In accordance with a decision of the ninth congress of the r
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ers winning a majority (the Russian word for majority is bolshin- stvo) and they were therefore called Bolsheviks, while the opportu- nists were left in the minority (in Russian menshinstvo) and were given the name Mensheviks. The Mensheviks came out against the Party’s revolutionary programme. They were opposed to the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution, and the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, and were in favour of an agreement with the liberal bourgeoisie. After the defeat of the 1905- 07 revolution the Mensheviks wanted to liquidate the illegal proletarian revolutionary party. In January 1912, the Sixth All-Russia Party Conference expelled the Menshevik liquidators from the R.S.D.L.P. In 1917 representatives of the Mensheviks entered the bourgeois Provisional Government, and after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution the Mensheviks together with the other counter-revolutionary parties waged a struggle against Soviet power. p. 47
Lenin’s name was put on the list of candidates to the Constituent Assembly from the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) by five electoral areas: Petrograd—the capital, Petrograd Gubernia, Ufa, the Baltic Fleet and the Northern Front. In addition, Lenin was nominated as the candidate to the Constituent Assembly from Moscow. The elections to the Constituent Assembly were held on November 12 (25), 1917. On November 27 (December 10) the All-Russia Committee for Elections to the Constituent Assem- bly requested members of the Constituent Assembly who had been returned by several areas to present a written statement indicat- ing the area for which they accepted election. Having been elect- ed by several areas, Lenin, too, presented such a statement. (See also Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 50, Document 23.) p. 48
In November and December 1917, counter-revolutionary elements in Petrograd organised the looting of liquor stores and shops. A state of siege was declared in Petrograd. A committee to combat looting was set up under the Petrograd Soviet. G. I. Bla- gonravov was appointed Military Commissar Extraordinary of Petrograd to combat drunkenness and looting. On December 5-6 (18- 19), a counter-revolutionary organisa- tion led by Constitutional- Democrats and Black-Hundred ele- ments, which aimed at overthrowing Soviet rule and restoring the monarchy, was discovered. It allocated large sums of money for looting and provocations as one of the means of struggle, organ- ised gangs and issued special leaflets. p. 48 In December 1917, V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko left for the Ukraine to assume command of the Soviet troops fighting against Kale- din’s forces. p. 49
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10 11 12 13 14 In his memorandum addressed to Lenin, A. S. Solovyov drew attention to the Ukhta oilfields and asked that an order be is- sued to have them inspected and exploited. He enclosed with the memo a detailed description of the qualities of the Ukhta oil based on analyses of it. Today, the Ukhta district (Komi A.S.S.R.) has a well- developed oil industry, with enterprises for oil extraction and processing. p. 50
P. A. Kozmin was then Deputy Chairman of the Special Defence Council. In his recollections entitled V. I. Lenin i spetsialisty (V. I. Lenin and the Experts), Kozmin quoted Lenin’s note and wrote that after the discussion of the question raised in it “the commission of saboteurs was removed”. p. 51
On his arrival in Petrograd in December 1917, the French so- cialist Charles Dumas asked Lenin to receive him, mentioning that they were already acquainted. Lenin and Krupskaya met Charles Dumas in Paris, where they lived from December 1908 to June 10 (23), 1912. During the First World War (1914-18), Dumas held social- chauvinist views, for which Lenin sharply criticised him in his work The Collapse of the Second International (see present edi- tion, Vol. 21, pp. 209-10). p. 51
On December 12 (25), 1917, the First All- Ukraine Congress of Soviets held in Kharkov proclaimed the Ukraine a Soviet Re- public and elected the All- Ukraine Central Executive Committee of Soviets. In a telegram to the Council of People’s Commissars on December 13 (26), the Ukrainian Central Executive Committee proclaimed the unity of interests of the peoples of the Ukraine and Soviet Russia. On December 16 (29), the Council of People’s Commissars sent a telegram in reply, greeting the formation of “truly popular Soviet rule in the Ukraine” and promising “the now government of the fraternal republic full support in every way in the struggle for peace and also in the transfer of all land, factories and banks to the working people of the Ukraine”. On December 19, 1917 (January 1, 1918), the C.P.C. appoint- ed G. K. Orjonikidze Acting Commissar Extraordinary of the Ukraine for co-ordinating the activities of Soviet organisations functioning in the Ukraine. p. 52 Kuzmin and Reizon reported provocatory acts by the Ukrainian Central Rada and the counter-revolutionary command of the Rumanian Front aimed at demoralising and disarming the 8th Army.
