From October to Brest-Litovsk

by Leon Trotsky

THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION

The government of Kerensky was restlessly looking for refuge, now one way, now another. Two new cyclist battalions, and the Zenith Battery were called back from the front, and an attempt was made to call back some companies of cavalry…. The cyclists telegraphed while on the road to the Petrograd Soviet: "We are led to Petrograd without knowing the reasons. Request explanations." We ordered them to stop and send a delegation to Petrograd. Their representatives arrived and declared at a meeting of the Soviet that the battalion was entirely with us. This was greeted by enthusiastic cheers. The battalion received orders to enter the city immediately.

The number of delegates from the front was increasing every day. They came to get information about the situation. They gathered our literature and went to bring the message to the front that the Petrograd Soviet was conducting a struggle for the power of the workers, soldiers and peasants. "The men in the trenches will support you," they told us. All the old army committees which had not been reelected for the last four or five months, sent threatening telegrams to us, which, however, made no impression. We knew that these committees were no less out of touch with the rank and file of the soldiers than the Central Executive Committee with the local Soviets.

The Military Revolutionary Committee appointed commissaries to all railroad depots. These commissaries kept a watchful eye upon all the arriving and departing trains and especially upon the movements of troops. Continuous telephone and motor car communication was established with the neighboring cities and their garrisons. The Soviets of all the communities near Petrograd were charged with the duty of vigilantly preventing any counter-revolutionary troops, or, rather, troops misled by the government, from entering the capital. The railroad officials of lower rank and the workmen recognized our commissaries immediately. Difficulties arose on the 24th at the telephone station. They stopped connecting us. The cadets took possession of the station and under their protection the telephone operators began to oppose the Soviet. This was the first appearance of the future sabotage. The Military Revolutionary Committee sent a detachment to the telephone station and placed two small cannons there. In this way the seizing of all departments of the government and instruments of administration was started. The sailors and Red Guards occupied the telegraph station, the post office and other institutions. Measures were taken to take possession of the state bank. The center of the government, the Institute of Smolny, was turned into a fortress. There were in the garret, as a heritage of the old Central Executive Committee, a score of machine guns, but they were in poor condition and had been entirely neglected by the caretakers. We ordered an additional machine gun company to the Smolny Institute. Early in the morning the sailors rolled the machine gun with a deafening rumble over the cement floors of the long and half-dark corridors of the building. Out of the doors the frightened faces of the few S. R.'s and Mensheviks were looking and wondering.

The Soviet held daily meetings in the Smolny and so did the Garrison
Council.

On the third floor of the Smolny, in a small corner room, the Military Revolutionary Committee was in continuous session. There was centered all the information about the movements of the troops, the spirit of the soldiers and workers, the agitation in the barracks, the undertakings of the pogrom instigators, the councils of the bourgeois politicians, the life at the Winter Palace, the plans of the former Soviet parties. Informers came from all sides. There came workers, officers, porters, Socialist cadets, servants, ladies. Many brought pure nonsense. Others gave serious and valuable information. The decisive moment drew near. It was apparent that there was no going back.

On the evening of the 24th of October, Kerensky appeared in the Preliminary Parliament and demanded approval of repressive measures against the Bolsheviki. The Preliminary Parliament, however, was in a sad state of indetermination and complete disintegration. The Constitutional Democrats tried to persuade the right S. R.'s to adopt a vote of confidence. The right S. R.'s exercised pressure upon the center. The center hesitated. The "left" wing conducted a policy of parliamentary opposition. After many conferences, debates, hesitations, the resolution of the "left" wing was adopted. This resolution condemned the rebellious movement of the Soviet, but the responsibilities for the movement were laid at the door of the anti-democratic policy of the government. The mail brought scores of letters daily informing us of death sentences pronounced against us, of infernal machines, of the expected blowing up of the Smolny, etc. The bourgeois press howled wildly, moved by hatred and terror. Gorki, who had forgotten all about "The Song of the Falcon," continued to prophesy in his Novaya Zhizn the approach of the end of the world.

The members of the Military Revolutionary Committee did not leave the Smolny during the entire week. They slept on sofas and only at odd intervals, wakened by couriers, scouts, cyclists, telegraph messengers and telephone calls. The night of the 24th-25th was the most restless. We received a telephone communication from Pavlovsky that the government had called artillery from the Peterhof School of Ensigns. At the Winter Palace, Kerensky gathered the cadets and officers. We gave out orders over the telephone to place on all the roads leading to Petrograd reliable military defence and to send agitators to meet the military detachment called by the government. In case persuasion would not help they were instructed to use armed force. All the negotiations were held over the telephone in the open, and therefore were accessible to the agents of the government.

The commissaries informed us over the telephone that on all the roads leading to Petrograd our friends were on the alert. A cadet detachment from Oranienbaum nevertheless succeeded in getting by our military defence during the night and over the telephone we followed their further movements. The outer guard of the Smolny was strengthened by another company. Communications with all the detachments of the garrison went on continuously.

The companies on guard in all the regiments were awake. The delegates of every detachment were day and night at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee. An order was given to suppress the agitation of the Black Hundred without reserve, and at the first attempts at pogroms on the streets, arms should be used without mercy.

During this decisive night all the most important points of the city passed into our hands—almost without any opposition, without struggle and without bloodshed. The State Bank was guarded by a government detachment and an armored car. The building was surrounded on all sides by our troops. The armored car was taken by an unexpected attack and the bank went over into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee without a single shot being fired. There was on the river Neva, behind the Franco-Russian plant, the cruiser Aurora, which was under repair. Its crew consisted entirely of sailors devotedly loyal to the revolution. When Korniloff, at the end of August, threatened Petrograd the sailors of the Aurora were called by the government to guard the Winter Palace, and though even then they already hated the government of Kerensky, they realized that it was their duty to dam the wave of the counter-revolution, and they took their post without objection. When the danger passed they were sent back. Now, in the days of the October uprising, they were too dangerous. The Aurora was ordered by the Minister of the Navy to weigh anchor and to get out of Petrograd. The crew informed us immediately of this order. We annulled it and the cruiser remained where it was, ready at any moment to put all its military forces and means at the disposal of the Soviets.