Red October

 

One hundred years ago today, plus three, the October Revolution began in Petrograd. Readers of these posts will understand that, because Russia was then using the old-style Julian calendar, it was still October there. Today there will be one entry for several events of the Red October insurrection.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Revolution in Readiness. The Bolsheviks and the Red Guard were not entirely ready for their insurrection, but they were more ready than the officers of the Petrograd garrison, the ministers of Kerensky’s Provisional Government, or the right-socialist Central Executive Committee of the national soviets. Meanwhile the national Congress of Soviets was still assembling, and about to be met with a fait accompli.

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

November 7 – October 25, 1917: Petrograd Taken. The Prime Minister and his government having seriously underestimated the capabilities of the insurrectionary forces, and overestimated those of the (loyal part of the) garrison and the police, the Red Guard, with the support of left-socialist elements of the military, gained control of the capital in a day. Starting with the bridges over the Neva River, and continuing with the communications systems, power plants, banks, and other vital points of infrastructure, the insurrection took over, so far bloodlessly.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter Red October: The Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

November 7 – October 25, 1917: The Winter Palace Encircled. Meanwhile, the ministers of the Provisional Government were holed up in the Winter Palace of the Romanov Czars, from which Kerensky took an early opportunity to absent himself, saying he would  speed reinforcements on  their way. The Red Guards and their Bolshevik leaders had difficulty executing their plan of encirclement and “bombardment.” Infiltration proved finally to be the successful tactic; both sides took casualties, but not many. Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets went into session in another palace of the city, and wondered about the meaning of all the racket.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter Red October: The Winter Palace here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

The Day of the Petrograd Soviet

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 50^th 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 22^nd (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 6^th, because the insurrection needed an all-Russian basis, and the Congress of Soviets would not yet have assembled. Lenin ruled out the 8^th, because though the Congress would already be in session, it would be unable to reach a sudden decision democratically. This left the 7^th (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 17^th 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.

Red October: On the Brink

November 5-6 – October 23-24, 1917: Wheels in Motion. The workers of the Vyborg district, firmly with the Bolsheviks, establish patrols of the Red Guards in the neighborhood and acquire the keys to the drawbridges over the Neva. They were running the district committee of the party, the district soviet for Vyborg, and a unit of the Bolshevik Military Organization from a house on Samsonevsky Prospect. Soon they began requisitioning automobiles and medical supplies.

The British ambassador having expressed alarm about information indicating the imminence of an insurrection, Foreign Minister Tereshchenko replied that “Nothing of the kind” would happen. Kerensky, for his part, believed the reports of General Polkovnikov. This just meant that the tricks he had up his sleeve would prove more provocative than effective.

Orders to the garrison to make patrols were being obeyed – after receiving the sanction of the Military Revolutionary Committee – zealously. It is pretty easy to guess which side the patrols were looking out for and reporting to.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Revolution in Readiness. Trotsky describes the military and operational weight of the forces available to the insurrection in some detail. The rank and file of the garrison was firmly on the side of peace, the revolution, and the insurrection – in that order. This meant that, as far as possible, the Bolsheviks would have to rely on armed workers – the Red Guards – to accomplish the insurrection’s immediate objectives. Even if the garrison could be made to fight, for example against counter-revolutionary units sent from the front, they would lack leadership: their officers were aligned with the government, and the politicians on the Military Revolutionary Committee were no substitute. Further, the rank and file were not particularly well trained or organized. The officers, shock troops, and even the junkers were better trained, and they stood with the government. The well-trained Cossacks too were generally, though not all of them, with the government.

On the other hand, with the Garrison Conference’s support, the policy requiring orders to the garrison to be countersigned by the Soviet (via the Military Committee) would be fully operational. Thus, though the garrison would not oppose the insurrection, Trotsky says, “its fighting weight” in support of the insurrection “was not large.” As we’ll see, this judgment did not apply equally to all the units of the garrison.

The Red Guards had kept up their training ever since the July Days, eventually practicing their drills in the public squares and on the boulevards. When the Bolsheviks came into control of the Petrograd Soviet, many of them for the first time came into possession of rifles and other weapons. The Red Guards recruited the young and the old; even workers who had voted for the Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries were caught up; they practiced their marksmanship in the factories. They were volunteers, but amateurs. Few of them had ever been under fire; neither had their officers.

