The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  By then, the Winter Palace was the only structure still left in government hands. Lenin insisted that before the Second Congress of Soviets officially opened and proclaimed the Provisional Government deposed, the ministers had to be under arrest. But the Bolshevik forces proved inadequate to the task. It turned out that, for all their claims, they had no men willing to brave fire: their alleged 45,000 Red Guards and tens of thousands of supporters among the garrison were nowhere to be seen. A halfhearted assault on the palace was launched at dawn, but at the first sound of shots the attackers beat a retreat.

  66. N. I. Podvoiskii.

  Burning with impatience, fearful of intervention by troops from the front, Lenin decided to wait no longer. Between 8 and 9 a.m. he made his way to the Bolshevik operations room. At first no one knew him. Bonch-Bruevich burst with joy when he realized who he was: “Vladimir Ilich, our father,” he shouted as he embraced him, “I did not recognize you, dear one!”193 Lenin sat down and drafted, in the name of the Milrevkom, a declaration announcing that the Provisional Government was deposed. Released to the press at 10 a.m. (October 25), it read as follows:

  TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!

  The Provisional Government has been deposed. Government authority has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military-Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.

  The task for which the people have been struggling—the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landlord property in land, worker control over production, the creation of a Soviet Government—this task is assured.

  Long Live the Revolution of Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants!

  The Military-Revolutionary Committee of the

  Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

  *

  This document, which takes pride of place in the corpus of Bolshevik decrees, declared sovereign power over Russia to have been assumed by a body which no one outside the Bolshevik Central Committee had given authority to do so. The Petrograd Soviet had formed the Milrevkom to defend the city, not to topple the government. The Second Congress of Soviets, which was to legitimize the coup, had not even opened when the Bolsheviks had already acted in its name. This procedure, however, was consistent with Lenin’s argument that it was of no consequence in whose name power was formally taken: “This is not important right now: let the Military-Revolutionary Committee take it or ‘some other institution,’ ” he had written the night before. Because the coup was unauthorized and so quietly carried out, the population of Petrograd had no reason to take the claim seriously. According to eyewitnesses, on October 25 life in Petrograd returned to normal as offices and shops reopened, factory workers went to work, and places of entertainment filled again with crowds. No one except a handful of principals knew what had happened: that the capital city was in the iron grip of armed Bolsheviks and that nothing would ever be the same again. Lenin later said that starting the world revolution in Russia was as easy as “picking up a feather.”194

  In the meantime, Kerensky was speeding to Pskov, the headquarters of the Northern Front. By an exquisite twist of history, the only troops available to move against the Bolsheviks were Cossacks of the same Third Cavalry Corps whom two months earlier he had accused of participating in Kornilov’s “treason.” They so despised Kerensky for having slandered Kornilov and driven their commander, General Krymov, to suicide that they refused to heed his pleas. Kerensky eventually persuaded some of them to advance on the capital by way of Luga. Under the command of Ataman P. N. Krasnov, they scattered the troops sent by the Bolsheviks and occupied Gatchina. That evening, they reached Tsarskoe Selo, a two-hour ride to the capital. But disappointed that no other units joined them, they dismounted and refused to go farther.

  In Petrograd, the situation seemed material for comedy. After the Bolsheviks had proclaimed them deposed, the ministers remained in the Malachite Room, on the Neva side of the Winter Palace, awaiting the arrival of Kerensky at the head of relief troops. Because of that, the Second Congress of Soviets, assembled at Smolnyi, had to be postponed from hour to hour. At 2 p.m., 5,000 sailors arrived from Kronshtadt: but this “pride and beauty of the Revolution,” so adept at roughing up unarmed civilians, had no stomach for battle. When their attempt to assault the palace was met with fire, they too gave up.

  Lenin did not dare to show himself in public until the cabinet (presumably including Kerensky, of whose escape he was unaware) fell into Bolshevik hands. He spent most of October 25 bandaged, wigged, and bespectacled. After Dan and Skobelev, passing by, saw through his disguise,195 he retired to his hideaway, where he took catnaps on the floor, while Trotsky came and went to report the latest news.

  Unwilling to open the Congress of Soviets as long as the Winter Palace held out, yet afraid of losing the delegates, Trotsky convened at 2:35 p.m. an Extraordinary Session of the Petrograd Soviet. It cannot be determined who took part in these deliberations: since the SRs and Mensheviks had left Smolnyi the day before and there were hundreds of Bolshevik and pro-Bolshevik delegates from the provinces in the building, it is safe to assume that it was virtually a completely Bolshevik and Left SR affair.

  Opening the meeting (with Lenin still absent), Trotsky announced: “In the name of the Military-Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the Provisional Government has ceased to exist.” When a delegate, in response to one of Trotsky’s announcements, shouted from the floor, “You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets!” Trotsky retorted:

  The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has been predetermined [

  pre-dreshena

  ] by the enormous feat of the uprising of Petrograd workers and soldiers which occurred last night. Now we only have to expand our victory.

  196

  What “uprising” of workers and soldiers? one might well have asked. But the intention of these words was to let the congress know that it had no choice but to acquiesce to the decisions which the Bolshevik Central Committee had “predetermined” in its name.

  Lenin now made a brief appearance, welcoming the delegates and hailing “the worldwide socialist revolution,”197 following which he again dropped out of sight. Trotsky recalls Lenin telling him: “The transition from the underground and the Pereverzev experience [pereverzevshchina] to power is too sudden.” And he added in German, making a circular motion: “Es schwindelt” (“It’s dizzying”).198

  At 6:30 p.m., the Military-Revolutionary Committee gave the Provisional Government an ultimatum to surrender or face fire from the cruiser Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress. The ministers, expecting assistance at any moment, did not respond: at this time rumors spread that Kerensky was approaching at the head of loyal troops.199 They chatted listlessly, conversed with friends on the phone, and rested, stretched out on settees.

  At 9 p.m. the cruiser Aurora opened fire. Because it had no live ammunition aboard, it shot a single blank salvo and fell silent—just enough to secure it a prominent place in the legends about October. Two hours later, the Peter and Paul Fortress opened a bombardment, this time with live shells, but its aim was so inaccurate that of the thirty to thirty-five rounds fired only two struck the palace, inflicting minor damage.200 After months of organizational work in the factories and garrisons, the Bolsheviks turned out to have no forces willing to die for their cause. The thinly defended seat of the Provisional Government stood defiant, mocking those who had declared it deposed. During pauses in the shelling, detachments of Red Guards penetrated the palace through one of its several entrances; inside, however, when confronted by armed iunkers, they immediately surrendered.

  As night fell, the defenders of the palace, dispirited from the lack of the promised support, began to withdraw. The first to go were the Cossacks; they were followed by the iunkers manning the artillery. The Women’s Death Battalion stayed on. By midnight, the defense was reduced to them and a handful of tee
nage cadets guarding the Malachite Room. When no more gunfire issued from the palace, the Red Guards and sailors cautiously drew near. The first to penetrate were sailors and troops of the Pavlovskii Regiment who clambered through open windows on the Hermitage side.201 Others made their way through unlocked gates. The Winter Palace was not taken by assault: the image of a column of storming workers, soldiers, and sailors as depicted in Eisenstein’s film Days of October is pure invention, an attempt to give Russia its own Fall of the Bastille. In reality, the Winter Palace was overrun by mobs after it had ceased to defend itself. The total casualties were five killed and several wounded, most of them victims of stray bullets.

