Democratic Conference of the Soviets

One hundred years ago yesterday, plus three, the right-socialists who had associated themselves with Prime Minister Kerensky’s directory convened a national “Democratic Conference” of the soviets. They hoped to recover what they were losing in the local Petrograd Soviet, which earlier that week had voted to confirm the Bolshevik resolution calling for a government of the soviets, that is, not of Kerensky, the bourgeois-liberal Cadets, and the right-socialist compromisers.

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

 

Kerensky Resigns

One hundred years ago today, plus three, Prime Minister Kerensky, possibly annoyed that the right-socialist ministers in his cabinet were not willing to go as far right as he in order to meet the demands of the bourgeois-liberal Cadets, resigned. It’s also possible he was only trying to strengthen his hand against both left and right, and thought resignation was the best way to do it.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kerensky’s Government here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

The Democratic Conference of Compromisers

One hundred years ago today, plus two, the right-socialists, that is, socialist parties to the right of the Bolsheviks (a.k.a. Compromisers), convened a Democratic Conference to discuss what they ought to do about the Coalition Government. The Bolsheviks read their recommendations into the record too. 

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

July Days: The Manifestation

July 3 – June 20, 1917: Greetings to the Armies. By a vote of 472 to 271, with 39 abstentions, the Petrograd Soviet sends greetings to the Russian armies, some of which were then engaged in the summer offensive. Though the vote may not seem very close to us, Trotsky sees it as the sign of a shift favorable to the Bolsheviks and their allies on the left.

July 4 – June 21, 1917: Mood of the Garrison. A machine gun regiment in Petrograd resolves not to go to the front unless “the war shall have a revolutionary character.” When threatened with disbandment, they offered to disband the Provisional Government instead. Another sign of a leftward shift among the masses.

On the same day, the skilled workers at the large Putilov factory (36,000 workers in all) struck. In Pravda, Lenin urged restraint on the part of the soldiers and workers: “…an immediate attack would be inexpedient.” The Bolshevik’s Military Organization also warned their Red Guards against faked summonses to armed demonstration during this time.

July 5 – June 22, 1917: Bolshevik Counsels. Representatives of 70 Petrograd factories meet with left Bolsheviks, who, in spite of a worsening economy, continue to urge restraint. The Bolsheviks believed the Coalition Government would only become weaker as the summer offensive collapsed.

A number of ills plagued the economy in Petrograd and throughout Russia: inflation, factory closings, food shortages exacerbated by the disrepair of the railroads’ rolling stock, and a destabilized ruble. The Coalition Government had been completely unable to do anything, even to decide what to do. Counter-revolutionary activity by the Cadet party, army officers, and Cossack organizations was in evidence, probably aided by the banks and agents of Russia’s allies in the Entente.

These were the concrete conditions – less food, less work, rising prices – giving rise to the revolutionary mood that was, in a matter of weeks, to produce the July Days.

An incident occurred that reveals this mood. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet sent a car bearing a placard with the slogan “Forward with Kerensky!” into the Vyborg workers’ district. It was seized by the Moscow regiment, who tore up the placard and gave the car to the Machine Gun regiment.

July 6 – June 23, 1917: High Point of the Offensive. The capital receives reports that elements of the Second Russian Army had captured the first lines of German trenches in their front. Patriots in the capital were delighted, but the troops had already stopped where they were and begun deserting instead of continuing the advance.

Meanwhile elections in the Baranovsky factory sent three Bolsheviks to the Petrograd Soviet, replacing Social Revolutionaries. And Kronstadt anarchists demanded the release of prisoners being held in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

July 7 – June 24, 1917: Factory Closings. Izvestia, the official organ of the Petrograd Soviet, reports a plan for more factory closings.

On the same day, the Vyborg Soviet adopted a resolution condemning the summer offensive as an “adventure of the Provisional Government” on behalf of “old robber treaties” with Russia’s partners in the Entente. The soviet held the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries equally responsible.

Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets adjourned without taking any further action against the Bolsheviks, or, for that matter, against the Coalition Government. At some point during the Congress, the delegates named a Central Executive Committee and gave it formal authority over all the other soviets created after the February Revolution. Up to then, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet had exercised this authority informally.

July 9 – June 26, 1917: Protest from the Front. The Grenadier Guards regiment at the front sends a delegation to the Petrograd garrison to denounce the summer offensive and warn the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets about joining with the bourgeoisie. Other units, including sailors of the Helsinki fleet, the 2^nd Machine Gun regiment, and the 3^rd Infantry regiment also took steps in support of the revolution during this time.

July 11 – June 28, 1917: Lenin in Finland. Trotsky says Lenin is ill and recovering in Finland on this day. It’s my impression that, given his prescience about the mood of the revolution (and the coming July Days), Lenin may possibly have been ill, but he was certainly in Finland. He editorialized daily, sometimes twice daily, in Pravda during this time.

July 13 – June 30, 1917: Zemsky Nachalniks. The Coalition Government dismisses the zemsky nachalniks, officials over the agricultural villages drawn from petit bourgeois landowners. Since Alexander III had created the office in the late 19^th century, they had exercised administrative and judicial powers over the peasantry to the exclusion of local councils and even the aristocracy.

The zemsky nachalniks were feared and despised by the peasantry. But Trotsky views the government’s action as a “belated partial reform”; it was certainly no substitute for a genuine agrarian policy.

July 14 – July 1, 1917: Mensheviks Heckled. At a meeting of the Grenadier Guards regiment, the soldiers heckle Menshevik speakers and arrest the president of the regimental committee.

Meanwhile the All-Russian Congress of Landed Proprietors convened in Moscow, signaling renewed resistance among aristocratic and other large landowners to the Coalition Government’s (feeble) attempts at land reform, and to attempts by the peasantry to take matters into their own hands.

July 15 – July 2, 1917: Cadets Resign Their Ministries. The four ministers representing the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) in the Coalition Government resign en masse. The Cadets had been the voice of the bourgeoisie in the government, led by former Minister of War Miliukov, whom Kerensky replaced in May.

