Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/97

Rh loaded with champagnes, automobiles, and Parisian dresses.

Life was gay and dazzling in Petrograd and the big cities—big profits in this war business—but it was cold and bloody business for 12,000,000 soldiers driven into the trenches by order of the Czar.

And now under Kerensky there were still 12,000,000 under arms. They were conscripts, dragged from ploughs and workshops to have guns thrust in their hands. The ruling-class used every device to keep those weapons in the soldiers' hands. It waved the flag and screamed "Victory and glory." It organized Women's Battalions of Death crying "Shame on you men to let girls do your fighting." It placed machine-guns in the rear of rebelling regiments declaring certain death to those who retreated. But all to no avail.

In thousands the soldiers were throwing down their guns and streaming from the front. Like plagues of locusts they came, clogging railways, highways and waterways. They swarmed down on trains, packing roofs and platforms, clinging to car-steps like clusters of grapes, sometimes evicting passengers from their berths. A Y. M. C. A. man swears he saw this sign: "Tovarish Soldiers: Please do not throw passengers out of the window after the train is in motion." Perhaps an exaggeration. But they did throw our suitcases out of the window.