Chapter 6
The Central Committee of our party tried to win the approval of the Left S. R.'s, who were invited to participate in establishing the Soviet government. They hesitated, on the ground that, in their view, this government should bear a coalition character within the Soviet parties. But the Mensheviki and the Right S. R.'s broke entirely with the Council of Soviets, deeming a coalition with anti-Soviet parties necessary. There was nothing left for us to do but to let the party of Left S. R.'s persuade their neighbors to the right to return to the revolutionary camp; and while they were engaged in this hopeless task, we thought it our duty to take the responsibility for the government entirely upon our party. The list of Peoples' Commissaries was composed exclusively of Bolsheviki.
There was undoubtedly some political danger in such a course. The change proved too precipitate. (One need but remember that the leaders of this party were only yesterday still under indictment under Statute Law No. 108--that is, accused of high treason). But there was no other alternative. The other Soviet groups hesitated and evaded the issue, preferring to adopt a waiting policy. Finally we became convinced that only our party could set up a revolutionary government.
THE FIRST DAYS OF THE NEW REGIME
The decrees on land and peace, approved by the Council, were printed in huge quantities and--through delegates from the front, peasant pedestrians arriving from the villages, and agitators sent by us to the trenches in the provinces--were strewn broadcast all over the country. Simultaneously the work of organizing and arming the Red Guards was carried on. Together with the old garrison and the sailors, the Red Guard was doing hard patrol duty. The Council of People's Commissaries got control of one government department after another, though everywhere encountering the passive resistance of the higher and middle grade officials. The former Soviet parties tried their utmost to find support in this class and organize a sabotage of the new government. Our enemies felt certain that the whole affair was a mere episode, that in a day or two--at most a week--the Soviet Government would be overthrown. The first foreign councillors and members of the embassies, impelled quite as much by curiosity as by necessary business on hand, appeared at the Smolny Institute. Newspaper correspondents hurried thither with their notebooks and cameras. Everyone hastened to catch a glimpse of the new government, being sure that in a day or two it would be too late.
Perfect order reigned in the city. The sailors, soldiers and the Red Guards bore themselves in these first days with excellent discipline and nobly supported the regime of stern revolutionary order.
In the enemy's camp fear arose lest the "episode" should become too protracted, and so the first force for attacking the new government was being hastily organized. In this, the initiative was taken by the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki. In the preceding period they would not, and dared not, take all the power into their own hands. In keeping with their provisional political position, they contented themselves with serving in the coalition government in the capacity of assistants, critics, and benevolent accusers and defenders of the bourgeoisie. During all elections they conscientiously anathematized the liberal bourgeoisie, while in the government they just as regularly combined with it. In the first six months of the revolution they managed, as a result of this policy, to lose absolutely all the confidence of the populace and army; and now, the October revolt was dashing them from the helm of the state. And yet, only yesterday they considered themselves the masters of the situation. The Bolshevik leaders whom they persecuted were in hiding, as under Czarism. To-day the Bolsheviki were in power, while yesterday's coalitionist ministers and their co-workers found themselves cast aside and suddenly deprived of every bit of influence upon the further course of events. They would not and could not believe that this sudden revolt marked the beginning of a new era. They preferred to consider it as merely accidental, the result of some misunderstanding, which could be removed by a few energetic speeches and accusational newspaper articles. But every hour they encountered more and more insurmountable obstacles. This is what caused their blind, truly furious hatred.
The bourgeois politicians did not venture, to be sure, to get too close to danger. They pushed to the front the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, who, in the attack upon us acquired all that energy which they had lacked during the period when they were a semi-governing power. Their organs circulated the most amazing rumors and lies. In their name it was that the proclamations containing open appeals to crush the new government were issued. It was they, too, who organized the government officials for sabotage and the cadets for military resistance.
On the 27th and 28th we continued to receive persistent threats by telegraph from army committees, town dumas, vikzhel zemstvos, and organizations (which had charge of the management of the Railroad Union). On the Nevsky Prospect, the principal thoroughfare of the capital's bourgeoisie, things were becoming more and more lively. The bourgeois youth was emerging from its stupor and, urged on by the press, was developing a wider and wider agitation against the Soviet government. With the help of the bourgeois crowd, the cadets were disarming individual Red Guardsmen. On the side-streets Red Guardsmen and sailors were being shot down. A group of cadets seized the telephone station. Attempts were made by the same side to seize the telegraph office. Finally, we learned that three armored cars had fallen into the hands of some inimical military organization. The bourgeois elements were clearly raising their heads. The newspapers heralded the fact that we had but a few hours more to live. Our friends intercepted a few secret orders which made it clear, however, that a militant organization had been formed to fight the Petrograd Soviet. The leading place in this organization was taken by the so-called Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, organized by the local Duma and the Central Executive Committee of the former regime. Here and there Right Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki held sway. At the disposal of this committee were the cadets, students, and many counter-revolutionary army officers, who sought, from under cover of the coalitions, to deal the Soviets a mortal blow.
THE CADET UPRISING OF OCTOBER 29TH
The stronghold of the counter-revolutionary organization was the cadet schools and the Engineering Castle, where considerable arms and ammunition were stored, and from where attacks were made upon the revolutionary government's headquarters. Detachments of Red Guards and sailors had surrounded the cadet schools and were sending in messengers demanding the surrender of all arms. Some scattering shots came in reply. The besiegers were trampled upon. Crowds of people gathered around them, and not infrequently stray shots fired from the windows would wound passers-by.
The skirmishes were assuming an indefinitely prolonged character, and this threatened the revolutionary detachments with demoralization. It was necessary, therefore, to adopt the most determined measures. The task of disarming the cadets was assigned to the commandant of Petropavlovsk fortress, Ensign B. He closely surrounded the cadet schools, brought up some armored cars and artillery, and gave the cadets ten minutes' time to surrender. Renewed firing from the windows was the answer at first. At the expiration of the ten minutes, B. ordered an artillery charge. The very first shots made yawning breaches in the walls of the schoolhouse. The cadets surrendered, though many of them tried to save themselves by flight, firing as they fled.
Considerable rancor was created, such as always accompanies civil war. The sailors undoubtedly committed many outrages upon individual cadets. The bourgeois press later accused the sailors and the Soviet government of inhumanity and brutality. It never mentioned, however, the fact that the revolt of October 25th-26th had been brought about with hardly any firing or sacrifice, and that only the counter-revolutionary conspiracy which was organized by the bourgeoisie and which threw the young generation into the flame of civil war against the workers, soldiers and sailors, led to unavoidable severities and sacrifices.
The 29th of October marked a decided change in the mood of the inhabitants of Petrograd. Events took on a more tragic character. At the same time, our enemies realized that the situation was far more serious than they thought at first and that the Soviet had not the slightest intention of relinquishing the power it had won just to oblige the junkers and the capitalistic newspapers.
The work of clearing Petrograd of counter-revolutionary centers was carried on intensively. The cadets were almost all disarmed, the participators in the insurrection were arrested and either imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress or deported to Kronstadt. All publications which openly preached revolt against Soviet authority were promptly suppressed. Orders were issued for the arrest of such of the leaders of the former Soviet parties whose names figured on the intercepted counter-revolutionary edicts. All military resistance in the capital was crushed absolutely.
Next came a long and exhausting struggle against the sabotage of the bureaucrats, technical workers, clerks, etc. These elements, which by their earning capacity belong largely to the downtrodden class of society, align themselves with the bourgeois class by the conditions of their life and by their general psychology. They had sincerely and faithfully served the government and its institutions when it was headed by Czarism. They continued to serve the government when the authority passed over into the hands of the bourgeois imperialists. They were inherited with all their knowledge and technical skill, by the coalition government in the next period of the revolution. But when the revolting workingmen, soldiers and peasants flung the parties of the exploiting classes away from the rudder of State and tried to take the management of affairs into their own hands, then the bureaucrats and clerks flew into a passion and absolutely refused to support the new government in any way. More and more extensive became this sabotage, which was organized mostly by Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, and which was supported by funds furnished by the banks and the Allied Embassies.
KERENSKY'S ADVANCE ON PETROGRAD
The stronger the Soviet government became in Petrograd, the more the bourgeois groups placed their hopes on military aid from without. The Petrograd Telegraph Agency, the railroad telegraph, and the radio-telegraph station of Tsarskoye-Selo brought from every side news of huge forces marching on Petrograd with the object of crushing the rebels there and establishing order. Kerensky was making flying trips to the front, and the bourgeois papers reported that he was leading innumerable forces against the Bolsheviki. We found ourselves cut off from the rest of the country, as the telegraphers refused to serve us. But the soldiers, who arrived by tens and hundreds on commissions from their respective regiments, invariably said to us: "Have no fears of the front; it is entirely on your side. You need but give the word, and we will send to your aid--even this very day--a division or a corps." It was the same in the army as everywhere else; the masses were for us, and the upper classes against us. In the hands of the latter was the military-technical machinery. Various parts of the vast army proved to be isolated one from another. We were isolated from both the army and the people. Nevertheless, the news of the Soviet government at Petrograd and its decrees spread throughout the country and roused the local Soviets to rebel against the old government.
