Two questions seemed to be uppermost in all minds, shocked by the ferocity of the civil war; first, a truce to the bloodshed (See App. IX, Sect. 3)—second, the creation of a new Government. There was no longer any talk of “destroying the Bolsheviki”—and very little about excluding them from the Government, except from the Populist Socialists and the Peasants’ Soviets. Even the Central Army Committee at the Stavka, the most determined enemy of Smolny, telephoned from Moghilev: “If, to constitute the new Ministry, it is necessary to come to an understanding with the Bolsheviki, we agree to admit them in a minority to the Cabinet.”
Pravda, ironically calling attention to Kerensky’s “humanitarian sentiments,” published his despatch to the Committee for Salvation:
In accord with the proposals of the Committee for Salvation and all the democratic organisations united around it, I have halted all military action against the rebels. A delegate of the Committee has been sent to enter into negotiations. Take all measures to stop the useless shedding of blood.
The Vikzhel sent a telegram to all Russia:
The Conference of the Union of Railway Workers with the representatives of both the belligerent parties, who admit the necessity of an agreement, protest energetically against the use of political terrorism in the civil war, especially when it is carried on between different factions of the revolutionary democracy, and declare that political terrorism, in whatever form, is in contradiction to the very idea of the negotiations for a new Government….
[Graphic, page 227: Leaflet]
Popular leaflet sold in the streets just after the Bolshevik insurrection, containing rhymes and jokes about the defeated bourgeoisie and the “moderate” Socialist leaders, Called, “How THE BOORZHUI (BOURGEOISIE) LOST THE POWER.”
Delegations from the Conference were sent to the Front, to Gatchina. In the Conference itself everything seemed on the point of final settlement. It had even been decided to elect a Provisional People’s Council, composed of about four hundred members—seventy-five representing Smolny, seventy-five the old Tsay-ee-kah, and the rest split up among the Town Dumas, the Trade Unions, Land Committees and political parties. Tchernov was mentioned as the new Premier. Lenin and Trotzky, rumour said, were to be excluded….
About noon I was again in front of Smolny, talking with the driver of an ambulance bound for the revolutionary front. Could I go with him? Certainly! He was a volunteer, a University student, and as we rolled down the street shouted over his shoulder to me phrases of execrable German: “Also, gut! Wir nach die Kasernen zu essen gehen!” I made out that there would be lunch at some barracks.
On the Kirotchnaya we turned into an immense courtyard surrounded by military buildings, and mounted a dark stairway to a low room lit by one window. At a long wooden table were seated some twenty soldiers, eating shtchi (cabbage soup) from a great tin wash-tub with wooden spoons, and talking loudly with much laughter.