In 1917 he participated in the February Revolution and was a member of the Bolsheviks Gelsingfors Committee, one of founders and a member of the Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet (Tsentrobalt). During the October Revolution, Khovrin was a commissar of the Tsentrobalt, participated in the assault of the Winter Palace, destroying the Kerensky–Krasnov uprising, and was a member of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. On 13 November 1917 he led his sailors to crush anti-Bolshevik resistance in Moscow.