After fulfilling its function of directing the insurrection the Military Revolutionary Committee did not immediately dissolve; it was transformed from an organ of the Petrograd Soviet into an organ of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. After reaching its triumphant culmination at the centre, the insurrection continued its march through the country, consuming in its flames the old regime and building up the new administration.
The Military Revolutionary Committee sent its emissaries to the provinces, received reports of the progress of the insurrection in the districts, reinforced the weak spots and sent detachments formed in the factories of revolutionary Petrograd to those places where the situation was critical. During the first two weeks after the October Revolution the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed 72 Commissars for the provinces, 85 for army units, and 184 for civil bodies. Its main function, however, changed within the very first few days after the proletarian revolution. At a meeting held on October 30, it defined its new functions as follows:
“1. The Military Revolutionary Committee carries out duties assigned to it by the Council of People’s Commissars. 2. The Military Revolutionary Committee is in charge of maintaining revolutionary order. 3. Combating counter-revolution. 4. Protecting the premises of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Council of People’s Commissars. To carry out these functions, the Military Revolutionary Committee sets up corresponding departments.”[1]
In all, the Committee, on the night of October 30, set up seven departments, the chief of which being: The Investigation and Juridical Department, Requisitions Department, Internal and External Communications Department, and Information Department.
This list alone is sufficient to indicate the range of the Military Revolutionary Committee’s functions. But its work extended even beyond these boundaries. It intervened to compel the capitalists to pay the worker Red Guards for the time they had been engaged in the insurrection, and took measures to combat unemployment, profiteering and sabotage. It directed the organisation of the food supply. It continued to direct the insurrection in all parts of the country where it was still proceeding. It took an active part in building up the new government. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks fully appreciated the important part the Military Revolutionary Committee was taking in the work of organising the insurrection and the new government. This explains why one of the first and foremost demands of these “conciliators” was for the dissolution of the Committee. This was natural: its dissolution at that moment when the insurrection had not yet been completed throughout the country would have meant the capitulation and disarming of the revolution.
A vast amount of work was performed by the Agitation Department of the Military Revolutionary Committee, which was directed by Comrade Molotov. Every day, from fifty to seventy persons came to this department for literature and information; many requested to be sent to the provinces. Comrade Molotov sent hundreds of these devoted and energetic agitators and organisers to the provinces where they went right among the masses of the working people, introducing revolutionary organisation and order.
About the middle of the second week of November, it became more evident what the main line of the Military Revolutionary Committee’s functions were to be. At this time the various departments of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee were beginning to be formed; the Commissariats were getting on their feet, and the Council of People’s Commissars was developing its work. In these circumstances, the numerous departments of the Military Revolutionary Committee became superfluous and caused a great deal of overlapping. On November 9, the Military Revolutionary Committee on Comrade Molotov’s motion, passed a resolution urging that it was necessary for the various sub-committees of the Military Revolutionary Committee to work in conjunction with the committees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. On November 18, the Military Revolutionary Committee began to hand over its affairs to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but this did not yet mean its liquidation. There still seemed to be an urgent function for it to perform, viz., to combat counter-revolution.
At a meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee held on November 21, however, F. E. Dzerzhinsky moved that a special committee to combat counter-revolution be formed to operate under the control of the Central Executive Committee of Soviets. This was agreed to. With the establishment of such a body, the Military Revolutionary Committee became superfluous. Several days later the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decision to relieve the Military Revolutionary Committee of its multifarious functions and to transfer its departments to the different Commissariats.
In the beginning of December, the Military Revolutionary Committee was able to sum up its glorious activities and nominate its successor. In a statement issued on December 5, it wrote:
“Having fulfilled its military functions during the revolution in Petrograd, and being of the opinion that its functions should be transferred to the Department for Combating Counter-Revolution set up by the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee resolves: to liquidate all the departments now functioning under its auspices and to transfer all their affairs to the corresponding departments of the Central Executive Committee, to the Council of People’s Commissars and to the Petrograd and District Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.”[2]
The Military Revolutionary Committee thus ceased to function. In its place arose that terror to all the enemies of the revolution—the Extraordinary Commission, headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky.
Such were the first steps taken by the Great Proletarian Revolution in organising the new administration.
The victory of the revolution in Petrograd, in Moscow and in the army ensured the victory of the Soviet regime all over the country. True, in a number of regions, owing to national, class and other specifically local conditions, or international relations, the struggle of the workers and the toiling peasantry for power was more protracted, and in many places dragged on for months. But this did not affect the general situation. The October Socialist Revolution triumphed throughout the country. The Council of People’s Commissars—elected by the Second Congress of Soviets, which represented the overwhelming majority of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies—became the legitimate and genuinely people’s government of the entire country.
