... There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A crowd came
pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and round black
fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their shoulders,
soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_ pinched
flat, a leader or so-Lunatcharsky, Kameniev-hurrying along in the
centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting
of the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev-a quick moving
little man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders.
Without preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution
just passed:
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, saluting
the victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
well.
The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers' and
Peasants' Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will
be created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country
can be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
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