and this caused hesitation among the less determined elements of the
convention. The orators of the right wing prophesied our near
destruction. All anxiously awaited news from the arena of the Palace.
Presently Antonoff appeared, who directed the operations against the
Palace. A death-like silence fell upon the hall. The Winter Palace was
taken; Kerensky had fled; other ministers had been arrested and
consigned to the fortress of Petropavlovsk. The first chapter of the
October revolution was over.

The Right Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, altogether sixty men, that
is, about one-tenth of the convention, left the session in protest. As
there was nothing else left to' them, they "placed the entire
responsibility" for the coming events upon the Bolsheviki and Left S.
R.'s. The latter were passing through moments of indecision. The past
tied them strongly to the party of Chernoff. The right wing of this
party swerved to the middle and petty bourgeois elements, to the
intellectuals of the middle classes, to the well-to-do elements of the
villages; and on all decisive questions went hand in hand with the
liberal bourgeoisie against us. The more revolutionary elements of the
party, reflecting the radicalism of the social demands of the poorest
masses of the peasantry, gravitated to the proletariat and their party.
They feared, however, to sever the umbilical cord which linked them to
their old party. When we left the Preliminary Parliament, they refused
to follow us and warned us against "adventurers," but the insurrection
put before them the dilemma of taking sides for or against the Soviets.
Not without hesitation, they assembled on our side of the barricades.



THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIES