUR FAULT�.�
+
+                                15.
+
+ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN PETROGRAD
+
+There were nineteen tickets in Petrograd. The results are as follows,
+published November 30th:
+
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | _Party_                                           | _Vote_  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Populist Socialists                               | 19,109  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Cadets                                            | 245,006 |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Christian Democrats                               | 3,707   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Bolsheviki                                        | 424,027 |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Socialist Universalists                           | 158     |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | S. D. and S. R. Ukrainean and Jewish Workers      | 4,219   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | League of Women�s Rights                          | 5,310   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Socialist Revolutionaries (_oborontsi_)           | 4,696   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Left Socialist Revolutionaries                    | 152,230 |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | League of the People�s Development                | 385     |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Radical Democrats                                 | 413     |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Orthodox Parishes                                 | 24,139  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Feminine League for Salvation of Country          | 318     |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Independent League of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants | 4,942   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Christian Democrats (Catholic)                    | 14,382  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Unified Social Democrats                          | 11,740  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | Mensheviki                                        | 17,427  |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | _Yedinstvo_ group                                 | 1,823   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+    | League of Cossack Troops                          | 6,712   |
+    +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+
+                                16.
+
+        FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE�s COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING COSSACKS
+
+_�Brothers-Cossacks._
+
+�You are being deceived. You are being incited against the People.
+You are told that the Soviets of Workers�, Soldiers� and Peasants�
+Deputies are your enemies, that they want to take away your Cossack
+land, your Cossack �liberty�. Don�t believe it, Cossacks�. Your own
+Generals and landowners are deceiving you, in order to keep you in
+darkness and slavery.  We, the Council of People�s Commissars,
+address ourselves to you, Cossacks, with these words. Read them
+attentively and judge yourselves which is the truth and which is
+cruel deceit. The life and service of a Cossack were always bondage
+and penal servitude. At the first call of the authorities a Cossack
+always had to saddle his horse and ride out on campaign. All his
+military equipment a Cossack had to provide with his own hardly
+earned means. A Cossack is on service, his farm is going to rack and
+ruin. Is such a condition fair? No, it must be altered for ever. THE
+COSSACKS MUST BE FREED FROM BONDAGE. The new People�s Soviet power is
+willing to come to the assistance of the toiling Cossacks. It is only
+necessary that the Cossacks themselves should resolve to abolish the
+old order, that they should refuse submission to their slave-driver
+officers, land-owners, rich men, that they should throw off the
+cursed yoke from their necks. Arise, Cossacks! Unite! The Council of
+People�s Commissars calls upon you to enter a new, fresh, more happy
+life.
+
+�In November and December in Petrograd there were All-Russian
+Congresses of Soviets of Soldiers�, Workers�, and Peasants� Deputies.
+These Congresses transferred all the authority in the different
+localities into the hands of the Soviets, i.e., into the hands of men
+elected by the People. From now on there must be in Russia no rulers
+or functionaries who command the People from above and drive them.
+The People create the authority themselves. A General has no more
+rights than a soldier. All are equal. Consider, Cossacks, is this
+wrong or right? We are calling upon you, Cossacks, to join this new
+order and to create your own Soviets of Cossacks� Deputies. To such
+Soviets all the power must belong in the different localities. Not to
+_hetmans_ with the rank of General, but to the elected
+representatives of the toiling Cossacks, to your own trustworthy
+reliable men.
+
+�The All-Russian Congresses of Soldiers�, Workers�, and Peasants�
+Deputies have passed a resolution to transfer all landowners� land
+into the possession of the toiling people. Is not that fair,
+Cossacks? The Kornilovs, Kaledins, Dutovs, Karaulovs, Bardizhes, all
+defend with their whole souls the interests of the rich men, and they
+are ready to drown Russia in blood if only the lands remain in the
+hands of the landowners. But you, the toiling Cossacks, do not you
+suffer yourselves from poverty, oppression and lack of land? How many
+Cossacks are there who have more than 4-5 _dessiatins_ per head? But
+the landowners, who have thousands of _dessiatins_ of their own land,
+wish besides to get into their hands the lands of the Cossack Army.
+According to the new Soviet laws, the lands of Cossack landowners
+must pass without compensation into the hands of the Cossack workers,
+the poorer Cossacks. You are being told that the Soviets wish to take
+away your lands from you. Who is frightening you? The rich Cossacks,
+who know that the Soviet AUTHORITY WISHES TO transfer the landowners�
+lands to you. Choose then, Cossacks, for whom will you stand: for the
+Kornilovs and Kaledins, for the Generals and rich men, or for the
+Soviets of Peasants�, Soldiers�, Workers� and Cossacks� Deputies.
+
+�THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE�s COMMISSARS elected by the All-Russian
+Congress HAS PROPOSED TO ALL NATIONS AN IMMEDIATE ARMISTICE AND AN
+HONOURABLE DEMOCRATIC PEACE WITHOUT LOSS OR DETRIMENT TO ANY NATION.
+All the capitalists, landowners, Generals-Kornilovists have risen
+against the peaceful policy of the Soviets. The war was bringing them
+profits, power, distinctions. And to you, Cossack privates? You were
+perishing without reason, without purpose, like your
+brothers-soldiers and sailors. It will soon be three years and a half
+that this accursed war has gone on, a war devised by the capitalists
+and landowners of all countries for their own profit, their world
+robberies. To the toiling Cossacks the war has only brought ruin and
+death. The war has drained all the resources from Cossack farm life.
+The only salvation for the whole of our country and for the Cossacks
+in  particular is a prompt and honest peace. The Council of People�s
+Commissars has declared to all Governments and peoples: We do not
+want other people�s property, and we do not wish to give away our
+own. Peace without annexations and without indemnities. Every nation
+must decide its own fate. There must be no oppressing of one nation
+by another. Such is the honest, democratic, People�s peace which the
+Council of People�s Commissars is proposing to all Governments, to
+all peoples, allies and enemies. And the results are visible: ON THE
+RUSSIAN FRONT AN ARMISTICE HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.
+
+�The soldier�s and the Cossack�s blood is not flowing there any more.
+Now, Cossacks, decide: do you wish to continue this ruinous,
+senseless, criminal slaughter? Then support the Cadets, the enemies
+of the people, support Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, who drove you
+into the offensive of July 1st; support Kornilov, who introduced
+capital punishment for soldiers and Cossacks at the front. BUT IF YOU
+WISH A PROMPT AND HONEST PEACE, THEN ENTER THE RANKS OF THE SOVIETS
+AND SUPPORT THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE�s COMMISSARS.
+
+�Your fate, Cossacks, lies in your own hands. Our common foes, the
+landowners, capitalists, officers-Kornilovists, bourgeois newspapers,
+are deceiving you and driving you along the road to ruin. In
+Orenburg, Dutov has arrested the Soviet and disarmed the garrison.
+Kaledin is threatening the Soviets in the province of the Don. He has
+declared the province to be in a state of war and is assembling his
+troops. Karaulov is shooting the local tribes in the Caucasus. The
+Cadet bourgeoisie is supplying them with its millions. Their common
+aim is to suppress the People�s Soviets, to crush the workers and
+peasants, to introduce again the discipline of the whip in the army,
+and to eternalise the bondage of the toiling Cossacks.
+
+�Our revolutionary troops are moving to the Don and the Ural in order
+to put an end to this criminal revolt against the people. The
+commanders of the revolutionary troops have received orders not to
+enter into any negotiations with the mutinous Generals, to act
+decisively and mercilessly.
+
+�Cossacks! On you depends now whether your brothers� blood is to flow
+still. We are holding out our hand to you. Join the whole people
+against its enemies. Declare Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, Karaulov and
+all their aiders and abettors to be the enemies of the people,
+traitors and betrayers. Arrest them with your own forces and turn
+them over into the hands of the Soviet authority, which will judge
+them in open and public Revolutionary Tribunal. Cossacks! Form
+Soviets of Cossacks� Deputies. Take into your toil-worn hands the
+management of all the affairs of the Cossacks. Take away the lands of
+your own wealthy landowners. Take over their grain, their inventoried
+property and live-stock for the cultivation of the lands of the
+toiling Cossacks, who are ruined by the war.
+
+�Forward, Cossacks, to the fight for the common cause of the people!
+
+�Long live the toiling Cossacks!
+
+�Long live the union of the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants and
+workers!
+
+�Long live the power of the Soviets of Cossacks�, Soldiers�, Workers�
+and Peasants� Deputies.
+
+�Down with the war! Down with the landowners and the
+Kornilovist-Generals!
+
+�Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of peoples!�
+
+                                _Council of People�s Commissars._
+
+                                17.
+
+    FROM THE COMMISSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION ATTACHED TO THE CENTRAL
+                            CITY DUMA
+
+�Comrades Workingmen and Workingwomen!
+
+�A few days before the holidays, a strike has been declared by the
+teachers of the public schools. The teachers side with the
+bourgeoisie against the Workers� and Peasants� Government.
+
+�Comrades, organise parents� committees and pass resolutions against
+the strike of the teachers. Propose to the Ward Soviets of Workers�
+and Soldiers� Deputies, the Trade Unions, the Factory-Shop and Party
+Committees, to organise protest meetings. Arrange with your own
+resources Christmas trees and entertainments for the children, and
+demand the opening of the schools, after the holidays, at the date
+which will be set by the Duma.
+
+�Comrades, strengthen your position in matters of public education,
+insist on the control of the proletarian organisations over the
+schools.�
+
+      _Commission on Public Education attached to the Central City Duma._
+
+                                18.
+
+        DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+The notes issued by Trotzky to the Allies and to the neutral powers,
+as well as the note of the Allied military Attach�s to General
+Dukhonin, are too voluminous to give here. Moreover they belong to
+another phase of the history of the Soviet Republic, with which this
+book has nothing to do�the foreign relations of the Soviet
+Government. This I treat at length in the next volume, �Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk.�
+
+                                19.
+
+                APPEALS TO THE FRONT AGAINST DUKHONIN
+
+�� The struggle for peace has met with the resistance of the
+bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary Generals�. From the
+accounts in the newspapers, at the _Stavka_ of former Supreme
+Commander Dukhonin are gathering the agents and allies of the
+bourgeoisie, Verkhovski, Avksentiev, Tchernov, Gotz, Tseretelli, etc.
+It seems even that they want to form a new power against the Soviets.
+
+�Comrades soldiers! All the persons we have mentioned have been
+Ministers already. They have acted in accord with Kerensky and the
+bourgeoisie. They are responsible for the offensive of July 1st and
+for the prolongation of the war. They promised the land to the
+peasants and then arrested the Land Committees. They reestablished
+capital punishment for soldiers. They obey the orders of French,
+English and American financiers�.
+
+�General Dukhonin, for having refused to obey orders of the Council
+of People�s Commissars, has been dismissed from his position as
+Supreme Commander�. For answer he is circulating among the troops the
+note from the Military Attach�s of the Allied imperialist Powers, and
+attempting to provoke a counter-revolution�.
+
+�Do not obey Dukhonin! Pay no attention to his provocation! Watch him
+and his group of counter-revolutionary Generals carefully�.�
+
+                                20.
+
+                            FROM KRYLENKO
+                           _Order Number Two_
+
+�� The ex-Supreme Commander, General Dukhonin, for having opposed
+resistance to the execution of orders, for criminal action
+susceptible of provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the
+People. All persons who support Dukhonin will be arrested, without
+respect to their social or political position or their past. Persons
+equipped with special authority will operate these arrests. I charge
+General Manikhovsky with the execution of the above-mentioned
+dispositions�.�
+
+                     APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII
+
+                                 1.
+
+                     INSTRUCTION TO PEASANTS
+
+In answer to the numerous enquiries coming from peasants, it is
+hereby explained that the whole power in the country is from now on
+held by the Soviets of the Workers�, Soldiers�, and Peasants�
+Deputies. The Workers� Revolution, after having conquered in
+Petrograd and in Moscow, is now conquering in all other centres of
+Russia. The Workers� and Peasants� Government safeguards the
+interests of the masses of peasantry, the poorest of them; it is with
+the majority of peasants and workers against the landowners, and
+against the capitalists.
+
+Hence the Soviets of Peasants� Deputies, and before all the District
+Soviets, and subsequently those of the Provinces, are from now on and
+until the Constituent Assembly meets, full-powered bodies of State
+authority in their localities. All landlords� titles to the land are
+cancelled by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. A decree
+regarding the land has already been issued by the present Provisional
+Workers� and Peasants� Government. On the basis of the above decree
+all lands hitherto belonging to landlords now pass entirely and
+wholly into the hands of the Soviets of Peasants� Deputies. The
+_Volost_ (a group of several villages forms a _Volost_) Land
+Committees are immediately to take over all land from the landlords,
+and to keep a strict account over it, watching that order be
+maintained, and that the whole estate be well guarded, seeing that
+from now on all private estates become public property and must
+therefore be protected by the people themselves.
+
+All orders given by the _Volost_ Land Committees, adopted with the
+assent of the District Soviets of Peasants� Deputies, in fulfilment
+of the decrees issued by the revolutionary power, are absolutely
+legal and are to be forthwith and irrefutably brought into execution.
+
+The Workers� and Peasants� Government appointed by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets has received the name of the Council
+of People�s Commissars.
+
+The Council of People�s Commissars summons the Peasants to take the
+whole power into their hands in every locality.
+
+The workers will in every way absolutely and entirely support the
+peasants, arrange for them all that is required in connection with
+machines and tools, and in return they request the peasants to help
+with the transport of grain.
+
+                  _President of the Council of People�s Commissars,_
+                                       V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Petrograd, November 18th, 1917.
+
+                                 2.
+
+The full-powered Congress of Peasants� Soviets met about a week
+later, and continued for several weeks. Its history is merely an
+expanded version of the history of the �Extraordinary Conference.� At
+first the great majority of the delegates were hostile to the Soviet
+Government, and supported the reactionary wing. Several days later
+the assembly was supporting the moderates with Tchernov. And several
+days after that the vast majority of the Congress were voting for the
+faction of Maria Spiridonova, and sending their representatives into
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at Smolny�. The Right Wing then walked out of the
+Congress and called a Congress of its own, which went on, dwindling
+from day to day, until it finally dissolved�.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+Author: John Reed
+
+Posting Date: November 25, 2012 [EBook #3076]
+Release Date: February, 2002
+First Posted: December 16, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Norman Wolcott, with corrections by Andrew Sly
+and Stefan Malte Schumacher
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Redactor's Note: The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices.
+The footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the
+Appendix No. and Section are referred to in the text in parentheses,
+the Appendices following the book text. There are 17 graphic figures
+in the text. These are indicated by a reference to the page number in
+the original book.]
+
+
+
+
+Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+by John Reed
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+  Preface.
+  Notes and Explanations.
+  Chapter 1. Background.
+  Chapter 2. The Coming Storm.
+  Chapter 3. On the Eve.
+  Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government.
+  Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead.
+  Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation.
+  Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front.
+  Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution.
+  Chapter 9. Victory.
+  Chapter 10. Moscow.
+  Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power.
+  Chapter 12. The Peasants' Congress.
+  Appendices I - XII
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+This book is a slice of intensified history--history as I saw it. It
+does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November
+Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and
+soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands
+of the Soviets.
+
+Naturally most of it deals with "Red Petrograd," the capital and heart
+of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
+in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
+intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.
+
+In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
+myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
+experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
+chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
+Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
+but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.
+
+Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
+is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
+set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
+the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
+afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
+until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
+it afterward?
+
+These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
+volume, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk," I trace the course of the
+Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I explain the
+origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
+of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
+structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the
+Brest-Litovsk negotiations....
+
+In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
+that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
+on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
+a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
+control of the Tsar's Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
+order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
+front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
+lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
+manufactures and transportation in 1916--all these we know now were part
+of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
+March Revolution.
+
+For the first few months of the new r�gime, in spite of the confusion
+incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
+of the world's most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
+the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
+improved.
+
+But the "honeymoon" was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
+political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
+it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
+France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
+England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
+industrial and agrarian democracy.
+
+William English Walling, in his book, "Russia's Message," an account of
+the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
+Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
+unanimously:
+
+They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
+Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
+might still continue to starve....
+
+The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
+dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
+studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
+about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
+oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
+the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
+take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near....
+
+They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
+institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
+anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
+class)....
+
+The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
+hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
+Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
+exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
+and Cripple Creek....
+
+And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
+Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
+triumph of Bolshevism.
+
+Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
+Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
+book, "The Birth of the Russian Democracy": The Bolsheviks organised
+their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon
+Trotsky--Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their
+coming into power became evident almost immediately after the March
+Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution,
+is a history of their steady growth....
+
+Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
+"ignorance" of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
+political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
+well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
+twelve million members of the Russian consumers' Cooperative societies;
+and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
+organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
+world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
+application.
+
+William English Walling thus characterises them:
+
+The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
+write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
+condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
+intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
+equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
+people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
+Russia....
+
+Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
+arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
+struggle of the "respectable" elements against the brutal attacks of
+Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
+realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
+organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
+this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
+In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
+was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the
+Factory-Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw
+materials diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital
+punishment was restored and military defeat connived at.
+
+This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
+retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
+the Soviets.
+
+Between these two extremes, with the other factions which
+whole-heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
+"moderate" Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
+and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
+propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
+theories.
+
+Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
+Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution--that only a
+_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
+the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
+attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
+which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old r�gime. And so it
+followed that when the "moderate" Socialists were forced to assume the
+power, they were afraid to use it.
+
+They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
+economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
+the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
+therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
+first be a parliamentary state--though with some improvements on the
+Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
+collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.
+
+From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The "moderate"
+Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
+"moderate" Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
+obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
+the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.
+
+And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
+the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
+on the side of the propertied classes.... In almost every country in the
+world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.
+
+Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
+Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
+and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
+the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
+armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
+December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar....
+
+It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
+to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an "adventure." Adventure it
+was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
+sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
+everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
+been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
+among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
+were there to put into operation workers' control of industry. In every
+village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
+Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, prepared to assume the task
+of local administration.
+
+No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
+Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
+rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
+historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
+the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
+in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
+leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
+written this book.
+
+In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
+story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
+conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
+
+          J. R.
+   New York, January 1st 1919.
+
+
+Notes and Explanations
+
+To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian organisations--political
+groups, Committees and Central Committees, Soviets, Dumas and
+Unions--will prove extremely confusing. For this reason I am giving
+here a few brief definitions and explanations.
+
+
+Political Parties
+
+In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
+tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
+forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
+political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
+this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
+character of their constituencies can be noticed....
+
+1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
+once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
+underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_
+came by degrees to stand for their political programme.
+Representatives in this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.
+
+2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name, Constitutional
+Democrats. Its official name is "Party of the People's Freedom."
+Under the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied classes,
+the _Cadets_ were the great party of _political_ reform, roughly
+corresponding to the Progressive Party in America. When the
+Revolution broke out in March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first
+Provisional Government. The _Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April
+because it declared itself in favour of Allied imperialistic aims,
+including the imperialistic aims of the Tsar's Government. As the
+Revolution became more and more a _social economic_ Revolution, the
+_Cadets_ grew more and more conservative. Its representatives in this
+book are: Miliukov, Vinaver, Shatsky.
+
+2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
+through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
+_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
+of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet.
+The _Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual
+leaders were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the
+more "modern" bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were
+intelligent enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by
+their own weapon--economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_
+Lianozov, Konovalov.
+
+3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group). Numerically
+a small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the leaders of
+the Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants. Professing
+to be Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the interests
+of the petty bourgeoisie--clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By direct
+descent, inheritors of the compromising tradition of the Labour
+Group in the Fourth Imperial Duma, which was composed largely of
+peasant representatives. Kerensky was the leader of the _Trudoviki_
+in the Imperial Duma when the Revolution of March, 1917, broke out.
+The _Populist Socialists_ are a nationalistic party. Their
+representatives in this book are: Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.
+
+4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
+Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
+question of tactics, into two factions--the Majority (Bolshinstvo),
+and the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names
+"Bolsheviki" and "Mensheviki"--"members of the majority" and "members
+of the minority." These two wings became two separate parties, both
+calling themselves "Russian Social Democratic Labour Party," and both
+professing to be Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the
+Bolsheviki were really the minority, becoming again the majority in
+September, 1917.
+
+a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
+believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
+Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
+first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the
+Socialist intellectuals, which means: all the means of education
+having been in the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals
+instinctively reacted to their training, and took the side of the
+propertied classes. Among their representatives in this book are:
+Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.
+
+b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
+_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with
+the propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the
+conservative Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the
+working-class advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member
+of this group. Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.
+
+c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in
+order to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition
+of "moderate" or "parliamentary" Socialism, which dominates the
+Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all countries.
+The _Bolsheviki_ proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and
+seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of
+Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources
+and financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly
+of the factory workers, but also of a large section of the poor
+peasants. The name "Bolshevik" can _not_ be translated by "Maximalist."
+The Maximalists are a separate group. (See paragraph 5b). Among the
+leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.
+
+d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the
+_Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very
+influential newspaper which was its organ. A little group of
+intellectuals with a very small following among the working-class,
+except the personal following of Maxim Gorky, its leader.
+Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the _Mensheviki
+Internationalists,_ except that the _Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to
+be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik
+tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives
+in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.
+
+e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
+entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers
+of the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80's, and its
+greatest theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely
+patriotic, too conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the
+Bolshevik _coup d'etat, Yedinstvo_ disappeared.
+
+5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the
+initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the
+peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations--the Terrorists.
+After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been
+Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private
+property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion.
+Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the
+_Essaires_ to abandon the "compensation" clause, and led to the
+younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party
+in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the _Left Socialist
+Revolutionary party._ The _Essaires,_ who were afterward always
+called by the radical groups _"Right Socialist Revolutionaries,"_
+adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together
+with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the
+intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote
+rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of
+shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki.
+Among their leaders mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz,
+Kerensky, Tchernov, "Babuschka" Breshkovskaya.
+
+a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing
+the Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at
+first were reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics.
+However, the _Left Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet
+Government, sharing the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of
+Agriculture. They withdrew from the Government several times, but
+always returned. As the peasants left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in
+increasing numbers, they joined the _Left Socialist Revolutionary
+party,_ which became the great peasant party supporting the Soviet
+Government, standing for confiscation without compensation of the
+great landed estates, and their disposition by the peasants
+themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin, Kamkov,
+Kalagayev.
+
+b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary
+party_ in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant
+movement, demanding the immediate application of the maximum
+Socialist programme. Now an insignificant group of peasant
+anarchists.
+
+
+Parliamentary Procedure
+
+Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
+model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election
+of officers and the _presidium._
+
+The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of representatives
+of the groups and political factions represented in the assembly,
+in proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_ arranges the Order
+of Business, and its members can be called upon by the President to
+take the chair _pro tem._
+
+Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then debated,
+and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by the
+different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order
+of Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first
+half hour. On the plea of "emergency," which the crowd almost always
+grants, anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any
+subject. The crowd controls the meeting, practically the only
+functions of the speaker being to keep order by ringing a little
+bell, and to recognise speakers. Almost all the real work of the
+session is done in caucuses of the different groups and political
+factions, which almost always cast their votes in a body and are
+represented by floor-leaders. The result is, however, that at every
+important new point, or vote, the session takes a recess to enable
+the different groups and political factions to hold a caucus.
+
+The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
+over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
+are: _"Prosim!_ Please! Go on!" _"Pravilno!"_ or _"Eto vierno!_
+That's true! Right!" _"Do volno!_ Enough!" _"Doloi!_ Down with him!"
+_"Posor!_ Shame!" and _"Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!"
+
+
+Popular Organisations
+
+1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means "council." Under the Tsar the
+Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
+the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
+with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
+economic organisations--the Soviet of Workers', of Soldiers', or of
+Peasants' Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these
+bodies, and wherever else it occurs I have translated it "Council."
+
+Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and
+village of Russia--and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny)
+Soviets_--there are also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or
+provincial) _Soviets,_ and the Central Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian _Soviets_ in the capital, called from its initials
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, "Central Committees").
+
+Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers' and of Soldiers'
+Deputies combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special
+matters concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers'
+and the Soldiers' Sections continued to meet separately. The
+_Soviets_ of Peasants' Deputies did not join the other two until
+after the Bolshevik _coup d'etat._ They, too, were organised like the
+workers and soldiers, with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian
+Peasants' _Soviets_ in the capital.
+
+2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian
+labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the
+Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These
+Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian
+Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in
+the capital.
+
+3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations
+created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control
+industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident
+upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to
+take over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also
+had their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at
+Petrograd, which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
+
+4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly "deliberative body." The
+old Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution,
+in a democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The
+_City Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal
+Council, often called "Municipal Self-Government." It was elected by
+direct and secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the
+masses during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in
+influence of all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the
+growing power of organisations based on _economic_ groups.
+
+5. _Zemstvos._ May be roughly translated "county councils." Under
+the Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little
+administrative power, developed and controlled largely by
+intellectual Liberals among the land-owning classes. Their most
+important function was education and social service among the
+peasants. During the war the _Zemstvos_ gradually took over the
+entire feeding and clothing of the Russian Army, as well as the
+buying from foreign countries, and work among the soldiers generally
+corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C. A. at the Front.
+After the March Revolution the _Zemstvos_ were democratized, with a
+view to making them the organs of local government in the rural
+districts. But like the _City Dumas,_ they could not compete with the
+_Soviets._
+
+6. _Cooperatives._ These were the workers' and peasants' Consumers'
+Cooperative societies, which had several million members all over
+Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and "moderate"
+Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported by the
+revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
+complete transference of means of production and distribution into
+the hands of the workers. After the March Revolution the
+_Cooperatives_ spread rapidly, and were dominated by Populist
+Socialists, Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and acted as a
+conservative political force until the Bolshevik Revolution. However,
+it was the _Cooperatives_ which fed Russia when the old structure of
+commerce and transportation collapsed.
+
+7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the
+soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old
+regime officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps
+had its committee, over all of which was elected the _Army
+Committee._ The _Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General
+Staff. The administrative break-down in the army incident upon the
+Revolution threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of
+the work of the Quartermaster's Department, and in some cases, even
+the command of troops.
+
+8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy.
+
+
+Central Committees
+
+In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every
+sort of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national
+congresses of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Soviets, Trade
+Unions, Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees--besides
+every branch of the military and naval service, Cooperatives,
+Nationalities, etc. Each of these conventions elected a Central
+Committee, or a Central Executive Committee, to guard its particular
+interests at the seat of Government. As the Provisional Government
+grew weaker, these Central Committees were forced to assume more and
+more administrative powers.
+
+The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:
+
+_Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor
+Miliukov and other Liberals established unions of professional
+men--doctors, lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one
+central organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of
+Unions_ acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the
+_Union of Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the
+Government employees who went on strike against the authority of the
+Soviets.
+
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. So called from the
+initials of its name.
+
+_Tsentroflot._ "Centre-Fleet"--the Central Fleet Committee.
+
+_Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers'
+Union. So called from the initials of its name.
+
+Other Organisations
+
+_Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_
+were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into
+existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed
+to keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all
+efforts of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or
+less unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red
+Guards_ appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but
+full of Revolutionary zeal.
+
+
+_White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last
+stages of the Revolution, to defend private property from the
+Bolshevik attempt to abolish it. A great many of them were University
+students.
+
+_Tekhintsi._ The so-called "Savage Division" in the army, made up
+of Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to
+General Kornilov. The _Tekhintsi_ were noted for their blind
+obedience and their savage cruelty in warfare.
+
+_Death Battalions._ Or _Shock Battalions._ The Women's Battalion is
+known to the world as the _Death Battalion,_ but there were many
+_Death Battalions_ composed of men. These were formed in the summer
+of 1917 by Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline
+and combative fire of the army by heroic example. The _Death
+Battalions_ were composed mostly of intense young patriots. These
+came for the most part from among the sons of the propertied classes.
+
+_Union of Officers._ An organisation formed among the reactionary
+officers in the army to combat politically the growing power of the
+Army Committees.
+
+_Knights of St. George._ The Cross of St. George was awarded for
+distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
+_"Knight of St. George."_ The predominant influence in the
+organisation was that of the supporters of the military idea.
+
+_Peasants' Union._ In 1905, the _Peasants' Union_ was a
+revolutionary peasants' organisation. In 1917, however, it had become
+the political expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight
+the growing power and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+
+Chronology and Spelling
+
+I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the
+former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.
+
+In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt
+to follow any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to
+give the spelling which would lead the English-speaking reader to the
+simplest approximation of their pronunciation.
+
+
+Sources
+
+Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also
+relied, however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred
+assorted Russian newspapers, covering almost every day of the time
+described, of files of the English paper, the _Russian Daily News,_
+and of the two French papers, _Journal de Russie_ and _Entente._ But
+far more valuable than these is the _Bulletin de la Presse_ issued
+daily by the French Information Bureau in Petrograd, which reports
+all important happenings, speeches and the comment of the Russian
+press. Of this I have an almost complete file from the spring of 1917
+to the end of January, 1918.
+
+Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every
+proclamation, decree and announcement posted on the walls of
+Petrograd from the middle of September, 1917, to the end of January,
+1918. Also the official publication of all Government decrees and
+orders, and the official Government publication of the secret
+treaties and other documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs when the Bolsheviki took it over.
+
+
+
+Ten Days That Shook The World
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+Background
+
+
+Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology
+visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by
+business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down.
+The Professor wrote an article about it, and then travelled around
+the country, visiting factory towns and peasant communities--where, to
+his astonishment, the Revolution seemed to be speeding up. Among the
+wage-earners and the land-working people it was common to hear talk
+of "all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers." If the
+Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the whole Army
+talking Peace....
+
+The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both
+observations were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming
+more conservative, the masses of the people more radical.
+
+There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
+generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted
+too long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared
+by the dominant "moderate" Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See
+App. I, Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who
+supported the Provisional Government of Kerensky.
+
+On October 14th the official organ of the "moderate" Socialists said:
+
+The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old
+r�gime and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long
+enough. Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as
+rapidly as possible. As a great revolutionist put it, "Let us hasten,
+friends, to terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long
+will not gather the fruits...."
+
+Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
+stubborn feeling that the "first act" was not yet played out. On the
+front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
+could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the
+rear the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed
+for trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land;
+and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
+black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political
+exiles were being excluded from the country as "undesirable"
+citizens; and in some cases, men who returned from abroad to their
+villages were prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts
+committed in 1905.
+
+To the multiform discontent of the people the "moderate" Socialists
+had one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet
+in December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The
+Constituent Assembly was all well and good; but there were certain
+definite things for which the Russian Revolution had been made, and
+for which the revolutionary martyrs rotted in their stark Brotherhood
+Grave on Mars Field, that must be achieved Constituent Assembly or no
+Constituent Assembly: Peace, Land, and Workers' Control of Industry.
+The Constituent Assembly had been postponed and postponed--would
+probably be postponed again, until the people were calm
+enough--perhaps to modify their demands! At any rate, here were eight
+months of the Revolution gone, and little enough to show for it....
+
+Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply
+deserting, the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great
+estates, the workers sabotaged and struck.... Of course, as was
+natural, the manufacturers, land-owners and army officers exerted all
+their influence against any democratic compromise....
+
+The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between
+ineffective reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from the
+Socialist Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers' Committees
+henceforth to meet only after working hours. Among the troops at the
+front, "agitators" of opposition political parties were arrested,
+radical newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied--to
+revolutionary propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the Red
+Guard. Cossacks were sent to keep order in the provinces....
+
+These measures were supported by the "moderate" Socialists and their
+leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate
+with the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and
+went over to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers'
+Control of Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In
+September, 1917, matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming
+sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the "moderate" Socialists
+succeeded in establishing a Government of Coalition with the
+propertied classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever.
+
+An article in _Rabotchi Put_ (Workers' Way) about the middle of
+October, entitled "The Socialist Ministers," expressed the feeling of
+the masses of the people against the "moderate" Socialists:
+
+Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)
+
+Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General
+Polovtsev, checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of
+capital punishment in the army.
+
+Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their
+profits, and finished--and finished by an attempt to dissolve the
+Workers' Committees in the shops and factories.
+
+Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the
+Land Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers' and soldiers'
+newspapers.
+
+Tchernov: signed the "Imperial" manifest, ordering the dissolution of
+the Finnish Diet.
+
+Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this
+saviour of the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due
+to reasons over which he had no control.
+
+Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the
+best workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.
+
+Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.
+
+Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his
+services is too long....
+
+A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
+resolution which began as follows:
+
+We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional
+Government of the "Socialist," the political adventurer--Kerensky, as
+one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it
+the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on
+behalf of the bourgeoisie....
+
+The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki....
+
+Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers
+beating upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma
+to assume the supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the
+people, workers, soldiers and peasants, which forced every change in
+the course of the Revolution. They hurled the Miliukov Ministry down;
+it was their Soviet which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace
+terms--"No annexations, no indemnities, and the right of
+self-determination of peoples"; and again, in July, it was the
+spontaneous rising of the unorganised proletariat which once more
+stormed the Tauride Palace, to demand that the Soviets take over the
+Government of Russia.
+
+The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the
+head of the movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the
+rising, public opinion turned against them, and their leaderless
+hordes slunk back into the Viborg Quarter, which is Petrograd's _St.
+Antoine._ Then followed a savage hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds
+were imprisoned, among them Trotzky, Madame Kollontai and Kameniev;
+Lenin and Zinoviev went into hiding, fugitives from justice; the
+Bolshevik papers were suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries
+raised the cry that the Bolsheviki were German agents, until people
+all over the world believed it.
+
+But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate
+its accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were
+discovered to be forgeries;[1] and one by one the Bolsheviki were
+released from prison without trial, on nominal or no bail-until only
+six remained. The impotence and indecision of the ever-changing
+Provisional Government was an argument nobody could refute. The
+Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses, "All Power
+to the Soviets!"--and they were not merely self-seeking, for at that
+time the majority of the Soviets was "moderate" Socialist, their
+bitter enemy.
+
+[1] Part of the famous "Sisson Documents".
+
+But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
+workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
+programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the
+bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In
+July they were hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan
+workmen, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been
+won almost entirely to their cause. The September municipal elections
+in the large cities (See App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18
+per cent of the returns were Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary,
+against more than 70 per cent in June....
+
+There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
+that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central
+Army and Fleet Committees,[2] and the Central Committees of some of
+the Unions--notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
+Workers--opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These
+Central Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer,
+or even before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had
+an enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new
+elections. Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should
+have been called in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_[2] would not
+call the meeting, on the ground that the Constituent Assembly was
+only two months away, at which time, they hinted, the Soviets would
+abdicate. Meanwhile, one by one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the
+local Soviets all over the country, in the Union branches and the
+ranks of the soldiers and sailors. The Peasants' Soviets remained
+still conservative, because in the sluggish rural districts political
+consciousness developed slowly, and the Socialist Revolutionary party
+had been for a generation the party which had agitated among the
+peasants.... But even among the peasants a revolutionary wing was
+forming. It showed itself clearly in October, when the left wing of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries split off, and formed a new political
+faction, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+[2] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of
+reaction were gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the
+Troitsky Farce theatre in Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called
+_Sins of the Tsar_ was interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who
+threatened to lynch the actors for "insulting the Emperor." Certain
+newspapers began to sigh for a "Russian Napoleon." It was the usual
+thing among bourgeois _intelligentzia_ to refer to the Soviets of
+Workers' Deputies (Rabotchikh Deputatov) as _Sabatchikh_
+Deputatov--Dogs' Deputies.
+
+On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist,
+Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the "Russian Rockefeller"--a
+Cadet by political faith.
+
+"Revolution," he said, "is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign
+powers must intervene here--as one would intervene to cure a sick
+child, and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less
+improper, but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in
+their own countries--such contagious ideas as 'proletarian
+dictatorship,' and 'world social revolution'... There is a chance that
+this intervention may not be necessary. Transportation is
+demoralised, the factories are closing down, and the Germans are
+advancing. Starvation and defeat may bring the Russian people to
+their senses...."
+
+Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it
+would be impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the
+existence of the workers' Shop Committees, or to allow the workers
+any share in the management of industry.
+
+"As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
+methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege
+declared, and the military commander of the district can deal with
+these gentlemen without legal formalities.... _Or if, for example, the
+Constituent Assembly manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be
+dispersed by force of arms...."_
+
+Winter was coming on--the terrible Russian winter. I heard business
+men speak of it so: "Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps
+now it will rid us of Revolution." On the freezing front miserable
+armies continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways
+were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate
+masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the
+people, causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just
+after General Kornilov said publicly, "Must we pay with Riga the
+price of bringing the country to a sense of its duty?"[3]
+
+[3] See "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk" by John Reed. Boni and Liveright
+N.Y., 1919.
+
+To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to
+such a pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern
+Front who frankly preferred military disaster to cooperation with the
+Soldiers' Committees. The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the
+Cadet party told me that the break-down of the country's economic
+life was part of a campaign to discredit the Revolution. An Allied
+diplomat, whose name I promised not to mention, confirmed this from
+his own knowledge. I know of certain coal-mines near Kharkov which
+were fired and flooded by their owners, of textile factories at
+Moscow whose engineers put the machinery out of order when they left,
+of railroad officials caught by the workers in the act of crippling
+locomotives....
+
+A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to
+the Revolution--even to the Provisional Government--and didn't hesitate
+to say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
+conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of
+the Germans, bringing "law and order."... One evening I spent at the
+house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at
+the table whether they preferred "Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki." The
+vote was ten to one for Wilhelm...
+
+The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to
+pile up fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the
+corruption of Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded,
+or secretly sent out of the country to Sweden. In the first four
+months of the Revolution, for example, the reserve food-supplies were
+almost openly looted from the great Municipal warehouses of
+Petrograd, until the two-years' provision of grain had fallen to less
+than enough to feed the city for one month.... According to the
+official report of the last Minister of Supplies in the Provisional
+Government, coffee was bought wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles
+a pound, and the consumer in Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the
+stores of the large cities were tons of food and clothing; but only
+the rich could buy them.
+
+In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
+speculator--_maradior_ (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The three
+sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
+foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to
+mysterious parties in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest
+in a chocolate factory, which supplied the local Cooperative
+societies--on condition that the Cooperatives furnished him everything
+he needed. And so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound
+of black bread on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white
+bread, sugar, tea, candy, cake and butter.... Yet when the soldiers at
+the front could no longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how
+indignantly did this family scream "Cowards!"--how "ashamed" they were
+"to be Russians"... When finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned
+vast hoarded stores of provisions, what "Robbers" they were.
+
+Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
+unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and
+very active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned,
+for and against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky--whoever would
+pay.... In the darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such
+as the Black Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in
+some form or other.
+
+In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
+note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
+"All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
+millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
+bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
+speculation, treachery.... The Revolution is in danger, and with it
+the cause of the people all over the world!"
+
+The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between
+the Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March
+days, was about to culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the
+Middle Ages into the twentieth century, Russia showed the startled
+world two systems of Revolution--the political and the social--in
+mortal combat.
+
+What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after
+all these months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie
+should have better known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia
+will the "sickness" of Revolution have run its course....
+
+Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of
+another age, almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt
+ourselves to the newer, swifter life; just as Russian politics swung
+bodily to the Left--until the Cadets were outlawed as "enemies of the
+people," Kerensky became a "counter-revolutionist," the "middle"
+Socialist leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were
+too reactionary for their following, and men like Victor Tchernov,
+and even Maxim Gorky, belonged to the Right Wing....
+
+About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan,
+the British Ambassador, and implored him not to mention the fact that
+they had been there, because they were "considered too far Right."
+
+"And to think," said Sir George. "One year ago my Government
+instructed me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously
+Left!"
+
+September and October are the worst months of the Russian
+year--especially the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the
+shortening days, the rain fell drenching, incessant. The mud
+underfoot was deep, slippery and clinging, tracked everywhere by
+heavy boots, and worse than usual because of the complete break-down
+of the Municipal administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from the
+Gulf of Finland, and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At
+night, for motives of economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the
+street-lights were few and far between; in private dwellings and
+apartment-houses the electricity was turned on from six o'clock until
+midnight, with candles forty cents apiece and little kerosene to be
+had. It was dark from three in the afternoon to ten in the morning.
+Robberies and housebreakings increased. In apartment houses the men
+took turns at all-night guard duty, armed with loaded rifles. This
+was under the Provisional Government.
+
+Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
+from a pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a
+quarter-pound. Toward the end there was a week without any bread at
+all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month--if
+one could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a
+pound of tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten rubles--at
+least a dollar. There was milk for about half the babies in the city;
+most hotels and private houses never saw it for months. In the fruit
+season apples and pears sold for a little less than a ruble apiece on
+the street-corner....
+
+For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in _queue_
+long hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I
+have seen the _kvost_ (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly
+women, some with babies in their arms.... Carlyle, in his _French
+Revolution,_ has described the French people as distinguished above
+all others by their faculty of standing in _queue._ Russia had
+accustomed herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas
+the Blessed as long ago as 1915, and from then continued
+intermittently until the summer of 1917, when it settled down as the
+regular order of things. Think of the poorly-clad people standing on
+the iron-white streets of Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter!
+I have listened in the bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of
+discontent which from time to time burst up through the miraculous
+goodnature of the Russian crowd....
+
+Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays.
+Karsavina appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving
+Russia coming to see her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky
+they were reviving Meyerhold's production of Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan
+the Terrible"; and at that performance I remember noticing a student
+of the Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up
+correctly between the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its
+eagles all erased.... The _Krivoye Zerkalo_ staged a sumptuous version
+of Schnitzler's "Reigen."
+
+Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated
+to Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the
+female _intelligentzia_ went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and
+the Easy Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for
+Theosophists. And the Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the
+first time in history, plastered the walls with announcements of
+gospel meetings, which amused and astounded Russian audiences....
+
+As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went
+on, ignoring the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made
+verses--but not about the Revolution. The realistic painters painted
+scenes from medi�val Russian history--anything but the Revolution.
+Young ladies from the provinces came up to the capital to learn
+French and cultivate their voices, and the gay young beautiful
+officers wore their gold-trimmed crimson _bashliki_ and their
+elaborate Caucasian swords around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of
+the minor bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon,
+carrying each her little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and
+half a loaf of bread in her muff, and wished that the Tsar were back,
+or that the Germans would come, or anything that would solve the
+servant problem.... The daughter of a friend of mine came home one
+afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car conductor had
+called her "Comrade!"
+
+All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The
+servants one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were
+getting independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles,
+and as wages averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants
+refused to stand in _queue_ and wear out their shoes. But more than
+that. In the new Russia every man and woman could vote; there were
+working-class newspapers, saying new and startling things; there were
+the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The _izvoshtchiki_
+(cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in the
+Petrograd Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and
+refused tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which
+read, "No tips taken here--" or, "Just because a man has to make his
+living waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a
+tip!"
+
+At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers,
+and learned self-government through their committees. In the
+factories those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop
+Committees,[4] gained experience and strength and a realisation of
+their historical mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was
+learning to read, and _reading_--politics, economics, history--because
+the people wanted to _know...._ In every city, in most towns, along the
+Front, each political faction had its newspaper--sometimes several.
+Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed by thousands of
+organisations, and poured into the armies, the villages, the
+factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted,
+burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny
+Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons,
+car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia
+absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And
+it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap
+fiction that corrupts--but social and economic theories, philosophy,
+the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky....
+
+[4] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle's "flood of French speech" was a
+mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches--in theatres, circuses,
+school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters,
+barracks.... Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares,
+factories.... What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
+Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social
+Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever
+they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
+and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In
+railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu
+debate, everywhere....
+
+And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the
+men of two continents--conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives,
+Zemstvos,[5] nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the
+Democratic Conference, the Moscow Conference, the Council of the
+Russian Republic. There were always three or four conventions going
+on in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of
+speakers voted down, and every man free to express the thought that
+was in him....
+
+[5] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
+gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
+when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
+flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly,
+"Did you bring anything to _read?"_
+
+What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
+though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
+Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others--somewhat
+faded--floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms
+and eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the
+fierce _gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen
+militia patrolled the streets--still, there were many quaint
+anachronisms.
+
+For example, Peter the Great's _Tabel o Rangov--_Table of Ranks--which
+he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
+everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with
+the insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about
+five o'clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old
+gentlemen in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the
+huge, barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating
+perhaps how great a mortality among their superiors would advance
+them to the coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy
+Councillor, with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension,
+and possibly the Cross of St. Anne....
+
+There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
+came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
+not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
+Tsar's service!
+
+It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
+disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
+unrolled....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Coming Storm
+
+
+In September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself
+military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the
+mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the
+Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were implicated; even
+Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II, Sect. 1) Savinkov,
+summoned to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was
+arrested by the Soldiers' Committees. Generals were dismissed,
+Ministers suspended from their functions, and the Cabinet fell.
+
+Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party
+of the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries,
+ordered him to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and
+threatened to resign from the Cabinet if the Socialists insisted.
+However, popular feeling ran so high that for the moment he did not
+dare oppose it, and a temporary Directorate of Five of the old
+Ministers, with Kerensky at the head, assumed the power until the
+question should be settled.
+
+The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist
+groups--"moderates" as well as revolutionists--in a passionate impulse
+of self-defence. There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government
+must be created, responsible to the elements supporting the
+Revolution. So the _Tsay-ee-kah_ invited the popular organisations
+to send delegates to a Democratic Conference, which should meet at
+Petrograd in September.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ three factions immediately appeared. The
+Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be
+summoned, and that they take over the power. The "centre" Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki
+Internationalists under Martov, and the "centre" Mensheviki,[6]
+represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely
+Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the
+right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under
+Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be
+represented in the new Government.
+
+[6] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd
+Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities
+followed suit.
+
+Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ decided that after all they feared the danger of
+Kornilov less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of
+representation in the Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2)
+admitting more delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other
+conservative bodies. Even this packed assembly at first voted for a
+_Coalition Government without the Cadets._ Only Kerensky's open
+threat of resignation, and the alarming cries of the "moderate"
+Socialists that "the Republic is in danger" persuaded the
+Conference, by a small majority, to declare in favour of the
+principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to sanction the
+establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament, without any
+legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the Russian
+Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes practically
+controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they occupied
+a disproportionate number of seats.
+
+The fact is that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ no longer represented the rank
+and file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no
+intention of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called.
+Its official organ, _Izviestia_ (News), began to hint that the
+function of the Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II, Sect. 3)
+and that they might soon be dissolved... At this time, too, the new
+Government announced as part of its policy the liquidation of
+"irresponsible organisations"--i.e. the Soviets.
+
+The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to
+meet at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of
+Russia. At the same time they withdrew from the Council of the
+Russian Republic, stating that they would not participate in a
+"Government of Treason to the People." (See App. II, Sect. 4)
+
+The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring
+tranquillity to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now
+in a position of power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that
+the Government had no legal right to declare Russia a republic. They
+demanded stern measures in the Army and Navy to destroy the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Committees, and denounced the Soviets. On the
+other side of the chamber the Mensheviki Internationalists and the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries advocated immediate peace, land to
+the peasants, and workers' control of industry--practically the
+Bolshevik programme.
+
+I heard Martov's speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the
+desk of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking
+in a voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger
+toward the right benches:
+
+"You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait
+for a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon
+postponing peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian
+army, until Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the
+different imperialist groups.... You are trying to impose upon the
+Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the
+bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay....
+You will see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom
+you call German agents, of those Zimmerwaldists[7] who in all the
+lands have prepared the awakening of the conscience of the
+democratic masses...."
+
+[7] Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
+Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation
+in the International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,
+in 1915.
+
+Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the
+pressure of the rising dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility
+divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.
+
+This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the
+Allied Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of
+foreign policy....
+
+Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
+earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May,
+1917, the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, had proclaimed the famous Russian
+peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a
+conference to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised
+for August; then postponed until September; then until October; and
+now it was fixed for November 10th.
+
+The Provisional Government suggested two representatives--General
+Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of
+Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and
+drew up a manifesto, the famous _nakaz_--(See App. II, Sect. 5)
+instructions. The Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and
+his _nakaz;_ the Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law
+in the British House of Commons, in answer to a question, responded
+coldly, "As far as I know the Paris Conference will not discuss the
+aims of the war at all, but only the methods of conducting it...."
+
+At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the
+Bolsheviki cried, "See where the compromising tactics of the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!"
+
+Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia's
+armies stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their
+hundreds upon hundreds of delegations, crying "Peace! Peace!"
+
+I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great
+popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous
+night after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny
+lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the
+steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof--soldiers, sailors,
+workmen, women, all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A
+soldier was speaking--from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division,
+wherever and whatever that was:
+
+"Comrades," he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face
+and despairing gestures. "The people at the top are always calling
+upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have
+everything are left unmolested.
+
+"We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to
+serve on our Staff? Well we're at war with the capitalists too, and
+yet we invite them into our Government....
+
+"The soldier says, 'Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
+Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it
+the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am
+defending the Revolution then I'll go out and fight without capital
+punishment to force me.'
+
+"When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the
+workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have
+something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"
+
+In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less
+soldier speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring
+that if the Government did not make an energetic effort to get
+peace, the army would leave the trenches and go home.
+
+The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
+
+"We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must
+give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be
+left only empty trenches. Peace or supplies... either let the
+Government end the war or support the Army...."
+
+For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
+
+"The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to
+the enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
+counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the
+Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even
+to talk of such things, and at the same time doesn't give us enough
+food to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with...."
+
+From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See
+App. II, Sect. 6)...
+
+News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the
+discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with
+Soldiers' Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused
+an order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had
+been surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and
+many killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)...
+
+On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the
+Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear
+Terestchenko's declaration of the Government's foreign policy,
+awaited with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and
+exhausted land.
+
+A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high
+cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See
+App. II, Sect. 8) Nothing.... Only the same platitudes about crushing
+German militarism with the help of the Allies--about the "state
+interests" of Russia, about the "embarrassment" caused by
+Skobeliev's _nakaz._ He ended with the key-note:
+
+"Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
+happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders
+of a great ideal, and children of a great power."
+
+Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a "strong"
+imperialist policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that
+the Government would press for peace.... I reproduce an editorial in
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ (Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik
+Petrograd Soviet:
+
+THE GOVERNMENT'S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES
+
+The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually
+told the trenches the following:
+
+1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but
+with the Governments.)
+
+2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
+impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the
+Governments of our Allies.
+
+3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair.
+(He did not mention the consequences.)
+
+4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister
+has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations?
+What about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet?
+(See App. II, Sect. 9) The parleying of the British king with exiled
+counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention
+all this.)
+
+5. The _nakaz_ to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don't like it and the
+Russian diplomats don't like it. In the Allied Conference we must
+all 'speak one language.'
+
+And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is,
+faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When
+the Allies permit.
+
+That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
+
+Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague
+outlines of a sinister power--the Cossacks. _Novaya Zhizn_ (New
+Life), Gorky's paper, called attention to their activities:
+
+At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot
+down the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to
+follow him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have
+passed to an active political offensive (against it). From the
+back-ground of the Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the
+front of the stage....
+
+Kaledin, _ataman_ of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
+Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He
+flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack
+armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his
+power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination.
+More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council
+of the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the
+newly-formed Cossack Section of the Soviets....
+
+In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon
+Kerensky, arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be
+dropped, and reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the
+Soviets. Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported
+to have said, "In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a
+tyrant.... As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not
+depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they
+exist at all."
+
+At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British
+ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of "the free
+Cossack people."
+
+In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been
+established. The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State.
+The Soviets of Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by
+armed Cossacks, and the headquarters of the Coal Miners' Union at
+Kharkov raided. In all its manifestations the Cossack movement was
+anti-Socialist and militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great
+land-owners, like Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and
+Bardizhe, and it was backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of
+Moscow....
+
+Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland,
+White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became
+bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes,
+claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At
+Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the
+Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded
+the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev
+extended the boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the
+richest agricultural lands of South Russia, as far east as the
+Urals, and began the formation of a national army. Premier
+Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate peace with Germany--and the
+Provisional Government was helpless. Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded
+separate Constituent Assemblies. And in all these countries there
+was the beginning of a bitter struggle between the authorities and
+the local Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies....
+
+Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of
+soldiers were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast,
+aimless tides over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and
+Tver Governments, tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the
+repressive measures of the Government, were burning manor-houses and
+massacring land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed
+Moscow, Odessa and the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was
+paralysed; the army was starving and in the big cities there was no
+bread.
+
+The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary
+factions, could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported
+the interests of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to
+restore order among the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent,
+Government authorities suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the
+Economic Council, established to rebuild the shattered economic life
+of the country, came to a deadlock between the opposing forces of
+capital and labour, and was dissolved by Kerensky. The old r�gime
+military men, backed by Cadets, demanded that harsh measures be
+adopted to restore discipline in the Army and the Navy. In vain
+Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister of Marine, and General
+Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only a new, voluntary,
+democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the soldiers' and
+sailors' Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
+recommendations were ignored.
+
+The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The
+trial of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois
+press defended him, speaking of him as "the great Russian patriot."
+Burtzev's paper, _Obshtchee Dielo_ (Common Cause), called for a
+dictatorship of Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
+
+I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the
+Council of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled
+face, eyes near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard
+streaked with grey.
+
+"Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We
+should get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the
+Germans. Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the
+bunglers are the German agents. Kornilov should have won...."
+
+On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
+Purishkevitch's _Narodny Tribun_ (People's Tribune), _Novaya Rus_
+(New Russia), and _Zhivoye Slovo_ (Living Word), openly advocated
+the extermination of the revolutionary democracy....
+
+On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German
+squadron in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in
+danger, the Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the
+capital. First the great munitions works were to go, distributed
+widely throughout Russia; and then the Government itself was to move
+to Moscow. Instantly the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the
+Government was abandoning the Red Capital in order to weaken the
+Revolution. Riga had been sold to the Germans; now Petrograd was
+being betrayed!
+
+The bourgeois press was joyful. "At Moscow," said the Cadet paper
+_Ryetch_ (Speech), "the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
+atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists." Rodzianko,
+leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in _Utro
+Rossii_ (The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the
+Germans would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets
+and get rid of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:
+
+Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, "Let God take
+care of Petrograd." They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central
+revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that
+I rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will
+bring nothing but disaster upon Russia....
+
+With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be
+destroyed.... But there will be nothing to regret; most of the
+battleships are completely demoralised....
+
+In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation
+was repudiated.
+
+Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a
+thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not
+only by the Government but by all the "moderate" Socialists. The
+Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of
+the Trade Unions, the Peasants' Soviets, but most of all the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting.
+_Izviestia_ and _Golos Soldata_ (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers
+founded by the Petrograd Soviet but now in the hands of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ fiercely assailed it, as did the entire artillery of
+the Socialist Revolutionary party press, _Dielo Naroda_ (People's
+Cause) and _Volia Naroda_ (People's Will).
+
+Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to
+committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees,
+instructing them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn
+public resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the
+democracy was opposed to the meeting so near the date of the
+Constituent Assembly, representatives from the Front, from the Union
+of Zemstvos, the Peasants' Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of
+Officers, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions,[8] protesting....
+The Council of the Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval.
+The entire machinery set up by the Russian Revolution of March
+functioned to block the Congress of Soviets....
+
+[8] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat--the
+workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were
+already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the
+industrial workers, the _Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti_--Factory-Shop
+Committees; and the insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some
+places the people, prevented from electing their regular Soviet
+delegates, held rump meetings and chose one of their number to
+go to Petrograd. In others they smashed the old obstructionist
+committees and formed new ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved
+and cracked the crust which had been slowly hardening on the
+surface of revolutionary fires dormant all those months. Only
+an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets....
+
+Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and
+factories, violently denouncing "this Government of civil war." One
+Sunday we went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through
+oceans of mud, between stark factories and immense churches, to
+_Obukhovsky Zavod,_ a Government munitions-plant out on the
+Schl�sselburg Prospekt.
+
+The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge
+unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed
+around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber
+and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and
+thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the
+sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the
+mass of simple faces upturned to us.
+
+Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face
+of an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the
+Soviets. Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its
+enemies, who were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the
+army, creating opportunities for a new Konilov.
+
+A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
+"Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We
+are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word
+to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution
+until they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until
+the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers
+to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!"
+
+Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: "Now is the
+time for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we
+must get used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us.
+They are trying to provoke us. But let them know that they can go
+too far--that if they dare to lay their hands upon the organisations
+of the proletariat we will sweep them away like scum from the face
+of the earth!"
+
+The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
+_Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ (Soldier), there appeared a new paper
+for the peasants, _Derevenskaya Byednota_ (Village Poorest), poured
+out in a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, _Rabotchi
+i Soldat._ Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
+
+The fourth year's campaign will mean the annihilation of the army
+and the country.... There is danger for the safety of Petrograd....
+Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people's misfortunes.... The
+peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the
+landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive
+expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are
+threatened with starvation.... The bourgeoisie and its Generals want
+to restore a blind discipline in the army.... Supported by the
+bourgeoisie, the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up
+the meeting of the Constituent Assembly....
+
+The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the
+country.... This paper stands for the people and by the people--the
+poor classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be
+saved by the completion of the Revolution... and for this purpose the
+full power must be in the hands of the Soviets....
+
+This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets--both in
+the capital and in the provinces.
+
+Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
+
+Landlord estates--without compensation--to the peasants.
+
+Workers' control over industrial production.
+
+A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
+
+It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same
+paper--the organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as
+German agents:
+
+The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead
+people, wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the
+German workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than
+we do, to... stand up against this damned war!
+
+This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would
+speak really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and
+would appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German
+troops, fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German
+language.... Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over
+Germany....
+
+In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the
+chamber deepened day by day.
+
+"The propertied classes," cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, "want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the
+State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The
+revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy...."
+
+Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists,
+spoke against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of
+the Cadets: "We must have immediately strong discipline in the
+army.... Since the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist
+that it is a crime to undertake social and economic reforms in
+war-time. We are committing that crime, and yet I am not the enemy
+of these reforms, because I am a Socialist."
+
+Cries from the Left, "We don't believe you!" Mighty applause from
+the Right....
+
+Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to
+tell the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to
+realise that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian
+territory.
+
+Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national
+unity, once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him
+coldly, interrupting with ironical remarks.
+
+Smolny Institute, headquarters of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and of the
+Petrograd Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the
+wide Neva. I went there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a
+groaning noise through the cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with
+people. At the end of the line rose the graceful smoke-blue cupolas
+of Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful; and beside it
+the great barracks like fa�ade of Smolny Institute, two hundred
+yards long and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved
+hugely in stone still insolent over the entrance....
+
+Under the old r�gime a famous convent-school for the daughters of
+the Russian nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the
+Institute had been taken over by the revolutionary organisations of
+workers and soldiers. Within were more than a hundred huge rooms,
+white and bare, on their doors enamelled plaques still informing the
+passerby that within was "Ladies' Class-room Number 4" or "Teachers'
+Bureau"; but over these hung crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the
+vitality of the new order: "Central Committee of the Petrograd
+Soviet" and _"Tsay-ee-kah"_ and "Bureau of Foreign Affairs"; "Union
+of Socialist Soldiers," "Central Committee of the All-Russian Trade
+Unions," "Factory-Shop Committees," "Central Army Committee"; and
+the central offices and caucus-rooms of the political parties....
+
+The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were
+thronged with hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent
+under the weight of huge bundles of newspapers, proclamations,
+printed propaganda of all sorts. The sound of their heavy boots made
+a deep and incessant thunder on the wooden floor.... Signs were posted
+up everywhere: "Comrades! For the sake of your health, preserve
+cleanliness!" Long tables stood at the head of the stairs on every
+floor, and on the landings, heaped with pamphlets and the literature
+of the different political parties, for sale....
+
+The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a
+dining-room. For two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to
+dinner, and stood in line with a thousand others, waiting to get to
+the long serving-tables, where twenty men and women were ladling
+from immense cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and piles of
+_kasha,_ slabs of black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin
+cup. From a basket one grabbed a greasy wooden spoon.... The benches
+along the wooden tables were packed with hungry proletarians,
+wolfing their food, plotting, shouting rough jokes across the room....
+
+
+[Graphic, page 33: text of placard in russian, translation follows]
+
+COMRADES
+FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH,
+PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.
+
+Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the _Tsay-ee-kah--_
+though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly
+buttered and endless glasses of tea....
+
+In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of
+meetings, the former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room
+lighted by glazed-white chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate
+electric bulbs, and divided by two rows of massive columns; at one
+end a dais, flanked with two tall many-branched light standards, and
+a gold frame behind, from which the Imperial portrait had been cut.
+Here on festal occasions had been banked brilliant military and
+ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting for Grand Duchesses....
+
+Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials
+Committee for the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the
+new delegates come in--burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black
+blouses, a few long-haired peasants. The girl in charge--a member of
+Plekhanov's _Yedinstvo_[9] group--smiled contemptuously. "These are
+very different people from the delegates to the first _Siezd_
+(Congress)," she remarked. "See how rough and ignorant they look!
+The Dark People...." It was true; the depths of Russia had been
+stirred, and it was the bottom which came uppermost now. The
+Credentials Committee, appointed by the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was
+challenging delegate after delegate, on the ground that they had
+been illegally elected. Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, simply grinned. "Never mind," he said, "When the time
+comes we'll see that you get your seats...."
+
+[9] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ said:
+
+The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called
+to attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break
+up the Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that
+delegates had better leave Petrograd.... Pay no attention to these
+lies.... Great days are coming....
+
+It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2,
+so the opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the
+whole country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
+their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
+organisations to elect as many "moderate" Socialist delegates as
+possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants' Congress, to meet
+December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers
+might take...
+
+What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that
+there would be an armed "demonstration," a _vystuplennie_--"coming
+out" of the workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary
+press prophesied insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest
+the Petrograd Soviet, or at least to prevent the meeting of the
+Congress. Such sheets as _Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik
+massacre.
+
+Gorky's paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
+reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
+necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the
+parties of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
+
+As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
+long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
+advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements
+appeal to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the
+battle to seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most
+profound strata of the people....
+
+Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers
+were inciting the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however,
+would prepare the way for a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to
+deny the rumours. Potressov, in the Menshevik _Dien_ (Day),
+published a sensational story, accompanied by a map, which professed
+to reveal the secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.
+
+As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II,
+Sect. 10) proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
+"moderate" and conservative factions and the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denouncing any "demonstrations," imploring the workers and soldiers
+not to listen to agitators. For instance, this from the Military
+Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended
+_vystuplennie._ What is the source of these rumours? What
+organisation authorises these agitators who preach insurrection? The
+Bolsheviki, to a question addressed to them in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denied that they have anything to do with it.... But these rumours
+themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily happen
+that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the
+majority of the workers, soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads
+will call out part of the workers and soldiers on the streets,
+inciting them to an uprising.... In this fearful time through which
+revolutionary Russia is passing, any insurrection can easily turn
+into civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of all
+organisations of the proletariat, built up with so much labour.... The
+counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of
+this insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open the front to
+Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly.... Stick stubbornly to
+your posts! Do not come out!
+
+On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev,
+a little man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He
+was not at all sure that enough delegates would come. "If there _is_
+a Congress," he said, "it will represent the overwhelming sentiment
+of the people. If the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be,
+we shall demand that the power be given to the Soviets, and the
+Provisional Government must resign...."
+
+Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion,
+was more definite. "The 'Lieber-Dans' and the other compromisers are
+sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its
+meeting,--well, then we are realists enough not to depend on _that!_"
+
+Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the
+following items culled from the newspapers of the day:
+
+Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal
+Guard Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.
+
+The _yunkers_ of the Officers' Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo
+and Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to
+Petrograd. Oranienbaum _yunkers_ arrive in the city.
+
+Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed
+in the Winter Palace.
+
+Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by
+the Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the
+Petrograd workmen.
+
+At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a
+resolution demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.
+
+This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days,
+when everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody
+knew just what.
+
+At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October
+30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the
+Soviet contemplated armed insurention as "an attempt of the
+reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets.... The
+Petrograd Soviet," he declared, "had not ordered any _uystuplennie._
+If it is necessary we shall do so, and we will be supported by the
+Petrogruad garrison.... They (the Government) are preparing a
+counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an offensive which will
+be merciless and decisive."
+
+It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a
+demonstration, but the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was
+considering the question of insurrection. All night long the 23d
+they met. There were present all the party intellectuals, the
+leaders--and delegates of the Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone
+of the intellectuals Lenin and Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even
+the military men opposed it. A vote was taken. Insurrection was
+defeated!
+
+Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. "I speak
+for the Petrograd proletariat," he said, harshly. "We are in
+favour of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now
+that if you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, _we're through with
+you!_" Some soldiers joined him.... And after that they voted
+again--insurrection won....
+
+However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev
+and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the
+morning of October 31st appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ the first
+instalment of Lenin's "Letter to the Comrades," (See App. II, Sect.
+11) one of the most audacious pieces of political propaganda the
+world has ever seen. In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments
+in favour of insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev
+and Riazonov.
+
+"Either we must abandon our slogan, 'All Power to the Soviets,'" he
+wrote, "or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle
+course...."
+
+That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a
+brilliant, bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of
+the Republic, branding the Skobeliev _nakaz_ as pro-German,
+declaring that the "revolutionary democracy" was destroying Russia,
+sneering at Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred
+German diplomacy to Russian.... The Left benches were one roaring
+tumult all through....
+
+On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the
+success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of
+the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two
+laws, one for giving the land temporarily to the peasants, and the
+other for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. The next day
+Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the army. That same
+afternoon was opened with great ceremony the first session of the
+new "Commission for Strengthening the Republican R�gime and Fighting
+Against Anarchy and Counter-Revolution"--of which history shows not
+the slightest further trace.... The following morning with two other
+correspondents I interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)--the
+last time he received journalists.
+
+"The Russian people," he said, bitterly, "are suffering from
+economic fatigue--and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world
+thinks that the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken.
+The Russian Revolution is just beginning...." Words more prophetic,
+perhaps, than he knew.
+
+Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of
+October, at which I was present. The "moderate" Socialist
+intellectuals, officers, members of Army Committees, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ were there in force. Against them rose up workmen,
+peasants and common soldiers, passionate and simple.
+
+A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused
+by the arrest of the Land Committees. "This Kerensky is nothing but
+a shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners)," he cried. "They know
+that at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so
+they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!"
+
+A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
+were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that
+there was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he
+declared, had discovered huge hidden supplies.
+
+"It is a _provocatzia,"_ said he. "They want to starve us--or drive
+us to violence!"
+
+Among the soldiers one began, "Comrades! I bring you greetings from
+the place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!"
+
+Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with
+a roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
+fighting, and now risen from the dead.
+
+"The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
+Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed
+us.... The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be
+held exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone
+it will be cursed--and not only platonic curses either, for the Army
+has guns too...."
+
+He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in
+the Fifth Army. "The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the
+Bolsheviki. Our papers are not allowed to circulate in the trenches.
+Our speakers are arrested--"
+
+"Why don't you speak about the lack of bread?" shouted another
+soldier.
+
+"Man shall not live by bread alone," answered Tchudnovsky, sternly....
+
+Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a
+Menshevik _oboronetz._ "It isn't the question of who has the power.
+The trouble is not with the Government, but with the war.... and the
+war must be won before any change--" At this, hoots and ironical
+cheers. "These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!" The hall rocked
+with laughter. "Let us for a moment forget the class struggle--" But
+he got no farther. A voice yelled, "Don't you wish we would!"
+
+Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the
+factories the committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles,
+couriers came and went, the Red Guard[10] drilled.... In all the
+barracks meetings every night, and all day long interminable hot
+arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy
+evening, pouring in slow voluble tides up and down the Nevsky,
+fighting for the newspapers.... Hold-ups increased to such an extent
+that it was dangerous to walk down side streets.... On the Sadovaya
+one afternoon I saw a crowd of several hundred people beat and
+trample to death a soldier caught stealing.... Mysterious individuals
+circulated around the shivering women who waited in _queue_ long
+cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered
+the food supply--and that while the people starved, the Soviet
+members lived luxuriously....
+
+[10] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates,
+demanding everybody's pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed
+all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the
+floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a
+thousand people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd
+Soviet....
+
+Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with
+champagne flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the
+centre of the city at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs
+walked up and down, crowded the caf�s....
+
+Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes....
+
+And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under
+grey skies rushing faster and faster toward--what?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+On the Eve
+
+
+In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there
+comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the
+masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt....
+
+The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky's
+public denial that the Government had any such intention was met with
+hoots of derision.
+
+Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried _Rabotchi
+Put),_ the Government of "provisional" bourgeois tries to get free by
+giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
+Petrograd, and that it didn't wish to surrender the capital....
+
+In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the
+preamble of the I. W. W. constitution: "The working class and the
+employing class have nothing in common." Dispersed by Cossacks, some
+were locked out by the mine-owners, and the rest declared a general
+strike. Minister of Commerce and Industry Konovalov appointed his
+assistant, Orlov, with plenary powers, to settle the trouble. Orlov
+was hated by the miners. But the _Tsay-ee-kah_ not only supported his
+appointment, but refused to demand that the Cossacks be recalled from
+the Don Basin....
+
+This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The
+Bolsheviki, having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some
+political prisoners. With the sanction of the Government Commissar
+the Municipal Duma called in troops from Minsk, and bombarded the
+Soviet headquarters with artillery. The Bolsheviki yielded, but as
+they left the building Cossacks attacked them, crying, "This is what
+we'll do to all the other Bolshevik Soviets, including those of
+Moscow and Petrograd!" This incident sent a wave of panic rage
+throughout Russia....
+
+In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North,
+presided over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it
+resolved that all power should be assumed by the All-Russian
+Congress; and concluded by greeting the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding
+them rejoice, for the hour of their liberation was at hand. At the
+same time the first All-Russian Conference of Factory-Shop Committees
+(See App. III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the Soviets, and
+continued significantly,
+
+After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the
+working-class wants to see the democratic r�gime triumphant in the
+sphere of its productive activity. This is best expressed by Workers'
+Control over industrial production, which naturally arose in the
+atmosphere of economic decomposition created by the criminal policy
+of the dominating classes....
+
+The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky,
+Minister of Ways and Communications....
+
+In the name of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Skobeliev insisted that the _nakaz_
+be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against
+the sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign....
+
+General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the
+army, only came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals....
+
+On November 3d Burtzev's _Obshtchee Dielo_ came out with great
+headlines:
+
+Citizens! Save the fatherland!
+
+I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission
+for National Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the
+principal persons responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to
+sign a separate peace, independently of the Allies.
+
+That is treason to Russia!
+
+Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even
+examined Verkhovsky's proposition.
+
+"You might think," said Terestchenko, "that we were in a madhouse!"
+
+The members of the Commission were astounded at the General's words.
+
+General Alexeyev wept.
+
+No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!
+
+Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us
+concerning the words of Verkhovsky.
+
+Citizens, arise!
+
+Russia is being sold!
+
+Save her!
+
+What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to
+offer peace, because the Russian army could fight no longer....
+
+Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky
+was given "indefinite leave of absence for ill-health," and left the
+Government. _Obshtchee Dielo_ was suppressed....
+
+Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd
+Soviet, with immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly
+to raise money for the organisation and the press; really, to make a
+demonstration of strength. Suddenly it was announced that on the same
+day the Cossacks would hold a _Krestny Khod_--Procession of the
+Cross--in honour of the Ikon of 1612, through whose miraculous
+intervention Napoleon had been driven from Moscow. The atmosphere was
+electric; a spark might kindle civil war. The Petrograd Soviet issued
+a manifesto, headed "Brothers--Cossacks!"
+
+You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers.
+This plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies,
+the oppressors, the privileged classes--generals, bankers, landlords,
+former officials, former servants of the Tsar.... We are hated by all
+grafters, rich men, princes, nobles, generals, including your Cossack
+generals. They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd
+Soviet and crush the Revolution....
+
+On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious
+procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every
+individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession.
+We do not interfere in this matter, nor do we obstruct anybody....
+However, we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the
+pretext of a _Krestni Khod,_ your Kaledins do not instigate you
+against workmen, against soldiers....
+
+The procession was hastily called off....
+
+In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the
+Bolsheviki were preaching, "All Power to the Soviets!" and agents of
+the Dark Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the
+Jews, shop-keepers, Socialist leaders....
+
+On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression--on
+the other Lenin's great voice roaring, "Insurrection!.... We cannot
+wait any longer!"
+
+Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2)
+_Birjevya Viedomosti_ (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik
+propaganda an attack on "the most elementary principles of
+society--personal security and the respect for private property."
+
+[Graphic, page 46: Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their
+_Krestny Khod_--the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
+calendar). "Brothers--Cossacks!" it begins. "The Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies addresses you."
+
+But it was the "moderate" Socialist journals which were the most
+hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) "The Bolsheviki are the most
+dangerous enemies of the Revolution," declared _Dielo Naroda._ Said
+the Menshevik _Dien,_ "The Government ought to defend itself and
+defend us." Plekhanov's paper, _Yedinstvo_ (Unity) (See App. III,
+Sect. 4), called the attention of the Government to the fact that the
+Petrograd workers were being armed, and demanded stern measures
+against the Bolsheviki.
+
+Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the
+Municipal administration broke down. The columns of the morning
+papers were filled with accounts of the most audacious robberies and
+murders, and the criminals were unmolested.
+
+On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing
+battle with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found
+them.
+
+On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of
+Petrograd, issued a proclamation:
+
+Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing,
+irresponsible appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still
+being spread around Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and
+disorder increase.
+
+This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and
+hinders the systematic work of the Government and the Municipal
+Institutions.
+
+In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my
+country, I command:
+
+1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and
+within the territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to
+the Municipality, to the Commissars, and to the militia, in the
+guarding of Government institutions.
+
+2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District
+Commander and the representatives of the city militia, and the taking
+of measures for the arrest of criminals and deserters.
+
+3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
+demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters
+of the Second Commander of the city.
+
+4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all
+armed forces at hand.
+
+5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted
+searches in houses and unwarranted arrests.
+
+6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under
+charge to the Staff of the Petrograd Military District.
+
+I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their
+help to the commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they
+are charged.
+
+In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government
+was fully aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient
+force to cope with any demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He
+accused _Novaya Rus_ and _Robotchi Put_ of both doing the same kind
+of subversive work. "But owing to the absolute freedom of the press,"
+he added, "the Government is not in a position to combat printed
+lies.[11]...." Declaring that these were two aspects of the same
+propaganda, which had for its object the counter-revolution, so
+ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:
+
+"I am a doomed man, it doesn't matter what happens to me, and I have
+the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
+unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!"
+
+[11] This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had
+suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to
+do so again.
+
+On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had
+arrived. Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a
+hundred and seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were
+Bolsheviki.... Four hundred constituted a quorum, and the Congress was
+only three days off....
+
+I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get
+in. Double rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside
+the front door there was a long line of people waiting to be let in,
+four at a time, to be questioned as to their identity and their
+business. Passes were given out, and the pass system was changed
+every few hours; for spies continually sneaked through....
+
+[Graphic, page 49: Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]
+
+Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)
+
+  Military Revolutionary Committee
+           attached to the
+  Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D.
+        Commandant's office
+  16th November, 1917
+               No. 955
+           Smolny Institute
+
+              PASS
+
+Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of
+the American Socialist press, until December 1, the right of free
+entry into Smolny Institute. Commandant
+                               Adjutant
+
+One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife
+just ahead of me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched
+through his pockets, but could find no pass.
+
+"Never mind," he said finally. "You know me. My name is Trotzky."
+
+"You haven't got a pass," answered the soldier stubbornly.
+
+"You cannot go in. Names don't mean anything to me."
+
+"But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet."
+
+"Well," replied the soldier, "if you're as important a fellow as that
+you must at least have one little paper."
+
+Trotzky was very patient. "Let me see the Commandant," he said. The
+soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb
+the Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally
+to the soldier in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to
+him. "My name is Trotzky," he repeated.
+
+"Trotzky?" The other soldier scratched his head. "I've heard the name
+somewhere," he said at length. "I guess it's all right. You can go on
+in, comrade...."
+
+In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, who explained to me what the new Government would be like.
+
+"A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed
+through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the
+Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic
+will, just as the Tsar's Government did. The initiative of the new
+society shall come from below.... The form of the Government will be
+modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
+Party. The new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ responsible to frequent meetings of the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the parliament; the various
+Ministries will be headed by _collegia_--committees--instead of by
+Ministers, and will be directly responsible to the Soviets...."
+
+On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in
+the attic of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room
+he sat on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were
+necessary; he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The
+substance of his talk, in his own words, I give here:
+
+"The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie
+is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition
+with the _oborontsi_ parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees
+revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land;
+and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same
+disgust is evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only
+possible by means of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way
+by which the bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the
+bourgeoisie lacks.... The Army is with us. The conciliators and
+pacifists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all
+authority--because the struggle between the peasants and the
+landlords, between the workers and the employers, between the
+soldiers and the officers, has become more bitter, more
+irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted action of the popular
+mass, only by the victory of proletarian dictatorship, can the
+Revolution be achieved and the people saved....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the
+people--perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and
+objects. Based directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in
+the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone
+of the Revolution.
+
+"There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets--and
+only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of
+all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of the
+Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution
+militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of
+the people. Between the two camps there are no groups of serious
+importance.... It is the _lutte finale._ The bourgeois counter-revolution
+organises all its forces and waits for the moment to attack us. Our
+answer will be decisive. We will complete the work scarcely begun in
+March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair...."
+
+He went on to speak of the new Government's foreign policy:
+
+"Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all
+fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace
+terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement
+depends on the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe.
+If we create here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a
+powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for this Government
+will address itself directly and immediately to all peoples, over the
+heads of their Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of
+the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will
+be in the direction of 'no annexations, no indemnities, the right of
+self-determination of peoples,' and a _Federated Republic of Europe._...
+
+"At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats,
+but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe--the United
+States of Europe--that is what must be. National autonomy no longer
+suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national
+frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then
+Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of
+Europe can give peace to the world." He smiled--that fine, faintly
+ironical smile of his. "But without the action of the European
+masses, these ends cannot be realised--now...."
+
+Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly
+on the streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white
+collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and
+openly.
+
+The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to
+the front.
+
+The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had
+taken a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned
+the tide in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers'
+Deputies, and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
+
+Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional
+Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd
+garrison which answered, "If you are not capable of defending the
+capital, conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and
+make room for a People's Government which can do both...."
+
+It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the
+attitude of the Petrograd garrison. The Government's plan was to
+replace the garrison regiments with "dependable" troops--Cossacks,
+Death Battalions. The Army Committees, the "moderate" Socialists and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation
+was carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact
+that for eight months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy
+life in the barracks of the capital, while their exhausted comrades
+in the trenches starved and died.
+
+Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison
+regiments were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for
+the hardships of a winter campaign. But there were other reasons why
+they refused to go. The Petrograd Soviet feared the Government's
+intentions, and from the Front came hundreds of delegates, chosen by
+the common soldiers, crying, "It is true we need reinforcements, but
+more important, we must know that Petrograd and the Revolution are
+well-guarded.... Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we will hold the
+front!"
+
+On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the
+Petrograd Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military
+Committee to decide the whole question. The next day a meeting of the
+Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which
+immediately proclaimed a boycott of the bourgeois newspapers, and
+condemned the _Tsay-ee-kah_ for opposing the Congress of Soviets. On
+the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky proposed
+that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. "We ought," he said, "to create our special organisation
+to march to battle, and if necessary to die...." It was decided to send
+to the front two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from the
+garrison, to confer with the Soldiers' Committees and the General
+Staff.
+
+At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov,
+commander of the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he
+had ordered the Petrograd garrison to the trenches, and that was all.
+The garrison committee was not allowed to leave Petrograd....
+
+A delegation of the Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked
+that a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd
+District. Refused. The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be
+issued without the approval of the Soldiers' Section. Refused. The
+delegates were roughly told, "We only recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah._ We
+do not recognise you; if you break any laws, we shall arrest you."
+
+On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd
+regiments passed a resolution: _"The Petrograd garrison no longer
+recognises the Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our
+Government. We will obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet,
+through the Military Revolutionary Committee."_ The local military
+units were ordered to wait for instructions from the Soldiers'
+Section of the Petrograd Soviet.
+
+Next day the _Tsay-ee-kah_ summoned its own meeting, composed largely
+of officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and
+detailed Commissars in all quarters of the city.
+
+A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:
+
+Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the
+Petrograd garrison promises it complete support in all its actions,
+to unite more closely the front and the rear in the interests of the
+Revolution.
+
+The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary
+proletariat it assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in
+Petrograd. Every attempt at provocation on the part of the
+Kornilovtsi or the bourgeoisie will be met with merciless resistance.
+
+Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+peremptorily summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control.
+To all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or
+proclamations without the Committee's authorisation. Armed Commissars
+visited the Kronversk arsenal and seized great quantities of arms and
+ammunition, halting a shipment of ten thousand bayonets which was
+being sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of Kaledin....
+
+Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the
+Committee would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky
+himself sent Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on
+the Staff. The Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour
+later General Manikovsky, acting Minister of war, countermanded the
+offer....
+
+Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by
+the appearance of a placard signed, "Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies."
+
+To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are
+mobilising their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets and break the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the
+_pogromists_ may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for
+trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the
+city against counter-revolutionary and _pogrom_ attempts.
+
+The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The
+population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators
+and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At
+the first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets
+of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be
+wiped off the face of the earth!
+
+Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and
+self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
+
+List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee....
+
+On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting
+behind closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor
+outside the door; and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was
+going on.
+
+Lenin spoke: "November 6th will be too early. We must have an
+all-Russian basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to
+the Congress will not have arrived.... On the other hand, November 8th
+will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it
+is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift,
+decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets,
+so that we may say to it, 'Here is the power! What are you going to
+do with it?'"
+
+In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual,
+once an officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and
+exile, a certain Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and
+chess-player; he was drawing careful plans for the seizure of the
+capital.
+
+On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of
+the most loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were
+ordered to Petrograd. The _yunker_ artillery was drawn into the
+Winter Palace. Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance in the
+streets, for the first time since the July days. Polkovnikov issued
+order after order, threatening to repress all insubordination with
+the "utmost energy." Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the
+worst-hated member of the Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to
+keep order in Petrograd; he named as assistants two men no less
+unpopular, Rutenburg and Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and
+Finland were declared in a state of siege--upon which the bourgeois
+_Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked ironically:
+
+Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has
+no moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to
+use force.... In the most favourable circumstances it can only
+negotiate with any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no
+farther....
+
+Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to
+see what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic.
+Bitter debate on Terestchenko's foreign policy. Echoes of the
+Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the
+Italian ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso
+disaster....
+
+As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
+aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, "The remedy
+for Bolshevism is bullets!" Turning to the Cadets he cried, "That's
+what _you_ think, too!"
+
+Voices from the Right, "Yes! Yes!"
+
+"Yes, I know you think so," answered Karelin, hotly. "But you haven't
+the courage to try it!"
+
+Then Skobeliev, looking like a matin�e idol with his soft blond beard
+and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
+_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
+"Resignation! Resignation!" He insisted that the delegates of the
+Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common
+point of view--his own. A few words about the restoration of
+discipline in the army, about war to victory.... Tumult, and over the
+stubborn opposition of the truculent Left, the Council of the
+Republic passed to the simple order of the day.
+
+There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats--empty since that first
+day when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I
+went down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter
+wrangling, no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate
+this high, cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was
+wrecked--on the same rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the
+Miliukov Ministry.... The doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, "I
+don't know what is becoming of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and
+Bolsheviki and Trudoviki.... This Ukraine and this Finland and the
+German imperialists and the English imperialists. I am forty-five
+years old, and in all my life I never heard so many words as in this
+place...."
+
+In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
+dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet
+party. I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
+_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.
+
+"They are cattle--_canaille,"_ he answered. "They will not dare, or if
+they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it
+will not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power
+in the Constituent Assembly....
+
+"But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
+Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
+chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction
+with the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional
+project.... We will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such
+as you have in the United States. In the lower chamber will be
+territorial representatives; in the upper, representatives of the
+liberal professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives--and Trade Unions...."
+
+Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud
+underfoot soaked through my shoes. Two companies of _yunkers_ passed
+swinging up the Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and
+singing an oldtime crashing chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing
+under the Tsar.... At the first cross-street I noticed that the City
+Militiamen were mounted, and armed with revolvers in bright new
+holsters; a little group of people stood silently staring at them. At
+the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin, "Will the
+Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?" paying for it with one of the
+stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars crawled
+past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
+Theodore P. Shonts green with envy.... Along the sidewalk a row of
+deserters in uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds....
+
+Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the
+latest papers, and knots of people were trying to make out the
+multitudes of appeals (See App. III, Sect. 6) and proclamations
+pasted in every flat place; from the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the
+Peasants' Soviets, the "moderate" Socialist parties, the Army
+Committees--threatening, cursing, beseeching the workers and soldiers
+to stay home, to support the Government....
+
+An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On
+every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered;
+arguing soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the
+wide-spaced street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed
+endlessly.... It is always like that in Petrograd just before trouble....
+
+The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no
+sign from the Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the
+workmen in the factories.... We went to a moving picture show near the
+Kazan Cathedral--a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down
+front were some soldiers and sailors, staring at the screen in
+childlike wonder, totally unable to comprehend why there should be so
+much violent running about, and so much homicide....
+
+From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the
+Military Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the
+chairmanship of a tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He
+stopped, as he passed, to shake hands rather bashfully.
+
+"Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us," said he, with a
+pleased grin. "A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was
+ordered by the Government to come to Petrograd. The men were
+suspicious, so they stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a
+delegation to us. 'What's the matter?' they asked. 'What have you got
+to say? We have just passed a resolution, "All Power to the
+Soviets."'... The Military Revolutionary Committee sent back word,
+'Brothers! We greet you in the name of the Revolution. Stay where you
+are until further instructions!'"
+
+All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the
+factories and barracks was established by means of military
+telephonograph apparatus....
+
+A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the
+door waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest
+quarters of the city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform
+of a lieutenant, said in French, "Everything is ready to move at the
+push of a button...."
+
+There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain
+conceived the strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar
+filthy, drunk with loss of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced
+soldier, always smiling, with his violent gestures and tumbling
+speech; and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor with the placid face.
+These were the men of the hour--and of other hours to come.
+
+Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov,
+signing orders on the Government Arsenal for arms--one hundred and
+fifty rifles for each factory.... Delegates waited in line, forty of
+them....
+
+In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One
+showed me a revolver. "The game is on," he said, and his face was
+pale. "Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us
+or be finished...."
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the
+great hall Trotzky was just finishing.
+
+"We are asked," he said, "if we intend to have a _vystuplennie._ I
+can give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd Soviet feels
+that at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the
+hands of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be
+accomplished by the All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed
+demonstration is necessary will depend on... those who wish to
+interfere with the All-Russian Congress....
+
+"We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
+Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only
+awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really
+popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now,
+to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take... into its
+hands that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom
+of the people. If, however, the Government wants to utilise the short
+period it is expected to live--twenty-four, forty-eight, or
+seventy-two hours--to attack us, then we shall answer with
+counter-attacks, blow for blow, steel for iron!"
+
+Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had
+agreed to send representatives into the Military Revolutionary
+Committee....
+
+As I left Smolny, at three o'clock in the morning, I noticed that two
+rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and
+that strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by
+street-corners. Bill Shatov[12] came bounding up the steps. "Well," he
+cried, "We're off! Kerensky sent the _yunkers_ to close down our
+papers, _Soldat_ and _Rabotchi Put._ But our troops went down and
+smashed the Government seals, and now we're sending detachments to
+seize the bourgeois newspaper offices!" Exultantly he slapped me on
+the shoulder, and ran in....
+
+[12] Well known in the American labor movement.
+
+On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose
+office was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the
+walls, hysterical appeals to the people to remain "calm." Polkovnikov
+emitted _prikaz_ after _prikaz:_
+
+I order all military units and detachments to remain in their
+barracks until further orders from the Staff of the Military
+District.... All officers who act without orders from their superiors
+will be court-martialled for mutiny. I forbid absolutely any
+execution by soldiers of instructions from other organisations....
+
+The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the
+papers _Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat,_ and
+decreed the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the
+members of the Military Revolutionary Committee....
+
+As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of _yunker_
+artillery came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up
+before the Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was
+unusually animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the
+door, and motors full of officers were coming and going.... The censor
+was very much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he
+said, had just gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his
+resignation. I hurried down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the
+end of that passionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky's,
+full of self-justification and bitter denunciation of his enemies.
+
+"I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series
+of articles published in _Rabotchi Put_ by Ulianov-Lenin, a state
+criminal who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find.... This state
+criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to
+repeat the experience of the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the
+immediate necessity for an armed rising.... Moreover, other Bolshevik
+leaders have taken the floor in a series of meetings, and also made
+an appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly should be noticed
+the activity of the present president of the Petrograd Soviet,
+Bronstein-Trotzky....
+
+"I ought to bring to your notice... that the expressions and the style
+of a whole series of articles in _Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ resemble
+absolutely those of _Novaya Rus...._ We have to do not so much with the
+movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation
+of the political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the
+population, a sort of organisation whose object it is to provoke in
+Russia, cost what it may, an inconscient movement of destruction and
+pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at
+Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, which will
+cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia....
+
+"... By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
+extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very
+favourable." (Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin's
+article.):
+
+Think of it!... The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without
+newspapers, without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet.... They are
+opposed by the incredible hostility of all classes of society--and yet
+the German comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of
+newspapers, freedom of meeting, the majority of the Soviets, we, the
+best-placed international proletarians of the entire world, can we
+refuse to support the German revolutionists and insurrectionary
+organisations?...
+
+Kerensky then continued:
+
+"The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
+perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain
+now in Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head
+of which is, in the eyes of this party, 'a usurper and a man who has
+sold himself to the bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky....'
+
+"... The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
+German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they
+open the Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends....
+Little matter to the Provisional Government the motives of these
+people, little matter if they act consciously or unconsciously; but
+in any case, from this tribune, in full consciousness of my
+responsibility, I quality such acts of a Russian political party as
+acts of treason to Russia!
+
+"... I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
+immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
+arrests." (Uproar from the Left.) "Listen to me!" he cried in a
+powerful voice. "At the moment when the state is in danger, because
+of conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and
+myself among others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life,
+the honour and the independence of Russia...."
+
+At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.
+
+"I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to
+the regiments. Here is the contents." Reading: _"'The Petrograd
+Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is menaced. We order
+immediately the regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await
+new orders. All delay or non-execution of this order will be
+considered as an act of treason to the Revolution. The Military
+Revolutionary Committee. For the President, Podvoisky. The Secretary,
+Antonov.'_
+
+"In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
+existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the
+front to the regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm....
+
+"I say 'populace' intentionally, because the conscious democracy and
+its _Tsay-ee-kah,_ all the Army organisations, all that free Russia
+glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
+Russian democracy, protests against these things....
+
+"I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction
+that the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
+liberty--that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future,
+will find unanimous support except among those who have never dared
+to face the truth....
+
+"... The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
+citizens of the State to use their political rights.... But now the
+Provisional Government.... declares: in this moment those elements of
+the Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift
+their hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same
+time threatening to open the front to Germany, must be liquidated
+with decision!...
+
+"Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a
+firm power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and
+honour will triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them...."
+
+All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When
+the Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with
+perspiration, and strode out with his suite of officers, speaker
+after speaker from the Left and Centre attacked the Right, all one
+angry roaring. Even the Socialist Revolutionaries, through Gotz:
+
+"The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
+exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series
+of popular demands which have received no satisfaction up to now....
+The questions of peace, land and the democratization of the army
+ought to be stated in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant or
+worker would have the least doubt that our Government is attempting,
+firmly and infallibly, to solve them....
+
+"We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are
+ready to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to
+the last drop of our blood--if only the Provisional Government, on all
+these burning questions, will speak the clear and precise words
+awaited by the people with such impatience...."
+
+Then Martov, furious:
+
+"The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
+'populace' when it is question of the movement of important sections
+of the proletariat and the army--although led in the wrong
+direction--are nothing but an incitement to civil war."
+
+The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted
+practically to a vote of lack of confidence.
+
+1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days
+past has for its object a _coup d'etat,_ threatens to provoke
+civil war, creates conditions favourable to _pogroms_ and
+counterrevolution, the mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces,
+such as the Black Hundreds, which will inevitably bring about the
+impossibility of convoking the Constituent, will cause a military
+catastrophe, the death of the Revolution, paralyse the economic life
+of the country and destroy Russia;
+
+2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by
+delay in passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions
+caused by the war and the general disorder. It is necessary before
+everything to promulgate at once a decree transmitting the land to
+the peasants' Land Committees, and to adopt an energetic course of
+action abroad in proposing to the Allies to proclaim their peace
+terms and to begin peace-parleys;
+
+3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and _pogromist_ movements,
+it is indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these
+movements, and for this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of
+Public Safety, composed of representatives of the Municipality and
+the organs of the revolutionary democracy, acting in contact with the
+Provisional Government....
+
+It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries all rallied to this resolution.... When Kerensky saw
+it, however, he summoned Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain.
+If it expressed a lack of confidence in the Provisional Government,
+he begged Avksentiev to form a new Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev,
+the leaders of the "compromisers," performed their last compromise....
+They explained to Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of
+the Government!
+
+At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with
+fixed bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the
+occupants, and ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd
+had gathered to watch them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged
+to the Government or the Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in
+front of the Kazan Cathedral the same thing was happening, machines
+being directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six sailors with rifles
+came along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation with two
+of the soldiers. On the sailors' hat bands were _Avrora_ and _Zaria
+Svobody,_--the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic
+Fleet. One of them said, "Cronstadt is coming!"... It was as if, in
+1792, on the streets of Paris, some one had said: "The Marseillais
+are coming!" For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors,
+convinced Bolsheviki and not afraid to die....
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ was just out, all its front page one huge
+proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!
+
+The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The
+Kornilovists of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs
+_yunkers_ and volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum _yunkers_ and the
+Tsarskoye Selo volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high
+treason is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet.... The
+campaign of the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets on the eve of its opening, against
+the Constituent Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is
+guarding the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is
+directing the repulse of the conspirators' attack. The entire
+garrison and proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of
+the people a crushing blow.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:
+
+1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with
+the Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall
+meet in continuous session, concentrating in their hands all
+information about the plans of the conspirators.
+
+2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
+Committee.
+
+3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit
+and five from each Ward Soviet.
+
+4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the
+All-Russian Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an
+extraordinary meeting.
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.
+
+A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers
+and workers.
+
+But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.
+
+The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be
+crushed.
+
+No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline,
+determination!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of
+storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to
+take part in the debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six,
+eight, twelve hours a day....
+
+I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik
+delegates were holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the
+speaker hidden by the crowd: "The compromisers say that we are
+isolated. Pay no attention to them. Once it begins they must be
+dragged along with us, or else lose their following...."
+
+Here he held up a piece of paper. "We are dragging them! A message
+has just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They
+say that they condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks
+us they will not oppose the cause of the proletariat!" Exultant
+shouting....
+
+As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a
+monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that
+new Congress which would mean its own ruin--and perhaps the ruin of
+the revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only
+members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ could vote....
+
+It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak,
+in a tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.
+
+"The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours," he
+said. "The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
+democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await
+bloodshed in the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to
+destroy, not only our homogeneous Government, but the Revolution
+itself....
+
+"The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
+Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of
+the Revolution..." (Cries, "That's a lie!)" "The counter-revolutionists
+are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and massacres.... If
+there is any _vystuplennie,_ there will be no Constituent Assembly...."
+(Cries, "Lie! Shame!")
+
+"It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the
+Petrograd garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff.... You
+must obey the orders of the Staff and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ elected by
+you. All Power to the Soviets--that means death! Robbers and thieves
+are waiting for the moment to loot and burn.... When you have such
+slogans put before you, 'Enter the houses, take away the shoes and
+clothes from the bourgeoisie--'" (Tumult. Cries, "No such slogan! A
+lie! A lie!") "Well, it may start differently, but it will end that
+way!
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah_ has full power to act, and must be obeyed.... We are
+not afraid of bayonets.... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ will defend the Revolution
+with its body...." (Cries, "It was a dead body long ago!")
+
+Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard
+screaming, as he pounded the desk, "Those who are urging this are
+committing a crime!"
+
+Voice: "You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power
+and turned it over to the bourgeoisie!"
+
+Gotz, ringing the chairman's bell: "Silence, or I'll have you put
+out!"
+
+Voice: "Try it!" (Cheers and whistling.)
+
+"Now concerning our policy about peace." (Laughter.) "Unfortunately
+Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war. There is
+going to be peace, but not permanent peace--not a democratic peace....
+To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed,
+we passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to
+the Land Committees and immediate peace negotiations...." (Laughter,
+and cries, "Too late!")
+
+Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave
+of roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house,
+thunderous. His thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in
+its expression of malicious irony.
+
+"Dan's tactics prove that the masses--the great, dull, indifferent
+masses--are absolutely with him!" (Titantic mirth.) He turned toward
+the chairman, dramatically. "When we spoke of giving the land to the
+peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, 'If they don't
+give it to you, take it yourselves!' and the peasants followed our
+advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago....
+
+"I don't think Kerensky's order to suspend the death penalty in the
+army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by
+the Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him....
+
+"To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
+Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik.... The time may
+come when Dan will say that the flower of the Revolution participated
+in the rising of July 16th and 18th.... In Dan's resolution to-day at
+the Council of the Republic there was no mention of enforcing
+discipline in the army, although that is urged in the propaganda of
+his party....
+
+"No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have
+left the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries
+conquered the Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it
+to the Cadets....
+
+"Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
+Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the
+down-trodden masses revolt, it is their right...."
+
+Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
+laughter.
+
+"Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
+until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this.... the
+seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the
+Revolution.... Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself
+opposed to what he is now advocating...." (Cries, "Enough! Down with
+him!")
+
+Martov, constantly interrupted: "The Internationalists are not
+opposed to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they
+disapprove of the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment
+to seize the power...."
+
+Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
+seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
+uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
+Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the
+hall, shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government....
+
+Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
+the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
+provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
+creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
+Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
+peasants and beginning peace negotiations....
+
+Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+on the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of
+the Congress. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ was practically dead, he said, and
+the resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power....
+
+"As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!"
+Whereupon all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was
+passed....
+
+Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle
+slung from his shoulder.
+
+"We're moving!" (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but with
+satisfaction. "We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
+Minister of Religions. They're down cellar now. One regiment is on
+the march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph
+Agency, another the State Bank. The Red Guard is out...."
+
+On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red
+Guard--a huddled group of boys in workmen's clothes, carrying guns
+with bayonets, talking nervously together.
+
+Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle
+fire, where the _yunkers_ were trying to open the bridges over the
+Neva, to prevent the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg
+quarter from joining the Soviet forces in the centre of the city; and
+the Cronstadt sailors were closing them again....
+
+Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic
+hive....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+The Fall of the Provisional Government
+
+
+Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed
+from Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day.
+In front of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were
+standing at the closed gates.
+
+"What side do you belong to?" I asked. "The Government?"
+
+"No more Government," one answered with a grin, "_Slava Bogu!_ Glory
+to God!" That was all I could get out of him....
+
+The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small
+boys hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed
+even less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the
+day before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had
+blossomed out on the walls during the night--to the peasants, to the
+soldiers at the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:
+
+FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
+
+The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
+meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public
+Safety, composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and
+representatives of the following revolutionary democratic
+organizations: The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive
+Committee of Peasant Deputies, the Army organisations, the
+_Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and others.
+
+Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
+building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
+
+November 7th, 1917.
+
+Though I didn't realize it then, this was the Duma's declaration of
+war against the Bolsheviki.
+
+I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed
+on sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a
+second-hand copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on
+large-sized sheets in the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_
+had huge headlines: "ALL POWER--TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS
+AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD! LAND!" The leading article was signed
+"Zinoviev,"--Lenin's companion in hiding. It began:
+
+Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
+democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the
+present situation.
+
+Either--the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
+crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger
+and death....
+
+Or--the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
+workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
+complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
+capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
+assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
+workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
+nonsensical war!...
+
+_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
+capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
+Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the
+Cossacks undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of
+Chief of the City Militia Meyer; arrests, counter-arrests,
+skirmishes between clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red
+Guards. (See App. IV, Sect. 1)
+
+On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
+asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
+shoulders in a tired manner and replied, "_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
+knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they
+won't be able to hold it more than three days. They haven't the men
+to run a government. Perhaps it's a good thing to let them try--that
+will furnish them...."
+
+The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac's Square was picketed
+by armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young
+officers, walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors
+wouldn't let them leave....
+
+Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
+scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
+around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian
+Republic met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of
+soldiers, rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.
+
+"_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!" snapped one, while another went running
+toward the door.
+
+At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a
+red flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: "S.R.S.D."
+(_Soviet Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained
+toward St. Isaac's. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth
+of Novaya Ulitza--boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile
+of lumber barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a
+neighbouring wood-pile were being built up along the front of the
+building to form breastworks....
+
+"Is there going to be any fighting?" I asked.
+
+"Soon, soon," answered a soldier, nervously. "Go away, comrade,
+you'll get hurt. They will come from that direction," pointing
+toward the Admiralty.
+
+"Who will?"
+
+"That I couldn't tell you, brother," he answered, and spat.
+
+Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
+sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian
+Republic. "We walked in there," he said, "and filled all the doors
+with comrades. I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz
+who sat in the president's chair. 'No more Council,' I says. 'Run
+along home now!'"
+
+There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get
+around to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling
+sailor stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, "If you
+were Saint Michael himself, comrade, you couldn't pass here!"
+Through the glass of the door I made out the distorted face and
+gesticulating arms of a French correspondent, locked in....
+
+Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform
+of a general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in
+the face.
+
+"I am General Alexeyev," he cried. "As your superior officer and as
+a member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to
+pass!" The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the
+corner of his eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew
+very agitated when he saw who it was and saluted before he realised
+what he was doing.
+
+"_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_--your High Excellency--" he
+stammered, in the manner of the old r�gime, "Access to the Palace is
+strictly forbidden--I have no right--"
+
+An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
+apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
+armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
+Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.
+
+"I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night," said I,
+pointing to them.
+
+"Oh," he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
+"The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
+minds...."
+
+Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn
+up, and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All
+the entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a
+cordon of troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by
+an uneasy throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who
+seemed to be carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it
+in front of the main gateway, everything was quiet.
+
+We couldn't make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
+pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
+approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
+our American passports, saying "Official business!" and shouldered
+through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in
+their brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars,
+politely took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the
+dark, gloomy corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old
+attendants were lounging about, and in front of Kerensky's door a
+young officer paced up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if
+we could interview the Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his
+heels.
+
+"No, I am sorry," he replied in French. "Alexander Feodorvitch is
+extremely occupied just now...." He looked at us for a moment. "In
+fact, he is not here...."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
+there wasn't enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to
+the English Hospital and borrow some."
+
+"Are the Ministers here?"
+
+"They are meeting in some room--I don't know where.'
+
+"Are the Bolsheviki coming?"
+
+"Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call
+every minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have
+_yunkers_ in the front of the Palace. Through that door there."
+
+"Can we go in there?"
+
+"No. Certainly not. It is not permitted." Abruptly he shook hands
+all around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in
+a temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside.
+On the other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for
+that the vast spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An
+old _shveitzar_ ran up. "No, _barin,_ you must not go in there."
+
+"Why is the door locked?"
+
+"To keep the soldiers in," he answered. After a few minutes he said
+something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
+unlocked the door.
+
+Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said
+nothing. At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with
+gilded cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several
+smaller ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the
+parquetted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon
+which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a
+litter of cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles
+with expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red
+shoulder-straps of the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale
+atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle
+of white Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace.
+They looked at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room
+after room, until at last we came out into a series of great
+state-salons, fronting their long and dirty windows on the Square.
+The walls were covered with huge canvases in massive gilt
+frames--historical battle-scenes.... "12 October 1812" and "6 November
+1812" and "16/28 August 1813." ... One had a gash across the upper
+right hand corner.
+
+The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
+from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
+window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.
+
+As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me
+from the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent
+French, "I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are
+foreigners." He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he
+removed his cap.
+
+"Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs--Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
+absolutely at your service." It did not seem to occur to him that
+there was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering
+through the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to
+complain of the state of Russia.
+
+"Not only these Bolsheviki," he said, "but the fine traditions of
+the Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all
+students in the officers' training schools. But are they gentlemen?
+Kerensky opened the officers' schools to the ranks, to any soldier
+who could pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who
+are contaminated by the Revolution...."
+
+Without consequence he changed the subject. "I am very anxious to go
+away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
+Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
+you my address." In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a
+piece of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
+still--"_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
+Peterhof._"
+
+"We had a review this morning early," he went on, as he guided us
+through the rooms and explained everything. "The Women's Battalion
+decided to remain loyal to the Government."
+
+"Are the women soldiers in the Palace?"
+
+"Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won't be hurt if any
+trouble comes." He sighed. "It is a great responsibility," said he.
+
+For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square
+before the Palace, where three companies of long-coated
+_yunkers_ were drawn up under arms, being harangued by a tall,
+energetic-looking officer I recognised as Stankievitch, chief
+Military Commissar of the Provisional Government. After a few
+minutes two of the companies shouldered arms with a clash, barked
+three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across the Square,
+disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.
+
+"They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange," said some one.
+Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said
+they had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their
+names--Robert Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian.
+But now they didn't want to be officers any more, because officers
+were very unpopular. They didn't seem to know what to do, as a
+matter of fact, and it was plain that they were not happy.
+
+But soon they began to boast. "If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
+them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But
+if we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
+himself...."
+
+At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on
+the Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces,
+and the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
+direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
+grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, "Here they come! Here
+they come!" ... But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The
+_izvoshtchiki_ came back, the people lying down stood up. Through
+the Red Arch appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step,
+one of them supported by two comrades.
+
+It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the
+Square had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government
+buildings seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner,
+and right in the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face,
+came up and insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the
+back of the house, because they were going to put out the lights in
+the caf�. "There will be much shooting," he said.
+
+When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
+one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
+stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
+pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing
+and was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and
+sailors stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked
+back up to the Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered
+staring at the brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud
+tones.
+
+"No, comrades," one was saying. "How can we shoot at them? The
+Women's Battalion is in there--they will say we have fired on Russian
+women."
+
+As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
+corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
+
+"Come on!" he yelled. "Let's go on through and attack!"
+
+The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
+above the roaring engine. "The Committee says to wait. They have got
+artillery behind the wood-piles in there...."
+
+Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and
+there were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams,
+the crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
+moving-picture shows--life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
+Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre--all theatres were open--but it was too
+exciting out of doors....
+
+In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
+Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers
+wheeling into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various
+uniforms were coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great
+deal of talking....
+
+Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
+corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
+Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
+street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their
+fists at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers
+argued feebly, with embarrassed grins.... Armoured cars went up and
+down the street, named after the first Tsars--Oleg, Rurik,
+Svietoslav--and daubed with huge red letters, "R. S. D. R. P."
+_(Rossiskaya Partia_)[13]. At the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an
+armful of newspapers, and was immediately stormed by frantic people,
+offering a rouble, five roubles, ten roubles, tearing at each other
+like animals. It was _Rabotchi i Soldat,_ announcing the victory of
+the Proletarian Revolution, the liberation of the Bolsheviki still
+in prison, calling upon the Army front and rear for support... a
+feverish little sheet of four pages, running to enormous type,
+containing no news....
+
+[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
+
+On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had
+gathered, staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny
+red spark glowed and waned.
+
+"See!" said a tall peasant, pointing to it. "It is a provocator.
+Presently he will fire on the people...." Apparently no one thought of
+going to investigate.
+
+The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
+from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim
+in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
+elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying
+from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and
+at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At
+the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the
+sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down.
+The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on
+each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike
+from their breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the
+trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare,
+dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling,
+shouting.... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came
+pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black
+fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders,
+soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_ pinched
+flat, a leader or so--Lunatcharsky, Kameniev--hurrying along in the
+centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
+and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting
+of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev--a quick moving
+little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders.
+Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution
+just passed:
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, saluting
+the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
+particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
+complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
+less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
+well.
+
+The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers' and
+Peasants' Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will
+be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
+proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
+march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country
+can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
+
+The new Workers' and Peasants' Government will propose immediately a
+just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
+
+It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
+the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen's control over
+production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set
+up a general control over the banks, which it will transform into a
+state monopoly.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies calls upon
+the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their
+energy and all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet
+expresses its conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor
+peasants, will assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable
+to the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the
+proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us in
+conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
+
+"You consider it won then?"
+
+He lifted his shoulders. "There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
+just beginning...."
+
+On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
+looking black and biting his grey beard. "It's insane! Insane!" he
+shouted. "The European working-class won't move! All Russia--" He
+waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had
+both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin's terrible
+tongue....
+
+It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
+Government no longer existed.
+
+"The characteristic of bourgeois governments," he said, "is to
+deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in
+history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim
+but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants."
+
+Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
+world-wide Social Revolution.... And Zinoviev, crying, "This day we
+have paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a
+terrible blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the
+imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner...."
+
+Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing
+the victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said
+to be marching against Petrograd--a delegation must be sent to tell
+them the truth.
+
+Cries, "You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets!"
+
+Trotzky, coldly, "The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
+has been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and
+soldiers!"
+
+So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the
+clamorous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white
+chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides,
+perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the
+representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in
+anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's
+bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of
+unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose
+from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in
+authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke;
+then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke,
+comrades!" and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from
+the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and
+filthy, he was reeling from three nights' sleepless work on the
+Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_--for the
+last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled
+from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was
+the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these
+men had attempted to guide in careful ways.... The three greatest of
+them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country
+towns all doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had
+contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to
+sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also
+mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his
+beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber,
+Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky,--white-faced, hollow-eyed and
+indignant. Below them the second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets
+boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary
+Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of
+insurrection and striking with a long arm.... It was 10.40 P. M.
+
+Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon's
+uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken
+by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door....
+
+"We have the power in our hands," he began sadly, stopped for a
+moment, and then went on in a low voice. "Comrades! The Congress of
+Soviets in meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an
+extraordinary moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech.
+This will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am
+a member of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our
+party comrades are in the Winter Palace under bombardment,
+sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put on them by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah."_ (Confused uproar.)
+
+"I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies open!"
+
+The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
+Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was
+decided to base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki
+leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded soldier shouted at them,
+"Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_ were the minority!"
+Result--14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and
+1 Internationalist (Gorky's group). Hendelmann, for the right and
+centre Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take
+part in the presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki;
+and from the Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification
+of certain circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium.
+Scattering applause and hoots. One voice, "Renegades, you call
+yourselves Socialists!" A representative of the Ukrainean delegates
+demanded, and received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped
+down, and in their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky,
+Madame Kollentai, Nogin.... The hall rose, thundering. How far they
+had soared, these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less
+than four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia
+in full tide of insurrection!
+
+The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of
+Power; second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly.
+Lozovsky, rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all
+factions, it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the
+Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ and the different parties, and finally to pass to the
+order of the day.
+
+But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult
+of the crowd, persistent, disquieting,--the dull shock of guns.
+People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of
+fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely,
+"The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a
+peaceful settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political
+standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war.
+Our brothers are being shot down in the streets! At this moment,
+when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of
+Power is being settled by means of a military plot organised by one
+of the revolutionary parties--" for a moment he could not make
+himself heard above the noise, "All of the revolutionary parties
+must face the fact! The first _vopros_ (question) before the
+Congress is the question of Power, and this question is already
+being settled by force of arms in the streets!... We must create a
+power which will be recognised by the whole democracy. If the
+Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it
+must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the
+result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution....
+The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a
+united democratic authority.... We must elect a delegation to
+negotiate with the other Socialist parties and organisation...."
+
+Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows,
+and the delegates, screaming at each other.... So, with the crash of
+artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring,
+new Russia was being born.
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
+supported Martov's proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
+that the All-Russian Peasants' Soviets had refused to send delegates
+to the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
+invitation. "Some delegates are present," he said. "I move that they
+be given votes." Accepted.
+
+Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded
+the floor. "The political hypocrites who control this Congress," he
+shouted, "told us we were to settle the question of Power--and it is
+being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
+being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
+the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party
+which has risked such an adventure!" Uproar. Followed him Gharra:
+"While we are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a
+battle on in the streets.... The Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki refuse to be involved in what is happening, and call upon
+all public forces to resist the attempt to capture the power...."
+Kutchin, delegate of the 12th Army and representative of the
+Troudoviki: "I was sent here only for information, and I am
+returning at once to the Front, where all the Army Committees
+consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only three weeks
+before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of the Army
+and a crime against the people--!" Shouts of "Lie! You lie!"... When he
+could be heard again, "Let's make an end of this adventure in
+Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
+save the country and the Revolution!" As he went down the aisle in
+the midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him,
+threatening.... Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee,
+speaking suavely and persuasively: "I speak for the delegates from
+the Front. The Army is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and
+furthermore, the Army does not consider the Congress of Soviets
+necessary at this time, only three weeks before the opening of the
+Constituent--" shouts and stamping, always growing more violent. "The
+Army does not consider that the Congress of Soviets has the
+necessary authority--" Soldiers began to stand up all over the hall.
+
+"Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?" they cried.
+
+"The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army,
+the Second F-- regiment, the First N-- Regiment, the Third S-- Rifles...."
+
+"When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the
+soldiers! What do the soldiers say about it?" Jeers and hoots.
+
+"We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has
+happened and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise
+all self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
+Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress.... The place to
+fight is out on the streets!"
+
+Immense bawling outcry. "You speak for the Staff--not for the Army!"
+
+"I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!"
+
+"Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!" were hurled at him.
+
+On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
+possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with
+the Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which
+would find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed
+for several minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the
+Menshevik declaration:
+
+"Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid
+of the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
+parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and
+therefore withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to
+meet for discussion of the situation!"
+
+"Deserter!" At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
+Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard
+protesting against the bombardment of the Winter Palace.... "We are
+opposed to this kind of anarchy...."
+
+Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
+flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
+hand:
+
+"Comrades!" he cried and there was a hush. "My _familia_ (name) is
+Peterson--I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
+statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
+statements would have some value _if their authors had been
+representatives of the Army_--" Wild applause. _"But they do not
+represent the soldiers!"_ Shaking his fist. "The Twelfth Army has
+been insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great
+Soviet and the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+our Committee refused to call a meeting of the representatives of
+the masses until the end of September, so that the reactionaries
+could elect their own false delegates to this Congress. I tell you
+now, the Lettish soldiers have many times said, 'No more
+resolutions! No more talk! We want deeds--the Power must be in our
+hands!' Let these impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is
+not with them!"
+
+The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
+stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon,
+the delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after
+hammer-blow had fallen from that tribune, welding them together but
+beating them down. Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising
+against them? Was it true that the Army was marching on Petrograd?
+Then this clear-eyed young soldier had spoken, and in a flash they
+knew it for the truth.... _This_ was the voice of the soldiers--the
+stirring millions of uniformed workers and peasants were men like
+them, and their thoughts and feelings were the same...
+
+More soldiers ... Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
+they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
+that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
+they stood for division according to political parties, and not
+groups. "Hundreds of delegates from the Front," he said, "are being
+elected without the participation of the soldiers because the Army
+Committees are no longer the real representatives of the rank and
+file...." Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk
+could not represent the Army in this congress,--but only the high
+command. "The real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their
+hearts the transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they
+expect very much from it!"... The tide was turning.
+
+Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish
+Social Democrats--his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling
+with rage.
+
+"What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
+_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!" He raised
+his voice and hand. "Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn't
+permit us to remain here and be responsible for these crimes.
+Because the firing on the Winter Palace doesn't cease, the Municipal
+Duma together with the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and
+the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviet, has decided to
+perish with the Provisional Government, and we are going with them!
+Unarmed we will expose our breasts to the machine guns of the
+Terrorists.... We invite all delegates to this Congress--" The rest was
+lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and curses which rose to a hellish
+pitch as fifty delegates got up and pushed their way out....
+
+Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, "Keep your seats and we'll go
+on with our business!" And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel
+face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, "All these
+so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki,
+Socialist Revolutionaries, _Bund_--let them go! They are just so much
+refuse which will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!"
+
+Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
+Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
+offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. "In this way we have done
+everything possible to avoid blood-shed...."
+
+We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where
+the Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed,
+engulfing and spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars
+armed with power of life and death to all the corners of the city,
+amid the buzz of the telephonographs. The door opened, a blast of
+stale air and cigarette smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of
+dishevelled men bending over a map under the glare of a shaded
+electric-light.... Comrade Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a
+mop of pale yellow hair, made out passes for us.
+
+When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one
+huge park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of
+which could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great
+motor-truck stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine. Men were
+tossing bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside
+them.
+
+"Where are you going?" I shouted.
+
+"Down-town--all over--everywhere!" answered a little workman,
+grinning, with a large exultant gesture.
+
+We showed our passes. "Come along!" they invited. "But there'll
+probably be shooting--" We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a
+raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on
+top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate,
+and then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the
+workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top
+speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side.... One
+man tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of
+papers into the air. We imitated him, plunging down through the dark
+street with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind.
+The late passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around
+bonfires on the corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them.
+Sometimes armed men loomed up ahead, crying "_Shtoi!_" and raising
+their guns, but our chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible
+and we hurtled on....
+
+I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light
+read:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed
+into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and
+Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which
+stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
+
+The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of
+a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the
+land, labor control over production, creation of a Soviet
+Government--that cause is securely achieved.
+
+LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
+
+_Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+_Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+[Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows]
+
+Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the
+Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our
+calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just
+after the surrender of the Winter Palace.
+
+A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a
+goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, "Look out! Here the provocators
+always shoot from the windows!" We turned into Znamensky Square,
+dark and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy's brutal statue
+and swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles
+ready, peering at the windows. Behind us the street was alive with
+people running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and
+the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter
+and more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly
+lighted. Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line
+of sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed
+down, and we climbed out.
+
+It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina
+Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn
+across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column
+of fours. There were about three or four hundred of them, men in
+frock coats, well-dressed women, officers--all sorts and conditions
+of people. Among them we recognised many of the delegates from the
+Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries;
+Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants'
+Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky's spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and
+at the head white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and
+Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government,
+arrested that morning and released. I caught sight of Malkin,
+reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ "Going to die in the Winter
+Palace," he shouted cheerfully. The procession stood still, but from
+the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and Prokopovitch were
+bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
+
+"We demand to pass!" they cried. "See, these comrades come from the
+Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the
+Winter Palace!"
+
+The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an
+enormous hand, frowning. "I have orders from the Committee not to
+let anybody go to the Winter Palace," he grumbled. "But I will send
+a comrade to telephone to Smolny...."
+
+"We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether
+you permit us or not!" cried old Schreider, very much excited.
+
+"I have orders--" repeated the sailor sullenly.
+
+"Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!" came from all
+sides. "We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on
+Russians and comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!"
+
+"No," said the sailor, looking stubborn, "I can't allow you to pass."
+
+"What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to shoot people who haven't any guns. We won't
+shoot unarmed Russian people...."
+
+"We will go forward! What can you do?"
+
+"We will do something," replied the sailor, evidently at a loss. "We
+can't let you pass. We will do something."
+
+"What will you do? What will you do?"
+
+Another sailor came up, very much irritated. "We will spank you!" he
+cried, energetically. "And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go
+home now, and leave us in peace!"
+
+At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment,
+Prokopovitch had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella,
+he made a speech:
+
+"Comrades and citizens!" he said. "Force is being used against us!
+We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant
+men! It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
+switchmen--" (What he meant by "switchmen" I never discovered.) "Let
+us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the
+country and the Revolution!"
+
+Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and
+back up the Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage
+of the diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the
+direction of the Winter Palace.
+
+Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of
+soldiers and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan
+Cathedral a three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street,
+slewed sideways from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs.
+Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low tones and
+peering down toward the Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: "It
+is possible that we have done wrong...." At the corners patrols
+stopped all passersby--and the composition of these patrols was
+interesting, for in command of the regular troops was invariably a
+Red Guard.... The shooting had ceased.
+
+Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: "The
+_yunkers_ have sent word they want us to go and get them out!"
+Voices began to give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a
+dark mass moving forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the
+clinking of arms. We fell in with the first ranks.
+
+Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we
+poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in
+a low voice: "Look out, comrades! Don't trust them. They will fire,
+surely!" In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching
+together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the
+Alexander Column.
+
+"How many of you did they kill?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know. About ten...."
+
+After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army
+seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow
+forward. By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the
+Winter Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three
+hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers.
+Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside
+gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown
+down by the _yunkers_ who had stood there. On both sides of the main
+gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the
+huge pile came not the slightest sound.
+
+Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right
+hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of
+the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and
+stair-cases. A number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon
+these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them
+open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets,
+curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware.... One man went
+strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder;
+another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his
+hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, "Comrades!
+Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of
+the People!" Immediately twenty voices were crying, "Stop! Put
+everything back! Don't take anything! Property of the People!" Many
+hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched
+from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze
+clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
+cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
+spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be
+heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, "Revolutionary
+discipline! Property of the People...."
+
+We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There
+order was also being established. "Clear the Palace!" bawled a Red
+Guard, sticking his head through an inner door. "Come, comrades,
+let's show that we're not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the
+Palace except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted."
+
+Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in
+their hands. Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen
+and paper. Shouts of "All out! All out!" were heard far and near
+within, and the Army began to pour through the door, jostling,
+expostulating, arguing. As each man appeared he was seized by the
+self-appointed committee, who went through his pockets and looked
+under his coat. Everything that was plainly not his property was
+taken away, the man at the table noted it on his paper, and it was
+carried into a little room. The most amazing assortment of objects
+were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of ink, bed-spreads
+worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small oil-painting,
+desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap, clothes of every
+description, blankets. One Red Guard carried three rifles, two of
+which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four portfolios
+bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
+surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the
+committee explained that stealing was not worthy of the people's
+champions; often those who had been caught turned around and began
+to help go through the rest of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
+
+_Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee
+seized upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the
+search with remarks like, "Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists!
+Counter-revolutionists! Murderers of the People!" But there was no
+violence done, although the _yunkers_ were terrified. They too had
+their pockets full of small plunder. It was carefully noted down by
+the scribe, and piled in the little room.... The _yunkers_ were
+disarmed. "Now, will you take up arms against the People any more?"
+demanded clamouring voices.
+
+"No," answered the _yunkers,_ one by one. Whereupon they were
+allowed to go free.
+
+We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the
+big Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. "Who are you
+anyway?" he asked. "How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys?
+(There were five of us, two women.)
+
+"_Pazhal'st', touarishtchi!_ Way, Comrades!" A soldier and a Red
+Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards
+with fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen
+men in civilian dress--the members of the Provisional Government.
+First came Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking
+sullenly at the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply
+around; he stared at us with cold fixity.... They passed in silence;
+the victorious insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only
+a few angry mutterings. It was only later that we learned how the
+people in the street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired--but
+the sailors brought them safely to Peter-Paul....
+
+In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was
+still a great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found
+apartments in the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of
+_yunkers_ which did not exist. We went upstairs and wandered through
+room after room. This part of the Palace had been entered also by
+other detachments from the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues,
+tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were unharmed; in
+the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the
+papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had
+been stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The
+most highly prized loot was clothing, which the working people
+needed. In a room where furniture was stored we came upon two
+soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish leather upholstery from
+chairs. They explained it was to make boots with....
+
+The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms
+stood nervously about, from force of habit repeating, "You can't go
+in there, _barin!_ It is forbidden--" We penetrated at length to the
+gold and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the
+Ministers had been in session all that day and night, and where the
+_shveitzari_ had betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table
+covered with green baize was just as they had left it, under arrest.
+Before each empty seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were
+scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of
+proclamations and manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as
+their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered
+with absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat
+despondently listening while Minister after Minister proposed
+chimerical schemes. I took one of these scribbled pages, in the hand
+writing of Konovalov, which read, "The Provisional Government
+appeals to all classes to support the Provisional Government--"
+
+All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
+surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the
+Front and with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the
+Ministry of War early in the morning, but they did not know of the
+military telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone
+line connecting it with the Winter Palace. In that attic a young
+officer sat all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals
+and proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put
+on his hat and walked calmly out of the building....
+
+Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn't notice a
+change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As
+we strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by
+the time we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the
+afternoon with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after
+us. One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with
+sullen suspicion.
+
+[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
+
+Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by
+A.I. Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional
+Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the
+situation became more and more evident. The geometrical figure
+beneath was probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for
+the end.
+
+"Who are you?" he growled. "What are you doing here?" The others
+massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter.
+_"Provocatori!"_ I heard somebody say. "Looters!" I produced our
+passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took
+them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without
+comprehension. Evidently he could not read. He handed them back and
+spat on the floor. _"Bumagi!_ Papers!" said he with contempt. The
+mass slowly began to close in, like wild cattle around a cowpuncher
+on foot. Over their heads I caught sight of an officer, looking
+helpless, and shouted to him. He made for us, shouldering his way
+through.
+
+"I'm the Commissar," he said to me. "Who are you? What is it?" The
+others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
+
+"You are foreigners?" he rapidly asked in Franch. "It is very
+dangerous...." Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
+"Comrades!" he cried. "These people are foreign comrades--from
+America. They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen
+about the bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the
+proletarian army!"
+
+"How do you know that?" replied the big soldier. "I tell you they
+are provocators! They say they came here to observe the
+revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been
+wandering freely through the Palace, and how do we know they haven't
+got their pockets full of loot?"
+
+_"Pravilno!"_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
+
+"Comrades! Comrades!" appealed the officer, sweat standing out on
+his forehead. "I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Do you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are
+signed with the same names that are signed to my pass!"
+
+He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening
+onto the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going
+through pockets... "You have narrowly escaped," he kept muttering,
+wiping his face.
+
+"What happened to the Women's Battalion?" we asked.
+
+"Oh--the women!" He laughed. "They were all huddled up in a back
+room. We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them--many were
+in hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the
+Finland Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they
+have a camp. (See App. IV, Sect. 4)...."
+
+We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure
+armies on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river,
+where loomed the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout....
+Underfoot the sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the
+cornice of the Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_
+had struck; that was the only damage done by the bombardment....
+
+It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
+street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only
+signs of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires.
+The city was quiet--probably never so quiet in its history; on that
+night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
+
+But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the
+galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed,
+red-shrouded Imperial portraits. About a hundred people were grouped
+around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the
+Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the
+anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution. And as we looked
+on, the Committee for Salvation was formed--that Committee which was
+to develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki,
+appearing, in the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name,
+and sometimes as the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public
+Safety....
+
+Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet
+delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets, old Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the
+Republic--among whom Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the
+convention of Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ was still in office.... An appeal to the country was
+drafted.
+
+We hailed a cab. "Where to?" But when we said "Smolny," the
+_izvoshtchik_ shook his head. _"Niet!"_ said he, "there are
+devils...." It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver
+willing to take us--and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two
+blocks away.
+
+The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and
+around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly
+asking everybody the latest news. The corridors were full of
+hurrying men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In some of the committee-rooms
+people lay sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them. In spite
+of the seceding delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with
+people, roaring like the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading
+the list of arrested Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted
+with thunderous applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter;
+Rutenburg came in for less; and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a
+storm of hoots, angry cries, cheers burst forth.... It was announced
+that Tchudnovsky had been appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
+
+Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded
+face convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his
+fist on the presidium table.
+
+"We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of
+the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do
+you know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom
+fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into
+Peter-Paul prison--the historical tomb of Liberty?" In the uproar he
+pounded and yelled. Another delegate climbed up beside him, and
+pointed at the presidium.
+
+"Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit
+quietly here while the _Okhrana_ of the Bolsheviki tortures their
+leaders?"
+
+Trotzky was gesturing for silence. "These 'comrades' who are now
+caught plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer
+Kerensky--is there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July
+16th and 18th they didn't use much ceremony with us!" With a
+triumphant ring in his voice he cried, "Now that the _oborontsi_ and
+the faint-hearted have gone, and the whole task of defending and
+saving the Revolution rests on our shoulders, it is particularly
+necessary to work--work--work! We have decided to die rather than give
+up!"
+
+Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered
+with the mud of his ride. "The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on
+guard at the gates of Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee!" Wild cheers. "The Cycle Corps
+sent from the front has arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are
+now with us; they recognise the power of the Soviets, the necessity
+of immediate transfer of land to the peasants and industrial control
+to the workers. The Fifth Battalion of Cyclists, stationed at
+Tsarskoye, is ours...."
+
+Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of
+delirious enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered
+_three days before_ from the South-west front to the "defence of
+Petrograd." They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and
+at the station of Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth
+Battalion from Tsarskoye. A joint meeting was held, and it was
+discovered that "among the cyclists not a single man was found
+willing to shed the blood of his brothers, or to support a
+Government of bourgeois and land-owners!"
+
+Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect
+a special committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war.
+"There isn't any peaceful solution!" bellowed the crowed. "Victory
+is the only solution!" The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of
+Jocular insults. There was no longer any panic fear.... Kameniev from
+the platform shouted after them, "The Mensheviki Internationalists
+claimed 'emergency' for the question of a 'peaceful solution,' but
+they always voted for suspension of the order of the day in favour
+of declarations of factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It
+is evident," finished Kameniev, "that the withdrawal of all these
+renegades was decided upon beforehand!"
+
+The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and
+proceed to the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all
+Russia:
+
+TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS
+
+The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the
+Soviets. There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the
+will of the great majority of the workers', soldiers and peasants,
+based upon the triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and
+soldiers, the Congress assumes the Power.
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the
+Provisional Government are already arrested.
+
+The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic
+peace to all nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will
+assure the free transfer of landlord, crown and monastery lands to
+the Land Committees, defend the soldiers rights, enforcing a
+complete democratisation of the Army, establish workers' control
+over production, ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly
+at the proper date, take means to supply bread to the cities and
+articles of first necessity to the villages, and secure to all
+nationalities living in Russia a real right to independent existence.
+
+The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, which
+must enforce revolutionary order.
+
+The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful
+and steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the
+revolutionary Army will know how to defend the Revolution against
+all attacks of Imperialism, until the new Government shall have
+brought about the conclusion of the democratic peace which it will
+directly propose to all nations. The new Government will take all
+necessary steps to secure everything needful to the revolutionary
+Army, by means of a determined policy of requisition and taxation of
+the propertied classes, and also to improve the situation of
+soldiers' families.
+
+The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to
+lead troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by
+Kerensky, have sided with the insurgent People.
+
+Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on
+guard!
+
+Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against
+Petrograd!
+
+Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution
+and democratic peace is in your hands!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of_
+_Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+_Delegates from the Peasants' Soviets._
+
+It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue,
+climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
+
+"Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings
+to the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military
+Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the
+Northern Front!" Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other.
+"General Tchermissov has recognised the Committee-Commissar of the
+Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!"
+
+So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the
+Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and
+thrust the _coup d'etat_ upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was
+all great Russia to win--and then the world! Would Russia follow and
+rise? And the world--what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a
+red world-tide?
+
+Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill.
+There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent
+streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn
+grey-rising over Russia....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+Plunging Ahead
+
+
+Thursday, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest
+excitement and confusion, a whole nation having up in long hissing
+swells of storm. Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands
+of people retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work.
+In Petrograd the street-cars were running, the stores and
+restaurants open, theatres going, an exhibition of paintings
+advertised.... All the complex routine of common life--humdrum even in
+war-time--proceeded as usual. Nothing is so astounding as the
+vitality of the social organism--how it persists, feeding itself,
+clothing itself, amusing itself, in the face of the worst
+calamities....
