National Assembly

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of course must be to equalise rights - male workers also should have more protective laws covering their conditions, and no worker should have to work night shift. In this sense there is a common fight of men and women workers against the employers which the employers wish to prevent.

The most dangerous aspect about the two pieces of legislation is in their enforcement procedures - the industrial tribunals. These are the same tribunals as those used for unfair dismissal cases and their sole function is to separate workers off into individual cases and isolate them.

They comprise a legal expert, a CBI nominee and a TUC nominee -usually a bureaucrat nearing retirement age (the fee is £20 a day).

The odds therefore are heavily stacked against a worker from the start and anyway the tribunal can only award compensation if the case is proved against the employer - the worker is still without a job, or equal pay conditions.

The low levels of compensation and distant vague threats of criminal proceedings for going in breach of the tribunal's decision are 2225 deterests Next Saturday's National Assembly on Unemployment called by the Greater London Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions will have more than 2000 delegates in attendance.

Such bodies as the Scottish TUC, various union executives, shop stewards committees, Labour Parties and others have elected delegates.

The strong response follows on the 20,000 strong unofficial demonstration against unemployment held last year. Like last year's demonstration, the TUC has not supported and • the response comes precisely because of their lack of fight over jobs.

The organisers, however, showed at their press conference last Friday that their policies are just as bankrupt as those of the TUC. They offer no way forward to workers faced with the threat of redundencies or dosure. Dor any poles for be inemployed tem SITEL Alf Lomas, _secretary of 1 London Co-op Political Committ said: "Instead of restriction wages, demand for goods shouk increased to bring down the job total. Cuts in public expenditt should be reversed and the expr of capital should be curtailed provide money for Britai The call to "expand t economy" is precisely the way th the TUC originally argued in goi into the social contract. It is entirely reformist path and e only lead to betrayal.

The politics of the main org isers of the Assembly are those the Communist Party which using it as a safety valve to aro any fight in factories in which th dominate.

The response to the Assembly an indication of the feeling for fight. That is why it is correct attend and put forward alternati policies that give direction to tha militants who want to fight : defend jobs.

These are the irresition Jemands that WSL memban ra l Egh ting for.

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In February 1917 three days of street lighting broke Dut in Petrograd followed by a mutiny of the troops and a virtual seizure of power [betrayed only by the social democrat leaders) of the city, und soon the whole country, by the masses.

The Tsar abdicated, the provisional government and soviets were set up and the struggle between the workers and peasants DD the one hand and the bourgeoisie on the other which was to result in October in the second revolution of 1917 was set in notion. of power in October leadershin Decisive in the successful seizure was the struggle for which began in February, although in many senses, of course, it had begun long before.

"SPONTANEITY"

Liberal observers have always stressed what they saw as the ¡pontaneity of workers' actions in the February events. For Trotsky however:

"History was picking up the mads of the revolutionary threads broken by the war and tying them in a knot." "In every tavern, in the military hospital, at the transfer Nations, even in the depopulated Fillages, the molecular work of evolutionary thought was in progress... Elements of experience, ariticism, initiative, self-sacrifice, keeped down through the mass, and reated, invisibly to a superficial flance but no less decisively, an movement as a conscious process. This thought process was scientific. 'not only because it was to s sonsiderable degree fertilised with Larxism, but still more because it As ever nourishing itself on the iving experience of the masses.

The living experience of the masses in Petrograd in February 917 was sufficiently severe to have moduced a general rebelliousness nd tenseness in the city which was Larming the authorities, even bough the exact moment of the rising on the 23rd caught them, nd the left groups, by surprise.

Food and coal were in extremely bort supply, prices were rising apidly and severe restrictions had een imposed on workers' meetings ud even on their changing jobs.

On February 21st a lock-out had ten imposed at the Putilov Works Iter a section of the workers had emanded a 50% wage increase nd the next day most of the porkers there were out on strike. here was only 10 days' supply of lour left in the city, and the daily euess a mile long and four deep ere particularly outraged at the amours of rationing, the prospect f the authorities even attempting • control eating habits.

