Bolshevik opposition in 1917

Hanan Markovich Astrakhan
Bolsheviks and their political opponents in 1917

From the history of political parties in Russia between two revolutions 1973

"Bolsheviks and their political opponents in 1917" in Russian PDF format

Excerpts from the book:

... Sukhanov (Socialist-Revolutionary, then non-factional Social Democrat), despite his hostility to the Bolsheviks, was forced to single out their role in the February Revolution. ... “These people these days,” wrote Sukhanov about the Bolsheviks, “were stewing in a completely different job, serving the technique of the movement, forcing a decisive battle with tsarism, organizing agitation and the illegal press.”

... The Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet consisted only of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, they predominated in the Executive Committee of the Soviet. At the time of its creation on March 9, the Bolshevik faction had 22 deputies, at the end of the month - 65. At the end of May, the Bolshevik faction consisted of 250, and at the end of July 400 people.

At the beginning of April 1917, the Socialist-Revolutionary faction of the Petrograd Soviet had 70 members, at the beginning of June - 340. The maximum number of the faction in 1917, according to its chairman, was 400 members. At meetings of the faction in July-October 1917, as can be seen from the minutes, from 52 to 87 people were present. By the beginning of July, the Menshevik faction numbered about 215 people.

... The predominance of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the Petrograd Soviet was unexpected for many. Members of the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b), later noted A. G. Shlyapnikov, the day after the creation of the Soviet were struck by the weakness of the representation of the Bolsheviks in it and "tried to find out the reasons that led to this situation."

... Lenin noted the danger of influence on the masses of the bourgeois intelligentsia, “not directly involved in exploitation, trained to operate with general words and concepts, carried around with all sorts of“ good ”precepts, sometimes out of sincere stupidity elevating their interclass position to the principle of non-class parties and non-class politicians...".

... Determined opponents of the revolution at a time when it was brewing and developing, the Cadets, after its victory, began to lay claim to the role of ideological inspirers and custodians of the gains of the revolution.

... the Menshevik E. Maevsky accused the St. Petersburg Soviet of 1905 of "not stopping the workers of St. Petersburg from their ill-advised striving to introduce an 8-hour working day by seizure"3.

... During the elections to the district dumas of Petrograd at the end of May 1917, the Cadets urged the voters: "Vote for whoever you want, but don't vote for the Bolsheviks"3.

Lenin's discussion with Kamenev, Bogdatiev and Rykov about "revolutionary democracy". The author uses the funds of the factory committees to write the book, reveals the political orientation of the workers.

...

Even the report of the Department of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma noted: “The widespread belief that the Russian peasant is tied to the tsar, “cannot live without the tsar,” was clearly refuted by that unanimous joy, that sigh of relief when they learned that they would live without him. without whom they “could not live.”

... Even the Cadets, taking into account the mood of the masses, refrained from publicly vilifying socialism, while the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, by right of "socialists", acted as its adherents. But, having testified their disposition towards socialism in principle, the authors of the pamphlets began to prove the supposed impossibility of realizing it in the near future, especially in Russia. To push the workers off the path of struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution, which they had embarked on after the overthrow of tsarism—such was the aim of both the bourgeois publicists, who succumbed to the mood of the masses, and the false socialists, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who feared above all the further development of the revolution.

... Lenin wrote the next day in Pravda: "Outside of socialism there is no salvation for mankind from wars, from hunger, from the death of millions and millions more people"

... There is a known case of V. I. Lenin's refusal to speak at a rally in Zurich in March 1917 only because the well-known Menshevik A. Martynov was supposed to speak at it. V. I. Lenin was afraid that the fact of his participation in the rally together with Martynov would not be used in Russia in favor of the unification of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks4.

... By the end of April, there were more than 440 independent Bolshevik organizations in the country, while the united ones were somewhat more than 150. In the first, there were 80,000 Bolsheviks, in the second, 14,000.

Of the 68 provincial towns where the Bolsheviks began legal activity in March-April 1917, independent Bolshevik organizations began to operate in 14, and united organizations took shape in 54.

... The first citywide conference of the Moscow Bolsheviks showed that the organization had strong opponents of unification with the Mensheviks (R. S. Zemlyachka, for example, stated: “At the citywide conference, I voted against any attempts to unite, and I am proud of this, since found herself in the company of Comrade Lenin”2).

2 Proletarian Revolution, 1929, No. 10(93), p. 175

An entire chapter is devoted to the problem of uniting the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks after the February Revolution. Lenin rejected unification, and life has shown him to be right.

... Of the 50-55 members of the Rostov United Social-Democrats. group (Yaroslavl province) were 4-5 active Bolsheviks and 5-6 Mensheviks, while the rest, according to a member of the organization, "were no more, no less, as listeners of diverse trends"3.

... the Menshevik N. Bykhovsky (Sormovo) said: “We called a general meeting, and it turned out that the mood at first was towards unification, but as soon as Lenin came, there was no unification”3.

At the beginning of March - 24 thousand Bolsheviks, at the end of April - 100 thousand, at the end of July - 240 thousand, by October - 350 thousand.

... The establishment of uniform rules for admission to the party was facilitated by the decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) of March 18, 1917, according to which “admission takes place on the recommendation of 2 members”1.

... In the "Charter of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party" approved by the congress on August 2, 1917, paragraph 2 read: "New members are accepted by local party organizations on the recommendation of two members of the party and are approved by the next general meeting of members of the organization"2.

... Almost all the Bolshevik organizations of 1917 experienced an acute shortage of intellectual forces. Even in Moscow, as V. N. Podbelsky noted at the VI Congress, the "secretary crisis" in the district collectives had an effect. “The work lies,” he noted, “on the shoulders of young workers, mainly workers”5. The Nikolaev Committee of the Bolsheviks, having sent its first propaganda leaflets to the Central Committee, added at the same time: “Do not scold us if it is not so literary, because it was written by the workers - we have no intellectuals at all”6. Local party organizations very often asked the Central Committee to send lecturers, propagandists, and newspaper workers.

... Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks published 11 newspapers; the Cadets—two Party newspapers and a large number of formally non-Party newspapers1; the Bolsheviks had only two newspapers - Pravda and Soldatskaya Pravda. According to V. I. Lenin, the Cadets and the Rights, united in the government with the Compromisers, had an advantage over their political opponents in the main instrument of agitation - the number of copies of daily newspapers - "ten, if not a hundred times" 1 2. Immeasurably less in Compared with other parties, the Bolsheviks also had the opportunity to publish mass literature3.

The limited possibilities of the Bolshevik party in the development of agitation and propaganda, due to a lack of funds and a small number of personnel, were to a certain extent compensated for by the exceptional activity and purposefulness that the party organizations showed in this matter. The very fact that the central organ of the party, the newspaper Pravda, began to publish regularly on March 5, while even in the first days of March it had neither an editorial office, nor an office, nor a printing house, testifies to the perseverance and energy shown by the Bolsheviks, and to support of their frontline workers. A similar picture was in the provincial cities. Of the 14 Bolshevik committees that took shape immediately after leaving the underground, 9 committees began publishing newspapers in March, 2 more in April and May, and only 3 (Smolensky, Tverskoy,

1 Socialist-Revolutionary newspapers - “The cause of the people”, “Land and freedom”, “The will of the people”, “Revolutionary people”, “Izvestia of the All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies”; the Mensheviks—Rabochaya Gazeta, Den, Unity, Novaya Zhizn; SR-Menshevik - Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet, Voice of a Soldier; Cadet - "Speech", "Free People", as well as "Birzhevye Vedomosti", "Evening Time", "New Time", "Russian Will", etc.

3 The total circulation of the publishing house of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) "Priboy" from March to July 1917 was approximately 1.5 million copies, and the circulation of the works of the Socialist-Revolutionary publishing house "Land and Freedom" (Moscow) during this time exceeded 4 million copies. The turnover of "Priboy" in July amounted to 55 thousand rubles, and the turnover of the Socialist Revolutionary publishing house "Revolutionary Thought" (Petrograd) this month - 363 thousand rubles (see "Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (b)", pp. 39-40; "The cause of the people ”, July 26 and August 10, 1917).

... It is characteristic that V. I. Lenin spoke more often where the Bolshevik Party had not yet managed to consolidate its positions. Thus, on April 15, the Executive Commission of the Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet, under the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, adopted a resolution in which it called Bolshevik propaganda "no less harmful than any counter-revolutionary propaganda from the right." On April 17, Vladimir Ilyich arrived at the Taurida Palace, spoke at a meeting of the soldiers' section, outlining the views of the Bolsheviks on the main issues of the revolution, and answered questions from the soldiers. Under the influence of Lenin's speech, the rank-and-file deputies of the soldiers' section began to look at the Bolsheviks differently. Soldatskaya Pravda wrote that, after listening to Lenin's speech, those "who, through a misunderstanding, had opposed him, now expressed delight. Lenin's speech left an indelible impression.

... Inviting the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, "the current leaders of the Soviet", to become power, V. I. Lenin wrote in Pravda on June 14: "... we are for this, although you are our opponents ..."

Implementation under the slogan "All power to the Soviets!" democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry in its "pure" form, as a transitional stage to the dictatorship of the proletariat, seemed to the Bolshevik party the most preferable. It opened up the possibility of a comparatively easy and painless path for the development of the revolution. In a situation where the bulk of the soldiers and peasants and part of the workers were still following the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the implementation of the slogan "All power to the Soviets!" would ensure the speedy creation of a united front of the revolutionary workers and broad non-proletarian working masses against the bourgeoisie.

... The Cadets devoted more than one pamphlet, an uncountable number of magazine and newspaper articles to Lenin's "excommunication" from Marx. "Lenin is turning his back on the fundamental principles of socialism,"2 proclaimed the Kadet newspaper Vyatskaya Mysl. The Bolsheviks "have little in common with Marxism,"3 declared AS Izgoev.

... They tirelessly asserted that the party of "people's freedom" is not bourgeois, but supra-class, aiming to unite the interests of all classes, without prejudice to each of them, a party that puts the state and national interests of Russia as a whole above all else, a party of realistic politics . In fact, the entire content of the Cadet program was aimed at strengthening the bourgeois system in Russia, at creating the most favorable conditions for its development.

... In total, there were more than 150 formally non-party, but essentially Cadet newspapers in Russia in March-October 1917.

... Additional materials brought in give reason to believe that the number of Cadets in 1917 was greater, approximately 70-80 thousand.

. D. I. Shakhovsky's report on the party's tactics emphasized the desirability of an agreement between the Cadets and the "more reasonable left tendencies," i.e., the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, against the Bolsheviks. "This rapprochement is further facilitated by the fact," said the speaker, "that the left-wing parties have to a large extent ... come closer to us."2 However, the bourgeois press, not without reason, noted that such an agreement had in fact already been reached. A. Kizevetter, after analyzing the statements made by all the major political parties in Russia after the overthrow of tsarism, stated the fact of convergence of various trends “from the Cadets to the Mensheviks, inclusive, on the common ground of dissociating themselves from Bolshevism”3.

... The “socialist” ministers, Manuilov testified further, convinced other cabinet members that if “such reforms were carried out that would give complete satisfaction to these masses, then they themselves would move away from the Bolsheviks ... Then the Bolshevik question would be eliminated by itself - no reprisals." The Cadets, Manuilov noted, insisted on a merciless reprisal against the Bolsheviks.

