יום הרה גורל.......
The rising was scheduled to coincide with a meeting in Petrograd of the All Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Trotsky, as Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, was determined to make the coup appear as a defense of the revolution that overthrew the tsar and as a defense against an attempt by the Provisional Government to disperse the Congress of Soviets then in session. The coup occurred in the early morning hours on November 7. Red Guards (Bolshevik soldiers) tried to take control of the city’s biggest newspapers, but they failed, finding the offices well guarded by armed men. At one o’clock in the morning, armed revolutionary soldiers and sailors – the latter from the Kronstadt naval base – occupied without difficulty the city’s telegraph exchange. At 1:35 in the morning, revolutionaries occupied the post office. At 5 a.m., a revolutionary force took control of the telephone exchange. At dawn, a Bolshevik force surrounded the state bank. At 10 o’clock armed revolutionaries surrounded what had been the tsar’s Winter Palace, which held the offices of the Provisional Government – the biggest target for the revolutionaries. And the revolutionaries took control of the local train station. So far, hardly any blood had been shed. Life in the city during the day was limping along as it had during previous days, with people in their homes and in the street taking little notice of the coup. But Kerensky noticed, and he fled to the front in search of an army. It was the first of the ten days that was said to shake the world. The All Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies opened that day in Petrograd with the declaration that the Provisional Government was deposed and that all power now belonged to the Soviets. Moderate socialists (Mensheviks) at the congress spoke against the coup, demanded negotiations with the Provisional Government and accused the Bolsheviks of a conspiracy and of failing to consult with other factions and parties in the Soviets. They were hooted down, and they walked out, with Trotsky announcing from the podium that they belonged to the garbage heap of history. People in Petrograd whose opinions were not represented in the Petrograd Soviet appeared indifferent, believing perhaps that matters as they were before the coup could hardly get worse. It is estimated that about 10,000 armed men in Petrograd supported the Bolsheviks and that the rest of the soldiers in Petrograd – perhaps 230,000 – were neutral. In Petrograd were also 15,000 or so military officers who had withdrawn from military affairs, largely for their own protection. Also organizing no challenge to the Bolshevik coup were the moderate Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs), whose party represented peasants. They had been a part of the coalition that made up the Provisional Government and were, for the time being, without influence.
