By Tatyana Shvetsova
A Democratic Conference got under way in Petrograd on September 14th,
1917 to agree the principles of national governance until the calling of
a Constituent Assembly. The Conference was also to decide on a new Cabinet
lineup. The Social revolutionaries were in a majority at the Conference.
The Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin tried to persuade his companions-in-arms
to forgo the attendance and get ready with an armed revolt. But at first
it was moderate Bolsheviks who got the upper hand, and they hoped they
would be able to come to power peacefully. But Lenin had succeeded in winning his fellow-members over to his side by the middle of October, and the party Central Committee took the decision on preparing an armed uprising. In his letter to the Central Committee of the Russian Bolshevik Party “Marxism and Insurrection” Lenin wrote that to be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class, upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people…, upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. However, historian Pyotr Deinichenko points out that …“by then the workers had lost much of their barricade-related frenzy. But the way the Bolsheviks felt about it, a revolution without a proletarian insurrection would prove defective. So the Bolsheviks had to play on the patriotic sentiment”. Historian Oleg Platonov elaborates on just how the Bolsheviks exploited that sentiment: “Lenin’s functionaries, supported by German secret agents, were spreading the rumour that the German troops were about to capture Petrograd. The Bolshevik provocateurs proclaimed themselves “patriots” and said they planned to make it easier to defend the city.” On October 9th the Chairman of the Petrograd Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ deputies Leon Trotsky announced the formation of a Military-Revolutionary Committee under the Council. This enabled the Bolsheviks to assume control over some 40 (of the 180) military units, deployed in Petrograd, and over some 220 industrial production facilities. The approximate date of an armed uprising was timed for an All-Russia Congress of Soviets that was due to get under way on October 25th. Historian Oleg Platonov writes this in a comment on the Bolsheviks’ preparations for an armed uprising: “The Military-Revolutionary Council, which was secretly stockpiling weapons for a power-seizing attack, came up with a downright lie in a statement that so-called “counterrevolutionary elements” allegedly conspired against the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, the Constituent Assembly and against the people. The Bolshevist Military-Revolutionary Council used the idea of a non-existent conspiracy to intimidate the masses of people and dispatched special commissars to military units, major industrial production facilities and the critical points of Petrograd. The commissars were vested with unlimited powers to try Russian people and declare null and void any orders by local administration and military commanders if such orders should run counter to the orders of Bolshevik chiefs. These commissars enjoyed all-out immunity, while any insubordination was punishable under “the military-revolutionary laws”. The Bolshevik commissars were thus setting up their dictatorial power on the basis of anarchy and tyranny, a power that came to be used as the main instrument of the Vladimir Lenin-led party”. Historian Leonid Katsva pointed out that “…although the Provisional Government was aware of the moves by the Bolsheviks, it was too weak militarily to crush them and looked to the frontline units for help.” Besides, Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky was certain that the Petrograd garrison remained loyal to the Provisional Government. This was his fatal flaw, says historian Pyotr Deinichenko, and elaborates: “On October 21st the city garrison defected to the Military-Revolutionary Committee. For an order to be carried out now, it was first to be approved by the Committee in question. Kerensky’s demands that this directive should be cancelled were just ignored.” In the early hours of October 24th Kerensky ordered the closure of the Bolshevik printing-house and asked for reinforcements to be sent to Petrograd. But the Bolsheviks recaptured their printing-house, while the military units that defected to them assumed control over the bridges and other important facilities. It was then that the Bolshevik party Central Committee convened at the Smolny Institute building to agree a plan of action. The very next day the Smolny Institute turned into the venue for a Congress of Soviets. Late on October 24th the Bolshevist Red Guards and several military units, acting allegedly on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, easily seized bridges, the central post office, the telegraph and the railway stations. It was only the Winter Palace that the Provisional Government remained in control of.
