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stood for Western democracy of a liberal or moderatesocialist colouring, the Soviet for a full swing to the left,to the unknown. But for the mass of the people bothwere almost equally the unknown. The appeal of theextremists, divided though they were, came to be farstronger than that of the moderates, because it encourageddirect and immediate action, especially in regard to peaceand the land (cf. p. 74).In July 1917 the Provisional Government waschallenged by an unorganized uprising in Petrogradwhich was a portent of the currents sweeping leftward.These were accelerated in the following months by thefears aroused by the commander-in-chief at the front,General Kornilov, who was, in his own words,"combating implacably anarchy in the army" anddemanding "without any delay" appropriate measuresin the rear. Kerensky, the golden-tongued, pro-Ally,socialist lawyer, since July the head of the ProvisionalGovernment, was determined to prevent a "militarydictatorship," but quite unable to stem the tide runningtowards the Soviets. By the autumn Lenin judged thetide sufficiently strong for the Bolsheviks to make an endof "the bourgeois-democratic revolution" and inauguratethe Soviet Revolution. In November, after brief butfierce fighting, they overthrew the Provisional Governmentand assumed power in the name of the Soviets.Moscow followed suit almost immediately, and nearly allthe main centres of Russia.For the next six months "chaos and enthusiasmreigned," as Lenin summed up this period of theRevolution; "when the peace of Brest-Litovsk wasforced upon us because we were powerless in all fields";when the Bolshevik government poured out a flood ofdecrees—propaganda signposts and general directivesrather than legislation, which were intended to give theuneducated masses political ideas and to be applied inconcrete actuality as and how the workers and peasantsdecided for themselves. The extension of workers'control and committee management intensified the dropin production and the chaos in distribution. Admittedly,according to Lenin, the Bolsheviks expropriated more372