https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/trotsky-against-the-cadets-83rpcsn28
december 18, 1917
Trotsky against the cadets
The Petrograd Soviet has passed a resolution demanding the immediate promulgation of a decree quashing the elections of all Cadet Deputies. Receiving a military deputation at the Smolny Institute, Trotsky declared that the People’s Commissioners were engaged in a merciless and decisive struggle against the Cadet Party, and would stop at nothing in the prosecution of class warfare. ln a speech to the Executive Committee of the Soviets he went even further. Replying to some speakers who disapproved of violence being offered to members of the Constituent Assembly, Trotsky said: “You are shocked at the mild form of terror we exercise against our class enemies, but take notice that not more than a month hence that terror will assume a more terrible form, on the model of that of the great French Revolution. No prison but the guillotine for our enemies. It is not immoral for a democracy to crush another class. That is its right.”
There is little prospect of an early meeting of the Constituent Assembly. Yesterday the committee charged with the superintendence of the elections endeavoured to hold a meeting in the Tauris Palace, but was prevented from doing so by the soldiers. A separate sitting of the Ukraine Deputies has been held at Kieff. About 150 members were present, all except 12 of whom were Revolutionary Socialists.
Numerous cases of robbery, with house-breaking and violence, have been reported in the last few days. In some instances large sums of money have been carried away by armed bands. The plundering of wine cellars continues, notwithstanding exhortations to sobriety on the part of the “Government”. Many formerly quiet neighbourhoods are nightly disturbed by Bacchanalian orgies, with reports of firearms. The troops whose sentiments are uncertain are being removed from the city, and their place taken by “Red Guards.”
The People’s Commissioners are credited with the intention of cancelling all foreign loans when it has been definitely ascertained that the Allies refuse to participate in peace negotiations. Such a measure would, above all things, involve the ruin of the small French peasant investor, on the fruits of whose industry Russia has lived and prospered for many years.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-12-16/register/holding-the-enemy-before-venice-lm5wggvpd
In the town itself everything possible has been done to guard its treasures against the risk of violation. The facade of St Mark’s and the arcades of the Doges’ Palace, stripped of all its pictures, are protected by barricades of masonry and sandbags. By day there is still a constant coming and going in the Piazza and along the Riva degli Schiavoni and some of the other main quays and streets. But the factory chimneys are smokeless, most of the shops are shuttered and deserted, gondolas on the move are as rare as daisies in December, and in the untenanted palaces of the Grand Canal there is hardly a sign of life. By night, except for an occasional blue and ghastly glimmer of rare electric light, the town looks as black as the grave. One walks about it as one would in a dark house, though a house which is all on the same floor, with never a step to trip one up. And day and night, without any break, from far out across the lagoon and marshes sounds the dull boom of guns, Italian and British, defending from the covetous grasp of the invader the Queen city of the Adriatic.
Numerous cases of robbery, with house-breaking and violence, have been reported in the last few days. In some instances large sums of money have been carried away by armed bands. The plundering of wine cellars continues, notwithstanding exhortations to sobriety on the part of the “Government”. Many formerly quiet neighbourhoods are nightly disturbed by Bacchanalian orgies, with reports of firearms. The troops whose sentiments are uncertain are being removed from the city, and their place taken by “Red Guards.”
The People’s Commissioners are credited with the intention of cancelling all foreign loans when it has been definitely ascertained that the Allies refuse to participate in peace negotiations. Such a measure would, above all things, involve the ruin of the small French peasant investor, on the fruits of whose industry Russia has lived and prospered for many years.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-12-16/register/holding-the-enemy-before-venice-lm5wggvpd
december 16, 1917
Holding the enemy before Venice
By permission of the Italian Admiralty, I spent yesterday in a motor-launch tour through the coastwise defensive system of Venice on the north-east side, where, although it is still out of range of the enemy’s guns, it is approached most nearly by the Austrian lines. A great part of these defences is natural, a combination of intricate waterways, artificial inundations, floating batteries, and sandbag trenches, so strong that in this direction there seems to be very little chance of the enemy’s being able to break through.In the town itself everything possible has been done to guard its treasures against the risk of violation. The facade of St Mark’s and the arcades of the Doges’ Palace, stripped of all its pictures, are protected by barricades of masonry and sandbags. By day there is still a constant coming and going in the Piazza and along the Riva degli Schiavoni and some of the other main quays and streets. But the factory chimneys are smokeless, most of the shops are shuttered and deserted, gondolas on the move are as rare as daisies in December, and in the untenanted palaces of the Grand Canal there is hardly a sign of life. By night, except for an occasional blue and ghastly glimmer of rare electric light, the town looks as black as the grave. One walks about it as one would in a dark house, though a house which is all on the same floor, with never a step to trip one up. And day and night, without any break, from far out across the lagoon and marshes sounds the dull boom of guns, Italian and British, defending from the covetous grasp of the invader the Queen city of the Adriatic.
We left Venice just before daybreak, and as we got clear of the canals and rounded the Cemetery Island the sun was rising. From the sky came every now and then the whirr and hum of Italian and French sea-planes. On the waters we kept coming on the floating batteries, iron and wooden barges, which, with aeroplanes and men in the trenches provide for the defence of Venice. The waters give to these floating batteries a mobility which no land batteries can hope to attain, and which makes them very difficult for the enemy to locate. The guns have a range of many miles, and free use is made of this mobility in bombarding the enemy’s positions.
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