21d: Red October

The Soviet Union carefully created legends about the October Revolution, but very little actual fighting was involved. From mid-October on, rumors of a Bolshevik uprising were common, but nothing concrete happened until October 25, 1917. Even on that day, Petrograd went about its business as usual. That evening, the Bolshevik crew of the cruiser Aurora, anchored in the Neva River, fired a shell at the Winter Palace. The October Revolution had begun.

The Winter Palace garrison, made up of the Women's Death Batallion and some military cadets, barely resisted the Bolsheviks. Huddled up in a small dining room, the cabinet members of the Provisional Government meekly allowed themselves to be arrested. Only Kerensky himself escaped, dressed (as legend has it) as a female Red Cross nurse. As one might expect, the scruffy Bolsheviks enjoyed working out their hatred of the upper classes by looting the lavishly furnished palace. Later, when the Soviets had restored the Winter Palace to its original showpiece status, a tasteful marble plaque marked the event: "In this room, on the night of 25-26 October 1917, Red Guards, soldiers and sailors, taking the Winter Palace by storm, arrested the counter-revolutionary bourgeois Provisional Government."

The real revolution occurred the next night, when the National Congress of Soviets met. The Bolsheviks won 390 of the 649 elected delegates - about 60% of the total. To show their disapproval the Bolsheviks' Winter Palace attack, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries stalked out of the meeting. This left the Bolsheviks (and a small handful of allies) in total control. It was one of the biggest mistakes in recorded history. The Bolsheviks immediately put the National Congress of Soviets under the Sovnarkom, or Council of People's Commissars. The Sovnarkom was led by Lenin as "chairman" and the other cabinet positions divided between Bolshevik "commissars." Lenin's right-hand man Trotsky became Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Given the pathetic performance of the Provisional Government, Russians and foreigners alike expected the new Bolshevik government to fail too... which it did, nearly 74 years later.

That same night, Lenin had the Sovnarkom pass two major decrees. The Decree on Land abolished private property and awarded all land to the peasants. Just how the land was to be distributed wasn't important - Lenin had kept his promise. The Decree on Peace called for peace without annexations or payment of reparations. Unfortunately for Russia, the Central Powers had been winning the war even before the Russian Army had disintegrated. As we will discuss in the next lecture, the Germans in fact held all the cards. On November 2, Lenin and the Commissar for Nationalities, Iosif Stalin, signed the Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia, proposing the following:

1. The equality and sovereignty of all peoples of the former Russian Empire
   
2. The rights of the former Russian Empire's peoples to political self-determination, including the formation of separate states
3. Abolition of all rights previously restricted to certain nationalities (Russian) or religions (Russian Orthodox)
4. Free development of all national minorities and ethnic groups within Russian territories.

On November 19, 1917 the Bolsheviks began peace negotiations with Germany in the town of Brest-Litovsk. Meanwhile, an even bigger problem presented itself. That same day, the results of the long awaited Constituent Assembly elections were announced. The Bolsheviks were hoping their strongholds in Petrograd, Moscow, and the other large cities would give them a majority. In fact, they won but 23.9% of the popular vote. The Socialist Revolutionary party, last seen leaving the Second National Congress of Soviets in a huff, received 40%: more than half again what the Bolsheviks managed. The peoples of Russia had elected a Constituent Assembly in which no party enjoyed a majority. Would the Bolsheviks honor their guarantee of freedom and peace

The Bolsheviks' true colors began to show in December 1917, when they established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka. As the original Soviet secret police, the Cheka's job was to chrush opposition to the Bolshevik regime by any means whatsoever. Even though the Bolsheviks pretended to reach out to other parties, Lenin would not let the Constituent Assembly become Russia's legitimate government. He allowed the Constituent Assembly to convene for exactly one day - January 5, 1918. The next day, it was shut down by Bolshevik guards. So ended Russian democracy

A week later, on January 12, the Bolsheviks convened the Third National Congress of Soviets, which declared Russia to be a socialist federated republic. The Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia was formally accepted, and a constitution was adopted. Even though Lenin's Sovnarkom still contained a few random Socialist Revolutionaries, this was just a temporary situation. Just as Lenin had wanted, all power had been given to the Soviets, and from now on Soviet power would be exercised by the Bolsheviks - or, as they renamed themselves in March 1918, the Communist Party. From this time on, the terms "Soviet" and "Communist" became one and the same.