The resignations became the signal for the July Days. Trotsky analyzes the Cadet political strategy as follows. The pretext for the resignations was an agreement the Coalition Government struck with the Ukraine; it did not accommodate the imperial ambitions of the bourgeoisie sufficiently well. The timing coincided with the failure of the summer offensive, known to the well-informed in the capital if not to the public generally. Thus the right-socialists remaining in the government would have to face the fallout of the failure, including the protests of the revolutionary masses, alone. If the government (a “coalition” now of only right-socialist parties) had to put down the anticipated demonstrations by force, an opening might develop for weakening the Soviet side of the dual government. So Miliukov may have thought. And things did start to work out along these lines.

Meanwhile, Trotsky and Lunacharsky addressed the Machine Gun regiment on the occasion of the departure of one of their companies to the front as replacements. This was the regiment that, after the June Demonstration, had resolved not to send out replacements unless the war “…shall have a revolutionary character.” They now declared this company the “last” replacement company they would agree to send. The regiment proved to be an open flame amid the combustibles of the July Days.

Also on this day, on the occasion of a conference of the Trotskyites, Pravda printed a statement on their behalf, saying that there were “no differences either in principle or tactics” between them and the Bolsheviks.

July 16 – July 3, 1917: July Days: The Vanguard. The Machine Gun regiment meets and sacks the leadership of its soldiers’ committee. The soldiers wanted the question of demonstrations immediately put before the meeting. An anarchist spoke, urging them to take to the streets of Petrograd in arms. The new committee chairman, a Bolshevik, wanted to ask the advice of the Bolshevik Military Organization

The head of that organization, Nevsky, was responsible for Bolshevik ties to party elements in the garrison, as well as armed Red Guards units among the workers. Dispatched at length to the meeting, Nevsky preached the party line: restraint – wait until the summer offensive collapses as expected.

But by 3:00 p.m., the regiment had voted for armed demonstrations. They began sending envoys to the workers and to other military formations, including the Kronstadt naval fortress, seeking support.

The Machine Gun regiment was truly the vanguard of the revolutionary soldiery, in ideology, in agitation for the July Days, and as it proved, in the coming march.

Additional posts follow, focusing on different organizations and institutions, to show their actions, reactions, and role in the events of the day. They’re arranged so the end of the day appears last.

Also on this day, but not in connection with these events, the Provisional Government reached a preliminary agreement with the Ukrainian Rada (parliament) on the question of national independence. But the agreement fell apart within a month.

July 16 – July 3, 1917: July Days: The Central Committee. When the envoys of the Machine Gun regiment arrived at Bolshevik headquarters in the former palace of the ballerina Kshesinskaia that afternoon, the Central Committee could not immediately decide whether the regiment’s armed manifestation was a threat or an opportunity. The party had been calling for restraint, saying that the press of events would offer a better time for action of this kind. The reaction would be weaker if the government were weaker.

On the other hand was the opportunity. Tomsky expounded what Lenin, who was absent in Finland, might have thought, “It is impossible to talk of a manifestation at this moment unless we want a new revolution.” That is, a proletarian revolution to overthrow the bourgeois-liberal Provisional Government. But the risks of premature action appeared too great. Volodarsky told the regimental envoys that the machine gunners “must submit to the decisions of the party”; they were sent back to the regiment. An appeal for restraint was prepared for front page of Pravda the next morning.

The meeting broke up at about 4:00 p.m. and those attending dispersed to the workers’ neighborhoods and the factories with the same message. Stalin was dispatched to the headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet with the news. He remained the party’s liaison with the Executive Committee throughout the July Days.

July 16 – July 3, 1917: July Days: The Factories. Envoys of the Machine Gun regiment arrived that afternoon at the Putilov factory, one of Petrograd’s largest, bearing the message of the armed manifestation. They told the workers that the regiment had decided not to send anyone to the front, but to take to the streets instead. The secretary of the factory committee was a Bolshevik, but he was unable to persuade the assembled workers, some 10,000, to send to the Central Committee for guidance. Representatives of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets had no better success.

At about 6:00 p.m., the meeting got word that the Vyborg workers were already on the march to the headquarters of the Soviet in the Tauride Palace. This decided the matter. In fact, the same result was reached virtually everywhere. The Renaud factory, for example, provided trucks to the machine gunners at their request. The Red Guards contingents in the factories took up arms.

July 16 – July 3, 1917: July Days: The Manifestation. By 7:00 p.m., the main street on the Vyborg side of the river was packed with demonstrators. The Machine Gun regiment took the lead, followed by the workers, with the Moscow regiment bringing up the rear. As these marchers were the militants, not the mere sympathizers, Trotsky says, they did not reach the numbers of the June Demonstration. But as many as 500,000 workers and soldiers may have participated, including all or part of seven other regiments of the garrison.

The Bolshevik headquarters was the first stop. There Nevsky and others again urged the soldiers and Red Guards to go home, again without success. Seeing the policy of restraints had been a failure, party leaders on the scene, including members of the Central Committee, decided instead to, Trotsky says, “guide the developing movement” along peaceful and politically advantageous lines.

Hearing the decision, the marchers sang the Marseillaise. The party prepared a list of demands for submission to the Petrograd Soviet at the Tauride Palace, next and final stop on the march. Some of the machine gunners crossed the canal to the Peter and Paul fortress, in the river opposite Bolshevik headquarters, intending to bring the garrison and its artillery over to the side of the demonstrators.

The principal demand adopted by the marchers and now articulated by the Bolsheviks was for the Central Executive Committee to end the dual government by taking power into its own hands: All Power to the Soviets! The sequel proved ironic.

July 16 – July 3, 1917: July Days: The Central Executive Committee. As the banners of the marchers in Nevsky Prospect approach the Tauride Palace, meetings of the two sections of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets are already in session.