February 23rd was international romen's day and demonstrations rre planned. Striking had been scussed, but the Bolsheviks for astance had advised against it with cir women's sections mainly ecause they feared that undisciFined street fighting would ensue. • fact they were quite annoyed then in spite of this decision vomen textile workers came out in brce, sending off messengers to ther factories and soon joined by to bread queues who had been old there would be no bread that "Bread!" they shouted. "Down ith autocracy!" and "Down with * war!" as they marched on the municipal duma demanding food. 0,000 workers were on strike that my and half the Petrograd *dustrial workforce, 240,000 porters, the next. Transport was at standstill and school students on he streets. • Trotsky brilliantly describes the nevitable stage in any revolution' ben the masses began to win over soldiers. Most of the soldiers peasants of course, comesters. in reserve units straight D the countryside, with little minine. Moreover, the authorities, no mere doubtless unaware of the pale of the uprising. the Tsarina, in instance. describing the crowds orders that the crowds should not be shot at, because of the bad impression it might create on the Allies and also because of the shortage of ammunition. Also, the demands for bread appealed to the soldiers' class loyalties in a way political slogans such as "Down with the autocracy' would not. Even so, the crowds themselves approached the soldiers in a new way.

The masses tried to get near them, look into. their eyes, surround them with their hot breath. A great role is played by women workers... They go up to the cordons more boldly than the men, take hold of their rifles, beseech, almost command:

down your bayonets - join us! Even the Cossacks, 'those age-old subduers and punishers' , when ordered to charge into the demonstrators, hela theit horses steady while the masses dived under their bellies.

By the third day the city headquarters had lost contact with the greater part of the capital. Police stations had been sacked, individual officers killed, a great many had fled. At this stage the government sharpened its counter-attack. Demonstrators were fired on, 100 or so political activists arrested and there was talk of calling off the strike. 'We must lay it down as a general rule for those days that the higher the leaders, the further they lagged behind' writes Trotsky.

Only one of the revolutionary groups, the Mezhrayonka, close to the Bolsheviks, had so far even issued a leaflet. It called on workers to fraternise with soldiers and appealed to the soldiers to come over to the people. But it was at that moment that the second vital stage in the February revolution was beginning, the mutiny of the troops. Initial approaches by workers to barracks had been met by officer gunfire, but on the 27th, largely in revulsion no doubt at the shootings they had been ordered to make on the previous day when 40 demonstrators were killed and another 100 injured, the first company mutinied and shot its commander.

"Having burned their bridges behind them the Volinsti hastened to broaden the base of the insurrection" says Trotsky. They rushed off to the other barracks and were soon distributing arms, disarming the police, freeing political prisoners from gaol and spreading the revolution ot the less active parts of the city. That evening Khabaloy, the formidably empowered, but not at formidable'' military commander in Petrograd was arrested.

It was also during the 27th that the Soviet was formed, part of the Tauride Palace, the building where the Duma sat, but also close to several barracks and to the militant Vyborg district, being taken over as the revolutionary centre.

Leftist Menshevik intellectuais, realising that the uprising had virtually taken command of the city, went first to the Tauride Palace to establish a headquarters.

They were soon joined by newly released political prisoners, members of the moderate Labour Groups of the .. War Industry Committees, and formed the Provisional Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers Deputies. The Bolsheviks had always been implacably opposed to worker participation in industry - initiated by WICs. They described the Labour Groups as "lackeys of imperialism, helping war profiteers to exploit workers in the war industries."

The Bolsheviks were at that point concentrating on waging the battle of the streets with the workers and soldiers and the same was true of the Mezhrayonka (the Petrograd inter-district committee to which Trotsky belonged, These were Bolshevik in all but name, and joined with them in August 1917, possibly not before simply for security reasons. In February this group had been putting out leaflets calling "Down with the autocracy, Long live the revolutionary government, Down with the war!')

One Bolshevik, Shiyapnikov, was at the Tauride Palace, however, and he managed to delay the sitting of the Soviet until 9.30pm, in order to give the workers deputies time to be elected and to arrive.

At his suggestion the main socialist parties, the Mensheviks, the Social Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks were allowed three extra deputies. A Presidium was elected, Chkeidze (a Menshevik)K and Kerensky (a Social Revolutionary) both members of the Duma, Skoboloy (also a Menshevik), and three secretaries.

DAILY PAPER

Military and Food Commissions were appointed to protect the revolution in the city and distribute food. It was agreed to produce a daily paper Izvestiya and this responsibility fell to BonchBruevich, a Bolshevik with experience of organising a newspaper in the 1905 revolution.

