It is the nature of revolution to replace both the symbols and substance of the discredited authority of the ancien regime. And so it was with the February, 1917 Revolution in Petrograd. The removal of the old police force was accomplished spontaneously in the last days of February as the gendarmes and city police were mercilessly pursued, arrested or shot by armed soldiers and workers. On March 2, the Minister of Interior in the newly appointed Provisional Government, S.D. Urusov, abolished the Petrograd Department of Police.2 Thus the destruction of the dreaded Tsarist police was completed within the first week of the uprising. Much more complex was creation of a replacement for the abolished civil authority. As early as February 27, rival authorities appeared in the institutions of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers'Deputies and the Temporary Committee of the Duma.3 Both took an immediate interest in police affairs, creating opposing forces to handle the problems of law and order. The Temporary Executive Committee of the Soviet appointed district commissars on the night of February 27, entrusting them with forming militia units in their respective areas of responsibility.4 The same night,