Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline

[Salvador79]

I'm watching this with fascination and incredibly excited anticipation!

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Will there be a Russian Civil War ITTL?

Yes, but hopefully we will reach one far less devastating!

Kerensky did what he could amidst dire circumstances.

I wonder what would have happened if he made the same peace the sovjets did.

My guess is the Bolsheviks would've launched their coup, cynically attacking him for giving up huge amounts of territory to Germany. What would've been really nice is if the Germans had revolted against their Kaiser in the Summer of 1917.

Cheers for the discussion! Kerensky is a fascinating figure and certainly the idea of a parliamentary Russia is one that should be explored. However, this timeline is called 'Saving Soviet Democracy' for a reason.

I'm watching this with fascination and incredibly excited anticipation!

Subbed, this looks sick!

Thank you both for your interest! I hope I'll manage to keep it.

 

[markus meecham]

That has loads of potential.

 

[SashaBonaparte148]

Are you going to try and maintain soviet democracy (aka council communism and pluralistic socialist democratic elections at each level of administration)? Avoid the "temporary" ban on factions in the CPSU?

 

[Salvador79]

Are you going to try and maintain soviet democracy (aka council communism and pluralistic socialist democratic elections at each level of administration)? Avoid the "temporary" ban on factions in the CPSU?

Maybe Lenin never achieves a Position in which he could ban factions? October could still go very differently.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

That has loads of potential.

Thanks! Hope it reaches said potential!

Are you going to try and maintain soviet democracy (aka council communism and pluralistic socialist democratic elections at each level of administration)? Avoid the "temporary" ban on factions in the CPSU?

Maybe Lenin never achieves a Position in which he could ban factions? October could still go very differently.

The plan is to set up a scenario where soviet democracy is not dominated by one party. I hope to establish a plausible route to this possibility.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline
by GiantMonkeyMan
​

Chapter 2:

When Kamenev, Muranov, and Stalin returned to Petrograd from their Siberian exile, they turned Pravda away from the radicalism that it had been espousing under the tenure of Molotov and towards a far more moderate perspective. The Bolshevik organiser amongst the metal workers Alexander Shliapnikov wrote about the change in direction, "The whole Tauride Palace, from the business men in the committee of the State Duma to the very heart of the revolutionary democracy, the Executive Committee, was brimful of one piece of news: the victory of the moderate and reasonable Bolsheviks over the extremists. In the Executive Committee itself they met us with venomous smiles". Effectively, the leadership of the Bolsheviks before Lenin's return supported the Provisional Government and rejected the slogan of soviet power in favour of the liberal government, a decidedly dogmatic view that asserted, much in a similar manner as the Mensheviks, that the revolution must first complete its 'bourgeois stage'.

The first issues of Pravda under the new editorship that the workers and party activists in the factories were reading was a bewildering turn from the slogans of Lenin from when he was in exile and the radical editors like Molotov. Some Bolsheviks in the radical Vyborg district even called for the three's expulsion from the party. Bolshevik activist Ludmila Stahl claimed the party was "groping in the dark", virtually following behind the positions of the Mensheviks. Regardless, the whole of Russia was not yet at the same level as the Vyborg district or Kronstadt or any of the other centres of revolutionary elan. The provincial party groups followed the new Pravda line. When Alexandra Kollontai published Lenin's 'Letters from Afar', most of the party, particularly the leadership under Kamenev, were aghast but nothing could upset the apple-cart more than the return of the man himself.

Lenin's unabashed revolutionary sloganeering upon his return to Russia isolated himself amongst the political leadership of his own party and he faced ridicule from the key figures of both the liberal political organisations and his socialist peers. At a joint gathering of Mensheviks and Bolsheviks Lenin presented his April thesis to a hostile audience. The Mensheviks booed and the Bolsheviks were largely silent in disbelief. Only Kollontai offered her support, to the jeers of the audience. Lenin's position was one thing, he had always been considered an uncompromising sectarian by many in the Russian social democratic movement, and so his unwavering criticism and attacks on the Provisional Government, and his calls for soviet power, could easily be rejected.

The speech of Martov caused if not greater then an equally large stir. The old revolutionary had long been a rival of Lenin's and most of the Mensheviks expected his support in their attacks against the Bolshevik leader. To be sure, Martov wasn't as inflammatory as Lenin but he nonetheless criticised his fellow Mensheviks for their co-operation with the Provisional Government which was prosecuting what he considered Imperialist war for capitalist goals. Bogdanov cried out that Martov had been infected by Lenin's madness. The Socialist Revolutionary Zenzinov claimed, "Even their party comrades at that time turned away in embarrassment from them both". A layer of right-wing Bolsheviks left their party to join with the Mensheviks or the centre ground of the tiny group that surrounded Maxim Gorky and the newspaper he would form called Novaya Zhizn, and Martov and the left-wing Internationalist Mensheviks were increasingly isolated within their own party.

The various sections of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party had always been fluid, particularly amongst the levels of the intelligentsia and the various exiled revolutionaries. Various groupings existed outside the two main parties such as the organisation surrounding Trotsky, the Mezhraiontsy, and the group around Gorky and members shifted depending on where the wind was blowing. Before Lenin's return, Kamenev and Stalin had even been entertaining reuniting with their old Menshevik rivals. All the same elements of division were found amongst the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Even before the war the party had a myriad of factions but they solidified in the 'defencists', the right who thought Russia should be defended from German militarism with leaders such as Nikolai Avksentiev and Avram Gots and peripherally the transient Kerensky, and the 'defeatists' who advocated an immediate end to the war at all costs, the left who found its voice in Mark Natanson, Maria Spiridonova and Boris Kamkov.

