Stalin: A Biography

Yet the vote went in favour of Lenin by ten votes to two. Stalin was among his supporters; he had left his association with Kamenev entirely behind him. He was convinced that the time had come to seize power. His mood can be gauged by the article he published in Rabochi put (‘The Workers’ Way’ — this was the successor to Pravda and was under his editorial control). Stalin had high hopes:⁴

The revolution is alive. Having broken up the Kornilov ‘mutiny’ and shaken up the front, it has flown over the towns and enlivened the factory districts — and now it is spreading into the countryside, brushing aside the hateful props of landlord power.

This was not an explicit call for insurrection. Stalin did not want to present Kerenski with a motive to close down the Bolshevik press again; but he warned that Kornilov’s action had been the first attempt at counter-revolution and that more would follow. Collaborationism, by which he meant the assistance given to the Provisional Government by Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, had been found politically bankrupt. The Kadets had been shown to be ‘a nest of and a spreader of counter-revolution’. Soviets and army committees should prepare themselves to repel ‘a second conspiracy of the Kornilovshchina’. Stalin was adamant that ‘the full might of the great Revolution’ was available for the struggle.⁵

The Central Committee met again on 16 October. Representatives of Bolshevik party bodies in Petrograd and the provinces were invited to attend. Lenin again made the case for insurrection. He claimed that the moment was ripe even though there were reports that workers were unenthusiastic about a seizure of power. Lenin argued that ‘the mood of the masses’ was always changeable and that the party should be guided by evidence that ‘the entire European proletariat’ was on its side. He added that the Russian working class had come over to the Bolsheviks since the Kornilov Affair. Ranged against him were Central Committee members inspired by Kamenev and Zinoviev. Lenin’s critics denied that the Bolsheviks were strong enough to move against the Provisional Government and that a revolutionary situation existed elsewhere in Europe. Even Petrograd was an insecure citadel for Bolshevism. Zinoviev maintained: ‘We don’t have the right to take the risk and gamble everything at once.’⁶

Stalin supported Lenin:⁷

It could be said that it’s necessary to wait for a [counter-revolutionary] attack, but there must be understanding about what an attack is: the raising of bread prices, the sending of Cossacks into the Donets district and suchlike all constitute an attack. Until when are we to wait if no military attack occurs? What is proposed by Kamenev and Zinoviev objectively leads to the opportunity for the counter-revolution to get organised; we’ll go on to an endless retreat and lose the entire revolution.

He called upon the Central Committee to have ‘more faith’: ‘There are two lines here: one line holds a course for the victory of revolution and relies on Europe, the other doesn’t believe in revolution and counts merely upon staying as an opposition.’⁸ Sverdlov and other Central Committee members also came to Lenin’s aid; and although Trotski was absent because of his duties in the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Lenin won the debate after midnight. The voting again went ten to two in his favour.