Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward полностью

The facts are that there were two revolutions in Russia that year, not one. The first, called the February Revolution, resulted in the establishment of a provisional socialist government under the leadership of Aleksandr Kerensky. It was relatively moderate in its policies and attempted to accommodate all revolutionary factions including the Bolsheviks who were the smallest minority. When 286

THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

the February Revolution occurred, neither Lenin nor Trotsky were even in Russia. Lenin was in Switzerland and didn't arrive until April. Trotsky was still in New York writing propaganda and giving speeches.

The second revolution, called the October Revolution, was the one through which the Bolsheviks came to power. It was, in fact, no revolution at all. It was a coup d'etat. The Bolsheviks simply took advantage of the confusion and indecisiveness that existed among the various groups that comprised the new government and caught them by surprise with a lightening strike of force. With a combination of bribes and propaganda, they recruited several regiments of soldiers and sailors and, in the early morning darkness of October 25, methodically took military possession of all government buildings and communication centers. No one was prepared for such audacity, and resistance was almost non-existent. By dawn, without the Russian people even knowing what had happened—much less having any voice in that action, their country had been captured by a minority faction and become the world's first so-called

"people's republic." Within two days, Kerensky had fled for his life, and all Provisional Government ministers had been arrested.

That is how the Communists seized Russia and that is how they held it afterward. Contrary to the Marxian myth, they have never represented the people. They simply have the guns.

The basic facts of this so-called revolution are described by Professor Leonard Schapiro in his authoritative work, The Russian Revolutions of 1917:

All the evidence suggests that when the crisis came the great majority of units of the Petrograd Garrison did not support the government but simply remained neutral.... The Cossack units rejected its call for support, leaving the government with only a few hundred women soldiers and around two thousand military cadets on its side. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, could count on several regiments to carry out their orders. Units of the Baltic Fleet also supported them....

In the event, the Bolshevik take-over was almost bloodless: in contrast with what had happened in February, nothing could have been less like a city in the throes of revolution than Petrograd on 25

October. Crowds of well-dressed people thronged the streets in the evening. Theaters and restaurants were open, and at the opera, Shaliapin sang in Boris Godunov. The principal stations and services THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY

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had all been taken over by the morning of 25 October without a shot being fired....

A battleship and several cruisers, including the Aurora, had reached Petrograd from Kronstadt and were anchored with their guns trained on targets in the city....

The Provisional Government inside the Winter Palace...received an ultimatum calling for surrender of its members, under threat of bombardment of the palace by Aurora and by the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress.... It was only at 9:40 P.M. that the Aurora was ordered to fire—and discharged one blank shell. The main effect of this was to accelerate the thinning out of the cadet defenders of the palace, who had already begun to dwindle. The women soldiers, who had formed part of its defense force, also left before the palace was invaded. At 11 P.M. some live shells were fired, and the palace was slightly damaged....

The story of the dramatic storming of the Winter Palace, popular with Soviet historians and in the cinema, is a myth. At around 2 A.M. on 26 October, a small detachment of troops, followed by an unruly crowd and led by two members of the MRC [Military Revolutionary Committee], entered the palace. The remaining officer cadets were, apparently, prepared to resist, but were ordered to surrender by the ministers. In the end, the total casualties were three officer cadets wounded.1

POPULAR SUPPORT WAS NOT NECESSARY

Eugene Lyons had been a correspondent for United Press in revolutionary Russia. He began his career as highly sympathetic to the Bolsheviks and their new regime, but six years of actual living inside the new socialist utopia shattered his illusions. In his acclaimed book, Workers' Paradise Lost, he summarizes the true meaning of the October Revolution:

Lenin, Trotsky, and their cohorts did not overthrow the

monarchy. They overthrew the first democratic society in Russian history, set up through a truly popular revolution in March, 1917....