Up to this time the Russian armies were still fighting in the field; their offensive in Galicia was nearing its disastrous climax and Bolshevism— the foe of the revolution and an enemy of the people — was growing in mo mentum. Confusion spread; Kerensky de nounced the counter-revolutionists and those who unwittingly encouraged anarchy (Moscow, 25 Aug. 1917), which caused a wider split among his uneasy team. General Korniloff ar rived from the front and stated that the mili tary disasters were due not to the revolution but to the follies of the revolutionaries ; that discipline must be maintained both at the front and in the rear. His gloomy picture of a de graded and defeated Russia had no terrors for the Bolsheviki. After three days of palaver the conference talked itself to a standstill with no result. Meanwhile, the German armies found no difficulties in overrunning northern Russia and seizing Riga. Kerensky again wavered. His fatal error in the Korniloff affair drove the few remaining moderates out of his Cabinet and gave the Bolshevild their oppor tunity. The retreating Russian armies gave themselves up to pillaging their own people and the sailors of the Baltic fleet murdered their own officers. Lenine crept out of hiding and raised his voice afresh in Kronstadt —the worst nest of anarchy. Kerensky once more fulminated against the Bolsheviki and then in formed the United States that Russia was worn out. The dark forces waiting in the shadows quickly observed the change and made their preparations. The apathy and despair of Russia made her an easy victim to a body of determined men. Trotzky, then president of the Petrograd Soviet, summoned the proletariat of all nations to do what had been done in Russia; he decided to make peace with a will ing Germany and to raise his party to the su preme power. On 5 Nov. 1917 the Military Revolutionary Committee ordered the Petrograd garrison to place itself under their instructions. Kerensky suppressed the chief Bolshevist paper and called on the loyal troops to defend the government. On the 6th the military cadets occupied stations, bridges and telegraph offices and threw a cordon around Kerens 's resi dence, the Winter Palace. Lenine arrived the following day with'his leading spirits and made the Smolny Institute (a girls' school) the Bol shevist headquarters. He issued a proclama tion announcing the fall of the government. The majority of the troops went over to the Bolsheviki. Kerensky fled on the 7th, leaving a guard of cadets and some women at the Palace. The Bolshevist troops (Red Guards) captured the palace, committed many brutalities on the inmates and in a few hours the whole of Petrograd was in their hands. The "new government" was placed in the control of a 'Council of People's Commissioners," of which Lenine was appointed president, Trotzky For eign Minister and Ensign Krylenko as com mander-in-chief of what was left of the army.
The comparative ease with which the Bol sheviki overturned the provisional government was due mainly to the passive attitude of the troops. Had Kerensky had at his disposal a few brigades of reliable troops he might as easily have crushed Bolshevism on the same day. On 8 November Lenine telegraphed to all the belligerent governments a proposal for a three months' armistice. On the 10th a series of decrees began to emanate from the Smolny Institute, their principal features being the spoliation of one class and the transference of its property to another. Municipalities were empowered fo sequestrate all houses, whether inhabited or not, and to instal in them citizens possessing no abode or occupying crowded or insanitary dwellings. All factories were passed to the possession of the operatives (syndical ism), and a moratorium was proclaimed for the payment of rent for small houses and lodgings. The most important decree threatened civil war in the rural districts by declaring all private ownership in land to be annulled without corn pensation to the owners. The land was to be nationalized and handed over to the cultivators, while for the present all lands belonging to the state, to the Church and to monasteries, etc., with all appurtenances — flocks, herds, ma chines, etc., were to be placed at the disposal of the local agrarian committees until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. The local soviets were authorized to preserve order dur ing the process of confiscation. All mines, forests and waterways were acquired by the state, and the smaller woods, rivers and lakes were to be the property of the village com munes. The gloom of Bolshevism had settled over Russia. Missionaries of that cult were dispatched to all European countries and to the United States to spread the faith and incite proletariat uprisings, though with negligible success. During 1918 the dread of vism)" became a haunting spectre to not a few governments. Everywhere outside of Russia it was denounced by public men and its slightest symptoms rigorously suppressed. It is a re markable fact that, while Jews formed a large percentage of the leading Bolsheviki, over 90 per cent of Russian Jews were hostile to them. Many of them had lived in America, Switzer land, Great Britain, France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. They returned to Rus sia after the Revolution, where their ranks were swelled by large numbers of exiles from Si beria — not all political offenders, but also some of the most dangerous•criminals. (The further adventures of the Bolsheviki regime are told under RUSSIA—HISTORY; see also RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917; WAR, EUROPEAN; SKY; KORNILOFF; TROTZKY; LENINE). Consult Trotzky, L., 'The Bolsheviki and World Peace' (New York 1918) ; The World's Work (New York, October 1918); Current History (New York, November-December 1918).