The Bolsheviks Come to Power - New Edition: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd

In the wake of this meeting, Mensheviks and SRs in the Central Execu­tive Committee were fully alert to the danger that the Bolsheviks might successfully exploit the crisis over the garrison to mobilize soldiers for an insurrection. Seeking to dissuade the troops from such a course, they ar­ranged an independent gathering of garrison representatives for the follow­ing day. In addition to spokesmen for Petrograd-based units, they invited to this meeting moderately inclined military personnel supposedly represent­ing army committees from the front. Yet despite such maneuvering, this gathering proved no less alarming to government supporters than the preceding one.

Early in the session, Dan appealed to the soldiers to devote their energies to preparations for the Constituent Assembly and to organize for the strug­gle against "the Germans, the counterrevolution, and insurrection of any kind." But, as it happened, the audience was distinctly more receptive to Trotsky's argument that the most effective way of supporting the Con­stituent Assembly was to bring about transfer of power to the soviets; the soviets would then insure that the broad masses of soldiers, rather than the more conciliatory army committees, would be strongly represented in the Constituent Assembly. A succession of garrison representatives jumped up to affirm faith in the Petrograd Soviet and willingness to act in its behalf. Indeed, even the supposedly loyalist visitors from the front combined ex­pressions of opposition to an armed uprising in the prevailing circumstances with enthusiastic declarations of support for transfer of power to the soviets, an immediate armistice, and land for the peasants. The meeting's sponsors were dealt a further blow when a majority agreed not to vote on any formal resolutions since they had been called together by the Central Executive Committee without approval from the Petrograd Soviet.⁴⁰

The Military Revolutionary Committee took concrete shape between Oc­tober 16 and 21. Included among its members, which until the overthrow of the Provisional Government probably numbered no more than a few dozen, were Bolsheviks, Left SRs, and a few anarchists (the Mensheviks had completely washed their hands of the committee at the start), as well as delegates from the Petrograd Soviet; the Soviet of Peasants' Deputies; Tsen- trobalt; the Regional Executive Committee of the Army, Fleet, and Work­ers in Finland; factory-shop committees; and trade unions. As noted earlier, at the outset a Military Revolutionary Committee bureau made up of Bol­sheviks and Left SRs was formed to help direct the committee's day-to-day work. With Bolshevik approval, the formal chairman of the bureau and of the Military Revolutionary Committee as a whole was a Left SR, Pavel Lazimir (a senior military medical aide and chairman of the Soldiers' Sec­tion of the Petrograd Soviet); this furthered the committee's ostensibly non­party character. However, during the most critical days of the October revolution in Petrograd, that is, between October 21 and 25, Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko, and Trotsky acted in the capacity of Military Rev­olutionary Committee chairman almost as often as did Lazimir.

Members of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Bottom row, left to right: F. E. Dzer- zhinsky, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, A. D. Sadovsky, M. S. Uritsky. In the center: N. I. Podvoisky. First group photograph, left to right: A. A. Ioffe, K. A. Mekhonoshin, V. I. Nevsky. Second group photograph, left to right: L. D. Trotsky, la. M. Sverdlov, I. S. Un- shlikht, S. I. Gusev, S. S. Pestkovsky, Iu. M. Kotsiubinsky. Third group photograph, left to right: N. A. Skrypnik, M. M. Lashevich, G. I. Chudnovsky, K. S. Eremeev, P. E. Dybenko, V. M. Molotov, G. I. Boky, F. F. Raskolnikov, B. A. Breslav, N. V. Krylenko.

From its inception, the Military Revolutionary Committee was housed in a few rooms, always crowded and bustling, on the third floor of Smolny; here leftist leaders in constantly changing numbers discussed late-breaking developments. The committee as a whole met rarely, and at the most criti­cal moments the committee's tactics were evidently determined by whichever members happened to be on the scene, acting in accordance with their varying perceptions of the prevailing situation and their views on the development of the revolution in general.⁴¹

In part because of the great preponderance of Bolsheviks in the Military Revolutionary Committee, Western historians have tended to view the organ as merely a front organization closely controlled by the Bolshevik Central Committee or the Military Organization.⁴² Yet such an assessment is inaccurate. Bolsheviks played the leading role within the committee; however, they were not its only active members, and even the Bolshevik participants were by no means united in their conception of the committee's tasks. Further, the published record of the Central Committee's activities during these days reveals that at its meetings, scant attention was paid to the operations of the Military Revolutionary Committee; the Central Com­mittee now devoted most of its time to internal party matters such as the appropriate action to be taken against Kamenev and Zinoviev and the for­mulation of positions for the coming Congress of Soviets. For its part, at least until the culmination of the seizure of power, the leadership of the Military Organization abided by the Central Committee's ruling of October 20 and worked within the Military Revolutionary Committee's outwardly nonparty institutional framework.

At its first organizational meeting on October 20, the Military Revolution­ary Committee seems to have been concerned above all with strengthening the defenses of the Petrograd Soviet against attack and further solidifying its status among units of the garrison. Members of the committee were particularly uneasy at this point about possible trouble on Sunday, October 22. That date had been formally designated by the Petrograd Soviet leader­ship as "Petrograd Soviet Day," a time for concerts and speech-making, intended originally to raise funds for the Soviet and, more recently, as yet another opportunity to gauge mass support for the Petrograd Soviet's radi­cal political program. However, October 22 also happened to be the 105th anniversary of Moscow's liberation from Napoleon; in celebration of that event the Soviet of the Union of Cossack Military Forces announced plans for a midday religious procession. Leftist leaders were fearful, with appar­ent justification, that in the inflamed atmosphere, the cossack march might be utilized by the extreme right to provoke an armed clash.⁴³ As it turned out, at the eleventh hour the cossacks canceled their procession. But on October 20, one of the Military Revolutionary Committee's first actions was to dispatch representatives to key combat units and weapons depots as a precaution against possible counterrevolutionary moves.⁴⁴

Before adjourning on October 20, the Military Revolutionary Committee scheduled another session of the garrison conference for the following morning; at this gathering and at others on October 22 and 23 firm links were forged between the newly created Military Revolutionary Committee and individual garrison units. The October 21 garrison conference session opened with a rousing speech by Trotsky, who, in an evident reference to the cossack religious march, warned of "approaching threatening events" and appealed to workers and soldiers to rally around the Petrograd Soviet, to support the Military Revolutionary Committee, and to aid the soviets in the struggle for power. An observer for the Menshevik-SR organ, Golos soldata, captured the audience's response:

After Trotsky's speech, a whole series of people spoke out in regard to the necessity of immediately transferring power to the soviets; moreover, the auditorium became so electrified that when the soldier Goldberg ap­peared on the tribune to say that the subject under discussion was not fully clear to the audience, not only did the assembly break out in shouts of "Away!" and "Go to hell!"; it completely prevented the speaker from ex­plaining what he had in mind.

The representative of the Fourth Don Cossack Regiment informed the assembly that his regimental committee had decided against participation in the next day's religious procession.

The representative of the Fourteenth Don Cossack Regiment caused a sensation when he declared that his regiment not only would not support counterrevolutionary moves, irrespective of whence they came, but would fight the counterrevolution with all its strength. "In this sense," [he said,] "I shake hands with my comrade cossack from the Fourth Don Cossack Regiment." (At this the orator bent down and shook hands with the cos­sack from the Fourth Regiment.) And, in response, the assembly exploded in a roar of enthusiastic approval and thunderous applause which did not die down for a long time.

The gathering concluded with the passage of resolutions drafted by Trotsky relating to the Military Revolutionary Committee, Petrograd Soviet day, and the tasks of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Taken together, these resolutions illustrate both the increased aggressiveness of the Petrograd garrison under the threat of shipment to the front and the committee's strategy of utilizing the defense of the revolution to mobilize support for the Petrograd Soviet and the seizure of power. The resolution on the Military Revolutionary Committee passed by the garrison conference on October 21 hailed the committee's birth and promised it full support "in all steps aimed at tying the front more closely to the rear in the interests of the revolution." The resolution dealing with Petrograd Soviet day warned "brother cossacks" against being victimized by the enemies of the revolution and invited them to participate instead in the rallies planned by the left; at the same time it warned that any attempts by Kornilovites and the bourgeoisie to inject confusion and dissension into the ranks of the revolu­tion would be met with a merciless rebuff. Finally, in its resolution on the Congress of Soviets, the garrison conference endorsed all the political deci­sions of the Petrograd Soviet, called on the coming All-Russian Congress to "take power in its hands and provide peace, land, and bread for the peo­ple," and pledged all the resources at the command of the garrison to the fulfillment of these demands.⁴⁵

Buttressed by these assurances of support, the Military Revolutionary Committee now embarked on a decisive confrontation with the government over ultimate control of the garrison. First, it began dispatching its own commissars to replace those supporting the government in all units of the garrison and in all weapons and munitions depots. Then, late on the night of October 21, it sent a group of representatives (including Lazimir, Sadovsky, and Mekhonoshin) to General Staff headquarters to formally as­sert the committee's claim to prior command authority over garrison units. Arriving around midnight, the group was ushered into General Polkovnikov's office. Sadovsky came straight to the point. "Henceforth," he proclaimed, "orders not signed by us are invalid."⁴⁶ Polkovnikov retorted that the garrison was his responsibility. Referring to the commissar from the Central Executive Committee already working with him, he added: "We know only the [commissar of the] Central Executive Committee. We won't recognize your commissars. If they break the law we will arrest them."⁴⁷ At this, the group returned to Smolny.

Returning to Military Revolutionary Committee headquarters, Lazimir, Sadovsky, and Mekhonoshin rounded up Antonov, Sverdlov, and Trotsky; together they mapped out plans to exploit the Petrograd Military District's uncooperative stance.⁴⁸ Most importantly, Trotsky drafted for endorsement by the garrison conference and circulation to all units later in the day what was to become one of the seminal documents of the October revolution in Petrograd—a formal declaration that amounted to a categorical repudiation of the Provisional Government's authority over garrison troops. Wrote Trotsky:

At a meeting on October 21 the revolutionary garrison united around the Military Revolutionary Committee as its directing organ. Despite this, on the night of October 21-22 the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District refused to recognize the Military Revolutionary Committee, reject­ing work in association with the representatives of the Soldiers' Section of the [Petrograd] Soviet. In so doing, the headquarters breaks with the re­volutionary garrison and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. . . . The headquarters becomes a direct weapon of counter­revolutionary forces. . . . The protection of revolutionary order from counterrevolutionary attacks rests with the revolutionary soldiers directed by the Military Revolutionary Committee. No directives to the garrison not signed by the Military Revolutionary Committee should be considered

valid. . . . The revolution is in danger. Long live the revolutionary garrison.⁴⁹

A few years later Trotsky mused aloud about whether Lazimir, in cooperating in the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, recog­nized that he was taking part in a conscious plan to overthrow the Provi­sional Government or whether his outlook simply reflected the "formless revolutionary spirit of the Left SRs."⁵⁰ Trotsky concluded the latter to be the case, and this may indeed be true. There is little doubt, however, that in the minds of Sadovsky, Mekhonoshin, Sverdlov, and, of course, Trotsky himself, the politics of the Military Revolutionary Committee were part of a conscious, gradual subversion of the government.

Largely because of current political considerations, most historians in the Soviet Union consider the October insurrection to have begun some time on October 24. Yet this interpretation ignores the crucial significance of the steps taken by the Military Revolutionary Committee on October 21-22. To cite the knowledgeable contemporary Czech specialist on the Russian revolution Michael Reiman: "Already on October 21 and 22 the Military Revolutionary Committee, in effect, took upon itself authority over the gar­rison. Its actions, from both a practical and a juridical standpoint, would be considered by any nation a clear case of mutiny and insurrection."⁵¹

On Sunday, October 22—Petrograd Soviet Day—the Bolsheviks' most popular orators, Trotsky, Volodarsky, Lashevich, Kollontai, Raskolnikov, and Krylenko among them, took to the stump at mass political rallies in factories and public meeting-halls throughout the capital. Even Kamenev participated prominently in the speech-making; ignoring the Central Committee's specific ban on speaking out publicly counter to its decisions, he made use of this opportunity to ridicule once again the possibility of the party's involvement in an insurrection before the Congress of Soviets.⁵²

Typical of the highly successful rallies staged on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet on October 22 was one held in the House of the People, on the right bank of the Neva. Well before the start of the program a massive crowd of factory workers, soldiers, and a smattering of lower-middle-class townspeo­ple filled the colossal opera house, primarily to see and hear the legendary Trotsky, the featured speaker. Trotsky's address contained little not already repeated by the Bolsheviks ad infinitum. Warning that Petrograd was on the verge of being surrendered to the Germans, he proclaimed that the workers and soldiers themselves would take responsibility for defending the approaches to the capital. The revolutionary fire kindled by the new gov­ernment to be selected by the Congress of Soviets, he went on to say, would be so intense as to engulf not only all Russia, but the entire world. And having taken power, the Soviet would bring immediate peace; it would also eliminate private property, confiscating grain hidden away by large landowners and excess money, clothing, and footwear in the hands of the bourgeoisie, and distributing land to the peasants as well as money, bread, clothing, and footwear to all those in need.⁵³

Perhaps because of the apparent imminence of these shattering develop­ments, or as a result of Trotsky's oratorical skill, or a combination of both, the audience was unusually stimulated by his words. A reporter for Rech' who was on the scene observed with consternation that after Trotsky asked for a pledge of support to the Soviet when it moved from words to deeds, the huge audience threw up its hands and chanted, "We swear it!" Another of Trotsky's listeners was Sukhanov, who subsequently recorded:

All around me was a mood bordering on ecstasy. It seemed as if the crowd, spontaneously and of its own accord, would break into some reli­gious hymn. Trotsky formulated a brief and general resolution. . . .

Who was for? The crowd of thousands, as one man, raised its hands. . . .

Trotsky went on speaking. The innumerable crowd continued to hold up its hands. Trotsky rapped out the words: "Let this vote of yours be your vow—with all your strength and at any sacrifice to support the Soviet that has taken on itself the glorious burden of bringing the victory of the revolution to a conclusion and of giving land, bread, and peace!"

The vast crowd was holding up its hands. It agreed. It vowed. . . ,⁵⁴

While these rallies were in progress, military officials launched efforts to deal with the Military Revolutionary Committee. In the early-morning hours, General Polkovnikov invited representatives of garrison regimental and brigade committees, as well as officials of the All-Russian Executive Committees and the Petrograd Soviet, to an immediate meeting at General Staff headquarters, obviously with an eye toward applying pressure on the Military Revolutionary Committee to back off from its insistence on veto power over the regular military command. Even before Polkovnikov's meet­ing got underway, however, a hastily convened session of the garrison con­ference at Smolny voted formally to endorse Trotsky's declaration of the preceding night. Shortly afterward, an invitation was received from Pol­kovnikov to send representatives to the meeting at General Staff headquar­ters. In response, a garrison conference delegation headed by Dashkevich put in a brief appearance at the meeting. On the garrison conference's be­half, Dashkevich at once reasserted that henceforth all the military command's directives had to be countersigned by the Military Revolution­ary Committee. The delegation then departed.⁵⁵ Indicative of the weak­ness of the Petrograd Military District in the prevailing situation was the fact that Polkovnikov reacted to this demarche with a fresh effort to settle the conflict over authority in the garrison peacefully; he now issued an invita­tion to the Military Revolutionary Committee to meet with him the next day for the purpose of discussing Soviet representation at headquarters.

On and off through the day and night of October 22-23 Kerensky con­ferred with his chief advisers in regard to the developing crisis. From all parts of the city came reports of the massive public support for the left exhibited at the huge rallies organized by the Bolsheviks, this on top of news of the Military Revolutionary Committee's direct challenge to the government's authority in the garrison. In the early evening the Petrograd Military District chief of staff, General Iakov Bagratuni, requested army headquarters on the northern front to prepare an infantry brigade, a cavalry regiment, and an artillery battery for rapid shipment to the capital. Woytinsky responded from the northern front that readying these detach­ments in advance, without knowledge of the purposes for which they were to be used, was out of the question, one must suppose because the soldiers would become suspicious and resist such a step.⁵⁶ Somewhat later, Kerensky dispatched an urgent appeal to General Cheremisov to come to Petrograd, presumably to discuss the problem of getting loyalist troops to the capital in a hurry. Moreover, to his fellow ministers Kerensky proposed dispatching available forces to arrest members of the Military Revolutionary Committee and to liquidate the committee without further delay, but he was temporarily dissuaded from this course by Polkovnikov. The Petrograd Military District commander expressed the hope that in discussions the next day the Military Revolutionary Committee might be prevailed upon to retract its declaration. The prime minister thereupon ordered General Bag­ratuni to present the Soviet with a firm ultimatum: either it rescind the October 22 declaration immediately or military authorities would take whatever steps were necessary to restore law and order.⁵⁷

Meanwhile, the process begun by the Military Revolutionary Committee on October 21 of substituting commissars of its own choosing for those of the government throughout the city was intensified. Most of the new com­missars were well-known members of the Bolshevik Military Organization only recently released from jail; almost everywhere they were greeted with enthusiasm. As the appointment of the new commissars neared completion on October 23, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued an order en­dowing its commissars with unlimited veto power over military orders, thus to some extent making control over operations at district headquarters superfluous. This order, immediately published in the leftist press and cir­culated throughout the capital, informed the population that in the interest of defense of the revolution and its achievements from encroachments on the part of the counterrevolution, Military Revolutionary Committee com­missars had been appointed to military units and especially important points in the capital and its suburbs, and stipulated that orders and direc­tives sent to these points were to be fulfilled only if confirmed by them.⁵⁸

The continuing drastic decline of the Provisional Government's military position in the capital was also reflected on October 23 in the Military Rev­olutionary Committee's winning of the strategically crucial Peter and Paul Fortress and the adjoining Kronwerk Arsenal, a central storehouse of arms and munitions. One of the Military Revolutionary Committee's few set­backs in its campaign for authority over the Petrograd garrison had occur­red at the fortress on October 19, when committees representing units gar­risoned there had passed a resolution opposing a "coming-out." When the Military Revolutionary Committee sent a commissar to the fortress three days later, it was feared that he might be arrested by hostile soldiers.⁵⁹ Particularly worrisome in connection with the fortress was the attitude to­ward the left of several thousand cyclists from the front based there since the July days.

The Military Revolutionary Committee, with Trotsky, Podvoisky, An- tonov, and Lashevich, among others, in attendance, had considered the problem of the Peter and Paul Fortress initially on October 22. Antonov subsequently recalled that at this discussion he strongly urged sending some Bolshevized troops from the Pavlovsky Regiment to capture the old fortress; however, Trotsky, still concerned with appearances, persuaded the com­mittee to make an attempt to take the fortress from within. "It cannot be that the troops there would not be sympathetic to us," Trotsky reportedly declared.⁶⁰

In an effort to take the fortress by persuasion, the Military Revolutionary Committee arranged a mass meeting with the cyclists and all other soldiers to begin at midday, October 23, on the fortress's main square.⁶¹ Lashevich recalls that arriving for this meeting, he found a host of right SR and Men­shevik luminaries, as well as the fort commander, on hand to contest the Bolsheviks for the allegiance of the troops. After the meeting had been under­way for several hours, with Lashevich and Chudnovsky leading the fight for the Military Revolutionary Committee, Trotsky arrived to test his persua­sive powers on the soldiers. Wrote Lashevich later: "During Chudnovsky's speech, there was an abrupt, deafening roar of hurrahs and applause. Chudnovsky peered down from the tribune trying to catch the cause of the commotion. Suddenly his face lit up with a pleased smile. 'I yield my place to Comrade Trotsky,' he loudly proclaimed. Trotsky mounted the tribune. . . . Finally it became still, and there followed not so much a speech as an inspirational song."⁶²

The mass meeting on the fortress square dragged on long after Trotsky had finished speaking; when it grew dark the soldiers moved outside the fortress to the nearby Cirque Moderne. In the end, most of the soldiers voted to support transfer of power to the soviets and to obey the directives of the Military Revolutionary Committee. As Lashevich remembered: "At 8:00 p.m., in an atmosphere of extreme tension, the question was put to a vote. . . . All those who supported the Military Revolutionary Committee moved to the left, those against to the right. With cries of hurrah, an over­whelming majority rushed to the left. Remaining in opposition to the Mili­tary Revolutionary Committee was a small group of officers and intellectuals from among the cyclists."⁶³

Control of the Peter and Paul Fortress, whose cannon overlooked the Winter Palace, was a victory of immense psychological and strategic impor­tance. Moreover, with the securing of the Kronwerk Arsenal, virtually all major weapons stores in the capital were at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee, which now funneled massive stocks of arms and ammunition to its supporters. Yet counterbalancing these unexpectedly easy victories was the fact that the Left SRs continued stubbornly to resist all moves to generate the support of mass organizations for the overthrow of the government before the Congress of Soviets.⁶⁴ In addition, late reports on political attitudes at the front were highly contradictory; while a flood of telegrams suggested that the mood of the average front soldier was not much different from that of his garrison counterpart, many front delegates ar­riving in the capital for the Congress of Soviets gave the impression that if an insurrection were to break out in the capital before the congress, many large front-line units would respond to an appeal for help from the Central Executive Committee. Actually, Bolshevik strategists in Petrograd were still not confident of the degree to which they could count on workers and sol­diers in the capital to support immediate direct military action against the government. Nor could they ignore the possibility that an independent, ultramilitary course would be resisted by provincial party officials, strongly represented in the Bolshevik congress fraction. Resistance of this sort had already occurred in early summer, when the Bolshevik fraction at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets helped pressure the Central Committee into aborting the armed demonstration planned for June 10;⁶⁵ at the time of the Sixth Congress, when delegates from outside the capital heaped criti­cism on the Central Committee for its behavior in connection with the July uprising; and, more recently, in the aftermath of the Democratic State Con­ference, when the Bolshevik conference fraction reversed the Central Committee's narrow decision to boycott the Preparliament.

On the other hand, there was every hope that if the party waited for the government to attack, whether this occurred before the opening of the con­gress or after the congress' proclamation of a soviet government, it would be able to count on the support of the Left SRs, the soldiers at the front and rear, a united Bolshevik Party, and a broad front of mass organizations, from the Petrograd Soviet to the factory-shop committees. Blame for what­ever bloodshed ensued would then fall on the Kerensky regime, and the prospects for retention of power by the left would be increased immeasura­bly. Such a course might well lead to the creation of a socialist coalition government, including moderates, rather than a government of the extreme left alone. It appears that Lenin was one of the very few top Bolshevik leaders to whom the risks of an independent, ultraradical course were out­weighed by impatience to create an exclusively leftist regime at once.

Hence, despite its successes, no doubt for the preceding reasons and others as well, the Military Revolutionary Committee did not cross the Rubicon between moves that could be justified as defensive and steps which would appear to have usurped the prerogatives of the congress. At a ple­nary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the night of October 23, Antonov- Ovseenko, in a major report on the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee, carefully described and justified each of the committee's early moves as a defense of the revolution, the Congress of Soviets, and the Con­stituent Assembly. Following his address, an overwhelming number of dep­uties supported a Bolshevik-sponsored resolution endorsing the measures taken by the Military Revolutionary Committee and whatever steps of a similar character the developing situation might require. The phrasing of the resolution captures the spirit of the tactics still pursued by the left: "The Petrograd Soviet considers that due to the energetic work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the ties of the Petrograd Soviet to the revolutionary garrison are strengthened, and expresses confidence that only continuation of efforts in the same direction will insure the possibility of free and unimpeded work by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets now opening. . . ."⁶⁶

The continuing tactical caution of the Military Revolutionary Committee was demonstrated even more strikingly later the same night, when the committee suddenly announced acceptance of the Petrograd Military District's ultimatum to rescind its declaration of October 22.⁶⁷ Information as to how this came about is fragmentary. Apparently, the Menshevik mod­erates Gots and Bogdanov personally intervened in the committee's deliber­ations in an attempt to persuade committee members to withdraw their insistence on absolute control over the military command. Gots and Bog­danov must have been dissatisfied with the initial response to this appeal, because subsequently they issued an announcement that the Central Execu­tive Committee was breaking relations with the Military Revolutionary Committee and departing from Smolny.⁶⁸ The only published memoir ac­count of this meeting is by Antonov; while obviously confused in some details, his recollection suggests that after Gots and Bogdanov left the meet­ing, the Military Revolutionary Committee did, in fact, rescind its declara­tion at the firm insistence of the Left SRs (who evidently threatened to withdraw from the committee if it did not) and Bolshevik moderates, led by Riazanov.⁶⁹

If caution remained the watchword at Smolny, such was not the case in the Winter Palace, where Kerensky had by now decided that direct action to suppress the left could be delayed no longer. Receiving word of the Military Revolutionary Committee's apparent readiness to reach agreement with the Petrograd Military District, he dismissed the announcement as a tactic to delay temporarily a head-on military clash with the government, as indeed it was. Obviously underestimating the degree to which potential military support for the government in the capital had disintegrated, and, at any rate, counting on rapid reinforcements from the front, Kerensky an­nounced his intention of arresting at once the entire membership of the Military Revolutionary Committee. But, as on the previous night, cooler heads prevailed upon Kerensky not to attempt quite so drastic a step. Rather, the cabinet agreed to initiate formal criminal proceedings against members of the Military Revolutionary Committee for circulating appeals for civil disobedience and activity against the lawful government. More immediately, they resolved to return to jail those Bolsheviks accused of participation in the July uprising who, while free on bail, had conducted antigovernment agitation of any kind; implementation of this plan would have rounded up many of the left's top leaders, among them Trotsky. The cabinet also ordered the shutdown of Rabochii put' and Soldat, and, evidently as a demonstration of impartiality, the extreme right papers, Zhivoe slovo and Novaia Rus\ were decreed closed as well. The editors of these papers, along with the authors of articles calling for insurrection, were to be prose­cuted on criminal charges.⁷⁰

The headquarters of the Petrograd Military District was now instructed to take all measures required to implement these objectives; General Bagra­tuni issued orders to cadets from the Pavlov, Vladimir, and Konstantinov military schools in Petrograd and the officers' training schools in Peterhof and Gatchina, a battery of horse artillery from Pavlovsk, a rifle regiment of war-wounded from Tsarskoe Selo, and the First Petrograd Women's Shock Battalion from Levashova to report for duty on the Palace Square.⁷¹

Anticipating a negative reaction to these measures from democratic cir­cles, Kerensky accepted the recommendations of his colleagues that he ap­pear personally to justify and clarify them in the Preparliament the next day. But the Provisional Government's direct attack on the extreme left did not wait. Before daybreak on October 24 a detachment of cadets and militiamen raided the Trud printing press, publishers of Rabochii put\ and officially shut it down. Several thousand fresh copies of the day's Rabochii put' were seized and some matrices were destroyed. Entrances to the build­ing were thereupon sealed and a permanent guard was posted to prevent the press from reopening.

•14-

ON THE EVE

_W

ell after midnight on October 23-24, after a tense day of strategy meetings and discussions, Lomov and Rykov, along with sev­eral other provincial Bolshevik leaders newly arrived in Petrograd for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, bedded down on heaps of books and pamphlets in the Bolshevik-operated Priboi publishing house, not far from Smolny. A scant three or four hours later, Lomov was awakened by the persistent ringing of the telephone. He waited briefly for someone else to brave the predawn chill, then roused himself, fumbled in the dark for the phone, and heard Trotsky's thundering voice summoning him and his com­rades to Military Revolutionary Committee headquarters: "Kerensky is on the offensive. . . . We need everyone at Smolny!"¹

Trotsky barely had had time to savor his success in helping to win control of the Peter and Paul Fortress when the first disjointed reports of Kerensky's call for loyal troops from outside the capital and rumors of the government's crackdown on the extreme left began to trickle into Smolny. Soon Military Revolutionary Committee contacts in the suburbs began phoning in word of alarming activity among troop units in their localities, and workers from the Trud printing press arrived with news of the raid on Rabochii put\ Between phone calls to the dwellings and offices of party officials, Military Revolutionary Committee leaders already at Smolny (Trotsky, Lazimir, Sverdlov, Antonov, Podvoisky, and Lashevich among them) drew up and dispatched an alert to regimental committees and com­missars in military units and installations throughout the Petrograd area. Titled "Directive Number One," this order read: "The Petrograd Soviet is in direct danger; counterrevolutionary conspirators have attempted to bring cadets and shock battalions from the suburbs to Petrograd during the night. The newspapers Soldat and Rabochii put' have been closed. You are hereby directed to bring your regiment to battle readiness [and to] await further instructions. Any procrastination or interference in executing this order will be considered a betrayal of the revolution."²

To bring insurgent forces to battle readiness was one thing; to decide what direct military action, if any, to take in response to the apparent gov­ernment attack was quite another. Only a few hours earlier the Military Revolutionary Committee had backed away from the brink of a military clash with the government, still justifiably fearful of seriously weakening its base of support. By the morning of October 24, enough delegates to the Congress of Soviets had arrived in the capital to indicate that, with the Left SRs, a solid majority could be counted on to support the transfer of power to the soviets and the creation by the congress of an exclusively socialist government.³ Kerensky's crackdown on the left, however, injected a major new element into the situation. If Kerensky were not rebuffed, if he suc­ceeded in mobilizing a large loyalist military force and putting leftist leaders back behind bars, it was still possible that the Congress of Soviets would not meet at all. Even if the congress were not dispersed, the Military Rev­olutionary Committee's careful and, up to now, apparently successful ef­fort to set the stage for the overthrow of the government, either immedi­ately before or just after the opening of the congress, would be seriously undermined.

With such considerations in mind, some members of the Military Rev­olutionary Committee now spoke up for starting an armed uprising with­out further delay. However, a majority, led by Trotsky, insisted on a firm yet more restrained response. Trotsky quickly scratched out an order to soldier committees in two of the best organized, most revolutionary units in the garrison—the Litovsky Regiment and the Sixth Engineer Battalion—directing them to take charge of reopening the Trud press and insuring its security. "The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies can­not tolerate suppression of the free word," the order asserted. "For the people fighting off the attack of the pogromists, there must be assurance of an honest press."⁴

This directive was implemented at once; a company of Litovsky guards, armed with machine guns and led by Dashkevich, arrived at the building housing the Trud press at 9:00 a.m. Dashkevich, ignoring the Military Revolutionary Committee's announcement of the previous night, declared bluntly that "orders of the government not countersigned by the Military Revolutionary Committee are invalid." His troops overwhelmed loyalist militiamen and smashed government seals; within a couple of hours Rabochii put' was back in production. A reporter for Birzhevye vedomosti, describing these developments in the October 24 evening edition, observed that "the comrade soldiers made no similar effort to liberate Zhivoe slovowhich also had been shut down.

Meanwhile, at Smolny, Sverdlov had managed to convene a meeting of the party Central Committee. Present were Lomov, Dzerzhinsky, Sverd­lov, Bubnov, Nogin, Miliutin, Ioffe, Uritsky, Trotsky, and Berzin, as well as Kamenev, whose earlier resignation from the committee seems to have

been simply ignored.⁵ In view of the developing crisis and the difficulty of rounding up Central Committee members in a hurry, it was agreed at the outset that for the rest of the day no members would leave Smolny without specific authorization. The first substantive issue that the committee dis­cussed, interestingly enough, was—not the government's attack on the left, but the progress of negotiations between the Military Revolutionary Commit­tee and General Polkovnikov on the nature of the Petrograd Soviet's influ­ence over military operations; initially, committee members seem to have had the mistaken impression that the government's actions had been undertaken before the Military Revolutionary Committee's acceptance of the terms pro­posed by the Petrograd Military District. Only after Kamenev had reported on the earlier agreement did the Central Committee turn to the trouble at Trud, ultimately endorsing the dispatch of a guard to protect the press, as well as the adoption of whatever other steps were necessary to insure the publication of the next regular issues of the party's papers.

Apart from this, the Central Committee members seem to have been most concerned with the possibility that postal and telegraph workers and also railwaymen, among whom moderate socialist influence was still strong, might oppose the overthrow of the Provisional Government and respond to the transfer of power to the soviets by attempting to isolate the capital from the rest of the country. As political developments relating to the Congress of Soviets appeared to be reaching a climax and the creation of a revolu­tionary regime seemed imminent, they also worried about matters such as food supply and the maintenance of a close working relationship with the Left SRs. Thus Bubnov was made responsible for establishing contact with rail workers and Dzerzhinsky with postal and telegraph employees. At the same time, Miliutin was charged with organizing food supplies, and Kamenev and Berzin were designated to conduct negotiations with the Left SRs. At Trotsky's insistence, the Central Committee, before adjourning, agreed on one further precaution: a reserve headquarters was to be estab­lished in the newly won Peter and Paul Fortress, for use if Smolny should fall to the loyalists.

Actually, the historical importance of the Central Committee meeting of October 24 derives as much from what was not discussed there as from the issues that were in fact raised. On the morning of October 24, it has been noted, some Military Revolutionary Committee members advocated an immediate call for a mass rising. At roughly the same hour, the Bolshevik Petersburg Committee, assembled for the first time since October 15, re­sponded to the latest developments by formally calling for the preparation of an insurrection "without any delay whatever."⁶ Within the Central Committee, however, no doubt in part because of Lenin's absence, the cru­cial question of whether or not to attempt to do away with the Provisional Government at once, or at any rate before the Congress of Soviets, was apparently given no serious consideration. Rather, it appears that at this

point most Central Committee members were absorbed with the task of neutralizing the actions of the enemy and retaining or consolidating the strength of the left, so as to maximize the possibility of utilizing the Con­gress of Soviets to settle scores, finally, with the government. Significant in this regard is a comment on the Central Committee's outlook made by Sta­lin on the afternoon of October 24 at a caucus of Bolshevik congress dele­gates. "Within the Military Revolutionary Committee," he said, "there are two points of view. The first is that we organize an uprising at once, and the second is that we first consolidate our forces. The Central Committee has sided with the second view."⁷

The continuing emphasis of the Bolshevik Central Committee and the Military Revolutionary Committee on the role of the Congress of Soviets in completing the task of subverting the Provisional Government and creating a revolutionary soviet regime was nowhere more clearly reflected than in the lead editorial prepared by Stalin for the edition of Rabochii put' that reached the streets sometime after midday on October 24. Capped by the headline "What We Need," the editorial called upon workers and soldiers to form delegations for the purpose of applying direct pressure on the Con­gress of Soviets to replace the Kerensky government with a revolutionary regime. Wrote Stalin:

. . . The present impostor government, which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people, must be replaced by a government recognized by the people, elected by the representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants, and accountable to these represen­tatives. . . .

Do you want the present government of landlords and capitalists to be replaced by a new government, a government of workers and peasants?

Do you want the new government of Russia to proclaim . . . the aboli­tion of landlordism and to transfer all the landed estates to peasant com­mittees without compensation?

Do you want the new government of Russia to publish the tsar's secret treaties, to declare them invalid, and to propose a just peace to all belliger­ent nations?

Do you want the new government of Russia to put a thorough curb on organizers of lockouts and profiteers who are deliberately fomenting famine and unemployment, economic disruption and high prices?

If you want this, muster all your forces, rise as one man, organize meet­ings and elect your delegations and, through them, lay your demands be­fore the Congress of Soviets which opens tomorrow at Smolny.

The tactical caution displayed by the national Bolshevik leadership was also reflected on October 24 in the Kronstadt Bolshevik paper, Proletarskoe delo, and in the new Bolshevik-controlled evening newspaper of the Petro­grad Soviet, Rabochii i soldat. Dominating the front page of Rabochii i soldat on

the evening of October 24 was the banner headline "The All-Russian Con­gress Will Begin on October 25"; this was followed by a full-page proclama­tion from the Military Revolutionary Committee:

To the Population of Petrograd

Citizens:

The counterrevolution has raised its treacherous head. The Kornilovites are mobilizing their forces to suppress the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and to break up the Constituent Assembly. At the same time pogromists may try to instigate disorders and massacres on the streets of Petrograd.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies takes upon itself responsibility for the protection of revolutionary order from the counterrevolution and pogromist attacks.

The garrison of Petrograd will not permit any violence or disturb­ance. . . .

Citizens! We call upon you to maintain calm and self-control. The cause of order and of the revolution is in firm hands!