“The Provisional Government has been overthrown. The Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies has assumed power… The soldiers and workers who have unanimously been up in arms have won without spilling any blood… The Committee appeals to the frontline military units and the people in the country’s hinterland not to yield to provocations, but support the Petrograd Soviet and new revolutionary government, one that will immediately come up with a fair peace offer, will hand over land to peasants and will call a Constituent Assembly. The local Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies have also taken power.” When Vladimir Lenin addressed the session of the Petrograd Soviet in the second part of that day, October 25th, he said that the revolution of workers and peasants, the need for which the Bolsheviks had long since been pointing out, had finally triumphed. At night, at 22.40, the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets met in Petrograd. As historian Oleg Platonov elaborates on who had come to attend and who the delegates represented, he writes this: “…Of the 649 delegates to the Congress, Bolsheviks, mostly non-Russians, made up 492, a clear majority. But they represented the interests of no more than 10% to 15% of Russia’s population… The deputies voted for the resolution that had been drafted by Vladimir Lenin and that transferred all power to the Soviets. And since it was the Bolsheviks who controlled the Soviets, it was natural that the political party on the receiving end was the Bolshevik party. That’s the way the Bolsheviks usurped power over the Russian people.” The Congress of the Soviets was in full swing when the cruiser “Aurora”, which was at anchor on the Neva river, fired several blank shots at the Winter Palace, the residence of the Provisional Government in those days. The salvoes signalled to several hundred sailors, workers and soldiers that they should charge at the Winter Palace defenders. And so they did and rushed into the majestic building without meeting any major resistance. The Provisional Government Ministers were arrested at 2 a.m., but Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky had left the city before to muster up support elsewhere. Historian Oleg Platonov offers the following details: “The larger part of the Provisional Government had scattered by then. All who the Bolsheviks seized were several minor politicians, all of them freemasons, who were incarcerated without delay in the Trubetskoi Bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress, only to be released a while later.” Meanwhile, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries protested to the Congress of Soviets against the coup d’etat and staged a walkout. Following the move the Congress approved the resolution on the handover of all power to the Bolshevik-controlled Soviets. Then on October 26th the deputies adopted the Decree on Peace and the
Decree on Land. The Decree on Peace clearly targeted those fighting in the First World War, suggesting that all the fighting nations and their governments should immediately start talks to negotiate fair and democratic peace. When saying “fair and democratic” they meant a peace treaty without annexations or indemnities. Historian Pyotr Deinichenko points out that the Decree on Peace caused Russia’s Entente allies to refuse to recognize the Bolshevik Government, while Germany and Austro-Hungary gave to understand that they were prepared to enter into negotiations with the new Russian Government. Under the Decree on Land all land in Russia was proclaimed national property, and any private ownership of land was abolished. From then on one was to till the land on one’s own, since hiring farmhands was banned. According to Pyotr Deinichenko, the Decree on Land actually legalized the practice of land-seizure that had taken shape. “The Decree on Land sought to explode the century-old system of land ownership,” historian Oleg Platonov comments on the subject. “The Royal Family, Russia’s ruling class, the nobility and also the Russian Orthodox Church were deprived of the right to land ownership by a dash of the pen. The Bolshevik-controlled local Soviets assumed control of the land. The Lenin-led party had thus acquired a powerful instrument of influencing the peasantry, while simultaneously blowing up the foundation of the Russian ruling class life safety and abolishing this class altogether.” On October 26th the Cossack Ataman Alexei Kaledin said that he was assuming all power in the Don river area and ordered the local Soviets to be broken up. On the same day in Petrograd the Bolshevik enemies joined the Fatherland and Revolution Salvation Committee, which comprised moderate Socialist parties and influential trade unions of railwaymen and postal and telegraph office employees. But the new government did succeed in crushing the attempt to rise up against the Bolsheviks in Petrograd.