+
+The air was full of rumours about Kerensky, who was said to have
+raised the Front, and to be leading a great army against the
+capital. _Volia Naroda_ published a _prikaz_ launched by him at
+Pskov:
+
+The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place
+the country on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of
+our entire will, our courage and the devotion of every one of us, to
+win through the terrible trial which the fatherland is undergoing....
+
+Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government--if
+one is formed--every one ought to remain at his post and fulfil his
+duty toward bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least
+interference with existing Army organisations can bring on
+irreparable misfortunes, by opening the Front to the enemy.
+Therefore it is indispensable to preserve at any price the morale of
+the troops, by assuring complete order and the preservation of the
+Army from new shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between
+officers and their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and
+Commissars, in the name of the safety of the country, to stay at
+their posts, as I myself retain the post of Supreme Commander, until
+the Provisional Government of the Republic shall declare its will....
+
+In answer, this placard on all the walls:
+
+FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
+
+"The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch,
+Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Kerensky has fled. All Army organisations are ordered to
+take every measure for the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his
+conveyance to Petrograd.
+
+"All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious
+crime against the state."
+
+With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled,
+throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V,
+Sect. 1)... Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the
+Peasant Land Committees imprisoned by the Provisional Government
+were declared free. Capital punishment in the army was abolished.
+Government employees were ordered to continue their work, and
+threatened with severe penalties if they refused. All pillage,
+disorder and speculation were forbidden under pain of death.
+Temporary Commissars were appointed to the various Ministries:
+Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotzky; Interior and Justice, Rykov;
+Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky; Public Welfare, Madame
+Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications, Riazanov; Navy, the
+sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro; Theatres, Muraviov;
+State Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of Petrograd,
+Lieutenant Nesterov; for the Northern Front, Pozern....
+
+To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To
+the railway workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the
+transport of food to the cities and the front.... In return, they were
+promised representation in the Ministry of Ways and Communications.
+
+Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against
+Petrograd. They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary
+workers and soldiers of the capital. Do not believe a word that is
+said by our common enemies, the land-owners and the capitalists.
+
+At our Congress are represented all the conscious organisations of
+workers, soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also
+to welcome into its midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the
+Black Band, henchmen of the land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are
+our enemies.
+
+They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the
+Cossacks. This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords
+that the Revolution will confiscate the land to give it to the
+people.
+
+Organise Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies! Join with the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies!
+
+Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and
+that you do not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary
+Russia!...
+
+Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people.
+Send your delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us.... The
+Cossacks of the Petrograd garrison, to their honour, have not
+justified the hope of the People's enemies....
+
+Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you
+a fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the
+soldiers, workers and peasants of all Russia!
+
+On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up,
+hand-bills scattered everywhere, newspapers--screaming and cursing
+and prophesying evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press--all
+other weapons being in the hands of the Soviets.
+
+First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!
+
+Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th
+the Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the
+Provisional Government, dispersed the Council of the Republic, and
+proclaimed an illegal power. Such violence committed against the
+Government of revolutionary Russia at the moment of its greatest
+external danger, is an indescribable crime against the fatherland.
+
+The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause
+of national defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace
+so greatly desired.
+
+Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country
+to the horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the
+failure of the Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the
+republican r�gime and transmit to the People forever their right to
+the land.
+
+Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on
+the night of November 7th, takes the initiative in forming a new
+Provisional Government; which, basing itself on the forces of
+democracy, will conduct the country to the Constituent Assembly and
+save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The Committee for
+Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognise the power of
+violence. Do not obey its orders!
+
+Rise for the defence of the country and Revolution!
+
+Support the Committee for Salvation!
+
+Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of
+Petrograd, the _Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress),_ the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, and from the Congress itself the
+Front group, the factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki,
+Populist Socialists, Unified Social Democrats, and the group
+"Yedinstvo."
+
+Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki
+_oborontsi,_ Peasants' Soviets again; from the Central Army
+Committee, the _Tsentroflot_....
+
+... Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will
+trample on our liberty. Black Hundred _pogroms_ will spread over
+Russia, if we all--conscious workers, soldiers, citizens--do not
+unite....
+
+Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of
+immediate peace--is a lie! The promise of bread--a hoax! The promise
+of land--a fairy tale!...
+
+They were all in this manner.
+
+Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of
+power has been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone.... They concealed
+their plot from the other Socialist parties composing the Soviet....
+
+You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution
+will profit by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will
+deprive you of land and freedom....
+
+The newspapers were as violent.
+
+Our duty (said the _Dielo Naroda_) is to unmask these traitors to
+the working-class. Our duty is to mobilise all our forces and mount
+guard over the cause of the Revolution!...
+
+_Izviestia,_ for the last time speaking in the name of the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ threatened awful retribution.
+
+As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no
+Congress of Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private
+conference of the Bolshevik faction! And in that case, they have no
+right to cancel the powers of the _Tsay-ee-kah_....
+
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ while pleading for a new Government that should
+unite all the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the
+Congress, and pointed out that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one
+thing very clearly: that all illusions about coalition with the
+bourgeoisie were henceforth demonstrated vain...
+
+_Rabotchi Put_ blossomed out as _Pravda,_ Lenin's newspaper which
+had been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
+
+Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of
+the clique of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the
+bourgeois gang....
+
+The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
+
+The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary
+elements of Petrograd.
+
+The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and
+assure the realisation of the popular programme...
+
+What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally,
+adopted a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a
+sort of contemptuous "I--told--you--so" to the other parties.
+Influential Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal
+Duma, and on the outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other
+than that, the bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour--which could not
+far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three
+days never occurred to anybody--except perhaps to Lenin, Trotzky, the
+Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers....
+
+In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the
+Duma sitting in _permanence,_ tempestuous, grouping around it all
+the forces of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with
+his white hair and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny
+the night before, to protest in the name of the Municipal
+Self-Government. "The Duma, being the only existing legal Government
+in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not
+recognise the new power," he had told Trotzky. And Trotzky had
+answered, "There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can
+be dissolved and re-elected...." At this report there was a furious
+outcry.
+
+"If one recognises a Government by bayonet," continued the old man,
+addressing the Duma, "well, we have one; but I consider legitimate
+only a Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by
+the usurpation of a minority!" Wild applause on all benches except
+those of the Bolsheviki. Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced
+that the Bolsheviki already were violating Municipal autonomy by
+appointing Commissars in many departments.
+
+The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that
+the decision of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed
+up the action of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You are not the real representative of the people
+of Petrograd!" Shrieks of "Insult! Insult!" The old Mayor, with
+dignity, reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest
+possible popular vote. "Yes," he answered, "but that was a long time
+ago--like the _Tsay-ee-kah_--like the Army Committee."
+
+"There has been no new Congress of Soviets!" they yelled at him.
+
+"The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of
+counter-revolution--" Uproar. "--and we demand a re-election of the
+Duma...." Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber, followed by cries
+of "German agents! Down with the traitors!"
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, then demanded that all Municipal functionaries
+who had consented to be Commissars of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee be discharged from their position and indicted. Schreider
+was on his feet, putting a motion to the effect that the Duma
+protested against the menace of the Bolsheviki to dissolve it, and
+as the legal representative of the population, it would refuse to
+leave its post.
+
+Outside, the Alexander Hall was crowded for the meeting of the
+Committee for Salvation, and Skobeliev was again speaking. "Never
+yet," he said, "was the fate of the Revolution so acute, never yet
+did the question of the existence of the Russian state excite so
+much anxiety, never yet did history put so harshly and categorically
+the question--is Russia to be or not to be! The great hour for the
+salvation of the Revolution has arrived, and in consciousness
+thereof we observe the close union of the live forces of the
+revolutionary democracy, by whose organised will a centre for the
+salvation of the country and the Revolution has already been
+created...." And much of the same sort. "We shall die sooner than
+surrender our post!"
+
+Amid violent applause it was announced that the Union of Railway
+Workers had joined the Committee for Salvation. A few moments later
+the Post and Telegraph Employees came in; then some Mensheviki
+Internationalists entered the hall, to cheers. The Railway men said
+they did not recognise the Bolsheviki and had taken the entire
+railroad apparatus into their own hands, refusing to entrust it to
+any usurpatory power. The Telegraphers' delegate declared that the
+operators had flatly refused to work their instruments as long as
+the Bolshevik Commissar was in the office. The Postmen would not
+deliver or accept mail at Smolny.... All the Smolny telephones were
+cut off. With great glee it was reported how Uritzky had gone to the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the secret treaties, and how
+Neratov had put him out. The Government employees were all stopping
+work....
+
+It was war--war deliberately planned, Russian fashion; war by strike
+and sabotage. As we sat there the chairman read a list of names and
+assignments; so-and-so was to make the round of the Ministries;
+another was to visit the banks; some ten or twelve were to work the
+barracks and persuade the soldiers to remain neutral--"Russian
+soldiers, do not shed the blood of your brothers!"; a committee was
+to go and confer with Kerensky; still others were despatched to
+provincial cities, to form branches of the Committee for Salvation,
+and link together the anti-Bolshevik elements.
+
+The crowd was in high spirits. "These Bolsheviki _will_ try to
+dictate to the _intelligentzia?_ We'll show them!"... Nothing could be
+more striking than the contrast between this assemblage and the
+Congress of Soviets. There, great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy
+workmen, peasants--poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle
+for existence; here the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary
+leaders--Avksentievs, Dans, Liebers,--the former Socialist
+Ministers--Skobelievs, Tchernovs,--rubbed shoulders with Cadets like
+oily Shatsky, sleek Vinaver; with journalists, students,
+intellectuals of almost all camps. This Duma crowd was well-fed,
+well-dressed; I did not see more than three proletarians among them
+all....
+
+News came. Kornilov's faithful _Tekhintsi_[14] had slaughtered his
+guards at Bykhov, and he had escaped. Kaledin was marching north....
+The Soviet of Moscow had set up a Military Revolutionary Committee,
+and was negotiating with the commandant of the city for possession
+of the arsenal, so that the workers might be armed.
+
+[14] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+With these facts was mixed an astounding jumble of rumours,
+distortions, and plain lies. For instance, an intelligent young
+Cadet, formerly private secretary to Miliukov and then to
+Terestchenko, drew us aside and told us all about the taking of the
+Winter Palace.
+
+"The Bolsheviki were led by German and Austrian officers," he
+affirmed.
+
+"Is that so?" we replied, politely. "How do you know?"
+
+"A friend of mine was there and saw them."
+
+"How could he tell they were German officers?"
+
+"Oh, because they wore German uniforms!"
+
+There were hundreds of such absurd tales, and they were not only
+solemnly published by the anti-Bolshevik press, but believed by the
+most unlikely persons--Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki who
+had always been distinguished by their sober devotion to facts....
+
+But more serious were the stories of Bolshevik violence and
+terrorism. For example, it was said printed that the Red Guards had
+not only thoroughly looted the Winter Palace, but that they had
+massacred the _yunkers_ after disarming them, had killed some of the
+Ministers in cold blood; and as for the woman soldiers, most of them
+had been violated, and many had committed suicide because of the
+tortures they had gone through.... All these stories were swallowed
+whole by the crowd in the Duma. And worse still, the mothers and
+fathers of the students and of the women read these frightful
+details, _often accompanied by lists of names,_ and toward nightfall
+the Duma began to be besieged by frantic citizens....
+
+A typical case is that of Prince Tumanov, whose body, it was
+announced in many newspapers, had been found floating in the Moika
+Canal. A few hours later this was denied by the Prince's family, who
+added that the Prince was under arrest so the press identified the
+dead man as General Demissov. The General having also come to life,
+we investigated, and could find no trace of any body found whatever....
+
+As we left the Duma building two boy scouts were distributing
+hand-bills (See App. V, Sect. 2) to the enormous crowd which blocked
+the Nevsky in front of the door--a crowd composed almost entirely of
+business men, shop-keepers, _tchinouniki,_ clerks. One read!
+
+FROM THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+The Municipal Duma in its meeting of October 26th, in view of the
+events of the day decrees: To announce the inviolability of private
+dwellings. Through the House Committees it calls upon the population
+of the town of Petrograd to meet with decisive repulse all attempts
+to enter by force private apartments, not stopping at the use of
+arms, in the interests of the self-defence of citizens.
+
+Up on the corner of the Liteiny, five or six Red Guards and a couple
+of sailors had surrounded a news-dealer and were demanding that he
+hand over his copies of the Menshevik _Rabot-chaya Gazeta_ (Workers'
+Gazette). Angrily he shouted at them, shaking his fist, as one of
+the sailors tore the papers from his stand. An ugly crowd had
+gathered around, abusing the patrol. One little workman kept
+explaining doggedly to the people and the news-dealer, over and over
+again, "It has Kerensky's proclamation in it. It says we killed
+Russian people. It will make bloodshed...."
+
+Smolny was tenser than ever, if that were possible. The same running
+men in the dark corridors, squads of workers with rifles, leaders
+with bulging portfolios arguing, explaining, giving orders as they
+hurried anxiously along, surrounded by friends and lieutenants. Men
+literally out of themselves, living prodigies of sleeplessness and
+work-men unshaven, filthy, with burning eyes, who drove upon their
+fixed purpose full speed on engines of exaltation. So much they had
+to do, so much! Take over the Government, organise the City, keep
+the garrison loyal, fight the Duma and the Committee for Salvation,
+keep out the Germans, prepare to do battle with Kerensky, inform the
+provinces what had happened, Propagandise from Archangel to
+Vladivostok.... Government and Municipal employees refusing to obey
+their Commissars, post and telegraph refusing them communication,
+railroads roads stonily ignoring their appeals for trains, Kerensky
+coming, the garrison not altogether to be trusted, the Cossacks
+waiting to come out.... Against them not only the organised
+bourgeoisie, but all the other Socialist parties except the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, a few Mensheviki Internationalists and
+the Social Democrat Internationalists, and even they undecided
+whether to stand by or not. With them, it is true, the workers and
+the soldier-masses--the peasants an unknown quantity--but after all
+the Bolsheviki were a political faction not rich in trained and
+educated men....
+
+Riazanov was coming up the front steps, explaining in a sort of
+humorous panic that he, Commissar of Commerce, knew nothing whatever
+of business. In the upstairs cafe sat a man all by himself in the
+corner, in a goat-skin cape and clothes which had been--I was going
+to say "slept in," but of course he hadn't slept--and a three days'
+growth of beard. He was anxiously figuring on a dirty envelope, and
+biting his pencil meanwhile. This was Menzhinsky, Commissar of
+Finance, whose qualifications were that he had once been clerk in a
+French bank.... And these four half-running down the hall from the
+office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and scribbling on
+bits of paper as they run--these were Commissars despatched to the
+four corners of Russia to carry the news, argue, or fight--with
+whatever arguments or weapons came to hand....
+
+The Congress was to meet at one o'clock, and long since the great
+meeting-hall had filled, but by seven there was yet no sign of the
+presidium.... The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions
+were in session in their own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin
+and Trotzky had fought against compromise. A considerable part of
+the Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way so far as to create a
+joint all-Socialist government. "We can't hold on!" they cried.
+
+"Too much is against us. We haven't got the men. We will be
+isolated, and the whole thing will fall." So Kameniev, Riazanov and
+others.
+
+But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. "Let the
+compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won't
+give way an inch. If there are comrades here who haven't the courage
+and the will to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of
+the cowards and conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we
+shall go on."
+
+At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist
+Revolutionaries to say that they would remain in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+"See!" said Lenin. "They are following!"
+
+A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an
+Anarchist who was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me
+that we go and find out what had become of the presidium. There was
+nobody in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ office, nor in the bureau of the
+Petrograd Soviet. From room to room we wandered, through vast
+Smolny. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea where to find the
+governing body of the Congress. As we went my companion described
+his ancient revolutionary activities, his long and pleasant exile in
+France.... As for the Bolsheviki, he confided to me that they were
+common, rude, ignorant persons, without aesthetic sensibilities. He
+was a real specimen of the Russian _intelligentzia_.... So he came at
+last to Room 17, office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and
+stood there in the midst of all the furious coming and going. The
+door opened, and out shot a squat, flat-faced man in a uniform
+without insignia, who seemed to be smiling--which smile, after a
+minute, one saw to be the fixed grin of extreme fatigue. It was
+Krylenko.
+
+My friend, who was a dapper, civilized-looking young man, gave a cry
+of pleasure and stepped forward.
+
+"Nicolai Vasilievitch!" he said, holding out his hand. "Don't you
+remember me, comrade? We were in prison together."
+
+Krylenko made an effort and concentrated his mind and sight. "Why
+yes," he answered finally, looking the other up and down with an
+expression of great friendliness. "You are S--. _Zdra'stvuitye!_"
+They kissed. "What are you doing in all this?" He waved his arm
+around.
+
+"Oh, I'am just looking on.... You seem very successful."
+
+"Yes," replied Krylenko, with a sort of doggedness, "The proletarian
+Revolution is a great success." He laughed. "Perhaps--perhaps,
+however, we'll meet in prison again!"
+
+When we got out into the corridor again my friend went on with his
+explanations. "You see, I'm a follower of Kropotkin. To us the
+Revolution is a great failure; it has not aroused the patriotism of
+the masses. Of course that only proves that the people are not ready
+for Revolution...."
+
+It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the
+entrance of the presidium, with Lenin--great Lenin--among them. A
+short, stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders,
+bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous
+mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to
+bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in
+shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to
+be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in
+history have been. A strange popular leader--a leader purely by
+virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and
+detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies--but with the power of
+explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete
+situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual
+audacity.
+
+Kameniev was reading the report of the actions of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee; abolition of capital punishment in the
+Army, restoration of the free right of propaganda, release of
+officers and soldiers arrested for political crimes, orders to
+arrest Kerensky and confiscation of food supplies in private
+store-houses.... Tremendous applause.
+
+Again the representative of the _Bund._ The uncompromising attitude
+of the Bolsheviki would mean the crushing of the Revolution;
+therefore, the _Bund_ delegates must refuse any longer to sit in the
+Congress. Cries from the audience, "We thought you walked out last
+night! How many times are you going to walk out?"
+
+Then the representative of the Mensheviki Internationalists. Shouts,
+"What! You here still?" The speaker explained that only part of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress; the rest were going
+to stay--
+
+"We consider it dangerous and perhaps even mortal for the Revolution
+to transfer the power to the Soviets"--Interruptions--"but we feel it
+our duty to remain in the Congress and vote against the transfer
+here!"
+
+Other speakers followed, apparently without any order. A delegate of
+the coal-miners of the Don Basin called upon the Congress to take
+measures against Kaledin, who might cut off coal and food from the
+capital. Several soldiers just arrived from the Front brought the
+enthusiastic greetings of their regiments.... Now Lenin, gripping the
+edge of the reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel
+over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to
+the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it
+finished, he said simply, "We shall now proceed to construct the
+Socialist order!" Again that overwhelming human roar.
+
+"The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise
+peace.... We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent
+countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms--no annexations, no
+indemnities, and the right of self-determination of peoples. At the
+same time, according to our promise, we shall publish and repudiate
+the secret treaties.... The question of War and Peace is so clear that
+I think that I may, without preamble, read the project of a
+Proclamation to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries...."
+
+His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his
+voice was hoarse--not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that
+way after years and years of speaking--and went on monotonously, with
+the effect of being able to go on forever.... For emphasis he bent
+forward slightly. No gestures. And before him, a thousand simple
+faces looking up in intent adoration.
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL THE BELLIGERENT
+NATIONS.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created by the revolution of
+November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent peoples and
+to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just
+and democratic peace.
+
+The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is
+desired by the immense majority of the workers and the labouring
+classes, exhausted and depleted by the war--that peace which the
+Russian workers and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist
+monarchy, have not ceased to demand categorically--immediate peace
+without annexations (that is to say, without conquest of foreign
+territory, without forcible annexation of other nationalities), and
+without indemnities.
+
+The Government of Russia Proposes to all the belligerent peoples
+immediately to conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing
+to enter upon the decisive steps of negotiations aiming at such a
+peace, at once, without the slightest delay, before the definitive
+ratification of all the conditions of such a peace by the authorised
+assemblies of the people of all countries and of all nationalities.
+
+By annexation or conquest of foreign territory, the Government
+means--conformably to the conception of democratic rights in general,
+and the rights of the working-class in particular--all union to a
+great and strong State of a small or weak nationality, without the
+voluntary, clear and precise expression of its consent and desire;
+whatever be the moment when such an annexation by force was
+accomplished, whatever be the degree civilisation of the nation
+annexed by force or maintained outside the frontiers of another
+State, no matter if that nation be in Europe or in the far countries
+across the sea.
+
+If any nation is retained by force within the limits of another
+State; if, in spite of the desire expressed by it, (it matters
+little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular
+meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots
+against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of
+deciding by free vote--without the slightest constraint, after the
+complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has
+annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general--the form
+of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes
+an annexation--that is to say, conquest and an act of violence.
+
+To continue this war in order to permit the strong and rich nations
+to divide among themselves the weak and conquered nationalities is
+considered by the Government the greatest possible crime against
+humanity; and the Government solemnly proclaims its decision to sign
+a treaty of peace which will put an end to this war upon the above
+conditions, equally fair for all nationalities without exception.
+
+The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, expressing before the
+whole country its firm decision to conduct all the negotiations in
+the light of day before the people, and will proceed immediately to
+the full publication of all secret treaties confirmed or concluded
+by the Government of land-owners and capitalists, from March until
+November 7th, 1917. All the clauses of the secret treaties which, as
+occur in a majority of cases, have for their object to procure
+advantages and privileges for Russian capitalists, to maintain or
+augment the annexations of the Russian imperialists, are denounced
+by the Government immediately and without discussion.
+
+In proposing to all Governments and all peoples to engage in public
+negotiations for peace, the Government declares itself ready to
+carry on these negotiations by telegraph, by post, or by pourparlers
+between the representatives of the different countries, or at a
+conference of these representatives. To facilitate these
+pourparlers, the Government appoints its authorised representatives
+in the neutral countries.
+
+The Government proposes to all the governments and to the peoples of
+all the belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice, at
+the same time suggesting that the armistice ought to last three
+months, during which time it is perfectly possible, not only to hold
+the necessary pourparlers between the representatives of all the
+nations and nationalities without exception drawn into the war or
+forced to take part in it, but also to convoke authorised assemblies
+of representatives of the people of all countries, for the purpose
+of the definite acceptance of the conditions of peace.
+
+In addressing this offer of peace to the Governments and to the
+peoples of all the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers'
+and Peasants' Government of Russia addresses equally and in
+particular the conscious workers of the three nations most devoted
+to humanity and the three most important nations among those taking
+part in the present war--England, France, and Germany. The workers of
+these countries have rendered the greatest services to the cause of
+progress and of Socialism. The splendid examples of the Chartist
+movement in England, the series of revolutions, of world-wide
+historical significance, accomplished by the French proletariat--and
+finally, in Germany, the historic struggle against the Laws of
+Exception, an example for the workers of the whole world of
+prolonged and stubborn action, and the creation of the formidable
+organisations of German proletarians--all these models of proletarian
+heroism, these monuments of history, are for us a sure guarantee
+that the workers of these countries will understand the duty imposed
+upon them to liberate humanity from the horrors and consequences of
+war; and that these workers, by decisive, energetic and continued
+action, will help us to bring to a successful conclusion the cause
+of peace--and at the same time, the cause of the liberation of the
+exploited working masses from all slavery and all exploitation.
+
+When the grave thunder of applause had died away, Lenin spoke again:
+
+"We propose to the Congress to ratify this declaration. We address
+ourselves to the Governments as well as to the peoples, for a
+declaration which would be addressed only to the peoples of the
+belligerent countries might delay the conclusion of peace. The
+conditions of peace, drawn up during the armistice, will be ratified
+by the Constituent Assembly. In fixing the duration of the armistice
+at three months, we desire to give to the peoples as long a rest as
+possible after this bloody extermination, and ample time for them to
+elect their representatives. This proposal of peace will meet with
+resistance on the part of the imperialist governments--we don't fool
+ourselves on that score. But we hope that revolution will soon break
+out in all the belligerent countries; that is why we address
+ourselves especially to the workers of France, England and Germany....
+
+"The revolution of November 6th and 7th," he ended, "has opened the
+era of the Social Revolution.... The labour movement, in the name of
+peace and Socialism, shall win, and fulfil its destiny...."
+
+There was something quiet and powerful in all this, which stirred
+the souls of men. It was understandable why people believed when
+Lenin spoke....
+
+By crowd vote it was quickly decided that only representatives of
+political factions should be allowed to speak on the motion and that
+speakers should be limited to fifteen minutes.
+
+First Karelin for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. "Our faction
+had no opportunity to propose amendments to the text of the
+proclamation; it is a private document of the Bolsheviki. But we
+will vote for it because we agree with its spirit...."
+
+For the Social Democrats Internationalists Kramarov, long,
+stoop-shouldered and near-sighted--destined to achieve some notoriety
+as the Clown of the Opposition. Only a Government composed of all
+the Socialist parties, he said, could possess the authority to take
+such important action. If a Socialist coalition were formed, his
+faction would support the entire programme; if not, only part of it.
+As for the proclamation, the Internationalists were in thorough
+accord with its main points....
+
+Then one after another, amid rising enthusiasm; Ukrainean Social
+Democracy, support; Lithuanian Social Democracy, support; Populist
+Socialists, support; Polish Social Democracy, support; Polish
+Socialists support--but would prefer a Socialist coalition; Lettish
+Social Democracy, support.... Something was kindled in these men. One
+spoke of the "coming World-Revolution, of which we are the
+advance-guard"; another of "the new age of brotherhood, when all the
+peoples will become one great family...." An individual member claimed
+the floor. "There is contradiction here," he said. "First you offer
+peace without annexations and indemnities, and then you say you will
+consider all peace offers. To consider means to accept...."
+
+Lenin was on his feet. "We want a just peace, but we are not afraid
+of a revolutionary war.... Probably the imperialist Governments will
+not answer our appeal--but we shall not issue an ultimatum to which
+it will be easy to say no.... If the German proletariat realises that
+we are ready to consider all offers of peace, that will perhaps be
+the last drop which overflows the bowl--revolution will break out in
+Germany....
+
+"We consent to examine all conditions of peace, but that doesn't
+mean that we shall accept them.... For some of our terms we shall
+fight to the end--but possibly for others will find it impossible to
+continue the war.... Above all, we want to finish the war...."
+
+It was exactly 10:35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the
+proclamation to hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his
+hand against, but the sudden sharp outburst around him brought it
+swiftly down.... Unanimous.
+
+Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet,
+mumbling together into the smooth lifting unison of the
+_Internationale._ A grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child.
+Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound
+rolled through the hall, burst windows and doors and seared into the
+quiet sky. "The war is ended! The war is ended!" said a young
+workman near me, his face shining. And when it was over, as we stood
+there in a kind of awkward hush, some one in the back of the room
+shouted, "Comrades! Let us remember those who have died for
+liberty!" So we began to sing the Funeral March, that slow,
+melancholy and yet triumphant chant, so Russian and so moving. The
+_Internationale_ is an alien air, after all. The Funeral March
+seemed the very soul of those dark masses whose delegates sat in
+this hall, building from their obscure visions a new Russia--and
+perhaps more.
+
+You fell in the fatal fight
+
+For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the people....
+
+You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
+
+You suffered in horrible prisons,
+
+You went to exile in chains....
+
+Without a word you carried your chains because you could not ignore
+your suffering brothers,
+
+Because you believed that justice is stronger than the sword....
+
+The time will come when your surrendered life will count
+
+That time is near; when tyranny falls the people will rise, great
+and free!
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+You are followed by the new and fresh army ready to die and to
+suffer....
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+At your grave we swear to fight, to work for freedom and the
+people's happiness....
+
+For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March, in their cold
+Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of
+thousands had died in the prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It
+had not come as they expected it would come, nor as the
+_intelligentzia_ desired it; but it had come--rough, strong,
+impatient of formulas, contemptuous of sentimentalism; real....
+
+Lenin was reading the Decree on Land:
+
+(1.) All private ownership of land is abolished immediately without
+compensation.
+
+(2.) All land-owners' estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown,
+to monasteries, church lands with all their live stock and
+inventoried property, buildings and all appurtenances, are
+transferred to the disposition of the township Land Committees and
+the district Soviets of Peasants' Deputies until the Constituent
+Assembly meets.
+
+(3.) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated property which from
+now on belongs to the whole People, is regarded as a serious crime,
+punishable by the revolutionary tribunals. The district Soviets of
+Peasants' Deputies shall take all necessary measures for the
+observance of the strictest order during the taking over of the
+land-owners' estates, for the determination of the dimensions of the
+plots of land and which of them are subject to confiscation, for the
+drawing up of an inventory of the entire confiscated property, and
+for the strictest revolutionary protection of all the farming
+property on the land, with all buildings, implements, cattle,
+supplies of products, etc., passing into the hands of the People.
+
+(4.) For guidance during the realisation of the great land reforms
+until their final resolution by the Constituent Assembly, shall
+serve the following peasant _nakaz_ (See App. V, Sect. 3)
+(instructions), drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasant _nakazi_
+by the editorial board of the "_Izviestia_ of the All-Russian Soviet
+of Peasants' Deputies," and published in No.88 of said _"Izviestia"_
+(Petrograd, No.88, August 19th, 1917).
+
+The lands of peasants and of Cossacks serving in the Army shall not
+be confiscated.
+
+"This is not," explained Lenin, "the project of former Minister
+Tchernov, who spoke of 'erecting a frame-work' and tried to realise
+reforms from above. From below, on the spot, will be decided the
+questions of division of the land. The amount of land received by
+each peasant will vary according to the locality....
+
+"Under the Provisional Government, the _pomieshtchiki_ flatly
+refused to obey the orders of the Land Committees--those Land
+Committees projected by Lvov, brought into existence by Shingariov,
+and administered by Kerensky!"
+
+Before the debates could begin a man forced his way violently
+through the crowd in the aisle and climbed upon the platform. It was
+Pianikh, member of the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets,
+and he was mad clean through.
+
+"The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies protests against the arrest of our comrades, the Ministers
+Salazkin and Mazlov!" he flung harshly in the faces of the crowd,
+"We demand their instant release! They are now in Peter-Paul
+fortress. We must have immediate action! There is not a moment to
+lose!"
+
+Another followed him, a soldier with disordered beard and flaming
+eyes. "You sit here and talk about giving the land to the peasants,
+and you commit an act of tyrants and usurpers against the peasants'
+chosen representatives! I tell you--" he raised his fist, "If one
+hair of their heads is harmed, you'll have a revolt on your hands!"
+The crowd stirred confusedly.
+
+Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted
+with a roar. "Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided
+to release the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers,
+Mazlov, Salazkin, Gvozdov and Maliantovitch--on principle. That they
+are still in Peter-Paul is only because we have had so much to do....
+They will, however, be detained at their homes under arrest until we
+have investigated their complicity in the treacherous acts of
+Kerensky during the Kornilov affair!"
+
+"Never," shouted Pianikh, "in any revolution have such things been
+seen as go on here!"
+
+"You are mistaken," responded Trotzky. "Such things have been seen
+even in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in
+the July days.... When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by
+the doctor's orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents
+of the Tsar's secret police!" The peasants withdrew, muttering,
+followed by ironical hoots.
+
+The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on
+the Land Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not
+vote on the question until after discussion. The Peasants' Soviets
+should be consulted....
+
+The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
+
+Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the
+peasants: "We must do honour to a political party which puts such an
+act into effect the first day, without jawing about it!"
+
+A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and
+sheep-skin coat, bowing to all corners of the hall. "I wish you
+well, comrades and citizens," he said. "There are some Cadets
+walking around outside. You arrested our Socialist peasants--why not
+arrest them?"
+
+This was the signal for a debate of excited peasants. It was
+precisely like the debate of soldiers of the night before. Here were
+the real proletarians of the land....
+
+"Those members of our Executive Committee, Avksentiev and the rest,
+whom we thought were the peasants' protectors--they are only Cadets
+too! Arrest them! Arrest them!"
+
+Another, "Who are these Pianikhs, these Avksentievs? They are not
+peasants at all! They only wag their tails!"
+
+How the crowd rose to them, recognising brothers!
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries proposed a half-hour
+intermission. As the delegates streamed out, Lenin stood up in his
+place.
+
+"We must not lose time, comrades! News all-important to Russia must
+be on the press to-morrow morning. No delay!"
+
+And above the hot discussion, argument, shuffling of feet could be
+heard the voice of an emissary of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, crying, "Fifteen agitators wanted in room 17 at once! To
+go to the Front!"...
+
+It was almost two hours and a half later that the delegates came
+straggling back, the presidium mounted the platform, and the session
+recommenced by the reading of telegrams from regiment after
+regiment, announcing their adhesion to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+In leisurely manner the meeting gathered momentum. A delegate from
+the Russian troops on the Macedonian front spoke bitterly of their
+situation. "We suffer there more from the friendship of our 'Allies'
+than from the enemy," he said. Representatives of the Tenth and
+Twelfth Armies, just arrived in hot haste, reported, "We support you
+with all our strength!" A peasant-soldier protested against the
+release of "the traitor Socialists, Mazlov and Salazkin"; as for the
+Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, it should be arrested
+_en masse!_Here was real revolutionary talk.... A deputy from the
+Russian Army in Persia declared he was instructed to demand all
+power to the Soviets.... A Ukrainean officer, speaking in his native
+tongue: "There is no nationalism in this crisis.... _Da zdravstvuyet_
+the proletarian dictatorship of all lands!" Such a deluge of high
+and hot thoughts that surely Russia would never again be dumb!
+
+Kameniev remarked that the anti-Bolshevik forces were trying to stir
+up disorders everywhere, and read an appeal of the Congress to all
+the Soviets of Russia:
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies, including some Peasants' Deputies, calls upon the local
+Soviets to take immediate energetic measures to oppose all
+counter-revolutionary anti-Jewish action and all _pogroms,_ whatever
+they may be. The honour of the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
+Revolution demands that no _pogrom_ be tolerated.
+
+The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+Workers, soldiers and peasants, you should follow everywhere the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+Comrade soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of assuring real
+revolutionary order.
+
+All revolutionary Russia and the entire world have their eyes on us....
+
+At two o'clock the Land Decree was put to vote, with only one
+against and the peasant delegates wild with joy.... So plunged the
+Bolsheviki ahead, irresistible, over-riding hesitation and
+opposition--the only people in Russia who had a definite programme of
+action while the others talked for eight long months.
+
+Now arose a soldier, gaunt, ragged and eloquent, to protest against
+the clause of the _nakaz_ tending to deprive military deserters from
+a share in village land allotments. Bawled at and hissed at first,
+his simple, moving speech finally made silence. "Forced against his
+will into the butchery of the trenches," he cried, "which you
+yourselves, in the Peace decree, have voted senseless as well as
+horrible, he greeted the Revolution with hope of peace and freedom.
+Peace? The Government of Kerensky forced him again to go forward
+into Galicia to slaughter and be slaughtered; to his pleas for
+peace, Terestchenko simply laughed.... Freedom? Under Kerensky he
+found his Committees suppressed, his newspapers cut off, his party
+speakers put in prison.... At home in his village, the landlords were
+defying his Land Committees, jailing his comrades.... In Petrograd the
+bourgeoisie, in alliance with the Germans, were sabotaging the food
+and ammunition for the Army.... He was without boots, or clothes.... Who
+forced him to desert? The Government of Kerensky, which you have
+overthrown!" At the end there was applause.
+
+But another soldier hotly denounced it: "The Government of Kerensky
+is not a screen behind which can be hidden dirty work like
+desertion! Deserters are scoundrels, who run away home and leave
+their comrades to die in the trenches alone! Every deserter is a
+traitor, and should be punished...." Uproar, shouts of _"Do volno!
+Teesche!"_ Kameniev hastily proposed to leave the matter to the
+Government for decision. (See App. V, Sect. 4)
+
+At 2.30 A. M. fell a tense hush. Kameniev was reading the decree of
+the Constitution of Power:
+
+Until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, a provisional
+Workers' and Peasants' Government is formed, which shall be named
+the Council of People's Commissars. (See App. V, Sect. 5)
+
+The administration of the different branches of state activity shall
+be intrusted to commissions, whose composition shall be regulated to
+ensure the carrying out of the programme of the Congress, in close
+union with the mass-organisations of working-men, working-women,
+sailors, soldiers, peasants and clerical employees. The governmental
+power is vested in a _collegium_ made up of the chairmen of these
+commissions, that is to say, the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+Control over the activities of the People's Commissars, and the
+right to replace them, shall belong to the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, and its
+Central Executive Committee.
+
+Still silence; as he read the list of Commissars, bursts of applause
+after each name, Lenin's and Trotzky's especially.
+
+_President of the Council:_ Vladimir Ulianov _(Lenin)_
+
+_Interior:_ A. E. Rykov
+
+_Agriculture:_ V. P. Miliutin
+
+_Labour:_ A. G. Shliapnikov
+
+_Military and Naval Affairs_--a committee composed of V. A.
+
+_Avseenko (Antonov),_ N. V. Krylenko, and F. M. Dybenko.
+
+_Commerce and Industry:_ V. P. Nogin
+
+_Popular Education:_ A. V. Lunatcharsky
+
+_Finance:_ E. E. Skvortsov _(Stepanov)_
+
+_Foreign Affairs:_ L. D. Bronstein _(Trotzky)_
+
+_Justice:_ G. E. Oppokov _(Lomov)_
+
+_Supplies:_ E. A. Teodorovitch
+
+_Post and Telegraph:_ N. P. Avilov _(Gliebov)_
+
+_Chairman for Nationalities:_ I. V. Djougashvili _(Stalin)_
+
+_Railroads:_ To be filled later.
+
+There were bayonets at the edges of the room, bayonets pricking up
+among the delegates; the Military Revolutionary Committee was arming
+everybody, Bolshevism was arming for the decisive battle with
+Kerensky, the sound of whose trumpets came up the south-west wind....
+In the meanwhile nobody went home; on the contrary hundreds of
+newcomers filtered in, filling the great room solid with stern-faced
+soldiers and workmen who stood for hours and hours, indefatigably
+intent. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and human breathing,
+and the smell of coarse clothes and sweat.
+
+Avilov of the staff of _Novaya Zhizn_ was speaking in the name of
+the Social Democrat Internationalists and the remnant of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists; Avilov, with his young, intelligent
+face, looking out of place in his smart frock-coat.
+
+"We must ask ourselves where we are going.... The ease with which the
+Coalition Government was upset cannot be explained by the strength
+of the left wing of the democracy, but only by the incapacity of the
+Government to give the people peace and bread. And the left wing
+cannot maintain itself in power unless it can solve these questions....
+
+"Can it give bread to the people? Grain is scarce. The majority of
+the peasants will not be with you, for you cannot give them the
+machinery they need. Fuel and other primary necessities are almost
+impossible to procure....
+
+"As for peace, that will be even more difficult. The allies refused
+to talk with Skobeliev. They will never accept the proposition of a
+peace conference from _you._ You will not be recognised either in
+London and Paris, or in Berlin....
+
+"You cannot count on the effective help of the proletariat of the
+Allied countries, because in most countries it is very far from the
+revolutionary struggle; remember, the Allied democracy was unable
+even to convoke the Stockholm Conference. Concerning the German
+Social Democrats, I have just talked with Comrade Goldenberg, one of
+our delegates to Stockholm; he was told by the representatives of
+the Extreme Left that revolution in Germany was impossible during
+the war...." Here interruptions began to come thick and fast, but
+Avilov kept on.
+
+"The isolation of Russia will fatally result either in the defeat of
+the Russian Army by the Germans, and the patching up of a peace
+between the Austro-German coalition and the Franco-British coalition
+_at the expense of Russia_--or in a separate peace with Germany.
+
+"I have just learned that the Allied ambassadors are preparing to
+leave, and that Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution
+are forming in all the cities of Russia....
+
+"No one party can conquer these enormous difficulties. The majority
+of the people, supporting a government of Socialist coalition, can
+alone accomplish the Revolution....
+
+"He then read the resolution of the two factions:
+
+Recognising that for the salvation of the conquests of the
+Revolution it is indispensable immediately to constitute a
+government based on the revolutionary democracy organised in the
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, recognising
+moreover that the task of this government is the quickest possible
+attainment of peace, the transfer of the land into the hands of the
+agrarian committees, the organisation of control over industrial
+production, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the
+date decided, the Congress appoints an executive committee to
+constitute such a government after an agreement with the groups of
+the democracy which are taking part in the Congress.
+
+In spite of the revolutionary exaltation of the triumphant crowd,
+Avilov's cool tolerant reasoning had shaken them. Toward the end,
+the cries and hisses died away, and when he finished there was even
+some clapping.
+
+Karelin followed him--also young, fearless, whose sincerity no one
+doubted--for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of Maria
+Spiridonova, the party which almost alone followed the Bolsheviki,
+and which represented the revolutionary peasants.
+
+"Our party has refused to enter the Council of People's Commissars
+because we do not wish forever to separate ourselves from the part
+of the revolutionary army which left the Congress, a separation
+which would make it impossible for us to serve as intermediaries
+between the Bolsheviki and the other groups of the democracy.... And
+that is our principal duty at this moment. We cannot sustain any
+government except a government of Socialist coalition....
+
+"We protest, moreover, against the tyrannical conduct of the
+Bolsheviki. Our Commissars have been driven from their posts. Our
+only organ, _Znamia Truda_ (Banner of Labour), was forbidden to
+appear yesterday....
+
+"The Central Duma is forming a powerful Committee for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, to fight you. Already you are isolated, and
+your Government is without the support of a single other democratic
+group....
+
+And now Trotzky stood upon the raised tribune, confident and
+dominating, with that sarcastic expression about his mouth which was
+almost a sneer. He spoke, in a ringing voice, and the great crowd
+rose to him.
+
+"These considerations on the dangers of isolation of our party are
+not new. On the eve of insurrection our fatal defeat was also
+predicted. Everybody was against us; only a faction of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries of the left was with us in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee. How is it that we were able to overturn the
+Government almost without bloodshed?.... That fact is the most
+striking proof that we _were not isolated._ In reality the
+Provisional Government was isolated; the democratic parties which
+march against us were isolated, are isolated, and forever cut off
+from the proletariat!
+
+"They speak of the necessity for a coalition. There is only one
+coalition possible--the coalition of the workers, soldiers and
+poorest peasants; and it is our party's honour to have realised that
+coalition.... What sort of coalition did Avilov mean? A coalition with
+those who supported the Government of Treason to the People?
+Coalition doesn't always add to strength. For example, could we have
+organised the insurrection with Dan and Avksentiev in our ranks?"
+Roars of laughter.
+
+"Avksentiev gave little bread. Will a coalition with the _oborontsi_
+furnish more? Between the peasants and Avksentiev, who ordered the
+arrest of the Land Committees, we choose the peasants! Our
+Revolution will remain the classic revolution of history....
+
+"They accuse us of repelling an agreement with the other democratic
+parties. But is it we who are to blame? Or must we, as Karelin put
+it, blame it on a 'misunderstanding'? No, comrades. When a party in
+full tide of revolution, still wreathed in powder-smoke, comes to
+say, 'Here is the Power--take it!'--and when those to whom it is
+offered go over to the enemy, that is not a misunderstanding.... that
+is a declaration of pitiless war. And it isn't we who have declared
+war....
+
+"Avilov menaces us with failure of our peace efforts--if we remain
+'isolated.' I repeat, I don't see how a coalition with Skobeliev, or
+even Terestchenko, can help us to get peace! Avilov tries to
+frighten us by the threat of a peace at our expense. And I answer
+that in any case, if Europe continues to be ruled by the imperialist
+bourgeoisie, revolutionary Russia will inevitably be lost....
+
+"There are only two alternatives; either the Russian Revolution will
+create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers
+will destroy the Russian Revolution!"
+
+They greeted him with an immense crusading acclaim, kindling to the
+daring of it, with the thought of championing mankind. And from that
+moment there was something conscious and decided about the
+insurrectionary masses, in all their actions, which never left them.
+
+But on the other side, too, battle was taking form. Kameniev
+recognised a delegate from the Union of Railway Workers, a
+hardfaced, stocky man with an attitude of implacable hostility. He
+threw a bombshell.
+
+"In the name of the strongest organisation in Russia I demand the
+right to speak, and I say to you: the _Vikzhel_ charges me to make
+known the decision of the Union concerning the constitution of
+Power. The Central Committee refuses absolutely to support the
+Bolsheviki if they persist in isolating themselves from the whole
+democracy of Russia!" Immense tumult all over the hall.
+
+"In 1905, and in the Kornilov days, the Railway Workers were the
+best defenders of the Revolution. But you did not invite us to your
+Congress--" Cries, "It was the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ which did not invite
+you!" The orator paid no attention. "We do not recognise the
+legality of this Congress; since the departure of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries there is not a legal quorum.... The Union
+supports the old _Tsay-ee-Kah,_ and declares that the Congress has
+no right to elect a new Committee....
+
+"The Power should be a Socialist and revolutionary Power,
+responsible before the authorised organs of the entire revolutionary
+democracy. Until the constitution of such a power, the Union of
+Railway Workers, which refuses to transport counter-revolutionary
+troops to Petrograd, at the same time forbids the execution of any
+order whatever without the consent of the _Vikzhel._ The _Vikzhel_
+also takes into its hands the entire administration of the railroads
+of Russia."
+
+At the end he could hardly be heard for the furious storm of abuse
+which beat upon him. But it was a heavy blow--that could be seen in
+the concern on the faces of the presidium. Kameniev, however, merely
+answered that there could be no doubt of the legality of the
+Congress, as even the quorum established by the old _Tsay-ee-Kah_
+was exceeded--in spite of the secession of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolution arises....
+
+Then came the vote on the Constitution of Power, which carried the
+Council of People's Commissars into office by an enormous majority....
+
+The election of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the new parliament of the
+Russian Republic, took barely fifteen minutes. Trotzky announced its
+composition: 100 members, of which 70 Bolsheviki.... As for the
+peasants, and the seceding factions, places were to be reserved for
+them. "We welcome into the Government all parties and groups which
+will adopt our programme," ended Trotzky.
+
+And thereupon the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was
+dissolved, so that the members might hurry to their homes in the
+four corners of Russia and tell of the great happenings....
+
+It was almost seven when we woke the sleeping conductors and
+motor-men of the street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers' Union
+always kept waiting at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their
+homes. In the crowded car there was less happy hilarity than the
+night before, I thought. Many looked anxious; perhaps they were
+saying to themselves, "Now we are masters, how can we do our will?"
+
+At our apartment-house we were held up in the dark by an armed
+patrol of citizens and carefully examined. The Duma's proclamation
+was doing its work....
+
+The landlady heard us come in, and stumbled out in a pink silk
+wrapper.
+
+The House Committee has again asked that you take your turn on
+guard-duty with the rest of the men," she said.
+
+"What's the reason for this guard-duty?"
+
+"To protect the house and the women and children."
+
+"Who from?"
+
+"Robbers and murderers."
+
+"But suppose there came a Commissar from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to search for arms?"
+
+"Oh, that's what they'll _say_ they are.... And besides, what's the
+difference?"
+
+I solemnly affirmed that the Consul had forbidden all American
+citizens to carry arms--especially in the neighbourhood of the
+Russian _intelligentzia_....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Committee for Salvation
+
+
+Friday, November 9th....
+
+Novotcherkask, November 8th.
+
+In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose
+the Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd... the
+Cossack Government declares that it considers these acts criminal
+and absolutely inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend
+all their support to the Provisional Government, which is a
+government of coalition. Because of these circumstances, and until
+the return of the Provisional Government to power, and the
+restoration of order in Russia, I take upon myself, beginning
+November 7th, all the power in that which concerns the region of the
+Don.
+
+Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
+
+_President of the Government of the Cossack Troops._
+
+_Prikaz_ of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
+
+I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme
+Commander of all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare
+that I am at the head of regiments from the Front who have remained
+faithful to the fatherland.
+
+I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who
+through mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to
+the country and the Revolution, to return to their duty without
+delay.
+
+This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
+
+Signed: _Minister-President of the Provisional_
+
+_Government and Supreme Commander_
+
+A. F. KERENSKY.
+
+Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern
+Front:
+
+The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without
+bloodshed. Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky
+and Ismailovsky regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and
+joined the Government troops.
+
+I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to
+retreat....
+
+Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the
+night. Detachments of the two regiments mentioned--not the
+sailors--while wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed
+been surrounded by Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not
+true that they had joined the Government troops. At this very moment
+crowds of them, bewildered and ashamed, were up at Smolny trying to
+explain. They did not think the Cossacks were so near.... They had
+tried to argue with the Cossacks....
+
+Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary
+front. The garrisons of all the little towns southward had split
+hopelessly, bitterly into two factions--or three: the high command
+being on the side of Kerensky, in default of anything stronger, the
+majority of the rank and file with the Soviets, and the rest
+unhappily wavering.
+
+Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command
+the defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain,
+Muraviov, the same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions
+during the summer, and had once been heard to advise the Government
+that "it was too lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped
+out." A man of military mind, who admired power and audacity,
+perhaps sincerely....
+
+Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all
+shops and stores should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and
+apartments should be put at the disposal of the Committee....
+
+For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from
+provincial Russia and the outside world. The railway men and
+telegraphers refused to transmit their despatches, the postmen would
+not handle their mail. Only the Government wireless at Tsarskoye
+Selo launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to the four
+corners of heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of
+the City Duma on speeding trains half across the earth; and two
+aeroplanes, laden with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front....
+
+But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a
+swiftness surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed
+resolutions of support; Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the
+telegraph station, only to be driven out by delegates to the
+Congress of Cossacks, which happened to be meeting there; in Kazan,
+a Military Revolutionary Committee arrested the local garrison staff
+and the Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far
+Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control
+of the Municipal institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was
+aggravated by a great strike of leather-workers on one side, and a
+threat of general lock-out on the other, the Soviets had voted
+overwhelmingly to support the action of the Bolsheviki in
+Petrograd.... Already a Military Revolutionary Committee was
+functioning.
+
+Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the
+industrial workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the
+officers, _yunkers_ and middle class generally were on the side of
+the Government--as were the bourgeois Cadets and the "moderate"
+Socialist parties. In all these towns sprang up Committees for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution, arming for civil war....
+
+Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the
+process had begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and
+giving birth to a sort of forecast of the new order, had ended by
+merely perpetuating the hollow structure of the old regime. Now,
+however, the Bolsheviki, in one night, had dissipated it, as one
+blows away smoke. Old Russia was no more; human society flowed
+molten in primal heat, and from the tossing sea of flame was
+emerging the class struggle, stark and pitiless--and the fragile,
+slowly-cooling crust of new planets....
+
+In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the
+Ministries of Labour and of Supplies--the only two created by the
+all-Socialist Government of August.
+
+If ever men stood alone the "handful of Bolsheviki" apparently stood
+alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them.
+(See App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military
+Revolutionary Committee struck--for its life. "_De l'audace, encore
+de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_...." At five in the morning the
+Red Guards entered the printing office of the City Government,
+confiscated thousands of copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma,
+and suppressed the official Municipal organ--the _Viestnik Gorodskovo
+Samoupravleniya_ (Bulletin of the Municipal Self-Government). All
+the bourgeois newspapers were torn from the presses, even the _Golos
+Soldata,_ journal of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_--which, however, changing
+its name to _Soldatski Golos,_ appeared in an edition of a hundred
+thousand copies, bellowing rage and defiance:
+
+The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have
+suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance
+long. The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you,
+Messrs. the Bolsheviki! We shall see!...
+
+As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street
+before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there
+stood Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one
+surrounded by about a hundred men and women--clerks, students,
+shopkeepers, _tchinovniki_--shaking their fists and bawling insults
+and menaces. On the steps stood boy-scouts and officers,
+distributing copies of the _Soldatski Golos._ A workman with a red
+band around his arm and a revolver in his hand stood trembling with
+rage and nervousness in the middle of a hostile throng at the foot
+of the stairs, demanding the surrender of the papers.... Nothing like
+this, I imagine, ever occurred in history. On one side a handful of
+workmen and common soldiers, with arms in their hands, representing
+a victorious insurrection--and perfectly miserable; on the other a
+frantic mob made up of the kind of people that crowd the sidewalks
+of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering, abusing, shouting,
+"Traitors! Provocators! _Opritchniki!_"[15]
+
+[15] Savage body-guards if Ivan the Terrible, 17th century.
+
+The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands
+lettered in red, "Militia of the Committee of Public Safety," and
+half a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all
+commotion. Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. "They're
+going to dissolve the Duma," he said. "The Bolshevik Commissar is
+with the Mayor now." As we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying
+out. He had been to demand that the Duma recognise the Council of
+peoples' Commissars, and the Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
+
+In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
+gesticulating--Government officials, intellectuals, journalists,
+foreign correspondents, French and British officers.... "The City
+Engineer pointed to them triumphantly. "The Embassies recognise the
+Duma as the only power now," he explained. "For these Bolshevik
+murderers and robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is
+rallying to us....
+
+In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for
+Salvation. Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the
+tribune, reporting, to immense applause, new adhesions to the
+Committee; Executive Committee of Peasants' Soviets, old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ Central Army Committee, _Tsentroflot,_ Menshevik,
+Socialist Revolutionary and Front group delegates from the Congress
+of Soviets, Central Committees of the Menshevik, Socialist
+Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties. "Yedinstvo" group,
+Peasants' Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos, Municipalities, Post and
+Telegraph Unions, _Vikzhel,_ Council of the Russian Republic, Union
+of Unions,[16] Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association....
+
+[16] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+".... The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
+dictatorship--and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but
+_against_ the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to
+feel revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the
+Revolution....
+
+"The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
+demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution.... If rumours
+are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to
+profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs,
+it is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of
+democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will
+follow troubles from the Left....
+
+"The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens
+buying the _Golos Soldata_ and newsboys selling the _Rabotchaya
+Gazeta_ are arrested in the streets....
+
+"The hour of resolutions has passed.... Let those who have no longer
+faith in the Revolution retire.... To establish a united power, we
+must again restore the prestige of the Revolution....
+
+"Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved--or we shall
+perish!"
+
+The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single
+proletarian anywhere in sight....
+
+Then Weinstein:
+
+"We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly
+grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation--then we can pass
+from the defensive to action!"
+
+The _Vikzhel_ representative announced that his organisation was
+taking the initiative in forming the new Government, and its
+delegates were now discussing the matter with Smolny.... Followed a
+hot discussion: were the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new
+Government? Martov pleaded for their admission; after all, he said,
+they represented an important political party. Opinions were very
+much divided upon this, the right wing Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist Socialists, the
+Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly against....
+
+"They have betrayed Russia," one speaker said. "They have started
+civil war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must
+be mercilessly crushed...."
+
+Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the
+Cadets.
+
+We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who
+had walked out of the Democratic Conference to gether with the
+Bolsheviki, that night when Tseretelli and the "compromisers" forced
+Coalition upon the democracy of Russia.
+
+"You here?" I asked him.
+
+His eyes flashed fire. "Yes!" he cried. "I left the Congress with my
+party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years
+and more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their
+methods are intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants....
+When the peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes
+before they are done for."
+
+"But the peasants--will they act? Doesn't the Land decree settle the
+peasants? What more do they want?"
+
+"Ah, the Land decree!" he said furiously. "Yes, do you know what
+that Land decree is? It is _our_ decree--it is the Socialist
+Revolutionary programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after
+the most careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants
+themselves. It is an outrage...."
+
+"But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
+peasants' wishes, why will they oppose it?"
+
+"You don't understand! Don't you see that the peasants will
+immediately realise that it is all a trick--that these usurpers have
+stolen the Socialist Revolutionary programme?"
+
+I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
+
+He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction.
+"Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised
+the counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The
+Revolution is lost."
+
+"But won't you defend the Revolution?"
+
+"Of course we will defend it--to the last drop of our blood. But we
+won't cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way...."
+
+"But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the
+city. Won't you join with them?"
+
+"Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won't support
+the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the
+Bolsheviki are equally enemies of the Revolution."
+
+"Which do you prefer--Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?"
+
+"It is not a question to be discussed!" he burst out impatiently. "I
+tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are
+to blame. But listen--why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is
+coming.... Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive....
+Already Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new
+Government. But we have them now--they are absolutely impotent.... We
+shall not cooperate...."
+
+Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard,
+finally exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it,
+wounding a young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into
+a cab, surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices
+floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile
+appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this
+way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd
+crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the
+gutters, heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to
+the steps of the Duma and a man stuck his head out of the turret,
+demanding the surrender of the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts
+jeered and scuttled into the building. After a moment the automobile
+wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the Nevsky, while some
+hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to dust
+their clothes....
+
+Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of
+_Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them....
+
+A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
+
+"Here's a proclamation from Krasnov!" he cried. Everybody crowded
+around. "Get it printed--get it printed quick, and around to the
+barracks!"
+
+By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of
+the troops concentrated under Petrograd.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of
+the Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have
+remained faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to
+guard inviolable your oath of Cossack--I call upon you to save
+Petrograd from anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save
+Russia from the indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men,
+bought by the gold of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.
+
+The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great
+days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the
+edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with
+the help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help
+of the Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all
+the Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its
+ranks, and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people,
+has sworn to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the
+Troublous Times of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered
+Moscow, menaced by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your
+Government still exists....
+
+The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt.
+Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German
+mentality with which they regard Russia--stricken down but not yet
+surrendered--have alienated from them the entire people.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd;
+send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their
+country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of
+innocent blood.
+
+Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the
+building was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red
+band around his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he
+left and old Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.
+
+"A special meeting of the Duma!" he cried. "Immediately!"
+
+In the big hall proceedings were halted. "All members of the Duma
+for a special meeting!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I don't know--going to arrest us--going to dissolve the
+Duma--arresting members at the door--" so ran the excited comments.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor
+announced that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting
+all exit and entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest
+and the dispersal of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned
+speeches from members, and even from the galleries, responded. The
+freely-elected City Government could not be dissolved by _any_
+power; the Mayor's person and that of all the members were
+inviolable; the tyrants, the provocators, the German agents should
+never be recognised; as for these threats to dissolve us, let them
+try--only over our dead bodies shall they seize this chamber, where
+like the Roman senators of old we await with dignity the coming of
+the Goths....
+
+Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by
+telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the
+Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with
+representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the
+so-called Council of People's Commissars. Resolution, to address
+another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the
+defence of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in
+permanent session....
+
+In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had
+telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee
+said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the
+troops would be withdrawn....
+
+As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very
+agitated.
+
+"Are you going to dissolve the Duma?" I asked.
+
+"My God, no!" he answered. "It is all a mistake. I told the Mayor
+this morning that the Duma would be left alone...."
+
+Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of
+cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted,
+and the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions.
+
+"Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked a fat old man with a
+cigar in his mouth.
+
+"Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets
+against the damn' bourgeoisie!"
+
+"Ah!" were furious cries. "Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik Cossacks!"
+
+A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. "The
+garrison is turning!" he muttered in my ear. "It's the beginning of
+the end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the tide?
+Come on!" He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we
+followed.
+
+"What regiment is it?"
+
+"The _brunnoviki_...." Here was indeed serious trouble. The
+_brunnoviki_ were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation;
+whoever controlled the _brunnoviki_ controlled the city. "The
+Commissars of the Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been
+talking to them. There's a meeting on to decide....
+
+"Decide what? Which side they'll fight on?"
+
+"Oh, no. That's not the way to do it. They'll never fight against
+the Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral--and then the
+_yunkers_ and Cossacks--"
+
+The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two
+sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to
+their indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light
+burned dimly, high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose
+lofty pilasters and rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around
+dimly squatted the monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood
+alone in the centre of the place, under the light, and round it were
+gathered some two thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the
+immensity of that imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen
+of the Soldiers' Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the
+car, and from the central turret a soldier was speaking. This was
+Khanjunov, who had been president of last summer's all-Russian
+Congress of _Brunnoviki._ A lithe, handsome figure in his leather
+coat with lieutenant's shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently
+for neutrality.
+
+"It is an awful thing," he said, "for Russians to kill their Russian
+brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
+shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign
+enemy in battles which will go down in history! What have we,
+soldiers, got to do with these squabbles of political parties? I
+will not say to you that the Provisional Government was a democratic
+Government; we want no coalition with the bourgeoisie--no. But we
+must have a Government of the united democracy, or Russia is lost!
+With such a Government there will be no need for civil war, and the
+killing of brother by brother!"
+
+This sounded reasonable--the great hall echoed to the crash of hands
+and voices.
+
+A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, "Comrades!" he
+cried, "I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all:
+there must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace,
+whether it be the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow.
+Peace! We at the front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight
+either Germans or Russians--" With that he leaped down, and a sort of
+confused agonised sound rose up from all that surging mass, which
+burst into something like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ tried to say that the war must go on until the Allies
+were victorious.
+
+"You talk like Kerensky!" shouted a rough voice.
+
+A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to,
+muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen
+men trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood
+staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their
+brows wrinkled with the effort of thought, sweat standing out on
+their foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of
+children and the faces of epic warriors....
+
+Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full
+of hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their
+mood. For the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of
+common thoughts, thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the
+world, as if it depended on them whether the Revolution were to live
+or die....
+
+Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of
+approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned,
+persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn't he an officer, and an
+_oboronotz,_ however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from
+Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, "And are _you_ going to
+give us peace, working-man?" Near us some men, many of them
+officers, formed a sort of _claque_ to cheer the advocates of
+Neutrality. They kept shouting, "Khanjunov! Khanjunov!" and whistled
+insultingly when the Bolsheviki tried to speak.
+
+Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile
+began to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation.
+The audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great
+mass tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the
+officers, wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
+
+"Comrades!" he cried, "Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak
+to us." An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of _"Prosim!
+Prosim! Dolby!_ Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!" in the midst of
+which the People's Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the
+side of the car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and
+pulled from below and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then
+walked out on the radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked
+around smiling, a squat, short-legged figure, bare-headed, without
+insignia on his uniform.
+
+The _claque_ near me kept up a fearful shouting, "Khanjunov! We want
+Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!" The whole
+place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche
+bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way
+through.
+
+"Who is breaking up our meeting?" they shouted. "Who is whistling
+here?" The _claque,_ rudely burst asunder, went flying--nor did it
+gather again....
+
+"Comrade soliders!" began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue.
+"I cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any
+sleep for four nights....
+
+"I don't need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don't need to tell
+you that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
+successful in the Workers' and Soldiers' Revolution, by the help of
+you and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have of you and of
+all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever the
+power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to
+all the peoples, and that has already been done--to-day!" Tumultuous
+applause.
+
+"You are asked to remain neutral--to remain neutral while the
+_yunkers_ and the Death Battalions, who are _never_ neutral, shoot
+us down in the streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky--or
+perhaps some other of the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don.
+Kerensky is coming from the front. Kornilov is raising the
+_Tekhintsi_ to repeat his attempt of August. All these Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries who call upon you now to prevent civil
+war--how have they retained the power except by civil war, that civil
+war which has endured ever since last July, and in which they
+constantly stood on the side of the bourgeoisie, as they do now?
+
+"How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The
+question is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov,
+the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers....
+They tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the
+workers, the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The
+Government is in your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia
+belongs to you. Will you give it back?"
+
+While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will,
+and as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke
+through the tired voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a
+hundred hands reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces
+of the hall gave back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
+
+Khanjunov tried to speak again, but "Vote! Vote! Vote!" they cried.
+At length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the _brunnoviki_
+withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war.
+All those in favour should go to the right; those opposed, to the
+left. There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then
+the crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one
+another, to the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid mass
+rushing across the dirt floor in the faint light.... Near us about
+fifty men were left stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the
+high roof shook under the shock of victorious roaring, they turned
+and rapidly walked out of the building--and, some of them, out of the
+Revolution....
+
+Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city,
+the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless
+Krylenkos, watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place,
+arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all
+the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on
+the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the
+hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over
+the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so
+hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely--and deciding
+so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution....
+
+Up at Smolny the new Council of People's Commissars was not idle.
+Already the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in
+thousands through the city streets that night, and shipped in bales
+by every train southward and east:
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
+with participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People's
+Commissars decrees:
+
+1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at
+the date determined upon--November 12.
+
+2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government,
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, and soldiers'
+organisations on the front should make every effort to assure free
+and regular elections at the date determined upon.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, _The
+President of the Council of People's Commissars_,
+
+VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of
+the Council of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council,
+he said, did not consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable
+to continue its labours until it secured a new meeting-place. In the
+meanwhile, its Committee of Elders had determined to enter _en
+masse_ the Committee for Salvation.... This, I may remark
+parenthetically, is the last time history mentions the Council of
+the Russian Republic....
+
+Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries,
+the _Vikzhel,_ the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth
+time reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik
+usurpers. A _yunker_ who had been in the Winter Palace told a
+highly-coloured tale of the heroism of himself and his comrades, and
+disgraceful conduct of the Red Guards--all of which was devoutly
+believed. Somebody read aloud an account in the Socialist
+Revolutionary paper _Narod,_ which stated that five hundred million
+rubles' worth of damage had been done in the Winter Palace, and
+describing in great detail the loot and breakage.
+
+From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The
+four Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had
+gone to Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of
+Marine was deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take
+charge under the authority of the Council of People's Commissars;
+and the old seaman had consented.... Kerensky was advancing north from
+Gatchina, the Bolshevik garrisons falling back before him. Smolny
+had issued another decree, enlarging the powers of the City Dumas to
+deal with food supplies.
+
+This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin,
+the usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal
+garage, entered the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the
+Supply Committees and the distribution of food--he presumed to define
+the limits of power of the free, independent, autonomous City
+Government! One member, shaking his fist, moved to cut off the food
+of the city if the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with the Supply
+Committees.... Another, representative of the Special Supply
+Committee, reported that the food situation was very grave, and
+asked that emissaries be sent out to hasten food trains.
+
+Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering.
+The Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders
+of the Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats
+on the Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to
+continue the propaganda....
+
+Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: "Comrades and citizens!
+I have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger.
+Fourteen _yunkers_ of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and
+tortured by the Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are
+threatening to lynch the Ministers!" There was a whirlwind of
+indignation and horror, which only grew more violent when a stocky
+little woman dressed in grey demanded the floor, and lifted up her
+hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran revolutionist
+and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
+
+"That is a lie and a provocation!" she said, unmoved at the torrent
+of abuse. "The Workers' and Peasants' Government, which has
+abolished the death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand
+that this story be investigated, at once; if there is any truth in
+it, the Government will take energetic measures!"
+
+A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately
+appointed, and with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As
+we followed them out, the Duma was appointing another commission to
+meet Kerensky--to try and avoid bloodshed when he entered the
+capital....
+
+It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of
+the fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare
+electric lights along the side of the church where lie the tombs of
+the Tsars, beneath the slender golden spire and the chimes, which,
+for months, continued to play _Bozhe Tsaria Khrani_[17] every day at
+noon.... The place was deserted; in most of the windows there were not
+even lights. Occasionally we bumped into a burly figure stumbling along
+in the dark, who answered questions with the usual, _"Ya nieznayu."_
+
+[17] "God Save the Tsar."
+
+[Graphic, page 166: Pass to Reed from Department of Prisons
+translation follows]
+
+Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to
+visit freely all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
+
+  Commissar
+  Chief Bureau of Prisons
+  6th of November, 1917.
+        No. 213
+  Petrograd, Smolny
+  Institute, room No. 56--
+
+                      PASS
+To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED, to
+visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and
+Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition
+of the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the
+purpose of stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy.
+       Chief Commissar
+       Secretary
+
+On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that
+living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their
+lives or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional
+Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now
+the Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional
+Government.
+
+A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a
+little house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and
+soldiers were sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a
+samovar steamed cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality,
+offering tea. The commandant was not in; he was escorting a
+commission of _"sabotazhniki"_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who
+insisted that the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to
+amuse them very much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed,
+dissipated-looking little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat,
+biting his moustache and staring around him like a cornered rat. He
+had just been arrested. Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him,
+that he was a Minister or something.... The little man didn't seem to
+hear it; he was evidently terrified, although the occupants of the
+room showed no animosity whatever toward him.
+
+I went across and spoke to him in French. "Count Tolstoy," he
+answered, bowing stiffly. "I do not understand why I was arrested. I
+was crossing the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these--of
+these--persons held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional
+Government attached to the General Staff, but in no sense a member
+of the Government..."
+
+"Let him go," said a sailor. "He's harmless...."
+
+"No," responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. "We must
+ask the commandant."
+
+"Oh, the commandant!" sneered the sailor. "What did you make a
+revolution for? To go on obeying officers?"
+
+A _praporshtchik_ of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
+insurrection started. "The _polk_ (regiment) was on duty at the
+General Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were
+standing guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man--I don't remember his
+name--well, they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the
+Staff was having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For
+example, they heard orders to bring the Gatchina _yunkers_ to
+Petrograd by night, and an order for the Cossacks to be ready to
+march in the morning.... The principal points in the city were to be
+occupied before dawn. Then there was the business of opening the
+bridges. But when they began to talk about surrounding Smolny, then
+Ivan Pavlovitch couldn't stand it any longer. That minute there was
+a good deal of coming and going, so he slipped out and came down to
+the guard-room, leaving the other comrade to pick up what he could.
+
+"I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles
+full of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan
+Pavlovitch told me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the
+morning. The secretary of the regimental Committee was there, so we
+told him and asked what to do.
+
+"'Arrest everybody coming and going!' he says. So we began to do
+it. In an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom
+we sent up to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary
+Committee wasn't ready; they didn't know what to do; and pretty soon
+back came the order to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else.
+Well, we ran all the way to Smolny, and I guess we talked for an
+hour before they finally saw that it was war. It was five o'clock
+when we got back to the Staff, and by that time most of them were
+gone. But we got a few, and the garrison was all on the march...."
+
+A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had
+happened in his district on the great day of the rising. "We didn't
+have any machine-guns over there," he said, laughing, "and we
+couldn't get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of
+the _Uprava_ (Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at
+once that there was lying in the meeting-room of the _Uprava_ a
+machinegun which had been captured from the Germans. So he and I and
+another comrade went there. The Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries were having a meeting. Well, we opened the door and
+walked right in on them, as they sat around the table--twelve or
+fifteen of them, three of us. When they saw us they stopped talking
+and just stared. We walked right across the room, uncoupled the
+machine-gun; Comrade Zalkind picked up one part, I the other, we put
+them on our shoulders and walked out--and not a single man said a
+word!"
+
+"Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?" asked a third man,
+a sailor. "Along about eleven o'clock we found out there weren't any
+more _yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and
+filtered up the different stairways one by one, or in little
+bunches. When we got to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us
+up and took away our guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little
+by little, until we had a majority. Then we turned around and took
+away the _yunkers'_ guns...."
+
+Just then the commandant entered--a merry-looking young
+non-commissioned officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles
+of sleeplessness under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner,
+who at once began to explain.
+
+"Oh, yes," interrupted the other. "You were one of the committee who
+refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we
+don't want you, citizen. Apologies--" He opened the door and waved
+his arm for Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others,
+especially the Red Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor
+remarked triumphantly, _"Vot!_ There! Didn't I say so?"
+
+Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a
+committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they
+said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn't
+even enough to keep a man from being hungry. "Why should the
+counter-revolutionists be treated so well?"
+
+"We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits," answered the
+commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going
+about that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the
+Ministers threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to
+be able to prove to the world--?"
+
+"No," said the young soldier, irritably. "I am not going to disturb
+the prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up--they
+were sure we were going to massacre them.... Most of the _yunkers_
+have been released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow." He
+turned abruptly away.
+
+"Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?"
+
+The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded.
+"They are still out in the hall," he said carelessly.
+
+Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light
+of an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
+
+"Mr. Mayor," I said, "we are American correspondents. Will you
+please tell us officially the result of your investigations?"
+
+He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
+
+"There is no truth in the reports," he said slowly. "Except for the
+incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here,
+they have been treated with every consideration. As for the
+_yunkers,_ not one has received the slightest injury...."
+
+Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable
+column of soldiers shuffled in silence--to battle with Kerensky. In
+dim back streets automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and
+there was furtive activity in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the
+Peasants' Soviet, in a certain apartment of a huge building on the
+Nevsky, and in the _Injinierny Zamok_ (School of Engineers); the
+Duma was illuminated....
+
+In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed
+baleful fire, pounding like an over-loaded dynamo....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Revolutionary Front
+
+
+Saturday, November 10th....
+
+Citizens!
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will not
+tolerate any violation of revolutionary order....
+
+Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be
+severely punished....
+
+Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will
+destroy without mercy any looter or instigator of disorder....
+
+Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken
+fight. By night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and
+on the corners soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires,
+laughing and singing. In the daytime great crowds gathered on the
+sidewalks listening to interminable hot debates between students and
+soldiers, business men and workmen.
+
+Citizens stopped each other on the street.
+
+"The Cossacks are coming?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I don't know anything. Where's Kerensky?"
+
+"They say only eight versts from Petrograd.... Is it true that the
+Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship _Avrora?"_
+
+"They say so...."
+
+Only the walls screamed, and the few newspapers; denunciation,
+appeal, decree....
+
+An enormous poster carried the hysterical manifesto of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets:
+
+....They (the Bolsheviki) dare to say that they are supported by the
+Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, and that they are speaking on behalf
+of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies....
+
+Let all working-class Russia know that this is a LIE, AND THAT ALL
+THE WORKING PEASANTS--in the person of--the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
+ALL-RUSSIAN SOVIETS OF PEASANTS' DEPUTIES--refutes with indignation
+all participation of the organised peasantry in this criminal
+violation of the will of the working-classes....
+
+From the Soldier Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+The insane attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of collapse. The
+garrison is divided.... The Ministries are on strike and bread is
+getting scarcer. All factions except the few Bolsheviki have left
+the Congress. The Bolsheviki are alone....
+
+We call upon all sane elements to group themselves around the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, and to prepare
+themselves seriously to be ready at the first call of the Central
+Committee....
+
+In a hand-bill the Council of the Republic recited its wrongs:
+
+Ceding to the force of bayonets, the Council of the Republic has
+been obliged to separate, and temporarily to interrupt its meetings.
+
+The usurpers, with the words "Liberty and Socialism" on their lips,
+have set up a rule of arbitrary violence. They have arrested the
+members of the Provisional Government, closed the newspapers, seized
+the printing-shops....This power must be considered the enemy of the
+people and the Revolution; it is necessary to do battle with it, and
+to pull it down....
+
+The Council of the Republic, until the resumption of its labours,
+invites the citizens of the Russian Republic to group themselves
+around the....local Committees for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, which are organising the overthrow of the Bolsheviki and
+the creation of a Government capable of leading the country to the
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+_Dielo Naroda_ said:
+
+A revolution is a rising of all the people.... But here what have we?
+Nothing but a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky....
+Their decrees and their appeals will simply add to the museum of
+historical curiosities....
+
+And _Narodnoye Slovo_(People's Word-Populist Socialist):
+
+"Workers' and Peasants' Government?" That is only a pipedream;
+nobody, either in Russia or in the countries of our Allies, will
+recognise this "Government"--or even in the enemy countries....
+
+The bourgeois press had temporarily disappeared...._Pravada_ had an
+account of the first meeting of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ now the
+parliament of the Russian Soviet Republic. Miliutin, Commissar of
+Agriculture, remarked that the Peasants' Executive Committee had
+called an All-Russian Peasant Congress for December 13th.
+
+"But we cannot wait," he said. "We must have the backing of the
+peasants. I propose that _we_ call the Congress of Peasants, and do
+it immediately...." The Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed. An
+Appeal to the Peasants of Russia was hastily drafted, and a
+committee of five elected to carry out the project.
+
+The question of detailed plans for distributing the land, and the
+question of Workers' Control of Industry, were postponed until the
+experts working on them should submit a report.
+
+Three decrees (See App. VII, Sect. 1) were read and approved: first,
+Lenin's "General Rules For the Press," ordering the suppression of
+all newspapers inciting to resistance and disobedience to the new
+Government, inciting to criminal acts, or deliberately perverting
+the news; the Decree of Moratorium for House-rents; and the Decree
+Establishing a Workers' Militia. Also orders, one giving the
+Municipal Duma power to requisition empty apartments and houses, the
+other directing the unloading of freight cars in the railroad
+terminals, to hasten the distribution of necessities and to free the
+badly-needed rolling-stock....
+
+Two hours later the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets was
+sending broadcast over Russia the following telegram:
+
+The arbitrary organisation of the Bolsheviki, which is called
+"Bureau of Organisation for the National Congress of Peasants," is
+inviting all the Peasants' Soviets to send delegates to the Congress
+at Petrograd....
+
+The Executive Committee of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies
+declares that it considers, now as well as before, that it would be
+dangerous to take away from the provinces at this moment the forces
+necessary to prepare for elections to the Constituent Assembly,
+which is the only salvation of the working-class and the country. We
+confirm the date of the Congress of Peasants, _December 13th._
+
+At the Duma all was excitement, officers coming and going, the Mayor
+in conference with the leaders of the Committee for Salvation. A
+Councillor ran in with a copy of Kerensky's proclamation, dropped by
+hundreds from an aeroplane low flying down the Nevsky, which
+threatened terrible vengeance on all who did not submit, and ordered
+soldiers to lay down their arms and assemble immediately in Mars
+Field.
+
+The Minister-President had taken Tsarskoye Selo, we were told, and
+was already in the Petrograd campagna, five miles away. He would
+enter the city to-morrow--in a few hours. The Soviet troops in
+contact with his Cossacks were said to be going over to the
+Provisional Government. Tchernov was somewhere in between, trying to
+organise the "neutral" troops into a force to halt the civil war.
+
+In the city the garrison regiments were leaving the Bolsheviki, they
+said. Smolny was already abandoned.... All the Governmental machinery
+had stopped functioning. The employees of the State Bank had refused
+to work under Commissars from Smolny, refused to pay out money to
+them. All the private banks were closed. The Ministries were on
+strike. Even now a committee from the Duma was making the rounds of
+business houses, collecting a fund to pay the salaries of the
+strikers....
+
+Trotzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered the
+clerks to translate the Decree on Peace into foreign languages; six
+hundred functionaries had hurled their resignations in his face....
+Shliapnikov, Commissar of Labour, had commanded all the employees of
+his Ministry to return to their places within twenty-four hours, or
+lose their places and their pension-rights; only the door-servants
+had responded.... Some of the branches of the Special Food Supply
+Committee had suspended work rather than submit to the Bolsheviki....
+In spite of lavish promises of high wages and better conditions, the
+operators at the Telephone Exchange would not connect Soviet
+headquarters....
+
+The Socialist Revolutionary Party had voted to expel all members who
+had remained in the Congress of Soviets, and all who were taking
+part in the insurrection....
+
+News from the provinces. Moghilev had declared against the
+Bolsheviki. At Kiev the Cossacks had overthrown the Soviets and
+arrested all the insurrectionary leaders. The Soviet and garrison of
+Luga, thirty thousand strong, affirmed its loyalty to the
+Provisional Government, and appealed to all Russia to rally around
+it. Kaledin had dispersed all Soviets and Unions in the Don Basin,
+and his forces were moving north....
+
+Said a representative of the Railway Workers: "Yesterday we sent a
+telegram all over Russia demanding that war between the political
+parties cease at once, and insisting on the formation of a coalition
+Socialist Government. Otherwise we shall call a strike to-morrow
+night.... In the morning there will be a meeting of all factions to
+consider the question. The Bolsheviki seem anxious for an
+agreement...."
+
+"If they last that long!" laughed the City Engineer, a stout, ruddy
+man....
+
+As we came up to Smolny--not abandoned, but busier than ever, throngs
+of workers and soldiers running in and out, and doubled guards
+everywhere--we met the reporters for the bourgeois and "moderate"
+Socialist papers.
+
+"Threw us out!" cried one, from _Volia Naroda._ "Bonch-Bruevitch
+came down to the Press Bureau and told us to leave! Said we were
+spies!" They all began to talk at once: "Insult! Outrage! Freedom of
+the press!"
+
+In the lobby were great tables heaped with stacks of appeals,
+proclamations and orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+Workmen and soldiers staggered past, carrying them to waiting
+automobiles.
+
+One began:
+
+TO THE PILLORY!
+
+In this tragic moment through which the Russian masses are living,
+the Mensheviki and their followers and the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries have betrayed the working-class. They have enlisted
+on the side of Kornilov, Kerensky and Savinkov....
+
+They are printing orders of the traitor Kerensky and creating a
+panic in the city, spreading the most ridiculous rumours of mythical
+victories by that renegade....
+
+Citizens! Don't believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the
+People's Revolution.... Premier Kerensky and his followers await
+speedy and well-deserved punishment....
+
+We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the
+enmity of all workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they
+are trying to rivet the ancient chains. They will never be able to
+wash from their bodies the stain of the people's hatred and contempt.
+
+Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!...
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters,
+room 17 on the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the
+narrow space in front of the railing was crowded with well-dressed
+persons, outwardly respectful but inwardly full of murder--bourgeois
+who wanted permits for their automobiles, or passports to leave the
+city, among them many foreigners.... Bill Shatov and Peters were on
+duty. They suspended all other business to read us the latest
+bulletins.
+
+The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous
+support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the
+new Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions--enthusiastic
+support. The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military
+Revolutionary Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military
+Revolutionary Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from
+the Soviets of Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk,
+Sevastopol.... The Finland Division, the new Committees of the Fifth
+and Twelfth Armies, offer allegiance....
+
+From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two
+companies on duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but
+the Arsenal is in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his _yunkers._
+The Revolutionary Committee demanded arms for the workers, and
+Riabtsev parleyed with them until this morning, when suddenly he
+sent an ultimatum to the Committee, ordering Soviet troops to
+surrender and the Committee to disband. Fighting has begun....
+
+In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny's Commissars at once. The
+_Tsentroflot,_ refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of
+Cronstadt sailors, and a new _Tsentroflot_ set up, supported by the
+Baltic and the Black Sea battleships....
+
+But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition,
+a feeling of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky's Cossacks were coming
+fast; they had artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop
+Committees, his face drawn and yellow, assured me that there was a
+whole army corps of them, but he added, fiercely, "They'll never
+take us alive!" Petrovsky laughed weariedly, "To-morrow maybe we'll
+get a sleep--a long one...." Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded
+face, said, "What chance have we? All alone.... A mob against trained
+soldiers!"
+
+South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the
+garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided--half
+voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back
+on the capital in the wildest disorder.
+
+In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
+
+FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.
+
+_To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in
+Chief, Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all._
+
+The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to
+every one everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary
+Petrograd have voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the
+armies of the former Government, the Government of Treason, and that
+the soldiers have been ordered by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to retreat. The troops of a free people do not retreat nor
+do they surrender.
+
+Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between
+themselves and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take
+a more convenient position, which is at present so strong that if
+Kerensky and his companions in arms should even increase their
+forces ten times, still there would be no cause for anxiety. The
+spirit of our troops is excellent.
+
+In Petrograd all is quiet.
+
+_Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.
+
+As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a
+paper in his hand, looking like a corpse.
+
+"Send this," said he.
+
+TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP
+COMMITTEES
+
+The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to
+the capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush
+mercilessly the counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and
+its conquests.
+
+The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the
+immediate support of the workers.
+
+WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES:
+
+1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the
+digging of trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of
+wire entanglements.
+
+2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at
+the factories this shall be done immediately.
+
+3. All common and barbed wire available must be assembled, and also
+all implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of
+barricades.
+
+4. All available arms must be taken.
+
+5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE
+READY TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.
+
+_Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker's and Soldiers'
+Deputies,_
+
+People's Commissar LEON TROTZKY.
+
+_Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.
+
+As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey
+horizon factory whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound,
+full of foreboding. By tens of thousands the working-people poured
+out, men and women; by tens of thousands the humming slums belched
+out their dun and miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was in danger!
+Cossacks! South and southwest they poured through the shabby streets
+toward the Moskovsky Gate, men, women and children, with rifles,
+picks, spades, rolls of wire, cartridge-belts over their working
+clothes.... Such an immense, spontaneous outpouring of a city never
+was seen! They rolled along torrent-like, companies of soldiers
+borne with them, guns, motor-trucks, wagons--the revolutionary
+proletariat defending with its breast the capital of the Workers'
+and Peasants' Republic!
+
+Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick
+glasses magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort,
+stood leaning against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a
+shabby raglan. A great bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth,
+prowled restlessly about, absently toying with an enormous
+blue-steel revolver, which never left his hand. These were Antonov
+and Dybenko.
+
+Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the
+running-board. The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would
+get scratched, he said. True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile
+was commandeered from a bourgeois; true, the bicycles were for the
+use of orderlies. But the chauffeur's professional pride was
+revolted.... So the bicycles were abandoned....
+
+The People's Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the
+revolutionary front--wherever that was. Could we go with them?
+Certainly not. The automobile only held five--the two Commissars, two
+orderlies and the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of
+mine, whom I will call Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor
+could any argument dislodge him....
+
+I see no reason to doubt Trusishka's story of the journey. As they
+went down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They
+might be out three or four days, in a country indifferently well
+provisioned. They stopped the car. Money? The Commissar of War
+looked through his pockets--he hadn't a kopek. The Commissar of
+Marine was broke. So was the chauffeur. Trusishka bought the
+provisions....
+
+Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Commandeer another machine!" suggested Dybenko, waving his
+revolver. Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a
+passing machine, driven by a soldier.
+
+"I want that machine," said Antonov.
+
+"You won't get it," responded the soldier.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" Antonov produced a paper upon which was
+written that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the
+armies of the Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him
+without question.
+
+"I don't care if you're the devil himself," said the soldier, hotly.
+"This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment, and we're
+carrying ammunition in it, and you can't have it...."
+
+The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old
+battered taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble
+private cars were registered in the name of foreign consulates, so
+as to be safe from requisition.) From the interior of this was
+dislodged a fat citizen in an expensive fur coat, and the party
+continued on its way.
+
+Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called
+for the commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the
+town, where some few hundred workmen had dug trenches and were
+waiting for the Cossacks.
+
+"Everything all right here, comrade?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Everything perfect, comrade," answered the commandant.
+
+"The troops are in excellent spirits.... Only one thing--we have no
+ammunition...."
+
+"In Smolny there are two billion rounds," Antonov told him. "I will
+give you an order." He felt in his pockets. "Has any one a piece of
+paper?"
+
+Dybenko had none--nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his
+note-book....
+
+"Devil! I have no pencil!" cried Antonov. "Who's got a pencil?"
+Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd....
+
+We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the
+Nevsky, as we passed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with
+bayonets and some without. The early twilight of winter was falling.
+Heads up they tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four,
+without music, without drums. A red flag crudely lettered in gold,
+"Peace! Land!" floated over them. They were very young. The
+expression on their faces was that of who know they are going to
+die.... Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk
+watched them pass, in hateful silence....
+
+[Graphic, page 184: Pass to the Northern Front]
+
+This pass was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days
+after the Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel
+to the Northern front--and an added note on the back extends the
+permission to all fronts. It will be noticed that the speaks of the
+_Petersburg_, instead of the _Petrograd_ Soviet; it was the fashion
+among thorough-going internationalists to abolish all names which
+smacked of "patriotism"; but at the same time, it would not do to
+restore the "Saint."...
+                      (Translation)
+  Executive Committee
+  Petrograd Soviet of
+  Workers' and Soldiers'
+       Deputies
+    Military Section
+  28th October, 1917
+      No. 1435
+                      CERTIFICATE
+
+The present certificate is given to the representative of the
+American Social Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives him the right of free travel
+through the entire Northern front, for the purpose of reporting to
+our American comrades--internationalists concerning events in Russia.
+                              For the President
+                              For the Secretary
+
+At the railroad station nobody knew just where Kerensky was, or
+where the front lay. Trains went no further, however, than
+Tsarskoye....
+
+Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden
+with bundles and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik
+rising. Outside of that, however, one would never have realised that
+civil war was rending mighty Russia in two, and that the train was
+headed into the zone of battle. Through the window we could see, in
+the swiftly-deepening darkness, masses of soldiers going along the
+muddy road toward the city, flinging out their arms in argument. A
+freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires, was
+halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the
+glow of the city's lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled
+distantly along a far-flung suburb....
+
+Tsarskoye Selo station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here
+and there talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty
+track in the direction of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side
+they were on. "Well," said one, "we don't exactly know the rights of
+the matter.... There is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we
+do not consider it right for Russian men to be shooting Russian men."
+
+In the station commandant's office was a big, jovial, bearded common
+soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our
+credentials from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly
+for the Soviets, but bewildered.
+
+"The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A
+Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the
+Cossacks arrived."
+
+"The Cossacks are here then?"
+
+He nodded, gloomily. "There has been a battle. The Cossacks came
+early in the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men,
+and killed about twenty-five."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"Well, they didn't get this far. I don't know just where they are.
+Off that way...." He waved his arm vaguely westward.
+
+We had dinner--an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be
+got in Petrograd--in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French
+officer who had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet
+there, he said. Kerensky held the town. "Ah, these Russians," he
+went on, "they are original! What a civil war! Everything except the
+fighting!"
+
+We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood
+two soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by
+about a hundred business men, Government officials and students, who
+attacked them with passionate argument and epithet. The soldiers
+were uncomfortable and hurt, like children unjustly scolded.
+
+A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the
+uniform of a student, was leading the attack.
+
+"You realise, I presume," he said insolently, "that by taking up
+arms against your brothers you are making yourselves the tools of
+murderers and traitors?"
+
+"Now brother," answered the soldier earnestly, "you don't understand.
+There are two classes, don't you see, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie. We--"
+
+"Oh, I know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch
+of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few
+catch-words. You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them
+like a lot of parrots." The crowd laughed. "I'm a Marxian student.
+And I tell you that this isn't Socialism you are fighting for. It's
+just plain pro-German anarchy!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from
+his brow. "You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am
+only a simple man. But it seems to me--"
+
+"I suppose," interrupted the other contemptuously, "that you believe
+Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?"
+
+"Yes, I do," answered the soldier, suffering.
+
+"Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in
+a closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?"
+
+"Well, I don't know much about that," answered the soldier
+stubbornly, "but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to
+hear, and all the simple men like me. Now there are two classes, the
+bourgeoisie and the proletariat--"
+
+"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schl�sselburg
+for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
+revolutionists and singing 'God Save the Tsar!' My name is Vasili
+Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility.
+"But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."
+
+"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the
+Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now
+how do you account for that?"
+
+The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it at all," he
+said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. "To me
+it seems perfectly simple--but then, I'm not well educated. It seems
+like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie--"
+
+"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.
+
+"--only two classes," went on the soldier, doggedly.
+
+"And whoever isn't on one side is on the other..."
+
+We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far
+between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung
+over the place--as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a
+political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly
+lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public
+bath; for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes
+itself. I haven't the slightest doubt that Soviet troops and
+Cossacks mingled in the places where these ceremonies were performed.
+
+The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the
+streets. A frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the
+Soviet, and hurried on. It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal
+palaces, fronting the Park. The windows were dark, the door locked.
+A soldier, lounging about with his hands in the top of his trousers,
+looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion. "The Soviet went away
+two days ago," said he. "Where?" A shrug. _"Nie znayu._ I don't
+know."
+
+A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated.
+From within came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a
+soldier and a sailor came down the street, hand in hand. I showed
+them my pass from Smolny. "Are you for the Soviets?" I asked. They
+did not answer, but looked at each other in a frightened way.
+
+"What is going on in there?" asked the sailor, pointing to the
+building.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack.
+Inside a great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of
+chairs, a stage being built.
+
+A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks
+came out. "What do you want?" she asked.
+
+"Is there a performance to-night?" said the sailor, nervously.
+
+"There will be private theatricals Sunday night," she answered
+severely. "Go away."
+
+We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they
+seemed frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.
+
+We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast,
+dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges
+looming uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the
+fountains. At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat
+unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of
+observation, and looked up to encounter the sullen, suspicious gaze
+of half a dozen gigantic armed soldiers, who stared moodily down
+from a grassy terrace. I climbed up to them. "Who are you?" I asked.
+
+"We are the guard," answered one. They all looked very depressed, as
+undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night
+argument and debate.
+
+"Are you Kerensky's troops, or the Soviets'?"
+
+There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each
+other. Then, "We are neutral," said he.
+
+We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the
+Palace enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a
+door in a curving white wing of the Palace said that the commandant
+was inside.
+
+In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a
+two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking.
+They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one,
+an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with
+decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our
+Bolshevik papers.
+
+He seemed surprised. "How did you get here without being killed?" he
+asked politely. "It is very dangerous in the streets just now.
+Political passion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was
+a battle this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning.
+Kerensky is to enter the town at eight o'clock."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"About a mile over that way." He waved his arm.
+
+"And you will defend the city against them?"
+
+"Oh dear no." He smiled. "We are holding the city for Kerensky." Our
+hearts sank, for our passes stated that we were revolutionary to the
+core. The Colonel cleared his throat. "About those passes of yours,"
+he went on. "Your lives will be in danger if you are captured.
+Therefore, if you want to see the battle, I will give you an order
+for rooms in the officers' hotel, and if you will come back here at
+seven o'clock in the morning, I will give you new passes."
+
+"So you are for Kerensky?" we said.
+
+"Well, not exactly _for_ Kerensky." The Colonel hesitated. "You see,
+most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and to-day,
+after the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd,
+taking the artillery with them. You might say that none of the
+_soldiers_ are for Kerensky; but some of them just don't want to
+fight at all. The _officers_ have almost all gone over to Kerensky's
+forces, or simply gone away. We are--ahem--in a most difficult
+position, as you see...."
+
+We did not believe that there would be any battle.... The Colonel
+courteously sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station.
+He was from the South, born of French immigrant parents in
+Bessarabia. "Ah," he kept saying, "it is not the danger or the
+hardships I mind, but being so long, three years, away from my
+mother...."
+
+Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold
+dark toward Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers
+gesticulating in the light of fires, and of clusters of armoured
+cars halted together at cross-roads, the chauffeurs hanging out of
+the turrets and shouting to each other....
+
+All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of
+soldiers and Red Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the
+Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee hurried from one
+group to another, trying to organise a defence....
+
+Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the
+Nevsky. Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station
+could be heard far-off cannonade. In the _yunker_ schools there was
+feverish activity. Duma members went from barracks to barracks,
+arguing and pleading, narrating fearful stories of Bolshevik
+violence--massacre of the _yunkers_ in the Winter Palace, rape of the
+women soldiers, the shooting of the girl before the Duma, the murder
+of Prince Tumanov.... In the Alexander Hall of the Duma building the
+Committee for Salvation was in special session; Commissars came and
+went, running.... All the journalists expelled from Smolny were there,
+in high spirits. They did not believe our report of conditions in
+Tsarskoye. Why, everybody knew that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky's
+hands, and that the Cossacks were now at Pulkovo. A committee was
+being elected to meet Kerensky at the railway station in the
+morning....
+
+One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the
+counter-revolution would begin at midnight. He showed me two
+proclamations, one signed by Gotz and Polkovnikov, ordering the
+_yunker_ schools, soldier convalescents in the hospitals, and the
+Knights of St. George to mobilise on a war footing and wait for
+orders from the Committee for Salvation; the other from the
+Committee for Salvation itself, which read as follows:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd!
+
+The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting
+to civil war in the rear.
+
+Do not dig their provocatory appeals!
+
+Do not dig trenches!
+
+Down with the traitorous barricades!
+
+Lay down your arms!
+
+Soldiers, return to your barracks!
+
+The war begun in Petrograd--is the death of the Revolution!
+
+In the name of liberty, land, and peace, unite around the Committee
+for Salvation of Country and Revolution!
+
+As we left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and
+desperate, came marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen
+prisoners--members of the local branch of the Council of Cossacks,
+caught red-handed plotting counter-revolution in their headquarters....
+
+A soldier, accompanied by a small boy with a pail of paste, was
+sticking up great flaring notices:
+
+By virtue of the present, the city of Petrograd and its suburbs are
+declared in a state of siege. All assemblies or meetings in the
+streets, and generally in the open air, are forbidden until further
+orders.
+
+N. PODVOISKY, President of the Military
+
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+As we went home the air was full of confused sound--automobile horns,
+shouts, distant shots. The city stirred uneasily, wakeful.
+
+In the small hours of the morning a company of _yunkers,_ disguised
+as soldiers of the Semionovsky Regiment, presented themselves at the
+Telephone Exchange just before the hour of changing guard. They had
+the Bolshevik password, and took charge without arousing suspicion.
+A few minutes later Antonov appeared, making a round of inspection.
+Him they captured and locked in a small room. When the relief came
+it was met by a blast of rifle-fire, several being killed.
+
+Counter-revolution had begun...
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+Counter-Revolution
+
+
+Next morning, Sunday the 11th, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo,
+Kerensky (See App. VIII, Sect. 1) himself riding a white horse and
+all the church-bells clamouring. From the top of a little hill
+outside the town could be seen the golden spires and many-coloured
+cupolas, the sprawling grey immensity of the capital spread along
+the dreary plain, and beyond, the steely Gulf of Finland.
+
+There was no battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in
+the morning he sent word to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay
+down their arms. The soldiers replied that they would remain
+neutral, but would not disarm. Kerensky gave them ten minutes in
+which to obey. This angered the soldiers; for eight months they had
+been governing themselves by committee, and this smacked of the old
+r�gime.... A few minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the
+barracks, killing eight men. From that moment there were no more
+"neutral" soldiers in Tsarskoye....
+
+Petrograd woke to bursts of rifle-fire, and the tramping thunder of
+men marching. Under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow. At
+dawn the Military Hotel and the Telegraph Agency had been taken by
+large forces of _yunkers,_ and bloodily recaptured. The Telephone
+Station was besieged by sailors, who lay behind barricades of
+barrels, boxes and tin sheets in the middle of the Morskaya, or
+sheltered themselves at the corner of the Gorokhovaya and of St.
+Isaac's Square, shooting at anything that moved. Occasionally an
+automobile passed in and out, flying the Red Cross flag. The sailors
+let it pass....
+
+Albert Rhys Williams was in the Telephone Exchange. He went out with
+the Red Cross automobile, which was ostensibly full of wounded.
+After circulating about the city, the car went by devious ways
+to the Mikhailovsky _yunker_ school, headquarters of the
+counter-revolution. A French officer, in the court-yard, seemed to
+be in command.... By this means ammunition and supplies were conveyed
+to the Telephone Exchange. Scores of these pretended ambulances
+acted as couriers and ammunition trains for the _yunkers._
+
+Five or six armoured cars, belonging to the disbanded British
+Armoured Car Division, were in their hands. As Louise Bryant was
+going along St. Isaac's Square one came rolling up from the
+Admiralty, on its way to the Telephone Exchange. At the corner of
+the Gogolia, right in front of her, the engine stalled. Some sailors
+ambushed behind wood-piles began shooting. The machine-gun in the
+turret of the thing slewed around and spat a hail of bullets
+indiscriminately into the wood-piles and the crowd. In the archway
+where Miss Bryant stood seven people were shot dead, among them two
+little boys. Suddenly, with a shout, the sailors leaped up and
+rushed into the flaming open; closing around the monster, they
+thrust their bayonets into the loop-holes, again and again, yelling...
+The chauffeur pretended to be wounded, and they let him go free--to
+run to the Duma and swell the tale of Bolshevik atrocities....Among
+the dead was a British Officer....
+
+Later the newspapers told of another French officer, captured in a
+_yunker_ armoured car and sent to Peter-Paul. The French Embassy
+promptly denied this, but one of the City Councillors told me that
+he himself had procured the officer's release from prison....
+
+Whatever the official attitude of the Allied Embassies, individual
+French and British officers were active these days, even to the
+extent of giving advice at executive sessions of the Committee for
+Salvation.
+
+All day long in every quarter of the city there were skirmishes
+between _yunkers_ and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars....
+Volleys, single shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could
+be heard, far and near. The iron shutters of the shops were drawn,
+but business still went on. Even the moving-picture shows, all
+outside lights dark, played to crowded houses. The street-cars ran.
+The telephones were all working; when you called Central, shooting
+could be plainly heard over the wire.... Smolny was cut off, but the
+Duma and the Committee for Salvation were in constant communication
+with all the _yunker_ schools and with Kerensky at Tsarskoye.
+
+At seven in the morning the Vladimir _yunker_ school was visited by
+a patrol of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, who gave the _yunkers_
+twenty minutes to lay down their arms. The ultimatum was rejected.
+An hour later the _yunkers_ got ready to march, but were driven back
+by a violent fusillade from the corner of the Grebetskaya and the
+Bolshoy Prospekt. Soviet troops surrounded the building and opened
+fire, two armoured cars cruising back and forth with machine guns
+raking it. The _yunkers_ telephoned for help. The Cossacks replied
+that they dare not come, because a large body of sailors with two
+cannon commanded their barracks. The Pavlovsk school was surrounded.
+Most of the Mikhailov _yunkers_ were fighting in the streets....
+
+At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to
+surrender was met by the _yunkers_ shooting down two of the Soviet
+delegates under the white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great
+holes were torn in the walls of the school. The _yunkers_ defended
+themselves desperately; shouting waves of Red Guards, assaulting,
+crumpled under the withering blast.... Kerensky telephoned from
+Tsarskoye to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened
+a tornado of steel and flame against the battered building. Their
+own officers could not stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar
+from Smolny named Kirilov tried to halt it; he was threatened with
+lynching. The Red Guards' blood was up.
+
+At half-past two the _yunkers_ hoisted a white flag; they would
+surrender if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised.
+With a rush and a shout thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured
+through windows, doors and holes in the wall. Before it could be
+stopped five _yunkers_ were beaten and stabbed to death. The rest,
+about two hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under escort, in small
+groups so as to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one party,
+killing eight more _yunkers_.... More than a hundred Red Guards and
+soldiers had fallen....
+
+Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors
+were marching toward the _Injinierny Zamok_--the Engineers' school. A
+dozen members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls
+of the latest proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several
+did not come back.... All the other schools surrendered without
+resistance, and the _yunkers_ were sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and
+Cronstadt....
+
+The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik
+armoured car appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking,
+the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro; the _yunkers_ tore
+from their uniforms all distinguishing marks, and one offered
+Williams _anything_ for the loan of his overcoat, as a disguise....
+"They will massacre us! They will massacre us!" they cried, for many
+of them had given their word at the Winter Palace not to take up
+arms against the People. Williams offered to mediate if Antonov were
+released. This was immediately done; Antonov and Williams made
+speeches to the victorious sailors, inflamed by their many dead--and
+once more the _yunkers_ went free.... All but a few, who in their
+panic tried to flee over the roofs, or to hide in the attic, and
+were found and hurled into the street.
+
+Tired, bloody, triumphant, the sailors and workers swarmed into the
+switchboard room, and finding so many pretty girls, fell back in an
+embarrassed way and fumbled with awkward feet. Not a girl was
+injured, not one insulted. Frightened, they huddled in the corners,
+and then, finding themselves safe, gave vent to their spite. "Ugh!
+The dirty, ignorant people! The fools!"... The sailors and Red Guards
+were embarrassed. "Brutes! Pigs!" shrilled the girls, indignantly
+putting on their coats and hats. Romantic had been their experience
+passing up cartridges and dressing the wounds of their dashing young
+defenders, the _yunkers,_ many of them members of noble families,
+fighting to restore their beloved Tsar! These were just common
+workmen, peasants, "Dark People."...
+
+The Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, little
+Vishniak, tried to persuade the girls to remain. He was effusively
+polite. "You have been badly treated," he said. "The telephone
+system is controlled by the Municipal Duma. You are paid sixty
+rubles a month, and have to work ten hours and more.... From now on
+all that will be changed. The Government intends to put the
+telephones under control of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.
+Your wages will be immediately raised to one hundred and fifty
+rubles, and your working-hours reduced. As members of the
+working-class you should be happy--"
+
+Members of the _working-class_ indeed! Did he mean to infer that
+there was anything in common between these--these animals--and _us?_
+Remain? Not if they offered a thousand rubles!... Haughty and spiteful
+the girls left the place....
+
+The employees of the building, the line-men and labourers--they
+stayed. But the switch-boards must be operated--the telephone was
+vital.... Only half a dozen trained operators were available.
+Volunteers were called for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers,
+workers. The six girls scurried backward and forward, instructing,
+helping, scolding.... So, crippled, halting, but _going,_ the wires
+slowly began to hum. The first thing was to connect Smolny with the
+barracks and the factories; the second, to cut off the Duma and the
+_yunker_ schools.... Late in the afternoon word of it spread through
+the city, and hundreds of bourgeois called up to scream, "Fools!
+Devils! How long do you think you will last? Wait till the Cossacks
+come!"
+
+Dusk was already falling. On the almost deserted Nevsky, swept by a
+bitter wind, a crowd had gathered before the Kazan Cathedral,
+continuing the endless debate; a few workmen, some soldiers and the
+rest shop-keepers, clerks and the like.
+
+"But Lenin won't get Germany to make peace!" cried one.
+
+A violent young soldier replied. "And whose fault is it? Your damn
+Kerensky, dirty bourgeois! To hell with Kerensky! We don't want him!
+We want Lenin...."
+
+Outside the Duma an officer with a white arm-band was tearing down
+posters from the wall, swearing loudly. One read:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+At this dangerous hour, when the Municipal Duma ought to use
+every means to calm the population, to assure it bread and
+other necessities, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Cadets, forgetting their duty, have turned the Duma into a
+counter-revolutionary meeting, trying to raise part of the
+population against the rest, so as to facilitate the victory of
+Kornilov-Kerensky. Instead of doing their duty, the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets have transformed the Duma into an
+arena of political attack upon the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, against the revolutionary Government of
+peace, bread and liberty.
+
+Citizens of Petrograd, we, the Bolshevik Municipal Councillors
+elected by you--we want you to know that the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets are engaged in counter-revolutionary
+action, have forgotten their duty, and are leading the population to
+famine, to civil war. We, elected by 183,000 votes, consider it our
+duty to bring to the attention of our constituents what is going on
+in the Duma, and declare that we disclaim all responsibility for the
+terrible but inevitable consequences....
+
+Far away still sounded occasional shots, but the city lay quiet,
+cold, as if exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall the Duma session was coming to an end. Even the
+truculent Duma seemed a little stunned. One after another the
+Commissars reported--capture of the Telephone Exchange,
+street-fighting, the taking of the Vladimir school.... "The Duma,"
+said Trupp, "is on the side of the democracy in its struggle against
+arbitrary violence; but in any case, whichever side wins, the Duma
+will always be against lynchings and torture...."
+
+Konovski, Cadet, a tall old man with a cruel face: "When the troops
+of the legal Government arrive in Petrograd, they will shoot down
+these insurgents, and that will not be lynching!" Protests all over
+the hall, even from his own party.
+
+Here there was doubt and depression. The counter-revolution was
+being put down. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary
+party had voted lack of confidence in its officers; the left wing
+was in control; Avksentiev had resigned. A courier reported
+that the Committee of Welcome sent to meet Kerensky at the railway
+station had been arrested. In the streets could be heard the dull
+rumble of distant cannonading, south and southwest. Still Kerensky
+did not come...
+
+Only three newspapers were out--_Pravda, Dielo Naroda_ and _Novaya
+Zhizn._ All of them devoted much space to the new "coalition"
+Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet
+without either Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had
+made concessions. A purely Socialist Government was taking shape--all
+elements except the bourgeoisie. As for _Pravda,_ it sneered:
+
+We ridicule these coalitions with political parties whose most
+prominent members are petty journalists of doubtful reputation; our
+"coalition" is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary Army
+with the poor peasants...
+
+On the walls a vainglorious announcement of the _Vikzhel,_
+threatening to strike if both sides did not compromise:
+
+The conquerors of these riots, the saviours of the wreck of our
+country, these will be neither the Bolsheviki, nor the Committee for
+Salvation, nor the troops of Kerensky--but we, the Union of
+Railwaymen...
+
+Red Guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the
+railways; as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself
+incapable of holding the power...
+
+We refuse to lend our services to any party which does not act by
+authority of ... a Government based on the confidence of all the
+democracy....
+
+Smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible
+humanity in action.
+
+In Trade Union headquarters Lozovsky introduced me to a delegate of
+the Railway Workers of the Nicolai line, who said that the men were
+holding huge mass-meetings, condemning the action of their leaders.
+
+"All power to the Soviets!" he cried, pounding on the table.
+"The _oborontsi_ in the Central Committee are playing Kornilov's
+game. They tried to send a mission to the Stavka, but we arrested
+them at Minsk.... Our branch has demanded an All-Russian
+Convention, and they refuse to call it...."
+
+The same situation as in the Soviets, the Army Committees. One after
+another the various democratic organisations, all over Russia, were
+cracking and changing. The Cooperatives were torn by internal
+struggles; the meetings of the Peasants' Executive broke up in
+stormy wrangling; even among the Cossacks there was trouble....
+
+On the top floor the Military Revolutionary Committee was in full
+blast, striking and slacking not. Men went in, fresh and vigorous;
+night and day and night and day they threw themselves into the
+terrible machine; and came out limp, blind with fatigue, hoarse and
+filthy, to fall on the floor and sleep.... The Committee for Salvation
+had been outlawed. Great piles of new proclamations (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 2) littered the floor:
+
+... The conspirators, who have no support among the garrison or the
+working-class, above all counted on the suddenness of their attack.
+Their plan was discovered in time by Sub-Lieutenant Blagonravov,
+thanks to the revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the Red Guard,
+whose name shall be made public. At the centre of the plot was the
+Committee for Salvation. Colonel Polkovnikov was in command of their
+forces, and the orders were signed by Gotz, former member of the
+Provisional Government, allowed at liberty on his word of honour....
+
+Bringing these facts to the attention of the Petrograd population,
+the Military Revolutionary Committee orders the arrest of all
+concerned in the conspiracy, who shall be tried before the
+Revolutionary Tribunal....
+
+From Moscow, word that the _yunkers_ and Cossacks had surrounded the
+Kremlin and ordered the Soviet troops to lay down their arms. The
+Soviet forces complied, and as they were leaving the Kremlin, were
+set upon and shot down. Small forces of Bolsheviki had been driven
+from the Telephone and Telegraph offices; the _yunkers_ now held the
+centre of the city. ... But all around them the Soviet troops were
+mustering. Street-fighting was slowly gathering way; all attempts at
+compromise had failed.... On the side of the Soviet, ten thousand
+garrison soldiers and a few Red Guards; on the side of the
+Government, six thousand _yunkers,_ twenty-five hundred Cossacks and
+two thousand White Guards.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting, and next door the new
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ acting on the decrees and orders (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 3) which came down in a steady stream from the Council of
+People's Commissars in session upstairs; on the Order in Which Laws
+Are to be Ratified and Published, Establishing an Eight hour Days
+for Workers, and Lunatcharsky's "Basis for a System of Popular
+Education." Only a few hundred people were present at the two
+meetings, most of them armed. Smolny was almost deserted, except for
+the guards, who were busy at the hall windows, setting up
+machine-guns to command the flanks of the building.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ a delegate of the _Vikzhel_ was speaking: "We
+refuse to transport the troops of either party.... We have sent a
+committee to Kerensky to say that if he continues to march on
+Petrograd we will break his lines of communication...."
+
+He made the usual plea for a conference of all the Socialist parties
+to form a new Government....
+
+Kameniev answered discreetly. The Bolsheviki would be very glad to
+attend the conference. The centre of gravity, however, lay not in
+composition of such a Government, but in its acceptance of the
+programme of the Congress of Soviets.
+
+... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ had deliberated on the declaration made by the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats
+Internationalists, and had accepted the proposition of proportional
+representation at the conference, even including delegates from the
+Army Committees and the Peasants' Soviets....
+
+In the great hall, Trotzky recounted the events of the day.
+
+"We offered the Vladimir _yunkers_ a chance to surrender," he said.
+"We wanted to settle matters without bloodshed. But now that blood
+has been spilled there is only one way--pitiless struggle. It would
+be childish to think we can win by any other means.... The moment is
+decisive. Everybody must cooperate with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, report where there are stores of barbed wire, benzine,
+guns.... We've won the power; now we must keep it!"
+
+The Menshevik Yoffe tried to read his party's declaration, but
+Trotzky refused to allow "a debate about principle."
+
+"Our debates are now in the streets," he cried. "The decisive step
+has been taken. We all, and I in particular, take the responsibility
+for what is happening...."
+
+Soldiers from the front, from Gatchina, told their stories. One from
+the Death Battalion, Four Hundred Eighty-first Artillery: "When the
+trenches hear of this, they will cry, 'This is _our_ Government!'" A
+_yunker_ from Peterhof said that he and two others had refused to
+march against the Soviets; and when his comrades had returned from
+the defence of the Winter Palace they appointed him their Commissar,
+to go to Smolny and offer their services to the _real_ Revolution....
+
+Then Trotzky again, fiery, indefatigable, giving orders, answering
+questions.
+
+"The petty bourgeoisie, in order to defeat the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, would combine with the devil himself!" he said once. Many
+cases of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. "No
+drinking, comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the
+evening, except the regular guards. All places suspected of having
+stores of liquor should be searched, and the liquor destroyed. (See
+App. VIII, Sect. 4) No mercy to the sellers of liquor...."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from
+the Viborg section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped
+out hurriedly.
+
+"For each revolutionist killed," said Trotzky, "we shall kill five
+counter-revolutionists!"
+
+Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds
+pouring in. In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng
+surged back and forth before the bulletin board, where was posted a
+list of _yunkers_ killed in the day's fighting--or supposed to be
+killed, for most of the dead afterward turned up safe and sound.... Up
+in the Alexander Hall the Committee for Salvation held forth. The
+gold and red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous, the familiar
+faces of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals,
+the hard eyes and bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats,
+officials of the old r�gime, and well-dressed women....
+
+The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the
+tribune--over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces
+and leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the
+applause of the "nice" people of Petrograd, of the officers, the
+rich, the great names of politics--girl after girl, to narrate her
+sufferings at the hands of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty
+to all that was old, established and powerful....
+
+The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said
+hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their
+actions; propaganda was making headway.
+
+[Graphic, page 205: Proclamation for "wine pogroms"]
+
+Revolutionary law and order. A proclamation of the Finland Regiment,
+in December, 1917, announcing desperate remedies for "wine pogroms."
+For translation see Appendix 5.
+
+... Emissaries came and went, reporting horrible deeds by the
+Bolsheviki, interceding to save the _yunkers,_ busily investigating....
+
+"The Bolsheviki," said Trupp, "will be conquered by moral force, and
+not by bayonets....."
+
+Meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front. The enemy had
+brought up armoured trains, mounted with cannon. The Soviet forces,
+mostly raw Red Guards, were without officers and without a definite
+plan. Only five thousand regular soldiers had joined them; the rest
+of the garrison was either busy suppressing the _yunker_ revolt,
+guarding the city, or undecided what to do. At ten in the evening
+Lenin addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments, who
+voted overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was
+elected to serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the
+morning the regiments left their barracks in full battle array....
+Going home I saw them pass, swinging along with the regular tread of
+veterans, bayonets in perfect alignment, through the deserted
+streets of the conquered city....
+
+At the same time, in the headquarters of the _Vikzhel_ down on the
+Sadovaya, the conference of all the Socialist parties to form a new
+Government was under way. Abramovitch, for the centre Mensheviki,
+said that there should be neither conquerors nor conquered--that
+bygones should be bygones. ...In this were agreed all the left wing
+parties. Dan, speaking in the name of the right Mensheviki, proposed
+to the Bolsheviki the following conditions for a truce: The Red
+Guard to be disarmed, and the Petrograd garrison to be placed at the
+orders of the Duma; the troops of Kerensky not to fire a single shot
+or arrest a single man; a Ministry of all the Socialist parties
+_except the Bolsheviki._ For Smolny Riazanov and Kameniev declared
+that a coalition ministry of all parties was acceptable, but
+protested at Dan's proposals. The Socialist Revolutionaries were
+divided; but the Executive Committee of the Peasants's Soviets and
+the Populist Socialists flatly refused to admit the Bolsheviki....
+After bitter quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a
+workable plan....
+
+All that night the commission wrangled, and all the next day, and
+the next night. Once before, on the 9th of November, there had been
+a similar effort at conciliation, led by Martov and Gorky; but at
+the approach of Kerensky and the activity of the Committee for
+Salvation, the right wing of the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries
+and Populist Socialists suddenly withdrew. Now they were awed by
+the crushing of the _yunker_ rebellion...
+
+Monday the 12th was a day of suspense. The eyes of all Russia were
+fixed on the grey plain beyond the gates of Petrograd, where all the
+available strength of the old order faced the unorganised power of
+the new, the unknown. In Moscow a truce had been declared; both
+sides parleyed, awaiting the result in the capital. Now the
+delegates to the Congress of Soviets, hurrying on speeding trains to
+the farthest reaches of Asia, were coming to their homes, carrying
+the fiery cross. In wide-spreading ripples news of the miracle
+spread over the face of the land, and in its wake towns, cities and
+far villages stirred and broke, Soviets and Military Revolutionary
+Committees against Dumas, Zemstvos and Government Commissars--Red
+Guards against White--street fighting and passionate speech.... The
+result waited on the word from Petrograd....
+
+Smolny was almost empty, but the Duma was thronged and noisy. The
+old Mayor, in his dignified way, was protesting against the Appeal
+of the Bolshevik Councillors.
+
+"The Duma is not a centre of counter-revolution," he said, warmly.
+"The Duma takes no part in the present struggle between the parties.
+But at a time when there is no legal power in the land, the only
+centre of order is the Municipal Self-Government. The peaceful
+population recognises this fact; the foreign Embassies recognise
+only such documents as are signed by the Mayor of the town. The mind
+of a European does not admit of any other situation, as the
+Municipal self-government is the only organ which is capable of
+protecting the interests of the citizens. The City is bound to show
+hospitality, to all organisations which desire to profit by such
+hospitality, and therefore the Duma cannot prevent the distribution
+of any newspapers whatever within the Duma building. The sphere of
+our work is increasing, and we must be given full liberty of action,
+and our rights must be respected by both parties....
+
+"We are perfectly neutral. When the Telephone Exchange was occupied
+by the _yunkers_ Colonel Polkovnikov ordered the telephones to
+Smolny disconnected, but I protested, and the telephones were kept
+going...."
+
+At this there was ironic laughter from the Bolshevik benches, and
+imprecations from the right.
+
+"And yet," went on Schreider, "they look upon us as
+counter-revolutionaries and report us to the population. They
+deprive us of our means of transport by taking away our last
+motor-cars. It will not be our fault if there is famine in the town.
+Protests are of no use...."
+
+Kobozev, Bolshevik member of the Town Board, was doubtful whether
+the Military Revolutionary Committee had requisitioned the Municipal
+automobiles. Even granting the fact, it was probably done by some
+unauthorised individual, in the emergency.
+
+"The Mayor," he continued, "tells us that we must not make political
+meetings out of the Duma. But every Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda, and at the
+door they distribute their illegal newspapers, _Iskri_ (Sparks),
+_Soldatski Golos_ and _Rabotchaya Gazeta,_ inciting to insurrection.
+What if we Bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers
+here? But this shall not be, for we respect the Duma. We have not
+attacked the Municipal Self-Government, and we shall not do so. But
+you have addressed an Appeal to the population, and we are entitled
+also to do so...."
+
+Followed him Shingariov, Cadet, who said that there could be no
+common language with those who were liable to be brought before the
+Attorney General for indictment, and who must be tried on the charge
+of treason.... He proposed again that all Bolshevik members should be
+expelled from the Duma. This was tabled, however, for there were no
+personal charges against the members, and they were active in the
+Municipal administration.
+
+Then two Mensheviki Internationalists, declaring that the Appeal of
+the Bolshevik Councillors was a direct incitement to massacre. "If
+everything that is against the Bolsheviki is counter-revolutionary,"
+said Pinkevitch, "then I do not know the difference between
+revolution and anarchy.... The Bolsheviki are depending upon the
+passions of the unbridled masses; we have nothing but moral force.
+We will protest against massacres and violence from both sides, as
+our task is to find a peaceful issue."
+
+"The notice posted in the streets under the heading 'To the
+Pillory,' which calls upon the people to destroy the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries," said Nazariev, "is a crime which you,
+Bolsheviki, will not be able to wash away. Yesterday's horrors are
+but a preface to what you are preparing by such a proclamation.... I
+have always tried to reconcile you with the other parties, but at
+present I feel for you nothing but contempt!"
+
+The Bolshevik Councillors were on their feet, shouting angrily,
+assailed by hoarse, hateful voices and waving arms....
+
+Outside the hall I ran into the City Engineer, the Menshevik Gomberg
+and three or four reporters. They were all in high spirits.
+
+"See!" they said. "The cowards are afraid of us. They don't dare
+arrest the Duma! Their Military Revolutionary Committee doesn't dare
+to send a Commissar into this building. Why, on the corner of the
+Sadovaya to-day, I saw a Red Guard try to stop a boy selling
+_Soldatski Golos_.... The boy just laughed at him, and a crowd of
+people wanted to lynch the bandit. It's only a few hours more, now.
+Even if Kerensky wouldn't come they haven't the men to run a
+Government. Absurd! I understand they're even fighting among
+themselves at Smolny!"
+
+A Socialist Revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside. "I know
+where the Committee for Salvation is hiding," he said. "Do you want
+to go and talk with them?"
+
+By this time it was dusk. The city had again settled down to
+normal--shop-shutters up, lights shining, and on the streets great
+crowds of people slowly moving up and down and arguing....
+
+At Number 86 Nevsky we went through a passage into a courtyard,
+surrounded by tall apartment buildings. At the door of apartment 229
+my friend knocked in a peculiar way. There was a sound of scuffling;
+an inside door slammed; then the front door opened a crack and a
+woman's face appeared. After a minute's observation she led us in--a
+placid-looking, middle-aged lady who at once cried, "Kyril, it's all
+right!" In the dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and
+there were plates full of bread and raw fish, a man in uniform
+emerged from behind the window-curtains, and another, dressed like a
+workman, from a closet. They were delighted to meet an American
+reporter. With a certain amount of gusto both said that they would
+certainly be shot if the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give
+me their names, but both were Socialist Revolutionaries....
+
+"Why," I asked, "do you publish such lies in your newspapers?"
+
+Without taking offence the officer replied, "Yes, I know; but what
+can we do?" He shrugged. "You must admit that it is necessary for us
+to create a certain frame of mind in the people...."
+
+The other man interrupted. "This is merely an adventure on the part
+of the Bolsheviki. They have no intellectuals.... The Ministries
+won't work.... Russia is not a city, but a whole country.... Realising
+that they can only last a few days, we have decided to come to the
+aid of the strongest force opposed to them--Kerensky--and help to
+restore order."
+
+"That is all very well," I said. "But why do you combine with the
+Cadets?"
+
+The pseudo-workman smiled frankly. "To tell you the truth, at this
+moment the masses of the people are following the Bolsheviki. We
+have no following--now. We can't mobilise a handful of soldiers.
+There are no arms available.... The Bolsheviki are right to a certain
+extent; there are at this moment in Russia only two parties with any
+force--the Bolsheviki and the reactionaries, who are all hiding under
+the coat-tails of the Cadets. The Cadets think they are using us;
+but it is really we who are using the Cadets. When we smash the
+Bolsheviki we shall turn against the Cadets...."
+
+"Will the Bolsheviki be admitted into the new Government?"
+
+He scratched his head. "That's a problem," he admitted. "Of course
+if they are not admitted, they'll probably do this all over again.
+At any rate, they will have a chance to hold the balance of power in
+the Constituent--that is, if there _is_ a Constituent."
+
+"And then, too," said the officer, "that brings up the question of
+admitting the Cadets into the new Government--and for the same
+reasons. You know the Cadets do not really want the Constituent
+Assembly--not if the Bolsheviki can be destroyed now." He shook his
+head. "It is not easy for us Russians, politics. You Americans are
+born politicians; you have had politics all your lives. But for
+us--well, it has only been a year, you know!"
+
+"What do you think of Kerensky?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, Kerensky is guilty of the sins of the Provisional Government,"
+answered the other man. "Kerensky himself forced us to accept
+coalition with the bourgeoisie. If he had resigned, as he
+threatened, it would have meant a new Cabinet crisis only sixteen
+weeks before the Constituent Assembly, and that we wanted to avoid."
+
+"But didn't it amount to that anyway?"
+
+"Yes, but how were we to know? They tricked us--the Kerenskys and
+Avksentievs. Gotz is a little more radical. I stand with Tchernov,
+who is a real revolutionist.... Why, only to-day Lenin sent word that
+he would not object to Tchernov entering the Government.
+
+"We wanted to get rid of the Kerensky Government too, but we thought
+it better to wait for the Constituent.... At the beginning of this
+affair I was with the Bolsheviki, but the Central Committee of my
+party voted unanimously against it--and what could I do? It was a
+matter of party discipline....
+
+"In a week the Bolshevik Government will go to pieces; if the
+Socialist Revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait, the
+Government would fall into their hands. But if we wait a week the
+country will be so disorganised that the German imperialists will be
+victorious. That is why we began our revolt with only two regiments
+of soldiers promising to support us--and they turned against us....
+That left only the _yunkers_...."
+
+"How about the Cossacks?"
+
+The officer sighed. "They did not move. At first they said they
+would come out if they had infantry support. They said moreover that
+they had their men with Kerensky, and that they were doing their
+part.... Then, too, they said that the Cossacks were always accused of
+being the hereditary enemies of democracy.... And finally, 'The
+Bolsheviki promise that they will not take away our land. There is
+no danger to us. We remain neutral.'"
+
+During this talk people were constantly entering and leaving--most of
+them officers, their shoulder-straps torn off. We could see them in
+the hall, and hear their low, vehement voices. Occasionally, through
+the half-drawn porti�res, we caught a glimpse of a door opening into
+a bath-room, where a heavily-built officer in a colonel's uniform
+sat on the toilet, writing something on a pad held in his lap. I
+recognised Colonel Polkovnikov, former commandant of Petrograd, for
+whose arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee would have paid a
+fortune.
+
+"Our programme?" said the officer. "This is it. Land to be turned
+over to the Land Committees. Workmen to have full representation in
+the control of industry. An energetic peace programme, but not an
+ultimatum to the world such as the Bolsheviki issued. The Bolsheviki
+cannot keep their promises to the masses, even in the country
+itself. We won't let them.... They stole our land programme in order
+to get the support of the peasants. That is dishonest. If they had
+waited for the Constituent Assembly--"
+
+"It doesn't matter about the Constituent Assembly!" broke in the
+officer. "If the Bolsheviki want to establish a Socialist state
+here, we cannot work with them in any event! Kerensky made the great
+mistake. He let the Bolsheviki know what he was going to do by
+announcing in the Council of the Republic that he had ordered their
+arrest....
+
+"But what," I said, "do you intend to do now?"
+
+The two men looked at one another. "You will see in a few days. If
+there are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not
+compromise with the Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced
+to...."
+
+Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging
+with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping
+along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness the long
+miles to Smolny.
+
+Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall,
+looking worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were
+having their effect. For instance, the Council of People's
+Commissars had promised to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov,
+the functionary in charge, had disappeared, taking the documents
+with him. They were supposed to be hidden in the British Embassy....
+
+Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. "Without money,"
+said Menzhinsky, "we are helpless. The wages of the railroad men, of
+the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid.... The banks are
+closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut.
+All the bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work....
+
+"But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults,
+and there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open
+to-morrow, or we will open them ourselves!"
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men,
+Trotzky reporting:
+
+"The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo." (Sharp, exultant
+cheering.) "But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy
+fighting is going on. All available forces must be hurried there....
+
+"From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the
+_yunkers,_ and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends
+upon Petrograd.
+
+"At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are provoking great
+enthusiasm. Kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of
+Petrograd burning and bloody, of women and children massacred by the
+Bolsheviki. But no one believes him....
+
+"The cruisers _Oleg, Avrora_ and _Respublica_ are anchored in the
+Neva, their guns trained on the approaches to the city...."
+
+"Why aren't you out there with the Red Guards?" shouted a rough
+voice.
+
+"I'm going now!" answered Trotzky, and left the platform. His face a
+little paler than usual, he passed down the side of the room,
+surrounded by eager friends, and hurried out to the waiting
+automobile.
+
+Kameniev now spoke, describing the proceedings of the reconciliation
+conference. The armistice conditions proposed by the Mensheviki, he
+said, had been contemptuously rejected. Even the branches of the
+Railwaymen's Union had voted against such a proposition....
+
+"Now that we've won the power and are sweeping all Russia," he
+declared, "all they ask of us are three little things: 1. To
+surrender the power. 2. To make the soldiers continue the war. 3. To
+make the peasants forget about the land...."
+
+Lenin appeared for a moment, to answer the accusations of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries:
+
+"They charge us with stealing their land programme.... If that is so,
+we bow to them. It is good enough for us...."
+
+So the meeting roared on, leader after leader explaining, exhorting,
+arguing, soldier after soldier, workman after workman, standing up
+to speak his mind and his heart.... The audience flowed, changing and
+renewed continually. From time to time men came in, yelling for the
+members of such and such a detachment, to go to the front; others,
+relieved, wounded, or coming to Smolny for arms and equipment,
+poured in....
+
+It was almost three o'clock in the morning when, as we left the
+hall, Holtzman, of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came
+running down the hall with a transfigured face.
+
+"It's all right!" he shouted, grabbing my hands. "Telegram from the
+front. Kerensky is smashed! Look at this!"
+
+He held out a sheet of paper, scribbled hurriedly in pencil, and
+then, seeing we couldn't read it, he declaimed aloud:
+
+Pulkovo. Staff. 2.10 A.M.
+
+The night of October 30th to 31st will go down in history. The
+attempt of Kerensky to move counter-revolutionary troops against the
+capital of the Revolution has been decisively repulsed. Kerensky is
+retreating, we are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workers of
+Petrograd have shown that they can and will with arms in their hands
+enforce the will and authority of the democracy. The bourgeoisie
+tried to isolate the revolutionary army. Kerensky attempted to break
+it by the force of the Cossacks. Both plans met a pitiful defeat.
+
+The grand idea of the domination of the worker and peasant democracy
+closed the ranks of the army and hardened its will. All the country
+from now on will be convinced that the Power of the Soviets is no
+ephemeral thing, but an invincible fact.... The repulse of Kerensky is
+the repulse of the land-owners, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovists
+in general. The repulse of Kerensky is the confirmation of the right
+of the people to a peaceful free life, to land, bread and power. The
+Pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the cause
+of the Workers' and Peasants's Revolution. There is no return to the
+past. Before us are struggles, obstacles and sacrifices. But the
+road is clear and victory is certain.
+
+Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Power can be proud of their
+Pulkovo detachment, acting under the command of Colonel Walden.
+Eternal memory to those who fell! Glory to the warriors of the
+Revolution, the soldiers and the officers who were faithful to the
+People!
+
+Long live revolutionary, popular, Socialist Russia!
+
+In the name of the Council,
+
+L. TROTZKY, People's Commissar....
+
+Driving home across Znamensky Square, we made out an unusual crowd
+in front of the Nicolai Railway Station. Several thousand sailors
+were massed there, bristling with rifles.
+
+Standing on the steps, a member of the _Vikzhel_ was pleading with
+them.
+
+"Comrades, we cannot carry you to Moscow. We are neutral. We do not
+carry troops for either side. We cannot take you to Moscow, where
+already there is terrible civil war...."
+
+All the seething Square roared at him; the sailors began to surge
+forward. Suddenly another door was flung wide; in it stood two or
+three brakeman, a fireman or so.
+
+"This way, comrades!" cried one. "We will take you to Moscow--or
+Vladivostok, if you like! Long live the Revolution!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Victory
+
+
+_Order Number I_
+
+To the Troops of the Pulkovo Detachment.
+
+November 13, 1917. 38 minutes past 9 a. m.
