The nation which first achieves socialism will see all the frenzied powers of reaction hurled against it at the same time. It will be lost if it is not prepared to seize a sword, to answer bullet with bullet, so that the working class of other countries may have time to organise and rise in its turn.—JAURÈS
IT was one thing for the Bolsheviks to seize power, another for them to hold it. That they knew. The seizure of power did not mean the end of civil war. On the contrary, it meant that the civil war would soon burst into unexampled fury and stir class passions throughout the world. The audacity of Lenin and his Bolshevik Party shocked the traditional rulers of countries far beyond the frontiers of Russia. Those among them who were not speechless with indignation strained the limits of their national vocabularies for words of abuse. Their passion warped their judgement. None believed that the Bolsheviks could hold power, and naturally not one government in the world welcomed the November Revolution and the new force.
All the Allied Powers had welcomed the March Revolution with shoals of telegrams and thousands of speeches. That fact speaks volumes for their “understanding” of the affairs of Russia. Had the March Revolution been the kind their wishful thinking led them to believe, they would, indeed, have had cause for rejoicing. All thought their class in Russia had conquered power. But their Russian equivalents were incapable of conquering power. Events had proved that even when it fell into their laps they could not hold it. Now power had been seized by another class—a subject class, that in the judgement of these onlookers was incapable of ruling and should never have been permitted to acquire the opportunity. It was a disaster and a portent. It could not, must not, and would not be permitted to endure without a challenge which would make enemy governments into “co-belligerents” and foes into friends against the “common danger.”
That Lenin and Stalin and all Bolsheviks anticipated such a reception from the governments of the world can be accepted without question. Indeed one and all were convinced that the Revolution they had consummated by establishing the Soviet Republics was the precursor of world revolution—in fact, was the first stage of world revolution. But how, and when it would spread beyond the frontiers of Russia, none could tell, though hopes were universally high that it would spread quickly. What is more important to realise, if we are to understand the course of the subsequent struggle in the ranks of Bolshevism itself, is the fact that the Bolshevik Party was as yet far from being that “monolithic” party of Lenin’s conception in which unity on the basis of Marxist principles and methods provides a common mode of approach to all problems in the struggle for Socialism. It was still in the days of its young manhood, and would have to be greatly “purged,” and hammered in terrific inner struggles reflecting the stupendous upheaval designated as the opening stages of the world Socialist revolution, before its unity became in any sense “monolithic.”
There were three definite trends within the Bolshevik Party at the very moment that it became the leading party of the Revolution and took the reins of the newly-formed Soviet Government. The leaders in the Central Committee were Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov, and Dzerzhinsky, representing Lenin’s version of Marxism. Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Rykov formed a group with a policy at times indistinguishable from that of the Mensheviks, and Bucharin, Radek, Shliapnikov headed a group of “Left Communists.” Trotsky vacillated from group to group.
Circumstances united all groups in the hour of the conquest of power. Whatever their respective estimates of the Revolution, one and all were convinced that all the governments of the world were the enemies of the Soviet Government. Just as it was necessary to win the masses from the control of their class enemies within Russia, so they deemed it necessary to appeal to the masses in the rest of the world over the heads of the governments.
Lenin and Stalin had foreseen the probability of a Socialist State existing side by side with the capitalist states for a period, the duration of which none could tell. But at the moment of the seizure of power everyone saw this conquest as a smashing blow against international capitalism, in fact, as the transformation of the imperialist war into international civil war. It was a “break through” at the weakest link in the world capitalism. How far they would be able to “fan out” beyond the frontiers of Russia no one knew, no one could know. The differences between the groups in their attitude to this situation reveals the fundamental differences in their political philosophy, which would one day lead them into entirely opposite camps.
Lenin was prepared to exploit the “break through” to the full, realistically consolidate his forces, and get ready for the next stage of the struggle. He regarded the Bolshevik Party as the general staff of the proletariat waging an age-long war. He would therefore exploit this great victory to the uttermost, but the extent of that uttermost only life itself could reveal. Hence to try to define the full scope of the revolution would, he held, be fatal to it. This was precisely the basis of his disagreement with Trotsky at this time. Trotsky insisted that the Revolution must reach to the boundaries of western Europe or perish, and the question of accomplishing this task governed all his views of policy within Russia. The Kamenev and Zinoviev group did not believe that the proletariat of Russia could lead the Revolution. Hence their opposition to the Bolsheviks taking power, and their numerous vacillations which were always governed by this attitude of no-confidence. The Bucharin-Radek group idealised the principles of the Revolution and Socialism and called for a “revolutionary war” and the full Socialist programme when they had not the means for either.
All these different trends were not observable outside Russia. Two names echoed round the world in unison—Lenin and Trotsky, “the madmen of revolution,” and we outside Russia did not know that these names represented different policies and philosophies. So it was that in crisis after crisis, when these groups clashed, outsiders got the impression of “Bolshevism in disintegration” and were shocked beyond measure as the process of assimilation finally led the dissidents to the prisoners’ dock and the firing squad. But here were differences rooted deeply in the history of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, reaching back to the first rift of opinion out of which Lenin created the Bolshevik Party.
When Lenin at the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets took the first steps for the implementing of the policy of “Peace and Bread” for the people of Russia, it was at once a challenge to the warring powers and an appeal to the masses of all countries, over the heads of their governments, to bring the war to an end. “The Government of Russia proposes to all warring peoples immediately to conclude such a peace. It expresses its readiness at once and without the slightest delay to take the necessary steps towards the final confirmation of the terms of such a peace by the plenipotentiary conventions of the representatives of all countries and all nations. . . .” To that declaration the Congress of Soviets and all sections of the Bolshevik Party agreed.
No sooner had Lenin made this great move for peace than he at once turned to the land question which had wrecked governments and parties. Without hesitation the Bolsheviks simply legalised the seizure of land from the landlords which the peasants had largely accomplished before the party of revolution came to power. This action, like many others taken by the Bolsheviks, has been regarded as a violation of their principles and their programme. It was denounced by Socialists because it meant small-farm and not large-farm cultivation; but the critics failed to understand that at this stage of the struggle the land question was not one in which size and shape and methods of cultivation were paramount. The principal issue, as the Bolsheviks saw it, was to settle the question of ownership—to drive the landlords out of possession and shatter their political and economic power. The Bolsheviks would have much preferred to nationalise the land and organise agriculture on the collective farm basis but that was an utter impossibility at the then existing stage of development of both Russian industry and agriculture. First things had to come first, and the first thing of all was to settle the question of power. The peasants themselves had decided the means. The Bolsheviks, by legalising the means, won the peasants over completely to alliance with the workers of the towns.
Then came the proposals for the composition of the first Soviet Government—the Council of People’s Commissars, with Lenin as Chairman of the Council. Joseph V. Stalin was elected Commissar for Nationalities, though this did not mean he was released from other responsibilities. Nor did it mean that somewhere in the city there was a state Department of Nationalities with a staff of civil servants waiting for its new director to take charge. None of the new departments of the new State had offices, not even that of the chairman. Smolny Institute was still the headquarters of the general staff of the Revolution, who were busily directing the conquest of positions throughout the capital and extending the Revolution from district to district until it should reach the boundaries of the Russian Empire. The Council of Commissars acclaimed by the Congress had to find its accommodation as best it could.
Pestovsky, a Polish Bolshevik who became secretary to Stalin, tells how he obtained quarters for the Commissariat of Nationalities. Stalin gave him a mandate, with which he acquired half a large room at the Smolny Institute occupied in the other half by some commission. He found a table and some chairs, posted a notice on the door, “People’s Commissariat for Nationality Affairs,” borrowed 3,000 roubles from Trotsky, who had found money in the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and began to work. But it appears his work had little to do at this stage with nationality questions. That would come later when the Revolution had gone farther.
At this time Stalin was in Lenin’s office, another improvised affair. Here were the headquarters of everything, and here sat Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov, Trotsky, conferring, drafting declarations, issuing directives. There went forth a stream of declarations and decrees to serve as guides for the new commissariats once they were able to function. Stalin’s particular commissariat was to be guided by the following decree of the Council of Commissars:
(1) Equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; (2) Free selfdetermination of the peoples of Russia, including the right to secede and form an independent state; (3) Cancellation of all national and national-religious privileges and disabilities; (4) Free development of national minorities and groups of peoples who live in Russia.
