Sorry this took so long to get out, had a bit of writers' block, thanks to those who looked over my stuff and reaffirmed my thoughts on things.
@Cregan @Nyvis and Mr.E
Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline
by GiantMonkeyMan
Chapter 4:
Embodying the thoughts of the multitude of reformist socialists, Maxim Gorky expressed a great deal of pessimism towards the most radical sections of the working classes and their spontaneous acts of vandalism and petty crime. He wrote to his wife Yekaterina Peshkova, "I welcome the coming offensive in the hope that it may at least bring some organisation to the country". He lamented the destruction of artwork and the breakdown of order. Peasants mobs, angry at a lack of movement on the questions of land reform, were burning down manor houses, churches, and government buildings. Workers broke into the houses of the rich to steal what they could with some abandoned houses even being taken completely down to the foundations as the poor pulled them apart for firewood. Statues were torn down and smashed, portraits of great aristocrats were torn to shreds. The whole of Russia was polarised and the violent politics of the fringe were becoming more common, if not entirely accepted. On one part of that fringe, the anarchist-communist Bleikhman proclaimed, "The street will organise us".
The anarchist movement in Russia was small but vibrant, particularly in Petrograd. The most radical sections of the base membership of the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries intermingled with the anarchist movement, leading the most violent and radical strikes and spreading the most volatile and daring propaganda. One aspect of the anarchist movement, and the one least impactful on the politics of the era, was a current of opportunism but it nonetheless represented the aspirations and desperations of the poor. People taking up the mantle of anarchist would occupy the homes of the rich to live in ease for the briefest of moments until either the police or some other circumstance would force them to move on. Rich citizens were robbed with impunity, even murdered, as these anarchists, who had been the downtrodden in rags before the revolution, wanted for one moment to feel the touch of silk, to taste fine wine, and sleep in comfort with full stomachs.
The factory movement was also verdant soil for the anarchists to grow. Anarcho-syndicalists had a great impact on the workers in the factories, advocating for workers control of production, being the first to strike and the last to compromise. Although they rarely held total control of any particular industry or factory, the anarcho-syndicalists dragged the debates in the factories to more radical conclusions. The leaders of the trade unions were largely Mensheviks, with some drifting into the camp of Martov and the Socialist-Internationalists, but the factory committees were vibrant arenas of radicalism. The Bolsheviks were more organised and had better links to the broader network of committees and the anarcho-syndicalists usually tacked behind them but the anarchists and the Bolsheviks generally worked together against the more conciliatory socialists and trade unionists.
Outside the villa of the Tsarist official P.P Durnovo hung the banner of the anarchist-communists: 'Death to all capitalists'. The Petrograd Federation of Anarchist-Communists were perhaps the largest anarchist organisation in the capital but it was still relatively small compared to even the Socialist-Internationalists and they lacked the organisation and depth of the Bolshevik Party. Unlike the syndicalists, who restricted themselves to the factory floor, the anarchist-communists engaged in broader propaganda calling for a completely free association of workers and peasants although they were less clear about what that would actually mean and the means to establish such an association. The right-wing and reformist press decried the villa occupied by the anarchists as a den of chaos but the anarchist-communists organised lectures, printed leaflets, and hosted deputies to the Soviet.
Ultimately, the anarchist movement was divided along a multitude of axis and, although they would compete with the left-wing sections of the major party organisations for influence amongst the working class, they were often in turn caught in the wake of the better organised and larger Bolshevik Party or the left-wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. One such formation who occupied part of Durnovo villa was the Petrograd People's Militia who called themselves 'anarchist-bolsheviks' after being influenced by the incendiary words of Lenin upon his return in April. Despite their fierce independence and radicalism, these sorts of groups show just how intertwined the anarchists were with the rapidly growing Bolshevik Party.
At the beginning of June the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies met and elected a new executive committee. Proceedings were dominated by the reformist Mensheviks and the right wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries and particularly vicious attacks were levelled against Martov by his former Mensheviks allies. The left wing, the Socialist-Internationalists and the Bolsheviks, were more isolated and on the back foot in these halls of power than they were in the local soviets and the committees of the workers and soldiers themselves where their influence was developing. A demonstration on the 4th, the same day as the opening of the Congress, enjoyed the significant involvement of the Bolshevik Military Organisation and soldiers from multiple divisions and regiments marched under Bolshevik slogans in remembrance of the fallen during the February Revolution.
The Military Organisation were buoyed by events in a way that the parliamentary Bolsheviks, harassed by the SR and Menshevik dominated Congress, could never be. On the 6th, the MO, the Central Committee, and the Petrograd Committee met to discuss an armed demonstration of soldiers and workers. Latsis, the radical member of the MO faced Kamenev, stern, well-regarded, and far more cautious. The Military Organisation put forward that the Bolsheviks had the influence of nearly 60,000 troops of the Petrograd Garrison and that the radical workers of the Vyborg district would join them. Although Lenin was supportive of such a demonstration, Kamenev and others felt that such a demonstration could not remain peaceful and that ultimately the majority of the workers and soldiers still put their support behind the Soviet who, under the control of the SRs and Mensheviks, were calling for co-operation with the Provisional Government.
Events would spiral out of control no matter how cautious the Bolshevik Central Committee would be. The day before, the Petrograd People's Militia, the anarchist-bolshevik formation quartered in the Durnovo villa, boldly threw caution to the wind and organised nearly a hundred soldiers in a bid to seize the printing works of the right-wing newspaper
Russkaia volia in order to use it to print their own propaganda. They were led by the larger than life former thief Shlema Asnin who wore a wide-brimmed hat, a long coat and carried revolvers and a bandoleer of bullets like some sort of displaced cowboy of the American wild west. They were forced out by two regiments under the orders of the Provisional Government and on the 7th the Minister of Justice Pereveze ordered the anarchists to vacate the Durnovo villa within a day. The Vyborg workers answered the call of the anarchists for solidarity with twenty-eight factories left idle due to the strike and even some of the Petrograd Garrison marched in support.
The contradictions of the SR and Menshevik Soviet reared its head. At the Congress the vote in support of co-operation with the Provisional Government of Lvov was passed with a majority, with the Bolsheviks and the SIP being the only dissent, but, in the face of the Provisional Government's attempts at suppressing the anarchists and, consequently, the solidarity shown by the workers and soldiers, the Executive Committee of the Soviet lobbied the Minister of Justice to halt his attempts to expel the occupiers of the villa. The Menshevik Tseretelli proclaimed, "At this critical moment, not one social force ought to be thrown out of the scales, so long as it may be useful to the cause of the people". The price of collaboration with the capitalist parties, for the cause of the people, was to tip the scales of justice in favour of the rulings of the Provisional Government and dismiss the concerns of the radical workers.
On the 8th, the Socialist-Internationalist Lunacharsky was key to putting forward and passing a motion calling on the Minister of Justice to postpone all actions against the anarchists until a proper investigation could be conducted but the Mensheviks also passed a resolution calling on the strikers to return to work and for the unacceptability of an armed demonstration without prior Soviet approval. The Menshevik Party had been reeling from Martov's betrayal, many of the working class members had drifted towards either the Bolsheviks or Martov's new party, but thanks to the timing of votes within the soviets the right-wing still dominated proceedings at the congress. Regardless, many of the Socialist-Internationalists were great orators and well-known in the movement and so still managed to convince many individual members of the congress to support their actions.
On the same day, the Bolshevik Central Committee, the Petrograd Committee, the Military Organisation, representatives from the trade unions, the factory councils, and the regiments met to vote in support of organising a demonstration. The meeting had been scheduled for the 9th but the unrest caused the Bolsheviks to bring the meeting forwards to rapidly deal with the issues of the day. The vast majority of these representatives were in favour of the demonstration with 131 votes to 6 voting for the demonstration, with 22 abstentions, but the Bolsheviks were less confident that the workers and soldiers would come out against the orders of the Soviet only 47 votes for and 42 votes against with a huge number of abstentions. The prevailing mood was that the anarchist-inspired unrest was an opportunity that they could ill-afford to miss but Stalin, ever prevaricating, thought that, "the fermentation among the soldiers is a fact; among the workers there is no such definite mood".
For all this period, Lenin had advocated a tactic of patient explanation towards the working class. The Bolsheviks knew the historic tasks placed ahead of them but were not so arrogant as to assume they could act without the broad support of the masses. The day to day actions of the Bolsheviks were to engage with workers and soldiers in their current conditions, explain and develop the Bolshevik programme, and the party rapidly grew but still there remained a general level of trust from the workers towards the reformist collaboration of the Soviet Executive. The debate and discussion of the party representatives concluded that the demonstration would go ahead and the Central Committee formally resolved that the demonstration would take place on the Saturday the 10th at 2:00pm.
The question of whether or not to begin the organisation of the demonstration in secret was considered, better to sweep the rug out from under the reformists in the Soviet, but the Bolsheviks felt they would need the support of the SIP and the anarchists and it was considered unlikely that Martov would refrain from being open. Thus both the Bolshevik parliamentary section and the Socialist-Internationalists were informed of the decision for the upcoming demonstration as Bolshevik cadres pasted posters up in the workers district, directly contravening the commands of the Soviet: "We are free citizens, we have the right to protest, and we ought to use this right before it is too late. The right to a peaceful demonstration is ours."
