The third is definitely to organise the revolutionary power and
assure the realisation of the popular programme...
What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally,
adopted a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a
sort of contemptuous "I-told-you-so" to the other parties.
Influential Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal
Duma, and on the outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other
than that, the bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour-which could not
far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three
days never occurred to anybody-except perhaps to Lenin, Trotzky, the
Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers....
In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the
Duma sitting in _permanence,_ tempestuous, grouping around it all
the forces of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with
his white hair and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny the
night before, to protest in the name of the Municipal
Self-Government. "The Duma, being the only existing legal Government
in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not
recognise the new power," he had told Trotzky. And Trotzky had
answered, "There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can
be dissolved and re-elected...." At this report there was a furious
outcry.
"If one recognises a Government by bayonet," continued the old man,
addressing the Duma, "well, we have one; but I consider legitimate
only a Government recognised by the majority, and not one created by
the usurpation of a minority!" Wild applause on all benches except
those of the Bolsheviki.
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