treachery among the troops had produced a grave crisis, seizing the opportunity afforded by the general chaos, the Bolsheviki attempted to realize their aim of establishing what they called a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” but which was in reality the dictatorship of a small part of the proletariat.  There was no pretense that they represented a majority of the proletariat, even.  It was a desperate effort to impose the dictatorship of a small minority of the proletariat upon the whole nation.  For two days the revolt lasted, more than five hundred men, women, and children being killed in the streets of Petrograd.

On the 20th Prince Lvov resigned as Premier.  In the mean time the Bolshevist uprising had been put down by Cossack troops and the leaders were in hiding.  Kerensky stepped into Lvov’s position as Premier and continued to address himself to the task of bringing order out of the chaos.  There could not have been any selfish ambition in this; no place-hunter would have attempted to bear the heavy burden Kerensky then assumed, especially with his knowledge of the seriousness of the situation.  He knew that the undertaking was practically hopeless, yet he determined never to give up the struggle so long as there was a single thing to be done and his comrades desired him to do it.[21]

There had been created a revolutionary body representing all the organized workers, called the United Executive Committee of the All-Russian Councils of Workmen’s, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Delegates, a body of more than three hundred elected representatives of the various Soviets.  They represented the views of many millions.  This body vigorously denounced the Bolsheviki and rallied to the support of Kerensky and his colleagues.  In a Manifesto to the people the Bolsheviki were charged with responsibility for the blood of all who had been slain in the uprising.  On July 21st a second Manifesto was issued by the Committee calling upon the workers to uphold the government so long as the authorized representatives of the working class determined that to be the proper course to follow.  The charge that Lenine, Zinoviev, Trotzky, and others were acting under German instructions and receiving German money spread until it was upon almost every tongue in Petrograd.  On July 24th Gregory Alexinsky, a well-known Socialist, in his paper, Bez Lisnih Slov, published a circumstantial story of German intrigue in the Ukraine, revealed by one Yermolenko, an ensign in the 16th Siberian Regiment, who had been sent to Russia by the German Government.  This Yermolenko charged that Lenine had been instructed by the authorities in Berlin, just as he himself had been, and that Lenine had been furnished with almost unlimited funds by the German Government, the arrangement being that it was to be forwarded through one Svendson, at Stockholm.[22] By a vote of 300 to 11 the United Executive Committee of the All-Russian Councils of Workmen’s, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Delegates adopted the following resolution: