Through these last critical days of August Lenin remained underground in Helsingfors, the capital of Finland. In Finland, part of the Russian empire since 1809, national aspirations complicated and greatly intensified the ferment which followed the collapse of the tsarist regime. Helsingfors was also the main base of the Baltic Fleet, within which the Bolsheviks were especially active and influential. As elsewhere in Russia, political and social antagonism and popular support for extreme left programs rose sharply in Finland in the late summer and early fall of 1917. The Third Regional Congress of Soviets of the Army, Fleet, and Workers in Finland, which met in Helsingfors on September 9–12, elected a permanent executive committee (the Regional Executive Committee of the Army, Fleet, and Workers in Finland) made up almost exclusively of Bolsheviks and Left SRs. Under the chairmanship of the ultraradical Bolshevik Ivar Smilga, this committee proclaimed itself the highest political authority in Finland.
During his stay in Helsingfors, Lenin had some contact with local social democratic leaders. And it seems that the strength of the left and the increasingly explosive political situation in Finland helped to shape his thinking about the further development of the revolution generally. But for the most part Lenin remained absorbed by revolutionary politics in Petrograd. Shortly after the move from Razliv to Finland on August 9 he had been able to arrange fairly reliable communications with the Central Committee, as well as delivery of newspapers from Petrograd, which usually arrived toward evening the day after publication. Apart from devouring and reflecting on the news, he seems to have divided his time between completing The State and Revolution and writing political commentaries for the Bolshevik press.1
Lenin first learned of General Kornilov’s threat to Petrograd on August 28. Not until late on the twenty-ninth did he obtain the previous day’s papers containing initial substantial accounts of the developing crisis. Even then, he had not received copies of the Bolshevik Rabochii, so that he was almost completely in the dark regarding his party’s behavior. Nonetheless, on the morning of the thirtieth, as he anxiously awaited further news from Petrograd, he drafted a letter formulating tactical recommendations to the Central Committee which foreshadowed a significant, albeit temporary, shift in outlook on the development of the revolution. Lenin’s initial response to the threat of a rightist dictatorship was that the existing political situation had suddenly been fundamentally altered and that the tactics of the party would have to be revised accordingly. No longer did he dismiss rumors of a counterrevolutionary conspiracy as “a carefully thought out ploy on the part of the Mensheviks and SRs,” as he had during the Moscow Conference. Instead, Lenin urged Bolsheviks to join in the fight against Kornilov. Remaining silent on the crucial question of how closely it was permissible for party members to cooperate with majority socialists in defense preparations, he cautioned merely that Bolsheviks ought neither to support Kerensky directly nor, for the time being, to seek to overthrow him. Rather, they were to use every opportunity to expose Kerensky’s weaknesses and shortcomings and to apply pressure on the government to fulfill such “partial demands” as the arrest of Miliukov, the arming of workers, the summoning of naval forces to Petrograd, the dissolution of the State Duma, the legislation of land transfers to the peasants, and the introduction of workers’ control in the factories.
Both the tacit acceptance of coordination with other groups to combat Kornilov and the emphasis on applying pressure for the fulfillment of “partial demands” were departures from Lenin’s previous insistence that the Bolsheviks remain aloof from the Mensheviks and SRs and that the organization of the direct seizure of power by the proletariat at the earliest possible date was the party’s primary task. As we have seen, this was precisely the position adopted during the last days of August by most party leaders in Petrograd. Lenin’s unexpected approval of their course of action was reflected in a postscript which he added to his letter to the Central Committee late on the evening of the thirtieth, after receiving a new batch of papers from Petrograd, including copies of Rabochii. “Having read six issues of Rabochii after this was written,” he appended, “I must say our views fully coincide.”2
The shift in Lenin’s thinking that followed the outbreak of the Kornilov affair was even more pronounced in an article, “On Compromises,” which he wrote on September 1 and which was received in Petrograd two days later. Indeed, it is difficult to interpret this essay as anything other than a retreat from the major assumptions underlying Lenin’s directives to the Sixth Congress—the demise of the soviets as revolutionary institutions, the irrevocable bankruptcy of the Mensheviks and SRs, and the absolute necessity for the seizure of power by force. Stimulated by Kerensky’s obvious weakness and isolation, impressed by the power demonstrated by the soviets in the struggle against Kornilov, and intrigued by the apparent growth of hostility to further collaboration with the Kadets among Mensheviks and SRs, Lenin now endorsed the possibility of returning to the “peaceful” pre-July tactical program urged all along by party moderates. Specifically, he proposed a compromise with the majority socialists which went roughly as follows: For the time being the Bolsheviks would give up their demand for the transfer of power to a government made up of representatives of the proletariat and poorer peasantry and officially return to the pre-July slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” In return, the Mensheviks and SRs would take power into their own hands and form a government responsible to the Soviet. Political power would be transferred to local soviets everywhere in Russia. The Bolsheviks would remain outside the government and would be guaranteed full freedom to campaign on behalf of their own program. In essence, “On Compromises” was an expression of readiness to forego the use of armed force and instead to compete for power within the soviets by political means if the Mensheviks and SRs broke with the bourgeoisie. Lenin now maintained that such a course “could in all probability secure the peaceful advance of the whole revolution, and provide exceptionally good chances for great strides in the world movement towards peace and the victory of socialism.”
On September 3, as Lenin was about to send “On Compromises” to Petrograd, he learned of the creation of the Directory, of the fundamental reluctance of a majority of moderate socialists to sanction the formation of an exclusively socialist government, and, to the contrary, of their efforts to organize a new coalition cabinet with representatives of the bourgeoisie from outside the Kadet Party. Under the influence of these reports, Lenin added a brief postscript to “On Compromises” in which he observed pessimistically: “After reading today’s [Sunday’s] papers, I say to myself: perhaps it is already too late to offer a compromise. . . . Yes, to all appearances, the day when by chance the path of peaceful development became possible has already passed.”3
Yet even now Lenin did not wholly abandon the idea of a peaceful course. During the first week and a half of September, his interest in a possible “compromise” was evidently kept at least partially alive by continuing, well-publicized wrangling within Menshevik and SR ranks regarding a future government, and festering antipathy between Kerensky and the moderate socialist leadership of the Soviet, as reflected, for example, in the stubborn resistance of the Committee for Struggle to government attempts at dissolving revolutionary committees created during the Kornilov crisis. At any rate, Lenin returned to the question of a possible compromise with the moderates and the nonviolent development of the revolution in three subsequent articles of this period: “The Tasks of the Revolution,” “The Russian Revolution and Civil War,” and “One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution.”4
In “The Tasks of the Revolution,” written around September 6 although not published until the end of September, Lenin elaborated in some detail on the political scheme that he had first proposed in “On Compromises.” “By seizing full power,” he contended, “the soviets could still today—and this is probably their last chance—insure the peaceful development of the revolution, peaceful elections of deputies by the people, and a peaceful struggle of parties inside the soviets.”5
In “One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution,” written a day or two later (but published on September 14), Lenin expounded upon the supreme importance of state power in the development of any revolution and the new significance which he attached to the immediate transfer of “all power to the soviets”:
The question of power cannot be evaded or brushed aside because it is the key question determining everything in a revolution’s development. . . . The whole issue at present is whether the petty-bourgeois democrats have learned anything during these great, exceptionally eventful, six months. If not, then the revolution is lost, and only a victorious uprising of the proletariat can save it. If they have learned something, the establishment of a stable, unwavering power must be begun immediately. . . . Only soviet power could be stable and not be overthrown even in the stormiest months of the stormiest revolution. Only this power could insure a continuous and broad development of the revolution, a peaceful struggle of parties within the soviets.
Directing his attention to the Mensheviks and SRs Lenin went on to explain the meaning of the slogan “All Power to the Soviets” as he had resurrected it in “On Compromises”:
The slogan “Power to the Soviets” is very often incorrectly interpreted to mean a “cabinet of the parties of the Soviet majority.” . . . [Not so.] “Power to the Soviets” means radically reshaping the entire old state apparatus, that bureaucratic apparatus which hampers everything democratic. It means removing this apparatus and substituting for it a new popular one, i.e., a truly democratic apparatus of soviets, i.e., the organized and armed majority of the people—the workers, soldiers, and peasants. It means allowing the majority of the people initiative and independence not only in the election of deputies, but also in state administration, in effecting reforms and various other changes.
Only a soviet regime, he suggested, would possess the courage and decisiveness to institute a grain monopoly, impose effective controls over production and distribution, restrict the issue of paper money, insure a fair exchange of grain for manufactured goods, etc.—all measures required by the unprecedented burdens and hardships of the war and the unparalleled economic dislocation and danger of famine. Such a government, “steering a firm course,” he explained, would in effect be the “dictatorship of the proletariat and poorer peasantry” whose necessity he had pointed to in the “April Theses.” This government would deal forcefully with Kornilov and his cohorts and would complete the democratization of the army at once. Lenin assured his readers that two days after its creation, 99 percent of the army would be enthusiastic supporters of this dictatorship. It would give land to the peasants and full power to the local peasant committees, and hence would be certain of peasant support. Only a strong, popularly based government, Lenin contended, would be capable of smashing the resistance of the capitalists, displaying truly supreme courage and determination in the exercise of power, and securing the enthusiastic, selfless, and heroic support of the masses both in the army and among the peasants. Immediately transferring power to the soviets, he insisted, was the only way to make further progress gradual, peaceful, and smooth.6
In “The Russian Revolution and Civil War,” the last essay of the series, probably completed on September 9 (and published on September 16), Lenin sought to allay the fears of the moderate socialists that breaking with the bourgeoisie would precipitate a bloody civil war, arguing that, to the contrary, the growing indignation and bitterness of the masses insured that further dalliance in the creation of a soviet government would make inevitable a workers’ uprising and a civil war which, while bloody and to be avoided if at all possible, would in any case result in the triumph of the proletariat. “Only the immediate transfer of all power to the soviets would make civil war in Russia impossible,” he explained. “A civil war begun by the bourgeoisie against an alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, against the soviets of workers’, soldiers’, and peasants’ deputies, is inconceivable: such a ‘war’ would not last even until the first battle.” In support of this line of reasoning, Lenin pointed to the helplessness of the bourgeoisie during the Kornilov affair. At that time, he declared, the alliance of Bolsheviks, SRs and Mensheviks “scored a victory over the counterrevolution with an ease heretofore never achieved in any revolution.”7
It is indicative of the spirit of freewheeling debate within the Bolshevik organization in 1917 that even Lenin’s new moderation was not accepted without opposition. By the time “On Compromises” was received by Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd, the All-Russian Executive Committees had formally rejected the Bolsheviks’ August 31 declaration. To the editors of Rabochii put’, the kind of “compromise” envisioned by Lenin seemed impracticable. One member of the editorial board, Grigorii Sokolnikov, later recalled that “On Compromises” was initially rejected for publication. Upon Lenin’s insistence, the decision was reconsidered, and the article was published on September 6.8
Objections to the views expressed in “On Compromises” also emerged among members of the consistently militant Bolshevik Moscow Regional Bureau9 and among some of the more radical leaders of the Petersburg Committee, who, having rallied to Lenin’s side on the question of breaking with the moderate socialists entirely and preparing for an eventual independent armed seizure of power at the Sixth Congress little more than four weeks earlier, were clearly dumbfounded by this latest abrupt shift in Lenin’s outlook. Such a reaction on the part of some local leaders in Petrograd emerged during an evaluation of the “current moment” by the Petersburg Committee on September 7, the day after the publication of “On Compromises.”10
Representing the Petersburg Committee’s Executive Commission, the outspoken Slutsky opened this discussion. While accepting Lenin’s contention that the masses and the moderate socialists had been pushed leftward and that to some extent even the soviets had been rejuvenated by the Kornilov experience, he rebelled at the thought of rapprochement with the Mensheviks and SRs, arguing that the party’s main tasks were to restrain the masses from premature action and to prepare to use the soviets as combat centers in the seizure of power.11 Later in the discussion, responding to arguments upholding Lenin’s point of view, Slutsky again took the floor. “As in the factories, so among the poverty-stricken peasants, we see movement leftward,” he declared. “For us to consider compromise now is ludicrous. No compromises! . . . Our revolution is not like those which occurred in the West. Ours is a proletarian revolution. Our task is to clarify our position and to prepare unconditionally for a military clash.” In a similar vein, G. F. Kolmin, an independent thinker who had been among the party’s hotheads in July, rejected the idea that the soviets and the Mensheviks and SRs had somehow been fundamentally transformed by the Kornilov affair. “Their leftward swing,” he insisted, “does not give us reason to believe the soviets will take a revolutionary path. Our position should stay the same. Our goal is not to go arm in arm with the Soviet leaders, but to try to tear more revolutionary elements away from them and mobilize them behind us.” Interestingly, the remarks of the Central Committee’s representative to the Petersburg Committee, Bubnov, seemed closer to the sentiments of Slutsky and Kolmin than to the ideas expressed by Lenin in “On Compromises.”
