The morning
starts quietly. The tsarina, relieved, telegraphed her husband to that effect.
But the workers were meeting at the factories and deciding to continue the
insurrection. They issued a declaration to the soldiers …
… but some of them
had already refused orders to march into the streets. Instead the regiment leading
the mutiny sent messages to the other regiments calling on them to join it. By
evening there was scarcely a battalion of loyal troops left to the commander of
the garrison, who nevertheless felt it his duty to declare martial law. Meanwhile
soldiers had helped the Vyborg workers destroy the police barracks. The Moscow
regiment armed some of the workers. They spread throughout the city in armored
cars, sacked the arsenal, freed the political prisoners, and arrested the
commander of the garrison.
Telegrams to the
tsar communicate alarm. Rodzianko thinks “the last hour has come,” but the tsar
says it’s nonsense. Troops from the front were dispatched to the capital. Golytsin
resigned but the tsar refused to appoint a replacement. When part of the Duma
assembled in the Tauride Palace (the Progressive Bloc held back), the tsar’s
edict of dissolution was revealed. Fearing to remain in session, the deputies
could only decide not to leave town quite yet. Miliukov addressed them, then
Kerensky warned that a crowd was approaching.
It was, led by
soldiers. As the assembly evaporates, Rodzianko’s motion to form a Provisional
Committee of the State Duma cannot be voted on, but this does not stop him from
forming it. In another part of the palace, by now occupied by soldiers and
workers, the revolution, with the help of leadership just released from the
prisons, formed the Soviet of Workers Deputies. The soldiers’ deputies were
added the following day. A Menshevik, Cheidze, was named president of the
Soviet and its Executive Committee.
The Soviet met
that evening amid chaos and ratified the membership of its self-appointed
Executive Committee. They assumed control of the distribution of food. In the
hours and days that followed, the Soviet occupied the State Bank, Mint,
Treasury and Printing Office; it took control of Petrograd’s postal and
telegraph services, the wireless, rail stations, and printing plants. It also
arrested those of the tsar’s ministers it could lay its hands on.
The same things
happened in Moscow. There were strikes and demonstrations. Soldiers came
forward asking how they could become part of the revolution. Political
prisoners were freed.
No comments:
Post a Comment