The hopes of these artistic innovators were described years later by the modernist theatrical director Aleksandr Tairov: "What was our reasoning?
The revolution was destroying the old forms of social life. We would destroy the old forms of art. Consequently, we too were revolutionaries and could march in step with the revolution."14 These revolutionary artists were sadly mistaken to expect any lasting sympathy from the political revolutionaries. Nevertheless, for a while the new government made use of these "destructive elements." Evgeny Zamyatin described them as "the slippery school of con man art," who "knew when to wear the red cap and when to take it off, when to sing the glories of the tsar and when to sing the hammer and sickle." With the exception of one real poet, Mayakovsky, Zamyatin noted, "the Futurists were the slipperiest of all; without losing one second, they announced that the official artists of the new regime would, of course, be they."15
At Smolny, Alexander Blok was an alien presence—he who had seen the revolution as Russia's purifying fire, who when he closed his eyes could hear "the music of revolutions." It was also with his eyes closed that he wrote 'The Twelve" and 'The Scythians." He came to his senses rather quickly and with quite a shock: "When the Red Army and socialist construction began, I couldn't take it any more," he wrote in his diary.
The disenchantment of the overwhelming majority of the intellectuals did not surprise Lenin; he preached that only the intelligentsia could bring "revolutionary consciousness" to the working class but had always been suspicious and ill disposed toward them. What he did not expect, however, was the disenchantment of the working class, in whose name and for whose sake the revolution had been carried out.
Of the three slogans that had allowed the Bolsheviks to take power, peace and land reflected above all the interests of the peasantry. The third slogan, bread, expressed the interests of the working class but its exact meaning was a good deal less clear. Also unclear was the meaning of "workers' control of production." Moreover, it was symptomatic that the decree on workers' control was not adopted on October 25 along with the other two, but twenty days later, on November 14, 1917.
This decree provided for "workers' control of production, of the purchase, sale, and storage of raw materials and finished products, and of the financial aspects of the enterprise."16 What could be simpler than this at first glance? The workers would control everything, and all economic problems would be solved by the producers themselves. In January 1918 Lenin encouraged the proletariat: "You are the government, do as you wish, take what you need, we will support you. ... You will make mistakes, but you will learn."17 This monumental experiment, involving the entire Russian economy, soon has its effect. The workers often interpreted the vague concept of "workers' control" in a very simple way. "I came to the factory and began to put workers' control into effect," a Communist worker related. "I broke open the safe to count the money, but there wasn't any."18 The organ of the Central Council of Trade Unions, Vestnik truda (Labor herald), complained that the workers regarded "the factories that have been placed in their hands as an inexhaustible ocean from which unlimited quantities of goods can be taken without doing any harm."19
Governmental measures completely disorganized the functioning of industry. In May 1918 Tomsky, president of the Central Council of Trade Unions, said, "Current labor productivity has dropped to a point that threatens us with total disorganization and collapse."20 The decline in labor productivity was one expression of growing discontent among the workers. A. Volsky (Jan Waclaw Machaiski) made this comment in the magazine Rabochaya revolyutsiya (Workers' revolution), whose only issue appeared in June—July 1918: "After the bourgeois revolution of February, workers' wages were substantially increased, and the eight-hour day was won; after the proletarian revolution of October, the workers didn't get anything."21 There was another difference between the two revolutions: after the proletarian revolution, the working class lost the possibility of fighting for its rights. "Control of production" proved to be a fantasy; the destruction of the management system existing in industry brutally aggravated the workers' plight.
In March 1918 an emergency convention of delegates from local plants and factories was held in Petrograd. It stated:
The unions have lost their independence and no longer serve to organize the defense of workers' rights. The Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies seem to fear the workers. They do not allow new elections, but have entrenched themselves; they have become government bodies and no longer express the opinions of the working masses.22
A declaration adopted by delegates from the largest factories in Petrograd and from the railroad workshops, power plants, and printing houses appealed to the All-Russia Congress of Soviets. It summed up the results of the first months of the revolution as follows:
On October 25, 1917, the Bolshevik party, allied with the Left SRs and supported by armed soldiers and sailors, overthrew the Provisional Government and seized power. We, the workers of Petrograd, have in our majority accepted this change of government, made in our name but without our knowlege or participation. .. . Moreover, the workers have supported the new government, which declared itself a workers' and peasants' government and promised to carry out our wishes and respect our interests. All our organizations were placed at its service. Our sons and brothers have shed their blood for it. We have patiently endured famine and adversity. In our name all those whom the new government has designated its enemies have been cruelly repressed. Hoping that the promises it gave would be kept, we resigned ourselves to the eradication of our liberty and our rights. But four months have gone by already, and we see that our trust has been cruelly abused, that our hopes have been brutally stamped out.23
The delegates' movement, expressing the disenchantment of the working class, began to spread to other cities. In Moscow an organizing committee was established for an All-Russia Conference of Factory Delegates. The movement was labeled Menshevik, Right SR, counterrevolutionary, and broken up.
The workers voted against "proletarian power" with their hands—production fell off tremendously—and with their feet—they abandoned the disorganized and ruined factories. In May 1918, at the first congress of local economic councils, Aleksei Gastev discussed the workers' refusal to work: "In fact, we are faced with an enormous sabotage in which millions participate. I laugh when I am told of bourgeois sabotage, when the terrified bourgeois is singled out as if he were the saboteur. We are dealing with national, popular, proletarian sabotage."24
The collapse of industry soon had repercussions on agriculture. The Bolshevik party had won the support of the peasants by "borrowing" the agrarian program of the SRs. Lenin did not try to hide this fact: "At least until the summer of 1918, we maintained power because we had the support of the peasantry as a whole."25 In October 1917 the peasants had supported the Bolsheviks, but disenchantment quickly set in. A popular song in the first years of the revolution had this line: "Our engine runs full steam ahead. Last stop is the commune." The Russian peasants didn't want to go that far; they wanted to get off at the first stop, the distribution of the landed estates.
Radical agrarian reform, of which the peasants had dreamed for centuries and the intellectuals for a hundred years, swept the country like wildfire, but with unexpected results. In the overwhelming majority of regions, those who had tilled the soil from time immemorial received on the average half a desyatina, or 1.35 acres, of additional land.26 Workers, artisans, and household servants who had fled the cities also demanded—and received — a plot of land. However, this was not the main reason for the peasants' disillusionment. Each had obtained a bit of land, and the large estates had at last been abolished. Dissatisfaction over the new government began the moment it started demanding agricultural produce from the peasants without providing anything in return. Inflation had stripped money of its value, and industry no longer produced for the countryside's needs. Peasant "sabotage" was now added to that of the intelligentsia and the proletariat. In November 1917, 641,000 tons of grain were stored; in December 1917 136,000; in January 1918, 46,000; in April 1918, 38,000; in May 1918, 3,000; in June 1918, 2,000.27 The cities were starving. The famished workers further reduced their already low output or simply fled to the countryside.