Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/334

278 plans showing the location of the stores of liquor. The Commissars of Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red Guards… Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out companies of sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars were invaded by Committees with hatchets, who smashed the bottles—or blew them up with dynamite…

Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at the headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the old Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to deal with petty crime…

The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving business, were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown into jail…

Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted itself a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois households, and reporting all information to the Military Revolutionary Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing. In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot led by former Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who had planned an officers’ uprising, and had written a letter inviting Kaledin to Petrograd… In this way was unearthed the conspiracy of the Petrograd Cadets, who were sending money and recruits to Kaledin…

Neratov, frightened at the outburst of popular fury provoked by his flight, returned and surrendered the Secret Treaties to Trotzky, who began their publication in Pravda, scandalising the world…

The restrictions on the Press were increased by a decree making advertisements a monopoly of the official

N