"Bolshevism took possession of the country. In far-off and tranquil Tomsk, as also in the wholly non-industrial Samara, the Bolsheviks dominated the duma. It was not so favourable everywhere, but everywhere it was changing in the same direction. The relative weight of the Bolshevik Party was on the rapid rise"
 |
| Meeting at the Putilov Factory, 1917. |
Disintegration at the front
By the beginning of October, the front was disintegrating and the German fleet massing in the Gulf of Finland. Only the Baltic sailors stood between the German navy and the approaches to Petrograd.
“They … understood the … contradiction in their position as the vanguards of a revolution and involuntary participants in an imperialist war, and through the radio stations on their ships they sent out a cry … for international revolutionary help. ‘Attacked by superior German forces … the slandered and maligned fleet will do its duty … but not at the command of a miserable Russian Bonaparte … not in the names of the treaties of our rulers with the Allies’ … No, but in the name of the defence of the approaches to the hearth-fire of the revolution, Petrograd” (30).
The Germans succeeded in capturing the Moon Sound islands (on the Gulf of Riga) and sinking the Slava. The ruling circles seized on the threat to Petrograd as their opportunity to transfer the government to Moscow as soon as possible. Of course, their real aim was to abandon Petrograd and leave the centre of the revolution to be exhausted by hunger and disease. Already factories were being deliberately deprived of orders and food and fuel supplies to the capital being cut.
In case anyone was in any doubt to the bourgeoisie’s strategy, Rodzianko told a Moscow newspaper: “ ‘A fear was expressed in Petrograd lest the central institutions [the soviets] be destroyed. To this I answered that I would be very glad … for they have brought nothing but evil to Russia.’ To be sure, with the capture of Petrograd the Baltic fleet also would have been destroyed, but against that too Rodzianko had no complaint: ‘The ships there are completely depraved’ ” (31).
When news came from London that the British naval command felt unable to relieve its ally in the Baltic, it wasn’t hard to draw the conclusion that they, like the Kadets, were happy to see the workers of Petrograd being thrown to the German invaders. But the fierce opposition of the soldiers and workers to this treacherous plan forced the Compromisers to reject the removal.
An angry sailors’ congress nevertheless demanded the resignation of Kerensky. “In essence the Baltic fleet was already in a state of insurrection. On the land front, things had not yet gone so far, but they were travelling in the same direction. The food situation was deteriorating … the lower ranks, regiment after regiment, were putting forth demands for a publication of the secret treaties and an immediate offer of peace. On the Romanian front, where the Bolsheviks were very weak, whole regiments were refusing to shoot” (32).
“The commissar of the 2nd Army reported to the War Minister: ‘There is no little talk to the effect that with the arrival of the cold weather they will abandon their position.’ Fraternising, which had almost stopped since the July Days, began again and grew rapidly. Instances not only of the arrest of officers by the soldiers, but of the murder of the more hateful began to multiply” (33).
Some of the generals and Kadets like Miliukov still talked of a new offensive, if only as a way to defeat the revolution through the devastation of war. But War Minister Verkhovsky drew a different conclusion and suddenly announced the need for an immediate peace, even without the agreement of the Allies. He was attacked by the patriotic press and sent away for a ‘holiday’. In reality, the Minister had correctly recognised this might now be the only way out for the government.
The ‘Pre-Parliament’
The Council of the Russian Republic or ‘Pre-Parliament’, agreed by the Democratic Conference in September, was finally convened on October 7th in the grand surroundings of the Mariinsky Palace.
There were 308 delegates from the so-called ‘democratic’ majority, including 66 places for the Bolsheviks, plus 156 seats for the possessing classes, of which nearly half were Kadets. In fact, given the conservative nature of many of the representatives of the Cossacks, Co-Operators and Executive Committee members, the Right Wing sometimes came close to a majority.
But the main subject of discussion on the rainy opening day was whether the Bolsheviks would take their seats. A meeting of the Bolshevik faction had voted overwhelmingly to confirm their boycott. Only Kamenev voted against.
Trotsky was granted ten minutes to speak in the name of the Bolshevik faction. He objected to the over-representation of the possessing classes in the Council and questioned why they were defending such an irresponsible government.
