Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler

by Robert Gellately

  On April 6, when it looked as if Germany might win and Russia might be forced out, America finally entered the war. The United States did not want Germany dominating the continent, but to save the fledgling Russian democracy, America would have to defeat the kaiser’s army quickly. Yet Germany’s own greed for Russian territory precluded making anything but sizable annexations there. The war had taken on a momentum of its own, not stopping until it devoured hundreds of thousands of more lives.

  Kerensky called for new elections to a Constituent Assembly, to be held on November 12. That was the democratic thing to have done. Lenin was hiding in Finland, but he was insistent that Bolsheviks reject such an approach. He knew they would do poorly in free elections because the peasants would vote for “their” Social Revolutionary Party.

  In mid-September, in two letters, Lenin tried (in vain) to browbeat the Central Committee into attempting another coup. Some comrades worried about preempting the forthcoming elections. But Lenin said, in a statement that represented his views perfectly, that “it would be naive to wait for a ‘formal’ majority.” He added that “no revolution ever waits for that. Kerensky and Co. are also not waiting and are preparing to surrender Petrograd…. History will not forgive us if we do not take power now.” He cursed comrades who wanted the democratic process to take its course as “miserable traitors” suffering “constitutional illusions.”39

  The Bolshevik coup was precipitated by a German offensive in September. A month later the Germans were preparing to land troops and move on Petrograd. Faced with this crisis, Russian military leaders met with the government and drew up plans for the evacuation of key offices and industries from the capital to Moscow.

  On October 6, when these plans were published, there was an immediate outcry on the left that they amounted to a “bourgeois” trick to defeat “Red Petrograd.” Three days later, in response, the Petrograd soviet—one of the few institutions where the Bolsheviks had real support—proposed the creation of the Military Defense Committee, subsequently renamed the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), to defend the capital. The Bolsheviks said the committee would carry the day against both German “imperialists” and the ever-present “counterrevolutionaries.” 40

  Lenin was frustrated that other Bolsheviks would not agree to a coup. He was determined to get his way, however, and on October 10 returned to Petrograd for a meeting of the Central Committee. In an all-night session he won comrades over to the principle of making an attempt. He was too impatient to wait on the democratic process, which he knew he could never win. Thus he concluded, “It is senseless to wait for the Constituent Assembly which will obviously not be on our side, for this will only make our task more complicated.”41

  At this meeting, on Felix Dzerzhinsky’s suggestion, a special politburo (political bureau) of seven was established. It included Lenin, Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Stalin, Grigory Sokolnikov, and Andrei Bubnov. Though Trotsky later said that nothing came of the committee and it never met, its creation showed that Stalin was already part of the inner circle.42

  Another meeting of the Central Committee was held on October 16. Again Lenin argued they could not afford to dither about and put the alternatives simply: “either Kornilov’s dictatorship or the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorer sectors of the peasantry.” The majority in the country might not be behind the Bolsheviks, but for Lenin that was no reason to wait. He ridiculed members of the Central Committee like Kamenev and Zinoviev, who disagreed, and, in a foretaste of the later Party purges, soon demanded their expulsion.43 That was too much even for Stalin, who offered to resign from the editorial board of the Party newspaper. (The offer was not accepted.)44

  While the precise timing of the coup remained open, the general strategy was to avoid the kinds of mistakes made in July 1917, and not encourage large demonstrations, which were hard to control. The Bolsheviks also decided to act not in their own name but through the MRC, and thus in defense of the Petrograd soviet. The first meeting of the MRC was held on October 20. By then the inner circle of the Bolsheviks had decided to develop plans for a coup and to use the MRC to carry it out. Lenin himself was kept at arm’s length by the planners perhaps because they “thought he lacked the close knowledge and temperamental stability required.” At any rate, he was not in the driver’s seat during the last crucial days leading up to the revolution, but fuming away in isolation and writing frantic notes. He was not even invited to the three vital planning meetings held by the Central Committee between October 20 and 24.45

  The key to success was keeping the provisional government and General Staff from calling out the garrison, as had happened in July. On October 20 the Bolsheviks sent two hundred commissars to speak with the garrison troops, and on October 21 the MRC arranged a meeting of regimental committees at the Smolny Institute, home of the soviet, to discuss the imminent danger of counterrevolution. Trotsky addressed the meeting. He was resolute in saying the country was “on the brink of doom. The army demands peace, the peasants demand land, the workers demand employment and bread.” The only option remaining was for the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due to meet on October 25, “to take power into its hands and secure peace, land, and bread for the people.”46

  The Bolsheviks promised troops the one thing they really wanted, which was peace with the Germans. Minister of War Alexander Verkhovsky spoke about demoralization in the army at a cabinet meeting on October 20, a message the government did not want to hear, and he was sent off on sick leave for daring to propose immediate peace. The General Staff began to lose its grip on most (not all) of the Petrograd garrison, which had 160,000 troops billeted in the city and another 85,000 stationed nearby.47

  Some commentators have suggested that only a small percentage of these troops supported the Bolshevik agenda, but surely many were pleased with the slogan of the moment, “Peace, land, and bread.” It is true that most remained passive during the events that followed.48

  Beginning on October 21, the Bolsheviks (through the MRC) quickly found ways to loosen the hold of the central authorities over the Petrograd garrison. Troops were unnerved by rumors that they would shortly be sent to the front. At the same time, the Bolsheviks used the MRC—in fact little more than a front for a similarly named Bolshevik committee—to claim authority over the garrison in the name of the Petrograd soviet. The MRC asserted through agents it sent to meetings with the troops that the provisional government and General Staff were weapons of the counterrevolution. The MRC supposedly would have no choice but to assume control.

