The Russian Ct‹

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The witch-hunting of the Bol•sheviks after the July Days now counted for nought. It was the Pro• visional Government which had ordered another offensive; it was ¡the Provisional Government which i refused to carry the revolution forward to the overthrow of capitalism and the solution of the food and land problems; it was the Provisional Government with its capitalist ministers which was seen to have opened the way up for the Kornilov revolt, the success of which the capitalists alone had stood to gain by.

The enormous pressure which built up in the working class, therefore, led to the downfall of the government. Kerensky was forced to form a Directorate of five to try and form a new government because the Social Revolutionaries refused to let him lead a government which included capitalist ministers.

URGENT The most urgent task facing the compromisers and their capitalist backers in the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary parties, was to channel the increased militancy of the working class away from independent mobilisation and back onto the path of bourgeois "democracy"

The Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets, still under the domination of the Mensheviks and SRs therefore called on popular organisations to send delegates to a Democratic Conference to meet in Petrograd in September.

In the meantime, the Bolsheviks won control of the . Soviets in Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and many other cities.

The response of the Executive Committee was to alter the representation of the various delegations to the Democratic Conference in favour of the more conservative groups.

Despite this, the first decision of the Conference on the question of government was to call for coalition without the Cadets (the capitalist party).

DIFFICULTY

It was only with the greatest difficulty that Kerensky was able to persuade the Conference to reverse this decision.

Tre Bosteriks had participated in tis Costeresce in order to expose 2e::= or he Compromisers. but Let himself was growing wrote two letters to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party urging the leadership to prepare the seizure of power.

Describing the Democratic Conference as representing. "not a majority of the revolutionary people but only the compromising upper strata of the petty bourgeoisie" Lenin insisted that:

"The point is to make the task clear to the party. The present task must be an armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow (with its reg ion), the seizing of power and the overthrow of the government"

DIFFERENCES

Pointing in his second letter to the essential differences between July and the present period, Lenin argued that while the objective conditions for seizing power did not exist in July, that was no longer the case in September.

The vanguard of the working class had now swung behind the Bolsheviks as demonstrated by their dor inant position in the main Soviets; a revolutionary upsurge was developing throughout the countryside; the once united "Allies" were now wavering between a war to the victorious finish and a separate peace directed against Russia, while the petty-bourgeoisie, under the pressure of the masses had begun to vacillate.

Lenin ended his letter with a call to the Bolshevik faction in the Democratic Conference to present a declaration demanding the transfer of the power to the revolutionary proletariat.

The Bolshevik group should then leave the Conference and go to the factories and barracks, where, closer to the masses, they could then determine the right moment to start the insurrection.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Conference agreed to set up an advisory parliament, the Council of the Republic, also known as the Pre-Parliament.

At the same time, the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets postponed the date of the next All Russian Congress of Soviets which they should have convened in September, three months after the first Congress.

The Central Executive Committe was still dominated by the compromisers, and having seen the most important Soviets in Russia pass into the hands of the Boishevik troops a Congress which was convene likely to give the Bolsheviks a majority.

If Lenin had had his doubts about the participation of the Bolsheviks in the Democratic Conference, he had no doubt but that they should completely boycott the Pre-Parliament.

It was one thing to participate in such gatherings when the revolution was in retreat and it was necessary to use all methods available to commence propaganda work among the masses.

TRAP But in September 1917 the situation was quite the opposite. Such gatherings were nothing more than a trap which kept revolutionaries listening to speeches when the revolution was in danger and only the revolutionary actions of the working class could save it.

In this view, Lenin was supported by Trotsky. Now released from. prison and once more elected the President of the Petrograd Soviet, but this time as a Bolshevik, Trotsky himself led the Bolshevik faction out of the Pre-Parliament amidst cries from the compromisers about German gold and the sealed train.

But the Cadet Miliukov observed:

"They (the Bolsheviks) spoke and acted like people feeling a power behind them, knowing that the morrow belonged to them"

Once the Bolsheviks had withdrawn, the Pre-Parliament settled down to discuss the question of the war, a discussion rendered all the more urgent as a result of the setbacks being daily inflicted on the Russian army and navy.

The Cadets and the right-wing demanded that the army be compelled to fight; the left argued that it should be convinced of the need to fight.

When it came to a vote, neither side could obtain a majority.

"To reconvince the army was difficult", , rotsky points out, "but to compel it was impossible".

Hence the deadlock.

The Baltic Fleet in the meantime sent a telegram to the Central Executive Committee effectively calling for the removal of Kerensky, and immediately began to hold up government freight.

When Kerensky threatened to arrest the Soviet commissars, the Regional Committee of the fleet accepted the challenge. Kerensky declined ot make a move.

The situation in the Baltic Fleet was nothing short of insurrectionary. A similar state of affairs was also developing within the army where fraternisation, which had virtually ceased since July, once most hated officers were arrested or murdered.

The withdrawal of the Bolshevik Party from the Pre-Parliament marked a turning point in the revolutionary crisis gripping Russia. On all sides it was recognised that this move represented the first step on the road to armed insurrection.

For the decision to withdraw, Lenin was chiefly responsible. Constantly concerned at the refusal of the Central Committee to support his demand for armed insurrection, he continued to argue against any further delay and appealed to the party rank and file over the question of the Pre-Parliament.

Immediately the Bolsheviks stepped up their agitation throughout the country which resulted in the increasing Bolshevisation of the masses. Each and every one of the organisations of the working class was being confronted with the one question: which class is to rule?

Increasingly, workers in their factories decided that the best means of regulating their relations with the government was through the Soviet. As the task of seizing power grew closer, so workers turned their attention in a concrete way to the problems of industry.

Workers in the armaments factories established a special centre for the study of methods of transition from the manufacture of munitions to peaceful production; the Moscow conference of factory and shop committees declared that in future all strikes should be settled by a decree of the local Soviet, thus establishing Soviet power over the capitalists.

The All-Russian conference of factory committees meeting early in October passed a resolution stating that:

«The workers are more interested than the owners in the correct and uninterrupted operation of the plants. Workers control......is in the interest of the whole country and ought to be supported by the revolutionary peasantry and the revolutionary army"

Day by day the government of the soviets grew, as capitalists began to sabotage the war effort in an attempt to discredit the revolution and the factory committees stepped in and took control of the factories.

IMPATIENT

The enormous growth of support for the Bolsheviks which was finally cemented in the struggle for the calling of the Congress of the Soviets, now set for October 20th, had made Lenin even mote impatient for the start of the insurrection.

Trotsky argued that the insurrection should be timed to coincide with the start of the Congress of that the nawer rould immediately be offered to the Soviets. But Lenin • was not in favour of such formalities, especially since the date for the start of the Congress was being constantly put back.

LETTER In a letter to the Central Committee dated Ist October, Lenin argued:

"The Bolsheviks have no right to wait for the Congress of Soviets, they must take power at once... Delay is criminal. To wait for the Congress of Soviets would be e childish game of formalities, a disgraceful game of formalities and a betrayal of the revolution"

rOI Trotsky, however, tnere Was an alternative to the immediate seizure of power by the Bolshevik party, an alternative which in Trotsky's view would enable the Bolsheviks to advance to the point of insurrection under the cover of an institution of the Petrograd For the Provisional Government, the reorganisation of the Petrograd garrison was becoming a matter of the utmost urgency because it was quite clear that the forthcoming Congress of Soviets would decide one way or the other on the question of power and the Petrograd garrison was coming increasingly under the influence of the Bolsheviks.

An order for the reorganisation of the Petrograd units in preparation for an offensive was issued. The Soviet refused to fall into the trap of immediately rejecting it, waiting instead to see what the reaction of the workers and soldiers would be.

The response was immediate. Ignoring the accusations of the capitalists that the soldiers in Petrograd had grown fat in idleness and were betraying the front, the workers insisted that the garrison remain intact.

In return, the soldiers of the garrison stepped up their demand that the workers be armed.

Playing on the threat to Petrograd posed by the advancing German army, the compromisers proposed to the Soviet on October 9th a motion to set up a "Committee of Revolutionary Defence" , in order to defend the capital. To their surprise the Bolsheviks welcomed the setting up of such a committee. The Bolsheviks had often discussed the possibility of setting up a military committee of the Soviet to lead the insurrection and now the Mensheviks themselves were proposing the creation of a committee which, in the hands of the Bolsheviks, could fulfill that function.

On 10th October, the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks met.

Lenin in secrecv. attended the

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SOCIALIST PRESS Meist! Ju Jar. I73.

