Overnight November 6-7 – October 24-25, 1917: Politics of Insurrection

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.”

October 9 – September 26, 1917: Second Thoughts

The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets discovers it would be impolitic to hold the Congress of Soviets as early as two weeks thence. The compromisist parties saw they could not campaign effectively for the Constituent Assembly if they had to be campaigning for the Congress of Soviets as well.

The Menshevik Dan moved for a delay. Trotsky responded for the Bolsheviks that if the Central Executive would not call the Congress under its constitution, the Bosheviks would call it on behalf of the revolution. The motion carried, for a delay until October 20 (November 2, new style); the result will be seen in the sequel.

September 24 – September 11, 1917: Against Coalition

. The Menshevik Dan speaks in the Petrograd Soviet in favor of coalition government, Trotsky for government of the soviets. Dan’s motion garnered only 10 votes from the hundreds of deputies present.

A resolution against repression of the Bolshevik party passed the Moscow Soviet unanimously on the same day.

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.

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.

A supplementary post follows this one in the chronological order.