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Hello, and welcome to Revolutions.

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Episode 10.74: The Great October Socialist Revolution

So here we are, everything we’ve been building to for the last, I dunno, zillion episodes. On the list of great moments in revolutionary history, the Bolshevik Uprising of October 1917 is right there with the Fall of the Bastille in July 1789 at the center of the inner circle. And those two events certainly serve as temporal bookends defining what, in retrospect this here Revolutions podcast has been all about. But it’s not like we’re anywhere close to being finished, because just as with the Fall of the Bastille in 1789, the October Revolution only becomes recognized as the epicenter of a historical earthquake because of what came after. Lots of times throughout history, a capital city has been rocked by riots, uprisings, and street violence to no great permanent effect. The existing government refines its footing and life goes on. But sometimes, tumultuous events spanning just a few calendar days change the course of human history, as happened both in July 1789 and October 1917. So while we have been building to this moment, the rest of the Revolutions podcast will chronicle the struggle of the Bolsheviks to make October 1917 the beginning of a world historical earthquake rather than a forgotten flash in the pan. But it will also chronicle those revolutionaries who struggled against the Bolshevik vision of revolution, because that too is the story of the Russian Revolution.

In the last week of October 1917, the air in Petrograd was thick with anticipation. As we discussed at length last time, everyone knew the Bolsheviks were planning an uprising to coincide with the convening of the second All Russian Congress of Soviets on October 25th. It was really just a matter of how events were going to play out: whether the Bolsheviks would win or lose, not whether they would try. And a leading Menshevik told American journalist John Reed, “Well, perhaps the Bolsheviks can seize power, but they won’t be able to hold it for more than three days. They haven’t the men to run a government. Perhaps it’s a good thing to let them try. That will finish them.”

Alexander Kerensky, meanwhile, didn’t think they’d even make it that far. When he got word on the night of October 23rd that the Bolshevik dominated military revolutionary committee had backed down from its claim to veto power over all military orders in Petrograd, Kerensky took it as a sign that he could safely launch a preemptive strike and snuff out the Bolshevik coup before it even began. Kerensky ordered a loyal detachment of soldiers — mostly Kadets from a military academy — to seize and destroy the Bolshevik presses. In the predawn hours of October 24th, 1917, these soldiers pushed their way into the Bolshevik newspaper offices, smashed up the joint, and placed a standing guard at the front door. To give this attack the veneer of legitimacy, Kerensky also ordered two extreme right-wing newspapers s shut down. But given the timing, it was obvious to everyone that this was aimed squarely at the left, and squarely at the Bolsheviks.

Kerensky’s decision to strike first gave the Bolshevik leaders exactly the pretense they needed to frame their actions as a defense of the revolution. In October 1917, Bolshevik leaders owned many different hats that they could take on and off as the situation necessitated. Trotsky, for example, was simultaneously a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, president of the Petrograd Soviet, and a leading member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. With his political party under attack, he could don the cap of the leader of the Petrograd Soviet, and frame Kerensky’s actions as an attack on free speech. When guards were dispatched to open the Bolshevik presses, Trotsky said it was because, “The Soviet workers and soldiers’ deputies can not tolerate suppression of the free word.” Then, donning the cap of leader of the MRC, he sent out orders to everyone recently incorporated into their chain of command. “Directive Number One,” the order read, “the Petrograd Soviet is in direct danger. You are hereby directed to bring your regiment to battle readiness. Any procrastination or interference in executing this order will be considered a betrayal of the revolution.” Across the city, soldiers started mobilizing. The attachment sent to the Bolshevik newspaper offices easily pushed aside the Kadets standing guard, and by 9:00 AM, the Bolshevik newspaper was back up and running. It should come as no surprise to any of you out there that no soldiers were sent to reopen the two right-wing papers in the name of freedom of freedom of speech.

As all of this unfolded, Kerensky hustled over to the Mariinsky Palace, where the Pre-Parliament was holding a session. He delivered a speech to ensure their support for his actions against the Bolsheviks. He got up and addressed them, saying, “I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series of articles published by Ulyanov Lenin, a state criminal who is in hiding and who we are trying to find. The state criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to repeat the experience of July, and insists upon the immediate necessity of an armed uprising.” Kerensky then quoted from Lenin’s open letter to his comrades that we talked about last week that very much advocated immediate, armed insurrection. Having made a pretty clear cut case that the Bolsheviks were planning to overthrow the government, Kerensky left the Pre-Parliament to debate the exact wording of their support for him. Then he headed back to the Winter Palace to orchestrate what he believed would be the final blows against Lenin and his gang of criminals.

But before we go on, let’s just remember that Kerensky’s government and this Pre-Parliament are not exactly paradigms of sovereign legitimacy. As we discussed two episodes back, the hastily arranged democratic conference in mid-September — itself not particularly legitimate — had explicitly rejected the formation of the present government. Facing this rejection, a self-appointed committee of Mensheviks, SRs, progressives, and liberals had then engaged in freelance negotiations with each other to select a slate of ministers of their choosing. The Pre-Parliament, meanwhile, was an assembly of leaders from various parties also self-appointed, and which Kerensky’ newly inaugurated government then proceeded to reject the authority of anyway.

So, for all the quite accurate accounts of the Bolsheviks using the Soviet to claim popular sovereignty they didn’t really deserve, it’s not like Kerensky, his government, or this Pre-Parliament were that much different. And this I think is something Lenin understood very well; that the contest of October 1917 should not be understood as a legitimate government being attacked by an illegitimate usurper, but instead, as two irreconcilable political factions making equally contrived claims to popular sovereignty locked in a death match that only one could emerge from. And moreover, this was a contest that could only be won by force. Later in the day on October 24th, Lenin hastily scrawled a note to his comrades saying, “The situation is critical in the extreme. To delay the uprising would be fatal. With all my might, I urge my 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 the struggle of armed people. We must at all costs this very evening, this very night, arrest the government. We must not wait. We may lose everything. The government is tottering. It must be given the death blow at all costs.”

Kerensky certainly understood the contest in these terms. He absolutely believed he commanded a vastly superior force to the Bolsheviks, which is why he welcomed such a confrontation. After leaving the Pre-Parliament, he ordered his loyal forces to secure the four critical bridges across the Neva River linking the Bolshevik stronghold in the Viborg district in the north to the center of the city where all the key government buildings sat. At his immediate disposal were the Kadets from an officer’s school, a regiment of soldiers mounted on bicycles, a few Cossacks, and the Women’s Death Battalion, a unit of hyper-patriotic women formed at the outset of the June Offensive. They had been meant to simply be a showpiece of Kerensky’s new democratic army, but they had fought with notable commitment during his fail offensive. Even as the men mostly sat on their hands, got drunk, or deserted. Detachments from the Women’s Death Battalion set up pickets at the Winter Palace, and around key bridges in Petrograd.

But right from the outset, it became clear Kerensky had dramatically underestimated his strength. The great poet, playwright, and novelist Zinaida Gippius noted in her diary on October 24th, “Nobody wants the Bolsheviks, but nobody is prepared to fight for Kerensky either.” The small number of forces loyal to the government could only secure two of the bridges across the Neva. Companies loyal to the MRC on the other hand, cheered on by angry crowds, won control of the other two. But mostly, most people were just neutral. The vast majority of soldiers, sailors, and civilians in Petrograd took no part whatsoever in the showdown between the government and the Bolsheviks. They merely observed events with detached curiosity and waited to find out who won.

To help turn curious onlookers into active supporters, the Bolsheviks did everything in their power to frame their actions as a defense of Petrograd and of the revolution. Everything they did was in the name of the Soviet, carried out by its military defense force, the Military Revolutionary Committee. Operating out of the Smolny Institute, home of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky drove this point home over and over again, telling everyone, This is defense, comrades. This is defense.”

Left SR members of the MRC issued a press release saying, “Contrary to all rumors and reports, this was not a proactive insurrection. All actions were instead exclusively for defense.”

The Bolshevik’s newspaper, now back up and running, flooded the streets with proclamations. “Soldiers! Workers! Citizens! A stroke of high treason is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet. The campaign of the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the All- Russian Congress of Soviets on the Eve of its opening, against the Constituent Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is guarding the revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is directing the repulse of the conspirators’ attack.”

