Conditions in Moscow were somewhat different from those in Petrograd, where the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party directly guided the struggle. The Petrograd proletariat consisted mainly of metal-workers and workers engaged in other branches of heavy industry employed in large plants. They were called “hereditary proletarians” to emphasise the fact that they had long ago lost contact with the rural districts. The bulk of the workers in Moscow, however, were textile mill hands who still had close contacts with the rural districts. It took a longer time for them to free themselves from petty-bourgeois influences. The few large plants in Moscow were islands in a sea of small and medium enterprises.
The Petrograd proletariat had suffered less from military mobilisation than the Moscow proletariat. The government had refrained as far as possible from calling up skilled workers. In Moscow, however, large numbers of factory workers had been conscripted and their places had been taken by new arrivals from the rural districts. For a time this greatly diminished the revolutionary fighting efficiency of the Moscow workers. The military organisation of the Moscow Bolsheviks was much less efficient than that of Petrograd.
The main thing, however, was that Moscow lacked the Party leadership that was ensured in Petrograd by the presence of Lenin and Stalin.
A serious obstacle to the mobilisation of the masses in Moscow was the fact that, unlike Petrograd and all the other large centres, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies existed separately. The compromisers did all in their power to hinder the merging of the two bodies in the effort to preserve their influence at least in the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, for the Bolsheviks had entrenched themselves in the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies quite early.
Another reason why the struggle assumed a sharper form in Petrograd was that the latter was the seat of the government, and the city was regarded as being within the war zone. Hence, government persecution was more severe in Petrograd than in Moscow. Events like the firing on the July demonstration, the repeated suppression of Bolshevik newspapers and the arrest of Bolshevik leaders were unknown in Moscow. During the July days the Moscow authorities had limited themselves to preventing Bolsheviks from entering army barracks, and temporarily prohibiting open air meetings.
Nevertheless, the counter-revolutionary forces closely watched the development of events in Moscow. Russia’s second capital—tranquil, mercantile Moscow—was a striking contrast to the premier capital—turbulent, revolutionary Petrograd. The Provisional Government intended to take refuge in Moscow. Moscow was the place of assembly of the “public men,” under which “innocent” title were concealed the most prominent leaders of the counter-revolution, virtually its General Staff. Moscow was much nearer to the Don Region, from which the Cossacks could easily be drawn. In short, the counter-revolutionaries regarded Moscow as their haven of refuge and it was here that they proposed to concentrate large forces. In fact, they had planned to convert Moscow into their centre at the time the Council of State met.
Shortly before the Council was convened the news got abroad that the 7th Siberian Cossack Regiment was moving towards Moscow. The Bolshevik press immediately raised the alarm. In the factories and mills the workers passed resolutions protesting against the transfer of the Cossacks. No public statement was made as to who had given orders for the Cossacks to be transferred, and those who knew kept quiet about it. The Bolsheviks openly accused the Provisional Government of being responsible for the Cossacks’ movements, but Kerensky remained silent, while Headquarters of the Moscow Military Area published denial after denial.
True, the Cossacks did not take part in the Kornilov mutiny. It was suppressed before the Moscow counter-revolutionaries could come to its aid. But the Cossacks remained in Moscow and in its environs.
Now that fresh preparations were being made for an offensive against the revolution, General Headquarters decided to dispatch a Cavalry Division to Moscow.
This division was to replace the 7th Cossack Regiment and orders were issued for the latter’s recall from Moscow. But the Moscow counter-revolutionaries were of the opinion that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, and when Colonel Ryabtsev, Commander-in-Chief of the Moscow Military Area, sent an urgent request that the Cossacks be allowed to remain, General Headquarters countermanded its previous order and the Cossacks remained. Being of the opinion that this force was inadequate, General Headquarters ordered the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment to move to Kaluga.
The official “public-democratic” organ around which the fighting forces of the Moscow counter-revolution rallied was the City Duma, which had been elected in June. The post of Mayor of Moscow and head of the Moscow City Duma was held by the Right Socialist-Revolutionary V. V. Rudnyev, a medical man by profession, and one of the leaders of the Moscow Socialist-Revolutionary organisation. He was also Chairman of the Chief Committee of the All-Russian Union of Cities. Extremely ambitious, Rudnyev aspired to the post of Cabinet Minister, and, perhaps, even of head of the government, should the plan to organise a new Provisional Government in Moscow succeed.
But it was not Rudnyev who commanded the fighting effectives of the counter-revolution. They were under the command of the Staff of the Moscow Military Area, whose chief was Colonel of the General Staff, K. I. Ryabtsev, an incompetent officer, and a typical General Staff administrator of the tsarist regime, who was carried on the crest of the revolutionary wave to a leading post for which he was obviously unfit. Versed only in military affairs and having no political outlook, he took his orders from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which, he thought, was the party in power. Officially, he was not a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and many people regarded him as a Populist Socialist.
Ryabtsev could rely only upon a small number of the many thousands of men who constituted the Moscow garrison. His main props were the two military schools and six officers’ training schools. This Cadet Corps consisted of the sons of the aristocracy and army officers. The senior classes could be used as a fighting force.
In Moscow there were about 15,000 officers, either on leave, in the hospitals, or belonging to reserve units. All had been registered by the Staff, but they had not been organised into a single unit. Moreover, nobody could say how many of them were prepared to defend the Provisional Government.
