Ten Days That Shook the World Part 4

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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.ton...."

There pa.s.sed 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 a.r.s.enal 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 pa.s.sionate and almost incoherent speech of Kerensky's, full of self-justification and bitter denunciation of his enemies.

"I will cite here the most characteristic pa.s.sage 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 ma.s.ses, any movement at Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible ma.s.sacres, 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses, 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 Const.i.tuent 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 Const.i.tuent, 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 pa.s.sing 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 Munic.i.p.ality 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. n.o.body 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 Ma.r.s.eillais 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 pa.s.sed 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 Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, 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 ma.s.s, 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 h.o.m.ogeneous Government, but the Revolution itself....

"The ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.sacres.... If there is any vystuplennie, there will be no Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly...." (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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.ses-the great, dull, indifferent ma.s.ses-are absolutely with him!" (t.i.tantic 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 partic.i.p.ated 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sume 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 pa.s.sed....

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 a.s.sistant 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 G.o.d!" 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 MUNIc.i.p.aL DUMA: The Munic.i.p.al 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 Munic.i.p.al 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 a.s.sured to the peasants, then control of industry is a.s.sured to the workers, then bread is a.s.sured 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.