The following extract from a declaration of protest addressed by
the outraged peasants to the Congress of Soviets of Workmen, Soldiers, and
Peasants convoked by the Bolshevik government tells the story:
As soon as the Congress was opened, sailors and Red Guards, armed
with guns and hand-grenades, broke into the premises (11
Kirillovskaia Street), surrounded the house, poured into the
corridors and the session hall, and ordered all persons to leave.
"In whose name do you order us, who are Delegates to the Peasants'
Congress of All-Russia, to disperse?" asked the peasants.
"In the name of the Baltic fleet," the sailor's replied.
The peasants refused; cries of protest were raised. One by one the
peasants ascended the tribune to stigmatize the Bolsheviki in
speeches full of indignation, and to express the hopes that they
placed in the Constituent Assembly....
This session of the Congress presented a strange spectacle:
disturbed by men who confessed that they did not know why they
were there, the peasants sang revolutionary songs; the sailors,
armed with guns and grenades, joined them. Then the peasants knelt
down to sing a funeral hymn to the memory of Logvinov, whose
coffin was even yesterday within the room.
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