October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

by China Miéville

  Eyewitnesses, Memoirs and Primary Voices

  W. Astrov, A. Slepkov and J. Thomas, An Illustrated History of the Russian Revolution, two volumes (1928). Dated and rather obscure, but full of wonderful photographs and reportage – including the full captivating tale of Lieutenant Sinegub’s wanderings in the Winter Palace, of which only a snatch could be retold above.

  Bessie Beatty, The Red Heart of Russia (1918). Sometimes florid to the point of comedy (within the book’s first two short paragraphs Petrograd is a forest in the silver twilight and is also strange, mysterious, inscrutable, compelling, and a candle – drawing moths, of course) but, or as a result, oddly engaging.

  Louise Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia (1918). A vivid and exciting telling by a radical journalist.

  Jonathan Daly and Leonid Trofimov (eds), Russia in War and Revolution, 1914–22: A Documentary History (2009). A wonderful compendium of primary texts, ranging from various official and semi-official declarations to anonymous letters and recollections.

  Eduard Dune, Notes of a Red Guard (1993). The reminiscences of Dune’s days as a teenager, a politically developing activist with the Bolsheviks, and an armed militia member. The book includes vivid memories of the urban fighting in Moscow in October.

  Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (2000). Life stories from a wide range of women bringing powerfully up close the lived realities of these days.

  Michael Hickey (ed.), Competing Voices from the Russian Revolution: Fighting Words (2010). A large and extraordinarily useful collection of primary texts, arranged by theme.

  A. F. Ilyin-Genevsky, From the February Revolution to the October Revolution 1917 (1931). A charming and moving memoir from a man later as well- or better-known as a chess master as he was as a Bolshevik revolutionary.

  Mark Jones (ed.), Storming the Heavens: Voices of October (1987). More focused and shorter than the Hickey, Pitcher or Steinberg, but no less invaluable in the pieces it contains.

  Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt (ed.), The Russian Revolution of 1917: Contemporary Accounts (1971). Valuable memoirs and firsthand accounts edited by the remarkable later spy and anti-Soviet Cold War warrior, who died aged 100 in 2002.

  Harvey Pitcher (ed.), Witnesses of the Russian Revolution (2nd edition, 2001). The testimonials collected here, unlike those in most collections, are not by Russians, but by visitors to the country during the revolutionary year: Americans and Britons. They include among others Arthur Ransome and Morgan Philips Price, both of whose invaluable writing on the subject is collected in dedicated volumes.

  F. F. Raskolnikov, Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917 (1925). The vivid recollections of one of the key figures among the Kronstadt revolutionaries.

  John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (1919). A justly celebrated committed journalist’s account.

  Mark D. Steinberg (ed.), Voices of Revolution, 1917 (2001). A compendium of powerful primary texts separated into three chronological sections, each introduced with a useful essay. It is from this book that soldier Kuchlavok’s letter is excerpted. It is an extraordinary piece of writing that deserves to be read in full – as do many of the achingly powerful soldiers’ letters.

  Nikolai Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution of 1917: A Personal Record (1984). It is impossible not to be caught up with the vivid, thoughtful, honest and meticulously observed reminiscences of one of history’s very great observers, Sukhanov.

  Other

  Boris Dralyuk (ed.), 1917 (2016). A captivating collection of poetry and prose from the revolutionary year.

  Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii (eds), Interpreting the Russian Revolution (1999). This collection includes many excellent essays on the revolution’s political culture.

  Murray Frame, Boris Kolonitskii, Steven G. Marks and Melissa K. Stockdale (eds), Russian Culture in War and Revolution, 1914–22. Book 1: Popular Culture, the Arts, and Insitutions (2014), and Book 2: Political Culture, Identities, Mentalities, and Memory (2014). Two from Slavica’s multi-volume series, containing essays by a large number of scholars on political representation, memory and heritage, among an enormous range of cultural issues.

  Mary Hamilton-Dann, Vladimir and Nadya: The Lenin Story (1998). A curious but intriguing telling of the lives of the revolutionary couple, which fills out various details most others mention only in passing. As does the same author’s obscure but engrossing Lenin in the Recollection of Finns (1979).

  Marianne Kamp, ‘Debating Sharia: The 1917 Muslim Women’s Congress in Russia’ (2015), in Journal of Women’s History, volume 27, number 4. A rare resource on this fascinating and important event.

  David C. King, Red Star over Russia: A Visual History (2009). The aged monochrome of most contemporary photographs notwithstanding, the visuals of the revolution are absolutely compelling, both in deliberate iconography and in chance conjunctions – as the images here illustrate.

  Adele Lindenmeyr, Christopher Read and Peter Waldron (eds), Russia’s Home Front in War and Revolution, 1914–22. Book 2: The Experience of War and Revolution (2016). This book in Slavica’s series contains essays on an extraordinary variety of topics from the Russian revolution, including philanthropy, drunkenness, drugs, gardening, monasticism, and the representation of Jews.

  Anatoly Lunacharsky, Revolutionary Silhouettes (1923). A captivating series of reminiscences by Lunacharsky, of various revolutionaries of his acquaintance.

  Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (1989). For the most part Stites’s classic text focuses on the early years of the revolutionary regime itself, but it is included here via the excuse of the precursor utopianism it outlines because it is such a thoroughly transfixing, moving, sometimes hilarious exposition of the avant-garde in everyday life.

  Ian D. Thatcher, ‘The St Petersburg/Petrograd Mezhraionka, 1913–1917: The Rise and Fall of a Russian Social Democratic

  Workers’ Party Unity Faction’ (2009), in Slavonic and East European Review, volume 87, number 2. One of the very few sources on the small, intellectually and politically scintillating group, associated in particular with Trotsky. Of all the various not-yet-written books on the Russian Revolution, a volume on and selected translations from this ‘Interdistrict group’ clamour most loudly for existence.

  Acknowledgements

  This book, more than anything else I have written, has not merely benefitted from, but relied on, the engagement and insights of readers and interlocutors. I am more grateful than I can say for their patience and generosity, and for their trenchant and thought-provoking help, feedback, suggestions and criticisms.

  I owe an immense debt to all the enormous number of writers from whose work I have learned during my research. I have also been privileged to have received thoughtful and detailed responses to drafts of this manuscript from leading researchers on the topics it touches, who in many cases even shared as-yet-unpublished work. I extend my deepest gratitude to Gleb Albert, Barbara Allen, Clayton Black, Eric Blanc, Lars Lih, Kevin Murphy and Ronald Suny. October is immeasurably better for their generous help.

  I am profoundly grateful, too, to many other readers. Their detailed thoughts and responses have been quite invaluable. My thanks to Mic Cheetham, Maria Headley, Frank Hemmes, Susan Powell, Jord Rosenberg and Rosie Warren.

  In Russia, I was very fortunate to benefit from the hospitality of and conversations with Boris Kolonitskii, Artemy Magun, Yoel Regev, Alexander Reznik, Alexander Skidan and Elizaveta Zhdankova.

  I am deeply grateful to the Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Italy, for granting me a residency fellowship for the writing of this book. I am also thankful for their invaluable support and help, in various ways, to David Broder, Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, José – Gurru – Corominas, Cassia Corominas-Miéville, Indigo Corominas-Miéville, Boris Dralyuk, Brian Evenson, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Stuart Kelly, Jemima Miéville and Paul Robbins.

  For their solidarity
and friendship, and for being constant sources of political and intellectual inspiration, I thank my fellow founding editors of Salvage: Jamie Allinson, Richard Seymour and Rosie Warren.

  My thanks also to all at Verso, especially Mark Martin, Anne Rumberger, Sarah Shin and Lorna Scott-Fox, for copy-editing above and beyond the call of any duty. Finally, in particular, I am grateful to Sebastian Budgen, my editor and friend. This book came about from his suggestion, and I owe him an immense intellectual and political debt.

  Index

  Adamovich, Elena, 62

  Aiollo, Grigori, 91

  Aleichem, Sholem, 21

  Alexander II, tsar, 7–9

  bomb thrown at, 9

  Alexander III, tsar, 9–10

  plot against, 10

  Alexandra Fedorovna, tsarina, 15, 44, 47, 71

  and Nicholas II’s abdication, 83

  and Rasputin, 35–6, 38

  Alexeev, General Michael, 36, 66, 71–2, 76–7, 80–2, 89, 136, 194, 214, 228, 231, 233, 238

  begs tsar to abdicate, 72

  Alexeeva, Ekaterina, 267–8

  All-Russian Conference of Bolshevik Military Organisations, 155

  All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 105, 110, 145, 147, 149, 152, 159, 161, 253–5

