The Russian Revolution (Bolshevik)

[ComradeOm]

The Russian Revolution (Bolshevik)
by ComradeOm


"Nothing in early twentieth century Russia inexorably pushed the country towards revolution, except the presence of an unusually large and fanatical body of professional revolutionaries. It is they who with their well-organised agitational campaigns in 1917 transformed a local fire, the mutiny of Petrograd’s military garrison, into a nationwide conflagration"
Pipes, R., (1990), The Russian Revolution 1899-1919

Introduction

The Russian Revolution of 1917 remains one of the most controversial events of modern history. A century of polemics and ideologically charged debate have greatly distorted the actual events of this momentous year. This essay will attempt to lay out a concise history of the events leading to the October Revolution with a particular emphasis on the structures of the Bolshevik organisation and its role as a mass party

It will come as little surprise that many histories of the Russian Revolution written in the Western world during the Cold War were extremely negative of the role played by the Bolsheviks. The idea of Lenin and co somehow 'stealing' a revolution from, supposedly, more democratic elements remains a mainstay of liberal historiography which sees a 'revolution from above' being imposed on the Russian masses. Yet such highly distorted perceptions, such as the quote at the top of this post, are not the sole preserve of Cold Warriors. Both leftist critics and Soviet historians have, for very different reasons, tended to pay more attention to the words and actions of Lenin or Trotsky than the broad masses who actually carried out the revolutionary actions. In a way the shadow of What is to be done? hangs over every history of the Revolution and continues to influence popular perceptions of the events of 1917. The idea of the Bolsheviks as a close-knit party of professional revolutionaries has proven remarkably resilient despite coming under sustained assault from historians for a number of decades now. In contrast to the 'Totalitarian' school of Pipes et al, a newer generation of historians (the so-called 'revisionists') have decisively rejected the idea of a 'top down' revolution imposed on a small cadre of intellectuals and instead focused on the nature of the Bolshevik party and the surge of popular support it enjoyed in 1917. My objective with this article is to summarise, to the best of my abilities, the principal points relating this 'revisionist' reading of history and dispel many of the lingering myths of the Russian Revolution

To this end I will be focusing primarily on the twin sides of that persistent myth of the professional revolutionaries. That is, I will seek to demonstrate that the Bolshevik organisation was not the highly centralised, unified, and disciplined body that it is so often made out to be. Secondly, that rather than some small cabal of dedicated schemers, the Bolsheviks were instead "an open mass party" (Fitzpatrick, 2001) that enjoyed both popular support and a democratic mandate for their October actions. I deal with each aspect in the three sections below

These are my aims – to show the historical record devoid of overt ideological biases or the distractions of theory. That is not to say that the latter is unimportant or irrelevant - it is clearly impossible to study any historical event without a thorough understanding of the driving motivations and placing these within a theoretical framework. That much is not in dispute. Nonetheless there remains a tendency to give undue prominence to the polemics of the time - especially when such a fantastic resource as Marxists.org remains only a few mouse clicks away – and substitute what someone perceived to have occurred, or should have occurred, for the historical record. That is to say, the 'how' or 'when' is often overlooked in favour of the 'why'. I have found this to be particularly true when dealing with the Russian Revolution as discussions are often dominated by long lists of out of context quotes, semantic arguments as to who said what when, and the mass projection of current/later political views onto past events. As a theoretical discussion this approach may have merit but when examining the actual events of 1917 it is limited at best and intellectually dishonest at worst

To this end I have deliberately avoided a reliance on primary quotes from major figures, extracts from polemics, or partisan histories. Where Lenin and Trotsky make an appearance they do so not as authors but rather as actors on the historical stage. Instead I have drawn exclusively from Western 'revisionist' (ie, non-Totalitarian) histories of the Revolution which, regardless of their theoretical failings, strive to be admirably impartial. Given that I have drawn from a relatively low number of works, I have included a bibliography at the end of the piece in lieu of a proper referencing system. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes are sourced from Rabinowitch (1976), as the principal work used in this essay, while Bolshevik membership numbers are drawn from both Figes (1998) and Fitzpatrick (2001). All dates are given in the Julian calendar

Naturally I'm more than happy to answer any questions or queries that you may have regarding the below. Specific requests for references will of course be answered and inaccuracies/mistakes in my work will gladly be corrected when identified. All that I do ask however is that any discussion adheres to the standard that I have laid out above; that is, a reliance on historical facts and figures in lieu of polemics or writings concerning the theory (as opposed to reality) of the Russian Revolution


