Despite the
Menshevik Tseretilli’s inflammatory speech, and another by his colleague Dan suggesting
the Bolsheviks had connections with German agents, the Congress of Soviets as a
whole is not ready to expel the Bolsheviks from the revolution’s ranks. A
compromise developed in which the Bolsheviks gave up the call for a
demonstration, and the other left parties in the soviets gave up the call to
disarm the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were subjected to what Trotsky calls an
“exceptional law,” but the law had no teeth: no arrests, proscriptions,
impeachments, etc.
Trotsky denies it
was the policy of the party to arm itself. It happened that workers who
identified with the party kept arms to defend themselves from the police, and
that soldiers who bore arms in the line of duty might also consider themselves
Bolsheviks. These elements were, in fact, the main protection of the movement
during the February Revolution.
Another line of
criticism then offered proved difficult for the Bolsheviks to lay to rest. It
held that the Bolsheviks were the party of the workers, but not of the
peasants. But the revolution was the revolution of the workers and the peasants. This overlooked the
fact that the party’s agrarian policy was one of Lenin’s April
Theses, and had been fully articulated in his speech
to the Conference of Peasant Deputies. The Bolsheviks were actively agitating among
the peasantry in favor of this policy.
Finally at this
session of the Congress, a Menshevik offered a resolution calling for a
demonstration the following Sunday, June 18 (July 1, new style), to show unity
against the German enemy. This passed, as did a resolution to abolish the State
Duma and convene the Constituent Assembly on September 30 (October 13, new
style). The
Congress also agreed to reconvene every three months.