  Second Congress, 258, 267, 269, 272, 287, 290, 293–7, 300, 304, 306, 315

  opening of, 293–4

  All-Russian Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, 105, 142–3, 170, 271, 276

  Allies, 117, 123, 129, 135, 154, 158, 311, 314

  Amur (armoured ship), 291

  anarchism, 144–6, 157–8, 168–9, 172, 177, 210, 244

  anti-war efforts, 33–4, 55, 91, 101–2, 109, 118, 123, 136, 149, 164–5, 168, 315

  Lenin, 33–4, 86–7, 109, 118, 123, 164–5, 309

  Petrograd Soviet, 102

  soldiers and

  literature for, 168

  low morale of, 136–7, 162, 164, 200, 209, 265

  protests of, 169, 259

  Antonov-Ovseyenko, Vladimir, 270–1, 273–4, 276, 302–3, 307

  April Days, 115, 120–3

  Armand, Inessa, 103

  army. See military; soldiers

  artists, 28

  Asnin, Shlema, 144, 157

  Assembly of Russian Factory and Workshop Workers, 18

  Astoria Hotel, 60

  Aurora (armoured ship), 284, 291–3

  map of, ix

  authorities, authority of, 257

  Avksentiev, Nikolai, 151, 259, 288

  Azef, Evno, 10

  Bagratuni, Jaques, 272, 275, 290, 292

  Bakunin, Michael, 8

  Balabanoff, Angelica, 31, 128

  Beatty, Bessie, 295, 300

  bicycle units, 187, 274–5, 278, 291

  Biulleten (newspaper), 162

  Black Hundreds, 20–1, 107, 151, 172, 186, 257

  mass murder of Jews, 21

  Blagonravov, Geogy Ivanovich, 291–3

  Blanquism, 114

  Bleikhman, Iosif, 144, 169, 174

  Blok, Alexander, 92

  Bloody Sunday (1905), 19, 40

  Bochkareva, Maria, 207

  Bogdanov, Boris, 52–3, 111, 150, 152, 156, 273, 275

  denounces Lenin, 111

  Bogoslovskaya, Nina, 186

  Bolsheviks, 24, 55, 62, 91, 154, 197, 240, 300, 302, 309–13, 315–6

  anti-war call, 164–5, 168

  appropriated house as headquarters of, 110

  arrest of, 189, 191, 201

  Bolshevisation of Russia, 241

  call to suppress their pursuit of power, 149–52

  and coalition government, 130–1, 133, 138–9, 242

  and counterrevolution, 206, 222, 227, 229, 231, 310–1

  arm the workers, 226

  death of, 315

  and democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants, 30

  at Democratic State Conference, 246, 249, 251

  disintegration of, 191

  and Dual Power, 133

  and Duma elections, 212

  at Duma, secret meeting, 266–8

  and First World War, 32–4

  focus on workers, 53

  Fourteenth Congress, 313

  and insurrection, 262, 264–70

  vote in favour of, 268

  isolation of, 310

  Kerensky’s assault on, 275–7

  and Kornilov, mobilisation against, 223

  in Latvia, 192

  and Lenin, 111–3

  and Lenin’s ‘Letters from Afar’, 98–9

  masses waiting for, 267

  meaning of, in Russian, 17

  membership, 27, 197

  and Mensheviks, 104, 110

  counter-counterrevolutionary partnership, 206

  Lenin on coalition between, 212

  and military, 95–6, 140, 148–50

  Military Organisation (MO), 95, 118, 140, 142, 144–6, 168, 173, 175, 178, 265, 267, 269

  All-Russian Conference of Bolshevik Military Organisations, 155, 160, 162

  avoiding insurrection, 270

  and Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), 269, 273

  surrender, 187–8

  and Moscow State Conference, 205–7

  officially named Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP), 122

  Petersburg Committee, 31, 46, 86, 111, 122, 144–5, 148, 151, 161, 170, 188, 215, 222, 240, 257–8, 265, 276