Historian Felix Razumovsky said this in a televised program about the bombardment of the Kremlin: “The developments of October 1918 in Moscow were indeed impressive and proved a tough answer to the question, who the Bolsheviks were and what they could do.” The Bolsheviks brought the Moscow Kremlin under artillery fire on October 31st. Two days later an unusual delegation was seen heading for the so-called Military-Revolutionary Committee for talks with the Bolsheviks: two peasants were carrying white flags with red crosses on them. They were followed by two priests, two bishops and metropolitan Platon, all carrying the Gospel, a cross and an icon. That was the delegation of a Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Council that only the day before had taken the historic decision on restoring the Patriarchate in Russia. Some soldiers who were clearly in a state of intoxication detained the Council envoys in one of Moscow squares. The soldiers had little, if any, respect for the cloth, for the sacred things the clergymen were carrying. They met the deputation with foul language and said only metropolitan Platon would be allowed to have talks with the Bolsheviks. But there were no talks actually. The soldiers sent one of their fellow-servicemen to escort metropolitan Platon. The comrade was clearly annoyed when the metropolitan appealed for sparing the Kremlin shrines and saving them. To get rid of the metropolitan quickly, the soldier pledged an end to the shelling on the very same day. But his pledge was not worth a brass farthing. “At 17.00 on November 2nd the warring parties signed a cease-fire, and in the next two hours the cadets moved from the Kremlin to a military school,” historian Felix Razumovsky says. “And right after that the Bolsheviks delivered the most horrible strike at the Kremlin since they first attacked it three days before. One shell pierced through the Assumption Cathedral dome drum, while several others blew up in the Patriarch’s vestry. The artillery barrage destroyed much of the Kremlin walls, while numerous rifle bullets pierced through the above-the-gate icons. The Saviour Tower chiming clock was damaged, with piles of wreckage and broken church plates scattered around, and nearby buildings looking at one with the hollows of their windows… Russian Army officers and military cadets laid down arms in Moscow and made for the Cossack chief Kaledin, in the Don area, to set up a White Movement and raise an army.” Meanwhile, in Petrograd the troops under General Krasnov, acting on appeal by Alexander Kerensky, moved in to crush the Bolsheviks. But on November 1st Bolshevist agitators succeeded in winning them over to their side. Alexander Kerensky fled, while General Krasnov was arrested. “Much to Lenin’s surprise all state employees and experts refused to cooperate with the Bolsheviks,” historian Pyotr Deinichenko writes. “None of the employees was going to comply with the Bolsheviks’ numerous decrees. In Moscow factory employees denounced Bolshevism as a social-revolutionary utopia. University students and employees in major cities were pressing for calling a Constituent Assembly. Nonetheless, by November 1st Bolsheviks had taken power in many of Russia’s big cities. The elections to the Constituent Assembly did take place in the middle of November. Taking part were some 50 political parties and almost a half of those who’d been put on the voting lists, that’s about 45 million people. The Social Revolutionaries polled more than 55% of the votes. The Bolsheviks had a mere 22.5% to their credit. The bourgeois parties proved most popular with the urban voters. The Bolsheviks’ positions proved the weakest in the industrially developed provinces of Ukraine and in the Cossack-populated areas.” This is what Pyotr Deinichenko thinks of the situation in Russia in late 1917: “In late 1917 no political party in Russia wielded real power. In some areas the pre-revolutionary bodies of government were still active, remote areas and the ethnic groups on the outskirts of the country set up their own governments. Although the country was in a state of war, no fighting was actually under way. The embittered soldiers deserted from the frontline to their homes, very often with their weapons, and were prepared to wipe out anybody they did not like… The so-called All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to fight counter-revolution was set up on the initiative of one of the Bolshevik leaders Felix Dzerzhinsky on December 7th. The Commission was actually political police. It proved inefficient in fighting crime, but then that was not its top priority.” The looming winter looked like it would exacerbate starvation, so all
that Russians could expect in the new year of 1918 was more of the dreadful
ordeal they’d already been enduring.
11/24/2005
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In
the morning of October 25th the Petrograd Military-Revolutionary Committee
made public an appeal to the frontline units and people in the country’s
hinterland under the title of “The Revolution Has Triumphed”. The document
said this, among other things:
But
in Moscow it took the Bolsheviks a few days of artillery barrage to knock
their enemies, military cadets, out of the Kremlin.
