Everything about the Petrograd Soviet totally explained
The
Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, usually called the
Petrograd Soviet, was the
soviet (workers' council) in
Petrograd (Saint Petersburg),
Russia established in March 1917 after the
February Revolution as the representative body of the city's workers.
The Petrograd Soviet became important during the
Russian Revolution leading up to the
October Revolution as a rival power center to the
Provisional Government.
Formation
A workers' soviet had been created in Petrograd in 1905 (the
Petrograd Soviet). But the main precursor to the 1917 Petrograd Soviet was the
Central Workers' Group (Центральная Рабочая Група,
Tsentral'naya Rabochaya Grupa), founded in November 1915 by the
Mensheviks to sit between workers and the new Central Military-Industrial Committee in Petrograd. The group became increasingly radical as
World War I progressed and the economic situation became worse, encouraging street demonstrations and issuing revolutionary proclamations.
On
January 27,
1917 (all dates
Old Style) the entire leadership of the Central Workers' Group was arrested and taken away to the
Peter and Paul Fortress on the orders of
Alexander Protopopov, the
Minister of the Interior in
Imperial Russia. They were freed by a crowd of disaffected soldiers on the morning of
February 27, the beginning of the February Revolution, and the chairman declared a meeting to organize and elect a Soviet of Workers' Deputies that day.
That evening between 50 and 300 people attended the meeting at the
Tauride Palace. A provisional
executive committee (
Ispolkom), was chosen with
Nikolay Chkheidze as head and mostly Menshevik deputies. (Chkheize was replaced by
Irakli Tsereteli in late March).
Izvestia was chosen as the official newspaper of the group. The following day, February 28] was the plenary session; elected representatives from
factories and the
military joined the soviet, and again moderates dominated. Non-representative voting and enthusiasm gave the Soviet almost 3,000 deputies in two weeks, of which the majority were soldiers. The meetings were chaotic, confused and unruly, little more than a stage for speechmakers. The party-based Ispolkom quickly took charge of actual decision-making.
Ispolkom
The Ispolkom members came only from political groups, with every socialist party given three seats (agreed
March 18). This created an intellectual and radical head to the peasant-, worker-, and soldier-dominated body. The'Ispolkom meetings were more intense and almost as disorderly as the public meetings and often extremely long.
On
March 1 the Ispolkom resolved to remain outside any new State Duma. This allowed the group to criticize without responsibility and kept them away from any potential backlash. On
March 2 the Soviet received the eight-point program of the
Provisional Committee of the State Duma and appointed an oversight committee (
nabliudatel'nyi komitet) and issued a decidedly conditional statement of support. Worse, the Soviet undermined the Provisional Government by issuing its own orders, beginning with the seven-article
Order No. 1. The Soviet wasn't opposed to the war – internal divisions produced a public ambivalence–but was deeply worried about
counterrevolutionary moves from the military and was determined to have
garrison troops firmly on its side.
Power struggle with the Provisional Government
The Petrograd Soviet developed into an alternate source of
authority to the
Provisional Government under (Prince)
Georgy Lvov and later
Alexander Kerensky·
This created a situation described as
dvoevlastie (
dual power) in which the Petrograd Soviet competed for
legitimacy with the Provisional Government until the October Revolution.
The
Ispolkom often publicly attacked the Provisional Government as
bourgeois and boasted of its
de facto power over
de jure authority (control over
post,
telegraphs, the press,
railroads,
food supply, and other
infrastructure. A "
shadow government" with a
Contact Commission (created
March 8) to "inform... [theProvisional Government] about the demands of the revolutionary people, to exert pressure on the government to satisfy all these demands, and to exercise uninterrupted control over their implementation." On
March 19 the control extended into the military front lines with
commissars appointed with
Ministry of War support.
The
Ispolkom expanded to 19 members on
April 8, nine representing the Soldiers' Section and ten the Workers' Section. All members were socialists, the majority Mensheviks or
Socialist-Revolutionaries; there was no
Bolshevik representation. After the All-Russian Consultation of Soviets, the Petrograd Soviet began adding representatives from other parts of
Russia and the front lines, renaming itself the
All-Russian Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The committee became the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee (
CEC or
VTsIK) with over 70 members (but no
peasant representatives). The mass meeting of the entire body were tapered off, being reduced from daily in the first weeks to roughly weekly by April.
Riots and street protests
Disputes over war aims led to street protests on April 20-21, including military units protesting outside the
Mariinsky Palace. The unrest was quickly directed by Bolshevik leaders into what some interpret as a
coup attempt. The Ispolkom issued proclaimations to restrain disorder and repeatedly quashed
Lavr Kornilov's demands to put troops and
artillery on the streets. There were riots in Petrograd, and also Moscow, but anti-Bolshevik and pro-Provisional Government groups soon stopped the agitators.
The riots deeply worried the Provisional Government. There were a number of
resignations and on
May 1 the Ispolkom voted to allow its members to take Cabinet posts in return for further concessions (the Bolsheviks and the left Menshevik followers of
Julius Martov opposed the move and were against any cooperation with the Provisional Government). After negotiations a new cabinet was chosen on
May 6.
Alexander Guchkov and
Pavel Milyukov, the leader of the
Constitutional Democrats (Cadets), left the government. Alexander Kerensky was moved to the Ministry of War. Six socialists took cabinet posts.
Rise of the Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks rapidly assumed the mantle of the
official opposition and took advantage of the new socialist presence in the Cabinet to attack them for the failures of the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks began a strong run of propaganda. In June 100,000 copies of
Pravda (including
Soldatskaya Pravda,
Golos Pravdy, and
Okopnaya Pravda) were printed daily. In July over 350,000 leaflets were distributed. The
July Days riots from July 16-17 led by the Bolsheviks were without success.
