18) The Rising Tide

"Events are sweeping the masses so powerfully ... that the workers and soldiers have no time to organise themselves in a party. They drink up the Bolshevik slogans just as naturally as they breathe air. That the party is a complicated laboratory in which these slogans have been worked out on the basis of collective experience, is still not clear in their minds ... The party, which had on the very eve of the October revolution, only 240,000 members, was more and more confidently leading these millions, through the medium of the trade unions, the factory and shop committees, and the soviets"

Petrograd Soviet

The Whip of Counter-Revolution

Trotsky reminds his readers of Marx’s words: “A revolution from time to time needs the whip of counter-revolution” (125). Kornilov’s revolt had certainly provided such an impetus.
 
Troubling questions were penetrating the collective consciousness. Why had they been told that a Coalition was necessary to defend the revolution but then one supposed ‘ally’ had turned up on the side of the counter-revolution? Why had Kerensky organised the Moscow Conference and given Kornilov his opportunity to organise? Why was it only the Bolsheviks that had correctly warned about the planned conspiracy? If the military provocateurs had attempted to bring the masses into the streets on August 27th, could they also have been responsible for the bloody encounters on July 4th after all?

“The meaning of the baiting of Bolsheviks had become utterly clear: it had been an indispensable element in the preparation for a coup d’etat. The workers and soldiers, as they began to see all this, were seized with a sharp feeling of shame. And out of these moods ... grew an unconquerable loyalty to the party and confidence in its leaders” (126).

“The old soldiers … the staff of non-commissioned officers, resisted up to the very last days. They did not want to put a cross against all … their sacrifices. But when the last prop was knocked out from under them they turned sharply … to the Bolsheviks. Now they had utterly come over to the revolution. They had got fooled on the war, but this time they would carry the thing through to the end” (127).

As much as the official Government condemned any peasant action, any workers’ strike, any resistance as ‘Bolshevism’, so all those involved began to identify themselves with the party.

The influence of Bolshevism grew everywhere. On August 30th a joint session of the E.C. was forced to agree to delegates from Kronstadt being given representation on this leading body. In Helsingfors, a coalition of Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries had taken the majority in the soviet. The Regional Soviet Committee, with the young Bolshevik C.C. member, Smilga, as president, had now already effectively established soviet rule in Finland.

Reports flooded in of growing Bolshevik support in areas where they had previously had little backing. For example, in the Moscow Region where members were being beaten up in July and August, even tiny villages were now demanding Bolshevik speakers. In many cities in the region, the Bolsheviks were now entirely dominant while the SRs and Mensheviks were falling to pieces.

“The organisations of the party are growing, but its force of attraction is growing incomparably faster. Events are sweeping the masses so powerfully ... that the workers and soldiers have no time to organise themselves in a party. They drink up the Bolshevik slogans just as naturally as they breathe air. That the party is a complicated laboratory in which these slogans have been worked out on the basis of collective experience, is still not clear in their minds. There are over twenty million people represented in the soviets. The party, which had on the very eve of the October revolution, only 240,000 members, was more and more confidently leading these millions, through the medium of the trade unions, the factory and shop committees, and the soviets” (128).

Votes in elections of all kinds all showed the astonishing growth in support for the Bolsheviks. The elections to the district dumas of Moscow at the end of September made everyone take notice. The Social Revolutionaries fell to 54,000 votes from the 375,000 it had won in June. The Mensheviks dropped to a mere 16,000 while the Bolshevik poll had risen from 75,000 to 198,000 – 52% of the total.

“ ‘The Bolsheviks worked … unceasingly,’ writes Sukhanov, who … belonged to the shattered …Mensheviks. ‘They were among the masses every day and all the time … guiding both in great things and small the whole life of the factories and barracks. The masses lived and breathed … with the Bolsheviks. They were wholly in the hands of the party of Lenin and Trotsky’ ” (129).

Sailors’ meetings were overwhelmingly in support of the Bolsheviks and by September the slogan of ‘Power to the Soviets’ was becoming widely adopted. Developments on the front were more complex. Many regiments had still never heard or seen a real Bolshevik. Bolshevik speakers like Efgenia Bosh set out cautiously to speak to the soldiers but met with an enthusiastic response. After Kornilov’s defeat, the officers felt more and more hated and despised while the ranks turned to Bolshevism. Demands for ‘peace’ became insistent.

In contrast, the Compromise parties were disintegrating. The Social Revolutionary Party was not only losing influence but also its social basis. While its more revolutionary members left for the Bolsheviks, petty officials and kulaks began to take their place. The party began to split on class lines with the Left Social Revolutionaries, while not yet formally splitting away, coming closer and closer to Bolshevik demands. The Mensheviks, without a peasant reserve, folded even more rapidly than the SRs. By the end of September, they had practically ceased to exist in Petrograd.

The Soviets after the Kornilov days

The soviets had responded to the danger of the insurrection by developing new forms of organisation. Across the country, the executive committees were pushed aside by special committees of defence, reporting to the soviets but directly organising action themselves. This was no mere copying of Petrograd, it was a common conclusion to the situation reached by almost all soviets.

After the Kornilov days, the soviets reached up to a new level. Quickly, the Petrograd Soviet shifted sharply to the left. On the night of September 1st, it voted by 279 to 115 for a government of workers and peasants, with the ranks of the Compromisist factions supporting the Bolshevik resolution. The stunned praesidium of Compromisers resigned.

On September 5th, the Moscow Soviet also voted for the first time for the Bolshevik’s policy, condemning the coalition policy of the E.C. On the same day the Bolsheviks were victorious at the central Siberian congress of soviets. On the 8th, a Bolshevik resolution was adopted in the Kiev workers’ soviet.

Lenin recognised the new situation and again boldly changed policy. Once again, the demand of ‘Power to the Soviets’ could be raised “but received a new meaning: All power to the Bolshevik soviets. In this form the slogan had decisively ceased to be a slogan of peaceful development. The party was launched on the road of an armed insurrection through the soviets and in the name of the soviets” (130).

The Petrograd Soviet met again on September 9th with all factions having called in every available deputy – about 1,000 in all - to try and win a re-vote called by the Right. Trotsky, appearing for the first time since his release from prison (as explained below), was warmly applauded by much of the meeting. Of course, each side was also trying to judge whether Trotsky’s applause was enough to suggest a Bolshevik majority!

It was decided to count the vote by asking all those in favour of accepting the praesidium’s resignation to leave the hall. “All understood that they were deciding the question of power – of the war – of the fate of the revolution. The Bolshevik leaders, on their part, estimated that they would lack about 100 votes. But the workers and soldiers kept on drifting … toward the door. The procedure lasted about an hour. At last the result was counted. For the praesidium and the Coalition, 414 votes; against, 519; abstaining, 67! The new majority applauded like a storm. It had a right to. The victory had been well paid for. A good part of the road lay behind” (131).

After this defeat, the Compromisers rapidly lost the rest of their support in the Soviet. Their supporters amongst the intellectuals stopped attending, while their leaders stayed holed up in the Executive Committee. “The Soviet became more homogeneous – greyer, darker, more serious” (132).

So had the Bolsheviks made the right assessment at their Congress back in July? Trotsky concludes: “Throughout the resolutions of the Sixth Congress … there runs the assertion that, as a result of the July events, the dual power has been liquidated and been replaced by a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The formula was, to say the least, inaccurate. From the point of view of the military problems of the moment it was … necessary to overestimate the concentration of power in the hands of the counter-revolution. But a historical analysis has no need of those exaggerations proper to agitation. The dual power was reconstructed, transformed, but it did not disappear. In the factories it was impossible as before to do anything against the will of the workers; the peasants retained enough power to prevent the landlord from enjoying his property rights; the commanders felt no confidence before the soldiers. But what is the power if it is not the material possibility to dispose of property rights and the military force? The Executive Committee had lost the lion’s share of its importance. But it would be a mistake to imagine that the bourgeoisie had received all that the Compromise leaders had lost. These leaders had lost not only to the right, but also to the left – not only to the benefit of the military cliques, but also to the benefit of the factory and regimental committees. The dual power had ceased to be ‘peaceful’. It had become more concealed, more decentralised, more … explosive” (133).

From now on the Petrograd Soviet was led by the Bolsheviks, although without the funds, equipment, newspapers and cars that had previously been granted to it. The Executive Committee had seen fit to steal all that away from them. But they had the confidence of the workers and soldiers – and that proved to be enough.