September 22 – September 9, 1917: Rising Tide in the Petrograd Soviet

The Petrograd Soviet convenes to reconsider the resolution voted on September 1 (September 14, new style). Each party’s whips made sure all their members attended; at stake was the substitution of the Bolshevik party line for that of the Compromisers.

The Bolsheviks moved to make representation on the praesidium proportional to the party’s share of the vote in the Soviet. This tactic was not favored by Lenin – still proscribed and therefore not present – but in the event Tseretilli would not entertain the motion.

So the Soviet was asked to declare that the resolution of September 1 did not accord with the Soviet’s line (i.e., that of the Compromisers) and that the Soviet still had confidence in its praesidium (consisting mostly of Compromisers). Note that the Bolshevik resolution ruled out coalition government with the representatives of the bourgeoisie.

Trotsky, just released from prison, made an observation: Kerensky was missing from the praesidium. He asked whether the prime minister was still a member. The praesidium, seeing where Trotsky was going with this, reluctantly answered that he was. Trotsky answered that this was not what the Bolsheviks expected. “We were mistaken. The ghost of Kerensky now sits between Dan and Cheidze.” Then he reminded the Soviet that a vote for the policies of the resolution was also a vote for the policies of Kerensky, then among those subject to the Soviet’s investigation for complicity in the plot of Kornilov and the bourgeoisie.

The atmosphere was so tense that it was decided to take the vote by absence or presence. Those against the resolution were to signify opposition by leaving the hall.

It took over an hour, as workers’ and soldiers’ deputies drifted towards the exits amid whispers and shouts. The Bolsheviks thought they would be about 100 votes short of a majority. But when the praesidium made the count, it was 414 for the resolution, 519 against, with 67 abstentions…! Tseretilli offered a parting shot as he left the platform with the rest of the praesidium: After six months, the banner of the revolution had passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks; “We can only express the wish that you may be able to hold it in the same way for half as long!” Taking the chair, Trotsky offered and passed a special resolution denouncing those responsible for the slander against the Bolsheviks of conspiring with the Germans.

Trotsky says, “The Bolsheviks now entered on their inheritance.” But the inheritance did not include the organization’s infrastructure: printing presses, funds, transportation, even the typewriters and inkwells, had all been appropriated to other uses by the former occupants of the praesidium.

This vote was the culmination of increasing Bolshevik strength in the soviets, as well as on the factory committees, in the trade unions, and on the soldiers committees. The party had recovered all it had lost after the July Days and the slander of conspiracy – and more besides. Trotsky devotes two chapters, with much anecdotal evidence, to this account; I have given several of the more prominent examples in separate entries.