The workers, soldiers, and peasants rarely understood the different factions clearly although it cannot be said that the middle classes or the intelligentsia had a much clearer understanding either. It was a tumultuous time and all of Russian society was divided. Early in 1917, the Left SRs distanced themselves from their central committee by openly working with the Bolsheviks. Ultimately, the divisions and ruptures amongst the various party organisations in the nation was echoed by the increased tempo and radicalism of the marches and strikes during April. Early in April there was a demonstration of soldiers' wives in Petrograd. They broke into homes to confiscate any luxury they felt was not deserved and the authorities were paralysed to stop them. On April 18th by the old calender, or May 1st by the new calender, all the cities and provinces throughout Russia came to a standstill as the masses marched for the International Workers Day under a strange mix of banners, some professing proletarian internationalism whilst others a revolutionary patriotism and support for the Provisional Government.

In the provinces, peasants were beginning to ignore the estate boundaries to fell trees for firewood or timber, argue with their landlords over rent and harvest, and the sparks of peasant organising were becoming more radical. Throughout it all there was a growing sense amongst the poorer classes that they demanded 'fairness'. Peasants refused to pay extortionate prices for seed, taking what they needed and leaving only the money they felt the merchants deserved, workers struck for higher wages, better conditions and respect from the management, and soldiers demanded that their officers no longer call them by familiar terms and refused any order that their committees voted against. Over a hundred illiterate peasants from the Rakalovsk Volost had a scribe write their demands to the Petrograd Soviet, "cabinet, appanage, monastery, church, and major estate owners' lands must be surrendered to the people without compensation, for they were earned not by labour but by various amorous escapades". Soldiers of the 2nd Battery Assembly wrote to Chkheidze decrying their own lack of education and asking if he could send them books with which to learn.

On the day of America's entry into the war, Pavel Miliukov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Provional Government and the leader of the liberal Kadet Party, explained the aims of his administration to an assembly of journalists. On the one hand he professed the rights of nations to self determination but on the other he advocated the seizure of Armenia, the seizure of Constantinople, the division of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. Chkheidze called Miliukov the "evil genius of the revolution" and the Menshevik press called on the Provisional Government to conduct only a defensive war. Various demonstrations were had in response to the news. The Kadets arranged a march with banners proclaiming "Long Live Miliukov!" and "Full Confidence in the Provisional Government!" but regiments of soldiers, led by the politically unaligned Fedor Linde, marched on Mariinsky Palace, where the Provisional government met, demanding peace.

The soldiers were condemned by the Soviet Executive, much to the dismay of Linde, but the mood had been struck and thousands of workers and soldiers pooled out onto the streets with placards tellingly proclaiming "Down with the Provisional Government!". Although the Menshevik press and their Central Committee deferred to the Soviet Executive and cautioned patience, Martov's vague statement of condemnation for Miliukov's suggestion of annexations and an offensive war reached many sympathetic ears. Cautious due to his political isolation immediately following his return, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had a similarly vague motion and although the radical Bolshevik membership in Vyborg and elsewhere were emboldened by the demonstrations, they nonetheless deferred to Lenin. Regardless, soldiers marched against the war and against the Provisional Government in the tens of thousands in Petrograd and Moscow.

The Executive of the Soviet issued a directive against any unauthorised soldiers in the streets and General Lavr Kornilov attempted to assemble his own troops to quell any rebellion. The soldiers ignored Kornilov's orders and instead deferred to the Soviet. The demonstrations wound down but it had little to do with the authority of the Provisional Government and their Generals. Lenin proclaimed the slogan "Down with the Provisional Government" an empty phrase unless they had the Soviet with them in agreement of their policies. Absent the backing of the Soviet, and therefore the working masses, such slogans amounted to an attempt of "an adventurist character". The Lenin of immediate revolution to bring power to the Soviets, who had been called the second coming of the anarchist Bakunin by Goldenburg, a Menshevik who had only recently crossed the divide from the Bolsheviks, had been tempered upon his return to a Russia divided but the prospect of soviet power became a more serious question and the Bolshevik leadership was dragged leftwards by the events.

The vivid 'April Days' might have been over in the major cities but across Russia the masses were stirring. The Buddhist Buryats of Siberia, granted political freedoms by the February Revolution, convened in a Congress in Irkutsk and proclaimed their independence. In Ossetia, the locals in that mountain region established their own organs of self-rule. Workers and peasants soviets and Islamic Councils following the socially liberal Jadidist traditions competed across the Muslim Central Asian states, virtually dismantling the old government structures. Delegates gathered in Kazan for an All-Russian Muslim Women's Congress where 59 delegates met before hundreds of a primarily female audience to debate Sharia Law, polygany, and women's rights, voting to approve women's right to vote, the equality of sexes, and the non-compulsory nature of the hijab.

The hated Guchkov, the Minister of War, and Miluikov resigned on April 29th with one of Miluikov's last acts to be pressured into intervening to see the release of Trotsky from British imprisonment. The Provisional Government, recognising its own weaknesses and lack of authority, called, in not so many words, for open collaboration with the Soviet. To many of the workers and soldiers who were not hostile or suspicious to the Provisional Government, like the Bolsheviks or the Anarchists, a coalition government of socialists and capitalists was seen as a step forward but on the same day as the Ministers' resignations the Executive Soviet voted narrowly against coalition. Nevertheless, the right SRs, and even those who had traditionally been considered on the left such as Victor Chernov the champion of the peasantry, began drifting towards the idea of a coalition government.

