Bolshevism Part 25

The question of provisioning has taken on an unheard-of acuteness; the gross interference in the functioning of organs already created for this object, and the civil war kindled everywhere throughout the country, have completely demoralized the provisioning of wheat in regions where they had none, the north and the army are found on the eve of famine.

Industry is dying. Hundreds of factories and workshops are stopped. The short-sighted policy of the Commissaries has caused hundreds of workmen to be thrown on the streets and become unemployed. The will of the entire people is threatened with being violated. The usurpers who in October got hold of the power by launching the word of order for a swift convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly strive hard, now that the elections are over, to retain the power in their hands by arresting the deputies and dissolving the Const.i.tuante itself.

_All that which the country holds of life, and in the first place all the working cla.s.s and all the army, ought to rise with arms in their hands to defend the popular power represented by the Const.i.tuante, which must bring peace to the people and consolidate by legislative means the revolutionary conquests of the working cla.s.s._

In bringing this to your knowledge, the Central Committee chosen at the first elections invites you, Comrades, to place yourself immediately in agreement with it.

Considering the Congress of October as incompetent, the Central Committee chosen at the first elections has decided to begin a preparatory work in view of the convocation of a new Congress of the Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.

In the near future, while the Commissaires of the People, in the persons of Lenine and Trotzky, are going to fight against the sovereign power of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, we shall have to intervene with all our energy in the conflict artificially encited by the adventurers, between that a.s.sembly and the Soviets. _It will be our task to aid the Soviets in taking consciousness of their role, in defining their political lines, and in determining their functions and those of the Const.i.tuante._

Comrades! The convocation of the Congress for the 8th of January is dictated by the desire to provoke a conflict between the Soviets and the Const.i.tuante, and thus botch this last. Anxious for the fate of the country, the Executive Committee chosen at the first elections decides to convoke at Petrograd for the 8th of January an extraordinary a.s.sembly of _all the Soviets, all the Committees of the Army and the Navy, all the fractions of the Soviets and military committees, all the organizations that cl.u.s.ter around the Soviets and the Committees that are standing upon the ground of the defense of the Const.i.tuante._ The following are the Orders of the Day:

1. The power of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

2. The fight for the general democratic peace and the re-establishment of the International.

3. The immediate problems of the policy of the Soviets.

Comrades! a.s.sure for this extraordinary a.s.sembly of Soviets the most complete representation of all the organizations of workmen and soldiers. Establish at once election centers. We have a fight to uphold.

In the name of the Revolution, all the reason and all the energy ought to be thrown into the balance.

THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF SOVIETS OF WORKMEN'S AND SOLDIERS' DELEGATES CHOSEN AT THE FIRST ELECTIONS.

_25 December, 1917._

IX

_The Manifestation of January 5th at Petrograd_

From eleven o'clock in the morning corteges, composed princ.i.p.ally of working-men bearing red flags and placards with inscriptions such as "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!" "Land and Liberty!" "Long Live the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly!" etc., set out from different parts of the city. The members of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates had agreed to meet at the Field, of Mars where a procession coming from the Petrogradsky quarter was due to arrive. It was soon learned that a part of the partic.i.p.ants, coming from the Viborg quarter, had been a.s.sailed at the Liteiny bridge by gunfire from the Red Guards and were obliged to turn back. But that did not check the other parades. The peasant partic.i.p.ants, united with the workers from Petrogradsky quarter, came to the Field of Mars; after having lowered their flags before the tombs of the Revolution of February and sung a funeral hymn to their memory, they installed themselves on Liteinaia Street. New manifestants came to join them and the street was crowded with people. At the corner of Fourstatskaia Street (one of the Streets leading to the Taurida Palace) they found themselves all at once a.s.sailed by shots from the Red Guards.

The Red Guard fired _without warning_, something that never before happened, even in the time of Czarism. The police always began by inviting the partic.i.p.ators to disperse. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov. An explosive bullet shot away half of his head (a photograph of his body was taken; it was added to the doc.u.ments which were transferred to the Commission of Inquiry). Several workmen and students and one militant of the Revolutionary Socialist party, Gorbatchevskaia, were killed at the same time. Other processions of partic.i.p.ants on their way to the Taurida Palace were fired into at the same time. On all the streets leading to the palace, groups of Red Guards had been established; they received the order "Not to spare the cartridges." On that day at Petrograd there were one hundred killed and wounded.