The relative military value of the garrison and the Red Guards in an insurrection, Trotsky says, can be explained by their reasons for adhering to the revolution. The conscript soldiers of the peasantry wanted peace, and to return home after the revolution to land that would then belong to them. The volunteer workers of the Red Guards wanted social and political change along Marxist-Leninist lines. So the workers would be the operational vanguard of the insurrection, and the garrison would be the “mass of maneuver” against whatever forces to government might happen to bring to bear. The Bolsheviks also knew they could call on the garrisons of what Trotsky calls the “military ring around the capital” as their first reserves, and the staunchly revolutionary troops from Finland and the Baltic Fleet as their second.

More concretely, the Military Revolutionary Committee took steps to put Smolny in better defense. Trotsky says they were almost too late, but on the other hand, why tip off the enemy by acting too soon? At 3:00 a.m. the early morning of November 6 (October 24, old style), all the American journalist Reed saw was a couple of machine guns and “strong patrols of soldiers.” The Military Committee was bringing in a company of infantry from the Litovsky Regiment and a machine gun company. Then cordwood was piled up as a barricade against rifle fire. Provisions and ammunition came in by truck, and cannon were posted in front. Reserves crowded Smolny’s halls. By evening, Sukhanov writes, “the defense of Smolny began to look like something.”

The Peter and Paul fortress, which had come over to the revolution only the day before, was also being put in better defense that day. Detachments of the Machine Gun Regiment were cleaning their 80 guns and placing them where they would command the bridge and quay of the Neva River. Patrols and sentries also increased.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Counter-Revolution in Readiness. Trotsky also assesses the forces the government could put into play. The influence of the compromisist parties in the soldiers committees and soviets had collapsed. This left the officers, who had nobody to command, and the junkers, from the military preparatory schools, as the only reliable troops.

But how reliable were they? The officers hated Kerensky, but they hated the Bolsheviks more. Neither had their support made Kornilov’s insurrection a success. The junkers, most of them, hated the Bolsheviks. But some of them were Bolsheviks, so Smolny knew what was going on in the schools. Moreover, most of the schools were in workers’ districts or near barracks of the garrison; they could be kept under surveillance.

The government would have liked to be able to rely on the garrisons surrounding the capital. But in the main they, led by the Kronstadt sailors, were also turning left, and in some cases were solidly Bolshevik.

As for troops from the front, Baron Budburg, a corps commander on the Northern Front, wrote in his diary during this time, “There is not a single unit…which would not be in the control of the Bolsheviks” in the event of an insurrection.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Counter-Revolution in Action. The Provisional Government, becoming a little alarmed about the attitude of the Garrison Conference towards the district military headquarters, decides to do something. They would arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee, shut down the Bolshevik presses, and summon troops from nearby garrisons and the front.

The government thought they ought to get the backing of the Pre-Parliament first; nevertheless parts of the program were set in motion. The military schools of the junkers received orders to be ready for action. The cruiser Aurora, anchored in the Neva near the Winter Palace, was told to sail for the Baltic Fleet. Neighboring garrisons got orders to send troops and artillery to the capital. So did the Northern Front. The Minister of Justice revoked bail for people who, like Trotsky, had been released from jail, exposing them to arrest.

More direct steps, with a better chance of success, were also ordered: increasing the guard of the Winter Palace, raising the drawbridges over the Neva, stopping and searching automobile traffic, cutting off Smolny’s telephone lines.

Military headquarters issued orders as well. They wanted the commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee removed from the units of the garrison, subject to possible court martial. They also asked owners to place their automobiles under protective custody at headquarters.

Meanwhile, at 5:30 a.m., a squad of junkers accompanied a government commissar to the Bolshevik printing plant. They’d come bearing an order from headquarters. The workers were not inclined to obey it, but the junkers broke in anyway, smashed the stereotypes, sealed the building, and went on guard.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Revolution in Action. The Pavlovsky Regiment, on patrol near the Winter Palace, is listening with the ears of the revolution to rumors about the preparations of the government. Smolny soon knew what the government had afoot. This time, orders would be meet with orders, actions with actions.

