From his hut in Razliv, Lenin followed the process of the revolution with keen attention, devouring all the reports, statistics, anecdotes, anything that could serve to determine the all-important question: when should the party strike? With his customary meticulousness, he studied the results of every election, every vote in the Soviets, unions and town councils, trying to see what light they cast on the class balance of forces. Lenin did not for a moment forget that election statistics present the correlation of forces in a very partial and distorted manner. But everything pointed to a swift advance of the revolutionary party. The memory of Kornilov’s revolt was still vivid in the minds of the workers and soldiers and the threat of counter-revolution provoked a rapid polarisation and radicalisation in the Soviets. New elections were taking place everywhere in the Soviets and soldiers organisations at the front. And in almost all of them, the vote for the Bolsheviks registered an astonishing advance. Power was slipping from the hands of the right-wing leaders who had displayed their complete impotence during the emergency. One by one, the Soviets in the main industrial centres changed their allegiance from the Mensheviks and SRs to the Bolsheviks: Petrograd, Finland, the fleet, the northern armies, Moscow and the central industrial area, the Urals.
True, the picture was not uniform. The SRs still held sway in the peasant Soviets and in the front-line regiments. But here also a process of internal differentiation was taking place. A left-wing tendency was rapidly gaining ground inside the Social Revolutionary Party, and in the process of splitting and lining up with the Bolsheviks. The right-wing SRs were strongest in the Black Earth region and in the Central Volga. In the Ukraine they shared control with the left nationalists. But the Mensheviks were losing ground everywhere. Only in their traditional stronghold, the Caucasus, did they manage to keep control of the Soviets which they had dominated all over Russia at the start of the revolution. Such was the balance of forces that determined Lenin’s next step. The Bolsheviks were now the decisive force inside the Soviets. The reformist leaders were isolated and besieged in their final refuge, the Soviet Executive. Was it not time to bring matters to a head, to strike the decisive blow?
Lenin was convinced that the time was ripe, and that any delay could prove fatal. But not all the other party leaders were thinking on the same lines. The party’s top leadership was still profoundly affected by the July defeat, and inclined towards excessive caution. Zinoviev, who had hitherto always followed Lenin’s line, had been badly shaken and now clung to Kamenev, who, as usual, took the road of ‘moderation’. From the beginning of September Lenin bombarded the Central Committee with letters, insistently demanding that it begin to organise the insurrection. In a letter to the Central Committee dated 12-14 (25-27) September, he opens with the words:
The Bolsheviks, having obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies of both capitals, can and must take state power into their own hands. (LCW, The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power, vol. 26, p. 19.)
Lenin’s letter fell like a bombshell. The Central Committee was so aghast at its content and tone that they actually decided to destroy it, as Bukharin later recalled:
“When I entered, Milyutin came suddenly to meet me and said: ‘You know, Comrade Bukharin, we’ve received a little letter here’. The letter was read. We all gasped. No one had yet put the question so sharply. No one knew what to do. Everyone was at a loss for a while. Then we deliberated and came to a decision. Perhaps this was the only time in the history of our party when the Central Committee decided to burn a letter of Comrade Lenin’s.” (Quoted in M. Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin, p. 137.)
Other letters followed, each one more emphatic than the last:
What are we doing? We are only passing resolutions. We are losing time. We set ‘dates’ (20 October, the Congress of Soviets – is it not ridiculous to put it off so long? Is it not ridiculous to rely on that?)
To ‘wait’ for the Congress of Soviets and so forth under such circumstances would be a betrayal of internationalism, a betrayal of the cause of the world socialist revolution.
We must… admit the truth that there is a tendency, or an opinion, in our Central Committee and among the leaders of our Party which favours waiting for the Congress of Soviets, and is opposed to taking power immediately, is opposed to an immediate insurrection. That tendency, or opinion, must be overcome. Otherwise, the Bolsheviks will cover themselves with eternal shame and destroy themselves as a party. For to miss such a moment and to ‘wait’ for the Congress of Soviets would be utter idiocy, or sheer treachery.
Finally, exasperated by the delaying tactics of the CC, Lenin threatened to resign from it and carry the struggle into the ranks of the party:
In view of the fact that the Central Committee has even left unanswered the persistent demands I have been making for such a policy ever since the beginning of the Democratic Conference, in view of the fact that the Central Organ is deleting from my articles all references to such glaring errors on the part of the Bolsheviks as the shameful decision to participate in the Pre-Parliament, the admission of Mensheviks to the presidium of the Soviet, etc., etc. – I am compelled to regard this as a ‘subtle’ hint at the unwillingness of the Central Committee even to consider this question, a subtle hint that I should keep my mouth shut, and as a proposal for me to retire.
I am compelled to tender my resignation from the Central Committee, which I hereby do, reserving for myself freedom to campaign among the rank and file of the Party and at the Party Congress.
For it is my profound conviction that if we ‘wait’ for the Congress of Soviets and let the present moment pass, we shall ruin the revolution. (LCW, The Crisis has Matured, vol. 26, p. 69, p. 81, p. 82 and p. 84.)