The Duma waited in vain that night for an answer from the Czar.  The bourgeois elements in the Duma were terrified.  Only the leaders of the different Socialist groups appeared to possess any idea of providing the revolutionary movement with proper direction.  While the leaders of the bourgeois groups were proclaiming their conviction that the Revolution would be crushed in a few hours by the tens of thousands of troops in Petrograd who had not yet rebelled, the Socialist leaders were busy preparing plans to carry on the struggle.  Even those Social Democrats who for various reasons had most earnestly tried to avert the Revolution gave themselves with whole-hearted enthusiasm to the task of organizing the revolutionary forces.  Following the example set in the 1905 Revolution, there had been formed a central committee of the working-class organizations to direct the movement.  This body, composed of elected representatives of the unions and Socialist societies, was later known as the Council of Workmen’s Deputies.  It was this body which undertook the organization of the Revolution.  This Revolution, unlike that of 1905, was initiated by the bourgeoisie, but its originators manifested little desire and less capacity to lead it.

When Monday morning came there was no longer an unorganized, planless mass confusedly opposing a carefully organized force, but a compact, well-organized, and skilfully led movement.  Processions were formed, each under responsible directors with very definite instructions.  As on the previous day, the police stationed upon roofs of buildings, and at various strategic points, fired upon the people.  As on the previous day, also, the soldiers joined the Revolution and refused to shoot the people.  The famous Guards’ Regiment, long the pet and pride of the Czar, was the first to rebel.  The soldiers killed the officer who ordered them to fire, and then with cheers joined the rebels.  When the military authorities sent out another regiment to suppress the rebel Guards’ Regiment they saw the new force go over to the Revolution in a body.  Other regiments deserted in the same manner.  The flower of the Russian army had joined the people in revolting against the Czar and the system of Czarism.

On the side of the revolutionists were now many thousands of well-trained soldiers, fully armed.  Soon they took possession of the Arsenal, after killing the commander.  The soldiers made organized and systematic warfare upon the police.  Every policeman seen was shot down, police stations were set on fire, and prisons were broken open and the prisoners released.  The numerous political prisoners were triumphantly liberated and took their places in the revolutionary ranks.  In rapid succession the great bastiles fell!  Peter and Paul Fortress, scene of infinite martyrdom, fell into the hands of the revolutionary forces, and the prisoners, many of them heroes and martyrs of other uprisings, were set free amid frenzied cheering.  The great Schluesselburg Fortress was likewise seized and emptied.  With twenty-five thousand armed troops on their side, the revolutionists were practically masters of the capital.  They attacked the headquarters of the hated Secret Service and made a vast, significantly symbolical bonfire of its archives.