By Wilson Honório da Silva, PSTU-Brazil
Petrograd, early in the morning of October 26, 1917. “Lenin, standing (…), let his small shining eyes roam over all those present, while he waited, looking inattentive, for the long and noisy ovation that greeted him (…). When it was over, he simply said: “That’s all, comrades! Let’s get on with building the socialist order!”
This is how the American journalist John Reed, in The Ten Days that Shook the World, describes the moment when the leader of the Bolshevik Party, at the Second Congress of Soviets (“councils”) of workers’, soldiers’ and peasants’ deputies, confirmed the seizure of power by the All-Russian Soviets, which had taken place on the eve of October 25 (or November 7, according to the old Russian calendar), with the seizure of the Winter Palace.
For the first time in history, the power of an entire country was in the hands of the working class, allied with the peasants and soldiers. That is to say that it had be seized from the hands of those who, without shedding a drop of sweat, had appropriated the country’s wealth and exploited and oppressed its people.
“Rough faces, bruised by winter, heavy and cracked hands, fingers yellowed by tobacco, drooping buttons, loose belts and rough and musty long boots. The plebeian nation, for the first time, sent an honest representation, made in its own image and without retouching,” as one of the main leaders of the October Revolution, Leon Trotsky, described the delegates gathered there.
On that October 25, Dien, one of the Bolshevik newspapers, published the headline “All Power to the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants! Bread, Peace and Land!”, echoing the cries that for months had filled the streets of the major cities and rural areas of a Russia devastated by hunger, poverty and the losses and suffering caused by the First World War (1914-1918), which had been fueled by imperialist greed and its need to divide the world according to bourgeois interests.
The Beginning of the Revolution: Women in Struggle Set the Revolution in Motion
At that time, Russia, a country of about 150 million inhabitants, was a backward empire compared to other European powers. It was ruled by a monarch (Tsar Nicholas II) and had an agrarian majority, where serfdom, illiteracy, poverty, and medieval customs and traditions reigned.
But it was also a country already integrated into world capitalism, and so had a parasitic bourgeoisie living in the shadows of the nobility and subservient to international imperialism. On the other side of the “front” there was a growing working class that had long demonstrated its militancy, with an important vanguard that had embraced socialist ideals.
On March 8, 1917 (February 23 in the old Russian calendar), a women’s strike in Petrograd mobilized more than 400,000 women for better working conditions, against hunger and against participation in the First World War, which was costing millions of lives.
Inspired by this heroic struggle, revolutionary agitation broke out in places of study and work, and people took to the streets and even won the sympathy of the soldiers, who joined them. The strength of the insurrectionary uprisings caused the tsarist ministry to crumble, completely isolating Tsar Nicholas II, who was finally forced to resign on February 27.
Even in a disorganized way, power migrated from the Imperial Palace to the streets, and the only way out for the bourgeoisie, in an attempt to maintain a minimum of control, was to set up a Provisional Government based on the Duma (the Russian parliament). It was headed by the Constitutional Democrats (called “kadetes” for the acronym in Russian), a liberal bourgeois party that defended a constitutional monarchical regime.
The Rise of the Soviets and the April Theses
The bourgeoisie and the reformists who supported it wanted to stabilize the situation. But in the midst of the uprisings, the Russian peasants, workers and soldiers had rescued the main legacy of an earlier revolution, that of 1905: the soviets (or councils) of workers and soldiers’ deputies.
Beginning in Petrograd and spreading to every corner of the country, this process ultimately culminated in the formation of the Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets. This development effectively established a state of ‘dual power,’ as the Provisional Government required the committee’s approval to implement most of its decisions.
Lenin and the Revolution: The “Thesis for the Reconstruction of the World”
In exile in Switzerland, Lenin realized that the time had come to return home. He crossed Europe clandestinely by train and landed in Petrograd on April 3, carrying under his arm a speech that literally changed the course of history and came to be known as the April Theses.
In his ten points, Lenin attacked the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries who led the majority of the soviets and supported the Provisional Government; he denounced its capitalist character, demanded that it not be supported, called it as imperialist as the tsarist regime, and demanded an immediate end to the war. He also called for the nationalization of industries and banks and the expropriation of land by the state, and launched the slogan that would define the course of the revolution: “All power to the Soviets.”
Attacked by the Mensheviks and SRs, the Theses were initially opposed by Bolshevik leaders such as Kamevev and Stalin, who opened an intense polemic as they moved toward a policy of shameful support for the Provisional Government.
From July to October: The Bolshevik Party and the Victory of the Revolution
In July, the Provisional Government unleashed a wave of repression against the movement, which had organized a strong day of struggle. It was strong, but still not enough for the soviets to take power. The Bolsheviks were severely repressed. Their printing presses and headquarters were closed, their newspapers banned, and their leaders imprisoned (like Trotsky) or forced to flee (like Lenin).
