These organizations believed that the _coup d'etat_ of
October 25th was neither legal nor just; they demanded a convocation with
brief delay of the Constituent Assembly and the restoration of the
liberties that were trampled under foot by the Bolsheviki.
These treated them as _saboteurs_, "enemies of the people," deprived them
of their salaries, and expelled them from their lodgings. They ordered
those who opposed them to be deprived of their food-cards. They published
lists of strikers, thus running the risk of having them lynched by the
crowds. At Saratov, for example, the strike of postal workers and
telegraphers lasted a month and a half. The institutions whose strike would
have entailed for the population not only disorganization, but an arrest of
all life (such as the railroads, the organizations of food distributers),
abstained from striking, only asking the Bolsheviki not to meddle with
their work. Sometimes, however, the gross interference of the Bolsheviki in
work of which they understood nothing obliged those opposed to them, in
spite of everything, to strike. It is to be noted also that the professors
of secondary schools were obliged to join the strike movements (the
superior schools had already ceased to function at this time) as well as
the theatrical artistes: a talented artist, Silotti, was arrested; he
declared that even in the time of Czarism nobody was ever uneasy on
account of his political opinions.
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