After receiving the Pre-parliament’s consent to the suppression of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky hastened to the Winter Palace to issue orders. He urgently called for reinforcements from the front and telegraphed along all lines making enquiries about delayed troop trains. The garrison at Tsarskoye Selo was ordered to detain units for dispatch to Petrograd. He enquired of the commandant of the Disabled Men’s Rifle Regiment when this regiment would arrive and whether it would not be possible to send at least a part of it.
At midday, Headquarters of the Petrograd Military Area began to receive reports to the effect that units of Red Guards were being concentrated round the Smolny and that they were being served with arms. The Commander-in-Chief of the Military Area immediately sent the following order to all units:
“1. I order all units and commandos to remain in barracks until further orders from Area Headquarters. I prohibit all independent action. Persons acting contrary to this order and engaging in armed street demonstrations will be court-martialled.
“2. In the event of any unauthorised armed demonstrations, or of an individual unit or group of soldiers going into the streets contrary to the orders issued by Area Headquarters, I order the officers to remain in barracks. All officers who act contrary to the orders of their superiors will be court-martialled.
“3. I categorically prohibit the execution by the troops of any ‘orders’ emanating from other organisations.
Polkovnikov,
Colonel, General Staff
Commander-in-Chief of the Area.”[1]
Not trusting the men of the garrison, Polkovnikov addressed himself to the officers; but at Headquarters they were well aware how little the officers had control of their units. Polkovnikov knew that the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee had either isolated the officers, or else removed them entirely.
In a second order Polkovnikov demanded that the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee be removed from the regiments, that a list of their names be drawn up and sent to Headquarters, and that all cases of illegal action be investigated with the view to proceedings being taken against the culprits.
Malevsky, the Military Commissar of the Petrograd Military Area, who had been appointed by the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, in his turn, called upon the regiments of the garrison to submit to Military Area Headquarters. On learning that forces were being concentrated around the Smolny, this Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Commissar issued another hysterical order to all the Regimental Committees. It read as follows:
“Confirming previous order: in the name of the salvation of the country and the revolution, in order to avoid bloodshed and starvation in Petrograd and at the front, which will be the inevitable result of civil war, I categorically demand that the units in Petrograd and its environs should obey only the orders of the Headquarters of the Petrograd Military Area.”[2]
The threat of starvation and civil war—this was the argument with which the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks had tried to intimidate the workers and soldiers before.
But this threat proved ineffective now, so the organisers of counter-revolution resorted to the means they had already tried during the July days of 1917. Captain A. Kozmin, second in command of the troops of the Petrograd Military Area and official representative of the Socialist-Revolutionaries at Headquarters, issued the following order to the troops of the garrison:
“To all the military units of the Petrograd garrison.
“1. The refusal of the regiments of the Petrograd garrison to obey the orders issued by Area Headquarters is condemned by democracy represented by its executive bodies—the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies.
“2. The decision to obey only the orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies will lead to anarchy and to the doom of our country and the revolution. This compels the Central Executive Committee, the Commissar, and the Staff of the Petrograd Military Area to appeal to the troops at the front.
“3. Officers and men must realise that responsibility for all the severe consequences of the arrival in Petrograd of fresh troops and of the ensuing conflicts will rest on those who are compelling the authorities and the supreme organ of revolutionary democracy to resort to this measure.
October 24, 1917.”[3]
Actually, they had already appealed to the troops at the front several days before, but had done this secretly. Now the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks openly approved of the plan for a counter-revolution by giving their consent to the withdrawal of troops from the front.
To isolate the General Staff of the insurrection, which had its headquarters in the centre of the city, from the working-class districts, which were prepared to put up a heroic fight for the power of the Soviets, Polkovnikov gave orders to swing open the Nikolayevsky, Troitsky and Liteiny Bridges. This order did not apply to the Palace Bridge, at which he intended to place a guard.
The tram depots were ordered to stop running cars to the districts on the other side of the river at 7 p.m.
