PARTISAN REVIEW
27
let us through without lifting a finger. So in we went. The doors
weren't even locked. We put a guard on every phone.
SAILOR 4: You should have seen the bank people. Where have you got
your gold? Just a little tap with a bayonet and they whipped out
the keys. Then down the stairs to the vaults.
RAKOVSKY: And?
SAILOR 4: Gold bars lying there like cakes in the oven.
RAKOVSKY: That's more than the Paris Commune dared to do.
ANTONOV
enters. He reports to
TROTSKY. LENIN
meanwhile con–
sults papers and makes notes.
ANTONOV: The Winter Palace is surrounded. Blockade closing in on the
Admiralty quay, Nevsky Prospect, Mars Field, Palace quay. We're
stationed at the railing and moats of the Hermitage. All gates to the
Palace Gardens
in
our hands. We advanced to the main entrance,
disarmed the guards. The Kadets have entrenched themselves behind
wooden stakes. Firewood. Have received reinforcements. A women's
batallion. The
Aurora's
waiting for a signal from the fortress. Blanks
first, as agreed. Then, if necessary, fire.
TROTSKY: Kamenev's and Zinoviev's declaration could be useful to us.
It'll strengthen Kerensky's opinion that we're not yet ready to strike,
are willing to negotiate. Our tactics so far have been to make all our
preparations look like security measures. Against a counterrevolution
from the right. All we need now, Antonov, is an act of provocation.
Then attack becomes defense.
ANTONOV: In the palace they're reeling around like hypnotized chickens.
We sent up patrols from the cellars. The government's taken refuge
in the throne room. Behind each one an old footman in livery, filling
up glasses.
A
FEMALE WORKER
and a
PRINTING WORKER
come in hurriedly.
FEM.
WORKER: We were printing off
Pravda
when a troop of junkers
came in. They swept the galleys off the table with their rifles, smashed
the matrices. We were forced .out, the doors locked and sealed. Give
us an armed escort and we promise to get the paper out.
TROTSKY: Official seals on the doors of the Bolshevik newspaper. The
signal for battle. Immediate order to the Litovsk regiment. A company
to protect the workers' press.
PRINTING WORKER: Get some from the sixth pioneer batallion too.
They're neighbors, good friends of ours.
TR.OTSKY
writes some notes and gives them to a messenger.
TROTSKY: Antonov, raise the red lantern on the Peter and Paul fortress.
ANTONOV
goes off.
Poznansky, write this down. Order Number One. The Petrograd soviet