  67. Cadets (iunkers) defending the Winter Palace: October 1917.

  After midnight, the palace filled with a mob which looted and vandalized its luxurious interiors. Some of the women defenders are said to have been raped. P. N. Maliantovich, the Minister of Justice, left a graphic picture of the last minutes of the Provisional Government:

  Suddenly a noise arose somewhere: it at once grew in intensity and scope, drawing nearer. In its sounds—distinct but fused into a single wave—there at once resounded something special, something different from the previous noises: something final.… It became instantly clear that the end was at hand …

  Those lying or sitting sprang to their feet and reached for their overcoats …

  And the noise grew all the time, intensified, and swiftly, with a broad wave, rolled toward us … It penetrated and seized us with an unbearable fear, like the onslaught of poisoned air …

  All this in a few minutes …

  At the door to the antechamber of the room where we were holding watch one could hear sharp, excited shouts of a mass of voices, a few isolated shots, the stamping of feet, some pounding, movements, the commingled, mounting, integrated chaos of sounds and the ever-mounting fear.

  It was obvious: we were under assault: we were being taken by assault … Defense was useless; victims would be sacrificed in vain …

  The door flew open … A

  iunker

  rushed in. At full attention, saluting, his face excited but determined: “What does the Provisional Government command? Defend to the last man? We are ready if the Provisional Government so orders.”

  “No need for this! It would be useless! This is clear! No bloodshed! Surrender!” we shouted like one without prior agreement, only looking at one another to read the same feelings and resolution in everyone’s eyes.

  Kishkin stepped forward. “If they are here, this means that the palace is already taken.”

  *

  “Yes. All the entrances have been taken. Everyone has surrendered. Only these quarters are still guarded. What does the Provisional Government command?”

  “Say that we want no bloodshed, that we yield to force, that we surrender,” Kishkin said.

  And there, by the door, fear mounted without letup, and we became anxious lest blood flow, lest we be too late to prevent it … And we shouted anxiously: “Hurry! Go and tell them! We want no blood! We surrender!”

  The

  iunker

  left … The entire scene, I believe, took no more than a minute.

  202

  Arrested by Antonov-Ovseenko at 2:10 a.m., the ministers were taken under guard to the Peter and Paul Fortress. On the way they barely escaped being lynched.

  Three and a half hours earlier, unable to hold out any longer, the Bolsheviks had opened their congress in Smolnyi, in the large colonnaded Assembly Hall used before 1917 for theatrical performances and balls. Cleverly exploiting Theodore Dan’s vanity, they invited the Menshevik Soviet leader to inaugurate the proceedings, which had the effect of giving them an aura of Soviet legitimacy. A new Presidium was elected, composed of fourteen Bolshevik, seven Left SRs, and three Mensheviks. Kamenev took the chair. Although the legitimate Ispolkom had prescribed for the congress a very narrow agenda (the current situation, the Constituent Assembly, reelections to the Ispolkom), Kamenev altered it to something entirely different: governmental authority, war and peace, and the Constituent Assembly.

  68. The Winter Palace, after being seized and looted by the Bolsheviks.

  69. The Assembly Hall in Smolnyi, locale of the Second Congress of Soviets (the same hall shown on this page).

  The composition of the congress bore little relationship to the country’s political alignment. Peasant organizations refused to participate, declaring the congress unauthorized and urging the nation’s soviets to boycott it.203 On the same grounds, the army committees refused to send delegates.204 Trotsky must have known better than to describe the Second Congress as “the most democratic of all parliaments in the history of the world.”205 It was, in fact, a gathering of Bolshevik-dominated urban soviets and military councils especially created for the purpose. In a statement issued on October 25, the Ispolkom declared:

  The Central Executive Committee [Ispolkom] considers the Second Congress as not having taken place and regards it as a private gathering of Bolshevik delegates. The resolutions of this congress, lacking in legitimacy, are declared by the Central Executive Committee to have no binding force for local soviets and all army committees. The Central Executive Committee calls on the soviets and army organizations to rally around it to defend the Revolution. The Central Executive Committee will convene a new Congress of Soviets as soon as conditions make it possible to do so properly.

