The more cautious elements in our own midst, however, warned us that there were still some units of troops which were not with us – the Cossacks, the Cavalry Regiment, the Semenov Guards, and the Cyclist Regiment. Propagandists and commissioners were appointed to these units. Their reports seemed perfectly satisfactory. The heated atmosphere was affecting everyone and everything, and even the most conservative elements of the army were unable to withstand the general tendency of the Petrograd garrison.
I went to an open-air meeting of the Semenov regiment which was considered to be the chief support of the Kerensky government. The best-known speakers of the right wing were there. They clung to the conservative regiment of the Guards as to the last prop of the coalition ministry. But it was to no avail. The regiment declared in our favour by an overwhelming majority, and did not even allow the former ministers to finish their speeches. Those groups which still opposed the demands of the Soviet consisted mainly of officers, volunteers, and, generally, of the middle-class intellectuals and semi-intellectuals. The workers and peasant masses were wholly on our side. The cleavage was pretty well along a straight social line.
The central military basis of Petrograd is the Peter and Paul Fortress. We appointed as its commandant a young ensign who soon proved himself to be almost born for the place and in a few hours, became complete master of the situation. The ‘lawful’ military authorities stepped aside to wait and see what might happen.
For reasons given above, the Cyclist Regiment was considered by us a very unreliable unit. On 5th November, I went to the fortress at about two o’clock in the afternoon. In the courtyard, a meeting was being held. The speakers of the right wing were most cautious and evasive, carefully avoiding any question about Kerensky, whose name, even in soldiers’ circles, always gave rise to cries of protest and indignation. They, however, listened to us and adhered to us. At four o’clock the cyclists held a battalion meeting in a neighbouring place, in the Modern Circus. Amongst the speakers was the Quartermaster-General Paradelov. He, too, spoke very cautiously. Far gone were the days when the official and semi-official orators never spoke of the workers’ party otherwise than as a band of traitors and hirelings of the German Kaiser. The Assistant-Chief of the Staff came up to me and said: “Let us, for goodness’ sake, come to some understanding.” But it was now too late. Against only thirty votes, the battalion declared itself, after a debate, in favour of the assumption of authority by the Soviets.