It was intended to win over the university students to the side of the counter-revolution, as the majority of them supported the Provisional Government.
In addition, the bourgeoisie in Moscow organised their “house guards,” consisting of students and office employees, and hired army officers on leave from the front to instruct them. This “guard” was not a regular force, but could be usefully employed in street fighting against the insurgents.
Cossack units were quartered in and around Moscow.
At most, Ryabtsev could rely on 20,000 men. Of these, only the cadets and army officers had received proper military training. These, too, were well armed. It was anticipated that, in the event of the government being successful, all the officers in Moscow would probably support it; but it was still doubtful whether all of them would take part in actual fighting against the revolution.
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks were obviously gaining control of the garrison, and so this had to be reduced at all costs.
On October 15, Ryabtsev, on the pretext of carrying out the plan for reducing the army initiated by the Minister of War, secretly ordered the disbandment of 16 reserve regiments, including a number of Moscow units. It was planned to complete the disbandment of the regiments by November 10. By this measure the counter-revolution hoped at one stroke to deprive the Bolsheviks of a large section of their armed forces.
On October 21, Ryabtsev issued an order to send all craftsmen in the army, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, bootmakers, joiners, tailors, etc., to the front. Before the war a large number of these had been factory workers and now supported the Bolsheviks.
The Staff of the Moscow Military Area hastened to bring more reliable troops to Moscow and to dispatch the revolutionary-minded soldiers to the front. Evidently the counter-revolutionaries had got wind of Lenin’s letter in which be recommended that, if necessary, the insurrection could be started in Moscow.
Lenin attached exceptional importance to the outcome of the struggle in Moscow as well as in Petrograd. Already in his first letter on insurrection, written between September 12 and 14, he had said:
“. . . it does not matter which begins; perhaps even Moscow may begin. . . .”[1]
This was not a definite instruction. In this letter the leader of the revolution merely emphasised that the insurrection had matured to such an extent that the slightest spark might cause an explosion. In Moscow there were no central government organs and no immediate outbreak was expected. Closely watching for the slightest change in the alignment of forces, however, Lenin, on September 29, again formulated the reason why the insurrection might be started in Moscow. He wrote:
“. . . We are technically in a position to seize power in Moscow (which might even be the one to start, so as to take the enemy by surprise).”[2]
At the very beginning of October he wrote for the third time:
“It is not essential to ‘start’ with Petrograd. If Moscow ‘starts’ bloodlessly it will undoubtedly be supported 1) by the sympathies of the army at the front; 2) by the peasants everywhere; 3) by the fleet and the troops in Finland which are moving on Petrograd.”[3]
The Moscow Bolsheviks were closely connected with Petrograd and immediately learned of the decisions adopted by the Central Committee. On September 19, the Moscow Bolshevik newspaper, Sotsial Demokrat, appeared with an article by Stalin entitled “All Power to the Soviets,” in which he discussed the new course which the Bolsheviks had taken towards armed insurrection.
Lenin’s letter was received in Moscow in the latter half of September and was discussed by the leaders of the organisation. It transpired that Rykov, who was subsequently shot for treason, was opposed to insurrection. He conceived the transfer of power to the Soviets as a peculiar stage in the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.
But Rykov found no support in the Moscow Bolshevik organisation.
One of the meetings at which Lenin’s letter was discussed was held in the house of V. A. Obukh. Twelve to 15 members of the Regional Committee of the Bolshevik Party were present at this meeting during which a long discussion took place, not about the question of insurrection as such—there was no disagreement about that—but about whether it should be started in Moscow. Some argued that Moscow could not take the initiative as the Moscow workers were inadequately armed, the Bolsheviks had no strong contacts with the garrison, the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies was still controlled by the compromisers, and the garrison itself had been left without arms. In effect, this meant abandoning the idea of insurrection. Others argued that in view of the laxity of the Moscow military authorities, a small but militant force could ensure the success of the insurrection. The majority decided that it was necessary to prepare for insurrection, but that it would hardly be possible to begin in Moscow.
Operations in Moscow were hindered by the wavering and opportunist vacillations of certain leaders of the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Party.
Some of the leaders of the Moscow Committee—such as Pyatnitsky, who was subsequently exposed as an enemy of the people—were opposed to preparing the masses for the seizure of power.
All these circumstances, although they hindered the work of the Moscow Bolsheviks, could not check the mobilisation of forces. The bulk of the Moscow Bolsheviks followed the lead of Lenin and Stalin and solidly backed the Central Committee of the Party. The Bolshevik traditions of the armed insurrection in December 1905 inspired the Moscow workers to prepare for the struggle. That explains why numerous units of the Red Guard were formed in Moscow long before the insurrection.
The swing of the masses in Moscow towards Bolshevism found expression in the vote taken at the meetings of the Moscow Soviets held on September 5. For the first time, the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, which existed separately, voted in favour of a Bolshevik program containing the following demands:
“1. The immediate arming of the workers and the formation of a Red Guard.
“2. The cessation of all repressive measures against the working class and its organisations. The immediate abolition of the death penalty at the front and the restoration of complete freedom for all democratic organisations to conduct agitation in the army. The purging of the army of counter-revolutionary officers.
