Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/276

226 Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed —second, the creation of a new Government. There was no longer any talk of “destroying the Bolsheviki”—and very little about excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist Socialists and the Peasants’ Soviets. Even the Central Army Committee at the Stavka, the most determined enemy of Smolny, telephoned from Moghilev: “If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is necessary to come to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree to admit them in a minority to the Cabinet.”

Pravda, ironically calling attention to Kerensky’s “humanitarian sentiments”, published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:

The Vikzhel sent a telegram to all Russia:

Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina. In the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People’s Council, composed of about four hundred members—seventy-five representing Smolny,

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