Ten Days That Shook The World by John Reed Page B
Authors: John Reed
Tags: History, Russia
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the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to repeat the experience of the 16 th -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-Trotsky....
"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 organization whose object it is to provoke in Russia, cost what it may, an unconscient movement of destruction and pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, 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 favorable." (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 classes 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 organizations?...
Kerensky then continued:
"The organisers of rebellion recognize 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 classes, 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 honor 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 mobilize 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 Constituent 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 organizations, all that free Russia glorifies, the
"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 organization whose object it is to provoke in Russia, cost what it may, an unconscient movement of destruction and pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, 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 favorable." (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 classes 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 organizations?...
Kerensky then continued:
"The organisers of rebellion recognize 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 classes, 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 honor 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 mobilize 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 Constituent 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 organizations, all that free Russia glorifies, the
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