Trotsky of the SIP was enthusiastic although Martov and Lunacharsky were far more tepid in their support of such a demonstration. The Bolshevik parliamentary section was, by contrast, aghast. Already they were facing the constant pressures of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary Executive Committee of the Soviet, such a direct attack on the Soviet leadership, who had banned protests except under their own purview, could lead to even more set-backs in the Soviet. Similarly, in Moscow, the cautious Victor Nogin clashed with the eager Bukharin as the Bolsheviks worked to create a sister demonstration in the second capital. The young Bolsheviks of Moscow found many sympathetic ears amongst the Moscow garrison and the radical workers but Moscow wasn't quite at Petrograd's level and it looked to be a much smaller showing.
The Soviet Congress was a flurry of activity and despite all the arguments of the Bolsheviks and the SIP a motion was passed to ban all demonstrations for three days. A rumour began circling that Kerensky had preparred his own troops to crush the Bolshevik demonstration. Miluikov met with the Cossacks who were having their own conference in Petrograd in parallel to the Soviet and proclaimed the Bolsheviks "the chief enemies of the Russian revolution". On the 10th, the Menshevik newspaper declared, "It is time to brand the Leninists as traitors and betrayers of the revolution". The representatives of the Congress who agreed with the motion, nearly 500 SRs and Mensheviks, decided to spend the evening of the 9th and the morning of the 10th going to the factories and the regiments to inform the workers and soldiers of the Soviet's new order. Ironically, they found workers and soldiers fully prepared to declare 'all power to the Soviet!' - the core Bolshevik demand for the demonstration.
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The 'savage instincts' of the Russian peasants, whom Gorky hated with a vengeance, were, in his view, especially to blame for the violence of the revolution. The sole desire of the peasants, Gorky often argued, was to exact a cruel revenge on their former masters, and on all the wealthy and privileged elite, among whom they counted their self-appointed leaders amongst the intelligentsia. Much of the revolutionary violence in the cities - the mob trials, the anarchic looting and the 'carting out' of the facory bosses - he put down, like many of the Mensheviks, to the sudden influx of unskilled peasant workers into cities during the war. It was as if he refused to believe that the working class, which, like all Marxists, he saw as a force of cultural progress, might behave like peasants or hooligans. And yet he expressed his own deep fear that the urban culture of the working class was being 'dissolved in the peasant mass', that the world of school and industry was being lost to the barbaric customs of the village. Gorky blamed the Bolsheviks for much of this.
- A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes
The Russian revolution bore within it a content that was essentially anarchist in many respects. Had the anarchists been closely organized and had they in their actions abided strictly by a well-defined discipline, they would never have suffered the crushing defeat they did.
But because the anarchists "of all persuasions and tendencies" did not represent (not even in their specific groups) a homogeneous collective with a disciplined line of action, they were unable to withstand the political and strategic scrutiny which revolutionary circumstances imposed upon them.
Their disorganization reduced them to political impotence, giving birth to two categories of anarchist.
One category was made up of those who hurled themselves into the systematic occupation of bourgeois homes, where they set up house and lived in comfort. These are the ones I term the "anarchist tourists," who wandered around from town to town, in hope of stumbling across a place to live for a time along the way, taking their leisure and hanging around as long as possible to live in comfort and ease.
The other category was made up of those who severed all real connections with anarchism (although a few of them inside the USSR are now passing themselves off as the sole representatives of Russian anarchism) and who fairly swooped upon the positions offered them by the bolsheviks
- On Revolutionary Discipline by Nestor Makhno
The Petrograd Federation of Anarchist-Communists was the less refined, tactically more radical, and consequently the more influential of the two major anarchist organisations operating in Petrograd in the summer of 1917. The Anarchist-Syndicalists were the second group. Actually, very little is known about the Anarchist-Communist organisation or its principle leaders. [...] The programme of the Anarchist-Communists was extremely general and unsophisticated. According to a pamphlet distributed in the early summer of 1917, the organisation called for the immediate destruction or elimination of, among other things, all autocratic and parliamentary governments, the capitalist system, the war, the army, the police, and all state boundaries. The same pamphlet advocated the establishment of a new "totally free" communal society, without government or laws, in which individual freedom would be absolute, the peasants would own the land, and the factories would belong to the workers. There were many parallels between the future ideal societies envisioned by the Anarchist-Communists and by the Bolsheviks.
- Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July Uprising by Alexander Rabinowich
On the first day of June, the Bolshevik Military Organisation met with representatives of the Kronstadt party and approved plans for a garrison demonstration. To the Central Committee, the MO sent a list of regiments it was confident it could persuade to take part. Together they numbered 60,000 men.
At that moment the CC was focused on affairs of state: from 3 to 24 June, that First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies – the gathering planned at the All-Russian Conference of Soviets, at the start of April – was meeting in Petrograd. Its 777 delegates comprised 73 unaffiliated socialists, 235 SRs, 248 Mensheviks, 32 Menshevik–Internationalists, and 105 Bolsheviks. The congress quickly elected a new SR- and Menshevik-dominated executive committee.
