A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused
by the arrest of the Land Committees. "This Kerensky is nothing but
a shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners)," he cried. "They know
that at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so
they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!"
A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that
there was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he
declared, had discovered huge hidden supplies.
"It is a _provocatzia,"_ said he. "They want to starve us-or drive
us to violence!"
Among the soldiers one began, "Comrades! I bring you greetings from
the place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!"
Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with
a roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
fighting, and now risen from the dead.
"The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed
us.... The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be
held exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone
it will be cursed-and not only platonic curses either, for the Army
has guns too...."
He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in
the Fifth Army.
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