From October to Brest-Litovsk Part 2

THE DEMOCRATIC SOVIET AND "PRE-PARLIAMENT"

The Democratic Soviet which had detached itself from the Democratic Conference had absorbed all the helplessness of the latter. The old Soviet parties, the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviks, had created an artificial majority in it for themselves, only the more strikingly to reveal their political prostration. Behind the Soviet curtains, Tseretelli was carrying on involved parleys with Kerensky and the representatives of the "professional elements" as they began to say in the Soviet,--in order to avoid the "insulting" term bourgeoisie.

Tseretelli's report on the course and issue of the negotiations was a sort of funeral oration over a whole period of the Revolution. It turned out that neither Kerensky nor the professional elements had consented to responsibility toward the new semi-representative inst.i.tution. On the other hand, outside the limits of the Cadet Party, they had not succeeded in finding so-called "efficient" social leaders. The organizers of the venture had to capitulate on both points. The capitulation was all the more eloquent, because the Democratic Conference had been called exactly for the purpose of doing away with the irresponsible regime, while the Conference, by a formal vote, rejected a coalition with the Cadets. At several meetings of the Democratic Soviet which took place prior to the Revolution, there prevailed an atmosphere of tenseness and utter incapacity for action.

The Soviet did not reflect the Revolution's march forward but the dissolution of the parties that had lagged behind the Revolution.

Even previous to the Democratic Conference, in our party faction, I had raised the question of demonstratively withdrawing from the Conference and boycotting the Democratic Soviet. It was necessary to show the ma.s.ses by action that the fusionists had led the Revolution into a blind alley. The fight for building up the Soviet power could be carried on only in a revolutionary way. The power must be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the hands of those who had proven incapable of doing any good and were furthermore even losing their capacity for active evil. Their method of working through an artificially picked Pre-Parliament and a conjectural Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, had to be opposed by our political method of mobilizing the forces around the Soviets, through the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and through insurrection. This could be done only by means of an open break, before the eyes of the entire people, with the body created by Tseretelli and his adherents, and by focusing on the Soviet inst.i.tutions, the entire attention and all the forces of the working cla.s.s. This is why I proposed the demonstrative withdrawal from the Conference and a revolutionary agitation, in shops and regiments, against the attempt to play false with the will of the Revolution and once again turn its progress into the channel of cooperation with the bourgeoisie. Lenin, whose letter we received a few days later, expressed himself to the same effect. But in the party's upper circles hesitation was still apparent on this question. The July days had left a deep impression in the party's consciousness. The ma.s.s of workingmen and soldiers had recovered from the July debacle much more rapidly than had many of the leading comrades who feared the nipping of the Revolution in the bud by a new premature onslaught of the ma.s.ses. In our group of the Democratic Conference, I mustered 50 votes in favor of my proposal against 70 who declared for partic.i.p.ating in the Democratic Council.

However, the experience of this partic.i.p.ation soon strengthened the party's left wing. It was growing too manifest that combinations bordering on trickery, combinations that aimed at securing further leaders.h.i.+p in the Revolution for the professional elements, with the a.s.sistance of the fusionists, who had lost ground among the lower levels of the people, offered no escape from the impa.s.se into which the laxness of bourgeois democracy had driven the revolution. By the time the Democratic Soviet, its ranks filled up with professional elements, became a Pre-Parliament, readiness to break with this inst.i.tution had matured in our party.

THE S. R.'S AND MENSHEVIKS

We were confronted with the question whether the S. R.'s would follow us in this path. This group was in the process of formation, but this process, according to the standards of our party, went on too slowly and irresolutely. At the outset of the Revolution, the S. R.'s proved the predominating party in the whole field of political life. Peasants, soldiers, even workingmen voted en ma.s.se for the S. R.'s. The party itself had not expected anything of the kind, and more than once it looked as if it were in danger of being swamped in the waves of its own success. Excluding the purely capitalistic and landholder groups and the professional elements among the intellectuals, one and all voted for the revolutionary populists' party. This was natural in the initial stage of the Revolution, when cla.s.s lines had not had time to reveal themselves, when the aspirations of the so-called united revolutionary front found expression in the diffuse program of a party that was ready to welcome equally the workingman who feared to break away from the peasant; the peasant who was seeking land and liberty; the intellectual attempting to guide both of them; the chinovnik (officeholder) endeavoring to adjust himself to the new regime.

