The Central Committee of our party tried to win the approval of the Left S. R.'s, who were invited to participate in establishing the Soviet government. They hesitated, on the ground that, in their view, this government should bear a coalition character within the Soviet parties. But the Mensheviki and the Right S. R.'s broke entirely with the Council of Soviets, deeming a coalition with anti-Soviet parties necessary. There was nothing left for us to do but to let the party of Left S. R.'s persuade their neighbors to the right to return to the revolutionary camp; and while they were engaged in this hopeless task, we thought it our duty to take the responsibility for the government entirely upon our party. The list of Peoples' Commissaries was composed exclusively of Bolsheviki.
There was undoubtedly some political danger in such a course. The change proved too precipitate. (One need but remember that the leaders of this party were only yesterday still under indictment under Statute Law No. 108—that is, accused of high treason). But there was no other alternative. The other Soviet groups hesitated and evaded the issue, preferring to adopt a waiting policy. Finally we became convinced that only our party could set up a revolutionary government.
THE FIRST DAYS OF THE NEW REGIME
The decrees on land and peace, approved by the Council, were printed in huge quantities and—through delegates from the front, peasant pedestrians arriving from the villages, and agitators sent by us to the trenches in the provinces—were strewn broadcast all over the country. Simultaneously the work of organizing and arming the Red Guards was carried on. Together with the old garrison and the sailors, the Red Guard was doing hard patrol duty. The Council of People's Commissaries got control of one government department after another, though everywhere encountering the passive resistance of the higher and middle grade officials. The former Soviet parties tried their utmost to find support in this class and organize a sabotage of the new government. Our enemies felt certain that the whole affair was a mere episode, that in a day or two—at most a week—the Soviet Government would be overthrown. The first foreign councillors and members of the embassies, impelled quite as much by curiosity as by necessary business on hand, appeared at the Smolny Institute. Newspaper correspondents hurried thither with their notebooks and cameras. Everyone hastened to catch a glimpse of the new government, being sure that in a day or two it would be too late.
Perfect order reigned in the city. The sailors, soldiers and the Red Guards bore themselves in these first days with excellent discipline and nobly supported the regime of stern revolutionary order.
In the enemy's camp fear arose lest the "episode" should become too protracted, and so the first force for attacking the new government was being hastily organized. In this, the initiative was taken by the Social-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki. In the preceding period they would not, and dared not, take all the power into their own hands. In keeping with their provisional political position, they contented themselves with serving in the coalition government in the capacity of assistants, critics, and benevolent accusers and defenders of the bourgeoisie. During all elections they conscientiously anathematized the liberal bourgeoisie, while in the government they just as regularly combined with it. In the first six months of the revolution they managed, as a result of this policy, to lose absolutely all the confidence of the populace and army; and now, the October revolt was dashing them from the helm of the state. And yet, only yesterday they considered themselves the masters of the situation. The Bolshevik leaders whom they persecuted were in hiding, as under Czarism. To-day the Bolsheviki were in power, while yesterday's coalitionist ministers and their co-workers found themselves cast aside and suddenly deprived of every bit of influence upon the further course of events. They would not and could not believe that this sudden revolt marked the beginning of a new era. They preferred to consider it as merely accidental, the result of some misunderstanding, which could be removed by a few energetic speeches and accusational newspaper articles. But every hour they encountered more and more insurmountable obstacles. This is what caused their blind, truly furious hatred.
The bourgeois politicians did not venture, to be sure, to get too close to danger. They pushed to the front the Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, who, in the attack upon us acquired all that energy which they had lacked during the period when they were a semi-governing power. Their organs circulated the most amazing rumors and lies. In their name it was that the proclamations containing open appeals to crush the new government were issued. It was they, too, who organized the government officials for sabotage and the cadets for military resistance.
On the 27th and 28th we continued to receive persistent threats by telegraph from army committees, town dumas, vikzhel zemstvos, and organizations (which had charge of the management of the Railroad Union). On the Nevsky Prospect, the principal thoroughfare of the capital's bourgeoisie, things were becoming more and more lively. The bourgeois youth was emerging from its stupor and, urged on by the press, was developing a wider and wider agitation against the Soviet government. With the help of the bourgeois crowd, the cadets were disarming individual Red Guardsmen. On the side-streets Red Guardsmen and sailors were being shot down. A group of cadets seized the telephone station. Attempts were made by the same side to seize the telegraph office. Finally, we learned that three armored cars had fallen into the hands of some inimical military organization. The bourgeois elements were clearly raising their heads. The newspapers heralded the fact that we had but a few hours more to live. Our friends intercepted a few secret orders which made it clear, however, that a militant organization had been formed to fight the Petrograd Soviet. The leading place in this organization was taken by the so-called Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, organized by the local Duma and the Central Executive Committee of the former regime. Here and there Right Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviki held sway. At the disposal of this committee were the cadets, students, and many counter-revolutionary army officers, who sought, from under cover of the coalitions, to deal the Soviets a mortal blow.
THE CADET UPRISING OF OCTOBER 29TH
The stronghold of the counter-revolutionary organization was the cadet schools and the Engineering Castle, where considerable arms and ammunition were stored, and from where attacks were made upon the revolutionary government's headquarters. Detachments of Red Guards and sailors had surrounded the cadet schools and were sending in messengers demanding the surrender of all arms. Some scattering shots came in reply. The besiegers were trampled upon. Crowds of people gathered around them, and not infrequently stray shots fired from the windows would wound passers-by.