This order was issued after 2 p.m. on October 24 (November 6); it was received at Militia Headquarters at 2:40 p.m.[4] The cadets and shock troops hastened to the bridges, but they were too late; the revolutionary units dispatched by the Military Revolutionary Committee had already occupied them in the morning. In the other districts, where the Military Revolutionary Committee had not managed to send detachments, measures had been taken independently by the local regiments or Red Guards. Guided by their experience of the July days, the workers had anticipated that the first thing the government would do would be to try to cut off the working-class districts from the centre. Comrade Yeremeyev, whom the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent to prevent the bridges from being swung open, found a commando of the Sapper Battalion at the Liteiny Bridge. The other end of the bridge was occupied by Red Guards and a detachment of the Moscow Regiment. At the Troitsky Bridge, one end was guarded by a unit of the Pavlovsky Regiment and the other by a unit of Red Guards who had dispersed the cadets.
The Grenadier and Sampsonievsky Bridges, which connected the Petrograd District with the Vyborg District, were swung to by revolutionary patrols from the Russian Renault Works and the Parviainen Works. The Red Guards of the Benz Works went out to capture the bridge on an armoured car which they had themselves repaired. The huge levers used for swinging the bridges were taken from the watchmen’s cabin and piled in the office of the Commissar of the Grenadier Guards Regiment.
At the Nikolayevsky Bridge, the cadets found a small detachment of Red Guards. The cadets communicated with their Headquarters, called out a detachment of shock troops and pressed back the Red Guards. This, their only success, was short-lived. The remainder of the Neva bridges were in the hands of the revolutionaries.
The vigilance of the Red Guards and of the soldiers of the garrison thwarted the plans of Military Area Headquarters. The Smolny maintained unbroken contact with the districts.
Simultaneously with the order to swing open the bridges, Polkovnikov issued an order to reinforce the militia posts in the city. Detachments of cadets and shock troops appeared in the streets and a reinforced guard was posted at the arch of the General Staff buildings which led to the Palace Square and the Winter Palace.
The tension in the city increased. The junior staffs of the government offices and banks ceased work. On the Nevsky Prospect, and in the streets adjacent to the centre of the city, many shops closed and put up their shutters.
Government patrols on the Nevsky Prospect began to hold up automobiles and question their passengers.
For the first time since the July days, Cossack detachments began to patrol the main streets, such as the Nevsky Prospect and Morskaya Street. The City Militia were also mounted. The last units which had remained loyal to the Provisional Government were drawn to the Winter Palace whither the Women’s Battalion and artillerymen from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School with light guns also arrived.
The cadets who had occupied the Central Telephone Exchange disconnected the telephones of the Smolny.
At about 6 in the evening of October 24, Petrograd Military Area Headquarters learned that Rabochy Put, the central organ of the Bolshevik Party, continued to be issued and distributed among the soldiers. This news caused extreme irritation at Headquarters where only an hour earlier it had been reported that the Chief of Militia had ordered all the confiscated copies of Rabochy Put to be burnt. Infuriated by the news that the paper was coming out for all that, Polkovnikov dispatched another detachment of cadets, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel G. V. Hermanovich, to suppress the newspaper and to arrest the editor, Stalin. General Bagratuni, the Chief of Staff of the Military Area, recommended that an armoured car and 30 cyclists should accompany the detachment. The cadets left in four motor trucks. Hermanovich took with him one cyclist and 13 cadets.
When they arrived at the Rabochy Put printing plant the cadets found it guarded by Red Guards and soldiers. The Lieutenant-Colonel rode to the Free-Reason Workers’ Club, on the Finland Prospect, and summoning the club manager, ordered him to give up the editor of Rabochy Put who, according to the Lieutenant-Colonel’s information, was on the club’s premises. The arrival of the cadets was reported to the District Soviet. A member of the Soviet arrived and requested the Lieutenant-Colonel to show him his warrant authorising him to enter the club premises and to arrest the editor of Rabochy Put. The Lieutenant-Colonel refused to present any such document. Meanwhile, a number of Red Guards arrived and together with some workers who were present in the club, surrounded and disarmed the cadets. The Lieutenant-Colonel was taken to Headquarters of the Red Guard and from there, with the cadets, escorted to the Fortress of Peter and Paul.[5]
At 6:30 p.m., a Militia Inspector and seven militiamen arrived at the printing plant where the newspaper Rabochy i Soldat was printed and presented an order prohibiting the publication of the newspaper and of three manifestos of the Military Revolutionary Committee which were in the press. The militiamen began to break up the stereotypes, but succeeded in breaking only one. The workers and two sailors who appeared, drove these representatives of the Provisional Government off the premises and seized the truck in which they had piled the confiscated copies of the paper. Some of the militiamen joined forces with the workers and the inspector quickly made himself scarce. Soon after, the Military Revolutionary Committee sent two platoons from the Preobrazhensky Regiment to guard the printing plant.