When Kerensky, who had been counted a laborite in the period of Czarism, joined the S. R.'s Party after the victory of the Revolution, that party's popularity began to grow in proportion as Kerensky mounted the rungs of power. Out of respect, not always of a platonic nature, for the War Minister, many colonels and generals hastened to enrol in the party of the erstwhile terrorists. Old S. R.'s, with revolutionary traditions, regarded with some uneasiness the ever increasing number of "March S.

R.'s" that is, such party members as had discovered within themselves a revolutionary populist soul only in March, after the Revolution had overthrown the old regime and placed the revolutionary populists in authority. Thus, within the limits of its formlessness, this party contained not only the inner contradictions of the developing Revolution, but also the prejudices inherent in the backwardness of the peasant ma.s.ses, and the sentimentalism, instability and career-chasing of the intellectual strata. It was perfectly clear that in that form the party could not last long. With regard to ideas, it proved impotent from the very start.

Politically, the guiding role belonged to the Mensheviks who had gone through the school of Marxism and derived from it certain procedures and habits, which aided them in finding their bearings in the political situation to the extent of scientifically falsifying the meaning of the current cla.s.s struggle and securing the hegemony of the liberal bourgeoisie in the highest degree possible under the given circ.u.mstances. This is why the Mensheviks, direct pleaders for the bourgeoisie's right to power, exhausted themselves so rapidly and, by the time of the October Revolution, were almost completely played out.

The S. R.'s, too, were losing influence more and more--first among the workingmen, then in the army, and finally in the villages. But toward the time of the October upheaval, they remained still a very powerful party, numerically. However, cla.s.s contradictions were undermining them from within. In opposition to the right wing which, in its most chauvinistic elements, such as Avksentyef, Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Savinkoff, etc., had finally gone over into the counter-revolutionary camp, a left wing was forming, which strove to preserve its connection with the toiling ma.s.ses. If we merely recall the fact that the S. R., Avksentyef, as Minister of the Interior, arrested the Peasant Land Committees, composed of S. R.'s, for their arbitrary solution of the agrarian question, the amplitude of "differences" within this party will become sufficiently clear to us.

In its center stood the party's traditional leader, Chernoff. A writer of experience, well-read in socialist literature, an experienced hand in factional strife, he had constantly remained at the head of the party, when party life was being built up in emigrant circles abroad. The Revolution which had raised the S. R. party to an enormous height with its first indiscriminating wave, automatically raised Chernoff, too, only to reveal his complete impotence even as compared with the other leading political lights of the first period. The paltry resources which had secured to Chernoff a preponderance in the populist circles abroad, proved too light in the scales of the Revolution. He concentrated his efforts on not taking any responsible decisions, evading in all critical cases, waiting and abstaining. For some little time, tactics of this kind secured for him the position as center between the ever more diverging flanks. But there was no longer any possibility of preserving party unity for long. The former terrorist, Savinkof, took part in Korniloff's conspiracy, was in touching unanimity with the counter-revolutionary circles of Cossack officers and was preparing an onslaught on Petrograd workingmen and soldiers, among whom there were quite a few left S. R.'s. As a sacrifice to the left wing, the Center expelled Savinkof from the party, but hesitated to raise a hand against Kerensky. In the Pre-Parliament, the party showed signs of extreme disruption: three groups existed independently, though under the banner of one and the same party, but none of the groups knew exactly what it wanted. The formal domination of this "party" in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would have meant only a continuation of political prostration.

WITHDRAWING FROM THE PRE-PARLIAMENT. THE VOICE OF THE FRONT

Before withdrawing from the members.h.i.+p in the Pre-Parliament where, according to Kerensky's and Tseretelli's political statistics, we were ent.i.tled to some half a hundred seats, we arranged a conference with the left S. R. group. They refused to follow us, claiming that they still had to demonstrate practically before the peasantry the insolvency of the Pre-Parliament. Said one of the leaders of the left S. R.'s:

"We deem it necessary to warn you that if you want to withdraw from the Pre-Parliament in order forthwith to go into the streets for an open fight, we shall not follow you."

