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.  The soldiers, lowering their guns, knelt down also.

The Bolshevik authorities became excited; they did not expect such a turn of events.  “Enough said,” declared the chiefs; “we have come not to speak, but to act.  If they do not want to go to Smolny, let them get out of here.”  And they set themselves to the task.

In groups of five the peasants were conducted down-stairs, trampled upon, and, on their refusal to go to Smolny, pushed out of doors during the night in the midst of the enormous city of which they knew nothing.

    Members of the Executive Committee were arrested,[39] the premises
    occupied by sailors and Red Guards, the objects found therein
    stolen.

The peasants found shelter in the homes of the inhabitants of Petrograd, who, indignant, offered them hospitality.  A certain number were lodged in the barracks of the Preobrajenski Regiment.  The sailors, who but a few minutes before had sung a funeral hymn to Logvinov, and wept when they saw that they had understood nothing, now became the docile executioners of the orders of the Bolsheviki.  And when they were asked, “Why do you do this?” they answered, as in the time, still recent, of Czarism:  “It is the order.  No need to talk."[40]

We do not need to rely upon the testimony of witnesses belonging to the Revolutionary Socialist party, the Mensheviki, or other factions unfriendly to the Bolsheviki.  However trustworthy such testimony may be, and however well corroborated, we cannot expect it to be convincing to those who pin their faith to the Bolsheviki.  Such people will believe only what the Bolsheviki themselves say about Bolshevism.  It is well, therefore, that we can supplement the testimony already given by equally definite and direct testimony from official Bolshevist sources to the same effect.  From the official organs of the Bolsheviki it can be shown that the Bolshevik authorities suppressed Soviet after Soviet; that when they found that Soviets were controlled by Socialists who belonged to other factions they dissolved them and ordered new elections, refusing to permit the free choice of the members to be expressed in selecting their officers.