The Bolsheviks were not sure of their success, but they kept moving toward power, as though drawn by the collapsing weight of the existing government. They were coming to power, albeit somewhat more slowly than Lenin would have liked. The Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), created by the Petrograd Soviet, became the main leadership body of the insurrection. The seizure of power was carried out, not in the name of the Bolshevik party, but in the name of the Soviet, although the central bureau of the MRC consisted only of Bolsheviks and Left SRs. In fact, power passed into the hands of the MRC bureau on October 21, when it issued an order to stop any weapons from being given out without its authorization and sent commissars into the military units to make sure that this edict was enforced. On the morning of October 22, the garrison was notified by telephone of this decision, which specified among other things that no order would be valid unless signed by the Military Revolutionary Committee. Meetings and demonstrations were organized in the capital. Trotsky gave a fiery speech at the House of the People, promising that the Soviet government would give the poor and the front-line soldiers everything they would ever want, beginning with bread, land, and peace.
The revolution had already happened, although nobody was aware of it. Those who filled Petrograd's theaters did not notice. Chaliapin sang Don Carlos, a part he rarely performed in Russia. Tamara Karsavina danced for the first time in the operetta The Doll. All kinds of philosophical, literary, and sociopolitical lectures attracted large audiences. Even the members of the Provisional Government failed to notice that power had slipped from their fingers into the hands of the Bolsheviks.
Lenin's behavior during these days is still an enigma. After October 20 he seems to have disappeared. He remained in hiding, but there is no evidence of his activity in the form of letters, notes, or instructions until the evening of October 24. The much touted Central Committee meeting of October 21, where Lenin supposedly uttered the famous words, "Yesterday was too soon, the day after tomorrow will be too late," is only a legend created by John Reed that no document or witness supports. It is true, however, that when Lenin read Reed's book, the legend struck him as so felicitous that he did not correct it.
Lenin stayed underground throughout the day of October 24, as the Military Revolutionary Committee began sending out commissars and small armed detachments to secure government buildings. Two unarmed commissars went to the central telegraph office and brought it under Bolshevik control. A detachment from the Izmailovsky Regiment appeared at the Baltic Railway Station and stayed there to "maintain order." Detachments of Red Guards occupied some bridges but left others in the hands of government troops—in cases where the troops refused to withdraw. No one wanted to shoot. But little by little power in the capital changed hands. Meanwhile, as late as 6 PM Lenin did not suspect a thing. He sent out an urgent letter stressing that the situation was extremely critical, that it was necessary to deal a death blow to the government. In the fourth and fifth Russian editions of Lenin's works this letter is entitled "Letter to Central Committee Members." Actually Soviet historians added this title; the letter was addressed to the district committees of the party, through which Lenin meant to exert pressure on the Central Committee. On the evening of October 24, far from Smolny Institute, Lenin still feared the Provisional Government, which was no longer in power, and continued to urge the Central Committee to begin an insurrection that was already practically over.
The enigma of Lenin's absence from leadership between October 20 and 24 is doubled by the mystery of the insurrection leaders' behavior. They refrained from inviting Lenin to Smolny Institute, the seat of the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Central Committee at that time, the whole day of October 24, while he, no less curiously, awaited their invitation. Stalin wrote, in his commemorative article of November 6, 1918, "On the evening of October 24, Lenin was summoned to Smolny to lead the movement as a whole." However, by the time the Central Committee considered it appropriate to summon their chief, Lenin had already lost patience and was in a streetcar heading for Smolny.
In his History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky says that Lenin, upon his arrival at Smolny, approved the actions of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. "Lenin was in rapture, which he expressed by exclaiming, laughing, and rubbing his hands. Afterward he became more silent, reflected a moment and said: 'Oh, well, it can be done that way too. As long as we take power.'"85 Nikolai Podvoisky, who together with Vladimir Antonov- Ovseenko and Grigory Chudnovsky was in direct command of operations, recalled that after Lenin arrived at Smolny he began showering them with notes: Have the telegraph office and telephone exchange been taken? And the bridges?86
Lenin's impatience had little influence on the course of events, however. Slowly but surely the city was passing into the hands of the insurgents,
who encountered no resistance. The battle for the city (no one yet realized that it was a battle for the entire country) was waged by 6,000 or 7,000 Bolshevik supporters (2,500 soldiers from the Pavlovsky and Kexholm regiments, 2,500 sailors from Kronstadt, and about 2,000 Red Guards) and 1,500-2,000 defenders of the Provisional Government. The enormous Petrograd garrison declared itself neutral and did not intervene. At 3:30 am the cruiser Aurora dropped anchor near the Nikolaevsky Bridge, and a detachment of sailors chased off the Provisional Government's patrol and occupied the bridge. The Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government, was isolated from the rest of the city.
In the morning, the ministers still did not know they had lost power. They could not have learned it from the newspapers, whose articles were hopelessly out of date; Izvestia cautioned the Bolsheviks against any "foolish adventure"; Novaya zhizn counseled them "not to be the first to fire"; the Menshevik newspaper Rabochaya gazeta (Workers' gazette) hoped for a compromise.
By this time Lenin knew that he had won. At about 10 am he wrote a proclamation 'To the Citizens of Russia," announcing, "The Provisional Government has been deposed," and stating, 'The cause for which the people have fought, namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers' control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power—this cause has been secured." Trotsky recalled that after writing this proclamation Lenin turned around "with a tired smile and said, This change—hiding underground from Pereverzev's police one moment, being in power the next... Es schwindelt' [it makes you dizzy.] He supplemented his words with an eloquent gesture of his hand: round and round his forehead," to show how it made his head spin to have gained power at last.87 The Winter Palace, it is true, had not yet been taken. But Lenin wanted at all costs to announce victory to the first session of the Congress of Soviets. He began therefore to send notes to the members of the Military Revolutionary Committee demanding an immediate attack. This time the tone was different. He threatened to have the members of the committee shot if the order was not carried out.88 A new era had begun. Threats of execution and later actual executions were to become essential elements of policy.