The Menshevik Tseretilli

One hundred years ago today, plus three, a week after Stalin, the Menshevik Irakli Tseretilli arrived in Petrograd out of exile. He was to become influential in both the Soviet and the Provisional Government.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on the Dual Power here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

Stalin in Petrograd

One hundred years ago today, plus three, the capital of Petrograd had become open to socialists who had been imprisoned or in exile. Josef Stalin was among the first to arrive.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on the Dual Power here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

Dual Power

March 17 – March 4, 1917: Dual Government. The Bolshevik Central Committee states its opinion of the dual government shared by the Soviet and the Provisional Government: the latter is counter-revolutionary. But on the same day, the Petrograd committee of the Bolshevik party resolved not to oppose the Provisional Government, contrary to the wishes of the Bolshevik left, including the Vyborg workers.

In the spread of the revolution through the armed forces, officers of the Baltic Fleet were arrested or drowned.

March 18 –  March 5, 1917: Pravda. First issue of Pravda, central organ of the Bolshevik Party. By order of the Executive Committee of the Soviet, the workers printed only those publications approved by the Soviet. That meant no more “right press” for the time being; the decision was reversed some days later under pressure from the bourgeoisie.

Among Pravda’s first editors was the left-Bolshevik Molotov.

Meanwhile, the workers returned to work under conditions, including eight-hour days, proposed by the Soviet. Word of the revolution began filtering through to the soldiers at the front, where the Bolshevik peace policy was not widely accepted.

March 19 – March 6, 1917: A Declaration. The Provisional Government issues a declaration promising to summon a Constituent Assembly and to carry the war through to victory. Trotsky observes that neither promise meant want it seemed to mean, nor indeed anything at all. The Provisional Government hadn’t summoned the Constituent Assembly months later when the October Revolution overtook it. The promise about the war was addressed more to Britain and France than to the people of Russia; the Provisional Government wanted business as usual with its allies of the Entente.

The Soviet voted to appoint commissars to each regiment of the army. The soldiers were gravitating towards the view that they would fight to defend the revolution, but refuse to take the offensive. The defensist position was also that of a majority of the Soviet, but not necessarily of the Bolsheviks.

From Switzerland, Lenin cabled the Petrograd Bolsheviks advice on tactics. His “Letters from Afar,” opposing accommodation with the Provisional Government, began to appear in Pravda during this time.

March 20 – March 7, 1917: A Separate Peace? The war continues to be a problem for the Provisional Government. Making a separate peace is discussed. But just two weeks later, Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, hatched a plot to seize the Dardanelles by betraying Serbia.

March 21 – March 8, 1917: The Tsar Arrested. Kerensky declares the tsar is “in my hands”; he wants to escort him to England. What really happened is that the railroad workers would not let the tsar pass. A Menshevik delegated by the Soviet placed the tsar under arrest at Moghilev, near the front.

Meanwhile, the Provisional Government declared amnesty for political prisoners, most of whom had already been freed anyway.

March 22 – March 9, 1917: Under House Arrest. At the insistence of the Soviet, and against the recommendation of Kerensky for exile to England, the tsar and his family are detained in the Winter Palace. The soldiers would have preferred that he be held in the Peter and Paul fortress.

The Council of the United Nobility put its resources at the disposal of the Provisional Government. This, coming immediately after the arrest of the tsar, completed the realignment of big bourgeoisie and landowning elements from the autocracy to the liberal-bourgeois government.

March 23 – March 10, 1917: Eight-Hour Days. The Manufacturers Association agrees to recognize the union shops and to limit the working day to eight hours. They had little choice, as the Petrograd workers were simply leaving the factories after eight hours of work. The same conditions prevailed in Moscow; the Moscow Soviet there made them official some ten days later.

March 25 – March 12, 1917 Stalin arrives. Bolsheviks released from detention in Siberia arrive in Petrograd by train. Stalin, Kamenev, and Muranov were greeted by the local, mostly younger, leadership of the party. Stalin deposed the local trio Molotov, Schliapnikov, and Zalutsky as senior member of the 1912 Central Committee then named by Lenin.

Meanwhile, the Provisional Government outlawed the death penalty, though it was later restored in the army.

March 27 – March 14, 1917: A Manifesto. The Soviet issues a manifesto “to the people of the whole world” declaring for peace without annexations or indemnities. But until that should happen the war against Germany and her allies was to continue. The manifesto had carried the Soviet unanimously.

