By skilful and flexible tactics, the Bolsheviks succeeded in drastically increasing their influence in the Soviets in the months before October, to the point where, together with their allies, they could command a majority at the Soviet Congress. That, and that alone, explains the relatively peaceful character of the October insurrection. The reason was not primarily military, but the fact that nine-tenths of the work had already been accomplished beforehand. The most vital arena of struggle was in the Soviets themselves. Anweiler gives the following breakdown of the relations between the parties in the Soviets on the eve of the insurrection:
1) In the workers soviets in almost all the big industrial cities the Bolsheviks had the majority, and the same was true of the majority of soldiers’ soviets in the regiments. The essential points of their influence were:
a) Finland, Estland [Estonia], Petersburg and the surrounding region, part of the Northern Front and the navy; b) The central industrial zone around Moscow; c) The Urals; d) Siberia where they were equally balanced with the SRs.
2) In the peasants’ soviets and in the front-line soviets the SRs were still the dominant force. A strong left wing, which finally split away from the SR party in the weeks leading up to October, was on the side of the Bolsheviks and frequently helped them to obtain a majority in most of the Soviets. The moderate SRs were strongest in:
a) The Black Sea area and the Central Volga; b) The Ukraine (together with the nationalist Socialist parties); c) The Eastern, South-eastern and Rumanian fronts.
3) The Mensheviks had lost their dominant position in the workers’ soviets almost everywhere after the first months of the revolution. Only in the Caucasus, especially in Georgia, where they could also base themselves on the peasant population, were they much stronger than the Bolsheviks in October 1917.
4) For the first time groups of Maximalists and anarchists played an important role in some soviets. They supported the Bolsheviks in October and significantly contributed to the radicalisation of the masses. (O. Anweiler, Los Soviets en Rusia: 1905-1921, p. 194.)
Anweiler exaggerates the role of the anarchists and maximalists, who were a tiny minority, representing the ultra-left tendencies that always exist, but cannot play any real role. A certain growth of such tendencies in a revolution is to be expected. Lenin himself explained that the masses were already getting tired of waiting. Individual workers or sometimes small groups of workers who have moved a bit too far ahead of the class can be attracted to the radical-sounding slogans of the ultra-lefts. But for every one of these there are 50, 100, or 1,000 who will go to the traditional mass organisations, even where these are under the leadership of the reformists. The reason why the anarchists played no significant role in the Russian Revolution was because of the existence of the Bolshevik Party. In State and Revolution, Lenin wrote in sympathetic terms about the anarchist workers, while criticising their half-baked notions about the state, pointing out that anarchism (and ultra-leftism in general) is the price the movement has to pay for the opportunism of the reformist labour leaders.
Under Russian conditions reformism was always a feeble and sickly plant. There was no tradition of powerful reformist trade unions and Labour Parties as in Western Europe. Nevertheless, for the reasons already outlined, the Russian workers in February, even as they established the Soviets, took the line of least resistance and backed the reformist parties in the Soviets. Only through the experience of great events did the masses reject these leaders and move in the direction of Bolshevism. But this process was neither easy nor automatic. It was only made possible by the generally correct policies and tactics of the Bolsheviks, above all, their clear orientation to those mass organisations that had been created by the workers and which, to the end, had tremendous attractive power, despite the policies of the leaders – the Soviets and the trade unions.
The way in which the workers cling to the established mass organisations was strikingly revealed on the eve of October by the controversy around the date of the insurrection and the Soviet Congress. Lenin was quite rightly worried about the constitutional and parliamentary cretinism of Bolshevik leaders like Kamenev and Zinoviev. He feared delay, since every day that passed gave the time and opportunity to the counter-revolutionaries to regroup and launch a new offensive. There were persistent rumours (subsequently shown to be true) that Kerensky was planning to move the centre of government to Moscow. There was every possibility that the Provisional Government would let Petrograd fall into the hands of the Germans, rather than see it fall to the Bolsheviks. There is ample evidence that the bourgeoisie in the capital was waiting to receive the Kaiser’s armies as saviours. At the time of Kornilov’s uprising, the Germans had taken Riga. Later they occupied two strategic islands in the Baltic, placing them in striking distance of Petrograd. The danger was real enough.