The reports of Kerensky's advance on Petrograd, at the head of some forces or other, soon became more persistent and assumed more definite outlines. We were informed from Tsarskoye-Selo that Cossack echelons were not far from there, while an appeal, signed by Kerensky and General Krassnov, was being circulated in Petrograd calling upon the whole garrison to join the government's forces, which were expected any hour to enter the capital. The cadet insurrection of October 29th was undoubtedly connected with Kerensky's undertaking, only that it broke out too soon, owing to determined action on our part. The Tsarskoye-Selo garrison was ordered to demand of the approaching Cossack regiments recognition of the Soviet government. In case of refusal, the Cossacks were to be disarmed. But that garrison proved to be ill-fitted for military operations. It had no artillery and no leaders, its officers being unfriendly toward the Soviet government. The Cossacks took possession of the radio-telegraph station at Tsarskoye-Selo, the most powerful one in the country, and marched on. The garrisons of Peterhof, Krasnoye-Selo and Gatchina displayed neither initiative nor resolution.
After the almost bloodless victory at Petrograd, the soldiers confidently assumed that matters would take a similar course in the future. All that was necessary, they thought, was to send an agitator to the Cossacks, who would lay down their arms the moment the object of the proletarian revolution was explained to them. Korniloff's counter-revolutionary uprising was put down by means of speeches and fraternization. By agitation and well-planned seizure of certain institutions--without a fight--the Kerensky government was overthrown. The same methods were now being employed by the leaders of the Tsarskoye-Selo, Krasnoye-Selo and the Gatchina Soviets with General Krassnov's Cossacks. But this time they did not work. Though without determination or enthusiasm, the Cossacks did advance. Individual detachments approached Gatchina and Krasnoye-Selo, engaged the scanty forces of the local garrisons, and sometimes disarmed them. About the numerical strength of Kerensky's forces we at first had no idea whatever. Some said that General Krassnov headed ten thousand men; others affirmed that he had no more than a thousand; while the unfriendly newspapers and circulars announced, in letters an inch big, that two corps were lined up beyond Tsarskoye-Selo.
There was a general want of confidence in the Petrograd garrison. No sooner had it won a bloodless victory, than it was called upon to march out against an enemy of unknown numbers and engage in battles of uncertain outcome. In the Garrison Conference, the discussion centered about the necessity of sending out more and more agitators and of issuing appeals to the Cossacks; for to the soldiers it seemed impossible that the Cossacks would refuse to rise to the point of view which the Petrograd garrison was defending in its struggle. Nevertheless, advanced groups of Cossacks approached quite close to Petrograd, and we anticipated that the principal battle would take place in the streets of the city.
The greatest resolution was shown by the Red Guards. They demanded arms, ammunition, and leadership. But everything in the military machine was disorganized and out of gear, owing partly to disuse and partly to evil intent. The officers had resigned. Many had fled. The rifles were in one place and the cartridges in another. Matters were still worse with artillery. The cannons, gun carriages and the military stores were all in different places; and all these had to be groped for in the dark. The various regiments did not have at their disposal either sappers' tools or field telephones. The Revolutionary General Staff, which tried to straighten out things from above, encountered insurmountable obstacles, the greatest of which was the sabotage of the military-technical employees.
Then we decided to appeal directly to the working class. We stated that the success of the revolution was most seriously threatened, and that it was for them--by their energy, initiative, and self-denial--to save and strengthen the regime of proletarian and peasant government. This appeal met with tremendous practical success almost immediately. Thousands of workingmen proceeded toward Kerensky's forces and began digging trenches. The munition workers manned the cannon, themselves obtaining ammunition for them from various stores; requisitioned horses; brought the guns into the necessary positions and adjusted them; organized a commissary department; procured gasoline, motors, automobiles; requisitioned provisions and forage; and put the sanitary trains on a proper footing--created, in short, the entire war machinery, which we had vainly endeavored to create from above.
When scores of heavy guns reached the lines, the disposition of our soldiers changed immediately. Under cover of the artillery they were ready to repulse the Cossacks' attack. In the first lines were the sailors and Red Guards. A few officers, politically unrelated to us but sincerely attached to their regiments, accompanied their soldiers to the lines and directed their operations against Krassnov's Cossacks.
COLLAPSE OF KERENSKY'S ATTEMPT
Meanwhile telegrams spread the report all over the country and abroad that the Bolshevik "adventure" had been disposed of and that Kerensky had entered Petrograd and was establishing order with an iron hand. On the other hand, in Petrograd itself, the bourgeois press, emboldened by the proximity of Kerensky's troops, wrote about the complete demoralization of the Petrograd garrison; about an irresistible advance of the Cossacks, equipped with much artillery; and predicted the imminent fall of the Smolny Institute. Our chief handicap was, as already stated, the lack of suitable mechanical accessories and of men able to direct military operations. Even those officers who had conscientiously accompanied their soldiers to the lines, declined the position of Commander-in-Chief.
