Before setting its plans in motion, the Military Commission went back to the Central Committee of the SR Party for authorization. The Central Committee again refused. It justified its negative stand with vague explanations, all, in the ultimate analysis, grounded in fear. No one had defended the Provisional Government, it argued. Bolshevism was a disease of the masses which required time to overcome. This was no time for risky “adventures.”110
The Central Committee reconfirmed its intention to hold on January 5 a peaceful demonstration: the troops would be welcome but they had to come without arms. The committee counted on the Bolsheviks not daring to open fire on the demonstrators out of fear of provoking another Bloody Sunday. When, however, Onipko and his aides returned to the barracks with the news and asked the soldiers to come unarmed, they met with derision:
“Are you making fun of us, comrades?” they responded in disbelief. “You are asking us to a demonstration but tell us to come without weapons. And the Bolsheviks? Are they little children? They will for sure fire at unarmed people. And we: are we supposed to open our mouths and give them our heads for targets, or will you order us to run, like rabbits?”111
The soldiers refused to confront Bolshevik rifles and machine guns with bare hands and decided to sit out January 5 in their barracks.
The Bolsheviks, who got wind of these activities, took no chances and prepared for the decisive day as they would for battle. Lenin took personal command.
The first task was to win over or at least neutralize the military garrison. Bolshevik agitators sent to the barracks did not dare attack directly the Constituent Assembly because of its popularity; instead they argued that “counterrevolutionaries” were trying to exploit the Assembly to liquidate the soviets. With this argument they persuaded the Finnish Infantry Regiment to pass a resolution rejecting the slogan “All Power to the Constituent Assembly” and agreeing to support the Assembly only if it cooperated closely with the soviets. The Volhynian and Lithuanian regiments passed similar resolutions.112 This was the extent of Bolshevik success. It appears that no military unit of any size would condemn the Constituent Assembly as “counterrevolutionary.” The Bolsheviks, therefore, had to rely on hastily organized units of Red Guards and sailors. But Lenin did not trust Russians and gave instructions for the Latvians to be brought in: “the
On January 4, Lenin appointed N. I. Podvoiskii, the ex-chairman of the Bolshevik Military Organization, which had carried out the October coup in Petrograd, to constitute an Extraordinary Military Staff.114 Podvoiskii once again placed Petrograd under martial law and forbade public assemblies. Proclamations to this effect were posted throughout the city. Uritskii announced in
The Bolsheviks also sent agitators to the industrial establishments. Here they ran into hostility and incomprehension. In the largest factories—Putilov, Obukhov, Baltic, the Nevskii shipyard, and Lessner—workers had signed petitions of the Union for the Defense of the Constituent Assembly and could not understand why the Bolsheviks, with which many of them sympathized, had now turned against the Assembly.*
As the decisive day approached, the Bolshevik press kept up a steady drumbeat of warnings and threats. On January 3, it informed the population that on January 5 workers were expected to stay in their factories and soldiers in their barracks. The same day Uritskii announced that Petrograd was in danger of a counterrevolutionary coup organized by Kerensky and Savinkov, who had secretly returned to Petrograd for that purpose.* 115
On Friday, January 5, Petrograd, and especially the area adjoining Taurida Palace, resembled an armed encampment. The SR Mark Vishniak, who walked to Taurida in a procession of deputies, describes the sight that greeted his eyes:
