isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

TROTSKY IN I 905
constitution, civil liberties, and universal suffrage. The Manifesto
was composed by Count Witte, a semi-Liberal Prime
Minister. The Bulygin Duma had -Oeen buried before it was
born; and the Tsar appeared to be renouncing the absolutism
that was as old as the dynasty itself. Petersburg was first stunned
and then intoxicated with joy. Festive crowds filled the streets
and read the Manifesto in amazement. In the government,
however, the opponents of the reform continued to wield effective
power. General Trepov, Minister of the Interior, gave the
police the order: 'Spare no bullets!'j and this order was posted
on the walls side by side with the Tsar's Manifesto, as if it had
been intended to provide a malicious comment on the 'new
era'. Just before the Tsar issued his proclamation, the police had
made numerous arrests.
On the morning of the 17th Trotsky moved with a huge and
excited crowd towards the Technological Institute, where the
Soviet had sat the previous two days. Gendarmes on horseback
rode into the crowd. Trepov's proclamation seemed to warn
everybody that it was too early for exultation. All the same, the
crowd, consisting of workers and middle-class people, gave
itself up to common rejoicing. The workers, however, were the
heroes of the day. It was their strike that had wrested from the
Tsar the promise of a constitution and freedom. The houses
were at first decorated with the white-red-·blue flag of the
dynasty, but young workers tore off the white and the blue
strips of cloth, littered the pavements with them, and hoisted
the narrow and ragged red flags. The procession reached the
Technological Institute, but there it was halted by a barrier of
police and gendarmerie.
The crowd moved on towards the University, where meetings
were held. The swelling, good-humoured procession carried
with it the young man who had so long waited for this moment,
who had forecast it, and who was now full of misgivings and of
an impatient desire to warn the multitude against too early
rejoicing. The procession poured into the courtyard of the
University. From a balcony speakers were already haranguing
the crowds. Tense with his misgivings and with the emotion
absorbed from the procession, Trotsky pushed his way through
the vast and dense multitude up to the balcony: there was his
place! The organizers of the meeting knew him as the man who,