In the first edition he included a Bolshevik manifesto, greatly to the anger of the Soviet leaders. It called for a provisional revolutionary government, whereas the Soviet leaders were calling for a Çonstituent Assembly.

Copies of Izvestiya were distributed all over Russia, thanks to the railway system which was kept running throughout the next few weeks as revolution seized the whole country and workers and soldiers threw out functionaries of the Tsar's government.

The telecommunications system by contrast broke down completely, causing great. confusion among the remaining old authorities.

CLOSED

The Petrograd Duma was closed on February 27th, but no reinforcementss were sent to Petrograd for several days because the Isar refused to take news of the uprising seriously. Nor did the military commanders in Petrograd act with authority to replenish supplies during the night or to build up the morale of the troops.

In fact "The fabric of the regime had completely decayed; there was not a living thread left' • says Trotsky. The generals themselves were half expecting the overthrow.

When the Tsar himself set out to Petrograd and called up additional companies, their arrival was prevented by the railway workers Chambe and insurgent soldiers.

On . one train the officers' carriage was split off from the soldiers' and left stranded while the troops were hastily told of events in Petrograd and persuaded to turn back.

Another train ran out of water, another broke down, another had to be diverted. Only on this journey, after all his generals including those on the front line had begged the Tsar to abdicate, dia he do so, on March 2nd.

Meanwhile, the bourgeois and liberal leaders who for years had been expecting the end of the Tsar's regime and who on several occasions had drawn up lists of leaders for the new government, now found themselves quite unable to act decisively.

Rodzyanko and Milyukov, president of the Duma and leaders of the Kadets respectively, were terrified of the authority of the Tsar and the fate that would befall them if he were to regain power. On the other hand they were nervous of a revolutionary overthrow by the masses and knew they themselves must take command to prevent this.

ON PLATE In fact, power was being handed to them on a plate - the workers and soldiers were coming to the Tauride calling on the Duma to take power, but they were still stalling.

Only Kerensky had gone out to welcome them, demagogically calling on them to arrest : the ministers, seize the post offices and telecommunications, occupy railway stations and government offices.

When Rodzyanko, by contrast, addressed the mutineering soldiers who were bedecked with red ribbons and proclaiming their readiness to die for the revolution to the last drop of their blood, he addressed them as "brethren" › and told them not to believe the stories that they had mutinied, rather they were patriotic soldiers asking for an efficient government to "save the motherland"

The Duma included many political tendencies, some maintaining that it should take power in the name of the Tsar, some, like Mikyulov and Rodzyanko, trying to engineer a monarchist coup d'etat Kerenskv яс Social that a republic be set up, with the Duma sharing power with the This then was the classic situation of a bourgeoisie too weak to make its own revolution, only coming to power on the shoulders of the proletariat and peasantry, in whose hands the possibility then lay of sweeping through the historical stage of bourgeois rule to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The revolution of 1905 had brought Trotsky and then Lenin to realise countries late in overthrowing feudalism and in entering the capitalist stage of development, the Marxist 'stages' of history might not be so clearly separated and rather that that change might occur in a process of permanent The difference between Trotsky and Lenin until about 1915 or so was that although Lenin saw that the bourgeoisie would need the proletariat to come to power and that bourgeois democratic rights would only be achieved under a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat, he considered that the overthrow of capitalist relations of production (and therefore the achievement of socialism) would lie well beyond that stage when industrial production was much more advanced.

He thought however that the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat would act as a great spur to revolution in the more advanced capitalist countries and that this in turn would speed up the process of historical change in Eastern Europe.

PEASANTRY

Trotsky, by contrast, argued from the beginning that permanent revolution would mean passing straight on from the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat to the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, even in an economically backward country, provided of course that the peasantry were won over to the proletariat.

By 1916 Lenin's views were changing, but his writings proclaiming the possibility of the revolution in Russia had not been seen there. There the deeply embedded assumption among all socialists was that just as the antaramı manl/ inavitahlu fall en

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• REVOLUTIOI C 0: 10-1 *k8:*******= established, however important a role the proletariat and peasantry played in that.

How deeply held these beliefs were became clear from Lenin's position of total isolation, particularly among intellectuals, on his return to Petrograd and in his fight within the Bolshevik Party for the acceptance of the April Theses, which repudiated the call for a parliamentary republic and called instead for a republic of soviets of workers, tarm workers and peasants.

