The Provisional Government, in attempts to shut down the threat from the Bolshevik party, ordered to closing of the newspaper of the Petrograd Soviet and sealed the printing-works. This strategy only backfired on the Provisional Government in that the Military-Revolutionary Committee then ordered the printing-works to be reopened, the staff to continue working and protection from other counter-revolutionary attacks. Yet other attacks on the revolution occurred. At the telephone exchange, anti-revolutionary students and telephone operators took control of the exchange and refused to make connections to and from the soviets. The Military-Revolutionary Committee once again countered this attack by placing two armed guards at the front doors of the exchange and thus through their threatening position they were able to restore the telephone exchange. In October it was evident that a coup was looming and Kerensky’s action of closing the printing press showed that he was reacting against his fears.
This then sparked the call for the arrests of Bolshevik party and Military-Revolutionary Committee members. The government was no very clearly aware of the Bolshevik party’s plans for insurrection yet these orders came too late. Trotsky uses this aspect of the October revolution to gain sympathy and to show his strength,
We were hardly more than a banner – with no printing-works, no
funds, no branches. No longer than last night, the government
ordered the arrest of the Military-Revolutionary Committee…Today
a delegation from the city Duma comes to the arrested Military- Revolutionary Committee to inquire about the fate of the Duma.
Trotsky plays on the strength of the party and his leadership in that they were the underdogs and were victorious over the Provisional Government, yet in fact, the government was quite inferior to the power of the Bolsheviks. Trotsky’s use of this comment would have been intended to show his ability as a leader and his influence on the success of the revolution, therefore emphasising his argument in the power struggle with Stalin.
Trotsky placed great importance on the knowledge that the revolution was almost completely free of violence and bloodshed, as opposed to the July Days. At the time when Trotsky was writing his autobiography and also at its time of publication in 1930, Stalin’s first five-year plan and collectivisation were both underway which led to the persecution of the kulaks. The peasantry would have been beginning to distrust Stalin due to the forced agricultural restrictions placed upon them and the class of kulaks was growing bigger and were unable to defend themselves against the Stalinist regime. Although the purges had not yet begun, Trotsky would have been well aware of the power and control Stalin had and how far his capabilities would reach. His emphasis on the non-violent nature of the October revolution through his autobiography would reach the Russian people and although many were illiterate they would hear and remember the temperament of the revolution and the influence that Trotsky’s leadership had on it.
After the events of the July Days and the violence that resulted from this event, the coup was expected to be one of greater bloodshed and horror than the aforementioned occasion. The October revolution was in fact the opposite of this. Trotsky makes several references to the lack of aggression and fighting despite the governments attempts to defend itself through the use of a battalion of shock troops and military students from the Peterhof military school they brought to the capital. Even in the attack on the Winter Palace there was little violence incurred. Ferro remarks that the Bolsheviks were able to seize the palace through sheer use of numbers and the present government ministers’ (Kerensky had already fled the palace) desire for peace, “the overwhelmed ministers said, ‘It’s pointless, we don’t want bloodshed’ and ‘We’ll surrender’”. Although the revolution did not incite violence, the threat was always evident and if needed to, force would have been used to achieve the coup d'état. Trotsky insists on that the Bolsheviks believed “the revolution…prefers to threaten with arms rather than really use them”. Although he still maintains the knowledge that arms may have been a necessity. In Acton’s passage on the liberalist view of the Bolshevik revolution, he comments that to attain revolution, the Bolsheviks would have gone as far as possible and had no problems with provoking violence going so far as to spark civil war and were ruthless in their motives.
Lenin had worries about the timing of the revolution. He believed that if it was delayed and timed to Trotsky’s plan, the coup would fail, “the tactical risk inherent in Trotsky’s attitude was that it imposed certain delays upon the whole plan of action”. Fitzpatrick also makes note of Lenin’s desire for revolution in close proximity as he wrote from Finland pleading with the Bolshevik party to prepare for an armed insurrection and it must be seized before it is too late, delay would be fatal. Through Trotsky’s autobiography, we are allowed access to the revolution from behind closed doors. Trotsky gives details of the encounter he had with Lenin once the revolution was determined a success and comments, “only now did Lenin become reconciled to the postponement of the uprising. His fears had been dispelled”. Trotsky’s account of the night of October 24th shows a personal account of his and Lenin’s relationship. His intention behind including this passage would have been to gain the support over Stalin from Leninists as it gives the impression that in this situation, Lenin gave his support and friendship to Trotsky. It also shows that Trotsky was a true advocator and follower of Lenin, therefore increasing his popularity with the disciples of the former leader.
The aim of Trotsky in writing his autobiography was to gain support from Russia and to attempt to capture Soviet Russia from the dictator Stalin. In doing this, the impression that Trotsky paints on the October revolution is one of great support and enthusiasm for Bolshevism and the Bolshevik cause. Trotsky also gives a view that discards Stalin from any involvement in the revolution and places himself and the forefront of the coup d'état. The emphasis is on Trotsky’s involvement and organisation of the revolution and all of this is aimed towards gathering support to regain leadership in Soviet Russia. Trotsky attempts to appeal to the Leninists in his last few paragraphs of the section on the October insurrection through the personal account of the two leaders. Lenin did not particularly like either Trotsky or Stalin for the future leader, but as Lenin had died six years prior to Trotsky’s autobiography being published, he was able to manipulate their relationship to appear as though he had Lenin’s support. Trotsky’s autobiography is extremely pro-revolution and pro-Bolshevik although his intentions and reliability of the writings are questionable.
Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921 (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), vii.
Leon Trotsky, My Life. An Attempt at an Autobiography (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), 323.
Michael Lynch, Reaction and Revolutions: Russia 1881-1924 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), 92.
David Christian, Power and Privilege: The Russian Empire, The Soviet Union and the Challenge of Modernity 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1994), 189.
David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power: from the July Days 1917 to July 1918 (London: The Macmillan Press, 1984), 310.
Trotsky, My Life, 338-339.
Michael Lynch, Stalin and Krushchev: The USSR 1924-64 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2001), 33-35.
Marc Ferro, October 1917: a social history of the Russian Revolution (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 256, 260.
Edward Acton, Rethinking the Russian Revolution (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), 172.
Deutscher, The Prophet Armed, 291.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution 1917-1932 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 54.