As part of our build up to the 93rd anniversary of the Russian
Revolution of Nov 1917, we reproduce the second of two extracts from
Lenin’s widow Krupskaya’s book ‘Reminiscences of Lenin." Dealing wth the
October events and the build up to the revolution itself, this account
provides a marvelous picture of the unfolding struggle.
One note of caution however. This book (currently out of print but
available to read online at www.marxists.org) was published in 1933, by
which time Stalin had seized control of the Bolshevik party and the
machinery of state. To even mention Trotsky (or for that matter any
other Old Bolshevik who had fallen foul of Stalin anf his cohorts) let
alone give praise, was a virtual sentence of death. As such, the book
was shaped by a need to emphasize the role of certain people. not least
Stalin, and eliminate others e.g Trotsky. Krupskaya’s actual feelings
about Stalin are now well known but at the time to have written openly,
or even ‘in code,’ would have quickly resulted in only one outcome, even
for a widow of Lenin.
Krupskaya’s “Reminiscences of Lenin”:
The October Days (Part Two)
November 9-15 were days of struggle for the very existence of the Soviet power.
As a result of a thorough study of the experience of the Paris
Commune, the world’s first proletarian state, Ilyich noted what
a ruinous effect the lenity which the working masses and the
workers’ government had shown towards their avowed enemies had
had upon the fate of the Paris Commune. In speaking of the fight
against the enemies, therefore, Ilyich was always inclined to
put the case strongly for fear of the masses and himself showing
too great lenity.
At the beginning of the October Revolution there had been far
too much forbearance of this kind. Kerensky and a number of
ministers had been allowed to escape, the cadets who had
defended the Winter Palace had been set free on parole, and
General Krasnov, who commanded Kerensky’s advancing troops, had
been left under domiciliary arrest. One day, while sitting in
one of the waiting rooms at Smolny on a heap of army coats, I
heard a conversation between Krylenko and General Krasnov, who
had been brought to Petrograd under arrest. They had come in
together, sat down at a small table standing all by itself in
the middle of the large room, and dropped into a calm easy
conversation. I remember being surprised at the peaceful nature
of their talk. Speaking at a meeting of the Central Executive
Committee on November 17, Ilyich had said: "Krasnov was treated
leniently. He was merely put under domiciliary arrest. We are
against civil war. But if, nevertheless, it continues, what are
we to do?" (Works, Vol. 26, p. 252.)
Released by the Pskov comrades, Kerensky had
engineered an attack on Petrograd; set free on parole, the cadets had
revolted on November 11, and Krasnov, escaping from under domiciliary
arrest, had organized a hundred-thousand-strong White army in the Don
with aid of the German Government.
The people were tired of the imperialist carnage and wanted a
bloodless revolution, but the enemies compelled them to
fight. Engrossed completely in the problems of socialist
reconstruction of the entire social system, Ilyich was compelled
to turn his attention to the defence of the cause of the
revolution.
On November 9 Kerensky succeeded in capturing Gatchina. In an
article "Lenin During the Days of the Uprising" (Krasnaya
Gazeta, November 6, 1927) Podvoisky gives a vivid
description of the tremendous work Lenin did during the days of
Petrograd’s defence. He describes how Lenin came to the Area
Staff Headquarters and demanded a report on the
situation. Antonov Ovseyenko began to explain the general plan
of operations, pointing out on the map the disposition of our
forces and the probable disposition and strength of the enemy’s
forces. "Lenin examined the map closely. With the keenness of a
profound and attentive strategist and general, he demanded
explanations–why this point was not being guarded, why that
point was undefended, why such a step was being contemplated
instead of another, why Kronstadt, Vyborg, Helsingfors had not
been called on for support, and so on. After comparing notes, it
became clear that we had really made quite a number of blunders
and not acted with the prompt urgency which the menacing
situation in Petrograd called for in the matter of organizing
the means and forces for its defence."
On the evening of
the 9th Ilyich spoke with Helsingfors on the private line and
arranged for two destroyers and the battleship
Respublika to be sent to guard the approaches to
Petrograd.
