Page:John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World - 1919, Boni and Liveright.djvu/68

 party was considering the question of insurrection. All night long the 23d they met. There were present all the party intellectuals, the leaders—and delegates of the Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone of the intellectuals Lenin and Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even the military men opposed it. A vote was taken. Insurrection was defeated!

Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. “I speak for the Petrograd proletariat,” he said, harshly. “We are in favour of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, we're through with you!” Some soldiers joined him… And after that they voted again—insurrection won…

However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the morning of October 31st appeared in Rabotchi Put the first instalment of Lenin’s “Letter to the Comrades”, one of the most audacious pieces of political propaganda the world has ever seen. In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments in favour of insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev and Riazonov.

“Either we must abandon our slogan, ‘All Power to the Soviets’,” he wrote, “or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle course…”

That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a brilliant, bitter speech in the Council of the Republic, branding the Skobeliev nakaz as pro-German, declaring that the “revolutionary democracy” was destroying Russia, sneering at Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred German diplomacy to Russian… The Left benches were one roaring tumult all through…

On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th a joint commission of the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two laws, one for giving the

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