Issue 234 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published October 1999 Copyright © Socialist Review

On 22 October 19I7,'the workers and soldiers of Petrograd (now St Petersburg), poured into meetings across the city. It was the Day of the Petrograd Soviet. In one huge hall Leon Trotsky addressed the crowd:

'The soviet regime will give everything that is in the country to the poor and to the people in the trenches. You, the bourgeois, have two coats--hand one over to the soldier who is cold in the trenches. You have warm boots? Sit at home; the worker needs them.'

As everyone raised their hands to fight for workers and peasants to 'the last drop of blood', Trotsky declared:

'Let this vote be your vow, with all your strength, at any sacrifice, to support the soviet, which has taken on itself the great task of bringing the victory of the revolution to the end, and of giving land, bread and peace.'

The following day the provisional government issued the orders it hoped would forestall its overthrow. At dawn on 24 October the Bolshevik Party newspapers were closed. Detachments of officer cadets were sent to guard government institutions rail stations and the bridges across the Neva, raised to isolate the workers' districts from the rest of the city. The battle cruiser Aurora, whose sailors favoured insurrection, was ordered on a training cruise. The telephone lines to the Smolny Institute, headquarters of the soviet, were cut.

But orders and edicts alone could not save the government, nor officer cadets guarantee its security. The government of well dressed gentlemen in the Winter Palace had lost authority over the soldiers, sailors and workers it claimed to govern. Surrounded by white marble and dripping gold leaf, these gentlemen had continued to prosecute a war that ground millions into the mud of no man's land. While peasant soldiers' families toiled on patches of earth the landlords kept the best land. The employers who profiteered from the war locked their workers out for demanding decent wages, hours and conditions. Workers, peasants and soldiers wanted change and were increasingly prepared to sweep aside those who stood in their path. Alongside the slogan 'Bread, peace and land!' was now heard another: 'All power to the soviets!'

The soviet's military revolutionary committee acted. The printshops were forcibly 'reopened and by midday the presses were running once more. The orders to the Aurora were countermanded and its crew helped drive the cadets from the bridges.

The dash of forces moved towards a climax. The garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress, built on an island in the Neva, its guns commanding the approaches to the palace on one side of the river and the garrison on the other, wavered. Some leaders of the insurrection favoured seizure by force. But Trotsky insisted upon political persuasion. He addressed the garrison and won them over with inspiration and vision. A government stronghold had fallen without a shot. Detachments of workers and sailors were armed with the guns from the fortress's arsenal.

In the early hours of 25 October one of the executive of the All-Russian Committee of Soviets, still dominated by government supporters, declared, despite events, 'Counter-revolution was never so strong as at the present moment... The Black Hundred press enjoys more success in the factories and the barracks than the socialist press.' Within hours armed workers, sailors and soldiers had taken the telephone exchange, the telegraph agency, the state bank, rail stations and bridges. The Cossack regiments refused to defend the government. By the end of the day five sailors and one soldier had been killed in all--none of them defenders of the government.

By the evening armed workers, sailors and soldiers began to enter the labyrinth of halls, corridors and galleries of the Winter Palace. By the time the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met that same night, news was pouring in of support for the insurrection. The delegates elected to the Second Congress were overwhelmingly workers, ordinary soldiers, sailors and poor peasants. The Bolsheviks had won the majority. Gone were the well dressed intellectuals and the moderate leaders of the First Congress. These delegates were what the Russian intelligentsia contemptuously referred to as 'the dark people'--the masses. British journalist Arthur Ransome wrote of his exhilaration watching workers and soldiers electing representatives of their class.

Within 24 hours the new government had proclaimed for peace without annexations and abolished landlord ownership. And as the factories, barracks and smoke filled corridors of Smolny echoed to decrees and resolutions, the revolution spread across the empire. Its success inspired millions across the world and lit a beacon of revolutionary hope.
Rob Ferguson
All dates here are in accordance with the Gregorian not the Western calendar. The modern equivalent date for the insurrection is 7 November as opposed to 25 October