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Hello, and welcome to Revolutions.
*dramatic music swells*
I want to begin this week by thanking everybody for coming out to the little midwest tour. It was a great week, I had tons of fun meeting everybody and signing books. Hope to do it again in the future. Hope to do many more of these in the future. And speaking of, if you’re down in southern California, remember I will be in Pasadena on Wednesday, October 27th for a full book talk event. Not just signing, but actually getting up on stage and giving a presentation. This will be the first time I will address a live audience in more than two years, so I am really looking forward to that, and I hope to see everybody there.
We ended last time with the democratic conference of mid-September 1917. This improvised assembly was supposed to legitimize a new coalition government of socialists and liberals under Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky in the wake of the Kornilov Affair. But instead, the conference wrapped up having simultaneously endorsed and rejected the idea of a coalition. Given this utterly incoherent result, the leading organizers of the democratic conference improvised again. On September 20th, they announced the formation of what they called the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic, but which everybody else calls the Pre-Parliament. This Pre-Parliament was initially composed of 313 members, with each faction represented at the democratic conference receiving a similar share of delegates at this new assembly, which they were just making up out of thin air on the spot.
As I mentioned at the end of last week’s episode, Kerensky’s new government was meant to answer to this new assembly until the convening of the constituent assembly in November. Hence it being dubbed the Pre-Parliament. But in the subsequent inter-party negotiations to format government, the liberals refused to join unless this Pre-Parliament was recast as merely an advisory council with no genuine authority at all. The right SRs and Mensheviks leaders acquiesced.
So on September 25th, Alexander Kerensky inaugurated a new, new government answerable basically to no one but Kerensky himself. Kerensky now continued to enjoy a fantasy version of reality, where he was in the final stages of consolidating power, like a Russian Bonaparte. He had bested Kornilov. He had evicted the Soviet from the Tauride Palace and banished them to the Smolny Institute. And then he treated the right-leaning socialists as if they needed him more than he needed them. One of the first things his new government did was unilaterally augment the Pre-Parliament, adding 150 more delegates, all of them from the land owning and business owning bourgeoisie. This humiliated Kerensky’s socialist partners and discredited them further in the eyes of the workers, the peasants, the soldiers, and the sailors, whom they allegedly represented. Now Kerensky was in just enough of a bubble at this point that he really believed he was on the verge of, like, winning the Russian Revolution. All he had to do was hold on with this new government for about six weeks until the constituent assembly convened.
He would not even make it four.
Kerensky had gone into the same imperial bubble that captured and destroyed Nicholas and Alexandra. Because things were not going well out there. In September 1917, the Russian Empire was collapsing into chaos. Incredibly, the scarcity and inflation crisis that had gotten all of this going back in February was now even worse. The various provisional governments simply continued to print paper money, 400 million rubles in April, 700 million in June, over a billion in July. Prices quadrupled even above the highs that drove the Romanovs out of power in February. 500 factories had shut down during the summer months, leaving close to a hundred thousand out of work. Scarcity of necessary goods was still endemic in all urban areas, as the political and economic system remained utterly dysfunctional. Inflation, scarcity, and unemployment created a crisis atmosphere. Workers organized and staged strikes regularly. In the major urban centers, crime and lawlessness were indisputably on the rise as criminals and gangs just roamed free. Kerensky’s government had basically no dependable forces willing to impose order on its behalf.
It was just as bad out in the countryside. Peasants who had been waiting with growing frustration and impatience for the provisional government to endorse the transfer of landed estates to peasant ownership now lost their cool completely. Even when the arch SR Victor Chernov was serving as minister of agriculture, it had been nothing but foot dragging, empty promises and delays. Then Chernov had been ousted from the government during the Kornilov Affair, and there seemed no hope at all that the government would do the one thing the peasants had been demanding all along:,give us the land. For them, that was the only part of the revolution that really mattered. Completely fed up, they just started taking it. Around September, there was a wave of violent attacks in rural areas as peasants mobbed, manor houses, looted the premises, and then burn the place to the ground. The villages, many now boasting their own little local soviets, unilaterally claimed ownership over the estates, carrying not one whit what the authorities said. Kerensky’s government issued stern prohibitions on the seizures, but just like in the cities, his government had no force capable of backing up the stern pronouncements. In any given local area, the preponderance of force was held by the villagers themselves, thanks in large part to all those hundreds of thousands of deserting soldiers who were returning to their home villages armed and radicalized.
The increasingly nonexistent power and legitimacy of Kerensky and the provisional government fueled the fortunes most especially of the Bolshevik party. The positions that had hurt them in February — stiff opposition to the war, constant denunciations of the provisional government, and demands for all power to the Soviet — now propelled them forward towards October. As the Mensheviks and SR leadership compromised and discredited themselves, rank and file party members defected in droves to the ranks of the Bolsheviks, who offered clear and simple slogans, offering a welcome alternative to the feeble dithering of the right-leaning socialist leaders. In the countryside, the message was peace, land and freedom. In the cities, it was peace, bread, and freedom. On September 19, the Bolshevik party secured a majority inside the Moscow Soviet. Then on September 25th, the same day Kerensky announced his new government, the Bolsheviks cemented a voting majority inside the Petrograd Soviet. The vote to create a new executive leadership council for the capital Soviet resulted in one Menshevik, two SRs, and four Bolsheviks. This executive committee, with an outright Bolshevik majority, promptly voted to make Leon Trotsky president of the Petrograd Soviet. He was now able to speak not just as a charismatic Bolshevik party leader, but as president of the Petrograd Soviet, with all the implied legitimacy authority, and power that came with it.
So heading into October 1917, the central committee of the Bolsheviks were riding high, especially after they believed that their party might have been destroyed back in July. Their fortunes had now reversed completely, and they believed that both time and history were on their side. All they needed to do now is keep striding forward, and they would surely emerge as the majority party in Russia in no time at all.
But during these same weeks, the head of their party, Lenin, still in hiding in Finland after the July Days, was slowly going out of his mind, because while he believed history was on their side, time was not. In fact, time was running out. Fast.
The central committee had established a stable courier service to and from the chief, and Lenin was able to read newspapers from Petrograd the same day they were printed, and then send back letters, essays, and editorials commenting on events. From about the second week of September, 1917, Lenin hammered the point that if they did not act before the constituent assembly convened, it would be too late. That while the Bolshevik ranks were growing, they would almost certainly wind up a marginal minority faction in the coming constituent assembly, undercutting any claim to represent the voice and the will of the people of Russia. He was furious with the central committee for participating in the democratic conference, granting recognition to a manipulated farce organized by their enemies and rivals. Lenin believed passionately and bluntly that given the circumstances — the growing chaos, the non-existent legitimacy of the government, plus the looming possibility that the bourgeoisie and the philistine right-leaning socialists might reconsolidate their hold on power at the coming constituent assembly — the Bolshevik party needed to seize power. By force. Immediately. Without hesitation or scruples.
In Lenin’s mind, the Bolshevik party represented the only true path to socialist revolution. This was something at least abstractly all of his comrades in the central committee agreed with. It’s why they believed the Bolshevik party was superior to all the other parties. Lenin said they must not miss this opportunity. If they were weak or passive, then all would be lost. On September 12th, he wrote a scathing essay titled the Bolsheviks Must Take Power. Two days later, he penned an article called Marxism and Insurrection, which was a defense of armed uprisings, not as a betrayal of Marx’s principles, but action Marx and Engels themselves believed to be a vital and unavoidable component of socialist revolution. When the democratic conference wrapped up, Lenin wrote a piece called Heroes of Fraud and Mistakes of the Bolsheviks. He attacked his comrades on the central committee for their plodding, peaceful, and passive conduct. He meant for it to be published in the party newspaper. And Lenin was absolutely volcanic with rage when the central committee took a pair of scissors to Lenin’s editorial, publishing it under the truncated headline, Heroes of of Fraud, and cutting out his attacks on the Bolshevik leadership. Now convinced that his comrades in the central committee would blow this opportunity if Lenin was not there to personally lead them, he made plans to quit Finland and return to Petrograd.
But all that said, it’s not like Lenin’s comrades were entirely idle or passive, nor that they were especially burdened with constitutional scruples, nor that they even opposed the idea of an armed coup d’etat. It was mostly about the when and the how, not the can we or should we .The day after Trotsky became president of the Petrograd Soviet, he started advocating for a second all Russian Congress of Soviets. The first such Congress of Soviets had been held back in June, and we talked about it briefly in episode 10.68. This is when the Mensheviks and SRs formed an overwhelming majority of both delegates and leaders, and when they rejected the idea of the Soviets taking power from the provisional government and declared that no party out there thought we should take power right now, Lenin called out from the floor, “There is one party.” Remember that? Well, now that party is in charge of the Petrograd Soviet, and very much still wants to seize power.
