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29th December 2007, 22:44
http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/012/870.htm
At 10:40 P.M On October 25 (November 7) 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies began in Smol’nyi. The congress proclaimed the transfer of all power to the soviets. At 2:00 A.M On October 26 (November the Winter Palace was occupied, and the members of the former Provisional Government were expelled.
On October 26 the Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land, based on a report by Lenin. In the Decree of Peace, the Soviet power proposed to all belligerent countries that negotiations begin immediately for a just and democratic peace without annexations or indemnifications. By the terms of the Decree on Land, landlord ownership was abolished; landlord estates and crown, monastery, and church lands, with all livestock, implements, and buildings and everything thereto, were given to the peasants without any compensation. Private ownership of land was abolished and replaced by all-national ownership of land. As a result of this decree, the peasants received more than 375 million acres of land and were freed from annual rent payments to landlords amounting to 700 million gold rubles. The congress elected an All-Russian Central Executive Committee and formed the first Soviet government—the Council of People’s Commissars.
The counterrevolutionary forces, headed by ex-Prime Minister Kerensky, who had fled to the Northern Front area on October 25, General Krasnov, commander of the III Cavalry Corps, and N.Dukhonin, the former chief of staff to the supreme commander of chief, rebelled and started a civil war with the aim of overthrowing workers’ power. The enemy began an offensive, seized Gatchina and Tsarskoe Selo, and went to the heights of Pulkovo, thus creating a direct threat to Petrograd.” They started a mutiny of the cadets, which was suppressed by the workers on October 29. On October 31, revolutionary forces drove Kerensky and Krasnov back from Pulkovo and on November 1 they forced them to capitulate. Krasnov was arrested and Kerensky fled.
In Moscow the revolutionary forces in support of Soviet power encountered extremely bitter obstruction from the organized counterrevolution. Red Guards from Petrograd and other cities and sailors from the Baltic Fleet arrived to assist the Moscow workers. The Moscow workers and revolutionary soldiers of the garrison disrupted the counterrevolutionaries’ plans to preserve the power of the capitalist-landlord bloc. Soviet power was established in Moscow. But the victory was won at the cost of great sacrificies: as a result of the counterrevolution, more than 1000 people had been killed.
A difficult struggle for Soviet power developed in Orenburg Province, where one of the most dangerous centers of the Russian counterrevolution developed, headed by the Cossack warlord A.Dutov. On November 14, Dutov issued an order declaring war on Soviet power. On the night of November 28, White Cossacks kidnapped members of the Orenburg Soviet, smashed the Military Revolutionary Committee, and announced a mobilization of the Cossacks. Basing himself on Cossack units, he attacked Orenburg, Cheliabinsk, and a number of other cities on the Southern Urals and set up the so-called Cossack Army Government. As a result of the decisive steps taken by the workers, the Dutov revolt was crushed, and on December 3, Soviet power was restored in Cheliabinsk. On January 31, Orenburg was liberated from the occupation of Dutov’s forces.
In the Don oblast, the hetman of the Don Cossacks, A.Kaledin, initiated a revolt against the workers in October. After seven days of fighting, Kaledin’s forces seized Rostov, where Soviet power had been established on November 8. The Cossacks then attacked the Donbas. However, most Cossacks did not support Kaledin. On January 23, a congress of front-line Cossack units declared Kaledin’s regime deposed and proclaimed Soviet power in the Don region. Soviet troops commanded by Antonov-Ovseenko liquidated Kaledin’s aggression; Rostov was freed on February 24, and Novocherkassk on February 25. “The civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counterrevolutionary revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government, has finally brought the class struggle to a head and had destroyed every chance of settling in a formally democratic way the very acute problems with which history has confronted the peoples of Russia” (Lenin, 5th ed., vol.35, p.164)
On November 10, the soviet of Vladikavkaz voted for Soviet power, and on November 17 it adopted a resolution, based on a report by S.Kirov, declaring support for the Sovnarkom. In November, Soviet power was established in Petrovsk-Port and Groznyi. But the counterrevolution, finding support among the Cossacks, illegally formed the “Terek-Dagestan Government” on December 14 and proceeded to attack the soviets of Vladikavkaz, Groznyi and other cities. The congress of the peoples of Terek convened In January 1918 in Mozdok, and the second in March in Piatigorsk. The second congress established the Terek People’s Soviet Republic. Soviet power was established throughout the Terek region and a significant section of Dagestan.
