The history of the Russian revolution - volume 3 by Leon Trotsky

Author:Leon Trotsky [Trotsky, Leon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: non.fiction, economics
ISBN: 9780913460832
Publisher: Monad Press (NY)
Published: 1930-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 45: The Capture of the Winter Palace

Kerensky was in a great state of excitement when he met Stankevich arriving with his report from the front. He had just returned from a mutiny of the Council of the Republic where the insurrection of the Bolsheviks had been conclusively exposed – Insurrection! Don’t you know that we have an armed insurrection? – Stankevich laughed: Why the streets are perfectly quiet; surely that isn’t the way a real insurrection ought to look? But anyway we must put an end to these everlasting disturbances – To this Kerensky heartily agreed, he was only waiting for the resolution of the Pre-Parliament.

At nine in the evening the government assembled in the Malachite Chamber of the Winter Palace to work out methods for a “resolute and final liquidation” of the Bolsheviks. Stankevich, returning from the Mariinsky Palace where he had been sent to hurry things up, reported with indignation the passing of the resolution of semi-non-confidence. Even the struggle against insurrection the resolution of the Pre-Parliament proposed to entrust not to the government, but to a special committee of public safety. Kerensky hotly announced that under those circumstances “he would not remain a minute longer at the head of the government.” The Compromise leaders were immediately summoned to the palace by telephone. The possibility of Kerensky’s resignation surprised them no less than their resolution had surprised Kerensky. Avksentiev presented their excuses: they had, you know, regarded the resolution “as purely theoretical and accidental, and had not believed it would lead to practical steps.” Moreover they now themselves saw that the resolution was “perhaps not quite happily worded.” Those people never missed an opportunity to show what they were worth.

This nocturnal conversation of the democratic leaders with the head of the State seems absolutely unbelievable on the background of the developing insurrection. Dan, one of the chief gravediggers of the February régime, demanded that the government immediately, by night, plaster the town with posters announcing that it had proposed immediate peace negotiations to the Allies. Kerensky reported that the government had no need of such counsels. It is quite possible to believe that the government would have preferred a sharp division; but Dan could not offer that. Kerensky, of course, was attempting to throw the responsibility for the insurrection upon his interlocutors. Dan answered that the government was exaggerating events under the influence of its “reactionary staff.” At any rate there was no need of resigning: the disagreeable resolution had been necessary in order to break the mood of the masses. The Bolsheviks will be compelled “not later than tomorrow” to dissolve their headquarters, if the government follows Dan’s suggestion. “At that very moment,” adds Kerensky in describing this conversation with legitimate irony, “the Red Guard was occupying the government buildings one after another.”

This so weighty conference with his Left friends had hardly ended when Kerensky’s friends from the Right appeared in the form of a delegation from the Council of the Cossack Troops. The

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