I ordered the Pulkovo forces to occupy Tsarskoye Selo, to fortify its approaches, especially on the side of Gatchina.
Also to pass and occupy Pavlovskoye, fortifying its southern side, and to take up the railroad as far as Dno.
The troops must take all measures to strengthen the positions occupied by them, arranging trenches and other defensive works.
They must enter into close liaison with the detachments of Colpinno and Krasnoye Selo, and also with the Staff of the Commander in Chief for the Defence of Petrograd.
Signed,
Commander in Chief aver all Forces acting against the Counter-revolutionary Troops of Kerensky,
Lieutenant-Colonel MURAVIOV.
Tuesday morning. But how is this? Only two days ago the Petrograd campagna was full of leaderless bands, wandering aimlessly; without food, without artillery, without a plan. What had fused that disorganised mass of undisciplined Red Guards, and soldiers without officers, into an army obedient to its own elected high command, tempered to meet and break the assault of cannon and Cossack cavalry? (See App. IX, Sect. 1)
People in revolt have a way of defying military precedent. The ragged armies of the French Revolution are not forgotten—Valmy and the Lines of Weissembourg. Massed against the Soviet forces were yunkers, Cossacks, land-owners, nobility, Black Hundreds—the Tsar come again, Okhrana and Siberian chains; and the vast and terrible menace of the Germans…. Victory, in the words of Carlyle, meant “Apotheosis and Millennium without end!”
Sunday night, the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee returning desperately from the field, the garrison of Petrograd elected its Committee of Five, its Battle Staff, three soldiers and two officers, all certified free from counter-revolutionary taint. Colonel Muraviov, ex-patriot, was in command—an efficient man, but to be carefully watched. At Colpinno, at Obukhovo, at Pulkovo and Krasnoye Selo were formed provisional detachments, increased in size as the stragglers came in from the surrounding country—mixed soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, parts of regiments, infantry, cavalry and artillery all together, and a few armoured cars.