The October Revolution and the First Soviet Government

After the Bolshevik resurgence following the Kornilov crisis, Lenin, still in hiding, insisted on the need for immediate armed insurrection. The Bolshevik Central Committee approved the decision at a clandestine meeting on October 10, 1917, despite public opposition from Kamenev and Zinoviev, and the Petrograd Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee, effectively directed by Trotsky, became the insurrection's organizational instrument. During the night of October 24-25, 1917 (Julian calendar), Red Guard units, Kronstadt sailors, and soldiers aligned with the Committee occupied strategic points across Petrograd with little effective resistance, and the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Government, was taken on the night of October 25-26; Kerensky fled the country in search of loyal reinforcements he never found.