PRAGOTI

"Insurrection is art," wrote Lenin in early September 1917. Even as "art" insurrection required a kind of science. The consciousness of the vast mass had to be on the side of the insurrection. Without mass support all that could be accomplished was an unpopular coup. In 1906, Lenin repudiated this form of Blanquism (named after Louis Auguste Blanqui, a French socialist of the 19th century who tangled with Fredrich Engels). "The bourgeoisie wants," Lenin wrote, "by using the bogey of 'Blanquism' to belittle, discredit and slander the people's struggle for power. The bourgeoisie stands to gain if the proletariat and peasants fight only for concessions from the old regime. The Right Social-Democrats use the word 'Blanquism' merely as a rhetorical device in their polemics. The bourgeoisie converts this word into a weapon against the proletariat." In September 1917, while the fires burned across Russia, Lenin distinguished Marxism from Blanquism by three points: 1. "Insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class"; 2. "Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people"; 3. "Insurrection must rely upon the turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest." When these conditions are met, then the revolutionary must not tarry. Revolution is on hand.

The advanced classes of Russia, the working-class and the peasantry, had lost their faith in the monarchy to some extent and of the Menshevik regime to a great extent. Things were dour in Russia. From the union of forestry workers in Dubovski, Saratov Province came a resolution that demanded "that the nest of the State Duma and the State Council, woven from the gang of counterrevolutionary scoundrels, be disbanded and the guilty parties arrested and put on trail. Carthage must be destroyed!!! The Duma must die!!!" From the political factions of the Slutsk Soviet, Minsk Province, came a resolution "to avoid further compromises with counterrevolutionary privileged elements, a total rejection of any compromises or coalitions with the bourgeoisie." From the Congress of Soldiers' Representatives of the 6th Army Corps came a strong note to the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which pointed out: "The country needs a firm and democratic authority founded on and responsible to the popular masses….We have had enough of words, rhetoric and parliamentary sleight-of-hand! We consider the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies to be the sole organ reflecting the will of the people. We consider it political suicide for it to refuse power." This view was reflected in addition in a resolution by a general meeting of peasants, Petrograd province, held on October 17, 1917. "The bourgeois Provisional Government has proven itself utterly incapable of carrying out the people's will. In seven months of revolution this government has allowed the capitalists to close factories and plants intentionally and thereby condemn to starvation workers who are already suffering from malnourishment; it has allowed the organization of counterrevolutionary forces that, led by General Kornilov, have come out openly against the gains of the Revolution…..In view of all that has been said [and we have omitted a long list of grievances], we henceforth and forever will not trust any longer an authority that is not responsible to the people, and we demand that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of W, S and P. D. take power into its own hands both in the center and in the provinces." The people had spoken. They were ready. Point 1 and 2 had been met. It was left to the assessment by the revolutionaries of point 3, the will of the counterrevolution and of the vacillating class alliances.

The Kerensky government had shown its hand a number of times. It failed to address the problems of the masses, and rejected outright the Bolshevik proposals that would have confronted the economic crisis. Compromised by its association with the Kornilov counterrevolution, the government isolated itself behind the walls of the Winter Palace. No longer would Kerensky feel comfortable in public. Petrograd was lost long before the actual insurrection.

On October 9, the Soviet created the Military Revolutionary Committee. Plans for the actual insurrection were underfoot. The Central Committee delegated Leon Trotsky, a recent member of the Bolsheviks, to the task. The Committee got in touch with military units to secure their adherence to the revolution. On October 16, the Petrograd garrison disobeyed Kerensky's government and refused to leave the city. This was the "silent insurrection." That same day, the Committee released five thousand rifles to the civilian Red Guards. On October 21, the Cossacks, the loyal guard of the Tsars, joined the Revolution. "The time for words has passed," declared the Cossacks. "The army demands peace, the peasants demand land, the workers demand employment and bread. The coalition government is against the people, an instrument in the hands of the people's enemies….The All-Russian Congress of Soviets ought to take power in its hands and secure peace, land, and bread to the people….We are at our posts, ready to conquer or die."

The day after the Soviets created the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Central Committee met and set in motion the insurrection. Only a few members tried to arrest this development, but they were out-voted. Lenin carried the day. On October 20, Lenin wrote a decisive editorial in Rabochyi Put (Worker's Road), "It is obvious that if in a peasant country, after seven months of a democratic republic, matters could come to a peasant revolt, it irrefutably proves that the revolution is suffering nation-wide collapse, that it is experiencing a crisis of unprecedented severity, and that the forces of counter-revolution have gone the limit. That is obvious…The crisis has matured." In this context, there was no choice but to seize power. Three days later, Kerensky banned Rabochyi Put. This was the pretext. In his history of the revolution, Trotsky wrote about the banning order, "A piece of official sealing wax on the door of the Bolshevik editorial room as a military measure – that was not much. But what a superb signal for battle!"

The Red Guard detachments moved swiftly. The bridges across the Neva, the central telephone exchange, the telegraph office, the wireless station, the railway station, the power station, the bank, the government offices, and other central sites came under Soviet control. The city had come into the hands of the people. Only the Winter Palace and the Petrograd Military Area Headquarters remained. These fell soon afterward.

On October 25, the day after the major developments, the Petrograd Soviet gathered in the Assembly Hall of the Smolny. Lenin took the stage. A new Russia is born he declared out of this Third Russian Revolution which will "in the end lead to the victory of socialism." The significance of the Revolution, he underscored, is "that we shall have a Soviet government, our own organ of power, in which the bourgeoisie will have no share whatsoever. The oppressed masses will themselves create a power. The old state apparatus will be shattered to its foundations and a new administrative apparatus set up in the form of the Soviet organizations." The artistic insurrection, the Soviet resolved, had been "exceptionally bloodless." Now the task was to build upon it.