Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial DemocracySpargo, John
History
Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Spargo, John
Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
This is the course of the events which followed the dissolution of the
Constituante. On the 8th of January the members of the Constituante
assembled at Bolotnaia; two were arrested; the premises of the fraction
were occupied by the Red Guards. On the 9th of January took place the
funeral of the victims, in which all Petrograd took part. The Bolsheviki
this time did not dare to shoot into the magnificent procession preceded by
a long line of coffins. The 10th of January they dispersed the Third
All-Russian Congress of Peasants which had placed itself on the side of the
Constituent Assembly. The Congress had been at first arranged for the 8th
of January (the same day as the Bolshevik Congress of the Soviets), but,
because of the events, it was postponed to the 10th. The peasants who had
come to this Congress knew perfectly well that they would have a fight to
uphold, perhaps even to give their lives. Their neighbors, their
co-villagers, wept when they saw them set out, as if it were a question of
men condemned to death. That alone suffices to show to what degree were
conscious these peasants who had come from all corners of the country to
prepare themselves for the defense of the Constituent Assembly.
As soon as the Congress was opened sailors and Red Guards, armed with guns
and hand-grenades, broke into the premises (11 Kirillovskaia Street),
surrounded the house, poured into the corridors and the session hall, and
ordered all persons to leave.
"In whose name do you order us, who are Delegates to the Peasants' Congress
of All-Russia, to disperse?" asked the peasants.
"In the name of the Baltic fleet," the soldiers replied.
The peasants refused; cries of protest were raised. One by one the peasant
delegates ascended the tribune to stigmatize the Bolsheviki in speeches
full of indignation, and to express the hopes that they placed in the
Constituent Assembly.
The sailors listened. They had come to disperse a counter-revolutionary
Congress, and these speeches troubled them. One sailor, not able to stand
it any longer, burst into tears.
"Let me speak!" he shouted to the president. "I hear your speeches, peasant
comrades, and I no longer understand anything.... What is going on? We are
peasants, and you, too, are peasants. But we are of this side, and you are
of the other.... Why? Who has separated us? For we are brothers.... But it
is as if a barrier had been placed between us." He wept and, seizing his
revolver, he exclaimed, "No, I would rather kill myself!"
This session of the Congress presented a strange spectacle, disturbed by
men who confessed that they did not know why they were there; the peasants
sang revolutionary songs; the sailors, armed with guns and grenades, joined
them. Then the peasants knelt down to sing a funeral hymn to the memory of
Logvinov, whose coffin was even yesterday within the room. The soldiers,
lowering their guns, knelt down also.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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