Faced with an entirely new and unexpected turn of events, the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd felt out of their depth. They anxiously awaited the arrival of the exiled leaders to provide them with direction. Shlyapnikov admits that the Bolsheviks, who concentrated all their efforts in winning the immediate battle for power, gave little thought to the question of what power meant and how, concretely, the ‘provisional revolutionary government’ would be formed. At bottom, this was the result of a mistaken theory, summed up in the formula ‘democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’, which utterly disarmed and disoriented the Bolshevik leaders after the overthrow of tsarism. Even the most radical of them had no other perspective than the consolidation of a bourgeois regime. “The coming revolution must only be a bourgeois revolution,” wrote Olminsky, adding that “that was an obligatory premise for every member of the party, the official opinion of the party, its continual, and unchanging slogan right up to the February Revolution of 1917, and even some time after.” The same idea was expressed even more crudely in Pravda on 7 March, 1917, even before Stalin and Kamenev had given it an even more right-wing slant: “Of course, there is no question among us of the downfall of the rule of capital, but only the downfall of the rule of the autocracy and feudalism.” (Quoted in M. Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin, p. 127.)
The rank-and-file Bolshevik workers in the factories, in contrast to the leaders, displayed a healthy scepticism and distrust of the Provisional Government from the outset. Their outlook was shaped, not by old slogans, but by their class and revolutionary instinct. At every stage they stood to the left of the Central Committee which, without the steadying hand of Lenin, frequently vacillated. Paradoxically, the absence of the leaders from Petrograd in the beginning permitted the voice of the rank and file to be heard more clearly. Once they got over the initial disorientation, they adopted a more or less correct position. Thus, early on, the Petrograd Bolsheviks issued a manifesto, which Lenin heartily welcomed, To All the Citizens of Russia, demanding a democratic republic, the eight-hour day, seizure of the landlords’ estates, and an immediate end to the war of plunder.
This position would have placed the Bolsheviks on a collision course with all the other tendencies of the ‘progressive camp’ which were attempting to put the brakes on the revolution for the sake of reaching an accommodation with the bourgeois liberals. Although it did not refer to the Soviets it said that:
The factory workers and also the revolutionary soldiers must immediately elect their representatives for a provisional revolutionary government, which must be set up under the protection of the insurrectionary, revolutionary people and army.
The manifesto also appealed for the setting up of soviets.
Proceed immediately to the election in the factories of factory strike committees. Their elected representatives will make up a Soviet of workers’ deputies, which will take upon itself the organising role in the movement, which will set up a provisional revolutionary government.
The instinctively revolutionary position of the Bolshevik rank-and-file, and its opposition to class collaborationism was reflected in the radical stance taken by Pravda in the early days of the revolution, before the arrival of Stalin and Kamenev. Pravda (9/3/1917) wrote:
The Soviet of Workers and Soldiers deputies must immediately get rid of this Provisional Government of the liberal bourgeoisie and declare itself to be the provisional revolutionary government. (Quoted in Istoriya KPSS, vol. 2, p. 674 and p. 688.)
However, the arrival of the exiles immediately changed things for the worse. Since Lenin was stranded in Switzerland, blocked by the refusal of the Allies to allow him to travel to Russia through their territory, the first to return were those who had been sent to Siberia, Kamenev and Stalin among them. They immediately steered the Party on a rightward course, which signified drawing close to the Mensheviks.
