Ten Days That Shook The World (17 page)
The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to lead troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by Kerensky, have sided with the insurgent People.
Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on guard!
Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against Petrograd!
Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution and democratic peace is in your hands!
Long live the Revolution!
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
Delegates from the Peasants' Soviets.
It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue, climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
"Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings to the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the Northern Front!" Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other. "General Tchermissov has recognized the Committee-Commissar of the Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!"
So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and thrust the coup d'etat upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was all great Russia to win-and then the world! Would Russia follow and rise? And the world-what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a red world-tide?
Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill. There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn grey-rising over Russia....
Chapter 5: Plunging Ahead
THURSDAY, November 8th. Day broke on a city in the wildest excitement and confusion, a whole nation having up in long hissing swells of storm. Superficially all was quiet; hundreds of thousands of people retired at a prudent hour, got up early, and went to work. In Petrograd the street-cars were running, the stores and restaurants open, theaters going, an exhibition of paintings advertised.... All the complex routine of common life-humdrum even in war-time-proceeded as usual. Nothing is so astounding as the vitality of the social organism-how it persists, feeding itself, clothing itself, amusing itself, in the face of the worst calamities....
The air was full of rumors about Kerensky, who was said to have raised the Front, and to be leading a great army against the capital. Volia Naroda published a prikaz launched by him at Pskov:
The disorders caused by the insane attempt of the Bolsheviki place the country on the verge of a precipice, and demand the effort of our entire will, our courage and the devotion of every one of us, to win through the terrible trial which the fatherland is undergoing....
Until the declaration of the composition of the new Government-if one is formed-every one ought to remain at his post and fulfill his duty toward bleeding Russia. It must be remembered that the least interference with existing Army organizations can bring on irreparable misfortunes, by opening the Front to the enemy. Therefore it is indispensable to preserve at any price the morale of the troops, by assuring complete order and the preservation of the Army from new shocks, and by maintaining absolute confidence between officers and their subordinates. I order all the chiefs and Commissars, in the name of the safety of the country, to stay at their posts, as I myself retain the post of Supreme Commander, until the Provisional Government of the Republic shall declare its will....
In answer, this placard on all the walls:
FROM THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS
"The ex-Ministers Konovalov, Kishkin, Terestchenko, Maliantovitch, Nikitin and others have been arrested by the Military Revolutionary Committee. Kerensky has fled. All Army organizations are ordered to take every measure for the immediate arrest of Kerensky and his conveyance to Petrograd.
"All assistance given to Kerensky will be punished as a serious crime against the state."
With brakes released the Military Revolutionary Committee whirled, throwing off orders, appeals, decrees, like sparks. (See App. V, Sect. 1)... Kornilov was ordered brought to Petrograd. Members of the Peasant Land Committees imprisoned by the Provisional Government were declared free. Capital punishment in the army was abolished. Government employees were ordered to continue their work, and threatened with severe penalties if they refused. All pillage, disorder and speculation were forbidden under pain of death. Temporary Commissars were appointed to the various Ministries: Foreign Affairs, Vuritsky and Trotsky; Interior and Justice, Rykov; Labor, Shliapnikov; Finance, Menzhinsky; Public Welfare, Madame Kollontai; Commerce, Ways and Communications, Riazanov; Navy, the sailor Korbir; Posts and Telegraphs, Spiro; Theatres, Muraviov; State Printing Office, Gherbychev; for the City of Petrograd, Lieutenant Nesterov; for the Northern Front, Pozern....
To the Army, appeal to set up Military Revolutionary Committees. To the railway workers, to maintain order, especially not to delay the transport of food to the cities and the front.... In return, they were promised representation in the Ministry of Ways and Communications.
Cossack brothers! (said one proclamation). You are being led against Petrograd. They want to force you into battle with the revolutionary workers and soldiers of the capital. Do not believe a word that is said by our common enemies, the land-owners and the capitalists.
At our Congress are represented all the conscious organizations of workers, soldiers and peasants of Russia. The Congress wishes also to welcome into its midst the worker-Cossacks. The Generals of the Black Band, henchmen of the land-owners, of Nicolai the Cruel, are our enemies.
They tell you that the Soviets wish to confiscate the lands of the Cossacks. This is a lie. It is only from the great Cossack landlords that the Revolution will confiscate the land to give it to the people.
Organize Soviets of Cossacks' Deputies! Join with the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies!
Show the Black Band that you are not traitors to the People, and that you do not wish to be cursed by the whole of revolutionary Russia!...
Cossack brothers, execute no orders of the enemies of the people. Send your delegates to Petrograd to talk it over with us.... The Cossacks of the Petrograd garrison, to their honor, have not justified the hope of the People's enemies....
Cossack brothers! The All-Russian Congress of Soviets extends to you a fraternal hand. Long live the brotherhood of the Cossacks with the soldiers, workers and peasants of all Russia!
On the other side, what a storm of proclamations posted up, hand-bills scattered everywhere, newspapers-screaming and cursing and prophesying evil. Now raged the battle of the printing press-all other weapons being in the hands of the Soviets.
First, the appeal of the Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, flung broadcast over Russia and Europe:
TO THE CITIZENS OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC!
Contrary to the will of the revolutionary masses, on November 7th the Bolsheviki of Petrograd criminally arrested part of the Provisional Government, dispersed the Council of the Republic, and proclaimed an illegal power. Such violence committed against the Government of revolutionary Russia at the moment of its greatest external danger, is an indescribable crime against the fatherland.