Vladimir Ilyich went to the Putilov Works with
Antonov-Ovseyenko to check up whether the armoured train, which
was so badly needed, was being built quickly enough. He talked
with the workers there. Staff Headquarters was transferred to
Smolny, and Lenin took a close interest in all its work, and
helped it to mobilize the
activity of the masses. Podvoisky writes that he began to
appreciate Lenin’s work after a delegate conference of workers’
organizations, district Soviets, factory committees, trade
unions and military units, which Lenin had called. "I saw here
wherein Lenin’s power lay," he writes. "During an emergency, he
kept the concentration of our forces and means at its highest
pitch of intensity. We squandered our energies, mustered and
used our forces without plan, as a result of which our efforts
lost much of their impact, and blunted the edge of the masses’
activity, initiative and determination. The masses had not felt
that iron will and iron plan which keeps all parts together as
in a finely adjusted machine. Lenin kept driving home the idea
that it was essential to make the utmost concentrated efforts
for defence. Elaborating on this idea he unfolded to the
conference an intelligible plan in which, as in an integral
machine, everyone found a place for himself, for his factory
or his unit. Right there, at the conference, every man was able
to envisage concretely the plan of further work, and to feel his
work to be linked with that of the whole collective body of the
republic. As a result, he felt the responsibility which, from
that moment, the dictatorship of the proletariat was imposing
upon him. To attract the masses and bring it home to them that
no leaders would do their job for them, but that they themselves
would have to get down to work with their own hands if they
wanted to arrange their lives on new lines and defend their
state–this is what Lenin constantly strove to achieve,this
is where he showed himself to be a true leader of the people, a
leader who was able to make the masses face up to vital and
essential issues and take the step towards their solution
themselves, not by unconsciously following a leader, but by
being profoundly conscious themselves of what they were
doing."
In this Podvoisky was absolutely right. Ilyich
was able to alert the masses, was able always to set concrete
aims
before them.
The workers of Petrograd rose in defence of their city. Old and
young went off to the front to meet the troops of Kerensky. The
Cossacks and the units that had been called up from the
provinces were none too keen on fighting, and the Petrograd
workers carried on agitation among them, argued with
them. The Cossacks and soldiers whom Kerensky had mobilized
simply quitted the front, taking guns and rifles with
them. Kerensky’s front was disintegrating. Nevertheless, many
Petrograd workers lost their lives in defending the city. Among
them was Vera Slutskaya, who had been an active Party worker in
the Vasileostrovsky District. She went out to the front in a
lorry and had her head blown off by a shell. Quite a number of
our Vyborg District comrades were killed too. The whole district
turned out to attend the funeral.
On November 11, when Kerensky was marching on Petrograd in full
force, the military cadets, who had been released from the
Winter Palace on parole, decided to help Kerensky and engineered
a revolt. I was still living in Petrograd District at the time
with Ilyich’s relatives–this was before I moved to
Smolny. Early in the morning fighting started near the
Pavlovskoye Military School not far from where we lived. On
hearing of the revolt of the cadets, the Red Guards and workers
from the factories in the Vyborg District came to suppress
it. Guns were used in the fighting, and our house shook. The
people around us were scared to death. Early in the morning of
that day, when I was leaving the house to go to the District
Council, a housemaid from next door had come running towards me
crying horrified: "You ought to see what they’re doing! I just
saw them bayonet a cadet just like a fly on a pin!" On the way I
had met a fresh force of the Vyborg Red Guards coming up with
another cannon. The revolt of the cadets was quickly
suppressed.
The same day Ilyich addressed a conference of regimental
representatives of the Petrograd garrison. In the course of his
speech he said: "Kerensky’s attempt was as pitiful an adventure
as Kornilov’s. It is a difficult moment, though. Energetic
measures are needed to improve the food supply and put an end to
the hardships of war. We cannot wait, and we cannot tolerate a
revolt of Kerensky’s for a single day. If the Kornilovites
organize a new offensive they will get the same answer as the
cadet revolt received today. The cadets have themselves to
blame. We have taken the power almost without any bloodshed. If
there were any casualties they were on our side alone…. The
government created by the will of the workers’, soldiers’ and
peasants’ deputies, will not tolerate any insults on the part of
the Kornilovites." (Works, Vol.
