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The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, achieved under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, led to the birth of the Republic of Soviets. The Soviets, organized on an all-Russian scale, became the sole basis of state power, a new form of state organization. The Soviets provided the socialist revolution with an armed force of workers and laboring peasants, closely connected with the people. They ensured an inseparable, easily verifiable and renewable link between the apparatus and the working classes, i.e., with the majority of the people. The Soviets provided a form of organization for the most conscious, most energetic advanced section of the formerly oppressed classes—the workers and laboring peasants. Finally, the Soviets united the political, economic and cultural activities of the vast masses of many millions.
Thus, the Republic of Soviets was "the political form, sought after and finally found, within the framework of which the economic emancipation of the proletariat, the complete victory of socialism, must be achieved" 1 .
The conclusion that the Soviets were the organs of the uprising and the organs of the new revolutionary power during the period of the struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy was made by V. I. Lenin on the basis of studying and summarizing the experience of the 1905 revolution. From their very inception, the Soviets of Workers' Deputies grew out of the needs of the immediate mass struggle of the working class as its organ.
In his April Theses of 1917, Lenin summarized the experience of building Soviets and for the first time concluded that the best political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat would henceforth be not a parliamentary democratic republic, but a republic of Soviets. This clearly manifested Lenin's creative understanding of Marxism and its further development in new historical conditions. In the classics "State and Revolution" (August - September 1917) and "Will the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?" (September - October 1917) Lenin developed and theoretically substantiated the doctrine of the Republic of Soviets as a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Lenin's doctrine of the Republic of Soviets was great scientific discovery of world historical significance. Comrade Stalin, pointing out the significance of this discovery, wrote: “What would have happened to the party, to our revolution, to Marxism, if Lenin had given in to the letter of Marxism and did not dare to replace one of the old propositions of Marxism, formulated by Engels, with a new proposition on the Republic of Soviets corresponding to the new historical situation?The Party would wander in the dark, the Soviets would be disorganized, we
1 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 6, p. 122.
If they did not have Soviet power, Marxist theory would suffer serious damage. The proletariat would have lost, the enemies of the proletariat would have won.
In 1917, JV Stalin, in a number of articles: "On the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies", "On the Conditions for the Victory of the Russian Revolution" and others, showed the role and tasks of the Soviets in the socialist revolution, assessed them as organs of revolutionary power. Comrade Stalin set the task of making the Soviets ubiquitous, of uniting them on an all-Russian scale, by creating a Central Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. "The Bolshevik organizations received in these articles guidelines on the question of Soviets.
After the victory of the socialist revolution, the Leninist-Stalinist theory of the Soviets as a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat began to be immediately put into practice. The ready-made new form of political power - the power of the Soviets - had only to be removed by a few decrees from the embryonic state in which it was in the first months of the revolution, and turned into a form legally recognized, established in the Russian state - into the Russian Soviet Republic.
The working masses had boundless trust in the Bolshevik Party, for they knew that only one party, the Bolshevik Party, "a living and powerful party at the head of the revolutionary masses, storming and overthrowing bourgeois power," led the preparation and carrying out of the October Revolution. Under the leadership of the party of Lenin-Stalin, the working class and the working masses of the peasantry of our Motherland "began to build a new, proletarian state themselves, began, in the heat of a furious struggle, in the fire of a civil war, to outline the basic provisions of a state without exploiters" 4 .
From the very beginning of the October Socialist Revolution, Lenin called on the working people to govern the state and pointed out the importance of the Soviets as new organs of power. In his address "To the Population" in November 1917, Lenin called on the workers and the poorest peasantry to take all power into the hands of their Soviets. "Your Soviets," wrote Lenin, "from now on are organs of state power, authorized, decision-making organs."
Following the instructions of Lenin and Stalin, the working masses turned the Soviets into full-fledged organs of state power, broke down the old, bourgeois one, and created a new, Soviet state apparatus. The leading role in the creation of the Soviet state was played by the working class of Russia, a battle-hardened class that went through two revolutions in a short time and won, by the eve of the third revolution, the authority of the leader of the people in the struggle for peace, for land, for freedom, for socialism.
In an atmosphere of fierce class struggle, as a result of the enormous work of the Bolshevik Party, the bourgeois apparatus was broken and a new, Soviet apparatus of state power and administration was created. "From October 1917 to January-February 1918, the Soviet revolution managed to spread throughout the country. The spread of Soviet power across the territory of a vast country proceeded at such a rapid pace that Lenin called it the "triumphal march" of Soviet power" 6 . During this period, the Soviets everywhere grew and strengthened. By the end of 1917, there were 30 provincial executive committees of the Soviets, 121 city Executive Committees, 286 county executive committees and 6088 volost executive committees of the Soviets in the country. Total
3 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 6, p. 347.
4 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 371. 3rd ed.
5 Lenin. Op. T. XXII, p. 55.
Together with the district and regional Soviets, there were 7,550 executive institutions of Soviet power, in which about 100,000 executors of the will of the working people, who had joined political activity for the first time, worked.
Within a short period of time, the revolutionary creativity of the masses, roused by the socialist revolution to an active political life, won the victory of socialism in the political field, and politically Russia was turned into the most advanced country in the world.
The working class led the work to create a Soviet state apparatus throughout the country. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, a Soviet state apparatus closely connected with the people was created in the center and in the localities, representing the highest type of state apparatus in comparison with all state apparatuses existing in the world.
Lenin and Stalin saw the source of our state's strength in its ability to draw ever new masses of working people into the Soviet apparatus. The soviets are an organization directly of the masses of the people, and the organs of state administration they form are the most fertile ground for the participation of the working people of town and country in determining the structure of our state and in its day-to-day administration. Comrade Stalin, Lenin's closest assistant in the building of the Soviet state, pointed out that the strength of the Soviets lies in the strength of the millions of working masses whom they united and represented.
The Bolshevik Party considered the unleashing of the creative initiative of the working class to be the main task during this period. More than ever, the experience of the masses, the practice of places, the initiative of organizational talents from the people, acquired exceptional significance. For the first time in history, the task was to involve millions of workers and peasants in the administration of the state. V. I. Lenin said that we must raise organizational talents, there are many of them among the people, they must be helped to develop. "They and only they, with the support of the masses, will be able to save Russia and save the cause of socialism." The experience of practitioners from the people, the experience of their organizations was summarized in government resolutions and decrees.
An expression of the genuinely popular character of Soviet power is the many thousands of representatives of the working people who take a direct part in the administration of the state. “Take a simple number of congresses,” Lenin said, “no state in a hundred years of democracy has convened so many, and it is in this way that we work out common decisions and forge a common will. Our Soviet constitution, our Soviet power is understood on this broadest basis” 9.
The number of congresses of Soviets and the number of delegates in the districts in 1917, 1918, 1919 10
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The Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government, headed by Lenin and Stalin, paid great attention to the organization of the apparatus of provincial and district Soviets, which united a significant number of
7 "Power of the Soviets" N 1 for 1919, p. 4.
8 Lenin. Op. T. XXII, p. 167.
9 Lenin. Op. T. XXV, p. 144.
10 Collection "Five Years of Soviet Power", p. 24. M. 1922.
the number of grassroots Soviets. The task was to break the bourgeois apparatus and create a new, Soviet apparatus of state power and administration.
The instructions of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, issued in December 1917 - January 1918, which specified the resolution of the II Congress of Soviets "On the full power of the Soviets" and Lenin's appeal "To the population", were acts aimed at creating a flexible and durable system of all Soviet authorities, to establish correct and clear relations between places and the centre. Thus, the appearance of the provincial and district Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies gradually began to emerge.
Despite the fact that the emerging Soviet apparatus was still imperfect in this period, it was already a new apparatus of the world's first socialist state. The presence of this apparatus ensured the implementation of the first events of the Soviet government.
V. I. Lenin, together with J. V. Stalin, fought against the strikebreakers and deserters of the revolution Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Shlyapnikov and others, who demanded the creation of a "uniform socialist government" with the participation of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had just been overthrown by the October Revolution. On November 15, 1917, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party adopted a resolution that rejected the agreement with these counter-revolutionary parties, and declared Kamenev and Zinoviev to be the strikebreakers of the revolution. On November 17, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Milyutin, who disagreed with the policy of the party, announced their withdrawal from the Central Committee. The flight of a handful of cowards did not shake the party for a moment. The Central Committee of the party branded them with contempt as deserters of the revolution and accomplices of the bourgeoisie.
The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, personally Lenin and Stalin allocated the best forces of the party for leading work in the Soviet state apparatus. Throughout the entire territory of the Soviet Republic, a process of revolutionary creativity of the working masses unfolded, unprecedented in history, in state building, in carrying out the decrees of the Soviet government, in strengthening Soviet power.
The III All-Russian Congress of Soviets, held in January 1918, played a huge role in strengthening and shaping the Soviet system. This congress adopted the "Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People" developed by Lenin and Stalin, in which the great achievements of the socialist revolution, the unshakable foundations of the new Soviet state system, were recorded. The "Declaration" summed up the results of the first stage in the construction of the Soviet state and legislated what had been won by the Soviet government since the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Questions of Soviet state building occupied the main, central place in the work of the congress. The congress adopted an exceptionally important resolution on the rights of local organs of Soviet power and on their relationship with the central organs of state power. On the report of Comrade Stalin, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the most important resolution "On the Federal Institutions of the Russian Republic", which formalized and consolidated the foundations of the state system, structure, formation procedure, competence and communication of the authorities of the Soviet federation 12.
Much attention to issues Soviet construction given by the leaders of our party. In his famous work "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power," Lenin outlined the path for transforming backward Russia into a mighty and abundant Soviet socialist power, having developed a plan for starting socialist construction. Lenin wrote that the party
12 See I.V. Steel n. Op. Vol. 4, pp. 32 - 33.
Bolsheviks convinced Russia, the Bolshevik Party won Russia from the rich for the people, now the Bolshevik Party must learn to manage Russia.
Lenin saw the main link in organizing the administration of the country in the strictest nationwide accounting and control over the production and distribution of products. It was necessary to increase labor productivity in every possible way, to create a new, Soviet, socialist labor discipline. Connected with this was the task of organizing socialist competition, on the one hand, and a resolute, merciless struggle against petty-bourgeois laxity, slobs, idlers, speculators, on the other. In particular, V. I. Lenin put forward the task of developing and strengthening the Soviet organization, Soviet democracy.
Lenin's ideas, developed by him in his work "The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power", were taken as the basis of all party and state work. Socialist construction unfolded. There was a transition from workers' control to workers' management. On June 28, 1918, Lenin signed a decree on the nationalization of all large-scale industry.
The Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government worked unremittingly to develop the organization of the Soviets and the Soviet government, summed up the experience of Soviet construction in the localities, fought to introduce a unified scheme for building the Soviet apparatus in the province, district, volost.
At the beginning of 1918, the Soviet organization covered mainly provincial, district and partly volost centers. Only the first steps in Soviet construction were taken in the villages. The construction and strengthening of Soviets in the countryside began only in the second half of 1918. In addition, if the apparatus of the central organs of power and administration of the Soviet state had already taken shape at that time, neither structural uniformity nor, in particular, harmonious and coordinated interaction between the center and localities had yet been achieved in the construction of the local state apparatus. The competencies of the local Soviets and their executive committees were not precisely defined. And this was natural, since the construction of local authorities in the first months of the revolution could not proceed according to one specific plan developed in advance. The working people of town and countryside who came to power did not yet have the necessary experience for constructing their own organs of power of the same type. All this made it difficult to establish a systematic, uninterrupted, coordinated work of the Soviet state apparatus as a whole.
During this period, an urgent need arose for the development of the Soviet Constitution. The constitution was supposed to satisfy the burning needs of Soviet construction, to become a factor of enormous organizing, mobilizing and transforming force, to reflect the main content of the transitional period - the dictatorship of the working class. The Constitution was supposed to fix the best, most expedient, most necessary forms of organization and activity of the Soviets.
In creating the first Soviet Constitution, the party of the proletariat could not follow any ready-made models.
On April 1, 1918, a government commission was formed to develop the Soviet Constitution, which included I. V. Stalin and Ya. M. Sverdlov. In the Constitutional Commission, comrades Stalin and Sverdlov had to wage an exceptionally intense struggle, saturated with Bolshevik adherence to principles and ideology, against the enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat from the camp of the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, Maximalists, Trotskyists and "Left Communists". In an uncompromising struggle against these enemies of Leninism, Comrade Stalin defended the dictatorship of the proletariat as the cornerstone of the Soviet Constitution.
The commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee rejected the proposals of the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries and "Left Communists" and adopted the draft Constitution drawn up by Comrade Stalin. After the approval of the project by the Commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) under the chairmanship of V. I. Lenin, the text of the first Soviet Constitution of the RSFSR was adopted and approved on July 10, 1918 by the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets 13 .
The first Soviet Constitution, drawn up under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, meant a huge step forward along the path of further formalizing and consolidating the foundations of the Soviet state, strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It was the first Constitution of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the history of mankind. It legislated the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, the rule of the working class over the overthrown but not yet destroyed exploiters. The Constitution formulated the main tasks of suppressing the exploiters and outlined the general prospect for the further development of the Land of Soviets along the path to socialism. The working class has become the ruling class, leading the state building.
The Constitution consolidated the positive experience of building Soviet power, created uniformity in the construction of the Soviet apparatus in the localities, legalized the relationship of local Soviets with central institutions on the basis of democratic centralism. "The Soviet constitution," said V. I. Lenin, "revealed the relation of the volost power to the county, the county to the provincial, and this last to the center" 14 .
The Soviet Constitution laid the foundation for Soviet legality as a condition for state and labor iron discipline. "The new government," says Comrade Stalin, "creates a new law, a new order, which is a revolutionary order." Without Soviet legality, it was impossible to defeat the petty-bourgeois elements and all sorts of keepers of the traditions of capitalism.
About the historic decision of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Pravda wrote: “The Congress adopted the Constitution of the Soviet Republic. authorities" 16 .
The first Soviet Constitution was of great world-historical significance. For the first time in the history of mankind, it gave the working people of the whole world the opportunity to learn what the dictatorship of the proletariat is, what the working people can achieve as a result of the socialist revolution. V, I. Lenin pointed out: "What the Soviet constitution gives, no state could give in 200 years" 17 . In The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Lenin wrote that it is enough to acquaint the proletarians of other countries with our Soviet Constitution, and "they will immediately say: this is where our real people are, this is where the real workers' party, the real workers' government" 18 .
After the adoption of the Soviet Constitution of 1918, the Bolshevik Party strengthened, developed and improved the new, Soviet socialist state. “The Soviet constitution,” said V. M. Molotov, “has been for all these years the banner of the struggle for the victory of socialism. And the more the foundations of the Soviet
14 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 166.
15 I. Stalin. Questions of Leninism, p. 611. 10th ed.
17 Lenin, Op. T. XXV, p. 144.
18 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 374.
constitution, the more successfully the cause of socialism advanced in our country.
The Bolshevik Party inspired and organized the working masses to carry out and implement the first Soviet Constitution. Party and Soviet organizations held meetings, rallies, and talks at which they explained to the masses the content of the Soviet Constitution. Rallies were held in all districts of Moscow, at which the question was discussed: "What does the Soviet Constitution give the working people." On July 26, 1918, the Day of the Soviet Constitution was celebrated in Moscow. At numerous rallies and meetings, the workers took decisions to put the Constitution into effect with all their might and implement its provisions in practice in the interests of the complete liberation of the working people from all types of political oppression and economic exploitation. The Constitution became the property of the broad masses of the population of the Soviet country.
Party organizations paid special attention to the study of the Soviet Constitution. For example, the Tver Provincial Committee of the Party issued a special decree "On Compulsory Knowledge by Soviet Workers of the Soviet Constitution" 20 .
On the basis of the Soviet Constitution of 1918, the Bolshevik Party carried out work on the organization of local Soviet authorities during the civil war. In a period of fierce struggle against the enemies of the revolution, the Soviets were to become that solid rock against which all attempts by the bourgeoisie to regain power would be shattered. Lenin and Stalin devoted exceptionally great attention to the work of the Soviets. On June 2, 1918, Lenin addressed all local Soviet authorities with a directive: to wage a merciless, exterminating war against the interventionists and the White Guards who encroached on the Soviet country.
V. I. Lenin pointed out the need to consolidate and spread the dictatorship of the proletariat throughout Russia, the need to strengthen the local Soviets. He said that for the defense of the fatherland, in addition to a firm and strong army, a strong rear, it is necessary "that the dictatorship of the proletariat be expressed not only in the central government, this is the first step, and only the first step, but the dictatorship must be in all of Russia, this is the second step , and only the second step - we have not yet done enough of this step" 21 .
Comrade Stalin, developing this idea, emphasized that without construction work it is impossible to wage a civil war. "We," said Comrade Stalin, "had to build under fire. Imagine a bricklayer who, while building with one hand, defends the house he is building with the other."
The conditions of the civil war demanded the unification of all forces to defeat foreign military intervention and internal counter-revolution. It was necessary to ensure the speed and accuracy of the execution of orders from the central bodies, because the strengthening of the positions of Soviet power in the fight against internal and external enemies depended on the clarity of the work of all links of the state apparatus. The military situation dictated the centralization of Soviet administration, the subordination of all parts of the Soviet apparatus to the central authorities.
The Bolshevik Party educated the masses to consciously assimilate the tasks of Soviet construction, raised the masses to an understanding of national interests. In this work, the leading and guiding role of the Bolshevik Party was manifested with all its might, for only
19 V. M. Molotov. On changes in the Soviet Constitution, p. 10. Partizdat. 1935.
20 Central State Archive of the October Revolution (TsGAOR), f. 393, d. 58, op. 11, l. 286.
21 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 14.
22 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 4, p. 390.
the Bolshevik Party was capable of "centralizing the leadership of the struggle of the proletariat and thus turning any and all non-Party organizations of the working class into service organs and transmission belts connecting it with the class."
Above all, the party put the interests of the proletarian state. Through control and verification of execution, the party exposed shortcomings in the work of the state apparatus and taught how to correct these shortcomings. The Bolsheviks pointed out that fragmentation and independence concealed great dangers for the proletarian revolution, and that victory needed a firm, centralized on democratic foundations, power of the proletarian state.
In the transitional period, when the bourgeoisie is broken but not yet suppressed, when the economic and food devastation, aggravated by the intrigues of the bourgeoisie, has not yet been eliminated, when the old, capitalist world has been destroyed, and the new, socialist world has not yet been completed, at such a moment the country needs a strong all-Russian government capable of finally crushing the enemies of socialism and organizing a new, communist economy.
JV Stalin pointed out that all functions important for the whole country should be in the hands of the central government. He emphasized the principle of sovereignty of the central Soviet power on the basis of democratic centralism throughout the Soviet territory and the inadmissibility of separatism of places. V. I. Lenin taught the party that in order for the center to “really conduct an orchestra, it is necessary for this to be known exactly who, where and what kind of violin is being played, where and how what instrument was and is being taught, who, where and why it is false (when the music starts to tear the ear), and whom, how and where it is necessary to translate to correct the dissonance, etc. " 24. Therefore, the Bolshevik Party fought for the centralization of Soviet administration, for the subordination of the grassroots Soviet apparatus to the central organs on the basis of democratic centralism. “It is important for us,” said Ya. M. Sverdlov, “to establish the closest connection between all Soviet institutions starting from the very top to the very bottom" 25 .
The Bolshevik Party fought manifestations of parochialism, separatism, regionalism, considering them as resistance of the petty-bourgeois elements to proletarian state building.
It is known that by the end of 1918 the regional associations of the Soviets had already outlived their usefulness. “Very often we can observe such a phenomenon,” said Ya. M. Sverdlov, “when a number of provinces unite in regions and create institutions that are completely similar, parallel to those created by the central Soviet government. Quite often we can see that these institutions carry out competing work... One way or another, it is necessary to draw a line between the functions, activities, and competences of individual regional bodies. Only under this condition will we create something integral" 26 .
Centralization in Soviet construction was opposed by the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, "Left Communists" and Trotskyists. Having made their way to the leadership of individual regional associations, they carried out subversive work directed against the Soviet government, the Bolshevik Party. The enemies of the people Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev sought to split the young Soviet Republic into a number of autonomous regions and thereby weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bolshevik Party had to wage a sharp struggle with the Moscow and Petrograd regionalists, who brought disorganization into Soviet construction. Zee-
23 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 6, pp. 178 - 179.
24 Lenin. Op. Vol. V, p. 190.
25 TsGAOR, f. 1235, d. 11, l. 21.
26 Ya. Sverdlov. Selected articles and speeches 1917 - 1919, p. 66. Ogiz. 1939.
Noviev and Bukharin, subsequently exposed as enemies of the people, tried to use regional associations to corrupt the Soviets from within, to disorganize Soviet state work.
In the difficult days of foreign military intervention, at a very critical moment for our Motherland, the traitor Zinoviev, in his articles in Petrogradskaya Pravda, spoke out against the orders of the central institutions of Soviet power. Throughout this period, the Zinovievites waged a desperate struggle against the directives of the Leninist Party and the Soviet government. They disrupted the mobilization of the communists to the front, which actually led to the defeat of the young Soviet republic. This insidious policy of the Zinovievites was carried out in the political, economic and military fields.
On July 27, 1918, V. I. Lenin sent an angry telegram to Zinoviev, in which he categorically and ultimatum insisted "on the cessation of all opposition." Indignant at the actions of the Zinoviev group, which opposed the implementation of the Bolshevik policy and planted anti-state parochial tendencies in the Petrograd organizations, V. I. Lenin pointed out in a telegram: “I categorically warn that the situation of the Republic is dangerous and that the St. Petersburg people, delaying the sending of workers from St. responsibility for the possible destruction of the whole business" 27 .
The party promptly put a stop to the disorganizing activity of the "left communists" who settled in the regional associations. Back in 1906, in the work Anarchism or Socialism? Comrade Stalin, criticizing the anarchist Kropotkin, wrote that we must "recognize that the basis of future socialism is not individual cities and communities, but the whole and indivisible territory of the entire state."
Comrade Stalin exposed the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries and "Left Communists" who tried to justify the "confusion" in the free grouping of cities and regions around the Urals, Moscow and other places, while in reality such regional associations as Moscow and Ural were completely random formations. "The peculiar federalism of the Moscow regionalists," Comrade Stalin pointed out, "who are trying to artificially unite 14 provinces around Moscow, also has nothing in common with the well-known resolution of the Third Congress of Soviets on federation." The then-created Council of People’s Commissars of the Northern Region, which united 8 provinces around Petrograd, I.V. Stalin also recognized as accidental and pointed out that we would have to break such accidents, and the Constitution should not give sanctions for such random formations.
Comrade Stalin repeatedly emphasized that in the situation of a fierce struggle against the enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat, "the creation of local and regional sovereign bodies of power in parallel with central power would in fact mean the collapse of all power and a return to capitalism" 30 .
Ya. M. Sverdlov, the closest associate of Lenin and Stalin, also pointed out that the organization of the Moscow region, created from 14 provinces, and the Ural region, organized from 4 provinces (Ufa, Vyatka, Orenburg and Perm), contradicts the principles of organizing regional associations of the socialist republic during the transition period. The Moscow and Ural regions, Ya. M. Sverdlov said, cannot be the regions that should be created within a socialist republic. On the contrary, their creation is characteristic
27 Lenin's collection XXXIV, p. 28.
28 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 1, p. 331.
29 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 4, p. 69.
30 Ibid., p. 89.
thorny example of the confusion and heterogeneity that exists in them 31 .
Protests against regional associations began on the part of the working masses of those provinces that were drawn into these artificial associations. The question of regional associations was discussed at provincial party conferences, at congresses, and in the press. Thus, at the Novgorod Party Conference on November 29, 1918, when the regional associations had become obsolete, a delegate from the city of Staraya Russa declared that the Northern Region "is not only inactive, but actually opposes, brings chaos to local work, because the orders of the regional center contradict the decisions and orders of the center. A situation is created when local workers do not know what to do" 32 . The enemies of the working class resisted the strengthening of Soviet power and the centralization of administration in every possible way: the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trotskyists, and "Left Communists".
The struggle of the "Left Communists" and "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries against the consolidation of Soviet power in the Moscow Region took on a fierce character. "Left communists" seized the Moscow regional bureau of the party. On March 20, 1918, together with the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, they organized the "Sovnarkom" of the city of Moscow and the Moscow Region, which they tried to turn into a center of counter-revolutionary struggle against the Leninist Council of People's Commissars.
Considering the existence of the Moscow Regional Council of People's Commissars inexpedient, soon after the government moved to Moscow, Lenin ordered V. D. Bonch-Bruyevich, manager of the Council of People's Commissars, to put on the agenda of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars the question of the liquidation of the Moscow Council of People's Commissars.
In October 1918, an administrative commission was created in the presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to consider the issue of regions. The commission was composed of representatives of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, commissariats: Internal Affairs, Finance, State control, the Supreme Economic Council, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Justice, Food, Agriculture and from representatives of the regional associations of the Soviets that existed at that time.
On December 23, 1918, at the IV session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, with the participation of Comrade Stalin, the question of regional associations was discussed. The speaker was Ya. M. Sverdlov. The decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 23, 1918 stated: "The regional bodies of the Central Industrial Region (Moscow Region) are abolished immediately" 33 .
Thus, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and personally V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin, an end was put to regionalism in the organization of Soviets. On December 1, 1918, at a meeting of the Defense Council, JV Stalin was instructed to draw up a resolution on the struggle against regionalism and on the fight against red tape, 34 and on December 8, 1918, Comrade Stalin made a report on this topic in the Defense Council. The decisions of the Council of Defense on the fight against regionalism and bureaucratic red tape and the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of December 23, 1918 on regional associations were of great importance.
against centralism and state discipline Soviet power was fought by all anti-party groups. Thus, for example, Lenin and Stalin exposed the anti-Party grouping of "democratic centralists" (decists) - Sapronovists and Ignatists. This
31 TsGAOR, f. 1235, d. 4, l. 27.
32 IMEL archive, d. 42, op. 4/s, l. 87.
33 TsGAOR, f. 1235, d. 3-b, op. 22, l. 163.
34 See Lenin's collection XVIII, p. 243.
the anti-party group sought to weaken the centralism of the Soviet apparatus.
On the eve of the Eighth Party Congress, Sapronov, Osinsky and others came out in defense of localism and regionalism, against the absolutely necessary measures to strengthen the centralism of the Soviet state. At the moment when it was necessary to strengthen centralism in order to concentrate all forces and mobilize all resources in the interests of the defense of the country, when it was precisely the insufficiency of centralism that made itself felt, Sapronov and Co. Komissarov in carrying out "bureaucratic centralism". It was an anti-Leninist policy aimed at weakening the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In January 1919, at the Moscow Citywide Party Conference, V. I. Lenin dealt a crushing blow to the oppositionists. The Moscow Party Conference rejected the radical change of the Soviet Constitution proposed by the opposition. The defenders of separatism and parochialism Sapronov, Osinsky, Ignatov were finally exposed and defeated by Lenin and Stalin at the VIII Party Congress.
Summing up the experience of Soviet construction in the localities, the Eighth Party Congress confirmed the complete inviolability of the principle of democratic centralism in Soviet construction, based on the basic provisions of the Leninist-Stalinist first Soviet Constitution. In a special decision on Soviet construction, the composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the functions of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the functions of the Soviets and executive committees were precisely defined, and it was pointed out that all working people should be involved in the Soviets.
The Bolshevik Party resolutely fought against manifestations of parochialism in party and Soviet work, the bearers of which were the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries and "Left Communists". During the period under consideration, county, city, and provincial party conferences often discussed questions of the relationship between local executive committees and central authorities.
In individual Soviets, parochial tendencies were strong. The executive committees, to the leadership of which "left communists" made their way, often did not obey the orders of higher Soviet organizations, opposed the centralized leadership. “The center decides one thing,” said Ya. M. Sverdlov, “and they conduct their own, local policy. This is often done in the field of food, finance, transport. This is sometimes done in the field of politics ... This is a completely unacceptable phenomenon. Resolutions central organs of the party and power are obligatory for local organizations" 36 .
The Soviet government, in a number of directives to the local Soviets, resolutely pointed out that various kinds of decentralist tendencies concealed great dangers for the proletarian revolution and that in order to win it, a firm, centralized, democratically based power of the proletarian state was needed.
Party organizations fought against the unauthorized actions of the executive committees in the localities, to the leadership of which the "left communists" made their way. So, the Borovichi Executive Committee in its decision wrote: "Send an armed expedition to the Uglovka station to cut off the wagons going to Petrograd with cargo." The general party meeting of the Borovichi organization canceled the decision of the executive committee and expressed "deep indignation and pro-
35 See minutes of the 8th Party Congress, p. 415. 1933.
36 Ya. Sverdlov. Selected articles and speeches 1917 - 1919, p. 151.
test against the predatory decision of the executive committee, which is clearly counter-revolutionary, since it is directed against the Soviet power in the center" 37 .