It is difficult to gauge the extent of such feelings among members of the Petersburg Committee at this time because the discussion of the current moment at the September 7 meeting ended without the adoption of a resolution. In any case, as in the pre-July period, a peaceful course was compatible in the short run with the programmatic views both of right Bolsheviks like Kamenev—who considered Russia unprepared for a socialist revolution, and for the time being looked no further than to the construction of a broadly based, exclusively socialist coalition government, including Bolsheviks, creation of a democratic republic, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly—and of those like Lenin, Trotsky, and local-level Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd, to whom transfer of power to the soviets and a Menshevik-SR government were seen as a transitory stage in the development of the socialist revolution, one which would quickly lead to the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat and poorer peasantry. It is clear that among a majority of the Central Committee the course proposed by Lenin struck a responsive chord. And, under the Central Committee’s direction, the Petrograd Bolsheviks during the first weeks in September concentrated less on deepening the gulf between them and the moderates, or preparing the masses for an early armed seizure of power in the spirit of Lenin’s directives to the Sixth Congress, than on tasks consistent with the possibility of a peaceful development of the revolution. In particular, they devoted their energies to winning the support of still-wavering elements in the Menshevik-SR camp to the principle of breaking completely with the bourgeoisie, further expanding and consolidating the party’s influence in mass organizations (most importantly in the Petrograd Soviet), and assuring the largest possible party representation in the coming Democratic State Conference, now scheduled for mid-September and designated by the Mensheviks and SRs as the forum in which the question of coalition and the nature of a new government would be finally settled.
For the Bolsheviks, competition for influence in the Petrograd Soviet required particular attention. Less than half of those eligible to vote in the Soviet had been present for the sensational August 31 session at which a majority voted support for the Bolshevik political program. A high percentage of the absent deputies were soldiers (among whom SR influence had been very great heretofore), then still occupying defensive positions outside the capital. Thus it is not surprising that the moderate socialists played down the import of the August 31 Bolshevik triumph and looked to its early reversal.
The issue that SR-Menshevik strategists picked for a direct test of relative strength in the soviet was the future makeup of the Petrograd Soviet’s Presidium. From its inception in March, the Presidium had been composed exclusively of Mensheviks and SRs. Among its members were Chkheidze, Tsereteli, Chernov, Dan, Skobelev, Gots, and Anisimov—the moderates’ best known and most authoritative public figures. These luminaries now declared their intention of resigning en masse if the vote of August 31 was not formally repudiated and the old leadership given a vote of confidence. This strategy put the Bolsheviks in a perilous position because it was possible, even likely, that they could not command enough votes to win such a contest of personal prestige. Yet a reversal of the August 31 vote and a pledge of confidence in the Mensheviks and SRs would mean a serious setback in the party’s recently successful drive for broader mass support.
To avoid the possibility of such a defeat, the Bolsheviks attempted to diffuse the political significance of the vote on the Presidium by focusing attention on procedural matters. Specifically, they argued that it was unfair for the Presidium to be composed, as it had been in the past, exclusively of representatives of the majority. Instead of choosing between opposing political programs and in effect letting the winners form the Presidium, as the moderates proposed, the Bolsheviks suggested that the democratic procedure would be to reconstruct the Presidium on a proportional basis, adding an appropriate number of members from previously unrepresented groups. This plan appeared quite reasonable to the many deputies who leaned to the left but who might be reluctant to side with the Bolsheviks at the cost of wholly repudiating their own leaders.12 In a effort to appeal to these wavering deputies, Kamenev, arguing before the Petrograd Soviet in favor of proportional representation, declared: “If coalition with the Kadets was acceptable to the Mensheviks and SRs at the Moscow State Conference, surely they can engage in coalition politics with the Bolsheviks in this organ.”
The crucial test vote on procedures for the reorganization of the Presidium took place at the start of the Petrograd Soviet session on September 9. The Bolshevik position received a narrow majority.13 Lenin was subsequently to criticize the Bolshevik leadership in the Soviet for championing proportional representation in the elections to the Presidium, viewing their action as merely another instance of his followers accepting an unnecessary degree of cooperation with other socialist groups at the expense of their own goals. The soundness of the proportional representation tactic, however, was borne out later at the same session when debate on another Bolshevik proposal revealed that the Bolsheviks did not yet have a dependable majority in the Petrograd Soviet. In this case, changes proposed by the Bolsheviks in the basis upon which soldiers were to be represented in the Soviet were opposed by a majority, and the Bolsheviks were forced to withdraw their resolution at the last minute to avoid its certain defeat.14
Ultimately the party’s sensitive strategy in the Petrograd Soviet worked to Bolshevik advantage. When the results of the September 9 vote on proportional representation were announced, the majority socialists who had comprised the old Presidium walked out in a huff, and on September 25 the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet was completely reorganized. Making up the new Presidium were two SRs, one Menshevik, and four Bolsheviks (Trotsky, Kamenev, Rykov, and Fedorov); Trotsky replaced Chkheidze as chairman.15
Concurrently, the Bolshevik leadership was also devoting considerable attention to preparations for the Democratic State Conference. In a cable of September 4 to thirty-seven subordinate party committees throughout the country and in a follow-up letter the next day, the party leadership had underlined the significance of a strong representation at the conference; Bolsheviks were advised to become thoroughly familiar with the makeup of the conference and, wherever possible, to work for the election of party members. All delegates elected with Bolshevik support were to report to the headquarters of the Bolshevik Soviet fraction at Smolny for orientation immediately upon arrival in the capital.16
Hopes that the Democratic State Conference would repudiate coalition politics and initiate steps to form a new, exclusively socialist government were dealt a blow with the announcement of the conference’s composition. Workers’, soldiers’, and peasants’ soviets; municipal dumas; army committees; trade unions; and a dozen lesser institutions were to be represented at the conference by some 1,198 delegates. But the proportion of seats allotted to urban workers’ and soldiers’ soviets and trade unions, institutions in which the Bolsheviks were strongest, was low in comparison with the representation given rural peasant soviets, zemstvos, and cooperatives, still dominated by the moderates.
Even so, the Bolsheviks did not completely give up the hope that the conference might create a socialist government. At a meeting on September 13 the Central Committee assigned Trotsky, Kamenev, Stalin, Miliutin, and Rykov to draw up an appropriate platform for presentation to the conference.17 Based in part on Lenin’s writings of early September, the resulting platform was predicated on the assumption that a peaceful development of the revolution was still possible and that a revolutionary government could and should be created by the conference.18 Like Lenin’s “On Compromises,” the Bolshevik platform for the Democratic State Conference was basically an appeal to previous supporters of coalition politics to break definitively with the bourgeoisie, and an expression of faith in the soviets as organs of revolutionary government. The platform declared bluntly that the Bolsheviks had not tried to take power against the organized will of the majority of the working masses and would not. In language similar to Lenin’s, it was affirmed that with full freedom of agitation and the continuous renovation of the soviets from below, the struggle for influence and power would take place within the soviets.19 At the same time the platform differed from “On Compromises” in not specifically excluding the possibility that the Bolsheviks would participate in a soviet government;20 this appears to have been the result of Kamenev’s influence.