+
+After a cruel fight the troops of the Pulkovo detachment completely
+routed the counter-revolutionary forces, who retreated from their
+positions in disorder, and under cover of Tsarskoye Selo fell back
+toward Pavlovsk II and Gatchina.
+
+Our advanced units occupied the northeastern extremity of Tsarskoye
+Selo and the station Alexandrovskaya. The Colpinno detachment was on
+our left, the Krasnoye Selo detachment to our right.
+
+I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify
+its approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
+
+Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side,
+and to take up the railroad as far as Dno.
+
+The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions
+occupied by them, arranging trenches and other defensive works.
+
+They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno
+and Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief
+for the Defence of Petrograd.
+
+Signed,
+
+_Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the
+Counter-revolutionary Troops of Kerensky,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
+
+Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd
+campagna was full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without
+food, without artillery, without a plan. What had fused that
+disorganised mass of undisciplined Red Guards, and soldiers without
+officers, into an army obedient to its own elected high command,
+tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack
+cavalry? (See App. IX, Sect. 1)
+
+People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The
+ragged armies of the French Revolution are not forgotten--Valmy and
+the Lines of Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were
+_yunkers,_ Cossacks, land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds--the Tsar
+come again, _Okhrana_ and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible
+menace of the Germans.... Victory, in the words of Carlyle, meant
+"Apotheosis and Millennium without end!"
+
+Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd
+elected its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and
+two officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint.
+Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command--an efficient man, but
+to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and
+Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size
+as the stragglers came in from the surrounding country--mixed
+soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, parts of regiments, infantry,
+cavalry and artillery all together, and a few armoured cars.
+
+Day broke, and the pickets of Kerensky's Cossacks came in touch.
+Scattered rifle-fire, summons to surrender. Over the bleak plain on
+the cold quiet air spread the sound of battle, falling upon the ears
+of roving bands as they gathered about their little fires, waiting....
+So it was beginning! They made toward the battle; and the worker
+hordes pouring out along the straight roads quickened their pace....
+Thus upon all the points of attack automatically converged angry
+human swarms, to be met by Commissars and assigned positions, or
+work to do. This was _their_ battle, for _their_ world; the officers
+in command were elected by _them._ For the moment that incoherent
+multiple will was one will....
+
+Those who participated in the fighting described to me how the
+sailors fought until they ran out of cartridges, and then stormed;
+how the untrained workmen rushed the charging Cossacks and tore them
+from their horses; how the anonymous hordes of the people, gathering
+in the darkness around the battle, rose like a tide and poured over
+the enemy.... Before midnight of Monday the Cossacks broke and were
+fleeing, leaving their artillery behind them, and the army of the
+proletariat, on a long ragged front, moved forward and rolled into
+Tsarskoye, before the enemy had a chance to destroy the great
+Government wireless station, from which now the Commissars of Smolny
+were hurling out to the world paeans of triumph....
+
+TO ALL SOVIETS OF WORKERS' AND SOLDIERS' DEPUTIES
+
+The 12th of November, in a bloody combat near Tsarskoye Selo, the
+revolutionary army defeated the counter-revolutionary troops of
+Kerensky and Kornilov. In the name of the Revolutionary Government I
+order all regiments to take the offensive against the enemies of the
+revolutionary democracy, and to take all measures to arrest
+Kerensky, and also to oppose any adventure which might menace the
+conquests of the Revolution and the victory of the proletariat.
+
+Long live the Revolutionary Army!
+MURAVIOV.
+
+News from the provinces....
+
+At Sevastopol the local Soviet had assumed the power; a huge meeting
+of the sailors on the battleships in the harbour had forced their
+officers to line up and swear allegiance to the new Government. At
+Nizhni Novgorod the Soviet was in control. From Kazan came reports
+of a battle in the streets, _yunkers_ and a brigade of artillery
+against the Bolshevik garrison....
+
+Desperate fighting had broken out again in Moscow. The _yunkers_ and
+White Guards held the Kremlin and the centre of the town, beaten
+upon from all sides by the troops of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. The Soviet artillery was stationed in Skobeliev Square,
+bombarding the City Duma building, the Prefecture and the Hotel
+Metropole. The cobblestones of the Tverskaya and Nikitskaya had been
+torn up for trenches and barricades. A hail of machine-gun fire
+swept the quarters of the great banks and commercial houses. There
+were no lights, no telephones; the bourgeois population lived in the
+cellars.... The last bulletin said that the Military Revolutionary
+Committee had delivered an ultimatum to the Committee of Public
+Safety, demanding the immediate surrender of the Kremlin, or
+bombardment would follow.
+
+"Bombard the Kremlin?" cried the ordinary citizen. "They dare not!"
+
+From Vologda to Chita in far Siberia, from Pskov to Sevastopol on
+the Black Sea, in great cities and little villages, civil war burst
+into flame. From thousands of factories, peasant communes, regiments
+and armies, ships on the wide sea, greetings poured into
+Petrograd--greetings to the Government of the People.
+
+The Cossack Government at Novotcherkask telegraphed to Kerensky,
+_"The Government of the Cossack troops invites the Provisional
+Government and the members of the Council of the Republic to come,
+if possible, to Novotcherkask, where we can organise in common the
+struggle against the Bolsheviki."_
+
+In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors
+and the _Tsentrobalt_ (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet),
+jointly proclaimed a state of siege, and declared that all attempts
+to interfere with the Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to
+its orders, would be severely repressed. At the same time the
+Finnish Railway Union called a countrywide general strike, to put
+into operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of June, 1917,
+dissolved by Kerensky....
+
+Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden
+sidewalk from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating
+snow-flakes fluttering down from the grey, windless sky. "Snow!"
+cried the soldier at the door, grinning with delight. "Good for the
+health!" Inside, the long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed
+deserted. No one moved in all the enormous pile. A deep, uneasy
+sound came to my ears, and looking around, I noticed that everywhere
+on the floor, along the walls, men were sleeping. Rough, dirty men,
+workers and soldiers, spattered and caked with mud, sprawled alone
+or in heaps, in the careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged
+bandages marked with blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered
+about.... The victorious proletarian army!
+
+In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk.
+The air was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed.
+A battered samovar, cold, stood on the counter, and many glasses
+holding dregs of tea. Beside them lay a copy of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee's last bulletin, upside down, scrawled with
+painful hand-writing. It was a memorial written by some soldier to
+his comrades fallen in the fight against Kerensky, just as he had
+set it down before falling on the floor to sleep. The writing was
+blurred with what looked like tears....
+
+Alexei Vinogradov
+
+D. Maskvin
+
+S. Stolbikov
+
+A. Voskressensky
+
+D. Leonsky
+
+D. Preobrazhensky
+
+V. Laidansky
+
+M. Berchikov
+
+These men were drafted into the Army on November 15th, 1916. Only
+three are left of the above.
+
+Mikhail Berchikov
+
+Alexei Voskressensky
+
+Dmitri Leonsky
+
+_Sleep, Warrior eagles, sleep with peaceful soul._
+
+_You have deserved, our own ones, happiness and_
+
+_Eternal peace. Under the earth of the grave_
+
+_You have straitly closed your ranks. Sleep, Citizens!_
+
+Only the Military Revolutionary Committee still functioned,
+unsleeping. Skripnik, emerging from the inner room, said that Gotz
+had been arrested, but had flatly denied signing the proclamation of
+the Committee for Salvation, as had Avksentiev; and the Committee
+for Salvation itself had repudiated the Appeal to the garrison.
+There was still disafiection among the city regiments, Skripnik
+reported; the Volhynsky Regiment had refused to fight against
+Kerensky.
+
+Several detachments of "neutral" troops, with Tchernov at their
+head, were at Gatchina, trying to persuade Kerensky to halt his
+attack on Petrograd.
+
+Skripnik laughed. "There can be no 'neutrals' now," he said. "We've
+won!" His sharp, bearded face glowed with an almost religious
+exaltation. "More than sixty delegates have arrived from the Front,
+with assurances of support by all the armies except the troops on
+the Rumanian front, who have not been heard from. The Army
+Committees have suppressed all news from Petrograd, but we now have
+a regular system of couriers...."
+
+[Graphic, page 224: Certificate approving telegram transmission]
+
+Order given me at Staff headquarters by command of the Council of
+People's Commissars, to transmit the first despatch out of Perograd
+after the November Revolution, over the Government wires to America.
+                      (Translation)
+       STAFF
+  Military Revolutionary
+     Commitee
+  Sov. W. & S. D.
+  2 November, 1917
+     No. 1860
+                      CERTIFICATE
+Is given by the present to the journalist of
+the New York Socialist press JOHN REED, that the text of the
+telegram (herewith) has been examined by the Government of People's
+Commissars, and there is no objection to its transmission, and also
+it is recommended that all cooperate in every way to transmit same
+to its destination.
+                      For the Commander in Chief, ANTONOV
+                      Chief of Staff, VLAD. BONCH-BRUEVITCH
+
+Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the
+all-night session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but
+happy. "Already the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit
+us into the new Government," he told me. "The right wing groups are
+frightened by the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of
+panic, that we dissolve them before going any further. ... We have
+accepted the proposition of the _Vikzhel_ to form a homogeneous
+Socialist Ministry, and they're working on that now. You see, it all
+springs from our victory. When we were down, they would't have us at
+any price; not everybody's in favour of some agreement with the
+Soivets.... What we need is a really decisive victory. Kerensky wants
+an armistice, but he'll have to surrender (See App. IX, Sect. 2) ...."
+
+That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign
+journalist who asked Trotzky what statement he had to make to the
+world, Trotzky replied: "At this moment the only statement possible
+is the one we are making through the mouths of our cannon!"
+
+But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of
+victory; the question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as
+had been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union
+of Bank Employees had held a meeting and declared a formal strike.
+Smolny had demanded some thirty-five millions of rubles from the
+State Bank, and the cashier had locked the vaults, only paying out
+money to the representatives of the Provisional Government. The
+reactionaries were using the State Bank as a political weapon; for
+instance, when the _Vikzhel_ demanded money to pay the salaries of
+the employees of the Government railroads, it was told to apply to
+Smolny....
+
+I went to the State Bank to see the new Commissar, a redhaired
+Ukrainean Bolshevik named Petrovitch. He was trying to bring order
+out of the chaos in which affairs had been left by the striking
+clerks. In all the offices of the huge place perspiring volunteer
+workers, soldiers and sailors, their tongues sticking out of their
+mouths in the intensity of their effort, were poring over the great
+ledgers with a bewildered air....
+
+The Duma building was crowded. There were still isolated cases of
+defiance toward the new Government, but they were rare. The Central
+Land Committee had appealed to the Peasants, ordering them not to
+recognise the Land Decree passed by the Congress of the Soviets,
+because it would cause confusion and civil war. Mayor Schreider
+announced that because of the Bolshevik insurrection, the elections
+to the Constituent Assembly would have to be indefinitely postponed.
+
+Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the
+ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App.
+IX, Sect. 3)--second, the creation of a new Government. There was no
+longer any talk of "destroying the Bolsheviki"--and very little about
+excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist
+Socialists and the Peasants' Soviets. Even the Central Army
+Committee at the _Stavka,_ the most determined enemy of Smolny,
+telephoned from Moghilev: "If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is
+necessary to come to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree
+to admit them _in a minority_ to the Cabinet."
+
+_Pravda,_ ironically calling attention to Kerensky's "humanitarian
+sentiments," published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:
+
+In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all
+the democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all
+military action against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has
+been sent to enter into negotiations. Take all measures to stop the
+useless shedding of blood.
+
+The _Vikzhel_ sent a telegram to all Russia:
+
+The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the
+representatives of both the belligerent parties, who admit the
+necessity of an agreement, protest energetically against the use of
+political terrorism in the civil war, especially when it is carried
+on between different factions of the revolutionary democracy, and
+declare that political terrorism, in whatever form, is in
+contradiction to the very idea of the negotiations for a new
+Government....
+
+[Graphic, page 227: Leaflet]
+
+Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik
+insurrection, containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated
+bourgeoisie and the "moderate" Socialist leaders, Called, "How THE
+BOORZHUI (BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER."
+
+Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina.
+In the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final
+settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People's
+Council, composed of about four hundred members--seventy-five
+representing Smolny, seventy-five the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and the
+rest split up among the Town Dumas, the Trade Unions, Land
+Committees and political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as the new
+Premier. Lenin and Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded....
+
+About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver
+of an ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with
+him? Certainly! He was a volunteer, a University student, and as we
+rolled down the street shouted over his shoulder to me phrases of
+execrable German: _"Also, gut! Wir nach die Kasernen zu essen
+gehen!"_ I made out that there would be lunch at some barracks.
+
+On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by
+military buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by
+one window. At a long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers,
+eating _shtchi_ (cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden
+spoons, and talking loudly with much laughter.
+
+"Welcome to the Battalion Committee of the Sixth Reserve Engineers'
+Battalion!" cried my friend, and introduced me as an American
+Socialist. Whereat every one rose to shake my hand, and one old
+soldier put his arms around me and gave me a hearty kiss. A wooden
+spoon was produced and I took my place at the table. Another tub,
+full of _kasha,_ was brought in, a huge loaf of black bread, and of
+course the inevitable tea-pots. At once every one began asking me
+questions about America: Was it true that people in a free country
+sold their votes for _money?_ If so, how did they get what they
+wanted? How about this "Tammany"? Was it true that in a free country
+a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited
+it for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even
+under the Tsar such things could not happen in Russia; true, here
+there was always graft, but to buy and sell a whole city full of
+people! And in a free country! Had the people no revolutionary
+feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people tried to
+change things by law.
+
+"Of course," nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke
+French. "But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the
+capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How
+then can the people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do
+not know your country; but to me it is incredible...."
+
+I said that I was going to Tsarskoye Selo. "I, too," said Baklanov,
+suddenly. "And I--and I--" The whole roomful decided on the spot to go
+to Tsarskoye Selo.
+
+Just then came a knock on the door. It opened, and in it stood the
+figure of the Colonel. No one rose, but all shouted a greeting. "May
+I come in?" asked the Colonel. "_Prosim! Prosim!_" they answered
+heartily. He entered, smiling, a tall, distinguished figure in a
+goat-skin cape embroidered with gold. "I think I heard you say that
+you were going to Tsarskoye Selo, comrades," he said. "Could I go
+with you?"
+
+Baklanov considered. "I do not think there is anything to be done
+here to-day," he answered. "Yes, comrade, we shall be very glad to
+have you." The Colonel thanked him and sat down, filling a glass of
+tea.
+
+In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel's pride, Baklanov
+explained to me. "You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We
+control the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel
+is delegated by us to command. In action his orders must be obeyed,
+but he is strictly responsible to us. In barracks he must ask our
+permission before taking any action.... You might call him our
+Executive Officer...."
+
+Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles--"we might meet
+some Cossacks, you know"--and we all piled into the ambulance,
+together with three great bundles of newspapers for the front.
+Straight down the Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny
+Prospekt. Next to me sat a youth with the shoulder-straps of a
+Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all European languages with equal
+fluency. He was a member of the Battalion Committee.
+
+"I am not a Bolshevik," he assured me, emphatically. "My family is a
+very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a Cadet...."
+
+"But how--?" I began, bewildered.
+
+"Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my
+political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I
+do not believe in opposing the will of the majority.... I have refused
+to take any action in the present civil war, however, for I do not
+believe in taking up arms against my brother Russians...."
+
+"Provocator! Kornilovitz!" the others cried at him gaily, slapping
+him on the shoulder....
+
+Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate,
+covered with golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the
+names of Tsars, we sped out on the wide straight highway, grey with
+the first light fall of snow. It was thronged with Red Guards,
+stumbling along on foot toward the revolutionary front, shouting and
+singing; and others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most of them
+seemed to be mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and
+bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands--the
+bowed, toil-worn women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out
+of step, with an affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors,
+grim-looking; children with bundles of food for their fathers and
+mothers; all these, coming and going, trudged through the whitened
+mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches deep. We passed
+cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound both
+ways, bristling with armed men; ambulances full of wounded from the
+direction of the battle, and once a peasant cart, creaking slowly
+along, in which sat a white-faced boy bent over his shattered
+stomach and screaming monotonously. In the fields on either side
+women and old men were digging trenches and stringing barbed wire
+entanglements.
+
+Back northward the clouds rolled away dramatically, and the pale sun
+came out. Across the flat, marshy plain Petrograd glittered. To the
+right, white and gilded and coloured bulbs and pinnacles; to the
+left, tall chimneys, some pouring out black smoke; and beyond, a
+lowering sky over Finland. On each side of us were churches,
+monasteries.... Occasionally a monk was visible, silently watching the
+pulse of the proletarian army throbbing on the road.
+
+At Pulkovo the road divided, and there we halted in the midst of a
+great crowd, where the human streams poured from three directions,
+friends meeting, excited and congratulatory, describing the battle
+to one another. A row of houses facing the cross-roads was marked
+with bullets, and the earth was trampled into mud half a mile
+around. The fighting had been furious here.... In the near distance
+riderless Cossack horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the
+plain had died long ago. Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard
+was trying to ride one, falling off again and again, to the
+childlike delight of a thousand rough men.
+
+The left road, along which the remnants of the Cossacks had
+retreated, led up a little hill to a hamlet, where there was a
+glorious view of the immense plain, grey as a windless sea,
+tumultuous clouds towering over, and the imperial city disgorging
+its thousands along all the roads. Far over to the left lay the
+little hill of Kranoye Selo, the parade-ground of the Imperial
+Guards' summer camp, and the Imperial Dairy. In the middle distance
+nothing broke the flat monotony but a few walled monasteries and
+convents, some isolated factories, and several large buildings with
+unkempt grounds that were asylums and orphanages....
+
+"Here," said the driver, as we went on over a barren hill, "here was
+where Vera Slutskaya died. Yes, the Bolshevik member of the Duma. It
+happened early this morning. She was in an automobile, with Zalkind
+and another man. There was a truce, and they started for the front
+trenches. They were talking and laughing, when all of a sudden, from
+the armoured train in which Kerensky himself was riding, somebody
+saw the automobile and fired a cannon. The shell struck Vera
+Slutskaya and killed her...."
+
+And so we came into Tsarskoye, all bustling with the swaggering
+heroes of the proletarian horde. Now the palace where the Soviet had
+met was a busy place. Red Guards and sailors filled the court-yard,
+sentries stood at the doors, and a stream of couriers and Commissars
+pushed in and out. In the Soviet room a samovar had been set up, and
+fifty or more workers, soldiers, sailors and officers stood around,
+drinking tea and talking at the top of their voices. In one corner
+two clumsy-handed workingmen were trying to make a multigraphing
+machine go. At the centre table, the huge Dybenko bent over a map,
+marking out positions for the troops with red and blue pencils. In
+his free hand he carried, as always, the enormous bluesteel
+revolver. Anon he sat himself down at a typewriter and pounded away
+with one finger; every little while he would pause, pick up the
+revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber.
+
+A couch lay along the wall, and on this was stretched a young
+workman. Two Red Guards were bending over him, but the rest of the
+company did not pay any attention. In his breast was a hole; through
+his clothes fresh blood came welling up with every heart-beat. His
+eyes were closed and his young, bearded face was greenish-white.
+Faintly and slowly he still breathed, with every breath sighing,
+_"Mir boudit! Mir boudit!_ (Peace is coming! Peace is coming!)"
+
+Dybenko looked up as we came in. "Ah," he said to Baklanov.
+"Comrade, will you go up to the Commandant's headquarters and take
+charge? Wait; I will write you credentials." He went to the
+typewriter and slowly picked out the letters.
+
+The new Commandant of Tsarskoye Selo and I went toward the Ekaterina
+Palace, Baklanov very excited and important. In the same ornate,
+white room some Red Guards were rummaging curiously around, while my
+old friend, the Colonel, stood by the window biting his moustache.
+He greeted me like a long-lost brother. At a table near the door sat
+the French Bessarabian. The Bolsheviki had ordered him to remain,
+and continue his work.
+
+"What could I do?" he muttered. "People like myself cannot fight on
+either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may
+instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob.... I only regret
+that I am so far from my mother in Bessarabia!"
+
+Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant.
+"Here," said the Colonel nervously, "are the keys to the desk."
+
+A Red Guard interrupted. "Where's the money?" he asked rudely. The
+Colonel seemed surprised. "Money? Money? Ah, you mean the chest.
+There it is," said the Colonel, "just as I found it when I took
+possession three days ago. Keys?" The Colonel shrugged. "I have no
+keys."
+
+The Red Guard sneered knowingly. "Very convenient," he said.
+
+"Let us open the chest," said Baklanov. "Bring an axe. Here is an
+American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what
+he finds there."
+
+I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.
+
+"Let's arrest him," said the Red Guard, venomously. "He is
+Kerensky's man. He has stolen the money and given it to Kerensky."
+
+Baklanov did not want to. "Oh, no," he said. "It was the Kornilovitz
+before him. He is not to blame.
+
+"The devil!" cried the Red Guard. "He is Kerensky's man, I tell you.
+If _you_ won't arrest him, then _we_ will, and we'll take him to
+Petrograd and put him in Peter-Paul, where he belongs!" At this the
+other Red Guards growled assent. With a piteous glance at us the
+Colonel was led away....
+
+Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the
+front. Half a dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two,
+under command of a huge workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to
+come along. Red Guards issued from headquarters, each of them
+staggering under an arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled
+with _grubit_--which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five
+times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A
+three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the
+truck with bits of rope and wire.
+
+We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck
+swaying from side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the
+other, and the _grubit_ bombs went rolling back and forth over our
+feet, fetching up against the sides of the car with a crash.
+
+The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me
+with questions about America. "Why did America come into the war?
+Are the American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What
+is the situation in the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman
+to San Francisco?" and other, very difficult to answer, all
+delivered in a shout above the roaring of the truck, while we held
+on to each other and danced amid the caroming bombs.
+
+Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the
+road before us, shouted _"Shtoi!"_ and threw up their guns.
+
+We paid no attention. "The devil take you!" cried the Red Guards.
+"We don't stop for anybody! We're Red Guards!" And we thundered
+imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about
+the internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters....
+
+About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and
+slowed down.
+
+"Where's the front, brothers?"
+
+The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. "This morning,"
+he said, "it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn
+thing isn't anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we
+couldn't find it."
+
+They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been
+about a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and
+shouted to the chauffeur to stop.
+
+"Firing!" he said. "Do you hear it?" For a moment dead silence, and
+then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid
+succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very
+much excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the
+truck was nearly opposite the place where the firing had come from.
+Descending, we spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went
+stealthily into the forest.
+
+Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around
+until it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.
+
+It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the
+tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun.
+Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering
+under our feet. Was it an ambush?
+
+We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and
+paused. Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a
+small fire, perfectly oblivious.
+
+Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. _"Zra'zvuitye,_ comrades!"
+he greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a
+truck-load of _grubit_ bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled
+to their feet.
+
+"What was the shooting going on around here?"
+
+One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, "Why we were just
+shooting a rabbit or two, comrade...."
+
+The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day.
+At the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving
+their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.
+
+"Passes, comrades!"
+
+The Red Guards raised a great clamour. "We are Red Guards. We don't
+need any passes.... Go on, never mind them!"
+
+But a sailor objected. "This is wrong, comrades. We must have
+revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came
+along in a truck and said: 'We don't need any passes?' The comrades
+don't know you."
+
+At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and
+soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced
+his dirty _bumaga_ (paper). All were alike except mine, which had
+been issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries
+declared that I must go with them. The Red Guards objected
+strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first insisted. "This
+comrade we know to be a true comrade," he said. "But there are
+orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed. That is
+revolutionary discipline...."
+
+In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and
+watched it disappear careening down the road, all the company waving
+farewell. The soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then
+led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me
+suddenly; they were going to shoot me!
+
+In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only
+sign of life was smoke from the chimney of a _datchya,_ a rambling
+wooden house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers
+were walking out into the road. Desperately I ran after them.
+
+"But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!"
+
+They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.
+
+"It is different from the others," said one, sullenly. "We cannot
+read, brother."
+
+I took him by the arm. "Come!" I said. "Let's go to that house. Some
+one there can surely read." They hesitated. "No," said one. The
+other looked me over. "Why not?" he muttered. "After all, it is a
+serious crime to kill an innocent man."
+
+We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short,
+stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, "I don't
+know anything about them! I don't know anything about them!" One of
+my guards held out the pass. She screamed. "Just to read it,
+comrade." Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
+
+The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the
+American Social-Democracy, an internationalist....
+
+Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation.
+"We must take you to the Regimental Committee," they said. In the
+fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road.
+Occasionally we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded
+me with looks of menace, handling my pass around and arguing
+violently as to whether or not I should be killed....
+
+It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye
+Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A
+number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions.
+A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a
+great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots
+on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards,
+talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by
+Kerensky's cannon....
+
+I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups,
+who turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly
+and then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate.
+"Comrades! Comrades!" yelled one of my guards. "Committee!
+Committee!" The throng halted, banked around me, muttering. Out of
+them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red arm-band.
+
+"Who is this?" he asked roughly. The guards explained. "Give me the
+paper!" He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he
+smiled and handed me the pass. "Comrades, this is an American
+comrade. I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the
+Regiment...." A sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and
+they pressed forward to shake my hand.
+
+"You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to
+the Officers' Club, where there are some who speak your language...."
+
+He led me across the court-yard to the door of another building. An
+aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a
+Lieutenant, was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking
+hands, went back.
+
+"I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service," said the
+Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a
+ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On
+the second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from
+the hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre
+of which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their
+gold- and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial
+decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me
+beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard.
+Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any
+officers' mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?
+
+"You are not Bolsheviki?" I asked Morovsky.
+
+A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing
+furtively at the orderly.
+
+"No," answered my friend. "There is only one Bolshevik officer in
+this regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a
+Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist
+Revolutionary of the right wing.... I should say that most of the
+officers in the Army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in
+democracy; they believe that they must follow the soldier-masses...."
+
+Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on
+the table. The rest crowded around to see.
+
+"Here," said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, "were our
+positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?"
+
+Captain Kherlov pointed. "According to orders, we occupied the
+position along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o'clock."
+
+Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the
+Chairman of the Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They
+joined the group behind the Colonel, peering at the map.
+
+"Good," said the Colonel. "Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten
+kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up
+advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the
+present line, strengthening the positions by--"
+
+"If you please," interrupted the Chairman of the Regimental
+Committee. "The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to
+engage the Cossacks north of Gatchina in the morning. A crushing
+defeat is necessary. Kindly make the proper dispositions."
+
+There was a short silence. The Colonel again turned to the map.
+"Very well," he said, in a different voice. "Stepan Georgevitch, you
+will please--" Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his
+orders, while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then
+withdrew, and ten minutes later returned with the orders
+typewritten, and one carbon copy. The Chairman of the Committee
+studied the map with a copy of the orders before him.
+
+"All right," he said, rising. Folding the carbon copy, he put it in
+his pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal
+taken from his pocket, and presented it to the Colonel....
+
+Here was the Revolution!
+
+I returned to the Soviet palace in Tsarskoye in the Regimental Staff
+automobile. Still the crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors
+pouring in and out, still the choking press of trucks, armoured
+cars, cannon before the door, and the shouting, the laughter of
+unwonted victory. Half a dozen Red Guards forced their way through,
+a priest in the middle. This was Father Ivan, they said, who had
+blessed the Cossacks when they entered the town. I heard afterward
+that he was shot.... (See App. IX, Sect. 4)
+
+Dybenko was just coming out, giving rapid orders right and left. In
+his hand he carried the big revolver. An automobile stood with
+racing engine at the kerb. Alone, he climbed in the rear seat, and
+was off-off to Gatchina, to conquer Kerensky.
+
+Toward nightfall he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and went
+on afoot. What Dybenko told the Cossacks nobody knows, but the fact
+is that General Krasnov and his staff and several thousand Cossacks
+surrendered, and advised Kerensky to do the same. (See App. IX,
+Sect. 5)
+
+As for Kerensky--I reprint here the deposition made by General
+Krasnov on the morning of November 14th:
+
+"Gatchina, November 14, 1917. To-day, about three o'clock (A. M.), I
+was summoned by the Supreme Commander (Kerensky). He was very
+agitated, and very nervous.
+
+"'General,' he said to me, 'you have betrayed me. Your Cossacks
+declare categorically that they will arrest me and deliver me to the
+sailors.'
+
+"'Yes,' I answered, 'there is talk of it, and I know that you have
+no sympathy anywhere.'
+
+"'But the officers say the same thing.'
+
+"'Yes, most of all it is the officers who are discontented with you.'
+
+"'What shall I do? I ought to commit suicide!'
+
+"'If you are an honorable man, you will go immediately to Petrograd
+with a white flag, you will present yourself to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and enter into negotiations as Chief of the
+Provisional Government.'
+
+"'All right. I will do that, General.'
+
+"'I will give you a guard and ask that a sailor go with you.'
+
+"'No, no, not a sailor. Do you know whether it is true that Dybenko
+is here?'
+
+"'I don't know who Dybenko is.'
+
+"'He is my enemy.
+
+"'There is nothing to do. If you play for high stakes you must know
+how to take a chance.'
+
+"'Yes. I'll leave to-night!'
+
+"'Why? That would be a flight. Leave calmly and openly, so that
+every one can see that you are not running away.'
+
+"'Very well. But you must give me a guard on which I can count.'
+
+"'Good.'
+
+"I went out and called the Cossack Russkov, of the Tenth Regiment of
+the Don, and ordered him to pick out ten Cossacks to accompany the
+Supreme Commander. Half an hour later the Cossacks came to tell me
+that Kerensky was not in his quarters, that he had run away.
+
+"I gave the alarm and ordered that he be searched for, supposing
+that he could not have left Gatchina, but he could not be found...."
+
+And so Kerensky fled, alone, "disguised in the uniform of a sailor,"
+and by that act lost whatever popularity he had retained among the
+Russian masses....
+
+I went back to Petrograd riding on the front seat of an auto truck,
+driven by a workman and filled with Red Guards. We had no kerosene,
+so our lights were not burning. The road was crowded with the
+proletarian army going home, and new reserves pouring out to take
+their places. Immense trucks like ours, columns of artillery,
+wagons, loomed up in the night, without lights, as we were. We
+hurtled furiously on, wrenched right and left to avoid collisions
+that seemed inevitable, scraping wheels, followed by the epithets of
+pedestrians.
+
+Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital,
+immeasurably more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of
+jewels heaped on the barren plain.
+
+The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the
+other he swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture.
+
+"Mine!" he cried, his face all alight. "All mine now! My Petrograd!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+Moscow
+
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee, with a fierce intensity,
+followed up its victory:
+
+November 14th.
+
+To all Army, corps, divisional and regimental Committees, to all
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, to all, all,
+all.
+
+Conforming to the agreement between the Cossacks, _yunkers,_
+soldiers, sailors and workers, it has been decided to arraign
+Alexander Feodorvitch Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We
+demand that Kerensky be arrested, and that he be ordered, in the name
+of the organisations hereinafter mentioned, to come immediately to
+Petrograd and present himself to the tribunal.
+
+Signed,
+
+_The Cossacks of the First Division of Ussuri Cavalry; the Committee
+of Yunkers of the Petrograd detachment of Franc-Tireurs; the delegate
+of the Fifth Army._
+
+People's Commissar DYBENKO.
+
+The Committee for Salvation, the Duma, the Central Committee of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party--proudly claiming Kerensky as a
+member--all passionately protested that he could only be held
+responsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+On the evening of November 16th I watched two thousand Red Guards
+swing down the Zagorodny Prospekt behind a military band playing the
+_Marseillaise_--and how appropriate it sounded--with blood-red flags
+over the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers
+who had defended "Red Petrograd." In the bitter dusk they tramped,
+men and women, their tall bayonets swaying; through streets faintly
+lighted and slippery with mud, between silent crowds of bourgeois,
+contemptuous but fearful....
+
+All were against them--business men, speculators, investors,
+land-owners, army officers, politicians, teachers, students,
+professional men, shop-keepers, clerks, agents. The other Socialist
+parties hated the Bolsheviki with an implacable hatred. On the side
+of the Soviets were the rank and file of the workers, the sailors,
+all the undemoralised soldiers, the landless peasants, and a few--a
+very few--intellectuals....
+
+From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate
+street-fighting burst like a wave, news of Kerensky's defeat came
+echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov,
+Novgorod, Vinnitza--where the streets had run with blood; Moscow,
+where the Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last
+strong-hold of the bourgeoisie--the Kremlin.
+
+"They are bombarding the Kremlin!" The news passed from mouth to
+mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror.
+Travellers from "white and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful
+tales. Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in
+flames; the church of Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky
+Cathedral crumbling down; the Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin
+tottering; the Duma burned to the ground. (See App. X, Sect. 1)
+
+Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful
+blasphemy in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout
+sounded the shock of guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox
+Church, and pounding to dust the sanctuary of the Russian nation....
+
+On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into
+tears at the session of the Council of People's Commissars, and
+rushed from the room, crying, "I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the
+monstrous destruction of beauty and tradition...."
+
+That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the
+newspapers:
+
+I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has
+happened there.
+
+The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the
+Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered
+the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under
+artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
+
+The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
+
+What is left? What more can happen?
+
+I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these
+horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts
+which drive me mad!
+
+That is why I am leaving the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+I fully realise the gravity of this decision. But I can bear no
+more.... (See App. X, Sect. 2)
+
+That same day the White Guards and _yunkers_ in the Kremlin
+surrendered, and were allowed to march out unharmed. The treaty of
+peace follows:
+
+1. The Committee of Public Safety ceases to exist.
+
+2. The White Guard gives up its arms and dissolves. The officers
+retain their swords and regulations side-arms. In the Military
+Schools are retained only the arms necessary for instruction; all
+others are surrendered by the _yunkers._ The Military Revolutionary
+Committee guarantees the liberty and inviolability of the person.
+
+3. To settle the question of disarmament, as set forth in section 2,
+a special commission is appointed, consisting of representatives from
+all organisations which took part in the peace negotiations.
+
+4. From the moment of the signature of this peace treaty, both
+parties shall immediately give order to cease firing and halt all
+military operations, taking measures to ensure punctual obedience to
+this order.
+
+5. At the signature of the treaty, all prisoners made by the two
+parties shall be released....
+
+For two days now the Bolsheviki had been in control of the city. The
+frightened citizens were creeping out of their cellars to seek their
+dead; the barricades in the streets were being removed. Instead of
+diminishing, however, the stories of destruction in Moscow continued
+to grow.... And it was under the influence of these fearful reports
+that we decided to go there.
+
+Petrograd, after all, in spite of being for a century the seat of
+Government, is still an artificial city. Moscow is real Russia,
+Russia as it was and will be; in Moscow we would get the true feeling
+of the Russian people about the Revolution. Life was more intense
+there.
+
+For the past week the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee,
+aided by the rank and file of the Railway Workers, had seized control
+of the Nicolai Railroad, and hurled trainload after trainload of
+sailors and Red Guards southwest.... We were provided with passes from
+Smolny, without which no one could leave the capital.... When the train
+backed into the station, a mob of shabby soldiers, all carrying huge
+sacks of eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured
+into all the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing
+onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a
+compartment, but almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered....
+There was room for only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the
+conductor joined us--but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to
+bother about the comfort of a lot of _boorzhui_ (bourgeois)? We
+produced the passes from Smolny; instantly the soldiers changed their
+attitude.
+
+"Come, comrades," cried one, "these are American _tovarishtchi._ They
+have come thirty thousand versts to see our Revolution, and they are
+naturally tired...."
+
+With polite and friendly apologies the soldiers began to leave.
+Shortly afterward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied
+by two stout, well-dressed Russians, who had bribed the conductor and
+locked their door....
+
+About seven o'clock in the evening we drew out of the station, an
+immense long train drawn by a weak little locomotive burning wood,
+and stumbled along slowly, with many stops. The soldiers on the roof
+kicked with their heels and sang whining peasant songs; and in the
+corridor, so jammed that it was impossible to pass, violent political
+debates raged all night long. Occasionally the conductor came
+through, as a matter of habit, looking for tickets. He found very few
+except ours, and after a half-hour of futile wrangling, lifted his
+arms despairingly and withdrew. The atmosphere was stifling, full of
+smoke and foul odours; if it hadn't been for the broken windows we
+would doubtless have smothered during the night.
+
+In the morning, hours late, we looked out upon a snowy world. It was
+bitter cold. About noon a peasant woman got on with a basket-full of
+bread-chunks and a great can of luke warm coffee-substitute. From
+then on until dark there was nothing but the packed train, jolting
+and stopping, and occasional stations where a ravenous mob swooped
+down on the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it clean.... At one of
+these halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the seceding Commissars, who
+were returning to Moscow to put their grievances before their own
+Soviet, and further along was Bukharin, a short, red-bearded man
+with the eyes of a fanatic--"more Left than Lenin," they said of him....
+
+Then the three strokes of the bell and we made a rush for the train,
+worming our way through the packed and noisy aisle.... A good-natured
+crowd, bearing the discomfort with humorous patience, interminably
+arguing about everything from the situation in Petrograd to the
+British Trade-Union system, and disputing loudly with the few
+_boorzhui_ who were on board. Before we reached Moscow almost every
+car had organised a Committee to secure and distribute food, and
+these Committees became divided into political factions, who wrangled
+over fundamental principles....
+
+The station at Moscow was deserted. We went to the office of the
+Commissar, in order to arrange for our return tickets. He was a
+sullen youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed
+him our papers from Smolny, he lost his temper and declared that he
+was no Bolshevik, that he represented the Committee of Public
+Safety.... It was characteristic--in the general turmoil attending the
+conquest of the city, the chief railway station had been forgotten by
+the victors....
+
+Not a cab in sight. A few blocks down the street, however, we woke up
+a grotesquely-padded _izvostchik_ asleep upright on the box of his
+little sleigh. "How much to the centre of the town?"
+
+He scratched his head. "The _barini_ won't be able to find a room in
+any hotel," he said. "But I'll take you around for a hundred
+rubles...." Before the Revolution it cost _two!_ We objected, but he
+simply shrugged his shoulders. "It takes a good deal of courage to
+drive a sleigh nowadays," he went on. We could not beat him down
+below fifty.... As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted
+streets, he recounted his adventures during the six days' fighting.
+"Driving along, or waiting for a fare on the corner," he said, "all
+of a sudden _pooff!_ a cannon ball exploding here, _pooff!_ a cannon
+ball there, _ratt-ratt!_ a machine-gun.... I gallop, the devils
+shooting all around. I get to a nice quiet street and stop, doze a
+little, _pooff!_ another cannon ball, _ratt-ratt_.... Devils! Devils!
+Devils! Brrr!"
+
+In the centre of the town the snow-piled streets were quiet with the
+stillness of convalescence. Only a few arc-lights were burning, only
+a few pedestrians hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from
+the great plain, cutting to the bone. At the first hotel we entered
+an office illuminated by two candles.
+
+"Yes, we have some very comfortable rooms, but all the windows are
+shot out. If the _gospodin_ does not mind a little fresh air...."
+
+Down the Tverskaya the shop-windows were broken, and there were
+shell-holes and torn-up paving stones in the street. Hotel after
+hotel, all full, or the proprietors still so frightened that all they
+could say was, "No, no, there is no room! There is no room!" On the
+main streets, where the great banking-houses and mercantile houses
+lay, the Bolshevik artillery had been indiscriminately effective. As
+one Soviet official told me, "Whenever we didn't know just where the
+_yunkers_ and White Guards were, we bombarded their pocketbooks...."
+
+At the big Hotel National they finally took us in; for we were
+foreigners, and the Military Revolutionary Committee had promised to
+protect the dwellings of foreigners.... On the top floor the manager
+showed us where shrapnel had shattered several windows. "The
+animals!" said he, shaking his first at imaginary Bolsheviki. "But
+wait! Their time will come; in just a few days now their ridiculous
+Government will fall, and then we shall make them suffer!"
+
+We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name, "I Eat
+Nobody," and Tolstoy's picture prominent on the walls, and then
+sallied out into the streets.
+
+The headquarters of the Moscow Soviet was in the palace of the former
+Governor-General, an imposing white building fronting Skobeliev
+Square. Red Guards stood sentry at the door. At the head of the wide,
+formal stairway, whose walls were plastered with announcements of
+committee-meetings and addresses of political parties, we passed
+through a series of lofty ante-rooms, hung with red-shrouded pictures
+in gold frames, to the splendid state salon, with its magnificent
+crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of talk,
+underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines,
+filled the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were
+unrolled, serpentining across the parqueted floor and over tables, at
+which sat half a hundred women, cutting and sewing streamers and
+banners for the Funeral of the Revolutionary Dead. The faces of these
+women were roughened and scarred with life at its most difficult;
+they worked now sternly, many of them with eyes red from weeping....
+The losses of the Red Army had been heavy.
+
+At a desk in one corner was Rogov, an intelligent, bearded man with
+glasses, wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march
+with the Central Executive Committee in the funeral procession next
+morning....
+
+"It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki anything!" he exclaimed. "They compromise from sheer
+habit. Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the
+_yunkers!"_
+
+[Graphic, page 251: Questionaire for the Bourgeoioisie]
+
+Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow
+Military Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the
+requisition of clothing for the Army and the poor workers. For
+translation see Appendix 3. (See App. X, Sect. 3)
+
+Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and _shapka,_
+whose face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known
+as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the
+great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the
+Moscow Metal-Workers' Union, and a Commissar of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee during the fighting....
+
+"You see me!" he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. "I was with
+the boys in the Kremlin when the _yunkers_ came the first time. They
+shut me up in the cellar and swiped my overcoat, my money, watch and
+even the ring on my finger. This is all I've got to wear!"
+
+From him I learned many details of the bloody six-day battle which
+had rent Moscow in two. Unlike in Petrograd, in Moscow the City Duma
+had taken command of the _yunkers_ and White Guards. Rudnev, the
+Mayor, and Minor, president of the Duma, had directed the activities
+of the Committee of Public Safety and the troops. Riabtsev,
+Commandant of the city, a man of democratic instincts, had hesitated
+about opposing the Military Revolutionary Committee; but the Duma had
+forced him.... It was the Mayor who had urged the occupation of the
+Kremlin; "They will never dare fire on you there," he said....
+
+One garrison regiment, badly demoralised by long inactivity, had been
+approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what
+action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and
+continue its present activities--which consisted in peddling rubbers
+and sunflower seeds!
+
+"But worst of all," said Melnichansky, "we had to organise while we
+were fighting. The other side knew just what it wanted; but here the
+soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs.... There was a
+fearful wrangle over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiments
+talked for days before they decided what to do; and when the officers
+suddenly deserted us, we had no battle-staff to give orders...."
+
+Vivid little pictures he gave me. On a cold grey day he had stood at
+a corner of the Nikitskaya, which was swept by blasts of machine-gun
+fire. A throng of little boys were gathered there--street waifs who
+used to be newsboys. Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they
+waited until the firing slackened, and then tried to run across the
+street.... Many were killed, but the rest dashed backward and forward,
+laughing, daring each other....
+
+Late in the evening I went to the _Dvorianskoye Sobranie_--the Nobles'
+Club--where the Moscow Bolsheviki were to meet and consider the report
+of Nogin, Rykov and the others who had left the Council of People's
+Commissars.
+
+The meeting-place was a theatre, in which, under the old r�gime, to
+audiences of officers and glittering ladies, amateur presentations of
+the latest French comedy had once taken place.
+
+At first the place filled with the intellectuals--those who lived near
+the centre of the town. Nogin spoke, and most of his listeners were
+plainly with him. It was very late before the workers arrived; the
+working-class quarters were on the outskirts of the town, and no
+street-cars were running. But about midnight they began to clump up
+the stairs, in groups of ten or twenty--big, rough men, in coarse
+clothes, fresh from the battle-line, where they had fought like
+devils for a week, seeing their comrades fall all about them.
+
+Scarcely had the meeting formally opened before Nogin was assailed
+with a tempest of jeers and angry shouts. In vain he tried to argue,
+to explain; they would not listen. He had left the Council of
+People's Commissars; he had deserted his post while the battle was
+raging. As for the bourgeois press, here in Moscow there was no more
+bourgeois press; even the City Duma had been dissolved. (See App. X,
+Sect. 4) Bukharin stood up, savage, logical, with a voice which
+plunged and struck, plunged and struck.... Him they listened to with
+shining eyes. Resolution, to support the action of the Council of
+People's Commissars, passed by overwhelming majority. So spoke
+Moscow....
+
+[Graphic, page 254: Pass to the Kremlin]
+
+By this the Military Revolutionary Commitee requests to give a pass
+for the purpose of investigating the Kremlin, the representatives of
+the American Socialist party attached to the Socialist press,
+comrades Reed and Bryant.
+              Chief of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+                              For the Secretary
+
+Late in the night we went through the empty streets and under the
+Iberian Gate to the great Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The
+church of Vasili Blazheiny loomed fantastic, its bright-coloured,
+convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in the darkness. There was no
+sign of any damage.... Along one side of the square the dark towers and
+walls of the Kremlin stood up. On the high walls flickered redly the
+light of hidden flames; voices reached us across the immense place,
+and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over.
+
+Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall.
+Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen
+feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and
+workers were digging in the light of huge fires.
+
+A young student spoke to us in German. "The Brotherhood Grave," he
+explained. "To-morrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians
+who died for the Revolution."
+
+He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and
+shovels, and the earth--mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the
+night was thick with stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall
+towered up immeasurably.
+
+"Here in this holy place," said the student, "holiest of all Russia,
+we shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars,
+our Tsar--the People--shall sleep...." His arm was in a sling, from a
+bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. "You foreigners
+look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a medi�val
+monarchy," said he. "But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant
+in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the
+world capitalism was Emperor.... Russian revolutionary tactics are
+best...."
+
+As we left, the workers in the pit, exhausted and running with sweat
+in spite of the cold, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red
+Square a dark knot of men came hurrying. They swarmed into the pits,
+picked up the tools and began digging, digging, without a word....
+
+So, all the long night volunteers of the People relieved each other,
+never halting in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn
+laid bare the great Square, white with snow, and the yawning brown
+pits of the Brotherhood Grave, quite finished.
+
+We rose before sunrise, and hurried through the dark streets to
+Skobeliev Square. In all the great city not a human being could be
+seen; but there was a faint sound of stirring, far and near, like a
+deep wind coming. In the pale half-light a little group of men and
+women were gathered before the Soviet headquarters, with a sheaf of
+gold-lettered red banners--the Central Executive Committee of the
+Moscow Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague stirring sound
+deepened and became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The city
+was rising. We set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping
+overhead. The little street chapels along our way were locked and
+dark, as was the Chapel of the Iberian Virgin, which each new Tsar
+used to visit before he went to the Kremlin to crown himself, and
+which, day or night, was always open and crowded, and brilliant with
+the candles of the devout gleaming on the gold and silver and jewels
+of the ikons. Now, for the first time since Napoleon was in Moscow,
+they say, the candles were out.
+
+The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance
+from Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the
+Kremlin. Dark and silent and cold were the churches; the priests had
+disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial,
+there had been no sacrament for the dead, nor were any prayers to be
+said over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon, Metropolitan of
+Moscow, was soon to excommunicate the Soviets....
+
+Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at
+home--but for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the
+rumour of whose coming was thunderous as surf....
+
+Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the
+vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I
+remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always
+before the passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice
+it....
+
+We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin
+wall, and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men
+were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected
+Commandant of Moscow--a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a
+gentle face.
+
+Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people
+poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the
+poor and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the
+_Internationale,_ and spontaneously the song caught and spread like
+wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin
+wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters
+in gold and in white, saying, "Martyrs of the Beginning of World
+Social Revolution," and "Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the
+World."
+
+A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far
+quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were
+arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the
+Gate, the blare of their banners, and the dull red--like blood--of the
+coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood
+and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who
+marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women
+who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces.
+Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others
+were covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier's hat
+nailed on the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial
+flowers....
+
+Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession
+slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless
+stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering,
+knots of crepe hanging from the top--and some Anarchist flags, black
+with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral
+March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people,
+standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs....
+
+Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their
+coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and
+artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black--forever, it
+seemed. Their banners said, "Long live the Third International!" or
+"We Want an Honest, General, Democratic Peace!"
+
+Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the
+grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down
+into the pit. Many of them were women--squat, strong proletarian
+women. Behind the dead came other women--women young and broken, or
+old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to
+follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and
+shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each
+other so!
+
+All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the
+Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river
+of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous
+prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,--under the
+eyes of the world's workers and their descendants forever....
+
+One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell,
+and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played
+the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless
+branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like
+strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in
+the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding
+sound, audible beneath the singing....
+
+The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning
+women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from
+the great Square ebbed the proletarian tide....
+
+I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed
+priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a
+kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it
+was a glory to die....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)
+
+
+DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI,
+Sect. 2)
+
+... The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed
+the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination.
+
+The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this
+inalienable right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and
+definitely.
+
+Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People's
+Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in
+the question of Nationalities, the following principles:
+
+(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.
+
+(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination,
+even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent
+state.
+
+(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious
+privileges and disabilities.
+
+(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic
+groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.
+
+Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a
+Commission on Nationalities.
+
+In the name of the Russian Republic,
+
+People's Commissar for Nationalities
+
+YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN
+
+President of the Council of People's Commissars
+
+V. ULIANOV (LENIN)
+
+The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent
+Republic, as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at
+Helsingfors. Independent "Governments" spring up in Siberia and the
+Caucasus. The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered
+together the Polish troops in the Russian army, abolished their
+Committees and established an iron discipline....
+
+All these "Governments" and "movements" had two characteristics in
+common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and they
+feared and detested Bolshevism....
+
+Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People's
+Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order.
+Decree on Social Insurance, on Workers' Control, Regulations for
+Volost Land Committees, Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of
+Courts and the Creation of People's Tribunals.... (See App. XI, Sect.
+3)
+
+Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, "joyfully to
+greet the new Government of the People."
+
+In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from
+the trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates,
+thin and grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in
+it. Some pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing....
+Red Guards came to mount guard. All the soldiers turned to look,
+curiously, as if they had heard of them but never seen them. They
+laughed good-naturedly and pressed out of line to slap the Red
+Guards on the back, with half-joking, half-admiring remarks....
+
+The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the
+churches of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as
+Lenin himself told the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ that was "only the beginning
+of the conquest of power." Deprived of arms, the opposition, which
+still controlled the economic life of the country, settled down to
+organise disorganisation, with all the Russian genius for
+cooperative action--to obstruct, cripple and discredit the Soviets.
+
+The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by
+the banks and commercial establishments. Every move of the
+Bolsheviki to take over the Government apparatus was resisted.
+
+Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries
+refused to recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors
+were forced, resigned. He demanded the keys of the archives; only
+when he brought workmen to force the locks were they given up. Then
+it was discovered that Neratov, former assistant Foreign Minister,
+had disappeared with the Secret Treaties....
+
+Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It
+was bitterly cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all
+the hundreds of employees, not one would show him where the office
+of the Minister was....
+
+Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar
+of Public Welfare--the department of charities and public
+institutions--was welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the
+functionaries in the Ministry. Immediately the poor of the great
+cities, the inmates of institutions, were plunged in miserable want:
+delegations of starving cripples, of orphans with blue, pinched
+faces, besieged the building. With tears streaming down her face,
+Kollontai arrested the strikers until they should deliver the keys
+of the office and the safe; when she got the keys, however, it was
+discovered that the former Minister, Countess Panina, had gone off
+with all the funds, which she refused to surrender except on the
+order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App. XI, Sect. 4)
+
+In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the
+Ministry of Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees,
+summoned to return or forfeit their positions and their pensions,
+either stayed away or returned to sabotage.... Almost all the
+_intelligentzia_ being anti-Bolshevik, there was nowhere for the
+Soviet Government to recruit new staffs....
+
+The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open
+for speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left,
+secreting the books and removing the funds. All the employees of the
+State Bank struck except the clerks in charge of the vaults and the
+manufacture of money, who refused all demands from Smolny and
+privately paid out huge sums to the Committee for Salvation and the
+City Duma.
+
+Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to
+insist upon the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The
+first time, the City Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders were present in imposing numbers, and spoke so
+gravely of the consequences that the Commissar was frightened. The
+second time he arrived with a warrant, which he proceeded to read
+aloud in due form; but some one called his attention to the fact
+that it had no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect
+for "documents" forced him again to withdraw....
+
+The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that
+all record of the financial relations of Russia with foreign
+countries was lost.
+
+The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned
+public utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when
+the Bolsheviki, compelled by the desperate needs of the city
+population, attempted to help or to control the public service, all
+the employees went on strike immediately, and the Duma flooded
+Russia with telegrams about Bolshevik "violation of Municipal
+autonomy."
+
+At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of
+War and Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the
+Army Committees and the high command blocked the Soviets in every
+way possible, even to the extent of neglecting the troops at the
+front. The _Vikzhel_ was hostile, refusing to transport Soviet
+troops; every troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out by
+force, and railway officials had to be arrested each time--whereupon
+the _Vikzhel_ threatened an immediate general strike unless they
+were released....
+
+Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the
+factories of Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three
+weeks; the _Vikzhel_ announced that trains must cease running by
+December first; there was food for three days only in Petrograd, and
+no more coming in; and the Army on the Front was starving.... The
+Committee for Salvation, the various Central Committees, sent word
+all over the country, exhorting the population to ignore the
+Government decrees. And the Allied Embassies were either coldly
+indifferent, or openly hostile....
+
+The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next
+morning under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime.
+(See App. XI, Sect. 5) Even _Novaya Zhizn_ characterised it as "a
+combination of demagoguery and impotence."
+
+From day to day (it said) the Government of the People's Commissars
+sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having
+easily conquered the power... the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.
+
+Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are
+unable at the same time to create a new one which might work easily
+and freely according to the theories of social experimenters.
+
+Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn't enough men to run
+their growing party--a work above all of speakers and writers; where
+then are they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and
+complicated functions of government?
+
+The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with
+decrees, each one more radical and more "socialist" than the last.
+But in this exhibition of Socialism on Paper--more likely designed
+for the stupefaction of our descendants--there appears neither the
+desire nor the capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!
+
+Meanwhile the _Vikzhel's_ Conference to Form a New Government
+continued to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in
+principle to the basis of the Government; the composition of the
+People's Council was being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively
+chosen, with Tchernov as Premier; the Bolsheviki were admitted in a
+large minority, but Lenin and Trotzky were barred. The Central
+Committees of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, the
+Executive Committee of the Peasant's Soviets, resolved that,
+although unalterably opposed to the "criminal politics" of the
+Bolsheviki, they would, "in order to halt the fratricidal
+bloodshed," not oppose their entrance into the People's Council.
+
+The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the
+Soviets everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted
+that the Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the
+other Socialist parties; otherwise they would withdraw from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and the _Tsay-ee-kah._ Malkin said,
+"The news from Moscow, where our comrades are dying on both sides of
+the barricades, determines us to bring up once more the question of
+organisation of power, and it is not only our right to do so, but
+our duty.... We have won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here
+within the walls of Smolny Institute, and to speak from this
+tribune. After the bitter internal party struggle, we shall be
+obliged, if you refuse to compromise, to pass to open battle
+outside.... We must propose to the democracy terms of an acceptable
+compromise...."
+
+After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned
+with a resolution, read by Kameniev:
+
+The _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it necessary that there enter into the
+Government representatives of _all the Socialist parties composing
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies who
+recognise the conquests of the Revolution of November 7th--that is to
+say, the establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on
+peace, land, workers' control over industry, and the arming of the
+working-class._ The _Tsay-ee-kah_ therefore resolves to propose
+negotiations concerning the constitution of the Government to all
+parties _of the Soviet,_ and insists upon the following conditions
+as a basis:
+
+The Government is responsible to the _Tsay-ee-kah._ The
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150
+delegates of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall be
+added 75 delegates of the _Provincial_ Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies, 80 from the Front organisations of the Army and Navy, 40
+from the Trade Unions (25 from the various All-Russian Unions, in
+proportion to their importance, 10 from the _Vikzhel,_ and 5 from
+the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50 delegates from the Socialist
+groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the Ministry itself, at least
+one-half the portfolios must be reserved to the Bolsheviki. The
+Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs must be given to
+the Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow
+must remain in the hands of delegates of the Moscow and Petrograd
+Soviets.
+
+The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of
+all Russia.
+
+It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and
+Trotzky.
+
+Kameniev explained. "The so-called 'People's Council,'" he said,
+"proposed by the Conference, would consist of about 420 members, of
+which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides, there would be
+delegates from the counter-revolutionary old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ 100
+members chosen by the Municipal Dumas--Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates
+from the Peasants' Soviets--appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the
+old Army Committees, who no longer represent the soldier masses.
+
+"We refuse to admit the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and also the
+representatives of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the
+Peasants' Soviets shall be elected by the Congress of Peasants,
+which we have called, and which will at the same time elect a new
+Executive Committee. The proposal to exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a
+proposal to decapitate our party, and we do not accept it. And
+finally, we see no necessity for a 'People's Council' anyway; the
+Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+represents them in their real proportions among the masses...."
+
+Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his
+party would vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right
+to modify certain details, such as the representation of the
+peasants, and demanding that the Ministry of Agriculture be reserved
+for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. This was agreed to....
+
+Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a
+question about the formation of the new Government:
+
+"I don't know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
+negotiations.... However, I don't think that they are of great
+importance...."
+
+That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The
+delegates of the City Duma withdrew....
+
+But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a
+formidable opposition to Lenin's policy was growing. On the night of
+November 17th the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the
+Constituent Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with
+"political terrorism."
+
+"The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be
+modified. They had their reason during the struggle, but now they
+have no further excuse. The press should be free, except for appeals
+to riot and insurrection."
+
+In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the
+following resolution:
+
+The decree of the Council of People's Commissars concerning the
+Press is herewith repealed.
+
+Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to
+decision of a special tribunal, elected by the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+proportionally to the strength of the different parties represented;
+and this tribunal shall have the right also to reconsider measures
+of repression already taken.
+
+This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.
+
+Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of
+the Press be postponed until after some compromise between the
+Socialist parties had been reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.
+
+"The revolution which is now being accomplished," went on Avanessov,
+"has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as private
+property that we must examine the question of the Press...."
+
+Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by
+purely military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the
+checking of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary
+as a measure of transition toward the establishment of a new r�gime
+with regard to the Press--a r�gime under which the capitalist owners
+of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and
+exclusive manufacturers of public opinion.
+
+We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing
+plants and supplies of paper, which should become the property of
+the Soviets, both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the
+political parties and groups can make use of the facilities of
+printing in proportion to the actual strength of the ideas they
+represent--in other words, proportionally to the number of their
+constituents.
+
+The re�stablishment of the so-called "freedom of the press," the simple
+return of printing presses and paper to the capitalists,--poisoners
+of the mind of the people--this would be an inadmissible surrender
+to the will of capital, a giving up of one of the most important
+conquests of the Revolution; in other words, it would be a measure
+of unquestionably counter-revolutionary character.
+
+Proceeding from the above, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ categorically rejects
+all propositions aiming at the re�stablishment of the old r�gime in
+the domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of
+view of the Council of People's Commissars on this question, against
+pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices,
+or by evident surrender to the interests of the counter-revolutionary
+bourgeoisie.
+
+The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts
+from the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation
+from the insurgent Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting.
+"Three weeks ago the Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of
+the freedom of the Press... The arguments in this resolution suggest
+singularly the point of view of the old Black Hundreds and the
+censors of the Tsarist r�gime--for they also talked of 'poisoners of
+the mind of the people.'"
+
+Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He
+distinguished between the Press during the civil war, and the Press
+after the victory. "During civil war the right to use violence
+belongs only to the oppressed...." (Cries of "Who's the oppressed now?
+Cannibal!").
+
+"The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the
+newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing
+of the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence...." Then passing
+to the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
+
+"The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
+should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of
+business.... The rule of the democracy which is being established in
+Russia demands that the domination of the Press by private property
+must be abolished, just as the domination of industry by private
+property.... The power of the Soviets should confiscate all
+printing-plants." (Cries, "Confiscate the printing-shop of
+_Pravda!_")
+
+"The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
+Otherwise it isn't worth while for us to take the power! Each group
+of citizens should have access to print shops and paper.... The
+ownership of print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers
+and peasants, and only afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which
+are in a minority.... The passing of the power into the hands of the
+Soviets will bring about a radical transformation of the essential
+conditions of existence, and this transformation will necessarily be
+evident in the Press.... If we are going to nationalise the banks, can
+we then tolerate the financial journals? The old r�gime must die;
+that must be understood once and for all...." Applause and angry cries.
+
+Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon
+this important question, which should be left to a special
+committee. Again, passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
+
+Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
+slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a
+hammer-blow. "The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still
+with us; consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of
+repression against the Press.
+
+"We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of
+power we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois
+newspapers would mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a
+Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward--or go
+back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the Press' goes
+backward, and halts our headlong course toward Socialism.
+
+"We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first
+revolution threw off the yoke of Tsarism. _If the first revolution
+had the right to suppress the Monarchist papers,_ then we have the
+right to suppress the bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate
+the question of the freedom of the Press from the other questions of
+the class struggle. We have promised to close these newspapers, and
+we shall do it. The immense majority of the people is with us!
+
+"Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to
+suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch
+as they appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the
+Soviet Government. However, we shall not permit them, under the
+pretence of freedom of the Socialist press, to obtain, through the
+secret support of the bourgeoisie, a monopoly of printing-presses,
+ink and paper.... These essentials must become the property of the
+Soviet Government, and be apportioned, first of all, to the
+Socialist parties in strict proportion to their voting strength...."
+
+Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was
+carried by 34 to 24. Among the minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov
+and Lozovsky, who declared that it was impossible for them to vote
+against any restriction on the freedom of the Press.
+
+Upon this the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared they could no
+longer be responsible for what was being done, and withdrew from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and all other positions of
+executive responsibility.
+
+Five members--Nogin, Rykov, Miliutin, Teodorovitch and
+Shiapnikov--resigned from the Council of People's Commissars,
+declaring:
+
+We are in favour of a Socialist Government composed of all the
+parties in the Soviets. We consider that only the creation of such a
+Government can possibly guarantee the results of the heroic struggle
+of the working-class and the revolutionary army. Outside of that,
+there remains only one way: the constitution of a purely Bolshevik
+Government by means of political terrorism. This last is the road
+taken by the Council of People's Commissars. We cannot and will not
+follow it. We see that this leads directly to the elimination from
+political life of many proletarian organisations, to the
+establishment of an irresponsible r�gime, and to the destruction of
+the Revolution and the country. We cannot take the responsibility
+for such a policy, and we renounce before the _Tsay-ee-kah_ our
+function as People's Commissars.
+
+Other Commissars, without resigning their positions, signed the
+declaration--Riazanov, Derbychev of the Press Department, Arbuzov, of
+the Government Printing-plant, Yureniev, of the Red Guard, Feodorov,
+of the Commissariat of Labour, and Larin, secretary of the Section
+of Elaboration of Decrees.
+
+At the same time Kameniev, Rykov, Miliutin, Zinoviev and Nogin
+resigned from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, making
+public their reasons:
+
+... The constitution of such a Government (composed of all the parties
+of the Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the
+coming famine, the destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists,
+to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the proper
+time, and to apply effectively the programme adopted by the Congress
+of Soviets....
+
+We cannot accept the responsibility for the disastrous policy of the
+Central Committee, carried on against the will of an enormous
+majority of the proletariat and the soldiers, who are eager to see
+the rapid end of the bloodshed between the different political
+parties of the democracy.... We renounce our title as members of the
+Central Committee, in order to be able to say openly our opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers....
+
+We leave the Central Committee at the moment of victory; we cannot
+calmly look on while the policy of the chiefs of the Central
+Committee leads toward the loss of the fruits of victory and the
+crushing of the proletariat....
+
+The masses of the workers, the soldiers of the garrison, stirred
+restlessly, sending their delegations to Smolny, to the Conference
+for Formation of the New Government, where the break in the ranks of
+the Bolsheviki caused the liveliest joy.
+
+But the answer of the Leninites was swift and ruthless. Shliapnikov
+and Teodorovitch submitted to party discipline and returned to their
+posts. Kameniev was stripped of his powers as president of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and Sverdlov elected in his place. Zinoviev was
+deposed as president of the Petrograd Soviet. On the morning of the
+5th, _Pravda_ contained a ferocious proclamation to the people of
+Russia, written by Lenin, which was printed in hundreds of thousands
+of copies, posted on the walls everywhere, and distributed over the
+face of Russia.
+
+The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave the majority to the
+Bolshevik party. Only a Government formed by this party can
+therefore be a Soviet Government. And it is known to all that the
+Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, a few hours before the
+formation of the new Government and before proposing the list of its
+members to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, invited to its
+meeting three of the most eminent members of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionary group, comrades Kamkov, Spiro and Karelin, and ASKED
+THEM to participate in the new Government. We regret infinitely that
+the invited comrades refused; we consider their refusal inadmissible
+for revolutionists and champions of the working-class; we are
+willing at any time to include the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in
+the Government; but we declare that, as the party of the majority at
+the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, we are entitled and
+BOUND before the people to form a Government....
+
+... Comrades! Several members of the Central Committee of our party
+and the Council of People's Commissars, Kameniev, Zinoviev, Nogin,
+Rykov, Miliutin and a few others left yesterday, November 17th, the
+Central Committee of our party, and the last three, the Council of
+People's Commissars....
+
+The comrades who left us acted like deserters, because they not only
+abandoned the posts entrusted to them, but also disobeyed the direct
+instructions of the Central Committee of our party, to the effect
+that they should await the decisions of the Petrograd and Moscow
+party organisations before retiring. We blame decisively such
+desertion. We are firmly convinced that all conscious workers,
+soldiers and peasants, belonging to our party or sympathising with
+it, will also disapprove of the behaviour of the deserters....
+
+Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and
+Zinoviev, even before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as
+deserters and strike-breakers, by voting at the decisive meeting of
+the Central Committee, October 23d, 1917, against the insurrection;
+and even AFTER the resolution passed by the Central Committee, they
+continued their campaign at a meeting of the party workers.... But the
+great impulse of the masses, the great heroism of millions of
+workers, soldiers and peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front,
+in the trenches, in the villages, pushed aside the deserters as a
+railway train scatters saw-dust....
+
+Shame upon those who are of little faith, hesitate, who doubt, who
+allow themselves to be frightened by the bourgeoisie, or who succumb
+before the cries of the latter's direct or indirect accomplices!
+There is NOT A SHADOW of hesitation in the MASSES of Petrograd,
+Moscow, and the rest of Russia....
+
+... We shall not submit to any ultimatums from small groups of
+intellectuals which are not followed by the masses, which are
+PRACTICALLY only supported by Kornilovists, Savinkovists, _yunkers,_
+and so forth....
+
+The response from the whole country was like a blast of hot storm.
+The insurgents never got a chance to "say openly their opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers." Upon the _Tsay-ee-kah_ rolled
+in like breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the "deserters."
+For days Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees,
+from the front, from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. "Why
+did they dare leave the Government? Were they paid by the
+bourgeoisie to destroy the Revolution? They must return and submit
+to the decisions of the Central Committee!"
+
+Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great
+soldier meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by
+representatives of all the political parties. By a vast majority
+Lenin's policy was sustained, and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were told that they must enter the government.... _See next page._
+
+The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all
+Ministers and _yunkers_ be released, that all newspapers be allowed
+full freedom, that the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put
+under command of the Duma. To this Smolny answered that all the
+Socialist Ministers and also all but a very few _yunkers_ had been
+already set free, that all newspapers were free except the bourgeois
+press, and that the Soviet would remain in command of the armed
+forces.... On the 19th the Conference to Form a New Government
+disbanded, and the opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev,
+where, under the wing of the General Staff, they continued to form
+Government after Government, until the end....
+
+[Graphic, page 276: Meeting announcement]
+
+Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a
+meeting of representatives of the garrison regiments, called to
+consider the question of forming a new Government. For translation
+see App. XI, Sect. 6.
+
+Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the
+_Vikzhel._ An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers
+called upon them to force the _Vikzhel_ to surrender its powers. On
+the 15th, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ following its procedure toward the
+peasants, called an All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for
+December 1st; the _Vikzhel_ immediately called its own Congress for
+two weeks later. On November 16th, the _Vikzhel_ members took their
+seats in the _Tsay-ee-kah._ On the night of December 2d, at the
+opening session of the All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ formally offered the post of Commissar of Ways and
+Communications to the _Vikzhel_--which accepted....
+
+Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their
+attention to problems of practical administration. First of all the
+city, the country, the Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red
+Guards scoured the warehouses, the railway terminals, even the
+barges in the canals, unearthing and confiscating thousands of
+_poods_ of food held by private speculators. Emissaries were sent
+to the provinces, where with the assistance of the Land Committees
+they seized the store-houses of the great grain-dealers. Expeditions
+of sailors, heavily armed, were sent out in groups of five thousand,
+to the South, to Siberia, with roving commissions to capture cities
+still held by the White Guards, establish order, and _get food._
+Passenger traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was suspended for
+two weeks, while thirteen trains, loaded with bolts of cloth and
+bars of iron assembled by the Factory-Shop Committees, were sent out
+eastward, each in charge of a Commissar, to barter with the Siberian
+peasants for grain and potatoes....
+
+Kaledin being in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel
+question became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in
+theatres, shops and restaurants, cut down the number of street cars,
+and confiscated the private stores of fire-wood held by the
+fuel-dealers.... And when the factories of Petrograd were about to
+close down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet turned
+over to the workers two hundred thousand _poods_ from the bunkers of
+battle-ships....
+
+Toward the end of November occurred the "wine-pogroms" (See App. XI,
+Sect. 7)--looting of the wine-cellars--beginning with the plundering
+of the Winter Palace vaults. For days there were drunken soldiers on
+the streets.... In all this was evident the hand of the
+counter-revolutionists, who distributed among the regiments plans
+showing the location of the stores of liquor. The Commissars of
+Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing
+disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red
+Guards.... Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out
+companies of sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon
+the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars
+were invaded by Committees with hatchets, who smashed the bottles--or
+blew them up with dynamite....
+
+Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at
+the headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the
+old Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective
+Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to
+deal with petty crime....
+
+The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving
+business, were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown
+into jail. (See App. XI, Sect. 8)...
+
+Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted
+itself a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois
+households, and reporting all information to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing.
+In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot led by former
+Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who
+had planned an officers' uprising, and had written a letter inviting
+Kaledin to Petrograd. (See App. XI, Sect. 9).... In this way was
+unearthed the conspiracy of the Petrograd Cadets, who were sending
+money and recruits to Kaledin....
+
+Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his
+flight, returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who
+began their publication in _Pravda,_ scandalising the world....
+
+[Graphic, page 279: Proclamation]
+
+Bolshevik order. A proclamation of the Committee to Fight against
+Pogroms, attached to the Petrograd Soviet. For translation see
+App. XI, Sect. 11.
+
+The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree (See App.
+XI, Sect. 10) making advertisements a monopoly of the official
+Government newspaper. At this all the other papers suspended
+publication as a protest, or disobeyed the law and were closed....
+Only three weeks later did they finally submit.
+
+Still the strike of the Ministries went on, still the sabotage of
+the old officials, the stoppage of normal economic life. Behind
+Smolny was only the will of the vast, unorganised popular masses;
+and with them the Council of People's Commissars dealt, directing
+revolutionary mass-action against its enemies. In eloquent
+proclamations, (See App. XI, Sect. 12) couched in simple words and
+spread over Russia, Lenin explained the Revolution, urged the people
+to take the power into their own hands, by force to break down the
+resistance of the propertied classes, by force to take over the
+institutions of Government. Revolutionary order. Revolutionary
+discipline! Strict accounting and control! No strikes! No loafing!
+
+[Graphic, page 281: Appeal to work hard]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Council of
+Professional Unions, and the Petrograd Council of Factory Shop
+Committees, to the Workers of Petrograd, urging them to work hard
+and not to strike. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 13.
+
+On the 20th of November the Military Revolutionary Committee issued
+a warning:
+
+The rich classes oppose the power of the Soviets--the Government of
+workers, soldiers and peasants. Their sympathisers halt the work of
+the employees of the Government and the Duma, incite strikes in the
+banks, try to interrupt communication by the railways, the post and
+the telegraph....
+
+We warn them that they are playing with fire. The country and the
+Army are threatened with famine. To fight against it, the regular
+functioning of all services is indispensable. The Workers' and
+Peasants' Government is taking every measure to assure the country
+and the Army all that is necessary. Opposition to these measures is
+a crime against the People. We warn the rich classes and their
+sympathisers that, if they do not cease their sabotage and their
+provocation in halting the transportation of food, they will be the
+first to suffer. They will be deprived of the right of receiving
+food. All the reserves which they possess will be requisitioned. The
+property of the principal criminals will be confiscated.
+
+We have done our duty in warning those who play with fire.
+
+We are convinced that in case decisive measures become necessary, we
+shall be solidly supported by all workers, soldiers, and peasants.
+
+On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a
+sheet headed "EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION":
+
+The Council of People's Commissars has received an urgent telegram
+from the Staff of the Northern Front....
+
+"There must be no further delay; do not let the Army die of hunger;
+the armies of the Northern Front have not received a crust of bread
+now for several days, and in two or three days they will not have
+any more biscuits--which are being doled out to them from reserve
+supplies until now never touched.... Already delegates from all parts
+of the Front are talking of a necessary removal of part of the Army
+to the rear, foreseeing that in a few days there will be headlong
+flight of the soldiers, dying from hunger, ravaged by the three
+years' war in the trenches, sick, insufficiently clothed,
+bare-footed, driven mad by superhuman misery."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee brings this to the notice of
+the Petrograd garrison and the workers of Petrograd. The situation
+at the Front demands the most urgent and decisive measures. ...
+Meanwhile the higher functionaries of the Government institutions,
+banks, railroads, post and telegraph, are on strike and impeding the
+work of the Government in supplying the Front with provisions.... Each
+hour of delay may cost the life of thousands of soldiers. The
+counter-revolutionary functionaries are the most dishonest criminals
+toward their hungry and dying brethren on the Front....
+
+The MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE GIVES THESE CRIMINALS A LAST
+WARNING. In event of the least resistance or opposition on their
+part, the harshness of the measures which will be adopted against
+them will correspond to the seriousness of their crime....
+
+
+The masses of workers and soldiers responded by a savage tremor of
+rage, which swept all Russia. In the capital the Government and bank
+employees got out hundreds of proclamations and appeals (See App.
+XI, Sect. 14), protesting, defending themselves, such as this one:
+
+TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.
+
+THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!
+
+WHY?
+
+Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State
+Bank has made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the
+People's Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on
+November 27th THEY DEMANDED TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any
+indication as to where this money was to go.
+
+... We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people's
+property. We stopped work.
+
+CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people's money,
+acquired by your labour, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the
+people's property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall
+immediately resume work.
+
+EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.
+
+From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the
+Special Supply Committee, declarations that the Military
+Revolutionary Committee made it impossible for the employees to
+work, appeals to the population to support them against Smolny.... But
+the dominant worker and soldier did not believe them; it was firmly
+fixed in the popular mind that the employees were sabotaging,
+starving the Army, starving the people.... In the long bread lines,
+which as formerly stood in the iron winter streets, it was not _the
+Government_ which was blamed, as it had been under Kerensky, but the
+_tchinovniki,_ the sabotageurs; for the Government was _their_
+Government, _their_ Soviets--and the functionaries of the Ministries
+were against it....
+
+At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant
+organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the
+decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, voting again and
+again not to recognise the Soviet Government, openly cooperating
+with the new counter-revolutionary "Governments" set up at
+Moghilev.... On the 17th of November, for example, the Committee for
+Salvation addressed "all Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all
+democratic and revolutionary organisations of peasants, workers,
+soldiers and other citizens," in these words:
+
+Do not recognise the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle
+against it.
+
+Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who
+will unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian
+Committee for Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself....
+
+Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd
+(See App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the
+Bolsheviki; so that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed
+out that the Duma ought to be re-elected, as it no longer
+represented the political composition of the Petrograd population....
+At the same time floods of resolutions from workers' organisations,
+from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding
+country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it "counter-revolutionary,
+Kornilovitz," and demanding that it resign. The last days of the
+Duma were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers
+for decent living wages, and the threat of strikes....
+
+On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of
+People's Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the
+Petrograd City Duma:
+
+In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected
+September 2d, ... has definitely lost the right to represent the
+population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state
+of mind and its aspirations ... and in view of the fact that the
+personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all political
+following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
+counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the
+Government--the Council of People's Commissars considers it its duty
+to invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the
+policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
+
+To this end the Council of People's Commissars resolves:
+
+(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect
+November 30th, 1917.
+
+(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall
+remain at their posts and fulfil the duties confided to them, until
+their places shall be filled by representatives of the new Duma.
+
+(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties;
+those who leave the service of their own accord shall be considered
+discharged.
+
+(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed
+for December 9th, 1917....
+
+(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917,
+at two o'clock.
+
+(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who
+intentionally harm or destroy the property of the Municipality,
+shall be immediately arrested and brought before the Revolutionary
+Tribunals....
+
+The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it
+would "defend its position to the last drop of its blood," and
+appealing desperately to the population to save their "own elected
+City Government." But the population remained indifferent or
+hostile. On the 31st Mayor Schreider and several members were
+arrested, interrogated, and released. That day and the next the Duma
+continued to meet, interrupted frequently by Red Guards and sailors,
+who politely requested the assembly to disperse. At the meeting of
+December 2d, an officer and some sailors entered the Nicolai Hall
+while a member was speaking, and ordered the members to leave, or
+force would be used. They did so, protesting to the last, but
+finally "ceding to violence."
+
+The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the
+"Moderate" Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely
+Bolshevik....
+
+There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the
+"republics" of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely
+anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the
+Governments were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and
+entering upon campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and
+expelling Russian troops. The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of
+all southern Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and
+supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret
+negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognised by the
+Allied Governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining
+with the propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centres
+of attack upon Soviet Russia. In the end, when Bolshevism had
+conquered in both these countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called
+in the Germans to restore them to power....
+
+But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal
+and two-headed--the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev,
+where General Dukhonin had assumed command.
+
+[Graphic, page 287: Education Proclamation]
+
+Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the
+City Duma, concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the
+Christmas holidays. The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed
+almost entirely of Bolsheviki. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.
+
+The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against
+the Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory
+workers. Hundreds of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council
+of People's Commissars issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See
+App. XI, Sect. 16) explaining what the Soviet Government was, how
+the propertied classes, the _tchin ovniki,_ landlords, bankers and
+their allies, the Cossack princes, land-owners and Generals, were
+trying to destroy the Revolution, and prevent the confiscation of
+their wealth by the people.
+
+On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see
+Trotzky and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet
+Government did not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the
+peasants of Great Russia? "No," answered Trotzky. The Cossacks
+deliberated for a while. "Well," they asked, "does the Soviet
+Government intend to confiscate the estates of our great Cossack
+land-owners and divide them among the working Cossacks?" To this
+Lenin replied. "That," he said, "is for _you_ to do. We shall
+support the working Cossacks in all their actions.... The best way to
+begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will be given representation
+in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and then it will be _your_ Government, too...."
+
+The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General
+Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. "Will you," they
+asked, "promise to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords
+among the working Cossacks?"
+
+"Only over my dead body," responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing
+his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And
+the Cossack movement was no more....
+
+Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ the
+"moderate" Socialist leaders--from Avksentiev to Tchernov--the active
+chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the reactionary officers. The
+Staff steadily refused to recognise the Council of People's
+Commissars. It had united about it the Death Battalions, the Knights
+of St. George, and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and
+secret touch with the Allied military attach�s, and with the Kaledin
+movement and the Ukrainean Rada....
+
+The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of
+November 8th, in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a
+general armistice.
+
+On November 20th Trotzky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors:
+(See App. XI, Sect. 18)
+
+I have the honour to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets... on November 8th constituted a new
+Government of the Russian Republic, in the form of the Council of
+People's Commissars. The President of this Government is Vladimir
+Ilyitch Lenin. The direction of Foreign Affairs has been entrusted
+to me, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs....
+
+In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian
+Congress, of the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace
+without annexations or indemnities, based on the right of
+self-determination of peoples, I have the honour to request you to
+consider that document as a formal proposal of an immediate
+armistice on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace
+negotiations; a proposal which the authorised Government of the
+Russian Republic addresses at the same time to all the belligerent
+peoples and their Governments.
+
+Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem
+of the Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for
+peace, like all the other peoples exhausted and drained by this
+unexampled butchery....
+
+The same night the Council of People's Commissars telegraphed to
+General Dukhonin:
+
+... The Council of People's Commissars considers it indispensable
+without delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the
+powers, both enemy and Allied. A declaration conforming to this
+decision has been sent by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the
+representatives of the Allied powers at Petrograd.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,...
+to propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease
+hostilities, and enter into negotiations for peace.
+
+In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers,
+the Council of People's Commissars orders you:
+
+1. To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all
+steps in the pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy
+armies.
+
+2. Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by
+the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+The Allied Ambassadors received Trotzky's note with contemptuous
+silence, accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full
+of spite and ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterised
+openly as an act of treason....
+
+As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he
+was communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey
+the order. Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated
+from "a Government sustained by the Army and the country."
+
+By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme
+Commander, and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his
+tactics of appealing to the masses, Lenin sent a radio to all
+regimental, divisional and corps Committees, to all soldiers and
+sailors of the Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with Dukhonin's
+refusal, and ordering that "the regiments on the front shall elect
+delegates to begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite
+their positions...."
+
+On the 23d, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on
+instructions from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin,
+in which he was solemnly warned not to "violate the conditions of
+the treaties concluded between the Powers of the Entente." The note
+went on to say that if a separate armistice with Germany were
+concluded, that act "would result in the most serious consequences"
+to Russia. This communication Dukhonin at once sent out to all the
+soldiers' Committees....
+
+Next morning Trotzky made another appeal to the troops,
+characterising the note of the Allied representatives as a flagrant
+interference in the internal affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt
+"to force by threats the Russian Army and the Russian people to
+continue the war in execution of the treaties concluded by the
+Tsar...."
+
+From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App.
+XI, Sect. 19) denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary
+officers about him, denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered
+at Moghilev, rousing, from one end of the thousand-mile Front to the
+other, millions of angry, suspicious soldiers. And at the same time
+Krylenko, accompanied by three detachments of fanatical sailors, set
+out for the _Stavka,_ breathing threats of vengeance, (See App. XI,
+Sect. 20) and received by the soldiers everywhere with tremendous
+ovations--a triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee issued a
+declaration in favour of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops
+moved upon Moghilev....
+
+On December 2d the garrison of Moghilev rose and seized the city,
+arresting Dukhonin and the Army Committee, and going out with
+victorious red banners to meet the new Supreme Commander. Krylenko
+entered Moghilev next morning, to find a howling mob gathered about
+the railway-car in which Dukhonin had been imprisoned. Krylenko made
+a speech in which he implored the soldiers not to harm Dukhonin, as
+he was to be taken to Petrograd and judged by the Revolutionary
+Tribunal. When he had finished, suddenly Dukhonin himself appeared
+at the window, as if to address the throng. But with a savage roar
+the people rushed the car, and falling upon the old General, dragged
+him out and beat him to death on the platform....
+
+So ended the revolt of the _Stavka_....
+
+Immensely strengthened by the collapse of the last important
+stronghold of hostile military power in Russia, the Soviet
+Government began with confidence the organisation of the state. Many
+of the old functionaries flocked to its banner, and many members of
+other parties entered the Government service. The financially
+ambitious, however, were checked by the decree on Salaries of
+Government Employees, fixing the salaries of the People's
+Commissars--the highest--at five hundred rubles (about fifty dollars)
+a month.... The strike of Government Employees, led by the Union of
+Unions, collapsed, deserted by the financial and commercial
+interests which had been backing it. The bank clerks returned to
+their jobs....
+
+With the decree on the Nationalisation of Banks, the formation of
+the Supreme Council of People's Economy, the putting into practical
+operation of the Land decree in the villages, the democratic
+reorganisation of the Army, and the sweeping changes in all branches
+of the Government and of life,--with all these, effective only by the
+will of the masses of workers, soldiers and peasants, slowly began,
+with many mistakes and hitches, the moulding of proletarian Russia.
+
+Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other
+political leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism,
+did the Bolsheviki conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence
+of a small clique. If the masses all over Russia had not been ready
+for insurrection it must have failed. The only reason for Bolshevik
+success lay in their accomplishing the vast and simple desires of
+the most profound strata of the people, calling them to the work of
+tearing down and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of
+falling ruins, cooperating with them to erect the frame-work of the
+new....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Peasants' Congress
+
+
+It was on November 18th that the snow came. In the morning we woke
+to window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling
+thick that it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was
+gone; in a twinkling the gloomy city became white, dazzling. The
+_droshki_ with their padded coachmen turned into sleights, bounding
+along the uneven street at headlong speed, their drivers' beards
+stiff and frozen.... In spite of Revolution, all Russia plunging
+dizzily into the unknown and terrible future, joy swept the city
+with the coming of the snow. Everybody was smiling; people ran into
+the streets, holding out their arms to the soft, falling flakes,
+laughing. Hidden was all the greyness; only the gold and coloured
+spires and cupolas, with heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed
+through the white snow.
+
+Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and
+rheumatism of the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew
+gay, and the very Revolution ran swifter....
+
+I sat one evening in a _traktir_--a kind of lower-class inn--across
+the street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud place
+called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," much frequented by Red Guards. They
+crowded it now, packed close around the little tables with their
+dirty table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place
+with foul cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about
+crying _"Seichass! Seichass!_ In a minute! Right away!"
+
+In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the
+assembly, which interrupted him at every few words.
+
+"You are no better than murderers!" he cried. "Shooting down your
+Russian brothers on the streets!"
+
+"When did we do that?" asked a worker.
+
+"Last Sunday you did it, when the _yunkers_--"
+
+"Well, didn't they shoot us?" One man exhibited his arm in a sling.
+"Haven't I got something to remember them by, the devils?"
+
+The captain shouted at the top of his voice. "You should remain
+neutral! You should remain neutral! Who are you to destroy the legal
+Government? Who is Lenin? A German--"
+
+"Who are you? A counter-revolutionist! A provocator!" they bellowed
+at him.
+
+When he could make himself heard the captain stood up. "All right!"
+said he. "You call yourselves the people of Russia. But you're _not_
+the people of Russia. The _peasants_ are the people of Russia. Wait
+until the peasants--"
+
+"Yes," they cried, "wait until the peasants speak. We know what the
+peasants will say.... Aren't they workingmen like ourselves?"
+
+In the long run, everything depended upon the peasants. While the
+peasants had been politically backward, still they had their own
+peculiar ideas, and they constituted more than eighty per cent of
+the people of Russia. The Bolsheviki had a comparatively small
+following among the peasants; and a permanent dictatorship of Russia
+by the industrial workers was impossible.... The traditional peasant
+party was the Socialist Revolutionary party; of all the parties now
+supporting the Soviet Government, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were the logical inheritors of peasant leadership--and the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, who were at the mercy of the organised
+city proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants....
+
+Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land
+decree, one of the first actions of the new _Tsay-ee-kah_ had been
+to call a Congress of Peasants, over the head of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets. A few days later was issued
+detailed Regulations for the _Volost_ (Township) Land Committees,
+followed by Lenin's "Instruction to Peasants," (See App. XII, Sect.
+1) which explained the Bolshevik revolution and the new Government
+in simple terms; and on November 16th, Lenin and Miliutin published
+the "Instructions to Provincial Emissaries," of whom thousands were
+sent by the Soviet Government into the villages.
+
+1. Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the
+emissary should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive
+Committees of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies, to whom he should make a report on the agrarian laws, and
+then demand that a joint plenary session of the Soviets be summoned....
+
+2. He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province.
+
+a. Has the land-owners' property been taken over, and if so, in what
+districts?
+
+b. Who administers the confiscated land--the former proprietor, or
+the Land Committees?
+
+c. What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the
+farm-animals?
+
+3. Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented?
+
+4. How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under
+cultivation differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an
+average minimum?
+
+5. The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received
+the land, it is imperative that they increase the amount of
+cultivated land as quickly as possible, and that they hasten the
+sending of grain to the cities, as the only means of avoiding famine.
+
+6. What are the measures projected or put into effect for the
+transfer of land from the land-owners to the Land Committees and
+similar bodies appointed by the Soviets?
+
+7. It is desirable that agricultural properties well appointed and
+well organised should be administered by Soviets composed of the
+regular employees of those properties, under the direction of
+competent agricultural scientists.
+
+All through the villages a ferment of change was going on, caused
+not only by the electrifying action of the Land decree, but also by
+thousands of revolutionary-minded peasant-soldiers returning from
+the front.... These men, especially, welcomed the call to a Congress
+of Peasants.
+
+Like the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ in the matter of the second Congress of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets, the Executive Committee tried to
+prevent the Peasant Congress summoned by Smolny. And like the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ finding its resistance futile, the Executive
+Committee sent frantic telegrams ordering the election of
+Conservative delegates. Word was even spread among the peasants that
+the Congress would meet at Moghilev, and some delegates went there;
+but by November 23d about four hundred had gathered in Petrograd,
+and the party caucuses had begun....
+
+The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma
+building, and the first vote showed that more than half of all the
+delegates were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki
+controlled a bare fifth, the conservative Socialist Revolutionaries
+a quarter, and all the rest were united only in their opposition to
+the old Executive Committee, dominated by Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky
+and Peshekhonov....
+
+The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual
+clamour; deep, stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry
+groups. To the right was a sprinkling of officers' epaulettes, and
+the patriarchal, bearded faces of the older, more substantial
+peasants; in the centre were a few peasants, non-commissioned
+officers, and some soldiers; and on the left almost all the
+delegates wore the uniforms of common soldiers. These last were the
+young generation, who had been serving in the army.... The galleries
+were thronged with workers--who, in Russia, still remember their
+peasant origin....
+
+Unlike the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Executive Committee, in opening
+the session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the
+official Congress was called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of
+applause and angry cries, the speaker declared that this gathering
+was merely "Extraordinary Conference"... But the "Extraordinary
+Conference" soon showed its attitude toward the Executive Committee
+by electing as presiding officer Maria Spiridonova, leader of the
+Left Socialist Revolution aries.
+
+Most of the first day was taken up by a violent debate as to whether
+the representatives of _Volost_ Soviets should be seated, or only
+delegates from the Provincial bodies; and just as in the Workers'
+and Soldiers' Congress, an overwhelming majority declared in favour
+of the widest possible representation. Whereupon the old Executive
+Committee left the hall....
+
+Almost immediately it was evident that most of the delegates were
+hostile to the Government of the People's Commissars. Zinoviev,
+attempting to speak for the Bolsheviki, was hooted down, and as he
+left the platform, amid laughter, there were cries, "There's how a
+People's Commissar sits in a mudpuddle!"
+
+"We Left Socialist Revolutionaries refuse," cried Nazariev, a
+delegate from the Provinces, "to recognise this so-called Workers'
+and Peasants' Government until the peasants are represented in it.
+At present it is nothing but a dictatorship of the workers.... We
+insist upon the formation of a new Government which will represent
+the entire democracy!"
+
+The reactionary delegates shrewdly fostered this feeling, declaring,
+in the face of protests from the Bolshevik benches, that the Council
+of People's Commissars intended either to control the Congress or
+dissolve it by force of arms--an announcement which was received by
+the peasants with bursts of fury....
+
+On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes
+the room went mad. "Down with him!" they shrieked. "We will not
+listen to any of your People's Commissars! We don't recognise your
+Government!"
+
+Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands,
+his little eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally,
+except for the right side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself
+out somewhat.
+
+"I do not come here as a member of the Council of People's
+Commissars," said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside,
+"but as a member of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this
+Congress." And he held his credentials up to that all might see them.
+
+"However," he went on, in an unmoved voice, "nobody will deny that
+the present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik
+party--" he had to wait a moment, "so that for all purposes it is the
+same thing...." Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour,
+but the centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
+
+Lenin's argument was simple. "Tell me frankly, you peasants, to whom
+we have given the lands of the _pomieshtchiki;_ do you want now to
+prevent the workers from getting control of industry? This is class
+war. The _pomieshtchiki_ of course oppose the peasants, and the
+manufactures oppose the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of
+the proletariat to be divided? Which side will you be on?
+
+"We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat--of the peasant
+proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat. We, the
+Bolsheviki, are the protectors of the Soviets--of the Peasants'
+Soviets as well as those of the Workers and Soldiers. The present
+Government is a Government of Soviets; we have not only invited the
+Peasants' Soviets to join that Government, but we have also invited
+representatives of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter the
+Council of People's Commissars....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people--of
+the workers in the factories and mines, of the workers in the
+fields. Anybody who attempts to destroy the Soviets is guilty of an
+anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary act. And I serve notice
+here on you, comrades _Right_ Socialist Revolutionaries--and on you,
+Messrs. Cadets--that if the Constituent Assembly attempts to destroy
+the Soviets, we shall not permit the Constituent Assembly to do this
+thing!"
+
+On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from
+Moghilev, summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months
+before considered an extreme revolutionist, and very popular with
+the peasants, he was now called to check the dangerous drift of the
+Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival Tchernov was arrested and
+taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation, he was released.
+
+His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for
+leaving the Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered
+the hall, welcomed with great applause by the majority, and the
+hoots and jeers of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"Comrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the
+Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the
+Peasant delegates of the armies of the Western Front, and I know
+very little about the insurrection which occurred here--"
+
+Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, "Yes, you were away--for a
+few minutes!" Fearful tumult. Cries, "Down with the Bolsheviki!"
+
+Tchernov continued. "The accusation that I helped lead an army on
+Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such
+an accusation come from? Show me the source!"
+
+Zinoviev: "_Izviestia_ and _Dielo Naroda_--your own paper--that's
+where it comes from!"
+
+Tchernov's wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish
+beard, became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on.
+"I repeat, I know practically nothing about what has happened here,
+and I did not lead any army except this army, (he pointed to the
+peasant delegates), which I am largely responsible for bringing
+here!" Laughter, and shouts of "Bravo!"
+
+"Upon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made
+against me there.... After a brief conversation I left--and that's all!
+Let any one present make such an accusation!"
+
+An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking
+their fists and yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell
+them down.
+
+"This is an outrage, not a session!" cried Tchernov, and he left the
+hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorder....
+
+Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was
+agitating all minds. By declaring the assembly "Extraordinary
+Conference," it had been planned to block the reelection of the
+Executive Committee. But this worked both ways; the Left Socialist
+Revolutionists decided that if the Congress had no power over the
+Executive Committee, then the Executive Committee had no power over
+the Congress. On November 25th the assembly resolved that the powers
+of the Executive Committee be assumed by the Extraordinary
+Conference, in which only members of the Executive who had been
+elected as delegates might vote....
+
+The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki,
+the resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive
+Committee, whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in
+the assembly.
+
+On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed
+the differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the
+history of the Land question during the Revolution. The first
+Congress of Peasants' Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and
+formal resolution in favour of putting the landed estates
+immediately into the hands of the Land Committees. But the directors
+of the Revolution, and the bourgeois in the Government, had insisted
+that the question could not be solved until the Constituent Assembly
+met.... The second period of the Revolution, the period of
+"compromise," was signalled by the entrance of Tchernov into the
+Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that now the practical solution
+of the Land question would begin; but in spite of the imperative
+decision of the first Peasant Congress, the reactionaries and
+conciliators in the Executive Committee had prevented any action.
+This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders, which appeared
+as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on the
+part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of
+the Revolution--they tried to turn words into action....
+
+"The recent events," said the orator, "do not indicate a simple
+riot, or a 'Bolshevik adventure,' but on the contrary, a real
+popular rising, which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole
+country....
+
+"The Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land
+question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by
+force, they committed a profound error.... From the first days, the
+Bolsheviki declared that the peasants should take over the land 'by
+revolutionary mass action.' This is nothing but anarchy; the land can
+be taken over in an organised manner.... For the Bolsheviki it was
+important that the problems of the Revolution should be solved in
+the quickest possible manner--but the Bolsheviki were not interested
+in _how_ these problems were to be solved....
+
+"The Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its
+fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasants' Congress. Why
+then did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that
+Congress? Because the Council of People's Commissars wanted to
+hasten the settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent
+Assembly would have nothing to do....
+
+"But also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt
+practical measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the
+Regulations for Land Committees, thus creating a strange situation;
+for the Council of People's Commissars abolished private property in
+land, but the Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based
+on private property.... However, no harm has been done by that;
+for the Land Committees are paying no attention to the Soviet
+decrees, but are putting into operation their own practical
+decisions--decisions based on the will of the vast majority of the
+peasants....
+
+"These Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution
+of the Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly
+alone.... But will the Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of
+the Russian peasants? Of that we cannot be sure.... All we can be sure
+of is that the revolutionary determination of the peasants is now
+aroused, and that the Constituent will be _forced_ to settle the
+Land question the way the peasants want it settled.... The Constituent
+Assembly will not dare to break with the will of the people...."
+
+Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. "At
+this moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but
+the question of Social Revolution--not only here in Russia, but all
+over the world. The Land question cannot be solved independently of
+the other problems of the Social Revolution.... For example, the
+confiscation of the landed estates will provoke the resistance not
+only of Russian land-owners, but also of foreign capital--with whom
+the great landed properties are connected through the intermediary
+of the banks....
+
+"The ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense
+oppression, and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the
+most important step of our Revolution. But it cannot be separated
+from the other steps, as is clearly manifested by the stages through
+which the Revolution has had to pass. The first stage was the
+crushing of autocracy and the crushing of the power of the
+industrial capitalists and land-owners, whose interests are closely
+related. The second stage was the strengthening of the Soviets and
+the political compromise with the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries lies in the fact that at that time
+they did not oppose the policy of compromise, because they held the
+theory that the consciousness of the masses was not yet fully
+developed....
+
+"_If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual
+development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see
+Socialism for at least five hundred years_.... The Socialist political
+party--this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow
+itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average,
+but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of
+revolutionary initiative.... But in order to lead the wavering, the
+comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries themselves must stop
+hesitating....
+
+"In July last a series of open breaks began between the popular
+masses and the 'compromisers'; but now, in November, the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to
+Avksentiev, who is pulling the people with his little finger.... If
+Compromise continues, the Revolution disappears. No compromise with
+the bourgeoisie is possible; its power must be absolutely crushed....
+
+"We Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not
+given up the abolition of private property in the land, and we do
+not intend to do so. We adopted the Regulations for Land
+Committees,--which are _not_ based on private property at all--because
+we want to accomplish the popular will in the way the people have
+themselves decided to do it, so as to draw closer the coalition of
+all the elements who are fighting for the Social Revolution.
+
+"We invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that
+coalition, insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and
+that they break with the 'conciliators' of their party....
+
+"As far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the
+preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will
+depend on the revolutionary determination of the masses. I say,
+'Count on that revolutionary determination, but don't forget your
+gun!'"
+
+Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The Peasants' Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November
+8th... approves of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government
+of the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+The Peasants' Congress... invites all peasants unanimously to sustain
+that law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same
+time invites the peasants to appoint to posts and positions of
+responsibility only persons who have proved, not by words but by
+acts, their entire devotion to the interests of the exploited
+peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend these
+interests against all resistance on the part of the great
+land-owners, the capitalists, their partisans and accomplices....
+
+The Peasants' Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction
+that the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the
+Land decree can only be successful through the triumph of the
+Workers' Social Revolution, which began November 7th, 1917; for only
+the Social Revolution can accomplish the definite transfer, without
+possibility of return, of the land to the peasant-workers, the
+confiscation of model farms and their surrender to the peasant
+communes, the confiscation of agricultural machinery belonging to
+the great land-owners, the safe-guarding of the interests of the
+agricultural workers by the complete abolition of wage-slavery, the
+regular and methodical distribution among all regions of Russia of
+the products of agriculture and industry, and the seizure of the
+banks (without which the possession of land by the whole people
+would be impossible, after the abolition of private property), and
+all sorts of assistance by the State to the workers....
+
+For these reasons the Peasants' Congress sustains entirely the
+Revolution of November 7th... as a social revolution, and expresses
+its unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever
+modifications are necessary, but without any hesitation, the social
+transformation of the Russian Republic.
+
+The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social
+Revolution, which alone will secure the lasting success and the
+complete realisation of the Land decree, is the close union of the
+peasant-workers with the industrial working-class, with the
+proletariat of all advanced countries. From now on, in the Russian
+Republic, all the organisation and administration of the State, from
+top to bottom, must rest on that union. That union, crushing all
+attempts, direct or indirect, open or dissimulated, to return to the
+policy of conciliation with the bourgeoisie--conciliation, damned by
+experience, with the chiefs of bourgeois politics--can alone insure
+the victory of Socialism throughout the world....
+
+The reactionaries of the Executive Committee no longer dared openly
+to appear. Tchernov, however, spoke several times, with a modest and
+winning impartiality. He was invited to sit on the platform.... On the
+second night of the Congress an anonymous note was handed up to the
+chairman, requesting that Tchernov be made honorary President.
+Ustinov read the note aloud, and immediately Zinoviev was on his
+feet, screaming that this was a trick of the old Executive Committee
+to capture the convention; in a moment the hall was one bellowing
+mass of waving arms and angry faces, on both sides.... Nevertheless,
+Tchernov remained very popular.
+
+In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution,
+the Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly,
+both times restrained by their leaders.... It seemed to me as if the
+Congress were hopelessly deadlocked.
+
+But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already
+going on between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Bolsheviki at Smolny. At first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+had demanded that there be a Government composed of all the
+Socialist parties in and out of the Soviets, to be responsible to a
+People's Council, composed of an equal number of delegates from the
+Workers' and Soldiers' organisation, and that of the Peasants, and
+completed by representatives of the City Dumas and the Zemstvos;
+Lenin and Trotzky were to be eliminated, and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee and other repressive organs dissolved.
+
+Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night
+struggle, an agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of
+108 members, was to be augumented by 108 members elected
+proportionally from the Peasants' Congress; by 100 delegates elected
+directly from the Army and the Fleet; and by 50 representatives of
+the Trade Unions (35 from the general Unions, 10 Railway Workers,
+and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos
+were dropped. Lenin and Trotzky remained in the Government, and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee continued to function.
+
+The sessions of the Congress had now been removed to the Imperial
+Law School building, Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants'
+Soviets. There in the great meeting-hall the delegates gathered on
+Wednesday afternoon. The old Executive Committee had withdrawn, and
+was holding a rump convention of its own in another room of the same
+building, made up of bolting delegates and representatives of the
+Army Committees.
+
+Tchernov went from one meeting to the other, keeping a watchful eye
+on the proceedings. He knew that an agreement with the Bolsheviki
+was being discussed, but he did not know that it had been concluded.
+
+He spoke to the rump convention. "At present, when everybody is in
+favour of forming an all-Socialist Government, many people forget
+the first Ministry, which was _not_ a coalition Government, and in
+which there was only one Socialist--Kerensky; a Government which, in
+its time, was very popular. Now people accuse Kerensky; they forget
+that he was raised to power, not only by the Soviets, but also by
+the popular masses....
+
+"Why did public opinion change toward Kerensky? The savages set up
+gods to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their
+prayers is not answered.... That is what is happening at this moment....
+Yesterday Kerensky; to-day Lenin and Trotzky; another to-morrow....
+
+"We have proposed to both Kerensky and the Bolsheviki to retire from
+the power. Kerensky has accepted--to-day he announced from his
+hiding-place that he has resigned as Premier; but the Bolsheviki
+wish to retain the power, and they do not know how to use it....
+
+"If the Bolsheviki succeed, or if they fail, the fate of Russia will
+not be changed. The Russian villages understand perfectly what they
+want, and they are now carrying out their own measures.... The
+villages will save us in the end...."
+
+In the meanwhile, in the great hall Ustinov had announced the
+agreement between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny, received by the
+delegates with the wildest joy. Suddenly Tchernov appeared, and
+demanded the floor.
+
+"I understand," he began, "that an agreement is being concluded
+between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny. Such an agreement would
+be illegal, seeing that the true Congress of Peasants' Soviets does
+not meet until next week....
+
+"Moreover, I want to warn you now that the Bolsheviki will never
+accept your demands...."
+
+He was interrupted by a great burst of laughter; and realising the
+situation, he left the platform and the room, taking his popularity
+with him....
+
+Late in the afternoon of Thursday, November 16th, the Congress met
+in extraordinary session. There was a holiday feeling in the air; on
+every face was a smile.... The remainder of the business before
+the assembly was hurried through, and then old Nathanson, the
+white-bearded dean of the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries,
+his voice trembling and tears in his eyes, read the report of the
+"wedding" of the Peasants' Soviets with the Workers' and Soldiers'
+Soviets. At every mention of the word "union" there was ecstatic
+applause.... At the end Ustinov announced the arrival rival
+of a delegation from Smolny, accompanied by representatives of
+the Red Army, greeted with a rising ovation. One after another a
+workman, a soldier and a sailor took the floor, hailing them.
+
+Then Boris Reinstein, delegate of the American Socialist Labor
+Party: "The day of the union of the Congress of Peasants and the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is one of the great days
+of the Revolution. The sound of it will ring with resounding echoes
+throughout the whole world--in Paris, in London, and across the
+ocean--in New York. This union will fill with happiness the hearts of
+all toilers.
+
+"A great idea has triumphed. The West, and America, expected from
+Russia, from the Russian proletariat, something tremendous.... The
+proletariat of the world is waiting for the Russian Revolution,
+waiting for the great things that it is accomplishing...."
+
+Sverdlov, president of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ greeted them. And with the
+shout, "Long live the end of civil war! Long live the United
+Democracy!" the peasants poured out of the building.
+
+It was already dark, and on the ice--covered snow glittered the pale
+light of moon and star. Along the bank of the canal were drawn up in
+full marching order the soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment, with
+their band, which broke into the _Marseillaise._ Amid the crashing
+full-throated shouts of the soldiers, the peasants formed in line,
+unfurling the great red banner of the Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian Peasants' Soviets, embroidered newly in gold, "Long live
+the union of the revolutionary and toiling masses!" Following were
+other banners; of the District Soviets--of Putilov Factory, which
+read, "We bow to this flag in order to create the brotherhood of all
+people!"
+
+From somewhere torches appeared, blazing orange in the night, a
+thousand times reflected in the facets of the ice, streaming out
+smokily over the throng as it moved down the bank of the Fontanka
+singing, between crowds that stood in astonished silence.
+
+"Long live the Revolutionary Army! Long live the Red Guard! Long
+live the Peasants!"
+
+So the great procession wound through the city, growing and
+unfurling ever new red banners lettered in gold. Two old peasants,
+bowed with toil, were walking hand in hand, their faces illumined
+with child-like bliss.
+
+"Well," said one, "I'd like to see them take away our land again,
+_now!_"
+
+Near Smolny the Red Guard was lined up on both sides of the street,
+wild with delight. The other old peasant spoke to his comrade, "I am
+not tired," he said. "I walked on air all the way!"
+
+On the steps of Smolny about a hundred Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies were massed, with their banner, dark against the blaze of
+light streaming out between the arches. Like a wave they rushed
+down, clasping the peasants in their arms and kissing them; and the
+procession poured in through the great door and up the stairs, with
+a noise like thunder....
+
+In the immense white meeting-room the _Tsay-ee-kah_ was waiting,
+with the whole Petrograd Soviet and a thousand spectators beside,
+with that solemnity which attends great conscious moments in history.
+
+Zinoviev announced the agreement with the Peasants' Congress, to a
+shaking roar which rose and burst into storm as the sound of music
+blared down the corridor, and the head of the procession came in. On
+the platform the presidium rose and made place for the Peasants'
+presidium, the two embracing; behind them the two banners were
+intertwined against the white wall, over the empty frame from which
+the Tsar's picture had been torn....
+
+Then opened the "triumphal session." After a few words of welcome
+from Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and
+hair drawn flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher,
+took the tribune--the most loved and the most powerful woman in all
+Russia.
+
+"... Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has
+never known.... All workers' movements in the past have been defeated.
+But the present movement is international, and that is why it is
+invincible. There is no force in the world which can put out the
+fire of the Revolution! The old world crumbles down, the new world
+begins...."
+
+Then Trotzky, full of fire: "I wish you welcome, comrades peasants!
+You come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which
+holds the heart of the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of
+workers is now concentrated in this hall.... There is now only one
+master of the Russian land: the union of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants...."
+
+With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats,
+till then contemptuous of Russia's invitation to an armistice, which
+had been accepted by the Central Powers.
+
+"A new humanity will be born of this war.... In this hall we swear to
+workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are
+broken, then it will be in defending our flag...."
+
+Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where
+Dukhonin was preparing to resist the Council of People's Commissars.
+"Let Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not
+deal gently with those who bar the road to peace!"
+
+Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and
+Krushinsky, member of the _Vikzhel,_ said, "From this moment, when
+the union of all true Socialists is realised, the whole army of
+railway workers places itself absolutely at the disposition of the
+revolutionary democracy!" And Lunatcharsky, almost weeping, and
+Proshian, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and finally
+Saharashvili, for the United Social Democrats Internationalists,
+composed of members of the Martov's and of Gorky's groups, who
+declared:
+
+"We left the _Tsay-ee-kah_ because of the uncompromising policy of
+the Bolsheviki, and to force them to make concessions in order to
+realise the union of all the revolutionary democracy. Now that that
+union is brought about, we consider it a sacred duty to take our
+places once more in the _Tsay-ee-kah_.... We declare that all those
+who have withdrawn from the _Tsay-ee-kah_ should now return."
+
+Stachkov, a dignified old peasant of the presidium of the Peasants'
+Congress, bowed to the four corners of the room. "I greet you with
+the christening of a new Russian life and freedom!"
+
+Gronsky, in the name of the Polish Social Democracy; Skripnik, for
+the Factory-Shop Committees; Tifonov, for the Russian soldiers at
+Salonika; and others, interminably, speaking out of full hearts,
+with the happy eloquence of hopes fulfilled....
+
+It was late in the night when the following resolution was put and
+passed unanimously:
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ united in extraordinary session with the
+Petrograd Soviet and the Peasants' Congress, confirms the Land and
+Peace decrees adopted by the second Congress of Soviets of Workers'
+and Soldiers' Deputies, and also the decree on Workers' Control
+adopted by the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+"The joint session of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Peasants' Congress
+expresses its firm conviction that the union of workers, soldiers
+and peasants, this fraternal union of all the workers and all
+exploited, will consolidate the power conquered by them, that it
+will take all revolutionary measures to hasten the passing of the
+power into the hands of the working-class in other countries, and
+that it will assure in this manner the lasting accomplishment of a
+just peace and the victory of Socialism." (See App. XI, Sect. 2)
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
+
+1.
+
+_Oborontsi_--"Defenders." All the "moderate" Socialist groups adopted
+or were given this name, because they consented to the continuation
+of the war under Allied leadership, on the ground that it was a war
+of National Defence. The Bolsheviki, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, the Mensheviki Internationalists (Martov's faction),
+and the Social Democrats Internationalists (Gorky's group) were in
+favour of forcing the Allies to declare democratic war-aims, and to
+offer peace to Germany on those terms....
+
+2.
+
+WAGES AND COST OF LIVING BEFORE AND DURING THE REVOLUTION
+
+The following tables of wages and costs were compiled, in October,
+1917, by a joint Committee from the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and
+the Moscow section of the Ministry of Labour, and published in
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ October 26th, 1917:
+
+                _Wages Per Day_--(_Rubles and kopeks_)
+
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | _Trade_                | _July_ 1914 | _July_ 1916 | _August_ 1917 |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Carpenter,             | 1.60--2.    | 4.  --6.    | 8.50          |
+  | Cabinet-maker          |             |             |               |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Terrassier             | 1.30--1.50  | 3.  --3.50  |               |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Mason, plasterer       | 1.70--2.35  | 4.  --6.    | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Painter, upholsterer   | 1.80--2.20  | 3.  --5.50  | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Blacksmith             | 1.  --2.25  | 4.  --5.    | 8.50          |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Chimney-sweep          | 1.50--2.    | 4.  --5.50  | 7.50          |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Locksmith              |  .90--2.    | 3.50--6.    | 9.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Helper                 | 1.  --1.50  | 2.50--4.50  | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+
+In spite of numerous stories of gigantic advances in wages
+immediately following the Revolution of March, 1917, these figures,
+which were published by the Ministry of Labour as characteristic of
+conditions all over Russia, show that wages did not rise immediately
+after the Revolution, but little by little. On an average, wages
+increased slightly more than 500 per cent....
+
+But at the same time the value of the ruble fell to less than
+one-third its former purchasing power, and the cost of the
+necessities of life increased enormously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow,
+where food was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd:
+
+_Cost of Food--(Rubles and Kopeks)_
+
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  |             | _August_ 1914 | _August_ 1917 | _% Increase_ |     |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Black bread | _(Fund)_      | .02 1/2       |  .12         | 330 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | White bread | _(Fund)_      | .05           |  .20         | 300 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Beef        | _(Fund)_      | .22           | 1.10         | 400 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Veal        | _(Fund)_      | .26           | 2.15         | 727 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Pork        | _(Fund)_      | .23           | 2.           | 770 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Herring     | _(Fund)_      | .06           |  .52         | 767 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Cheese      | _(Fund)_      | .40           | 3.50         | 754 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Butter      | _(Fund)_      | .48           | 3.20         | 557 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Eggs        | (Doz.)        | .30           | 1.60         | 443 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Milk        | _(Krushka)_   | .07           |  .40         | 471 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+
+On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent
+more than wages.
+
+As for the other necessities, the price of these increased
+tremendously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the
+Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and accepted as correct by the
+Ministry of Supplies of the Provisional Government.
+
+        _Cost of Other Necessities_--(_Rubles and Kopeks_)
+
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  |             | _August_ 1914 | _August_    | _%          |          |
+  |             |               | 1917        | Increase_   |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Calico      | _(Arshin)_    |   .11       |   1.40      | 1173     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Cotton      | _(Arshin)_    |   .15       |   2.        | 1233     |
+  | cloth       |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Dress Goods | _(Arshin)_    |  2.         |  40.        | 1900     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Castor      | _(Arshin)_    |  6.         |  80.        | 1233     |
+  | Cloth       |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Men's Shoes | (Pair)        | 12.         | 144.        | 1097     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Sole        |               | 20.         | 400.        | 1900     |
+  | Leather     |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Rubbers     | (Pair)        |  2.50       |  15.        | 500      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Men's       | (Suit)        | 40.         | 400.-455.   | 900-1109 |
+  | Clothing    |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Tea         | _(Fund)_      |  4.50       |  18.        | 300      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Matches     | (Carton)      |   .10       |    .50      | 400      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Soap        | _(Pood)_      |  4.50       |  40.        | 780      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Gasoline    | _(Vedro)_     |  1.70       |  11.        | 547      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Candles     | _(Pood)_      |  8.50       | 100.        | 1076     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Caramel     | _(Fund)_      |   .30       |   4.50      | 1400     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Fire Wood   | (Load)        | 10.         | 120.        | 1100     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Charcoal    |               |   .80       |  13.        | 1525     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Sundry      |               |  1.         |  20.        | 1900     |
+  | Metal Ware  |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+
+On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about
+1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries.
+The difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and
+merchants.
+
+In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily
+wage of a skilled industrial worker--for example, a steel-worker in
+the Putilov Factory--was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits
+were enormous.... I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton
+Woollen Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that
+while wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his
+profits had gone up _900 per cent._
+
+3.
+
+THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
+
+The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional
+Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the
+bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in
+politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon:
+
+"The capitalists, ... seeing that the position of the Government was
+untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades
+practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally
+overpower the working-class. This method is the so-called 'Coalition
+Ministry,' composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist
+camp.
+
+"In those countries where political freedom and democracy have
+existed side by side with the revolutionary movement of the
+workers--for example in England and France--the capitalists make use of
+this subterfuge, and very successfully too. The 'Socialist' leaders,
+upon entering the Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads,
+puppets, simply a shield for the capitalists, a tool with which to
+defraud the workers. The 'democratic' and 'republican' capitalists in
+Russia set in motion this very same scheme. The Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Mensheviki fell victim to it, and on June 1st a
+'Coalition' Ministry, with the participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli,
+Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny and Nikitin became an
+accomplished fact...."--_Problems of the Revolution._
+
+4.
+
+SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
+
+In the first week of October, 1917, _Novaya Zhizn_ published the
+following comparative table of election results, pointing out that
+this meant the bankruptcy of the policy of Coalition with the
+propertied classes. "If civil war can yet be avoided, it can only be
+done by a united front of all the revolutionary democracy...."
+
+_Elections for the Moscow Central and Ward Dumas._
+
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | _June_ 1917_September_ 1917 |            |            |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Socialist Revolutionaries   | 58 Members | 14 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Cadets                      | 17 Members | 30 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Mensheviki                  | 12 Members | 4 Members  |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Bolsheviki                  | 11 Members | 47 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+
+5.
+
+GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE REACTIONARIES
+
+September 18th. The Cadet Shulgin, writing in a Kiev newspaper, said
+that the Provisional Government's declaration that Russia was a
+Republic constituted a gross abuse of its powers. "We cannot admit
+either a Republic, or the present Republican Government.... And we are
+not sure that we want a Republic in Russia...."
+
+October 23d. At a meeting of the Cadet party held at Riazan, M.
+Dukhonin declared, "On March 1st we must establish a Constitutional
+Monarchy. We must not reject the legitimate heir to the throne,
+Mikhail Alexandrovitch...."
+
+October 27th. Resolution passed by the Conference of Business Men at
+Moscow:
+
+"The Conference... insists that the Provisional Government take the
+following immediate measures in the Army:
+
+"1. Forbidding of all political propaganda; the Army must be out of
+politics.
+
+"2. Propaganda of antinational and international ideas and theories
+deny the necessity for armies, and hurt discipline; it should be
+forbidden, and all propagandists punished....
+
+"3. The function of the Army Committees must be limited to economic
+questions exclusively. All their decisions should be confirmed by
+their superior officers, who have the right to dissolve the
+Committees at any time....
+
+"4. The salute to be reestablished, and made obligatory. Full
+reestablishment of disciplinary power in the hands of officers, with
+right of review of sentence....
+
+"5. Expulsion from the Corps of Officers of those who dishonour it by
+participating in the movement of the soldier-masses, which teaches
+them disobedience.... Reestablishment for this purpose of the Courts of
+Honor....
+
+"6. The Provisional Government should take the necessary measures to
+make possible the return to the army of Generals and other officers
+unjustly discharged under the influence of Committees, and other
+irresponsible organisations...."
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II
+
+1.
+
+The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming volume,
+"Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk." The responsibility of Kerensky for the
+situation which gave rise to Kornilov's attempt is now pretty clearly
+established. Many apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of
+Kornilov's plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then
+crushed him. Even Mr. A. J. Sack, in his book, "The Birth of the
+Russian Democracy," says:
+
+"Several things... are almost certain. The first is that Kerensky knew
+about the movement of several detachments from the Front toward
+Petrograd, and it is possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of
+War, realising the growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them...."
+
+The only flaw in that argument is that there was no "Bolshevist
+danger" at that time, the Bolsheviki still being a powerless minority
+in the Soviets, and their leaders in jail or hiding.
+
+2.
+
+DEMOCRATIC CONFERENCE
+
+When the Democratic Conference was first proposed to Kerensky, he
+suggested an assembly of all the elements in the nation--"the live
+forces," as he called them--including bankers, manufacturers,
+land-owners, and representatives of the Cadet party. The Soviet
+refused, and drew up the following table of representation, which
+Kerensky agreed to:
+
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers' and Soldiers'         |
+  |               | Deputies                                           |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Peasants' Deputies             |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Provincial Soviets Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Peasants' District Land Committees                 |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 84 delegates  | Army Committees at the Front                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Workers' and Peasants' Cooperative Societies       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 20 delegates  | Railway Workers' Union                             |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 10 delegates  | Post and Telegraph Workers' Union                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 20 delegates  | Commercial Clerks                                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 15 delegates  | Liberal Professions--Doctors, Lawyers,             |
+  |               | Journalists, etc.                                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 59 delegates  | Nationalist Organisations--Poles, Ukraineans, etc. |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+
+This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final
+disposition of delegates was:
+
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers', Soldiers' &          |
+  |               | Peasants' Deputies                                 |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | Cooperative Societies                              |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | Municipalities                                     |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Army Committees at the Front                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 200 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | Nationalist Organisations                          |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 200 delegates | Several small groups                               |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+
+3.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THE SOVIETS IS ENDED
+
+On September 28th, 1917, _Izviestia,_ organ of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional
+Ministry:
+
+"At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all
+classes of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future
+liberal parliamentary r�gime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the
+Constituent Assembly, which will solve all questions of fundamental
+law, and whose composition will be essentially democratic. The
+function of the Soviets is at an end, and the time is approaching
+when they must retire, with the rest of the revolutionary machinery,
+from the stage of a free and victorious people, whose weapons shall
+hereafter be the peaceful ones of political action."
+
+The leading article of _Izviestia_ for October 23d was called, "The
+Crisis in the Soviet Organisations." It began by saying that
+travellers reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere.
+"This is natural," said the writer. "For the people are becoming
+interested in the more permanent legislative organs--the Municipal
+Dumas and the Zemstvs....
+
+"In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets
+were best organised, they did not take in all the democratic
+elements.... The majority of the intellectuals did not participate, and
+many workers also; some of the workers because they were politically
+backward, others because the centre of gravity for them was in their
+Unns.... We cannot deny that these organisations are firmly united with
+the masses, whose everyday needs are better served by them....
+
+"That the local democratic administrations are being energetically
+organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by
+universal suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority
+than the Soviets. Not a single democrat will see anything wrong in
+this....
+
+"... Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and
+more democratic way than the elections to the Soviets... All classes
+are represented in the Municipalities.... And as soon as the local
+Self-Governments begin to organise life in the Municipalities, the
+r�le of the local Soviets naturally ends....
+
+"... There are two factors in the falling off of interest in the
+Soviets. The first we may attribute to the lowering of political
+interest in the masses; the second, to the growing effort of
+provincial and local governing bodies to organise the building of new
+Russia.... The more the tendency lies in this latter direction, the
+sooner disappears the significance of the Soviets....
+
+"We ourselves are being called the 'undertakers' of our own
+organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in
+constructing the new Russia....
+
+"When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic r�gime fell, we set up the
+Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary
+shelter. Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent
+edifice of a new system, and naturally the people will gradually
+leave the barracks for more comfortable quarters."
+
+4.
+
+TROTZKY'S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
+
+"The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ was to do away with the irresponsible personal
+government which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible
+government which would be capable of finishing the war, and ensure
+the calling of the Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the
+meanwhile behind the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery,
+by deals between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the
+Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the
+opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power was
+created around which and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs
+playing leading parts. The irresponsibility of the Government is
+offically proclaimed, when it is announced that the Council of the
+Russian Republic is to be a _consultative_ and not _legislative_
+body. In the eighth month of the Revolution, the irresponsible
+Government creates a cover for itself in this new edition of
+Bieligen's Duma.
+
+"The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a
+proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country,
+that many of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the
+Cadet party, which until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government
+to be responsible to the State Duma--this same Cadet party secured the
+independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have as
+favourable position than they have in this Council, and they will not
+be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+"If the propertied classes were really getting ready for the
+Constituent Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no reason for
+establishing the irresponsibility of the Government at this time. The
+whole truth is that the bourgeoisie, which directs the policies of
+the Provisional Government, has for its aim to break the Constituent
+Assembly. At present this is the main purpose of the propertied
+classes, which control our entire national policy--external and
+internal. In the industrial, agrarian and supply departments the
+politics of the propertied classes, acting with the Government,
+increases the natural disorganisation caused by the war. The
+propertied classes, which are provoking a peasants' revolt! The
+propertied classes, which are provoking civil war, and openly hold
+their course on the bony hand of hunger, with which they intend to
+overthrow the Revolution and finish with the Constituent Assembly!
+
+"No less criminal also is the international policy of the bourgeoisie
+and its Government. After forty months of war, the capital is
+threatened with mortal danger. In reply to this arises a plan to move
+the Government to Moscow. The idea of abandoning the capital does not
+stir the indignation of the bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is
+accepted as a natural part of the general policy designed to promote
+counter-revolutionary conspiracy. ... Instead of recognising that the
+salvation of the country lies in concluding peace, instead of
+throwing openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out
+peoples, over the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the
+continuation of the war impossible,--the Provisional Government, by
+order of the Cadets, the Counter-Revolutionists and the Allied
+Imperialists, without sense, without purpose and without a plan,
+continues to drag on the murderous war, sentencing to useless death
+new hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors, and preparing to
+give up Petrograd, and to wreck the Revolution. At a time when
+Bolshevik soldiers and sailors are dying with other soldiers and
+sailors as a result of the mistakes and crimes of others, the
+so-called Supreme Commander (Kerensky) continues to suppress the
+Bolshevik press. The leading parties of the Council are acting as a
+voluntary cover for these policies.
+
+"We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce that with
+this Government of Treason to the People we have nothing in common.
+We have nothing in common with the work of these Murderers of the
+People which goes on behind official curtains. We refuse either
+directly or indirectly to cover up one day of this work. While
+Wilhelm's troops are threatening Petrograd, the Government of
+Kerensky and Kornilov is preparing to run away from Petrograd and
+turn Moscow into a base of counter-revolution!
+
+"We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their guard.
+Leaving this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom of the
+workers, peasants and soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd is in danger!
+The Revolution is in danger! The Government has increased the
+danger--the ruling classes intensify it. Only the people themselves
+can save themselves and the country.
+
+"We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest, democratic
+peace! All power to the Soviets! All land to the people! Long live
+the Constituent Assembly!"
+
+5.
+
+THE "NAKAZ" TO SKOBELIEV
+
+_Resum�_
+
+(Passed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and given to Skobeliev as an instruction
+for the representative of the Russian Revolutionary democracy at the
+Paris Conference.)
+
+The peace treaty must be based on the principle, "No annexations, no
+indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples."
+
+_Territorial Problems_
+
+(1) Evacuation of German troops from invaded Russia. Full right of
+self-determination to Poland, Lithuania and Livonia.
+
+(2) For Turkish Armenia autonomy, and later complete
+self-determination, as soon as local Governments are established.
+
+(3) The question of Alsace-Lorraine to be solved by a plebiscite,
+after the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
+
+(4) Belgium to be restored. Compensation for damages from an
+international fund.
+
+(5) Serbia and Montenegro to be restored, and aided by an
+international relief fund. Serbia to have an outlet on the Adriatic.
+Bosnia and Herzegovina to be autonomous.
+
+(6) The disputed provinces in the Balkans to have provisional
+autonomy, followed by a plebiscite.
+
+(7) Rumania to be restored, but forced to give complete
+self-determination to the Dobrudja.... Rumania must be forced to
+execute the clauses of the Berlin Treaty concerning the Jews, and
+recognise them as Rumanian citizens.
+
+(8) In Italia Irridenta a provisional autonomy, followed by a
+plebiscite to determine state dependence.
+
+(9) The German colonies to be returned.
+
+(10) Greece and Persia to be restored.
+
+_Freedom of the Seas_
+
+All straits opening into inland seas, as well as the Suez and Panama
+Canals, are to be neutralised. Commercial shipping to be free. The
+right of privateering to be abolished. The torpedoing of commercial
+ships to be forbidden.
+
+_Indemnities_
+
+All combatants to renounce demands for any indemnities, either direct
+or indirect--as, for instance, charges for the maintenance of
+prisoners. Indemnities and contributions collected during the war
+must be refunded.
+
+_Economic Terms_
+
+Commercial treaties are not to be a part of the peace terms. Every
+country must be independent in its commercial relations, and must not
+be obliged to, or prevented from, concluding an economic treaty, by
+the Treaty of Peace. Nevertheless, all nations should bind
+themselves, by the Peace Treaty, not to practise an economic blockade
+after the war, nor to form separate tariff agreements. The right of
+most favoured nation must be given to all countries without
+distinction.
+
+_Guarantees of Peace_
+
+Peace is to be concluded at the Peace Conference by delegates elected
+by the national representative institutions of each country. The
+peace terms are to be confirmed by these parliaments.
+
+Secret diplomacy is to be abolished; all parties are to bind
+themselves not to conclude any secret treaties. Such treaties are
+declared in contradiction to international law, and void. All
+treaties, until confirmed by the parliaments of the different
+nations, are to be considered void.
+
+Gradual disarmament both on land and sea, and the establishment of a
+militia system. The "League of Nations" advanced by President Wilson
+may become a valuable aid to international law, provided that (a),
+all nations are to be obliged to participate in it with equal rights,
+and (b), international politics are to be democratised.
+
+_Ways to Peace_
+
+The Allies are to announce immediately that they are willing to open
+peace negotiations as soon as the enemy powers declare their consent
+to the renunciation of all forcible annexations.
+
+The Allies must bind themselves not to begin any peace negotiations,
+nor to conclude peace, except in a general Peace Conference with the
+participation of delegates from all the neutral countries.
+
+All obstacles to the Stockholm Socialist Conference are to be
+removed, and passports are to be given immediately to all delegates
+of parties and organisations who wish to participate.
+
+(The Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets also issued a
+_nakaz,_ which differs little from the above.)
+
+6.
+
+PEACE AT RUSSIA'S EXPENSE
+
+The Ribot revelations of Austria's peace-offer to France; the
+so-called "Peace Conference" at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer
+of 1917, in which delegates participated from all belligerent
+countries, representing large financial interests in all these
+countries; and the attempted negotiations of an English agent with a
+Bulgarian church dignitary; all pointed to the fact that there were
+strong currents, on both sides, favourable to patching up a peace at
+the expense of Russia. In my next book, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,"
+I intend to treat this matter at some length, publishing several
+secret documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at
+Petrograd.
+
+7.
+
+RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE
+
+_Official Report of the Provisional Government._
+
+"From the time the news of the Russian Revolution reached Paris,
+Russian newspapers of extreme tendencies immediately began to appear;
+and these newspapers, as well as individuals, freely circulated among
+the soldier masses and began a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading
+false news which appeared in the French journals. In the absence of
+all official news, and of precise details, this campaign provoked
+discontent among the soldiers. The result was a desire to return to
+Russia, and a hatred toward the officers.
+
+"Finally it all turned into rebellion. In one of their meetings, the
+soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to drill, since they had decided
+to fight no more. It was decided to isolate the rebels, and General
+Zankievitch ordered all soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government
+to leave the camp of Courtine, and to carry with them all ammunition.
+On June 25th the order was executed; there remained at the camp only
+the soldiers who said they would submit 'conditionally' to the
+Provisional Government. The soldiers at the camp of Courtine received
+several times the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian
+Armies abroad, of Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and of
+several distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them, but
+these attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp insisted
+that the rebels lay down their arms, and, in sign of submission,
+march in good order to a place called Clairvaux. The order was only
+partially obeyed; first 500 men went out, of whom 22 were arrested;
+24 hours later about 6,000 followed.... About 2,000 remained....
+
+"It was decided to increase the pressure; their rations were
+diminished, their pay was cut off, and the roads toward the village
+of Courtine were guarded by French soldiers. General Zankievitch,
+having discovered that a Russian artillery brigade was passing
+through France, decided to form a mixed detachment of infantry and
+artillery to reduce the rebels. A deputation was sent to the rebels;
+the deputation returned several hours later, convinced of the
+futility of the negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch
+sent an ultimatum to the rebels demanding that they lay down their
+arms, and menacing in case of refusal to open fire with artillery if
+the order was not obeyed by September 3d at 10 o'clock.
+
+"The order not being executed, a light fire of artillery was opened
+on the place at the hour agreed upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and
+the rebels were warned that the bombardment would become more
+intense. In the night of September 3d 160 men surrendered. September
+4th the artillery bombardment recommenced, and at 11 o'clock, after
+36 shells had been fired, the rebels raised two white flags and began
+to leave the camp without arms. By evening 8,300 men had surrendered.
+150 soldiers who remained in the camp opened fire with machine-guns
+that night. The 5th of September, to make an end of the affair, a
+heavy barrage was laid on the camp, and our soldiers occupied it
+little by little. The rebels kept up a heavy fire with their
+machine-guns. September 6th, at 9 o'clock, the camp was entirely
+occupied.... After the disarmament of the rebels, 81 arrests were
+made...."
+
+Thus the report. From secret documents discovered in the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs, however, we know that the account is not strictly
+accurate. The first trouble arose when the soldiers tried to form
+Committees, as their comrades in Russia were doing. They demanded to
+be sent back to Russia, which was refused; and then, being considered
+a dangerous influence in France, they were ordered to Salonika. They
+refused to go, and the battle followed.... It was discovered that they
+had been left in camp without officers for about two months, and
+badly treated, before they became rebellious. All attempts to find
+out the name of the "Russian artillery brigade" which had fired on
+them were futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it to
+be inferred that French artillery was used....
+
+After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were
+shot in cold blood.
+
+8.
+
+TERESTCHENKO'S SPEECH_ (Resum�_)
+
+"... The questions of foreign policy are closely related to those of
+national defence.... And so, if in questions of national defence you
+think it is necessary to hold session in secret, also in our foreign
+policy we are sometimes forced to observe the same secrecy....
+
+"German diplomacy attempts to influence public opinion.... Therefore
+the declarations of directors of great democratic organisations who
+talk loudly of a revolutionary Congress, and the impossibility of
+another winter campaign, are dangerous.... All these declarations cost
+human lives....
+
+"I wish to speak merely of governmental logic, without touching the
+questions of the honour and dignity of the State. From the point of
+view of logic, the foreign policy of Russia ought to be based on a
+real comprehension of the _interests_ of Russia.... These interests
+mean that it is impossible that our country remain alone, and that
+the present alignment of forces with us, (the Allies), is
+satisfactory.... All humanity longs for peace, but in Russia no one
+will permit a humiliating peace which would violate the State
+interests of our fatherland!"
+
+The orator pointed out that such a peace would for long years, if not
+for centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the
+world, and would inevitably cause new wars.
+
+"All remember the days of May, when the fraternisation on our Front
+threatened to end the war by a simple cessation of military
+operations, and lead the country to a shameful separate peace... and
+what efforts it was necessary to use to make the soldier masses at
+the front understand that it was not by this method that the Russian
+State must end the war and guarantee its interest...."
+
+He spoke of the miraculous effect of the July offensive, what
+strength it gave to the words of Russian ambassadors abroad, and the
+despair in Germany caused by the Russian victories. And also, the
+disillusionment in Allied countries which followed the Russian
+defeat....
+
+"As to the Russian Government, it adhered strictly to the formula of
+May, 'No annexations and no punitive indemnities.' We consider it
+essential not only to proclaim the self-determination of peoples, but
+also to renounce imperialist aims...."
+
+Germany is continually trying to make peace. The only talk in Germany
+is of peace; she knows she cannot win.
+
+"I reject the reproaches aimed at the Government which allege that
+Russian foreign policy does not speak clearly enough about the aims
+of the war....
+
+"If the question arises as to what ends the Allies are pursuing, it
+is indispensable first to demand what aims the Central Powers have
+agreed upon....
+
+"The desire is often heard that we publish the details of the
+treaties which bind the Allies; but people forget that, up to now, we
+do not know the treaties which bind the Central Powers...."
+
+Germany, he said, evidently wants to separate Russia from the West by
+a series of weak buffer-states.
+
+"This tendency to strike at the vital interests of Russia must be
+checked....
+
+"And will the Russian democracy, which has inscribed on its banner
+the rights of nations to dispose of themselves, allow calmly the
+continuation of oppression upon the most civilised peoples (in
+Austria-Hungary)?
+
+"Those who fear that the Allies will try to profit by our difficult
+situation, to make us support more than our share of the burden of
+war, and to solve the questions of peace at our expense, are entirely
+mistaken.... Our enemy looks upon Russia as a market for its products.
+The end of the war will leave us in a feeble condition, and with our
+frontier open the flood of German products can easily hold back for
+years our industrial development. Measures must be taken to guard
+against this....
+
+"I say openly and frankly: the combination of forces which unites us
+to the Allies is _favourable to the interests of Russia...._ It is
+therefore important that our views on the questions of war and peace
+shall be in accord with the views of the Allies as clearly and
+precisely as possible.... To avoid all misunderstanding, I must say
+frankly that Russia must present at the Paris Conference _one point
+of view...._"
+
+He did not want to comment on the _nakaz_ to Skobeliev, but he
+referred to the Manifesto of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, just
+published in Stockholm. This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of
+Lithuania and Livonia; "but that is clearly impossible," said
+Terestchenko, "for Russia must have free ports on the Baltic all the
+year round....
+
+"In this question the problems of foreign policy are also closely
+related to interior politics, for if there existed a strong sentiment
+of unity of all great Russia, one would not witness the repeated
+manifestations, everywhere, of a desire of peoples to separate from
+the Central Government.... Such separations are contrary to the
+interests of Russia, and the Russian delegates cannot raise the
+issue...."
+
+9.
+
+THE BRITISH FLEET (_etc._)
+
+At the time of the naval battle of the Gulf of Riga, not only the
+Bolsheviki, but also the Ministers of the Provisional Government,
+considered that the British Fleet had deliberately abandoned the
+Baltic, as one indication of the attitude so often expressed publicly
+by the British press, and semi-publicly by British representatives in
+Russia, "Russia's finished! No use bothering about Russia!"
+
+See interview with Kerensky (Appendix 13).
+
+GENERAL GURKO was a former Chief of Staff of the Russian armies under
+the Tsar. He was a prominent figure in the corrupt Imperial Court.
+After the Revolution, he was one of the very few persons exiled for
+his political and personal record. The Russian naval defeat in the
+Gulf of Riga coincided with the public reception, by King George in
+London, of General Gurko, a man whom the Russian Provisional
+Government considered dangerously pro-German as well as reactionary!
+
+10.
+
+APPEALS AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+_To Workers and Soldiers_
+
+"Comrades! The Dark Forces are increasingly trying to call forth in
+Petrograd and other towns DISORDERS AND _Pogroms._ Disorder is
+necessary to the Dark Forces, for disorder will give them an
+opportunity for crushing the revolutionary movement in blood. Under
+the pretext of establishing order, and of protecting the inhabitants,
+they hope to establish the domination of Kornilov, which the
+revolutionary people succeeded in suppressing not long ago.
+Woe to the people if these hopes are realised! The triumphant
+counter-revolution will destroy the Soviets and the Army Committees,
+will disperse the Constituent Assembly, will stop the transfer of the
+land to the Land Committees, will put an end to all the hopes of the
+people for a speedy peace, and will fill all the prisons with
+revolutionary soldiers and workers.
+
+"In their calculations, the counter-revolutionists and Black Hundred
+leaders are counting on the serious discontent of the unenlightened
+part of the people with the disorganisation of the food-supply, the
+continuation of the war, and the general difficulties of life. They
+hope to transform every demonstration of soldiers and workers into a
+_pogrom,_ which will frighten the peaceful population and throw it
+into the arms of the Restorers of Law and Order.
+
+"Under such conditions every attempt to organise a demonstration in
+these days, although for the most laudable object, would be a crime.
+All conscious workers and soldiers who are displeased with the policy
+of the Government will only bring injury to themselves and to the
+Revolution if they indulge in demonstrations.
+
+"THEREFORE THE _Tsay-ee-kah_ ASKS ALL WORKERS NOT TO OBEY ANY CALLS
+TO DEMONSTRATE.
+
+"WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! DO NOT YIELD TO PROVOCATION! REMEMBER YOUR
+DUTY TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO THE REVOLUTION! DO NOT BREAK THE UNITY OF
+THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT BY DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH ARE BOUND TO BE
+UNSUCCESSFUL!"
+
+_The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and
+Soldiers' Deputies (Tsay-ee-kah)_
+
+_Russian Social Democratic Labour Party_
+THE DANGER IS NEAR!
+To All Workers and Soldiers
+(_Read and Hand to Others_)
+
+_Comrades Workers and Soldiers!_
+
+"Our country is in danger. On account of this danger our freedom and
+our Revolution are passing through difficult days. The enemy is at
+the gates of Petrograd. The disorganisation is growing with every
+hours. It becomes more and more difficult to obtain bread for
+Petrograd. All, of from the smallest to the greatest, must redouble
+their efforts, must endeavour to arrange things properly.... We must
+save our country, save freedom.... More arms and provisions for the
+Army! Bread--for the great cities. Order and organisation in the
+country....
+
+"And in these terrible critical days rumours creep about that
+SOMEWHERE a demonstration is being prepared, that SOME ONE is calling
+on the soldiers and workers to destroy revolutionary peace and
+order.... _Rabotchi Put,_ the newspaper of the Bolsheviki, is pouring
+oil on the flames: it flattering, trying to please the unenlightened
+people, tempting the worker and soldiers, urging them on against the
+Government, promising them mountains of good things.... The confiding,
+ignorant men believe, they do not reason.... And from the other side
+come also rumours--rumours that the Dark Forces, the friends of the
+Tsar, the German spies, are rubbing their hands with glee. They are
+ready to join the Bolsheviki, and with them fan the disorders into
+civil war.
+
+"The Bolsheviki and the ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them
+cry senselessly: 'Down with the Government! All power to the
+Soviets!' And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm
+will egg the on; 'Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the
+markets, devastate the shops, pillage the wine stores! Slay, burn,
+rob!'
+
+"And then will begin a terrible confusion, a war between one part of
+the people and the other. All will become still more disorganised,
+and perhaps once more blood will be shed on the streets of the
+capital. And then what then?
+
+"Then, the road to Petrograd will be open to Wilhelm. Then, no bread
+will come to Petrograd, the children will die of hunger. Then, the
+Army as the front will remain without support, our brothers in the
+trenches will be delivered to the fire of the enemy. Then, Russia
+will lose all prestige in other countries, our money will lose its
+value; everything will be so dear as to make life impossible. Then,
+the long awaited Constituent Assembly will be postponed--it will be
+impossible to convene it in time. And then--Death to the Revolution,
+Death to our Liberty....
+
+"Is it this that you want, workers and soldiers? No! If you do not
+then go, go to the ignorant people seduced by the betrayers, and tell
+them the whole truth, which we have told you!
+
+"Let all know that EVERY MAN WHO IN THESE TERRIBLE DAYS CALLS ON YOU
+TO COME OUT IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, IS EITHER A SECRET
+SERVANT OF THE TSAR, A PROVOCATOR, OR AN UNWISE ASSISTANT OF THE
+ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, OR A PAID SPY OF WILHELM!
+
+"Every conscious worker revolutionist, every conscious peasant, every
+revolutionary soldier, all who understand what harm a demonstration
+or a revolt against the Government might cause to the people, must
+join together and not allow the enemies of the people to destroy our
+freedom."
+
+_The Petrograd Electoral Committee of the Mensheviki-oborontzi._
+
+11.
+
+LENIN's "LETTER TO THE COMRADES"
+
+This series of articles appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ several days
+running, at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I
+give here only extracts from two instalments:
+
+1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the
+people, and that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.
+
+"Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers,
+pedants, or simply don't want to look the real situation in the face.
+In the last elections we received in all the country more than fifty
+per cent of all thevotes....
+
+"The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants'
+revolution. In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian
+uprising with wonderful political results.... Even _Dielo Naroda_ has
+been scared into yelling that the land must be turned over to the
+peasants, and not only the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council
+of the Republic, but also the Government itself, has been similarly
+affected. Another valuable result was the bringing of bread which had
+been hoarded by the _pomieshtchiki_ to the railroad stations in that
+province. The _Russkaya Volia_ had to admit that the stations were
+filled with bread after the peasants' rising....
+
+"2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and
+the bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Constituent
+Assembly.
+
+"Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as
+regards workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of
+the bourgeoisie. If _yunkers_ and Cossacks say they will fight, you
+believe them; if workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is
+the distinction between such doubts and siding politically with the
+bourgeoisie?
+
+"Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe
+Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not
+strong enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break
+the Constituent. But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the
+Constituent by sabotage, by lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by
+opening the front to the Germans. This has already been done in the
+case of Riga....
+
+"3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government
+to force the calling of the Constituent Assembly, and to suppress any
+further Kornilov attempts.
+
+"Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of 'All Power to the
+Soviets.' Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the
+question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes
+in the faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have 'promised' to call the
+Constituent Assembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the
+calling of the Constituent is guaranteed, and its success assured.
+
+"Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the 'Lieber-Dans.' Either
+we must drop 'All Power to the Soviets' or make an insurrection;
+there is no middle course."
+
+"4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos
+want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our
+heroic soldiers and sailors.
+
+"Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the
+Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of
+Kornilovtsi. If the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give
+up Petrograd, it can do it doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements
+with the Germans or the British; open the fronts. It can sabotage the
+Army's food supply. At all these doors has it knocked.
+
+"We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the
+Revolution. Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and
+truthfully served the bourgeoisie for years.... Half the Lieber-Dans
+are cowardly compromisers; half of them simple fatalists...."
+
+"5. We're getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the
+Constituent Assembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play
+everything on one card?"
+
+"Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical
+experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called
+and trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the
+voting of the Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or
+beat Wilhelm.... The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd
+cannot be decided by waiting for the Constituent Assembly. Hunger is
+not waiting. The peasants' Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals
+who ran away did not wait.
+
+"Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals
+and generals, do not take an interest in voting.
+
+"6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our
+strength. But why should we risk everything by making an attempt
+ourselves?
+
+"Answer: History doesn't repeat. 'Perhaps Kornilov will some day make
+an attempt!' What a serious base for proletarian action! But suppose
+Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what
+then? This attitude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary
+party on one of the bourgeoisie's former mistakes.
+
+"Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the
+dictatorship of the proletariat--either that or the dictatorship of
+Kornilov.
+
+"Let us wait, comrades, for--a miracle!"
+
+12.
+
+MILIUKOV's SPEECH (_Resum�_)
+
+"Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our
+principal task, and that, to assure it, we must have discipline in
+the Army and order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a
+power capable of daring, not only by persuasion, but also by force....
+The germ of all our evils comes from the point of view, original,
+truly Russian, concerning foreign policy, which passes for the
+Internationalist point of view.
+
+"The noble Lenin only imitates the noble Keroyevsky when he holds
+that from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the
+aged West, and which will replace the old banner of doctrinary
+Socialism by the new direct action of starving masses--and that will
+push humanity forward and force it to break in the doors of the
+social paradise...."
+
+These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would
+bring about the decomposition of the whole capitalist r�gime.
+Starting from that point of view, they were able to commit the
+unconscious treason, in wartime, of calmly telling the soldiers to
+abandon the trenches, and instead of fighting the external enemy,
+creating internal civil war and attacking the proprietors and
+capitalists....
+
+Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left,
+demanding what Socialist had ever advised such action....
+
+"Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat
+can condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and
+break down the dictatorship of these cliques.... Not by an accord
+between Governments for a limitation of armaments, but by the
+disarming of these Governments and the radical democratisation of the
+military system...."
+
+He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government
+as Ministers with the avowed purpose of carrying on the class
+struggle!
+
+"The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated
+these gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it
+was for Russia, and sent us some apostles of the Universal
+Conflagration....
+
+"The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no
+art of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the
+Allies, 'We want nothing, we haven't anything to fight with!' And
+then our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the
+brotherhood of peoples will be accomplished!"
+
+Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that
+even Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of "that
+unhappy document which will forever be your indictment." He then
+attacked Skobeliev, whose position in foreign assemblies, where he
+would appear as a Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy
+of his Government, would be so strange that people would say, "What's
+that gentleman carrying, and what shall we talk to him about?" As for
+the _nakaz,_ Miliukov said that he himself was a pacifist; that he
+believed in the creation of an International Arbitration Board, and
+the necessity for a limitation of armaments, and parliamentary
+control over secret diplomacy, which did not mean the abolition of
+secret diplomacy.
+
+As for the Socialist ideas in the _nakaz,_ which he called "Stockholm
+ideas"--peace without victory, the right of self-determination of
+peoples, and renunciation of the economic war--
+
+"The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of
+those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish
+to say, 'to the successes of the Revolution,' because I believe that
+the defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the
+Revolution....
+
+"The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One
+had only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+to be convinced that, in this hall, the influence of the
+revolutionary democracy on foreign policy is so strong, that the
+Minister does not dare to speak face to face with it about the honour
+and dignity of Russia!
+
+"We can see, in the _nakaz_ of the Soviets, that the ideas of the
+Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction--that of
+Utopianism, and that of German interests...."
+
+Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the
+President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded
+by popular assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to
+undertake peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced
+annexations, were pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal
+declaration bound only him who made it.... "Anyway, we will imitate the
+Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies...."
+
+The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia
+were symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia,
+supported, said Miliukov, by German money.... Amid bedlam from the
+Left, he contrasted the clauses of the _nakaz_ concerning
+Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the
+nationalities in Germany and Austria. The _nakaz_ embraced the German
+and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.
+
+Passing to Terestchenko's speech, he contemptuously accused him of
+being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to
+think in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must
+belong to Russia....
+
+"You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
+fighting, and that when he does know, he'll fight.... It is true that
+the soldier doesn't know why he is fighting, but now you have told
+him that there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no
+national interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends...."
+
+Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the assistance of
+America, "will yet save the cause of humanity," he ended:
+
+"Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the
+West, who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only
+begin to enter, with ill-assured and hesitating steps! Long live our
+brave Allies!"
+
+13.
+
+INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY
+
+The Associated Press man tried his hand. "Mr. Kerensky," he began,
+"in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution----"
+
+"Yes, I know," interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. "Abroad the
+Revolution is no longer fashionable!"
+
+"What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?"
+
+"That is a foolish question to ask." Kerensky was annoyed. "Russia
+entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she bore
+the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater
+than those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the
+right to demand of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms
+to bear." He stopped for a moment and stared at his interlocutor.
+"You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the
+Russians are asking where is the British fleet--with German
+battle-ships in the Gulf of Riga?" Again he ceased suddenly, and as
+suddenly burst out. "The Russian Revolution hasn't failed and the
+revolutionary Army hasn't failed. It is not the Revolution which
+caused disorganisation in the army--that disorganisation was
+accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren't the Russians
+fighting? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are
+economically exhausted,--and because they are disillusioned with the
+Allies!"
+
+The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United
+States, and in a few days sent back by the American State Department,
+with a demand that it be "altered." This Kerensky refused to do; but
+it was done by his secretary, Dr. David Soskice--and, thus purged of
+all offensive references to the Allies, was given to the press of the
+world....
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III
+
+1.
+
+RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES
+
+_Workers' Control_
+
+1. (See page 43)
+
+2. The organisation of Workers' Control is a manifestation of the
+same healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are
+party organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in
+employment, Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary
+clubs in the sphere of culture.
+
+3. The working-class has much more interest in the proper and
+uninterrupted operation of factories... than the capitalist class.
+Workers' Control is a better security in this respect for the
+interests of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary
+will of the owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for
+material profits or political privileges. Therefore Workers' Control
+is demanded by the proletariat not only in their own interest, but in
+the interest of the whole country, and should be supported by the
+revolutionary peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.
+
+4. Considering the hostile attitude of the majority of the capitalist
+class toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper
+distribution of raw materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient
+management of factories, is impossible without Workers' Control.
+
+5. Only Workers' Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the
+workers' conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social
+meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a
+firm self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour's
+possible productivity.
+
+6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace
+basis, and the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well
+as among the different factories, can be accomplished without great
+disturbances only by means of the democratic self-government of the
+workers themselves.... Therefore the realisation of Workers' Control is
+an indispensable preliminary to the demobilisation of industry.
+
+7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social
+Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers' Control on a national
+scale, in order to bring results, must extend to all capitalist
+concerns, and not be organised accidentally, without system; it must
+be well-planned, and not separated from the industrial life of the
+country as a whole.
+
+8. The economic life of the country--agriculture, industry, commerce
+and transport--must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so
+as to satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide
+masses of the people; it must be approved by their elected
+representatives, and carried out under the direction of these
+representatives by means of national and local organisations.
+
+9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried
+out under supervision of the peasants' and land-workers'
+organisations; that relating to industry, trade and transport
+operated by wage-earners, by means of Workers' Control; the natural
+organs of Workers' Control inside the industrial plant will be the
+Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the
+Trade Unions.
+
+10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for
+the majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on
+all the owners of plants employing this kind of labour in the given
+district.
+
+11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and
+management of the Trade Unions, as class organisations acting within
+the limits of the whole industrial plan, and in accordance with it.
+
+12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to
+begin legal action against all employers who violate labour contracts
+or labour legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in
+any branch of labour.
+
+13. On all questions relating to Workers' Control over production,
+distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the
+workers of individual establishments through their Factory-Shop
+Committees.
+
+14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales,
+refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for
+abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar
+problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled
+exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee,
+which has the right to exclude from participation in the discussion
+any members of the factory administration.
+
+15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the
+supplying of the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour
+power and technical staff (including equipment), and all other
+supplies and arrangements, and also to assure the factory's adherence
+to the general industrial plan. The factory administration is obliged
+to surrender to the organs of Workers' Control, for their aid and
+information, all data concerning the business; to make it possible to
+verify this data, and to produce the books of the company upon demand
+of the Factory-Shop Committee.
+
+16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by
+the Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts,
+which cannot be investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall
+be referred to the district central organisation of Factory-Shop
+Committees charged with the particular branch of labour involved,
+which shall discuss the matter with the institutions charged with the
+execution of the general industrial plan, and find means to deal with
+the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the factory.
+
+17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns
+must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order
+to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to
+come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an
+effective plan of distribution among the different factories of
+orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to
+facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by
+trades.
+
+18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop
+Committees represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial
+and local institutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general
+industrial plan, and to organise economic relations between the towns
+and the villages (workers and peasants). They also possess final
+authority for the management of Factory-Shop Committees and Trade
+Unions, so far as Workers' Control in their district is concerned,
+and they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning workers'
+discipline in the routine of production--which regulations, however,
+must be approved by vote of the workers themselves.
+
+2.
+
+THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Russkaya Volia,_ October 28. "The decisive moment approaches.... It is
+decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us... a second
+edition of the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that
+with their plans and intentions, with their impertinent policy of
+wishing to separate themselves from everything consciously national,
+they have been definitely defeated....
+
+"What are the chances of Bolshevik success?
+
+"It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support
+is the... ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they
+work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop....
+
+"The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself
+morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a
+clearly-defined attitude toward the Bolsheviki....
+
+"And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal
+power, and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated
+as mutineers and traitors...."
+
+_Birzhevya Viedomosti,_ October 28. "Now that the Bolsheviki have
+separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle
+against them is very much simpler--and it is not reasonable, in order
+to fight against Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation.
+The Government should not even allow the manifestation....
+
+"The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts
+punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their
+authors would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are
+carrying on is not a political struggle against the Government, or
+even for the power; it is propaganda for anarchy, massacres, and
+civil war. This propaganda must be extirpated at its roots; it would
+be strange to wait, in order to begin action against an agitation for
+_pogroms,_ until the _pogroms_ actually occurred...."
+
+_Novoye Vremya,_ November 1. "... Why is the Government excited
+only about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets),
+and not about September 12th, or October 3d?
+
+"This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and
+that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our
+Allies smart....
+
+"Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the
+Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one
+attempted to put out the Russian conflagration?
+
+"There were other things to do....
+
+"The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It
+crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every
+one is now asking, 'Did it ever exist?"
+
+3.
+
+MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Dielo Naroda,_ October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). "The most
+frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they
+impute exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary
+Government all the calamities which the masses are so cruelly
+suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from
+objective causes.
+
+"They make golden promises to the masses, knowing in advance that
+they can fulfil none of them; they lead the masses on a false trail,
+deceiving them as to the source of all their troubles....
+
+"The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution...."
+
+_Dien,_ October 30 (Menshevik). "Is this really 'the freedom of the
+press'? Every day _Novaya Rus_ and _Rabotchi Put_ openly incite to
+insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns
+actual crimes. Every day they urge _pogroms_.... Is that 'the freedom
+of the press'?...
+
+"The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the
+right to insist that the Government machinery does not remain passive
+while the threat of bloody riots endangers the lives of its
+citizens...."
+
+4.
+
+"YEDINSTVO"
+
+Plekhanov's paper, _Yedinstvo,_ suspended publication a few weeks
+after the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report,
+_Yedinstvo_ was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an
+announcement in the last number admitted that it was unable to
+continue _because there were too few subscribers_....
+
+5.
+
+WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?
+
+The French newspaper _Entente_ of Petrograd, on November 15th,
+published an article of which the following is a part:
+
+"The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government
+of Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.
+
+"This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong.
+Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which
+triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators--no!
+
+"No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously,
+without mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they
+multiplied their agitation, intensified their propaganda in the
+factories, the barracks, at the Front, in the country, everywhere,
+even fixing in advance the date of their taking up arms, the date of
+their seizure of the power....
+
+"_They_--conspirators? Never...."
+
+6.
+
+APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+_From the Central Army Committee_
+
+"... Above everything we insist upon the inflexible execution of the
+organised will of the majority of the people, expressed by the
+Provisional Government in accord with the Council of the Republic and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ as organ of the popular power....
+
+"Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when
+a Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin
+of the country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a
+counter-revolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms....
+
+"The interests of private groups and classes should be submitted to a
+single interest--that of augmenting industrial production, and
+distributing the necessities of life with fairness....
+
+"All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all
+deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do
+auxiliary service in the rear of the Army....
+
+"We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators
+of the people's will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour
+detachments to work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under
+enemy fire...."
+
+7.
+
+EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH
+
+Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops
+of the bourgeois press, where they printed _Rabotchi Put, Soldat,_
+and various proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia
+was ordered to clear these places, but found the offices barricaded,
+and armed men defending them. Soldiers who were ordered to attack the
+print-shops refused.
+
+About midnight a Colonel with a company of _yunkers_ arrived at the
+club "Free Mind," with a warrant to arrest the editor of _Rabotchi
+Put._ Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and
+threatened to lynch the _yunkers._ The Colonel thereupon begged that
+he and the _yunkers_ be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for
+safety. This request was granted.
+
+At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied
+the Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward
+morning the Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o'clock the Telephone
+Exchange. At dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a
+cordon of troops was drawn about the Winter Palace.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV
+
+1.
+
+EVENTS OF NOVEMBER 7TH
+
+From 4 A. M. until dawn Kerensky remained at the Petrograd Staff
+Headquarters, sending orders to the Cossacks and to the _yunkers_ in
+the Officers' Schools in and around Petrograd--all of whom answered
+that they were unable to move.
+
+Colonel Polkovnikov, Commandant of the City, hurried between the
+Staff and the Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky
+gave an order to open the bridges; three hours passed without any
+action, and then an officer and five men went out on their own
+initiative, and putting to flight a picket of Red Guards, opened the
+Nicolai Bridge. Immediately after they left, however, some sailors
+closed it again.
+
+Kerensky ordered the print-shop of _Rabotchi Put_ to be occupied. The
+officer detailed to the work was promised a squad of soldiers; two
+hours later he was promised some _yunkers;_ then the order was
+forgotten.
+
+An attempt was made to recapture the Post Office and the Telegraph
+Agency; a few shots were fired, and the Government troops announced
+that they would no longer oppose the Soviets.
+
+To a delegation of _yunkers_ Kerensky said, "As chief of the
+Provisional Government and as Supreme Commander I know nothing, I
+cannot advise you; but as a veteran revolutionist, I appeal to you,
+young revolutionists, to remain at your posts and defend the
+conquests of the Revolution."
+
+Orders of Kishkin, November 7th:
+
+"By decree of the Provisional Government.... I am invested with
+extraordinary powers for the reestablishment of order in Petrograd,
+in complete command of all civil and military authorities...."
+
+"In accordance with the powers conferred upon me by the Provisional
+Government, I herewith relieve from his functions as Commandant of
+the Petrograd Military District Colonel George Polkovnikov...."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Appeal to the Population_ signed by Vice-Premier Konovalov, November
+7th:
+
+"Citizens! Save the fatherland, the republic and your freedom.
+Maniacs have raised a revolt against the only governmental power
+chosen by the people, the Provisional Government....
+
+"The members of the Provisional Government fulfil their duty, remain
+at their post, and continue to work for the good of the fatherland,
+the reestablishment of order, and the convocation of the Constituent
+Assembly, future sovereign of Russia and of all the Russian peoples....
+
+"Citizens, you must support the Provisional Government. You must
+strengthen its authority. You must oppose these maniacs, with whom
+are joined all enemies of liberty and order, and the followers of the
+Tsarist r�gime, in order to wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy
+the conquests of the Revolution, and the future of our dear
+fatherland....
+
+"Citizens! Organise around the Provisional Government for the defence
+of its temporary authority, in the name of order and the happiness of
+all peoples...."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Proclamation of the Provisional Government._
+
+"The Petrograd Soviet.... has declared the Provisional Government
+overthrown, and has demanded that the Governmental power be turned
+over to it, under threat of bombarding the Winter Palace with the
+cannon of Peter-Paul Fortress, and of the cruiser _Avrora,_ anchored
+in the Neva.
+
+"The Government can surrender its authority only to the Consituent
+Assembly; for that reason it has decided not to submit, and to demand
+aid from the population and the Army. A telegram has been sent to the
+_Stavka;_ and an answer received says that a strong detachment of
+troops is being sent....
+
+"Let the Army and the People reject the irresponsible attempts of the
+Bolsheviki to create a revolt in the rear...."
+
+About 9 A. M. Kerensky left for the Front....
+
+Toward evening two soldiers on bicycles presented themselves at the
+Staff Headquarters, as delegates of the garrison of Peter-Paul
+Fortress. Entering the meeting-room of the Staff, where Kishkin,
+Rutenburg, Paltchinski, General Bagratouni, Colonel Paradielov and
+Count Tolstoy were gathered, they demanded the immediate surrender of
+the Staff; threatening, in case of refusal, to bombard headquarters....
+After two panicky conferences the Staff retreated to the Winter
+Palace, and the headquarters were occupied by Red Guards....
+
+Late in the afternoon several Bolshevik armoured cars cruised around
+the Palace Square, and Soviet soldiers tried unsuccessfully to parley
+with the _yunkers_....
+
+Firing on the Palace began about 7 o'clock in the evening....
+
+At 10 P. M. began an artillery bombardment from three sides, in which
+most of the shells were blanks, only three small shrapnels striking
+the facade of the Palace....
+
+2.
+
+KERENSKY IN FLIGHT
+
+Leaving Petrograd in the morning of November 7th, Kerensky arrived by
+automobile at Gatchina, where he demanded a special train. Toward
+evening he was in Ostrov, Province of Pskov. The next morning,
+extraordinary session of the local Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Depulies, with participation of Cossack delegates--there being 6,000
+Cossacks at Ostrov.
+
+Kerensky spoke to the assembly, appealing for aid against the
+Bolsheviki, and addressed himself almost exclusively to the Cossacks.
+The soldier delegates protested.
+
+"Why did you come here?" shouted voices. Kerensky answered, "To ask
+the Cossacks' assistance in crushing the Bolshevik insurrection!" At
+this there were violent protestations, which increased when he
+continued, "I broke the Kornilov attempt, and I will break the
+Bolsheviki!" The noise became so great that he had to leave the
+platform....
+
+The soldier deputies and the Ussuri Cossacks decided to arrest
+Kerensky, but the Don Cossacks prevented them, and got him away by
+train.... A Military Revolutionary Committee, set up during the day,
+tried to inform the garrison of Pskov; but the telephone and
+telegraph lines were cut....
+
+Kerensky did not arrive at Pskov. Revolutionary soldiers had cut the
+railway line, to prevent troops being sent against the capital. On
+the night of November 8th he arrived by automobile at Luga, where he
+was well received by the Death Battalions stationed there.
+
+Next day he took train for the South-West Front, and visited the Army
+Committee at headquarters. The Fifth Army, however, was wild with
+enthusiasm over the news of the Bolshevik success, and the Army
+Committee was unable to promise Kerensky any support.
+
+From there he went to the _Stavka,_ at Moghilev, where he ordered ten
+regiments from different parts of the Front to move against
+Petrograd. The soldiers almost unanimously refused; and those
+regiments which did start halted on the way. About five thousand
+Cossacks finally followed him....
+
+3.
+
+LOOTING OF THE WINTER PALACE
+
+I do not mean to maintain that there was no looting, in the Winter
+Palace. Both after and _before_ the Winter Palace fell, there was
+considerable pilfering. The statement of the Socialist Revolutionary
+paper _Narod,_ and of members of the City Duma, to the effect that
+precious objects to the value of 500,000,000 rubles had been stolen,
+was, however, a gross exaggeration.
+
+The most important art treasures of the Palace--paintings, statues,
+tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,--had been transferred to
+Moscow during the month of September; and they were still in good
+order in the basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the
+capture of the Kremlin by Bolshevik troops. I can personally testify
+to this....
+
+Individuals, however, especially the general public, which was
+allowed to circulate freely through the Winter Palace for several
+days after its capture, made away with table silver, clocks, bedding,
+mirrors and some odd vases of valuable porcelain and semi-precious
+stone, to the value of about $50,000.
+
+The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission,
+composed of artists and arch�ologists, to recover the stolen objects.
+On November 1st two proclamations were issued:
+
+"CITIZENS OF PETROGRAD!
+
+"We urgently ask all citizens to exert every effort to find whatever
+possible of the objects stolen from the Winter Palace in the night of
+November 7-8, and to forward them to the Commandant of the Winter
+Palace.
+
+"Receivers of stolen goods, antiquarians, and all who are proved to
+be hiding such objects will be held legally responsible and punished
+with all severity.
+
+"_Commissars for the Protection of Museums and Artistic Collections,_
+                                "G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"TO REGIMENTAL AND FLEET COMMITTEES
+
+"In the night of November 7-8, in the Winter Palace, which is the
+inalienable property of the Russian people, valuable objects of art
+were stolen.
+
+"We urgently appeal to all to exert every effort, so that the stolen
+objects are returned to the Winter Palace.
+
+"_Commissars_....
+    "G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM."
+
+About half the loot was recovered, some of it in the baggage of
+foreigners leaving Russia.
+
+A conference of artists and arch�ologists, held at the suggestion of
+Smolny, appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter
+Palace treasures, which was given complete charge of the Palace and
+of all artistic collections and State museums in Petrograd. On
+November 16th the Winter Palace was closed to the public while the
+inventory was being made....
+
+During the last week in November a decree was issued by the Council
+of People's Commissars, changing the name of the Winter Palace to
+"People's Museum," entrusting it to the complete charge of the
+artistic-arch�ological commission, and declaring that henceforth all
+Governmental activities within its wall were prohibited....
+
+4.
+
+RAPE OF THE WOMEN'S BATTALION
+
+Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts of
+sensational stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press, and
+told in the City Duma, about the fate of the Women's Battalion
+defending the Palace. It was said that some of the girl-soldiers had
+been thrown from the windows into the street, most of the rest had
+been violated, and many had committed suicide as a result of the
+horrors they had gone through.
+
+The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On
+November 16th the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters of
+the Women's Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had
+been at first taken to the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and
+that there some of them had been badly treated; but that at present
+most of them were at Levashovo, and the rest scattered about the city
+in private houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the commission,
+testified drily that _none_ of the women had been thrown out of the
+windows of the Winter Palace, that _none_ were wounded, that three
+had been violated, and that one had committed suicide, leaving a note
+which said that she had been "disappointed in her ideals."
+
+On November 21st the Military Revolutionary Committee officially
+dissolved the Women's Battalion, at the request of the girls
+themselves, who returned to civilian clothes.
+
+In Louise Bryant's book, "Six Red Months in Russia," there is an
+interesting description of the girl-soldiers during this time.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND PROCLAMATIONS
+
+_From the Military Revolutionary Committee,_ November 8:
+
+"To All Army Committees and All Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+"The Petrograd garrison has overturned the Government of Kerensky,
+which had risen against the Revolution and the People.... In sending
+this news to the Front and the country, the Military Revolutionary
+Committee requests all soldiers to keep vigilant watch on the conduct
+of officers. Officers who do not frankly and openly declare for the
+Revolution should be immediately arrested as enemies.
+
+"The Petrograd Soviet interprets the programme of the new Government
+as: immediate proposals of a general democratic peace, the immediate
+transfer of great landed estates to the peasants, and the honest
+convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The people's revolutionary
+Army must not permit troops of doubtful morale to be sent to
+Petrograd. Act by means of arguments, by means of moral suasion--but
+if that fails, halt the movement of troops by implacable force.
+
+"The present order must be immediately read to all military units of
+every branch of the service. Whoever keeps the knowledge of this
+order from the soldier-masses.... commits a serious crime against the
+Revolution, and will be punished with all the rigour of revolutionary
+law.
+
+"Soldiers! For peace, bread, land, and popular government!"
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"To All Front and Rear Army, Corps, Divisional, Regimental and
+Company Committees, and All Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"Soldiers and Revolutionary Officers!
+
+"The Military Revolutionary Committee, by agreement with the majority
+of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, has decreed that General
+Kornilov and all the accomplices of his conspiracy shall be brought
+immediately to Petrograd, for incarceration in Peter-Paul Fortress
+and arraignment before a military revolutionary court-martial....
+
+"All who resist the execution of this decree are declared by the
+Committee to be traitors to the Revolution, and their orders are
+herewith declared null and void."
+
+          _The Military Revolutionary Committee Attached to the Petrograd
+                        Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"To all Provincial and District Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"By resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, all arrested
+members of Land Committees are immediately set free. The Commissars
+who arrested them are to be arrested.
+
+"From this moment all power belongs to the Soviets. The Commissars of
+the Provisional Government are removed. The presidents of the various
+local Soviets are invited to enter into direct relations with the
+revolutionary Government."
+
+                                _Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+2.
+
+PROTEST OF THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+"The Central City Duma, elected on the most democratic principles,
+has undertaken the burden of managing Municipal affairs and food
+supplies at the time of the greatest disorganisation. At the present
+moment the Bolshevik party, three weeks before the elections to the
+Constituent Assembly, and in spite of the menace of the external
+enemy, having removed by armed force the only legal revolutionary
+authority, is making an attempt against the rights and independence
+of the Municipal Self-Government, demanding submission to its
+Commissars and its illegal authority.
+
+"In this terrible and tragic moment the Petrograd City Duma, in the
+face of its constituents, and of all Russia, declares loudly that it
+will not submit to any encroachments on its rights and its
+independence, and will remain at the post of responsibility to which
+it has been called by the will of the population of the capital.
+
+"The Central City Duma of Petrograd appeals to all Dumas and Zemstvos
+of the Russian Republic to rally to the defence of one of the
+greatest conquests of the Russian Revolution--the independence and
+inviolability of popular self-government."
+
+3.
+
+LAND DECREE--PEASANTS' "NAKAZ"
+
+The Land question can only be permanently settled by the general
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+The most equitable solution of the Land question should be as follows:
+
+1. The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land
+cannot be sold, nor leased, nor mortgaged, nor alienated in any way.
+All dominical lands, lands attached to titles, lands belonging to the
+Emperor's cabinet, to monasteries, churches, possession lands,
+entailed lands, private estates, communal lands, peasant free-holds,
+and others, are confiscated without compensation, and become national
+property, and are placed at the disposition of the workers who
+cultivate them.
+
+Those who are damaged because of this social transformation of the
+rights of property are entitled to public aid during the time
+necessary for them to adapt themselves to the new conditions of
+existence.
+
+2. All the riches beneath the earth--ores, oil, coal, salt, etc.--as
+well as forests and waters having a national importance, become the
+exclusive property of the State. All minor streams, lakes and forests
+are placed in the hands of the communities, on condition of being
+managed by the local organs of government.
+
+3. All plots of land scientifically cultivated--gardens, plantations,
+nurseries, seed-plots, green-houses, and others--shall not be divided,
+but transformed into model farms, and pass into the hands of the
+State or of the community, according to their size and importance.
+
+Buildings, communal lands and villages with their private gardens and
+their orchards remain in the hands of their present owners; the
+dimensions of these plots and the rate of taxes for their use shall
+be fixed by law.
+
+4. All studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and
+bird-breeding establishments, and others, are confiscated and become
+national property, and are transferred either to the State or to the
+community, according to their size and importance.
+
+All questions of compensation for the above are within the competence
+of the Constituent Assembly.
+
+5. All inventoried agricultural property of the confiscated lands,
+machinery and live-stock, are transferred without compensation to
+the State or the community, according to their quantity and
+importance.
+
+The confiscation of such machinery or live-stock shall not apply to
+the small properties of peasants.
+
+6. The right to use the land is granted to all citizens, without
+distinction of sex, who wish to work the land themselves, with the
+help of their families, or in partnership, and only so long as they
+are able to work. No hired labour is permitted.
+
+In the event of the incapacity for work of a member of the commune
+for a period of two years, the commune shall be bound to render him
+assistance during this time by working his land in common.
+
+Farmers who through old age or sickness have permanently lost the
+capacity to work the land themselves, shall surrender their land and
+receive instead a Government pension.
+
+7. The use of the land should be equalised--that is to say, the land
+shall be divided among the workers according to local conditions, the
+unit of labour and the needs of the individual.
+
+The way in which land is to be used may be individually determined
+upon: as homesteads, as farms, by communes, by partnerships, as will
+be decided by the villages and settlements.
+
+8. All land upon its confiscation is pooled in the general People's
+Land Fund. Its distribution among the workers is carried out by the
+local and central organs of administration, beginning with the
+village democratic organisations and ending with the central
+provincial institutions--with the exception of urban and rural
+cooperative societies.
+
+The Land Fund is subject to periodical redistribution according to
+the increase of population and the development of productivity and
+rural economy.
+
+In case of modification of the boundaries of allotments, the original
+centre of the allotment remains intact.
+
+The lands of persons retiring from the community return to the Land
+Fund; providing that near relatives of the persons retiring, or
+friends designated by them, shall have preference in the
+redistribution of these lands.
+
+When lands are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for
+manuring or improving the land, which has not been exhausted, shall
+be reimbursed.
+
+If in some localities the Land Fund is insufficient to satisfy the
+local population, the surplus population should emigrate.
+
+The organisation of the emigration, also the costs thereof, and the
+providing of emigrants with the necessary machinery and live-stock,
+shall be the business of the State.
+
+The emigration shall be carried out in the following order: first,
+the peasants without land who express their wish to emigrate; then
+the undesirable members of the community, deserters, etc., and
+finally, by drawing lots on agreement.
+
+All which is contained in this _nakaz,_ being the expression of the
+indisputable will of the great majority of conscious peasants of
+Russia, is declared to be a temporary law, and until the convocation
+of the Constituent Assembly, becomes effective immediately so far as
+is possible, and in some parts of it gradually, as will be determined
+by the District Soviets of Peasants' Deputies.
+
+4.
+
+THE LAND AND DESERTERS
+
+The Government was not forced to make any decision concerning the
+rights of deserters to the land. The end of the war and the
+demobilisation of the army automatically removed the deserter
+problem....
+
+5.
+
+THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS
+
+The Council of People's Commissars was at first composed entirely of
+Bolsheviki. This was not entirely the fault of the Bolsheviki,
+however. On November 8th they offered portfolios to members of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who declined. See page 273. {of original
+volume}
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND DENUNCIATIONS
+
+Appeal to all Citizens and to the Military Organisations of the
+Socialist Revolutionary Party.
+
+"The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete
+failure. The garrison is disaffected.... The Ministries are idle, bread
+is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the
+Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts,
+acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace,
+arbitrary arrests--all these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have
+aroused against them the resentment of the majority of the sailors
+and soldiers. The _Tsentroflot_ refuses to submit to the orders of
+the Bolsheviki....
+
+"We call upon all sane elements to gather around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution; to take serious measures to be
+ready, at the first call of the Central Committee of the Party, to
+act against the counter-revolutionists, who will doubtless attempt to
+profit by these troubles provoked by the Bolshevik adventure, and to
+watch closely the external enemy, who also would like to take
+advantage of this opportune moment when the Front is weakened...."
+
+       _The Military Section of the Central Committee of
+                the Socialist Revolutionary Party._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+From _Pravda:_
+
+"What is Kerensky?
+
+"A usurper, whose place is in Peter-Paul prison, with Kornilov and
+Kishkin.
+
+"A criminal and a traitor to the workers, soldiers and peasants, who
+believed in him.
+
+"Kerensky? A murderer of soldiers!
+
+"Kerensky? A public executioner of peasants!
+
+"Kerensky? A strangler of workers!
+
+"Such is the second Kornilov who now wants to butcher Liberty!"
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
+
+1.
+
+TWO DECREES
+
+_On the Press_
+
+In the serious decisive hour of the Revolution and the days immediately
+following it, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is compelled to
+adopt a series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press of
+all shades.
+
+Immediately on all sides there are cries that the new Socialist
+authority is in this violating the essential principles of its own
+programme by an attempt against the freedom of the press.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government calls the attention of the
+population to the fact that in our country, behind this liberal
+shield, is hidden the opportunity for the wealthier classes to seize
+the lion's share of the whole press, and by this means to poison the
+popular mind and bring confusion into the consciousness of the masses.
+
+Every one knows that the bourgeois press is one of the most powerful
+weapons of the bourgeoisie. Especially in this critical moment, when
+the new authority of the workers and peasants is in process of
+consolidation, it is impossible to leave it in the hands of the
+enemy, at a time when it is not less dangerous than bombs and
+machine-guns. This is why temporary and extraordinary measures have
+been adopted for the purpose of stopping the flow of filth and
+calumny in which the yellow and green press would be glad to drown
+the young victory of the people.
+
+As soon as the new order is consolidated, all administrative measures
+against the press will be suspended; full liberty will be given it
+within the limits of responsibility before the law, in accordance
+with the broadest and most progressive regulations....
+
+Bearing in mind, however, the fact that any restrictions of the
+freedom of the press, even in critical moments, are admissible only
+within the bounds of necessity, the Council of People's Commissars
+decrees as follows:
+
+1. The following classes of newspapers shall be subject to closure:
+(a) Those inciting to open resistance or disobedience to the Workers'
+and Peasants' Government; (b) Those creating confusion by obviously
+and deliberately perverting the news; (c) Those inciting to acts of a
+criminal character punishable by the laws.
+
+2. The temporary or permanent closing of any organ of the press shall
+be carried out only by virtue of a resolution of the Council of
+People's Commissars.
+
+3. The present decree is of a temporary nature, and will be revoked
+by a special _ukaz_ when normal conditions of public life are
+re-established.
+
+     _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+        VLADIMIR ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Workers' Militia_
+
+1. All Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall form a
+Workers' Militia.
+
+2. This Workers' Militia shall be entirely at the orders of the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+3. Military and civil authorities must render every assistance in
+arming the workers and in supplying them with technical equipment,
+even to the extent of requisitioning arms belonging to the War
+Department of the Government.
+
+4. This decree shall be promulgated by telegraph. Petrograd, November
+10, 1917.
+
+            _People's Commissar of the Interior_
+
+                A. I. RYKOV.
+
+This decree encouraged the formation of companies of Red Guards all
+over Russia, which became the most valuable arm of the Soviet
+Government in the ensuing civil war.
+
+2.
+
+THE STRIKE FUND
+
+The fund for the striking Government employees and bank clerks was
+subscribed by banks and business houses of Petrograd and other
+cities, and also by foreign corporations doing business in Russia.
+All who consented to strike against the Bolsheviki were paid full
+wages, and in some cases their pay was increased. It was the
+realisation of the strike fund contributors that the Bolsheviki were
+firmly in power, followed by their refusal to pay strike benefits,
+which finally broke the strike.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
+
+1.
+
+KERENSKY'S ADVANCE
+
+On November 9th Kerensky and his Cossacks arrived at Gatchina, where
+the garrison, hopelessly split into two factions, immediately
+surrendered. The members of the Gatchina Soviet were arrested, and at
+first threatened with death; later they were released on good
+behaviour.
+
+The Cossack advance-guards, practically unopposed, occupied Pavlovsk,
+Alexandrovsk and other stations, and reached the outskirts of
+Tsarskoye Selo next morning--November 10th. At once the garrison
+divided into three groups--the officers, loyal to Kerenskly; part of
+the soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who declared themselves
+"neutral"; and most of the rank and file, who were for the
+Bolsheviki. The Bolshevik soldiers, who were without leaders or
+organisation, fell back toward the capital. The local Soviet also
+withdrew to the village of Pulkovo.
+
+From Pulkovo six members of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet went with an
+automobile-load of proclamations to Gatchina, to propagandise the
+Cossacks. They spent most of the day going around Gatchina from one
+Cossack barracks to another, pleading, arguing and explaining. Toward
+evening some officers discovered their presence and they were
+arrested and brought before General Krasnov, who said, "You fought
+against Kornilov; now you are opposing Kerensky. I'll have you all
+shot!"
+
+After reading aloud to them the order appointing him
+commander-in-chief of the Petrograd District, Krasnov asked if they
+were Bolsheviki. They replied in the affirmative--upon which Krasnov
+went away; a short time later an officer came and set them free,
+saying that it was by order of General Krasnov....
+
+In the meanwhile delegations continued to arrive from Petrograd; from
+the Duma, the Committee for Salvation, and, last of all, from the
+_Vikzhel._ The Union of Railway Workers insisted that some agreement
+be reached to halt the civil war, and demanded that Kerensky treat
+with the Bolsheviki, and that he stop the advance on Petrograd. In
+case of refusal, the _Vikzhel_ threatened a general strike at
+midnight of November 11th.
+
+Kerensky asked to be allowed to discuss the matter with the Socialist
+Ministers and with the Committee for Salvation. He was plainly
+undecided.
+
+On the 11th Cossack outposts reached Krasnoye Selo, from which the
+local Soviet and the heterogeneous forces of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee precipitately retired, some of them
+surrendering.... That night they also touched Pulkovo, where the first
+real resistance was encountered....
+
+Cossacks deserters began to dribble into Petrograd, declaring that
+Kerensky had lied to them, that he had spread broadcast over the
+front proclamations which said that Petrograd was burning, that the
+Bolsheviki had invited the Germans to come in, and that they were
+murdering women and children and looting indiscriminately....
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately sent out some dozens
+of "agitators," with thousands of printed appeals, to inform the
+Cossacks of the real situation....
+
+2.
+
+PROCLAMATIONS OF THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+"To All Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies charges the local Soviets immediately to take the
+most energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Semitic disturbances, and all _pogroms_ of whatever nature. The
+honour of the workers', peasants' and soldiers' Revolution cannot
+tolerate any disorders....
+
+"The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+"Workers, soldiers, and peasants, everywhere you should follow the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+"Comrades soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of keeping real
+revolutionary order.
+
+"All revolutionary Russia and the whole world have their eyes on
+you...."
+
+"The All-Russian Congress of Soviets decrees:
+
+"To abolish capital punishment at the Front, which was reintroduced
+by Kerensky.
+
+"Complete freedom of propaganda is to be re-established in the
+country. All soldiers and revolutionary officers now under arrest for
+so-called political 'crimes' are at once to be set free."
+
+"The ex-Premier Kerensky, overthrown by the people, refuses to submit
+to the Congress of Soviets and attempts to struggle against the legal
+Government elected by the All-Russian Congress--the Council of
+People's Commissars. The Front has refused to aid Kerensky. Moscow
+has rallied to the new Government. In many cities (Minsk, Moghilev,
+Kharkov) the power is in the hands of the Soviets. No infantry
+detachment consents to march against the Workers' and Peasants'
+Government, which, in accord with the firm will of the Army and the
+people, has begun peace negotiations and has given the land to the
+peasants....
+
+"We give public warning that if the Cossacks do not halt Kerensky,
+who has deceived them and is leading them against Petrograd, the
+revolutionary forces will rise with all their might for the defence
+of the precious conquests of the Revolution--Peace and Land.
+
+"Citizens of Petrograd! Kerensky fled from the city, abandoning the
+authority to Kishkin, who wanted to surrender the capital to the
+Germans; Rutenburg, of the Black Band, who sabotaged the Municipal
+Food Supply; and Paltchinsky, hated by the whole democracy. Kerensky
+has fled, abandoning you to the Germans, to famine, to bloody
+massacres. The revolting people have arrested Kerensky's Ministers,
+and you have seen how the order and supplying of Petrograd at once
+improved. Kerensky, at the demand of the aristocrat proprietors, the
+capitalists, speculators, marches against you for the purpose of
+giving back the land to the land-owners, and continuing the hated and
+ruinous war.
+
+"Citizens of Petrograd! We know that the great majority of you are in
+favour of the people's revolutionary authority, against the
+Kornilovtsi led by Kerensky. Do not be deceived by the lying
+declarations of the impotent bourgeois conspirators, who will be
+pitilessly crushed.
+
+"Workers, soldiers, peasants! We call upon you for revolutionary
+devotion and discipline.
+
+"Millions of peasants and soldiers are with us.
+
+"The victory of the people's Revolution is assured!"
+
+3.
+
+ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS
+
+In this book I am giving only such decrees as are in my opinion
+pertinent to the Bolshevik conquest of power. The rest belong to a
+detailed account of the Structure of the Soviet State, for which I
+have no place in this work. This will be dealt with very fully in the
+second volume, now in preparation, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk."
+
+_Concerning Dwelling-Places_
+
+1. The independent Municipal Self-Governments have the right to
+sequestrate all unoccupied or uninhabited dwelling-places.
+
+2. The Municipalities may, according to laws and arrangements
+established by them, install in all available lodgings citizens who
+have no place to live, or who live in congested or unhealthy lodgings.
+
+3. The Municipalities may establish a service of inspection of
+dwelling-places, organise it and define its powers.
+
+4. The Municipalities may issue orders on the institution of House
+Committees, define their organisation, their powers and give them
+juridical authority.
+
+5. The Municipalities may create Housing Tribunals, define their
+powers and their authority.
+
+6. This decree is promulgated by telegraph.
+
+            _People's Commissar of the Interior,_
+
+                    A. I. RYKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Social Insurance_
+
+The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of
+complete Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and
+village poor. The Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the
+capitalists, as well as the Government of coalition and conciliation,
+failed to realise the desires of the workers with regard to Social
+Insurance.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government, relying upon the support of
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, announces
+to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that
+it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the
+formulas proposed by the Labour organisations:
+
+1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for
+all urban and rural poor.
+
+2. Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity,
+such as illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood,
+orphanage, and unemployment.
+
+3. All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.
+
+4. Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working
+capacity and unemployment.
+
+5. Complete workers' self-government of all Insurance institutions.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,
+                                _The People's Commissar of Labour,_
+                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Popular Education_
+
+Citizens of Russia!
+
+With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for
+the first time the real power.
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this
+power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People's
+Commissars.
+
+By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed
+People's Commissar of Education.
+
+The work of guiding in general the people's education, inasmuch as it
+remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent
+Assembly meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People's Education,
+whose chairman and executive is the People's Commissar.
+
+Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission?
+How is its sphere of competence determined?
+
+_The General Line of Educational Activity:_ Every genuinely
+democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where
+illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the
+struggle against this darkness. It must acquire in the shortest time
+_universal literacy,_ by organising a network of schools answering to
+the demands of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal,
+obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the same time a
+series of such teachers' institutes and seminaries as will in the
+shortest time furnish a powerful army of people's teachers so
+necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our
+boundless Russia.
+
+_Decentralisation:_ The State Commission on People's Education is by
+no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction
+and education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be
+transferred to the organs of local self-government. The independent
+work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own
+initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full
+autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres.
+
+The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to
+organise resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and
+private institutions, particularly to those with a class-character
+established by the workers.
+
+_The State Committee on People's Education:_ A whole series of
+invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the
+Revolution by the State Committee for People's Education, a tolerably
+democratic body as to its composition, and rich in experts. The State
+Commission sincerely desires the collaboration of this Committee.
+
+It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the
+request at once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee
+for the fulfilment of the following programme:
+
+1. The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the
+sense of greater democratisation.
+
+2. The revision of the Committee's rights in the sense of widening
+them, and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State
+institute for the elaboration of law projects calculated to
+reorganise public instruction and education in Russia upon democratic
+principles.
+
+3. The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws
+already created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact
+that in editing them the Committee had to take into account the
+bourgeois spirit of previous Ministries, which obstructed it even in
+this its narrowed form.
+
+After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any
+bureaucratic red tape, in the revolutionary order.
+
+_The Pedagogues and the Societists:_ The State Commission welcomes
+the pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the
+people--the masters of the country.
+
+No one measure in the domain of the people's education ought to be
+adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who
+represent the pedagogues.
+
+On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached
+exclusively through the cooperation of specialists. This refers as
+well to reforms of the institutes of general education.
+
+The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces--this is how
+the Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State
+Committee, and in all its activities.
+
+As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the
+teachers' status, and first of all of those very poor though almost
+most important contributors to the work of culture--the elementary
+school teachers. Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and
+at any cost. The proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an
+increase of salary to one hundred rubles per month. It would be a
+disgrace any longer to keep in poverty the teachers of the
+overwhelming majority of the Russian people.
+
+But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal
+elementary instruction. It must endeavour to organise a uniform
+secular school of several grades. The ideal is, equal and if possible
+higher education for all the citizens. So long as this idea has not
+been realised for all, the natural transition through all the
+schooling grades up to the university--a transition to a higher
+stage--must depend entirely upon the pupil's aptitude, and not upon
+the resources of his family.
+
+The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is
+particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal,
+imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must
+remember that education will serve them as the greatest instrument in
+their struggle for a better lot and for a spiritual growth. However
+needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people's budget,
+the expenses on education must stand high. A large educational budget
+is the pride and glory of a nation. The free and enfranchised peoples
+of Russia will not forget this.
+
+The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a
+thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.
+Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing
+position of a man who cannot read and write. The school for adults
+must occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular
+instruction.
+
+_Instruction and Education:_ One must emphasise the difference
+between instruction and education.
+
+Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to
+his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the
+individual is being "educated" throughout life, is being formed,
+grows richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
+
+The toiling masses of the people--the workmen, the peasants, the
+soldiers--are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But
+they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the
+intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it
+to them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may
+here by only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social
+position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and
+intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own
+ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
+of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own
+fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear
+world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There
+is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our
+nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The
+building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
+
+Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.
+What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the
+masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their
+parts a general human importance. They suffer radical changes with
+every far-reaching class upheaval.
+
+Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also
+among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement
+has arisen; workers' and soldiers' organisations of this kind are
+multiplying rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the
+road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular
+government in the domain of democratic education.
+
+_The Constituent Assembly_ will doubtless soon begin its work. It
+alone can permanently establish the order of national and social life
+in our country, and at the same time the general character of the
+organisation of popular education.
+
+Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really
+democratic character of the Constituent Assembly is assured. The line
+which the State Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will
+follow, will hardly suffer any modification under the influence of
+the Constituent Assembly. Without pre-determining it, the new
+People's Government considers itself within its rights in enacting in
+this domain a series of measures which aim at enriching and
+enlightening as soon as possible the spiritual life of the country.
+
+_The Ministry:_ The present work must in the interim proceed through
+the Ministry of the People's Education. Of all the necessary
+alterations in its composition and construction the State Commission
+will have charge, elected by the Executive Committee of the Soviets
+and the State Committee. Of course the order of State authority in
+the domain of the people's education will be established by the
+Constituent Assembly. Until then, the Ministry must play the part of
+the executive apparatus for both the State Committee and the State
+Commission for People's Education.
+
+The pledge of the country's safety lies in the cooperation of all its
+vital and genuinely democratic forces.
+
+We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the
+honest enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its
+painful crisis, and through complete democracy to the reign of
+Socialism and the brotherhood of nations.
+
+      _People's Commissar on Education,_
+
+               A. V. LUNACHARSKY.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Order in Which the Laws Are to be Ratified and Published._
+
+1. Until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the enacting
+and publishing of laws shall be carried out in the order decreed by
+the present Provisional Workmen's and Peasants' Government, elected
+by the All-Russian Congress of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
+Deputies.
+
+2. Every bill is presented for consideration of the Government by the
+respective Ministry, signed by the duly authorised People's
+Commissar; or it is presented by the legislative section attached to
+the Government, signed by the chief of the section.
+
+3. After its ratification by the Government, the decree in its final
+edition, in the name of the Russian Republic, is signed by the
+president of the Council of People's Commissars, or for him by the
+People's Commissar who presented it for the consideration of the
+Government, and is then published.
+
+4. The date of publishing it in the official "Gazette of the
+Provisional Workmen's and Peasants' Government," is the date of its
+becoming law.
+
+5. In the decree there may be appointed a date, other than the date
+of publication, on which it shall become law, or it may be
+promulgated by telegraph; in which case it is to be regarded in every
+locality as becoming law upon the publication of the telegram.
+
+6. The promulgation of legislative acts of the government by the
+State Senate is abolished. The Legislative Section attached to the
+Council of People's Commissars issues periodically a collection of
+regulations and orders of the government which possess the force of
+law.
+
+7. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers',
+Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies _(Tsay-ee-kah)_ has at all times
+the right to cancel, alter or annul any of the Government decrees.
+
+_In the name of the Russian Republic, the President of the Council of
+People's Commissars,_
+
+                                        V. ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+4.
+
+THE LIQUOR PROBLEM
+
+_Order Issued by the Military Revolutonary Committee_
+
+1. Until further order the production of alcohol and alcoholic drinks
+is prohibited.
+
+2. It is ordered to all producers of alcohol and alcoholic drinks to
+inform not later than on the 27th inst. of the exact site of their
+stores.
+
+3. All culprits against this order will be tried by a Military
+Revolutionary Court.
+
+THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE.
+
+5.
+
+ORDER NO. 2
+
+_From the Committee of the Finland Guard Reserve Regiment to all
+House Committees and to the citizens of Vasili Ostrov._
+
+The bourgeoisie has chosen a very sinister method of fighting against
+the proletariat; it has established in various parts of the city huge
+wine depots, and distributes liquor among the soldiers, in this
+manner attempting to sow dissatisfaction in the ranks of the
+Revolutionary army.
+
+It is herewith ordered to all house committees, that at 3 o'clock,
+the time set for posting this order, they shall in person and
+secretly notify the President of the Committee of the Finland Guard
+Regiment, concerning the amount of wine in their premises.
+
+Those who violate this order will be arrested and given trial before
+a merciless court, and their property will be confiscated, and the
+stock of wine discovered will be
+
+  BLOWN UP WITH DYNAMITE
+
+  2 hours after this warning,
+
+because more lenient measures, as experience has shown, do not bring
+the desired results.
+
+REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WARNING BEFORE THE EXPLOSIONS.
+
+  _Regimental Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment._
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
+
+1.
+
+MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE. BULLETIN NO. 2
+
+November 12th, in the evening, Kerensky sent a proposition to the
+revolutionary troops--"to lay down their arms." Kerensky's men opened
+artillery fire. Our artillery answered and compelled the enemy to be
+silent. The Cossacks assumed the offensive. The deadly fire of the
+sailors, the Red Guards and the soldiers forced the Cossacks to
+retreat. Our armoured cars rushed in among the ranks of the enemy.
+The enemy is fleeing. Our troops are in pursuit. The order has been
+given to arrest Kerensky. Tsarskoye Selo has been taken by the
+revolutionary troops.
+
+_The Lettish Riflemen:_ The Military Revolutionary Committee has
+received precise information that the valiant Lettish Riflemen have
+arrived from the Front and taken up a position in the rear of
+Kerensky's bands.
+
+_From the Staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The seizure of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo by Kerensky's detachments
+is to be explained by the complete absence of artillery and
+machine-guns in these places, whereas Kerensky's cavalry was provided
+with artillery from the beginning. The last two days were days of
+enforced work for our Staff, to provide the necessary quantity of
+guns, machine-guns, field telephones, etc., for the revolutionary
+troops. When this work--with the energetic assistance of the District
+Soviets and the factories (the Putilov Works, Obukhov and others)--was
+accomplished, the issue of the expected encounter left no place for
+doubt: on the side of the revolutionary troops there was not only a
+surplus in quantity and such a powerful material base as Petrograd,
+but also an enormous moral advantage. All the Petrograd regiments
+moved out to the positions with tremendous enthusiasm. The Garrison
+Conference elected a Control Commission of five soldiers, thus
+securing a complete unity between the commander in chief and the
+garrison. At the Garrison Conference it was unanimously decided to
+begin decisive action.
+
+The artillery fire on the 12th of November developed with
+extraordinary force by 3 P.M. The Cossacks were completely
+demoralised. A parliamentarian came from them to the staff of the
+detachment at Krasnoye Selo, and proposed to stop the firing,
+threatening otherwise to take "decisive" measures. He was answered
+that the firing would cease when Kerensky laid down his arms.
+
+In the developing encounter all sections of the troops--the sailors,
+soldiers and the Red Guards--showed unlimited courage. The sailors
+continued to advance until they had fired all their cartridges. The
+number of casualties has not been established yet, but it is larger
+on the part of the counter-revolutionary troops, who experienced
+great losses through one of our armoured cars.
+
+Kerensky's staff, fearing that they would be surrounded, gave the
+order to retreat, which retreat speedily assumed a disorderly
+character. By 11-12 P.M., Tsarkoye Selo, including the wireless
+station, was entirely occupied by the troops of the Soviets. The
+Cossacks retreated towards Gatchina and Colpinno.
+
+The morale of the troops is beyond all praise. The order has been
+given to pursue the retreating Cossacks. From the Tsarskoye Selo
+station a radio-telegram was sent immediately to the Front and to all
+local Soviets throughout Russia. Further details will be
+communicated....
+
+2.
+
+EVENTS OF THE 13TH IN PETROGRAD
+
+Three regiments of the Petrograd garrison to take any part in the
+battle against Kerensky. On the morning of the 13th they summoned to
+a joint conference sixty delegates from the Front, in order to find
+some way to stop the civil war. This conference appointed a committee
+to go and persuade Kerensky's troops to lay down their arms. They
+proposed to ask the Government soldiers the following questions: (1)
+Will the soldiers and Cossacks of Kerensky recognise the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ as the repository of Governmental power, responsible to
+the Congress of Soviets? (2) Will the soldiers and Cossacks accept
+the decrees of the second Congress of Soviets? (3) Will they accept
+the Land and Peace decrees? (4) Will they agree to cease hostilities
+and return to their units? (5) Will they consent to the arrest of
+Kerensky, Krasnov and Savinkov?
+
+At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev said, "It would be
+foolish to think that this committee could finish affair. The enemy
+can only be broken by force. However, it would be a crime for us not
+to try every peaceful means to bring the Cossacks over to us.... What
+we need is a military victory.... The news of an armistice is
+premature. Our Staff will be ready to conclude an armistice when the
+enemy can no longer do any harm....
+
+"At present, the influence of our victory is creating new political
+conditions.... To-day the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined
+to admit the Bolsheviki into the new Government.... A decisive
+victory is indispensable, so that those who hesitate will have no
+further hesitation...."
+
+At the City Duma all attention was concentrated on the formation of
+the new Government. In many factories and barracks already
+Revolutionary Tribunals were operating, and the Bolsheviki were
+threatening to set up more of these, and try Gotz and Avksentiev
+before them. Dan proposed that an ultimatum be sent demanding the
+abolition of these Revolutionary Tribunals, or the other members of
+the Conference would immediately break off all negotiations with the
+Bolsheviki.
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, declared that the Municipality ought not to take
+part in any agreement with the Bolsheviki.... "Any agreement with the
+maniacs is impossible until they lay down their arms and recognise
+the authority of independent courts of law...."
+
+Yartsev, for the _Yedinstvo_ group, declared that any agreement with
+the Bolsheviki would be equivalent to a Bolshevik victory....
+
+Mayor Schreider, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, stated that he
+was opposed to all agreement with the Bolsheviki.... "As for a
+Government, that ought to spring from the popular will; and since the
+popular will has been expressed in the municipal elections, the
+popular will which can create a Government is actually concentrated
+in the Duma...."
+
+After other speakers, of which only the representative of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists was in favour of considering the
+admission of the Bolsheviki into the new Government, the Duma voted
+to continue its representatives in the _Vikzhel's_ conference, but to
+insist upon the restoration of the Provisional Government before
+everything, and to exclude the Bolsheviki from the new power....
+
+3.
+
+TRUCE. KRASNOV's ANSWER TO THE COMMITTEE FOR SALVATION
+
+"In answer to your telegram proposing an immediate armistice, the
+Supreme Commander, not wishing further futile bloodshed, consents to
+enter into negotiations and to establish relations between the armies
+of the Government and the insurrectionists. He proposes to the
+General Staff of the insurrectionists to recall its regiments to
+Petrograd, to declare the line Ligovo-Pulkovo-Colpinno neutral, and
+to allow the advance-guards of the Government cavalry to enter
+Tsarskoye Selo, for the purpose of establishing order. The answer to
+this proposal must be placed in the hands of our envoys before eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning.
+
+KRASNOV."
+
+4.
+
+EVENTS AT TSARSKOYE SELO
+
+On the evening that Kerensky's troops retreated from Tsarskoye Selo,
+some priests organised a religious procession through the streets of
+the town, making speeches to the citizens in which they asked the
+people to support the rightful authority, the Provisional Government.
+When the Cossacks had retreated, and the first Red Guards entered the
+town, witnesses reported that the priests had incited the people
+against the Soviets, and had said prayers at the grave of Rasputin,
+which lies behind the Imperial Palace. One of the priests, Father
+Ivan Kutchurov, was arrested and shot by the infuriated Red Guards....
+
+Just as the Red Guards entered the town the electric lights were shut
+off, plunging the streets in complete darkness. The director of the
+electric light plant, Lubovitch, was arrested by the Soviet troops
+and asked why he had shut off the lights. He was found some time
+later in the room where he had been imprisoned with a revolver in his
+hand and a bullet hole in his temple.
+
+The Petrograd anti-Bolshevik papers came out next day with headlines,
+"Plekhanov's temperature 39 degrees!" Plekhanov lived at Tsarskoye
+Selo, where he was lying ill in bed. Red Guards arrived at the house
+and searched it for arms, questioning the old man.
+
+"What class of society do you belong to?" they asked him.
+
+"I am a revolutionist," answered Plekhanov, "who for forty years has
+devoted his life to the struggle for liberty!"
+
+"Anyway," said a workman, "you have now sold yourself to the
+bourgeoisie!"
+
+The workers no longer knew Plekhanov, pioneer of the Russian Social
+Democracy!
+
+5.
+
+APPEAL OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+"The detachments at Gatchina, deceived by Kerensky, have laid down
+their arms and decided to arrest Kerensky. That chief of the
+counter-revolutionary campaign has fled. The Army, by an enormous
+majority, has pronounced in favour of the second All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, and of the Government which it has created. Scores of
+delegates from the Front have hastened to Petrograd to assure the
+Soviet Government of the Army's fidelity. No twisting of the facts,
+no calumny against the revolutionary workers, soldiers, and peasants,
+has been able to defeat the People. The Workers' and Soldiers'
+Revolution is victorious....
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah_ appeals to the troops which march under the flag
+of the counter-revolution, and invites them immediately to lay down
+their arms--to shed no longer the blood of their brothers in the
+interests of a handful of land-owners and capitalists. The Workers',
+Soldiers' and Peasants' Revolution curses those who remain even for a
+moment under the flag of the People's enemies....
+
+"Cossacks! Come over to the rank of the victorious People!
+Railwaymen, postmen, telegraphers--all, all support the new Government
+of the People!"
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
+
+1.
+
+DAMAGE TO THE KREMLIN
+
+I myself verified the damage to the Kremlin, which I visited
+immediately after the bombardment. The Little Nicolai Palace, a
+building of no particular importance, which was occupied occasionally
+by receptions of one of the Grand Duchesses, had served as barracks
+for the _yunkers._ It was not only bombarded, but pretty well sacked;
+fortunately there was nothing in it of particular historical value.
+
+Usspensky Cathedral had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but
+except for a few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The
+frescoes on the porch of Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly
+damaged by a shell. Another shell hit the corner of Ivan Veliki.
+Tchudovsky Monastery was hit about thirty times, but only one shell
+went through a window into the interior, the others breaking the
+brick window-moulding and the roof cornices.
+
+The clock over the Spasskaya Gate was smashed. Troitsky Gate was
+battered, but easily reparable. One of the lower towers had lost its
+brick spire.
+
+The church of St. Basil was untouched, as was the great Imperial
+Palace, with all the treasures of Moscow and Petrograd in its cellar,
+and the crown jewels in the Treasury. These places were not even
+entered.
+
+2.
+
+LUNATCHARSKY's DECLARATION
+
+"Comrades! You are the young masters of the country, and although now
+you have much to do and think about, you must know how to defend your
+artistic and scientific treasures.
+
+"Comrades! That which is happening at Moscow is a horrible,
+irreparable misfortune.... The People in its struggle for the power has
+mutilated our glorious capital.
+
+"It is particularly terrible in these days of violent struggle, of
+destructive warfare, to be Commissar of Public Education. Only the
+hope of the victory of Socialism, the source of a new and superior
+culture, brings me comfort. On me weighs the responsibility of
+protecting the artistic wealth of the people.... Not being able to
+remain at my post, where I had no influence, I resigned. My comrades,
+the other Commissars, considered this resignation inadmissible. I
+shall therefore remain at my post.... And moreover, I understand that
+the damage done to the Kremlin is not as serious as has been
+reported....
+
+"But I beg you, comrades, to give me your support.... Preserve for
+yourselves and your descendants the beauty of our land; be the
+guardians of the property of the People.
+
+"Soon, very soon, even the most ignorant, who have been held in
+ignorance so long, will awake and understand what a source of joy,
+strength and wisdom is art...."
+
+
+
+3.
+
+QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE BOURGEOISIE
+
+[Graphic, page 354]
+
+4.
+
+REVOLUTIONARY FINANCIAL MEASURE
+
+_Order_
+
+In virtue of the powers vested in me by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee attached to the Moscow Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies, I decree:
+
+1. All banks with branches, the Central State Savings Bank with
+branches, and the savings banks at the Post and Telegraph offices are
+to be opened beginning November 22nd, from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M. until
+further order.
+
+2. On current accounts and on the books of the savings banks,
+payments will be made by the above mentioned institutions, of not
+more than 150 rubles for each depositor during the course of the next
+week.
+
+3. Payments of amounts exceeding 150 rubles a week on current
+accounts and savings banks books, also payments on other accounts of
+all kinds will be allowed during the next three days--November 22nd,
+23d, and 24th, only in the following cases:
+
+(a) On the accounts of military organisations for the satisfaction of
+their needs;
+
+(b) For the payment of salaries of employees and the earnings of
+workers according to the tables and lists certified by the Factory
+Committees or Soviets of Employees, and attested by the signatures of
+the Commissars, or the representatives of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and the district Military Revolutionary Committees.
+
+4. Not more than 150 rubles are to be paid against drafts; the
+remaining sums are to be entered on current account, payments on
+which are to be made in the order established by the present decree.
+
+5. All other banking operations are prohibited during these three
+days.
+
+6. The receipt of money on all accounts is allowed for any amount.
+
+7. The representatives of the Finance Council for the certification
+of the authorisations indicated in clause 3 will hold their office in
+the building of the Stock Exchange, Ilyinka Street, from 10 A. M. to
+2 P. M.
+
+8. The Banks and Savings Banks shall send the totals of daily cash
+operations by 5 P. M. to the headquarters of the Soviet, Skobeliev
+Square, to the Military Revolutionary Committee, for the Finance
+Council.
+
+9. All employees and managers of credit institutions of all kinds who
+refuse to comply with this decree shall be responsible as enemies of
+the Revolution and of the mass of the population, before the
+Revolutionary Tribunals. Their names shall be published for general
+information.
+
+10. For the control of the operations of Branches of the Savings
+Banks and Banks within the limits of this decree, the district
+Military Revolutionary Committees shall elect three representatives
+and appoint their place of business.
+
+_Fully-authorised Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+    S. SHEVERDIN-MAKSIMENKO.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
+
+1.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER
+
+This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It
+covers the time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and
+armistice with the Germans, and the beginning of the Peace
+negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, as well as the period in which were
+laid the foundations of the Soviet State.
+
+However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and
+interpret these very important historical events, which require more
+space. They are therefore reserved for another volume, "Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk."
+
+In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet
+Government's attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and
+sketched its successive conquests of hostile domestic elements--which
+process was temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of
+Brest-Litovsk.
+
+2.
+
+PREAMBLE--DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA
+
+The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the
+common banner of Emancipation.
+
+The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners,
+for there is no longer the landowner's property right in the land--it
+has been abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated
+from the power of autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth
+be elective and subject to recall. The workingmen are being
+emancipated from the whims and arbitrary will of the capitalists, for
+henceforth there will be established the control of the workers over
+mills and factories. Everything living and capable of life is being
+emancipated from the hateful shackles.
+
+There remain only the peoples of Russia, who have suffered and are
+suffering oppression and arbitrariness, and whose emancipation must
+immediately be begun, whose liberation must be effected resolutely
+and definitely.
+
+During the period of Tsarism the peoples of Russia were
+systematically incited against one another. The result of such a
+policy are known: massacres and _pogroms_ on the one hand, slavery of
+peoples on the other.
+
+There can be and there must be no return to this disgraceful policy.
+Henceforth the policy of a voluntary and honest union of the peoples
+of Russia must be substituted.
+
+In the period of imperialism, after the March revolution, when the
+power was transferred into the hands of the Cadet bourgeoisie, the
+naked policy of provocation gave way to one of cowardly distrust of
+the peoples of Russia, to a policy of fault-finding, of meaningless
+"freedom" and "equality" of peoples. The results of such a policy are
+known: the growth of national enmity, the impairment of mutual
+confidence.
+
+An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust,
+of fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by
+an open and honest policy leading to the complete mutual confidence
+of the peoples of Russia. Only as the result of such a trust can
+there be formed an honest and lasting union of the peoples of Russia.
+Only as the result of such a union can the workers and peasants of
+the peoples of Russia be cemented into one revolutionary force able
+to resist all attempts on the part of the imperialist-annexationist
+bourgeoisie.
+
+3.
+
+DECREES
+
+_On the Nationalisation of the Banks_
+
+In the interest of the regular organisation of the national economy,
+of the thorough eradication of bank speculation and the complete
+emancipation of the workers, peasants, and the whole labouring
+population from the exploitation of banking capital, and with a view
+to the establishment of a single national bank of the Russian
+Republic which shall serve the real interests of the people and the
+poorer classes, the Central Executive Committee _(Tsay-ee-kah)_
+resolves:
+
+1. The banking business is declared a state monopoly.
+
+2. All existing private joint-stock banks and banking offices are
+merged in the State Bank.
+
+3. The assets and liabilities of the liquidated establishments are
+taken over by the State Bank.
+
+4. The order of the merger of private banks in the State Bank is to
+be determined by a special decree.
+
+5. The temporary administration of the affairs of the private banks
+is entrusted to the board of the State Bank.
+
+6. The interests of the small depositors will be safeguarded.
+
+                        *   *   *   *   *
+
+_On the Equality of Rank of All Military Men_
+
+In realisation of the will of the revolutionary people regarding the
+prompt and decisive abolition of all remnants of former inequality in
+the Army, the Council of People's Commissars decrees:
+
+1. All ranks and grades in the Army, beginning with the rank of
+Corporal and ending with the rank of General, are abolished. The Army
+of the Russian Republic consists now of free and equal citizens,
+bearing the honourable title of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
+
+2. All privileges connected with the former ranks and grades, also
+all outward marks of distinction, are abolished.
+
+3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
+
+4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are
+abolished.
+
+5. With the abolition of the rank of officer, all separate officers'
+organisations are abolished.
+
+Note.--Orderlies are left only for headquarters, chanceries,
+Committees and other Army organisations.
+
+      _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                    VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+                    N. KRYLENKO.
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+                    N. PODVOISKY.
+
+      _Secretary of the Council,_
+                    N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+_On the Elective Principle and the Organisation of Authority in the
+Army_
+
+1. The army serving the will of the toiling people is subject to its
+supreme representative--the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+2. Full authority within the limits of military units and
+combinations is vested in the respective Soldiers' Committees and
+Soviets.
+
+3. Those phases of the life and activity of the troops which are
+already under the jurisdiction of the Committees are now formally
+placed in their direct control. Over such branches of activity which
+the Committees cannot assume, the control of the Soldiers' Soviets is
+established.
+
+4. The election of commanding Staff and officers is introduced. All
+commanders up to the commanders of regiments, inclusive, are elected
+by general suffrage of squads, platoons, companies, squadrons,
+batteries, divisions (artillery, 2-3 batteries), and regiments. All
+commanders higher than the commander of a regiment, and up to the
+Supreme Commander, inclusive, are elected by congresses or
+conferences of Committees.
+
+Note.--By the term "conference" must be understood a meeting of the
+respective Committees together with delegates of committees one
+degree lower in rank. (Such as a "conference" of Regimental
+Committees with delegates from Company Committees.--Author.)
+
+5. The elected commanders above the rank of commander of regiment
+must be confirmed by the nearest Supreme Committee.
+
+Note. In the event of a refusal by a Supreme Committee to confirm an
+elected commander, with a statement of reasons for such refusal, a
+commander elected by the lower Committee a second time must be
+confirmed.
+
+6. The commanders of Armies are elected by Army congresses.
+Commanders of Fronts are elected by congresses of the respective
+Fronts.
+
+7. To posts of a technical character, demanding special knowledge or
+other practical preparation, namely: doctors, engineers, technicians,
+telegraph and wireless operators, aviators, automobilists, etc.,
+only such persons as possess the required special knowledge may be
+elected, by the Committees of the units of the respective services.
+
+8. Chiefs of Staff must be chosen from among persons with special
+military training for that post.
+
+9. All other members of the Staff are appointed by the Chief of
+Staff, and confirmed by the respective congresses.
+
+Note.--All persons with special training must be listed in a special
+list.
+
+10. The right is reserved to retire from the service all commanders
+on active service who are not elected by the soldiers to any post,
+and who consequently are ranked as privates.
+
+11. All other functions beside those pertaining to the command, with
+the exception of posts in the economic departments, are filled by
+appointment of the respective elected commanders.
+
+12. Detailed instructions regarding the elections of the commanding
+Staff will be published separately.
+
+      _President of the Council of People's Commissars._
+
+             VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+
+             N. KRYLENKO.
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+
+             N. PODVOISKY.
+
+      _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+             N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Abolition of Classes and Titles_
+
+1. All classes and class divisions, all class privileges and
+delimitations, all class organisations and institutions and all civil
+ranks are abolished.
+
+2. All classes of society (nobles, merchants, petty bourgeois,
+etc.), and all titles (Prince, Count and others), and all
+denominations of civil rank (Privy State Councillor, and others), are
+abolished, and there is established the general denomination of
+Citizen of the Russian Republic.
+
+3. The property and institutions of the classes of nobility are
+transferred to the corresponding autonomous Zemstvos.
+
+4. The property of merchant and bourgeois organisations is
+transferred immediately to the Municipal Self-Governments.
+
+5. All class institutions of any sort, with their property, their
+rules of procedure, and their archives, are transferred to the
+administration of the Municipalities and Zemstvos.
+
+6. All articles of existing laws applying to these matters are
+herewith repealed.
+
+7. The present decree becomes effective on the day it is published
+and applied by the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+The present decree has been confirmed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at the
+meeting of November 23d, 1917, and signed by:
+
+    _President of the Tsay-ee-kah,_
+
+             SVERDLOV.
+
+    _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+             VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+    _Executive of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+             V. BONCH-BRUEVITCH.
+
+    _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+             N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+On December 3d the Council of People's Commissars resolved "to reduce
+the salaries of functionaries and employees in all Government
+institutions and establishments, general or special, without
+exception."
+
+To begin with, the Council fixed the salary of a People's Commissar
+at 500 rubles per month, with 100 rubles additional for each grown
+member of the family incapable of work....
+
+This was the highest salary paid to any Government official....
+
+4.
+
+Countess Panina was arrested and brought to trial before the first
+Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal. The trial is described in the chapter
+on "Revolutionary Justice" in my forthcoming volume, "Kornilov to
+Brist-Litovsk." The prisoner was sentenced to "return the money, and
+then be liberated to the public contempt." In other words, she was
+set free!
+
+5.
+
+RIDICULE OF THE NEW R�GIME
+
+From _Drug Naroda_ (Menshevik), November 18th:
+
+"The story of the 'immediate peace' of the Bolsheviki reminds us of a
+joyous moving-picture film.... Neratov runs--Trotzky pursues; Neratov
+climbs a wall, Trotzky too; Neratov dives into the water--Trotzky
+follows; Neratov climbs onto the roof--Trotzky right behind him;
+Neratov hides under the bed--and Trotzky has him! He has him!
+Naturally, peace is immediately signed....
+
+"All is empty and silent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The
+couriers are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression....
+
+"How about arresting an ambassador and signing an armistice or a
+Peace Treaty with him? But they are strange folk, these ambassadors.
+They keep silent just as if they had heard nothing. Hola, hola,
+England, France, Germany! We have signed an armistice with you! Is it
+possible that you know nothing about it? Nevertheless, it has been
+published in all the papers and posted on all the walls. On a
+Bolshevik's word of honour, Peace has been signed. We're not asking
+much of you; you just have to write two words....
+
+"The ambassadors remain silent. The Powers remain silent. All is
+empty and silent in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+"'Listen,' says Robespierre-Trotzky to his assistant Marat-Uritzky,
+'run over to the British Ambassador's, tell him we're proposing
+peace!'
+
+"'Go yourself,' says Marat-Uritzky. 'He's not receiving.'
+
+"'Telephone him, then.'
+
+"'I've tried. The receiver's off the hook.'
+
+"'Send him a telegram.'
+
+"'I did.'
+
+"'Well, with what result?'
+
+"Marat-Uritzky sighs and does not answer. Robespierre-Trotzky spits
+furiously into the corner....
+
+"'Listen, Marat,' recommences Trotzky, after a moment. 'We must
+absolutely show that we're conducting an active foreign policy. How
+can we do that?'
+
+"'Launch another decree about arresting Neratov,' answers Uritzky,
+with a profound air.
+
+"'Marat, you're a blockhead!' cries Trotzky. All of a sudden he
+arises, terrible and majestic, looking at this moment like
+Robespierre.
+
+"'Write, Uritzky!' he says with severity. 'Write a letter to the
+British ambassador, a registered letter with receipt demanded. Write!
+I also will write! The peoples of the world await an immediate peace!'
+
+"In the enormous and empty Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to be
+heard only the sound of two typewriters. With his own hands Trotzky
+is conducting an active foreign policy...."
+
+6.
+
+ON THE QUESTION OF AN AGREEMENT
+
+To the Attention of All Workers and All Soldiers.
+
+November 11th, in the club of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was held
+an extraordinary meeting of representatives of all the units of the
+Petrograd garrison.
+
+The meeting was called upon the initiative of the Preobrazhensky and
+Semionovsky Regiments, for the discussion of the question as to which
+Socialist parties are for the power of the Soviets, which are
+against, which are for the people, which against, and if an agreement
+between them is possible.
+
+The representatives of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ of the Municipal Duma, of
+the Avksentiev Peasants' Soviets, and of all the political parties
+from the Bolsheviki to the Populist Socialists, were invited to the
+meeting.
+
+After long deliberation, having heard the declarations of all
+parties and organisations, the meeting by a tremendous majority
+of votes agreed that only the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries are for the people, and that all the other parties
+are only attempting, under cover of seeking an agreement, to deprive
+the people of the conquests won in the days of the great Workers' and
+Peasants' Revolution of November.
+
+Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the
+Petrograd garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:
+
+"The garrison conference, summoned at the initiative of the
+Semionovsky and Preobrazhensky Regiments, on hearing the
+representatives of all the Socialist parties and popular
+organisations on the question of an agreement between the different
+political parties finds that:
+
+"1. The representatives of the _Tasy-ee-kah,_ the representatives of
+the Bolshevik party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared
+definitely that they stand for a Government of the Soviets, for the
+decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control of Industry, and that
+upon this platform they are willing to agree with all the Socialist
+parties.
+
+"2. At the same time the representatives of the other parties
+(Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries) either gave no answer at all,
+or declared simply that they were opposed to the power of the Soviets
+and against the decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control.
+
+"In view of this the meeting resolves:
+
+"'1. To express severe censure of all parties which, under cover of
+an agreement, wish practically to annul the popular conquests of the
+Revolution of November.
+
+"2. To express full confidence in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Council
+of People's Commissars, and to promise them complete support.'
+
+"At the same time the meeting deems it necessary that the comrades
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries should enter the People's Government."
+
+7.
+
+WINE "POGROMS"
+
+It was afterward discovered that there was a regular organisation,
+maintained by the Cadets, for provoking rioting among the soldiers.
+There would be telephone messages to the different barracks,
+announcing that wine was being given away at such and such an
+address, and when the soldiers arrived at the spot an individual
+would point out the location of the cellar....
+
+The Council of People's Commissars appointed a Commissar for the
+Fight Against Drunkenness, who, besides mercilessly putting down the
+wine riots, destroyed hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquor. The
+Winter Palace cellars, containing rare vintages valued at more than
+five million dollars, were at first flooded, and then the liquor was
+removed to Cronstadt and destroyed.
+
+In this work the Cronstadt sailors, "flower and pride of the
+revolutionary forces," as Trotzky called them, acquitted themselves
+with iron self-dicipline....
+
+8.
+
+SPECULATORS
+
+Two orders concerning them:
+
+  _Council of People's Commissars_
+
+  _To the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The disorganisation of the food supply created by the war, and the
+lack of system, is becoming to the last degree acute, thanks to the
+speculators, marauders and their followers on the railways, in the
+steamship offices, forwarding offices, etc.
+
+Taking advantage of the nation's greatest misfortunes, these criminal
+spoliators are playing with the health and life of millions of
+soldiers and workers, for their own benefit.
+
+Such a situation cannot be borne a single day longer.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars proposes to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee to take the most decisive measures towards
+the uprooting of speculation, sabotage, hiding of supplies,
+fraudulent detention of cargoes, etc.
+
+All persons guilty of such actions shall be subject, by special
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest
+and confinement in the prisons of Cronstadt, pending their
+arraignment before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+All the popular organisations are invited to cooperate in the
+struggle against the spoliators of food supplies.
+
+                _President of the Council of People's Commissaries._
+                                        V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Accepted for execution,
+        _Military Revolutionary Committee attached to
+         the C. E. C. of the Soviets of W. & S. Deputies._
+
+Petrograd, Nov. 23d, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To All Honest Citizens_
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee Decrees:_
+
+Spoliators, marauders, speculators, are declared to be enemies of the
+People....
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee proposes to all public
+organisations, to all honest citizens: to inform the Military
+Revolutionary Committee immediately of all cases of spoliation,
+marauding, speculation, which become known to them.
+
+The struggle against this evil is the business of all honest people.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee expects the support of all to
+whom the interests of the People are dear.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee will be merciless in pursuit of
+speculators and marauders.
+
+                                THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+Petrograd, Dec. 2d, 1917.
+
+9.
+
+PURISHKEVITCH's LETTER TO KALEDIN
+
+"The situation at Petrograd is desperate. The city is cut off from
+the outside world and is entirely in the power of the Bolsheviki....
+People are arrested in the streets, thrown into the Neva, drowned and
+imprisoned without any charge. Even Burtzev is shut up in Peter-Paul
+fortress, under strict guard.
+
+"The organisation at whose head I am is working without rest to unite
+all the officers and what is left of the _yunker_ schools, and to arm
+them. The situation cannot be saved except by creating regiments of
+officers and _yunkers._ Attacking with these regiments, and having
+gained a first success, we could later gain the aid of the garrison
+troops; but without that first success it is impossible to count on a
+single soldier, because thousands of them are divided and terrorised
+by the scum which exists in every regiment. Most of the Cossacks are
+tainted by Bolshevik propaganda, thanks to the strange policy of
+General Dutov, who allowed to pass the moment when by decisive action
+something could have been obtained. The policy of negotiations and
+concessions has borne its fruits; all that is respectable is
+persecuted, and it is the _plebe_ and the criminals who dominate--and
+nothing can be done except by shooting and hanging them.
+
+"We are awaiting you here, General, and at the moment of your
+arrival, we shall advance with all the forces at our disposal. But
+for that we must establish some communication with you, and before
+all, clear up the following points:
+
+"(1) Do you know that in your name all officers who could take part
+in the fight are being invited to leave Petrograd on the pretext of
+joining you?
+
+"(2) About when can we count on your arrival at Petrograd? We should
+like to know in order to coordinate our actions.
+
+"In spite of the criminal inaction of the conscious people here,
+which allowed the yoke of Bolshevism to be laid upon us--in spite of
+the extraordinary pig--headedness of the majority of officers, so
+difficult to organise--we believe in spite of all that Truth is on
+our side, and that we shall conquer the vicious and criminal forces
+who say that they are acting for motives of love of country and in
+order to save it. Whatever comes, we shall not permit ourselves to be
+struck down, and shall remain firm until the end."
+
+Purishkevitch, being brought to trial before the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, was given a short prison term....
+
+10.
+
+DECREE ON THE MONOPOLY OF ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+1. The printing of advertisements, in newspapers, books, bill-boards,
+kiosks, in offices and other establishments is declared to be a State
+monopoly.
+
+2. Advertisements may only be published in the organs of the
+Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government at Petrograd, and in
+the organs of local Soviets.
+
+3. The proprietors of newspapers and advertising offices, as well as
+all employees of such establishments, should remain at their posts
+until the transfer of the advertisement business to the Government....
+superintending the uninterrupted continuation of their houses, and
+turning over to the Soviets all private advertising and the sums
+received therefor, as well as all accounts and copy.
+
+4. All managers of publications and businesses dealing with paid
+advertising, as well as their employees and workers, shall agree to
+hold a City Congress, and to join, first the City Trade Unions, and
+then the All-Russian Unions, to organise more thoroughly and justly
+the advertising business in the Soviet publications, as well as to
+prepare better rules for the public utility of advertising.
+
+5. All persons found guilty of having concealed documents or money,
+or having sabotaged the regulations indicated in paragraphs 3 and 4,
+will be punished by a sentence of not more than three years'
+imprisonment, and all their property will be confiscated.
+
+6. The paid insertion of advertisements.... in private publications, or
+under a masqued form, will also be severely penalised.
+
+7. Advertising offices are confiscated by the Government, the owners
+being entitled to compensation in cases of necessity. Small
+proprietors, depositors and stock-holders of the confiscated
+establishments will be reimbursed for all moneys held by them in the
+concern.
+
+8. All buildings, officers, counters, and in general every
+establishment doing a business in advertising, should immediately
+inform the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of its address,
+and proceed to the transfer of its business, under penalty of the
+punishment indicated in paragraph 5.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _People's Commissar for Public Instruction,_
+                                        A. V. LUNATCHARSKY.
+
+                        _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+
+11.
+
+OBLIGATORY ORDINANCE
+
+1. The city of Petrograd is declared to be in a state of siege.
+
+2. All assemblies, meetings and congregations on the streets and
+squares are prohibited.
+
+3. Attempts to loot wine-cellars, warehouses, factories, stores,
+business premises, private dwellings, etc., etc., _will be stopped by
+machine-gun fire without warning._
+
+4. House Committees, doormen, janitors and Militiamen are charged
+with the duty of keeping strict order in all houses, courtyards and
+in the streets, and house-doors and carriage-entrances must be locked
+at 9 o'clock in the evening, and opened at 7 o'clock in the morning.
+After 9 o'clock in the evening only tenants may leave the house,
+under strict control of the House Committees.
+
+5. Those guilty of the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of
+alcoholic liquor, and also those guilty of the violation of sections
+2 and 4, will be immediately arrested and subjected to the most
+severe punishment.
+
+Petrograd, 6th of December, 3 o'clock in the night.
+
+        _Committee to Fight Against Pogroms, attached to the Executive
+        Committee of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+12.
+
+TWO PROCLAMATIONS
+
+Lenin, To _the People of Russia:_
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants--all toilers!
+
+"The Workers' and Peasants' Revolution has won at Petrograd, at
+Moscow.... From the Front and the villages arrive every day, every
+hour, greetings to the new Government.... The victory of the
+Revolution.... is assured, seeing that it is sustained by the majority
+of the people.
+
+"It is entirely understandable that the proprietors and the
+capitalists, the employees and functionaries closely allied with the
+bourgeoisic--in a word, all the rich and all those who join hands with
+them--regard the new Revolution with hostility, oppose its success,
+threaten to halt the activity of the banks, and sabotage or obstruct
+the work of other establishments.... Every conscious worker understands
+perfectly that we cannot avoid this hostility, because the high
+officials have set themselves against the People and do not wish to
+abandon their posts without resistance. But the working classes are
+not for one moment afraid of that resistance. The majority of the
+people are for us. For us are the majority of the workers and the
+oppressed of the whole world. We have justice on our side. Our
+ultimate victory is certain.
+
+"The resistance of the capitalists and high officials will be broken.
+No one will be deprived of his property without a special law on the
+nationalisation of banks and financial syndicates. This law is in
+preparation. Not a worker will lose a single kopek; on the contrary,
+he will be assisted. Without at this moment establishing the new
+taxes, the new Government considers one of its primary duties to make
+a severe accounting and control on the reception of taxes decreed by
+the former r�gime....
+
+"Comrades workers! Remember that you yourselves direct the
+Government. No one will help you unless you organise yourselves and
+take into your own hands the affairs of the State. Your Soviets are
+now the organs of governmental power.... Strengthen them, establish a
+severe revolutionary control, pitilessly crush the attempts at
+anarchy on the part of drunkards, brigands, counter-revolutionary
+_yunkers_ and Kornilovists.
+
+"Establish a strict control over production and the accounting for
+products. Arrest and turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal of the
+People every one who injures the property of the People, by sabotage
+in production, by concealment of grain-reserves, reserves of other
+products, by retarding the shipments of grain, by bringing confusion
+into the railroads, the posts and the telegraphs, or in general
+opposing the great work of bringing Peace and transferring the Land
+to the peasants....
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants--all toilers!
+
+"Take immediately all local power into your hands.... Little by little,
+with the consent of the majority of peasants, we shall march firmly
+and unhesitatingly toward the victory of Socialism, which will
+fortify the advance-guards of the working-class of the most civilised
+Countries, and give to the peoples an enduring peace, and free them
+from every slavery and every exploitation."
+
+13.
+
+_"To All Workers of Petrograd!_
+
+"Comrades! The Revolution is winning--the revolution has won. All the
+power has passed over to our Soviets. The first weeks are the most
+difficult ones. The broken reaction must be finally crushed, a full
+triumph must be secured to our endeavours. The working-class ought
+to--must--show in these days THE GREATEST FIRMNESS AND ENDURANCE, in
+order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People's
+Government of Soviets. In the next few days decrees on the Labour
+question will be issued, and among the very first will be the decree
+on Workers' Control over the production and regulation of Industry.
+
+"STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE WORKER MASSES IN PETROGRAD NOW CAN
+ONLY DO HARM.
+
+"We ask you to cease immediately all economic and political strikes,
+to take up your work, and do it in perfect order. The work in the
+factories and all the industries is necessary for the new Government
+of Soviets, because any interruption of this work will only create
+new difficulties for us, and we have enough as it is. All to your
+places.
+
+"The best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these
+days--is by doing your job.
+
+"LONG LIVE THE IRON FIRMNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT! LONG LIVE THE
+REVOLUTION!"
+
+                        _Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Trade Unions._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Factory-Shop Committees._
+
+
+14.
+
+APPEALS AND COUNTER-APPEALS
+
+_From the Employees of the State and private Banks To the Population
+of Petrograd:_
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers and citizens!
+
+"The Military Revolutionary Committee in an 'extraordinary notice' is
+accusing the workers of the State and private banking and other
+institutions of 'impeding the work of the Government, directed
+towards the ensuring of the Front with provisions.'
+
+"Comrades and citizens, do not believe this calumny, brought against
+us, who are part of the general army of labour.
+
+"However difficult it be for us to work under the constant threat of
+interference by acts of violence in our hard-working life, however
+depressing it be to know that our Country and the Revolution are on
+the verge of ruin, we, nevertheless, all of us, from the highest to
+the lowest, employees, _artelshtchiki,_ counters, labourers,
+couriers, etc., are continuing to fulfil our duties which are
+connected with the ensuring of provisions and munitions to the Front
+and country.
+
+"Counting upon your lack of information, comrades workers and
+soldiers, in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited
+against workers like yourselves, because it is desirable to divert
+the responsibility for the starving and dying brother-soldiers at the
+Front from the guilty persons to the innocent workers who are
+accomplishing their duty under the burden of general poverty and
+disorganisation.
+
+"REMEMBER, WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! THE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALWAYS STOOD UP
+FOR AND WILL ALWAYS STAND UP FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE TOILING PEOPLE,
+PART OF WHICH THEY ARE THEMSELVES, AND NOT A SINGLE KOPEK NECESSARY
+FOR THE FRONT AND THE WORKERS HAS EVER BEEN DETAINED AND WILL NOT BE
+DETAINED BY THE EMPLOYEES.
+
+"From November 6th to November 23d, i.e., during 17 days, 500 million
+rubles were dispatched to the Front, and 120 millions to Moscow,
+besides the sums sent to other towns.
+
+"Keeping guard over the wealth of the people, the master of which can
+be only the Constituent Assembly, representing the whole nation, the
+employees refuse to give out money for purposes which are unknown to
+them.
+
+"DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALUMNIATORS CALLING YOU TO TAKE THE LAW INTO
+YOUR OWN HANDS!"
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Union of Employees of the State
+Bank._
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Trade Union of Employees of Credit
+Institutions._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the Population of Petrograd._
+
+"CITIZENS: Do not believe the falsehood which irresponsible people
+are trying to suggest to you by spreading terrible calumnies against
+the employees of the Ministry of Supplies and the workers in other
+Supply organisations who are labouring in these dark days for the
+salvation of Russia. Citizens! In posted placards you are called upon
+to lynch us, we are accused falsely of sabotage and strikes, we are
+blamed for all the woes and misfortunes that the people are
+suffering, although we have been striving indefatigably and
+uninterruptedly, and are still striving, to save the Russian people
+from the horrors of starvation. Notwithstanding all that we are
+bearing as citizens of unhappy Russia, we have not for one hour
+abandoned our heavy and responsible work of supplying the Army and
+population with provisions.
+
+"The image of the Army, cold and hungry, saving our very existence by
+its blood and its tortures, does not leave us for a single moment.
+
+"Citizens! If we have survived the blackest days in the life and
+history of our people, if we have succeeded in preventing famine in
+Petrograd, if we have managed to procure to the suffering army bread
+and forage by means of enormous, almost superhuman, efforts, it is
+because we have honestly continued and are still continuing to do our
+work....
+
+"To the 'last warning' of the usurpers of the power we reply: It is
+not for you who are leading the country to ruin to threaten us who
+are doing all we can not to allow the country to perish. We are not
+afraid of threats; before us stands the sacred image of tortured
+Russia. We will continue our work of supplying the Army and the
+people with bread to our last efforts, so long as you will not
+prevent us from accomplishing our duty to our country. In the
+contrary case the Army and the people will stand before the horrors
+of famine, but the responsibility therefor belongs to the
+perpetrators of violence.
+
+                _Executive Committee of the Employees of the
+                                Ministry of Supplies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the_ Tchinovniki (_Government Officials_).
+
+It is notified hereby, that all officials and persons who have
+quitted the service in Government and public institutions or have
+been dismissed for sabotage or for having failed to report for work
+on the day fixed, and who have nevertheless received their salary
+paid in advance for the time they have not served, are bound to
+return such salary not later than on November 27th, 1917, to those
+institutions where they were in service.
+
+In the event of this not being done, these persons will be rendered
+answerable for stealing the Treasury's property and tried by the
+Military Revolutionary Court.
+
+                      _The Military-Revolutionary Committee._
+
+December 7th, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_From the Special Board for the Supplies_
+CITIZENS
+
+"The conditions of our work for the supplying of Petrograd are
+getting more and more difficult every day.
+
+"The interference with our work--which is so ruinous to our
+business--of the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee is
+still continuing.
+
+"THEIR ARBITRARY ACTS, their annulling of our orders, MAY LEAD TO A
+CATASTROPHE.
+
+"Seals have been affixed to one of the cold storages where the meat
+and butter destined for the population are kept, and we cannot
+regulate the temperature SO THAT THE PRODUCTS WOULD NOT BE SPOILT.
+
+"One carload of potatoes and one carload of cabbages have been seized
+and carried away no one knows where to.
+
+"Cargoes which are not liable to requisition (_khalva_) are
+requisitioned by the Commissars and, as was the case one day, five
+boxes of _khalva_ were seized by the Commissar for his own use.
+
+"WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO DISPOSE OF OUR STORAGES, where the
+self-appointed Commissars do not allow the cargoes to be taken out,
+and terrorise our employees, threatening them with arrest.
+
+"ALL THAT IS GOING ON IN PETROGRAD IS KNOWN IN THE PROVINCES, AND
+FROM THE DON, FROM SIBERIA, FROM VORONEZH AND OTHER PLACES PEOPLE ARE
+REFUSING TO SEND FLOUR AND BREAD.
+
+"THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER.
+
+"The work is simply falling out of our hands.
+
+"OUR DUTY is to let the population know of this.
+
+"To the last possibility we will remain on guard of the interests of
+the population.
+
+"WE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO AVOID THE ONCOMING FAMINE, BUT IF UNDER
+THESE DIFFICULT CONDITIONS OUR WORK IS COMPELLED TO STOP, LET THE
+PEOPLE KNOW THAT IT IS NOT OUR FAULT...."
+
+15.
+
+ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN PETROGRAD
+
+There were nineteen tickets in Petrograd. The results are as follows,
+published November 30th:
+
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | _Party_                                           | _Vote_  |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Populist Socialists                               |  19,109 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Cadets                                            | 245,006 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Christian Democrats                               |   3,707 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Bolsheviki                                        | 424,027 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Socialist Universalists                           |     158 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | S. D. and S. R. Ukrainean and Jewish Workers      |   4,219 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of Women's Rights                          |   5,310 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Socialist Revolutionaries (_oborontsi_)           |   4,696 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Left Socialist Revolutionaries                    | 152,230 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of the People's Development                |     385 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Radical Democrats                                 |     413 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Orthodox Parishes                                 |  24,139 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Feminine League for Salvation of Country          |     318 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Independent League of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants |   4,942 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Christian Democrats (Catholic)                    |  14,382 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Unified Social Democrats                          |  11,740 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Mensheviki                                        |  17,427 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | _Yedinstvo_ group                                 |   1,823 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of Cossack Troops                          |   6,712 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+
+16.
+
+FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING COSSACKS
+
+_"Brothers-Cossacks._
+
+"You are being deceived. You are being incited against the People.
+You are told that the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies are your enemies, that they want to take away your Cossack
+land, your Cossack 'liberty'. Don't believe it, Cossacks.... Your own
+Generals and landowners are deceiving you, in order to keep you in
+darkness and slavery. We, the Council of People's Commissars,
+address ourselves to you, Cossacks, with these words. Read them
+attentively and judge yourselves which is the truth and which is
+cruel deceit. The life and service of a Cossack were always bondage
+and penal servitude. At the first call of the authorities a Cossack
+always had to saddle his horse and ride out on campaign. All his
+military equipment a Cossack had to provide with his own hardly
+earned means. A Cossack is on service, his farm is going to rack and
+ruin. Is such a condition fair? No, it must be altered for ever. THE
+COSSACKS MUST BE FREED FROM BONDAGE. The new People's Soviet power is
+willing to come to the assistance of the toiling Cossacks. It is only
+necessary that the Cossacks themselves should resolve to abolish the
+old order, that they should refuse submission to their slave-driver
+officers, land-owners, rich men, that they should throw off the
+cursed yoke from their necks. Arise, Cossacks! Unite! The Council of
+People's Commissars calls upon you to enter a new, fresh, more happy
+life.
+
+"In November and December in Petrograd there were All-Russian
+Congresses of Soviets of Soldiers', Workers', and Peasants' Deputies.
+These Congresses transferred all the authority in the different
+localities into the hands of the Soviets, i.e., into the hands of men
+elected by the People. From now on there must be in Russia no rulers
+or functionaries who command the People from above and drive them.
+The People create the authority themselves. A General has no more
+rights than a soldier. All are equal. Consider, Cossacks, is this
+wrong or right? We are calling upon you, Cossacks, to join this new
+order and to create your own Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies. To such
+Soviets all the power must belong in the different localities. Not to
+_hetmans_ with the rank of General, but to the elected
+representatives of the toiling Cossacks, to your own trustworthy
+reliable men.
+
+"The All-Russian Congresses of Soldiers', Workers', and Peasants'
+Deputies have passed a resolution to transfer all landowners' land
+into the possession of the toiling people. Is not that fair,
+Cossacks? The Kornilovs, Kaledins, Dutovs, Karaulovs, Bardizhes, all
+defend with their whole souls the interests of the rich men, and they
+are ready to drown Russia in blood if only the lands remain in the
+hands of the landowners. But you, the toiling Cossacks, do not you
+suffer yourselves from poverty, oppression and lack of land? How many
+Cossacks are there who have more than 4-5 _dessiatins_ per head? But
+the landowners, who have thousands of _dessiatins_ of their own land,
+wish besides to get into their hands the lands of the Cossack Army.
+According to the new Soviet laws, the lands of Cossack landowners
+must pass without compensation into the hands of the Cossack workers,
+the poorer Cossacks. You are being told that the Soviets wish to take
+away your lands from you. Who is frightening you? The rich Cossacks,
+who know that the Soviet AUTHORITY WISHES TO transfer the landowners'
+lands to you. Choose then, Cossacks, for whom will you stand: for the
+Kornilovs and Kaledins, for the Generals and rich men, or for the
+Soviets of Peasants', Soldiers', Workers' and Cossacks' Deputies.
+
+"THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS elected by the All-Russian
+Congress HAS PROPOSED TO ALL NATIONS AN IMMEDIATE ARMISTICE AND AN
+HONOURABLE DEMOCRATIC PEACE WITHOUT LOSS OR DETRIMENT TO ANY NATION.
+All the capitalists, landowners, Generals-Kornilovists have risen
+against the peaceful policy of the Soviets. The war was bringing
+them profits, power, distinctions. And to you, Cossack privates?
+You were perishing without reason, without purpose, like your
+brothers-soldiers and sailors. It will soon be three years and a half
+that this accursed war has gone on, a war devised by the capitalists
+and landowners of all countries for their own profit, their world
+robberies. To the toiling Cossacks the war has only brought ruin and
+death. The war has drained all the resources from Cossack farm life.
+The only salvation for the whole of our country and for the Cossacks
+in particular is a prompt and honest peace. The Council of People's
+Commissars has declared to all Governments and peoples: We do not
+want other people's property, and we do not wish to give away our
+own. Peace without annexations and without indemnities. Every nation
+must decide its own fate. There must be no oppressing of one nation
+by another. Such is the honest, democratic, People's peace which the
+Council of People's Commissars is proposing to all Governments, to
+all peoples, allies and enemies. And the results are visible: ON THE
+RUSSIAN FRONT AN ARMISTICE HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.
+
+"The soldier's and the Cossack's blood is not flowing there any more.
+Now, Cossacks, decide: do you wish to continue this ruinous,
+senseless, criminal slaughter? Then support the Cadets, the enemies
+of the people, support Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, who drove you
+into the offensive of July 1st; support Kornilov, who introduced
+capital punishment for soldiers and Cossacks at the front. BUT IF YOU
+WISH A PROMPT AND HONEST PEACE, THEN ENTER THE RANKS OF THE SOVIETS
+AND SUPPORT THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS.
+
+"Your fate, Cossacks, lies in your own hands. Our common foes, the
+landowners, capitalists, officers-Kornilovists, bourgeois newspapers,
+are deceiving you and driving you along the road to ruin. In
+Orenburg, Dutov has arrested the Soviet and disarmed the garrison.
+Kaledin is threatening the Soviets in the province of the Don. He has
+declared the province to be in a state of war and is assembling his
+troops. Karaulov is shooting the local tribes in the Caucasus. The
+Cadet bourgeoisie is supplying them with its millions. Their common
+aim is to suppress the People's Soviets, to crush the workers and
+peasants, to introduce again the discipline of the whip in the army,
+and to eternalise the bondage of the toiling Cossacks.
+
+"Our revolutionary troops are moving to the Don and the Ural in order
+to put an end to this criminal revolt against the people. The
+commanders of the revolutionary troops have received orders not to
+enter into any negotiations with the mutinous Generals, to act
+decisively and mercilessly.
+
+"Cossacks! On you depends now whether your brothers' blood is to flow
+still. We are holding out our hand to you. Join the whole people
+against its enemies. Declare Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, Karaulov and
+all their aiders and abettors to be the enemies of the people,
+traitors and betrayers. Arrest them with your own forces and turn
+them over into the hands of the Soviet authority, which will judge
+them in open and public Revolutionary Tribunal. Cossacks! Form
+Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies. Take into your toil-worn hands the
+management of all the affairs of the Cossacks. Take away the lands of
+your own wealthy landowners. Take over their grain, their inventoried
+property and live-stock for the cultivation of the lands of the
+toiling Cossacks, who are ruined by the war.
+
+"Forward, Cossacks, to the fight for the common cause of the people!
+
+"Long live the toiling Cossacks!
+
+"Long live the union of the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants and
+workers!
+
+"Long live the power of the Soviets of Cossacks', Soldiers', Workers'
+and Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"Down with the war! Down with the landowners and the
+Kornilovist-Generals!
+
+"Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of peoples!"
+
+                                _Council of People's Commissars._
+
+17.
+
+FROM THE COMMISSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION ATTACHED TO THE CENTRAL
+CITY DUMA
+
+"Comrades Workingmen and Workingwomen!
+
+"A few days before the holidays, a strike has been declared by the
+teachers of the public schools. The teachers side with the
+bourgeoisie against the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
+
+"Comrades, organise parents' committees and pass resolutions against
+the strike of the teachers. Propose to the Ward Soviets of Workers'
+and Soldiers' Deputies, the Trade Unions, the Factory-Shop and Party
+Committees, to organise protest meetings. Arrange with your own
+resources Christmas trees and entertainments for the children, and
+demand the opening of the schools, after the holidays, at the date
+which will be set by the Duma.
+
+"Comrades, strengthen your position in matters of public education,
+insist on the control of the proletarian organisations over the
+schools."
+
+_Commission on Public Education attached to the Central City Duma._
+
+18.
+
+DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+The notes issued by Trotzky to the Allies and to the neutral powers,
+as well as the note of the Allied military Attach�s to General
+Dukhonin, are too voluminous to give here. Moreover they belong to
+another phase of the history of the Soviet Republic, with which this
+book has nothing to do--the foreign relations of the Soviet
+Government. This I treat at length in the next volume, "Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk."
+
+19.
+
+APPEALS TO THE FRONT AGAINST DUKHONIN
+
+"... The struggle for peace has met with the resistance of the
+bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary Generals.... From the
+accounts in the newspapers, at the _Stavka_ of former Supreme
+Commander Dukhonin are gathering the agents and allies of the
+bourgeoisie, Verkhovski, Avksentiev, Tchernov, Gotz, Tseretelli, etc.
+It seems even that they want to form a new power against the Soviets.
+
+"Comrades soldiers! All the persons we have mentioned have been
+Ministers already. They have acted in accord with Kerensky and the
+bourgeoisie. They are responsible for the offensive of July 1st and
+for the prolongation of the war. They promised the land to the
+peasants and then arrested the Land Committees. They reestablished
+capital punishment for soldiers. They obey the orders of French,
+English and American financiers....
+
+"General Dukhonin, for having refused to obey orders of the Council
+of People's Commissars, has been dismissed from his position as
+Supreme Commander.... For answer he is circulating among the troops the
+note from the Military Attach�s of the Allied imperialist Powers, and
+attempting to provoke a counter-revolution....
+
+"Do not obey Dukhonin! Pay no attention to his provocation! Watch him
+and his group of counter-revolutionary Generals carefully...."
+
+20.
+
+FROM KRYLENKO
+
+_Order Number Two_
+
+"... The ex-Supreme Commander, General Dukhonin, for having opposed
+resistance to the execution of orders, for criminal action
+susceptible of provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the
+People. All persons who support Dukhonin will be arrested, without
+respect to their social or political position or their past. Persons
+equipped with special authority will operate these arrests. I charge
+General Manikhovsky with the execution of the above-mentioned
+dispositions...."
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII
+
+1.
+
+INSTRUCTION TO PEASANTS
+
+In answer to the numerous enquiries coming from peasants, it is
+hereby explained that the whole power in the country is from now on
+held by the Soviets of the Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants'
+Deputies. The Workers' Revolution, after having conquered in
+Petrograd and in Moscow, is now conquering in all other centres of
+Russia. The Workers' and Peasants' Government safeguards the
+interests of the masses of peasantry, the poorest of them; it is with
+the majority of peasants and workers against the landowners, and
+against the capitalists.
+
+Hence the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, and before all the District
+Soviets, and subsequently those of the Provinces, are from now on and
+until the Constituent Assembly meets, full-powered bodies of State
+authority in their localities. All landlords' titles to the land are
+cancelled by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. A decree
+regarding the land has already been issued by the present Provisional
+Workers' and Peasants' Government. On the basis of the above decree
+all lands hitherto belonging to landlords now pass entirely and
+wholly into the hands of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. The
+_Volost_ (a group of several villages forms a _Volost_) Land
+Committees are immediately to take over all land from the landlords,
+and to keep a strict account over it, watching that order be
+maintained, and that the whole estate be well guarded, seeing that
+from now on all private estates become public property and must
+therefore be protected by the people themselves.
+
+All orders given by the _Volost_ Land Committees, adopted with the
+assent of the District Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, in fulfilment
+of the decrees issued by the revolutionary power, are absolutely
+legal and are to be forthwith and irrefutably brought into execution.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government appointed by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets has received the name of the Council
+of People's Commissars.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars summons the Peasants to take the
+whole power into their hands in every locality.
+
+The workers will in every way absolutely and entirely support the
+peasants, arrange for them all that is required in connection with
+machines and tools, and in return they request the peasants to help
+with the transport of grain.
+
+                  _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                       V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Petrograd, November 18th, 1917.
+
+2.
+
+The full-powered Congress of Peasants' Soviets met about a week
+later, and continued for several weeks. Its history is merely an
+expanded version of the history of the "Extraordinary Conference." At
+first the great majority of the delegates were hostile to the Soviet
+Government, and supported the reactionary wing. Several days later
+the assembly was supporting the moderates with Tchernov. And several
+days after that the vast majority of the Congress were voting for the
+faction of Maria Spiridonova, and sending their representatives into
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at Smolny.... The Right Wing then walked out of the
+Congress and called a Congress of its own, which went on, dwindling
+from day to day, until it finally dissolved....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+Author: John Reed
+
+Posting Date: November 25, 2012 [EBook #3076]
+Release Date: February, 2002
+First Posted: December 16, 2000
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Norman Wolcott, with corrections by Andrew Sly
+and Stefan Malte Schumacher
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Redactor's Note: The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices.
+The footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the
+Appendix No. and Section are referred to in the text in parentheses,
+the Appendices following the book text. There are 17 graphic figures
+in the text. These are indicated by a reference to the page number in
+the original book.]
+
+
+
+
+Ten Days That Shook the World
+
+by John Reed
+
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+  Preface.
+  Notes and Explanations.
+  Chapter 1. Background.
+  Chapter 2. The Coming Storm.
+  Chapter 3. On the Eve.
+  Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government.
+  Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead.
+  Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation.
+  Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front.
+  Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution.
+  Chapter 9. Victory.
+  Chapter 10. Moscow.
+  Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power.
+  Chapter 12. The Peasants' Congress.
+  Appendices I - XII
+
+
+
+
+Preface
+
+
+This book is a slice of intensified history--history as I saw it. It
+does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November
+Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and
+soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands
+of the Soviets.
+
+Naturally most of it deals with "Red Petrograd," the capital and heart
+of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
+in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
+intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.
+
+In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
+myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
+experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
+chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
+Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
+but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.
+
+Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
+is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
+set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
+the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
+afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
+until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
+it afterward?
+
+These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
+volume, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk," I trace the course of the
+Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I explain the
+origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
+of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
+structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the
+Brest-Litovsk negotiations....
+
+In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
+that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
+on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
+a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
+control of the Tsar's Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
+order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
+front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
+lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
+manufactures and transportation in 1916--all these we know now were part
+of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
+March Revolution.
+
+For the first few months of the new regime, in spite of the confusion
+incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
+of the world's most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
+the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
+improved.
+
+But the "honeymoon" was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
+political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
+it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
+France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
+England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
+industrial and agrarian democracy.
+
+William English Walling, in his book, "Russia's Message," an account of
+the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
+Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
+unanimously:
+
+They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
+Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
+might still continue to starve....
+
+The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
+dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
+studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
+about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
+oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
+the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
+take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near....
+
+They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
+institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
+anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
+class)....
+
+The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
+hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
+Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
+exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
+and Cripple Creek....
+
+And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
+Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
+triumph of Bolshevism.
+
+Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
+Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
+book, "The Birth of the Russian Democracy": The Bolsheviks organised
+their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon
+Trotsky--Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their
+coming into power became evident almost immediately after the March
+Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution,
+is a history of their steady growth....
+
+Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
+"ignorance" of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
+political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
+well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
+twelve million members of the Russian consumers' Cooperative societies;
+and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
+organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
+world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
+application.
+
+William English Walling thus characterises them:
+
+The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
+write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
+condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
+intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
+equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
+people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
+Russia....
+
+Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
+arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
+struggle of the "respectable" elements against the brutal attacks of
+Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
+realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
+organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
+this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
+In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
+was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the
+Factory-Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw
+materials diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital
+punishment was restored and military defeat connived at.
+
+This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
+retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
+the Soviets.
+
+Between these two extremes, with the other factions which
+whole-heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
+"moderate" Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
+and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
+propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
+theories.
+
+Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
+Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution--that only a
+_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
+the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
+attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
+which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old regime. And so it
+followed that when the "moderate" Socialists were forced to assume the
+power, they were afraid to use it.
+
+They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
+economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
+the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
+therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
+first be a parliamentary state--though with some improvements on the
+Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
+collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.
+
+From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The "moderate"
+Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
+"moderate" Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
+obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
+the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.
+
+And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
+the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
+on the side of the propertied classes.... In almost every country in the
+world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.
+
+Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
+Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
+and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
+the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
+armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
+December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar....
+
+It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
+to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an "adventure." Adventure it
+was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
+sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
+everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
+been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
+among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
+were there to put into operation workers' control of industry. In every
+village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
+Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, prepared to assume the task
+of local administration.
+
+No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
+Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
+rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
+historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
+the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
+in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
+leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
+written this book.
+
+In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
+story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
+conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.
+
+          J. R.
+   New York, January 1st 1919.
+
+
+Notes and Explanations
+
+To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian organisations--political
+groups, Committees and Central Committees, Soviets, Dumas and
+Unions--will prove extremely confusing. For this reason I am giving
+here a few brief definitions and explanations.
+
+
+Political Parties
+
+In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
+tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
+forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
+political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
+this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
+character of their constituencies can be noticed....
+
+1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
+once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
+underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_
+came by degrees to stand for their political programme.
+Representatives in this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.
+
+2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name, Constitutional
+Democrats. Its official name is "Party of the People's Freedom."
+Under the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied classes,
+the _Cadets_ were the great party of _political_ reform, roughly
+corresponding to the Progressive Party in America. When the
+Revolution broke out in March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first
+Provisional Government. The _Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April
+because it declared itself in favour of Allied imperialistic aims,
+including the imperialistic aims of the Tsar's Government. As the
+Revolution became more and more a _social economic_ Revolution, the
+_Cadets_ grew more and more conservative. Its representatives in this
+book are: Miliukov, Vinaver, Shatsky.
+
+2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
+through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
+_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
+of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet.
+The _Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual
+leaders were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the
+more "modern" bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were
+intelligent enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by
+their own weapon--economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_
+Lianozov, Konovalov.
+
+3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group). Numerically
+a small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the leaders of
+the Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants. Professing
+to be Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the interests
+of the petty bourgeoisie--clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By direct
+descent, inheritors of the compromising tradition of the Labour
+Group in the Fourth Imperial Duma, which was composed largely of
+peasant representatives. Kerensky was the leader of the _Trudoviki_
+in the Imperial Duma when the Revolution of March, 1917, broke out.
+The _Populist Socialists_ are a nationalistic party. Their
+representatives in this book are: Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.
+
+4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
+Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
+question of tactics, into two factions--the Majority (Bolshinstvo),
+and the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names
+"Bolsheviki" and "Mensheviki"--"members of the majority" and "members
+of the minority." These two wings became two separate parties, both
+calling themselves "Russian Social Democratic Labour Party," and both
+professing to be Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the
+Bolsheviki were really the minority, becoming again the majority in
+September, 1917.
+
+a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
+believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
+Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
+first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the
+Socialist intellectuals, which means: all the means of education
+having been in the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals
+instinctively reacted to their training, and took the side of the
+propertied classes. Among their representatives in this book are:
+Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.
+
+b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
+_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with
+the propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the
+conservative Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the
+working-class advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member
+of this group. Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.
+
+c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in
+order to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition
+of "moderate" or "parliamentary" Socialism, which dominates the
+Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all countries.
+The _Bolsheviki_ proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and
+seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of
+Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources
+and financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly
+of the factory workers, but also of a large section of the poor
+peasants. The name "Bolshevik" can _not_ be translated by "Maximalist."
+The Maximalists are a separate group. (See paragraph 5b). Among the
+leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.
+
+d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the
+_Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very
+influential newspaper which was its organ. A little group of
+intellectuals with a very small following among the working-class,
+except the personal following of Maxim Gorky, its leader.
+Intellectuals, with almost the same programme as the _Mensheviki
+Internationalists,_ except that the _Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to
+be tied to either of the two great factions. Opposed the Bolshevik
+tactics, but remained in the Soviet Government. Other representatives
+in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.
+
+e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
+entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers
+of the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80's, and its
+greatest theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely
+patriotic, too conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the
+Bolshevik _coup d'etat, Yedinstvo_ disappeared.
+
+5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the
+initials of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the
+peasants, the party of the Fighting Organisations--the Terrorists.
+After the March Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been
+Socialists. At that time it stood for the abolition of private
+property in land only, the owners to be compensated in some fashion.
+Finally the increasing revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the
+_Essaires_ to abandon the "compensation" clause, and led to the
+younger and more fiery intellectuals breaking off from the main party
+in the fall of 1917 and forming a new party, the _Left Socialist
+Revolutionary party._ The _Essaires,_ who were afterward always
+called by the radical groups _"Right Socialist Revolutionaries,"_
+adopted the political attitude of the Mensheviki, and worked together
+with them. They finally came to represent the wealthier peasants, the
+intellectuals, and the politically uneducated populations of remote
+rural districts. Among them there was, however, a wider difference of
+shades of political and economic opinion than among the Mensheviki.
+Among their leaders mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz,
+Kerensky, Tchernov, "Babuschka" Breshkovskaya.
+
+a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing
+the Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at
+first were reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics.
+However, the _Left Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet
+Government, sharing the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of
+Agriculture. They withdrew from the Government several times, but
+always returned. As the peasants left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in
+increasing numbers, they joined the _Left Socialist Revolutionary
+party,_ which became the great peasant party supporting the Soviet
+Government, standing for confiscation without compensation of the
+great landed estates, and their disposition by the peasants
+themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin, Kamkov,
+Kalagayev.
+
+b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary
+party_ in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant
+movement, demanding the immediate application of the maximum
+Socialist programme. Now an insignificant group of peasant
+anarchists.
+
+
+Parliamentary Procedure
+
+Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
+model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election
+of officers and the _presidium._
+
+The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of representatives
+of the groups and political factions represented in the assembly,
+in proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_ arranges the Order
+of Business, and its members can be called upon by the President to
+take the chair _pro tem._
+
+Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then debated,
+and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by the
+different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order
+of Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first
+half hour. On the plea of "emergency," which the crowd almost always
+grants, anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any
+subject. The crowd controls the meeting, practically the only
+functions of the speaker being to keep order by ringing a little
+bell, and to recognise speakers. Almost all the real work of the
+session is done in caucuses of the different groups and political
+factions, which almost always cast their votes in a body and are
+represented by floor-leaders. The result is, however, that at every
+important new point, or vote, the session takes a recess to enable
+the different groups and political factions to hold a caucus.
+
+The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
+over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
+are: _"Prosim!_ Please! Go on!" _"Pravilno!"_ or _"Eto vierno!_
+That's true! Right!" _"Do volno!_ Enough!" _"Doloi!_ Down with him!"
+_"Posor!_ Shame!" and _"Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!"
+
+
+Popular Organisations
+
+1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means "council." Under the Tsar the
+Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
+the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
+with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
+economic organisations--the Soviet of Workers', of Soldiers', or of
+Peasants' Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these
+bodies, and wherever else it occurs I have translated it "Council."
+
+Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and
+village of Russia--and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny)
+Soviets_--there are also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or
+provincial) _Soviets,_ and the Central Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian _Soviets_ in the capital, called from its initials
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, "Central Committees").
+
+Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers' and of Soldiers'
+Deputies combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special
+matters concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers'
+and the Soldiers' Sections continued to meet separately. The
+_Soviets_ of Peasants' Deputies did not join the other two until
+after the Bolshevik _coup d'etat._ They, too, were organised like the
+workers and soldiers, with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian
+Peasants' _Soviets_ in the capital.
+
+2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian
+labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the
+Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These
+Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian
+Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in
+the capital.
+
+3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations
+created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control
+industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident
+upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to
+take over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also
+had their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at
+Petrograd, which co-operated with the Trade Unions.
+
+4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly "deliberative body." The
+old Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution,
+in a democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The
+_City Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal
+Council, often called "Municipal Self-Government." It was elected by
+direct and secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the
+masses during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in
+influence of all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the
+growing power of organisations based on _economic_ groups.
+
+5. _Zemstvos._ May be roughly translated "county councils." Under
+the Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little
+administrative power, developed and controlled largely by
+intellectual Liberals among the land-owning classes. Their most
+important function was education and social service among the
+peasants. During the war the _Zemstvos_ gradually took over the
+entire feeding and clothing of the Russian Army, as well as the
+buying from foreign countries, and work among the soldiers generally
+corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C. A. at the Front.
+After the March Revolution the _Zemstvos_ were democratized, with a
+view to making them the organs of local government in the rural
+districts. But like the _City Dumas,_ they could not compete with the
+_Soviets._
+
+6. _Cooperatives._ These were the workers' and peasants' Consumers'
+Cooperative societies, which had several million members all over
+Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and "moderate"
+Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported by the
+revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
+complete transference of means of production and distribution into
+the hands of the workers. After the March Revolution the
+_Cooperatives_ spread rapidly, and were dominated by Populist
+Socialists, Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and acted as a
+conservative political force until the Bolshevik Revolution. However,
+it was the _Cooperatives_ which fed Russia when the old structure of
+commerce and transportation collapsed.
+
+7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the
+soldiers at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old
+regime officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps
+had its committee, over all of which was elected the _Army
+Committee._ The _Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General
+Staff. The administrative break-down in the army incident upon the
+Revolution threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of
+the work of the Quartermaster's Department, and in some cases, even
+the command of troops.
