On the anniversary of the October Revolution and the birthday of Leon Trotsky, Yuri Felshtinsky talks about the role of the individual in history. Literary and historical notes of a young technician Trotsky's role in the revolution of 1917

Plan:

Introduction

• 1 End of the second emigration (1914-1917)
• 2 Internment in Canada
• 3 Arrival in Petrograd
• 4 July-September 1917
• 5 July events
• 6 October Revolution
Literature

Introduction

The February Revolution of 1917 found Leon Trotsky in exile. In early May 1917, Trotsky arrived in Petrograd, where he became the informal leader of the "mezhraiontsy", who took a critical position in relation to the Provisional Government. After the failure of the July uprising, he was arrested. In July, at the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), the “mezhraiontsy” united with the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky himself became a member of the Central Committee of the party. After the failure of the Kornilov speech in September, Trotsky was released, along with other Bolsheviks arrested in July.

Trotsky became the head of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and, according to Richard Pipes, in Lenin's absence effectively led the Bolshevik activities in Petrograd until his return. It was on his initiative that the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC) was formed, which became the main body for the preparation of an armed uprising in Petrograd.

1. The end of the second emigration (1914-1917)

At the beginning of World War I, Trotsky was in Vienna. Fearing that he, as a Russian subject, could be interned (although he was deprived of civil rights by a court in 1907), Trotsky left for Zurich on August 3, 1914. In 1914-1916 he lived in Paris, where he worked in the socialist newspaper Nashe Slovo, from which he ousted Martov. On September 14, 1916, the newspaper was banned, and Trotsky was expelled from France for anti-war propaganda. After Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland refused to accept him, Trotsky went to Spain.

Shortly after arriving in Madrid, Trotsky was arrested and a few days later exiled to Cadiz as a "dangerous anarchist." From Cadiz they were going to send him to Havana, but after violent protests this decision was canceled. On December 25, 1916, under the supervision of the Spanish police, Trotsky left Barcelona for New York on the steamer Montserrat and arrived in New York on January 13, 1917.

The February Revolution found Trotsky in New York, and he was unable to directly participate in the revolutionary events. Just as for Lenin, the revolution in Russia came as a surprise to Trotsky. As early as January 16, in an article accompanying Trotsky's interview with the New York Jewish Vorverts, the correspondent stated that "Comrade Trotsky will remain with us ... at least until the end of the war."

2. Internment in Canada

On March 27, 1917, Trotsky headed for Russia on the Norwegian steamship Christianiafjord via the Canadian port of Halifax.

In Halifax, however, he was interned by the British authorities - according to one version, the reason for the detention was the absence Russian documents(According to Anthony Sutton, Trotsky had an American passport issued personally by President Woodrow Wilson, with attached visas for entry into Russia and a British transit visa). In addition, the authorities feared that Trotsky's actions could undermine stability in Russia. Formally, the British acted on the basis of "black lists" of unreliable persons compiled by the tsarist government. Trotsky stayed in the British concentration camp for interned sailors of the German merchant fleet (Amherst, Nova Scotia) for about a month. His wife, two sons and five more Russian socialists were interned with him, whose names were recorded as Nikita Mukhin, Leiba Fishelev, Konstantin Romanchenko, Grigory Chudnovsky and Gershon Melnichansky. According to some sources, Trotsky tried to conduct socialist agitation in a Canadian concentration camp, after which the interned German officers protested to the British authorities. According to the commandant of the concentration camp, “this man has incredible charisma. In just a few days, he became the most popular person in the camp.

Trotsky refused to leave the ship voluntarily, so he had to be carried out by force, in his arms, and the head of the concentration camp, Colonel Morris, who fought in the Boer War, told him: "If you had caught me on the South African coast ...". Trotsky himself describes his stay in the concentration camp as follows:

The military camp "Amherst" was located in an old, to the last degree neglected building of an iron foundry, taken from the German owner. The sleeping bunks were arranged three rows up and two rows inward on each side of the room. In these conditions, we lived 800 people. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of atmosphere reigned in this bedroom at night. People hopelessly crowded in the aisles, pushed each other with their elbows, lay down, got up, played cards or chess ... Of the 800 prisoners in whose company I spent almost a month, there were about 500 sailors from the German warships flooded by the British, about 200 workers, whom the war caught up in Canada, and about a hundred officers and civilian prisoners from bourgeois circles. Trotsky L. D. My life.

At the request of the Petrograd Soviet and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, Milyukov, the British authorities release Trotsky. On April 29, he leaves the concentration camp and goes to Russia on a Danish steamer through Sweden.

Trotsky's journey from New York to Petrograd through British territory gave rise to a conspiracy theory according to which he was supposedly a British (or British-American) agent, and allegedly "received his final instructions" in Halifax. In July 1917, Trotsky had to face accusations of allegedly receiving ten thousand dollars in New York from an unknown source, to which he ironically remarked that he was "cheaply appreciated." This theory was much less widespread than the theory of "Lenin's German gold", due to its obvious senselessness - Britain at that time was at war with Germany and was not interested in Russia getting out of the war. In addition, if Germany gave Lenin the opportunity to transit to Russia through its territory, Britain interned Trotsky. As for the United States, in 1917 they did not participate in the war at all and adhered to neutrality. There are also several conflicting conspiracy theories that declare all the passengers on the Christianiafjord to be socialist agitators, armed militants and at the same time rich financiers. In fact, the authorities interned only six people from the passengers of the steamer along with Trotsky, not counting his wife and children.

3. Arrival in Petrograd

May 4, 1917 Trotsky arrives in Petrograd. He was met by several socialists, but on the whole this meeting had nothing in common with the pomp with which Lenin was greeted at the Finland Station in April. Directly from the station, Trotsky goes to a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet. In recognition of previous merits (during the revolution of 1905, Trotsky was the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet), he is given a seat on the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet with an advisory vote.

John Reed on the Modern Circus

The dilapidated gloomy amphitheater, lit by five faintly flickering bulbs hanging from a thin wire, was packed from top to bottom, to the ceiling: soldiers, sailors, workers, women, and everyone listened with such tension, as if their lives depended on it. A soldier from some 548th division said:
“Comrades! he shouted, and in his emaciated face and gestures of despair, real anguish was felt ... Show me what I am fighting for. For Constantinople or free Russia? For democracy or for capitalist conquests? If they prove to me that I am defending the revolution, then I will go and fight, and I will not have to be urged on by executions!

After returning, Trotsky becomes the leader of the faction of "mezhrayontsy" who demanded the restoration of the unity of the RSDLP. There were no significant ideological differences between the “mezhraiontsy” and Bolshevik factions: both of them supported the slogans of the dissolution of the Provisional Government (“the development of the bourgeois revolution into a socialist one”) and immediate peace (“democratic peace without annexations and indemnities”). The Mezhrayonka included a number of capable agitators, headed by Trotsky, but in itself this organization was too weak and small in number to act as an independent party; by the time Trotsky arrived from exile, the faction was just considering its possible merger with the Bolsheviks or some other left group.

Trotsky's oratorical abilities attracted the attention of Lenin, and in July the faction of "mezhraiontsy" in full force joins the Bolsheviks; in the words of Lunacharsky (who was also a “mezhrayontsy”), Trotsky came to Bolshevism “somewhat unexpectedly and immediately with brilliance”. Among other significant figures of Mezhrayonka, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, M. S. Uritsky, V. Volodarsky, A. A. Ioffe also join the Bolsheviks. The first meeting between Lenin and Trotsky, at which a possible merger was discussed, took place already on May 10. Both sides come to the conclusion that their programs of action, in relation to the situation that existed then in Russia, completely coincide. Already at this meeting, Lenin invites Trotsky to join the ranks of the Bolsheviks, but he postpones the decision, waiting for the opinion of his comrades-in-arms - "mezhraiontsy". Lenin himself, commenting on these negotiations, notes that "ambitions, ambitions, ambitions" prevent both of them from immediately uniting with Trotsky.

According to the memoirs of V. S. Voitinsky, Lenin repeatedly stated that “the party is not a boarding school for noble maidens. It is impossible to approach the evaluation of party workers with the narrow yardstick of petty-bourgeois morality. Some bastard can be useful to us precisely because he is a bastard ... We have a large economy, and in a large economy, all sorts of rubbish will come in handy. According to V. M. Molotov, "Lenin ... knew how to use everyone - a Bolshevik, a half-Bolshevik, and a quarter-Bolshevik, but only a literate one." Lunacharsky notes that “tremendous authority and some inability or unwillingness to be in any way affectionate and attentive to people, the absence of that charm that always surrounded Lenin, condemned Trotsky to some loneliness. Just think, even a few of his personal friends (I'm talking, of course, about the political sphere) turned into his sworn enemies.

On May 16, 1917, the Kronstadt Soviet declared itself the only authority in the city, and demanded the recall of the Commissioner of the Provisional Government V. N. Pepelyaev. The current situation was considered by the executive committee of the Petrosoviet on May 22. At the meeting, the representatives of the Kronstadters, Raskolnikov and Roshal, had to justify themselves before the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority of the Petrosoviet on charges of forming the "Kronstadt Republic", which decided to "depart from Russia." Trotsky became one of the few orators of the Soviet who spoke on the side of the Kronstadters.

