The victory in Petrograd was complete. The power went over entirely to
the Military Revolutionary Committee. We issued our first decree,
abolishing the death penalty and ordering reelections in the army
committees, etc. But here we discovered that we were cut off from the
provinces. The higher authorities of the railroads, post office and
telegraph were against us. The army committees, the municipalities, the
zemstvos continued to bombard the Smolny with threatening telegrams in
which they declared outright war upon us and promised to sweep the
insurgents out within a short time. Our telegrams, decrees and
explanations did not reach the provinces, for the Petrograd Telegraph
Agency refused to serve us. In this atmosphere, created by the isolation
of the capital from the rest of the country, alarming and monstrous
rumors easily sprang up and gained popularity.

When finally convinced that the Soviet had really taken over the powers
of the government, that the old government was arrested, that the
streets of Petrograd were dominated by armed workers, the bourgeois
press, as well as the press which was for effecting a compromise,
started a campaign of incomparable madness indeed; there was not a lie
or libel which was not mobilized against the Military Revolutionary
Committee, its leaders or its commissaries.

On the 26th there was a session of the Petrograd Soviet, which was
attended by delegates from the All-Russian Council, members of the
Garrison Conference, and numerous members of various parties. Here, for
the first time in nearly six months, spoke Lenin and Zinoviev, who were
given a stormy ovation. The jubilation over the recent victory was
marred somewhat by apprehensions as to how the country would take to the
new revolt and as to the Soviets' ability to retain control.