+
+8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy.
+
+
+Central Committees
+
+In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every
+sort of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national
+congresses of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Soviets, Trade
+Unions, Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees--besides
+every branch of the military and naval service, Cooperatives,
+Nationalities, etc. Each of these conventions elected a Central
+Committee, or a Central Executive Committee, to guard its particular
+interests at the seat of Government. As the Provisional Government
+grew weaker, these Central Committees were forced to assume more and
+more administrative powers.
+
+The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:
+
+_Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor
+Miliukov and other Liberals established unions of professional
+men--doctors, lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one
+central organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of
+Unions_ acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the
+_Union of Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the
+Government employees who went on strike against the authority of the
+Soviets.
+
+_Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. So called from the
+initials of its name.
+
+_Tsentroflot._ "Centre-Fleet"--the Central Fleet Committee.
+
+_Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers'
+Union. So called from the initials of its name.
+
+Other Organisations
+
+_Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_
+were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into
+existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed
+to keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all
+efforts of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or
+less unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red
+Guards_ appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but
+full of Revolutionary zeal.
+
+
+_White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last
+stages of the Revolution, to defend private property from the
+Bolshevik attempt to abolish it. A great many of them were University
+students.
+
+_Tekhintsi._ The so-called "Savage Division" in the army, made up
+of Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to
+General Kornilov. The _Tekhintsi_ were noted for their blind
+obedience and their savage cruelty in warfare.
+
+_Death Battalions._ Or _Shock Battalions._ The Women's Battalion is
+known to the world as the _Death Battalion,_ but there were many
+_Death Battalions_ composed of men. These were formed in the summer
+of 1917 by Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline
+and combative fire of the army by heroic example. The _Death
+Battalions_ were composed mostly of intense young patriots. These
+came for the most part from among the sons of the propertied classes.
+
+_Union of Officers._ An organisation formed among the reactionary
+officers in the army to combat politically the growing power of the
+Army Committees.
+
+_Knights of St. George._ The Cross of St. George was awarded for
+distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
+_"Knight of St. George."_ The predominant influence in the
+organisation was that of the supporters of the military idea.
+
+_Peasants' Union._ In 1905, the _Peasants' Union_ was a
+revolutionary peasants' organisation. In 1917, however, it had become
+the political expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight
+the growing power and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+
+Chronology and Spelling
+
+I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the
+former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.
+
+In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt
+to follow any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to
+give the spelling which would lead the English-speaking reader to the
+simplest approximation of their pronunciation.
+
+
+Sources
+
+Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also
+relied, however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred
+assorted Russian newspapers, covering almost every day of the time
+described, of files of the English paper, the _Russian Daily News,_
+and of the two French papers, _Journal de Russie_ and _Entente._ But
+far more valuable than these is the _Bulletin de la Presse_ issued
+daily by the French Information Bureau in Petrograd, which reports
+all important happenings, speeches and the comment of the Russian
+press. Of this I have an almost complete file from the spring of 1917
+to the end of January, 1918.
+
+Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every
+proclamation, decree and announcement posted on the walls of
+Petrograd from the middle of September, 1917, to the end of January,
+1918. Also the official publication of all Government decrees and
+orders, and the official Government publication of the secret
+treaties and other documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs when the Bolsheviki took it over.
+
+
+
+Ten Days That Shook The World
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+Background
+
+
+Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology
+visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by
+business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down.
+The Professor wrote an article about it, and then travelled around
+the country, visiting factory towns and peasant communities--where, to
+his astonishment, the Revolution seemed to be speeding up. Among the
+wage-earners and the land-working people it was common to hear talk
+of "all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers." If the
+Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the whole Army
+talking Peace....
+
+The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both
+observations were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming
+more conservative, the masses of the people more radical.
+
+There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
+generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted
+too long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared
+by the dominant "moderate" Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See
+App. I, Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who
+supported the Provisional Government of Kerensky.
+
+On October 14th the official organ of the "moderate" Socialists said:
+
+The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old
+regime and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long
+enough. Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as
+rapidly as possible. As a great revolutionist put it, "Let us hasten,
+friends, to terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long
+will not gather the fruits...."
+
+Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
+stubborn feeling that the "first act" was not yet played out. On the
+front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
+could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the
+rear the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed
+for trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land;
+and the workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
+black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political
+exiles were being excluded from the country as "undesirable"
+citizens; and in some cases, men who returned from abroad to their
+villages were prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts
+committed in 1905.
+
+To the multiform discontent of the people the "moderate" Socialists
+had one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet
+in December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The
+Constituent Assembly was all well and good; but there were certain
+definite things for which the Russian Revolution had been made, and
+for which the revolutionary martyrs rotted in their stark Brotherhood
+Grave on Mars Field, that must be achieved Constituent Assembly or no
+Constituent Assembly: Peace, Land, and Workers' Control of Industry.
+The Constituent Assembly had been postponed and postponed--would
+probably be postponed again, until the people were calm
+enough--perhaps to modify their demands! At any rate, here were eight
+months of the Revolution gone, and little enough to show for it....
+
+Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply
+deserting, the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great
+estates, the workers sabotaged and struck.... Of course, as was
+natural, the manufacturers, land-owners and army officers exerted all
+their influence against any democratic compromise....
+
+The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between
+ineffective reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from the
+Socialist Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers' Committees
+henceforth to meet only after working hours. Among the troops at the
+front, "agitators" of opposition political parties were arrested,
+radical newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied--to
+revolutionary propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the Red
+Guard. Cossacks were sent to keep order in the provinces....
+
+These measures were supported by the "moderate" Socialists and their
+leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate
+with the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and
+went over to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers'
+Control of Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In
+September, 1917, matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming
+sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the "moderate" Socialists
+succeeded in establishing a Government of Coalition with the
+propertied classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever.
+
+An article in _Rabotchi Put_ (Workers' Way) about the middle of
+October, entitled "The Socialist Ministers," expressed the feeling of
+the masses of the people against the "moderate" Socialists:
+
+Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)
+
+Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General
+Polovtsev, checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of
+capital punishment in the army.
+
+Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their
+profits, and finished--and finished by an attempt to dissolve the
+Workers' Committees in the shops and factories.
+
+Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the
+Land Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers' and soldiers'
+newspapers.
+
+Tchernov: signed the "Imperial" manifest, ordering the dissolution of
+the Finnish Diet.
+
+Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this
+saviour of the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due
+to reasons over which he had no control.
+
+Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the
+best workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.
+
+Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.
+
+Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his
+services is too long....
+
+A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
+resolution which began as follows:
+
+We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional
+Government of the "Socialist," the political adventurer--Kerensky, as
+one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it
+the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on
+behalf of the bourgeoisie....
+
+The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki....
+
+Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers
+beating upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma
+to assume the supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the
+people, workers, soldiers and peasants, which forced every change in
+the course of the Revolution. They hurled the Miliukov Ministry down;
+it was their Soviet which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace
+terms--"No annexations, no indemnities, and the right of
+self-determination of peoples"; and again, in July, it was the
+spontaneous rising of the unorganised proletariat which once more
+stormed the Tauride Palace, to demand that the Soviets take over the
+Government of Russia.
+
+The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the
+head of the movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the
+rising, public opinion turned against them, and their leaderless
+hordes slunk back into the Viborg Quarter, which is Petrograd's _St.
+Antoine._ Then followed a savage hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds
+were imprisoned, among them Trotzky, Madame Kollontai and Kameniev;
+Lenin and Zinoviev went into hiding, fugitives from justice; the
+Bolshevik papers were suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries
+raised the cry that the Bolsheviki were German agents, until people
+all over the world believed it.
+
+But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate
+its accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were
+discovered to be forgeries;[1] and one by one the Bolsheviki were
+released from prison without trial, on nominal or no bail-until only
+six remained. The impotence and indecision of the ever-changing
+Provisional Government was an argument nobody could refute. The
+Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses, "All Power
+to the Soviets!"--and they were not merely self-seeking, for at that
+time the majority of the Soviets was "moderate" Socialist, their
+bitter enemy.
+
+[1] Part of the famous "Sisson Documents".
+
+But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
+workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
+programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the
+bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In
+July they were hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan
+workmen, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been
+won almost entirely to their cause. The September municipal elections
+in the large cities (See App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18
+per cent of the returns were Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary,
+against more than 70 per cent in June....
+
+There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
+that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central
+Army and Fleet Committees,[2] and the Central Committees of some of
+the Unions--notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
+Workers--opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These
+Central Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer,
+or even before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had
+an enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new
+elections. Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should
+have been called in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_[2] would not
+call the meeting, on the ground that the Constituent Assembly was
+only two months away, at which time, they hinted, the Soviets would
+abdicate. Meanwhile, one by one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the
+local Soviets all over the country, in the Union branches and the
+ranks of the soldiers and sailors. The Peasants' Soviets remained
+still conservative, because in the sluggish rural districts political
+consciousness developed slowly, and the Socialist Revolutionary party
+had been for a generation the party which had agitated among the
+peasants.... But even among the peasants a revolutionary wing was
+forming. It showed itself clearly in October, when the left wing of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries split off, and formed a new political
+faction, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+[2] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of
+reaction were gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the
+Troitsky Farce theatre in Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called
+_Sins of the Tsar_ was interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who
+threatened to lynch the actors for "insulting the Emperor." Certain
+newspapers began to sigh for a "Russian Napoleon." It was the usual
+thing among bourgeois _intelligentzia_ to refer to the Soviets of
+Workers' Deputies (Rabotchikh Deputatov) as _Sabatchikh_
+Deputatov--Dogs' Deputies.
+
+On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist,
+Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the "Russian Rockefeller"--a
+Cadet by political faith.
+
+"Revolution," he said, "is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign
+powers must intervene here--as one would intervene to cure a sick
+child, and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less
+improper, but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in
+their own countries--such contagious ideas as 'proletarian
+dictatorship,' and 'world social revolution'... There is a chance that
+this intervention may not be necessary. Transportation is
+demoralised, the factories are closing down, and the Germans are
+advancing. Starvation and defeat may bring the Russian people to
+their senses...."
+
+Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it
+would be impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the
+existence of the workers' Shop Committees, or to allow the workers
+any share in the management of industry.
+
+"As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
+methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege
+declared, and the military commander of the district can deal with
+these gentlemen without legal formalities.... _Or if, for example, the
+Constituent Assembly manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be
+dispersed by force of arms...."_
+
+Winter was coming on--the terrible Russian winter. I heard business
+men speak of it so: "Winter was always Russia's best friend. Perhaps
+now it will rid us of Revolution." On the freezing front miserable
+armies continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways
+were breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate
+masses cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the
+people, causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just
+after General Kornilov said publicly, "Must we pay with Riga the
+price of bringing the country to a sense of its duty?"[3]
+
+[3] See "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk" by John Reed. Boni and Liveright
+N.Y., 1919.
+
+To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to
+such a pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern
+Front who frankly preferred military disaster to cooperation with the
+Soldiers' Committees. The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the
+Cadet party told me that the break-down of the country's economic
+life was part of a campaign to discredit the Revolution. An Allied
+diplomat, whose name I promised not to mention, confirmed this from
+his own knowledge. I know of certain coal-mines near Kharkov which
+were fired and flooded by their owners, of textile factories at
+Moscow whose engineers put the machinery out of order when they left,
+of railroad officials caught by the workers in the act of crippling
+locomotives....
+
+A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to
+the Revolution--even to the Provisional Government--and didn't hesitate
+to say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
+conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of
+the Germans, bringing "law and order."... One evening I spent at the
+house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at
+the table whether they preferred "Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki." The
+vote was ten to one for Wilhelm...
+
+The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to
+pile up fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the
+corruption of Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded,
+or secretly sent out of the country to Sweden. In the first four
+months of the Revolution, for example, the reserve food-supplies were
+almost openly looted from the great Municipal warehouses of
+Petrograd, until the two-years' provision of grain had fallen to less
+than enough to feed the city for one month.... According to the
+official report of the last Minister of Supplies in the Provisional
+Government, coffee was bought wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles
+a pound, and the consumer in Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the
+stores of the large cities were tons of food and clothing; but only
+the rich could buy them.
+
+In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
+speculator--_maradior_ (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The three
+sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
+foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to
+mysterious parties in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest
+in a chocolate factory, which supplied the local Cooperative
+societies--on condition that the Cooperatives furnished him everything
+he needed. And so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound
+of black bread on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white
+bread, sugar, tea, candy, cake and butter.... Yet when the soldiers at
+the front could no longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how
+indignantly did this family scream "Cowards!"--how "ashamed" they were
+"to be Russians"... When finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned
+vast hoarded stores of provisions, what "Robbers" they were.
+
+Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
+unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and
+very active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned,
+for and against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky--whoever would
+pay.... In the darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such
+as the Black Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in
+some form or other.
+
+In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
+note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
+"All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
+millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
+bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
+speculation, treachery.... The Revolution is in danger, and with it
+the cause of the people all over the world!"
+
+The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between
+the Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March
+days, was about to culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the
+Middle Ages into the twentieth century, Russia showed the startled
+world two systems of Revolution--the political and the social--in
+mortal combat.
+
+What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after
+all these months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie
+should have better known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia
+will the "sickness" of Revolution have run its course....
+
+Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of
+another age, almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt
+ourselves to the newer, swifter life; just as Russian politics swung
+bodily to the Left--until the Cadets were outlawed as "enemies of the
+people," Kerensky became a "counter-revolutionist," the "middle"
+Socialist leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were
+too reactionary for their following, and men like Victor Tchernov,
+and even Maxim Gorky, belonged to the Right Wing....
+
+About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan,
+the British Ambassador, and implored him not to mention the fact that
+they had been there, because they were "considered too far Right."
+
+"And to think," said Sir George. "One year ago my Government
+instructed me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously
+Left!"
+
+September and October are the worst months of the Russian
+year--especially the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the
+shortening days, the rain fell drenching, incessant. The mud
+underfoot was deep, slippery and clinging, tracked everywhere by
+heavy boots, and worse than usual because of the complete break-down
+of the Municipal administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from the
+Gulf of Finland, and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At
+night, for motives of economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the
+street-lights were few and far between; in private dwellings and
+apartment-houses the electricity was turned on from six o'clock until
+midnight, with candles forty cents apiece and little kerosene to be
+had. It was dark from three in the afternoon to ten in the morning.
+Robberies and housebreakings increased. In apartment houses the men
+took turns at all-night guard duty, armed with loaded rifles. This
+was under the Provisional Government.
+
+Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
+from a pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a
+quarter-pound. Toward the end there was a week without any bread at
+all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month--if
+one could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a
+pound of tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten rubles--at
+least a dollar. There was milk for about half the babies in the city;
+most hotels and private houses never saw it for months. In the fruit
+season apples and pears sold for a little less than a ruble apiece on
+the street-corner....
+
+For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in _queue_
+long hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I
+have seen the _kvost_ (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly
+women, some with babies in their arms.... Carlyle, in his _French
+Revolution,_ has described the French people as distinguished above
+all others by their faculty of standing in _queue._ Russia had
+accustomed herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas
+the Blessed as long ago as 1915, and from then continued
+intermittently until the summer of 1917, when it settled down as the
+regular order of things. Think of the poorly-clad people standing on
+the iron-white streets of Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter!
+I have listened in the bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of
+discontent which from time to time burst up through the miraculous
+goodnature of the Russian crowd....
+
+Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays.
+Karsavina appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving
+Russia coming to see her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky
+they were reviving Meyerhold's production of Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan
+the Terrible"; and at that performance I remember noticing a student
+of the Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up
+correctly between the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its
+eagles all erased.... The _Krivoye Zerkalo_ staged a sumptuous version
+of Schnitzler's "Reigen."
+
+Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated
+to Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the
+female _intelligentzia_ went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and
+the Easy Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for
+Theosophists. And the Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the
+first time in history, plastered the walls with announcements of
+gospel meetings, which amused and astounded Russian audiences....
+
+As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went
+on, ignoring the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made
+verses--but not about the Revolution. The realistic painters painted
+scenes from mediaeval Russian history--anything but the Revolution.
+Young ladies from the provinces came up to the capital to learn
+French and cultivate their voices, and the gay young beautiful
+officers wore their gold-trimmed crimson _bashliki_ and their
+elaborate Caucasian swords around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of
+the minor bureaucratic set took tea with each other in the afternoon,
+carrying each her little gold or silver or jewelled sugar-box, and
+half a loaf of bread in her muff, and wished that the Tsar were back,
+or that the Germans would come, or anything that would solve the
+servant problem.... The daughter of a friend of mine came home one
+afternoon in hysterics because the woman street-car conductor had
+called her "Comrade!"
+
+All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The
+servants one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were
+getting independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles,
+and as wages averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants
+refused to stand in _queue_ and wear out their shoes. But more than
+that. In the new Russia every man and woman could vote; there were
+working-class newspapers, saying new and startling things; there were
+the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The _izvoshtchiki_
+(cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in the
+Petrograd Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and
+refused tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which
+read, "No tips taken here--" or, "Just because a man has to make his
+living waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a
+tip!"
+
+At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers,
+and learned self-government through their committees. In the
+factories those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop
+Committees,[4] gained experience and strength and a realisation of
+their historical mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was
+learning to read, and _reading_--politics, economics, history--because
+the people wanted to _know...._ In every city, in most towns, along the
+Front, each political faction had its newspaper--sometimes several.
+Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed by thousands of
+organisations, and poured into the armies, the villages, the
+factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted,
+burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny
+Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons,
+car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia
+absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And
+it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap
+fiction that corrupts--but social and economic theories, philosophy,
+the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky....
+
+[4] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle's "flood of French speech" was a
+mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches--in theatres, circuses,
+school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters,
+barracks.... Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares,
+factories.... What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
+Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social
+Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever
+they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
+and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In
+railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu
+debate, everywhere....
+
+And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the
+men of two continents--conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives,
+Zemstvos,[5] nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the
+Democratic Conference, the Moscow Conference, the Council of the
+Russian Republic. There were always three or four conventions going
+on in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of
+speakers voted down, and every man free to express the thought that
+was in him....
+
+[5] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
+gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
+when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
+flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly,
+"Did you bring anything to _read?"_
+
+What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
+though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
+Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others--somewhat
+faded--floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms
+and eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the
+fierce _gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen
+militia patrolled the streets--still, there were many quaint
+anachronisms.
+
+For example, Peter the Great's _Tabel o Rangov--_Table of Ranks--which
+he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
+everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with
+the insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about
+five o'clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old
+gentlemen in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the
+huge, barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating
+perhaps how great a mortality among their superiors would advance
+them to the coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy
+Councillor, with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension,
+and possibly the Cross of St. Anne....
+
+There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
+came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
+not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
+Tsar's service!
+
+It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
+disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
+unrolled....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Coming Storm
+
+
+In September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself
+military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the
+mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the
+Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were implicated; even
+Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II, Sect. 1) Savinkov,
+summoned to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was
+arrested by the Soldiers' Committees. Generals were dismissed,
+Ministers suspended from their functions, and the Cabinet fell.
+
+Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party
+of the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries,
+ordered him to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and
+threatened to resign from the Cabinet if the Socialists insisted.
+However, popular feeling ran so high that for the moment he did not
+dare oppose it, and a temporary Directorate of Five of the old
+Ministers, with Kerensky at the head, assumed the power until the
+question should be settled.
+
+The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist
+groups--"moderates" as well as revolutionists--in a passionate impulse
+of self-defence. There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government
+must be created, responsible to the elements supporting the
+Revolution. So the _Tsay-ee-kah_ invited the popular organisations
+to send delegates to a Democratic Conference, which should meet at
+Petrograd in September.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ three factions immediately appeared. The
+Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be
+summoned, and that they take over the power. The "centre" Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki
+Internationalists under Martov, and the "centre" Mensheviki,[6]
+represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely
+Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the
+right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under
+Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be
+represented in the new Government.
+
+[6] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd
+Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities
+followed suit.
+
+Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ decided that after all they feared the danger of
+Kornilov less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of
+representation in the Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2)
+admitting more delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other
+conservative bodies. Even this packed assembly at first voted for a
+_Coalition Government without the Cadets._ Only Kerensky's open
+threat of resignation, and the alarming cries of the "moderate"
+Socialists that "the Republic is in danger" persuaded the
+Conference, by a small majority, to declare in favour of the
+principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to sanction the
+establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament, without any
+legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the Russian
+Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes practically
+controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they occupied
+a disproportionate number of seats.
+
+The fact is that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ no longer represented the rank
+and file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no
+intention of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called.
+Its official organ, _Izviestia_ (News), began to hint that the
+function of the Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II, Sect. 3)
+and that they might soon be dissolved... At this time, too, the new
+Government announced as part of its policy the liquidation of
+"irresponsible organisations"--i.e. the Soviets.
+
+The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to
+meet at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of
+Russia. At the same time they withdrew from the Council of the
+Russian Republic, stating that they would not participate in a
+"Government of Treason to the People." (See App. II, Sect. 4)
+
+The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring
+tranquillity to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now
+in a position of power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that
+the Government had no legal right to declare Russia a republic. They
+demanded stern measures in the Army and Navy to destroy the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Committees, and denounced the Soviets. On the
+other side of the chamber the Mensheviki Internationalists and the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries advocated immediate peace, land to
+the peasants, and workers' control of industry--practically the
+Bolshevik programme.
+
+I heard Martov's speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the
+desk of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking
+in a voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger
+toward the right benches:
+
+"You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait
+for a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon
+postponing peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian
+army, until Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the
+different imperialist groups.... You are trying to impose upon the
+Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the
+bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay....
+You will see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom
+you call German agents, of those Zimmerwaldists[7] who in all the
+lands have prepared the awakening of the conscience of the
+democratic masses...."
+
+[7] Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
+Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation
+in the International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,
+in 1915.
+
+Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the
+pressure of the rising dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility
+divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.
+
+This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the
+Allied Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of
+foreign policy....
+
+Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
+earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May,
+1917, the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, had proclaimed the famous Russian
+peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a
+conference to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised
+for August; then postponed until September; then until October; and
+now it was fixed for November 10th.
+
+The Provisional Government suggested two representatives--General
+Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of
+Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and
+drew up a manifesto, the famous _nakaz_--(See App. II, Sect. 5)
+instructions. The Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and
+his _nakaz;_ the Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law
+in the British House of Commons, in answer to a question, responded
+coldly, "As far as I know the Paris Conference will not discuss the
+aims of the war at all, but only the methods of conducting it...."
+
+At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the
+Bolsheviki cried, "See where the compromising tactics of the
+Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!"
+
+Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia's
+armies stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their
+hundreds upon hundreds of delegations, crying "Peace! Peace!"
+
+I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great
+popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous
+night after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny
+lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the
+steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof--soldiers, sailors,
+workmen, women, all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A
+soldier was speaking--from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division,
+wherever and whatever that was:
+
+"Comrades," he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face
+and despairing gestures. "The people at the top are always calling
+upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have
+everything are left unmolested.
+
+"We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to
+serve on our Staff? Well we're at war with the capitalists too, and
+yet we invite them into our Government....
+
+"The soldier says, 'Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
+Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it
+the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am
+defending the Revolution then I'll go out and fight without capital
+punishment to force me.'
+
+"When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the
+workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have
+something to fight for, and we'll fight for it!"
+
+In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less
+soldier speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring
+that if the Government did not make an energetic effort to get
+peace, the army would leave the trenches and go home.
+
+The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
+
+"We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must
+give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be
+left only empty trenches. Peace or supplies... either let the
+Government end the war or support the Army...."
+
+For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
+
+"The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to
+the enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
+counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the
+Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even
+to talk of such things, and at the same time doesn't give us enough
+food to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with...."
+
+From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See
+App. II, Sect. 6)...
+
+News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the
+discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with
+Soldiers' Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused
+an order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had
+been surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and
+many killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)...
+
+On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the
+Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear
+Terestchenko's declaration of the Government's foreign policy,
+awaited with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and
+exhausted land.
+
+A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high
+cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See
+App. II, Sect. 8) Nothing.... Only the same platitudes about crushing
+German militarism with the help of the Allies--about the "state
+interests" of Russia, about the "embarrassment" caused by
+Skobeliev's _nakaz._ He ended with the key-note:
+
+"Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
+happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders
+of a great ideal, and children of a great power."
+
+Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a "strong"
+imperialist policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that
+the Government would press for peace.... I reproduce an editorial in
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ (Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik
+Petrograd Soviet:
+
+THE GOVERNMENT'S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES
+
+The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually
+told the trenches the following:
+
+1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but
+with the Governments.)
+
+2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
+impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the
+Governments of our Allies.
+
+3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair.
+(He did not mention the consequences.)
+
+4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister
+has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations?
+What about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet?
+(See App. II, Sect. 9) The parleying of the British king with exiled
+counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention
+all this.)
+
+5. The _nakaz_ to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don't like it and the
+Russian diplomats don't like it. In the Allied Conference we must
+all 'speak one language.'
+
+And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is,
+faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When
+the Allies permit.
+
+That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
+
+Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague
+outlines of a sinister power--the Cossacks. _Novaya Zhizn_ (New
+Life), Gorky's paper, called attention to their activities:
+
+At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot
+down the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to
+follow him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have
+passed to an active political offensive (against it). From the
+back-ground of the Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the
+front of the stage....
+
+Kaledin, _ataman_ of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
+Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He
+flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack
+armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his
+power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination.
+More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council
+of the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the
+newly-formed Cossack Section of the Soviets....
+
+In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon
+Kerensky, arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be
+dropped, and reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the
+Soviets. Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported
+to have said, "In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a
+tyrant.... As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not
+depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they
+exist at all."
+
+At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British
+ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of "the free
+Cossack people."
+
+In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been
+established. The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State.
+The Soviets of Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by
+armed Cossacks, and the headquarters of the Coal Miners' Union at
+Kharkov raided. In all its manifestations the Cossack movement was
+anti-Socialist and militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great
+land-owners, like Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and
+Bardizhe, and it was backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of
+Moscow....
+
+Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland,
+White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became
+bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes,
+claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At
+Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the
+Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded
+the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev
+extended the boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the
+richest agricultural lands of South Russia, as far east as the
+Urals, and began the formation of a national army. Premier
+Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate peace with Germany--and the
+Provisional Government was helpless. Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded
+separate Constituent Assemblies. And in all these countries there
+was the beginning of a bitter struggle between the authorities and
+the local Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies....
+
+Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of
+soldiers were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast,
+aimless tides over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and
+Tver Governments, tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the
+repressive measures of the Government, were burning manor-houses and
+massacring land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed
+Moscow, Odessa and the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was
+paralysed; the army was starving and in the big cities there was no
+bread.
+
+The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary
+factions, could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported
+the interests of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to
+restore order among the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent,
+Government authorities suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the
+Economic Council, established to rebuild the shattered economic life
+of the country, came to a deadlock between the opposing forces of
+capital and labour, and was dissolved by Kerensky. The old regime
+military men, backed by Cadets, demanded that harsh measures be
+adopted to restore discipline in the Army and the Navy. In vain
+Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister of Marine, and General
+Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only a new, voluntary,
+democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the soldiers' and
+sailors' Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
+recommendations were ignored.
+
+The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The
+trial of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois
+press defended him, speaking of him as "the great Russian patriot."
+Burtzev's paper, _Obshtchee Dielo_ (Common Cause), called for a
+dictatorship of Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
+
+I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the
+Council of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled
+face, eyes near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard
+streaked with grey.
+
+"Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We
+should get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the
+Germans. Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the
+bunglers are the German agents. Kornilov should have won...."
+
+On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
+Purishkevitch's _Narodny Tribun_ (People's Tribune), _Novaya Rus_
+(New Russia), and _Zhivoye Slovo_ (Living Word), openly advocated
+the extermination of the revolutionary democracy....
+
+On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German
+squadron in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in
+danger, the Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the
+capital. First the great munitions works were to go, distributed
+widely throughout Russia; and then the Government itself was to move
+to Moscow. Instantly the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the
+Government was abandoning the Red Capital in order to weaken the
+Revolution. Riga had been sold to the Germans; now Petrograd was
+being betrayed!
+
+The bourgeois press was joyful. "At Moscow," said the Cadet paper
+_Ryetch_ (Speech), "the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
+atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists." Rodzianko,
+leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in _Utro
+Rossii_ (The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the
+Germans would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets
+and get rid of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:
+
+Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, "Let God take
+care of Petrograd." They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central
+revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that
+I rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will
+bring nothing but disaster upon Russia....
+
+With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be
+destroyed.... But there will be nothing to regret; most of the
+battleships are completely demoralised....
+
+In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation
+was repudiated.
+
+Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a
+thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not
+only by the Government but by all the "moderate" Socialists. The
+Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of
+the Trade Unions, the Peasants' Soviets, but most of all the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting.
+_Izviestia_ and _Golos Soldata_ (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers
+founded by the Petrograd Soviet but now in the hands of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ fiercely assailed it, as did the entire artillery of
+the Socialist Revolutionary party press, _Dielo Naroda_ (People's
+Cause) and _Volia Naroda_ (People's Will).
+
+Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to
+committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees,
+instructing them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn
+public resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the
+democracy was opposed to the meeting so near the date of the
+Constituent Assembly, representatives from the Front, from the Union
+of Zemstvos, the Peasants' Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of
+Officers, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions,[8] protesting....
+The Council of the Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval.
+The entire machinery set up by the Russian Revolution of March
+functioned to block the Congress of Soviets....
+
+[8] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat--the
+workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were
+already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the
+industrial workers, the _Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti_--Factory-Shop
+Committees; and the insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some
+places the people, prevented from electing their regular Soviet
+delegates, held rump meetings and chose one of their number to
+go to Petrograd. In others they smashed the old obstructionist
+committees and formed new ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved
+and cracked the crust which had been slowly hardening on the
+surface of revolutionary fires dormant all those months. Only
+an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets....
+
+Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and
+factories, violently denouncing "this Government of civil war." One
+Sunday we went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through
+oceans of mud, between stark factories and immense churches, to
+_Obukhovsky Zavod,_ a Government munitions-plant out on the
+Schluesselburg Prospekt.
+
+The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge
+unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed
+around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber
+and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and
+thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the
+sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the
+mass of simple faces upturned to us.
+
+Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face
+of an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the
+Soviets. Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its
+enemies, who were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the
+army, creating opportunities for a new Konilov.
+
+A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
+"Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We
+are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word
+to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution
+until they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until
+the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers
+to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!"
+
+Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: "Now is the
+time for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we
+must get used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us.
+They are trying to provoke us. But let them know that they can go
+too far--that if they dare to lay their hands upon the organisations
+of the proletariat we will sweep them away like scum from the face
+of the earth!"
+
+The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
+_Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ (Soldier), there appeared a new paper
+for the peasants, _Derevenskaya Byednota_ (Village Poorest), poured
+out in a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, _Rabotchi
+i Soldat._ Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
+
+The fourth year's campaign will mean the annihilation of the army
+and the country.... There is danger for the safety of Petrograd....
+Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people's misfortunes.... The
+peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the
+landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive
+expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are
+threatened with starvation.... The bourgeoisie and its Generals want
+to restore a blind discipline in the army.... Supported by the
+bourgeoisie, the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up
+the meeting of the Constituent Assembly....
+
+The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the
+country.... This paper stands for the people and by the people--the
+poor classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be
+saved by the completion of the Revolution... and for this purpose the
+full power must be in the hands of the Soviets....
+
+This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets--both in
+the capital and in the provinces.
+
+Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
+
+Landlord estates--without compensation--to the peasants.
+
+Workers' control over industrial production.
+
+A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
+
+It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same
+paper--the organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as
+German agents:
+
+The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead
+people, wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the
+German workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than
+we do, to... stand up against this damned war!
+
+This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would
+speak really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and
+would appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German
+troops, fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German
+language.... Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over
+Germany....
+
+In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the
+chamber deepened day by day.
+
+"The propertied classes," cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, "want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the
+State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The
+revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy...."
+
+Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists,
+spoke against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of
+the Cadets: "We must have immediately strong discipline in the
+army.... Since the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist
+that it is a crime to undertake social and economic reforms in
+war-time. We are committing that crime, and yet I am not the enemy
+of these reforms, because I am a Socialist."
+
+Cries from the Left, "We don't believe you!" Mighty applause from
+the Right....
+
+Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to
+tell the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to
+realise that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian
+territory.
+
+Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national
+unity, once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him
+coldly, interrupting with ironical remarks.
+
+Smolny Institute, headquarters of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and of the
+Petrograd Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the
+wide Neva. I went there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a
+groaning noise through the cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with
+people. At the end of the line rose the graceful smoke-blue cupolas
+of Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful; and beside it
+the great barracks like facade of Smolny Institute, two hundred
+yards long and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved
+hugely in stone still insolent over the entrance....
+
+Under the old regime a famous convent-school for the daughters of
+the Russian nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the
+Institute had been taken over by the revolutionary organisations of
+workers and soldiers. Within were more than a hundred huge rooms,
+white and bare, on their doors enamelled plaques still informing the
+passerby that within was "Ladies' Class-room Number 4" or "Teachers'
+Bureau"; but over these hung crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the
+vitality of the new order: "Central Committee of the Petrograd
+Soviet" and _"Tsay-ee-kah"_ and "Bureau of Foreign Affairs"; "Union
+of Socialist Soldiers," "Central Committee of the All-Russian Trade
+Unions," "Factory-Shop Committees," "Central Army Committee"; and
+the central offices and caucus-rooms of the political parties....
+
+The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were
+thronged with hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent
+under the weight of huge bundles of newspapers, proclamations,
+printed propaganda of all sorts. The sound of their heavy boots made
+a deep and incessant thunder on the wooden floor.... Signs were posted
+up everywhere: "Comrades! For the sake of your health, preserve
+cleanliness!" Long tables stood at the head of the stairs on every
+floor, and on the landings, heaped with pamphlets and the literature
+of the different political parties, for sale....
+
+The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a
+dining-room. For two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to
+dinner, and stood in line with a thousand others, waiting to get to
+the long serving-tables, where twenty men and women were ladling
+from immense cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and piles of
+_kasha,_ slabs of black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin
+cup. From a basket one grabbed a greasy wooden spoon.... The benches
+along the wooden tables were packed with hungry proletarians,
+wolfing their food, plotting, shouting rough jokes across the room....
+
+
+[Graphic, page 33: text of placard in russian, translation follows]
+
+COMRADES
+FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH,
+PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.
+
+Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the _Tsay-ee-kah--_
+though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly
+buttered and endless glasses of tea....
+
+In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of
+meetings, the former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room
+lighted by glazed-white chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate
+electric bulbs, and divided by two rows of massive columns; at one
+end a dais, flanked with two tall many-branched light standards, and
+a gold frame behind, from which the Imperial portrait had been cut.
+Here on festal occasions had been banked brilliant military and
+ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting for Grand Duchesses....
+
+Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials
+Committee for the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the
+new delegates come in--burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black
+blouses, a few long-haired peasants. The girl in charge--a member of
+Plekhanov's _Yedinstvo_[9] group--smiled contemptuously. "These are
+very different people from the delegates to the first _Siezd_
+(Congress)," she remarked. "See how rough and ignorant they look!
+The Dark People...." It was true; the depths of Russia had been
+stirred, and it was the bottom which came uppermost now. The
+Credentials Committee, appointed by the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was
+challenging delegate after delegate, on the ground that they had
+been illegally elected. Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, simply grinned. "Never mind," he said, "When the time
+comes we'll see that you get your seats...."
+
+[9] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ said:
+
+The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called
+to attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break
+up the Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that
+delegates had better leave Petrograd.... Pay no attention to these
+lies.... Great days are coming....
+
+It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2,
+so the opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the
+whole country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
+their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
+organisations to elect as many "moderate" Socialist delegates as
+possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants' Congress, to meet
+December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers
+might take...
+
+What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that
+there would be an armed "demonstration," a _vystuplennie_--"coming
+out" of the workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary
+press prophesied insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest
+the Petrograd Soviet, or at least to prevent the meeting of the
+Congress. Such sheets as _Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik
+massacre.
+
+Gorky's paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
+reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
+necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the
+parties of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
+
+As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
+long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
+advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements
+appeal to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the
+battle to seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most
+profound strata of the people....
+
+Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers
+were inciting the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however,
+would prepare the way for a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to
+deny the rumours. Potressov, in the Menshevik _Dien_ (Day),
+published a sensational story, accompanied by a map, which professed
+to reveal the secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.
+
+As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II,
+Sect. 10) proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
+"moderate" and conservative factions and the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denouncing any "demonstrations," imploring the workers and soldiers
+not to listen to agitators. For instance, this from the Military
+Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended
+_vystuplennie._ What is the source of these rumours? What
+organisation authorises these agitators who preach insurrection? The
+Bolsheviki, to a question addressed to them in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+denied that they have anything to do with it.... But these rumours
+themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily happen
+that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the
+majority of the workers, soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads
+will call out part of the workers and soldiers on the streets,
+inciting them to an uprising.... In this fearful time through which
+revolutionary Russia is passing, any insurrection can easily turn
+into civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of all
+organisations of the proletariat, built up with so much labour.... The
+counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of
+this insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open the front to
+Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly.... Stick stubbornly to
+your posts! Do not come out!
+
+On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev,
+a little man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He
+was not at all sure that enough delegates would come. "If there _is_
+a Congress," he said, "it will represent the overwhelming sentiment
+of the people. If the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be,
+we shall demand that the power be given to the Soviets, and the
+Provisional Government must resign...."
+
+Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion,
+was more definite. "The 'Lieber-Dans' and the other compromisers are
+sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its
+meeting,--well, then we are realists enough not to depend on _that!_"
+
+Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the
+following items culled from the newspapers of the day:
+
+Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal
+Guard Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.
+
+The _yunkers_ of the Officers' Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo
+and Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to
+Petrograd. Oranienbaum _yunkers_ arrive in the city.
+
+Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed
+in the Winter Palace.
+
+Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by
+the Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the
+Petrograd workmen.
+
+At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a
+resolution demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.
+
+This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days,
+when everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody
+knew just what.
+
+At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October
+30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the
+Soviet contemplated armed insurention as "an attempt of the
+reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets.... The
+Petrograd Soviet," he declared, "had not ordered any _uystuplennie._
+If it is necessary we shall do so, and we will be supported by the
+Petrogruad garrison.... They (the Government) are preparing a
+counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an offensive which will
+be merciless and decisive."
+
+It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a
+demonstration, but the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was
+considering the question of insurrection. All night long the 23d
+they met. There were present all the party intellectuals, the
+leaders--and delegates of the Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone
+of the intellectuals Lenin and Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even
+the military men opposed it. A vote was taken. Insurrection was
+defeated!
+
+Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. "I speak
+for the Petrograd proletariat," he said, harshly. "We are in
+favour of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now
+that if you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, _we're through with
+you!_" Some soldiers joined him.... And after that they voted
+again--insurrection won....
+
+However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev
+and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the
+morning of October 31st appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ the first
+instalment of Lenin's "Letter to the Comrades," (See App. II, Sect.
+11) one of the most audacious pieces of political propaganda the
+world has ever seen. In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments
+in favour of insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev
+and Riazonov.
+
+"Either we must abandon our slogan, 'All Power to the Soviets,'" he
+wrote, "or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle
+course...."
+
+That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a
+brilliant, bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of
+the Republic, branding the Skobeliev _nakaz_ as pro-German,
+declaring that the "revolutionary democracy" was destroying Russia,
+sneering at Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred
+German diplomacy to Russian.... The Left benches were one roaring
+tumult all through....
+
+On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the
+success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of
+the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two
+laws, one for giving the land temporarily to the peasants, and the
+other for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. The next day
+Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the army. That same
+afternoon was opened with great ceremony the first session of the
+new "Commission for Strengthening the Republican Regime and Fighting
+Against Anarchy and Counter-Revolution"--of which history shows not
+the slightest further trace.... The following morning with two other
+correspondents I interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)--the
+last time he received journalists.
+
+"The Russian people," he said, bitterly, "are suffering from
+economic fatigue--and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world
+thinks that the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken.
+The Russian Revolution is just beginning...." Words more prophetic,
+perhaps, than he knew.
+
+Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of
+October, at which I was present. The "moderate" Socialist
+intellectuals, officers, members of Army Committees, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ were there in force. Against them rose up workmen,
+peasants and common soldiers, passionate and simple.
+
+A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused
+by the arrest of the Land Committees. "This Kerensky is nothing but
+a shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners)," he cried. "They know
+that at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so
+they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!"
+
+A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
+were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that
+there was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he
+declared, had discovered huge hidden supplies.
+
+"It is a _provocatzia,"_ said he. "They want to starve us--or drive
+us to violence!"
+
+Among the soldiers one began, "Comrades! I bring you greetings from
+the place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!"
+
+Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with
+a roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
+fighting, and now risen from the dead.
+
+"The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
+Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed
+us.... The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be
+held exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone
+it will be cursed--and not only platonic curses either, for the Army
+has guns too...."
+
+He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in
+the Fifth Army. "The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the
+Socialist Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the
+Bolsheviki. Our papers are not allowed to circulate in the trenches.
+Our speakers are arrested--"
+
+"Why don't you speak about the lack of bread?" shouted another
+soldier.
+
+"Man shall not live by bread alone," answered Tchudnovsky, sternly....
+
+Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a
+Menshevik _oboronetz._ "It isn't the question of who has the power.
+The trouble is not with the Government, but with the war.... and the
+war must be won before any change--" At this, hoots and ironical
+cheers. "These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!" The hall rocked
+with laughter. "Let us for a moment forget the class struggle--" But
+he got no farther. A voice yelled, "Don't you wish we would!"
+
+Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the
+factories the committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles,
+couriers came and went, the Red Guard[10] drilled.... In all the
+barracks meetings every night, and all day long interminable hot
+arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy
+evening, pouring in slow voluble tides up and down the Nevsky,
+fighting for the newspapers.... Hold-ups increased to such an extent
+that it was dangerous to walk down side streets.... On the Sadovaya
+one afternoon I saw a crowd of several hundred people beat and
+trample to death a soldier caught stealing.... Mysterious individuals
+circulated around the shivering women who waited in _queue_ long
+cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered
+the food supply--and that while the people starved, the Soviet
+members lived luxuriously....
+
+[10] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates,
+demanding everybody's pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed
+all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the
+floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a
+thousand people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd
+Soviet....
+
+Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with
+champagne flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the
+centre of the city at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs
+walked up and down, crowded the cafes....
+
+Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes....
+
+And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under
+grey skies rushing faster and faster toward--what?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+On the Eve
+
+
+In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there
+comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the
+masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt....
+
+The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky's
+public denial that the Government had any such intention was met with
+hoots of derision.
+
+Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried _Rabotchi
+Put),_ the Government of "provisional" bourgeois tries to get free by
+giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
+Petrograd, and that it didn't wish to surrender the capital....
+
+In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the
+preamble of the I. W. W. constitution: "The working class and the
+employing class have nothing in common." Dispersed by Cossacks, some
+were locked out by the mine-owners, and the rest declared a general
+strike. Minister of Commerce and Industry Konovalov appointed his
+assistant, Orlov, with plenary powers, to settle the trouble. Orlov
+was hated by the miners. But the _Tsay-ee-kah_ not only supported his
+appointment, but refused to demand that the Cossacks be recalled from
+the Don Basin....
+
+This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The
+Bolsheviki, having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some
+political prisoners. With the sanction of the Government Commissar
+the Municipal Duma called in troops from Minsk, and bombarded the
+Soviet headquarters with artillery. The Bolsheviki yielded, but as
+they left the building Cossacks attacked them, crying, "This is what
+we'll do to all the other Bolshevik Soviets, including those of
+Moscow and Petrograd!" This incident sent a wave of panic rage
+throughout Russia....
+
+In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North,
+presided over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it
+resolved that all power should be assumed by the All-Russian
+Congress; and concluded by greeting the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding
+them rejoice, for the hour of their liberation was at hand. At the
+same time the first All-Russian Conference of Factory-Shop Committees
+(See App. III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the Soviets, and
+continued significantly,
+
+After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the
+working-class wants to see the democratic regime triumphant in the
+sphere of its productive activity. This is best expressed by Workers'
+Control over industrial production, which naturally arose in the
+atmosphere of economic decomposition created by the criminal policy
+of the dominating classes....
+
+The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky,
+Minister of Ways and Communications....
+
+In the name of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Skobeliev insisted that the _nakaz_
+be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against
+the sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign....
+
+General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the
+army, only came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals....
+
+On November 3d Burtzev's _Obshtchee Dielo_ came out with great
+headlines:
+
+Citizens! Save the fatherland!
+
+I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission
+for National Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the
+principal persons responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to
+sign a separate peace, independently of the Allies.
+
+That is treason to Russia!
+
+Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even
+examined Verkhovsky's proposition.
+
+"You might think," said Terestchenko, "that we were in a madhouse!"
+
+The members of the Commission were astounded at the General's words.
+
+General Alexeyev wept.
+
+No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!
+
+Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us
+concerning the words of Verkhovsky.
+
+Citizens, arise!
+
+Russia is being sold!
+
+Save her!
+
+What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to
+offer peace, because the Russian army could fight no longer....
+
+Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky
+was given "indefinite leave of absence for ill-health," and left the
+Government. _Obshtchee Dielo_ was suppressed....
+
+Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd
+Soviet, with immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly
+to raise money for the organisation and the press; really, to make a
+demonstration of strength. Suddenly it was announced that on the same
+day the Cossacks would hold a _Krestny Khod_--Procession of the
+Cross--in honour of the Ikon of 1612, through whose miraculous
+intervention Napoleon had been driven from Moscow. The atmosphere was
+electric; a spark might kindle civil war. The Petrograd Soviet issued
+a manifesto, headed "Brothers--Cossacks!"
+
+You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers.
+This plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies,
+the oppressors, the privileged classes--generals, bankers, landlords,
+former officials, former servants of the Tsar.... We are hated by all
+grafters, rich men, princes, nobles, generals, including your Cossack
+generals. They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd
+Soviet and crush the Revolution....
+
+On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious
+procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every
+individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession.
+We do not interfere in this matter, nor do we obstruct anybody....
+However, we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the
+pretext of a _Krestni Khod,_ your Kaledins do not instigate you
+against workmen, against soldiers....
+
+The procession was hastily called off....
+
+In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the
+Bolsheviki were preaching, "All Power to the Soviets!" and agents of
+the Dark Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the
+Jews, shop-keepers, Socialist leaders....
+
+On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression--on
+the other Lenin's great voice roaring, "Insurrection!.... We cannot
+wait any longer!"
+
+Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2)
+_Birjevya Viedomosti_ (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik
+propaganda an attack on "the most elementary principles of
+society--personal security and the respect for private property."
+
+[Graphic, page 46: Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their
+_Krestny Khod_--the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
+calendar). "Brothers--Cossacks!" it begins. "The Petrograd Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies addresses you."
+
+But it was the "moderate" Socialist journals which were the most
+hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) "The Bolsheviki are the most
+dangerous enemies of the Revolution," declared _Dielo Naroda._ Said
+the Menshevik _Dien,_ "The Government ought to defend itself and
+defend us." Plekhanov's paper, _Yedinstvo_ (Unity) (See App. III,
+Sect. 4), called the attention of the Government to the fact that the
+Petrograd workers were being armed, and demanded stern measures
+against the Bolsheviki.
+
+Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the
+Municipal administration broke down. The columns of the morning
+papers were filled with accounts of the most audacious robberies and
+murders, and the criminals were unmolested.
+
+On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing
+battle with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found
+them.
+
+On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of
+Petrograd, issued a proclamation:
+
+Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing,
+irresponsible appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still
+being spread around Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and
+disorder increase.
+
+This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and
+hinders the systematic work of the Government and the Municipal
+Institutions.
+
+In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my
+country, I command:
+
+1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and
+within the territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to
+the Municipality, to the Commissars, and to the militia, in the
+guarding of Government institutions.
+
+2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District
+Commander and the representatives of the city militia, and the taking
+of measures for the arrest of criminals and deserters.
+
+3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
+demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters
+of the Second Commander of the city.
+
+4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all
+armed forces at hand.
+
+5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted
+searches in houses and unwarranted arrests.
+
+6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under
+charge to the Staff of the Petrograd Military District.
+
+I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their
+help to the commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they
+are charged.
+
+In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government
+was fully aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient
+force to cope with any demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He
+accused _Novaya Rus_ and _Robotchi Put_ of both doing the same kind
+of subversive work. "But owing to the absolute freedom of the press,"
+he added, "the Government is not in a position to combat printed
+lies.[11]...." Declaring that these were two aspects of the same
+propaganda, which had for its object the counter-revolution, so
+ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:
+
+"I am a doomed man, it doesn't matter what happens to me, and I have
+the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
+unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!"
+
+[11] This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had
+suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to
+do so again.
+
+On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had
+arrived. Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a
+hundred and seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were
+Bolsheviki.... Four hundred constituted a quorum, and the Congress was
+only three days off....
+
+I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get
+in. Double rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside
+the front door there was a long line of people waiting to be let in,
+four at a time, to be questioned as to their identity and their
+business. Passes were given out, and the pass system was changed
+every few hours; for spies continually sneaked through....
+
+[Graphic, page 49: Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]
+
+Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)
+
+  Military Revolutionary Committee
+           attached to the
+  Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D.
+        Commandant's office
+  16th November, 1917
+               No. 955
+           Smolny Institute
+
+              PASS
+
+Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of
+the American Socialist press, until December 1, the right of free
+entry into Smolny Institute. Commandant
+                               Adjutant
+
+One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife
+just ahead of me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched
+through his pockets, but could find no pass.
+
+"Never mind," he said finally. "You know me. My name is Trotzky."
+
+"You haven't got a pass," answered the soldier stubbornly.
+
+"You cannot go in. Names don't mean anything to me."
+
+"But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet."
+
+"Well," replied the soldier, "if you're as important a fellow as that
+you must at least have one little paper."
+
+Trotzky was very patient. "Let me see the Commandant," he said. The
+soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb
+the Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally
+to the soldier in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to
+him. "My name is Trotzky," he repeated.
+
+"Trotzky?" The other soldier scratched his head. "I've heard the name
+somewhere," he said at length. "I guess it's all right. You can go on
+in, comrade...."
+
+In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
+Committee, who explained to me what the new Government would be like.
+
+"A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed
+through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the
+Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic
+will, just as the Tsar's Government did. The initiative of the new
+society shall come from below.... The form of the Government will be
+modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
+Party. The new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ responsible to frequent meetings of the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the parliament; the various
+Ministries will be headed by _collegia_--committees--instead of by
+Ministers, and will be directly responsible to the Soviets...."
+
+On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in
+the attic of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room
+he sat on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were
+necessary; he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The
+substance of his talk, in his own words, I give here:
+
+"The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie
+is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition
+with the _oborontsi_ parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees
+revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land;
+and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same
+disgust is evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only
+possible by means of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way
+by which the bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the
+bourgeoisie lacks.... The Army is with us. The conciliators and
+pacifists, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all
+authority--because the struggle between the peasants and the
+landlords, between the workers and the employers, between the
+soldiers and the officers, has become more bitter, more
+irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted action of the popular
+mass, only by the victory of proletarian dictatorship, can the
+Revolution be achieved and the people saved....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the
+people--perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and
+objects. Based directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in
+the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone
+of the Revolution.
+
+"There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets--and
+only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of
+all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of the
+Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution
+militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of
+the people. Between the two camps there are no groups of serious
+importance.... It is the _lutte finale._ The bourgeois counter-revolution
+organises all its forces and waits for the moment to attack us. Our
+answer will be decisive. We will complete the work scarcely begun in
+March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair...."
+
+He went on to speak of the new Government's foreign policy:
+
+"Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all
+fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace
+terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement
+depends on the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe.
+If we create here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a
+powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe; for this Government
+will address itself directly and immediately to all peoples, over the
+heads of their Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of
+the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will
+be in the direction of 'no annexations, no indemnities, the right of
+self-determination of peoples,' and a _Federated Republic of Europe._...
+
+"At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats,
+but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe--the United
+States of Europe--that is what must be. National autonomy no longer
+suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national
+frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then
+Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of
+Europe can give peace to the world." He smiled--that fine, faintly
+ironical smile of his. "But without the action of the European
+masses, these ends cannot be realised--now...."
+
+Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly
+on the streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white
+collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and
+openly.
+
+The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to
+the front.
+
+The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had
+taken a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned
+the tide in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers'
+Deputies, and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.
+
+Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional
+Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd
+garrison which answered, "If you are not capable of defending the
+capital, conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and
+make room for a People's Government which can do both...."
+
+It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the
+attitude of the Petrograd garrison. The Government's plan was to
+replace the garrison regiments with "dependable" troops--Cossacks,
+Death Battalions. The Army Committees, the "moderate" Socialists and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation
+was carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact
+that for eight months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy
+life in the barracks of the capital, while their exhausted comrades
+in the trenches starved and died.
+
+Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison
+regiments were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for
+the hardships of a winter campaign. But there were other reasons why
+they refused to go. The Petrograd Soviet feared the Government's
+intentions, and from the Front came hundreds of delegates, chosen by
+the common soldiers, crying, "It is true we need reinforcements, but
+more important, we must know that Petrograd and the Revolution are
+well-guarded.... Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we will hold the
+front!"
+
+On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the
+Petrograd Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military
+Committee to decide the whole question. The next day a meeting of the
+Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which
+immediately proclaimed a boycott of the bourgeois newspapers, and
+condemned the _Tsay-ee-kah_ for opposing the Congress of Soviets. On
+the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky proposed
+that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. "We ought," he said, "to create our special organisation
+to march to battle, and if necessary to die...." It was decided to send
+to the front two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from the
+garrison, to confer with the Soldiers' Committees and the General
+Staff.
+
+At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov,
+commander of the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he
+had ordered the Petrograd garrison to the trenches, and that was all.
+The garrison committee was not allowed to leave Petrograd....
+
+A delegation of the Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked
+that a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd
+District. Refused. The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be
+issued without the approval of the Soldiers' Section. Refused. The
+delegates were roughly told, "We only recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah._ We
+do not recognise you; if you break any laws, we shall arrest you."
+
+On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd
+regiments passed a resolution: _"The Petrograd garrison no longer
+recognises the Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our
+Government. We will obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet,
+through the Military Revolutionary Committee."_ The local military
+units were ordered to wait for instructions from the Soldiers'
+Section of the Petrograd Soviet.
+
+Next day the _Tsay-ee-kah_ summoned its own meeting, composed largely
+of officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and
+detailed Commissars in all quarters of the city.
+
+A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:
+
+Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the
+Petrograd garrison promises it complete support in all its actions,
+to unite more closely the front and the rear in the interests of the
+Revolution.
+
+The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary
+proletariat it assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in
+Petrograd. Every attempt at provocation on the part of the
+Kornilovtsi or the bourgeoisie will be met with merciless resistance.
+
+Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee
+peremptorily summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control.
+To all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or
+proclamations without the Committee's authorisation. Armed Commissars
+visited the Kronversk arsenal and seized great quantities of arms and
+ammunition, halting a shipment of ten thousand bayonets which was
+being sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of Kaledin....
+
+Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the
+Committee would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky
+himself sent Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on
+the Staff. The Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour
+later General Manikovsky, acting Minister of war, countermanded the
+offer....
+
+Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by
+the appearance of a placard signed, "Military Revolutionary Committee
+attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies."
+
+To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are
+mobilising their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets and break the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the
+_pogromists_ may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for
+trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the
+city against counter-revolutionary and _pogrom_ attempts.
+
+The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The
+population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators
+and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At
+the first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets
+of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be
+wiped off the face of the earth!
+
+Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and
+self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.
+
+List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee....
+
+On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting
+behind closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor
+outside the door; and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was
+going on.
+
+Lenin spoke: "November 6th will be too early. We must have an
+all-Russian basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to
+the Congress will not have arrived.... On the other hand, November 8th
+will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it
+is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift,
+decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets,
+so that we may say to it, 'Here is the power! What are you going to
+do with it?'"
+
+In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual,
+once an officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and
+exile, a certain Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and
+chess-player; he was drawing careful plans for the seizure of the
+capital.
+
+On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of
+the most loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were
+ordered to Petrograd. The _yunker_ artillery was drawn into the
+Winter Palace. Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance in the
+streets, for the first time since the July days. Polkovnikov issued
+order after order, threatening to repress all insubordination with
+the "utmost energy." Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the
+worst-hated member of the Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to
+keep order in Petrograd; he named as assistants two men no less
+unpopular, Rutenburg and Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and
+Finland were declared in a state of siege--upon which the bourgeois
+_Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked ironically:
+
+Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has
+no moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to
+use force.... In the most favourable circumstances it can only
+negotiate with any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no
+farther....
+
+Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to
+see what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic.
+Bitter debate on Terestchenko's foreign policy. Echoes of the
+Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the
+Italian ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso
+disaster....
+
+As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
+aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, "The remedy
+for Bolshevism is bullets!" Turning to the Cadets he cried, "That's
+what _you_ think, too!"
+
+Voices from the Right, "Yes! Yes!"
+
+"Yes, I know you think so," answered Karelin, hotly. "But you haven't
+the courage to try it!"
+
+Then Skobeliev, looking like a matinee idol with his soft blond beard
+and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
+_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
+"Resignation! Resignation!" He insisted that the delegates of the
+Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common
+point of view--his own. A few words about the restoration of
+discipline in the army, about war to victory.... Tumult, and over the
+stubborn opposition of the truculent Left, the Council of the
+Republic passed to the simple order of the day.
+
+There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats--empty since that first
+day when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I
+went down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter
+wrangling, no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate
+this high, cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was
+wrecked--on the same rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the
+Miliukov Ministry.... The doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, "I
+don't know what is becoming of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and
+Bolsheviki and Trudoviki.... This Ukraine and this Finland and the
+German imperialists and the English imperialists. I am forty-five
+years old, and in all my life I never heard so many words as in this
+place...."
+
+In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
+dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet
+party. I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
+_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.
+
+"They are cattle--_canaille,"_ he answered. "They will not dare, or if
+they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it
+will not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power
+in the Constituent Assembly....
+
+"But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
+Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
+chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction
+with the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional
+project.... We will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such
+as you have in the United States. In the lower chamber will be
+territorial representatives; in the upper, representatives of the
+liberal professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives--and Trade Unions...."
+
+Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud
+underfoot soaked through my shoes. Two companies of _yunkers_ passed
+swinging up the Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and
+singing an oldtime crashing chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing
+under the Tsar.... At the first cross-street I noticed that the City
+Militiamen were mounted, and armed with revolvers in bright new
+holsters; a little group of people stood silently staring at them. At
+the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin, "Will the
+Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?" paying for it with one of the
+stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars crawled
+past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
+Theodore P. Shonts green with envy.... Along the sidewalk a row of
+deserters in uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds....
+
+Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the
+latest papers, and knots of people were trying to make out the
+multitudes of appeals (See App. III, Sect. 6) and proclamations
+pasted in every flat place; from the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the
+Peasants' Soviets, the "moderate" Socialist parties, the Army
+Committees--threatening, cursing, beseeching the workers and soldiers
+to stay home, to support the Government....
+
+An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On
+every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered;
+arguing soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the
+wide-spaced street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed
+endlessly.... It is always like that in Petrograd just before trouble....
+
+The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no
+sign from the Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the
+workmen in the factories.... We went to a moving picture show near the
+Kazan Cathedral--a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down
+front were some soldiers and sailors, staring at the screen in
+childlike wonder, totally unable to comprehend why there should be so
+much violent running about, and so much homicide....
+
+From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the
+Military Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the
+chairmanship of a tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He
+stopped, as he passed, to shake hands rather bashfully.
+
+"Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us," said he, with a
+pleased grin. "A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was
+ordered by the Government to come to Petrograd. The men were
+suspicious, so they stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a
+delegation to us. 'What's the matter?' they asked. 'What have you got
+to say? We have just passed a resolution, "All Power to the
+Soviets."'... The Military Revolutionary Committee sent back word,
+'Brothers! We greet you in the name of the Revolution. Stay where you
+are until further instructions!'"
+
+All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the
+factories and barracks was established by means of military
+telephonograph apparatus....
+
+A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the
+door waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest
+quarters of the city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform
+of a lieutenant, said in French, "Everything is ready to move at the
+push of a button...."
+
+There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain
+conceived the strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar
+filthy, drunk with loss of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced
+soldier, always smiling, with his violent gestures and tumbling
+speech; and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor with the placid face.
+These were the men of the hour--and of other hours to come.
+
+Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov,
+signing orders on the Government Arsenal for arms--one hundred and
+fifty rifles for each factory.... Delegates waited in line, forty of
+them....
+
+In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One
+showed me a revolver. "The game is on," he said, and his face was
+pale. "Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us
+or be finished...."
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the
+great hall Trotzky was just finishing.
+
+"We are asked," he said, "if we intend to have a _vystuplennie._ I
+can give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd Soviet feels
+that at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the
+hands of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be
+accomplished by the All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed
+demonstration is necessary will depend on... those who wish to
+interfere with the All-Russian Congress....
+
+"We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
+Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only
+awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really
+popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now,
+to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take... into its
+hands that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom
+of the people. If, however, the Government wants to utilise the short
+period it is expected to live--twenty-four, forty-eight, or
+seventy-two hours--to attack us, then we shall answer with
+counter-attacks, blow for blow, steel for iron!"
+
+Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had
+agreed to send representatives into the Military Revolutionary
+Committee....
+
+As I left Smolny, at three o'clock in the morning, I noticed that two
+rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and
+that strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by
+street-corners. Bill Shatov[12] came bounding up the steps. "Well," he
+cried, "We're off! Kerensky sent the _yunkers_ to close down our
+papers, _Soldat_ and _Rabotchi Put._ But our troops went down and
+smashed the Government seals, and now we're sending detachments to
+seize the bourgeois newspaper offices!" Exultantly he slapped me on
+the shoulder, and ran in....
+
+[12] Well known in the American labor movement.
+
+On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose
+office was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the
+walls, hysterical appeals to the people to remain "calm." Polkovnikov
+emitted _prikaz_ after _prikaz:_
+
+I order all military units and detachments to remain in their
+barracks until further orders from the Staff of the Military
+District.... All officers who act without orders from their superiors
+will be court-martialled for mutiny. I forbid absolutely any
+execution by soldiers of instructions from other organisations....
+
+The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the
+papers _Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat,_ and
+decreed the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the
+members of the Military Revolutionary Committee....
+
+As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of _yunker_
+artillery came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up
+before the Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was
+unusually animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the
+door, and motors full of officers were coming and going.... The censor
+was very much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he
+said, had just gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his
+resignation. I hurried down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the
+end of that passionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky's,
+full of self-justification and bitter denunciation of his enemies.
+
+"I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series
+of articles published in _Rabotchi Put_ by Ulianov-Lenin, a state
+criminal who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find.... This state
+criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to
+repeat the experience of the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the
+immediate necessity for an armed rising.... Moreover, other Bolshevik
+leaders have taken the floor in a series of meetings, and also made
+an appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly should be noticed
+the activity of the present president of the Petrograd Soviet,
+Bronstein-Trotzky....
+
+"I ought to bring to your notice... that the expressions and the style
+of a whole series of articles in _Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ resemble
+absolutely those of _Novaya Rus...._ We have to do not so much with the
+movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation
+of the political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the
+population, a sort of organisation whose object it is to provoke in
+Russia, cost what it may, an inconscient movement of destruction and
+pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at
+Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, which will
+cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia....
+
+"... By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
+extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very
+favourable." (Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin's
+article.):
+
+Think of it!... The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without
+newspapers, without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet.... They are
+opposed by the incredible hostility of all classes of society--and yet
+the German comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of
+newspapers, freedom of meeting, the majority of the Soviets, we, the
+best-placed international proletarians of the entire world, can we
+refuse to support the German revolutionists and insurrectionary
+organisations?...
+
+Kerensky then continued:
+
+"The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
+perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain
+now in Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head
+of which is, in the eyes of this party, 'a usurper and a man who has
+sold himself to the bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky....'
+
+"... The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
+German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they
+open the Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends....
+Little matter to the Provisional Government the motives of these
+people, little matter if they act consciously or unconsciously; but
+in any case, from this tribune, in full consciousness of my
+responsibility, I quality such acts of a Russian political party as
+acts of treason to Russia!
+
+"... I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
+immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
+arrests." (Uproar from the Left.) "Listen to me!" he cried in a
+powerful voice. "At the moment when the state is in danger, because
+of conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and
+myself among others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life,
+the honour and the independence of Russia...."
+
+At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.
+
+"I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to
+the regiments. Here is the contents." Reading: _"'The Petrograd
+Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is menaced. We order
+immediately the regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await
+new orders. All delay or non-execution of this order will be
+considered as an act of treason to the Revolution. The Military
+Revolutionary Committee. For the President, Podvoisky. The Secretary,
+Antonov.'_
+
+"In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
+existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the
+front to the regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm....
+
+"I say 'populace' intentionally, because the conscious democracy and
+its _Tsay-ee-kah,_ all the Army organisations, all that free Russia
+glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
+Russian democracy, protests against these things....
+
+"I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction
+that the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
+liberty--that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future,
+will find unanimous support except among those who have never dared
+to face the truth....
+
+"... The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
+citizens of the State to use their political rights.... But now the
+Provisional Government.... declares: in this moment those elements of
+the Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift
+their hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same
+time threatening to open the front to Germany, must be liquidated
+with decision!...
+
+"Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a
+firm power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and
+honour will triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them...."
+
+All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When
+the Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with
+perspiration, and strode out with his suite of officers, speaker
+after speaker from the Left and Centre attacked the Right, all one
+angry roaring. Even the Socialist Revolutionaries, through Gotz:
+
+"The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
+exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series
+of popular demands which have received no satisfaction up to now....
+The questions of peace, land and the democratization of the army
+ought to be stated in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant or
+worker would have the least doubt that our Government is attempting,
+firmly and infallibly, to solve them....
+
+"We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are
+ready to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to
+the last drop of our blood--if only the Provisional Government, on all
+these burning questions, will speak the clear and precise words
+awaited by the people with such impatience...."
+
+Then Martov, furious:
+
+"The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
+'populace' when it is question of the movement of important sections
+of the proletariat and the army--although led in the wrong
+direction--are nothing but an incitement to civil war."
+
+The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted
+practically to a vote of lack of confidence.
+
+1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days
+past has for its object a _coup d'etat,_ threatens to provoke
+civil war, creates conditions favourable to _pogroms_ and
+counterrevolution, the mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces,
+such as the Black Hundreds, which will inevitably bring about the
+impossibility of convoking the Constituent, will cause a military
+catastrophe, the death of the Revolution, paralyse the economic life
+of the country and destroy Russia;
+
+2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by
+delay in passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions
+caused by the war and the general disorder. It is necessary before
+everything to promulgate at once a decree transmitting the land to
+the peasants' Land Committees, and to adopt an energetic course of
+action abroad in proposing to the Allies to proclaim their peace
+terms and to begin peace-parleys;
+
+3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and _pogromist_ movements,
+it is indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these
+movements, and for this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of
+Public Safety, composed of representatives of the Municipality and
+the organs of the revolutionary democracy, acting in contact with the
+Provisional Government....
+
+It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries all rallied to this resolution.... When Kerensky saw
+it, however, he summoned Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain.
+If it expressed a lack of confidence in the Provisional Government,
+he begged Avksentiev to form a new Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev,
+the leaders of the "compromisers," performed their last compromise....
+They explained to Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of
+the Government!
+
+At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with
+fixed bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the
+occupants, and ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd
+had gathered to watch them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged
+to the Government or the Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in
+front of the Kazan Cathedral the same thing was happening, machines
+being directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six sailors with rifles
+came along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation with two
+of the soldiers. On the sailors' hat bands were _Avrora_ and _Zaria
+Svobody,_--the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic
+Fleet. One of them said, "Cronstadt is coming!"... It was as if, in
+1792, on the streets of Paris, some one had said: "The Marseillais
+are coming!" For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors,
+convinced Bolsheviki and not afraid to die....
+
+_Rabotchi i Soldat_ was just out, all its front page one huge
+proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!
+
+The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The
+Kornilovists of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs
+_yunkers_ and volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum _yunkers_ and the
+Tsarskoye Selo volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high
+treason is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet.... The
+campaign of the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets on the eve of its opening, against
+the Constituent Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is
+guarding the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is
+directing the repulse of the conspirators' attack. The entire
+garrison and proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of
+the people a crushing blow.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:
+
+1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with
+the Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall
+meet in continuous session, concentrating in their hands all
+information about the plans of the conspirators.
+
+2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
+Committee.
+
+3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit
+and five from each Ward Soviet.
+
+4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the
+All-Russian Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an
+extraordinary meeting.
+
+Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.
+
+A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers
+and workers.
+
+But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.
+
+The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be
+crushed.
+
+No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline,
+determination!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of
+storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to
+take part in the debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six,
+eight, twelve hours a day....
+
+I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik
+delegates were holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the
+speaker hidden by the crowd: "The compromisers say that we are
+isolated. Pay no attention to them. Once it begins they must be
+dragged along with us, or else lose their following...."
+
+Here he held up a piece of paper. "We are dragging them! A message
+has just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They
+say that they condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks
+us they will not oppose the cause of the proletariat!" Exultant
+shouting....
+
+As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a
+monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that
+new Congress which would mean its own ruin--and perhaps the ruin of
+the revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only
+members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ could vote....
+
+It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak,
+in a tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.
+
+"The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours," he
+said. "The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
+democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await
+bloodshed in the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to
+destroy, not only our homogeneous Government, but the Revolution
+itself....
+
+"The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
+Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of
+the Revolution..." (Cries, "That's a lie!)" "The counter-revolutionists
+are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and massacres.... If
+there is any _vystuplennie,_ there will be no Constituent Assembly...."
+(Cries, "Lie! Shame!")
+
+"It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the
+Petrograd garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff.... You
+must obey the orders of the Staff and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ elected by
+you. All Power to the Soviets--that means death! Robbers and thieves
+are waiting for the moment to loot and burn.... When you have such
+slogans put before you, 'Enter the houses, take away the shoes and
+clothes from the bourgeoisie--'" (Tumult. Cries, "No such slogan! A
+lie! A lie!") "Well, it may start differently, but it will end that
+way!
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah_ has full power to act, and must be obeyed.... We are
+not afraid of bayonets.... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ will defend the Revolution
+with its body...." (Cries, "It was a dead body long ago!")
+
+Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard
+screaming, as he pounded the desk, "Those who are urging this are
+committing a crime!"
+
+Voice: "You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power
+and turned it over to the bourgeoisie!"
+
+Gotz, ringing the chairman's bell: "Silence, or I'll have you put
+out!"
+
+Voice: "Try it!" (Cheers and whistling.)
+
+"Now concerning our policy about peace." (Laughter.) "Unfortunately
+Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war. There is
+going to be peace, but not permanent peace--not a democratic peace....
+To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed,
+we passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to
+the Land Committees and immediate peace negotiations...." (Laughter,
+and cries, "Too late!")
+
+Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave
+of roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house,
+thunderous. His thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in
+its expression of malicious irony.
+
+"Dan's tactics prove that the masses--the great, dull, indifferent
+masses--are absolutely with him!" (Titantic mirth.) He turned toward
+the chairman, dramatically. "When we spoke of giving the land to the
+peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, 'If they don't
+give it to you, take it yourselves!' and the peasants followed our
+advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago....
+
+"I don't think Kerensky's order to suspend the death penalty in the
+army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by
+the Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him....
+
+"To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
+Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik.... The time may
+come when Dan will say that the flower of the Revolution participated
+in the rising of July 16th and 18th.... In Dan's resolution to-day at
+the Council of the Republic there was no mention of enforcing
+discipline in the army, although that is urged in the propaganda of
+his party....
+
+"No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have
+left the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries
+conquered the Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it
+to the Cadets....
+
+"Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
+Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the
+down-trodden masses revolt, it is their right...."
+
+Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
+laughter.
+
+"Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
+until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this.... the
+seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the
+Revolution.... Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself
+opposed to what he is now advocating...." (Cries, "Enough! Down with
+him!")
+
+Martov, constantly interrupted: "The Internationalists are not
+opposed to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they
+disapprove of the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment
+to seize the power...."
+
+Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
+the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
+seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
+uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
+Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the
+hall, shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government....
+
+Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
+the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
+provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
+creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
+Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
+peasants and beginning peace negotiations....
+
+Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+on the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of
+the Congress. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ was practically dead, he said, and
+the resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power....
+
+"As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!"
+Whereupon all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was
+passed....
+
+Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle
+slung from his shoulder.
+
+"We're moving!" (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but with
+satisfaction. "We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
+Minister of Religions. They're down cellar now. One regiment is on
+the march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph
+Agency, another the State Bank. The Red Guard is out...."
+
+On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red
+Guard--a huddled group of boys in workmen's clothes, carrying guns
+with bayonets, talking nervously together.
+
+Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle
+fire, where the _yunkers_ were trying to open the bridges over the
+Neva, to prevent the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg
+quarter from joining the Soviet forces in the centre of the city; and
+the Cronstadt sailors were closing them again....
+
+Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic
+hive....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+The Fall of the Provisional Government
+
+
+Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed
+from Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day.
+In front of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were
+standing at the closed gates.
+
+"What side do you belong to?" I asked. "The Government?"
+
+"No more Government," one answered with a grin, "_Slava Bogu!_ Glory
+to God!" That was all I could get out of him....
+
+The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small
+boys hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed
+even less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the
+day before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had
+blossomed out on the walls during the night--to the peasants, to the
+soldiers at the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:
+
+FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
+
+The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
+meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public
+Safety, composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and
+representatives of the following revolutionary democratic
+organizations: The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive
+Committee of Peasant Deputies, the Army organisations, the
+_Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and others.
+
+Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
+building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
+
+November 7th, 1917.
+
+Though I didn't realize it then, this was the Duma's declaration of
+war against the Bolsheviki.
+
+I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed
+on sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a
+second-hand copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on
+large-sized sheets in the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_
+had huge headlines: "ALL POWER--TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS
+AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD! LAND!" The leading article was signed
+"Zinoviev,"--Lenin's companion in hiding. It began:
+
+Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
+democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the
+present situation.
+
+Either--the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
+crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
+soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger
+and death....
+
+Or--the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
+workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
+complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
+capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
+assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
+workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
+nonsensical war!...
+
+_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
+capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
+Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the
+Cossacks undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of
+Chief of the City Militia Meyer; arrests, counter-arrests,
+skirmishes between clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red
+Guards. (See App. IV, Sect. 1)
+
+On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
+asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
+shoulders in a tired manner and replied, "_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
+knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they
+won't be able to hold it more than three days. They haven't the men
+to run a government. Perhaps it's a good thing to let them try--that
+will furnish them...."
+
+The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac's Square was picketed
+by armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young
+officers, walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors
+wouldn't let them leave....
+
+Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
+scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
+around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian
+Republic met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of
+soldiers, rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.
+
+"_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!" snapped one, while another went running
+toward the door.
+
+At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a
+red flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: "S.R.S.D."
+(_Soviet Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained
+toward St. Isaac's. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth
+of Novaya Ulitza--boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile
+of lumber barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a
+neighbouring wood-pile were being built up along the front of the
+building to form breastworks....
+
+"Is there going to be any fighting?" I asked.
+
+"Soon, soon," answered a soldier, nervously. "Go away, comrade,
+you'll get hurt. They will come from that direction," pointing
+toward the Admiralty.
+
+"Who will?"
+
+"That I couldn't tell you, brother," he answered, and spat.
+
+Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
+sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian
+Republic. "We walked in there," he said, "and filled all the doors
+with comrades. I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz
+who sat in the president's chair. 'No more Council,' I says. 'Run
+along home now!'"
+
+There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get
+around to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling
+sailor stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, "If you
+were Saint Michael himself, comrade, you couldn't pass here!"
+Through the glass of the door I made out the distorted face and
+gesticulating arms of a French correspondent, locked in....
+
+Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform
+of a general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in
+the face.
+
+"I am General Alexeyev," he cried. "As your superior officer and as
+a member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to
+pass!" The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the
+corner of his eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew
+very agitated when he saw who it was and saluted before he realised
+what he was doing.
+
+"_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_--your High Excellency--" he
+stammered, in the manner of the old regime, "Access to the Palace is
+strictly forbidden--I have no right--"
+
+An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
+apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
+armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
+Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.
+
+"I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night," said I,
+pointing to them.
+
+"Oh," he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
+"The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
+minds...."
+
+Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn
+up, and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could
+reach.
+
+We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All
+the entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a
+cordon of troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by
+an uneasy throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who
+seemed to be carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it
+in front of the main gateway, everything was quiet.
+
+We couldn't make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
+pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
+approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
+our American passports, saying "Official business!" and shouldered
+through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in
+their brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars,
+politely took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the
+dark, gloomy corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old
+attendants were lounging about, and in front of Kerensky's door a
+young officer paced up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if
+we could interview the Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his
+heels.
+
+"No, I am sorry," he replied in French. "Alexander Feodorvitch is
+extremely occupied just now...." He looked at us for a moment. "In
+fact, he is not here...."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
+there wasn't enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to
+the English Hospital and borrow some."
+
+"Are the Ministers here?"
+
+"They are meeting in some room--I don't know where.'
+
+"Are the Bolsheviki coming?"
+
+"Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call
+every minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have
+_yunkers_ in the front of the Palace. Through that door there."
+
+"Can we go in there?"
+
+"No. Certainly not. It is not permitted." Abruptly he shook hands
+all around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in
+a temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside.
+On the other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for
+that the vast spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An
+old _shveitzar_ ran up. "No, _barin,_ you must not go in there."
+
+"Why is the door locked?"
+
+"To keep the soldiers in," he answered. After a few minutes he said
+something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
+unlocked the door.
+
+Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said
+nothing. At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with
+gilded cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several
+smaller ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the
+parquetted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon
+which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a
+litter of cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles
+with expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red
+shoulder-straps of the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale
+atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle
+of white Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace.
+They looked at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room
+after room, until at last we came out into a series of great
+state-salons, fronting their long and dirty windows on the Square.
+The walls were covered with huge canvases in massive gilt
+frames--historical battle-scenes.... "12 October 1812" and "6 November
+1812" and "16/28 August 1813." ... One had a gash across the upper
+right hand corner.
+
+The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
+from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
+window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.
+
+As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me
+from the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent
+French, "I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are
+foreigners." He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he
+removed his cap.
+
+"Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs--Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
+absolutely at your service." It did not seem to occur to him that
+there was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering
+through the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to
+complain of the state of Russia.
+
+"Not only these Bolsheviki," he said, "but the fine traditions of
+the Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all
+students in the officers' training schools. But are they gentlemen?
+Kerensky opened the officers' schools to the ranks, to any soldier
+who could pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who
+are contaminated by the Revolution...."
+
+Without consequence he changed the subject. "I am very anxious to go
+away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
+Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
+you my address." In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a
+piece of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
+still--"_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
+Peterhof._"
+
+"We had a review this morning early," he went on, as he guided us
+through the rooms and explained everything. "The Women's Battalion
+decided to remain loyal to the Government."
+
+"Are the women soldiers in the Palace?"
+
+"Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won't be hurt if any
+trouble comes." He sighed. "It is a great responsibility," said he.
+
+For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square
+before the Palace, where three companies of long-coated
+_yunkers_ were drawn up under arms, being harangued by a tall,
+energetic-looking officer I recognised as Stankievitch, chief
+Military Commissar of the Provisional Government. After a few
+minutes two of the companies shouldered arms with a clash, barked
+three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across the Square,
+disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.
+
+"They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange," said some one.
+Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said
+they had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their
+names--Robert Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian.
+But now they didn't want to be officers any more, because officers
+were very unpopular. They didn't seem to know what to do, as a
+matter of fact, and it was plain that they were not happy.
+
+But soon they began to boast. "If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
+them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But
+if we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
+himself...."
+
+At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on
+the Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces,
+and the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
+direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
+grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, "Here they come! Here
+they come!" ... But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The
+_izvoshtchiki_ came back, the people lying down stood up. Through
+the Red Arch appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step,
+one of them supported by two comrades.
+
+It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the
+Square had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government
+buildings seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner,
+and right in the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face,
+came up and insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the
+back of the house, because they were going to put out the lights in
+the cafe. "There will be much shooting," he said.
+
+When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
+one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
+stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
+pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing
+and was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and
+sailors stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked
+back up to the Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered
+staring at the brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud
+tones.
+
+"No, comrades," one was saying. "How can we shoot at them? The
+Women's Battalion is in there--they will say we have fired on Russian
+women."
+
+As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
+corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
+
+"Come on!" he yelled. "Let's go on through and attack!"
+
+The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
+above the roaring engine. "The Committee says to wait. They have got
+artillery behind the wood-piles in there...."
+
+Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and
+there were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams,
+the crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
+moving-picture shows--life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
+Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre--all theatres were open--but it was too
+exciting out of doors....
+
+In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
+Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers
+wheeling into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various
+uniforms were coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great
+deal of talking....
+
+Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
+corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
+Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
+street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their
+fists at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers
+argued feebly, with embarrassed grins.... Armoured cars went up and
+down the street, named after the first Tsars--Oleg, Rurik,
+Svietoslav--and daubed with huge red letters, "R. S. D. R. P."
+_(Rossiskaya Partia_)[13]. At the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an
+armful of newspapers, and was immediately stormed by frantic people,
+offering a rouble, five roubles, ten roubles, tearing at each other
+like animals. It was _Rabotchi i Soldat,_ announcing the victory of
+the Proletarian Revolution, the liberation of the Bolsheviki still
+in prison, calling upon the Army front and rear for support... a
+feverish little sheet of four pages, running to enormous type,
+containing no news....
+
+[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
+
+On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had
+gathered, staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny
+red spark glowed and waned.
+
+"See!" said a tall peasant, pointing to it. "It is a provocator.
+Presently he will fire on the people...." Apparently no one thought of
+going to investigate.
+
+The massive facade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
+from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim
+in the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
+elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying
+from the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and
+at the outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At
+the inner gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the
+sentries slowly spelled out our passes and looked us up and down.
+The canvas covers had been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on
+each side of the doorway, and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike
+from their breeches. A dun herd of armoured cars stood under the
+trees in the court-yard, engines going. The long, bare,
+dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder of feet, calling,
+shouting.... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came
+pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black
+fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders,
+soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_ pinched
+flat, a leader or so--Lunatcharsky, Kameniev--hurrying along in the
+centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
+and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting
+of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev--a quick moving
+little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders.
+Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution
+just passed:
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, saluting
+the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
+particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
+complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
+less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
+well.
+
+The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers' and
+Peasants' Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will
+be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
+proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
+march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country
+can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
+
+The new Workers' and Peasants' Government will propose immediately a
+just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
+
+It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
+the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen's control over
+production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set
+up a general control over the banks, which it will transform into a
+state monopoly.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies calls upon
+the workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their
+energy and all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet
+expresses its conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor
+peasants, will assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable
+to the victory of Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the
+proletariat of the countries of Western Europe will aid us in
+conducting the cause of Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
+
+"You consider it won then?"
+
+He lifted his shoulders. "There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
+just beginning...."
+
+On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
+looking black and biting his grey beard. "It's insane! Insane!" he
+shouted. "The European working-class won't move! All Russia--" He
+waved his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had
+both opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin's terrible
+tongue....
+
+It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
+Government no longer existed.
+
+"The characteristic of bourgeois governments," he said, "is to
+deceive the people. We, the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in
+history; we are going to found a power which will have no other aim
+but to satisfy the needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants."
+
+Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
+world-wide Social Revolution.... And Zinoviev, crying, "This day we
+have paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a
+terrible blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the
+imperialists and particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner...."
+
+Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing
+the victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said
+to be marching against Petrograd--a delegation must be sent to tell
+them the truth.
+
+Cries, "You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets!"
+
+Trotzky, coldly, "The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
+has been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and
+soldiers!"
+
+So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the
+clamorous mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white
+chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides,
+perched on every window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the
+representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in
+anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's
+bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of
+unwashed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose
+from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally some one in
+authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke;
+then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke,
+comrades!" and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist delegate from
+the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him. Unshaven and
+filthy, he was reeling from three nights' sleepless work on the
+Military Revolutionary Committee.
+
+On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_--for the
+last time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled
+from the first days, and which were now risen against them. It was
+the end of the first period of the Russian revolution, which these
+men had attempted to guide in careful ways.... The three greatest of
+them were not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country
+towns all doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had
+contemptuously retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to
+sicken with consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also
+mortally stricken, who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his
+beautiful eloquence for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber,
+Bogdanov, Broido, Fillipovsky,--white-faced, hollow-eyed and
+indignant. Below them the second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets
+boiled and swirled, and over their heads the Military Revolutionary
+Committee functioned white-hot, holding in its hands the threads of
+insurrection and striking with a long arm.... It was 10.40 P. M.
+
+Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon's
+uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken
+by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door....
+
+"We have the power in our hands," he began sadly, stopped for a
+moment, and then went on in a low voice. "Comrades! The Congress of
+Soviets in meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an
+extraordinary moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+considers it unnecessary to address you with a political speech.
+This will become much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am
+a member of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our
+party comrades are in the Winter Palace under bombardment,
+sacrificing themselves to execute the duty put on them by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah."_ (Confused uproar.)
+
+"I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies open!"
+
+The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
+Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was
+decided to base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki
+leaped to their feet protesting. A bearded soldier shouted at them,
+"Remember what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_ were the minority!"
+Result--14 Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and
+1 Internationalist (Gorky's group). Hendelmann, for the right and
+centre Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take
+part in the presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki;
+and from the Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification
+of certain circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium.
+Scattering applause and hoots. One voice, "Renegades, you call
+yourselves Socialists!" A representative of the Ukrainean delegates
+demanded, and received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped
+down, and in their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky,
+Madame Kollentai, Nogin.... The hall rose, thundering. How far they
+had soared, these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less
+than four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia
+in full tide of insurrection!
+
+The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of
+Power; second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly.
+Lozovsky, rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all
+factions, it was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the
+Petrograd Soviet, then to give the floor to members of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ and the different parties, and finally to pass to the
+order of the day.
+
+But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult
+of the crowd, persistent, disquieting,--the dull shock of guns.
+People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of
+fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely,
+"The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a
+peaceful settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political
+standpoint we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war.
+Our brothers are being shot down in the streets! At this moment,
+when before the opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of
+Power is being settled by means of a military plot organised by one
+of the revolutionary parties--" for a moment he could not make
+himself heard above the noise, "All of the revolutionary parties
+must face the fact! The first _vopros_ (question) before the
+Congress is the question of Power, and this question is already
+being settled by force of arms in the streets!... We must create a
+power which will be recognised by the whole democracy. If the
+Congress wishes to be the voice of the revolutionary democracy it
+must not sit with folded hands before the developing civil war, the
+result of which may be a dangerous outburst of counter-revolution....
+The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in the formation of a
+united democratic authority.... We must elect a delegation to
+negotiate with the other Socialist parties and organisation...."
+
+Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows,
+and the delegates, screaming at each other.... So, with the crash of
+artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring,
+new Russia was being born.
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
+supported Martov's proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
+that the All-Russian Peasants' Soviets had refused to send delegates
+to the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
+invitation. "Some delegates are present," he said. "I move that they
+be given votes." Accepted.
+
+Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded
+the floor. "The political hypocrites who control this Congress," he
+shouted, "told us we were to settle the question of Power--and it is
+being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
+being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
+the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party
+which has risked such an adventure!" Uproar. Followed him Gharra:
+"While we are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a
+battle on in the streets.... The Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki refuse to be involved in what is happening, and call upon
+all public forces to resist the attempt to capture the power...."
+Kutchin, delegate of the 12th Army and representative of the
+Troudoviki: "I was sent here only for information, and I am
+returning at once to the Front, where all the Army Committees
+consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only three weeks
+before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of the Army
+and a crime against the people--!" Shouts of "Lie! You lie!"... When he
+could be heard again, "Let's make an end of this adventure in
+Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
+save the country and the Revolution!" As he went down the aisle in
+the midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him,
+threatening.... Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee,
+speaking suavely and persuasively: "I speak for the delegates from
+the Front. The Army is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and
+furthermore, the Army does not consider the Congress of Soviets
+necessary at this time, only three weeks before the opening of the
+Constituent--" shouts and stamping, always growing more violent. "The
+Army does not consider that the Congress of Soviets has the
+necessary authority--" Soldiers began to stand up all over the hall.
+
+"Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?" they cried.
+
+"The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army,
+the Second F-- regiment, the First N-- Regiment, the Third S-- Rifles...."
+
+"When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the
+soldiers! What do the soldiers say about it?" Jeers and hoots.
+
+"We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has
+happened and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise
+all self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
+Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress.... The place to
+fight is out on the streets!"
+
+Immense bawling outcry. "You speak for the Staff--not for the Army!"
+
+"I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!"
+
+"Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!" were hurled at him.
+
+On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
+possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with
+the Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which
+would find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed
+for several minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the
+Menshevik declaration:
+
+"Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid
+of the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
+parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and
+therefore withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to
+meet for discussion of the situation!"
+
+"Deserter!" At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
+Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard
+protesting against the bombardment of the Winter Palace.... "We are
+opposed to this kind of anarchy...."
+
+Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
+flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
+hand:
+
+"Comrades!" he cried and there was a hush. "My _familia_ (name) is
+Peterson--I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
+statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
+statements would have some value _if their authors had been
+representatives of the Army_--" Wild applause. _"But they do not
+represent the soldiers!"_ Shaking his fist. "The Twelfth Army has
+been insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great
+Soviet and the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+our Committee refused to call a meeting of the representatives of
+the masses until the end of September, so that the reactionaries
+could elect their own false delegates to this Congress. I tell you
+now, the Lettish soldiers have many times said, 'No more
+resolutions! No more talk! We want deeds--the Power must be in our
+hands!' Let these impostor delegates leave the Congress! The Army is
+not with them!"
+
+The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
+stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon,
+the delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after
+hammer-blow had fallen from that tribune, welding them together but
+beating them down. Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising
+against them? Was it true that the Army was marching on Petrograd?
+Then this clear-eyed young soldier had spoken, and in a flash they
+knew it for the truth.... _This_ was the voice of the soldiers--the
+stirring millions of uniformed workers and peasants were men like
+them, and their thoughts and feelings were the same...
+
+More soldiers ... Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
+they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
+that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
+they stood for division according to political parties, and not
+groups. "Hundreds of delegates from the Front," he said, "are being
+elected without the participation of the soldiers because the Army
+Committees are no longer the real representatives of the rank and
+file...." Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk
+could not represent the Army in this congress,--but only the high
+command. "The real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their
+hearts the transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they
+expect very much from it!"... The tide was turning.
+
+Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish
+Social Democrats--his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling
+with rage.
+
+"What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
+_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!" He raised
+his voice and hand. "Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn't
+permit us to remain here and be responsible for these crimes.
+Because the firing on the Winter Palace doesn't cease, the Municipal
+Duma together with the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and
+the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviet, has decided to
+perish with the Provisional Government, and we are going with them!
+Unarmed we will expose our breasts to the machine guns of the
+Terrorists.... We invite all delegates to this Congress--" The rest was
+lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and curses which rose to a hellish
+pitch as fifty delegates got up and pushed their way out....
+
+Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, "Keep your seats and we'll go
+on with our business!" And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel
+face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, "All these
+so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki,
+Socialist Revolutionaries, _Bund_--let them go! They are just so much
+refuse which will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!"
+
+Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
+Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
+offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. "In this way we have done
+everything possible to avoid blood-shed...."
+
+We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where
+the Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed,
+engulfing and spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars
+armed with power of life and death to all the corners of the city,
+amid the buzz of the telephonographs. The door opened, a blast of
+stale air and cigarette smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of
+dishevelled men bending over a map under the glare of a shaded
+electric-light.... Comrade Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a
+mop of pale yellow hair, made out passes for us.
+
+When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one
+huge park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of
+which could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great
+motor-truck stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine. Men were
+tossing bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside
+them.
+
+"Where are you going?" I shouted.
+
+"Down-town--all over--everywhere!" answered a little workman,
+grinning, with a large exultant gesture.
+
+We showed our passes. "Come along!" they invited. "But there'll
+probably be shooting--" We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a
+raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on
+top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate,
+and then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the
+workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top
+speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side.... One
+man tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of
+papers into the air. We imitated him, plunging down through the dark
+street with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind.
+The late passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around
+bonfires on the corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them.
+Sometimes armed men loomed up ahead, crying "_Shtoi!_" and raising
+their guns, but our chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible
+and we hurtled on....
+
+I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light
+read:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed
+into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and
+Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which
+stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
+
+The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of
+a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the
+land, labor control over production, creation of a Soviet
+Government--that cause is securely achieved.
+
+LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
+
+_Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+_Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+[Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows]
+
+Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the
+Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our
+calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just
+after the surrender of the Winter Palace.
+
+A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a
+goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, "Look out! Here the provocators
+always shoot from the windows!" We turned into Znamensky Square,
+dark and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy's brutal statue
+and swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles
+ready, peering at the windows. Behind us the street was alive with
+people running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and
+the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter
+and more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly
+lighted. Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line
+of sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed
+down, and we climbed out.
+
+It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina
+Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn
+across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column
+of fours. There were about three or four hundred of them, men in
+frock coats, well-dressed women, officers--all sorts and conditions
+of people. Among them we recognised many of the delegates from the
+Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries;
+Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants'
+Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky's spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and
+at the head white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and
+Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government,
+arrested that morning and released. I caught sight of Malkin,
+reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ "Going to die in the Winter
+Palace," he shouted cheerfully. The procession stood still, but from
+the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and Prokopovitch were
+bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
+
+"We demand to pass!" they cried. "See, these comrades come from the
+Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the
+Winter Palace!"
+
+The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an
+enormous hand, frowning. "I have orders from the Committee not to
+let anybody go to the Winter Palace," he grumbled. "But I will send
+a comrade to telephone to Smolny...."
+
+"We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether
+you permit us or not!" cried old Schreider, very much excited.
+
+"I have orders--" repeated the sailor sullenly.
+
+"Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!" came from all
+sides. "We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on
+Russians and comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!"
+
+"No," said the sailor, looking stubborn, "I can't allow you to pass."
+
+"What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to shoot people who haven't any guns. We won't
+shoot unarmed Russian people...."
+
+"We will go forward! What can you do?"
+
+"We will do something," replied the sailor, evidently at a loss. "We
+can't let you pass. We will do something."
+
+"What will you do? What will you do?"
+
+Another sailor came up, very much irritated. "We will spank you!" he
+cried, energetically. "And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go
+home now, and leave us in peace!"
+
+At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment,
+Prokopovitch had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella,
+he made a speech:
+
+"Comrades and citizens!" he said. "Force is being used against us!
+We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant
+men! It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
+switchmen--" (What he meant by "switchmen" I never discovered.) "Let
+us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the
+country and the Revolution!"
+
+Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and
+back up the Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage
+of the diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the
+direction of the Winter Palace.
+
+Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of
+soldiers and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan
+Cathedral a three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street,
+slewed sideways from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs.
+Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low tones and
+peering down toward the Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: "It
+is possible that we have done wrong...." At the corners patrols
+stopped all passersby--and the composition of these patrols was
+interesting, for in command of the regular troops was invariably a
+Red Guard.... The shooting had ceased.
+
+Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: "The
+_yunkers_ have sent word they want us to go and get them out!"
+Voices began to give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a
+dark mass moving forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the
+clinking of arms. We fell in with the first ranks.
+
+Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we
+poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in
+a low voice: "Look out, comrades! Don't trust them. They will fire,
+surely!" In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching
+together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the
+Alexander Column.
+
+"How many of you did they kill?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know. About ten...."
+
+After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army
+seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow
+forward. By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the
+Winter Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three
+hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers.
+Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside
+gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown
+down by the _yunkers_ who had stood there. On both sides of the main
+gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the
+huge pile came not the slightest sound.
+
+Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right
+hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of
+the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and
+stair-cases. A number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon
+these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them
+open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets,
+curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware.... One man went
+strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder;
+another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his
+hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, "Comrades!
+Don't touch anything! Don't take anything! This is the property of
+the People!" Immediately twenty voices were crying, "Stop! Put
+everything back! Don't take anything! Property of the People!" Many
+hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched
+from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze
+clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
+cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
+spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be
+heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, "Revolutionary
+discipline! Property of the People...."
+
+We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There
+order was also being established. "Clear the Palace!" bawled a Red
+Guard, sticking his head through an inner door. "Come, comrades,
+let's show that we're not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the
+Palace except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted."
+
+Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in
+their hands. Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen
+and paper. Shouts of "All out! All out!" were heard far and near
+within, and the Army began to pour through the door, jostling,
+expostulating, arguing. As each man appeared he was seized by the
+self-appointed committee, who went through his pockets and looked
+under his coat. Everything that was plainly not his property was
+taken away, the man at the table noted it on his paper, and it was
+carried into a little room. The most amazing assortment of objects
+were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of ink, bed-spreads
+worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small oil-painting,
+desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap, clothes of every
+description, blankets. One Red Guard carried three rifles, two of
+which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four portfolios
+bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
+surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the
+committee explained that stealing was not worthy of the people's
+champions; often those who had been caught turned around and began
+to help go through the rest of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
+
+_Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee
+seized upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the
+search with remarks like, "Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists!
+Counter-revolutionists! Murderers of the People!" But there was no
+violence done, although the _yunkers_ were terrified. They too had
+their pockets full of small plunder. It was carefully noted down by
+the scribe, and piled in the little room.... The _yunkers_ were
+disarmed. "Now, will you take up arms against the People any more?"
+demanded clamouring voices.
+
+"No," answered the _yunkers,_ one by one. Whereupon they were
+allowed to go free.
+
+We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the
+big Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. "Who are you
+anyway?" he asked. "How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys?
+(There were five of us, two women.)
+
+"_Pazhal'st', touarishtchi!_ Way, Comrades!" A soldier and a Red
+Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards
+with fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen
+men in civilian dress--the members of the Provisional Government.
+First came Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking
+sullenly at the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply
+around; he stared at us with cold fixity.... They passed in silence;
+the victorious insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only
+a few angry mutterings. It was only later that we learned how the
+people in the street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired--but
+the sailors brought them safely to Peter-Paul....
+
+In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was
+still a great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found
+apartments in the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of
+_yunkers_ which did not exist. We went upstairs and wandered through
+room after room. This part of the Palace had been entered also by
+other detachments from the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues,
+tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were unharmed; in
+the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the
+papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had
+been stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The
+most highly prized loot was clothing, which the working people
+needed. In a room where furniture was stored we came upon two
+soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish leather upholstery from
+chairs. They explained it was to make boots with....
+
+The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms
+stood nervously about, from force of habit repeating, "You can't go
+in there, _barin!_ It is forbidden--" We penetrated at length to the
+gold and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the
+Ministers had been in session all that day and night, and where the
+_shveitzari_ had betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table
+covered with green baize was just as they had left it, under arrest.
+Before each empty seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were
+scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of
+proclamations and manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as
+their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered
+with absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat
+despondently listening while Minister after Minister proposed
+chimerical schemes. I took one of these scribbled pages, in the hand
+writing of Konovalov, which read, "The Provisional Government
+appeals to all classes to support the Provisional Government--"
+
+All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
+surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the
+Front and with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the
+Ministry of War early in the morning, but they did not know of the
+military telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone
+line connecting it with the Winter Palace. In that attic a young
+officer sat all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals
+and proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put
+on his hat and walked calmly out of the building....
+
+Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn't notice a
+change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As
+we strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by
+the time we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the
+afternoon with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after
+us. One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with
+sullen suspicion.
+
+[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
+
+Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by
+A.I. Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional
+Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the
+situation became more and more evident. The geometrical figure
+beneath was probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for
+the end.
+
+"Who are you?" he growled. "What are you doing here?" The others
+massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter.
+_"Provocatori!"_ I heard somebody say. "Looters!" I produced our
+passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took
+them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without
+comprehension. Evidently he could not read. He handed them back and
+spat on the floor. _"Bumagi!_ Papers!" said he with contempt. The
+mass slowly began to close in, like wild cattle around a cowpuncher
+on foot. Over their heads I caught sight of an officer, looking
+helpless, and shouted to him. He made for us, shouldering his way
+through.
+
+"I'm the Commissar," he said to me. "Who are you? What is it?" The
+others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
+
+"You are foreigners?" he rapidly asked in Franch. "It is very
+dangerous...." Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
+"Comrades!" he cried. "These people are foreign comrades--from
+America. They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen
+about the bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the
+proletarian army!"
+
+"How do you know that?" replied the big soldier. "I tell you they
+are provocators! They say they came here to observe the
+revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been
+wandering freely through the Palace, and how do we know they haven't
+got their pockets full of loot?"
+
+_"Pravilno!"_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
+
+"Comrades! Comrades!" appealed the officer, sweat standing out on
+his forehead. "I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Do you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are
+signed with the same names that are signed to my pass!"
+
+He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening
+onto the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going
+through pockets... "You have narrowly escaped," he kept muttering,
+wiping his face.
+
+"What happened to the Women's Battalion?" we asked.
+
+"Oh--the women!" He laughed. "They were all huddled up in a back
+room. We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them--many were
+in hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the
+Finland Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they
+have a camp. (See App. IV, Sect. 4)...."
+
+We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure
+armies on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river,
+where loomed the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout....
+Underfoot the sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the
+cornice of the Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_
+had struck; that was the only damage done by the bombardment....
+
+It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
+street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only
+signs of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires.
+The city was quiet--probably never so quiet in its history; on that
+night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
+
+But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the
+galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed,
+red-shrouded Imperial portraits. About a hundred people were grouped
+around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the
+Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the
+anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution. And as we looked
+on, the Committee for Salvation was formed--that Committee which was
+to develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki,
+appearing, in the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name,
+and sometimes as the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public
+Safety....
+
+Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet
+delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
+Soviets, old Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the
+Republic--among whom Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the
+convention of Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ was still in office.... An appeal to the country was
+drafted.
+
+We hailed a cab. "Where to?" But when we said "Smolny," the
+_izvoshtchik_ shook his head. _"Niet!"_ said he, "there are
+devils...." It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver
+willing to take us--and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two
+blocks away.
+
+The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and
+around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly
+asking everybody the latest news. The corridors were full of
+hurrying men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In some of the committee-rooms
+people lay sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them. In spite
+of the seceding delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with
+people, roaring like the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading
+the list of arrested Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted
+with thunderous applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter;
+Rutenburg came in for less; and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a
+storm of hoots, angry cries, cheers burst forth.... It was announced
+that Tchudnovsky had been appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
+
+Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded
+face convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his
+fist on the presidium table.
+
+"We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of
+the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do
+you know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom
+fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into
+Peter-Paul prison--the historical tomb of Liberty?" In the uproar he
+pounded and yelled. Another delegate climbed up beside him, and
+pointed at the presidium.
+
+"Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit
+quietly here while the _Okhrana_ of the Bolsheviki tortures their
+leaders?"
+
+Trotzky was gesturing for silence. "These 'comrades' who are now
+caught plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer
+Kerensky--is there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July
+16th and 18th they didn't use much ceremony with us!" With a
+triumphant ring in his voice he cried, "Now that the _oborontsi_ and
+the faint-hearted have gone, and the whole task of defending and
+saving the Revolution rests on our shoulders, it is particularly
+necessary to work--work--work! We have decided to die rather than give
+up!"
+
+Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered
+with the mud of his ride. "The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on
+guard at the gates of Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee!" Wild cheers. "The Cycle Corps
+sent from the front has arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are
+now with us; they recognise the power of the Soviets, the necessity
+of immediate transfer of land to the peasants and industrial control
+to the workers. The Fifth Battalion of Cyclists, stationed at
+Tsarskoye, is ours...."
+
+Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of
+delirious enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered
+_three days before_ from the South-west front to the "defence of
+Petrograd." They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and
+at the station of Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth
+Battalion from Tsarskoye. A joint meeting was held, and it was
+discovered that "among the cyclists not a single man was found
+willing to shed the blood of his brothers, or to support a
+Government of bourgeois and land-owners!"
+
+Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect
+a special committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war.
+"There isn't any peaceful solution!" bellowed the crowed. "Victory
+is the only solution!" The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of
+Jocular insults. There was no longer any panic fear.... Kameniev from
+the platform shouted after them, "The Mensheviki Internationalists
+claimed 'emergency' for the question of a 'peaceful solution,' but
+they always voted for suspension of the order of the day in favour
+of declarations of factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It
+is evident," finished Kameniev, "that the withdrawal of all these
+renegades was decided upon beforehand!"
+
+The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and
+proceed to the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all
+Russia:
+
+TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS
+
+The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the
+Soviets. There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the
+will of the great majority of the workers', soldiers and peasants,
+based upon the triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and
+soldiers, the Congress assumes the Power.
+
+The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the
+Provisional Government are already arrested.
+
+The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic
+peace to all nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will
+assure the free transfer of landlord, crown and monastery lands to
+the Land Committees, defend the soldiers rights, enforcing a
+complete democratisation of the Army, establish workers' control
+over production, ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly
+at the proper date, take means to supply bread to the cities and
+articles of first necessity to the villages, and secure to all
+nationalities living in Russia a real right to independent existence.
+
+The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, which
+must enforce revolutionary order.
+
+The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful
+and steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the
+revolutionary Army will know how to defend the Revolution against
+all attacks of Imperialism, until the new Government shall have
+brought about the conclusion of the democratic peace which it will
+directly propose to all nations. The new Government will take all
+necessary steps to secure everything needful to the revolutionary
+Army, by means of a determined policy of requisition and taxation of
+the propertied classes, and also to improve the situation of
+soldiers' families.
+
+The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to
+lead troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by
+Kerensky, have sided with the insurgent People.
+
+Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on
+guard!
+
+Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against
+Petrograd!
+
+Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution
+and democratic peace is in your hands!
+
+Long live the Revolution!
+
+_The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of_
+_Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+_Delegates from the Peasants' Soviets._
+
+It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue,
+climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
+
+"Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings
+to the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military
+Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the
+Northern Front!" Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other.
+"General Tchermissov has recognised the Committee-Commissar of the
+Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!"
+
+So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the
+Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and
+thrust the _coup d'etat_ upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was
+all great Russia to win--and then the world! Would Russia follow and
+rise? And the world--what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a
+red world-tide?
+
+Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill.
+There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent
+streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn
+grey-rising over Russia....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+Plunging Ahead
+
+
+Thursday, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest
+excitement and confusion, a whole nation having up in long hissing
+swells of storm. Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands
+of people retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work.
+In Petrograd the street-cars were running, the stores and
+restaurants open, theatres going, an exhibition of paintings
+advertised.... All the complex routine of common life--humdrum even in
+war-time--proceeded as usual. Nothing is so astounding as the
+vitality of the social organism--how it persists, feeding itself,
+clothing itself, amusing itself, in the face of the worst
+calamities....
+
+The air was full of rumours about Kerensky, who was said to have
+raised the Front, and to be leading a great army against the
+capital. _Volia Naroda_ published a _prikaz_ launched by him at
+Pskov:
+
+The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place
+the country on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of
+our entire will, our courage and the devotion of every one of us, to
+win through the terrible trial which the fatherland is undergoing....
+
+Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government--if
+one is formed--every one ought to remain at his post and fulfil his
+duty toward bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least
+interference with existing Army organisations can bring on
+irreparable misfortunes, by opening the Front to the enemy.
+Therefore it is indispensable to preserve at any price the morale of
+the troops, by assuring complete order and the preservation of the
+Army from new shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between
+officers and their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and
+Commissars, in the name of the safety of the country, to stay at
+their posts, as I myself retain the post of Supreme Commander, until
+the Provisional Government of the Republic shall declare its will....
+
+In answer, this placard on all the walls:
+
+FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
+
+"The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch,
+Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. Kerensky has fled. All Army organisations are ordered to
+take every measure for the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his
+conveyance to Petrograd.
+
+"All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious
+crime against the state."
+
+With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled,
+throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V,
+Sect. 1)... Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the
+Peasant Land Committees imprisoned by the Provisional Government
+were declared free. Capital punishment in the army was abolished.
+Government employees were ordered to continue their work, and
+threatened with severe penalties if they refused. All pillage,
+disorder and speculation were forbidden under pain of death.
+Temporary Commissars were appointed to the various Ministries:
+Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotzky; Interior and Justice, Rykov;
+Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky; Public Welfare, Madame
+Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications, Riazanov; Navy, the
+sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro; Theatres, Muraviov;
+State Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of Petrograd,
+Lieutenant Nesterov; for the Northern Front, Pozern....
+
+To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To
+the railway workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the
+transport of food to the cities and the front.... In return, they were
+promised representation in the Ministry of Ways and Communications.
+
+Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against
+Petrograd. They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary
+workers and soldiers of the capital. Do not believe a word that is
+said by our common enemies, the land-owners and the capitalists.
+
+At our Congress are represented all the conscious organisations of
+workers, soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also
+to welcome into its midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the
+Black Band, henchmen of the land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are
+our enemies.
+
+They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the
+Cossacks. This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords
+that the Revolution will confiscate the land to give it to the
+people.
+
+Organise Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies! Join with the Soviets of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies!
+
+Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and
+that you do not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary
+Russia!...
+
+Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people.
+Send your delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us.... The
+Cossacks of the Petrograd garrison, to their honour, have not
+justified the hope of the People's enemies....
+
+Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you
+a fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the
+soldiers, workers and peasants of all Russia!
+
+On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up,
+hand-bills scattered everywhere, newspapers--screaming and cursing
+and prophesying evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press--all
+other weapons being in the hands of the Soviets.
+
+First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
+
+TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!
+
+Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th
+the Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the
+Provisional Government, dispersed the Council of the Republic, and
+proclaimed an illegal power. Such violence committed against the
+Government of revolutionary Russia at the moment of its greatest
+external danger, is an indescribable crime against the fatherland.
+
+The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause
+of national defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace
+so greatly desired.
+
+Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country
+to the horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the
+failure of the Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the
+republican regime and transmit to the People forever their right to
+the land.
+
+Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on
+the night of November 7th, takes the initiative in forming a new
+Provisional Government; which, basing itself on the forces of
+democracy, will conduct the country to the Constituent Assembly and
+save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The Committee for
+Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognise the power of
+violence. Do not obey its orders!
+
+Rise for the defence of the country and Revolution!
+
+Support the Committee for Salvation!
+
+Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of
+Petrograd, the _Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress),_ the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, and from the Congress itself the
+Front group, the factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki,
+Populist Socialists, Unified Social Democrats, and the group
+"Yedinstvo."
+
+Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki
+_oborontsi,_ Peasants' Soviets again; from the Central Army
+Committee, the _Tsentroflot_....
+
+... Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will
+trample on our liberty. Black Hundred _pogroms_ will spread over
+Russia, if we all--conscious workers, soldiers, citizens--do not
+unite....
+
+Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of
+immediate peace--is a lie! The promise of bread--a hoax! The promise
+of land--a fairy tale!...
+
+They were all in this manner.
+
+Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of
+power has been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone.... They concealed
+their plot from the other Socialist parties composing the Soviet....
+
+You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution
+will profit by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will
+deprive you of land and freedom....
+
+The newspapers were as violent.
+
+Our duty (said the _Dielo Naroda_) is to unmask these traitors to
+the working-class. Our duty is to mobilise all our forces and mount
+guard over the cause of the Revolution!...
+
+_Izviestia,_ for the last time speaking in the name of the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ threatened awful retribution.
+
+As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no
+Congress of Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private
+conference of the Bolshevik faction! And in that case, they have no
+right to cancel the powers of the _Tsay-ee-kah_....
+
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ while pleading for a new Government that should
+unite all the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of
+the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the
+Congress, and pointed out that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one
+thing very clearly: that all illusions about coalition with the
+bourgeoisie were henceforth demonstrated vain...
+
+_Rabotchi Put_ blossomed out as _Pravda,_ Lenin's newspaper which
+had been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
+
+Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of
+the clique of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the
+bourgeois gang....
+
+The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
+
+The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary
+elements of Petrograd.
+
+The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and
+assure the realisation of the popular programme...
+
+What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally,
+adopted a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a
+sort of contemptuous "I--told--you--so" to the other parties.
+Influential Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal
+Duma, and on the outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other
+than that, the bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour--which could not
+far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three
+days never occurred to anybody--except perhaps to Lenin, Trotzky, the
+Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers....
+
+In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the
+Duma sitting in _permanence,_ tempestuous, grouping around it all
+the forces of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with
+his white hair and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny
+the night before, to protest in the name of the Municipal
+Self-Government. "The Duma, being the only existing legal Government
+in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not
+recognise the new power," he had told Trotzky. And Trotzky had
+answered, "There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can
+be dissolved and re-elected...." At this report there was a furious
+outcry.
+
+"If one recognises a Government by bayonet," continued the old man,
+addressing the Duma, "well, we have one; but I consider legitimate
+only a Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by
+the usurpation of a minority!" Wild applause on all benches except
+those of the Bolsheviki. Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced
+that the Bolsheviki already were violating Municipal autonomy by
+appointing Commissars in many departments.
+
+The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that
+the decision of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed
+up the action of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You are not the real representative of the people
+of Petrograd!" Shrieks of "Insult! Insult!" The old Mayor, with
+dignity, reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest
+possible popular vote. "Yes," he answered, "but that was a long time
+ago--like the _Tsay-ee-kah_--like the Army Committee."
+
+"There has been no new Congress of Soviets!" they yelled at him.
+
+"The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of
+counter-revolution--" Uproar. "--and we demand a re-election of the
+Duma...." Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber, followed by cries
+of "German agents! Down with the traitors!"
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, then demanded that all Municipal functionaries
+who had consented to be Commissars of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee be discharged from their position and indicted. Schreider
+was on his feet, putting a motion to the effect that the Duma
+protested against the menace of the Bolsheviki to dissolve it, and
+as the legal representative of the population, it would refuse to
+leave its post.
+
+Outside, the Alexander Hall was crowded for the meeting of the
+Committee for Salvation, and Skobeliev was again speaking. "Never
+yet," he said, "was the fate of the Revolution so acute, never yet
+did the question of the existence of the Russian state excite so
+much anxiety, never yet did history put so harshly and categorically
+the question--is Russia to be or not to be! The great hour for the
+salvation of the Revolution has arrived, and in consciousness
+thereof we observe the close union of the live forces of the
+revolutionary democracy, by whose organised will a centre for the
+salvation of the country and the Revolution has already been
+created...." And much of the same sort. "We shall die sooner than
+surrender our post!"
+
+Amid violent applause it was announced that the Union of Railway
+Workers had joined the Committee for Salvation. A few moments later
+the Post and Telegraph Employees came in; then some Mensheviki
+Internationalists entered the hall, to cheers. The Railway men said
+they did not recognise the Bolsheviki and had taken the entire
+railroad apparatus into their own hands, refusing to entrust it to
+any usurpatory power. The Telegraphers' delegate declared that the
+operators had flatly refused to work their instruments as long as
+the Bolshevik Commissar was in the office. The Postmen would not
+deliver or accept mail at Smolny.... All the Smolny telephones were
+cut off. With great glee it was reported how Uritzky had gone to the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the secret treaties, and how
+Neratov had put him out. The Government employees were all stopping
+work....
+
+It was war--war deliberately planned, Russian fashion; war by strike
+and sabotage. As we sat there the chairman read a list of names and
+assignments; so-and-so was to make the round of the Ministries;
+another was to visit the banks; some ten or twelve were to work the
+barracks and persuade the soldiers to remain neutral--"Russian
+soldiers, do not shed the blood of your brothers!"; a committee was
+to go and confer with Kerensky; still others were despatched to
+provincial cities, to form branches of the Committee for Salvation,
+and link together the anti-Bolshevik elements.
+
+The crowd was in high spirits. "These Bolsheviki _will_ try to
+dictate to the _intelligentzia?_ We'll show them!"... Nothing could be
+more striking than the contrast between this assemblage and the
+Congress of Soviets. There, great masses of shabby soldiers, grimy
+workmen, peasants--poor men, bent and scarred in the brute struggle
+for existence; here the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary
+leaders--Avksentievs, Dans, Liebers,--the former Socialist
+Ministers--Skobelievs, Tchernovs,--rubbed shoulders with Cadets like
+oily Shatsky, sleek Vinaver; with journalists, students,
+intellectuals of almost all camps. This Duma crowd was well-fed,
+well-dressed; I did not see more than three proletarians among them
+all....
+
+News came. Kornilov's faithful _Tekhintsi_[14] had slaughtered his
+guards at Bykhov, and he had escaped. Kaledin was marching north....
+The Soviet of Moscow had set up a Military Revolutionary Committee,
+and was negotiating with the commandant of the city for possession
+of the arsenal, so that the workers might be armed.
+
+[14] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+With these facts was mixed an astounding jumble of rumours,
+distortions, and plain lies. For instance, an intelligent young
+Cadet, formerly private secretary to Miliukov and then to
+Terestchenko, drew us aside and told us all about the taking of the
+Winter Palace.
+
+"The Bolsheviki were led by German and Austrian officers," he
+affirmed.
+
+"Is that so?" we replied, politely. "How do you know?"
+
+"A friend of mine was there and saw them."
+
+"How could he tell they were German officers?"
+
+"Oh, because they wore German uniforms!"
+
+There were hundreds of such absurd tales, and they were not only
+solemnly published by the anti-Bolshevik press, but believed by the
+most unlikely persons--Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviki who
+had always been distinguished by their sober devotion to facts....
+
+But more serious were the stories of Bolshevik violence and
+terrorism. For example, it was said printed that the Red Guards had
+not only thoroughly looted the Winter Palace, but that they had
+massacred the _yunkers_ after disarming them, had killed some of the
+Ministers in cold blood; and as for the woman soldiers, most of them
+had been violated, and many had committed suicide because of the
+tortures they had gone through.... All these stories were swallowed
+whole by the crowd in the Duma. And worse still, the mothers and
+fathers of the students and of the women read these frightful
+details, _often accompanied by lists of names,_ and toward nightfall
+the Duma began to be besieged by frantic citizens....
+
+A typical case is that of Prince Tumanov, whose body, it was
+announced in many newspapers, had been found floating in the Moika
+Canal. A few hours later this was denied by the Prince's family, who
+added that the Prince was under arrest so the press identified the
+dead man as General Demissov. The General having also come to life,
+we investigated, and could find no trace of any body found whatever....
+
+As we left the Duma building two boy scouts were distributing
+hand-bills (See App. V, Sect. 2) to the enormous crowd which blocked
+the Nevsky in front of the door--a crowd composed almost entirely of
+business men, shop-keepers, _tchinouniki,_ clerks. One read!
+
+FROM THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+The Municipal Duma in its meeting of October 26th, in view of the
+events of the day decrees: To announce the inviolability of private
+dwellings. Through the House Committees it calls upon the population
+of the town of Petrograd to meet with decisive repulse all attempts
+to enter by force private apartments, not stopping at the use of
+arms, in the interests of the self-defence of citizens.
+
+Up on the corner of the Liteiny, five or six Red Guards and a couple
+of sailors had surrounded a news-dealer and were demanding that he
+hand over his copies of the Menshevik _Rabot-chaya Gazeta_ (Workers'
+Gazette). Angrily he shouted at them, shaking his fist, as one of
+the sailors tore the papers from his stand. An ugly crowd had
+gathered around, abusing the patrol. One little workman kept
+explaining doggedly to the people and the news-dealer, over and over
+again, "It has Kerensky's proclamation in it. It says we killed
+Russian people. It will make bloodshed...."
+
+Smolny was tenser than ever, if that were possible. The same running
+men in the dark corridors, squads of workers with rifles, leaders
+with bulging portfolios arguing, explaining, giving orders as they
+hurried anxiously along, surrounded by friends and lieutenants. Men
+literally out of themselves, living prodigies of sleeplessness and
+work-men unshaven, filthy, with burning eyes, who drove upon their
+fixed purpose full speed on engines of exaltation. So much they had
+to do, so much! Take over the Government, organise the City, keep
+the garrison loyal, fight the Duma and the Committee for Salvation,
+keep out the Germans, prepare to do battle with Kerensky, inform the
+provinces what had happened, Propagandise from Archangel to
+Vladivostok.... Government and Municipal employees refusing to obey
+their Commissars, post and telegraph refusing them communication,
+railroads roads stonily ignoring their appeals for trains, Kerensky
+coming, the garrison not altogether to be trusted, the Cossacks
+waiting to come out.... Against them not only the organised
+bourgeoisie, but all the other Socialist parties except the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, a few Mensheviki Internationalists and
+the Social Democrat Internationalists, and even they undecided
+whether to stand by or not. With them, it is true, the workers and
+the soldier-masses--the peasants an unknown quantity--but after all
+the Bolsheviki were a political faction not rich in trained and
+educated men....
+
+Riazanov was coming up the front steps, explaining in a sort of
+humorous panic that he, Commissar of Commerce, knew nothing whatever
+of business. In the upstairs cafe sat a man all by himself in the
+corner, in a goat-skin cape and clothes which had been--I was going
+to say "slept in," but of course he hadn't slept--and a three days'
+growth of beard. He was anxiously figuring on a dirty envelope, and
+biting his pencil meanwhile. This was Menzhinsky, Commissar of
+Finance, whose qualifications were that he had once been clerk in a
+French bank.... And these four half-running down the hall from the
+office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and scribbling on
+bits of paper as they run--these were Commissars despatched to the
+four corners of Russia to carry the news, argue, or fight--with
+whatever arguments or weapons came to hand....
+
+The Congress was to meet at one o'clock, and long since the great
+meeting-hall had filled, but by seven there was yet no sign of the
+presidium.... The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions
+were in session in their own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin
+and Trotzky had fought against compromise. A considerable part of
+the Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way so far as to create a
+joint all-Socialist government. "We can't hold on!" they cried.
+
+"Too much is against us. We haven't got the men. We will be
+isolated, and the whole thing will fall." So Kameniev, Riazanov and
+others.
+
+But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. "Let the
+compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won't
+give way an inch. If there are comrades here who haven't the courage
+and the will to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of
+the cowards and conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we
+shall go on."
+
+At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist
+Revolutionaries to say that they would remain in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+"See!" said Lenin. "They are following!"
+
+A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an
+Anarchist who was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me
+that we go and find out what had become of the presidium. There was
+nobody in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ office, nor in the bureau of the
+Petrograd Soviet. From room to room we wandered, through vast
+Smolny. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea where to find the
+governing body of the Congress. As we went my companion described
+his ancient revolutionary activities, his long and pleasant exile in
+France.... As for the Bolsheviki, he confided to me that they were
+common, rude, ignorant persons, without aesthetic sensibilities. He
+was a real specimen of the Russian _intelligentzia_.... So he came at
+last to Room 17, office of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and
+stood there in the midst of all the furious coming and going. The
+door opened, and out shot a squat, flat-faced man in a uniform
+without insignia, who seemed to be smiling--which smile, after a
+minute, one saw to be the fixed grin of extreme fatigue. It was
+Krylenko.
+
+My friend, who was a dapper, civilized-looking young man, gave a cry
+of pleasure and stepped forward.
+
+"Nicolai Vasilievitch!" he said, holding out his hand. "Don't you
+remember me, comrade? We were in prison together."
+
+Krylenko made an effort and concentrated his mind and sight. "Why
+yes," he answered finally, looking the other up and down with an
+expression of great friendliness. "You are S--. _Zdra'stvuitye!_"
+They kissed. "What are you doing in all this?" He waved his arm
+around.
+
+"Oh, I'am just looking on.... You seem very successful."
+
+"Yes," replied Krylenko, with a sort of doggedness, "The proletarian
+Revolution is a great success." He laughed. "Perhaps--perhaps,
+however, we'll meet in prison again!"
+
+When we got out into the corridor again my friend went on with his
+explanations. "You see, I'm a follower of Kropotkin. To us the
+Revolution is a great failure; it has not aroused the patriotism of
+the masses. Of course that only proves that the people are not ready
+for Revolution...."
+
+It was just 8.40 when a thundering wave of cheers announced the
+entrance of the presidium, with Lenin--great Lenin--among them. A
+short, stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders,
+bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous
+mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to
+bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in
+shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to
+be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in
+history have been. A strange popular leader--a leader purely by
+virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and
+detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies--but with the power of
+explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete
+situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual
+audacity.
+
+Kameniev was reading the report of the actions of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee; abolition of capital punishment in the
+Army, restoration of the free right of propaganda, release of
+officers and soldiers arrested for political crimes, orders to
+arrest Kerensky and confiscation of food supplies in private
+store-houses.... Tremendous applause.
+
+Again the representative of the _Bund._ The uncompromising attitude
+of the Bolsheviki would mean the crushing of the Revolution;
+therefore, the _Bund_ delegates must refuse any longer to sit in the
+Congress. Cries from the audience, "We thought you walked out last
+night! How many times are you going to walk out?"
+
+Then the representative of the Mensheviki Internationalists. Shouts,
+"What! You here still?" The speaker explained that only part of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists left the Congress; the rest were going
+to stay--
+
+"We consider it dangerous and perhaps even mortal for the Revolution
+to transfer the power to the Soviets"--Interruptions--"but we feel it
+our duty to remain in the Congress and vote against the transfer
+here!"
+
+Other speakers followed, apparently without any order. A delegate of
+the coal-miners of the Don Basin called upon the Congress to take
+measures against Kaledin, who might cut off coal and food from the
+capital. Several soldiers just arrived from the Front brought the
+enthusiastic greetings of their regiments.... Now Lenin, gripping the
+edge of the reading stand, letting his little winking eyes travel
+over the crowd as he stood there waiting, apparently oblivious to
+the long-rolling ovation, which lasted several minutes. When it
+finished, he said simply, "We shall now proceed to construct the
+Socialist order!" Again that overwhelming human roar.
+
+"The first thing is the adoption of practical measures to realise
+peace.... We shall offer peace to the peoples of all the belligerent
+countries upon the basis of the Soviet terms--no annexations, no
+indemnities, and the right of self-determination of peoples. At the
+same time, according to our promise, we shall publish and repudiate
+the secret treaties.... The question of War and Peace is so clear that
+I think that I may, without preamble, read the project of a
+Proclamation to the Peoples of All the Belligerent Countries...."
+
+His great mouth, seeming to smile, opened wide as he spoke; his
+voice was hoarse--not unpleasantly so, but as if it had hardened that
+way after years and years of speaking--and went on monotonously, with
+the effect of being able to go on forever.... For emphasis he bent
+forward slightly. No gestures. And before him, a thousand simple
+faces looking up in intent adoration.
+
+PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLES AND GOVERNMENTS OF ALL THE BELLIGERENT
+NATIONS.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created by the revolution of
+November 6th and 7th and based on the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, proposes to all the belligerent peoples and
+to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just
+and democratic peace.
+
+The Government means by a just and democratic peace, which is
+desired by the immense majority of the workers and the labouring
+classes, exhausted and depleted by the war--that peace which the
+Russian workers and peasants, after having struck down the Tsarist
+monarchy, have not ceased to demand categorically--immediate peace
+without annexations (that is to say, without conquest of foreign
+territory, without forcible annexation of other nationalities), and
+without indemnities.
+
+The Government of Russia Proposes to all the belligerent peoples
+immediately to conclude such a peace, by showing themselves willing
+to enter upon the decisive steps of negotiations aiming at such a
+peace, at once, without the slightest delay, before the definitive
+ratification of all the conditions of such a peace by the authorised
+assemblies of the people of all countries and of all nationalities.
+
+By annexation or conquest of foreign territory, the Government
+means--conformably to the conception of democratic rights in general,
+and the rights of the working-class in particular--all union to a
+great and strong State of a small or weak nationality, without the
+voluntary, clear and precise expression of its consent and desire;
+whatever be the moment when such an annexation by force was
+accomplished, whatever be the degree civilisation of the nation
+annexed by force or maintained outside the frontiers of another
+State, no matter if that nation be in Europe or in the far countries
+across the sea.
+
+If any nation is retained by force within the limits of another
+State; if, in spite of the desire expressed by it, (it matters
+little if that desire be expressed by the press, by popular
+meetings, decisions of political parties, or by disorders and riots
+against national oppression), that nation is not given the right of
+deciding by free vote--without the slightest constraint, after the
+complete departure of the armed forces of the nation which has
+annexed it or wishes to annex it or is stronger in general--the form
+of its national and political organisation, such a union constitutes
+an annexation--that is to say, conquest and an act of violence.
+
+To continue this war in order to permit the strong and rich nations
+to divide among themselves the weak and conquered nationalities is
+considered by the Government the greatest possible crime against
+humanity; and the Government solemnly proclaims its decision to sign
+a treaty of peace which will put an end to this war upon the above
+conditions, equally fair for all nationalities without exception.
+
+The Government abolishes secret diplomacy, expressing before the
+whole country its firm decision to conduct all the negotiations in
+the light of day before the people, and will proceed immediately to
+the full publication of all secret treaties confirmed or concluded
+by the Government of land-owners and capitalists, from March until
+November 7th, 1917. All the clauses of the secret treaties which, as
+occur in a majority of cases, have for their object to procure
+advantages and privileges for Russian capitalists, to maintain or
+augment the annexations of the Russian imperialists, are denounced
+by the Government immediately and without discussion.
+
+In proposing to all Governments and all peoples to engage in public
+negotiations for peace, the Government declares itself ready to
+carry on these negotiations by telegraph, by post, or by pourparlers
+between the representatives of the different countries, or at a
+conference of these representatives. To facilitate these
+pourparlers, the Government appoints its authorised representatives
+in the neutral countries.
+
+The Government proposes to all the governments and to the peoples of
+all the belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice, at
+the same time suggesting that the armistice ought to last three
+months, during which time it is perfectly possible, not only to hold
+the necessary pourparlers between the representatives of all the
+nations and nationalities without exception drawn into the war or
+forced to take part in it, but also to convoke authorised assemblies
+of representatives of the people of all countries, for the purpose
+of the definite acceptance of the conditions of peace.
+
+In addressing this offer of peace to the Governments and to the
+peoples of all the belligerent countries, the Provisional Workers'
+and Peasants' Government of Russia addresses equally and in
+particular the conscious workers of the three nations most devoted
+to humanity and the three most important nations among those taking
+part in the present war--England, France, and Germany. The workers of
+these countries have rendered the greatest services to the cause of
+progress and of Socialism. The splendid examples of the Chartist
+movement in England, the series of revolutions, of world-wide
+historical significance, accomplished by the French proletariat--and
+finally, in Germany, the historic struggle against the Laws of
+Exception, an example for the workers of the whole world of
+prolonged and stubborn action, and the creation of the formidable
+organisations of German proletarians--all these models of proletarian
+heroism, these monuments of history, are for us a sure guarantee
+that the workers of these countries will understand the duty imposed
+upon them to liberate humanity from the horrors and consequences of
+war; and that these workers, by decisive, energetic and continued
+action, will help us to bring to a successful conclusion the cause
+of peace--and at the same time, the cause of the liberation of the
+exploited working masses from all slavery and all exploitation.
+
+When the grave thunder of applause had died away, Lenin spoke again:
+
+"We propose to the Congress to ratify this declaration. We address
+ourselves to the Governments as well as to the peoples, for a
+declaration which would be addressed only to the peoples of the
+belligerent countries might delay the conclusion of peace. The
+conditions of peace, drawn up during the armistice, will be ratified
+by the Constituent Assembly. In fixing the duration of the armistice
+at three months, we desire to give to the peoples as long a rest as
+possible after this bloody extermination, and ample time for them to
+elect their representatives. This proposal of peace will meet with
+resistance on the part of the imperialist governments--we don't fool
+ourselves on that score. But we hope that revolution will soon break
+out in all the belligerent countries; that is why we address
+ourselves especially to the workers of France, England and Germany....
