Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/202

158 strikers forfeit if they did not return at once. At the same time they set to work recruiting new staffs out of their own ranks. Men in smocks and overalls occupied the vacated offices. Soldiers pored over books and figures, tongues sticking out of their mouths from the unaccustomed mental strain. Big sailors laboriously picked out keys on the typewriter with one finger. Workingmen at the switchboards in the telephone station clumsily plugged in and out while irate subscribers screamed curses and threats at them over the wires. They were pitifully heavy-handed and slow. But they were in dead earnest, and day by day their speed was increasing. Day by day the old employes came drifting back, and in the end the strike of the bourgeoisie was broken.

Sabotage was the second weapon used against the Soviets. In factories managers hid vital parts of machinery, falsified accounts, destroyed plans and formulas and, under cover of night, shipped away lead and flour to Germany. Officials misdirected freight, destroyed good food under the pretext of its being unfit for use, tied everything up in loops of red tape.

The Bolsheviks answered with a "Warning to all Saboteurs and Provocateurs, who have wormed their way into Soviet Institutions." At the same time the walls of the city were placarded with this poster addressed To all HONEST CITIZENS: