Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/26

 that the opposition to the existing régime included all classes and parties, and that Czarism had no other support than its beneficiaries and its parasites. But who would have thought in that beautiful month of June, when all Europe seemed to be entering upon its summer vacation, that a world-war was imminent, and that three years later the Czar would be a prisoner and the red flag be flying over the Winter Palace and Peter and Paul, and that the Douma itself would be overthrown by the triumphant Revolution?

In its place, since those May days, have been installed the members of the Workmen and Soldiers' Committee.

The great hall is empty, or it is only filled on special days, when the 2,500 delegates of the Soviet assemble to hold a general meeting. In the corridors, in the committee rooms, soldiers are sleeping, drinking tea, and supping a kind of porridge. It smacks of the guard-house and of the public kitchen. Albert Thomas, who is with us, says: "I begin to understand the Commune better." Sentries are every-