The Democratic Soviet which had detached itself from the Democratic Conference had absorbed all the helplessness of the latter. The old Soviet parties, the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviks, had created an artificial majority in it for themselves, only the more strikingly to reveal their political prostration. Behind the Soviet curtains, Tseretelli was carrying on involved parleys with Kerensky and the representatives of the "professional elements" as they began to say in the Soviet,—in order to avoid the "insulting" term bourgeoisie.
Tseretelli's report on the course and issue of the negotiations was a sort of funeral oration over a whole period of the Revolution. It turned out that neither Kerensky nor the professional elements had consented to responsibility toward the new semi-representative institution. On the other hand, outside the limits of the Cadet Party, they had not succeeded in finding so-called "efficient" social leaders. The organizers of the venture had to capitulate on both points. The capitulation was all the more eloquent, because the Democratic Conference had been called exactly for the purpose of doing away with the irresponsible regime, while the Conference, by a formal vote, rejected a coalition with the Cadets. At several meetings of the Democratic Soviet which took place prior to the Revolution, there prevailed an atmosphere of tenseness and utter incapacity for action. The Soviet did not reflect the Revolution's march forward but the dissolution of the parties that had lagged behind the Revolution.
Even previous to the Democratic Conference, in our party faction, I had raised the question of demonstratively withdrawing from the Conference and boycotting the Democratic Soviet. It was necessary to show the masses by action that the fusionists had led the Revolution into a blind alley. The fight for building up the Soviet power could be carried on only in a revolutionary way. The power must be snatched from the hands of those who had proven incapable of doing any good and were furthermore even losing their capacity for active evil. Their method of working through an artificially picked Pre-Parliament and a conjectural Constituent Assembly, had to be opposed by our political method of mobilizing the forces around the Soviets, through the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and through insurrection. This could be done only by means of an open break, before the eyes of the entire people, with the body created by Tseretelli and his adherents, and by focusing on the Soviet institutions, the entire attention and all the forces of the working class. This is why I proposed the demonstrative withdrawal from the Conference and a revolutionary agitation, in shops and regiments, against the attempt to play false with the will of the Revolution and once again turn its progress into the channel of cooperation with the bourgeoisie. Lenin, whose letter we received a few days later, expressed himself to the same effect. But in the party's upper circles hesitation was still apparent on this question. The July days had left a deep impression in the party's consciousness. The mass of workingmen and soldiers had recovered from the July debacle much more rapidly than had many of the leading comrades who feared the nipping of the Revolution in the bud by a new premature onslaught of the masses. In our group of the Democratic Conference, I mustered 50 votes in favor of my proposal against 70 who declared for participating in the Democratic Council. However, the experience of this participation soon strengthened the party's left wing. It was growing too manifest that combinations bordering on trickery, combinations that aimed at securing further leadership in the Revolution for the professional elements, with the assistance of the fusionists, who had lost ground among the lower levels of the people, offered no escape from the impasse into which the laxness of bourgeois democracy had driven the revolution. By the time the Democratic Soviet, its ranks filled up with professional elements, became a Pre-Parliament, readiness to break with this institution had matured in our party.
We were confronted with the question whether the S. R.'s would follow us in this path. This group was in the process of formation, but this process, according to the standards of our party, went on too slowly and irresolutely. At the outset of the Revolution, the S. R.'s proved the predominating party in the whole field of political life. Peasants, soldiers, even workingmen voted en masse for the S. R.'s. The party itself had not expected anything of the kind, and more than once it looked as if it were in danger of being swamped in the waves of its own success. Excluding the purely capitalistic and landholder groups and the professional elements among the intellectuals, one and all voted for the revolutionary populists' party. This was natural in the initial stage of the Revolution, when class lines had not had time to reveal themselves, when the aspirations of the so-called united revolutionary front found expression in the diffuse program of a party that was ready to welcome equally the workingman who feared to break away from the peasant; the peasant who was seeking land and liberty; the intellectual attempting to guide both of them; the chinovnik (officeholder) endeavoring to adjust himself to the new regime.
When Kerensky, who had been counted a laborite in the period of Czarism, joined the S. R.'s Party after the victory of the Revolution, that party's popularity began to grow in proportion as Kerensky mounted the rungs of power. Out of respect, not always of a platonic nature, for the War Minister, many colonels and generals hastened to enrol in the party of the erstwhile terrorists. Old S. R.'s, with revolutionary traditions, regarded with some uneasiness the ever increasing number of "March S. R.'s" that is, such party members as had discovered within themselves a revolutionary populist soul only in March, after the Revolution had overthrown the old regime and placed the revolutionary populists in authority. Thus, within the limits of its formlessness, this party contained not only the inner contradictions of the developing Revolution, but also the prejudices inherent in the backwardness of the peasant masses, and the sentimentalism, instability and career-chasing of the intellectual strata. It was perfectly clear that in that form the party could not last long. With regard to ideas, it proved impotent from the very start.
Politically, the guiding role belonged to the Mensheviks who had gone through the school of Marxism and derived from it certain procedures and habits, which aided them in finding their bearings in the political situation to the extent of scientifically falsifying the meaning of the current class struggle and securing the hegemony of the liberal bourgeoisie in the highest degree possible under the given circumstances. This is why the Mensheviks, direct pleaders for the bourgeoisie's right to power, exhausted themselves so rapidly and, by the time of the October Revolution, were almost completely played out.
The S. R.'s, too, were losing influence more and more—first among the workingmen, then in the army, and finally in the villages. But toward the time of the October upheaval, they remained still a very powerful party, numerically. However, class contradictions were undermining them from within. In opposition to the right wing which, in its most chauvinistic elements, such as Avksentyef, Breshko-Breshkovskaya, Savinkoff, etc., had finally gone over into the counter-revolutionary camp, a left wing was forming, which strove to preserve its connection with the toiling masses. If we merely recall the fact that the S. R., Avksentyef, as Minister of the Interior, arrested the Peasant Land Committees, composed of S. R.'s, for their arbitrary solution of the agrarian question, the amplitude of "differences" within this party will become sufficiently clear to us.
In its center stood the party's traditional leader, Chernoff. A writer of experience, well-read in socialist literature, an experienced hand in factional strife, he had constantly remained at the head of the party, when party life was being built up in emigrant circles abroad. The Revolution which had raised the S. R. party to an enormous height with its first indiscriminating wave, automatically raised Chernoff, too, only to reveal his complete impotence even as compared with the other leading political lights of the first period. The paltry resources which had secured to Chernoff a preponderance in the populist circles abroad, proved too light in the scales of the Revolution. He concentrated his efforts on not taking any responsible decisions, evading in all critical cases, waiting and abstaining. For some little time, tactics of this kind secured for him the position as center between the ever more diverging flanks. But there was no longer any possibility of preserving party unity for long. The former terrorist, Savinkof, took part in Korniloff's conspiracy, was in touching unanimity with the counter-revolutionary circles of Cossack officers and was preparing an onslaught on Petrograd workingmen and soldiers, among whom there were quite a few left S. R.'s. As a sacrifice to the left wing, the Center expelled Savinkof from the party, but hesitated to raise a hand against Kerensky. In the Pre-Parliament, the party showed signs of extreme disruption: three groups existed independently, though under the banner of one and the same party, but none of the groups knew exactly what it wanted. The formal domination of this "party" in the Constituent Assembly would have meant only a continuation of political prostration.
Before withdrawing from the membership in the Pre-Parliament where, according to Kerensky's and Tseretelli's political statistics, we were entitled to some half a hundred seats, we arranged a conference with the left S. R. group. They refused to follow us, claiming that they still had to demonstrate practically before the peasantry the insolvency of the Pre-Parliament. Said one of the leaders of the left S. R.'s:
"We deem it necessary to warn you that if you want to withdraw from the Pre-Parliament in order forthwith to go into the streets for an open fight, we shall not follow you."
The bourgeois-fusionist press accused us of striving to kill prematurely the Pre-Parliament, for the very purpose of creating a revolutionary situation. At our faction meeting in the Pre-Parliament, it was decided to act independently and not wait for the left S. R.'s. Our party's declaration, proclaimed from the Pre-Parliament rostrum and explaining why we were breaking with this institution, was greeted with a howl of hatred and impotence on the part of the majority groups. In the Petrograd Soviet of Deputies, where our withdrawal from the Pre-Parliament was approved by an overwhelming majority, the leader of the tiny "internationalist" Menshevik group, Martof, explained to us that the withdrawal from the temporary Soviet of the Republic (such was the official appellation of this little-respected institution) would be sensible only in case we proposed immediately to assume an open offensive. But the point is that this is just what we intended. The prosecutors for the liberal bourgeoisie were right, when accusing us of striving to create a revolutionary situation. In open insurrection and direct seizure of power we beheld the only way out of the situation.
Again, as in the July days, the press and all the other organs of so-called public opinion were mobilized against us. From the July arsenals were dragged forth the most envenomed weapons which had been temporarily stored away there after the Korniloff days. Vain efforts! The mass was irresistibly moving toward us, and its spirit was rising hour by hour. From the trenches delegates kept arriving. "How long," said they, at the Petrograd Soviet meetings, "will this impossible situation last? The soldiers have told us to declare to you: if no decisive steps for peace are made by November 1st, the trenches will be deserted, the entire army will rush to the rear!" This determination was really spreading at the front. There the soldiers were passing on, from one unit to another, home-made proclamations, summoning them not to remain in the trenches later than the first snowfall. "You have forgotten about us," the delegates on foot from the trenches exclaimed at the Soviet meetings. "If you find no way out of the situation, we shall come here ourselves, and with our bayonets we shall disperse our enemies, including you." In the course of a few weeks the Petrograd Council had become the center of attraction for the whole army. After its leading tendency had been changed and new presiding officers elected, its resolutions inspired the exhausted and despondent troops at the front with the hope that the way out of the situation could be practically found in the manner proposed by the Bolsheviks: by publishing the secret treaties and proposing an immediate truce on all fronts. "You say that power must pass into the hands of the Soviets, grasp it then. Yon fear that the front will not support you. Cast all misgivings aside, the soldier masses are with you in overwhelming majority."
Meanwhile the conflict regarding the transfer of the garrison kept on developing. Almost daily, a garrison conference met, consisting of committees from the companies, regiments and commands. The influence of our party in the garrison was established definitely and indestructibly. The Petrograd District Staff was in a state of extreme perplexity. Now it would attempt to enter into regular relations with us, then again, egged on by the leaders of the Central Executive Committee, it would threaten us with repressive measures.
Above, mention has already been made of organizing, at the Petrograd Soviet, a Military Revolutionary Committee, which was intended to be, in fact, the Soviet Staff of the Petrograd garrison in opposition to Kerensky's Staff. "But the existence of two staffs is inadmissible," the representatives of the fusionist parties dogmatically admonished us. "But is a situation admissible, wherein the garrison mistrusts the official staff and fears that the transfer of soldiers from Petrograd has been dictated by a new counter-revolutionary machination?" we retorted. "The creation of a second staff means insurrection," came the reply from the Right. "Your Military Revolutionary Committee's task will not be so much to verify the operative projects and orders of the military authorities as the preparation and execution of an insurrection against the present government." This objection was just: But for that very reason it did not frighten anybody. An overwhelming majority of the Soviet was aware of the necessity of overthrowing the coalition power. The more circumstantially the Mensheviks and S. R.'s demonstrated that the Military Revolutionary Committee would inevitably turn into an organ of insurrection, the greater the eagerness with which the Petrograd Soviet supported the new fighting organization.
The Military Revolutionary Committee's first act was to appoint commissioners to all parts of the Petrograd garrison and all the most important institutions of the capital and environs. From various quarters we were receiving communications that the government, or more correctly, the government parties, were actively organizing and arming their forces. From various arms-depots-governmental and private-rifles, revolvers, machine guns and cartridges were being brought forth for arming cadets, students and bourgeois youths in general. It was necessary to take immediate preventive measures. Commissioners were appointed to all arms-depots and stores. Almost without opposition they became masters of the situation. To be sure, the commandants and proprietors of the depots tried not to recognize them, but a mere application to the soldiers' committee or the employees of each institution sufficed to cause the immediate breakdown of the opposition. After that, arms were issued only on order of our Commissioners.
Even prior to that, regiments of the Petrograd garrison had their commissioners, but these had been appointed by the Central Executive Committee. Above, we said that after the June Congress of Soviets, and particularly after the June 18th demonstration which revealed the ever growing power of the Bolsheviks, the fusionist parties had almost entirely deprived the Petrograd Soviet of any practical influence on the course of events in the revolutionary capital. The leadership of the Petrograd garrison was concentrated in the hands of the Central Executive Committee. Now the task everywhere was to put in the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners. This was achieved with the most energetic cooperation of the soldier masses. Meetings, addressed by speakers of various parties, had the result, invariably, that regiment after regiment declared it would recognize only the Petrograd Soviet's Commissioners and would not budge a step without its decision.
An important role in appointing these Commissioners was played by the Bolsheviks' military organization. Before the July days it had developed a widespread agitational activity. On July 5th, a battalion of cyclists, brought by Kerensky to Petrograd, battered down the isolated Kshessinsky mansion where our party's military organization was quartered. The majority of leaders, and many privates among the members were arrested, the publications were stopped, the printing shop was wrecked. Only by degrees did the organization begin to repair its machinery afresh, conspiratively this time. Numerically it comprised in its ranks but a very insignificant part of the Petrograd garrison, a few hundred men all told. But there were among them many soldiers and young officers, chiefly ensigns, resolute, and with heart and soul devoted to the Revolution, who had passed through Kerensky's prisons in July and August. All of them had placed themselves at the Military Revolutionary Committee's disposal and were being assigned to the most responsible fighting posts.