“3. Commissars and other officials to be elected by local organisations.
“4. Practical application of the right of the nations inhabiting Russia to self-determination, and primarily, the satisfaction of the demands of Finland and the Ukraine.
“5. The dissolution of the Council of State and of the State Duma. The immediate convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
“6. The abolition of all class privileges (of the nobility and others) and complete equality of citizens.
“This platform can be carried out only if there is a complete rupture with the policy of compromise and if the masses of the people wage a determined struggle for power.”[4]
The adoption of this resolution compelled the compromising majority on the Executive Committees and Presidiums of both Soviets to resign.
The election of new Executives took place on September 19. The election of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies resulted in the return of 32 Bolsheviks, 16 Mensheviks, nine Socialist-Revolutionaries and three Unionists, i.e. Mensheviks (who advocated unity with the Bolsheviks).
The election of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, however, resulted in the return of 26 Socialist-Revolutionaries, 16 Bolsheviks, nine Mensheviks and nine non-party.
Only one-third of the Moscow garrison consisted of troops of the line. The remainder consisted of men employed in military workshops, depots, arsenals and other army service units. The troops of the line were not a permanent force. After a few weeks’ training the men were dispatched to the front and replaced by new men. The permanent forces, officers and men, were retained to train the new arrivals. Many members of the permanent forces belonged to Moscow—sons of the bourgeoisie, office employees and government officials—who, as was said of them, had “found cushy jobs at the base.”
In order to maintain their influence, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks prohibited the recall of deputies from the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, but in spite of this, quite a number of army units did recall those of their deputies in whom they had lost confidence. Moreover, the Bolsheviks took advantage of every opportunity to secure the election of new Company and Regimental Committees.
A number of outstanding Bolsheviks conducted energetic work among the garrison. Among these were M. F. Shkiryatov, who was elected a member of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Executive Committee of the Soviet; E. Yaroslavsky, leader of the military organisation of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party; O. Varentsova, and many others. Considerable activity was conducted by the military organisation. It issued the demand that men worn out at the front should be replaced by those who had “dug themselves in at the base.” This demand was directed not only against shirkers but also against the defencist Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, for the latter relied mainly on the permanent section of the Moscow garrison. In addition, the military organisation (the Military Bureau) conducted considerable activity during the election of the Soldiers’ Committees. E. Yaroslavsky received special instructions from J. M. Sverdlov, in Petrograd, to exert every effort to secure the election of new Soldiers’ Committees. The purpose of this was to rectify the mistake that had been committed in Moscow, where the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies and Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies existed separately. On the eve of the October Revolution, all the regiments and companies, except the 1st Reserve Artillery Brigade, had elected new committees.
The elections to the District Dumas, which were held on September 24, revealed how great had been the swing of the proletarian and semi-proletarian masses in Moscow towards the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks polled nearly 50 per cent of the total vote, the Constitutional Democrats 20 per cent, the Socialist-Revolutionaries 15 per cent, and the Mensheviks slightly over four per cent.
Ninety per cent of the soldiers voted for the Bolsheviks. Several units voted almost unanimously for them.
This remarkable success showed that in Moscow the proletarian revolution had passed from the stage of mobilisation of forces to the stage of organisation of the assault.
Activities in the districts of Moscow daily grew in intensity and dimensions. Debates between Bolsheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks attracted huge audiences. In many cases, after such a debate, the workers in a given factory recalled their deputies from the Soviet and elected new men. Day by day the newspapers reported Bolshevik successes. In the election of the factory committee at the Prokhorov Textile Mills, the Bolsheviks topped the poll. Of the 11 new deputies elected to the Presnya District Soviet, eight were Bolsheviks.
At the Headquarters of the District Committees of the Party, military training was conducted, but the work of the leaders of the Moscow organisation in the way of technical preparations for the insurrection was inadequate owing to the shortage of arms, to procure which every effort was made. Agents were sent to Tula to purchase revolvers. Attempts were made to persuade the soldiers to provide arms. Hidden stocks of arms were discovered and requisitioned. In the Zamoskvorechye District, about 100 rifles, well cleaned and oiled, had been carefully hidden in a wall of the factory committee office at the Michelson Works. This was known to several officials of the District Committee. The rifles were unearthed and distributed among reliable people.
In the evening of October 10 a City Conference of the Moscow Bolsheviks was held in the Main Hall of the Polytechnical Museum. The agenda was as follows:
1. The current situation:
a) the new Kornilov movement and the provocative activities at the front;
b) the economic crisis;
c) the nation-wide struggle against cold and hunger.
2. The Constituent Assembly election campaign.
Three days before this Conference Lenin had addressed a letter to the Petrograd Conference, which had been fixed for October 7, but was postponed to October 10.
In this letter Lenin called for the mobilisation of all forces for a last desperate and decisive struggle against the Kerensky government.
He enclosed a resolution which he recommended the Conference should adopt.
This letter and resolution were dispatched to Moscow and were read at the City Conference which adopted Lenin’s resolution in its entirety.
Thus, on the same day, October 10, Lenin’s resolution on armed insurrection was not only endorsed by the Central Committee of the Party, but also supported by the City Conferences of the Bolshevik Party in both Petrograd and Moscow. The fact that the Moscow Bolsheviks expressed their support of the leader of the Party on the same day as this was done by the Petrograd Bolsheviks was a tribute to the organising abilities of the Bolshevik Party.
