And the group dispersed among the downtrodden toilers of the countryside, leaving only an information office; by word and action the Group helped the toilers get their bearings at that moment in the Revolution and inspired them to a great intensity in their struggle.
In a very short time after adopting our decision, as we began already to notice the fruits of our organizational activity in the raion, we became convinced that we had been correct in our perception of stagnation in the Revolution and the critical situation full of mortal menace. The Revolution found itself definitely in the noose which the statists needed only to tighten in order to strangle it.
The introduction of the death penalty at the Front was direct evidence that revolutionary soldiers must die on the external Front, while the counter-revolutionaries could continue their work at the very heart of the Revolution. Revolutionary military units, which were fraternizing with workers in the cities and with peasants in the villages, were beginning to see themselves as slaves of militarism and were thinking of using the tools provided them — cannons and machine guns — against their real enemies. Now those units with a revolutionary attitude were being ordered to the Front, as being too dangerous to the growing forces of the counter-revolution.
Seeing all this and recognizing how the way was being prepared for strengthening the power of the bourgeoisie, already recovering from its original defeat by the Revolution and ready to get its revenge, we were still more strongly convinced that our method of helping the toilers to correctly orient themselves at this critical moment was the true method. However, it was imperative to complete the process and issue clear directives.
What had we accomplished with our actions?
We had ensured that from the end of August the peasants had completely understood us and would not allow their ranks to be splintered into various political groupings, thereby dissipating their power so that they were incapable of achieving what was strong and durable in the Revolution.
The better the peasants understood us, the more strongly they believed in themselves and in their direct role in the Revolution. Their role was, firstly, to abolish private ownership of land and to proclaim it social property; and secondly, with the help of the urban proletariat, to abolish any possibility of new privileges.
And thus we arrived at those days when our gloom and doom about this anxious moment in the Revolution received its full justification. We received news from the Provisional Government itself and from the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’, Soldiers’ and Cossacks’ Deputies that the commander-in-chief of the external Front, General Kornilov, had withdrawn from the Front a division of soldiers loyal to him and was advancing on Petrograd to liquidate the Revolution and its conquests.
That was on August 29, 1917. An anarchist from Aleksandrovsk, M. Nikiforova, had arrived and organized a meeting which I chaired. While she was speaking, a courier delivered a packet in which I read the news about Kornilov’s advance. I broke into her speech and made a brief statement about the bloody repression which was threatening the revolution. Then I read two telegrams from the Government and from the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’, Soldiers’, and Cossacks’ Deputies.
This news produced a painful impression on the peasants and workers present. They tried to contain their emotions, but someone cried out from the crowd: “The brothers’ blood is already flowing, but here the counter-revolutionaries are walk around freely, laughing at us!” He pointed at the former Gulyai-Pole political cop Citizen Ivanov. Comrade Nikiforova jumped down from the tribune and arrested him while the crowd hurled abuse at him.
But I also jumped down and went to Nikiforova and Ivanov, already surrounded by a bunch of comrades from our Group and the Peasants’ Soviet and insisted that the constable be released. I told him to relax, that no one was going to touch him. Then I made my way back to the tribune and told the peasants and workers that our struggle in defence of the Revolution should begin not with the murder of a former policeman like Ivanov, who had turned himself in without resistance in the first days of the Revolution and had not gone into hiding.
“All we should do with the likes of him is keep an eye on him. Our struggle must find expression in a more serious way: what exactly I’m not going to say right now because we need to have an emergency meeting of the Peasants’ Soviet together with workers from the Anarchist Communist Group; but afterwards I promise to come back and explain my ideas.”
All the members of the Soviet had gathered. When I arrived the meeting was started. I read the dispatches and next presented my report on what we needed to do and how we were going to do it. The dispatch from the Petrograd Soviet suggested the formation of local “Committees for the Salvation of the Revolution”.
The meeting assigned members to this Committee from its own ranks, expressing the wish that it call itself the “Committee for the Defence of the Revolution” and entrusted me to direct its work.
We, the members of this hastily knocked together organization, got together and decided to begin disarming all the bourgeois in the region and liquidating their rights to the wealth of the people: on the land, in the factories and plants, in the printshops, theatres, circuses, cinemas and other public enterprises.
We considered that this was the only sure way to liquidate both General Kornilov’s movement and the rights of the bourgeoisie to dominance over the toiling masses.
During the time that I was at the meeting of the Soviet, and then the meeting of the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution (all this took about five hours), the mass of toilers was still awaiting my return to finish my speech on how to defend the Revolution.
When, finally, I arrived back, all the members of the Soviet, the members of the Group of Anarcho-Communists, and some members of the Trade Union were parading up and down the street with rifles and shotguns on their shoulders. Gulyai-Pole had been transformed into an armed revolutionary camp.
I went through the gate into the public garden and made my way to the square where the tribune was situated. The peasants and workers had broken up into groups dispersed throughout the garden and were animatedly exchanging opinions about the disturbing news. They gathered around me rapidly, saying: “Well! Are you finally free? Are you going to finish what you were starting to tell us? The bad telegrams prevented you!”
I climbed up on the tribune exhausted, because I had been travelling all over the raion in the preceding days, promising myself that I would only have one meeting on Sunday and then I could rest. But the disquieting telegrams, which the peasants called “bad”, did not allow me any time to rest.
Finishing my thought about the defence of the Revolution, I clarified that no one except they themselves could defend and further develop it. The Revolution is their business and they must be its bold propagators and its real defenders.
I next told them what had been decided at the assembly, that a Committee of the Defence of the Revolution had been formed which was destined to combat not only the movement of General Kornilov but also the Provisional Government and all the socialist parties which shared its ideas. I added that this Committee would become effective only when everyone, no matter who, adopted it as their own. As we group ourselves around this Committee, I said, we will sustain it not just with words but with actions.