Sometime between October 3 and 10, Lenin slipped back into Petrograd: he did it so surreptitiously that Communist historians to this day have been unable to determine the time of his return. He lived in concealment until October 24 in the Vyborg District, surfacing only after the Bolshevik coup was already underway.
On October 10—one day after the Ispolkom and the Soviet Plenum had voted to constitute a Defense Committee and very likely in connection with that event—twelve members of the Bolshevik Central Committee gathered to decide on the question of an armed uprising. The meeting took place at night, surrounded with extreme precautions, in the apartment of Sukhanov. Lenin came in disguise, clean-shaven, wearing a wig and glasses. Our knowledge of what transpired on this occasion is imperfect, because of the two protocols taken only one has been published and even this one in a doctored version.152 The fullest account comes from the recollections of Trotsky.153
Lenin arrived determined to secure an unequivocal commitment to a coup before October 25. When Trotsky countered, “We are convening a Congress of Soviets in which our majority is assured beforehand,” Lenin answered that
the question of the Second Congress of Soviets … held for him no interest whatever: of what importance is it? will it even take place? and what can it accomplish even if it does meet? It is necessary to tear out [vyrazi’] power. One must not tie oneself to the Congress of Soviets, it is silly and absurd to forewarn the enemy about the date of the uprising. October 25 may serve at best as camouflage, but the uprising must be carried out earlier and independently of the Congress of Soviets. The party must seize power, arms in hand, and then we will talk of the Congress of Soviets.154
Trotsky thought that Lenin not only gave too much credit to the “enemy” but also underestimated the value of the soviets as a cover: the party could not seize power as Lenin wanted, independently of the soviets, because the workers and soldiers learned everything, including what they knew of the Bolshevik Party, through the medium of the soviets. Taking power outside the soviet structure would only sow confusion.
64. Grigorii Zinoviev.
The differences between Lenin and Trotsky centered on the timing and justification for the coup. But some members of the Central Committee questioned whether the party should even attempt to take power. Uritskii argued that the Bolsheviks were technically unprepared for an uprising and that the 40,000 guns at their disposal were inadequate. The most strenuous objections came again from Kamenev and Zinoviev, who explained their position in a confidential letter to Bolshevik organizations.155 The time for a coup was not yet: “We are profoundly convinced that to rise now means to gamble not only with the destiny of our party but with that of the Russian Revolution as well as that of the international revolution.” The party could expect to do well in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, capturing at a minimum one-third of the seats, thereby bolstering the authority of the soviets, in which its influence was on the ascendant. “The Constituent Assembly plus the soviets—this is the type of combined government institutions toward which we strive.” They rejected Lenin’s claim that the majority of Russians and international labor supported the Bolsheviks. Their pessimistic assessment led them to counsel a patient, defensive strategy in place of armed action.
To this argument Lenin responded that it would be “senseless to wait for the Constituent Assembly, which will not be with us, because this will complicate our task.” In this, he had the support of the majority.
As the discussions drew to a close, the Central Committee divided into three factions: (1) a faction of one, consisting of Lenin, who alone favored an immediate seizure of power, without regard to the Congress of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly; (2) Zinoviev and Kamenev, supported by Nogin, Vladimir Miliutin, and Aleksei Rykov, who opposed a coup d’état for the time being; and (3) the rest of the participants, six in number, who agreed on a coup but followed Trotsky in preferring that it be carried out in conjunction with the Congress of Soviets and under its formal sponsorship—that is, in two weeks. A majority of ten voted in favor of an armed rising as “unavoidable and fully matured.”156 The timing was left open. Judging by ensuing events, it was to precede the Second Congress of Soviets by one or more days. Lenin had to acquiesce to this compromise, having gained his main point that the congress merely be asked to ratify the coup.
65. L. B. Kamenev.
The formation of the Military-Revolutionary Committee and the convocation of the Congress of Northern Soviets which, in turn, initiated the Second Congress of Soviets, described previously, implemented the decision of the Central Committee on October 10.
Kamenev found this decision unacceptable. He resigned from the Central Committee and a week later explained his stand in an interview with Novaia zhizn’. He said that he and Zinoviev had sent a circular letter to party organizations in which they “firmly argued against the party assuming the initiative in any armed uprisings in the near future.” Even though the party had not decided on such an uprising, he lied, he, Zinoviev, and some others believed that to “seize power by force of arms” on the eve of the Congress of Soviets and independently of it would have fatal consequences for the Revolution. An uprising was inevitable, but in good time.157
The Central Committee held three more meetings before the coup: October 20, 21, and 24.158 The first of these had on its agenda the alleged breach of party discipline committed by Kamenev and Zinoviev in making public their opposition to an armed uprising.* Lenin wrote the committee two angry letters in which he demanded the expulsion of the “strikebreakers”: “We cannot tell the capitalists the truth, namely that we have decided [to go] on strike [read: make an uprising] and to conceal from them the choice of timing.”159 The committee failed to act on this demand.
The minutes of these three meetings appear so truncated as to render them virtually useless: if one were to take them at face value, one would gather that the coup, by then already in progress, was not even on the agenda.
The Central Committee’s tactic called for provoking the government into retaliatory measures which would make it possible to launch the coup disguised as a defense of the Revolution. The tactic was no secret. As summarized by the SR organ, Delo naroda, weeks before the event, the Provisional Government would be accused of conspiring with Kornilov to suppress the Revolution and with the Kaiser to turn Petrograd over to the enemy, as well as of preparing to disperse both the Congress of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly.160 Trotsky and Stalin confirmed after the event that such had been the party’s plan. In Trotsky’s words:
In essence, our strategy was offensive. We prepared to assault the government, but our agitation rested on the claim that the enemy was getting ready to disperse the Congress of Soviets and it was necessary mercilessly to repulse him.161
And according to Stalin:
The Revolution [read: the Bolshevik Party] disguised its offensive actions behind a smoke screen of defenses in order to make it easier to attract into its orbit uncertain, hesitating elements.162
Curzio Malaparte describes the bewilderment of the English novelist, Israel Zangwill, who happened to be visiting Italy as the Fascists were taking power. Struck by the absence of “barricades, street fighting and corpses on the pavement,” Zangwill refused to believe that he was witnessing a revolution.163 But, according to Malaparte, the characteristic quality of modern revolutions is precisely the bloodless, almost silent seizure of strategic points by small detachments of trained shock troops. The assault is carried out with such surgical precision that the public at large has no inkling of what is happening.