History of the Russian Revolution. Volume I. What Trotsky did for Soviet Russia Trotsky ld history of the Russian revolution
Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution is the fundamental work of one of the founders of the Bolshevik movement, which was first published in 1930. It explores the connection between the February and October revolutions. All researchers note that the book is politically colored and has a pronounced anti-Stalinist orientation. It was first published in Russia only in 1997.
Book work
Trotsky began working on The History of the Russian Revolution during his first exile to Istanbul. He was expelled from the USSR in 1929, and three years later he was officially deprived of Soviet citizenship.
Abroad, he had to wander around the world. Trotsky lived in France, then in Norway. The Scandinavian country was afraid of deteriorating relations with the USSR, therefore, by all means sought to get rid of an unwanted political immigrant. In Norway, he was put under house arrest and threatened with extradition to the Soviet Union, in fact forcing him to leave. As a result, in 1936 he moved to Mexico. There he lived with a famous artist and
Great help in writing the "History of the Russian Revolution" was provided to Trotsky by his secretaries and assistants. The author himself admitted that without the library and archival research supplied to him by his son Lev Sedov, he would not have written any of his books, and especially the History of the Russian Revolution. Trotsky published the book as a series of articles in American magazines. In total, he received 45 thousand dollars for this.
The fate of the book
Volume 1 of Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution" is devoted to episodes of Russian political history. First of all, the February Revolution. In volume 2 of the History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky talks about the October Revolution.
The author himself in the preface to the publication noted that the key conclusion to be drawn from this work is that the revolution of 1905 was only a shell in which the true core of the October Revolution was hidden.
At present, the manuscript of this book is kept in America, at the Hoover Institution. It remains the main rarity of the entire archive of the famous Bolshevik.
In the Soviet Union, "The History of the Russian Revolution" by Lev Davidovich Trotsky, of course, was not published. It became available to the Russian reader only in 1997, when the 80th anniversary of the revolution in Petrograd was celebrated.
The famous historian Yuri Emelyanov justified the ban on reading Trotsky's works in this way. The Soviet leadership allegedly believed that if you read Trotsky, then you become infected with his ideas and become a Trotskyist yourself. The current government could not allow this.
Criticism of the "History of the Russian Revolution"
Many researchers reacted ambiguously to this work of Trotsky. For example, the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, having read this two-volume work, was greatly surprised. He noted that in this book he agrees with Trotsky in a general assessment of the events of the February Revolution, as well as in the role that the moderate socialist center played in this.
At the same time, he believed that the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky was mainly connected with the envy of the generalissimo for the mind of his former party ally.
Another authoritative researcher, Soltan Dzasarov, called this book by Trotsky, as well as the work The Revolution Betrayed, a work deserving special attention. In his opinion, this is a large-scale epic canvas that describes one of the greatest events in world history.
Features of Trotsky's studies
When the Russian edition appeared in the 1990s, it was accompanied by a foreword by Professor Nikolai Vasetsky. In it, the scientist notes that the main value of the book lies in the fact that it was written by an active and direct participant in revolutionary events, who knows everything not from documents, but from his own personal experience.
In addition, Vasetsky notes that the author made an attempt in this book to become not just a publicist and memoirist, but also a deep researcher, tried to give an objective picture of one of the greatest events of the entire 20th century. At the same time, it was noted in the preface that the book contains enough overexposures, as well as hushing up of individual historical events in favor of the political situation.
On the pages of the "History of the Russian Revolution" it is clearly seen how Trotsky hates Stalin, without hiding this attitude towards the leader of the USSR. At that time, he dreamed perhaps more than anyone else about the overthrow of the Soviet leader.
Therefore, researchers have to state with great regret that the work turned out to be too subjective, much of what Trotsky writes about is half-truth.
The theory has a strong influence. This is the theory according to which revolutionary processes develop in underdeveloped and peripheral countries.
History of the revolution
Trotsky uses an analysis of the history of the February and October revolutions to provide additional arguments in favor of his theory of the uneven development of certain backward countries. At the same time, at the beginning of the 20th century, he refers the Russian Empire to the backward states.
The statements about this work of Trotsky by the famous Polish-English biographer of the politician Isaac Deutscher are interesting. In his opinion, in this work the author deliberately belittles his role, bringing to the fore the figure of Vladimir Lenin. In many ways, this is done in order to later contrast it with the figure of Stalin.
Domestic researcher Vasetsky categorically disagrees with him. On the contrary, he believes that the role of Trotsky in the events described is unnecessarily exaggerated. Vasetsky was sure that with the help of this book, Trotsky, who suffered a crushing defeat in the inner-party struggle at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, was trying to replay his past.
Fundamental work
Many foreign Trotskyists called this book a fundamental work. For example, the American David North, who regretted only that he could not read it in the original language. Many biographers of the leader of the Bolshevik party agree with his assessment - Georgy Chernyavsky, Yuri Felshtinsky. They consider it the author's most significant work on historical issues. At the same time, the book has not lost its historiographical significance even at the beginning of the 21st century, because there are still many disputes about the assessment of those events. At the same time, they accuse Vasetsky himself of tendentiousness, although they agree that the book is overly politically colored.
British-American scholar Perry Anderson writes about the book "History of the Russian Revolution" as a vivid example of Marxist historical analysis, as well as the unity of the reproduction of the past, in which the skill of the historian is intertwined with the experience of Trotsky's political leader and organizer.
Trotsky's best work
This is how the Russian biographer Lev Volkogonov assessed The History of the Russian Revolution. He believed that even if the exile did not write anything else, his name would forever remain would be among the most important historical writers.
Also interesting is the opinion of the American astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who always brought copies of this particular book to the USSR in order to acquaint his colleagues with the hushed up aspects of their history. It is important that the popularity of this work does not fade to this day. Reviews of new publications are regularly published in the socialist press. Indeed, in it the author spoke as frankly as possible about the February Revolution. Trotsky formulated many problems that people were simply afraid to talk about for decades.
Stalin's reaction
In response to the publication of the "History of the Russian Revolution", Joseph Stalin in 1931 published a response article in the journal "Proletarian Revolution". It was published under the title "On Some Questions in the History of Bolshevism."
Many researchers consider it as the Generalissimo's response to this and other books by Trotsky that appeared during that period. Stalin reduces the meaning of his article to the need to stop any discussion on problems of the history of the revolution and the party. And in conclusion, he urges under no circumstances to allow a literary discussion with the Trotskyists.
