Chapter VII
The Revolutionary Front
Saturday, November 10th…
Citizens!
The Military Revolutionary Committee declares that it will no tolerate any violation of revolutionary order…
Theft, brigandage, assaults and attempts at massacre will be severely punished…
Following the example of the Paris Commune, the Committee will destroy without mercy any looter or instigator of disorder…
Quiet lay the city. Not a hold-up, not a robbery, not even a drunken fight. By night armed patrols went through the silent streets, and on the corners soldiers and Red Guards squatted around little fires, laughing and singing. In the daytime great crowds gathered on the sidewalks listening to interminable hot debates between students and soldiers, business men and workmen.
Citizens stopped each other on the street.
“The Cossacks are coming?”
“No…”
“What’s the latest?”
“I don’t know anything. Where’s Kerensky?”
“They say only eight versts from Petrograd… Is it true that the Bolsheviki have fled to the battleship Avrora?”
“They say so…”
