The Bolsheviks convened the Central Committee. Lenin and Trotsky, busy organizing the defenses against Kerensky, could not attend. In their absence, the Central Committee, apparently in a state of panic, surrendered to the union’s demands, conceding the necessity of “broadening the base of government through the inclusion of other socialist parties.” It also reconfirmed that the Sovnarkom was a creation of the CEC and accountable to it. The committee delegated Kamenev and G. Ia. Sokolnikov to negotiate with the union and the other parties the formation of a new Soviet Provisional Government.24 This resolution, in essence, meant a surrender of the powers won in the October coup.
Later that day (October 29), Kamenev and Sokolnikov attended a meeting, convened by the Union of Railroad Employees, of eight parties and several intraparty organizations. Following the resolution of the Bolshevik Central Committee, they agreed to have the SRs and Mensheviks enter the Sovnarkom on condition that they accept the resolutions of the Second Congress of Soviets. The meeting designated a committee to work out the terms for the restructuring of the Sovnarkom. Its ultimatum met, late that evening the union ordered its branches to call off the strike but to remain on the alert.25
Any sense of relief the Bolsheviks may have received from this agreement vanished the next day when they learned that the union, supported by the socialist parties, had raised its stakes and now demanded that the Bolsheviks remove themselves from the government altogether. The Bolshevik Central Committee, still minus Lenin and Trotsky, spent most of the day discussing this demand. It did so in a highly charged atmosphere, for the pro-Kerensky forces under Ataman Krasnov were expected to break into the city at any moment. Seeking to salvage something, Kamenev proposed a compromise: Lenin would resign the chairmanship of the Sovnarkom in favor of the SR leader Victor Chernov, and the Bolsheviks would accept secondary portfolios in a coalition government dominated by SRs and Mensheviks.26
It is difficult to tell what would have become of these concessions were it not that late that evening news arrived that Krasnov’s forces had been beaten back.
The military threat lifted, Lenin and Trotsky now turned their attention to the catastrophic political situation created by the “capitulationist” policy of the Central Committee. When the committee reconvened on the evening of November 1, Lenin exploded with uncontrolled fury.27 “Kamenev’s policy,” he demanded, “must be stopped at once.” The committee should have carried out negotiations with the union as “diplomatic camouflage for military action”—that is, presumably not in good faith, but only to secure its assistance against Kerensky’s troops. The majority of the Central Committee was unmoved: Rykov ventured the opinion that the Bolsheviks would not be able to keep power. A vote was taken: ten members favored continuing the talks with the other socialist parties about a coalition government, and only three sided with Lenin (Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and probably Dzerzhinskii). Even Sverdlov opposed Lenin.
Lenin faced a humiliating defeat: his comrades were prepared to throw away the fruits of the October victory, and instead of establishing a “proletarian dictatorship,” would share power as minor partners with “petty bourgeois” parties. He was saved by Trotsky, who intervened with a clever compromise. Trotsky began with a tirade against concessions:
We are told we are incapable of constructive work. But if this is the case, then we should simply turn power over to those who had been right in fighting us. In fact, we have already accomplished a great deal. It is impossible, we are told, to sit on bayonets. But without bayonets one cannot manage either.… This whole petty bourgeois scum which now is unable to side with either this or that side, once it learns that our authority is strong, will come over to us, [the union] included.… The petty bourgeois mass is looking for a force to which to submit.28
As Alexandra liked to remind Nicholas: “Russia loves to feel the whip.”
Trotsky proposed a formula to gain time: negotiations over a coalition cabinet should continue with the Left SRs, the only party that accepted the October coup, but they should cease with the other socialist parties if no agreement was reached after one more attempt. This did not seem to be an unreasonable way out of the impasse and the proposal carried.
