Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/369

 Then opened the "triumphal session." After a few words of welcome from Sverdlov, Maria Spiridonova, slight, pale, with spectacles and hair drawn flatly down, and the air of a New England school-teacher, took the tribune—the most loved and the most powerful woman in all Russia.

"... Before the workers of Russia open now horizons which history has never known.... All workers' movements in the past have been defeated. But the present movement is international, and that is why it is invincible. There is no force in the world which can put out the fire of the Revolution! The old world crumbles down, the new world begins...."

Then Trotzky, full of fire: "I wish you welcome, comrades peasants! You come here not as guests, but as masters of this house, which holds the heart of the Russian Revolution. The will of millions of workers is now concentrated in this hall.... There is now only one master of the Russian land: the union of the workers, soldiers and peasants...."

With biting sarcasm he went on to speak of the Allied diplomats, till then contemptuous of Russia's invitation to an armistice, which had been accepted by the Central Powers.

"A new humanity will be born of this war.... In this hall we swear to workers of all lands to remain at our revolutionary post. If we are broken, then it will be in defending our flag...."

Krylenko followed him, explaining the situation at the front, where Dukhonin was preparing to resist the Council of People's Commissars. "Let Dukhonin and those with him understand well that we shall not deal gently with those who bar the road to peace!"

Dybenko saluted the assembly in the name of the Fleet, and Krushinsky, member of the Vikzhel, said, "From this moment, when the union of all true Socialists is realised, the whole army