A couple of workers from the Bolshevik presses, for the moment in the hands of junkers, ran to Smolny for help. Trotsky and Podvoisky heard their story and caused orders to be issued. The Litovsky Regiment sent a company to the scene; a detachment of the Sixth Engineers, neighbors of the press plant, joined them. They sent the junkers packing, and within a few hours the paper, of which Stalin was editor, came out. Trotsky observes that these troops were following orders from a Military Revolutionary Committee that was itself subject to arrest: “That was insurrection.”

So was the Military Committee’s order to the cruiser Aurora. When it got the government’s orders to rejoin the fleet, the ship asked the Military Committee what to do about them. The orders were not to be obeyed, said the committee; instead the ship was to remain at its station, protect the garrison with its guns, and protect itself, using smaller vessels, from being boarded.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: Defense of the Congress? The attempts against the printing presses and the fleet are everywhere seen as counter-revolutionary. Moreover, since they were successfully resisted, the government itself was losing what little credibility it had left.

The insurrection put these circumstances to good account. The soldiers at the press plant and the sailors in the Neva River were defending the revolution, said Smolny. Though the phone lines were out, the cruiser Aurora had a powerful radio. It broadcast Smolny’s message: “the counter-revolution [has] taken the offensive.” Trotsky says it’s good for an insurrection to begin on the defensive. The cloak of self-defense is cast over a course of action that is, by its very nature, extra-legal.

So now the Military Revolutionary Committee, when it issued orders to the garrison, could say – and did say – it was acting in defense of the Congress of Soviets, due to convene the next day. Yet in essence its orders came, Trotsky says, with “the voice of a sovereign power.” The Military Committee sounded the same themes when it issued a proclamation and general orders covering the front page of Rabochy i Soldat that day. Reed reproduces the proclamation in Ten Days that Shook the World.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Central Committee in Readiness. The Bolshevik Central Committee, seeing the initiative pass to the insurrection, meets in Smolny to gather the threads to the party. Sverdlov was in the chair. Lenin had not made his way from his new hiding place in Vyborg yet. Zinoviev was missing, but Kamemev, who had become active in the operations of the insurrection, was there. (Trotsky doesn’t say why Kamenev, voted off the committee earlier in the week, happened to be participating in the meeting, but he doesn’t say whether Kamenev cast any votes either.) Stalin, at his post in the party’s pressrooms, also missed the meeting.

The agenda was short: how, Trotsky says, to take “full possession of Petrograd in the next twenty-four hours.” The Military Revolutionary Committee and the Bolshevik Military Organization had already set, or were setting, a plan of operations that would place all essential points and functions of the capital under the control of the insurrection during that time. The Central Committee now had to make decisions about leadership roles towards these ends.

Kamenev moved that no member of the Central Committee should be allowed to leave Smolny unless the committee as a whole approved. Trotsky proposed delegating members of the committee as liaisons to or observers of the postal and telegraph workers, the railroad workers, and the Provisional Government. Sverdlov was given responsibility for the government. Another member became responsible for food supplies. Kamenev was to conduct negotiations as necessary with the left Social Revolutionaries.

Trotsky also called for establishing a reserve headquarters in the Peter and Paul fortress. Lashevich was to represent the committee there, joining Corporal Blagonravov, the commissar appointed by the Military Committee. Those two were to maintain contact with Sverdlov in Smolny and provide fortress passes to the committee members.

At the center of all these arrangements was Sverdlov. He kept Smolny and the party in touch with each other, funneled party workers to meet needs of the military organizations, and carried out the most sensitive operations himself, or with the help of the Bolshevik Military Organization. He was also the point of contact for the party’s delegates to the Congress of Soviets, telling them as they arrived what they needed to know and giving them something to do.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: Trotsky Caucuses, etc. By 2:00 p.m., as many as 300 Bolshevik delegates to the Congress of Soviets are at Smolny. They caucused with Trotsky.

How to address the caucus presented some delicate issues. The delegates could not be told too much, lest important information reach enemy ears. Nor could the insurrection be given an offensive character, lest certain elements of the garrison hear of it and be put off. Further, as the conspiratorial nature of the insurrection could not be concealed, it had to be justified in terms of the Marxist theory of state.

So Trotsky cited recent articles by Lenin arguing the objective necessity of conspiracy in this case; he cited the incident at the Bolshevik printing plant and the orders to the Aurora to show the insurrection had started as a defensive maneuver. Smolny too had been placed in a state of defense, but against the threat to arrest the Military Revolutionary Committee.

The caucus wanted to know what would happen if Kerensky refused to submit to the Congress of Soviets. Trotsky replied that that would create “’not a political but a police question.’” Of course this meant that in such a case the insurrection would go over to the offensive, aggressively seizing and exercising the police powers of the state. And Trotsky says, “That was in essence almost exactly what happened.”

A delegation of the city duma interrupted the caucus for a moment. Trotsky says “they wanted to know too much.” He told them only that the Soviet would defend the Congress, that the Military Committee had issued orders to suppress looting, and that if the duma could not support the Congress, a new election would be held. They left, Trotsky says, “dissatisfied.”

Returning to the caucus, Trotsky drew the lesson of the meeting with the duma: the wheel had turned full circle. Weeks before, the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Soviet, but nothing, not even printing presses, to show for it. Now they were the people to see if you wanted to know the fate of the capital.

Next, at about 4:00 p.m., Trotsky was called to the Peter and Paul fortress. A battalion of bicyclists, thought to be loyal to the government, had had been kept out of the meeting the day before by their officers. Relying on the bicyclists to back him, the commandant threatened to arrest the commissar Blagonravov. Blagonravov arrested the commandant instead. Now the bicycle men had to be mollified.

Trotsky won this “supplementary oratorical battle” with the government’s representative. The matter was settled without a fight. Another detachment of bicycle men, assigned to guard the Winter Palace, heard of this result, stood down, and had to be replaced by junkers. The Peter and Paul remained solidly with the insurrection. Trucks and wagons continued to arrive, and to depart loaded with rifles and other weapons for the Red Guards.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: Or Insurrection? Alarmed when he ordered measures early that morning against the possibility of insurrection, Kerensky seems even more alarmed as he addresses the Pre-Parliament that afternoon. He recited what Lenin had been openly saying in the Bolshevik press. But the patience of the government had worn thin with the Bolsheviks and the “rabble” they represent. The last straws were calling out troops of the garrison to recover the Bolshevik printing plant and openly distributing weapons out of the government’s arsenals.

Then Konovalov handed Kerensky the text of the message from the Military Revolutionary Committee calling on the garrison to defend the Congress of Soviets. Kerensky read it to the assembly. So it was insurrection. Miliukov says, “Kerensky pronounced these words in the complacent tone of a lawyer who has at last succeeded on getting evidence against his opponent.” He promised “liquidation” to the insurrection, demanded the support of the Pre-Parliament for the government’s efforts in this endeavor, and left the hall.

Support did not come immediately or by acclamation. The parties caucused first, then debated among themselves. It took four hours, until 6:00 p.m., and still failed of unanimity. The socialists adopted a resolution suggested by the Menshevik Dan, blaming both the government and the Bolsheviks for the crisis. The Cadets and Cossacks, in the minority, promised “unqualified support to the government,” pending, as Trotsky observes, their own counter-revolutionary insurrection. The Pre-Parliament also proposed to entrust the struggle against the insurrection to a committee of public safety they would name. All in all, it was another staggering defeat for the authority of the government.

Meanwhile, in the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky was doing his best to portray the actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee as defensive. He would say what the committee had done, and why, then ask rhetorically, “Is this insurrection?”

The fact is, it was. Miliukov speculates in his history that the Bolsheviks were planning to wait until the Congress of Soviets opened to take the insurrection on the offensive. But the government had proved so weak, they did so beforehand. Trotsky says, no, it was always intended to present the Congress, so far as possible, with a fait accompli. The Kronstadt sailors would join up with the Vyborg workers and take the capital together, then the Congress would convene.

But the weakness of the government did make a difference in the plans, as the next series of entries will show.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Struggle for the Bridges. Kerensky hurries off after his speech at the Pre-Parliament, leaving the delegates to their debates, once again animated, this time seemingly by the message of the Military Revolutionary Committee to the garrison. The government soon ordered detachments of junkers to the railroad stations and principal street crossings. They put the drawbridges over the Neva under guard and raised them. They redoubled efforts to requisition automobiles.