So you’re going to have to stick with me for a sec, because we do need to untangle something so that all of this makes sense. The first Congress of Soviets in June had elected a standing executive committee to permanently represent all the Soviets. This executive committee was of course packed with Mensheviks and SRs, and it was now the last bastion of their waning influence. This executive committee stood as a major obstacle to the rising power of the Bolsheviks. So when I say that the Bolsheviks now controlled the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet, that is true, but that is different from this still standing executive committee of the Soviets writ large, who remained the same Mensheviks and SRs who had been elected back in June.
Got it? Cool.
The Bolsheviks, now able to speak with the voice of the Petrograd Soviet, demanded this larger executive committee call for a second congress. The stated reason for this was that with the constituent assembly on the way, all the Soviets needed to come together to hammer out a legislative and constitutional platform that they could all agree on and then take to the constituent assembly. The unstated reason was it the Bolsheviks plan to dominate this second Congress and get all of their guys elected to a new central executive council, turning the Soviets into an operational wing of the Bolshevik party so that the abstract slogan all power to the Soviets would now mean, in concrete terms, all power to the Bolsheviks. The leaders of the Mensheviks and SRs knew exactly what the Bolsheviks were up to, but Trotsky said if they didn’t start sending out invitations for a second congress, that the Petrograd Soviet would use their prestige and moral authority to just do it themselves. The Bolsheviks got their way. Invitation started going out for a second all Russian Congress of Soviets to be held on October 20th, 1917.
Meanwhile, Lenin moved from his remote hideout in Finland to a district much closer to the border, and very close to Petrograd. This way, he would be able to wield more decisive influence over his comrades. He was incensed that the central committee was centering his view that they should no longer wait for anything, that the party now, right now, should launch an armed coup d’etat. From this space, he sent an essay to the central committee, headlined The Crisis Has Matured. It laid out a case that with the Bolshevik standing for peace, land, and freedom, that if they seize power right now, neither the army, nor the navy, nor the peasants would make a move against them.
In a confidential sixth section of this essay, he blasted his colleagues for hesitation. He ended by saying, “In view of the fact that the central committee has even left unanswered the persistent demands I had been making for such a policy ever since the beginning of the democratic conference, in view of the fact that the central organ is deleting from my articles all references to such glaring errors on the part of the Bolsheviks as the shameful decision to participate in the Pre-Parliament, the admission of Mensheviks to the presidium of the Soviet, etc., etc. — I am compelled to regard this as a ‘subtle’ hint at the unwillingness of the Central Committee even to consider this question, a subtle hint that I should keep my mouth shut, and as a proposal for me to retire.
“I am compelled to tender my resignation from the Central Committee, which I hear by do, reserving for myself freedom to campaign among the rank and file of the Party and at the Party Congress,”
This resignation, however, was simply a threat to demonstrate how serious he was. Mostly, he made preparations to move back to Petrograd and convince everyone not to blow it.
Lenin’s case that all the pieces were falling into place, thanks to fortuitous events on the war front, which resulted in a gift wrapped package delivered right to the Bolsheviks’ doorstep. Now, even though the war against the Austrians in the southwest, and against the Turks in the south, had both settled into a mutual pacivity as all sides presently stood on the brink of total collapse, the Germans in the northwest still posed a major threat. They had captured Riga at the end of August and forced the Russian army to fall back. Then on September 28th, the Germans launched a naval operation into the Gulf of Riga aimed at capturing three strategic islands, which, if captured, would allow the Germans to ferry their armies around behind the newly dugout Russian defensive line, in effect, giving them an unobstructed straight road to Petrograd.
The government responded by making plans to evacuate the city. On October 4th, Kerensky and his government unanimously agreed to abandon Petrograd and withdraw to the safety of Moscow. All government ministries, departments, and personnel would evacuate the capital. They also made plans to relocate as much of the city’s heavy industrial capacity deeper into the interior. During these meetings, it was also decided that the Soviets would be treated as merely private institutions, not covered by any state of evacuation plan. The Soviet’s decision to stay or leave Petrograd would be entirely their own, but they would be entirely on their own.