Trotsky and Lunacharsky, as is well known, were not at that time [May 1917] members of the Bolshevik Party. But these first-class speakers have already managed to become the most popular agitators within two or three weeks. Their success began, perhaps, with Kronstadt, where they toured very often. In Kronstadt already in the middle of May, Kerensky, who was preparing the offensive, figured with the epithets: "socialist robber and bloodsucker."

In June 1917, Trotsky calls the existing system of "dual power" - "dual anarchy" and characterizes the "agreement" of the Menshevik-SR Soviets with the Provisional Government as follows:

The petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, raised to a height unexpected for itself by the formation of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, was most afraid of responsibility, and therefore respectfully handed over power to the capitalist-landlord government, which emerged from the depths of the June 3rd Duma. Organic fear of the small man in the street before the shrine state power, very frankly appeared among the Narodniks, was covered by the Menshevik-defensists with doctrinaire arguments about the inadmissibility for socialists to take on the burden of power in a bourgeois revolution

Trotsky L. D. Dual power.

At the time of the convening of the First Congress of Soviets, Trotsky had not yet joined the Bolsheviks. The Social Democratic faction of the Mezhrayontsy, headed by him, appears at this congress as part of the Social Democratic faction of the "United Internationalists", created on the basis of the "Menshevik-Internationalists" who advocated an end to the war.

4. July-September 1917

The VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) accepts the “Mezhraiontsy” into the Bolshevik Party, and elects their leaders Trotsky and Uritsky to the Central Committee. At the same time, Lenin's proposal to introduce Trotsky to the editorial board of Pravda was rejected by 11 votes to 10.

In July-September, Trotsky, thanks to his ability as an orator, plays a key role in "disagitating" the Petrograd soldiers and Kronstadt sailors and their going over to the side of the Bolsheviks. His favorite arena for performances is the circus "Modern". This circus was located near the Kshesinskaya mansion, at the corner of Kronverksky and Kamennoostrovsky prospects. By 1917, the circus building was badly dilapidated, and in January 1917, firefighters forbade circus performances to be held in it.

I found in Petersburg all the orators of the revolution with hoarse voices or no voice at all. The Revolution of 1905 taught me to be careful with my own throat. Rallies were held at factories, in educational institutions, in theaters, in circuses, on the streets and squares. I returned exhausted after midnight, discovered in an anxious half-sleep the best arguments against political opponents, and at seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier, I was pulled out of sleep by a hated, unbearable knock on the door: I was summoned to a meeting in Peterhof or the Kronstadters sent a boat for me. Each time it seemed that I would not be able to raise this new rally. But some kind of nervous reserve opened up, I spoke for an hour, sometimes two, and during the speech I was surrounded by a dense ring of delegations from other factories or regions. It turned out that thousands of workers were waiting in three or five places, waiting for an hour, two, three. How patiently the awakened mass waited in those days for a new word.

By the autumn of 1917, the old disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky were a thing of the past. November 1, 1917 Lenin calls Trotsky “the best Bolshevik” (“Trotsky said a long time ago that unification [between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks] is impossible. Trotsky understood this, and since then there has not been a better Bolshevik”), although back in April he called Trotsky in his notes "petty bourgeois".

5. July events

6. October Revolution

Sukhanov N. N., Notes on the Revolution

Lenin, "immediately providing" the land to the peasants and preaching the seizure, in fact subscribed to the anarchist tactics and the Socialist-Revolutionary program. Both were courteous and understandable to a peasant who was by no means a fanatical supporter of Marxism. But both, for at least 15 years, were eaten by the Marxist Lenin. Now it has been abandoned. For the sake of courtesy and understandability to the peasant, Lenin became both an anarchist and a Socialist-Revolutionary.

Trotsky, on the other hand, resolved all the food difficulties in one breath that the sky became hot ... In every village the Soviet government will send a soldier, a sailor and a worker (at dozens of rallies, Trotsky, for some reason, said precisely a worker); they will inspect the stocks of the wealthy, leave them as much as they need, and the rest free of charge - to the city or to the front ... The St. Petersburg working masses met these promises and prospects with enthusiasm.

It is clear that any "confiscation" and any "free of charge", scattered right and left with royal generosity, were captivating and irresistible in the mouths of the friends of the people. Nothing could stand before it. And this was the source of the spontaneous and uncontrollable development of this method of agitation... Rich and poor; The rich have a lot of everything, the poor have nothing; everything will belong to the poor, everything will be divided among the poor. This is telling you your own workers' party, followed by millions of the poor in town and country, is the only party that fights against the rich and their government for land, peace and bread.

All this has been spreading in endless waves all over Russia in recent weeks... Hundreds of thousands of hungry, tired and embittered people heard all this every day... It was an integral element of the Bolshevik agitation, although it was not their official program.

But a delicate question arises: was there socialism in this "platform"? Did I miss socialism? Did I see an elephant?...

The movement of the masses was clearly overflowing. The working-class districts of St. Petersburg were seething before everyone's eyes. They listened only to the Bolsheviks and only believed in them. At the famous circus "Modern", where Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Volodarsky performed, everyone saw endless tails and crowds of people who were no longer accommodated by the overcrowded huge circus. The agitators called from words to deeds and promised the very near conquest of Soviet power. And finally, in Smolny, they started working on the creation of a new, more than suspicious body of "defense" ...

The true role of Trotsky in the preparation and conduct October revolution is still debatable. According to Richard Pipes, in the absence of Lenin, who fled to Finland in July 1917, Trotsky leads the Bolsheviks until his return. Curzio Malaparte, in his 1931 work The Technique of the Coup d'Etat, calls Lenin the main strategist of the "proletarian revolution", and Trotsky the main tactician of the October uprising. According to Lenin, "After the Petersburg Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky was elected its chairman, in which capacity he organized and led the October 25 uprising." Trotsky himself in 1935 assessed his role in the October events as follows:

Stalin, in the issue of the newspaper Pravda No. 241 of November 6, 1918, wrote that “All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade. Trotsky. It can be said with certainty that the party owes the rapid transfer of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the skillful organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, first of all, and mainly, to Comrade. Trotsky. Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky were Trotsky's chief aides."

Analyzing all these and other similar statements, historians Yu. G. Felshtinsky and G. I. Chernyavsky write that “The Military Revolutionary Committee (Voenrevkom) of the Petrograd Soviet was created on October 12 (25), 1917 formally to organize the defense of the city in in the event of the approach of German troops, in fact, to carry out the Bolshevik coup. The Military Revolutionary Committee was directly led by the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, L. D. Trotsky.

At the same time, the direct role of Trotsky in the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee, as the main organ of the uprising, still needs to be studied. Until the beginning of the October Revolution, the leaders of the MRC, and Trotsky himself personally in their public speeches, denied allegations that they were preparing an uprising, and the first chairman of the MRC was the Left Social Revolutionary Lazimir P. Ye, appointed, according to Trotsky himself, to divert eyes. In addition, Trotsky in October 1917 remained chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and in this capacity had many duties that, to some extent, distracted him from leading the revolution.

According to the researcher Sergei Shramko, the direct plan of the uprising was developed under the leadership of Lenin by N. I. Podvoisky, and approved by the Military Revolutionary Committee, which entrusted its execution to N. I. Podvoisky, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko and G. I. Chudnovsky. All three accepted participation in the storming of the Winter Palace, Antonov-Ovseenko signed an ultimatum to the Provisional Government, and arrested its ministers. According to the plan of the uprising, the revolutionary sailors of Helsingfors and Kronstadt also provided assistance to the rebels. The corresponding telegram was sent to Helsingforgs Smilga I.T. from Sverdlov Ya.M., who was also a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

The first chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Lazimir, resigned on October 22, instead of him at the beginning of the October Revolution, another person was already the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee. There are conflicting data on who exactly was the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee at the time the uprising began and immediately after it. According to Soviet historiography, he was Podvoisky. According to other sources, one of Trotsky's closest supporters, Ioffe A. A. Researcher Alexander Rabinovich believes that in the period October 21-25, 1917, Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Trotsky and Lazimir equally performed the duties of chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

At the same time, there is a document dated October 30, 1917, in which Lenin signed as "Chairman of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee." There are also documents dated November 1917 and signed by Trotsky also as "Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee." Already in March 1918, Trotsky signed an appeal to the population to transfer the capital to Moscow, also on behalf of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, although in fact the Military Revolutionary Committee dissolved itself in December 1917.

Lenin appears in Smolny, which has become the residence of the Military Revolutionary Committee, only on the eve of the uprising, on October 24, when preparations were already in full swing. Directly directing the fighting, Lenin began only with the beginning of the speech of Kerensky-Krasnov.

