By 2:00 p.m., as
many as 300 Bolshevik delegates to the Congress of Soviets are at Smolny. They
caucused with Trotsky.
How to address
the caucus presented some delicate issues. The delegates could not be told too
much, lest important information reach enemy ears. Nor could the insurrection
be given an offensive character, lest certain elements of the garrison hear of
it and be put off. Further, as the conspiratorial nature of the insurrection
could not be concealed, it had to be justified in terms of the Marxist theory
of state.
So Trotsky cited
recent articles by Lenin arguing the objective necessity of conspiracy in this
case; he cited the incident at the Bolshevik printing plant and the orders to
the Aurora to show the insurrection had started as a defensive maneuver. Smolny
too had been placed in a state of defense, but against the threat to arrest the
Military Revolutionary Committee.
The caucus wanted
to know what would happen if Kerensky refused to submit to the Congress of
Soviets. Trotsky replied that that would create “’not a political but a police
question.’” Of course this meant that in such a case the insurrection would go
over to the offensive, aggressively seizing and exercising the police powers of
the state. And Trotsky says, “That was in essence almost exactly what
happened.”
A delegation of
the city duma interrupted the caucus for a moment. Trotsky says “they wanted to
know too much.” He told them only that the Soviet would defend the Congress,
that the Military Committee had issued orders to suppress looting, and that if
the duma could not support the Congress, a new election would be held. They
left, Trotsky says, “dissatisfied.”
Returning to the
caucus, Trotsky drew the lesson of the meeting with the duma: the wheel had
turned full circle. Weeks before, the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Soviet,
but nothing, not even printing presses, to show for it. Now they were the
people to see if you wanted to know the fate of the capital.
Next, at about
4:00 p.m., Trotsky was called to the Peter and Paul fortress. A battalion of
bicyclists, thought to be loyal to the government, had had been kept out of the
meeting the day before by their officers. Relying on the bicyclists to back
him, the commandant threatened to arrest the commissar Blagonravov. Blagonravov
arrested the commandant instead. Now the bicycle men had to be mollified.
Trotsky won this
“supplementary oratorical battle” with the government’s representative. The
matter was settled without a fight. Another detachment of bicycle men, assigned
to guard the Winter Palace, heard of this result, stood down, and had to be
replaced by junkers. The Peter and Paul remained solidly with the insurrection.
Trucks and wagons continued to arrive, and to depart loaded with rifles and
other weapons for the Red Guards.
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