It would take time for the constructive side of most of the decrees to come into operation. The striking-off of fetters, the liberation of the people from the laws and restrictions of the preceding régime, however, were immediate in their effect. At the same time it did not follow that because the Bolsheviks had seized power and received the support of the Second Congress of Soviets every other political force in the country acquiesced in the changes. Their opponents had certainly been out-generalled and outclassed. Most of the members of the Provisional Government were in prison. But the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, although in a state of disintegration, retained forces in all kinds of institutions which would provide rallying grounds for a counter-struggle. The old leaders of the First Soviet Congress refused to recognise the decisions of the Second Congress, and used Soviet funds to finance strikes against the Soviet Government. They controlled the Railwaymen’s Union, and persuaded large sections of the railwaymen to refuse to operate the railways. A similar strike was put in force by the telegraph workers and the staff of the telephone exchange. The bank staffs refused to function. The heads of the Kerensky army refused to obey Soviet orders. This latter fact led to the now famous occasion on which Lenin and Stalin, during the night of November 9th, conversed at length over the ticker-telegraph with the Commander-in-Chief, General Dukhonin.
I recall [says Stalin] how Lenin, Krylenko and I went to staff headquarters in Petrograd . . . It was an anxious moment. Dukhonin and the Army headquarters categorically refused to carry out the orders of the Council of Commissars. . . . As regards the army of twelve million men under the control of the so-called army committees—it was unknown what their attitude would be . . . I recall how after a short pause at the wire, Lenin’s face became lit up with an unusual light. It was clear that he had made his decision. “Let us go to the radio station,” said Lenin. “It will render us a service. We will issue a special order removing General Dukhonin and appointing in his place as Commander-in-Chief, Comrade Krylenko and we will appeal to the soldiers direct, over the heads of their officers, to arrest the generals, to suspend military operations, to establish contact with the Austro-German soldiers and to take the business of peace into their own hands. . . . ”
As soon as Krylenko arrived at the front Dukhonin was arrested and lynched by an infuriated mob of soldiers.
When Stalin was not by Lenin’s side he was on some mission for him. The railwaymen’s strike engineered by the Mensheviks had to be ended. Kamenev had been sent to confer, but without avail, and Stalin was despatched—with complete success. It was Stalin whom Lenin sent to Finland to aid the Finnish Revolution; it was Stalin who was sent as plenipotentiary of the Soviet Government to negotiate with the Ukrainian Rada and bring about its collapse in favour of a Ukrainian Soviet Government.
The fate of the Revolution seemed to be in the balance. Moscow quickly followed in the wake of Petrograd, and on November 15th, after fierce fighting for the Kremlin, the Soviets were victorious. On the 10th of December Soviets were established in Siberia. On the 12th a Monarchist conspiracy was discovered in Petrograd. On December 22nd General Kornilov and General Denikin joined General Alexiev in the Don region to lead the forces of counter-revolution, while Generals Kaledin and Dutov were supporting counter-revolution in the Ukraine.
Thus revolution and counter-revolution were sweeping across the country, and in these circumstances there could not be much regularising of Government departments. The commissars were communist leaders, and all of them were sent hither and thither under the direction of the group in Lenin’s office. These men had to direct a civil war, create the apparatus of government, organise an army, develop the Bolshevik Party with the utmost speed, and travel along uncharted routes of policy.
In these gigantic tasks they possessed an advantage which had not accrued to the Provisional Government when it was faced with the problem of creating new machinery of administration. Through the genius of Lenin the Bolsheviks had quickly recognised the Soviets as the mass-created means of government when every other political party and group was turning from them and pinning its faith to Western Parliamentarism. Here, in the Soviets, were expressed the will and power of the people, and on these the Bolsheviks relied. Based not on residential qualifications but on labour activity in fields and factory and workshop, in Army and Navy, the Soviets’ power was to do as well as to say what should be done. The great majority of the people might be able neither to read nor write, but all could see and hear and know their neighbours at work or under arms. They elected their deputies in meetings by show of hand. The meetings which elected the deputies could recall them. The Soviets were the barometers of mass opinion, and the means of translating opinion into action. They were the great reservoirs of human energy from which the Bolsheviks had to draw and on which they had to depend for victory. In this lay the Bolshevik strength, and once they had won a majority they never lost it. They not merely relied on the Soviets, but infused into them their own energy and ideas and drew the best elements of the Soviets into the Bolshevik Party. The construction of the apparatus of government was not something imposed from Petrograd, but a calling to life of the means of administration from the masses in the Soviets.
