The October days 1917 - TOWARD SOVIET POWER

THE OCTOBER DAYS 1917

Between September 12 and 14 – unfortunately, it has been impossible to establish the exact date – Lenin wrote his letter to the Central Committee of the Party in which he formulated his conclusions:

“Having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of both capitals, the Bolsheviks can, and must, take over the power of government.” (V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. VI, p. 215.)

Lenin explained why it was that insurrection stood on the order of the day at that particular moment:

“To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon the rising revolutionary spirit of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon the crucial moment in the history of the growing revolution, when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemies and in the ranks of the weak, halfhearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point.” (Lenin and Stalin, The Russian Revolution, p. 191.)

These three factors existed.

“We have the following of the majority of a class, the vanguard of the revolution, the vanguard of the people, which is capable of carrying the masses with it.” (Ibid., p. 172.)

The racked and famine-stricken people realized that only the proletariat could give them peace, land and bread.

“We have the following of the majority of the people.” (Ibid.)

A lack of faith in their forces, a lack of cohesion, could be felt in the camp of the closest allies of the bourgeoisie.

After the overthrow of the autocracy in February 1917, the Provisional Government, with the consent of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, had refrained from proclaiming Russia a republic, under the pretext that the question of the form of government, like all the other burning questions of the revolution, was a matter to be decided by the Constituent Assembly, the convocation of which was constantly being put off. Immediately after the revolt of General Kornilov, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, under pressure of the masses, had inclined towards the revolution, demanding that Russia be declared a republic. But this shift to the Left was extremely short-lived. Realizing that they had not succeeded in increasing their prestige among the masses, while the bourgeoisie was regarding them askance, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks backed up again into their old bourgeois stalls.

Vacillation was also manifest in the camp of the bourgeois party of the Constitutional-Democrats (Cadets). The latter were unable to obviate the antagonisms between their two groups. The Lefts were demanding an agreement with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, while the Rights were negotiating with the Black Hundreds. Of course, these antagonisms should not be exaggerated, but, nevertheless, in the existing conditions of revolutionary crisis, these differences weakened the enemy camp.

The chief allies of the Russian bourgeoisie, the imperialists of the Entente, were also wavering between a war to a victorious conclusion and a separate peace with German imperialism against Russia for the purpose of crushing the Russian revolution.

French historians have published telegrams that had been kept out of the press in 1917 by the censors. Even from this meager information it is obvious that unrest had begun to manifest itself among the French troops in the autumn of 1917. The soldiers demanded peace. The anti-war movement had seized on whole corps, spreading to the British units as well. Poincaré has admitted in his Memoirs that there was not a single corps in the French Army that could have been dispatched to Paris for the purpose of suppressing a possible uprising of the workers. The imperialists were feeling the menace of revolution in their own countries too.

Urged on by their fear of revolution, Great Britain and France began to send out feelers with regard to the possibility of concluding peace with Germany. The response on the part of Germany was all that could be desired. At the beginning of September, a German representative approached the French Minister of Foreign Affairs with a proposal to conclude peace. Germany agreed to concessions to France and Great Britain in the West provided she would receive her share in the East. The erstwhile enemies prepared to make peace at the expense of Russia.

Negotiations were conducted in the strictest secrecy. All rumors that found their way into the press were declared slander by the respective governments. However, the negotiations dragged out: evidently the imperialists were demanding too much of one another. Germany then endeavored to start negotiations with Russia for a separate peace.

Lenin knew nothing of these negotiations. But his vast powers of penetration enabled him to predict not only the negotiations between these two imperialist groups, but also the attempt of Germany to conclude a separate peace with Russia. Information has recently come to light definitely confirming Lenin’s brilliant insight.

In his memoirs on the revolution, written after the conclusion of the Civil War, David R. Francis, American Ambassador to Russia at that time, tells the following interesting facts: Tereshchenko, then Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Archangel and dined with him twice. He was using the assumed name of Titov. He had gone to Kolchak on a special mission from Gulkevich, Russian Ambassador to Sweden. Tereshchenko assured Francis that he had received favorable peace terms from Germany around August 1 and that the only person he had shown them to was Kerensky.

Behind the backs of the people, the counter-revolutionaries, like Nicholas Romanov on the eve of his fall, were preparing to sell out the country only to free their hands for the struggle against the revolution.

