Every one of these attempts at secession was marked by riots, murders and excesses of every kind. A report from Kirsanoff, a city that wanted last June to be a republic all by itself, told of a garrison of soldiers who broke loose, fell on the inhabitants of the town, robbed and murdered them, outraged women, burned houses, looted shops and generally behaved like maddened animals. There seemed to be no reason why the soldiers, who had previously behaved like decent men, should have been seized with sudden criminal mania. Liberty simply acted on their systems like a deadly drug. It was the same thing in Kronstadt, only in Kronstadt they developed a drug habit, so to speak. This fortified town of some 60,000 inhabitants is situated at the mouth of the Neva on the Gulf of Finland. The fortress of Kronstadt, which dominates the town, in normal times constitutes one of the chief defenses of Petrograd, a few miles up the river. The Gulf of Kronstadt, on which the fortress stands, is the chief station of the Baltic fleet. With a strong garrison, a fleet of battleships and a well-organized Bolsheviki, Kronstadt was able for many weeks to defy the Provisional Government, to maintain what it called a government of its own, and to commit more horrible crimes and more stupid excesses than almost any other place in Russia. Murder on a wholesale scale marked the progress of the revolution in the fortress and on the battleships. More than a score of young officers in training were killed in the fortress in one day last spring. They were not even arrested and tried on any charges. They were just butchered. A number of other officers were killed, including the commandant and vice-commandant of the fortress, and other officers were thrown into cells and kept there for months without even the farce of a trial. Kronstadt set up a republic in late May and by mid-June the orgy was in full swing. The civil population looted and robbed, and the soldiers and marines aided and abetted them heartily. Once a band of looters sacking a warehouse were arrested by the militia police after a lively shooting match and put in jail. Cases where the militia actually arrested thieves were so rare in Russia last summer that this one received considerable newspaper publicity. The papers were obliged to record that, a few hours after the men were arrested, a crowd of armed soldiers and sailors demanded the liberation of the prisoners. Of course their demands were honored.