This was then followed by a further decree from the MRC telling everybody to be on high alert and follow orders. This defensive operation then moved to take key strategic locations in Petrograd. A unit under MRC orders took the main telegraph office. Later that evening, MRC units took over the main newswire of the city, allowing them to control information coming into and going out of the capital. The Bolsheviks also had lots of partisan comrades in the ranks of the Baltic Fleet stationed in Helsinki. Word came over the wire to launch ships to Petrograd to defend the Soviet and the revolution. These sailors began preparing at once.

There was not really any active fighting on October 24th, and the political leaders in Petrograd argued over how to resolve the crisis. At 8:30 that night, the Pre-Parliament reconvened for a turbulent session. SRs and Mensheviks managed to carry a motion to create a committee of public safety, composing leaders of all parties, to try to avert open war between the Bolsheviks and the government. But when two Mensheviks leaders hustled over to the Winter Palace to work out the details with Kerensky, they found him consumed in a rapid cycle manic depressive episode. He alternated rapidly between doom-laden fatalism and defiant optimism that he was about to achieve his most brilliant triumph. Kerensky’s boasting that he alone could save the revolution did not fill anyone else with a great deal of confidence.

At the Smolny Institute, all the socialist and revolutionary parties convened for a massive non-stop debate. The riotous assembly was frequently interrupted by catcalls. Heckling, cheering, booing, and sometimes they were so much noise speakers could not be heard over the din. These debates pitted Trotsky and the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks and SR leaders who were still on the executive committee of the Soviet, who everyone knew would be replaced as soon as the Second Congress of Soviets formerly convened the following afternoon. The arguments of these right-leaning Mensheviks and SRs was that launching an insurrection was disastrously premature, and would invite fatal counterrevolution. “The masses are sick and exhausted,” one Mensheviks leader said. “They have no interest in the revolution. If the Bolsheviks start anything, that will be the end of the revolution. The counter-revolutionists are waiting for the Bolsheviks to begin riots and massacres.” Another invoke the Marxist theories that they were all ostensibly adherents of. Engels and Marx said the proletariat had no right to take power until it was ready for it,” he said. ” In a bourgeois revolution like this, the seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the Revolution. Trotsky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself opposed to what he is now advocating.”

But what we know is that Trotsky has by now a well-developed theory of permanent revolution and no longer has any truck with the kind of fastidiously pedantic readings of historical materialism the Mensheviks were now insisting on. “The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries conquered the Kadets,” Trotsky replied, “and then when they got power, they gave it to the Kadets. They tell you that you have no right to make an insurrection. Insurrection the right of all revolutionists! When the downtrodden masses revolt, it is their right. “

Old Julius Martov, meanwhile, leading his handful of left-leaning Menshevik internationalists, was not explicitly hostile to Bolshevik goals, but instead to Bolshevik tactics. Martov rose and said, “The internationalists are not opposed to the transmission of power to the democracy” — and by that he meant the Soviets — “but they disapprove of the methods of the Bolsheviks. This is not the moment to seize power.”

As this rowdy and turbulent assembly unfolded, Lenin himself arrived at the Smolny Institute to make sure his comrades did not listen to his old friend Martov, or abandon the tactics that were going to see this thing through to the end. Arriving in disguise, because he was, after all, a state criminal and a wanted man, Lenin arrived to find a whirling cacophony of activity: soldiers, sailors, workers, onlookers, Red Guards and party delegates all running around shouting at each other. Out in front of the building, crowds gathered and various armed units attempted to maintain order on a very chilly night, lit and heated by perpetual bonfires. Lenin was briefly refused admittance to the Smolny Institute because he had no pass, but the general unmanageability of the growing crowd allowed him to slip his way in. Once inside the building, he made a beeline for Room 36, where the Bolsheviks made their party headquarters. Once inside the room, he pushed his comrades to stand firm. This was their moment. A failure to see this thing through would have far more fatal consequences than backing down.

Trotsky thoroughly agreed, and he, Lenin, and other members of the Central Committee made plans to move decisively from defense to offense. They poured over maps of the city, making plans to seize more strategic points, culminating with the capture of the Winter Palace and arrest of the provisional government. According to Lenin, this had to be done by noon, the following day, as the Second Congress of Soviets was set to convene at two o’clock. This congress needed to be presented with a fait accompli, not a possible course of action to be debated. They also drafted a list for a new government to take the place of the old provisional government — full of Bolsheviks, of course. As they got to work on this, they decided they didn’t want to call themselves ministers anymore, as it carried the taint of the old regime, the old ways, and the old world. Trotsky suggested they call themselves people’s commissars, and Lenin said, “Yes, that’s very good. It smells terribly of revolution.”

In the small hours of October 25th, 1917, MRC units fanned out across the city, easily capturing the Palace of Engineers, the central post office, several train stations, the telegraph exchange, and the electrical station, whereupon they cut power to all government buildings, but the Smolny Institute. They also took over the state bank. The regiment guarding the bank had previously voted to remain neutral in any political conflict, and so when the MRC showed up and said, why don’t you guys take off, those guys… just took off. When you tally up the raw numbers, it’s true that only a fraction of the Petrograd Garrison was committed to the Bolsheviks, but that fraction positively dwarfed those willing to fight and die for Kerensky’s government, and that was really all that mattered. Adding to this Bolshevik force — excuse me, MRC force — sailors at the Kronstadt Naval base received orders to depart for the city center at once. But even more dramatically, the battleship Aurora, crewed by radicals and docked at the Petrograd ship, sailed their ship up the Neva River to put it in position to fire on the Winter Palace.

With everyone and everything set to converge on the Winter Palace at noon, around mid-morning, the Bolsheviks flooded the street of Petrograd with an explosive and somewhat premature declaration addressed to the citizens of Russia. It announced in big bold letters:

“:The provisional government has been deposed. State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which heads the Petrograd proletariat and the garrison.

 The cause for which the people have fought, namely the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers’ control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power — this cause has been secured.

Long live the revolution of workers, soldiers, and peasants!”

By this point, Kerensky realized how badly he had overestimated his strength in Petrograd, and arranged to get the heck out of town. He remained undaunted, of course, and like Nicholas and Alexandra before him, remained convinced that while this handful of malcontents may have the upper hand in the capital, the Bolsheviks hardly commanded the entire army, navy, or resources of the Russian Empire. But further establishing his very thin base of support in Petrograd, Kerensky’s staff could not immediately deliver vehicles to get him out of town. They had to scrounge around and procure two automobiles, one of which they jacked from the American embassy. When Kerensky sped out of Petrograd around 11:00 AM, he was in a car waving the American flag and boasting diplomatic plates, blowing through checkpoints without even bothering to slow down. Most people didn’t even know Kerensky had left the capital, and they spent the whole day believing the looming showdown at the Winter Palace was going to end with his arrest.

But just as everything looked like it was going to be settled decisively in the next 60 to 90 minutes, a somewhat absurd comedy of errors unfolded that dragged out events for more than 12 hours. The commander of the Peter and Paul Fortress, situated just across the river from the Winter Palace, was supposed to issue an ultimatum to the provisional government inside the Winter Palace saying surrender or face artillery bombardment. But when the soldiers prepared this artillery bombardment, they discovered the guns on the side of the fortress facing the palace were in complete disrepair. So, the noon deadline came and went without ultimatum or incident. It took several hours for the garrison to haul up new guns, and it was only after these guns were put into position that the soldiers realized these guns took a different kind of ammunition; a kind of ammunition they did not have. This led to several more hours of delay. Meanwhile, the Battleship Aurora sat anchored menacingly, but it didn’t have any ammunition at all. The ship had been undergoing repairs, and all they had on hand were blanks. So hours just ticked by without anything. happening One Bolshevik in the Smolny Institute recalled, “Lenin was beside himself with agitated rage, and said he was like, a lion in a cage. He was ready to shoot us.”

The delays at the Winter Palace necessitated stalling the official opening of the Second Congress of Soviets, originally scheduled for 2:00 PM. Lenin was terrified that if the congress convened before the provisional government was arrested, the congress would start debating the issue, which would be fatal for his plans. So, with more than 650 delegates just kind of milling around the building, Trotsky preempted access to the main assembly room by calling an emergency session of the Petrograd Soviet. Once gaveled into session, Trotsky rose and declared, “On behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the provisional government no longer exists.”

Someone in the audience shouted, “You are anticipating the will of the second Congress of Soviets!”

Trotsky 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.”

Now, this is hardly what was going on out there in the streets. At that moment, the workers were mostly either at home or at work, while the vast majority of soldiers were standing around in consciously chosen neutrality. But then Lenin came out into the assembly to a mix of wild applause and angry cat calls. It was his first public appearance since that brief and unenthusiastic speech he had given in the midst of the July Days, Lenin announced the beginning of a new era for Russia, and ended by calling out, “Long live the world socialist revolution!”

The Mensheviks and the SRs in the hall were furious at the sheer audacity of the Bolsheviks making these wildly outrageous claims. They were nakedly stalling the opening of the Second Congress, a congress the Bolsheviks themselves had so relentlessly demanded. They were claiming the government was overthrown when in point of fact the government was sitting untouched in the Winter Palace. The Bolshevik coup on behalf of the Soviet was proclaimed, but it was not achieved, not by a long shot.

To the credit of the remaining ministers in the Winter Palace, they refused to just surrender. Even after they belatedly discovered Kerensky had ditched them, they understood his departure to be in the name of raising reinforcements to come save them. So despite the frequent demands that they surrender, each time they replied they would rather die than give in. But this was really not the case for their would-be defenders. At the outset of October 25th, there were perhaps 3000 armed guards in and around the Winter Palace — artillery school Kadets, some Cossack horsemen, the women of the Women’s Death Battalion — but over the course of the day, guards had been deserting left and right, some individually, some in whole groups. The ministers of the provisional government may have been ready to die, but there were very few people willing to die for them. By the end, there were maybe 300 armed guards left inside. Security at the palace was not tight. And famously, John Reed, Louise Bryant, and a handful of others just kinda walked through an open door, and during the long afternoon of waiting, they wandered around the palace, checking things out, interviewed people, tried to get an interview with Kerensky, but couldn’t, because Kerensky wasn’t there. After they left, they walked around the city center and witnessed the reality of the day: on this most auspicious of days, what would in the future be dubbed, the Great October Socialist Revolution, most of the population of Petrograd was just kind of going about its business. The restaurants weren’t closed, so they grabbed some dinner. The only notice taken of the Great October Socialist Revolution was the waiter moving them to an inner ballroom, away from the front windows, in case of gunfire. Other than that, dinner was fine.

When they got out, Reed and Bryant and the others wandered around. A few blocks away, reed said, “We could see the trams, the crowds, the lighted shop-windows, and the electric signs of the moving-picture shows — life going on as usual. We had tickets to the ballet at the Marinsky Theatre — all the theaters were open — but it was too exciting out of doors….”

But it’s not that people were ignorant of what was happening, just they weren’t really participating. “Up the Nevsky,” he reported, “the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every corner, immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion. Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at street crossings, red-faced old men and fur coats shook their fists at them, smartly dressed women screamed epithets: the soldiers argued feebly with embarrassed grins….”

Meanwhile, at the Peter and Paul fortress, there was one final debacle. They were supposed to signal the final assault of the Winter Palace by raising a red lantern. The problem was, they couldn’t find a red lantern. The commander had to go digging around in the basement, and even when he found one, he and his men found it nearly impossible to fit it to the flagpole as instructed. But finally, at about 9:40 PM, one of the guns of the Aurora blasted a deafening roar. The entire city heard it, but almost nobody knew it was only a blank, least of all the ministers inside the Winter Palace, who dove for cover. After the blast from the Aurora, the guns from the Peter and Paul fortress opened up, firing maybe 30 to 35 shots. Most of these shots fell harmlessly in the river or exploded before impact. But it made for quite a show despite doing very little damage. With shelling now, finally audible at the Smolny Institute, signaling the imminent arrest of the provisional government, the Bolsheviks finally allowed the opening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. There were 670 delegates assembled for this congress, 300 of them Bolsheviks, 193 SRs — with more than half of those being left SRs ready to caucus with the Bolsheviks — 68 Mensheviks, and 14 Menshevik internationalists like Julius Martov. The rest of the delegates were unaffiliated with any party.

Now it goes without saying that the Bolshevik proportion of delegates in the room that night was not a reflection of how much support they actually commanded throughout the Russian Empire. But even their outsized proportions only netted them a strong plurality, rather than an outright majority. And they still needed the left SRs to support them. The previous executive committee, which had been in place since June, now gave way to a new executive reflecting the number of delegates in the room that night. 14 Bolsheviks, including Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Alexandra Kollontai, plus seven left SRs, including their leader, Maria Spiridonova. The Mensheviks were allotted seats, but refused them. They refused to cooperate with what they said was an illegitimate power grab. But though there was a lot of anger at Bolshevik tactics in the room, Bolshevik objectives were actually commanding quite a bit of support. Practically everyone in the room agreed the provisional government was not legitimate. They agreed the Soviet needed to claim power and use it as a base of an all-socialist government who would govern until the constituent assembly was called. The policies of that government would be immediate peace, immediate land transfers to the peasants, immediate worker control of the factories. This is basically just the Bolshevik program. The only subtle distinction is that most delegates, including most of the rank and file Bolshevik delegates, assumed that this government would be a unity coalition representing all the socialist parties — Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and SRs. Martov put forward a motion calling for exactly that, and despite some very vocal pushback from the Bolshevik leadership, this motion carried nearly unanimously. The sense of this Second Congress of Soviets was that the government needed to be a government of all the socialist parties, not just the Bolsheviks. But rather than go into coalition with the Bolsheviks, the right SRs and Mensheviks, still furious that their behavior,

and honestly believing that the Bolsheviks were leading the revolution to its destruction, announced their intention to leave the congress and march down to the Winter Palace, where they would intervene to save the provisional goverment.

But this walkout simply guaranteed ultimate Bolshevik victory. The Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov, who wrote one of the vital Revolutionary memoirs, later lamented, “We completely untied the Bolsheviks’ hands, making them ministers of the whole 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, but by leaving 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 assured the victory of Lenin’s whole line.”

And to add insult to injury, their dramatic demonstration at the Winter Palace never happened. The delegates who quit the congress joined representatives from the Petrograd municipal Duma, including the mayor of Petrograd, and formed a column of about 300 people heading towards the Winter Palace. John Reed, Louise Bryant, and their group happened to encounter this procession about a block away from the Smolny Institute. There, they ran into an MRC checkpoint manned by some armed sailors, and Reed recorded one of the most infamous incidents of October 25th. One of the soldiers yelled at these demonstrators, “I have orders not to let anybody go to the Winter Palace.”

Then the mayor of Petrograd stepped up and said, “We are unarmed, but we are going to the Winter Palace.” He dramatically said, “Shoot us if you want to, we’re ready to die.”

The soldier said, “No, I can’t allow you to pass.”

So another demonstrator said, “What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?”

The sailor said, “No, I’m not going to shoot people who haven’t any guns. We won’t shoot Russian people.”

So the mayor said,” We will go forward, and what can you do?”

At this point, another sailor, very irritated, took over negotiations. He said, “We will spank you. And then, if necessary, we will shoot you too. Go home now and leave us in peace.”

Flummoxed, but not willing to force the issue, this processional march to the Winter Palace was called off. All the demonstrators turned around and left.

Back in the Smolny Institute. Martov was still trying to effect a compromise. He put forward a motion criticizing the Bolsheviks for preempting the will of the congress before it had a chance to decide for itself what it wanted to do, but he still called for an inter-party negotiation to form a broadly inclusive socialist government. But after the walkout of the Mensheviks and the SRs, his call for compromise and coalition landed with far less enthusiasm than it had just a few hours earlier. In response to Martov’s motion, Trotsky mounted the tribune and eviscerated the compromise position.

“A rising of the masses of the people requires no justification. What has happened is an insurrection, 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.”

Now, all of this is extremely debatable, but his last point really landed home:

“Now we are told renounce your victory, make concessions, compromise. With whom? I ask, with whom are we to compromise? With those wretched groups which have left us, or who are making this proposal? But after all, we 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, who may are ready, not for the first time or the last, to barter away as the bourgeoisie see 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 want to go: into the dustbin of history.”

At this, Martov stood up and said, “well, then I will leave.” A delegate blocked his way and said, “And we had thought that Martov at least would remain with us.” Martov said, “One day you will understand the crime in which you are taking part.”

And then he left.

Now this is a pretty heavy moment. Remember, Lenin and Martov go back more than 20 years, to when they were just baby revolutionaries together. They had stayed up all night talking on their last night before being exiled to Siberia in 1896. They had started Iskra together, to fight against the economists and revisionists and reformists who would turn revolutionary Marxism into mere trade unionism. Their feud, which was at the heart of the original Bolshevik-Menshevik split, was as much personal as it was ideological. Martov was initially more upset at Lenin’s callous personality than his political tactics, and even now. At this late hour on the moment of achieving what they had both been aiming for their whole lives — a socialist revolution in Russia — Martov ultimately could not abide Lenin’s personality, or his methods, or his tactics, and he quit. He walked out of the congress, and into the dustbin of history. Lenin made no effort to stop Martov, or turn him around or make him change his mind, but in the thick of the coming chaos, he would do everything he could to ensure Martov survived, and from his position as chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Lenin made sure Martov’s medical bills were paid after Martov resigned himself to a life of bitter exile. In the summer of 1921, Lenin reflected on his regrets. The biggest: “It is a pity Martov is not with us. What an amazing comrade he was. Such a pure man.

At two o’clock in the morning on what was now technically October 26th, 1917, MRC forces stormed the Winter Palace. Well, stormed is a bit of an overstatement. A mix of Red Guards, regular soldiers, armed sailors, and some random angry bystanders, entered the palace while blasting away with their guns. Bullets ricocheted off walls and shattered the last remaining windows, but nobody was really fighting back, so there were very few casualties. To the extent that anything of note took place during the storming of the Winter Palace, it was simply that people started looting the palace, and were only stopped when officers of the MRC called out that this was the people’s palace now, stop looting from the people.

 Vlaidimir Antonov, secretary of the Bolshevik military organization, led a detachment of armed men into the room where the last remaining members of the provisional government sat waiting. When he entered, he said, “I inform all of you members of the provisional government, you are under arrest.” Whether they were actually willing to die or not is irrelevant; Antonov was not there to kill them. Then he led the ministers out of the palace and through an angry crowd who very nearly lynched them, but Antonov refused to let any harm come to them, and they were safely deposited in cells in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where they would wait for… what? No one knew.

By three o’clock in the morning word had come back to the Smolny Institute that the Winter Palace had fallen and the government was under arrest. This new set off absolute bedlam. Practically everyone who opposed the insurrection had long since departed. A few Menshevik internationalists tried to insist on a coalition of government of socialists, but what had been possible a few hours earlier, even unanimously supported, was now rejected out of hand. At 5:00 AM, they approved a proclamation Lenin drafted to the Russian people in the name of the Soviet, announcing grandiosely — and somewhat aspirationally:

“Backed by the will of the vast majority of the workers, soldiers, and peasants, backed by the victorious uprising of the workers and the garrison, which has taken place in Petrograd, the Congress takes power into its own hands. The provisional government has been overthrown. The majority of the members of the provisional government are already under arrest.”

They further announced the policies they hoped would give this narrow insurrectionary coup a broad base of support.

“The Soviet government will propose an immediate democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will secure the transfer of the land of the landed proprietors, the crown, and the monasteries to the peasant communities without compensation. It will protect the rights of the soldiers by introducing complete democracy in the army. It will establish workers’ control over production. It will ensure the convocation of the constituent assembly at the time appointed. It will see to it that bread is supplied to the cities and prime necessities to the villages. It will guarantee all the nations inhabiting Russia the genuine right to self-determination.”

This was the basis of the Bolshevik revolutionary program. The proclamation ended by calling on the people to remain ever vigilant against the forces of counter-revolution who were now surely gathering in strength. It said:

“The Kornilov men, Kerensky, and others are attempting to bring troops against Petrograd. Several detachments, whom Kerensky has moved by deceiving them, have come over to the side of the insurgent people. Soldiers, actively resist Kerensky the Kornilovite! Be on your guard. Railwaymen, hold up all troop trains dispatched by Kerensky against Petrograd. Soldiers, workers in factory and office, the fate of the revolution and the fate of the democratic peace is in your hands. Long live the revolution!”

Then the Congress of Soviets adjourned this session. Only time would tell if these tumultuous days in October 1917 were the epicenter of a historical earthquake or a flash in the pan. I think the fact that I’m sitting here talking to you about it, and you’re sitting there listening to me talk about it more than a hundred years later, is maybe all the answer we need.

It’s pretty well proof that whatever else it was, or was not, the October Revolution was quite a historical earthquake.