The rise of Kerensky, and the later shock of the
Kornilov affair, polarized the political scene. The Petrograd Soviet moved steadily leftwards just as those of the center and right consolidated around Kerensky. Despite the events in July the Ispolkom moved to protect the Bolsheviks from serious consequences, adopting resolutions on
August 4 and
August 18 against the arrest and prosecution of Bolsheviks. Still leery of the Ispolkom the government released many senior Bolsheviks on
bail or promise of good behavior.
In the
August 20 municipal elections the Bolsheviks took a third of the votes, a 50 percent increase in three months. There was also a general falling away in the attendance of soviet meetings. Indeed, many of the smaller soviets no longer existed except on paper.
During the Kornilov affair the Ispolkom was forced to use the Bolsheviks' military as its main force against the "counter-revolution." Kerensky ordered the distribution of 40,000 rifles to the workers of Petrograd (some
Red Guards), many of which ended in the hands of Bolshevik groups.
As all other socialist parties abandoned the Soviet organizations, the Bolsheviks increased their presence. On
September 25 they gained a majority in the Workers' Section and
Leon Trotsky was elected chairman. He directed the transformation of the Soviet into an adjunct of the party, bypassing the Menshevik-SR Ispolkom and non-Bolshevik soviets to form a new Bolshevik control structure.
The Bolsheviks used their power in the Petrograd Soviet to set-up a second
All-Russian Congress of Soviets on
October 20 (agreed
September 26), despite only eight of 169 soldiers' or workers' soviets expressing support. With the
November elections to the
Constituent Assembly looming the Bolsheviks had to use their power quickly to discredit the elections. The Ispolkom denounced the Congress and the steps the Bolsheviks were taking to create its delegates. Suddenly and without reason, on
October 17, the Ispolkom Bureau approved the Congress.
German advance and Committee of Revolutionary Defense
On
October 6, with a German advance threatening the city, the government - after advice from the military – made plans to evacuate to Moscow. The Ispolkom attacked the move and Trotsky had the still-Menshevik Soldiers' Section vote on a resolution condemning the evacuation. The Provisional Government gave way and delayed any evacuation plans indefinitely. Its attempts to dispatch Petrograd garrison units to the front were resisted by the troops and by the Ispolkom.
On
October 9 the Soviet considered the creation of a Committee of Revolutionary Defence. The Bolsheviks and Leon Trotsky amended the resolution to create a Military Defence Committee, to control the security of Petrograd against both German and
domestic threats. The Plenum of the Soviet voted in favour of a committee to "gather... all the forces participating in the defence of Petrograd... to arm the workers... ensuring the revolutionary defence of Petrograd... against the... military and civilian Kornilovites."
The
Ispolkom approved the resolution, against Menshevik resistance, on
October 12 and the measure was formally approved by the Soviet on
October 16, despite warnings from the Mensheviks and SRs, creating the
Military Revolutionary Committee (
Voenno-Revoliutsionnyi Komitet), also called the
Milrevcom or Military Committee.
The Military-Revolutionary Committee was chaired by
Pavel Evgenyevich Lazimir, with
Nikolay Ilyich Podvoysky as his deputy. Basically it was the front for the activities of the Bolshevik's Military Organization. Podvoysky would take official control of the Committee on the day of the uprising, with
Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko as secretary. The
Ispolkom and the Provisional Government had been cut out of control of the forces in the Petrograd Military District, and without orders the garrison would remain neutral.
The Military Staff was side-lined when the
Milrevcom took exclusive control of the garrison troops in the name of the Soldiers' Section of the Soviet on the night of
October 21. The commander of the District, Colonel Polkovnikov, refused to allow this control and he and his staff were condemned in a
Milrevcom public statement as "a direct weapon of the counter-revolutionary forces." The military command responded with an ultimatum to the Soviet, which lead to delaying negotiations and meetings over
October 23–
October 24.
The Bolshevik uprising began on
October 24, as "counter-revolutionary" forces took modest steps to secure the government. The
Milrevcom sent armed groups to seize the main telegraph offices and lower the bridges across the Neva. Over the night of
October 24, the Bolsheviks took control quickly and easily.
An announcement declaring the end of the Provisional Government and the transfer of power to the Petrograd Soviet was issued by the
Milrevcom at 1000 hours on
October 25 – in fact written by
Lenin. In the early afternoon an Extraordinary Session of the Petrograd Soviet was convened by Trotsky, to pre-empt the Congress of Soviets. It was packed with Bolsheviks and Left SR deputies.
The Second Congress of Soviets opened that evening in the Assembly Hall in Smolnyi. The six hundred or so delegates chose a Presidium of three Mensheviks and twenty-one Bolsheviks and Left SRs. The
Ispolkom rejected the workings of the Congress the following day and called on the Soviets and the army to defend the Revolution.
In the evening session of
October 26 the Congress approved the
Decree on Peace, the
Decree on Land and the formation of a new government under Lenin - the
Council of People's Commissars (
Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov, abbreviated to
Sovnarkom) – until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. The Petrograd Soviet
Ispolkom was dismissed and replaced by a new group of 101 members (62 Bolsheviks) under
Lev Borisovich Kamenev. The
Sovnarkom was accountable to the
Ispolkom in theory, but the organization was in every aspect powerless.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Petrograd Soviet'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://petrograd_soviet.totallyexplained.com">Petrograd Soviet Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