The committee had had news of the Machine Gun regiment’s plans earlier in the day. Kamenev and the other Bolsheviks present offered to go to the regiment and ask for restraint. But the Executive Committee preferred to issue a proclamation declaring demonstrations to be treachery to the revolution. Meanwhile Tseretilli gave the joint session his ideas for addressing the cabinet crisis brought on by the resignation of the Cadet ministers the day before.

Realizing a proclamation might not be enough to stop the what they were calling the “insurrection,” the Compromisers (i.e., Trotsky’s name for those in the Soviet who sought accommodation with the Provisional Government and by extension the bourgeoisie) cast about for the armed protection of troops. Not finding any of the garrison who were then willing to take their side, they sent to the Fifth Army, nearest Petrograd at the front. By evening, scarcely a hundred had been found by the Menshevik assigned this task. Trotsky remarks more than once on the irony of this effort: The Soviet answering the demonstrators’ demand that it seize the power, by recruiting troops to suppress the demonstrators rather than the Provisional Government.

The workers’ and soldiers’ section of the Central Executive had gone back into session. Recent elections had given the Bolsheviks a majority in that section, or so the right-socialists feared. Zinoviev was giving a speech against the Compromisers when the marchers reached the palace. In response, Kamenev proposed selecting a commission of 25 members to lead the demonstration; Trotsky seconded. Seeing the tendency of the debate that followed, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries walked out of the meeting. The Bolsheviks and Trotskyites who remained passed a resolution calling on the Central Executive to take power, and named fifteen members to the leadership committee, leaving ten places open in case the right-socialists should have second thoughts.

Meanwhile, Cheidze, Menshevik president of the Soviet, confronted the crowd outside the palace. When he faltered, Voitinsky took his place, but was also met with silence. Trotsky fared better when his turn came, but he stopped short of advocating insurrection (as his enemies were later to claim).

Events did not stop unfolding at midnight.

Overnight, July 16-17 – July 3-4, 1917: The Putilov Factory Marches. The march of the Putilov workers, their wives and children, begins before midnight.

But by then, after shouting, pushing and shoving, and struggles over the banners of the soldiers and workers, gunfire had broken out on Nevsky Prospect. We know the demonstrators were armed; so were their enemies in that bourgeois neighborhood. The Grenadier Guards regiment returned a volley when shots were fired at them, possibly by right-wing Cavaliers of St. George or officers crippled in the war, possibly by provocateurs. Panic ensued; dead and wounded lay in the street.

Meanwhile the Petrograd Soviet reconvened in joint session. The Menshevik Dan offered a resolution inviting anyone who would not be able to support the decision of the committee to leave the meeting beforehand. It was dropped when the Bolsheviks appeared. The delegation from the demonstrators demanded to be heard, but was ignored. Little was accomplished except the airing of accusations. A member of the Jewish Bund accused the Bolsheviks of conspiracy; Tseretilli accused the demonstrators of aiding the counter-revolution. The meeting adjourned at 5:00 a.m., needless to say without taking any concrete action on any of the demonstrators’ demands, much less to seize the state power.

The Bolsheviks and Trotskyites also met late into the night, debating again the question whether to hold back the demonstration or lead it, and deciding for the latter. Then Zinoviev was called to the telephone. News from Kronstadt came that the sailors would march to the aid of the demonstrators that morning. Social Revolutionaries among the sailors, and even the commissar appointed by the Provisional Government, had voted to join the march when they’d learned the Bolsheviks were leading it.

By 3:00 a.m., after first encountering obstruction and gunfire, the Putilov workers and family members, joined on the march by workers of other factories and now some 80,000 strong, reached the Tauride Palace. The Central Executive agreed to receive their representatives, while the wearied marchers lay on the grounds of the palace, wondering about the next day, sure only that they would be too tired to go to work.

July 17 – July 4, 1917: The Manifestation Continues. Despite the appearance of Prava the next morning with a blank sheet for a front page, the manifestation of the July Days continues, now bearing every sign of Bolshevik guidance and organization. In fact, that is the reason for the problem with Pravda: an article composed the previous afternoon calling for restraint had to be withdrawn when the Bolsheviks, confronted with a fait accompli, decided to lead the demonstrations instead. A separate leaflet announced the latter.

The second day of the manifestation belonged more to the workers than the soldiers. Since the February Revolution, communications between the factory committees, the workers’ districts, and the militant units in the garrison had improved. This was in evidence in the run-up to the day’s march. At the direction of the Bolshevik Military Organization, armored cars were dispatched to cover the bridges and principal street crossings. The Machine Gun regiment still manned the Peter and Paul fortress in the river.

The demonstrators began to assemble at about 11:00 a.m., workers at the head of the march. Factories struck and held meetings instead of working. Those whose workers had held back on the first day, even if their factory committees were dominated by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, joined the march. Trotsky says the second day of the manifestation was “more impressive and organized” under “the guiding hand of the party.”

Neighboring garrisons also sent troops to join or protect the march as necessary – significantly, the Kronstadt sailors. Even the Social Revolutionaries in their ranks, and the commissar or the Provisional government himself, had voted to join the march. Ten thousand sailors disembarked on the banks of the Neva River at about noon, and presently appeared at Bolshevik headquarters in the palace formerly of the ballerina. There, addressed by Lunacharsky, they shouted for a speech from Lenin. “By the way,” Trotsky says, Lenin happened to be in town, returned from his sickbed in Finland. Apparently still not quite well, but well enough to speak briefly, he reminded the marchers of the meaning of the slogans on their banners.

The leadership of the left contingent of the Social Revolutionaries who’d joined the march objected to the prominence of a banner bearing the standard of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The rank and file not sharing the objection, the march continued with the banner in place.

Kerensky’s Government

July 20 – July 7, 1917: Kerensky Prime Minister. The Provisional Government takes steps to resolve the cabinet crisis precipitated by the resignation of the bourgeois-liberal Cadet ministers on July 15 – July 2. Some of the ministries that had belonged to the Cadets were given to right-socialist members of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets. The Menshevik Tseretilli, for example, was made Minister of the Interior; this put him in charge of what to do about the Bolsheviks.