On the eve of the Democratic State Conference it became apparent that the extreme left’s apprehension regarding the probable composition of the conference was well founded. Of the arriving delegates willing to declare a political preference, 532 turned out to be SRs (of whom 71 were Left SRs), 530 were Mensheviks (of whom 56 were Internationalists), 55 were Popular Socialists, and 17 affirmed that they had no specific party affiliation. Only 134 were Bolsheviks.21
Still, in preliminary discussions at individual party caucuses and at meetings of delegates by institutional affiliation it was immediately revealed that on the crucial question of further coalition with nonsocialist parties there was no consensus among the moderates; the major divisions over this issue which had first appeared in the wake of the Kornilov crisis had, if anything, deepened. The uneasiness of many Menshevik and SR leaders previously loyal to the Provisional Government was voiced by the Menshevik Bogdanov, who commented on the opening day of the conference: “At this terrible time we must recognize without equivocation that we don’t have a governmental authority; we have had a continuous reshuffling of the cabinet, governmental leapfrog in no way distinguishable from that of tsarist times. The result of these never-ending ministerial switches has been total ineffectiveness, for which we ourselves are responsible. . . . It is painful for me as a supporter of coalition to say so, but I must acknowledge that the main cause of this governmental paralysis has been the coalition character of the cabinet.”22
Thus, as the Democratic State Conference got underway, there were at least a few encouraging signs for Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd who still held out hope that a majority of delegates might vote to break with Kerensky and create a homogeneous socialist government. This lingering hope was voiced by Zinoviev in a front-page editorial titled “Our Triumph and Our Tasks,” published in the September 13 issue of Rabochii put’ and no doubt circulated among the arriving delegates:
The chief question now confronting every revolutionary is whether or not there remain possibilities for the peaceful development of the revolution and what needs to be done to strengthen these possibilities. And it is necessary to answer that any such possibilities hinge on the adoption of a specific compromise, a definite agreement between the working class, once and for all following our party, and the masses who make up the petty bourgeois democracy and who follow the SRs and Mensheviks. . . . An agreement with the petty bourgeois democracy is desirable and, under conditions which are well known, possible! . . . The All-Russian Conference convening shortly could still open the way for such a peaceful outcome.23
The Democratic State Conference opened in the Alexandrinsky Theater, now the Pushkin Theater, on the night of September 14. The famous old hall, its loges, orchestra, and balconies crammed with delegates from all over Russia, took on an appearance quite unknown in tsarist days. The red plush upholstery of the seats and boxes blended with the crimson sea of revolutionary banners. Onstage the curtains were raised to reveal a set depicting a large hall with several doors flanked by artificial junipers and palms. The conference presidium was seated behind a long, narrow table extending across the stage; before the table stood a lectern draped with red bunting and bearing a sign cautioning, “No Smoking!”
The Bolsheviks’ hopes for the creation of a new government at the Democratic State Conference were voiced in the formal opening address made in the party’s behalf by Kamenev at the first conference session and in comments by Trotsky to a caucus of the Bolshevik delegation the following afternoon. In his lengthy speech, Kamenev declared that the record achieved by the various cabinets over the preceding six months made it impossible to retain any confidence in the policies proposed by Kerensky. Kamenev insisted that conditions had deteriorated to such a tragic state that time for further experiments with coalition government had run out. The government’s failure to squelch the counterrevolutionary movement in the army, as well as actions taken in regard to agriculture, food supply, and the conduct of foreign affairs, he argued, were errors not of this or that minister-socialist, but of the political influence of the bouregoisie as a class:
There has not been a single revolution in which the realization of the ideals of the workers did not provoke the terror of counterrevolutionary forces. . . . If the democracy is unwilling to take power now, it must honestly tell itself: “We don’t have confidence in our own powers and so you Burishkins and Kishkins24 must come and take charge of us, we don’t know how to do it.” . . . You can write a program to satisfy the working democracy but it is pure utopianism to believe that such a program would be pursued genuinely and honestly by the bourgeoisie. . . . The only possible course is for state power to be transferred to the democracy—not to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, but to that democracy which is well enough represented here. We must establish a new government and an institution to which that government must be responsible.25
Trotsky, in his orientation to Bolshevik delegates alone, explained that in so far as possible, their primary aim should be to convince the conference to reject coalition with the privileged classes and to take the organization of a new government into its own hands; if successful, this would be the first step in the transfer of power to the soviets.26
It is worth noting that while Kamenev was speaking out for the creation of a broad, democratic coalition government (reflective of the various groups invited to the Democratic State Conference) and against an exclusively soviet regime, Trotsky urged the transfer of full power to the soviets. This important distinction bespoke fundamentally different views on the development of the Russian revolution which were soon to erupt into one of the bitterest and most important internal controversies in the history of Bolshevism. In the context of the present discussion, however, the crucial point is that both Kamenev and Trotsky, along with most Petrograd Bolsheviks, viewed positively the work of the Democratic State Conference and the prospects for peaceful development of the revolution.
In view of the Bolsheviks’ prevailing moderation at this time, and considering that since early September Lenin himself had been lending encouragement to such an approach, one can imagine the shock experienced by the top Bolshevik leadership when, on September 15, they received two letters written by Lenin between September 12 and 14 in which he completely abandoned the moderate positions embodied in “On Compromises” and summoned the Bolsheviks to take upon themselves the preparation of an immediate armed uprising.
There appear to have been a number of mutually supporting reasons for this outwardly dramatic shift. On the one hand, factors such as the strong position of the extreme left in Finland, the winning of majority support for the Bolshevik program in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets and in a number of other regional soviets, the massive expansion of social upheaval among land-hungry peasants in the countryside, the continuing disintegration of the army at the front and the soldiers’ increasingly insistent demands for immediate peace, and signs of revolutionary unrest in the German Fleet seem to have encouraged Lenin to hope that seizure of power by the Bolsheviks would have strong support in the cities and would no longer be solidly opposed by the provinces and the front, and that the creation of a genuinely revolutionary government in Russia would serve as a catalyst for mass rebellions in other European countries. And, of course, as Lenin began to sense the possibility of a quick resolution to the problem of creating an extreme left government, his interest in “compromise” with the moderate socialist parties cooled. On the other hand, somewhat contradictorily, Lenin also seems to have become genuinely alarmed that the government might somehow still manage to deflate the revolution by negotiating a separate peace, surrendering Petrograd to the Germans, manipulating elections to the Constituent Assembly, or provoking a disorganized popular insurrection. He also seems to have worried that if the party delayed too long, it would begin to lose influence among the masses and become powerless to halt Russia’s slide into complete anarchy.
The first of Lenin’s two explosive letters, this one addressed to the Central, Petersburg, and Moscow committees, began: “The Bolsheviks, having obtained a majority in the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies in both capitals, can and must take state power into their own hands. They can because the active majority of revolutionary elements in the two chief cities is large enough to carry the people with it, to overcome the opposition’s resistance, to smash it, and to gain and retain power.” The Democratic State Conference, he insisted, “represents not a majority of the revolutionary people, but only the compromising upper strata of the petty bourgeoisie” Why was it necessary for the Bolsheviks to assume power “at this very moment”? Because, affirmed Lenin, “the impending surrender of Petrograd will make our chances a hundred times less favorable.” Selecting the precise moment for the start of an uprising would be up to local leaders on the spot; what the top Bolshevik leadership had to do at once was to take advantage of the presence in Petrograd of what amounted to a party congress to set the task of organizing an “armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow, the seizure of power, and the overthrow of the government.” By taking power in Moscow and Petrograd at once (it didn’t matter to him which came first), Lenin concluded, “we shall win absolutely and unquestionably.”27
In his second letter, which bore the title “Marxism and Insurrection” and was addressed to the Central Committee alone, Lenin argued that “treating insurrection as an art” was not Blanquism, as alleged by “present-day opportunists,” but a fundamental tenet of Marxism. To be successful, he wrote, insurrection had necessarily to rely not upon conspiracy or upon a party, but upon the proletariat, and it had to be based on a revolutionary upsurge of the people. A final condition was that a successful insurrection had to be timed to occur when the activity of the advanced ranks was at its height, while, on the other hand, vacillations within the enemy camp were strongest. Affirming that refusal to treat insurrection as an art once these preconditions existed was a “betrayal of Marxism and of the revolution,” Lenin went on to explain why an immediate insurrection was the “order of the day.” He contrasted the existing situation with conditions prevailing in July, observing that at that time the Bolsheviks had still lacked the support of the proletariat; now, as a result of the persecution of the Bolsheviks and the Kornilov experience, the party had majorities in the soviets in both Moscow and Petrograd. In July there had been no countrywide revolutionary upsurge, but such an upsurge had followed the Kornilov revolt. Finally, earlier there had not been serious wavering among the Bolsheviks’ enemies, while now there was a significant degree of vacillation. “We could not have retained power politically on July 3–4,” Lenin concluded, “because before the Kornilov revolt, the army and the provinces could and would have marched against Petrograd. Now the picture is entirely different. . . . All the objective conditions exist for a successful insurrection.”
Toward the end of “Marxism and Insurrection,” Lenin demanded that the Central Committee consolidate the Bolshevik group at the Democratic State Conference—“without fearing to leave the waverers in the waverers’ camp.” It was to draw up a brief declaration (“the briefer and the more trenchant the better”) “emphasizing in no uncertain manner the irrelevance of long speeches and of ‘speeches’ in general, the need for immediate action to save the revolution, the absolute necessity for a complete break with the bourgeoisie, for the removal of the present government in its entirety . . . and for the immediate transfer of all power to revolutionary democrats, headed by the revolutionary proletariat.” The Bolsheviks, “having read this declaration, and having appealed for decisions and not talk, for action and not resolution-writing,” were to dispatch their “entire group to the factories and barracks.” At the same time, treating insurrection in a Marxist way, as an art, and without losing a single moment, the Bolsheviks were to “organize a headquarters of insurgent detachments, distribute forces, move the reliable regiments to the most important points, surround the Alexandrinsky Theater, occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress, [and] arrest the General Staff and the government.” They were to “mobilize the armed workers and call them to fight the last desperate fight, occupy the telegraph and telephone exchanges, establish headquarters in the central telephone exchange, and connect it by telephone with all the factories, regiments, and points of armed conflict.”28
Not surprisingly, the initial response of Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd to these messages was strongly reminiscent of the one which had been accorded Lenin’s earlier “Letters from Afar.” “We were all aghast,” Bukharin was to recall a few years later.29 Hastening from the Alexandrinsky Theater to their own headquarters, members of the Central Committee met in emergency secret session the evening of September 15 to discuss the letters. Present were not only those Central Committee members normally in Petrograd and responsible for the day-to-day direction of the party (that is, Bubnov, Dzerzhinsky, Ioffe, Miliutin, Sverdlov, Sokolnikov, Stalin, and Uritsky), but also Kamenev, Kollontai, and Trotsky (this was Trotsky’s second Central Committee meeting since his release from jail); the Moscow Bolsheviks Bukharin, Lomov, Nogin, and Rykov; and Stepan Shaumian, Central Committee representative of the Bolshevik organization in the Caucasus. Copies of Lenin’s letters had been distributed to most of those in attendance prior to their deliberations.30 The published protocol of the ensuing discussion is extremely fragmentary.31 The committee agreed on the advisability of scheduling an early meeting specifically devoted to tactical questions. A suggestion by Stalin that Lenin’s letters be circulated was rejected, despite the fact that the first letter was specifically addressed to the Petersburg and Moscow committees, as well as to the Central Committee. To the contrary, most of those present were apparently concerned above all that they be quietly destroyed. Bukharin later maintained that the Central Committee considered burning the letters and, indeed, unanimously agreed to do so.32 According to the official protocol, the committee voted to preserve only one copy of each letter and to take steps to prevent a movement into the streets.
Lomov later pointed to one of the Central Committee’s overriding concerns at this time: “We are apprehensive about what would happen if the letters reached the Petrograd workers . . . and the Petersburg and Moscow committees because this would have immediately introduced enormous discord into our ranks. . . . We were afraid that if Lenin’s words reached the workers, many would doubt the correctness of the position adopted by the whole Central Committee.”33 As an additional safeguard, the Central Committee concluded its discussion on September 15 by charging members assigned to working with the Military Organization and the Petersburg Committee (Sverdlov and Bubnov respectively) with responsibility for insuring that no appeals for immediate action along the lines demanded by Lenin were made in barracks and factories.
For the time being, then, Lenin’s appeals for the overthrow of the Provisional Government were unceremoniously turned aside. Virtually the only change in the public behavior of the Bolsheviks at the Democratic State Conference after receipt of Lenin’s messages was that Trotsky, for one, began to play down the possibility of the conference’s forming a government as the first step toward the transfer of power to the soviets. Instead, he now categorically insisted on the transfer of political power directly to the soviets. This subtle but important shift was reflected at a caucus of conference delegates from workers’ and soldiers’ soviets on September 18. There Trotsky got into a heated argument with Martov, who spoke in favor of the creation by the conference of a broad socialist government including representatives of all the major groups invited to the Democratic State Conference. Countering Martov, Trotsky contended that the composition of the Democratic State Conference was such that endowing it with complete governmental power would be a rash step; rather, it was absolutely necessary to transfer power to the soviets, which had fully proved themselves to be a powerful, constructive political force.34
Bolshevik efforts to prevail upon conference delegates to break with the bourgeoisie and take the first steps toward the creation of a revolutionary government were not terminated. The party’s formal statement on the government question, the platform which had been authorized by the Central Committee on September 13 and which, as we have seen, was modeled in part after Lenin’s “On Compromises,” was formally read to a session of the conference on September 18. That night, in response to Bolshevik appeals, 150 delegates from Petrograd factories and military units staged a demonstration outside the Alexandrinsky Theater in support of the creation of an exclusively socialist government. Thus, instead of withdrawing from the conference and going to the masses with a call to rise, as Lenin advised, the party was mobilizing workers and soldiers to apply pressure on the Democratic State Conference to pursue a more radical course.35
For Lenin, the presentation of the Bolshevik platform to the Democratic State Conference was an unmistakable sign of the party leadership’s rejection of the assumptions contained in his mid-September letters. No doubt Lenin was even more disturbed upon reading the September 16 edition of Rabochii put’, which featured his earlier essay, “The Russian Revolution and Civil War,” with its author identified. Not only had the Central Committee taken steps to insure that the party at large would not be influenced by his appeals for an immediate uprising, but it also was circulating his more moderate views of the previous week, inevitably conveying the impression that they constituted his thinking at the moment.
At this point Lenin decided to return at once to Petrograd despite the fact that the Central Committee had expressly forbidden him to do so, ostensibly out of fear for his safety. On September 17 or shortly thereafter, without the Central Committee’s authorization,36 Lenin traveled from Helsingfors to Vyborg, within eighty miles of the capital, and advised Krupskaia and Sverdlov, although not the Central Committee, of his determination to return to Petrograd.37
Meanwhile, at the Democratic State Conference, delegates had spent the better part of four days (September 14–18) in group meetings, party gatherings, and official sessions turning over all questions relating to the nature of the future government. A formal vote on this issue was held on September 19, and it turned out to be a complete fiasco for everyone concerned. According to procedures worked out in advance by the conference presidium, the delegates were first to register their views on coalition in principle. Next, they were asked to vote on two proposed amendments: (1) that elements of the Kadet Party and other groups which had been involved in the Kornilov affair be excluded from participation in the coalition; and (2) that the entire Kadet Party be excluded. Finally, the delegates were to vote on the entire resolution as amended.
In an initial roll call vote which lasted five hours, the principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie was accepted by a count of 766 in favor, 688 opposed, with 38 abstentions. This vote confirmed Bolshevik apprehensions regarding the makeup of the conference; representatives of workers’ and soldiers’ soviets and trade unions had voted overwhelmingly against coalition, but they were overpowered by large majorities of the more numerous deputies from peasant soviets, military committees, zemstvos, and cooperatives, who supported coalition.38 Next, the conference acted on the two proposed amendments. On behalf of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky spoke in support of both, as did Martov for the Menshevik-Internationalists and Boris Kamkov for the Left SRs. To the dismay of many, though obviously not all, of those who favored coalition in principle, both amendments were passed. The entire resolution as amended—that is, the acceptance of coalition in principle but with the exclusion of the Kadet Party as well as other groups that had supported Kornilov—satisfied almost no one. The Bolsheviks, of course, opposed the resolution; they were joined by large numbers of coalition supporters who simply could not imagine the creation of a viable coalition government without the Kadets. Only 183 delegates voted for the resolution as amended, with 813 opposed and 80 abstentions.39
Thus four days of the most intense discussion and debate had fully revealed the fundamental difference of opinion among “democratic groups” but had settled absolutely nothing regarding the makeup of the future government. The relationship of the socialists to the government was, if anything, more confused than it had been before the contradictory voting of September 19. That such a situation could not continue was abundantly clear to the Presidium of the Democratic State Conference; upon its insistence, before adjournment of the session of September 19, conference delegates resolved not to disperse until mutually acceptable conditions for the formation, functioning, and program of a new government were somehow agreed upon.
The following day the Presidium scheduled formal discussions aimed at breaking the existing impasse. Participating in this gathering were Presidium members and representatives of the various parties and groups attending the Democratic State Conference. Their bitter debates on the government issue lasted from morning until early evening. Tsereteli, pointing to the deep divisions which had emerged within the democracy the previous day in regard to the question of coalition, argued that the democracy by itself could not organize a viable government. He was joined by Gots and Avksentiev, who stressed once again the importance of maintaining some kind of political alliance with the bourgeoisie. Kamenev was the Bolsheviks’ chief spokesman at this meeting. Contending unconvincingly that the formation of a coalition government had been decisively rejected the previous day, he pressed the case for a “homogeneous democratic ministry.” To calm the fears of the moderates in regard to what the Bolsheviks’ attitude toward such a government might be, he added categorically: “We will not overthrow such a government. We will support it insofar as it pursues a democratic policy and leads the country to the Constituent Assembly.” After the delegates had talked themselves hoarse, a formal vote was taken on the question of coalition: fifty delegates voted in favor; sixty were opposed.
In view of this continuing, almost even, split, Tsereteli suggested a somewhat different tack. He proposed that an attempt be made to come to a consensus regarding the political program to be pursued by the future government and to leave the precise character of the cabinet to the discretion of a permanent representative body which would be selected by the conference and to which the government would be responsible until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. This course was subsequently adopted. With regard to the program to be pursued by a new government, most delegates expressed solidarity with the Soviet’s “August 14 program”;40 only the Bolsheviks voiced opposition. But the Bolsheviks joined the rest of the participants in this meeting in supporting the creation of a permanent representative body.41
Kamenev hoped that this new institution would be “homogeneous,” that a significant proportion of its membership would come from workers’ and soldiers’ soviets, and hence that it would be less resistant to breaking with the bourgeoisie than the Democratic State Conference. It became clear almost immediately, however, that any such hope was ill-founded. With the Bolsheviks again alone in opposition, the participants in this meeting went on to agree that the new permanent body (it was initially christened the “Democratic Council” but was referred to more often as the “Preparliament”) should include both representatives of groups at the conference and propertied elements. This was a direct reversal of the previous day’s voting pattern. At the September 19 session the delegates had begun by approving coalition in principle and then had eliminated any practical possibility of actually creating a coalition government by rejecting Kadet participation. Then, on September 20, an ad hoc meeting of delegates, after initially rejecting coalition, adopted a resolution indirectly reintroducing the possibility of political cooperation with representatives of the bourgeoisie, not excluding the Kadets.42
Proponents of coalition were quick to seize upon this opportunity. At a conference plenum late the same night, September 20, Tsereteli introduced a resolution, subsequently passed, which shifted responsibility for a final decision on the government question to the Preparliament. Among other things, this resolution provided that the future government would work to realize the program of August 14, that it would pursue an energetic foreign policy aimed at concluding a general peace, and that it would be responsible and accountable to a permanent representative body which, pending convocation of the Constituent Assembly, would reflect the popular will. The resolution specified that this representative body, the Preparliament, was to be made up of delegates to the Democratic State Conference. The resolution contained nothing specific about the participation of the bourgeoisie in either the Preparliament or the future government; however, it tacitly endorsed the possibility of another coalition with the vague statement that if bourgeois elements were to be drawn into the government, the permanent representative body would be enlarged by the inclusion of bourgeois groups. The resolution specified that under those circumstances, the predominance of democratic elements would have to be maintained. Finally, the resolution provided for the selection of five conference delegates (this figure was later doubled) to begin negotiations aimed at facilitating the construction of a government in accordance with these provisions. These delegates were to report to the Democratic Council on the results of their efforts, which were to be subject to confirmation by the council.43 Thus the long-anticipated Democratic State Conference ended in what amounted to an evasion: a few as-yet-unnamed representatives were to be made responsible for somehow devising an acceptable solution to the cabinet crisis which more than a thousand delegates to the conference from all over Russia had been unable to resolve.
