Grigori kept a sharp lookout, fearful that they would run into a detachment of police or an army patrol and Lenin would be recognized. He made up his mind that, rather than let Lenin be arrested, he would shoot without hesitation.
They were the only passengers on the streetcar. Lenin questioned the conductress on what she thought of the latest political developments.
Walking from the Finland Station they heard hoofbeats and hid from what turned out to be a troop of loyalist cadets looking for trouble.
Grigori triumphantly delivered Lenin to the Smolny at midnight.
Lenin went at once to Room 36 and called a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Trotsky reported that Red Guards now controlled many of the city’s key points. But that was not enough for Lenin. For symbolic reasons, he argued, the revolutionary troops had to seize the Winter Palace and arrest the ministers of the provisional government. That would be the act that convinced people that power had passed, finally and irrevocably, to the revolutionaries.
Grigori knew he was right.
So did everyone else.
Trotsky began to plan the taking of the Winter Palace.
Grigori did not get home to Katerina that night.
There could be no mistakes.
The final act of the revolution had to be decisive, Grigori knew. He made sure the orders were clear and reached their destinations in good time.
The plan was not complicated, but Grigori worried that Trotsky’s timetable was optimistic. The bulk of the attacking force would consist of revolutionary sailors. The majority were coming from Helsingfors, capital of the Finnish region, by train and ship. They left at three A.M. More were coming from Kronstadt, the island naval base twenty miles offshore.
The attack was scheduled to begin at twelve noon.
Like a battlefield operation, it would start with an artillery barrage: the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress would fire across the river and batter down the walls of the palace. Then the sailors and soldiers would take over the building. Trotsky said it would be over by two o’clock, when the Congress of Soviets was due to start.
Lenin wanted to stand up at the opening and announce that the Bolsheviks had already taken power. It was the only way to prevent another indecisive, ineffective compromise government, the only way to ensure that Lenin ended up in charge.
Grigori worried that things might not go as fast as Trotsky hoped.
Security was poor at the Winter Palace, and at dawn Grigori was able to send Isaak inside to reconnoiter. He reported that there were about three thousand loyalist troops in the building. If they were properly organized and fought bravely, there would be a mighty battle.
Isaak also discovered that Kerensky had left town. Because the Red Guards controlled the railway stations he had been unable to leave by train, and he had eventually departed in a commandeered car. “What kind of prime minister can’t catch a train in his own capital?” Isaak said.
“Anyway, he’s gone,” Grigori said with satisfaction. “And I don’t suppose he’ll ever come back.”
However, Grigori’s mood turned pessimistic when noon came around and none of the sailors had appeared.
He crossed the bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress to make sure the cannon were ready. To his horror he found that they were museum pieces, there only for show, and could not be fired. He ordered Isaak to find some working artillery.
He hurried back to the Smolny to tell Trotsky his plan was behind schedule. The guard at the door said: “There was someone here looking for you, comrade. Something about a midwife.”
“I can’t deal with that now,” Grigori said.
Events were moving very fast. Grigori learned that the Red Guards had taken the Marinsky Palace and dispersed the preparliament without bloodshed. Those Bolsheviks in jail had been released. Trotsky had ordered all troops outside Petrograd to remain where they were, and they were obeying him, not their officers. Lenin was writing a manifesto that began: “To the citizens of Russia: The provisional government has been overthrown!”
“But the assault has not begun,” Grigori told Trotsky miserably. “I don’t see how it can be managed before three o’clock.”
“Don’t worry,” said Trotsky. “We can delay the opening of the congress.”
Grigori returned to the square in front of the Winter Palace. At two in the afternoon, at long last, he saw the minelayer Amur sail into the Neva with a thousand sailors from Kronstadt on its deck, and the workers of Petrograd lined the banks to cheer them.
If Kerensky had thought to put a few mines in the narrow channel he could have kept the sailors out of the city and defeated the revolution. But there were no mines, and the sailors in their black pea jackets began to disembark, carrying their rifles. Grigori prepared to deploy them around the Winter Palace.
But the plan was still bedeviled by snags, to Grigori’s immense exasperation. Isaak found a cannon and, with much effort, got it dragged into place, only to find that there were no shells for it. Meanwhile, loyalist troops at the palace were building barricades.
Maddened by frustration, Grigori drove back to the Smolny.
An emergency session of the Petrograd soviet was about to start. The spacious hall of the girls’ school, painted a virginal white, was packed full with hundreds of delegates. Grigori went up onto the stage and sat beside Trotsky, who was about to open the session. “The assault has been delayed by a series of problems,” he said.
Trotsky took the bad news calmly. Lenin would have thrown a fit. Trotsky said: “When can you take the palace?”
“Realistically, six o’clock.”
Trotsky nodded calmly and stood up to address the meeting. “On behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the provisional government no longer exists!” he shouted.
There was a storm of cheering and shouting. Grigori thought: I hope I can make that lie true.
When the noise died down, Trotsky listed the achievements of the Red Guards: the overnight seizure of railway stations and other key buildings, and the dispersal of the preparliament. He also announced that several government ministers had been individually arrested. “The Winter Palace has not been taken, but its fate will be decided momentarily!” There were more cheers.
A dissenter shouted: “You are anticipating the will of the Congress of Soviets!”
This was the soft democratic argument, one that Grigori himself would have advanced in the old days, before he became a realist.
Trotsky’s response was so quick that he must have expected this criticism. “The will of the congress has already been anticipated by the uprising of workers and soldiers,” he replied.
Suddenly there was a murmur around the hall. People began to stand up. Grigori looked toward the door, wondering why. He saw Lenin walking in. The deputies began to cheer. The noise became thunderous as Lenin came up onto the stage. He and Trotsky stood side by side, smiling and bowing in acknowledgment of the standing ovation, as the crowd acclaimed the coup that had not yet taken place.
The tension between the victory being proclaimed in the hall and the reality of muddle and delay outside was too much for Grigori to bear, and he slipped away.
The sailors still had not arrived from Helsingfors, and the cannon at the fortress were not yet ready to fire. As night fell, a cold drizzling rain began. Standing at the edge of Palace Square, with the Winter Palace in front of him and general staff headquarters behind, Grigori saw a force of cadets emerge from the palace. Their uniform badges said they were from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, and they were leaving, taking four heavy guns with them. Grigori let them go.
At seven o’clock he ordered a force of soldiers and sailors to enter general staff headquarters and seize control. They did so without opposition.
At eight o’clock the two hundred Cossacks on guard at the palace decided to return to their barracks, and
