15 - 21 October 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 30 Oct, 2017
- •
15 October
Letter
to Nicholas II from his sister Xenia, from Ai-Todor, Crimea
They have removed our guard, many sailors asked for leave, some asked to
return to Sebastopol, i.e. they were ‘thoroughly fed up’ being here. At first
we had many misunderstandings with them, but finally we all got used to each
other and they understood that we are neither criminals, nor are we involved in
propaganda! But the thought of how you must grieve and suffer for our poor
dearly beloved country and army — makes my heart ache and bleed. What have they
done to us? Why destroy everything?
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
16
October
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
The Military Revolutionary Committee was an apparatus for the overthrow of
the Government and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. And on October 16th
this ‘motion’ was presented to the Soviet plenum for approval. There were
heated protests from a Menshevik orator, whose fraction, in this meeting of a
thousand men, numbered fifty people. ‘The Bolsheviks won’t answer the straight
question whether or not they are preparing a coup. This is either cowardice or
lack of confidence in their own strength’ (laughter in the audience). ‘But the
projected Military Revolutionary Committee is nothing but a revolutionary staff
for the seizure of power…’
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford
1955)
What
Lenin wanted was a formal endorsement of the previous decision [in favour of
insurrection], though one leaving open the form and precise timing of
insurrection … Zinoviev, by contrast, called for flatly prohibiting the
organising of an uprising before the Second Congress … For Zinoviev, six
votes for, fifteen against, three abstentions. For Lenin, four abstentions, two
opposed, and nineteen in favour … Though the schedule was still up for
debate, for the second time in a week the Bolsheviks had voted for
insurrection … in Novaya zhizn … Kamenev published a stunning attack:
‘At the present … the instigation of an armed uprising before and
independent of the Soviet Congress would be an impermissible and even fatal step
for the proletariat and the revolution.’
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
17
October
Resolution by a general meeting of peasants, Petrograd province, 17 October
1917
We henceforth and forever will not trust any longer an authority that is not
responsible to the people … The Soviet must immediately exercise all its
powers to carry out the will of the revolutionary people:
1. Immediately propose to all the countries warring with us, as well as to
our allies, an honest democratic peace…
2. Immediately declare all the land public…
3. Immediately institute state control over capital and production…
8. Immediately repeal the death penalty, which brings shame upon
revolutionary Russia before the revolutionary democracy of the entire world.
Chairman of the assembly, A.P. Vorobyov
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
18
October
Kamenev’s Letter in Gorky’s paper Novaya Zhizn
Not only Zinoviev and I, but also a number of practical comrades, think that
to take the initiative in an armed insurrection at the present moment … is
an inadmissible step ruinous to the proletariat and the Revolution. To stake
everything on insurrection in the coming days would be an act of despair. And
our party is too strong, it has too great a future before us, to take such a
step.
(Victor Sebestyen, Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait, London 2017)
Letter
from Lenin to the Members of the Bolshevik Party
Comrades,
I have not yet been able to receive the Petrograd papers for Wednesday, October
18. When the full text of Kamenev’s and Zinoviev’s declaration, published in
Novaya Zhizn, which is not a Party paper, was transmitted to me by telephone, I
refused to believe it … Just think of it! It is known in Party circles
that the Party since September has been discussing the question of
insurrection. Nobody has ever heard of a single letter or leaflet written by
either of the person named! Now, on the eve, one might say, of the Congress of
Soviets, two prominent Bolsheviks come out against the majority, and,
obviously, against the Central Committee … I should consider it
disgraceful on my part if I were to hesitate to condemn these former comrades
because of my former close relations with them. I declare outright that I no
longer consider either of them comrades and that I will fight with all my
might, both in the Central Committee and at the Congress, to secure their
expulsion from the Party.
( The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches from the February
Revolution to the October Revolution, London 1938)
19
October
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the American Embassy,
Petrograd
The Petrograd situation is distinctly threatening! The Bolsheviks are well
armed and the temper of the army and the fleet rapidly getting worse … The
actions of the sailors are fearful — the subordinates of a most popular officer
at Oesel raped his wife and daughter and then killed them — upon his return the
officer shot himself.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler
Wright, London 2002)
20
October
Kerensky to Vladimir Nabokov
I would be prepared to offer prayers to produce this uprising. I have
greater forces than necessary. They will be utterly crushed.
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)
Diary
of Nicholas II
Today is the 23rd anniversary of dear Papa’s death, what circumstances are
we forced to live it in! God, how sad I feel for poor Russia!
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
21
October
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
After an excellent performance of La Passrelle, in which Mlle Didier was
charming and Hasti screamingly funny in the part of a manservant, I went to end
the evening in the house of young Countess Keller. There I heard that old
Princess Urussov arrived this morning from Lapotkovo, her estate at Tula; she
fled from there without being able to take anything except the clothes which
she stood up in. The peasants have burned and pillaged everything.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
21
October 2017
The closer you get to the action the more the dust gets in your eyes. For those
living through the turbulent events of October 1917 every day was a whirligig
of rumour, half-truth and speculation. Those who were supposedly in control,
like Kerensky, were left twisting in the wind (see his professed desire for an
uprising which would be ‘utterly crushed’), while Lenin was busy fulminating
against his pusillanimous colleagues Kamenev and Zinoviev. The establishment of
the Military Revolutionary Committee was a key moment: the uprising now had
some real muscle behind it. Four days and counting…
The New Statesman has marked the Great October this week with another article by the historian David Reynolds. He takes a look at the Russian century 1917–2017, and identifies five major upheavals: the February revolution (which ‘came as almost a relief for the British government’, no longer having to fight alongside the world’s leading autocracy), swiftly followed by October (which led to five years of civil war and established the polarised ideologies that characterised the twentieth century); Stalin’s brutal attempts to create a modern USSR (‘We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years … or we shall go under’); ‘Hitler’s revolution’, meaning the impact of the 1941–45 war on the people of the Soviet Union; Khrushchev’s revolution in education and housing (which for the first time enabled Soviet citizens to discuss their lives freely in their own, non-communal, kitchens); and Gorbachev — the revolutionary nature of whose rule ‘is beyond dispute’. And what of Putin? Reynolds’ thesis is that quiet revolutions are no less significant than the dramatic days of February or October. And that just as Khrushchev’s reforms led eventually to greater freedoms under Gorby, so now ‘social media has been quietly transforming urban Russia for several years. Here is the latest phase of glasnost — again rarely noted in Britain.’ The author, wisely, does not try to predict the outcome of this latest revolution.
as per the Gregorian calendar. 5 November 2017
8 October
Letter from Lenin to the Bolshevik Comrades attending the Regional Congress of
the Soviets of the Northern Region
Comrades, Our revolution is passing through a highly critical period …
A gigantic task is being imposed upon the responsible leaders of our Party,
failure to perform which will involve the danger of a total collapse of the
internationalist proletarian movement. The situation is such that verily,
procrastination is like unto death … In the vicinity of Petrograd and in
Petrograd itself — that is where the insurrection can, and must, be decided on
and effected … The fleet, Kronstadt, Viborg, Reval, can and must advance
on Petrograd; they must smash the Kornilov regiments, rouse both the capitals,
start a mass agitation for a government which will immediately give the land to
the peasants and immediately make proposals for peace, and must overthrow
Kerensky’s government and establish such a government. Verily, procrastination
is like unto death.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches
from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)
9 October
Report in The Times
The Maximalist [Bolshevik], M. Trotsky, President of the Petrograd Soviet,
made a violent attack on the Government, describing it as irresponsible and
assailing its bourgeois elements, ‘who,’ he continued, ‘by their attitude are
causing insurrection among the peasants, increasing disorganisation and trying
to render the Constituent Assembly abortive.’ ‘The Maximalists,’ he declared,
‘cannot work with the Government or with the Preliminary Parliament, which I am
leaving in order to say to the workmen, soldiers, and peasants that Petrograd,
the Revolution, and the people are in danger.’ The Maximalists then left the
Chamber, shouting, ‘Long live a democratic and honourable peace! Long live the
Constituent Assembly!’
(‘Opening of Preliminary Parliament’, The Times)
10 October
As Sukhanov left his home for the Soviet on the morning of the 10th, his
wife Galina Flakserman eyed nasty skies and made him promise not to try to
return that night, but to stay at his office … Unlike her diarist husband,
who was previously an independent and had recently joined the Menshevik left,
Galina Flakserman was a long-time Bolshevik activist, on the staff of Izvestia.
