This description fits the October coup in Russia (which Malaparte had studied and used as one of his models). In October, the Bolsheviks gave up on massive armed demonstrations and street skirmishes, which they had employed, on Lenin’s insistence, in April and July, because the crowds had proven difficult to control and provoked a backlash. They relied instead on small, disciplined units of soldiers and workers under the command of their Military Organization, disguised as the Military-Revolutionary Committee, to occupy Petrograd’s principal communication and transport centers, utilities and printing plants—the nerve centers of the modern metropolis. Merely by severing the telephone lines connecting the government with its Military Staff they made it impossible to organize a counterattack. The entire operation was carried out so smoothly and efficiently that even as it was in progress the cafés and restaurants along with the opera, theaters, and cinemas were open for business and thronged with crowds in search of amusement.
The Milrevkom, which its secretary, the Bolshevik Antonov-Ovseenko, later described as a “fine formal cover for the military work of the Party,”164 held only two meetings, just enough to allow the Bolshevik Military Organization to claim for itself the “soviet” label.165 Antonov-Ovseenko concedes that it operated directly under the Bolshevik Central Committee and was “in fact its organ”: so much so that for a while consideration was given to transforming the Milrevkom into a branch of the Military Organization.166 As he describes it, its headquarters located in rooms 10 and 17 of Smolnyi, were crowded all day long with young men coming and going, creating conditions which precluded serious work even if such had been intended.
In Communist accounts, the Milrevkom is given credit for mobilizing all or nearly all of the Petrograd garrison for the armed insurrection: thus, Trotsky claims that in October “the overwhelming majority of the garrison were standing openly on the side of the workers.”167 Contemporary evidence indicates, however, that Bolshevik influence on the garrison was much more modest. The mood of the Petrograd garrison was anything but revolutionary. Overwhelmingly, the 160,000 men billeted in the city and the 85,000 deployed in the environs168 declared “neutrality” in the looming conflict. A count of the garrison units which on the eve of October inclined toward the Bolsheviks shows that they constituted a small minority: Sukhanov estimates that at best one-tenth of the garrison took part in the October coup, and “very likely many fewer.”169 The author’s own calculations indicate that the actively pro-Bolshevik element in the garrison (exclusive of the Kronshtadt naval base) amounted to perhaps 10,000 men, or 4 percent. The pessimists on the Central Committee opposed an armed insurrection precisely on the grounds that even with their advocacy of an immediate armistice, on which Lenin counted to win over the troops, the Bolsheviks did not enjoy the garrison’s support.
But the optimists proved right, because the Bolsheviks did not so much need to win the support of the garrison as to deny it to the government: if they had only 4 percent of the garrison on their side, the government had even less. The Bolsheviks’ principal concern was to prevent the government from calling out the troops against them as it had been able to do in July. To this end, they needed to delegitimize the Military Staff. This they accomplished on October 21–22, when, claiming to act in the name of the Soviet and its Soldiers’ Section, they had the Milrevkom assert exclusive authority over the garrison.
To begin with, the Milrevkom dispatched 200 “commissars” to military units in and near Petrograd: most were junior officers from the Bolshevik Military Organization who had taken part in the July putsch and had been recently freed from prison on parole.170 Next, on October 21, it convened at Smolnyi a meeting of regimental committees. Addressing the troops, Trotsky stressed the danger of a “counterrevolution” and urged the garrison to rally around the Soviet and its organ, the Milrevkom. He introduced a motion so vaguely worded that it received ready approvaclass="underline"
Welcoming the formation of the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Petrograd garrison pledges the committee full support in all its efforts to bring closer the front and rear in the interest of the Revolution.171
Who could possibly be against bringing the front and rear closer in the interest of the February Revolution? But the Bolsheviks meant to interpret the resolution as empowering the Milrevkom to assume the functions of the staff of the Petrograd Military District. According to Podvoiskii, who directed the Military Organization, these measures marked the onset of the armed insurrection.172
The following night (October 21–22), a deputation from the Milrevkom appeared at the headquarters of the Military Staff. Its spokesman, the Bolshevik Lieutenant Dashkevich, informed the commander of the Petrograd Military District, Colonel G. P. Polkovnikov, that by authority of the garrison meeting the staffs orders to the garrison would henceforth acquire force only if countersigned by the Milrevkom. The troops, of course, had made no such decision, and even if they had, it would have had no validity: the deputation actually acted on behalf of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Polkovnikov replied that his staff did not recognize the delegation. After he threatened to have them arrested, the Bolshevik delegates left and returned to Smolnyi.173
Having heard the delegation’s report, the Milrevkom convened a second meeting of garrison delegates. Who came and on whose behalf cannot be determined. But it did not matter: by now, any casually assembled group could claim to represent the “Revolution.” On the Milrevkom’s motion, the meeting approved a fraudulent statement which claimed that although on October 21 the garrison had designated the Milrevkom as its “organ,” the staff refused both to recognize and to cooperate with it. No mention was made of the fact that the delegation had asked not for “recognition” or “cooperation,” but for authority to countermand the Staffs orders. The resolution went on:
In this manner, the staff has broken with the revolutionary garrison and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Having broken with the organized garrison of the capital, the staff has turned into a direct weapon of counterrevolutionary forces.… Soldiers of Petrograd! (1) The defense of the revolutionary order against counterrevolutionary attempts falls on you, under the leadership of the Military-Revolutionary Committee. (2) All orders concerning the garrison lacking the signature of the Military-Revolutionary Committee are invalid …174
The resolution achieved three objectives: it designated the Provisional Government, allegedly in the name of the Soviet, as “counterrevolutionary”; it divested it of authority over the garrison; and it provided the Milrevkom with an excuse to conceal its bid for power as a defense of the Revolution. It was a declaration of war.
On October 22, having learned of the Milrevkom’s attempt to take over the garrison, the Military Staff gave the Soviet an ultimatum: either retract its orders or face “decisive measures.”175 Thinking it prudent to play for time, the Bolsheviks accepted the ultimatum “in principle” and offered to negotiate even as they were proceeding with the coup.176 Later that day, the staff and the Milrevkom reached agreement on creating a “consultative body” of Soviet representatives to sit on the staff. On October 23, a delegation from the Milrevkom was sent to the staff, ostensibly for talks, but in fact to carry out “reconnaissance.”177 These actions produced the desired effect, which was to prevent the government from arresting the Milrevkom. During the night of October 23–24, the cabinet (which seems to have led a kind of shadowy existence since the Kornilov days) ordered the closing of the two leading Bolshevik dailies and, for the sake of balance, an equal number of right-wing papers, including Zhivoe slovo, which in July had published information on Lenin’s contacts with the Germans. Troops were sent for to protect strategic points, including the Winter Palace. But when Kerensky asked for authority to have the Milrevkom arrested, he was dissuaded on the grounds that the staff was negotiating its differences with the Milrevkom.178