These orthodox views of historical change were certainly strongly held by the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries who were in the leadership of the petrograd Soviet. These "leaders" , in their petty bourgeois fashion, were actually terrified the independent power of the working class.

CRUMBLING

Despite the obvious crumbling of the autocracy; despite the obvious incompetence and indecisiveness of the liberals and bourgeoisie; despite the obvious strength of the workers and soldiers who were in virtual command of the city, occupying the state bank, the Treasury, the Mint and the Post Office, these leaders of the soviet (which was the only body from which the main sectors of workers and soldiers would take orders) were "looking around with alarm to see if they could find a real boss!"

As Trotsky says, they were "The petty bourgeois democrats and socialists of the Sukhanov type, journalists and politicians of the new middle caste, who had taught the masses that the bourgeoisie is the enemy but themselves feared more than anything else to release the masses from the control of that enemy."

On March 1st when the leaders of the Soviet met with the Duma committee to discuss the conditions under which the soviets would accept the new provisional government, the true extent to which they would betray the masses was revealed.

TERRIFIED

Milyukov was terrified by the demands he assumed the Soviet would make; he and all the members of the Duma were quite expecting to be arrested by the Soviet any moment.

But he found himself faced by Petrograd, an equally fearful set of representatives, who made no mention of the main demands workers had been rallying around throughout the wat and indeed long before that: the 8-hour day, land reform, peace, the republic.

The only demands put were for freedom of political action for political parties, including an amnesty for political prisoners. I he calling of an elected Constituent Assembly was also agreed to, but no date fixed.

No wonder Milyukoy looked relieved and pleased as these leaders gave their agreement that he should now proclaim the establishment of the Provisional Government 'with the agreement of the Soviet' on such minimal demands! No doubt he was also delighted when Kerensky, who regarded himself as the paladin of the revolution (and who had declared he would only maintain his seat on the Duma if doing so did not conflict with his position as president of the Soviet, although he never attended it, agreed to be made Milyukov's 2029: 33 Новобу: 30 WE 35:1 Chkeidze Minister of Justice.

Thus the Duma was given a 'left' cover. For despite his revolutionary talk Kerensky was an out and out reformist. He believed that Socialists should take part in the Duma so that all shades of political opinion would tind expression at the centre of the government, that the Soviet should act as a watchdog over the Duma and only assume control if necessary.

Chkeidze by contrast refused a ministerial post at the direction of the executive committee of the Soviet who voted 13:8 that socialists should remain unhampered by belonging to bourgeois organisations to fight for the next stage of 178. 23 . - se Lenin revolutionary change, and that the only participation of socialists at this stage should rest in winning certain guarantees.

By accepting the Provisional Government on these terms, Trotsky says, "The Compromisers betrayed the confidence of the masses by calling to power those against whom they themselves had been elected."

ALLIANCE

In effect the Social Revolutionaries, whose main base lay in the peasantry and therefore in the army and the soldier delegates to the Soviet, formed an alliance with the landlords on the question of land, and the Mensheviks, who predominated among workers' representatives, formed a block with the industrialists and with bankers.

"In voting for such leaders the proletariat and peasantry erected a partition wall between themselves and their own aims. They could not move forward at all without knocking into this wall erected by, themselves and knocking it over. Thus it was that with official support of the Soviet (only 15 out of 900 or so delegates voted against the Soviet-Duma agreement), the Russian Government declared its promise to 'unswervingly carry out the agreements with our allies" Tsarist officials were left at their posts so as not to offend anyone unnecessarily; and Rasputin ministers, although in prison, were voted a pension.

The workers and soldiers of Petrograd, although seriously impeded, were not confined to the cowardly betrayals of the Soviet leaders. There was great anger when the Soviet appointed Military Commissioner, Mstislavsky, agreed to merge his command with that of Colonel Engelhardt who had been appointed by the Duma.

To some extent there was an alliance of interest between the Duma and the Soviet in that both were frightened of the danger of Tsarist units being kept from the front and also of the officers in Petrograd organising resistance to the new order. There was therefore a common interest in disciplining the soldiers, who on February 27th and 28th were still ransacking and setting fire to police stations, courts and government buildings.

THREATS

Colonel Engelhardt issued a warning, which included the threat of executions, against officers confiscating arms from soldiers and the Duma agreed to a pledge from the Soviet that no units should be transferred out of Petrograd.

