Decree on Land
(1) Landed proprietorship is abolished forthwith without any compensation.
(2) The landed estates, as also all crown, monastery, and church lands, with all their livestock, implements, buildings and everything pertaining thereto, shall be placed at the disposal of the volost land committees and the uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
(3) All damage to confiscated property, which henceforth belongs to the whole people, is proclaimed a grave crime to be punished by the revolutionary courts. The uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies shall take all necessary measures to assure the observance of the strictest order during the confiscation of the landed estates, to determine the size of estates, and the particular estates subject to confiscation, to draw up exact inventories of all property confiscated and to protect in the strictest revolutionary way all agricultural enterprises transferred to the people, with all buildings, implements, livestock, stocks of produce, etc.
(4) The following peasant Mandate, compiled by the newspaper Izvestia Vserossiiskogo Soveta Krestyanskikh Deputatov from 242 local peasant mandates and published in No. 88 of that paper (Petrograd, No. 88, August 19, 1917), shall serve everywhere to guide the implementation of the great land reforms until a final decision on the latter is taken by the Constituent Assembly.
(5) The land of ordinary peasants and ordinary Cossacks shall not be confiscated.
At six o'clock yesterday evening armoured cars took up positions at all points commanding the approaches to the Winter Palace, and shortly afterwards delegates from the revolutionary committee came and demanded its unconditional surrender. See more
From 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock I was with Kastritsky. During the evening I said goodbye to him. He left for the Crimea. The day became nice; in the sun it was 11 degrees. For a long time I chopped firewood.
The Menshevik faction proposes that the congress pass a resolution on the need to resolve this crisis peacefully by forming an all-democratic government. To this end, the congress must appoint a delegation to hold discussions with other democratic organisations and all the socialist parties. The Menshevik-Internationalist faction proposes that the work of the congress be suspended until the results of this delegation’s efforts become clear.
Bolshevik representatives at the City Duma joined the Congress of Soviets.
The Duma faction has come to win or die with the All-Russian Congress.
Mass insurrection doesn't need justification. It is an insurrection, not a conspiracy. We've been building up the revolutionary tension of workers and soldiers. We've been openly calling masses for an uprising, not a conspiracy... The masses have been following us, and our insurrection has been victorious. And now we hear: back down, reach an agreement. With who? I am asking you, who should we conclude this agreement with? With those pathetic groups who left the building? But we've seen all of them. No one else in Russia supports them.
To those who left and who are now making those suggestions, we say: "You are pathetic, you are bankrupt, your part is over! Go back to where you belong now: the trashcan of history!"
Then we are leaving!
Bolsheviks introduce a resolution condemning Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries for leaving.
We hailed a cab. “Where to?” But when we said “Smolny,” the izvoshtchikCab driver shook his head. “Niet!” said he, “there are devils and….” It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver willing to take us—and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two blocks away.
Mensheviks and right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had left the Congress of Soviets, together with pre-parliament members and Duma deputies, gathered in the Alexandrovsky hall of the Petrograd city duma. They formed a Committee to Save the Motherland and the Revolution, designed to unite all Anti-Bolshevik forces. American journalist John Reed attended the meeting as well.
Left-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries remain at the Congress, but they oppose the Bolshevik resolution.
At the Congress of Soviets, the Bicycle regiment soldiers announce that they refuse to follow the orders of the Provisional Government.
Who is now in actual control of the palace - us of the Bolsheviks?
City Duma representatives, Mensheviks who left the Congress session and right-wing Social Revolutionaries are headed to the Winter Palace.