Like a mighty flood, the revolution swept away the barrier of sabotage, liquidated the first attempts at rebellion and crushed the resistance of the enemies of the people. The Great Revolution roused millions of people to active political life.
Not a single revolution in human history had destroyed the obstacles standing in the path of the new society as thoroughly and relentlessly as the October Revolution swept away the obstacles standing in the path of the new, Socialist society. And this gigantic task of releasing the land from its feudal fetters was accomplished in the course of the first few’ weeks of the proletarian dictatorship. The bourgeois state machine was demolished; bureaucracy was shattered to its foundations. The peoples swept away the ancient caste barriers, abolished landlord rule—feudal landownership, and reduced the obsolete feudal institutions to ashes.
But the revolution did not confine itself to breaking up the old. While destroying, the people also built—on a vast scale, and with creative energy. Out of the flames of the revolutionary conflagration an entirely new state administration arose. In place of the old and disintegrated army, the foundations of a new workers’ and peasants’ army were laid. New organs for the management of the country’s economy were created.
Thus, the foundations of Socialist society began to be laid in the very first days of the existence of the Soviet Republic. The successful October Socialist Revolution saved the country from semi-colonial dependence. The Russian capitalists and landlords were to an increasing degree becoming the agents of foreign imperialism. They were preparing for the nations of Russia the fate of China, which for long years had been a plaything in the hands of the stronger powers. The great proletarian revolution paved the way for the free and independent development of the nations of Russia.
The October Revolution was brought about by the workers and toiling peasantry of all the nations of Russia. The Bolsheviks prepared for the revolution in all the national regions and republics—in the Ukraine, Byelorussia, the Baltic countries, the Caucasus and Central Asia. This ensured the speedy and almost bloodless triumph of the revolution. The proletarian revolution broke the chains of national oppression and laid the foundations for the amalgamation of the nations. Age-long national inequality was utterly abolished and state bodies were set up to guide the national movements, to build up the national cultures and national statehood.
The great proletarian revolution laid really strong and durable foundations for the defence of the country. It paved the way for the removal of the age-long backwardness of Russia and opened up unprecedented prospects for the growth of socialist industry and the reorganisation of agriculture. The triumphant people took the fate of their country and the defence of their motherland into their own hands. As Lenin wrote on the eve of the October Revolution:
“. . . to make Russia capable of defending herself, to achieve ‘miracles’ of mass heroism we must with ‘Jacobin’ relentlessness sweep away all that is old and renew, regenerate Russia’s economy!”[3]
In September 1917, in his article, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? Lenin said that the enemies of the proletariat and of the other toiling classes had not yet seen the full strength of the resistance of the working people and could not conceive what it would be like when they were in possession of complete power.
“But the strength of the resistance of the proletariat and the poor peasantry we have not yet seen,” he said, “for this strength will develop to the full only when power is in the hands of the proletariat. . . .”[4] He went on to say that when the proletariat captured power “no forces of the capitalists and kulaks, no forces of international finance capital, manipulating hundreds of billions will be able to vanquish the people’s revolution. . . .”[5]
The proletariat took power in October 1917 in order to demolish the old capitalist system, and under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party to build a new Socialist society.
As Stalin has pointed out, the October Socialist Revolution differed in principle from all preceding revolutions. For the first time in history the task was undertaken of abolishing the exploitation of man by man in a vast country, and this task was achieved. In his speech at the First Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers, Stalin said:
“The history of nations knows not a few revolutions. But those revolutions differ from the October Revolution in that they were one-sided revolutions. One form of exploitation of the working people was replaced by another form of exploitation; but exploitation, as such, remained. One set of exploiters and oppressors was replaced by another set of exploiters and oppressors; but exploiters and oppressors, as such, remained. Only the October Revolution set itself the aim of abolishing all exploitation and of eliminating all exploiters and oppressors.”[6]
The Great October Socialist Revolution ushered in a new era in world history, the era of the building of Socialism, in an area covering one-sixth of the globe. It ushered in a new era in the history of Russia. The proletariat and peasantry of Russia, led by the Bolshevik Party, the Party of Lenin and Stalin, were confronted with the great historical task of organising Socialist production and of preserving the gains of the Great October Socialist Revolution from the impending attacks of the enemies of the proletarian dictatorship.
[1] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Fund 1232. V. I. Charnolussky, Catalogue No. 2, File No. 14, Part I, folio 8.
[2] Ibid., folio 109.
[3] V. I. Lenin, “The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It,” Collected Works, Vol. XXI, Eng. ed., Book I, p. 214.
[4] Lenin, “Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” Collected Works, Eng. ed., Vol. XXI, Book II, p. 47.
[5] Ibid., p. 48.
[6] J. Stalin, “Speech Delivered at the First All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers,” February 19, 1933, Problems of Leninism, 1945, Eng. ed., p. 442.
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