Kerensky was rewarded, for his efforts if not his results, by being made Prime Minister. He also retained the Ministries of War and the Marine. The reshuffled cabinet (Trotsky designates it a “transitional government”) launched two lines of policy: the right-socialist Compromisers, in the absence of the Cadets, wanted to enact whatever parts of the program of the recent Soviet Congress they could; Kerensky sought to gratify his friends further to the right by breaking up centers of Bolshevik influence.

Meanwhile, a decree subjecting Lenin to arrest had already been issued. Likewise Zinoviev. According to Deutscher, Stalin’s biographer, Stalin took the leading role in the ensuing intrigue. Lenin, says Deutscher, thought perhaps he should turn himself in, to do otherwise would be considered an admission of guilt. Stalin pointed out to him the risks of putting himself in the hands of the Provisional Government. Stalin brought the matter to the Executive Committee, but found they were unable to guarantee Lenin’s safety. Instead Lenin took refuge in the home of the workman Alliluyev for a few days. There Stalin served as barber, removing Lenin’s characteristic beard and moustache. A few days later Alliluyev and Stalin guided Lenin to a suburban train station, whence he travelled undercover to suburban villages and eventually to Finland. Alliluyev later became Stalin’s father in law.

Trotsky omits this, saying instead that from his hiding place, Lenin sent to the Inquiry Commission of the Soviet to ask for a meeting. Lenin and Zinoviev waited all day at the agreed place, but the Soviet’s representatives never appeared.

July 20-21 – July 7-8, 1917: War News from Tarnopol. News of the successful German counterattack at Tarnopol comes to Petrograd. Beginning the next day, the right-wing “patriotic” press printed everything it could find out about the attack, including the designations and positions of the Russian units involved – a serious breach of military secrecy. Not satisfied with this, the press began to exaggerate the disaster, the better to shift the blame from the Provisional Government to the Bolsheviks.

On July 20 – July 7, the summer offensive on the Western Front began, too late to save the Southwestern Front. On July 21 – July 8, the summer offensive on the Northern Front began, without changing that result. That same day, General Kornilov, commander of the Southwestern Front, gave orders to fire at retreating troops.

Beginning July 21 – July 8, 1917: Transitional Government in Action. Once formed, the transitional government pursue two lines of action. As Trotsky does not give dates for some of their actions, I’ve simply made the lists that follow.

Actions to suppress Bolshevik influence:

·         Breaking up the militant formations of the Petrograd garrison, including the Machine Gun regiment. It seemed like a good idea, but many among the tens of thousands of troops sent to the front as replacements were Bolsheviks advanced in party discipline and theory. They proved to be influential.

·         Outlawing processions in the streets and disarming the workers

·         Ordering the Kronstadt garrison to turn over Midshipman Raskolnikov and other leaders of the July Days

·         Arresting Bolshevik and left-Social Revolutionary leaders in the Baltic Fleet

Actions to realize the program of the Soviet Congress:

·         On July 21 – July 8, issuing a declaration concerning, as Trotsky says, “a collection of democratic commonplaces”

July 22 – July 9, 1917: The Government of Salvation. The Menshevik Dan, citing fears of a counter-revolutionary military dictatorship, offers a three-part resolution in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets:

·         That the revolution is in danger.

·         That the Provisional Government is the “Salvation of the Revolution.”

·         That therefore this government should have “unlimited powers.”

It passed the Central Executive unanimously with only the Bolsheviks abstaining.

On this day, the summer offensive on the Rumanian Front began. Rumanian troops supported the Russian 4^th Army in the attack, which had to be thrown back by a force of mixed nationalities commanded by the German General Mackensen. Meanwhile, the German counterattack on the Southwestern Front was already a “catastrophe” for the Russian 11^th Army, according to its commissars. Its commander, General Kornilov, gave orders to shoot retreating troops.

July 23 – July 10, 1917: A Visit from the Junkers. The offices of the Menshevik party receive the same treatment (from the same people) that the Bolsheviks suffered a few days before.

July 24 – July 11, 1917: Lenin Spirited Away. Lenin, shorn of his beard and moustache, is escorted by Stalin and the workman Allilulev to a suburban train station, whence he eventually makes his way to Finland.

It became Stalin’s job to maintain liaison with Lenin while he was in hiding.

July 25 – July 12, 1917: Decrees of the Provisional Government. The right- and left-leaning factions in the Provisional Government both gain legislative victories on this day. To please his generals, Kerensky put through a decree restoring the death penalty at the front. The left, still fumbling to formulate an agrarian policy, managed to put through a half-hearted measure limiting the sales of land. It pleased no-one.

Kerensky also removed General Polotsev from command of the Petrograd garrison at about this time, giving one explanation to the left in the Provisional Government and another to his friends on the right.

July 26 – July 13, 1917: Bolsheviks Unseated. The Menshevik Dan carries a resolution in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets providing, “Any person indicted by the courts is deprived of membership in the Executive Committee until sentence is pronounced.” This of course would apply only to Bolsheviks, and specifically to Lenin and Zinoviev. Kerensky took this opportunity to shut down the Bolshevik press, which had resurfaced after the smashing of Pravda’s printing presses at the end of the July Days.

The Bolshevik press no longer existing, Trotsky prevailed on the author Maxim Gorky’s paper to print an open letter to the government. He said the decree under which Lenin and others were subject to arrest applied with equal force to himself. We’ll see the result in the sequel.

Week of July 26 – July 13, 1917: The State Duma is Heard From. At about this time, the Provisional Committee of the State Duma passes a resolution denouncing the “Government of Salvation.” The State Duma was an institutional relic of tsarism; though it had been democratically elected, it had no official role in the dual government. Nevertheless the resolution was enough to bring the cabinet down. All the ministers handed in their portfolios to Kerensky, who now became the sole focal point of the government.

