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 9-10 – September 26-27, 1917: September Theses

Lenin publishes “Tasks of the Revolution,“ a kind of September version of the April Theses, in Rabochy Put. There are seven tasks; though some of them address issues already addressed in the April Theses, they all take account of developments in the interim.

The first two tasks lead to forming the new revolutionary state: all power must pass to the workers, soldiers and peasants through their representatives in the soviets; no compromise with the bourgeoisie or their political apparatus is possible.

The third reiterates the party’s war policy against indemnities, annexation, and defensism. Lenin lays out specific actions against contingencies during the lead up to, and after, the insurrection.

The agrarian policy of the Bolsheviks does not change, but acquires new force in light of the inaction of the Compromisers and the peasant revolt.

The fifth task recognizes that the progress of the revolution and the soviets has given the workers more ability to control the means of production. Therefore this, not as in April just the development of the soviets, becomes the task.

The last two tasks offer measures for combating the counter-revolution, something that had already been done successfully once with the defeat of Kornilov.

On the 10^th (September 27, new style), Lenin, still anxious about putting off the insurrection until the Congress of Soviets could be convened some two weeks thence, wrote to Smilga, the President of the Finnish Regional Committee and a member of the Central Committee. Lenin let Smilga know that the revolutionary troops in Finland and the Baltic Fleet might be called upon to advance on Petrograd. He asked Smilga do to a number of other things, both in the political open and underground. One, interestingly, was to prepare identification papers for him in the name of Konstantin Petrovich Ivanov. That’s how he signed the letter.