A group of workers broke into the Catherine Hall and interrupted the session: ‘Comrade Chernov has been arrested by the mob! They’re tearing him to pieces right now! To the rescue! Everyone out into the street!’ Chkheidze proposed that Kamenev, Martov and Trotsky should be sent out to rescue the Minister. But Trotsky was the first to get there. Pushing his way through the shouting crowds, he went straight to the car, where the hatless, dishevelled and terrified Chernov sat under arrest in the back seat, and climbed up on to the bonnet. The Kronstadters all knew the figure of Trotsky and waited for his instructions. Had the Bolsheviks planned for the seizure of power, this was surely the moment to urge the sailors on to the storming of the Tauride, the arrest of the Soviet leaders and the proclamation of a socialist government. Raskolnikov, who was standing by Trotsky, asked Chernov’s captors where they were planning to take their hostage. ‘We don’t know,’ they answered. ‘Wherever you wish, Comrade Raskolnikov. He is at your disposal.’ But Trotsky called for Chernov to be released. ‘Comrade Kronstadters, pride and glory of the Russian Revolution!’, he began in his clear metallic voice; ‘you’ve come to declare your will and show the Soviet that the working class no longer wants to see the bourgeoisie in power. But why hurt your own cause by petty acts of violence against casual individuals? Individuals are not worthy of your attention.’ The sailors shouted angrily at Trotsky: they could not understand why Chernov was to be let go, if the aim of their mission was to overthrow the government. But not knowing what to do on their own, they sullenly agreed to release the Minister. ‘Citizen Chernov, you are free,’ declared Comrade Trotsky, opening the car door and motioning him to get out. Chernov was half-dead and plainly did not understand what was happening to him. He had to be helped out of the car and led, like a frail old man, back into the Tauride Palace.45 A critical moment had passed, one of the most famous in the history of the revolution, and with it had also passed the initiative for a seizure of power.
According to Sukhanov’s account of his conversation with Lunacharsky, the key to the Bolshevik ‘plan’ for the seizure of power was the 176th Regiment from Krasnoe Selo. It was supposed to arrive at the Tauride Palace and arrest the Soviet leaders. At around 6 o’clock it finally appeared, led by its regimental band. The soldiers were tired and soaked by the rain. With their packs and greatcoats on their shoulders, their mess tins and cooking pots clanging as they walked, they settled themselves in the forecourt of the palace and began to unpack their wet things and prepare their rifles. They had not the slightest idea what they were supposed to do, and only knew that they had been called out to ‘defend the revolution’. But where were their leaders? An officer and six men climbed the Tauride steps and asked to see someone from the Soviet. The Menshevik, Dan, came out to greet them. He did not know what the regiment was, or why it had come to the palace, but he soon found a use for it. The ‘insurrectionary’ soldiers were posted as sentries at various points of the building to protect the Soviet leaders against the insurrection.46 Having come to demonstrate against the Soviet leaders, they had ended up defending them against the demonstrators. Such things happen in a revolution, when the crowd does not know its leaders.
From this point on, the insurrection was effectively over. By itself, the crowd was unable to bring about political change. The Soviet leaders, discussing the question of whether to assume power, were all the more determined not to be pushed into it by the mob in the street. ‘The decision of the revolutionary democracy cannot be dictated by bayonets,’ declared Tsereteli.47 Once the Soviet had resolved not to take power, there was nothing the crowd could do. It did not know how to force the Soviet leaders into changing their minds, or how to complete a Soviet revolution without them. If the Soviet leaders were reluctant to take power, how could they give ‘All Power to the Soviet’?
One final event on that day symbolized the powerlessness of the crowd. At around 7 p.m. a group of armed and angry workers from the Putilov plant burst into the Catherine Hall. The Soviet deputies leaped from their seats. Some threw themselves on to the ground in panic. One of the workers, a ‘classical sans-culotte’ dressed in a blue factory tunic and cap, jumped up on to the speakers’ platform. Shaking his rifle in the air, he shouted incoherently at the deputies:
