Lenin: A Revolutionary Life (23 page)

So exactly what was Lenin saying that so upset his critics? At the end of the pamphlet on
The Dual Power
he made three points. First, the Provisional Government should be overthrown because it was a bour
geois government unable to fulfil the people’s demands for peace, bread and freedom. Second, it could not be overthrown ‘just now’. Third, it could not be overthrown ‘in the ordinary way’ because it rested on the support of the second government, the soviets. Significantly he concluded: ‘to become a power the class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side.
As long as
no violence is used against the people there is no other road to power. We are not Blanquists, we do not stand for the seizure of power by a minority.’ [CW 24 40] In his
Theses
and the articles backing them up Lenin was really trying, first and foremost, to get the Party to move on. It had been focused on the first stage of revolution, the overthrow of the tsar, since its origin. That had now happened and the second of his three forces of revolution, the imperialist bourgeoisie, was now in power. Since that was an established fact, it was now necessary to work towards its overthrow. However, there was no indication of whether this would take an historical epoch or would happen in weeks. Somewhere between the two seemed most likely, Lenin’s own definition being the time it would take for the workers’ cause to win over the majority. In the event, Lenin played fast and loose with even this proviso.

This debate was the first occasion on which Lenin was able to resume battle for control of his party. After a short, sharp conflict his views prevailed at the Seventh All-Russian Conference of the Bolshevik Party held from 27 April to 5 May (OS). Lenin opened the conference, gave its main report and was elected to the Central Committee with the highest number of votes. Unsurprisingly, he was the undisputed leader of the movement he had founded and nurtured. It was unthinkable that there should be any rival. After all, Lenin had made loyalty to himself and to his ideas the key condition of membership. One could hardly set up what amounted to a kind of political club of one’s fans and then not get to lead it.

Of course, the Party was not an end in itself. Its purpose was to exert influence on the course of events. Lenin might ‘control’ his party but could his party exert any power? In the conditions of spring and early summer 1917 the answer must be a resounding no. For the time being it was too weak. The torrent of revolution was sweeping through Russia with little reference to the ideologies and preferences of Lenin and his supporters. In rural areas peasants set up committees; reduced rents they paid; forced their wages up if they were labourers; sowed seed on land abandoned by landowners who had no labour to work it; and even drew up inventories of estates to stop landowners stripping the assets. Soldiers and sailors established a vigorous but varied network of committees to protect their interests. By and large, they asserted that soldiers and sailors would defend the country against attack but would not freely go on the offensive. Workers set up militias to defend their factories and its stocks and also their homes; massive numbers joined trades unions; factory committees kept a close eye on management and even slowly encroached on managerial functions.
¹

No one did any of this because the Bolsheviks told them to. Most would never have heard of Bolshevism let alone have the first idea of what it stood for. In fact, the learning process was the other way round. Lenin began to absorb the revolutionary processes he saw around him and began to theorize a new kind of revolutionary state based on Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune. In fact, Marx had gone through a process like that through which Lenin was going. A radical revolution which did not look to him for guidance showed him ways of organizing about which he wrote. Lenin saw similar spontaneous revolutionary creativity which resembled that of Paris in 1871 and built on it. Smashing the state machine and replacing it with directly elected, recallable officials and a nationwide militia all based on a system of soviets became Lenin’s recipe for a post-revolutionary state.
The April Theses
mentioned that ‘the salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and replaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.’ [SW 2 15] In
Letters on Tactics
he talked about the ‘commune state’ which, based on Soviets, was ‘a
state
of a special type’ [CW 24 52] which would ‘make the independent activity of the
masses
a reality more quickly than a parliamentary republic’. [CW 24 53] It would be ‘a state
without
a standing army,
without
a police opposed to the people,
without
an officialdom placed above the people’. [CW 24 48]

Clearly Lenin was tremendously excited by the situation. During the months of April to June the revolutionary ferment continued to bubble.