Summarizing all the available evidence, researcher Sergei Shramko notes:

... who really led the uprising, if all headquarters, party centers, troikas, bureaus were not involved in this? Stand, shifting, in the ranks of candidates for the role of chairman of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Podvoisky, Uritsky, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin and Antonov-Ovseenko. On the side of the stump, he settled down - legs crossed - who refused to chair, having written the Regulations on the Military Revolutionary Committee, Lazimir ... Well, why not admit that October had collective leadership and all the people listed equally commanded a hundred thousandth army of the revolution?

At the same time, the role of a number of Bolshevik rally speakers: Trotsky, Volodarsky, Lashevich, Kollontai, Raskolnikov, and Krylenko, in the "incitement" of the vacillating units of the Petrograd garrison in the period of October 21-25 is undoubted. On October 23, Trotsky personally "agitated" the last wavering unit - the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The historian of the revolution Sukhanov N. N. also left a vivid record of Trotsky's speech at the People's House on October 22:

Around me there was a mood close to ecstasy, it seemed that the crowd would sing now without any collusion and indication of any religious hymn ... Trotsky formulated some kind of general brief resolution ... Who is for? A crowd of thousands raised their hands as one man... Trotsky continued to speak. The vast crowd continued to hold hands. Trotsky minted the words: “Let this vote of yours be your oath to support the Soviet with all your strength, by any means, which has taken upon itself the great burden of bringing the victory of the revolution to the end and giving land, bread and peace!

The vast crowd held their hands. She is agree. She swears.

With the beginning of a fierce struggle for power in the CPSU (b), Trotsky, starting at least with the "literary discussion" in the autumn of 1924, began to widely appeal to his "services to the party." As a counterbalance, Stalin put forward the theory that the governing body of the October Revolution was supposedly the "Military Revolutionary Center" ("Party Center"), appointed to strengthen the MRC as its "leading nucleus", and which, according to Stalin's historiography, became "a fighting headquarters of the October armed uprising. Stalin was a member of the "military revolutionary center", while Trotsky was not a member of this body.

Such an organization of the leading organs of the uprising was considered obvious already in the 1920s - 1930s, under the conditions of one-party rule, which was increasingly centralized in the hands of one leader. However, in reality, in 1917, the VRK was not an organ of the RSDLP (b), but a non-party organ of the Petrosoviet, which also included the Left SRs on an equal footing with the Bolsheviks. Apparently, the party "Military Revolutionary Center" during the October Revolution never even met.

With the beginning of de-Stalinization after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the role of the “party center” in the revolution was again reduced to zero, and Stalin was no longer credited with the leadership of this body. According to the TSB, the composition of the Military Revolutionary Center began to look like this: A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov, I. V. Stalin, M. S. Uritsky.

Literature

• Alexander Rabinovich. Unrest in the garrison and the Military Revolutionary Committee
• Sukhanov N. N. Notes on the Revolution

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Still. It was too ordered.

The fall of tsarism happened with astonishing speed. For a while, it seemed to the Russian revolutionaries that now there were no barriers to the realization of any of their dreams.

The very fall of tsarism looked like some kind of accident. It seemed to happen almost spontaneously; in any case, no political faction did anything to bring about a coup. All the leaders of the Left were abroad; there were no mass actions - no strikes, no demonstrations, no uprisings.

Nevertheless, the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for three hundred years, fell in three days. The place of the Romanovs was taken - on the same day and in the same building - by two organizations, which together formed a new regime.

It was provisional government, which consisted of members of the former parliament - Dumas, and Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, consisting of leftists of different directions - from the intelligentsia and members of workers' and peasants' organizations.

Formally, the Provisional Government was the government itself; at first it was assumed that the Soviets should only observe its activities. But in fact, it was the Soviets who had all the power that any government should have. Since they represented all the organizations of the working class and the peasantry, without their permission it was impossible to get on a train, send a telegram, or distribute bread, or sew a pair of boots, or give orders to soldiers.

This mode was essentially dual power, which was to exist after the coup for almost eight months.

The Theory of Socialism was responsible for this paradoxical situation, in which the supreme power - the Provisional Government - was powerless, and the Soviets subordinate to it controlled all practical activities, but were not the power.

For Marxists, the overthrow of tsarism meant only the beginning of a revolution. Indeed, from a Marxist point of view, the fact that tsarism fell on its own, and not as a result of conscious political action, seemed to confirm the Marxist scheme; impersonal socio-economic forces declared themselves.

Yet the basic proposition of Marxism, applied to the present state of Russia, seemed to reveal a certain defect: it was difficult to explain why the revolution did not take place in Berlin, Manchester, Paris or Detroit, as one might expect, but in Petrograd, the capital of a backward agrarian country.

This fact posed a particular problem for the Marxist leaders in the Soviets. The Marxist leaders were the recognized leaders of the organizations of the working class and the peasantry represented in the Soviets, without whose consent the most elementary administrative measures could not be carried out within a few months after the overthrow of tsarism.

Nevertheless, the Soviets did not dare to take power into their own hands; did not dare announce about their real power, and, in the end, political power becomes it precisely when it recognizes itself as such.

The point was that because of the Marxist orientation of the Soviets, their leaders were paralyzed: if Russia, according to Marxist criteria, was ripe only for a bourgeois revolution, then how could the socialist party take power? And for what purpose?

Indeed, despite the fact that the incredibly rapid collapse of tsarism strangely occurred without the participation of the masses of the people, even less (if you can only imagine) was the participation in this process of centrist organizations. All that the bourgeoisie did was recognize the overthrow of the tsar and carried out several socio-economic reforms that did not change the class structure of the country in the least.

The main immediate result of the overthrow of tsarism was the immediate creation of a democratic society. In the blink of an eye, Russia became a wonderfully free country - there was freedom of speech, press, assembly, democratic representation arose. The underground disappeared: Russian revolutionaries of all shades openly entered into free competition with their rivals. Marxists also recognized the principle of democratic election; they fought for influence, power and voices with representatives of all other directions. Of course, the Marxist Party, both in the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, retained, so to speak, its administrative structure, but before the rest of society it was hiding behind a democratic guise.

This was the achievement that constituted the essence of the bourgeois revolution; and this first important consequence of the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty was enough for the Marxists to see in it the liquidation of the feudal-monarchist system and the foretaste of a new era.

And since, from this point of view, the backwardness of Russia was an obstacle to further socialist revolution, the socialist party could only compromise itself in the eyes of its followers if it seized power to defend what, by definition, was only a bourgeois revolution. In short, all that an honest socialist party could do was to watch the bourgeois government to make sure that it did not deviate in its activities from Marxist prescriptions.

By the beginning of May, when Trotsky appeared in Petrograd, this theory was already breathing its last.

Trotsky and Natalya arrived in Petrograd without a penny of money. Natalya began to look for housing, and Trotsky hurried to the Smolny Monastery, where the Institute for Noble Maidens was located before the revolution, now turned into the headquarters of the Soviets.

Trotsky was greeted enthusiastically by the Soviets, despite the cold reception he received from the leadership; in Smolny, Trotsky was given a whole floor.

In essence, Trotsky was late. Not only did he find himself isolated from the main party factions, but the main element of his own theory of permanent revolution was quietly adopted by Lenin.

Because of the isolation in which he found himself, Trotsky apparently did not even know about it. Nevertheless, the theory of permanent revolution became the main theoretical and practical direction of the entire period of devastation that preceded the Bolshevik upheaval, for which it was absolutely necessary.

Lenin appeared in Petrograd a month earlier under circumstances shameful for any Russian, and even more so for a Russian Marxist - he, along with several other revolutionaries, was transported by the German general staff from their place of exile in Switzerland through Germany to Russia in a sealed train. Upon his arrival in Petrograd, Lenin quickly overcame this awkwardness, and then astounded - mainly his followers and fellow revolutionaries, but also his enemies - in the blink of an eye he changed his point of view on the role of the Bolsheviks in the overthrow of tsarism.

Before the advent of Lenin, the Bolsheviks on the question of revolution in peasant Russia held more or less the same point of view as the rest of the Marxists. They also took for granted that the revolution was going through a bourgeois phase, whereby the only thing left for the socialist party was to look after the interests of the proletariat and see how the bourgeoisie dealt with the bourgeois revolution.

Lenin, upon his arrival, began by simply discarding this concept, which had by then become generally accepted, and bluntly stated that in order to complete the bourgeois revolution, the proletariat would have to do away with the bourgeoisie.