Lenin concluded his letter to the Central Committee as follows:

“All the objective conditions for a successful insurrection exist. We have the exceptional advantage of a situation in which only our success in the insurrection can put an end to that most harassing thing on earth, vacillation, which has worn the people out; a situation in which only our success in the insurrection can foil the game of a separate peace directed against the revolution by publicly proposing a fuller, juster and earlier peace to the benefit of the revolution.” (Ibid., p. 193.)

The great leader of the revolution called on the Party to proceed to insurrection. As yet, Lenin did not speak in his letters of the exact date for the uprising. In his opinion, this question could be settled only by decision of those who were in touch with the workers and soldiers, with the masses; in other words, by the Central Committee of the Party. Lenin insisted that preparation of the armed uprising be on the order of the day in all work of the Party.

PREPARATIONS FOR INSURRECTION

In calling upon the Party to make preparations for armed insurrection, Lenin recommended that the Party change its tactics, above all its attitude towards the Democratic Conference. The latter had been called by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks with a view to hoodwinking the masses, as a counterfeit, substitute Constituent Assembly.

The Bolsheviks had participated in the Democratic Conference in order to expose the machinations of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks from its platform. But with the adoption of the line of armed insurrection it became impossible to remain in the Conference. To do so would result in misleading the masses, would strengthen the illusions about peaceful development of the revolution and induce the masses to depart from the revolutionary path. Lenin proposed leaving the Conference after reading a Bolshevik declaration exposing the vile game of the compromisers.

“Having read this declaration, and having appealed for decisions and not talk, for action and not resolution-writing, we must dispatch our whole fraction to the factories and the barracks. Their place is there; the pulse of life is there; the source of salvation of the revolution is there; the motive force of the Democratic Conference is there.” (Ibid., p. 195.)

The course that had been adopted of proceeding to armed insurrection demanded that the tactics of participation in the Conference be abandoned for the tactic of boycotting the Conference.

This second letter of Lenin’s to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party was devoted to the question of preparing for armed action, and was entitled “Marxism and Insurrection.” Proceeding from the experience of the revolutions that had taken place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Lenin made a thorough and profound summary of the laws of insurrection. But he did more than sum up the experience, more than develop and continue Marx’s and Engels’ teaching in the new conditions; he at the same time elaborated concrete directives for the organization of the uprising in Petrograd.

He wrote:

“And in order to treat insurrection in a Marxist way, i.e., as an art, we must at the same time, without losing a single moment, organize a staff of the insurrectionary detachments; we must distribute our forces, we must move the reliable regiments to the most important points; we must surround the Alexandrinsky Theater [where the Democratic Conference was in session. – I.M.]; we must occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress; we must arrest the General Staff and the government; we must move against the Junkers and the Savage Division such detachments as will rather die than allow the enemy to approach the center of the city; we must mobilize the armed workers and call upon them to engage in a last desperate fight; we must occupy the telegraph and telephone stations at once, quarter our staff of the insurrection at the central telephone station and connect it by telephone with all the factories, all the regiments, all the points of armed fighting, etc.” (Ibid.)

Lenin himself did not call this a plan of action, but an illustration of what it means to treat insurrection as an art. But anyone who is aware of the actual course of the subsequent events can see how profoundly Lenin had considered the uprising, how carefully he had studied the requisites for victory. As is known, Lenin’s directives were carried out in full in the course of the uprising.

Lenin’s letter was discussed by the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party on September 15. At this meeting the traitor, Kamenev, was the only one to speak against Lenin.

The Central Committee resolutely rebuffed the terrified coward. Comrade Stalin proposed that the letter be printed and sent out to the largest organizations of the Bolshevik Party, which was done.

“At the end of September,” Stalin wrote on the occasion of the first anniversary of the great proletarian revolution, “the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party decided to mobilize all the forces of the Party for the organization of a successful uprising.” (J. V. Stalin, On the October Revolution, p. 19, Russ. ed.)

The entire work of the Party was directed towards the preparation of armed action. By September 17, two days after Lenin’s letter was first discussed, Stalin, editor of the mouthpiece of the Bolshevik Party, was able to write in Rabochy Put (The Workers’ Road), as the Pravda was then called:

“The revolution is marching on. Fired at in the July days and ‘buried’ at the Moscow Council, it is raising its head again, breaking down the old obstacles, creating a new power. The first line of trenches of the counter-revolution has been captured. After Kornilov, Kaledin is now retreating. In the flames of the struggle the moribund Soviets are reviving. They are once again taking the helm and leading the revolutionary masses.

“All power to the Soviets! – such is the slogan of the new movement....

“The straight question which life raises demands a clear and definite answer.

