Russian Revolution Lecture 8 The October Revolution Bolshevik

Russian Revolution Lecture 8 The October Revolution

Bolshevik influence • The Bolsheviks were gaining influence – by September they had a majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. This was not necessarily because they were more popular, but because less deputies were attending soviet meetings. The ultrapolitical Bolsheviks attended every meeting, while other members attended irregularly.

An opportunity? • The Provisional Government has shifted to the right after the Kornilov affair, while the Petrograd Soviet had moved further left. Lenin, exiled in Finland, claimed that the Provisional Government was incapable of solving the war and land issues, and that they should be immediately overthrown by the Soviet. On September 12 he said “History will not forgive us if we do not assume power. ”

Why did Lenin push for Revolution? Lenin sought to expedite the revolution for three reasons: 1. Firstly, he saw the Provisional Government haemorrhaging. 2. Secondly, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was due to be held in late October. He argued that if the Bolsheviks had seized power by then, the soviets would have no choice but to accept their authority. 3. Thirdly, Constituent Assembly elections were due in November, and he was unsure how the Bolsheviks would perform. If another party was elected in November, it would be difficult to challenge their moral authority.

Lenin Returns Lenin silently returned to Petrograd on October 7, embarking on a campaign of unification of the Bolshevik party, and ensuring everyone agreed to an armed insurrection.

Kerensky’s pre-emption Zinoviev and Kamenev wrote an article in a revolutionary journal (New Life) stating they thought it would be a mistake to try to overthrow the government in the current circumstances. Kerensky immediately believed that it was a ploy and that the date for insurrection had been set. Rather than wait for the Bolsheviks, he embarked upon a pre-emptive attack, closing the Bolshevik newspapers and organising troops to arrest the leading Bolsheviks. Lenin ordered the insurrection to begin.

Bolshevik’s seize power • Even though Lenin had given the order, Trotsky organised the insurrection. As Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he ordered the Red Guards to seize major vantage points around Petrograd. The Bolsheviks took three days (October 24 -26) to seize control of Petrograd, and there was little fighting. • The Provisional Government had no military resources on which to call. The Petrograd garrison had suffered from severe desertion, and there was only a small group of Cossacks and women soldiers protecting the government. • The Aurora, a ship anchored in the River Nev sounded its guns in support of the Bolsheviks, and this persuaded most of the Provisional Government that its position was untenable. Most members fled, and when the Red Guards entered the Winter Palace they met little resistance.

Congress of Soviets • On October 27, Lenin informed the Congress of Soviets that power had been seized by the Bolshevik led Petrograd Soviet in their name. • He named himself chairman of the new revolutionary government. • The right SRs and Mensheviks protested and walked out, claiming that power had not been seized in the name of the soviets but in the name of the Bolsheviks. Trotsky called after them that they had “consigned themselves to the dustbin of history”. • Lenin then told the Bolsheviks and the left SRs who remained that they could now begin “to construct the towering edifice of socialist society”.

‘Beware the Mensheviks and the SRs’

Historiography • Liberal view Lynch: “In October 1917 the Bolsheviks were pushing against an already open door. ”

Historiography • Revisionist view Service: “If Lenin had never existed, a socialist government would probably have ruled Russia by the end of [1917]. ”

Historiography • Liberal view Pipes: “The events that led to the overthrow of the Provisional Government were not spontaneous but carefully plotted and staged by a tightly organised conspiracy…October was a classic coup d’etat, the capture of governmental authority by a small band, carried out, in deference to the democratic professions of the age, with a show of mass participation, but with hardly any mass involvement”.

Historiography • Liberal view Pipes: “It was a surreptitious seizure of the nerve centres of the modern state, carried out under false slogans in order to neutralize the population at large, the true purpose of which was revealed only after the new claimants to power were firmly in the saddle”.

Historiography • Soviet view • G. D. Obichkin: “In his guidance of the uprising, Lenin’s genius as a leader of the masses, a wise and fearless strategist, who clearly saw what direction the revolution would take, was strikingly revealed”.

Historiography • Wood: “There was clearly much more behind the Bolsheviks’ victory than ideological or organizational superiority over other political forces. The Bolsheviks were simply much more in tune with popular feeling than either the constitutionally-minded liberal politicians or the moderate socialists”.

Historiography • Revisionist view Figes: “The October insurrection was a coup d’etat, actively supported by a small minority of the population…but it took place amidst a social revolution, which was centered on the popular realization of Soviet power”.

Historiography • Revisionist view Service: “…the revolutionary transformation was not monopolized by the political elites but also involved the masses acting in their own interests and through their own organisations…The masses had not taken leave of their senses. War, economic dislocation and administrative breakdown meant that their everyday needs were not being met. The sole alternative was for the people to preside over their own affairs; and as the situation worsened, so the workers, soldiers, and peasants took to direct political action. The Bolshevik party had the slogans that most nearly corresponded to their wishes. And so the Leninist seizure of power was an easy task: the masses had already completed most of the job for the Bolsheviks”.

Historiography • Revisionist view J. P. Nettl: “A similar coup d’etat could have been undertaken by the other revolutionary parties, particularly the Socialist Revolutionaries – if their leadership had been more determined…the determination of Lenin and Trotsky was something of an historical accident. The Bolshevik survival has deeper social significance”.

Historiography • Western Marxist view Reed: “[Lenin was a] strange popular leader- a leader purely by virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies- but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity. ” Ten Days That Shook the World

Historiography • Revisionist view Figes: “There was no ‘private Lenin’ behind the public mask. He gave all of himself to politics. He rarely showed emotion, he had few intimates, and everything he ever said or wrote was intended only for the revolutionary cause. This was not a man but a political machine. Lenin’s personal life was extraordinarily dull…He did not smoke, he did not really drink, and apart from his affair with the beautiful Inessa Armand, he was not even interested in women. Krupskaya called him ‘Ilich’, his nickname in the party, and he called her ‘comrade’. She was more like his secretary than his wife…Lenin lived for the revolution. ” The Sunday Times, March 2000