The Pavlovsky
Regiment, on patrol near the Winter Palace, is listening with the ears of the
revolution to rumors about the preparations of the government. Smolny soon knew
what the government had afoot. This time, orders would be meet with orders,
actions with actions.
A couple of
workers from the Bolshevik presses, for the moment in the hands of junkers, ran
to Smolny for help. Trotsky and Podvoisky heard their story and caused orders
to be issued. The Litovsky Regiment sent a company to the scene; a detachment
of the Sixth Engineers, neighbors of the press plant, joined them. They sent
the junkers packing, and within a few hours the paper, of which Stalin was
editor, came out. Trotsky observes that these troops were following orders from
a Military Revolutionary Committee that was itself subject to arrest: “That was
insurrection.”
So was the Military
Committee’s order to the cruiser Aurora. When it got the government’s orders to
rejoin the fleet, the ship asked the Military Committee what to do about them.
The orders were not to be obeyed, said the committee; instead the ship was to
remain at its station, protect the garrison with its guns, and protect itself, using
smaller vessels, from being boarded.
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