It was the workers and the peasants in soldiers’ uniform who made the revolution; but it was not they who at first enjoyed all its fruits. Side by side with the Soviet there arose a government of the bourgeoisie.
The Provisional Committee of the State Duma did not regard itself as a power either with respect to the moribund autocracy or with respect to the insurrectionary people. The Committee had been elected to “restore order,” and this is what it zealously set about doing. Immediately after its elections on February 27, Rodzyanko, now chairman of the Committee, went to visit Prince Golitsyn, President of the Council. The latter told him that all the members of the government had resigned, and that he himself was expecting arrest any moment. Rodzyanko once more got into communication with the tsar and with General Headquarters and negotiated with the commanders of the fronts, begging them to put in a word for the Duma to Nicholas. But events moved rapidly. News of revolt began to arrive from cities close to Petrograd. No reassuring news was received from General Headquarters, while information came from the left wing of the Taurida Palace, where the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies had assembled, that the soldiers of the insurgent regiments had sent their representatives. The garrison ignored the Committee of the Duma and established contact directly with the Soviet. The balance of forces was not in favour of the bourgeoisie. The latter had demanded of the tsar a “government of victory” so as to fight the war to a finish and avert revolution. But the revolution forestalled the bourgeoisie. The only thing that remained was to join the revolution and to endeavour to assume control of it, in order to decapitate it. While the working population was fighting and dying in the struggle against tsarism, the bourgeoisie hastily disguised their “government of victory” as a “government of revolution,” with the hope of crushing the revolution.
Late that night the Provisional Committee met and decided to take the power into its own hands. Early next morning Rodzyanko telegraphed General Headquarters that the Ministers had been arrested and that the government no longer existed.
“The rabble are beginning to gain the mastery of the situation, and the Committee of the State Duma, in order to prevent the extermination of officers and officials, and to calm the heated passions, has decided to take over the functions of government.”(1)
The Provisional Committee appointed Commissars of the Duma to the Ministries on February 28. News arrived that Moscow and other cities had joined the revolution, and these cities inquired what was to be done about the organisation of government. Rodzyanko sent telegrams to all the cities announcing the formation of the Provisional Committee. All that day, regiment after regiment that had gone over to the revolution kept coming to the Taurida Palace. Rodzyanko and Milyukov made speeches recommending the soldiers to return to barracks and obey their officers. In one of his speeches Rodzyanko called upon the soldiers to calm down and surrender their weapons. News of this rapidly spread through the garrison. It was said that Rodzyanko had already issued orders to disarm the insurrectionary soldiers. The regiments that had just been to the Duma began to demand that deputies be sent them to dispel the impression created. This is how Shulgin describes the growing alarm:
“I recall that a certain Right Nationalist was sent to one of the regiments. . . . He returned . . .
“‘Well?’”
“‘Oh, everything went off all right. I spoke to them, and they cheered. I told them that nothing could be done without the officers, that the fatherland was in peril. They promised that everything would be all right; they believe in the State Duma. . . .’
“‘Well, thank God for that. . . .’
“But soon the telephone rings. . . .
“‘What’s that? Why, you have just had a deputy. . . . Everything went off very well. . . . What’s that? Again unrest? Whom? Somebody more Left? Very well, we shall send somebody at once.’
“We send Milyukov. Milyukov returns in an hour. He is very pleased with himself.
“‘They are a little excited. It seems to me that they were not addressed along the proper lines. . . . I spoke in the barracks from a sort of scaffold. The whole regiment was present, and also men from other regiments. . . . Well, they are in a very good mood. They carried me shoulder high. . . .’
“But a little later the telephone rings again, insistently.
“‘Hallo! I’m listening! Which regiment? What, again? What about Milyukov? Why, they carried him shoulder high. . . . What? What do they want? Somebody more Left? Very well, we shall send a Trudovik.’”(2)
The discrepancy between the class composition of the army and the class aims it served under tsarism and under the bourgeoisie was revealed at the very outset of the revolution. The processes that had been maturing within the army for so long rose to the surface as soon as the autocratic régime was overthrown.
“We first saw two soldiers,” writes General Knox, who witnessed the first buffets of the Revolution in Petrograd from a window of the Ordnance Department. “. . . Then came a disorderly mass of soldiery, stretching right across the wide street and both pavements. . . . There were no officers.”(3)
The officers, irrespective of their class origin and political sympathies, abandoned their regiments. The new officers belonging to the petty-bourgeoisie and the old regular officers were united by their fear of an armed bloc of workers and soldiers.
This same general, who had been charged to see to it that the Russian army fulfilled its obligations to the Allies, stated after a visit to the regiments that all the forty officers of one battalion of the Volhynia Regiment had been driven out, twenty-two officers had been driven out of the Jaeger Regiment, while in the first Railway Regiment only sixteen of the sixty-four officers remained, and these were left without weapons.
“‘I am probably the only one in Petrograd that now wears a sword,’ was the melancholy conclusion of the British general’s observation.”(4)
One of the first endeavours of the bourgeoisie on the outbreak of the revolution was to retain control of the army. On February 27, even before power had been seized, the Provisional Committee had set up a Military Commission which included several officers and generals. The purpose of the Commission was to help the officers retain control over the soldiers. But the movement swept past the Commission like a river in flood. General Knox gives a vivid example of how rapidly the soldiers ceased to be amenable to orders. A delegation of Petrograd soldiers came to the Provisional Committee requesting that an order be framed embodying the revolution in the army. When told that the time was unfavourable for such decisions, one of the soldiers turned on his heel saying: “So much the better. We will write the order ourselves.”(5)
“We will do it ourselves” was the motto that helped to organise the soldiers from the very outset of the revolution.
The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies—which from the very first day of the revolution was also the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies—became a power. Rodzyanko, the Chairman of the Provisional Committee, was soon made to realise this. On March 1, he was summoned to Pskov to see the tsar. The railwaymen refused to supply a train without a permit from the Soviet. Rodzyanko appealed to the Soviet, which, after a brief discussion, declined to issue a permit. That evening Rodzyanko was summoned to the direct wire to speak with the tsar in Pskov, but Rodzyanko declined to go to the telegraph office alone. Sukhanov relates that Rodzyanko said to representative of the Soviet:
“Let ‘Messieurs the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies’ give me an escort or come with me themselves, otherwise I may be arrested there at the telegraph office. . . . . After all, you have the strength and the power. You can arrest me, of course. . . . Perhaps you will arrest us all, who knows?”(6)
And the Soviet did indeed possess the power. It was in its way a government. In the early morning of February 28 the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet resolved to form district committees and to create a workers’ militia. That same morning the first number of the Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet appeared containing an appeal by the Soviet, which stated:
“The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, which is holding its sessions in the building of the State Duma considers that its principal aim is to organise the forces of the people and to strive for the complete consolidation of political freedom and popular government in Russia. The Soviet has appointed District Commissars to establish popular government in the districts of Petrograd. We invite an entire population of the capital immediately to rally around the Soviet, to organise local committees in the districts and to take over the administration of all local affairs. Let us jointly, by common effort, fight for the complete abolition of the old government and for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot.”(7)
That very same day, February 28, the Soviet decided to restore railway communication between Petrograd and Moscow. The first joint meeting of the now combined Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was held on March 1. Representatives from the regiments spoke fervidly of the growing lack of confidence in the Duma ever since Rodzyanko had recommended the surrender of arms. It was decided at this meeting that all political actions should be governed solely by the instructions of the Soviet and that the instructions of the Military Commission should be obeyed only if they did not conflict with those of the Soviet.
Immediately after a stormy meeting, a group of soldiers surrounded the desk of N. D. Sokolov, a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet and a Menshevik, who was sitting in a room adjacent to the meeting hall. Sokolov had been instructed to publish the decisions of the Soviet in the form of a general order to the troops. Sokolov wrote down what the soldiers surrounding him dictated.
And it was actually under pressure of the masses that the first revolutionary order was promulgated, that order of which Kerensky subsequently said that he would “gladly have sacrificed ten years of his life that the order might never have been signed.”(8)
We quote this order in full:
Order No. 1
March 1, 1917.
To the garrison of the Petrograd Area. To all soldiers of the guard, army and artillery and to the fleet for immediate and precise execution and to the workers of Petrograd for their information.
The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies has resolved:
1. Every company, battalion, regiment, depot, battery, squadron, branch of military administration and naval vessel shall immediately elect a committee of representatives of lower ranks of the given unit.
2. All units of the armed forces which have not yet elected their representatives to the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies shall elect one representative from each company, who shall present himself at the building of the State Duma with written credentials on March 2, at 10 a.m.
3. In all their political actions military units shall obey the instructions of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and their own committees.
4. Orders of the Military Commission of the State Duma are to be obeyed only if they do not conflict with the orders and decision of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
5. Arms of all kinds, such as rifles, machine-guns, armoured cars, etc., shall be placed at the disposal and under the control of the company and battalion committees and shall under no circumstances be issued to officers even on the demand of the latter.
6. Soldiers must observe strict military discipline when in military formation and when performing military duties, but when not performing military duties and when not in military formation—in their political, civil and private lives—soldiers may not be restricted in any of the rights enjoyed by all citizens.
In particular, coming to attention and compulsory saluting when off duty are abolished.
7. Similarly, officers’ titles, such as Your Excellency, Your Honour, etc., are abolished and are replaced by such forms of addresses as Mr. General, Mr. Colonel, etc.
Rudeness to soldiers on the part of officers and, in particular, addressing them in the second person singular is forbidden, and all infractions of this rule, as all misunderstandings between officers and soldiers in general, must be reported by the latter to the company committees.
This order shall be read in all companies, battalions and regiments on all ships, in all batteries and in all other combatant and non-combatant units.
THE PETROGRAD SOVIET OF WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES.
This order transformed the Soviet into an all-embracing revolutionary organisation of the masses. All military units with their arms and their ammunition came under its political control.
The order contained a clause providing for the election of officers, but it was deleted on Sokolov’s instructions when the order was being printed.
On March 1 Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were formed in Moscow, Samara and Saratov. In Nizhni Novgorod five thousand workers came from Sormovo and fraternised with the garrison. In Tver several thousand workers went to the barracks and then marched with the soldiers through the streets of the city.
Under such circumstances, the authority of the Provisional Committee was, of course, extremely precarious. An understanding with the Soviet had to be arrived at. At midnight on March 1 the Provisional Committee invited representatives of the Soviet to attend its meeting. The Mensheviks N. S. Chkheidze, N. D. Sokolov, N. N. Sukhanov and Y. M. Steklov (who later joined the Bolsheviks), and a Socialist-Revolutionary, V. N. Filippovsky, arrived from the Soviet.
The Executive Committee of the Soviet had also discussed the problem of power a little before this invitation was received. The Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries had a majority on the Executive Committee. In their eyes the February Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, not only because it had put an end to the semi-feudal régime, but also because, in their opinion, the bourgeoisie was the only guiding force of the revolution. Potresov, an old and prominent extreme Right Menshevik, put the matter plainly. He wrote:
“At the moment of the bourgeois revolution, the best prepared, socially and psychologically, to solve national problems is this same bourgeoisie. That is to say, it is this same class that is destined to be the lord and master in the immediate future, even if it be only for a brief period of history, for the time necessary for the consolidation of the régime of a developed capitalist system in the country.”(9)
There was absolutely no difference of opinion between the Right Mensheviks and the Left Mensheviks as to the character of the future power. N. N. Sukhanov was regarded as the most “Left” of the Mensheviks. He was almost a “defeatist,” indited articles against the war, and on this question differed from the official standpoint of the Mensheviks. This “semi-Leninist,” as he called himself, argued at the time as follows:
“The power which will replace tsarism must be a bourgeois power. Trepov and Rasputin should be replaced and can be replaced only by leaders of the ‘Progressive Bloc’ in the Duma. Such is the settlement we must strive for. Otherwise the coup will fail and the revolution will perish.”(10)
Sukhanov then went on to explain why it was the bourgeoisie that must assume power. The democracy was disunited, it had no political organisations of its own, it could not wield the State machine without an apparatus of power, and as to creating a new state machine, it could not even dream of this.
“The existing State machine, the army of officials, the Zemstvos and the City Dumas, which were elected on a property qualification and which were supported by all the forces of democracy, might obey Milyukov, but would not obey Chkheidze. There was no other apparatus, nor could there be any other apparatus.”(11)
This is how Sukhanov explained why the power must pass into the hands of the bourgeoisie. The petty-bourgeois was entirely at a loss in the revolution, and never even thought of claiming power himself or of placing anybody else in power except the accustomed “master.” Only one thing troubled the leaders of the Soviet, whom chance had raised on the crest of the revolutionary wave:
“The question . . . is, will the propertied classes of Russia consent to accept power under such conditions? And the task therefore is to compel them to take power.”(12)
Left without the support of the autocracy, the bourgeoisie feared to assume the burden of government. This was frankly admitted by Shulgin:
“We had been born and educated to praise or blame the government while sheltering under its wing. . . . We were capable in an extremity of passing over without difficulty from the deputies’ benches to the government benches . . . on condition that the imperial guard protected us. . . . But in face of a possible collapse of power, in face of the bottomless abyss of this collapse, our heads grew giddy and our hearts failed us.”(13)
Losing self-control as the revolution spread, the leaders of the Soviet attempted to force the reluctant “lord and master” to take power.
The Executive Committee of the Soviet resolved to allow the Provisional Committee to draw up the list of members of the government at its own discretion, not to join the government itself, but to transfer the power to it on the following conditions: (1) complete amnesty for all political and religious prisoners; (2) freedom of speech, association, assembly and the right to strike; (3) abolition of all disabilities of social rank, nationality and religion; (4) replacement of the police by a militia; (5) democratic elections to local government bodies; (6) abstention of the government from all measures which might predetermine the future form of government before the Constituent Assembly meets; (7) revolutionary regiments not to be withdrawn from the city or disarmed; (8) soldiers to be granted civil rights. Not a single one of the demands of the Soviet was such as might evoke an acute struggle, as, for instance, the demand for land, peace, or the eight-hour day. The petty-bourgeois Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders of the Soviet deliberately avoided raising these fundamental issues so as not to frighten the bourgeoisie.
The Provisional Committee of the State Duma sat awaiting the arrival of the delegation from the Soviet in a state of great nervousness. Reports of the rapid spread of the revolution were coming in from all hands. Telephone calls were received from the regiments declaring that the attitude of the soldiers to the officers was growing steadily worse. The delegation of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks from the Soviet had no sooner set foot in the right wing of the palace than Rodzyanko and Milyukov began to vie with each other in describing the anarchy in the city and reporting all sorts of rumours of street disorders. The bourgeois leaders painted the picture in the blackest colours in preparation for the bargaining they expected to ensue. But, to their astonishment, not a word of objection came from the delegation. The petty-bourgeois representatives of the Soviet listened in sympathy. Milyukov realised that the visitors from the left wing of the Taurida Palace were no less scared of the revolution than the hosts in the right wing. Milyukov immediately recovered his self-possession and reached out for the conditions of the Executive Committee with a businesslike air. On the whole the conditions of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies were acceptable, he declared, and could serve as a basis for an agreement between the Soviet and the Committee of the State Duma. But Milyukov added, there were points to which he emphatically objected. First of all there was the point about refraining from taking any measures that might predetermine the form of government. Having now recovered calm, the leader of the bourgeoisie began to persuade the delegation to consent to a monarchy, to replace Tsar Nicholas by his son, with Michael as regent. This was the old programme, the programme the bourgeoisie had put forward long before the revolution. “One is a sick child, and the other is an all-round fool,”(14) said Milyukov, seconded by Rodzyanko and the other members of the Committee. Milyukov once more read over the conditions of the agreement, unreservedly consented to the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, but came to a halt on the point regarding the form of government.
After some dispute, the following compromise formula was adopted:
“Immediate preparations for the convocation, on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage and secret ballot, of a Constituent Assembly to determine the form of government and the constitution of the country.”(15)
Formulated in this way, the clause did not tie Milyukov’s hands; he could interpret the condition in his own way.
In connection with the last demand, too, the one dealing with the rights of soldiers, Milyukov introduced an amendment which would facilitate his future policy viz., “as far as military and technical conditions permit.”(16)
Having so easily disposed of the proposals of the Soviet, Milyukov demanded an obligation in his turn: the Executive Committee was to publish a declaration stating that the government in question had been formed with the consent of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and therefore deserved the confidence of the people. The declaration should also contain an appeal to the soldiers to recognise their officers.
The meeting was over. The Provisional Committee proceeded to draw up a list of members of the government, while the representatives of the Soviet set about drawing up their declaration. The parties met again at dawn on March 2. The declaration drawn up by the representatives of the Soviet did not please Milyukov, and he sat down to correct it then and there. The representatives of the Soviet drew up all the points of a declaration announcing the Provisional Government, while Milyukov, the leader of the bourgeoisie, drew up the declaration of the Executive Committee. This scene epitomised the future relations between the bourgeois government and the petty-bourgeois leaders of the Soviet.
That same morning the new government was announced: Premier and Minister of the Interior, Prince G. E. Lvov; Minister of Foreign Affairs, P. N. Milyukov (Cadet); Minister of War and Marine, A. I. Guchkov (Octobrist); Minister of Ways of Communications, N. V. Nekrasov (Cadet); Minister of Commerce and Industry, A. I. Konovalov (Progressivist); Minister of Finance, M. I. Tereshchenko; Minister of Education, A. A. Manylov (Cadet); Procurator-General of the Synod, V. N. Lvov; Minister of Agriculture, A. I. Shingaryov (Cadet); Minister of Justice, A. F. Kerensky (Trudovik); Comptroller General, I. V. Godnev. Six persons, i.e., the majority of the government, were taken from the “Cabinet of Confidence” which had been projected in the autumn of 1915.
The Soviets had the armed force and the support of the masses, yet the power fell into the hands of the Provisional Government. A dual power, a rare occurrence in history, was created. On this subject, Lenin wrote:
“The striking feature of our revolution is that it has established a dual power. . . . In what does this dual power consist? In the fact that side by side with the Provisional Government, the government of the bourgeoisie, there has developed another government, weak and embryonic as yet, but undoubtedly an actually existing and growing government—the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.”(17)
Furthermore, the Soviets, which had been created by the victorious workers and soldiers, but which were headed by Mensheviks, voluntarily acknowledged the authority of the Provisional Government and voluntarily surrendered to the bourgeoisie the power won by the soldiers and workers.
Why?
Because, as a class, the bourgeoisie had been incomparably better organised than the proletariat and the peasantry, and it became much better organised during the war. During its conflicts with the autocratic régime over the war and the impending revolution the bourgeoisie virtually created its future apparatus of power.
“It was not by chance,” wrote Lenin, “that this party [i.e., the capitalists—Ed.] secured power, although it was not the capitalists, of course, but the workers and peasants, the soldiers and sailors, who fought the tsarist troops and shed their blood for freedom. Power was secured by the party of the capitalists, because that class possessed the advantage of wealth, organisation, and knowledge. Since 1905, and particularly during the war, the class of capitalists and landlords associated with them in Russia made its greatest progress in the matter of its own organisation.”(18)
The proletariat proved to be less prepared than the bourgeoisie for the seizure of power. The politically most developed members of the Bolshevik Party and the proletariat were in exile in foreign countries or in remote parts of Siberia, or had perished in the war, or else were spread over the various war fronts. They had been replaced by peasants who had come to work in the towns, and by less experienced Party members. It is true that the majority of the newly-fledged workers came from the poor peasantry and only a small number from kulak families or from the rank of the urban petty-bourgeoisie. The latter category went to work in the munition factories in order to escape mobilisation. But both categories brought their petty-bourgeois prejudices and political blindness into the ranks of the proletariat. This circumstance temporarily tended to weaken the proletariat.
Finally, a circumstance of great importance was the fact that millions of people who were politically dormant in “the prison of the nations”—as tsarist Russia was called—were suddenly aroused to political life. The millions of small people, petty-bourgeois who had formerly been oppressed by the frightful yoke of tsarism, overwhelmed the proletariat numerically. The politically-minded proletarians were submerged by and in part succumbed to this vast petty-bourgeois wave. Large numbers of workers were infected by the compromising spirit of the petty-bourgeoisie.
This is why the fruits of the victory gained by the revolutionary workers and peasants in February 1917 fell into the hands of the bourgeoisie.
It was for this same reason that while the Bolsheviks formed the vanguard of the barricade fighters, it was the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who formed the overwhelming majority in the Soviets. It was the petty-bourgeois tide that at first determined the composition of the Soviets and ensured the dominance of the petty-bourgeois leaders. While the Bolsheviks were engrossed in the struggle in the streets, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks entrenched themselves in the Soviets. In accordance with a decision of the Provisional Executive Committee elected by the Petrograd Soviet, the big factories sent one representative for every thousand workers to the Soviet, whereas factories with less than one thou- sand workers also elected one deputy to the Soviet. On this basis of representation, the big factories, in which 87 per cent of the Petrograd proletariat were employed, received 124 seats, or only two seats more than the small factories which together employed only 13 per cent of the workers.
In this way the industrial giants, the “Bolshevik” factories, the leaders of the movement, were submerged by the small industrial enterprises of the handicraft type.
In addition, deputies were elected to the Soviet by the various branches of the military administrations, military auxiliary services and stores; hundreds of peasants—soldiers from the garrison, where politically immature elements predominated—were elected.
Such were the factors which determined the character of the leadership in the Petrograd Soviet.
[1] A. Lukomsky, “Reminiscences,” Arkhiv Rosskoi Revolutsii (Archives of the Russian Revolution), Vol. II, Berlin, 1921, p. 20.
[2] V. Shulgin, “Days,” Russkaya Mysl, Prague, 1922, Book VIII-XII. pp. 119-20.
[3] A. Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914-17, London, Hutchinson, 1921, Vol. II, pp. 553-54.
[4] Ibid., p. 563.
[5] Ibid., p. 568.
[6] N. Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution, Book I, Petrograd, 1919, p. 212.
[7] “To the Population of Petrograd and Russia from the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies,” Izvestia [Gazette] of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, No. 1, February 28, 1917.
[8] A. I. Denikin, Sketches of the Russian Revolt, Vol. I, Book I, Paris, 1921, p. 66.
[9] A. Potresov, “Fatal Contradictions of the Russian Revolution,” Dyelo (The Cause), 1917, No. 3-6, p. 119.
[10] N. Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution, Book I, Petrograd, 1919, p. 17.
[11] Ibid., p. 18.
[12] N. Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution, Book I, Berlin, 1922, p. 231.
[13] V. Shulgin, “Days,” Russkaya Mysl, Prague, 1922, Book VI-VII, p. 134.
[14] N. Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution, Book I, Berlin, 1922, p. 279.
[15] P. N. Milyukov, History of the Second Russian Revolution, Vol. I, Book I, Sofia, 1921, p. 28.
[16] Ibid., p. 28.
[17] Lenin, “A Dual Power,” Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 27.
[18] Lenin, “Lessons of the Revolution,” Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 193.
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