separate peace with Germany and Austria
might be proclaimed.

But the violence did not break out so soon as he desired. The strike
was spreading; by the 10th it had become practically universal. But
meanwhile the workingmen were quietly organizing. Electing delegates,
they formed the Council of Workingmen's Deputies, which immediately
took over the control of their movements. It was this fact which
caused what might have been a blind uprising of desperate people to
assume the character of an organized revolution. On this date the
Duma, which had been in continual session, broke off relations with
the Government with a resolution stating that "with such a Government
the Duma forever severs its connections." In response to this act the
czar issued a decree ordering the dissolution of the Duma.

On the following day, Sunday the 11th, the members of the Duma
unanimously decided to ignore the decree of the czar and to hold what
was to prove the first session of the Duma as the representative body
of the Russian democracy.

Meanwhile the street demonstrations continued, augmented by those
workers who had not yet gone out on strike and were simply out on
their weekly day of rest. A proclamation had been issued by the
military authorities forbidding gatherings, adding that the severest
measures would be resorted to in breaking them up. But no notice was
taken of this order. The Cossacks were riding through the crowded
streets, but, in sharp contrast to their behavior of former times,
they took great care not to jostle the people even, guiding their
horses carefully among the moving people.

CHAPTER LXXIX

REVOLUTION

The first actual violence was begun by the police, who opened fire on
the crowds in certain sections of the city from the housetops with
their machine guns. A number of demonstrators were killed and wounded,
but still the disorders did not yet become general. Where the police
opened fire the more resolute elements of the crowds rushed in to
attack them and killed them. And now came Protopopoff's pretext for
ordering the soldiers to fire and to begin such a massacre as had
squelched the premature uprising on Red Sunday twelve years before.

It was at this point that one of the most vital arrangements of
Protopopoff's scheme snapped.

There were 35,000 soldiers in Petrograd at this time, more than
sufficient to suppress any uprising. Neither Protopopoff nor the most
radical members of the Duma dou