Meanwhile, simultaneously with the uprising, a General Congress of the Soviets of all Russia convened. When Trotzky had stated that there was no intention to take over the powers of the government, he had spoken only for the Petrograd Soviet. This Congress was responsible for the more ambitious program. Of the 560 members of the Congress, 250 were Bolsheviki, 150 Social Revolutionists, 60 were Minimalists, or Socialists of the Kerensky type, while the rest belonged to the various other minor radical groups. The order of business for the Congress was: First--Organization of Power. Second--Peace and War. Third--A Constituent Assembly. Among the officers elected were Lenine and Trotzky. The Minimalists immediately presented a motion proposing a working compromise with the Kerensky Government, but this was voted down. The general result of the first session of the Congress was approval of the action of the Petrograd Soviet and the declaration of a new revolutionary government through the Congress. The Bolshevist element were triumphant, completely so. CHAPTER XVII THE SIEGE OF THE WINTER PALACE The new government was not to gain control without some fighting, however. When the forces of the Soviet attempted to take possession of the Winter Palace, the headquarters of the Kerensky Government, they found the building in possession of a military force determined to give some resistance. Among the troops stationed here was the Women's Regiment, the Death Battalion, whose fame had been spread all over the world. The women immediately surrendered without firing a shot. It seems highly probable that this body was never intended for fighting, and that its surrender was with the full consent of the defenders within the building. The women were marched off and later disarmed; then the fighting began. Within the square before the palace were stacked great quantities of firewood. Behind these woodpiles the Bolshevist forces immediately took shelter and opened up a steady fire at the windows of the palace. Eventually, later in the night, the defenders of the Winter Palace surrendered. Next day the bullet-spattered palace, the only visible sign of the revolution, drew vast throngs of the populace to the vicinity of the structure. On the Nevsky Prospect, where machine guns and armored cars and infantry had been massed were to be seen only the usual moving throng of pedestrians, among whom might be seen an occasional bandaged soldier or sailor, who had been wounded during the fight. Of the defenders of the Winter Palace about thirty had been killed or wounded, while the forces of the Soviet had lost only one sailor killed and several were wounded.