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 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 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 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 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.”

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.”

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.