Lenin's supporters were amazed. Sukhanov describes Lenin's first speech after his arrival at the Finland Station; this speech was constructed in the form of a reply to the Menshevik Chkheidze- at that time to the chairman of the Council of Working People's Deputies:

“Lenin did not enter, but ran into the room. He was wearing a round cap, his face was frozen, and in his hands was a huge bouquet. Having reached the middle of the room, he stopped in front of Chkheidze, as if he had come across a completely unexpected obstacle. The gloomy Chkheidze said " welcoming speech»; not only the spirit and words of this speech, but also the intonation with which it was delivered, resembled a sermon:

“Comrade Lenin, on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet, on behalf of the entire revolution, we welcome you to Russia ... But - we believe that at present the main task of revolutionary democracy is to protect it from any encroachment, both from within and without. We believe that this task requires not disunity, but, on the contrary, rallying the ranks of democracy. We hope that you will work with us to achieve this goal.” Chkheidze stopped. I was dumbfounded, really, what was hidden behind this "greeting" and behind this delicious "But"? However, Lenin knew well how to behave. He stood as if everything that was happening had nothing to do with him: he looked around, examined those around him and even took an interest in the ceiling of the imperial reception room, straightened his bouquet (this bouquet did not fit in with his whole appearance) and finally, completely turning to the delegation back, uttered his "answer":

“Dear comrades, soldiers, sailors and working people! I am happy to greet in you the victorious Russian revolution and you as the vanguard of the world army of the proletariat... Pirate imperialist war is the beginning of civil war throughout Europe. The hour is not far off when, at the call of our comrade Karl Liebknecht the peoples will take up arms to fight the capitalist exploiters... The world socialist revolution is already approaching... Germany is seething... Any day the whole system of European capitalism may fall. The Russian revolution that we made showed the way and opened a new era. Long live the world socialist revolution!”

It was extremely interesting! We were completely absorbed in the hard everyday revolutionary work, and suddenly we were given a goal - bright, blinding, exotic, completely destroying everything that we lived. Lenin's voice, sounded directly from the train, was a "voice from outside." Here a new note entered our revolution - unpleasant and to some extent deafening.

In a conversation that took place at that time between Sukhanov and Milyukov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the leader of the Kadet Party (bourgeois par excellence [predominantly]), both came to the conclusion that Lenin's views were not dangerous in any case for the bourgeois government, since they were unacceptable to anyone. But they both believed that Lenin could change his views, become more of a Marxist, and then he would be dangerous.

We refused to believe that Lenin could stubbornly stick to his abstract positions. Still less did we admit that these abstractions would help him to direct the course of the revolution as he wished and win the confidence not only of the active masses, not only of all the Soviets, but even of his own Bolsheviks. We made a big mistake...

In essence, Lenin's views at that moment reproduced Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Declaring that in a backward agricultural country the bourgeoisie is too weak to make its own revolution, and therefore bourgeois revolution must be the work of the proletariat itself, who must then continue it until later the proletariat in the developed capitalist countries will be able to pick it up, and thus implying that the proletariat itself is able to bear the entire burden of the socialist transformation of society - stating all this, Trotsky's theory, in fact, justified the right of the socialist party to immediately seize power in backward, peasant Russia.

True, in the past, Lenin fought this theory to the death, just as he fought everything that did not coincide with his own views. Now, however, without declaring it openly, he borrowed Trotsky's theoretical propositions and, from the moment of his arrival in Russia in April 1917, he acted according to this theory.

Thus, there was no longer any reason for Trotsky to refuse to cooperate with Lenin, especially since, despite all his oratory and writing brilliance, he had no real followers, and, in fact, he looked more like a lonely star, abstractly appealing to to a wide audience, and not as a speaker on behalf of one of the party organizations that are members of the Soviets. For his part, Lenin also had no reason not to accept the services of a talented freelance artist: Trotsky was nine years younger than him and, moreover, a Jew - so there could be no question of rivalry inside parties. Lenin viewed the revolution euphorically, and perhaps this main reason which forced him to accept Trotsky's point of view. Convinced that the revolution was about to break out at least on the entire continent, Lenin could see Russia only as one of the links in the chain: if Europe as a whole was “ripe” for socialism, then did it matter that Russia was just a part of the chain? Europe – not ready yet? One could regard the seizure of power in Russia only as a means of breaking the back of at least one of the capitalist classes and then striving to carry out the revolution on the continent as a whole.

Adhering to this international point of view, hitherto more characteristic of Trotsky than of him, Lenin could now consider that the revolution in Russia would overcome the boundaries of the bourgeois phase and would develop further in such a way as to lead to the proletarian dictatorship as the legitimate means of destroying the capitalists and landowners.

In the turmoil of 1917, the most conspicuous obstacle in everything that allowed Trotsky to count on a prominent role was perhaps the presence of Lenin.

Describing Lenin on the eve of his triumph as the founder of the Soviet state, Sukhanov explains his superiority thus:

“Lenin is an outstanding phenomenon, a man of absolutely exceptional intellectual power; this is a magnitude of world caliber, a happy combination of a theoretician and a people's leader. If any more epithets were needed, I would not hesitate to call Lenin a genius.

Genius, as you know, is a deviation from the norm. Speaking specifically, a genius is often a person with a very narrow field of intellectual activity, in which this activity is carried out with extraordinary power and productivity. A genius can often be an extremely limited person, unable to understand or grasp the simplest and most accessible things.

In addition to these inner, so to speak, theoretical qualities of Lenin and his genius, the following circumstances also played a decisive role in his victory over the old Bolshevik Marxists. Historically, for many years, from the very birth of the party, Lenin was practically its only full-fledged and indisputable head. The Bolshevik Party as such was the work of him and only of his hands. A few solid party generals were as empty a place without Lenin as vast planets without the sun (I'm not talking now about Trotsky, who at that time was still outside the ranks of the party, that is, in the camp of "enemies of the proletariat, lackeys of the bourgeoisie," etc.). d.). In the Bolshevik Party, there could be no independent thinking, no organizational structure that could do without Lenin.

Trotsky's problem - the problem of his proper role - was complicated by Lenin's sharp theoretical turn; this turn knocked Trotsky's individual position out from under his feet.

In short, Trotsky was faced with an important organizational decision: which group to join?

In the end, the theoretical rapprochement between Lenin and Trotsky had practically no effect on the balance of their forces. If desired, Trotsky could, of course, feel a certain self-satisfied satisfaction from being ahead of Lenin in formulating the same ideas. But it didn't matter.

What mattered was that Lenin had the consignment. And besides, he had no need to pay Trotsky for his theoretical constructions: the transition "with the help of Marxist methods" from one point of view to another was a common thing and invariably made to "reflect" changed circumstances.

Lenin had no reason to doubt that he was right, and he did not doubt it. When, for example, in April Kamenev sharply reproached him for Trotskyism, Lenin remained absolutely indifferent.

Despite his isolation, Trotsky still had followers - the so-called inter-district residents- a small group, not adjacent to either the Bolsheviks or the Mensheviks, which he nurtured from its very inception in 1913. The Mezhraiontsy enjoyed some support in several districts of Petrograd and nowhere else, but now they were united by several very vague and general slogans - against the war, against the bourgeois Provisional Government, etc.

In theoretical terms, it was difficult to distinguish the Mezhrayontsy from the Bolsheviks, who were very successful in luring away their potential followers. When Trotsky arrived in Petrograd in May and was soon invited to a joint reception hosted in his honor by the Mezhrayontsy and the Bolsheviks, the main topic of all conversation was already the question of their unification.

Except for the Mezhrayontsy, there was no organization behind Trotsky. He had a group of his former, so to speak, editorial staff - many talented journalists who wrote for various newspapers, which he different years published: Lunacharsky, Ryazanov, Ioffe other; some of them later became widely known, but although this literary fraternity, in which such people as, for example, Ryazanov, were also “thinkers” or, at least, scientists, could be called the cream of the movement, their leaders could not be named.

Trotsky, who had not seen Lenin since their lukewarm meeting at Zimmerwald in 1915, met him for the first time at a meeting of Bolsheviks and Mezhraiontsy on May 10.

At this meeting, Trotsky had to admit that any association of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks no longer made sense. This in itself meant, of course, that now he himself was leaning towards the Bolsheviks.

Lenin invited Trotsky and a small group of his followers to join the Bolshevik Party immediately; he even offered them leading posts in party organs and in Pravda. This seemed inconvenient to Trotsky, and, since the past did not allow him to call himself a Bolshevik, he proposed the creation of a new party by merging the respective organizations of the Bolsheviks and Mezhrayontsy at a general congress, which at the same time would proclaim a new name for a single party.

But such an unequal "merger" was clearly unrealistic. The idea of ​​uniting the unequal forces of Trotsky and the Bolsheviks was abandoned for a while.

In an organizational sense, Trotsky now found himself without a definite job: his attempt, without much enthusiasm, to find a mouthpiece for himself in Gorky's journal Novaya Zhizn, which, like Trotsky himself, hung in a kind of vacuum between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, did not lead to anything. He tried to create his own newspaper, Vperyod; but only sixteen issues were published, and even then without any regularity.

In general, Trotsky had to realize his influence only with the help of his unique gift - speech! Isolated for a time from all organizations, but having at his disposal huge masses of people excited by the new ideas that came after the coup, Trotsky the orator became an outstanding factor in shaping the mood of Petrograd.

For several months the whole city was seething with rallies: in fact, at almost any moment, somewhere, in some place, there was always a rally going on and an insatiable audience, thirsting for speakers, seethed. By the end of May, Trotsky and Lunacharsky, also a talented orator and writer, became the most popular among the left wing of the Soviets.

Of course, it is extremely hopeless to try to reproduce on paper the impact of the spoken word. In the case of Trotsky, such an attempt seems necessary: ​​after all, it is precisely to his oratorical gift that he is primarily indebted to for the most part his career.

Here is what Lunacharsky writes.

“I consider Trotsky to be perhaps the greatest orator of our time. In my time I have heard almost all the greatest parliamentary and popular heralds of socialism and a great number of famous orators of the bourgeois world, and I find it difficult to name anyone but Zhores ... whom I could put next to Trotsky.

His impressive appearance, magnificent grand gestures, powerful, rhythmic speech, loud, tirelessly sounding voice, wonderful coherence of thought, literary construction of the phrase, brilliance of images, stinging irony, sublime pathos, the completely exceptional logic of his special steel sarcasm - these are the qualities of Trotsky's oratorical gift. . He could speak very briefly - literally a few caustic attacks, but he could also make a huge political speech ... I saw Trotsky speaking for 2.5-3 hours in a row in front of a completely silent audience; people - every single one - stood spellbound by this grandiose political treatise. Everything that Trotsky said was familiar to me in most cases; in this sense, of course, every agitator is forced to repeat many of his ideas again and again in front of more and more crowds, but Trotsky each time presented the same idea in a new garb ...

Trotsky is a great agitator. His articles and books are, so to speak, frozen speech - he is a writer in his speeches and an orator in his books.

Trotsky's speech at the rally

Here is how Trotsky himself describes the sources of his great gift:

“Every true speaker knows moments when something much more powerful than his ordinary “I” speaks in his voice. This is what inspiration is. It arises due to the highest creative concentration of all your forces. The subconscious rises from the very depths and subjugates the conscious work of thought, fusing with it into a higher whole.

Trotsky performed almost regularly in front of huge crowds of people in the circus "Modern". It was in the presence of these monstrous masses of people, among whom only a few were Marxists or professional revolutionaries, that Trotsky's talent could unfold to its fullest. It was here that not the intellectual, but the emotional, artistic and lyrical side of his personality could be fully manifested: he succumbed, as he later noted, to pressure, a whirlwind of emotions that were in full accordance with the shapeless emotions of the dark masses standing in front of him, and this subconscious swept away all of his purely rational considerations about how to start, how to prove and where to put political accents. He clothed the emotions of the formless crowd in sound flesh. All this once again emphasizes the difference between a speaker and a participant in discussions.

In the circus "Modern" there was almost always such a crush that Trotsky could not get to the podium: he had to be carried in his arms over the assembled noisy crowd. Sometimes he caught the eye of his two daughters, Zinaida and Nina; young girls watched their famous father with burning eyes.

The rally period of the Russian revolution was, in fact, the most favorable for Trotsky: the surge of ideas, discussions, plans and projects of all kinds was so intense that such an orator as Trotsky, who knew how to find mutual language with a variety of people and, according to Sukhanov, wonderfully "warming up" a variety of audiences, he was absolutely in his element. In a situation where people were consumed social life- mass rallies, collective projection of emotions, symbols, etc., spellbinding speakers were, of course, in great demand.

At the rally Trotsky was on the spot much more than Lenin himself: here is Lunacharsky's judgment:

“In the spring of 1917, under the influence of the enormous scope of the propaganda work and its dazzling success, many people close to Trotsky were even inclined to see in him the true leader of the Russian revolution. Yes, deceased M. S. Uritsky once said to me: "Here it happened great revolution, and now I have the feeling that, no matter how capable Lenin, his personality begins to fade next to the genius of Trotsky.

This judgment turned out to be incorrect, not because Uritsky exaggerated Trotsky's talents and abilities, but because at that time the scale of Lenin's state genius was not yet clear.

Indeed, after the initial thunderous success, at the moment of his appearance in Russia and until the July days, Lenin was to some extent in the shadows: he rarely spoke, wrote little; but while Trotsky was vivacious at the mass rallies in Petrograd, Lenin was engaged in the current organizational work in the Bolshevik camp.

It was precisely this "ornateness" of Trotsky at mass rallies that made him a star in the sky of that period. He embodied the popular guise of the revolution as such, and since even the main characters of this drama were inevitably fascinated by the heroism with which the Idea was carried out, the role of Trotsky was correspondingly inflated.

In any case, since at the moment Trotsky had "nothing left" but to unite with Lenin, he was forced to do it fairly quickly.

By July, it became quite clear that there could be no question of changing the name of the party, which would allow Trotsky to portray joining it as a "merger": now he had to formally join Bolsheviks at their Sixth Congress.

But the formal unification, or rather the absorption of Trotsky and his entourage by the Bolsheviks, had to be delayed by the unique July Days - unique because it is not so easy to understand what they really meant, or rather, how mature the Bolsheviks' resolve to carry out the coup was.

The July Days were the result of the central contradiction of the existing regime - the astonishingly stubborn refusal of the leaders of the Council to put into practice the rights that they, almost against their will, possessed. By the very nature of things, the events that took place constantly exacerbated this contradiction. It became customary for the left wing of the Soviets, represented by the Bolsheviks and Trotsky and his tiny retinue, to call on the leadership of the Soviet, consisting of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, to take power, i.e. exercise and proclaim the power that was already in their hands.

During the three weeks that the meetings of the assembly assembled at the beginning of June First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, it turned out that the strong support that the Soviets received as a whole was distributed as follows: moderate socialists ( Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), who made up five-sixths of all delegates, were a broad stratum of the population, including peasants and most of the soldiers, mostly peasants, while the left extremist wing recruited its supporters almost exclusively in the working suburbs of large cities.

Just before the opening of the congress, city elections were held in Petrograd, which dealt a crushing blow to the Cadets Party, which constituted the government majority; as a result of these elections, half of the mandates went to the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks interpreted this Menshevik victory as evidence of a turn of the urban masses as a whole to the left, and therefore as an encouraging development for themselves.

Further, Lenin already formulated that in its development the revolution would break through the boundaries of the bourgeois phase and pass into a purely socialist phase. At the moment when Lenin expressed this point of view, which was of fundamental importance to his Marxist supporters, he did not yet dare to declare what exactly Bolsheviks must take power. Still a small minority in the Soviet, and even without even claiming to represent the broad masses, the Bolsheviks could not substantiate such claims in traditional Marxist terms.

However, in June, speaking to the delegates of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets who had gathered from all over the country, Lenin put forward new tasks.

When one of the speakers tried to defend the idea of ​​an alliance between the Soviets and the Provisional Government by suggesting that the delegates, if they could, come forward and dare to name a party that is ready to take power one, Lenin shouted from his seat: "There is such a party!"

Lenin's exclamation looked extremely comical, and most of the delegates greeted him with laughter. The successes achieved by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd have not yet been appreciated.

But even then, Lenin's intention, apparently, was not limited to the seizure of power: the Bolsheviks still had to increase their influence within the Soviets. Consequently, the Bolshevik slogans were still not directed against the government as such - it was not "Down with the government!", but simply "Down with the ten capitalist ministers." But such a wording meant - "All power to the Soviets!", which sounded very unpleasant for the leaders of the Soviet, who staked on maintaining an alliance with the Cadets in the bourgeois Provisional Government - in the name of the bourgeois revolution.

Underlying their position was undoubtedly a completely ordinary and ordinary uncertainty - they did not have enough arrogance to rule! Trotsky made great use of this petty-bourgeois reluctance to take responsibility.

The years of the second Russian revolution and the Civil War became the most significant time for Trotsky the politician, statesman, leader. At the end of March, on the Norwegian ship Christianiafjord, Trotsky and his family sailed to Europe, but a few days later in the Canadian port of Halifax, along with several emigrants, he was arrested and imprisoned in a camp for German sailors. Trotsky himself wrote about this incident: “In Halifax (Canada), where the steamer was subjected to inspection by the British naval authorities, police officers ... subjected us Russians to direct interrogation: what are our convictions, political plans, etc.? I refused to enter into with them in conversations on this subject. The detective officers insisted that I was a terrible socialist (terrible socialist). The whole search was of such an obscene nature and placed the Russian revolutionaries in such an exceptional position in comparison with other passengers who did not have the misfortune of belonging to a nation allied with England, that some of those interrogated immediately sent an energetic protest to the British authorities against the behavior of police agents ... On April 3, English officers accompanied by sailors came on board the Christianiafjord and, on behalf of the local admiral, demanded that I, my family and five other passengers leave the ship ... we were promised to "clear up" the entire incident in Halifax We declared the demand illegal and refused were willing to obey him. Armed sailors pounced on us and, with shouts of "sham" (shame) from a significant part of the passengers, carried us in their arms to a military boat, which, under the escort of a cruiser, took us to Halifax "Quoted by. Trotsky L. My life. The experience of autobiography. From 320. Under pressure from the Petrograd Soviet, the Provisional Government was forced to intervene, and a month later Trotsky and his comrades were released. Through Sweden and Finland, on May 5, 1917, he arrived in Petrograd (as we can see, Trotsky missed the April crisis, as a result of which the first coalition Provisional Government was formed). A solemn meeting awaited him here. For his merits in 1905, he was included in the Executive Committee of the Petrosoviet with the right of an advisory vote. "It was decided to include me with an advisory vote. I received my membership card and my glass of tea with brown bread "Quoted by L. Trotsky. My life. An autobiographical experience. S. 340. .

