placed a reinforced guard over the printing plant and the Rabochy Put editorial offices. Towards 11 am Rabochy Put came out with a call for the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Simultaneously, on the instructions of the Party Centre of the uprising, detachments of revolutionary soldiers and Red Guards were rushed to the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute. Thus the uprising had begun. On the night of October 24 Lenin arrived at the Smolny Institute and assumed personal direction of the uprising. During that night revolutionary units of the army and detachments of the Red Guard kept arriving at the Smolny. The Bolsheviks directed them to the centre of the capital, to surround the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government had entrenched itself. On October 25 (November 7), Red Guards and revolutionary troops occupied the railway stations, post office, telegraph office, the Ministries and the State Bank. The Pre-parliament was declared dissolved. The Smolny, the headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet and of the Bolshevik Central Committee, became the headquarters of the revolution, from which fighting orders emanated. The uprising also included the navy forces. The cruise ship Aurora turned its guns on the Winter Palace. On October 25 (November 7) the Bolsheviks issued a manifesto 'To the Citizens of Russia' announcing that the Provisional Government had been deposed and that state power had passed into the hands of the Soviets. The Provisional Government had taken refuge in the Winter Palace under the protection of cadets and shock battalions. On the night of October 25 the Bolsheviks took the Winter Palace by storm and arrested the Provisional Government. At this point Petrograd was under the authority of the Bolshevik Party. Second Congress of Soviets The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened in the Smolny at 10:45 pm on October 25 (November 7), 1917, when the uprising in Petrograd was already in motion and the power in the capital had de facto passed into the hands of the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolsheviks secured an overwhelming majority at the congress. The Mensheviks, Bundists and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries left the congress, announcing that they refused to take any part in its labours. In a statement which was read at the Congress of Soviets they referred to the ongoing uprising as a 'military plot'. The congress then condemned the position of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The congress proclaimed that all power had passed to the