---

The situation in Petrograd became far more difficult for Molotov after 12 March, with the return from exile of Lev Kamenev, Stalin and Matvei Muranov, all Bolsheviks senior to him and Shlyapnikov. The latter alleged that the new arrivals introduced disagreement and ‘deep organisational frictions’ into the leading party bodies, and in particular that they launched an attack on Pravda and its editors. Molotov, who believed that Stalin and the other senior Bolsheviks were mistaken in their policy, was temporarily replaced on the Executive Committee of the St. Petersburg Soviet, but attempts to adopt a more moderate line towards the Provisional Government were resisted by the Russian Bureau. On 12 March, when Molotov led the opposition to Stalin’s candidacy, the Bureau imposed strict conditions on Kamenev, and granted Stalin only non-voting membership, because of ‘certain personal characteristics’. At the same meeting, G. I. Bokii, Molotov’s nominee, was accepted (five votes for, one against, with two abstentions), and Molotov was in the van of those who resisted pressure from the moderates to co-operate with the Provisional Government. At the next meeting, the membership of Stalin and Zalutskii was accepted, but only because Molotov and Shlyapnikov had been promoted to a newly created Presidium. These manoeuvres can have done nothing to improve relations between Stalin and Molotov.

- Molotov: A Biography by Derek Watson

On the following day Lenin came with his own armed escort to the Tauride Palace and presented his Thesis to a stunned assemble of the Social Democrats. He had turned the Party Programme on its head. Instead of accepting the need for a 'bourgeois stage' of the revolution, as all of the Mensheviks and most of the Bolsheviks did, Lenin was calling for a new revolution to transfer power to 'the proletariat and the poorest peasants'. [...] But the sheer audacity of his speech, coming as it did at a joint SD assembly for the party's reunification, ensured a furious uproar in the hall. The Mensheviks booed and whistled.

- A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes

"From the 7th to the 12th [of May], the Mensheviks held their first All-Russian Conference in Petrograd - midway through which, their left leaders Martov, Axelrod and Martynov arrived to join them. Martov was appalled by what he described to a friend as his party's 'ultimate stupidity' of joining the government, without even extracting a commitment to end the war.

- October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Mieville

We can discern from Martov's OTL later return to Russia, in addition to his telegrams and letters to his comrades from abroad, that he would have been a controversial figure amongst the Mensheviks, particularly if he arrived in the midst of Lenin's radical April Thesis. The response to his Thesis caused Lenin to mitigate some of his policies and make concessions to the 'Kamenevists', Martov, in this timeline, is similarly confronted with attacks.

Before 1914, the neo-populist Socialist Revolutionary party was already divided into rightist and leftist factions, but the First World War sparked a widening schism between defencists and defeatists. In early 1917 Left S.R.s distanced themselves from their own central committee by openly allying with other leftists, in particular the Bolsheviks. During the revolutionary year Left S.R. and Bolshevik programmes shared much in common.

- The Council of People’s Commissars as Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government, December 1917–March 1918 by Lara Douds

On April 17 there took place in Petrograd the patriotic nightmare demonstration of the war invalids. An enormous number of wounded from the hospitals of the capital, legless, armless, bandaged, advanced upon the Tauride Palace. Those who could not walk were carried in automobile trucks. The banners read: “War to the end.” That was a demonstration of despair from the human stumps of the imperialist war, wishing that the revolution should not acknowledge that their sacrifice had been in vain. But the Kadet Party stood behind the demonstration, or rather Miliukov stood behind it, getting ready his great blow for the following day.

At a special night session of the 19th, the Executive Committee discussed the note sent the day before to the Allied governments. “After the first reading.” relates Stankevich, “it was unanimously and without debate acknowledged by all that this was not at all what the Committee had expected.” But responsibility for the note had been assumed by the government as a whole, including Kerensky. Consequently, it was necessary first of all to save the government. Tseretelli began to “decode” the note, which had never been coded, and to discover in it more and more merits. Skobelev profoundly reasoned that in general it is impossible to demand “a complete coincidence of the aims of the democracy with that of the government.” The wise men harried themselves until dawn, but found no solution. They dispersed in the morning only to meet again after a few hours. Apparently they were counting upon time to heal all wounds.

In the morning the note appeared in all the papers. Rech commented upon it in a spirit of carefully prepared provocation. The Socialist Press expressed itself with great excitement. The Menshevik Rabochaia Gazeta, not yet having succeeded like Tseretelli and Skobelev in freeing itself from the vapours of the night’s indignation, wrote that the Provisional Government had published “a document which is a mockery of the democracy,” and demanded from the Soviet decisive measures “to prevent its disastrous consequences.” The growing pressure of the Bolsheviks was very clearly felt in those phrases.

-The History of the Russian Revoltion by Leon Trotsky

In 1917, a years of revolutionary change in the Russian Empire, Muslim women organised a congress in order to propose and debate resolutions that they hoped would be in encorporated into Russia's new constitution. Transcripts from the April Congress in Kazan provide evidence that participants sharply disagreed over whether polygyny should be permitted, limited, or abrogated, and the used these debates to articulate their own understanding of rights. While women religious scholars pursued efforts to reread the Qur'an in order to emphasize justice, other educated Muslim women favoured historicizing the Qur'an to argue that equality and justice for women in the twentieth century would differ from justice in the time of the Prophet.

