“All who are capable of sabotage, disorganisation, or disorder, all deserters, all slackers, all looters, should be forced to do auxiliary service in the rear of the Army….
“We invite the Provisional Government to form, out of these violators of the people’s will, these enemies of the Revolution, labour detachments to work in the rear, on the Front, in the trenches under enemy fire….”
7.
EVENTS OF THE NIGHT, NOVEMBER 6TH
Toward evening bands of Red Guards began to occupy the printing shops of the bourgeois press, where they printed Rabotchi Put, Soldat, and various proclamations by the hundred thousand. The City Militia was ordered to clear these places, but found the offices barricaded, and armed men defending them. Soldiers who were ordered to attack the print-shops refused.
About midnight a Colonel with a company of yunkers arrived at the club “Free Mind,” with a warrant to arrest the editor of Rabotchi Put. Immediately an enormous mob gathered in the street outside and threatened to lynch the yunkers. The Colonel thereupon begged that he and the yunkers be arrested and taken to Peter-Paul prison for safety. This request was granted.
At 1 A. M. a detachment of soldiers and sailors from Smolny occupied the Telegraph Agency. At 1.35 the Post Office was occupied. Toward morning the Military Hotel was taken, and at 5 o’clock the Telephone Exchange. At dawn the State Bank was surrounded. And at 10 A. M. a cordon of troops was drawn about the Winter Palace.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV
1.