26, p. 236.)
On November 14 Kerensky’s revolt was suppressed. Gatchina was
recaptured. Kerensky escaped. In Petrograd victory was
complete. But in the country at large civil war was breaking
out. On November 8 General Kaledin had proclaimed martial law in
the Don Region and began to organize the Cossacks against the
Soviet power. On November 9 the Cossack ataman Dutov had
captured Orenburg. In Moscow things were dragging. The Whites
had seized the Kremlin there. The fight was fiercer than
in Petrograd.
The Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and other
factions, who had quitted the Second Congress of Soviets on
November 8, organized a Committee for the Salvation of the
Motherland and the Revolution, around which they thought to
rally all the opponents of the Soviet power. The committee had
on it nine representatives of the Central Town Council, the
whole presidium of the Pre-parliament, three representatives
from each of the executive committees of the All-Russian Soviet
of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Soviet of Peasants’
Deputies, and of the S.-R. and Menshevik factions,
representatives of the Unity-Mensheviks, the Centroflot and
two representatives of Plekhanov’s Unity group. They were out to
save the country and the revolution from the Bolshevik
"adventurers" who had seized the power behind their backs. But
they could not do much. The slogans "For Peace," "For Land" were
so popular among the masses that the latter rallied
unhesitatingly around the Bolsheviks with tremendous
enthusiasm. The Committee of Public Security, which had been
formed in Moscow, joined the Petrograd Committee for the
Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution. It had been
formed on the initiative of the Moscow Town Council, at the head
of which stood the Right Socialist-Revolutionary Rudnev. The
Moscow Committee of Public Security openly sided with the
counter-revolution.
Troops had to be sent to Moscow to give a helping hand, but this
could not be done on account of the stand which the All-Russian
Executive Committee of Railway Employees had taken. The
Railwaymen’s Executive backed the dissentient factions that had
quitted the congress, and the workers had no influence
there. The Railwaymen’s Executive declared that it took a
"neutral stand" in the civil war that had started, and would not
allow the troops of either side to pass. Actually, this
"neutrality" hit the Bolsheviks and prevented them from sending
troops to the assistance of Moscow. The sabotage of the
Railwaymen’s Executive was broken by the railway workers, who
undertook to transport the troops themselves. On November 16 the
Military Revolutionary Committee in Petrograd sent a force to
Moscow. The resistance of the Whites, however, was overcome in
Moscow before those troops arrived.
At the most difficult moment, when the revolt of the military
cadets had only just been suppressed in Petrograd, when Kerensky
was still advancing, and fighting in Moscow was still in
progress, a number of members of the Party Central Committee
began to vacillate. They believed that concessions ought to be
made, that the situation was desperate. These vacillations were
most strikingly revealed in the negotiations with the
Railwaymen’s Executive. On November 9, the latter passed a
resolution calling for the formation of a government of all the
Socialist parties, from the Bolsheviks to the Popular
Socialists, and offering to act as mediators. At first only the
Left wing of the Railwaymen’s Executive entered into
negotiations with the Central Committee, who authorized
L. B. Ramenev and G. Y. Sokolnikov to represent it. The
Mensheviks and the Right S.-R.’s took no part in the talks at
first, but when they saw, as they thought, that the Bolsheviks
had been driven into a corner as a result of Kerensky’s attack
and the state of affairs in Moscow, and learned that
vacillations had started within the Central Committee, they
became brazen to a degree. They came to the meeting of the
Railwaymen’s Executive on November 12-13 and demanded the
repudiation of the power of the Soviets, the exclusion from
participation in the government of those guilty of the October
uprising, the removal, first and foremost, of Lenin, and the
setting up of a new government headed by Chernov or
Avksentyev. The Bolshevik delegation led by Kamenev did not
withdraw from the meeting, thereby permitting discussion of the
proposals submitted by the Mensheviks and the Right S.-R.’s. The
next day, on November 14, a meeting of the Central Committee was
called, at which Lenin demanded that the talks with the
Railwaymen’s Executive, who had gone over to the side of the
Kaledins and Kornilovs, should be broken off immediately. A
resolution to that effect was adopted by the Central
Committee. On the 17th, Nogin, Rykov, V. Milyutin and
Teodorovich announced their resignation from the Council of
People’s Commissars on the grounds that they considered it
necessary to form a socialist government of all the Socialist
parties. They were joined by a number of other
Commissars. Kamenev, Rykov, Zinoviev, Nogin and Milyutin
announced their resignation from the Central Committee. All of
them had stood for the formation of an all-party coalition
government right after the victory of the October
Revolution. The Central Committee demanded that they should
submit to Party discipline. Ilyich was indignant and fought hard
on this point. Zinoviev published a statement announcing his
return to the Central Committee.
The further victories of the Bolsheviks and the Petrograd and
Moscow organizations’ sharp disapproval of these comrades’
conduct (their resignation from the Central Committee and
their official posts) enabled the Party to liquidate this
incident fairly quickly. It took one’s thoughts back to the
past–to the Second Congress of the Party fourteen years
earlier, in 1903. The Party then had only just begun to form,
and Martov’s refusal to join the editorial board of
Iskra had provoked a serious crisis in the Party, which
had caused Ilyich great distress. The present resignation of a
number of comrades from the Central Committee and from their
posts of Commissars merely created temporary difficulties. The
uplift of the revolutionary movement had helped to quickly
liquidate this incident, and Ilyich, who always spoke about what
was on his mind at the moment during our walks together, never
once mentioned this incident. His mind was set
entirely on the problem of how to begin building up the socialist system
of life, how to put into effect the resolutions passed at the Second
Congress of Soviets.
On November 17, Ilyich spoke at the meeting of the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee and the meeting of the Petrograd
Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies held jointly with
army delegates from the front. His speeches breathed
absolute confidence in victory, confidence in the
correctness of the line which the Bolsheviks had taken,
confidence in the support of the masses.
"The criminal inertia of the Kerensky Government brought the
country and the revolution to the brink of disaster; truly,
delay spells death, and in issuing laws that meet the hopes and
wishes of the broad masses of the people, the new government is
setting landmarks upon the path of development of new forms of
life. The local Soviets, in keeping with local conditions, may
modify, extend or supplement the basic principles which the
government establishes. The basic factor of the new public life
is the live creative effort of the masses. Let the workers set
up a workers’ control of their factories, let them supply the
countryside with manufactures, barter them for
grain. Every single commodity, every pound of bread should he
accounted for, for socialism, above all, means
accounting. Socialism cannot be built up by decrees from
above. Official bureaucratic automatism is alien to its spirit;
living constructive socialism is the creation of the masses of
the people themselves." (My italics.–N.K.) (Works,
Vol. 26, pp. 254-55.)
Wonderful words!
"The power belongs to our Party, which has the support and trust of the
broad masses of the people. Some of our comrades may have taken a stand
that has nothing in common with Bolshevism. But the working masses of
Moscow will not follow the lead of Rykov and Nogin," said Ilyich.
(Ibid., p. 256.)
He concluded his speech with the following words:
"The Central Executive Committee charges the Council of People’s
Commissars to nominate candidates for the posts of People’s Commissars
for Internal Affairs and Trade and Industry for the next meeting, and
offers Kolegayev the post of People’s Commissar of Agriculture." (Ibid.,
p. 259.) Kolegayev was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary. He did not
accept the proffered post. The party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries
still shirked responsibility.
The Mensheviks, Right S.-R.’s and others agitated for
sabotage. The old government officials refused to work under the
Bolsheviks, and did not come to their offices. Addressing the
Petrograd Soviet on November 17, Lenin said: "They say we are
isolated. The bourgeoisie has created an atmosphere of lies and
slander around us, but I have not seen a soldier yet who has not
hailed the passing of power into the hands of the Soviets with
enthusiasm. I have not seen a peasant who was against the
Soviets." (Works, Vol. 26, p. 262.)
And this gave Lenin
confidence in victory.
