<P> Some sources contend that as the leader of Tsentrobalt, Pavlo Dybenko played an enormous role in the revolt . It is said that the ten warships that entered the city with ten thousand Baltic fleet mariners was the force that actually took the power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional Government . The same mariners then dispersed by force the elected parliament of Russia, and used machine - gun fire against protesting demonstrators in Petrograd . About 100 demonstrators were killed, and several hundreds wounded . Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air". Later, during the first hours after the taking of the Winter Palace, Dybenko personally entered the Ministry of Justice and destroyed there the documents about the financing of the Bolshevik party by Germany . These are disputed by various sources such as Louise Bryant, who claims that news outlets in the West at the time reported that the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow, not Petrograd, and the number was much less than suggested above . As for the "several shots in the air", there is little evidence suggesting otherwise . The alleged action of Dybenko entering the Ministry of Justice to destroy documents as recalled by Savchenko can also be challenged . According to reports, Pavel Dybenko was in Helsingfors organizing the sailors' departures for Petrograd . In the book Radio October...On the "Krechet" in Helsingfors, radio operator Makarov hands a telegram to Pavel Dybenko with the report of the "Samson" commissar, Grigoriy Borisov: "To Tsentrobalt . Everything is calm in Petrograd . The power is in the hands of the revolutionary committee . You have to immediately get in touch with the front committee of the Northern Army in order to preserve unity of forces and stability ." </P> <P> The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates; 300 were Bolshevik and nearly a hundred were Left Socialist - Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky Government . When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution . </P> <P> The transfer of power was not without disagreement . The center and Right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries as well as the Mensheviks believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed . As they exited, they were taunted by Leon Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out . Go where you belong from now on--into the dustbin of history!" </P> <P> The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly . This basis for the new Soviet government was known as the Council (Soviet) of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as leader . Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution". The cabinet quickly passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land . This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved . Posters were pinned on walls and fences by the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland and revolution". </P>

What effect did the russian revolution of 1917 have on world war i