Almost as soon as proceedings opened, a visibly furious Martov went on the attack – against fellow Mensheviks. He deplored Tsereteli’s collaboration with the Provisional Government, particularly over the recent deportation of his Swiss comrade Robert Grimm. He appealed to the Mensheviks in the hall: ‘You, my past comrades in revolution, are you with those who give carte blanche to their minister to deport any category of citizen?’
From the Mensheviks came an extraordinary response: ‘Tsereteli is not a minister, but the conscience of the revolution!’
- October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Mieville
On June 5 eighty Anarchist-Communists (allegedly led by Asnin), armed with rifles, bombs, and a machine gun, seized the printing press of the right-wing newspaper, Russkaia volia. Two military regiments forced the anarchists to surrender their prize the next day, but this did not end the matter. On June 7, P.N. Pereverzev, the Minister of Justice, decided to eliminate once and for all the threat to order posed by the Anarchist nest in Durnovo villa. He issued an order giving the Anarchist-Communists twenty-four hours to vacate their headquarters. The Anarchists refused to comply and appealed to the Vyborg factory workers and soldiers to support them. The next day thousands of workers went out on strike; twenty-eight factories were left idle, and several minor armed demonstrations took place in the factory districts. At the same time the Anarchist-Communists, augmented by the arrival of fifty armed Kronstadt sailors, prepared to defend their headquarters.
- Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July Uprising by Alexander Rabinowich
The idea of a showdown between the Petrograd workers and soldiers and the congress was suggested by the whole situation. The masses were urging on the Bolsheviks. The garrison especially was seething – fearing that in connection with the offensive they would be distributed among the regiments and scattered along the front. To this was united a bitter dissatisfaction with the Declaration of the Rights of the Soldier, which had been a big backward step in comparison with Order No.1, and with the régime actually established in the army. The initiative for the demonstration came from the military organisation of the Bolsheviks. Its leaders asserted, and quite rightly as events showed, that if the party did not take the leadership upon itself, the soldiers themselves would go into the streets. That sharp turn in the mood of the masses, however, could not be easily apprehended, and hence there was a certain vacillation in the ranks of the Bolsheviks themselves. Volodarsky was not sure that the workers would come out on the street. There was fear, too, as to the possible character of the demonstration. Representatives of the military organisation declared that the soldiers, fearing attacks and reprisals, would not go out without weapons. “What will come out of the demonstration?” asked the prudent Tomsky, and demanded supplementary deliberations. Stalin thought that “the fermentation among the soldiers is a fact; among the workers there is no such definite mood,” but nevertheless judged it necessary to show resistance to the government. Kalinin, always more inclined to avoid than welcome a battle, spoke emphatically against the demonstration, referring to the absence of any clear motive, especially among the workers: “The demonstration will be purely artificial.” On June 8, at a conference with the representatives of the workers’ sections, after a series of preliminary Votes, 131 hands against 6 were finally raised for the demonstration, with 22 abstaining.
The work of preparation was carried on up to the last moment secretly, in order not to permit the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks to start a counter-agitation. That legitimate measure of caution was afterwards interpreted as evidence of a military conspiracy. The Central Council of Factory and Shop Committees joined in the decision to organise the demonstration. “Upon the insistence of Trotsky and against the objection of Lunacharsky,” writes Yugov, “the Committee of the Mezhrayontzi decided to join the demonstration.” Preparations were carried on with boiling energy.
The manifestation was to raise the banner of “Power to the Soviets.” The fighting slogan ran: “Down with the Ten Minister-Capitalists” That was the simplest possible expression for a break-up of the coalition with the bourgeoisie. The procession was to march to the Cadet Corps where the congress was sitting. This was to emphasise that the question was not of overthrowing the government, but of bringing pressure on the Soviet leaders.
- The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky
Here we have another divergence. The Bolsheviks wanted and needed the other sections of the radical left to side with their demonstration but in this timeline that includes Martov. Would Martov have agreed to a 'secret' preparation of the demonstration? It's unclear. Regardless, the Soviet quickly found out and banned the demonstration and, afterwards, claimed that as proof of a Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet. Here, the Soviet can make no such claim. Also in OTL, the parliamentary faction was never informed of the decision for a demonstration, a massive blunder of the Bolshevik CC, and were consequently very frustrated when the Soviet began its attacks against such a demonstration on the 9th.
The June 10th demonstration was aborted in the last minute in our timeline. The pages of Pravda on the 10th, which had planned to include information about the demonstration, were left blank. Many Bolshevik organisers and the radical sections of the workers and soldiers were confused and frustrated. The Menshevik and SR Soviet went on the attack. In this timeline, the June 10th demonstration goes ahead, to be concluded in the next chapter.