The bourgeois-fusionist press accused us of striving to kill prematurely the Pre-Parliament, for the very purpose of creating a revolutionary situation. At our faction meeting in the Pre-Parliament, it was decided to act independently and not wait for the left S. R.'s. Our party's declaration, proclaimed from the Pre-Parliament rostrum and explaining why we were breaking with this inst.i.tution, was greeted with a howl of hatred and impotence on the part of the majority groups. In the Petrograd Soviet of Deputies, where our withdrawal from the Pre-Parliament was approved by an overwhelming majority, the leader of the tiny "internationalist" Menshevik group, Martof, explained to us that the withdrawal from the temporary Soviet of the Republic (such was the official appellation of this little-respected inst.i.tution) would be sensible only in case we proposed immediately to a.s.sume an open offensive. But the point is that this is just what we intended. The prosecutors for the liberal bourgeoisie were right, when accusing us of striving to create a revolutionary situation. In open insurrection and direct seizure of power we beheld the only way out of the situation.

Again, as in the July days, the press and all the other organs of so-called public opinion were mobilized against us. From the July a.r.s.enals were dragged forth the most envenomed weapons which had been temporarily stored away there after the Korniloff days. Vain efforts!

The ma.s.s was irresistibly moving toward us, and its spirit was rising hour by hour. From the trenches delegates kept arriving. "How long,"

said they, at the Petrograd Soviet meetings, "will this impossible situation last? The soldiers have told us to declare to you: if no decisive steps for peace are made by November 1st, the trenches will be deserted, the entire army will rush to the rear!" This determination was really spreading at the front. There the soldiers were pa.s.sing on, from one unit to another, home-made proclamations, summoning them not to remain in the trenches later than the first snowfall. "You have forgotten about us," the delegates on foot from the trenches exclaimed at the Soviet meetings. "If you find no way out of the situation, we shall come here ourselves, and with our bayonets we shall disperse our enemies, including you." In the course of a few weeks the Petrograd Council had become the center of attraction for the whole army. After its leading tendency had been changed and new presiding officers elected, its resolutions inspired the exhausted and despondent troops at the front with the hope that the way out of the situation could be practically found in the manner proposed by the Bolsheviks: by publis.h.i.+ng the secret treaties and proposing an immediate truce on all fronts. "You say that power must pa.s.s into the hands of the Soviets, grasp it then. Yon fear that the front will not support you. Cast all misgivings aside, the soldier ma.s.ses are with you in overwhelming majority."

Meanwhile the conflict regarding the transfer of the garrison kept on developing. Almost daily, a garrison conference met, consisting of committees from the companies, regiments and commands. The influence of our party in the garrison was established definitely and indestructibly.

The Petrograd District Staff was in a state of extreme perplexity. Now it would attempt to enter into regular relations with us, then again, egged on by the leaders of the Central Executive Committee, it would threaten us with repressive measures.

Above, mention has already been made of organizing, at the Petrograd Soviet, a Military Revolutionary Committee, which was intended to be, in fact, the Soviet Staff of the Petrograd garrison in opposition to Kerensky's Staff. "But the existence of two staffs is inadmissible," the representatives of the fusionist parties dogmatically admonished us.

"But is a situation admissible, wherein the garrison mistrusts the official staff and fears that the transfer of soldiers from Petrograd has been dictated by a new counter-revolutionary machination?" we retorted. "The creation of a second staff means insurrection," came the reply from the Right. "Your Military Revolutionary Committee's task will not be so much to verify the operative projects and orders of the military authorities as the preparation and execution of an insurrection against the present government." This objection was just: But for that very reason it did not frighten anybody. An overwhelming majority of the Soviet was aware of the necessity of overthrowing the coalition power.

The more circ.u.mstantially the Mensheviks and S. R.'s demonstrated that the Military Revolutionary Committee would inevitably turn into an organ of insurrection, the greater the eagerness with which the Petrograd Soviet supported the new fighting organization.

