... The Bolshevik and Left Social Revolutionary factions
were in session in their own rooms. All the livelong afternoon Lenin
and Trotzky had fought against compromise. A considerable part of
the Bolsheviki were in favour of giving way so far as to create a
joint all-Socialist government. "We can't hold on!" they cried.
"Too much is against us. We haven't got the men. We will be
isolated, and the whole thing will fall." So Kameniev, Riazanov and
others.
But Lenin, with Trotzky beside him, stood firm as a rock. "Let the
compromisers accept our programme and they can come in! We won't
give way an inch. If there are comrades here who haven't the courage
and the will to dare what we dare, let them leave with the rest of
the cowards and conciliators! Backed by the workers and soldiers we
shall go on."
At five minutes past seven came word from the left Socialist
Revolutionaries to say that they would remain in the Military
Revolutionary Committee.
"See!" said Lenin. "They are following!"
A little later, as we sat at the press table in the big hall, an
Anarchist who was writing for the bourgeois papers proposed to me
that we go and find out what had become of the presidium. There was
nobody in the _Tsay-ee-kah_ office, nor in the bureau of the
Petrograd Soviet. From room to room we wandered, through vast
Smolny. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea where to find the
governing body of the Congress.
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