Yashka by Maria Bochkareva

It was after midnight when I entered the barracks. The officer in charge reported to me the events of the evening. It appeared that at first one of the group, a Bolshevik agitator, had made his way inside by telling the sentry that he had been sent by me for something. As soon as he was admitted he got the women together and began a speech, appealing to them to form a committee and govern themselves, in accordance with the new spirit. He scoffed at them for submitting to the system of discipline which I had established, calling it Tsaristic, and expressing his compassion for the poor girls whom I had punished. Declaiming against the war, appealing for peace at any price, he urged my recruits to act as free citizens, depose their reactionary chief and elect a new one in democratic fashion.

The result of the address was a split in the ranks of my Battalion. More than half of them approved of the speaker, crying: "We are free. This is not the old regime. We want to be independent. We want to exercise our own rights. " And they seceded from the troop, and finding themselves in the majority after taking votes, elected a committee.