The leaders of the Bolsheviks in Russia joined the Mensheviks and SRs in supporting the Provisional Government headed by Prince Lvov, despite all Lenin’s warnings against blocs with the liberal bourgeoisie. Even before the return of Stalin and Kamenev, there were sharp differences. When Molotov, in the name of the Bureau of the Central Committee, put before the Petrograd Committee a resolution criticising the Provisional Government, denouncing its counter-revolutionary policy and calling for its replacement by a “democratic government”, he was rebuffed. Instead, the Petrograd Committee passed a resolution in which it agreed to refrain from attacks on the Provisional Government “so long as its actions correspond to the interests of the proletariat and of the broad democratic masses of the people”. (M. Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin, p. 122.) Instead of appearing as an independent revolutionary force, the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd acted as the fifth wheel in the cart of the ‘progressive democrats’. This reflected the pressure of petty-bourgeois public opinion. The general mood in the aftermath of the February overthrow was one of euphoria and universal rejoicing. Intense pressure grew for the unity of all ‘progressive forces’, and weighed heavily on the leading stratum of the most radical wing which was constantly urged to modify its stance and fall into line with the majority. This threw the Bolshevik leaders off balance, and they moved towards accommodation with the Mensheviks. In many areas, local committees of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks spontaneously merged. As Trotsky recalls:
The barriers between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, between the Internationalists and the Patriots, fell down. The whole country was flooded with buoyant but near-sighted and verbose conciliationism. People floundered in the welter of heroic phrases, the principal element of the February Revolution, especially during its first weeks. Groups of exiles started from all the ends of Siberia, merged into one stream and flowed westward in an atmosphere of exultant intoxication. (L. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 181.)
The arrival of the exiles from Siberia instantly imparted a sharp rightward slant to the political positions taken by the Bolshevik leadership in Petrograd. Up until this time, the local leadership, made up of Shlyapnikov, Zalutsky, and Molotov, had steered a more radical course. These three leaders stood on the left wing of the party. But the newly arrived Kamenev and Stalin used their seniority to push the party’s line sharply to the right. This was immediately reflected in the pages of the central organ. In an editorial in Pravda on 14 March, two days after his return, Kamenev wrote an editorial in which he asked: “What purpose would it serve to speed things up, when things were already taking place at such a rapid pace?” (M. Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin, p. 123.) The next day, he wrote another piece commenting on Kerensky’s statement that Russia would “proudly defend its freedoms” and would not “retreat before the bayonets of the aggressors”. Kamenev enthusiastically concurred, in language which completely renounced Lenin’s policy of opposition to the war:
When army faces army, it would be the most insane policy to suggest to one of those armies to lay down its arms and go home. This would not be a policy of peace, but a policy of slavery, which would be rejected with disgust by a free people. (E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 1, p. 75.)
Stalin held the same position as Kamenev, only more cautiously. He published an article approving the stance of the Soviet in its manifesto (which Lenin blasted) and said that what was needed was “to bring pressure to bear on the Provisional Government to make it declare its consent to start peace negotiations immediately”. According to Stalin it was “unquestionable” that “the stark slogan ‘Down with the war!’ was absolutely unsuitable as a practical means”. (JV Stalin, Works, vol. 3, p. 8.)
The first All-Russian Conference of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was convened at the end of March 1917. Simultaneously with this, the Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee issued a call for the All-Russian Conference of party workers, which opened on 28 March. This was the first really representative conference of the party to be held since the overthrow of tsarism. Lenin was still struggling to return from his Swiss exile, and was therefore absent. The political proceedings therefore constitute an accurate reflection of how the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd viewed the revolution. Among the central issues discussed were the attitude to the war and the Provisional Government, as well as relations to other parties. The report on the attitude to the Provisional Government was delivered by Stalin. The whole thrust of this report, permeated through and through with opportunistic adaptation and conciliationism, is radically opposed to the line advocated insistently by Lenin.
The central idea of Stalin’s speech is that the Bolsheviks should give critical support to the bourgeois Provisional Government, to act as a kind of loyal opposition, which, while remaining outside the government, and with certain reservations, nevertheless supports it:
Insofar as the Provisional Government fortifies the steps of the revolution, to that extent we must support it; but in so far as it is counter-revolutionary, support to the Provisional Government is not permissible.
