On October 26, 1917, at the following plenary session of the Congress, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (Ulyanov) (1870–1924) gave speeches about peace and land. After his speeches, the delegates approved the “Decree on Peace,” which proposed that all countries and peoples “immediately begin negotiations for a just democratic peace,” a peace without annexations or reparations, and conclude an armistice until the negotiations were finished.
A second act, the “Decree on Land,” abolished landed estates in Russia, and did so “immediately, without any compensation.” Land, mineral resources, forests, and waters were declared the property of the entire people. Landed estates, as well as monastery, church, and appanage lands, with all livestock, implements, and buildings, passed without compensation into the hands of local land committees and Soviets of peasant deputies. A component of the decree was the peasant mandate on land, which had already been written by the Socialist Revolutionaries before the October Revolution on the basis of 242 local peasant mandates. These mandates equalized the use of land, which was divided based on labor or usage. The “Decree on Land” called for peasants to receive 412.5 million acres of land from Soviet rule at no cost, and to be excused from repaying 3 billion rubles of debt to banks and landowners, and also from paying an annual land rent of 700 million rubles in gold.
The Congress of Soviets made a series of other decisions as well, including abolishing capital punishment at the war front; releasing imprisoned soldiers and officers arrested for revolutionary activity; and arresting the chairman of the Provisional Government, Aleksandr Kerensky (1881–1970).
The Second Congress of Soviets approved the Council of People’s Commissars (CPC), headed by Vladimir Lenin, as the highest executive and administrative body of state power. The Congress of Soviets resolution, in particular, said: “A temporary government of workers and peasants shall be formed, which will be called the Council of People’s Commissars, to administer the country until the Constituent Assembly is convened.”
At the time it was created, the CPC included 13 commissions that managed separate branches of state life: internal (domestic) affairs, agriculture, labor, military and naval affairs, railroads, trade and industry, foreign affairs, foodstuffs, public education, finance, justice, post and telegraph, and ethnic affairs. The chairmen of these committees—people’s commissars appointed by the Congress—became members of the first Soviet government.
The Congress also elected an All-Russian Central Executive Committee [VTsIK], headed by Yakov Sverdlov (1885–1919), and comprising 101 members (62 Bolsheviks, 29 Left Socialist Revolutionaries, six Social Democrat Internationalists, and four representatives of other parties).
On December 5, 1917, the CPC adopted a decree on the Supreme Council for the National Economy [VSNKh], which specified that, “The task of the VSNKh is to organize the national economy and finances. With this goal, the VSNKh shall develop general standards and plans for regulating the country’s economic life, and for coordinating and unifying the activity of central and local regulatory institutions (conferences on fuel, metal, transportation, the central foodstuffs committee, etc.).” The VSNKh included representatives of all people’s commissariats, and also the All-Russian Council of Workers’ Control. All of the most important bills on national economic questions were introduced to the Council of People’s Commissars only after they had been approved in the VSNKh.
For the next three months following the October Revolution of 1917, general democratic and republican moods continued to persist in Russian society. The clearest expression of these sentiments was the idea of convening a Constituent Assembly to determine Russia’s future system of government. Before the decisions of the Constituent Assembly, all executive bodies that came into being and functioned on the territory of the former Russian Empire were unavoidably qualified as temporary, with the exception of the governments of Finland and the Kingdom of Poland, which had become part of the Empire with special rights.
Although the convening of the Russian Constituent Assembly contradicted the fundamental interests of the Bolsheviks, they were nevertheless compelled by prevailing mood of the public to confirm November 12 (25), 1917 as the date of Assembly elections.
Despite struggling with the harsh conditions of war, the country held elections for delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Of 90 million eligible voters in 79 districts, around 45 million persons voted in 54 districts. To the enormous disappointment of the Bolsheviks, they received less than a quarter of the seats in the Constituent Assembly. A total of 715 deputies were elected, of which 370 were Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, 175 were Bolsheviks, 40 were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, 17 were Constitutional Democrats, 15 were Mensheviks, and 86 were deputies of various national organizations and movements. A decree of the Council of People’s Commissars of December 20, 1917 (January 2, 1918) set a new date for convening the Russian Constituent Assembly: January 5 (18), 1918.
However, the Bolsheviks were not prepared to assume the minority role in the new Russian government, no matter what the majority of voters wanted. On December 12 (25), 1917, the Central Committee of the Russian Socialist Democratic Labor Party (of Bolsheviks) adopted the theses of Vladimir Lenin: “The Constituent Assembly, convened on the basis of the rolls of parties that existed before the proletarian-peasant revolution, clashes with the will and interests of the workers, and the interests of the revolution stand higher than the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly. The only chance for a painless resolution of the crisis... is an unequivocal declaration of the Constituent Assembly to recognize Soviet power, the Soviet revolution, and its policies in the question of peace, land, and workers’ control.... Unless these conditions are met, the crisis connected with the Constituent Assembly can only be resolved by way of revolution, no matter what slogans and institutions counterrevolution might use to cover itself.” Explaining this decision at a rally, the prominent Bolshevik functionary Yakov Sverdlov (1885–1919) declared: “For us there is no doubt that the highest power is that of the working people personified by its Soviets, and that there can be no higher power in Russia.”
The Bolshevik leadership’s policy caused a vigorous protest throughout Russian society, and the democratic community decided to hold a mass demonstration in Petrograd on the opening day of the Russian Constituent Assembly in support of freedom and democracy in the country.
The Bolsheviks decided to take harsh measures in response. On January 5 (18), 1918, the newspaper Pravda [“Truth”] published a resolution signed by Moisey Uritsky (1873–1918), a member of the Presidium of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage, prohibiting any rallies or demonstrations in regions adjacent to the Tauride Palace. The resolution went on to state that any such demonstrations would be suppressed by military force.
Despite the threats, the demonstration in support of the Constituent Assembly did take place in Petrograd. According to several estimates, the lead column numbered around 60,000 persons. It was composed of blue-collar and white-collar workers, the intelligentsia, and students. They moved toward the Tauride Palace and were fired upon by machine guns and rifles of Bolshevik regiments of Latvian and Lithuanian Red Army soldiers. According to official data published on January 6 (19), 1918 in the newspaper Izvestiya VTsIK [“News of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee”], 21 persons were killed and several hundred were wounded. The dead included prominent members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Even the proletarian writer Maxim Gorky was unable to hold back his indignation about the events: “The People’s Commissars fired upon the workers of Petrograd without warning and ambushed them, firing through openings in fences in a cowardly way, like real murderers.”1