Lenin Changes His Mind¶
Core Argument¶
In the aftermath of the July Days, Lenin’s thinking underwent a significant shift, one that challenges the myth of an infallible leader steering an automatic course to victory. From his hiding place in Razliv, Lenin initially overestimated the depth of the counter-revolution and drew pessimistic conclusions. Drawing on the memoirs of Shotman and Zinoviev, Alexander Rabinowitch records that Lenin believed the party should go underground “seriously and for a long time”, and that a deeper period of reaction lay ahead than actually transpired. Maria Sulimova, with whom Lenin stayed on 6 July, recalls his grim remark: “You, comrade Sulimova, they might arrest. But me, they will hang.” So preoccupied was he with this prospect that he sent a note to Kamenev requesting the publication of his notebook, ‘Marxism on the State’—the work that became State and Revolution—should he be killed.
On the basis of the July events, Lenin concluded that the regime of dual power had been liquidated and that the Soviets, now under the control of the Mensheviks and SRs, had gone over to the side of the counter-revolution. He therefore advocated abandoning the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’, which had been correct for the peaceful development of the revolution up to July, and instead called for the party to prepare an insurrection based on the factory committees. This appraisal, however, proved premature. The victory of the right wing in the Soviets was not as decisive as Lenin thought. The growing polarisation and radicalisation of society would inevitably re-express itself through the Soviets, the main mass organisations of the working class. Lenin himself had warned at the April Conference against a fetishism of soviets: “The Soviets are important to us not as a form; to us it is important what classes they represent.”
Despite the defeat, the Bolsheviks recovered quickly. The Provisional Government’s policies remained deeply unpopular, the news from the front worsened, and Kerensky’s patriotic demagogy failed to sway troops who wanted only to go home. The re-emergence of tsarist officers in the officer corps further alarmed the soldiers. Against Lenin’s prognosis, the Soviets began to grow more receptive to Bolshevik propaganda. A contradictory process unfolded: the reformist leaders in the All-Russian Executive Committee pledged unconditional support for Kerensky, while in the district soviets, suspicion towards the government grew by the hour. The left current, represented by the Menshevik Internationalists, the Mezhraiontsy, and the Bolsheviks, steadily rose. By midsummer, Bolshevik resolutions were being passed in several Petrograd districts, even where the Mensheviks and SRs formally retained control. The workers, increasingly inclined to listen to the only people who spoke what was on their minds, were beginning to turn. Lenin’s initial pessimism, though understandable, gave way to a more accurate reading of the revolutionary tide.