Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/55

Rh trail of shattered windows and looted shops. The righting ranged from little skirmishes, with nests of provocators, to the battle on Liteiny, which left twelve horses of the Cossacks stretched upon the cobbles. [Over these horses stood a big izvoschik (cabman), tears in his eyes. In time of Revolution the killing of 56 and wounding of 650 men might be endured, but the loss of 12 good horses was too much for an izvoschik's heart to bear.]

Only Petrograd's long experience in barricade and street fighting, and the native good sense of the people, prevented the shambles from being more bloody than they were. Upon the chaotic insurgent masses was brought to bear a stabilizing force in tens of thousands of workingmen, backed by the directing mind of the Bolshevik Party. The Bolsheviks saw clearly that this uprising was a spontaneous elemental thing. They saw these masses striking out powerfully but rather blindly. They determined that they should strike to some purpose. They determined to let the full force of this demonstration reach the Soviet Central Executive Committee. This was a committee of 200 selected by the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets before it adjourned. It was in permanent session in the Tauride Palace, and upon it the masses were converging.

The Bolsheviks alone had influence over these