Thus, the second attempt of the General Staff of the Petrograd Military Area to suppress the Bolshevik newspapers failed. This was soon followed by a third attempt which was equally unsuccessful.
At 9 p.m., a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee, at the head of a detachment of sailors, occupied the offices of the Petrograd Telegraph Agency. The director of the agency declared that he would not obey the orders of anybody except the Provisional Government; but the Commissar calmly pushed him aside, sat down at his desk, and demanded that he be shown all communications. Among a heap of telegrams that was brought to him the Commissar found a resolution passed by the Pre-parliament which had only just been sent from the Mariinsky Palace.
For four dreary hours after Kerensky’s speech and departure, the various groups in the Pre-parliament had been in constant session. Every minute the deputies telephoned to the Winter Palace and the Smolny; they ran from group to group to learn what decisions had been arrived at. The Socialist-Revolutionaries had already rejected five resolutions. Gradually it became known that several resolutions had been submitted to the Presidium of the Pre-Parliament: one by the Co-operators and Constitutional Democrats, another by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The Cossack group had expressed its intention to submit a third. It looked as if the majority of the Pre-parliament was inclined in favour of the first resolution, but at this juncture information arrived of the movements of the revolutionary detachments and this served to swing opinion in favour of the second resolution.
Kerensky was kept informed by telephone of the course of the debates in the different groups. Round about 3 in the afternoon, fearing that the members of his party would be unable to secure the adoption of the resolution he desired, he telephoned Senator S. V. Ivanov requesting him to invite all the senators who were members of the Council of the Republic to attend the meeting.
The dreary debates in the groups drew to a close only at 6 p.m., when A. V. Peshekhonov, who acted as chairman, opened the session. Peshekhonov stated that he had before him two motions. The first, which had been submitted on behalf of the Mensheviks, Menshevik-Internationalists and “Left” Socialist-Revolutionaries, read as follows:
“The revolutionary actions which have been in preparation during the past few days with the object of seizing power, threaten to give rise to civil war, create favourable conditions for a pogrom movement and the mobilisation of the Black Hundred counter-revolutionary forces, and will inevitably result in wrecking the chances of convening the Constituent Assembly, in another military disaster and in the doom of the revolution, accompanied by economic paralysis and the complete collapse of the country. Apart from the objective conditions of the war and the dislocation of industry, the ground for the success of the aforementioned agitation was created by the delay in introducing urgent measures. It is therefore primarily necessary immediately to issue a decree to transfer the land to the jurisdiction of Land Committees, and to make a definite pronouncement on foreign policy calling upon the Allies to state their peace terms and to open negotiations for peace. To combat the active manifestations of anarchy and the pogrom movement it is necessary immediately to adopt measures to liquidate these, and with this object it is necessary to set up in Petrograd a Committee of Public Safety, which shall consist of representatives of the City Council and of the organs of revolutionary democracy, and shall operate in contact with the Provisional Government.”[6]
The second motion submitted by the Co-operators and Constitutional Democrats, read as follows:
“Having heard the Prime Minister’s statement, the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic declares that it will render the government every assistance in combating treason to the country and the cause of the revolution and those who in face of the enemy and on the eve of the convocation of the Constituent Assembly resort to the organisation of open revolt in the capital. The Provisional Council demands that the most resolute measures be taken to suppress mutiny and moves that the House pass to the order of the day.”[7]
The Cossack deputies supported the motion of the Constitutional Democrats and Co-operators. It was also backed by P. B. Struve, on behalf of the representatives of the Moscow “Conference of Public Men” and by several Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. On being put to the vote, the first motion received 123 votes, 102 votes were cast against it and 26 deputies abstained from voting. Among the latter were the Populist Socialists and a section of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, including N. V. Tchaikovsky.
With this resolution, carried by such a narrow majority, Avksentyev, the Speaker of the Pre-parliament, Dan, the Menshevik leader, and Gotz, the Socialist-Revolutionary leader, hastened to the Winter Palace where Kerensky and the government were making their final arrangements for combating Bolshevism. Kerensky was summoned from the Cabinet meeting and a long conversation ensued between him and the excited party leaders. Avksentyev officially informed Kerensky of the resolution passed by the Pre-parliament. The latter was shocked. He said it was a challenge to the Provisional Government, and in a tone of extreme irritation he offered to resign and ask the Pre-parliament to form a new government.
