100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution – Leicester discussion meeting
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irwellian wrote:October (November) 1917 did have its coup-like qualities as far as the Bolsheviks were concerned but thinking of it as simply a coup by a minority of individuals is just plain wrong. As for the Kerensky government, surely mcolome1 isn't defending the poor wee things?
Lenin and Krupskaya ( Lenin wife ) who was the secretary of the Bolshevik indicated that the Bolshevik were composed of 1-10% of the working population.Most of the workers in Russia were peasants and the majority of them did not support the Bolshevik, they only wanted land reform, even more, the Populists were not popular among them either. The original slogan of the Bolshevik was: Peace, Land, and Freedom. Are they socialist slogans? It sounds more like the French JacobinsI do not understand what you mean by defending the poor ( it sounds like the religious conception of Che Guevara ) The poor are the wages slaves, and we do know that the government of Kerensky did not represent the interest of the working class, and neither the Bolshevik.The first killing of workers did not take place during the time of Stalin, as the Trotskyist have always claimed. They were done during the reign of two commissaries known as Lenin and Trotsky.They imposed military measures to the worker's unions, they forced the workers to work overtime and they copied Ford assembly line and Taylor industrial engineering to produce more in less time, those are pure capitalism measures
Much of what you say is preaching to the choir as I'm certainly no bolshevik sympathiser and I'm fully aware of the crimes of Lenin and Trotskyist. Peace, land and freedom wasn't a specifically bolshevik slogan but, either way, I'm not sure how you'd equate it with jacobinism??? I think you misread my "defending the poor wee things" comment… Che Guevara indeed!
mcolome1 wrote:irwellian wrote:The original slogan of the Bolshevik was: Peace, Land, and Freedom. Are they socialist slogans? It sounds more like the French JacobinsWasn't the slogan 'Peace, Land and Bread' which is even more unrelated to socialism?
I forgot to add another one: Bread
Irwellian,i am perfectly content to accept that the 1917 Revolution was a complicated affair and happy to concede that the Bolsheviks did reflected the urban majority opinion in October. But the decision for the assumption of power was not taken democratically by the Petrograd Soviet. Was it a coup? I think the events could be considered as such, a small group in secret orchestrating a military take over to replace the existing government.
Overthrowing the Kerensky government, which wanted to continue the First World Slaughter, was one thing and had popular support beyond the Bolsheviks, but dissolving the Constituent Assembly, which Russian revolutionaries including the Bolsheviks had called for for years, was quite another. The Bolsheviks did it, not to defend the anti-Tsarist revolution but to defend the rule of their party.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Irwellian,i am perfectly content to accept that the 1917 Revolution was a complicated affair and happy to concede that the Bolsheviks did reflected the urban majority opinion in October. But the decision for the assumption of power was not taken democratically by the Petrograd Soviet. Was it a coup? I think the events could be considered as such, a small group in secret orchestrating a military take over to replace the existing government.it was not an spontaneous workers uprising, it was a planned coup
I remember reading something by Trotsky in which he said that the workers woke up the next morning to find out that during the night they had seized power, i.e that they had slept through their revolution, but can't find it at the moment. Trotsky should know as he was the person in charge of organising and carrying out the coup.
Found it. It's on page 1163 of Trotsky's The History of the Russian Revolution, published by Gollanz in 1965 (in the chapter "The Congress of the Soviet Dictatorship"):
Quote:The capital awoke under a new power. The everyday people, the functionaries, the intellectuals, cut off from the arena of events, rushed for the papers early to find out to which shore the wave had tossed during the night.Also this (by someone we know):
Quote:On the morning of 7 November the workers of Petrograd woke up to find that in the night the Bolshevik Party had assumed power, the Bolsheviks had carried out a revolution while they were asleep.jondwhite wrote:mcolome1 wrote:I forgot to add another one: BreadDid they ever call for 'Freedom'?
No, they did not. It was my mistake
Leon Trotsky is the best source of information about the Russian Revolution ( his two volume, and My life ) in both, he indicated that it was an uprising planned by the Bolshvevik.It was a coup like any other coup planned by a minority groupsof peoples, like a millitary coup, and Trotsky had a millitary mentality, that is the reason why he became the head of the Red Army
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