+
+"The revolution of November 6th and 7th," he ended, "has opened the
+era of the Social Revolution.... The labour movement, in the name of
+peace and Socialism, shall win, and fulfil its destiny...."
+
+There was something quiet and powerful in all this, which stirred
+the souls of men. It was understandable why people believed when
+Lenin spoke....
+
+By crowd vote it was quickly decided that only representatives of
+political factions should be allowed to speak on the motion and that
+speakers should be limited to fifteen minutes.
+
+First Karelin for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. "Our faction
+had no opportunity to propose amendments to the text of the
+proclamation; it is a private document of the Bolsheviki. But we
+will vote for it because we agree with its spirit...."
+
+For the Social Democrats Internationalists Kramarov, long,
+stoop-shouldered and near-sighted--destined to achieve some notoriety
+as the Clown of the Opposition. Only a Government composed of all
+the Socialist parties, he said, could possess the authority to take
+such important action. If a Socialist coalition were formed, his
+faction would support the entire programme; if not, only part of it.
+As for the proclamation, the Internationalists were in thorough
+accord with its main points....
+
+Then one after another, amid rising enthusiasm; Ukrainean Social
+Democracy, support; Lithuanian Social Democracy, support; Populist
+Socialists, support; Polish Social Democracy, support; Polish
+Socialists support--but would prefer a Socialist coalition; Lettish
+Social Democracy, support.... Something was kindled in these men. One
+spoke of the "coming World-Revolution, of which we are the
+advance-guard"; another of "the new age of brotherhood, when all the
+peoples will become one great family...." An individual member claimed
+the floor. "There is contradiction here," he said. "First you offer
+peace without annexations and indemnities, and then you say you will
+consider all peace offers. To consider means to accept...."
+
+Lenin was on his feet. "We want a just peace, but we are not afraid
+of a revolutionary war.... Probably the imperialist Governments will
+not answer our appeal--but we shall not issue an ultimatum to which
+it will be easy to say no.... If the German proletariat realises that
+we are ready to consider all offers of peace, that will perhaps be
+the last drop which overflows the bowl--revolution will break out in
+Germany....
+
+"We consent to examine all conditions of peace, but that doesn't
+mean that we shall accept them.... For some of our terms we shall
+fight to the end--but possibly for others will find it impossible to
+continue the war.... Above all, we want to finish the war...."
+
+It was exactly 10:35 when Kameniev asked all in favour of the
+proclamation to hold up their cards. One delegate dared to raise his
+hand against, but the sudden sharp outburst around him brought it
+swiftly down.... Unanimous.
+
+Suddenly, by common impulse, we found ourselves on our feet,
+mumbling together into the smooth lifting unison of the
+_Internationale._ A grizzled old soldier was sobbing like a child.
+Alexandra Kollontai rapidly winked the tears back. The immense sound
+rolled through the hall, burst windows and doors and seared into the
+quiet sky. "The war is ended! The war is ended!" said a young
+workman near me, his face shining. And when it was over, as we stood
+there in a kind of awkward hush, some one in the back of the room
+shouted, "Comrades! Let us remember those who have died for
+liberty!" So we began to sing the Funeral March, that slow,
+melancholy and yet triumphant chant, so Russian and so moving. The
+_Internationale_ is an alien air, after all. The Funeral March
+seemed the very soul of those dark masses whose delegates sat in
+this hall, building from their obscure visions a new Russia--and
+perhaps more.
+
+You fell in the fatal fight
+
+For the liberty of the people, for the honour of the people....
+
+You gave up your lives and everything dear to you,
+
+You suffered in horrible prisons,
+
+You went to exile in chains....
+
+Without a word you carried your chains because you could not ignore
+your suffering brothers,
+
+Because you believed that justice is stronger than the sword....
+
+The time will come when your surrendered life will count
+
+That time is near; when tyranny falls the people will rise, great
+and free!
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+You are followed by the new and fresh army ready to die and to
+suffer....
+
+Farewell, brothers, you chose a noble path,
+
+At your grave we swear to fight, to work for freedom and the
+people's happiness....
+
+For this did they lie there, the martyrs of March, in their cold
+Brotherhood Grave on Mars Field; for this thousands and tens of
+thousands had died in the prisons, in exile, in Siberian mines. It
+had not come as they expected it would come, nor as the
+_intelligentzia_ desired it; but it had come--rough, strong,
+impatient of formulas, contemptuous of sentimentalism; real....
+
+Lenin was reading the Decree on Land:
+
+(1.) All private ownership of land is abolished immediately without
+compensation.
+
+(2.) All land-owners' estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown,
+to monasteries, church lands with all their live stock and
+inventoried property, buildings and all appurtenances, are
+transferred to the disposition of the township Land Committees and
+the district Soviets of Peasants' Deputies until the Constituent
+Assembly meets.
+
+(3.) Any damage whatever done to the confiscated property which from
+now on belongs to the whole People, is regarded as a serious crime,
+punishable by the revolutionary tribunals. The district Soviets of
+Peasants' Deputies shall take all necessary measures for the
+observance of the strictest order during the taking over of the
+land-owners' estates, for the determination of the dimensions of the
+plots of land and which of them are subject to confiscation, for the
+drawing up of an inventory of the entire confiscated property, and
+for the strictest revolutionary protection of all the farming
+property on the land, with all buildings, implements, cattle,
+supplies of products, etc., passing into the hands of the People.
+
+(4.) For guidance during the realisation of the great land reforms
+until their final resolution by the Constituent Assembly, shall
+serve the following peasant _nakaz_ (See App. V, Sect. 3)
+(instructions), drawn up on the basis of 242 local peasant _nakazi_
+by the editorial board of the "_Izviestia_ of the All-Russian Soviet
+of Peasants' Deputies," and published in No.88 of said _"Izviestia"_
+(Petrograd, No.88, August 19th, 1917).
+
+The lands of peasants and of Cossacks serving in the Army shall not
+be confiscated.
+
+"This is not," explained Lenin, "the project of former Minister
+Tchernov, who spoke of 'erecting a frame-work' and tried to realise
+reforms from above. From below, on the spot, will be decided the
+questions of division of the land. The amount of land received by
+each peasant will vary according to the locality....
+
+"Under the Provisional Government, the _pomieshtchiki_ flatly
+refused to obey the orders of the Land Committees--those Land
+Committees projected by Lvov, brought into existence by Shingariov,
+and administered by Kerensky!"
+
+Before the debates could begin a man forced his way violently
+through the crowd in the aisle and climbed upon the platform. It was
+Pianikh, member of the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets,
+and he was mad clean through.
+
+"The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies protests against the arrest of our comrades, the Ministers
+Salazkin and Mazlov!" he flung harshly in the faces of the crowd,
+"We demand their instant release! They are now in Peter-Paul
+fortress. We must have immediate action! There is not a moment to
+lose!"
+
+Another followed him, a soldier with disordered beard and flaming
+eyes. "You sit here and talk about giving the land to the peasants,
+and you commit an act of tyrants and usurpers against the peasants'
+chosen representatives! I tell you--" he raised his fist, "If one
+hair of their heads is harmed, you'll have a revolt on your hands!"
+The crowd stirred confusedly.
+
+Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted
+with a roar. "Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided
+to release the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers,
+Mazlov, Salazkin, Gvozdov and Maliantovitch--on principle. That they
+are still in Peter-Paul is only because we have had so much to do....
+They will, however, be detained at their homes under arrest until we
+have investigated their complicity in the treacherous acts of
+Kerensky during the Kornilov affair!"
+
+"Never," shouted Pianikh, "in any revolution have such things been
+seen as go on here!"
+
+"You are mistaken," responded Trotzky. "Such things have been seen
+even in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in
+the July days.... When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by
+the doctor's orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents
+of the Tsar's secret police!" The peasants withdrew, muttering,
+followed by ironical hoots.
+
+The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on
+the Land Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not
+vote on the question until after discussion. The Peasants' Soviets
+should be consulted....
+
+The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
+
+Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the
+peasants: "We must do honour to a political party which puts such an
+act into effect the first day, without jawing about it!"
+
+A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and
+sheep-skin coat, bowing to all corners of the hall. "I wish you
+well, comrades and citizens," he said. "There are some Cadets
+walking around outside. You arrested our Socialist peasants--why not
+arrest them?"
+
+This was the signal for a debate of excited peasants. It was
+precisely like the debate of soldiers of the night before. Here were
+the real proletarians of the land....
+
+"Those members of our Executive Committee, Avksentiev and the rest,
+whom we thought were the peasants' protectors--they are only Cadets
+too! Arrest them! Arrest them!"
+
+Another, "Who are these Pianikhs, these Avksentievs? They are not
+peasants at all! They only wag their tails!"
+
+How the crowd rose to them, recognising brothers!
+
+The Left Socialist Revolutionaries proposed a half-hour
+intermission. As the delegates streamed out, Lenin stood up in his
+place.
+
+"We must not lose time, comrades! News all-important to Russia must
+be on the press to-morrow morning. No delay!"
+
+And above the hot discussion, argument, shuffling of feet could be
+heard the voice of an emissary of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, crying, "Fifteen agitators wanted in room 17 at once! To
+go to the Front!"...
+
+It was almost two hours and a half later that the delegates came
+straggling back, the presidium mounted the platform, and the session
+recommenced by the reading of telegrams from regiment after
+regiment, announcing their adhesion to the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+In leisurely manner the meeting gathered momentum. A delegate from
+the Russian troops on the Macedonian front spoke bitterly of their
+situation. "We suffer there more from the friendship of our 'Allies'
+than from the enemy," he said. Representatives of the Tenth and
+Twelfth Armies, just arrived in hot haste, reported, "We support you
+with all our strength!" A peasant-soldier protested against the
+release of "the traitor Socialists, Mazlov and Salazkin"; as for the
+Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, it should be arrested
+_en masse!_Here was real revolutionary talk.... A deputy from the
+Russian Army in Persia declared he was instructed to demand all
+power to the Soviets.... A Ukrainean officer, speaking in his native
+tongue: "There is no nationalism in this crisis.... _Da zdravstvuyet_
+the proletarian dictatorship of all lands!" Such a deluge of high
+and hot thoughts that surely Russia would never again be dumb!
+
+Kameniev remarked that the anti-Bolshevik forces were trying to stir
+up disorders everywhere, and read an appeal of the Congress to all
+the Soviets of Russia:
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies, including some Peasants' Deputies, calls upon the local
+Soviets to take immediate energetic measures to oppose all
+counter-revolutionary anti-Jewish action and all _pogroms,_ whatever
+they may be. The honour of the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
+Revolution demands that no _pogrom_ be tolerated.
+
+The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+Workers, soldiers and peasants, you should follow everywhere the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+Comrade soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of assuring real
+revolutionary order.
+
+All revolutionary Russia and the entire world have their eyes on us....
+
+At two o'clock the Land Decree was put to vote, with only one
+against and the peasant delegates wild with joy.... So plunged the
+Bolsheviki ahead, irresistible, over-riding hesitation and
+opposition--the only people in Russia who had a definite programme of
+action while the others talked for eight long months.
+
+Now arose a soldier, gaunt, ragged and eloquent, to protest against
+the clause of the _nakaz_ tending to deprive military deserters from
+a share in village land allotments. Bawled at and hissed at first,
+his simple, moving speech finally made silence. "Forced against his
+will into the butchery of the trenches," he cried, "which you
+yourselves, in the Peace decree, have voted senseless as well as
+horrible, he greeted the Revolution with hope of peace and freedom.
+Peace? The Government of Kerensky forced him again to go forward
+into Galicia to slaughter and be slaughtered; to his pleas for
+peace, Terestchenko simply laughed.... Freedom? Under Kerensky he
+found his Committees suppressed, his newspapers cut off, his party
+speakers put in prison.... At home in his village, the landlords were
+defying his Land Committees, jailing his comrades.... In Petrograd the
+bourgeoisie, in alliance with the Germans, were sabotaging the food
+and ammunition for the Army.... He was without boots, or clothes.... Who
+forced him to desert? The Government of Kerensky, which you have
+overthrown!" At the end there was applause.
+
+But another soldier hotly denounced it: "The Government of Kerensky
+is not a screen behind which can be hidden dirty work like
+desertion! Deserters are scoundrels, who run away home and leave
+their comrades to die in the trenches alone! Every deserter is a
+traitor, and should be punished...." Uproar, shouts of _"Do volno!
+Teesche!"_ Kameniev hastily proposed to leave the matter to the
+Government for decision. (See App. V, Sect. 4)
+
+At 2.30 A. M. fell a tense hush. Kameniev was reading the decree of
+the Constitution of Power:
+
+Until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, a provisional
+Workers' and Peasants' Government is formed, which shall be named
+the Council of People's Commissars. (See App. V, Sect. 5)
+
+The administration of the different branches of state activity shall
+be intrusted to commissions, whose composition shall be regulated to
+ensure the carrying out of the programme of the Congress, in close
+union with the mass-organisations of working-men, working-women,
+sailors, soldiers, peasants and clerical employees. The governmental
+power is vested in a _collegium_ made up of the chairmen of these
+commissions, that is to say, the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+Control over the activities of the People's Commissars, and the
+right to replace them, shall belong to the All-Russian Congress of
+Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, and its
+Central Executive Committee.
+
+Still silence; as he read the list of Commissars, bursts of applause
+after each name, Lenin's and Trotzky's especially.
+
+_President of the Council:_ Vladimir Ulianov _(Lenin)_
+
+_Interior:_ A. E. Rykov
+
+_Agriculture:_ V. P. Miliutin
+
+_Labour:_ A. G. Shliapnikov
+
+_Military and Naval Affairs_--a committee composed of V. A.
+
+_Avseenko (Antonov),_ N. V. Krylenko, and F. M. Dybenko.
+
+_Commerce and Industry:_ V. P. Nogin
+
+_Popular Education:_ A. V. Lunatcharsky
+
+_Finance:_ E. E. Skvortsov _(Stepanov)_
+
+_Foreign Affairs:_ L. D. Bronstein _(Trotzky)_
+
+_Justice:_ G. E. Oppokov _(Lomov)_
+
+_Supplies:_ E. A. Teodorovitch
+
+_Post and Telegraph:_ N. P. Avilov _(Gliebov)_
+
+_Chairman for Nationalities:_ I. V. Djougashvili _(Stalin)_
+
+_Railroads:_ To be filled later.
+
+There were bayonets at the edges of the room, bayonets pricking up
+among the delegates; the Military Revolutionary Committee was arming
+everybody, Bolshevism was arming for the decisive battle with
+Kerensky, the sound of whose trumpets came up the south-west wind....
+In the meanwhile nobody went home; on the contrary hundreds of
+newcomers filtered in, filling the great room solid with stern-faced
+soldiers and workmen who stood for hours and hours, indefatigably
+intent. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and human breathing,
+and the smell of coarse clothes and sweat.
+
+Avilov of the staff of _Novaya Zhizn_ was speaking in the name of
+the Social Democrat Internationalists and the remnant of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists; Avilov, with his young, intelligent
+face, looking out of place in his smart frock-coat.
+
+"We must ask ourselves where we are going.... The ease with which the
+Coalition Government was upset cannot be explained by the strength
+of the left wing of the democracy, but only by the incapacity of the
+Government to give the people peace and bread. And the left wing
+cannot maintain itself in power unless it can solve these questions....
+
+"Can it give bread to the people? Grain is scarce. The majority of
+the peasants will not be with you, for you cannot give them the
+machinery they need. Fuel and other primary necessities are almost
+impossible to procure....
+
+"As for peace, that will be even more difficult. The allies refused
+to talk with Skobeliev. They will never accept the proposition of a
+peace conference from _you._ You will not be recognised either in
+London and Paris, or in Berlin....
+
+"You cannot count on the effective help of the proletariat of the
+Allied countries, because in most countries it is very far from the
+revolutionary struggle; remember, the Allied democracy was unable
+even to convoke the Stockholm Conference. Concerning the German
+Social Democrats, I have just talked with Comrade Goldenberg, one of
+our delegates to Stockholm; he was told by the representatives of
+the Extreme Left that revolution in Germany was impossible during
+the war...." Here interruptions began to come thick and fast, but
+Avilov kept on.
+
+"The isolation of Russia will fatally result either in the defeat of
+the Russian Army by the Germans, and the patching up of a peace
+between the Austro-German coalition and the Franco-British coalition
+_at the expense of Russia_--or in a separate peace with Germany.
+
+"I have just learned that the Allied ambassadors are preparing to
+leave, and that Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution
+are forming in all the cities of Russia....
+
+"No one party can conquer these enormous difficulties. The majority
+of the people, supporting a government of Socialist coalition, can
+alone accomplish the Revolution....
+
+"He then read the resolution of the two factions:
+
+Recognising that for the salvation of the conquests of the
+Revolution it is indispensable immediately to constitute a
+government based on the revolutionary democracy organised in the
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, recognising
+moreover that the task of this government is the quickest possible
+attainment of peace, the transfer of the land into the hands of the
+agrarian committees, the organisation of control over industrial
+production, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the
+date decided, the Congress appoints an executive committee to
+constitute such a government after an agreement with the groups of
+the democracy which are taking part in the Congress.
+
+In spite of the revolutionary exaltation of the triumphant crowd,
+Avilov's cool tolerant reasoning had shaken them. Toward the end,
+the cries and hisses died away, and when he finished there was even
+some clapping.
+
+Karelin followed him--also young, fearless, whose sincerity no one
+doubted--for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of Maria
+Spiridonova, the party which almost alone followed the Bolsheviki,
+and which represented the revolutionary peasants.
+
+"Our party has refused to enter the Council of People's Commissars
+because we do not wish forever to separate ourselves from the part
+of the revolutionary army which left the Congress, a separation
+which would make it impossible for us to serve as intermediaries
+between the Bolsheviki and the other groups of the democracy.... And
+that is our principal duty at this moment. We cannot sustain any
+government except a government of Socialist coalition....
+
+"We protest, moreover, against the tyrannical conduct of the
+Bolsheviki. Our Commissars have been driven from their posts. Our
+only organ, _Znamia Truda_ (Banner of Labour), was forbidden to
+appear yesterday....
+
+"The Central Duma is forming a powerful Committee for Salvation of
+Country and Revolution, to fight you. Already you are isolated, and
+your Government is without the support of a single other democratic
+group....
+
+And now Trotzky stood upon the raised tribune, confident and
+dominating, with that sarcastic expression about his mouth which was
+almost a sneer. He spoke, in a ringing voice, and the great crowd
+rose to him.
+
+"These considerations on the dangers of isolation of our party are
+not new. On the eve of insurrection our fatal defeat was also
+predicted. Everybody was against us; only a faction of the Socialist
+Revolutionaries of the left was with us in the Military
+Revolutionary Committee. How is it that we were able to overturn the
+Government almost without bloodshed?.... That fact is the most
+striking proof that we _were not isolated._ In reality the
+Provisional Government was isolated; the democratic parties which
+march against us were isolated, are isolated, and forever cut off
+from the proletariat!
+
+"They speak of the necessity for a coalition. There is only one
+coalition possible--the coalition of the workers, soldiers and
+poorest peasants; and it is our party's honour to have realised that
+coalition.... What sort of coalition did Avilov mean? A coalition with
+those who supported the Government of Treason to the People?
+Coalition doesn't always add to strength. For example, could we have
+organised the insurrection with Dan and Avksentiev in our ranks?"
+Roars of laughter.
+
+"Avksentiev gave little bread. Will a coalition with the _oborontsi_
+furnish more? Between the peasants and Avksentiev, who ordered the
+arrest of the Land Committees, we choose the peasants! Our
+Revolution will remain the classic revolution of history....
+
+"They accuse us of repelling an agreement with the other democratic
+parties. But is it we who are to blame? Or must we, as Karelin put
+it, blame it on a 'misunderstanding'? No, comrades. When a party in
+full tide of revolution, still wreathed in powder-smoke, comes to
+say, 'Here is the Power--take it!'--and when those to whom it is
+offered go over to the enemy, that is not a misunderstanding.... that
+is a declaration of pitiless war. And it isn't we who have declared
+war....
+
+"Avilov menaces us with failure of our peace efforts--if we remain
+'isolated.' I repeat, I don't see how a coalition with Skobeliev, or
+even Terestchenko, can help us to get peace! Avilov tries to
+frighten us by the threat of a peace at our expense. And I answer
+that in any case, if Europe continues to be ruled by the imperialist
+bourgeoisie, revolutionary Russia will inevitably be lost....
+
+"There are only two alternatives; either the Russian Revolution will
+create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers
+will destroy the Russian Revolution!"
+
+They greeted him with an immense crusading acclaim, kindling to the
+daring of it, with the thought of championing mankind. And from that
+moment there was something conscious and decided about the
+insurrectionary masses, in all their actions, which never left them.
+
+But on the other side, too, battle was taking form. Kameniev
+recognised a delegate from the Union of Railway Workers, a
+hardfaced, stocky man with an attitude of implacable hostility. He
+threw a bombshell.
+
+"In the name of the strongest organisation in Russia I demand the
+right to speak, and I say to you: the _Vikzhel_ charges me to make
+known the decision of the Union concerning the constitution of
+Power. The Central Committee refuses absolutely to support the
+Bolsheviki if they persist in isolating themselves from the whole
+democracy of Russia!" Immense tumult all over the hall.
+
+"In 1905, and in the Kornilov days, the Railway Workers were the
+best defenders of the Revolution. But you did not invite us to your
+Congress--" Cries, "It was the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ which did not invite
+you!" The orator paid no attention. "We do not recognise the
+legality of this Congress; since the departure of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries there is not a legal quorum.... The Union
+supports the old _Tsay-ee-Kah,_ and declares that the Congress has
+no right to elect a new Committee....
+
+"The Power should be a Socialist and revolutionary Power,
+responsible before the authorised organs of the entire revolutionary
+democracy. Until the constitution of such a power, the Union of
+Railway Workers, which refuses to transport counter-revolutionary
+troops to Petrograd, at the same time forbids the execution of any
+order whatever without the consent of the _Vikzhel._ The _Vikzhel_
+also takes into its hands the entire administration of the railroads
+of Russia."
+
+At the end he could hardly be heard for the furious storm of abuse
+which beat upon him. But it was a heavy blow--that could be seen in
+the concern on the faces of the presidium. Kameniev, however, merely
+answered that there could be no doubt of the legality of the
+Congress, as even the quorum established by the old _Tsay-ee-Kah_
+was exceeded--in spite of the secession of the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolution arises....
+
+Then came the vote on the Constitution of Power, which carried the
+Council of People's Commissars into office by an enormous majority....
+
+The election of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the new parliament of the
+Russian Republic, took barely fifteen minutes. Trotzky announced its
+composition: 100 members, of which 70 Bolsheviki.... As for the
+peasants, and the seceding factions, places were to be reserved for
+them. "We welcome into the Government all parties and groups which
+will adopt our programme," ended Trotzky.
+
+And thereupon the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was
+dissolved, so that the members might hurry to their homes in the
+four corners of Russia and tell of the great happenings....
+
+It was almost seven when we woke the sleeping conductors and
+motor-men of the street-cars which the Street-Railway Workers' Union
+always kept waiting at Smolny to take the Soviet delegates to their
+homes. In the crowded car there was less happy hilarity than the
+night before, I thought. Many looked anxious; perhaps they were
+saying to themselves, "Now we are masters, how can we do our will?"
+
+At our apartment-house we were held up in the dark by an armed
+patrol of citizens and carefully examined. The Duma's proclamation
+was doing its work....
+
+The landlady heard us come in, and stumbled out in a pink silk
+wrapper.
+
+The House Committee has again asked that you take your turn on
+guard-duty with the rest of the men," she said.
+
+"What's the reason for this guard-duty?"
+
+"To protect the house and the women and children."
+
+"Who from?"
+
+"Robbers and murderers."
+
+"But suppose there came a Commissar from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to search for arms?"
+
+"Oh, that's what they'll _say_ they are.... And besides, what's the
+difference?"
+
+I solemnly affirmed that the Consul had forbidden all American
+citizens to carry arms--especially in the neighbourhood of the
+Russian _intelligentzia_....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Committee for Salvation
+
+
+Friday, November 9th....
+
+Novotcherkask, November 8th.
+
+In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose
+the Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd... the
+Cossack Government declares that it considers these acts criminal
+and absolutely inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend
+all their support to the Provisional Government, which is a
+government of coalition. Because of these circumstances, and until
+the return of the Provisional Government to power, and the
+restoration of order in Russia, I take upon myself, beginning
+November 7th, all the power in that which concerns the region of the
+Don.
+
+Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
+
+_President of the Government of the Cossack Troops._
+
+_Prikaz_ of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
+
+I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme
+Commander of all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare
+that I am at the head of regiments from the Front who have remained
+faithful to the fatherland.
+
+I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who
+through mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to
+the country and the Revolution, to return to their duty without
+delay.
+
+This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
+
+Signed: _Minister-President of the Provisional_
+
+_Government and Supreme Commander_
+
+A. F. KERENSKY.
+
+Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern
+Front:
+
+The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without
+bloodshed. Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky
+and Ismailovsky regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and
+joined the Government troops.
+
+I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to
+retreat....
+
+Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the
+night. Detachments of the two regiments mentioned--not the
+sailors--while wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed
+been surrounded by Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not
+true that they had joined the Government troops. At this very moment
+crowds of them, bewildered and ashamed, were up at Smolny trying to
+explain. They did not think the Cossacks were so near.... They had
+tried to argue with the Cossacks....
+
+Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary
+front. The garrisons of all the little towns southward had split
+hopelessly, bitterly into two factions--or three: the high command
+being on the side of Kerensky, in default of anything stronger, the
+majority of the rank and file with the Soviets, and the rest
+unhappily wavering.
+
+Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command
+the defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain,
+Muraviov, the same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions
+during the summer, and had once been heard to advise the Government
+that "it was too lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped
+out." A man of military mind, who admired power and audacity,
+perhaps sincerely....
+
+Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all
+shops and stores should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and
+apartments should be put at the disposal of the Committee....
+
+For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from
+provincial Russia and the outside world. The railway men and
+telegraphers refused to transmit their despatches, the postmen would
+not handle their mail. Only the Government wireless at Tsarskoye
+Selo launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to the four
+corners of heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of
+the City Duma on speeding trains half across the earth; and two
+aeroplanes, laden with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front....
+
+But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a
+swiftness surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed
+resolutions of support; Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the
+telegraph station, only to be driven out by delegates to the
+Congress of Cossacks, which happened to be meeting there; in Kazan,
+a Military Revolutionary Committee arrested the local garrison staff
+and the Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far
+Krasnoyarsk, in Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control
+of the Municipal institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was
+aggravated by a great strike of leather-workers on one side, and a
+threat of general lock-out on the other, the Soviets had voted
+overwhelmingly to support the action of the Bolsheviki in
+Petrograd.... Already a Military Revolutionary Committee was
+functioning.
+
+Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the
+industrial workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the
+officers, _yunkers_ and middle class generally were on the side of
+the Government--as were the bourgeois Cadets and the "moderate"
+Socialist parties. In all these towns sprang up Committees for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution, arming for civil war....
+
+Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the
+process had begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and
+giving birth to a sort of forecast of the new order, had ended by
+merely perpetuating the hollow structure of the old regime. Now,
+however, the Bolsheviki, in one night, had dissipated it, as one
+blows away smoke. Old Russia was no more; human society flowed
+molten in primal heat, and from the tossing sea of flame was
+emerging the class struggle, stark and pitiless--and the fragile,
+slowly-cooling crust of new planets....
+
+In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the
+Ministries of Labour and of Supplies--the only two created by the
+all-Socialist Government of August.
+
+If ever men stood alone the "handful of Bolsheviki" apparently stood
+alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them.
+(See App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military
+Revolutionary Committee struck--for its life. "_De l'audace, encore
+de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace_...." At five in the morning the
+Red Guards entered the printing office of the City Government,
+confiscated thousands of copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma,
+and suppressed the official Municipal organ--the _Viestnik Gorodskovo
+Samoupravleniya_ (Bulletin of the Municipal Self-Government). All
+the bourgeois newspapers were torn from the presses, even the _Golos
+Soldata,_ journal of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_--which, however, changing
+its name to _Soldatski Golos,_ appeared in an edition of a hundred
+thousand copies, bellowing rage and defiance:
+
+The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have
+suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance
+long. The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you,
+Messrs. the Bolsheviki! We shall see!...
+
+As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street
+before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there
+stood Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one
+surrounded by about a hundred men and women--clerks, students,
+shopkeepers, _tchinovniki_--shaking their fists and bawling insults
+and menaces. On the steps stood boy-scouts and officers,
+distributing copies of the _Soldatski Golos._ A workman with a red
+band around his arm and a revolver in his hand stood trembling with
+rage and nervousness in the middle of a hostile throng at the foot
+of the stairs, demanding the surrender of the papers.... Nothing like
+this, I imagine, ever occurred in history. On one side a handful of
+workmen and common soldiers, with arms in their hands, representing
+a victorious insurrection--and perfectly miserable; on the other a
+frantic mob made up of the kind of people that crowd the sidewalks
+of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering, abusing, shouting,
+"Traitors! Provocators! _Opritchniki!_"[15]
+
+[15] Savage body-guards if Ivan the Terrible, 17th century.
+
+The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands
+lettered in red, "Militia of the Committee of Public Safety," and
+half a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all
+commotion. Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. "They're
+going to dissolve the Duma," he said. "The Bolshevik Commissar is
+with the Mayor now." As we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying
+out. He had been to demand that the Duma recognise the Council of
+peoples' Commissars, and the Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
+
+In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
+gesticulating--Government officials, intellectuals, journalists,
+foreign correspondents, French and British officers.... "The City
+Engineer pointed to them triumphantly. "The Embassies recognise the
+Duma as the only power now," he explained. "For these Bolshevik
+murderers and robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is
+rallying to us....
+
+In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for
+Salvation. Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the
+tribune, reporting, to immense applause, new adhesions to the
+Committee; Executive Committee of Peasants' Soviets, old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ Central Army Committee, _Tsentroflot,_ Menshevik,
+Socialist Revolutionary and Front group delegates from the Congress
+of Soviets, Central Committees of the Menshevik, Socialist
+Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties. "Yedinstvo" group,
+Peasants' Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos, Municipalities, Post and
+Telegraph Unions, _Vikzhel,_ Council of the Russian Republic, Union
+of Unions,[16] Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association....
+
+[16] See Notes and Explanations.
+
+".... The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
+dictatorship--and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but
+_against_ the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to
+feel revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the
+Revolution....
+
+"The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
+demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution.... If rumours
+are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to
+profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs,
+it is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of
+democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will
+follow troubles from the Left....
+
+"The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens
+buying the _Golos Soldata_ and newsboys selling the _Rabotchaya
+Gazeta_ are arrested in the streets....
+
+"The hour of resolutions has passed.... Let those who have no longer
+faith in the Revolution retire.... To establish a united power, we
+must again restore the prestige of the Revolution....
+
+"Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved--or we shall
+perish!"
+
+The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single
+proletarian anywhere in sight....
+
+Then Weinstein:
+
+"We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly
+grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation--then we can pass
+from the defensive to action!"
+
+The _Vikzhel_ representative announced that his organisation was
+taking the initiative in forming the new Government, and its
+delegates were now discussing the matter with Smolny.... Followed a
+hot discussion: were the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new
+Government? Martov pleaded for their admission; after all, he said,
+they represented an important political party. Opinions were very
+much divided upon this, the right wing Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist Socialists, the
+Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly against....
+
+"They have betrayed Russia," one speaker said. "They have started
+civil war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must
+be mercilessly crushed...."
+
+Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the
+Cadets.
+
+We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who
+had walked out of the Democratic Conference to gether with the
+Bolsheviki, that night when Tseretelli and the "compromisers" forced
+Coalition upon the democracy of Russia.
+
+"You here?" I asked him.
+
+His eyes flashed fire. "Yes!" he cried. "I left the Congress with my
+party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years
+and more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their
+methods are intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants....
+When the peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes
+before they are done for."
+
+"But the peasants--will they act? Doesn't the Land decree settle the
+peasants? What more do they want?"
+
+"Ah, the Land decree!" he said furiously. "Yes, do you know what
+that Land decree is? It is _our_ decree--it is the Socialist
+Revolutionary programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after
+the most careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants
+themselves. It is an outrage...."
+
+"But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
+peasants' wishes, why will they oppose it?"
+
+"You don't understand! Don't you see that the peasants will
+immediately realise that it is all a trick--that these usurpers have
+stolen the Socialist Revolutionary programme?"
+
+I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
+
+He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction.
+"Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised
+the counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The
+Revolution is lost."
+
+"But won't you defend the Revolution?"
+
+"Of course we will defend it--to the last drop of our blood. But we
+won't cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way...."
+
+"But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the
+city. Won't you join with them?"
+
+"Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won't support
+the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the
+Bolsheviki are equally enemies of the Revolution."
+
+"Which do you prefer--Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?"
+
+"It is not a question to be discussed!" he burst out impatiently. "I
+tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are
+to blame. But listen--why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is
+coming.... Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive....
+Already Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new
+Government. But we have them now--they are absolutely impotent.... We
+shall not cooperate...."
+
+Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard,
+finally exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it,
+wounding a young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into
+a cab, surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices
+floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile
+appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this
+way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd
+crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the
+gutters, heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to
+the steps of the Duma and a man stuck his head out of the turret,
+demanding the surrender of the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts
+jeered and scuttled into the building. After a moment the automobile
+wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the Nevsky, while some
+hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to dust
+their clothes....
+
+Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of
+_Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them....
+
+A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
+
+"Here's a proclamation from Krasnov!" he cried. Everybody crowded
+around. "Get it printed--get it printed quick, and around to the
+barracks!"
+
+By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of
+the troops concentrated under Petrograd.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of
+the Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have
+remained faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to
+guard inviolable your oath of Cossack--I call upon you to save
+Petrograd from anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save
+Russia from the indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men,
+bought by the gold of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.
+
+The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great
+days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the
+edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with
+the help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help
+of the Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all
+the Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its
+ranks, and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people,
+has sworn to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the
+Troublous Times of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered
+Moscow, menaced by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your
+Government still exists....
+
+The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt.
+Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German
+mentality with which they regard Russia--stricken down but not yet
+surrendered--have alienated from them the entire people.
+
+Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd;
+send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their
+country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of
+innocent blood.
+
+Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the
+building was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red
+band around his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he
+left and old Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.
+
+"A special meeting of the Duma!" he cried. "Immediately!"
+
+In the big hall proceedings were halted. "All members of the Duma
+for a special meeting!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I don't know--going to arrest us--going to dissolve the
+Duma--arresting members at the door--" so ran the excited comments.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor
+announced that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting
+all exit and entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest
+and the dispersal of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned
+speeches from members, and even from the galleries, responded. The
+freely-elected City Government could not be dissolved by _any_
+power; the Mayor's person and that of all the members were
+inviolable; the tyrants, the provocators, the German agents should
+never be recognised; as for these threats to dissolve us, let them
+try--only over our dead bodies shall they seize this chamber, where
+like the Roman senators of old we await with dignity the coming of
+the Goths....
+
+Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by
+telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the
+Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with
+representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the
+so-called Council of People's Commissars. Resolution, to address
+another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the
+defence of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in
+permanent session....
+
+In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had
+telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee
+said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the
+troops would be withdrawn....
+
+As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very
+agitated.
+
+"Are you going to dissolve the Duma?" I asked.
+
+"My God, no!" he answered. "It is all a mistake. I told the Mayor
+this morning that the Duma would be left alone...."
+
+Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of
+cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted,
+and the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions.
+
+"Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked a fat old man with a
+cigar in his mouth.
+
+"Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets
+against the damn' bourgeoisie!"
+
+"Ah!" were furious cries. "Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik Cossacks!"
+
+A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. "The
+garrison is turning!" he muttered in my ear. "It's the beginning of
+the end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the tide?
+Come on!" He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we
+followed.
+
+"What regiment is it?"
+
+"The _brunnoviki_...." Here was indeed serious trouble. The
+_brunnoviki_ were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation;
+whoever controlled the _brunnoviki_ controlled the city. "The
+Commissars of the Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been
+talking to them. There's a meeting on to decide....
+
+"Decide what? Which side they'll fight on?"
+
+"Oh, no. That's not the way to do it. They'll never fight against
+the Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral--and then the
+_yunkers_ and Cossacks--"
+
+The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two
+sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to
+their indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light
+burned dimly, high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose
+lofty pilasters and rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around
+dimly squatted the monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood
+alone in the centre of the place, under the light, and round it were
+gathered some two thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the
+immensity of that imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen
+of the Soldiers' Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the
+car, and from the central turret a soldier was speaking. This was
+Khanjunov, who had been president of last summer's all-Russian
+Congress of _Brunnoviki._ A lithe, handsome figure in his leather
+coat with lieutenant's shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently
+for neutrality.
+
+"It is an awful thing," he said, "for Russians to kill their Russian
+brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
+shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign
+enemy in battles which will go down in history! What have we,
+soldiers, got to do with these squabbles of political parties? I
+will not say to you that the Provisional Government was a democratic
+Government; we want no coalition with the bourgeoisie--no. But we
+must have a Government of the united democracy, or Russia is lost!
+With such a Government there will be no need for civil war, and the
+killing of brother by brother!"
+
+This sounded reasonable--the great hall echoed to the crash of hands
+and voices.
+
+A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, "Comrades!" he
+cried, "I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all:
+there must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace,
+whether it be the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow.
+Peace! We at the front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight
+either Germans or Russians--" With that he leaped down, and a sort of
+confused agonised sound rose up from all that surging mass, which
+burst into something like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik
+_oboronetz,_ tried to say that the war must go on until the Allies
+were victorious.
+
+"You talk like Kerensky!" shouted a rough voice.
+
+A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to,
+muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen
+men trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood
+staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their
+brows wrinkled with the effort of thought, sweat standing out on
+their foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of
+children and the faces of epic warriors....
+
+Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full
+of hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their
+mood. For the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of
+common thoughts, thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the
+world, as if it depended on them whether the Revolution were to live
+or die....
+
+Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of
+approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned,
+persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn't he an officer, and an
+_oboronotz,_ however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from
+Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, "And are _you_ going to
+give us peace, working-man?" Near us some men, many of them
+officers, formed a sort of _claque_ to cheer the advocates of
+Neutrality. They kept shouting, "Khanjunov! Khanjunov!" and whistled
+insultingly when the Bolsheviki tried to speak.
+
+Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile
+began to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation.
+The audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great
+mass tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the
+officers, wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
+
+"Comrades!" he cried, "Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak
+to us." An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of _"Prosim!
+Prosim! Dolby!_ Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!" in the midst of
+which the People's Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the
+side of the car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and
+pulled from below and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then
+walked out on the radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked
+around smiling, a squat, short-legged figure, bare-headed, without
+insignia on his uniform.
+
+The _claque_ near me kept up a fearful shouting, "Khanjunov! We want
+Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!" The whole
+place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche
+bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way
+through.
+
+"Who is breaking up our meeting?" they shouted. "Who is whistling
+here?" The _claque,_ rudely burst asunder, went flying--nor did it
+gather again....
+
+"Comrade soliders!" began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue.
+"I cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any
+sleep for four nights....
+
+"I don't need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don't need to tell
+you that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
+successful in the Workers' and Soldiers' Revolution, by the help of
+you and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have of you and of
+all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever the
+power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to
+all the peoples, and that has already been done--to-day!" Tumultuous
+applause.
+
+"You are asked to remain neutral--to remain neutral while the
+_yunkers_ and the Death Battalions, who are _never_ neutral, shoot
+us down in the streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky--or
+perhaps some other of the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don.
+Kerensky is coming from the front. Kornilov is raising the
+_Tekhintsi_ to repeat his attempt of August. All these Mensheviki
+and Socialist Revolutionaries who call upon you now to prevent civil
+war--how have they retained the power except by civil war, that civil
+war which has endured ever since last July, and in which they
+constantly stood on the side of the bourgeoisie, as they do now?
+
+"How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The
+question is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov,
+the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers....
+They tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the
+workers, the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The
+Government is in your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia
+belongs to you. Will you give it back?"
+
+While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will,
+and as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke
+through the tired voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a
+hundred hands reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces
+of the hall gave back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
+
+Khanjunov tried to speak again, but "Vote! Vote! Vote!" they cried.
+At length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the _brunnoviki_
+withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war.
+All those in favour should go to the right; those opposed, to the
+left. There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then
+the crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one
+another, to the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid mass
+rushing across the dirt floor in the faint light.... Near us about
+fifty men were left stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the
+high roof shook under the shock of victorious roaring, they turned
+and rapidly walked out of the building--and, some of them, out of the
+Revolution....
+
+Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city,
+the district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless
+Krylenkos, watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place,
+arguing, threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all
+the locals of every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on
+the battle-ships of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the
+hundreds of thousands of Russian men staring up at speakers all over
+the vast country, workmen, peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so
+hard to understand and to choose, thinking so intensely--and deciding
+so unanimously at the end. So was the Russian Revolution....
+
+Up at Smolny the new Council of People's Commissars was not idle.
+Already the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in
+thousands through the city streets that night, and shipped in bales
+by every train southward and east:
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
+with participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People's
+Commissars decrees:
+
+1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at
+the date determined upon--November 12.
+
+2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government,
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, and soldiers'
+organisations on the front should make every effort to assure free
+and regular elections at the date determined upon.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, _The
+President of the Council of People's Commissars_,
+
+VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of
+the Council of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council,
+he said, did not consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable
+to continue its labours until it secured a new meeting-place. In the
+meanwhile, its Committee of Elders had determined to enter _en
+masse_ the Committee for Salvation.... This, I may remark
+parenthetically, is the last time history mentions the Council of
+the Russian Republic....
+
+Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries,
+the _Vikzhel,_ the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth
+time reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik
+usurpers. A _yunker_ who had been in the Winter Palace told a
+highly-coloured tale of the heroism of himself and his comrades, and
+disgraceful conduct of the Red Guards--all of which was devoutly
+believed. Somebody read aloud an account in the Socialist
+Revolutionary paper _Narod,_ which stated that five hundred million
+rubles' worth of damage had been done in the Winter Palace, and
+describing in great detail the loot and breakage.
+
+From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The
+four Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had
+gone to Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of
+Marine was deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take
+charge under the authority of the Council of People's Commissars;
+and the old seaman had consented.... Kerensky was advancing north from
+Gatchina, the Bolshevik garrisons falling back before him. Smolny
+had issued another decree, enlarging the powers of the City Dumas to
+deal with food supplies.
+
+This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin,
+the usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal
+garage, entered the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the
+Supply Committees and the distribution of food--he presumed to define
+the limits of power of the free, independent, autonomous City
+Government! One member, shaking his fist, moved to cut off the food
+of the city if the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with the Supply
+Committees.... Another, representative of the Special Supply
+Committee, reported that the food situation was very grave, and
+asked that emissaries be sent out to hasten food trains.
+
+Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering.
+The Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders
+of the Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats
+on the Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to
+continue the propaganda....
+
+Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: "Comrades and citizens!
+I have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger.
+Fourteen _yunkers_ of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and
+tortured by the Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are
+threatening to lynch the Ministers!" There was a whirlwind of
+indignation and horror, which only grew more violent when a stocky
+little woman dressed in grey demanded the floor, and lifted up her
+hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran revolutionist
+and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
+
+"That is a lie and a provocation!" she said, unmoved at the torrent
+of abuse. "The Workers' and Peasants' Government, which has
+abolished the death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand
+that this story be investigated, at once; if there is any truth in
+it, the Government will take energetic measures!"
+
+A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately
+appointed, and with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As
+we followed them out, the Duma was appointing another commission to
+meet Kerensky--to try and avoid bloodshed when he entered the
+capital....
+
+It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of
+the fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare
+electric lights along the side of the church where lie the tombs of
+the Tsars, beneath the slender golden spire and the chimes, which,
+for months, continued to play _Bozhe Tsaria Khrani_[17] every day at
+noon.... The place was deserted; in most of the windows there were not
+even lights. Occasionally we bumped into a burly figure stumbling along
+in the dark, who answered questions with the usual, _"Ya nieznayu."_
+
+[17] "God Save the Tsar."
+
+[Graphic, page 166: Pass to Reed from Department of Prisons
+translation follows]
+
+Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to
+visit freely all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
+
+  Commissar
+  Chief Bureau of Prisons
+  6th of November, 1917.
+        No. 213
+  Petrograd, Smolny
+  Institute, room No. 56--
+
+                      PASS
+To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED, to
+visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and
+Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition
+of the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the
+purpose of stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy.
+       Chief Commissar
+       Secretary
+
+On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that
+living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their
+lives or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional
+Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now
+the Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional
+Government.
+
+A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a
+little house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and
+soldiers were sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a
+samovar steamed cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality,
+offering tea. The commandant was not in; he was escorting a
+commission of _"sabotazhniki"_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who
+insisted that the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to
+amuse them very much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed,
+dissipated-looking little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat,
+biting his moustache and staring around him like a cornered rat. He
+had just been arrested. Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him,
+that he was a Minister or something.... The little man didn't seem to
+hear it; he was evidently terrified, although the occupants of the
+room showed no animosity whatever toward him.
+
+I went across and spoke to him in French. "Count Tolstoy," he
+answered, bowing stiffly. "I do not understand why I was arrested. I
+was crossing the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these--of
+these--persons held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional
+Government attached to the General Staff, but in no sense a member
+of the Government..."
+
+"Let him go," said a sailor. "He's harmless...."
+
+"No," responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. "We must
+ask the commandant."
+
+"Oh, the commandant!" sneered the sailor. "What did you make a
+revolution for? To go on obeying officers?"
+
+A _praporshtchik_ of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
+insurrection started. "The _polk_ (regiment) was on duty at the
+General Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were
+standing guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man--I don't remember his
+name--well, they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the
+Staff was having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For
+example, they heard orders to bring the Gatchina _yunkers_ to
+Petrograd by night, and an order for the Cossacks to be ready to
+march in the morning.... The principal points in the city were to be
+occupied before dawn. Then there was the business of opening the
+bridges. But when they began to talk about surrounding Smolny, then
+Ivan Pavlovitch couldn't stand it any longer. That minute there was
+a good deal of coming and going, so he slipped out and came down to
+the guard-room, leaving the other comrade to pick up what he could.
+
+"I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles
+full of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan
+Pavlovitch told me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the
+morning. The secretary of the regimental Committee was there, so we
+told him and asked what to do.
+
+"'Arrest everybody coming and going!' he says. So we began to do
+it. In an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom
+we sent up to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary
+Committee wasn't ready; they didn't know what to do; and pretty soon
+back came the order to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else.
+Well, we ran all the way to Smolny, and I guess we talked for an
+hour before they finally saw that it was war. It was five o'clock
+when we got back to the Staff, and by that time most of them were
+gone. But we got a few, and the garrison was all on the march...."
+
+A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had
+happened in his district on the great day of the rising. "We didn't
+have any machine-guns over there," he said, laughing, "and we
+couldn't get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of
+the _Uprava_ (Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at
+once that there was lying in the meeting-room of the _Uprava_ a
+machinegun which had been captured from the Germans. So he and I and
+another comrade went there. The Mensheviki and Socialist
+Revolutionaries were having a meeting. Well, we opened the door and
+walked right in on them, as they sat around the table--twelve or
+fifteen of them, three of us. When they saw us they stopped talking
+and just stared. We walked right across the room, uncoupled the
+machine-gun; Comrade Zalkind picked up one part, I the other, we put
+them on our shoulders and walked out--and not a single man said a
+word!"
+
+"Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?" asked a third man,
+a sailor. "Along about eleven o'clock we found out there weren't any
+more _yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and
+filtered up the different stairways one by one, or in little
+bunches. When we got to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us
+up and took away our guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little
+by little, until we had a majority. Then we turned around and took
+away the _yunkers'_ guns...."
+
+Just then the commandant entered--a merry-looking young
+non-commissioned officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles
+of sleeplessness under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner,
+who at once began to explain.
+
+"Oh, yes," interrupted the other. "You were one of the committee who
+refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we
+don't want you, citizen. Apologies--" He opened the door and waved
+his arm for Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others,
+especially the Red Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor
+remarked triumphantly, _"Vot!_ There! Didn't I say so?"
+
+Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a
+committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they
+said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn't
+even enough to keep a man from being hungry. "Why should the
+counter-revolutionists be treated so well?"
+
+"We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits," answered the
+commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going
+about that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the
+Ministers threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to
+be able to prove to the world--?"
+
+"No," said the young soldier, irritably. "I am not going to disturb
+the prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up--they
+were sure we were going to massacre them.... Most of the _yunkers_
+have been released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow." He
+turned abruptly away.
+
+"Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?"
+
+The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded.
+"They are still out in the hall," he said carelessly.
+
+Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light
+of an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
+
+"Mr. Mayor," I said, "we are American correspondents. Will you
+please tell us officially the result of your investigations?"
+
+He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
+
+"There is no truth in the reports," he said slowly. "Except for the
+incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here,
+they have been treated with every consideration. As for the
+_yunkers,_ not one has received the slightest injury...."
+
+Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable
+column of soldiers shuffled in silence--to battle with Kerensky. In
+dim back streets automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and
+there was furtive activity in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the
+Peasants' Soviet, in a certain apartment of a huge building on the
+Nevsky, and in the _Injinierny Zamok_ (School of Engineers); the
+Duma was illuminated....
+
+In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed
+baleful fire, pounding like an over-loaded dynamo....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Revolutionary Front
+
+
+Saturday, November 10th....
+
+Citizens!
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will not
+tolerate any violation of revolutionary order....
+
+Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be
+severely punished....
+
+Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will
+destroy without mercy any looter or instigator of disorder....
+
+Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken
+fight. By night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and
+on the corners soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires,
+laughing and singing. In the daytime great crowds gathered on the
+sidewalks listening to interminable hot debates between students and
+soldiers, business men and workmen.
+
+Citizens stopped each other on the street.
+
+"The Cossacks are coming?"
+
+"No...."
+
+"What's the latest?"
+
+"I don't know anything. Where's Kerensky?"
+
+"They say only eight versts from Petrograd.... Is it true that the
+Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship _Avrora?"_
+
+"They say so...."
+
+Only the walls screamed, and the few newspapers; denunciation,
+appeal, decree....
+
+An enormous poster carried the hysterical manifesto of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets:
+
+....They (the Bolsheviki) dare to say that they are supported by the
+Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, and that they are speaking on behalf
+of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies....
+
+Let all working-class Russia know that this is a LIE, AND THAT ALL
+THE WORKING PEASANTS--in the person of--the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE
+ALL-RUSSIAN SOVIETS OF PEASANTS' DEPUTIES--refutes with indignation
+all participation of the organised peasantry in this criminal
+violation of the will of the working-classes....
+
+From the Soldier Section of the Socialist Revolutionary party:
+
+The insane attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of collapse. The
+garrison is divided.... The Ministries are on strike and bread is
+getting scarcer. All factions except the few Bolsheviki have left
+the Congress. The Bolsheviki are alone....
+
+We call upon all sane elements to group themselves around the
+Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, and to prepare
+themselves seriously to be ready at the first call of the Central
+Committee....
+
+In a hand-bill the Council of the Republic recited its wrongs:
+
+Ceding to the force of bayonets, the Council of the Republic has
+been obliged to separate, and temporarily to interrupt its meetings.
+
+The usurpers, with the words "Liberty and Socialism" on their lips,
+have set up a rule of arbitrary violence. They have arrested the
+members of the Provisional Government, closed the newspapers, seized
+the printing-shops....This power must be considered the enemy of the
+people and the Revolution; it is necessary to do battle with it, and
+to pull it down....
+
+The Council of the Republic, until the resumption of its labours,
+invites the citizens of the Russian Republic to group themselves
+around the....local Committees for Salvation of Country and
+Revolution, which are organising the overthrow of the Bolsheviki and
+the creation of a Government capable of leading the country to the
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+_Dielo Naroda_ said:
+
+A revolution is a rising of all the people.... But here what have we?
+Nothing but a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotzky....
+Their decrees and their appeals will simply add to the museum of
+historical curiosities....
+
+And _Narodnoye Slovo_(People's Word-Populist Socialist):
+
+"Workers' and Peasants' Government?" That is only a pipedream;
+nobody, either in Russia or in the countries of our Allies, will
+recognise this "Government"--or even in the enemy countries....
+
+The bourgeois press had temporarily disappeared...._Pravada_ had an
+account of the first meeting of the new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ now the
+parliament of the Russian Soviet Republic. Miliutin, Commissar of
+Agriculture, remarked that the Peasants' Executive Committee had
+called an All-Russian Peasant Congress for December 13th.
+
+"But we cannot wait," he said. "We must have the backing of the
+peasants. I propose that _we_ call the Congress of Peasants, and do
+it immediately...." The Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed. An
+Appeal to the Peasants of Russia was hastily drafted, and a
+committee of five elected to carry out the project.
+
+The question of detailed plans for distributing the land, and the
+question of Workers' Control of Industry, were postponed until the
+experts working on them should submit a report.
+
+Three decrees (See App. VII, Sect. 1) were read and approved: first,
+Lenin's "General Rules For the Press," ordering the suppression of
+all newspapers inciting to resistance and disobedience to the new
+Government, inciting to criminal acts, or deliberately perverting
+the news; the Decree of Moratorium for House-rents; and the Decree
+Establishing a Workers' Militia. Also orders, one giving the
+Municipal Duma power to requisition empty apartments and houses, the
+other directing the unloading of freight cars in the railroad
+terminals, to hasten the distribution of necessities and to free the
+badly-needed rolling-stock....
+
+Two hours later the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets was
+sending broadcast over Russia the following telegram:
+
+The arbitrary organisation of the Bolsheviki, which is called
+"Bureau of Organisation for the National Congress of Peasants," is
+inviting all the Peasants' Soviets to send delegates to the Congress
+at Petrograd....
+
+The Executive Committee of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies
+declares that it considers, now as well as before, that it would be
+dangerous to take away from the provinces at this moment the forces
+necessary to prepare for elections to the Constituent Assembly,
+which is the only salvation of the working-class and the country. We
+confirm the date of the Congress of Peasants, _December 13th._
+
+At the Duma all was excitement, officers coming and going, the Mayor
+in conference with the leaders of the Committee for Salvation. A
+Councillor ran in with a copy of Kerensky's proclamation, dropped by
+hundreds from an aeroplane low flying down the Nevsky, which
+threatened terrible vengeance on all who did not submit, and ordered
+soldiers to lay down their arms and assemble immediately in Mars
+Field.
+
+The Minister-President had taken Tsarskoye Selo, we were told, and
+was already in the Petrograd campagna, five miles away. He would
+enter the city to-morrow--in a few hours. The Soviet troops in
+contact with his Cossacks were said to be going over to the
+Provisional Government. Tchernov was somewhere in between, trying to
+organise the "neutral" troops into a force to halt the civil war.
+
+In the city the garrison regiments were leaving the Bolsheviki, they
+said. Smolny was already abandoned.... All the Governmental machinery
+had stopped functioning. The employees of the State Bank had refused
+to work under Commissars from Smolny, refused to pay out money to
+them. All the private banks were closed. The Ministries were on
+strike. Even now a committee from the Duma was making the rounds of
+business houses, collecting a fund to pay the salaries of the
+strikers....
+
+Trotzky had gone to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ordered the
+clerks to translate the Decree on Peace into foreign languages; six
+hundred functionaries had hurled their resignations in his face....
+Shliapnikov, Commissar of Labour, had commanded all the employees of
+his Ministry to return to their places within twenty-four hours, or
+lose their places and their pension-rights; only the door-servants
+had responded.... Some of the branches of the Special Food Supply
+Committee had suspended work rather than submit to the Bolsheviki....
+In spite of lavish promises of high wages and better conditions, the
+operators at the Telephone Exchange would not connect Soviet
+headquarters....
+
+The Socialist Revolutionary Party had voted to expel all members who
+had remained in the Congress of Soviets, and all who were taking
+part in the insurrection....
+
+News from the provinces. Moghilev had declared against the
+Bolsheviki. At Kiev the Cossacks had overthrown the Soviets and
+arrested all the insurrectionary leaders. The Soviet and garrison of
+Luga, thirty thousand strong, affirmed its loyalty to the
+Provisional Government, and appealed to all Russia to rally around
+it. Kaledin had dispersed all Soviets and Unions in the Don Basin,
+and his forces were moving north....
+
+Said a representative of the Railway Workers: "Yesterday we sent a
+telegram all over Russia demanding that war between the political
+parties cease at once, and insisting on the formation of a coalition
+Socialist Government. Otherwise we shall call a strike to-morrow
+night.... In the morning there will be a meeting of all factions to
+consider the question. The Bolsheviki seem anxious for an
+agreement...."
+
+"If they last that long!" laughed the City Engineer, a stout, ruddy
+man....
+
+As we came up to Smolny--not abandoned, but busier than ever, throngs
+of workers and soldiers running in and out, and doubled guards
+everywhere--we met the reporters for the bourgeois and "moderate"
+Socialist papers.
+
+"Threw us out!" cried one, from _Volia Naroda._ "Bonch-Bruevitch
+came down to the Press Bureau and told us to leave! Said we were
+spies!" They all began to talk at once: "Insult! Outrage! Freedom of
+the press!"
+
+In the lobby were great tables heaped with stacks of appeals,
+proclamations and orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
+Workmen and soldiers staggered past, carrying them to waiting
+automobiles.
+
+One began:
+
+TO THE PILLORY!
+
+In this tragic moment through which the Russian masses are living,
+the Mensheviki and their followers and the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries have betrayed the working-class. They have enlisted
+on the side of Kornilov, Kerensky and Savinkov....
+
+They are printing orders of the traitor Kerensky and creating a
+panic in the city, spreading the most ridiculous rumours of mythical
+victories by that renegade....
+
+Citizens! Don't believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the
+People's Revolution.... Premier Kerensky and his followers await
+speedy and well-deserved punishment....
+
+We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the
+enmity of all workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they
+are trying to rivet the ancient chains. They will never be able to
+wash from their bodies the stain of the people's hatred and contempt.
+
+Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!...
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters,
+room 17 on the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the
+narrow space in front of the railing was crowded with well-dressed
+persons, outwardly respectful but inwardly full of murder--bourgeois
+who wanted permits for their automobiles, or passports to leave the
+city, among them many foreigners.... Bill Shatov and Peters were on
+duty. They suspended all other business to read us the latest
+bulletins.
+
+The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous
+support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the
+new Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions--enthusiastic
+support. The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military
+Revolutionary Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military
+Revolutionary Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from
+the Soviets of Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk,
+Sevastopol.... The Finland Division, the new Committees of the Fifth
+and Twelfth Armies, offer allegiance....
+
+From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two
+companies on duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but
+the Arsenal is in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his _yunkers._
+The Revolutionary Committee demanded arms for the workers, and
+Riabtsev parleyed with them until this morning, when suddenly he
+sent an ultimatum to the Committee, ordering Soviet troops to
+surrender and the Committee to disband. Fighting has begun....
+
+In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny's Commissars at once. The
+_Tsentroflot,_ refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of
+Cronstadt sailors, and a new _Tsentroflot_ set up, supported by the
+Baltic and the Black Sea battleships....
+
+But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition,
+a feeling of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky's Cossacks were coming
+fast; they had artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop
+Committees, his face drawn and yellow, assured me that there was a
+whole army corps of them, but he added, fiercely, "They'll never
+take us alive!" Petrovsky laughed weariedly, "To-morrow maybe we'll
+get a sleep--a long one...." Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded
+face, said, "What chance have we? All alone.... A mob against trained
+soldiers!"
+
+South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the
+garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided--half
+voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back
+on the capital in the wildest disorder.
+
+In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
+
+FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.
+
+_To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in
+Chief, Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all._
+
+The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to
+every one everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary
+Petrograd have voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the
+armies of the former Government, the Government of Treason, and that
+the soldiers have been ordered by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee to retreat. The troops of a free people do not retreat nor
+do they surrender.
+
+Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between
+themselves and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take
+a more convenient position, which is at present so strong that if
+Kerensky and his companions in arms should even increase their
+forces ten times, still there would be no cause for anxiety. The
+spirit of our troops is excellent.
+
+In Petrograd all is quiet.
+
+_Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.
+
+As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a
+paper in his hand, looking like a corpse.
+
+"Send this," said he.
+
+TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP
+COMMITTEES
+
+The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to
+the capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush
+mercilessly the counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and
+its conquests.
+
+The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the
+immediate support of the workers.
+
+WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES:
+
+1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the
+digging of trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of
+wire entanglements.
+
+2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at
+the factories this shall be done immediately.
+
+3. All common and barbed wire available must be assembled, and also
+all implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of
+barricades.
+
+4. All available arms must be taken.
+
+5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE
+READY TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.
+
+_Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker's and Soldiers'
+Deputies,_
+
+People's Commissar LEON TROTZKY.
+
+_Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.
+
+As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey
+horizon factory whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound,
+full of foreboding. By tens of thousands the working-people poured
+out, men and women; by tens of thousands the humming slums belched
+out their dun and miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was in danger!
+Cossacks! South and southwest they poured through the shabby streets
+toward the Moskovsky Gate, men, women and children, with rifles,
+picks, spades, rolls of wire, cartridge-belts over their working
+clothes.... Such an immense, spontaneous outpouring of a city never
+was seen! They rolled along torrent-like, companies of soldiers
+borne with them, guns, motor-trucks, wagons--the revolutionary
+proletariat defending with its breast the capital of the Workers'
+and Peasants' Republic!
+
+Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick
+glasses magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort,
+stood leaning against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a
+shabby raglan. A great bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth,
+prowled restlessly about, absently toying with an enormous
+blue-steel revolver, which never left his hand. These were Antonov
+and Dybenko.
+
+Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the
+running-board. The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would
+get scratched, he said. True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile
+was commandeered from a bourgeois; true, the bicycles were for the
+use of orderlies. But the chauffeur's professional pride was
+revolted.... So the bicycles were abandoned....
+
+The People's Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the
+revolutionary front--wherever that was. Could we go with them?
+Certainly not. The automobile only held five--the two Commissars, two
+orderlies and the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of
+mine, whom I will call Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor
+could any argument dislodge him....
+
+I see no reason to doubt Trusishka's story of the journey. As they
+went down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They
+might be out three or four days, in a country indifferently well
+provisioned. They stopped the car. Money? The Commissar of War
+looked through his pockets--he hadn't a kopek. The Commissar of
+Marine was broke. So was the chauffeur. Trusishka bought the
+provisions....
+
+Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Commandeer another machine!" suggested Dybenko, waving his
+revolver. Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a
+passing machine, driven by a soldier.
+
+"I want that machine," said Antonov.
+
+"You won't get it," responded the soldier.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" Antonov produced a paper upon which was
+written that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the
+armies of the Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him
+without question.
+
+"I don't care if you're the devil himself," said the soldier, hotly.
+"This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment, and we're
+carrying ammunition in it, and you can't have it...."
+
+The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old
+battered taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble
+private cars were registered in the name of foreign consulates, so
+as to be safe from requisition.) From the interior of this was
+dislodged a fat citizen in an expensive fur coat, and the party
+continued on its way.
+
+Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called
+for the commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the
+town, where some few hundred workmen had dug trenches and were
+waiting for the Cossacks.
+
+"Everything all right here, comrade?" asked Antonov.
+
+"Everything perfect, comrade," answered the commandant.
+
+"The troops are in excellent spirits.... Only one thing--we have no
+ammunition...."
+
+"In Smolny there are two billion rounds," Antonov told him. "I will
+give you an order." He felt in his pockets. "Has any one a piece of
+paper?"
+
+Dybenko had none--nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his
+note-book....
+
+"Devil! I have no pencil!" cried Antonov. "Who's got a pencil?"
+Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd....
+
+We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the
+Nevsky, as we passed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with
+bayonets and some without. The early twilight of winter was falling.
+Heads up they tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four,
+without music, without drums. A red flag crudely lettered in gold,
+"Peace! Land!" floated over them. They were very young. The
+expression on their faces was that of who know they are going to
+die.... Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk
+watched them pass, in hateful silence....
+
+[Graphic, page 184: Pass to the Northern Front]
+
+This pass was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days
+after the Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel
+to the Northern front--and an added note on the back extends the
+permission to all fronts. It will be noticed that the speaks of the
+_Petersburg_, instead of the _Petrograd_ Soviet; it was the fashion
+among thorough-going internationalists to abolish all names which
+smacked of "patriotism"; but at the same time, it would not do to
+restore the "Saint."...
+                      (Translation)
+  Executive Committee
+  Petrograd Soviet of
+  Workers' and Soldiers'
+       Deputies
+    Military Section
+  28th October, 1917
+      No. 1435
+                      CERTIFICATE
+
+The present certificate is given to the representative of the
+American Social Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives him the right of free travel
+through the entire Northern front, for the purpose of reporting to
+our American comrades--internationalists concerning events in Russia.
+                              For the President
+                              For the Secretary
+
+At the railroad station nobody knew just where Kerensky was, or
+where the front lay. Trains went no further, however, than
+Tsarskoye....
+
+Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden
+with bundles and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik
+rising. Outside of that, however, one would never have realised that
+civil war was rending mighty Russia in two, and that the train was
+headed into the zone of battle. Through the window we could see, in
+the swiftly-deepening darkness, masses of soldiers going along the
+muddy road toward the city, flinging out their arms in argument. A
+freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires, was
+halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the
+glow of the city's lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled
+distantly along a far-flung suburb....
+
+Tsarskoye Selo station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here
+and there talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty
+track in the direction of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side
+they were on. "Well," said one, "we don't exactly know the rights of
+the matter.... There is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we
+do not consider it right for Russian men to be shooting Russian men."
+
+In the station commandant's office was a big, jovial, bearded common
+soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our
+credentials from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly
+for the Soviets, but bewildered.
+
+"The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A
+Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the
+Cossacks arrived."
+
+"The Cossacks are here then?"
+
+He nodded, gloomily. "There has been a battle. The Cossacks came
+early in the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men,
+and killed about twenty-five."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"Well, they didn't get this far. I don't know just where they are.
+Off that way...." He waved his arm vaguely westward.
+
+We had dinner--an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be
+got in Petrograd--in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French
+officer who had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet
+there, he said. Kerensky held the town. "Ah, these Russians," he
+went on, "they are original! What a civil war! Everything except the
+fighting!"
+
+We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood
+two soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by
+about a hundred business men, Government officials and students, who
+attacked them with passionate argument and epithet. The soldiers
+were uncomfortable and hurt, like children unjustly scolded.
+
+A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the
+uniform of a student, was leading the attack.
+
+"You realise, I presume," he said insolently, "that by taking up
+arms against your brothers you are making yourselves the tools of
+murderers and traitors?"
+
+"Now brother," answered the soldier earnestly, "you don't understand.
+There are two classes, don't you see, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie. We--"
+
+"Oh, I know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch
+of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few
+catch-words. You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them
+like a lot of parrots." The crowd laughed. "I'm a Marxian student.
+And I tell you that this isn't Socialism you are fighting for. It's
+just plain pro-German anarchy!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from
+his brow. "You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am
+only a simple man. But it seems to me--"
+
+"I suppose," interrupted the other contemptuously, "that you believe
+Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?"
+
+"Yes, I do," answered the soldier, suffering.
+
+"Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in
+a closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?"
+
+"Well, I don't know much about that," answered the soldier
+stubbornly, "but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to
+hear, and all the simple men like me. Now there are two classes, the
+bourgeoisie and the proletariat--"
+
+"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schluesselburg
+for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
+revolutionists and singing 'God Save the Tsar!' My name is Vasili
+Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility.
+"But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."
+
+"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the
+Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now
+how do you account for that?"
+
+The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it at all," he
+said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. "To me
+it seems perfectly simple--but then, I'm not well educated. It seems
+like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the
+bourgeoisie--"
+
+"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.
+
+"--only two classes," went on the soldier, doggedly.
+
+"And whoever isn't on one side is on the other..."
+
+We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far
+between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung
+over the place--as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a
+political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly
+lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public
+bath; for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes
+itself. I haven't the slightest doubt that Soviet troops and
+Cossacks mingled in the places where these ceremonies were performed.
+
+The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the
+streets. A frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the
+Soviet, and hurried on. It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal
+palaces, fronting the Park. The windows were dark, the door locked.
+A soldier, lounging about with his hands in the top of his trousers,
+looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion. "The Soviet went away
+two days ago," said he. "Where?" A shrug. _"Nie znayu._ I don't
+know."
+
+A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated.
+From within came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a
+soldier and a sailor came down the street, hand in hand. I showed
+them my pass from Smolny. "Are you for the Soviets?" I asked. They
+did not answer, but looked at each other in a frightened way.
+
+"What is going on in there?" asked the sailor, pointing to the
+building.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack.
+Inside a great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of
+chairs, a stage being built.
+
+A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks
+came out. "What do you want?" she asked.
+
+"Is there a performance to-night?" said the sailor, nervously.
+
+"There will be private theatricals Sunday night," she answered
+severely. "Go away."
+
+We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they
+seemed frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.
+
+We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast,
+dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges
+looming uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the
+fountains. At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat
+unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of
+observation, and looked up to encounter the sullen, suspicious gaze
+of half a dozen gigantic armed soldiers, who stared moodily down
+from a grassy terrace. I climbed up to them. "Who are you?" I asked.
+
+"We are the guard," answered one. They all looked very depressed, as
+undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night
+argument and debate.
+
+"Are you Kerensky's troops, or the Soviets'?"
+
+There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each
+other. Then, "We are neutral," said he.
+
+We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the
+Palace enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a
+door in a curving white wing of the Palace said that the commandant
+was inside.
+
+In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a
+two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking.
+They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one,
+an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with
+decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our
+Bolshevik papers.
+
+He seemed surprised. "How did you get here without being killed?" he
+asked politely. "It is very dangerous in the streets just now.
+Political passion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was
+a battle this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning.
+Kerensky is to enter the town at eight o'clock."
+
+"Where are the Cossacks?"
+
+"About a mile over that way." He waved his arm.
+
+"And you will defend the city against them?"
+
+"Oh dear no." He smiled. "We are holding the city for Kerensky." Our
+hearts sank, for our passes stated that we were revolutionary to the
+core. The Colonel cleared his throat. "About those passes of yours,"
+he went on. "Your lives will be in danger if you are captured.
+Therefore, if you want to see the battle, I will give you an order
+for rooms in the officers' hotel, and if you will come back here at
+seven o'clock in the morning, I will give you new passes."
+
+"So you are for Kerensky?" we said.
+
+"Well, not exactly _for_ Kerensky." The Colonel hesitated. "You see,
+most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and to-day,
+after the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd,
+taking the artillery with them. You might say that none of the
+_soldiers_ are for Kerensky; but some of them just don't want to
+fight at all. The _officers_ have almost all gone over to Kerensky's
+forces, or simply gone away. We are--ahem--in a most difficult
+position, as you see...."
+
+We did not believe that there would be any battle.... The Colonel
+courteously sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station.
+He was from the South, born of French immigrant parents in
+Bessarabia. "Ah," he kept saying, "it is not the danger or the
+hardships I mind, but being so long, three years, away from my
+mother...."
+
+Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold
+dark toward Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers
+gesticulating in the light of fires, and of clusters of armoured
+cars halted together at cross-roads, the chauffeurs hanging out of
+the turrets and shouting to each other....
+
+All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of
+soldiers and Red Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the
+Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee hurried from one
+group to another, trying to organise a defence....
+
+Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the
+Nevsky. Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station
+could be heard far-off cannonade. In the _yunker_ schools there was
+feverish activity. Duma members went from barracks to barracks,
+arguing and pleading, narrating fearful stories of Bolshevik
+violence--massacre of the _yunkers_ in the Winter Palace, rape of the
+women soldiers, the shooting of the girl before the Duma, the murder
+of Prince Tumanov.... In the Alexander Hall of the Duma building the
+Committee for Salvation was in special session; Commissars came and
+went, running.... All the journalists expelled from Smolny were there,
+in high spirits. They did not believe our report of conditions in
+Tsarskoye. Why, everybody knew that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky's
+hands, and that the Cossacks were now at Pulkovo. A committee was
+being elected to meet Kerensky at the railway station in the
+morning....
+
+One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the
+counter-revolution would begin at midnight. He showed me two
+proclamations, one signed by Gotz and Polkovnikov, ordering the
+_yunker_ schools, soldier convalescents in the hospitals, and the
+Knights of St. George to mobilise on a war footing and wait for
+orders from the Committee for Salvation; the other from the
+Committee for Salvation itself, which read as follows:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd!
+
+The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting
+to civil war in the rear.
+
+Do not dig their provocatory appeals!
+
+Do not dig trenches!
+
+Down with the traitorous barricades!
+
+Lay down your arms!
+
+Soldiers, return to your barracks!
+
+The war begun in Petrograd--is the death of the Revolution!
+
+In the name of liberty, land, and peace, unite around the Committee
+for Salvation of Country and Revolution!
+
+As we left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and
+desperate, came marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen
+prisoners--members of the local branch of the Council of Cossacks,
+caught red-handed plotting counter-revolution in their headquarters....
+
+A soldier, accompanied by a small boy with a pail of paste, was
+sticking up great flaring notices:
+
+By virtue of the present, the city of Petrograd and its suburbs are
+declared in a state of siege. All assemblies or meetings in the
+streets, and generally in the open air, are forbidden until further
+orders.
+
+N. PODVOISKY, President of the Military
+
+Revolutionary Committee.
+
+As we went home the air was full of confused sound--automobile horns,
+shouts, distant shots. The city stirred uneasily, wakeful.
+
+In the small hours of the morning a company of _yunkers,_ disguised
+as soldiers of the Semionovsky Regiment, presented themselves at the
+Telephone Exchange just before the hour of changing guard. They had
+the Bolshevik password, and took charge without arousing suspicion.
+A few minutes later Antonov appeared, making a round of inspection.
+Him they captured and locked in a small room. When the relief came
+it was met by a blast of rifle-fire, several being killed.
+
+Counter-revolution had begun...
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+Counter-Revolution
+
+
+Next morning, Sunday the 11th, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo,
+Kerensky (See App. VIII, Sect. 1) himself riding a white horse and
+all the church-bells clamouring. From the top of a little hill
+outside the town could be seen the golden spires and many-coloured
+cupolas, the sprawling grey immensity of the capital spread along
+the dreary plain, and beyond, the steely Gulf of Finland.
+
+There was no battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in
+the morning he sent word to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay
+down their arms. The soldiers replied that they would remain
+neutral, but would not disarm. Kerensky gave them ten minutes in
+which to obey. This angered the soldiers; for eight months they had
+been governing themselves by committee, and this smacked of the old
+regime.... A few minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the
+barracks, killing eight men. From that moment there were no more
+"neutral" soldiers in Tsarskoye....
+
+Petrograd woke to bursts of rifle-fire, and the tramping thunder of
+men marching. Under the high dark sky a cold wind smelt of snow. At
+dawn the Military Hotel and the Telegraph Agency had been taken by
+large forces of _yunkers,_ and bloodily recaptured. The Telephone
+Station was besieged by sailors, who lay behind barricades of
+barrels, boxes and tin sheets in the middle of the Morskaya, or
+sheltered themselves at the corner of the Gorokhovaya and of St.
+Isaac's Square, shooting at anything that moved. Occasionally an
+automobile passed in and out, flying the Red Cross flag. The sailors
+let it pass....
+
+Albert Rhys Williams was in the Telephone Exchange. He went out with
+the Red Cross automobile, which was ostensibly full of wounded.
+After circulating about the city, the car went by devious ways
+to the Mikhailovsky _yunker_ school, headquarters of the
+counter-revolution. A French officer, in the court-yard, seemed to
+be in command.... By this means ammunition and supplies were conveyed
+to the Telephone Exchange. Scores of these pretended ambulances
+acted as couriers and ammunition trains for the _yunkers._
+
+Five or six armoured cars, belonging to the disbanded British
+Armoured Car Division, were in their hands. As Louise Bryant was
+going along St. Isaac's Square one came rolling up from the
+Admiralty, on its way to the Telephone Exchange. At the corner of
+the Gogolia, right in front of her, the engine stalled. Some sailors
+ambushed behind wood-piles began shooting. The machine-gun in the
+turret of the thing slewed around and spat a hail of bullets
+indiscriminately into the wood-piles and the crowd. In the archway
+where Miss Bryant stood seven people were shot dead, among them two
+little boys. Suddenly, with a shout, the sailors leaped up and
+rushed into the flaming open; closing around the monster, they
+thrust their bayonets into the loop-holes, again and again, yelling...
+The chauffeur pretended to be wounded, and they let him go free--to
+run to the Duma and swell the tale of Bolshevik atrocities....Among
+the dead was a British Officer....
+
+Later the newspapers told of another French officer, captured in a
+_yunker_ armoured car and sent to Peter-Paul. The French Embassy
+promptly denied this, but one of the City Councillors told me that
+he himself had procured the officer's release from prison....
+
+Whatever the official attitude of the Allied Embassies, individual
+French and British officers were active these days, even to the
+extent of giving advice at executive sessions of the Committee for
+Salvation.
+
+All day long in every quarter of the city there were skirmishes
+between _yunkers_ and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars....
+Volleys, single shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could
+be heard, far and near. The iron shutters of the shops were drawn,
+but business still went on. Even the moving-picture shows, all
+outside lights dark, played to crowded houses. The street-cars ran.
+The telephones were all working; when you called Central, shooting
+could be plainly heard over the wire.... Smolny was cut off, but the
+Duma and the Committee for Salvation were in constant communication
+with all the _yunker_ schools and with Kerensky at Tsarskoye.
+
+At seven in the morning the Vladimir _yunker_ school was visited by
+a patrol of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, who gave the _yunkers_
+twenty minutes to lay down their arms. The ultimatum was rejected.
+An hour later the _yunkers_ got ready to march, but were driven back
+by a violent fusillade from the corner of the Grebetskaya and the
+Bolshoy Prospekt. Soviet troops surrounded the building and opened
+fire, two armoured cars cruising back and forth with machine guns
+raking it. The _yunkers_ telephoned for help. The Cossacks replied
+that they dare not come, because a large body of sailors with two
+cannon commanded their barracks. The Pavlovsk school was surrounded.
+Most of the Mikhailov _yunkers_ were fighting in the streets....
+
+At half-past eleven three field-pieces arrived. Another demand to
+surrender was met by the _yunkers_ shooting down two of the Soviet
+delegates under the white flag. Now began a real bombardment. Great
+holes were torn in the walls of the school. The _yunkers_ defended
+themselves desperately; shouting waves of Red Guards, assaulting,
+crumpled under the withering blast.... Kerensky telephoned from
+Tsarskoye to refuse all parley with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee.
+
+Frenzied by defeat and their heaps of dead, the Soviet troops opened
+a tornado of steel and flame against the battered building. Their
+own officers could not stop the terrible bombardment. A Commissar
+from Smolny named Kirilov tried to halt it; he was threatened with
+lynching. The Red Guards' blood was up.
+
+At half-past two the _yunkers_ hoisted a white flag; they would
+surrender if they were guaranteed protection. This was promised.
+With a rush and a shout thousands of soldiers and Red Guards poured
+through windows, doors and holes in the wall. Before it could be
+stopped five _yunkers_ were beaten and stabbed to death. The rest,
+about two hundred, were taken to Peter-Paul under escort, in small
+groups so as to avoid notice. On the way a mob set upon one party,
+killing eight more _yunkers_.... More than a hundred Red Guards and
+soldiers had fallen....
+
+Two hours later the Duma got a telephone message that the victors
+were marching toward the _Injinierny Zamok_--the Engineers' school. A
+dozen members immediately set out to distribute among them armfuls
+of the latest proclamation of the Committee for Salvation. Several
+did not come back.... All the other schools surrendered without
+resistance, and the _yunkers_ were sent unharmed to Peter-Paul and
+Cronstadt....
+
+The Telephone Exchange held out until afternoon, when a Bolshevik
+armoured car appeared, and the sailors stormed the place. Shrieking,
+the frightened telephone girls ran to and fro; the _yunkers_ tore
+from their uniforms all distinguishing marks, and one offered
+Williams _anything_ for the loan of his overcoat, as a disguise....
+"They will massacre us! They will massacre us!" they cried, for many
+of them had given their word at the Winter Palace not to take up
+arms against the People. Williams offered to mediate if Antonov were
+released. This was immediately done; Antonov and Williams made
+speeches to the victorious sailors, inflamed by their many dead--and
+once more the _yunkers_ went free.... All but a few, who in their
+panic tried to flee over the roofs, or to hide in the attic, and
+were found and hurled into the street.
+
+Tired, bloody, triumphant, the sailors and workers swarmed into the
+switchboard room, and finding so many pretty girls, fell back in an
+embarrassed way and fumbled with awkward feet. Not a girl was
+injured, not one insulted. Frightened, they huddled in the corners,
+and then, finding themselves safe, gave vent to their spite. "Ugh!
+The dirty, ignorant people! The fools!"... The sailors and Red Guards
+were embarrassed. "Brutes! Pigs!" shrilled the girls, indignantly
+putting on their coats and hats. Romantic had been their experience
+passing up cartridges and dressing the wounds of their dashing young
+defenders, the _yunkers,_ many of them members of noble families,
+fighting to restore their beloved Tsar! These were just common
+workmen, peasants, "Dark People."...
+
+The Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, little
+Vishniak, tried to persuade the girls to remain. He was effusively
+polite. "You have been badly treated," he said. "The telephone
+system is controlled by the Municipal Duma. You are paid sixty
+rubles a month, and have to work ten hours and more.... From now on
+all that will be changed. The Government intends to put the
+telephones under control of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs.
+Your wages will be immediately raised to one hundred and fifty
+rubles, and your working-hours reduced. As members of the
+working-class you should be happy--"
+
+Members of the _working-class_ indeed! Did he mean to infer that
+there was anything in common between these--these animals--and _us?_
+Remain? Not if they offered a thousand rubles!... Haughty and spiteful
+the girls left the place....
+
+The employees of the building, the line-men and labourers--they
+stayed. But the switch-boards must be operated--the telephone was
+vital.... Only half a dozen trained operators were available.
+Volunteers were called for; a hundred responded, sailors, soldiers,
+workers. The six girls scurried backward and forward, instructing,
+helping, scolding.... So, crippled, halting, but _going,_ the wires
+slowly began to hum. The first thing was to connect Smolny with the
+barracks and the factories; the second, to cut off the Duma and the
+_yunker_ schools.... Late in the afternoon word of it spread through
+the city, and hundreds of bourgeois called up to scream, "Fools!
+Devils! How long do you think you will last? Wait till the Cossacks
+come!"
+
+Dusk was already falling. On the almost deserted Nevsky, swept by a
+bitter wind, a crowd had gathered before the Kazan Cathedral,
+continuing the endless debate; a few workmen, some soldiers and the
+rest shop-keepers, clerks and the like.
+
+"But Lenin won't get Germany to make peace!" cried one.
+
+A violent young soldier replied. "And whose fault is it? Your damn
+Kerensky, dirty bourgeois! To hell with Kerensky! We don't want him!
+We want Lenin...."
+
+Outside the Duma an officer with a white arm-band was tearing down
+posters from the wall, swearing loudly. One read:
+
+To the Population of Petrograd!
+
+At this dangerous hour, when the Municipal Duma ought to use
+every means to calm the population, to assure it bread and
+other necessities, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Cadets, forgetting their duty, have turned the Duma into a
+counter-revolutionary meeting, trying to raise part of the
+population against the rest, so as to facilitate the victory of
+Kornilov-Kerensky. Instead of doing their duty, the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets have transformed the Duma into an
+arena of political attack upon the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers'
+and Peasants' Deputies, against the revolutionary Government of
+peace, bread and liberty.
+
+Citizens of Petrograd, we, the Bolshevik Municipal Councillors
+elected by you--we want you to know that the Right Socialist
+Revolutionaries and the Cadets are engaged in counter-revolutionary
+action, have forgotten their duty, and are leading the population to
+famine, to civil war. We, elected by 183,000 votes, consider it our
+duty to bring to the attention of our constituents what is going on
+in the Duma, and declare that we disclaim all responsibility for the
+terrible but inevitable consequences....
+
+Far away still sounded occasional shots, but the city lay quiet,
+cold, as if exhausted by the violent spasms which had torn it.
+
+In the Nicolai Hall the Duma session was coming to an end. Even the
+truculent Duma seemed a little stunned. One after another the
+Commissars reported--capture of the Telephone Exchange,
+street-fighting, the taking of the Vladimir school.... "The Duma,"
+said Trupp, "is on the side of the democracy in its struggle against
+arbitrary violence; but in any case, whichever side wins, the Duma
+will always be against lynchings and torture...."
+
+Konovski, Cadet, a tall old man with a cruel face: "When the troops
+of the legal Government arrive in Petrograd, they will shoot down
+these insurgents, and that will not be lynching!" Protests all over
+the hall, even from his own party.
+
+Here there was doubt and depression. The counter-revolution was
+being put down. The Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary
+party had voted lack of confidence in its officers; the left wing
+was in control; Avksentiev had resigned. A courier reported
+that the Committee of Welcome sent to meet Kerensky at the railway
+station had been arrested. In the streets could be heard the dull
+rumble of distant cannonading, south and southwest. Still Kerensky
+did not come...
+
+Only three newspapers were out--_Pravda, Dielo Naroda_ and _Novaya
+Zhizn._ All of them devoted much space to the new "coalition"
+Government. The Socialist Revolutionary paper demanded a Cabinet
+without either Cadets or Bolsheviki. Gorky was hopeful; Smolny had
+made concessions. A purely Socialist Government was taking shape--all
+elements except the bourgeoisie. As for _Pravda,_ it sneered:
+
+We ridicule these coalitions with political parties whose most
+prominent members are petty journalists of doubtful reputation; our
+"coalition" is that of the proletariat and the revolutionary Army
+with the poor peasants...
+
+On the walls a vainglorious announcement of the _Vikzhel,_
+threatening to strike if both sides did not compromise:
+
+The conquerors of these riots, the saviours of the wreck of our
+country, these will be neither the Bolsheviki, nor the Committee for
+Salvation, nor the troops of Kerensky--but we, the Union of
+Railwaymen...
+
+Red Guards are incapable of handling a complicated business like the
+railways; as for the Provisional Government, it has shown itself
+incapable of holding the power...
+
+We refuse to lend our services to any party which does not act by
+authority of ... a Government based on the confidence of all the
+democracy....
+
+Smolny thrilled with the boundless vitality of inexhaustible
+humanity in action.
+
+In Trade Union headquarters Lozovsky introduced me to a delegate of
+the Railway Workers of the Nicolai line, who said that the men were
+holding huge mass-meetings, condemning the action of their leaders.
+
+"All power to the Soviets!" he cried, pounding on the table.
+"The _oborontsi_ in the Central Committee are playing Kornilov's
+game. They tried to send a mission to the Stavka, but we arrested
+them at Minsk.... Our branch has demanded an All-Russian
+Convention, and they refuse to call it...."
+
+The same situation as in the Soviets, the Army Committees. One after
+another the various democratic organisations, all over Russia, were
+cracking and changing. The Cooperatives were torn by internal
+struggles; the meetings of the Peasants' Executive broke up in
+stormy wrangling; even among the Cossacks there was trouble....
+
+On the top floor the Military Revolutionary Committee was in full
+blast, striking and slacking not. Men went in, fresh and vigorous;
+night and day and night and day they threw themselves into the
+terrible machine; and came out limp, blind with fatigue, hoarse and
+filthy, to fall on the floor and sleep.... The Committee for Salvation
+had been outlawed. Great piles of new proclamations (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 2) littered the floor:
+
+... The conspirators, who have no support among the garrison or the
+working-class, above all counted on the suddenness of their attack.
+Their plan was discovered in time by Sub-Lieutenant Blagonravov,
+thanks to the revolutionary vigilance of a soldier of the Red Guard,
+whose name shall be made public. At the centre of the plot was the
+Committee for Salvation. Colonel Polkovnikov was in command of their
+forces, and the orders were signed by Gotz, former member of the
+Provisional Government, allowed at liberty on his word of honour....
+
+Bringing these facts to the attention of the Petrograd population,
+the Military Revolutionary Committee orders the arrest of all
+concerned in the conspiracy, who shall be tried before the
+Revolutionary Tribunal....
+
+From Moscow, word that the _yunkers_ and Cossacks had surrounded the
+Kremlin and ordered the Soviet troops to lay down their arms. The
+Soviet forces complied, and as they were leaving the Kremlin, were
+set upon and shot down. Small forces of Bolsheviki had been driven
+from the Telephone and Telegraph offices; the _yunkers_ now held the
+centre of the city. ... But all around them the Soviet troops were
+mustering. Street-fighting was slowly gathering way; all attempts at
+compromise had failed.... On the side of the Soviet, ten thousand
+garrison soldiers and a few Red Guards; on the side of the
+Government, six thousand _yunkers,_ twenty-five hundred Cossacks and
+two thousand White Guards.
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was meeting, and next door the new
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ acting on the decrees and orders (See App. VIII,
+Sect. 3) which came down in a steady stream from the Council of
+People's Commissars in session upstairs; on the Order in Which Laws
+Are to be Ratified and Published, Establishing an Eight hour Days
+for Workers, and Lunatcharsky's "Basis for a System of Popular
+Education." Only a few hundred people were present at the two
+meetings, most of them armed. Smolny was almost deserted, except for
+the guards, who were busy at the hall windows, setting up
+machine-guns to command the flanks of the building.
+
+In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ a delegate of the _Vikzhel_ was speaking: "We
+refuse to transport the troops of either party.... We have sent a
+committee to Kerensky to say that if he continues to march on
+Petrograd we will break his lines of communication...."
+
+He made the usual plea for a conference of all the Socialist parties
+to form a new Government....
+
+Kameniev answered discreetly. The Bolsheviki would be very glad to
+attend the conference. The centre of gravity, however, lay not in
+composition of such a Government, but in its acceptance of the
+programme of the Congress of Soviets.
+
+... The _Tsay-ee-kah_ had deliberated on the declaration made by the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the Social Democrats
+Internationalists, and had accepted the proposition of proportional
+representation at the conference, even including delegates from the
+Army Committees and the Peasants' Soviets....
+
+In the great hall, Trotzky recounted the events of the day.
+
+"We offered the Vladimir _yunkers_ a chance to surrender," he said.
+"We wanted to settle matters without bloodshed. But now that blood
+has been spilled there is only one way--pitiless struggle. It would
+be childish to think we can win by any other means.... The moment is
+decisive. Everybody must cooperate with the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, report where there are stores of barbed wire, benzine,
+guns.... We've won the power; now we must keep it!"
+
+The Menshevik Yoffe tried to read his party's declaration, but
+Trotzky refused to allow "a debate about principle."
+
+"Our debates are now in the streets," he cried. "The decisive step
+has been taken. We all, and I in particular, take the responsibility
+for what is happening...."
+
+Soldiers from the front, from Gatchina, told their stories. One from
+the Death Battalion, Four Hundred Eighty-first Artillery: "When the
+trenches hear of this, they will cry, 'This is _our_ Government!'" A
+_yunker_ from Peterhof said that he and two others had refused to
+march against the Soviets; and when his comrades had returned from
+the defence of the Winter Palace they appointed him their Commissar,
+to go to Smolny and offer their services to the _real_ Revolution....
+
+Then Trotzky again, fiery, indefatigable, giving orders, answering
+questions.
+
+"The petty bourgeoisie, in order to defeat the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, would combine with the devil himself!" he said once. Many
+cases of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. "No
+drinking, comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the
+evening, except the regular guards. All places suspected of having
+stores of liquor should be searched, and the liquor destroyed. (See
+App. VIII, Sect. 4) No mercy to the sellers of liquor...."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from
+the Viborg section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped
+out hurriedly.
+
+"For each revolutionist killed," said Trotzky, "we shall kill five
+counter-revolutionists!"
+
+Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds
+pouring in. In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng
+surged back and forth before the bulletin board, where was posted a
+list of _yunkers_ killed in the day's fighting--or supposed to be
+killed, for most of the dead afterward turned up safe and sound.... Up
+in the Alexander Hall the Committee for Salvation held forth. The
+gold and red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous, the familiar
+faces of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals,
+the hard eyes and bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats,
+officials of the old regime, and well-dressed women....
+
+The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the
+tribune--over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces
+and leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the
+applause of the "nice" people of Petrograd, of the officers, the
+rich, the great names of politics--girl after girl, to narrate her
+sufferings at the hands of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty
+to all that was old, established and powerful....
+
+The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said
+hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their
+actions; propaganda was making headway.
+
+[Graphic, page 205: Proclamation for "wine pogroms"]
+
+Revolutionary law and order. A proclamation of the Finland Regiment,
+in December, 1917, announcing desperate remedies for "wine pogroms."
+For translation see Appendix 5.
+
+... Emissaries came and went, reporting horrible deeds by the
+Bolsheviki, interceding to save the _yunkers,_ busily investigating....
+
+"The Bolsheviki," said Trupp, "will be conquered by moral force, and
+not by bayonets....."
+
+Meanwhile all was not well on the revolutionary front. The enemy had
+brought up armoured trains, mounted with cannon. The Soviet forces,
+mostly raw Red Guards, were without officers and without a definite
+plan. Only five thousand regular soldiers had joined them; the rest
+of the garrison was either busy suppressing the _yunker_ revolt,
+guarding the city, or undecided what to do. At ten in the evening
+Lenin addressed a meeting of delegates from the city regiments, who
+voted overwhelmingly to fight. A Committee of five soldiers was
+elected to serve as General Staff, and in the small hours of the
+morning the regiments left their barracks in full battle array....
+Going home I saw them pass, swinging along with the regular tread of
+veterans, bayonets in perfect alignment, through the deserted
+streets of the conquered city....
+
+At the same time, in the headquarters of the _Vikzhel_ down on the
+Sadovaya, the conference of all the Socialist parties to form a new
+Government was under way. Abramovitch, for the centre Mensheviki,
+said that there should be neither conquerors nor conquered--that
+bygones should be bygones. ...In this were agreed all the left wing
+parties. Dan, speaking in the name of the right Mensheviki, proposed
+to the Bolsheviki the following conditions for a truce: The Red
+Guard to be disarmed, and the Petrograd garrison to be placed at the
+orders of the Duma; the troops of Kerensky not to fire a single shot
+or arrest a single man; a Ministry of all the Socialist parties
+_except the Bolsheviki._ For Smolny Riazanov and Kameniev declared
+that a coalition ministry of all parties was acceptable, but
+protested at Dan's proposals. The Socialist Revolutionaries were
+divided; but the Executive Committee of the Peasants's Soviets and
+the Populist Socialists flatly refused to admit the Bolsheviki....
+After bitter quarrelling a commission was elected to draw up a
+workable plan....
+
+All that night the commission wrangled, and all the next day, and
+the next night. Once before, on the 9th of November, there had been
+a similar effort at conciliation, led by Martov and Gorky; but at
+the approach of Kerensky and the activity of the Committee for
+Salvation, the right wing of the Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries
+and Populist Socialists suddenly withdrew. Now they were awed by
+the crushing of the _yunker_ rebellion...
+
+Monday the 12th was a day of suspense. The eyes of all Russia were
+fixed on the grey plain beyond the gates of Petrograd, where all the
+available strength of the old order faced the unorganised power of
+the new, the unknown. In Moscow a truce had been declared; both
+sides parleyed, awaiting the result in the capital. Now the
+delegates to the Congress of Soviets, hurrying on speeding trains to
+the farthest reaches of Asia, were coming to their homes, carrying
+the fiery cross. In wide-spreading ripples news of the miracle
+spread over the face of the land, and in its wake towns, cities and
+far villages stirred and broke, Soviets and Military Revolutionary
+Committees against Dumas, Zemstvos and Government Commissars--Red
+Guards against White--street fighting and passionate speech.... The
+result waited on the word from Petrograd....
+
+Smolny was almost empty, but the Duma was thronged and noisy. The
+old Mayor, in his dignified way, was protesting against the Appeal
+of the Bolshevik Councillors.
+
+"The Duma is not a centre of counter-revolution," he said, warmly.
+"The Duma takes no part in the present struggle between the parties.
+But at a time when there is no legal power in the land, the only
+centre of order is the Municipal Self-Government. The peaceful
+population recognises this fact; the foreign Embassies recognise
+only such documents as are signed by the Mayor of the town. The mind
+of a European does not admit of any other situation, as the
+Municipal self-government is the only organ which is capable of
+protecting the interests of the citizens. The City is bound to show
+hospitality, to all organisations which desire to profit by such
+hospitality, and therefore the Duma cannot prevent the distribution
+of any newspapers whatever within the Duma building. The sphere of
+our work is increasing, and we must be given full liberty of action,
+and our rights must be respected by both parties....
+
+"We are perfectly neutral. When the Telephone Exchange was occupied
+by the _yunkers_ Colonel Polkovnikov ordered the telephones to
+Smolny disconnected, but I protested, and the telephones were kept
+going...."
+
+At this there was ironic laughter from the Bolshevik benches, and
+imprecations from the right.
+
+"And yet," went on Schreider, "they look upon us as
+counter-revolutionaries and report us to the population. They
+deprive us of our means of transport by taking away our last
+motor-cars. It will not be our fault if there is famine in the town.
+Protests are of no use...."
+
+Kobozev, Bolshevik member of the Town Board, was doubtful whether
+the Military Revolutionary Committee had requisitioned the Municipal
+automobiles. Even granting the fact, it was probably done by some
+unauthorised individual, in the emergency.
+
+"The Mayor," he continued, "tells us that we must not make political
+meetings out of the Duma. But every Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary here talks nothing but party propaganda, and at the
+door they distribute their illegal newspapers, _Iskri_ (Sparks),
+_Soldatski Golos_ and _Rabotchaya Gazeta,_ inciting to insurrection.
+What if we Bolsheviki should also begin to distribute our papers
+here? But this shall not be, for we respect the Duma. We have not
+attacked the Municipal Self-Government, and we shall not do so. But
+you have addressed an Appeal to the population, and we are entitled
+also to do so...."
+
+Followed him Shingariov, Cadet, who said that there could be no
+common language with those who were liable to be brought before the
+Attorney General for indictment, and who must be tried on the charge
+of treason.... He proposed again that all Bolshevik members should be
+expelled from the Duma. This was tabled, however, for there were no
+personal charges against the members, and they were active in the
+Municipal administration.
+
+Then two Mensheviki Internationalists, declaring that the Appeal of
+the Bolshevik Councillors was a direct incitement to massacre. "If
+everything that is against the Bolsheviki is counter-revolutionary,"
+said Pinkevitch, "then I do not know the difference between
+revolution and anarchy.... The Bolsheviki are depending upon the
+passions of the unbridled masses; we have nothing but moral force.
+We will protest against massacres and violence from both sides, as
+our task is to find a peaceful issue."
+
+"The notice posted in the streets under the heading 'To the
+Pillory,' which calls upon the people to destroy the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries," said Nazariev, "is a crime which you,
+Bolsheviki, will not be able to wash away. Yesterday's horrors are
+but a preface to what you are preparing by such a proclamation.... I
+have always tried to reconcile you with the other parties, but at
+present I feel for you nothing but contempt!"
+
+The Bolshevik Councillors were on their feet, shouting angrily,
+assailed by hoarse, hateful voices and waving arms....
+
+Outside the hall I ran into the City Engineer, the Menshevik Gomberg
+and three or four reporters. They were all in high spirits.
+
+"See!" they said. "The cowards are afraid of us. They don't dare
+arrest the Duma! Their Military Revolutionary Committee doesn't dare
+to send a Commissar into this building. Why, on the corner of the
+Sadovaya to-day, I saw a Red Guard try to stop a boy selling
+_Soldatski Golos_.... The boy just laughed at him, and a crowd of
+people wanted to lynch the bandit. It's only a few hours more, now.
+Even if Kerensky wouldn't come they haven't the men to run a
+Government. Absurd! I understand they're even fighting among
+themselves at Smolny!"
+
+A Socialist Revolutionary friend of mine drew me aside. "I know
+where the Committee for Salvation is hiding," he said. "Do you want
+to go and talk with them?"
+
+By this time it was dusk. The city had again settled down to
+normal--shop-shutters up, lights shining, and on the streets great
+crowds of people slowly moving up and down and arguing....
+
+At Number 86 Nevsky we went through a passage into a courtyard,
+surrounded by tall apartment buildings. At the door of apartment 229
+my friend knocked in a peculiar way. There was a sound of scuffling;
+an inside door slammed; then the front door opened a crack and a
+woman's face appeared. After a minute's observation she led us in--a
+placid-looking, middle-aged lady who at once cried, "Kyril, it's all
+right!" In the dining-room, where a samovar steamed on the table and
+there were plates full of bread and raw fish, a man in uniform
+emerged from behind the window-curtains, and another, dressed like a
+workman, from a closet. They were delighted to meet an American
+reporter. With a certain amount of gusto both said that they would
+certainly be shot if the Bolsheviki caught them. They would not give
+me their names, but both were Socialist Revolutionaries....
+
+"Why," I asked, "do you publish such lies in your newspapers?"
+
+Without taking offence the officer replied, "Yes, I know; but what
+can we do?" He shrugged. "You must admit that it is necessary for us
+to create a certain frame of mind in the people...."
+
+The other man interrupted. "This is merely an adventure on the part
+of the Bolsheviki. They have no intellectuals.... The Ministries
+won't work.... Russia is not a city, but a whole country.... Realising
+that they can only last a few days, we have decided to come to the
+aid of the strongest force opposed to them--Kerensky--and help to
+restore order."
+
+"That is all very well," I said. "But why do you combine with the
+Cadets?"
+
+The pseudo-workman smiled frankly. "To tell you the truth, at this
+moment the masses of the people are following the Bolsheviki. We
+have no following--now. We can't mobilise a handful of soldiers.
+There are no arms available.... The Bolsheviki are right to a certain
+extent; there are at this moment in Russia only two parties with any
+force--the Bolsheviki and the reactionaries, who are all hiding under
+the coat-tails of the Cadets. The Cadets think they are using us;
+but it is really we who are using the Cadets. When we smash the
+Bolsheviki we shall turn against the Cadets...."
+
+"Will the Bolsheviki be admitted into the new Government?"
+
+He scratched his head. "That's a problem," he admitted. "Of course
+if they are not admitted, they'll probably do this all over again.
+At any rate, they will have a chance to hold the balance of power in
+the Constituent--that is, if there _is_ a Constituent."
+
+"And then, too," said the officer, "that brings up the question of
+admitting the Cadets into the new Government--and for the same
+reasons. You know the Cadets do not really want the Constituent
+Assembly--not if the Bolsheviki can be destroyed now." He shook his
+head. "It is not easy for us Russians, politics. You Americans are
+born politicians; you have had politics all your lives. But for
+us--well, it has only been a year, you know!"
+
+"What do you think of Kerensky?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, Kerensky is guilty of the sins of the Provisional Government,"
+answered the other man. "Kerensky himself forced us to accept
+coalition with the bourgeoisie. If he had resigned, as he
+threatened, it would have meant a new Cabinet crisis only sixteen
+weeks before the Constituent Assembly, and that we wanted to avoid."
+
+"But didn't it amount to that anyway?"
+
+"Yes, but how were we to know? They tricked us--the Kerenskys and
+Avksentievs. Gotz is a little more radical. I stand with Tchernov,
+who is a real revolutionist.... Why, only to-day Lenin sent word that
+he would not object to Tchernov entering the Government.
+
+"We wanted to get rid of the Kerensky Government too, but we thought
+it better to wait for the Constituent.... At the beginning of this
+affair I was with the Bolsheviki, but the Central Committee of my
+party voted unanimously against it--and what could I do? It was a
+matter of party discipline....
+
+"In a week the Bolshevik Government will go to pieces; if the
+Socialist Revolutionaries could only stand aside and wait, the
+Government would fall into their hands. But if we wait a week the
+country will be so disorganised that the German imperialists will be
+victorious. That is why we began our revolt with only two regiments
+of soldiers promising to support us--and they turned against us....
+That left only the _yunkers_...."
+
+"How about the Cossacks?"
+
+The officer sighed. "They did not move. At first they said they
+would come out if they had infantry support. They said moreover that
+they had their men with Kerensky, and that they were doing their
+part.... Then, too, they said that the Cossacks were always accused of
+being the hereditary enemies of democracy.... And finally, 'The
+Bolsheviki promise that they will not take away our land. There is
+no danger to us. We remain neutral.'"
+
+During this talk people were constantly entering and leaving--most of
+them officers, their shoulder-straps torn off. We could see them in
+the hall, and hear their low, vehement voices. Occasionally, through
+the half-drawn portieres, we caught a glimpse of a door opening into
+a bath-room, where a heavily-built officer in a colonel's uniform
+sat on the toilet, writing something on a pad held in his lap. I
+recognised Colonel Polkovnikov, former commandant of Petrograd, for
+whose arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee would have paid a
+fortune.
+
+"Our programme?" said the officer. "This is it. Land to be turned
+over to the Land Committees. Workmen to have full representation in
+the control of industry. An energetic peace programme, but not an
+ultimatum to the world such as the Bolsheviki issued. The Bolsheviki
+cannot keep their promises to the masses, even in the country
+itself. We won't let them.... They stole our land programme in order
+to get the support of the peasants. That is dishonest. If they had
+waited for the Constituent Assembly--"
+
+"It doesn't matter about the Constituent Assembly!" broke in the
+officer. "If the Bolsheviki want to establish a Socialist state
+here, we cannot work with them in any event! Kerensky made the great
+mistake. He let the Bolsheviki know what he was going to do by
+announcing in the Council of the Republic that he had ordered their
+arrest....
+
+"But what," I said, "do you intend to do now?"
+
+The two men looked at one another. "You will see in a few days. If
+there are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not
+compromise with the Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced
+to...."
+
+Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a streetcar bulging
+with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping
+along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness the long
+miles to Smolny.
+
+Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall,
+looking worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were
+having their effect. For instance, the Council of People's
+Commissars had promised to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov,
+the functionary in charge, had disappeared, taking the documents
+with him. They were supposed to be hidden in the British Embassy....
+
+Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. "Without money,"
+said Menzhinsky, "we are helpless. The wages of the railroad men, of
+the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid.... The banks are
+closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut.
+All the bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work....
+
+"But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults,
+and there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open
+to-morrow, or we will open them ourselves!"
+
+The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men,
+Trotzky reporting:
+
+"The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo." (Sharp, exultant
+cheering.) "But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy
+fighting is going on. All available forces must be hurried there....
+
+"From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the
+_yunkers,_ and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends
+upon Petrograd.
+
+"At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are provoking great
+enthusiasm. Kerensky is flooding the trenches with tales of
+Petrograd burning and bloody, of women and children massacred by the
+Bolsheviki. But no one believes him....
+
+"The cruisers _Oleg, Avrora_ and _Respublica_ are anchored in the
+Neva, their guns trained on the approaches to the city...."
+
+"Why aren't you out there with the Red Guards?" shouted a rough
+voice.
+
+"I'm going now!" answered Trotzky, and left the platform. His face a
+little paler than usual, he passed down the side of the room,
+surrounded by eager friends, and hurried out to the waiting
+automobile.
+
+Kameniev now spoke, describing the proceedings of the reconciliation
+conference. The armistice conditions proposed by the Mensheviki, he
+said, had been contemptuously rejected. Even the branches of the
+Railwaymen's Union had voted against such a proposition....
+
+"Now that we've won the power and are sweeping all Russia," he
+declared, "all they ask of us are three little things: 1. To
+surrender the power. 2. To make the soldiers continue the war. 3. To
+make the peasants forget about the land...."
+
+Lenin appeared for a moment, to answer the accusations of the
+Socialist Revolutionaries:
+
+"They charge us with stealing their land programme.... If that is so,
+we bow to them. It is good enough for us...."
+
+So the meeting roared on, leader after leader explaining, exhorting,
+arguing, soldier after soldier, workman after workman, standing up
+to speak his mind and his heart.... The audience flowed, changing and
+renewed continually. From time to time men came in, yelling for the
+members of such and such a detachment, to go to the front; others,
+relieved, wounded, or coming to Smolny for arms and equipment,
+poured in....
+
+It was almost three o'clock in the morning when, as we left the
+hall, Holtzman, of the Military Revolutionary Committee, came
+running down the hall with a transfigured face.
+
+"It's all right!" he shouted, grabbing my hands. "Telegram from the
+front. Kerensky is smashed! Look at this!"
+
+He held out a sheet of paper, scribbled hurriedly in pencil, and
+then, seeing we couldn't read it, he declaimed aloud:
+
+Pulkovo. Staff. 2.10 A.M.
+
+The night of October 30th to 31st will go down in history. The
+attempt of Kerensky to move counter-revolutionary troops against the
+capital of the Revolution has been decisively repulsed. Kerensky is
+retreating, we are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workers of
+Petrograd have shown that they can and will with arms in their hands
+enforce the will and authority of the democracy. The bourgeoisie
+tried to isolate the revolutionary army. Kerensky attempted to break
+it by the force of the Cossacks. Both plans met a pitiful defeat.
+
+The grand idea of the domination of the worker and peasant democracy
+closed the ranks of the army and hardened its will. All the country
+from now on will be convinced that the Power of the Soviets is no
+ephemeral thing, but an invincible fact.... The repulse of Kerensky is
+the repulse of the land-owners, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovists
+in general. The repulse of Kerensky is the confirmation of the right
+of the people to a peaceful free life, to land, bread and power. The
+Pulkovo detachment by its valorous blow has strengthened the cause
+of the Workers' and Peasants's Revolution. There is no return to the
+past. Before us are struggles, obstacles and sacrifices. But the
+road is clear and victory is certain.
+
+Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Power can be proud of their
+Pulkovo detachment, acting under the command of Colonel Walden.
+Eternal memory to those who fell! Glory to the warriors of the
+Revolution, the soldiers and the officers who were faithful to the
+People!
+
+Long live revolutionary, popular, Socialist Russia!
+
+In the name of the Council,
+
+L. TROTZKY, People's Commissar....
+
+Driving home across Znamensky Square, we made out an unusual crowd
+in front of the Nicolai Railway Station. Several thousand sailors
+were massed there, bristling with rifles.
+
+Standing on the steps, a member of the _Vikzhel_ was pleading with
+them.
+
+"Comrades, we cannot carry you to Moscow. We are neutral. We do not
+carry troops for either side. We cannot take you to Moscow, where
+already there is terrible civil war...."
+
+All the seething Square roared at him; the sailors began to surge
+forward. Suddenly another door was flung wide; in it stood two or
+three brakeman, a fireman or so.
+
+"This way, comrades!" cried one. "We will take you to Moscow--or
+Vladivostok, if you like! Long live the Revolution!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Victory
+
+
+_Order Number I_
+
+To the Troops of the Pulkovo Detachment.
+
+November 13, 1917. 38 minutes past 9 a. m.
+
+After a cruel fight the troops of the Pulkovo detachment completely
+routed the counter-revolutionary forces, who retreated from their
+positions in disorder, and under cover of Tsarskoye Selo fell back
+toward Pavlovsk II and Gatchina.
+
+Our advanced units occupied the northeastern extremity of Tsarskoye
+Selo and the station Alexandrovskaya. The Colpinno detachment was on
+our left, the Krasnoye Selo detachment to our right.
+
+I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify
+its approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
+
+Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side,
+and to take up the railroad as far as Dno.
+
+The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions
+occupied by them, arranging trenches and other defensive works.
+
+They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno
+and Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief
+for the Defence of Petrograd.
+
+Signed,
+
+_Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the
+Counter-revolutionary Troops of Kerensky,_
+
+Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
+
+Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd
+campagna was full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without
+food, without artillery, without a plan. What had fused that
+disorganised mass of undisciplined Red Guards, and soldiers without
+officers, into an army obedient to its own elected high command,
+tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack
+cavalry? (See App. IX, Sect. 1)
+
+People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The
+ragged armies of the French Revolution are not forgotten--Valmy and
+the Lines of Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were
+_yunkers,_ Cossacks, land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds--the Tsar
+come again, _Okhrana_ and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible
+menace of the Germans.... Victory, in the words of Carlyle, meant
+"Apotheosis and Millennium without end!"
+
+Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd
+elected its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and
+two officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint.
+Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command--an efficient man, but
+to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and
+Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size
+as the stragglers came in from the surrounding country--mixed
+soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, parts of regiments, infantry,
+cavalry and artillery all together, and a few armoured cars.
+
+Day broke, and the pickets of Kerensky's Cossacks came in touch.
+Scattered rifle-fire, summons to surrender. Over the bleak plain on
+the cold quiet air spread the sound of battle, falling upon the ears
+of roving bands as they gathered about their little fires, waiting....
+So it was beginning! They made toward the battle; and the worker
+hordes pouring out along the straight roads quickened their pace....
+Thus upon all the points of attack automatically converged angry
+human swarms, to be met by Commissars and assigned positions, or
+work to do. This was _their_ battle, for _their_ world; the officers
+in command were elected by _them._ For the moment that incoherent
+multiple will was one will....
+
+Those who participated in the fighting described to me how the
+sailors fought until they ran out of cartridges, and then stormed;
+how the untrained workmen rushed the charging Cossacks and tore them
+from their horses; how the anonymous hordes of the people, gathering
+in the darkness around the battle, rose like a tide and poured over
+the enemy.... Before midnight of Monday the Cossacks broke and were
+fleeing, leaving their artillery behind them, and the army of the
+proletariat, on a long ragged front, moved forward and rolled into
+Tsarskoye, before the enemy had a chance to destroy the great
+Government wireless station, from which now the Commissars of Smolny
+were hurling out to the world paeans of triumph....
+
+TO ALL SOVIETS OF WORKERS' AND SOLDIERS' DEPUTIES
+
+The 12th of November, in a bloody combat near Tsarskoye Selo, the
+revolutionary army defeated the counter-revolutionary troops of
+Kerensky and Kornilov. In the name of the Revolutionary Government I
+order all regiments to take the offensive against the enemies of the
+revolutionary democracy, and to take all measures to arrest
+Kerensky, and also to oppose any adventure which might menace the
+conquests of the Revolution and the victory of the proletariat.
+
+Long live the Revolutionary Army!
+MURAVIOV.
+
+News from the provinces....
+
+At Sevastopol the local Soviet had assumed the power; a huge meeting
+of the sailors on the battleships in the harbour had forced their
+officers to line up and swear allegiance to the new Government. At
+Nizhni Novgorod the Soviet was in control. From Kazan came reports
+of a battle in the streets, _yunkers_ and a brigade of artillery
+against the Bolshevik garrison....
+
+Desperate fighting had broken out again in Moscow. The _yunkers_ and
+White Guards held the Kremlin and the centre of the town, beaten
+upon from all sides by the troops of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee. The Soviet artillery was stationed in Skobeliev Square,
+bombarding the City Duma building, the Prefecture and the Hotel
+Metropole. The cobblestones of the Tverskaya and Nikitskaya had been
+torn up for trenches and barricades. A hail of machine-gun fire
+swept the quarters of the great banks and commercial houses. There
+were no lights, no telephones; the bourgeois population lived in the
+cellars.... The last bulletin said that the Military Revolutionary
+Committee had delivered an ultimatum to the Committee of Public
+Safety, demanding the immediate surrender of the Kremlin, or
+bombardment would follow.
+
+"Bombard the Kremlin?" cried the ordinary citizen. "They dare not!"
+
+From Vologda to Chita in far Siberia, from Pskov to Sevastopol on
+the Black Sea, in great cities and little villages, civil war burst
+into flame. From thousands of factories, peasant communes, regiments
+and armies, ships on the wide sea, greetings poured into
+Petrograd--greetings to the Government of the People.
+
+The Cossack Government at Novotcherkask telegraphed to Kerensky,
+_"The Government of the Cossack troops invites the Provisional
+Government and the members of the Council of the Republic to come,
+if possible, to Novotcherkask, where we can organise in common the
+struggle against the Bolsheviki."_
+
+In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors
+and the _Tsentrobalt_ (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet),
+jointly proclaimed a state of siege, and declared that all attempts
+to interfere with the Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to
+its orders, would be severely repressed. At the same time the
+Finnish Railway Union called a countrywide general strike, to put
+into operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of June, 1917,
+dissolved by Kerensky....
+
+Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden
+sidewalk from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating
+snow-flakes fluttering down from the grey, windless sky. "Snow!"
+cried the soldier at the door, grinning with delight. "Good for the
+health!" Inside, the long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed
+deserted. No one moved in all the enormous pile. A deep, uneasy
+sound came to my ears, and looking around, I noticed that everywhere
+on the floor, along the walls, men were sleeping. Rough, dirty men,
+workers and soldiers, spattered and caked with mud, sprawled alone
+or in heaps, in the careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged
+bandages marked with blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered
+about.... The victorious proletarian army!
+
+In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk.
+The air was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed.
+A battered samovar, cold, stood on the counter, and many glasses
+holding dregs of tea. Beside them lay a copy of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee's last bulletin, upside down, scrawled with
+painful hand-writing. It was a memorial written by some soldier to
+his comrades fallen in the fight against Kerensky, just as he had
+set it down before falling on the floor to sleep. The writing was
+blurred with what looked like tears....
+
+Alexei Vinogradov
+
+D. Maskvin
+
+S. Stolbikov
+
+A. Voskressensky
+
+D. Leonsky
+
+D. Preobrazhensky
+
+V. Laidansky
+
+M. Berchikov
+
+These men were drafted into the Army on November 15th, 1916. Only
+three are left of the above.
+
+Mikhail Berchikov
+
+Alexei Voskressensky
+
+Dmitri Leonsky
+
+_Sleep, Warrior eagles, sleep with peaceful soul._
+
+_You have deserved, our own ones, happiness and_
+
+_Eternal peace. Under the earth of the grave_
+
+_You have straitly closed your ranks. Sleep, Citizens!_
+
+Only the Military Revolutionary Committee still functioned,
+unsleeping. Skripnik, emerging from the inner room, said that Gotz
+had been arrested, but had flatly denied signing the proclamation of
+the Committee for Salvation, as had Avksentiev; and the Committee
+for Salvation itself had repudiated the Appeal to the garrison.
+There was still disafiection among the city regiments, Skripnik
+reported; the Volhynsky Regiment had refused to fight against
+Kerensky.
+
+Several detachments of "neutral" troops, with Tchernov at their
+head, were at Gatchina, trying to persuade Kerensky to halt his
+attack on Petrograd.
+
+Skripnik laughed. "There can be no 'neutrals' now," he said. "We've
+won!" His sharp, bearded face glowed with an almost religious
+exaltation. "More than sixty delegates have arrived from the Front,
+with assurances of support by all the armies except the troops on
+the Rumanian front, who have not been heard from. The Army
+Committees have suppressed all news from Petrograd, but we now have
+a regular system of couriers...."
+
+[Graphic, page 224: Certificate approving telegram transmission]
+
+Order given me at Staff headquarters by command of the Council of
+People's Commissars, to transmit the first despatch out of Perograd
+after the November Revolution, over the Government wires to America.
+                      (Translation)
+       STAFF
+  Military Revolutionary
+     Commitee
+  Sov. W. & S. D.
+  2 November, 1917
+     No. 1860
+                      CERTIFICATE
+Is given by the present to the journalist of
+the New York Socialist press JOHN REED, that the text of the
+telegram (herewith) has been examined by the Government of People's
+Commissars, and there is no objection to its transmission, and also
+it is recommended that all cooperate in every way to transmit same
+to its destination.
+                      For the Commander in Chief, ANTONOV
+                      Chief of Staff, VLAD. BONCH-BRUEVITCH
+
+Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the
+all-night session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but
+happy. "Already the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit
+us into the new Government," he told me. "The right wing groups are
+frightened by the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of
+panic, that we dissolve them before going any further. ... We have
+accepted the proposition of the _Vikzhel_ to form a homogeneous
+Socialist Ministry, and they're working on that now. You see, it all
+springs from our victory. When we were down, they would't have us at
+any price; not everybody's in favour of some agreement with the
+Soivets.... What we need is a really decisive victory. Kerensky wants
+an armistice, but he'll have to surrender (See App. IX, Sect. 2) ...."
+
+That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign
+journalist who asked Trotzky what statement he had to make to the
+world, Trotzky replied: "At this moment the only statement possible
+is the one we are making through the mouths of our cannon!"
+
+But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of
+victory; the question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as
+had been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union
+of Bank Employees had held a meeting and declared a formal strike.
+Smolny had demanded some thirty-five millions of rubles from the
+State Bank, and the cashier had locked the vaults, only paying out
+money to the representatives of the Provisional Government. The
+reactionaries were using the State Bank as a political weapon; for
+instance, when the _Vikzhel_ demanded money to pay the salaries of
+the employees of the Government railroads, it was told to apply to
+Smolny....
+
+I went to the State Bank to see the new Commissar, a redhaired
+Ukrainean Bolshevik named Petrovitch. He was trying to bring order
+out of the chaos in which affairs had been left by the striking
+clerks. In all the offices of the huge place perspiring volunteer
+workers, soldiers and sailors, their tongues sticking out of their
+mouths in the intensity of their effort, were poring over the great
+ledgers with a bewildered air....
+
+The Duma building was crowded. There were still isolated cases of
+defiance toward the new Government, but they were rare. The Central
+Land Committee had appealed to the Peasants, ordering them not to
+recognise the Land Decree passed by the Congress of the Soviets,
+because it would cause confusion and civil war. Mayor Schreider
+announced that because of the Bolshevik insurrection, the elections
+to the Constituent Assembly would have to be indefinitely postponed.
+
+Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the
+ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App.
+IX, Sect. 3)--second, the creation of a new Government. There was no
+longer any talk of "destroying the Bolsheviki"--and very little about
+excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist
+Socialists and the Peasants' Soviets. Even the Central Army
+Committee at the _Stavka,_ the most determined enemy of Smolny,
+telephoned from Moghilev: "If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is
+necessary to come to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree
+to admit them _in a minority_ to the Cabinet."
+
+_Pravda,_ ironically calling attention to Kerensky's "humanitarian
+sentiments," published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:
+
+In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all
+the democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all
+military action against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has
+been sent to enter into negotiations. Take all measures to stop the
+useless shedding of blood.
+
+The _Vikzhel_ sent a telegram to all Russia:
+
+The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the
+representatives of both the belligerent parties, who admit the
+necessity of an agreement, protest energetically against the use of
+political terrorism in the civil war, especially when it is carried
+on between different factions of the revolutionary democracy, and
+declare that political terrorism, in whatever form, is in
+contradiction to the very idea of the negotiations for a new
+Government....
+
+[Graphic, page 227: Leaflet]
+
+Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik
+insurrection, containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated
+bourgeoisie and the "moderate" Socialist leaders, Called, "How THE
+BOORZHUI (BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER."
+
+Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina.
+In the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final
+settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People's
+Council, composed of about four hundred members--seventy-five
+representing Smolny, seventy-five the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and the
+rest split up among the Town Dumas, the Trade Unions, Land
+Committees and political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as the new
+Premier. Lenin and Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded....
+
+About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver
+of an ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with
+him? Certainly! He was a volunteer, a University student, and as we
+rolled down the street shouted over his shoulder to me phrases of
+execrable German: _"Also, gut! Wir nach die Kasernen zu essen
+gehen!"_ I made out that there would be lunch at some barracks.
+
+On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by
+military buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by
+one window. At a long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers,
+eating _shtchi_ (cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden
+spoons, and talking loudly with much laughter.
+
+"Welcome to the Battalion Committee of the Sixth Reserve Engineers'
+Battalion!" cried my friend, and introduced me as an American
+Socialist. Whereat every one rose to shake my hand, and one old
+soldier put his arms around me and gave me a hearty kiss. A wooden
+spoon was produced and I took my place at the table. Another tub,
+full of _kasha,_ was brought in, a huge loaf of black bread, and of
+course the inevitable tea-pots. At once every one began asking me
+questions about America: Was it true that people in a free country
+sold their votes for _money?_ If so, how did they get what they
+wanted? How about this "Tammany"? Was it true that in a free country
+a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited
+it for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even
+under the Tsar such things could not happen in Russia; true, here
+there was always graft, but to buy and sell a whole city full of
+people! And in a free country! Had the people no revolutionary
+feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people tried to
+change things by law.
+
+"Of course," nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke
+French. "But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the
+capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How
+then can the people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do
+not know your country; but to me it is incredible...."
+
+I said that I was going to Tsarskoye Selo. "I, too," said Baklanov,
+suddenly. "And I--and I--" The whole roomful decided on the spot to go
+to Tsarskoye Selo.
+
+Just then came a knock on the door. It opened, and in it stood the
+figure of the Colonel. No one rose, but all shouted a greeting. "May
+I come in?" asked the Colonel. "_Prosim! Prosim!_" they answered
+heartily. He entered, smiling, a tall, distinguished figure in a
+goat-skin cape embroidered with gold. "I think I heard you say that
+you were going to Tsarskoye Selo, comrades," he said. "Could I go
+with you?"
+
+Baklanov considered. "I do not think there is anything to be done
+here to-day," he answered. "Yes, comrade, we shall be very glad to
+have you." The Colonel thanked him and sat down, filling a glass of
+tea.
+
+In a low voice, for fear of wounding the Colonel's pride, Baklanov
+explained to me. "You see, I am the chairman of the Committee. We
+control the Battalion absolutely, except in action, when the Colonel
+is delegated by us to command. In action his orders must be obeyed,
+but he is strictly responsible to us. In barracks he must ask our
+permission before taking any action.... You might call him our
+Executive Officer...."
+
+Arms were distributed to us, revolvers and rifles--"we might meet
+some Cossacks, you know"--and we all piled into the ambulance,
+together with three great bundles of newspapers for the front.
+Straight down the Liteiny we rattled, and along the Zagorodny
+Prospekt. Next to me sat a youth with the shoulder-straps of a
+Lieutenant, who seemed to speak all European languages with equal
+fluency. He was a member of the Battalion Committee.
+
+"I am not a Bolshevik," he assured me, emphatically. "My family is a
+very ancient and noble one. I, myself, am, you might say, a Cadet...."
+
+"But how--?" I began, bewildered.
+
+"Oh, yes, I am a member of the Committee. I make no secret of my
+political opinions, but the others do not mind, because they know I
+do not believe in opposing the will of the majority.... I have refused
+to take any action in the present civil war, however, for I do not
+believe in taking up arms against my brother Russians...."
+
+"Provocator! Kornilovitz!" the others cried at him gaily, slapping
+him on the shoulder....
+
+Passing under the huge grey stone archway of the Moskovsky Gate,
+covered with golden hieroglyphics, ponderous Imperial eagles and the
+names of Tsars, we sped out on the wide straight highway, grey with
+the first light fall of snow. It was thronged with Red Guards,
+stumbling along on foot toward the revolutionary front, shouting and
+singing; and others, greyfaced and muddy, coming back. Most of them
+seemed to be mere boys. Women with spades, some with rifles and
+bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands--the
+bowed, toil-worn women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out
+of step, with an affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors,
+grim-looking; children with bundles of food for their fathers and
+mothers; all these, coming and going, trudged through the whitened
+mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches deep. We passed
+cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound both
+ways, bristling with armed men; ambulances full of wounded from the
+direction of the battle, and once a peasant cart, creaking slowly
+along, in which sat a white-faced boy bent over his shattered
+stomach and screaming monotonously. In the fields on either side
+women and old men were digging trenches and stringing barbed wire
+entanglements.
+
+Back northward the clouds rolled away dramatically, and the pale sun
+came out. Across the flat, marshy plain Petrograd glittered. To the
+right, white and gilded and coloured bulbs and pinnacles; to the
+left, tall chimneys, some pouring out black smoke; and beyond, a
+lowering sky over Finland. On each side of us were churches,
+monasteries.... Occasionally a monk was visible, silently watching the
+pulse of the proletarian army throbbing on the road.
+
+At Pulkovo the road divided, and there we halted in the midst of a
+great crowd, where the human streams poured from three directions,
+friends meeting, excited and congratulatory, describing the battle
+to one another. A row of houses facing the cross-roads was marked
+with bullets, and the earth was trampled into mud half a mile
+around. The fighting had been furious here.... In the near distance
+riderless Cossack horses circled hungrily, for the grass of the
+plain had died long ago. Right in front of us an awkward Red Guard
+was trying to ride one, falling off again and again, to the
+childlike delight of a thousand rough men.
+
+The left road, along which the remnants of the Cossacks had
+retreated, led up a little hill to a hamlet, where there was a
+glorious view of the immense plain, grey as a windless sea,
+tumultuous clouds towering over, and the imperial city disgorging
+its thousands along all the roads. Far over to the left lay the
+little hill of Kranoye Selo, the parade-ground of the Imperial
+Guards' summer camp, and the Imperial Dairy. In the middle distance
+nothing broke the flat monotony but a few walled monasteries and
+convents, some isolated factories, and several large buildings with
+unkempt grounds that were asylums and orphanages....
+
+"Here," said the driver, as we went on over a barren hill, "here was
+where Vera Slutskaya died. Yes, the Bolshevik member of the Duma. It
+happened early this morning. She was in an automobile, with Zalkind
+and another man. There was a truce, and they started for the front
+trenches. They were talking and laughing, when all of a sudden, from
+the armoured train in which Kerensky himself was riding, somebody
+saw the automobile and fired a cannon. The shell struck Vera
+Slutskaya and killed her...."
+
+And so we came into Tsarskoye, all bustling with the swaggering
+heroes of the proletarian horde. Now the palace where the Soviet had
+met was a busy place. Red Guards and sailors filled the court-yard,
+sentries stood at the doors, and a stream of couriers and Commissars
+pushed in and out. In the Soviet room a samovar had been set up, and
+fifty or more workers, soldiers, sailors and officers stood around,
+drinking tea and talking at the top of their voices. In one corner
+two clumsy-handed workingmen were trying to make a multigraphing
+machine go. At the centre table, the huge Dybenko bent over a map,
+marking out positions for the troops with red and blue pencils. In
+his free hand he carried, as always, the enormous bluesteel
+revolver. Anon he sat himself down at a typewriter and pounded away
+with one finger; every little while he would pause, pick up the
+revolver, and lovingly spin the chamber.
+
+A couch lay along the wall, and on this was stretched a young
+workman. Two Red Guards were bending over him, but the rest of the
+company did not pay any attention. In his breast was a hole; through
+his clothes fresh blood came welling up with every heart-beat. His
+eyes were closed and his young, bearded face was greenish-white.
+Faintly and slowly he still breathed, with every breath sighing,
+_"Mir boudit! Mir boudit!_ (Peace is coming! Peace is coming!)"
+
+Dybenko looked up as we came in. "Ah," he said to Baklanov.
+"Comrade, will you go up to the Commandant's headquarters and take
+charge? Wait; I will write you credentials." He went to the
+typewriter and slowly picked out the letters.
+
+The new Commandant of Tsarskoye Selo and I went toward the Ekaterina
+Palace, Baklanov very excited and important. In the same ornate,
+white room some Red Guards were rummaging curiously around, while my
+old friend, the Colonel, stood by the window biting his moustache.
+He greeted me like a long-lost brother. At a table near the door sat
+the French Bessarabian. The Bolsheviki had ordered him to remain,
+and continue his work.
+
+"What could I do?" he muttered. "People like myself cannot fight on
+either side in such a war as this, no matter how much we may
+instinctively dislike the dictatorship of the mob.... I only regret
+that I am so far from my mother in Bessarabia!"