In the second half of 1918, party conferences were held in all provinces, congresses of representatives of executive committees, at which (the question of the structure of the latter, about the changes that needed to be made to it in accordance with the Constitution was resolved. Thus, in the decision of the congress of representatives of volost executive committees committees of the Tula district stated: “Having listened to a detailed explanation of the Constitution of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets, they decided: in their orders and actions on the ground, strictly adhere to the named Constitution, without going beyond its borders. In addition, it is correct to organize all volost and village councils with their departments and subdivisions, according to the instructions of the higher authorities" 38 .
Throughout the country, in all links of the Soviet apparatus, with the broad participation of party organizations, issues related to the implementation of the provisions of the Soviet Constitution were discussed. The Constitution became the property of the broad masses of the population of our country, and the gains of the proletarian revolution recorded in it entered the consciousness of the masses as political slogans that had to be carried out in the conditions of a fierce struggle against internal and international counter-revolution.
Guided by the provisions of the Soviet Constitution, the executive committees carried out in the second half of 1918 organizational restructuring, as a result of which the structure of local authorities for the first time acquired the necessary uniformity and order throughout the country.
“It took a whole year of hard, hard work ... until we built the governing apparatus,” says the report of the Tsivilsky (Kazan province) county executive committee for 1918, “looking back, one has to be horrified by the number of transformations and changes that had to be endured during this year Council. Looking at the present, we can safely assume that the new year has begun with greater and more organized forces than in 1918, and we can safely hope that further work will be fruitful.
The implementation of the foundations of the first Soviet Constitution in the field of state building was reflected in the fact that by the beginning of 1919 organizational problems were eliminated; an end was put to separatism, parochialism and regionalism. The Bolshevik Party, in accordance with the requirements of the Soviet Constitution, achieved uniformity in the organization of Soviet power in the localities. The order of subordination of the lower authorities to the higher ones was established. By the end of 1918, that “formally non-communist, flexible and relatively broad, very powerful, proletarian apparatus is taking shape, through which the party is closely connected with the class and with the masses, and through which, under the leadership of the party, the dictatorship of the class is carried out” 40 .
Thus, on the basis of the first Soviet Constitution, a stable and well-ordered system of Soviet governing bodies was created, which operated without significant changes for a number of years.
Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the working class and the working peasantry, under the banner of the Constitution of 1918, crushed the bourgeois counter-revolution, repelled the attack of foreign invaders, and strengthened the Soviet state.
38 TsGAOR, f. 393, d. 227, l. 364.
39 Ibid., d. 100, op. 26, l. 358 - 359.
40 Lenin. Op. T. XXV, p. 193.
By the summer of 1918, after the victorious working class had expropriated the big bourgeoisie in the towns, it was necessary to launch an offensive against the kulaks in the countryside as well. "At that time, the struggle between the poor and the kulaks was in full swing in the countryside. The kulaks took power and seized the lands taken from the landowners" 41 .
It is known that "in the first period after the victory of the October Socialist Revolution, the kulaks penetrated the Soviets, fought against the Soviet power. The party set the task of crushing the counter-revolutionary kulaks, because without curbing and defeating the counter-revolutionary kulaks it was impossible to strengthen Soviet power in the countryside. Lenin said: " A year after the proletarian revolution in the capitals, under its influence and with its help, a proletarian revolution broke out in the backwoods of the countryside, which finally strengthened Soviet power and Bolshevism, finally proved that there are no forces inside the country against it.
By decree of June 11, 1918, committees of the rural poor were created. "The Kombeds played a big role in the fight against the kulaks, in the redistribution of confiscated lands and distribution of household equipment, in the procurement of food surpluses from the kulaks, in the supply of food to the workers' centers and the Red Army ...
The organization of committees of the poor was a further stage in the development of the socialist revolution in the countryside. Kombedy were the strongholds of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the countryside" 43 .
During this period, all the work of the Bolshevik party cells in the countryside was directed to the struggle for the strengthening of Soviet power. But in order to strengthen the Soviets in the countryside, it was necessary to purge them of kulaks, to prevent the penetration of kulak elements into the Soviets and committees of the poor. The Party cells led the work of purging the Soviets and Committees of the Poor Peasants of kulaks, including in their ranks the revolutionary part of the rural poor, they directed the Soviets and Committees of the Poor Peasants, directed the work of consolidating Soviet power. All this strengthened the influence of our Party among the broad masses of the working peasantry.
It was necessary to carry out a purge of the social composition of those Soviets that had become an instrument of kulak influence, and thereby strengthen the power of the Soviets in the localities. The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in a telegram to all provincial Soviets indicated: "It is hereby ordered that all district, volost and village Soviets strictly implement the decision of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on the complete elimination from all Soviet work and from participation in the elections to the Soviets of all wealthy kulak elements of the countryside. All kulaks, who have hitherto taken part in the elections of the Soviets and are working in them, to be arrested and put on trial for violating the foundations of the Soviet Constitution.
Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the poor defeated the kulaks. The decree on committees of the poor was quickly put into practice throughout the country. Numerous correspondences from volosts, uyezds, and gubernias reported on the enthusiasm with which the poor peasants met this decree. So, from the Luga district, Petrograd province, they reported: “The committees of the rural poor are being successfully organized throughout the district, the kulaks are waging a fierce, but unsuccessful struggle with them. " 45 .
42 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 394.
The activities of the Committees of the Poor represented milestone in the development of the socialist revolution in the countryside. They solved one of the most important tasks of the proletarian revolution in the countryside - they brought to an end the split between the working peasantry and the kulak elements, they helped the Soviet government to crush the counter-revolutionary kulaks. The committees of the poor served as a stronghold of the Bolshevik Party and Soviet power in the countryside. The organization of committees of the poor and the curbing of the kulaks in the summer and autumn of 1918 finally strengthened Soviet power in the countryside.
The Poor Peasants' Committees were a concrete form, prompted by life itself, of realizing the alliance between the working class and the rural poor under the conditions of 1918. In this alliance, the leading role belonged to the working class.
During the period of activity of the committees of the poor, the Bolshevik Party sought to win over to the side of the Soviet government not only the poor, but also the middle peasants. The local party organizations did a lot to win over the bulk of the middle peasantry, to wrest it from the influence of the kulaks. The Poor Peasants' Committees were of great political importance for winning over the middle peasants to the side of Soviet power.
During the period of activity of the committees of the poor, the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government defeated and isolated the kulaks. In the course of the fierce class struggle in the countryside, the middle peasant became more and more convinced that his interests were fundamentally at odds with those of the kulaks. The experience of the open class struggle clearly showed the middle peasants that the kulak revolts were ultimately aimed at restoring the power of the landowners and capitalists and depriving the working peasants of all the gains of October.
By the end of 1918, the middle peasants turned towards Soviet power. Lenin issued the slogan: "Know how to reach an agreement with the middle peasant - not for a moment renouncing the fight against the kulak and relying firmly only on the poor."
In the struggle to defeat the counter-revolutionary kulaks, the Bolshevik Party relied on the working class and the poorest peasantry. In order to organize the poor peasantry and successfully fight the kulaks, a march of advanced workers to the countryside was organized.
The proletariat played the role of leader and leader of the working peasants and helped them to strengthen the Soviets. The organizers and leaders of the working peasantry in the struggle to consolidate Soviet power in the countryside, to strengthen the alliance of workers and working peasants were the Bolshevik party organizations of the cities. Thus, from the Lyudnikovskaya volost, Bryansk uyezd, it was reported that the poor had expelled kulaks from the volost Soviet, hiding behind the name of "non-party". Most of those elected to the Council were communists. Ludnikov's organization of communists had up to 40 members. It was headed by St. Petersburg, Oryol and Bryansk workers. Not a single important decision was taken in the Soviet without the knowledge and consent of the communist organization.
Comrade Stalin gave a high appraisal of the historical role and political significance of the march of the workers to the countryside and the organization of committees of the poor. "The march of the proletarians into the countryside and the organization of committees of the poor," Comrade Stalin points out, "consolidated Soviet power in the countryside and were of great political significance for winning over the middle peasant to the side of Soviet power."
46 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 294.
The Bolshevik Party fought for the cleansing of the Soviets from elements alien to the interests of the working class and the working peasantry, who tried to direct the work of the Soviets along an anti-Soviet path, distorting the policy of the party and the Soviet state. The removal of class alien, counter-revolutionary elements from the Soviets was one of the most important tasks of the Bolshevik Party. “The point is not only in the Soviets as a form of organization,” Comrade Stalin points out, “although this form itself represents the greatest revolutionary achievement. The point is, first of all, in the content of the work of the Soviets, the point is in the nature of the work of the Soviets, the point is who exactly leads Soviets - revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries" 49 .
Such counter-revolutionary elements were the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, who denied the leading role of the proletariat in the Soviets and openly acted as the political defenders of the kulak. In the struggle against the committees of the poor peasants and the food detachments of the workers, the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries relied on the kulaks in the countryside. The Bolshevik Party waged a decisive struggle against them. After the counter-revolutionary uprising in Moscow, the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from the Soviets. By the end of 1918, the overwhelming majority of the Soviets no longer had factions of the Left SR party. Here are a few examples of how the influence of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party was liquidated: The Vesyegonsk Uyezd Congress of the Rural Poor Peasants "stigmatized the Socialist-Revolutionary henchmen of the bourgeoisie." The volost soviet of the Volkhov uyezd, Oryol gubernia, adopted a decision stating: “As for the provocative speech of the “Left” Socialist-Revolutionaries in Moscow, we peasants are protesting and will not follow this party, which clearly betrays the peasantry in such a difficult time. Our party is the party of communists."
In the Nizhny Novgorod province, by decision of the provincial executive committee, the organ of the "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries, the newspaper Thought of Labor, was closed. The resolution of the Kaluga Provincial Executive Committee stated: "Exclude members of the 'Left' Socialist-Revolutionary faction from the Provincial Executive Committee. Recall all the 'Left' Socialist-Revolutionaries, working in Soviet organizations, from responsible posts" 51 . Similar resolutions were passed by the Oryol, Kostroma and other Soviets.
Thus, the Bolshevik Party won over the majority of the working peasantry to its side. "We have lost," Lenin wrote, "hundreds of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, spineless intellectuals and peasant kulaks, we have gained millions of members of the poor." In carrying out this enormous work, the Bolshevik Party organizations and committees of the rural poor played a paramount role.
The struggle of the committees of the poor against kulak influence in the Soviets manifested itself in various forms. In necessary cases, the committees exercised systematic control over the activities of the Soviets, demanding their sanction for each event of the Council. Since the kulak elements in the Soviets in most cases offered fierce resistance to the exercise of this control, the Committees of the Poor Peasants in the course of further struggle took measures to re-elect the composition of the Soviets and remove from them all counter-revolutionary elements.
By the end of the Kombedov period, rural communists and sympathizers of the RCP(b) almost completely headed the committees of the poor, occupying leading positions in them. So, in the entire Tambov province, the chairmen of the committees of the poor, volost and rural members of the RCP (b) were
49 I. Stalin Questions of Leninism, pp. 404 - 405. 11th ed.
51 TsGAOR, f. 393, d. 59, op. 26, l. 71.
52 Lenin. Op. T. XXIII, p. 393.
41.4%, sympathizers - 41.4%, non-partisans - 17.2% 53 . Among the 459 chairmen of the volost and rural committees of the poor in the Penza province, 33.19% were communists, 45.15% were sympathizers, 20.42% were non-party, and only 1.24% were "Left" Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The fact that Communists and sympathizers predominate among the leaders of the committees of the poor explains the unified line of work of the committees of the poor and grass-roots party cells. Through the communists, the workers of the committees of the poor, proletarian influence penetrated into the countryside first of all. By the end of 1918, the Bolshevik Party in the countryside had won over the majority of the working peasantry. “In the future, the development of the Soviets,” Comrade Stalin points out, “steadily goes in favor of the Bolsheviks. We have in mind not only the workers’ Soviets, where the Bolsheviks as a whole represent 90%, and not only the soldiers’ Soviets, with the representation of the Bolsheviks in 60-70%, but and peasant soviets, where the Bolsheviks won the majority. The rural communists constituted the main core of the workers of the local Soviets, linking the party through the Soviets with the broad masses of the working peasantry, since "the state apparatus," says Comrade Stalin, "is the main mass apparatus that unites the working class in power, represented by its party, with peasantry and enabling the working class, in the person of its party, to lead the peasantry.
The poor peasants' committees made it possible to create a solid social support for the grassroots Soviets in the person of the poor and middle peasant masses. They have fulfilled their role. “By the end of October 1918,” Comrade Stalin notes, “we already had a preponderance of our forces in the countryside against the kulaks and a turn of the middle peasants towards Soviet power. On the basis of this turn, the decision of the Central Committee arose to abolish the dual power between the Soviets and the committees, to re-election the volost and rural Soviets, on the dissolution of the Kombeds in the newly elected Soviets and, consequently, on the elimination of the Kombeds" 56 .
The Bolshevik Party set the task of transitioning to a "uniform" Soviet form of power, creating a single, strong power in the countryside in strict accordance with the Constitution of the Soviet Republic. The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, and then the 6th All-Russian Congress of Soviets (November 1918) recognized the continued existence of separate Committees of the Poor Peasants and Soviets as inexpedient and decided to merge them. “Only the creation of a single Soviet organization in town and countryside,” the resolution of the Sixth Congress of Soviets said, “will consolidate the merging of the proletariat of the city with the proletarian and semi-proletarian elements of the countryside in the common struggle against all forms of oppression. active participation in the transformation of volost and rural Soviets, turning them, following the model of city Soviets, into true organs of Soviet power and communist construction" 57 .
The VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted a resolution on re-elections of volost and rural Soviets. Specific instructions from the party and government on organizing re-elections of volost and village councils were given in the instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, adopted at a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on December 2, 1918, with the participation of Comrades Stalin and Sverdlov. The instruction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the procedure for re-elections of volost and village Soviets was a document of major political significance. She is
53 See Committees of the Rural Poor. T. 1, pp. 182 - 183. M. 1933.
54 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 4, p. 241.
55 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 5, p. 206.
56 I. Stalin. Questions of Leninism, p. 194. 11th ed.
57 Verbatim report of the VI All-Russian Congress of Soviets, p. 93. M. 1919.
paid special attention to the local organs of Soviet power to prevent all attempts by the class enemy to infiltrate the Soviets. Re-elections would only have revolutionary meaning, the instruction pointed out, when the Soviets were elected by the rural poor and the middle working peasantry. The instructions went on to say that re-elections must be carried out as soon as possible. The onslaught of the imperialists of the Entente and the attempts of the White Guards to organize uprisings demanded that a strong and unified apparatus of workers' and peasants' power be quickly created throughout the country.
V. I. Lenin and J. V. Stalin attached exceptional importance to the election campaign. In January 1919, in the report of the Commission of the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of Defense to Comrade Lenin on the reasons for the fall of Perm, Comrades Stalin and Dzerzhinsky, stating the collapse of the rear of the Third Army, pointed to the fact that "re-elections of commanders in the Perm and Vyatka provinces by January 26 had not yet been started" 59 . As a result, party and Soviet organizations lost their support in the countryside and lost contact with the poorest and middle peasantry.
Comrades Stalin and Dzerzhinsky restored order in the rear of the Third Army; carried out a serious purge of Soviet and party institutions, thereby strengthening the position of the third army, giving it the opportunity to build on its successes.
For the first time since the October Socialist Revolution, general elections of Soviets in the countryside were held on the basis of the Soviet Constitution. The Constitution for the first time granted workers unprecedented political rights and democratic freedoms. Party organizations together with the committees organized the direct holding of re-elections. For example, the election commission of the Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia Executive Committee did a great deal of work: the instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the procedure for re-elections of volost and rural Soviets were widely distributed throughout the counties of the province. On December 24, 1918, at its meeting, the provincial electoral commission passed a decision on the deployment of agitation, on the delegation of members of the commission to all counties to manage the re-elections 60 .
Rural communists and members of the committees of the poor made up the vast majority of the entire composition of the volost election commissions, especially since in most cases these commissions were elected at general joint meetings of volost party cells and committees of the poor under the leadership of the chairman of the volost commission appointed by the county authorities or an executive officer of the county committee of the party or county executive committee. It should be emphasized that the grass-roots party cells, in constructing the election commissions, paid attention to the need to involve representatives of the middle peasant groups in the countryside as well. So, for example, at a general volost meeting of communists and chairmen of the volost and rural committees of the poor in the Sferdinsky volost, Novo-Oskolsky district, citizens were unanimously elected members of the volost election commission: "Korobov - the poor class, Olkhovsky - a communist, Solovyov - the middle class, Miroshnikov - of the poor class, Parkhom - a communist, Pikhterev - of the poor class, Gontarev - a communist, Gikhashulo - of the poor class, Khalimendrikov - of the poor class, Mikhailov - of the middle class" 61 .
Provincial, district, volost and rural party organizations played a major role in holding re-elections of local Soviets. They launched extensive party-mass work in the countryside. Management
59 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 4, p. 215.
60 TsGAOR, f. 393, d. 119, l. 179.
61 TsGAOR, f. 393. d. 116, l. 358.
party organizations ensured the political success of the election campaign. The instructor of the Tver Provincial Executive Committee, for example, reported from the Ostashkovsky Uyezd on December 17, 1918, that “work on re-elections of volost and village Soviets in the Ostashkovsky Uyezd took place from December 10 ... 13 instructors were sent by the Uyezd Electoral Commission. In 9 volosts "The elections ended quite satisfactorily. The re-elections are also going well in other volosts, and the kulak element is no longer allowed into the Soviets... The results of the re-elections: 1/4 of the Communists made it to the executive committees; 1/4 of the sympathizers and 1/2 of the non-Party people" 62 .
The re-elections of the Soviets took place on the basis of the further unification of the poorest and middle peasants under the leadership of the proletariat, their even greater rallying around Soviet power. The Communists exposed the kulak, consolidated and led the bulk of the middle peasantry behind them. Party and Soviet organizations have taken steps to ensure that the proletarian and semi-proletarian sections of the countryside have a dominant position in the village soviets.
The results of the re-elections confirmed the correctness of the path chosen by the Bolshevik Party for the restructuring of Soviets in the countryside. The re-elections made it possible to create a unified system of Soviet bodies both in the city and in the countryside, which meets the requirements of the Constitution of the Soviet state. Work was completed on the implementation of the provisions of the Constitution in the construction of the grassroots Soviet apparatus. This is the tremendous historical and political significance of the campaign for the elections of village soviets in December 1918 and January 1919.
The first general re-elections of the volost and village soviets were held as a political campaign of great importance, which rallied the masses around the party. The involvement of the best people from the poorest and middle peasantry in Soviet work strengthened the dictatorship of the proletariat. The re-elections contributed to the strengthening of the rural and volost soviets and helped to rally the masses around the only correct policy of our Bolshevik Party. The authority of the Party and the proletariat in the countryside has increased. The Bolshevik Party firmly took over the leadership of the village soviets, directing their work towards the attainment of a single goal—the building of socialism in our country.
During the period of the establishment of Soviet power, the bulk of party workers were sent to the Soviets to create and strengthen the Soviet state apparatus. At that time, through the Soviets and in the Soviets, the Party carried on its main work among the masses. The Bolshevik Party consolidated the gains of the October Socialist Revolution by its work in the Soviets. But in order to strengthen the Soviets, it was necessary to create a strong, cohesive party mechanism, imbued with a single will, a single striving. "It hardly needs proof," says Comrade Stalin, "that without a party capable of gathering the mass organizations of the proletariat around itself and centralizing the leadership of the entire movement in the course of the struggle, the proletariat in Russia could not have exercised its revolutionary dictatorship."
The Bolshevik Party successfully solved the problem of creating a unified and well-organized network of party organizations everywhere, in accordance with the administrative division of the country, from the province to the volost. By the end of 1918 and at the beginning of 1919, discord in the structure and methods of forming party bodies was eliminated.
62 TsGAOR, f. 393, d. 58, op. 11, l. 286.
63 I. V. Stalin. Op. Vol. 6, p. 180.
In building local party organizations, the party proceeded from the principle of democratic centralism. This meant that the party must exist as a single organizational unit, with lower and higher bodies of leadership, with the minority subordinating to the majority. From the conditions of the class struggle of the proletariat during the civil war flowed the need for organizational centralism for the party, because in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat the party can fulfill its role of leading and guiding force in the proletarian state only if "it is organized in the most centralistic way" 64 and will carry out iron discipline within their ranks. Such a strictly centralized party during the civil war organized the working class and working peasants to fight against the enemies of the revolution.
The most important organizational principle of Bolshevism is the demand for iron discipline for individual party members and party organizations. Discipline became even more important after the revolution, when the party came into power. The Party put a stop to manifestations of narrow parochialism in Party building in time, by implementing the most severe discipline.
Based on these organizational principles, the Bolshevik Party successfully solved the problem of strengthening party work. Ya. M. Sverdlov said at the close of the 7th Party Congress: “In the localities, much more attention will have to be paid to the Party organization as such than hitherto ... since the Party faces such new tasks, then every kind of revival in the Party organizations themselves is necessary 65 .
The attention of local Party organizations was directed to the development of Party building, to the revival of all Party work. The Bolshevik Party was faced with the task of linking together, gathering together an extensive network of young party cells. An exceptional role in this regard was played by the resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) of May 18, 1918 and the letters of the Central Committee of the Party to all committees, groups, party members dated May 22 and 29, 1918, published in the newspaper Pravda. With merciless sharpness and frankness, the Central Committee of the Party exposed violations of the harmony and integrity of the Party apparatus and turned the attention of the Bolshevik organizations to questions of Party building.
At a meeting on May 18, 1918, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) discussed the state of the work of party organizations, adopted a resolution in which it obliged all party members to take an active part in the work of the party organization. The resolution of the Central Committee of the Party stated: "All members of the Party, regardless of the type of their work and the functions they perform, are obliged to take a direct part in Party organizations and cannot deviate from Party instructions given by the corresponding Party centers." strengthening the power of the Soviets.
The central organ of our party, Pravda, wrote: "The stronger our party organization is built, the stronger the Soviet power will be." Provincial and district party organizations paid great attention to the strengthening of party organizations as the main condition for the consolidation of Soviet power. Thus, at a meeting of the Moscow District Committee of the RCP(b) on May 30, 1918, it was decided to regard party work as the most important, to involve party forces in it, reminding the comrades of the circular of the Central Committee regarding the mandatory participation of party members in party work.
During this period, party building in the counties acquired a wide scope. In a short time, for example, the Tver District Committee of the Party formalized 15 county organizations.
Of great importance for strengthening Party organizations and Soviets in the countryside was the letter of the Central Committee of the Party on work in the countryside, written by Ya. M. Sverdlov and published in Pravda on September 21, 1918. The letter set the task of creating a network of rural Party organizations that would be capable of "embracing the most remote corners of Soviet Russia." Party organizations, following the instructions of the Central Committee, paid special attention to the creation of party cells in the villages. Everywhere a dense network of party cells arose in the volosts. So, in the report of the Ivanovo-Voznesensky provincial committee on March 14, 1919, it was indicated that "75 - 80% of the volosts of the province have cells ... During January - February, the Bureau made 21 trips around the province, where about 30 rallies were held, 3 leaflets were issued.In total, there were 170 party cells in the Ivanovo-Voznesensk province on March 14, 1919, including 84 rural ones.
During this period, from all sides of Russia, from the most remote provinces, information was received about the organization of new communist cells. In the Tver province, for example, from October to December 1918, the number of party organizations increased by 73. In the Tver and Bezhetsk districts, volost party cells were organized in all volosts in December 1918 70 .
So, in the second half of 1918, a network of party organizations was created and organizationally strengthened, starting with a rural party cell and ending with a provincial party organization.
The creation of provincial, district and volost party organizations, the strengthening of the party apparatus contributed to the further strengthening of the soviets.
Comrade Stalin worked out the question of the role of the working class and the party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. "Without the Party, as the main guiding force, any lasting and stable dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible." The Party imparts planned and purposefulness to the work of the entire Soviet state apparatus. The Party outlines the political line by which the Soviets are guided in their activities.
In order to fulfill its role as the main leading and guiding force in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Bolshevik Party, after the victory of the socialist revolution, had to reorganize its ranks in accordance with the new tasks, change the forms of organization and methods of its work, adapting them to the needs of the leadership of the Soviets.
In strengthening the leadership of the Party by the Soviets and other mass organizations of the working class, the Communist factions played an enormous role, and the Party paid great attention to their work. Thus, the Tula provincial conference of the RCP(b) in October 1918 decided: "Soviet factions should be created at each county and volost executive committee" 75 . Local Party organizations in their decisions or special instructions determined the functions of Party factions and methods of work in non-Party organizations.
The Bolshevik Party created and strengthened a network of party factions attached to executive committees, ranging from provincial executive committees to volost executive committees. This was of great importance for strengthening the leadership of the Party by the Soviets. Communist factions in the Soviets were constituent parts of local party organizations. In their work on fundamental questions, the communist factions of the Soviets were guided by the general political line of the party committees. Local party organizations paid much attention to the question of relations with the Soviet factions, seeking to carry out their program in the Soviets through the party factions.
Under the direct leadership of party organizations, the local apparatus of Soviet power was strengthened, and individual misunderstandings and conflicts that arose at first between local party organizations and the communist factions of the Soviets were eliminated. The Party organizations involved every member of the Party in the active work of the Party organizations and directed the work of the Communist factions. Having clearly defined the tasks and duties of the Party factions, the Party made them organizing centers in the work of the Soviets and state organizations, conductors of the Party's influence on the non-Party masses. The Party organizations have achieved friendly, coordinated work of the Party organizations and the Soviets.
The Bolshevik Party fought against the enemies of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, who tried to undermine the leading role of the Party in the Soviets, to isolate the Soviets from Party influence and to oppose them to the Communist Party. The Bolshevik Party crushed the grouping of Osinsky-Sapronov, the Zinovievists, the Trotskyists, who preached the "independence" of the communist factions in the Soviets from the party committees; The Bolshevik Party fought mercilessly against the right-wing restorers of capitalism, who tried by all means to weaken the leading role of the Party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The policy of separating Soviet organizations from party organizations was pursued in Petrograd by Zinoviev, a hidden enemy of Soviet power. He is opposed to
73 "Soviets, congresses of Soviets, executive committees", pp. 50 - 51. Ed. NKVD, M. 1924.
The Bolshevik Party raised with particular urgency the question of the danger of a separation of the state apparatus from the Party, fought against the enemies of the people, against the enemies of Leninism, who tried to weaken the leading role of the Party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, for "without Party leadership," Comrade Stalin teaches, "there can be no dictatorship." proletariat" 77 .
On February 7, 1919, the Northern Regional Committee of the RCP(b) specifically discussed Zinoviev's behavior and decided: "To refer all resolutions and decisions of the Northern Regional Committee, together with the resolution of the Council of Commissars and Zinoviev's articles, to the judgment of the Central Committee of the Party" 78 . The Regional Committee asked the Central Committee of the Party to call Zinoviev to order for his anti-Party behavior.
Lenin and Stalin waged a resolute struggle to strengthen the leadership of the party by the Soviets. For the loosening and weakening of the party, says Comrade Stalin, leads "to the weakening of Soviet power itself, for our party is the ruling party, and it is the main guiding principle of state power."
Based on the experience of party life, local party organizations put forward correct forms of relations between the party and Soviet bodies. From the Arkhangelsk organization of the RCP(b), for example, they reported that "since the best forces were gathered in the party committee, naturally, the discussion of all issues here is more interesting and at the same time serious and business-like, so that Soviet workers began even prefer a preliminary discussion of questions in a party committee to a discussion in the crowd of plenary meetings of the executive committee and willingly bring all questions to the decision of the committee" 80 . This shows that the strengthening of Party organizations and the creation of communist factions in the Soviets strengthened the leadership of the Party in the Soviets and consolidated the leading role of the Party in the Soviets. The Yadrinsk district party conference (Kazan province) taught the members of the executive committees how to organize work in the Soviets, how best to contact the masses. “Members of the executive committee should leave their work in the offices,” the district committee of the RCP (b) pointed out, “and go around the districts as often as possible, visit all the villages, listen to all the needs of the peasants and, upon arrival at the performance of their duties, immediately put them into practice” 81 .
The positive experience of the work of party organizations in leading the Soviets was summarized by the Eighth Party Congress. V. I. Lenin made reports at the congress on the new program of the party and on work in the countryside. The congress marked the beginning of intensive work to further improve the organizational apparatus of the party and the general organizational leadership. The Eighth Party Congress adopted a decision of exceptional importance on the organizational question. The Congress clarified the difference between the Party and the Soviets and warned the Party organizations not to confuse the functions of the Party collectives with the functions of the Soviets. The party carries out its decisions through the Soviet bodies within the framework of the Constitution. The Party tries to direct the activity of the Soviets, but not to replace them. This resolution played a big role in strengthening the Soviets. The historic decisions of the Eighth Congress on the organizational question helped the Bolshevik Party to establish correct relations between Party and Soviet bodies. Local party organizations, in carrying out the decision of the congress, strengthened the leadership of Soviet institutions, sent new forces to work in the Soviets, and revived Soviet work.