“For the Soviets or against them?” (Lenin and Stalin, The Russian Revolution, pp. 196-97.)

Circumventing the censorship with consummate skill, Stalin gave a brilliant example of mass agitation for the armed uprising in the legal press.

Comrade Stalin’s leading articles were reprinted in the Bolshevik papers of Moscow, Byelorussia, and the Volga region.

“...In Russia the decisive growth of a new power is taking place, a genuine power of the people, a genuinely revolutionary power which is waging a desperate struggle for existence. On the one hand there are the Soviets, standing at the head of the revolution, at the head of the fight against the counterrevolution, which is not yet crushed, which has only retreated, wisely hiding behind the back of the government. On the other hand there is the Kerensky government, which is shielding the counter-revolutionaries, is coming to an understanding with the Kornilovites (the Cadets!), has declared war upon the Soviets and is trying to crush them so as not to be crushed itself.

“Who will conquer in this struggle? That is the whole issue now... the main thing now is not to draw up general formulas for ‘saving’ the revolution, but to render direct assistance to the Soviets in their struggle against the Kerensky Government.” (Lenin, Stalin, 1917, pp. 481-82.)

The Party entered upon the period of organizing an assault. Guided by Lenin’s and Stalin’s articles, the local organizations reorganized their work, placing the main emphasis in their propaganda and agitation on preparations for an armed uprising.

The pursuance of Lenin’s line in the central organ roused the protest of Kamenev. This contemptible traitor strove to retard the mobilization of the masses. At a meeting of the Central Committee on September 20, Kamenev protested against the tone of the paper, which in his opinion was too sharp, and objected to various expressions in the articles. The Central Committee adopted a special decision on this score:

“While postponing a detailed discussion on the question of the running of the central organ, the Central Committee recognizes that its general line fully conforms with the line of the Central Committee.” (Minutes of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., p. 69, Russ. ed.)

The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party fully approved the line of the central organ, which, in Stalin’s editorials, was calmly and firmly pursuing Lenin’s policy of preparing for armed action.

Preparations for the armed uprising were conducted in the strictest secrecy. In Petrograd Stalin summoned representatives of the various districts to a secret meeting in a private apartment, personally instructing them as to what units to get ready for action, what buildings to occupy in the districts and how to reorganize their agitation. From time to time, letters explaining the new course, frequently in code, were sent out to the various regions. Use was also made of messengers, for the most part members of the Central Committee.

On September 21, the Central Committee discussed the tactical measures to be taken in line with the course that had been adopted of preparing for insurrection. It was necessary to decide the question of withdrawal from the Democratic Conference. As a matter of fact, the Conference was living its last hours. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, continuing to deceive the masses, had decided to terminate the sitting of the Democratic Conference and to appoint a Provisional Council of the Russian Republic from among its delegates. This new body had the right to interrogate the members of the government, while the latter, as in the British Parliament, could either answer or maintain silence as they chose. The Council of the Republic was not empowered to compel them to answer. In general, the Council had no legislative powers whatsoever.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, however, strove to lend this mongrel body the appearance and role of a parliamentary institution. In their press they called this new body the Preliminary Parliament (Pre-parliament). The Bolsheviks thus had to decide on their attitude towards this new Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik institution. The Central Committee issued instructions not to enter the Pre-parliament and to boycott it. This decision was transmitted to the Bolshevik group in the Democratic Conference.

Kamenev, Ryazanov and Rykov, who were members of the group, were opposed to the decision of the Central Committee. These capitulators and defenders of capitalism, fighting against an armed uprising, insisted on participation in the Pre-parliament. The opponents of the boycott succeeded in securing the support of the majority of the Party representatives in the Democratic Conference; 77 of the group members, as against 50, expressed themselves in favor of participating in the Pre-parliament, whose task was to dupe the people.

The opponents of insurrection, instead of fighting for the immediate capture of power, continued to cling to participation in the Pre-parliament. This group had to be exposed and overcome.

“It is the duty of the proletariat, as the leader of the Russian revolution,” wrote Stalin in an editorial of the central organ of the Bolshevik Party, Rabochy Put, “to tear the mask from this government and to expose its real counter-revolutionary face to the masses.... It is the duty of the proletariat to close its ranks and to prepare tirelessly for the impending battles.

“The workers and soldiers in the capital have already taken the first step, by passing a vote of no confidence in the Kerensky-Konovalov government....

“It is now for the provinces to say their word.” (Lenin, Stalin, 1917, p. 503.)

Next - Preparations in the Provinces