Upon his return, Trotsky faced the question of choosing political guidelines. Lev Davidovich considered the best option to join the inter-districts - the St. Petersburg Inter-district Committee. Basically, the Mezhrayontsy supported the slogans of the Bolsheviks, with the exception of turning the imperialist war into a civil one. Trotsky, although he did not take an official post, became the actual head of the organization Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 178. .

On May 10, Lenin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev attended a conference of Mezhrayontsy and proposed a plan according to which all left-wing groups would merge into a single party. Trotsky spoke on this subject in a restrained and positive manner, but so far he was in no hurry to accept Lenin's proposal. Note that this was the first step towards Trotsky's accession to Bolshevism Ibid. pp. 179-180. .

A month after Trotsky's arrival in Petrograd, he was already one of the most prominent figures in the motley political background of the revolution. Having looked around, having oriented himself, the revolutionary recklessly and irrevocably plunged into the seething stream of human passions, disputes, disputes, political claims. In the summer and autumn of 1917, Trotsky was "in great demand": he was invited by Baltic sailors, workers of the Putilov factory and the tram depot, students, called to meetings of the Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks, to meetings of the soldiers' committees of military units. The singer of the revolution almost never refused. Sometimes he went to rallies with Lunacharsky, who was also a brilliant orator. This tandem, or rather, a duet of revolutionary agitators, was very popular in Petrograd in those distant days, Volkogonov D.A. Trotsky: A political portrait. - M., 1992.T. 1. S. 50. .

At the beginning of the July events in Petrograd, Trotsky had not yet formally joined the Bolshevik Party, although in fact he was already on their platform. With the beginning of events, Trotsky played a significant role in protecting the Minister of Agriculture of the Provisional Government from the revolutionary crowd - the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party V.M. Chernov, who at that time enjoyed considerable popularity. The mob tried to arrest Chernov instead of Justice Minister Pereverzev; the Kronstadt sailors had already dragged Chernov into the car, tearing his jacket, but then Trotsky spoke to the crowd of Kronstadt sailors with a fiery speech and the crowd parted.

After the events of July 3-4, arrests were made among the leaders of the Bolsheviks. Lenin and Zinoviev went underground. It was during these days that Trotsky decided on a defiant and spectacular step: he demanded in the press his own arrest. In an open letter to the Provisional Government, he remarked: “Citizen Ministers! I know that you have decided to arrest Comrades Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. But an arrest warrant is not issued for me. Therefore, I consider it necessary to draw your attention to the following facts. the position of Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev and defended it in all my public speeches" Trotsky L.D. Letter to the Provisional Government [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //www.magister. msk.ru/library/trotsky/trotl266. htm (date of access: 04/19/2015). . The authorities did not tolerate such insolence and soon arrested the author of the letter. Trotsky stayed in the "Crosses" for more than 40 days. During this time, his popularity grew at the same rate as his articles and notes appeared in the Bolshevik "worker and soldier", the magazine "Vperyod" and other printed publications. In prison, he wrote two works: "What's next? (results and prospects)" and "When will the end of the damned massacre?". Both pamphlets were published by the Bolshevik publishing house "Priboy" and immediately attracted attention.

A few days after Trotsky's arrest at the end of July, the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) opened, which worked in semi-legal conditions. At the beginning of the congress meetings were held on the Vyborg side, and then beyond the Narva outpost. Many party leaders who were forced to go underground or landed in the prison of the Provisional Government were not at the congress. In essence, Lenin's main characterization of the moment was voiced at the congress: since the counter-revolution temporarily gains the upper hand, the possibility of seizing power by peaceful means disappears. The question of an armed uprising was put on the agenda. From that moment on, the radical line of the Bolsheviks manifested itself even more clearly.

For the revolutionary fate of Trotsky, the congress was of great importance. He was even elected an honorary member of the presidium. After the past negotiations and agreements, a large group of "mezhraiontsy" was accepted into the party. Thus, while Trotsky was in prison, the question of his party membership was also decided in a new way. Together with Trotsky, M.M. also became Bolsheviks. Volodarsky, A.A. Ioffe, A.V. Lunacharsky, D.Z. Manuilsky, M.S. Uritsky and many of their associates. Trotsky's authority was already so high that when he was elected at the Congress of the Central Committee, he was immediately elected to it.

At the request of the Petrograd Soviet, on September 2, 1917, Lev Davidovich was released on a bail of three thousand rubles. But in reality, Kerensky, who only with the help of the Bolsheviks was able to repel the threat of Kornilov, felt that the tightening of the regime only weakened his position. There is reason to believe that it was Kornilov's August adventure that strengthened the positions of the Bolsheviks and made the October events possible. Trotsky, together with Lunacharsky, Kamenev, Kollontai, and other revolutionaries, emerges from prison as a hero and plunges headlong into party affairs. Volkogonov D.A. Decree. op. pp. 53--56. .

During the Bolshevization of the Soviets in September 1917, the Bolsheviks managed to get the majority of seats in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 25, re-elections of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet were held, the Bolsheviks proposed L.D. Trotsky. After the election, the new chairman made a speech to the approving exclamations of the audience, in which he expressed confidence that he would try to "mark a more successful outcome" for his second election to the Council (after 1905). Decree. op. P. 56. On October 12, Trotsky, as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, formed the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee - the main body for leading the Bolshevik uprising.

With the formation of the Pre-Parliament, Trotsky was also elected to this body and headed the Bolshevik faction in it. From the very beginning, Trotsky demanded a boycott of the work of the Pre-Parliament, as being too "bourgeois" in composition. After receiving the approval of Lenin, who was then hiding in Finland, on October 7 (20) Trotsky officially announced the boycott of the Pre-Parliament on behalf of the Bolsheviks.

On the whole, by the autumn of 1917, the old disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky were becoming a thing of the past. At the same time, disagreements arose between Lenin and Trotsky over the preparation of an armed uprising. While Kamenev and Zinoviev at that time, fearing a repetition of the July defeat, demanded that no uprising be raised, Lenin insisted on an immediate uprising. Trotsky disagreed with him about the form of the coup. If Lenin demanded that the Bolsheviks take power in their own name, then Trotsky suggested that the question of transferring power to the Soviets be raised at the Second Congress of Soviets. In two or three weeks, Trotsky made a dizzying rise in Bolshevik circles, becoming the second person in them after Lenin. In the absence of the latter, Trotsky became the main spokesman for his positions and ideas Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 193. .

We will not dwell on the events of the October Revolution, we will only say that, in the end, the uprising began on October 23-24, when the government decreed that " Working truth"and" Izvestia "of the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky reacted immediately and gave the order to send detachments of the Sixth Engineer Battalion and the Lithuanian Regiment to the printing house. Trotsky then did not leave the phone, receiving more and more confirmation of the successful course of events. On the evening of October 24, Lenin appeared in Smolny, immediately but who learned about the coup, Chernyavsky G. I. Decree op. pp. 196-197.. Decisive events unfolded on October 25, the day the Congress of Soviets opened. At a meeting of the Central Committee on the night of 25, when discussing the new government, Trotsky’s proposal was adopted ministers, but people's commissars. On October 26, Trotsky made a report on the composition of the government at a meeting of the congress. It is at this congress that Trotsky utters his famous words referring to the Mensheviks: from now on you should be: in the weed basket of history "Quoted by. Trotsky L. My life. The experience of an autobiography. S. 380. . Trotsky made his choice: he is a Bolshevik and he is in power. He himself became Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

Trotsky in 1935 assessed his role in the October events as follows: “If it had not been for me in 1917 in St. Petersburg, the October Revolution would have taken place - provided that Lenin was present and led. If there were neither Lenin nor me in St. Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution either: the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would have prevented it from happening... If there had been no Lenin in St. Petersburg, I would hardly have managed... the outcome of the revolution would have been questionable. to victory" Trotsky L.D. Diaries and Letters / Ed. ed. SOUTH. Felshtinsky. - M., 1994. S. 119. . There is eloquent evidence from Lenin about Trotsky's leading role in the October armed uprising. “After the Petersburg Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks,” says the XXIV volume of the first Collected Works of V.I. Lenin, “(Trotsky) was elected its chairman, in which capacity he organized and led the uprising on October 25” Lenin.V. Sobr. Op. - M., 1923. T. 24. S. 482. .

However, after the death of Lenin, Stalin gave Trotsky in the revolution a completely different assessment. “But I must say that Trotsky did not and could not play any special role in the October uprising, that, being the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he only carried out the will of the relevant party authorities that led Trotsky’s every step.” Stalin I.V. Works. - M.; Tver, 1946-2006. T. 6. S. 328-329. . So what role did Lev Davidovich play in the October coup? Based on numerous documents, eyewitness accounts, analysis of Lenin's works of that period, we can conclude that in October Trotsky proved himself to be one of the main leaders of the revolution, as a person who fell into his native element.