Mikhail Rodzianko, the former head of the Duma, confessed in so many words that it would be better for the Germans to take Petrograd:
“Petrograd appears threatened (by the Germans)… I say to hell with Petrograd… People fear our central institutions in Petrograd will be destroyed. To this, let me say that I should be glad if these institutions are destroyed because they have brought Russia nothing but grief.” (Quoted in A. Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, p. 226.)
At the very least, Kerensky was preparing to get rid of the mutinous Petrograd garrison, using the excuse of the German threat. But, as the gulf between the classes opened ever wider, the threat that the Soviets would be dissolved by the forces of reaction loomed larger.
The main argument employed against Lenin was “we must wait for the Soviet Congress”. But Lenin feared that the Congress would be postponed. The Soviet leaders had already postponed it once, fearing that they would lose control. Why should they not do this again? Then the opponents of insurrection had another argument. Why not wait for the convening of the promised Constituent Assembly? They were always looking for some pretext or other to postpone the insurrection. Here again Lenin thought it highly likely that the Provisional Government would postpone or cancel the convening of elections to the Constituent Assembly. Hence, his implacable opposition to waiting for the Congress of Soviets, or anything else.
Lenin’s impatience, and his constant fear that the Bolshevik leaders were dragging their feet, were partly dictated by the waverings of Kamenev and Zinoviev, who were far from being alone in the Bolshevik leadership. But they were also partly the result of Lenin’s isolation. Trotsky, who was more in touch with the situation on the ground, was in favour of preparing the insurrection, but making it coincide with the Congress of Soviets, which would give it the necessary legitimacy in the eyes of the masses. This showed a sharp insight into the psychology of the workers. The Bolsheviks had certainly made extraordinary progress since the summer. The growth of the membership was now so rapid that it swamped the meagre capacity of the party’s apparatus, which was unable to keep pace with it. In August, at the time of the Sixth Congress, the membership stood at around 240,000.[6] At the Central Committee meeting of 16 October, Sverdlov reported that “the growth of the party has reached gigantic proportions: at the present time it must be estimated at 400,000 at least.” (M. Liebman, Leninism Under Lenin, p. 158.)
In fact, it is impossible to arrive at an exact figure for party membership at this time. The Bolshevik Party’s apparatus was still relatively weak and constantly overwhelmed with work. In a revolution, the demands of the hour must take precedence over such mundane tasks as keeping up-to-date membership figures. Any estimate must therefore necessarily have a conditional character. Lenin himself admitted that it was all but impossible to get an accurate idea of the membership in September, but pointed to the increased donations from workers as proof of the party’s rapid growth:
In the absence of any statistics concerning the fluctuation of the party membership, attendance at meetings, etc., the conscious support of the party by the masses may be judged only from published data concerning cash collections for the party. These data show a tremendous mass-scale heroism on the part of worker-Bolsheviks in collecting money for Pravda, for the papers that have been suppressed, etc. The reports of such collections have always been published. (LCW, The Russian Revolution and Civil War, vol. 26, p. 32.)
What is not in question is the fact that the Bolsheviks, who had started the year as a tiny organisation, had grown rapidly to the point where they became the dominant force in the working class. But even with a membership of 400,000, the Bolsheviks would never have been able to lead millions of workers and soldiers to the seizure of power without flexible tactics and methods and a correct orientation towards the mass organisations. The party’s progress in the Soviets has already been alluded to. But this does not tell the whole story. While the Bolshevik slogans were finding a ready echo among the workers, the latter still looked to the Soviets to carry these slogans into practice. The relationship was a dialectical one. Without the policies of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviets were useless. As a matter of fact, under the leadership of the right-wing reformists, they could be characterised as counter-revolutionary Soviets. But from another point of view, the policies of the Bolsheviks, without the Soviets, would not necessarily have won the ear of the masses, who still had profound illusions in those organisations which they had built themselves, and to which they had become accustomed to look for a solution to their problems. The ideas of Bolshevism only acquired an irresistible force when they were linked in the minds of the masses with the organisations to which they had given their allegiance – the Soviets.
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Liebman gives this figure. Schapiro, quoting different sources, puts it at 200,000.