Ryabtsev made careful preparations for his offensive. Martial law was proclaimed in the city and throughout the Moscow Military Area. All the garrisons in the area were ordered to prepare for action and to dispatch troops to Moscow as soon as they were called for. Ryabtsev telephoned all the regimental commanders of the Moscow garrison ordering them immediately to form detachments and to send them to the Alexandrovsky Military School to be placed at the command of Colonel Kravchuk, his second in command. Detachments of university students and officers were also called to the Alexandrovsky Military School. A detachment of cadets commanded by artillery officers who had deserted the day before, was sent to the Khodinka camp with instructions to attack the 1st Artillery Brigade and to capture the guns or, failing that, to put them out of action.
Late at night on October 27 the cadets succeeded in disarming the brigade’s outposts and in forcing their way into the barrack yard of the 2nd Artillery Detachment. Some of the cadets began to remove the locks from the guns, while others rushed to the stables to seize the horses. Here one sentry was killed and another severely wounded. The soldiers then opened fire on the cadets. At the sound of the firing, the artillerymen in all the barracks rushed out with their rifles, dressing as they ran. The cadets retreated, keeping their pursuers off with rifle fire. They succeeded in hauling away two guns without shells and in damaging several more. The raid incensed the artillerymen who demanded that they should be sent to the city to fight the cadets. By order of the Military Revolutionary Committee the brigade immediately proceeded to erect barricades. By the morning of the 28th hastily built fortifications rose around the brigade’s headquarters, and later the 5th Battery started out for the Moscow Soviet.
While the cadets were trying to seize the artillery, other White units began to deploy round the Kremlin with the object of occupying as wide a radius as possible. Their advanced detachments appeared near the Moscow Soviet. They succeeded in occupying the whole of the Arbat. Their patrols roamed from the Krimsky Bridge to the Smolensk Market. They captured the large army food depot on the corner of Ostozhenka, which supplied provisions for the entire garrison.
Ryabtsev sent a detachment to capture the Borodinsky Bridge near the Bryansk Railway Station in the Dorogomilovo District. The night before, the Committee for Requisitioning Arms set up by the Dorogomilovo Revolutionary Committee had arrested and disarmed three army officers, but had allowed them to go free on their pledging their word of honour that they would not fight against the revolution. About an hour and a half later the Whites appeared outside the Headquarters of the Revolutionary Committee. The guard barely managed to warn the members of the Revolutionary Committee, but it was too late to offer resistance. The Committee members extinguished the lights and made their escape in the dark. Three of them were captured, however. They were taken to the Soviet where an officer approached them and enquired mockingly:
“Do you recognise me?”
This was one of the officers who had given his word of honour not to fight against the revolution. It transpired that the disarmed officers had gone direct to the 5th Cadet School where a half-company was being formed for the purpose of capturing the bridge, and it was they who had led the cadets to the Headquarters of the Revolutionary Committee.
The Borodinsky Bridge was also captured by the Whites. This was an extremely important gain for them, as reinforcements from the Western Front were expected to arrive at the Bryansk Railway Station, to which the bridge led.
The “Committee of Public Safety” approved of all the measures taken by Ryabtsev. Rudnyev called upon all the Regimental and Company Committees to obey only the orders of the Staff of the Moscow Military Area. With the proclamation of martial law in Moscow he issued a manifesto to the population in which he put the blame for everything on the Bolsheviks. It was they, he said, who had refused to withdraw the soldiers from the Kremlin; they had “looted” army stores and had seized rifles, machine guns and ammunition, and the Bolshevik Military Revolutionary Committee had thwarted all attempts to reach an agreement.
All this was a downright falsehood. Rudnyev had already called for active operations the previous day, long before the rupture of the negotiations. For the purpose of distributing manifestos of this type the “Committee of Public Safety” had set up an Information Bureau consisting of three men: Rudnyev, Sub-Lieutenant V. V. Scherr, a Menshevik, and L. K. Ramzin, the ex-Vice-Minister for War who had arrived from Petrograd after the fall of the Winter Palace, and was now a member of the Moscow City Duma. This Bureau published the Bulletin of the Moscow Committee of Public Safety, of which four numbers were issued. It circulated false information and fantastic communiqués which were reprinted in full in the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik press.
To his own surprise Rudnyev, an utter mediocrity, found himself in the very centre of the whirlpool of events. The Provisional Government had fallen and had entrusted him with the task of continuing the struggle.
Prokopovich, the ex-Minister for Food, discharged from custody, arrived in Moscow. The ex-Vice-Ministers who had not been arrested also appeared. All the Ministries were represented in Moscow except the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Thrown out of office by the revolution, these Ministers spent hours conferring in Rudnyev’s office.
Rudnyev imagined that he was the saviour of the country. He cherished the idea of re-establishing the government in Moscow, and carried away by ambition, he had visions of himself at the head of the government of all the Russias. At 11:45 p.m. on October 27, he informed General Headquarters that:
“two days of effort to avert civil war only resulted in strengthening the position of the Bolsheviks and diminishing our chances. Today the Committee of Public Safety decided: relying on armed force, to attempt to crush the Bolsheviks. An ultimatum was presented to them at 7 p.m.”[1]
Demanding prompt assistance, for the struggle would not be an easy one, Rudnyev continued:
“Apart from the task of fighting the Bolsheviks, Moscow is faced with the necessity of organising a Provisional Government. The Committee [of Public Safety—Ed.] proposes immediately to set up a technical staff for the purpose of providing the front and the country with provisions and supplies, and to ensure the democracy in the very near future the opportunity of expressing its will regarding the character of the future government by convening a congress of public organisations, the democratic administration and the Soviets.”[2]
This would-be Napoleon realised that everything depended upon whether the Bolsheviks in Moscow would be suppressed or not. All the counter-revolutionary forces were concentrated with the aim of seizing the Kremlin, which would give them control of the arsenal, secure their rear, and leave them free to develop the offensive.
The cordon of cadets which had been placed around the Kremlin on the night of the 26th was opened only for a few moments in the morning of October 27 to allow the company of the 193rd Regiment to leave. From then on the siege was unbroken. Ryabtsev violated the terms agreed to during the negotiations. Within the Kremlin were located the officers’ hospital, the Moscow Assize Court, and several other government offices. The officers of the battalion of the 56th Regiment, many of whom supported the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, had remained, and they kept urging the soldiers to surrender. Moreover, there were two armoured cars in the Kremlin commanded by officers who declared themselves to be neutral. All this served to weaken the Kremlin garrison. Towards evening on October 27 fresh groups of cadets arrived and the ring around the Kremlin closed in. Already before the rupture of negotiations with Ryabtsev, the Military Revolutionary Committee had received the following telephone message from Berzin, the commandant of the Kremlin:
“The cadets of the Alexandrovsky School and of the Cadet School are determined to seize the Kremlin at all costs. They are arming, and officers are teaching students to shoot. They want the colonel to leave the Kremlin. Place the regiment at the gates, at all events at. . . .”[3]
At this point the telephone message broke off. The Intelligence Department of the Military Revolutionary Committee reported the following:
“Kuleshov, the member on duty from the Bakers’ Union, informed us of the following: at a meeting of cadets held in the Alexandrovsky Military School it was resolved to occupy the Kremlin tonight and arrest the Revolutionary Committee. Operations are to be commenced immediately.”[4]
The Military Revolutionary Committee had intended to send reinforcements to the Kremlin and even contemplated sending artillery, but it was too late. Ryabtsev presented his ultimatum.
At about 6 a.m. on October 28, a soldier from the Armoured Car Detachment came hurrying to Sub-Lieutenant Berzin, who remained at the head of the revolutionary garrison in the Kremlin, and informed him that he was urgently wanted on the telephone. Berzin was surprised to hear this as his communications had been cut for some time and believed that the telephone of the Armoured Car Detachment was also out of order. He hastened to the detachment and on the way observed the two armoured cars, on each of which a gun and a machine gun were mounted. The engines were running. As soon as he entered the room the officer in command of the detachment handed him the telephone receiver and said:
“The Commander-in-Chief wishes to speak to you.”
Ryabtsev told Berzin over the telephone that the insurgents, including the Artillery Brigade, had been disarmed.
“I demand the immediate surrender of the Kremlin,” he continued. “The entire city is in my hands. All the members of the Military Revolutionary Committee have been arrested. I give you twenty-five minutes in which to surrender. If you fail to comply I will open artillery fire.”
