October 31 – October 18, 1917: The Garrison
Conference. In a decisive development, the Garrison Conference renews the
policy of the Soviet from the April Days: orders that have not been
countersigned by a representative of the soldiers section of the Soviet are not
to be obeyed. The Central Executive Committee tried to suppress the
announcement of the meeting for this purpose, but it was successfully sent to
all the units of the city garrison via a technology called a “telephonogram.”
Apparently the device made a phonographic recording of the message, which could
then be sent over the telephone as often as necessary.
The Conference
consisted not of Bolshevik politicians, but of representatives from the units
of the garrison itself. It took a muster-roll of these units on the question of
coming out in case of an insurrection. Only one cavalry regiment and a military
school were against it. A few other smaller units declared neutrality or
obedience to the Central Executive Committee. The rest, including all the
infantry regiments, would come out, as Trotsky says, “at a word from the
Petrograd Soviet.”
The Central
Executive, denied the opportunity to speak, walked out in frustration. The
garrison had formerly been a source
of strength for them. Now the president put the main question on the table: by
adopting the countersign policy, the garrison placed itself effectively under
the Petrograd Soviet’s control.
October 31 – October 18, 1917: Kamenev’s
Trick. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet is again in session;
with rumors flying about insurrection, the Bolsheviks have to give some sort of
account of themselves. Trotsky spoke, admitting in the first place that he had signed
an order for rifles that went to the Red Guard.
In the second
place, he forged a link between the removal of the Petrograd garrison and the
convocation of the Congress of Soviets. The Petrograd Soviet, he argued, would
ask the Congress to seize the power; in the meantime, the Soviet would resist
attempts, originating with the bourgeoisie, to break up the garrison – or for
that matter the Congress. With the Garrison Conference and its countersign
policy in place, the Soviet’s resistance had teeth.
Someone asked
whether the Soviet had set a date for the insurrection. Trotsky replied that it
had not, but that “if it became necessary to set one, the workers and soldiers
would come out as one man.” Kamenev, sitting next to Trotsky, rose to make a
comment that he “wanted to sign his name to Trotsky’s every word.” Of course
this meant that he, Kamenev, did not think an insurrection would become
necessary any time soon. But it was wrong to implicate Trotsky, and by
extension the Bolshevik party, in that opinion. This episode was to have
consequences.
Sukhanov’s motion to commemorate Gorky’s 50th anniversary
failed.
Trotsky relates
an anecdote of Sukhanov’s observations after this session of the Executive
Committee. First, Sukhanov says in his history, he saw Trotsky leave the
meeting and approach the run-down, crowded automobiles the Central Executive
Committee had made available to the Bolsheviks. After a moment, Trotsky
“chuckled and…disappeared into the darkness” on foot. Then, boarding a
passenger car, a smallish man with a goatee consoled Sukhanov on the
discomforts of travel by rail. Sukhanov learned that the man’s name was
Sverdlov, and that he was a “old party worker.” But he did not then know that
Sverdlov and a quorum of the Bolshevik Central Committee had met
in his apartments eight days before, nor could he know that in two weeks,
Sverdlov would be President of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
of All Russia.
Trotsky was
apparently due at the All Russian Conference of Factory and Shop Committees
that evening. There he spoke against “vacillation and wavering,” and everybody
knew he was talking about Kamenev and Zinoviev. The conference also raised an
issue that was being raised in Moscow factories and in the artillery factories.
A resolution declaring worker control of production “in the interest of the
whole country” passed with only five dissenting votes. Thus workers
representing every Russian industry endorsed not just the theoretical validity
of worker control but also their ability to manage the factories successfully,
as in some cases they were already doing.
Beginning of November – End of October,
1917: Bolshevik Agitation. With the decision of the Central Committee in
favor of insurrection, but awaiting a favorable opportunity, the Bolsheviks
redouble their agitation in the capital. Trotsky lists some of the principal
speakers:
·
Sverdlov
·
Volodarsky
·
Lashevich
·
Kollontai
·
Chudnovsky
·
Lunacharsky
·
“scores of agitators of lesser caliber”
Lenin was
regrettably missing from the list, still waiting in Finland. Zinoviev and
Kamenev were missing too – but they had voted against the insurrection in the
Central Committee, and worked against it since then. Neither does Trotsky find
any evidence Stalin ever spoke at mass meetings during this time.