On October 14, after a meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party at which representatives from Moscow were present, the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Party met and adopted without discussion the Central Committee’s directions concerning the insurrection and drafted a number of measures to carry them out.
The Regional Bureau also decided to set up a Party Military Centre for the purpose of guiding the insurrection. This centre consisted of two members of the Regional Bureau, two members of the Moscow Committee and one member of the Moscow Area Committee.
A day or two later a conference of the active Party members from all the districts of Moscow was held. An animated discussion took place during which stock was taken of the available forces, and measures were proposed for intensifying Party activities. Some of those present complained about the shortage of arms and about the inadequate contacts with the garrison, but on the whole, the meeting almost unanimously supported the decision to prepare for the armed struggle to transfer power to the Soviets. The decisive moment was approaching.
The revolutionary crisis in Moscow and the Moscow Region advanced with giant strides. The tannery workers had been on strike for ten weeks. The metal-workers and textile-workers were threatening strike action. The Municipal employees remained at work only because the Soviet had intervened in their dispute with the City Duma. The conditions of the workers were becoming more and more intolerable. The employers, on various pretexts, were closing their factories. Actually, they were conducting a tacit lockout. The capitalists were deliberately fomenting a crisis. They provoked strikes and accused the workers of hindering production. Acting to the detriment of the general public, they blamed the workers. It became impossible to restrain the masses. The trade unions complained to the Soviet and demanded that resolute measures be taken against the lockout enforced by the employers.
On October 18 a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was held, to which representatives of the trade unions were invited. One after another these trade union representatives mounted the rostrum and described the awful conditions under which the workers were living.
Temper in the hall steadily rose. The compromisers realised that the Executive Committee supported the trade unions and so the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks demanded an adjournment to enable the various party groups to draw up definite proposals.
During the adjournment the compromisers called to their aid the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks still predominated.
The meeting was resumed as a joint meeting of the two Executives.
The Bolsheviks demanded that the Soviets should intervene in the workers’ economic struggle and issue a decree ordering the cessation of the lockout and the satisfaction of all the strikers’ demands. If the capitalists refuse to yield they should be arrested. This might give rise to a conflict between the local and central authorities, but if that occurred, the Soviet, relying on the mass movement, should seize power.
The Bolsheviks’ proposal came like a bombshell. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks were furious, for they realised that the Bolsheviks were raising the question of power.
In opposition to the clear-cut and radical platform proposed by the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries proposed . . . that another petition be sent to the Provisional Government, an appeal to issue a decree ordering the satisfaction of the workers’ demands.
The debate came to a close. A vote by roll call was demanded. Amidst intense silence the tellers announced the result: the Menshevik resolution was adopted by 46 votes against 33, with one abstaining. The compromisers were jubilant, but their triumph was short-lived.
Next day, October 19, a joint general meeting of the two Soviets was held. In spite of all the efforts of the compromisers to prevent it, the Bolshevik resolution was adopted by 332 votes against 207, with 13 abstaining. The announcement of the result was greeted by a storm of applause.
The applause had barely died down when the Menshevik, B. Kibrik, mounted the rostrum, and amidst derision and jeers stated:
“The measures proposed by the Bolsheviks for the purpose of settling the dispute in the main branches of industry mark the utter bankruptcy of Bolshevism.
“The Soviet’s decree ordering the satisfaction of the workers’ demands and threatening to arrest the capitalists, that is to say, the attempt to abolish the class struggle by means of a decree of the Soviet, virtually means the seizure of power in the most unwise manner and the virtual isolation of the working class.”[5]
And then he let loose another flood of threats and predictions of all sorts of horrors: The capitalists would withdraw their money from the banks. Trade between Moscow and the rest of the country would be dislocated. The workers would be doomed to starvation because not only money, but food too would disappear. This would be a lockout, but one caused by the Bolsheviks themselves.
In short, in their obsequious devotion to the bourgeoisie the Mensheviks suggested to the capitalists the measures they could take to combat the revolution.
In conclusion this garrulous agent of the bourgeoisie demanded that all the deputies who had voted for the Bolsheviks should stand for re-election, and that the Executive Committees of the trade unions which had voted for the measures proposed by the Bolsheviks should be dissolved and new committees elected.
The Socialist-Revolutionary Cherepanov stated that the Bolshevik resolution virtually called for the unorganised seizure of power and, therefore, his party refused to accept any responsibility for the serious consequences that would ensue.
The zealous flunkeys of the bourgeoisie were given a severe trouncing by the Bolshevik Avanesov:
“If,” he said, “the Right thrusts the responsibility upon us Bolsheviks, we declare that we shall not shirk this responsibility and are ready to shoulder it; but this responsibility also rests upon the Moscow Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies . . . . We call upon all the people to support us in our struggle, and we shall rely only on the people, on the masses of the soldiers who by their votes have shown that they are marching with us, and also on the workers who are marching, and will continue to march, only with us.”[6]
“Will you submit to the decision of the Soviet?”—Avanesov asked the compromisers point-blank.
In reply, the Menshevik Kibrik muttered something to the effect that they would submit to the Soviet’s decision, but would refuse to take the leadership in carrying out the measures proposed. In conclusion he very distinctly and unambiguously added:
“We shall stand together to the very end, but we shall exert all our efforts to neutralise the fatal consequences of the resolution which has been adopted here today.”[7]
“Neutralise the consequences”—such was the compromisers’ policy on the eve of the Great Proletarian Revolution.
The temper of the meeting can be judged from the following incident. One of the Socialist-Revolutionaries stated in the course of his speech that the Moscow Bolsheviks were putting into effect Lenin’s slogans. Immediately somebody in the hall shouted: “Long live Lenin!” and this was echoed by a thunder of applause and cries of greeting in honour of Lenin. The meeting ended with the singing of the Internationale.
The bourgeoisie regarded the decision adopted by the two Soviets as an indication of their intention to seize power. In fact, Russkoye Slovo furnished its report of the meeting with the heading: “Moscow Soviets’ Decision to Seize Power.”[8] On the same day, V. V. Rudnyev, the Mayor of Moscow, stated:
“I regard the decision adopted by the Moscow Soviets as part of a general plan which they have decided to put into effect. They will start by seizing the factories and then seize the banks, and so on.”[9]
Rumours spread throughout the city that the Bolsheviks were to take action in the very near future.
The counter-revolution made energetic preparations for the struggle and tried to take the initiative. Ryabtsev, Chief of the Moscow Military Area, sent telegram after telegram to General Headquarters and to the General Staff of the South-Western Front demanding troops.
General Headquarters assured Ryabtsev that the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Horse Guards’ Division with a battery of horse artillery were being dispatched to the Moscow Military Area.
This information served to calm somewhat the Headquarters of the Moscow Military Area. On October 24 Ryabtsev issued the following Order of the Day to the units of the Moscow garrison:
“Among the public and, it is to be regretted, in certain sections of the press, rumours are being circulated to the effect that someone, somewhere, is threatening the area, and Moscow in particular, with some danger or other. There is no truth in this. . . . As chief of the armed forces of the area and the guardian of the true interests of the people, whom alone the troops are serving, I declare that no pogroms or anarchy will be permitted. In Moscow, in particular, such actions will be ruthlessly suppressed by troops who are loyal to the revolution and to the people. Adequate forces for this are available.”[10]
The events of the very next few days proved how mistaken Ryabtsev had been in this estimation of his strength.
On October 22 the delegates at the Regional Conference of Bolshevik military organisations reported that the garrison was extremely hostile to the government. Feeling among the men was running high. It was found necessary to close the Conference next day, before it had concluded its business, owing to the alarming news received from Petrograd. Moscow was preparing for insurrection, and the delegates had to hasten back to their various districts.
The Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party recommended that extensive fraternisation between workers and soldiers should be arranged in the districts. On October 23 the Presnya Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, on the proposal of the Bolsheviks, organised a demonstration of workers from all the factories in the district. Carrying banners and streamers bearing the inscription “All Power to the Soviets!” the workers marched to the Khodinka Camp, on the outskirts of the city, where a joint meeting was held with the men of the 1st Reserve Artillery Brigade. After the meeting, the workers and soldiers lined up and, headed by a band and singing revolutionary songs, marched to the Vagankovsky Cemetery where, at the grave of the Bolshevik Nikolai Bauman whom the Black Hundreds had killed in 1905, they pledged themselves to fight to the very end.
On October 24 a joint meeting of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies endorsed the Regulations of the Red Guard, which had been organised by the Soviet and existed side by side with the Red Guards organised by the Bolshevik Party. For six weeks the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks had prevented these Regulations from being adopted. The Bolsheviks stated that the main function of the Red Guard was to protect the gains of the revolution and to combat counter-revolution. Another function was to prevent hooligan riots in the towns.
The Mensheviks again uttered their “warnings.”
The Socialist-Revolutionaries on the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies declared that they could not even participate in the discussion of the Red Guard Regulations. That was the function of the workers’ deputies, they said. They placed responsibility for all the undesirable consequences that would ensue from the organisation of the Red Guard upon the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. This was sheer demagogy designed to set the soldiers against the workers.
By a vote of 374 against eight, with 27 abstaining, the joint meeting of Soviets adopted the Regulations.
The next item on the agenda of this joint meeting was a report on the execution of the order adopted by the Soviets on October l9. The Bolsheviks proposed that the following decree be passed in pursuance of this order:
“1. Factory managements are to employ and discharge workers with the consent of the factory committees. In the event of the latter disagreeing the case shall be submitted to the District Soviet of Workers’ Deputies whose decision shall be binding on both sides. Neither the employment nor discharge can be valid until the matter has been finally decided.
“2. The employment and discharge of office employees shall be effected with the consent of the office employees’ committees.
“Note 1. In those enterprises where no separate office workers’ committees exist, the employment and discharge of office employees shall be effected with the consent of the general factory committees.
“Note 2. A workers’ factory committee has the right to challenge the decision of an office committee, and in such event the matter shall be decided by a conciliation committee set up by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.
“3. The aforementioned orders are binding on all the enterprises in the city of Moscow. The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies will take the sternest measures, including arrest, against persons guilty of infringing them.”[11]
This decree was adopted by an overwhelming majority. By adopting it the Soviets took the first step in putting into effect the Bolsheviks’ slogan of control of industry. The Moscow Soviets were developing into organs of state authority. The Moscow Bolsheviks were on the threshold of decisive action.
“War has been declared,” wrote the organ of the Moscow Committee of the Party. “In Kaluga the Soviets are being suppressed, their members arrested and, according to rumour, some of them have been shot. The Cossacks who were sent there from the Western Front by order of the Provisional Government have been given a free hand.
“The situation is clear: the government has proclaimed civil war and at Kaluga has already achieved its first success. What we foretold has come to pass. This time it is not Kornilov, but Kerensky himself who, at the head of the capitalist scoundrels, is openly marching against the people whom he has been deceiving with flamboyant speeches for the past seven months. . . . Kerensky and his agents are our avowed enemies; there can be no negotiations with them. We do not talk with enemies—we fight and beat them. . . . Immediate resistance must be offered! The time for talk has passed. . . .”[12]
For the Moscow Bolsheviks and the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Bolshevik Party the question of preparing for the insurrection was a much wider one than that of directing the struggle in Moscow proper. At that time the Regional Party organisation covered the city of Moscow as well as the Moscow, Vladimir, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Nizhni-Novgorod, Voronezh, Tula, Orel, Smolensk, Ryazan, Kaluga and Tambov Gubernias.
The Moscow Regional Bureau maintained constant communication with the Party organisations in the region. On September 27 and 28 a meeting of the Regional Bureau was held at which the local Party organisations were widely represented. At the meeting reports were delivered summing up the work that had been carried out in the preceding months. From these reports it was evident that the influence of the Bolsheviks in the localities had grown enormously and that the Bolshevik organisations were assuming the leadership of the working people.
Throughout the region the Party had a membership of about 70,000, half of which was concentrated in Moscow and the Moscow Gubernia. On September 27, while the meeting of the Regional Bureau was in progress, an urgent enquiry was received from the Vladimir Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies as to whether it should obey Kerensky’s order to remove the garrison from the town. The debate was adjourned. Everybody felt that decisive events were imminent and that it was not only Vladimir that was involved. The Provisional Government had launched a campaign against the revolutionary-minded garrisons. On this question the meeting adopted the following resolution:
“Striving to preserve all the revolutionary forces for the forthcoming enforcement of the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets!’ the Regional Bureau instructs the local organisation resolutely to resist the plan, which is being systematically carried out, to weaken the revolutionary centres by withdrawing the revolutionary units of the army.”[13]
A telegram was sent to the Vladimir comrades instructing them to keep the garrison in the town.
On September 28 the Regional Committee of the Party discussed a resolution on the current situation. Some of the speakers linked the struggle for transferring power to the Soviets with the question of proclaiming a Soviet Republic. This meant postponing the struggle for power until the meeting of the Congress of Soviets. The majority of the members of the Committee, however, firmly opposed this motion. “It is wrong to link the struggle for the transfer of power to the Soviets with the convocation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets,” said the delegates. “The actual struggle for Soviet power may flare up before the Congress meets, and we have no grounds for postponing this struggle until the Congress meets.”[14]
The resolution that was adopted on this question was in keeping with the spirit of Lenin’s letter and read as follows:
“Under the present conditions, the political struggle is shifting from the various representative bodies to the streets. The most important task of the day is to fight for power, and under present conditions this fight must inevitably begin as a struggle in the localities around the food, housing and economic crisis.”[15]
The meeting called for the formation of fighting centres in the large industrial towns and the establishment of close communications between them. As soon as the meeting drew to a close the delegates hastened back to their respective localities to put the adopted decision into effect.
After the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party had reached its decision on insurrection the Moscow Regional Bureau instructed all local Party organisations to time their action with the beginning of the insurrection at the centre. In the event of disputes arising with the local authorities they were not to yield, but at the same time they were not to allow the dispute to develop into an armed collision, which would be permissible only in the event of, and for the purpose of, furthering a general insurrection. The Regional Bureau recommended that in those places where power was practically in the hands of the Soviets, the latter should be proclaimed the sole authority in the given town or district.
It was decided to dispatch the members of the Bureau to tour the region in order to warn the comrades of the imminence of the insurrection, to obtain information about the military units on whose assistance Moscow could rely, and everywhere to set up in advance fighting centres for the purpose of directing the insurrection.
At the meeting of the Regional Bureau held on October 14 telegrams were coded for each district to be dispatched immediately the insurrection was launched at the centre as signals for action in the respective localities.
The Bolsheviks in the Moscow Region made thorough preparations for the decisive battle. The most favourable conditions for the rapid seizure of power prevailed mainly in industrial gubernias like Vladimir, Yaroslavl and Tver, where the Bolsheviks had gained control of the Soviets before the October Revolution.
At that time Ivanovo-Voznesensk was an uyezd town in the Vladimir Gubernia. The peculiar feature of the course taken by the October Revolution in this large textile district, situated at no great distance from Moscow, was that literally only a few days before the October battles a strike involving large numbers of textile workers broke out in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Kineshma Area and spread to all the textile towns in the Vladimir and Kostroma Gubernias.