Trotsky showed himself to be a reliable ally of Lenin during the internal crisis of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, which occurred in the very first days of the existence of the new government. On October 29, the Bolshevik Central Committee began negotiations on the creation of a homogeneous socialist government. The "right" Bolsheviks (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Nogin, Rykov and others) insisted on an agreement. Lenin, with the active support of Trotsky, managed to break the vacillations of the members of the Central Committee and insist on putting forward conditions unacceptable to the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and the majority of the Mensheviks. And although on November 4 fifteen members of the Central Committee, people's commissars and their deputies resigned, Lenin and Trotsky won. On the same days, Trotsky actively participated in organizing a rebuff to the troops of Kerensky-Krasnov, defeating the junker rebellion in Petrograd. With Lenin, he goes to the Putilov factory, to the headquarters of the Petrograd military district.

Regarding his direct duties - People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs - Trotsky later admitted that "the matter nevertheless turned out to be somewhat more complicated than I expected" Cited. on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 400. . Trotsky's first major action in his new post was the publication of secret treaties concluded by Russia with the Entente countries. Trotsky's assistant sailor Nikolai Markin was directly involved in organizing the decoding and publication of these documents. Within a few weeks, seven yellow collections were published, causing a stir in the multilingual press. Previously, their contents were published by newspapers. By this the Bolsheviks proved their promise to put an end to secret diplomacy. But Trotsky himself was in Brest-Litovsk from the end of December, heading the Russian delegation in negotiations with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. There he delivered fiery speeches that were designed not so much for negotiating partners as for the broad masses. Trotsky's speeches were also printed in German newspapers, while the Soviet press published full transcripts of the meetings. From the very beginning, Trotsky played the role of "delaying" the negotiations: "It was necessary to give the European workers time to perceive properly the very fact of the Soviet revolution, and in particular its policy of peace" Cited. on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 440. . The negotiations were extremely difficult: the Soviet side offered a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities on the basis of self-determination of peoples, while the German side, with its outward "friendly" attitude, set deliberately unacceptable conditions. At the same time, it was necessary to conclude peace: "The impossibility of continuing the war was obvious: the trenches were almost empty. No one dared to speak even conditionally about the continuation of the war. Peace, peace at all costs!" Ibid. S. 440. . But how to achieve it? Here disagreements arose. “Three points of view emerged. Lenin was in favor of trying to drag out the negotiations even more, but, in the event of an ultimatum, capitulating immediately. I considered it necessary to bring the negotiations to a break, even with the danger of a new German offensive before the obvious use of force. Bukharin demanded war to expand the arena of the revolution "Ibid. S. 443. . Since the latter position "sank" in the sea of ​​criticism of Lenin and Trotsky, the main contradiction lay in the time of signing the ultimatum peace: after the words about the possible continuation of the war or after the actual offensive. Trotsky succeeded in proving to the other Bolsheviks that it was precisely the latter that was required, since in this case the entire proletarian world would be able to see that revolutionary Russia was physically forced to sign peace with bourgeois Germany. In addition, Trotsky and his supporters hoped that Germany, devastated by years of war, would not be able to carry out an actual offensive. But everything happened just according to the worst scenario: the Germans attacked and, without receiving any resistance, quickly moved deep into Russia. The Soviet government urgently announces a truce and on March 3, 1918 signs the harsh Brest peace. Russia was losing vast territories and was obliged to pay a huge indemnity Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. pp. 221-223. . In return, according to Trotsky, she retained "the sympathies of the world proletariat or a significant part of it. In the course of time, everyone will be convinced that we have no other way out." on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 452. .

On March 14 Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for military affairs, and a little later, the people's commissar for maritime affairs.

In these posts, Trotsky proved himself to be a resolute, purposeful leader, capable of rallying people to carry out the most difficult tasks. For example, he took Active participation in the liquidation of the rebellion of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries on July 6, 1918.

The role that Trotsky played in the formation of units of the regular Red Army is well known. From the very first days, the people's commissar began the difficult task of its formation. On March 19, at a meeting of the Moscow Council, Lev Davidovich spoke in favor of recruiting old officers into the army. The People's Commissariat of Defense got an unenviable legacy: at his disposal was the 150,000-strong volunteer Red Army, with which it was no longer possible to solve the strategic tasks of the country's defense. It was necessary to reorganize the army, improve, strengthen its combat power. And in April - May 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a series of decrees that radically reorganized the Red Army. They were based on documents prepared by Trotsky's department. The main one was the decree approved on April 22 by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on compulsory training in military art, according to which workers from 18 to 40 years old were subject to training, on the job for 8 weeks, without remuneration for the time of training. Persons liable for military service who completed the training course could be drafted into the army at any time. Trotsky made a considerable contribution to recruiting former tsarist officers and military specialists into the Red Army. The final stage in the construction of the new armed forces was the reorganization of the command and control system on the principles of centralization and discipline. On August 19, after discussing the project proposed by Trotsky, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the Decree "On the unification of all the Armed Forces of the republic under the jurisdiction People's Commissariat on military affairs" Decree of the Council of People's Commissars. On the unification of all the armed forces of the Republic under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //istmat. info/node/30980 (accessed: 04.23.2015). In September, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR) was created, which, along with Trotsky (chairman), included prominent party workers with military experience.

Trotsky was forced to enter the fighting already in August 1918. Arriving in Sviyazhsk, Trotsky felt defeatist moods in the army located there: "Each detachment lived its own life. All of them had only a tendency to retreat. The soil itself was infected with panic" Cited. on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 440. . Trotsky manages to organize from this "crowd" a combat-ready army, which in a few days begins to win the first victories. In matters of military tactics, Trotsky, a civilian, understood little, so in this matter he relied on military professionals, including former tsarist officers. But Trotsky brilliantly figured out the issue of organizing the army, its propaganda, and support. In many ways, he was helped by those repressive measures that he did not skimp on. “You can’t build an army without repression. You can’t lead masses of people to death without having the death penalty in the arsenal of the command. As long as the evil tailless monkeys, called people, proud of their technology, build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between the possible death ahead and inevitable death behind. on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 450. . And that was the most important guiding principle of action. In August 1918, the Red Army was shocked by the news of the execution of 20 fighters, the commissar and commander of the Petrograd Workers' Regiment, who arrived on the Eastern Front.

In matters of providing the army with everything necessary, its moral support, the famous train of the People's Commissariat of War played a huge role during the Civil War. This armored train was a real mobile front command headquarters. "Working on the train were: a secretariat, a printing house, a telegraph station, a radio station, a power station, a library, a garage, and a bathhouse." Ibid. S. 459. . The train at any moment could provide military support: there were about a hundred Red Army soldiers in it, agitation support: there were several communist agitators in it, material support: the train always had stocks of food, clothes, shoes, weapons. It is no coincidence that this semi-legendary train inspired fear in the enemy with its mere appearance Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 232. .

During the second defense of Tsaritsyn in September-October 1918, Trotsky began a personal quarrel with the Commissar of the Southern Front, Stalin and Army Commander Voroshilov, who defiantly turned directly to the Presovnarkom Lenin, bypassing the Revolutionary Military Council headed by Trotsky. The main pretext for the conflict was the appointment personally promoted by Trotsky as the Commander of the Southern Front "military specialist", the former tsarist major general Sytin P.P., while Stalin objected to such an appointment, considering Sytin unreliable. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the "military specialist" appointed to the Southern Front personally by Trotsky, Colonel of the Russian Army Nosovich A.L. shortly before the events, he went over to the side of the White Guards, informing General Denikin of important secret information to which he had access. For his part, Trotsky claimed that Voroshilov and Stalin made accusations of treason against Nosovich, which were not confirmed, only because he was sent by Trotsky. As a result, Nosovich fled to Denikin, fearing for his life.

On October 2, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) adopted a resolution in which it demanded to indicate to Stalin that "subordination to the Revolutionary Military Council is absolutely necessary. In case of disagreement, Stalin can come to Moscow and appeal to the Central Committee, which can make a final decision" "Questions of the history of the CPSU." 1989 No. 6. S. 158. . On behalf of the Central Committee, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov, telegraphs Stalin, Voroshilov and Minin S.K. that "all decisions of the Revolutionary Military Council are binding on the military councils of the fronts. There is no army without subordination" "Questions of the history of the CPSU." 1989, No. 6. P. 160. On October 3, Stalin, Voroshilov and Minin protested to Lenin, accusing Trotsky of the collapse of the Southern Front. On October 4, Trotsky personally went to Tsaritsyn, after which he demanded that Stalin be recalled; a conversation took place between the parties, which Stalin described as "insulting". As Trotsky himself writes in his work “My Life”: “Anxiety reigned at the headquarters. A rumor was put out that Trotsky was traveling with a big broom, and with him two dozen tsarist generals to replace the partisan commanders, who, by the way, by my arrival all hastily renamed themselves regimental, brigade and divisional commanders. I put the question to Voroshilov: how does he feel about the orders of the front and the high command? He opened his soul to me: Tsaritsyn considers it necessary to carry out only those orders that he recognizes as correct. It was too much. I declared that if he did not undertake to strictly and unconditionally carry out orders and operational tasks, I would immediately send him under escort to Moscow to be brought to the tribunal ... in the great struggle that we waged, the stake was too great for me to look around. And I often, at almost every step, had to step on the corns of personal predilections, friendship or pride. Stalin carefully selected people with crushed corns. Enough time and personal interest" Ot. on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 490. .

