Dismayed by the decision
of the Garrison
Conference the day before, the Central Executive Committee assembles its
own meeting of the representatives of the Petrograd garrison. Several units not
represented at the previous meeting sent delegates to this one. Two of them,
the garrison of the Peter and Paul fortress and an armored car division,
declared allegiance to the Central Executive.
The military
importance of this development lay in the position of the Peter and Paul on an
island in the Neva River. Though of course it could not maneuver, the fortress
not only dominated a number of bridges in the middle of the city, but it also
blocked the direct route to the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional
Government. There was also a substantial arsenal, coveted by the Red Guards, on
the island.
Then the Central
Executive asked the assembly to pass a cautiously worded resolution. The
soldiers refused both the resolution and the notion that an assembly called by
the Central Executive rather than the Petrograd Soviet would have authority to
take any such decision. After this failure, the Central Executive, with the
cooperation of headquarters, tried to appoint a commissar over the Petrograd
military district. This the Petrograd Soviet in turn rejected. General
Polkovnikov, in his turn, issued general orders for the suppression of
demonstrations. Reed reproduces them in his book; Polkovnikov’s lack of urgency
is remarkable.
Meanwhile, hearing
of agitation for the convocation of a constituent assembly in and for the
Ukraine, Kerensky summons its General Secretary to Petrograd for an
explanation. This did not create much of a ripple in the Ukraine. The American
journalist Reed says Kerensky also told the Pre-Parliament that the government
would be able to handle any Bolshevik insurrection, even though he himself was
“a doomed man.”
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