The Military Revolutionary Committee

This continuing orientation toward the Congress of Soviets was voiced in public pronouncements as well as in the press. In a speech to the afternoon caucus of the Bolshevik congress fraction at which Stalin had drawn atten­tion to the Central Committee's tactical stance, Trotsky seemed anxious, above all, to dispel whatever fears the Bolshevik leaders, assembled from all over Russia, might have that the revolution was in imminent danger or that the actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee in any way usurped the functions of the congress. He declared:

The government is powerless; we are not afraid of it because we have sufficient strength. . . . Some of the comrades, for example Kamenev and Riazanov, do not agree with our assessment of the situation. However, we are leaning neither to the right nor to the left. Our tactical line has been determined by developing circumstances. We grow stronger every day. Our task is to defend ourselves and gradually to expand our sphere of authority so as to build a solid foundation for tomorrow's Congress of Soviets. The views of the entire country will be revealed tomorrow; and Petrograd will not be alone in responding to its summons.⁸

According to a letter written the following day by Mikhail Zhakov, a participant in this caucus, Trotsky, toward the end of his address, took pains to insist that the arrest of the Provisional Government was not planned as an independent task. "If the congress creates a government and Kerensky does not obey it, this would be a police and not a political prob­lem," Trotsky is recorded as declaring. "It would be a mistake to use even one of the armored cars which now defend the Winter Palace to arrest the

government. However, the Military Revolutionary Committee's decision to reopen the printing house of Rabochii put' and to entrust the valiant Litovsky Regiment, instead of cadets, to guard it, was no mistake. This is defense, comrades. This is defense." Zhakov noted that at this point Trotsky was interrupted by a storm of wild applause.⁹

At a session of the Petrograd Soviet a few hours later, Trotsky spoke out in a similar vein, insisting that ^uan armed conflict today or tomorrow, on the eve of the All-Russian Congress, is not in our plans." "We are confident that the congress will fulfill our slogan with great force and authority," he continued. "But if the government wants to make use of the twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hours which it still has and comes out against us, then we will respond with a counterattack, matching blow for blow, steel for iron."¹⁰ Moreover, at close to this same hour, upon the insistence of the Left SRs, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued a press release in which it categorically denied that an uprising was in preparation: "Con­trary to all kinds of rumors and reports, the Military Revolutionary Com­mittee declares that it exists not to prepare and carry out the seizure of power, but exclusively for defense of the interests of the Petrograd garrison and the democracy from counterrevolutionary encroachments."¹¹

While the Bolsheviks were working to consolidate support for their pro­gram in the Congress of Soviets and making preparations for the creation of a revolutionary government by the congress, Kerensky was feverishly at­tempting to implement his plans to curb the left and, equally important, to strengthen his defenses. He spent much of the morning of October 24 in the General Staff building trying to speed up the dispatch to the capital of loyal troops from the front. Orders were now issued for the immediate removal of all Military Revolutionary Committee commissars, and all troops of the garrison were strictly forbidden to leave their barracks without the specific authorization of Petrograd Military District headquarters.¹²

During the morning and early afternoon, it became evident that the vast majority of troops were responding to directives from the extreme left, not to those from the regular military command. The alacrity with which sol­diers from the Litovsky Regiment fulfilled Trotsky's order to assist in reopening the Trud printing press has already been mentioned. The be­havior of the more than five hundred-man crew of the cruiser Aurora, which was just completing a year of capital repairs at the Franco-Russian shipyard, was also typical. Recognizing that the Aurora's radicalized crew would support the Military Revolutionary Committee, the regular naval command ordered the ship out to sea for engine tests. At the instigation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, however, Tsentrobalt counter­manded this order, and, in response, the sailors rose against their officers and remained in Petrograd.¹³

As the hours wore on, it also became apparent to defenders of the gov­ernment that, at best, the arrival of significant military help from outside

Personnel of the Women's Battalion on the Palace Square.

Petrograd would be seriously delayed. Some of the military units called out on the night of October 23-24 and the following day immediately declared their unwillingness to come to the government's aid, while others were pre­vented from doing so by local forces supporting the Military Revolutionary Committee. Then too, as at the time of the Kornilov affair, the movement of troops from the front was interrupted well outside the capital, most front soldiers readily pledging support to the Military Revolutionary Committee as soon as the struggle between the government and the Petrograd Soviet was explained to them.

About noon the Women's Shock Battalion from Levashova, less than two hundred strong, reported for duty at the Winter Palace. They were joined at 2:00 p.m. by a detachment of sixty-eight cadets from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School. Also either already at the palace or reporting there during the day and night of October 24, were 134 officers and roughly two thousand cadets from officer-training schools in Peterhof, Oranienbaum, and Gatchina. For the time being, this relatively meager force, a small frac­tion of what the Military Revolutionary Committee could draw on, was the best Kerensky could muster.¹⁴ Utilizing some of these forces, Kerensky did his best to strengthen security around government offices, rail stations, the Neva bridges, and vital public-service institutions.

In the early afternoon the prime minister was driven to the Mariinsky Palace, where he sought to rally the Preparliament in support of the gov­ernment and to obtain its endorsement for the measures already initiated to

suppress the left. Kerensky's rambling, emotion-charged speech on this oc­casion was to be his last public address in Russia. Frequently interrupted by storms of applause from the right and boos and hoots from the left, the speech, recently characterized by one historian as the "hysterical wail of a bankrupt politician,"¹⁵ lasted well over an hour. Kerensky began by accus­ing both the extreme right and the radical left of working to subvert the convocation of a Constituent Assembly and the creation of a free, democra­tic system of government. The brunt of his criticism was reserved for the Bolsheviks. To buttress his condemnation of the party, Kerensky quoted extensively from the arguments for an immediate insurrection contained in Lenin's "Letter to Comrades," serialized in Rabochii puf between October 19 and 21; he also catalogued what he termed "repeated Bolshevik appeals for and armed uprising" voiced at public meetings and in the party's press.

Kerensky went on to contend that "by organizing an uprising" the Bol­sheviks were assisting

not the German proletariat but . . . the German ruling classes; they are opening Russia's front to the mailed fist of Wilhelm and his friends. . . . In full awareness of my responsibility, I proclaim from this platform that such actions by a Russian political party constitute treason and a betrayal of the Russian state. ... A certain portion of the Petersburg population is in a state of insurrection. . . . Arrests have been ordered. ... At the present time, when the state is imperiled by deliberate or unwitting be­trayal and is at the brink of ruin, the Provisional Government, myself in­cluded, prefers to be killed and destroyed rather than to betray the life, honor, and the independence of the State.

At this, members of the Preparliament, with the exception of the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left SRs, rose from their seats and gave Kerensky a prolonged, resounding ovation—a circumstance which prompted a Kadet, Moisei Adzhemov, to rush to the left benches screaming, "Let's have a photograph of the people sitting down!"¹⁶

After order was restored with some difficulty, Kerensky continued his speech. Reading from the Military Revolutionary Committee's "Directive Number One," which was then circulating throughout the city, he bel­lowed: "This is an attempt to incite the rabble against the existing order. . . . It is an attempt to block the Constituent Assembly and to expose the front to the serried ranks of Wilhelm's concentrated forces." Turning to the left, he insisted that "at the present time everyone must decide whether he is on the side of the Republic, freedom, and democracy, or against these." In conclusion, he roundly declared:

I have come to call upon you for vigilance, for the defense of the gains of freedom won by the many sacrifices, by the blood and the lives of many generations of free Russian people. ... All elements of Russian society, those groups and those parties which have dared to raise a hand against the free will of the Russian people, threatening at the same time to expose the front to Germany, are subject to immediate, decisive, and total liquida­tion. ... I demand that this very day the Provisional Government receive your answer as to whether or not it can fulfill its duty with the assurance of support from this exulted gathering.¹⁷

Kerensky subsequently remembered that he left the Mariinsky Palace after his speech at around 2:30 p.m., convinced that within a couple of hours he would receive a strong pledge of support from the Preparlia­ment. ¹⁸ This was not to be. Preparliament deputies spent the rest of the after­noon and early evening of October 24 in acrimonious fractional meetings de­bating how best to respond to Kerensky's request for a vote of confidence. When the deputies reassembled at 7:00 p.m., the opposition of a significant portion of the Preparliament to granting Kerensky carte blanche for a whole­sale crackdown on the left emerged sharply.

The initial speaker after the extended break was Kamkov, chief spokes­man of the Left SRs. Four weeks later, in his speech to the First Left SR Congress, he would recall his anguish when Kerensky "demanded full pow­ers to suppress the Bolshevik uprising and was completely oblivious to the fact that there was nobody to put down the uprising regardless of what sanctions he was granted." Kamkov explained then that "to those of us working among the lower classes of Petrograd, it was clear that in the Pet­rograd garrison Kerensky could not find a dozen people who would come out to defend him as head of the coalition government."¹⁹ In the Preparlia­ment on the evening of October 24, Kamkov declared:

After the head of the government comes here and announces that some kind of rabble is rising and demands that this assembly aid him in dealing with it, overwhelming numbers of you may decide to grant this sanction. But I am uncertain that the Russian people, the revolutionary army, the proletariat, and the laboring peasantry will do the same. Let's not play hide and seek with each other. Is there anybody at all who would trust this government. . . ? It does not have the support of the revolutionary army, or the proletariat, and coming out against it is not the rabble but precisely the most politically conscious elements of the revolutionary democracy. If we are seriously interested in eliminating the soil in which the horrors of civil war are maturing, we must openly declare that the only way out of the present predicament is through the creation of a homogeneous, rev­olutionary, democratic government in which there will be no elements who organize demonstrations of homage to Kornilov.

Martov, who took the floor next on behalf of the Menshevik- Internationalists, was similarly critical of the existing government. As he appeared on the rostrum, someone on the right cried out, "Here is the minister of foreign affairs in the future cabinet"—to which Martov, peering in the direction of his critic, at once retorted, "I'm nearsighted and cannot tell if this is said by the minister of foreign affairs in Kornilov's cabinet." Declared Martov:

The language of the prime minister, who permitted himself to speak of a rabble movement when what is at hand is a movement of a significant portion of the proletariat and the army, even if directed toward mistaken objectives, is a provocation for civil war. But I have not lost the hope that . . . [we] will not yield to the desires of those who seek to use the current situation to bring the revolution to a halt. The democracy must declare that it will not give the government any support if it does not immediately guarantee that it will fulfill the most urgent needs of the people. Repres­sion cannot be substituted for satisfaction of the needs of the revolution. An announcement must be made immediately that Russia is pursuing a policy of immediate peace, that land committees will have control over alienated lands awaiting settlement, and that the democratization of the army will not be stopped. [And] if such declarations are impossible for the government in its present form, then the government must be reorganized.

There was nothing unexpected about these declarations by Kamkov and Martov; what was genuinely startling was the response to Kerensky's de­mands by representatives of the main body of Mensheviks and SRs, people like Dan and Gots, who had openly wavered in their support for coalition for the first time in the wake of the Kornilov affair. At the Preparliament session on the evening of October 24, their point of view was voiced by Dan. From the outset, Dan expressed total opposition and aversion to the behavior of the Bolsheviks. Yet, with equal emphasis, he insisted that if the conflict between the government and the left were not settled peacefully, the ultimate winners would be the extreme right. Moreover, he declared that the only way a disastrous bloodbath could be avoided was by respond­ing, without further delay, to the aspirations of the masses who now fol­lowed the Bolsheviks. As Dan put it:

Regardless of how the Bolshevik uprising ends tomorrow, if it is submerged in blood and order is restored by force of arms . . . practically speaking, this will be a triumph for that third force which will sweep away the Bolsheviks, the government, the democracy, and the revolution. If you want to remove the soil in which the Bolsheviks are growing like rotten mushrooms, we must turn to political measures. What is necessary is the clear enunciation by the government and the Council of the Republic of a platform in which the people will see their just interests supported by the government and the Council of the Republic and not the Bolsheviks. . . . The questions of peace and land and the democratization of the army must be framed in such a way that not a single worker or soldier will have the slightest doubt that our government is moving along this course with firm and resolute steps.²⁰

In a memoir, Dan later recalled his reactions to Kerensky's speech and attempted to explain his thinking at the time.²¹ From the very beginning of the Preparliament's deliberations in early October, he and other Menshevik and SR leaders with similar views had worked for the eventual creation of a leftist, democratic, exclusively socialist government, capable of quickly enacting a radical reform program. They had done this, Dan contended, in the belief that only through immediate, drastic political steps was there any hope of successfully combating the Bolsheviks. Dan maintained that in his wing of the Preparliament "it was axiomatic that to fight the Bolsheviks with strictly military means was useless, if only because the government did not possess such means." Dan indicated that this view was rejected by the Preparliament right, who erroneously believed that the military force at the government's disposal was sufficient to crush the Bolsheviks, and who consequently looked forward to "engaging them in open battle." After Kerensky's speech to the Preparliament on the afternoon of October 24, Dan and his colleagues considered it their duty to indicate to the govern­ment the only course they believed held out any hope of salvation, and to reemphasize that they were prepared to join the government in that course to the very end.

Toward the close of the Preparliament session on October 24, three resolutions were introduced: one, on behalf of cooperative organizations and the Kadet Party, pledged full support to the government in the adoption of decisive steps to suppress the revolt in the capital; the second, a much more inflammatory resolution put forward by the command of the cossacks, bit­terly criticized the entire left, directly repudiated the Provisional Govern­ment for its weakness and even for "conniving with the Bolsheviks," and demanded that the government guarantee that "on this occasion it would in no way indulge the Bolsheviks"; the third resolution, drawn up by the Pre­parliament left and presented by Dan, explicitly criticized the Provisional Government for delays in the promulgation of urgent political and social reform and made the Preparliament's support dependent upon the im­mediate promulgation of a radical "land and peace" program and the crea­tion of a "Committee of Public Safety," made up of representatives of municipal governments and the soviets, to work with the Provisional Gov­ernment in restoring order. At 8:30 p.m., by the narrow margin of 123 votes to 102, with 26 abstentions, the resolution of the left, in effect a vote of "no confidence" in Kerensky, was adopted.²²

Dan indicated in his memoir that, upon the passage of this resolution, he and Gots, dragging along the much more conservative president of the Pre­parliament, Avksentiev, hastened to a meeting of the cabinet in the Winter Palace to demand that the government adopt the Preparliament's recom­mendations. According to Dan, he and Gots fervently hoped that the gov­ernment would acquiesce and that a momentous proclamation would be printed and plastered throughout the capital that very evening, announcing

to the citizenry that the Provisional Government had formally proposed the immediate cessation of all military activity and the start of negotiations for universal peace, that land committees had been informed by phone that all manorial land holdings would be transferred to them, and that the convoca­tion of the Constituent Assembly would be speeded up.

Dan and Gots apparently insisted to Kerensky that such action would bring about a shift in the mood of the masses and strengthen the hand of Bolshevik leaders opposed to an uprising. Not surprisingly, however, word of the Preparliament's action drove the prime minister into a blind rage. "Kerensky appeared then," Dan later wrote, "like a person approaching the last stages of exhaustion." At first he declared his intention of resigning the next morning; in the end, he simply dismissed Dan, Gots, and Avksentiev with the assertion that the government had "no need for admonitions and instructions and would cope with the rebellion by itself."²³

This was a great blow to those who, like Dan, hoped to neutralize popu­lar unrest and pull the rug from under the Bolsheviks by pressuring Kerensky to adopt a more radical reform program or, failing this, by forc­ing him to give way to a new, more responsive government. Still, efforts to achieve this goal were not halted. At an emergency joint meeting of the All-Russian Executive Committees, which began just after midnight and lasted until 4:00 a.m., October 25, centrist and left Mensheviks secured passage of a resolution which, while condemning the Bolsheviks and en­dorsing the creation of a Committee of Public Safety, nonetheless, reaffirmed the categorical demands for immediate reform adopted earlier by the Preparliament.²⁴

Moreover, in a series of heated party strategy caucuses, the Left SRs and Menshevik-Internationalists now campaigned vigorously for the creation, by the Congress of Soviets, of an exclusively socialist coalition government. This campaign initially appeared to be bearing fruit. A meeting of the Men­shevik congress fraction, which included both "defensists" and "inter­nationalists," adopted a set of "theses" for incorporation in a political resolu­tion to be presented to the congress, which constituted an even more significant departure from previous moderate socialist policies than did the resolution of the Preparliament. These theses called for the complete recon­struction of the cabinet and specifically stipulated that the new government be "homogeneous" and "democratic." While condemning the actions of the Bolsheviks, they called at the same time for the repudiation of the Provi­sional Government's policies, which were viewed as having provoked the Bolshevik insurrection. The theses also included a recommendation that at­tempts by the government to suppress the Bolshevik insurrection by armed force be given a "firm rebuff."²⁵

Meanwhile, the Left SRs turned out to have a comfortable majority at a caucus of the SR congress fraction on the morning of October 25. A resolu­tion offered there by the SR Central Committee was defeated by a vote of ninety-two to sixty, after which the majority agreed to "get in touch with the Menshevik-Internationalists," evidently to coordinate efforts for the cre­ation of a "homogeneous" socialist government.²⁶ Equally significant, in the wake of this victory some Left SR leaders retained hope that at the congress the entire fraction might stick together behind the program of the left.²⁷

To anyone analyzing political developments in Petrograd during the af­ternoon and early evening of October 24, the confidence voiced by Kerensky in his ability to deal independently with the left at this time seems utterly incomprehensible. The sketchy, sometimes confused eyewitness reports that filled the "Latest News" columns of Petrograd's newspapers on Oc­tober 25-26 testified to the degree to which the government's position had deteriorated.

Not long after Kerensky's unfortunate appearance before the Preparlia­ment, the anxiety of military officials at General Staff headquarters was heightened by reports of alarming numbers of armed workers and soldiers congregating around Smolny. Consequently, they now issued orders for the Liteiny, Troitsky, and Nikolaevsky bridges across the Neva to be drawn, and for strict government control of the only other Neva span, the Palace Bridge—this to interdict the flow of insurgents from working-class districts on the Neva's right bank to the center sections of the city.²⁸ Describing his reaction upon learning of the government's intentions in regard to the Neva bridges on October 24, the Bolshevik Military Organization leader Ilin- Zhenevsky subsequently wrote: "Involuntarily, I remembered the July days. . . . The drawing of the bridges appeared to me as the first step in another attempt to destroy us. Was it possible the Provisional Government would triumph over us once again?"²⁹

On this occasion, there was no such danger. As soon as loyalist cadets from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School arrived at the Liteiny Bridge, they were challenged by an irate crowd of citizens, many of them carrying weapons. Forced to give up their arms, the cadets were escorted humiliat- ingly back to their academy; as nearly as can be determined, this action took place without any specific directives from the Military Revolutionary Committee. Similarly, as soon as the struggle for the bridges began, Ilin- Zhenevsky, also acting on his own, saw to it that garrison soldiers took control of the smaller Grenadersky and Samsonevsky bridges across the Bolshaia Nevka between the Vyborg District and the Petrograd side.³⁰

The military district command gave a company of the First Petrograd Women's Shock Battalion responsibility for drawing the Troitsky Bridge; orders issued to the battalion specifically authorized the use of firearms to prevent movement on the bridge.³¹ It appears that the women soldiers did not try seriously to execute this order, quite likely because machine guns mounted along the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress were well within shooting range. After a brief struggle between cadets and Red Guards, the former were successful in drawing the Nikolaevsky Bridge connecting Vasi- levsky Island with the center of the capital. For some time yet the Palace Bridge remained firmly controlled by cadets and personnel of the Women's Battalion. Still, by early evening it was apparent that the crucial "battle for the bridges" had been won by forces hostile to the government. Two of the four main Neva bridges were in their hands, as well as all the bridges over the Bolshaia Nevka and Malaia Neva.

