ference, called the Third
All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Soviets, was suppressed by force, many of
the 359 delegates and all the members of the Executive Committee being
arrested. 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. 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