In part because opponents of further cooperation with the bourgeoisie would have no part of formal discussions with Kerensky, the conference negotiating team was inevitably dominated by prominent proponents of coalition politics from the Soviet—people like Tsereteli, Avksentiev, Gots, and Chkheidze—along with representatives of cooperative and zemstvo groups who viewed the participation of authoritative segments of the bourgeoisie in the government as absolutely essential for Russia’s survival. This delegation met in acrimonious bargaining sessions with Kerensky, other cabinet ministers, representatives of the Kadet Central Committee, and business and industrial figures from Petrograd and Moscow on September 22–24. As was to be expected, spokesmen for the bourgeoisie were unwilling to accept the Soviet’s program of August 14 as the basis for government policy; while not totally opposed to the idea of a Preparliament, they insisted that legally only the Provisional Government had the authority to create such an organ, and that, in any case, under no circumstances could a new cabinet be responsible to the Preparliament—in other words, that the latter could be no more than an advisory body. At the same time, Kerensky was absolutely adamant on the need to form another coalition cabinet.
For practical purposes, then, members of the delegation from the Democratic State Conference were faced with the choice of backing down on the more controversial planks in the August 14 program and tacitly acknowledging the government’s primacy over and independence of the Preparliament, or breaking with Kerensky and giving up the prospect of bringing representatives of the bourgeoisie into the government. Predictably, they opted for the first alternative. In a sense, the tactics that Tsereteli’s delegation pursued in the complex political negotiations of September 22–24 were the opposite of those employed by Tsereteli at the Democratic State Conference. At the conference, Tsereteli had managed to gain an agreement that allowed for the possibility of a coalition by putting aside the question of the precise makeup of the cabinet and focusing attention on the program to be pursued by the government irrespective of its composition. Now, in the face of firm resistance both to the August 14 program as the basis for policy and to the responsibility of the government to the Preparliament, Tsereteli was forced to deemphasize these considerations and, instead, to stress the critical importance of an alliance between the democracy and the bourgeoisie as the only possible basis for solving Russia’s ills.
During the last phase of the negotiations of September 22–24 the August 14 program was revised and softened so as to make it palatable to the Kadets. At this time, it was agreed that the government would quickly prepare and issue a decree formally establishing the Preparliament, and that this institution, now renamed the Council of the Republic but still referred to most often as the Preparliament, would be composed of the 367 delegates already selected from the Democratic State Conference plus up to 150 representatives of the propertied classes. It was also understood that legally this would be a purely advisory body and, most important, that it would have no formal jurisdiction over the government.44
Late on the night of September 23, the Preparliament, as originally formed at the close of the Democratic State Conference, met and handily rejected a Bolshevik declaration presented by Trotsky repudiating the Tsereteli delegation’s negotiations as a betrayal of the will of the masses and calling for the creation of a “genuinely revolutionary government.” Instead, by a narrow margin, the Preparliament passed a resolution introduced by Dan tacitly endorsing the new arrangements. Having done this, the delegates adjourned to await formal reconstitution by the Provisional Government of an expanded assembly. The way was now open for Kerensky to name formally a new coalition cabinet, and he did so on September 25. The new cabinet included the Kadets Alexander Konovalov, Kishkin, Sergei Smirnov, and Anton Kartashev. While technically a majority of the ministers were socialists, the key Foreign Ministry remained in the hands of Tereshchenko, Konovalov was named deputy prime minister and minister of industry, and Kerensky stayed on as head of the government and commander-in-chief of the army.45
On September 21, the day after the Democratic State Conference adopted Tsereteli’s resolution sanctioning discussions with Kerensky on the formation of a new government (but before the results of these negotiations were known), the Bolshevik Central Committee met to consider the party’s immediate political course. What was perhaps most striking about this meeting was that even now, in the face of the Democratic State Conference’s failure to break with the politics of coalition, Lenin’s recommendation that the urban masses be called to arms was given absolutely no consideration.46 To be sure, this was probably due partly to the influence of right Bolsheviks such as Kamenev, Rykov, and Nogin. But the fact remains that even party officials who fully shared Lenin’s fundamental assumptions regarding the necessity and feasibility of an early socialist revolution in Russia were skeptical of successfully mobilizing the masses behind the “immediate bayonet charge” envisioned by Lenin. In part because of their continuing interaction with workers and soldiers, leaders like Trotsky, Bubnov, Sokolnikov, and Sverdlov possessed what appears to have been a realistic appreciation of the limits of the party’s influence and authority among the masses, and of the latter’s attachment to the soviets as legitimate democratic organs in which all genuinely revolutionary groups would work together to fulfill the revolution. Also, as a result of the Kornilov experience they were much less concerned than Lenin about Kerensky’s capacity to damage the left. Consequently, they now began to associate the seizure of power and the creation of a new government with the convocation in the near future of a national Congress of Soviets—this to take advantage of the legitimacy of the soviets in the eyes of the masses.
