Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence by Leon Trotsky

Author:Leon Trotsky [Trotsky, Leon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VIII: People’s Commissar

[The Bolsheviks had laid the groundwork of winning over the armed forces of the country so thoroughly that their final victory on November 7th was achieved practically by default. The October coup was “easier than lifting a feather” –to us Lenin’s own words. Not a single regiment rose to defend Russian democracy. With the former police force scattered, the Kerensky Government in Petrograd had practically no one other than the military students and the very amateurish women’s battalions to oppose the detachments of armed workmen, soldiers and sailors under the command of Bolshevik professional revolutionists. The struggle for supreme power over an empire that comprised one-sixth of the terrestrial globe was decided between amazingly small forces on both sides in the provinces as well as in the two capital cities.

[The civilized democratic West, heading into its forth year of war, refused to believe the accomplished fact. After the Bolsheviks had been in power for nearly a week, Kerensky sincerely assured the astonished world that Bolshevism “as an organized force . . . no longer exists, even in Petrograd.” The Bolshevik victory had been easier and more secure in Petrograd than in Moscow and in the provinces. The Cossacks stationed in Petrograd were “neutral” –even as General Headquarters and all the avowed reactionaries –refraining from extending aid to the Provisional Government and reserving the right to act at their own discretion, while General Krasnov was marching upon the capital with an unknown number of troops. The officials and clerks of the banks, the ministries, and practically all public administration institutions had walked out on strike. The Menshevik-led railway, telephone, telegraph and postal workers’ unions threatened to strike and tie up all communication and transportation services unless the victors agreed to a coalition government of all the socialist parties, but without the participation of Lenin and Trotsky. That threat produced a crisis more apparent than real in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party itself.]

Immediately after the insurrection, upon the insistence of the Bolshevik Right Wing –Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Lunacharsky and others – negotiations were begun with the Mensheviks and the Populists concerning a coalition government. Among the conditions, the parties overthrown by the uprising demanded a majority for themselves, and over and above that, the removal from the government of Lenin and Myself as the persons responsible for the October “adventure.” The Rightist members of the Central Committee were inclined to accept this demand. The question was considered in the Central Committee during the session of the first (the 14th) of November. This is what the protocol states: “Proposed to expel Lenin and Trotsky. This is a proposal to behead our Party, and we do not accept it.” The readiness of the Rightists to go as far as an actual surrender of power was condemned by the Central Committee as “fear of the Soviet Majority to utilize its own majority.” The Bolsheviks did not refuse to share their power with other parties, but would share it only on the basis of the proper relations of forces in the Soviets.

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