Other Bolsheviks accused him of abandoning Marxism for anarchism. At a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee Kamenev criticised Lenin for considering the situation in Russia to be like that of France in 1871, which had called forth the Paris Commune, “whereas we do not yet have behind us what was accomplished in 1789 and 1848”. The general consensus was that Lenin was finished as a serious figure on the left. Lenin was undaunted. Two days later, on 8th April, Pravda published what came to be known as the “April Theses”.
The April Theses, though only a few pages long, has a good claim to be Lenin’s most significant work, in the sense of the direct effect it had on the future course of history.16 It was perfectly pitched to its time, place and audience. The ten Theses flow smoothly from one to another. Because of the shortness of the text they are not hampered by details that might derail the momentum or logic of the argument. Thesis 1 is the clear assertion that under the Provisional Government the war “remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war” and that without overthrowing capital (i.e. the government) it is impossible to end the war with a truly democratic peace. Thesis 2 continues:
The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution–which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie–to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.
The general argument proceeds from this, including no support for the Provisional Government; a call to propagandise for the Soviets to be “the only possible form of revolutionary government”, with a recognition that the Petrograd Soviet’s current majority had betrayed the revolution; the Soviets to form “a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasant Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom”; confiscation of all privately held land and the creation of “model farms” by the rural Soviets; unification of all banks into one National Bank controlled by the Soviets; and a new International. Thesis 9 explained that, “It is not our immediate task to introduce socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies”. The caveat indicates that Lenin was not entirely clear at which socio-economic model he was aiming, although one of his explanatory notes adds that it would be “a state of which the Paris Commune was the prototype”.
The only member of the Bolshevik Central Committee who agreed wholeheartedly with the April Theses was Alexandra Kollontai. Before the war a Left Menshevik, Kollontai now saw Lenin as the only revolutionary leader with the vision to actually deliver a proletarian revolution. Like many of his most ardent supporters on the Bolshevik left, such as the militant Vyborg Committee which mobilised young recruits fresh from the villages to the Putilov and other huge factory complexes, she did not consider whether Russia’s fragile state and culture could sustain a proletarian revolution. She assumed that the workers, soldiers and sailors she daily addressed in an endless series of loud and passionate meetings were up to the task of socialist reconstruction, and that in any case the working class of Western Europe would soon rise up to support them.
If the Provisional Government had stabilised, Lenin would probably have remained a marginal political figure, rejected even by the Bolshevik Party. But while Lvov struggled to establish his government his conservative colleagues self-destructed. In April, Guchkov resigned as Minister of War because he could not work with the Soviet and its notorious Order Number 1. When it emerged that Foreign Minister Miliukov had secretly recommitted the new Russian government to the Tsarist government’s war aims (i.e. the seizure of Constantinople and annexation of the Balkans) the subsequent public outrage meant he had to resign as well. He took with him many of his Kadet colleagues, and the party now shifted rightwards to side with Octobrists and landowners desperate to resist the confiscation of landed estates. With limited Kadet support Lvov had little alternative but to restructure his coalition to include the SRs, Trudoviks and Mensheviks who were running the Petrograd Soviet and who, for the moment, held the trust of the workers and soldiers.
As a result, the Provisional Government became in early May a coalition comprising ten Kadets and six socialist ministers. Tseretelli, leader of the Mensheviks now that Martov was aligned to the anti-war internationalists, became Minister of Posts and Telegraphs; his Menshevik colleague Skobelev became Minister of Labour; Victor Chernov, the leader of the SRs, became Minister of Agriculture with a mandate to address peasant grievances; and Kerensky took over from Guchkov as Minister of War and Deputy Prime Minister.
The new coalition was not, at first, unpopular. The inclusion of the socialist ministers was welcomed by many workers and peasants. A protocol issued by a general meeting of workers of the Okulovsky Paper Factory and local peasants of Krestetsk Uzed in Novgorod Province on 21st May declaimed the workers and peasants,
having listened to the reports of their delegates from the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies on the issues of the moment, have issued the following resolution: Recognising the tremendous tasks lying before the ministers who are fighting for our freedom, Kerensky, Skobelev, Tseretelli, Chernov and Peshekonov, and comparing them with the difficulties advanced by anarchist elements at the present difficult time, they fervently welcome the coalition ministry that has been formed.
The protocol concluded with support for the “Democratic Russian Republic”.17
The SRs held a special conference to consider its position on joining the Provisional Government. Chernov told delegates that the removal of Miliukov and Guchkov fundamentally altered the political tempo of the government and the entry of socialists into its ranks would “strengthen and reinforce Russia’s role as a basis for a ‘third force’, making its voice heard amidst the clash of international imperialisms”. He finished:
And finally, it is essential that the revolutionary army and navy are not in the hands of people from the old world, but of representatives of the socialist vanguard of the movement. These battle posts–labour, food supply, agriculture, and the army–should be occupied by people from the workers’ socialist democracy.18
The conference strongly endorsed Chernov’s position with few questioning what, aside from occupying them, socialist ministers intended to do with these battle posts.
Not all were as enthusiastic. Martov, still in exile, cabled to his Menshevik colleagues that he strongly disapproved of them joining the Provisional Government until it withdrew Russia from the war and agreed extensive land redistribution. He warned that until the government adopted the policies of the Soviet it would remain discredited and the Mensheviks would suffer politically from their inclusion within it. They already were. Notwithstanding SR support for the new ministry and dismissal of “anarchist elements” who criticised it, by late May the Soviets of Petrograd’s engineering districts–Vyborg, Vasilievsky Island and Kolomna–had Bolshevik majorities. When Martov arrived in Petrograd he had a hard task to drag his party back to Marxist internationalism and a consistent socialism.
Vero Broido’s definitive work on the fate of the Mensheviks under the Bolshevik regime concludes that at this time, in comparison to Menshevik leaders Tseretelli and Cheikedze, “the small group of anti-war Mensheviks led by Martov were more aware of the people’s mood, but they had very little influence in the party”. This meant a protracted internal struggle for the soul of the party during the critical summer months. This eventually resulted in “a significant shift to the left, which expressed itself in Martov’s leadership”.19 But from May to October the Left Mensheviks led by Martov found themselves in open disagreement with their party leaders who sat on the Soviet Executive or held ministerial office in the Provisional Government.