Meanwhile Trotsky left New York for Russia on a Norwegian vessel. At Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was detained by officials of the British navy and held with the Germans in a prisoner of war camp. His speeches there won the support of many of the enlisted men, but drew the ire of the German officers, not to mention the British commandant.

The soviets pressured the Provisional Government to secure Trotsky’s release, with the result to be seen in the sequel.

March 28 – March 15, 1917: Pravda Turns Right. Stalin and Kamenev take over as co-editors of Pravda. They adopted, among other views, the defensist position taken by the Manifesto of the Soviet the day before.

This was contrary to Lenin’s views. Lenin considered the defeat of Russia the lesser of two evils, the greater one being participation in an imperialist war, by and for the capitalist classes of the belligerents.

March 29 – March 16, 1917: The Soviet and the Dual Government. Delegates from the fleets to the Soviet announce that they will recognize the Provisional Government as a partner in the dual government. But only if it carries out the program of the Soviet.

In general, soviets in all the principal towns and industrial centers were taking the same position during this time. They also acknowledged the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet in this role.

March 30 – March 17, 1917: Lenin Writes. Lenin writes Pravda criticizing the defensist views published there. He blamed Kamenev, not Stalin.

March 31 – March 18, 1917: “The army is sick.” So it is said at a conference of the high officers in command. Desertions reached 8,000 weekly by mid-April.

April 1 – March 19, 1917: Tseretilli Arrives. The Menshevik émigré Tseretilli, like Stalin a native of Georgia, arrives in Petrograd. He, along with Martov and Dan, took over the leadership of the party in the Soviet, and helped steer the Soviet to the right. He favored sharing the government with the bourgeois-liberal parties the Provisional Government was then made up of, and the defensist position on the war.

April 2 – March 20, 1917: War News. A German offensive obtains a certain degree of success before petering out in the mud of the spring thaw. Trotsky says the bourgeois press of Petrograd made it seem like a threat of military disaster.

Meanwhile Miliukov, the Foreign Minister, hatched his (unsuccessful) plot to seize the Dardanelles by betraying Serbia.

April 3 – March 21, 1917: Eight-hour Day. The Moscow Soviet promulgates the eight-hour day in the factories of the city.

April 7 – March 25, 1917: The United States Enters the War. The United States House and Senate cast votes declaring war on Germany and its allies.

In Petrograd, a funeral march honoring the victims of the February Revolution was held. Some 800,000 filed past the graves.

April 9 – March 27, 1917: Lenin Entrains. Lenin boards a train in Berne, Switzerland, en route for Russia. He and his wife Krupskaya are part of a group of 30 Bolsheviks travelling via Stuttgart, Stockholm, and, partly in horse-drawn sleighs, Finland.

Because he was travelling through Germany, the itinerary appeared vaguely treasonous. The train itself was said to have been sealed, but really Lenin had demanded that it not be subject to the routine intrusions travelers normally suffer. Lenin and other revolutionary emigres had tried without success to obtain passage with the help of the French and British, who had their own reasons to keep them from reaching Petrograd.

April 10 – March 29, 1917: All Russia Conference of Soviets. A conference of all the soviets of revolutionary Russia convenes in Petrograd. Attending Bolsheviks voted along with the rest of the conference in favor of sharing power with the Provisional Government.

The Bolsheviks also discussed reunification with the Mensheviks, something that was already taking place in the provinces. Some favored reunification without conditions. Molotov objected, as the Mensheviks had taken the defensist position for keeping Russia in the war. Stalin favored negotiating the terms of reconciliation with the Mensheviks. The negotiations continued until Lenin’s arrival the following week.

April Theses, April Days

About April 14 – April 1, 1917: Somewhere in Finland. A group of Bolsheviks travels to Finland to greet Lenin as he approaches Petrograd. Lenin chided one of them, the right-leaning Kamenev, for positions he had taken in Pravda on cooperation with the Provisional Government and in favor of the defensist war policy.

April 16 – April 3, 1917: At the Finland Station. Lenin arrives in Petrograd at the Finland Station and is given a bouquet that Trotsky says must have made him feel very awkward. He was greeted by Cheidze, the Menshevik president of the Petrograd Soviet.

Cheidze felt he had to caution Lenin about cooperation with the Provisional Government and its defensist policies. Ignoring this, Lenin concluded his brief set of remarks saying, “Long live the world socialist revolution!”

