Now began the troubled career of the new Russian republic. The Council of Workingmen and Soldiers, under whose direct supervision the fighting forces of the old regime had been overcome and the revolution organized, and which represented just those elements which the Duma did not represent on account of the restrictive election laws, felt its right to exist beside the Duma, possessing at least an equal authority. Thus the new governing forces started under very peculiar conditions, with a double head. The Council immediately issued a proclamation inviting the communities all over Russia to elect local councils, which might send their delegates to Petrograd to associate themselves with the deputies elected by the workingmen and soldiers of the capital. Another of the first acts of the Provisional Government was to order the liberation of all the political prisoners of the old regime, especially those in Siberia, and to invite all exiles abroad to return home. The return of some of these political exiles roused quite as much enthusiasm and popular demonstration as had the overthrow of the autocracy itself. The progress of Catherine Breshkovskaya, the "grandmother of the Russian revolution," from Siberia to Petrograd was almost like the progress of a conquering general. She had been one of the original Nihilists in the seventies and since then had spent most of her life in Siberia. All Petrograd turned out to welcome the popular heroine, now a feeble old woman, and she was officially received at the railroad station by Kerensky and other members of the Government in the old Imperial waiting rooms, where formerly only members of the Imperial family had been permitted to enter. Outside in the streets surged crowds of fur-capped people as far as the eye could reach, waving red banners and revolutionary emblems. Now and again a roar of voices chanting the Marseillaise would sweep back and forth over the throngs. Within the station the walls were banked with flowers and festooned with red bunting and inscriptions addressed to the returning heroine. However, this incident occurred later, already a great deal had been accomplished.