The Military Revolutionary Committee's first act was to appoint commissioners to all parts of the Petrograd garrison and all the most important inst.i.tutions of the capital and environs. From various quarters we were receiving communications that the government, or more correctly, the government parties, were actively organizing and arming their forces. From various arms-depots-governmental and private-rifles, revolvers, machine guns and cartridges were being brought forth for arming cadets, students and bourgeois youths in general. It was necessary to take immediate preventive measures. Commissioners were appointed to all arms-depots and stores. Almost without opposition they became masters of the situation. To be sure, the commandants and proprietors of the depots tried not to recognize them, but a mere application to the soldiers' committee or the employees of each inst.i.tution sufficed to cause the immediate breakdown of the opposition.

After that, arms were issued only on order of our Commissioners.

Even prior to that, regiments of the Petrograd garrison had their commissioners, but these had been appointed by the Central Executive Committee. Above, we said that after the June Congress of Soviets, and particularly after the June 18th demonstration which revealed the ever growing power of the Bolsheviks, the fusionist parties had almost entirely deprived the Petrograd Soviet of any practical influence on the course of events in the revolutionary capital. The leaders.h.i.+p of the Petrograd garrison was concentrated in the hands of the Central Executive Committee. Now the task everywhere was to put in the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners. This was achieved with the most energetic cooperation of the soldier ma.s.ses. Meetings, addressed by speakers of various parties, had the result, invariably, that regiment after regiment declared it would recognize only the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners and would not budge a step without its decision.

An important role in appointing these Commissioners was played by the Bolsheviks' military organization. Before the July days it had developed a widespread agitational activity. On July 5th, a battalion of cyclists, brought by Kerensky to Petrograd, battered down the isolated Kshessinsky mansion where our party's military organization was quartered. The majority of leaders, and many privates among the members were arrested, the publications were stopped, the printing shop was wrecked. Only by degrees did the organization begin to repair its machinery afresh, conspiratively this time. Numerically it comprised in its ranks but a very insignificant part of the Petrograd garrison, a few hundred men all told. But there were among them many soldiers and young officers, chiefly ensigns, resolute, and with heart and soul devoted to the Revolution, who had pa.s.sed through Kerensky's prisons in July and August. All of them had placed themselves at the Military Revolutionary Committee's disposal and were being a.s.signed to the most responsible fighting posts.

However, it would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the members of our party's military organization a.s.sumed in October an att.i.tude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the organization and its officially military character involuntarily inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary enthusiasm of the ma.s.ses and their readiness to fight under our banner.

Parallel with the organizing activity a stormy agitation was being carried on. This was the period of incessant meetings at works, in the "Modern" and "Chinizelli" circuses, at clubs, in barracks. The atmosphere at all the meetings was charged with electricity. Each mention of the insurrection was greeted with a storm of plaudits and shouts of delight. The bourgeois press merely increased the state of universal panic. An order issued over my signature to the Syestroyetsk munitions factory to issue five thousand rifles to the Red Guard evoked an indescribable panic in bourgeois circles. "The general ma.s.sacre" in course of preparation was talked and written about everywhere. Of course, this did not in the least prevent the workingmen of the Syestroyetsk munitions factory from handing the arms over to the Red Guards. The more frantically the bourgeois press slandered and baited us, the more ardently the ma.s.ses responded to our call. It was growing clearer and clearer for both sides that the crisis must break within the next few days. The press of the S. R.'s and Mensheviks was sounding an alarm. "The Revolution is in the greatest danger. A repet.i.tion of the July days is being prepared--but on a much wider basis and therefore still more destructive in its consequences." In his Novaya Zhizn, Gorki daily prophesied the approaching wreck of all civilization. In general, the Socialistic veneer of the bourgeois intellectuals was wearing off at the approach of the stern domination of the workers'

dictators.h.i.+p. But, on the other hand, the soldiers of even the most backward regiments hailed with delight the Military Revolutionary Committee's commissioners. Delegates came to us from Cossack units and from the Socialist minority of military cadets. They promised at least to a.s.sure the neutrality of their units in case of open conflict.

Manifestly Kerensky's government was losing its foundations.

The District Staff began negotiations with us and proposed a compromise.

In order to size up the enemy's full resistance, we entered into pourparlers. But the Staff was nervous; now they exhorted, then threatened us, they even declared our commissioners to be without power, which, however, did not in the least affect their work. In accord with the Staff, the Central Executive Committee appointed Captain of Staff Malefski to be Chief Commissioner for the Petrograd Military District and magnanimously consented to recognize our commissioners, on condition of their being subordinate to the Chief Commissioner. The proposal was rejected and the negotiations broken off. Prominent Mensheviks and S.

