Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/311

Rh muscled for their heavy work. The intricate problems of state and politics they did not comprehend. But one simple fact they did comprehend. Whereas once they were slaves, now they were free! From the status of beasts they had been raised to the status of men. And they knew that the Soviet had done this.

Now they see the Soviet in peril. Rushing into the nearby Red Staff Building, they bolt and bar the doors, and barricade the windows, taking their posts, rifles in hand, ready for the assault. At all costs they will hold this ground for the Soviet.

The odds against them are one hundred to one. Two hundred freight-handlers pitted against twenty thousand seasoned troops. Revolvers against machine-guns. Rifles against cannon. But on the side of this garrison of gruzchiki is the flame of the Revolution. It has fired the spirits of these coal-heavers, outwardly so gross and sluggish. They grow fearless, swift, and daring. All afternoon the ring of steel and flame around them grows denser and closer. They watch it undaunted, refusing every call to capitulate. And as night begins to fall, their guns are still blazing from the windows.

In the shadows a Czech crawls close up, and hurls an incendiary bomb thru a window of the building, setting it afire. The citadel of the longshoremen threatens now to become a funeral-pyre. Enveloped in flame and smoke they grope and stumble into the street, hands raised in surrender.