In Petrograd, by late spring, imposing numbers of impatient, Bolshevik-influenced workers, soldiers, and sailors, on the one hand, and the Provisional Government and moderate socialist leadership of the Soviet, on the other, were on a collision course; the former demanded the transfer of governmental power to the Soviet, while the latter insisted that such a step would invite disaster. This situation was highlighted in early June when the Bolshevik Military Organization, spurred on by its restless new rank-and-file converts in the garrison, proposed that the party organize an antiwar, antigovernment mass protest march during the meetings of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (the congress met in Petrograd from June 3 to June 24). The party Central Committee accepted the proposal and scheduled the demonstration for June 10. The idea struck a responsive chord. Because the core of the demonstration appeal was opposition to the launching of a new offensive against the Germans and Austrians and a call for the transfer of power to the SR-Menshevik-controlled Soviet, rather than to the Bolshevik Party itself, even nominal supporters of the moderate socialist parties were enticed into the movement.30
The Congress of Soviets, which had just passed a resolution pledging full cooperation and support to the government, viewed the proposed march as a repudiation of its policies, which indeed it was, and as a clear-cut threat to the coalition. On June 9 congress delegates resolved to take whatever steps were necessary to prevent the march; a three-day ban on demonstrations was issued, delegates were dispatched to workers' districts and military barracks, and maximum pressure was brought to bear on Bolshevik leaders to rethink their plans. At the eleventh hour, partly because of this opposition, the Bolshevik Central Committee aborted the march.
The unpopularity of the congress's stand among Petrograd workers and soldiers was reflected in an incident that occurred shortly afterward. On June 12, alarmed by the apparent restlessness of workers and soldiers in the capital and convinced that they would respond to appeals from the majority socialists as readily as to those of the Bolsheviks, the Congress of Soviets scheduled a mass march of its own for June 18. This demonstration was intended to serve as a gesture of conciliation to the Bolsheviks and as a means of channeling widespread unrest into the expression of support for the congress's policies. Though the Mensheviks and SRs worked feverishly to insure the success of the march, their plans backfired. On the appointed
Members of the Presidium of the First All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Left to right: M. I. Skobelev, N. S. Chkheidze, G. V. Plekhanov, and I. G. Tsereteli.
day, the moderate socialist Soviet leadership watched long columns of workers and soldiers, representing virtually all of Petrograd's factories and military regiments, over 400,000 strong, parade by, holding aloft crimson banners bearing the slogans: "Down with the Ten Minister-Capitalists!" "Down with the Politics of the Offensive!" "All Power to the Soviets!" The sea of Bolshevik banners and placards, all contemporary observers agreed, was broken only occasionally by slogans endorsed by the congress.
This clear indication of the divergence between popular opinion in Petrograd and the behavior of the government and the Soviet leadership created strains among the moderate socialists; militant left factions began to emerge within both the Menshevik and SR organizations. Still, if disenchantment with the Provisional Government and support for the Bolshevik program were already far advanced in the capital, the same was not true in most of the provinces and at the front. The probable correlation of forces in the country at large was mirrored in the makeup of the First Congress of Soviets: in attendance were 533 registered Mensheviks and SRs, and 105 Bolsheviks.31
In these circumstances, with the moderate socialists stubbornly resisting all pressures to create a soviet government, Lenin cautioned his associates against deluding themselves that power might be transferred to the soviets peacefully. At the same time, he was adamant about keeping a tight reign in the short run on politically impatient elements within the Petrograd Bolshevik organization and on local workers and soldiers generally, while working to expand support for the party's program among peasants in the countryside and soldiers at the front.
This was by no means a simple task. The party's rapid growth since February had flooded its ranks with militants who knew next to nothing about Marxism and who were united by little more than overwhelming impatience for immediate revolutionary action. The problem had arisen initially
The mass demonstration sponsored by the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets on June 18. "The sea of Bolshevik banners and placards . . . w as broken only occasionally by slogans endorsed by the congress."
in April during the mass protests against Miliukov. Rank-and-file party members from garrison regiments and factories undoubtedly helped provoke the street demonstrations in the first place, although the Central Committee did not become involved until after the movement was well underway; subsequently, the top party leadership endorsed the demonstrations. Impulsive elements in the Petrograd party organization and in the Bolshevik Military Organization, responsive to their militant constituents and fearful of losing ground to the anarchists, took a significantly more radical tack; some officials of the Petersburg Committee prepared and widely circulated a leaflet appealing, in the party's name, for the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government and the arrest of cabinet ministers.32 Similarly, during preparations for the abortive June 10 demonstration these same elements had laid plans on their own to seize vital public services and munitions stores.33
The beginning of the long-anticipated Russian offensive on June 18 compounded the problem of controlling unrest in Petrograd. Ordered to the front in support of the attack, thousands of garrison soldiers, including
many members of the Bolshevik Military Organization, insisted that the Provisional Government be overthrown without further delay.
During the second half of June, Lenin devoted much attention to restraining those of his followers who were bent on immediate action.34 At the same time he worked on a draft program for the approaching party congress, scheduled for July 26. By the end of the month Lenin was exhausted from the unaccustomed exertions and strains of the preceding weeks. On June 27, accompanied by his sister Maria, he left Petrograd for a few days of rest at the country cottage of Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich in the village of Neivola, in Finland. There he spent several days relaxing in the summer sun and strolling and swimming at a nearby lake.
This pleasant interlude was interrupted on the early morning of July 4 by the news that a mass insurrection had broken out in the capital. The alarming information was conveyed to Lenin by Maximilian Saveliev, who had been sent from Petrograd the previous evening on behalf of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The situation in the capital was critical, and it was evident that the party was deeply involved. Crucial decisions had to be made. Without delay, Lenin caught an early-morning train to Petrograd.35
THE JULY UPRISING
S
till some twenty-five miles from the capital, the mud-spattered, dark green carriages of the Finnish railway train wound their way through pine- and fir-covered, boulder-strewn hills broken here and there by clusters of tidy log cottages. It was the first run of the morning. Seated on hard benches smooth from wear, in a dilapidated carriage occupied mainly by respectably dressed summer residents of the Finnish countryside commuting to work in Petrograd, Lenin, his younger sister Maria, and his comrades Bonch-Bruevich, an authority on Russian religious sects who had been active in the Russian Social Democratic Party from its earliest years, and Saveliev, the university-educated son of a minor noble, also a long-time party member, talked together animatedly. About nine o'clock the train crossed the Sestra River, a narrow, meandering stream that served as a boundary between Finland and Russia; minutes later it slowed to a stop at the small border station of Beloostrov.