RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AS REPORTED AT THE TIME
REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA! As reported by the New York Tribune and the New York Herald, 1894-1921. Edited by Edward W. Pearlstien. Viking, New York. 297 pp. $10. 1967.
For revolutionists, it was bitterly ironic upon the fiftieth anniversary of the October 1917 revolution that a more accurate picture of the facts pertaining to that mighty historic event was presented in the bourgeois press than in the Soviet Union itself.
Describing Leningrad today -- the St. Petersburg of 1917 where the decisive uprising of the workers occurred -- Anatole Shub observed in an article:
"It is not so much irritating as pathetic that 50 years after the revolution, Soviet authorities still are reluctant to tell the story straight. Thus, in the Lenin Room in the Smolny Institute, all the scenes of the revolution are portrayed in drawings and painting -- although thousands of photographs exist. Documents signed by anyone else but Lenin are likewise withheld, so that the makeup of his first Cabinet, for example, becomes a kind of state secret."
Why are the Soviet authorities still "reluctant" to tell the truth about the revolutionary actions that shook the world fifty years ago? Why do they insist on keeping a curtain drawn on all but one of the leaders of the revolution out of which arose the workers state they now head? Why the secrecy and the shame?
The reason is that they owe their present standing to Stalin who established the rule of the bureaucracy and became the executioner of the entire generation that led and carried through the October revolution.
It is because of their own unsavory past that even a decade after Khrushchev's admissions about the crimes of Stalin, they still refuse to let the historians in the Soviet Union "tell the story straight" about 1917.
The latest version of Communist party history, for instance, while mentioning Leon Trotsky and no longer picturing him as an "enemy of the people" in the style of previous editions of Stalinized history, still presents him as a minor figure of dubious distinction.
If the heads of the Soviet government were capable of shame or embarrass-— ment, a good many faces in the Kremlin would redden over the publication of a book like Revolution in Russia!
The volume was put out to coincide
with the interest aroused by the commemo-
ration of the fiftieth anniversary of the
Russian revolution of 1917. Its main
feature is facsimile reproductions of the
columns of two New York newspapers report-—
ing events in Russia during that stirring
period. Both newspapers, as voices of
American capitalism, were thoroughly hos-
tile to the revolution; yet, biased as
their coverage was, they presented a much
more accurate picture of the events of
those days than is available in the cur-
rent Soviet histories.
Only by meeting the challenge of-
fered by a book like this and reproducing
the columns of the Russian papers of the
time could the Soviet government present
a more accurate and truthful account of
the events as reported by the press. This
would most certainly counter the distor-
tions appearing in the Western papers;
but, on the other hand, it would prove
devastating to the current Soviet history
books -- and those sponsoring them.
The editor of the selections, Ed-
ward W. Pearlstien, provides a running
commentary on the news dispatches repro-
duced in the book. His comments at the
beginning of the chapter, "The Bolshevik
Revolution," indicate the picture that
emerges from the newspaper accounts in
1917. Here is what he writes about the
preparations for the November 7 uprising:
"The actual task of organizing the
revolution fell to Trotsky. Lenin, having
laid out the strategy, now withdrew ner-
vously into the background, even though
he was not entirely confident in his lieu-
tenant, who had joined the Bolsheviks
late and those broad abilities he felt
just barely remained on the safe side of
dilettantism. But Lenin was still a fu-
gitive and could not appear openly, and
as far as most of the workers and sol-
diers of Petrograd were concerned, Trot-
sky represented Bolshevism. Lenin, to be
sure, was the acknowledged leader, the
towering, if somewhat remote, originator
of ideas. Trotsky, however, they knew
personally. He often appeared in the fac-
tories and barracks and had aroused them
with clarion speeches that invariably
seemed to articulate their ill-formed
thoughts. The Kronstadt sailors, who were
more inclined toward anarchism than Bol-
shevism, adored the fiery revolutionary
and obeyed him without hesitation. The
workers had more or less the same atti-
tude. Moreover, the insurrection was to
take place in the names of the soviets,
as well as the Bolshevik Party, and Trot-
sky was president of the Petrograd Soviet.
