Then up rose Trotzky, calm and venomous, conscious of power, greeted
with a roar. "Yesterday the Military Revolutionary Committee decided
to release the Socialist Revolutionary and Menshevik Ministers,
Mazlov, Salazkin, Gvozdov and Maliantovitch-on principle. That they
are still in Peter-Paul is only because we have had so much to do....
They will, however, be detained at their homes under arrest until we
have investigated their complicity in the treacherous acts of
Kerensky during the Kornilov affair!"
"Never," shouted Pianikh, "in any revolution have such things been
seen as go on here!"
"You are mistaken," responded Trotzky. "Such things have been seen
even in this revolution. Hundreds of our comrades were arrested in
the July days.... When Comrade Kollontai was released from prison by
the doctor's orders, Avksentiev placed at her door two former agents
of the Tsar's secret police!" The peasants withdrew, muttering,
followed by ironical hoots.
The representative of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries spoke on
the Land Decree. While agreeing in principle, his faction could not
vote on the question until after discussion. The Peasants' Soviets
should be consulted....
The Mensheviki Internationalists, too, insisted on a party caucus.
Then the leader of the Maximalists, the Anarchist wing of the
peasants: "We must do honour to a political party which puts such an
act into effect the first day, without jawing about it!"
A typical peasant was in the tribune, long hair, boots and
sheep-skin coat, bowing to all corners of the hall.
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