Beginning in 1905, Lenin had advanced the slogan of a workers’ militia as a central demand for the revolution. It was no accident that the arming of the workers was one of the first demands he put forward in his telegram to the Bolsheviks from Switzerland. In fact, the Russian workers were already carrying this demand into practice without waiting to be told.
In the armed clashes of February, the workers, beginning with the activists, seized a large quantity of arms. 40,000 rifles and 30,000 revolvers were seized from the arsenal alone. A further 24,000 rifles and 400,000 cartridges were reluctantly handed over by the Provisional Government’s Military Commission between 2 and 3 March. On this basis, the workers’ militia was formed, firstly to patrol the workers districts, keeping order, preventing pogroms and disarming criminal and hooligan elements. Before long, however, they began to go onto the offensive against counter-revolutionary elements, including oppressive and unpopular members of management. The workers militia had nothing in common with terrorism and guerrillaism, but emerged from the mass movement and was subordinated to it, being closely linked to the Soviets and factory committees that everywhere began to spring up after the February Revolution. If we agree that state power is “armed bodies of men”, then power in Petrograd was in the hands of the armed people. By 19 March, there were 85 militia centres functioning in the city, of which 20 were under the control of factory committees or similar bodies. They numbered around 10,000 or 12,000 as opposed to the 8,000 of the regular militia. “In essence,” commented the Populist AV Peshekonov, “all power rested completely in the hands of the crowd.”
On 28 April, a conference was organised, on the initiative of the Left Menshevik N. Rostov, of elected representatives from 156 enterprises to set up the Red Guard. The statutes of the new force, drafted by Shlyapnikov and adopted by the Vyborg District Soviet, controlled by the Bolsheviks, stated its aims as “to struggle against the counter-revolutionary intrigues of the ruling class [and] defend with arms in hand all conquests of the working class”, but at the same time “to safeguard the lives, security and property of all citizens without distinction of sex, age or nationality”. Membership was open to any man or woman who could prove membership of a socialist party or union, and was elected or recommended by a general meeting of their workmates. The basic unit was the squad of ten (desyatok); these were to combine to make up a ‘sotnya’, or unit of one hundred, and ten such companies were to constitute a battalion. The whole force was under the control of the district soviet (most of which were controlled by the Bolsheviks). All officers were elected by the rank and file.
Thus, in the beginnings, the workers’ militias saw their role in purely defensive terms. But in the course of experience, their role became transformed, passing almost imperceptibly from defence to offence, until, by November, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, they could place on the order of the day the seizure of state power. One recent analyst has estimated that, on the eve of the October Revolution, the militias counted in their ranks between 70,000 and 100,000. Of these, roughly 15-20,000 were in Petrograd and the surrounding area, and about 10-15,000 in Moscow and the Central Industrial Region. (Quoted in JLH Keep, The Rise of Social Democracy in Russia, p. 91 and p. 95.)
With every day that passed, the role of the reformist leaders of the Soviets was becoming exposed. The first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which was held in Petrograd from 3 June to 24 June, passed a resolution pledging full support for the government. The Bolsheviks were in a small minority at the Congress: 105 delegates, as against 533 for the Mensheviks and SRs. But the mood in the factories and garrisons in the capital was growing increasingly restless. The large numbers of new recruits made this mood felt within the Bolshevik Party. In early June, under the influence of these moods, the Bolsheviks’ Military Organisation had projected an armed demonstration in Petrograd to coincide with the congress. The purpose of the demonstration was to put pressure on the Congress. But it was also a response to the increasing pressure of the advanced workers of Petrograd who were straining at the leash to take power. Had the Bolsheviks not placed themselves at the head of the workers, all kinds of ultra-left and anarchist elements could have exploited the situation to provoke premature armed clashes with calamitous results.
The workers of Petrograd had a clear message for the Soviet leaders: “Take over power in the state! Break with the bourgeoisie! Break the coalition and take power into your own hands!” But the last thing the petty-bourgeois Soviet leaders wanted was power, and the movement of the Petrograd workers terrified them. They were convinced that the Bolsheviks were using the armed demonstration as a front to take power. Such an idea was very far from Lenin’s mind at this stage. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks were attempting to restrain the workers of Petrograd, understanding that the time for a decisive showdown was not ripe. True, the workers could have taken power in Petrograd in June. But the provinces had not yet had time to catch up with the capital. The mass of the workers and peasants would have interpreted this as an attack on ‘their’ government, and rallied to the Soviet leaders who would not have hesitated to drown the movement in blood. The Russian Revolution would have ended up as a heroic failure, like the Paris Commune. Lenin had no intention of going down that road.
