Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/207

Rh of Banks, these centres of financial power passed into the hands of the working-class.

In their efforts to befuddle the brains of the masses the bourgeoisie saw an ally in alcohol. The city was mined with wine cellars more dangerous than powder magazines. This alcohol in the veins of the populace meant chaos in the life of the city. With this aim the cellars were opened and the mob invited in to help themselves. Bottles in hand the drunks would emerge from the cellars to fall sprawling on the snow, or rove thru the streets, shooting and looting. To these pogroms the Bolsheviks replied with machine-guns, pouring lead into the bottles—there was no time to break them all by hand. They destroyed three million rubles' worth of vintage in the vaults of the Winter Palace, some of it there for a century. The liquor passed out of the cellars, not thru the throats of the Czar and his retainers, but thru a hose attached to a fire-engine pumping into the canals. A frightful loss. The Bolsheviks deeply regretted it, for they needed funds. But they needed order more.

"Citizens," they declared, "no violation of revolutionary order! No thefts nor brigandage! Following the example of the Paris Commune, we will destroy any looter or instigator of disorder." To meet this crisis this placard was posted: