July 4 began peacefully: only the eerie silence of the deserted streets suggested something was brewing. At 11 a.m., soldiers of the Machine Gun Regiment, accompanied by Red Guards in automobiles, occupied key points in the city. At the same time, 5,000 to 6,000 armed sailors from Kronshtadt disembarked in Petrograd. Their commander, Raskolnikov, later expressed surprise that the government did not stop his force by sinking one or two of the boats from shore batteries.162 The sailors were under instructions to proceed from the landing pier near Nikolaevskii Bridge directly to Taurida. But as they lined up, a Bolshevik emissary told them that orders had been changed and they were to go instead to Kshesinskaia’s. The protests of the SRs present were ignored, and the SR Maria Spiridonova, who had come to address the sailors, was left without an audience. Preceded by a military band and carrying banners reading “All Power to the Soviets,” the sailors, drawn out in a long column, crossed Vasilevskii Island and the Stock Exchange Bridge to the Alexander Park, from where they continued to Bolshevik headquarters. There they were addressed from the balcony by Iakov Sverdlov, Lunarcharskii, Podvoiskii, and M. Lashevich. Lenin, who had arrived at Kshesinskaia’s a short time before, displayed an uncharacteristic reluctance to speak. At first, he refused to address the sailors on the grounds that he was not well, but he finally yielded and delivered a few brief remarks. Hailing the sailors, he told them that
he was happy to see what was happening, how the theoretical slogan, launched two months earlier, calling for the passage of all power to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was now being translated into reality.163
Even these cautious words could leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Bolsheviks were engaged in a coup d’état. It was to be Lenin’s last public appearance until October 26.
The sailors marched off to Taurida. What transpired inside Bolshevik headquarters after their departure is known from Sukhanov, who was told by Lunacharskii:
… during the night of July 3–4, while sending to Pravda a declaration calling for a “peaceful demonstration,” Lenin had in mind a concrete plan for a coup d’état. Political power—in reality assumed by the Bolshevik Central Committee—was to have been formally embodied in a “Soviet” ministry composed of outstanding and popular Bolsheviks. At this point, three ministers were appointed: Lenin, Trotsky, and Lunacharskii. This government was to have issued at once decrees on peace and land, gaining in this manner the sympathy of millions in the capital and the provinces, thereby solidifying its authority. Lenin, Trotsky, and Lunacharskii reached such an agreement after the Kronshtadt [sailors] had left Kshesinskaia’s for Taurida Palace.… The revolution was to have been accomplished as follows: The 176th Regiment from Krasnoe Selo—the very same regiment to which Dan had entrusted the protection of Taurida—would arrest the Central Executive Committee, whereupon Lenin would arrive at the scene of action and proclaim the new government.*
The sailors, led by Raskolnikov, marched down Nevsky. Interspersed in their ranks were small army contingents and Red Guards. In front, on the side, and in the rear drove armored cars. The men carried banners with slogans prepared by the Bolshevik Central Committee.164 As they turned into Liteinyi, in the heart of “bourgeois” Petrograd, shots rang out. The column broke up in panic, firing wildly and scattering in all directions: an eyewitness photographed the scene from a window, producing one of the few pictorial records of violence in the Russian Revolution (plate 53). When the shooting stopped, the demonstrators regrouped and resumed the march to Taurida, but they no longer kept an orderly formation and carried their guns at the ready. They arrived at the Soviet around 4 p.m., greeted with loud cheers from soldiers of the Machine Gun Regiment.
The Bolsheviks also brought to Taurida a large contingent of Putilov workers—estimates vary from 11,000 to 25,000.† Other factories and military units swelled the crowd, which came to number in the tens of thousands.‡ Miliukov thus describes the scene that unfolded in front of Taurida—a scene which despite the appearance of spontaneity was closely orchestrated by Bolshevik agents dispersed in the crowd:
Taurida Palace became the focus of the struggle in the full sense of the word. Throughout the day armed military units gathered around it, demanding that the Soviet, at last, take power.… [Around 4 p.m.] the sailors of Kronshtadt arrived and tried to penetrate the building. They called for the Minister of Justice, Pereverzev, to explain why the sailor Zhelezniakov and the anarchists had been arrested at Durnovo’s villa. Tsereteli came out and told the hostile crowd that Pereverzev was not in the building, that he had already handed in his resignation and was no longer a minister: the first was true, the second not. Deprived of a direct excuse, the crowd for a while was at a loss what to do. But then shouts resounded that the ministers were responsible for each other: an attempt was made to arrest Tsereteli but he managed to escape inside the palace. Chernov emerged from the palace to calm the crowd. The crowd immediately threw itself on him and searched him for weapons. Chernov declared that under such circumstances he would not talk. The crowd fell silent. Chernov began a long speech about the activities of the socialist ministers in general and his own, as Minister of Agriculture, in particular. As for the Kadet ministers, bon voyage to them. The crowd shouted in response: “Why didn’t you say so before? Declare at once that the land is being turned over to the toilers and power to the soviets!” A tall worker, raising his fist to the minister’s face, shouted in a rage: “Take power, you s.o.b., when they give it to you!” Several men from the crowd seized Chernov and dragged him toward a car, while others pulled him toward the palace. Having torn the minister’s coat, the Kronshtadt sailors shoved him into the car and declared that they would not let him go until the Soviet took power. Some workers broke into the hall where the Soviet was in session, shouting: “Comrades, they are beating up Chernov!” In the midst of the turmoil, Chkheidze appointed Kamenev, Steklov, and Martov to liberate Chernov. But Chernov was liberated by Trotsky, who had just arrived on the scene. The Kronshtadt sailors obeyed him and Trotsky accompanied Chernov back into the hall.*
53. July events.
In the meantime, Lenin had unobtrusively made his way to Taurida, where he stayed out of sight, prepared, depending on how events unfolded, either to assume power or to declare the demonstration a spontaneous outburst of popular indignation and then disappear from sight. Raskolnikov thought he looked pleased.165
Not all the action occurred at Taurida. While the mobs were converging on the seat of the Soviet, small armed detachments directed by the Military Organization occupied strategic points. Bolshevik prospects improved considerably when the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress, 8,000 strong, went over to them. Motorized Bolshevik units took over the plants of several anti-Bolshevik newspapers; anarchists seized the most outspoken of them, Novoe vremia. Other detachments took up guard duty at the Finland and Nicholas railroad stations, and set up machine gun emplacements on Nevsky and its side streets, which had the effect of cutting off the staff of the Petrograd Military District from Taurida Palace. One armed unit attacked the seat of the counterintelligence service where materials on Lenin’s dealings with the Germans were stored.166 No resistance was encountered. In the judgment of a liberal newspaper, in the course of the day Petrograd passed into Bolshevik hands.167