To storms of protest he stated: “The essence of it all is that the bourgeois classes have decided to quash the Constituent Assembly. The idea of surrendering the revolutionary capital to the German troops … we accept as a link in a … policy … designed to promote a counter-revolutionary conspiracy” (34).
Trotsky concluded by condemning the Council and the government, and calling for ‘All power to the soviets’. “ ‘They spoke and acted’, wrote Miliukov on … the Bolshevik withdrawal from the Pre-Parliament, ‘like people feeling a power behind them, knowing that the morrow belonged to them’ ” (35).
Bolshevism reaches out
“The withdrawal from the Pre-Parliament … burned the last bridges uniting the party of insurrection with official society” (36). Knowing their goal was now rapidly approaching and convinced by the correctness of their policies, the Bolshevik agitators went out to the masses with renewed energy.
“The people never tired of hearing them. Each wanted to test himself through others, and all tensely and attentively kept observing how one and the same thought would develop in their various minds with its different shades” (37).
The thirst for Bolshevik ideas was hard to meet as many of the Party’s leading agitators were missing. “First of all Lenin was lacking – both as an agitator and still more as an immediate day-to-day inspiration. His simple and deep generalisations which could so lastingly insert themselves into the consciousness of the masses, his clear sayings caught up from the people and handed back to them, were sadly missed” (38).
Unlike Lenin, Zinoviev was no longer in hiding but was now arguing against insurrection, as was Kamenev. Sverdlov, more of an organiser than an agitator, nevertheless spoke often at meetings. As well as lesser known figures, Trotsky names Volodarsky, Lashevich, Kollontai, Chudnovsky and, at times, Lunacharsky, as being the best of the agitators.
But it was Trotsky himself who played the key role. Sukhanov explains how “he would fly from … factory to … shipyards … to the barracks … and seemed to be speaking simultaneously in all places. Every Petrograd worker and soldier knew him and heard him personally. His influence – both in the masses and in headquarters – was overwhelming” (39).
“But incomparably more effective in that last period before the insurrection was the molecular agitation carried on by nameless workers, sailors, soldiers, winning converts one by one, breaking down the last doubts, overcoming the last hesitations. Those months of feverish political life had created innumerable cadres in the lower ranks … who were accustomed to look on politics from below and not above, and for that reason estimated fact and people with a keenness not always accessible to orators of the academic type” (40).
Cadres in the Petrograd working-class already had the ear of workmates who in turn would carry the Bolshevik’s ideas yet further. The Baltic sailors and the workers and soldiers of Petrograd and Moscow sent out agitators to the rural towns and villages and more backward regiments. In turn, they would bring back news of the peasant revolt.
On the other hand: “In places where the local party leadership was irresolute … as … in Kiev … the masses not infrequently fell into a passive condition. To justify their policy, the leaders would point to this mood of depression which they themselves had created” (41).
Retreating soldiers agitated against the war and the government responsible for it, not least the Lettish Bolsheviks torn from their own homes. Delegates sent to the front from factories and regiments built meetings in towns all along the front, winning over even the politically backward troops of White Russia.
“Bolshevism took possession of the country. The Bolsheviks received 52% of the votes at an election to the district dumas of Moscow. In far-off and tranquil Tomsk, as also in the wholly non-industrial Samara, the Bolsheviks dominated the duma. It was not so favourable everywhere, but everywhere it was changing in the same direction. The relative weight of the Bolshevik Party was on the rapid rise” (42).
Trotsky estimates that by the eve of the October revolution itself, the party had grown to around 240,000 members, leading millions through the soviets, trade unions and factory committees.
Workers’ control
Indeed, the growth of Bolshevik influence was most clearly seen in the trade unions and factory committees. This was no accident since the question of workers’ control was no longer a theoretical issue but the only realistic way to guarantee production.
“The Moscow conference of factory and shop committees declared that the local Soviet should in the future decide all strike conflicts by decree, on its own authority open all the plants shut down by the lockouts, and by sending its own delegates to Siberia and the Donetz Basin guarantee coal and grain to the factories” (43).
