h, a few hours before the opening of the Congress of
Soviets, the Bolsheviki struck the blow they had been so carefully
planning. They were not met with the resistance they had expected--for
reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained. Kerensky recognized
that it was useless for him to attempt to carry on the fight. The
Bolsheviki had organized their Red Guards, and these, directed by military
leaders, occupied the principal government buildings, such as the central
telephone and telegraph offices, the military-staff barracks, and so on.
Part of the Petrograd garrison joined with the Bolsheviki, the other part
simply refusing to do anything. On the morning of November 7th the members
of the Provisional Government were arrested in the Winter Palace, but
Kerensky managed to escape. The Bolshevik _coup d'etat_ was thus
accomplished practically without bloodshed. A new government was formed,
called the Council of People's Commissaries, of which Nikolai Lenine was
President and Leon Trotzky Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The
"dictatorship of the proletariat" was thus begun. Kerensky's attempt to
rally forces enough to put an end to this dictatorship was a pathetic
failure, as it was bound to be. It was like the last fitful flicker with
which a great flame dies. The masses wanted peace--for that they would
tolerate even a dictatorship.

CHAPTER VI

THE BOLSHEVIK WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY

I

The defenders and supporters of the Bolsheviki have made much of the fact
that there was very little bloodshed connected with the successful
Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. That ought not to be permitted, however,
to obscure the fundamental fact that it was a military _coup d'etat_, the
triumph of brute force over the will of the vast majority of the people. It
was a crime against democracy. That the people were passive, worn out, and
distracted, content to wait for the Constituent Assembly, only makes the
Bolshevik crime appear the greater. Let us consider the facts very briefly.
Less than three weeks away was the date set for the Constituent Assembly
elections. Campaigns for the election of representatives to that great
democratic convention were already in progress. It was to be the most
democratic constitutional convention that ever existed in any country, its
members being elected by the entire population, every man and woman in
Russia being entitled to vote. The suffrage was equal, direct, universal,
and secre