At 3 a.m. on October 21, the Central Strike Committee of the Ivanovo-Kineshma Textile Workers’ Union sent the following telegram to all its districts:
“Start strike on 21st at 10 a.m. Urgently inform factory strike committees. Strike to commence with meetings at the factories, after which the workers are to disperse to their homes. On Monday 23rd all workers are to attend factory meetings at 10 a.m. Acknowledge receipt of this telegram at once and inform us of beginning and progress of strike.”[16]
Precisely at 10 a.m. on the same day, work in the textile mills in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kineshma, Shuya, Rodniki, Sereda, Kovrov, Kokhma, Teikov and Vichuga came to a standstill. The strike affected 114 mills, employing some 300,000 workers. It began with a demand for an increase in the minimum wage, but the political and revolutionary character of the strike was evident from the fact that in the Ivanovo-Kineshma District the workers were in complete control of the mills.
Concerning the strike in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Kineshma Area the bourgeois newspaper Utro Rossii wrote the following:
“In many of the mills the workers stopped work, locked the premises and took the keys away. Everywhere armed pickets were posted and prevented any of the managerial staff from entering the factory premises. Goods manufactured to the order of the Quartermaster-General, or consigned to the Ministry of Food, are not allowed to be taken out of the mills. In view of the arming of the workers the technical staff is terrorised and will be forced to leave the mills.”[17]
Not a single yard of cloth, not a thing, could be removed from the mills without the sanction of the factory strike committee. Neither the mill-owner nor members of the management could enter a factory without the committee’s sanction. The workers became the actual masters of the mills and guarded them with arms in hand.
The workers of Shuya joined the strike and on the proposal of M. V. Frunze, the Chairman of the Shuya Soviet, adopted the following resolution:
“The present state power, represented by the Provisional Government and its local agents, is incapable of coping with the impending catastrophe. . . . The transfer of power to the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies at the centre and in the localities can alone enable the people to cope with the impending crisis.”[18]
On October 23 a mass demonstration of workers, in which the local garrison participated, took place in Shuya. The meeting was addressed by M. V. Frunze, and on the conclusion of his speech a resolution was passed calling upon the All-Russian Congress of Soviets to take power and promising full support.
Active preparations for the seizure of power were made by the Bolsheviks in the city of Tver and in the Tver Gubernia, where there were about 50,000 factory workers. The elections to the Tver Soviet in August had resulted in the Bolsheviks obtaining an absolute majority. At the beginning of September, the Tver Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, at a meeting held jointly with the factory committees and the trade unions, had passed a resolution urging the necessity of transferring power to the Soviets. The Tver organisation of the Bolshevik Party considered that their chief task was to render armed assistance to Moscow. They were determined at all costs to prevent the cadets and Cossacks from leaving Tver for Moscow and, if necessary, to send armed units of workers and soldiers to the aid of the Moscow insurgents. In fact, during the October days, they sent armoured cars from Kimri and the sappers who were stationed in Staritsa.
The Yaroslavl Gubernia was also in the forefront of the struggle for the transfer of power to the Soviets. The number of factory workers in this gubernia was over 40,000, and in 1916 the Karzinkin Textile Mills, in the city of Yaroslavl, alone employed no less than 20,000 workers. At the end of September 1917, the Yaroslavl City Soviet came under the control of the Bolsheviks and adopted Bolshevik resolutions on all fundamental questions.
During the war Voronezh had become an important industrial centre, and in 1917 the factory workers in the city numbered 10,000, half of whom were employed in the metal trades. In October 1917 the countryside in the Voronezh Gubernia was ablaze with peasant revolts. At the end of September a Gubernia Conference of Bolsheviks held in Voronezh Gubernia elected a Gubernia Party Committee. On the eve of the October Revolution the Voronezh Soviet was still controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the latter exercised considerable influence upon the peasantry in the rural districts. The Soviet, however, no longer expressed the temper of the people in Voronezh, who followed the lead of the Bolsheviks.
A similar situation existed in Smolensk on the eve of the October Revolution. Here, too, the Soviet, controlled by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks did not express the feeling of the masses. In the fighting that broke out after the victory of the revolution in Petrograd, the workers and soldiers of Voronezh and Smolensk quickly routed their enemies.
The greatest tension prevailed in Kaluga, where the counter-revolution took the offensive before the October battles in Petrograd and succeeded in achieving a temporary victory.
The relation of forces in Kaluga on the eve of the October Revolution was typical of that in most of the small provincial towns. The Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies was under the influence of the Bolsheviks, but the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was under the control of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. This is to be explained largely by the fact that most of the industrial enterprises in Kaluga were of the small handicraft type. On October 17 and 18, units of Cossacks and Dragoons and a “Death’s Head Shock Battalion” arrived in Kaluga from the Western Front and on the 18th, an order was issued, signed by the chief of the garrison, proclaiming martial law in the town. Next morning, October 19, Galin, the Gubernia Commissar of the Provisional Government, presented an ultimatum to the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies calling upon them immediately to disarm, to disband the Soldiers’ Section and to dispatch the Kaluga garrison to the front.