The Voronezh Provincial Party Committee, guided by the instructions of the Eighth Congress of the RCP (b), decided: "To strengthen party control over local authorities ... to convene in the near future peasant congresses, meetings of representatives of district executive committees, as well as meetings in district cities - chairmen and, if possible, , secretaries of executive committees" 84 .
The Tambov Provincial Committee of the Party issued a whole series of circular letters to local organizations in which they proposed that the decisions of the Eighth Party Congress be put into effect immediately. One of the instructions stated: “In view of the unsatisfactory organization of Soviet work in a number of districts and the attempts of party organizations to replace those in place of leadership of Soviet institutions, to oblige local organizations to strictly be guided by the decisions of the Eighth Congress on this issue” 85 .
check, turned into a mighty force. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the work of the Soviets was filled with a truly revolutionary content. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviets became powerful organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Relying on the strength of the Soviet system, the peoples of our country, under the leadership of the Lenin-Stalin party, defended the freedom and independence of the Soviet state during the foreign military intervention and civil war of 1918-1920.
During the years of peaceful construction, the Soviets, led by the Lenin-Stalin Party, launched gigantic economic-organizational and cultural-educational work. Soviet power, with its entire system of state and public organizations, under the leadership of the Communist Party, was the best form of drawing millions of the working masses into an active struggle for the building of socialism in our country.
During the years of the Stalinist five-year plans, the Soviet state apparatus became even stronger and more tempered, demonstrated to the whole world its invincible power and vitality. "It must be admitted," says Comrade Stalin, "that Soviet power is now the most stable power of all the existing powers in the world."
The Soviet state apparatus, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, was the most important weapon that ensured the victory of socialism in our country. Thanks to the advantages of the Soviet system and the socialist system of organizing the economy, in a short historical period our Motherland was transformed from a backward, agrarian country into a powerful, industrial-collective-farm socialist power. The wise policy of the Bolshevik Party led to the triumph of socialism.
The victory of socialism, crowned by the Stalin Constitution, was a triumph for the development of Soviet democracy; it further strengthened the Soviet state and social system, "the strength of which could be envied by any national state in any part of the world."
The strength and indestructibility of the Soviet state was revealed with all its might during the Great Patriotic War against fascist Germany and imperialist Japan. “Our victory,” says Comrade Stalin, “means, first of all, that our Soviet social system has won, that the Soviet social system has successfully withstood the test in the fire of war and has proved its full viability ... Our victory means, secondly, that defeated our Soviet state system ... Our victory means, thirdly, that the Soviet armed forces won" 88 .
The experience of the Great Patriotic War showed that the Soviet system is the best form of mobilizing all the forces of the people and all the economic resources of the country to repel the enemy. The Soviets successfully coped with their tasks because they relied on the initiative of the masses and carried out their work under the leadership of the battle-hardened party of Lenin-Stalin.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BOLSHEVIK POWER
The Bolsheviks come to power. At the very beginning of September 1917, by-elections to the Petrograd Soviet were held. The Bolsheviks won the majority of seats in it. L. D. Trotsky was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Soviet, who supported Lenin on the issue of power. On September 5, the Bolsheviks gained predominance in the Moscow Soviet. The slogan "All power to the Soviets!" reappeared in the propaganda arsenal of the RSDLP (b), but now it sounded like a call for armed action. Lenin, who was in an illegal position, believed that "having received a majority in both the capital's Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their own hands." In his letters to the Central Committee of the party, he demanded to put "on the order of the day ... an armed uprising in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the conquest of power, the overthrow of the government."
Returning to Petrograd, on October 10, Lenin held a secret meeting of the Central Committee. 10 of the 12 present voted for Lenin's resolution on an armed uprising. L. B. Kamenev and G. E. Zinoviev, who believed that “Russia is not ready to accept the power of the Bolsheviks,” spoke out against it. On October 12, 1917, the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) was created under the Petrograd Soviet, which served as the headquarters for the preparation of the uprising. In addition to the Bolsheviks, it included representatives of the left wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. L. D. Trotsky became the actual leader of the Military Revolutionary Committee. On October 22, the Military Revolutionary Committee sent its representatives to all military units of the Petrograd garrison. At the same time, in all districts of the city, the Bolsheviks organized numerous rallies, at which the best party speakers spoke.
By order of the government, on October 24, a detachment of militia and cadets closed the printing house where the Bolshevik newspaper Rabochy Put was printed. The Bolsheviks regarded this as the beginning of a "counter-revolutionary conspiracy." The Military Revolutionary Committee sent to all regiments of the Petrograd garrison and to the ships of the Baltic Fleet "Order No. 1" on bringing the regiments to combat readiness. On the same day, detachments of the workers' Red Guard and soldiers began to seize bridges, mail, telegraph, and railway stations. No one offered them the slightest resistance. By the morning of October 25, the capital was in the hands of the rebels. The Military Revolutionary Committee, in an appeal to the citizens of Russia, announced the seizure of power. A small hitch occurred only with the storming of the Winter Palace, which was defended by a small cadet detachment and a volunteer women's battalion. On the night of October 26, Winter fell. Kerensky managed to leave the palace even before the assault. The remaining members of the Provisional Government were arrested.
Beginning of the II Congress of Soviets. On the evening of October 25, the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened. Of the 739 delegates, 338 were Bolsheviks, 127 mandates belonged to the left wing of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which supported the Bolshevik idea of an armed uprising. The Mensheviks and Right Social Revolutionaries sharply condemned the actions of the Bolsheviks and demanded that the congress begin negotiations with the Provisional Government on the formation of a new cabinet of ministers based on all sectors of society. Not having received the approval of the congress, the Menshevik and Right Social Revolutionary factions left the meeting. Thus, they deprived themselves of the opportunity to take part in the formation of new authorities, and hence the opportunity to correct the actions of the Bolsheviks "from within". The Left Social Revolutionaries, who supported the Bolsheviks and joined the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, refused to obey the demand of the Central Committee of the AKP and took part in the work of the congress.
The first decrees of the Soviet government. Considering the sad experience of the Provisional Government, which lost the confidence of the masses due to its unwillingness to solve the main problems of the revolution, Lenin immediately proposed that the Second Congress of Soviets adopt decrees on peace, land and power. The Decree on Peace proclaimed Russia's withdrawal from the war. The congress turned to all the belligerent governments and peoples with a proposal for a general democratic peace, that is, a peace without annexations and indemnities. The decree on land was based on 242 local peasant orders collected by the Socialist-Revolutionaries for the First Congress of Soviets, which set out the peasants' ideas about agrarian reform. That is, in fact, the Decree on Land reproduced the Socialist-Revolutionary program. Thanks to this, the peasants followed the Bolsheviks.
The Decree on Power proclaimed the universal transfer of power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. The congress elected a new composition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It included 62 Bolsheviks and 29 Left Social Revolutionaries.
Executive power was transferred to the new government - the Council of People's Commissars (Council of People's Commissars, SNK) - headed by V. I. Lenin. The Left SRs rejected the Bolsheviks' offer to enter the government. They did not want to break completely with their party, hoping that in the future a coalition government would nevertheless be formed from representatives of all socialist parties. Therefore, the first Soviet government consisted of only Bolsheviks.
During the discussion and adoption of each decree, it was emphasized that they were of a temporary nature - until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which would have to legislate the principles of the state system.
Defeat of Kerensky. Establishment of a new local authority. Kerensky, having fled from Petrograd, managed to gather a few forces. In Petrograd itself, on October 24, the Committee of Public Security was created under the leadership of the mayor G. I. Schreider. On October 26, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks - members of the City Duma, the former All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the executive committee of the All-Russian Council of Peasants' Deputies, members of the factions of socialist parties who left the Second Congress of Soviets - created the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution. The Committee planned, simultaneously with the entry of Kerensky's troops into Petrograd, to raise an uprising against the Bolsheviks. However, on the night of October 29, these plans became known to the Military Revolutionary Committee. Therefore, the Salvation Committee ordered the demonstration to begin immediately. A rebellion broke out, which was suppressed by the forces of the Red Guards and the soldiers of the garrison. On October 30, Kerensky's detachments were defeated at the Pulkovo Heights, he himself managed to escape.
The establishment of Soviet power in Moscow. On October 25, the Moscow Bolsheviks created a party center, which undertook a series of measures to seize power. In the evening a joint plenum of the Moscow Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies met. It elected the VRK, which consisted of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
At the same time, a meeting of the city duma was held, at which the Committee of Public Safety was created. On the instructions of the Committee, the commander of the troops of the Moscow Military District, Colonel K. I. Ryabtsev, mobilized officers and cadets to organize the fight against the Bolsheviks. Within two days, he managed to take control of the city center.
At the call of the Military Revolutionary Committee, on the morning of October 28, a political strike of Moscow workers began. The meeting of representatives of the military units of the garrison declared the full support of the Military Revolutionary Committee and the non-recognition of the orders of the district headquarters and the Committee of Public Security. On October 29, the situation in Moscow changed in favor of the rebels. They managed to clear Tverskaya Street of junkers, occupy the Maly Theater and the buildings of the city government on Tverskoy Boulevard, and surround the cadet corps in Lefortovo. The next day the Cadets laid down their arms. On the afternoon of November 2, the Kremlin found itself in a dense ring of encirclement. Chairman of the Public Safety Committee, Mayor VV Rudnev, sent a letter to the Military Revolutionary Committee informing him that under "the present conditions, the Committee considers it necessary to liquidate the armed struggle in Moscow by switching to political measures of struggle." It meant surrender.
In a number of cities in the Central Industrial Region (Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kostroma, Tver, Bryansk, Yaroslavl, Ryazan, Vladimir, Kolomna, Serpukhov, Podolsk, etc.), local Soviets had real power even before the October events. They only legitimized and strengthened their position. In Samara, Tsaritsyn, Syzran, Simbirsk, the power of the Soviets was established peacefully. In Kaluga and Tula, the process of its approval dragged on until the end of November - mid-December, and in the districts even until the spring of 1918. In the Central Black Earth region, where the Socialist-Revolutionaries enjoyed great influence, the struggle continued until December, and in some places until January. The same was in Kazan, Saratov and Astrakhan. In Western Siberia, the Soviets took power only at the beginning of December. By February 1918, the power of the Soviets had established itself almost throughout the Altai, in February - in Chita, Verkhneudinsk, only then in Transbaikalia and by March - in the Far East.
Destruction of national and class inequality. The new government adopted a number of laws that eliminated national and class inequality. On November 2, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars promulgated the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia." It formulated the most important provisions that determined the national policy of the Soviet government: the equality of the peoples of Russia, their right to free self-determination, up to secession and the formation of an independent state; the abolition of all and any national and national-religious privileges and restrictions, the free development of national minorities. In December 1917, the Bolsheviks recognized the independence of Finland. Later, in August 1918, a decree was adopted on the rejection of treaties and acts on the divisions of Poland, concluded by the government of the Russian Empire.
On November 10, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks." The division of society into nobles, merchants, peasants, petty bourgeois was eliminated, princely, count and other titles, civil ranks (table of ranks) were abolished. For the entire population, one common name was established - a citizen of the Russian Soviet Republic. On December 18, the civil rights of men and women were equalized. On January 23, a decree was issued on the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church.
In December, the chronology was transferred from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. The first day after January 31, 1918 was prescribed to be considered not the 1st, but February 14th, the second day should be considered the 15th, etc.
In December 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was created under the Council of People's Commissars to combat counter-revolution, sabotage and profiteering - the first punitive body of Soviet power. It was headed by F. E. Dzerzhinsky.
The decrees of the new government were met with satisfaction by many. They were supported by the All-Russian Congresses of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, held in November - early December 1917. The congresses decided to merge the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies with the Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The peasantry's support for the land decree brought the right SRs to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the left to the government. In November-December 1917, seven representatives of the Left SRs entered the Council of People's Commissars.
Convocation and dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. The demand for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly appeared in the course of the first revolution. It was included in the programs of almost all parties. The Bolsheviks waged their campaign against the Provisional Government under the slogan of defending the Constituent Assembly, accusing the government of delaying the elections. But, having come to power, they changed their attitude towards the Constituent Assembly and declared that only the Soviets were the true form of democracy. However, given the popularity of the idea of the Constituent Assembly among the people, the Bolsheviks did not dare to cancel its convocation. The results of the elections held in November 1917 disappointed the Bolsheviks: only 23.9% of voters voted for them, 40% voted for the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries dominated the lists. The Mensheviks received 2.3% and the Cadets 4.7% of the vote.
On January 3, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted Lenin's Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People. It recorded all the changes that had taken place since October 25, which were regarded as the basis for the subsequent socialist reorganization of society. It was decided to submit the Declaration as the main document for adoption by the Constituent Assembly.
On the opening day of the Constituent Assembly, January 5, 1918, a demonstration was held in Petrograd in its defense, organized by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. By order of the authorities, she was shot. The meeting opened in a tense atmosphere of confrontation. The meeting room was filled with armed sailors, supporters of the Bolsheviks. Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya. M. Sverdlov read out the text of the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People and proposed to adopt it, thereby legitimizing the existence of Soviet power and its first decrees. But the Constituent Assembly refused to approve this document, starting a discussion on the draft laws on peace and land proposed by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Then the Bolsheviks announced their resignation from the Constituent Assembly. Following them, their allies, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, also left the meeting. The discussion, which continued after the departure of members of the ruling parties, was interrupted late at night by the head of the guard, sailor A. G. Zheleznyakov, with the message that "the guard was tired." He urged the delegates to leave the premises. On January 6, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree dissolving the Constituent Assembly.
On January 10, 1918, the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in the Tauride Palace, where the Constituent Assembly had recently met. Three days later he was joined by delegates from the III All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies. Thus, the unification of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies into a single state system was completed. The United Congress adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, declared Russia a Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and instructed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to develop a constitution for the new state.
The majority of the population calmly accepted the decision to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks found themselves in a difficult position. With the activities of the Constituent Assembly, they linked their hopes for a peaceful way to remove the Bolsheviks from power. Now the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries began to incline more and more towards the need for an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks.
What you need to know about this topic:
Socio-economic and political development of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Nicholas II.
Domestic policy of tsarism. Nicholas II. Strengthening repression. "Police socialism".
Russo-Japanese War. Reasons, course, results.
Revolution of 1905 - 1907 The nature, driving forces and features of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. stages of the revolution. The reasons for the defeat and the significance of the revolution.
Elections to the State Duma. I State Duma. The agrarian question in the Duma. Dispersal of the Duma. II State Duma. Coup d'état June 3, 1907
Third June political system. Electoral law June 3, 1907 III State Duma. The alignment of political forces in the Duma. Duma activities. government terror. The decline of the labor movement in 1907-1910
Stolypin agrarian reform.
IV State Duma. Party composition and Duma factions. Duma activities.
The political crisis in Russia on the eve of the war. The labor movement in the summer of 1914 Crisis of the top.
The international position of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Beginning of the First World War. Origin and nature of war. Russia's entry into the war. Attitude towards the war of parties and classes.
The course of hostilities. Strategic forces and plans of the parties. Results of the war. The role of the Eastern Front in the First World War.
The Russian economy during the First World War.
Workers' and peasants' movement in 1915-1916. Revolutionary movement in the army and navy. Growing anti-war sentiment. Formation of the bourgeois opposition.
Russian culture of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
Aggravation of socio-political contradictions in the country in January-February 1917. The beginning, prerequisites and nature of the revolution. Uprising in Petrograd. Formation of the Petrograd Soviet. Provisional Committee of the State Duma. Order N I. Formation of the Provisional Government. Abdication of Nicholas II. Causes of dual power and its essence. February coup in Moscow, at the front, in the provinces.
From February to October. The policy of the Provisional Government in relation to war and peace, on agrarian, national, labor issues. Relations between the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The arrival of V.I. Lenin in Petrograd.
Political parties (Kadets, Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks): political programs, influence among the masses.
Crises of the Provisional Government. An attempted military coup in the country. Growth of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. Bolshevization of the capital Soviets.
Preparation and conduct of an armed uprising in Petrograd.
II All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Decisions about power, peace, land. Formation of public authorities and management. Composition of the first Soviet government.
The victory of the armed uprising in Moscow. Government agreement with the Left SRs. Elections to the Constituent Assembly, its convocation and dissolution.
The first socio-economic transformations in the field of industry, agriculture, finance, labor and women's issues. Church and State.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, its terms and significance.
Economic tasks of the Soviet government in the spring of 1918. Aggravation of the food issue. The introduction of food dictatorship. Working squads. Comedy.
The revolt of the left SRs and the collapse of the two-party system in Russia.
First Soviet Constitution.
Causes of intervention and civil war. The course of hostilities. Human and material losses of the period of the civil war and military intervention.
The internal policy of the Soviet leadership during the war. "War Communism". GOELRO plan.
The policy of the new government in relation to culture.
Foreign policy. Treaties with border countries. Participation of Russia in the Genoa, Hague, Moscow and Lausanne conferences. Diplomatic recognition of the USSR by the main capitalist countries.
Domestic policy. Socio-economic and political crisis of the early 20s. Famine of 1921-1922 Transition to new economic policy. The essence of the NEP. NEP in the field of agriculture, trade, industry. financial reform. Economic recovery. Crises during the NEP and its curtailment.
Creation projects USSR. I Congress of Soviets of the USSR. The first government and the Constitution of the USSR.
Illness and death of V.I. Lenin. Intraparty struggle. The beginning of the formation of Stalin's regime of power.
Industrialization and collectivization. Development and implementation of the first five-year plans. Socialist competition - purpose, forms, leaders.
Formation and strengthening of the state system of economic management.
The course towards complete collectivization. Dispossession.
Results of industrialization and collectivization.
Political, national-state development in the 30s. Intraparty struggle. political repression. Formation of the nomenklatura as a layer of managers. Stalinist regime and the constitution of the USSR in 1936
Soviet culture in the 20-30s.
Foreign policy of the second half of the 20s - mid-30s.
Domestic policy. The growth of military production. Extraordinary measures in the field of labor legislation. Measures to solve the grain problem. Armed forces. Growth of the Red Army. military reform. Repressions against the command personnel of the Red Army and the Red Army.
Foreign policy. Non-aggression pact and treaty of friendship and borders between the USSR and Germany. The entry of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus into the USSR. Soviet-Finnish War. The inclusion of the Baltic republics and other territories in the USSR.
Periodization of the Great Patriotic War. The initial stage of the war. Turning the country into a military camp. Military defeats 1941-1942 and their reasons. Major military events Capitulation of Nazi Germany. Participation of the USSR in the war with Japan.
Soviet rear during the war.
Deportation of peoples.
Partisan struggle.
Human and material losses during the war.
Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. Declaration of the United Nations. The problem of the second front. Conferences of the "Big Three". Problems of post-war peace settlement and all-round cooperation. USSR and UN.
Beginning of the Cold War. The contribution of the USSR to the creation of the "socialist camp". CMEA formation.
Domestic policy of the USSR in the mid-1940s - early 1950s. Restoration of the national economy.
Socio-political life. Politics in the field of science and culture. Continued repression. "Leningrad business". Campaign against cosmopolitanism. "Doctors' Case".
Socio-economic development of Soviet society in the mid-50s - the first half of the 60s.
Socio-political development: XX Congress of the CPSU and the condemnation of Stalin's personality cult. Rehabilitation of victims of repressions and deportations. Intra-party struggle in the second half of the 1950s.
Foreign policy: the creation of the ATS. The entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Exacerbation of Soviet-Chinese relations. The split of the "socialist camp". Soviet-American Relations and the Caribbean Crisis. USSR and third world countries. Reducing the strength of the armed forces of the USSR. Moscow Treaty on the Limitation of Nuclear Tests.
USSR in the mid-60s - the first half of the 80s.
Socio-economic development: economic reform 1965
Growing difficulties of economic development. Decline in the rate of socio-economic growth.
USSR Constitution 1977
Socio-political life of the USSR in the 1970s - early 1980s.
Foreign Policy: Nonproliferation Treaty nuclear weapons. Consolidation of post-war borders in Europe. Moscow treaty with Germany. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Soviet-American treaties of the 70s. Soviet-Chinese relations. The entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Exacerbation of international tension and the USSR. Strengthening of the Soviet-American confrontation in the early 80s.
USSR in 1985-1991
Domestic policy: an attempt to accelerate the socio-economic development of the country. An attempt to reform the political system of Soviet society. Congresses of People's Deputies. Election of the President of the USSR. Multi-party system. Aggravation political crisis.
Exacerbation of the national question. Attempts to reform the national-state structure of the USSR. Declaration on State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. "Novogarevsky process". The collapse of the USSR.
Foreign policy: Soviet-American relations and the problem of disarmament. Treaties with leading capitalist countries. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Changing relations with the countries of the socialist community. Disintegration of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
Russian Federation in 1992-2000
Domestic policy: "Shock therapy" in the economy: price liberalization, stages of privatization of commercial and industrial enterprises. Fall in production. Increased social tension. Growth and slowdown in financial inflation. The aggravation of the struggle between the executive and legislative branches. The dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the Congress of People's Deputies. October events of 1993. Abolition of local bodies of Soviet power. Elections to the Federal Assembly. Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993 Formation presidential republic. Aggravation and overcoming of national conflicts in the North Caucasus.
Parliamentary elections 1995 Presidential elections 1996 Power and opposition. An attempt to return to the course of liberal reforms (spring 1997) and its failure. The financial crisis of August 1998: causes, economic and political consequences. "Second Chechen War". Parliamentary elections in 1999 and early presidential elections in 2000 Foreign policy: Russia in the CIS. Participation Russian troops in "hot spots" of the near abroad: Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan. Russia's relations with foreign countries. The withdrawal of Russian troops from Europe and neighboring countries. Russian-American agreements. Russia and NATO. Russia and the Council of Europe. Yugoslav crises (1999-2000) and Russia's position.
- Danilov A.A., Kosulina L.G. History of the state and peoples of Russia. XX century.
History of creation
Workers - Peasants Red Army,
Armies of the dictatorship of the proletariat
THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF SOVIET POWER
The spread and strengthening of Soviet power.The power of the Soviets quickly spread throughout the country. In the industrial regions where the Soviets had been conquered by the Bolsheviks even before the October uprising, power passed into the hands of the Soviets in most cases by peaceful means. Military revolutionary committees were created here, the Red Guards occupied the post office, telegraph and other institutions. Relying on the trade unions, the revolutionary committees began to prepare congresses of Soviets for the creation of authorized bodies of Soviet power. So it was in many areas of the Urals, Donbass, in Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Shuya and other cities.
In a number of cities, the establishment of Soviet power was delayed, as coalition revolutionary committees were created locally. Here the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries thwarted the transfer of power to the Soviets in every possible way. The period from October 25 to February 18 (before the start of the offensive of German imperialism) Lenin called the period of the triumphal march of Soviet power. The Soviets won so quickly because the masses, even under the Provisional Government, lost faith in Kerenskyism. Resolutions of the Second Congress of Soviets, decrees of the Soviet government, appeals, appeals of the Bolshevik Party, Lenin's speeches and articles were accepted by the masses with great enthusiasm. “...Soviet power,” Lenin said at a meeting of the Moscow Soviet on March 12, 1918, “became not only the property of large cities and factory districts, it penetrated into all blind corners” (Lenin, Soch., vol. 27, p. 140).
In the villages of the industrial districts, the organizers of Soviet power were the workers, and in the non-industrial areas, the rural poor and Bolshevik-minded front-line soldiers. The latter brought Bolshevik newspapers, explained the tasks of the Soviet government at rallies, and the Soviets were re-elected under their leadership.
At the end of December 1917, by order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, all former local self-government bodies were abolished and replaced by Soviets.
The defeat of Kaledin and Dutov.
Even at the beginning of the October Revolution, there was a certain geographical delimitation between the revolution and the counter-revolution. “Inner Russia, with its industrial, cultural and political centers—Moscow and Petrograd—with a nationally homogeneous population, predominantly Russian—has become the base of the revolution.
The outskirts of Russia, mainly the southern and eastern outskirts, without important industrial and cultural and political centers, with a population highly diverse in national terms, consisting of privileged colonial Cossacks, on the one hand, and inferior Tatars, Bashkirs, Kirghiz (on the east), Ukrainians, Chechens, Ingush and other Muslim peoples, on the other hand, have become the base of the counter-revolution,” wrote Comrade Stalin (Stalin, Soch., vol. 4, pp. 285-286).
This disengagement was clearly reflected in the counter-revolutionary actions of Dutov in Orenburg and Kaledin on the Don.
Having captured Orenburg, Chelyabinsk and Troitsk, Dutov "expected to unite with the counter-revolutionary forces in Siberia and the Urals, and through the Volga region with the Don and Kuban. Thus, he wanted to implement a plan for the military encirclement and economic isolation of Soviet Russia, cutting it off from those rich in bread and other region products.
The workers of Orenburg sent their representatives to Lenin and Stalin asking for help. Detachments of sailors were sent from Petrograd to fight Dutov, and Red Guard detachments from the Volga region and the Southern Urals. The local population, especially Kazakhs and Kirghiz, actively participated in the defeat of Dutov. At the end of December 1917, Dutov's gangs were defeated by the Red Guard. Orenburg became Soviet in January 1918. The Cossack counter-revolution in the Don and Kuban suffered the same collapse. The Don became a refuge for the counter-revolution since the Kornilov rebellion. After the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Kornilov, Denikin and other counter-revolutionary generals fled to the Don.
Having learned about the victory of the October Revolution in Petrograd, the Don ataman Kaledin declared the Don region independent and began to prepare for war with the Soviet authorities. On the Don, counter-revolutionary officer detachments began to form, from which the White Guard Volunteer Army, led by Kornilov and Denikin, was then formed. Having captured Rostov in December 1917, Kaledin began to prepare for a campaign in the Donets Basin. Kaledin was greatly assisted by the Ukrainian Central Rada. She sent weapons, ammunition, money to the Don, transported detachments of junkers and Cossacks, did not let through the Red Guard detachments heading from the north to fight Kaledin. Foreign imperialists supported Kaledin's adventure. A special American agent was sent to contact him. One of the largest American banks transferred 500 thousand dollars to Kaledin. But the plans of the counter-revolution were thwarted by the courageous resistance of the Soviet people.
Red Guard detachments from Soviet Russia were sent to help the workers of Donbass in their struggle against Kaledin. With the support of the revolutionary Cossacks, the Red Guard defeated the Kaledints.
Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Kaledin shot himself. At the end of February 1918, the Red troops occupied Rostov and Novocherkassk. Soviet power was established on the Don. The remnants of the Whites under the command of Kornilov fled to the Kuban.
Kornilov united under his command all the counter-revolutionary detachments and led them on the offensive against Yekaterinodar. But the three-day assault on the Kornilovites was repulsed. Kornilov was killed, and the remnants of the defeated White Guards under the command of Denikin fled. Soviet power was established in the Kuban region.
The struggle for Soviet power in Ukraine.
The Great October Socialist Revolution in the border regions, as Comrade Stalin pointed out, ran into a dam in the form of "national soviets" and regional "governments" that had formed even before October. “A revolution started in the center could not long remain within its narrow territory. Having won in the center, it inevitably had to spread to the outskirts. And indeed, from the very first days of the upheaval, a revolutionary wave from the north spread throughout Russia, capturing border regions after region. But here it ran into a dam in the form of "national soviets" and regional "governments" (Don, Kuban, Siberia) that had formed even before October. The fact is that these "national governments" did not even want to hear about the socialist revolution. 1 3 History of the USSR, part III 193
Bourgeois by nature, they did not at all want to destroy the old, bourgeois order; on the contrary, they considered it their duty to preserve and strengthen it with all their might. Imperialist in essence, they did not at all want to break with imperialism; on the contrary, they were never averse to seizing and subjugating bits and pieces of the territories of "foreign" nationalities, if the opportunity presented itself. Not surprisingly, the "national governments" in the border regions declared war on the socialist government in the center. Having declared war, they naturally became hotbeds of reaction, gathering around them everything counter-revolutionary in Russia” (Stalin, Soch., vol. 4, p. 160).
After October, the Ukrainian Central Rada became a stronghold of the bourgeois counter-revolution. Having learned about the transfer of power in Russia into the hands of the Soviets, the central council decided not to recognize Soviet power and to fight against attempts to organize the power of the Soviets in Ukraine. She concluded an agreement with various counter-revolutionary organizations and parties in Russia and declared her loyalty to the "allies", i.e., the Entente. The working and peasant masses of the Ukraine, inspired by the news of the victory of the uprising in Petrograd, rose to fight for Soviet power. Under the leadership of the Bolshevik Andrey Ivanov, the Kyiv workers created a revolutionary committee, which organized an uprising against the Provisional Government.