At 4:00 p.m., the cyclists who had had primary responsibility for security around the Winter Palace from the time of their transfer to the capital fol­lowing the July days suddenly announced that they would no longer remain at their posts. An hour later, upon orders from the Military Revolutionary Committee, one of its commissars, Stanislav Pestkovsky, took control of the central telegraph office. This first success in the contest for key communica­tions facilities was obtained without a shot fired, this despite the fact that among the telegraph office's three thousand employees there was not a single Bolshevik. The important factor here was that on regular guard duty at the telegraph office at the time was a detachment of soldiers from the Keksgolmsky Regiment, which had long since pledged loyalty to the Mili­tary Revolutionary Committee. And with the support of their commander, Pestkovsky pressured the head of the postal-telegraph workers' union, a right SR, to recognize his authority.³²

A detachment of cadets tried unsuccessfully to recapture the central tele­graph office around 8:00 p.m.³³ Not long afterward, another Military Rev­olutionary Committee commissar, the Helsingfors Bolshevik Leonid Stark, accompanied only by twelve armed sailors, occupied and assumed supervi­sion of the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, a news wire service. One of Stark's first acts was to stop the political resolution just then passed by the Preparliament from going out over the wire.³⁴ At about the same time, troops of the Izmailovsky Guards Regiment, the first major garrison unit to come to the government's aid in July, took control of the Baltic Station, rail terminus for loyalist reinforcements arriving from the seaboard along the Gulf of Finland and points west. The best Petrograd Military District headquarters could muster by way of a response was a telegraphed warning that "echelons loyal to the government and the Central Executive Commit­tee are in transit from the front."³⁵

Some of the ultimately most important steps taken by the left at this time were accomplished in secret and hence for the time being were not publicly evident. In the early evening of October 24, Dybenko, in Helsingfors, finally received the telegram agreed upon with Antonov during the North­ern Congress of Soviets: "Send the regulations"—meaning "Dispatch sailors and ships to Petrograd."³⁶ Antonov also passed a handwritten request to a liaison man from the Kronstadt Soviet, the Bolshevik Aleksei Pronin, for the dispatch of Kronstadt sailors to the capital the next day.³⁷ Several hours later, on behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Aleksei Baranov called Dybenko from Petrograd to confirm the dispatch of naval forces. "The atmosphere is tense," Baranov reported. "Can we count on your sup­port?" "The cruisers will sail at dawn," responded Dybenko.³⁸

Except for the individual garrison units and Red Guard contingents or­dered by the Military Revolutionary Committee to carry out specific mili­tary tasks, most of the Petrograd area's well over half million workers, sol­diers, and sailors remained in their factories and barracks during these ini­tial skirmishes with government forces. Throughout the afternoon and evening of October 24, and on into the following day, a round of meetings was held in working-class districts of the capital and at the main bases of the Baltic Fleet. Almost invariably, these gatherings produced expressions of support for the Petrograd Soviet and its program. For the time being, there were almost no popular disturbances. Mass demonstrations like those of February and July, which it was commonly assumed would signal a final clash between the left and the government, were completely absent.

Toward midafternoon, when word of the drawing of the Neva bridges became known, students at primary and secondary schools and employees in government offices were dismissed for the day, banks and stores in the central sections of the city were closed, and streetcar service was curtailed. Still, the streets remained calm. In the evening fashionably dressed crowds promenaded on Nevsky Prospect, where the usual prostitutes continued to ply their trade. Restaurants, casinos, moving-picture houses, and theaters operated normally, although with decreased attendance—a revival by Meyerhold of Aleksei Tolstoi's The Death of Ivan the Terrible at the Alexan- drinsky Theater and a performance of Boris Godunov at the Mariinsky Thea­ter went on as scheduled. This state of affairs, coupled with the Military Revolutionary Committee's continuing disavowal of insurrection, was pro­foundly confusing to contemporary observers, giving an intense sense of unreality to the decisive developments then taking place in widely scattered sections of the capital.

Not surprisingly, no one appears to have been more confused and trou­bled by the tactics of the Military Revolutionary Committee than Lenin. Throughout this historically momentous time he had remained away from the scene of battle, at Fofanova's apartment on the outskirts of the capital. On October 20, evidently responding to rumors of Lenin's presence in Pet­rograd, the minister of justice had issued a new order for the Bolshevik leader's arrest, dispelling any hope that it might now be safe for him to come out of hiding. Between October 21 and 23 Lenin had rejoiced in the Military Revolutionary Committee's successes in the struggle with the Pet­rograd Military District for control of the Petrograd garrison. But, unlike Trotsky, he viewed these triumphs not as part of a gradual subversion of the Provisional Government's authority which, if all went well, might cul­minate in a relatively painless transfer of power to the soviets at the Con­gress of Soviets, but merely as the prelude to a popular armed uprising.

Workers in a Petrograd factory listen to a soldier speak.

And each passing day simply confirmed his long-held conviction that the prospects for creating a Bolshevik-dominated government would be max­imized if power were seized by force at once; waiting for the congress, he felt, would simply allow the government more time to ready its forces and would needlessly risk the creation by an indecisive congress of, at best, a wishy-washy all-socialist coalition government. After learning of the last- minute cancellation of the cossack procession (on either October 22 or 23), Lenin wrote to Sverdlov: "The calling-off of the cossack demonstration is a gigantic triumph! Hurrah! Take to the attack with all forces and complete victory will be ours in a few days."³⁹

In the morning papers on October 24 Lenin read of the Military Rev­olutionary Committee's decision to accept the "compromise" offered by the Petrograd Military District. Throughout the day, no doubt mostly through Fofanova, he had maintained contact with Smolny; thus he had learned almost at once of the government's crackdown on the left and of the efforts by some moderate socialists to force the government to adopt and immediately announce a more radical reform program.⁴⁰ News of these de­velopments greatly upset him. Fofanova recalled that he sent her out several times during the day and evening with requests to the Central Committee for permission to go to Smolny. Each of these appeals was summarily re­jected. Towards late afternoon, upon reading yet another of the Central Committee's noncommittal responses, Lenin crumpled the note and threw it on the floor. "I don't understand them. What are they afraid of?" he stormed. "Only the day before yesterday Podvoisky reported that this military unit was Bolshevik and this other one as well. . . . And now sud­denly nothing is happening. Just ask them if they have one hundred loyal soldiers or Red Guardsmen with rifles. I don't need anything else!"⁴¹

Around 6:00 p.m. Lenin resolved, once again, to circumvent the Central Committee and to call on lower levels of the party, particularly the Peters­burg Committee and the district Bolshevik committees, to take the comple­tion of the revolution into their own hands. Quickly drafting the following appeal,⁴² he commissioned Fofanova to deliver it to Krupskaia, "and no one else":

Comrades,

I am writing these lines on the evening of the twenty-fourth. The situa­tion is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising would be fatal.

With all my might I urge comrades to realize that everything now hangs by a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of soviets), but exclu­sively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people.

The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovites and the removal of Ver- khovsky show that we must not wait. We must at all costs, this very eve­ning, this very night, arrest the government, having first disarmed the officer cadets (defeating them, if they resist), and so on.

We must not wait! We may lose everything! . . .

Who must take power?

That is not important at present. Let the Military Revolutionary Com­mittee do it, or "some other institution." . . .

All districts, all regiments, all forces must be mobilized at once and must immmediately send delegations to the Military Revolutionary Com­mittee and to the Bolshevik Central Committee with the insistent demand that under no circumstance should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and Co. until the twenty-fifth—not under any circumstances; the matter must be decided without fail this very evening, or this very night.

History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when they could be victorious today (and they certainly will be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow; in fact, they risk losing everything.

If we seize power today, we seize it not in opposition to the soviets but on their behalf.

The seizure of power is the task of the uprising; its political purpose will become clear after the seizure.

It would be a disaster, or a sheer formality, to await the wavering vote

of October 25. The people have the right and are in duty bound to decide such questions not by a vote, but by force; in critical moments of revolu­tion, the people have the right and are in duty bound to give directions to their representatives, even their best representatives, and not to wait for them. . . .

The government is tottering. It must Ыgiven the deathblow at all costs.

To delay action is fatal.⁴³

A few hours after sending Fofanova out with this last appeal, Lenin was unable to restrain himself further. Leaving a note for his hostess on the kitchen table ("I have gone where you did not want me to go"), Lenin donned his wig and a battered cap and wrapped a bandage around his face. Then, violating a direct Central Committee ban on his movement for the second time in a month, accompanied by Eino Rakhia, he set off for Smolny.⁴⁴ The two traveled through the Vyborg District as far as the Fin­land Station in an almost empty streetcar, the frantic Lenin peppering the conductress with questions regarding late political developments; when Lenin discovered she was a leftist, he began filling her ears with practical advice on revolutionary action. As they approached Smolny on foot via Shpalernaia Street, where the unlucky Voinov had come to his end on July 6, the pair was forced to dodge a roving, mounted cadet patrol, scaring Rakhia half out of his wits. Finally, sometime before midnight, they safely reached their destination.

Smolny, upon Lenin's arrival, looked like a military camp on the eve of battle. Heavily armed patrols stood watch at adjacent streetcorners. Groups of soldiers and Red Guards huddled around glowing bonfires in the sur­rounding squares and side alleys. The courtyard inside the main gate re­verberated with the din of trucks, automobiles, and motorcycles, constantly arriving and departing, and Smolny's massive facade was ablaze with lights. Machine guns had been emplaced at both sides of the central entry; here guards tried to control movement into the building, which John Reed likened to a "gigantic hive." Neither Rakhia nor Lenin had proper passes. Initially denied admission, they managed to lose themselves in an incoming crowd and so were able to squeeze by the guards.⁴⁵ Accidentally doffing his toupee along with his cap in the excitement, Lenin at once began upbraiding his closest associates, pressing them to get on with the business of finishing off the Provisional Government.

Accounts of the October revolution by writers in the Soviet Union, seek­ing to maximize Lenin's role in the Bolshevik seizure of power at the ex­pense of Trotsky's, convey the impression that under the latter's influence, the party exaggerated Kerensky's strength and underestimated that of the left, and passively awaited a vote of the Congress of Soviets to create a revolutionary government. This interpretation is, of course, seriously dis-

Smolny Institute during the October days.

torted; as we have seen, the policies of the Military Revolutionary Commit­tee between October 21 and 24 were directed toward effectively subverting the Provisonal Government in advance of the congress, an objective already largely fulfilled by the night of October 24. Also, these tactics were dic­tated, more than anything else, by what seems to have been a realistic evaluation of the prevailing correlation of forces and popular mood.

Yet there is a measure of truth in the Soviet view that prior to Lenin's appearance at Smolny late on the night of October 24-25, a majority of the Military Revolutionary Committee, not to speak of the Central Committee, was still uneasy about the possibility of going too far too fast—of losing potentially crucial support, or perhaps even breaking up the congress, by appearing to usurp the functions of the Congress of Soviets. As we have seen, the Military Revolutionary Committee's initial efforts in the wake of the government's offensive against the left were aimed at alerting left forces and readying them for possible action, not calling the masses into the streets. And almost all of the Military Revolutionary Committee's subse­quent military operations on October 24 can be interpreted as reactions to offensive moves by the government. Thus, garrison soldiers were sent to reopen Rabochii put' after the government had closed it, and Military Rev­olutionary Committee forces took control of the Neva bridges when the government set about interrupting movement over them. Similarly, forces supporting the Military Revolutionary Committee occupied the Baltic Sta­tion following reports that troops loyal to the government from Peterhof and the northern front were boarding trains bound for the capital.⁴⁶

It is altogether likely that as Kerensky's helplessness in the prevailing situation became more obvious and as the hour of the congress's opening drew near, the pace of the Military Revolutionary Committee's operations would have quickened, whether or not Lenin appeared on the scene. But it must also be borne in mind that Lenin, in contrast to almost everyone else, attached decisive importance to overthrowing the Provisional Government in advance of the congress. His arrival at Smolny inevitably intensified pres­sure on the leadership of the left to act more boldly. At any rate, for what­ever the reason, well before dawn on October 25 the actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee suddenly became much more aggressive. All pre­tense that the committee was simply defending the revolution and attempt­ing most of all to maintain the status quo pending the expression of the congress's will was abruptly dropped. Instead, an open, all-out effort was launched to confront congress delegates with the overthrow of the Provi­sional Government prior to the start of their deliberations.

There is very little hard evidence regarding the circumstances of this decision. Latsis later wrote that "towards morning on the famous night when the question of a government was being decided and the Central Committee wavered, Illich ran to the office of the Petersburg Committee with the question: 'Fellows, do you have shovels? Will the workers of Piter go into the trenches at our call?'" Latsis recorded that the response was positive, adding that the decisiveness of Lenin and the Petersburg Commit­tee affected the waverers, allowing Lenin to have his way.⁴⁷ From the sub­sequent complaints of top Left SR leaders, it appears clear that the Military Revolutionary Committee shifted its stance without their knowledge.⁴⁸

In any case, the moment when this fundamental tactical change occurred can be pinpointed fairly closely. Thus on the evening of October 24, Os- vald Dzenis, Military Revolutionary Committee commissar in the Pav- lovsky Regiment, was ordered to take control of the Troitsky Bridge, be­tween the Petersburg side and the War Memorial Field. He recalls that around 9:00 p.m., after taking the bridge, he detected a sharp increase in traffic to and from the Palace Square; on his own, he directed the erection of barricades, the establishment of checkpoints to and from the Winter Palace, and the arrest of government officials, the most important of whom were escorted to Smolny. A short time after initiating these measures, Dzenis received an urgent call from Podvoisky informing him that the ar­rested officials sent to Smolny by him were being released; that the kind of action he had undertaken was unauthorized and premature; and that while the Military Revolutionary Committee had not yet decided when more ac­tive operations would be initiated, it would not be before the next day. Podvoisky insisted that Dzenis stop detaining government officials and dis­mantle his checkpoints, an order which Dzenis asserts appeared so short­sighted that he did not implement it. A few hours later, evidently around 2:00 a.m., Dzenis received a new order; this time he was directed to reen- force his cordon of outposts and to strictly control all movement through it.⁴⁹

About this time, that is, 2:00 a.m., October 25, the First Company of the Sixth Engineer Battalion occupied the Nikolaevsky Station, off Znamensky Square, then dominated by a massive bronze equestrian statue of Alexander III. One of the engineers later recalled the moment: "It was a freezing night. One could feel the north wind permeate the bones. On the streets adjacent to the Nikolaevsky Station groups of engineers huddled, shivering from the cold, and peered vigilantly into the shadowy night. The moonlight created a fantastic scene. The hulks of houses looked like medieval castles—giant shadows followed the engineers. At this sight, the next-to- the-last emperor appeared to rein in his horse in horror."⁵⁰

Also around 2:00 a.m., a Military Revolutionary Committee commissar, Mikhail Faerman, took control of the Petrograd electric station. At his di­rection, electrical service to most government buildings was switched off. More or less simultaneously, insurgent soldiers occupied the main post office, where the Military Revolutionary Committee commissar Karl Kad- lubovsky took charge. Sometime after midnight, the crew of the Aurora had been authorized to "use all means at its disposal" to restore traffic along the Nikolaevsky Bridge.⁵¹ Because the ship's captain at first refused to have anything to do with this order, the Military Revolutionary Committee commissar Alexander Belishev and several sailors took over operation of the vessel themselves. Navigating the Aurora through the shallow, twisting Neva was a tricky business, however, and the captain soon gave in. An­nouncing that he could not "allow the Aurora to be run aground," he agreed to help bring the newly renovated ship to its destination. At 3:30 a.m. the Aurora moved to an anchorage next to the Nikolaevsky Bridge, the one Neva bridge still under government control. As the Aurora's crew directed its searchlights on the bridge, the cadets responsible for guarding it fled into the night. Ship's electricians supervised the closing of the span. A short time later, when a thirty-two-man detachment of government shock troops sent to reopen the bridge arrived on the scene, they found it securely in the hands of some two hundred workers and sailors.⁵²

A forty-man detachment of sailors occupied the State Bank at 6:00 a.m.; there was no resistance, as soldiers of the Semenovsky Regiment on regular guard there remained neutral. An hour later, a detachment of soldiers from the Keksgolmsky Regiment, accompanied by Lashevich and another Mili­tary Revolutionary Committee commissar, P. S. Kaliagin, occupied the main Petrograd telephone station, immediately shutting off most lines to military headquarters and the Winter Palace. Bloodshed during occupation of the telephone station was avoided, in part perhaps because the detach­ment of Keksgolmsky soldiers was commanded by one A. Zakharov, who,

Garrison soldiers helping to operate the switchboard of the main Petrograd telephone station during the October days.

as a military school cadet, had often served on guard duty there. Familiar with security procedures at the telephone station, he supervised the quick isolation and disarmament of the cadets on guard.⁵³ Thus, by early morn­ing, October 25, the government was for the most part without phones or lights. At 8:00 a.m., the last of Petrograd's three major rail terminals, the Warsaw Station, terminal point for rail lines connecting the capital with the northern front and army headquarters at Pskov, also fell to the Military Revolutionary Committee.

In the Winter Palace, a closed meeting of the cabinet devoted to consid­eration of further measures to deal with the left had broken up at 1:00 a.m. At 3:00 a.m. Kerensky received further alarming reports on the developing situation; accompanied by the deputy premier, Konovalov, he again hurried off to the General Staff building.⁵⁴ The reports he received there through­out the remainder of the night and early morning were uniformly bleak. One key point after another was passing rapidly into the Military Rev­olutionary Committee's hands. The military school cadets and soldiers of the Women's Battalion, the main forces in the Winter Palace, were now becoming understandably fidgety. Suddenly announcing their inability to fight soldiers of the garrison, they were temporarily calmed by what were, in retrospect, misleading assurances that troops from the front were ex­pected momentarily.

At Kerensky's command, towards dawn a last desperate appeal was di-

Prime Minister Kerensky (second from right) and his aides in the Winter Palace. This is the last known photograph of Kerensky in Petrograd.

rected to cossack forces in the capital: "In the name of freedom, honor, and the glory of our native land, the commander-in-chief has ordered the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Cossack regiments to act to aid the Soviet Central Executive Committee, the revolutionary democracy, and the Provisional Government, and to save the perishing Russian state."⁵⁵ In reply cossack spokesmen asked whether the infantry would also be "coming out." Receiv­ing an unsatisfactory response, representatives of all but a relatively small number of cossacks let it be known they had no intention of "acting alone and serving as live targets."⁵⁶

The text of a candid report from General B. A. Levitsky in Petrograd to General Mikhail Diterikhs at the front about developments in Petrograd on October 24 captures the prevailing situation. Levitsky brought Diterikhs up to date on the struggle for control of the garrison between the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Petrograd Military District headquarters, and on the former's directive, calling on garrison units not to obey the orders of the latter. Levitsky observed:

This act yesterday forced the minister-president to explain clearly and precisely to the Council of the Republic [the Preparliament] the situation which had developed and to indicate the actions to be taken by the Provi­sional Government. . . . After this, units of the Petrograd garrison . . . went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The bridges which had been

drawn open were once again closed. The entire city is covered by posts manned by garrison soldiers, but there has not been a mass coming out. The telephone station is in the garrison's hands. Those units in the Winter Palace are guarding it only in a strictly formal sense, since they have al­ready agreed not to actively "come out." . . . It is as if the Provisional Government were in the capital of an enemy country.⁵⁷

By the morning of October 25, the government's desperate situation had finally become obvious even to the hitherto obtusely confident commander of the Petrograd Military District, General Polkovnikov; he now drafted a report to Kerensky in which he evaluated the situation as "critical" and concluded that for practical purposes "the government had no troops at its disposal."⁵⁸ At this juncture, Kerensky's sole hope for survival appeared to rest with the successful mobilization of solid support from the army at the front. In view of this, at about 9:00 a.m. Kerensky left Konovalov in tem­porary charge of the cabinet and began to make arrangements for an im­mediate departure to Pskov.