However, it would not be superfluous to remark that precisely the members of our party's military organization assumed in October an attitude of extraordinary caution and even some skepticism toward the idea of an immediate insurrection. The closed character of the organization and its officially military character involuntarily inclined its leaders to underestimate the purely technical and organizational resources of the uprising, and from this point of view we were undoubtedly weak. Our strength lay in the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses and their readiness to fight under our banner.
Parallel with the organizing activity a stormy agitation was being carried on. This was the period of incessant meetings at works, in the "Modern" and "Chinizelli" circuses, at clubs, in barracks. The atmosphere at all the meetings was charged with electricity. Each mention of the insurrection was greeted with a storm of plaudits and shouts of delight. The bourgeois press merely increased the state of universal panic. An order issued over my signature to the Syestroyetsk munitions factory to issue five thousand rifles to the Red Guard evoked an indescribable panic in bourgeois circles. "The general massacre" in course of preparation was talked and written about everywhere. Of course, this did not in the least prevent the workingmen of the Syestroyetsk munitions factory from handing the arms over to the Red Guards. The more frantically the bourgeois press slandered and baited us, the more ardently the masses responded to our call. It was growing clearer and clearer for both sides that the crisis must break within the next few days. The press of the S. R.'s and Mensheviks was sounding an alarm. "The Revolution is in the greatest danger. A repetition of the July days is being prepared—but on a much wider basis and therefore still more destructive in its consequences." In his Novaya Zhizn, Gorki daily prophesied the approaching wreck of all civilization. In general, the Socialistic veneer of the bourgeois intellectuals was wearing off at the approach of the stern domination of the workers' dictatorship. But, on the other hand, the soldiers of even the most backward regiments hailed with delight the Military Revolutionary Committee's commissioners. Delegates came to us from Cossack units and from the Socialist minority of military cadets. They promised at least to assure the neutrality of their units in case of open conflict. Manifestly Kerensky's government was losing its foundations.
The District Staff began negotiations with us and proposed a compromise. In order to size up the enemy's full resistance, we entered into pourparlers. But the Staff was nervous; now they exhorted, then threatened us, they even declared our commissioners to be without power, which, however, did not in the least affect their work. In accord with the Staff, the Central Executive Committee appointed Captain of Staff Malefski to be Chief Commissioner for the Petrograd Military District and magnanimously consented to recognize our commissioners, on condition of their being subordinate to the Chief Commissioner. The proposal was rejected and the negotiations broken off. Prominent Mensheviks and S. R.'s came to us as intermediaries, exhorted, threatened and foretold our doom and the doom of the Revolution.
At this period the Smolny building was already completely in the hands of the Petrograd Soviet and of our party. The Mensheviks and the S. R.'s transferred their political activity to the Maryiinsky Palace, where the infant Pre-Parliament was already expiring. In the Pre-Parliament Kerensky delivered a great speech, in which, stormily applauded by the bourgeois wing, he endeavored to conceal his impotence behind clamorous threats. The Staff made its last attempt at opposition. To all units of the garrison it sent out invitations to appoint two delegates to conferences concerning the removal of troops from the capital. The first conference was called for October 22nd, at 11 P. M. From the regiments we immediately received information about it. By telephone we issued a call for a garrison conference at 11 A. M. Withal, a part of the delegates did get to the Staff quarters, only to declare that without the Petrograd Soviet's decision they would not move anywhere. Almost unanimously the Garrison Conference confirmed its allegiance to the Military Revolutionary Committee. Objections came only from official representatives of the former Soviet parties, but they found no response whatever among the regimental delegates. The Staff's attempt brought out only more strikingly that we were standing on firm ground. In the front rank there was the Volhynian Regiment, the very one which on July 4th, with its band playing, had invaded the Tauri'da Palace, in order to put down the Bolsheviks.
As already mentioned earlier, the Central Executive Committee had charge of the Petrograd Soviet's treasury and its publications. An attempt to obtain even a single one of these publications brought no results. Beginning with the end of September, we initiated a series of measures toward creating an independent newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet. But all printing establishments were occupied and their owners boycotted us with the assistance of the Central Executive Committee. It was decided to arrange for a "Petrograd Soviet Day," for the purpose of developing a widespread agitation and collecting pecuniary resources for establishing a newspaper. About a fortnight before, this day was set for October 22nd, and consequently it coincided with the moment of the open outburst of the insurrection.
With complete assurance, the hostile press announced that on October 22nd an armed insurrection of the Bolsheviks would occur in the streets of Petrograd. That the insurrection would occur, nobody had any doubt. They only tried to determine exactly when; they guessed, they prophesied, striving in this way to force a denial or confession on our part. But the Soviet calmly and confidently marched forward, making no answer to the howl of bourgeois public opinion. October 22nd became the reviewing day for the forces of the proletarian army. It went off magnificently in every respect. In spite of the warnings coming from the Right that blood would flow in torrents in the streets of Petrograd, the masses of the populace were pouring in floods to the Petrograd Soviet meetings. All our oratorical forces were mobilized. All public places were filled. Meetings were held unceasingly for hours at a stretch. They were addressed by speakers of our party, by delegates arriving for the Soviet Congress, by representatives from the front, by left S.R.'s and by Anarchists. Public buildings were flooded by waves of working-men, soldiers and sailors. There had not been many gatherings like that even in the time of the Revolution. Up rose a considerable mass of the petty townfolk, less frightened than aroused by the shouts, warnings and baiting of the bourgeois press. Waves of people by tens of thousands dashed against the People's House building, rolled through the corridors, filled the halls. On the iron columns huge garlands of human heads, feet and hands were hanging like bunches of grapes. The air was surcharged with the electric tension that heralds the most critical moments of revolution. "Down with Kerensky's government! Down with the war! All power to the Soviets!" Not one from the ranks of the previous Soviet parties ventured to appear before those colossal throngs with a word of reply. The Petrograd Soviet held undivided sway. In reality the campaign had already been won. It only remained to deal the last military blow to this spectral authority.
The most cautious in our midst were reporting that there still remained units that were not with us: the cossacks, the cavalry regiment, the Semyonofski regiment, the cyclists. Commissioners and agitators were assigned to these units. Their reports sounded perfectly satisfactory: the red-hot atmosphere was infecting one and all, and the most conservative elements of the army were losing the strength to withstand the general tendency of the Petrograd garrison. In the Semyonofski regiment, which was considered the bulwark of Kerensky's government, I was present at a meeting which took place in the open air. The most prominent speakers of the right wing addressed it. They clung to the conservative guard regiments as to the last support of the coalition power. Nothing would avail. By an overwhelming majority of votes, the regiment expressed itself for us and did not even give the ex-ministers a chance to finish their speeches. The groups which still opposed the Soviet watch-words were made up mainly of officers, volunteers and generally of bourgeois intellectuals and semi-intellectuals. The masses of peasants and workmen were with us one and all. The demarcation ran as a distinct social line.
The Fortress of Peter and Paul is the central military base of Petrograd. As commandant thereof we appointed a young ensign. He proved the best man for the post and within a few hours he became master of the situation. The lawful authorities withdrew, biding their time. The element regarded as unreliable for us were the cyclists, who in July had smashed our party's military organization in the Kshessinsky mansion and taken possession of the mansion itself. On the 23rd, I went to the Fortress about 2 P. M. Within the courtyard a meeting was being held. The speakers of the right wing were cautious and evasive in the extreme, painstakingly avoiding the question of Kerensky, whose name inevitably aroused shouts of protest and indignation even among the soldiers. We were listened to, and our advice vas followed. About four o'clock, the cyclists assembled nearby, in the "Modern" Circus, for a battalion meeting. Among the speakers appearing there was Quartermaster-General Paradyelof. He spoke with extreme caution. The days had been left far behind, when official and semi-official speakers referred to the party of the workers merely as to a gang of traitors and hired agents of the German Kaiser.
The Lieutenant-Commander of the Staff accosted me with: "We really ought to be able to come to some agreement." But it was already too late. The whole battalion, with only thirty dissenting votes, had voted for handing over all power to the Soviets.
The government of Kerensky was restlessly looking for refuge, now one way, now another. Two new cyclist battalions, and the Zenith Battery were called back from the front, and an attempt was made to call back some companies of cavalry…. The cyclists telegraphed while on the road to the Petrograd Soviet: "We are led to Petrograd without knowing the reasons. Request explanations." We ordered them to stop and send a delegation to Petrograd. Their representatives arrived and declared at a meeting of the Soviet that the battalion was entirely with us. This was greeted by enthusiastic cheers. The battalion received orders to enter the city immediately.
The number of delegates from the front was increasing every day. They came to get information about the situation. They gathered our literature and went to bring the message to the front that the Petrograd Soviet was conducting a struggle for the power of the workers, soldiers and peasants. "The men in the trenches will support you," they told us. All the old army committees which had not been reelected for the last four or five months, sent threatening telegrams to us, which, however, made no impression. We knew that these committees were no less out of touch with the rank and file of the soldiers than the Central Executive Committee with the local Soviets.
The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed commissaries to all railroad depots. These commissaries kept a watchful eye upon all the arriving and departing trains and especially upon the movements of troops. Continuous telephone and motor car communication was established with the neighboring cities and their garrisons. The Soviets of all the communities near Petrograd were charged with the duty of vigilantly preventing any counter-revolutionary troops, or, rather, troops misled by the government, from entering the capital. The railroad officials of lower rank and the workmen recognized our commissaries immediately. Difficulties arose on the 24th at the telephone station. They stopped connecting us. The cadets took possession of the station and under their protection the telephone operators began to oppose the Soviet. This was the first appearance of the future sabotage. The Military Revolutionary Committee sent a detachment to the telephone station and placed two small cannons there. In this way the seizing of all departments of the government and instruments of administration was started. The sailors and Red Guards occupied the telegraph station, the post office and other institutions. Measures were taken to take possession of the state bank. The center of the government, the Institute of Smolny, was turned into a fortress. There were in the garret, as a heritage of the old Central Executive Committee, a score of machine guns, but they were in poor condition and had been entirely neglected by the caretakers. We ordered an additional machine gun company to the Smolny Institute. Early in the morning the sailors rolled the machine gun with a deafening rumble over the cement floors of the long and half-dark corridors of the building. Out of the doors the frightened faces of the few S. R.'s and Mensheviks were looking and wondering.
The Soviet held daily meetings in the Smolny and so did the GarrisonCouncil.
On the third floor of the Smolny, in a small corner room, the Military Revolutionary Committee was in continuous session. There was centered all the information about the movements of the troops, the spirit of the soldiers and workers, the agitation in the barracks, the undertakings of the pogrom instigators, the councils of the bourgeois politicians, the life at the Winter Palace, the plans of the former Soviet parties. Informers came from all sides. There came workers, officers, porters, Socialist cadets, servants, ladies. Many brought pure nonsense. Others gave serious and valuable information. The decisive moment drew near. It was apparent that there was no going back.
On the evening of the 24th of October, Kerensky appeared in the Preliminary Parliament and demanded approval of repressive measures against the Bolsheviki. The Preliminary Parliament, however, was in a sad state of indetermination and complete disintegration. The Constitutional Democrats tried to persuade the right S. R.'s to adopt a vote of confidence. The right S. R.'s exercised pressure upon the center. The center hesitated. The "left" wing conducted a policy of parliamentary opposition. After many conferences, debates, hesitations, the resolution of the "left" wing was adopted. This resolution condemned the rebellious movement of the Soviet, but the responsibilities for the movement were laid at the door of the anti-democratic policy of the government. The mail brought scores of letters daily informing us of death sentences pronounced against us, of infernal machines, of the expected blowing up of the Smolny, etc. The bourgeois press howled wildly, moved by hatred and terror. Gorki, who had forgotten all about "The Song of the Falcon," continued to prophesy in his Novaya Zhizn the approach of the end of the world.
The members of the Military Revolutionary Committee did not leave the Smolny during the entire week. They slept on sofas and only at odd intervals, wakened by couriers, scouts, cyclists, telegraph messengers and telephone calls. The night of the 24th-25th was the most restless. We received a telephone communication from Pavlovsky that the government had called artillery from the Peterhof School of Ensigns. At the Winter Palace, Kerensky gathered the cadets and officers. We gave out orders over the telephone to place on all the roads leading to Petrograd reliable military defence and to send agitators to meet the military detachment called by the government. In case persuasion would not help they were instructed to use armed force. All the negotiations were held over the telephone in the open, and therefore were accessible to the agents of the government.
The commissaries informed us over the telephone that on all the roads leading to Petrograd our friends were on the alert. A cadet detachment from Oranienbaum nevertheless succeeded in getting by our military defence during the night and over the telephone we followed their further movements. The outer guard of the Smolny was strengthened by another company. Communications with all the detachments of the garrison went on continuously.
The companies on guard in all the regiments were awake. The delegates of every detachment were day and night at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee. An order was given to suppress the agitation of the Black Hundred without reserve, and at the first attempts at pogroms on the streets, arms should be used without mercy.
During this decisive night all the most important points of the city passed into our hands—almost without any opposition, without struggle and without bloodshed. The State Bank was guarded by a government detachment and an armored car. The building was surrounded on all sides by our troops. The armored car was taken by an unexpected attack and the bank went over into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee without a single shot being fired. There was on the river Neva, behind the Franco-Russian plant, the cruiser Aurora, which was under repair. Its crew consisted entirely of sailors devotedly loyal to the revolution. When Korniloff, at the end of August, threatened Petrograd the sailors of the Aurora were called by the government to guard the Winter Palace, and though even then they already hated the government of Kerensky, they realized that it was their duty to dam the wave of the counter-revolution, and they took their post without objection. When the danger passed they were sent back. Now, in the days of the October uprising, they were too dangerous. The Aurora was ordered by the Minister of the Navy to weigh anchor and to get out of Petrograd. The crew informed us immediately of this order. We annulled it and the cruiser remained where it was, ready at any moment to put all its military forces and means at the disposal of the Soviets.
