World's War Events, Vol. II - Unknown

"There was some incipient organization certainly," he replied, "though even now I could not be more definite. But for the most part it was spontaneous growth. The Duma was not revolutionary, and we held off until it became necessary for us to take hold. We were the only government left."

Duma is forced to adopt democratic programme.

The rapid work was done by the Socialists, who quickly formed the Council of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies and formulated the programme which has come to be the Russian Declaration of Independence. They consented to support the Duma if it adopted their democratic programme. There was nothing else for the Duma to do, and the main issues of the new Government were worked out before Tuesday morning, within twenty-four hours of the beginning of the revolution. Since then I have been repeatedly impressed with the organizing ability of the men in control, and their ability to take matters rapidly in hand.

The crowd feels its power.

Not much terrorism.

Monday night the city was in the hands of the mob. Anybody could have a gun. Public safety lay in the released spirits of the Russian workmen who saw the vision of liberty before them. Tuesday was the most dangerous day, as the crowd was beginning to feel its power, and the amount of shooting going on everywhere must have been out of all proportion to the sniping on the part of cornered police. But the searching of apartments for arms was carried on with some semblance of order, and usually there was a student in command. The individual stories of officers who refused to surrender and fought to the end in their apartments are endless, but these individual fights were lost in the victorious sweep of the day. Tuesday evening the real business of burning police stations and prisons and destroying records went on throughout the city, but the actual burnings, while picturesque, lacked the terrorism one might expect. Still I felt that the large number of irresponsible civilians carrying arms might do what they pleased.

The same idea evidently occurred to the Committee of Safety, as it began at once disarming the irresponsible, and its work was so quick and effective that there were very few civilians not registered as responsible police who still had fire-arms on Wednesday morning.

Regiments sent to Petrograd join revolutionists.

As late as Wednesday there was a possibility of troops being sent against Petrograd, but all the regiments for miles around joined the revolution before they entered the city. There was obviously no one who wanted to uphold the old monarchy, and it fell without even dramatic incident to mark its end. To us in Petrograd the abdication of the Emperor had just one significance. It brought the army over at a stroke. The country, long saturated with democratic principles, accepted the new Government as naturally as if it had been chosen by a national vote.