The Consolidation Of Bolshevik Government

• On October 1917, the 670 delegates that had arrived for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets in the Smolny Institute held their first session. The Bolshevik action of the previous day was not universally approved and even the Bolsheviks, Zinoviev and Kamenev spoke out against the 'coup'. 
• Although 500 voted in favour of a socialist government, the majority of seats for a new executive committee to carry this out went to Bolsheviks and more extreme left-wing SRs. In protest, these moderates' walked out of the congress, leaving a Bolshevik and left-wing SR coalition in control. Their action simply played into the Bolsheviks' hands.
• The executive committee established the 'Soviet of People's Commissars' (Sovnarkom) as the new government. Compromised exclusively of Bolsheviks, with Lenin as chairman and Trotksy as Commissar for foreign Affairs.
• 27 October: Decree on peace promised an end to war without annexation and indemnities. (An armistice followed in November, accompanied by an official demobilisation process.)
• 27 October: Decree on land abolished private ownership of land and legitimised peasant seizures without compensation to landlords. (This reduced peasant support for the SRs and provided a breathing space for the consolidation of Bolshevik rule.) 
• November: Workers control decree gave workers the right to supervise management. Nationality decree promised self-determination to the peoples of the former Russian Empire. (In December, Finland became an independent state, and an elected rada (parliament was set up in the Ukraine.)
• November- New legal system of elected people's courts. Government outlawed sex discrimination and gave women the right to own property; decree against titles, all to become 'citizens. 
•  December: Military decree removed class-ranks, saluting and military decorations from the army; officers were to be elected directly by the soldiers' soviets. 
• December: Decrees on the Church nationalised Church land and removed marriage and divorce from Church control. Nationalisation of banks ended the private flow of capital.