Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the
down-trodden masses revolt, it is their right...."
Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
laughter.
"Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this.... the
seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the
Revolution.... Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself
opposed to what he is now advocating...." (Cries, "Enough! Down with
him!")
Martov, constantly interrupted: "The Internationalists are not
opposed to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they
disapprove of the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment
to seize the power...."
Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the
hall, shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government....
Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
peasants and beginning peace negotiations.
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