First of all, the defeated have always denounced the leaders of victorious revolutions as "agents of foreign powers." This most primitive explanation for their own defeat actually explains very little. The concept of a foreign agent suggests a person carrying out the will of another. There is no question that Lenin was his own man and was pursuing his own aims, which at a certain stage coincided with those of Germany. And within a year many of those who had accused Lenin of collaborating with the Kaiser's Germany availed themselves of German aid in the struggle against Lenin's government.
As to whether or not the Bolsheviks had any German financial support, revolutionary leaders have always been accused—most often, justly—of receiving money from foreign powers. In July 1917 documents were published attesting to links between two Bolsheviks, Hanetsky and Kozlovsky, and the German Social Democrat Parvus, who made no attempt to conceal his links with the German Foreign Ministry. Lenin bitterly denied these accusations, but his denials were strange and not very convincing. For example, he wrote that Hanetsky had only "engaged in business as an employee" of Parvus's firm.64 The party, Lenin asserted, could not have had any dealings with Parvus because since 1915 Lenin had denounced him as a "German Plekhanov" and a "renegade," "licking Hindenburg's boots."65 In fact, Lenin stated categorically: "It is an infamous lie that I was in contact with Parvus."66 Lenin had not had any relations with him; it was his emissaries who were responsible. Despite all the denials of Lenin, Trotsky, and other party leaders, none of them ever explained how it was possible by August 1917 for the party to be publishing, according to Lenin's own figures, "seventeen daily papers, 1,415,000,000 copies weekly altogether, 320,000 daily."67
Mark Aldanov, a talented writer of historical novels and an astute historian, who in 1919 wrote the first biography of Lenin, discussed this question in a Russian emigre newspaper in 1935. He recalled one small party that before 1917 had engaged in very little agitational work, published a small paper, and spent about 300,000 rubles a year, a sum obtained from a few wealthy members.68 Shlyapnikov, whose honesty there is no reason to doubt, informs us that from December 2, 1916, to February 1, 1917, the amount that came into the Bolshevik coffers was 1,117 rubles, 50 kopecks.69 In March, in a fit of generosity, Gorky donated 3,000 rubles.70 Trotsky, in denouncing "the most gigantic slander in world history," contends that the money needed for the Bolshevik press was donated by ordinary workers. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that in the midst of severe inflation the workers were able to give tens or hundreds of thousands of rubles weekly to a party that was far from the only workers' party and not even the main socialist party. Aldanov speculated in 1935: "The account books kept on the Wilhelmstrasse could prove to be precious documents on the history of the October Revolution, but history will not gain access to them very soon. Moreover, the records in those books are probably quite one-sided. Receipts are not given in such cases."71 Aldanov was mistaken. History got hold of the "account books" of the German Foreign Ministry only ten years after he had written those lines. It is true that no receipts bearing Lenin's signature were found—but German documents referring to the transfer of funds to the Bolsheviks were.
German money, however, does not explain the success of Bolshevik propaganda. It may have allowed them to conduct their propaganda on a large scale, but the government had no less substantial amounts of money at its disposal. The important thing was knowing how to use it.
