ABSTRACT
The exclusively military character of the rising, which was to enter history under the name of "the great proletarian-socialist October Revolution", emerges clearly from the chronology compiled by the official Bolshevik chronicler, Ryabinsky. The most important single fact was the Bolshevik victory in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 25, Trotsky, who had only recently been released from prison, was elected chairman of Soviet and immediately became the head of its newly-formed Military Revolutionary Committee. This committee's official aim was to combat counter-revolution; its real task was to seize power for the Bolsheviks. From that point on, the organization of the coup was officially conducted under the banner of the Soviets. On October 27 and 28 (November 9 and 10)—at the very time when Kerensky and the Cossacks were conducting their chaotic military operations at Gatchina—disorder also seems to have prevailed among the Bolsheviks.