  By October 23 the MRC had devised a plan to send small armed detachments to occupy the strategic points in the capital. All that was needed was an act by Kerensky that could be taken as a sign that the counterrevolution had begun. Almost on cue the provisional government closed several newspapers, two of them Bolshevik. The next day Stalin published a short article demanding revolution to bring “peace, bread, land, and liberty.” He wanted a new government to “ensure the timely convocation of the Constituent Assembly.”49 It sounded democratic, but the revolutionaries would soon repudiate every word. The government responded by sending a small number of loyal troops to protect the Winter Palace and other vital buildings. The Bolsheviks portrayed these moves as the beginning of the long-forecast counterrevolution.50

  Units of the army might still have been mobilized to stop the coup in Petrograd, had they been sent into action. There were loyal officers who rejected unauthorized orders from the MRC, and some members of the General Staff showed a willingness to resist. The MRC managed to blunt such opposition by keeping up a semblance of negotiations with the General Staff. On October 24, Kerensky vowed to prosecute the MRC and arrest Bolshevik leaders and mutinous sailors from Kronstadt. By that time, however, such threats were no longer realistic. He also put in desperate calls to frontline commanders but failed to get their help. He and many cabinet colleagues were still sitting in the Winter Palace but were defenseless against the coup already under
way.51

  In the early evening of October 24 and into the morning hours, the MRC used small bands of troops loyal to their cause or Red Guards (the latter created six months earlier) to take control of the railway station, telephone exchange, electricity plants, post offices, the state bank, and key bridges. The total number of insurgents was small, estimated at twenty-five to thirty thousand, or roughly 5 percent of the workers and soldiers in Petrograd. More were not needed, because the government was almost without defenders. Sometimes the revolutionaries merely posted someone with a picket in front of a government building or told the guards to go home.52

  Late on October 24, Lenin finally came out of hiding and set off for the Smolny Institute, incongruously taking a streetcar to the world revolution. In disguise and with beard shaved, he was hardly recognized. Everything went like clockwork mainly because there was next to no resistance. His own belated role was important, but it was mainly to harangue, cajole, persuade, and plead with the Bolsheviks to go all the way.53

  During lulls in the action and in anticipation of success, they began drawing up a new government. Trotsky suggested ministers be called “people’s commissars,” and Lenin chimed in to add that the cabinet be termed the “Council of People’s Commissars.” The labels stuck.54

  By early morning on October 25, the coup was all but over. The only building of note still under the control of the provisional government in Petrograd was the Winter Palace. Kerensky slipped away in disguise at 9: 00 a.m. An hour later, Lenin issued a press release, in the name of the MRC, which stated that the government had been deposed. As he quite misleadingly put it, “The cause for which the people have fought—namely, the immediate offer of a democratic peace, the abolition of landed proprietorship, workers’ control over production, and the establishment of Soviet power—this cause has been secured.”55 In fact, none of these issues was settled.

  There was no mythical storming of the Winter Palace as vividly portrayed in Sergei Eisenstein’s movie October, scenes from which have been repeated in numerous documentaries. Instead, ministers and troops inside the palace kept waiting for word that Kerensky was returning with support from the front.

  A few halfhearted attempts by the insurgents to get inside the palace were easily rebuffed. At 6: 50 p.m. the MRC gave the remnants of the government an ultimatum, but that had no effect at all. They ordered shots from the battleship Aurora at 9: 00 p.m., but the ship used only blanks to shake the nerves of troops guarding the palace. The defenders gradually melted away, with three hundred or so remaining until midnight. Some offered to fight to the last, but ministers decided to avoid bloodshed and told the would-be martyrs (among them a battalion of women) to surrender. The capture of the Winter Palace involved little shooting and few casualties—estimated at the time by one observer to be about ten.56

  Sporadic violence and plundering followed, as opportunists took advantage to loot. There were in addition an unknown number of crimes against people, including murder. For the most part, though, the city remained calm. Scheduled social events generally went ahead, and people carried on as if little had changed.

  Back at the Tauride Palace, a ready-made national forum was due to meet in the afternoon of October 25 and provided the Bolsheviks an opportunity to proclaim the revolution. The Second Congress of Soviets was supposed to convene then, but there was a delay because the Bolsheviks wanted to be able to announce the fall of the Winter Palace. Of the 650 or so representatives (the figures vary) who finally assembled, the Bolsheviks had around 300. As it was, they ended up with more than their fair share of delegates, because many of their staunchest opponents among the peasants and the army had refused to participate in the elections, so their representatives were not there to speak for them.57

  A new presidium was elected from the floor. If the Bolsheviks were to follow democratic procedures, they would not be able to govern on their own. They had the most seats (fourteen) in the Presidium but would have to share government with seven Social Revolutionaries, three Mensheviks, and one Internationalist.