This position did not command unanimous support at the Conference. In fact, the resolution adopted by the Bureau of the Central Committee, while unsatisfactory, at least made some correct points:
The Provisional Government, brought forward by the moderate bourgeois classes of our society and linked through all its interests with Anglo-French capitalism, is incapable of solving the tasks posed by the revolution.
It continues:
Therefore the task of the day is: consolidation of all forces around the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ deputies as the embryo of revolutionary power, alone capable both of repelling the attempts on the part of the tsarist and bourgeois counter-revolution as well as realising the demands of revolutionary democracy and of explaining the true class nature of the present government.
The most urgent and important task of the Soviets, the fulfilment of which will alone guarantee the victory over all the forces of counter-revolution and the further development and deepening of the revolution, is, in the opinion of the party, the universal arming of the people, and, in particular, the immediate creation of Workers’ Red Guards throughout the entire land.
The minutes state that Stalin publicly distanced himself from the resolution of the Bureau:
Comrade Stalin reads the resolution on the Provisional Government adopted by the Bureau of the Central Committee, but states that he is not in complete agreement with it, but is rather in accord with the resolution of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
The Krasnoyarsk resolution, which reflects the thinking of the more backward provinces, had a completely opportunist character, based on the idea that the Soviets can coexist with the bourgeois Provisional Government and, by means of pressure, make it submit to its will:
2) To make entirely clear that the only source of the power and the authority of the Provisional Government is the will of the people who have accomplished this revolution and to whom the Provisional Government is obliged wholly to submit.
3) To make likewise clear that the submission of the Provisional Government to the basic demands of the revolution can be secured only by the unrelaxing pressure of the proletariat, the peasantry and the revolutionary Army, who must with unremitting energy maintain their organisation around the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies born out of the revolution, in order to transform the latter into the terrible force of the revolutionary people.
4) To support the Provisional Government in its activities only in so far as it follows a course of satisfying the demands of the working class and the revolutionary peasantry in the revolution that is taking place.
In an incredible intervention in the course of the debate, Stalin made a bad situation still worse:
In such a situation, can one speak of supporting such a government? One can rather speak of the Government supporting us. It is not logical to speak of support of the Provisional Government, on the contrary, it is more proper to speak of the Government not hindering us from putting our programme into effect.
How could the Bolsheviks “put their programme into effect” while allowing a bourgeois government to remain in power? How was it possible to get peace from a government tied hand and foot to British and French capital? How could land be transferred to the peasantry by a government dominated by the “men of property”? The idea that the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets could coexist for any length of time with a government of capitalists, let alone oblige it to act against its own vital interests, was in flagrant contradiction to the ABCs, not only of Marxism, but of common sense. This same formula was later used by the German Social Democratic leaders to derail and destroy the German Revolution of November 1918. Had the line of Stalin and Kamenev prevailed, the Russian Revolution would have undoubtedly ended up in a similar defeat.
The confused nature of these speeches and resolutions, and the disorientation of the Bolsheviks at this time, has its roots in the confused and contradictory nature of the old Bolshevik slogan ‘democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’, which Trotsky had pointed out long before. Starting out from the definition of the class nature of the revolution as bourgeois-democratic, the Bolsheviks were now faced with the dilemma of what to do, if the working class was not supposed to take power. Stalin and Kamenev concluded that the working class must support the ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie, although hedging it round with ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’.
The line of capitulation to middle-class ‘democracy’ advocated by Stalin and Kamenev effectively blurred the lines of demarcation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. So much so that the March Conference actually considered the question of fusion. Indeed, if the Stalin-Kamenev line were accepted, there would be no serious reason to maintain the existence of two separate parties. In the session of 30 March, Kamenev reported on his contacts with the Mensheviks, as the minutes show:
Kamenev: Reports that he has entered into negotiations with the internationalist SRs and Mensheviks. Inasmuch as it is clear that an absolutely unacceptable resolution of the Executive Committee [of the Soviets] will be passed, it is necessary to counterpose to it a joint resolution of the internationalists. The SRs (22) are a national minority. They will not vote against the resolution of the Bolsheviks and will withdraw their resolution. The Mensheviks are seeking to introduce a single resolution and are for uniting on a joint resolution. Should factional discipline be imposed to compel the minority to submit to the majority, the internationalists will come out in favour of our resolution.
