Thus the Revolution would be crushed and the whole system of
autocracy, Russian, Austrian, and German, preserved.
The morning of the 27th of February--new style--was tense with an ominous
expectancy. In the Allied chancelleries anxious groups were gathered. They
realized that the fate of the Allies hung in the balance. In Petrograd
alone three hundred thousand workers went out on strike that day, and the
police agents did their level best to provoke violence. The large bodies of
troops massed at various points throughout the city, and the police with
their machine-guns, testified to the thoroughness with which the government
had prepared to crush any revolutionary manifestations. Thanks to the
excellent discipline of the workers, and the fine wisdom of the leaders of
the Social Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionists, and the Labor Group,
who constantly exhorted the workers not to fall into the trap set for them,
there was no violence.
At the opening session of the Duma, Kerensky, leader of the Labor Group,
made a characteristic address in which he denounced the arrest of the Labor
Group members of the War Industries Committee. He directed his attack
against the "system," not against individuals:
"We are living in a state of anarchy unprecedented in our history.
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