In the Kuban region and along the Black Sea coast, furious reaction on the part of the Kuban Cossacks had to be overcome in the process of establishing Soviet power. On December 14, Soviet power was victorious in Novorossiisk and in January in Armavir. On March 14 revolutionary forces fought their way into into Ekaterindor and took control of it.
The armed action against the Soviet Republic was immediately supported by the countries of the Entente, at first in the form of covert intervention. As early as November 1917 in Jassy at a conference of military representatives of the counries of the Entente and the commands of the Southwestern and Rumanian fronts, a plan for military operations in the south was devised, providing for the use of Romanian troops in Bessarabia and the Czechoslovak Corps and the troops of the Central Rada in Ukraine. The November 27 conference of the heads of states of Great Britain, France, and Italy adopted a decision supporting the Transcaucasian nationalists. The December 22 conference of representatives of the Entente counries, which was held in Paris, recognized the need to maintain relations with and give credit to the reactionary regimes of the Ukraine, the Cossack areas, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Finland. On December 23 an agreement was concluded between Great Britain and France on dividing the spheres of future military action in Russia. Great Britain’s zone included the Caucasus and the Cossack areas; and France’s zone included Bessarabia and Ukraine. Siberia and the Far East were considered spheres of influence of the USA and Japan.
The Entente unleashed aggression on Russia. On 6 March 1918 British landing forces seized Murmansk; under the false pretext that the Murmansk region must be defended from the German coalition. This was the beginning of the Entente’s open military aggression. On April 5, Japanese forces attacked and occupied Vladivostok. In Ukraine, the bourgeois Central Rada concluded a “peace treaty” with Germany and its allies. In mid-April, German troops, violating the Brest treaty, occupied Crimea and smashed Soviet power there. In April, German troops landed in Finland where they helped the Finnish bourgeoisie to smash the revolutionary power of the working people. On April 28 the German aggressors in Ukraine removed the petit bourgeois government of the Central Rada, putting Hetman Skorpadsky in power. The Don Cossack counterrevolution, which renewed the Civil War in mid-April, also assumed a German orientation. On May 8, German forces seized Rostov and then helped form a kulak-cossack “government”—the Almighty Don Host, headed by Ataman Krasnov. Turkey opened a broad intervention in Transcaucasia. On May 25, German troops landed in Georgia at the request of the Mensheviks. On May 26-28 the Transcaucasian Federation fell apart, giving rise to the bourgeois states of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which were dependent on German and Turkish invaders. Under pressure from Germany, Turkey concluded a peace with Georgia and Armenia in June, seizing large territories that were not included the conditions of the Brest Peace. The Musavatists of Azerbaijan, puppets of the Turkish interventionists, began massing troops in order to seize Baku where power was held by the Baku Commune.
The Entente stepped up its operations, embarking on a path of unleashing a military intervention and civil war in Soviet Russia. The White Guards received from the Entente hundreds of thousands of rifles (Kolchak received about 400,000 and Denikin more than 380,000), thousands of machine guns (Kolchak received more than 1000 an Denikin about 3000), hundreds of guns (for instance, Denikin received 217 guns in 1919), and large quantities of uniforms, equipment, and ammunition, IN 1919 Denikin received more than 100 tanks and armored cars, 200 aircraft, and 1300 trucks. Many foreign instructors were sent to the White Guard—for example, British instructors alone numbered about 2000. It began reinforcing its troops in the north and the Far East and preparing its aggression in Transcaucasia and Middle Asia, supporting the domestic counterrevolution with a view to preparing a campaign on Moscow from various axes and restoring the power of the capitalists and landlords. Several conspiratorial organizations were set up with Entente money and the active participation of its agents.
On May 25 a mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps broke out, which had been prepared and provoked by the Entente. The corps units were between Penza and Vladivostok, awaiting evacuation to Europe. The mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps brought about a revival of the bourgeois-landowning and Cossack counterrevolutionary forces that had not yet been suppressed and strengthened the petit bourgeois counterrevolutionary, which now tried to play a leading role. In May and June the White Czechs and counterrevolutionary groups seized Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Vladivostok, Samara, Zlatoust, Syzran, Novonikolaevsk, routing the Soviet organization and murdering many Communists and nonparty workers and peasants. On June 4 the Entente declared the Czechoslovak Corps part of its troops, stating that it would consider its disarmament an unfriendly act toward the allied countries.
