one thousand nine hundred seventy four the revolution. comrades if you want your manifestos posters and banners to draw more attention turn to artists for help if you want your proclamations and appeals to be more effective in convincing turn to poets and writers for help and. the. and. as to lenin that trischka that loud mouth braggart has finally turned up after all he was given a grand welcome he came via germany. the germans had gathered a whole heap of these troublesome triss cuz they provided an entire train sealed it so the spirit of the trish goes doesn't escape on to german soil and sent it to us now you have him. on the third of april learning

arrived in st petersburg from his exile in service bringing with him his program that april theses. lenin started on his campaign immediately he said he had broken with social democracy and what from now on call himself a social communist. he demanded immediate peace he called for a boycott of the provisional government he declared all power to the soviets all land to the peasants. the government has finally issued its long awaited statement on the war it is live feeble and unclear. always the same without an exaggeration but mumbles. combined with spineless hts self-assertion. that made it official the. you

know government was not going to sign a separate peace treaty with germany russia was to remain at war. the government wanted to drum up support for the war and raise funds artists most of whom were against the war were asked to do propaganda the idea was that carnival's and processions would encourage people to buy war bonds the provisional government was planning a new military offensive. the people of st petersburg protested in july the situation would escalate. but before that workers day was celebrated on the first of may. gorky dissolved his commission to little support. but he began to write and publish more.

the first of may one thousand nine hundred seventeen impressions from the street people seem not to believe that they are free and have the right to demonstrate and sing forbidding songs they've all gone out on the street to see for themselves. russia has taken an incredible step forward and left europe behind it it has celebrated the first of may as it has never been celebrated in the countries of ancient cultures. yes we must keep fighting and our feet but sometimes we must also overcome our fear of the people the fatherland would consider itself less endangered if there were more cultural. may the fifteenth in the evening the staff of the newspaper know via she's in gathered to discuss their position on the arts mayakovsky is without

a doubt talented big and strong but he is also a liar gorky's tone is very somber he sounds like he is already disappointed in the revolution for such a staunch revolutionary that has come with alarming speed the government was planning renewed military action the current ski or july offensive the madness continues as a pacifist i welcome the offensive hoping that it will bring at least some order to this exhausted and sluggish country and i fear lennon's mad politics will soon lead to civil war he is completely isolated politically but his slogans are very popular among most workers and some soldiers as well.

corky supported the offensive as a marxist there were more and more demonstrations. on june the eighteenth four hundred thousand people marched through st petersburg. then on the twentieth the first machine gun regiment from v. borg was to be sent to the front and the soldiers refused. open rebellion was imminent. then came the july the first machine gun regiment took the lead in efforts to topple the provisional government the bolsheviks decided to take part many were killed in clashes with troops loyal to the government. the dreadful images of the madness that see st petersburg on the fourth of july will stay with me all my life. a truck came by at high speed loaded with shotguns and machine guns stuffed full of representatives of

the revolutionary army suddenly a shot rang out somewhere and hundreds of people scattered in panic like swirling leaves falling down pushing one another over screaming shouting the borzois are shooting. to suppress the uprising the artillery was employed and troops were called in from the front. i know a lot of details from private letters but i don't want to quote them here so i shall simply write according to reports. the provisional government outlaws the bolsheviks and had hundreds arrested.

for my part i found july's dress rehearsal depressing this coincided with my general disappointment in the revolution and my deep regret about joining company with people who are entirely alien to me. so i decided not to yield to gorky's attempts at persuasion but to leave no via she's in for good and return to my independent solitude. there are no printing works no paper no typesetters and no printers it's extremely expensive to get anything printed. i have often seen st petersburg in summer. but never has it looked as grey and dirty and slovenly as it does now. idle soldiers stagger about in droves spitting

sunflower seeds. daily life now centers on worries about finding our daily bread we too are on starvation rationed. here's the latest our troops flee the front clearing the way for the germans. the loyal ones die the officers die in vast numbers but the soldiers flee and the germans pour through the gates after the fleeing masses. the july offensive failed one contributing factor was the troops refusal to perish as cannon fodder kerensky who was by now prime minister was losing support. kerensky has been corrupted he has taken up residence in the winter palace thereby revealing himself as a miserable parvenu his brilliance sensibilities have evidently deserted him.

always the same insistent demands korecki should either really take control or hand over power to more capable people. and then came the events known as the kornilov affair and attempted counter-revolutionary coup. was the army's commander in chief he decided to send troops to st petersburg to disarm radical soldiers and save russia from the bolsheviks but korecki feared it was in fact leading a rebellion against his government and dismissed him. korecki provided forty thousand rifles for the defense of st petersburg many went to the bolsheviks who

were rehabilitated having been outlawed because of their involvement in the july days. railway workers dismantled train tracks to prevent going.