"_
In Finland, also, things were stirring. The Soviet of Helsingfors
and the _Tsentrobalt_ (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet),
jointly proclaimed a state of siege, and declared that all attempts
to interfere with the Bolshevik forces, and all armed resistance to
its orders, would be severely repressed. At the same time the
Finnish Railway Union called a countrywide general strike, to put
into operation the laws passed by the Socialist Diet of June, 1917,
dissolved by Kerensky....
Early in the morning I went out to Smolny. Going up the long wooden
sidewalk from the outer gate I saw the first thin, hesitating
snow-flakes fluttering down from the grey, windless sky. "Snow!"
cried the soldier at the door, grinning with delight. "Good for the
health!" Inside, the long, gloomy halls and bleak rooms seemed
deserted. No one moved in all the enormous pile. A deep, uneasy
sound came to my ears, and looking around, I noticed that everywhere
on the floor, along the walls, men were sleeping. Rough, dirty men,
workers and soldiers, spattered and caked with mud, sprawled alone
or in heaps, in the careless attitudes of death. Some wore ragged
bandages marked with blood. Guns and cartridge-belts were scattered
about.... The victorious proletarian army!
In the upstairs buffet so thick they lay that one could hardly walk.
The air was foul. Through the clouded windows a pale light streamed.
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