Congress of Soviets-numbering 676 as against more than one thousand at the former Congress of peasant Soviets alone—­a majority were Bolsheviki.  It was charged that the Bolsheviki had intimidated many workers into voting for their candidates; that they had, in some instances, put forward their men as anti-Bolsheviki and secured their election by false pretenses; that they had practised fraud in many instances.  It was quite certain that a great many Soviets had refused to send delegates, and that many thousands of workers, and these all anti-Bolsheviki, had simply grown weary and disgusted with the whole struggle.  Whatever the explanation might be, the fact remained that of the 676 delegates 390 were generally rated as Bolsheviki, while 230 were Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviki.  Not all of the Socialist-Revolutionists could be counted as anti-Bolsheviki, moreover.  There were fifty-six delegates whose position was not quite clearly defined, but who were regarded as being, if not Bolsheviki, at least anti-government.  For the first time in the whole struggle the Bolsheviki apparently had a majority of delegates in a working-class convention.

On the night of the 6th, a few hours before the opening of the Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviki struck the blow they had been so carefully planning.  They were not met with the resistance they had expected—­for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained.  Kerensky recognized that it was useless for him to attempt to carry on the fight.  The Bolsheviki had organized their Red Guards, and these, directed by military leaders, occupied the principal government buildings, such as the central telephone and telegraph offices, the military-staff barracks, and so on.  Part of the Petrograd garrison joined with the Bolsheviki, the other part simply refusing to do anything.  On the morning of November 7th the members of the Provisional Government were arrested in the Winter Palace, but Kerensky managed to escape.  The Bolshevik coup d’etat was thus accomplished practically without bloodshed.  A new government was formed, called the Council of People’s Commissaries, of which Nikolai Lenine was President and Leon Trotzky Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.  The “dictatorship of the proletariat” was thus begun.  Kerensky’s attempt to rally forces enough to put an end to this dictatorship was a pathetic failure, as it was bound to be.  It was like the last fitful flicker with which a great flame dies.  The masses wanted peace—­for that they would tolerate even a dictatorship.

CHAPTER VI

THE BOLSHEVIK WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY

I