The government of Kerensky was restlessly looking for refuge, now one
way, now another. Two new cyclist battalions, and the Zenith Battery
were called back from the front, and an attempt was made to call back
some companies of cavalry.... The cyclists telegraphed while on the road
to the Petrograd Soviet: "We are led to Petrograd without knowing the
reasons. Request explanations." We ordered them to stop and send a
delegation to Petrograd. Their representatives arrived and declared at a
meeting of the Soviet that the battalion was entirely with us. This was
greeted by enthusiastic cheers. The battalion received orders to enter
the city immediately.
The number of delegates from the front was increasing every day. They
came to get information about the situation. They gathered our
literature and went to bring the message to the front that the Petrograd
Soviet was conducting a struggle for the power of the workers, soldiers
and peasants. "The men in the trenches will support you," they told us.
All the old army committees which had not been reelected for the last
four or five months, sent threatening telegrams to us, which, however,
made no impression. We knew that these committees were no less out of
touch with the rank and file of the soldiers than the Central Executive
Committee with the local Soviets.
The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed commissaries to all
railroad depots. These commissaries kept a watchful eye upon all the
arriving and departing trains and especially upon the movements of
troops. Continuous telephone and motor car communication was established
with the neighboring cities and their garrisons. The Soviets of all the
communities near Petrograd were charged with the duty of vigilantly
preventing any counter-revolutionary troops, or, rather, troops misled
by the government, from entering the capital. The railroad officials of
lower rank and the workmen recognized our commissaries immediately.
Difficulties arose on the 24th at the telephone station. They stopped
connecting us. The cadets took possession of the station and under their
protection the telephone operators began to oppose the Soviet. This was
the first appearance of the future sabotage. The Military Revolutionary
Committee sent a detachment to the telephone station and placed two
small cannons there. In this way the seizing of all departments of the
government and instruments of administration was started. The sailors
and Red Guards occupied the telegraph station, the post office and other
institutions. Measures were taken to take possession of the state bank.
The center of the government, the Institute of Smolny, was turned into a
fortress. There were in the garret, as a heritage of the old Central
Executive Committee, a score of machine guns, but they were in poor
condition and had been entirely neglected by the caretakers. We ordered
an additional machine gun company to the Smolny Institute. Early in the
morning the sailors rolled the machine gun with a deafening rumble over
the cement floors of the long and half-dark corridors of the building.
Out of the doors the frightened faces of the few S. R.'s and Mensheviks
were looking and wondering.
The Soviet held daily meetings in the Smolny and so did the Garrison
Council.
On the third floor of the Smolny, in a small corner room, the Military
Revolutionary Committee was in continuous session. There was centered
all the information about the movements of the troops, the spirit of the
soldiers and workers, the agitation in the barracks, the undertakings of
the pogrom instigators, the councils of the bourgeois politicians, the
life at the Winter Palace, the plans of the former Soviet parties.
Informers came from all sides. There came workers, officers, porters,
Socialist cadets, servants, ladies. Many brought pure nonsense. Others
gave serious and valuable information. The decisive moment drew near. It
was apparent that there was no going back.
On the evening of the 24th of October, Kerensky appeared in the
Preliminary Parliament and demanded approval of repressive measures
against the Bolsheviki. The Preliminary Parliament, however, was in a
sad state of indetermination and complete disintegration. The
Constitutional Democrats tried to persuade the right S. R.'s to adopt a
vote of confidence. The right S. R.'s exercised pressure upon the
center. The center hesitated. The "left" wing conducted a policy of
parliamentary opposition. After many conferences, debates, hesitations,
the resolution of the "left" wing was adopted. This resolution condemned
the rebellious movement of the Soviet, but the responsibilities for the
movement were laid at the door of the anti-democratic policy of the
government. The mail brought scores of letters daily informing us of
death sentences pronounced against us, of infernal machines, of the
expected blowing up of the Smolny, etc. The bourgeois press howled
wildly, moved by hatred and terror. Gorki, who had forgotten all about
"The Song of the Falcon," continued to prophesy in his Novaya Zhizn
the approach of the end of the world.
The members of the Military Revolutionary Committee did not leave the
Smolny during the entire week. They slept on sofas and only at odd
intervals, wakened by couriers, scouts, cyclists, telegraph messengers
and telephone calls. The night of the 24th-25th was the most restless.
We received a telephone communication from Pavlovsky that the government
had called artillery from the Peterhof School of Ensigns. At the Winter
Palace, Kerensky gathered the cadets and officers. We gave out orders
over the telephone to place on all the roads leading to Petrograd
reliable military defence and to send agitators to meet the military
detachment called by the government. In case persuasion would not help
they were instructed to use armed force. All the negotiations were held
over the telephone in the open, and therefore were accessible to the
agents of the government.
The commissaries informed us over the telephone that on all the roads
leading to Petrograd our friends were on the alert. A cadet detachment
from Oranienbaum nevertheless succeeded in getting by our military
defence during the night and over the telephone we followed their
further movements. The outer guard of the Smolny was strengthened by
another company. Communications with all the detachments of the garrison
went on continuously.
The companies on guard in all the regiments were awake. The delegates of
every detachment were day and night at the disposal of the Military
Revolutionary Committee. An order was given to suppress the agitation of
the Black Hundred without reserve, and at the first attempts at pogroms
on the streets, arms should be used without mercy.
During this decisive night all the most important points of the city
passed into our hands--almost without any opposition, without struggle
and without bloodshed. The State Bank was guarded by a government
detachment and an armored car. The building was surrounded on all sides
by our troops. The armored car was taken by an unexpected attack and the
bank went over into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee
without a single shot being fired. There was on the river Neva, behind
the Franco-Russian plant, the cruiser Aurora, which was under repair.
Its crew consisted entirely of sailors devotedly loyal to the
revolution. When Korniloff, at the end of August, threatened Petrograd
the sailors of the Aurora were called by the government to guard the
Winter Palace, and though even then they already hated the government of
Kerensky, they realized that it was their duty to dam the wave of the
counter-revolution, and they took their post without objection. When the
danger passed they were sent back. Now, in the days of the October
uprising, they were too dangerous. The Aurora was ordered by the
Minister of the Navy to weigh anchor and to get out of Petrograd. The
crew informed us immediately of this order. We annulled it and the
cruiser remained where it was, ready at any moment to put all its
military forces and means at the disposal of the Soviets.