FOREWORD TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION
FOREWORD
PECULIARITIES OF RUSSIA'S DEVELOPMENT
TSAR RUSSIA IN THE WAR
PROLETARIAT AND PEASANTRY
KING AND QUEEN
PALACE REVOLUTION IDEA
THE AGONY OF MONARCHY
FIVE DAYS
WHO LEAD THE FEBRUARY UPRISING?
THE PARADOX OF THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION
NEW POWER
DUALITY
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
ARMY AND WAR
RULING AND WAR
Bolsheviks and Lenin
RE-ARMING THE PARTY
"APRIL DAYS"
FIRST COALITION
OFFENSIVE
PEASANTRY
SHIFTS IN THE MASS
SOVIET CONGRESS AND JUNE DEMONSTRATION
CONCLUSION
APPENDICES To the chapter "Peculiarities of Russia's development"
To the chapter "Rearmament of the party"
To the chapter "The Soviet Congress and the June Demonstration"
FOREWORD TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION
The February Revolution is considered a democratic revolution in the proper sense of the word. Politically, it developed under the leadership of two democratic parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. The return to the "precepts" of the February Revolution is even now the official dogma of the so-called democracy. All this seems to give grounds for thinking that democratic ideologists should hasten to sum up the historical and theoretical results of the February experience, reveal the reasons for its collapse, determine what its “precepts” actually consist of and what is the path to their implementation. Both democratic parties have, moreover, enjoyed considerable leisure for more than thirteen years, and each of them has a staff of writers who, in any case, cannot be denied experience. And yet we do not have a single noteworthy work of the democrats on the democratic revolution. The leaders of the compromising parties are clearly hesitant to restore the course of development of the February Revolution, in which they happened to play such a prominent role. Isn't it surprising? No, it's quite okay. The leaders of vulgar democracy are the more wary of the real February Revolution, the more boldly they swear by its disembodied precepts. The fact that they themselves occupied leading positions for several months in 1917 is precisely what makes them turn their eyes away from the events of that time. For the deplorable role of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (how ironic that name now sounds!) reflected not just the personal weakness of the leaders, but the historical degeneration of vulgar democracy and the doom of the February Revolution as a democratic one.
The whole point is - and this is the main conclusion of this book - that the February Revolution was only a shell in which the core of the October Revolution was hidden. The history of the February Revolution is the history of how the October core freed itself from its conciliatory veils. If the vulgar democrats dared to objectively state the course of events, they could just as little call on anyone to return to February as it is impossible to call on the ear to return to the seed that gave birth to it. That is why the masterminds of the bastard February regime are now forced to turn a blind eye to their own historical climax, which was the culmination of their failure.
True, one can refer to the fact that liberalism, in the person of the professor of history Miliukov, nevertheless tried to settle accounts with the "second Russian revolution." But Miliukov does not at all hide the fact that he only endured the February Revolution. There is hardly any possibility of classifying a national-liberal monarchist as a democracy, even a vulgar one, not on the same grounds, in fact, that he reconciled himself to the republic when nothing else was left? But, even leaving political considerations aside, Miliukov's work on the February Revolution cannot in any sense be considered a scholarly work. The leader of liberalism appears in his "History" as a victim, as a plaintiff, but not as a historian. His three books are read like a drawn-out editorial of Rech in the days of the collapse of the Kornilov region. Miliukov accuses all classes and all parties of not helping his class and his party to concentrate power in their hands. Milyukov attacks the democrats because they did not want or did not know how to be consistent national liberals. At the same time, he himself is forced to testify that the more the democrats approached national liberalism, the more they lost support among the masses. In the end, he has no choice but to accuse the Russian people of having committed the crime called revolution. Miliukov, while writing his three-volume editorial, was still trying to look for the instigators of the Russian turmoil in Ludendorff's office. Cadet patriotism, as you know, consists in explaining the greatest events in the history of the Russian people as directed by the German
which agents, but seeks in favor of the "Russian people" to take away Constantinople from the Turks. Milyukov's historical work adequately completes the political orbit of Russian national liberalism.
Revolution, like history as a whole, can only be understood as an objectively conditioned process. The development of peoples raises tasks that cannot be solved by other methods than revolution. In certain epochs, these methods are imposed with such force that the whole nation is drawn into a tragic whirlpool. There is nothing more pathetic than moralizing about great social catastrophes! Spinoza's rule is especially appropriate here: do not cry, do not laugh, but understand.
The problems of the economy, the state, politics, law, but next to them also the problems of the family, the individual, and artistic creation are being re-posed by the revolution and revised from top to bottom. There is not a single area of human creativity in which truly national revolutions would not enter as great milestones. This alone, let us note in passing, gives the most convincing expression to the monism of historical development. Exposing all the fabrics of society, the revolution throws a bright light on the basic problems of sociology, that most unfortunate of sciences, which academic thought feeds on vinegar and kicks. The problems of economy and state, class and nation, party and class, individual and society are raised during great social upheavals with the utmost force of tension. If the revolution does not immediately resolve any of the questions that gave rise to it, creating only new prerequisites for their resolution, it does, however, expose all the problems of social life to the end. And in sociology, more than anywhere else, the art of knowledge is the art of exposure.
Needless to say, our work does not claim to be complete. The reader has before him mainly the political history of the revolution. Economic questions are involved only insofar as they are necessary for understanding the political process. The problems of culture are completely left out of the scope of the study. It must not be forgotten, however, that the process of revolution, that is, the direct struggle of classes for power, is, by its very essence, a political process.
The second volume of "History", dedicated to the October Revolution, the author hopes to publish in the autumn of this year.
L. Trotsky
FOREWORD
In the first two months of 1917, Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later, the Bolsheviks were already at the helm, about whom few knew at the beginning of the year and whose leaders, at the very moment of coming to power, were still under charges of treason. There is no other such sharp turn in history, especially if we do not forget that we are talking about a nation of one and a half hundred million souls. It is clear that the events of 1917, however one regards them, are worth studying.
The history of the revolution, like any history, must first of all tell what happened and how. However, this is not enough. From the story itself, it should become clear why it happened this way and not otherwise. Events can neither be seen as a chain of adventures, nor be strung on a string of preconceived morals. They must obey their own laws. In the disclosure of its author and sees his task.
Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most controversial figures in the history of the 20th century. He was the ideologist of the revolution, created the Red Army and the Comintern, dreamed of a world revolution, but became a victim of his own ideas.
