The establishment of control

• Civil servants refused to serve under Bolsheviks and bankers refused to provide finance. Took 10 days to persuad the state bank to provide its reserves, by armed itervention.
• After his hasty departure, Kerensky had set up headquarters at Gatchina and rallied an army comprising 18 Cossack regiments and a small force of SR cadets and officers. Against this threat, the Bolsheviks looked weak. 
• Many of the Petrograd garrison had returned to their homes in the countryside, and since Lenin had no direct contact with troops at the front, his forces were smaller in number than those of his opponents. There were ten days of fighting in Moscow between those who remained loyal to the Provisional Government and the Bolshevik revolutionaries. 
• The railway and communications workers also went on strike in protest against the emergence of a one-party government. 
• This forced Lenin to agree to inter-party talks and, thanks to Bolshevik agitators who persuaded some of Kerensky's troops to defect, and a contingent of workers and soldiers who repulsed the rest on the outskirts of the city, the Bolshevik Revolution was saved.
• By the end of the year the Bolsheviks dominated the major towns and railways, although large areas of countryside were still outside their control.
• Lenin's promise to consider coalition with the other socialist parties was barely fulfilled.