Executive Committee saying, Take the Government. Here are the bayonets to back you!' You want the Soviets to be the government. So do we Bolsheviks. But we remember that Petrograd is not all of Russia. So we are demanding that the Central Executive Committee call delegates from all over Russia. It is for this new congress to declare the Soviets the government of Russia."
Each crowd met this declaration with cheers and loud cries, "Down with Kerensky"; "Down with the Bourgeois Government"; "All Power to the Soviets."
"Avoid all violence and bloodshed," was the parting admonition to each contingent. "Do not listen to provocators. Do not delight your enemies by killing each other. You have amply shown your power. Now go home quietly. When the occasion for force arises we will call you."
In the swirling flood were cross currents made by the Anarchists, the Black Hundreds, German agents, hoodlums, and those volatile elements which always join the side with the most machine-guns. One thing was now clear to the Bolsheviks: the revolutionary workmen and soldiers around Petrograd were overwhelmingly against the Provisional Government and for the Soviet. They wanted the Soviet to be the government. But the Bolsheviks were afraid this would be a premature step. As they said, "Petrograd is not Russia. The other cities and the army at the front may not be ripe for such