"Demon of the Revolution"
Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was pivotal. You can even say that without his participation, it would have collapsed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.
The importance of Trotsky for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrosoviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who in the future would become Trotsky's main enemy, wrote in 1918: "All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky." During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city.
Trotsky was called the "demon of the revolution", but he was also one of its economists.
Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" about Trotsky, it is written that he was closely associated with the Wall Street bigwigs and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally issued Trotsky a passport and allocated $10,000 to the "demon of the revolution" (over $200,000 in today's money).
This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the New Life newspaper on rumors about dollars from bankers:
“Regarding the story with 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither
government, nor I knew anything about it until the news about her
already here, in Russian circles and in the Russian press.” Trotsky further wrote:
“Two days before my departure from New York for Europe, my German associates arranged for me” a farewell meeting. At this rally, a meeting was held for the Russian revolution. The collection gave $310”.
However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.
Creation of the Red Army
Trotsky also has the merit of creating the Red Army. He set a course for building an army on traditional principles: unity of command, the restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, the restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on the Khodynka field.
An important step in the creation of the Red Army was the fight against the "military anarchism" of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky restored executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the red commanders how to restore discipline.
On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment arbitrarily fled from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation to deserters (execution of every tenth by lot).
On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. With the filing of Trotsky, by a decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service aged 18 to 40 years was registered, military horse service was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, about half a million people were already in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.
detachments
When it comes to barrage detachments, they usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back”, however, in the creation of barrage detachments, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent. It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs Around October, he wrote that he himself justified to Lenin the need to create detachments:
“In order to overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments made up of communists and militants in general. Must be forced to fight. If you wait until the man is out of his senses, perhaps it will be too late.
Trotsky was generally sharp in his judgments: “As long as, proud of their technology, evil tailless monkeys called people build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between possible death ahead and inevitable death behind.”
Over-industrialization
Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first way, which was supported by Nikolai Bukharin, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.
Trotsky, on the other hand, insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted in growth with the help of internal resources, using the means of agriculture and light industry to develop heavy industry.
The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything took 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to "pay" for the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the "Bukharin approach", then by the beginning of 1928, Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to forced industrialization. In order to catch up with the developed countries of the West, it was necessary to “run a distance of 50-100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.
red five pointed star
Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential "art directors" of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR. With its official approval by order of the People's Commissar of the Republic of Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name "Mars star with a plow and a hammer." The order also stated that this sign "is the property of persons serving in the Red Army."
Seriously fond of esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.
The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become a symbol of Soviet Russia. She was depicted on the "kerenki", swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Fedorovna before being shot, but by the sole decision of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century has shown that the "star" is stronger than the "swastika". Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.
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| History of the Russian Revolution. Volume I
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The February Revolution is considered a democratic revolution in the proper sense of the word. Politically, it developed under the leadership of two democratic parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. The return to the "precepts" of the February Revolution is even now the official dogma of the so-called democracy. All this seems to give reason to think that democratic ideologists should hasten to sum up the historical and theoretical results of the February experience, reveal the reasons for its collapse, determine what its “precepts” actually consist of and what is the path to their implementation. Both democratic parties have, moreover, enjoyed considerable leisure for more than thirteen years, and each of them has a staff of writers who, in any case, cannot be denied experience. And yet we do not have a single noteworthy work of the democrats on the democratic revolution. The leaders of the compromising parties are clearly hesitant to restore the course of development of the February Revolution, in which they happened to play such a prominent role. Isn't it surprising? No, it's quite okay. The leaders of vulgar democracy are the more wary of the real February Revolution, the more boldly they swear by its disembodied precepts. The fact that they themselves occupied leading positions for several months in 1917 is precisely what makes them turn their eyes away from the events of that time. For the deplorable role of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (how ironic that name now sounds!) reflected not just the personal weakness of the leaders, but the historical degeneration of vulgar democracy and the doom of the February Revolution as a democratic one.
The whole point is - and this is the main conclusion of this book - that the February Revolution was only a shell in which the core of the October Revolution was hidden. The history of the February Revolution is the history of how the October core freed itself from its conciliatory veils. If the vulgar democrats dared to objectively state the course of events, they could just as little call on anyone to return to February as it is impossible to call on the ear to return to the seed that gave birth to it. That is why the masterminds of the bastard February regime are now forced to turn a blind eye to their own historical climax, which was the culmination of their failure.
True, one can refer to the fact that liberalism, in the person of the professor of history Miliukov, nevertheless tried to settle accounts with the "second Russian revolution". But Miliukov does not at all hide the fact that he only endured the February Revolution. There is hardly any possibility of classifying a national-liberal monarchist as a democracy, however vulgar, not on the same grounds, indeed, that he reconciled himself to a republic when nothing else was left? But, even leaving political considerations aside, Miliukov's work on the February Revolution cannot in any sense be considered a scholarly work.
The leader of liberalism appears in his History as a victim, as a plaintiff, but not as a historian. His three books are read like a drawn-out editorial of Rech in the days of the collapse of the Kornilov region. Miliukov accuses all classes and all parties of not helping his class and his party to concentrate power in their hands. Milyukov attacks the democrats because they did not want or did not know how to be consistent national liberals. At the same time, he himself is forced to testify that the more the democrats approached national liberalism, the more they lost support among the masses. In the end, he has no choice but to accuse the Russian people of having committed the crime called revolution. Miliukov, while writing his three-volume editorial, was still trying to look for the instigators of the Russian turmoil in Ludendorff's office. Cadet patriotism, as you know, consists in explaining the greatest events in the history of the Russian people as directed by German agents, but on the other hand, it strives in favor of the “Russian people” to take away Constantinople from the Turks. Milyukov's historical work adequately completes the political orbit of Russian national liberalism.
Revolution, like history as a whole, can only be understood as an objectively conditioned process. The development of peoples raises tasks that cannot be solved by other methods than revolution. In certain epochs, these methods are imposed with such force that the whole nation is drawn into a tragic whirlpool. There is nothing more pathetic than moralizing about great social catastrophes! Spinoza's rule is especially appropriate here: do not cry, do not laugh, but understand.
