Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/19

Rh Noble soldiers, go back to the trenches. Brave workingmen, go back to the machines. And peasants, you go back to the land."

Now the Russian masses were tractable and reasonable. So they let these bourgeois gentlemen form their "Provisional Government." But the Russian masses were intelligent, even if they were not literate. Most of them could not read or write. But they could think. So, before they went back to the trenches, the shops and the land, they set up little organizations of their own. In each munition factory the workers selected one of their number whom they trusted. In the shoe and cotton factories the men did likewise. So in the brickyards, the glass-works and other industries. These representatives elected directly from their jobs were called a Soviet (Council) of Workmen Deputies.

In like manner the armies formed Soviets of Soldiers' Deputies, the villages Soviets of Peasant Deputies.

These deputies were elected by trades and occupations, not by districts. The Soviets consequently were filled, not with glibly talking politicians, but with men who knew their business; miners who understood mining, machinists who understood machinery, peasants who understood land, soldiers who understood war, teachers who understood children.

The Soviets sprang up in every city, town, hamlet and regiment throughout Russia. Within a few weeks after the old state-apparatus of Czardom went to pieces, one-sixth the surface of the earth was dotted over with these new social organizations—no more striking phenomenon in all history.

The commander of the Russian battleship