Dawn of the 25th approached. A desperate Kerensky issued an appeal to the Cossacks “in the name of freedom, honor and the glory of our native land to act to aid the Soviet Central Executive Committee, the revolutionary democracy, and the Provisional Government, and to save the perishing Russian State.”

But the Cossacks wanted to know if the infantry was coming out. When the government’s answer was equivocal, all but a small number of ultraloyalists responded that they were disinclined to act alone, “serving as live targets.”

Repeatedly, easily, at points throughout the city, MRC (Military Revolutionary Committee) disarmed loyalist guards and just told them to go home. And for the most part, they did. Insurgents occupied the Engineers’ Palace by the simple expedient of walking in. “They entered and took their seats, while those who were sitting there got up and left,” one reminiscence has it. At 6:00 AM, forty revolutionary sailors approached the Petrograd State Bank. Its guards, from the Semenovsky Regiment, had pledged neutrality: they would defend the bank from looters and criminals, but would not take sides between reaction and revolution. Nor would they intervene. They stood aside, therefore, and let the MRC take over.