+
+Baklanov was formally taking over the office from the Commandant.
+"Here," said the Colonel nervously, "are the keys to the desk."
+
+A Red Guard interrupted. "Where's the money?" he asked rudely. The
+Colonel seemed surprised. "Money? Money? Ah, you mean the chest.
+There it is," said the Colonel, "just as I found it when I took
+possession three days ago. Keys?" The Colonel shrugged. "I have no
+keys."
+
+The Red Guard sneered knowingly. "Very convenient," he said.
+
+"Let us open the chest," said Baklanov. "Bring an axe. Here is an
+American comrade. Let him smash the chest open, and write down what
+he finds there."
+
+I swung the axe. The wooden chest was empty.
+
+"Let's arrest him," said the Red Guard, venomously. "He is
+Kerensky's man. He has stolen the money and given it to Kerensky."
+
+Baklanov did not want to. "Oh, no," he said. "It was the Kornilovitz
+before him. He is not to blame.
+
+"The devil!" cried the Red Guard. "He is Kerensky's man, I tell you.
+If _you_ won't arrest him, then _we_ will, and we'll take him to
+Petrograd and put him in Peter-Paul, where he belongs!" At this the
+other Red Guards growled assent. With a piteous glance at us the
+Colonel was led away....
+
+Down in front of the Soviet palace an auto-truck was going to the
+front. Half a dozen Red Guards, some sailors, and a soldier or two,
+under command of a huge workman, clambered in, and shouted to me to
+come along. Red Guards issued from headquarters, each of them
+staggering under an arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled
+with _grubit_--which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five
+times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A
+three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the
+truck with bits of rope and wire.
+
+We started with a shout, at top speed of course; the heavy truck
+swaying from side to side. The cannon leaped from one wheel to the
+other, and the _grubit_ bombs went rolling back and forth over our
+feet, fetching up against the sides of the car with a crash.
+
+The big Red Guard, whose name was Vladimir Nicolaievitch, plied me
+with questions about America. "Why did America come into the war?
+Are the American workers ready to throw over the capitalists? What
+is the situation in the Mooney case now? Will they extradite Berkman
+to San Francisco?" and other, very difficult to answer, all
+delivered in a shout above the roaring of the truck, while we held
+on to each other and danced amid the caroming bombs.
+
+Occasionally a patrol tried to stop us. Soldiers ran out into the
+road before us, shouted _"Shtoi!"_ and threw up their guns.
+
+We paid no attention. "The devil take you!" cried the Red Guards.
+"We don't stop for anybody! We're Red Guards!" And we thundered
+imperiously on, while Vladimir Nicolaievitch bellowed to me about
+the internationalisation of the Panama Canal, and such matters....
+
+About five miles out we saw a squad of sailors marching back, and
+slowed down.
+
+"Where's the front, brothers?"
+
+The foremost sailor halted and scratched his head. "This morning,"
+he said, "it was about half a kilometer down the road. But the damn
+thing isn't anywhere now. We walked and walked and walked, but we
+couldn't find it."
+
+They climbed into the truck, and we proceeded. It must have been
+about a mile further that Vladimir Nicolaievitch cocked his ear and
+shouted to the chauffeur to stop.
+
+"Firing!" he said. "Do you hear it?" For a moment dead silence, and
+then, a little ahead and to the left, three shots in rapid
+succession. Along here the side of the road was heavily wooded. Very
+much excited now, we crept along, speaking in whispers, until the
+truck was nearly opposite the place where the firing had come from.
+Descending, we spread out, and every man carrying his rifle, went
+stealthily into the forest.
+
+Two comrades, meanwhile, detached the cannon and slewed it around
+until it aimed as nearly as possible at our backs.
+
+It was silent in the woods. The leaves were gone, and the
+tree-trunks were a pale wan colour in the low, sickly autumn sun.
+Not a thing moved, except the ice of little woodland pools shivering
+under our feet. Was it an ambush?
+
+We went uneventfully forward until the trees began to thin, and
+paused. Beyond, in a little clearing, three soldiers sat around a
+small fire, perfectly oblivious.
+
+Vladimir Nicolaievitch stepped forward. _"Zra'zvuitye,_ comrades!"
+he greeted, while behind him one cannon, twenty rifles and a
+truck-load of _grubit_ bombs hung by a hair. The soldiers scrambled
+to their feet.
+
+"What was the shooting going on around here?"
+
+One of the soldiers answered, looking relieved, "Why we were just
+shooting a rabbit or two, comrade...."
+
+The truck hurtled on toward Romanov, through the bright, empty day.
+At the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving
+their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.
+
+"Passes, comrades!"
+
+The Red Guards raised a great clamour. "We are Red Guards. We don't
+need any passes.... Go on, never mind them!"
+
+But a sailor objected. "This is wrong, comrades. We must have
+revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came
+along in a truck and said: 'We don't need any passes?' The comrades
+don't know you."
+
+At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and
+soldiers joined with the first. Grumbling, each Red Guard produced
+his dirty _bumaga_ (paper). All were alike except mine, which had
+been issued by the Revolutionary Staff at Smolny. The sentries
+declared that I must go with them. The Red Guards objected
+strenuously, but the sailor who had spoken first insisted. "This
+comrade we know to be a true comrade," he said. "But there are
+orders of the Committee, and these orders must be obeyed. That is
+revolutionary discipline...."
+
+In order not to make any trouble, I got down from the truck, and
+watched it disappear careening down the road, all the company waving
+farewell. The soldiers consulted in low tones for a moment, and then
+led me to a wall, against which they placed me. It flashed upon me
+suddenly; they were going to shoot me!
+
+In all three directions not a human being was in sight. The only
+sign of life was smoke from the chimney of a _datchya,_ a rambling
+wooden house a quarter of a mile up the side road. The two soldiers
+were walking out into the road. Desperately I ran after them.
+
+"But comrades! See! Here is the seal of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee!"
+
+They stared stupidly at my pass, then at each other.
+
+"It is different from the others," said one, sullenly. "We cannot
+read, brother."
+
+I took him by the arm. "Come!" I said. "Let's go to that house. Some
+one there can surely read." They hesitated. "No," said one. The
+other looked me over. "Why not?" he muttered. "After all, it is a
+serious crime to kill an innocent man."
+
+We walked up to the front door of the house and knocked. A short,
+stout woman opened it, and shrank back in alarm, babbling, "I don't
+know anything about them! I don't know anything about them!" One of
+my guards held out the pass. She screamed. "Just to read it,
+comrade." Hesitatingly she took the paper and read aloud, swiftly:
+
+The bearer of this pass, John Reed, is a representative of the
+American Social-Democracy, an internationalist....
+
+Out on the road again the two soldiers held another consultation.
+"We must take you to the Regimental Committee," they said. In the
+fast-deepening twilight we trudged along the muddy road.
+Occasionally we met squads of soldiers, who stopped and surrounded
+me with looks of menace, handling my pass around and arguing
+violently as to whether or not I should be killed....
+
+It was dark when we came to the barracks of the Second Tsarskoye
+Selo Rifles, low sprawling buildings huddled along the post-road. A
+number of soldiers slouching at the entrance asked eager questions.
+A spy? A provocator? We mounted a winding stair and emerged into a
+great, bare room with a huge stove in the centre, and rows of cots
+on the floor, where about a thousand soldiers were playing cards,
+talking, singing, and asleep. In the roof was a jagged hole made by
+Kerensky's cannon....
+
+I stood in the doorway, and a sudden silence ran among the groups,
+who turned and stared at me. Of a sudden they began to move, slowly
+and then with a rush, thundering, with faces full of hate.
+"Comrades! Comrades!" yelled one of my guards. "Committee!
+Committee!" The throng halted, banked around me, muttering. Out of
+them shouldered a lean youth, wearing a red arm-band.
+
+"Who is this?" he asked roughly. The guards explained. "Give me the
+paper!" He read it carefully, glancing at me with keen eyes. Then he
+smiled and handed me the pass. "Comrades, this is an American
+comrade. I am Chairman of the Committee, and I welcome you to the
+Regiment...." A sudden general buzz grew into a roar of greeting, and
+they pressed forward to shake my hand.
+
+"You have not dined? Here we have had our dinner. You shall go to
+the Officers' Club, where there are some who speak your language...."
+
+He led me across the court-yard to the door of another building. An
+aristocratic-looking youth, with the shoulder straps of a
+Lieutenant, was entering. The Chairman presented me, and shaking
+hands, went back.
+
+"I am Stepan Georgevitch Morovsky, at your service," said the
+Lieutenant, in perfect French. From the ornate entrance hall a
+ceremonial staircase led upward, lighted by glittering lustres. On
+the second floor billiard-rooms, card-rooms, a library opened from
+the hall. We entered the dining-room, at a long table in the centre
+of which sat about twenty officers in full uniform, wearing their
+gold- and silver-handled swords, the ribbons and crosses of Imperial
+decorations. All rose politely as I entered, and made a place for me
+beside the Colonel, a large, impressive man with a grizzled beard.
+Orderlies were deftly serving dinner. The atmosphere was that of any
+officers' mess in Europe. Where was the Revolution?
+
+"You are not Bolsheviki?" I asked Morovsky.
+
+A smile went around the table, but I caught one or two glancing
+furtively at the orderly.
+
+"No," answered my friend. "There is only one Bolshevik officer in
+this regiment. He is in Petrograd to-night. The Colonel is a
+Menshevik. Captain Kherlov there is a Cadet. I myself am a Socialist
+Revolutionary of the right wing.... I should say that most of the
+officers in the Army are not Bolsheviki, but like me they believe in
+democracy; they believe that they must follow the soldier-masses...."
+
+Dinner over, maps were brought, and the Colonel spread them out on
+the table. The rest crowded around to see.
+
+"Here," said the Colonel, pointing to pencil marks, "were our
+positions this morning. Vladimir Kyrilovitch, where is your company?"
+
+Captain Kherlov pointed. "According to orders, we occupied the
+position along this road. Karsavin relieved me at five o'clock."
+
+Just then the door of the room opened, and there entered the
+Chairman of the Regimental Committee, with another soldier. They
+joined the group behind the Colonel, peering at the map.
+
+"Good," said the Colonel. "Now the Cossacks have fallen back ten
+kilometres in our sector. I do not think it is necessary to take up
+advanced positions. Gentlemen, for to-night you will hold the
+present line, strengthening the positions by--"
+
+"If you please," interrupted the Chairman of the Regimental
+Committee. "The orders are to advance with all speed, and prepare to
+engage the Cossacks north of Gatchina in the morning. A crushing
+defeat is necessary. Kindly make the proper dispositions."
+
+There was a short silence. The Colonel again turned to the map.
+"Very well," he said, in a different voice. "Stepan Georgevitch, you
+will please--" Rapidly tracing lines with a blue pencil, he gave his
+orders, while a sergeant made shorthand notes. The sergeant then
+withdrew, and ten minutes later returned with the orders
+typewritten, and one carbon copy. The Chairman of the Committee
+studied the map with a copy of the orders before him.
+
+"All right," he said, rising. Folding the carbon copy, he put it in
+his pocket. Then he signed the other, stamped it with a round seal
+taken from his pocket, and presented it to the Colonel....
+
+Here was the Revolution!
+
+I returned to the Soviet palace in Tsarskoye in the Regimental Staff
+automobile. Still the crowds of workers, soldiers and sailors
+pouring in and out, still the choking press of trucks, armoured
+cars, cannon before the door, and the shouting, the laughter of
+unwonted victory. Half a dozen Red Guards forced their way through,
+a priest in the middle. This was Father Ivan, they said, who had
+blessed the Cossacks when they entered the town. I heard afterward
+that he was shot.... (See App. IX, Sect. 4)
+
+Dybenko was just coming out, giving rapid orders right and left. In
+his hand he carried the big revolver. An automobile stood with
+racing engine at the kerb. Alone, he climbed in the rear seat, and
+was off-off to Gatchina, to conquer Kerensky.
+
+Toward nightfall he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and went
+on afoot. What Dybenko told the Cossacks nobody knows, but the fact
+is that General Krasnov and his staff and several thousand Cossacks
+surrendered, and advised Kerensky to do the same. (See App. IX,
+Sect. 5)
+
+As for Kerensky--I reprint here the deposition made by General
+Krasnov on the morning of November 14th:
+
+"Gatchina, November 14, 1917. To-day, about three o'clock (A. M.), I
+was summoned by the Supreme Commander (Kerensky). He was very
+agitated, and very nervous.
+
+"'General,' he said to me, 'you have betrayed me. Your Cossacks
+declare categorically that they will arrest me and deliver me to the
+sailors.'
+
+"'Yes,' I answered, 'there is talk of it, and I know that you have
+no sympathy anywhere.'
+
+"'But the officers say the same thing.'
+
+"'Yes, most of all it is the officers who are discontented with you.'
+
+"'What shall I do? I ought to commit suicide!'
+
+"'If you are an honorable man, you will go immediately to Petrograd
+with a white flag, you will present yourself to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, and enter into negotiations as Chief of the
+Provisional Government.'
+
+"'All right. I will do that, General.'
+
+"'I will give you a guard and ask that a sailor go with you.'
+
+"'No, no, not a sailor. Do you know whether it is true that Dybenko
+is here?'
+
+"'I don't know who Dybenko is.'
+
+"'He is my enemy.
+
+"'There is nothing to do. If you play for high stakes you must know
+how to take a chance.'
+
+"'Yes. I'll leave to-night!'
+
+"'Why? That would be a flight. Leave calmly and openly, so that
+every one can see that you are not running away.'
+
+"'Very well. But you must give me a guard on which I can count.'
+
+"'Good.'
+
+"I went out and called the Cossack Russkov, of the Tenth Regiment of
+the Don, and ordered him to pick out ten Cossacks to accompany the
+Supreme Commander. Half an hour later the Cossacks came to tell me
+that Kerensky was not in his quarters, that he had run away.
+
+"I gave the alarm and ordered that he be searched for, supposing
+that he could not have left Gatchina, but he could not be found...."
+
+And so Kerensky fled, alone, "disguised in the uniform of a sailor,"
+and by that act lost whatever popularity he had retained among the
+Russian masses....
+
+I went back to Petrograd riding on the front seat of an auto truck,
+driven by a workman and filled with Red Guards. We had no kerosene,
+so our lights were not burning. The road was crowded with the
+proletarian army going home, and new reserves pouring out to take
+their places. Immense trucks like ours, columns of artillery,
+wagons, loomed up in the night, without lights, as we were. We
+hurtled furiously on, wrenched right and left to avoid collisions
+that seemed inevitable, scraping wheels, followed by the epithets of
+pedestrians.
+
+Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital,
+immeasurably more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of
+jewels heaped on the barren plain.
+
+The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the
+other he swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture.
+
+"Mine!" he cried, his face all alight. "All mine now! My Petrograd!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+Moscow
+
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee, with a fierce intensity,
+followed up its victory:
+
+November 14th.
+
+To all Army, corps, divisional and regimental Committees, to all
+Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, to all, all,
+all.
+
+Conforming to the agreement between the Cossacks, _yunkers,_
+soldiers, sailors and workers, it has been decided to arraign
+Alexander Feodorvitch Kerensky before a tribunal of the people. We
+demand that Kerensky be arrested, and that he be ordered, in the name
+of the organisations hereinafter mentioned, to come immediately to
+Petrograd and present himself to the tribunal.
+
+Signed,
+
+_The Cossacks of the First Division of Ussuri Cavalry; the Committee
+of Yunkers of the Petrograd detachment of Franc-Tireurs; the delegate
+of the Fifth Army._
+
+People's Commissar DYBENKO.
+
+The Committee for Salvation, the Duma, the Central Committee of the
+Socialist Revolutionary party--proudly claiming Kerensky as a
+member--all passionately protested that he could only be held
+responsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+On the evening of November 16th I watched two thousand Red Guards
+swing down the Zagorodny Prospekt behind a military band playing the
+_Marseillaise_--and how appropriate it sounded--with blood-red flags
+over the dark ranks of workmen, to welcome home again their brothers
+who had defended "Red Petrograd." In the bitter dusk they tramped,
+men and women, their tall bayonets swaying; through streets faintly
+lighted and slippery with mud, between silent crowds of bourgeois,
+contemptuous but fearful....
+
+All were against them--business men, speculators, investors,
+land-owners, army officers, politicians, teachers, students,
+professional men, shop-keepers, clerks, agents. The other Socialist
+parties hated the Bolsheviki with an implacable hatred. On the side
+of the Soviets were the rank and file of the workers, the sailors,
+all the undemoralised soldiers, the landless peasants, and a few--a
+very few--intellectuals....
+
+From the farthest corners of great Russia, whereupon desperate
+street-fighting burst like a wave, news of Kerensky's defeat came
+echoing back the immense roar of proletarian victory. Kazan, Saratov,
+Novgorod, Vinnitza--where the streets had run with blood; Moscow,
+where the Bolsheviki had turned their artillery against the last
+strong-hold of the bourgeoisie--the Kremlin.
+
+"They are bombarding the Kremlin!" The news passed from mouth to
+mouth in the streets of Petrograd, almost with a sense of terror.
+Travellers from "white and shining little mother Moscow" told fearful
+tales. Thousands killed; the Tverskaya and the Kuznetsky Most in
+flames; the church of Vasili Blazheiny a smoking ruin; Usspensky
+Cathedral crumbling down; the Spasskaya Gate of the Kremlin
+tottering; the Duma burned to the ground. (See App. X, Sect. 1)
+
+Nothing that the Bolsheviki had done could compare with this fearful
+blasphemy in the heart of Holy Russia. To the ears of the devout
+sounded the shock of guns crashing in the face of the Holy Orthodox
+Church, and pounding to dust the sanctuary of the Russian nation....
+
+On November 15th, Lunatcharsky, Commissar of Education, broke into
+tears at the session of the Council of People's Commissars, and
+rushed from the room, crying, "I cannot stand it! I cannot bear the
+monstrous destruction of beauty and tradition...."
+
+That afternoon his letter of resignation was published in the
+newspapers:
+
+I have just been informed, by people arriving from Moscow, what has
+happened there.
+
+The Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, the Cathedral of the
+Assumption, are being bombarded. The Kremlin, where are now gathered
+the most important art treasures of Petrograd and of Moscow, is under
+artillery fire. There are thousands of victims.
+
+The fearful struggle there has reached a pitch of bestial ferocity.
+
+What is left? What more can happen?
+
+I cannot bear this. My cup is full. I am unable to endure these
+horrors. It is impossible to work under the pressure of thoughts
+which drive me mad!
+
+That is why I am leaving the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+I fully realise the gravity of this decision. But I can bear no
+more.... (See App. X, Sect. 2)
+
+That same day the White Guards and _yunkers_ in the Kremlin
+surrendered, and were allowed to march out unharmed. The treaty of
+peace follows:
+
+1. The Committee of Public Safety ceases to exist.
+
+2. The White Guard gives up its arms and dissolves. The officers
+retain their swords and regulations side-arms. In the Military
+Schools are retained only the arms necessary for instruction; all
+others are surrendered by the _yunkers._ The Military Revolutionary
+Committee guarantees the liberty and inviolability of the person.
+
+3. To settle the question of disarmament, as set forth in section 2,
+a special commission is appointed, consisting of representatives from
+all organisations which took part in the peace negotiations.
+
+4. From the moment of the signature of this peace treaty, both
+parties shall immediately give order to cease firing and halt all
+military operations, taking measures to ensure punctual obedience to
+this order.
+
+5. At the signature of the treaty, all prisoners made by the two
+parties shall be released....
+
+For two days now the Bolsheviki had been in control of the city. The
+frightened citizens were creeping out of their cellars to seek their
+dead; the barricades in the streets were being removed. Instead of
+diminishing, however, the stories of destruction in Moscow continued
+to grow.... And it was under the influence of these fearful reports
+that we decided to go there.
+
+Petrograd, after all, in spite of being for a century the seat of
+Government, is still an artificial city. Moscow is real Russia,
+Russia as it was and will be; in Moscow we would get the true feeling
+of the Russian people about the Revolution. Life was more intense
+there.
+
+For the past week the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee,
+aided by the rank and file of the Railway Workers, had seized control
+of the Nicolai Railroad, and hurled trainload after trainload of
+sailors and Red Guards southwest.... We were provided with passes from
+Smolny, without which no one could leave the capital.... When the train
+backed into the station, a mob of shabby soldiers, all carrying huge
+sacks of eatables, stormed the doors, smashed the windows, and poured
+into all the compartments, filling up the aisles and even climbing
+onto the roof. Three of us managed to wedge our way into a
+compartment, but almost immediately about twenty soldiers entered....
+There was room for only four people; we argued, expostulated, and the
+conductor joined us--but the soldiers merely laughed. Were they to
+bother about the comfort of a lot of _boorzhui_ (bourgeois)? We
+produced the passes from Smolny; instantly the soldiers changed their
+attitude.
+
+"Come, comrades," cried one, "these are American _tovarishtchi._ They
+have come thirty thousand versts to see our Revolution, and they are
+naturally tired...."
+
+With polite and friendly apologies the soldiers began to leave.
+Shortly afterward we heard them breaking into a compartment occupied
+by two stout, well-dressed Russians, who had bribed the conductor and
+locked their door....
+
+About seven o'clock in the evening we drew out of the station, an
+immense long train drawn by a weak little locomotive burning wood,
+and stumbled along slowly, with many stops. The soldiers on the roof
+kicked with their heels and sang whining peasant songs; and in the
+corridor, so jammed that it was impossible to pass, violent political
+debates raged all night long. Occasionally the conductor came
+through, as a matter of habit, looking for tickets. He found very few
+except ours, and after a half-hour of futile wrangling, lifted his
+arms despairingly and withdrew. The atmosphere was stifling, full of
+smoke and foul odours; if it hadn't been for the broken windows we
+would doubtless have smothered during the night.
+
+In the morning, hours late, we looked out upon a snowy world. It was
+bitter cold. About noon a peasant woman got on with a basket-full of
+bread-chunks and a great can of luke warm coffee-substitute. From
+then on until dark there was nothing but the packed train, jolting
+and stopping, and occasional stations where a ravenous mob swooped
+down on the scantily-furnished buffet and swept it clean.... At one of
+these halts I ran into Nogin and Rykov, the seceding Commissars, who
+were returning to Moscow to put their grievances before their own
+Soviet, and further along was Bukharin, a short, red-bearded man
+with the eyes of a fanatic--"more Left than Lenin," they said of him....
+
+Then the three strokes of the bell and we made a rush for the train,
+worming our way through the packed and noisy aisle.... A good-natured
+crowd, bearing the discomfort with humorous patience, interminably
+arguing about everything from the situation in Petrograd to the
+British Trade-Union system, and disputing loudly with the few
+_boorzhui_ who were on board. Before we reached Moscow almost every
+car had organised a Committee to secure and distribute food, and
+these Committees became divided into political factions, who wrangled
+over fundamental principles....
+
+The station at Moscow was deserted. We went to the office of the
+Commissar, in order to arrange for our return tickets. He was a
+sullen youth with the shoulder-straps of a Lieutenant; when we showed
+him our papers from Smolny, he lost his temper and declared that he
+was no Bolshevik, that he represented the Committee of Public
+Safety.... It was characteristic--in the general turmoil attending the
+conquest of the city, the chief railway station had been forgotten by
+the victors....
+
+Not a cab in sight. A few blocks down the street, however, we woke up
+a grotesquely-padded _izvostchik_ asleep upright on the box of his
+little sleigh. "How much to the centre of the town?"
+
+He scratched his head. "The _barini_ won't be able to find a room in
+any hotel," he said. "But I'll take you around for a hundred
+rubles...." Before the Revolution it cost _two!_ We objected, but he
+simply shrugged his shoulders. "It takes a good deal of courage to
+drive a sleigh nowadays," he went on. We could not beat him down
+below fifty.... As we sped along the silent, snowy half-lighted
+streets, he recounted his adventures during the six days' fighting.
+"Driving along, or waiting for a fare on the corner," he said, "all
+of a sudden _pooff!_ a cannon ball exploding here, _pooff!_ a cannon
+ball there, _ratt-ratt!_ a machine-gun.... I gallop, the devils
+shooting all around. I get to a nice quiet street and stop, doze a
+little, _pooff!_ another cannon ball, _ratt-ratt_.... Devils! Devils!
+Devils! Brrr!"
+
+In the centre of the town the snow-piled streets were quiet with the
+stillness of convalescence. Only a few arc-lights were burning, only
+a few pedestrians hurried along the side-walks. An icy wind blew from
+the great plain, cutting to the bone. At the first hotel we entered
+an office illuminated by two candles.
+
+"Yes, we have some very comfortable rooms, but all the windows are
+shot out. If the _gospodin_ does not mind a little fresh air...."
+
+Down the Tverskaya the shop-windows were broken, and there were
+shell-holes and torn-up paving stones in the street. Hotel after
+hotel, all full, or the proprietors still so frightened that all they
+could say was, "No, no, there is no room! There is no room!" On the
+main streets, where the great banking-houses and mercantile houses
+lay, the Bolshevik artillery had been indiscriminately effective. As
+one Soviet official told me, "Whenever we didn't know just where the
+_yunkers_ and White Guards were, we bombarded their pocketbooks...."
+
+At the big Hotel National they finally took us in; for we were
+foreigners, and the Military Revolutionary Committee had promised to
+protect the dwellings of foreigners.... On the top floor the manager
+showed us where shrapnel had shattered several windows. "The
+animals!" said he, shaking his first at imaginary Bolsheviki. "But
+wait! Their time will come; in just a few days now their ridiculous
+Government will fall, and then we shall make them suffer!"
+
+We dined at a vegetarian restaurant with the enticing name, "I Eat
+Nobody," and Tolstoy's picture prominent on the walls, and then
+sallied out into the streets.
+
+The headquarters of the Moscow Soviet was in the palace of the former
+Governor-General, an imposing white building fronting Skobeliev
+Square. Red Guards stood sentry at the door. At the head of the wide,
+formal stairway, whose walls were plastered with announcements of
+committee-meetings and addresses of political parties, we passed
+through a series of lofty ante-rooms, hung with red-shrouded pictures
+in gold frames, to the splendid state salon, with its magnificent
+crystal lustres and gilded cornices. A low-voiced hum of talk,
+underlaid with the whirring bass of a score of sewing machines,
+filled the place. Huge bolts of red and black cotton cloth were
+unrolled, serpentining across the parqueted floor and over tables, at
+which sat half a hundred women, cutting and sewing streamers and
+banners for the Funeral of the Revolutionary Dead. The faces of these
+women were roughened and scarred with life at its most difficult;
+they worked now sternly, many of them with eyes red from weeping....
+The losses of the Red Army had been heavy.
+
+At a desk in one corner was Rogov, an intelligent, bearded man with
+glasses, wearing the black blouse of a worker. He invited us to march
+with the Central Executive Committee in the funeral procession next
+morning....
+
+"It is impossible to teach the Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Mensheviki anything!" he exclaimed. "They compromise from sheer
+habit. Imagine! They proposed that we hold a joint funeral with the
+_yunkers!"_
+
+[Graphic, page 251: Questionaire for the Bourgeoioisie]
+
+Distributed to all bourgeois households in Moscow by the Moscow
+Military Revolutionary Commitee, so as to provide a basis for the
+requisition of clothing for the Army and the poor workers. For
+translation see Appendix 3. (See App. X, Sect. 3)
+
+Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and _shapka,_
+whose face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known
+as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the
+great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the
+Moscow Metal-Workers' Union, and a Commissar of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee during the fighting....
+
+"You see me!" he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. "I was with
+the boys in the Kremlin when the _yunkers_ came the first time. They
+shut me up in the cellar and swiped my overcoat, my money, watch and
+even the ring on my finger. This is all I've got to wear!"
+
+From him I learned many details of the bloody six-day battle which
+had rent Moscow in two. Unlike in Petrograd, in Moscow the City Duma
+had taken command of the _yunkers_ and White Guards. Rudnev, the
+Mayor, and Minor, president of the Duma, had directed the activities
+of the Committee of Public Safety and the troops. Riabtsev,
+Commandant of the city, a man of democratic instincts, had hesitated
+about opposing the Military Revolutionary Committee; but the Duma had
+forced him.... It was the Mayor who had urged the occupation of the
+Kremlin; "They will never dare fire on you there," he said....
+
+One garrison regiment, badly demoralised by long inactivity, had been
+approached by both sides. The regiment held a meeting to decide what
+action to take. Resolved, that the regiment remain neutral, and
+continue its present activities--which consisted in peddling rubbers
+and sunflower seeds!
+
+"But worst of all," said Melnichansky, "we had to organise while we
+were fighting. The other side knew just what it wanted; but here the
+soldiers had their Soviet and the workers theirs.... There was a
+fearful wrangle over who should be Commander-in-chief; some regiments
+talked for days before they decided what to do; and when the officers
+suddenly deserted us, we had no battle-staff to give orders...."
+
+Vivid little pictures he gave me. On a cold grey day he had stood at
+a corner of the Nikitskaya, which was swept by blasts of machine-gun
+fire. A throng of little boys were gathered there--street waifs who
+used to be newsboys. Shrill, excited as if with a new game, they
+waited until the firing slackened, and then tried to run across the
+street.... Many were killed, but the rest dashed backward and forward,
+laughing, daring each other....
+
+Late in the evening I went to the _Dvorianskoye Sobranie_--the Nobles'
+Club--where the Moscow Bolsheviki were to meet and consider the report
+of Nogin, Rykov and the others who had left the Council of People's
+Commissars.
+
+The meeting-place was a theatre, in which, under the old regime, to
+audiences of officers and glittering ladies, amateur presentations of
+the latest French comedy had once taken place.
+
+At first the place filled with the intellectuals--those who lived near
+the centre of the town. Nogin spoke, and most of his listeners were
+plainly with him. It was very late before the workers arrived; the
+working-class quarters were on the outskirts of the town, and no
+street-cars were running. But about midnight they began to clump up
+the stairs, in groups of ten or twenty--big, rough men, in coarse
+clothes, fresh from the battle-line, where they had fought like
+devils for a week, seeing their comrades fall all about them.
+
+Scarcely had the meeting formally opened before Nogin was assailed
+with a tempest of jeers and angry shouts. In vain he tried to argue,
+to explain; they would not listen. He had left the Council of
+People's Commissars; he had deserted his post while the battle was
+raging. As for the bourgeois press, here in Moscow there was no more
+bourgeois press; even the City Duma had been dissolved. (See App. X,
+Sect. 4) Bukharin stood up, savage, logical, with a voice which
+plunged and struck, plunged and struck.... Him they listened to with
+shining eyes. Resolution, to support the action of the Council of
+People's Commissars, passed by overwhelming majority. So spoke
+Moscow....
+
+[Graphic, page 254: Pass to the Kremlin]
+
+By this the Military Revolutionary Commitee requests to give a pass
+for the purpose of investigating the Kremlin, the representatives of
+the American Socialist party attached to the Socialist press,
+comrades Reed and Bryant.
+              Chief of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+                              For the Secretary
+
+Late in the night we went through the empty streets and under the
+Iberian Gate to the great Red Square in front of the Kremlin. The
+church of Vasili Blazheiny loomed fantastic, its bright-coloured,
+convoluted and blazoned cupolas vague in the darkness. There was no
+sign of any damage.... Along one side of the square the dark towers and
+walls of the Kremlin stood up. On the high walls flickered redly the
+light of hidden flames; voices reached us across the immense place,
+and the sound of picks and shovels. We crossed over.
+
+Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall.
+Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen
+feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and
+workers were digging in the light of huge fires.
+
+A young student spoke to us in German. "The Brotherhood Grave," he
+explained. "To-morrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians
+who died for the Revolution."
+
+He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and
+shovels, and the earth--mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the
+night was thick with stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall
+towered up immeasurably.
+
+"Here in this holy place," said the student, "holiest of all Russia,
+we shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars,
+our Tsar--the People--shall sleep...." His arm was in a sling, from a
+bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. "You foreigners
+look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a mediaeval
+monarchy," said he. "But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant
+in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the
+world capitalism was Emperor.... Russian revolutionary tactics are
+best...."
+
+As we left, the workers in the pit, exhausted and running with sweat
+in spite of the cold, began to climb wearily out. Across the Red
+Square a dark knot of men came hurrying. They swarmed into the pits,
+picked up the tools and began digging, digging, without a word....
+
+So, all the long night volunteers of the People relieved each other,
+never halting in their driving speed, and the cold light of the dawn
+laid bare the great Square, white with snow, and the yawning brown
+pits of the Brotherhood Grave, quite finished.
+
+We rose before sunrise, and hurried through the dark streets to
+Skobeliev Square. In all the great city not a human being could be
+seen; but there was a faint sound of stirring, far and near, like a
+deep wind coming. In the pale half-light a little group of men and
+women were gathered before the Soviet headquarters, with a sheaf of
+gold-lettered red banners--the Central Executive Committee of the
+Moscow Soviets. It grew light. From afar the vague stirring sound
+deepened and became louder, a steady and tremendous bass. The city
+was rising. We set out down the Tverskaya, the banners flapping
+overhead. The little street chapels along our way were locked and
+dark, as was the Chapel of the Iberian Virgin, which each new Tsar
+used to visit before he went to the Kremlin to crown himself, and
+which, day or night, was always open and crowded, and brilliant with
+the candles of the devout gleaming on the gold and silver and jewels
+of the ikons. Now, for the first time since Napoleon was in Moscow,
+they say, the candles were out.
+
+The Holy Orthodox Church had withdrawn the light of its countenance
+from Moscow, the nest of irreverent vipers who had bombarded the
+Kremlin. Dark and silent and cold were the churches; the priests had
+disappeared. There were no popes to officiate at the Red Burial,
+there had been no sacrament for the dead, nor were any prayers to be
+said over the grave of the blasphemers. Tikhon, Metropolitan of
+Moscow, was soon to excommunicate the Soviets....
+
+Also the shops were closed, and the propertied classes stayed at
+home--but for other reasons. This was the Day of the People, the
+rumour of whose coming was thunderous as surf....
+
+Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the
+vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I
+remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always
+before the passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice
+it....
+
+We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin
+wall, and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men
+were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected
+Commandant of Moscow--a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a
+gentle face.
+
+Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people
+poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the
+poor and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the
+_Internationale,_ and spontaneously the song caught and spread like
+wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin
+wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters
+in gold and in white, saying, "Martyrs of the Beginning of World
+Social Revolution," and "Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the
+World."
+
+A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far
+quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were
+arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the
+Gate, the blare of their banners, and the dull red--like blood--of the
+coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplaned wood
+and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who
+marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women
+who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces.
+Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others
+were covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier's hat
+nailed on the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial
+flowers....
+
+Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession
+slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless
+stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering,
+knots of crepe hanging from the top--and some Anarchist flags, black
+with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral
+March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people,
+standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs....
+
+Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their
+coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and
+artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black--forever, it
+seemed. Their banners said, "Long live the Third International!" or
+"We Want an Honest, General, Democratic Peace!"
+
+Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the
+grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down
+into the pit. Many of them were women--squat, strong proletarian
+women. Behind the dead came other women--women young and broken, or
+old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to
+follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and
+shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each
+other so!
+
+All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the
+Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river
+of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous
+prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people,--under the
+eyes of the world's workers and their descendants forever....
+
+One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell,
+and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played
+the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless
+branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like
+strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in
+the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding
+sound, audible beneath the singing....
+
+The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning
+women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from
+the great Square ebbed the proletarian tide....
+
+I suddenly realised that the devout Russian people no longer needed
+priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a
+kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it
+was a glory to die....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Conquest of Power (See App. XI, Sect. 1)
+
+
+DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA (See App. XI,
+Sect. 2)
+
+... The first Congress of Soviets, in June of this year, proclaimed
+the right of the peoples of Russia to self-determination.
+
+The second Congress of Soviets, in November last, confirmed this
+inalienable right of the peoples of Russia more decisively and
+definitely.
+
+Executing the will of these Congresses, the Council of People's
+Commissars has resolved to establish as a basis for its activity in
+the question of Nationalities, the following principles:
+
+(1) The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia.
+
+(2) The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination,
+even to the point of separation and the formation of an independent
+state.
+
+(3) The abolition of any and all national and national religious
+privileges and disabilities.
+
+(4) The free development of national minorities and ethnographic
+groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.
+
+Decrees will be prepared immediately upon the formation of a
+Commission on Nationalities.
+
+In the name of the Russian Republic,
+
+People's Commissar for Nationalities
+
+YUSSOV DJUGASHVILI-STALIN
+
+President of the Council of People's Commissars
+
+V. ULIANOV (LENIN)
+
+The Central Rada at Kiev immediately declared Ukraine an independent
+Republic, as did the Government of Finland, through the Senate at
+Helsingfors. Independent "Governments" spring up in Siberia and the
+Caucasus. The Polish Chief Military Committee swiftly gathered
+together the Polish troops in the Russian army, abolished their
+Committees and established an iron discipline....
+
+All these "Governments" and "movements" had two characteristics in
+common; they were controlled by the propertied classes, and they
+feared and detested Bolshevism....
+
+Steadily, amid the chaos of shocking change, the Council of People's
+Commissars hammered at the scaffolding of the Socialist order.
+Decree on Social Insurance, on Workers' Control, Regulations for
+Volost Land Committees, Abolition of Ranks and Titles, Abolition of
+Courts and the Creation of People's Tribunals.... (See App. XI, Sect.
+3)
+
+Army after army, fleet after fleet, sent deputations, "joyfully to
+greet the new Government of the People."
+
+In front of Smolny, one day, I saw a ragged regiment just come from
+the trenches. The soldiers were drawn up before the great gates,
+thin and grey-faced, looking up at the building as if God were in
+it. Some pointed out the Imperial eagles over the door, laughing....
+Red Guards came to mount guard. All the soldiers turned to look,
+curiously, as if they had heard of them but never seen them. They
+laughed good-naturedly and pressed out of line to slap the Red
+Guards on the back, with half-joking, half-admiring remarks....
+
+The Provisional Government was no more. On November 15th, in all the
+churches of the capital, the priests stopped praying for it. But as
+Lenin himself told the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ that was "only the beginning
+of the conquest of power." Deprived of arms, the opposition, which
+still controlled the economic life of the country, settled down to
+organise disorganisation, with all the Russian genius for
+cooperative action--to obstruct, cripple and discredit the Soviets.
+
+The strike of Government employees was well organised, financed by
+the banks and commercial establishments. Every move of the
+Bolsheviki to take over the Government apparatus was resisted.
+
+Trotzky went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the functionaries
+refused to recognise him, locked themselves in, and when the doors
+were forced, resigned. He demanded the keys of the archives; only
+when he brought workmen to force the locks were they given up. Then
+it was discovered that Neratov, former assistant Foreign Minister,
+had disappeared with the Secret Treaties....
+
+Shliapnikov tried to take possession of the Ministry of Labour. It
+was bitterly cold, and there was no one to light the fires. Of all
+the hundreds of employees, not one would show him where the office
+of the Minister was....
+
+Alexandra Kollontai, appointed the 13th of November Commissar
+of Public Welfare--the department of charities and public
+institutions--was welcomed with a strike of all but forty of the
+functionaries in the Ministry. Immediately the poor of the great
+cities, the inmates of institutions, were plunged in miserable want:
+delegations of starving cripples, of orphans with blue, pinched
+faces, besieged the building. With tears streaming down her face,
+Kollontai arrested the strikers until they should deliver the keys
+of the office and the safe; when she got the keys, however, it was
+discovered that the former Minister, Countess Panina, had gone off
+with all the funds, which she refused to surrender except on the
+order of the Constituent Assembly. (See App. XI, Sect. 4)
+
+In the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Supplies, the
+Ministry of Finance, similar incidents occurred. And the employees,
+summoned to return or forfeit their positions and their pensions,
+either stayed away or returned to sabotage.... Almost all the
+_intelligentzia_ being anti-Bolshevik, there was nowhere for the
+Soviet Government to recruit new staffs....
+
+The private banks remained stubbornly closed, with a back door open
+for speculators. When Bolshevik Commissars entered, the clerks left,
+secreting the books and removing the funds. All the employees of the
+State Bank struck except the clerks in charge of the vaults and the
+manufacture of money, who refused all demands from Smolny and
+privately paid out huge sums to the Committee for Salvation and the
+City Duma.
+
+Twice a Commissar, with a company of Red Guards, came formally to
+insist upon the delivery of large sums for Government expenses. The
+first time, the City Duma members and the Menshevik and Socialist
+Revolutionary leaders were present in imposing numbers, and spoke so
+gravely of the consequences that the Commissar was frightened. The
+second time he arrived with a warrant, which he proceeded to read
+aloud in due form; but some one called his attention to the fact
+that it had no date and no seal, and the traditional Russian respect
+for "documents" forced him again to withdraw....
+
+The officials of the Credit Chancery destroyed their books, so that
+all record of the financial relations of Russia with foreign
+countries was lost.
+
+The Supply Committees, the administrations of the Municipal-owned
+public utilities, either did not work at all, or sabotaged. And when
+the Bolsheviki, compelled by the desperate needs of the city
+population, attempted to help or to control the public service, all
+the employees went on strike immediately, and the Duma flooded
+Russia with telegrams about Bolshevik "violation of Municipal
+autonomy."
+
+At Military headquarters, and in the offices of the Ministries of
+War and Marine, where the old officials had consented to work, the
+Army Committees and the high command blocked the Soviets in every
+way possible, even to the extent of neglecting the troops at the
+front. The _Vikzhel_ was hostile, refusing to transport Soviet
+troops; every troop-train that left Petrograd was taken out by
+force, and railway officials had to be arrested each time--whereupon
+the _Vikzhel_ threatened an immediate general strike unless they
+were released....
+
+Smolny was plainly powerless. The newspapers said that all the
+factories of Petrograd must shut down for lack of fuel in three
+weeks; the _Vikzhel_ announced that trains must cease running by
+December first; there was food for three days only in Petrograd, and
+no more coming in; and the Army on the Front was starving.... The
+Committee for Salvation, the various Central Committees, sent word
+all over the country, exhorting the population to ignore the
+Government decrees. And the Allied Embassies were either coldly
+indifferent, or openly hostile....
+
+The opposition newspapers, suppressed one day and reappearing next
+morning under new names, heaped bitter sarcasm on the new regime.
+(See App. XI, Sect. 5) Even _Novaya Zhizn_ characterised it as "a
+combination of demagoguery and impotence."
+
+From day to day (it said) the Government of the People's Commissars
+sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of superficial haste. Having
+easily conquered the power... the Bolsheviki can not make use of it.
+
+Powerless to direct the existing mechanism of Government, they are
+unable at the same time to create a new one which might work easily
+and freely according to the theories of social experimenters.
+
+Just a little while ago the Bolsheviki hadn't enough men to run
+their growing party--a work above all of speakers and writers; where
+then are they going to find trained men to execute the diverse and
+complicated functions of government?
+
+The new Government acts and threatens, it sprays the country with
+decrees, each one more radical and more "socialist" than the last.
+But in this exhibition of Socialism on Paper--more likely designed
+for the stupefaction of our descendants--there appears neither the
+desire nor the capacity to solve the immediate problems of the day!
+
+Meanwhile the _Vikzhel's_ Conference to Form a New Government
+continued to meet night and day. Both sides had already agreed in
+principle to the basis of the Government; the composition of the
+People's Council was being discussed; the Cabinet was tentatively
+chosen, with Tchernov as Premier; the Bolsheviki were admitted in a
+large minority, but Lenin and Trotzky were barred. The Central
+Committees of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, the
+Executive Committee of the Peasant's Soviets, resolved that,
+although unalterably opposed to the "criminal politics" of the
+Bolsheviki, they would, "in order to halt the fratricidal
+bloodshed," not oppose their entrance into the People's Council.
+
+The flight of Kerensky, however, and the astounding success of the
+Soviets everywhere, altered the situation. On the 16th, in a meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Left Socialist Revolutionaries insisted
+that the Bolsheviki should form a coalition Government with the
+other Socialist parties; otherwise they would withdraw from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and the _Tsay-ee-kah._ Malkin said,
+"The news from Moscow, where our comrades are dying on both sides of
+the barricades, determines us to bring up once more the question of
+organisation of power, and it is not only our right to do so, but
+our duty.... We have won the right to sit with the Bolsheviki here
+within the walls of Smolny Institute, and to speak from this
+tribune. After the bitter internal party struggle, we shall be
+obliged, if you refuse to compromise, to pass to open battle
+outside.... We must propose to the democracy terms of an acceptable
+compromise...."
+
+After a recess to consider this ultimatum, the Bolsheviki returned
+with a resolution, read by Kameniev:
+
+The _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it necessary that there enter into the
+Government representatives of _all the Socialist parties composing
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies who
+recognise the conquests of the Revolution of November 7th--that is to
+say, the establishment of a Government of Soviets, the decrees on
+peace, land, workers' control over industry, and the arming of the
+working-class._ The _Tsay-ee-kah_ therefore resolves to propose
+negotiations concerning the constitution of the Government to all
+parties _of the Soviet,_ and insists upon the following conditions
+as a basis:
+
+The Government is responsible to the _Tsay-ee-kah._ The
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ shall be enlarged to 150 members. To these 150
+delegates of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall be
+added 75 delegates of the _Provincial_ Soviets of Peasants'
+Deputies, 80 from the Front organisations of the Army and Navy, 40
+from the Trade Unions (25 from the various All-Russian Unions, in
+proportion to their importance, 10 from the _Vikzhel,_ and 5 from
+the Post and Telegraph Workers), and 50 delegates from the Socialist
+groups in the Petrograd City Duma. In the Ministry itself, at least
+one-half the portfolios must be reserved to the Bolsheviki. The
+Ministries of Labour, Interior and Foreign Affairs must be given to
+the Bolsheviki. The command of the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow
+must remain in the hands of delegates of the Moscow and Petrograd
+Soviets.
+
+The Government undertakes the systematic arming of the workers of
+all Russia.
+
+It is resolved to insist upon the candidature of comrades Lenin and
+Trotzky.
+
+Kameniev explained. "The so-called 'People's Council,'" he said,
+"proposed by the Conference, would consist of about 420 members, of
+which about 150 would be Bolsheviki. Besides, there would be
+delegates from the counter-revolutionary old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ 100
+members chosen by the Municipal Dumas--Kornilovtsi all; 100 delegates
+from the Peasants' Soviets--appointed by Avksentiev, and 80 from the
+old Army Committees, who no longer represent the soldier masses.
+
+"We refuse to admit the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and also the
+representatives of the Municipal Dumas. The delegates from the
+Peasants' Soviets shall be elected by the Congress of Peasants,
+which we have called, and which will at the same time elect a new
+Executive Committee. The proposal to exclude Lenin and Trotzky is a
+proposal to decapitate our party, and we do not accept it. And
+finally, we see no necessity for a 'People's Council' anyway; the
+Soviets are open to all Socialist parties, and the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+represents them in their real proportions among the masses...."
+
+Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared that his
+party would vote for the Bolshevik resolution, reserving the right
+to modify certain details, such as the representation of the
+peasants, and demanding that the Ministry of Agriculture be reserved
+for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. This was agreed to....
+
+Later, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky answered a
+question about the formation of the new Government:
+
+"I don't know anything about that. I am not taking part in the
+negotiations.... However, I don't think that they are of great
+importance...."
+
+That night there was great uneasiness in the Conference. The
+delegates of the City Duma withdrew....
+
+But at Smolny itself, in the ranks of the Bolshevik party, a
+formidable opposition to Lenin's policy was growing. On the night of
+November 17th the great hall was packed and ominous for the meeting
+of the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+Larin, Bolshevik, declared that the moment of elections to the
+Constituent Assembly approached, and it was time to do away with
+"political terrorism."
+
+"The measures taken against the freedom of the press should be
+modified. They had their reason during the struggle, but now they
+have no further excuse. The press should be free, except for appeals
+to riot and insurrection."
+
+In a storm of hisses and hoots from his own party, Larin offered the
+following resolution:
+
+The decree of the Council of People's Commissars concerning the
+Press is herewith repealed.
+
+Measures of political repression can only be employed subject to
+decision of a special tribunal, elected by the _Tsay-ee-kah_
+proportionally to the strength of the different parties represented;
+and this tribunal shall have the right also to reconsider measures
+of repression already taken.
+
+This was met by a thunder of applause, not only from the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, but also from a part of the Bolsheviki.
+
+Avanessov, for the Leninites, hastily proposed that the question of
+the Press be postponed until after some compromise between the
+Socialist parties had been reached. Overwhelmingly voted down.
+
+"The revolution which is now being accomplished," went on Avanessov,
+"has not hesitated to attack private property; and it is as private
+property that we must examine the question of the Press...."
+
+Thereupon he read the official Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The suppression of the bourgeois press was dictated not only by
+purely military needs in the course of the insurrection, and for the
+checking of counter-revolutionary action, but it is also necessary
+as a measure of transition toward the establishment of a new regime
+with regard to the Press--a regime under which the capitalist owners
+of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all-powerful and
+exclusive manufacturers of public opinion.
+
+We must further proceed to the confiscation of private printing
+plants and supplies of paper, which should become the property of
+the Soviets, both in the capital and in the provinces, so that the
+political parties and groups can make use of the facilities of
+printing in proportion to the actual strength of the ideas they
+represent--in other words, proportionally to the number of their
+constituents.
+
+The reestablishment of the so-called "freedom of the press," the simple
+return of printing presses and paper to the capitalists,--poisoners
+of the mind of the people--this would be an inadmissible surrender
+to the will of capital, a giving up of one of the most important
+conquests of the Revolution; in other words, it would be a measure
+of unquestionably counter-revolutionary character.
+
+Proceeding from the above, the _Tsay-ee-kah_ categorically rejects
+all propositions aiming at the reestablishment of the old regime in
+the domain of the Press, and unequivocally supports the point of
+view of the Council of People's Commissars on this question, against
+pretentions and ultimatums dictated by petty bourgeois prejudices,
+or by evident surrender to the interests of the counter-revolutionary
+bourgeoisie.
+
+The reading of this resolution was interrupted by ironical shouts
+from the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and bursts of indignation
+from the insurgent Bolsheviki. Karelin was on his feet, protesting.
+"Three weeks ago the Bolsheviki were the most ardent defenders of
+the freedom of the Press... The arguments in this resolution suggest
+singularly the point of view of the old Black Hundreds and the
+censors of the Tsarist regime--for they also talked of 'poisoners of
+the mind of the people.'"
+
+Trotzky spoke at length in favour of the resolution. He
+distinguished between the Press during the civil war, and the Press
+after the victory. "During civil war the right to use violence
+belongs only to the oppressed...." (Cries of "Who's the oppressed now?
+Cannibal!").
+
+"The victory over our adversaries is not yet achieved, and the
+newspapers are arms in their hands. In these conditions, the closing
+of the newspapers is a legitimate measure of defence...." Then passing
+to the question of the Press after the victory, Trotzky continued:
+
+"The attitude of Socialists on the question of freedom of the Press
+should be the same as their attitude toward the freedom of
+business.... The rule of the democracy which is being established in
+Russia demands that the domination of the Press by private property
+must be abolished, just as the domination of industry by private
+property.... The power of the Soviets should confiscate all
+printing-plants." (Cries, "Confiscate the printing-shop of
+_Pravda!_")
+
+"The monopoly of the Press by the bourgeoisie must be abolished.
+Otherwise it isn't worth while for us to take the power! Each group
+of citizens should have access to print shops and paper.... The
+ownership of print-type and of paper belongs first to the workers
+and peasants, and only afterwards to the bourgeois parties, which
+are in a minority.... The passing of the power into the hands of the
+Soviets will bring about a radical transformation of the essential
+conditions of existence, and this transformation will necessarily be
+evident in the Press.... If we are going to nationalise the banks, can
+we then tolerate the financial journals? The old regime must die;
+that must be understood once and for all...." Applause and angry cries.
+
+Karelin declared that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ had no right to pass upon
+this important question, which should be left to a special
+committee. Again, passionately, he demanded that the Press be free.
+
+Then Lenin, calm, unemotional, his forehead wrinkled, as he spoke
+slowly, choosing his words; each sentence falling like a
+hammer-blow. "The civil war is not yet finished; the enemy is still
+with us; consequently it is impossible to abolish the measures of
+repression against the Press.
+
+"We Bolsheviki have always said that when we reached a position of
+power we would close the bourgeois press. To tolerate the bourgeois
+newspapers would mean to cease being a Socialist. When one makes a
+Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward--or go
+back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the Press' goes
+backward, and halts our headlong course toward Socialism.
+
+"We have thrown off the yoke of capitalism, just as the first
+revolution threw off the yoke of Tsarism. _If the first revolution
+had the right to suppress the Monarchist papers,_ then we have the
+right to suppress the bourgeois press. It is impossible to separate
+the question of the freedom of the Press from the other questions of
+the class struggle. We have promised to close these newspapers, and
+we shall do it. The immense majority of the people is with us!
+
+"Now that the insurrection is over, we have absolutely no desire to
+suppress the papers of the other Socialist parties, except inasmuch
+as they appeal to armed insurrection, or to disobedience to the
+Soviet Government. However, we shall not permit them, under the
+pretence of freedom of the Socialist press, to obtain, through the
+secret support of the bourgeoisie, a monopoly of printing-presses,
+ink and paper.... These essentials must become the property of the
+Soviet Government, and be apportioned, first of all, to the
+Socialist parties in strict proportion to their voting strength...."
+
+Then the vote. The resolution of Larin and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries was defeated by 31 to 22; the Lenin motion was
+carried by 34 to 24. Among the minority were the Bolsheviki Riazanov
+and Lozovsky, who declared that it was impossible for them to vote
+against any restriction on the freedom of the Press.
+
+Upon this the Left Socialist Revolutionaries declared they could no
+longer be responsible for what was being done, and withdrew from the
+Military Revolutionary Committee and all other positions of
+executive responsibility.
+
+Five members--Nogin, Rykov, Miliutin, Teodorovitch and
+Shiapnikov--resigned from the Council of People's Commissars,
+declaring:
+
+We are in favour of a Socialist Government composed of all the
+parties in the Soviets. We consider that only the creation of such a
+Government can possibly guarantee the results of the heroic struggle
+of the working-class and the revolutionary army. Outside of that,
+there remains only one way: the constitution of a purely Bolshevik
+Government by means of political terrorism. This last is the road
+taken by the Council of People's Commissars. We cannot and will not
+follow it. We see that this leads directly to the elimination from
+political life of many proletarian organisations, to the
+establishment of an irresponsible regime, and to the destruction of
+the Revolution and the country. We cannot take the responsibility
+for such a policy, and we renounce before the _Tsay-ee-kah_ our
+function as People's Commissars.
+
+Other Commissars, without resigning their positions, signed the
+declaration--Riazanov, Derbychev of the Press Department, Arbuzov, of
+the Government Printing-plant, Yureniev, of the Red Guard, Feodorov,
+of the Commissariat of Labour, and Larin, secretary of the Section
+of Elaboration of Decrees.
+
+At the same time Kameniev, Rykov, Miliutin, Zinoviev and Nogin
+resigned from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, making
+public their reasons:
+
+... The constitution of such a Government (composed of all the parties
+of the Soviet) is indispensable to prevent a new flow of blood, the
+coming famine, the destruction of the Revolution by the Kaledinists,
+to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the proper
+time, and to apply effectively the programme adopted by the Congress
+of Soviets....
+
+We cannot accept the responsibility for the disastrous policy of the
+Central Committee, carried on against the will of an enormous
+majority of the proletariat and the soldiers, who are eager to see
+the rapid end of the bloodshed between the different political
+parties of the democracy.... We renounce our title as members of the
+Central Committee, in order to be able to say openly our opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers....
+
+We leave the Central Committee at the moment of victory; we cannot
+calmly look on while the policy of the chiefs of the Central
+Committee leads toward the loss of the fruits of victory and the
+crushing of the proletariat....
+
+The masses of the workers, the soldiers of the garrison, stirred
+restlessly, sending their delegations to Smolny, to the Conference
+for Formation of the New Government, where the break in the ranks of
+the Bolsheviki caused the liveliest joy.
+
+But the answer of the Leninites was swift and ruthless. Shliapnikov
+and Teodorovitch submitted to party discipline and returned to their
+posts. Kameniev was stripped of his powers as president of the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and Sverdlov elected in his place. Zinoviev was
+deposed as president of the Petrograd Soviet. On the morning of the
+5th, _Pravda_ contained a ferocious proclamation to the people of
+Russia, written by Lenin, which was printed in hundreds of thousands
+of copies, posted on the walls everywhere, and distributed over the
+face of Russia.
+
+The second All-Russian Congress of Soviets gave the majority to the
+Bolshevik party. Only a Government formed by this party can
+therefore be a Soviet Government. And it is known to all that the
+Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, a few hours before the
+formation of the new Government and before proposing the list of its
+members to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, invited to its
+meeting three of the most eminent members of the Left Socialist
+Revolutionary group, comrades Kamkov, Spiro and Karelin, and ASKED
+THEM to participate in the new Government. We regret infinitely that
+the invited comrades refused; we consider their refusal inadmissible
+for revolutionists and champions of the working-class; we are
+willing at any time to include the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in
+the Government; but we declare that, as the party of the majority at
+the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, we are entitled and
+BOUND before the people to form a Government....
+
+... Comrades! Several members of the Central Committee of our party
+and the Council of People's Commissars, Kameniev, Zinoviev, Nogin,
+Rykov, Miliutin and a few others left yesterday, November 17th, the
+Central Committee of our party, and the last three, the Council of
+People's Commissars....
+
+The comrades who left us acted like deserters, because they not only
+abandoned the posts entrusted to them, but also disobeyed the direct
+instructions of the Central Committee of our party, to the effect
+that they should await the decisions of the Petrograd and Moscow
+party organisations before retiring. We blame decisively such
+desertion. We are firmly convinced that all conscious workers,
+soldiers and peasants, belonging to our party or sympathising with
+it, will also disapprove of the behaviour of the deserters....
+
+Remember, comrades, that two of these deserters, Kameniev and
+Zinoviev, even before the uprising in Petrograd, appeared as
+deserters and strike-breakers, by voting at the decisive meeting of
+the Central Committee, October 23d, 1917, against the insurrection;
+and even AFTER the resolution passed by the Central Committee, they
+continued their campaign at a meeting of the party workers.... But the
+great impulse of the masses, the great heroism of millions of
+workers, soldiers and peasants, in Moscow, Petrograd, at the front,
+in the trenches, in the villages, pushed aside the deserters as a
+railway train scatters saw-dust....
+
+Shame upon those who are of little faith, hesitate, who doubt, who
+allow themselves to be frightened by the bourgeoisie, or who succumb
+before the cries of the latter's direct or indirect accomplices!
+There is NOT A SHADOW of hesitation in the MASSES of Petrograd,
+Moscow, and the rest of Russia....
+
+... We shall not submit to any ultimatums from small groups of
+intellectuals which are not followed by the masses, which are
+PRACTICALLY only supported by Kornilovists, Savinkovists, _yunkers,_
+and so forth....
+
+The response from the whole country was like a blast of hot storm.
+The insurgents never got a chance to "say openly their opinion to
+the masses of workers and soldiers." Upon the _Tsay-ee-kah_ rolled
+in like breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the "deserters."
+For days Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees,
+from the front, from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. "Why
+did they dare leave the Government? Were they paid by the
+bourgeoisie to destroy the Revolution? They must return and submit
+to the decisions of the Central Committee!"
+
+Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great
+soldier meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by
+representatives of all the political parties. By a vast majority
+Lenin's policy was sustained, and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were told that they must enter the government.... _See next page._
+
+The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all
+Ministers and _yunkers_ be released, that all newspapers be allowed
+full freedom, that the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put
+under command of the Duma. To this Smolny answered that all the
+Socialist Ministers and also all but a very few _yunkers_ had been
+already set free, that all newspapers were free except the bourgeois
+press, and that the Soviet would remain in command of the armed
+forces.... On the 19th the Conference to Form a New Government
+disbanded, and the opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev,
+where, under the wing of the General Staff, they continued to form
+Government after Government, until the end....
+
+[Graphic, page 276: Meeting announcement]
+
+Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a
+meeting of representatives of the garrison regiments, called to
+consider the question of forming a new Government. For translation
+see App. XI, Sect. 6.
+
+Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the
+_Vikzhel._ An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers
+called upon them to force the _Vikzhel_ to surrender its powers. On
+the 15th, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ following its procedure toward the
+peasants, called an All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for
+December 1st; the _Vikzhel_ immediately called its own Congress for
+two weeks later. On November 16th, the _Vikzhel_ members took their
+seats in the _Tsay-ee-kah._ On the night of December 2d, at the
+opening session of the All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ formally offered the post of Commissar of Ways and
+Communications to the _Vikzhel_--which accepted....
+
+Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their
+attention to problems of practical administration. First of all the
+city, the country, the Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red
+Guards scoured the warehouses, the railway terminals, even the
+barges in the canals, unearthing and confiscating thousands of
+_poods_ of food held by private speculators. Emissaries were sent
+to the provinces, where with the assistance of the Land Committees
+they seized the store-houses of the great grain-dealers. Expeditions
+of sailors, heavily armed, were sent out in groups of five thousand,
+to the South, to Siberia, with roving commissions to capture cities
+still held by the White Guards, establish order, and _get food._
+Passenger traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad was suspended for
+two weeks, while thirteen trains, loaded with bolts of cloth and
+bars of iron assembled by the Factory-Shop Committees, were sent out
+eastward, each in charge of a Commissar, to barter with the Siberian
+peasants for grain and potatoes....
+
+Kaledin being in possession of the coal-mines of the Don, the fuel
+question became urgent. Smolny shut off all electric lights in
+theatres, shops and restaurants, cut down the number of street cars,
+and confiscated the private stores of fire-wood held by the
+fuel-dealers.... And when the factories of Petrograd were about to
+close down for lack of coal, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet turned
+over to the workers two hundred thousand _poods_ from the bunkers of
+battle-ships....
+
+Toward the end of November occurred the "wine-pogroms" (See App. XI,
+Sect. 7)--looting of the wine-cellars--beginning with the plundering
+of the Winter Palace vaults. For days there were drunken soldiers on
+the streets.... In all this was evident the hand of the
+counter-revolutionists, who distributed among the regiments plans
+showing the location of the stores of liquor. The Commissars of
+Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing
+disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red
+Guards.... Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out
+companies of sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon
+the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars
+were invaded by Committees with hatchets, who smashed the bottles--or
+blew them up with dynamite....
+
+Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at
+the headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the
+old Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective
+Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to
+deal with petty crime....
+
+The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving
+business, were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown
+into jail. (See App. XI, Sect. 8)...
+
+Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted
+itself a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois
+households, and reporting all information to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing.
+In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot led by former
+Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who
+had planned an officers' uprising, and had written a letter inviting
+Kaledin to Petrograd. (See App. XI, Sect. 9).... In this way was
+unearthed the conspiracy of the Petrograd Cadets, who were sending
+money and recruits to Kaledin....
+
+Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his
+flight, returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who
+began their publication in _Pravda,_ scandalising the world....
+
+[Graphic, page 279: Proclamation]
+
+Bolshevik order. A proclamation of the Committee to Fight against
+Pogroms, attached to the Petrograd Soviet. For translation see
+App. XI, Sect. 11.
+
+The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree (See App.
+XI, Sect. 10) making advertisements a monopoly of the official
+Government newspaper. At this all the other papers suspended
+publication as a protest, or disobeyed the law and were closed....
+Only three weeks later did they finally submit.
+
+Still the strike of the Ministries went on, still the sabotage of
+the old officials, the stoppage of normal economic life. Behind
+Smolny was only the will of the vast, unorganised popular masses;
+and with them the Council of People's Commissars dealt, directing
+revolutionary mass-action against its enemies. In eloquent
+proclamations, (See App. XI, Sect. 12) couched in simple words and
+spread over Russia, Lenin explained the Revolution, urged the people
+to take the power into their own hands, by force to break down the
+resistance of the propertied classes, by force to take over the
+institutions of Government. Revolutionary order. Revolutionary
+discipline! Strict accounting and control! No strikes! No loafing!
+
+[Graphic, page 281: Appeal to work hard]
+
+Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet, the Petrograd Council of
+Professional Unions, and the Petrograd Council of Factory Shop
+Committees, to the Workers of Petrograd, urging them to work hard
+and not to strike. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 13.
+
+On the 20th of November the Military Revolutionary Committee issued
+a warning:
+
+The rich classes oppose the power of the Soviets--the Government of
+workers, soldiers and peasants. Their sympathisers halt the work of
+the employees of the Government and the Duma, incite strikes in the
+banks, try to interrupt communication by the railways, the post and
+the telegraph....
+
+We warn them that they are playing with fire. The country and the
+Army are threatened with famine. To fight against it, the regular
+functioning of all services is indispensable. The Workers' and
+Peasants' Government is taking every measure to assure the country
+and the Army all that is necessary. Opposition to these measures is
+a crime against the People. We warn the rich classes and their
+sympathisers that, if they do not cease their sabotage and their
+provocation in halting the transportation of food, they will be the
+first to suffer. They will be deprived of the right of receiving
+food. All the reserves which they possess will be requisitioned. The
+property of the principal criminals will be confiscated.
+
+We have done our duty in warning those who play with fire.
+
+We are convinced that in case decisive measures become necessary, we
+shall be solidly supported by all workers, soldiers, and peasants.
+
+On the 22d of November the walls of the city were placarded with a
+sheet headed "EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNICATION":
+
+The Council of People's Commissars has received an urgent telegram
+from the Staff of the Northern Front....
+
+"There must be no further delay; do not let the Army die of hunger;
+the armies of the Northern Front have not received a crust of bread
+now for several days, and in two or three days they will not have
+any more biscuits--which are being doled out to them from reserve
+supplies until now never touched.... Already delegates from all parts
+of the Front are talking of a necessary removal of part of the Army
+to the rear, foreseeing that in a few days there will be headlong
+flight of the soldiers, dying from hunger, ravaged by the three
+years' war in the trenches, sick, insufficiently clothed,
+bare-footed, driven mad by superhuman misery."
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee brings this to the notice of
+the Petrograd garrison and the workers of Petrograd. The situation
+at the Front demands the most urgent and decisive measures. ...
+Meanwhile the higher functionaries of the Government institutions,
+banks, railroads, post and telegraph, are on strike and impeding the
+work of the Government in supplying the Front with provisions.... Each
+hour of delay may cost the life of thousands of soldiers. The
+counter-revolutionary functionaries are the most dishonest criminals
+toward their hungry and dying brethren on the Front....
+
+The MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE GIVES THESE CRIMINALS A LAST
+WARNING. In event of the least resistance or opposition on their
+part, the harshness of the measures which will be adopted against
+them will correspond to the seriousness of their crime....
+
+
+The masses of workers and soldiers responded by a savage tremor of
+rage, which swept all Russia. In the capital the Government and bank
+employees got out hundreds of proclamations and appeals (See App.
+XI, Sect. 14), protesting, defending themselves, such as this one:
+
+TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.
+
+THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!
+
+WHY?
+
+Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State
+Bank has made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the
+People's Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on
+November 27th THEY DEMANDED TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any
+indication as to where this money was to go.
+
+... We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people's
+property. We stopped work.
+
+CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people's money,
+acquired by your labour, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the
+people's property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall
+immediately resume work.
+
+EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.
+
+From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the
+Special Supply Committee, declarations that the Military
+Revolutionary Committee made it impossible for the employees to
+work, appeals to the population to support them against Smolny.... But
+the dominant worker and soldier did not believe them; it was firmly
+fixed in the popular mind that the employees were sabotaging,
+starving the Army, starving the people.... In the long bread lines,
+which as formerly stood in the iron winter streets, it was not _the
+Government_ which was blamed, as it had been under Kerensky, but the
+_tchinovniki,_ the sabotageurs; for the Government was _their_
+Government, _their_ Soviets--and the functionaries of the Ministries
+were against it....
+
+At the centre of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant
+organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the
+decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, voting again and
+again not to recognise the Soviet Government, openly cooperating
+with the new counter-revolutionary "Governments" set up at
+Moghilev.... On the 17th of November, for example, the Committee for
+Salvation addressed "all Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all
+democratic and revolutionary organisations of peasants, workers,
+soldiers and other citizens," in these words:
+
+Do not recognise the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle
+against it.
+
+Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who
+will unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian
+Committee for Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself....
+
+Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd
+(See App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the
+Bolsheviki; so that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed
+out that the Duma ought to be re-elected, as it no longer
+represented the political composition of the Petrograd population....
+At the same time floods of resolutions from workers' organisations,
+from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding
+country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it "counter-revolutionary,
+Kornilovitz," and demanding that it resign. The last days of the
+Duma were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers
+for decent living wages, and the threat of strikes....
+
+On the 23d a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee
+dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of
+People's Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the
+Petrograd City Duma:
+
+In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected
+September 2d, ... has definitely lost the right to represent the
+population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state
+of mind and its aspirations ... and in view of the fact that the
+personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all political
+following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a
+counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the
+Government--the Council of People's Commissars considers it its duty
+to invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the
+policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.
+
+To this end the Council of People's Commissars resolves:
+
+(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect
+November 30th, 1917.
+
+(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall
+remain at their posts and fulfil the duties confided to them, until
+their places shall be filled by representatives of the new Duma.
+
+(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties;
+those who leave the service of their own accord shall be considered
+discharged.
+
+(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed
+for December 9th, 1917....
+
+(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917,
+at two o'clock.
+
+(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who
+intentionally harm or destroy the property of the Municipality,
+shall be immediately arrested and brought before the Revolutionary
+Tribunals....
+
+The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it
+would "defend its position to the last drop of its blood," and
+appealing desperately to the population to save their "own elected
+City Government." But the population remained indifferent or
+hostile. On the 31st Mayor Schreider and several members were
+arrested, interrogated, and released. That day and the next the Duma
+continued to meet, interrupted frequently by Red Guards and sailors,
+who politely requested the assembly to disperse. At the meeting of
+December 2d, an officer and some sailors entered the Nicolai Hall
+while a member was speaking, and ordered the members to leave, or
+force would be used. They did so, protesting to the last, but
+finally "ceding to violence."
+
+The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the
+"Moderate" Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely
+Bolshevik....
+
+There remained several centres of dangerous opposition, such as the
+"republics" of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely
+anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the
+Governments were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and
+entering upon campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and
+expelling Russian troops. The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of
+all southern Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and
+supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret
+negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognised by the
+Allied Governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining
+with the propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centres
+of attack upon Soviet Russia. In the end, when Bolshevism had
+conquered in both these countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called
+in the Germans to restore them to power....
+
+But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal
+and two-headed--the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev,
+where General Dukhonin had assumed command.
+
+[Graphic, page 287: Education Proclamation]
+
+Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the
+City Duma, concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the
+Christmas holidays. The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed
+almost entirely of Bolsheviki. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.
+
+The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against
+the Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory
+workers. Hundreds of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council
+of People's Commissars issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See
+App. XI, Sect. 16) explaining what the Soviet Government was, how
+the propertied classes, the _tchin ovniki,_ landlords, bankers and
+their allies, the Cossack princes, land-owners and Generals, were
+trying to destroy the Revolution, and prevent the confiscation of
+their wealth by the people.
+
+On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see
+Trotzky and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet
+Government did not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the
+peasants of Great Russia? "No," answered Trotzky. The Cossacks
+deliberated for a while. "Well," they asked, "does the Soviet
+Government intend to confiscate the estates of our great Cossack
+land-owners and divide them among the working Cossacks?" To this
+Lenin replied. "That," he said, "is for _you_ to do. We shall
+support the working Cossacks in all their actions.... The best way to
+begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will be given representation
+in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ and then it will be _your_ Government, too...."
+
+The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General
+Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. "Will you," they
+asked, "promise to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords
+among the working Cossacks?"
+
+"Only over my dead body," responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing
+his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And
+the Cossack movement was no more....
+
+Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ the
+"moderate" Socialist leaders--from Avksentiev to Tchernov--the active
+chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the reactionary officers. The
+Staff steadily refused to recognise the Council of People's
+Commissars. It had united about it the Death Battalions, the Knights
+of St. George, and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and
+secret touch with the Allied military attaches, and with the Kaledin
+movement and the Ukrainean Rada....
+
+The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of
+November 8th, in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a
+general armistice.
+
+On November 20th Trotzky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors:
+(See App. XI, Sect. 18)
+
+I have the honour to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets... on November 8th constituted a new
+Government of the Russian Republic, in the form of the Council of
+People's Commissars. The President of this Government is Vladimir
+Ilyitch Lenin. The direction of Foreign Affairs has been entrusted
+to me, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs....
+
+In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian
+Congress, of the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace
+without annexations or indemnities, based on the right of
+self-determination of peoples, I have the honour to request you to
+consider that document as a formal proposal of an immediate
+armistice on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace
+negotiations; a proposal which the authorised Government of the
+Russian Republic addresses at the same time to all the belligerent
+peoples and their Governments.
+
+Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem
+of the Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for
+peace, like all the other peoples exhausted and drained by this
+unexampled butchery....
+
+The same night the Council of People's Commissars telegraphed to
+General Dukhonin:
+
+... The Council of People's Commissars considers it indispensable
+without delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the
+powers, both enemy and Allied. A declaration conforming to this
+decision has been sent by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the
+representatives of the Allied powers at Petrograd.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,...
+to propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease
+hostilities, and enter into negotiations for peace.
+
+In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers,
+the Council of People's Commissars orders you:
+
+1. To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all
+steps in the pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy
+armies.
+
+2. Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by
+the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+The Allied Ambassadors received Trotzky's note with contemptuous
+silence, accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full
+of spite and ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterised
+openly as an act of treason....
+
+As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he
+was communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey
+the order. Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated
+from "a Government sustained by the Army and the country."
+
+By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme
+Commander, and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his
+tactics of appealing to the masses, Lenin sent a radio to all
+regimental, divisional and corps Committees, to all soldiers and
+sailors of the Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with Dukhonin's
+refusal, and ordering that "the regiments on the front shall elect
+delegates to begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite
+their positions...."
+
+On the 23d, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on
+instructions from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin,
+in which he was solemnly warned not to "violate the conditions of
+the treaties concluded between the Powers of the Entente." The note
+went on to say that if a separate armistice with Germany were
+concluded, that act "would result in the most serious consequences"
+to Russia. This communication Dukhonin at once sent out to all the
+soldiers' Committees....
+
+Next morning Trotzky made another appeal to the troops,
+characterising the note of the Allied representatives as a flagrant
+interference in the internal affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt
+"to force by threats the Russian Army and the Russian people to
+continue the war in execution of the treaties concluded by the
+Tsar...."
+
+From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App.
+XI, Sect. 19) denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary
+officers about him, denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered
+at Moghilev, rousing, from one end of the thousand-mile Front to the
+other, millions of angry, suspicious soldiers. And at the same time
+Krylenko, accompanied by three detachments of fanatical sailors, set
+out for the _Stavka,_ breathing threats of vengeance, (See App. XI,
+Sect. 20) and received by the soldiers everywhere with tremendous
+ovations--a triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee issued a
+declaration in favour of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops
+moved upon Moghilev....
+
+On December 2d the garrison of Moghilev rose and seized the city,
+arresting Dukhonin and the Army Committee, and going out with
+victorious red banners to meet the new Supreme Commander. Krylenko
+entered Moghilev next morning, to find a howling mob gathered about
+the railway-car in which Dukhonin had been imprisoned. Krylenko made
+a speech in which he implored the soldiers not to harm Dukhonin, as
+he was to be taken to Petrograd and judged by the Revolutionary
+Tribunal. When he had finished, suddenly Dukhonin himself appeared
+at the window, as if to address the throng. But with a savage roar
+the people rushed the car, and falling upon the old General, dragged
+him out and beat him to death on the platform....
+
+So ended the revolt of the _Stavka_....
+
+Immensely strengthened by the collapse of the last important
+stronghold of hostile military power in Russia, the Soviet
+Government began with confidence the organisation of the state. Many
+of the old functionaries flocked to its banner, and many members of
+other parties entered the Government service. The financially
+ambitious, however, were checked by the decree on Salaries of
+Government Employees, fixing the salaries of the People's
+Commissars--the highest--at five hundred rubles (about fifty dollars)
+a month.... The strike of Government Employees, led by the Union of
+Unions, collapsed, deserted by the financial and commercial
+interests which had been backing it. The bank clerks returned to
+their jobs....
+
+With the decree on the Nationalisation of Banks, the formation of
+the Supreme Council of People's Economy, the putting into practical
+operation of the Land decree in the villages, the democratic
+reorganisation of the Army, and the sweeping changes in all branches
+of the Government and of life,--with all these, effective only by the
+will of the masses of workers, soldiers and peasants, slowly began,
+with many mistakes and hitches, the moulding of proletarian Russia.
+
+Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other
+political leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism,
+did the Bolsheviki conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence
+of a small clique. If the masses all over Russia had not been ready
+for insurrection it must have failed. The only reason for Bolshevik
+success lay in their accomplishing the vast and simple desires of
+the most profound strata of the people, calling them to the work of
+tearing down and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of
+falling ruins, cooperating with them to erect the frame-work of the
+new....
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+The Peasants' Congress
+
+
+It was on November 18th that the snow came. In the morning we woke
+to window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling
+thick that it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was
+gone; in a twinkling the gloomy city became white, dazzling. The
+_droshki_ with their padded coachmen turned into sleights, bounding
+along the uneven street at headlong speed, their drivers' beards
+stiff and frozen.... In spite of Revolution, all Russia plunging
+dizzily into the unknown and terrible future, joy swept the city
+with the coming of the snow. Everybody was smiling; people ran into
+the streets, holding out their arms to the soft, falling flakes,
+laughing. Hidden was all the greyness; only the gold and coloured
+spires and cupolas, with heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed
+through the white snow.
+
+Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and
+rheumatism of the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew
+gay, and the very Revolution ran swifter....
+
+I sat one evening in a _traktir_--a kind of lower-class inn--across
+the street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud place
+called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," much frequented by Red Guards. They
+crowded it now, packed close around the little tables with their
+dirty table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place
+with foul cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about
+crying _"Seichass! Seichass!_ In a minute! Right away!"
+
+In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the
+assembly, which interrupted him at every few words.
+
+"You are no better than murderers!" he cried. "Shooting down your
+Russian brothers on the streets!"
+
+"When did we do that?" asked a worker.
+
+"Last Sunday you did it, when the _yunkers_--"
+
+"Well, didn't they shoot us?" One man exhibited his arm in a sling.
+"Haven't I got something to remember them by, the devils?"
+
+The captain shouted at the top of his voice. "You should remain
+neutral! You should remain neutral! Who are you to destroy the legal
+Government? Who is Lenin? A German--"
+
+"Who are you? A counter-revolutionist! A provocator!" they bellowed
+at him.
+
+When he could make himself heard the captain stood up. "All right!"
+said he. "You call yourselves the people of Russia. But you're _not_
+the people of Russia. The _peasants_ are the people of Russia. Wait
+until the peasants--"
+
+"Yes," they cried, "wait until the peasants speak. We know what the
+peasants will say.... Aren't they workingmen like ourselves?"
+
+In the long run, everything depended upon the peasants. While the
+peasants had been politically backward, still they had their own
+peculiar ideas, and they constituted more than eighty per cent of
+the people of Russia. The Bolsheviki had a comparatively small
+following among the peasants; and a permanent dictatorship of Russia
+by the industrial workers was impossible.... The traditional peasant
+party was the Socialist Revolutionary party; of all the parties now
+supporting the Soviet Government, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+were the logical inheritors of peasant leadership--and the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries, who were at the mercy of the organised
+city proletariat, desperately needed the backing of the peasants....
+
+Meanwhile Smolny had not neglected the peasants. After the Land
+decree, one of the first actions of the new _Tsay-ee-kah_ had been
+to call a Congress of Peasants, over the head of the Executive
+Committee of the Peasants' Soviets. A few days later was issued
+detailed Regulations for the _Volost_ (Township) Land Committees,
+followed by Lenin's "Instruction to Peasants," (See App. XII, Sect.
+1) which explained the Bolshevik revolution and the new Government
+in simple terms; and on November 16th, Lenin and Miliutin published
+the "Instructions to Provincial Emissaries," of whom thousands were
+sent by the Soviet Government into the villages.
+
+1. Upon his arrival in the province to which he is accredited, the
+emissary should call a joint meeting of the Central Executive
+Committees of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies, to whom he should make a report on the agrarian laws, and
+then demand that a joint plenary session of the Soviets be summoned....
+
+2. He must study the aspects of the agrarian problem in the province.
+
+a. Has the land-owners' property been taken over, and if so, in what
+districts?
+
+b. Who administers the confiscated land--the former proprietor, or
+the Land Committees?
+
+c. What has been done with the agricultural machinery and with the
+farm-animals?
+
+3. Has the ground cultivated by the peasants been augmented?
+
+4. How much and in what respect does the amount of land now under
+cultivation differ from the amount fixed by the Government as an
+average minimum?
+
+5. The emissary must insist that, after the peasants have received
+the land, it is imperative that they increase the amount of
+cultivated land as quickly as possible, and that they hasten the
+sending of grain to the cities, as the only means of avoiding famine.
+
+6. What are the measures projected or put into effect for the
+transfer of land from the land-owners to the Land Committees and
+similar bodies appointed by the Soviets?
+
+7. It is desirable that agricultural properties well appointed and
+well organised should be administered by Soviets composed of the
+regular employees of those properties, under the direction of
+competent agricultural scientists.
+
+All through the villages a ferment of change was going on, caused
+not only by the electrifying action of the Land decree, but also by
+thousands of revolutionary-minded peasant-soldiers returning from
+the front.... These men, especially, welcomed the call to a Congress
+of Peasants.
+
+Like the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ in the matter of the second Congress of
+Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets, the Executive Committee tried to
+prevent the Peasant Congress summoned by Smolny. And like the old
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ finding its resistance futile, the Executive
+Committee sent frantic telegrams ordering the election of
+Conservative delegates. Word was even spread among the peasants that
+the Congress would meet at Moghilev, and some delegates went there;
+but by November 23d about four hundred had gathered in Petrograd,
+and the party caucuses had begun....
+
+The first session took place in the Alexander Hall of the Duma
+building, and the first vote showed that more than half of all the
+delegates were Left Socialist Revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviki
+controlled a bare fifth, the conservative Socialist Revolutionaries
+a quarter, and all the rest were united only in their opposition to
+the old Executive Committee, dominated by Avksentiev, Tchaikovsky
+and Peshekhonov....
+
+The great hall was jammed with people and shaken with continual
+clamour; deep, stubborn bitterness divided the delegates into angry
+groups. To the right was a sprinkling of officers' epaulettes, and
+the patriarchal, bearded faces of the older, more substantial
+peasants; in the centre were a few peasants, non-commissioned
+officers, and some soldiers; and on the left almost all the
+delegates wore the uniforms of common soldiers. These last were the
+young generation, who had been serving in the army.... The galleries
+were thronged with workers--who, in Russia, still remember their
+peasant origin....
+
+Unlike the old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Executive Committee, in opening
+the session, did not recognise the Congress as official; the
+official Congress was called for December 13th; amid a hurricane of
+applause and angry cries, the speaker declared that this gathering
+was merely "Extraordinary Conference"... But the "Extraordinary
+Conference" soon showed its attitude toward the Executive Committee
+by electing as presiding officer Maria Spiridonova, leader of the
+Left Socialist Revolution aries.
+
+Most of the first day was taken up by a violent debate as to whether
+the representatives of _Volost_ Soviets should be seated, or only
+delegates from the Provincial bodies; and just as in the Workers'
+and Soldiers' Congress, an overwhelming majority declared in favour
+of the widest possible representation. Whereupon the old Executive
+Committee left the hall....
+
+Almost immediately it was evident that most of the delegates were
+hostile to the Government of the People's Commissars. Zinoviev,
+attempting to speak for the Bolsheviki, was hooted down, and as he
+left the platform, amid laughter, there were cries, "There's how a
+People's Commissar sits in a mudpuddle!"
+
+"We Left Socialist Revolutionaries refuse," cried Nazariev, a
+delegate from the Provinces, "to recognise this so-called Workers'
+and Peasants' Government until the peasants are represented in it.
+At present it is nothing but a dictatorship of the workers.... We
+insist upon the formation of a new Government which will represent
+the entire democracy!"
+
+The reactionary delegates shrewdly fostered this feeling, declaring,
+in the face of protests from the Bolshevik benches, that the Council
+of People's Commissars intended either to control the Congress or
+dissolve it by force of arms--an announcement which was received by
+the peasants with bursts of fury....
+
+On the third day Lenin suddenly mounted the tribune; for ten minutes
+the room went mad. "Down with him!" they shrieked. "We will not
+listen to any of your People's Commissars! We don't recognise your
+Government!"
+
+Lenin stood there quite calmly, gripping the desk with both hands,
+his little eyes thoughtfully surveying the tumult beneath. Finally,
+except for the right side of the hall, the demonstration wore itself
+out somewhat.
+
+"I do not come here as a member of the Council of People's
+Commissars," said Lenin, and waited again for the noise to subside,
+"but as a member of the Bolshevik faction, duly elected to this
+Congress." And he held his credentials up to that all might see them.
+
+"However," he went on, in an unmoved voice, "nobody will deny that
+the present Government of Russia has been formed by the Bolshevik
+party--" he had to wait a moment, "so that for all purposes it is the
+same thing...." Here the right benches broke into deafening clamour,
+but the centre and left were curious, and compelled silence.
+
+Lenin's argument was simple. "Tell me frankly, you peasants, to whom
+we have given the lands of the _pomieshtchiki;_ do you want now to
+prevent the workers from getting control of industry? This is class
+war. The _pomieshtchiki_ of course oppose the peasants, and the
+manufactures oppose the workers. Are you going to allow the ranks of
+the proletariat to be divided? Which side will you be on?
+
+"We, the Bolsheviki, are the party of the proletariat--of the peasant
+proletariat as well as the industrial proletariat. We, the
+Bolsheviki, are the protectors of the Soviets--of the Peasants'
+Soviets as well as those of the Workers and Soldiers. The present
+Government is a Government of Soviets; we have not only invited the
+Peasants' Soviets to join that Government, but we have also invited
+representatives of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter the
+Council of People's Commissars....
+
+"The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people--of
+the workers in the factories and mines, of the workers in the
+fields. Anybody who attempts to destroy the Soviets is guilty of an
+anti-democratic and counter-revolutionary act. And I serve notice
+here on you, comrades _Right_ Socialist Revolutionaries--and on you,
+Messrs. Cadets--that if the Constituent Assembly attempts to destroy
+the Soviets, we shall not permit the Constituent Assembly to do this
+thing!"
+
+On the afternoon of November 25th Tchernov arrived in hot haste from
+Moghilev, summoned by the Executive Committee. Only two months
+before considered an extreme revolutionist, and very popular with
+the peasants, he was now called to check the dangerous drift of the
+Congress toward the Left. Upon his arrival Tchernov was arrested and
+taken to Smolny, where, after a short conversation, he was released.
+
+His first act was to bitterly rebuke the Executive Committee for
+leaving the Congress. They agreed to return, and Tchernov entered
+the hall, welcomed with great applause by the majority, and the
+hoots and jeers of the Bolsheviki.
+
+"Comrades! I have been away. I participated in the Conference of the
+Twelfth Army on the question of calling a Congress of all the
+Peasant delegates of the armies of the Western Front, and I know
+very little about the insurrection which occurred here--"
+
+Zinoviev rose in his seat, and shouted, "Yes, you were away--for a
+few minutes!" Fearful tumult. Cries, "Down with the Bolsheviki!"
+
+Tchernov continued. "The accusation that I helped lead an army on
+Petrograd has no foundation, and is entirely false. Where does such
+an accusation come from? Show me the source!"
+
+Zinoviev: "_Izviestia_ and _Dielo Naroda_--your own paper--that's
+where it comes from!"
+
+Tchernov's wide face, with the small eyes, waving hair and greyish
+beard, became red with wrath, but he controlled himself and went on.
+"I repeat, I know practically nothing about what has happened here,
+and I did not lead any army except this army, (he pointed to the
+peasant delegates), which I am largely responsible for bringing
+here!" Laughter, and shouts of "Bravo!"
+
+"Upon my return I visited Smolny. No such accusation was made
+against me there.... After a brief conversation I left--and that's all!
+Let any one present make such an accusation!"
+
+An uproar followed, in which the Bolsheviki and some of the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries were on their feet all at once, shaking
+their fists and yelling, and the rest of the assembly tried to yell
+them down.
+
+"This is an outrage, not a session!" cried Tchernov, and he left the
+hall; the meeting was adjourned because of the noise and disorder....
+
+Meanwhile, the question of the status of the Executive Committee was
+agitating all minds. By declaring the assembly "Extraordinary
+Conference," it had been planned to block the reelection of the
+Executive Committee. But this worked both ways; the Left Socialist
+Revolutionists decided that if the Congress had no power over the
+Executive Committee, then the Executive Committee had no power over
+the Congress. On November 25th the assembly resolved that the powers
+of the Executive Committee be assumed by the Extraordinary
+Conference, in which only members of the Executive who had been
+elected as delegates might vote....
+
+The next day, in spite of the bitter opposition of the Bolsheviki,
+the resolution was amended to give all the members of the Executive
+Committee, whether elected as delegates or not, voice and vote in
+the assembly.
+
+On the 27th occurred the debate on the Land question, which revealed
+the differences between the agrarian programme of the Bolsheviki and
+the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.
+
+Kolchinsky, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, outlined the
+history of the Land question during the Revolution. The first
+Congress of Peasants' Soviets, he said, had voted a precise and
+formal resolution in favour of putting the landed estates
+immediately into the hands of the Land Committees. But the directors
+of the Revolution, and the bourgeois in the Government, had insisted
+that the question could not be solved until the Constituent Assembly
+met.... The second period of the Revolution, the period of
+"compromise," was signalled by the entrance of Tchernov into the
+Cabinet. The peasants were convinced that now the practical solution
+of the Land question would begin; but in spite of the imperative
+decision of the first Peasant Congress, the reactionaries and
+conciliators in the Executive Committee had prevented any action.
+This policy provoked a series of agrarian disorders, which appeared
+as the natural expression of impatience and thwarted energy on the
+part of the peasants. The peasants understood the exact meaning of
+the Revolution--they tried to turn words into action....
+
+"The recent events," said the orator, "do not indicate a simple
+riot, or a 'Bolshevik adventure,' but on the contrary, a real
+popular rising, which has been greeted with sympathy by the whole
+country....
+
+"The Bolsheviki in general took the correct attitude toward the Land
+question; but in recommending that the peasants seize the land by
+force, they committed a profound error.... From the first days, the
+Bolsheviki declared that the peasants should take over the land 'by
+revolutionary mass action.' This is nothing but anarchy; the land can
+be taken over in an organised manner.... For the Bolsheviki it was
+important that the problems of the Revolution should be solved in
+the quickest possible manner--but the Bolsheviki were not interested
+in _how_ these problems were to be solved....
+
+"The Land decree of the Congress of Soviets is identical in its
+fundamentals with the decisions of the first Peasants' Congress. Why
+then did not the new Government follow the tactics outlined by that
+Congress? Because the Council of People's Commissars wanted to
+hasten the settlement of the Land question, so that the Constituent
+Assembly would have nothing to do....
+
+"But also the Government saw that it was necessary to adopt
+practical measures, so without further reflection, it adopted the
+Regulations for Land Committees, thus creating a strange situation;
+for the Council of People's Commissars abolished private property in
+land, but the Regulations drawn up by the Land Committees are based
+on private property.... However, no harm has been done by that;
+for the Land Committees are paying no attention to the Soviet
+decrees, but are putting into operation their own practical
+decisions--decisions based on the will of the vast majority of the
+peasants....
+
+"These Land Committees are not attempting the legislative solution
+of the Land question, which belongs to the Constituent Assembly
+alone.... But will the Constituent Assembly desire to do the will of
+the Russian peasants? Of that we cannot be sure.... All we can be sure
+of is that the revolutionary determination of the peasants is now
+aroused, and that the Constituent will be _forced_ to settle the
+Land question the way the peasants want it settled.... The Constituent
+Assembly will not dare to break with the will of the people...."
+
+Followed him Lenin, listened to now with absorbing intensity. "At
+this moment we are not only trying to solve the Land question, but
+the question of Social Revolution--not only here in Russia, but all
+over the world. The Land question cannot be solved independently of
+the other problems of the Social Revolution.... For example, the
+confiscation of the landed estates will provoke the resistance not
+only of Russian land-owners, but also of foreign capital--with whom
+the great landed properties are connected through the intermediary
+of the banks....
+
+"The ownership of the land in Russia is the basis for immense
+oppression, and the confiscation of the land by the peasants is the
+most important step of our Revolution. But it cannot be separated
+from the other steps, as is clearly manifested by the stages through
+which the Revolution has had to pass. The first stage was the
+crushing of autocracy and the crushing of the power of the
+industrial capitalists and land-owners, whose interests are closely
+related. The second stage was the strengthening of the Soviets and
+the political compromise with the bourgeoisie. The mistake of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries lies in the fact that at that time
+they did not oppose the policy of compromise, because they held the
+theory that the consciousness of the masses was not yet fully
+developed....
+
+"_If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual
+development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see
+Socialism for at least five hundred years_.... The Socialist political
+party--this is the vanguard of the working-class; it must not allow
+itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average,
+but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of
+revolutionary initiative.... But in order to lead the wavering, the
+comrades Left Socialist Revolutionaries themselves must stop
+hesitating....
+
+"In July last a series of open breaks began between the popular
+masses and the 'compromisers'; but now, in November, the Left
+Socialist Revolutionaries are still holding out their hand to
+Avksentiev, who is pulling the people with his little finger.... If
+Compromise continues, the Revolution disappears. No compromise with
+the bourgeoisie is possible; its power must be absolutely crushed....
+
+"We Bolsheviki have not changed our Land programme; we have not
+given up the abolition of private property in the land, and we do
+not intend to do so. We adopted the Regulations for Land
+Committees,--which are _not_ based on private property at all--because
+we want to accomplish the popular will in the way the people have
+themselves decided to do it, so as to draw closer the coalition of
+all the elements who are fighting for the Social Revolution.
+
+"We invite the Left Socialist Revolutionaries to enter that
+coalition, insisting, however, that they cease looking backward, and
+that they break with the 'conciliators' of their party....
+
+"As far as the Constituent Assembly is concerned, it is true, as the
+preceding speaker has said, that the work of the Constituent will
+depend on the revolutionary determination of the masses. I say,
+'Count on that revolutionary determination, but don't forget your
+gun!'"
+
+Lenin then read the Bolshevik resolution:
+
+The Peasants' Congress, fully supporting the Land decree of November
+8th... approves of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government
+of the Russian Republic, established by the second All-Russian
+Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+The Peasants' Congress... invites all peasants unanimously to sustain
+that law, and to apply it immediately themselves; and at the same
+time invites the peasants to appoint to posts and positions of
+responsibility only persons who have proved, not by words but by
+acts, their entire devotion to the interests of the exploited
+peasant-workers, their desire and their ability to defend these
+interests against all resistance on the part of the great
+land-owners, the capitalists, their partisans and accomplices....
+
+The Peasants' Congress, at the same time, expresses its conviction
+that the complete realisation of all the measures which make up the
+Land decree can only be successful through the triumph of the
+Workers' Social Revolution, which began November 7th, 1917; for only
+the Social Revolution can accomplish the definite transfer, without
+possibility of return, of the land to the peasant-workers, the
+confiscation of model farms and their surrender to the peasant
+communes, the confiscation of agricultural machinery belonging to
+the great land-owners, the safe-guarding of the interests of the
+agricultural workers by the complete abolition of wage-slavery, the
+regular and methodical distribution among all regions of Russia of
+the products of agriculture and industry, and the seizure of the
+banks (without which the possession of land by the whole people
+would be impossible, after the abolition of private property), and
+all sorts of assistance by the State to the workers....
+
+For these reasons the Peasants' Congress sustains entirely the
+Revolution of November 7th... as a social revolution, and expresses
+its unalterable will to put into operation, with whatever
+modifications are necessary, but without any hesitation, the social
+transformation of the Russian Republic.
+
+The indispensable conditions of the victory of the Social
+Revolution, which alone will secure the lasting success and the
+complete realisation of the Land decree, is the close union of the
+peasant-workers with the industrial working-class, with the
+proletariat of all advanced countries. From now on, in the Russian
+Republic, all the organisation and administration of the State, from
+top to bottom, must rest on that union. That union, crushing all
+attempts, direct or indirect, open or dissimulated, to return to the
+policy of conciliation with the bourgeoisie--conciliation, damned by
+experience, with the chiefs of bourgeois politics--can alone insure
+the victory of Socialism throughout the world....
+
+The reactionaries of the Executive Committee no longer dared openly
+to appear. Tchernov, however, spoke several times, with a modest and
+winning impartiality. He was invited to sit on the platform.... On the
+second night of the Congress an anonymous note was handed up to the
+chairman, requesting that Tchernov be made honorary President.
+Ustinov read the note aloud, and immediately Zinoviev was on his
+feet, screaming that this was a trick of the old Executive Committee
+to capture the convention; in a moment the hall was one bellowing
+mass of waving arms and angry faces, on both sides.... Nevertheless,
+Tchernov remained very popular.
+
+In the stormy debates on the Land question and the Lenin resolution,
+the Bolsheviki were twice on the point of quitting the assembly,
+both times restrained by their leaders.... It seemed to me as if the
+Congress were hopelessly deadlocked.
+
+But none of us knew that a series of secret conferences were already
+going on between the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the
+Bolsheviki at Smolny. At first the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
+had demanded that there be a Government composed of all the
+Socialist parties in and out of the Soviets, to be responsible to a
+People's Council, composed of an equal number of delegates from the
+Workers' and Soldiers' organisation, and that of the Peasants, and
+completed by representatives of the City Dumas and the Zemstvos;
+Lenin and Trotzky were to be eliminated, and the Military
+Revolutionary Committee and other repressive organs dissolved.
+
+Wednesday morning, November 28th, after a terrible all-night
+struggle, an agreement was reached. The _Tsay-ee-kah,_composed of
+108 members, was to be augumented by 108 members elected
+proportionally from the Peasants' Congress; by 100 delegates elected
+directly from the Army and the Fleet; and by 50 representatives of
+the Trade Unions (35 from the general Unions, 10 Railway Workers,
+and 5 from the Post and Telegraph Workers). The Dumas and Zemstvos
+were dropped. Lenin and Trotzky remained in the Government, and the
+Military Revolutionary Committee continued to function.
+
+The sessions of the Congress had now been removed to the Imperial
+Law School building, Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants'
+Soviets. There in the great meeting-hall the delegates gathered on
+Wednesday afternoon. The old Executive Committee had withdrawn, and
+was holding a rump convention of its own in another room of the same
+building, made up of bolting delegates and representatives of the
+Army Committees.
+
+Tchernov went from one meeting to the other, keeping a watchful eye
+on the proceedings. He knew that an agreement with the Bolsheviki
+was being discussed, but he did not know that it had been concluded.
+
+He spoke to the rump convention. "At present, when everybody is in
+favour of forming an all-Socialist Government, many people forget
+the first Ministry, which was _not_ a coalition Government, and in
+which there was only one Socialist--Kerensky; a Government which, in
+its time, was very popular. Now people accuse Kerensky; they forget
+that he was raised to power, not only by the Soviets, but also by
+the popular masses....
+
+"Why did public opinion change toward Kerensky? The savages set up
+gods to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their
+prayers is not answered.... That is what is happening at this moment....
+Yesterday Kerensky; to-day Lenin and Trotzky; another to-morrow....
+
+"We have proposed to both Kerensky and the Bolsheviki to retire from
+the power. Kerensky has accepted--to-day he announced from his
+hiding-place that he has resigned as Premier; but the Bolsheviki
+wish to retain the power, and they do not know how to use it....
+
+"If the Bolsheviki succeed, or if they fail, the fate of Russia will
+not be changed. The Russian villages understand perfectly what they
+want, and they are now carrying out their own measures.... The
+villages will save us in the end...."
+
+In the meanwhile, in the great hall Ustinov had announced the
+agreement between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny, received by the
+delegates with the wildest joy. Suddenly Tchernov appeared, and
+demanded the floor.
+
+"I understand," he began, "that an agreement is being concluded
+between the Peasants' Congress and Smolny. Such an agreement would
+be illegal, seeing that the true Congress of Peasants' Soviets does
+not meet until next week....
+
+"Moreover, I want to warn you now that the Bolsheviki will never
+accept your demands...."
+
+He was interrupted by a great burst of laughter; and realising the
+situation, he left the platform and the room, taking his popularity
+with him....
+
+Late in the afternoon of Thursday, November 16th, the Congress met
+in extraordinary session. There was a holiday feeling in the air; on
+every face was a smile.... The remainder of the business before
+the assembly was hurried through, and then old Nathanson, the
+white-bearded dean of the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries,
+his voice trembling and tears in his eyes, read the report of the
+"wedding" of the Peasants' Soviets with the Workers' and Soldiers'
+Soviets. At every mention of the word "union" there was ecstatic
+applause.... At the end Ustinov announced the arrival rival
+of a delegation from Smolny, accompanied by representatives of
+the Red Army, greeted with a rising ovation. One after another a
+workman, a soldier and a sailor took the floor, hailing them.
+
+Then Boris Reinstein, delegate of the American Socialist Labor
+Party: "The day of the union of the Congress of Peasants and the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is one of the great days
+of the Revolution. The sound of it will ring with resounding echoes
+throughout the whole world--in Paris, in London, and across the
+ocean--in New York. This union will fill with happiness the hearts of
+all toilers.
+
+"A great idea has triumphed. The West, and America, expected from
+Russia, from the Russian proletariat, something tremendous.... The
+proletariat of the world is waiting for the Russian Revolution,
+waiting for the great things that it is accomplishing...."
+
+Sverdlov, president of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ greeted them. And with the
+shout, "Long live the end of civil war! Long live the United
+Democracy!" the peasants poured out of the building.
+
+It was already dark, and on the ice--covered snow glittered the pale
+light of moon and star. Along the bank of the canal were drawn up in
+full marching order the soldiers of the Pavlovsky Regiment, with
+their band, which broke into the _Marseillaise._ Amid the crashing
+full-throated shouts of the soldiers, the peasants formed in line,
+unfurling the great red banner of the Executive Committee of the
+All-Russian Peasants' Soviets, embroidered newly in gold, "Long live
+the union of the revolutionary and toiling masses!" Following were
+other banners; of the District Soviets--of Putilov Factory, which
+read, "We bow to this flag in order to create the brotherhood of all
+people!"
+
+From somewhere torches appeared, blazing orange in the night, a
+thousand times reflected in the facets of the ice, streaming out
+smokily over the throng as it moved down the bank of the Fontanka
+singing, between crowds that stood in astonished silence.
+
+"Long live the Revolutionary Army! Long live the Red Guard! Long
+live the Peasants!"
+
+So the great procession wound through the city, growing and
+unfurling ever new red banners lettered in gold. Two old peasants,
+bowed with toil, were walking hand in hand, their faces illumined
+with child-like bliss.
+
+"Well," said one, "I'd like to see them take away our land again,
+_now!_"
+
+Near Smolny the Red Guard was lined up on both sides of the street,
+wild with delight. The other old peasant spoke to his comrade, "I am
+not tired," he said. "I walked on air all the way!"
+
+On the steps of Smolny about a hundred Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies were massed, with their banner, dark against the blaze of
+light streaming out between the arches. Like a wave they rushed
+down, clasping the peasants in their arms and kissing them; and the
+procession poured in through the great door and up the stairs, with
+a noise like thunder....
+
+In the immense white meeting-room the _Tsay-ee-kah_ was waiting,
+with the whole Petrograd Soviet and a thousand spectators beside,
+with that solemnity which attends great conscious moments in history.
+
+Zinoviev announced the agreement with the Peasants' Congress, to a
+shaking roar which rose and burst into storm as the sound of music
+blared down the corridor, and the head of the procession came in. On
+the platform the presidium rose and made place for the Peasants'
+presidium, the two embracing; behind them the two banners were
+intertwined against the white wall, over the empty frame from which
+the Tsar's picture had been torn....
+
+Then opened the "triumphal session." After a few words of welcome
+from Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and
+hair drawn flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher,
+took the tribune--the most loved and the most powerful woman in all
+Russia.
+
+"... Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has
+never known.... All workers' movements in the past have been defeated.
+But the present movement is international, and that is why it is
+invincible. There is no force in the world which can put out the
+fire of the Revolution! The old world crumbles down, the new world
+begins...."
+
+Then Trotzky, full of fire: "I wish you welcome, comrades peasants!
+You come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which
+holds the heart of the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of
+workers is now concentrated in this hall.... There is now only one
+master of the Russian land: the union of the workers, soldiers and
+peasants...."
+
+With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats,
+till then contemptuous of Russia's invitation to an armistice, which
+had been accepted by the Central Powers.
+
+"A new humanity will be born of this war.... In this hall we swear to
+workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are
+broken, then it will be in defending our flag...."
+
+Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where
+Dukhonin was preparing to resist the Council of People's Commissars.
+"Let Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not
+deal gently with those who bar the road to peace!"
+
+Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and
+Krushinsky, member of the _Vikzhel,_ said, "From this moment, when
+the union of all true Socialists is realised, the whole army of
+railway workers places itself absolutely at the disposition of the
+revolutionary democracy!" And Lunatcharsky, almost weeping, and
+Proshian, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, and finally
+Saharashvili, for the United Social Democrats Internationalists,
+composed of members of the Martov's and of Gorky's groups, who
+declared:
+
+"We left the _Tsay-ee-kah_ because of the uncompromising policy of
+the Bolsheviki, and to force them to make concessions in order to
+realise the union of all the revolutionary democracy. Now that that
+union is brought about, we consider it a sacred duty to take our
+places once more in the _Tsay-ee-kah_.... We declare that all those
+who have withdrawn from the _Tsay-ee-kah_ should now return."
+
+Stachkov, a dignified old peasant of the presidium of the Peasants'
+Congress, bowed to the four corners of the room. "I greet you with
+the christening of a new Russian life and freedom!"
+
+Gronsky, in the name of the Polish Social Democracy; Skripnik, for
+the Factory-Shop Committees; Tifonov, for the Russian soldiers at
+Salonika; and others, interminably, speaking out of full hearts,
+with the happy eloquence of hopes fulfilled....
+
+It was late in the night when the following resolution was put and
+passed unanimously:
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah,_ united in extraordinary session with the
+Petrograd Soviet and the Peasants' Congress, confirms the Land and
+Peace decrees adopted by the second Congress of Soviets of Workers'
+and Soldiers' Deputies, and also the decree on Workers' Control
+adopted by the _Tsay-ee-kah._
+
+"The joint session of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Peasants' Congress
+expresses its firm conviction that the union of workers, soldiers
+and peasants, this fraternal union of all the workers and all
+exploited, will consolidate the power conquered by them, that it
+will take all revolutionary measures to hasten the passing of the
+power into the hands of the working-class in other countries, and
+that it will assure in this manner the lasting accomplishment of a
+just peace and the victory of Socialism." (See App. XI, Sect. 2)
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
+
+1.
+
+_Oborontsi_--"Defenders." All the "moderate" Socialist groups adopted
+or were given this name, because they consented to the continuation
+of the war under Allied leadership, on the ground that it was a war
+of National Defence. The Bolsheviki, the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries, the Mensheviki Internationalists (Martov's faction),
+and the Social Democrats Internationalists (Gorky's group) were in
+favour of forcing the Allies to declare democratic war-aims, and to
+offer peace to Germany on those terms....
+
+2.
+
+WAGES AND COST OF LIVING BEFORE AND DURING THE REVOLUTION
+
+The following tables of wages and costs were compiled, in October,
+1917, by a joint Committee from the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and
+the Moscow section of the Ministry of Labour, and published in
+_Novaya Zhizn,_ October 26th, 1917:
+
+                _Wages Per Day_--(_Rubles and kopeks_)
+
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | _Trade_                | _July_ 1914 | _July_ 1916 | _August_ 1917 |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Carpenter,             | 1.60--2.    | 4.  --6.    | 8.50          |
+  | Cabinet-maker          |             |             |               |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Terrassier             | 1.30--1.50  | 3.  --3.50  |               |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Mason, plasterer       | 1.70--2.35  | 4.  --6.    | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Painter, upholsterer   | 1.80--2.20  | 3.  --5.50  | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Blacksmith             | 1.  --2.25  | 4.  --5.    | 8.50          |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Chimney-sweep          | 1.50--2.    | 4.  --5.50  | 7.50          |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Locksmith              |  .90--2.    | 3.50--6.    | 9.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+  | Helper                 | 1.  --1.50  | 2.50--4.50  | 8.            |
+  +------------------------+-------------+-------------+---------------+
+
+In spite of numerous stories of gigantic advances in wages
+immediately following the Revolution of March, 1917, these figures,
+which were published by the Ministry of Labour as characteristic of
+conditions all over Russia, show that wages did not rise immediately
+after the Revolution, but little by little. On an average, wages
+increased slightly more than 500 per cent....
+
+But at the same time the value of the ruble fell to less than
+one-third its former purchasing power, and the cost of the
+necessities of life increased enormously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Municipal Duma of Moscow,
+where food was cheaper and more plentiful than in Petrograd:
+
+_Cost of Food--(Rubles and Kopeks)_
+
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  |             | _August_ 1914 | _August_ 1917 | _% Increase_ |     |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Black bread | _(Fund)_      | .02 1/2       |  .12         | 330 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | White bread | _(Fund)_      | .05           |  .20         | 300 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Beef        | _(Fund)_      | .22           | 1.10         | 400 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Veal        | _(Fund)_      | .26           | 2.15         | 727 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Pork        | _(Fund)_      | .23           | 2.           | 770 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Herring     | _(Fund)_      | .06           |  .52         | 767 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Cheese      | _(Fund)_      | .40           | 3.50         | 754 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Butter      | _(Fund)_      | .48           | 3.20         | 557 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Eggs        | (Doz.)        | .30           | 1.60         | 443 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+  | Milk        | _(Krushka)_   | .07           |  .40         | 471 |
+  +-------------+---------------+---------------+--------------+-----+
+
+On an average, food increased in price 556 per cent, or 51 per cent
+more than wages.
+
+As for the other necessities, the price of these increased
+tremendously.
+
+The following table was compiled by the Economic section of the
+Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and accepted as correct by the
+Ministry of Supplies of the Provisional Government.
+
+        _Cost of Other Necessities_--(_Rubles and Kopeks_)
+
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  |             | _August_ 1914 | _August_    | _%          |          |
+  |             |               | 1917        | Increase_   |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Calico      | _(Arshin)_    |   .11       |   1.40      | 1173     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Cotton      | _(Arshin)_    |   .15       |   2.        | 1233     |
+  | cloth       |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Dress Goods | _(Arshin)_    |  2.         |  40.        | 1900     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Castor      | _(Arshin)_    |  6.         |  80.        | 1233     |
+  | Cloth       |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Men's Shoes | (Pair)        | 12.         | 144.        | 1097     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Sole        |               | 20.         | 400.        | 1900     |
+  | Leather     |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Rubbers     | (Pair)        |  2.50       |  15.        | 500      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Men's       | (Suit)        | 40.         | 400.-455.   | 900-1109 |
+  | Clothing    |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Tea         | _(Fund)_      |  4.50       |  18.        | 300      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Matches     | (Carton)      |   .10       |    .50      | 400      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Soap        | _(Pood)_      |  4.50       |  40.        | 780      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Gasoline    | _(Vedro)_     |  1.70       |  11.        | 547      |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Candles     | _(Pood)_      |  8.50       | 100.        | 1076     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Caramel     | _(Fund)_      |   .30       |   4.50      | 1400     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Fire Wood   | (Load)        | 10.         | 120.        | 1100     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Charcoal    |               |   .80       |  13.        | 1525     |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+  | Sundry      |               |  1.         |  20.        | 1900     |
+  | Metal Ware  |               |             |             |          |
+  +-------------+---------------+-------------+-------------+----------+
+
+On an average, the above categories of necessities increased about
+1,109 per cent in price, more than twice the increase of salaries.
+The difference, of course, went into the pockets of speculators and
+merchants.
+
+In September, 1917, when I arrived in Petrograd, the average daily
+wage of a skilled industrial worker--for example, a steel-worker in
+the Putilov Factory--was about 8 rubles. At the same time, profits
+were enormous.... I was told by one of the owners of the Thornton
+Woollen Mills, an English concern on the outskirts of Petrograd, that
+while wages had increased about 300 per cent in his factory, his
+profits had gone up _900 per cent._
+
+3.
+
+THE SOCIALIST MINISTERS
+
+The history of the efforts of the Socialists in the Provisional
+Government of July to realise their programme in coalition with the
+bourgeois Ministers, is an illuminating example of class struggle in
+politics. Says Lenin, in explanation of this phenomenon:
+
+"The capitalists, ... seeing that the position of the Government was
+untenable, resorted to a method which since 1848 has been for decades
+practised by the capitalists in order to befog, divide, and finally
+overpower the working-class. This method is the so-called 'Coalition
+Ministry,' composed of bourgeois and of renegades from the Socialist
+camp.
+
+"In those countries where political freedom and democracy have
+existed side by side with the revolutionary movement of the
+workers--for example in England and France--the capitalists make use of
+this subterfuge, and very successfully too. The 'Socialist' leaders,
+upon entering the Ministries, invariably prove mere figure-heads,
+puppets, simply a shield for the capitalists, a tool with which to
+defraud the workers. The 'democratic' and 'republican' capitalists in
+Russia set in motion this very same scheme. The Socialist
+Revolutionaries and Mensheviki fell victim to it, and on June 1st a
+'Coalition' Ministry, with the participation of Tchernov, Tseretelli,
+Skobeliev, Avksentiev, Savinkov, Zarudny and Nikitin became an
+accomplished fact...."--_Problems of the Revolution._
+
+4.
+
+SEPTEMBER MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
+
+In the first week of October, 1917, _Novaya Zhizn_ published the
+following comparative table of election results, pointing out that
+this meant the bankruptcy of the policy of Coalition with the
+propertied classes. "If civil war can yet be avoided, it can only be
+done by a united front of all the revolutionary democracy...."
+
+_Elections for the Moscow Central and Ward Dumas._
+
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | _June_ 1917_September_ 1917 |            |            |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Socialist Revolutionaries   | 58 Members | 14 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Cadets                      | 17 Members | 30 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Mensheviki                  | 12 Members | 4 Members  |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+  | Bolsheviki                  | 11 Members | 47 Members |
+  +-----------------------------+------------+------------+
+
+5.
+
+GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE REACTIONARIES
+
+September 18th. The Cadet Shulgin, writing in a Kiev newspaper, said
+that the Provisional Government's declaration that Russia was a
+Republic constituted a gross abuse of its powers. "We cannot admit
+either a Republic, or the present Republican Government.... And we are
+not sure that we want a Republic in Russia...."
+
+October 23d. At a meeting of the Cadet party held at Riazan, M.
+Dukhonin declared, "On March 1st we must establish a Constitutional
+Monarchy. We must not reject the legitimate heir to the throne,
+Mikhail Alexandrovitch...."
+
+October 27th. Resolution passed by the Conference of Business Men at
+Moscow:
+
+"The Conference... insists that the Provisional Government take the
+following immediate measures in the Army:
+
+"1. Forbidding of all political propaganda; the Army must be out of
+politics.
+
+"2. Propaganda of antinational and international ideas and theories
+deny the necessity for armies, and hurt discipline; it should be
+forbidden, and all propagandists punished....
+
+"3. The function of the Army Committees must be limited to economic
+questions exclusively. All their decisions should be confirmed by
+their superior officers, who have the right to dissolve the
+Committees at any time....
+
+"4. The salute to be reestablished, and made obligatory. Full
+reestablishment of disciplinary power in the hands of officers, with
+right of review of sentence....
+
+"5. Expulsion from the Corps of Officers of those who dishonour it by
+participating in the movement of the soldier-masses, which teaches
+them disobedience.... Reestablishment for this purpose of the Courts of
+Honor....
+
+"6. The Provisional Government should take the necessary measures to
+make possible the return to the army of Generals and other officers
+unjustly discharged under the influence of Committees, and other
+irresponsible organisations...."
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II
+
+1.
+
+The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming volume,
+"Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk." The responsibility of Kerensky for the
+situation which gave rise to Kornilov's attempt is now pretty clearly
+established. Many apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of
+Kornilov's plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then
+crushed him. Even Mr. A. J. Sack, in his book, "The Birth of the
+Russian Democracy," says:
+
+"Several things... are almost certain. The first is that Kerensky knew
+about the movement of several detachments from the Front toward
+Petrograd, and it is possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of
+War, realising the growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them...."
+
+The only flaw in that argument is that there was no "Bolshevist
+danger" at that time, the Bolsheviki still being a powerless minority
+in the Soviets, and their leaders in jail or hiding.
+
+2.
+
+DEMOCRATIC CONFERENCE
+
+When the Democratic Conference was first proposed to Kerensky, he
+suggested an assembly of all the elements in the nation--"the live
+forces," as he called them--including bankers, manufacturers,
+land-owners, and representatives of the Cadet party. The Soviet
+refused, and drew up the following table of representation, which
+Kerensky agreed to:
+
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers' and Soldiers'         |
+  |               | Deputies                                           |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Peasants' Deputies             |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Provincial Soviets Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Peasants' District Land Committees                 |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 84 delegates  | Army Committees at the Front                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Workers' and Peasants' Cooperative Societies       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 20 delegates  | Railway Workers' Union                             |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 10 delegates  | Post and Telegraph Workers' Union                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 20 delegates  | Commercial Clerks                                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 15 delegates  | Liberal Professions--Doctors, Lawyers,             |
+  |               | Journalists, etc.                                  |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 50 delegates  | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 59 delegates  | Nationalist Organisations--Poles, Ukraineans, etc. |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+
+This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final
+disposition of delegates was:
+
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers', Soldiers' &          |
+  |               | Peasants' Deputies                                 |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | Cooperative Societies                              |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 300 delegates | Municipalities                                     |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Army Committees at the Front                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 150 delegates | Provincial Zemstvos                                |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 200 delegates | Trade Unions                                       |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 100 delegates | Nationalist Organisations                          |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+  | 200 delegates | Several small groups                               |
+  +---------------+----------------------------------------------------+
+
+3.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THE SOVIETS IS ENDED
+
+On September 28th, 1917, _Izviestia,_ organ of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
+published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional
+Ministry:
+
+"At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all
+classes of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future
+liberal parliamentary regime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the
+Constituent Assembly, which will solve all questions of fundamental
+law, and whose composition will be essentially democratic. The
+function of the Soviets is at an end, and the time is approaching
+when they must retire, with the rest of the revolutionary machinery,
+from the stage of a free and victorious people, whose weapons shall
+hereafter be the peaceful ones of political action."
+
+The leading article of _Izviestia_ for October 23d was called, "The
+Crisis in the Soviet Organisations." It began by saying that
+travellers reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere.
+"This is natural," said the writer. "For the people are becoming
+interested in the more permanent legislative organs--the Municipal
+Dumas and the Zemstvs....
+
+"In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets
+were best organised, they did not take in all the democratic
+elements.... The majority of the intellectuals did not participate, and
+many workers also; some of the workers because they were politically
+backward, others because the centre of gravity for them was in their
+Unns.... We cannot deny that these organisations are firmly united with
+the masses, whose everyday needs are better served by them....
+
+"That the local democratic administrations are being energetically
+organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by
+universal suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority
+than the Soviets. Not a single democrat will see anything wrong in
+this....
+
+"... Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and
+more democratic way than the elections to the Soviets... All classes
+are represented in the Municipalities.... And as soon as the local
+Self-Governments begin to organise life in the Municipalities, the
+role of the local Soviets naturally ends....
+
+"... There are two factors in the falling off of interest in the
+Soviets. The first we may attribute to the lowering of political
+interest in the masses; the second, to the growing effort of
+provincial and local governing bodies to organise the building of new
+Russia.... The more the tendency lies in this latter direction, the
+sooner disappears the significance of the Soviets....
+
+"We ourselves are being called the 'undertakers' of our own
+organisation. In reality, we ourselves are the hardest workers in
+constructing the new Russia....
+
+"When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic regime fell, we set up the
+Soviets as a barracks in which all the democracy cod find temporary
+shelter. Now, instead of barracks, we are building the permanent
+edifice of a new system, and naturally the people will gradually
+leave the barracks for more comfortable quarters."
+
+4.
+
+TROTZKY'S SPEECH AT THE COUNCIL OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC
+
+"The purpose of the Democratic Conference, which was called by the
+_Tsay-ee-kah,_ was to do away with the irresponsible personal
+government which produced Kornilov, and to establish a responsible
+government which would be capable of finishing the war, and ensure
+the calling of the Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the
+meanwhile behind the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery,
+by deals between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the
+Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the
+opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power was
+created around which and in which we have open and secret Kornilovs
+playing leading parts. The irresponsibility of the Government is
+offically proclaimed, when it is announced that the Council of the
+Russian Republic is to be a _consultative_ and not _legislative_
+body. In the eighth month of the Revolution, the irresponsible
+Government creates a cover for itself in this new edition of
+Bieligen's Duma.
+
+"The propertied classes have entered this Provision Council in a
+proportion which clearly shows, from elections all over the country,
+that many of them have no right here whatever. In spite of that the
+Cadet party, which until yesterday wanted the Provisional Government
+to be responsible to the State Duma--this same Cadet party secured the
+independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have as
+favourable position than they have in this Council, and they will not
+be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent Assembly.
+
+"If the propertied classes were really getting ready for the
+Constituent Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no reason for
+establishing the irresponsibility of the Government at this time. The
+whole truth is that the bourgeoisie, which directs the policies of
+the Provisional Government, has for its aim to break the Constituent
+Assembly. At present this is the main purpose of the propertied
+classes, which control our entire national policy--external and
+internal. In the industrial, agrarian and supply departments the
+politics of the propertied classes, acting with the Government,
+increases the natural disorganisation caused by the war. The
+propertied classes, which are provoking a peasants' revolt! The
+propertied classes, which are provoking civil war, and openly hold
+their course on the bony hand of hunger, with which they intend to
+overthrow the Revolution and finish with the Constituent Assembly!
+
+"No less criminal also is the international policy of the bourgeoisie
+and its Government. After forty months of war, the capital is
+threatened with mortal danger. In reply to this arises a plan to move
+the Government to Moscow. The idea of abandoning the capital does not
+stir the indignation of the bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is
+accepted as a natural part of the general policy designed to promote
+counter-revolutionary conspiracy. ... Instead of recognising that the
+salvation of the country lies in concluding peace, instead of
+throwing openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out
+peoples, over the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the
+continuation of the war impossible,--the Provisional Government, by
+order of the Cadets, the Counter-Revolutionists and the Allied
+Imperialists, without sense, without purpose and without a plan,
+continues to drag on the murderous war, sentencing to useless death
+new hundreds of thousands of soldiers and sailors, and preparing to
+give up Petrograd, and to wreck the Revolution. At a time when
+Bolshevik soldiers and sailors are dying with other soldiers and
+sailors as a result of the mistakes and crimes of others, the
+so-called Supreme Commander (Kerensky) continues to suppress the
+Bolshevik press. The leading parties of the Council are acting as a
+voluntary cover for these policies.
+
+"We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce that with
+this Government of Treason to the People we have nothing in common.
+We have nothing in common with the work of these Murderers of the
+People which goes on behind official curtains. We refuse either
+directly or indirectly to cover up one day of this work. While
+Wilhelm's troops are threatening Petrograd, the Government of
+Kerensky and Kornilov is preparing to run away from Petrograd and
+turn Moscow into a base of counter-revolution!
+
+"We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their guard.
+Leaving this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom of the
+workers, peasants and soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd is in danger!
+The Revolution is in danger! The Government has increased the
+danger--the ruling classes intensify it. Only the people themselves
+can save themselves and the country.
+
+"We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest, democratic
+peace! All power to the Soviets! All land to the people! Long live
+the Constituent Assembly!"
+
+5.
+
+THE "NAKAZ" TO SKOBELIEV
+
+_Resume_
+
+(Passed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and given to Skobeliev as an instruction
+for the representative of the Russian Revolutionary democracy at the
+Paris Conference.)
+
+The peace treaty must be based on the principle, "No annexations, no
+indemnities, the right of self-determination of peoples."
+
+_Territorial Problems_
+
+(1) Evacuation of German troops from invaded Russia. Full right of
+self-determination to Poland, Lithuania and Livonia.
+
+(2) For Turkish Armenia autonomy, and later complete
+self-determination, as soon as local Governments are established.
+
+(3) The question of Alsace-Lorraine to be solved by a plebiscite,
+after the withdrawal of all foreign troops.
+
+(4) Belgium to be restored. Compensation for damages from an
+international fund.
+
+(5) Serbia and Montenegro to be restored, and aided by an
+international relief fund. Serbia to have an outlet on the Adriatic.
+Bosnia and Herzegovina to be autonomous.
+
+(6) The disputed provinces in the Balkans to have provisional
+autonomy, followed by a plebiscite.
+
+(7) Rumania to be restored, but forced to give complete
+self-determination to the Dobrudja.... Rumania must be forced to
+execute the clauses of the Berlin Treaty concerning the Jews, and
+recognise them as Rumanian citizens.
+
+(8) In Italia Irridenta a provisional autonomy, followed by a
+plebiscite to determine state dependence.
+
+(9) The German colonies to be returned.
+
+(10) Greece and Persia to be restored.
+
+_Freedom of the Seas_
+
+All straits opening into inland seas, as well as the Suez and Panama
+Canals, are to be neutralised. Commercial shipping to be free. The
+right of privateering to be abolished. The torpedoing of commercial
+ships to be forbidden.
+
+_Indemnities_
+
+All combatants to renounce demands for any indemnities, either direct
+or indirect--as, for instance, charges for the maintenance of
+prisoners. Indemnities and contributions collected during the war
+must be refunded.
+
+_Economic Terms_
+
+Commercial treaties are not to be a part of the peace terms. Every
+country must be independent in its commercial relations, and must not
+be obliged to, or prevented from, concluding an economic treaty, by
+the Treaty of Peace. Nevertheless, all nations should bind
+themselves, by the Peace Treaty, not to practise an economic blockade
+after the war, nor to form separate tariff agreements. The right of
+most favoured nation must be given to all countries without
+distinction.
+
+_Guarantees of Peace_
+
+Peace is to be concluded at the Peace Conference by delegates elected
+by the national representative institutions of each country. The
+peace terms are to be confirmed by these parliaments.
+
+Secret diplomacy is to be abolished; all parties are to bind
+themselves not to conclude any secret treaties. Such treaties are
+declared in contradiction to international law, and void. All
+treaties, until confirmed by the parliaments of the different
+nations, are to be considered void.
+
+Gradual disarmament both on land and sea, and the establishment of a
+militia system. The "League of Nations" advanced by President Wilson
+may become a valuable aid to international law, provided that (a),
+all nations are to be obliged to participate in it with equal rights,
+and (b), international politics are to be democratised.
+
+_Ways to Peace_
+
+The Allies are to announce immediately that they are willing to open
+peace negotiations as soon as the enemy powers declare their consent
+to the renunciation of all forcible annexations.
+
+The Allies must bind themselves not to begin any peace negotiations,
+nor to conclude peace, except in a general Peace Conference with the
+participation of delegates from all the neutral countries.
+
+All obstacles to the Stockholm Socialist Conference are to be
+removed, and passports are to be given immediately to all delegates
+of parties and organisations who wish to participate.
+
+(The Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets also issued a
+_nakaz,_ which differs little from the above.)
+
+6.
+
+PEACE AT RUSSIA'S EXPENSE
+
+The Ribot revelations of Austria's peace-offer to France; the
+so-called "Peace Conference" at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer
+of 1917, in which delegates participated from all belligerent
+countries, representing large financial interests in all these
+countries; and the attempted negotiations of an English agent with a
+Bulgarian church dignitary; all pointed to the fact that there were
+strong currents, on both sides, favourable to patching up a peace at
+the expense of Russia. In my next book, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,"
+I intend to treat this matter at some length, publishing several
+secret documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at
+Petrograd.
+
+7.
+
+RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE
+
+_Official Report of the Provisional Government._
+
+"From the time the news of the Russian Revolution reached Paris,
+Russian newspapers of extreme tendencies immediately began to appear;
+and these newspapers, as well as individuals, freely circulated among
+the soldier masses and began a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading
+false news which appeared in the French journals. In the absence of
+all official news, and of precise details, this campaign provoked
+discontent among the soldiers. The result was a desire to return to
+Russia, and a hatred toward the officers.
+
+"Finally it all turned into rebellion. In one of their meetings, the
+soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to drill, since they had decided
+to fight no more. It was decided to isolate the rebels, and General
+Zankievitch ordered all soldiers loyal to the Provisional Government
+to leave the camp of Courtine, and to carry with them all ammunition.
+On June 25th the order was executed; there remained at the camp only
+the soldiers who said they would submit 'conditionally' to the
+Provisional Government. The soldiers at the camp of Courtine received
+several times the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian
+Armies abroad, of Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and of
+several distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them, but
+these attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp insisted
+that the rebels lay down their arms, and, in sign of submission,
+march in good order to a place called Clairvaux. The order was only
+partially obeyed; first 500 men went out, of whom 22 were arrested;
+24 hours later about 6,000 followed.... About 2,000 remained....
+
+"It was decided to increase the pressure; their rations were
+diminished, their pay was cut off, and the roads toward the village
+of Courtine were guarded by French soldiers. General Zankievitch,
+having discovered that a Russian artillery brigade was passing
+through France, decided to form a mixed detachment of infantry and
+artillery to reduce the rebels. A deputation was sent to the rebels;
+the deputation returned several hours later, convinced of the
+futility of the negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch
+sent an ultimatum to the rebels demanding that they lay down their
+arms, and menacing in case of refusal to open fire with artillery if
+the order was not obeyed by September 3d at 10 o'clock.
+
+"The order not being executed, a light fire of artillery was opened
+on the place at the hour agreed upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and
+the rebels were warned that the bombardment would become more
+intense. In the night of September 3d 160 men surrendered. September
+4th the artillery bombardment recommenced, and at 11 o'clock, after
+36 shells had been fired, the rebels raised two white flags and began
+to leave the camp without arms. By evening 8,300 men had surrendered.
+150 soldiers who remained in the camp opened fire with machine-guns
+that night. The 5th of September, to make an end of the affair, a
+heavy barrage was laid on the camp, and our soldiers occupied it
+little by little. The rebels kept up a heavy fire with their
+machine-guns. September 6th, at 9 o'clock, the camp was entirely
+occupied.... After the disarmament of the rebels, 81 arrests were
+made...."
+
+Thus the report. From secret documents discovered in the Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs, however, we know that the account is not strictly
+accurate. The first trouble arose when the soldiers tried to form
+Committees, as their comrades in Russia were doing. They demanded to
+be sent back to Russia, which was refused; and then, being considered
+a dangerous influence in France, they were ordered to Salonika. They
+refused to go, and the battle followed.... It was discovered that they
+had been left in camp without officers for about two months, and
+badly treated, before they became rebellious. All attempts to find
+out the name of the "Russian artillery brigade" which had fired on
+them were futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it to
+be inferred that French artillery was used....
+
+After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were
+shot in cold blood.
+
+8.
+
+TERESTCHENKO'S SPEECH_ (Resume_)
+
+"... The questions of foreign policy are closely related to those of
+national defence.... And so, if in questions of national defence you
+think it is necessary to hold session in secret, also in our foreign
+policy we are sometimes forced to observe the same secrecy....