R.'s came to us as intermediaries, exhorted, threatened and foretold our doom and the doom of the Revolution.

THE "PETROGRAD SOVIET DAY"

At this period the Smolny building was already completely in the hands of the Petrograd Soviet and of our party. The Mensheviks and the S. R.'s transferred their political activity to the Maryiinsky Palace, where the infant Pre-Parliament was already expiring. In the Pre-Parliament Kerensky delivered a great speech, in which, stormily applauded by the bourgeois wing, he endeavored to conceal his impotence behind clamorous threats. The Staff made its last attempt at opposition. To all units of the garrison it sent out invitations to appoint two delegates to conferences concerning the removal of troops from the capital. The first conference was called for October 22nd, at 11 P. M. From the regiments we immediately received information about it. By telephone we issued a call for a garrison conference at 11 A. M. Withal, a part of the delegates did get to the Staff quarters, only to declare that without the Petrograd Soviet's decision they would not move anywhere. Almost unanimously the Garrison Conference confirmed its allegiance to the Military Revolutionary Committee. Objections came only from official representatives of the former Soviet parties, but they found no response whatever among the regimental delegates. The Staff's attempt brought out only more strikingly that we were standing on firm ground. In the front rank there was the Volhynian Regiment, the very one which on July 4th, with its band playing, had invaded the Tauri'da Palace, in order to put down the Bolsheviks.

As already mentioned earlier, the Central Executive Committee had charge of the Petrograd Soviet's treasury and its publications. An attempt to obtain even a single one of these publications brought no results.

Beginning with the end of September, we initiated a series of measures toward creating an independent newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet. But all printing establishments were occupied and their owners boycotted us with the a.s.sistance of the Central Executive Committee. It was decided to arrange for a "Petrograd Soviet Day," for the purpose of developing a widespread agitation and collecting pecuniary resources for establis.h.i.+ng a newspaper. About a fortnight before, this day was set for October 22nd, and consequently it coincided with the moment of the open outburst of the insurrection.

With complete a.s.surance, the hostile press announced that on October 22nd an armed insurrection of the Bolsheviks would occur in the streets of Petrograd. That the insurrection would occur, n.o.body had any doubt.

They only tried to determine exactly when; they guessed, they prophesied, striving in this way to force a denial or confession on our part. But the Soviet calmly and confidently marched forward, making no answer to the howl of bourgeois public opinion. October 22nd became the reviewing day for the forces of the proletarian army. It went off magnificently in every respect. In spite of the warnings coming from the Right that blood would flow in torrents in the streets of Petrograd, the ma.s.ses of the populace were pouring in floods to the Petrograd Soviet meetings. All our oratorical forces were mobilized. All public places were filled. Meetings were held unceasingly for hours at a stretch. They were addressed by speakers of our party, by delegates arriving for the Soviet Congress, by representatives from the front, by left S.R.'s and by Anarchists. Public buildings were flooded by waves of working-men, soldiers and sailors. There had not been many gatherings like that even in the time of the Revolution. Up rose a considerable ma.s.s of the petty townfolk, less frightened than aroused by the shouts, warnings and baiting of the bourgeois press. Waves of people by tens of thousands dashed against the People's House building, rolled through the corridors, filled the halls. On the iron columns huge garlands of human heads, feet and hands were hanging like bunches of grapes. The air was surcharged with the electric tension that heralds the most critical moments of revolution. "Down with Kerensky's government! Down with the war! All power to the Soviets!" Not one from the ranks of the previous Soviet parties ventured to appear before those colossal throngs with a word of reply. The Petrograd Soviet held undivided sway. In reality the campaign had already been won. It only remained to deal the last military blow to this spectral authority.

