The June Days¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter traces the evolution of the workers' militia from a defensive formation into the Red Guard, the armed instrument through which the Bolsheviks would eventually seize state power. Beginning with Lenin's pre-1905 demand for a workers' militia, the narrative shows how the February Revolution spontaneously armed the Petrograd proletariat: 40,000 rifles and 30,000 revolvers seized from the arsenal, with a further 24,000 rifles reluctantly surrendered by the Provisional Government's Military Commission. By 19 March, 85 militia centres operated in the city, 20 under factory committee control, numbering 10-12,000 men against the regular militia's 8,000. The Populist Peshekonov observed that "all power rested completely in the hands of the crowd."
The formal establishment of the Red Guard on 28 April, initiated by Left Menshevik Rostov and organised through the Bolshevik-controlled Vyborg District Soviet, codified a force whose statutes combined defensive aims—"to struggle against the counter-revolutionary intrigues of the ruling class"—with the protection of "all citizens without distinction." Membership required socialist party or union affiliation and election by workmates. The basic unit was the squad of ten (desyatok), combining into companies of one hundred (sotnya), with all officers elected. The force passed "almost imperceptibly from defence to offence," reaching an estimated 70-100,000 by October, with 15-20,000 in Petrograd and 10-15,000 in Moscow.
The chapter's central argument concerns the Bolsheviks' tactical restraint during June 1917. At the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (3-24 June), the Bolsheviks held only 105 delegates against 533 Mensheviks and SRs. Yet the Petrograd workers and garrison were "straining at the leash to take power," demanding the Soviet leaders "break the coalition." The Bolsheviks' Military Organisation projected an armed demonstration to pressure the Congress, partly to channel the workers' impatience away from ultra-left and anarchist elements who might provoke premature clashes. Lenin understood that while the workers could take Petrograd in June, the provinces had not caught up; the mass of workers and peasants would see this as an attack on "their" government, rally to the Soviet leaders, and drown the movement in blood—repeating the Paris Commune's "heroic failure."
The Bolsheviks called off the demonstration. The reformist leaders then staged their own "official" demonstration on 1 July—and received a shock: the masses poured out carrying Bolshevik banners demanding "All power to the Soviet," "Down with the secret treaties," and "Down with the ten capitalist ministers." Only three placards expressed confidence in the Provisional Government, from a Cossack regiment, Plekhanov's group, and the Bund. This revealed the Bolsheviks were far stronger in Petrograd than they had imagined.
The chapter reproduces at length Lenin's speech to the Congress, emphasising its patient, non-rhetorical character—a deliberate contrast with his earlier formulations on revolutionary defeatism. Lenin argued that only two alternatives existed: either a bourgeois government that would crush the Soviets, or the Soviets advancing to take power. On the war, he stripped away diplomatic verbiage: the secret treaties remained secret, Russia still fought for the Straits and Persia, and the capitalist class remained master regardless of "near-socialist ministers." He proposed arresting the biggest capitalists, cutting their intrigues, and appealing over the heads of governments to the peoples of France and Germany. He acknowledged the "honest defencist" sentiments of his audience, declaring the Bolsheviks were not pacifists and would wage revolutionary war if necessary—but only after the revolutionary class held power and had curbed the capitalists.
The chapter argues this shift reflected Lenin's recognition that the old "revolutionary defeatism" slogans, appropriate for small groups of party activists, would cut the Bolsheviks off from the broad mass of workers newly awakened to political life. The workers in the Soviets included a wide layer of "honest working class defencists" who had to learn by experience and argument, not by repetition of abstract formulae. This tactical flexibility—restraining the advanced workers while patiently winning the majority—is presented as the key to the Bolsheviks' success, in