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[Graphic Page-276 Meeting announcement]
Announcement, posted on the walls of Petrograd, of the result of a
meeting of representatives of the garrison regiments, called to
consider the question of forming a new Government. For translation
see App. XI, Sect. 6.
Meanwhile the Bolsheviki had been undermining the power of the
_Vikzhel._ An appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to all railway workers
called upon them to force the _Vikzhel_ to surrender its powers. On
the 15th, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ following its procedure toward the
peasants, called an All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers for
December 1st; the _Vikzhel_ immediately called its own Congress for
two weeks later. On November 16th, the _Vikzhel_ members took their
seats in the _Tsay-ee-kah._ On the night of December 2d, at the
opening session of the All-Russian Congress of Railway Workers, the
_Tsay-ee-kah_ formally offered the post of Commissar of Ways and
Communications to the _Vikzhel_-which accepted....
Having settled the question of power, the Bolsheviki turned their
attention to problems of practical administration. First of all the
city, the country, the Army must be fed. Bands of sailors and Red
Guards scoured the warehouses, the railway terminals, even the
barges in the canals, unearthing and confiscating thousands of
_poods_ 1 of food held by private speculators. Emissaries were sent
to the provinces, where with the assistance of the Land Committees
they seized the store-houses of the great grain-dealers.
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