The government was defeated and a minority of socialist ministers joined it in May to form the first coalition. Soviets called for quicker action by the Provisional Government on implementing its promises of land reform, peace negotiation and a constituent assembly to prepare the transition to democracy. In a major piece of wrestling with the Soviet leadership and Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks were forced to call off a demonstration on 10 June (OS) in favour of one called officially by the Soviet a week later. What looked like a sign of weakness on the part of the Bolsheviks actually turned into a triumph when Bolshevik slogans predominated. It was one of the first major signs of the process Lenin had predicted. The masses were already becoming disillusioned with the Provisional Government and the ‘opportunists’ of the Soviet right wing.

However, it would be wrong to translate this into an assumption that Lenin was becoming triumphalist. In fact, his speeches and writings of these crucial weeks counsel caution. His main concern was that the left might overstretch itself and provoke a right-wing counter-revolution. His concern was based on the fact that what might seem possible in the heady political atmosphere of Petrograd would precipitate forces in that city into taking steps for which the rest of the country and, indeed, the continent was not yet ready. He spelled this out unambiguously in his speech calling on the Petrograd Committee of the Party to call off the June demonstration. The crisis, he said, showed that the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet, in which the Bolsheviks were still a minority, ‘are calling an offensive against us’ based on the fear that the Bolsheviks were conspiring to seize power by means of the demonstration. Lenin took the threat to the Bolsheviks very seriously and said: ‘The proletariat must reply by showing the maximum calmness, caution, restraint and organization … We must give them no pretext for attack.’ [CW 25 80]

Of course, the Soviet majority, in their turn, might be forgiven for thinking the Bolsheviks were planning something. Only a week before this speech, Lenin had told the First All-Russian Soviet Congress (3–24 June (OS)), in response to the Menshevik leader Tsereteli’s comment that there was no party in Russia prepared to take power, that there was one, the Bolsheviks, who were ‘ready to take over full power at any moment’. [SW 2 143] In reality, Lenin’s point had only been rhetorical, intended to show up the resolve of the Bolsheviks compared to the Mensheviks’ tendency to compromise, or, in their own view, to be realistic. But Lenin, too, was realistic. Out of more than a thousand delegates at the Congress from all over Russia only 105 declared themselves to be Bolsheviks. It was not surprising that Lenin maintained his note of caution.

The Congress, into which Lenin characteristically threw all his nervous energy and strength, was followed by the furore over the proposed Bolshevik demonstration of 10 June (OS), plus the stress of the Soviet-approved but Bolshevik-dominated demonstration which actually took place on 18 June (OS). They all combined to create an intense period of activity. As usual, tension played havoc with Lenin’s nerves and his health. He was completely exhausted and had pushed himself beyond his limits. After the Congress concluded, on 24 June (OS), it seemed that the moment of tension had passed and Krupskaya prevailed on him to take a break. Krupskaya had, herself, become deeply involved in the burgeoning committee and representational structure of the revolution, being voted on to the Vyborg raion soviet, an equivalent of a London borough council. She was also busy with educational and youth work. In her own, characteristically vivid words: ‘I greedily absorbed the life around me.’ [Krupskaya 299] The result was that she was unable to accompany Vladimir on his break. Instead, his sister, Maria, went with him. On 28 June (OS) he left Petrograd for the Finnish village of Neivola to stay with his old friend Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich. Once again, he surrendered to the calming powers of nature, walks in the woods, fresh air and recuperation. He did not stop thinking or writing but he was ready to enjoy a period of meeting-free tranquillity as the pace of revolution appeared to be slowing, temporarily. However, nothing could have been further from the truth. On 4 July (OS) he hurried back to Petrograd because, in his absence, the Revolution had reached its most critical point since February itself.

