The History of the Revolution & The Communist Manifesto. John Reed

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!” 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….

11. This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to do so again.

12. Well known in the American labor movement.