Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/222

178 Citizens! Don’t believe these false rumours. No power can defeat the People’s Revolution… Premier Kerensky and his followers await speedy and well-deserved punishment…

We are putting them in the Pillory. We are abandoning them to the enmity of all workers, soldiers, sailors and peasants, on whom they are trying to rivet the ancient chains. They will never be able to wash from their bodies the stain of the people’s hatred and contempt.

Shame and curses to the traitors of the People!…

The Military Revolutionary Committee had moved into larger quarters, room 17 on the top floor. Red Guards were at the door. Inside, the narrow space in front of the railing was crowded with well-dressed persons, outwardly respectful but inwardly full of murder—bourgeois who wanted permits for their automobiles, or passports to leave the city, among them many foreigners… Bill Shatov and Peters were on duty. They suspended all other business to read us the latest bulletins.

The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the new Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions—enthusiastic support. The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military Revolutionary Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military Revolutionary Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from the Soviets of Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk, Sevastopol… The Finland Division, the new Committees of the Fifth and Twelfth Armies, offer allegiance…

From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two companies on duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but the Arsenal is in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his yunkers. The Military Revolutionary