At the dawn of the 25th, a man and woman, employed in the party's printing office, came to Smolny and informed us that the government had closed the official journal of our body and the "New Gazette" of the Petrograd Soviet. The printing office was sealed by some agent of the government. The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately recalled the orders and took both publications under its protection, enjoining upon the "gallant Wolinsky Regiment the great honor of securing the free Socialist press against counter-revolutionary attempts." The printing, after that, went on without interruption and both publications appeared on time.
The government was still in session at the Winter Palace, but it was no more than its own shadow. As a political power it no longer existed. On the 25th of October the Winter Palace was gradually surrounded by our troops from all sides. At one o'clock in the afternoon I declared at the session of the Petrograd Soviet, in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee, that the government of Kerensky had ceased to exist and that forthwith, and until the All-Russian Convention of the Soviets might decide otherwise, the power was to pass into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
A few days earlier Lenin left Finland and was hiding in the outskirts of the city, in the workingmen's quarters. On the evening of the 25th, he came secretly to the Smolny. According to newspaper information, it seemed to him that the issue would be a temporary compromise between ourselves and the Kerensky Government. The bourgeois press had so often clamored about the approach of the revolution, about the demonstration of armed soldiers on the streets, about pillaging and unavoidable streams of blood, that now this press failed to notice the revolution which was really taking place, and accepted the negotiations of the general staff with us at their face value. Meanwhile, without any chaos, without street fights, without firing or bloodshed, the government institutions were occupied one after another by severe and disciplined detachments of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, in accordance with the exact telephone orders given from the small room on the third floor of the Smolny Institute. In the evening a preliminary session of the Second All-Russian Convention of Soviets was held. In the name of the Central Executive Committee, Dan presented a report. He presented an indictment of the rebellious usurpers and insurgents and attempted to frighten the Convention with a vision of the inevitable failure of the insurrection, which, he claimed, would be suppressed by the forces from the front. His address sounded unconvincing and out of place within the walls of a hall where the overwhelming majority of the delegates were enthusiastically observing the victorious advance of the Petrograd revolution.
By this time the Winter Palace was surrounded, but it was not yet taken. From time to time there were shots from the windows upon the besiegers, who were closing in slowly and cautiously. From the Petropavlovsk Fortress, two or three shells from cannons were directed at the Palace. Their thunder was heard at the Smolny. Martof spoke with helpless indignation from the platform of the convention, about civil war and especially about the siege of the Winter Palace, where among the ministers there were—oh, horror!—members of the Mensheviki party. The sailors who came to bring information from the battle-place around the Palace took the floor against him. They reminded the accusers of the offensive of the 18th of June, of the treacherous policy of the old government, of the re-establishment of the death penalty for soldiers, of the annihilation of the revolutionary organization, and wound up by vowing to win or die. They also brought word of the first victims from our ranks in the battle before the Palace.
All arose as if at an unseen signal and, with a unanimity which could be created only by a high moral inspiration, sang the Funeral March. He who lived through that moment will never forget it.
The session was interrupted. It was impossible to deliberate theoretically the question of the means of reconstructing the government among the echoes of the fighting and shooting under the walls of the Winter Palace, where the fate of that very government was being decided in a practical way. The taking of the Palace, however, was rather slow, and this caused hesitation among the less determined elements of the convention. The orators of the right wing prophesied our near destruction. All anxiously awaited news from the arena of the Palace. Presently Antonoff appeared, who directed the operations against the Palace. A death-like silence fell upon the hall. The Winter Palace was taken; Kerensky had fled; other ministers had been arrested and consigned to the fortress of Petropavlovsk. The first chapter of the October revolution was over.
The Right Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, altogether sixty men, that is, about one-tenth of the convention, left the session in protest. As there was nothing else left to' them, they "placed the entire responsibility" for the coming events upon the Bolsheviki and Left S. R.'s. The latter were passing through moments of indecision. The past tied them strongly to the party of Chernoff. The right wing of this party swerved to the middle and petty bourgeois elements, to the intellectuals of the middle classes, to the well-to-do elements of the villages; and on all decisive questions went hand in hand with the liberal bourgeoisie against us. The more revolutionary elements of the party, reflecting the radicalism of the social demands of the poorest masses of the peasantry, gravitated to the proletariat and their party. They feared, however, to sever the umbilical cord which linked them to their old party. When we left the Preliminary Parliament, they refused to follow us and warned us against "adventurers," but the insurrection put before them the dilemma of taking sides for or against the Soviets. Not without hesitation, they assembled on our side of the barricades.
The victory in Petrograd was complete. The power went over entirely to the Military Revolutionary Committee. We issued our first decree, abolishing the death penalty and ordering reelections in the army committees, etc. But here we discovered that we were cut off from the provinces. The higher authorities of the railroads, post office and telegraph were against us. The army committees, the municipalities, the zemstvos continued to bombard the Smolny with threatening telegrams in which they declared outright war upon us and promised to sweep the insurgents out within a short time. Our telegrams, decrees and explanations did not reach the provinces, for the Petrograd Telegraph Agency refused to serve us. In this atmosphere, created by the isolation of the capital from the rest of the country, alarming and monstrous rumors easily sprang up and gained popularity.
When finally convinced that the Soviet had really taken over the powers of the government, that the old government was arrested, that the streets of Petrograd were dominated by armed workers, the bourgeois press, as well as the press which was for effecting a compromise, started a campaign of incomparable madness indeed; there was not a lie or libel which was not mobilized against the Military Revolutionary Committee, its leaders or its commissaries.
On the 26th there was a session of the Petrograd Soviet, which was attended by delegates from the All-Russian Council, members of the Garrison Conference, and numerous members of various parties. Here, for the first time in nearly six months, spoke Lenin and Zinoviev, who were given a stormy ovation. The jubilation over the recent victory was marred somewhat by apprehensions as to how the country would take to the new revolt and as to the Soviets' ability to retain control.
In the evening an executive session of the Council of Soviets was held. Lenin introduced two decrees: on peace and on the land question. After brief discussion, both decrees were adopted unanimously. It was at this session, too, that a new central authority was created, to be known as the Council of People's Commissaries.
The Central Committee of our party tried to win the approval of the Left S. R.'s, who were invited to participate in establishing the Soviet government. They hesitated, on the ground that, in their view, this government should bear a coalition character within the Soviet parties. But the Mensheviki and the Right S. R.'s broke entirely with the Council of Soviets, deeming a coalition with anti-Soviet parties necessary. There was nothing left for us to do but to let the party of Left S. R.'s persuade their neighbors to the right to return to the revolutionary camp; and while they were engaged in this hopeless task, we thought it our duty to take the responsibility for the government entirely upon our party. The list of Peoples' Commissaries was composed exclusively of Bolsheviki.
There was undoubtedly some political danger in such a course. The change proved too precipitate. (One need but remember that the leaders of this party were only yesterday still under indictment under Statute Law No. 108—that is, accused of high treason). But there was no other alternative. The other Soviet groups hesitated and evaded the issue, preferring to adopt a waiting policy. Finally we became convinced that only our party could set up a revolutionary government.
The decrees on land and peace, approved by the Council, were printed in huge quantities and—through delegates from the front, peasant pedestrians arriving from the villages, and agitators sent by us to the trenches in the provinces—were strewn broadcast all over the country. Simultaneously the work of organizing and arming the Red Guards was carried on. Together with the old garrison and the sailors, the Red Guard was doing hard patrol duty. The Council of People's Commissaries got control of one government department after another, though everywhere encountering the passive resistance of the higher and middle grade officials. The former Soviet parties tried their utmost to find support in this class and organize a sabotage of the new government. Our enemies felt certain that the whole affair was a mere episode, that in a day or two—at most a week—the Soviet Government would be overthrown. The first foreign councillors and members of the embassies, impelled quite as much by curiosity as by necessary business on hand, appeared at the Smolny Institute. Newspaper correspondents hurried thither with their notebooks and cameras. Everyone hastened to catch a glimpse of the new government, being sure that in a day or two it would be too late.
Perfect order reigned in the city. The sailors, soldiers and the Red Guards bore themselves in these first days with excellent discipline and nobly supported the regime of stern revolutionary order.
In the enemy's camp fear arose lest the "episode" should become too protracted, and so the first force for attacking the new government was being hastily organized. In this, the initiative was taken by the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki. In the preceding period they would not, and dared not, take all the power into their own hands. In keeping with their provisional political position, they contented themselves with serving in the coalition government in the capacity of assistants, critics, and benevolent accusers and defenders of the bourgeoisie. During all elections they conscientiously anathematized the liberal bourgeoisie, while in the government they just as regularly combined with it. In the first six months of the revolution they managed, as a result of this policy, to lose absolutely all the confidence of the populace and army; and now, the October revolt was dashing them from the helm of the state. And yet, only yesterday they considered themselves the masters of the situation. The Bolshevik leaders whom they persecuted were in hiding, as under Czarism. To-day the Bolsheviki were in power, while yesterday's coalitionist ministers and their co-workers found themselves cast aside and suddenly deprived of every bit of influence upon the further course of events. They would not and could not believe that this sudden revolt marked the beginning of a new era. They preferred to consider it as merely accidental, the result of some misunderstanding, which could be removed by a few energetic speeches and accusational newspaper articles. But every hour they encountered more and more insurmountable obstacles. This is what caused their blind, truly furious hatred.
The bourgeois politicians did not venture, to be sure, to get too close to danger. They pushed to the front the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, who, in the attack upon us acquired all that energy which they had lacked during the period when they were a semi-governing power. Their organs circulated the most amazing rumors and lies. In their name it was that the proclamations containing open appeals to crush the new government were issued. It was they, too, who organized the government officials for sabotage and the cadets for military resistance.
On the 27th and 28th we continued to receive persistent threats by telegraph from army committees, town dumas, vikzhel zemstvos, and organizations (which had charge of the management of the Railroad Union). On the Nevsky Prospect, the principal thoroughfare of the capital's bourgeoisie, things were becoming more and more lively. The bourgeois youth was emerging from its stupor and, urged on by the press, was developing a wider and wider agitation against the Soviet government. With the help of the bourgeois crowd, the cadets were disarming individual Red Guardsmen. On the side-streets Red Guardsmen and sailors were being shot down. A group of cadets seized the telephone station. Attempts were made by the same side to seize the telegraph office. Finally, we learned that three armored cars had fallen into the hands of some inimical military organization. The bourgeois elements were clearly raising their heads. The newspapers heralded the fact that we had but a few hours more to live. Our friends intercepted a few secret orders which made it clear, however, that a militant organization had been formed to fight the Petrograd Soviet. The leading place in this organization was taken by the so-called Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, organized by the local Duma and the Central Executive Committee of the former regime. Here and there Right Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki held sway. At the disposal of this committee were the cadets, students, and many counter-revolutionary army officers, who sought, from under cover of the coalitions, to deal the Soviets a mortal blow.
The stronghold of the counter-revolutionary organization was the cadet schools and the Engineering Castle, where considerable arms and ammunition were stored, and from where attacks were made upon the revolutionary government's headquarters. Detachments of Red Guards and sailors had surrounded the cadet schools and were sending in messengers demanding the surrender of all arms. Some scattering shots came in reply. The besiegers were trampled upon. Crowds of people gathered around them, and not infrequently stray shots fired from the windows would wound passers-by.
The skirmishes were assuming an indefinitely prolonged character, and this threatened the revolutionary detachments with demoralization. It was necessary, therefore, to adopt the most determined measures. The task of disarming the cadets was assigned to the commandant of Petropavlovsk fortress, Ensign B. He closely surrounded the cadet schools, brought up some armored cars and artillery, and gave the cadets ten minutes' time to surrender. Renewed firing from the windows was the answer at first. At the expiration of the ten minutes, B. ordered an artillery charge. The very first shots made yawning breaches in the walls of the schoolhouse. The cadets surrendered, though many of them tried to save themselves by flight, firing as they fled.
Considerable rancor was created, such as always accompanies civil war. The sailors undoubtedly committed many outrages upon individual cadets. The bourgeois press later accused the sailors and the Soviet government of inhumanity and brutality. It never mentioned, however, the fact that the revolt of October 25th-26th had been brought about with hardly any firing or sacrifice, and that only the counter-revolutionary conspiracy which was organized by the bourgeoisie and which threw the young generation into the flame of civil war against the workers, soldiers and sailors, led to unavoidable severities and sacrifices.
The 29th of October marked a decided change in the mood of the inhabitants of Petrograd. Events took on a more tragic character. At the same time, our enemies realized that the situation was far more serious than they thought at first and that the Soviet had not the slightest intention of relinquishing the power it had won just to oblige the junkers and the capitalistic newspapers.
The work of clearing Petrograd of counter-revolutionary centers was carried on intensively. The cadets were almost all disarmed, the participators in the insurrection were arrested and either imprisoned in the Petropavlovsk fortress or deported to Kronstadt. All publications which openly preached revolt against Soviet authority were promptly suppressed. Orders were issued for the arrest of such of the leaders of the former Soviet parties whose names figured on the intercepted counter-revolutionary edicts. All military resistance in the capital was crushed absolutely.
Next came a long and exhausting struggle against the sabotage of the bureaucrats, technical workers, clerks, etc. These elements, which by their earning capacity belong largely to the downtrodden class of society, align themselves with the bourgeois class by the conditions of their life and by their general psychology. They had sincerely and faithfully served the government and its institutions when it was headed by Czarism. They continued to serve the government when the authority passed over into the hands of the bourgeois imperialists. They were inherited with all their knowledge and technical skill, by the coalition government in the next period of the revolution. But when the revolting workingmen, soldiers and peasants flung the parties of the exploiting classes away from the rudder of State and tried to take the management of affairs into their own hands, then the bureaucrats and clerks flew into a passion and absolutely refused to support the new government in any way. More and more extensive became this sabotage, which was organized mostly by Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, and which was supported by funds furnished by the banks and the Allied Embassies.
The stronger the Soviet government became in Petrograd, the more the bourgeois groups placed their hopes on military aid from without. The Petrograd Telegraph Agency, the railroad telegraph, and the radio-telegraph station of Tsarskoye-Selo brought from every side news of huge forces marching on Petrograd with the object of crushing the rebels there and establishing order. Kerensky was making flying trips to the front, and the bourgeois papers reported that he was leading innumerable forces against the Bolsheviki. We found ourselves cut off from the rest of the country, as the telegraphers refused to serve us. But the soldiers, who arrived by tens and hundreds on commissions from their respective regiments, invariably said to us: "Have no fears of the front; it is entirely on your side. You need but give the word, and we will send to your aid—even this very day—a division or a corps." It was the same in the army as everywhere else; the masses were for us, and the upper classes against us. In the hands of the latter was the military-technical machinery. Various parts of the vast army proved to be isolated one from another. We were isolated from both the army and the people. Nevertheless, the news of the Soviet government at Petrograd and its decrees spread throughout the country and roused the local Soviets to rebel against the old government.
The reports of Kerensky's advance on Petrograd, at the head of some forces or other, soon became more persistent and assumed more definite outlines. We were informed from Tsarskoye-Selo that Cossack echelons were not far from there, while an appeal, signed by Kerensky and General Krassnov, was being circulated in Petrograd calling upon the whole garrison to join the government's forces, which were expected any hour to enter the capital. The cadet insurrection of October 29th was undoubtedly connected with Kerensky's undertaking, only that it broke out too soon, owing to determined action on our part. The Tsarskoye-Selo garrison was ordered to demand of the approaching Cossack regiments recognition of the Soviet government. In case of refusal, the Cossacks were to be disarmed. But that garrison proved to be ill-fitted for military operations. It had no artillery and no leaders, its officers being unfriendly toward the Soviet government. The Cossacks took possession of the radio-telegraph station at Tsarskoye-Selo, the most powerful one in the country, and marched on. The garrisons of Peterhof, Krasnoye-Selo and Gatchina displayed neither initiative nor resolution.
After the almost bloodless victory at Petrograd, the soldiers confidently assumed that matters would take a similar course in the future. All that was necessary, they thought, was to send an agitator to the Cossacks, who would lay down their arms the moment the object of the proletarian revolution was explained to them. Korniloff's counter-revolutionary uprising was put down by means of speeches and fraternization. By agitation and well-planned seizure of certain institutions—without a fight—the Kerensky government was overthrown. The same methods were now being employed by the leaders of the Tsarskoye-Selo, Krasnoye-Selo and the Gatchina Soviets with General Krassnov's Cossacks. But this time they did not work. Though without determination or enthusiasm, the Cossacks did advance. Individual detachments approached Gatchina and Krasnoye-Selo, engaged the scanty forces of the local garrisons, and sometimes disarmed them. About the numerical strength of Kerensky's forces we at first had no idea whatever. Some said that General Krassnov headed ten thousand men; others affirmed that he had no more than a thousand; while the unfriendly newspapers and circulars announced, in letters an inch big, that two corps were lined up beyond Tsarskoye-Selo.
There was a general want of confidence in the Petrograd garrison. No sooner had it won a bloodless victory, than it was called upon to march out against an enemy of unknown numbers and engage in battles of uncertain outcome. In the Garrison Conference, the discussion centered about the necessity of sending out more and more agitators and of issuing appeals to the Cossacks; for to the soldiers it seemed impossible that the Cossacks would refuse to rise to the point of view which the Petrograd garrison was defending in its struggle. Nevertheless, advanced groups of Cossacks approached quite close to Petrograd, and we anticipated that the principal battle would take place in the streets of the city.
The greatest resolution was shown by the Red Guards. They demanded arms, ammunition, and leadership. But everything in the military machine was disorganized and out of gear, owing partly to disuse and partly to evil intent. The officers had resigned. Many had fled. The rifles were in one place and the cartridges in another. Matters were still worse with artillery. The cannons, gun carriages and the military stores were all in different places; and all these had to be groped for in the dark. The various regiments did not have at their disposal either sappers' tools or field telephones. The Revolutionary General Staff, which tried to straighten out things from above, encountered insurmountable obstacles, the greatest of which was the sabotage of the military-technical employees.
Then we decided to appeal directly to the working class. We stated that the success of the revolution was most seriously threatened, and that it was for them—by their energy, initiative, and self-denial—to save and strengthen the regime of proletarian and peasant government. This appeal met with tremendous practical success almost immediately. Thousands of workingmen proceeded toward Kerensky's forces and began digging trenches. The munition workers manned the cannon, themselves obtaining ammunition for them from various stores; requisitioned horses; brought the guns into the necessary positions and adjusted them; organized a commissary department; procured gasoline, motors, automobiles; requisitioned provisions and forage; and put the sanitary trains on a proper footing—created, in short, the entire war machinery, which we had vainly endeavored to create from above.
When scores of heavy guns reached the lines, the disposition of our soldiers changed immediately. Under cover of the artillery they were ready to repulse the Cossacks' attack. In the first lines were the sailors and Red Guards. A few officers, politically unrelated to us but sincerely attached to their regiments, accompanied their soldiers to the lines and directed their operations against Krassnov's Cossacks.
Meanwhile telegrams spread the report all over the country and abroad that the Bolshevik "adventure" had been disposed of and that Kerensky had entered Petrograd and was establishing order with an iron hand. On the other hand, in Petrograd itself, the bourgeois press, emboldened by the proximity of Kerensky's troops, wrote about the complete demoralization of the Petrograd garrison; about an irresistible advance of the Cossacks, equipped with much artillery; and predicted the imminent fall of the Smolny Institute. Our chief handicap was, as already stated, the lack of suitable mechanical accessories and of men able to direct military operations. Even those officers who had conscientiously accompanied their soldiers to the lines, declined the position of Commander-in-Chief.
After long deliberation, we hit upon the following combination: The Garrison Council selected a committee of five persons, which was entrusted with the supreme control of all operations against the counter-revolutionary forces moving on Petrograd. This committee subsequently reached an understanding with Colonel Muravief, who was in the opposition party under the Kerensky regime, and who now, on his own initiative, offered his services to the Soviet government.
On the cold night of October 30th, Muravief and I started by automobile for the lines. Wagons with provisions, forage, military supplies and artillery trailed along the road. All this was done by the workingmen of various factories. Several times our automobile was stopped on the way by Red Guard patrols who verified our permit. Since the first days of the October revolution, every automobile in town had been requisitioned, and no automobile could be ridden through the streets of the city or in the outskirts of the capital without a permit from the Smolny Institute. The vigilance of the Red Guards was beyond all praise. They stood on watch about small camp fires, rifle in hand, hours at a time. The sight of these young armed workmen by the camp fires in the snow was the best symbol of the proletarian revolution.
Many guns had been drawn up in position, and there was no lack of ammunition. The decisive encounter developed on this very day, between Krasnoye-Selo and Tsarskoye-Selo. After a fierce artillery duel, the Cossacks, who kept on advancing as long as they met no obstacles, hastily withdrew. They had been fooled all the time by tales of harsh and cruel acts committed by the Bolsheviki, who wished, as it were, to sell Russia to the German Kaiser. They had been assured that almost the entire garrison at Petrograd was impatiently awaiting them as deliverers. The first serious resistance completely disorganized their ranks and sealed the fate of Kerensky's entire undertaking.
The retreat of Krassnov's Cossacks enabled us to get control of the radio station at Tsarskoye-Selo. We immediately wirelessed the news of our victory over Kerensky's forces. Our foreign friends informed us subsequently that the German wireless station refused, on orders from above, to receive this wireless message.
[Footnote: I cite here the text of this wireless message:
"Selo Pulkovo. General Staff 2:10 P. M. The night of October 30th-31st will go down in history. Kerensky's attempt to march counter-revolutionary forces upon the capital of the revolution has received a decisive check. Kerensky is retreating, we are advancing. The soldiers, sailors and workingmen of Petrograd have shown that they can and will, gun in hand, affirm the will and power of proletarian democracy. The bourgeoisie tried to isolate the army of the revolution and Kerensky attempted to crush it by Cossackism. Both have been frustrated.
"The great idea of the reign of a workingmen's and peasants' democracy united the ranks of the army and hardened its will. The whole country will now come to understand that the Soviet government is not a passing phenomenon, but a permanent fact of the supremacy of the workers, soldiers and peasants. Kerensky's repulse was the repulse of the middle class, the bourgeoisie and the Kornilovites. Kerensky's repulse means the affirmation of the people's rights to a free, peaceful life, to land, food and power. The Pulkovsky division, by their brilliant charge, is strengthening the cause of the proletarian and peasant revolution. There can be no return to the past. There is still fighting, obstacles and sacrifice ahead of us. But the way is open and victory assured.
"Revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Government may well be proud of their Pulkovsky division, commanded by Colonel Walden. May the names of the fallen never be forgotten. All honor to the fighters for the revolution—the soldiers and the officers who stood by the People! Long live revolutionary and Socialist Russia! In the name of the Council of People's Commissaries, L. Trotzky, Oct. 31st, 1917."]
The first reaction of the German authorities to the events of October was thus one of fear—fear lest these events provoke disturbances in Germany itself. In Austria-Hungary, part of our telegram was accepted and, so far as we can tell, has been the source of information for all Europe upon the ill-starred attempt of Kerensky to recover his power and its miserable failure.
Discontent was rife among Krassnov's Cossacks. They began sending their scouts into Petrograd and even official delegates to Smolny. There they had the opportunity to convince themselves that perfect order reigned in the capital, thanks to the Petrograd garrison, which unanimously supported the Soviet government. The Cossacks' disorganization became the more acute as the absurdity of the plan to take Petrograd with some thousand horsemen dawned upon them—for the supports promised them from the front never arrived.
Krassnov's detachment withdrew to Gatchinsk, and when we started out thither the next day, Krassnov's staff were already virtually prisoners of the Cossacks themselves. Our Gatchinsk garrison was holding all the most important military positions. The Cossacks, on the other hand, though not yet disarmed, were absolutely in no position for further resistance. They wanted but one thing: to be allowed as soon as possible to return to the Don region or, at least, back to the front.
The Gatchinsk Palace presented a curious sight. At every entrance stood a special guard, while at the gates were artillery and armored cars. Sailors, soldiers and Red Guards occupied the royal apartments, decorated with precious paintings. Scattered upon the tables, made of expensive wood, lay soldiers' clothes, pipes and empty sardine boxes. In one of the rooms General Krassnov's staff had established itself. On the floor lay mattresses, caps and greatcoats.
The representative of the Revolutionary War Committee, who escorted us, entered the quarters of the General Staff, noisily dropped his rifle-butt to the floor and resting upon it, announced: "General Krassnov, you and your staff are prisoners of the Soviet authorities." Immediately armed Red Guards barred both doors. Kerensky was nowhere to be seen. He had again fled, as he had done before from the Winter Palace. As to the circumstances attending this flight, General Krassnov made a written statement on November 1st. I cite here in full this curious document.
* * * * *
November 1st, 1917, 19 o'clock.
About 15 o'clock today, I was summoned by the SupremeCommander-in-Chief, Kerensky. He was very agitated and nervous.
"General," said he, "you have betrayed me—your Cossacks here positively say that they will arrest me and turn me over to the sailors."
"Yes," I answered, "there is talk about it, and I know that you have no sympathizers here at all."
"But are the officers, too, of the same mind?"
"Yes, the officers are especially dissatisfied with you."
"Then, what am I to do? I'll have to commit suicide."
"If you are an honest man, you will proceed immediately to Petrograd under a flag of truce and report to the Revolutionary Committee, where you will talk things over, as the head of the Government."
"Yes, I'll do that, General!"
"I will furnish a guard for you and will ask that a sailor accompany you."
"No, anyone but a sailor. Don't you know that Dybenko is here?"
"No, I don't know who Dybenko is."
"He is an enemy of mine."
"Well, that can't be helped. When one plays for great stakes, he must be prepared to lose all."
"All right. Only I shall go at night."
"Why? That would be flight. Go calmly and openly, so that everyone can see that you are fleeing."
"Well, all right. Only you must provide for me a dependable convoy."
"All right."
I went and called out a Cossack from the 10th Don Cossack regiment, a certain Rysskov, and ordered him to appoint eight Cossacks to guard the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Half an hour later, the Cossacks came and reported that Kerensky had gone already—that he had fled. I gave an alarm and ordered a search for him. I believe that he cannot have escaped from Gatchinsk and must now be in hiding here somewhere.
Commanding the 3rd Corps,
Major-General Krassnov.
* * * * *
Thus ended this undertaking.
Our opponents still would not yield, however, and did not admit that the question of government power was settled. They continued to base their hopes on the front. Many leaders of the former Soviet parties—Chernoff, Tseretelli, Avksentiev, Gotz and others—went to the front, entered into negotiations with the old army committees, and, according to newspaper reports, tried even in the camp, to form a new ministry. All this came to naught. The old army committees had lost all their significance, and intensive work was going on at the front in connection with the conferences and councils called for the purpose of reorganizing all army organizations. In these re-elections the Soviet Government was everywhere victorious.
From Gatchinsk, our divisions proceeded along the railroad further in the direction of the Luga River and Pskov. On the way, they met a few more trainloads of shock-troops and Cossacks, which had been called out by Kerensky, or which individual generals had sent over. With one of these echelons there was even an armed encounter. But most of the soldiers that were sent from the front to Petrograd declared, as soon as they met with representatives of the Soviet forces, that they had been deceived and that they would not lift a finger against the government of soldiers and workingmen.