In the first months and years of the Revolution the Soviets were also the battlegrounds of the parties, and issue after issue had to be fought out there. Had the Bolshevik Party at this time been the “monolithic” party it aimed to be, its task would still have been stupendous. But its own immaturity increased its difficulties. At the very moment when the forces of counter-revolution were gathering and the issue of power was still in the balance there developed out of the divisions in the leadership of the Party a crisis which led almost to the defeat of Lenin and his group.
The appeal for international peace negotiations was rejected by the Allied Powers. The Soviet Government thereupon decided to start its own peace negotiations with the Central Powers. On the 15th of December an armistice was signed, and another attempt was then made by radio to get the Allies to participate in the negotiations. This effort was ignored. Meanwhile millions of leaflets were distributed among the German and Austrian troops and fraternisation spread along the thousand-miles front. The Soviet Government declared for a peace without annexations and without indemnities, and for subject-nations to have the right of self-determination. The Soviet delegation was received by the delegates of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. On December 25th the Quadruple Alliance announced the acceptance of the principles laid down by the Russians. Trotsky, now Commissar for Foreign Affairs, headed the Soviet delegation which met the delegates of the Quadruple Alliance, headed by Von Kuelman and Hofmann, at Brest-Litovsk. Another of Trotsky’s great days had arrived. The stage was his and he made tremendous use of it. He turned the conference into a forum from which he addressed the workers of Europe over the heads of the German leaders. But such fireworks could be only of short duration. What then? What were the precise terms of peace to be? It was not Karl Liebknecht who was on the opposite side of the table, but the Prussian General Staff, and the German Revolution was slow in getting on the wing; revolutionary developments were certainly on the way, but far from fast enough to affect the negotiations.
On January 7th, 1918, Lenin urged the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party to accept the terms of peace proposed by the Germans, severe though they were. “At all costs,” he argued, “the Revolution must get a breathing space.” The terms meant the loss of considerable territory, stretching from Courland to the Ukraine and including all Poland and Lithuania and part of White Russia; also the payment of an indemnity. The Ukraine was already declared to be an independent Ukrainian National Republic, with which the Quadruple Alliance would deal separately.
Now came the clash within the ranks of the Bolshevik leaders. Bucharin, Radek, and Piatakov rejected the proposals outright and demanded a revolutionary war against the Germans, for which they found support outside the ranks of the Bolsheviks in all the oppositional forces arrayed against the Soviet Power: Trotsky stood between Lenin’s group and Bucharin’s with a new slogan—“Neither Peace nor War.” Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov denounced the Bucharin group as romanticists. Lenin said Trotsky’s proposal was futile word-spinning and the refusal to accept the German terms would lead to more severe demands, such as the loss of Esthonia and Dvinsk. At first the combination of Bucharin’s and Trotsky’s supporters secured a majority, and Trotsky proceeded with his forensic efforts at the Peace Conference. He now made his famous declaration based on “Neither Peace nor War,” and refused to sign the Treaty.
On February 15th, he wired for instructions. Lenin replied, “I should like to consult Stalin before replying to your question.” Later, conversing with Trotsky over the wires, Lenin said, “Stalin has just arrived. We will confer with him and give our joint answer.” On February 17th the Germans declared the armistice at an end, and their armies began to march precisely as Lenin had said they would. Lenin and Stalin announced Soviet readiness to accept the terms. On February 21st the Germans answered with an ultimatum giving the Soviet Government forty-eight hours in which to accept new conditions, and meanwhile their armies continued the invasion. On the 23rd of February the Central Committee met again and Lenin secured a majority of one vote. The next day the All-Russian Executive of the Soviets by 126 votes to 85, with 26 abstentions and 2 absentees, accepted the German terms.
Thus events had revealed again that the Bolshevik Party was far from being thoroughly united. The old struggle which had marked the history of the Social Democratic Labour Party until the split of 1912 was now raging furiously within the Bolshevik Party itself. And as before, Lenin not only won the struggle but raised his prestige enormously. Again in a decisive hour he had saved the Revolution when Trotsky and his supporters had nearly lost it. This time, however, Lenin did not have to fight single-handed. Stalin and Sverdlov were his principal lieutenants. Dzerzhinsky, feeling bitterly the position of the Poles, had refrained from voting. But the Bucharin group carried their opposition to great lengths, mobilised the Moscow Committee of the Party, some members of the Central Committee, and a number of Commissars against Lenin and his group, and even going so far as preparing to arrest and imprison Lenin, Stalin, and Sverdlov.
Another Party Congress was called. It met on March 6th, 1918. Reporting to this Congress Lenin said:
The severe crisis which our party is now experiencing, owing to the formation of a “Left” Opposition within it, is one of the gravest crises the Russian Revolution has experienced. This crisis will be overcome. Under no circumstances will it break the neck of our Party, or of our Revolution. . . . The revolution will not come as quickly as we expected. . . . We must be able to reckon with the fact that the world Socialist revolution cannot begin so easily in the advanced countries as the Revolution began in Russia—the land of Nicholas and Rasputin. . . . But it is wrong, absurd, without preparations to start a revolution in a country in which capitalism is developed, which has produced a democratic culture and has organised every man. We are only just approaching the painful period of the beginning of the Socialist Revolution. This is a fact. . . .
Yes, we will see the international revolution, but for the time being it is a very good fairy tale, a very beautiful fairy tale. But I ask, is it becoming for a serious revolutionary to believe in fairy tales? . . . It will be a good thing if the German proletariat will be able to attack. But have you measured, have you discovered the instrument with which to determine whether the German revolution will break out on such and such a day? No, you have not, and we have not. You are staking everything on this card. If the revolution breaks out everything is saved. Of course! But if it does not turn out as we desire, if it takes it into its head not to achieve victory to-morrow, what then? Then the masses will say to you: you behaved like egotists—you staked everything on a fortunate turn of events that did not take place, you have proved unfit for the situation that actually arose in place of an international revolution, which will inevitably come, but which has not opened yet. . . . You are assisting German imperialism, because you have surrendered wealth amounting to millions—guns and shells—and anybody who had seen the incredibly painful state of the army could have foretold this. . . . Having learned this we shall overcome our split, our crisis.
Of Trotsky’s position he said:
We must discern two aspects in his activities: when he started negotiations at Brest and made excellent use of them for the purpose of agitation, we were all in agreement with him. . . . But it had been arranged between us that we would hold out until the Germans presented us with an ultimatum and that when the ultimatum was presented we would yield. . . . In so far as Trotsky’s tactics were directed towards playing for time, they were correct; they became wrong when the state of war was declared to be at an end and peace was not signed.
The Congress supported Lenin’s views. The treaty was signed on March 2nd, 1918, and ratified by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on March 17th. The question of “Socialism in one country,” foreshadowed at the July-August Congress by Stalin when he declared that “Russia may lead the way to Socialism,” had not been formally raised during the crisis, but it is impossible to overlook the fact that circumstances had thrust it forward in the most concrete form. For if the revolution in Europe still belonged to the realm of “Fairy tales,” then the Russian Revolution had to make up its mind whether it would be a Socialist revolution or surrender to capitalism. Lenin’s opening sentence to the triumphant Congress of Soviets which took into its hands the Government of Russia—“We will now begin, the construction of Socialism”—could leave no doubt as to where he stood in the matter. How far they would get with it would depend on the length of the “breathing space,” but there could be no doubt as to whither they were going under his leadership. Nevertheless, all the incalculable factors were uppermost. The Revolution had broken through the structure of world capitalism. It was now fighting for its existence, and the conditions of the fight were determining the answers the revolutionaries could give to all questions. Trotsky’s attempt to impose the arbitrary dimensions of Europe as a pre-requisite of victory within Russia had jeopardised the Revolution and cost Soviet Russia the loss of considerable territory and people. Now all attention was concentrated on holding the power that had been won and on the question of how quickly the working classes of other countries would come to Russia’s aid.
There is no evidence of bitter relations between Lenin and Trotsky or between Stalin and Trotsky, although throughout the crisis Stalin had stood firmly alongside Lenin. Trotsky, however, resigned from his post as Commissar for Foreign Affairs and became Commissar for War. The “left” Social Revolutionaries who were members of the Government resigned in protest against the signing of the peace treaty with Germany. The Government was now a one-party government although the community was not yet a one-party community. The Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, Kadets, and Octobrists were dying organisations, but still striving desperately not to die.
