And so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound
of black bread on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white
bread, sugar, tea, candy, cake and butter.... Yet when the soldiers at
the front could no longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how
indignantly did this family scream "Cowards!"-how "ashamed" they were
"to be Russians"... When finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned
vast hoarded stores of provisions, what "Robbers" they were.
Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and
very active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned,
for and against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky-whoever would
pay.... In the darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such
as the Black Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in
some form or other.
In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
"All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
speculation, treachery.... The Revolution is in danger, and with it the
cause of the people all over the world!"
The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between
the Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March
days, was about to culminate.
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