But the bridges were of capital importance to the insurrection: they connected the neighborhoods of the armed workers to the buildings and functions of the government the insurrection wanted to occupy and control. Trotsky says the people took their seizure as the opening blow against the insurrection itself. Red Guards and soldiers from the workers district marched on their own initiative to the river; the drawbridges came down without bloodshed. Some were raised and had to be lowered again before the evening was out.

The Military Revolutionary Committee ordered the cruiser Aurora to occupy the bridge upriver from its anchorage and lower it. Only after the commander was put under arrest (and thus given the plea of compulsion), did he and his officers carry these orders out. The former occupants, junkers, were long gone before the sailors could debark on the quays and take possession.

Now acts of defense and insurrection began to happen, some spontaneously, all over. Government militia seized the evening edition of Rabochy i Soldat and tried to drive off with it. The printers, reinforced by two sailors who happened by, regained the papers and delivered them to Smolny. The Military Committee sent two squads of the Preobrazhentsky Regiment to secure the facility.

An officer and some junkers, thinking they could find Lenin and arrest him in Vyborg, stumbled into a workers’ club by mistake. The workers summoned the Red Guard, who arrested the officer and junkers instead. The Red Guards conducted them to the Peter and Paul.

The commissar of the Keksgolmsky Regiment paid a visit to the telephone exchange. He was able to persuade the workers there to restore phone service to Smolny. Another commissar, freshly appointed to a post at the telegraph station, found soldiers of the Keksgolmsky Regiment already there. The telegraphers, none of whom were Bolsheviks, agreed for the time being to compromise with the insurrection.

Then, at 9:00 p.m., the Military Committee sent another commissar, with an escort of marines, to the government news agency. They were to censor, but not necessarily suppress, the dispatches emanating there.

Now the actions of the Military Committee, particularly with regard to the media of communications, already rapid and effective in the early 20^th century, seemed to have passed over to the offensive. Trotsky nevertheless says that, arguably, oversight of the media was just another instance of the dual power, with the Bolsheviks in the Soviet taking the place of the Compromisers. Yet even if “the umbilical cord of ‘legality’ was not conclusively severed,” it would be soon enough.

November 6-7 – October 24-25, 1917: The Marines Arrive? The two delegates from the Kronstadt Soviet to the Congress of Soviets arrive at Smolny during the afternoon of the 6^th (October24, old style). There they came across Chudnovsky, just returned from the front. The three of them began to argue about whether the time for insurrection was ripe. Chudnovsky was in doubt; he thought the mood at the front was not favorable.

Trotsky came in. He asked Flerovsky, one of the Kronstadt delegates, to return there. “Events are maturing so fast that everyone must be at his post,” Trotsky said. Hearing this, Chudnovsky shed his doubts and threw himself into plans for the operations.

Messages ordering mobilization went out by telephonegram and telegraph. Kronstadt’s forces were to set forth at dawn. Sverdlov wired Smilga in Finland “Send regulations.” This was the code for embarking 1,500 heavily armed marines on ships bound for Petrograd.

The original plan of operations, as we’ve seen, called for the marines to debark and join the Vyborg Red Guards; they would enter the capital together. Now, to take advantage of the initiative the insurrection had gained, the Guards would go in first, with the marines coming in to protect their flank or rear as needed. The new plan started off very well indeed, but the arrival of the marines became problematic, as we’ll see.

November 6-7 – October 24-25, 1917: The Marines Arrive?

The two delegates from the Kronstadt Soviet to the Congress of Soviets arrive at Smolny during the afternoon of the 6^th (October24, old style). There they came across Chudnovsky, just returned from the front. The three of them began to argue about whether the time for insurrection was ripe. Chudnovsky was in doubt; he thought the mood at the front was not favorable.

Trotsky came in. He asked Flerovsky, one of the Kronstadt delegates, to return there. “Events are maturing so fast that everyone must be at his post,” Trotsky said. Hearing this, Chudnovsky shed his doubts and threw himself into plans for the operations.