The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik)

As mentioned above, the popular perception of the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP is that of a highly centralised and disciplined organisation comprised of stern professional revolutionaries. Little could be further from the truth and we will now review the actual structures of the Bolshevik party

Ultimate authority in the Bolshevik fraction derived not from Lenin or the (in)famous Central Committee but rather its wider membership. The responsibility for formulating the party's theoretical programme and deciding on broad strategy lay with the periodic national assemblies of delegates from across the Empire. Of these the two most relevant to the events of 1917 are the Seventh All-Russian Party Conference and the Sixth Bolshevik Party Congress of April and July of that year respectively. These were mass meetings in which over a hundred delegates, in turn elected from dozens of party regional and auxiliary organisations, gathered to discuss the party's direction and vote in a new Central Committee. Between these assemblies it was the responsibility of this Central Committee to manage the party's affairs and decide tactics; although we will see that in practice its ability to influence the wider party was severely limited. In turn the Central Committee operated on a democratic basis with measures passing by majority vote. Given the importance typically given to the Bolshevik's unity its worth noting that even at this highest level the party leadership was often hopelessly divided. Lenin was certainly not without influence but from April to July it was Kamenev's moderate faction that comprised the majority of the Central Committee. Furthermore, following the July Days Lenin's geographic isolation significantly weakened his input into the party's direction. Heated discussions were common and not always private. After the Central Committee deliberately suppressed one of his letters ('Marxism and Insurrection') from the party's wider membership in late September, Lenin took the surprising decision of going public with his criticisms of the party. Two articles ('Heroes of Fraud and the Mistakes of the Bolsheviks' and 'A Publicist's Diary') were sent to the Bolshevik paper Rabochii put' for publication but were censored and suppressed, respectively, by an editorial board that included both Kamenev and Trotsky. A precedent had been set for Zinoviev's and Kamenev's rather more famous open letter on the eve of the October revolution (for which neither were punished) but both are symptomatic as to the degree of conflict, most of it healthy and democratically resolved, present amongst the higher echelons of the Bolshevik organisation. Nor was it unique to these higher levels

In his skirmishes with the Central Committee during September 1917 Lenin reached to the party rank and file for support and in particular the powerful Bolshevik regional bureaus. These were the various grassroots arms of the party that were concerned with membership and day-to-day operations in their own areas. The Central Committee had little control over these bodies, who proved to be consistently to the left of the central executive, and the larger ones (particularly Petrograd and Moscow) possessed significant input into party policy. Even in Petrograd 1917 the city's Bolshevik organisation (the Petersburg Committee, which was in turn elected from the various district committees, also democratically run) was semi-independent and unwilling to simply accept decrees from above. For example, when the Central Committee issued a new series of resolutions following the July Days (incidentally Lenin's position was decisively rejected during this vote) it was required that a CC member, in this case Stalin, present the proposals to the Petersburg Committee where a lengthy debate took place and each individual resolution voted on by its fifty odd members. When this delicate balancing act between the two bodies failed, as it did on 5 October when the Central Committee failed to pass on Lenin's appeals for insurrection, the Petersburg Committee was more than capable of pressuring the party's central organ into an immediate shift in tactics

Indeed the crisis of the July Days itself was due in no small part to the similar near-autonomy of another major Bolshevik section that nominally answered to the Central Committee – the Military Organisation. Founded in early 1917, it had the duty of agitating amongst the soldiers and distributing its many papers throughout the front line. The youngest of the major Bolshevik organisations, it was also the most affected by the wave of new recruits into the Bolshevik party during 1917. As a result its political line tended to veer towards the militant and its leadership was at least partly responsible for organising, without Central Committee authorisation, the demonstration that sparked the July Days. This fiasco led to a backlash from both the Provisional Government and the rest of the Bolsheviks but the Military Organisation successfully argued with the Central Committee and maintained editorial control over its own jealously guarded paper and general semi-independent status. Both the Petersburg Committee and the Military Organisation were at least entirely Bolshevik organs – in many remote provinces the split with the Mensheviks had not yet filtered down and local activists continued to organise on a unified Social-Democratic basis

So for all the talk of the unity and centralisation of the Bolsheviks, it should be clear that the party was far from monolithic in character. As befitting a political party that operated on a national scale, its various organs were very varied in more than just geographical terms. In reality the Central Committee had very little real control over day-to-day activities or the party's rank and file membership. This was both a cause and a result of the, often overlooked, extraordinarily democratic nature of the Bolshevik organisation. All roles (from regional to national committees) were held by elected members and the party environment was extremely conductive to debate and discussion. We have seen that Lenin was often on the losing side of these arguments and even when 'party discipline' was breached, most notably by Zinoviev and Kamenev, there were few repercussions. It is also clear that there was significant interplay between the various party bureaus. All this is important to bear in mind as we move on to the popular appeal of the Bolshevik party in 1917


Continued Below

[ComradeOm]

The Mass Party
There is little doubt that in 1917 the Bolsheviks were a fringe party in Russian politics but they were not an insignificant one. By 1914 their Petrograd organisation had built up sizeable levels of support amongst the proletariat but this was mostly destroyed with the outbreak of war. The mass conscription of experienced workers and intensified harassment from Tsarist police decimated the party's structures leaving no more than 2,000 members in the capital, with barely 10,000 in the Empire as a whole, by the time of the February Revolution. Yet in a matter of months the party would see an explosion in its membership (80-100k in April and over 350k by the October Revolution), capture a majority of the newly emerging soviets, and emerge as the unquestioned party of the Russian proletariat. This is, by any standard, an impressive rate of growth and an astounding turnaround in the party's fortunes. We'll now explore the popular foundation of both the Bolsheviks and the October Revolution

The essence of popular support for the Bolsheviks is really very simple – as the Soviet's Central Executive Committee drifted increasingly to the right the masses continued to move solidly to the left. In doing so they naturally came to support the one party that was completely untarnished by collaboration with the Provisional Government. Menshevik Internationalists and Left Social Revolutionaries also benefited from this swing but it was the revolutionary Bolshevik programme, especially the emphasis on transferring power to the soviets, that proved most attractive. It was no idle boasting when the Bolshevik paper Proletarii proclaimed in August that "Only our party is striving for fundamental, radical changes in city government. Only our party favours shifting the entire tax burden from the poor to the rich". As a rule disillusionment with the ruling structures amongst workers tended to translate into support for the Bolsheviks. This was apparent from an early stage (the Soviet leadership was profoundly embarrassed when a huge demonstration called by them on June 12 was dominated by Bolshevik banners and slogans) and continued, with a brief setback following the July Days, throughout the summer as the situation continued to deteriorate on the political, social, and economic fronts. The key to this support was the local district soviets, of which there were more than a dozen in Petrograd alone, where the Bolsheviks always enjoyed considerable influence and, in contrast to the Menshevik leadership, they took great care to cultivate contacts and support amongst these grassroots organisations. It was amongst these low level bodies - almost entirely comprised of local workers and consistently to the left of the larger city-wide soviets - that the Bolsheviks first began to record significant levels of support and increasingly so as the summer progressed. A vivid illustration of the importance of these district soviets occurred in Moscow where a wildcat strike called by the Bolshevik Moscow Regional Bureau, to greet Kerensky's visit to the city, was supported by district soviets and trade unions but rejected by the city's overall Worker and Soldier Soviet... the strike was a huge success and enjoyed almost uniform participation from the city's workers. Such increased popularity was very visibly recorded, albeit in a very different forum, in the August 20 elections for the Petrograd City Duma in which a huge swing of support saw the Bolsheviks garner 183,624 votes, second only to the SRs (205,659) and far ahead of the Mensheviks (23,552). All this is before the sharp polarisation introduced by the Kornilov Affair and Kerensky's subsequent dictatorship

It was only a matter of time before the Bolshevik gains at grassroots level began to lead to similar advances in the larger city soviets. The Petrograd Soviet, which allowed for its members recall, began passing Bolshevik motions by early August and on 25 September Trotsky once again became chairman of the Soviet as a new Presidium was elected with a solid Bolshevik majority. In this it was merely following in the path of various district soviets (Vyborg being a noted Bolshevik stronghold as early as the February Revolution, in which its members played a pivotal role) and other grassroots bodies that were becoming increasingly radicalised. The picture was repeated throughout the country as soviet after soviet began to return Bolshevik majorities; the most notable being in major cities such as Ivanovo-Voznesentsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Tsaritsyn, Riga, Saratov, and Moscow. Again, the Bolsheviks were the most radical party, theirs was the most revolutionary programme, and it was their members that were most visible to the working class through grassroots organisations. As the authority of the Provisional Government, and by extension the moderate socialists, continued to weaken it was to the benefit of the Bolsheviks and other elements that demanded a transfer of power to the soviets. It came as absolutely no surprise to observers at the time when the Bolsheviks secured at least 300 of the 670 delegates (according to the Credentials Committee) at the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets. This was over three times the level of support enjoyed at the First Congress (June 1917) where they had commanded roughly 100 of 784 delegates and the fruit of their increasing popularity amongst the Russian workers and soldiers


A Popular Revolution
When the various Bolshevik organisations began to actively prepare for revolution they did so through the apparatus of the soviets and not their own Military Organisation, the CC declaring that "all Bolshevik organisations can become part of the revolutionary centre organised by the [Petrograd] Soviet and discuss within the Bolshevik factions all questions which concern them". This empowering declaration (which indicates the degree to which Bolshevik planning was decentralised) was a direct reference to the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) which had been formally established in the first weeks of October following a crisis between the Kerensky government and the city's radicalised garrisons. While containing a Bolshevik majority, the MRC executive was also comprised of Socialist Revolutionaries (including the chairman, Lazimir). Crucially it was not a tool of, or answerable to, the Bolsheviks but an organ democratically established by the Soviet itself. Militant from the outset, it did not take the MRC long to declare itself the sole authority regarding the Petrograd garrison in what was a clear repudiation of the Provisional Government. It can easily be argued that this critical step (taken 21 October) marked the beginning of the October Revolution and the following days saw the city's various garrison units (including that of the infamous Peter and Paul Fortress) vote to support both the MRC's authority and the transfer of power to the Petrograd Soviet

Despite the clearly developing revolutionary situation there remained dissenting voices in the Bolshevik Central Committee as to the best course of action. Lenin was almost alone in demanding an immediate insurrection while Kamenev persisted in his, often public, campaign of opposing any revolutionary transfer of power. The majority lay between these two extremes however in preferring to wait for the imminent Congress of Soviets in order to facilitate the transfer of power to these councils. Stalin notably reassured a group of Bolshevik congress delegates as late as 24 October that, "Within the Military Revolutionary Committee there are two points of view. The first is that we organise an uprising at once, and the second is that we first consolidate our forces. The Central Committee has sided with the second view" and this theme was simultaneously voiced by the Bolshevik papers during these heady days. This reasoning, together with the reluctance of the involved Socialist Revolutionaries to countenance any action not approved by the Soviet, explains the slow and sometimes contradictory actions of the MRC; most obviously its offer to Kerensky of 23 October to open discussions with the Petrograd Military District with a view to peacefully settling the crisis. For Kerensky however it was too late for negotiation and his offensive against the Bolsheviks, initially in closing their print works, triggered his own demise. Over the next two days thousands of workers, soldiers, and sailors took to the streets under the direction of the MRC. More than any real design or plan it was momentum that drove revolutionary detachments to secure the press shops, bridges, telegraphs, General Staff buildings, and finally the Winter Palace

As the arrival of the revolutionary fleets from Kronstadt and Helsingfors (Helsinki) revealed the degree to which the Provisional Government's position had deteriorated, then an equally arresting example was being provided by the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets. As already shown, the Bolsheviks were, by some significant degree, the largest party represented (with 300 delegates) while of the 193 Socialist Revolutionaries over half supported the actions of the MRC. In contrast the Mensheviks could muster only 68 delegates, of whom 14 were Menshevik-Internationalists. On the basis of these numbers a new Presidium was elected comprising 14 Bolsheviks, 7 Left SRs, and 4 Mensheviks (the latter declining to take their allocated seats). No sooner than this had been accomplished then the Menshevik Martov tabled an emergency motion calling for an end to the street fighting and the establishment of a coalition government drawn from all the parties of the Soviet. This measure was very warmly received by all, including the Bolshevik fraction, and passed unanimously. Despite this, a series of Mensheviks and Right SR delegates then proceeded to vehemently denounce the MRC's action against the Provisional Government and the two parties, including Martov's Internationalists, withdrew from the Congress. In walking away from the soviets that they had once praised, these moderates destroyed any possibility of a unity government comprised of all socialists – most probably the outcome desired by the workers themselves - and revealed their fundamentally counter-revolutionary outlook. They would form the nucleus of the 'All-Russian Committee for the Salvation of the Country and Revolution' and align themselves with General Krasnov in seeking to restore the Provisional Government to power by force. In their absence the Congress of Soviets endorsed the revolutionary transfer of power and elected a new soviet government