The problems of the economy, the state, politics, law, but next to them also the problems of the family, the individual, and artistic creation are being re-posed by the revolution and revised from top to bottom. There is not a single area of human creativity in which truly national revolutions would not enter as great milestones. This alone, let us note in passing, gives the most convincing expression to the monism of historical development. Exposing all the fabrics of society, the revolution throws a bright light on the basic problems of sociology, that most unfortunate of sciences, which academic thought feeds on vinegar and kicks. The problems of economy and state, class and nation, party and class, individual and society are raised during great social upheavals with the utmost force of tension. If the revolution does not immediately resolve any of the questions that gave rise to it, creating only new prerequisites for their resolution, it does, however, expose all the problems of social life to the end. And in sociology, more than anywhere else, the art of knowledge is the art of exposure.
Needless to say, our work does not claim to be complete. The reader has before him mainly the political history of the revolution. Economic questions are involved only insofar as they are necessary for understanding the political process. The problems of culture are completely left out of the scope of the study. It must not be forgotten, however, that the process of revolution, that is, the direct struggle of classes for power, is, by its very essence, a political process.
The second volume of the "History", dedicated to the October Revolution, the author hopes to publish in the autumn of this year.
Prinkipo, February 25, 1931
L. Trotsky
In the first two months of 1917, Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later, the Bolsheviks were already at the helm, about whom few knew at the beginning of the year and whose leaders, at the very moment of coming to power, were still under charges of treason. There is no other such sharp turn in history, especially if we do not forget that we are talking about a nation of one and a half hundred million souls. It is clear that the events of 1917, however one regards them, are worth studying.
The history of the revolution, like any history, must first of all tell what happened and how. However, this is not enough. From the story itself, it should become clear why it happened this way and not otherwise. Events can neither be seen as a chain of adventures, nor be strung on a string of preconceived morals. They must obey their own laws. In the disclosure of its author and sees his task.
The most indisputable feature of a revolution is the direct intervention of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, monarchical as well as democratic, rises above the nation; History is made by specialists in this field: monarchs, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those turning points, when the old order becomes more unbearable for the masses, they break down the barriers separating them from the political arena, overthrow their traditional representatives and create, by their intervention, a starting point for the new regime. Whether this is good or bad, we will leave it to the moralists to judge. We ourselves take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development. The history of the revolution is for us, first of all, the history of the forcible intrusion of the masses into the realm of controlling their own destinies.
Classes are fighting in a society engulfed by revolution. It is quite obvious, however, that the changes that take place between the beginning of a revolution and its end, in the economic foundations of society and in the social substratum of classes, are completely insufficient to explain the course of the revolution itself, which, in a short space of time, overthrows age-old institutions, creates new ones, and overthrows again. . The dynamics of revolutionary events is directly determined by the rapid, intense and passionate changes in the psychology of the classes that had taken shape before the revolution.
The fact is that society does not change its institutions as needed, as a master renews his tools. On the contrary, it practically takes the institutions hanging over it as something given once and for all. For decades, oppositional criticism has been nothing but a safety valve for mass discontent and a condition for the stability of the social system: criticism of social democracy, for example, has acquired such fundamental importance. Absolutely exceptional conditions are needed, independent of the will of individuals or parties, which will break the fetters of conservatism from discontent and lead the masses to insurrection.
Rapid changes in mass views and moods in the era of revolution, therefore, result not from the flexibility and mobility of the human psyche, but, on the contrary, from its deep conservatism. The chronic lagging behind of ideas and relations from the new objective conditions, up to the moment when the latter fall upon people in the form of a catastrophe, gives rise during the period of revolution to a spasmodic movement of ideas and passions, which seems to the police heads to be a simple result of the activity of "demagogues".
The masses enter the revolution not with a ready-made plan for social reorganization, but with a keen sense of the impossibility of enduring the old. Only the leading stratum of the class has a political program, which, however, still needs to be verified by events and approved by the masses. The main political process of the revolution consists in the comprehension by the class of the tasks arising from the social crisis, in the active orientation of the masses according to the method of successive approximations. The individual stages of the revolutionary process, reinforced by the replacement of one party by another, more and more extreme, express the growing pressure of the masses to the left, until the scope of the movement rests on objective obstacles. Then the reaction begins: the disappointment of certain sections of the revolutionary class, the growth of indifference and, thereby, the strengthening of the positions of the counter-revolutionary forces. Such, at least, is the scheme of the old revolutions.
Only on the basis of studying the political processes in the masses themselves can one understand the role of parties and leaders, whom we are least inclined to ignore. They constitute, although not independent, but a very important element of the process. Without a guiding organization, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a cylinder with a piston. But it is not the cylinder or the piston that moves, it is the steam that moves.
The difficulties that stand in the way of studying the changes in mass consciousness in the era of revolution are quite obvious. The oppressed classes are making history in the factories, in the barracks, in the villages, on the streets of the cities. At the same time, they are the least accustomed to writing it down. Periods of the highest tension of social passions generally leave little room for contemplation and reflection. All muses, even the plebeian muse of journalism, despite her strong sides, have a hard time during the revolution. Yet the position of the historian is by no means hopeless. Records are incomplete, scattered, random. But in the light of the events themselves, these fragments often make it possible to guess the direction and rhythm of the underlying process. For better or worse, the revolutionary party bases its tactics on taking into account changes in the mass consciousness. The historical path of Bolshevism shows that such an account, at least in its rough outlines, is feasible. Why, then, what is available to the revolutionary politician in the maelstrom of struggle cannot be available to the historian retroactively?
However, the processes taking place in the consciousness of the masses are neither self-sufficient nor independent. No matter how angry the idealists and eclectics may be, consciousness is nevertheless determined by being. In the historical conditions of the formation of Russia, its economy, its classes, its state, in the influence of other states on it, the prerequisites for the February Revolution and its replacement, the October Revolution, should have been laid. Since the fact that a backward country was the first to put the proletariat in power seems to be the most puzzling, we must first look for the clue to this fact in the uniqueness of this backward country, i.e., in its differences from other countries.
The historical features of Russia and their specific weight are characterized by us in the first chapters of the book, which conclude a brief outline of the development of Russian society and its internal forces. We would like to hope that the inevitable sketchiness of these chapters will not deter the reader. Throughout the rest of the book, he will meet the same social forces in action.
This work is not based in any way on personal memoirs. The fact that the author was a participant in the events did not relieve him of the obligation to build his presentation on strictly verified documents. The author of the book speaks of himself as he is forced to do so by the course of events, in the third person. And this is no mere literary form: the subjective tone inevitable in an autobiography or memoir would be unacceptable in a historical work.