In a panic reaction, the Soviet leaders opened up a savage campaign against the projected demonstration. Understanding what this meant, the Bolsheviks decided to retreat and the demonstration was called off. They were still in a small minority at the Congress, and acted accordingly. The main task was still that of winning over a majority in the Soviet by patient work, propaganda and agitation. The question of taking power while the party remained a small minority simply did not arise. The Bolsheviks’ decision to stage a tactical retreat was shown to be correct by what happened next.
To compensate for the calling-off of the Bolsheviks’ demonstration, the reformist leaders called their own ‘official’ demonstration – and had the shock of their lives. On 1 July, the masses poured onto the streets of Petrograd in answer to the call of the Soviet leaders. But in their hands they carried banners with Bolshevik slogans:
Down with the secret treaties! Down with the policy of strategic offensives! Long live an honourable peace! Down with the ten capitalist ministers! and All power to the Soviet!
In the entire demonstration there were only three placards that expressed confidence in the Provisional Government – one from a Cossack regiment, one from Plekhanov’s tiny group, and one from the Bund. This demonstration showed not only the reformist leaders but also the Bolsheviks themselves that they were far stronger in Petrograd than they had imagined.
So long as they were in a minority, Lenin and Trotsky did their utmost to restrain the workers and soldiers, to avoid a premature confrontation with the state. All their emphasis was on peaceful agitation and propaganda. This was not an easy thing to do. For their pains, Lenin and Trotsky frequently incurred the anger of sections of the workers who had moved a bit too far ahead of the class. They were accused of opportunism for not pushing the question of armed insurrection into the foreground. To such criticism, they merely shrugged their shoulders. They understood that the most pressing task was to win over the majority of the workers and soldiers who remained under the influence of the Mensheviks and SRs. That was the real significance of the slogan “all power to the Soviets”. Lenin maintained this position up until July, when he advocated dropping it in favour of “all power to the factory committees”.
At the Congress of Soviets, Lenin made a speech which sums up his whole approach to the question of winning over the workers in the Soviets. No trace of shrill, strident denunciations, but instead a patient, positive-sounding appeal to the workers which takes into account their illusions in the reformist leaders, but at the same time states clearly what is. He warned that only two alternatives were possible:
One or the other: either the usual bourgeois government, in which case the peasants’, workers’, soldiers’ and other Soviets are useless and will either be broken up by the generals, the counter-revolutionary generals, who keep a hold on the armed forces and pay no heed to Minister Kerensky’s fancy speeches, or they will die an inglorious death. They have no other choice. They can neither retreat nor stand still. They can exist only by advancing. (LCW, First All-Russia Congress of Soviets, vol. 25, p. 18.)
Then he turned his attention to the burning issue of the war. His analysis of the situation is so clear, the message so direct, that it could not fail to strike a chord with the delegates, even though they were overwhelmingly in favour of the Mensheviks and SRs at this stage. With no trace of rhetoric or demagogy, by the force of an iron logic, Lenin ruthlessly strips away all the diplomatic verbiage to lay bare the class interests that lie beneath:
The capitalists continue to plunder the people’s property. The imperialist war continues. And yet we are promised reforms, reforms and more reforms, which cannot be accomplished at all under these circumstances, because the war crushes and determines everything. Why do you disagree with those who say the war is not being waged over capitalist profits? It is, first of all, which class is in power, which class continues to be the master, which class continues to make hundreds of thousands of millions from banking and financial operations. It is the same capitalist class and the war therefore continues to be imperialist. Neither the first Provisional Government nor the government with the near-socialist Ministers has changed anything. The secret treaties remain secret. Russia is fighting for the Straits, fighting to continue Lyakhov’s policy in Persia, and so on.
I know you don’t want this, that most of you don’t want it, and that the Ministers don’t want it, because no one can want it, for it means the slaughter of hundreds of millions of people. But take the offensive which the Milyukovs and Maklakovs are now talking about so much. They know full well what that means. They know it is linked with the question of power, with the question of revolution. We are told we must distinguish between political and strategic issues. It is ridiculous to raise this question at all. The Cadets perfectly understand that the point at issue is a political one.
It is slander to say the revolutionary struggle for peace that has begun from below might lead to a separate peace treaty. The first step we should take if we had power would be to arrest the biggest capitalists and cut all the threads of their intrigues. Without this, all talk about peace without annexations and indemnities is utterly meaningless. Our second step would be to declare to all people over the head of their governments that we regard all capitalists as robbers – Tereshchenko, who is not a bit better than Milyukov, just a little less stupid, the French capitalists, the British capitalists, and all the rest.
Your own Izvestiya has got into a muddle and proposes to keep the status quo instead of peace without annexations and indemnities. Our idea of peace ‘without annexations’ is different. Even the Peasant Congress comes nearer the truth when it speaks of a ‘federal’ republic, thereby expressing the idea that the Russian republic does not want to oppress any nation, either in the new or in the old way, and does not want to force any nation, either Finland or the Ukraine, with both of whom impermissible and intolerable conflicts are being created. We want a single and undivided republic of Russia with a firm government. But a firm government can be secured only by the voluntary agreement of all people concerned. ‘Revolutionary democracy’ are big words, but they are being applied to a government that by its petty fault-finding is complicating the problem of the Ukraine and Finland, which do not even want to secede. They only say, “Don’t postpone the application of the elementary principles of democracy until the Constituent Assembly!”
