When Kerensky fled Petrograd and then Russia following the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution, Dukhonin became de facto Supreme Commander, albeit of an army that was rapidly disintegrating, and over which he exercised very little control.

Lenin immediately proceeded to a wireless station and broadcast news of Dukhonin's dismissal as Commander-in-Chief and Krylenko's replacement in his stead.

The following day a joint note was issued by the military missions of Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Romania, citing the Treaty of 23 August 1914 by which the allies agreed not to conclude an armistice except by common consent.

According to the account of the former colonel Andrew Kalpashnikoff, a mob of soldiers and sailors bayoneted him to death on the spot on order of Red Army officer Pavel Dybenko.

[4][page needed] Kalpashnikoff also states that the next morning the Bolshevik soldiers and sailors amused themselves by using his (now stripped naked) corpse for target practice, which they had placed on the platform with a cigarette in its mouth.