... The Menshevik leaders did not hide the anti-Bolshevik character of the association they were preparing. “It is only a question of a way of uniting all the elements that remain outside Leninism. The question is about what method can be used to unite all the other elements, except for the Leninist faction,”4 the task was formulated by the speaker of the OK, Ya. M. Grintser. The defencist B. O. Bogdanov and the left Menshevik A. Grinevich agreed with this (“Let the Leninists stand out,” said Grinevich, “and we will unite all the other elements on the ground, without prejudging exactly any platform”5). Other speakers also spoke about the anti-Bolshevik orientation of the party being formed by the Mensheviks. In the notice of the OK about the conference, it was directly stated that

... Nevertheless, all the factions and trends of Menshevism had something in common: the recognition of the impossibility of a victorious socialist revolution in Russia, hostility to the Bolshevik Party1. Differences and strife between individual factions and trends were caused by the fact that none of them could naturally find a political line that, while strengthening the power of the bourgeoisie, would not at the same time undermine the authority and influence of the Mensheviks in the working class.

... The February Revolution dramatically changed the position of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Faded in the last years of tsarism, small in number, disorganized and inconspicuous, it immediately became the most popular, the most numerous in the country.

... the number of Socialist-Revolutionary organizations in 1917 was about 700 thousand people.

... Unlike the Bolsheviks, who were interested in the political face of the new members, the Socialist-Revolutionaries signed up everyone who wanted to join the party indiscriminately, accepted people who had nothing to do with the revolutionary struggle.

... The newspaper of the Petrograd Socialist-Revolutionaries noted that enrollment in the party was going "briskly", "entry by the thousands"1 2.

... So, at the Obukhov plant in Petrograd, the Socialist-Revolutionary organization, according to a worker of this plant, already in March "swollen to half a thousand", while the Bolshevik organization numbered no more than 50 members3.

... From the second half of 1917, with the creation of provincial committees, the Bolsheviks began to work more actively in the countryside, pushing the Socialist-Revolutionaries2.

2 Where the Bolsheviks were working among the peasants, the positions of the Socialist-Revolutionaries were fragile even in the first months of the revolution. According to the recognition of the Yuryevets district committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (Kostroma province), in the district "the organizers and leaders of most revolutionary organizations and bodies both in the city and in the countryside were the Bolsheviks, whose slogans were readily assimilated by the masses." In the same province, 10 peasants vil. Dykhalikha (Vetluzhsky district), having discussed the Program of the RSDLP (b) on August 30, decided to support the Bolshevik Party with all their might. The multi-volume "History of the CPSU" notes that on the eve of October there were 203 Bolshevik cells in the country, uniting 4122 peasants.

... The command, which encouraged the entry of soldiers into Socialist-Revolutionary organizations3, interfered in every possible way with the activities of the Bolsheviks, in a number of places they were not allowed into the barracks4, they were forbidden to conduct propaganda at the front. The soldiers, as noted in the report of one commander, were hammered in that "belonging to the Bolshevik Party is criminal and shameful"5.

... A letter from an officer of one of the units of the Southwestern Front dated June 3, 1917 is indicative: “Counting the Socialist Party of all socialist parties. the most reasonable ... I gradually work on the company, turning it into a s.-r. This is the best remedy against Leninism and Bolshevism."

... “To be a s.-r. has become a fashionable hobby,” Novaya Zhizn rightly noted. - To confess the slogans of the party of Kerensky and Chernov means to clear the field for a new bureaucratic career. Join the s.-r. means to join the ranks of the government party. There were facts when even the generals expressed a desire to enroll in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, hoping that the Minister of War, the Socialist-Revolutionary, would appreciate this.

With the Socialist-Revolutionary fad of the first months of the revolution, the expression "March" Socialist-Revolutionaries, which then came into use, is connected. “The March Socialist-Revolutionaries,” wrote Pravda on June 28, “these are entire strata of the bourgeois intelligentsia, now going over to the side of the government party.” ... “The so-called March Socialist-Revolutionaries,” admitted V. Chernov, “are a fictitious figure ... They can just as easily retreat from the Party as they have arrived in it.