Provisional Government troops guarding the telephone exe meeting and moved a resolution calling on party organisations to begin to decide on the practical questions involved in the armed insurrection.

Only Kamenev and Zinoviev voted against the resolution.

This meeting of the Central Committee proved crucial. Lenin, who had to this point remained isolated on the question of the insurrection now had party legality on his side.

The opposition of the Central Committee to Lenin's call had proved to be only of momentary significance, and the party could now be directed to the task of The meeting of the 10th provisionally set the date of the uprising as 15th October, but this proved to be impracticable.

TIMING

It was important that the insurrection take place before the Congress of Soviets so that the Bolsheviks could offer the power to the Soviets.

On 16th October, the Central Committee again met on Lenin's insistence and the differences which had already emerged at the meeting of the 10th again came to the fore.

Kamenev and Zinovier spoke out against fixing any date for the insurrection. Krylenko, arguing the position of the Military Revolutionary Committee of which Trotsky was the head, argued that the setting of the date was still inexpedient.

"The question of the removal of the troops (from Petrograd to the front) is just that fighting issue upon which the struggle is taking place... The attack upon us is thus already a fact, and . this we can make use of...It is not necessary to worry about who shall begin, for the thing is already begun"

Lenin, alarmed by any hint of delay, proposed a new resolution summoning:

"All organisations and all workers and soldiers to an all-sided and most vigorous preparation of armed insurrection"

This motion was adopted by 20 votes to 2, Zinovier and Kamenev, with 3 abstentions.

POSTPONED

The next day, October 17th, the Central Executive Committee postponed the opening of the Congress from the 20th to the 25th October.

They had been encouraged to make this decision by the result of the election of delegates to the Congress from the Petrograd Soviet. The Bastars it a:: 1: 10e the Let ScarE TEe 330232 But it gave the Bolsheviks five extra days to the insurrection.

The same day, Zinovier and Kamenev denounced the plans of the Bolsheviks to lead an insurrection, using the non-party press.

STRIKEBREAKERS

Lenin branded them strikebreakers of. the revolution and demanded their expulsion from the Party. The Central Committee, however, was not prepared to go this far.

The order for the removal of the troops to the front had by now been communicated by Headquarters to the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

A breach between Headquarters and the Soviet was clearly posed for there was no question of acquiescing to their demand.

The Military Revolutionary Committee, as the Committee of Revolutionary Defence had now been renamed, with a Left Social Revolutionary at its head in order to camouflage as far as possible its real purpose, thus set about organising communication and i steligence.

It first met in full session on October 20th, only five days before the insurrection.

Rumours of a "coming out" were already rife throughout the capital. Hardly a day passed without the authorities sending out loyal troops to look for possible signs of such a coming out.

But the outcome of the insurrection was alréady being decided in the barracks and the working class districts.

REGIMENTS

One regiment after another was placing itself under the command of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and refusing to go to the front except under the direction of the Soviet.

The period of dual power was giving way to the power of the Soviets as the Provisional Government found itself more and more isolated, with fewer and fewer loyal troops on which it could depend.

The Petrograd Soviet called for a peaceful review of its forces for the 22nd October, and on the 21st, the Garrison Conference pledged full support to the Military Revolutionary Committee and called on the All-Russian Congress of Soviets due to meet in four days time, to "take the power in its hands and Fireate to the people peace.

= 2: 2303 = Kerensky! Down with war! All power to the Soviets!

The High Command were so alarmed that they immediately offered discussions with the Military Revolutionary Committee, an offer which was accepted solely with the purpose of reconoitring the situation in the enemy's headquarters.

The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately issued a proclamation stating that:

...the commissars, as representatives of the Soviet are inviolable. Opposition to the commissars is opposition to the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies"

As Trotsky later pointed out, that was the language of sovereignty.

"The Committee is crowding out the government with the pressure of the masses, with the weight of the garrison. It is taking all that it can without a battle. It is advancing its positions without firing...."

WINNING OVER

The one remaining task before the insurection could begin was the winning over or neutralisation of those regiments which continued to waver in their loyalty between the Provisional Government and the Immediately Bolshevik agitators went to the various barracks, Trotsky himself tackling the troops in the Peter-Paul fortress.

The Petrograd bourgeoisie were hourly expecting the Bolsheviks to launch their insurrection but none of them were prepared to even consider the possibility of the Bolsheviks retaining power for more than a few days.

