Meanwhile, throughout the passing days, there were continuous reports of passive resistance against the authority of the new government. It was especially among the employees of the administrative departments of the Government machinery that this resistance arose in the form of strikes. The officials of the state banks especially proved recalcitrant and refused to surrender Government moneys. Parties of drunken soldiers also created disorders, it was reported, breaking into wine shops and helping themselves to the merchandise. But when all these minor events are viewed in the retrospect of a month or two, summed up, it is remarkable how little disorder there really has been in Petrograd, comparatively speaking. Conditions certainly in no way approached those existing in France, or Paris, during the French Revolution.
It was in the Ukraine, not yet in the hands of the Bolsheviki, that disorder reigned, though they were, apparently, responsible for it in that they made efforts to gain control. In Odessa, during a few days around December 16, 1917, something very closely approaching a violent revolution broke out. Here the Rada had apparently established the capital of the republic. The Bolshevist element among the troops made a determined attack on the arsenal, where the Rada was in session. The officials of the Rada summoned loyal troops by telephone and a pitched battle ensued in the streets. Then the sailors from the Black Sea were summoned, but on arriving on the scene part of them went over to the Bolsheviki. The fighting spread from the arsenal, where the loyal troops had taken up a strong position, the Bolsheviki getting possession of the Municipal Theater, close at hand. Here some fierce hand-to-hand encounters took place, the theater building changing hands several times. Finally the Bolsheviki gained full possession of the water front, the shipping district, whereupon this section of the city was bombarded by the loyal artillery. The final outcome of the fighting was not reported, but apparently the Bolsheviki were suppressed, for the time being.
But this did not immediately concern the Petrograd Government. Under the direct supervision of Lenine and Trotzky vast quantities of Socialist literature were being published in German for the purpose of distribution along the front. Of one pamphlet it was said that a hundred thousand copies were carried to the German lines and distributed in one day. Special newspapers, printed in German, were issued for the sole purpose of propaganda among the German soldiers. According to the account of a prominent Belgian Socialist, who visited Russia, hoping as many Socialists had in other countries of the world that their principles were to receive a fair trial in the new Russia, the Bolshevik propaganda in German was hardly calculated to make converts among intelligent people, for it was written in schoolboy language, with trivial arguments. Meantime, German propaganda in Russia was couched in irreproachable Russian and calculated to appeal to the educated and the unlettered alike.