-Debating Sharia: The 1917 Muslim Women’s Congress in Russia by Marianne Kamp

The conduct of the Bolshevik Party during the April days was not uniform. Events had caught the party unprepared. The internal crisis was just being wound up, and busy preparations were going on for the party conference. Impressed by the keen excitement in the workers’ districts some Bolsheviks expressed themselves in favour of overthrowing the Provisional Government. The Petrograd Committee, which on March 5 had been still passing resolutions of qualified confidence in the Provisional Government, wavered. It was decided to hold a demonstration on the 21st, though its purpose was still insufficiently defined. A part of the Petrograd Committee were bringing the workers and soldiers into the streets with the intention not very clear, to be sure – of attempting, so to speak incidentally, to overthrow the Provisional Government. Individual left elements standing outside the party acted in the same direction. There was apparently also an anarchist element – not numerous but bustling. The military quarters were approached by individual persons demanding armoured cars or general reinforcements, now for the arrest of the Provisional Government, now for street fighting with the enemy. An armoured car division close to the Bolsheviks declared, however, that they would give no machines to anyone except by order of the Executive Committee.

The Kadets did their best to place the blame for the bloody encounters on the Bolsheviks. But a special committee of the Soviet established beyond a doubt that the shooting had started, not in the streets, but from doorways and windows. The newspapers published an announcement from the Public Prosecutor: “The shooting was done by the scum of the population for the purpose of arousing disorders and disturbances – always useful to the criminal elements.”

- The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

 

[markus meecham]

This seems very well researched.
I like where this is going quite a bit, to be honest.

 

[Salvador79]

This is awesome. I think you get the atmosphere(s) of Russia 1917 quite right, and detail is always good.

So far, we have more defeatists / "peaceniks" among the non-Bolshevik parties than IOTL, or at least slightly earlier than IOTL. That's great if it means that the Bolsheviks are not separated or isolated from the rest of the groups. If they remain in more intense contact and fluidity, and if more non-Bolshevik parties lean leftwards faster (while the Bolsheviks, if they do not have their defeatist pacifism as unique selling proposition, probably don't absorb all the radicals), that facilitates earlier united pressure on the PG (e.g. to hold elections for the Constituent Assembly, or to refrain from starting a military offensive, or...), and either broader involvement of the socialists in some sort of government, or in some sort of *October coup.

Needless to say, I'm loving it, too!

 

[markus meecham]

This is awesome. I think you get the atmosphere(s) of Russia 1917 quite right, and detail is always good.

So far, we have more defeatists / "peaceniks" among the non-Bolshevik parties than IOTL, or at least slightly earlier than IOTL. That's great if it means that the Bolsheviks are not separated or isolated from the rest of the groups. If they remain in more intense contact and fluidity, and if more non-Bolshevik parties lean leftwards faster (while the Bolsheviks, if they do not have their defeatist pacifism as unique selling proposition, probably don't absorb all the radicals), that facilitates earlier united pressure on the PG (e.g. to hold elections for the Constituent Assembly, or to refrain from starting a military offensive, or...), and either broader involvement of the socialists in some sort of government, or in some sort of *October coup.

Needless to say, I'm loving it, too!

Thanks for saying what i couldn't lmao
I should learn to write more this is not good for my college education haha haha

 

[iVC]

Tagging @Althistory Bavaria down here.

Also subscribed.

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

This seems very well researched.
I like where this is going quite a bit, to be honest.

Thanks for saying what i couldn't lmao
I should learn to write more this is not good for my college education haha haha

Thank you for your kind words! And I also spent more time at university drinking than writing so don't feel bad.

This is awesome. I think you get the atmosphere(s) of Russia 1917 quite right, and detail is always good.

So far, we have more defeatists / "peaceniks" among the non-Bolshevik parties than IOTL, or at least slightly earlier than IOTL. That's great if it means that the Bolsheviks are not separated or isolated from the rest of the groups. If they remain in more intense contact and fluidity, and if more non-Bolshevik parties lean leftwards faster (while the Bolsheviks, if they do not have their defeatist pacifism as unique selling proposition, probably don't absorb all the radicals), that facilitates earlier united pressure on the PG (e.g. to hold elections for the Constituent Assembly, or to refrain from starting a military offensive, or...), and either broader involvement of the socialists in some sort of government, or in some sort of *October coup.

Needless to say, I'm loving it, too!

Thank you again. One of the quotes from the introduction to this timeline is poignant here: "Up to now, the entire great historical epic of the Russian social revolution has mistakenly been identified only with Bolshevism." Isaak Shteinburg was the Left-SR Commissar of Justice in the short-lived Bolshevik-Left SR coalition government following the October Revolution. There were a lot more elements on the left and the Bolsheviks had greater support than many would like to admit. Hopefully I'll be able to plausibly take a more 'positive' route to exploring these elements.

Tagging @Althistory Bavaria down here.

Also subscribed.

Thank you, and thanks for the advertisement haha.

 

[dunHozzie]

I’m just hoping you keep the empire in one piece. And with American support and the sacking of ineffective generals and higher for more executive power for brusilov you might span the year, making a defensive war until German defeat achievable / feasible

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline
by GiantMonkeyMan​

Chapter 3:

On the 16th of May, the Kronstadt Soviet declared that it would no longer be accepting the authority of the Provisional Government, in effect it declared 'All Power to the Soviets'. After the tumultuous events of April, the numbers of sailors at the naval base who were Bolsheviks surged with the party recruiting nearly 3,000 at the start of May. The sailors rejected the Provisional Government appointed Commissar, debated upon new laws, and completely snubbed their officers' and the central government's authority. Two days before, Leon Trotsky had given a speech to the Kronstadt sailors declaring that "You are ahead and the rest have fallen behind". Unlike the Bolsheviks of Petrograd, who cautioned their new comrades against premature action and criticised them for lacking party discipline, Trotsky and his Mezhraiontsy welcomed every blow to the Provisional Government and worked to sever the collaboration of the Soviet with Prince Lvov's new cabinet of ministers.

The Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders of the Soviet, in the midst of the chaos of the April Days, still deferred to the Provisional Government and the Soviet Executive Committee, at the beginning of May, voted in support of the principle of coalition. Martov was furious and criticised the move as "impermissible" but found himself alone with the small left-wing of the Mensheviks that he had gathered about himself. Similar protest was made by the left-wing of the SRs, active in the most tumultuous and radical regions of Russia, but they too were isolated within their party. The SR newspaper, controlled by the right, declared that rejecting support for the Provisional Government was "rendering indirect support to Leninism". For the leftist critics, the choices borne out of the April Days was one of either soviet democracy, spearheaded by the socialist parties, or liberal dictatorship, under the purview of the Kadets and the Generals. This middle path of conciliation with the capitalist parties satisfied no-one, particularly given the Coalition's acceptance of the necessity of the war, its failure to set a date for the Constituent Assembly elections, and its lukewarm commitments to land reform and workers control.

Miliukov, the leader of the Kadets, became the scapegoat of the naked ambitions of the liberal bourgeoisie and the Coalition ejected him quickly from the talks to better distance themselves from the unpopularity of the war. Nonetheless, whilst there would no longer be talk of annexations, the Provisional Government was set on the continuation of their commitments to France and Britain. Prince Lvov was to remain Prime Minister of the Coalition and a majority of the fifteen cabinet positions were taken in the hands of Kadets or the conservative Octobrists with six positions being appropriated by the 'Socialist Ministers', Kerensky, Chernov, Tsereteli, Peshekhonov, Skobelev and Pereverzev. Although they perhaps had the power to demand more, the socialists wanted to remain in the minority, only backing the liberal government instead of controlling it entirely. Gots, the leader of the right wing of the SRs, claimed "there need be no apprehension in connection with the socialists joining the coalition Government" and that Victor Chernov's role as Minister of Agriculture would bring about the slogan 'land and freedom'. Considering the larger controlling parties of the Kadets and Octobrists were completely against land reform whilst the war was still on, it was a bold statement. Kerensky was the new Minister of War and set about his business, colluding with General Brusilov on the prospects on the front.

On the last day of the coalition negotiations Leon Trotsky finally returned to Petrograd, long delayed due to his incarceration by the British. At Tornio, at the border between Sweden and Finland, all of Trotsky's writings and papers were seized for 'examination' by the over-zealous border officers with the promise that they would be returned to him. Almost prescient, the only address Trotsky could give the officers to send the papers to was to send them to the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet. They were met by a crowd of comrades under red banners but his family was penniless and they had to stay with an old friend, an engineer named Serebrovsky who had once taken part in the street battles of the 1905 revolution but had since turned to the right of the socialist movement.

In Tauride Palace, the Soviet gathered in a plenary session where the six Ministers (three Socialist-Revolutionaries, two Mensheviks, and Peshekhonov of the Populist Socialist Party now in charge of food distribution) asked for support for their new roles. The faction of the Mensheviks around Martov voted against the measure, as did the left wing of the SRs, small in number though they both were, but only the Bolsheviks were united in condemnation. Despite this, it was clear the measure would pass and Coalition was the word of the day. It was to this crowd, vibrating with a restless energy and severed down the middle by the vote, that Trotsky stepped up to give a speech. "I cannot conceal that I disagree with much that is going on here". An agitator through and through, he cut to the core of the issues and the Soviet Executive found themselves with another vibrant critic.

It was between the 7th and the 12th that the Mensheviks held their first All-Russian Conference in Petrograd. It quickly became a battleground between the Mensheviks declaring for the Provisional Government and their party's involvement in the cabinet and the left wing faction around Martov. Irakli Tseretelli, the Minister of Post and Telegraph, a ministry newly formed out of the ashes of April entirely to allow Tseretelli to join the government, led the offensive against the left. Martov could hardly open his mouth to begin a speech before the crowd heckled and booed. Yuri Larin, a Menshevik with links to Trotsky's Mezhraiontsy, put forward to Martov the idea of a split and, in the atmosphere and politics of his party, Martov felt compelled to agree.

Martov met with Trotsky, two titans of the Social Democratic movement in Russia. They had been allies and rivals throughout their time as revolutionaries, they had both edited the Russian exile newspaper Iskra with Lenin and Plekhanov. Now they found themselves aligned, both vehemently against the war and the participation of socialists in the coalition government and both unwilling to submit to the locomotive that was Lenin in the Bolshevik Party. Gorky dismissed them both as "scoundrels" but they were scoundrels united in their cause and soon Trotsky's tiny Mezhraiontsy were merged with Martov's faction to form the Socialist-Internationalist Party (Sotsialistichesko-Internatsialisticheskaya Partiya). It remained small but its members were well recognised, the great orator Trotsky, the diligent Martov, the clever Lunacharsky, Uritsky, Larin, Riazanov, Joffe. Where they lacked the depth and spread of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, they made up for it with their powerful profile and plethora of well-known revolutionaries.