Of course Trotsky
himself was the leading figure. Somewhat modestly referring to himself as
“president of the Petrograd Soviet” instead of by name, Trotsky somewhat
immodestly reproduces a passage from Sukhanov’s history saying that his influence
“was overwhelming,” and that “every [Petrograd] worker and soldier knew him and
heard him personally.” Returning to modesty, Trotsky points out that the
person-to-person “molecular agitation” of the workers and soldiers was
“incomparably more effective.”
November 1 – October 19, 1917: “Lawful”
Garrison Conference. Dismayed by the decision of the Garrison
Conference the day before, the Central Executive Committee assembles its
own meeting of the representatives of the Petrograd garrison. Several units not
represented at the previous meeting sent delegates to this one. Two of them,
the garrison of the Peter and Paul fortress and an armored car division,
declared allegiance to the Central Executive.
The military
importance of this development lay in the position of the Peter and Paul on an
island in the Neva River. Though of course it could not maneuver, the fortress
not only dominated a number of bridges in the middle of the city, but it also
blocked the direct route to the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional
Government. There was also a substantial arsenal, coveted by the Red Guards, on
the island.
Then the Central
Executive asked the assembly to pass a cautiously worded resolution. The
soldiers refused both the resolution and the notion that an assembly called by
the Central Executive rather than the Petrograd Soviet would have authority to
take any such decision. After this failure, the Central Executive, with the
cooperation of headquarters, tried to appoint a commissar over the Petrograd
military district. This the Petrograd Soviet in turn rejected. General
Polkovnikov, in his turn, issued general orders for the suppression of
demonstrations. Reed reproduces them in his book; Polkovnikov’s lack of urgency
is remarkable.
Meanwhile,
hearing of agitation for the convocation of a constituent assembly in and for
the Ukraine, Kerensky summons its General Secretary to Petrograd for an
explanation. This did not create much of a ripple in the Ukraine. The American
journalist Reed says Kerensky also told the Pre-Parliament that the government
would be able to handle any Bolshevik insurrection, even though he himself was
“a doomed man.”
November 2 – October 20, 1917: Military
Revolutionary Committee at Work. The Military Revolutionary Committee, with
Trotsky presiding, begins preparations for defending the Congress of Soviets.
Delegates aligned with the Compromisers boycotted the meeting, leaving the Bolsheviks,
with their new left Social Revolutionary allies, completely in control. The
Social Revolutionary Lazimir continued in charge of operations; Sverdlov
assumed a role corresponding to that of chief of the general staff.
The committee
assigned commissars to all the units of the garrison. Among their
responsibilities was taking control of stores of arms; distributions of weapons
were to take place only by consent of the commissars. In this way, the
commissar for Peter and Paul fortress prevented a shipment of 10,000 rifles to
the Cossacks of the Don, as well as distributions to junkers and other
counter-revolutionary organizations in the capital.
The typographical
workers came forward to report an increase of Black Hundreds propaganda to the
committee. Such reports gave the committee an opportunity to control
counter-revolutionary agitation.
The rumors about
a Bolshevik insurrection that day proved again to be untrue. Nevertheless the
government continued its own preparations, which it still considered adequate.
The Petrograd Soviet, in a preparation of its own, announced that on Sunday the
22nd (November 4, new style), it would conduct a review of its
forces. The counter-revolution responded by promising a religious procession on
that day.
Also on this day,
Kerensky’s Minister of War, Verkhovsky, made the mistake of advocating a
separate peace to a committee of the Pre-Parliament. Even people who might have
agreed in private that this was advisable attacked him publicly, coupling his
policy to that of Trotsky. The minister had to take an enforced vacation.
Finally, as the
nationalities question in Russia extended to the Cossacks, on this day they
declared the unity of their armies with the Caucasian mountaineers and the
people of the steppes. This proved to be the foundation for the Cossack state
formed to oppose the Bolshevik government the following spring.
November 2 – October 20, 1917: Kamenev’s
Resignation, etc. The Bolshevik Central Committee meets in the absence of
both Lenin and Kamenev. After his “trick”
(Lenin’s word) at the Petrograd Soviet, Kamenev offered his resignation from
the Central Committee, making himself freer to oppose its decisions. Trotsky
obliged him by putting the item on the agenda.