Unbeknownst to him, she had quietly informed her comrades that comings and
goings at her roomy, many-entranced apartment would be unlikely to draw
attention. Thus, with her husband out of the way, the Bolshevik CC came
visiting. At least twelve of the twenty-one-committee were there … There
entered a clean-shaven, bespectacled, grey-haired man, ‘every bit like a
Lutheran minister’, Alexandra Kollontai remembered. The CC stared at the
newcomer. Absent-mindedly, he doffed his wig like a hat, to reveal a familiar
bald pate. Lenin had arrived.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai
Sukhanov
Oh, the novel jokes of the merry muse of History! This supreme and decisive
session took place in my own home … without my knowledge … For such a
cardinal session not only did people come from Moscow, but the Lord of Hosts
himself, with his henchman, crept out of the underground. Lenin appeared in a
wig, but without his beard. Zinoviev appeared with a beard, but without his
shock of hair. The meeting went on for about ten hours, until about 3 o’clock
in the morning … However, I don’t actually know much about the exact
course of this meeting, or even about its outcome. It’s clear that the question
of an uprising was put … It was decided to begin the uprising as quickly
as possible, depending on circumstances but not on the Congress.
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
11 October
British Consul Arthur Woodhouse in a letter home
Things are coming to a pretty pass here. I confess I should like to be out
of it, but this is not the time to show the white feather. I could not ask for
leave now, no matter how imminent the danger. There are over 1,000 Britishers
here still, and I and my staff may be of use and assistance to them in an
emergency.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)
Memoir of Fedor Raskolnikov, naval
cadet at Kronstadt
The proximity of a proletarian rising in Russia, as prologue to the world
socialist revolution, became the subject of all our discussions in
prison … Even behind bars, in a stuffy, stagnant cell, we felt instinctively
that the superficial calm that outwardly seemed to prevail presaged an
approaching storm … At last, on October 11, my turn [for release]
came … Stepping out of the prison on to the Vyborg-Side embankment and
breathing in deeply the cool evening breeze that blew from the river, I felt
that joyous sense of freedom which is known only to those who have learnt to
value it while behind bards. I took a tram at the Finland Station and quickly
reached Smolny … In the mood of the delegates to the Congress of Soviets
of the Northern Region which was taking place at that time .. an unusual
elation, an extreme animation was noticeable … They told me straightaway
that the CC had decided on armed insurrection. But there was a group of
comrades, headed by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who did not agree with this decision
and regarded a rising a premature and doomed to defeat.
(F.F. Raskolnikov, Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917, New York 1982, first
published 1925)
12 October
Sir George Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia
On [Kerensky] expressing the fear that there was a strong anti-Russian
feeling both in England and France, I said that though the British public was
ready to make allowances for her difficulties, it was but natural that they
should, after the fall of Riga, have abandoned all hope of her continuing to
take an active part in the war … Bolshevism was at the root of all the
evils from which Russia was suffering, and if he would but eradicate it he
would go down to history, not only as the leading figure of the revolution, but
as the saviour of his country. Kerensky admitted the truth of what I had said,
but contended that he could not do this unless the Bolsheviks themselves
provoked the intervention of the Government by an armed uprising.
(Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, London 1923)
13 October
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Kerensky is becoming more and more unpopular, in spite of certain grotesque
demonstrations such as this one: the inhabitants of a district in Central
Russia have asked him to take over the supreme religious power, and want to
make him into a kind of Pope as well as a dictator, whereas even the Tsar was
really neither one nor the other. Nobody takes him seriously, except in the
Embassy. A rather amusing sonnet about him has appeared, dedicated to the beds
in the Winter Palace, and complaining that they are reserved for hysteria
cases … for Alexander Feodorovich (Kerensky’s first names) and then
Alexandra Feodorovna (the Empress).
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
14 October 2017
The BBC2 semi-dramatisation of how the Bolsheviks took power, shown this week,
was a curious thing. Talking heads in the form of Figes, Mieville, Rappaport,
Sebag-Montefiore, Tariq Ali, Martin Amis and others were interspersed with
moody reconstructions of late-night meetings, and dramatic moments such as
Lenin’s unbearded return to the Bolshevik CC (cf Sukhanov above). The programme
felt rather staged and unconvincing, with a lot of agonised expressions and
fist-clenching by Lenin, but the reviewers liked it. Odd, though, that
Eisenstein’s storming of the Winter Palace is rolled out every time, with a
brief disclaimer that it’s a work of fiction and yet somehow presented as
historical footage. There’s a sense of directorial sleight of hand, as if the
rather prosaic taking of the palace desperately needs a re-write. In some
supra-historical way, Eisenstein’s version has become the accepted version.
John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World
, currently being
serialised on Radio 4, is also presented with tremendous vigour, and properly
so as the book is nothing if not dramatic. Historical truth, though, is often
as elusive in a book that was originally published — in 1919 — with an
introduction by Lenin. ‘Reed was not’, writes one reviewer, ‘an ideal observer.
He knew little Russian, his grasp of events was sometimes shaky, and his facts
were often suspect.’ Still, that puts him in good company, and Reed is
undoubtedly a good read.