On October six, all these plans were leaked to the press and the leaders of the Soviet — all of them — Mensheviks, Bolshevik, and SRs — flipped their lids. There was by now a growing consensus among Socialist of all stripes that Kerensky was actively preparing to sacrifice red Petrograd to the Germans. That while the provisional government may lack the force to bring left wing radicals to heel, the German army did not. In this scenario, Kerensky abandoning Petrograd to a German sack was not a painful but necessary strategy in the face of dire wartime emergency, but a welcome opportunity to have the Kaiser crush the radical left and the Soviets, allowing Kerensky to safely consolidate a new base of power in Moscow. The leaders of the Soviet announced that the Soviet did not endorse an evacuation, and anyone who participated would be doing so in direct opposition to the Soviet. And as their voice carried far more weight than the provisional government did with the rank and file soldiers and the workers in the city, Kerensky and his fellow ministers now had to reckon with going through with an evacuation no one would help them carry out, and in fact might result in them all getting lynched if they tried to go through with it.
In a session of the Pre-Parliament held on October 7th, which was scheduled to talk about the evacuation, Trotsky gave a fiery speech hammering on these themes. Trotsky issued a blistering denunciation of the government, which mostly fell on deaf ears in a hall packed with moderates and liberals and members of the bourgeoisie, but which he knew would resonate in the streets. He declared, “The idea of surrendering the revolutionary capital to German troops was a natural link in a general policy designed to promote counter-revolutionary conspiracy.” He went on to say, “With this government of treason to the people and with this council of counter-revolutionary connivance we have nothing in common. In withdrawing from the council, we summon the workers, soldiers, and peasants of all Russia to be on their guard and to be courageous. Petrograd is in danger. The revolution is in danger. The people are in danger.” Then, he led the small Bolshevik delegation out of the hall and into the streets.
And that brings us directly to the gift-wrapped package delivered right to the Bolsheviks doorstep. With all components of the Soviet leadership, as well as the workers and soldiers and sailors in the city, deeply concerned that the provisional government was about to abandon them to the slaughter, the Petrograd Soviet convened on October 9th, and voted to take the defensive Petrograd into their own hands. They created what was soon dubbed the Military revolutionary Committee, or the MRC. The MRC functioned just like the committee of struggle against counter-revolution had functioned during the last days of the Kornilov Affair. The committee would organize, lead, and coordinate armed soldiers and workers. Now, nothing had changed organization remained the largest and most disciplined armed force in the city. And all those tens of thousands of workers who had been armed and led by the Bolsheviks back in August? Well, they now simply returned to a state of ready alert. These forces were of course all co-opted by the MRC, and became the main pillar of their operations. So, the armed wing of the Bolshevik Party is now operating, for all intents and purposes, as the officially sanctioned armed forces of Petrograd, charged with complete authority over the security and defense of the capital. In a final deft maneuver, Trotsky had language inserted into the motion creating the MRC that they were to defend Petrograd both against the external threat of the Germans, but also the internal threat of counterrevolution, which will of course be defined however the Bolshevik see fit. Trotsky later called the creation of the Soviet MRC the dry revolution or the silent revolution, and he said that when it was done, the Bolsheviks were already three quarters if not nine tenths of the way to victory.
All of these pieces fell into place just in time for Lenin to return to Petrograd, to meet with his comrades for one of the most consequential committee meetings in world history. On October 10th, 1917, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party met to hash out some major strategic and tactical questions. There were 21 total members of the Bolshevik Central Committee, but on this evening, only 12 were able to attend. Among those in the room were Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev Stalin, and Alexandra Kollontai. Also, a funny looking dude dressed up to look like an old Lutheran priest, who was wearing an ill fitting wig atop his head: Lenin.
This meeting was ironically held in the home of a prominent Menshevik leader named Nikolai Tsukanov. The reason they were able to meet there was that the apartment also happened to be the home of a long time Bolshevik loyalist named Galina Flakserman, who just so happened to be Tsukanov’s wife, revealing with domestic simplicity just how gray the party differences were among all these socialists. Flakserman encouraged her husband to just go ahead and sleep at his office that night, which was a perfectly normal thing for him to do, and which he very much insisted he do on this particular evening. This allowed the parlor of a leading Menshevik to be used to plot Bolshevik revolution. This incredibly important meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee lasted for eight hours. It was the first time Lenin had seen most of his comrades in person since the July Days, and he gave an impassioned defense for the idea that the time for an insurrectionary coup d’etat was now. Among other things, he believed that the Bolsheviks would only have to hold their ground for a matter of months, because Lenin was convinced that European-wide proletarian revolution was on the verge of breaking out, so the Bolsheviks would not have to stand alone for long. Pretty soon every major power in Europe would be run by proletarian comrades.