Amazed at Kerensky’s attitude, Avksentyev tried to calm him, and explained that the resolution did not mean an expression of no confidence in the Provisional Government.
“On the contrary,” he said, “the leaders of all the groups which voted for this resolution emphasised that they adhered to their former position and expressed complete readiness to support the government. By including the question of land and peace in the motion, the groups merely wanted to deprive the Bolsheviks of the trump card they were playing in their fight against the Provisional Government by arguing that the latter was indifferent to the vital interests of the people.”
“In that case,” asked Kerensky irritably, “why doesn’t the motion contain the usual parliamentary expression of confidence in the government?”
“This is due to faulty drafting resulting from the haste with which it was drawn up; it is not a deliberate omission,” Avksentyev assured him.[8]
Similar statements were made by Gotz on behalf of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and by Dan on behalf of the Mensheviks. Writing about this interview with Kerensky, Dan stated:
“We came to the Provisional Government with a very definite and concrete proposal that it should immediately adopt vital decisions on the question of the war, the land and the Constituent Assembly, and to inform the population of the decisions by telegrams and posters. We insisted that this should be done without fail that very night, so that in the morning every soldier and every worker might learn of the Provisional Government’s decision. . . . The adoption and execution of our proposals by the government will cause a change of mood among the masses and give grounds for hoping that the influence of Bolshevik propaganda will rapidly wane.”[9]
Thus, the whole business was a piece of downright deception. The idea was to attempt to win the masses away from the revolution by promising to adopt resolute measures.
V. B. Stankevich, a member of the “Lieber-Dan bloc” and Commissar of the Supreme Command, openly admitted in his reminiscences that the object of this “revolutionary” resolution was once again to hoodwink the masses, who had already been hoodwinked many times before. After relating that Kerensky threatened to resign if the resolution was not amended, Stankevich went on to say:
“Kerensky’s decision astounded them [the compromisers—Ed.] for they regarded the resolution as being purely theoretical and fortuitous, and did not anticipate that it would lead to the taking of any practical steps.”[10]
The members of the Pre-parliament left the Winter Palace at about 11 p.m. After their departure Kerensky informed the members of the Provisional Government of his conversation with them. The latter considered that resignation was entirely out of the question; that the most resolute measures had to be taken to suppress revolt.
Palchinsky relates that at the meeting a heated “theoretical dispute” arose on the question as to who was imperilling the revolution. In the midst of this dispute news was received that the offices of the Petrograd Telegraph Agency and the Central Telegraph Office had been seized. Rogovsky, a government Commissar, arrived and reported the seizure of the Nikolayevsky Bridge and the advance of the Red Guards towards the Palace Bridge. The revolutionaries were steadily pressing forward to the palace. The government ordered armoured cars and cadets to be rushed to the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, the Central Telegraph Office, and the Baltic Railway Station.
Round about midnight, Kerensky, Palchinsky and several army officers hastened to Petrograd Military Area Headquarters and there found Polkovnikov, the Commander-in-Chief—who during the past few days had been behaving in a very arrogant manner—in a state of utter consternation. His orders were being countermanded by the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee. One after another the regiments were going over to the side of the revolution. The Red Guard, which hitherto had not been taken seriously, had under his very nose, suddenly grown into a formidable force.
Polkovnikov looked to the Winter Palace in anticipation of instructions from Kerensky, but Palchinsky made it plain to him that nothing was to be expected from that quarter. Subsequently, Palchinsky summed up his impression of the situation in the Winter Palace with the one word: “Madhouse.”[11]
The mood prevailing at Military Area Headquarters caused Kerensky abruptly to change his plans. An offensive was entirely out of the question. Commenting on the situation at a later date he wrote:
“It was necessary immediately to take over the command, but not in order to conduct offensive operations against the revolutionaries—it was too late for that now—but to defend the government itself until the arrival of fresh troops from the front and the reorganisation of the government forces in the capital itself.”[12]
The Winter Palace again communicated with General Dukhonin, Chief of the General Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, complaining that the units from the front which had been promised Kerensky for the 24th had not yet arrived and requesting that their dispatch be expedited. General Headquarters made soothing promises to speed up the dispatch of these troops.
