THE CADET UPRISING OF OCTOBER 29TH
The stronghold of the counter-revolutionary organization was the cadet schools and the Engineering Castle, where considerable arms and ammunition were stored, and from where attacks were made upon the revolutionary government's headquarters. Detachments of Red Guards and sailors had surrounded the cadet schools and were sending in messengers demanding the surrender of all arms. Some scattering shots came in reply. The besiegers were trampled upon. Crowds of people gathered around them, and not infrequently stray shots fired from the windows would wound passers-by.
The skirmishes were assuming an indefinitely prolonged character, and this threatened the revolutionary detachments with demoralization. It was necessary, therefore, to adopt the most determined measures. The task of disarming the cadets was assigned to the commandant of Petropavlovsk fortress, Ensign B. He closely surrounded the cadet schools, brought up some armored cars and artillery, and gave the cadets ten minutes' time to surrender. Renewed firing from the windows was the answer at first. At the expiration of the ten minutes, B. ordered an artillery charge. The very first shots made yawning breaches in the walls of the schoolhouse. The cadets surrendered, though many of them tried to save themselves by flight, firing as they fled.
Considerable rancor was created, such as always accompanies civil war. The sailors undoubtedly committed many outrages upon individual cadets. The bourgeois press later accused the sailors and the Soviet government of inhumanity and brutality. It never mentioned, however, the fact that the revolt of October 25th-26th had been brought about with hardly any firing or sacrifice, and that only the counter-revolutionary conspiracy which was organized by the bourgeoisie and which threw the young generation into the flame of civil war against the workers, soldiers and sailors, led to unavoidable severities and sacrifices.
The 29th of October marked a decided change in the mood of the inhabitants of Petrograd. Events took on a more tragic character. At the same time, our enemies realized that the situation was far more serious than they thought at first and that the Soviet had not the slightest intention of relinquishing the power it had won just to oblige the junkers and the capitalistic newspapers.
The work of clearing Petrograd of counter-revolutionary centers was carried on intensively. The cadets were almost all disarmed, the participators in the insurrection were arrested and either imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress or deported to Kronstadt. All publications which openly preached revolt against Soviet authority were promptly suppressed. Orders were issued for the arrest of such of the leaders of the former Soviet parties whose names figured on the intercepted counter-revolutionary edicts. All military resistance in the capital was crushed absolutely.
Next came a long and exhausting struggle against the sabotage of the bureaucrats, technical workers, clerks, etc. These elements, which by their earning capacity belong largely to the downtrodden class of society, align themselves with the bourgeois class by the conditions of their life and by their general psychology. They had sincerely and faithfully served the government and its institutions when it was headed by Czarism. They continued to serve the government when the authority passed over into the hands of the bourgeois imperialists. They were inherited with all their knowledge and technical skill, by the coalition government in the next period of the revolution. But when the revolting workingmen, soldiers and peasants flung the parties of the exploiting classes away from the rudder of State and tried to take the management of affairs into their own hands, then the bureaucrats and clerks flew into a passion and absolutely refused to support the new government in any way. More and more extensive became this sabotage, which was organized mostly by Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, and which was supported by funds furnished by the banks and the Allied Embassies.