Polkovnikov issued
order after order, threatening to repress all insubordination with
the "utmost energy." Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the
worsthated member of the Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to
keep order in Petrograd; he named as assistants two men no less
unpopular, Rutenburg and Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and
Finland were declared in a state of siege-upon which the bourgeois
_Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked ironically:
Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has
no moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to
use force.... In the most favourable circumstances it can only
negotiate with any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no
farther....
Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to see
what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic. Bitter
debate on Terestchenko's foreign policy. Echoes of the
Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the
Italian ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso
disaster....
As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, "The remedy
for Bolshevism is bullets!" Turning to the Cadets he cried, "That's
what _you_ think, too!"
Voices from the Right, "Yes! Yes!"
"Yes, I know you think so," answered Karelin, hotly.
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