  206

  The exact number of participants in this rump congress cannot be determined: the most reliable estimate indicates about 650 delegates, among them 338 Bolsheviks and 98 Left SRs. The two allied parties thus controlled two-thirds of the seats—a representation more than double what they were entitled to, judging by the elections to the Constituent Assembly three weeks later.207 Leaving nothing to chance, for they could not be entirely certain of the Left SRs, the Bolsheviks allocated to themselves 54 percent of the seats. How skewed the representation was is illustrated by the fact that, according to information made available seventy years later, Latvians, who had a strong Bolshevik movement, accounted for over 10 percent of the delegates.208

  The initial hours were spent on raucous debates. While awaiting word that the ministers were under arrest, the Bolsheviks gave the floor to their socialist opponents. Amid hooting and heckling, the Mensheviks and the Socialists-Revolutionaries presented similar declarations denouncing the Bolshevik coup and demanding immediate negotiations with the Provisional Government. The Menshevik statement declared that the

  military conspiracy was organized and carried out by the Bolshevik Party in the name of the soviets behind the backs of all the other parties and factions represented in the soviets … the seizure of power by the Petrograd Soviet on the eve of the Congress of Soviets constitutes a disorganization and disruption of the entire soviet organization.

  209

  Trotsky described the opponents as “pitiful entities [edinitsy]” and “bankrupts” whose place was on the “garbage heap of history,” whereupon Martov declared he was leaving.210

  This happened around 1 a.m. on October 26. At 3:10 a.m. Kamenev announced that the Winter Palace had fallen and the ministers were in custody. At 6 a.m. he adjourned the congress until the evening.

  Lenin now went to Bonch-Bruevich’s apartment to draft key decrees for the congress’s ratification. The two principal decrees on which he counted to win the support of soldiers and peasants for the coup, dealing with peace and land, were later in the day submitted to a caucus of the Bolshevik delegates, which approved them without debate.

  The congress resumed at 10:40 p.m. Lenin, greeted with tumultuous applause, presented the decrees on peace and land. They sailed through on a voice vote.

  The Decree on Peace211 was misnamed since it was not a legislative act, but an appeal to all the belligerent powers to open immediate negotiations for a “democratic” peace without annexations and contributions, guaranteeing every nation “the right to self-determination.” Secret diplomacy was to be abolished and
secret treaties made public. Until peace negotiations could get underway, Russia proposed a three-month armistice.

  The Decree on Land212 was lifted bodily from the program of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party as supplemented with 242 instructions from peasant communities published two months earlier in Izvestiia of the All-Russian Union of Peasants’ Deputies.213 Instead of ordering the nationalization all the land—that is, the transfer of ownership to the state—as the Bolshevik program demanded, it called for its “socialization”—that is, withdrawal from commerce and transfer to peasant communes for use. All landed properties of landlords, the state, the church, and others not engaged in farming were to be confiscated without compensation and turned over to the volost’ land committees until such time as the Constituent Assembly decided on their ultimate disposal. Private holdings of peasants, however, were exempt. This was an unabashed concession to peasant wishes which had little in common with the Bolshevik land program and was designed to win peasant support in the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

  The third and final decree presented to the delegates set up a new government called the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov, or Sovnarkom). It was to serve only until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, scheduled for the following month: hence, like its predecessor, it was named “Provisional Government.”214 Lenin at first offered its chairmanship to Trotsky, but Trotsky refused. Lenin was none too eager to enter the cabinet, preferring to work from behind the scenes. “At first Lenin did not want to join the government,” Lunacharskii recalled. “ ‘I will work in the Central Committee of the party,’ he said. But we said no. We would not agree to that. We made him assume principal responsibility. Everyone prefers to be only a critic.”215 So Lenin took over the chairmanship of the Sovnarkom, while concurrently serving, in fact if not in name, as chairman of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The new cabinet had the same structure as the old, with the addition of one new post, that of chairman (rather than commissar) for Nationality Affairs. All the commissars were members of the Bolshevik Party and subject to its discipline: the Left SRs were invited to join but refused, insisting on a cabinet representative of “all the forces of revolutionary democracy,” including the Mensheviks and SRs.216 The composition of the Sovnarkom was as follows:*