The Bolsheviks in Power

The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd

Alexander Rabinowitch

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780253116840
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

With new research and detailed analysis, this historical study reframes the October Revolution of 1917 and its terrible aftermath in the Russian capitol. A major contribution to the historiography of twentieth century Russia, The Bolsheviks in Power shines a revealing spotlight on the fateful first year of Soviet rule in Petrograd. It examines events that profoundly shaped the Soviet political system that endured through generations. Drawing largely from previously inaccessible Soviet archives, Alexander Rabinowitch demolishes standard interpretations of the origins of Soviet authoritarianism by demonstrating that the Soviet system evolved ad hoc as the Bolsheviks struggled to retain political power amid spiraling political, social, economic, and military crises. The book covers issues such as the rapid fall of influential moderate Bolsheviks, the formation of the dreaded Cheka, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the Red Terror, the national government's flight to Moscow, and the subsequent rivalry between Russia's new and old capitals.

PART ONE

THE DEFEAT OF THE MODERATES

1

Forming a Government

THE SEVERE SETBACK that Bolshevik moderates suffered at the opening session of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets did not end their efforts, or those of other left socialist groups, to form a multiparty, homogeneous socialist government at the Soviet Congress and in its immediate aftermath. During these days, they sought to restore the movement toward creation of a broad socialist coalition that had been destroyed by the violent overthrow of the Provisional Government engineered by Lenin just before the opening of the Congress of Soviets. When that failed, they strived mightily to ensure that the exclusively Bolshevik cabinet ultimately approved by the congress, the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), would be strictly accountable to the multiparty Central Executive Committee (CEC).

* * *

The chaotic opening session of the congress during the night and early morning of 25/26 October had adjourned after endorsing transfer of power to the soviets but before defining a new government. In effect, Russia was temporarily without a functioning national government. On 24 October, at the last meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee before the overthrow of the Provisional Government, Kamenev and Ian Berzin had been appointed to conduct negotiations with the Left SRs on their entry into a Soviet government,¹ and the next day, leading Left SRs were sounded out about forming a coalition with the Bolsheviks.² The issues of staying or withdrawing from the congress and of whether to join the new government were the main topics of discussion at Left SR fraction caucuses on 26 October. Although sympathetic to the Bolsheviks with whom they had been collaborating closely for weeks, Left SR fraction, or caucus, members remained true to the principle that the survival of the revolution dictated the formation of a broad coalition government which included all Soviet parties proportionate to their representation at the Congress of Soviets. To facilitate this outcome, they insisted on the importance of maintaining links to the Bolsheviks and the revolutionary masses but rejected the idea of joining with the Bolsheviks in the government.³ At a gathering of members of the Bolshevik Central Committee and leading Left SRs in the early evening of the twenty-sixth, the Left SRs declined cabinet posts pending construction of a broadly inclusive socialist coalition.⁴

Finally, at 9:00 PM on 26 October, efforts to form a government with Left SRs having failed, Kamenev opened the second session of the Soviet Congress. To shouts of approval, he announced that the Presidium, expressing the decisions of the congress, had issued orders for the elimination of the death penalty at the front and the release of soldiers jailed for political crimes; the liberation of members of land and peasant committees jailed by the previous government; and Kerensky’s arrest. Perfunctory decrees authorizing these steps were approved by acclamation.⁵

The first main agenda item of the evening was to be the government question, but resistance from the Left SRs to forming a coalition with the Bolsheviks alone complicated its resolution. Evidently, in order to establish the program of a Soviet government before considering its composition, the agenda was rearranged, and Lenin took the podium to present a peace declaration to the “Peoples and Governments of All the Warring Powers.” It was Lenin’s first appearance at the Congress, and all sources agree that he received a thunderous ovation. His declaration, interrupted by explosions of applause, pledged an end to secret diplomacy and proposed that all warring peoples and their governments immediately arrange a truce and begin negotiations for a just and democratic peace, without annexations or indemnities. The declaration also provided for the right of self-determination to subject nationalities everywhere in the world, regardless of when their forced incorporation into larger states occurred.⁶ In a later speech, Trotsky made it plain that the declaration was primarily directed to the revolutionary masses around the world. “It is understood that we do not expect to influence imperialist governments with our proclamations but as long as they exist, we cannot ignore them,” he said. “We are placing all our hopes on our revolution unleashing the European revolution. If uprisings by the peoples of Europe do not crush imperialism, we will be crushed.”⁷

In the peace declaration and the ensuing discussion, Lenin took pains to emphasize the “October 24–25 revolution,” rather than the Congress of Soviets, as the source of the Soviet government’s legitimacy. Subsequently, this would be one of his major themes. Moreover, association with the mythical October armed uprising became central to Bolshevik identity. As was the case with all the decrees of the Soviet Congress, Lenin also stressed that the peace declaration was “provisional,” pending confirmation by the Constituent Assembly. Nonetheless, following the Congress, support for its program became the standard by which the acceptability of all political groups and institutions, including the Constituent Assembly, would be judged. Everything in the peace declaration had been a staple of the extreme left for years. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was adopted without a dissenting vote. The assembled delegates gave Lenin another resounding ovation and sang the Internationale, the worldwide socialist anthem, before proceeding to the next item of business.⁸

Lenin next presented a decree on land reform that would abolish private ownership of land and would transfer all private and church lands to land committees and to soviets of peasant deputies for distribution to individual peasants according to need. Contradicting fundamental tenets of the communal land program long championed by the Bolsheviks, this decree was, in fact, modeled after the popular SR land program. After several delegates pointed this out, Lenin retorted, “So be it…. As a democratic government we cannot ignore the feelings of the masses even if we don’t agree with them.” After a break, during which the Left SRs reviewed the decree, it was adopted by an overwhelming vote without discussion.⁹

Not until close to 2:30 AM, 27 October, did the Congress finally begin to consider the structure and composition of a new national government. The task of presenting Lenin’s position fell to Kamenev, who had led opposition to a unilateral Bolshevik seizure of power and who remained firmly committed to the creation of a broad socialist coalition on both theoretical and practical grounds.¹⁰ That position was contained in a brief decree to which the makeup of a new “temporary,” exclusively Bolshevik government was appended. According to this decree, the Sovnarkom, the worker and peasant government to be established by the Congress, was to function only until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Each major department or “people’s commissariat” in this government was to be headed by a governing board. The chairs of each of these boards, along with the head of the government, were to make up the Sovnarkom. In close collaboration with mass organizations, it was pledged to implement the program of the Soviet Congress. Control of the Sovnarkom and the right to remove individual commissars was to rest with the new CEC to be elected by the Congress. Kamenev ended by presenting the proposed, exclusively Bolshevik slate of people’s commissars, headed by Lenin, as chair of the Sovnarkom, and Trotsky, as people’s commissar for foreign affairs. Conspicuously missing from the slate was Zinoviev, one of Lenin’s closest comrades-in-arms in earlier times.¹¹

Following Kamenev’s presentation, Boris Avilov, representing the United Social-Democratic Internationalists and a cluster of Menshevik-Internationalists who had not yet withdrawn from the Congress, articulated a remarkably prophetic argument against the immediate formation of an exclusively Bolshevik government, a view shared by a significant number of Bolshevik delegates, including roughly half the proposed cabinet. Avilov expressed grave doubts about the ability of an exclusively Bolshevik government to alleviate food supply shortages. Nor could such a government bring peace, as the allied governments would not recognize it, and European workers and peasants were still a long way from decisive rebellion. Therefore either a peace would be arranged between the Central Powers and the Entente at Russia’s expense, or Russia would be forced to accept a separate onerous peace with Germany. Avilov offered a resolution calling for a delay in confirmation of a Bolshevik government and for the creation instead of a Provisional Executive Committee to form a government in agreement with all groups from the revolutionary democracy participating in the Soviet Congress, including those who had walked out of it.¹² However, the resolution was defeated.

Avilov’s emphasis on the creation of a government representing the entire revolutionary democracy was similar to the position of Left SRs as well as of moderate Bolsheviks. Vladimir Karelin, a leading Left SR, rose next to declare that “circumstances demand the creation of a homogeneous democratic government” and that “without the support of the parties that have left the congress, a homogenous [socialist] government will find it impossible to implement its policies.” At the same time he absolved the Bolsheviks of blame for the previous day’s Menshevik-SR walkout and declared that “the fate of the entire revolution is [now] inextricably linked to their [the Bolsheviks’] fate and that their destruction will mean the destruction of the revolution.” Still, he criticized the Bolsheviks for forming a “ready-made government” rather than temporary committees that would try to resolve critical issues that brooked no delay; for their hostile actions toward other revolutionary-democratic parties, including the Left SRs; and for their violations of freedom of speech. Moreover, he articulated the enduring Left SR principle that any new national executive body should be subordinate and strictly accountable to the multiparty CEC.¹³