At the moment of the victory of the workers, the central council, which covered its assistance to the troops of the Provisional Government with a mask of neutrality, treacherously attacked the Kyiv Soviet and seized power into its own hands. The Rada entered into an alliance with Kaledin and allowed Cossack units to pass through Ukrainian territory from the front to the Don. At the same time, the Rada refused to allow the Soviet troops that opposed Kaledin to pass through its territory.
Having exhausted all peaceful means of resolving the conflict with the Rada, on December 4 the Soviet government presented a categorical demand to it to stop helping Kaledin. Ukrainian workers and the poorest peasants began to rise up against the Rada in Ukraine.
On December 12, 1917, the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets elected the Central Executive Committee of Soviets, which formed the first Soviet government in Ukraine. Troops were sent from Soviet Russia to help this government. On January 16, at the call of the Bolsheviks, an armed uprising of workers against the Rada began in Kyiv. The fighting continued for several days. Especially heroic struggle was waged by the workers of the Kyiv arsenal: surrounded on all sides, without cartridges, without water and food, they did not give up for several days. The Rada brutally cracked down on the Arsenals. But the Soviet troops were already approaching Kyiv, and on January 27, with the support of the newly revolted Kyiv workers, they occupied Kyiv. The Rada fled to Zhytomyr. Soviet power was established throughout Ukraine.
THE TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF THE SOVIET AUTHORITY 1917-18
the process of establishing the Sov. authorities in the country between 25 Oct. (November 7) 1917 to February-March 1918. It began with the victory of Oct. armed uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow (see October armed uprising in Petrograd, October armed uprising in Moscow). The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin and all the local parties. org-tion led the struggle to establish the power of the Soviets throughout the territory. Russia. In most districts of the country, the establishment of Sov. power passed quickly and peacefully; in Ukraine, Don, Sev. Caucasus, South. Ural and some other places of the revolution. forces met with fierce resistance from the counter-revolution, which took on the character of a citizen. war. Summing up the victorious march of the Sov. power, Lenin wrote in March 1918: “In a few weeks, having overthrown the bourgeoisie, we defeated its open resistance in the civil war. We passed the victorious triumphal march of Bolshevism from end to end of a vast country” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., v. 36, p. 79 (v. 27, p. 134)).
The general laws of the development of the revolution operated throughout Russia, but the process of establishing the Sov. Local authorities had their own specifics. It was determined by many circumstances: the number of local parties. organization, its activity, the correlation and alignment of class forces, the presence of the proletariat, its number, the degree of influence on the peasantry, soldiers, the nature of the stratification of the peasantry, the presence and strength of the Red Guard, the revolutionary nature of the local military. garrison, the composition and militancy of the local Soviets, as well as the number and organization of hostile forces. The power of the Soviets was established most quickly and easily in the industrial districts, where there were strong Bolshevik organizations, hardened in class battles and a numerous working class.
The Central Industrial Region (Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Tver, Smolensk, Kaluga, Tula, and Ryazan provinces) and Petrograd produced in 1913 up to 40% of the industrial output of the entire Russian Empire. About 1.3 million factory workers were employed here, that is, half of all the country's proletarians who worked at large enterprises. The proletariat had strong support here among the peasantry, mostly the poor, and among the soldiers of the rear garrisons (up to 300,000 people). At the head of the revolution forces Center. prom. the district was a close-knit Bolshevik organization of Moscow and neighboring provinces (70 thousand members). In a number of cities Center. prom. district of Sov. power was established simultaneously with Oct. armed uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow. Before Oct. armed uprisings, many local Soviets of the district actually had real power (Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Orekhovo-Zuevo, Shuya, Kineshma, Kostroma, Tver, Bryansk, Yaroslavl, Ryazan, Vladimir, Kovrov, Kolomna, Serpukhov, Podolsk, etc.). Proclamation of the Soviet authorities in the country 2nd All-Russian. Congress of Soviets legitimized and strengthened their position as sovereign bodies in the field.
More difficult was the process of establishing the Sov. authorities in Tula, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod where petty-bourgeois parties predominated in the Soviets. Nizhny Novgorod Council 26 Oct. (November 8) refused to take power. By order of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the city (prev. I. R. Romanov), detachments of the Red Guard and revolutionary. the soldiers disarmed the counter-revolutionaries. parts and took 28 Oct. (10 Nov.) the most important points of the city. The Bolsheviks achieved the re-election of the Soviet, to-ry 2 (15) Nov. already officially proclaimed the seizure of power in the city and province. In Kaluga, the power of the Soviets was also established by force of arms on November 28. (December 11) with the help of the revolutionary. forces of Moscow, Minsk. Tula soviet, dominated by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, 30 Oct. (November 12) refused to take power and decided to create a "homogeneous democratic" government. At the end of Nov. The Bolsheviks achieved re-elections of the united Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and won a majority in it. Dec 7(20) in the city was installed Sov. power. The process of taking power by the county councils Center. prom. district most intensively took place in December. 1917- Jan. 1918. By the spring of 1918 Sov. power almost universally established itself in the villages of the Center. provinces. Establishment and approval of the power of the Soviets in the Center. Russia had a powerful influence on the triumphal march of the Soviets. authorities throughout the country.
Central black earth region (Orel, Kursk, Voronezh, Tambov and Penza provinces). It was s.-x. district with underdeveloped industry. Characteristic was the presence of a significant number of remnants of serfdom. Small-bourgeois enjoyed great influence here. parties, especially the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Neighborhood with Center. prom. district and his direct assistance helped establish the Sov. authorities in this region. In Voronezh, Sov. power won 30 Oct. (November 12) as a result of the fighting of the Red Guards and soldiers of the machine-gun regiment against the counter-revolutionaries. forces. After being re-elected to Nov. The majority of the Voronezh Soviet were Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries. Active resistance petty-bourgeois. parties delayed the seizure of power by the Soviets in Orel until 25 November. (8 Dec.), Kursk - 26 Nov. (9 Dec.), Penza - 21 Dec. 1917 (3 Jan. 1918), Tambov - 31 Jan. (13 Feb.) 1918.
Ural (Perm, Vyatka, Ufa and Orenburg provinces). Was the largest prom. district of Russia and one of the bases of the socialist. revolution. In Lenin's plan for an armed uprising, the Ural proletariat (about 340,000 workers) was assigned an important place as a force that had to interact with the center. Two thirds of the Soviets of the Urals were Bolshevik. Oct. 1917 active activity was carried out here approx. 35 thousand communists. The Ural workers warmly welcomed the victory of the socialist. revolutions in Petrograd and Moscow. During Oct.-Nov. 1917 Owls. power was established in most cities and industrial settlements of the Urals. Oct 26 On November 8, the Yekaterinburg Soviet (prev. Bolshevik P. M. Bykov) and the Ufa Provincial Military Revolutionary Committee (N. P. Bryukhanov, A. K. Evlampiev, A. I. Svidersky, A. D. Tsyurupa and others) took power. ). Oct 26 (8 Nov.) Sov. power was proclaimed in Chelyabinsk, 27 Oct. (November 9) in Izhevsk. Bourgeois put up stubborn resistance. and petty-bourgeois parties to establish the Sov. authorities in Perm. By 23 Nov. (December 6) the Bolsheviks achieved the confluence of the Perm mountains. council with the Motovilikha Soviet (Motovilikha, a suburb of Perm, over 20,000 workers). The Council adopted a resolution on full confidence in the Council of People's Commissars. However, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in a bloc with the bourgeois. parties created the "Council for the management of the province." The Bolsheviks achieved the convocation of 16 (29) Dec. lips. Congress, to-ry recognized as the only legitimate authority in the country of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars. A stubborn armed struggle for the power of the Soviets unfolded in the Orenburg province, where one of the dangerous centers of Russia was formed. counter-revolution led by the ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army Dutov (see Dutov's rebellion), which was already at the end of October. actually seized power in Orenburg and other cities.
Jan 18 (31) 1918 as a result of the joint actions of the rebellious workers of Orenburg and the Red Guards who approached the city, revolutionaries. soldiers and sailors Orenburg was liberated from the Dutovites and Sov. power.
Volga region (Kazan, Simbirsk, Saratov, Samara, Astrakhan provinces). The district was mainly agricultural, there were up to 120 thousand factory-managers. workers. The Bolshevik organizations in the autumn of 1917 numbered 20,000 people. The Bolsheviks were supported by soldiers of the rear garrisons (only in 50 reserve regiments of the Volga region there were about 280 thousand soldiers). The Socialist-Revolutionaries had a strong influence among the peasantry. In the prom. cities of the Volga Owls. power was established immediately after Petrograd and Moscow. In Kazan, the command of the military. districts, acting in a bloc with petty-bourgeois. parties and Tatar nationalists, 24 Oct. (6 Nov.) attempted to disarm the artillery. reserve brigade. Revolutionary. troops (the garrison had 35 thousand soldiers) and the Red Guard, led by the Bolsheviks, occupied the station, post office, telephone, telegraph, bank, surrounded the Kremlin, arrested the district commander and the commissioner of the Time. pr-va. Oct 26 (November 8) the Sov. power. From November 1917 to January 1918 Sov. power was established in the county towns of the Kazan province. In some places, this process took place with fierce resistance from the bourgeoisie. nationalists and SRs.
Oct 26 (November 8) at an expanded meeting of the Samara Council, the Military Revolutionary Committee was elected (chaired by V. V. Kuibyshev), under the leadership of which on October 27. (November 9) in the city was installed Sov. power. In Saratov, the Executive Committee of the Soviet, headed by the Bolsheviks V.P. Antonov (Saratovsky) and M.I. Vasiliev (Southern), took power on October 27. (Nov 9). The next day, the SR-Menshevik "Committee of Salvation" and the Kadet Gor. the Duma revolted, but on 29 Oct. (November 11) were forced to capitulate. In Tsaritsyn, the process of establishing Sov. power began 28-29 Oct. (November 10-11) and ended peacefully on November 4 (17). Oct 28 (Nov. 10) established Sov. power in Syzran, 10 (23) Dec. - in Simbirsk. In Astrakhan, petty-bourgeois parties created a "Committee of People's Power", which refused to recognize the Sov. pr-in. The "committee" was supported by the Astrakhan Cossacks and other wealthy sections of the population of the lower Volga. Jan 12(25) 1918 counterrevolutionary. forces tried to defeat the Astrakhan Soviet and seize power in the city and province. The Bolsheviks created the Revolutionary Committee (prev. M. L. Aristov), which organized workers, soldiers, ordinary Cossacks and the rural poor to repulse the enemy. The fighting continued until 25 Jan. (February 7) and ended with the victory of the revolution. forces. By Feb. 1918 Sov. power was established throughout the Volga region.
active army. In Lenin's plan for an armed uprising, an important place was occupied by the fronts closest to Petrograd and Moscow - the Northern and Western, the Baltic Fleet. Revolutionary. the troops of these fronts and the fleet were supposed to cover the capitals from a possible approach to them from the counter-revolutionary fronts. troops. In the autumn of 1917, the active army numbered over 6 million soldiers: the Northern Front - 1035 thousand, the Western - 1111 thousand, the South-Western - 1800 thousand, the Romanian - more than 1500 thousand, the Caucasian - 600 thousand fighters. It was a huge political and armed force. V. I. Lenin emphasized that without the conquest of the army on the side of the Bolsheviks, the socialist. the revolution could not have won (see Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 40, pp. 9-10 (vol. 30, p. 238)). In the Active Army (without the Caucasian Front) in October-November. 1917 led a selfless heroic political. work ok. 50 thousand communists: in the West. front - 21,463 party members; to Sev. front (with the Baltic Fleet and the region of Finland) - more than 13,000 members; to the Southwest. front - 7064 party members; on the Romanian front (8th army) - more than 7,000 party members. There was a stormy process of Bolshevization of the army. By October-November 1917, the Bolshevik Party led more than half of the front-line soldiers. News of Victory Oct. armed the uprising in Petrograd was enthusiastically received by the front-line soldiers. Revolutionary on the Baltic Fleet. power was established by Tsentrobalt, placing the entire power of the fleet at the disposal of Petrograd. VRK. At the end of Oct. - early Nov. in all the armies of the North. front, army MRCs were created, to-rye took power in the armies into their own hands. B.P. Pozern was appointed Commissar of the SNK Front. There were re-elections of soldiers' committees, army congresses. The Military Revolutionary Committee of the 5th Army took control of the army headquarters in Dvinsk and blocked the path of the counter-revolutionaries. units that tried to move to support the Kerensky-Krasnov rebellion of 1917.
On the side of the Owls. 40 thousand Latvian riflemen stood up in power, who played a major role in establishing the Sov. authorities in Latvia. S. M. Nakhimson was appointed Commissar of the 12th Army of the Council of People's Commissars.
On the Zap. Front Minsk Council 25 Oct. (November 7) took power into his own hands. The VRK North-West was created. region and the front, which removed the commander of the front.
Nov 20 (December 3) in Minsk opened a congress of representatives of the Western. front, to-ry secured the victory of the Sov. authorities and elected the commander of the front - A.F. Myasnikov.
The victory of the revolution in the North. and Zap. fronts created the conditions for the elimination of a major center of counterrevolution - the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander, who was preparing a conspiracy against the socialist. revolution. The Council of People's Commissars appointed the Bolshevik N.V. Krylenko as supreme commander-in-chief, (December 3) arrived with a detachment of revolutionaries. workers and sailors to Headquarters, in the city of Mogilev, and took over the center. command and control apparatus.
Socialist victory. revolutions on the fronts closest to the capital and the Baltic Fleet was of great importance for its further development. V. I. Lenin wrote: “There was no question of any resistance on the part of the army against the October Revolution of the proletariat, against the conquest of political power by the proletariat, when the Bolsheviks had a gigantic advantage on the Northern and Western fronts, and on the other fronts far from the center, the Bolsheviks had the time and opportunity to win back the peasants from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party..." (ibid., p. 10 (vol. 30, p. 238)).
Socialist the revolution on the Southwestern, Romanian and Caucasian fronts took on a more complex and protracted character. The Bolsheviks energetically won back the masses of soldiers from the Compromisers and nationalists. They achieved the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the South-West. front (prev. Bolshevik G.V. Razzhivin), to-ry and took power into his own hands at the front. On the Romanian front, the influence of the petty-bourgeois. parties and nationalists was stronger. Dec 2(15) the Bolsheviks succeeded in forming the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Romanian Front (represented by P.I. Baranov); back in Nov. The Council of People's Commissars appointed S. G. Roshal as Commissar of the Front. Counterrevolutionary. forces led by pom. the front commander, General D. G. Shcherbachev, proceeded to active operations. Members of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the front and a number of armies were arrested, Roshal was killed.
But the revolution developed. 10(23) Dec. Rumcherod congress opened in Odessa. Most of it belonged to the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs. The congress approved the policy of the Council of People's Commissars, promised him full support and elected a new composition of the Executive Committee of Rumcherod (prev. Bolshevik V. G. Yudovsky), who declared himself the highest authority at the front and in the Odessa region. Revolutionary armed struggle forces with the troops of the counter-revolution, the Romanian occupiers lasted two months. The German occupation prevented the final victory of the Soviets. power on the Romanian front.
On the Caucasian front at the end of Nov. The Caucasian Regional Committee of the Bolsheviks appealed to the front-line soldiers with an appeal to recognize the authority of the SNK in the Caucasus. 10(23) Dec. The Congress of the Caucasian Army opened in Tiflis. The Bolshevik faction was headed by S. G. Shaumyan, M. G. Tskhakaya, and others. The congress adopted a resolution recognizing and supporting the Council of People's Commissars, condemned the anti-people actions of the Transcaucasian Commissariat, and elected the regional Soviet of the Caucasian Army (preceded by the Bolshevik G. N. Korganov). Bolshevization of the front continued. Millions of soldiers went through the school of revolution in the army. struggle and, being demobilized, dispersed around the country as agitators and fighters for the Sov. power. Having won over the army to its side, the Bolshevik Party deprived the counter-revolution of an armed support, facilitated and accelerated the establishment and consolidation of the Soviet. authorities throughout the country.
General patterns of development of socialist. revolutions also manifested themselves in the national, outlying regions of the country. But here there were peculiarities, to-rye were due to socio-economic. the position of the peoples who inhabited these parts of the country, the originality in the alignment of class forces.
The Baltic States (Courland, Liflyandskaya, Estlyandskaya provinces) were characterized by a relatively high development of capitalism in the city and countryside. Along with the factory working class, there were numerous agricultural workers. proletariat. The Baltic was a frontline zone, approx. half of its territory by Oct. 1917 was occupied by him. troops. In July 1917, part. the Bolshevik org-tion of the Baltics united 14 thousand communists.
After Feb. revolution in the unoccupied part of the territory of the Baltic states, Soviets, Soviets of landless deputies were created. and Soviets of Soldiers' Dep. in the troops of the North. front. Another 5 (18) Sept. The Reval Council demanded the transfer of all power to the Soviets. Similar decisions were taken by the Councils of Latvia and the 2nd Congress of the Soviets of Estonia. Oct 22 (November 4) the VRK was created under the Executive Committee of the Soviets of Estonia (Chairman of the Executive Committee J. Ya. Anvelt). On the days of Oct. uprisings in Petrograd VRK took control of all the strategic. important points in the Baltic and did not allow the movement of counter-revolutionaries. parts on the revolution. Petrograd. Oct 26 (November 8) 1917 Sov. power was established in Revel, then in Yuriev, Narva, Pärnu, at the end of October. - early Nov. - throughout the unoccupied territory. the Baltics. Latvian attempts. and est. bourgeoisie to raise anti-Sovs. rebellions were immediately suppressed by the revolution. forces. Plenum of Iskolat 8-9 (21-22) Nov. proclaimed the Soviet power in Latvia, and the congress of workers, riflemen and landless deputies in Valmiera (16-18 (29-31) Dec.) elected the first Sov. Produced in Latvia, headed by F. A. Rozin (Azis). The beginning of the socialist transformations were interrupted by the onset of it. troops, to-rye at the end of February - March 1918 occupied the entire territory of the Baltic states.
Belarus (Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev provinces). There were few large enterprises. The working class is not numerous, but on the territory. Belarus by Oct. 1917 there were more than a million soldiers Zap. front means. the number of professional workers from Petrograd, Moscow, the Urals and Donbass mobilized to work in workshops for the repair and manufacture of weapons. Leading party. the center was the North-West. RSDLP(b) committee headed by A.F. Myasnikov. As a result of the re-elections (September) of the Minsk Soviet (chaired by K. I. Lander), the Bolsheviks and the deputies who sympathized with them had St. 70% of the votes. Oct 25 (November 7), upon receiving news from Petrograd about an armed uprising, the Minsk Soviet announced the transfer of power in the city and its environs into the hands of the Soviets, appealed for the creation of Soviets. local authorities, sent commissars to the post office, telegraph, railway to military headquarters. Oct 27 (November 9) by decision of the North-West. region RSDLP (b) at the Minsk Council was created by the Revolutionary Committee, later - the Military Revolutionary Committee of the North-West. region and Zap. front, to-ry concentrated in his hands the power in the West. front and in Belarus. Right SRs and Mensheviks 27 Oct. (November 9) created the "Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution." With the help of the headquarters of the Zap. front and the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik front-line department in Minsk, troops were called from the front. In view of the superiority of forces, the Minsk Soviet was forced to conclude a temporary agreement with the "Committee of Salvation". The Minsk Bolsheviks used this agreement to mobilize forces at the front. Revolutionaries began to move towards the city from the front. parts. 4(17) Nov. Military Revolutionary Committee of Belarus and Western. front declared the "Committee of Salvation" dissolved. In October-November, Sov. power was established in Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Orsha and other cities. To the beginning dec. Owls. power won throughout the territory of unoccupied Belarus. In November, congresses of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies were held in Belarus. Minsk, Vitebsk and Mogilev provinces., Soviets of soldiers' depots. Zap. front and Soviet cross. dep. Minsk and Vilna provinces. They spoke in favor of the Soviets. power.
Nov 26 (December 9), 1917, a joint Executive Committee of the Workers', Soldiers' and Cross Soviets was created. dep. (prev. N.V. Rogozinsky) and formed by the Council of People's Commissars of the North-West. region and front (prev. Lander). The fierce resistance of the counter-revolution was broken: in November. the Minsk "Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution" was dissolved, in December. - All-Belarus. Congress, convened by the Belarusian Rada, in Jan.-Feb. 1918 liquidated antisov. Polish rebellion. corps of I. R. Dovbor-Musnitsky. Feb. 1918 German troops occupied means. part of Belarus, but in Nov. - Dec. 1918 The Red Army liberated most of Belarus and restored the Sov. power.
Ukraine (Volyn, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Podolsk, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Taurida provinces) was economical. relatively developed region. Up to 1 million industrial workers worked here. workers. However, the working class was unevenly distributed: 2/3 of it was concentrated in the Donbass, Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav provinces. and only 1/3 in the remaining lips. In Donbass on the eve of Oct. revolution was up to 30 thousand communists, in the remaining districts of Ukraine - 15 thousand. Most of the districts of Ukraine were agrarian. The peasant poor made up at least 63% of the villages. population, kulaks - 13%, but they owned almost half of all the cross. lands. After Feb. revolution in Ukraine in one counter-revolutionary. camp with bourgeois Time The Central Rada acted as the pr-vom. After the victory of the armed uprisings in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks of Ukraine everywhere launched a struggle for the establishment of Sov. authorities. At the end of Oct. - early Nov. workers of Donbass established Sov. power in Lugansk, Makeevka, Gorlovka, Kramatorsk and other cities. However, in the struggle for the victory of the socialist. revolution, the working people of Ukraine had to face resistance as bodies of the Provisional. pr-va, and the Center. glad that led to arming. uprisings in Kyiv, Vinnitsa, and other cities (see Kyiv armed uprisings of 1917 and 1918). Center. Rada managed to seize power in Kyiv. 7(20) Nov. In 1917, she published the Universal, in which she proclaimed Ukraine a "People's Republic", but at the same time launched terror against the revolutionaries. forces. The most important event was in the struggle for the Sov. power in Ukraine The All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets in Kharkov, held on 11-12 (24-25) Dec. 1917 and proclaimed 12 (25) Dec. Ukraine by the Republic of Soviets. The congress elected the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Ukraine, to-ry 14 (27) Dec. formed the People's Secretariat (Artem, E. B. Bosch, V. P. Zatonsky, N. A. Skrypnik and others) - the first Sov. production in Ukraine.
Dec. 1917 - Jan. 1918 in Ukraine unfolded a wide armament. struggle for the establishment of the Soviet. authorities. As a result of the uprisings against the Center. happy Owls. power 29 Dec. 1917 (January 11, 1918) was proclaimed in Yekaterinoslav, January 17 (30). 1918 - in Odessa, in Jan. 1918 installed in Poltava, Kremenchug, Elizavetgrad, Nikolaev, Kherson, Vinnitsa and other cities. Jan 26 (8 Feb.) 1918 owls. troops, the advance of which was facilitated by the uprising of the workers of the "Arsenal", Kyiv was liberated. Jan 30 Ukrainian Owls. production moved from Kharkov to Kyiv. In February, Sov. power was established throughout Ukraine. But in February-April 1918 Ukraine was occupied by him. troops. Owls. power in Ukraine was restored in Nov.-Dec. 1918.
In zap. Ukrainian lands - East. Galicia, Sev. Bukovina and Transcarpathian Ukraine under the influence of Oct. revolution unfolded a powerful revolution. movement for reunification with the Soviets. Ukraine. However, the reaction production of Poland, boyar Romania and bourgeois. Czechoslovakia, with the sanction of the imperialists of the Entente, captured these Ukrainians in 1918-19. earth.
The stronghold of the struggle for the establishment of the Sov. the Sevastopol Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee (Yu. P. Gaven, N. A. Pozharov and others) became the power in the Crimea, which took power on December 16 (29); Jan 12(25)-13(26) 1918 after a series of battles with Tatar nationalists. parts of the Soviet power was established in Simferopol, and in Jan. 1918 and throughout the Crimea.
Ukr. the people, together with the fraternal peoples of the Russian Republic, defended the gains of Oct. revolution during civil wars 1918-20.
Moldavia (Bessarabian Province) was an agrarian region. Until the end of 1917 there was no leading Bolshevik center; The Bolsheviks managed to create their own independent. part. organization only at the beginning. December. In the Soviets, the majority belonged to the petty-bourgeois. parties. Means. the Moldavian bourgeoisie enjoyed influence. nat. the consignment. Counterrevolutionary. Moldavian forces relied on the command of Rum. front. Only 22 Nov. (December 5) The Chisinau Council, together with the Soldiers' Committee, adopted a resolution recognizing the Council of People's Commissars.
In November, bourgeois nationalists organized in Chisinau rules. organ "Sfatul tseriy", to-ry in the beginning. dec. declared Bessarabia a "People's Republic". Revolutionary. forces began to fight against the bourgeoisie. nationalists. On held in Dec. in Odessa, the 2nd congress of Rumcheroda petty-bourgeois. parties were defeated. The front department of Rumcherod, who arrived in Chisinau, 1 Jan. 1918 declared himself the supreme authority in Bessarabia and Rum. front. In the beginning. Jan. 1918 almost all over Moldova was installed Sov. power. Revolutionary. rum prevented the transformations. occupiers and local nationalists. Jan 13(26) 1918 rom. troops occupied Chisinau, and then all of Bessarabia.
Don region (Region of the Don army). Cossacks made up less than half of the population of the region. (out of 3.5 million inhabitants, there were about 1.5 million Cossacks), but they owned 85% of all land. The wealthy Cossacks exploited the local cross. the poor (up to 900,000) and especially nonresident laborers (up to 800,000). The working class (up to 220 thousand people) concentrated Ch. arr. in Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, in the mines. By Oct. 1917 Don District Bolshevik Party Organization, uniting approx. 7 thousand members, had a predominant influence among the workers and soldiers and led many Soviets. Oct 26 (November 8) in Rostov was installed Sov. power, many other Soviets of the Don took power into their own hands. Ataman of the Donskoy Army A. M. Kaledin raised a counter-revolutionary. revolt against the Soviets. authorities (see Kaledinshchina). Don has become an all-Russian. counter-revolutionary center. Here began the formation of the White Guard. Volunteer army. Dec 2(15) after fierce fighting, Kaledin captured Rostov, then Taganrog and launched an offensive against the Donbass. However, it means. part of the Cossacks did not support Kaledin. Jan 10(23) 1918 congress of front-line Cossack units in the village of Kamenskaya proclaimed the Sov. power in the Don region. and formed the Don Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by F. G. Podtelkov. Owls. troops and revolutionaries. Cossacks under the general command of V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko launched an offensive, defeated the White Cossacks and on February 24-25. captured Rostov and Novocherkassk. Owls. power in the region was restored.
North Caucasus (Kuban, Terek and Dagestan regions, Stavropol and Black Sea provinces). It was an agrarian region with a multinational population. Dozens of mountain peoples retained the remnants of patriarchal clans and feuds. relations. The highlanders were strongly influenced by Muridism. There was interethnic hostility. Industry was concentrated in Grozny, Vladikavkaz (now Ordzhonikidze), Petrovsk-Port (now Makhachkala), Novorossiysk. In the Kuban, the number of s.-x was significant. the proletariat. On Sev. The Cossack troops were located in the Caucasus - the Kuban and Terek. Here from the Center after Oct. revolution came a lot of reactions. officers and other counter-revolutionaries. elements. There was an unification of the Cossacks, mountain nationalists and Russian. white guards. Foreign capitalists began to provide great assistance. All this made the struggle for the establishment of Sov. authorities.
Oct 28 (November 10), 1917, the Vladikavkaz Soviet spoke in favor of the Sov. power. 7(20) Nov. The Council of Petrovsk-Port decided to recognize the Council of People's Commissars and establish Sov. authorities. The Military Revolutionary Committee was formed (previous Bolshevik U.D. Buynaksky). However, to install the Sov. power immediately failed. Cossack and mountain counter-revolution 1 (14) Dec. formed the Terek-Dagestan government and at the end of December. 1917 - early. Jan. 1918 defeated the Grozny and Vladikavkaz Soviets. In conditions of terror, interethnic clashes, the Bolsheviks of the Terek region. headed by S. G. Buachidze, S. M. Kirov, I. D. Orakhelashvili, prepared the congress of the peoples of the Terek. It was convened on Jan. 1918 in Mozdok and elected the Terek People's Council. In March, the 2nd Congress of the Terek Region took place in Pyatigorsk, which formed the Terek People's Soviet Republic as part of the RSFSR. Previous SNK was elected by Buachidze. Owls. power was established throughout the Terek. Relying on the gangs of Imam Gotsinsky and the troops of Gen. Polovtsev, the counter-revolution launched an attack on Petrovsk-Port and captured it on March 25. In April, the flotilla, which left Baku, drove the counter-revolutionaries out of Petrovsk by landing. Almost all of Dagestan became Soviet.
