Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/32

 joined the revolutionary masses, their bayonets flaunting red bunting. The initial action had become general; the masses were out upon the streets, eager, aggressive, uncompromising. The Revolution was in action!

The Czar, who was "in safety" with his "loyal" army, issued two ukases suspending the sittings of the Duma and the Council of Empire. The Duma might have meekly obeyed, as in former years, but the pressure of events and of the masses encouraged it and the Czar's ukase met with a refusal. On March 11, Michael Rodzianko, president of the Duma, wired the Czar: "The situation is serious. The capital is in a state of anarchy. The government is paralyzed. There is universal discontent The streets are filled with disorderly fighting, units of the army are firing on each other. It is necessary to appoint some one immediately whom the country trusts to form another ministry. Make haste. Procrastination means death. I pray to God that the responsibility will not fall upon him who wears the crown!" The next day, Rodzianko again wired the Czar: "Affairs are worse. You must act at once. To-morrow it will be too late. This is the last hour In which to decide the fate of the country and of the dynasty."

It is apparent that the Duma "liberals" did not favor the overthrow of the Czar. Months later, Milyukov, at a convention of his party, said: "When the revolution broke out I thought it would be suppressed in a quarter of an hour, but after several days I understood that the real Russian Revolution had begun and that it could not be put down." The "revolutionary Duma" was not the instrument of Revolution, but simply tried to squeeze profit for itself out of the Revolution once it had been accomplished by the masses and could not any longer be resisted.

The Duma hesitated, and did not know what to do. It still had faith in the Czar, as proven by the telegrams of Rodzianko. But on the afternoon of March 12 the revolutionary troops appeared before the Duma and demonstrated for the revolution. This evidence of the solidarity of the soldiers with the masses decided the Duma, and only then did it appoint the "Duma Committee" to take charge of events, headed by Rodzianko.

On March 13 the final struggles with the police occured and they were ruthlessly exterminated. The jails were opened and the prisoners freed, including thousands of revolutionary agitators. Two hundred officials of the old regime were arrested, including former Premier Boris V. Sturmer. That {{dhr}