geois-nationalist organisation. After the victory of the October Revolution it proclaimed itself the supreme organ of the “Ukra- inian People’s Republic” and began an open struggle against Soviet power. At the First All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets held in Kharkov in December 1917, the Ukraine was proclaimed a Soviet Repub-
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15 16 17 lic. The Congress declared the power of the Central Rada over- thrown. The Council of People’s Commissars of the R.S.F.S.R. recognised the Ukrainian Soviet Government as the sole legiti- mate government of the Ukraine. In January 1918, Soviet troops in the Ukraine launched an offensive and on January 26 (Febru- ary 8) seized Kiev and deposed the bourgeois Rada. The Central Rada, routed and driven from the territory of the Soviet Ukraine, and having no support among the working masses, allied itself with the German imperialists in order to overthrow Soviet power and restore the bourgeois regime in the Ukraine. During the peace negotiations between the Soviet Re- public and Germany, the Rada sent its delegation to Brest- Li- tovsk and behind the back of the Soviet delegation concluded a separate peace with Germany, by which it undertook to supply Germany with Ukrainian grain, coal and raw materials in return for military assistance in the struggle against Soviet power. In March 1918 the Rada returned to Kiev with the Austrian and German invaders and became their puppet. At the end of April the interventionists dismissed the Rada, realising that it was incapable of suppressing the revolutionary movement in the Uk- raine and ensuring delivery of the required food supplies. p. 53
On January 5 (18), 1918, the Constituent Assembly convened by the Soviet Government opened in the Taurida Palace in Petro- grad. After the counter-revolutionary majority of the Constituent Assembly had refused to recognise the Soviet Government and its decrees, and had rejected the Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People proposed by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, the Bolshevik group led by Lenin walked out. Late the same night the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries also walked out. There remained in the hall only the Constitutional- Democrats, Right Socialist- Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. By the decree of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of January 6 (19) the bourgeois Constituent Assembly was dis- solved. p. 54
A. I. Shingaryov and F. F. Kokoshkin, former ministers in the bourgeois Provisional Government, were arrested after the October Revolution and confined in the Peter and Paul Fortress, whence, owing to the state of their health, they were transferred to the Mariinskaya hospital. On the night of January 6 (19), 1918, they were killed by sailors, among whom were anarchists and criminal elements, who broke into the hospital. On Lenin’s instructions, an investigating commission was immediately appointed. Those guilty of the murder were arrest- ed and tried. p. 54 This refers to some sailors of the Second Guards Naval Depot, who illegally arrested three officers. Under the influence of coun- ter-revolutionary agitation, these sailors defied the laws of the Soviet Government, went on drinking bouts, and carried out illegal searches and arrests. They were disarmed and arrested. 470 NOTES
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 The other, better, part of the men went to the Southern Front, where together with the Red Army units they fought heroically against the interventionists and whiteguards. p. 55 This document and the note to the secretary which follows it were written by Lenin in connection with a memorandum re- ceived from the Food and Economic Committee of the Territorial Soviet of Western Siberia and the Urals, which reported that the Omsk railway was sabotaging the dispatch of food consignments to the west, as a result of which over a thousand loaded trucks remained stationary. The committee requested the appointment of an emergency commission of investigation. This memorandum was delivered by delegates from Urals factories, who had arrived with a train-load of grain. p. 55
At the time of the Communist Party’s efforts to extricate Soviet Russia from the imperialist war K. Radek’s standpoint was that of the “Left Communists”. p. 57
The Tribunists—members of the Social- Democratic Party of Hol- land whose press organ was the newspaper De Tribune. They constituted the Left wing of the labour movement in Holland and during the imperialist world war (1914- 18) their stand was, in the main, internationalist. In 1918 the Tribunists founded the Communist Party of Holland. p. 58 The same day, in accordance with Lenin’s directive, orders were issued for money to be given to Luteraan to travel to Russia and join the ranks of the Red Guard. p. 58 On January 16 (29), 1918, Soviet troops liberated the town of Cherkassy and Bakhmach railway junction, and mounted a suc- cessful offensive against Kiev, where the main forces of the Ukrain- ian Centra Rada were concentrated. p. 59
This refers to the reports in the Swedish bourgeois press concern- ing the revolution that had started in Finland. On January 27 (new style), 1918, the bourgeois government of Svinhufvud was overthrown and power passed into the hands of the workers. On January 29, a Finnish revolutionary govern- ment was set up—the Council of People’s Representatives— which included E. Gylling, O. Kuusinen, Y. Sirola, A. Taimi and others. But the proletarian revolution was victorious only in southern Finland. The Svinhufvud government, entrenched in the north, appealed to the government of imperial Germany for assistance. Owing to the intervention of the German armed forces, the workers’ revolution in Finland was crushed on May 2, 1918, after a bitter civil war which lasted for three months. A per- iod of white terror set in in Finland and thousands of revolu- tionary workers and peasants were executed or tortured to death in the prisons. p. 60 This document is the reply to a telegram from Arthur Henderson, who, on behalf of the British Labour Party, proposed to Lenin 471 NOTES
25 26 27 28 that delegates should be sent from the Bolshevik Party to a con- ference in London of socialists of the Entente countries to be convened on February 20, 1918, with the aim of achieving a com- mon agreement on the problems of the war. p. 60
