Which means all power to the soviets. The value of all power to the councils! in the great Soviet encyclopedia, bse
"ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS!"
chief political the slogan of the Bolshevik Party during the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist. revolution. Put forward in the April theses of V. I. Lenin and enshrined in the decisions of the All-Russian April Conference of the RSDLP (b). Based on the teachings of Marxism-Leninism about the revolution and the state-ve and, in particular, on the Leninist position on the Soviets as a new state. authorities such as the Paris Commune, designed to replace the bourgeois to be demolished. state car. The content of the slogan during the period of the peaceful development of the revolution (April-June 1917): the elimination of dual power by transferring all power to the Soviets, the creation of owls. pr-va of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks (since they were the majority in the Soviets), the scrapping of the old state. apparatus and replacement of its owls. state org-tion. The Bolsheviks were supposed to act as an opposition party without joining the government and, agitating among the broad masses, criticizing the inconsistency and vacillation of the petty-bourgeois. parties, their conciliation with the bourgeoisie and the inability to satisfy the revolution. the demands of the people, to change, using the right to recall deputies, the party composition of the Soviets and, ultimately, to create a Bolshevik Sov. pr-in. At the same time, the overthrow of the Time. pr-va armed. an uprising was ruled out, because with the support of the government by the Soviets, it would have been perceived by the masses as an uprising against the Soviets. Elimination of bourgeois pr-va was thought to be carried out by decreeing the transition of power to them by the Soviets. The Provisional Government, which had no real power at its disposal and was kept in power by agreement with the Soviets, could not offer any serious resistance.
In the course of the development of the revolution, the masses were convinced by their own experience that the Provisional The government and the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik leadership of the Soviets supporting it do not fulfill their demands. The process of elimination has begun, they agree. illusions. A vivid indicator of this was the mass demonstrations in Petrograd (April, June, and July) and other cities. In the July days of 1917, the autocracy of the bourgeoisie was established. The Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Soviets have become powerless appendages of the bourgeoisie. pr-va. Under these conditions, V. I. Lenin substantiated the need to temporarily remove the slogan on the transfer of power to the Soviets. This, however, did not mean that the position on the Soviets as state institutions needed to be revised. form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin had in mind only Soviets led by Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) fully agreed with Lenin. During the Kornilov region, in the context of a broad popular movement against the counter-revolution, in which a number of Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Soviets were involved, for a short time the possibility arose of transferring power to the Soviets. Lenin considered these days quite possible "... a return to the pre-July demand: all power to the Soviets, a government of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks responsible to the Soviets" (Soch., vol. 25, p. 283). However, the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik bloc, with its support of the Provisions. pr-va thwarted this opportunity.
After the liquidation of the Kornilov rebellion, in the conditions of the rapid Bolshevization of the Soviets, which reflected the revolutionary. the rise of the masses, the Bolshevik Party again put up the slogan "V. v. S.!", But its content changed: now it called for a struggle to turn the Soviets into organs of uprising against the bourgeoisie. pr-va, for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The slogan "V. v. S.!" was implemented on 25 Oct. (November 7), when the 2nd All-Russian. Congress of Soviets, relying on the victorious armament. uprising in Petrograd, decreed the overthrow of the Time. pr-va and the establishment of Sov. authorities.
Lit .: Lenin V.I., Soch., 4th ed., vol. 24, p. 1-9, 13-14, 19-51, 116-22, 125, 181-82, 198-216, 262-64, 281-84; v. 25, p. 157-59, 164-70, 282-87, 340-47, 385-428; v. 26, p. 38-46, 215-16; CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee, part 1, 7th ed., M., 1954, p. 332-53; Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). Protocols, M., 1958.
Yu. S. Tokarev. Leningrad.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ed. E. M. Zhukova. 1973-1982 .
- (“All power to the Soviets!”) The main political slogan of the Bolshevik Party during the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution (See Great October Socialist Revolution). Nominated in the April... ...
I Great October Socialist Revolution, the first victorious socialist revolution in history, carried out in 1917 by the working class of Russia in alliance with the poorest peasantry under the leadership of the Communist Party [former ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The first victorious social revolution in history, accomplished in 1917 by the working class of Russia in alliance with the poorest peasantry under the leadership of the Communist. party headed by V. I. Lenin. As a result, V. O. s. R. power was overthrown in Russia...
- (CPSU) combat-tested avant-garde of owls. people, uniting on a voluntary basis the advanced, most conscious part of the working class, the kolkh. peasantry and intelligentsia of the USSR. Communist the party was founded by V. I. Lenin as a revolutionary ... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia
- (USSR, Union SSR, Soviet Union) the first in the history of the socialist. state in. It occupies almost a sixth of the inhabited land of the globe 22 million 402.2 thousand km2. In terms of population 243.9 million people. (as of Jan. 1, 1971) Sov. The Union belongs to the 3rd place in ... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia
Change of power in Russia in 1917-1918 ... Wikipedia
The Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. The formation of the Soviet socialist state The February bourgeois democratic revolution served as a prologue October revolution. Only the socialist revolution... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
See also: Revolution of 1905-1907 in Russia Change of power in Russia in 1917-1918 ... Wikipedia
Main article: Russian Civil War Storming of the Winter Palace. A frame from the feature film "October" 1927. The Bolshevik regime in Russia has always tried to justify its activities by the need to create true order from the chaos of anarchy ... Wikipedia
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- All power to the Soviets! , . In the collection "All power to the Soviets!" pages of Bolshevik newspapers of 1917 are reproduced in facsimile. Having become a document of history, they tell about the most important events on the eve of October, introduce ...
Page 12 of 21
In the last, critical days of August, Lenin remained in an illegal position in the capital of Finland, Helsingfors. In Finland, which had been part of the Russian Empire since 1809, the desire of the Finns to gain national independence complicated and greatly intensified the ferment that followed the collapse of the tsarist regime. In addition, Helsingfors was the main base Baltic Fleet, where the Bolsheviks were active and enjoyed especially great influence among the Baltic sailors. In the late summer and early autumn of 1917 in Finland, as elsewhere in the former Russian Empire, the socio-political antagonism sharply escalated, and the popularity of extreme left political programs among the masses increased. At the Third Regional Congress of Soviets of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland, held from September 9 to 12 in Helsingfors, a permanent executive committee was elected, which included almost exclusively Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries. The Bolshevik Ivar Smilga, who adhered to extreme leftist views, became chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of the Army, Navy and Workers of Finland, which proclaimed itself the highest body of political power in Finland.
Hiding in Helsingfors, Lenin met with some of the leaders of the Finnish Social Democracy. It is likely that the strong positions of the left and the increasingly tense, explosive political situation in Finland contributed to the formation of Lenin's views on the general questions of the further development of the revolution. However, above all, he was concerned about the development of revolutionary events in Petrograd. Lenin moved from Razliv to Finland on August 9, and very soon he managed to establish a fairly reliable connection with the Central Committee. Petrograd newspapers were delivered to Lenin, as a rule, by the evening of the next day after publication. The time that remained after voraciously reading newspapers and pondering the news, he apparently devoted entirely to working on the book The State and Revolution, which was nearing completion, and writing political articles for the Bolshevik press 1 .
Lenin first learned that General Kornilov was threatening Petrograd on August 28, but the newspapers for that day with the first more or less detailed reports were delivered only late in the evening of August 29. Among these newspapers, however, there was no Bolshevik "Worker", so he remained almost completely unaware of the actions of the party in the current critical situation. Nevertheless, on the morning of August 30, impatiently awaiting news from Petrograd, Lenin wrote a letter in which he gave the Central Committee tactical recommendations that indicated a shift in his views on the development of the revolution, albeit a temporary one. Lenin pointed out that the threat of establishing a right-wing dictatorship had drastically changed the political situation and, accordingly, the party should reconsider its tactics. If in the days of the Moscow Conference Lenin dismissed rumors of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy as "a deliberate ploy by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries", now he insisted on uniting the Bolsheviks in the fight against Kornilov. Without commenting on such an important issue as the permissible limits of cooperation between the Bolsheviks and other socialists, Lenin simply warned that the Bolsheviks should neither directly support the Kerensky government nor seek, at the moment, to overthrow it. The task of fighting Kerensky boiled down to exposing by all possible means his weakness and vacillation, as well as putting pressure on the government to make it comply with such "partial demands" as the arrest of Milyukov, the arming of workers, the summoning of naval formations to Petrograd, the dissolution of the State Duma, legitimization of the transfer of landowners' lands to peasants and the introduction of workers' control.
The recognition of the need to coordinate the actions of the Bolsheviks and other political groups against Kornilov and to intensify agitation for the fulfillment of "partial demands" testified to Lenin's departure from his previous categorical objections to any rapprochement with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and assertions that the main task of the Bolshevik Party was to the direct seizure of power by the proletariat as soon as possible. As noted above, in the last days of August, most of the leaders of the Petrograd Bolsheviks took just such a position. They were obviously surprised by the approval of their course of action, which Lenin expressed in a postscript to a letter to the Central Committee, written late in the evening of August 30, when he finally read the latest newspapers, including Rabochey. “Having read, after writing this, six issues of Rabochy,” Lenin added in a postscript, “I must say that we have a complete coincidence” 2 .
Even more obvious evidence of the change in Lenin's views with the beginning of the Kornilov rebellion was the article "On Compromises", written by him on September 1 and delivered to Petrograd two days later. In fact, this article can hardly be regarded otherwise than as a deviation from the main provisions on which Lenin's instructions to the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b) were based, namely: the Soviets are no longer revolutionary institutions, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries are definitively bankrupt, the forcible seizure of power is absolutely necessary. Now, in view of the obvious weakness of Kerensky, who found himself in isolation, and being impressed by the strength of the Soviets, which they demonstrated in the fight against the Kornilov rebellion, and also taking into account the obvious increase in the hostility of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries towards the very idea of further developing cooperation with the Cadets, Lenin actually confirmed the possibility return to the "peaceful" pre-July tactical program, which the more moderate Bolsheviks insisted on. The specific compromise proposed by Lenin was as follows: the Bolsheviks temporarily remove the demand for the transfer of power to a government formed by representatives of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry, and officially return to the slogan "All power to the Soviets!". The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries take power into their own hands and form a government responsible to the Soviets. Political power throughout Russia passes to the local Soviets, the Bolsheviks are not included in the government, but they receive guarantees of complete freedom of action in accordance with their program. In essence, the article "On Compromises" was an expression of readiness to renounce armed struggle and fight for predominance in the Soviets by political means, on the condition that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries break with the bourgeoisie. According to Lenin, such a government at the moment could be created and consolidated quite peacefully and "ensure, with gigantic probability, the peaceful movement forward of the entire Russian revolution and extremely great chances for big steps forward in the world movement towards peace and the victory of socialism."