Kerensky, in his role as Minister of War, published the document 'On the Rights of Soldiers' on the 11th which retained much of the content of Order Number 1 of the Soviet but crucially reinstated the authority of the officers. He was setting out to rally the army for an offensive, in line with the aims of the Provisional Government's foreign allies. “The Coalition Government in Russia is for us the last, and almost the only, hope for salvation of the military situation on that front” proclaimed the British Ambassador George Buchanan. According to General Brusilov, around three quarters of the officers couldn't adapt to the new situation, they were offended by the soldiers committees and continued using the hated familial forms of address when talking to the soldiers. General Gurko, an advocate of the Black Hundreds, said to Kerensky at a meeting, "You say the revolution is continuing. Listen to us. Stop the revolution, and let us, the military, do our duty to the end".

On May 16th, the same day that the sailors of Kronstadt were declaring their rejection of the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks moved a resolution at a joint meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies declaring that by joining with the Coalition the socialist Ministers "had placed themselves outside the ranks of the fighting world proletariat". Again the left wing of the SRs voted with the Bolsheviks and this time the Socialist-Internationalist Party also stretched their influence. By a hair's breadth, the supporters of the Provisional Government held on. Radical sentiment was gripping many sections of the working class and the soldiers. In the Vyborg district of Petrograd where the radical Bolshevik workers hosted the ten thousand men of the First Machine Gun Regiment, a highly trained and literate regiment that had been swept up by Bolshevik sentiment, talk began of arranging an armed demonstration of soldiers and workers in June.

Multiple Soviets proclaimed their disagreement with the Coalition. The Yekaterinburg Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers Deputies called on those they represented "to make ready for the transition of power to the labouring people”. In Helsinki, in Riga, and in many other Soviets in which the Bolsheviks, the Left SRs, or the SIP held influence similar resolutions were passed. Overall, the majority of Soviets supported the Coalition and the right wing socialists held supremacy. Revolutionary defencism, the policy of patriotic defence of the revolution from German militarism, still held sway over large swathes of the workers and peasants. In contrast, the soldiers were quickly moving away from the moderate socialists and the prospect of a continuation of the war.

The Provisional Government and the officers were desperate to scrounge up support for the offensive. A number of patriots, primarily of the propertied middle class, were convinced to contribute to Liberty Loans to fund the prospective advance and the President of the Free Economic Society declared it "the duty of everyone to the Motherland, to his fellow citizens and the future of Russia, to give his savings for the great cause of freedom". Middle class civilians volunteered for shock battalions, formed to raise morale but more regularly composed of former officers ejected from their regiments by the soldiers committees. The Women's Battalion of Death was organised by Maria Bochkavera. The idea had been to inspire the male soldiers through shame but instead it was taken as proof of the Provisional Government's desperation.

Kerensky toured the front in an attempt to whip up the morale of the troops assembled. His speeches hypnotised the soldiers that he met, they carried him on their shoulders, kissed his uniform and the car he had arrived in, and prayed for his good health. He became convinced of the eagerness of the army to advance and his own charismatic ability. Wherever he went it appeared as if the soldiers were fully behind him but outside of these meetings, which were mainly composed of officers and well-off patriots, the poor soldiers were less eager. Brusilov, who had been key to convincing the Provisional Government, and Kerensky, of the possibility of the offensive, soon began to have doubts. He snubbed his officers and attempted to present himself to the soldiers as 'one of them' but he was a poor orator and failed to be convincing, only ending up frustrating the officers and alienating the soldiers. On one occasion, he talked about the German advance into France causing great destruction to vineyards that produced champagne to which one particularly frustrated soldier cried out, "Shame on you! You want to spill our blood so you can drink champagne!"

All throughout the end of May the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Internationalists were fighting their own battles on a different front. On the 30th of May, the First Conference of the Petrograd Factory Committees opened. Initially, the factory committees were relatively moderate and the Mensheviks held great authority in the trade union leadership, but swiftly, as social tensions increased, the committees themselves swung left. Representing 367 committees and 337,464 workers, nearly 80% of the workers in Petrograd. The debate was around the issue of state control by the Provisional Government, supported by the Mensheviks, or workers control, supported by the Bolsheviks, the SIP and the anarcho-syndicalists. The resolutions called on "complete regulation of production and distribution of goods by the workers". The factory committees in Kharkov were even more radical than in the revolutionary capital, proposing that the committees should seize the factories outright immediately.

Everywhere there was a major concentration of workers, the best orators gave speeches to packed crowds. Sverdlov, Volodarsky, Trotsky, Shliapnikov, and countless others put forward their position: no to the offensive, no to collaboration with the capitalist government, an end to the war, and workers control of the factories. The message resonated. Workers unhappy with their delegates at the Soviet recalled them on over two hundred occasions. The Military Organisation of the Bolsheviks was to the left of the main party structures and began discussing the prospect of an armed demonstration against Kerensky's offensive during the beginning of June when the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets and Soldiers Deputies was scheduled. Chernov proclaimed “The offensive does not concern me, a man of politics; that is a question for the strategists at the front" but the Socialist-Revolutionary had forgotten the old maxim that war is just politics by other means.

