(19) October Revolution: Lenin and the politics of 1917

Viktor Mikhaylovich Chernov (1893-1952) was a founder and a leder of the peasant-based Social Revolutionary Party, who served as Agricultural Minister under Kerensky and who endorsed Kerensy's policy of continuing the war. He was brought into the Kerensky's regime on May 5 as part of the first "coalition" government. He became the President of the Constituent Assembly that the Bolshevik government dissolved after its first day in operation in January 1918. He associated briefly with one of the counterrevolutionary White governments, and in 1920 emigrated to France and later to America.

Rex Wade recounts how during the July Days unrest in 1917, Chernov was taken hostage by a group of the famously militant Kronstadt sailors, angry at him for not taking a more radical position. "The worker who shook his fist in Chernov’s face and yelled 'Take power you son-of-a-bitch when it is offered to you' illustrated the frustration of the crowd. It was only with difficulty that Leon Trotsky, who had already become a popular radical, got him freed."

Lenin speaking with Trotsky standing by the podium to his left

In 1924 after Lenin's death, the prestigious Foreign Affairs journal published a kind of obituary polemic by Chernov against his old enemy, Lenin (2:3; 03/15/1924).

It's a confusing and confused essay, in which he declares in the first part, "Politics to him meant strategy, pure and simple. Victory was the only commandment to observe; the will to rule and to carry through a political program without compromise, that was the only virtue; hesitation, that was the only crime."

Yet he also writes, "Foresight on a large scale, however, was the very thing he lacked. He was a fencing master first of all, and a fencer needs only a little foresight and no complicated ideas." Which would imply that Lenin thought almost purely tactically, the opposite of the previous description. He reinforces this with, "This perfect and immediate tactical sense formed a complete contrast to the absolutely unfounded and fantastic character of any more extensive historical prognosis he ever attempted - of any program that comprised more than today and tomorrow."

Chernov denied that Lenin was a "blind dogmatist." Instead, "he often became a quack, an experimenter, a gambler; this is why he was an opportunist, which is something diametrically opposed to a dogmatist."

It's not unusual for political polemics to be inconsistent. Nor for actual people to have strange contradictions in their behavior.

But regardless what one thinks of his goals or his methods, the notion that for Lenin, "Victory was the only commandment to observe; the will to rule and to carry through a political program without compromise, that was the only virtue; hesitation, that was the only crime," doesn't reflect the reality of Lenin's political career, and particularly not that of 1917.

The cascade of events of that year and the victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution can't be recounted without the remarkable story of Lenin's role as the primary Bolshevik leader. The Bolsheviks had relatively little influence on the Provisional Government under Kerensky, which depended in its various changing formations during the year by Liberals, rightwingers, Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries. The Social Revolutionaries were the primary party among the peasants, who constituted the majority of the population.

When Lenin returned to Russia from years of exile after the February Revolution, he initially stood alone among the leadership of the party in demanding that the Bolsheviks oppose the Provisional Government. During the July Days unrest, he opposed calls from some other Bolsheviks to attempt an immediate seizure of power. But after the Kornilov Revolt of August was suppressed, he found himself again initially alone in pressing for military preparations for a forcible seizure of power in the immediate future.

Starting from the moment of the February Revolution, pulling off the subsequent October Revolution required both strategic sense and tactical talent and dexterity on the part of the Bolshevik leaders, Lenin in particular. Do they support the Provisional Government or not? Do they support the election of a Constituent Assembly or not? Should they take a prowar position in defense of the new government or continue to oppose the war? What kind of opportunities did the July Days present? How will the public react after Kerensky's accusations that Lenin was an agent of the German Kaiser? How big of a danger did the Kornilov Revolt present to the Provisional Government and the broader revolutionary movement? Should the Bolsheviks defend the Provisional Government in that particular situation or not? Do the Bolsheviks pursue an alliance with the Left Social Revolutionaries or try to go it alone in seizing power? Do they make the workers' and soldiers' councils (soviets) the basis of their legitimacy or do they continue to support the elections for the Constituent Assembly after October 26?

And in those days before TV and perpetual public opinion polls, the Bolsheviks also had to gauge public opinion on the war, the hunger crisis, and the confusing series of crises foreign and domestic. They had to do the usual things politicians do in normal times: making contacts with other, striking deals, building alliances, rolling out political mobilization programs. In addition, there was a heavy military component to the politics. The Bolsheviks had to organize their own military command under intense time pressure, coordinate with the soldiers' soviets, gauge the capabilities and likely responses to military commanders to changing political situations. And there were the Germans, still taking more Russian territory and attempting to defend the country under the Provisional Government just as they had been doing with the Czar in power.

Another major factor was the "dual power" arrangement. There was a Provisional Government. But there was also a separate and independent revolutionary structure composed of the soviets, the workers' and soldiers' councils. The dual powers each had to coordinate and compete with the other. And it was obvious to all that having two separate governmental structures for the same political entity was not a sustainable situation. And overlaying the two government structures were the partisan conflicts of the various parties jockeying for position in both the Provisional Government and the soviets.

Navigating this political situation was difficult for everyone. And to come out on top as the Bolsheviks did, and to establish and maintain their power and legitimacy as a government during a bitter two-year civil war, they had to know what they were doing on a lot of fronts and many levels. Luck always plays a role in politics, and the same was true in 1917 in Russia.

Lenin mugging for the camera

Lenin and the Bolsheviks didn't drop out of the sky, or emerge from the nether regions of the earth, as their most hostile critics might prefer to say. They had been involved in politics actively, including competing for seats in the (largely toothless) parliament, the Duma. They had experienced leaders and seasoned activists that had worked together for years, often under very adverse conditions. Lenin himself was very active within the Socialist International agitating against the war. His exile in Poland and later in Switzerland weren't long vacations. He was not only intensely involved in Russian politics and partisan journalism from afar. That also gave him experience and insight into the foreign policy approaches of the European powers who would be critical as allies or enemies in the event of a revolution.

He wasn't, say, just some real estate and casino magnate with a side career in show business who took over leadership of the country with little or no actual experience in politics or government.

George Kennan took a very different view of the nature and importance of Lenin's leadership (The Russian Revolution: Its Nature and Consequences Foreign Affairs 46:1; Oct 1967) in the Russian Revolution from 1917 on:

... it is tempting to say that Bolshevism triumphed because no unity existed among its major political opponents, and none of those opponents, in any case, would have been remotely capable of ruling the country. But it would be an oversimplification to attribute the Communist success solely to these negative factors. No less central to it were positive ones as well: the extraordinary discipline, compactness and conspiratorial tightness of the Communist Party; the magnificent political leadership - bold, ruthless, determined and imaginative - given to it at all times by its dominant figure, Vladimir Il'ich Ulyanov-Lenin; and the driving, unrelenting military leadership which the party gave to the Red Army units in the civil war. In the vast fluid confusion that followed the breakdown of the old order, the cutting edge of these qualities was of far greater effectiveness than any of the shifting, undependable winds of popular sympathy. The Bolsheviki came out ahead very largely because they were, in this maelstrom of poorly organized political forces, the only political force that had hardness, sharpness, disciplined drive and clearly defined purpose. [my emphasis]