However, the fact that the author was a participant in the struggle naturally makes it easier for him to understand not only the psychology of the actors, individual and collective, but also the internal connection of events. This advantage can give positive results under one condition: not to rely on the readings of one's memory, not only in small things, but also in large ones, not only in respect of facts, but also in respect of motives or moods. The author believes that, as far as it depended on him, he complied with this condition.
The question remains about the political position of the author, who, as a historian, is on the same point of view, which he stood as a participant in the events. The reader is, of course, under no obligation to share the author's political views, which the latter has no reason to conceal. But the reader has the right to demand that the historical work is not an apology for a political position, but an internally justified depiction of the real process of the revolution. A historical work fully fulfills its purpose only when events unfold on its pages in all their natural coercion.
Is so-called historical "impartiality" necessary for this? No one has yet clearly explained what it should consist of. The oft-quoted words of Clemenceau that the revolution must be accepted en bloc, as a whole, are at best a witty subterfuge: how can one declare oneself a supporter of a whole whose essence consists in a split? Clemenceau's aphorism is dictated partly by embarrassment for too determined ancestors, partly by the clumsiness of the descendant in front of their shadows.
One of the reactionary and therefore fashionable historians of modern France, L. Madeleine, who slandered the Great Revolution, i.e., the birth of the French nation, in such a saloon, asserts that “the historian must stand on the wall of the threatened city and at the same time see both the besiegers and the besieged”: only in this way can one supposedly achieve "reconciling justice." However, Madeleine's own work testifies that if he climbs the wall that separates the two camps, it is only as a scout of the reaction. It is good that in this case we are talking about the camps of the past: during the revolution, staying on the wall is fraught with great dangers. However, in anxious moments, the priests of "reconciling justice" usually sit within four walls, waiting to see which side will win.
The serious and critical reader does not need perfidious impartiality, which presents him with the goblet of reconciliation with the well-settled poison of reactionary hatred at the bottom, but scientific conscientiousness, which, for its sympathies and antipathies, open, undisguised, seeks support in an honest study of facts, in establishing their real connection. , in discovering the patterns of their movement. This is the only possible historical objectivism, and, moreover, quite sufficient, for it is verified and verified not by the good intentions of the historian, for which, moreover, he himself vouches, but by the regularity of the historical process itself discovered by him.
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The sources of this book are numerous periodicals, newspapers and magazines, memoirs, protocols and other materials, partly handwritten, but mainly published by the Institute for the History of the Revolution in Moscow and Leningrad. We considered it superfluous to make references to individual publications in the text, since this would only complicate the reader. Of the books that have the character of consolidated historical works, we used, in particular, the two-volume Essays on the History of the October Revolution (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927). Written by different authors, the constituent parts of these "Essays" are of unequal value, but contain, in any case, abundant factual material.
The chronological dates of our book are everywhere indicated according to the old style, i.e., they lag behind the world, including the current Soviet, calendar by 13 days. The author was forced to use the calendar that was in force during the revolution. True, it would not be difficult to translate the dates into the new style. But such an operation, eliminating some difficulties, would give rise to others, more significant ones. The overthrow of the monarchy went down in history under the name of the February Revolution. According to the Western calendar, however, it happened in March. The armed demonstration against the imperialist policy of the Provisional Government went down in history under the name of the "April Days," meanwhile, according to the Western calendar, it took place in May. Without dwelling on other intermediate events and dates, we also note that the October Revolution took place, according to European reckoning, in November. The calendar itself, as we see, is colored by events, and the historian cannot deal with the revolutionary chronology with the help of simple arithmetic operations. The reader is only good enough to remember that, before overturning the Byzantine calendar, the revolution had to overturn the institutions that held on to it.
Prinkipo, November 14, 1930
L. Trotsky
The main, most stable feature of the history of Russia is the slow nature of its development, with the resulting economic backwardness, the primitiveness of social forms, and the low level of culture.
The population of a gigantic and harsh plain, open to east winds and Asian immigrants, was doomed by nature itself to a long lag. The struggle against the nomads lasted almost until the end of the 17th century. The struggle against the winds that bring cold in winter and drought in summer has not ended even now. Agriculture - the basis of all development - advanced in extensive ways: forests were cut down and burned in the North, virgin steppes exploded in the South; the mastery of nature went in breadth, not in depth.
While the Western barbarians settled on the ruins of Roman culture, where many old stones became their building material, the Slavs of the East did not find any inheritance on the desolate plain: their predecessors stood on an even lower level than themselves. The Western European peoples, who soon ran into their natural boundaries, created economic and cultural clusters of industrial cities. The population of the eastern plain, at the first sign of crowding, went deep into the forests or went to the outskirts, to the steppe. The most enterprising and enterprising elements of the peasantry became townspeople, artisans, and merchants in the West. Active and courageous elements in the East became partly merchants, and more - Cossacks, border guards, colonizers. The process of social differentiation, intense in the West, was delayed and eroded by the process of expansion in the East. “The Tsar of Muscovy, although Christian, rules over people of a lazy mind,” wrote Viko, a contemporary of Peter I. The “lazy mind” of the Muscovites reflected the slow pace of economic development, the formlessness of class relations, and the paucity of internal history.
The ancient civilizations of Egypt, India, and China were sufficiently self-sufficient and had sufficient time to, in spite of their low productive forces, bring their social relations to almost the same detailed perfection to which the artisans of these countries brought their products. Russia stood not only geographically between Europe and Asia, but also socially and historically. It differed from the European West, but it also differed from the Asian East, approaching in different periods, in different ways, first to one, then to the other. The East gave the Tatar yoke, which became an important element in the structure of the Russian state. The West was an even more formidable enemy, but at the same time a teacher. Russia did not have the opportunity to take shape in the forms of the East, because it always had to adapt to the military and economic pressure of the West.
The existence of feudal relations in Russia, which was denied by former historians, can be considered unconditionally proven by later studies. Moreover, the basic elements of Russian feudalism were the same as in the West. But the mere fact that the feudal epoch had to be established through long scientific disputes is sufficient evidence of the prematurity of Russian feudalism, its formlessness, and the poverty of its cultural monuments.