The whole situation—the lull in the city and the absence of communication with the centre owing to the telephone wires to the Soviet having been cut—led Berzin, as he afterwards stated, to believe that what Ryabstev had said was true. This irresolute Sub-Lieutenant, who had only recently joined the Bolshevik Party and had had no revolutionary experience, was taken in by Ryabtsev’s bluff and yielded to his demands without the slightest resistance. Even if the city had really been in Ryabtsev’s hands, the surrender of a fortress which had a garrison in good fighting condition and an adequate supply of arms was downright treachery and a stab in the back of the revolutionary troops. The treacherous voluntary surrender of the Kremlin immeasurably worsened the position of the revolutionary forces. After obtaining Berzin’s agreement to surrender the Kremlin, Ryabtsev demanded that the Troitsky and Borovitsky Gates be opened and that five hostages be placed at each, that all guards be removed, that all arms be surrendered, and that the 56th Regiment should be lined up at the Alexander II monument. He repeated the threat to bombard the Kremlin if these demands were not complied with.
At the meetings of the Company Committees the soldiers protested against the acceptance of the ultimatum.
“We shall not surrender the Kremlin,” they said, “We have got to die just the same. Far better to die fighting.”
Nevertheless, Berzin succeeded in persuading the soldiers to lay down their arms. He went to the Troitsky Gate and told the soldiers on guard there that the Kremlin was to be surrendered. One of the men rushed at him with his rifle raised and shouted:
“Traitor!”
He swung his rifle to bring the butt down on the Sub-Lieutenant’s head, but checked himself, threw the rifle away, clutched his head with both his hands and stood aside. The other members of the guard followed him with drooping heads.
As soon as Berzin opened the Borovitsky Gate the officers outside rushed at him, tore off his epaulets, snatched his weapons from him and assaulted him. Only after he appealed to a general who was among the crowd of officers and informed him that not all the guards had yet been removed was he allowed to go back into the Kremlin.
Having gained entrance to the Kremlin by fraud, the Whites brutally vented their spite on the soldiers. They lined up the unarmed men in the square, ostensibly for roll call, and without warning opened fire upon them with machine guns. This happened simultaneously in two places. The men of the 56th Regiment were shot down at the Alexander II monument, and the soldiers of the arsenal in the courtyard of the arsenal. The story of the surrender of the Kremlin to the cadets was told by a soldier of the 56th Regiment.
“About 7 o’clock in the morning, on October 28,” he said, “a man came running into the barracks of the 56th Regiment in the Kremlin shouting that the Troitsky Gate had been opened. The soldiers jumped from their bunks and saw cadets and officers running into the square from all sides, hauling up machine guns and training them on the barracks.
“An armoured car appeared and also trained its machine guns on the soldiers. The soldiers lost their heads and began to shout, accusing the officers of treachery. Resistance was useless.”[5]
A few moments later cadets rushed into the barracks shouting:
“Out into the yard, every one of you, without arms!”
When all the five companies had mustered in the square the cadets, yelling and swearing, lined them up in companies facing the Chudov Monastery.
At the same time machine guns were hurriedly put in position, one near the Tsar Cannon, another near the wall of the Chudov Monastery, a third at the entrance to the barracks, and a fourth near the wall of the arsenal.
Then, surrounding the soldiers, the cadets began to search them thoroughly, turning out their pockets, and searching the leggings of their boots. The cadets treated the soldiers mercilessly, some beating them with rifle butts and some punching them in the face with their fists.
The soldiers realised that they had been brought out into the square unarmed to be killed by the infuriated Whiteguards.
After thoroughly searching the men, these gangs of Whites stepped aside. A command rang out: “Fire!”
The machine guns began to splutter. Shouts were heard:
“Murder! Save yourselves!”
Somebody shouted:
“Lie down!”
The soldiers to a man dropped to the ground, but this did not save them. The firing went on while they were on the ground. Some of them tried to seek safety in the barracks. They stumbled over their prostrate comrades, many of whom were dead and wounded, but a machine gun fired point-blank at the barrack door.
The firing continued for about fifteen minutes.
“Lying on the ground,” the above-mentioned soldier related, “I heard my wounded comrades shrieking with pain and saw them writhing in the agony of death.
“The clock on the Spassky Tower loudly tolled out the hour of nine. The firing ceased.
“‘Get up, you swine! What are you lying there for!’ I heard somebody shouting.
“I raised my head and realised that I was alive and not even wounded. I took off my cap, looked at it, and thought to myself: ‘Not touched,‘ and put it on again. A frightful scene spread out before me. Men in the throes of death, the groans and the hoarse cries of the wounded who were crawling on the ground. . . .”[6]
A soldier from the Kremlin arsenal has supplemented these reminiscences with the following:
“The cadets lined up the arsenal men in the courtyard, called the roll and then led us out into the square between the arsenal and the barracks of the 56th Regiment.
“An officer—the commander—came up. Without greeting the arsenal men he received the report of the senior cadet and proceeded further to the Tsar Cannon.
“We stood there for about an hour after that.
“Another officer came up. A command: ‘Shun!’
“The cadets hauled two machine guns from the arsenal and placing them to the right and left, trained them on us.
“No command was given.
“Suddenly a shot rang out, and immediately, as if by a signal, the machine guns started going.
“Dead and wounded began to fall, followed by those who had remained unhurt.
“The machine guns stopped. A voice rang out: ‘Get up!’
“The arsenal men got up and wanted to run into the barracks, but two cadets at the gates threw hand grenades at them. Panic broke out, there was an awful stampede in which many were trampled underfoot.
“The men found the barrack rooms in a state of utter disorder. The bed clothes had been slashed with bayonets. The men’s chests were broken open and all their belongings scattered over the floor. The food buckets were filled with filth.”[7]
Here is further evidence of this savage massacre of unarmed soldiers. It is the dry report Major-General Kaigorodov sent to headquarters on November 8, 1917:
“At 8 a.m. on October 28, the Troitsky Gate was opened by Sub-Lieutenant Berzin and the cadets were allowed to enter the Kremlin. Sub-Lieutenant Berzin was assaulted and arrested. The cadets immediately occupied the Kremlin, placed two machine guns and an armoured car at the Troitsky Gate, and began to drive out the men of the storehouse and of the 56th Infantry Reserve Regiment from their barracks, goading them with rifle butts and threats. The soldiers from the storehouse, numbering 500, were lined up without arms in front of the arsenal gates. Several cadets numbered the men. At that moment shots were heard, from which quarter was not clear, whereupon the cadets opened fire with machine guns and the guns at the Troitsky Gate. The unarmed soldiers of the storehouse dropped as if they had been mown down. Cries and groans were heard. Everybody rushed to the arsenal gates, but only a narrow wicket was open, in front of which there was a mound of dead bodies and of men, wounded, trampled upon and unhurt, all struggling to get through the wicket. About five minutes later the firing ceased. The wounded who remained groaned; mutilated corpses lay around.”[8]
As the soldiers were driven from the barracks to the yard of the Law Courts the cadets compelled them to hold their arms above their heads. The victors feared the vanquished, even though they were unarmed. These brutes refused to feed the hungry soldiers.
The Kremlin fell.
The counter-revolutionaries, exulting in their triumph, issued a communiqué addressed: “To All! To All! To All!”
“The Kremlin has been captured. The main centre of resistance has been broken. But street fighting is still proceeding in Moscow. In order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, on the one hand, and not to hinder military operations on the other, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the state of martial law prohibiting all assemblies or appearance in the streets without a permit from the house committees.”[9]
In his elation, Ryabtsev had not even taken the trouble to go over the order to see that it was drafted properly, and the compromisers published it in their newspapers just as it had been issued with the mistakes left in it. But even so, the people of Moscow were well aware of the danger of appearing in the streets unarmed. News of the fate of the soldiers in the Kremlin spread throughout the city.
The “Committee of Public Safety,” proclaiming that the “revolt in Moscow has been suppressed,” nevertheless confirmed that the streets
“will be patrolled by armoured cars and foot patrols, which, in the event of armed resistance, or shooting, will open fire.”[10]
Why do they need armoured cars if the revolt is suppressed? Who will resist if the insurrection has been crushed? Such were the questions asked by the bewildered readers of these boastful proclamations.
The victory was reported to General Headquarters.
“The ground has slipped from under the feet of the rebels, and the revolt has assumed an unorganised character,” reported Lieutenant Rovny, Ryabtsev’s deputy. “Attempts are being made to gather near the premises of the Soviet of Deputies in the Governor-General’s house. An ultimatum has also been presented to the rebels in occupation of that building.”[11]
General Dieterichs, the Quartermaster-General, an old and experienced hand at suppressing insurrections, deemed it necessary to read the novice at this game quite a lecture over the telegraph wire.
“Permit me,” he said, “to advise you to place less reliance on ultimatums in matters of street fighting, for this gives the rebels time to recuperate and build new strongholds. Street revolts must be suppressed by rapid and ruthless measures, without dispersing your forces over the whole city. The material you have in the shape of the cadets is exceptionally good, only you must take care not to weary them by dragging out the affair by means of ultimatums. Obviously, these scoundrels must be annihilated, no agreements can be concluded with them.