Kerensky apparently suffered the ministers to continue in their posts for the time being, but took advantage of the situation to negotiate with the Cadets for the formation of a new governing coalition. The Cadets, guided by Miliukov, laid down four conditions in their opening position:

·         Ministers responsible only “to their own conscience”

·         Unity with the Entente

·         Discipline in the armies

·         Social reforms to be decided by the Constituent Assembly, that is, only after it had been convened

While this was going on, the right-socialist Ministers Tseretilli, of Interior, and Peshekhonov, of Food Supply, took action, or at any rate made pronouncements, designed to protect landlords from the peasants who wanted their lands. Chernov, the Social Revolutionary Minister of Agriculture, resigned when accusations of German contacts shifted to him.

July 29 – July 16, 1917: Kerensky to the Front. Kerensky, now Prime Minister as well as War Minister, returns to the front to confer with his generals. Commander-in-Chief General Brussilov reported the “complete failure” of the offensive. On the bright side, some 90,000 replacements were expected at the front once the militant formations of the Petrograd garrison were disbanded.

Former Commander-in-Chief Alexiev wanted to abolish the soldiers’ committees elected by enlisted troops (to the exclusion of officers) at the company and regimental levels. These committees had made important contributions representing the peasants (most enlisted men in the Russian armies came from the peasantry) in the soviets. In this connection, Brussilov, oddly, claimed that officers are “real proletarians.”

General Kornilov, a Cossack by birth, was not present, as the German advance against his command on the Southwestern Front continued. But before returning to Petrograd, Prime Minister Kerensky sacked General Brussilov and appointed General Kornilov commander-in-chief. Kornilov put conditions on his acceptance of the appointment:

·         Responsibility only to “his own conscience and the people”

·         Power to appoint senior commanders

·         Restoration of the death penalty in the rear. It had already been restored “at the front,” over soldiers in direct contact with the enemy.

The condition about responsibility troubled Kerensky; it made no mention of responsibility to the government. Finding he couldn’t fire Kornilov, Kerensky extracted an oral statement to the effect that by “the people,” the general meant the “Provisional Government.”

July 31 – July 18, 1917: Cadet Demands. Prime Minister Kerensky accedes to the conditions the Cadets imposed on their participation in a new coalition government. But then the Cadets made a new one: The government’s declaration of July 21 – July 8 (“democratic commonplaces” according to Trotsky) was unacceptable to them, and they walked away from the negotiation.

Also on this day, the socialist-majority Provisional Government issued a decree dissolving the Finnish Seim (i.e., their parliament), in which left-socialists dominated. They also issued a threat to punish railroad workers for irregularities in the operation of the railroads. Further, to commemorate the third anniversary of the start of the war, the ministers sent a nice note to Russia’s allies in the Entente, mentioning how the government had just put down an insurrection caused by German intrigues. All these actions revealed the weakness of the right-socialist Compromisers in the government during a time when the counter-revolution was gaining strength.

August 3 – July 21, 1917: Kerensky Resigns. Aware that he occupied an “indispensable” position between the right-socialist Compromisers and the bourgeois-liberal Cadets, but impatient with the negotiations, Kerensky resigns as Prime Minister and leaves Petrograd. For the second time, the right-socialist ministers remaining in the government turned in their portfolios. They hoped Kerensky would agree, if given unlimited discretion, to return as Prime Minister. The Cadets felt they needed Kerensky too, and proved to be agreeable to this solution.

August 6 – July 24, 1917: Second Coalition Formed. After an all-night debate, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets agrees to give Kerensky “unconditional and unlimited” powers. For their part, the Cadets agreed they too would join the government. Kerensky used the powers thus granted to appoint a ministry, the Second Coalition Government, to suit himself alone and without further negotiation.

Though the majority of ministers were Menshevik or Social Revolutionary, the ministry was dominated by Kerensky and his bourgeois friends. Chernov, the Social Revolutionary who had resigned a few days earlier after being accused of contacts with the Germans, was reappointed Minister of Agriculture.

One of Kerensky’s first acts was to arrest Trotsky and Lunacharsky. Trotsky had publicly declared this was the logical thing for the Provisional Government to do (with respect to himself), as he was as “implacable an enemy” to the government as Lenin or the other Bolsheviks who had been indicted after the July Days.

August 8 – July 26, 1917: Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party Convenes. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party assembles its Sixth Congress in Petrograd “semi-legally,” as Trotsky says. The Central Committee elected by this Congress later voted for the armed insurrection now known as the October Revolution.

About the first thing the Congress did was pass unanimously a resolution that Lenin and the other Bolsheviks who had been indicted should not turn themselves in. Stalin had argued they should, but only “If, however, power is wielded by an authority which can safeguard our comrades against violence and is fair-dealing at least to some extent ....” But no-one believed these conditions would ever be met. Lenin himself was still in hiding, so the Congress named him “honorary” chairman instead.

The report on party organization revealed membership had tripled, to 240,000, in the previous three months.

The main business of the Congress was to rethink the party’s program in light of the July Days and other recent events. For example, since the Compromisers had led the Petrograd Soviet into complicity with the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the Kerensky ministry, the Bolsheviks dropped the slogan “All Power to the Soviets!” The Congress also adopted a resolution identifying the conditions under which an insurrection would be the correct response. Lenin’s underground writings, and communications through a secret liaison, usually Stalin, contributed to the result.

The Inter-District Organization of United Social-Democrats or Mezhraiontsy (sometimes translated “Interdistrictites,” though I have been calling them “Trotskyites” after their most prominent member) joined the Bolshevik party while the Congress sat. The Mezhraiontsy had at last dropped their project of union between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; the latter were now deeply involved with the Compromisers. Among the prominent social democrats who then became Bolsheviks were (the links lead to Wikipedia) Leon Trotsky, Adolf Joffe, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Moisei Uritsky, David Riazanov, V. Volodarsky, Lev Karakhan, Dmitry Manuilsky, and Sergey Ezhov (Tsederbaum).

Early August (old style) also saw the convocation of the bourgeois-aligned Congress and Trade and Industry and Congress of Provincial Commissars. The latter consisted mainly of Cadets, while the opening speaker at the former happened indiscreetly to mention the “bony hand of hunger” in a tirade against taxes on commerce. As this was a not very thinly veiled threat of factory lock-outs, Trotsky says, the phrase “entered...into the political dictionary of the revolution,” and eventually “cost the capitalists dear.”

August 9 – July 27, 1917: Bolshevik Influence. Volodarsky reports to the Bolshevik Congress that the party has “colossal…unlimited influence” in the factories. As the power of the Central Executive Committee atrophied under the Compromisers, this was to become a valuable resource in the October Revolution.

Early August – End of July, 1917: State Conference Hatched. At about the end of July (old style), the Provisional Government announces it will hold a State Conference in Moscow some two weeks hence. As we’ll see, the event was managed to suit Kerensky’s theatrical sense of politics and his role in it.

Mid-August – Early August, 1917: The State and Revolution. Lenin drafts the preface to The State and Revolution while in exile in Finland. It seems as though someone sent him the manuscript – he had left it behind in Switzerland the previous March – via Stockholm. When he got it in July, he wrote Kamenev: “Entre nous. If they bump me off, I ask you to publish my little note-book….” It was not published until after the October Revolution.

Proscription and exile gave him a chance to substantially complete the book. It was meant to help the proletariat understand its coming role in the revolutionary state, leading to the withering away of the state entirely.

August 16 – August 3, 1917. The Congress Elects the Central Committee. Last on the agenda of the Sixth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. is the election of the party’s Central Committee. Lenin was made chairman; Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev were members. Two former Mezhraiontsys also sat on the committee, Trotsky for foreign affairs and Uritsky for interior affairs.

Only one vote out of 134 was cast against Lenin. This (seemingly the same) individual was joined by one or two others in voting against Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky.

August 17 – August 4, 1917: The Narrow Composition. The “narrow composition” selected by the Bolshevik Central Committee takes office. It was apparently an executive committee that included only those members of the Central Committee who were not in hiding (Lenin, Zinoviev) or in prison (Trotsky). It was dissolved October 23 -October 10 before the October Revolution began.

August 19 – August 6, 1917: The Counter-Revolution Mobilizes. The Union of the Twelve Cossack Armies passes a resolution against removing Kornilov from command. The League of Cavaliers of St. George passed a similar resolution during this time, one that included the threat of union with the Cossacks.

On the same day a letter appeared in the party paper of the Social Revolutionaries detailing the insults and abuses, including arbitrary executions, of the junkers (army officers drawn from the rural aristocracy and military preparatory academies) at and behind the front. All three incidents reflect the mobilization of the military forces of the counter-revolution.

Meanwhile the narrow composition of the Bolshevik Central Committee selected the party’s Secretariat from its membership. And before the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, Kamenev advocated attendance at the Stockholm Conference. But the previous April, considering it an instrument of imperialism and not internationalism, the Bolshevik party conference had voted against participation. Though Kamenev stated he was speaking only for himself, this was nevertheless considered a breach of party discipline. Lenin’s response came from exile in Finland about ten days later, strongly insisting that Kamenev had no right to speak for himself and in contradiction to the party’s democratically determined position.

August 20 – August 7, 1917: Black Hundreds Freed. The Provisional Government frees members of the Black Hundreds, right-wing nationalist and tsarist (not to mention anti-Semitic) organizations outlawed by the February Revolution. These organizations, established during the Revolution of 1905 for the support of the tsar, had since been in decline. Releasing them constituted another step towards mobilizing the forces of the counter-revolution.

At about this time, the government postponed the convocation of the promised Constituent Assembly – again – this time to November 28 (old style). They also sent the tsar and his family to Tobolsk in the Urals, well out of the way of a tsarist counter-revolution.

November 8 – October 26, 1917: A New Day

The morning papers draw a blank on the events of the previous thirty-six hours. They reported the taking of the Winter Palace and arrest of the ministry, but weren’t sure what that meant or what kind of difference it would make. By orders from Smolny, the streets, tramcars, shops, and restaurants opened and functioned normally. So people went out or went to work and shared the rumors they’d heard or speculations they’d made up. Trotsky says “…the seismograph of the Stock Exchange describes a convulsive curve.” Apparently he means stocks fell – at least they could still make trades.   

The American journalist Reed picked up whatever papers he could find through the course of the day. Reed’s clippings from the compromisist papers predicted the failure of the Bolshevik revolution, denounced the party program – peace, land, and bread – as lies and false promises, and condemned the Congress of Soviets as illegal and without authority. Trotsky says some of the bourgeois and compromisist press were reviving the old slander of the German connection. Reed observes that the few Cadet papers to be found took a “detached, ironical” attitude. A few of the more destructive papers were suppressed.

So not everything was new that day. But the Bolshevik paper, lately published under title of Rabochy Put, now reappeared as Pravda.

Follow this link to the next post, which is out of the regular sequence.

October 31 – October 18, 1917: Deadlocks in the Pre-Parliament and in the Baltic

After three days of debate, neither the right-socialist Compomisers nor the bourgeois Cadets can pass a resolution on reforming the army and continuing the war. The votes were symptomatic of general paralysis in the Pre-Parliament on every issue it attempted to address. The American journalist Reed heard the Cadet Miliukov give a speech denouncing Skobelov’s instructions. But this decision had already been taken over Cadet objections.

At about this time, Kerensky renewed his dispute with the Baltic Fleet and the soviets of Finland. The sailors sent a delegation to the Central Executive Committee demanding removal of “a person who is disgracing…the revolution with his shameless political chantage.” By this they meant Kerensky. The Regional Committee of the Finnish Soviets, taking sovereign powers, held up some of the government’s freight. Kerensky’s response, threats of arrest, left the soviets unimpressed.

Trotsky observes that the fleet and Finnish soviets were already in a state of insurrection; they had assumed state functions and administered them independently of the Provisional Government. In another connection Trotsky observes that the Finnish garrison and Baltic Fleet had become a dependable reserve for an insurrection of workers and soldiers in Petrograd.

Meanwhile, the Petrograd Soviet held elections for its delegates to the Congress of Soviets. The Bolshevik slate – Trotsky, Kamenev, Volodarsky, Yurenev, and Lashevich – received well over 400 votes. Just over 200 votes were cast for candidates from the compromisist parties.

October 30 – October 17, 1917: Congress Postponed

Today, three days before the Congress of Soviets is to convene, the Central Executive Committee puts it off by five days, until the 25^th (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.

October 28 – October 15, 1917: Reed’s Interviews at Smolny

The American journalist Reed interviews Kamenev and Volodarsky in the halls of Smolny Institute. They answered questions about the coming Congress of Soviets. Both of them spoke conditionally; neither was sure the Congress would actually take place.

Kamenev said that if it took place, the Congress would certainly represent the will of the masses, and probably have a Bolshevik majority. Of course, this was his preferred path for the transfer of power to the soviets.

Volodarsky said that the Compromisers were trying to see that the Congress did not come off. So the Bolsheviks “were realists enough not to depend on that!” But apparently he didn’t say, or Reed didn’t ask, what the Bolsheviks would do in such a case.

August 9 – July 27, 1917: Bolshevik Influence

Volodarsky reports to the Bolshevik Congress that the party has “colossal…unlimited influence” in the factories. As the power of the Central Executive Committee atrophied under the Compromisers, this was to become a valuable resource in the October Revolution.

This is a supplementary post. Follow the link to the next one in chronological order.

October 22 – October 9, 1917: Military Revolutionary Committee

Reacting to the German occupation of the Western Estonian Archipelago, the Compromisers in the Petrograd Soviet move for the creation of a Committee of Revolutionary Defense in the capital. The initial responsibility of the committee would be to decide questions about transfers from the Petrograd garrison to the front, now nearer to the capital than at any previous time in the war.

This solved a political problem for the Bolsheviks. How could the Soviet, which they controlled, refuse reinforcements from the garrison without appearing to have betrayed the soldiers at the front? The motion by the Compromisers put the onus of the decision on them.

The Compromisers were nevertheless a little surprised when the Bolsheviks supported the motion. A bit more parliamentary work would be required before the committee became a reality. In the end, it became a formidable tool, Trotsky says the “chief lever,” of the October Revolution.

At the same meeting Trotsky gave his report on the withdrawal of the Bolsheviks from the Pre-Parliament. He concluded, pretty unambiguously, “Long live the direct and open struggle for revolutionary power!”

October 10 – September 27, 1917: Resolution in Reval

The soviets of Reval (now Tallinn), the capital of Estonia and the next line of defense if the Germans should decide to march on Petrograd, demand that the Pre-Parliament disband and that a congress of soviets be called to form the government. This was one of a number of similar resolutions in a battle of resolutions between the Bolsheviks and the Compromisers on the Central Executive Committee.

On another front, the resolution also demanded that the soviets must agree to troop transfers. This policy would prevent, for example, the government from transferring troops loyal to the revolution out of the Petrograd garrison. It was to become an issue as the Bolsheviks prepared for insurrection. In theory, Trotsky observes, the maintenance and deployment of armed forces is a fundamental right of the state. But the policy the resolution advocates had been a feature of the dual government since the February Revolution. Now it was becoming a feature of preparation for insurrection.

October 6 – September 23, 1917: Bolsheviks Will Not Attend

In a letter, Lenin argues forcefully in favor of a Bolshevik boycott of the Pre-Parliament. Not only would participation send a mixed message to the party’s adherents about the goals of the party, it would mean working in the wrong direction. The party should be working where it has strength, in the soviets, factory committees, trade unions, soldiers committees; not in a forum got up by the Compromisers and bourgeoisie to cover up their weakness.

This view of the matter gained acceptance within the party as the meeting of the Pre-Parliament approached.

September 27 – September 14, 1917: Democratic Conference Convenes

Given their failures in the Soviet, the Compromisers cast about for a means to recover lost ground. After the Kornilov insurrection was defeated, they settled on a “Democratic Conference,” which was to be packed in such a way as to prevent the Bolsheviks from carrying their program.

For this purpose, a new constituency was heard from: the Cooperators. Ostensibly representing the peasantry, they in fact petit bourgeois administrators of agriculture who happened to live in the same villages as the peasants. The Compromisers credentialed some 150 of them.

Lenin and Zinoviev were also credentialed, but the Compromisers did not give them safe-conducts. All Kerensky would promise was that he would not arrest them in the hall where the conference was being held. He’d arrest them at the entrance. Safe-conduct or not, Lenin did not plan to attend; he opposed Bolshevik participation altogether.

The conference convened on September 14 (September 27, new style) in a Petrograd theater. Kerensky decided to attend. When he greeted the praesidium, the Bolsheviks on it refused to shake hands. So did the Kornilovists. Kerensky seems to have pretended they did.

Then Kerensky spoke extemporaneously, knowing he would have to address his role in the Kornilov conspiracy. “I knew what they wanted,” he said incautiously. “Before they went to Kornilov they came to me and suggested I take the same course.” The left of course wondered who “they” were, and what they had “suggested,” but Kerensky shifted topics rather than answer their shouted questions.

Kerensky committed another verbal blunder in response to another shouted question, this one about the death penalty. Both the Petrograd Soviet and the Menshevik party had passed resolutions against restoration of the death penalty in the military. Kerensky responded that he hadn’t ordered any executions, and when he did, “then I will permit you to curse me.” Of course this admitted that the death penalty was not necessary; nor did it make sense to restore the death penalty based on Kerensky’s unspoken promise not to use it. In a later speech, Trotsky pointed this out to anyone who might have missed it.

What the Bolsheviks would do was on everybody’s mind, including Kerensky’s. He expected “the forces of the democracy” to support him in case of an insurrection, warning, “Do not think that I am hanging in the air,” and claiming that he could stop the railroads and the telegraphs. The Bolsheviks in the hall just laughed: what an odd expression, “hanging in the air,” for a dictator to use of himself!

Tseretilli said he thought the government, meaning in particular Kerensky, was getting “a little dizzy” on the heights.

At one point, after a number of speeches by individuals who were part of the government, Trotsky observed, “I have not heard a single speaker here who would...[defend] the directory or its president.” Nor could any of these speakers articulate the policies of the government; nothing was being done to revive the economy, to end the war, or anything else.

The Bolsheviks called on Trotsky to read their declaration of the policy of the party and Central Committee. Tseretilli had framed the issue in one of his speeches: instead of putting the Soviet forward, why don’t the Bolsheviks take the power themselves? This challenge was whispered on the praesidium and repeated in the lobbies. Ten days before, the Cadet paper printed an editorial theorizing that maybe the Bolsheviks could best be got rid of if they were given the power. They would fail and fade to insignificance.

The Bolshevik declaration was neither evasive nor misleading. The party would not seize power “against the organized will of the majority of the toiling masses of the country.” This meant that if the soviets, in many of which the Bolsheviks were now the majority, willed it, the party would seize the power. The declaration also refused to recognize any decision of the Democratic Conference that was not subsequently ratified by the next All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

When they heard the declaration’s call for arming the workers, members of the centrist majority cried in alarm, “What for?” Trotsky replied they would be the revolutionary country’s best defense against both imperialism and counter-revolution.

The Bolshevik attitude towards the future of the Russian state being known, the conference proceeded to debate which policy it would endorse.

Meanwhile it had fallen to Stalin, as liaison between the party and Lenin, to bring Lenin's letters from Finland to Petrograd. Lenin had taken a position against participation in the conference. His first letter on insurrection, addressed to the Bolshevik Central Committee and the committees of Petrograd and Moscow, took the party by surprise. It was just a sketch of points he would continue to make in the weeks to come. But the Central Committee, on Kamenev’s motion but over Stalin’s objections, decided to burn it anyway. (One copy was kept for posterity.)

In another letter, written at about the same time, Lenin begins to add detail to his plan of insurrection, and grounds it in Marxist theory. Trotsky expresses part of the plan this way: “To leave the Alexandrinsky Theater [scene of the Democratic Conference] with an ultimatum and return there at the head of the armed masses.”

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.

September 16 – September 3, 1917: “On Compromises”

In Rabochy Put (Worker’s Way), a successor to the shuttered Pravda, Lenin writes of an opening for the proletarian revolution created by the defeat of Kornilov’s insurrection. He argued in “On Compromises” that if the Soviet were to reject proposals for coalition with the Cadets in the government, the way would be open for an all-socialist government incorporating the system of soviets.

He described the compromise this way: “The compromise on our part is our return to the pre-July demand of all power to the Soviets and a government of [Social Revolutionaries] and Mensheviks responsible to the Soviets.” And in return: “The Mensheviks and S.R.s, being the government bloc, would then agree … to form a government wholly and exclusively responsible to the Soviets, the latter taking over all power locally as well.”

Of course, as we’ll see, the right-socialists never opened this window.

August 31 – August 18, 1917: Against the Death Penalty

The Petrograd Soviet demands abolition of the death penalty by a vote of 900 to 4. The four voting against the resolution were among the right-socialists most closely tied to the Compromisers and the Provisional Government: Tseretilli, Cheidze, Dan, and Lieber.

August 8 – July 26, 1917: Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party Convenes

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party assembles its Sixth Congress in Petrograd “semi-legally,” as Trotsky says. The Central Committee elected by this Congress later voted for the armed insurrection now known as the October Revolution.

About the first thing the Congress did was pass unanimously a resolution that Lenin and the other Bolsheviks who had been indicted should not turn themselves in. Stalin had argued they should, but only “If, however, power is wielded by an authority which can safeguard our comrades against violence and is fair-dealing at least to some extent ....” But no-one believed these conditions would ever be met. Lenin himself was still in hiding, so the Congress named him “honorary” chairman instead.

The report on party organization revealed membership had tripled, to 240,000, in the previous three months.

The main business of the Congress was to rethink the party’s program in light of the July days and other recent events. For example, since the Compromisers had led the Petrograd Soviet into complicity with the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the Kerensky ministry, the Bolsheviks dropped the slogan “All Power to the Soviets!” The Congress also adopted a resolution identifying the conditions under which an insurrection would be the correct response. Lenin’s underground writings, and communications through a secret liaison, usually Stalin, contributed to the result.

The Inter-District Organization of United Social-Democrats or Mezhraiontsy (sometimes translated “Interdistrictites,” though I have been calling them “Trotskyites” after their most prominent member) joined the Bolshevik party while the Congress sat. The Mezhraiontsy had at last dropped their project of union between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks; the latter were now deeply involved with the Compromisers. Among the prominent social democrats who then became Bolsheviks were (the links lead to Wikipedia) Leon Trotsky, Adolf Joffe, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Moisei Uritsky, David Riazanov, V. Volodarsky, Lev Karakhan, Dmitry Manuilsky, and Sergey Ezhov (Tsederbaum).

Early August (old style) also saw the convocation of the bourgeois-aligned Congress and Trade and Industry and Congress of Provincial Commissars. The latter consisted mainly of Cadets, while the opening speaker at the former happened indiscreetly to mention the “bony hand of hunger” in a tirade against taxes on commerce. As this was a not very thinly veiled threat of factory lock-outs, Trotsky says, the phrase “entered...into the political dictionary of the revolution,” and eventually “cost the capitalists dear.”