In the evening of the 19th, when the Soviet met to discuss Galin’s ultimatum, the premises were surrounded by Cossacks and Dragoons and machine guns and armoured cars were planted in the vicinity. Galin allowed five minutes for the surrender of the members of the Soviet and of all the arms in the Soviets’ possession, but without waiting for even this short period to expire he ordered the troops to open fire. Suddenly machine guns began to rattle, and the crash of broken glass was heard. The Cossacks stormed the building, wrecked everything in it, arrested the Bolshevik members of the Executive Committee of the Soviet and dragged them off to prison. The most revolutionary section of the Kaluga garrison was sent to the front. This raid on the Kaluga Soviet was carried out on the direct orders of the Provisional Government. The government dared not take a step like this in any of the large industrial centres and therefore decided to make “an example” of Kaluga in order to terrorise the country on the eve of the decisive battles. The counter-revolutionaries in Kaluga were jubilant. On October 21 the Kaluga City Duma welcomed the break up of the Soviet and expressed its gratitude to those who were responsible for it.
But the most prolonged and complicated struggle to transfer power to the Soviets in the Moscow Region was waged in Tula and Tambov. The causes of this delay and difficulty in establishing the Soviet power were different in the two cities. Tula was, for those times, a large industrial centre, and in 1917 had over 50,000 factory workers, nearly two-thirds of whom were metal-workers and railwaymen. At the time of the Sixth Party Congress, the Tula Bolshevik organisation numbered 1,000 members.
But right up to the October Revolution, the Tula Soviet was controlled by the compromisers. The Mensheviks exercised stronger influence in Tula than in the other industrial centres of the country. This was due to the type of workers employed during the imperialist war in Tula, where large numbers of shopkeepers, kulaks, sons of bourgeois elements found jobs in the small arms factories in order to evade military service. The management of the government factories in Tula were very careful in choosing their employees. But the chief difficulty in the struggle for the transfer of power to the Soviets in Tula was that here the Mensheviks were assisted by traitors from the Kamenev-Zinoviev camp who at that time belonged to the Bolshevik group in the Soviet. The course of the struggle in Tula glaringly demonstrated the true significance of the treacherous position adopted by Kamenev and Zinoviev during the October days. It was the alliance between the advocates of a “homogeneous Socialist government” and the Mensheviks who had not yet entirely lost their influence that caused the struggle in Tula to drag on right up to December 1917. Despite the fact that the Tula Soviet was controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, however, even here the bulk of the workers were eventually won over by the Bolsheviks.
In Tambov the very prolonged and fierce struggle to transfer power to the Soviet was due to entirely different causes. In the city of Tambov the industrial proletariat was not numerous. Tambov itself, and the Tambov Gubernia as a whole, were strongholds of Socialist-Revolutionary influence. One of the most important tasks of the Bolsheviks in this region was to destroy this influence, and this took time.
Notwithstanding the difference in the conditions that prevailed at this time in the various midland gubernias which in 1917 constituted the Moscow Region, there was one feature in the development of events that was common to them all. Irrespective of whether the Soviets were controlled by the Bolsheviks or still controlled by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (as was the case in Voronezh, Smolensk, Tula and other cities), or whether power was achieved by peaceful means or by armed force, in all these towns and industrial districts (with the exception of Tula, Tambov, and one or two other towns, perhaps) the relation of forces was such that, as a rule, victory was achieved fairly quickly and easily, and the Soviet power was established already at the end of October or the beginning of November 1917.
It was precisely in these proletarian industrial districts and midland gubernias, where the best forces of the working class were concentrated, that the armed forces were won over en masse and the compromising parties were isolated. As Stalin wrote later:
“Inner Russia, with its industrial, cultural and political centres—Moscow and Petrograd—with its nationally homogeneous population, mainly Russian, became the base of the revolution.”[19]
This was true not only of the gubernias which constituted the Moscow Region, but also of the Volga Region and the Urals, where the situation on the eve of the October days was approximately the same as in the Moscow Region.
[1] V. I. Lenin, “The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power,” Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. XXI, Book I, p. 223.
[2] V. I. Lenin, “The Crisis Has Matured,” Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. XXI, Book I, p. 277.
[3] V. I. Lenin, “Letter to the Central Committee, Moscow Committee, Petrograd Committee, and the Bolshevik Members of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets,” Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. XXI, Book II, p. 70.
[4] “The Joint Meeting of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” Izvestia of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, No. 156, September 6, 1917.
[5] “The Joint Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” Izvestia of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, No. 192, October 20, 1917.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “The Moscow Soviet’s Decision Regarding the Seizure of Power,” Russkoye Slovo (Russian Word), No. 240, October 20, 1917.
[9] V. V. Rudnyev, “The Pronouncement of the Moscow Soviets,” Russkoye Slovo, No. 240, October 20, 1917.
[10] Central Archives of Military History. Dossier 14, folio 1385. Order Issued to Moscow Military Area, No. 148, October 24, 1917.
[11] “The Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies of October 23,” Izvestia of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, No. 195, October 24, 1917.
[12] “Civil War Has Commenced,” Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 191, October 24, 1917.
[13] Party Archives. The Fund of the Regional Bureau of the Central Committee, p. 88.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] 1917 in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Gubernia. Chronicle of Events. Ivanovo-Voznesensk, 1927, p. 250.
[17] Utro Rossii, No. 254, October 22. 1917.
[18] The Shuya Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Minutes of Proceedings, folios 87-90.
[19] J. Stalin, Articles and Speeches on the Ukraine. Party Publishers, Kiev, 1936, p. 83.
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