While the crisis over peace was at its height these people seized on another big issue as a means of combating the Bolsheviks. All the parties, including the Bolsheviks, had been committed to the calling of the Constituent Assembly. The Provisional Government had continuously postponed calling it. Now the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were more than ever anxious for it to meet. It was called, and met on January 5th, 1918. The Bolsheviks were in a minority, and the parties of the majority called for the Assembly to displace the Soviets. The Bolsheviks demanded that the Assembly endorse the passing of power to the Soviets and then dissolve; after which they withdrew. Late in the night the Red Guards at the door of the hall intimated to the President of the remaining members that it was time to go home. The Constituent Assembly passed into the night and nobody shed a tear for its passing. Power rested with the Soviets.
This calling of the Assembly only to dissolve it may seem a strange act on the part of the Bolsheviks. It has to be remembered, however, that for twenty years the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party had been demanding a Constituent Assembly, and that therefore many workers and peasants still saw in this gathering their hope of the future. The Bolsheviks were convinced that when it met and openly revealed to the masses that it would not recognise the power of the Soviets they would have no further thought for it. And in this the Bolsheviks were entirely right.
The respite gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to consolidate their forces a little. Lenin used it to introduce his programme of development. Contrary to a still popular misconception, he did not propose to “leap to communism,” nor even to nationalise all industry, but held firmly to the programme he had outlined on his return to Russia—nationalisation of the banks, workers’ control of industry, land to the peasants, peace. In December the Supreme Council of National Economy was formed, composed of representatives of the Trades Unions, factory committees, Government technical experts and specialists. Its task was to bring order out of chaos in the factories and work out plans for nationalisation in the future. In a remarkable speech Lenin summed up the immediate situation and its tasks in these words:
An extraordinarily difficult and dangerous situation in international affairs; the necessity of manœuvring and retreating; a period of waiting for new outbreaks of the revolution which is maturing in the West at a painfully slow pace; within the country a period of slow construction and ruthless “tightening up,” of prolonged and persistent struggle waged by stern, proletarian discipline against the menacing petit-bourgeois laxity and anarchy—such in brief are the distinguishing features of the special stage of the Socialist Revolution we are now living in. . . . Try to compare the slogans that arise from the specific conditions of the present stage viz: manœuvring, retreat, wait, build slowly, ruthlessly tighten up, stern discipline, smash laxity—with the ordinary every day concept “revolutionary.”
Beyond the nationalisation of the banks and the land no more than 500 individual enterprises had been nationalised by July 1918. But an unprecedented storm was gathering that was to force the Soviet Government into what has been designated “War Communism,” when nationalisation, requisitioning, and rationing were to become drastic political weapons for the maintenance of Soviet power.
Shortly after the great days at the beginning of November 1917, General Alexiev, the Chief of Staff of Kerensky’s army, made his way to the Don region and began the organisation of the “Volunteer People’s Army” to fight the Soviet Government. Then, in December, the Mensheviks of Tiflis captured the local arsenal. Alexiev was joined by Generals Kornilov and Denikin. The Ukrainian National Government supported the Don Cossacks against the Ukrainian Soviet Government, with its headquarters at Kharkov. The Russian Soviet Government moved from Petrograd to Moscow as the German forces threatened to march on Petrograd. During February and March, 1918, British troops were landed at Murmansk. General Mannerheim invited the Germans to send him military assistance to crush the Finnish Revolution. Thirty thousand troops under General Von der Goltz arrived, and during March the Finnish Revolution was crushed. In the first week of July the “Left” Social Revolutionaries and the anarchists staged an armed revolt in Moscow, denouncing the Bolsheviks as “betrayers of the Revolution.” A corps of Czecho-Slovaks (Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war) seized Chelyabinsk on the trans-Siberian railway. The Social Revolutionaries murdered V. Volardarsky, the People’s Commissar of the press. The Germans were in control of the Ukraine. The Turks were invading the Caucasus. The food situation was becoming increasingly serious as the forces of counter-revolution closed in from every side. They were threatening Tzaritsyn (now Stalingrad) and the whole system of food-supply from the south when Stalin was charged with the task of securing the Republic’s larder.
Next: XI. The Political Soldier