At 10:40 P.M On October 25 (November 7) 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies began in Smol’nyi. The congress proclaimed the transfer of all power to the soviets. At 2:00 A.M On October 26 (November the Winter Palace was occupied, and the members of the former Provisional Government were expelled.
On October 26 the Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land, based on a report by Lenin. In the Decree of Peace, the Soviet power proposed to all belligerent countries that negotiations begin immediately for a just and democratic peace without annexations or indemnifications. By the terms of the Decree on Land, landlord ownership was abolished; landlord estates and crown, monastery, and church lands, with all livestock, implements, and buildings and everything thereto, were given to the peasants without any compensation. Private ownership of land was abolished and replaced by all-national ownership of land. As a result of this decree, the peasants received more than 375 million acres of land and were freed from annual rent payments to landlords amounting to 700 million gold rubles. The congress elected an All-Russian Central Executive Committee and formed the first Soviet government—the Council of People’s Commissars.
The counterrevolutionary forces, headed by ex-Prime Minister Kerensky, who had fled to the Northern Front area on October 25, General Krasnov, commander of the III Cavalry Corps, and N.Dukhonin, the former chief of staff to the supreme commander of chief, rebelled and started a civil war with the aim of overthrowing workers’ power. The enemy began an offensive, seized Gatchina and Tsarskoe Selo, and went to the heights of Pulkovo, thus creating a direct threat to Petrograd.” They started a mutiny of the cadets, which was suppressed by the workers on October 29. On October 31, revolutionary forces drove Kerensky and Krasnov back from Pulkovo and on November 1 they forced them to capitulate. Krasnov was arrested and Kerensky fled.
In Moscow the revolutionary forces in support of Soviet power encountered extremely bitter obstruction from the organized counterrevolution. Red Guards from Petrograd and other cities and sailors from the Baltic Fleet arrived to assist the Moscow workers. The Moscow workers and revolutionary soldiers of the garrison disrupted the counterrevolutionaries’ plans to preserve the power of the capitalist-landlord bloc. Soviet power was established in Moscow. But the victory was won at the cost of great sacrificies: as a result of the counterrevolution, more than 1000 people had been killed.
A difficult struggle for Soviet power developed in Orenburg Province, where one of the most dangerous centers of the Russian counterrevolution developed, headed by the Cossack warlord A.Dutov. On November 14, Dutov issued an order declaring war on Soviet power. On the night of November 28, White Cossacks kidnapped members of the Orenburg Soviet, smashed the Military Revolutionary Committee, and announced a mobilization of the Cossacks. Basing himself on Cossack units, he attacked Orenburg, Cheliabinsk, and a number of other cities on the Southern Urals and set up the so-called Cossack Army Government. As a result of the decisive steps taken by the workers, the Dutov revolt was crushed, and on December 3, Soviet power was restored in Cheliabinsk. On January 31, Orenburg was liberated from the occupation of Dutov’s forces.
In the Don oblast, the hetman of the Don Cossacks, A.Kaledin, initiated a revolt against the workers in October. After seven days of fighting, Kaledin’s forces seized Rostov, where Soviet power had been established on November 8. The Cossacks then attacked the Donbas. However, most Cossacks did not support Kaledin. On January 23, a congress of front-line Cossack units declared Kaledin’s regime deposed and proclaimed Soviet power in the Don region. Soviet troops commanded by Antonov-Ovseenko liquidated Kaledin’s aggression; Rostov was freed on February 24, and Novocherkassk on February 25. “The civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counterrevolutionary revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government, has finally brought the class struggle to a head and had destroyed every chance of settling in a formally democratic way the very acute problems with which history has confronted the peoples of Russia” (Lenin, 5th ed., vol.35, p.164)
On November 10, the soviet of Vladikavkaz voted for Soviet power, and on November 17 it adopted a resolution, based on a report by S.Kirov, declaring support for the Sovnarkom. In November, Soviet power was established in Petrovsk-Port and Groznyi. But the counterrevolution, finding support among the Cossacks, illegally formed the “Terek-Dagestan Government” on December 14 and proceeded to attack the soviets of Vladikavkaz, Groznyi and other cities. The congress of the peoples of Terek convened In January 1918 in Mozdok, and the second in March in Piatigorsk. The second congress established the Terek People’s Soviet Republic. Soviet power was established throughout the Terek region and a significant section of Dagestan.