If the Congress of Soviets represented the triumph of soviet rule then the demise of the non-revolutionary structures was sealed with that of the Constitutional Assembly. The new revolutionary regime permitted elections to go ahead but there was no question that this parliamentary body was deeply flawed in practice. The most obvious issue was simple – the Socialist Revolutionaries, who won the largest share of the vote, no longer existed as a unified party. The Left SRs, who supported soviet rule, were at an immediate disadvantage with the more established Right maintaining control of many of the party's local branches and papers. Even worse was the fact that the party's electoral list had been drawn up in September when the Right had dominated; thus voters were unable to choose whether they supported those SRs that supported the Revolution or those that opposed it. Ultimately the Left would wrest control of the party and its structures but the Constituent Assembly would not represent this or the immense popularity of the Soviet's legalisation of peasant land seizures. There was no such confusion over the Bolshevik tally however with almost 10 million votes representing the second highest count (behind the combined SRs) and a clear majority amongst the urban proletariat, northern army fronts, and villages close to urban centres. In contrast the Mensheviks scraped in with roughly 1.2 million votes cast in their favour - startlingly this was less than that amassed by the liberal Kadets – in a result that saw them decisively supplanted as the party of the working class and served as a resounding endorsement of Bolshevik policies

Perhaps the most obvious sign of this was the complete indifference with which the demise of the Constitutional Assembly was greeted by the Russian people. In cities throughout the Empire the example of Petrograd was followed as local soviets formed new MRCs to facilitate transfer of power away from rotting Imperial structures. They cared little for the parliamentary niceties that the moderates and liberals put so much in store by. Finally the revolutionary classes of Russia had the soviet rule that they had expected since February 1917


Conclusions

Given all the above, care must be taken not to overstress the disunity or decentralisation of the Bolsheviks. It may be true that the Bolshevik party of 1917 did not resemble a cadre of professional revolutionaries infused with 'iron discipline' but it was nonetheless a remarkably successful organisation. Disagreements were always present but the party never splintered under pressure, like the Mensheviks or SRs, and its propaganda machine remained remarkably effective. Perhaps most important was that the democratic and grassroots nature of the Bolshevik organisation gave it unparalleled knowledge as to the sentiments of the working class and allowed it the flexibility to adapt its policies to the ever changing circumstances. Similarly the majority of the Russian proletariat knew little about the Bolsheviks themselves or Marxist theory but supported their programme, unique amongst the major socialist parties, that continually advocated the transfer of power to the soviets

Below is a summary of the most important points from the above. If you've skipped down to the end then this is what you're looking for


Rather than being a rigidly structured organisation, the Bolshevik party was instead comprised of myriad regional and auxiliary committees over which the party's centre had little control. Nor was policy exclusively determined by the Central Committee, there was significant and dynamic interplay of views between the different party levels and organisations. The Bolshevik party was also a highly democratic organisation with policy decisions at all levels decided by vote


As befitting such an organisation, there were many conflicts of opinion within the party. More often than not Lenin was on the losing side of such arguments as the Central Committee was dominated by the Kamenev faction throughout the summer months of 1917. Such disagreements occasionally went public, most notably with the joint Zinoviev/Kamenev letter in October, but were not punished


In numerical terms the Bolsheviks experienced explosive growth throughout the year and by October 1917 was unquestionably the party of the Russian proletariat. In turn this swamped the party structures with an influx of new members, the vast majority of whom had little grasp of Marxist theory, and placed the party's veterans in a distinct minority. In some areas (particularly the Military Organisation) this had a very real impact on the conduct and methodology of the party


Such growth in the party's membership was due in large part to the Bolshevik's revolutionary programme (particularly with respect to transferring power to the soviets) and the activity of the party's lower branches in the district soviets, trade unions, and other grassroots bodies. The democratic nature of the party, together with its impressive propaganda efforts, served to attract many of the militant and active workers and soldiers


Success at grassroots level translated into dominance of the larger city soviets and eventually the Second Congress of Soviets. In this they were aided by the increasing isolation of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary leaders from the revolutionary proletariat. In contrast Bolshevik policies proved attractive and flexible enough to increasingly control soviet bodies. When the garrison crisis gave rise to the Military Revolutionary Committee it was little surprise that its leadership was largely, though not exclusively, Bolshevik


