Before withdrawing from the membership in the Pre-Parliament where,
according to Kerensky's and Tseretelli's political statistics, we were
entitled to some half a hundred seats, we arranged a conference with the
left S. R. group. They refused to follow us, claiming that they still
had to demonstrate practically before the peasantry the insolvency of
the Pre-Parliament. Said one of the leaders of the left S. R.'s:
"We deem it necessary to warn you that if you want to withdraw from the
Pre-Parliament in order forthwith to go into the streets for an open
fight, we shall not follow you."
The bourgeois-fusionist press accused us of striving to kill prematurely
the Pre-Parliament, for the very purpose of creating a revolutionary
situation. At our faction meeting in the Pre-Parliament, it was decided
to act independently and not wait for the left S. R.'s. Our party's
declaration, proclaimed from the Pre-Parliament rostrum and explaining
why we were breaking with this institution, was greeted with a howl of
hatred and impotence on the part of the majority groups. In the
Petrograd Soviet of Deputies, where our withdrawal from the
Pre-Parliament was approved by an overwhelming majority, the leader of
the tiny "internationalist" Menshevik group, Martof, explained to us
that the withdrawal from the temporary Soviet of the Republic (such was
the official appellation of this little-respected institution) would be
sensible only in case we proposed immediately to assume an open
offensive. But the point is that this is just what we intended. The
prosecutors for the liberal bourgeoisie were right, when accusing us of
striving to create a revolutionary situation. In open insurrection and
direct seizure of power we beheld the only way out of the situation.
Again, as in the July days, the press and all the other organs of
so-called public opinion were mobilized against us. From the July
arsenals were dragged forth the most envenomed weapons which had been
temporarily stored away there after the Korniloff days. Vain efforts!
The mass was irresistibly moving toward us, and its spirit was rising
hour by hour. From the trenches delegates kept arriving. "How long,"
said they, at the Petrograd Soviet meetings, "will this impossible
situation last? The soldiers have told us to declare to you: if no
decisive steps for peace are made by November 1st, the trenches will be
deserted, the entire army will rush to the rear!" This determination was
really spreading at the front. There the soldiers were passing on, from
one unit to another, home-made proclamations, summoning them not to
remain in the trenches later than the first snowfall. "You have
forgotten about us," the delegates on foot from the trenches exclaimed
at the Soviet meetings. "If you find no way out of the situation, we
shall come here ourselves, and with our bayonets we shall disperse our
enemies, including you." In the course of a few weeks the Petrograd
Council had become the center of attraction for the whole army. After
its leading tendency had been changed and new presiding officers
elected, its resolutions inspired the exhausted and despondent troops at
the front with the hope that the way out of the situation could be
practically found in the manner proposed by the Bolsheviks: by
publishing the secret treaties and proposing an immediate truce on all
fronts. "You say that power must pass into the hands of the Soviets,
grasp it then. Yon fear that the front will not support you. Cast all
misgivings aside, the soldier masses are with you in overwhelming
majority."
Meanwhile the conflict regarding the transfer of the garrison kept on
developing. Almost daily, a garrison conference met, consisting of
committees from the companies, regiments and commands. The influence of
our party in the garrison was established definitely and indestructibly.
The Petrograd District Staff was in a state of extreme perplexity. Now
it would attempt to enter into regular relations with us, then again,
egged on by the leaders of the Central Executive Committee, it would
threaten us with repressive measures.
Above, mention has already been made of organizing, at the Petrograd
Soviet, a Military Revolutionary Committee, which was intended to be, in
fact, the Soviet Staff of the Petrograd garrison in opposition to
Kerensky's Staff. "But the existence of two staffs is inadmissible," the
representatives of the fusionist parties dogmatically admonished us.
"But is a situation admissible, wherein the garrison mistrusts the
official staff and fears that the transfer of soldiers from Petrograd
has been dictated by a new counter-revolutionary machination?" we
retorted. "The creation of a second staff means insurrection," came the
reply from the Right. "Your Military Revolutionary Committee's task will
not be so much to verify the operative projects and orders of the
military authorities as the preparation and execution of an insurrection
against the present government." This objection was just: But for that
very reason it did not frighten anybody. An overwhelming majority of the
Soviet was aware of the necessity of overthrowing the coalition power.
The more circumstantially the Mensheviks and S. R.'s demonstrated that
the Military Revolutionary Committee would inevitably turn into an organ
of insurrection, the greater the eagerness with which the Petrograd
Soviet supported the new fighting organization.