It must be noted that when, at a session of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, in the Taurida Palace, they learned of this shooting, M. Steinberg, Commissioner of Justice, declared in the corridor that it was a lie, that he himself had visited the streets of Petrograd and had found everywhere that "all was quiet." Exactly as the Ministers of Nicholas Romanov after the suppressions said "Lie. Lie," so cried the Bolsheviki and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left, in response to the question formally put on the subject of the shooting by a member of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

The following day the Bolshevik organs and those of the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left pa.s.sed over these facts in silence. This silence they kept also on the 9th of January, the day on which literally all Petrograd a.s.sembled at the funeral of the victims. Public indignation, however, obliged them in the end to admit that there had been some small groups of partic.i.p.ants and to name a Commission of Inquiry concerning the street disorders which had taken place on January 5th. This Commission was very dilatory in the performance of its duty and it is very doubtful if they ever came to any decision.

a.n.a.logous manifestations took place at Moscow, at Saratov and other cities; everywhere they were accompanied by shootings. The number of victims was particularly considerable at Moscow.

X

_At the Taurida Palace on the Day of the Opening of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly_

The Taurida Palace on that day presented a strange aspect. At every door, in the corridors, in the halls, everywhere soldiers and sailors and Red Guards armed with guns and hand-grenades, who at every turn demanded your pa.s.s. It was no easy matter to get into the palace. Nearly all the places reserved for the public were occupied by the Bolsheviki and their friends.

The appearance of the Taurida Palace was not that of a place where the free representatives of a free people were going to a.s.semble.

The Bolsheviki delayed as much as possible the opening of the session. It was only at four o'clock instead of at midday that they deigned to make up their minds. They and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left occupied seats of the extreme left; then came the Revolutionary Socialists, the Mensheviki, and the other Socialist fractions. The seats on the right remained vacant. The few Cadets that had been chosen preferred not to come.

In this manner the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was composed at this first and last session solely of Socialists. This, however, did not prevent the presence in the corridors and the session hail of a crowd of sailors and Red Guards armed, as if it were a question of an a.s.sembly of conspirators, enemies of the Revolution.

From the beginning a fight was started by the election of president. The majority nominated for the office of president Chernov; the Bolsheviki and the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left voted against him. The Bolsheviki did not propose any candidate of their own, and placed before the members the candidacy of a Revolutionary Socialist of the Left, Marie Spiridonova, who was totally incapable of fulfilling this role. Afterward several declarations were read--that of the Bolsheviki, that of the Socialist-Revolutionists (read by Chernov), that of the Mensheviki (read by Tseretelli). The partizans of each fraction greeted the reading of their own declaration with deafening applause (for the audience was one of "comrades" and did not hesitate to take part in the debates); cat-calls and shouts greeted the orators of the opposing fractions. Each word of the declarations of the Socialist-Revolutionists and of the Mensheviki (declarations which every Socialist could sign) was received with a round of hisses, shouts, deafening cries, exclamations of contempt for the Bolsheviki, the sailors, and the soldiers. The speech of Chernov--president and member of a detested party--had above all the honor of such a greeting. As for Tseretelli, he was at first greeted by an inconceivable din, but was able afterward--his speech was so full of profound sense--to capture the attention of the Bolsheviki themselves.

A general impression that was extremely distressing came from this historic session. The att.i.tude of the Bolsheviki was grossly unbecoming and provocative of disdain. It indicated clearly that the dissolution of the Const.i.tuante was, for them, already decided. Lenine, who continually kept contemptuous silence, wound up by stretching himself upon his bench and pretending to sleep. Lunotcharsky from his ministerial bench pointed contemptuously with his finger toward the white hair of a veteran of the Revolutionary Socialist party. The sailors leveled the muzzles of their revolvers at the Socialist-Revolutionists. The audience laughed, whistled, and shouted.

The Bolsheviki finally left the a.s.sembly, followed, as might be understood, by their servants, the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left. The fractions which remained voted the law proposed by the Socialist-Revolutionists on the transfer of the lands to common ownership (socialization of the soil).

The sailors and Red Guards attempted several times to interrupt the session. At five o'clock in the morning they finally demanded with a loud voice that everybody leave.

