Ten Days That Shook The World (38 page)

TO THE ATTENTION OF ALL CITIZENS.

THE STATE BANK IS CLOSED!

WHY?

Because the violence exercised by the Bolsheviki against the State Bank has made it impossible for us to work. The first act of the People's Commissars was to DEMAND TEN MILLION RUBLES, and on November 27th THEY DEMANDED TWENTY-FIVE MILLIONS, without any indication as to where this money was to go.

... We functionaries cannot take part in plundering the people's property. We stopped work.

CITIZENS! The money in the State Bank is yours, the people's money, acquired by your labor, your sweat and blood. CITIZENS! Save the people's property from robbery, and us from violence, and we shall immediately resume work.

EMPLOYEES OF THE STATE BANK.

From the Ministry of Supplies, the Ministry of Finance, from the Special Supply Committee, declarations that the Military Revolutionary Committee made it impossible for the employees to work, appeals to the population to support them against Smolny.... But the dominant worker and soldier did not believe them; it was firmly fixed in the popular mind that the employees were sabotaging, starving the Army, starving the people.... In the long bread lines, which as formerly stood in the iron winter streets, it was not the Government which was blamed, as it had been under Kerensky, but the tchinovniki, the sabotageurs; for the Government was their Government, their Soviets-and the functionaries of the Ministries were against it....

At the center of all this opposition was the Duma, and its militant organ, the Committee for Salvation, protesting against all the decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, voting again and again not to recognize the Soviet Government, openly cooperating with the new counter-revolutionary "Governments" set up at Moghilev.... On the 17th of November, for example, the Committee for Salvation addressed "all Municipal Governments, Zemstvos, and all democratic and revolutionary organizations of peasants, workers, soldiers and other citizens," in these words:

Do not recognize the Government of the Bolsheviki, and struggle against it.

Form local Committees for Salvation of Country and Revolution, who will unite all democratic forces, so as to aid the All-Russian Committee for Salvation in the tasks which it has set itself....

Meanwhile the elections for the Constituent Assembly in Petrograd (See App. XI, Sect. 15) gave an enormous plurality to the Bolsheviki; so that even the Mensheviki Internationalists pointed out that the Duma ought to be re-elected, as it no longer represented the political composition of the Petrograd population.... At the same time floods of resolutions from workers' organizations, from military units, even from the peasants in the surrounding country, poured in upon the Duma, calling it "counter-revolutionary, Kornilovitz," and demanding that it resign. The last days of the Duma were stormy with the bitter demands of the Municipal workers for decent living wages, and the threat of strikes....

On the 23rd a formal decree of the Military Revolutionary Committee dissolved the Committee for Salvation. On the 29th, the Council of People's Commissars ordered the dissolution and re-election of the Petrograd City Duma:

In view of the fact that the Central Duma of Petrograd, elected September 2nd, ... has definitely lost the right to represent the population of Petrograd, being in complete disaccord with its state of mind and its aspirations ... and in view of the fact that the personnel of the Duma majority, although having lost all political following, continues to make use of its prerogatives to resist in a counter-revolutionary manner the will of the workers, soldiers and peasants, to sabotage and obstruct the normal work of the Government-the Council of People's Commissars considers it its duty to invite the population of the capital to pronounce judgment on the policy of the organ of Municipal autonomy.

To this end the Council of People's Commissars resolves:

(1) To dissolve the Municipal Duma; the dissolution to take effect November 30th, 1917.

(2) All functionaries elected or appointed by the present Duma shall remain at their posts and fulfill the duties confided to them, until their places shall be filled by representatives of the new Duma.

(3) All Municipal employees shall continue to fulfil their duties; those who leave the service of their own accord shall be considered discharged.

(4) The new elections for the Municipal Duma of Petrograd are fixed for December 9th, 1917....

(5) The Municipal Duma of Petrograd shall meet December 11th, 1917, at two o'clock.

(6) Those who disobey this decree, as well as those who intentionally harm or destroy the property of the Municipality, shall be immediately arrested and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunals....

The Duma met defiantly, passing resolutions to the effect that it would "defend its position to the last drop of its blood," and appealing desperately to the population to save their "own elected City Government." But the population remained indifferent or hostile. On the 31st Mayor Schreider and several members were arrested, interrogated, and released. That day and the next the Duma continued to meet, interrupted frequently by Red Guards and sailors, who politely requested the assembly to disperse. At the meeting of December 2nd, an officer and some sailors entered the Nicolai Hall while a member was speaking, and ordered the members to leave, or force would be used. They did so, protesting to the last, but finally "ceding to violence."

The new Duma, which was elected ten days later, and for which the "Moderate" Socialists refused to vote, was almost entirely Bolshevik....

There remained several centers of dangerous opposition, such as the "republics" of Ukraine and Finland, which were showing definitely anti-Soviet tendencies. Both at Helsingfors and at Kiev the Governments were gathering troops which could be depended upon, and entering upon campaigns of crushing Bolshevism, and of disarming and expelling Russian troops. The Ukrainean Rada had taken command of all southern Russia, and was furnishing Kaledin reinforcements and supplies. Both Finland and Ukraine were beginning secret negotiations with the Germans, and were promptly recognized by the Allied Governments, which loaned them huge sums of money, joining with the propertied classes to create counter-revolutionary centers of attack upon Soviet Russia. In the end, when Bolshevism had conquered in both these countries, the defeated bourgeoisie called in the Germans to restore them to power....

But the most formidable menace to the Soviet Government was internal and two-headed-the Kaledin movement, and the Staff at Moghilev, where General Dukhonin had assumed command.

Proclamation of the Commission of Public Education attached to the City Duma, concerning the strike of school-teachers, just before the Christmas holidays. The Duma had been re-elected, and was composed almost entirely of Bolsheviki. For translation see App. XI, Sect. 17.

