Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/51

Rh length on the car fenders lay sharpshooters, rifles projecting beyond the lamps, eyes on the watch for provocators.

This outpouring was much bigger than the river that ran thru these streets on July first, and more sinister, for it glittered with steel and hissed with curses—a long grey line of wrath. It was the spontaneous outburst of men against their rulers—ugly, reckless, furious.

Under a black banner marched a band of Anarchists, with Yarchuk the tailor at the head. On him was the stamp of the sweat-shop. Long bending over the needle had left him undersized. Now, in place of a needle, he was wielding a gun—the symbol of his deliverance from slavery to the needle.

Gumberg asked him, "What are your political demands?"

"Our political demands?" hesitated Yarchuk.

"To hell with the capitalists!" interjected a big sailor. "And our other political demands," he added, "are—to hell with the war and to hell with the whole damn Cabinet."

Backed up in an alley was a taxi-cab, the nozzles of two machine-guns poking thru the windows. In answer to our query, the driver pointed to a banner reading, "Down with the Capitalist Ministers."

"We are tired of begging them not to starve and kill the people," he explained. "When we talk they won't listen; but wait till these two pups (sobachki)