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The Kronstadt sailors were young (half of them below the age of twenty-three), almost all of them were literate, and most of them were politicised by the propaganda of the far-left parties. By the start of May the Bolsheviks had recruited over 3,000 members at the naval base. Together with the Anarchists and the SRs they controlled the Kronstadt Soviet. On 16 May the Soviet declared itself a sovereign power and rejected the authority of the Provisional Government and its appointed Commissar at the naval base. It was, in effect, the unilateral declaration of a 'Kronstadt Soviet Republic'. The Petrograd Soviet denounced the rebels as 'defectors from the revolutionary democracy'. The bourgeoisie of Petrograd was terrified by the thought that they were now at the mercy of this militant fortress

A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes

On the 1st of May the Executive Committee, having passed through all the stages of vacillation known to nature, decided by a majority of 41 votes against 18, with 3 abstaining, to enter into a coalition government. Only the Bolsheviks and a small group of Menshevik-Internationalists voted against it.

It is not without interest that the victim of this closer rapprochement was the recognised leader of the bourgeoisie, Miliukov. “I did not go out, they put me out,” said Miliukov later, Guchkov had withdrawn already on April 30, refusing to sign the Declaration of the Rights of the Soldier. How dark it was in those days in the hearts of the liberals is evident from the fact that the Central Committee of the Kadet Party decided, in order to save the Coalition, not to insist upon Miliukov’s remaining in the government. “The party betrayed its leader,” writes the right Kadet, Isgoyev. The party, however, had no great choice. The same Isgoyev remarks quite correctly, “At the end of April the Kadet Party was smashed to pieces; morally it had received a blow from which it would never recover.”

But on the question of Miliukov the Entente was to have the last word. England was entirely willing that the Dardanelles patriot should be replaced by a more temperate “democrat.” Henderson, who was in Petrograd with authorisation to replace Buchanan as ambassador in case of need, learning of the state of affairs, deemed this change unnecessary. As a fact, Buchanan was exactly in the right place, for he was a resolute opponent of annexations in so far as they did not coincide with the appetites of Great Britain. “If Russia has no need of Constantinople,” he whispered tenderly to Tereshchenko, “the sooner she announces this, the better.” France at first supported Miliukov, but here Thomas played his rôle, coming out after Buchanan and the Soviet leaders against Miliukov. Thus that politician, hated by the masses, was abandoned by the Allies, by the democrats, and lastly by his own party.

The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

We returned to Russia after ten years of exile, in the midst of a triumphant revolution, but to a country impoverished and bled white by the war. The first contact we had with the Russian authorities, at Tornio one the Finno-Swedish border, was chilly in the extreme - and this had nothing to do with the weather. All Trotsky's papers were retained for examination on the promise that they would be sent on to the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet, the only address we could give them.

The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky by Victor Serge and Natalia Sedova Trotsky

Count Lvov remained Prime-Minister of the first coalition Government. The Cadets and the Octobrists occupied the leading posts. The “Socialist Ministers'—Kerensky, Chernov, Tsereteli, Peshekhonov, Skobelev and Pereverzev—claiming to “represent the whole of democracy”, served merely as a screen behind which the bourgeoisie could carry through its policies. This shameful collaboration with the Cadets was presented by the conciliators as “an outstanding victory for democracy’’. The leader of the Right S.R.s, A. R. Gots, assured Petrograd Soviet deputies that “there need be no apprehension in connection with the socialists joining the coalition Government”. He alleged that the Socialist-Revolutionary Chernov was becoming Minister of Agriculture only in order to implement the slogan “Land and Freedom" (!). Tsereteli, Skobelev and Peshekhonov were supposed to be joining the Government for the same purpose. Another leader of the Right S.R.s, N. D. Avksentyev, declared: “The socialists in the Government are those who dictate policy.” All this was of course downright hypocrisy.

The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies on the Eve of the October Revolution by A. Andreyev

No surprise that five days after his provocative appearance, Lenin offered Trotsky's Mezhraiontsy a seat on the board of the journal Pravda if they would join the Bolsheviks. He even mooted making the same offer to the left-wing Menshevik-Internationalists. Their leader Martov had, after long delay and without much help from his Petrograd comrades, returned to the city by a similar method to Lenin (in a considerably larger train). For his part, although Trotsky no longer objected to such joining of forces in principle, he could not accept dissolving into the Bolsheviks.

[...]

When Martov attempted to speak from the platform, the audience howled contumely on him. The horrified left understood how marginalised they were. Particularly in Petrograd, some on the Menshevik left, like Larin (also a Mezhraionets), argued for a split. Martov decided instead to remain within the party as an opposition bloc, hoping to win over the majority of the party congress scheduled for July.