On January 28 (February 10), 1918, at the Brest-Litovsk peace conference—contrary to Lenin’s directive that a peace treaty should be signed if the Germans presented an ultimatum demand- ing it—Trotsky declared that the Soviet Government refused to sign a peace treaty on the terms put forward by Germany, but that it considered the war at an end and was demobilising the army. The same day, without informing the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) and the Council of People’s Commissars, Trot- sky sent to the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander- in- Chief what was tantamount to a provocative telegram instructing him to issue an order on the night of the same day ending the state of war with Germany and her allies and demobilising the Russian army. The telegram did not mention that the peace negotiations in Brest had been broken off, the inference from its text being that the conference had culminated in the conclusion of peace. In the early morning on January 29 (February 11), Su- preme Commander-in- Chief N. V. Krylenko, on the basis of Trot- sky’s telegram, issued an order which announced that peace had been concluded and called for the cessation of military operations on all fronts and demobilisation of the army. It was in conse- quence of Krylenko’s order that Lenin sent this telegram and the one following it. p. 60
was organised early in 1918 on the initiative of workers at the Obukhov Factory in Petrograd. Lenin greatly assisted in its organ- isation. In March 1918, members of the society with their fami- lies went to Kazakhstan, where they settled and were given land to cultivate. Civil war prevented the development of the Petro- grad workers’ initiative. The communards failed to reap even their first harvest. Kulaks and White Cossacks attacked the com- mune and broke it up. p. 61
The instruction was written by Lenin beneath the text of a tele- gram received from the Command of the Baltic Fleet. The telegram stated: “A Swedish steamer, a cruiser and a des- troyer flying the Swedish naval flag, arrived off the Öland Island, landed 15 Swedish marines, and by threatening to use their arms forced our communications personnel to retreat.” Lenin simultaneously sent a telegram to the Finnish People’s Government (see the document that follows). p. 63 The revolutionary People’s Government of Finland sent a protest to the Swedish Government in connection with the landing of their troops on the Aland Islands. Sweden shortly withdrew her troops from the islands. In mid- March 1918, German troops were landed there and were used by the German Government to fight against the Finnish revolution. p. 64
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29 30 31 32 This refers to General Alexeyev’s letter to the French Mission in Kiev, which was intercepted in Novokhopersk. It was published on February 19, 1918, in Izvestia No. 28. In the letter, General Alexeyev asked the French Mission for assistance in the struggle against the Soviet state, since his troops were sustaining heavy defeats and were forced to withdraw from the Don territory. In describing the situation in the Don and Kuban regions, Alexeyev had to admit that he had been mistaken in counting on the Cos- sacks. “The ideas of Bolshevism,” he wrote, “have found support- ers among the broad mass of Cossacks.” p. 65
Lenin’s inquiry was written in connection with the stock- taking of goods in warehouses which was being carried out by the Supreme Economic Council. In reply, Rykov informed Lenin that: 1) lists had been drawn up of goods in private, military, railway and other warehouses; 2) responsibility for guarding the stores lay with the organisations to which they belonged; goods were released from the warehouses on delivery orders issued by the appropriate central bodies (Central Committee of Textile Industry, Central Soap Board, etc.); 3) rationing and distribution by ration cards was being carried out by the town Food Committee through co-operative shops and private firms; 4) there was very little of confiscated products. p. 67 This note is a reply to the following request from V. N. Podbel- sky, Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs of Moscow and Mos- cow Region: “We have just been informed by telephone on behalf of Trotsky that Austria- Hungary is said to have declared its re- fusal to advance against Russia. Please contact Trotsky or one of the other People’s Commissars immediately by telephone, check this information and let us know. The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is at present in session here and awaits verification of this report. At the same time obtain the latest news in general, but only authentic news, and inform us immediately. Please do this, comrade, it is very important for us.” p. 67 The Party Central Committee, at its meeting on February 22, 1918, discussed the question of procuring from Britain and France arms and food necessary for the defence of the Soviet Republic against the advancing German troops. This was opposed by the “Left Communists”, who regarded any agreement with the imperialists as impermissible in principle. Lenin could not attend the meeting and therefore sent his opinion to the Central Committee. The Party Central Committee adopted a resolution recognis- ing the need to use every means to arm and equip the Red Army, including that of obtaining armaments and equipment from gov- ernments of capitalist countries, while at the same time pur- suing a fully independent foreign policy. On the same day a sit- ting of the Council of People’s Commissars also passed a decision in favour of obtaining arms and food supplies from Britain and France (see also present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 36-39). p. 67
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33 34 35 36 On February 25, the Soviet delegation, which had left for Brest- Litovsk to sign the peace treaty, was delayed at Novoselye rail- way station, where a bridge had been blown up. Unable to get in touch directly with the German Government, the delegation wired the Council of People’s Commissars requesting that the German Government be informed of the arrival of the delegation. Lenin’s remark about possible waverings on the part of the dele- gation was apparently due to the fact that two of its members, G. Y. Sokolnikov and A. A. Joffe, had been refusing to join it, and had only set out after a decision of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). p. 68
bourgeois Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which was organised as an independent party in November 1917. In an effort to maintain their influence among the peasants, the Left Socialist- Revolutionaries entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks. They pledged themselves to carry out the general policy of the Soviet Government and were given posts in the Coun- cil of People’s Commissars and on the boards of several People’s Download 6.35 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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