The insurrection of the Bolsheviki deals a mortal blow to the cause of national defence, and postpones immeasurably the moment of peace so greatly desired.
Civil war, begun by the Bolsheviki, threatens to deliver the country to the horrors of anarchy and counter-revolution, and cause the failure of the Constituent Assembly, which must affirm the republican régime and transmit to the People forever their right to the land.
Preserving the continuity of the only legal Governmental power, the Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution, established on the night of November 7th, takes the initiative in forming a new Provisional Government; which, basing itself on the forces of democracy, will conduct the country to the Constituent Assembly and save it from anarchy and counter-revolution. The Committee for Salvation summons you, citizens, to refuse to recognize the power of violence. Do not obey its orders!
Rise for the defense of the country and Revolution!
Support the Committee for Salvation!
Signed by the Council of the Russian Republic, the Municipal Duma of Petrograd, the Tsay-ee-kah (First Congress), the Executive Committee of the Peasants' Soviets, and from the Congress itself the Front group, the factions of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviki, Populist Socialists, Unified Social Democrats, and the group "Yedinstvo."
Then posters from the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Mensheviki oborontsi, Peasants' Soviets again; from the Central Army Committee, the Tsentroflot....
... Famine will crush Petrograd! (they cried). The German armies will trample on our liberty. Black Hundred pogroms will spread over Russia, if we all-conscious workers, soldiers, citizens-do not unite....
Do not trust the promises of the Bolsheviki! The promise of immediate peace-is a lie! The promise of bread-a hoax! The promise of land-a fairy tale!...
They were all in this manner.
Comrades! You have been basely and cruelly deceived! The seizure of power has been accomplished by the Bolsheviki alone.... They concealed their plot from the other Socialist parties composing the Soviet....
You have been promised land and freedom, but the counter-revolution will profit by the anarchy called forth by the Bolsheviki, and will deprive you of land and freedom....
The newspapers were as violent.
Our duty (said the Dielo Naroda) is to unmask these traitors to the working-class. Our duty is to mobilize all our forces and mount guard over the cause of the Revolution!...
Izviestia, for the last time speaking in the name of the old Tsay-ee-kah, threatened awful retribution.
As for the Congress of Soviets, we affirm that there has been no Congress of Soviets! We affirm that it was merely a private conference of the Bolshevik faction! And in that case, they have no right to cancel the powers of the Tsay-ee-kah....
Novaya Zhizn, while pleading for a new Government that should unite all the Socialist parties, criticised severely the action of the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki in quitting the Congress, and pointed out that the Bolshevik insurrection meant one thing very clearly: that all illusions about coalition with the bourgeoisie were henceforth demonstrated vain...
Rabotchi Put blossomed out as Pravda, Lenin's newspaper which had been suppressed in July. It crowed, bristling:
Workers, soldiers, peasants! In March you struck down the tyranny of the clique of nobles. Yesterday you struck down the tyranny of the bourgeois gang....
The first task now is to guard the approaches to Petrograd.
The second is definitely to disarm the counter-revolutionary elements of Petrograd.
The third is definitely to organize the revolutionary power and assure the realization of the popular program...
What few Cadet organs appeared, and the bourgeoisie generally, adopted a detached, ironical attitude toward the whole business, a sort of contemptuous "I-told-you-so" to the other parties. Influential Cadets were to be seen hovering around the Municipal Duma, and on the outskirts of the Committee for Salvation. Other than that, the bourgeoisie lay low, biding its hour-which could not far off. That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three days never occurred to anybody-except perhaps to Lenin, Trotsky, the Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers....
In the high, amphitheatrical Nicolai Hall that afternoon I saw the Duma sitting in permanence, tempestuous, grouping around it all the forces of opposition. The old Mayer, Schreider, majestic with his white hair and beard, was describing his visit to Smolny the night before, to protest in the name of the Municipal Self-Government. "The Duma, being the only existing legal Government in the city, elected by equal, direct and secret suffrage, would not recognize the new power," he had told Trotsky. And Trotsky had answered, "There is a constitutional remedy for that. The Duma can be dissolved and re-elected...." At this report there was a furious outcry.
"If one recognizes a Government by bayonet," continued the old man, addressing the Duma, "well, we have one; but I consider legitimate only a Government recognized by the majority, and not one created by the usurpation of a minority!" Wild applause on all benches except those of the Bolsheviki. Amid renewed tumult the Mayor announced that the Bolsheviki already were violating Municipal autonomy by appointing Commissars in many departments.
The Bolshevik speaker shouted, trying to make himself heard, that the decision of the Congress of Soviets meant that all Russia backed up the action of the Bolsheviki.
"You!" he cried. "You are not the real representative of the people of Petrograd!" Shrieks of "Insult! Insult!" The old Mayor, with dignity, reminded him that the Duma was elected by the freest possible popular vote. "Yes," he answered, "but that was a long time ago-like the Tsay-ee-kah-like the Army Committee."
"There has been no new Congress of Soviets!" they yelled at him.
"The Bolshevik faction refuses to remain any longer in this nest of counter-revolution-" Uproar. "-and we demand a re-election of the Duma...." Whereupon the Bolsheviki left the chamber, followed by cries of "German agents! Down with the traitors!"