... In the Social Revolutionary organizations of the Northern Fleet, a distinction was made between "real" and "sympathetic" members of the party3. In the Special Army in September 1917, the number of "real" party members did not exceed 2-3 thousand, and "sympathizers", or "test subjects", were 135 thousand. In some regiments of this army, up to 2/3 of the personnel were listed in the "sympathizers" of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party4.

... "...Number only then decides the matter," K. Marx pointed out, "when the mass is embraced by organization and it is guided by knowledge"3.

It is interesting to describe how the first coalition government was organized. After the bourgeois VP collapsed, its head, Lvov, turned to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the Petrograd Soviet, offering them to participate in the new government, saying that anyone can scold, but you do it yourself. Party talkers got scared, gathered on April 27 for a meeting. The Mensheviks, in the person of Chkheidze, decided that they were more cunning and suggested: let only the Socialist-Revolutionaries enter the government, and we from the Soviet will support them. But the Socialist-Revolutionaries were no more stupid, and, in the person of Gotz, they declared: shish you, answer - so together. Only the Bolsheviks agreed to take full responsibility for the country (the famous Leninist “there is such a party”), and even then not all of them. The "Kornilovites", represented by the big bourgeoisie, also agreed, but first they wanted to bring the country to such chaos and anarchy, so that the people prayed: let it be anyhow, if only power appeared in the country. We were driven through this in the 90s.

After the July days, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries sanctioned repressions against the Bolsheviks, the banning of the Bolshevik press, the disarmament of the workers, and the introduction of the death penalty.

... “Today's issue of Unity,” wrote Dyelo Naroda on April 13, “...is entirely devoted to Lenin. About Lenin - an editorial, about Lenin - a feuilleton, about Lenin - articles ... ”The Socialist-Revolutionaries feared that focusing attention on Lenin would increase the interest of the masses in his teachings. “It’s funny to me ...,” Chernov feignedly exclaimed, “when the figure of Lenin so hypnotizes the attention of entire newspapers like Unity.” At first, Chernov apparently hoped to defeat Bolshevism by hushing it up. Soon, however, the Socialist-Revolutionary organ also joined in the persecution of the Bolsheviks, borrowing from the same "Unity" a lexicon of swear words and stamped phrases against the party of the revolutionary proletariat.

The leaders of the compromising parties tried to turn the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, at which they had an overwhelming majority, into a public condemnation of the RSDLP (b). Whatever question was discussed at the congress, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who rose to the podium did not miss an opportunity not to throw some kind of accusation against the Bolsheviks. “Undoubtedly,” Tsereteli was forced to admit, “the proportion of this group (that is, the Bolsheviks. - Auth.) at the congress does not correspond to the attention paid to this group not only by us, socialist ministers, but by the entire congress.”

... "The Bolsheviks have been declared enemies of the people and the revolution," 3 the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper gloated.

... "The period of Leninism is over," declared Plekhanov's Unity on July 8. At the Menshevik conference in Petrograd, I. S. Astrov declared: “... now the conditions are favorable for us, because our main opponent on the left, the Bolsheviks, lie on the ground”4.

... On July 24, the city-wide conference of Yekaterinburg Bolsheviks elected V. I. Lenin as its first delegate to the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b). “By their demonstrative election,” Uralskaya Pravda noted on July 28, “the Yekaterinburg workers emphasized that they are in full solidarity with the political line of Comrade Lenin ...”1 The VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), which opened in Petrograd on July 26, elected V. And Lenin as its honorary chairman. “By this,” M. S. Olminsky wrote, “we once again emphasized that our party is inseparable from Comrade. Lenin, as, in turn, he is inseparable from the party.

... Kornilov's envoy informed the audience about the decision of the Headquarters to send Krymov's cavalry corps to Petrograd, "which will have to liquidate the Bolsheviks, the Soviets and, perhaps, oppose the government"2.

