The delegates, one after another, tried to explain to the Red Guards that
it was not the delegates that were deceived in coming to this conference,
but those who were going to Smolny to the Bolshevist Congress, those who,
by order of the Bolsheviki, kill the peasants' representatives and dissolve
their Congress.
In the midst of these speeches Kornilov declared the Congress dissolved; to
this Comrade Ovtchinnikov, president of the Conference, replied that the
Congress would not be dissolved except by force, and, besides, that the
document read by Kornilov did not authorize him to pronounce its
dissolution. Members of the Congress having entered into arguments with the
sailors and the Red Guards, concerning the violence inflicted on the
peasant delegates, the sound of the rattling of guns was heard and the
leader of the pretorians declared that if the Congress would not submit to
his orders he would stop at nothing. All the members of the Congress were
forthwith searched and thrown out of doors in groups of five, with the idea
that, having come from the provinces, and not knowing Petrograd, they would
find themselves dispersed in such a way as not to be able to assemble again
anywhere, and would be obliged either to betake themselves to the railway
and return home or to direct their steps toward Smolny, the address of
which was given to each one at the exit.
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