“Dieterichs.”[12]
In reply to this exhortation the following message was sent from Moscow:
“Up to the very last moment the Commander-in-Chief, in complete accord with the Committee of Public Safety, strove to avoid sanguinary civil war and to avert events by means of a peaceful solution. When this proved impossible, the most determined measures were taken to suppress the revolt and to punish the rebels in the most ruthless manner.”[13]
To facilitate this ruthless punishment General Headquarters reported that a battery of the Siberian Cossack Artillery Battalion with covering troops, and a detachment of the Caucasian Cavalry Division were being sent from the Western Front, and that the guns would probably arrive in the evening of October 28.[14]
The events of the day may be summed up as follows: by careful preparation and resolute action the counter-revolutionaries achieved considerable success.
During the first days of the struggle the leaders of the insurrection in Moscow committed a number of mistakes which prolonged the struggle.
The following are the chief mistakes that were committed.
1. The Party Fighting Centre was elected on October 25, i.e., before the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party had learned of the transfer of power to the Soviets in Petrograd. The Party Centre set to work at once and arranged for the capture of the Telegraph Office, Telephone Exchange and General Post Office. But it failed to take adequate measures to organise the best of the workers in detachments and arm them properly for the purpose of attacking and surrounding the enemy centres, as Lenin had recommended.
The arms needed for the Red Guard and the soldiers of the garrison were available in the Kremlin arsenal, and the ammunition was available at the Simonovsky ammunition and powder depot.
The leaders of the insurrection did not at first pay sufficient attention to the Simonovsky depot. The Kremlin was occupied only on the morning of October 26, and no measures were taken to ensure communication with the Kremlin and the arsenal.
Meanwhile, on the night before, the cadets had occupied the Riding School opposite the Troitsky Gate of the Kremlin, and in the morning of the 26th they prevented the return of the motor trucks which had been sent from the districts to obtain arms.
The comrades in charge of the occupation of the Post and Telegraph Offices failed to display sufficient vigilance. It turned out that the staffs of these offices continued to support the counter-revolutionaries. They dispatched telegrams to the City Duma and to Military Area Headquarters, placed the telegraph instruments at their disposal, and systematically facilitated telephone communication for the enemy.
2. The Military Revolutionary Committee failed to arrest Ryabtsev and the officers of his staff and to disarm the cadets and officers. It did not make the fullest use of all the opportunities to prepare the revolutionary units in the Kremlin for action. It did not appoint its own crews for the armoured cars. It did not call out and arm the soldiers of the garrison and the units of the Red Guard to rout the cadets in occupation of the Riding School. In short, it failed to do all that was necessary to transform the Kremlin into a stronghold of the insurrection.
The plenipotentiaries of the Military Revolutionary Committee who for two days—October 26 and 27—negotiated with Rudnyev and Ryabtsev, accepted the latter’s word. Ryabtsev promised to withdraw the cadets on the condition that the Military Revolutionary Committee withdrew the company of the 193rd Regiment from the Kremlin. The company was withdrawn, but Ryabtsev at once closed the cordon around the Kremlin gates. This blunder was followed by one still more grave: commandant Berzin surrendered the Kremlin. The Whiteguards gained possession of arms—rifles, machine guns and two armoured cars.
The Whiteguards responded to this pacifism by resorting to the blackest treachery: they not only proceeded to disarm the soldiers, but shot them down in cold blood.
3. The bourgeois newspapers were suppressed on the night of October 25, but the newspapers of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and other compromisers were allowed to continue publication. These newspapers conducted a campaign of vilification and abuse of the Bolsheviks and the revolutionary workers and soldiers. They spread false rumours about the defeat of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and the victory of Kerensky.
4. The joint meeting of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies and Soldiers’ Deputies elected three Mensheviks to the Military Revolutionary Committee. This, too, was a grave blunder. Although these men had been elected, there were sufficient grounds for removing them from the Committee as they were a hindrance to the struggle. The program of treachery and hypocrisy proclaimed by the Mensheviks during the October days predetermined the role played by their representatives on the Military Revolutionary Committee. They went on the Committee as the direct agents of the counter-revolutionaries in order to sabotage its work.
The double-dealing policy pursued by the Mensheviks explains to some extent the irresoluteness displayed by the leaders during the first days of the insurrection in Moscow.
5. The Military Revolutionary Committee naturally took up its headquarters in the premises of the Moscow Soviet. But the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik members of the Executive Committees and the Presidiums of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies and Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies were allowed every opportunity to prowl about the premises and spy out what was going on. They reported all they saw and heard to the “Committee of Public Safety.” Nor was this all. When the Military Revolutionary Committee, or its staff, called troops to the Soviet, the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary members of the Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies urged the soldiers not to take part in the “fratricidal war.” All these spies of the bourgeoisie left the premises of the Soviet only on October 27, as soon as Ryabtsev presented his ultimatum. At that time, also, the two Mensheviks resigned from the Military Revolutionary Committee.