Trotsky moved the
resignation be accepted. Sverdlov read a letter from Lenin criticizing Kamenev
and Zinoviev as “strikebreakers,” and characterizing the way Kamenev had
twisted Trotsky’s words as “plain petty cheating.” Stalin spoke against
acceptance, but the motion passed five votes to three, with Stalin among those
against. The committee also forbade Kamenev’s and Zinoviev’s agitation against
the party’s policies, again over Stalin’s dissent.
This was but one
of a number of signs of fissures in the party as the pressure of the coming
insurrection mounted. On the day of the committee meeting, the party paper
printed a letter from Zinoviev saying that he had moved closer to Lenin’s views
and accepted what Trotsky said in the Soviet. The editor, Stalin, printed it
over comments that this was also the meaning of Kamenev’s “declaration” in the
Petrograd Soviet (though no-one believed this but Stalin) and that the “sharpness
of tone” of Lenin’s article obscured the agreement of the party “in
fundamentals” (though, as Trotsky says, the fundamental question at that time
was the imminence of the
insurrection, over which Kamenev, at any rate, was still fighting).
Stalin offered to
resign from the editorial board, but the offer was not accepted.
The American
journalist Reed got the story on the insurrection from Volodarsky the next day.
But because Volodarsky was not on the Central Committee, and might not have
been at the meeting, the version Reed reports has a touch of the fabulous.
Lenin, Volodarsky said, ruled out the 6th, because the insurrection
needed an all-Russian basis, and the Congress of Soviets would not yet have
assembled. Lenin ruled out the 8th, because though the Congress
would already be in session, it would be unable to reach a sudden decision
democratically. This left the 7th (October 25, old style).
But of course
Lenin was not even there….
November 3 – October 21, 1917: Resolution
of the Garrison Conference. With representatives of two of the three
Cossack regiments in the garrison present, the Garrison Conference accepted
three proposals made by Trotsky: that the garrison would support the Military
Revolutionary Committee, that the garrison would take part in the review of
forces planned for the following day, and that the Congress of Soviets should
“take the power in its hands.” Trotsky also welcomed the Cossacks to the
conference.
The committee
named three commissars, including Lazimir, to the district military
headquarters of General Polkovnikov. They informed the general about the
Garrison Conference’s decision requiring military orders to be countersigned by
the Soviet. The car the staff had sent to bring the commissars to the meeting was withdrawn when they
left.
In a special
session at 11:00 a.m., the conference decided to make an accomplished fact
official. They summoned Trotsky and Sverdlov, and told them of their plan to
break from headquarters entirely and in the open. The resolution then adopted
gave the reason: “[H]eadquarters is a direct instrument of the
counter-revolutionary forces.” The decision was communicated to the district
soviets and soldiers committees; steps were taken to prevent surprise action by
the enemy.
The decision of
the Garrison Conference forestalled the plans Polkovnikov and the Central
Executive Committee wanted to implement at a meeting set for 1:00 p.m. By then the Garrison
Conference had already taken, Trotsky says, “a decisive step on the road to
insurrection.”
Another Smolny
delegation went to headquarters with word of the conference resolution. Staff
somewhat wishfully thought it might be just another instance of the dual
government, or that the Central Executive Committee could fix things.
It got more
difficult to get into Smolny that day; passes were changed every few hours. The
American journalist Reed tells how he saw Trotsky run afoul of this when he had
lost his pass and neither the guard nor the commander of the guard recognized
him. Trotsky and his wife were eventually admitted.
Meanwhile
Miliukov’s Cadet paper asserted that if the Bolsheviks were to come out, they
would be suppressed “immediately and without difficulty.”
November 4 – October 22, 1917: The Day of
the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolshevik press sums up the declarations of
revolutionary organizations throughout the country: 56 such organizations are
demanding the transfer of power to the soviets.
Meanwhile, the
Menshevik Dan reported on behalf of the Central Executive Committee that only
50 out of over 900 soviets had thus far made the decision to send delegates to
the Congress of Soviets. Trotsky speculates that this number indicated low
morale in the compromisist parties rather than lack of interest across the
country as a whole. Those soviets that were
attending for the most part did not bother to tell the Central Executive.
This was the day
for the review of the revolutionary forces of the Petrograd Soviet. It did not
take the form of mass demonstration in the streets. Instead there were meetings
in the public halls and squares. One audience would assemble, listen to the
speeches, then depart. Then another audience would file in.
All the speakers
were Bolsheviks, bolstered by the left Social Revolutionaries who were now
joining them. Trotsky addressed the crowd at the House of the People. He read
out the resolution and called for their assent. Sukhanov wrote, “Thousands and
thousands raised their hands as one man.” They held them up, eyes burning, as
Trotsky made the resolution an oath. “They took the oath”: Loyalty to the
Soviet, immediate answer to its summons.
Trotsky says,
“Each side was satisfied with the other. The leaders were convinced: We can
postpone no longer! The masses said to themselves: This time the thing will be
done!”
On the request of
General Polkovnikov, the “religious” procession of counter-revolutionists did
not come off. But the bourgeois press, like the boy who cried wolf, again
predicted a bloody demonstration. Miliukov writes in his history that “the
frightened population” stayed home. By “population” he meant the bourgeoisie.
As for the
refusal of the Garrison Conference to accept orders, Kerensky reportedly said,
“I think we can easily handle this.” Later he was asking whether the government
ought to arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee. Not necessary, General
Polkovnikov thought, given the forces he had in hand. The Compromisers on the
Central Executive thought they could deal with the committee’s commissars.
Meanwhile, the
American journalist Reed was keeping count of arrivals to the Congress of
Soviets:
·
November 2, 15 delegates
·
November 3, 100
·
November 4, 175, “of whom one hundred and three
were Bolsheviki!”
November 5 – October 23, 1917: The Peter
and Paul Comes Over. General Polkovnikov and his staff try to open a
negotiation with the Garrison Conference. They offered to accept the conditions
the conference had declared, that is, the policy that orders from headquarters
would not be considered valid unless countersigned by the Soviet. But the
conference would have to withdraw the order categorically breaking from the
headquarters chain of command. Headquarters signed and delivered an agreement
to that effect, but the conference never troubled to answer.
It was busy with
other things. The Soviet assigned commissars with plenary powers to each
military unit and to strategic points in the city. It applied the tactic of
“crowding out” government functions and replacing their people with agents of
the Soviet at every opportunity.
But the commandant
at the Peter and Paul fortress in the Neva River threatened to arrest the
commissar, Corporal Blagonravov, who arrived there. Hearing of this at Smolny,
the Bolsheviks wondered what to do. Trotsky, thinking the troops themselves
must be sound, offered to negotiate. When he and his delegation got there at
about 2:00 p.m., a meeting was in progress. The right-wing orators spoke
cautiously; the soldiers listened to Trotsky’s delegation instead.
Thus this strategic
point and its garrison came over to the Soviet. Blagonravov set up his
office and his communications with Smolny. The arsenal and its 100,000 rifles
became available to the Military Committee and the Red Guard.
The
Preobrazhentsky Regiment of the garrison came over too, protesting rumors
(based on their credulity during the July
slanders about Lenin and German money) that they were still with the
government. As for government troops from the front, cavalry was being held up
on the railways at Pskov; the 17th Infantry Division simply refused
orders to march on Petrograd. Delegates from the front itself appeared at the
Petrograd Soviet demanding peace. The soldiers of the Fifth Army replaced the
Compromisers on their committee with Bolsheviks.
The Red Guards
also made their presence felt. A conference of 100 delegates representing 20,000
armed workers from all over the city, convened the previous day, now adopted a
resolution for organizing and deploying their forces. Riflemen were organized
into squads, companies, battalions, and divisions, and supported by engineers,
bicyclists, telegraphers, machine gunners, and artillerists. Women established
hospitals and first aid stations. Patrols and guards protected the factories
and strategic points.
On Nevsky
Prospect, the American journalist Reed bought a copy of Lenin’s pamphlet, “Will the
Bolsheviks Be Able to Hold the State Power?” Then he went to Smolny, where
Lazimir, head of the Military Revolutionary Committee, told him the Peter and
Paul had come over. And that a regiment the government had sent to the capital
stopped at the Gatchina Station, passed a resolution in favor of power to the
soviets, and sent a delegation to Lazimir’s committee. The committee returned a
message welcoming them as comrades and telling them to remain where they were
until further instructions from the
committee.
Reed saw the organizers of the insurrection at work:
Podvoisky, Antonov, Krylenko, Dybenko….
Meanwhile,
Kerensky’s Provisional Government issued a decree proclaiming “in principle”
the independence of Finland. Both the bourgeoisie and the proletarians of
Finland wanted this – though for different reasons. The grant of independence
did not extend to military matters and foreign policy. It did not create much
of a ripple in Finland.