It should be added that in the wake of the Democratic State Conference, right Bolsheviks also supported the early convocation of a Congress of Soviets and paid lip service to the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” The essential difference between “Leninists in spirit,” like Trotsky, and right Bolsheviks, like Kamenev, was that while the former looked to a soviet congress to transfer power to a government of the extreme left pledged to immediate peace and a radical program of internal change, the latter viewed a Congress of Soviets as a vehicle for building a broader, stronger alliance of “democratic groups,” which might, at the most, form a caretaker all-socialist coalition government, pending convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
Hence the central issue that divided the party leadership in Petrograd as the Democratic State Conference drew to a close was not the organization of an immediate popular uprising, which everyone in the coterie of high Bolsheviks privy to Lenin’s most recent recommendations seems to have rejected categorically, or the immediate convocation of a Congress of Soviets, which all accepted. Rather, it was whether to stage a formal walkout from the Democratic State Conference and whether to participate in the Preparliament, the former in its last hours and the latter in the process of formation and scheduled to open on September 23. To the Kamenev faction, taking advantage of the end of the Democratic State Conference and the proceedings of the Preparliament to discredit coalition politics and to maintain alliances with wavering elements in the Menshevik-SR camp was an essential counterpart to the consolidation, at the coming Congress of Soviets, of the strongest possible broad socialist bloc. Meanwhile, to party leaders of Trotsky’s persuasion, demonstratively withdrawing from the Democratic State Conference and boycotting the Preparliament constituted the necessary prelude to utilizing a Congress of Soviets to break decisively with conciliatory groups, transfer power to the soviets, and strike out anew on a revolutionary path with whatever other genuinely revolutionary groups were willing to go along.
At its morning meeting on September 21, the Bolshevik Central Committee adopted something of a compromise on the question of the Democratic State Conference: it was decided not to pull out of the conference formally but rather to register a protest against the actions of the coalitionists by recalling the Bolshevik members of the conference Presidium. Then, the Central Committee voted nine to eight not to participate in the Preparliament. Because of the almost even split on this issue, it was agreed that a final decision regarding a boycott of the Preparliament would be left to the discretion of a joint meeting of the Central Committee with the Bolshevik delegation to the Democratic Conference, to be held as soon as the delegates could be gathered.
This assembly, in size roughly equivalent to a party congress, met later the same day. Trotsky acted as spokesman for those in favor of a boycott and Rykov for those opposed. Stalin, among others, sided with Trotsky; Kamenev, Nogin, and Riazanov supported Rykov. Trotsky later remembered that the ensuing debate was long and extremely heated. When the matter came to a vote, the earlier Central Committee decision was reversed—a major setback for the left. The assembled party representatives from all over Russia voted seventy-seven to fifty in favor of participation in the Preparliament; the decision was immediately confirmed by the Central Committee.47
Two days later, on September 23, under prodding from the Bolsheviks, the Central Executive Committee met with delegates to the Democratic State Conference from provincial soviets, and it was agreed to convene a nationwide Congress of Soviets in Petrograd on October 20. With the Congress of Soviets now scheduled, the Bolsheviks adopted a major policy statement setting forth the relationship of the party’s activities in the Preparliament to the campaign underway for transfer of power to the soviets at the coming congress. According to this statement, adopted on September 24 at a joint meeting of the Central Committee, representatives of the Petersburg Committee, and the Bolshevik Preparliament delegation, just formed, the primary task of the party in the prevailing situation was to mobilize the broad masses in support of the transfer of power to the soviets and to strengthen and expand the political authority of the soviets to the point where it rivaled that of the government. In this connection, party members were to focus attention on strengthening ties among local soviets; firming up contacts with other worker, soldier, and peasant revolutionary organs; arranging the reelection of national and local soviet executive organs still controlled by moderates, holding regional soviet congresses; and, of course, insuring that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets would, indeed, be held. Activity in the Preparliament, the statement emphasized, was to be strictly subordinate to the requirements of this mass struggle.48
Meanwhile, developments in the Petrograd Soviet reflected the degree to which the formation of the third coalition cabinet, together with worsening economic conditions, was working to the advantage of the extreme left. On September 25, the new Bolshevik-dominated Presidium officially took office. To roars of approval, Trotsky again assumed leadership of the Petrograd Soviet, the position he had held in 1905 when he had first distinguished himself as a powerful revolutionary tribune. In accepting the post of chairman, Trotsky harked back to those earlier days, recalling that then
the Petrograd Soviet was experiencing a moment of crisis which ended in defeat. Now we feel distinctly stronger. Yet the list of new ministers published in the evening papers . . . attests to the fact that the revolution has reached [another] critical point. We are certain that the work of the new Presidium will be accompanied by a new rise in the development of the revolution. We belong to different parties and have our own work to conduct, but in directing the work of the Petrograd Soviet we will observe the individual rights and complete freedom of all fractions: the arm of the Presidium will never be used to stifle a minority.49
Not long after Trotsky’s pledge to direct the work of the Petrograd Soviet in a democratic spirit, the Bolsheviks put before the deputies a resolution authored by Trotsky expressing the unwillingness of Petrograd workers and soldiers to support the new coalition. Passed immediately by an overwhelming vote, the resolution expressed certainty that the entire revolutionary democracy would greet the formation of the new government with the demand “Resign!” Sustained by this unanimous voice of the genuine democracy, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets would replace the coalition with a genuinely revolutionary government.50
This basic orientation toward the creation of a new government at the Congress of Soviets was to shape the Bolsheviks’ activity throughout the latter part of September. This was the line taken, for example, by Rabochii put’ during this period; beginning on September 27, each day’s edition carried the banner headline “Prepare for the Congress of Soviets on October 20! Convene Regional Congresses Immediately!” Zinoviev expressed this outlook in a front-page editorial on September 26, condemning the newly announced coalition government—the so-called September bloc: “In our view the all-powerful authority over the Russian land is the Congress of Soviets opening on October 20. By the time the congress convenes, if it is able to meet at all, the experience with this new coalition will have failed and wavering elements will at long last associate themselves with our slogan, ‘All Power to the Soviets.’ Each day will witness a growth in our force, each step of the September bloc will demonstrate the validity of our point of view.”51
The party’s new tactical course was neatly reflected in an appeal to workers and soldiers published in Rabochii put’ on September 30 (it had evidently been written by Zinoviev and formally discussed and endorsed by the entire Central Committee). Titled “Before the Congress of Soviets,” this appeal warned that the counterrevolution would go to any lengths to prevent the convocation of the nationwide soviet congress and the Constituent Assembly. In these circumstances workers and soldiers were to be vigiliant, at the same time making every effort to insure the selection of congress delegates opposed to coalition:
Be on your guard, comrades! Don’t rely on anyone but yourselves. Don’t waste even an hour, start getting ready for the Congress of Soviets. Convene regional congresses. Take care to see that enemies of coalition are sent to the congress. . . . Don’t become involved in any kind of separate direct action! Let’s concentrate all our energies on preparations for the Congress of Soviets; it alone will assure that the Constituent Assembly will be convened and carry forth its revolutionary work. . . .
Central Committee of the RSDRP52