First: The offer of an immediate democratic peace.
Second: The immediate handing over of large proportional lands to the peasants.
Third: The transmission of all authority to the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates.
Fourth: The honest convocation of the Constitutional Assembly.
At a meeting of the Council Trotzky declared that the Government no longer existed, and introduced Lenine as an old comrade whom he welcomed back. Lenine was received with prolonged cheers, and said: “Now we have a Revolution. The peasants and workmen control the Government. This is only a preliminary step toward a similar revolution everywhere.”
Proclamation after proclamation came from the new Government. In one of them it was stated “M. Kerensky has taken flight, and all military bodies have been empowered to take all possible measures to arrest Kerensky and bring him back to Petrograd. All complicity with Kerensky will be dealt with as high treason.”
A Bolsheviki Cabinet was named. The Premier was Nicholas Lenine; the Foreign Minister, Leon Trotzky. The other Cabinet members were all Bolsheviki, including Bibenko, a Kronstadt sailor, of the Committee on War and Marine, and Shliapnikov, a laborer, who was Minister of Labor. Lenine’s personality has already been described. Trotzky, the chief aid of Lenine’s rebellion, had been living in New York City three months before the Czar was overthrown, but he had previously been expelled from Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain. His real name was Leber Braunstein, and he was born in the Russian Government of Kherson, near the Black Sea.
When the insurrection occurred, Kerensky succeeded in escaping from Petrograd, and persuaded about two thousand Cossacks, several hundred Military Cadets, and a contingent of Artillery, to fight under his banner. He advanced toward Petrograd, but his forces were greatly outnumbered by the Bolsheviki. At Tsarskoe-Selo a battle took place, the Kerensky troops met defeat, and its leader saved himself by flight.
At Moscow the entire city passed into the control of the Bolsheviki but not without severe fighting in which more than three thousand people were slain. On the collapse of the Kerensky government conditions throughout Russia became chaotic. Ukraine declared its independence, and Finland also severed its connection with Russia. General Kaledines declared against the Bolsheviki, and organized an army to save the country. Siberia, Bessarabia, Lithuania, the Caucasus and other districts declared their complete independence of the Central Government.
The Bolsheviki, in control at Petrograd, opened negotiations with the Central Powers for an armistice along the entire front from the Baltic to Asia Minor, and on December 17th, such an armistice went into effect. Meanwhile they began negotiations for a treaty of peace. General Dukholin, the Commander-in-Chief on November 20th, was ordered by Lenine to propose the armistice. To this request he made no reply, and on November 21st, he was deposed and Ensign Krylenko was appointed the new Commander-in-Chief. General Dukholin was subsequently murdered, by being thrown from a train after the Bolsheviki seized the general headquarters.