Today, three days
before the Congress of Soviets is to convene, the Central Executive Committee
puts it off by five days, until the 25th (November 7, new style). The
compromisist parties stepped up their efforts to recruit and elect delegates to
the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets, and prepared to summon a congress of
peasants’ soviets as a counterweight. But they were well not positioned to
benefit from the delay.
The Bolsheviks instead
gained the advantage. For example, the Semenovsky Regiment had the blood of
revolutionary workers in 1905 on its hands. It hung back from the rest of the
Petrograd garrison when they were declaring for the Bolshevik program. Yet at a
regimental meeting during this time, Trotsky was permitted to speak; the
representative of the Central Executive Committee, Skobelev, was not. In the
result, the regiment joined with the bulk of the garrison in alignment with the
Bolsheviks.
A rumor that the
Bolsheviks would “come out” that day proved to be untrue. So the rumor was put
off for a few days too.
Meanwhile,
Kamenev published a letter in Gorky’s paper declaring insurrection “an
inadmissible step.” Trotsky characterizes his reasoning as opportunism. The
action was also another breach of party discipline by Kamenev. Hearing of this,
Lenin composed a lengthy Letter to
Comrades, refuting the arguments Kamenev and others were using against
insurrection. The letter appeared in Rabochy Put the following day.
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