A backward country assimilates the material and ideological gains of the advanced countries. But this does not mean that she slavishly follows them, reproducing all the stages of their past. The theory of the repetition of historical cycles - Vico and his later followers - is based on observations over the orbits of old, pre-capitalist cultures, in part - the first experiences of capitalist development. The provincial nature and episodic nature of the whole process was indeed connected with a certain repetition of cultural stages in new and new centers. Capitalism means, however, overcoming these conditions. He prepared and, in a sense, brought about the universality and permanence of human development. This excludes the possibility of repeating the forms of development of individual nations. Forced to follow the advanced countries, the backward country does not respect the queues: the privilege of historical belatedness - and such a privilege exists - allows or, rather, forces to assimilate what is ready ahead of schedule, jumping over a number of intermediate stages. The savages exchange the bow for the rifle at once, without making the path that ran between these weapons in the past. European colonists in America did not start history from the beginning. The fact that Germany or the United States has outstripped England economically is precisely due to the belatedness of their capitalist development. On the contrary, the conservative anarchy in the British coal industry, as in the minds of MacDonald and his friends, is a retribution for the past, when England played the role of capitalist hegemon for too long. The development of a historically belated nation leads, of necessity, to a peculiar combination of different stages of the historical process. The orbit as a whole acquires an unplanned, complex combined character.
The possibility of jumping over intermediate steps is, of course, by no means absolute; its dimensions are determined, after all, by the economic and cultural capacity of the country. In addition, a backward nation often reduces the ready-made achievements it borrows from outside by adapting them to its more primitive culture. The very process of assimilation acquires a contradictory character. Thus, the introduction of elements of Western technology and training, primarily military and manufacturing, under Peter I led to the aggravation of serfdom as the main form of labor organization. European armaments and European loans - both of which are indisputable products of a higher culture - led to the strengthening of tsarism, which, in turn, hampered the development of the country.
The History of the Russian Revolution` can be considered the central work of Trotsky in terms of volume, strength of presentation and completeness of expression of Trotsky's ideas about the revolution. As a story about the revolution of one of the main characters, this work is unique in world literature - this is how the well-known Western historian I. Deutscher assessed this book. Nevertheless, it has never been published either in the USSR or in Russia and is only now being offered to the Russian reader. The first volume is devoted to the political history of the February Revolution.
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The following excerpt from the book History of the Russian Revolution. Volume I (L. D. Trotsky) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.
FIVE DAYS
February 23 was International Women's Day. It was supposed to be celebrated in social-democratic circles in the general order: meetings, speeches, leaflets. It never occurred to anyone the day before that Women's Day could be the first day of the revolution. None of the organizations called for strikes that day. Moreover, even the Bolshevik organization, moreover the most militant one: the committee of the Vyborg district, who were all workers, kept them from strikes. The mood of the masses, as Kayurov, one of the workers' leaders of the region, testifies, was very tense, each strike threatened to turn into an open clash. And since the committee believed that the time had not come for hostilities: the party was not strong enough, and the workers had few ties with the soldiers, it decided not to call for strikes, but to prepare for revolutionary actions in an indefinite future. This line was pursued by the committee on the eve of February 23, and it seemed that everyone accepted it. But the next morning, contrary to all directives, the textile workers of several factories went on strike and sent delegates to the metalworkers with an appeal to support the strike. "Reluctantly," writes Kayurov, the Bolsheviks went for it, followed by the workers - the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. But since there was a mass strike, it was necessary to call everyone on the street and take the lead yourself: Kayurov had made such a decision, and the Vyborg Committee had to approve it. “The idea of a demonstration had long been ripening among the workers, only at that moment no one imagined what it would lead to.” Let us remember this testimony of the participant, which is very important for understanding the mechanics of events.
It was considered certain in advance that, in the event of a demonstration, the soldiers would be led out of the barracks into the streets against the workers. Where it leads? Time of war, the authorities are not inclined to joke. But, on the other hand, a “reserve” wartime soldier is not an old soldier of a regular army. Is he really that formidable? This topic was discussed in revolutionary circles, though much, but rather abstractly, for no one, absolutely no one - this can be categorically asserted on the basis of all the materials - did not even think at that time that the day of February 23 would be the beginning of a decisive offensive against absolutism. It was a demonstration with uncertain, but in any case limited prospects.
The fact, therefore, is that the February Revolution was started from below, overcoming the opposition of their own revolutionary organizations, and the initiative was arbitrarily taken by the most oppressed and oppressed part of the proletariat - textile workers, among them, presumably, quite a few soldiers' wives. The last impetus was the increased grain tails. About 90,000 working women and workers went on strike that day. The fighting mood resulted in demonstrations, rallies and clashes with the police. The movement unfolded in the Vyborg district, with its large enterprises, from there it spread to the Petersburg side. In other parts of the city, according to the Okhrana, there were no strikes or demonstrations. On this day, military detachments were also called in to help the police, apparently not numerous, but there were no clashes with them. A mass of women, and not only workers, went to the City Duma demanding bread. It was like demanding milk from a goat. Red banners appeared in different parts of the city, and the inscriptions on them testified that the working people wanted bread, but did not want either autocracy or war. Women's Day was a success, with enthusiasm and without casualties. But what he concealed in himself, even by the evening no one guessed about it.
The next day, the movement not only did not fall, but doubled: about half of the industrial workers of Petrograd went on strike on February 24. Workers come to the factories in the morning, without starting work, open rallies, then processions begin towards the center. New areas and new population groups are drawn into the movement. The slogan: "Bread" is pushed aside or blocked by the slogans: "Down with the autocracy" and "Down with the war." Continuous demonstrations on Nevsky Prospekt: at first, in compact masses of workers, singing revolutionary songs, later, a motley city crowd, and in it the blue caps of students. “The walking public treated us sympathetically, and from some infirmaries the soldiers greeted us with a wave, whoever could.” How many were aware of what this sympathetic waving of sick soldiers at the demonstrators brings with it? But the Cossacks continuously, though without bitterness, attacked the crowd, their horses were in soap; The demonstrators spread out from side to side and closed up again. There was no fear in the crowd. “The Cossacks promise not to shoot,” was passed from mouth to mouth. Obviously, the workers had conversations with individual Cossacks. Later, however, half-drunk dragoons appeared cursing, crashed into the crowd, and began to beat their heads with lances. The demonstrators braced themselves with all their might, without scattering. "They won't shoot." Indeed, they did not shoot.
The liberal senator watched dead trams on the streets - or was it the next day, and his memory betrayed him? - some with broken glass, and others sideways on the ground near the rails, and recalled the July days of 1914, on the eve of the war: "It seemed that the old attempt was being renewed." The senator's eye did not deceive him - the continuity was obvious: history picked up the ends of the revolutionary thread torn by the war and tied them in a knot.