After long deliberation, we hit upon the following combination: The Garrison Council selected a committee of five persons, which was entrusted with the supreme control of all operations against the counter-revolutionary forces moving on Petrograd. This committee subsequently reached an understanding with Colonel Muravief, who was in the opposition party under the Kerensky regime, and who now, on his own initiative, offered his services to the Soviet government.
On the cold night of October 30th, Muravief and I started by automobile for the lines. Wagons with provisions, forage, military supplies and artillery trailed along the road. All this was done by the workingmen of various factories. Several times our automobile was stopped on the way by Red Guard patrols who verified our permit. Since the first days of the October revolution, every automobile in town had been requisitioned, and no automobile could be ridden through the streets of the city or in the outskirts of the capital without a permit from the Smolny Institute. The vigilance of the Red Guards was beyond all praise. They stood on watch about small camp fires, rifle in hand, hours at a time. The sight of these young armed workmen by the camp fires in the snow was the best symbol of the proletarian revolution.
Many guns had been drawn up in position, and there was no lack of ammunition. The decisive encounter developed on this very day, between Krasnoye-Selo and Tsarskoye-Selo. After a fierce artillery duel, the Cossacks, who kept on advancing as long as they met no obstacles, hastily withdrew. They had been fooled all the time by tales of harsh and cruel acts committed by the Bolsheviki, who wished, as it were, to sell Russia to the German Kaiser. They had been assured that almost the entire garrison at Petrograd was impatiently awaiting them as deliverers. The first serious resistance completely disorganized their ranks and sealed the fate of Kerensky's entire undertaking.
The retreat of Krassnov's Cossacks enabled us to get control of the radio station at Tsarskoye-Selo. We immediately wirelessed the news of our victory over Kerensky's forces. Our foreign friends informed us subsequently that the German wireless station refused, on orders from above, to receive this wireless message.
[Footnote: I cite here the text of this wireless message:
"Selo Pulkovo. General Staff 2:10 P. M. The night of October 30th-31st will go down in history. Kerensky's attempt to march counter-revolutionary forces upon the capital of the revolution has received a decisive check. Kerensky is retreating, we are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workingmen of Petrograd have shown that they can and will, gun in hand, affirm the will and power of proletarian democracy. The bourgeoisie tried to isolate the army of the revolution and Kerensky attempted to crush it by Cossackism. Both have been frustrated.
"The great idea of the reign of a workingmen's and peasants' democracy united the ranks of the army and hardened its will. The whole country will now come to understand that the Soviet government is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent fact of the supremacy of the workers, soldiers and peasants. Kerensky's repulse was the repulse of the middle class, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovites. Kerensky's repulse means the affirmation of the people's rights to a free, peaceful life, to land, food and power. The Pulkovsky division, by their brilliant charge, is strengthening the cause of the proletarian and peasant revolution. There can be no return to the past. There is still fighting, obstacles and sacrifice ahead of us. But the way is open and victory assured.
"Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Government may well be proud of their Pulkovsky division, commanded by Colonel Walden. May the names of the fallen never be forgotten. All honor to the fighters for the revolution--the soldiers and the officers who stood by the People! Long live revolutionary and Socialist Russia! In the name of the Council of People's Commissaries, L. Trotzky, Oct. 31st, 1917."]
The first reaction of the German authorities to the events of October was thus one of fear--fear lest these events provoke disturbances in Germany itself. In Austria-Hungary, part of our telegram was accepted and, so far as we can tell, has been the source of information for all Europe upon the ill-starred attempt of Kerensky to recover his power and its miserable failure.
Discontent was rife among Krassnov's Cossacks. They began sending their scouts into Petrograd and even official delegates to Smolny. There they had the opportunity to convince themselves that perfect order reigned in the capital, thanks to the Petrograd garrison, which unanimously supported the Soviet government. The Cossacks' disorganization became the more acute as the absurdity of the plan to take Petrograd with some thousand horsemen dawned upon them--for the supports promised them from the front never arrived.
Krassnov's detachment withdrew to Gatchinsk, and when we started out thither the next day, Krassnov's staff were already virtually prisoners of the Cossacks themselves. Our Gatchinsk garrison was holding all the most important military positions. The Cossacks, on the other hand, though not yet disarmed, were absolutely in no position for further resistance. They wanted but one thing: to be allowed as soon as possible to return to the Don region or, at least, back to the front.