The ubiquitous Muraviov was appointed commander of the war against the Cossacks, and a Red Army was recruited from among the factory workers. Hundreds of propagandists were sent to the Don. The Council of People's Commissars issued a proclamation to the Cossacks, (See App. XI, Sect. 16) explaining what the Soviet Government was, how the propertied classes, the tchin ovniki, landlords, bankers and their allies, the Cossack princes, land-owners and Generals, were trying to destroy the Revolution, and prevent the confiscation of their wealth by the people.

On November 27th a committee of Cossacks came to Smolny to see Trotsky and Lenin. They demanded if it were true that the Soviet Government did not intend to divide the Cossack lands among the peasants of Great Russia? "No," answered Trotsky. The Cossacks deliberated for a while. "Well," they asked, "does the Soviet Government intend to confiscate the estates of our great Cossack land-owners and divide them among the working Cossacks?" To this Lenin replied. "That," he said, "is for you to do. We shall support the working Cossacks in all their actions.... The best way to begin is to form Cossacks Soviets; you will be given representation in the Tsay-ee-kah, and then it will be your Government, too....

The Cossacks departed, thinking hard. Two weeks later General Kaledin received a deputation from his troops. "Will you," they asked, "promise to divide the great estates of the Cossack landlords among the working Cossacks?"

"Only over my dead body," responded Kaledin. A month later, seeing his army melt away before his eyes, Kaledin blew out his brains. And the Cossack movement was no more....

Meanwhile at Moghilev were gathered the old Tsay-ee-kah the "moderate" Socialist leaders-from Avksentiev to Tchernov-the active chiefs of the old Army Committees, and the reactionary officers. The Staff steadily refused to recognize the Council of People's Commissars. It had united about it the Death Battalions, the Knights of St. George, and the Cossacks of the Front, and was in close and secret touch with the Allied military attachès, and with the Kaledin movement and the Ukrainian Rada....

The Allied Governments had made no reply to the Peace decree of November 8th, in which the Congress of Soviets had asked for a general armistice.

On November 20th Trotsky addressed a note to the Allied Ambassadors: (See App. XI, Sect. 18)

I have the honor to inform you, Mr. Ambassador, that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets... on November 8th constituted a new Government of the Russian Republic, in the form of the Council of People's Commissars. The President of this Government is Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin. The direction of Foreign Affairs has been entrusted to me, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs....

In drawing your attention to the text, approved by the All-Russian Congress, of the proposition for an armistice and a democratic peace without annexations or indemnities, based on the right of self-determination of peoples, I have the honor to request you to consider that document as a formal proposal of an immediate armistice on all fronts, and the opening of immediate peace negotiations; a proposal which the authorised Government of the Russian Republic addresses at the same time to all the belligerent peoples and their Governments.

Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the profound assurance of the esteem of the Soviet Government toward your people, who cannot but wish for peace, like all the other peoples exhausted and drained by this unexampled butchery....

The same night the Council of People's Commissars telegraphed to General Dukhonin:

... The Council of People's Commissars considers it indispensable without delay to make a formal proposal of armistice to all the powers, both enemy and Allied. A declaration conforming to this decision has been sent by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs to the representatives of the Allied powers at Petrograd.

The Council of People's Commissars orders you, Citizen Commander,... to propose to the enemy military authorities immediately to cease hostilities, and enter into negotiations for peace.

In charging you with the conduct of these preliminary pourparlers, the Council of People's Commissars orders you:

1.       To inform the Council by direct wire immediately of any and all steps in the pourparlers with the representatives of the enemy armies.

2.       Not to sign the act of armistice until it has been passed upon by the Council of People's Commissars.

The Allied Ambassadors received Trotsky's note with contemptuous silence, accompanied by anonymous interviews in the newspapers, full of spite and ridicule. The order to Dukhonin was characterized openly as an act of treason....

As for Dukhonin, he gave no sign. On the night of November 22nd he was communicated with by telephone, and asked if he intended to obey the order. Dukhonin answered that he could not, unless it emanated from "a Government sustained by the Army and the country."

By telegraph he was immediately dismissed from the post of Supreme Commander, and Krylenko appointed in his place. Following his tactics of appealing to the masses, Lenin sent a radio to all regimental, divisional and corps Committees, to all soldiers and sailors of the Army and the Fleet, acquainting them with Dukhonin's refusal, and ordering that "the regiments on the front shall elect delegates to begin negotiations with the enemy detachments opposite their positions...."

On the 23rd, the military attaches of the Allied nations, acting on instructions from their Governments, presented a note to Dukhonin, in which he was solemnly warned not to "violate the conditions of the treaties concluded between the Powers of the Entente." The note went on to say that if a separate armistice with Germany were concluded, that act "would result in the most serious consequences" to Russia. This communication Dukhonin at once sent out to all the soldiers' Committees....

Next morning Trotsky made another appeal to the troops, characterising the note of the Allied representatives as a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Russia, and a bald attempt "to force by threats the Russian Army and the Russian people to continue the war in execution of the treaties concluded by the Tsar...."

From Smolny poured out proclamation after proclamation, (See App. XI, Sect. 19) denouncing Dukhonin and the counter-revolutionary officers about him, denouncing the reactionary politicians gathered at Moghilev, rousing, from one end of the thousand-mile Front to the other, millions of angry, suspicious soldiers. And at the same time Krylenko, accompanied by three detachments of fanatical sailors, set out for the Stavka, breathing threats of vengeance, (See App. XI, Sect. 20) and received by the soldiers everywhere with tremendous ovations-a triumphal progress. The Central Army Committee issued a declaration in favor of Dukhonin; and at once ten thousand troops moved upon Moghilev....