Messages ordering mobilization went out by telephonegram and telegraph. Kronstadt’s forces were to set forth at dawn. Sverdlov wired Smilga in Finland “Send regulations.” This was the code for embarking 1,500 heavily armed marines on ships bound for Petrograd.

The original plan of operations, as we’ve seen, called for the marines to debark and join the Vyborg Red Guards; they would enter the capital together. Now, to take advantage of the initiative the insurrection had gained, the Guards would go in first, with the marines coming in to protect their flank or rear as needed. The new plan started off very well indeed, but the arrival of the marines became problematic, as we’ll see.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Struggle for the Bridges

Kerensky hurries off after his speech at the Pre-Parliament, leaving the delegates to their debates, once again animated, this time seemingly by the message of the Military Revolutionary Committee to the garrison. The government soon ordered detachments of junkers to the railroad stations and principal street crossings. They put the drawbridges over the Neva under guard and raised them. They redoubled efforts to requisition automobiles.

But the bridges were of capital importance to the insurrection: they connected the neighborhoods of the armed workers to the buildings and functions of the government the insurrection wanted to occupy and control. Trotsky says the people took their seizure as the opening blow against the insurrection itself. Red Guards and soldiers from the workers district marched on their own initiative to the river; the drawbridges came down without bloodshed. Some were raised and had to be lowered again before the evening was out.

The Military Revolutionary Committee ordered the cruiser Aurora to occupy the bridge upriver from its anchorage and lower it. Only after the commander was put under arrest (and thus given the plea of compulsion), did he and his officers carry these orders out. The former occupants, junkers, were long gone before the sailors could debark on the quays and take possession.

Now acts of defense and insurrection began to happen, some spontaneously, all over. Government militia seized the evening edition of Rabochy i Soldat and tried to drive off with it. The printers, reinforced by two sailors who happened by, regained the papers and delivered them to Smolny. The Military Committee sent two squads of the Preobrazhentsky Regiment to secure the facility.

An officer and some junkers, thinking they could find Lenin and arrest him in Vyborg, stumbled into a workers’ club by mistake. The workers summoned the Red Guard, who arrested the officer and junkers instead. The Red Guards conducted them to the Peter and Paul.

The commissar of the Keksgolmsky Regiment paid a visit to the telephone exchange. He was able to persuade the workers there to restore phone service to Smolny. Another commissar, freshly appointed to a post at the telegraph station, found soldiers of the Keksgolmsky Regiment already there. The telegraphers, none of whom were Bolsheviks, agreed for the time being to compromise with the insurrection.

Then, at 9:00 p.m., the Military Committee sent another commissar, with an escort of marines, to the government news agency. They were to censor, but not necessarily suppress, the dispatches emanating there.

Now the actions of the Military Committee, particularly with regard to the media of communications, already rapid and effective in the early 20^th century, seemed to have passed over to the offensive. Trotsky nevertheless says that, arguably, oversight of the media was just another instance of the dual power, with the Bolsheviks in the Soviet taking the place of the Compromisers. Yet even if “the umbilical cord of ‘legality’ was not conclusively severed,” it would be soon enough.

November 6 – October 24, 1917: The Revolution in Readiness

Trotsky describes the military and operational weight of the forces available to the insurrection in some detail. The rank and file of the garrison was firmly on the side of peace, the revolution, and the insurrection – in that order. This meant that, as far as possible, the Bolsheviks would have to rely on armed workers – the Red Guards – to accomplish the insurrection’s immediate objectives. Even if the garrison could be made to fight, for example against counter-revolutionary units sent from the front, they would lack leadership: their officers were aligned with the government, and the politicians on the Military Revolutionary Committee were no substitute. Further, the rank and file were not particularly well trained or organized. The officers, shock troops, and even the junkers were better trained, and they stood with the government. The well-trained Cossacks too were generally, though not all of them, with the government.

On the other hand, with the Garrison Conference’s support, the policy requiring orders to the garrison to be countersigned by the Soviet (via the Military Committee) would be fully operational. Thus, though the garrison would not oppose the insurrection, Trotsky says, “its fighting weight” in support of the insurrection “was not large.” As we’ll see, this judgment did not apply equally to all the units of the garrison.

