The Commissars of
Smolny began by pleading and arguing, which did not stop the growing
disorder, followed by pitched battles between soldiers and Red
Guards.... Finally the Military Revolutionary Committee sent out
companies of sailors with machine-guns, who fired mercilessly upon
the rioters, killing many; and by executive order the wine-cellars
were invaded by Committees with hatchets, who smashed the bottles-or
blew them up with dynamite....
Companies of Red Guards, disciplined and well-paid, were on duty at
the headquarters of the Ward Soviets day and night, replacing the
old Militia. In all quarters of the city small elective
Revolutionary Tribunals were set up by the workers and soldiers to
deal with petty crime....
The great hotels, where the speculators still did a thriving
business, were surrounded by Red Guards, and the speculators thrown
into jail. (See App. XI, Sect. 8)...
Alert and suspicious, the working-class of the city constituted
itself a vast spy system, through the servants prying into bourgeois
households, and reporting all information to the Military
Revolutionary Committee, which struck with an iron hand, unceasing.
In this way was discovered the Monarchist plot led by former
Duma-member Purishkevitch and a group of nobles and officers, who
had planned an officers' uprising, and had written a letter inviting
Kaledin to Petrograd.
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