The July defeat and the general conviction that the Bolsheviks were German agents marked a delay in Lenin's ascent to power. But the situation in the country became more critical every day: defeats on the front (the German army was threatening Riga and Narva and, to the south, Moldavia and Bessarabia); inflation and unemployment were on the rise; and food supplies were short. The second coalition government, formed in July and headed by Kerensky, put off the most pressing problems until the end of the war, at which time a Constituent Assembly would be convoked. On August 26 Commander-in-Chief Kornilov decided to intervene. He ordered General Krymov's Third Cossack Army Corps to Petrograd. He wanted to put an end to the nation's disintegration, reestablish order, and punish the Bolsheviks, whom he considered responsible for the chaos. However, his action brought the opposite result. A very courageous soldier who had won fame in the world war, Kornilov was a total incompetent in political matters. What was called the Kornilov plot was nothing but a confused blunder. Although he lacked sufficient forces and allies, Kornilov directly challenged the Petrograd Soviet, which, seeing its power threatened, sought help from the Bolsheviks. The moderate socialist Voitinsky, commissar of the Northern Front, assured the Soviet's leaders, "Not one regiment, not one company of the Northern Front will obey Kornilov's orders without the approval of the Army Committee or myself."72
Kornilov's troops faded away like ghosts even before reaching Petrograd. Meanwhile the Bolsheviks had been cleared of the accusations brought against them only a few weeks before by the very same Soviet and government that now gave them the seal of approval as good revolutionaries. The Committee of Struggle Against Counterrevolution, formed by the Soviet, included Vladimir Nevsky, the leader of the Bolshevik's Military Organization, which at that time had 26,000 members operating in forty-three groups at the front and seventeen in the rear.73
When he learned of Kornilov's military action, Lenin immediately ordered that he be fought, but that Kerensky not be supported, that as many concessions as possible be wrested from him, and that the Bolsheviks make use of the situation to arm the workers. The course of events, he wrote, could bring the Bolsheviks to power this time, "but we must speak of this as little as possible in our propaganda."74 The party began its final sprint on the road to power.
FALL 1917
The overthrow of the autocracy changed the situation in Russia, but only for the worse. The economy was collapsing, factories shutting down, food supplies dwindling, and the value of the currency plummeting. Meanwhile, the war went on. The only real conquest of the revolution was total freedom of expression. This intoxicating freedom became a powerful weapon in the hands of the Bolsheviks; while they promised everything at once (peace, land, and bread), the other parties suggested waiting for victory, for the Constituent Assembly, for an end to the chaos. Late in the night of August 31 or early in the morning of September 1, the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 25 Trotsky was elected chairman of the Soviet. After returning to Russia from the United States in May 1917, Trotsky had immediately supported Lenin. In July he joined the Bolshevik party and was placed in its leadership. Arrested after the July events, he was released on bail from Kresty prison after the fiasco of Kornilov's attempted coup. As president of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky became not only the tribune of the revolution (his speeches drawing overflow crowds to the Modern Circus) but also de facto leader of the insurrection being planned. On September 5 the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Moscow Soviet. This was a signal for Lenin: it convinced him that power was within easy reach. In mid-September, from his hiding place in Finland, he sent two letters stressing the need for an immediate seizure of power. But the Central Committee needed a lot of persuasion. Some of the party's leaders— Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin, in particular—held a much more moderate position than Lenin. They were convinced that the All-Russia Congress of Soviets, scheduled for October 25, would peacefully deliver power to the Bolsheviks. Finding the situation intolerable, Lenin returned to Petrograd. Until now, Soviet historians have been unable to agree on the date of the party leader's return from Finland. According to Stalin's Short Course, Lenin returned on October 7.75 Margarita Fofanova, at whose Petrograd apartment Lenin stayed, attests that he came back on September 22.76 What is known for certain is that on October 10 he was present at a crucial Central Committee meeting, together with Bubnov, Dzerzhinsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Kollontai, Lomov, Sokolnikov, Sverdlov, Stalin, Trotsky, and Uritsky. Lenin had considerable difficulty persuading his comrades of the need to organize an insurrection; however, he had one trump card. As early as September 29 he had sent an ultimatum in the form of a letter, threatening to resign from the Central Committee, while reserving the right to "campaign among the rank and file of the party and at the party congress."77 In 1921, while Lenin was still alive, Bukharin remembered that the "letter was written with extraordinary force and threatened us with all sorts of punishments. We were all astounded. ... The Central Committee unanimously decided to burn the letter."78 Burning a letter in Lenin's absence was one thing. But on October 10, when Lenin demanded in person that a vote on the insurrection be taken, Zinoviev and Kamenev were the only two who had the courage to vote against.