"Trotsky proved that in addition
to his talents as a formulator of doctrine and an orator, he had the instincts of a true commander. The Military Revolutionary Committee was made into an insurrectionary general staff with Trotsky at its head. On November 3, he procured from the Petrograd garrison a resolution '‘endorsing all political decisions of the Petrograd Soviet' and pledging 'to put at the disposal of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets all its forces, to the last man.' The commander of the garrison was replaced with commissars appointed by the Committee. Guns were issued to the Red guards, the workers' militia organized at the time of the Kornilov rebellion. Plans were carefully worked out for the occupation of the key buildings in Petrograd, such as the telephone exchange. Meanwhile, Trotsky ran from factory to barracks to factory, inspiring, explaining, expound- 126 ; crying out for peace, bread and and.
"It was perfectly obvious to everyone what was afoot.
Petrograd, Nov. 2 [1917]. The Maximalists continue their preparations for a demonstration, the date of which is being kept secret, but is believed to be set for November 4. It is persis-— tently rumored that they intend to take armed action to seize the supreme power.
The government is receiving offers of help from all quarters and will prevent the proceedings by force, if necessary.
"Yet the government and the moderate socialist parties failed to take any precautionary action. They were certainly informed of the Bolshevik intentions early enough, because Kamenev and Zinoviev revealed the decision of the Bolshevik Central Committee in a statement denouncing it, which was published on Octoper 31 in Maxim Gorky's newspaper, New Life. But on the day following these revelations Trotsky publicly denied that the Soviet was planning an armed uprising, a slippery statement which was literally true, since only the Bolshevik members of the Soviet were initiated into the plan. This momentarily put the authorities off their guard, a naive reaction stemming, undoubtedly, from wishful thinking. Even when the thinly camou~ flaged preparations of the next few days
left no room for doubt, however, they let
delusions lull them. Without any basis
they convinced themselves that the insur-
rection would be crushed. Kerensky him-
self sank into a veritable catatonic fa-
talism. The fact was that the regime and
its affiliates had collapsed. By not
voting for a coalition at the Democratic
Conference, the moderate socialists had
completely undermined the Provisional
Government, while they had lost the sup-
port of the Petrograd workers and sol-
diers because of their temporizing.
Finally, on November 4, Trotsky, looking
for an incident he could use as a casus
belli, goaded Kerensky into action by
ordering the Petrograd garrison not to
obey any orders unless they were issued
by the Military Revolutionary Committee.
Also on the 4th a gigantic demonstration
of soldiers, Red guards, and other workers
was held as a peaceful display of
strength in order to give the less fer-
vent workers a sense of confidence and at
the same time to discourage opposition.
As Trotsky had calculated, Kerensky took
action.
"At 5:30 A.M. on November 6, troops
closed down the Bolshevik newspapers
Workers' Road and Soldier, and orders
were issued for the arrest of the Bolshe-
vik leaders. Regiments presumed loyal
were called in from outside the city to
protect government buildings, especially
the Winter Palace, where they were joined
by a battalion of women soldiers. The
Bolshevik leaders of the insurrection
promptly met and drew up their final
plans, assigning tasks to various people.
That night the uprising began."
These comments are backed by the
dispatches from Russia published by the
two New York papers. They make fascinat-
ing reading even with their distortions,
errors and hopes in the triumph of the
counterrevolution.
Besides source material of this
kind, the book contains many rare photo-
graphs of revolutionary scenes and the
real revolutionary leaders -- the kind of
photographs which today's Soviet leaders
would rather not see but which will one
day reappear in the history books of the
Soviet Union and the other workers states
after the Soviet workers bring the arbi-
trary rule of the bureaucratic caste to
an end and restore proletarian democracy.
BRAZIGZAN CP