The time had now come when this question would be finally decided. The Provisional Government itself provided the pretext for the launching of the insurrection.

In the early hours of 24th October, troops loyal to the frovisional Government closed down the Bolsheviks' printing press and the phones to the Smolny Institute, headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party, were cut off.

The Military Revolutionary Committee took the decision to fortify Smolny and machine guns were placed at the entrance. Red Guards patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles. By the evening of the 24th, Smolny was a veritable fortress.

The Military Revolutionary Committee was by now putting the finishing touches to its preparations for the insurrection. In the early hours of the 25th October, Red Guard, detachments occupied all the strategic points in the capital with hardly a shot being fired.

CUT OFF

At seven in the morning, the Telephone Exchange fell and the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was in permanent session was cut off irrevocably from the outside world.

The Second Congress of the All-Russian Soviet of Workers' Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies finally opened at 10.40 on the evening of the 25th October.

The insurrection had gone accora3= deral Congress opened amidst the utmost confusion, with the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary delegates denouncing the Bolsheviks and demanding that hostilities against the Winter Palace cease immediately.

ELECTION

The election of the Presidium nowever. demonstrated the rea relatiresh of oviforces within the The Bolsheviks won 14 seats, the Social Revolutionaries 7, the Mensheviks 3 and the Internationalists only one. Seeing that they were ir a minority, the Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and other compromisers denounced the Bolsheviks for seizing the power and walked out of the Soviet.

describes Trotsky:

..standing up with a pale ruel face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, 'All these so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, Bund them go! They are just so much retuse gariage illap of historyay into the Papers appeared on the streets carrying the proclamation of the Military Revolutionary Committee d the Petrograd Sovi • TRE CITIZENS OF RUSSI The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.

The cause for which the people were fighting; immediate proposal of a democratic peace, abolition ol landlord property rights over the land, labour control over production, creation of a Soviet government that cause is securely acheived. LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS".

By the early hours of the 26th the Winter Palace had finally surrendered and the Ministers of the Provisional Government were placed under arrest. Kerensky was not among them: He had fled in order to bring 'loyal' troops to the rescue of the compromisers.

The question facing. the Bolsheviks now was this: could they, having won state power, hold onto it?

T1. 1 nose I1Ke LInoYIey anu Kamenev, who had opposed the insurrection constantly pointed to the troops supposedly massed around Petrograd who would be called on to put down an uprising.

WEAKNESS

Against this Lenin and Trotsky had argued that it was a typically petty-bourgeois weakness to overestimate the strength of the enemy as a justification for ayoiding the conflict. Regardless of the military support the Provisional Government climed to have on paper, the real relationship of forces would be decided in the streets and in that, the uprising of the working class would count for a great deal.

At 8:40 on the evening of the 26th, the Presidium, headed by Lenin, entered the Congress 01 Soviets, to the thunderous cheering of the delegates.

Lenin mounted the rostrum and when the cheering had died down announced:

"We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order!"

He went on to outline Soviet terms for peace, - no annexations. no indemnities and the right of self determination of peoples.

He then read the Proclamation to the Peoples and Governments of all the Belligerent Nations, which was adopted unanimously by the LAND Next Lenin read the Decree on Land. All private ownership of land was abolished, all landowners estates were transferred to Land Committees and Peasants' Soviets. The Land Decree was debated and passed with only one vote against and the peasant delegates were delirious with joy.

Next on the agenda came the announcement of the composition of the Soviet government. Lenin was to be President of the Council with Trotsky as Peoples Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

The other parties argued that no government comprised solely of Bolsheviks could remain in power for more than a few days. To avoid civil war, they aruged, a broad government of all the left parties was needed. The Bolsheviks could be part of that government, provided that Lenin and Trotsky were excluded.

UNACCEPTABLE

This proposal was completely unacceptable to the Bolsheviks who nevertheless were prepared to share power with any socialist party which was prepared to accept the legitimate transfer of the power to the Soviets.

Only the Left Social Revolutionaries were prepared to join the government on this basis and the Bolsheviks welcomed them into the Council of People's Commissars.

The capital had been conquered. Now it had to be defended against whatever forces Kerensky could muster and the rest of Russia had to be won over to the Revolution and the transfer of power to the Soviets. Such was the enormous task facing the Bolsheviks on the third day of the revolution.

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