Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
The One Hundred Seventy-ninth Reserve Regiment offers its unanimous
support. Five thousand stevedores at the Putilov wharves greet the new
Government. Central Committee of the Trade Unions—enthusiastic support.
The garrison and squadron at Reval elect Military Revolutionary
Committees to cooperate, and despatch troops. Military Revolutionary
Committees control in Pskov and Minsk. Greetings from the Soviets of
Tsaritzin, Rovensky-on-Don, Tchernogorsk, Sevastopol…. The Finland
Division, the new Committees of the Fifth and Twelfth Armies, offer
allegiance….
From Moscow the news is uncertain. Troops of the Military Revolutionary
Committee occupy the strategic points of the city; two companies on
duty in the Kremlin have gone over to the Soviets, but the Arsenal is
in the hands of Colonel Diabtsev and his _yunkers._ The Revolutionary
Committee demanded arms for the workers, and Riabtsev parleyed with
them until this morning, when suddenly he sent an ultimatum to the
Committee, ordering Soviet troops to surrender and the Committee to
disband. Fighting has begun….
In Petrograd the Staff submitted to Smolny’s Commissars at once. The
_Tsentroflot,_ refusing, was stormed by Dybenko and a company of
Cronstadt sailors, and a new _Tsentroflot_ set up, supported by the
Baltic and the Black Sea battleships….
But beneath all the breezy assurance there was a chill premonition, a
feeling of uneasiness in the air. Kerensky’s Cossacks were coming fast;
they had artillery. Skripnik, Secretary of the Factory-Shop Committees,
his face drawn and yellow, assured me that there was a whole army corps
of them, but he added, fiercely, “They’ll never take us alive!”
Petrovsky laughed weariedly, “To-morrow maybe we’ll get a sleep—a long
one….” Lozovsky, with his emaciated, red-bearded face, said, “What
chance have we? All alone…. A mob against trained soldiers!”
South and south-west the Soviets had fled before Kerensky, and the
garrisons of Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo were divided—half
voting to remain neutral, the rest, without officers, falling back on
the capital in the wildest disorder.
In the halls they were pasting up bulletins:
FROM KRASNOYE SELO, NOVEMBER 10TH, 8 A.M.
_To be communicated to all Commanders of Staffs, Commanders in Chief,
Commanders, everywhere and to all, all, all._
The ex-Minister Kerensky has sent a deliberately false telegram to
every one everywhere to the effect that the troops of revolutionary
Petrograd have voluntarily surrendered their arms and joined the armies
of the former Government, the Government of Treason, and that the
soldiers have been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee to
retreat. The troops of a free people do not retreat nor do they
surrender.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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