Friday, April 5, 2024

How Bolsheviks Actually Took Power

The official narrative of the so-called October Revolution is that on 7 November soldiers and sailors assaulted the Winter Palace, arrested provisional government and then declared that all power belongs to the Soviets. That makes for a good revolution themed movie, but in reality, that was not what happened. That narrative was constructed much later for propaganda purposes.

In reality Lenin and Bolsheviks did not declare they seized power until 1918. Provisional government members were never arrested, Kerenski lived in exile for many years afterwards. Soldiers and sailors did not assaulted Winter Palace.


What actually happened during these October days is that Lenin peacefully negotiated a transfer of power with Kerenski, under certain conditions. 

Lenin argued that because he won elections to Petrograd Soviet, that indicates that public supports Bolsheviks and Provisional government needs to reflect will of the people. Some of the members of Kerenski own Social Revolutionary party (left SRs) actually support a coalition government with leftist Bolsheviks rather than with centrists and rightists that currently governs under Kerenski. Kerenski himself took power as Prime Minister from Prince Lvov after failed May uprising in order to better reflect leftist popular sentiment. 

Because of the above, Lenin argued that now that people want Bolsheviks, he should be given opportunity to form new provisional government. 

On his end Lenin promised that he will respect provisional nature of government. He will not implement any radical reforms. Will not arrest anyone. He will oversee final stages of the elections to Constitutional Assembly and will respect the outcomes of these elections. He will also respect in principle that it would be up to Constitutional Assembly to make any major decisions about future governance in Russia.

Only under these conditions Lenin and Bolsheviks were allowed to form 6th provisional government with Lenin becoming its 3rd Prime Minister after Prince Lvov and Kerenski himself. Lvov had two governments and Kerenski three because other ministers under them were changing hands at different times. For example, in 2nd Lvov government, Kerenski was minister of the Army and navy before becoming Prime Minister sometime later.


Lenin and his 6th provisional government governed in this capacity all the way to the first session of the Constitutional Assembly. There Lenin and Bolsheviks lost to Social Revolutionary Party of Kerenski but had second largest fraction overall.

Bolsheviks proposed to the Constitutional Assembly that all power in the country should be given to Soviets, such as the Petrograd Soviet mentioned above. The assembly voted that proposal down.

The next day Red Guards forcefully dissolved the assembly, by shutting the doors to the building where its sessions took place, in the infamous "guards are tired" incident. The Bolshevik takeover was complete.  

Discontent politicians united with the Imperial Army Officers into White Movement to oppose Bolsheviks take over. Civil War has begun.


However, that was only how it all looked like for an average inhabitant of Petrograd, then capital. During the October events Bolsheviks did not arrest the government or took power in one fell swoop. In fact, life of average city inhabitant hardly changed that much that October.

Instead, Bolsheviks took something much less glamorous than Winter Palace, that ended up being much more useful for taking and keeping the power that a palace or government: Post, Telegraph and Telephone.

Post, Telegraph and Telephone were the only means of communications, available between the capital and the rest of the country. By having effective control over these institutions Bolsheviks had full control over the flow of information. In my previous article about Russian Revolution, I already covered how tampering with communication could mess up the government. Now that Bolsheviks had effective control over the communications they put them to immediate use.

First, they immediately announced to the country that they seized all the power and arrested the provisional government. Then they started to issue various orders to other places in Russia, placing loyalists to all important positions in key cities, particularly Moscow.

At the same time, they effectively prevented anyone from Petrograd from sending their own messages. Officials in post office would claim they would send it, but in reality, would simply destroy anything that was not authorized by Bolshevik government.


This control over the information is what allowed Bolsheviks to actually seize power and not any other events.

By the time of Constitutional Assembly Bolsheviks managed to build themselves a stronghold of power in Moscow and other key cities. Because of that They could safely dissolve the Constitutional Assembly. By that time, they were sure that structures of power they build in Moscow and other cities could support their power against the rest of the country. After the infamous 'guards are tired" incident they even moved capital to Moscow, to prevent their now numerous opponents from trying a counter coup. Petrograd was full of politically savvy people who opposed Bolsheviks, Moscow was apolitical place that was used to follow orders from above, perfect to the new seat of power after the coup.


These events show how important it is to control flow of information as well as how much one can achieve when they have monopoly of information. The reason why Putin bans all independent media in Russia is to maintain such monopoly on information. When no one says otherwise, people would even believe that there are Nazis in Ukraine.

That is also a reason to question all the information people give you. You never know how untrue it can be.

Also, sometimes small things that are overlooked by others, can be keys to power.


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