During the last days of November, 1917, the press dispatches seemed to indicate the possibility of a counter-revolution against the Bolsheviki within a very brief time. It was reported that the more conservative elements were organizing and were preparing to assert themselves. Much significance especially was attached to the action of the Cossack General Kaledine, who had declared the territory of his people, in the south of Russia, an independent state with headquarters at Rostov. It was said that he controlled the coal fields of Russia and would be able to force the Bolsheviki to terms economically. But subsequent events seem to indicate that these dispatches pictured the hopes of their senders, rather than actual facts, for gradual recognition of the authority of the Lenine-Trotzky Government was spreading and deepening. By the first days of December, 1917, the Bolsheviki were in full control of army headquarters, at Mogilev. General Dukhonin did, indeed, protest their authority, but obviously he had no support from the rank and file of his men, for the Bolsheviki, under Abram Krylenko, their new military chief, took possession without bloodshed. General Dukhonin himself was killed, under circumstances described by Krylenko himself in his official report, as follows: "I cannot be silent on the sad act of lynch law practiced upon the former highest commander in chief, General Dukhonin. Popular hatred surpassed the limits of reason, and in spite of all attempts to save him, he was thrown out of a railroad train at the Mogilev station and killed. The flight of General Kornilov, the day before the fall of headquarters, was the cause of this excess. I cannot allow the banner of the revolution to be stained, and it is necessary strongly to condemn such acts. A revolutionary people are fearful in a struggle, but they should be soft after victory." The tendency of the old Russian Empire to break up into separate and independent territories, or nationalities, which had been manifesting itself even during the days of the Kerensky régime, now showed itself in its full course. As already stated, the Bolshevist program was favorable to this tendency as a matter of fundamental principle, therefore no effort was made to check it, other than to give support to the Bolshevist elements in the seceded territories. On the outbreak of the revolution a committee had been elected by the Soviets in Kiev, the metropolis of Little Russia, or the Ukraine, to "safeguard the revolution." The military staff in Kiev attempted to suppress this organization, but troops arriving from the Galician front upheld the committee and the military staff was forced to flee. Thereupon all power, civil and military, was vested in this committee.