October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville

Author:China Miéville [Miéville, China]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2017-05-08T21:00:00+00:00

As well as the army, the Soviet appealed to the fleet. A little after 7 p.m., Dudorov, assistant to the naval minister, called for four destroyers to intimidate the Kronstadters. In a shocking escalation, he ordered that ‘any ships attempting to depart from Kronstadt without specific orders are to be sunk by the submarine fleet’.

But the call was intercepted by the hard-left Baltic Fleet Central Committee, Tsentrobalt. It forced the commander, Verevsky, to respond: ‘Cannot carry out your orders.’

On the Mars Field, Cossacks charged Kronstadt sailors.

The Soviet kept debating. Like the demonstrators, the Bolsheviks, Spiridonova’s Left SRs and Martov’s Menshevik–Internationalists insisted that the current arrangement could not be allowed to continue. Mainstream and moderate SRs and Mensheviks, on the other hand, remained adamant that in this country, with its capitalism still undeveloped, its bourgeois phase unfinished and its proportionately small workers’ movement, a government without non-socialists would be a disaster. That coalition was indispensable at this stage.

In the Tauride Palace hall, workers’ and soldiers’ representatives pleaded for land to go to the peasants, for peace, for workers’ control.

‘We trust the Soviet, but not those whom the Soviet trusts,’ said one delegate. ‘Now that the Kadets have proclaimed their refusal to work with us,’ said another, ‘we ask you: who else will you barter with?’

Outside, shots and standoffs continued. Ambushes, sudden fusillades and the reek of smoke. Machine guns ripped horsemen from their mounts. A stampede of riderless horses, sprayed with men’s blood, hurtled along the embankment, hooves echoing, leering in terror.

Early evening and the skies were still too light. Abruptly, the 176th Regiment arrived and entered the palace.

These followers of the Mezhraiontsy had received a call to ‘defend the revolution’, and had come from Krasnoe Selo. By chance, the first authoritative figure they met was the Menshevik Dan. He wore, as he often did, his military uniform, and seeing the armed newcomers he had the presence of mind to immediately order them to sentry duty. The 176th complied.

Later, Sukhanov would mock them for obeying an enemy, one of the very moderates they opposed. Trotsky, however, would insist that their move was strategic, allowing them to enforce a degree of order while knowing where their opponents were. Either way, it is a curio of the moment that hard-left advocates of ‘all power to the soviets’ were delegated by a soviet opponent to defend the Soviet currently arguing furiously against taking the power they wanted it to take.

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