942 Ch. 23 • Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union
and some army units. Bolshevik propaganda hammered away at the theme
that their party was untainted by support for the provisional government.
Even if a majority of soldiers or of the population of Petrograd or of Russia
did not necessarily favor the Bolsheviks, Lenin's assessment that they
would not oppose their seizure of power proved correct.
Late on October 24, 1917, Kerensky shut down Bolshevik newspapers
and sent troops to hold the bridges over the Neva River. About 12,000 Red
Guards launched the insurrection, supported by factory committees in
Petrograds industrial districts. Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein,
1879—1940) coordinated the uprising. Trotsky, the revolutionary son of a
wealthy Jewish farmer, had borrowed his alias from one of his prison guards.
Bolsheviks repelled an attack by army cadets loyal to the provisional gov
ernment, the only serious fighting of the October Revolution. The regiments
upon which Kerensky had counted remained in their barracks, their neu
trality striking a blow for the insurrection.
The provisional government collapsed. Kerensky left Petrograd the same
day in a car borrowed from the U.S. embassy, hoping in vain to rally mili
tary support at the front. That night, the battleship Aurora, under the con
trol of revolutionaries, lobbed a couple of shells toward the Winter Palace,
where the last ministers of the provisional government were holding out.
The provisional government surrendered after eight months of existence.
The Bolsheviks held power in Petrograd.
The October Revolution had occurred as if in slow motion. There were
fewer people killed than in the February Revolution or even the July Days.