A few hours earlier the Bolshevik Central Committee had met at Smolny. It appears that no protocol of this historically important assembly was ever recorded—at any rate, none has been published, and the existing bits and pieces of information about what took place there come from a few sketchy memoirs. The scene of the gathering was apparently the Central Committee's regular meeting-place, Room 36 on the first floor. Lenin was there and also, among others, Trotsky, Stalin, Smilga, Miliutin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Berzin. Rakhia tucked himself into a corner to wait for Lenin and to watch the proceedings. From time to time someone knocked at the door with reports on the course of the struggle for power in the streets outside. Lenin expressed satisfaction at each advance, at the same time pressing impatiently for the seizure of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisonal Government. During a brief break in the deliberations, one of the Central Committee members suggested drawing up a list of the gov­ernment to be submitted to the congress the next day. And immediately there arose the question of what to call the new government and its mem­bers. One memoirist recalls that to everyone the term Provisional Government sounded "outmoded" and that the term ministers for members of the gov­ernment conveyed an unacceptable sense of "bureaucratic mustiness." It was Trotsky who quickly came forth with the idea of calling the new minis­ters "people's commissars," a suggestion which delighted all those present. "Yes, that's very good," Lenin interjected; "it smells of revolution. And we can call the government itself 'the Council of People's Commissars.' " Seizing pencil and paper, Miliutin prepared to accept suggestions for commissars. Still, the battle against the Provisional Government had not yet ended, and to some Central Committee members, drawing up a list of cabinet members seemed so premature that they treated it, at first, as a joke.⁵⁹

•15-

THE BOLSHEVIKS COME TO POWER

Z\t the main bases of the Baltic fleet, activity began long before jL Vdawn on the morning of Wednesday, October 25. The first of three large echelons of armed sailors, bound for the capital at the behest of the Military Revolutionary Committee, departed Helsingfors by train along the Finnish railway at 3:00 a.m.; a second echelon got underway at 5:00 a.m., and a third left around midmorning. About the same time, a hastily assem­bled naval flotilla, consisting of a patrol boat—the Iastrev—and five destroyers—the Metki, Zabiiaka, Moshchny, Deiatelny, and Samson—started off at full steam for the roughly two hundred-mile trip to Petrograd, with the Samson in the lead flying a large banner emblazoned with the slogans "Down with the Coalition!" "Long Live the All-Russian Congress of Soviets!" and "All Power to the Soviets!"¹

Activity of a similar kind was taking place at Kronstadt. Describing the night of October 24-25 in that center of revolutionary radicalism, Flerovsky was later to recall:

It is doubtful whether anyone in Kronstadt closed his eyes that night. The Naval Club was jammed with sailors, soldiers, and workers. . . . The revolutionary staff drew up a detailed operations plan, designated par­ticipating units, made an inventory of available supplies, and issued in­structions. . . . When the planning was finished ... I went into the street. Everywhere there was heavy, but muffled traffic. Groups of sol­diers and sailors were making their way to the naval dockyard. By the light of the torches we could see just the first ranks of serious determined faces. . . . Only the rumble of the automobiles, moving supplies from the for­tress warehouses to the ships, disturbed the silence of the night.²

Shortly after 9:00 a.m. the sailors, clad in black pea jackets, with rifles slung over their shoulders and cartridge pouches on their belts, finished

boarding the available vessels: two mine layers, the Amur and the Khopor; the former yacht of the fort commandant, the Zarnitsa, fitted out as a hospi­tal ship; a training vessel, the Verny; a battleship, the Zaria svobody, so old that it was popularly referred to as the "flatiron" of the Baltic Fleet and had to be helped along by four tugs; and a host of of smaller paddle-wheel passenger boats and barges. As the morning wore on these vessels raised anchor, one after the other, and steamed off in the direction of the capital.³ At Smolny at this time, the leaders of the Military Revolutionary Com­mittee and commissars from key locations about the city were completing plans for the capture of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the government. Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Konstantin Eremeev, Georgii Blagonravov, Chudnovsky, and Sadovsky are known to have participated in these consul­tations. According to the blueprint which they worked out, insurrectionary forces were to seize the Mariinsky Palace and disperse the Preparliament; after this the Winter Palace was to be surrounded. The government was to be offered the opportunity of surrendering peacefully. If it refused to do so, the Winter Palace was to be shelled from the Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress, after which it was to be stormed. The main forces designated to take part in these operations were the Pavlovsky Regiment; Red Guard de­tachments from the Vyborg, Petrograd, and Vasilevsky Island districts; the Keksgolmsky Regiment; the naval elements arriving from Kronstadt and Helsingfors; and sailors from the Petrograd-based Second Baltic Fleet De­tachment. Command posts were to be set up in the barracks of the Pav­lovsky Regiment and the Second Baltic Fleet Detachment, the former to be directed by Eremeev and the latter by Chudnovsky. A field headquarters for overall direction of the attacking military forces, to be commanded by Antonov-Ovseenko, was to be established in the Peter and Paul Fortress.⁴ Even as these preparations for the seizure of the last bastions of the Pro­visional Government in Petrograd were being completed, Lenin, elsewhere at Smolny, was nervously watching the clock, by all indications most anxi­ous to insure that the Kerensky regime would be totally eliminated before the start of the Congress of Soviets, now just a scant few hours away. At about 10:00 a.m. he drafted a manifesto "To the Citizens of Russia," pro­claiming the transfer of political power from the Kerensky government to the Military Revolutionary Committee:

25 October 1917

To the Citizens of Russia!

The Provisional Government has been overthrown. State power 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 cause for which the people have struggled—the immediate proposal of a democratic peace, the elimination of landlord estates, workers' control

1ft 1кш - ймшймп Komvtcti И MmUOMI (Mil Mwn I Соштшп lofimn.

Къ Гражданамъ PocdH.

Врвше Правительство пшшбпо. Гссу®р^в ствввш власть перша въ рукн оргш Петре- тр&дешо Совета Рабочп^ъ в Совдшго Допута- да Вош-Ревошрошго Комша, стоящего

во глав4Петрогр?чсааго пролетариата в гарвша.

№е за трое боролся народы вещное пред­ложена дешратескаго мира, отмйа шгёщий айственвосп на землю, иабочШ контроль надъ проищ­ешь, ивдаше Совйтскаго Правшпш - ш йШшш

дАадрштРЕвшршщщть

1 КРЕМЫ

яря Вфтртршжттъжъ См1гА игл я Сфяллжщяяжш дм]п«1

Ш7 г. Ю % угщ.

Lenin's manifesto of October 25, 1917, "To the Citizens of Russia," proclaiming the transfer of political power from the Kerensky government to the Military Revolutionary Committee.

over production, the creation of a soviet government—the triumph of this cause has been assured.

Long live the workers', soldiers', and peasants' revolution!

The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies⁵

The seminal importance Lenin attached to congress delegates being faced, from the very start, with a fait accompli as regards the creation of a soviet

government is clearly illustrated by the fact that this proclamation was printed and already going out over the wires to the entire country even before the Military Revolutionary Committee strategy meeting described above had ended.

If October 25 began as a day of energetic activity and hope for the left, the same cannot be said for supporters of the old government. In the Winter Palace, Kerensky by now had completed arrangements to meet troops heading for the capital from the northern front. A striking indication of the isolation and helplessness of the Provisional Government at this point is the fact that the Military Revolutionary Committee's control of all rail terminals precluded travel outside of Petrograd by train, while for some time the General Staff was unable to provide the prime minister with even one automobile suitable for an extended trip. Finally, military officials managed to round up an open Pierce Arrow and a Renault, the latter bor­rowed from the American embassy. At 11:00 a.m., almost precisely the moment when Lenin's manifesto proclaiming the overthrow of the govern­ment began circulating, the Renault, flying an American flag, tailed by the aristocratic Pierce Arrow, roared through the main arch of the General Staff building, barreled past Military Revolutionary Committee pickets al­ready forming around the Winter Palace, and sped southwest ward out of the capital. Huddled in the back seat of the Pierce Arrow were the assistant to the commander of the Petrograd Military District, Kuzmin; two staff officers; and a pale and haggard Kerensky, on his way to begin a desperate hunt for loyal troops from the front, a mission that was to end in abject failure less than a week later.⁶

As Kerensky's entourage streaked by the Mariinsky Palace, the relatively few deputies to the Preparliament assembled there were exchanging news of the latest political developments, awaiting the start of the day's session. Within an hour, a large contingent of armed soldiers and sailors, under Chudnovsky's command, began sealing off adjacent streets and posting guards at all palace entrances and exits. The armored car Oleg_y flying a red flag, clattered up and took a position at the western corner of the palace.

When these preparations were completed, an unidentified Military Rev­olutionary Committee commissar entered the palace, searched out Avksen- tiev, and handed him a directive from the Military Revolutionary Commit­tee ordering that the Mariinsky Palace be cleared without delay. Mean­while, some soldiers and sailors burst into the building, brandishing their rifles, and posted themselves along the palace's grand main staircase. While many of the frightened deputies dashed for their coats and prepared to brave the phalanx of armed soldiers and sailors, Avksentiev had the pres­ence of mind to collect part of the Preparliament steering committee. These deputies hurriedly agreed to formally protest the Military Revolutionary Committee's attack, but to make no attempt to resist it. They also in­structed Avksentiev to reconvene the Preparliament at the earliest practica­ble moment. Before they were permitted to leave the palace, the identity of each of the deputies was carefully checked, but no one was detained. For the time being, the Military Revolutionary Committee forces were appar­ently under instructions to limit arrests to members of the government.⁷

Elsewhere by this time, insurgent ranks had been bolstered by the libera­tion from the Crosses Prison of the remaining Bolsheviks imprisoned there since the July days. A Military Revolutionary Committee commissar sim­ply appeared at the ancient prison on the morning of October 25 with a small detachment of Red Guards and an order for the release of all political prisoners; among others, the Bolsheviks Semion Roshal, Sakharov, Tol- kachev, and Khaustov were immediately set free.⁸ At 2:00 p.m. the forces at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee were increased still further by the arrival of the armada from Kronstadt. One of the more than a thousand sailors crammed on the deck of the Amur, I. Pavlov, subsequently recalled the waters outside Petrograd at midday, October 25:

What did the Gulf of Finland around Kronstadt and Petrograd look like then? This is conveyed well by a song that was popular at the time [sung to the melody of the familiar folk tune Stenka Razin]: "Iz za ostrova Kron- shtadta na prostor reki Nevy, vyplyvaiut mnogo lodok, v nikh sidiat bol'sheviki!" [From the island of Kronstadt toward the River Neva broad, there are many boats a-sailing—they have Bolsheviks on board.] If these words do not describe the Gulf of Finland exactly, it's only because "boats" are mentioned. Substitute contemporary ships and you will have a fully accurate picture of the Gulf of Finland a few hours before the Oc­tober battle.⁹

At the entrance to the harbor canal the Zaria svobody, pulled by the four tugs, dropped anchor; a detachment of sailors swarmed ashore and under­took to occupy the Baltic rail line between Ligovo and Oranienbaum. As the rest of the ships inched through the narrow channel, it occurred to Flerovsky, aboard the Amur, that if the government had had the foresight to lay a couple of mines and emplace even a dozen machine guns behind the parapet of the canal embankment, the carefully laid plans of the Kronstadt- ers would have been wrecked. He heaved a sigh of relief as the motley assortment of ships passed through the canal unhindered and entered the Neva, where they were greeted by enthusiastic cheers from crowds of workers gathered on the banks. Flerovsky himself was in the cabin of the Amur ship's committee below decks, discussing where to cast anchor, when a mighty, jubilant hurrah rent the air. Flerovsky ran up on deck just in time to see the Aurora execute a turn in the middle of the river, angling for a better view of the Winter Palace.¹⁰

As the men on the Aurora and the ships from Kronstadt spotted each other, cheers and shouts of greeting rang out, the round caps of the sailors filled the sky, and the Aurora's band broke into a triumphant march. The

Amur dropped anchor close by the Aurora, while some of the smaller boats continued on as far as the Admiralty. Moments later Antonov-Ovseenko went out to the Amur to give instructions to leaders of the Kronstadt de­tachment. Then, as students and professors at St. Petersburg University gawked from classroom windows on the embankment, the sailors, totaling around three thousand, disembarked, large numbers of them to join the forces preparing to besiege the Winter Palace. A member of this contingent later remembered that upon encountering garrison soldiers, some of the sailors berated them for their cowardliness during the July days. He re­called with satisfaction that the soldiers were now ready to repent their errors.¹¹

Important developments were occurring in the meantime at Smolny. The great main hall there was packed to the rafters with Petrograd Soviet dep­uties and representatives from provincial soviets anxious for news of the latest events when Trotsky opened an emergency session of the Petrograd Soviet at 2:35 p.m.¹² The fundamental transformation in the party's tactics that had occurred during the night became apparent from the outset of this meeting, perhaps the most momentous in the history of the Petrograd Soviet. It will be recalled that less than twenty-four hours earlier, at another session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky had insisted that an armed conflict "today or tomorrow, on the eve of the congress, is not in our plans." Now, stepping up to the speaker's platform, he immediately pro­nounced the Provisional Government's obituary. "On behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee," he shouted, "I declare that the Provisional Government no longer exists!" To a storm of applause and shouts of "Long live the Military Revolutionary Committee!" he announced, in rapid order, that the Preparliament had been dispersed, that individual government ministers had been arrested, and that the rail stations, the post office, the central telegraph, the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, and the state bank had been occupied by forces of the Military Revolutionary Committee. "The Winter Palace has not been taken," he reported, "but its fate will be decided momentarily. ... In the history of the revolutionary movement I know of no other examples in which such huge masses were involved and which developed so bloodlessly. The power of the Provisional Government, headed by Kerensky, was dead and awaited the blow of the broom of his­tory which had to sweep it away. . . . The population slept peacefully and did not know that at this time one power was replaced by another."

In the midst of Trotsky's speech, Lenin appeared in the hall. Catching sight of him, the audience rose to its feet, delivering a thundering ovation. With the greeting, "Long live Comrade Lenin, back with us again," Trotsky turned the platform over to his comrade. Side by side, Lenin and Trotsky acknowledged the cheers of the crowd. "Comrades!" declared Lenin, over the din:

The workers' and peasants' revolution, the necessity of which has been talked about continuously by the Bolsheviks, has occurred. What is the significance of this workers' and peasants' revolution? First of all, the significance of this revolution is that we shall have a soviet government, our own organ of power without the participation of any bourgeois. The oppressed masses will form a government themselves. . . . This is the beginning of a new period in the history of Russia; and the present, third Russian revolution must ultimately lead to the victory of socialism. One of our immediate tasks is the necessity of ending the war at once.

We shall win the confidence of the peasantry by one decree, which will abolish landlord estates. The peasants will understand that their only sal­vation lies in an alliance with the workers. We will institute real workers' control over production.

You have now learned how to work together in harmony, as evidenced by the revolution that has just occurred. We now possess the strength of a mass organization, which will triumph over everything and which will lead the proletariat to world revolution.

In Russia we must now devote ourselves to the construction of a pro­letarian socialist state.

Long live the world socialist revolution.

Lenin's remarks were brief; yet it is perhaps not surprising that on this occasion most of his listeners did not trouble themselves with the question of how a workers' government would survive in backward Russia and a hostile world. After Lenin's remarks, Trotsky proposed that special commis­sars be dispatched to the front and throughout the country at once to in­form the broad masses everywhere of the successful uprising in Petrograd. At this someone shouted, "You are anticipating the will of the Second Con­gress of Soviets," to which Trotsky immediately retorted: "The will of the Second Congress of Soviets has already been predetermined by the fact of the workers' and soldiers' uprising. Now we have only to develop this triumph."

The relatively few Mensheviks in attendance formally absolved them­selves of responsibility for what they called "the tragic consequences of the conspiracy underway" and withdrew from the executive organs of the Pet­rograd Soviet. But most of the audience listened patiently to greetings by Lunacharsky and Zinoviev, the latter, like Lenin, making his first public appearance since July. The deputies shouted enthusiastic approval for a political statement drafted by Lenin and introduced by Volodarsky. Hail­ing the overthrow of the Provisional Government, the statement appealed to workers and soldiers everywhere to support the revolution; it also con­tained an expression of confidence that the Western European proletariat would help bring the cause of socialism to a full and stable victory.¹³ The deputies then dispersed, either to factories and barracks to spread the glad

Barricades near St. Isaac's Cathedral on October 25.

tidings, or, like Sukhanov, to grab a bite to eat before the opening session of the All-Russian Congress.

Dusk was nearing, and the Winter Palace was still not in Bolshevik hands. As early as 1:00 p.m. a detachment of sailors commanded by Ivan Sladkov had occupied the Admiralty, a few steps from the Winter Palace, and arrested the naval high command. At the same time, elements of the Pavlovsky Regiment had occupied the area around the Winter Palace, bounded by Millionnaia, Moshkov, and Bolshaia Koniushennaia streets, and Nevsky Prospect from the Ekaterinsky Canal to the Moika. Pickets, manned with armored cars and anti-aircraft guns, were set up on bridges over the Ekaterinsky Canal and the Moika, and on Morskaia Street. Later in the afternoon, Red Guard detachments from the Petrograd District and the Vyborg side joined the Pavlovsky soldiers, and troops from the Keks- golmsky Regiment occupied the area north of the Moika to the Admiralty, closing the ring of insurrectionary forces around the Palace Square. "The Provisional Government," Dashkevich would subsequently recall, "was as good as in a mousetrap."¹⁴

Noon had been the original deadline for the seizure of the Winter Palace. This was subsequently postponed to 3:00 and then 6:00 p.m., after which, to quote Podvoisky, the Military Revolutionary Committee "no longer bothered to set deadlines."¹⁵ The agreed-upon ultimatum to the govern-

Petrograd during the October days. Baltic sailors helping to unpack artillery shells.

ment was not dispatched; instead, loyalist forces gained time to strengthen their defenses. Thus in the late afternoon, insurgent troops watched impa­tiently while cadets on the Palace Square erected massive barricades and machine gun emplacements of firewood brought from the General Staff building.

By 6:00 p.m. it was dark, drizzly, and cold, and many of the soldiers deployed in the area around the palace hours earlier were growing hungry and restless. Occasionally, one of them would lose patience and open fire at the cadets, only to be rebuked with the stern command, "Comrades, don't shoot without orders." On the Petrograd side, the Bolshevik Military Or­ganization leader Tarasov-Rodionov, for one, was beside himself worrying about what was happening in the center of the city. "I had the urge," he later wrote, "to drop everything—to rush to them [the Military Revolution­ary Committee] to speed up this idiotically prolonged assault on the Winter Palace." During these hours, Lenin sent Podvoisky, Antonov, and Chudnovsky dozens of notes in which he fumed that their procrastination was delaying the opening of the congress and needlessly stimulating anxiety among congress deputies.¹⁶

Antonov implies in his memoirs that unexpected delays in the mobiliza­tion of insurgent soldiers, faulty organization, and other problems of a minor yet troublesome nature were the main reasons it took so long to launch the culminating offensive on the government.¹⁷ In support of this

view, there are indications that, for one reason or another, last-minute snags developed in connection with mobilizing some elements of the Preob- razhensky and Semenovsky regiments for the attack. More important, most of the sailor detachments from Helsingfors that the Military Revolutionary Committee was counting on for its assault did not arrive until late evening or even the following day. (In one case, a trainload of armed sailors was delayed in an open field outside Vyborg for many hours after the locomo­tive had burst its pipes; the Vyborg stationmaster, sympathetic to the gov­ernment, had purposely provided the sailors with the least reliable locomo­tive available.¹⁸)

The Military Revolutionary Committee did indeed encounter a number of minor difficulties which prompted concern at the time, but which in retrospect appear almost comical. When Blagonravov began checking out the cannon at the Peter and Paul Fortress in preparation for shelling the Winter Palace, he found that the six-inch guns on the walls of the fortress facing the palace had not been used or cleaned for months. Artillery officers persuaded him that they were not serviceable. Blagonravov then made sol­diers in the fortress drag heavy three-inch training cannon some distance to where they could be brought into action, only to find that all of these weapons had parts missing or were genuinely defective. He also discovered that shells of the proper caliber were not immediately available. After the loss of considerable time, it was ascertained that making the six-inch guns work was not impossible after all.¹⁹ Even more bizarre, by prior arrange­ment a lighted red lantern hoisted to the top of the fortress flagpole was to signal the start of the final push against the Winter Palace, yet when the moment for action arrived, no red lantern could be found. Recalls Blago­nravov, "After a long search a suitable lamp was located, but then it proved extremely difficult to fix it on the flagpole so it could be seen."²⁰

Podvoisky, in his later writings, tended to attribute continuing delays in mounting an attack on the Winter Palace to the Military Revolutionary Committee's hope, for the most part realized, of avoiding a bloody battle. As Podvoisky later recalled: "Already assured of victory, we awaited the humiliating end of the Provisional Government. We strove to insure that it would surrender in the face of the revolutionary strength which we then enjoyed. We did not open artillery fire, giving our strongest weapon, the class struggle, an opportunity to operate within the walls of the palace."²¹ This consideration appears to have had some validity as well. There was little food for the almost three thousand officers, cadets, cossacks, and women soldiers in the Winter Palace on October 25. In the early afternoon the ubiquitous American journalist John Reed somehow wangled his way into the palace, wandered through one of the rooms where these troops were billeted, and took note of the dismal surroundings: "On both sides of the parqueted floor lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon which occasional soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a litter of cigarette-

Military school cadets in the Winter Palace during the October days.

butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with expensive French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps of the Yunker- schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of tobacco smoke and unwashed humanity. . . . The place was a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks, from the look of the floor and walls."²²

As time passed and promised provisions and reinforcements from the front did not arrive, the government defenders became more and more de­moralized, a circumstance known to the attackers. At 6:15 p.m. a large con­tingent of cadets from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School departed, taking with them four of the six heavy guns in the palace. Around 8:00 p.m. the two hundred cossacks on guard also returned to their barracks.

Representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee participated in at least two attempts to convince other elements defending the government to leave peacefully. In the early evening, a representative of the Oranien- baum cadets persuaded Chudnovsky to accompany him to the palace to help arrange the peaceful withdrawal of his men. The cadets guaranteed Chudnovsky's safe conduct and kept their word. But Petr Palchinsky, an engineer and deputy minister of trade and industry who was helping to direct the defense of the government, insisted that Chudnovsky be arrested. The cadets protested, however, and forced Chudnovsky's release. Dash-

kevich had also slipped into the palace to try to win over some of the cadets; like Chudnovsky, he was detained and then allowed to leave. Partly as a result of the efforts of Chudnovsky and Dashkevich, more than half of the cadets guarding the Winter Palace left there at around 10:00 p.m.²³

Whatever obstacles confronted the Military Revolutionary Committee in its assault on the Winter Palace on October 25 pale by comparison with the difficulties facing members of the Provisional Government, gathered in the grand Malachite Hall on the second floor of the palace. Here Konovalov convened a cabinet session at noon, an hour after Kerensky's hurried depar­ture for the front. Present were all of the ministers except Kerensky and the minister of food supply, a distinguished economist, Sergei Prokopovich, who, having been temporarily detained by an insurgent patrol in the morn­ing, was unable to reach the Winter Palace before it was completely sealed off in the afternoon. Fortunately for the historian, several of the partici­pants in this ill-fated last meeting of Kerensky's cabinet penned detailed rec­ollections of their final hours together; these tortured accounts bear witness to the almost complete isolation of the Provisional Government at this time, and to the ministers' resulting confusion and ever-increasing paralysis of will.²⁴

Konovalov opened the meeting with a report on the political situation in the capital. He informed the ministers of the Military Revolutionary Committee's virtually unhampered success the previous night, of Polkovnikov's shattering early-morning status report, and of Kerensky's de­cision to rush to the front. For the first time, the full impact of the Petro­grad Military District command's utter helplessness in dealing with the in­surrection underway, and indeed of its inability even to furnish personal protection for the ministers, was felt by the cabinet as a whole. Responding to Konovalov's assessment, Admiral Verderevsky, the naval minister, ob­served coldly: "I don't know why this session was called. . . . We have no tangible military force and consequently are incapable of taking any action whatever." ²⁵ He suggested it would have been wiser to have convened a joint session with the Preparliament, an idea that became moot moments later, when news was received of the latter's dispersal. At the start of their deliberations, however, most of the ministers did not fully share Verderevsky's pessimism. Tending, no doubt wishfully, to place most of the blame for the government's plight on Polkovnikov, they agreed to re­place him with a "dictator" who would be given unlimited power to restore order and resolved that the cabinet would remain in continuous session in the Winter Palace for the duration of the emergency.

With periodic interruptions while Konovalov attempted unsuccessfully to bring more cossacks to the Winter Palace grounds, and while other minis­ters received disjointed reports on late-breaking developments and issued frantic appeals for help over the few phones still in operation to contacts elsewhere in the capital and over the direct wire to the front, the cabinet spent the better part of the next two hours engaged in a disorganized, meandering discussion of possible candidates for the post of "dictator." Ul­timately, they displayed their insensitivity to the prevailing popular mood by settling on the minister of welfare, Kishkin. A physician by profession and a Muscovite, Kishkin had no prestige in Petrograd. Worst of all, he was a Kadet. Indeed, the selection of Kishkin was exactly the opposite of the more conciliatory course urged on Kerensky the preceding day by the Preparliament—a blatant provocation to democratic circles and an unex­pected boon to the extreme left.

Kishkin formally assumed his new position as governor-general shortly after 4:00 p.m. After naming as his assistants Palchinsky and Petr Ruten- berg, an assistant to the commander of the Petrograd Military District, he rushed off to military headquarters to direct the struggle against the insur­rection. There Kishkin immediately sacked Polkovnikov, replacing him with the chief of staff, General Bagratuni. As nearly as one can tell, the main effect of this reshuffling of personnel was to increase significantly the chaos reigning at headquarters. For in protest to the treatment accorded Polkovnikov, all of his closest associates, including the quartermaster, Gen­eral Nikolai Paradelov, immediately resigned in a huff. Some of these indi­viduals packed off and went home. Others simply stopped work; from time to time, they could be seen peering out of the windows of the General Staff building at the clusters of insurgent soldiers, sailors, and workers advancing along the banks of the Moika and up Millionnaia Street.²⁶

Meanwhile, in the Winter Palace, the rest of the cabinet occupied itself in preparing an appeal for support to be printed up for mass circulation. At 6:15 p.m. the ministers were informed of the departure of the cadets from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School; fifteen minutes later, they adjourned to Kerensky's third-floor private dining room, where a supper of borshch, fish, and artichokes—and more painful blows—awaited them.

By now, at the Peter and Paul Fortress, Blagonravov, under continual prodding from Smolny, had decided that the final stage of the attack on the government could be delayed no longer, this despite the fact that difficulties with the cannon and the signal lantern had not yet been fully surmounted. At 6:30 p.m. he dispatched two cyclists to the General Staff building, and in twenty minutes they arrived there armed with the following ultimatum:²⁷

By order of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, the Provisional Government is declared overthrown. All power is transferred to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The Winter Palace is surrounded by revolutionary forces. Cannon at the Peter and Paul Fortress and on the ships Aurora and Amur are aimed at the Winter Palace and the General Staff building. In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee we propose that the Provisional Government and the troops loyal to it capitulate. . . . You have twenty minutes to

answer. Your response should be given to our messenger. This ultimatum expires at 7:10, after which we will immediately open fire. . . .

Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov Commissar of the Peter and Paul Fortress G. B.

At the General Staff building when this message was delivered were, among others, Kishkin, General Bagratuni, General Paradelov, and Pal- chinsky and Rutenberg. They persuaded one of the cyclists to return to the fortress with a request for a ten-minute extension. Leaving Paradelov be­hind to receive the government's response by phone and pass it on to the remaining cyclist, Kishkin, Bagratuni, and the others rushed to the Winter Palace to consult with the cabinet.²⁸

Along with the news of the Military Revolutionary Committee's ul­timatum, the ministers also learned that large numbers of previously waver­ing cadets from Oranienbaum and Peterhof now intended to leave the palace. Besides, the original deadline set by Antonov was already close to expiration. The ministers hurried back to the Malachite Hall at once to consider the question of whether or not to surrender. Looking out at the crowded Neva and the Peter and Paul Fortress, one member of the cabinet wondered aloud, "What will happen to the palace if the Aurora opens fire?"

The cruiser Aurora on the Neva the night of October 25.

"It will be turned into a heap of ruins," replied Admiral Verderevsky, ad­ding sanguinely: "Her turrets are higher than the bridges. She can demolish the place without damaging any other building." ²⁹

Still, all the ministers, including Verderevsky, were agreed that surren­der in the prevailing circumstances was unthinkable. They resolved simply to ignore the ultimatum, and Kishkin, Gvozdev, and Konovalov im­mediately rushed off to coax the cadets to remain at their posts. In his diary, Minister of Justice Pavel Maliantovich attempted to explain the cabinet's decision. He suggested that although at this point the ministers had lost hope of holding out until the arrival of outside help, they believed strongly that legally the Provisional Government could hand over its au­thority only to the Constituent Assembly. They felt a solemn obligation to resist until the very last moment so that it would be clear beyond doubt that they had yielded only to absolutely overwhelming force. That moment had not yet come, Maliantovich affirmed, hence the cabinet's decision to give no reply to the Military Revolutionary Committee and to continue resistance.³⁰

Ironically, at precisely the moment that the Military Revolutionary Committee's ultimatum was delivered to General Staff headquarters, Gen­eral Cheremisov, in Pskov, was conferring on the direct wire with General Bagratuni. At the start of the communication, Cheremisov had asked for a report on the condition of the capital. Specifically, he inquired as to the whereabouts of the government, the status of the Winter Palace, whether order was being maintained in the city, and whether or not units dis­patched from the front had reached Petrograd. Bagratuni was answering these questions, as best he could, when he was called away to receive the ultimatum. General Paradelov then got on the Petrograd end of the direct wire and passed on to Cheremisov his misgivings about Kishkin's appoint­ment and behavior, stating quite directly his belief that the Provisional Government was doomed. Cheremisov, in turn, requested Paradelov to call the Winter Palace to obtain more information about the situation there.³¹ Paradelov went off to do this but was interrupted by Bagratuni, just then leaving for the Winter Palace with the ultimatum. Paradelov was instructed to stand by to receive the government's telephoned response. As Paradelov waited for the message from the Winter Palace, insurgent soldiers and work­ers suddenly flooded the building; resistance was impossible.³² Meanwhile, Cheremisov, still at the other end of the direct wire, inquired impatiently, "Where is Paradelov, and will he give me an answer soon?" In response, a military telegrapher barely managed to tap out: "We will find him. . . . The headquarters has been occupied by Military Revolutionary Committee forces. I am quitting work and getting out of here!"³³

Word of the capture of the General Staff building reached General Bag­ratuni and the cabinet in the second-floor office of one of Kerensky's assis­tants, facing the palace courtyard, to which they had moved from the more vulnerable Malachite Hall. Bagratuni responded to the loss of his staff and headquarters by tendering his resignation. Soon after departing the palace, he was pulled from a cab and arrested by an insurgent patrol.

For their part, the ministers now dispatched the following radio-telegram to the Russian people:

To All, All, All!

The Petrograd Soviet has declared the Provisional Government over­thrown, and demands that power be yielded to it under threat of shelling the Winter Palace from cannon in the Peter and Paul Fortress and aboard the cruiser Aurora, anchored on the Neva. The government can yield power only to the Constituent Assembly; because of this we have decided not to surrender and to put ourselves under the protection of the people and the army. In this regard a telegram was sent to Stavka. Stavka an­swered with word that a detachment had been dispatched. Let the country and the people respond to the mad attempt of the Bolsheviks to stimulate an uprising in the rear of the fighting army.³⁴

The ministers also managed to establish telephone contact with the mayor of Petrograd, Shreider, in the City Duma building. They informed him that the Winter Palace was about to be shelled from the Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress, and appealed to him to help mobilize support for the government. The previous day, deeply concerned by the actions of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the City Duma, in which the SRs and Kadets still had a majority, had dispatched a fact-finding mission to Smolny; subsequently, in spite of fierce opposition from its Bolshevik members, the Duma, like the Preparliament, had initiated steps to form a Committee of Public Safety to help maintain order in the city and to protect the popula­tion. Now, upon receipt of the Provisional Government's appeal, Shreider immediately convened the City Duma in emergency session. Announcing at the outset that "in a few minutes the cannon will begin to thunder . . . [and] the Provisional Government of the Russian Republic will perish in the ruins of the Winter Palace," he called upon the Duma to help the gov­ernment by all means possible. Inasmuch as the deputies had no military forces at their disposal, they agreed to dispatch emissaries to the Aurora, to Smolny, and to the Winter Palace immediately in an effort to halt the siege of the Winter Palace and to mediate differences between the government and the Military Revolutionary Committee.³⁵

Meanwhile, at the Peter and Paul Fortress, cannon and signal-lantern difficulties having been overcome at last, Blagonravov and Antonov were preparing to commence the shelling of the Winter Palace. One further delay occurred when they received what turned out to be an erroneous report, evidently sparked by the surrender of General Staff headquarters, that the Winter Palace had capitulated. Blagonravov and Antonov drove across the Neva to check out the rumor themselves. At 9:40 p.m. Blagonravov finally returned to the fortress and signaled the Aurora to open fire. The Aurora responded by firing one blank round from its bow gun. The blast of a cannon shooting blanks is significantly greater than if it were using combat ammunition, and the ear-splitting reverberations of the Aurora's first shot were felt throughout the capital. The blast impelled gawking spectators lined up on the Neva embankments to flop to the ground and crawl away in panic, and it contributed to the further thinning out of military forces in­side the Winter Palace. (Many cadets finally abandoned their posts at this point and were followed shortly afterward by a number of the women sol­diers.) Contrary to legend and to Verderevsky's prediction, the Aurora's shot did no physical damage.

After the Aurora's action the artillerists at the Peter and Paul Fortress allowed time for those forces who wished to do so to leave the palace. During this interim, the officer of the watch on the Amur spotted a string of lights at the mouth of the Neva and sounded the alarm: "Ships approach­ing!" As their silhouettes came into view, old deck hands on the Amur triumphantly identified the arriving vessels as the destroyers Samson and Zabiiaka, accompanied by some of the other ships from Helsingfors.³⁶

At around 11:00 p.m. Blagonravov gave the order to commence shooting in earnest. Most of the shells subsequently fired exploded spectacularly but harmlessly over the Neva, but one shattered a cornice on the palace and another smashed a third-floor corner window, exploding just above the room in which the government was meeting. The blast unnerved the minis­ters and influenced at least a few of them to have second thoughts about the wisdom of further resistance. Meanwhile, from the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress, Tarasov-Rodionov watched the spectacular fireworks, whose tremors momentarily drowned out the sound of the rifle and machine gun fire and the droning of lighted streetcars crawling single file across the Troitsky and Palace bridges, and wondered at the incredibility of it all, of "the workers' soviet overthrowing the bourgeois government while the peaceful life of the city continued uninterrupted."³⁷

To City Duma deputies, it was by this time patently clear that their hopes of interceding between the Military Revolutionary Committee and the embattled ministers in the Winter Palace would not be realized. A Military Revolutionary Committee commissar refused to permit the rep­resentatives of the City Duma to go anywhere near the Aurora. The delega­tion sent to the Winter Palace was halted several times by the besiegers and, in the end, forced to scurry back to the City Duma building after being fired upon from upper-story windows of the Winter Palace. ("The cadets probably didn't see our white flag," a member of the delegation later said.) The City Duma emissaries who went to Smolny, Mayor Shreider among them, fared somewhat better. They managed to have a few minutes with Kamenev, who helped arrange for Molotov to accompany them to the Winter Palace. But this delegation, too, was unable to make it through the narrow strip of no man's land which now separated the tight ring of insur­rectionary forces from the barricades set up by defenders of the government.³⁸

About the time the City Duma was informed of these setbacks it also received a bitter telephone message from Semion Maslov, the minister of agriculture, and a right SR. The call was taken by Naum Bykhovsky, also an SR, who immediately relayed Maslov's words to a hushed Duma. "We here in the Winter Palace have been abandoned and left to ourselves," de­clared Maslov, as quoted by Bykhovsky. "The democracy sent us into the Provisional Government; we didn't want the appointments, but we went. Yet now, when tragedy has struck, when we are being shot, we are not supported by anyone. Of course we will die. But my final words will be: 'Contempt and damnation to the democracy which knew how to appoint us but was unable to defend us!' "³⁹

Bykhovsky at once proposed that the entire Duma march in a body to the Winter Palace "to die along with our representatives." "Let our comrades know," he proclaimed, "that we have not abandoned them, let them know we will die with them." This idea struck a responsive chord with just about everyone, except the Bolsheviks. Reporters present noted that most dep­uties stood and cheered for several minutes. Before the proposal was actu­ally voted upon, the City Duma received a request from a representative of the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasant Soviets that the leadership of the peasant soviets be permitted to "go out and die with the Duma." It also heard from the minister of food supply, Prokopovich, who tearfully pleaded to be allowed to join the procession to the Winter Palace, "so that he could at least share the fate of his comrades." Not to be outdone, Coun­tess Sofia Panina, a prominent Kadet, volunteered "to stand in front of the cannon," adding that "the Bolsheviks can fire at the Provisional Govern­ment over our dead bodies." The start of the march to the Winter Palace was delayed a bit because someone demanded a roll call vote on Bykhovsky's motion. During the roll call, most of the deputies insisted on individually declaring their readiness to "die with the government," before voting "Yes"—whereupon each Bolshevik solemnly proclaimed that he would "go to the Soviet," before registering an emphatic "No!"⁴⁰

While all this was going on, Lenin remained at Smolny, raging at every delay in the seizure of the Winter Palace and still anxious that the All- Russian Congress not get underway until the members of the Provisional Government were securely behind bars. Andrei Bubnov later recorded that "the night of October 25 . . . Ilich hurried with the capture of the Winter Palace, putting extreme pressure on everyone and everybody when there was no news of how⁷ the attack was going."⁴¹ Similarly, Podvoisky later re­membered that Lenin now "paced around a small room at Smolny like a lion in a cage. He needed the Winter Palace at any cost: it remained the last gate on the road to workers' power. V. I. scolded ... he screamed ... he was ready to shoot us." ⁴²

Still, the start of the congress had been scheduled for 2:00 p.m. By late evening, the delegates had been milling around for hours; it was impossible to hold them back much longer, regardless of Lenin's predilections. Finally, at 10:40 p.m., Dan rang the chairman's bell, formally calling the congress into session. "The Central Executive Committee considers our customary opening political address superfluous," he announced at the outset. "Even now, our comrades who are selflessly fulfilling the obligations we placed on them are under fire at the Winter Palace."⁴³

John Reed, who had pushed his way through a clamorous mob at the door of the hall, subsequently described the scene in Smolny's white as­sembly hall as the congress opened:

In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers, packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every windowsill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of the workers and soldiers of all Russia awaited in anxious silence or wild exultation the ringing of the chairman's bell. There was no heat in the hall but the stifling heat of un­washed human bodies. A foul blue cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air. Occasionally someone in authority mounted the tribune and asked the comrades not to smoke; then every­body, smokers and all, took up the cry "Don't smoke, comrades!" and went on smoking. . . .

On the platform sat the leaders of the old Tsay-ee-kah [Central Execu­tive Committee] . . . Dan was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply in­tense, broken by the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door. . . .⁴⁴

According to a preliminary report by the Credentials Committee, 300 of the 670 delegates assembled in Petrograd for the congress were Bolsheviks, 193 were SRs (of whom more than half were Left SRs), 68 were Men­sheviks, 14 were Menshevik-Internationalists, and the remainder either were affiliated with one of a number of smaller political groups or did not belong to any formal organization.⁴⁵ The dramatic rise in support for the Bolsheviks that had occurred in the previous several months was reflected in the fact that the party's fraction was three times greater than it had been at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in June; the Bolsheviks were now far and away the largest single party represented at the congress. Yet it is essential to bear in mind that, despite this success, at the opening of the congress the Bolsheviks did not have an absolute majority without significant help from the Left SRs.

Because delegates, upon arrival at Smolny, were asked to fill out detailed personal questionnaires, we can ascertain not only the political affiliation of most of them, but also the character of each of the 402 local soviets rep­resented at the congress and its official position on the construction of a new national government. Tabulation of these questionnaires reveals the striking fact that an overwhelming number of delegates, some 505 of them, came to Petrograd committed in principle to supporting the transfer of "all power to the soviets," that is, the creation of a soviet government presumably reflective of the party composition of the congress. Eighty-six delegates were loosely bound to vote for "all power to the democracy," meaning a homogeneous democratic government including representatives of peasant soviets, trade unions, cooperatives, etc., while twenty-one delegates were committed to support of a coalition democratic government in which some propertied elements, but not the Kadets, would be represented. Only fifty-five delegates, that is, significantly less than 10 percent, represented constituencies still favoring continuation of the Soviet's former policy of coalition with the Kadets.⁴⁶

As a result of the breakdown in relative voting strength, moments after the congress opened fourteen Bolsheviks took seats in the congress Pre­sidium alongside seven Left SRs (the Mensheviks, allotted three seats in the Presidium, declined to fill them; the Menshevik-Internationalists did not fill the one seat allotted to them but reserved the right to do so). Dan, Lieber, Broido, Gots, Bogdanov, and Vasilii Filipovsky, who had directed the work of the Soviet since March, now vacated the seats at the head of the hall reserved for the top Soviet leadership; amid thunderous applause their places were immediately occupied by Trotsky, Kollontai, Lunacharsky, Nogin, Zinoviev, Kamkov, Maria Spiridonova, Mstislavsky, and other prominent Bolsheviks and Left SRs.⁴⁷

As if punctuating this momentous changeover, an ominous sound was heard in the distance—the deep, pounding boom of exploding cannon. Ris­ing to make an emergency announcement, Martov, in a shrill, trembling voice, demanded that, before anything else, the congress agree to seek a peaceful solution to the existing political crisis; in his view, the only way out of the emergency was first to stop the fighting and then to start negotia­tions for the creation of a united, democratic government acceptable to the entire democracy. With this in mind, he recommended selection of a special delegation to initiate discussions with other political parties and organiza­tions aimed at bringing to an immediate end the clash which had erupted in the streets.

Speaking for the Left SRs, Mstislavsky immediately endorsed Martov's proposal; more significantly, it was also apparently well received by many Bolsheviks. Glancing around the hall, Sukhanov, for one, noted that "Martov's speech was greeted with a tumult of applause from a very large section of the meeting." Observed a Delo naroda reporter, "Martov's appeal was showered with torrents of applause by a majority in the hall." Bearing in mind that most of the congress delegates had mandates to support the creation by the congress of a coalition government of parties represented in the Soviet and since Martov's motion was directed toward that very end, there is no reason to doubt these observations. The published congress pro­ceedings indicate that, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, Lunacharsky responded to Martov's speech with the declaration that "the Bolshevik fraction has absolutely nothing against the proposal made by Martov." The congress documents indicate as well that Martov's proposal was quickly passed by unanimous vote.⁴⁸

No sooner had the congress endorsed the creation of a democratic coali­tion government by negotiation, however, than a succession of speakers, all representatives of the formerly dominant moderate socialist bloc, rose to denounce the Bolsheviks. These speakers declared their intention of im­mediately walking out of the congress as a means of protesting and oppos­ing the actions of the Bolsheviks. The first to express himself in this vein was Iakov Kharash, a Menshevik army officer and delegate from the Twelfth Army Committee. Proclaimed Kharash: "A criminal political venture has been going on behind the back of the АН-Russian Congress, thanks to the political hypocrisy of the Bolshevik Party. The Mensheviks and SRs con­sider it necessary to disassociate themselves from everything that is going on here and to mobilize the public for defense against attempts to seize power." Added Georgii Kuchin, also an officer and prominent Menshevik, speaking for a bloc of moderately inclined delegates from army committees at the front: "The congress was called primarily to discuss the question of forming a new government, and yet what do we see? We find that an ir­responsible seizure of power has already occurred and that the will of the congress has been decided beforehand. . . . We must save the revolu­tion from this mad venture. In the cause of rescuing the revolution we in­tend to mobilize all of the revolutionary elements in the army and the country. . . . [We] reject any responsibility for the consequences of this reckless venture and are withdrawing from this congress."⁴⁹

These blunt statements triggered a storm of protest and cries of "Kornilov- ites!" and "Who in the hell do you represent?" from a large portion of the assembled delegates. Yet after Kamenev restored a semblance of order, Lev Khinchuk, from the Moscow Soviet, and Mikhail Gendelman, a lawyer and member of the SR Central Committee, read similarly bitter and mili- tantly hostile declarations on behalf of the Mensheviks and SRs respectively. "The only possible peaceful solution to the present crisis continues to lie in negotiations with the Provisional Government on the formation of a gov­ernment representing all elements of the democracy," Khinchuk insisted. At this, according to Sukhanov "a terrible din filled the hall; it was not only the Bolsheviks who were indignant, and for a long time the speaker wasn't allowed to continue." "We leave the present congress," Khinchuk finally shouted, "and invite all other fractions similarly unwilling to accept responsibility for the actions of the Bolsheviks to assemble together to dis­cuss the situation." "Deserters," came shouts from the hall. Echoed Gen- delman: "Anticipating that an outburst of popular indignation will follow the inevitable discovery of the bankruptcy of Bolshevik promises . . . the Socialist Revolutionary fraction is calling upon the revolutionary forces of the country to organize themselves and to stand guard over the revolution. . . . Taking cognizance of the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks . . . , holding them fully responsible for the consequences of this insane and crim­inal action, and consequently finding it impossible to collaborate with them, the Socialist Revolutionary fraction is leaving the congress!"⁵⁰

Tempers in the hall now skyrocketed; there erupted a fierce squall of foot- stamping, whistling, and cursing. In response to the uprising now openly proclaimed by the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Mensheviks and SRs had moved rightward, and the gulf separating them from the extreme left had suddenly grown wider than ever. When one recalls that less than twenty-four hours earlier the Menshevik and SR congress fractions, uniting broad segments of both parties, appeared on the verge of at long last break­ing with the bourgeois parties and endorsing the creation of a homogeneous socialist government pledged to a program of peace and reform, the pro­found impact of the events of October 24—25 becomes clear. One can cer­tainly understand why the Mensheviks and SRs reacted as they did. At the same time, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that by totally repudiating the actions of the Bolsheviks and of the workers and soldiers who willingly followed them, and, even more, by pulling out of the congress, the moder­ate socialists undercut efforts at compromise by the Menshevik- Internationalists, the Left SRs, and the Bolshevik moderates. In so doing, they played directly into Lenin's hands, abruptly paving the way for the creation of a government which had never been publicly broached before —that is, an exclusively Bolshevik regime. In his memoir-history of the revolution, Sukhanov acknowledged the potentially immense historical significance of the Menshevik-SR walkout. He wrote that in leaving the congress "we completely untied the Bolsheviks' hands, making them mas­ters of the entire situation and yielding to them the whole arena of the revolution. A struggle at the congress for a united democratic front might have had some success. ... By quitting the congress, we ourselves gave the Bolsheviks a monopoly of the Soviet, of the masses, and of the revolu­tion. By our own irrational decision, we ensured the victory of Lenin's whole line'!"⁵¹

All this is doubtless more apparent in retrospect than it was at the time. At any rate, following the declarations of Kharash, Kuchin, Khinchuk, and Gendelman, several radically inclined soldier-delegates took the floor to as­sert that the views of Kharash and Kuchin in no way represented the think­ing of the average soldier. "Let them go—the army is not with them," burst out a young, lean-faced soldier named Karl Peterson, representing the Lat­vian Rifle Regiment; his observation would soon be only too evident to all. At this the hall rocked with wild cheering. "Kuchin refers to the mobiliza­tion of forces," shouted Frants Gzhelshchak, a Bolshevik soldier from the Second Army at the front, as soon as he could make himself heard. "Against whom—against the workers and soldiers who have come out to defend the revolution?" he asked. "Whom will he organize? Clearly not the workers and soldiers against whom he himself is determined to wage war." Declared Fedor Lukianov, a soldier from the Third Army, also a Bolshevik, "The thinking of Kuchin is that of the top army organizations which we elected way back in April and which have long since failed to reflect the views and mood of the broad masses of the army."⁵²

At this point Genrikh Erlikh, a representative of the Bund (the Jewish social democratic organization), interrupted to inform the congress of the decision of a majority of City Duma deputies, taken moments earlier, to march en masse to the Winter Palace. Erlikh added that the Menshevik and SR fractions in the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviet of Peas­ant Deputies had decided to join the Duma deputies in protesting the appli­cation of violence against the Provisional Government, and invited all con­gress delegates "who did not wish a bloodbath" to participate in the march. It was at this point that the Mensheviks, SRs, Bundists, and members of the "front group"—deluged by shouts of "Deserters!" "Lackeys of the bourgeoisie!" and "Good riddance!"—rose from their places and made their way out of the hall.

Soon after the departure of the main bloc of Mensheviks and SRs, Mar- tov, still intent most of all on facilitating a peaceful compromise between the moderate socialists and the radical left, took the floor to present a reso­lution on behalf of the Menshevik-Internationalists. His resolution con­demned the Bolsheviks for organizing a coup d'etat before the opening of the congress and called for creation of a broadly based democratic govern­ment to replace the Provisional Government. It read in part:

Taking into consideration that this coup d'etat threatens to bring about bloodshed, civil war, and the triumph of a counterrevolution . . . [and] that the only way out of this situation which could still prevent the de­velopment of a civil war might be an agreement between insurgent ele­ments and the rest of the democratic organizations on the formation of a democratic government which is recognized by the entire revolutionary democracy and to which the Provisional Government could painlessly sur­render its power, the Menshevik [Internationalist] fraction proposes that the congress pass a resolution on the necessity of a peaceful settlement of the present crisis by the formation of an all-democratic government . . . that the congress appoint a delegation for the purpose of entering into negotiations with other democratic organs and all the socialist parties . . . [and] that it discontinue its work pending the disclosure of the results of this delegation's efforts.⁵³

It is easy to see that from Lenin's point of view, passage of Martov's resolution would have been a disaster; on the other hand, the departure of the moderates offered an opportunity which could now be exploited to con­solidate the break with them. Not long after Martov resumed his seat, con­gress delegates rose and cheered the surprise appearance of the Bolshevik City Duma fraction, members of which, pushing their way into the crowded hall, announced that they had come "to triumph or die with the All-Russian Congress!" Then Trotsky, universally recognized as the Bol­sheviks' most forceful orator, took the platform to declare:

A rising of the masses of the people requires no justification. What has happened is an insurrection, and not a conspiracy. We hardened the rev­olutionary energy of the Petersburg workers and soldiers. We openly forged the will of the masses for an insurrection, and not a conspiracy. The masses of the people followed our banner and our insurrection was victorious. And now we are told: Renounce your victory, make conces­sions, compromise. With whom? I ask: With whom ought we to com­promise? With those wretched groups who have left us or who are making this proposal? But after all we've had a full view of them. No one in Russia is with them any longer. A compromise is supposed to be made, as be­tween two equal sides, by the millions of workers and peasants represented in this congress, whom they are ready, not for the first time or the last, to barter away as the bourgeoisie sees fit. No, here no compromise is possi­ble. To those who have left and to those who tell us to do this we must say: You are miserable bankrupts, your role is played out; go where you ought to go: into the dustbin of history!

Amid stormy applause, Martov shouted in warning, "Then we'll leave!" And Trotsky, without a pause, read a resolution condemning the departure of Menshevik and SR delegates from the congress as "a weak and treacher­ous attempt to break up the legally constituted all-Russian representative assembly of the worker and soldier masses at precisely the moment when their avant-garde, with arms in hand, is defending the congress and the revolution from the onslaught of the counterrevolution." The resolution en­dorsed the insurrection against the Provisional Government and concluded: "The departure of the compromisers does not weaken the soviets. Inasmuch as it purges the worker and peasant revolution of counterrevolutionary influences, it strengthens them. Having listened to the declarations of the SRs and Mensheviks, the Second All-Russian Congress continues its work, the tasks of which have been predetermined by the will of the laboring people and their insurrection of October 24 and 25. Down with the com­promisers! Down with the servants of the bourgeoisie! Long live the trium­phant uprising of soldiers, workers, and peasants!"⁵⁴

This bitter denunciation of the Mensheviks and SRs and blanket en­dorsement of the armed insurrection in Petrograd w as, of course, as difficult for the Left SRs, left Mensheviks, and Bolshevik moderates to swallow as Martov's resolution was for the Leninists. Kamkov, in a report to the First

Left SR Congress in November, when these events were still very fresh in mind, attempted to explain the thinking of the Left SRs at this moment, when the gulf dividing Russian socialists widened, when in spite of Left SR efforts the Military Revolutionary Committee had been transformed into an insurrectionary organ and had overthrown the Provisional Government, and when the moderate socialists had repudiated and moved to combat this development:

As political leaders in a moment of decisive historical significance for the fate of not only the Russian but also the world revolution, we, least of all, could occupy ourselves with moralizing. As people concerned with the defense of the revolution we had first of all to ask ourselves what we should do today, when the uprising was a reality . . . and for us it was clear that for a revolutionary party in that phase of the Russian revolution that had developed . . . our place was with the revolution. . . . We decided not only to stay at Smolny but to play the most energetic role possible. . . . We believed we should direct all of our energies toward the creation of a new government, one which would be supported, if not by the entire revolutionary democracy, then at least by a majority of it. Despite the hostility engendered by the insurrection in Petrograd . . . knowing that included within the right was a large mass of honest rev­olutionaries who simply misunderstood the Russian revolution, we be­lieved our task to be that of not contributing to exacerbating relations within the democracy. . . . We saw our task, the task of the Left SRs, as that of mending the broken links uniting the two fronts of the Russian democracy. . . . We were convinced that they [the moderates] would with some delay accept that platform which is not the platform of any one frac­tion or party, but the program of history, and that they would ultimately take part in the creation of a new government.⁵⁵

At the Second Congress of Soviets session the night of October 25—26, loud cheers erupted when Kamkov, following Trotsky to the platform, made the ringing declaration: "The right SRs left the congress but we, the Left SRs, have stayed." After the applause subsided, however, tactfully but forcefully, Kamkov spoke out against Trotsky's course, arguing that the step Trotsky proposed was untimely "because counterrevolutionary efforts are continuing." He added that the Bolsheviks did not have the support of the peasantry, "the infantry of the revolution without which the revolution would be destroyed."⁵⁶ With this in mind, he insisted that "the left ought not isolate itself from moderate democratic elements, but, to the contrary, should seek agreement with them."

It is perhaps not without significance that the more temperate Lunacharsky, rather than Trotsky, rose to answer Kamkov:

Heavy tasks have fallen on us, of that there is no doubt. For the effective fulfillment of these tasks the unity of all the various genuinely revolutionary elements of the democracy is necessary. Kamkov's criticism of us is un­founded. If starting this session we had initiated any steps whatever to reject or remove other elements, then Kamkov would be right. But all of us unanimously accepted Martov's proposal to discuss peaceful ways of solving the crisis. And we were deluged by a hail of declarations. A sys­tematic attack was conducted against us. . . . Without hearing us out, not even bothering to discuss their own proposal, they [the Mensheviks and SRs] immediately sought to fence themselves off from us. . . . In our resolution we simply wanted to say, precisely, honestly, and openly, that despite their treachery we will continue our efforts, we will lead the pro­letariat and the army to struggle and victory.⁵⁷

The quarrel over the fundamentally differing views of Martov and Trotsky dragged on into the night. Finally, a representative of the Left SRs demanded a break for fractional discussions, threatening an immediate Left SR walkout if a recess were not called. The question was put to a vote and passed at 2:40 a.m., Kamenev warning that the congress would resume its deliberations in half an hour.⁵⁸

By this time, the march of City Duma deputies to the Winter Palace had ended in a soggy fiasco. At around midnight Duma deputies, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, and deputies from the congress who had just walked out of Smolny (together numbering close to three hundred people), assembled outside the Duma building, on Nevsky Prospect, where a cold rain had now begun to fall. Led by Shreider and Prokopovich (the latter carrying an umbrella in one hand and a lantern in the other), marching four abreast and singing the "Marseillaise," armed only with packages of bread and sausages "for the ministers," the motley procession set out in the direction of the Admiralty. At the Kazan Square, less than a block away, the delegation was halted by a detachment of sailors and dissuaded from attempting to proceed further. John Reed, who was standing by, described the scene:

. . . Just at the corner of the Ekaterina Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column of fours. There were about three or four hundred of them, men in frock coats, well-dressed women, officers . . . and at the head white-bearded old Shreider, mayor of Petrograd, and Pro­kopovich, minister of supplies in the Provisional Government, arrested that morning and released. I caught sight of Malkin, reporter for the Rus­sian Daily News. "Going to die in the Winter Palace," he shouted cheer­fully. The procession stood still, but from the front of it came loud argu­ment. Shreider and Prokopovich were bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command. "We demand to pass!" . . . "We can't let you pass" [the sailor responded]. . . . Another sailor came up, very much irritated.

"We will spank you!" he cried, energetically. "And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go home now, and leave us in peace!"

At this there was a great clamor of anger and resentment, Prokopovich had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella, he made a speech:

"Comrades and citizens!" he said. "Force is being used against us! We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant men! . . . Let us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the country and the Revolution!"

Whereupon, in dignified silence the procession marched around and back up the Nevsky, always in column of fours.⁵⁹

It was now well after midnight, and the situation of the cabinet in the Winter Palace was growing more desperate by the minute. The steady dwindling of loyalist forces had by this time left portions of the east wing almost completely unprotected. Through windows in this section of the building, insurgents, in increasing numbers, were able to infiltrate the palace. In their second-floor meeting-room, many of the ministers now slouched spiritlessly in easy chairs or, like Maliantovich, stretched out on divans, awaiting the end. Konovalov, smoking one cigarette after another, nervously paced the room, disappearing next door from time to time to use the one phone still in service. The ministers could hear shouts, muffled ex­plosions, and rifle and machine gun fire as the officers and cadets who had remained loyal to them fought futilely to fend off revolutionary forces. Their moments of greatest apprehension occurred when the artillery shell from the Peter and Paul Fortress burst in the room above and, somewhat later, when two grenades thrown by infiltrating sailors from an upper gallery exploded in a downstairs hall. Two cadets injured in the latter inci­dent were carried to Kishkin for first aid.

Every so often Palchinsky popped in to try to calm the ministers, each time assuring them that the insurgents worming their way into the palace were being apprehended, and that the situation was still under control. Maliantovich recorded one of these moments: "Around one o'clock at night, or perhaps it was later, we learned that the procession from the Duma had set out. We let the guard know. . . . Again noise. ... By this time we were accustomed to it. Most probably the Bolsheviks had broken into the palace once more, and, of course, had again been disarmed. . . . Pal­chinsky walked in. Of course, this was the case. Again they had let themselves be disarmed without resistance. Again, there were many of them. . . . How many of them are in the palace? Who is actually holding the palace now: we or the Bolsheviks?"⁶⁰

Contrary to most accounts written in the Soviet Union, the Winter Palace was not captured by storm. Antonov himself subsequently re­counted that by late evening "the attack on the palace had a completely disorganized character. . . . Finally, when we were able to ascertain that not many cadets remained, Chudnovsky and I led the attackers into the palace. By the time we entered, the cadets were offering no resistance."⁶¹ This must have occurred at close to 2:00 a.m., for at that time Konovalov phoned Mayor Shreider to report: "The Military Revolutionary Committee has burst in. . . . All we have is a small force of cadets. . . . Our arrest is imminent." Moments later, when Shreider called the Winter Palace back, a gruff voice replied: "What do you want? From where are you calling?"—to which Shreider responded, "I am calling from the city administration; what is going on there?" "I am the sentry," answered the unfamiliar voice at the other end of the phone. "There is nothing going on here."⁶²

In the intervening moments, the sounds outside the room occupied by the Provisional Government had suddenly become more ominous. "A noise flared up and began to rise, spread, and draw nearer," recalled Malian- tovich. "Its varying sounds merged into one wave and at once something unusual, unlike the previous noises, resounded, something final. It was clear instantly that this was the end. . . . Those sitting or lying down jumped up and grabbed their overcoats. The tumult rose swiftly and its wave rolled up to us. . . . All this happened within a few minutes. From the entrance to the room of our guard came the shrill, excited shouts of a mass of voices, some single shots, the trampling of feet, thuds, shuffling, merging into one chaos of sounds and ever-mounting alarm."⁶³

Maliantovich adds that even then the small group of cadets outside the room where the ministers sat seemed ready to continue resistance; however, it was now apparent to everyone that "defense was useless and sacrifices aimless"—that the moment for surrender had finally arrived. Kishkin or­dered the commander of the guard to announce the government's readiness to yield. Then the ministers sat down around the table and watched numbly as the door was flung open and, as Maliantovich described it, "a little man flew into the room, like a chip tossed by a wave, under the pressure of the mob which poured in and spread at once, like water, filling all corners of the room." The little man was Antonov. "The Provisional Government is here—what do you want?" Konovalov asked. "You are all under arrest," Antonov replied, as Chudnovsky began taking down the names of the officials present and preparing a formal protocol. The realization that Kerensky, the prize they sought most of all, was not in the room, drove many of the attackers into a frenzy. "Bayonet all the sons of bitches on the spot!" someone yelled. Maliantovich records that it was Antonov who somehow managed to prevent the cabinet from being lynched, insisting firmly that "the members of the Provisional Government are under arrest. They will be confined to the Peter and Paul Fortress. I will not allow any violence against them."⁶⁴

The ministers were accompanied from the Winter Palace and through the Palace Square by a selected convoy of armed sailors and Red Guards and a swearing, mocking, fist-shaking mob. Because no cars were available, they were forced to travel to their place of detention on foot. As the procession neared the Troitsky Bridge, the crowd surrounding the ministers once again became ugly, demanding that they be beheaded and thrown into the Neva. This time, the members of the government were saved by the appar­ently random firing of a machine gun from an approaching car. At the sounds of the shots, machine gunners at the Peter and Paul Fortress, believ­ing themselves under attack, also opened fire. Ministers, escorts, and on­lookers scattered for cover. In the ensuing confusion, the prisoners were rushed across the bridge to the safety of the fortress.⁶⁵

The ministers were led into a small garrison club-room, lighted only by a smoky kerosene lamp. At the front of the room they found Antonov, seated at a small table, completing the protocol which Chudnovsky had begun preparing at the Winter Palace. Antonov read the document aloud, calling the roll of arrested officials and inviting each to sign it. Thereupon, the ministers were led to dank cells in the ancient Trubetskoi Bastion not far from where former tsarist officials had been incarcerated since February. Along the way Konovalov suddenly realized he was without cigarettes. Gingerly, he asked the sailor accompanying him for one and was relieved when the sailor not only offered him shag and paper but, seeing his confu­sion about what to do with them, rolled him a smoke.⁶⁶ Just before the door of his cell banged shut, Nikitin found in his pocket a half-forgotten tele­gram from the Ukrainian Rada to the Ministry of Interior. Handing it to Antonov, he observed matter of factly: "I received this yesterday—now it's your problem."⁶⁷

At Smolny, meanwhile, the Congress of Soviets session had by now re­sumed. Ironically, it fell to Kamenev, who had fought tooth and nail against an insurrection for a month and a half, to announce the Provisional Government's demise. "The leaders of the counterrevolution ensconced in the Winter Palace have been seized by the revolutionary garrison," he barely managed to declare before complete pandemonium broke out in the hall. Kamenev went on to read the roll of former officials now incarcerated—at the mention of Tereshchenko, a name synonymous with the continuation of the hated war, the delegates erupted in wild shouts and applause once more.

As if to assure the congress that there was no immediate threat to the revolution, Kamenev also announced that the Third Cycle Battalion, called to Petrograd from the front by Kerensky, had come over to the side of the revolution. Shortly after this encouraging news, the Military Revolutionary Committee's commissar from the garrison at Tsarskoe Selo rushed forward to declare that troops located there had pledged to protect the approaches to Petrograd. "Learning of the approach of the cyclists from the front," he reported, "we prepared to rebuff them, but our concern proved unfounded since it turned out that among the comrade cyclists there were no enemies of the All-Russian Congress [the protocols record that this comment trig­gered another extended burst of enthusiastic applause]. When we sent our commissars to them it became clear that they also wanted the transfer of all power to the soviets, the immediate transfer of land to the peasants, and the institution of workers' control over industry."⁶⁸

No sooner had the commissars from the Tsarskoe Selo garrison finished speaking than a representative of the Third Cycle Battalion itself demanded to be heard. He explained the attitude of his unit in these terms:

Until just recently, we served on the southwestern front. But a few days ago, upon receipt of orders by telephonogram, we were moved northward. In the telephonogram it was indicated that we were being moved to defend Petrograd, but from whom—this was not known to us. We were marching on the people blindfolded; we didn't know where we were being sent but we generally guessed what was up. Along the way we were bothered by the questions: Where? Why? At the station of Peredolsk we held a short meeting in association with the Fifth Cycle Battalion in order to clarify the situation. At this meeting it turned out that among all of the cyclists there could not be found one person who would agree to act against brothers and spill their blood. And we decided that we would not obey the Provisional Government. They, we said, are people who do not want to defend our interests but send us against our brothers. I declare to you concretely: No, we will not give power to a government at the head of which stand bourgeois and landowners!

A bit later, the unwillingness of front soldiers to defend the Provisional Government was further confirmed by Krylenko, who informed the con­gress of late reports from the northern front. A Military Revolutionary Committee had been formed there to counter attempts to send military forces supporting the old government to the capital. Krylenko also an­nounced that General Cheremisov had already recognized the authority of this committee; that Kerensky's commissar on the northern front, Woytinsky, had resigned; and that, one after the other, delegations from those units already in transit to the capital were reporting to the Military Revolutionary Committee to announce their solidarity with the Petrograd garrison.⁶⁹

Apparently at this point at least a portion of the Menshevik- Internationalist fraction reentered the hall, and its spokesman, Kapelinsky, tried to turn the delegates' attention to Martov's idea of recessing the con­gress while a delegation was sent to sound out all socialist organizations about the creation of a representative democratic government. Before long, many of the delegates who now either ignored or booed Kapelinsky would regain interest in seeking an accommodation with moderate groups. But for the moment, in their initial ecstasy over the apparently painless triumph over the Kerensky regime, they were in no mood to do so. For the Bol­sheviks, Kamenev summarily dismissed Kapelinsky's plea with the claim that the moderate socialists had only themselves to blame for the fact that Martov's proposal to search for peaceful ways of dealing with the crisis had not been implemented. At the same time, he proposed that Trotsky's reso­lution condemning the Mensheviks and SRs be tabled, thus leaving the door partly open for the resumption of relations with them.

As the Menshevik-Internationalists again walked out of the hall, Lunacharsky rose to present, for the congress' immediate adoption, a man­ifesto written by Lenin "To All Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants," endors­ing the Petrograd uprising; decreeing the transfer of supreme political au­thority into the hands of the congress and of local soviets everywhere in Russia; and, in the most general terms, outlining the immediate plan of the new⁷ soviet regime. This historic proclamation, ultimately the source of Soviet political authority, read:

To All Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants:

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the soviets, in­cluding a number of deputies of peasant soviets. The prerogatives of the Central Executive Committee of the compromisers are ended.

Supported by an overwhelming majority of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, and basing itself on the victorious insurrection of the workers and the garrison of Petrograd, the congress hereby resolves to take gov­ernmental power into its own hands.

The Provisional Government is deposed and most of its members are under arrest.

The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasant committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratization of the army; it will establish work­ers' control over industry; it will insure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination.

The congress resolves that all local authority shall be transferred to the soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies, which are charged with the task of enforcing revolutionary order.

The congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful and steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is confident that the revolutionary army will know how to defend the revolution against all imperialistic attempts until the new government has concluded a democratic peace which it is proposing directly to all nations.

The new government will take every measure to provide the revolution­ary army with all necessities, by means of a determined policy of requisi­tion from and taxation of the propertied classes. Care will be taken to improve the position of the soldiers' families.

The Kornilovites—Kerensky, Kaledin, and others—are endeavoring to lead troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by Kerensky, have already joined the insurgents.

Soldiers! Resist Kerensky, who is a Kornilovite! Be on guard!

Railwaymen! Stop all echelons sent by Kerensky against Petrograd!

Soldiers, Workers, Employees! The fate of the revolution and demo­cratic peace is in your hands!

Long live the Revolution!

The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies Delegates from the Peasants' Soviets⁷⁰

The reading of this historic manifesto was interrupted again and again by thundering waves of delirious cheers. After Lunacharsky had finished and a semblance of order was restored, Kamkov announced that, with a minor change, the Left SRs would support its adoption. The change was im­mediately accepted. A spokesman for the tiny Menshevik-United Inter­nationalist fraction declared that if the proclamation would be amended to provide for the immediate organization of a government based on the broadest possible elements of the population, he would vote for it as well; however, when this suggestion was ignored, he announced that his follow­ers would abstain. Finally, at 5:00 a.m., October 26, the manifesto legitimizing the creation of a revolutionary government was voted on and passed by an overwhelming margin, only two deputies voting against and twelve abstaining. A misty gray dawn, typical of Petrograd in late fall, was breaking as congress delegates drifted slowly out of Smolny. Upstairs, ex­hausted Military Revolutionary Committee leaders stretched out on the floor of their crowded command post to catch some sleep, many of them for the first time in several days. Lenin had gone off to the nearby apartment of Bonch-Bruevich to rest and draft a decree on land reform for adoption at the next session of the congress. The Bolsheviks had come to power in Petrograd, and a new era in the history of Russia and of the world had begun.

16

EPILOGUE

ZAbout 9:00 p.m., October 25, a few hours before the capture of the JL VWinter Palace by the Military Revolutionary Committee, Kerensky reached northern front headquarters in Pskov, 175 miles southwest of Pet­rograd. Earlier, the Pskov Soviet had passed a resolution forbidding the dispatch of front detachments to Petrograd to defend the Provisional Gov­ernment; as Krylenko soon reported to jubilant deputies at the Second Con­gress of Soviets, a military revolutionary committee formed by the Pskov Soviet assumed control of local communications and transportation facilities and began monitoring the actions of the military high command. General Cheremisov, commander of the northern front, recognizing the futility of opposing the troops in the prevailing circumstances and cognizant of the Provisional Government's hopeless position, now revoked earlier directives authorizing the shipment of reinforcements from the front to Petrograd. He further ordered that troops already en route to the capital be halted. When Kerensky arrived, Cheremisov warned that he could not guarantee the prime minister's personal safety and urged him to leave Pskov at once.¹

Later that night, Kerensky, still in Pskov, met with General Petr Kras- nov, the late General Krymov's replacement as commander of the Third Corps, the sizable military force that had been moved toward Petrograd and slated for occupation duty there by General Kornilov in late August. Kras- nov, an archreactionary in politics, disapproved of Cheremisov's decision to halt the transfer of front soldiers to Petrograd and was receptive to an at­tempt to mobilize his own cossacks for the pacification of the capital. At this time, however, Third Corps personnel were scattered over hundreds of miles and, by and large, were no more prone to support the Provisional Government than were most other troops on the northern front. Hence the force that Krasnov was able to muster on Kerensky's behalf was meager, consisting of twelve and a half seventy-man cossack squadrons, some light artillery, an armored train, and one armored car. On the morning of Oc­tober 27 these units occupied Gatchina, where Kerensky established a headquarters; the troops then paused briefly in the vain hope of acquiring reinforcements and began preparations to launch an early assault on the capital.²

In Petrograd, meanwhile, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets had approved Lenin's decrees on peace and land. The peace decree prom­ised an end to secret diplomacy and proposed immediate negotiations to secure a democratic peace "without annexations and without indemnities." The land decree, borrowed in its essentials from the popular agrarian pro­gram of the Left SRs, abolished private property in land and provided for the transfer of all private and church lands to land committees and soviets of peasants' deputies for distribution to the peasantry according to need. Prior to dispersing on the early morning of October 27, the deputies had also elected a new Central Executive Committee, to be chaired by Kamenev and consisting of sixty-two Bolsheviks, twenty-nine Left SRs, six Menshevik- Internationalists, and four representatives of minor leftist groups. The con­gress also endorsed the appointment of a provisional revolutionary govern­ment. Members of this new, at first exclusively Bolshevik, administration,³ formally named the Council (Soviet) of People's Commissars, were Lenin, chairman; Trotsky, foreign affairs; Rykov, internal affairs; Miliutin, ag­riculture; Shliapnikov, labor; Nogin, industry and commerce; Lunacharsky, education; Antonov-Ovseenko, Krylenko, and Dybenko, army and navy; Lomov, justice; Ivan Skvortsov, finance; Ivan Teodorovich, food supply; Nikolai Avilov, post and telegraph; and Stalin, nationalities. Among the new commissars' first acts was an announcement that elections to the Con­stituent Assembly would be held on schedule on November 12.⁴

Initially fierce resistance to the Bolshevik regime coalesced around the so-called All-Russian Committee for the Salvation of the Country and the Revolution organized on October 26, primarily by Mensheviks and SRs in the Petrograd City Duma. This committee included representatives of the City Duma, the Presidium of the Preparliament, the old Central Executive Committee, the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasant Soviets, the Menshevik and SR delegations that had left the Second Congress of Soviets; the railroad and postal and telegraph workers' unions, Tsentroflot, and the Menshevik and SR Central Committees. In the first days after the Bol­sheviks came to power, the Committee for Salvation called on government employees and citizens generally to refrain from recognizing or obeying the Council of People's Commissars, claiming for itself the right to reconstitute a Provisional Government.

Leaders of the Committee for Salvation also drew up plans to coordinate an uprising in Petrograd with the entry into the capital of Krasnov's cos­sacks, expected momentarily. But their intentions became known to the Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of October 28, before Krasnov was ready to attack. Consequently, the Committee for Salvation was forced to initiate open military action against the Bolsheviks the next

The First Council of People's Commissars. Center: V. I. Lenin. Top row, left to right: I. V. Stalin, V. P. Miliutin, A. I. Rykov, A. G. Shliapnikov, N. P. Avilov. Second row: V. P. Nogin, A. V. Lunacharsky. Third row: I. I. Skvortsov, L. D. Trotsky. Fourth row: G. Lomov, I. A. Teodorovich. Fifth row: N. V. Krylenko, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, P. E. Dybenko.

morning. Cadets from military schools in the capital seized the Petrograd telephone station, the Hotel Astoria, and the state bank. They then pre­pared to oust the Bolsheviks from Smolny. Among military personnel in Petrograd, however, only cadets joined the insurrection, and they were no match for the forces quickly mustered by the Military Revolutionary Committee. The points captured early on October 29 by the cadets were easily regained. The military schools involved in the insurrection were quickly isolated, blockaded, and, in one case, bombarded with artillery fire. Before nightfall, all the military schools had capitulated and the premature revolt had been effectively suppressed.⁵

Also actively opposed to retention of the exclusively Bolshevik govern­ment formed on the night of October 26-27 was the moderate-socialist- dominated All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railway Workers (Vikzhel). Vikzhel now sought to act as an intermediary between the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Committee for Salvation, and to further the creation of a homogeneous socialist government includ­ing representatives of all socialist groups, from the People's Socialists on the right to the Bolsheviks on the extreme left. In pursuit of this ob­jective, Vikzhel called a conference of socialist parties for October 29, threatening a nationwide rail walkout at midnight on October 29 if its ef­forts to obtain a ceasefire between the warring sides and to initiate negotia­tions regarding formation of a broader government were unsuccessful.⁶ The threat of a railway strike was ominous; by interrupting communica­tions between Petrograd and the rest of the country and by withhold­ing food from the capital, Vikzhel could create an untenable situation for the new government. Partly for this reason, the Bolsheviks agreed to participate in the Vikzhel-sponsored conference, which began on schedule the evening of October 2 9.⁷