The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd

635 Pages·2017·17.178 MB·English

by  Alexander Rabinowitch

e Bolsheviks Come to Power
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e Bolsheviks
Come to Power
e Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd
NEW EDITION
Alexander Rabinowitch
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First published in 1976 by W.W. Norton and Company, New York
is new edition first published 2017 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © 1976, 2004, and 2017 by Alexander Rabinowitch
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 9999 7 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 9998 0 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0102 9 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0104 3 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0103 6 EPUB eBook

is book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to
conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset in the United States of America
Printed in the United Kingdom
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For Ellen and Misha
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Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration, Dates, and Terminology
Preface to the Centenary Edition
Introduction
1 • THE JULY UPRISING
2 • THE BOLSHEVIKS UNDER FIRE
3 • PETROGRAD DURING THE REACTION
4 • THE INEFFECTIVENES OF REPRESSION
5 • THE BOLSHEVIK RESURGENCE
6 • THE RISE OF KORNILOV
7 • KORNILOV VERSUS KERENSKY
8 • THE BOLSHEVIKS AND KORNILOV’S DEFEAT
9 • THE QUESTION OF A NEW GOVERNMENT
10 • “ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS!”
11 • LENIN’S CAMPAIGN FOR AN INSURRECTION
12 • OBSTACLES TO AN UPRISING
13 • THE GARRISON CRISIS AND THE MILITARY REVOLUTIONARY
COMMITTEE
14 • ON THE EVE
15 • THE BOLSHEVIKS COME TO POWER
16 • EPILOGUE
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
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Illustrations
Soldiers and cossacks celebrating during the February days
Members of the first Provisional Government (Hoover Institution
Archives)
Members of the new coalition cabinet formed following the April crisis
(Hoover Institution Archives)
e Rabotnitsa editorial board (From Velikii oktiabr’ . . . albom) page
e Presidium of the First All-Russian Congress of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies (Hoover Institution Archives)
Demonstration sponsored by the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets
(Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
Street scene in Petrograd, 1917 (e National Archives)
July 4, 1917, in Petrograd
Cartoon, “A High Post for the Leaders of the Rebellion”
Soldiers of the First Machine Gun Regiment (Museum of the
Revolution, USSR)
Cartoon, “e Arrest of Alexandra Kollontai”
Cartoon, “Lenin in the Role of Nicholas II”
e funeral of seven cossacks killed during the July days (Hoover
Institution Archives)
Kerensky departing for the front (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
e Bolshevik Central Committee, elected at the Sixth Congress (From
Velikii oktiabr’ . . . albom) [see Bibliography]
Members of the Bolshevik Petersburg Committee in 1917 (From
Velikii oktiabr’ . . . albom)
Key members of the Bolshevik Military Organization (From Velikii
oktiabr’ . . . albom)
e Bolshoi eater (Hoover Institution Archives)
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General Lavr Kornilov and Boris Savinkov arrive for the Moscow State
Conference (From White Against Red by Dimitry V. Lehovich, courtesy of
Mr. Lehovich)
Kerensky addressing military personnel (Hoover Institution Archives)
V. N. Lvov (Hoover Institution Archives)
Members of the Bolshevik Kronstadt Committee (From Velikii oktiabr’
. . . albom)
Map of Kornilov affair
Factory workers gathered for a political meeting
e Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
Lenin’s resolution endorsing insurrection (Radio Times Hulton Picture
Library)
Members of the Military Revolutionary Committee (From Velikii
oktiabr’ . . . albom)
e Women’s Battalion on the Palace Square (Radio Times Hulton
Picture Library)
Workers in a Petrograd factory (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
Smolny during the October days (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
Soldiers operate the main Petrograd telephone station (Radio Times
Hulton Picture Library)
Kerensky and aides in the Winter Palace (Radio Times Hulton Picture
Library)
Lenin’s manifesto of October 25 (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
Barricades near St. Isaac’s Cathedral (Staatsbibliothek, Berlin)
Petrograd during the October days
Military school cadets in the Winter Palace (Collection Viollet)
e cruiser Aurora on the Neva
e First Council of People’s Commissars (From Velikii oktiabr’ . . .
albom)
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Acknowledgments
T
his book could not have been completed without the generous
support of several funding institutions. A postdoctoral fellowship from the
National Endowment for the Humanities enabled me to begin research at
the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, in 1967. Grants from the
International Research and Exchanges Board and the American Council of
Learned Societies made it possible to spend the fall semester 1970–1971
gathering material in Moscow and Leningrad as a participant in the Senior
Scholars’ Exchange between the United States and the USSR, and the
remainder of the year finishing research and drafting the initial chapters in
Washington, D.C. Summer faculty fellowships from Indiana University
and its Russian and East European Institute allowed me to devote summers
to work on the book. e bulk of the manuscript was completed in 1973–
1974 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, where my
stay was supported partially by a grant from the National Endowment for
the Humanities.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge my debt to the staffs of the Lenin
Library and the Fundamental Library of the Social Sciences in Moscow;
the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library and particularly the Academy of Sciences
Library in Leningrad; the Hoover Institution; the Indiana, Columbia,
Georgetown, and Stanford university libraries; the New York Public
Library; and the Library of Congress. I am especially grateful to Anna M.
Bourguina of the Hoover Institution for help in obtaining several
important sources unavailable elsewhere.
In the Soviet Union my work was enriched by consultations with
Academician P. V. Volobuev. Professors George F. Kennan, Carl Kaysen,
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