As the All-Russian conference of factory and shop committees concluded in late October: “ ‘The workers are more interested than the owners in the correct and uninterrupted operation of the plants.’ Workers’ control ‘ is in the interest of the whole country and ought to be supported by the revolutionary peasantry and the revolutionary army.’ This resolution, opening the door to a new economic order, was adopted by the representatives of all the industrial enterprises of Russia with only five votes opposing and nine abstaining” (44).
The official governmental bodies could no longer guarantee water, fuel and food to the cities. Instead it was the soviets and the factory committees that were organising supplies: “No, the government of the soviets was not … an invention of party theoreticians. It grew up irresistibly from below, from the breakdown of industry, the impotence of the possessors, the needs of the masses. The soviets had in actual fact become a government. For the workers, soldiers and peasants there remained no other road. No time left to argue and speculate about a Soviet government: it had to be realised” (45).
Calling the Congress of Soviets
The first congress of the soviets in June had agreed to convene the congress every three months. But the Central Executive Committee, fearing defeat, had sought to ignore the decision. Instead, they had hoped that the Democratic Conference would set up alternative ‘democratic’ institutions to replace the soviets. But things hadn’t worked out as the Compromisers hoped.
As the Democratic Conference was closing, on September 21st, the Petrograd Soviet agreed a proposal from Trotsky and Bukharin, speaking as a guest from Moscow, to demand the congress was convened without delay.
They presented the policy as a defensive plan against reaction. They argued that strong soviets and the revolutionary committees created to fight Kornilov were needed to oppose the threats to the revolution; the congress was vital to plan and co-ordinate their actions.
“Thus a resolution on self-defence brings us right up to the necessity of overthrowing the government. The agitation will be conducted on this political key-note from now straight on to the moment of insurrection” (46).
The Bolsheviks made sure that the demand was put to the Central Executive Committee the next day. To keep the pressure on the Compromisers, they threatened to set up a special committee, based on the Petrograd and Moscow soviets, in order to be able to call the Congress within the next two weeks. Their preference was, however, for the Congress to be called by the E.C. in order to avoid any arguments about its status. The bluff worked and the E.C. called the Congress - for October 20th.
The E.C. leaders, recognising the threat that the Congress would be to their power, then tried to back-pedal. At the September 26th meeting of the E.C., Dan tried to rush through a proposal to postpone the Congress. Trotsky warned Dan that the Congress would be called just the same; with or without the E.C.’s say so. Dan played for time, deciding to survey the front to see what military support existed for a Congress.
The Compromise Parties and their press opened up a fierce campaign against the Congress. The peasant E.C. came out against it. Izvestia declared that the soviets were just temporary obstructions to be cleared away once the Constituent Assembly was formed.
But the Bolsheviks were prepared for this counter-agitation. On September 24th, before Dan had made his U-turn, the Bolshevik Central Committee had already agreed to launch a campaign from below to support the Congress. Sverdlov, delegated to sit on the Central Executive Committee’s commission on the calling – or not – of the Congress, led the mobilisation of local party branches and, through them, soviets. Resolutions flowed in from factories, mines, soviets, meetings, regiments, warships, from across the country calling for the transfer of power to the soviets.
The Bolsheviks then mobilised the strongholds of some of the most revolutionary workers, sailors and soldiers by calling a congress of the soviets of the northern region. 150 delegates attended from 23 bodies including the soviets of Petrograd, Moscow, Kronstadt, Helsingfors (Helsinki) and Reval (now Tallinn).
Krylenko, future Bolshevik commander-in-chief, took the chair and Antonov opened the Congress. Trotsky gave the political report, speaking out against government attempts to remove revolutionary regiments from Petrograd, troops needed to help take power. His resolution concluded: “ ‘The hour has come when the question of the central government … can be decided only by a resolute and unanimous coming-out of all the soviets.’ This almost undisguised summons to insurrection was adopted by all votes with three abstaining” (46).
Under the recommendation of the Bolshevik C.C., the Northern Congress delegates stayed on in Petrograd, taking directions to visit local soviets and army organisations to prepare for the coming insurrection.
“The Central Executive Committee saw a powerful apparatus grown up beside itself, resting upon Petrograd and Moscow, conversing with the country through the radio stations of the dreadnoughts, and ready at any moment to replace the decrepit supreme Soviet organ in the manner of summoning the Congress” (47).
“The struggle for and against the Congress gave the last impulse in the localities to the Bolshevisation of the soviets. In a number of backward provinces … the Bolsheviks, either alone or together with the Left SRs, got their first majority only during this campaign for the Congress or during the election of delegates to it” (48).
Trotsky lists important victories for the Bolsheviks, for example, those at the congresses of soviets for Siberia, the Urals, and that held in Minsk for the north-western region. Significantly, this was at the centre of the Western front.
On October 18th the Petrograd Soviet cast 443 votes for the Bolshevik slate of Trotsky, Kamenev, Volodarsky, Yurenev and Lashevich as the Congress delegation. The SRs got 162 votes, and these were all Left SRs, generally in support of the Bolshevik policy. The Mensheviks scored just 44. On October 19th, the all-Russian factory and shop committee conference, the voice of the working-class, voted for an immediate transfer of power to the soviets.
Dan still tried to claim at the E.C.’s commission that only 50 of the 917 Soviet organisations had reported that they were to send delegates. But most soviets and army committees had long since stopped bothering reporting to the redundant Central E.C: “Although they had exposed and compromised themselves with these efforts to sabotage the Congress, the Compromisers did not dare carry the work through to the end. When it became utterly obvious that they could not avoid a congress, they made an abrupt about-face and summoned all the local organisations to elect delegates to the Congress in order not to give the Bolsheviks a majority” (49).
As one last manoeuvre, the Compromisers put back the date of the Congress by five days to October 25th. But the Bolsheviks were better placed to take advantage of the delay and used it to reinforce their support in Petrograd.
As one example of the changed mood, Trotsky won support at the notorious Semenovsky garrison, the regiment who had led the crushing of the 1905 revolt in Moscow. Two E.C. members, the Menshevik Skobelev and Social Revolutionary Gotz, who were due to address the soldiers after Trotsky, were not even allowed to speak!
The Congress and the Assembly
“Every question turned into a question about the power, and the problem of power led straight to the Congress of Soviets. The Congress must give the answer to all questions, among them the question of the Constituent Assembly. Not one party had yet withdrawn the slogan of the Constituent Assembly, and this included the Bolsheviks. But almost unnoticeably in the course of the events of the revolution, this chief democratic slogan … had become an empty shell. The development of the revolution had reached the point of a direct battle for power between the two basic classes of society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. A Constituent Assembly could give nothing either to the one or the other” (50).
“The petty bourgeoisie of the town and country could play only a … secondary role in this conflict. They were in any case incapable of seizing the power themselves. If the preceding months had proved anything, they had proved that. Nevertheless in a Constituent Assembly the petty bourgeoisie might still win – and they actually did win as it turned out – a majority. And to what end? Only to the end of not knowing what to do with it. This reveals the bankruptcy of formal democracy in a deep historic crisis. It reveals the strength of tradition, however, that … neither camp had yet renounced the name of the Constituent Assembly. But … the bourgeoisie had appealed from the Constituent Assembly to Kornilov, and the Bolsheviks to the Congress of Soviets” (51).
“Rather wide sections of the people, and even certain small strata of the Bolshevik Party, nourished certain constitutional illusions of their own in regard to the Congress of Soviets – that is, they associated it with the idea of an automatic and painless transfer of power from the hands of the Coalition to the hands of the Soviet. In reality, it would be necessary to take the power by force; it was impossible to do this by voting. Only an armed insurrection could decide the question” (52).
“In co-ordinating the revolutionary efforts of the workers and soldiers of the whole country, giving them a single goal, giving them unity of aim and a single date of action, the slogan of the Soviet Congress, at the same time made it possible to screen the semi-conspirative, semi-public preparation of an insurrection with continual appeals to the legal representation of the workers, soldiers and peasants. Having thus promoted the assembling of forces for the revolution, the Congress … was afterward to sanction its results” (53).
No comments:
Post a Comment