The most cautious in our midst were reporting that there still remained units that were not with us: the cossacks, the cavalry regiment, the Semyonofski regiment, the cyclists. Commissioners and agitators were a.s.signed to these units. Their reports sounded perfectly satisfactory: the red-hot atmosphere was infecting one and all, and the most conservative elements of the army were losing the strength to withstand the general tendency of the Petrograd garrison. In the Semyonofski regiment, which was considered the bulwark of Kerensky's government, I was present at a meeting which took place in the open air. The most prominent speakers of the right wing addressed it. They clung to the conservative guard regiments as to the last support of the coalition power. Nothing would avail. By an overwhelming majority of votes, the regiment expressed itself for us and did not even give the ex-ministers a chance to finish their speeches. The groups which still opposed the Soviet watch-words were made up mainly of officers, volunteers and generally of bourgeois intellectuals and semi-intellectuals. The ma.s.ses of peasants and workmen were with us one and all. The demarcation ran as a distinct social line.

The Fortress of Peter and Paul is the central military base of Petrograd. As commandant thereof we appointed a young ensign. He proved the best man for the post and within a few hours he became master of the situation. The lawful authorities withdrew, biding their time. The element regarded as unreliable for us were the cyclists, who in July had smashed our party's military organization in the Kshessinsky mansion and taken possession of the mansion itself. On the 23rd, I went to the Fortress about 2 P. M. Within the courtyard a meeting was being held.

The speakers of the right wing were cautious and evasive in the extreme, painstakingly avoiding the question of Kerensky, whose name inevitably aroused shouts of protest and indignation even among the soldiers. We were listened to, and our advice vas followed. About four o'clock, the cyclists a.s.sembled nearby, in the "Modern" Circus, for a battalion meeting. Among the speakers appearing there was Quartermaster-General Paradyelof. He spoke with extreme caution. The days had been left far behind, when official and semi-official speakers referred to the party of the workers merely as to a gang of traitors and hired agents of the German Kaiser.

The Lieutenant-Commander of the Staff accosted me with: "We really ought to be able to come to some agreement." But it was already too late. The whole battalion, with only thirty dissenting votes, had voted for handing over all power to the Soviets.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION

The government of Kerensky was restlessly looking for refuge, now one way, now another. Two new cyclist battalions, and the Zenith Battery were called back from the front, and an attempt was made to call back some companies of cavalry.... The cyclists telegraphed while on the road to the Petrograd Soviet: "We are led to Petrograd without knowing the reasons. Request explanations." We ordered them to stop and send a delegation to Petrograd. Their representatives arrived and declared at a meeting of the Soviet that the battalion was entirely with us. This was greeted by enthusiastic cheers. The battalion received orders to enter the city immediately.

The number of delegates from the front was increasing every day. They came to get information about the situation. They gathered our literature and went to bring the message to the front that the Petrograd Soviet was conducting a struggle for the power of the workers, soldiers and peasants. "The men in the trenches will support you," they told us.

All the old army committees which had not been reelected for the last four or five months, sent threatening telegrams to us, which, however, made no impression. We knew that these committees were no less out of touch with the rank and file of the soldiers than the Central Executive Committee with the local Soviets.

The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed commissaries to all railroad depots. These commissaries kept a watchful eye upon all the arriving and departing trains and especially upon the movements of troops. Continuous telephone and motor car communication was established with the neighboring cities and their garrisons. The Soviets of all the communities near Petrograd were charged with the duty of vigilantly preventing any counter-revolutionary troops, or, rather, troops misled by the government, from entering the capital. The railroad officials of lower rank and the workmen recognized our commissaries immediately.

Difficulties arose on the 24th at the telephone station. They stopped connecting us. The cadets took possession of the station and under their protection the telephone operators began to oppose the Soviet. This was the first appearance of the future sabotage. The Military Revolutionary Committee sent a detachment to the telephone station and placed two small cannons there. In this way the seizing of all departments of the government and instruments of administration was started. The sailors and Red Guards occupied the telegraph station, the post office and other inst.i.tutions. Measures were taken to take possession of the state bank.

The center of the government, the Inst.i.tute of Smolny, was turned into a fortress. There were in the garret, as a heritage of the old Central Executive Committee, a score of machine guns, but they were in poor condition and had been entirely neglected by the caretakers. We ordered an additional machine gun company to the Smolny Inst.i.tute. Early in the morning the sailors rolled the machine gun with a deafening rumble over the cement floors of the long and half-dark corridors of the building.

Out of the doors the frightened faces of the few S. R.'s and Mensheviks were looking and wondering.

The Soviet held daily meetings in the Smolny and so did the Garrison Council.