THE EASTERN FRONT

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION:  VIA THE JULIEN CALENDAR

    As noted earlier, following the failure of the Kornilov Affair in August 1917, Kerensky’s Provisional Government managed to stagger on, but it possessed no real power. Its days were clearly numbered. Russian society was in chaos. There was widespread hunger; peasants were seizing land and cattle; agricultural machinery was being demolished, and those landowners that did not flee were being murdered. And there was a breakdown of law and order in villages and towns throughout the country, with bands of army deserters robbing, killing and seizing property. Indeed, there was a fear that the army would desert on masse before the winter was out. There was, above all, the need for land reform, but this was not going to feature on the agenda of a government made up of landowners and capitalists. As a result of these shambolic conditions, local power was now in the hands of the Soviets, the vast number of which had solid Bolsheviks majorities, and all of which – thanks, as we shall see, to Trotsky! – had set up their own armed forces. Established in cities and provincial towns throughout the country, these encompassed the power of the people, and these were to provide the springboard for revolution, a Marxist revolution.

     It was against this background that Lenin decided to take action. As we have seen, he had taken refuge in Finland following the crack down on the Bolshevik Party in July, and it had been left to Trotsky to keep alive and revitalize the party. Taking up Lenin’s emphasis on power to the people and power to the Soviets, he proved extremely successful. Furthermore, on his release from prison in September (in order to provide further opposition to Kornilov’s bid for power!), he had got himself elected as the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and wasted no time in setting up a Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), theoretically representing the Soviets throughout the country and providing the party, thereby, with the brute force required to overthrow the government. Encouraged by this development, Lenin returned in secret to Petrograd and, on the 23rd October, following ten hours of heated debate, won over the Bolshevik Central Committee (10-2) to an immediate attempt at an armed take-over of the government. The Russian Revolution was under way.

    ForxLenin, as it turned out, there was no time to waste. The second All-Russian Soviet Congress (the supreme governing body of the Provisional Government), having been delayed for five days, was due to meet during the night of the 25th October. If the uprising were to take place after that date, then any future government would have to include all the Socialist parties. But if the overthrow of the government could be achieved prior to the Congress, then Lenin would have a chance of achieving the one-party government that was the cornerstone of his revolution. On the 24th October, still in hiding, Lenin hurried to party headquarters and arranged for an insurrection the following day. The storming of the Winter Palace at Petrograd was duly carried out, and early the next day armed Bolsheviks (the “Red Guards”), entered the building unopposed. Kerensky had managed to escape, but all the other ministers were captured and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress, overlooking the Winter Palace – a large number of prisoners having been released in order to provide the accommodation! Meanwhile, Lenin, now appeared in person at the Congress and announced the demise of the Provisional Government.

     The fall of the Kerensky government was accepted – it had indeed been accomplished in large measure by that time (though the fall of the Winter Palace actually came four hours later), but one problem remained. The Bolsheviks had the largest number of delegates (300 out of 670) but, clearly, not a majority, and the first resolution of the assembly, passed unanimously, proposed a united democratic government which would include all the Socialist parties. Given this situation there was no way in which Lenin could outmanoeuvre his Socialist colleagues and seize overall command of the government. Then, however, fate took a hand. Protesting that they would not be associated with the the day’s criminal acts (committed by the Bolsheviks, they alleged, to provoke a civil war), a large number of Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary delegates stormed out of the meeting. Denouncing them as counter-revolutionaries, Lenin put forward a form of government entitled “The Council of People’s Commissars”, appointed from the ranks of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The Congress gave its assent, and the power of government was invested in the Council, with Lenin as premier and Trotsky as commissar of foreign affairs. The Russian, the Marxist, and the Communist Revolution had been legally established.

Acknowledgements

Revolution: 3ddproductions.com Storming of the Winter Palace: Sutori.com Lenin at Congress: britannica.com The Cheka: goodreads.com George Leggett The Red Army: marxists.org, by German journalist and politician Erich Wollenberg Russian Bear: escholarship.org

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     Lenin wasted no time in putting into effect the two major planks of his policy. The following day (26th), he opened up immediate peace negotiations with the Central Powers (fighting on the Eastern Front ended on the 16th December), and he announced his long-awaited land reform. The estates of the imperial family, the church and monasteries, and all the large landowners were to be taken over, without compensation, and distributed amongst the peasants. Local power was to reside in village communes, factory workers, and soldiers’ committees. This was power to the people with a vengeance, and ushered in a period of confusion bordering on chaos. At the same time, the Russian State bank was raided and some five million roubles taken to finance the revolution.

    But not all went to plan. In the newly formed Constituent Assembly, held on the 28th November, the Bolsheviks (keen to capitulate and too full of promises), gained only 168 seats, and Lenin had to resort to violence to achieve full political power. He declared the result invalid, postponed indefinitely the opening of the new assembly, and arrested a large number of leaders from the three main parties. And in this, he was assisted by the newly formed Cheka, a secret police set up in December to silence political opponents and dissidents within his own party (and later known as the KGB), and, early in 1918, the formation of the Red Army. To all intents and purposes, it was a return to the Czarist police state.

     Incidentally, the storming of the Winter Palace was not quite the well managed and heroic event often re-enacted by writers and film makers alike. There was little resistance. The Red Guard did spray the building with small arms fire, but it was entered without any opposition the following morning. The only substantial sound of battle was from a blank shell, fired from the cruiser Aurora on the Neva River! ……

     …… TenxDays that Shook the World, by the American journalist John Reed, completed in 1919, covers this eventful period, as does And Quiet Flows the Don, a four volume novel by the Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov, published between 1928 and 1940. And Animal Farm by the English novelist George Orwell (1945) was based on events leading up to the October Revolution.

    The final step towards the Russian Revolution came in the New Year. When the Constituent Assembly was eventually opened on the 5th January, it was swiftly dissolved by Lenin on the grounds that it had been taken over by counter revolutionaries. The future was now in his hands! This was a triumph for the Bolsheviks and the New Order, though it would take the best of three years of civil war, beginning around this time, to bring it to fruition. In the meantime, however, as we shall see, the Old Order, via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March, 1918, was to pay a price, a very high price, for its defeat at the hands of the Central Powers. The Russian bear was to have more than a sore head.

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