 This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed.Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace, and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser "Aurora", controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired on the building.