... The Cadets considered the primary task of the Provisional Government to be "a decisive struggle against anarchy", "the establishment of order in the country"3, i.e., the suppression of the revolutionary movement and the consolidation of the bourgeois system.

... On July 30, 1917, JV Stalin outlined the new party tactics developed by V. I. Lenin. “Before July 3,” the speaker said, “a peaceful victory was possible, a peaceful transfer of power to the Soviets ... But now, after the counter-revolution has been organized and strengthened, to say that the Soviets can peacefully take power into their own hands means talk in vain. The peaceful period of the revolution is over, a non-peaceful period has begun, a period of fights and explosions ... "

... After the elections to the Tsaritsyno Duma on August 27, the local Menshevik newspaper reported: “Yesterday morning, the counting of voting records began in all polling stations, which immediately revealed a predominance in all stations behind the list of Bolsheviks”3. The victory of the Bolsheviks was also impressive in the repeat elections to the Samara City Duma.

... Even Dyelo Naroda was forced to admit that Bolshevism had “strengthened in numbers at the expense of the S.-R. and the Menshevik laboring masses.

... Even the Socialist-Revolutionary N. V. Svyatitsky had to admit: “The Petrograd proletariat now almost entirely follows the Bolsheviks” (“Delo Naroda”, September 12, 1917).

... At the 1st conference of the Bolshevik organizations of the 5th Army, held on October 8-9, 1917 in Dvinsk, it was noted that "the vast majority of the army is Bolshevik-minded, and the Bolsheviks enjoy unlimited influence"2.

. d. internationalists and 2 Mensheviks. The chairman of the army committee was the head of the military organization of the Bolsheviks in the army, a member of the party since 1903, E. M. Sklyansky.

... October 21. At night, the chairman of the corps committee, Ensign V., returned from the army congress, according to him, the impression of the congress was desperately bad. There is an undeniable majority on the side of the Bolsheviks. And further: “The struggle taking place at the congress is the last battle of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who from the beginning of the revolution, without rivals, reigned in all the committees of the Fifth Army, and reigned reasonably; now their song is sung; their time is up"

... The head of the Special Department of the Headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front admitted that the courses of agitators organized by the front committee in Minsk in June 1917 (it was called from units of 700 soldiers) did not justify themselves. “At the beginning of the courses,” he noted, “all or a significantly larger part of the students were imbued with a healthy military spirit, but by the end of the courses in Poland, half were saturated with purely Bolshevik ideas, especially in the field of war and peace. There is no doubt that, having appeared in the troops, these people will bring enormous harm to the army ”(TsGVIA, f. 2048, on. 1, d. 1349, vol. 1, l. 246). One soldier’s letter from the front, dated August 9, 1917, says: “We used to be against the Bolsheviks, but now, after such a long promise, as the Provisional Government promised ... in the first days of freedom to give the poor people, and then no,

... "... At the moment," Tsereteli declared on September 15, "the majority of the proletariat is not with us."

... “Moderate socialist groups,” noted a Kadet newspaper, “are losing their political credit with dizzying speed. The Party of People's Freedom cannot take an extra load on its neck.

... F. Dan later noted that, unlike the Cadets, who hoped to defeat the Bolsheviks in open battle, they, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, proposed taking measures that would prevent the uprising or doom it to failure4.

The role of the Central Committee and other leading bodies of the Bolsheviks in the preparation of the uprising is hidden. More precisely, their passive sabotage. The author got it that only Kamenev and Zinoviev were against the uprising (an officially recognized point of view that does not correspond to reality).

Repeatedly in other books I came across a description of the speech of Minister of War Verkhovsky about the impossibility of further waging war because of the current state of the army, but nowhere else did I meet his proposal to stop the war in order to suppress the Bolsheviks and establish a dictatorship in the country.

... Back in late September, Nabokov discussed privately with Tsereteli ways to fight Bolshevism.

