The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  The Bolsheviks passed an important milestone on their march to power on September 25 when they won a majority in the Workers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet. (They had gained such a majority in Moscow on September 19.) Trotsky, who assumed the chairmanship of the Petrograd Soviet, immediately proceeded to turn it into an instrument with which to secure control of the urban soviets in the rest of the country. In the words of Izvestiia, the instant the Bolsheviks acquired a majority in the Workers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet, they “transformed it into their party organization and, leaning on it, engaged in a partisan struggle to seize all the soviets nationwide.”108 They largely ignored the Ispolkom chosen by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which remained under SR and Menshevik control, and proceeded to create a parallel pseudo-national soviet organization of their own, representing only those soviets in which they enjoyed pluralities.

  In the more favorable political environment created by the Kornilov Affair and their successes in the soviets, the Bolsheviks revived the question of a coup d’état. Opinion was divided. The July debacle fresh in mind, Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed further “adventurism.” Notwithstanding their growing strength in the soviets, they argued, the Bolsheviks remained a minority party, so that even if they managed to take power, they would soon lose it to the combined forces of the “bourgeois counterrevolution” and the peasantry. On the other extreme stood Lenin, the principal proponent of immediate and resolute action. The Kornilov incident convinced him that the chances of a successful coup were better than ever and perhaps unrepeatable. On September 12 and 14 he wrote from Finland two letters to the Central Committee, called “The Bolsheviks Must Take Power” and “Marxism and Insurrection.”109 “With a majority in the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies in both capital cities,” he wrote in the first, “the Bolsheviks can and must seize power.” Contrary to Kamenev and Zinoviev, the Bolsheviks not only could seize power but hold on to it: by proposing an immediate peace and giving land to the peasants, “the Bolsheviks can establish a government that no one will overthrow.” It was essential, however, to move swiftly because the Provisional Government might turn Petrograd over to the Germans or else the war could end. The “order of the day” was

  armed insurrection

  in Petrograd and Moscow (plus their regions), the conquest of power, the overthrow of the government. We must consider

  how

  to agitate for this, without so expressing ourselves in print.

  Once power had been taken in Petrograd and Moscow, the issue would be settled. Lenin dismissed as “naïve” the advice of Kamenev and Zinoviev that the party should await the convocation of the Second Congress of Soviets in the hope of obtaining a majority: “no revolution waits for that”

  In the second letter, Lenin dealt with the accusation that taking power by armed force was not “Marxism” but “Blanquism” and disposed of analogies with July: the “objective” situation in September was entirely different. He felt certain (possibly from information supplied by his German contacts) that Berlin would offer the Bolshevik government an armistice. “And to secure an armistice means to conquer the whole world.”110

  The Central Committee took up Lenin’s letters on September 15. The laconic and almost certainly heavily censored protocols of this meeting* indicate that while Lenin’s associates hesitated to reject formally his advice (as Kamenev urged them to do), neither were they prepared to follow it: according to Trotsky, in September no one agreed with Lenin on the desirability of an immediate insurrection.111 On Stalin’s motion, Lenin’s letters were circulated to the party’s major regional organizations, which was a way of avoiding action. Here the matter rested: at none of the six sessions that followed (September 20-October 5) was Lenin’s proposal referred to.†

  Such passivity infuriated Lenin: he feared that the favorable moment for an insurrection would pass. On September 24 or 25, he moved from Helsinki to Vyborg (still in Finnish territory) to be nearer the scene of action. From there, on September 29, he dispatched a third letter to the Central Committee, under the title “The Crisis Has Ripened.” His principal operative recommendations were contained in the sixth part of the letter, first made public in 1925. It had to be frankly conceded, Lenin wrote, that some party members wanted to postpone the power seizure until the next Congress of Soviets. He totally rejected this approach: “To pass up such a moment and ‘await’ the Congress of Soviets is complete idiocy or complete treason”:

  The Bolsheviks are now

  guaranteed

  the success of the uprising: (1) we can (if we do not ‘await’ the Congress of Soviets) strike

  suddenly

  from three points: Petersburg, Moscow, and the Baltic Fleet … (5) we have the technical capability to take power in Moscow (which could even begin so as to paralyze the enemy with its suddenness); (6) we have

  thousands

  of armed workers and soldiers who can

  at once

  seize the Winter Palace and the General Staff, the telephone station and all the major printing plants.… If we were to strike at once, suddenly, from three points—Petersburg, Moscow, the Baltic Fleet—then the chances are 99 percent that we will win with fewer losses than we suffered on July 3–5, because the

  troops will not move

  against a government of peace.

  *

  In view of the fact that the Central Committee did not answer his “entreaties” and even censored his articles, Lenin submitted his resignation. This, of course, was bluff. To discuss their differences, the Central Committee requested Lenin to return to Petrograd.112

  Lenin’s associates to a man rejected his demand for an immediate armed uprising, preferring a slower, safer course. Their tactics were formulated by Trotsky, who thought Lenin’s proposals too “impetuous.” Trotsky wanted the armed uprising disguised as the assumption of power by an All-Russian Congress of Soviets—not, however, one properly convened, which would certainly refuse to do so, but one which the Bolsheviks would convene on their own initiative in defiance of established procedures, and pack with followers: a congress of pro-Bolshevik soviets camouflaged as a national congress. Seen in retrospect, this undoubtedly was the correct course to follow because the country would not have tolerated the overt assumption of power by a single party, as Lenin advocated. To succeed beyond the initial days, the coup had to be given some sort of “soviet” legitimacy, even if a spurious one.

  Lenin’s sense of urgency was in good measure inspired by the fear of being preempted by the Constituent Assembly. On August 9, the Provisional Government finally announced a schedule for that body: elections on November 12 and the opening session on November 28. Although on some days the Bolsheviks deluded themselves that they could win a majority of the seats in the Assembly, in their hearts they knew they had no chance given that the peasants were certain to vote solidly for the Socialists-Revolutionaries. Since Bolshevik strength lay in the cities and in the army, and they alone had soviet organizations, the Bolsheviks’ only hope of claiming a national mandate was through the soviets. Otherwise, all was lost. Once the country made known its will through a democratic election, they could no longer claim that they spoke for the “people” and that the new government was “capitalist.” If they were to take power, therefore, they had to do so before the elections to the Assembly. Once they were in control, the adverse results of the elections could be neutralized: as a Bolshevik publication put it, the composition of the Assembly “will strongly depend on who convenes it.”113 Lenin concurred: the “success” of the elections to the Assembly would be best assured after the coup.114 As events were to show, this meant that the Bolsheviks would either tamper with the electoral results or else disperse the Assembly. This was for Lenin a weighty reason to hurry his colleagues, to the point of threatening resignation.

  The Bolsheviks had no hope of manipulating the Constituent Assembly into conceding them power, but they could conceivably use for this purpose the soviets,
institutions that were irregularly elected, loosely structured, and without peasant representation. With this in mind, they began to agitate for the prompt convocation of a Second Congress of Soviets. They had a case. Since the First Congress in June, the situation in Russia had changed and so had the membership of the urban soviets. The SRs and Mensheviks were none too enthusiastic about another Congress, in part because they feared it would have a sizable Bolshevik contingent, and in part because it would interfere with the Constituent Assembly. The regional soviets and the armed forces were negative as well. At the end of September, the Ispolkom sent out questionnaires to 169 soviets and army committees, requesting their opinion on whether to convene a Second Congress of Soviets: of the sixty-three soviets that responded, only eight favored the idea.115 The sentiment among the troops was even more negative: on October 1, the Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet voted against holding a national Congress of Soviets, and a report presented to it in mid-October indicated that the representatives of army committees had agreed unanimously that such a congress would be “premature” and would subvert the Constituent Assembly.116

  But the Bolsheviks, enjoying preponderance in the Petrograd Soviet, kept up the pressure, and on September 26 the Bureau of the Ispolkom agreed to the convocation of a Second Congress of Soviets on October 20.117 The agenda of this congress was to be strictly limited to drafting legislative proposals for submission to the Constituent Assembly. Instructions were issued to the interurban department of the Soviet to invite the regional soviets to send representatives.

  The Bolsheviks thus won a victory, but it was only a first step. Although their position in the country’s soviets was much stronger than it had been in June, it was unlikely that they would gain at the Second Congress an absolute majority.118 This they could secure only by taking the convocation of the Second Congress into their own hands and inviting to it only those soviets, located mostly in central and northern Russia, and those army committees in which they had assured majorities. This they now proceeded to do.

  On September 10, there opened in Helsinki the Third Regional Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets of Finland. Here the Bolsheviks enjoyed a solid majority.119 The congress set up a Regional Committee which instructed civilian and military personnel in Finland to obey only those laws of the Provisional Government to which it gave assent.120 The move was intended to delegitimize the Provisional Government through the agency of a pseudo-governmental center, run by the Bolsheviks.

  Their success in Finland persuaded the Bolsheviks that they could use the same device to convene an equally compliant All-Russian Congress of Soviets. On September 29, the Bolshevik Central Committee discussed and on October 5 resolved to hold in Petrograd a Northern Regional Congress of Soviets.121 Invitations were sent out in the name of an ephemeral Bolshevik front calling itself the Regional Committee of the Army, Navy, and Workers of Finland. The Bureau of the Ispolkom protested that the meeting was convened in an irregular manner.122 Ignoring it, the Regional Committee proceeded to invite some thirty soviets in which the Bolsheviks had majorities to send representatives; among them were soviets of the Moscow province, which did not even belong to the Northern Region.123 There exist strong indications that some Bolshevik leaders, Lenin among them, considered having this Regional Congress proclaim the passage of power to the soviets,124 but the plan was given up.

  The Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region opened in Petrograd on October 11. It was completely dominated by the Bolsheviks and their allies, the Left SRs, a splinter group of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. This rump “congress” heard all kinds of inflammatory speeches, including one by Trotsky, who declared that the “time for words” had passed.125

  The Bolshevik Party, of course, had no more authority than any other group to convene congresses of soviets, whether regional or national, and the Ispolkom declared the meeting a “private gathering” of individual soviets, devoid of official standing.126 The Bolsheviks ignored this declaration. They regarded their body as the immediate forerunner of the Second Congress of Soviets, which they were determined to convene on October 20—according to Trotsky, by legal means if possible and by “revolutionary” ones if not.127 The most important result of the Regional Congress was the formation of a “Northern Regional Committee,” composed of eleven Bolsheviks and six Left SRs, whose task it was to “ensure” the convocation of a Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.128 On October 16 this body sent telegrams to the soviets, as well as to military committees at the regimental, divisional, and corps level, informing them that the Second Congress would meet in Petrograd on October 20 and requesting them to send delegates. The congress was to obtain an armistice, distribute land to peasants, and ensure that the Constituent Assembly met as scheduled. The telegrams instructed all soviets and army committees opposed to the convocation of the Second Congress—and these, as is known from the Ispolkom’s survey, were the large majority—to be at once “reelected,” which was a Bolshevik code word for dissolved.129

  This Bolshevik move constituted a veritable coup d’état against the national organization of the soviets: it was the opening phase of the power seizure. With these measures, the Bolshevik Central Committee arrogated to itself the authority which the First Congress of Soviets had entrusted to the Ispolkom. It also preempted the Provisional Government, for the agenda which the Bolsheviks set for the so-called Second Congress was to be at the center of the government’s activities until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.130

  The Mensheviks and SRs, well aware what the Bolsheviks were up to, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Second Congress. On October 19, Izvestiia carried a statement by the Ispolkom which reasserted that only its Bureau had the authority to convene a national Congress of Soviets:

  No other committee has the authority or the right to take upon itself the initiative in convening this congress. The less does this right belong to the Northern Regional Congress, brought together in violation of all the rules established for the regional soviets and representing soviets chosen arbitrarily and at random.

  The Bureau went on to say that the Bolshevik invitation to regimental, divisional, and corps committees violated established procedures for military representation, which called for delegates to be chosen by army assemblies and, when these could not be convened, by army committees on the basis of one delegate for 25,000 soldiers.131 The Bolshevik organizers obviously bypassed the army committees because of their known opposition to the Second Congress.132 Three days later Izvestiia pointed out that the Bolsheviks not only convened an illegal Congress, but flagrantly violated accepted norms of representation. While the electoral rules called for soviets representing fewer than 25,000 persons to send no delegates to the All-Russian Congress, and those representing between 25,000 and 50,000 to send two, the Bolsheviks invited one soviet with 500 members to send two delegates and another with 1,500 to send five, which was more than was allocated to Kiev.133

  All of which was true enough. But even though the SRs and Mensheviks had declared the forthcoming Second Congress illegal as well as unrepresentative, they allowed it to proceed. On October 17, the Bureau of the Ispolkom approved the convocation of the Second Congress on two conditions: that it be postponed by five days, to October 25, to give provincial delegates time to get to Petrograd, and that it confine its agenda to the discussion of the internal situation in the country, preparations for the Constituent Assembly, and reelection of the Ispolkom.134 It was an astonishing and inexplicable capitulation. Although aware of what the Bolsheviks had in mind, the Ispolkom gave them what they wanted: a handpicked body, filled with their adherents and allies, which was certain to legitimize a Bolshevik power seizure.

  The gathering of pro-Bolshevik soviets, disguised as the Second Congress of Soviets, was to legitimize the Bolshevik coup. On Lenin’s insistence, however, the coup was to be carried out before the congress met, by shock troops under the command of the Military Organization. These troops were to s
eize strategic points in the capital city and declare the government overthrown, which would present the congress with an accomplished and irreversible fact. This action could not be carried out in the name of the Bolshevik Party. The instrument which the Bolsheviks used for this purpose was the Military-Revolutionary Committee, formed by the Petrograd Soviet in a moment of panic early in October to defend the city from an expected German assault.

  The event was precipitated by German military operations in the Gulf of Riga. After Russian troops had evacuated Riga, the Germans sent reconnaissance units in the direction of Revel (Tallinn). These operations gave the Russian General Staff much concern because they posed a threat to Petrograd, only 300 kilometers away and unreliably defended.

  The German threat to the capital grew more ominous in the middle of October. On September 6/19, the German High Command ordered the capture of the islands of Moon, Ösel, and Dago in the Gulf of Riga. A flotilla which sailed on September 28/October 11 soon cleared Russian minefields and after overcoming unexpectedly stiff resistance, on October 8/21 completed the occupation of the three islands.135 The enemy now was in a position to land behind Russian forces.

  The Russian General Staff viewed this naval operation as preparatory to an assault on Petrograd. On October 3/16, it ordered the evacuation of Revel, the last major stronghold standing between the Germans and the capital. The next day Kerensky participated in discussions on ways to deal with the danger. The suggestion was made that since Petrograd could soon find itself in the combat zone, the government and the Constituent Assembly transfer to Moscow. The idea found general favor, the only disagreement being over the timing of the move, which Kerensky wanted to be done immediately while others argued for a delay. It was decided to evacuate after securing approval from the Pre-Parliament, a gathering of political leaders which the government scheduled on October 7 as a forum for soliciting broad public support. The question next arose of what to do about the Ispolkom. The consensus was that since it was a private body it should arrange for its own evacuation.* On October 5, government experts reported that the evacuation of the executive offices to Moscow would require two weeks. Plans were drawn up for the relocation inland of Petrograd industries.136