The public demanded the government send a commission to the goldfields to investigate the incident. Interior Minister Makarov dismissed the massacre, "So it was. So it will be."Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin, page 210 The Duma commission on the Lena massacre was headed by Alexander Kerensky. His colourful reports of the incident greatly promoted widespread knowledge of the event, and also advanced his career from a backbencher to a popular leader of the Duma, as well as head of the Provisional Government of 1917. Joseph Stalin declared: "The Lena shots broke the ice of silence, and the river of popular resentment is flowing again. The ice has broken. It has started!"Montefiore, S. S. (2007). Young Stalin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 210.
