The Bolshevik Party carried on its activities in the army under extremely difficult circumstances. Agitation and propaganda were hampered by the lies and slanders of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois press. The persecution of the Bolshevik newspapers and the fact that they were banned from the front constituted a severe handicap to the work of the Bolsheviks.
“We have only the medium of the word at our disposal,” Lenin wrote.
“And of this medium of the word they want to deprive us. . . .
“The Pravda is not permitted to reach the front. The ‘agents’ in Kiev have decided not to distribute the Pravda. The ‘Union of Zemstvos’ is not selling the Pravda on its stands. Now, finally, we are being promised a ‘systematic struggle against Leninist propaganda. . . .’ (Izvestia of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies). On the other hand, every elemental protest, every excess, no matter where it occurs, is blamed on us.”(1)
But despite all hindrances, the Bolshevik newspapers found their way into the barracks and the trenches and on to the vessels of the navy. They met with a sympathetic response among the soldiers and sailors and inspired them with keen revolutionary feeling.
“To-day a class-conscious newsboy and toiler brought the newspaper that ought to be read, the fair paper, the Soldat [Soldier—Trans.], soldiers of the Petrograd Reserve Regiment wrote to their fellow villagers. “To-day proletarian newspapers were to be seen on the hands of our soldiers: the Soldat and the Rabochy Put. But as a rule a sad sight is to be witnessed: all our soldier comrades reading the bourgeois newspapers which lay all the blame on the just leaders and insolently lie and in this way mislead the people.”(2)
If it was difficult for Bolshevik newspapers to find their way into the Petrograd barracks, it was still more difficult for them to find their way to the front, to the army on active service. But even here Bolshevik ideas roused the soldiers, clarified their class consciousness and taught them the methods of revolutionary struggle. The tremendous work performed by the Bolshevik press aroused the enthusiastic approval of the soldiers.
“Comrade editor,” a soldier named Kozlov wrote from the front to the Soldat, “I and many comrades are keenly interested in your paper, which gives good advice. This paper fell into our hands by chance. We see from it that we must demand and insist that the capitalists should not be allowed to have power, because, as you write, they try to sow dissension between the soldiers and workers because of our ignorance. But we want to follow your example and we shall always support you and strive for our rights in accordance with your programme.”(3)
A great impression was produced on the soldiers by Lenin’s clear and vivid articles and speeches.
“In particular, I thank you for the speech of Comrade Lenin, for which I thirsted and longed so much,” a soldier wrote from the front. “Now I will in my turn make Comrade Lenin’s speech known to my soldier comrades, especially those who in their stupidity used to undermine confidence but now regret it, because Comrade Lenin was maliciously attacked and slandered.”(4)
The growing class-consciousness of the soldiers and their increasing support of the Bolsheviks had to be consolidated organisationally. Tens of thousands of advanced and politically enlightened workers, having been mobilised for the army, rapidly established close contacts with the centres of political life and formed strong nuclei of the Bolshevik organisation. A big part was played by the regiments of the Petrograd garrison which were disbanded after the July events. Among the thousands of soldiers who had passed through the school of revolution in the capital and who were now sent to the front, there were bound to be many active Bolshevik supporters. Soldiers’ letters seized by the censor after the July events reflect the increase in the number of organisers. They already begin to express a lack of confidence in the Soviets controlled by the compromisers.
“Even before I was never convinced of their sincere desire to meet the needs of the enslaved and oppressed masses,” one soldier wrote in reference to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, “and now I am becoming more and more convinced that their words are fair and diplomatic, but their ideas are foul and capitalistic.”(5)
Another soldier wrote, addressing the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks: “Don’t reckon any more on support from the army.”(6)
While throwing off the control of the commanders, the army at the same time threw off the influence of the petty-bourgeois parties and ceased to trust them. The Bolsheviks began to gain complete sway over the minds of the soldiers.
A widely ramified network of Bolshevik organisations spread throughout the army and extended its influence over the mass organisations of the soldiers. The Bolshevik Party did not at first possess a political force at the front. It was only gradually, by constant and persistent effort, that the Party extended its influence over the masses. It demonstrated the superiority of its programme and tactics in practice and dissipated the counter-revolutionary illusions fostered by the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. On the eve of the October Revolution the military organisation of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party became a military staff in the true sense of the word. Under the guidance of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, it united and organised large numbers of the soldiers and trained them for the fight for power.
The Bolsheviks at that period devoted their attention chiefly to winning over the lower organisations of the soldiers. The regimental, company and similar committees, which directly reflected the mood of the masses gradually came over to the side of the Bolsheviks. The committees steadily freed themselves of their petty-bourgeois incrustation and took up their stand beneath the banner of the Bolsheviks. The following instance is illustrative of the process going on at the front.
In the 12th Turkestan Rifle Regiment of the III Siberian Corps of the Second Army there was a small joint Social-Democratic organisation of Mensheviks, Internationalists and Bolsheviks. The latter were headed by Vice-Colonel Kamenshchikov, the young commander of the 2nd Battalion, who subsequently became the first elected Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front.
At the beginning of August Kamenshchikov proposed that the Bolsheviks should leave the joint organisation and create an independent Bolshevik nucleus. Desiring to enlist as large a number of followers as possible, the Bolsheviks raised the question at an open meeting of the members of the whole organisation. Kamenshchikov was the chief speaker and his speech evoked a heated discussion. The Internationalists—a surgeon by the name of Begoon and a corporal—were particularly insistent that the “united” organisation should be preserved. Incidentally, at this very meeting, when the split was already decided on, the corporal joined the Bolsheviks. Kamenshchikov was elected chairman of the new committee and Sergeant Korolyev secretary.
The Bolsheviks were not dismayed by the fact that at first the new organisation had only eighteen or twenty members. The committee soon managed to find a shack for its headquarters, which immediately began to attract the soldiers by its books and newspapers, but chiefly by the lively discussions that were held there. The work subsequently became so extensive that the committee was transformed into a district committee and placed in charge of work in the 12th, 24th and 25th Turkestan Rifle Regiments of the same division, and of the work among the artillery-men, storm troops and other units. A group was even formed to carry on Party work among the peasants of the nearby township of Rubyazhevichi.
By October the holding of new elections to the soldiers’ committees had become widespread at the front.
“It is becoming impossible to continue our activities,” the chairman of the committee of the 107th Regiment said, “because of the hostile attitude of the regiment, which is insistently demanding that a new committee be elected. Irritation at the activities of the committee is growing among the soldiers. . . . I deem it necessary to propose that the whole committee should resign.”(7)
The secret report of the Commissar of the Western Front for the week October 14-21 stated:
“Arbitrary elections of new committees have become characteristic, and only Bolsheviks are elected to the committees. Arbitrary elections of new committees have been held in the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Grenadier Regiments.”(8)
The way these “arbitrary elections of new committees” were held, may be judged from the case of one of the regiments mentioned—the 6th Grenadiers.
The Bolshevik organisation in this regiment had been formed in August. It later became possible to form Bolshevik nuclei in nearly every one of the companies. At the beginning of October two general regimental meetings were held, at which the proposals of the Bolsheviks were adopted by big majorities. Only two sub-lieutenants among the officers and only one Socialist-Revolutionary, old Roginsky, a volunteer, had the courage to speak.
Such being the state of feeling in the regiment, the continued existence of the old, compromising regimental committee had obviously become absurd, and the Bolsheviks carried on a vigorous campaign in favour of new elections. Candidates were nominated and the success of the Bolsheviks was beyond question.
However, systematic preparations for the new elections could not be completed. On October 12 instructions were received by the regiment from the army committee of the Second Army to appoint a delegate to an army conference to be held on October 16. Knowing that its days were numbered, the regimental committee hastened to elect as its delegate the Socialist-Revolutionary Roginsky.
Learning of this, the Bolsheviks decided to hold the new elections immediately. That a Bolshevik regiment should be represented by a Socialist-Revolutionary was something that could not be allowed. Agitators were at once sent to the companies and the whole regiment roused. The regimental officer on duty made a feeble attempt to forbid the meeting, but nobody heeded him.
The Bolsheviks gained a complete victory. The new regimental committee, consisting entirely of Bolsheviks, met the very next morning and its first decision was to deprive Roginsky of his mandate to the army conference. A Bolshevik was elected in his place.
The widespread holding of new elections to the regimental committees instilled dismay and consternation into the petty-bourgeois compromisers and the other supporters of the Provisional Government. And, indeed, it was difficult not to be dismayed by such demands as that contained, for instance, in the resolution of a congress of the XXV Army Corps of the Third Army on the Western Front, held on October 11. This resolution stated:
“We, the delegates at a congress of the XXV Army Corps, demand that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, appointed for October 20, should take power into its own hands and publish the secret treaties concluded by the Allied governments, immediately announce democratic terms of peace and immediately conclude an armistice on all fronts.”(9)
The higher army organisations—the front committees, the army committees, the corps committees, and partly the divisional committees—were still under the sway of the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionaries and reflected a period of the revolution that was already past. They enjoyed no support among the masses and the practical leadership was slipping from their grasp.
An important part in the Bolshevisation of the army was played by the provincial and district committees of the Party situated in the proximity of the army units at the front and in the rear. They devoted a considerable part of their activities to the army. Through the workers the Party organisations formed and fostered the class-consciousness of the soldiers. In Petrograd, for instance, the factory workers were the political guides of the soldiers of the garrison. The same was true in Kronstadt. The local Bolshevik committees were a great factor in revolutionising the garrison.
How close the contacts between the workers and the soldiers had become is shown by the fact that, on leaving Petrograd, soldiers promised to fight for the revolutionary slogans of the Petrograd workers. One of the companies of the 2nd Machine-Gun Regiment declared on leaving for the front:
“We, the machine gunners of Company 5 of the Machine-Gun Regiment, meeting on October 2 of this year before our departure for the front to decide the question of the banner, resolved to appeal for assistance to the comrades of the Treugolnik works, since we have not sufficient funds ourselves. The comrades of the Treugolnik works have decided to donate us 200 rubles out of the funds of their committee, for which, we the machine-gunners of Company 5, leaving to join the 527th Belebeyev Regiment at the front . . . express our profound thanks for their support and inform them that we shall stand (1) for the immediate publication of the secret treaties; (2) for immediate peace negotiations; (3) for the immediate transfer of all the land to peasants’ committees; (4) for control over production and (5) for the immediate convocation of the Soviets. We, the machine-gunners of Company 5, although we do not belong to the Party (of the Bolsheviks), are, nevertheless, prepared to die with them for the sake of all their demands and slogans. The company consists of 107 men and is at present quartered at Strelna. The above was adopted by the company unanimously.”(10)
The workers and soldiers exchanged permanent representatives. Mutual relations and support were set up between the factories and the regiments which subsequently, in the October Revolution, pre-determined the success of the uprising. Here is a letter which the workers of the Putilov works sent to the soldiers of the Izmailovsky Regiment, who had thanked the workers for assistance rendered at the time of the Kornilov affair:
“In reference to the letter of the Regimental Committees of September 13, No. 634, in which thanks are conveyed to the factory committee for the presentation of a field kitchen to the regiment at the time of the Kornilov revolt, we inform you that the committee of the Putilov works will always be glad to share with their dear comrades of the Izmailovsky Regiment both field kitchens and other, more serious, war equipment in the event of action on the part of any of the numerous counter-revolutionary adventurers among the generals who are dreaming of an autocracy and the enslavement of the people. The factory committee conveys to you its comradely greetings and hopes that the hearts of the soldiers of the Izmailovsky Regiment are fired with the same revolutionary spirit as burns in the hearts of the Putilov workers, and that these hearts will, at the moment of danger to the revolutionary people, form one single and mighty heart of flame.”(11)
How great was the influence of the workers of the industrial centres on the soldiers can be judged by a report made by the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet to the Supreme Commander on September 26.
“The 45th Infantry Reserve Regiment, quartered in the city of Nikolayev,” the Commander of the Fleet complained, “is at the present moment utterly undisciplined and cannot be utilised for the protection of the port and the factories. . . . Large numbers of soldiers are taking an active part in the life of the citizens of the city of Nikolayev and are constantly holding large meetings in the streets of the city.”(12)
And such was the state of affairs in the majority of industrial centres.
In preparing for the proletarian revolution, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party devoted exceptional attention to work among the armed forces. The Central Committee at its meetings constantly discussed questions of work among the soldiers, studied the mood of the soldiers and estimated the forces of revolution and counter-revolution. The military organisation of the Bolsheviks established close contacts with the rank-and-file soldiers. It directed the Party work in the army at the front and in the rear. It supplied the soldiers with literature, sent instructors and agitators, and convened conferences.
A meeting of Bolsheviks of the region and the front was held in Minsk from September 1 to 3 at which 3,651 Party members in the army and 2,410 Party members in the region were represented. The meeting did not deem it possible to proclaim itself a Party conference owing to the fact that the primary organisations were inadequately represented.
Two weeks after this meeting, the First North-Western Regional Bolshevik Conference was held in Minsk from September 15 to 18, attended by 88 delegates, 61 representing the army and 27 the region. The delegates from the army now represented 4,111 Party members and 1,564 sympathisers. Half the army delegates came from the Second Army, which was the most revolutionary army on the Western Front.
Ten days after this conference the First Bolshevik Conference of the Second Army was held in the town of Nesvizh from September 27 to 29. It was attended by 137 delegates representing 5,124 organised Party members and about 12,000 sympathisers.
Finally, on October 5, twenty days before the outbreak of the October Revolution, the Second Regional Bolshevik Conference was held in Minsk, this time attended by 353 delegates representing 28,501 Party members and 27,855 sympathisers.
The work of the Bolsheviks on the other sections of the front developed in a similar way.
As it became Bolshevised, the army put forward political demands with increasing persistence and determination. At a joint meeting of the committees of the 712th Saltykovo-Nevsky Infantry Regiment held in September, a resolution highly characteristic of the mood of the soldiers at the time was adopted:
“The six months of collaboration in the government between the democracy and the bourgeoisie have only resulted in dragging out the war, in delaying the consolidation of the liberties won, in postponing the Constituent Assembly, in the waging of a ruthless struggle against the revolutionary democracy—both against individual persons and against its press—and in every manifestation of a counter-revolutionary character, the culminating point of which was the Kornilov revolt; and, consequently, the meeting finds that in the interests of the gains of the revolution and of the struggle for the International, further collaboration between the democracy and the bourgeoisie in the government is impermissible.”(13)
The Bolshevik character of the demands was even more pronounced in other resolutions. The resolution of a general meeting of the men of the Brigitovka air station in the vicinity of Reval insisted on the immediate transfer of power to the Soviets, the conclusion of peace, the handing over of the land to the peasants, the organisation of control over production and the arming of the workers.
In the course of October the demand for the transfer of power to the Soviets grew more and more popular in the army. Resolution after resolution was passed by infantry, cavalry, artillery, sapper and medical units expressing lack of confidence in the Kerensky government and unanimously and insistently demanding the transfer of power to the proletarian and peasant Soviets.
A highly characteristic symptom of the growing revolutionary spirit in the army was the adoption of a new method against the officers. Soldiers refused to obey officers, imprisoned them, and killed the more reactionary of them. But all this had happened before. The new feature was that when the officers were removed new commanders were elected from the ranks. The army made a big stride towards the development of the revolution by resorting to the election of its commanders. By this form of struggle the soldiers were deciding the question of power in the army. Reports from the generals stated in great alarm:
“In the 4th Cycle Battalion (of the Special Army) the commander of Company 3 and the quartermaster were removed and soldiers elected in their place; in the 648th Detachment the Commissar was elected commander; the committee of the aviation base of the 3rd Guards’ Division removed the chief and took possession of the entire property; the committee of an ambulance train removed the chief surgeon, the quartermaster and the nurses and elected new persons in their place (Eleventh Army); in the 5th Caucasian Division the quartermaster sergeant was removed for refusing to issue a few pens, which was interpreted as a desire on his part to hinder the elections to the Constituent Assembly (Twelfth Army); in the 74th Division of the XLI Corps a resolution was passed abolishing the posts of the Divisional Commissary and quartermaster and entrusting their functions to special commissions (Seventh Army); the 53rd Siberian Rifle Regiment refused to accept the commander who arrived after evacuation; the committee of the headquarter troops of the Eleventh Army resolved to requisition the officers’ own horses, to search officers about to leave and deprive them of their weapons, and to transfer the offices to the barracks.”(14)
The revolutionary movement in the army merged with the peasant movement in the war area. Schumann, the Chief of Militia in the Wolmar district, after a personal tour of the south-western part of his district, reported on October 10 that in the Posendorf rural district “harvested oats, wheat, clover and hay have been taken from the landowners near the highroad.”(15) In the Katwer rural district “nearly all the farms and estates near the highroads suffered during the retreat.”(16)
Manors were destroyed by the soldiers and the peasants in nearly all the regions adjacent to the front, from the Northern Front to the Rumanian Front. The soldiers acted as armed representatives of the wishes of the peasants, and their actions reflected the elemental hatred of the peasants for the landlords and kulaks.
In addition to taking part in the fight against the landlords in the war area, the soldiers, in their letters home, stimulated the development of the agrarian revolution all over the country. Here is one of many letters sent by soldiers at the front to their relatives:
“I ask you, without any by-your-leave, to send the cattle to graze on the land of the landlords. And plough up the land without asking them, the fat-bellied dogs. They have drunk our blood enough. See to it that you take everything into your hands at once, and we here will not lay down our arms until we have done everything and will return home with our rifles.”(17)
These soldiers’ letters were regarded in the villages as instructions and exercised a tremendous influence on the course of the revolution.
The army was in fact launching into a determined revolutionary struggle against the exploiters. The Bolshevik Party enjoyed great success. This was clearly expressed in the following brief lines contained in a report by the Commander of the 18th Siberian Rifle Division.
“The Commander of the 70th Rifle Regiment,” he stated “has reported to me the complete disorganisation of the regiment. Bolshevik ideas have become law.”(18)
And by the time of the decisive battles for the proletarian revolution the Bolshevik ideas had indeed become law for vast numbers of men under arms.
Subsequently, analysing the result of the elections to the Constituent Assembly, Lenin wrote:
“. . . In the army . . . the Bolsheviks in November 1917 already possessed the political ‘striking force’ which guaranteed them an overwhelming superiority of forces at the decisive point at the decisive moment. Since the Bolsheviks had the overwhelming superiority on the Northern and Western Fronts, while on the other fronts, more remote from the centre, the Bolsheviks had both the time and the opportunity to win the peasants away from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party . . . the possibility of the army’s opposing the October Revolution of the proletariat and the seizure of political power by the proletariat was out of the question.”(19)
The revolutionary impatience of the soldiers when they had come to realise their own interests prompted them to try to hasten the establishment of the power of the Soviets.
“Comrades, pay not attention to Kerensky,” the soldiers of the Third Army wrote to the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies. “He is leading us into an abyss, so that we shall all perish. Comrades, soldiers, try to hasten peace. We cannot hold the front any longer. Comrades, soldiers, only think, our families at home are dying of starvation! They are our parents, our wives and children—not dogs. Let us not listen to the bourgeoisie, but down with the war, long live the Constituent Assembly and long live our comrades, the Bolsheviks!”(20)
The cry, “Long live our comrades the Bolsheviks!” was raised more and more frequently in the army. It is met with in one form or another in numerous soldiers’ letters.
“We request their honours, the Bolsheviks, to turn their attention to Mr. Kerensky—to hang him from one hook with Kornilov,” a group of wounded soldiers wrote. “We request that the government should be turned over immediately to the people—the Soviet of Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Down with the Provisional Government! Long live the government of the people! Comrades, workers and soldiers, take care of your weapons, let us march on Petrograd to trounce, beat and hang the bourgeois and the coalition government. The patience of the tormented soldiers in the trenches is exhausted.”(21)
And, indeed, the patience of the tormented soldiers in the trenches was exhausted! The front was ready to assist in overthrowing the hated Kerensky government.
[1] Lenin, “Bolshevism and the ‘Disintegration’ of the Army,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XXI, p. 469.
[2] “A Cheering Event,” Soldat, No. 26, September 14, 1917.
[3] “A Letter from the Front,” Soldat, No. 35, September 26, 1917.
[4] E. Romas, “The Spirit in the Army,” in February to October, Part 1, Moscow, 1923, p. 82.
[5] Soldiers’ Letters of 1917, Moscow, 1927, p. 80.
[6] Ibid., p. 118.
[7] Central Archives of Military History, Records of General Headquarters of the Western Front, File No. 157-792, folio 246.
[8] Ibid., folio 126.
[9] Central Archives of Military History, Records of the General Headquarters of the Western Front, File No. 157-792, folio 247.
[10] The Bolshevisation of the Petrograd Garrison. Materials and Documents, Leningrad, 1932, p. 296.
[11] Ibid., p. 264.
[12] Central Archives of Military History, Records of General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander—Adjutant-Generals’ Office, File No. 80-097, folio 191.
[13] “The 712th Saltykovo-Nevsky Infantry Regiment,” Soldat, No. 35, September 26, 1917.
[14] Central Archives, Disintegration of the Army in 1917, Moscow, 1925, p. 145.
[15] Central Archives, Disintegration of the Army in 1917, Moscow, 1925, p. 124.
[16] Ibid., p. 124.
[17] Central Archives of Military History, Records of General Headquarters of the Northern Front, File No. 222-554, folio 288.
[18] Central Archives of Military History, Records of the Soldiers’ Executive Committee of the Twelfth Army, File No. 412-641, folio 50.
[19] Lenin, “The Elections to the Constituent Assembly and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” Selected Works (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 471.
[20] Soldiers’ Letters of 1917, Moscow, 1927, p. 137.
[21] Soldiers’ Letters of 1917, Moscow, 1927, p. 141.
Previous: The Navy on the Eve of the October Revolution
Next: The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks—The Last Buttress of the Bourgeoisie