But the
whole country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
organisations to elect as many "moderate" Socialist delegates as
possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants'
Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants' Congress, to meet
December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers
might take...
What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that
there would be an armed "demonstration," a _vystuplennie_-"coming
out" of the workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary
press prophesied insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest
the Petrograd Soviet, or at least to prevent the meeting of the
Congress. Such sheets as _Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik
massacre.
Gorky's paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the
parties of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.
As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements
appeal to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the
battle to seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most
profound strata of the people.
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