On
8th July, 1917, Alexander Kerensky became
the new leader of the Provisional Government.
Kerensky was still the most popular man in the government because
of his political past. In the Duma he had
been leader of the moderate socialists and had been seen as the champion
of the working-class. However, Kerensky, like George
Lvov, was unwilling to end the war. In fact, soon after taking
office, he announced a new summer offensive.
Soldiers
on the Eastern Front were dismayed at
the news and regiments began to refuse to move to the front line.
There was a rapid increase in the number of men deserting and by the
autumn of 1917 an estimated 2 million men had unofficially left the
army.
Some
of these soldiers returned to their homes and used their weapons to
seize land from the nobility. Manor
houses were burnt down and in some cases wealthy landowners were murdered.
Kerensky and the Provisional Government
issued warnings but were powerless to stop the redistribution of land
in the countryside.
On
19th July, Kerensky gave orders for the arrest of leading Bolsheviks
who were campaigning against the war. This included Vladimir
Lenin, Gregory Zinoviev, Lev
Kamenev, Anatoli Lunacharsky,
and Alexandra Kollontai. The Bolshevik
headquarters at the Kshesinsky Palace, was also occupied by government
troops.
After the
failure of the July Offensive on the Eastern
Front,
Kerensky replaced General Alexei
Brusilov
with General Lavr Kornilov, as Supreme
Commander of the Russian
Army.
The two men soon clashed about military policy. Kornilov wanted Kerensky
to restore the death-penalty for soldiers and to militarize the factories.
Kerensky refused and sacked Kornilov.
Kornilov
responded by sending troops under the leadership of General Krymov
to take control of Petrograd. Kerensky was now in danger and was forced
to ask the Soviets and the Red
Guards to protect Petrograd. The Bolsheviks,
who controlled these organizations, agreed to this request, but in
a speech made by their leader, Vladimir Lenin,
he made clear they would be fighting against Kornilov rather than
for Kerensky.
Within
a few days Bolsheviks had enlisted
25,000 armed recruits to defend Petrograd. While they dug trenches
and fortified the city, delegations of soldiers were sent out to talk
to the advancing troops. Meetings were held and Kornilov's troops
decided not to attack Petrograd. General Krymov committed suicide
and Kornilov was arrested and taken into custody.
Lenin
now returned to Petrograd but remained in hiding. On 25th September,
Kerensky attempted to recover his left-wing support by forming a new
coalition that included more Mensheviks
and Socialist
Revolutionaries.
However, with the Bolsheviks controlling
the Soviets and now able to call on 25,000
armed militia, Kerensky's authority had been undermined.
The Bolsheviks
set up their headquarters in the Smolny Institute. The former girls'
convent school also housed the Petrograd Soviet.
Under pressure from the nobility and industrialists, Alexander
Kerensky was persuaded to take decisive action. On 22nd October
he ordered the arrest of the Military Revolutionary Committee. The
next day he closed down the Bolshevik newspapers and cut off the telephones
to the Smolny Institute.
Leon
Trotsky now urged the overthrow of the Provisional
Government. Lenin agreed and on the evening of 24th October, 1917,
orders were given for the Bolsheviks
began to occupy the railway stations, the telephone exchange and the
State Bank. The following day the Red Guards
surrounded the Winter Palace. Inside was most of the country's Cabinet,
although Kerensky had managed to escape from the city.
The Winter
Palace was defended by Cossacks, some junior army officers and the
Woman's Battalion. At 9 p.m. the Aurora and
the Peter and Paul Fortress began to open fire on the palace. Little
damage was done but the action persuaded most of those defending the
building to surrender. The Red Guards,
led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, now
entered the Winter Palace and arrested the Cabinet ministers.
On 26th
October, 1917, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets met and handed
over power to the Soviet Council of People's Commissars. Vladimir
Lenin was elected chairman and other appointments included Leon
Trotsky (Foreign Affairs) Alexei Rykov
(Internal Affairs), Anatoli Lunacharsky
(Education), Alexandra Kollontai (Social
Welfare), Felix Dzerzhinsky (Internal
Affairs), Joseph Stalin (Nationalities),
Peter Stuchka (Justice) and Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko
(War).
(1) Alexander
Kerensky, speech made at the Council of the Republic ( 24th October,
1917)
I will
cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series of articles
published in Rabochi Put by Lenin, a state criminal who is
in hiding and whom we are trying to find. This state criminal has
invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to repeat the experience
of 16-18 July, and insists upon the immediate necessity for an armed
rising. Moreover, other Bolshevik leaders have taken the floor in
a series of meetings, and also made an appeal to immediate insurrection.
Particularly should be noticed the activity of the present president
of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky.
The policy
of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their exploitation
of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series of popular
demands which have received no satisfaction up to now. The question
of peace, land, and the democratization of the army ought to be stated
in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant, or worker would have the
least doubt that our Government is attempting, firmly and infallibly,
to solve them.
The Provisional
Government has never violated the liberty of all citizens of the State
to use their political rights. But now the Provisional Government
declares, in this moment those elements of the Russian nation, those
groups and parties who have dared to lift their hands against the
free will of the Russian people, at the same time threatening to open
the front to Germany, must be liquidated.
(2)
Victor Serge, Year One of the Russian
Revolution (1930)
In the
last days of September the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks (Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin, Sverdlov, Yakovleva, Oppokov, Zinoviev, Kamenev)
met in Petrograd, in the apartment of Sukhanov. Even the principle
of the insurrection was in dispute. Kamenev and Zinoviev (Nogin and
Rykov, who were of the same opinion, being absent from this meeting)
stated their view that the insurrection might perhaps itself be successful,
but that it would be almost impossible to maintain power afterwards
owing to the economic pressures and crisis in the food supply. The
majority voted for the insurrection, and actually fixed the date for
15 October.
(3)
Albert Rhys Williams, Through the
Russian Revolution (1923)
Attempt
is made to suppress the Revolution by force of arms. Kerensky begins
calling "dependable" troops into the city; that is, troops
that may be depended upon to shoot down the rising workers. Among
these are the Zenith Battery and the Cyclists' Battalion. Along the
highroads on which these units are advancing into the city the Revolution
posts its forces. They subject these troops to a withering fire of
arguments and pleas. Result: these troops that are being rushed to
the city to crush the Revolution enter instead to aid and abet it.
(4)
Vladimir Lenin, instructions issued to
the Bolsheviks on 24th October, 1917.
I am writing
these lines on the evening of November 6th. The situation is critical
in the extreme. It is absolutely clear that to delay the insurrection
now will be inevitably fatal. I exhort my comrades with all my heart
and strength to realize that everything now hangs by a thread, that
we are being confronted by problems that cannot be solved by conferences
and congresses (even Congresses of Soviets) but exclusively by the
people, the masses, by the struggle of the armed masses.
We must
at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the Government,
first disarming the Junkers and so forth. We must not wait! We will
lose everything! History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating
when they can be victorious today, while they risk losing much, in
fact, everything, tomorrow.
(5)
Leon Trotsky, statement made to the Petrograd
Soviet (24th October, 1917)
On behalf
of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I declare that the provisional
government is no longer existent. Some ministers have been arrested.
Others will be arrested in the course of a few days or hours. The
revolutionary garrison, at the disposal of the Military-Revolutionary
Committee, has dissolved the session of the Pre-Parliament. We have
been on the watch here throughout the night and have followed the
detachments of revolutionary soldiers and the workers' guards by telephone
as they silently carried out their tasks. The citizen slept in peace,
ignorant of the change from one power to another. Railway stations,
the post-office, the telegraph, the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, the
State Bank, have been occupied. The Winter Palace has not yet been
taken, but its fate will be decided during the next few minutes.
(6)
Alfred Knox was one of those who observed
the Bolsheviks taking the Winter Palace
on 25th October, 1917.
The garrison
of the Winter Palace originally consisted of about 2,000 all told,
including detachments from yunker and ensign schools, three squadrons
of Cossacks, a company of volunteers and a company from the Women's
Battalion.
The garrison
had dwindled owing to desertions, for their were no provisions and
it had been practically starved for two days. There was no strong
man to take command and to enforce discipline. No one any stomach
for fighting; and some of the ensigns even borrowed great coats of
soldier pattern from the women to enable them to escape unobserved.
The greater
part of the yunkers of the Mikhail Artillery School returned to their
school, taking with them four out of their six guns. Then the Cossacks
left, declaring themselves opposed to bloodshed! At 10 p.m. a large
part of the ensigns left, leaving few defenders except the ensigns
of the Engineering School and the company of women.
(7)
Nikolai Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution
of 1917 (1922)
Antonov-Ovseenko's plan was accepted. It consisted in
occupying first of all those parts of the city adjoining the Finland
Station: the Vyborg Side, the outskirts of the Petersburg Side, etc.
Together with the units arriving from Finland it would then be possible
to launch an offensive against the centre of the capital.
Beginning
at 2 in the morning the stations, bridges, lighting installations,
telegraphs, and telegraphic agency were gradually occupied by small
forces brought from the barracks. The little groups of cadets could
not resist and didn't think of it. In general the military operations
in the politically important centres of the city rather resembled
a changing of the guard. The weaker defence force, of cadets retired;
and a strengthened defence force, of Red Guards, took its place.
(8)
Pavel Manlyantovich was Minister
of Justice in the Provisional Government. He was arrested by Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko and the Red Guards
on 25th October, 1917. He later wrote about the incident in his book,
In the Winter Palace (1918)
There was a noise behind the door and it burst open like
a splinter of wood thrown out by a wave, a little man flew into the
room, pushed in by the onrushing crowd which poured in after him,
like water, at once spilled into every corner and filled the room.
"Where
are the members of the Provisional Government?"
"The
Provisional Government is here," said Kornovalov, remaining seated.
"What
do you want?"
"I
inform you, all of you, members of the Provisional Government, that
you are under arrest. I am Antonov-Ovseenko, chairman of the Military
Revolutionary Committee."
"Run
them through, the sons of bitches! Why waste time with them? They've
drunk enough of our blood!" yelled a short sailor, stamping the
floor with his rifle."
There were
sympathetic replies: "What the devil, comrades! Stick them all
on bayonets, make short work of them!"
Antonov-Ovseenko
raised his head and shouted sharply: "Comrades, keep calm!"
All members of the Provisional Government are arrested. They will
be imprisoned in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. I'll permit
no violence. Conduct yourself calmly. Maintain order! Power is now
in your hands. You must maintain order!"
(9)
Bessie
Beatty wrote about how the Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace
on 25th October, 1917, in her book, The Red Heart of Russia
(1919).
At the
head of the winding staircase groups of frightened women were gathered,
searching the marble lobby below with troubled eyes. Nobody seemed
to know what had happened. The Battalion of Death had walked out in
the night, without firing so much as a single shot. Each floor was
crowded with soldiers and Red Guards, who went from room to room,
searching for arms, and arresting officers suspected of anti-Bolshevik
sympathies. The landings were guarded by sentries, and the lobby was
swarming with men in faded uniforms. Two husky, bearded peasant soldiers
were stationed behind the counter, and one in the cashier's office
kept watch over the safe. Two machine-guns poked their ominous muzzles
through the entryway.
(10)
Albert Rhys Williams was with Louise
Bryant, Bessie Beatty and John
Reed when the Winter Palace was taken on 25th October, 1917.
We had
been sitting in Smolny, gripped by the pleas of the speakers, when
out of the night that other voice crashed into the lighted hall -
the cannon of the cruiser Aurora, firing at the Winter Palace. Steady,
insistent, came the ominous beat of the cannon, breaking the spell
of the speakers upon us. We could not resist its call and hurried
away.
Outside,
a big motor-truck with engines throbbing was starting for the city.
We climbed aboard and tore through the night, a plunging comet, flying
a tail of white posters in our wake. As we come into the Palace Square
the booming of the guns die away. The rifles no longer crackle through
the dark. The Red Guards are crawling out to carry off the dead and
dying.
Forming
a column, they pour through the Red Arch and creep forward, silent.
Near the barricade they emerge into the light blazing from within
the palace. They scale the rampart of logs, and storm through the
iron gateway into the open doors of the east wing - the mob swarming
in behind them.
A terrible
lust lays hold of the mob - the lust that ravishing beauty incites
in the long starved and long denied - the lust of loot. Even we, as
spectators, are not immune to it. It burns up the last vestige of
restraint and leaves one passion flaming in the veins - the passion
to sack and pillage. Their eyes fall upon this treasure-trove, and
their hands follow.
Along the
walls of the vaulted chamber we enter there runs a row of huge packing-cases.
With the butts of their rifles, the soldiers batter open the boxes,
spilling out streams of curtains, linen, clocks, vases and plates.
Pandemonium
breaks loose in the Palace. It rolls and echoes with myriad sounds.
Tearing of cloth and wood, clatter of glass from splintered windows,
clumping of heavy boots upon the parquet floor, the crashing of a
thousand voices against the ceiling. Voices jubilant, then jangling
over division of the spoils. Voices hoarse, high-pitched, muttering,
cursing.
Then another
voice breaks into this babel - the clear, compelling voice of the
Revolution. It speaks through the tongues of its ardent votaries,
the Petrograd workingmen. There is just a handful of them, weazened
and undersized, but into the ranks of these big peasant soldiers they
plunge, crying out - "Take nothing. The Revolution forbids it.
No looting. This is the property of the people."
(11)
John Reed, was in Petrograd when the Women's
Battalion attempted to defend the Winter Palace against the Bolsheviks.
Immediately following the taking of the Winter Palace all sorts
of sensational stories were published in the anti-Bolshevik press,
and told in the City Duma, about the fate of the Women's Battalion
defending the Palace. It was said that some of the girl-soldiers had
been thrown from the windows into the street, most of the rest had
been violated, and many had committed suicide as a result of the horrors
they had gone through.
The City Duma appointed a commission to investigate the matter. On
16th November the commission returned from Levashovo, headquarters
of the Women's Battalion. Madame Tyrkova reported that the girls had
been taken to the barracks of the Pavlovsky Regiment, and that there
some of them had been badly treated; but that at present most of them
were at Levashovo, and the rest scattered about the city in private
houses. Dr. Mandelbaum, another of the commission, testified dryly
that none of the women had been thrown out of the windows of the Winter
Palace, that none were wounded, that three had been violated, and
that one had committed suicide, leaving a note which said that she
had been "disappointed in her ideals."
On 21 November the Military Revolutionary Committee officially dissolved
the Women's Battalion, at the request of the girls themselves, who
returned to civilian clothes.
(12)
George Plekhanov, Open Letter to
the Petrograd Workers (28th October, 1917)
The reason the events of the last few days pain me so
much is not because I do not wish to see the cause of the working
class triumph, but, on the contrary, because with all the fibres of
my being I wish for the triumph of the workers. The class-conscious
elements of our proletariat must ask themselves the question: Is our
proletariat ready to proclaim a dictatorship? Everyone who has even
a partial understanding as to what economic conditions are necessary
for the dictatorship of the proletariat will unhesitatingly answer
no to this question.
No, our
working class is far from ready to grasp political power with any
advantage to itself and the country at large. To foist such a power
upon it means to push it towards a great historical calamity which
will prove the greatest tragedy for all Russia.
It is said
that what the Russian worker will begin the German worker will finish.
But it is a great mistake to think so. There is no doubt that in an
economic sense Germany is much further developed than Russia. The
social revolution is nearer in Germany than it is in Russia. But even
among the Germans it is not yet a question of the day.
That means
that the Germans will not finish what the Russians have started, nor
can it be done by the French, the British, or the Americans. By seizing
power at this moment, the Russian proletariat will not achieve a social
revolution. It will only bring on civil war, which will in the end
force a retreat from the positions won in February and March of this
year.
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