With the resulting weakening of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky, who had assumed the post of prime minister in August, tried to halt the revolutionary process and at the same time win the support of imperialism and the bourgeoisie by appointing the “kadete” and General Kornilov to command the army.
Kornilov, however, led successive failures at the “front” and finally tried to promote a coup, whose resistance and defeat were led by the Bolsheviks. It was during this period that the party gained immense prestige for taking the initiative in defending the revolution while the Kerensky government was paralyzed. In addition to defeating the counterrevolution, the workers freed all political prisoners from jail.
Thus, on September 4, Trotsky assumed the presidency of the Petrograd Soviet and, together with Lenin, the Bolsheviks began organizing the seizure of power. The date chosen was the 25th, when the Second Congress of Soviets was to begin, the perfect time to concretize the cry of “All power to the Soviets”.
The decisive moment: the cry of “All power to the Soviets” rang out in the Winter Palace.
Shortly thereafter, the Military Revolutionary Committee was formed, which, under Trotsky’s leadership, took all decisions regarding the insurrection, which began with the occupation of public buildings, transportation and communication infrastructure, forts and barracks.
When the Congress of Soviets met, the delegates engaged in heated debate. The Mensheviks and Revolutionary Socialists demanded an end to the ongoing insurrection, saying that if the government was overthrown, the Bolsheviks would not remain in power for more than a few days.
On the other hand, the Bolsheviks and their left revolutionary socialist allies insisted that the time had come. This was a position backed up by the election of a new leadership to the Committee, where the once-minority supporters of Lenin now formed a majority.
“Suddenly a new and deeper voice could be heard over the tumult of the meeting. It was the muffled voice of a gun! All eyes turned anxiously to the windows. A kind of burning fever overcame the meeting,” describes John Reed, referring to the shots fired from the battleship Aurora that signaled the seizure of the Winter Palace.
Kerensky had already fled, and the few remaining ministers were arrested by Antonov-Ovseenko, the Bolshevik who commanded the seizure of the palace. The uprising had triumphed.
Achievements of the Soviet Government
For the first time in history, the vast majority of the exploited and oppressed had economic and political power in their hands, consolidated in what we call the dictatorship of the proletariat. The means of production had passed into the hands of the workers, who began to exercise power democratically and collectively through popular councils. This was opposed to the class-based dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which had been exercised by a tiny portion of the population.
It was a new type of state, controlled by the working class and oppressed people, based on soviets whose mandates could be revoked at any time and whose salaries did not exceed the salary of a skilled worker. Thus, it was those “from below” who debated and decided everything that had to do with the direction of life, from the economic plan of the country to its most mundane aspects.
Civil rights were expanded to a degree that did not exist in the rest of the world. For example, it was no longer up to the state to interfere in sexual matters, except in cases of harm or violence. And before any other capitalist power, it decriminalized LGBTQ people and allowed transgender people to undergo gender affirmation procedures and use their social names.
The Soviet state also granted extensive rights to women, starting with abortion but extending to collectivized public services such as laundries, restaurants, and day care centers that took domestic work off their hands.
There was also an enormous creative explosion in culture, art, and science, and a complete revolution in education. No nation in the world had achieved so much in such a short time.
The Stalinist Counterrevolution and the Restoration of Capitalism
After seizing power, the Bolsheviks attempted to export the socialist revolution to Europe, but were defeated by capitalist reaction. This left the young Soviet republic isolated and facing a bitter civil war against the bourgeoisie and an attempted military invasion by the capitalist powers.
The defeat of the world revolution and the ensuing years of war, which consumed a large part of the vanguard that had made the revolution, contributed to the bureaucratization of the USSR and the Bolshevik Party through the emergence of an ever-growing litter of opportunist functionaries.
At the center of this history is the infamous figure of Joseph Stalin, who, especially after Lenin’s death in 1924, relied on these social strata to deepen bureaucratization and entrench himself in power, completely destroying what had led the Russian people to the revolution: the idea that all power should be exercised by the soviets.
In the process, Stalin created the ideology of “socialism in one country,” which was used to guarantee the privileges of the bureaucrats, or the popular fronts, which justified alliances with bourgeois sectors. And so it dismantled conquest after conquest that had bene made by the revolutionary process, taking a huge step backward in all aspects of life.
Yet none of this was done without resistance. The main opposition was led by Trotsky. But Stalin carried out a bloody counterrevolution, murdering or arresting thousands of Bolshevik leaders, cadres and militants. Trotsky, assassinated in 1940 while in exile in Mexico, was the last of his victims.
Wilson Honório da Silva is a member of the National Education Secretariat of the PSTU Brazil.
Article originally published in 2023.
Republished in: www.opiniaosocialista.com.br, 10/25/2024.