About the creation of the Directory, about the stubborn unwillingness of the majority of moderate socialists to agree to the formation of an exclusively socialist government and their desire to form a new coalition cabinet from representatives of the bourgeoisie, albeit without the participation of the Cadets, Lenin learned on September 3, when he was about to send the article “On Compromises” to Petrograd. This news prompted him to add a short postscript to the article, in which he pessimistically noted: “... And after reading Saturday's and today's Sunday newspapers, I say to myself: perhaps the offer of a compromise is already too late. Perhaps those few days during which peaceful development was still possible have also passed. Yes, everything shows that they have already passed” 3 .
Even now, however, Lenin did not completely abandon the idea of the peaceful development of the revolution. During the first week and a half of September, he was still thinking about the possibility of a compromise. To a certain extent, the reason for such hopes was the continuous and widely publicized disputes among the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries on the question of the future government, as well as the sharpening of the antagonism between Kerensky and the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik leaders of the Soviets, which was evidenced, for example, by the stubborn resistance of the Committee of People's Struggle against Counter-Revolution government attempts to dissolve the revolutionary committees created during the Kornilov region. In any case, Lenin returned to the question of the possibility of a compromise with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks and the peaceful development of the revolution in the articles of this period: "The Tasks of the Revolution", "The Russian Revolution and the Civil War" and "One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution" 11 .
In the article "The Tasks of the Revolution", written around September 6 but not published until the end of the month, Lenin laid out in more detail the political plan first proposed in the article "On Compromises". “Having taken all power,” Lenin insisted, “the Soviets could even now—and this is probably their last chance—ensure the peaceful development of the revolution, the peaceful election of their deputies by the people, the peaceful struggle of the parties within the Soviets.”
A day or two later, Lenin wrote an article, "One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution," which was not published until September. In this article, he noted the importance of the question of state power for the development of any revolution. Lenin explained why he attaches such great importance immediate transfer of all power to the Soviets:
“It is impossible to bypass or put aside the question of power, for this is precisely the fundamental question that determines everything in the development of the revolution...
The whole question now is whether the petty-bourgeois democracy has learned anything during these great six months, which are unusually rich in content, or not. If not, then the revolution is lost, and only a victorious uprising of the proletariat can save it. If so, then we must begin with the immediate creation of a stable, unwavering power ...
Only Soviet power could be stable, only it could not be overthrown even in the most stormy moments of the most stormy revolution, only such power could ensure the constant, broad development of the revolution, the peaceful struggle of the parties within the Soviets ... "
Lenin also explained what meaning he put into the slogan "All power to the Soviets!", calling for a return to it in the article "On Compromises":
“But the slogan: “power to the Soviets” is very often, if not in most cases, completely misunderstood in the sense of “a ministry from the parties of the Soviet majority” ...
“Power to the Soviets” means a radical alteration of the entire old state apparatus, this bureaucratic apparatus, which hinders everything democratic, the elimination of this apparatus and its replacement with a new, popular one, i.e. the truly democratic apparatus of the Soviets. then. an organized and armed majority of the people, workers, soldiers, peasants, granting initiative and independence to the majority of the people, not only in the election of deputies. but also in the management of the state, in the implementation of reforms and transformations.
Only the Soviet government, says Lenin, is capable of showing sufficient courage and decisiveness to introduce a grain monopoly and effective control over production and distribution, limit the issue of paper money, ensure the correct exchange of grain for manufactured goods, etc., that is, take all those measures demanded by the "unprecedented burdens and calamities of war, the unheard of and most formidable danger of devastation and famine." Such power, according to Lenin, will be nothing else than the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasants, the need for which he spoke back in the April Theses. In the article “One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution”, Lenin claims that such a dictatorship would break the resistance of the Kornilovites and complete the democratization of the army, that “ninety-nine hundredths of the army would be enthusiastic supporters of such a dictatorship two days after its establishment”, that it would “give land to the peasants and omnipotence to the local peasant committees” that the peasants would undoubtedly support such a dictatorship. Lenin goes on to write:
“Only the dictatorship of the proletarians and the poorest peasants is capable of breaking the resistance of the capitalists, of showing truly majestic courage and determination of the authorities, of securing for itself the enthusiastic, selfless, truly heroic support of the masses both in the army and among the peasantry.
Power to the Soviets is the only thing that could do further development gradual, peaceful, calm...» 6
In the article "Russian Revolution and Civil War", the last of this series, probably completed on September 9 and published on September 16, Lenin wrote about the groundlessness of the fears of moderate socialists, who feared a bloody civil war, supposedly inevitable in the event of a break with the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, Lenin argued, a further delay in the creation of the Soviet government would cause an increase in the indignation of the masses, and then an armed uprising of the workers and a civil war would become really inevitable. The uprising and the war will be bloody, but in any case the proletariat will win a triumphant victory. According to Lenin, “an exclusively alliance of the Bolsheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, an exclusively immediate transfer of all power to the Soviets would make a civil war in Russia impossible. For against such an alliance, against the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, no civil war started by the bourgeoisie is unthinkable, such a "war" would not even reach a single battle ... ". In support of his words, Lenin pointed to the helplessness of the bourgeoisie during the Kornilov revolt, when such an alliance ensured "a complete victory over the counter-revolution, achieved with ease never before seen in any revolution..." 7 .
The atmosphere of freedom of discussion characteristic of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that even Lenin's proposal for a more tolerant attitude towards the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was accepted not without objections. By the time the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd received the article "On Compromises", the Central Executive Committee had already officially rejected the resolution "On Power" proposed by the Bolsheviks on August 31. To the publishers of Rabochy Put, the kind of compromise proposed by Lenin seemed unworkable. Grigory Sokolnikov, a member of the editorial board, subsequently recalled that initially they did not want to publish the article, and only at Lenin's insistence the decision was revised and the article was published on September 6 8 .
Lenin's point of view, expressed in the article "On Compromises", was also objected to by some members of the Moscow Regional Bureau, which always advocated the most resolute actions, 9 and the leaders of the St. b) supported Lenin on the question of a complete break with the moderate socialists and preparations for an armed seizure of power and were now clearly stunned by the abrupt change in his views. The negative attitude of a number of leaders of the Petrograd Bolsheviks towards the bloc with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries became obvious during the discussion of the current situation at the meeting of the Petersburg Committee on September 7, the very next day after the publication of the article "On Compromises" 10 .
The debate was opened by the representative of the Executive Commission A. Slutsky. While agreeing with Lenin that Kornilov's speech caused the masses and moderate socialists and even, to some extent, the Soviets to "left to the left", he objected to rapprochement with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, arguing that the main task of the party was to keep the masses from premature active operations and prepare to use the Soviets as fighting centers through which it will be possible to come to power 11 . G. Kolomin, distinguished by his independent judgment and already in the July days, showed himself as a supporter of the most decisive actions, argued that Kornilov's speech by no means led to any significant change in the positions of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and, accordingly, the Soviets. He argued that their shift to the left “still does not give us the opportunity to think that the Soviet will take a revolutionary path ... Our position must remain unchanged. Our goal is not to go hand in hand with the leaders of these Soviets, but to try to wrest the more revolutionary elements from them or to lead them along... Both in the factories and among the poor peasants we are witnessing a shift to the left. Now it's ridiculous for us to think about compromises. No compromises!.. Our revolution is not the same as in the West. Our revolution is proletarian. Our task is to strengthen the position and, of course, prepare for a combat battle. It should be noted that the statements of the representative of the Central Committee, Bubnov, rather corresponded to the moods of Slutsky and Kolomin, than to the point of view of Lenin, expressed by him in the article “On Compromises”.
It is difficult to judge to what extent such sentiments prevailed at that time among the members of the Petersburg Committee, since the discussion of the current situation at the meeting on September 7 ended without the adoption of any resolution. In any case, at the present moment, as well as in the period preceding the July events, in the short term, the peace course corresponded both to the program guidelines of the right-wing Bolsheviks, such as Kamenev, who asserted that Russia was not yet ready for a socialist revolution, and acted at that time only for the creation of a socialist coalition government with the participation of the Bolsheviks, the proclamation of a democratic republic and the convening of the Constituent Assembly, and the views of such Bolsheviks as Lenin, Trotsky and the leaders of the Petrograd party organizations, who considered the transfer of power to the Soviets and the creation of an SR-Menshevik government an intermediate stage in the development of a socialist revolution on the way to the speedy establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry. Undoubtedly, the course proposed by Lenin touched the sensitive chord of the majority of the members of the Central Committee. In the first weeks of September, the Petrograd Bolsheviks, under the leadership of the Central Committee, concentrated their efforts not so much on further deepening the gulf between them and the moderate socialists and preparing the masses for an armed seizure of power in the spirit of Lenin’s instructions to the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), but on solving the problems of ensuring the possibility of peaceful development revolution. In particular, with new energy The Bolsheviks waged a struggle to induce the vacillating elements in the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik camp to accept and support the principle of a complete break with the bourgeoisie, intensified the struggle for the further expansion and strengthening of the party’s influence in mass organizations (most importantly, in the Petrograd Soviet). The efforts of the Bolsheviks were also aimed at sending as many of their delegates as possible to the Democratic Conference scheduled for mid-September and considered by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries as a forum at which the question of the coalition and the nature of the future government should be finally decided.
A particularly important task of the Bolsheviks was the struggle for influence in the Petrograd Soviet. At the meeting on August 31, when the majority voted for the political program of the Bolsheviks, less than half of the deputies who had the right to vote were present. A significant part of the absent deputies were then soldiers holding the defense outside the capital, on whom the Social Revolutionaries had a significant influence. It is not surprising, therefore, that moderate socialists disputed the significance of the Bolsheviks' success on August 31 and counted on their defeat in the near future.
As a test of the strength and relative influence of the parties in the Petrograd Soviet, the Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik strategists chose the question of the future composition of the presidium. From the moment of its formation, that is, from March 1917, the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet consisted exclusively of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Among them were such well-known and authoritative politicians as Chkheidze, Tsereteli, Chernov, Dan, Skobelev, Gots and Anisimov. Now they have all announced their intention to resign if the results of the August 31 vote are not invalidated and the previous leadership does not receive a vote of confidence. This step of the Essro-Menshevik leaders posed no small threat to the Bolsheviks, since the latter could hardly hope to collect enough votes to defeat such prominent politicians. The annulment of the results of the August 31st vote and the vote of confidence in the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries could in no small measure negate the recent successes of the Bolsheviks in the struggle for broader support of the masses.
In order to insure themselves to some extent against such a defeat, the Bolsheviks made an attempt to bring procedural questions to the fore and thereby obscure the political significance of voting on the composition of the presidium. In particular, they argued that it would be unfair if, as before, only representatives of the majority entered the presidium. In contrast to the moderates who proposed comparing the political programs of different parties, making a choice and allowing representatives of the prevailing parties to form a presidium, the Bolsheviks insisted that the only democratic approach was to reorganize the presidium along the principle of proportional representation and introduce into the presidium an appropriate number of members from parties and political groupings that were not previously represented in it. This plan seemed quite reasonable to many deputies who leaned to the left but were unwilling to join the Bolsheviks at the cost of a break with their leaders. Defending the idea of proportional representation in the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet, Kamenev convinced such wavering deputies that if the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries “recognized a coalition with the bourgeoisie, then they would agree to a coalition with the Bolsheviks on the presidium.”
The question of reorganizing the presidium was put to a vote at the beginning of the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet on 9 September. The Bolsheviks' proposal was accepted by a small majority of votes. Lenin subsequently criticized the leaders of the Bolshevik faction of the Petrograd Soviet for their adherence to the idea of proportional representation, considering their behavior in the elections to the presidium as just another example of unjustifiably close cooperation of their associates with other socialist parties to the detriment of their own goals. However, the justification of this tactical step and the expediency of proportional representation were confirmed already at the same meeting, when another proposal of the Bolsheviks was discussed - to change the order of representation of soldiers in the Soviet - and it turned out that they did not yet have a reliable majority in the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolsheviks' proposal did not find the support of the majority of the deputies, and in order to avoid an inevitable defeat, they had to abandon their intention to put their resolution to a vote at the last moment.
The maneuvers of the Bolsheviks in the Petrograd Soviet were finally crowned with success. When the voting results were announced at the September 9 meeting on the issue of proportional representation, the majority of the members of the former presidium defiantly left the hall, expressing extreme annoyance and indignation with their whole appearance. By September 25, the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet was completely reorganized. The new Presidium included two Social Revolutionaries, one Menshevik and four Bolsheviks (Trotsky, Kamenev, Rykov and Fedorov). Trotsky replaced Chkheidze as chairman.
At the same time, the Bolshevik leaders paid great attention to the Democratic Conference. On September 4, the Central Committee sent a telegram to 37 local party organizations in different regions of the country, and the next day a letter informing them that the Central Committee had decided to "make every effort to create the largest possible and cohesive group of the participants in the meeting, members of our party" . The Bolsheviks in the localities were asked, "having familiarized themselves with the exact composition of the conference, to lead their comrades wherever possible" and send them directly to Smolny "for more accurate and detailed information about our tasks at the conference" 16 .
When the composition of the Democratic Conference was announced, it became obvious that the hopes that the conference would reject the idea of a coalition and take steps towards the creation of a new homogeneous socialist government were unlikely to materialize. Representatives of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, city dumas, army organizations, trade unions and a number of other organizations received 1,198 mandates. However, the number of seats for representatives of the urban Soviets of workers and soldiers, as well as trade unions, that is, organizations where the Bolsheviks had the strongest positions, was small in comparison with the representation of rural Soviets, Zemstvos and cooperatives, in which moderate socialists predominated.
The Bolsheviks, however, did not entirely abandon the idea that the Democratic Conference could create a socialist government. At a meeting on September 13, the Central Committee elected a commission consisting of Trotsky, Kamenev, Stalin, Milyutin and Rykov, which was instructed to prepare a declaration and a resolution for the Democratic Conference. Partly based on letters and articles written by Lenin in early September, the revolutionary program of the Bolsheviks formulated in the declaration prepared by the commission proceeded from the premise that the peaceful development of the revolution was still possible and that the Democratic Conference could and should create a revolutionary government. Like Lenin's article "On Compromises", the Bolshevik declaration was essentially an expression of the recognition of the Soviets as an organ of revolutionary power and a call to the former supporters of the coalition to break decisively with the bourgeoisie. It was categorically stated that the Bolsheviks did not try, do not try and will not try to seize power against the will of the majority of the working masses, that the struggle for predominance in the Soviets will continue in conditions of complete freedom of agitation, constant renewal of their composition due to the influx of new deputies from the grassroots. At the same time, in contrast to the article "On Compromises", the possibility of participation of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet government was not ruled out 20 ; in all likelihood, Kamenev's influence was reflected in this.
Just before the opening of the Democratic Conference, it became clear that the fears of the party members, who held the most leftist views, regarding the likely composition of the delegates were fully justified. Among those delegates who arrived at the conference who indicated their party affiliation, there were 532 Socialist-Revolutionaries (including 71 Left Socialist-Revolutionaries), 172 Mensheviks (of which 56 were internationalists), 55 People's Socialists, and 133 identified themselves as non-Party. There were only 134 Bolshevik delegates.
However, in the course of the preliminary conferences on factions, it became clear that among the moderate socialists there was by no means a unanimity of opinion on the question of a coalition with non-socialist parties. The disagreements on this question that arose in the days after Kornilov's speech not only did not disappear, but even deepened. On the first day of the Democratic Conference, the Menshevik Bogdanov expressed the current attitude towards the coalition of many leaders of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who had previously supported the Provisional Government: “In the difficult moment we are going through ... we must establish beyond doubt that we have no power. We had a government mess, which is no different from the leapfrog that was under the tsarist autocracy. This government mess is weakening the country, the continuous change of cabinets has led to complete sterility, and we, the revolutionary democracy that created this government, are to blame for this ... I am a supporter of the coalition government and I must admit with pain that the main reason for the government’s inaction was its coalition composition from representatives of democracy and the bourgeoisie" 22 .
So, before the opening of the Democratic Conference and in the first days of its work, the Bolsheviks could still hope that the majority of the delegates would vote for Kerensky's break and the creation of a homogeneous socialist government. This hope was expressed by Zinoviev in an article on the front page of Rabochy Put on September 13, which was no doubt circulated among the visiting delegates. The article, entitled "Our Victory and Our Tasks," stated:
“... The main question that now confronts every revolutionary is whether there are still any chances for the peaceful development of the revolution and what needs to be done to increase these chances? And here we must say to ourselves: if they exist, then only if there is a certain compromise, a certain agreement between the working class, which has finally followed our Party, and the mass of petty-bourgeois democrats, following the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks... An honest agreement... with petty-bourgeois democracy - yes, this is desirable, and under certain conditions it is possible! ... And the All-Russian Democratic Conference that is opening in a few days could still open the way for such a peaceful outcome.
The democratic meeting opened on the evening of September 14 at the Alexandrinsky Theater (now the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin). The delegates who arrived from all over Russia took their seats in the famous old auditorium - in boxes, stalls and on the balcony. The delegates were strikingly different from the audience that filled this hall in tsarist times, and the hall itself now looked completely different. The red plush upholstery of the armchairs and boxes merged with the sea of red revolutionary banners. The curtain was raised to reveal a stage and scenery depicting a large hall with several doors flanked by artificial palm trees and juniper bushes. The members of the presidium sat at a long narrow table that crossed the entire stage, in front of the table stood a pulpit draped in red paper, to which a “No Smoking” sign was attached.
In Kamenev's speech at the first meeting of the meeting, as well as in Trotsky's speech to the Bolshevik delegation the next day, the hopes that the Democratic Conference would decide on the creation of a new government sounded unequivocally. Kamenev made a rather lengthy speech, declaring that six months of work of various compositions of the Provisional Government forced the Bolsheviks to refuse to trust the policy "which is now also headed by Minister Ferensky." "The situation is so tragic," Kamenev argued, we no longer have." He stated that the failure of the government to repulse the counter-revolutionary forces in the army, the failures in the field Agriculture and providing the country with food, as well as in the foreign policy sphere, are not the result of mistakes made by this or that socialist minister, they are due to the political influence of the bourgeoisie as a class:
“Yes, comrades, there has not yet been a single revolution in which the realization of the ideals of the working people did not arouse the mortal horror of the counter-revolutionary forces ... If the democracy does not now want to take power into its own hands, they must openly say to themselves: “We do not believe in our strength, and therefore, Buryshkins and Kishkins 24, come and rule over us, we ourselves do not know how. One can write any program that will satisfy labor democracy, but it would be the purest utopia to think that such a program would be sincerely and honestly carried out by the bourgeoisie.
Further, Kamenev said that the only possible way out was to transfer state power to democracy, not to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, but to that democracy which was sufficiently represented at the conference. It is necessary to create a new government and a body to which it must be accountable.
Trotsky, addressing the Bolshevik delegates, said that, as far as possible, one should first of all try to convince the participants in the meeting of the need to break with the bourgeoisie and take upon themselves the task of creating a new government. If successful, this will be the first step towards the transfer of all power to the Soviets 26 .
It should be noted that, unlike Kamenev, who advocated the creation of a democratic coalition government on a broad basis, that is, with the participation of representatives of various political groups who sent delegates to the meeting, Trotsky insisted on the transfer of all power. Soviets. This very significant circumstance reflected a fundamental difference in views on the development of the Russian revolution, which was soon destined to become the source of one of the sharpest and most significant internal contradictions in the history of Bolshevism. Within the framework of the topic under consideration, however, the main thing is that both Kamenev and Trotsky, and together with them the majority of the Petrograd Bolsheviks, positively assessed the work of the Democratic Conference and the prospects for the peaceful development of the revolution.
Considering that at that moment relatively moderate views prevailed among the Bolsheviks, and Lenin himself from the beginning of September spoke in favor of compromise tactics, it is not difficult to imagine how stunned the Bolshevik leaders were when they received on September 15 two letters from Lenin, written between September 12 and 14 , in which he completely abandoned the moderate position outlined in the article "On Compromises", insisted that the Bolsheviks should immediately begin preparations for an armed uprising.
Such a seemingly sharp and unexpected turn was due to a number of complementary factors. On the one hand, factors such as the strong position of the extreme left elements in Finland, the majority support that the Bolshevik program received in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, as well as in a number of local Soviets, the widespread and steadily growing unrest of landless peasants, the further disintegration of the army at the front and the ever more insistent demands of the soldiers of an immediate peace, finally, the signs of the growth of revolutionary sentiment in the German fleet, obviously aroused in Lenin the hope that at the moment, if the Bolsheviks take power, they will be provided with powerful support in the cities, broad and stubborn opposition in there will be no village and at the front, and the formation of a truly revolutionary government in Russia will serve as an impetus for mass demonstrations in other European countries. And of course, when Lenin realized the possibility of quickly getting a resolution on the establishment of a far-left government, he lost interest in compromising with moderate socialist parties. On the other hand, Lenin apparently feared that the Provisional Government would succeed in one way or another "let off revolutionary steam" - by entering into negotiations for a separate peace, surrendering Petrograd to the Germans, holding elections to the Constituent Assembly, or provoking and suppressing a spontaneous uprising unorganized masses. Apparently, Lenin was afraid that if the Bolshevik Party showed slowness, it would begin to lose influence and authority among the masses and would be unable to prevent the complete anarchy of the country.
In the first of two letters addressed to the Central, St. Petersburg and Moscow committees of the RSDLP (b), Lenin wrote: “Having received a majority in both metropolitan Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their own hands.
They can, because the active majority of the revolutionary elements of the people of both capitals are enough to captivate the masses, defeat the resistance of the enemy, smash him, win power and keep it ... ". “The Democratic Conference,” Lenin pointed out, “does not represent the majority of the revolutionary people, but only the conciliatory petty-bourgeois leaders ... Why should the Bolsheviks take power right now?
Because Peter's impending surrender will make our chances a hundred times worse." Lenin noted that we are not talking about the "day" of the uprising, not about its "moment" in the narrow sense - the choice of the moment should be entrusted to the leaders of the Bolsheviks on the ground. Now, Lenin pointed out, the party should take advantage of the fact that at the Democratic Conference it actually has its own congress, the task of which is to put on the order of the day "an armed uprising in St. Petersburg and Moscow (with the region), the conquest of power, the overthrow of the government." In conclusion, Lenin asserts that by seizing power at once in Petrograd and in Moscow (it does not matter in which city the Bolsheviks act first), "we will win unconditionally and undoubtedly" 21 .
In the second letter, entitled "Marxism and the insurrection" and addressed only to the Central Committee, Lenin refutes the opportunist lie that the preparation of an insurrection, in general the attitude towards an insurrection as art, is "Blanquism". According to Lenin, in order to be successful, an uprising must be based not on a conspiracy and not on the party, but on the proletariat, it must be based on the revolutionary upsurge of the people. Finally, the victory of an insurrection is possible only if it occurs at a moment when "the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is greatest, when the hesitations are greatest in the ranks of the enemies and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted, indecisive friends of the revolution." Emphasizing that “since these conditions are present, then to abandon the attitude to the uprising as to art means to betray Marxism and change the revolution,” Lenin in his letter explained why an immediate armed uprising was “on the order of the day.” He compared the current situation with the situation in the days of the July events, noting that at that time the Bolsheviks did not yet have sufficient support from the proletariat, but now, after the “reprisal” against the Bolsheviks and the Kornilov region, the Bolsheviks have a majority in both Soviets - Moscow and Petrograd. In July there was no popular revolutionary upsurge, but now, after the Kornilov revolt, there was. Finally, at that time there were no serious vacillations among the enemies of the Bolsheviks, now the vacillations are "giant." “We would not have been able to hold power politically on July 3-4,” Lenin wrote in conclusion, “for the army and the provinces, up to the Kornilov region, could and would have gone to Peter. Now the picture is completely different. ... We have all the objective prerequisites for a successful uprising.” Lenin demanded that the Central Committee rally the Bolshevik faction at the Democratic Conference, “not being afraid to leave the waverers in the camp of the waverers”, pointed out that it was necessary to draw up a brief declaration, “the shorter, the sharper the declaration, the better”, “emphasizing in the sharpest way the inappropriateness long speeches, the inappropriateness of "speech" in general, the need for immediate action to save the revolution, the absolute need for a complete break with the bourgeoisie, the complete removal of the entire present government, the need for the immediate transfer of all power into the hands of revolutionary democracy in the revolutionary proletariat. The Bolsheviks, "having read this declaration, urging them to decide, not to speak, to act, not to write resolutions", should "send our entire faction to factories and barracks ...". At the same time, Lenin pointed out, in order to treat the uprising in a Marxist way, that is, as an art, it is necessary, without wasting a minute, “to organize the headquarters of the insurgent detachments, distribute forces, move loyal regiments to the most important points, surround Alexandrinka, occupy Petropavlovka, arrest general staff and government. .. mobilize the armed workers, call them to a desperate last battle, immediately occupy the telegraph and telephone, place our headquarters of the uprising at the central telephone exchange, connect all factories, all regiments, all points of armed struggle, etc. by telephone. 28.
Not surprisingly, the first reaction of the leaders of the Petrograd Bolsheviks to these letters was about the same as their reaction to Lenin's Letters from afar. “We all gasped, no one knew what to do. Everyone was perplexed at first,” Bukharin recalled a few years later. On the evening of September 15, members of the Central Committee hurriedly left the Alexandrinsky Theater for an emergency meeting to discuss Lenin's letters. There were not only members of the Central Committee who were constantly in Petrograd and carried out the day-to-day leadership of the party (that is, Bubnov, Dzerzhinsky, Ioffe, Milyutin, Sverdlov, Sokolnikov, Stalin and Uritsky), but also Kamenev, Kollontai and Trotsky (for Trotsky this meeting of the Central Committee was second after his release from prison), representatives of the Moscow organization of the Bolsheviks Bukharin, Lomov, Nogin, Rykov and the representative of the Central Committee in the Caucasus Stepan Shaumyan. Most of those present were given copies of Lenin's letters so that they could think them over beforehand. The published minutes of the debate are extremely fragmentary 31 . The Central Committee decided in the near future to appoint a meeting specially devoted to the discussion of tactical questions. Stalin's proposal to send Lenin's letters to the most important organizations for discussion was rejected, despite the fact that Lenin addressed his first letter not only to the Central Committee, but also to the St. Petersburg and Moscow Committees. Moreover, the majority of those present were in favor of quietly destroying Lenin's letters. Bukharin later claimed that the Central Committee considered the question of destroying the letters and unanimously decided to burn them 32 . As noted in the official minutes, the members of the Central Committee voted to keep only one copy of each letter and take appropriate measures to prevent the masses from protesting.
Lomov later recalled the fears of the Central Committee: “... we were afraid that this letter would not get to the St. Petersburg workers, to the district committees, the St. If his words leak out to the workers, then many will begin to doubt the correctness of the line of the entire Central Committee. As an additional precautionary measure, at a meeting of the Central Committee in September, it was decided to make the representatives of the Central Committee in the Military Organization and the St. Petersburg Committee (Sverdlov and Bubnov, respectively) personally responsible for ensuring that calls for immediate action in the spirit of Lenin’s demands were not sounded in the barracks and factories.
So, for the time being, Lenin's calls for the overthrow of the Provisional Government were unceremoniously ignored. In fact, the behavior of the Bolshevik delegation at the Democratic Conference changed after receiving Lenin's letters only in the sense that Trotsky stopped talking about the possibility of forming a government by the conference as the first step towards the transfer of power to the Soviets - he now categorically insisted on the direct transfer of all political power to the Soviets. This seemingly insignificant, but in fact very significant change led to a heated argument between Trotsky and Martov at a meeting of the faction of delegates from the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on September 18. Martov advocated the creation by the Democratic Conference of a socialist government on a broad basis, including representatives of all major groups invited to the meeting. Objecting to Martov, Trotsky argued that the composition of the Democratic Conference was such that it would be an ill-advised step to give it all the full power of state power, to entrust the solution of the question of the government. On the contrary, Trotsky insisted, it was absolutely necessary to transfer power to the Soviets, which had shown themselves to be a powerful creative force. political force 34 .
The Bolsheviks do not stop their efforts to influence the conference delegates, to convince them to break with the bourgeoisie and take the first steps towards the creation of a revolutionary government. The Bolshevik Declaration on the Question of Power, a program approved by the Central Committee on September 13 and, as noted above, based largely on the provisions of Lenin's article "On Compromises", was read out at the meeting of the Democratic Conference on September 18. That evening, in response to the appeals of the Bolsheviks, 150 delegates from Petrograd factory workers and military units organized a demonstration near the Alexandrinsky Theater in support of the creation of a government formed only of socialists. So, instead of leaving the Democratic Conference and going among the masses with calls for an armed uprising, as Lenin insisted, the Bolshevik Party worked to mobilize workers and soldiers to put pressure on the Democratic Conference in order to force it to take more radical courses.
Lenin took the announcement of the declaration at the Democratic Conference as undoubted evidence that the leadership of the party had rejected his instructions contained in the letters of September 12-14. Undoubtedly, the appearance on September 16 in the Rabochy Put newspaper of the article “Russian Revolution and Civil War” written by him at the beginning of the month, and with the name of the author, should have had an even greater effect on him. Thus, the Central Committee not only took steps to prevent Lenin's calls for an armed uprising from reaching the masses of the rank and file members of the party, it took care to convey to the masses the more moderate views of Lenin, which he had expressed a week earlier, thereby creating the impression that such was the case. Lenin's point of view at the present moment.
It was now that Lenin decided to immediately return to Petrograd, in defiance of the ban of the Central Committee (supposedly for security reasons). Unbeknownst to the Central Committee, on September 17 (or one of the days following September 17) Lenin arrived from Helsingfors to Vyborg and from there informed Krupskaya and Sverdlov - but not the Central Committee - of his adamant decision to return to Petrograd.
In the meantime, the delegates of the Democratic Conference for four days (September 14-18) held endless meetings of groups and party factions and general meetings, at which all kinds of questions concerning the nature of the future government and government were discussed. After lengthy verbiage, on September 19, a vote was held on the issue of power, however, in fact, the issue was not resolved, and all interested parties suffered a complete fiasco. According to the presidium's pre-established order, the delegates had to first express their attitude towards the idea of a coalition in principle. Further, the delegates were asked to vote for or against each of the two proposed amendments: 1) on the exclusion of elements of the Kadet Party and other groups involved in the Kornilov rebellion from participation in the coalition and 2) on the unconditional rejection of the coalition with the Cadets in general. Finally, the resolution as a whole, with the appropriate amendments, was put to the vote.
By roll call vote, which lasted five hours, the Democratic Conference approved the principle of a coalition with the bourgeoisie (766 votes in favor, 688 against and 38 abstentions). The voting results confirmed the validity of the Bolsheviks' fears about the composition of the meeting: the representatives of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and trade unions overwhelmingly voted against an alliance with the bourgeoisie, but still outweighed the votes of the much more numerous delegates from the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, military committees, Zemstvos and cooperatives, who spoke for the coalition 38 . The two proposed amendments were then put to the vote. Speaking before the vote on behalf of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky spoke in favor of both amendments. The same opinion was expressed by the representative of the Menshevik-internationalists, Martov, and the representative of the Left SRs, Kamkov. Both amendments passed, to the displeasure of many, though apparently not all, of the delegates who were in favor of a coalition in principle. The resolution as a whole, with the amendments adopted (that is, the approval of the coalition principle, but the rejection of an alliance with the Cadets and other groups that have stained themselves by supporting Kornilov), practically did not satisfy anyone. The Bolsheviks, of course, voted against the resolution, and were joined by numerous coalition supporters who simply could not imagine a viable coalition government without the Cadets. Only 183 votes were cast in favor of the amended resolution, 813 delegates voted against and 80 abstained 38 .
Four days of heated debate revealed sharp divisions among the "democratic groups", but absolutely nothing was decided on the composition of the future government. The attitude of the socialists to power and government turned out to be even more contradictory and confusing than before the September 19 vote. It was quite clear to the Presidium of the Democratic Conference that such a situation could not continue, therefore, at its insistence, even before the closing of the meeting on September 1, the delegates decided to continue the Democratic Conference until it was possible, one way or another, to reach a mutually acceptable agreement on the program of the future government and the conditions its formation and functioning.
The following day, a presidium-appointed debate was held to break the deadlock. Fierce disputes, in which members of the presidium and representatives of various parties and groups from among the conference delegates, began in the morning and ended only in the evening. Referring to the huge divisions that emerged in the ranks of the Democrats on the issue of power and government, Tsereteli argued that a government consisting only of representatives of democratic parties could not be viable. He was echoed by Gotz and Avksent'ev, who reiterated the need to maintain, in one form or another, a political alliance with the bourgeoisie. The main speaker for the Bolsheviks was Kamenev, who referred, not particularly convincingly, to the fact that as recently as yesterday the idea of creating a coalition government had been decisively rejected, and insisted on the need for a homogeneous democratic government. In order to reassure moderate socialists about what the attitude of the Bolsheviks would be towards such a government, Kamenev categorically stated that the Bolsheviks would not overthrow such a government, on the contrary, they would support it as long as it followed a democratic course and led the country to convene a Constituent Assembly. Having spoken to the point of hoarseness, the delegates began voting on the issue of a coalition - 60 delegates voted against, 50 votes were cast in favor of the coalition.
Due to the fact that opinions and voices were divided almost equally, Tsereteli proposed to go a slightly different way. He suggested trying to achieve unity of opinion on the political program of the future government, leaving the problem of the specific composition of the government to be decided by a permanent representative body, which should be elected at the Democratic Conference and to which the government would be responsible until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
Later this proposal was accepted. As regards the line to be taken by the new government, the majority of the delegates spoke in favor of the Program of August 14, 40 only the Bolsheviks objected. However, the Bolsheviks, like other participants in this meeting, supported the idea of creating a permanent representative body 41 .
Kamenev hoped that this body would be "homogeneous", that most of its members would be representatives of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and, consequently, it would not be so deaf to calls to break with the bourgeoisie as the democratic conference. However, almost immediately it became clear that such hopes had no basis. Again, only the Bolsheviks expressed their disagreement when the participants in the meeting decided that the permanent body (originally it was called the Democratic Council, but more often it was called the Pre-Parliament) should include both representatives of the parties and groups represented at the democratic meeting, and representatives of the propertied circles. Something exactly opposite to the course of voting happened the day before. At the meeting on September 19, the delegates began by agreeing with the idea of a coalition in principle, and then, by voting against the participation of the Cadets, effectively ruled out any real possibility of creating a coalition government. Now, on September 20, a special meeting of delegates rejected the coalition principle and then adopted a resolution implicitly allowing for the possibility of political cooperation with representatives of the bourgeoisie, not excluding the Cadets as well.
Supporters of the coalition government did not fail to immediately take advantage of the opportunity. On the same evening, September 20, at a plenary session, a resolution submitted by Tsereteli was adopted, according to which the task of finally deciding the question of power was entrusted to the Pre-Parliament. The resolution provided, among other things, that the government would pursue a line aimed at the implementation of the August 14 Program, that in the field of foreign policy it would strive to conclude peace between all the belligerent states, that it would be accountable and responsible to the permanent representative body, which until the convening The Constituent Assembly will be considered the body expressing the will of the entire people. The resolution noted that this representative body, that is, the Pre-Parliament, should consist of delegates to the Democratic Conference. The possibility of participation of representatives of the bourgeoisie in the Pre-Parliament or the government was not specifically stipulated, but in a camouflaged form the resolution allowed for the possibility of forming a new coalition, because it contained a vague indication that if bourgeois elements entered the government, then the composition of the permanent representative body should be expanded through inclusion of representatives of the bourgeoisie. The resolution, however, made a reservation that in this case the predominance of democratic elements should be ensured. Finally, the resolution provided for the selection of five people from among the delegates (later this figure doubled) who should start negotiations with a view to facilitating the formation of a government in accordance with the provisions of this resolution. These delegates were required to inform the Democratic Council of the results of their efforts, while the council was to approve their reports 43 . So, the long-awaited Democratic Conference ended, in fact, without results - a few, yet unnamed delegates were entrusted with the task of finding an acceptable way out of the government crisis, which turned out to be beyond the power of more than a thousand delegates of the Democratic Conference.
Partly because opponents of further cooperation with the bourgeoisie did not want to participate in official negotiations with Kerensky, the group of delegates assigned to the negotiations at the Democratic Conference was dominated by prominent coalition supporters in the Council, such as Tsereteli, Avksentiev, Gots and Chkheidze, as well as representatives cooperatives and zemstvos, who believed that in no case could Russia do without the participation of representatives of the big bourgeoisie in the government. On September 22-24, the delegation negotiated, often more like an altercation, with Kerensky, other ministers, representatives of the Central Committee of the Kadet Party, and representatives of the Petrograd and Moscow industrialists. As expected, the representatives of the bourgeoisie did not agree to accept the Program of August 14 as the basis of government policy. Without completely rejecting the idea of the Pre-Parliament, they insisted that only the Provisional Government had the legal right to create such a body and that under no circumstances could the new government be accountable to the Pre-Parliament; in other words, the latter was assigned the role of only an advisory body, nothing more. At the same time, Kerensky categorically insisted on the need to form a new coalition cabinet of ministers.
The members of the delegation of the Democratic Conference had to choose whether to abandon the most controversial provisions of the August 14 Program and tacitly recognize the independence of the government from the Pre-Parliament, or break with Kerensky and abandon the idea of introducing representatives of the bourgeoisie into the government. As expected, they chose the first path. The tactics of the delegation headed by Tsereteli at the political talks on September 22-24 were in a certain sense the opposite of the tactics that Tsereteli followed at the Democratic Conference. At the meeting, he managed to reach an agreement. which made it possible for a coalition, leaving aside the question of who exactly should enter the cabinet, and focusing the general attention on the line that the new government would have to follow, whatever its composition: now ke. faced with a stubborn unwillingness to accept the August 14 Program as the basis of government policy and disagreement with the government's responsibility to the Pre-Parliament, Tsereteli was forced not to attach much importance to these circumstances and to emphasize crucial an alliance between democracy and the bourgeoisie as the only possible basis for delivering Russia from all her troubles.
At the last stage of the negotiations, the Program of August 14 was revised and "softened" to such an extent that it became acceptable to the Cadets. 11a this time it was decided that the government would quickly prepare and issue a decree legitimizing the Pre-Parliament, and that this body, renamed the Council of the Republic (it, however, was still most often called the Pre-Parliament), would include already elected 367 members from the pure delegates of the Democratic meetings and up to 150 representatives of the propertied classes. It was also implied that, from a legal point of view, it would be a purely deliberative body and, most importantly, the government would remain outside its jurisdiction 44 .
Late in the evening of September 23, a meeting of the Pre-Parliament (in the composition elected before the closing of the Democratic Conference) was held, at which the resolution of the Bolsheviks introduced by Trotsky was rejected, which called the negotiations of the delegation led by Tsereteli a betrayal of the aspirations of the masses and demanded to ensure "truly revolutionary power." However, the resolution introduced by Dan was adopted by a narrow majority, which was, in fact, a tacit approval of the results of the negotiations. Now the delegates could only wait for the Provisional Government to introduce new members into the Pre-Parliament - representatives of the bourgeoisie. Kerensky was given the opportunity to officially name the members of the new coalition cabinet, which he did on 25 September. The cabinet included four cadets - Konovalov, Kishkin, Smirnov and Kartashev. Although the socialists received most of the portfolios, the most important portfolio of the minister of foreign affairs remained with Tereshchenko; Konovalov became minister of industry and deputy prime minister, while Kerensky remained head of government and commander in chief.
The day (September 21) after the Democratic Conference adopted Tsereteli's resolution authorizing talks with Kerensky on the formation of a new government (but before the results of the talks became known), the members of the Central Committee met to discuss the party's line at the moment and for the near future. With regard to this meeting, perhaps the most surprising thing is that even now, when the Democratic Conference has clearly demonstrated the unwillingness to abandon the policy aimed at creating a coalition power, Lenin's calls for raising the masses to an armed uprising were not even considered. In all likelihood, this is due, in particular, to the influence of right-wing Bolsheviks such as Kamenev, Rykov and Nogin. However, even the party members, who fully shared Lenin's views on the possibility and necessity of a revolution in Russia, doubted the possibility of immediately mobilizing the armed masses. Thanks to constant communication with the workers and soldiers, such prominent Bolsheviks as Trotsky, Bubnov, Sokolnikov and Sverdlov were able to realistically assess the limits of the influence and authority of the party among the masses, as well as the degree of adherence of the latter to the Soviets as the legitimate bastion of democracy, providing all truly revolutionary groups with the opportunity to joint action for the benefit of the revolution. In addition, after the Kornilovshchina, they were much less concerned than Lenin, Kerensky and his ability to inflict damage on the left forces. Now they were inclined to connect the seizure of power and the formation of a new government with the convening of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in the near future, meaning to take advantage of the legitimacy of the Soviets in the eyes of the masses.
It should also be noted that immediately after the Democratic Conference, the right-wing Bolsheviks also advocated the speedy convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and proclaimed the slogan "All power to the Soviets!" The essential difference between "Leninists in spirit" like Trotsky and right-wing Bolsheviks like Kamenev was that, if the former believed that the Congress of Soviets should transfer power to a government of extreme left elements ready to immediately make peace and implement a broad a program of radical internal reforms, the latter saw the Congress of Soviets as a means of securing a wider and more lasting alliance of "democratic groups" capable, at most, of forming an exclusively socialist coalition government for the time being until the convening of the Constituent Assembly.
So, the main question on which the opinions of the leaders of the Petrograd leadership of the Bolshevik Party differed, when the work of the Democratic Conference was nearing completion, was by no means the question of the immediate preparation of the masses for an armed uprising, which the narrow circle of Bolshevik leaders informed about Lenin’s calls for an uprising unanimously rejected, or about the immediate convening of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which everyone considered necessary. There was no unanimity of opinion on the question of whether the Bolsheviks should leave the Democratic Conference, and whether they should join the composition that counted last hours work of the Pre-Parliament, the first meeting of which was scheduled for September 23. For the Bolsheviks, who shared the views of Kamenev, the opportunity to take advantage of the end of the Democratic Conference and take part in the work of the Pre-Parliament, using its platform to discredit the supporters of the coalition and maintain contacts with the vacillating elements in the SR-Menshevik camp, seemed extremely valuable and important. They believed that this would contribute to the maximum strengthening of the broad socialist bloc at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. As for the supporters of Trotsky in the Bolshevik leadership, they considered the demonstrative departure of the Bolsheviks from the Democratic Conference and the boycott of the Pre-Parliament as a necessary preliminary condition that would allow at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets to achieve a decisive break with the Compromisers and the transfer of power to the Soviets and to follow a new revolutionary path forward with all true revolutionary groups.