Lenin and his entourage, including Zinoviev the agitator, drove to Bolshevik headquarters in armored cars. They stopped from time to time so Lenin could deliver essentially the same brief speech to crowds along the way.

At headquarters, the expropriated mansion of a court ballerina, Lenin impatiently endured numerous speeches of welcome. At length he addressed the party. For two hours he spoke against the defensist, collaborationist, and right opportunist policies the Petrograd Bolsheviks had let themselves be drawn into. He must also have explained what he thought was the correct line, for as we’ll see he read out the “April Theses” the next day.

Nobody seems to have taken notes. The speech left its hearers dumbfounded, wondering whether he really meant what he’d said.

The All Russia Conference of Soviets was just ending that day.

April 17 – April 4, 1917: The April Theses. Twice, once at a meeting of the Bolsheviks and again at a meeting to which the Mensheviks were also invited, Lenin reads his ten “April Theses.” He said later that week, prefacing the version published in Pravda:

I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation.

The only thing I could do to make things easier for myself—and for honest opponents—was to prepare the theses in writing. I read them out, and gave the text to Comrade Tseretelli. I read them twice very slowly: first at a meeting of Bolsheviks and then at a meeting of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

The first thesis addresses the policy of the revolution to the war, “…[N]ot the slightest concession to ‘revolutionary defensism’ is permissible.” This includes the “error” of fighting only to defend the homeland, with no thought of annexations or indemnities, as the bourgeois Provisional Government would have it publicly – in spite of their private alignments with capitalist interests at home and abroad.

The next four theses address the phenomenon of dual government – power being shared between the soviets and Provisional Government with the soviets as the junior partner – under the heading Fraternization. Lenin sees the dual government as a transitional phase between the bourgeois February Revolution and the proletarian revolution that was yet to come. But the party, a small minority even in the soviets, should not therefore with join the Mensheviks and social democrats in support of the Provisional Government. The party’s goal should be to transfer “the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies,” not ”to return to a parliamentary republic.”

The sixth and seventh theses call for nationalization of all lands under the soviets and consolidation of all banks in a single state bank under the Soviet. Yet in the eighth thesis, Lenin does not advocate immediate transfer of ownership of the means of production to the workers, but rather only the strengthening of the workers’ soviets.

The ninth and tenth theses set forth the political tasks of the Bolshevik party, to include the convocation of a new revolutionary International, one that would specifically exclude social democrats of the stripe who favored collaboration with the Provisional Government.

Visit this page to find the entire text of the Pravda article and all ten theses.

April 20 – April 7, 1917: Pravda publishes “April Theses.” See the link in the entry for April 17 – April 4, 1917.

April 21 – April 8, 1917: Pravda’s Critique. The editors split with Lenin on the “immediate transformation of [the Russian] revolution in to a socialist revolution." In fact, right Bolsheviks continued to struggle against Lenin’s program of action down to the beginning of the October Revolution.

April 29 – April 16, 1917: Trotsky Released. Trotsky is released from British detention in Canada at the request of the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government, Miliukov, who was himself being pressured by the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky took ship for Russia.

April 30 – April 17, 1917: War Invalids Demonstrate. The Cadets, the bourgeois party of Foreign Minister Miliukov, organize a pro-war demonstration of veterans invalided by the war.

Meantime, in provincial elections, democratically elected dumas are chosen. As the soviets retained local control, Trotsky notes, these bodies were nullities.

May 1 – April 18, 1917: International Socialist May Day. Russian socialists celebrate International Socialist May Day according to the new style calendar, that is, when other socialists around the world are celebrating it – though it happens to be April 18 on the old style calendar. It became a national holiday; not only factories but also government offices shut down.

The holiday atmosphere spread to the front at staff headquarters in Moghilev, where even the tsarist generals marched. Elsewhere Russian troops celebrated with Austro-German POWs, singing the same revolutionary songs in different languages.

This was also the day Foreign Minister Miliukov chose to send a note reaffirming Russia’s loyalty to her allies and her pledge not to make a separate peace. This part was generally agreeable to the defensists in the Soviet. But the subtext endorsed the annexations and indemnities his British and French counterparts expected as part of the peace agreement. Naturally one of the annexations Miliukov was contemplating was that of the Dardanelles, at the expense of Germany’s ally Turkey. This raid had been planned for, but the soldiers eventually refused to carry the plan out.