Since Kamenev, who was still in the chair, sympathized with the views of Avilov and Karelin, Trotsky was called on to defend the immediate appointment of an exclusively Bolshevik government. Now that the latter was a practical possibility, Trotsky, no less than Lenin, was disinclined to let the opportunity slip. Trotsky dismissed Avilov’s insistence on the need for a broadly based coalition to overcome Russia’s deepening crises. Far from strengthening the revolution, he declared, coalition with the likes of Fedor Dan and Mikhail Lieber, both prominent Mensheviks, would lead to its inevitable downfall. Trotsky was similarly dismissive of Karelin. He warned that the Left SRs would lose their support among the masses and isolate themselves from the poorer peasantry if they attempted to contest the Bolsheviks with whom the poorer peasantry had united. Moreover, he claimed that the Bolsheviks had openly “raised the banner of an uprising,” and he brushed aside accusations that the Bolsheviks had preempted the Soviet Congress by blaming Kerensky for the military action undertaken on 24–25 October. Branding Mensheviks and SRs who had left the Congress as “traitors to the revolution with whom we will never unite,” he professed to welcome any group willing to help implement the Congress’s program and to stand on the Bolsheviks’ side of the barricades to the end.¹⁴

Following Trotsky’s statement, a representative of the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Union of Railway Workers (Vikzhel) pushed forward to read a telegram expressing firm opposition to the “seizure of power by any one party” and strong support for the establishment of a “revolutionary socialist” government responsible to the “entire revolutionary democracy.” The telegram made it clear that until such a government was created, Vikzhel intended to take control of the entire Russian railway network. Even more menacing for the Bolsheviks, the Vikzhel representative made it quite clear that in the struggle between the old Soviet leadership and the new, Vikzhel’s loyalties rested with the former.¹⁵ After he yielded the floor, two rank-and-file railway workers challenged Vikzhel’s right to intervene in national politics, one of them declaring unequivocally that Vikzhel was a “political corpse that no longer represented the sentiments of its constituents.”¹⁶ Lenin’s decree appointing an exclusively Bolshevik government passed without difficulty, with only about 150 of roughly 600 votes cast for Avilov’s motion.¹⁷ Nonetheless, the threat of a potentially disastrous railway stoppage if the government was not broadened cast an ominous cloud over the closing moments of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

After electing a new CEC consisting of sixty-two Bolsheviks, twenty-nine Left SRs, six United Social-Democratic Internationalists, three Ukrainian Socialists, and one SR Maksimalist, the congress agreed that this body, to be chaired by Kamenev, could be expanded with representatives of peasant soviets, army organizations, and the groups that had walked out the day before.¹⁸ The potential entry into the CEC of representatives of peasant soviets was especially significant in terms of broadening the government, because most soviets in the countryside were still dominated by SRs. With this, the historic Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets came to an end.

* * *

As the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets closed on the morning of 27 October and delegates from around the country departed from Smolny, most of them, including Bolshevik moderates, expected that once tempers cooled the Sovnarkom would be restructured according to the model reflected in the party’s pre-October political program, that is, as a multiparty, exclusively socialist coalition government reflecting the relative strength of the various parties and groups in the Congress of Soviets at its start. Only such a broadly based central power under the aegis of the soviets, they believed, would be capable of avoiding economic disaster, fending off counterrevolution, and averting full-scale civil war. Lenin and Trotsky, however, did not share this view. They were now concerned most of all with retaining freedom of action for themselves, so as to maximize the galvanizing effect of violent social upheaval in Russia on revolutionary workers abroad.

Most of the departing delegates also left Smolny with the impression, embodied in the Congress’s decree on the structure of the new, temporary government, that it would be responsible to the CEC in which Left SRs, United Social-Democratic Internationalists, Ukrainian Socialists, and SR Maksimalists, a smaller, radical SR splinter group, were already represented, and in which all other Soviet groups, including those that had either left the Congress or were inadequately represented there, would participate. In any case, the decree establishing the Sovnarkom seemed to leave no doubt that it would soon yield its authority to the Constituent Assembly which, with the bourgeoisie swept aside, would confirm and build upon the first steps toward a bright future which the delegates felt they had taken. We have Trotsky’s testimony that, in the first hours after the Congress of Soviets, Lenin leaned toward postponing elections to the Constituent Assembly and to structuring them to favor the extreme left.¹⁹ Most party leaders insisted, however, on making good on their commitments with respect to the Constituent Assembly either because, like Kamenev, they rejected Lenin’s theoretical views and strategy, or because, like Iakov Sverdlov, they feared the popular outcry that reneging on pre-October pledges and disrupting the elections wou...