Inayatullah Din
On January 21 in 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at the age of 54. He was the architect of the October Revolution and established the first communist state in Russia. How Lenin’s Bolshevik uprising managed to capture power in October 1917 is an extraordinary story. Today on Lenin’s death anniversary, let’s unfold the events that led to this revolution, which eventually paved the way for the rise of communism as an influential political belief system around the world.
The Russian Revolution was an unprecedented event in the sense that it was the first revolution that was based on a concrete and explicit theory of revolution. The coming of the revolution, though not its details, had been both predicted and anticipated. Another crucial aspect of this Revolution was that it was not projected as a national or a Russian event. Russian Revolution was visualized as an important step in the coming of the world socialist revolution.
It was for this reason that the Russian Revolution was called, not a national revolution but a world revolution, by many scholars. According to the Marxian theory of revolution, it was to take place first in advanced industrial societies as a result of the maturing of the contradictions of capitalism. But the Socialist Revolution occurred in a backward industrial country like Russia. However, the coming of the revolution was nothing short of a storm that had a dramatic impact on the society and people of Russia. After the success of the so-called February revolution, which overthrows the tsarist regime, there was a chaotic situation in Russia. Civilians were not able to exercise any control over the events which were unraveling without intervention by any other forces. There was uncontrolled inflation and extreme industrial unrest.
War was extremely unpopular in 1917, and there was also confusion and chaos among the political parties. At the time of the victory of the February revolution, Bolsheviks were a minority, it was the Mensheviks and other parties who were far more popular with the people. But that mode was very rapidly shifting in favor of political formation that took a more clearly defined leftist line which is the line of the Bolsheviks. People were also questioning the leadership of the Krensky and Bolsheviks were now winning the elections to the factory committees, trade unions, and sending many more representatives to the soviet.
So, in September 1917, popular support was shifting towards the Bolsheviks, and they were then able to score a very important victory which was the capturing the Petrograd soviet which until at that point of time was under the control of Mensheviks and some of the more moderate socialists’ revolutionaries. There was a new presidium in which Bolsheviks took ver. They had the majority representation in the presidium. In the month of September, Lenin mentioned to their party that they must stage an insurrection as quickly as possible and they shouldn’t wait until the second Congress. The first Congress took place in June and the second conference had been scheduled for the 20th of October, and it was hoped by all the leftist parties that a new regime, a constituent assembly can be elected through decisions which are taken at the second Congress of the soviets starting from October 20th. In early October, Lenin was in Finland and one of the early days in October, Lenin quietly slid back to Russia. He came back to Petrograd, and on the 9th of October Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and certain other important dignitaries of the Bolshevik party formed something called Military Revolutionary Committee.
This military organization committee was a kind of an independent committee that consists of Bolsheviks. The work of the revolution has been entrusted to this new military committee on the 9th of October. On 10th October, there was a meeting of the Bolsheviks central committee, in which Lenin’s word prevails and the tide was turning in his favor within the party. So, there was complete chaos everywhere and eventually, they decided to postpone the congress from 20th to 25th of October. Now the most powerful group was the military organization committee which consisted of officers, soldiers, who were pro-Bolshevik, and wanted to overthrow the provincial government and install a socialist government in its place by way of insurrection. There were two strong factions within the same set of armed forces, and there were also hectic propagations and convincing which took place among the soldiers. And, by the 23rd of October, because of this hectic convincing and persuasion by revolutionary leaders, the regiments that were stationed at a place in the capital which was called the Peter & Paul fortress, changed their position and fall in line with the military revolutionary committee. Lenin on the 24th of October said that they should do something by the time the congress opens on the 25th and present it as a fait accompli to be ratified by the congress.
Lenin was very clear about which method needs to be adopted. He wanted to somehow grab the opportunity and seize the power, and very clearly asserted that Russia is confronted by problems that cannot be solved by conferences but exclusively by the struggle of the armed people. The military revolutionary committee was now taking all the important strategic decisions to make the revolution successful. And, on the 25th of October, they captured the telegraph in the capital city, took over the electrical mechanisms and stopped its supply to all of the government offices, they also took over the post offices, and telephone exchanges. 25th of October was the date on which the second congress of the soviet was supposed to convene, and was supposed to start at 2 pm in the afternoon, but Lenin had a plan to finish the job of insurrection by then and present it as a fait accomplishment to the soviet congress, to get the ratification and support from the congress. Lenin on the 25th of October issued a proclamation in the morning, in which he said that the provincial government has been overthrown, and power in Russia has been passed to the military organization committee. And, within the few hours of that proclamation, Kerensky, who was staying in the winter palace, escaped.
The congress was supposed to open at 2 pm, but they kept postponing the beginning of the congress. Finally, they waited till evening and at 9:40 pm there was a blank shot that was fired from the warship Aurora, and it signified the beginning of the revolution. At 10:30 or so in the night, the soviet meeting of the congress finally began its proceedings, and there were about 670 delegates out of whom there were about 300 who were Bolsheviks. So, they were clearly the biggest number and as delegations proceeds in the congress, they had control of the winter palace by the soldiers from the Peters & Paul fortress.
The meeting started at 10:30 in the night and then carried on until 5 or 6 am, and in the morning there was a resolution which was passed by the congress in support of the Bolshevik power, and that signals the final movements of the success of the revolution. Lenin had shown that he meant what he said. In the confused, everchanging scenario that had unfolded from February to October, it was the Bolsheviks alone, under the leadership of Lenin that had understood the needs of the people and assessed the true strengths and weaknesses of the various classes in the country.