May 2 – April 19, 1917: The Executive Committee Meets. Miliukov’s note is the topic at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. The meeting ran late without producing any consensus or plan of action.

May 3 – April 20, 1917: The April Days. The text of Miluvov’s note hits the Petrograd papers, sparking three days of demonstrations: the “April Days.”

The Finland Regiment marched to the seat of the Provisional Government at the head of over 30,000 armed soldiers. Workers left their factories and joined them. The banners read, “Down with Miliukov!” “Down with Guchov,” Minister of War in the Provisional Government, too.

The demonstrators lacked a specific program; nor was the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, hastily reconvened, able to supply one. In reaction, General Kornilov, not for the last time, offers troops for suppressing the demonstrations; bourgeois agitators denounce Lenin as a German agent.

May 4 – April 21, 1917: The Dual Government Meets. As the workers and soldiers regather in the streets, ministers of the Provisional Government meet with the Executive Committee of the Soviet. Neither side of the dual government knew what to do about the demonstrations. Prince Lvov, President of the Council of Ministers, thought maybe the Provisional Government should withdraw. Chernov, Minister of Agriculture, said it might be sufficient for Miliukov to exchange the Foreign Ministry for the portfolio of the Minister of Public Education. Miliukov refused both that suggestion and the suggestion that he write a new note. Some members of the Soviet would apparently have been satisfied with a better explanation of the first one.

Meanwhile the demonstrations, which had been announced by Bolshevik workers from Vyborg, continued. The demonstrators ignored the plea of the President of the Petrograd Soviet, Cheidze, to disperse. Counterdemonstrators, organized by the Cadet Party, clashed with the workers. General Kornilov made good his threat to mobilize cavalry and artillery against the workers. Some officers tried to seize one of their banners. Gunfire was exchanged.

But the Soviet ordered the revolutionary regiments to stay in their barracks, and Kornilov’s to return there. The soldiers obeyed the Soviet’s orders; thereafter none of the troops would march unless the orders were counter-signed by the Soviet.

For its part, the Executive Committee would be satisfied with a verbal explanation of Miliukov’s note; he was not compelled to resign. Having come so close to civil war in the capital (and the situation was much the same in Moscow), the Soviet ordered demonstrations to stop for two days. The Bolshevik Central Committee subsequently agreed to the halt.

May 5 – April 22, 1917: Izvestia’s Interpretation. Izvestia, the official organ of the Petrograd Soviet, thinks it necessary to declare that the Soviet had not interfered with the “legally constituted” authority of the Provisional Government by its actions during the April Days. Since the demonstrators were calling for more rather than less interference, the Soviet thus remained less revolutionary-minded than the people themselves.

Nor could a Bolshevik motion for a vote of no confidence in the government come within hundreds of votes of passage. The Petrograd Soviet also politely ignored a resolution of the Helsinki Soviet, backed by revolutionary sailors, offering to help remove the Provisional Government.

May 7 – April 24, 1917: Bolshevik Party Conference. The All-Russia Bolshevik Party Conference called for in the April Theses begins. Neither Stalin nor Kamenev were named to the five-member praesidium.

Lenin spoke against misdirected violence, violence that is not being used as a tactic to further some specific revolutionary strategy. He also presented a resolution “On the Attitude Towards the Provisional Government” that had been adopted by the Petrograd conference of the party. The resolution recognized the government as an organ of the bourgeoisie and landowners, enumerating the programs such as land reform and the eight-hour workday it had failed to act upon or actively resisted. The resolution was published in Pravda on May 10 – April 27.

October 25 – October 12, 1917: Regulations for Insurrection

After Trotsky spins them a little, the regulations drafted by Lazimir and his Military Revolutionary Committee come before the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet for approval. Despite Trotsky’s spin, the Mensheviks clearly perceived how useful the regulations would be to an insurrection. But the powers they gave the Soviet had ample precedent in the powers previously shared with the Provisional Government under the dual power scheme.

Another proposal, for the formation of a Garrison Conference, moved forward at this time. The conference would represent the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison in the way the factory committees represented the workers of the factories. It incidentally also enabled the Bolshevik leadership in the Soviet to better understand the purely military problems facing an insurrection.

Meanwhile, Kerensky sent a long letter to his fellow head of state Lloyd George of Great Britain. He promised that the Provisional Government would continue the war, hoping and begging for the financial credits necessary to do so.