Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
page 47 of 527 (08%)
page 47 of 527 (08%)
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give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be
left only empty trenches. Peace or supplies... either let the Government end the war or support the Army...." For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery: "The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to the enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even to talk of such things, and at the same time doesn't give us enough food to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with...." From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See App. II, Sect. 6)... News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with Soldiers' Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused an order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had been surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and many killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)... On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear Terestchenko's declaration of the Government's foreign policy, awaited with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and exhausted land. A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high |
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