When even this did not produce enough workers, the local Soviet—the local ruling council—simply surrounded a part of Nevsky Prospekt, Petrograd’s main shopping street, arrested everyone without a Party card or a certificate proving they worked for a government institution, and marched them off to a nearby barracks. Later, the women were released, but the men were packed off to the north: “not one of the thus strangely mobilized men was allowed to settle his family affairs, to say goodbye to his relatives, or to obtain suitable clothing and footwear.”