  Such a result was just what Lenin dreaded. He was relieved when, late in the night on October 25, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries walked out of the congress to protest the Bolsheviks’ “military conspiracy.”58

  Yuli Martov, one of the leaders of the Social Revolutionaries, tried to prevent the rupture but was interrupted by Trotsky, whose words were recorded by the American eyewitness John Reed. Trotsky wanted no more compromisers and told the congress to let them go. “They are so much refuse which will be swept away into the garbage-heap of history.”59

  The politicians who marched out of the congress rejected the coup as a blatant attempt to preempt democracy. Three weeks later the voice of the people was even stronger in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. The Bolshevik Party managed only 24 percent of the vote and 175 seats out of 715.

  The victors, with 40 percent of the ballots, were the Social Revolutionaries, who stood for giving land to the peasants. The Bolsheviks’ electoral defeat was just what Lenin expected, and for that reason—no matter what he had said earlier—he had no intention of letting the Constituent Assembly meet.60

  “Revolutions,” Lenin once said, “were festivals of the oppressed and the exploited” when the masses could be “creators of a new social order.” During such times the leaders of the revolutionary party had to act more boldly, “always be in advance” of the people, and provide slogans as beacons to show them “the shortest and most direct route to complete, absolute, and decisive victory.” What he claimed to want was “real freedom” as brought about by the “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.” He denounced all compromise, which he believed was based on fear of revolution and of taking the most direct path to the future.61

  In December 1917, Lenin made the case for forcing through a vanguard dictatorship, in full defiance of the will of the people:

  We [Marxists] have always known, said, and emphasized that Socialism cannot be “introduced,” that it emerges out of the most intense, the most acute class struggle—which reaches heights of frenzy and desperation—and civil war; we have always said that a long period of “birth-pangs” lies between capitalism and Socialism; that violence is always the midwife of the old society; that a special state (that is, a special system of organized coercion of a specific class) comes into existence between the bourgeois and the Socialist society, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Dictatorship implies and means a state of simmering war, a state of military measures of struggle against the enemies of the proletarian power.62

  Lenin’s desire to pursue “real freedom” by dictatorial means undermined the project of democracy before it got off the drawing board. His millennial dreams for the peoples of the Russian Empire were to lead down a road of greater suffering and misery than anything in their worst nightmares.

  2

  ON THE WAY TO COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP

  The immediate task was to consolidate the coup. Lenin left the Smolny Institute late on October 25 while the Congress of Soviets continued until it adjourned its first session at 6: 00 the following morning. It reconvened at 10: 40 p.m. the same day. Lenin was not a charismatic orator during the historic meeting on the night of October 25–26. He was safely out of sight during most of the action. His contribution was not so much as a general than as a political strategist behind the scenes. While away from Smolny on October 26 he wrote three important decrees, on land, the workplace, and one-party rule. Together these were meant to have broad appeal and to radicalize the revolution. The first item on the new government’s agenda, however, was the war with Germany.

  It was widely recognized that without peace, Lenin and his comrades would not hold power for long. Certainly, the troops milling about Petrograd were tired of the fighting, and it was the pledge to end the war, more than anything else, that brought them over to the side of the new government. Lenin called on “all the belligerent peoples to negotiate a just
, democratic peace” without annexations. He proposed an immediate armistice. More controversially, he announced the abolition of secret diplomacy and his intention to publish Russia’s treaties with Western Allies to show the dirty dealing that went on behind the backs of the people.1

  The “land question” was directly related to the war for the army of peasant-soldiers. Since July, Lenin had promised to give them land “without any payment.” 2 That news won many rural folk to the Bolshevik cause. Landed estates were expropriated, as was the land of the Crown and the Church. This property and everything on it were to be turned over to the localities until the Constituent Assembly decided what should happen. The government said it would be guided by the peasants, as these had formulated and published their demands. Some “instructions” from the countryside sought the outright abolition of private property. Others said “the land has to belong to those who work it,” while still others listed thirty-three separate claims.3 The decree opened the door to violence and plundering but won support in that it gave official blessing to what the peasants were already doing.4

  In another decree Lenin formulated regulations for workers’ and office clerks’ control of their workplaces. Its practical effect was to make it next to impossible for capitalism to exist in Russia. As one Red Guard later put it, the revolution was about not just material gain but also redressing wrongs. He thought it was bringing peace to the poor and war on the rich.5

  The new regime aimed at a more radical revolution than anything seen in European history before. Perhaps only in such a poor country, where so many possessed so little, could such sweeping changes be seriously contemplated. The population of richer countries, like those in Western Europe, would feel threatened by such radical claims and thus came to fear the “Reds.”