6. On the morning of October 26, the Military Revolutionary Committee presented to Ryabtsev a demand that arms be allowed to pass from the Kremlin and that the motor trucks which had been held up by the cadets be returned. In reply Ryabtsev suggested that negotiations be opened concerning the arming of the workers. Instead of backing up their demand by military operations in the districts, the Military Revolutionary Committee entered into negotiations, which were broken off, not by the Military Revolutionary Committee, but by the Whiteguards, as soon as the latter had achieved their object. These negotiations not only served to strengthen the enemy’s position, but, by creating the illusion that power could be transferred to the Soviets without an armed struggle, it had a demoralising effect upon activities in the districts. Ryabtsev failed to adhere to the agreement to withdraw the cadets from the Riding School. On the evening of October 27, the cadets attacked the “Dvinsks,” and following this, Ryabtsev presented an insolent ultimatum demanding the dissolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee, and by means of a downright fraud captured the Kremlin and brutally massacred the garrison.
The cadets took advantage of the negotiations that were conducted on October 26 and 27 in the following manner: a) they threw a close cordon around the premises of the Moscow Soviet; b) they carried out a raid on the Cycle Company in Petrovsky Park where they captured machine guns, raided the Simonovsky ammunition and powder depots and carried away the ammunition, and also attacked the 1st Artillery Reserve Brigade and captured two three-inch guns, true, without shells; c) they gained time to call up reinforcements.
From the very outset of the cadet revolt the Staff of the Moscow counter-revolutionaries widely resorted to the spreading of false rumours. More than once they reported the suppression of the armed insurrection in Petrograd, the arrival of troops from the front, and the crushing of the revolt of the Moscow workers. Through the medium of the Moscow Post and Telegraph Offices, which the cadets had captured, Rudnyev flooded the towns in the Moscow Region with false and provocative information to the effect that the Soviet authority in Moscow had been suppressed and that a new Provisional Government had been set up there, and called upon all local City Dumas and rural local government bodies to refuse to obey the Soviet Government and to organise a struggle against it. The Whiteguards were particularly zealous in spreading the legend about the suppression of the Bolshevik insurrection after they had captured the Kremlin. A despicable role in disseminating this false information was played by the “neutral” All-Russian Executive Committee of the Railwaymen’s Union and by the Post and Telegraph Employees’ Union.
Worming their way into the fighting centres of the insurrection, the enemies of the Socialist revolution—who were subsequently exposed as enemies of the people—sabotaged the counsel of Lenin and Stalin that offensive operations must be started at the very outset of the struggle. Moreover, they cooled the fighting ardour of the workers and soldiers and deliberately hindered the opening of military operations in the districts in the hope of averting an insurrection by negotiation with the Whiteguards.
These are the main reasons why the Whiteguard revolt in Moscow was not crushed at the very outset, although all the conditions were favourable for this.
[1] “General Headquarters and the Moscow Committee of Public Safety in 1917,” Krasny Arkhiv, 1933, Vol. 6 (61), pp. 30-31.
[2] Ibid., p. 31.
[3] Materials of the Secretariat of the Head Editorial Board of The History of the Civil War, Fund of Volume II of “H.C.W.”
[4] “The Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee,” Krasny Arkhiv, 1934, Vol. 4-5 (65-66), p. 181.
[5] “Reminiscences of the Capture of the Moscow Kremlin by the Cadets,” Materials of the Secretariat of the Head Editorial Board of The History of the Civil War, Fund of Volume II of “H.C.W.”
[6] Ibid.
[7] “In the Kremlin,” Reminiscences, Materials of the Secretariat of the Head Editorial Board of The History of the Civil War, Fund of Volume II of “H.C.W.”
[8] “Documents,” “October in Moscow,” Borba Klassov (The Class Struggle), 1931, No. 6-7, p. 99.
[9] “An Order for Moscow,” Trud (Labour), No. 180, October 29, 1917.
[10] “An Announcement,” Trud, No. 180, October 29, 1917.
[11] “General Headquarters and the Moscow Committee of Public Safety in 1917,” Krasny Arkhiv, 1933, Vol. 6 (61), p. 33.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid., pp. 33-34.
[14] Ibid., p. 32.
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