Late at night the cadets from the military schools and Officers’ Training Schools, who up to now had remained in their barracks, were summoned to the Winter Palace. Kerensky ordered all the Cossack troops to be called out to the Palace Square.
Many of the military schools, however, failed to obey the order. The Pavlovsky Military School, for example, reported that it could not turn out as it was afraid of the Grenadier Regiment. Kerensky decided to call out the military organisations of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but it transpired that no such organisations existed.
At midnight, Polkovnikov, in a slate of utter panic, reported to General Headquarters and to the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front, as follows:
“I hereby report that the situation in Petrograd is menacing. There are no street demonstrations or disorders, but the seizure of government offices and railway stations and arrests are proceeding methodically. Orders are no longer being obeyed. The cadets are surrendering their posts without resistance. Despite repeated orders, the Cossacks have so far remained in their barracks. Appreciating to the full my responsibility to the country, I hereby report that the Provisional Government is in danger of losing all power, and there is no guarantee that attempts will not be made to seize the Provisional Government.”[13]
At the very moment when, in accordance with Polkovnikov’s “brilliant” plan, the Smolny was to have been captured by a “victorious assault,” this same Polkovnikov admitted that the Winter Palace itself was in imminent danger of being captured by the revolutionaries.
The meeting of the Provisional Government ended at 2 a.m. on October 25 (November 7).
Before the meeting ended the government rang up the Petrograd City Council where a special meeting was in progress. G. I. Schreider, the Mayor of Petrograd, who had just arrived from the meeting of the Pre-parliament, reported on the Bolsheviks’ actions. He stated that a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee had appeared at the Special Department for Food Affairs—as the Municipal Food Department was called. Commissars had also appeared in other Municipal Departments. To frighten the members of the City Council, Schreider added on his own account that domiciliary searches would be made in all houses next morning.
An angry debate began in the Council. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, particularly, raved and stormed. One of them, J. T. Dedusenko, shouted, amidst the approval of the whole Chamber, that if the Commissars appeared in any of the Municipal Departments they must be ejected. V. D. Nabokov, a Constitutional Democrat, welcomed Dedusenko’s speech. P. N. Milyukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, also supported the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
All the speakers strongly emphasised that the City Council had been elected on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, and was the “sole legal representative” of authority.[14] The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks decided to make the City Council the centre around which all the forces opposed to the revolution were to be rallied. In a resolution adopted by a majority of 53 votes against 16, the people of Petrograd were called upon to rally around the City Council. It was decided to adopt the recommendation made in the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik resolution of the Pre-parliament to set up an executive body in the shape of a “Committee of Public Safety,” to consist of 20 representatives of the City Duma, 21 representatives of public organisations, 17 representatives of the District Dumas, and one representative each of Military Area Headquarters and the Procurator’s Office. Just previous to that, a similar resolution to form a “Committee of Public Safety” had been adopted at a meeting of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik Central Executive Committee of Soviets.
[1] “The Orders to the Petrograd Military Area,” Rech, No. 251, October 25, 1917.
[2] “The Orders of the Commissars,” Rech, No. 251, October 25, 1917.
[3] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund 380, File No. 26, folio 33.
[4] “The Temper in the City,” Dyen, No. 198, October 25, 1917.
[5] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund 336, File No. 29, 1917, folios 19, 20.
[6] “The Provisional Council of the Russian Republic,” Rech, No. 251, October 25, 1917.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “The Bolshevik Action,” “The Provisional Government,” Rech, No. 251, October 25, 1917.
[9] F. Dan, “A Contribution to the History of the Last Days of the Provisional Government,” Letopis Russkoi Revolutsii (Annals of the Russian Revolution), Book 2, Berlin, 1923, p. 174.
[10] V. B. Stankevich, Memoirs, 1914-1919, Berlin, 1920, p. 260.
[11] “The Last Hours of the Provisional Government in 1917,” Krasny Arkhiv, 1933, Vol. 1 (56), p. 137.
[12] A. F. Kerensky, From Afar, Compendium of Articles 1920-1921, Paris, 1922, p. 201.
[13] “October at the Front,” Krasny Arkhiv, 1927, Vol. 4 (23), p. 149.
[14] “The Extraordinary Session of the Duma,” Rech, No. 251, October 25, 1917.
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