"We were obliged to go," said, later, the members of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants'

Delegates in recounting these tragic moments, "not that we were afraid of being shot; we were prepared for that, and each one of us expected it, but fear of something else which is far worse: for fear of insults and gross violence. We were only a handful; what was that beside those great big fellows full of malice toward the Const.i.tuante and of defiance for the 'enemies of the people,' the 'servants of the bourgeoisie,' which we were in their eyes, thanks to the lies and the calumnies of the Bolsheviki?

Careful of our dignity, and out of respect for the place where we were, we could not permit ourselves to be cuffed, nor that they throw us out of the Taurida Palace by force--and that is what would have inevitably happened."

It was thus that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly ended. The Socialist-Revolutionist fraction maintained an att.i.tude of surprising calm and respectful bearing, not allowing itself to be disturbed by any provocation. The correspondents of foreign newspapers congratulated the members and said to them that in this session to which the Bolsheviki had wished to give the character of "any-old-kind-of-a-meeting" all the fractions maintained a truly parliamentary att.i.tude.

The Bolshevik terror became rife. _All the newspapers that tried to open the eyes of the people as to what was happening were confiscated_. Every attempt to circulate the _Dielo Naroda_ or other newspapers of the opposition was severely punished. The volunteer venders of these papers were arrested, cruelly struck down by rifle b.u.t.ts, and sometimes even shot.

The population, indignant, gathered in groups on the streets, but the Red Guards dispersed all a.s.semblages.

XI

_The Dissolution of the Third All-Russian Peasants' Congress_

This is the course of the events which followed the dissolution of the Const.i.tuante. On the 8th of January the members of the Const.i.tuante a.s.sembled at Bolotnaia; two were arrested; the premises of the fraction were occupied by the Red Guards. On the 9th of January took place the funeral of the victims, in which all Petrograd took part. The Bolsheviki this time did not dare to shoot into the magnificent procession preceded by a long line of coffins. The 10th of January they dispersed the Third All-Russian Congress of Peasants which had placed itself on the side of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. The Congress had been at first arranged for the 8th of January (the same day as the Bolshevik Congress of the Soviets), but, because of the events, it was postponed to the 10th. The peasants who had come to this Congress knew perfectly well that they would have a fight to uphold, perhaps even to give their lives. Their neighbors, their co-villagers, wept when they saw them set out, as if it were a question of men condemned to death. That alone suffices to show to what degree were conscious these peasants who had come from all corners of the country to prepare themselves for the defense of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

As soon as the Congress was opened sailors and Red Guards, armed with guns and hand-grenades, broke into the premises (11 Kirillovskaia Street), surrounded the house, poured into the corridors and the session hall, and ordered all persons to leave.

"In whose name do you order us, who are Delegates to the Peasants' Congress of All-Russia, to disperse?" asked the peasants.

"In the name of the Baltic fleet," the soldiers replied.

The peasants refused; cries of protest were raised. One by one the peasant delegates ascended the tribune to stigmatize the Bolsheviki in speeches full of indignation, and to express the hopes that they placed in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly.

The sailors listened. They had come to disperse a counter-revolutionary Congress, and these speeches troubled them. One sailor, not able to stand it any longer, burst into tears.

"Let me speak!" he shouted to the president. "I hear your speeches, peasant comrades, and I no longer understand anything.... What is going on? We are peasants, and you, too, are peasants. But we are of this side, and you are of the other.... Why? Who has separated us? For we are brothers.... But it is as if a barrier had been placed between us." He wept and, seizing his revolver, he exclaimed, "No, I would rather kill myself!"

This session of the Congress presented a strange spectacle, disturbed by men who confessed that they did not know why they were there; the peasants sang revolutionary songs; the sailors, armed with guns and grenades, joined them. Then the peasants knelt down to sing a funeral hymn to the memory of Logvinov, whose coffin was even yesterday within the room. The soldiers, lowering their guns, knelt down also.

The Bolshevik authorities became excited; they did not expect such a turn to events. "Enough said," declared the chief; "we have come not to speak, but to act. If they do not want to go to Smolny, let them get out of here."

And they set themselves to the task.

In groups of five the peasants were conducted down-stairs, trampled on, and, on their refusal to go to Smolny, pushed out of doors during the night in the midst of the enormous city of which they knew nothing.

Members of the Executive Committee were arrested, the premises occupied by sailors and Red Guards, the objects found therein stolen.