Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/262

214 The two men looked at one another. “You will see in a few days. If there are enough troops from the front on our side, we shall not compromise with the Bolsheviki. If not, perhaps we shall be forced to…”

Out again on the Nevsky we swung on the step of a street-car bulging with people, its platforms bent down from the weight and scraping along the ground, which crawled with agonising slowness the long miles to Smolny.

Meshkovsky, a neat, frail little man, was coming down the hall, looking worried. The strikes in the Ministries, he told us, were having their effect. For instance, the Council of People’s Commissars had promised to publish the Secret Treaties; but Neratov, the functionary in charge, had disappeared, taking the documents with him. They were supposed to be hidden in the British Embassy…

Worst of all, however, was the strike in the banks. “Without money,” said Menzhinsky, “we are helpless. The wages of the railroad men, of the postal and telegraph employees, must be paid… The banks are closed; and the key to the situation, the State Bank, is also shut. All the bank-clerks in Russia have been bribed to stop work…

“But Lenin has issued an order to dynamite the State Bank vaults, and there is a Decree just out, ordering the private banks to open to-morrow, or we will open them ourselves!”

The Petrograd Soviet was in full swing, thronged with armed men, Trotzky reporting:

“The Cossacks are falling back from Krasnoye Selo.” (Sharp, exultant cheering.) “But the battle is only beginning. At Pulkovo heavy fighting is going on. All available forces must be hurried there…

“From Moscow, bad news. The Kremlin is in the hands of the yunkers, and the workers have only a few arms. The result depends upon Petrograd.

“At the front, the decrees on Peace and Land are