The Red Guards had kept up their training ever since the July Days, eventually practicing their drills in the public squares and on the boulevards. When the Bolsheviks came into control of the Petrograd Soviet, many of them for the first time came into possession of rifles and other weapons. The Red Guards recruited the young and the old; even workers who had voted for the Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries were caught up; they practiced their marksmanship in the factories. They were volunteers, but amateurs. Few of them had ever been under fire; neither had their officers.

The relative military value of the garrison and the Red Guards in an insurrection, Trotsky says, can be explained by their reasons for adhering to the revolution. The conscript soldiers of the peasantry wanted peace, and to return home after the revolution to land that would then belong to them. The volunteer workers of the Red Guards wanted social and political change along Marxist-Leninist lines. So the workers would be the operational vanguard of the insurrection, and the garrison would be the “mass of maneuver” against whatever forces to government might happen to bring to bear. The Bolsheviks also knew they could call on the garrisons of what Trotsky calls the “military ring around the capital” as their first reserves, and the staunchly revolutionary troops from Finland and the Baltic Fleet as their second.

More concretely, the Military Revolutionary Committee took steps to put Smolny in better defense. Trotsky says they were almost too late, but on the other hand, why tip off the enemy by acting too soon? At 3:00 a.m. the early morning of November 6 (October 24, old style), all the American journalist Reed saw was a couple of machine guns and “strong patrols of soldiers.” The Military Committee was bringing in a company of infantry from the Litovsky Regiment and a machine gun company. Then cordwood was piled up as a barricade against rifle fire. Provisions and ammunition came in by truck, and cannon were posted in front. Reserves crowded Smolny’s halls. By evening, Sukhanov writes, “the defense of Smolny began to look like something.”

The Peter and Paul fortress, which had come over to the revolution only the day before, was also being put in better defense that day. Detachments of the Machine Gun Regiment were cleaning their 80 guns and placing them where they would command the bridge and quay of the Neva River. Patrols and sentries also increased.

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 17^th 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.

September 10 – August 28, 1917: Kornilov Advances

Petrograd receives news about the movement in its direction of General Kornilov’s forces. Reportedly: at 12:30 p.m., General Krymov reached Luga, 87 miles from the capital; at 2:30 p.m., trains loaded with Kornilov’s troops were passing through Oredezh station; at 3:00 p.m., Luga’s garrison surrendered; at 6:00 p.m., troops were advancing past Narva and approaching Gatchina, 28 miles from the capital.

The stock markets actually went up!

Little did the bourgeoisie know, this is what was really happening: Railroad workers were tearing up the tracks on the insurrection’s line of march. They isolated Moghiliev, Kornilov’s headquarters, from the rest of the railroad net. They put the railroad bridges under guard. Rail dispatchers and engineers were sending parts of Kornilov’s units one way, other parts another way, so that troops got separated from commanders and staff, from their own weapons and supplies, and from each other. Telegraph operators were not only holding up messages, but retransmitting them to the Committee of Defense. Other workers dug trenches – in hours instead of days.

And in Petrograd itself, workers eager to join the Red Guard were arming themselves with 40,000 stand of rifles. The workers of the Putilov factory turned out 100 cannon for defense of the city. The chauffeurs union provided transportation and delivered messages for the Soviet’s Committee of Defense. Clerks of the metal workers union prepared and distributed the necessary paperwork. The printers union decided, favorably to the interests of the Soviet, what would go into print. Counter-revolutionary elements were put under arrest.

Governor-general Savinkov had little or nothing to do with the organization of the defense.

Significantly, the Menshevik Dan, on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet, decreed that units of the Petrograd garrison should not carry out any movements unless orders were countersigned by the Committee of Defense. This was the same tactic the Soviet had employed during the April Days. It effectively deprived Kerensky of command over the city’s troops. Not only did he not control resistance to Kornilov on behalf of the Provisional Government, he did not have forces to support his own ambitions as against both Kornilov and the Provisional Government.

I might observe, without revealing too much too soon, that this was all good practice for the October Revolution.

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 restraint 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 Central Executive Committee of the Soviets 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 to end the dual government by taking power into its own hands: All Power to the Soviets! The sequel proved ironic.

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.