Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/250

204 soldiers and peasants, would combine with the devil himself!” he said once. Many cases of drunkenness had been remarked the last two days. “No drinking, comrades! No one must be on the streets after eight in the evening, except the regular guards. All places suspected of having stores of liquor should be searched, and the liquor destroyed. No mercy to the sellers of liquor…”

The Military Revolutionary Committee sent for the delegation from the Viborg section; then for the members from Putilov. They clumped out hurriedly.

“For each revolutionist killed,” said Trotzky, “we shall kill five counter-revolutionists!”

Down-town again. The Duma brilliantly illuminated and great crowds pouring in. In the lower hall wailing and cries of grief; the throng surged back and forth before the bulletin-board, where was posted a list of yunkers killed in the day’s fighting—or supposed to be killed, for most of the dead afterward turned up safe and sound… Up in the Alexander Hall the Committee for Salvation held forth. The gold and red epaulettes of officers were conspicuous, the familiar faces of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary intellectuals, the hard eyes and bulky magnificence of bankers and diplomats, officials of the old régime, and well-dressed women…

The telephone girls were testifying. Girl after girl came to the tribune—over-dressed, fashion-aping little girls, with pinched faces and leaky shoes. Girl after girl, flushing with pleasure at the applause of the “nice” people of Petrograd, of the officers, the rich, the great names of politics—girl after girl, to narrate her sufferings at the hands of the proletariat, and proclaim her loyalty to all that was old, established and powerful…

The Duma was again in session in the Nicolai Hall. The Mayor said hopefully that the Petrograd regiments were ashamed of their actions; propaganda was making headway…

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