Part I¶
Core Argument¶
Part I: The November Revolution¶
The November Revolution was distinguished from its inception by the Bolshevik Party's conviction that the logic of events would place it in power. This belief rested upon the insignificance of the Russian middle-class democracy and the concentrated character of Russian industry, which endowed the proletariat with immense social weight. The war, however, gave the army—the peasantry—the decisive role. The army organised peasants on a military rather than political basis before they shared any common revolutionary platform. Soldiers sent intellectuals and semi-intellectuals as their representatives to the Soviets, elevating lower middle-class democrats to enormous influence. These leaders, though calling themselves socialists, regarded the liberal bourgeoisie with ill-concealed respect, forming a bloc between Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks that expressed a vassal attitude towards imperialist liberalism. The Bolsheviks understood this as a temporary combination destined to be destroyed by the class struggle.
The war became the touchstone: the intellectual leaders abandoned their Zimmerwaldian internationalism once in responsible positions, pursuing the same path as the liberal bourgeoisie. The July offensive, demanded by the Allies and accepted by the lower middle-class leaders, was opposed by the Bolsheviks, who warned that the army could not be sent into battle without new ideas. The subsequent campaign against the Bolsheviks, led by the Cadet bourgeoisie, aimed to make the party impossible and contained the first germs of civil war. The Coalition Government had failed to address agrarian, industrial, or national questions, while food supply and transport deteriorated. Kerensky and Tsereteli's middle course only worsened confusion.
On 15th July, a ministerial crisis broke out over the Ukrainian question, sparking the July Days—a spontaneous armed demonstration by workers and soldiers, politically guided by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks did not intend an armed rising but sought to pressure the Coalitionists into breaking with the bourgeoisie. The Soviet leaders stalled until 'trustworthy' troops arrived from the front; the demonstration was then suppressed, the Bolsheviks declared counter-revolutionary, and forged documents alleging they were German agents were published. After the July Days, repression intensified, but Bolshevik influence grew. In late August, General Kornilov launched a counter-revolutionary rising. The Coalitionist Soviet parties, frightened, partially legalised the Bolsheviks; Kronstadt sailors, previously denounced, were summoned to defend the Revolution. The rising collapsed as revolutionary masses paralysed it without significant fighting.
After the Kornilov affair, the Bolsheviks expected a rapid transfer of power to the Soviets. The masses, however, having learned from the July Days, awaited a direct call from their leaders, and the party leadership itself adopted a waiting stance. Consequently, no immediate political changes followed. The Bolsheviks then won a decisive majority in the Petrograd Soviet, forcing the old Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary Bureau to accept a coalition Presidency on proportional representation. Similar shifts occurred in the Moscow Soviet and provincial Soviets. The old Central Executive Committee delayed summoning an All-Russian Congress of Soviets, fearing a Bolshevik majority. The Mensheviks and SRs proposed a Democratic Conference to counter both the Bolsheviks and Kerensky.
Kerensky, having been freed by the Central Executive Committee from responsibility to the Soviets after the July Days, now stood independent. The Moscow State Conference revealed his impotence, though he imagined he had unlimited authority. The Democratic Conference aimed to dissolve the Soviets into an amorphous democratic mass. The text contrasts the Soviets with formally democratic bodies like Municipal Councils and Zemstvos. In revolution, the latter lag behind mass consciousness due to their ponderous electoral mechanism. Soviets, based on organic groups like factories and regiments, maintain direct, immediate contact between deputy and electors, allowing constant revision and recall. This explains why coalitionist parties, losing ground in the revolutionary class, gravitated toward the Town Councils.