+
+"German diplomacy attempts to influence public opinion.... Therefore
+the declarations of directors of great democratic organisations who
+talk loudly of a revolutionary Congress, and the impossibility of
+another winter campaign, are dangerous.... All these declarations cost
+human lives....
+
+"I wish to speak merely of governmental logic, without touching the
+questions of the honour and dignity of the State. From the point of
+view of logic, the foreign policy of Russia ought to be based on a
+real comprehension of the _interests_ of Russia.... These interests
+mean that it is impossible that our country remain alone, and that
+the present alignment of forces with us, (the Allies), is
+satisfactory.... All humanity longs for peace, but in Russia no one
+will permit a humiliating peace which would violate the State
+interests of our fatherland!"
+
+The orator pointed out that such a peace would for long years, if not
+for centuries, retard the triumph of democratic principles in the
+world, and would inevitably cause new wars.
+
+"All remember the days of May, when the fraternisation on our Front
+threatened to end the war by a simple cessation of military
+operations, and lead the country to a shameful separate peace... and
+what efforts it was necessary to use to make the soldier masses at
+the front understand that it was not by this method that the Russian
+State must end the war and guarantee its interest...."
+
+He spoke of the miraculous effect of the July offensive, what
+strength it gave to the words of Russian ambassadors abroad, and the
+despair in Germany caused by the Russian victories. And also, the
+disillusionment in Allied countries which followed the Russian
+defeat....
+
+"As to the Russian Government, it adhered strictly to the formula of
+May, 'No annexations and no punitive indemnities.' We consider it
+essential not only to proclaim the self-determination of peoples, but
+also to renounce imperialist aims...."
+
+Germany is continually trying to make peace. The only talk in Germany
+is of peace; she knows she cannot win.
+
+"I reject the reproaches aimed at the Government which allege that
+Russian foreign policy does not speak clearly enough about the aims
+of the war....
+
+"If the question arises as to what ends the Allies are pursuing, it
+is indispensable first to demand what aims the Central Powers have
+agreed upon....
+
+"The desire is often heard that we publish the details of the
+treaties which bind the Allies; but people forget that, up to now, we
+do not know the treaties which bind the Central Powers...."
+
+Germany, he said, evidently wants to separate Russia from the West by
+a series of weak buffer-states.
+
+"This tendency to strike at the vital interests of Russia must be
+checked....
+
+"And will the Russian democracy, which has inscribed on its banner
+the rights of nations to dispose of themselves, allow calmly the
+continuation of oppression upon the most civilised peoples (in
+Austria-Hungary)?
+
+"Those who fear that the Allies will try to profit by our difficult
+situation, to make us support more than our share of the burden of
+war, and to solve the questions of peace at our expense, are entirely
+mistaken.... Our enemy looks upon Russia as a market for its products.
+The end of the war will leave us in a feeble condition, and with our
+frontier open the flood of German products can easily hold back for
+years our industrial development. Measures must be taken to guard
+against this....
+
+"I say openly and frankly: the combination of forces which unites us
+to the Allies is _favourable to the interests of Russia...._ It is
+therefore important that our views on the questions of war and peace
+shall be in accord with the views of the Allies as clearly and
+precisely as possible.... To avoid all misunderstanding, I must say
+frankly that Russia must present at the Paris Conference _one point
+of view...._"
+
+He did not want to comment on the _nakaz_ to Skobeliev, but he
+referred to the Manifesto of the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee, just
+published in Stockholm. This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of
+Lithuania and Livonia; "but that is clearly impossible," said
+Terestchenko, "for Russia must have free ports on the Baltic all the
+year round....
+
+"In this question the problems of foreign policy are also closely
+related to interior politics, for if there existed a strong sentiment
+of unity of all great Russia, one would not witness the repeated
+manifestations, everywhere, of a desire of peoples to separate from
+the Central Government.... Such separations are contrary to the
+interests of Russia, and the Russian delegates cannot raise the
+issue...."
+
+9.
+
+THE BRITISH FLEET (_etc._)
+
+At the time of the naval battle of the Gulf of Riga, not only the
+Bolsheviki, but also the Ministers of the Provisional Government,
+considered that the British Fleet had deliberately abandoned the
+Baltic, as one indication of the attitude so often expressed publicly
+by the British press, and semi-publicly by British representatives in
+Russia, "Russia's finished! No use bothering about Russia!"
+
+See interview with Kerensky (Appendix 13).
+
+GENERAL GURKO was a former Chief of Staff of the Russian armies under
+the Tsar. He was a prominent figure in the corrupt Imperial Court.
+After the Revolution, he was one of the very few persons exiled for
+his political and personal record. The Russian naval defeat in the
+Gulf of Riga coincided with the public reception, by King George in
+London, of General Gurko, a man whom the Russian Provisional
+Government considered dangerously pro-German as well as reactionary!
+
+10.
+
+APPEALS AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+_To Workers and Soldiers_
+
+"Comrades! The Dark Forces are increasingly trying to call forth in
+Petrograd and other towns DISORDERS AND _Pogroms._ Disorder is
+necessary to the Dark Forces, for disorder will give them an
+opportunity for crushing the revolutionary movement in blood. Under
+the pretext of establishing order, and of protecting the inhabitants,
+they hope to establish the domination of Kornilov, which the
+revolutionary people succeeded in suppressing not long ago.
+Woe to the people if these hopes are realised! The triumphant
+counter-revolution will destroy the Soviets and the Army Committees,
+will disperse the Constituent Assembly, will stop the transfer of the
+land to the Land Committees, will put an end to all the hopes of the
+people for a speedy peace, and will fill all the prisons with
+revolutionary soldiers and workers.
+
+"In their calculations, the counter-revolutionists and Black Hundred
+leaders are counting on the serious discontent of the unenlightened
+part of the people with the disorganisation of the food-supply, the
+continuation of the war, and the general difficulties of life. They
+hope to transform every demonstration of soldiers and workers into a
+_pogrom,_ which will frighten the peaceful population and throw it
+into the arms of the Restorers of Law and Order.
+
+"Under such conditions every attempt to organise a demonstration in
+these days, although for the most laudable object, would be a crime.
+All conscious workers and soldiers who are displeased with the policy
+of the Government will only bring injury to themselves and to the
+Revolution if they indulge in demonstrations.
+
+"THEREFORE THE _Tsay-ee-kah_ ASKS ALL WORKERS NOT TO OBEY ANY CALLS
+TO DEMONSTRATE.
+
+"WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! DO NOT YIELD TO PROVOCATION! REMEMBER YOUR
+DUTY TO YOUR COUNTRY AND TO THE REVOLUTION! DO NOT BREAK THE UNITY OF
+THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT BY DEMONSTRATIONS WHICH ARE BOUND TO BE
+UNSUCCESSFUL!"
+
+_The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers' and
+Soldiers' Deputies (Tsay-ee-kah)_
+
+_Russian Social Democratic Labour Party_
+THE DANGER IS NEAR!
+To All Workers and Soldiers
+(_Read and Hand to Others_)
+
+_Comrades Workers and Soldiers!_
+
+"Our country is in danger. On account of this danger our freedom and
+our Revolution are passing through difficult days. The enemy is at
+the gates of Petrograd. The disorganisation is growing with every
+hours. It becomes more and more difficult to obtain bread for
+Petrograd. All, of from the smallest to the greatest, must redouble
+their efforts, must endeavour to arrange things properly.... We must
+save our country, save freedom.... More arms and provisions for the
+Army! Bread--for the great cities. Order and organisation in the
+country....
+
+"And in these terrible critical days rumours creep about that
+SOMEWHERE a demonstration is being prepared, that SOME ONE is calling
+on the soldiers and workers to destroy revolutionary peace and
+order.... _Rabotchi Put,_ the newspaper of the Bolsheviki, is pouring
+oil on the flames: it flattering, trying to please the unenlightened
+people, tempting the worker and soldiers, urging them on against the
+Government, promising them mountains of good things.... The confiding,
+ignorant men believe, they do not reason.... And from the other side
+come also rumours--rumours that the Dark Forces, the friends of the
+Tsar, the German spies, are rubbing their hands with glee. They are
+ready to join the Bolsheviki, and with them fan the disorders into
+civil war.
+
+"The Bolsheviki and the ignorant soldiers and workers seduced by them
+cry senselessly: 'Down with the Government! All power to the
+Soviets!' And the Dark servants of the Tsar and the spies of Wilhelm
+will egg the on; 'Beat the Jews, beat the shopkeepers, rob the
+markets, devastate the shops, pillage the wine stores! Slay, burn,
+rob!'
+
+"And then will begin a terrible confusion, a war between one part of
+the people and the other. All will become still more disorganised,
+and perhaps once more blood will be shed on the streets of the
+capital. And then what then?
+
+"Then, the road to Petrograd will be open to Wilhelm. Then, no bread
+will come to Petrograd, the children will die of hunger. Then, the
+Army as the front will remain without support, our brothers in the
+trenches will be delivered to the fire of the enemy. Then, Russia
+will lose all prestige in other countries, our money will lose its
+value; everything will be so dear as to make life impossible. Then,
+the long awaited Constituent Assembly will be postponed--it will be
+impossible to convene it in time. And then--Death to the Revolution,
+Death to our Liberty....
+
+"Is it this that you want, workers and soldiers? No! If you do not
+then go, go to the ignorant people seduced by the betrayers, and tell
+them the whole truth, which we have told you!
+
+"Let all know that EVERY MAN WHO IN THESE TERRIBLE DAYS CALLS ON YOU
+TO COME OUT IN THE STREETS AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, IS EITHER A SECRET
+SERVANT OF THE TSAR, A PROVOCATOR, OR AN UNWISE ASSISTANT OF THE
+ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, OR A PAID SPY OF WILHELM!
+
+"Every conscious worker revolutionist, every conscious peasant, every
+revolutionary soldier, all who understand what harm a demonstration
+or a revolt against the Government might cause to the people, must
+join together and not allow the enemies of the people to destroy our
+freedom."
+
+_The Petrograd Electoral Committee of the Mensheviki-oborontzi._
+
+11.
+
+LENIN's "LETTER TO THE COMRADES"
+
+This series of articles appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ several days
+running, at the end of October and beginning of November, 1917. I
+give here only extracts from two instalments:
+
+1. Kameniev and Riazanov say that we have not a majority among the
+people, and that without a majority insurrection is hopeless.
+
+"Answer: People capable of speaking such things are falsifiers,
+pedants, or simply don't want to look the real situation in the face.
+In the last elections we received in all the country more than fifty
+per cent of all thevotes....
+
+"The most important thing in Russia to-day is the peasants'
+revolution. In Tambov Government there has been a real agrarian
+uprising with wonderful political results.... Even _Dielo Naroda_ has
+been scared into yelling that the land must be turned over to the
+peasants, and not only the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Council
+of the Republic, but also the Government itself, has been similarly
+affected. Another valuable result was the bringing of bread which had
+been hoarded by the _pomieshtchiki_ to the railroad stations in that
+province. The _Russkaya Volia_ had to admit that the stations were
+filled with bread after the peasants' rising....
+
+"2. We are not sufficiently strong to take over the Government, and
+the bourgeoisie is not sufficiently strong to prevent the Constituent
+Assembly.
+
+"Answer: This is nothing but timidity, expressed by pessimism as
+regards workers and soldiers, and optimism as regards the failure of
+the bourgeoisie. If _yunkers_ and Cossacks say they will fight, you
+believe them; if workmen and soldiers say so, you doubt it. What is
+the distinction between such doubts and siding politically with the
+bourgeoisie?
+
+"Kornilov proved that the Soviets were really a power. To believe
+Kerensky and the Council of the Republic, if the bourgeoisie is not
+strong enough to break the Soviets, it is not strong enough to break
+the Constituent. But that is wrong. The bourgeoisie will break the
+Constituent by sabotage, by lock-outs, by giving up Petrograd, by
+opening the front to the Germans. This has already been done in the
+case of Riga....
+
+"3. The Soviets must remain a revolver at the head of the Government
+to force the calling of the Constituent Assembly, and to suppress any
+further Kornilov attempts.
+
+"Answer: Refusal of insurrection is refusal of 'All Power to the
+Soviets.' Since September the Bolshevik party has been discussing the
+question of insurrection. Refusing to rise means to trust our hopes
+in the faith of the good bourgeoisie, who have 'promised' to call the
+Constituent Assembly. When the Soviets have all the power, the
+calling of the Constituent is guaranteed, and its success assured.
+
+"Refusal of insurrection means surrender to the 'Lieber-Dans.' Either
+we must drop 'All Power to the Soviets' or make an insurrection;
+there is no middle course."
+
+"4. The bourgeoisie cannot give up Petrograd, although the Rodziankos
+want it, because it is not the bourgeoisie who are fighting, but our
+heroic soldiers and sailors.
+
+"Answer: This did not prevent two admirals from running away at the
+Moonsund battle. The Staff has not changed; it is composed of
+Kornilovtsi. If the Staff, with Kerensky at its head, wants to give
+up Petrograd, it can do it doubly or trebly. It can make arrangements
+with the Germans or the British; open the fronts. It can sabotage the
+Army's food supply. At all these doors has it knocked.
+
+"We have no right to wait until the bourgeoisie chokes the
+Revolution. Rodzianko is a man of action, who has faithfully and
+truthfully served the bourgeoisie for years.... Half the Lieber-Dans
+are cowardly compromisers; half of them simple fatalists...."
+
+"5. We're getting stronger every day. We shall be able to enter the
+Constituent Assembly as a strong opposition. Then why should we play
+everything on one card?"
+
+"Answer: This is the argument of a sophomore with no practical
+experience, who reads that the Constituent Assembly is being called
+and trustfully accepts the legal and constitutional way. Even the
+voting of the Constituent Assembly will not do away with hunger, or
+beat Wilhelm.... The issue of hunger and of surrendering Petrograd
+cannot be decided by waiting for the Constituent Assembly. Hunger is
+not waiting. The peasants' Revolution is not waiting. The Admirals
+who ran away did not wait.
+
+"Blind people are surprised that hungry people, betrayed by admirals
+and generals, do not take an interest in voting.
+
+"6. If the Kornilovtsi make an attempt, we would show them our
+strength. But why should we risk everything by making an attempt
+ourselves?
+
+"Answer: History doesn't repeat. 'Perhaps Kornilov will some day make
+an attempt!' What a serious base for proletarian action! But suppose
+Kornilov waits for starvation, for the opening of the fronts, what
+then? This attitude means to build the tactics of a revolutionary
+party on one of the bourgeoisie's former mistakes.
+
+"Let us forget everything except that there is no way out but by the
+dictatorship of the proletariat--either that or the dictatorship of
+Kornilov.
+
+"Let us wait, comrades, for--a miracle!"
+
+12.
+
+MILIUKOV's SPEECH (_Resume_)
+
+"Every one admits, it seems, that the defence of the country is our
+principal task, and that, to assure it, we must have discipline in
+the Army and order in the rear. To achieve this, there must be a
+power capable of daring, not only by persuasion, but also by force....
+The germ of all our evils comes from the point of view, original,
+truly Russian, concerning foreign policy, which passes for the
+Internationalist point of view.
+
+"The noble Lenin only imitates the noble Keroyevsky when he holds
+that from Russia will come the New World which shall resuscitate the
+aged West, and which will replace the old banner of doctrinary
+Socialism by the new direct action of starving masses--and that will
+push humanity forward and force it to break in the doors of the
+social paradise...."
+
+These men sincerely believed that the decomposition of Russia would
+bring about the decomposition of the whole capitalist regime.
+Starting from that point of view, they were able to commit the
+unconscious treason, in wartime, of calmly telling the soldiers to
+abandon the trenches, and instead of fighting the external enemy,
+creating internal civil war and attacking the proprietors and
+capitalists....
+
+Here Miliukov was interrupted by furious cries from the Left,
+demanding what Socialist had ever advised such action....
+
+"Martov says that only the revolutionary pressure of the proletariat
+can condemn and conquer the evil will of imperialist cliques and
+break down the dictatorship of these cliques.... Not by an accord
+between Governments for a limitation of armaments, but by the
+disarming of these Governments and the radical democratisation of the
+military system...."
+
+He attacked Martov viciously, and then turned on the Mensheviki and
+Socialist Revolutionaries, whom he accused of entering the Government
+as Ministers with the avowed purpose of carrying on the class
+struggle!
+
+"The Socialists of Germany and of the Allied countries contemplated
+these gentlemen with ill-concealed contempt, but they decided that it
+was for Russia, and sent us some apostles of the Universal
+Conflagration....
+
+"The formula of our democracy is very simple; no foreign policy, no
+art of diplomacy, an immediate democratic peace, a declaration to the
+Allies, 'We want nothing, we haven't anything to fight with!' And
+then our adversaries will make the same declaration, and the
+brotherhood of peoples will be accomplished!"
+
+Miliukov took a fling at the Zimmerwald Manifesto, and declared that
+even Kerensky has not been able to escape the influence of "that
+unhappy document which will forever be your indictment." He then
+attacked Skobeliev, whose position in foreign assemblies, where he
+would appear as a Russian delegate, yet opposed to the foreign policy
+of his Government, would be so strange that people would say, "What's
+that gentleman carrying, and what shall we talk to him about?" As for
+the _nakaz,_ Miliukov said that he himself was a pacifist; that he
+believed in the creation of an International Arbitration Board, and
+the necessity for a limitation of armaments, and parliamentary
+control over secret diplomacy, which did not mean the abolition of
+secret diplomacy.
+
+As for the Socialist ideas in the _nakaz,_ which he called "Stockholm
+ideas"--peace without victory, the right of self-determination of
+peoples, and renunciation of the economic war--
+
+"The German successes are directly proportionate to the successes of
+those who call themselves the revolutionary democracy. I do not wish
+to say, 'to the successes of the Revolution,' because I believe that
+the defeats of the revolutionary democracy are victories for the
+Revolution....
+
+"The influence of the Soviet leaders abroad is not unimportant. One
+had only to listen to the speech of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
+to be convinced that, in this hall, the influence of the
+revolutionary democracy on foreign policy is so strong, that the
+Minister does not dare to speak face to face with it about the honour
+and dignity of Russia!
+
+"We can see, in the _nakaz_ of the Soviets, that the ideas of the
+Stockholm Manifesto have been elaborated in two direction--that of
+Utopianism, and that of German interests...."
+
+Interrupted by the angry cries of the Left, and rebuked by the
+President, Miliukov insisted that the proposition of peace concluded
+by popular assemblies, not by diplomats, and the proposal to
+undertake peace negotiations as soon as the enemy had renounced
+annexations, were pro-German. Recently Kuhlman said that a personal
+declaration bound only him who made it.... "Anyway, we will imitate the
+Germans before we will imitate the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies...."
+
+The sections treating of the independence of Lithuania and Livonia
+were symptoms of nationalist agitation in different parts of Russia,
+supported, said Miliukov, by German money.... Amid bedlam from the
+Left, he contrasted the clauses of the _nakaz_ concerning
+Alsace-Lorraine, Rumania, and Serbia, with those treating of the
+nationalities in Germany and Austria. The _nakaz_ embraced the German
+and Austrian point of view, said Miliukov.
+
+Passing to Terestchenko's speech, he contemptuously accused him of
+being afraid to speak the thought in his mind, and even afraid to
+think in terms of the greatness of Russia. The Dardanelles must
+belong to Russia....
+
+"You are continually saying that the soldier does not know why he is
+fighting, and that when he does know, he'll fight.... It is true that
+the soldier doesn't know why he is fighting, but now you have told
+him that there is no reason for him to fight, that we have no
+national interests, and that we are fighting for alien ends...."
+
+Paying tribute to the Allies, who, he said, with the assistance of
+America, "will yet save the cause of humanity," he ended:
+
+"Long live the light of humanity, the advanced democracies of the
+West, who for a long time have been travelling the way we now only
+begin to enter, with ill-assured and hesitating steps! Long live our
+brave Allies!"
+
+13.
+
+INTERVIEW WITH KERENSKY
+
+The Associated Press man tried his hand. "Mr. Kerensky," he began,
+"in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution----"
+
+"Yes, I know," interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. "Abroad the
+Revolution is no longer fashionable!"
+
+"What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?"
+
+"That is a foolish question to ask." Kerensky was annoyed. "Russia
+entered the war first of all the Allies, and for a long time she bore
+the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater
+than those of all the other nations put together. Russia has now the
+right to demand of the Allies that they bring greater force of arms
+to bear." He stopped for a moment and stared at his interlocutor.
+"You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the
+Russians are asking where is the British fleet--with German
+battle-ships in the Gulf of Riga?" Again he ceased suddenly, and as
+suddenly burst out. "The Russian Revolution hasn't failed and the
+revolutionary Army hasn't failed. It is not the Revolution which
+caused disorganisation in the army--that disorganisation was
+accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren't the Russians
+fighting? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are
+economically exhausted,--and because they are disillusioned with the
+Allies!"
+
+The interview of which this is an excerpt was cabled to the United
+States, and in a few days sent back by the American State Department,
+with a demand that it be "altered." This Kerensky refused to do; but
+it was done by his secretary, Dr. David Soskice--and, thus purged of
+all offensive references to the Allies, was given to the press of the
+world....
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III
+
+1.
+
+RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES
+
+_Workers' Control_
+
+1. (See page 43)
+
+2. The organisation of Workers' Control is a manifestation of the
+same healthy activity in the sphere of industrial production, as are
+party organisations in the sphere of politics, trade unions in
+employment, Cooperatives in the domain of consumption, and literary
+clubs in the sphere of culture.
+
+3. The working-class has much more interest in the proper and
+uninterrupted operation of factories... than the capitalist class.
+Workers' Control is a better security in this respect for the
+interests of modern society, of the whole people, than the arbitrary
+will of the owners, who are guided only by their selfish desire for
+material profits or political privileges. Therefore Workers' Control
+is demanded by the proletariat not only in their own interest, but in
+the interest of the whole country, and should be supported by the
+revolutionary peasantry as well as the revolutionary Army.
+
+4. Considering the hostile attitude of the majority of the capitalist
+class toward the Revolution, experience shows that proper
+distribution of raw materials and fuel, as well as the most efficient
+management of factories, is impossible without Workers' Control.
+
+5. Only Workers' Control over capitalist enterprises, cultivating the
+workers' conscious attitude toward work, and making clear its social
+meaning, can create conditions favourable to the development of a
+firm self-discipline in labour, and the development of all labour's
+possible productivity.
+
+6. The impending transformation of industry from a war to a peace
+basis, and the redistribution of labour all over the country, as well
+as among the different factories, can be accomplished without great
+disturbances only by means of the democratic self-government of the
+workers themselves.... Therefore the realisation of Workers' Control is
+an indispensable preliminary to the demobilisation of industry.
+
+7. In accordance with the slogan proclaimed by the Russian Social
+Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviki), Workers' Control on a national
+scale, in order to bring results, must extend to all capitalist
+concerns, and not be organised accidentally, without system; it must
+be well-planned, and not separated from the industrial life of the
+country as a whole.
+
+8. The economic life of the country--agriculture, industry, commerce
+and transport--must be subjected to one unified plan, constructed so
+as to satisfy the individual and social requirements of the wide
+masses of the people; it must be approved by their elected
+representatives, and carried out under the direction of these
+representatives by means of national and local organisations.
+
+9. That part of the plan which deals with land-labour must be carried
+out under supervision of the peasants' and land-workers'
+organisations; that relating to industry, trade and transport
+operated by wage-earners, by means of Workers' Control; the natural
+organs of Workers' Control inside the industrial plant will be the
+Factory-Shop and similar Committees; and in the labour market, the
+Trade Unions.
+
+10. The collective wage agreements arranged by the Trade Unions for
+the majority of workers in any branch of labour, must be binding on
+all the owners of plants employing this kind of labour in the given
+district.
+
+11. Employment bureaus must be placed under the control and
+management of the Trade Unions, as class organisations acting within
+the limits of the whole industrial plan, and in accordance with it.
+
+12. Trade Unions must have the right, upon their own initiative, to
+begin legal action against all employers who violate labour contracts
+or labour legislation, and also in behalf of any individual worker in
+any branch of labour.
+
+13. On all questions relating to Workers' Control over production,
+distribution and employment, the Trade Unions must confer with the
+workers of individual establishments through their Factory-Shop
+Committees.
+
+14. Matters of employment and discharge, vacations, wage scales,
+refusal of work, degree of productivity and skill, reasons for
+abrogating agreements, disputes with the administration, and similar
+problems of the internal life of the factory, must be settled
+exclusively according to the findings of the Factory-Shop Committee,
+which has the right to exclude from participation in the discussion
+any members of the factory administration.
+
+15. The Factory-Shop Committee forms a commission to control the
+supplying of the factory with raw materials, fuel, orders, labour
+power and technical staff (including equipment), and all other
+supplies and arrangements, and also to assure the factory's adherence
+to the general industrial plan. The factory administration is obliged
+to surrender to the organs of Workers' Control, for their aid and
+information, all data concerning the business; to make it possible to
+verify this data, and to produce the books of the company upon demand
+of the Factory-Shop Committee.
+
+16. Any illegal acts on the part of the administration discovered by
+the Factory-Shop Committees, or any suspicion of such illegal acts,
+which cannot be investigated or remedied by the workers alone, shall
+be referred to the district central organisation of Factory-Shop
+Committees charged with the particular branch of labour involved,
+which shall discuss the matter with the institutions charged with the
+execution of the general industrial plan, and find means to deal with
+the matter, even to the extent of confiscating the factory.
+
+17. The union of the Factory-Shop Committees of different concerns
+must be accomplished on the basis of the different trades, in order
+to facilitate control over the whole branch of industry, so as to
+come within the general industrial plan; and so as to create an
+effective plan of distribution among the different factories of
+orders, raw materials, fuel, technical and labour power; and also to
+facilitate cooperation with the Trade Unions, which are organised by
+trades.
+
+18. The central city councils of Trade Unions and Factory-Shop
+Committees represent the proletariat in the corresponding provincial
+and local institutions formed to elaborate and carry out the general
+industrial plan, and to organise economic relations between the towns
+and the villages (workers and peasants). They also possess final
+authority for the management of Factory-Shop Committees and Trade
+Unions, so far as Workers' Control in their district is concerned,
+and they shall issue obligatory regulations concerning workers'
+discipline in the routine of production--which regulations, however,
+must be approved by vote of the workers themselves.
+
+2.
+
+THE BOURGEOIS PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Russkaya Volia,_ October 28. "The decisive moment approaches.... It is
+decisive for the Bolsheviki. Either they will give us... a second
+edition of the events of July 16-18, or they will have to admit that
+with their plans and intentions, with their impertinent policy of
+wishing to separate themselves from everything consciously national,
+they have been definitely defeated....
+
+"What are the chances of Bolshevik success?
+
+"It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support
+is the... ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they
+work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop....
+
+"The Government must play its part in this affair. Supporting itself
+morally by the Council of the Republic, the Government must take a
+clearly-defined attitude toward the Bolsheviki....
+
+"And if the Bolsheviki provoke an insurrection against the legal
+power, and thus facilitate the German invasion, they must be treated
+as mutineers and traitors...."
+
+_Birzhevya Viedomosti,_ October 28. "Now that the Bolsheviki have
+separated themselves from the rest of the democracy, the struggle
+against them is very much simpler--and it is not reasonable, in order
+to fight against Bolshevism, to wait until they make a manifestation.
+The Government should not even allow the manifestation....
+
+"The appeals of the Bolsheviki to insurrection and anarchy are acts
+punishable by the criminal courts, and in the freest countries, their
+authors would receive severe sentences. For what the Bolsheviki are
+carrying on is not a political struggle against the Government, or
+even for the power; it is propaganda for anarchy, massacres, and
+civil war. This propaganda must be extirpated at its roots; it would
+be strange to wait, in order to begin action against an agitation for
+_pogroms,_ until the _pogroms_ actually occurred...."
+
+_Novoye Vremya,_ November 1. "... Why is the Government excited
+only about November 2d (date of calling of the Congress of Soviets),
+and not about September 12th, or October 3d?
+
+"This is not the first time that Russia burns and falls in ruins, and
+that the smoke of the terrible conflagration makes the eyes of our
+Allies smart....
+
+"Since it came to power, has there been a single order issued by the
+Government for the purpose of halting anarchy, or has any one
+attempted to put out the Russian conflagration?
+
+"There were other things to do....
+
+"The Government turned its attention to a more immediate problem. It
+crushed an insurrection (the Kornilov attempt) concerning which every
+one is now asking, 'Did it ever exist?"
+
+3.
+
+MODERATE SOCIALIST PRESS ON THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+_Dielo Naroda,_ October 28 (Socialist Revolutionary). "The most
+frightful crime of the Bolsheviki against the Revolution is that they
+impute exclusively to the bad intentions of the revolutionary
+Government all the calamities which the masses are so cruelly
+suffering; when as a matter of fact these calamities spring from
+objective causes.
+
+"They make golden promises to the masses, knowing in advance that
+they can fulfil none of them; they lead the masses on a false trail,
+deceiving them as to the source of all their troubles....
+
+"The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous enemies of the Revolution...."
+
+_Dien,_ October 30 (Menshevik). "Is this really 'the freedom of the
+press'? Every day _Novaya Rus_ and _Rabotchi Put_ openly incite to
+insurrection. Every day these two papers commit in their columns
+actual crimes. Every day they urge _pogroms_.... Is that 'the freedom
+of the press'?...
+
+"The Government ought to defend itself and defend us. We have the
+right to insist that the Government machinery does not remain passive
+while the threat of bloody riots endangers the lives of its
+citizens...."
+
+4.
+
+"YEDINSTVO"
+
+Plekhanov's paper, _Yedinstvo,_ suspended publication a few weeks
+after the Bolsheviki seized the power. Contrary to popular report,
+_Yedinstvo_ was not suppressed by the Soviet Government; an
+announcement in the last number admitted that it was unable to
+continue _because there were too few subscribers_....
+
+5.
+
+WERE THE BOLSHEVIKI CONSPIRATORS?
+
+The French newspaper _Entente_ of Petrograd, on November 15th,
+published an article of which the following is a part:
+
+"The Government of Kerensky discusses and hesitates. The Government
+of Lenin and Trotzky attacks and acts.
+
+"This last is called a Government of Conspirators, but that is wrong.
+Government of usurpers, yes, like all revolutionary Governments which
+triumph over their adversaries. Conspirators--no!
+
+"No! They did not conspire. On the contrary, openly, audaciously,
+without mincing words, without dissimulating their intentions, they
+multiplied their agitation, intensified their propaganda in the
+factories, the barracks, at the Front, in the country, everywhere,
+even fixing in advance the date of their taking up arms, the date of
+their seizure of the power....
+
+"_They_--conspirators? Never...."
+
+6.
+
+APPEAL AGAINST INSURRECTION
+
+_From the Central Army Committee_
+
+"... Above everything we insist upon the inflexible execution of the
+organised will of the majority of the people, expressed by the
+Provisional Government in accord with the Council of the Republic and
+the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ as organ of the popular power....
+
+"Any demonstration to depose this power by violence, at a moment when
+a Government crisis will infallibly create disorganisation, the ruin
+of the country, and civil war, will be considered by the Army as a
+counter-revolutionary act, and repressed by force of arms....
+
+"The interests of private groups and classes should be submitted to a
+single interest--that of augmenting industrial production, and
+distributing the necessities of life with fairness....
+
+"All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all
+deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do
+auxiliary service in the rear of the Army....
+
+"We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators
+of the people's will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour
+detachments to work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under
+enemy fire...."
+
+7.
+
+EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH
+
+Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops
+of the bourgeois press, where they printed _Rabotchi Put, Soldat,_
+and various proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia
+was ordered to clear these places, but found the offices barricaded,
+and armed men defending them. Soldiers who were ordered to attack the
+print-shops refused.
+
+About midnight a Colonel with a company of _yunkers_ arrived at the
+club "Free Mind," with a warrant to arrest the editor of _Rabotchi
+Put._ Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and
+threatened to lynch the _yunkers._ The Colonel thereupon begged that
+he and the _yunkers_ be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for
+safety. This request was granted.
+
+At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied
+the Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward
+morning the Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o'clock the Telephone
+Exchange. At dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a
+cordon of troops was drawn about the Winter Palace.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV
+
+1.
+
+EVENTS OF NOVEMBER 7TH
+
+From 4 A. M. until dawn Kerensky remained at the Petrograd Staff
+Headquarters, sending orders to the Cossacks and to the _yunkers_ in
+the Officers' Schools in and around Petrograd--all of whom answered
+that they were unable to move.
+
+Colonel Polkovnikov, Commandant of the City, hurried between the
+Staff and the Winter Palace, evidently without any plan. Kerensky
+gave an order to open the bridges; three hours passed without any
+action, and then an officer and five men went out on their own
+initiative, and putting to flight a picket of Red Guards, opened the
+Nicolai Bridge. Immediately after they left, however, some sailors
+closed it again.
+
+Kerensky ordered the print-shop of _Rabotchi Put_ to be occupied. The
+officer detailed to the work was promised a squad of soldiers; two
+hours later he was promised some _yunkers;_ then the order was
+forgotten.
+
+An attempt was made to recapture the Post Office and the Telegraph
+Agency; a few shots were fired, and the Government troops announced
+that they would no longer oppose the Soviets.
+
+To a delegation of _yunkers_ Kerensky said, "As chief of the
+Provisional Government and as Supreme Commander I know nothing, I
+cannot advise you; but as a veteran revolutionist, I appeal to you,
+young revolutionists, to remain at your posts and defend the
+conquests of the Revolution."
+
+Orders of Kishkin, November 7th:
+
+"By decree of the Provisional Government.... I am invested with
+extraordinary powers for the reestablishment of order in Petrograd,
+in complete command of all civil and military authorities...."
+
+"In accordance with the powers conferred upon me by the Provisional
+Government, I herewith relieve from his functions as Commandant of
+the Petrograd Military District Colonel George Polkovnikov...."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Appeal to the Population_ signed by Vice-Premier Konovalov, November
+7th:
+
+"Citizens! Save the fatherland, the republic and your freedom.
+Maniacs have raised a revolt against the only governmental power
+chosen by the people, the Provisional Government....
+
+"The members of the Provisional Government fulfil their duty, remain
+at their post, and continue to work for the good of the fatherland,
+the reestablishment of order, and the convocation of the Constituent
+Assembly, future sovereign of Russia and of all the Russian peoples....
+
+"Citizens, you must support the Provisional Government. You must
+strengthen its authority. You must oppose these maniacs, with whom
+are joined all enemies of liberty and order, and the followers of the
+Tsarist regime, in order to wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy
+the conquests of the Revolution, and the future of our dear
+fatherland....
+
+"Citizens! Organise around the Provisional Government for the defence
+of its temporary authority, in the name of order and the happiness of
+all peoples...."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_Proclamation of the Provisional Government._
+
+"The Petrograd Soviet.... has declared the Provisional Government
+overthrown, and has demanded that the Governmental power be turned
+over to it, under threat of bombarding the Winter Palace with the
+cannon of Peter-Paul Fortress, and of the cruiser _Avrora,_ anchored
+in the Neva.
+
+"The Government can surrender its authority only to the Consituent
+Assembly; for that reason it has decided not to submit, and to demand
+aid from the population and the Army. A telegram has been sent to the
+_Stavka;_ and an answer received says that a strong detachment of
+troops is being sent....
+
+"Let the Army and the People reject the irresponsible attempts of the
+Bolsheviki to create a revolt in the rear...."
+
+About 9 A. M. Kerensky left for the Front....
+
+Toward evening two soldiers on bicycles presented themselves at the
+Staff Headquarters, as delegates of the garrison of Peter-Paul
+Fortress. Entering the meeting-room of the Staff, where Kishkin,
+Rutenburg, Paltchinski, General Bagratouni, Colonel Paradielov and
+Count Tolstoy were gathered, they demanded the immediate surrender of
+the Staff; threatening, in case of refusal, to bombard headquarters....
+After two panicky conferences the Staff retreated to the Winter
+Palace, and the headquarters were occupied by Red Guards....
+
+Late in the afternoon several Bolshevik armoured cars cruised around
+the Palace Square, and Soviet soldiers tried unsuccessfully to parley
+with the _yunkers_....
+
+Firing on the Palace began about 7 o'clock in the evening....
+
+At 10 P. M. began an artillery bombardment from three sides, in which
+most of the shells were blanks, only three small shrapnels striking
+the facade of the Palace....
+
+2.
+
+KERENSKY IN FLIGHT
+
+Leaving Petrograd in the morning of November 7th, Kerensky arrived by
+automobile at Gatchina, where he demanded a special train. Toward
+evening he was in Ostrov, Province of Pskov. The next morning,
+extraordinary session of the local Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Depulies, with participation of Cossack delegates--there being 6,000
+Cossacks at Ostrov.
+
+Kerensky spoke to the assembly, appealing for aid against the
+Bolsheviki, and addressed himself almost exclusively to the Cossacks.
+The soldier delegates protested.
+
+"Why did you come here?" shouted voices. Kerensky answered, "To ask
+the Cossacks' assistance in crushing the Bolshevik insurrection!" At
+this there were violent protestations, which increased when he
+continued, "I broke the Kornilov attempt, and I will break the
+Bolsheviki!" The noise became so great that he had to leave the
+platform....
+
+The soldier deputies and the Ussuri Cossacks decided to arrest
+Kerensky, but the Don Cossacks prevented them, and got him away by
+train.... A Military Revolutionary Committee, set up during the day,
+tried to inform the garrison of Pskov; but the telephone and
+telegraph lines were cut....
+
+Kerensky did not arrive at Pskov. Revolutionary soldiers had cut the
+railway line, to prevent troops being sent against the capital. On
+the night of November 8th he arrived by automobile at Luga, where he
+was well received by the Death Battalions stationed there.
+
+Next day he took train for the South-West Front, and visited the Army
+Committee at headquarters. The Fifth Army, however, was wild with
+enthusiasm over the news of the Bolshevik success, and the Army
+Committee was unable to promise Kerensky any support.
+
+From there he went to the _Stavka,_ at Moghilev, where he ordered ten
+regiments from different parts of the Front to move against
+Petrograd. The soldiers almost unanimously refused; and those
+regiments which did start halted on the way. About five thousand
+Cossacks finally followed him....
+
+3.
+
+LOOTING OF THE WINTER PALACE
+
+I do not mean to maintain that there was no looting, in the Winter
+Palace. Both after and _before_ the Winter Palace fell, there was
+considerable pilfering. The statement of the Socialist Revolutionary
+paper _Narod,_ and of members of the City Duma, to the effect that
+precious objects to the value of 500,000,000 rubles had been stolen,
+was, however, a gross exaggeration.
+
+The most important art treasures of the Palace--paintings, statues,
+tapestries, rare porcelains and armorie,--had been transferred to
+Moscow during the month of September; and they were still in good
+order in the basement of the Imperial Palace there ten days after the
+capture of the Kremlin by Bolshevik troops. I can personally testify
+to this....
+
+Individuals, however, especially the general public, which was
+allowed to circulate freely through the Winter Palace for several
+days after its capture, made away with table silver, clocks, bedding,
+mirrors and some odd vases of valuable porcelain and semi-precious
+stone, to the value of about $50,000.
+
+The Soviet Government immediately created a special commission,
+composed of artists and archaeologists, to recover the stolen objects.
+On November 1st two proclamations were issued:
+
+"CITIZENS OF PETROGRAD!
+
+"We urgently ask all citizens to exert every effort to find whatever
+possible of the objects stolen from the Winter Palace in the night of
+November 7-8, and to forward them to the Commandant of the Winter
+Palace.
+
+"Receivers of stolen goods, antiquarians, and all who are proved to
+be hiding such objects will be held legally responsible and punished
+with all severity.
+
+"_Commissars for the Protection of Museums and Artistic Collections,_
+                                "G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM."
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"TO REGIMENTAL AND FLEET COMMITTEES
+
+"In the night of November 7-8, in the Winter Palace, which is the
+inalienable property of the Russian people, valuable objects of art
+were stolen.
+
+"We urgently appeal to all to exert every effort, so that the stolen
+objects are returned to the Winter Palace.
+
+"_Commissars_....
+    "G. YATMANOV, B. MANDELBAUM."
+
+About half the loot was recovered, some of it in the baggage of
+foreigners leaving Russia.
+
+A conference of artists and archaeologists, held at the suggestion of
+Smolny, appointed a commission of make an inventory of the Winter
+Palace treasures, which was given complete charge of the Palace and
+of all artistic collections and State museums in Petrograd. On
+November 16th the Winter Palace was closed to the public while the
+inventory was being made....
+
+During the last week in November a decree was issued by the Council
+of People's Commissars, changing the name of the Winter Palace to
+"People's Museum," entrusting it to the complete charge of the
+artistic-archaeological commission, and declaring that henceforth all
+Governmental activities within its wall were prohibited....
+
+4.
+
+RAPE OF THE WOMEN'S BATTALION
+
+Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts of
+sensational stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press, and
+told in the City Duma, about the fate of the Women's Battalion
+defending the Palace. It was said that some of the girl-soldiers had
+been thrown from the windows into the street, most of the rest had
+been violated, and many had committed suicide as a result of the
+horrors they had gone through.
+
+The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On
+November 16th the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters of
+the Women's Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had
+been at first taken to the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and
+that there some of them had been badly treated; but that at present
+most of them were at Levashovo, and the rest scattered about the city
+in private houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the commission,
+testified drily that _none_ of the women had been thrown out of the
+windows of the Winter Palace, that _none_ were wounded, that three
+had been violated, and that one had committed suicide, leaving a note
+which said that she had been "disappointed in her ideals."
+
+On November 21st the Military Revolutionary Committee officially
+dissolved the Women's Battalion, at the request of the girls
+themselves, who returned to civilian clothes.
+
+In Louise Bryant's book, "Six Red Months in Russia," there is an
+interesting description of the girl-soldiers during this time.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND PROCLAMATIONS
+
+_From the Military Revolutionary Committee,_ November 8:
+
+"To All Army Committees and All Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+"The Petrograd garrison has overturned the Government of Kerensky,
+which had risen against the Revolution and the People.... In sending
+this news to the Front and the country, the Military Revolutionary
+Committee requests all soldiers to keep vigilant watch on the conduct
+of officers. Officers who do not frankly and openly declare for the
+Revolution should be immediately arrested as enemies.
+
+"The Petrograd Soviet interprets the programme of the new Government
+as: immediate proposals of a general democratic peace, the immediate
+transfer of great landed estates to the peasants, and the honest
+convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The people's revolutionary
+Army must not permit troops of doubtful morale to be sent to
+Petrograd. Act by means of arguments, by means of moral suasion--but
+if that fails, halt the movement of troops by implacable force.
+
+"The present order must be immediately read to all military units of
+every branch of the service. Whoever keeps the knowledge of this
+order from the soldier-masses.... commits a serious crime against the
+Revolution, and will be punished with all the rigour of revolutionary
+law.
+
+"Soldiers! For peace, bread, land, and popular government!"
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"To All Front and Rear Army, Corps, Divisional, Regimental and
+Company Committees, and All Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"Soldiers and Revolutionary Officers!
+
+"The Military Revolutionary Committee, by agreement with the majority
+of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, has decreed that General
+Kornilov and all the accomplices of his conspiracy shall be brought
+immediately to Petrograd, for incarceration in Peter-Paul Fortress
+and arraignment before a military revolutionary court-martial....
+
+"All who resist the execution of this decree are declared by the
+Committee to be traitors to the Revolution, and their orders are
+herewith declared null and void."
+
+          _The Military Revolutionary Committee Attached to the Petrograd
+                        Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+"To all Provincial and District Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"By resolution of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, all arrested
+members of Land Committees are immediately set free. The Commissars
+who arrested them are to be arrested.
+
+"From this moment all power belongs to the Soviets. The Commissars of
+the Provisional Government are removed. The presidents of the various
+local Soviets are invited to enter into direct relations with the
+revolutionary Government."
+
+                                _Military Revolutionary Committee._
+
+2.
+
+PROTEST OF THE MUNICIPAL DUMA
+
+"The Central City Duma, elected on the most democratic principles,
+has undertaken the burden of managing Municipal affairs and food
+supplies at the time of the greatest disorganisation. At the present
+moment the Bolshevik party, three weeks before the elections to the
+Constituent Assembly, and in spite of the menace of the external
+enemy, having removed by armed force the only legal revolutionary
+authority, is making an attempt against the rights and independence
+of the Municipal Self-Government, demanding submission to its
+Commissars and its illegal authority.
+
+"In this terrible and tragic moment the Petrograd City Duma, in the
+face of its constituents, and of all Russia, declares loudly that it
+will not submit to any encroachments on its rights and its
+independence, and will remain at the post of responsibility to which
+it has been called by the will of the population of the capital.
+
+"The Central City Duma of Petrograd appeals to all Dumas and Zemstvos
+of the Russian Republic to rally to the defence of one of the
+greatest conquests of the Russian Revolution--the independence and
+inviolability of popular self-government."
+
+3.
+
+LAND DECREE--PEASANTS' "NAKAZ"
+
+The Land question can only be permanently settled by the general
+Constituent Assembly.
+
+The most equitable solution of the Land question should be as follows:
+
+1. The right of private ownership of land is abolished forever; land
+cannot be sold, nor leased, nor mortgaged, nor alienated in any way.
+All dominical lands, lands attached to titles, lands belonging to the
+Emperor's cabinet, to monasteries, churches, possession lands,
+entailed lands, private estates, communal lands, peasant free-holds,
+and others, are confiscated without compensation, and become national
+property, and are placed at the disposition of the workers who
+cultivate them.
+
+Those who are damaged because of this social transformation of the
+rights of property are entitled to public aid during the time
+necessary for them to adapt themselves to the new conditions of
+existence.
+
+2. All the riches beneath the earth--ores, oil, coal, salt, etc.--as
+well as forests and waters having a national importance, become the
+exclusive property of the State. All minor streams, lakes and forests
+are placed in the hands of the communities, on condition of being
+managed by the local organs of government.
+
+3. All plots of land scientifically cultivated--gardens, plantations,
+nurseries, seed-plots, green-houses, and others--shall not be divided,
+but transformed into model farms, and pass into the hands of the
+State or of the community, according to their size and importance.
+
+Buildings, communal lands and villages with their private gardens and
+their orchards remain in the hands of their present owners; the
+dimensions of these plots and the rate of taxes for their use shall
+be fixed by law.
+
+4. All studs, governmental and private cattle-breeding and
+bird-breeding establishments, and others, are confiscated and become
+national property, and are transferred either to the State or to the
+community, according to their size and importance.
+
+All questions of compensation for the above are within the competence
+of the Constituent Assembly.
+
+5. All inventoried agricultural property of the confiscated lands,
+machinery and live-stock, are transferred without compensation to
+the State or the community, according to their quantity and
+importance.
+
+The confiscation of such machinery or live-stock shall not apply to
+the small properties of peasants.
+
+6. The right to use the land is granted to all citizens, without
+distinction of sex, who wish to work the land themselves, with the
+help of their families, or in partnership, and only so long as they
+are able to work. No hired labour is permitted.
+
+In the event of the incapacity for work of a member of the commune
+for a period of two years, the commune shall be bound to render him
+assistance during this time by working his land in common.
+
+Farmers who through old age or sickness have permanently lost the
+capacity to work the land themselves, shall surrender their land and
+receive instead a Government pension.
+
+7. The use of the land should be equalised--that is to say, the land
+shall be divided among the workers according to local conditions, the
+unit of labour and the needs of the individual.
+
+The way in which land is to be used may be individually determined
+upon: as homesteads, as farms, by communes, by partnerships, as will
+be decided by the villages and settlements.
+
+8. All land upon its confiscation is pooled in the general People's
+Land Fund. Its distribution among the workers is carried out by the
+local and central organs of administration, beginning with the
+village democratic organisations and ending with the central
+provincial institutions--with the exception of urban and rural
+cooperative societies.
+
+The Land Fund is subject to periodical redistribution according to
+the increase of population and the development of productivity and
+rural economy.
+
+In case of modification of the boundaries of allotments, the original
+centre of the allotment remains intact.
+
+The lands of persons retiring from the community return to the Land
+Fund; providing that near relatives of the persons retiring, or
+friends designated by them, shall have preference in the
+redistribution of these lands.
+
+When lands are returned to the Land Fund, the money expended for
+manuring or improving the land, which has not been exhausted, shall
+be reimbursed.
+
+If in some localities the Land Fund is insufficient to satisfy the
+local population, the surplus population should emigrate.
+
+The organisation of the emigration, also the costs thereof, and the
+providing of emigrants with the necessary machinery and live-stock,
+shall be the business of the State.
+
+The emigration shall be carried out in the following order: first,
+the peasants without land who express their wish to emigrate; then
+the undesirable members of the community, deserters, etc., and
+finally, by drawing lots on agreement.
+
+All which is contained in this _nakaz,_ being the expression of the
+indisputable will of the great majority of conscious peasants of
+Russia, is declared to be a temporary law, and until the convocation
+of the Constituent Assembly, becomes effective immediately so far as
+is possible, and in some parts of it gradually, as will be determined
+by the District Soviets of Peasants' Deputies.
+
+4.
+
+THE LAND AND DESERTERS
+
+The Government was not forced to make any decision concerning the
+rights of deserters to the land. The end of the war and the
+demobilisation of the army automatically removed the deserter
+problem....
+
+5.
+
+THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS
+
+The Council of People's Commissars was at first composed entirely of
+Bolsheviki. This was not entirely the fault of the Bolsheviki,
+however. On November 8th they offered portfolios to members of the
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who declined. See page 273. {of original
+volume}
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
+
+1.
+
+APPEALS AND DENUNCIATIONS
+
+Appeal to all Citizens and to the Military Organisations of the
+Socialist Revolutionary Party.
+
+"The senseless attempt of the Bolsheviki is on the eve of complete
+failure. The garrison is disaffected.... The Ministries are idle, bread
+is lacking. All factions except a handful of Bolsheviki have left the
+Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviki are alone! Abuses of all sorts,
+acts of vandalism and pillage, the bombardment of the Winter Palace,
+arbitrary arrests--all these crimes committed by the Bolsheviki have
+aroused against them the resentment of the majority of the sailors
+and soldiers. The _Tsentroflot_ refuses to submit to the orders of
+the Bolsheviki....
+
+"We call upon all sane elements to gather around the Committee for
+Salvation of Country and Revolution; to take serious measures to be
+ready, at the first call of the Central Committee of the Party, to
+act against the counter-revolutionists, who will doubtless attempt to
+profit by these troubles provoked by the Bolshevik adventure, and to
+watch closely the external enemy, who also would like to take
+advantage of this opportune moment when the Front is weakened...."
+
+       _The Military Section of the Central Committee of
+                the Socialist Revolutionary Party._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+From _Pravda:_
+
+"What is Kerensky?
+
+"A usurper, whose place is in Peter-Paul prison, with Kornilov and
+Kishkin.
+
+"A criminal and a traitor to the workers, soldiers and peasants, who
+believed in him.
+
+"Kerensky? A murderer of soldiers!
+
+"Kerensky? A public executioner of peasants!
+
+"Kerensky? A strangler of workers!
+
+"Such is the second Kornilov who now wants to butcher Liberty!"
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
+
+1.
+
+TWO DECREES
+
+_On the Press_
+
+In the serious decisive hour of the Revolution and the days immediately
+following it, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is compelled to
+adopt a series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press of
+all shades.
+
+Immediately on all sides there are cries that the new Socialist
+authority is in this violating the essential principles of its own
+programme by an attempt against the freedom of the press.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government calls the attention of the
+population to the fact that in our country, behind this liberal
+shield, is hidden the opportunity for the wealthier classes to seize
+the lion's share of the whole press, and by this means to poison the
+popular mind and bring confusion into the consciousness of the masses.
+
+Every one knows that the bourgeois press is one of the most powerful
+weapons of the bourgeoisie. Especially in this critical moment, when
+the new authority of the workers and peasants is in process of
+consolidation, it is impossible to leave it in the hands of the
+enemy, at a time when it is not less dangerous than bombs and
+machine-guns. This is why temporary and extraordinary measures have
+been adopted for the purpose of stopping the flow of filth and
+calumny in which the yellow and green press would be glad to drown
+the young victory of the people.
+
+As soon as the new order is consolidated, all administrative measures
+against the press will be suspended; full liberty will be given it
+within the limits of responsibility before the law, in accordance
+with the broadest and most progressive regulations....
+
+Bearing in mind, however, the fact that any restrictions of the
+freedom of the press, even in critical moments, are admissible only
+within the bounds of necessity, the Council of People's Commissars
+decrees as follows:
+
+1. The following classes of newspapers shall be subject to closure:
+(a) Those inciting to open resistance or disobedience to the Workers'
+and Peasants' Government; (b) Those creating confusion by obviously
+and deliberately perverting the news; (c) Those inciting to acts of a
+criminal character punishable by the laws.
+
+2. The temporary or permanent closing of any organ of the press shall
+be carried out only by virtue of a resolution of the Council of
+People's Commissars.
+
+3. The present decree is of a temporary nature, and will be revoked
+by a special _ukaz_ when normal conditions of public life are
+re-established.
+
+     _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+        VLADIMIR ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Workers' Militia_
+
+1. All Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies shall form a
+Workers' Militia.
+
+2. This Workers' Militia shall be entirely at the orders of the
+Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
+
+3. Military and civil authorities must render every assistance in
+arming the workers and in supplying them with technical equipment,
+even to the extent of requisitioning arms belonging to the War
+Department of the Government.
+
+4. This decree shall be promulgated by telegraph. Petrograd, November
+10, 1917.
+
+            _People's Commissar of the Interior_
+
+                A. I. RYKOV.
+
+This decree encouraged the formation of companies of Red Guards all
+over Russia, which became the most valuable arm of the Soviet
+Government in the ensuing civil war.
+
+2.
+
+THE STRIKE FUND
+
+The fund for the striking Government employees and bank clerks was
+subscribed by banks and business houses of Petrograd and other
+cities, and also by foreign corporations doing business in Russia.
+All who consented to strike against the Bolsheviki were paid full
+wages, and in some cases their pay was increased. It was the
+realisation of the strike fund contributors that the Bolsheviki were
+firmly in power, followed by their refusal to pay strike benefits,
+which finally broke the strike.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII
+
+1.
+
+KERENSKY'S ADVANCE
+
+On November 9th Kerensky and his Cossacks arrived at Gatchina, where
+the garrison, hopelessly split into two factions, immediately
+surrendered. The members of the Gatchina Soviet were arrested, and at
+first threatened with death; later they were released on good
+behaviour.
+
+The Cossack advance-guards, practically unopposed, occupied Pavlovsk,
+Alexandrovsk and other stations, and reached the outskirts of
+Tsarskoye Selo next morning--November 10th. At once the garrison
+divided into three groups--the officers, loyal to Kerenskly; part of
+the soldiers and non-commissioned officers, who declared themselves
+"neutral"; and most of the rank and file, who were for the
+Bolsheviki. The Bolshevik soldiers, who were without leaders or
+organisation, fell back toward the capital. The local Soviet also
+withdrew to the village of Pulkovo.
+
+From Pulkovo six members of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet went with an
+automobile-load of proclamations to Gatchina, to propagandise the
+Cossacks. They spent most of the day going around Gatchina from one
+Cossack barracks to another, pleading, arguing and explaining. Toward
+evening some officers discovered their presence and they were
+arrested and brought before General Krasnov, who said, "You fought
+against Kornilov; now you are opposing Kerensky. I'll have you all
+shot!"
+
+After reading aloud to them the order appointing him
+commander-in-chief of the Petrograd District, Krasnov asked if they
+were Bolsheviki. They replied in the affirmative--upon which Krasnov
+went away; a short time later an officer came and set them free,
+saying that it was by order of General Krasnov....
+
+In the meanwhile delegations continued to arrive from Petrograd; from
+the Duma, the Committee for Salvation, and, last of all, from the
+_Vikzhel._ The Union of Railway Workers insisted that some agreement
+be reached to halt the civil war, and demanded that Kerensky treat
+with the Bolsheviki, and that he stop the advance on Petrograd. In
+case of refusal, the _Vikzhel_ threatened a general strike at
+midnight of November 11th.
+
+Kerensky asked to be allowed to discuss the matter with the Socialist
+Ministers and with the Committee for Salvation. He was plainly
+undecided.
+
+On the 11th Cossack outposts reached Krasnoye Selo, from which the
+local Soviet and the heterogeneous forces of the Military
+Revolutionary Committee precipitately retired, some of them
+surrendering.... That night they also touched Pulkovo, where the first
+real resistance was encountered....
+
+Cossacks deserters began to dribble into Petrograd, declaring that
+Kerensky had lied to them, that he had spread broadcast over the
+front proclamations which said that Petrograd was burning, that the
+Bolsheviki had invited the Germans to come in, and that they were
+murdering women and children and looting indiscriminately....
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately sent out some dozens
+of "agitators," with thousands of printed appeals, to inform the
+Cossacks of the real situation....
+
+2.
+
+PROCLAMATIONS OF THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+"To All Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and
+Peasants' Deputies charges the local Soviets immediately to take the
+most energetic measures to oppose all counter-revolutionary
+anti-Semitic disturbances, and all _pogroms_ of whatever nature. The
+honour of the workers', peasants' and soldiers' Revolution cannot
+tolerate any disorders....
+
+"The Red Guard of Petrograd, the revolutionary garrison and the
+sailors have maintained complete order in the capital.
+
+"Workers, soldiers, and peasants, everywhere you should follow the
+example of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
+
+"Comrades soldiers and Cossacks, on us falls the duty of keeping real
+revolutionary order.
+
+"All revolutionary Russia and the whole world have their eyes on
+you...."
+
+"The All-Russian Congress of Soviets decrees:
+
+"To abolish capital punishment at the Front, which was reintroduced
+by Kerensky.
+
+"Complete freedom of propaganda is to be re-established in the
+country. All soldiers and revolutionary officers now under arrest for
+so-called political 'crimes' are at once to be set free."
+
+"The ex-Premier Kerensky, overthrown by the people, refuses to submit
+to the Congress of Soviets and attempts to struggle against the legal
+Government elected by the All-Russian Congress--the Council of
+People's Commissars. The Front has refused to aid Kerensky. Moscow
+has rallied to the new Government. In many cities (Minsk, Moghilev,
+Kharkov) the power is in the hands of the Soviets. No infantry
+detachment consents to march against the Workers' and Peasants'
+Government, which, in accord with the firm will of the Army and the
+people, has begun peace negotiations and has given the land to the
+peasants....
+
+"We give public warning that if the Cossacks do not halt Kerensky,
+who has deceived them and is leading them against Petrograd, the
+revolutionary forces will rise with all their might for the defence
+of the precious conquests of the Revolution--Peace and Land.
+
+"Citizens of Petrograd! Kerensky fled from the city, abandoning the
+authority to Kishkin, who wanted to surrender the capital to the
+Germans; Rutenburg, of the Black Band, who sabotaged the Municipal
+Food Supply; and Paltchinsky, hated by the whole democracy. Kerensky
+has fled, abandoning you to the Germans, to famine, to bloody
+massacres. The revolting people have arrested Kerensky's Ministers,
+and you have seen how the order and supplying of Petrograd at once
+improved. Kerensky, at the demand of the aristocrat proprietors, the
+capitalists, speculators, marches against you for the purpose of
+giving back the land to the land-owners, and continuing the hated and
+ruinous war.
+
+"Citizens of Petrograd! We know that the great majority of you are in
+favour of the people's revolutionary authority, against the
+Kornilovtsi led by Kerensky. Do not be deceived by the lying
+declarations of the impotent bourgeois conspirators, who will be
+pitilessly crushed.
+
+"Workers, soldiers, peasants! We call upon you for revolutionary
+devotion and discipline.
+
+"Millions of peasants and soldiers are with us.
+
+"The victory of the people's Revolution is assured!"
+
+3.
+
+ACTS OF THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS
+
+In this book I am giving only such decrees as are in my opinion
+pertinent to the Bolshevik conquest of power. The rest belong to a
+detailed account of the Structure of the Soviet State, for which I
+have no place in this work. This will be dealt with very fully in the
+second volume, now in preparation, "Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk."
+
+_Concerning Dwelling-Places_
+
+1. The independent Municipal Self-Governments have the right to
+sequestrate all unoccupied or uninhabited dwelling-places.
+
+2. The Municipalities may, according to laws and arrangements
+established by them, install in all available lodgings citizens who
+have no place to live, or who live in congested or unhealthy lodgings.
+
+3. The Municipalities may establish a service of inspection of
+dwelling-places, organise it and define its powers.
+
+4. The Municipalities may issue orders on the institution of House
+Committees, define their organisation, their powers and give them
+juridical authority.
+
+5. The Municipalities may create Housing Tribunals, define their
+powers and their authority.
+
+6. This decree is promulgated by telegraph.
+
+            _People's Commissar of the Interior,_
+
+                    A. I. RYKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Social Insurance_
+
+The Russian proletariat has inscribed on its banners the promise of
+complete Social Insurance of wage-workers, as well as of the town and
+village poor. The Government of the Tsar, the proprietors and the
+capitalists, as well as the Government of coalition and conciliation,
+failed to realise the desires of the workers with regard to Social
+Insurance.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government, relying upon the support of
+the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, announces
+to the working-class of Russia and to the town and village poor, that
+it will immediately prepare laws on Social Insurance based on the
+formulas proposed by the Labour organisations:
+
+1. Insurance for all wage-workers without exception, as well as for
+all urban and rural poor.
+
+2. Insurance to cover all categories of loss of working capacity,
+such as illness, infirmities, old age, childbirth, widowhood,
+orphanage, and unemployment.
+
+3. All the costs of insurance to be charged to employers.
+
+4. Compensation of at least full wages in all loss of working
+capacity and unemployment.
+
+5. Complete workers' self-government of all Insurance institutions.
+
+In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,
+                                _The People's Commissar of Labour,_
+                                                ALEXANDER SHLIAPNIKOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On Popular Education_
+
+Citizens of Russia!
+
+With the insurrection of November 7th the working masses have won for
+the first time the real power.
+
+The All-Russian Congress of Soviets has temporarily transferred this
+power both to its Executive Committee and to the Council of People's
+Commissars.
+
+By the will of the revolutionary people, I have been appointed
+People's Commissar of Education.
+
+The work of guiding in general the people's education, inasmuch as it
+remains with the central government, is, until the Constituent
+Assembly meets, entrusted to a Commission on the People's Education,
+whose chairman and executive is the People's Commissar.
+
+Upon what fundamental propositions will rest this State Commission?
+How is its sphere of competence determined?
+
+_The General Line of Educational Activity:_ Every genuinely
+democratic power must, in the domain of education, in a country where
+illiteracy and ignorance reign supreme, make its first aim the
+struggle against this darkness. It must acquire in the shortest time
+_universal literacy,_ by organising a network of schools answering to
+the demands of modern pedagogics; it must introduce universal,
+obligatory and free tuition for all, and establish at the same time a
+series of such teachers' institutes and seminaries as will in the
+shortest time furnish a powerful army of people's teachers so
+necessary for the universal instruction of the population of our
+boundless Russia.
+
+_Decentralisation:_ The State Commission on People's Education is by
+no means a central power governing the institutions of instruction
+and education. On the contrary, the entire school work ought to be
+transferred to the organs of local self-government. The independent
+work of the workers, soldiers and peasants, establishing on their own
+initiative cultural educational organisations, must be given full
+autonomy, both by the State centre and the Municipal centres.
+
+The work of the State Commission serves as a link and helpmate to
+organise resources of material and moral support to the Municipal and
+private institutions, particularly to those with a class-character
+established by the workers.
+
+_The State Committee on People's Education:_ A whole series of
+invaluable law projects was elaborated from the beginning of the
+Revolution by the State Committee for People's Education, a tolerably
+democratic body as to its composition, and rich in experts. The State
+Commission sincerely desires the collaboration of this Committee.
+
+It has addressed itself to the bureau of the Committee, with the
+request at once to convoke an extraordinary session of the Committee
+for the fulfilment of the following programme:
+
+1. The revision of rules of representation in the Committee, in the
+sense of greater democratisation.
+
+2. The revision of the Committee's rights in the sense of widening
+them, and of converting the Committee into a fundamental State
+institute for the elaboration of law projects calculated to
+reorganise public instruction and education in Russia upon democratic
+principles.
+
+3. The revision, jointly with the new State Commission, of the laws
+already created by the Committee, a revision required by the fact
+that in editing them the Committee had to take into account the
+bourgeois spirit of previous Ministries, which obstructed it even in
+this its narrowed form.
+
+After this revision these laws will be put into effect without any
+bureaucratic red tape, in the revolutionary order.
+
+_The Pedagogues and the Societists:_ The State Commission welcomes
+the pedagogues to the bright and honourable work of educating the
+people--the masters of the country.
+
+No one measure in the domain of the people's education ought to be
+adopted by any power without the attentive deliberation of those who
+represent the pedagogues.
+
+On the other hand, a decision cannot by any means be reached
+exclusively through the cooperation of specialists. This refers as
+well to reforms of the institutes of general education.
+
+The cooperation of the pedagogues with the social forces--this is how
+the Commission will work both in its own constitution, in the State
+Committee, and in all its activities.
+
+As its first task the Commission considers the improvement of the
+teachers' status, and first of all of those very poor though almost
+most important contributors to the work of culture--the elementary
+school teachers. Their just demands ought to be satisfied at once and
+at any cost. The proletariat of the schools has in vain demanded an
+increase of salary to one hundred rubles per month. It would be a
+disgrace any longer to keep in poverty the teachers of the
+overwhelming majority of the Russian people.
+
+But a real democracy cannot stop at mere literacy, at universal
+elementary instruction. It must endeavour to organise a uniform
+secular school of several grades. The ideal is, equal and if possible
+higher education for all the citizens. So long as this idea has not
+been realised for all, the natural transition through all the
+schooling grades up to the university--a transition to a higher
+stage--must depend entirely upon the pupil's aptitude, and not upon
+the resources of his family.
+
+The problem of a genuinely democratic organisation of instruction is
+particularly difficult in a country impoverished by a long, criminal,
+imperialistic war; but the workers who have taken the power must
+remember that education will serve them as the greatest instrument in
+their struggle for a better lot and for a spiritual growth. However
+needful it may be to curtail other articles of the people's budget,
+the expenses on education must stand high. A large educational budget
+is the pride and glory of a nation. The free and enfranchised peoples
+of Russia will not forget this.
+
+The fight against illiteracy and ignorance cannot be confined to a
+thorough establishment of school education for children and youths.
+Adults, too, will be anxious to save themselves from the debasing
+position of a man who cannot read and write. The school for adults
+must occupy a conspicuous place in the general plan of popular
+instruction.
+
+_Instruction and Education:_ One must emphasise the difference
+between instruction and education.
+
+Instruction is the transmission of ready knowledge by the teacher to
+his pupil. Education is a creative process. The personality of the
+individual is being "educated" throughout life, is being formed,
+grows richer in content, stronger and more perfect.
+
+The toiling masses of the people--the workmen, the peasants, the
+soldiers--are thirsting for elementary and advanced instruction. But
+they are also thirsting for education. Neither the government nor the
+intellectuals nor any other power outside of themselves can give it
+to them. The school, the book, the theatre, the museum, etc., may
+here by only aids. They have their own ideas, formed by their social
+position, so different from the position of those ruling classes and
+intellectuals who have hitherto created culture. They have their own
+ideas, their own emotions, their own ways of approaching the problems
+of personality and society. The city labourer, according to his own
+fashion, the rural toiler according to his, will each build his clear
+world-conception permeated with the class-idea of the workers. There
+is no more superb or beautiful phenomenon than the one of which our
+nearest descendants will be both witnesses and participants: The
+building by collective Labour of its own general, rich and free soul.
+
+Instruction will surely be an important but not a decisive element.
+What is more important here is the criticism, the creativeness of the
+masses themselves; for science and art have only in some of their
+parts a general human importance. They suffer radical changes with
+every far-reaching class upheaval.
+
+Throughout Russia, particularly among the city labourers, but also
+among the peasants, a powerful wave of cultural educational movement
+has arisen; workers' and soldiers' organisations of this kind are
+multiplying rapidly. To meet them, to lend them support, to clear the
+road before them is the first task of a revolutionary and popular
+government in the domain of democratic education.
+
+_The Constituent Assembly_ will doubtless soon begin its work. It
+alone can permanently establish the order of national and social life
+in our country, and at the same time the general character of the
+organisation of popular education.
+
+Now, however, with the passage of power to the Soviets, the really
+democratic character of the Constituent Assembly is assured. The line
+which the State Commission, relying upon the State Committee, will
+follow, will hardly suffer any modification under the influence of
+the Constituent Assembly. Without pre-determining it, the new
+People's Government considers itself within its rights in enacting in
+this domain a series of measures which aim at enriching and
+enlightening as soon as possible the spiritual life of the country.
+
+_The Ministry:_ The present work must in the interim proceed through
+the Ministry of the People's Education. Of all the necessary
+alterations in its composition and construction the State Commission
+will have charge, elected by the Executive Committee of the Soviets
+and the State Committee. Of course the order of State authority in
+the domain of the people's education will be established by the
+Constituent Assembly. Until then, the Ministry must play the part of
+the executive apparatus for both the State Committee and the State
+Commission for People's Education.
+
+The pledge of the country's safety lies in the cooperation of all its
+vital and genuinely democratic forces.
+
+We believe that the energetic effort of the working people and of the
+honest enlightened intellectuals will lead the country out of its
+painful crisis, and through complete democracy to the reign of
+Socialism and the brotherhood of nations.
+
+      _People's Commissar on Education,_
+
+               A. V. LUNACHARSKY.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Order in Which the Laws Are to be Ratified and Published._
+
+1. Until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the enacting
+and publishing of laws shall be carried out in the order decreed by
+the present Provisional Workmen's and Peasants' Government, elected
+by the All-Russian Congress of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers'
+Deputies.
+
+2. Every bill is presented for consideration of the Government by the
+respective Ministry, signed by the duly authorised People's
+Commissar; or it is presented by the legislative section attached to
+the Government, signed by the chief of the section.
+
+3. After its ratification by the Government, the decree in its final
+edition, in the name of the Russian Republic, is signed by the
+president of the Council of People's Commissars, or for him by the
+People's Commissar who presented it for the consideration of the
+Government, and is then published.
+
+4. The date of publishing it in the official "Gazette of the
+Provisional Workmen's and Peasants' Government," is the date of its
+becoming law.
+
+5. In the decree there may be appointed a date, other than the date
+of publication, on which it shall become law, or it may be
+promulgated by telegraph; in which case it is to be regarded in every
+locality as becoming law upon the publication of the telegram.
+
+6. The promulgation of legislative acts of the government by the
+State Senate is abolished. The Legislative Section attached to the
+Council of People's Commissars issues periodically a collection of
+regulations and orders of the government which possess the force of
+law.
+
+7. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers',
+Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies _(Tsay-ee-kah)_ has at all times
+the right to cancel, alter or annul any of the Government decrees.
+
+_In the name of the Russian Republic, the President of the Council of
+People's Commissars,_
+
+                                        V. ULIANOV-LENIN.
+
+4.
+
+THE LIQUOR PROBLEM
+
+_Order Issued by the Military Revolutonary Committee_
+
+1. Until further order the production of alcohol and alcoholic drinks
+is prohibited.
+
+2. It is ordered to all producers of alcohol and alcoholic drinks to
+inform not later than on the 27th inst. of the exact site of their
+stores.
+
+3. All culprits against this order will be tried by a Military
+Revolutionary Court.
+
+THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE.
+
+5.
+
+ORDER NO. 2
+
+_From the Committee of the Finland Guard Reserve Regiment to all
+House Committees and to the citizens of Vasili Ostrov._
+
+The bourgeoisie has chosen a very sinister method of fighting against
+the proletariat; it has established in various parts of the city huge
+wine depots, and distributes liquor among the soldiers, in this
+manner attempting to sow dissatisfaction in the ranks of the
+Revolutionary army.
+
+It is herewith ordered to all house committees, that at 3 o'clock,
+the time set for posting this order, they shall in person and
+secretly notify the President of the Committee of the Finland Guard
+Regiment, concerning the amount of wine in their premises.
+
+Those who violate this order will be arrested and given trial before
+a merciless court, and their property will be confiscated, and the
+stock of wine discovered will be
+
+  BLOWN UP WITH DYNAMITE
+
+  2 hours after this warning,
+
+because more lenient measures, as experience has shown, do not bring
+the desired results.
+
+REMEMBER, THERE WILL BE NO OTHER WARNING BEFORE THE EXPLOSIONS.
+
+  _Regimental Committee of the Finland Guard Regiment._
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
+
+1.
+
+MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE. BULLETIN NO. 2
+
+November 12th, in the evening, Kerensky sent a proposition to the
+revolutionary troops--"to lay down their arms." Kerensky's men opened
+artillery fire. Our artillery answered and compelled the enemy to be
+silent. The Cossacks assumed the offensive. The deadly fire of the
+sailors, the Red Guards and the soldiers forced the Cossacks to
+retreat. Our armoured cars rushed in among the ranks of the enemy.
+The enemy is fleeing. Our troops are in pursuit. The order has been
+given to arrest Kerensky. Tsarskoye Selo has been taken by the
+revolutionary troops.
+
+_The Lettish Riflemen:_ The Military Revolutionary Committee has
+received precise information that the valiant Lettish Riflemen have
+arrived from the Front and taken up a position in the rear of
+Kerensky's bands.
+
+_From the Staff of the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The seizure of Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo by Kerensky's detachments
+is to be explained by the complete absence of artillery and
+machine-guns in these places, whereas Kerensky's cavalry was provided
+with artillery from the beginning. The last two days were days of
+enforced work for our Staff, to provide the necessary quantity of
+guns, machine-guns, field telephones, etc., for the revolutionary
+troops. When this work--with the energetic assistance of the District
+Soviets and the factories (the Putilov Works, Obukhov and others)--was
+accomplished, the issue of the expected encounter left no place for
+doubt: on the side of the revolutionary troops there was not only a
+surplus in quantity and such a powerful material base as Petrograd,
+but also an enormous moral advantage. All the Petrograd regiments
+moved out to the positions with tremendous enthusiasm. The Garrison
+Conference elected a Control Commission of five soldiers, thus
+securing a complete unity between the commander in chief and the
+garrison. At the Garrison Conference it was unanimously decided to
+begin decisive action.
+
+The artillery fire on the 12th of November developed with
+extraordinary force by 3 P.M. The Cossacks were completely
+demoralised. A parliamentarian came from them to the staff of the
+detachment at Krasnoye Selo, and proposed to stop the firing,
+threatening otherwise to take "decisive" measures. He was answered
+that the firing would cease when Kerensky laid down his arms.
+
+In the developing encounter all sections of the troops--the sailors,
+soldiers and the Red Guards--showed unlimited courage. The sailors
+continued to advance until they had fired all their cartridges. The
+number of casualties has not been established yet, but it is larger
+on the part of the counter-revolutionary troops, who experienced
+great losses through one of our armoured cars.
+
+Kerensky's staff, fearing that they would be surrounded, gave the
+order to retreat, which retreat speedily assumed a disorderly
+character. By 11-12 P.M., Tsarkoye Selo, including the wireless
+station, was entirely occupied by the troops of the Soviets. The
+Cossacks retreated towards Gatchina and Colpinno.
+
+The morale of the troops is beyond all praise. The order has been
+given to pursue the retreating Cossacks. From the Tsarskoye Selo
+station a radio-telegram was sent immediately to the Front and to all
+local Soviets throughout Russia. Further details will be
+communicated....
+
+2.
+
+EVENTS OF THE 13TH IN PETROGRAD
+
+Three regiments of the Petrograd garrison to take any part in the
+battle against Kerensky. On the morning of the 13th they summoned to
+a joint conference sixty delegates from the Front, in order to find
+some way to stop the civil war. This conference appointed a committee
+to go and persuade Kerensky's troops to lay down their arms. They
+proposed to ask the Government soldiers the following questions: (1)
+Will the soldiers and Cossacks of Kerensky recognise the
+_Tsay-ee-kah_ as the repository of Governmental power, responsible to
+the Congress of Soviets? (2) Will the soldiers and Cossacks accept
+the decrees of the second Congress of Soviets? (3) Will they accept
+the Land and Peace decrees? (4) Will they agree to cease hostilities
+and return to their units? (5) Will they consent to the arrest of
+Kerensky, Krasnov and Savinkov?
+
+At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Zinoviev said, "It would be
+foolish to think that this committee could finish affair. The enemy
+can only be broken by force. However, it would be a crime for us not
+to try every peaceful means to bring the Cossacks over to us.... What
+we need is a military victory.... The news of an armistice is
+premature. Our Staff will be ready to conclude an armistice when the
+enemy can no longer do any harm....
+
+"At present, the influence of our victory is creating new political
+conditions.... To-day the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined
+to admit the Bolsheviki into the new Government.... A decisive
+victory is indispensable, so that those who hesitate will have no
+further hesitation...."
+
+At the City Duma all attention was concentrated on the formation of
+the new Government. In many factories and barracks already
+Revolutionary Tribunals were operating, and the Bolsheviki were
+threatening to set up more of these, and try Gotz and Avksentiev
+before them. Dan proposed that an ultimatum be sent demanding the
+abolition of these Revolutionary Tribunals, or the other members of
+the Conference would immediately break off all negotiations with the
+Bolsheviki.
+
+Shingariov, Cadet, declared that the Municipality ought not to take
+part in any agreement with the Bolsheviki.... "Any agreement with the
+maniacs is impossible until they lay down their arms and recognise
+the authority of independent courts of law...."
+
+Yartsev, for the _Yedinstvo_ group, declared that any agreement with
+the Bolsheviki would be equivalent to a Bolshevik victory....
+
+Mayor Schreider, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, stated that he
+was opposed to all agreement with the Bolsheviki.... "As for a
+Government, that ought to spring from the popular will; and since the
+popular will has been expressed in the municipal elections, the
+popular will which can create a Government is actually concentrated
+in the Duma...."
+
+After other speakers, of which only the representative of the
+Mensheviki Internationalists was in favour of considering the
+admission of the Bolsheviki into the new Government, the Duma voted
+to continue its representatives in the _Vikzhel's_ conference, but to
+insist upon the restoration of the Provisional Government before
+everything, and to exclude the Bolsheviki from the new power....
+
+3.
+
+TRUCE. KRASNOV's ANSWER TO THE COMMITTEE FOR SALVATION
+
+"In answer to your telegram proposing an immediate armistice, the
+Supreme Commander, not wishing further futile bloodshed, consents to
+enter into negotiations and to establish relations between the armies
+of the Government and the insurrectionists. He proposes to the
+General Staff of the insurrectionists to recall its regiments to
+Petrograd, to declare the line Ligovo-Pulkovo-Colpinno neutral, and
+to allow the advance-guards of the Government cavalry to enter
+Tsarskoye Selo, for the purpose of establishing order. The answer to
+this proposal must be placed in the hands of our envoys before eight
+o'clock to-morrow morning.
+
+KRASNOV."
+
+4.
+
+EVENTS AT TSARSKOYE SELO
+
+On the evening that Kerensky's troops retreated from Tsarskoye Selo,
+some priests organised a religious procession through the streets of
+the town, making speeches to the citizens in which they asked the
+people to support the rightful authority, the Provisional Government.
+When the Cossacks had retreated, and the first Red Guards entered the
+town, witnesses reported that the priests had incited the people
+against the Soviets, and had said prayers at the grave of Rasputin,
+which lies behind the Imperial Palace. One of the priests, Father
+Ivan Kutchurov, was arrested and shot by the infuriated Red Guards....
+
+Just as the Red Guards entered the town the electric lights were shut
+off, plunging the streets in complete darkness. The director of the
+electric light plant, Lubovitch, was arrested by the Soviet troops
+and asked why he had shut off the lights. He was found some time
+later in the room where he had been imprisoned with a revolver in his
+hand and a bullet hole in his temple.
+
+The Petrograd anti-Bolshevik papers came out next day with headlines,
+"Plekhanov's temperature 39 degrees!" Plekhanov lived at Tsarskoye
+Selo, where he was lying ill in bed. Red Guards arrived at the house
+and searched it for arms, questioning the old man.
+
+"What class of society do you belong to?" they asked him.
+
+"I am a revolutionist," answered Plekhanov, "who for forty years has
+devoted his life to the struggle for liberty!"
+
+"Anyway," said a workman, "you have now sold yourself to the
+bourgeoisie!"
+
+The workers no longer knew Plekhanov, pioneer of the Russian Social
+Democracy!
+
+5.
+
+APPEAL OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+"The detachments at Gatchina, deceived by Kerensky, have laid down
+their arms and decided to arrest Kerensky. That chief of the
+counter-revolutionary campaign has fled. The Army, by an enormous
+majority, has pronounced in favour of the second All-Russian Congress
+of Soviets, and of the Government which it has created. Scores of
+delegates from the Front have hastened to Petrograd to assure the
+Soviet Government of the Army's fidelity. No twisting of the facts,
+no calumny against the revolutionary workers, soldiers, and peasants,
+has been able to defeat the People. The Workers' and Soldiers'
+Revolution is victorious....
+
+"The _Tsay-ee-kah_ appeals to the troops which march under the flag
+of the counter-revolution, and invites them immediately to lay down
+their arms--to shed no longer the blood of their brothers in the
+interests of a handful of land-owners and capitalists. The Workers',
+Soldiers' and Peasants' Revolution curses those who remain even for a
+moment under the flag of the People's enemies....
+
+"Cossacks! Come over to the rank of the victorious People!
+Railwaymen, postmen, telegraphers--all, all support the new Government
+of the People!"
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
+
+1.
+
+DAMAGE TO THE KREMLIN
+
+I myself verified the damage to the Kremlin, which I visited
+immediately after the bombardment. The Little Nicolai Palace, a
+building of no particular importance, which was occupied occasionally
+by receptions of one of the Grand Duchesses, had served as barracks
+for the _yunkers._ It was not only bombarded, but pretty well sacked;
+fortunately there was nothing in it of particular historical value.
+
+Usspensky Cathedral had a shell-hole in one of the cupolas, but
+except for a few feet of mosaic in the ceiling, was undamaged. The
+frescoes on the porch of Blagovestchensky Cathedral were badly
+damaged by a shell. Another shell hit the corner of Ivan Veliki.
+Tchudovsky Monastery was hit about thirty times, but only one shell
+went through a window into the interior, the others breaking the
+brick window-moulding and the roof cornices.
+
+The clock over the Spasskaya Gate was smashed. Troitsky Gate was
+battered, but easily reparable. One of the lower towers had lost its
+brick spire.
+
+The church of St. Basil was untouched, as was the great Imperial
+Palace, with all the treasures of Moscow and Petrograd in its cellar,
+and the crown jewels in the Treasury. These places were not even
+entered.
+
+2.
+
+LUNATCHARSKY's DECLARATION
+
+"Comrades! You are the young masters of the country, and although now
+you have much to do and think about, you must know how to defend your
+artistic and scientific treasures.
+
+"Comrades! That which is happening at Moscow is a horrible,
+irreparable misfortune.... The People in its struggle for the power has
+mutilated our glorious capital.
+
+"It is particularly terrible in these days of violent struggle, of
+destructive warfare, to be Commissar of Public Education. Only the
+hope of the victory of Socialism, the source of a new and superior
+culture, brings me comfort. On me weighs the responsibility of
+protecting the artistic wealth of the people.... Not being able to
+remain at my post, where I had no influence, I resigned. My comrades,
+the other Commissars, considered this resignation inadmissible. I
+shall therefore remain at my post.... And moreover, I understand that
+the damage done to the Kremlin is not as serious as has been
+reported....
+
+"But I beg you, comrades, to give me your support.... Preserve for
+yourselves and your descendants the beauty of our land; be the
+guardians of the property of the People.
+
+"Soon, very soon, even the most ignorant, who have been held in
+ignorance so long, will awake and understand what a source of joy,
+strength and wisdom is art...."
+
+
+
+3.
+
+QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE BOURGEOISIE
+
+[Graphic, page 354]
+
+4.
+
+REVOLUTIONARY FINANCIAL MEASURE
+
+_Order_
+
+In virtue of the powers vested in me by the Military Revolutionary
+Committee attached to the Moscow Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'
+Deputies, I decree:
+
+1. All banks with branches, the Central State Savings Bank with
+branches, and the savings banks at the Post and Telegraph offices are
+to be opened beginning November 22nd, from 11 A. M. to 1 P. M. until
+further order.
+
+2. On current accounts and on the books of the savings banks,
+payments will be made by the above mentioned institutions, of not
+more than 150 rubles for each depositor during the course of the next
+week.
+
+3. Payments of amounts exceeding 150 rubles a week on current
+accounts and savings banks books, also payments on other accounts of
+all kinds will be allowed during the next three days--November 22nd,
+23d, and 24th, only in the following cases:
+
+(a) On the accounts of military organisations for the satisfaction of
+their needs;
+
+(b) For the payment of salaries of employees and the earnings of
+workers according to the tables and lists certified by the Factory
+Committees or Soviets of Employees, and attested by the signatures of
+the Commissars, or the representatives of the Military Revolutionary
+Committee, and the district Military Revolutionary Committees.
+
+4. Not more than 150 rubles are to be paid against drafts; the
+remaining sums are to be entered on current account, payments on
+which are to be made in the order established by the present decree.
+
+5. All other banking operations are prohibited during these three
+days.
+
+6. The receipt of money on all accounts is allowed for any amount.
+
+7. The representatives of the Finance Council for the certification
+of the authorisations indicated in clause 3 will hold their office in
+the building of the Stock Exchange, Ilyinka Street, from 10 A. M. to
+2 P. M.
+
+8. The Banks and Savings Banks shall send the totals of daily cash
+operations by 5 P. M. to the headquarters of the Soviet, Skobeliev
+Square, to the Military Revolutionary Committee, for the Finance
+Council.
+
+9. All employees and managers of credit institutions of all kinds who
+refuse to comply with this decree shall be responsible as enemies of
+the Revolution and of the mass of the population, before the
+Revolutionary Tribunals. Their names shall be published for general
+information.
+
+10. For the control of the operations of Branches of the Savings
+Banks and Banks within the limits of this decree, the district
+Military Revolutionary Committees shall elect three representatives
+and appoint their place of business.
+
+_Fully-authorised Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee,_
+
+    S. SHEVERDIN-MAKSIMENKO.
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
+
+1.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER
+
+This chapter extends over a period of two months, more or less. It
+covers the time of negotiations with the Allies, the negotiations and
+armistice with the Germans, and the beginning of the Peace
+negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, as well as the period in which were
+laid the foundations of the Soviet State.
+
+However, it is no part of my purpose in this book to describe and
+interpret these very important historical events, which require more
+space. They are therefore reserved for another volume, "Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk."
+
+In this chapter, then, I have confined myself to the Soviet
+Government's attempts to consolidate its political power at home, and
+sketched its successive conquests of hostile domestic elements--which
+process was temporarily interrupted by the disastrous Peace of
+Brest-Litovsk.
+
+2.
+
+PREAMBLE--DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF RUSSIA
+
+The October Revolution of the workers and peasants began under the
+common banner of Emancipation.
+
+The peasants are being emancipated from the power of the landowners,
+for there is no longer the landowner's property right in the land--it
+has been abolished. The soldiers and sailors are being emancipated
+from the power of autocratic generals, for generals will henceforth
+be elective and subject to recall. The workingmen are being
+emancipated from the whims and arbitrary will of the capitalists, for
+henceforth there will be established the control of the workers over
+mills and factories. Everything living and capable of life is being
+emancipated from the hateful shackles.
+
+There remain only the peoples of Russia, who have suffered and are
+suffering oppression and arbitrariness, and whose emancipation must
+immediately be begun, whose liberation must be effected resolutely
+and definitely.
+
+During the period of Tsarism the peoples of Russia were
+systematically incited against one another. The result of such a
+policy are known: massacres and _pogroms_ on the one hand, slavery of
+peoples on the other.
+
+There can be and there must be no return to this disgraceful policy.
+Henceforth the policy of a voluntary and honest union of the peoples
+of Russia must be substituted.
+
+In the period of imperialism, after the March revolution, when the
+power was transferred into the hands of the Cadet bourgeoisie, the
+naked policy of provocation gave way to one of cowardly distrust of
+the peoples of Russia, to a policy of fault-finding, of meaningless
+"freedom" and "equality" of peoples. The results of such a policy are
+known: the growth of national enmity, the impairment of mutual
+confidence.
+
+An end must be put to this unworthy policy of falsehood and distrust,
+of fault-finding and provocation. Henceforth it must be replaced by
+an open and honest policy leading to the complete mutual confidence
+of the peoples of Russia. Only as the result of such a trust can
+there be formed an honest and lasting union of the peoples of Russia.
+Only as the result of such a union can the workers and peasants of
+the peoples of Russia be cemented into one revolutionary force able
+to resist all attempts on the part of the imperialist-annexationist
+bourgeoisie.
+
+3.
+
+DECREES
+
+_On the Nationalisation of the Banks_
+
+In the interest of the regular organisation of the national economy,
+of the thorough eradication of bank speculation and the complete
+emancipation of the workers, peasants, and the whole labouring
+population from the exploitation of banking capital, and with a view
+to the establishment of a single national bank of the Russian
+Republic which shall serve the real interests of the people and the
+poorer classes, the Central Executive Committee _(Tsay-ee-kah)_
+resolves:
+
+1. The banking business is declared a state monopoly.
+
+2. All existing private joint-stock banks and banking offices are
+merged in the State Bank.
+
+3. The assets and liabilities of the liquidated establishments are
+taken over by the State Bank.
+
+4. The order of the merger of private banks in the State Bank is to
+be determined by a special decree.
+
+5. The temporary administration of the affairs of the private banks
+is entrusted to the board of the State Bank.
+
+6. The interests of the small depositors will be safeguarded.
+
+                        *   *   *   *   *
+
+_On the Equality of Rank of All Military Men_
+
+In realisation of the will of the revolutionary people regarding the
+prompt and decisive abolition of all remnants of former inequality in
+the Army, the Council of People's Commissars decrees:
+
+1. All ranks and grades in the Army, beginning with the rank of
+Corporal and ending with the rank of General, are abolished. The Army
+of the Russian Republic consists now of free and equal citizens,
+bearing the honourable title of Soldiers of the Revolutionary Army.
+
+2. All privileges connected with the former ranks and grades, also
+all outward marks of distinction, are abolished.
+
+3. All addressing by titles is abolished.
+
+4. All decorations, orders, and other marks of distinction are
+abolished.
+
+5. With the abolition of the rank of officer, all separate officers'
+organisations are abolished.
+
+Note.--Orderlies are left only for headquarters, chanceries,
+Committees and other Army organisations.
+
+      _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                    VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+                    N. KRYLENKO.
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+                    N. PODVOISKY.
+
+      _Secretary of the Council,_
+                    N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+_On the Elective Principle and the Organisation of Authority in the
+Army_
+
+1. The army serving the will of the toiling people is subject to its
+supreme representative--the Council of People's Commissars.
+
+2. Full authority within the limits of military units and
+combinations is vested in the respective Soldiers' Committees and
+Soviets.
+
+3. Those phases of the life and activity of the troops which are
+already under the jurisdiction of the Committees are now formally
+placed in their direct control. Over such branches of activity which
+the Committees cannot assume, the control of the Soldiers' Soviets is
+established.
+
+4. The election of commanding Staff and officers is introduced. All
+commanders up to the commanders of regiments, inclusive, are elected
+by general suffrage of squads, platoons, companies, squadrons,
+batteries, divisions (artillery, 2-3 batteries), and regiments. All
+commanders higher than the commander of a regiment, and up to the
+Supreme Commander, inclusive, are elected by congresses or
+conferences of Committees.
+
+Note.--By the term "conference" must be understood a meeting of the
+respective Committees together with delegates of committees one
+degree lower in rank. (Such as a "conference" of Regimental
+Committees with delegates from Company Committees.--Author.)
+
+5. The elected commanders above the rank of commander of regiment
+must be confirmed by the nearest Supreme Committee.
+
+Note. In the event of a refusal by a Supreme Committee to confirm an
+elected commander, with a statement of reasons for such refusal, a
+commander elected by the lower Committee a second time must be
+confirmed.
+
+6. The commanders of Armies are elected by Army congresses.
+Commanders of Fronts are elected by congresses of the respective
+Fronts.
+
+7. To posts of a technical character, demanding special knowledge or
+other practical preparation, namely: doctors, engineers, technicians,
+telegraph and wireless operators, aviators, automobilists, etc.,
+only such persons as possess the required special knowledge may be
+elected, by the Committees of the units of the respective services.
+
+8. Chiefs of Staff must be chosen from among persons with special
+military training for that post.
+
+9. All other members of the Staff are appointed by the Chief of
+Staff, and confirmed by the respective congresses.
+
+Note.--All persons with special training must be listed in a special
+list.
+
+10. The right is reserved to retire from the service all commanders
+on active service who are not elected by the soldiers to any post,
+and who consequently are ranked as privates.
+
+11. All other functions beside those pertaining to the command, with
+the exception of posts in the economic departments, are filled by
+appointment of the respective elected commanders.
+
+12. Detailed instructions regarding the elections of the commanding
+Staff will be published separately.
+
+      _President of the Council of People's Commissars._
+
+             VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs,_
+
+             N. KRYLENKO.
+
+      _People's Commissar for Military Affairs,_
+
+             N. PODVOISKY.
+
+      _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+             N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_On the Abolition of Classes and Titles_
+
+1. All classes and class divisions, all class privileges and
+delimitations, all class organisations and institutions and all civil
+ranks are abolished.
+
+2. All classes of society (nobles, merchants, petty bourgeois,
+etc.), and all titles (Prince, Count and others), and all
+denominations of civil rank (Privy State Councillor, and others), are
+abolished, and there is established the general denomination of
+Citizen of the Russian Republic.
+
+3. The property and institutions of the classes of nobility are
+transferred to the corresponding autonomous Zemstvos.
+
+4. The property of merchant and bourgeois organisations is
+transferred immediately to the Municipal Self-Governments.
+
+5. All class institutions of any sort, with their property, their
+rules of procedure, and their archives, are transferred to the
+administration of the Municipalities and Zemstvos.
+
+6. All articles of existing laws applying to these matters are
+herewith repealed.
+
+7. The present decree becomes effective on the day it is published
+and applied by the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies.
+
+The present decree has been confirmed by the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at the
+meeting of November 23d, 1917, and signed by:
+
+    _President of the Tsay-ee-kah,_
+
+             SVERDLOV.
+
+    _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+             VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+    _Executive of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+
+             V. BONCH-BRUEVITCH.
+
+    _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+             N. GORBUNOV.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+On December 3d the Council of People's Commissars resolved "to reduce
+the salaries of functionaries and employees in all Government
+institutions and establishments, general or special, without
+exception."
+
+To begin with, the Council fixed the salary of a People's Commissar
+at 500 rubles per month, with 100 rubles additional for each grown
+member of the family incapable of work....
+
+This was the highest salary paid to any Government official....
+
+4.
+
+Countess Panina was arrested and brought to trial before the first
+Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal. The trial is described in the chapter
+on "Revolutionary Justice" in my forthcoming volume, "Kornilov to
+Brist-Litovsk." The prisoner was sentenced to "return the money, and
+then be liberated to the public contempt." In other words, she was
+set free!
+
+5.
+
+RIDICULE OF THE NEW REGIME
+
+From _Drug Naroda_ (Menshevik), November 18th:
+
+"The story of the 'immediate peace' of the Bolsheviki reminds us of a
+joyous moving-picture film.... Neratov runs--Trotzky pursues; Neratov
+climbs a wall, Trotzky too; Neratov dives into the water--Trotzky
+follows; Neratov climbs onto the roof--Trotzky right behind him;
+Neratov hides under the bed--and Trotzky has him! He has him!
+Naturally, peace is immediately signed....
+
+"All is empty and silent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The
+couriers are respectful, but their faces wear a caustic expression....
+
+"How about arresting an ambassador and signing an armistice or a
+Peace Treaty with him? But they are strange folk, these ambassadors.
+They keep silent just as if they had heard nothing. Hola, hola,
+England, France, Germany! We have signed an armistice with you! Is it
+possible that you know nothing about it? Nevertheless, it has been
+published in all the papers and posted on all the walls. On a
+Bolshevik's word of honour, Peace has been signed. We're not asking
+much of you; you just have to write two words....
+
+"The ambassadors remain silent. The Powers remain silent. All is
+empty and silent in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
+
+"'Listen,' says Robespierre-Trotzky to his assistant Marat-Uritzky,
+'run over to the British Ambassador's, tell him we're proposing
+peace!'
+
+"'Go yourself,' says Marat-Uritzky. 'He's not receiving.'
+
+"'Telephone him, then.'
+
+"'I've tried. The receiver's off the hook.'
+
+"'Send him a telegram.'
+
+"'I did.'
+
+"'Well, with what result?'
+
+"Marat-Uritzky sighs and does not answer. Robespierre-Trotzky spits
+furiously into the corner....
+
+"'Listen, Marat,' recommences Trotzky, after a moment. 'We must
+absolutely show that we're conducting an active foreign policy. How
+can we do that?'
+
+"'Launch another decree about arresting Neratov,' answers Uritzky,
+with a profound air.
+
+"'Marat, you're a blockhead!' cries Trotzky. All of a sudden he
+arises, terrible and majestic, looking at this moment like
+Robespierre.
+
+"'Write, Uritzky!' he says with severity. 'Write a letter to the
+British ambassador, a registered letter with receipt demanded. Write!
+I also will write! The peoples of the world await an immediate peace!'
+
+"In the enormous and empty Ministry of Foreign Affairs are to be
+heard only the sound of two typewriters. With his own hands Trotzky
+is conducting an active foreign policy...."
+
+6.
+
+ON THE QUESTION OF AN AGREEMENT
+
+To the Attention of All Workers and All Soldiers.
+
+November 11th, in the club of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, was held
+an extraordinary meeting of representatives of all the units of the
+Petrograd garrison.
+
+The meeting was called upon the initiative of the Preobrazhensky and
+Semionovsky Regiments, for the discussion of the question as to which
+Socialist parties are for the power of the Soviets, which are
+against, which are for the people, which against, and if an agreement
+between them is possible.
+
+The representatives of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ of the Municipal Duma, of
+the Avksentiev Peasants' Soviets, and of all the political parties
+from the Bolsheviki to the Populist Socialists, were invited to the
+meeting.
+
+After long deliberation, having heard the declarations of all
+parties and organisations, the meeting by a tremendous majority
+of votes agreed that only the Bolsheviki and the Left Socialist
+Revolutionaries are for the people, and that all the other parties
+are only attempting, under cover of seeking an agreement, to deprive
+the people of the conquests won in the days of the great Workers' and
+Peasants' Revolution of November.
+
+Here is the text of the resolution carried at this meeting of the
+Petrograd garrison, by 61 votes against 11, and 12 not voting:
+
+"The garrison conference, summoned at the initiative of the
+Semionovsky and Preobrazhensky Regiments, on hearing the
+representatives of all the Socialist parties and popular
+organisations on the question of an agreement between the different
+political parties finds that:
+
+"1. The representatives of the _Tasy-ee-kah,_ the representatives of
+the Bolshevik party and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, declared
+definitely that they stand for a Government of the Soviets, for the
+decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control of Industry, and that
+upon this platform they are willing to agree with all the Socialist
+parties.
+
+"2. At the same time the representatives of the other parties
+(Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries) either gave no answer at all,
+or declared simply that they were opposed to the power of the Soviets
+and against the decrees on Land, Peace and Workers' Control.
+
+"In view of this the meeting resolves:
+
+"'1. To express severe censure of all parties which, under cover of
+an agreement, wish practically to annul the popular conquests of the
+Revolution of November.
+
+"2. To express full confidence in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the Council
+of People's Commissars, and to promise them complete support.'
+
+"At the same time the meeting deems it necessary that the comrades
+Left Socialist Revolutionaries should enter the People's Government."
+
+7.
+
+WINE "POGROMS"
+
+It was afterward discovered that there was a regular organisation,
+maintained by the Cadets, for provoking rioting among the soldiers.
+There would be telephone messages to the different barracks,
+announcing that wine was being given away at such and such an
+address, and when the soldiers arrived at the spot an individual
+would point out the location of the cellar....
+
+The Council of People's Commissars appointed a Commissar for the
+Fight Against Drunkenness, who, besides mercilessly putting down the
+wine riots, destroyed hundreds of thousands of bottles of liquor. The
+Winter Palace cellars, containing rare vintages valued at more than
+five million dollars, were at first flooded, and then the liquor was
+removed to Cronstadt and destroyed.
+
+In this work the Cronstadt sailors, "flower and pride of the
+revolutionary forces," as Trotzky called them, acquitted themselves
+with iron self-dicipline....
+
+8.
+
+SPECULATORS
+
+Two orders concerning them:
+
+  _Council of People's Commissars_
+
+  _To the Military Revolutionary Committee_
+
+The disorganisation of the food supply created by the war, and the
+lack of system, is becoming to the last degree acute, thanks to the
+speculators, marauders and their followers on the railways, in the
+steamship offices, forwarding offices, etc.
+
+Taking advantage of the nation's greatest misfortunes, these criminal
+spoliators are playing with the health and life of millions of
+soldiers and workers, for their own benefit.
+
+Such a situation cannot be borne a single day longer.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars proposes to the Military
+Revolutionary Committee to take the most decisive measures towards
+the uprooting of speculation, sabotage, hiding of supplies,
+fraudulent detention of cargoes, etc.
+
+All persons guilty of such actions shall be subject, by special
+orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, to immediate arrest
+and confinement in the prisons of Cronstadt, pending their
+arraignment before the Revolutionary Tribunal.
+
+All the popular organisations are invited to cooperate in the
+struggle against the spoliators of food supplies.
+
+                _President of the Council of People's Commissaries._
+                                        V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Accepted for execution,
+        _Military Revolutionary Committee attached to
+         the C. E. C. of the Soviets of W. & S. Deputies._
+
+Petrograd, Nov. 23d, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To All Honest Citizens_
+
+_The Military Revolutionary Committee Decrees:_
+
+Spoliators, marauders, speculators, are declared to be enemies of the
+People....
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee proposes to all public
+organisations, to all honest citizens: to inform the Military
+Revolutionary Committee immediately of all cases of spoliation,
+marauding, speculation, which become known to them.
+
+The struggle against this evil is the business of all honest people.
+The Military Revolutionary Committee expects the support of all to
+whom the interests of the People are dear.
+
+The Military Revolutionary Committee will be merciless in pursuit of
+speculators and marauders.
+
+                                THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
+
+Petrograd, Dec. 2d, 1917.
+
+9.
+
+PURISHKEVITCH's LETTER TO KALEDIN
+
+"The situation at Petrograd is desperate. The city is cut off from
+the outside world and is entirely in the power of the Bolsheviki....
+People are arrested in the streets, thrown into the Neva, drowned and
+imprisoned without any charge. Even Burtzev is shut up in Peter-Paul
+fortress, under strict guard.
+
+"The organisation at whose head I am is working without rest to unite
+all the officers and what is left of the _yunker_ schools, and to arm
+them. The situation cannot be saved except by creating regiments of
+officers and _yunkers._ Attacking with these regiments, and having
+gained a first success, we could later gain the aid of the garrison
+troops; but without that first success it is impossible to count on a
+single soldier, because thousands of them are divided and terrorised
+by the scum which exists in every regiment. Most of the Cossacks are
+tainted by Bolshevik propaganda, thanks to the strange policy of
+General Dutov, who allowed to pass the moment when by decisive action
+something could have been obtained. The policy of negotiations and
+concessions has borne its fruits; all that is respectable is
+persecuted, and it is the _plebe_ and the criminals who dominate--and
+nothing can be done except by shooting and hanging them.
+
+"We are awaiting you here, General, and at the moment of your
+arrival, we shall advance with all the forces at our disposal. But
+for that we must establish some communication with you, and before
+all, clear up the following points:
+
+"(1) Do you know that in your name all officers who could take part
+in the fight are being invited to leave Petrograd on the pretext of
+joining you?
+
+"(2) About when can we count on your arrival at Petrograd? We should
+like to know in order to coordinate our actions.
+
+"In spite of the criminal inaction of the conscious people here,
+which allowed the yoke of Bolshevism to be laid upon us--in spite of
+the extraordinary pig--headedness of the majority of officers, so
+difficult to organise--we believe in spite of all that Truth is on
+our side, and that we shall conquer the vicious and criminal forces
+who say that they are acting for motives of love of country and in
+order to save it. Whatever comes, we shall not permit ourselves to be
+struck down, and shall remain firm until the end."
+
+Purishkevitch, being brought to trial before the Revolutionary
+Tribunal, was given a short prison term....
+
+10.
+
+DECREE ON THE MONOPOLY OF ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+1. The printing of advertisements, in newspapers, books, bill-boards,
+kiosks, in offices and other establishments is declared to be a State
+monopoly.
+
+2. Advertisements may only be published in the organs of the
+Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government at Petrograd, and in
+the organs of local Soviets.
+
+3. The proprietors of newspapers and advertising offices, as well as
+all employees of such establishments, should remain at their posts
+until the transfer of the advertisement business to the Government....
+superintending the uninterrupted continuation of their houses, and
+turning over to the Soviets all private advertising and the sums
+received therefor, as well as all accounts and copy.
+
+4. All managers of publications and businesses dealing with paid
+advertising, as well as their employees and workers, shall agree to
+hold a City Congress, and to join, first the City Trade Unions, and
+then the All-Russian Unions, to organise more thoroughly and justly
+the advertising business in the Soviet publications, as well as to
+prepare better rules for the public utility of advertising.
+
+5. All persons found guilty of having concealed documents or money,
+or having sabotaged the regulations indicated in paragraphs 3 and 4,
+will be punished by a sentence of not more than three years'
+imprisonment, and all their property will be confiscated.
+
+6. The paid insertion of advertisements.... in private publications, or
+under a masqued form, will also be severely penalised.
+
+7. Advertising offices are confiscated by the Government, the owners
+being entitled to compensation in cases of necessity. Small
+proprietors, depositors and stock-holders of the confiscated
+establishments will be reimbursed for all moneys held by them in the
+concern.
+
+8. All buildings, officers, counters, and in general every
+establishment doing a business in advertising, should immediately
+inform the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of its address,
+and proceed to the transfer of its business, under penalty of the
+punishment indicated in paragraph 5.
+
+                        _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                        VL. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+                        _People's Commissar for Public Instruction,_
+                                        A. V. LUNATCHARSKY.
+
+                        _Secretary of the Council,_
+
+                                        N. GORBUNOV.
+
+11.
+
+OBLIGATORY ORDINANCE
+
+1. The city of Petrograd is declared to be in a state of siege.
+
+2. All assemblies, meetings and congregations on the streets and
+squares are prohibited.
+
+3. Attempts to loot wine-cellars, warehouses, factories, stores,
+business premises, private dwellings, etc., etc., _will be stopped by
+machine-gun fire without warning._
+
+4. House Committees, doormen, janitors and Militiamen are charged
+with the duty of keeping strict order in all houses, courtyards and
+in the streets, and house-doors and carriage-entrances must be locked
+at 9 o'clock in the evening, and opened at 7 o'clock in the morning.
+After 9 o'clock in the evening only tenants may leave the house,
+under strict control of the House Committees.
+
+5. Those guilty of the distribution, sale or purchase of any kind of
+alcoholic liquor, and also those guilty of the violation of sections
+2 and 4, will be immediately arrested and subjected to the most
+severe punishment.
+
+Petrograd, 6th of December, 3 o'clock in the night.
+
+        _Committee to Fight Against Pogroms, attached to the Executive
+        Committee of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies._
+
+12.
+
+TWO PROCLAMATIONS
+
+Lenin, To _the People of Russia:_
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants--all toilers!
+
+"The Workers' and Peasants' Revolution has won at Petrograd, at
+Moscow.... From the Front and the villages arrive every day, every
+hour, greetings to the new Government.... The victory of the
+Revolution.... is assured, seeing that it is sustained by the majority
+of the people.
+
+"It is entirely understandable that the proprietors and the
+capitalists, the employees and functionaries closely allied with the
+bourgeoisic--in a word, all the rich and all those who join hands with
+them--regard the new Revolution with hostility, oppose its success,
+threaten to halt the activity of the banks, and sabotage or obstruct
+the work of other establishments.... Every conscious worker understands
+perfectly that we cannot avoid this hostility, because the high
+officials have set themselves against the People and do not wish to
+abandon their posts without resistance. But the working classes are
+not for one moment afraid of that resistance. The majority of the
+people are for us. For us are the majority of the workers and the
+oppressed of the whole world. We have justice on our side. Our
+ultimate victory is certain.
+
+"The resistance of the capitalists and high officials will be broken.
+No one will be deprived of his property without a special law on the
+nationalisation of banks and financial syndicates. This law is in
+preparation. Not a worker will lose a single kopek; on the contrary,
+he will be assisted. Without at this moment establishing the new
+taxes, the new Government considers one of its primary duties to make
+a severe accounting and control on the reception of taxes decreed by
+the former regime....
+
+"Comrades workers! Remember that you yourselves direct the
+Government. No one will help you unless you organise yourselves and
+take into your own hands the affairs of the State. Your Soviets are
+now the organs of governmental power.... Strengthen them, establish a
+severe revolutionary control, pitilessly crush the attempts at
+anarchy on the part of drunkards, brigands, counter-revolutionary
+_yunkers_ and Kornilovists.
+
+"Establish a strict control over production and the accounting for
+products. Arrest and turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal of the
+People every one who injures the property of the People, by sabotage
+in production, by concealment of grain-reserves, reserves of other
+products, by retarding the shipments of grain, by bringing confusion
+into the railroads, the posts and the telegraphs, or in general
+opposing the great work of bringing Peace and transferring the Land
+to the peasants....
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers, peasants--all toilers!
+
+"Take immediately all local power into your hands.... Little by little,
+with the consent of the majority of peasants, we shall march firmly
+and unhesitatingly toward the victory of Socialism, which will
+fortify the advance-guards of the working-class of the most civilised
+Countries, and give to the peoples an enduring peace, and free them
+from every slavery and every exploitation."
+
+13.
+
+_"To All Workers of Petrograd!_
+
+"Comrades! The Revolution is winning--the revolution has won. All the
+power has passed over to our Soviets. The first weeks are the most
+difficult ones. The broken reaction must be finally crushed, a full
+triumph must be secured to our endeavours. The working-class ought
+to--must--show in these days THE GREATEST FIRMNESS AND ENDURANCE, in
+order to facilitate the execution of all the aims of the new People's
+Government of Soviets. In the next few days decrees on the Labour
+question will be issued, and among the very first will be the decree
+on Workers' Control over the production and regulation of Industry.
+
+"STRIKES AND DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE WORKER MASSES IN PETROGRAD NOW CAN
+ONLY DO HARM.
+
+"We ask you to cease immediately all economic and political strikes,
+to take up your work, and do it in perfect order. The work in the
+factories and all the industries is necessary for the new Government
+of Soviets, because any interruption of this work will only create
+new difficulties for us, and we have enough as it is. All to your
+places.
+
+"The best way to support the new Government of Soviets in these
+days--is by doing your job.
+
+"LONG LIVE THE IRON FIRMNESS OF THE PROLETARIAT! LONG LIVE THE
+REVOLUTION!"
+
+                        _Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Trade Unions._
+
+                        _Petrograd Council of Factory-Shop Committees._
+
+
+14.
+
+APPEALS AND COUNTER-APPEALS
+
+_From the Employees of the State and private Banks To the Population
+of Petrograd:_
+
+"Comrades workers, soldiers and citizens!
+
+"The Military Revolutionary Committee in an 'extraordinary notice' is
+accusing the workers of the State and private banking and other
+institutions of 'impeding the work of the Government, directed
+towards the ensuring of the Front with provisions.'
+
+"Comrades and citizens, do not believe this calumny, brought against
+us, who are part of the general army of labour.
+
+"However difficult it be for us to work under the constant threat of
+interference by acts of violence in our hard-working life, however
+depressing it be to know that our Country and the Revolution are on
+the verge of ruin, we, nevertheless, all of us, from the highest to
+the lowest, employees, _artelshtchiki,_ counters, labourers,
+couriers, etc., are continuing to fulfil our duties which are
+connected with the ensuring of provisions and munitions to the Front
+and country.
+
+"Counting upon your lack of information, comrades workers and
+soldiers, in questions of finance and banking, you are being incited
+against workers like yourselves, because it is desirable to divert
+the responsibility for the starving and dying brother-soldiers at the
+Front from the guilty persons to the innocent workers who are
+accomplishing their duty under the burden of general poverty and
+disorganisation.
+
+"REMEMBER, WORKERS AND SOLDIERS! THE EMPLOYEES HAVE ALWAYS STOOD UP
+FOR AND WILL ALWAYS STAND UP FOR THE INTERESTS OF THE TOILING PEOPLE,
+PART OF WHICH THEY ARE THEMSELVES, AND NOT A SINGLE KOPEK NECESSARY
+FOR THE FRONT AND THE WORKERS HAS EVER BEEN DETAINED AND WILL NOT BE
+DETAINED BY THE EMPLOYEES.
+
+"From November 6th to November 23d, i.e., during 17 days, 500 million
+rubles were dispatched to the Front, and 120 millions to Moscow,
+besides the sums sent to other towns.
+
+"Keeping guard over the wealth of the people, the master of which can
+be only the Constituent Assembly, representing the whole nation, the
+employees refuse to give out money for purposes which are unknown to
+them.
+
+"DO NOT BELIEVE THE CALUMNIATORS CALLING YOU TO TAKE THE LAW INTO
+YOUR OWN HANDS!"
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Union of Employees of the State
+Bank._
+
+_Central Board of the All-Russian Trade Union of Employees of Credit
+Institutions._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the Population of Petrograd._
+
+"CITIZENS: Do not believe the falsehood which irresponsible people
+are trying to suggest to you by spreading terrible calumnies against
+the employees of the Ministry of Supplies and the workers in other
+Supply organisations who are labouring in these dark days for the
+salvation of Russia. Citizens! In posted placards you are called upon
+to lynch us, we are accused falsely of sabotage and strikes, we are
+blamed for all the woes and misfortunes that the people are
+suffering, although we have been striving indefatigably and
+uninterruptedly, and are still striving, to save the Russian people
+from the horrors of starvation. Notwithstanding all that we are
+bearing as citizens of unhappy Russia, we have not for one hour
+abandoned our heavy and responsible work of supplying the Army and
+population with provisions.
+
+"The image of the Army, cold and hungry, saving our very existence by
+its blood and its tortures, does not leave us for a single moment.
+
+"Citizens! If we have survived the blackest days in the life and
+history of our people, if we have succeeded in preventing famine in
+Petrograd, if we have managed to procure to the suffering army bread
+and forage by means of enormous, almost superhuman, efforts, it is
+because we have honestly continued and are still continuing to do our
+work....
+
+"To the 'last warning' of the usurpers of the power we reply: It is
+not for you who are leading the country to ruin to threaten us who
+are doing all we can not to allow the country to perish. We are not
+afraid of threats; before us stands the sacred image of tortured
+Russia. We will continue our work of supplying the Army and the
+people with bread to our last efforts, so long as you will not
+prevent us from accomplishing our duty to our country. In the
+contrary case the Army and the people will stand before the horrors
+of famine, but the responsibility therefor belongs to the
+perpetrators of violence.
+
+                _Executive Committee of the Employees of the
+                                Ministry of Supplies._
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_To the_ Tchinovniki (_Government Officials_).
+
+It is notified hereby, that all officials and persons who have
+quitted the service in Government and public institutions or have
+been dismissed for sabotage or for having failed to report for work
+on the day fixed, and who have nevertheless received their salary
+paid in advance for the time they have not served, are bound to
+return such salary not later than on November 27th, 1917, to those
+institutions where they were in service.
+
+In the event of this not being done, these persons will be rendered
+answerable for stealing the Treasury's property and tried by the
+Military Revolutionary Court.
+
+                      _The Military-Revolutionary Committee._
+
+December 7th, 1917.
+
+                        *     *     *     *     *
+
+_From the Special Board for the Supplies_
+CITIZENS
+
+"The conditions of our work for the supplying of Petrograd are
+getting more and more difficult every day.
+
+"The interference with our work--which is so ruinous to our
+business--of the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee is
+still continuing.
+
+"THEIR ARBITRARY ACTS, their annulling of our orders, MAY LEAD TO A
+CATASTROPHE.
+
+"Seals have been affixed to one of the cold storages where the meat
+and butter destined for the population are kept, and we cannot
+regulate the temperature SO THAT THE PRODUCTS WOULD NOT BE SPOILT.
+
+"One carload of potatoes and one carload of cabbages have been seized
+and carried away no one knows where to.
+
+"Cargoes which are not liable to requisition (_khalva_) are
+requisitioned by the Commissars and, as was the case one day, five
+boxes of _khalva_ were seized by the Commissar for his own use.
+
+"WE ARE NOT IN A POSITION TO DISPOSE OF OUR STORAGES, where the
+self-appointed Commissars do not allow the cargoes to be taken out,
+and terrorise our employees, threatening them with arrest.
+
+"ALL THAT IS GOING ON IN PETROGRAD IS KNOWN IN THE PROVINCES, AND
+FROM THE DON, FROM SIBERIA, FROM VORONEZH AND OTHER PLACES PEOPLE ARE
+REFUSING TO SEND FLOUR AND BREAD.
+
+"THIS CANNOT GO ON MUCH LONGER.
+
+"The work is simply falling out of our hands.
+
+"OUR DUTY is to let the population know of this.
+
+"To the last possibility we will remain on guard of the interests of
+the population.
+
+"WE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO AVOID THE ONCOMING FAMINE, BUT IF UNDER
+THESE DIFFICULT CONDITIONS OUR WORK IS COMPELLED TO STOP, LET THE
+PEOPLE KNOW THAT IT IS NOT OUR FAULT...."
+
+15.
+
+ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY IN PETROGRAD
+
+There were nineteen tickets in Petrograd. The results are as follows,
+published November 30th:
+
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | _Party_                                           | _Vote_  |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Populist Socialists                               |  19,109 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Cadets                                            | 245,006 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Christian Democrats                               |   3,707 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Bolsheviki                                        | 424,027 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Socialist Universalists                           |     158 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | S. D. and S. R. Ukrainean and Jewish Workers      |   4,219 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of Women's Rights                          |   5,310 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Socialist Revolutionaries (_oborontsi_)           |   4,696 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Left Socialist Revolutionaries                    | 152,230 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of the People's Development                |     385 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Radical Democrats                                 |     413 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Orthodox Parishes                                 |  24,139 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Feminine League for Salvation of Country          |     318 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Independent League of Workers, Soldiers, Peasants |   4,942 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Christian Democrats (Catholic)                    |  14,382 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Unified Social Democrats                          |  11,740 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | Mensheviki                                        |  17,427 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | _Yedinstvo_ group                                 |   1,823 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+  | League of Cossack Troops                          |   6,712 |
+  +---------------------------------------------------+---------+
+
+16.
+
+FROM THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS TO THE TOILING COSSACKS
+
+_"Brothers-Cossacks._
+
+"You are being deceived. You are being incited against the People.
+You are told that the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'
+Deputies are your enemies, that they want to take away your Cossack
+land, your Cossack 'liberty'. Don't believe it, Cossacks.... Your own
+Generals and landowners are deceiving you, in order to keep you in
+darkness and slavery. We, the Council of People's Commissars,
+address ourselves to you, Cossacks, with these words. Read them
+attentively and judge yourselves which is the truth and which is
+cruel deceit. The life and service of a Cossack were always bondage
+and penal servitude. At the first call of the authorities a Cossack
+always had to saddle his horse and ride out on campaign. All his
+military equipment a Cossack had to provide with his own hardly
+earned means. A Cossack is on service, his farm is going to rack and
+ruin. Is such a condition fair? No, it must be altered for ever. THE
+COSSACKS MUST BE FREED FROM BONDAGE. The new People's Soviet power is
+willing to come to the assistance of the toiling Cossacks. It is only
+necessary that the Cossacks themselves should resolve to abolish the
+old order, that they should refuse submission to their slave-driver
+officers, land-owners, rich men, that they should throw off the
+cursed yoke from their necks. Arise, Cossacks! Unite! The Council of
+People's Commissars calls upon you to enter a new, fresh, more happy
+life.
+
+"In November and December in Petrograd there were All-Russian
+Congresses of Soviets of Soldiers', Workers', and Peasants' Deputies.
+These Congresses transferred all the authority in the different
+localities into the hands of the Soviets, i.e., into the hands of men
+elected by the People. From now on there must be in Russia no rulers
+or functionaries who command the People from above and drive them.
+The People create the authority themselves. A General has no more
+rights than a soldier. All are equal. Consider, Cossacks, is this
+wrong or right? We are calling upon you, Cossacks, to join this new
+order and to create your own Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies. To such
+Soviets all the power must belong in the different localities. Not to
+_hetmans_ with the rank of General, but to the elected
+representatives of the toiling Cossacks, to your own trustworthy
+reliable men.
+
+"The All-Russian Congresses of Soldiers', Workers', and Peasants'
+Deputies have passed a resolution to transfer all landowners' land
+into the possession of the toiling people. Is not that fair,
+Cossacks? The Kornilovs, Kaledins, Dutovs, Karaulovs, Bardizhes, all
+defend with their whole souls the interests of the rich men, and they
+are ready to drown Russia in blood if only the lands remain in the
+hands of the landowners. But you, the toiling Cossacks, do not you
+suffer yourselves from poverty, oppression and lack of land? How many
+Cossacks are there who have more than 4-5 _dessiatins_ per head? But
+the landowners, who have thousands of _dessiatins_ of their own land,
+wish besides to get into their hands the lands of the Cossack Army.
+According to the new Soviet laws, the lands of Cossack landowners
+must pass without compensation into the hands of the Cossack workers,
+the poorer Cossacks. You are being told that the Soviets wish to take
+away your lands from you. Who is frightening you? The rich Cossacks,
+who know that the Soviet AUTHORITY WISHES TO transfer the landowners'
+lands to you. Choose then, Cossacks, for whom will you stand: for the
+Kornilovs and Kaledins, for the Generals and rich men, or for the
+Soviets of Peasants', Soldiers', Workers' and Cossacks' Deputies.
+
+"THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS elected by the All-Russian
+Congress HAS PROPOSED TO ALL NATIONS AN IMMEDIATE ARMISTICE AND AN
+HONOURABLE DEMOCRATIC PEACE WITHOUT LOSS OR DETRIMENT TO ANY NATION.
+All the capitalists, landowners, Generals-Kornilovists have risen
+against the peaceful policy of the Soviets. The war was bringing
+them profits, power, distinctions. And to you, Cossack privates?
+You were perishing without reason, without purpose, like your
+brothers-soldiers and sailors. It will soon be three years and a half
+that this accursed war has gone on, a war devised by the capitalists
+and landowners of all countries for their own profit, their world
+robberies. To the toiling Cossacks the war has only brought ruin and
+death. The war has drained all the resources from Cossack farm life.
+The only salvation for the whole of our country and for the Cossacks
+in particular is a prompt and honest peace. The Council of People's
+Commissars has declared to all Governments and peoples: We do not
+want other people's property, and we do not wish to give away our
+own. Peace without annexations and without indemnities. Every nation
+must decide its own fate. There must be no oppressing of one nation
+by another. Such is the honest, democratic, People's peace which the
+Council of People's Commissars is proposing to all Governments, to
+all peoples, allies and enemies. And the results are visible: ON THE
+RUSSIAN FRONT AN ARMISTICE HAS BEEN CONCLUDED.
+
+"The soldier's and the Cossack's blood is not flowing there any more.
+Now, Cossacks, decide: do you wish to continue this ruinous,
+senseless, criminal slaughter? Then support the Cadets, the enemies
+of the people, support Tchernov, Tseretelli, Skobeliev, who drove you
+into the offensive of July 1st; support Kornilov, who introduced
+capital punishment for soldiers and Cossacks at the front. BUT IF YOU
+WISH A PROMPT AND HONEST PEACE, THEN ENTER THE RANKS OF THE SOVIETS
+AND SUPPORT THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE's COMMISSARS.
+
+"Your fate, Cossacks, lies in your own hands. Our common foes, the
+landowners, capitalists, officers-Kornilovists, bourgeois newspapers,
+are deceiving you and driving you along the road to ruin. In
+Orenburg, Dutov has arrested the Soviet and disarmed the garrison.
+Kaledin is threatening the Soviets in the province of the Don. He has
+declared the province to be in a state of war and is assembling his
+troops. Karaulov is shooting the local tribes in the Caucasus. The
+Cadet bourgeoisie is supplying them with its millions. Their common
+aim is to suppress the People's Soviets, to crush the workers and
+peasants, to introduce again the discipline of the whip in the army,
+and to eternalise the bondage of the toiling Cossacks.
+
+"Our revolutionary troops are moving to the Don and the Ural in order
+to put an end to this criminal revolt against the people. The
+commanders of the revolutionary troops have received orders not to
+enter into any negotiations with the mutinous Generals, to act
+decisively and mercilessly.
+
+"Cossacks! On you depends now whether your brothers' blood is to flow
+still. We are holding out our hand to you. Join the whole people
+against its enemies. Declare Kaledin, Kornilov, Dutov, Karaulov and
+all their aiders and abettors to be the enemies of the people,
+traitors and betrayers. Arrest them with your own forces and turn
+them over into the hands of the Soviet authority, which will judge
+them in open and public Revolutionary Tribunal. Cossacks! Form
+Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies. Take into your toil-worn hands the
+management of all the affairs of the Cossacks. Take away the lands of
+your own wealthy landowners. Take over their grain, their inventoried
+property and live-stock for the cultivation of the lands of the
+toiling Cossacks, who are ruined by the war.
+
+"Forward, Cossacks, to the fight for the common cause of the people!
+
+"Long live the toiling Cossacks!
+
+"Long live the union of the Cossacks, the soldiers, peasants and
+workers!
+
+"Long live the power of the Soviets of Cossacks', Soldiers', Workers'
+and Peasants' Deputies.
+
+"Down with the war! Down with the landowners and the
+Kornilovist-Generals!
+
+"Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of peoples!"
+
+                                _Council of People's Commissars._
+
+17.
+
+FROM THE COMMISSION ON PUBLIC EDUCATION ATTACHED TO THE CENTRAL
+CITY DUMA
+
+"Comrades Workingmen and Workingwomen!
+
+"A few days before the holidays, a strike has been declared by the
+teachers of the public schools. The teachers side with the
+bourgeoisie against the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
+
+"Comrades, organise parents' committees and pass resolutions against
+the strike of the teachers. Propose to the Ward Soviets of Workers'
+and Soldiers' Deputies, the Trade Unions, the Factory-Shop and Party
+Committees, to organise protest meetings. Arrange with your own
+resources Christmas trees and entertainments for the children, and
+demand the opening of the schools, after the holidays, at the date
+which will be set by the Duma.
+
+"Comrades, strengthen your position in matters of public education,
+insist on the control of the proletarian organisations over the
+schools."
+
+_Commission on Public Education attached to the Central City Duma._
+
+18.
+
+DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
+
+The notes issued by Trotzky to the Allies and to the neutral powers,
+as well as the note of the Allied military Attaches to General
+Dukhonin, are too voluminous to give here. Moreover they belong to
+another phase of the history of the Soviet Republic, with which this
+book has nothing to do--the foreign relations of the Soviet
+Government. This I treat at length in the next volume, "Kornilov to
+Brest-Litovsk."
+
+19.
+
+APPEALS TO THE FRONT AGAINST DUKHONIN
+
+"... The struggle for peace has met with the resistance of the
+bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary Generals.... From the
+accounts in the newspapers, at the _Stavka_ of former Supreme
+Commander Dukhonin are gathering the agents and allies of the
+bourgeoisie, Verkhovski, Avksentiev, Tchernov, Gotz, Tseretelli, etc.
+It seems even that they want to form a new power against the Soviets.
+
+"Comrades soldiers! All the persons we have mentioned have been
+Ministers already. They have acted in accord with Kerensky and the
+bourgeoisie. They are responsible for the offensive of July 1st and
+for the prolongation of the war. They promised the land to the
+peasants and then arrested the Land Committees. They reestablished
+capital punishment for soldiers. They obey the orders of French,
+English and American financiers....
+
+"General Dukhonin, for having refused to obey orders of the Council
+of People's Commissars, has been dismissed from his position as
+Supreme Commander.... For answer he is circulating among the troops the
+note from the Military Attaches of the Allied imperialist Powers, and
+attempting to provoke a counter-revolution....
+
+"Do not obey Dukhonin! Pay no attention to his provocation! Watch him
+and his group of counter-revolutionary Generals carefully...."
+
+20.
+
+FROM KRYLENKO
+
+_Order Number Two_
+
+"... The ex-Supreme Commander, General Dukhonin, for having opposed
+resistance to the execution of orders, for criminal action
+susceptible of provoking a new civil war, is declared enemy of the
+People. All persons who support Dukhonin will be arrested, without
+respect to their social or political position or their past. Persons
+equipped with special authority will operate these arrests. I charge
+General Manikhovsky with the execution of the above-mentioned
+dispositions...."
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XII
+
+1.
+
+INSTRUCTION TO PEASANTS
+
+In answer to the numerous enquiries coming from peasants, it is
+hereby explained that the whole power in the country is from now on
+held by the Soviets of the Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants'
+Deputies. The Workers' Revolution, after having conquered in
+Petrograd and in Moscow, is now conquering in all other centres of
+Russia. The Workers' and Peasants' Government safeguards the
+interests of the masses of peasantry, the poorest of them; it is with
+the majority of peasants and workers against the landowners, and
+against the capitalists.
+
+Hence the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, and before all the District
+Soviets, and subsequently those of the Provinces, are from now on and
+until the Constituent Assembly meets, full-powered bodies of State
+authority in their localities. All landlords' titles to the land are
+cancelled by the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. A decree
+regarding the land has already been issued by the present Provisional
+Workers' and Peasants' Government. On the basis of the above decree
+all lands hitherto belonging to landlords now pass entirely and
+wholly into the hands of the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. The
+_Volost_ (a group of several villages forms a _Volost_) Land
+Committees are immediately to take over all land from the landlords,
+and to keep a strict account over it, watching that order be
+maintained, and that the whole estate be well guarded, seeing that
+from now on all private estates become public property and must
+therefore be protected by the people themselves.
+
+All orders given by the _Volost_ Land Committees, adopted with the
+assent of the District Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, in fulfilment
+of the decrees issued by the revolutionary power, are absolutely
+legal and are to be forthwith and irrefutably brought into execution.
+
+The Workers' and Peasants' Government appointed by the second
+All-Russian Congress of Soviets has received the name of the Council
+of People's Commissars.
+
+The Council of People's Commissars summons the Peasants to take the
+whole power into their hands in every locality.
+
+The workers will in every way absolutely and entirely support the
+peasants, arrange for them all that is required in connection with
+machines and tools, and in return they request the peasants to help
+with the transport of grain.
+
+                  _President of the Council of People's Commissars,_
+                                       V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
+
+Petrograd, November 18th, 1917.
+
+2.
+
+The full-powered Congress of Peasants' Soviets met about a week
+later, and continued for several weeks. Its history is merely an
+expanded version of the history of the "Extraordinary Conference." At
+first the great majority of the delegates were hostile to the Soviet
+Government, and supported the reactionary wing. Several days later
+the assembly was supporting the moderates with Tchernov. And several
+days after that the vast majority of the Congress were voting for the
+faction of Maria Spiridonova, and sending their representatives into
+the _Tsay-ee-kah_ at Smolny.... The Right Wing then walked out of the
+Congress and called a Congress of its own, which went on, dwindling
+from day to day, until it finally dissolved....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ten Days That Shook the World, by John Reed
+
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