BONCH-BRUEVITCH
Down in the front hall Kameniev was just entering, worn out by the
all-night session of the Conference to Form a New Government, but
happy. "Already the Socialist Revolutionaries are inclined to admit
us into the new Government," he told me. "The right wing groups are
frightened by the Revolutionary Tribunals; they demand, in a sort of
panic, that we dissolve them before going any further. ... We have
accepted the proposition of the _Vikzhel_ to form a homogeneous
Socialist Ministry, and they're working on that now. You see, it all
springs from our victory. When we were down, they would't have us at
any price; not everybody's in favour of some agreement with the
Soivets.... What we need is a really decisive victory. Kerensky wants
an armistice, but he'll have to surrender (See App. IX, Sect. 2) ...."
That was the temper of the Bolshevik leaders. To a foreign
journalist who asked Trotzky what statement he had to make to the
world, Trotzky replied: "At this moment the only statement possible
is the one we are making through the mouths of our cannon!"
But there was an undercurrent of real anxiety in the tide of
victory; the question of finances. Instead of opening the banks, as
had been ordered by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Union
of Bank Employees had held a meeting and declared a formal strike.
Smolny had demanded some thirty-five millions of rubles from the
State Bank, and the cashier had locked the vaults, only paying out
money to the representatives of the Provisional Government.
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