Active struggle for the establishment of owls. power unfolded in the Black Sea region and the Kuban. In Novorossiysk, the Military Revolutionary Committee was created (chaired by A. A. Yakovlev), under the leadership of which, on December 1 (14). in the city was installed Sov. power. Opened in Novorossiysk on 23 Nov. (December 6) Congress of Soviets of the Black Sea Province. announced throughout the Black Sea Sov. power. The struggle for Soviet power in the Kuban was longer. Here, the Kuban military "government" in Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar) and the Kuban Rada put up fierce resistance. In Jan. 1918 Sov. power was established in Armavir, Maykop, the villages of Tikhoretskaya, Ust-Labinskaya, Crimean and other points. Jan 17(30) the Kuban Military Revolutionary Committee (prev. Ya. V. Poluyan) was formed, under the leadership of which the formation of Red Guard detachments unfolded in the Kuban and the Black Sea region. Feb 14 in Armavir, the Congress of Soviets of the Kuban was held, the region was created. Council, to-ry Feb. 22. declared himself the authority for the entire Kuban. March 14 Revolutionary troops captured Yekaterinodar. Owls. power was established throughout the Kuban and the Black Sea region.
Transcaucasia (Baku, Elizavetpol, Kutaisi, Tiflis and Erivan provinces, Kars and Batum regions, Zakatal and Sukhum regions). It was multinational. and the industrially backward district of Ross. empire. The only major prom. c. Baku was. Here, ch. arr. for oil. crafts, 57 thousand workers were employed, and in the rest of the Transcaucasus - only 15 thousand people. A cohesive party operated in the Caucasus. org-tion of the Bolsheviks (October 1917 - St. 8600 people). The Bolsheviks won over the masses in a sharp struggle against the bourgeoisie. nationalists who incited ethnic hatred. bourgeois nationalist. the Musavat parties in Azerbaijan and the Dashnaktsutyun parties in Armenia, together with the Georgian Mensheviks, waged an active struggle against the establishment of the Soviet. authorities, seeking to tear the Caucasus away from the revolution. Russia. The center of the struggle of the socialist. revolution in Transcaucasia was Baku. The Bolshevik organization of Baku had 2,200 members. Adjacent to it were the Gummet (Energy) and Adalat (Justice) organizations, which worked among the Muslim population. Oct 27 (November 9), 1917, at a meeting of the Baku Soviet, the Bolsheviks proposed a resolution on the seizure of power by the Soviet. However, deputies from petty-bourgeois parties and nationalists managed to reject it. Then the Baku Committee of the RSDLP(b) appealed to the working class of Baku. Under pressure from workers and revolutionaries. soldier 31 Oct. (Nov. 13) The Baku Council passed a decision on the seizure of power; 2(15) Nov. a new Executive Committee of the Council was elected (Chairman S. G. Shaumyan). In the spring of 1918, the Soviets took power in the Baku, Lenkoran, Dzhevat and Kuba districts. In March 1918, the Musavatists raised a counter-revolutionary in Baku. rebellion, organized armament. performances in other places of Azerbaijan. On March 30 - April 1, fierce battles were fought in Baku, in which up to 20 thousand people participated on both sides. The rebellion was put down. 25 Apr. The Baku Council formed the Baku Council of People's Commissars, known under the name. Baku commune of 1918 (prev. Shaumyan), to-ry began to socialist. transformations in Azerbaijan.
Revolutionary in Georgia and Armenia. forces could not seize power. Nov. 1917 Mensheviks and bourgeois-nationalist. parties created regional authorities - the Transcaucasian Commissariat (prev. Menshevik E.P. Gegechkori), in February 1918 - the Transcaucasian Seim (previous Menshevik N.S. Chkheidze), which became an instrument in the hands of the imperialist. powers.
Central Asia (Trans-Caspian, Samarkand, Semirechensk, Syrdarya and Fergana regions, the Khiva Khanate and the Emirate of Bukhara). She was in the position of a Russian colony. tsarism, was backward in economic, political. and culturally the outskirts of Ross. empire. Among the multinational population (Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Tajiks, Kirghiz, etc.), patriarchal feuds were of great importance. relations. The bulk of the population were peasants (dekhkans), who were dependent on local feudal lords (bais) and under the strong influence of the Muslim clergy. Prom-st was in its infancy. 20,000 workers worked at small cotton-cleaning, oil-pressing, etc. enterprises; e. - up to 40 thousand workers, Ch. arr. Russians.
Burzh. nationalists created their own organizations "Shura-i-Islam", "Shura-i-Ulema". All reactionary forces united against the revolution: bourgeois. nationalists, bai, clergy, Russian. officers and kulaks. Burzh. nationalists used the distrust of a significant part of the population towards the Russians, sown by the colonial policy of tsarism. The center of the socialist Tashkent became a revolution. There was a strong group of Bolsheviks here, which relied on the railroad. workers, soldiers of the garrisons of Tashkent, Samarkand, Kushka and the "rear front" - workers of local nationalities mobilized during the war for rear work. There were up to 100 thousand "rear guards". Returning in the summer of 1917 from the front line and the center. regions of Russia to their native places, a significant part of them became an active force in the revolution. They contributed to the involvement of the local population in the struggle for the creation of Soviets and unions of working Muslims. In the middle of Oct. 1917 General Commissioner Temp. government in Turkestan, General P. A. Korovichenko tried to disband a number of revolutionaries. parts, intending to deprive the Bolsheviks of their weapons. forces. The Tashkent Council decided that the movement of units or their disbandment can only be carried out with its sanction. Oct 25 (7 Nov.) The Presidium of the Council decided to start preparing weapons. uprising and developed his plan. Oct 27 (November 9) Korovichenko declared the city to war. position, arrested some of the members of the Executive Committee of the Council and disarmed the soldiers of the 2nd Siberian Rifleman. spare regiment. Oct 28 On November 10, an uprising began, led by the Revolutionary Committee (prev. Bolshevik V. S. Lyapin). The soldiers of a number of units with guns and machine guns went over to the side of the revolution. Revolution soon. forces began to receive replenishment from the Kushki fortress, from Chardzhou, Krasnovodsk. The fighting continued from 28 to 31 Oct. (Nov 10-13). Together with Russian workers and soldiers in armed The fight was attended by hundreds of fighters of local nationalities - Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks. 1(14) Nov. the rebels seized the bank, communications institutions, the fortress of the city. Counterrevolutionary. forces capitulated and were disarmed. Power in the region passed to the Tashkent Council. The establishment of the Soviet power in Tashkent was of great importance for the entire Wed. Asia. The Soviets took power in a number of other cities of Turkestan. Nov 15(28) Tashkent hosted the 3rd Regional Congress of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and the Cross. deputies, who elected the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Territory (prev. Bolshevik F. I. Kolesov). The congress proclaimed the Sov. power throughout the territory of Turkestan. November 1917 - Feb. 1918 Sov. power was established in Samarkand, Ashgabat, Krasnovodsk, Chardzhou, Merv, Skobelev, Pishpek, Kushka and others. cities.
Socialist revolution in Wed. Asia met fierce resistance from the bourgeoisie. nationalists, local feudal lords, Muslims. clergy and Russian White Guards supported by foreign imperialists. At the end of November 1917, they convened a regional Muslim congress in Kokand, which declared Turkestan autonomous and created a "government" known as "Kokand autonomy". This "government", seeking to tear Turkestan from the Soviets. Russia, began to create weapons. forces to suppress the Soviets. authorities in Wed. Asia. In January 1918 against the revolution. forces were abandoned by the Cossack units returning from Iran. They captured Samarkand and other cities. But in Feb. red guard. detachments and revolutionaries. the soldiers managed to disarm the Cossacks. In the 2nd floor. February "Kokand autonomy" was liquidated. By the spring of 1918, Sov. power was established throughout Wed. Asia, with the exception of the Khiva Khanate and the Emirate of Bukhara, in which the feudal-bourgeois. The system existed until 1920.
In April 1918, the 5th Congress of Soviets of the Turkestan Territory was convened in Tashkent, which proclaimed the formation of the Turkestan ASSR as part of the RSFSR. Jan 1(14) 1918 was established Sov. power in Pishpek (Frunze). In January, the Semirechensk region was convened in Verny (Alma-Ata). convention cross. dep., who spoke in favor of the establishment of Sov. authorities. On March 2, the Vernensky Military Revolutionary Committee was created (chaired by P. M. Vinogradov). Under his leadership, the Red Guards, revolutionaries. On the night of March 3, soldiers and "rear guards" seized the fortress, communications establishments, disarmed the junkers and other counter-revolutionaries. divisions. Sov. power.
Kazakhstan (Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Turgai and Ural regions). It was the edge of nomadic pastoralism from the patriarchal feud. relationships. Industry was extremely poorly developed (in 1913 there were only 20,000 workers). The nomadic population was completely dependent on the feudal lords (bais) and submissive to the Muslims. clergy (mullahs). Kazakh. feudal lords and bourgeois nationalists formed their own party - Alash, which opposed the socialist. revolution.
In the autumn of 1917, in most of the cities of Kazakhstan, the Bolsheviks created independent parties. organizations (heads: A. G. Dzhangildin, P. A. Kobozev, A. V. Chervyakov, V. F. Zinchenko, etc.). The Bolsheviks relied on workers, especially those of the Orenburg-Tashkent railroad. etc., "rear guards" who returned from front-line work, the Kazakh poor and soldiers of local garrisons. In a peaceful way Sov. power was established in the Akmola region. November 1917 - Jan. 1918, in the Bukey Horde - in December. 1917. In the Turgai and Semipalatinsk regions. - as a result of armed struggle. Dec. In 1917, a congress of Kazakhs met in Orenburg. baev, mullah, bourgeois. nationalists, to-ry proclaimed the autonomy of the Kazakh regions and formed the "government" of the Alash Horde (prev. Cadet A. Bukeikhanov).
In Jan.-Feb. 1918 Sov. power was established in the Turgai region. The Regional Congress of Soviets, which met in March, elected the Regional Executive Committee (chairman A. T. Dzhangildin). In Semipalatinsk at the beginning. Feb. was created by the Revolutionary Committee, under the leadership of which, as a result, armed. uprisings 3 (16) Feb. in the city was installed Sov. power. in Uralsk in Jan. 1918 congress of peasants of the Ural region. proclaimed the Soviet power. However, at the end of March, the armed forces of the Ural Cossack "military pr-va" and "pr-va" Alash-orda managed to liquidate the Soviets. Only in Jan. 1919 The Red Army restored the Sov. power.
Siberia (Yenisei, Irkutsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces, Trans-Baikal and Yakutsk regions). An economically underdeveloped region with a small industry of a semi-handicraft type with an extremely low population density. The working class was scattered over a vast territory, its number - up to 325 thousand workers, including in the mining plant. 100 thousand people worked in the industry; e. - up to 85 thousand people. The majority of the population (over 9 million people) are peasants. The most important feature with x-va Siberia was the lack of landownership. Fists accounted for 15-20% of all crosses. farms. There were many privileged Cossack households in Siberia. The influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks on the cross was significant. and petty-bourgeois sections of the city. The Bolsheviks created the All-Siberian Bureau of the RSDLP (b), which united in October. OK. 12 thousand party members. In Siberia, there were up to 250 thousand soldiers, who played an active role in the struggle to establish the Sov. authorities. By Oct. the Soviets of Barnaul, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Tomsk and other cities followed the Bolsheviks. Oct 16-24 (October 29 - November 6), 1917, the 1st Congress of Soviets of Siberia (delegates from 69 Soviets) was held in Irkutsk. The Bolsheviks, in a bloc with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, had a decisive influence on the congress and the nature of its resolution. The congress demanded the transfer of all power to the Soviets. A governing body was formed - Centrosibir, at the head of which were the Bolsheviks - Ya. E. Bogorad, B. Z. Shumyatsky (prev.), N. N. Yakovlev and others.
The Siberian Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks formed a blockade with the Cadets. The reaction used the slogan of the regional autonomy of Siberia (see Siberian regionalists), which practically meant the separation of Siberia from the revolutionary. Russia.
One of the first Siberian cities, in which Sov. power, was Krasnoyarsk; Oct 27 (November 9) a military headquarters was created here under the arms. S. G. Lazo 28 Oct. (10 Nov.) and on the night of 29 Oct. (November 11) Red Guards and Revolutionaries. soldiers occupied the most important points of the city and removed the administration. Power completely passed to the Krasnoyarsk Soviet. By the end of Dec. 1917 Owls. power was established throughout the Yenisei province. Organized by the Cossack ataman Sotnikov in Jan. 1918 anti-Soviet rebellion was suppressed.
Omsk Soviet at the suggestion of the Bolsheviks 28 Oct. (November 10) made a decision - to take power into his own hands. But the counter-revolution created the "Union for the Salvation of the Fatherland, Freedom and Order", which was raised on November 1 (14). armed rebellion suppressed by the Red Guard. The Executive Committee published an appeal, in which it announced that on November 30. (December 13) power in Omsk and its suburbs passed into the hands of the Presidium of the Soviet. In the beginning. dec. the 3rd region gathered in Omsk. Congress of Soviets Zap. Siberia, to-ry proclaimed the establishment of the Soviet. power throughout the West. Siberia. In Jan. In 1918, the 4th West Siberian Congress of Soviets of Peasants' Deputies joined this decision. The Novonikolaev Soviet (Novonikolaevsk - now Novosibirsk), under the influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, decisively opposed the Soviets. authorities. Only after the re-election of the Soviet, as insisted on by the Bolsheviks, did its new composition announce the seizure of power. The Tomsk Council proclaimed the seizure of power on December 6 (19), and on December 11 (24). created lips. executive committee The counter-revolutionary that existed in the city. On the night of January 26 (February 8), 1918, the Siberian Regional Duma was dispersed. Dec. Owls. power was established in Barnaul, Biysk, and by Feb. 1918 almost all over Altai.
In the beginning. dec. 1917 became the Bolshevik Irkutsk Council. 8(21) Dec. the counter-revolutionaries revolted here. For 9 days there were battles in the city, the rebellion was suppressed, on December 19-22. 1917 (January 1-4, 1918) was established by the Sov. power. Jan 29 - 3 Feb. 1918 in Irkutsk was the 3rd Congress of Soviets Vost. Siberia, who proclaimed the Sov. power. In mid-February, the 2nd Congress of Soviets of Siberia (chaired by B. Z. Shumyatsky) took place in Irkutsk, which summed up the results of the struggle for the Sov. power in Siberia and elected a new composition of Central Siberia.
Siberian Red Guards and revolutionaries. soldiers assisted in establishing the Sov. authorities in Transbaikalia, in overcoming the resistance of the bands of the Cossack ataman G. M. Semenov. Feb. Owls. power was proclaimed in Chita, Verkhneudinsk, and then throughout Transbaikalia.
Far East (Amur, Kamchatka, Primorsky and Sakhalin regions). It was characterized by a low population density and its multinationality, underdevelopment of industry and a small proletariat. By 1917 there were only approx. 200 thousand workers, Ch. arr. in Vladivostok (more than 82 thousand workers and employees), Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk. There was no landownership in the Far East, and kulak farms accounted for 22 percent. The privileged Amur Cossacks numbered up to 90 thousand people. There were many different foreign missions in the region; in Vladivostok, almost half of the population were foreign nationals.
Among the population were influential petty-bourgeois. and bourgeois parties and organizations supported by foreign residents. Most of the Soviets were dominated by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The Bolsheviks were politic. work among the masses, relying on the working class, the rural poor, the sailors of the Amur and Siberian fleets, revolutionaries. soldiers and Cossacks-front-line soldiers. In Sept. 1917 the Bolsheviks withdrew from their joint parties with the Mensheviks. organizations. The Far Eastern Regional Party was created. a bureau uniting 4,700 communists. They began an active campaign for the re-election of the Soviets. In the beginning. Nov. In 1917, the Executive Committee of the Vladivostok Soviet was re-elected (the Bolsheviks received 18 seats, the Socialist-Revolutionaries - 11, the Mensheviks - 3, the Bolshevik K. A. Sukhanov was elected chairman of the Soviet, and the Bolshevik V. M. Sibirtsev was elected secretary). Nov 18 (Dec 1) The council announced the taking of power in the city and the recognition of the Council of People's Commissars. A number of mountains have made similar decisions. and village councils (Suchany, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk, etc.).
In Khabarovsk, the Bolsheviks also managed to re-elect the Soviet (previous Bolshevik L. E. Gerasimov). Dec 6(19) 1917 The Council announced the establishment in the city of Sov. authorities. Dec 12(25) the 3rd Far Eastern Territorial Congress of Soviets gathered here. Of the 84 delegates, 46 were Bolsheviks, 27 were Left Social Revolutionaries, 9 were Mensheviks, and 2 were non-Party. The congress decided to recognize the Council of People's Commissars as the sole central authority and announced the establishment of Sov. authorities. Previous The Bolshevik A. M. Krasnoshchekov was elected to the Executive Committee of the Soviet. In Blagoveshchensk in November, the "military Cossack government" headed by the Socialist-Revolutionary ataman I. M. Gamov announced the seizure of power. The city council pursued a conciliatory policy, only in January. In 1918, the Bolsheviks achieved his re-election and received a majority. Feb. The Congress of Soviets met in Blagoveshchensk. deputies, on which the Bolsheviks achieved a decision on the establishment of Sov. authorities throughout the Amur region. The regional Executive Committee was elected (chairman F. N. Mukhin). The White Cossacks, led by Gamov, captured Blagoveshchensk and arrested the entire staff of the Regional Executive Committee. To combat reactions forces was created by the VRC. From Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Chita, surrounding settlements reinforcements arrived. Revolutionary. forces, with the support of the ships of the Amur flotilla, on March 12 restored Sov. power. By March 1918 Sov. power has won throughout the D. East.
The period of the triumphal procession of the Owls. power marked, according to Lenin, "... the last and highest point in the development of the Russian revolution ..." (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 36, p. 95 (vol. 27, p. 149 )). Speaking on March 12, 1918 at a meeting of the Moscow City Council, Lenin said: "... Soviet power has become not only the property of large cities and factory areas, it has penetrated into all blind corners" (ibid., p. 86 (vol. 27, p. 140) ). The triumphal procession of the socialist. revolution was ensured by the fact that it was supported by the majority of the people. Of great importance in the victory of the Sov. local authorities had decrees on peace, on land, the agrarian and national policy of the Bolshevik Party.
The main driving force was the Russian working class, which managed to lead the poorest peasantry, millions of soldiers and other sections of the working population of Russia. The alliance of the working class with the poorest peasantry was the decisive condition for the success of the triumphal march of the Sov. authorities. In the interests of the unity of action of the working class and working peasants, the Bolshevik Party entered into a bloc with the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which largely contributed to the establishment and approval of the Soviet. local authorities.
Socialist the revolution won comparatively easily because Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Crosses existed in the center and in the localities. deputies. The victory of the revolution was not accompanied by any means. people victims. For example, from 84 lips. and other large cities in only 15 Sov. power was established as a result of armament. struggle.
During the period of the triumphal march of the revolution, the Soviets created Military Revolutionary Committees and Revolutionary Committees. Oct 25-27 (November 7-9), 1917, there were 40 MRCs in the country. During the period of the establishment and consolidation of the Sov. local authorities were formed by hundreds of MRCs, to-rye played a major role in the victory of the revolution. The triumphal procession of the Owls. authorities in multinational The country was largely predetermined by the correct national policy. Owls. power established politich. equality of peoples. 2(15) Nov. 1917 The Council of People's Commissars adopted the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia", November 20. (December 3) - appeal "To all working Muslims of Russia and the East". This ensured the involvement of the working people of the oppressed nationalities of Russia to the side of the revolution. The Bolsheviks managed to merge the national liberation movement of the peoples of Russia with the socialist. Russian fight. the proletariat. This explains that the revolution won in those nat. districts, to-rye were not yet on the capitalist. stages of development, but still had feudal-patriarchal relations.
The most important source of dynamism of the triumphal procession of the Sov. power was not only the presence of an objective maturity of the country to commit socialist. revolution, but also the presence of a true leader of the rebellious working masses of Russia - the Bolshevik Party. The Central Committee of the party, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin, led the struggle of the working people for the victory of the socialist. revolutions throughout Russia. In the first month of the revolution alone, the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Party, sent 250 commissars, instructors, 650 agitators to the places; The All-Russian Central Executive Committee sent thousands of its representatives to the local Soviets. Petrograd sent (until March 1918) to the provinces and counties approx. 15 thousand Bolsheviks. At the end of Nov. - early December, the Central Committee of the party sent out a special instruction to local party organizations, which helped them a lot in solving specific problems in establishing the Sov. authorities. Almost daily, the Council of People's Commissars considered at its meetings issues related to the provision of assistance different districts countries. During the triumphal procession of the Sov. authorities passed about 30 regions, provinces, as well as dozens of county and mountains. part. conferences. The entire Bolshevik Party was in action; it gave revolution. movement throughout the country organized, purposeful, determined the strategy and tactics of the struggle.
Successes of the Triumphal Procession of the Owls. the authorities discovered a gigantic preponderance of the revolutionaries. forces. Ross. The bourgeois-landlord counter-revolution failed to muster any significant military forces. forces against the Soviets. The internal counter-revolution was doomed to failure. She turned to international capitalism for help. But the ongoing world war did not allow the imperialist. countries at this stage to provide military. Russian help. reactions. Thus, the triumphal procession of the Sov. power was facilitated by a favorable both internal and external international environment. As a result of the triumphal procession of the Sov. power has developed and strengthened Sov. state, the construction of a new socialist unfolded. society.
Source: Lenin V.I., Poln. coll. soch., 5th ed. Reference volume, part 1, p. 433-42; 50 years Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution. Decree of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Abstracts of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M., 1967; To the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin. Abstracts of the Central Committee of the CPSU, M., 1969; The triumphal procession of the Owls. authorities. (Documents and materials), part 1-2, M., 1963; Correspondence of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with local parties. organizations, (sb. 1-4), M., 1957-69; Bolshevik military-revolutionary. committees (Sb. dok-tov), M., 1958; Decrees of the Soviets. authorities, vol. 1, M., 1957; Consolidation of the Soviet authorities in Moscow and Moscow. lips. Documents and materials, M., 1958; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution in Belarus. Documents and materials, vol. 1-2, Minsk, 1957; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution in Ukraine. Feb. 1917 - Apr. 1918. Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, vol. 1-3, K., 1957; The struggle for Soviet power in Moldova. (March 1917 - March 1918). Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, Kish., 1957; The fight for the victory of the Soviets. authorities in Azerbaijan, 1918-20 (Documents and materials), Baku, 1967; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution in Estonia. Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, Tal., 1958; Oct. revolution in Latvia. Documents and materials, Riga, 1957; The struggle for power of the Soviets on the Don, 1917-1920. Sat. dok-tov, Rostov n / D., 1957; The struggle for Soviet power in the Kuban in 1917-1920. Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, Krasnodar, 1957; The struggle for the establishment and strengthening of the Sov. power in the North. Sat. documents and materials (March 1917 - July 1918), (Arkhangelsk), 1959; Victory of the October Revolution in Uzbekistan. Sat. dok-tov, v. 1, Tash., 1963; Victory Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution in Kazakhstan. 1917-1918 Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, A.-A., 1957; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution and civil war in Kyrgyzstan (1917-20). Documents and materials, F., 1957; Bolsheviks Zap. Siberia in the struggle for the socialist. revolution. (March 1917 - May 1918). Sat. dok-tov and mat-lov, Novosibirsk, 1957; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution. Bibliographic index of documentary publications, M., 1961.
Lit .: History of the Communist. party of the Soviets. Union, vol. 3, book. 1, M., 1967, Ch. 6; History of the USSR. From ancient times to the present day, vol. 7, M., 1967, ch. four; History Vel. Oct. socialist. revolutions, M., 1967; Golub P. A., Party, army and revolution, M., 1967; Trukan G. A., October in Central Russia, M., 1967; Morozov VF, The struggle of the Bolshevik party for the establishment of the Soviet. authorities in the provinces of the Center. Russia. Oct. 1917 - March 1918, Saratov-Penza, 1967; October Revolution on the Don. Sat. Art., Rostov n / D., 1957; Goncharenko N. G., October in the Donbass, (Lugansk), 1961; The struggle for the victory of the October Socialist. revolutions in the Urals, (Sverdlovsk), 1961; Medvedev E.I., The October Revolution in the Middle Volga Region, (Kuibyshev), 1964; Magomedov Sh. M., October on the Terek and in Dagestan, Makhachkala, 1965; Vetoshkin M.K., Formation of the power of the Soviets in the North of the RSFSR, M., 1957; Belikova L. I., The Communists of Primorye in the struggle for the power of the Soviets in the Far East (Primorskaya org-tion of the RCP (b) in 1917-1922), Khabarovsk, 1967; Krushanov A.I., October in the Far East, part 2, Pobeda Vel. Oct. socialist. Revolution (March 1917 - April 1918), Vladivostok, 1969; Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution. Little encyclopedia, M., 1968, p. 278-285 (bibl.); Vel. Oct. socialist. revolution. The struggle for Soviet power during the period of foreign military intervention and civil war. Index of Literature 1957-1958, c. 1-4, M., 1959 (Rotaprint); the same, Index of Literature 1959, c. 1-2, M., 1960 (Rotaprint); the same, Index of Literature 1960-1961, c. 1-3, M., 1962 (Rotaprint) (see also literature to the article The Great October Socialist Revolution). Great Soviet Encyclopedia - Assault on the Winter Palace. A frame from the feature film "October" 1927. The October Revolution (the full official name in the USSR is the Great October Socialist Revolution, alternative titles: October coup, Bolshevik ... ... Wikipedia
Storming of the Winter Palace. A frame from the feature film "October" 1927 October Revolution (the full official name in the USSR is the Great October Socialist Revolution, alternative names: October Revolution, Bolshevik ... ... Wikipedia
Storming of the Winter Palace. A frame from the feature film "October" 1927 October Revolution (the full official name in the USSR is the Great October Socialist Revolution, alternative names: October Revolution, Bolshevik ... ... Wikipedia
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K.S. Tarasenko
THE STRUGGLE OF THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY LEADED BY V. I. LENIN FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF ITS RANKS IN 1917
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having arisen in 1903 as a revolutionary Marxist party of a new type, traveled the heroic path of struggle for the triumph of the socialist revolution.
Waging an uncompromising struggle against all varieties of opportunism in the Russian and international working-class movement, exposing revisionists and capitulators in its midst, the Bolshevik Party constantly strengthened the iron discipline and unity of its ranks. Long before the socialist revolution, it expelled all Compromisers from its ranks and exposed the betrayal of the Mensheviks. “In Russia, the Bolsheviks were especially happy,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “that they had 15 years for a systematic and carried out struggle both against the Mensheviks (i.e., opportunists and “Centralists”) and against the “Left "long before the immediate mass struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat" 1 .
Of the political parties in Russia, the Bolsheviks were the only party which, during the years of the Stolypin reaction, retained its illegal organization. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, betraying the cause of the revolution, abandoned illegal work, and their legal party organizations existed in the form of disparate groups, in whose ranks disintegration and disintegration took place. The Bolsheviks, despite the most severe persecution of tsarism and the defeat of many party organizations, managed to preserve their party as an illegal centralized organization with a network of party cells in the main industrial regions of the country.
Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav, Kyiv, Saratov, Samara, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kronstadt, Kazan, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinodar, Donbass, 9 points in the Urals - Yekaterinburg, Lysva, Upper Tura, Revda, Kyshtym , Nevyansk, Minyar, Kushva, Kungur and other places in the country there were committees, groups and circles of the Bolsheviks. They waged an uncompromising struggle against the tsarist autocracy, issued appeals directed against the imperialist war and the defensive policy of the compromising parties.
However, the war, mass mobilizations, and the persecution of the Bolsheviks, which intensified during the period of the imperialist war, could not but affect the work of the party organizations. Many illegal organizations of the Bolsheviks were crushed, printed publications were closed. A significant part of the Communists ended up in prisons and exile, and was also drafted into the army and navy. This greatly narrowed the scope of the organizational and mass-political work of the surviving party organizations. But everywhere, in various forms, the Bolsheviks continued their heroic work.
On the eve of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, in an atmosphere of incredible difficulties caused by the imperialist war, in conditions of economic ruin, and famine, the Bolsheviks everywhere intensified their work not only among the working class, but also among soldiers and sailors.
The Bolshevik Party came to February Revolution 1917 in Russia as a party of a new type, armed with the Leninist revolutionary program, strategy and tactics. It had cadres hardened in the struggle against tsarism and in battles with opportunists of all stripes.
"As a result of this struggle," wrote I. V. Stalin, "a close-knit group of leading elements was formed, strong enough in theory and sustained in principle in order to lead the party masses" 2 .
In the autumn of 1916, the Russian Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee resumed its work. It stepped up the activities of the Bolsheviks who were at large, took measures to restore the defeated party organizations and create new ones.
At the same time, the desire of the best representatives of the working class, the poorest peasantry and the intelligentsia to join the ranks of the Bolshevik Party increased. Suffice it to say that in just two an extra month In 1917 (January-March), the party almost doubled, numbering up to 40-45 thousand people in its ranks. The rapid growth of the ranks of the RSDLP (b) was a clear expression of the growing confidence of the proletariat in the Bolshevik Party, the support of its advanced elements from among the working class.
In February 1917, the Russian proletariat, in alliance with the peasantry, carried out a bourgeois-democratic revolution that overthrew the tsarist autocracy in Russia.
The February bourgeois-democratic revolution was a turning point in the fate of our country and a sharp turn in the life of the Bolshevik Party. The party got the opportunity of legal activity. The Bolshevik Party came out of the underground numerically small, but ideologically and politically hardened and organizationally united.
Although the Bolshevik Party was small in number, it consisted of cadres tested in the struggle, who had gone through the harsh school of revolutionary struggle against capitalist slavery in the most cruel conditions of tsarism, enriched by the experience of the two Russian revolutions. It was the hardened vanguard of the proletariat.
As the Bolsheviks were released from prisons and returned from exile and emigration, the party organizations strengthened their ranks and intensified organizational and political work among the masses. Immediately after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, the Bolsheviks began a huge amount of work to create and strengthen the mass organizations of the working class: trade unions, factory committees, etc. The Bolsheviks increased their influence in the Soviets.
From the very first days of the revolution, the Bolshevik Party launched organizational and agitational work of unprecedented intensity and scope. During the period of preparation for the socialist revolution, it used in its activities all its rich experience in inner-party work, in the ideological struggle against opportunist elements in its ranks and against petty-bourgeois parties, groups and trends among the working class, and its vast organizational experience in contact with the masses. In all its activities after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, the Bolshevik Party attached paramount importance to questions of strengthening its ranks, the efficiency and militancy of party organizations.
The Party understood that the degree of organization and cohesion of its ranks determined the organization, cohesion and strength of all other organizations of the working class as a whole, and consequently its ability to move the revolution forward.
In questions of organizational construction, as well as questions of ideology and politics, the Bolshevik Party, created and educated by V. I. Lenin, always stood on the positions of creative Marxism. Upholding the inviolability of the Leninist organizational principles of party leadership and the norms of party life, the party improved the forms of organization and methods of work under the conditions of the specific historical situation of 1917, ensuring that its organizational leadership was at the level of political tasks and ensured the implementation of its political line.
The world-historical mission of the Bolshevik Party as the organizer and leader of the socialist revolution determined and the basic organizational principles of building the party: the strictest centralism in the activities of party organizations, conscious discipline, unity of will and unity of action, the inadmissibility of inner-party factions and groupings, careful selection of those who join the party, protection of the party from opportunist, petty-bourgeois conciliatory elements, development of inner-party democracy. All work aimed at educating and strengthening the ranks of the Bolshevik Party was built on these unshakable foundations of inner-party life.
The April theses of V. I. Lenin, his reports, articles and speeches from February to October, the directives of the April Conference and the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) and, in particular, the decisions “On the unification of internationalists against the petty-bourgeois defense bloc”, “On the revision Party Program” (April Conference), the new Party Rules and the special resolution “On the Unity of the Party” (VI Congress) were the main documents that determined the forms and methods of intra-Party work. These documents played a decisive role in raising the ideological and theoretical level, political maturity and revolutionary hardening of the members of the Bolshevik Party.
One of the main conditions for the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution was that the Bolsheviks, led by V. I. Lenin, in the course of their struggle to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, decisively defeated the opportunist, compromising elements in their own ranks. The anti-Leninist position of these elements was expressed, in particular, in their support for the Mensheviks, who called for unity with the Bolsheviks within the framework of single party organizations.
Acting under the false flag of "unity of social democracy", the Mensheviks wanted to deprive the Bolshevik Party of ideological and organizational independence, dilute the ranks of the Bolshevik organizations with petty-bourgeois elements and undermine party discipline. They sought to "de-Bolshevik" the Marxist party and thereby blow it up from within.
“The main party issue in Russia,” wrote V.I. Lenin in 1916, “was and remains the question of “unity”. Trotsky, in issues 500-600 of his newspaper, never finished finishing and did not think it through to the end: unity with Chkheidze, Skobelev and Co.? or not? It seems that there are still “Unified” in St. Petersburg, although they are very weak (were they not the ones who published Rabocheye Vedomosti in St. Petersburg?). "Makar", they say, is in Moscow and is also conciliating. Conciliation and unity is the most harmful thing for the workers' party in Russia, not only idiocy, but also the death of the party. For, in fact, “unification” (or reconciliation, etc.) with Chkheidee and Skobelev (there is a nail in them, for they pass themselves off as “internationalists”) is “unity” with the OK, and through it with Potresov and Co. ... that is, in fact, servility to the social-chauvinists” 3 .
Uniting with the Mensheviks would mean a departure from the Bolshevik positions, a retreat from the Leninist organizational principles in building a new type of party, and would be an actual violation of the decisions of the VI Prague Conference of the RSDLP (b) in 1912, which forever expelled the Menshevik liquidators from the ranks of the party.
Unification in the organizational question prevented the Bolsheviks from exposing the betrayal of the Mensheviks, freeing the working masses from the influence of compromising parties and winning them over to their side. It imposed on the Bolsheviks, who were part of the united organizations, moral responsibility for all the behavior of the Mensheviks. Therefore, the struggle of V. I. Lenin and the Bolshevik Party against conciliation and unification with the Menshevik defensists was of exceptional importance for the ideological and organizational strengthening of the Bolshevik Party, for exposing the treacherous policy of the Mensheviks and winning over the majority of the working class and the poorest peasant masses to the side of the proletarian revolution.
The new tasks that confronted the Bolshevik Party the very next day after the February Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution required the Party to work out a political line that would correspond to the new historical conditions that had taken shape after the overthrow of the autocracy.
The complexity of the historical situation after the victory of the February Revolution consisted in the fact that "a gigantic petty-bourgeois wave swept over everything, crushed the class-conscious proletariat not only by its numbers, but also ideologically, i.e., infected, captured very wide circles of workers with petty-bourgeois views on politics" 4 .
This petty-bourgeois element, the bearer of which was the petty bourgeoisie, brought the petty-bourgeois compromising parties of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to the crest of the revolution. These parties, by virtue of their class nature, did everything in their power to transfer power into the hands of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. Such was the class basis of the agreement between the Provisional Bourgeois Government and the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which voluntarily gave power to the bourgeoisie, since the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries predominated in the Soviet.
One of the reasons for the growing influence of the petty-bourgeois elements in the working class was the serious changes in the very composition of the Russian proletariat. During the war, up to 40% of regular workers were mobilized into the army. Instead, new workers from the countryside came to factories and factories, and many small owners, handicraftsmen, and shopkeepers, who were hiding from mobilization, also joined.
The newly arrived workers brought with them to the environment of the working class their petty-bourgeois psychology, their concepts and prejudices. This petty-bourgeois stratum provided fertile ground for the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. It became a serious brake on the road to the growth of class consciousness and the organization of the proletariat.
The millions of working people who had previously been downtrodden by tsarism and were now drawn into political life by the revolution were not versed in the "subtleties" of politics. They were intoxicated by the revolutionary events and were gullible towards the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. The working masses have not yet recognized the treacherous line of the Compromisers through their own experience.
V. I. Lenin called the behavior of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries “a classic example of betrayal of the cause of the revolution and the cause of the proletariat, betrayal of precisely this kind, which destroyed a number of revolutions XIX century" 5 .
In the peculiar and complex situation of dual power, only the revolutionary proletariat was able to save Russia from destruction. The class-conscious proletariat understood that in the struggle to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, the working people must organize, unite, and unite into a single force against the bourgeoisie.
The salvation of the country from catastrophe and the fulfillment by the proletariat of its historical mission in the victorious struggle against capital depended on the fact that the proletariat had its own revolutionary party, armed with Marxist-Leninist theory, free from opportunism, irreconcilable against compromisers and capitulators in its own ranks and the workers’ movement, revolutionary in relation to the bourgeoisie and its state power, a party that is strong and authoritative among the masses of the people, capable of preparing the proletariat for decisive clashes with the bourgeoisie and organizing the victory of the socialist revolution.
Only a party armed with the theory of scientific communism, united and monolithic, possessing a clear revolutionary program and flexible tactics, able to correctly understand the complex conditions of the new situation, could correctly chart the path to the victory of the working class. Such a party among the Russian proletariat was the Bolshevik Party, created and led by the leader of the working people of the whole world, the successor of the great cause of Marx - Lenin.
To gather together the forces of the party, to organize them for the struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution, to overcome the vacillations and vacillations in their own midst, to work out a single and correct strategic and tactical line - such was the difficult task that confronted the Bolsheviks after the overthrow of tsarism.
With the victory of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917, a strategic stage of great importance in the history of the Russian revolution, the main task of which was the overthrow of tsarism, ended. This was the greatest turning point in the destinies of the peoples of Russia. He demanded a sharp turn in the activities of the Party.
“It has happened too often,” Lenin points out, “that when history takes a sharp turn, even the advanced parties are more or less for a long time they cannot get used to the new situation, they repeat slogans that were correct yesterday, but have lost all meaning today, have lost their meaning "suddenly" as much as "suddenly" was the sharp turn of history" 6 .
Upon receiving the first news of the February Revolution, V.I. Lenin, being in exile, warned that the Russian proletariat could not regard this revolution otherwise than as the first and still far from complete victory on its way, it must continue the struggle for the victory of the socialist revolution. To accomplish this task, V. I. Lenin wrote in the article “Outline of theses on March 4 (17), 1917”, “the ideological and organizational independence of the party of the revolutionary proletariat, which remained true to internationalism and internationalism, is necessary. not succumbing to the lies of bourgeois phrases that deceive the people with speeches about "defending the fatherland" but about the present imperialist, predatory war. In the “Telegram to the Bolsheviks Departing for Russia” on March 6, 1917, V. I. Lenin warned the party not to deviate from the fundamental class line and not allow “any rapprochement with other parties” 8 . Lenin had in mind primarily the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Fearing that these instructions might not reach Russia and that some party workers there, not having understood the confused and peculiar situation that had developed after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, might agree to unite with the Mensheviks, V. I. Lenin in letters to A. M. Kollontai of March 16 and 17, 1917, again emphasized the harm of uniting with the Mensheviks: “It would be the greatest misfortune if ... ours agreed to “unity” with Chkheidze and Co.!!...
No way again like the Second International! Nothing with Kautsky! Certainly a more revolutionary program and tactics.
In the same letters, V. I. Lenin warned the party not to allow itself to be entangled in stupid “unifying” attempts with social patriots (or, even worse, vacillating ones, like the Organizing Committee, Trotsky and Co.) and demanded that it continue its work in a consistently internationalist spirit, systematically strengthening itself as a party of a new type.
V. I. Lenin in letters to V. A. Karpinsky dated March 24 and 25, A. V. Lunacharsky dated March 25, and Y. Ganetsky dated March 30, 1917 again and again strongly emphasized the harm of uniting with the Mensheviks and demanded independence and isolation of the Bolshevik Party. “And I personally,” V. I. Lenin pointed out, “does not hesitate for a second to declare and declare in print that I would prefer even an immediate split with anyone from our party than concessions to the social-patriotism of Kerensky and Co. or the social -pacifism and Kautakianism of Chkheidze and Co. “Neither Chkheidze with K0, nor Sukhanov, nor Steklov, etc., can be trusted. No rapprochement with other parties, with anyone!., the organization of our party is the essence of it,” 10 Lenin wrote, taking into account the current situation in the country and the positions of all other parties after the overthrow of the autocracy in Russia. Speaking as an irreconcilable opponent of unification with the Mensheviks, V. I. Lenin demanded from the Bolshevik Party a principled and merciless struggle against the unification sentiments that took place in some party organizations. Lenin spoke out not only against uniting with the social traitors, but also against any kind of blocs with the defencists in practical work. "The most great danger- said V. I. Lenin, - which threatens the Russian revolution - is the union of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks "11.
How cautiously V. I. Lenin treated everything that could give rise to the unification of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks in Russia can be judged by the following fact. After the February Revolution in Switzerland, a rally was organized at which V. I. Lenin refused to speak together with the Menshevik Martynov in order to prevent the Mensheviks in Russia from using this fact to propagate the idea of unification.
“No one knew the nature of the Mensheviks and where they would pull the Russian revolution as V. I. Lenin,” notes M. Kharitonov in the article “Lenin and the February Revolution,” and therefore he was so afraid, as if in the heat of the first victories our Russian comrades did not fall for the unifying bait of the Menshevik gentlemen, who were great masters in exploiting the legitimate striving of the proletariat for the unity of their ranks.
Despite these warnings by V. I. Lenin, who most sharply warned the Bolshevik Party against uniting with the Mensheviks, and contrary to the decisions of the Prague Conference, which expelled the Mensheviks from the party, there were such party organizations that, in the process of switching to legal work after the February Revolution, went to unite with the Mensheviks. In addition, a number of such united organizations existed even before the revolution.
It is quite obvious that the consent of some Bolsheviks to join such unified organizations was a major political mistake. Uniting with the Mensheviks prevented the exposure of the treacherous policies and tactics of the petty-bourgeois parties as the main support of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the working class. The associationism helped these parties sow petty-bourgeois illusions in the working class and spread the ideas of class cooperation. It hindered the mobilization of the working class and the working masses for the struggle for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one.
How, then, is it to be explained that such party organizations were found that agreed to unite with the Mensheviks? Why did even those organizations that did not unite with the Mensheviks discuss the questions of uniting with them?
The unification of the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks took place mainly on the outskirts of Russia or in areas with underdeveloped industry, a small stratum of the industrial proletariat, little experience in class struggle and revolutionary work, and also in the army, which consisted mostly of peasants dressed in soldiers' overcoats. . Party organizations of the outskirts of Russia ( Far East, Siberia, Turkestan, Crimea and other places), crushed by the tsarist government during the period of the Stolypin reaction and the imperialist war, came out of the underground after the victory of the February Revolution, few in number and significantly weakened. Their weakness, in particular, was due to the fact that some of them existed as united social democratic organizations even before the revolution. For example, in some cities of Siberia, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks after the Prague Conference of the RSDLP (b) in 1912 continued to be members of the same organizations.
This is primarily due to the fact that the Bolsheviks in a number of outlying regions of Russia were in fact poorly acquainted with the decisions of the Prague Conference, did not understand the reasons why the Mensheviks were expelled from the party. They were not represented at the Prague Conference, they did not have regular party information, they were cut off from the revolutionary centers - Petrograd and Moscow. All this could not but affect the political level and party consistency of a number of Far Eastern, Siberian, Turkestan and other party organizations.
One of the reasons for conciliation towards the Mensheviks and unification sentiments among the Bolsheviks before the arrival of V. I. Lenin in Russia was the presence of some confusion on theoretical issues and incorrect views on the nature of the revolution, the prospects for its development and party tactics. Persecution and repression, the weakening of many party organizations during the war, the lack of communication with V. I. Lenin and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), which worked with great interruptions, all this made it very difficult to develop the correct political orientation in some party organizations. Many prominent workers of the party, being in remote Siberian exile before the February Revolution, did not really know what was going on in the country.
Not the last role was also played by the fact that after leaving the underground, the insignificant forces of the Bolsheviks that were available in the localities were completely absorbed in work in mass organizations, they could not pay the necessary attention to the organizational strengthening of the party ranks.
At the first conference of the Ural Bolsheviks, Ya. M. Sverdlov noted that “in the beginning, after the revolution, there was no precise demarcation. The work of party building receded into the background. The workers were captured by work in non-Party organizations” 13 .
The Mensheviks managed to push through the union with the Bolsheviks in those organizations where the leadership turned out to be insufficiently politically mature people who were poorly versed in questions of the theory and tactics of Bolshevism.
Thus, for example, in one resolution of the Orenburg organization of the RSDLP it was stated that "the previous main tactical disagreements between the factions, by and large, have been removed from the queue by the course of events" and allegedly "a common line is outlined both in assessing the meaning of the coup, and the immediate political behavior." Similarly, at a meeting of the Social Democrats in Kharkov on March 23, 1917, supporters of unification with the Mensheviks asserted that "at present there are no those sharp disagreements that in the past justified the independent existence of two parts of the RSDLP" 14 . The Nikolaev Bolsheviks considered it possible to unite with the Mensheviks because after the revolutions the main basic question of illegal work had disappeared. The Ufa Bolsheviks, for example, rather naively explained their union with the Mensheviks by the fact that in this way they wanted to first win the masses from the Menshevik leaders, and then expel them from the party.
Before the arrival of V. I. Lenin, the anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist articles of Kamenev in Pravda, imbued with the spirit of defencism and conciliation, could not but influence the behavior of individual groups of Bolsheviks. Kamenev's anti-Leninist position on questions of revolution, war, and attitudes toward the Provisional Government hampered the development of a correct tactical line in the localities and served as an ideological justification for conciliation and unity in party organizations.
The unification movement did great harm to the Bolshevik organizations, hindered the growth of the revolutionary forces in the country and their rallying around the Bolsheviks, prevented the spread of correct views among the masses on the question of the prospects for the development of the revolution, and hindered the exposure of the treacherous role of the petty-bourgeois parties of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The question of unification with the Mensheviks was debated not only in individual local party organizations, but at the insistence of opportunist elements it was also discussed at the center, in particular, this question arose at the March meeting of the Bolsheviks, convened by the bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b).
The meeting participants at a meeting on April 1, 1917 discussed the proposal of one of the Menshevik leaders, Tsereteli, to unite the Mensheviks with the Bolsheviks. Since the record of the meeting is very brief and incomplete, it is very difficult to judge the nature of the debate at it. In any case, it is known that after an exchange of opinions at this meeting, it was decided to go to a joint meeting with the Mensheviks for the purpose of information.
The March Conference of the Bolsheviks, which was held simultaneously with the All-Russian Conference of Soviets, discussed almost all the main questions of the political situation in the country. Along with this conference's correct assessment of the nature of the war, the social nature of the Provisional Government, etc., it, under the influence of a group of delegates from the united organizations, headed by Sevryuk and Voitinsky, adopted some compromise resolutions, making a number of concessions to the defensists. This circumstance, undoubtedly, would also have contributed to the strengthening of conciliation, if the wrong, erroneous decisions of the conference were not completely paralyzed by the appearance of the famous April theses of V. I. Lenin.
From the first days after his return to Russia, V. I. Lenin continued to wage an uncompromising struggle against the slightest attempts to unite with the defensists, and was a resolute opponent of any kind of agreements with the Mensheviks.
Arriving in Petrograd towards the end of the work of the All-Russian Conference of Soviets, on April 4 (17) V. I. Lenin spoke at a meeting of the Bolsheviks - members of this conference, and then repeated his speech at the meeting, where, in addition to the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks were also present.
Speaking at a conference of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, on the question of the attitude towards the Mensheviks, declared: “Let me better remain in the minority. One Liebknecht is worth more than 110 defencists like Steklov and Chkheidze. Any attempts to unite with the defencists, no matter who they came from, Lenin qualified as a betrayal of socialism.
Assessing the current situation, Lenin pointed out that even under the Provisional Government, due to its imperialist nature, the war undoubtedly remains a predatory, unjust war. Therefore, "not the slightest concession to 'revolutionary defencism' is unacceptable." In order to pass "from the first stage of the revolution, which gave power to the bourgeoisie due to the insufficient consciousness and organization of the proletariat, to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest strata of the peasantry," 17 Lenin said, the proletariat must have its own solid organization, an independent and strong party, free from opportunist elements. To this end, Lenin proposed to immediately convene a congress and change the program of the party. Lenin demanded the renaming of the party, proposed calling it the "Communist Party" and forming the Third, Communist International. Thus, immediately upon his return to Russia, V. I. Lenin demanded from the party organizations a decisive and final break with the right-wing social democracy.
The April theses of V. I. Lenin were of great importance for the fate of the revolution, for all the activities of our party. They provided an ingenious plan for the Party's struggle for the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the socialist revolution. VI Lenin's theses gave a clear and concrete answer to all the questions posed by the course of revolutionary events in the country.
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, as well as all sorts of opportunists in the ranks of the Bolsheviks, met Lenin's theses with hostility and raised a furious howl against them. The bourgeoisie and the Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary press tried to distort the main provisions of the theses. The Plekhanov newspaper Unity was especially zealous in slandering Lenin.
The April theses of V. I. Lenin armed the Bolshevik party with a clear program of struggle and were the granite basis for the ideological and organizational strengthening of all Bolshevik organizations, eliminating chaos and confusion in the theoretical and practical activities of individual groups of Bolsheviks. They completely cut the ground from under the feet of the vacillating and compromising elements, the bearers of the unification tendencies imposed by the Mensheviks.
Lenin's April theses clearly and clearly stated that there could be no basis for unification between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, that Bolshevism and Menshevism were political currents hostile to each other, representing different class forces: their program and tactics in the revolution were diametrically opposed; to be a supporter of Menshevism means to act as an enemy of the proletarian revolution, to uphold the inviolability of the capitalist system and the preservation of the exploitation of man by man.
Lenin's theses were a sharp ideological weapon of the Bolshevik-Leninists against the conciliatory elements in the party organizations. In each united organization there were firm Leninist-Bolsheviks. The ranks of the latter especially increased after the return from exile, hard labor and emigration of many old Bolsheviks, who from the very first days of their work waged an uncompromising struggle against the Mensheviks, demanding complete ideological and organizational independence of the Bolshevik organizations.
In the Minsk United Organization of the RSDLP, a group of Bolshevik-Leninists was headed by M. V. Frunze and A. F. Myasnikov, in Ufa - A. D. Tsyurupa, in Baku - S. G. Shaumyan, in Tsaritsyn - Yakov Yerman, in Odessa - P Starostin, in Krasnoyarsk - I. Belopolsky, A. Rogov and Ya. Bograd, in Irkutsk - P. Postyshev and Lebedev. They consistently defended the positions of the Bolsheviks, exposed the conciliatory policy of the Mensheviks and fought for the speediest organizational break with them.
The Bolsheviks were clearly aware of the fact that without a break with the Mensheviks in the united organizations, without the elimination of unity sentiments in the party organizations, it was impossible to move the revolution forward in the localities. Therefore, the Bolsheviks pursued a policy of resolutely exposing in their midst the conciliatory elements that contributed to unity.
Coming out against unification and joint action with the Mensheviks, Lenin spoke out in favor of wresting healthy proletarian revolutionary elements from the Mensheviks. “I am resolutely for that,” said V. I. Lenin, speaking during the discussion of the report on municipal elections at the Petrograd citywide conference in April 1917 - in order to insert Mensheviks who break with chauvinism into our lists of candidates. This is not a block." 19
The resolution on this issue, proposed by V. I. Lenin and unanimously adopted by the Petrograd citywide conference, emphasized the impossibility of uniting with parties that pursued a policy of supporting the Provisional Bourgeois Government, that stood on the positions of “revolutionary defencism” and opposed the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. The conference called on the Party organizations to intensify their work among the working masses, freeing them from the influence of the Mensheviks and winning them over to the side of the Bolshevik Party.
The resolution of the conference stated: “In relation to individual local groups of workers who are adjacent to the Mensheviks, etc., but who are striving to defend the positions of internationalism against “revolutionary defencism”, against voting on loans, etc., the policy of our party should consist in support for such workers and groups, in rapprochement with them, in support of uniting with them on the basis of an unconditional break with petty-bourgeois betrayal of socialism.
In carrying out this resolution, the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP (b) took all measures to draw into the ranks of the Bolsheviks the revolutionary Social Democratic, internationalist elements who did not share the platform of the Mensheviks. This tactic was followed by the Bolsheviks throughout the struggle to strengthen the party ranks in the pre-October period. The Bolsheviks proceeded from the same attitudes in their struggle against conciliation and unity in party organizations.
The irreconcilable struggle of the Bolsheviks against unifying sentiments in the Moscow city party organization led to the fact that conciliatory sentiments did not become widespread here. Expressing the opinion of the Moscow City Committee of the Bolsheviks, R. S. Zemlyachka, in her speech at the first Moscow regional conference of the RSDLP (b), held from April 19 to 21, stated: “We cannot unite with the Mensheviks. We can only include those Social Democrats who accept all our resolutions. We now need a crystal clear position, and then the revolutionary masses will follow us. At the Second Citywide Moscow Conference of the RSDLP (b), when discussing Osinsky’s report “On Unification with the Mensheviks” on April 15, the delegates of the conference rejected all the arguments of the speaker who spoke in favor of unification with the Mensheviks, and branded the latter as traitors to the revolution.
The fact that even before the revolution there were strong underground Bolshevik organizations in Yekaterinburg, Lysva, Upper Tura, Revda, Kyshtym, Nevyansk, Minyar, Ufa, Kushva, Kungur contributed to the successful struggle against the conciliators in the Urals.
In the industrial centers of the Urals, the Mensheviks did not have much influence. In addition, internationalist elements prevailed among the Mensheviks, who followed the Bolsheviks and worked together with them. Therefore, the Ural Social Democratic organization as a whole was essentially a Bolshevik organization. This can already be seen from the composition of the participants in the first Ural Conference, which took place on April 15-17, 1917. Of the 63 delegates to the conference, there were 57 Bolsheviks, 3 Menshevik internationalists, and 3 Menshevik defencists. When discussing political issues at the conference, only 2-3 delegates defended the defencist point of view.
The struggle against unification tendencies in the Ural party organizations especially intensified with the arrival in the Urals in early April 1917 of Ya.
“It is not always true that there is strength in quantity,” Ya. M. Sverdlov pointed out in his speech at the first regional conference. It is not always profitable to gather more people under the banner. Strength - in discipline and quality. Can we make a formless union? Not! Only when there are no disagreements among you, only then unite... We do not accept Mensheviks into the Party.
Several Mensheviks present at the conference, representing the Nizhny Tagil United Organization, spoke out on this issue, as on many others, against Sverdlov. They were supported by the conciliatory opportunist Sosnovsky, who later became a Trotskyist.
In the decision adopted by the conference on the question of the attitude towards the Mensheviks, it was said that "unification is possible only with internationalists who stand on the point of view of Zimmerwald and Kienthal" 23 . The error of this decision was that it spoke about the supporters of Zimmerwald and Kienthal in general, and did not highlight the views of the left minority of this association. It should be said that not only the Ural Bolsheviks made such a mistake, but also some other organizations.
In the main centers of the Volga region - Saratov, Samara, Kazan, after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, independent Bolshevik organizations worked. Although at first there were unification sentiments among the compromising elements, they were quickly overcome thanks to strong party traditions and the presence of experienced Bolshevik cadres who headed the organizations. Even during the years of the imperialist war, a strong Bolshevik core formed in Saratov: M. S. Olminsky, S. I. Mitskevich and others, which took the correct revolutionary-internationalist position on issues of war and revolution, and this contributed to the further successful struggle against conciliationism and maintaining an independent Bolshevik organization.
Therefore, even after the February Revolution, the Saratov organization occupied, in the main, the correct Leninist position. The state of uncertainty and ambiguity on some issues of political life in the Saratov organization was observed for a short time. “The multilingual state of our organization,” writes Antonov-Saratovsky, “was put to an end by the masses of the party itself, and above all by its working section, they took the point of view of Lenin and forced our intelligentsia and semi-intelligentsia to pull themselves together” 24 .
At the first Saratov citywide party conference under legal conditions, held on April 17, 1917, the conciliator Mgeladze proposed to unite with the Mensheviks. Rebuffing the opportunist attacks of Mgeladze, the conference recognized the possibility of uniting only with those trends that rejected " civilian world”, stood on the basis of an irreconcilable class struggle, pursued an internationalist policy and struggle for an immediate end to the world war.
In another large party collective of the Volga region, in the Samara organization of the RSDLP (b), unity sentiments also appeared in the first days of the revolution. But the organizational opportunism, the vacillations and vacillations of some of the Bolsheviks, were soon brought to an end. The Samara Bolsheviks rallied their ranks around the prominent Bolsheviks Kuibyshev, Shvernik, Bubnov and waged a decisive struggle against the Menshevik "unifying frenzy" and conciliatory moods of individual Bolsheviks. In March 1917, in the movie "Triumph" at the general meeting of the Samara organization of the RSDLP (b), when discussing the issue of unification, a group of Bolsheviks led by Bubnov exposed the treacherous policy of the Mensheviks and spoke out against any unification with them until this issue was resolved by the center. This proposal was accepted.