At the morning meeting of September 21, the Central Committee adopted a compromise decision on the question of the further attitude towards the Democratic Conference. It was decided not to withdraw the entire Bolshevik delegation from the meeting, but to protest against the actions of the coalition supporters by withdrawing the Bolsheviks from the presidium. Then, by nine votes to eight, they voted against the participation of the Bolsheviks in the Pre-Parliament. Since the votes were divided almost equally, the members of the Central Committee agreed that the final decision on the boycott of the Pre-Parliament would be taken at a joint meeting of the Central Committee and the Bolsheviks - participants in the Democratic Conference, which would take place as soon as all the delegates had gathered.
The joint meeting of the members of the Central Committee and the Bolsheviks - participants in the Democratic Conference took place on the same day. Trotsky spoke on behalf of the supporters of the boycott of the Pre-Parliament, while Rykov stated the opposite point of view. Many, including Stalin, joined Trotsky. Kamenev, Nogin and Ryazanov supported Rykov. Trotsky later recalled that the debates were lengthy and exceptionally stormy. When it came to voting, the left was defeated. The united representatives of the party from all parts of Russia voted by 77 votes to 50 for the participation of the Bolsheviks in the pre-parliament. The decision was immediately approved by the Central Committee 47 .
Two days later, on September 23, thanks to the efforts of the Bolsheviks, to a certain extent, the members of the Central Executive Committee met with the delegates of the Democratic Conference from the regional Soviets, at which it was decided to hold the All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd and the date of its opening was set - October 20. Then, at a joint meeting of the Central Committee, representatives of the St. Petersburg Committee, and the newly formed Pre-Parliamentary Bolshevik delegation, held on September 24, a resolution was adopted that the activities of the Bolsheviks in the Pre-Parliament should serve the goals of the campaign to ensure the transfer of all power to the Soviets at the upcoming Congress. The resolution noted that in the current situation the main task of the party is to mobilize the broad masses to support the transfer of power to the Soviets, to expand the influence of the Soviets and strengthen their political authority to such an extent that they can successfully compete in this respect with the government. In this regard, the Bolsheviks must concentrate their efforts on strengthening ties between the local Soviets, strengthen ties with other revolutionary organizations of workers, soldiers and peasants, seek re-election of the executive bodies of the central and local Soviets, which were still controlled by the Compromisers, hold regional congresses of Soviets and, of course, adopt all measures to unconditionally ensure the holding of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at the appointed time. The resolution emphasized that the activities of the Bolsheviks in the Pre-Parliament should be only of an auxiliary nature, being wholly subordinated to the tasks of the mass struggle.
The situation that had developed by that time in the Petrograd Soviet clearly testified to the strengthening of the positions of the extreme left elements in connection with the formation of the third coalition cabinet of ministers and the deterioration of the country's economic situation. On September 25, the new composition of the presidium, in which the Bolsheviks predominated, began to perform their duties. At the plenary meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, with thunderous applause, the new presidium took its seats, and Trotsky addressed the assembly:
“Let me remind you of the moment in 1905 when I had to open a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in place of the arrested Khrustalev. Then the Petrograd Soviet experienced crucial moment, which ended in our defeat ... We feel much stronger now than then. But the new list of ministers published in the evening papers, a challenge to democracy, shows that the revolution has reached a serious point. We are sure that the new presidium will have to work with the new upsurge of the revolution. We are all people of the parties, and we will carry on our work, and more than once we will have to cross arms. But we will direct the work of the Petrograd Soviet in the spirit of law and complete freedom for all factions, and the hand of the presidium will never be the hand of the suppression of the minority.
Shortly after Trotsky assured the assembly of his determination to direct the work of the Petrograd Soviet in a democratic spirit, the Bolsheviks presented to the deputies a resolution he had prepared, which spoke of the unwillingness of the Petrograd workers and soldiers to support the new coalition government. The resolution, adopted immediately by an overwhelming majority of votes, expressed confidence that "the news of the new government would be met by the entire revolutionary democracy with one answer: "resign." And relying on this unanimous voice of true democracy, the All-Russian Congress of S.R. and S.D. will create a truly revolutionary power."
The attitude towards the formation of a new government and a new government at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets determined all the activities of the Bolsheviks in the second half of September. Thus, beginning on September 27, every issue of Rabochy Put came out with a large print on the first page of the appeal: “Comrade workers, soldiers and peasants! Get ready for the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 20! Immediately convene regional congresses of Soviets!” On the first page of the issue for September 26, an article by Zinoviev was placed, in which he wrote about the imminent collapse of the new coalition government, the so-called September bloc: “... We consider the Congress of Soviets convened for October 20 to be the sovereign master of the Russian land. If this congress is allowed to take place, then by that time the experiment with the "new" coalition, we are convinced, will finally fail and a number of intermediate elements will finally join our slogan "All power to the Soviets!". Each day will increase our strength, each step of the September bloc will prove the correctness of our point of view.
In a very concise and polished language, the new tactics of the Bolsheviks were outlined in an appeal to the workers and soldiers, published in the newspaper Rabochy Put on September 30 (the author of the appeal obviously also belongs to Zinoviev; obviously, the text was discussed and approved by the Central Committee). The appeal, entitled "Before the Congress of Soviets," said that the counter-revolution would stop at nothing to prevent the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly. Under these conditions, the appeal said, the workers and soldiers must show vigilance and take all measures to ensure that delegates opposed to the coalition are elected to the congress:
“...Be on your guard, comrades! Don't rely on anyone but yourself. Without losing a single hour, prepare for the Congress of Soviets, convene regional congresses, see to it that opponents of compromise are sent to the congress... No partial speeches! ensure the convocation and revolutionary work of the Constituent Assembly...
Central Committee of the R.S-D.R.P.” 52
Notes:
1 Rovio G.S. How Lenin was hiding at the Helsingfors "police chief". In: Lenin in 1917. Memories. Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU. M. 1967, p. 148-156; Startsev V.I. IN AND. Lenin in August 1917, p. 121-130; Startsev V.I. About some works of V.I. Lenin in the first half of September 1917 - In the book: V.I. Lenin in October and in the early years Soviet power. Ed. Freiman A.L. L., 1970, p. 30-31; Astra Khan H.M. and others, Lenin and the Revolution of 1917. L., 1970, p. 277-284; Norman E. Saul Lenin's Decision to Seize Power: The Influence of Events in Finland, Soviet Studies, April 1973, pp. 491-505; Koronin M.M. V.I. Lenin and Finnish revolutionaries, - “Questions of History”, 1967, No. 10, p. 11-17.
2 Lenin V.I. Full coll. cit., vol. 34, p. 119-121.
3 Ibid., p. 133-139.
4 Western historians pay almost no attention to these articles. In the works of Soviet historians, who have tried almost to the minute to trace the development of Lenin's views, contradictory, sometimes directly opposite, assessments are expressed. This is partly due to the fact that Lenin's views on the possibility and desirability of a peaceful development of the revolution in September 1917 and the coincidence or disagreement of his point of view with the opinions of the leaders of the Petrograd Bolshevik organization for a long time remained a taboo topic, partly the gap between the dates of writing and publication of Lenin's articles - only Recently, serious attempts have been made to establish the exact dates of their writing. Different opinions and assessments are expressed in such works as: Sovokin A.M. On the possibility of a peaceful development of the revolution after the defeat of the Kornilov region. - "Questions of the history of the CPSU", 1960, N ° 3, p. 50-64; Sandin B.I. Lenin on the relationship between peaceful and armed paths of development of the revolution after the defeat of the Kornilov region. -Scientific notes of the Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute, vol. 19, no. 2, 1958, p. 213-232; Frumkin S.N. IN AND. Lenin on the possibility of the peaceful development of the revolution. - Scientific notes of the Ryazan State Pedagogical Institute, vol. 19,1958, p. 29-51; Startsev V.I. About some works of V.I. Lenin in the first half of September 1917, p. 28-38; Ivanov N.Ya. Some questions of the crisis of the "ruling elites" and the tactics of the Bolsheviks on the eve of the October armed uprising. -On Sat. Mints I.I. Lenin and the October armed uprising in Petrograd. Materials of the All-Union Scientific Session, held November 13-16, 1962 in Leningrad, M., 1964, p. 202-214. In all collected works of V.I. Lenin, except for the latest edition of selected works, these articles are arranged in the order of the dates of their publication, that is, September 14-27. Studies of some classified materials carried out by V.I. Startsev, allow us to conclude that they were written much earlier than previously thought (that is, between September 6 and 9).
5 Lenin V.I. Full coll. cit., vol. 34, p. 229-238.
6 Ibid., p. 200-207.
7 Ibid., p. 214-228.
8 Sokolnikov G. How to approach the history of October. -V: For Leninism. M.-L., 1925, p. 165; October armed uprising, vol. 2, p. 188.
9 See: Correspondence of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with local party organizations, vol. I, p. 186-187.
10 For the minutes of this meeting, see the First Legal Petersburg Committee, p. 259-270.
11 This position is reflected in Slutsky's resolution of the Executive Commission, which has not been published.
12 On this issue, see: Trotsky JI. Works, vol. 3, part 1, p. 435-436.
13 519 votes were cast for the Bolshevik proposal, 414 votes for the resolution of the "moderate" socialists, with 67 abstentions.
14 Each military unit of the Petrograd garrison, regardless of size, could have at least one representative in the Petrograd Soviet, while the representation rate for factory workers was one deputy per 1,000 workers. This circumstance led to a very large inequality in the representation of the soldiers, among whom the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was relatively large, and the workers, who were greatly influenced by the Bolsheviks. Beginning in August, the Bolsheviks unsuccessfully sought to equalize the representation of soldiers and workers, demanding that the soldiers also elect one representative per 1,000 people.
15 Vladimirova V. Revolution of 1917, vol. 4, p. 269.
16 Correspondence of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with local party organizations, vol. 1, p. 35; Komissarenko L. A. Activities of the Bolshevik Party, p. 300.
17 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 49.
18 See: Startsev V.I. From the history of the decision to organize an armed uprising. -In: Lenin and the October armed uprising in Petrograd, p. 472.
19 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 49-54; Trotsky L. Soch., vol. 3, part of p. 293-298,351-357; October armed uprising, vol. 2, p. 196, 206.
20 See: Reiman M. Russian Revolution, vol. 2, p. 271.
24 The Moscow industrialist Buryshkin and one of the leaders of the Kadet party, Kishkin, were at that time involved in negotiations with Kerensky on the question of a future government.
25 Reports on Kamenev's speech, published in different newspapers, differ quite significantly from one another. See: Rabochy put, September 17; Izvestia, September 15; " New life", September 15th.
