Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

534 NOTES12131415The Peter and Paul Fortress on the Neva opposite the WinterPalace, served as a state prison for the tsar’s political opponents.Now a museum, it had a large arsenal and was strategically situated.p. 27The Savage Division—formed during the First World War fromvolunteer mountaineers of the North Caucasus. General Kornilovtried to use it as a battering ram in his assault on revolutionaryPetrograd. p. 27Birzhevka (Birzheviye Vedomosti—Stock Exchange Recorder)—abourgeois newspaper founded in 1880. Published in Petrogradthree, then four times a week, then as a daily, and finally, in1902 as a daily with two editions. It won notoriety for corruptionand lack of principle. After the bourgeois- democratic revolutionin February its editors launched a campaign of incitement againstLenin and the Bolshevik Party. It was closed down by the RevolutionaryMilitary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet in lateOctober 1917. p. 28Rech (Speech)—a daily, the central organ of the Cadet Party,published in Petersburg from February 23 (March 8), 1906. Afterthe February revolution, it gave active support to the ProvisionalGovernment’s home and foreign policy, and carried on a viciouscampaign against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. It was closeddown by the Revolutionary Military Committee of the PetrogradSoviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917. It continued to be publisheduntil August 1918 under the names of Nasha Rech, SvobodnayaRech, Vek, Novaya Rech, and Nash Vek. p. 28The reference is to the following facts. On April 20 (May 3), thenewspapers carried a note from Foreign Minister Milyukov to theAllied Governments in which the Provisional Government reaffirmedits intention to honour all the treaties of the tsarist governmentand to carry on the war to a victorious end. There was massiveindignation over this imperialist policy, and on April 21(May 4), the workers of Petrograd responded to a call issued bythe Bolshevik Party and downed tools. They staged a demonstrationwhich demanded peace and was attended by more than100,000 workers and soldiers. Protest demonstrations were alsostaged in Moscow, the Urals, the Ukraine, Kronstadt and othertowns and districts. Resolutions protesting against Milyukov’s notewere received by the Petrograd Soviet from many urban Soviets.The April demonstration led to a government crisis. Mass pressureforced Milyukov and Guchkov to resign from the Cabinet. Thefirst coalition government was formed on May 5 (18), and consistedof 10 capitalist ministers and leaders of the parties collaboratingwith them, namely, Kerensky and Chernov from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party; Tsereteli and Skobelev from the Mensheviks,etc. The bourgeois government was saved by the Socialist- Revolutionariesand the Mensheviks who openly sided with the bourgeoisie.p. 29