The Military Revolutionary Committee's first act was to appoint
commissioners to all parts of the Petrograd garrison and all the most
important institutions of the capital and environs. From various
quarters we were receiving communications that the government, or more
correctly, the government parties, were actively organizing and arming
their forces. From various arms-depots-governmental and private-rifles,
revolvers, machine guns and cartridges were being brought forth for
arming cadets, students and bourgeois youths in general. It was
necessary to take immediate preventive measures. Commissioners were
appointed to all arms-depots and stores. Almost without opposition they
became masters of the situation. To be sure, the commandants and
proprietors of the depots tried not to recognize them, but a mere
application to the soldiers' committee or the employees of each
institution sufficed to cause the immediate breakdown of the opposition.
After that, arms were issued only on order of our Commissioners.
Even prior to that, regiments of the Petrograd garrison had their
commissioners, but these had been appointed by the Central Executive
Committee. Above, we said that after the June Congress of Soviets, and
particularly after the June 18th demonstration which revealed the ever
growing power of the Bolsheviks, the fusionist parties had almost
entirely deprived the Petrograd Soviet of any practical influence on the
course of events in the revolutionary capital. The leadership of the
Petrograd garrison was concentrated in the hands of the Central
Executive Committee. Now the task everywhere was to put in the Petrograd
Soviet's Commissioners. This was achieved with the most energetic
cooperation of the soldier masses. Meetings, addressed by speakers of
various parties, had the result, invariably, that regiment after
regiment declared it would recognize only the Petrograd Soviet's
Commissioners and would not budge a step without its decision.
An important role in appointing these Commissioners was played by the
Bolsheviks' military organization. Before the July days it had developed
a widespread agitational activity. On July 5th, a battalion of cyclists,
brought by Kerensky to Petrograd, battered down the isolated Kshessinsky
mansion where our party's military organization was quartered. The
majority of leaders, and many privates among the members were arrested,
the publications were stopped, the printing shop was wrecked. Only by
degrees did the organization begin to repair its machinery afresh,
conspiratively this time. Numerically it comprised in its ranks but a
very insignificant part of the Petrograd garrison, a few hundred men all
told. But there were among them many soldiers and young officers,
chiefly ensigns, resolute, and with heart and soul devoted to the
Revolution, who had passed through Kerensky's prisons in July and
August. All of them had placed themselves at the Military Revolutionary
Committee's disposal and were being assigned to the most responsible
fighting posts.
However, it would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the
members of our party's military organization assumed in October an
attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the
idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the
organization and its officially military character involuntarily
inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and
organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we
were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary enthusiasm
of the masses and their readiness to fight under our banner.
Parallel with the organizing activity a stormy agitation was being
carried on. This was the period of incessant meetings at works, in the
"Modern" and "Chinizelli" circuses, at clubs, in barracks. The
atmosphere at all the meetings was charged with electricity. Each
mention of the insurrection was greeted with a storm of plaudits and
shouts of delight. The bourgeois press merely increased the state of
universal panic. An order issued over my signature to the Syestroyetsk
munitions factory to issue five thousand rifles to the Red Guard evoked
an indescribable panic in bourgeois circles. "The general massacre" in
course of preparation was talked and written about everywhere. Of
course, this did not in the least prevent the workingmen of the
Syestroyetsk munitions factory from handing the arms over to the Red
Guards. The more frantically the bourgeois press slandered and baited
us, the more ardently the masses responded to our call. It was growing
clearer and clearer for both sides that the crisis must break within the
next few days. The press of the S. R.'s and Mensheviks was sounding an
alarm. "The Revolution is in the greatest danger. A repetition of the
July days is being prepared--but on a much wider basis and therefore
still more destructive in its consequences." In his Novaya Zhizn,
Gorki daily prophesied the approaching wreck of all civilization. In
general, the Socialistic veneer of the bourgeois intellectuals was
wearing off at the approach of the stern domination of the workers'
dictatorship. But, on the other hand, the soldiers of even the most
backward regiments hailed with delight the Military Revolutionary
Committee's commissioners. Delegates came to us from Cossack units and
from the Socialist minority of military cadets. They promised at least
to assure the neutrality of their units in case of open conflict.
Manifestly Kerensky's government was losing its foundations.
The District Staff began negotiations with us and proposed a compromise.
In order to size up the enemy's full resistance, we entered into
pourparlers. But the Staff was nervous; now they exhorted, then
threatened us, they even declared our commissioners to be without power,
which, however, did not in the least affect their work. In accord with
the Staff, the Central Executive Committee appointed Captain of Staff
Malefski to be Chief Commissioner for the Petrograd Military District
and magnanimously consented to recognize our commissioners, on condition
of their being subordinate to the Chief Commissioner. The proposal was
rejected and the negotiations broken off. Prominent Mensheviks and S.
R.'s came to us as intermediaries, exhorted, threatened and foretold our
doom and the doom of the Revolution.