Far from being a quick coup, the October Revolution was a prolonged struggle with the Kerensky regime that unfolded over a series of days. Thousands of armed workers, soldiers, and sailors were coordinated by the Military Revolutionary Committee which was a body elected by the Petrograd Soviet and endorsed by the Petrograd garrisons. Bolshevik contributions to the Revolution were almost uniformly channelled through soviet institutions such as the MRC


While the Bolsheviks were easily the largest party present at the Second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets, they endorsed Martov's resolution calling for an all-soviet government. However the decision of the Mensheviks and Right SRs to walk out of the Congress and align themselves with counter-revolutionary forces ended any possibility compromise with the moderate socialists. The Congress endorsed the actions of the MRC and elected a new Council of People's Commissars. Any doubts about the legitimacy of this government were dispelled when the Bolsheviks received the overwhelming backing of the proletariat in the elections to the Constituent Assembly


Perhaps the final words of this piece are best left to the Menshevik-Internationalist Sukhanov who would later comment regarding the participation of the Bolsheviks in Soviet-organised efforts to defend the capital during the Kornilov Affair:


"The [Committee for Struggle Against the Counter-Revolution] had to mobilise the worker-soldier masses. But the masses, insofar as they were organised, were organised by the Bolsheviks and followed them. At that time, theirs was the only organisation that was large, welded together by an elementary discipline, and linked with the democratic lowest levels of the capital. Without it the committee was impotent. Without the Bolsheviks it could only have passed the time with appeals and idle speeches by orators who had lost their authority. With the Bolsheviks the committee had at its disposal the full power of the organised workers and soldiers"

Short Bibliography


Figes, O., (1998), A Peoples' Tragedy
Fitzpatrick, S., (2001), The Russian Revolution
White, J.D., (1994), The Russian Revolution: A Short History
Rabinowitch, A., (1976), The Bolsheviks Come to Power
Rabinowitch, A., (2007), The Bolsheviks in Power

[Tower of Bebel]

Do you have a link to the article or is it yours?

[ComradeOm]

Article is 100% mine, inspired by too many misconceptions here in RevLeft. I'll make note of that above

[TheCagedLion]

Great job, very interesting read!

[mykittyhasaboner]

Great work! :)

[Louise Michel]

Very interesting analysis. I was wondering how you would respond to Trotsky's view (I think expressed in his History of the Russian Revolution) that the October Revolution would not have happened without Lenin. I don't think Trotsky meant that Lenin somehow controled everything in the party (obviously not possible) but that his leadership being in line with the most radical grass roots organisations prevented the sort of fragmentation that you correctly indicate happened with the other leftist parties.

[ComradeOm]

The case of Lenin is actually very interesting. Its often forgotten that for most of the revolutionary period (Feb-Oct) he was almost completely isolated from Petrograd and had zero input into the day-to-day operations of the party. Its even less well known that during his time in Petrograd the CC was effectively controlled by Kamenev and his moderates. Yet despite this, Lenin was of critical importance to the Revolution. On two separate occasions (April and October) he intervened to reorient the party along much more radical directions. So while Kamenev may have won most of the battles it was Lenin who won the war

[Vanguard1917]

It's always been very difficult for bourgeois commentators to accept that working class people can come together to bring about change. That's one of the main reasons why the Russian revolution has been presented as the work of a small clique misleading the brainless and desperate herd that is the masses. The evidence shows, however, that the Russian revolution was the work of the masses, led by the revolutionary party of the working class. ComradeOm's article does a good job of explaining that.

What the Russian revolution also showed is that radical mass movements need to be built -- they're not ready-made processes with an inevitable course. The work and activity of the Bolshevik party were central to the success of the Russian revolution.

To quote the Menshevik Sukhanov again:

'The Bolsheviks were working stubbornly and without let-up. They were among the masses, at the factory-benches, every day without a pause. Tens of speakers, big and little, were speaking in Petersburg, at the factories and in the barracks, every blessed day. For the masses they had become their own people, because they were always there, taking the lead in details as well as in the most important affairs of the factory or barracks... The mass[es] lived and breathed together with the Bolsheviks.'

[Die Neue Zeit]

Article is 100% mine, inspired by too many misconceptions here in RevLeft. I'll make note of that above

Please repost this article in Article Submissions. :)

[Brother No. 1]

very interesting article and its good that this is yours. you should create more of these about the Bolsheviks and maybe even the Chinese Revoltuion.