"The Greatest Failure in All History": A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in RussiaSpargo, John
History
"The Greatest Failure in All History": A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia
Spargo, John
Communism -- Russia
From eleven o’clock in the morning cortèges, composed
principally of working-men bearing red flags and placards with
inscriptions such as “Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!”
“Land and Liberty!” “Long Live the Constituent Assembly!” etc.,
set out from different parts of the city. The members of the
Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates had
agreed to meet at the Field of Mars, where a procession coming
from the Petrogradsky quarter was due to arrive. It was soon
learned that a part of the participants, coming from the Viborg
quarter, had been assailed at the Liteiny bridge by gun-fire
from the Red Guards and were obliged to turn back. But that
did not check the other parades. The peasant participants,
united with the workers from Petrogradsky quarter, came to the
Field of Mars; after having lowered their flags before the
tombs of the Revolution of February and sung a funeral hymn to
their memory, they installed themselves on Liteinaia Street.
New manifestants came to join them and the street was crowded
with people. At the corner of Fourstatskaia Street (one of the
streets leading to the Taurida Palace) they found themselves
all at once assailed by shots from the Red Guards.
The Red Guard fired _without warning_, something that never
before happened, even in the time of czarism. The police always
began by inviting the participators to disperse. Among the
first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the
Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov.
An explosive bullet shot away half of his head (a photograph of
his body was taken; it was added to the documents which were
transferred to the Commission of Inquiry). Several workmen
and students and one militant of the Revolutionary Socialist
Party, Gorbatchevskaia, were killed at the same time. Other
processions of participants on their way to the Taurida Palace
were fired into at the same time. On all the streets leading
to the palace, groups of Red Guards had been established; they
received the order, “Not to spare the cartridges.” On that day
at Petrograd there were one hundred killed and wounded.[13]
[13] _How the Russian Peasants Fought for a Constituent Assembly._
A report to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov,
vice-president of the executive committee of the Soviet of Delegates,
placing themselves upon the grounds of the defense of the Constituent
Assembly. With a letter-preface by the citizen, E. Roubanovitch, member
of the International Socialist Bureau. May 30, 1918. Note: This report
is printed in full as Appendix II to _Bolshevism_, by John Spargo, pp.
331-384.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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