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Mieville

Here is revealed somewhat the direction of the timeline. In Trotsky and Martov joining forces as opposed to Trotsky (eventually) joining the Bolsheviks, we have the formation of a third far left organisation capable of influencing events. The Mezhraiontsy also not joining with the Bolsheviks somewhat reduced the Bolsheviks' power. The aim of the timeline is a multi-party soviet democracy and the new Socialist-Internationalist Party will be an influential, if numerically small, third organisation in the soviets. In this timeline, Martov arriving earlier, being subject to further attacks, he is convinced to split in actuality instead of simply remaining with the Mensheviks but (often, but not always) voting with the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks moved a resolution at the May 16 joint meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies which stated that by their joining the Provisional Government the Petrograd Soviet E.C. members "had placed themselves outside the ranks of the fighting world proletariat". This received 160 votes, and it was with great difficulty that the conciliators managed to get a vote of confidence for the coalition Government. The Yekaterinburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opposed the idea of socialists joining the Provisional Government and called on workers, soldiers and peasants "to rally around their Soviets and to make ready for the transition of power to the labouring people". Similar resolutions were adopted by the district Soviets of Petrograd and Moscow and by the Soviets of Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Riga. Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Kronstadt, Helsingfors and Alexandrov, among others. But the Soviets in Tver, Vyatka, Archangel, Novgorod, Ryazan, Tambov, Orel, Saratov, Kazan, Baku, Odessa, Chernigov, and other places, where the Mensheviks and the S.R.s were in the majority came out in support of the coalition Government. Those who protested against the settling of the April political crisis to the disadvantage of the Soviets were for the most part the workers in the big factories of Petrograd, Moscow and other cities. The workers employed at small enterprises and workshops, and the great majority of the soldiers, were infected by the idea of revolutionary "defencism". They supposed that the participation of the socialists in the bourgeois Provisional Government would guarantee the ending of the war and the fulfilment of other demands.

The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies on the Eve of the October Revolution by A. Andreyev

The political preparation for the offensive was at first carried on by Kerensky and Tseretelli, in secrecy even from their closest colleagues. In the days when these half-consecrated leaders were still continuing to spout about the defence of the revolution, Tseretelli was more and more firmly insisting on the necessity that the army make ready for active service. The longest to resist – that is, the coyest – was Chernov. At a meeting of the Provisional Government on May 17, the “rural minister,” as he called himself, was asked with heat whether it was true that he had expressed himself at a certain meeting on the subject of the offensive without the necessary sympathy. It transpired that Chernov answered as follows: “The offensive does not concern me, a man of politics; that is a question for the strategists at the front.” Those people were playing hide-and-seek with the war, as with the revolution. But only for the time being.

The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

The first major steps toward general coordination of the factory committee movement were taken in Petrograd. Rank-and-file committee members from some of the larger metal works - mostly Bolsheviks acting, as far as is known, without directives from higher party organs - began to plan for a city-wide conference in April. The Putilov factory committee send out a general call on 29 April. The organisational bureau that prepared the conference was composed of four Bolsheviks, one Left SR and a Menshevik-Internationalist who kater joined the Bolshevik party. The delegates who assembled for the First Conference of Factory Committees of Petrograd and Its Environs from 30 May to 5 June represented 367 committees and 337,464 workers, some 80 per cent of the 400,000 workers of Petrograd. Most of the delegates were from the larger plants and particularly those concerned with war production, though more than one-fourth were from smaller plants in chemicals, leather, and printing.

Workers Control and Socialist Democracy: The Soviet Experience by Carmen Sirianni

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I've had some time off from work which has helped me write out and edit these first few chapters quickly. Expect some delays for future chapters but hopefully this has been enough to capture your imaginations. Thanks to @WotanArgead for the Russian translation.

 

[Salvador79]

Oh, this is good. The ISP is an excellent idea. Maybe it inspires Spiridonova, natanson and other Left SRs to split off earlier, too.

 

[WotanArgead]

Oh, this is good. The ISP is an excellent idea. Maybe it inspires Spiridonova, natanson and other Left SRs to split off earlier, too.

I think so too - it hurt them very much that they later realized themselves as a separate party. This prevented them during the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline
by GiantMonkeyMan​

/QUOTE]
I hope you do not give the Bolsheviks at the mercy of Comrade Dzhugashvili. Is not it?

 

[markus meecham]

Great update!

 

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Oh, this is good. The ISP is an excellent idea. Maybe it inspires Spiridonova, natanson and other Left SRs to split off earlier, too.

Certainly the plan is to introduce a more decisive split in the SRs earlier.

I hope you do not give the Bolsheviks at the mercy of Comrade Dzhugashvili. Is not it?

Nikolai Sukhanov describes the Stalin of this era as a 'grey blur', he was someone in the background as the greats of Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev and the like were fighting their political battles. It was only a certain set of circumstances that allowed Stalin to evolve from a secondary ranked Bolshevik leader to the Stalin that we know - those circumstances won't be repeated in this timeline.

Great update!

Thanks again for your continued support!

 

[Salvador79]

Yay, we definitely need more peasant soviets!

 

[Alexander the Average]

Oh, this is good. The ISP is an excellent idea. Maybe it inspires Spiridonova, natanson and other Left SRs to split off earlier, too.

I think so too - it hurt them very much that they later realized themselves as a separate party. This prevented them during the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

Certainly the plan is to introduce a more decisive split in the SRs earlier.

An independent Left SR party throws up a lot of interesting possibilities. As I understand it the Right SRs were massively over represented in the SR electoral lists during the elections for the Constituent Assembly at a time when the support for the Left SRs was growing among the peasants. ITTL if the Left SRs are able to form their own party and establish roots ahead of time they could end up with a stronger position in the CA. If a coalition Bolsheviks, International Socialists and Left SRs are able to form a majority in the CA and vote to dissolve the CA and hand all power to the Soviets then not only does TTL October Revolution have a more multiparty base it would have a lot more legitimacy. Under such circumstances I can see all but the most recalcitrant Mensheviks and Right SRs accepting the revolution, stripping any potential White movement of a lot of their potential supporters.