... Similar sentiments—the desire to deal with the revolutionary forces with the help of foreign (Allied or German) troops—became widespread in the autumn of 1917 among the Russian bourgeoisie, which was more concerned with the problem of how to put an end to Bolshevism than with questions of defense against an external enemy. Even "Unity" had to admit this. In the report on the already mentioned rally in the Alexandrinsky Theater (at which the bourgeois public was represented), the newspaper wrote: “... the most lively response was found by those remarks of the speakers, which in one form or another were directed against the Bolsheviks. ... And, on the contrary, almost indifferently listened to the places concerning the question of the need for defense. And then the newspaper concludes: “The Bolsheviks thus inspire more lively anxiety than the German invasion”

While the Bolshevik-minded sailors of the Baltic Fleet heroically defended the approaches to Petrograd (the Moonsund battle of September 29-October 7), the Russian bourgeoisie did not even hide its (willingness to sacrifice the capital for the sake of strangling the revolution.

... In a leaflet of monarchist officers, distributed in July 1917 at the front, it was stated that they would “try and strive with all their might so that victory was on the side of the Germans, and then let the German show this damned freedom ... to the Russian people” (TsGVIA, f. 2015, on. 1, d. 44, l. 19).

... In order to avoid a time difference in the speech, the Bureau prepared in advance the texts of conditional telegrams (separately for each center), which were to be sent by the Secretariat at the moment the uprising began.

... This is also confirmed by the editor of Rech, I. V. Gessen. “I have not seen a person,” he wrote, “who would doubt the imminent overthrow of the Bolsheviks. The only question was how and when...

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE VICTORY OF THE FEBRUARY BOURGEOIS-DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND THE NEW DEVELOPMENT OF CLASS FORCES IN THE COUNTRY

Chapter one. Political parties in Russia and the February Revolution

Bolsheviks: the autocracy is overthrown, the revolution continues
Cadets. Their path to power
Mensheviks. Attempts to justify the right of the bourgeoisie to power
Socialist-Revolutionaries. Bloc with the Mensheviks
Chapter two. The Bolsheviks and their political opponents on the alignment of forces in the country

THE BOLSHEVIKS AND THE PARTIES OPPOSITING THEM DURING THE DUALITY PERIOD
Chapter three. Bolsheviks

V. I. Lenin on the prospects of socialism in Russia
Against association with the Mensheviks
New addition to the party
In the struggle for the sovereignty of the Soviets
Chapter Four. Cadets

"Program update
The failure of the party's "democratization" plan
In the struggle for the autocracy of the bourgeoisie
Chapter five. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries

"Socialists" against the socialist revolution
Factions in Menshevism
"March" Socialist-Revolutionaries
Coalition with the Cadets - "alliance to stop the revolution"
Front offensive support
Accomplices of anti-Bolshevik repressions
III. GAMES AFTER THE JULY EVENTS. BOLSHEVIKS GAIN MASS SUPPORT

Chapter six. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Capitulation to the Cadets. Further aggravation of the crisis of the petty-bourgeois parties

At the state meeting
Unity Congress of the Mensheviks
A split is brewing among the Socialist-Revolutionaries
Chapter seven. Cadets. The failure of their plan to establish a military dictatorship

Chapter eight. Bolsheviks. Heading for an armed uprising

Attitude to the slogan "All power to the Soviets!"
Growing party cohesion
The party spirit of the masses. The majority of politically active workers and soldiers are for the RSDLP (Bolsheviks)

THE BOLSHEVIST PARTY AND ITS POLITICAL OPPONENTS ON THE EVE OF OCTOBER
Chapter nine. The Bolsheviks are preparing an uprising

Chapter ten. Ideological struggle in the context of a nationwide crisis

Chapter Eleven. Contradictions between the parties of the government coalition

Chapter twelve. The coming of the Bolsheviks to state power

On both sides of the barricades
II All-Russian Congress of Soviets hands over the leadership of the country to the Bolshevik Party