The Samara Mensheviks, dissatisfied with the position of the Bolshevik organization on this issue, decided at their meeting on March 23 to convene a "constituent assembly" of all Social Democratic trends. However, this attempt by the Mensheviks was a complete failure. The game of "unity" helped them to attract to the "united meeting" only a few conciliatory Bolsheviks, who did not play a significant role in the Samara organization of the RSDLP (b). The Samara Bolshevik Committee declared to the Mensheviks that unification could take place only on the platform of the 7th All-Russian April Conference.
The question of unification with the Mensheviks was also discussed at the first citywide conference of the Samara Bolsheviks, which took place on April 22, 1917. A comprehensive examination of this issue revealed that the differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the course of the revolution not only were not smoothed out, but, on the contrary, they intensified. For this reason the conference rejected any association with the Mensheviks.
The process of registration of the Kazan Bolshevik organization, defeated during the years of reaction, lasted the whole of March 1917. All this time the Bolsheviks continued to be scattered into separate groups and circles. Such organizational disunity during this period was especially dangerous. The lack of a unified organization among the Bolsheviks sought to use the Mensheviks, trying to create a unified organization.
To this end, under the guise of hypocritical statements about the "common goals" of the struggle and "common aspirations", the Mensheviks of Kazan in their organ, the Kazan Rabochaya Gazeta, stubbornly propagated the idea of a "single party" and criticized the Bolsheviks for their unwillingness to unite.
Among the Kazan Bolsheviks, with the exception of a small part of them, unification sentiments did not meet with any support.
In mid-March, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) sent V. A. Tikhomirnov to Kazan. With his arrival, the Kazan Bolsheviks resolutely embarked on the path of creating an independent organization. Tikhomirnov took vigorous measures to create and strengthen the Bolshevik organization of Kazan. To this end, he held several meetings with individual groups of Bolsheviks, at which a decision was made: "Unconditionally evade association with the Mensheviks, organize a Bolshevik committee and immediately begin to create their own body" 25 .
The Mensheviks, in opposition to Tikhomirnov's efforts to create an independent Bolshevik organization, continued to take steps to unite all social democratic forces. On their initiative, on March 24, 1917, a general meeting of all the Social Democrats of Kazan was held with the aim of uniting. Tikhomirnov made a report at the meeting on behalf of the Bolshevik groups. During the discussion of his report, sharp differences between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were revealed on all the questions raised in the report, and the complete impossibility of uniting the Social Democrats in one organization. At the end of the meeting, Tikhomirnov, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, declared that "an independent organization is being formed in Kazan, standing on the positions of the Central Committee and fully recognizing its authority" 26 . Thus, from the first steps of legal activity, the Bolsheviks of Kazan sharply opposed the Mensheviks and formed their own independent organization.
The Bolsheviks of the industrial centers of Ukraine waged a decisive struggle against the conciliatory policy towards the Mensheviks and the tendency to unite with them.
In Kharkov, the question of unification was raised by the Menshevik Provisional Committee, which proposed that the Bolsheviks autonomously unite into one common Kharkov Social Democratic organization, regardless of the solution of this issue by the central institutions of the party. Some members of the Kharkov Bolshevik Committee, such as Luganovsky, Borshchevsky, Kin, and others, supported this proposal of the Mensheviks, arguing that at the present time there are no sharp differences that in the past justified the independent existence of two parts of the RSDLP. The committee put this issue for discussion at the general meeting of the Kharkov organization of the Bolsheviks, which took place on March 23, 1917. The participants in the meeting sharply condemned the vacillating members of the city committee and resolutely rejected the Mensheviks' proposal for unification. At the same time, the meeting instructed the representative of the Kharkov Committee to raise the question of merging with the Mensheviks at the All-Russian Party Conference in Petrograd. Pending the clarification of this question in the Central Committee, the meeting obliged the Kharkov Committee, for the purpose of coordinated work, to enter into closer contact with the Mensheviks.
This wrong decision was undoubtedly a concession to the Mensheviks. It helped the Mensheviks, under the guise of revolutionary phrases, to preach in the first period of the revolution the unity of action and the "community" of aims of all Social Democracy.
After this meeting, the discussion of the question of the merger of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks was transferred to the pages of the Proletary newspaper. In No. 7 of March 23 and No. 8 of March 28, two articles were published in this newspaper: one - a supporter of the merger, the other - a response article, an opponent of the unification. Opposing the formation of a united organization, the opponents of the merger made a serious mistake in offering their cooperation to the Mensheviks. "...Let's," the author of the article pointed out, "find other ways to work together" 27 .
On April 9, the general meeting of the Kharkov Bolshevik organization, after discussing the report of Muranov, seconded by the Central Committee, recognized it as acceptable to unite with the Mensheviks, who stood on the point of view of Zimmerwald and Kienthal, on the condition of a complete organizational break with "revolutionary defencism." The United Organization was to send a delegate to the All-Russian Conference of the Bolsheviks.
Naturally, such a decision could not suit the Mensheviks.
On April 18, at the insistence of the conciliators, the Kharkov Committee again returned to discussing the question of unification with the Mensheviks. In contrast to the speaker, who insisted on uniting with the Mensheviks, among whom there were many defensists, the committee adopted a resolution stating that due to the fact that the Menshevik Organizing Committee did not break ties with the social chauvinists and "revolutionary defencists", the Kharkov Committee finds it is impossible to proceed to the concrete implementation of the unification until the Organizing Committee has fulfilled the main provisions expressed in the resolution of the general meeting of April 9th.
Later, the Kharkov Bolsheviks had not yet discussed the question of cooperation with the Mensheviks. Thus, for example, on May 18, the general meeting of the Kharkov organization, when discussing the question of elections to the city duma, considered it possible to conclude a bloc with the Menshevik-Internationalists if the latter broke off all relations “with the Menshevik and Kadet defencist bloc, with which they did not break ties” 28 .
As can be seen from the above facts, all the efforts of the supporters of unification - the conciliatory Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks - to knock the Kharkov Bolshevik organization from the Leninist positions suffered a complete failure.
In Ukraine, many organizations of the Bolsheviks did not enter into any organizational connection with the Mensheviks, for example, in Yekaterinoslav. Despite this, the conciliators who were members of the Committee campaigned for unification with the Mensheviks. During the elections to the City Duma, the Yekaterinoslav Committee of the Bolsheviks passed a decision on the so-called technical agreement with the Mensheviks. This meant putting up a joint list with the Mensheviks at the elections. It was essentially a resolution on a bloc. But when the committee's decision was put up for discussion by the general meeting of the organization, the latter indignantly rejected the proposal for a bloc with the Mensheviks by an overwhelming majority.
In Kyiv, the Bolshevik organization also did not enter into any unification negotiations with the Mensheviks. But in Kyiv there was a group of Social Democrats who called themselves the “group of united Mensheviks and Bolsheviks,” which sought to unite the Bolshevik and Menshevik organizations. This group worked out a "platform" that was purely Menshevik in nature. She put forward the idea of convening a "workers' congress", creating a "broad workers' party" on the basis of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. The "Group of United Mensheviks and Bolsheviks" turned to the committees of Mensheviks and Bolsheviks with a proposal to create a joint citywide body, threatening that if its proposal was rejected, it would create a committee itself. The Mensheviks agreed to the creation of a joint committee. The Bolsheviks answered in the negative. Although the Kyiv Committee of the Bolsheviks took a shaky position on many issues of political life at that time, nevertheless, the efforts of the Kyiv Mensheviks to achieve unification with the Bolsheviks did not lead to anything.
In the Donbass, in most places, there were strong Bolshevik organizations, and there was no noticeable unifying mood there. The Communists of Donbass ruthlessly fought against any attempts to unite with the social traitors, exposed the proposals of the local Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks for unification, resolutely condemned the opportunist elements in their ranks, who occupied conciliatory positions.
During the discussion of the April theses of V. I. Lenin at the general meeting of the Rostov organization of the RSDLP (b) on April 13 (26), Syrtsov spoke out for unification with the Mensheviks. He was supported by Vasilchenko. Having condemned the conciliationism of Syrtsov and Vasilchenko, who later joined the Trotskyists, the Rostov Bolsheviks did not agree to unite with the Mensheviks, standing firmly on the Leninist positions outlined in the April Theses.
In mid-April 1917, the Bolsheviks of Gomel, having unanimously approved the April Theses of V. I. Lenin, broke off all organizational ties with the Mensheviks and formed their own independent organization.
Within the Krasnoyarsk United Organization of Social Democrats in early March 1917, the first initiative group of Bolsheviks in Siberia was formed, which included firm Leninists - I. Belopolsky, A. Rogov, Ya. Bograd and others. On March 4-5, the first meeting of the Bolshevik group took place, at which the question of the attitude towards the Krasnoyarsk United Social Democratic Organization, created on March 2, which included Bolsheviks, Menshevik-internationalists and Menshevik-defensists, was discussed.
During the discussion of this question, part of the participants in the meeting demanded an immediate organizational break with the Mensheviks and the withdrawal of the Bolsheviks from the local united organization. Another part spoke in favor of a temporary stay in it in order to win over the majority of organizations to their side. After a comprehensive discussion of the issue, it was decided that the Bolsheviks remain in the ranks of the united organization for a month, in order to prepare and carry out a split during this time. To this end, the meeting has developed a specific program of activities. The group adopted the name "Pravdist Bolsheviks".
In order to fight against the Mensheviks and conciliatory elements from among the Bolsheviks, the Krasnoyarsk "Pravdists" decided to unite the Bolshevik groups of all the cities of Siberia, or at least the regions of Central Siberia adjacent to Krasnoyarsk. On the 20th of March, the Krasnoyarsk group of Pravdist Bolsheviks held a series of meetings with a member of the Central Committee Ya. To this end, it was decided to create the Central Siberian Regional Bureau of the RSDLP (b). The group of Pravdist Bolsheviks of Krasnoyarsk was joined by the Bolsheviks of Achinsk, headed by A. V. Pomerantseva and F. K. Vrublevsky, Yeniseisk, headed by V. N. Yakovlev and Peterson, Minusinsk, with G. S. Weinbaum, and others.
In early April 1917, representatives of the Bolshevik groups from Yeniseisk came to Krasnoyarsk for a meeting. Achinsk, Kansk, the Znamensky Plant, from the railway workshops, from the editorial office of Sibirskaya Pravda, from the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the union of photographic business, the Social Democratic faction of soldiers, the cooperative of employees, the group of like-minded people of Sibirskaya Pravda, the Social Democratic Polish section of the city Krasnoyarsk.
The meeting participants approved the initiative of the Krasnoyarsk group of Pravdist Bolsheviks to establish close ties and unity of action between the Bolshevik groups of Siberia under the direct leadership of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and elected the Central Siberian Regional Bureau of the RSDLP (b). The meeting sent a telegram to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, in which they welcomed the leading center of the party, leading the working class of Russia in difficult conditions to fight for the basic demands of the revolution, asked the Central Committee to confirm the authority of the Central Siberian Regional Bureau and approve its composition. On April 13, 1917, a response telegram was received signed by the Secretary of the Central Committee, E. D. Stasova, which announced the approval of the Central Siberian Regional Bureau, the appointment of an all-party conference in mid-April, and the need to elect delegates from the entire organization and, if possible, from all groups of the region.
From that moment on, the Central Siberian Regional Bureau began to call itself the Central Siberian Regional Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). The approval of the Central Committee of the Party of the Bolshevik Party Center for Siberia was of great importance in the struggle against unificationism, in the organizational strengthening of the Party organizations in Siberia.
When discussing the April theses of V. I. Lenin in such party organizations of the country as Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, Lugansk, Yekaterinoslav, Rostov, Kyiv, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Saratov, Yekaterinodar, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kazan and many others even before VII ( The April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) put an end to the unification moods that manifested themselves among individual compromising Bolsheviks.
But, in spite of this, it still took a considerable amount of time to finally sever the organizational ties with the Mensheviks that had been preserved in the localities in the united organizations, to formalize and strengthen independent Bolshevik organizations everywhere.
In the context of the unfolding struggle of the Bolshevik Party for the ideological and organizational strengthening of its ranks, in the conditions of the rapid growth of the Party and its primary organizations, the VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the Bolshevik Party opened.
The April Conference of the Bolsheviks completed the elaboration and adoption of the Party's new orientation at the new stage of the struggle and set a course for the preparation of the socialist revolution. It gave clear answers to all fundamental questions of the revolution and put forward the slogan of struggle for the transfer of all state power into the hands of the Soviets.
During the discussion at the conference of the report on the situation in the International, a resolution was adopted that determined the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the chauvinists, centrists and wavering elements in the Second International and confirmed the impossibility of uniting with parties and groups that stood on the positions of "revolutionary defencism". Along with this, the conference, contrary to the point of view of Lenin, who proposed to remain in the Zimmirwald association only for informational purposes and considered that this association could not serve as the basis for the formation of the Third International, adopted the clearly erroneous point of the resolution advocated by Zinoviev that our party remains in Zimmerwald bloc, setting itself the task of defending the tactics of the Zimmerwald Left there. The Conference instructed the Central Committee to begin immediately the implementation of measures to found the Third International.
The April conference adopted a resolution "On uniting the internationalists against the petty-bourgeois defencist bloom." In this resolution, the conference noted that the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties had gone over to the positions of "revolutionary defencism", that is, they supported the imperialist war, voted for a loan and support for the Provisional Government, that these parties pursued the interests and point of view of the petty bourgeoisie in their entire policy and corrupted the proletariat with bourgeois ideas that it was possible to change the policy of the bourgeoisie by means of agreement on it, "control" of the Provisional Government, entry into the ministry, etc. to further development revolution, created the possibility of its defeat by the forces of counter-revolution. Based on this, the conference decided:
“1) recognize unification with the parties and groups pursuing” this policy as certainly impossible;
2) recognize rapprochement and unification with groups and trends that actually stand on the basis of internationalism as necessary on the basis of a break with the policy of petty-bourgeois betrayal of socialism” 29 .
These decisions of the April Conference outlined a clear and precise platform for rallying the internationalist elements in the working-class movement, gave direction and indicated methods for strengthening the Bolshevik Party under the specific conditions of the struggle for the preparation of the proletarian revolution.
The clear statement of the April Conference of the Bolsheviks, that any association with the Mensheviks prevents their isolation from the masses, without which it is impossible even to think of liquidating the power of the bourgeoisie, was of exceptional importance. Unification and any blocs with the Mensheviks would have undermined the leading role of the proletariat and its party in the revolution and would have strengthened the position of the Compromisers among the masses, would have made it more difficult for the working people to free themselves from the captivity of gullibility towards the bourgeoisie, which the Mensheviks, together with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, planted.
The Bolshevik Party most decisively exposed the main thesis of the Mensheviks, put forward by them in favor of unification, that supposedly after the February Revolution of 1917 only two forces appeared in the political arena: the bourgeoisie and "revolutionary democracy". They included the Bolshevik Party along with themselves and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the latter.
V. I. Lenin drew special attention of the party to the need to explain to the working masses that in fact its two main forces are fighting in the revolution, but three forces, three main groups of parties that differed radically from each other: 1) the Cadets and those who to the right of them, 2) the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and 3) the Bolshevik Party. At the same time, the first two groups of parties were in a bloc with each other and pursued an imperialist policy.
Only the Bolshevik Party, expressing the interests of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry, consistently defended the interests of all the working masses against the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The party saw the clear separation of the revolutionary line of the Bolsheviks from the conciliatory line of the Mensheviks as the main condition for rallying the working people around their slogans. But, while rejecting unity and a bloc with the Mensheviks, the party did not at all refuse to unite with internationalist elements. Waging an uncompromising struggle against the Mensheviks, the party advocated uniting around itself all political groups that, on the fundamental questions of the revolution, departed from positions of compromise with the bourgeoisie. The Party considered the complete ideological and organizational break of these groups with the Menshevik line in the revolution and their recognition of the revolutionary platform of the Bolsheviks as the condition for such a unification. Such tactics of the Bolsheviks contributed to the creation of the unity of the labor movement from below, helped to expose the conciliatory policy of the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties.
This line in the Bolshevik Party can be clearly seen in the example of the unification of the Petrograd organization of the RSDLP (b) with the Mezhrayontsy.
As long as the "Interdistrict Committee" took a conciliatory position in relation to the defensists, the Bolsheviks resolutely opposed unification with them, and only when the "Interdistrict Organization" spoke in favor of a break with the defencists, when, following the Bolsheviks, it spoke in favor of the transfer of all power The Soviets were put on the order of the day the question of uniting with the "mezhraiontsy", which the Bolsheviks agreed to, trying to unite all the revolutionary elements of the working class.
The instructions of the VII (April) All-Russian Conference on the need for an immediate break with the Mensheviks were accepted by the Bolsheviks of the united party organizations for execution.
In the first half of May 1917, under pressure from progressive, revolutionary-minded workers, a split took place between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the Bryansk city party organization.
The struggle between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the Voronezh United Organization intensified greatly. The Bolsheviks of Voronezh already at the beginning of May managed to rally around themselves the majority of the members of the united organization. This prompted a group of Mensheviks to make an extraordinary statement at a general meeting on May 3 (16), which was attended by about 400 people, about leaving the united organization and forming an independent Voronezh group of the RSDLP. However, as a result of the conciliatory position taken by the leadership of the Voronezh Bolsheviks, a final break with the Mensheviks did not occur at this meeting. May 17 (30) only. In 1917, when discussing the decisions of the April Conference, the general meeting of the Voronezh organization, breaking all organizational ties with the Mensheviks, decided to join the Moscow Regional Bureau of the RSDLP (b).
After the April Conference of the RSDLP (b), the struggle between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in the Kolomna, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Tula, Kostroma and other united organizations intensified.
To explain the decisions and significance of the April Conference, the Moscow Regional Bureau sent its representatives to the Tula United Organization. On May 11, a meeting of the Tula Bolsheviks was held in the amount of 35 people, at which the materials of the April Conference were discussed in detail and a decision was made on an immediate break with the Compromisers and the formation of a Bolshevik organization. May 14 at the second meeting was elected Executive committee Bolshevik organization in Tula.
Having prepared the creation of their party organization, the Bolsheviks of Tula at the general meeting of the united organization on May 28 officially announced their withdrawal from it and the formation of an independent Bolshevik organization. The 89 Bolsheviks who left the meeting of the united organization called their meeting and elected the Tula City Committee of the Bolshevik Party and two district committees - Zarechensky and Chulkovsky.
After the formation of the Tula City Committee, the Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian Social Democratic organizations of the city of Tula in the amount of 80 people immediately joined the Bolsheviks, sending their representatives to work in the city committee of the party.
The Bolshevik military organization of the Tula garrison in the amount of 100 people also fully joined the Bolsheviks of the city.
How difficult it was to fight the conciliatory moods that nourished the Menshevik idea of "unification" is evidenced by the fact that on May 21, 1917, the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Bolshevik Party again had to consider the question "On the attitude towards the united organizations."
After an exchange of opinions, the Regional Bureau adopted a decision stating that “standing entirely on the basis of the resolution of the All-Russian Conference on the unification of internationalists against the petty-bourgeois defense bloc, the Moscow Regional Bureau is forced to state the fact of the extreme organizational diversity, the extraordinary diversity of party organizations that have developed locally in the Central Industrial Region ". Along with certain, purely Bolshevik organizations, the decision pointed out, we have here both organizations that have not yet had time to decide, and organizations that are united. "United organizations, in turn, fall into two types: organizations that unite Bolsheviks and Menshevik-internationalists, and mixed organizations, in which all trends are represented, both internationalists and defencists" 30 .
Depending on this, it was emphasized in the decision, the methods of implementing the resolution of the April Conference on the unification of internationalists in different cases should be different. If in undecided organizations the task was to immediately put on the table all the main questions of the divergence between the Bolsheviks and the defencists and to help these organizations to take a revolutionary internationalist position, then organizations that united Bolsheviks and Menshevik-internationalists in their ranks had to be supported and, by establishing with them the closest organizational ties and energetic participation in their work, to stop in such organizations the desire of their individual members to unite with the defencists.
Proceeding from this position, the Bureau recommended that cautious tactics be pursued, aimed at ensuring that the Bolshevik part of these organizations, clearly and sharply revealing their position of principle and differences with the Mensheviks, would strive for the complete conquest of the organizations.
The question of the attitude towards mixed organizations required more thorough, careful and detailed consideration. The development of the revolutionary movement, leading to an intensification of clashes between classes, forced all the classes participating in the revolution to take a completely definite position. At the same time, this circumstance caused disagreements between the individual trends within such mixed organizations, gradually made their joint work more and more impossible, and inevitably led these organizations to disintegration. Therefore, in order to speed up this process of self-determination, the Regional Bureau, by its decision, set the task of helping to clarify the depth and irreconcilability of the disagreements between the two main directions in mixed organizations - defense and Bolshevik, to facilitate the inevitable split and bring out of it their like-minded people who are united and able to organizationally consolidate their influence. to the masses.
With regard to those organizations that, while calling themselves united, nevertheless, in their speeches, had already taken a defencist and opportunist position, the Regional Bureau recommended to its adherents to immediately withdraw from such organizations and, for its part, broke off all ties with them.
By the July days of 1917, the process of the final organizational break with the Mensheviks and the formation of independent Bolshevik organizations in the central industrial region had ended everywhere.
The July events and the shameful role of the Mensheviks in them hastened the process of organizational rupture between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in all the united organizations. In the course of the intensified struggle between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, a significant part of the united party organizations split with the Mensheviks and independent Bolshevik organizations took shape.
On the basis of the decisions of the April Conference, the Bolsheviks of Chelyabinsk waged a determined struggle for the expulsion of the Mensheviks from the united organization. The general meeting of the Bolsheviks of Chelyabinsk on May 8, having unanimously approved the decisions of the April Conference, decided on a stricter admission to the party. In the future, admission to the party was to be carried out with the recommendation of one member of the party and only those persons who, in questions about the war and in relation to the Provisional Government, recognized the decisions of the April Conference. At the same meeting, the party committee of the Bolshevik organization of Chelyabinsk was elected, which did a great job of rallying all the truly revolutionary forces and withdrawing them from the united organization.
At the general meeting on July 18, by an absolute majority of votes, the Mensheviks were expelled from the organization. Regarding their counter-revolutionary role, the Chelyabinsk Committee addressed a special appeal to the workers.
The appeal said:
"Comrade workers!
Some time ago a new party, the Mensheviks, was formed in Chelyabinsk, calling itself the Social Democrats; Among the members of this organization are the same people who during the four months of the Great Russian Revolution did nothing but fight the revolutionary Social Democracy, the genuine old defenders of the working class. Further, the appeal stated that “having entered into an agreement with the local counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie ... these disorganizers are now rallying their ranks in order to fight with great success against our revolutionary tactics. Defenders of the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, shopkeepers and townsfolk, they are in full contact with their counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and their task is to split, weaken and disperse the dense ranks of the revolutionary proletariat. Proceeding from this, the appeal called: “Comrade workers! do not be deceived by the sweet speeches of the disorganizers. Let the members of the "Menshevik" party be that bourgeois intelligentsia which has lost all living contact with the workers, which has entered into an agreement with the bourgeoisie and supports it.
Not a single worker in the ranks of imaginary Social Democrats!” 32
After the Mensheviks were expelled from their ranks, the Chelyabinsk Bolshevik Organization began to grow rapidly at the expense of the best, advanced factory workers. If in April it had 240 people in its ranks, then six months later it had grown to 1,700 people. In connection with the rapid growth and increase in the volume of party work, 3 district party committees were organized in July and party clubs were opened.
In the Urals, after the July events, the Bolsheviks of Nizhny Tagil finally broke off their ties with the Mensheviks and formed an independent organization. Almost simultaneously, in Kushva, the Bolsheviks, who dominated the organization, expelled the Mensheviks from it. In July 1917 there was a split in Zlatoust, in August - in Nizhnyaya Salda and Nizhnyaya Tura. Soon after the April Conference, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks disengaged in Perm, and in September 1917 in Orenburg.
The association took on a protracted character in the Ufa organization.
From the moment the united party organization was created in Ufa on March 3, 1917, a group of firm Leninists was formed in it, headed by A. D. Tsyurupa. This group waged an uncompromising struggle against the policy of the Menshevik leaders and opportunist elements among the Bolsheviks. In March 1917, the Ufa Bolsheviks did a great job of creating and strengthening factory primary party organizations and trade unions. Bolshevik organizations arose at all large plants and factories of the Southern Urals (Asha-Balashovsky, Simsky, Minyarsky, Ust-Kotavsky factories, among the Ufa railway workers, later at the Beloretsky factory, at the Nizhne-Troitsk cloth factory of the Alafuzovs, in Biysk, Belebey and other places) . In their struggle to win a majority in the working class, the Leninist group in the Ufa United Organization, headed by A. D. Tsyurupa, relied on the Bolshevik party organizations of the factories of the Southern Urals. And only after the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), which once again reminded of the need for a complete break with the Mensheviks, did the Ufa Committee of the RSDLP and its organ, the Vperyod newspaper, firmly take Leninist positions.
On June 21-22, 1917, the Ufa provincial party conference was held, at which 7 organizations of Bashkiria were represented, uniting 3020 party members. At the conference, delegates from factory organizations sharply criticized the work of the Ufa Committee and its organ, the Vperyod newspaper, for their conciliatory policy towards the Mensheviks. The new composition of the Ufa Committee, elected at the conference, turned Vperyod into a Bolshevik organ. The Ufa Mensheviks lost all support among the working masses. In early September 1917 they were expelled from the party organization.
Analyzing the struggle of the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks in the united organizations, the second Ural regional conference, held on July 14-18, summed up the results of the work of the Ural organization to fulfill the instructions of the Central Committee to expel "chauvinists of various shades" from their ranks. She noted that in the Urals, as well as throughout Russia, there is not the creation of new unified, but the disintegration of old "single" organizations. For 3 months in the Urals, they finally broke with the association of organizations that were completely cleansed of the Mensheviks.
“Considering this natural and inevitable disintegration as a process of purification and strengthening of the party of the proletariat, the Second Ural Regional Conference considers the path of party unification that our Central Committee has taken to be absolutely correct” 33
On May 28, 1917, the Vyatka Bolsheviks broke organizational ties with the Mensheviks and formed their own organization, and the Bolsheviks Izhevsk plant achieved this by withdrawing from the "association" on May 13, 1917. At the end of May, after a special directive from the Central Committee of the party, the Sormovo and Nizhny Novgorod Bolsheviks finally broke with the Mensheviks and created their own independent organization. Only as a result of an uncompromising struggle, a group of Tsaritsyn Bolsheviks led by Yakov Yerman, who was sent by the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) to Tsaritsyn, on May 9, 1917, managed to expel the Mensheviks from the united party organization and turn it into a Bolshevik one. At the same time, out of 380 members of the organization, only 30 people followed the Mensheviks.
In early May, a city meeting of the Simbirsk Bolsheviks was held to discuss the materials of the April Conference. At the meeting, a small group of compromisers and capitulators, who smoothed over the fundamental differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and defended cooperation with the Mensheviks in a united organization, opposed the decisions of the April Conference.
Most of the participants in the meeting, headed by M. A. Gimov, resolutely rebuffed the Menshevik attacks. Having approved the decisions of the April conference, the assembly adopted them as a program of its daily activities. In accordance with the decisions of the conference, the assembly decided to immediately break all ties with the Mensheviks and form an independent Bolshevik organization. At the same meeting, the Organizational Bureau headed by M. A. Gimov was elected. Fulfilling the decision of the general meeting, by June the Organizational Bureau had done a lot of work to rally the Bolshevik forces, educate and politically harden the party members from workers and soldiers. During May, the ranks of the Simbirsk Bolsheviks more than tripled. The prestige of the Bolsheviks among the working masses increased.
On June 9, at the organizational meeting, the creation of the Bolshevik organization of the city of Simbirsk was formalized. The meeting gave a sharp rebuff to a small group of opportunists who were trying to maintain a united organization. The Simbirsk city committee of the Bolsheviks was also elected here, headed by M. A. Gimov, who was instructed to intensify work on the creation of production party cells and the political education of party members.
Even before the 7th (April) All-Russian Conference, the Bolshevik organizations of the industrial centers of Ukraine had, in the main, correctly assessed political events and oriented the proletariat towards the struggle for the continuation of the revolution. They persistently exposed the Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Ukrainian nationalists, winning over the masses to their side. The influence of these conciliatory parties manifested itself, in particular, in their attempts to push the Bolsheviks onto the path of unification with the defensist Mensheviks. United social democratic organizations were in Odessa, Nikolaev, Poltava, Kremenchug, Krivoy Rog, Berdyansk, Kherson, Zhytomyr and other cities. The split in these organizations occurred, for the most part, in the summer of 1917.
In the Odessa organization, during the discussion at a meeting of the citywide committee on April 23, Schwartz's report "On the situation in the party and the All-Russian Conference being convened," sharp disagreements arose between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.
