1898 map of Petrograd, the Russian capital, Kronstadt Bay, and the Russian naval base of Kronstadt, from a German atlas. Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on Kronstadt Bay, an extension of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Kronstadt was an important naval base. North and east of central Petrograd was the Vyborg district, site of many factories and housing for workers.
"On June 16 when the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets met in Petrograd under the presidency of Chkheidze, the delegates (248 Mensheviks, 285 Social Revolutionaries and 105 Bolsheviks) gave their approval for a new offensive against Germany and Austria. The Bolsheviks of course voted against the resolution, but they were shouted down, and Lenin in particular was met with jeers."
Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky returned to Petrograd on June 14, 1917 after a three-week tour of the Russian Front to attend the All-Russian Congress of Soviet and Front Line Organizations. Since the February Revolution, the Russian army, which had suffered mutiny, enormous numbers of desertions, and incidents of officers being killed by their men, was beginning to stabilize as the Congress began, with increased support for the Provisional Government and for waging war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Vladimir Lenin was utterly opposed to the war. Many other Bolsheviks supported the war, but not the offensive that would soon begin.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 199, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
1917-06-16, 1917, June, Alexander Kerensky, Kerensky, Vladimir Lenin, Lenin, All-Russian Congress of Soviet and Front Line Organizations, All-Russian Congress of Soviets, All-Russian Congress, Petrogr