Those speakers on the left of the party who opposed these moves towards unity and who dared to raise the question of the workers taking power were given short shrift. Thus, when Krassikov intervened on these lines, he was stopped in his tracks by the chairman:
Krassikov: The gist of the matter is not in the amendments and not in a demonstrative presentation of social democratic slogans, but in the current moment. If we recognise the Soviets of Deputies as the organs that express the will of the people, then the question before us is not the consideration of what concrete measures must be taken on this or that issue. If we think that the time has now come to realise the dictatorship of the proletariat, then we ought to pose the question that way. We unquestionably have the physical force for a seizure of power. I believe that we will have sufficient physical force both in Petrograd as well as in other cities. [Commotion in the hall. Shouts: “Not true”.] I was present…
The Chairman (interrupting): The question under discussion involves the practical steps for today. The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not under discussion.
Krassikov (continues): If we do not pose the question that way then ought we to take steps in relation to the Provisional Government which…
The Chairman deprives him of the floor.
Although formally Kamenev’s proposal was to link up with the left (internationalist) wing of Menshevism, the real intention was to unite in a single party. Prominent Menshevik leaders like Lieber were present at the Conference, and participated in it. On the session of 1 April, a resolution on unity written by the Georgian Menshevik leader Tsereteli was put to the congress. Although representatives of the Bolshevik left wing, including at that time the student Molotov, opposed it, Stalin expressed himself in favourable terms:
Order of the day: Tsereteli’s proposal for unification.
Stalin: We ought to go. It is necessary to define our proposals as to the terms of unification. Unification is possible along the lines of Zimmerwald-Kienthal.
Luganovsky: The Kharkov Committee is carrying on negotiations precisely along these lines.
Molotov: Tsereteli wants to unite heterogeneous elements. Tsereteli calls himself a Zimmerwaldist and a Kienthalist, and for this reason unification along these lines is incorrect both politically and organisationally. It would be more correct to advance a definite internationalist socialist platform. We will unite a compact minority.
Luganovsky (in refuting comrade Molotov) says: At the present time we are unaware of any disagreements. The Mensheviks abstained in the Soviet and spoke more strongly than did… the Bolsheviks who came out against. Many disagreements have been outlived. It is out of place to underscore tactical differences. We can have a joint Congress with the Mensheviks, the Zimmerwaldists and Kienthalists.
In view of the controversy sparked off by this proposal, Stalin once again intervened in the debate to defend unification in unmistakable terms which, despite his habitual caution, faithfully echo his earlier comments, describing the differences between Bolshevism and Menshevism as “a storm in a tea-cup”:
Stalin: There is no use running ahead and anticipating disagreements. There is no party life without disagreements. We will live down trivial disagreements within the party. But there is one question – it is impossible to unite what cannot be united. We will have a single party with those who agree on Zimmerwald and Kienthal… (Quoted in L. Trotsky, The Stalin School of Falsification, p. 239, p. 240, p. 241, p. 242, p. 255, p. 256, p. 258, p. 274 and p. 275, which reproduces the official transcript of the Conference, my emphasis.)
After all this time, to describe the differences between Bolshevism and Menshevism as “trivial disagreements” shows that Stalin, the party ‘practico’, had no real understanding of the fundamental ideas of Bolshevism. These “trivial disagreements” were nothing other than the differences between reformism and revolutionism, between a class policy and a policy of class collaboration. In the end, the Conference voted to allow negotiations with the Mensheviks to proceed, and elected a negotiating committee composed of Stalin, Kamenev, Nogin, and Teodorovich.