With
representatives of two of the three Cossack regiments in the garrison present,
the Garrison Conference accepted three proposals made by Trotsky: that the
garrison would support the Military Revolutionary Committee, that the garrison
would take part in the review of forces planned for the following day, and that
the Congress of Soviets should “take the power in its hands.” Trotsky also
welcomed the Cossacks to the conference.
The committee
named three commissars, including Lazimir, to the district military
headquarters of General Polkovnikov. They informed the general about the
Garrison Conference’s decision requiring military orders to be countersigned by
the Soviet. The car the staff had sent to bring the commissars to the meeting was withdrawn when they
left.
In a special
session at 11:00 a.m., the conference decided to make an accomplished fact
official. They summoned Trotsky and Sverdlov, and told them of their plan to
break from headquarters entirely and in the open. The resolution then adopted
gave the reason: “[H]eadquarters is a direct instrument of the
counter-revolutionary forces.” The decision was communicated to the district
soviets and soldiers committees; steps were taken to prevent surprise action by
the enemy.
The decision of
the Garrison Conference forestalled the plans Polkovnikov and the Central
Executive Committee wanted to implement at a meeting set for 1:00 p.m. By then the Garrison Conference
had already taken, Trotsky says, “a decisive step on the road to insurrection.”
Another Smolny delegation
went to headquarters with word of the conference resolution. Staff somewhat
wishfully thought it might be just another instance of the dual government, or
that the Central Executive Committee could fix things.
It got more
difficult to get into Smolny that day; passes were changed every few hours. The American
journalist Reed tells how he saw Trotsky run afoul of this when he had lost his
pass and neither the guard nor the commander of the guard recognized him.
Trotsky and his wife were eventually admitted.
Meanwhile
Miliukov’s Cadet paper asserted that if the Bolsheviks were to come out, they
would be suppressed “immediately and without difficulty.”
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