Throughout the day, crowds of people poured from one part of the city to another, vigorously dispersed by the police, detained and pushed back by cavalry and partly by infantry units. Along with shouting "Down with the police!" more and more “hurrah!” at the address of the Cossacks. It was significant. The crowd showed a ferocious hatred for the police. Mounted policemen were driven away with whistles, stones, and pieces of ice. The workers approached the soldiers in a completely different way. Around the barracks, near sentries, patrols and chains, groups of workers and working women stood and exchanged friendly words with them. This was a new stage, which arose from the growth of the strike and from the confrontation between the workers and the army. This stage is inevitable in every revolution. But it always seems new, and indeed it is put in a new way each time: the people who have read and written about it do not recognize it by sight.
On that day, the State Duma reported that a huge mass of people completely flooded the entire Znamenskaya Square, the entire Nevsky Prospekt and all the adjacent streets, and that an absolutely unprecedented phenomenon was observed: the Cossacks and regiments with music, the crowd, revolutionary, and not patriotic, saw off with the cry of "Hurrah" . When asked what all this meant, the first person he met answered the deputy: “The policeman hit the woman with a whip, the Cossacks stood up and drove the police away.” Whether this really happened or not, no one will check this. But the crowd believed that it was so, that it was possible. This faith did not fall from the sky, it arose from previous experience and therefore had to become a guarantee of victory.
The workers of Erickson, one of the leading factories in the Vyborg region, after a morning meeting, with a whole mass of 2,500 people, went out to Sampsonievsky Prospekt and stumbled upon the Cossacks in a narrow place. Breaking the road with a breast of horses, the officers were the first to crash into the crowd. Behind them, the Cossacks gallop across the entire width of the avenue. Decisive moment! But the riders carefully, in a long ribbon, rode through the corridor just laid out by the officers. “Some of them smiled,” recalls Kayurov, “and one of them gave a good wink to the workers.” Not without reason the Cossack winked. The workers grew bolder with a courage that was friendly, not hostile to the Cossacks, and slightly infected these latter with it. Winking found imitators. Despite new attempts by the officers, the Cossacks, without openly violating discipline, did not, however, forcefully disperse the crowd, but flowed through it. This was repeated three or four times, and this brought both sides even closer. The Cossacks began one by one to answer the workers' questions and even enter into fleeting conversations. What remained of the discipline was the thinnest and most transparent shell, which threatened to break through at any moment. The officers hurried to tear off the patrol from the crowd and, abandoning the idea of dispersing the workers, placed the Cossacks across the street in an outpost so as not to let the demonstrators through to the center. And this did not help: standing still on the spot, the Cossacks did not prevent, however, the "diving" of the workers under the horses. The revolution does not arbitrarily choose its paths: in its first steps, it moved towards victory under the belly of the Cossack horse. Great episode! And the eye of the narrator is remarkable, which captured all the twists and turns of the process. No wonder, the narrator was the leader, behind him there were over two thousand people: the eye of the commander, who is afraid of enemy whips or bullets, is watching vigilantly.
A turning point in the army appeared, as it were, primarily on the Cossacks, the original suppressors and punishers. This does not mean, however, that the Cossacks were more revolutionary than the others. On the contrary, these strong proprietors, on their horses, cherishing their Cossack characteristics, disdainful of ordinary peasants, distrustful of workers, contained many elements of conservatism. But that is why the changes caused by the war were more clearly visible on them. And besides, it was they who were pulled in all directions, they were sent, they were pushed face to face with the people, they were nervous and were the first to be tested. They were fed up with all this, they wanted to go home and winked: do it, they say, if you know how, we will not interfere. However, these were only significant symptoms. The army is still an army, it is bound by discipline, and the main threads are in the hands of the monarchy. The working masses are unarmed. The leaders are not even thinking about a decisive outcome.
On that day, at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, among other issues, was the question of unrest in the capital. Strike? Demonstrations? Not for the first time. Everything is provided, orders are given. Easy transition to the next things.
What are the orders? Despite the fact that during the 23rd and 24th 28 policemen were beaten, the accuracy of the count is captivating! - the head of the district troops, General Khabalov, almost a dictator, has not yet resorted to shooting. Not from good nature: everything was foreseen and marked out in advance, and there was a time for shooting.
The revolution took us by surprise only in the sense of the moment. But, generally speaking, both poles, the revolutionary and the governmental, carefully prepared for it, prepared for many years, always prepared. As for the Bolsheviks, all their activities after 1905 were nothing more than preparations for the second revolution. But the activities of the government, to a large extent, were preparations for the suppression of a new revolution. In the fall of 1916, this area of government work assumed a particularly systematic character. By mid-January 1917, the commission, chaired by Khabalov, completed a very thorough development of a plan to crush a new uprising. The city was divided into six police chiefs, which were divided into districts. General Chebykin, commander of the guards spare parts, was placed at the head of all the armed forces. The regiments were assigned to regions. In each of the six police chiefs, the police, gendarmerie and troops were united under the command of special staff officers. The Cossack cavalry remained at the disposal of Chebykin himself for operations on a larger scale. The order of reprisals was outlined as follows: first, only the police act, then the Cossacks with whips appear on the stage and, only in case of real need, troops with rifles and machine guns go into action. It was this plan, which represented the development of the experience of 1905, that was applied in practice in the February days. The trouble was not in the lack of foresight and not in the vices of the plan itself, but in the human material. Here a big misfire threatened.
Formally, the plan was based on the entire garrison, numbering one and a half hundred thousand soldiers; but in reality only some ten thousand were brought into the calculation: in addition to the policemen, of whom there were 3 1/2 thousand, there was also firm hope for training teams. This is due to the nature of the then Petrograd garrison, which consisted almost exclusively of reserve units, primarily of 14 reserve battalions attached to the guards regiments located at the front. In addition, the garrison included: one reserve infantry regiment, a reserve scooter battalion, a reserve armored division, small sapper and artillery units, and two Don Cossack regiments. It was too much, too much. The swollen spare parts consisted of a human mass, either almost untreated, or managed to get rid of it. But such was, in fact, the whole army.
Khabalov carefully adhered to his own plan. On the first day, the 23rd, the police fought exclusively; on the 24th, the cavalry was brought out into the streets mainly, but only for action with whips and lances. The use of infantry and the use of fire was made dependent on the further development of events. But events were not long in coming.