Trotsky and five others in the room were mostly in agreement with Lenin that the time for interaction was at hand, and that the pieces were in place to do it, and that they would probably be successful. But against Lenin, Trotsky insisted that they wait until the convening of the second congress of the Soviet, which was set for October 20th. People were not going to support a straight up Bolshevik coup. It absolutely had to be done while speaking with the voice of the Soviet. But this was not a difference over whether to do it at all, it was just a matter of, do we do it now, or like, a week from now?
Two members of the central committee, however, disagreed entirely with the plan. These were two of Lenin’s longstanding lieutenants, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Kamenev In particular had been pushing for a peaceful reconciliation with the other socialist parties. He did not believe the Bolsheviks were strong enough at the moment to do things on their own. But he also simultaneously believed that in the coming constituent assembly elections that the Bolsheviks would probably actually win something like a third of the seats. This, combined with their expected domination of the congress of Soviets, would give the Bolsheviks a clear trajectory to power without risking everything on an armed coup. Both of them also believed that Lenin’s opinion, which had been seconded by Trotsky, that European-wide revolution was on the verge of breaking out was altogether too optimistic. Kamenev finally said, “Comrade Lenin’s plan means to stake on one card the fate not only of our party, but the fate of Russia and world revolution. The whole thing would ultimately be disastrously counterproductive, and even foolish given how well things were going for the party. Zinoviev agreed with all of this, and further added that if they tried and failed, this time, it wouldn’t be like the July days. This time, we will all be shot.
And the thing is neither of them were wrong about any of this. Lenin was asking them to stake everything on one card. When they described the risks and potential consequences, they were absolutely correct. Lenin’s rejoinder was simple: yes, I’m asking you to stake everything on one card. Yes, the risks are enormous. But guess what? I think we can win. And in fact, not playing this card right now would be the riskiest gambit of all, because we may never get another window like this ever again.
After eight hours of debate, the 12 members took a vote. They voted 10 to 2 to begin immediate preparations for an armed coup d’etat. Kamenev and Zinoviev obviously, being the two “no” votes.
Lenin then scribbled an informal resolution inside of an exercise book for a child, because no other paper was readily at hand. This resolution states:
The central committee recognizes the international position of the Russian revolution ( the revolt in the German navy, which is an extreme manifestation of the growth throughout Europe of a world socialist revolution; the threat of peace by the imperialists; with the object of strangling the revolution in Russia) as well as the military situation, the inducible decision of the Russian bourgeoisie and Kerensky and company to surrender Petrograd to the Germans, and the fact that the proletarian party has gained a majority in the Soviets — all this, taken in conjunction with the peasant revolt in the swing of popular confidence towards our Party (the elections in Moscow) and, finally, the obvious preparations being made for a second Kornilov revolt (the withdraw the troops in Petrograd, the dispatches of Cossacks to Petrograd the circling of Minsky the Cossacks, etc.) — all of this places the armed uprising on the order of the day.
Considering therefore that an armed uprising is inevitable, and that the time for it is fully ripe, the central committee instructs all Party organizations to be guided accordingly, and to dismiss and decide all practical questions (the Congress of Soviets of the Northern region (the withdrawal of troops from Petrograd, the action of our people in Moscow and Minsk, etc.) from this point of view.
This resolution was the beginning of the Bolshevik coup. They departed each other’s company on the morning of October 11th, having resolved to stake everything on Lenin’s one card. And as was noted in literally every single book I read about this meeting, this is one of those moments in history where the will and choices of a single man really do change the course of history. Absent Lenin’s impassioned, angry, manipulative, persuasive, domineering, clear-eyed, and somewhat harebrained case that the Bolsheviks could stage a coup, it is entirely likely that the party would have let the moment slip by.
But they did not. And next week, they will launch their coup to alter the course of history, turning the dial from February to October.