Meanwhile, sometime
after midnight, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets opens a joint
session of the workers and soldiers sections. Tseretilli was absent, Cheidze
with him, both back home in Georgia. This left the Menshevik Dan to speak for
the compromisist faction.
Dan, of course
quite ignorant of how things were going and would go, gave arguments like those
Kamenev and Zinoviev had given: the insurrection would ruin the revolution, the
counter-revolution was too strong. So the Central Executive would not permit
it: “Only over its dead body will the hostile camps cross their bayonets.” The
left benches mocked, “Yes, it’s been dead a long time.” Truth, it seems, stood
with the benches.
Trotsky pointed
out that it was over-late for the Mensheviks to adopt the Bolshevik lines on
peace and land, just as it had been over-late for Kerensky to suspend the death
penalty. Anyhow, it was too late to
forbid insurrection. Trotsky now openly declared that the insurrection had
taken the offensive. He says, “The astounded members of the Central Executive
Committee found no strength even to protest.”
Reed says the
Menshevik Lieber nevertheless rose to speak, arguing that the proletariat was
not ready to take power. Bolsheviks would speak, then leave the hall to consult
with the Military Revolutionary Committee. Another Bolshevik would leave the
committee and deliver a speech.
A length a
compromisist offered a resolution empowering the Central Executive to formulate
and issue decrees on peace and land. Volodarsky answered, no, that is for the
Congress of Soviets to do, and the Bolsheviks left the hall. What was left of
the Central Executive passed the resolution; the session broke up at about 4:00
a.m. Maybe they were surprised to see how peaceful the streets of an
insurrection could look as they made their ways home.
By 3:20 a.m., the
War Ministry was wiring the Caucasus: ovation for Trotsky, his claim of
bloodless victory, bridges and rail stations in the hands of the Bolsheviks.
“[T]he government will be unable to resist with the forces at hand.”
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