The Military Revolutionary Committee entrusted the negotiations to Smidovich and Smirnov, who, on their own responsibility, departed, in certain particulars, from the terms which had been submitted to the “Committee of Public Safety” that morning. A fifth point was added to the agreement, which read as follows:
“On the signing of this agreement all prisoners on both sides are to be forthwith released.”[1]
Points 2 and 3 were also altered for the worse. An addendum was made to point 2 allowing the students of cadet schools to retain “arms needed for training” and point 3 was amended to allow the Whiteguard officers to have a representative on the Committee which was to decide the procedure of disarming the cadets. In its final form the agreement read as follows:
“November 2, 1917, 5 p.m.
“1. The Committee of Public Safety shall dissolve.
“2. The Whiteguard shall return its arms and dissolve. Officers are to retain the weapons due to their rank. Cadet schools are to retain only such arms as are needed for training. All other arms must be returned by the cadets. The Military Revolutionary Committee guarantees to all their freedom and personal immunity.
“3. To decide the mode of disarming referred to in point 2, a committee shall be set up consisting of representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee, representatives of the commanding personnel, and representatives of the organisations acting as mediators.
“4. The moment this peace treaty is signed both sides shall immediately issue orders for the cessation of all firing, and of all other hostilities, and take resolute measures to ensure the implicit obedience of these orders on the spot.
“5. On the signing of this agreement all prisoners on both sides shall be forthwith released.”[2]
When Smidovich and Smirnov reported the final text of the agreement to the Military Revolutionary Committee, most of the members of the Party Centre and those members of the Military Revolutionary Committee who had been absent from the morning meeting were now present. Strong objections to the treaty were raised by a number of the comrades and a lengthy debate ensued. True, the treaty was ultimately ratified, but this was entirely due to the fact that it contained the main thing: the recognition of the Soviet power in Moscow and of the defeat of the Whiteguards.
At 9 p.m. on November 2, the Military Revolutionary Committee issued the following order:
“To all the forces of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
“The revolutionary forces are victorious. The cadets and the Whiteguards are surrendering their arms. The Committee of Public Safety is to be dissolved. All the forces of the bourgeoisie have been utterly defeated and are surrendering on our terms.
“All power is vested in the Military Revolutionary Committee.
“At a high price, the Moscow workers and soldiers have won power in Moscow.
“All for the protection of the gains of the new workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ revolution!
“The enemy has capitulated.
“The Military Revolutionary Committee orders the cessation of all hostilities (rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire).
“When hostilities cease the Soviet forces must remain in their positions until the cadets and Whiteguards have surrendered their arms to a special commission.
“The forces are not to disperse until the Military Revolutionary Committee issues a special order to that effect.”[3]
The people in the districts were aware that negotiations were proceeding for the capitulation of the cadets, but taught by the experience of the armistice of October 29 and 30, the masses had no confidence in the sincerity of the Whites. On November 3 skirmishes continued here and there.
The condition of some of the cadet units which were scattered all over the city may be judged by the tenor of a message sent to the White Headquarters by Staff Captain Mylnikov. On November 3 he was in the Arbat. From there he sent a message to Headquarters asking for information about the state of affairs and expressing indignation at the fact that although in the firing line, he had no knowledge of how the fighting was proceeding.
At 10:35 a.m. on November 3, the Smolensk Market was entirely in the hands of the Red Guards. Here an ambush was arranged to hold up the cadets who, after the treaty was signed, made an attempt to flee from Moscow via the Bryansk Railway Station.
On the morning of November 3, the 5th Cadet School surrendered. At dawn, that day, the Kremlin was occupied.
The Kremlin was occupied by the Red Guards after the cessation of the bombardment at 3 a.m. Before that only a few individual Red Guards had managed to filter through.
The capture of the Kremlin crowned the victory in Moscow.
The formal surrender of the officers and cadets was then proceeded with. The fact that the officers were allowed to retain their arms, that the freedom and personal immunity of all the counter-revolutionaries had been guaranteed, that is to say, were allowed to go unpunished for all their misdeeds, and that all the Whiteguard and cadet prisoners were released caused great dissatisfaction among the masses. On November 3 representatives of the District Committees gathered at the Headquarters of the Military Revolutionary Committee and demanded the annulment of the treaty, the arrest of the cadets and Whiteguards, and the execution of the leaders of the counter-revolution.
The workers and soldiers who had been fighting the cadets in the streets of Moscow for six days and nights promptly rectified the blunder committed by the leaders of the insurrection. Not only were the officers not “allowed to retain the arms due to their rank,” but they had to be packed off to gaol in order to save them from being lynched. They were released later, in conformity with the treaty. On leaving the prison they had to disguise themselves in privates’ greatcoats in order to escape the fury of the masses.
The places where the cadets and officers were disarmed were thronged with vast crowds of workers and soldiers who made no secret of their hostility towards the neutral Commissars, and even towards the representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee who were supervising the disarming and liberation of the officers and the cadets in conformity with the treaty.
A Menshevik writer in the newspaper Vperyod described the following scene he witnessed outside the Alexandrovsky Military School, which vividly illustrates the temper of the masses.
“On arriving at the Alexandrovsky Military School on the morning of November 3, I found an extremely grave situation. Groups from different units, both military and civilian, had gathered in the street, extremely undisciplined, and loudly and angrily demanded the immediate arrest and even lynching of the cadets and officers. They threatened to bring up artillery if we failed to carry out their demands. Two guns that were standing in the square (three-inch) were turned on the school. The situation in the streets was extremely tense. The threats against the Commissars might have been put into effect any moment. Efforts were made to intimidate us.”
The class intuition of the workers did not deceive them. After the capitulation, the leaders of the “Committee of Public Safety” proceeded to organise sabotage in all the government offices in Moscow. The officers set about recruiting men for a counter-revolutionary army, and sent Whiteguards to the Don, where Kaledin was forming his bands. The bulk of the officers and cadets who had fought the workers and soldiers in Moscow joined the ranks of the counter-revolution that was being organised in the Don and in the Ukraine.
The lack of firmness which the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee displayed even at the last moment towards the utterly exposed class enemy caused the proletarian revolution nothing but harm.
The October insurrection in Moscow was a genuinely popular insurrection. It was effected by the broad masses of the workers and soldiers.
Its strongholds were the factories, where the workers chose the best of their men to go into the fighting line, and supplied the arms and everything else that was needed to achieve victory. By their revolutionary ardour and class consciousness the industrial proletariat exercised enormous influence upon the masses of the soldiers. It drew them into the struggle and led them.
The masses of the workers and a section of the garrison demanded from the district revolutionary centres an uncompromising policy, firmness and resolute action. Attack and not defence, was the slogan of the masses. Taught by the lessons of the insurrection of December 1905, the Moscow workers were aware that victory could be achieved only by a determined and sanguinary struggle, a vigorous offensive. The district centres, on their part, urged the central leading bodies of the insurrection to adopt offensive tactics. Thanks to the revolutionary initiative and heroic determination of the advanced workers in the districts a number of errors committed by the leaders were rectified. Victory was achieved thanks to the devotion of the masses.
In Moscow, as in Petrograd, one party, the Bolshevik Party, exercised undivided leadership of the insurrection in its organisational as well as in its subsequent stages. In Moscow, no less than in Petrograd, the real inspiration of the insurrection came from Lenin, whose leadership the Moscow Bolshevik organisation accepted without hesitation. From the very beginning of the October battles in Moscow, Lenin, the genius of the Socialist revolution, closely watched the course of the struggle and rendered the Moscow proletariat and its Bolshevik organisation every assistance.
To the aid of the Moscow workers the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by Stalin, sent considerable armed forces. The forces sent by Lenin and Stalin enthusiastically fought and defeated the Whiteguard mutinies side by side with the proletarian detachments of Moscow. The arrival of revolutionary reinforcements from Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and other towns immeasurably strengthened the position of the revolutionary forces and caused demoralisation in the ranks of the counter-revolutionaries.
The grave mistakes committed during the October days in Moscow were due to the fact that the “main rules of the art of insurrection,” to which Lenin had repeatedly called attention in his letters, were violated by the leading bodies both during the organisational stage of the insurrection as well as during the armed struggle itself. As if foreseeing the possibility of such mistakes Lenin had written in his letters that
“. . . armed insurrection is a special form of the political struggle, subject to special laws, to which we must give our serious attention.”[4]
The mistakes committed during the October days in Moscow were due to the fact that these special laws of armed insurrection were not sufficiently understood, and often ignored, or forgotten.
In Petrograd, the counter-revolutionary revolt of the cadets was ruthlessly suppressed in the course of one night. In Moscow, however, the leaders betrayed tardiness and lack of determination. Some of the members of the leading bodies were even guilty of treacherous vacillation, which served to protract the struggle. In spite of Lenin’s exhortation that “once it (i.e., insurrection—Ed.) is begun, remember firmly that you have to go to the very end,”[5] the Moscow Bolsheviks committed mistakes even when setting up the leading bodies, and this hindered the achievement of victory. To the mistakes committed during the first days of the struggle the following must be added:
1. No technical preparations were made for the insurrection. The leading bodies were formed too late. At the beginning of the insurrection the transmission belts from the Bolshevik Party to the soldiers were not sufficiently strong.
2. On the instructions of the Party Centre, the Military Revolutionary Committee accepted Mensheviks as members. In Petrograd, defence, including the invitation of other parties to send representatives to the Military Revolutionary Committee, was a cover for an offensive. In Moscow, the acceptance of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks on the Military Revolutionary Committee was taken seriously.
3. At the opening of hostilities the Military Revolutionary Committees, central and district, lacked comrades familiar with military operations. The military-technical weakness of the Central Military Revolutionary Committee may partly be explained by the fact that the leaders of the insurrection failed to take prompt measures to capture and hold the arsenal and powder magazines for the purpose of arming the workers and soldiers.
4. In Petrograd the insurrection was exceptionally well organised. In Moscow, however, things were allowed to drift in their own way, particularly in the initial period. As Lenin taught: “Once the insurrection has begun, you must act with the greatest determination and take the offensive absolutely and without fail. Defence means the death of the armed insurrection!”[6]
On both the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Party Centre in Moscow there were men who had no confidence in the forces of the proletarian revolution and who denied that Socialism could be victorious in Russia. They were opposed to armed insurrection. They counted on being able to avert an insurrection. Both before and during the insurrection they entered into treasonable negotiations with the class enemy. The enemy took advantage of these negotiations and gained time in which to organise his forces. By deceit he captured the Kremlin, surrounded the Moscow Soviet and presented an ultimatum to the Military Revolutionary Committee.
Guided by the advice of Lenin and Stalin, the Moscow Bolshevik organisation thrust aside the waverers, broke down the opposition to insurrection and achieved a decisive victory over the counter-revolution.
[1] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee, File, No. 643/46, folio 1.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee, File No. 239/239, folio 1.
[4] V. I. Lenin, “Advice from an Outsider,” Collected Works, Vol. XXI, Book II, p. 97.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 98.
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