A peace treaty without annexations and indemnities cannot be concluded until you have renounced your own annexations. It is ridiculous, a comedy, every worker in Europe is laughing at us, saying: You talk very eloquently and call on the people to overthrow the bankers, but you send your own bankers into the Ministry. Arrest them, expose their tricks, get to know the hidden springs! But that you don’t do although you have powerful organisations which cannot be resisted. You have gone through 1905 and 1917. You know that revolution is not made to order, that revolutions in other countries were made by the hard and bloody method of insurrection, and in Russia there is no group, no class, that would resist the power of the Soviets. In Russia, this revolution can, by way of exception, be a peaceful one. Were this revolution to propose peace to all peoples today or tomorrow, by breaking with all the capitalist classes, both France and Germany, their people, that is, would accept very soon, because these countries are perishing, because Germany’s position is hopeless, because she cannot save herself and because France – (Chairman: “Your time is up.”)
I shall finish in half a minute. (Commotion; requests from the audience that the speaker continue; protests and applause.)
Clearly impressed, almost in spite of themselves, the majority decided to give the speaker extra time, and Lenin continued his speech, exposing the imperialist nature of the war, but, again taking into account the ‘honest defencist’ inclinations of his audience, explains revolutionary defeatism in a language which could get an echo from the workers and soldiers. We are not pacifists, he says. We are prepared to fight against the Kaiser, who is also our enemy. But we do not trust the capitalists. Get rid of the ten capitalist ministers! Let the Soviet leaders take the power, and we will wage a revolutionary war against German imperialism, while fighting to extend the revolution to Germany and all the other belligerent powers. That is the only way to get peace:
When we take power into our own hands, we shall curb the capitalists, and then the war will not be the kind of war that is being waged now, because the nature of a war is determined by what class wages it, not by what is written on paper. You can write on paper anything you like. But as long as the capitalist class has a majority in the government the war will remain an imperialist war no matter what you write, no matter how eloquent you are, no matter how many near-socialist ministers you have…
The war remains an imperialist war, and however much you may desire peace, however sincere your sympathy for the working people and your desire for peace – I am fully convinced that by and large it must be sincere – you are powerless, because the war can only be ended by taking the revolution further. When the revolution began in Russia, a revolutionary struggle for peace from below also began. If you were to take power into your hands, if power were to pass to the revolutionary organisations to be used for combating the Russian capitalists, then the working people of some countries would believe you and you could propose peace. Then our peace would be ensured at least from two sides, by the two nations who are being bled white and whose cause is hopeless – Germany and France. And if circumstances then obliged us to wage a revolutionary war – no one knows, and we do not rule out the possibility – we should say: “We are not pacifists, we do not renounce war when the revolutionary class is in power and has actually deprived the capitalists of the opportunity to influence things in any way, to exacerbate the economic dislocation which enables them to make hundreds of millions.” The revolutionary government would explain to absolutely every nation that every nation must be free, and that just as the German nation must not fight to retain Alsace and Lorraine, so the French nation must not fight for its colonies. For, while France is fighting for her colonies, Russia has Khiva and Bokhara, which are also something like colonies. Then the division of colonies will begin. And how are they to be divided? On what basis? According to strength. But strength has changed. The capitalists are in a situation where their only way out is war. When you take over revolutionary power, you will have a revolutionary way of securing peace, namely, by addressing a revolutionary appeal to all nations and explaining your tactics by your own example. (Ibid., pp. 21-23 and pp. 26-27.)
What is most striking here is the complete absence of Lenin’s earlier formulations on “revolutionary defeatism”. No reference to civil war. No call to the soldiers to turn their bayonets against their officers, and certainly no hint that the defeat of Russia would be the “lesser evil!” This change reflects an important shift in Lenin’s thinking on tactics since February. The question of defencism versus revolutionary defeatism, which he frequently presented in very black-and-white terms in the previous period, turned out to be not so simple. Of course, fundamentally Lenin’s position on the war had not changed. The change of regime from tsarist autocracy to a bourgeois-democratic republic did not mean that the war on Russia’s side was any less imperialist than before. But when he returned to Russia, Lenin said that he had found, as well as the usual social-chauvinist crowd, a wide layer of honest working class defencists in the Soviets who had to learn by experience and argument the reactionary nature of the war. To have merely repeated the old slogans would have been to cut off the Bolsheviks utterly from the working class. A new approach was needed, which reflected the difference between writing and speaking for small groups of party activists and addressing the broad mass of workers recently awakened to political life.