Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, “The remedy for
Bolshevism is bullets!” Turning to the Cadets he cried, “That’s what
_you_ think, too!”
Voices from the Right, “Yes! Yes!”
“Yes, I know you think so,” answered Karelin, hotly. “But you haven’t
the courage to try it!”
Then Skobeliev, looking like a matinée idol with his soft blond beard
and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
“Resignation! Resignation!” He insisted that the delegates of the
Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common point
of view—his own. A few words about the restoration of discipline in the
army, about war to victory…. Tumult, and over the stubborn opposition
of the truculent Left, the Council of the Republic passed to the simple
order of the day.
There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats—empty since that first day
when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I went
down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter wrangling,
no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate this high,
cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was wrecked—on the same
rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the Miliukov Ministry…. The
doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, “I don’t know what is becoming
of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and Bolsheviki and Trudoviki….
This Ukraine and this Finland and the German imperialists and the
English imperialists. I am forty-five years old, and in all my life I
never heard so many words as in this place….”
In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet party.
I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.
“They are cattle—_canaille,”_ he answered. “They will not dare, or if
they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it will
not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power in the
Constituent Assembly….
“But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with
the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional project…. We
will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such as you have in
the United States. In the lower chamber will be territorial
representatives; in the upper, representatives of the liberal
professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives—and Trade Unions….”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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