John Reed

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”