27 Lenin V.I. Full coll. cit., vol. 34, p. 239-241.
28 Ibid., p. 242-247.
29 Bukharin N.I. From the speech of comrade Bukharin at the evening of reminiscences in 1921 - "Proletarian Revolution", 1922, No. 10, p. 319.
30 Stasova E.D. Lenin's letter to the Central Committee of the party. - In Sat: Memories of V.I. Lenin. M., 1069, v. 2, p. 454.
31 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 55.
32 Bukharin N.I. From the speech of comrade Bukharin at the Evening of Reminiscences..., p. 319.
33 Lomov G. In the days of storm and onslaught. - "Proletarian Revolution", 1927, No. 10 (69), p. 166.
36 Shotman A. Lenin on the eve of October. - In Sat: About Lenin ..., M.-L., vol. 1, p. 116.
37 Krupskaya U.K. Lenin in 1917. - In Sat: About Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Memoirs 1900-1922, M., 1963, p. 208; Sverdlova K.T. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. M., I960, p. 283.
40 i.e. a platform that suggested a combination of reforms with firm power, developed by the All-Russian Executive Committee and submitted to the State Conference in Moscow on August 14.
45 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 68; Vladimirova V. Revolution of 1917, v. 5, p. 263-264, 275.
46 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 65. In 1920, Stalin stated in one of his speeches that after October Lenin recognized the correctness of the leaders of the Petrograd organization of the Bolsheviks, who at that time rejected the tactical course proposed by him. See: Tgotsku L., The Stalin School of Falsification, translated by John G. Wright, New York, 1962, pp. 200-201.
47 Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 65, 261-262; Trotsky L. Soch., vol. 3, part 1, p. 301-302, 359, 441-442; Komissarenko L. A. Activities of the Bolshevik Party, p. 332-333.
48 "Working Way", 29 September. Revolutionary movement in Russia in September. National Crisis, p. 74-75.
50 Ibid., see also: Trotsky, soch., vol. 3, part 1, p. 317-318.
52 "Working Way", 30 September. On September 23, the position of the right wing of the Bolsheviks in the Central Committee strengthened, as they were joined by Zinoviev, who began to regularly take part in meetings. At the same time, Trotsky, a representative of the left wing of the party, did not take part in the work of the Central Committee and the Petrograd Soviet for almost a week (beginning on September 28) due to illness. Protocols of the Central Committee, p. 67-75; Reiman M. Russian Revolution, vol. 2, p. 287.
The Russian squadron, which left at the end of 2012 to the coast of Syria, was unexpectedly abandoned by an unknown force in October 1917. Instead of the Mediterranean Sea, she ended up in the Baltic Sea. The heroes of this book did not hesitate for a minute. Having defeated the German squadron at Moonsund, they headed for Petrograd and helped the Bolsheviks take power into their own hands.
But as it turned out, taking power is still half the battle. We need to keep it, and properly dispose of it. Meanwhile, other revolutionaries, for whom Russia is just "an armful of brushwood", are trying to kindle the fire of world revolution. Having dealt with the supporters of Trotsky and Sverdlov, the Red Guard detachments, formed with the help of "popadantsy", together with their descendants from the 21st century, went to the front near Riga, where they defeated the famous German commanders Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Imperial Germany was forced to conclude peace with Soviet Russia, so unlike the obscene Brest peace.
Now we need to restore order in our country. And this is more difficult than defeating an external enemy. It is necessary to disperse the Kyiv "independents". In addition, the Entente aimed its greedy gaze at the Russian North ...
Prologue 1
Part 1 - HOSTILE VORTEX 1
Part 2 - NORTHERN LIGHTS 16
Part 3 - AND FROM THE TAIGA TO THE BRITISH SEAS THE RED GUARD IS THE STRONGEST OF EVERYONE 31
Part 4 - AND ETERNAL FIGHT, PEACE WE ONLY DREAM 45
Alexander Mikhailovsky
Alexander Harnikov
ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS
Prologue
The socialist revolution, which the proletariat so dreamed of, finally happened ... Everything happened quietly and casually - the socialist government of Kerensky transferred power to the socialist government of Stalin. People came to power who did not like to joke at all.
And it all started with the fact that, no one knows how, a squadron of Russian warships from the 21st century was abandoned in the autumn Baltic of 1917. And she ended up off the coast of Ezel Island, not far from the German squadron, which was preparing to throw on Moonsund. Admiral Larionov did not hesitate for a minute - the Kaiser ships were sunk by an air strike, and the landing corps was almost completely destroyed.
Well, then people from the future established contact with the Bolsheviks: Stalin, Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, and representatives of the Russian military intelligence, Generals Potapov and Bonch-Bruevich.
The result of such cooperation was the resignation of the Kerensky government and the peaceful transfer of power to the Bolsheviks. But as it turned out, getting power is not so bad. Much harder to keep. Former comrades the party suddenly became bitter enemies. True, the Bolsheviks and their new allies did not suffer from excessive humanism. Under the fire of machine guns and the sabers of the Cossacks who joined Stalin and the aliens, the people of Trotsky and Sverdlov were killed, for whom Russia was just an armful of brushwood thrown into the fire of the world revolution.
It was necessary to stop the unnecessary war with Germany. Colonel Antonova went to Stockholm to contact the personal envoy of Kaiser Wilhelm, Admiral Tirpitz. Mutual understanding was established, but then agents of the British special services intervened, and Admiral Tirpitz almost became a victim of the then James Bonds.
Communication with the Kaiser was established. But Field Marshal Hindenburg and his right hand, General Ludendorff, who pursued their goals in this war, tried to disrupt the unspoken truce established on the Eastern Front and decided on an adventure. They attacked the positions of Russian troops near Riga, but they themselves fell under the blow of the Red Guard, formed and trained by newcomers from the future and equipped with military equipment of the 21st century.
Peace negotiations began in Riga, ending with the conclusion of peace between Germany and Soviet Russia. The terms of the peace treaty were not at all similar to the terms of the peace concluded by the Bolsheviks in Brest in 1918. But complete peace was still far away.
Part 1
VORTEX HOSTILE
Tauride Palace. Joint meeting of the Politburo and the Presidium of the Council of People's Commissars.
Present: Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars I. V. Stalin, Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee V. I. Lenin, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs F. E. Dzerzhinsky, head of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs G. V. Chicherin, People's Commissar for Military Affairs M. V. Frunze, People's Commissar for Industry and Trade L. B. Krasin.
Alexander Vasilievich Tambovtsev.
At today's meeting in the Taurida Palace, chaired by Stalin, the results of the events that have taken place since our appearance in this world were summed up. And after all passed just something without two days month. Much has been done during this time.
There was an almost bloodless transfer of power from the Provisional Government to the Bolshevik Party, which was now headed not by Lenin, but by Stalin. It was possible to form a fully functional Soviet government, which resolutely took power into its own hands and managed to stop bureaucratic sabotage in the bud. Those who, during the war, shamelessly cashed in on orders for the Russian army, who put their paw into the treasury - in a word, those for whom the war became their mother, thundered on trial. One of our important achievements was the defeat of what in our history will be called "Trotskyism". The "igniters of the world revolution", who concurrently worked for French, British and American intelligence, during an unsuccessful attempt at a "wine mutiny" were killed under machine guns of the Red Guard or were shot by the verdicts of revolutionary tribunals.
Well, perhaps the most important thing is that we managed to keep the country from slipping into civil war. Most of the officer corps, inspired by the victorious conclusion of the war with the Germans, did not hesitate to serve in the Russian army or transferred to serve in the newly formed Red Guard. Well, the soldiers, delighted with the end of hostilities, for the most part were preparing for demobilization. The regiments of the division of the third and fourth stages of mobilization were completely disbanded, the second stage was transferred to the framed staff. And only parts of the first stage - the peacetime army had to continue its service, being in constant readiness to repel the enemy.
It was there that those soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers who did not wish to demobilize and return to civilian life were to be transferred. One of the reasons for the occurrence white movement in our history was the forced disbandment of the Russian army, which led to the emergence of a large number of unemployed officers and generals. Now this will not happen again - those who decide to stay in the service, let them stay.
The representatives of the soldiers' committees of the armies and corps invited to Petrograd were acquainted with the schedule for withdrawing to the rear and disbanding their regiments and divisions. Now any comfrey soldier knew well that on such and such a day he would hand over weapons to representatives of the demobilization commission, receive a document stating that from that moment he was considered dismissed from active military service, he would be given a free train ticket to his home and rations on the road.
Many wanted to be among the first to go home, but the soldiers, with their peasant minds, perfectly understood that you would not let everyone go home from the front at once. The railroad simply cannot transport such a large number of people. In addition, most of the demobilized soldiers were ploughmen. And the main thing for them was to return home to the beginning of the sowing of spring crops. And before that time, even in the southern provinces there was still almost four months of time.
However, in fairness it must be said that not everyone was eager to go home. Some remained in the army reorganized parts of the peacetime state, already, as they would say in our time, in contract service. In this case, the rank and file and non-commissioned officers received a fairly high monetary allowance, food rations and the prospect of rising to the ranks of officers. Naturally, if it is worthy of direction to military school and production to officers.
According to the army reform plan, it was supposed to become professional, well-trained and armed. "Less is better, but better," as Lenin said. Yes, and it is not yet affordable for Soviet Russia to maintain such a large army, which she inherited from the warring tsarist Russia.
But it was premature to reforge swords into plowshares. Having ended the war with Germany, it was necessary to prepare to repel new threats. The time has come to put in place the numerous independentists who have bred on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire. Declaring themselves "independent", they raced to look for rich sponsors, for the satisfaction of which "small but proud" were ready to take any pose from the "Kama Sutra". Well, at the same time they began to spread rot on the local Russian population, expelling it from the hastily created national republics.
That's all this and gathered today to discuss the leadership of the young Soviet state. Iosif Vissarionovich asked me to prepare short review possible development of events based on what happened in our history in the post-October period.
Political and social system of Soviet Russia
Even before the October Revolution, many workers threw out their owners of factories and factories and took control of production in the enterprises. Thus, after October, the Bolsheviks had to issue by decree what the workers themselves had already achieved. For example, in the army, the commanders were elected and re-elected strictly by soldiers.
But already some time after October, the factory and factory committees lost their power and control began to pass to the former owners, managers and commissariats. The selective system in the Red Army was abolished in April 1918. Lenin's pre-revolutionary slogan that "every cook will be able to rule the country" again became a myth, just like under the tsar. The Bolsheviks returned bourgeois specialists to all spheres of life and production. They returned the former tsarist generals and officers to the army, and Lenin himself began to introduce the hitherto rejected method of production, Taylorism, into the economy.
Thus, although private ownership of the means of production was abolished, hierarchies, wage labor and the division between managers and managed enterprises remained. In this regard, in Soviet Russia we have to talk about state capitalism, because. the state took the place of private capitalists, the party bureaucrats became the managers of production and, accordingly, the exploiting class of the entire system. Under the guise of a "socialist" scenery, the Soviet bureaucracy began to collectively manage all state property.
Kronstadt
The sailors of Kronstadt were always at the forefront of all revolutionary events in Russia. During the uprisings against the Tsar in 1906 and 1910 and later against the government of Kerensky when they proclaimed the Commune of Kronstadt. It was the Kronstadt cruiser Avrora that gave the signal to storm the Winter Palace, and it was the Sailors of Kronstadt who occupied the post office, telegraph office, and strategic facilities in Petrograd. All this prompted Trotsky to write that "The sailors of Kronstadt were the pride and glory of the Russian Revolution." Even then, the sailors belonged to the progressive elements of society, because. they mostly came from a working class background and already before 1917 had connections with revolutionary groups.
The Kronstadt uprising was a response to the February strikes that broke out in Petrograd. Many Kronstadters had relatives and relatives living in Petrograd and due to their proximity they had close contact with the city. The situation of the workers in Petrograd was getting worse, rations were cut in half, factories were closed and many families were starving.
Meetings at factories in February were suppressed by the government, but at the same time it became known that new clothes and shoes were distributed to party members at factories. Also, the Bolshevik government made concessions to foreign capital, but not to the proletariat.
After the news of the strikes in Petrograd reached Kronstadt, the sailors decided to send a delegation to the city to get first-hand information. After hearing the report of the delegation on the situation in Petrograd, a resolution was unanimously adopted.
"1. Since the present Soviets no longer reflect the will of the workers and peasants, immediately hold new, secret elections and, for the electoral campaign, provide complete freedom of agitation among the workers and soldiers
2. Grant freedom of speech and press to the workers and peasants, as well as to all anarchist and left-socialist parties
3. Guarantee freedom of assembly and coalitions to all trade unions and peasant organizations
4. To convene a party conference of workers, Red Army men and sailors of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt and the St. Petersburg province, to be held no later than March 10, 1921.
5. Release all political prisoners belonging to socialist parties and release their imprisonment of all workers, peasants and sailors who were arrested in connection with workers' and peasants' unrest
6. To check the cases of other prisoners of prisons and concentration camps, elect an audit commission
7. Eliminate all political departments, since no party has the right to claim special privileges for the dissemination of its ideas or financial assistance for this from the government; instead set up commissions for culture and education, to be elected locally and funded by the government
8. Immediately disband all barrage detachments
9. Establish equal food rations for all workers, with the exception of those whose work is especially dangerous from a medical point of view
10. Eliminate special communist departments in all formations of the Red Army and communist security groups at enterprises and replace them, where necessary, with formations that will have to be allocated by the army itself, and at enterprises - formed by the workers themselves
11. Give the peasants complete freedom to dispose of their land, as well as the right to have their own livestock, provided that they manage with their own means, that is, without hiring labor
12. Ask all soldiers, sailors and cadets to support our demands
13. Ensure that these solutions are disseminated in the press
14. Appoint a traveling control commission
15. To allow freedom of handicraft production, if it not based on the exploitation of foreign labor.
The demands that were announced in the decree were nothing more than a return to the original demands of the October Revolution. As is customary in a "workers' state", the demands of the workers, instead of entering into a dialogue, the state responded with repressions and orders to shoot at the protesters. It became clear that the Bolshevik Party had no argument other than weapons, although the demands of the workers were enshrined in the then constitution!
The newspaper "Izvestia of Kronstadt" dated March 16, 1921 wrote:"What are we fighting for? The working class hoped that the October Revolution would bring it liberation. The result was even greater oppression of the people. The Bolshevik government replaced the glorious emblem of the workers' state - the hammer and sickle - with a bayonet and a grate to protect the calm and pleasant life of commissars and officials" .
The Bolshevik government began to mobilize troops further in order to solve the problem by force in the spirit of the good old counter-revolutionary traditions.On March 3rd, the “Committee of Defense” of Petrograd issued a decree: “When people gather in the streets, the troops must use weapons. When resisting, shoot on the spot.“
„We will shoot you like partridges! “The counter-revolution is on the march!
The Kronstadters hoped not for their military abilities, but for the solidarity of the working class. In military terms, they could not win, socially revolutionary they were isolated and discredited by the Bolsheviks with their Red Army. As representatives of the third revolution, who, after the February and October revolutions, finally wanted to realize the social revolution, they proudly said: "We did not want to shed brotherly blood and did not fire a single shot until we were forced to do so. We had to defend the just cause of the working people and were forced to return fire. We had to shoot at our own brothers, who were sent to certain death while their leaders Trotsky, Zinoviev and others were sitting in warm, lighted rooms, in easy chairs in royal palaces and pondered how to shed the blood of the rebellious Kronstadt even faster and better.
“Our cause is just: We stand for the Power of the Soviets, not parties. We stand for freely chosen representatives of the working masses. Today's Soviets, led by the Communist Party, do not meet our requirements and needs, the only answer we ever received was shooting...”
On March 7, 1921, shelling of Kronstadt began. The leader of the uprising S. Petrichenko later wrote: "Standing up to his waist in the blood of the working people, the bloody Field Marshal Trotsky was the first to open fire on revolutionary Kronstadt, which rebelled against the rule of the Communists in order to restore the true power of the Soviets."
On March 8, 1921, on the opening day of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), units of the Red Army stormed Kronstadt. But the assault was repulsed, having suffered heavy losses, the punitive troops retreated to their original lines. Sharing the demands of the rebels, many Red Army soldiers and army units refused to participate in the suppression of the uprising. Mass shootings began. For the second assault on Kronstadt, the most loyal units were gathered, even delegates to the party congress were thrown into battle. On the night of March 16, after an intensive artillery shelling of the fortress, a new assault began.
Thanks to the tactics of shooting the retreating Red Army soldiers by barrage detachments and the superiority in forces and means, Tukhachevsky's troops broke into the fortress, fierce street battles began, and only by the morning of March 18, the resistance of the Kronstadters was broken. The commander of the shock communist battalion was the future commissar of the fortress V.P. Gromov.
Historical facts and lies spread by the Bolsheviks.
To use force against the "pride and glory of the Russian revolution" the Bolsheviks needed a whole campaign of slander and discredit. The Kronstadters put forward purely legitimate demands, and the Bolsheviks only fought to retain power, then they had to invent a couple of legends in order to justify their counter-revolutionary actions.
The number one lie in this campaign was that whites were behind the Kronstadters. On March 8, 1921, a program article appeared in Izvestiya VRK "What are we fighting for?" "The workers and peasants are advancing irresistibly. They have left behind the Constituent Assembly with its bourgeois system. In the same way they will leave behind the dictatorship of the Communist Party with its Cheka and its state capitalism, which like a death noose fell on the neck of the working masses and threatened to suffocate them completely. now the transformation will give the working people the opportunity to finally establish freely elected soviets, which work without forcible pressure from one party, and to turn the state trade unions into free associations of workers, peasants and creative intelligentsia. The police baton of the communist autocracy has been completely broken."
The fact that the White Guard press sympathized with Kronstadt proves absolutely nothing. Experience shows that reactionaries of various stripes are always trying to "fish in troubled waters."
"In Kronstadt," Lenin said at a time when the creation of the Bolshevik legend about Kronstadt had just begun, "they don't want the White Guards, they don't want our power - but there is no other power."
“Don't be fooled by their battle cry "Soviets without communists." "Communists" they called those usurpers who even now - without any reason - call themselves so - the Bolshevik champions of state capitalism, who then had just put down the strike of the Petrograd workers. The name "Communist" was just as hated by the workers of Kronstadt in 1921 as it was by the East German workers in 1953 and by the Hungarian workers in 1956. But the workers of Kronstadt, like them, followed their class interests. That is why their proletarian methods of struggle are still important for all their class comrades who - wherever they are - fight on their own and know from experience that their liberation can only be their own business. .
Significance of Kronstadt today
The significance of Kronstadt today is as great as it was then. Kronstadt embodies the tradition of a classless society, which relies not on the force of decrees and rifles, but on the strength and initiative of the working class in the struggle against exploitation and humiliation of any kind. Kronstadt is a warning and a warning. On the example of what position the revolutionary groups take today in relation to Kronstadt, it becomes clear what they mean by a classless society (decrees from above or Soviets, representative politics or self-organization).
→ All power to the Soviets! in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
(“All power to the Soviets!”)
the main political slogan of the Bolshevik Party during the period of preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution (See Great October Socialist Revolution). It was put forward in the April theses of V. I. Lenin (See April theses of V. I. Lenin) and enshrined in the decisions of the All-Russian April Conference of the RSDLP (b). The content of the slogan changed in the course of the struggle for the socialist revolution. During the period of the peaceful development of the revolution (April-June 1917), he proposed the elimination of dual power (see dual power) by transferring all power to the Soviets, creating a Soviet government from the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, since they constituted the majority in the Soviets. During this period, the Bolsheviks were supposed, without entering the government, to act as an opposition party before the broad masses, criticizing the inconsistency and vacillation of the petty-bourgeois parties, using the right to recall deputies, to achieve a change in the party composition of the Soviets and ultimately create a Bolshevik Soviet government. During this period, the question of overthrowing the bourgeois Provisional Government by means of an armed uprising was not raised, because the government was supported by the Socialist Revolutionary-Menshevik Soviets. The Provisional Government, which had no real power at its disposal and was kept in power by agreement with the Soviets, would then not have been able to put up any serious resistance.
In the course of the development of the revolution, the masses became convinced from their own experience that the Provisional Government and the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik leadership of the Soviets supporting it were not fulfilling their demands. The process of getting rid of compromising illusions began. A vivid indicator of this was the mass demonstrations in Petrograd (April, June and July) and other cities. In the July Days of 1917, the autocracy of the bourgeoisie was established. The Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Soviets became powerless appendages of the bourgeois government. Under these conditions, Lenin justified the need to temporarily remove the slogan on the transfer of power to the Soviets, the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b) removed the slogan “V. in. FROM.!". After the Bolshevization of the Soviets, both central and many local, the content of the slogan "V. in. FROM.!" changed: now he called for a struggle to transform the revolutionary, Bolshevik Soviets into organs of insurrection against the bourgeois government, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The slogan "B. in. FROM.!" was implemented as a result of the victory of the October Revolution. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on October 25 (November 7), 1917, took all power into its own hands and formed the Soviet Government (SNK).
Lit .: Lenin V.I., The tasks of the proletariat in our revolution, Poln. coll. soch., 5th ed., v. 31; his own, the Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b), ibid.; his, State and Revolution, ibid., vol. 33; his, One of the fundamental questions of the revolution, ibid., vol. 34; CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee, part 1, 7th ed., M., 1954, p. 332-53; Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). Protocols, M., 1958: History of the CPSU, v. 3, book. 1, M., 1967; Mints I.I., History of the Great October Revolution, vol. 2, M., 1968.
Yu. S. Tokarev.
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