  call to overthrow Provisional Government, 120

  newspapers, debate over, 170

  Russian Bureau, 79, 87, 97

  Petrograd City Conference, 114, 118, 168, 170–1

  and Petrograd Soviet, 187, 243, 253

  and power, 189, 197, 246, 258, 261, 269

  on power to soviets, 170

  and protests, 155–6, 173–5, 184, 186–7

  and Provisional Government call to overthrow, 118–20

  dismissal of, 124, 223, 236–7

  transfer of power to (March), 66–7, 69, 79–80

  and rebellion, 259–60

  and revolution, international export of, 105–6

  revolutionary planning, 284

  Riga Bolshevik Committee, 91

  Second Congress, 294

  Sixth Congress, 161, 196, 198, 222, 237

  slogan of, 198

  and soldiers, 101, 210

  Tenth Congress, 313

  ‘Trench Bolshevism’, 101

  triumph of, 156

  ‘we will see’, 172

  on worker-led revolution, 23

  and workers, 151, 191

  See also Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP)

  Bonch-Bruevich, Vladimir, 166, 170, 174–5, 286

  ‘The Armed People’, 100

  bourgeois:

  capitalism, 13

  counterrevolution, 230

  disrepute of, 107

  government and democratic revolution, 66–7

  nationalism, 154

  revolution, 69, 104, 126

  state, 204

  bourgeoisie:

  abandons Petrograd, 257, 260

  ‘Complete Liquidation of the Dictatorship of the Counterrevolutionary Bourgeoisie’, 198

  and Democratic State Conference, 246, 248–51

  Lenin on, 143, 204

  and Mensheviks, 30

  no compromise with, 299

  and peasantry, 183

  Petrograd in danger of, 272

  and power, 104, 188, 261

  and power struggle, 67, 69

  Provisional Government as representative of, 79–80

  and revolution, 14, 29–30, 113, 132, 180, 262

  revolutionary ‘defencism’ as tool of, 110

  and Soviets, 58–9

  Trotsky decries, 130

  workers irreconcilable with, 26

  Breshno-Breshkovskaya, Catherine, 10, 31, 128, 259

  bridges in Petrograd, 277–9, 284

  British Daily News (newspaper), 167

  Broido, Mark, 259–60, 263, 265

  Bronstein, Olg
a (Trotsky’s sister), 96

  Brusilov, General, 136, 165, 194

  Bryant, Louise, 252, 318

  Bublikov, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 60, 64, 207

  Bubnov, Andrei, 222–3, 265–6

  Buchanan, George, 43

  Bukharin, Nikolai, 315

  Burnasheva, Zahida, 121–2

  Burstein, Z., 185

  Bykhovsky, Naum, 296

  capitalism, 13–4, 28–9

  hatred of, 26

  soviet power as transition away from, 240

  and war, 33

  Chamberlin, William, 90, 311

  Cheremisov, General, 200

  Chernov, Viktor, 10, 31, 103, 111, 125–6, 129, 137–8, 152, 179–80, 196, 199

  surrounded by protesters, 179–80

  Trotsky saves, 180

  Chernyshevsky, Nikolai, 8

  What Is to Be Done?, 305–6

  Chkheidze, N. S., 52, 54–5, 72, 78, 94, 99, 116, 125, 156, 173, 185, 205, 207

  denounces Milyukov, 117

  denounces protesters, 181

  and military demonstration, 147

  and new cabinet of Provisional Government, 76

  welcome speech for Lenin’s return, 109

  Chudnovsky, 269, 273, 292

  Churchill, Winston, on Bolshevism, 311

  citizen, 71

  City Militia, 100, 256, 264

  class struggle, 310

  coalition government. See Dual Power; Provisional Government

  Colletti, Lucio, 204

  Committee for Struggle Against the Counterrevolution, 226, 228–9, 231, 239

  Committee of Public Safety, 215, 217, 280, 283

  commune, 8

  communism, 13

  Congress of the Nationalities, 242

  Constitutional Assembly of the All-Russian Peasants Union, 23

  Cossacks, 43–5, 232, 280, 285, 292

  charge at Kronstadt sailors, 181

  and counterrevolution, 227, 230, 271

  counterrevolutionary thuggery of, 186

  hunt for Lenin, 201–2

  shoot at police, 46

  and strikes, 44–5

  counterrevolution, 186–7, 191, 197, 215, 224–31

  and Bolsheviks, 206, 222, 227, 229, 231, 310–1

  collapse of, 231

  Committee for Struggle Against the Counterrevolution, 226, 228–9, 231, 239

  and Kerensky, 307

  Lenin on, 212, 231