As morning draws
on, the insurrection tightens its grip on the capital. At 7:00 a.m., a company
of the Kekgolmsky Regiment took possession of the telephone exchange their
commissar had visited the evening before. Marines occupied the State Bank at
about the same time. A sentry was posted at each phone as a precaution. This
action warmed the hearts of informed Bolsheviks throughout the city, for they
knew about the 1871 insurrection of the Paris Commune. The Commune had
hesitated to seize the state bank, and their hesitation in that matter was one
of a number of reasons later given for the insurrection’s failure.
The last bridge
remaining to the junkers was taken at about this time: the Dvortsovy bridge,
under the eyes of Kerensky in the Winter Palace. But the insurrection was
somewhat careless about the junkers themselves. A truckload of them, out
seeking provisions, were taken prisoner and brought to Smolny. Trotsky gave
them their freedom in exchange for their parole, that is, a promise not to bear
arms against the Soviet. They were surprised and relieved at this. It’s not
clear whether these individuals kept their promise, but the junkers from the
city’s military schools continued to be the core of the government’s
resistance, and specifically, as we’ll see, of the defense of the Winter
Palace.
The insurrection
also took the printing plant serving the Stock Exchange, and freed political prisoners
from the Kresty prison.
The War Ministry took
a moment to wire headquarters at the front. They could see that the garrison
was with the Soviet. And that the patrols of the insurrection were everywhere.
But if “there [had] been no coming out,” that is, armed confrontation and
gunfire, this was the natural corollary of their first proposition about the
garrison. So in conclusion, “the Provisional Government finds itself in the capital of a hostile state….[italics
mine]” An unconscious epitome of the October Revolution!
Trotsky offers a
metaphor for how it came about: A mountain climber, thinking another effort
lies ahead, reaches and looks up and discovers he is already at the peak. It’s
anticlimactic. Instead of a mighty convulsion, hundreds or thousands of small,
isolated actions bring it about. Not just those of the Military Revolutionary
committee and the party leadership, but also those of the districts and
localities acting individually yet at the same time, Trotsky says, as “one
single whole.” This whole proved greater than the sum of its parts.
At 10:00 a.m., Smolny made an announcement: “The Provisional Government is
overthrown. The state power has passed into the hands of the Military
Revolutionary Committee.” Overthrown the Provisional Government was, but the
members of the cabinet were still in the Winter Palace, free in their own
private persons. In the meantime the committee renewed orders to arrest hostile
officers of the garrison and resist government troops trying to advance on the capital,
by force if necessary.
A little later,
the Provisional Government, in the person of Commissar Stankevich, managed to
attempt a blow. Phone service to the Winter Palace had been cut. The commissar,
arrived the night before from headquarters at the front, gathered a platoon of
junker engineering students and led them to the telephone exchange. The marines
on guard there could have repelled them with rifle fire from the windows, but
didn’t fire at all. Neither did Stankevich permit his charges to fire; he did
not want the blood of the people on their hands.
The officer in
charge of the junker platoon did not feel that way; he sent for hand grenades
and guncotton. Meanwhile a junker lieutenant and marine ensign, Trotsky says,
“exchanged mighty epithets.” This was enough for the women working at the
switchboards; they fled the scene. The junkers blocked the entrances with
trucks. The insurrection sent in armored cars from all directions. Stankevich
thought better of it and negotiated for withdrawal. At least the junkers were
able to keep their arms.
That was all the
government would or could do – until the time came to defend the Winter Palace.
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