In the Kuban region and along the Black Sea coast, furious reaction on the part of the Kuban Cossacks had to be overcome in the process of establishing Soviet power. On December 14, Soviet power was victorious in Novorossiisk and in January in Armavir. On March 14 revolutionary forces fought their way into into Ekaterindor and took control of it.
The armed action against the Soviet Republic was immediately supported by the countries of the Entente, at first in the form of covert intervention. As early as November 1917 in Jassy at a conference of military representatives of the counries of the Entente and the commands of the Southwestern and Rumanian fronts, a plan for military operations in the south was devised, providing for the use of Romanian troops in Bessarabia and the Czechoslovak Corps and the troops of the Central Rada in Ukraine. The November 27 conference of the heads of states of Great Britain, France, and Italy adopted a decision supporting the Transcaucasian nationalists. The December 22 conference of representatives of the Entente counries, which was held in Paris, recognized the need to maintain relations with and give credit to the reactionary regimes of the Ukraine, the Cossack areas, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Finland. On December 23 an agreement was concluded between Great Britain and France on dividing the spheres of future military action in Russia. Great Britain’s zone included the Caucasus and the Cossack areas; and France’s zone included Bessarabia and Ukraine. Siberia and the Far East were considered spheres of influence of the USA and Japan.
The Entente unleashed aggression on Russia. On 6 March 1918 British landing forces seized Murmansk; under the false pretext that the Murmansk region must be defended from the German coalition. This was the beginning of the Entente’s open military aggression. On April 5, Japanese forces attacked and occupied Vladivostok. In Ukraine, the bourgeois Central Rada concluded a “peace treaty” with Germany and its allies. In mid-April, German troops, violating the Brest treaty, occupied Crimea and smashed Soviet power there. In April, German troops landed in Finland where they helped the Finnish bourgeoisie to smash the revolutionary power of the working people. On April 28 the German aggressors in Ukraine removed the petit bourgeois government of the Central Rada, putting Hetman Skorpadsky in power. The Don Cossack counterrevolution, which renewed the Civil War in mid-April, also assumed a German orientation. On May 8, German forces seized Rostov and then helped form a kulak-cossack “government”—the Almighty Don Host, headed by Ataman Krasnov. Turkey opened a broad intervention in Transcaucasia. On May 25, German troops landed in Georgia at the request of the Mensheviks. On May 26-28 the Transcaucasian Federation fell apart, giving rise to the bourgeois states of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which were dependent on German and Turkish invaders. Under pressure from Germany, Turkey concluded a peace with Georgia and Armenia in June, seizing large territories that were not included the conditions of the Brest Peace. The Musavatists of Azerbaijan, puppets of the Turkish interventionists, began massing troops in order to seize Baku where power was held by the Baku Commune.
The Entente stepped up its operations, embarking on a path of unleashing a military intervention and civil war in Soviet Russia. The White Guards received from the Entente hundreds of thousands of rifles (Kolchak received about 400,000 and Denikin more than 380,000), thousands of machine guns (Kolchak received more than 1000 an Denikin about 3000), hundreds of guns (for instance, Denikin received 217 guns in 1919), and large quantities of uniforms, equipment, and ammunition, IN 1919 Denikin received more than 100 tanks and armored cars, 200 aircraft, and 1300 trucks. Many foreign instructors were sent to the White Guard—for example, British instructors alone numbered about 2000. It began reinforcing its troops in the north and the Far East and preparing its aggression in Transcaucasia and Middle Asia, supporting the domestic counterrevolution with a view to preparing a campaign on Moscow from various axes and restoring the power of the capitalists and landlords. Several conspiratorial organizations were set up with Entente money and the active participation of its agents.
On May 25 a mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps broke out, which had been prepared and provoked by the Entente. The corps units were between Penza and Vladivostok, awaiting evacuation to Europe. The mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps brought about a revival of the bourgeois-landowning and Cossack counterrevolutionary forces that had not yet been suppressed and strengthened the petit bourgeois counterrevolutionary, which now tried to play a leading role. In May and June the White Czechs and counterrevolutionary groups seized Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Vladivostok, Samara, Zlatoust, Syzran, Novonikolaevsk, routing the Soviet organization and murdering many Communists and nonparty workers and peasants. On June 4 the Entente declared the Czechoslovak Corps part of its troops, stating that it would consider its disarmament an unfriendly act toward the allied countries.