From October to Brest-Litovsk

by Leon Trotsky

THE CONFLICT REGARDING THE PETROGRAD GARRISON

But even earlier, previous to the Congress of Northern Soviets, there occurred an event which was destined to play a most important role in the subsequent political struggle. Early in October there came to a meeting of the Petrograd Executive Committee, the Soviet's representative in the staff of the Petrograd Military District and announced that Headquarters demanded that two-thirds of the Petrograd garrison should be sent to the front. For what purpose? To defend Petrograd. They were not to be sent to the front at once, but still it was necessary to make ready immediately. The Staff recommended that the Petrograd Soviet approve this plan. We were on our guard. At the end of August, also, five revolutionary regiments, complete or in parts, had been taken out of Petrograd. This had been done at the request of the then Supreme Commander Korniloff, who at that very time was preparing to hurl a Caucasian division against Petrograd, with the intention of once for all settling with the revolutionary capital. Thus we had already the experience of purely political transfer of regiments under the pretext of military operations. Anticipating events. I shall say, that from documents brought to light after the October Revolution it became clear beyond any doubt that the proposed removal of the Petrograd garrison actually had nothing to do with military purposes, but was forced upon Commander-in-Chief Dukhonin, against his will, by none else but Kerensky, who was striving to clear the capital of the most revolutionary soldiers, i.e., those most hostile to him. But at that time, early in October, our suspicions evoked at first a storm of patriotic indignation. The Staff people were pressing us, Kerensky was impatient, for the ground under his feet had grown too hot. We, on the other hand, delayed answering. Danger undoubtedly threatened Petrograd and the question of defending the capital loomed before us in all its terrible significance. But after the Korniloff experience, after Rodzyanko's words concerning the desirability of the German occupation, whence should we take the assurance that Petrograd would not be maliciously given up to the Germans in punishment for its seditious spirit? The Executive Committee refused to affix its seal blindly to the order to transfer two-thirds of the garrison. It was necessary to verify, we said, whether there really were military considerations back of this order, and therefore it was necessary to create an organization for this verification. Thus was born the idea of creating—by the side of the Soldiers' section of the Soviet, i. e., the garrison's political representation—a purely military organization, in the form of a Military Revolutionary Committee, which subsequently acquired enormous power and became the real tool of the October Revolution. Undoubtedly, even in those hours, when putting forth the idea of creating an organization in whose hands would be concentrated the threads for guiding the Petrograd garrison on the purely military side, we clearly realized that this very organization might become an irreplaceable revolutionary tool. At that time we were already openly heading for the uprising, and were preparing for it in an organized way.

As indicated above, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets was ret for October 25th. There could be no longer any doubt that the Congress would declare itself in favor of power being handed over to the Soviets. But such a resolution must forthwith be put into actuality, else it would turn into a worthless, Platonic demonstration. The logic of events, therefore, required us to set the uprising for October 25th. Exactly so the entire bourgeois press interpreted it. But in the first place, the fate of the Congress depended upon the Petrograd garrison: would it allow Kerensky to surround the Congress of Soviets and disperse it with the assistance of several hundred or thousand military cadets, ensigns and thugs? Did not the very attempt to remove the garrison mean that the Government was preparing to disperse the Congress of Soviets? And strange it would be if it were not preparing, since we were, before the entire land, openly mobilizing the Soviet forces in order to deal the coalition forces a death blow.

Thus the conflict at Petrograd was developing on the basis of the question of the garrison's fate. First and foremost this question touched all the soldiers to the quick. But the working-men, too, felt the liveliest interest in the conflict, fearing as they did that upon the garrison's removal they would be smothered by the cadets and cossacks. Thus the conflict was assuming a character of the very keenest nature and developing on a soil extremely unfavorable for Kerensky's government.

Parallel with this was going on the above-described struggle for convoking the All-Russian Congress of Soviets—we, openly declaring, in the name of the Petrograd Soviet and the Northern Region Congress, that the Second Congress of Soviets must set Kerensky's government aside and become the true master of the Russian land. As a matter of fact the uprising was already on. It was developing quite openly before the eyes of the whole country.

During October the question of the uprising played an important role in our party's inner life. Lenin, who was in hiding in Finland, insisted, in numerous letters, upon more resolute tactics. The lower strata were in ferment, and dissatisfaction was accumulating because the Bolshevik party, which had proved to be in the majority in the Petrograd Soviet, was drawing no practical conclusions from its own mottos. On October 10th a conspiratory meeting of the Central Committee of our party took place, with Lenin present. The question of the uprising was on the order of the day. By a majority of all against two votes it was decided that the only means of saving the Revolution and the country from final dissolution lay in armed insurrection which must transfer power into the hands of the Soviets.