On the 25th the strike developed even more widely. According to government data, 240,000 workers took part in it that day. The more backward strata are moving forward along the vanguard, a significant number of small enterprises are already on strike, the tram stops, and trading establishments do not work. In the course of the day, students of higher educational institutions also joined the strike. Tens of thousands of people flock to the Kazan Cathedral and the streets adjacent to it by noon. Attempts are being made to organize street rallies, there are a number of armed clashes with the police. Speakers are speaking at the monument to Alexander III. Mounted police open fire. One speaker falls wounded. The bailiff was killed by shots from the crowd, the chief of police and several other policemen were wounded. Bottles, firecrackers and hand grenades are thrown at the gendarmes. The war taught this art. The soldiers show passivity and sometimes hostility towards the police. It is excitedly reported in the crowd that when the police began firing at the crowd near the monument to Alexander III, the Cossacks fired a volley at the mounted pharaohs (such is the nickname of the policemen), and they were forced to gallop away. This, apparently, is not a legend put into circulation to raise one's own spirit, since the episode, albeit in different ways, is confirmed from different sides.
The Bolshevik worker Kayurov, one of the true leaders these days, tells how the demonstrators fled in one place under the whips of the mounted police, in full view of the Cossack junction, and how he is. Kayurov, and several other workers with him, did not follow the fugitives, but, taking off their hats, approached the Cossacks with the words: “Cossack brothers, help the workers in the struggle for their peaceful demands, you see how the pharaohs deal with us, hungry workers. Help!" This deliberately humble tone, these caps in their hands - what a well-aimed psychological calculation, an inimitable gesture! The whole history of street fighting and revolutionary victories is teeming with such improvisations. But they are drowning without a trace in the abyss of great events - historians are left with a husk of commonplaces. “The Cossacks looked at each other especially,” continues Kayurov, “and before we had time to move away, we rushed into the ongoing dump.” And a few minutes later, at the station gates, the crowd is rocking a Cossack in their arms, who in front of her eyes hacked to death a police officer with a sword.
The police soon completely disappeared, that is, they began to act on the sly. But soldiers appeared with guns at the ready. The workers are throwing at them anxiously: “Really, comrades, have you come to help the police?” In response, a rude "come in." A new attempt to speak ends the same. Soldiers are gloomy, worm-eaten, and unbearable when a question comes to the very center of their anxiety.
Meanwhile, the disarmament of the pharaohs becomes a common slogan. The police are a fierce, implacable, hated and hating enemy. There can be no talk of winning her over to one's side. Police officers are beaten or killed. The troops are completely different: the crowd does its best to avoid hostile clashes with them, on the contrary, it looks for ways to win them over, to convince, attract, make them related, merge with itself. Despite favorable rumors about the behavior of the Cossacks, perhaps slightly exaggerated, the crowd is still wary of the cavalry. The cavalryman rises high above the crowd, and his soul is separated from the soul of the demonstrator by the four legs of a horse. The figure, which you have to look up from below, always seems more significant and menacing. Infantry - right there, nearby, on the pavement, closer and more accessible. The mass tries to come close to her, look into her eyes, douse her with their hot breath. Women workers play an important role in the relationship between workers and soldiers. They step on the soldiers' chain more boldly than men, grab their rifles with their hands, beg, almost order: "Take away your bayonets, join us." The soldiers are agitated, ashamed, they look at each other anxiously, hesitate, someone is the first to decide, and - the bayonets rise guiltily over the shoulders of the attackers, the outpost opens, a joyful and grateful "cheers" shakes the air, the soldiers are surrounded, everywhere disputes, reproaches, appeals - the revolution makes one more step forward.
Nikolai sent a telegraphic order from headquarters to Khabalov "tomorrow" to stop the riots. The will of the tsar coincided with the further link of the Khabalov "plan", so the telegram served only as an additional impetus. Tomorrow the troops will have to speak. Isn't it too late? It is still impossible to say. The question has been raised, but is far from being resolved. Indulgences from the Cossacks, hesitations of individual infantry outposts are only promising episodes, repeated by a thousand-fold echo of a sensitive street. This is enough to inspire the revolutionary crowd, but too little to win. Moreover, there are episodes of the opposite nature. In the afternoon, a platoon of dragoons, as if in response to revolver shots from the crowd, opened fire on the demonstrators near Gostiny Dvor for the first time: according to Khabalov's report to headquarters, three were killed and ten were wounded. Serious warning! At the same time, Khabalov threatened that all workers registered as conscripts would be sent to the front if they did not start work before the 28th. The general issued a three-day ultimatum, that is, he gave the revolution more time than it would need to topple Khabalov and the monarchy to boot. But this will be known only after the victory. And on the evening of the 25th, no one yet knew what tomorrow carried in its womb.
Let us try to imagine more clearly the internal logic of the movement. Under the banner of "Women's Day" on February 23, a long-awaited and long-restrained uprising of the Petrograd working masses began. The first stage of the uprising was the strike. Within three days it expanded and became almost universal. This alone gave the masses confidence and carried them forward. The strike, assuming an ever more offensive character, was combined with demonstrations which pitted the revolutionary masses against the troops. This raised the problem as a whole to a higher plane, where the issue is resolved by armed force. The first days brought a number of private successes, but more symptomatic than material ones. A revolutionary uprising that has dragged on for several days can develop victoriously only if it rises from stage to stage and celebrates new and new successes. A stop in the development of successes is dangerous; prolonged marking time is disastrous. But even successes in themselves are not enough; it is necessary that the masses learn about them in a timely manner and have time to evaluate them. You can miss the victory and at such a moment when it is enough to reach out a hand to take it. This has happened in history.
The first three days were days of continuous rise and intensification of the struggle. But precisely for this reason, the movement had reached a point where symptomatic successes were no longer sufficient. The entire active mass took to the streets. She dealt with the police successfully and without difficulty. The troops in the last two days were already involved in the events: on the second day - only the cavalry, on the third - also the infantry. They pushed back and blocked, sometimes condoned, but almost did not resort to firearms. From above, they were in no hurry to violate the plan, partly underestimating what was happening - the error of the reaction's vision symmetrically complemented the mistake of the leaders of the revolution - partly not being confident in the troops. But just the third day, by the force of the development of the struggle, as well as by the force of the tsar's order, made it inevitable for the government to set the troops in motion for real. The workers understood this, especially the advanced layer, especially since the dragoons had already fired the day before.
End of introductory segment.
