The Russian Revolution полностью

The CEC which the Bolsheviks had handpicked in October thought of itself as a socialist Duma empowered to monitor the government’s actions, appoint the cabinet, and legislate.* The day after the coup, it proceeded to work out its statutes, providing for an elaborate structure of plenums, presidia, and commissions of all sorts. Lenin thought such parliamentary pretensions ridiculous. From the first day he ignored the CEC whether in appointing officials or in issuing decrees. This can be illustrated by the casual manner in which he elected the CEC’s new chairman. He decided that Sverdlov would be the best man to replace Kamenev. He had no reason to doubt that the CEC would approve his choice, but since he could not be absolutely certain, he bypassed it. He summoned Sverdlov: “Iakov Mikhailovich,” he said, “I would like you to become the chairman of the CEC: what do you say?” Apparently, Sverdlov said yes, for Lenin promised that after the Central Committee had approved the choice, he would be “carefully” voted in by the CEC’s Bolshevik majority. Lenin instructed him to count heads and make certain that the entire Bolshevik faction turned up for the vote.³¹ All went as planned, and on November 8, Sverdlov was “elected” by a vote of 19–14.* In this post, which he held until his death in March 1919, Sverdlov ensured that the CEC ratified all party decisions after perfunctory discussion.

Lenin similarly ignored the CEC in choosing replacements for the commissars who had resigned from the cabinet: these he handpicked on November 8–11 after casual consultation with associates but without asking the CEC’s approval.

He still faced the critical issue of the legislative authority of the CEC, its right to approve or veto government decrees.

In the first two weeks of the new regime, Chairman Kamenev had managed to insulate the Sovnarkom from the CEC by convoking it on short notice and failing to provide it beforehand with an agenda. During this brief interlude, the Sovnarkom legislated without bothering to obtain the CEC’s approval. Indeed, government procedures at the time were so lax that some Bolsheviks who were not even members of the cabinet issued decrees on their own initiative without informing the Sovnarkom, let alone the Soviet Executive. Two such decrees brought about a constitutional crisis. The first was the Decree on the Press, issued on October 27, the initial day of new government. It bore the signature of Lenin, although it had been drafted by Lunacharskii, almost certainly with Lenin’s encouragement and approval.† This remarkable document asserted that the “counterrevolutionary press”—a term which it did not define, but which obviously applied to all papers that did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the October coup—was causing harm, for which reason “temporary and emergency measures had to be taken to stop the torrent of filth and slander.” Newspapers that agitated against the new authority were to be closed. “As soon as the new order has been firmly established,” the decree went on, “all administrative measures affecting the press will be lifted [and] the press will be granted full freedom …”

The country had grown accustomed since February 1917 to violence against newspapers and printing plants. First, the “reactionary” press was attacked and closed; later, in July, the same fate befell Bolshevik organs. Once in power, the Bolsheviks expanded and formalized such practices. On October 26, the Military-Revolutionary Committee carried out pogroms of the oppositional press. It closed the uncompromisingly anti-Bolshevik Nashe obschee delo and arrested Vladimir Burtsev, its editor. It also suppressed the Menshevik Den’ the Kadet Rech’ the right-wing Novoe vremia, and the right-of-center Birzhevye vedomosti. The printing plants of Den’ and Rech’ were confiscated and turned over to Bolshevik journalists.³² Most of the suppressed dailies promptly reappeared under different names.

The Decree on the Press went much further: if enforced, it would have eliminated in Russia the independent press whose origins went back to the reign of Catherine II. The outrage was universal. In Moscow, the Bolshevik controlled Military-Revolutionary Committee went so far as to overrule it, declaring on November 21 that the emergency was over and the press once again could enjoy full freedom of expression.³³ In the CEC, the Bolshevik Iurii Larin denounced the decree and called for its revocation.³⁴ On November 26, 1917, the Union of Writers issued a one-time newspaper, Gazeta-Protest, in which some of Russia’s leading writers expressed anger at this unprecedented attempt to stifle freedom of expression. Vladimir Korolenko wrote that as he read Lenin’s ukaz “blood rushed to his face from shame and indignation”: