volutionists, the successors of the old-time
Nihilists and the labor leaders, who were proving themselves masters
of the situation. The Duma sat quiet, inert, and so lost its
opportunity. It hated the dark forces on the one hand, it feared the
revolution on the other, and at the critical moment helped neither.
What saved it from being completely discredited was the fact that a
number of the revolutionary leaders, such as Alexander Kerensky and
Tcheidze, both Socialists, were also deputies in the Duma, and, being
of well-balanced minds, realized that they must have the support of
those elements which the Duma represented to succeed. The real center
of government of the new democracy, then rising out of the birth pangs
of the nation, was the Council of Workingmen's Deputies.

This organization on the part of the active revolution was largely
completed during the night of the 11th, even while heavy firing swept
up and down the streets of the city. When Monday morning dawned the
various radical and labor leaders had knit themselves together in the
Council of Workingmen's Deputies and were in control of the
revolutionary forces through a great number of subcommittees. An
intelligent plan of campaign for the actual military or fighting
operations had been drawn up and was followed with an efficiency that
would have done credit to organized troops. Undoubtedly the officers
of the mutinied regiments who had gone over to the side of the people
helped, but the revolutionary commanders did not for a moment allow
them to take control of the situation. The red flag of International
Socialism was raised that Monday morning as the emblem of the new
regime, and to the present moment it continues flying.

The dominating brain, the vital moral force, behind the revolution was
Alexander Kerensky, the young Socialist lawyer.

On Monday morning the revolutionary column headed by a regiment of the
mutineers delivered an attack on the Arsenal, after dispersing the
police groups in the neighborhood. The commandant, General Matusov,
proved loyal to Protopopoff and offered resistance, but after some
sharp fighting the garrison was overcome and Matusov killed. The
capture of the Arsenal gave the revolutionists possession of a supply
of rifles, small arms, machine guns, and ammunition more than ample to
equip all their fighting forces. The artillery depot was also taken,
and now the revolutionary soldiers, most of them students and
workingmen,