Revolutionary Democracy’

chapter 12 The October Revolution and the End of ‘Revolutionary Democracy’

Formally, the insurrection began on the morning of 23 October in response to repressive measures taken by the Provisional Government against the Petro- grad Soviet and the Bolshevik Party.The immediate reason for the government’s action was an order of the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petro- grad Soviet placing the city’s garrison under its command. On the night of 23– 4 October, the government shut down the Bolshevik newspapers Rabochii put’ and Soldat for inciting insurrection. It ordered the arrest of Bolsheviks involved in anti-government agitation and opened criminal proceedings against the Mil- itary Revolutionary Committee. At the same time, Kerenskii summoned troops from outside the capital (since the garrison was fully under Bolshevik influ- ence), posted Junkers (officer cadets) at strategic points, ordered the bridges linking the centre to the working-class districts raised, and sent the destroyer Aurora, docked for repairs at the Franko-Russkii shipbuilding factory, out to sea, supposedly on a training exercise. Telephone lines to Smol’nyi, seat of the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolsheviks’ Central Committee, were cut. The Military Revolutionary Committee, acting in the name of the Petro- grad Soviet, immediately went into action, beginning with the reopening of the newspapers that had been closed. By the afternoon of 25 October, the entire capital, with the exception of the Winter Palace, seat of the Provisional Gov- ernment, was in its hands. At 2.35p.m., Lenin made his first public appearance since the July Days, addressing the plenary session of the Petrograd Soviet.

Comrades! The workers’ and peasants’ revolution, about whose necessity the Bolsheviks have spoken all the time, has taken place …

We will have a Soviet government, our own organ of power, without any participation whatsoever of the bourgeoisie …

The third Russian revolution must in its final analysis bring the victory of socialism …

To end this war, closely linked with the present capitalist system, it is clear to everyone that we must overcome capital itself. In that cause, we

will have the help of the worldwide workers’ movement, which is already beginning to develop in Italy, England and Germany …

We must immediately publish all the secret treaties …

We will gain the confidence of the peasants by a single decree that will destroy the landed property of the aristocracy …

We will establish genuine workers’ control over production …1

These words were received with a long ovation, after which the Soviet adop- ted a resolution of full support for the ‘workers’ and peasants’ revolution’.2 V.K. Arsen’ev, a Menshevik-Internationalist delegate from Crimea who had arrived in Petrograd for the Soviet Congress, recalled that session of the Soviet:

When Trotsky informed the Soviet that ‘power had passed to the people’, there followed a thunder of applause. Then Lenin and Zinoviev came out. Such a triumph. Trotsky’s speech in particular carved itself into my mind … It was some kind of molten metal – every word burned the soul … And I saw that many people were clenching their fists, that a definite, unshakeable determination was being formed to fight to the end.3

The insurrection ended with the seizure of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the ministers of the Provisional Government after a siege that had lasted late into the night. It was during that siege that the Congress of Soviets opened. Shortly thereafter, the Menshevik and sr (defencist) delegates demonstratively walked out, ostensibly in protest over the insurrection, which, they claimed, had been carried out ‘behind the back of the Congress’. They proceeded to the City Duma, around which a Committee for the Salvation of the Revolution and the Country had been formed, which included deputies of the City Duma, members of the outgoing TsIK that had been elected at the Soviet Congress in the spring, the Executive Committee of Peasant Soviets, also elected in the spring, the two defencist parties, members of the pre-parliament, and representatives of certain army committees from the front. This became the principal centre of organised resistance to the new regime.

1 Lenin 1958–67, vol. 35, pp. 2–3. 2 Novaya zhizn’ (Oct. 26, 1917). 3 Kudelli 1924, p. 121.