THE RIVAL FORCES

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 114, 10 November 1917, Page 8

THE RIVAL FORCES

PEASANTRY AN UNKNOWN FACTOR THE CAREER OF TROTSKY. (AUSTRAI.UN-NBW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) . (Received November 10, 1 p.m.) ' LONDGK, 9th November. The revolution did not surprise London or Paris. It has been probable ever since General KorniloS's escapade. The National Union of Railway Servants and the Union of Postal and Telegraph Employees . have been leading factors in the movement. They are endeavouring to force M. Kerensky to gvanfc them huge increases in wages, and recently when these were refused they becamt, definitely Maximalist. The Baltic fleet is also in sympathy with Lenin and Trotsky, particularly the men at Kronstadt and Kel-singfoi-s. ■ . ■ . : - On the other hand, officers of the army, all the Cossacks; the Black Sea fleet, the merchants, intellectuals, professional men, and officials are on the side of M. Kerensky, and bitterly oppose the Maximalists. The peasantry is still an unknown factor, though the immediate handing over of large proprietorial lands means granting the peasants their chief demand. It is likely that civil war will be necessary to decide who will hold power. Trotsky wae editing a Russian Socialist paper in Vienna at the outbreak of the war, when, he went to Paris and started an anti-war daily, and was expelled. He went then to America. When the revolution broke out, he ti-ied to go to Russia, but was detained at Halifax. The authorities there released him when an outcry was made in Petrograd.' His oratorical talents soon brought him into prominence in Petrograd.