The soldiers themselves were not satisfied with these "guarantees" however and marched to the Duma demanding the signing of an order which would give them not just the same political rights as civilians but also the right to elect their own officers. When refused this by the Duma they marched to the Soviet where their demands, General Order No.l, were adopted, This order was included in Izvestiya as a supplement and consequently distributed and used as a model throughout Russia. So strong was the pressure from the garrisons that the Soviet was forced to accept it or lose support and thus, against the inclinations of the Soviet leaders themselves, was set up an irreconcilable conflict between the Soviet and the Duma.

On March 5th the Soviet began to call for an end of the strike and a return to work. Workers however, led by the Vyborg district, refused to do so unless on the basis of an 8-hour day and increased pay, and extended the strike for 20 days until March 25th.

DIRECT TALKS

This forced the Soviet to negotiate directly with the employers over the heads of teh Duma and the demands were won. Contrary, therefore, to the demands of the reformist Menshevik and Social Revolutionary leaderships that the Soviet should act as a watchdog and pressure group on the Duma interpreting the will of the masses to the government, a state of dual power existed in which the masses were by their own independent action forcing fundamental changes.

The Bolsheviks, only a handful whose Petrograd central executive committee were in the city at the time of these events, were at first weakly represented on the Their influence had been much greater than their numbers indicate however and they had considerable strength in the Vyborg district, for instance, the working class district from which the uprising had started. It was the Bolsheviks who in the first three days of street fighting had opposed the call to arms of the masses, arguing rather that to prevent confrontation between soldiers and workers, soldiers should be called on to hand over their arms.

The part played by Shlyapnikov in ensuring greater worker participation and also the representation of soldiers on the Soviet and the part played by Bonch-Bruevich in using Izvestiya to circulate throughout Russia both the Bolshevik manifesto and the soldiers' General Order No.1, have already been mentioned.

The Bolshevik manifesto which was probably written by the Vyborg District Committee a few days earlier before Milyukov's Provisional Government was formed, called on the working class and the revolutionary army to create a provisional revolutionary government and to nationalise land, win the 8-hour day and call for a Constituent Assembly, on the fourpoint formula of direct, equal, secret and universal ballot and for "merciless struggle'.

FURIOUS

No wonder the Soviet leaders were furious when this document was reproduced in Izvestiya without discussion But the fact that nothing was done to recall it or move Bonch-Bruevich from his position also showed the popularity of such demands. When on March 2nd only 15 Soviet delegates voted against the Soviet-Duma agreement some of the Bolsheviks proposed starting a new uprising of the workers' boroughs against the The leaders agreed, but on the appointed day failed to appear.

The Bolsheviks also passed a resolution describing the government as "at bottom counterrevolutionary and with which no agreement could be reached".Some Bolsheviks were calling 'All Power to the Soviets' , Whereas others, such as Shlyapnikov, were advocatINB?, like many Mensheviks, that socialists should seize power without installing socialism immediately. Some, like BonchBruevich, were adopting a nationaldefencist position on the war.

CONFLICT

There clearly was a conflict within the Bolsheviks between the party in the Vyborg district which was demanding 'All Power to the Soviets' and the leadership of the central committee. The first issue Pravda announced, «The fundamental problem is to establish a democratic government" , clearly leaving the struggle for socialism as a separate and later goal.

When Kamenev and Stalin arrived from Siberia and assumed control of the Party and of Pravda, official Bolshevism • lurched even further to the right. Under them even outright opposition ot the war, always an unshakeable plank of the party before, was dropped. Instead, they called on the Provisional Government to: *make an attempt to induce the warring countries to open immediate negotiations ... and until then every, man remains at his fighting post.

INDIGNATION

These positions caused bewilderment and indignation in the factories where workers demanded the resignation of the editors from Siberia. Kameney's and Stalin's policies were also in direct conflict with the telegram sent by Lenin on March 6th: 'Our tactic: absolute lack of confidence; no support to the new government; suspect Kerensky especially; immediate elections to the Petrograd Duma;

rapprochement with other parties.'.

By contrast, Kamenev's view was "What purpose to speed things up when events are taking place at such a rapid rate?" These questions of leadership and perspective had to be fought out to pave the way for the October revolution.

Kerensky

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