As the Revolution radicalized, so its opponents in the propertied middle and upper classes became increasingly fearful for their privileges. Krupskaya herself records seeing signs on the streets of Petrograd of the growing resistance to the left and the breakdown of the February honeymoon. In her work with young people she noted: ‘Young workers presented a striking contrast to the older groups of the middle school … The latter often approached the Kshesinskaya mansion in a crowd, hurling abuse at the Bolsheviks. It was apparent that they were put up to it by someone.’ [Krupskaya 300] During the crisis of April, when the Provisional Government came under pressure because of the publication of the Miliukov Note promising the Allies that Russian imperialist war aims had not changed as a result of February, Krupskaya noted a large workers’ demonstration coming from the Nevsky Gate. ‘Another crowd, wearing hats and bowlers moved towards the workers’ demonstration … The workers predominated near the Nevsky Gate but nearer to Morskaya Street and Poitsevsky Bridge the bowlers and hats were more numerous.’ Krupskaya quickly became aware of one of the most effective devices being used in such circles to undermine the Bolsheviks and other parts of the internationalist left. ‘The story was passing from mouth to mouth among the crowd of how Lenin had bribed the workers with German gold and now all were following him. “We must beat Lenin!” shouted a stylishly dressed young woman. “Kill all these scoundrels,” someone in a bowler roared.’ Krupskaya’s conclusion was that the events revealed the growing realities of the moment: ‘Class against Class! The working class stood for Lenin.’ [Krupskaya 301]

The patriotic card was being played increasingly by the government which had few other weapons in its locker for rousing public support. For a variety of reasons, from early May, the government was trying to reinvigorate the war by means of an offensive. This put it on a collision course, especially with the soldiers whose committees were frequently coalescing around the policy of supporting defensive operations only. They would resist attack but not take part in attacking the enemy. The government, which had promised not to remove troops from Petrograd in its foundation agreement with the Soviet in March, saw the renewed offensive as an opportunity to renege on this commitment and to move the most troublesome, that is the most radical-minded, military units out of Petrograd. There was a problem of where they might go because front-line officers did not want what they saw as a mutinous rabble dumped on their doorsteps. Be that as it may, the crisis boiled up. The failure of the offensive in early July added to the heat, each side blaming the other. The left said it should never have been undertaken in the first place, the right blamed the soldiers’ committees and soviets for undermining its efforts. In Petrograd the conjuncture had also brought a political crisis and the first coalition government had broken up on 2 July (OS) and no second coalition had been formed to replace it. At this crucial moment Russia had only a caretaker government.

The situation in the city came to a head when left-wing regiments, notably the First Machine Gun Regiment, were ordered out of the city. On 3 July (OS) they held a stormy meeting and resolved to overthrow the government. The radical stronghold of Kronstadt, a chief port of the largely inactive Baltic Fleet, had been, in effect, an oasis of soviet power for some months. The decision was made to send a large contingent – some say 10,000, others 25,000, armed sailors – to join anti-government demonstrations in the city in support of the Machine Gunners. They arrived on 4 July (OS). Workers, too, joined in. They were exasperated by falling output, unemployment, lockouts and other employer tactics intended to cut their wages and break their vastly burgeoning representative institutions. The two days of demonstration represented the greatest crisis the government had so far faced. There is no doubt it could have been overthrown, indeed the forces on the street were greater than in the October Revolution itself. However, no one, apart from the rather small anarchist left, was prepared to lead them. The sailors went to, among other places, the Bolshevik headquarters, the Kshesinskaya Mansion, to beg for leadership. Lenin, who had rushed back from his recuperative rest in Finland, spoke a few words of praise for their fortitude but did not call on them to seize power. Instead, he pushed the Party orator, Anatoly Lunacharsky, who had newly arrived in the Bolshevik ranks along with Trotsky and the rest of the ‘Interdistrictite’ faction, out onto the balcony to deal with them, effectively to praise them but also tell them to remain peaceful and to go home. N.N. Sukhanov, the great chronicler of the Revolution, describes the scene on 4 July (OS):

When the Kronstadters surrounded Kshesinskaya’s house, expecting to receive instructions, Lenin made an extremely ambiguous speech. He didn’t demand any concrete action from the impressive force standing in front of him; he didn’t even call on his audience to con
tinue the street demonstrations … During the ovation given him by the Kronstadters, Lenin called [Lunacharsky] over and suggested that he speak to the crowd. Lunacharsky, always ablaze with eloquence, didn’t wait to be urged.
²