The clash between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks was repeated at the first citywide conference of the Odessa organization of the RSDLP, which took place a little later, and which adopted a Menshevik resolution on the question of the Provisional Government. After this, the differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks escalated. At rallies, meetings and conferences, each of the parties usually put up its own speaker, meetings of factions were held, but the matter did not come to a break yet.
After the Menshevik leaders entered the coalition government and with the arrival in Odessa in May 1917 of prominent Bolshevik workers, P. Starostin and others, relations between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks became even more aggravated. The Bolsheviks began to prepare for the creation of an independent Bolshevik organization.
In connection with the inactivity of the city committee of the united organization and the conciliatory line that he pursued in the Soviet of Workers' Deputies and in other public organizations, at a meeting of the Odessa Bolsheviks and delegates to the front congress, who shared the views of the party's central organ, Pravda, on May 18, 1917, it was adopted the decision to form a fraction of the Bolsheviks in the united organization of the RSDLP. On the 20th of May, at their meeting, the Mensheviks ordered the city committee to "take all measures to preserve the united organization."
After the Bolsheviks openly exposed the treacherous policy of the Mensheviks on the fundamental questions of the revolution in the newspaper Yuzhny Rabochy No. 35, it became clear that joint work between the Compromisers-Mensheviks and the consistent revolutionaries-Bolsheviks is out of the question. On June 19, the Bolsheviks, not agreeing with the position of the Mensheviks, defiantly left the meeting of the united organization.
The Mensheviks, in their turn, adopted a decision on June 22, which stated: "Recognize the split as a fait accompli."
However, the Odessa Bolsheviks broke organizational ties only with the defencist Mensheviks, leaving in their organization the Internationalist Mensheviks, whose representatives even entered the city committee. The organization continued to be called social democratic - internationalist, not Bolshevik. This half-hearted, inconsistent position of the leaders of the Odessa Organization led to the fact that even after the split with the defensists, unifying moods continued to take place in the Odessa Organization, and there was no firm line on tactical issues.
As a result, the Odessa organization only on September 30 recognized the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), elected at the VI Congress of the Party, and decided to obey the Charter adopted by this congress, and removed the subheading from the newspaper "Voice of the Proletarian": "Organ of the United Social Democrats-Internationalists" 34 .
The Bolshevik organizations of Donbass enthusiastically accepted the historic decisions of the April Party Conference as a guide to action. They intensified their activity in the education and organization of the working masses. The Lugansk Committee of the RSDLP (b) under the leadership of K. E. Voroshilov defeated the opportunists who in July 1917 came out for a bloc with the Mensheviks during the elections to the Lugansk Soviet and the City Duma. A resolute struggle against conciliation and unification tendencies in the party organizations of Donbass and Kharkov was carried out by a prominent figure in the Bolshevik party Artem (F. A. Sergeev). On June 11, 1917, Artyom appeared in the Proletariy newspaper with a revealing article “Unfortunate Unifiers”:
“If you are those Mensheviks and social revolutionaries,” Artyom wrote, “who transfers power worst enemies of the people - to the landlords and big capital, if you are the ones in whose name and on whose behalf the military units smash the workers and send punitive expeditions to various districts of Russia, if you are the ones who introduce a punitive regime for those who fight for freedom .. ., then tell me, why do you come to us to unite with us? After all, we are fighting against everything that you do.”
In this article, Artyom showed all the falsity and hypocrisy of the “revolutionary” phrases of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, portraying themselves as defenders of the interests of the working class, wanted to liquidate the revolutionary party of the working class under the guise of unity of action and common goal. “The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries call on us to unite to stop our activities.
Empty hope! - wrote Artem. “We will continue our activities” 35 .
After the July events, when the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries became participants in the massacre of the Petrograd workers and soldiers, the Donetsk workers united even more closely around the Bolshevik Party. The best representatives of the proletariat these days joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks. In July alone, 300 people joined the party organization of Makeevka. Other party organizations of Donbass also grew rapidly these days.
In the Minsk United Organization of Social Democrats, from the very beginning of its formation, firm Leninists - A. F. Myasnikov, M. V. Frunze and others waged an uncompromising struggle against the dominance of the Mensheviks in the organization, with their treacherous policy, winning the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers on your side.
From the first days of the revolution, staunch Leninists took consistent steps to form an independent Bolshevik organization and establish links with the Central Committee. To this end, a group of Bolsheviks sent Mogilevsky and Dmitriev to Petrograd; moreover, the first brought information from the Central Committee of the party, and the second - a small amount of money, for which the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda subsequently began to appear in Minsk.
Upon the return of the representative of the Bolsheviks in Minsk from the April Conference, the intransigence of the positions of both factions became even more obvious, the illusions about the possibility of the existence of a single social democracy were finally dispelled, and an organizational split was quickly brewing.
Prior to this, the Bolsheviks, on behalf of the united social democratic organization, were included in the governing bodies of the Minsk Soviet, in their hands was the bureau of the Social Democratic faction of the Soviet, headed by A.F. Myasnikov.
On May 19 (June 2), the first meeting of the Bolshevik faction of the Soviet was convened, which was attended by all the Bolsheviks of Minsk. The meeting discussed the main questions of Bolshevik tactics. During the discussion of these questions, the majority of responsible workers spoke out against immediate withdrawal from the united organization, in favor of maintaining for the time being formal unity with the Mensheviks. Therefore, the break did not happen quickly. But at this meeting, the first (still unspoken) Minsk Committee of the RSDLP (b) was elected. The Bolsheviks of Minsk were in no hurry to leave the united organization, hoping to win a majority in it and leave it along with the bulk of the members of this organization.
In June, a military organization of the Bolsheviks was created. This organization, set up without the knowledge of the Mensheviks, was not recognized by the united organization and opposed sending its delegate to the All-Russian Conference of Military Organizations of the RSDLP(b). But the protests of the Mensheviks led nowhere. The military organization sent its delegate to the conference of military organizations and subsequently played a large role in the organizational formation of the independent Bolshevik organization in Minsk.
Having prepared a break with the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks, at a meeting of the united organization on June 4 (17), came up with a comprehensive Bolshevik program on the fundamental questions of the revolution. The political line outlined by the Bolsheviks and their tactics won out in the organization. This meeting put an end to the existence of the Minsk United Social Democratic Organization.
In connection with the split of the united organization, the Minsk Bolsheviks appealed to the workers, working peasants of Belarus and the soldiers of the Western Front. In this document, issued in a special leaflet, the Minsk Committee wrote:
“Now we are already an independent organization of consistent Social Democracy; we, as the vanguard of the working class, are striving for the socialist system through the firm class struggle of the proletariat.
We rally the workers, as a single class, around our true banner... Irreconcilable class struggle and through it striving for socialism with sure steps - that is our fundamental commandment.
The purge of the party organization of the Mensheviks strengthened the influence of the Bolsheviks among the masses, especially among the soldiers, helped to eliminate the harm caused by the long stay of the Bolsheviks in the same organization with the Mensheviks.
The Minsk Bolshevik Organization, under the leadership of M. V. Frunze and A. F. Myasnikov, did an enormous amount of political work to formalize and strengthen the Bolshevik organizations in Belarus.
Being located in the immediate rear of the Western Front and being the largest Bolshevik center in the North-Western region, which then included the areas of the Vilna, Minsk and Vitebsk provinces that were not occupied by the Germans, as well as the Mogilev province, the Minsk Committee performed the functions of not only the provincial, but also the regional party organ.
With his active participation, Bolshevik organizations were created in a number of places in the North-Western region and the Western Front - in Bobruisk (June), Polotsk (July), in the army - in Zamirye, Lutsk, Koidanov and Slutsk.
Almost simultaneously with the Minsk Bolsheviks, the Vitebsk Bolsheviks left the united social democratic organization. At a general meeting on June 20, when discussing the issue of withdrawing from the united organization, the Bolsheviks who spoke out sharply criticized the Vitebsk Committee of the RSDLP because it had greatly corrected its policy and proposed the creation of an independent organization of the Bolsheviks. After an exchange of views, the Provisional Committee of the RSDLP (b) was elected here at the meeting.
On July 4, a joint meeting of the Provisional Committee of the Vitebsk Organization and the Committee of the Latvian Social Democracy of Vitebsk took place, where it was decided to unite these two organizations and create a common city committee of the Bolsheviks.
The existence of united social-democratic organizations in Mogilev and Orsha was greatly delayed. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was located in Mogilev and a large number of counter-revolutionary troops were concentrated. Therefore, it was especially difficult for the Bolsheviks to work here. In August 1917, the Mogilev Bolsheviks intensified their struggle against the Mensheviks and began to prepare their withdrawal from the united Social Democratic organization.
The Bolsheviks of Orsha, after a long struggle with the Mensheviks and conciliators in their own ranks, in mid-September 1917 were able to inform the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b): “Recently, only we have an independent organization. Until now, we have been part of the united organization” 37 .
How much importance the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) attached to the break with the Mensheviks and the organizational formation of independent Bolshevik organizations can be judged on the basis of the following. Having received news of the formation of an independent Bolshevik group in Orsha, Ya. M. Sverdlov, a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, wrote in his reply to the Orsha Bolsheviks: “We can only welcome the formation of an independent group in you. In the times we are living through, not a single honest internationalist can remain in a bloc with the defencists, who are betraying the proletariat with their conciliatory policy.
The 7th (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) had a decisive influence on the strengthening of the Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia.
The Bolsheviks of Transcaucasia, on the basis of the decisions of the April Conference, launched a great organizational-mass work to win over the working masses to their side, to increase and strengthen the party organizations, to finally demarcate in the united organizations with the traitors to the revolution. The widespread discussion of the decisions of the April Conference in the Transcaucasian party organizations in May and June took place in a sharp struggle against the opportunists in their ranks, who were united towards the Mensheviks.
The general meeting of the Tiflis organization on June 6, after discussing the decisions of the April Conference, unanimously adopted them as leaders in its practical activities.
Fulfilling the decision of the April Conference "On the Unity of Internationalists Against the Petty-Bourgeois Defensive Bloc", the meeting of the Tiflis Bolsheviks decided to break with the Menshevik organization, which stands on the point of view of revolutionary defencism, to recall all the Bolsheviks from there and create a separate Social Democratic organization, standing on the point of view of revolutionary Social Democracy. . The irreconcilable struggle of the Baku Bolsheviks under the leadership of a prominent figure in the party, S. G. Shaumyan, against the Menshevik part of the united Baku organization of the RSDLP, which was influential at the beginning of the revolution, led to the fact that already in the first half of May, the leadership of the Baku Committee passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The Baku Committee at a meeting on May 19 demanded that the editorial office of the Baku Rabochiy newspaper change direction and pursue a firm Bolshevik line. Soon the resolutions of the All-Russian April Conference were published in the newspaper Baku Worker, to which the editors unconditionally joined.
On June 25, the second conference of the Baku Party Organization took place, at which there was a final break with the Mensheviks.
After the VII (April) All-Russian Conference, the Bolsheviks of Batum and other party organizations of Transcaucasia broke with the Mensheviks and created their own organizations.
The Bolsheviks of Stavropol, after sharp disagreements with the Mensheviks on the question of their attitude towards the Provisional Government at the general meeting on April 13, formed their own faction in the united Social Democratic organization. The Bolshevik faction elected its Organizational Bureau and sent a telegram to the Central Committee asking for assistance to the newly created Bureau. At the same time, the Bolsheviks did not leave the united organization, since they played a leading role in it.
The Bolsheviks of Stavropol explained their inconsistent position by the fact that in the united organization, on the one hand, it was possible to use the left wing of the Menshevik-Internationalists in certain cases; on the other hand, it opened up the possibility of influencing that part of the workers who were still following the Mensheviks. Only after the July events in Petograd and a sharp disagreement with the Mensheviks in developing a platform for the city elections did the Stavropol Bolsheviks form their own independent organization on July 20.
In Siberia, the Krasnoyarsk group of Pravdist Bolsheviks after the April Conference of the RSDLP (b) severed all organizational ties with the Mensheviks.
On May 30, 1917, a group of Pravdist Bolsheviks, in the amount of 87 people, led by the Central Siberian Regional Bureau of the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the printed organ "Sibirskaya Pravda", left the Krasnoyarsk United Social Democratic Organization and created an independent Bolshevik organization, the ranks of which were quickly replenished by those departing from the "Unionists". » local workers. By July 6, 1917, the Krasnoyarsk organization of the RSDLP (b) had grown to 300 people. This example was followed by the Bolsheviks of the military units of Krasnoyarsk. On June 9, at a meeting of party members of the Krasnoyarsk garrison, which was attended by 250 people, it was decided to break with the Mensheviks, recognize the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and form Bolshevik cells in military units.
After a stubborn struggle between the Pravdists and the opportunists, the Krasnoyarsk United Social Democratic Organization, having broken with the defencists, recognized the Bolshevik Central Committee as its leading body and in mid-June 1917 merged with the Krasnoyarsk Bolshevik organization of the Pravdists.
At the beginning of June, a general meeting of the Barnaul United Organization was held, at which a report on the results of the April Conference was made by Prysyagni, who had come from Petrograd. During the discussion of the report, a sharp struggle flared up between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. At the end of the debate, the Bolsheviks submitted a draft resolution proposing to approve the resolutions of the April Conference of the Bolshevik Party and to recognize the Central Committee, elected by the April Conference, as their leading party body.
The Mensheviks came out with a categorical objection and voted against this resolution. After that, the Bolsheviks left the meeting, declaring their withdrawal from the united organization.
After the April Conference, political work in the party organizations of Kuzbass, Tomsk, Omsk, and Novonikolaevsk intensified considerably. In Kuzbass, the defencist Mensheviks were expelled from the united party organization, and the Internationalist Mensheviks joined the decisions of the April Conference and recognized the Central Committee elected by it.
Thus, fulfilling the decisions of the VII (April) All-Russian Conference. RSDLP (b) about an immediate break with the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks of the united party organizations of Central Russia, Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia, the Caucasus, Belarus, with a few exceptions, at the beginning of the summer of 1917 broke all ties with the Mensheviks and formed their own organizations.
Of great importance in the life of the Bolshevik Party was the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b). The congress, heading for an armed uprising, adopted important decisions on questions of party building, aimed at the all-round ideological and organizational strengthening of the ranks of the party, strengthening party organizational and party political work. The purpose of these decisions was to increase the mobilizing and organizing role of the party as a headquarters at the head of preparing the masses for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Of great importance was the adoption by the Sixth Congress of the new Party Rules, which marked an important stage in the development of the Leninist organizational principles of the Party.
The 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b) summarized the experience of political and organizational work that the party had accumulated since the April Conference, discussed the political situation in the country that had arisen as a result of the July events, and developed tactics and new slogans for the struggle.
During the work of the 6th Congress, the central organ of the party "Worker and Soldier" in editorial No. 9 of August 2 "Toward the Utopia of Unification" and in No. 10 of August 3 in the article "Unifying absurdity" in the sharpest form exposed the attempts of the Mensheviks by convening a unification congress create a "united socialist party".
Ridiculing the absurd idea of uniting various class forces in the party, the newspaper Rabochy i Soldat wrote: “It is precisely now that the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks are in completely opposite conditions: Bolshevism as a trend is omnipotently persecuted, Menshevism as a trend is encouraged in every possible way. The Bolsheviks sit behind the double prison bars of "crosses", the Mensheviks solemnly sit in the Council of Ministers.
And at such an acute moment, politically short-sighted people still cannot part with their miserable, absurd, incomprehensible utopian idea of uniting the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks within the framework of a single political party.
These people, insistently repeating the idea of one Social-Democratic Party, come out with an absurd, lifeless and never-realizable call "for the union of ministers with political prisoners, rulers with the oppressed, adherents of a close alliance between democracy and the bourgeoisie with the irreconcilable class enemies of the latter."
Rejecting any blocs with the Compromisers, especially uniting with the Mensheviks within the framework of one party, the newspaper Rabochy i Soldat pointed out that the Bolshevik Party rallied around itself only internationalist elements that had forever severed all ties with the Compromisers and that the Bolshevik Congress was taking place " institutionalizes the bloc of the left internationalists with the party.
The 6th Congress adopted a special resolution “On the Unification of the Party”, which stated that “the split between social patriots and revolutionary internationalists in Russia - a split fixed on a global scale - is getting deeper every day. The Mensheviks, who began with defensism, ended up in the most shameful alliance with the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, inspiring and sanctioning the persecution of internationalist organizations, the workers' press, etc., etc. Turning into servants of Russian and allied imperialism, they finally went over to the camp of enemies of the proletariat .
Under such circumstances, the resolution continued, the first task of revolutionary Social-Democracy is to expose the treacherous policy of the imperialist Mensheviks to the broadest working masses, to isolate them completely from all the least revolutionary elements of the working class. Any attempt to reconcile the revolutionary-internationalist elements of socialism with the Menshevik-imperialists by convening a "unification congress" with the aim of creating a single social-democratic party inflicts grave damage on the interests of the proletariat. Proceeding from the recognition of the need for a complete and irrevocable split with the Menshevik-imperialists, the congress spoke out in the strongest terms against such attempts. Contrasting the dangerous slogan of the unity of all, the Social Democracy advanced the class revolutionary slogan of the unity of all internationalists who had broken with the Menshevik imperialists in deed. Considering such unity necessary and inevitable, the congress called on all revolutionary elements of the Social Democracy to immediately break their organizational ties with the defencists and unite around the RSDLP.
After the VI Congress, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and local party organizations paid great attention to the propaganda of the decisions of the congress. Fulfilling the decision of the Sixth Congress "On the Unity of the Party", the Bolsheviks of the united Social Democratic organizations launched a great deal of work to expose the policy of maneuvering, hypocrisy and opportunism of the Mensheviks, seeking a quick and final split of the united organizations.
Having received the decisions of the Sixth Congress, the Astrakhan Bolsheviks on August 20 broke all ties with the Mensheviks and formed their own organization. In August, the Belgorod Bolshevik organization was also formed. In September, after a split with the Mensheviks, the Berdyansk, Vitebsk, and Vladivostok Bolshevik organizations were created, and in October, the Vladikavkaz and Kursk organizations. In mid-October, a split occurred in the Pyatigorsk United Social Democratic Organization. In response to a message about the formation of the Pyatigorsk Bolshevik organization, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) wrote on October 21:
"We welcome your speech from the united organization and we believe that your ranks will rapidly grow and multiply" 42 .
The struggle against unification tendencies took on a particularly protracted character in the Siberian, Far Eastern, Turkestan and Crimean united organizations. This was due to the presence of strong conciliatory sentiments among some of the Bolsheviks of these organizations.
In the Irkutsk organization of the RSDLP, after the All-Russian April Conference, a close-knit group of Bolsheviks emerged (Postyshev, Lebedev, and others). In early May, a split occurred in the organization, but then very soon “unity” was restored. The break with the Mensheviks, which occurred a month later at the June conference of the Irkutsk organization, again did not lead to the desired results. At this conference, by 32 votes, with one against and two abstentions, a resolution was adopted in which the old motives for the need for unity figured.
The Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) closely followed the struggle of the Irkutsk Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks. It was obvious that in Irkutsk the influence of the bourgeoisie on the working class was strong, that the party of the proletariat would face a stubborn struggle against the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties. V. I. Lenin specifically pointed out this circumstance to the Irkutsk Bolsheviks.
It is known that back in April, immediately after the All-Russian Party Conference, V. I. Lenin told the delegates from the Central Siberian Bureau of the Central Committee (Bolsheviks) who came to the conference that the urgent task of the Siberian Bolsheviks was to transfer the base of their work to Irkutsk, which, in the fate of the revolutionary wrestling was to play an important role. Lenin stressed that there the Siberian Bolsheviks would meet fierce resistance from the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, since from there they would try to influence the peasantry throughout and especially Western Siberia in order to deprive the proletariat of St. Petersburg and Moscow and the revolutionary parts of the rear and front of Siberian bread, meat and other types of food.
Attaching such importance to Irkutsk and considering that the unification mood in the Irkutsk party organization persisted for a long time, the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) at the end of September sent one of its employees to Irkutsk.
After the arrival in Irkutsk of a representative of the Central Committee and a group of Krasnoyarsk Bolsheviks, the Irkutsk Bolsheviks in October 1917 finally broke off all ties with the Mensheviks and institutionalized their Bolshevik organization.
Following the example of the Krasnoyarsk group of Pravdists, which left the united social-democratic organization, the Bolsheviks of Tomsk, under the joint committee, created their own organizing commission, the task of which was to form the Bolsheviks into an independent party organization. On June 16, this commission issued an appeal "To all comrades who share the platform of the All-Russian Conference of Social-Democrats convened by the Central Committee." In the appeal, the Bolsheviks were urged to clarify their consistent internationalist position more sharply and more definitely. The indecisiveness of the conversion of the Tomsk Bolsheviks, which testified that conciliatory sentiments were still strong among the Tomsk Bolsheviks, should be especially emphasized.
Only in September 1917, after the 6th Congress, did the Tomsk Bolsheviks finally break organizational ties with the Mensheviks.
A few days after the formation of the Tomsk Bolshevik organization, a split occurred in the Novonikolaev United Social Democratic Organization. By a majority of 85 against 22, the meeting of the organization decided to join the platform of the Bolsheviks. And, finally, on October 12, 1917, the Omsk Bolsheviks expelled the Mensheviks from their ranks and formed an independent organization.
Thus, fulfilling the decision of the VI Congress "On the unification of the party", the Bolsheviks of Siberia in September and October 1917 everywhere broke all organizational ties with the Mensheviks and formalized their Bolshevik organizations.
The Bolsheviks of the Far East managed to finally break organizational ties with the Mensheviks only by the autumn of 1917. However, the Blagoveshchensk and Chita organizations of the RSDLP remained united until 1918.
Under the influence of the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), the Crimean Bolsheviks also stopped their cooperation with the Mensheviks in the united social democratic organizations and created their own organizations.
In November - December 1917, the Bolsheviks of Turkestan took shape in independent organizations in Chardzhui (November 26), in Tashkent, Samarkand, Namangan, Ashgabat (in December), Jizzakh, Kokand, Skobelev (January-February 1918) and other cities.
The struggle against conciliation towards the Mensheviks and against "unity" was primarily a struggle for strengthening the party of the proletariat, for putting Marxist-Leninist organizational principles into practice. It was a struggle for the ideological and organizational strengthening of a new type of Marxist party as the leading force of the proletariat and the main weapon in the hands of the working class to ensure the victory of the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
* * *
Thus, following the instructions of the leader of the party V. I. Lenin, the decisions of the VII (April) All-Russian Party Conference, the VI Congress of the Bolshevik Party, the directives of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) (on organizational issues, waging an uncompromising struggle for the purity of their ranks, the Bolsheviks of the united organizations on During the spring and summer of 1917, having successfully defeated the conciliators in their midst, they broke all organizational ties with the Mensheviks and united around the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, headed by V. I. Lenin.
The Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of its leader V. I. Lenin, managed in a relatively short time to successfully defeat the organizational opportunism that manifested itself in a number of local organizations, and to expose the anti-Marxist principle of "unity at all costs." It was able to quickly overcome conciliation and vacillation in its ranks, to unite around itself the vast masses of workers and peasants, because it was armed with the most advanced revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theory.
The struggle of the Bolshevik Party for an organizational break with the Mensheviks in the united Social Democratic organizations that existed for some time in the localities, the struggle for rallying the working masses around the Bolshevik Party proceeded in an atmosphere of steady exposure of the treacherous policy of the petty-bourgeois compromising parties, their isolation as the most dangerous during the preparation of the proletarian revolution. in Russia, as a disguised agent of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the working class.
At the same time, our Party waged a determined struggle against the vacillating elements within its ranks. Without an irreconcilable struggle and the defeat of the capitulators in its own midst, the Bolshevik Party would not have been able to maintain unity, strengthen discipline and fulfill the role of organizer and leader of the socialist revolution in Russia.
During the period of direct struggle for power, the Bolshevik Party grew and strengthened, overcoming internal contradictions. The organizational, political and ideological strengthening of party organizations during the period of preparation for the socialist revolution took place in a merciless struggle against opportunist elements within the party, who tried to violate the principles of party leadership worked out by V. I. Lenin.
The Bolshevik Party, in the course of the struggle for the monolithic unity of its ranks, the strengthening of party organizations in the center and localities, the creation of a political army of the socialist revolution, the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia in 1917, provided classic examples of correct strategic and tactical leadership.
It strictly took into account the specific historical conditions for the development of the Russian revolution, the uniqueness of the situation that had developed in the country after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917.
Fulfilling its historic mission of leading the proletariat in overthrowing the bourgeois system in Russia, the Bolshevik Party, during the eight months of 1917, launched organizational and educational work among the proletariat and the working masses, unprecedented in its diversity and scale. It succeeded in isolating the conciliatory Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary parties and rallied the proletariat and the poorest peasantry around its revolutionary slogans.
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the period of preparation for the socialist revolution in Russia shows that the Bolshevik Party grew and gained strength in a principled struggle against all enemies of the working class and working people. It was purging its ranks of all opportunist elements. Guided by the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, the Bolsheviks never denied the possibility of uniting on a principled basis with parties and groups that had actually broken with opportunism and reaction and taken up positions of struggle for the socialist revolution, for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and ensuring the leading role of the Communist Party in it. In all its activities, the Bolshevik Party was also guided by the Marxist-Leninist propositions that in order to ensure the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, to win the working masses over to the side of the revolution, socialism, the Communists, based on the specific situation and the balance of the fighting class forces, can also conclude blocs and agreements with other, non-proletarian parties, which have in fact broken with the forces of reaction and are waging an uncompromising struggle against these forces.
This historical experience of the CPSU is being creatively taken into account by all communist and workers' parties that are waging a resolute struggle against revisionism and dogmatism in the workers' and communist movement and at the same time have become the core of the rallying of all the democratic and peace-loving forces of the globe.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union has always strengthened, expanded and multiplied its ties with the masses, leading them to storm the capitalist system and carry out the greatest upheaval in the history of mankind, which was the Great October Socialist Revolution, and building socialism in the USSR. A solid, powerful revolutionary proletarian organization closely connected with the vast masses of workers and peasants—such was the appearance of the Bolshevik Party in the historic days of October 1917.
Notes:
1 V. I. Lenin. Op.. vol. 31, p. 88.
2 I. V. Stalin. Works, vol. 5, p. 1.
3 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 35, p. 186.
4 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 24, p. 41.
5 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 23, pp. 308-309.
6 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 25, p. 164
7 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 23, p. 285.
8 Ibid., p. 287.
9 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 35, pp. 238-239.
10 V. I. Lenin. Works. Vol. 35, pp. 251, 253.
12 Ibid.
13 "Essays on the history of Bolshevik organizations in the Urals". Sverdlovsk, Gosizdat, 1951, p. 239.
14 "1917 in Kharkov", ed. "Proletary", 1927, p. 34.
15 Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Materials of the March meeting of the Bolsheviks, l. 106.
16 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. XX, p. 79.
17 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 24, pp. 3, 4
18 Bourgeois, Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary newspapers published reports on Lenin's speech on April 5, 1917. Pravda, due to the breakdown of the printing press, was able to publish the April Theses only on April 7:
19 "Protocols of the Citywide Petrograd in the All-Russian Conference", p. 39.
20 "Protocols of the Citywide Petrograd and All-Russian Conference", pp. 41-42.
21 "Minutes of the First Moscow Regional Conference", "Proletarian Revolution" No. 10(93), 1929, pp. 176-176.
22 "Minutes of the Seventh (April) Conference of the RSDLP (b)", 1934, p. 110
23 "Essays on the history of Bolshevik organizations in the Urals", p. 239.
24 Proletarian Revolution, No. 4(27), 1924, p. 181.
25 "Kazan Bolshevik Organization in 1917", Kazan, 1933, p. 44.
26 Ibid., pp. 45-46.
27 "1917 in Kharkov", p. 38.
28 "1917 in Kharkov", p. 39.
29 "Minutes of the seventh (April) conference of the RSDLP (b)", pp. 231-232.
30 "Minutes of the Moscow Regional Bureau for May-June 1917", "Proletarian Revolution" No. 4, 1927, pp. 256-257.
31 "Minutes of the Moscow Regional Bureau for May-June 1917", "Proletarian Revolution" No. 4, 1927, p. 257.
32 Collection of documents "The struggle for the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in the Urals". Sverdlovsk, 1947, pp. 40-41
33 "Resolutions of the II Ural Regional Conference", published in the appendix to "Uralskaya Pravda", July 28, 1917
36 "KP(b)B in resolutions", part I, Partizdat, Minsk, 1934, p. 194.
38 "Historical Archive" No. 5, 1955, page 8
40 "Minutes of the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP", p. 253.
41 "Historical Archive" No. 5, 1956, pp. 30, 43, 44.
42 Ibid., p. 29.
