of military operations. Anticipating events. I shall say, that from
documents brought to light after the October Revolution it became clear
beyond any doubt that the proposed removal of the Petrograd garrison
actually had nothing to do with military purposes, but was forced upon
Commander-in-Chief Dukhonin, against his will, by none else but
Kerensky, who was striving to clear the capital of the most
revolutionary soldiers, i.e., those most hostile to him. But at that
time, early in October, our suspicions evoked at first a storm of
patriotic indignation. The Staff people were pressing us, Kerensky was
impatient, for the ground under his feet had grown too hot. We, on the
other hand, delayed answering. Danger undoubtedly threatened Petrograd
and the question of defending the capital loomed before us in all its
terrible significance. But after the Korniloff experience, after
Rodzyanko's words concerning the desirability of the German occupation,
whence should we take the assurance that Petrograd would not be
maliciously given up to the Germans in punishment for its seditious
spirit? The Executive Committee refused to affix its seal blindly to the
order to transfer two-thirds of the garrison. It was necessary to
verify, we said, whether there really were military considerations back
of this order, and therefore it was necessary to create an organization
for this verification. Thus was born the idea of creating--by the side
of the Soldiers' section of the Soviet, i. e., the garrison's political
representation--a purely military organization, in the form of a
Military Revolutionary Committee, which subsequently acquired enormous
power and became the real tool of the October Revolution. Undoubtedly,
even in those hours, when putting forth the idea of creating an
organization in whose hands would be concentrated the threads for
guiding the Petrograd garrison on the purely military side, we clearly
realized that this very organization might become an irreplaceable
revolutionary tool. At that time we were already openly heading for the