War in August 1914, he moved to neutral Switzerland as a Russian national. In the summer of 1915, Vladimir Lenin sent Krylenko back to Russia to help rebuild the Bolshevik underground organization. In November 1915 Krylenko was arrested in Moscow as a draft dodger and, after a few months in prison, sent to the South West Front in April 1916. 1917 revolutions After the February Revolution of 1917 and the introduction of elected committees in the Russian armed forces, Krylenko was elected chairman of his regiment's and then division's committee. On April 15 he was elected chairman of the 11th Army's committee. After Lenin's return to Russia in April 1917, Krylenko adopted the new Bolshevik policy of irreconcilable opposition to the Provisional Government. He had to resign his post on May 26, 1917, for lack of support from non-Bolshevik members of the Army committee. In June 1917 Krylenko was made a member of the Bolshevik Military Organization and was elected to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets. At the Congress, he was elected to the permanent All-Russian Central Executive Committee from the Bolshevik faction. Krylenko left Petrograd for the High Command HQ in Mogilev on July 2, but was arrested there by the Provisional government after the Bolsheviks staged an abortive uprising on July 4. He was kept in prison in Petrograd, but was released in mid-September after the Kornilov Affair. Krylenko took an active part in preparing the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd as newly elected chairman of the Congress of Northern Region Soviets and a leading member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. On October 16, ten days before the uprising, he reported to the Bolshevik Central Committee that the Petrograd military would support the Bolsheviks in case of an uprising. During the Bolshevik takeover on October 24 and 25, Krylenko was one of the uprising's leaders, along with Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko. Head of the Red Army At the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets on October 25, Krylenko was made a People's Commissar (minister) and member of the triumvirate (with Pavel Dybenko and Nikolai Podvoisky) responsible for military affairs. In early November (Old Style) 1917, immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power, Krylenko helped Leon Trotsky suppress an attempt by Provisional Government loyalists, led by Alexander Kerensky and General Peter Krasnov, to retake Petrograd. After the Provisional Commander in Chief (and Chief of