The insurgents never got a chance to "say openly their opinion to
the masses of workers and soldiers." Upon the _Tsay-ee-kah_ rolled
in like breakers the fierce popular condemnation of the "deserters."
For days Smolny was thronged with angry delegations and committees,
from the front, from the Volga, from the Petrograd factories. "Why
did they dare leave the Government? Were they paid by the
bourgeoisie to destroy the Revolution? They must return and submit
to the decisions of the Central Committee!"
Only in the Petrograd garrison was there still uncertainty. A great
soldier meeting was held on November 24th, addressed by
representatives of all the political parties. By a vast majority
Lenin's policy was sustained, and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
were told that they must enter the government.... _See next page._
The Mensheviki delivered a final ultimatum, demanding that all
Ministers and _yunkers_ be released, that all newspapers be allowed
full freedom, that the Red Guard be disarmed and the garrison put
under command of the Duma. To this Smolny answered that all the
Socialist Ministers and also all but a very few _yunkers_ had been
already set free, that all newspapers were free except the bourgeois
press, and that the Soviet would remain in command of the armed
forces.... On the 19th the Conference to Form a New Government
disbanded, and the opposition one by one slipped away to Moghilev,
where, under the wing of the General Staff, they continued to form
Government after Government, until the end.
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