On October 6, Stalin leaves for Moscow, and on October 8 he receives a new appointment, to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Contrary to Trotsky's expectations, Stalin received Lenin's support. Stalin's appointment as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council was taken by Trotsky as a personal insult. The result was Stalin's acute hatred of both Trotsky and his first deputy Sklyansky G.I. Chernyavsky. Decree. op. S. 243. .

In a short time, Trotsky became one of the most famous revolutionaries not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Before the October Revolution, this man was always far from military affairs and suddenly became one of the most important military figures in a gigantic country. I think that for the political portrait of L.D. Trotsky absolutely needs touches that characterize him as the creator and conductor of the military policy of the RCP (b). Perhaps, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic showed himself most fully in this regard at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), although Volkogonov D.A. was not present there. Decree. op. S. 69. .

In early March 1919, Trotsky returned to Moscow. He had a lot of cases in the Revolutionary Military Council that Sklyansky could not solve for him, and most importantly, a party congress was to be held this month, at which it was supposed to consider, among others, the military question. Trotsky was going to report to the Central Committee that in the spring of 1919 the high command intended to make the main efforts to defeat the combined forces of the Entente and the Volunteer Army both in Ukraine and in the sector from the Karelian Isthmus to Rovno. This was necessary, since in these areas the superior enemy was closest to the main political and economic centers of the country. On February 19, 1919, by order of the commander-in-chief, the Western Front was created, headed by commander D.N. Reliable and members of the Revolutionary Military Council R.A. Rimm, E.M. Pyatnitsky, A.Ya. Semashko (from March 24, O.A. Stigga will join). The Southern and Western fronts were preparing for the upcoming operations. At that time, there were reports from the fronts: in the direction of Riga, the German troops of General von der Goltz went on the offensive, and Polish troops began to advance towards Minsk. But these reports did not particularly bother Trotsky: as long as the enemy had small forces there. But reports from the east, contrary to expectations, began to arrive very disturbing. Kolchak, having licked his last year's wounds, again moved west. According to intelligence estimates, the admiral now had more than 150 thousand bayonets and sabers against 100 thousand troops. Eastern Front. But in the rear of Kolchak, near and far, there were still tens of thousands of interventionist troops. Telegrams from the Eastern Front confused all Trotsky's plans. He wanted to report to the congress that, after a short respite, there was an opportunity to launch a decisive offensive in several directions. And the enemy was ahead. At the meeting of the Central Committee on March 14, 1919, which was attended by V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kamenev, N.N. Krestinsky, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, I.V. Stalin, N.N. Bukharin, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, E.D. Stasova, V.V. Schmidt, M.F. Vladimirsky, M.M. Lashevich, G.V. Chicherin, M.M. Litvinov, L.M. Karakhan, Pre-revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, made a proposal to all congress delegates - military workers, including him, to immediately go to the front Volkogonov D.A. Decree. op. pp. 69-72. . But by coincidence, only Trotsky left for the front, or rather in Ufa. The question of martial law was considered at the Congress on March 20 without Lev Davidovich. In Sokolnikov's report, speaking on behalf of the absent Trotsky, the greatest attention was devoted to the question of military experts. It was emphasized that where military experts were involved, and the partisan army was reorganized into a regular one, stability of the front and military success were observed. Sokolnikov attacked the military opposition for its speeches against the use of former officers Eighth Congress of the RCP (b): Protocols. - M., 1950. S. 143. . There was no unity in the speeches of the representatives of the military opposition. Lenin spoke at a closed meeting, he spoke about the need to use the knowledge and experience of military experts, also condemned Stalin's actions in Tsaritsyn, expressed indignation at all those who patronized the partisans Lenin's collection XXXVII. - M., 1970. S. 136-139. . Stalin felt the situation and hastily accepted Lenin's position.

On March 21, at the plenary session of the Central Committee, the "theses of the Central Committee" were adopted by a majority of votes, that is, the theses of Trotsky Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. 1879-1917. S. 252. . The congress, thus, approved the course of the People's Commissariat of Defense.

Supporting Trotsky's line at the congress did not at all mean that he was "infallible" in military affairs. Not at all, Trotsky was mistaken in strategic questions. The chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council quickly grasped one operational advantage of the Red Army: its fronts were inland. In necessary cases, the command could transfer formations from one front to another. The White armies and interventionists were deprived of this opportunity. But sometimes Trotsky, due to military unprofessionalism, did not deeply assess the operational situation.

When, for example, in the spring of 1919, the troops of the Eastern Front under the command of S.S. Kamenev, having made an interesting maneuver, launched a strong counterattack on Kolchak, the troops of the white admiral retreated, and then rolled to the east. The persecution of the Whites began. However, on June 6, Commander-in-Chief I.I. Vatsetis, based on the difficult situation on other fronts, gave, with the approval of L.D. Trotsky, an order to secure the troops of the front on the achieved lines. Trotsky intended to transfer several formations to the Southern Front. But the command and RVS of the front protested. The Central Committee supported the offensive mood and, in fact, canceling the decision of Trotsky and Vatsetis, gave the front units the opportunity to continue the persecution of Kolchak. At one of the moments, Trotsky, at the suggestion of Vatsetis, removed S.S. Kamenev from the post of front commander. But after the intervention of Lenin, Trotsky's order was canceled and Kamenev was reinstated in his former position. This was a strong blow to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic.

Trotsky received his second blow in a row when the Center did not agree with his plan, according to which the main blow to Denikin was to be delivered through the Donbass. The Central Committee did not support the idea, although after some time they returned to this idea. Then the second humiliated Trotsky, being very ambitious, resigned from the post of Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and People's Commissar of War. Perhaps that moment in Trotsky's military career was the most difficult: the cancellation of his orders, directives, disagreement with his strategic plans. But Lenin saw in this only the complex dialectic of war, and nothing else. It was at the insistence of the leader in July 1919 that a resolution was adopted stating that Trotsky's resignation would be the greatest harm for the Republic. Trotsky obeyed, but survived the painfully difficult days of Volkogonov D.A. Trotsky: A political portrait. pp. 80-84. .

According to Richard Pipes, Trotsky's undoubted personal contribution to the fighting of the Civil War was the defense of Petrograd in 1919. Pipes R. Russian Revolution: In 3 books. Book. 3. Russia under the Bolsheviks. 1918-1924. - M., 2005. S. 87. . Despite the fact that the Red 7th Army had an almost fivefold advantage in manpower over Yudenich's Northwestern Army, Petrograd was seized with panic, including in front of the White Guard tanks, and Lenin seriously considered the prospect of surrendering the city. Trotsky, with his speeches, was able to raise the fallen morale of the troops, at the same time spreading the rumor that Yudenich's tanks were "made of painted wood", and also organized the construction of several tanks at the Obukhov plant. After that, the Red Army soldiers were finally able to take advantage of their numerical advantage and defeat white guard. Trotsky vividly describes the then prevailing situation in Petrograd: "...everything was crawling...the troops were rolling back...the commanding staff looked at the communists, the communists at Zinoviev...Sverdlov told me: "Zinoviev is a panic." And Sverdlov knew people...Zinoviev...lay down...on the sofa and sighed..." on. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 475. .

On October 21, the decisive battle takes place at the Pulkovo Heights; The Soviet 7th Army launches a decisive counteroffensive.

Of course, Trotsky did not directly command the units of the Red Army, but he really carried out the overall leadership of the defense and offensive operations, worked out and made the main operational decisions, in fact replacing the panicked Zinoviev.

On November 20, the VKITs Presidium awarded Trotsky the Order of the Red Banner for his merits, the same order was awarded to the train of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. pp. 259-260. .

Trotsky continued to lead the companies of 1920 against Poland and Wrangel's troops. Let us focus on the fact that the Polish troops near Warsaw in August launched a counteroffensive and threw Tukhachevsky 600 kilometers away. Trotsky, who was at that time on the Southern Front, hastened to return to Moscow. There he spoke in favor of an early conclusion of peace with Poland. Realizing the unreality of a new offensive, Lenin agreed with Trotsky on the need to establish peaceful relations. According to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, the border between Ukraine and Belarus, on the one hand, and Poland, on the other, passed east of the Curzon Line, thus Russia lost Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. S. 262. .

In November 1920, Wrangel's army was defeated and withdrawn from the Crimea, after which it was evacuated to Turkey. In the next two years, hostilities ended in the Far East, which meant the end of the Civil War.

Let's sum up all of the above. The true role of Trotsky in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution is still debatable. According to Richard Pipes, Trotsky, in the absence of Lenin, who fled to Finland in July 1917, is headed by the Bolsheviks until his return. Pipes R. Russian Revolution: In 3 books. Book. 2. Bolsheviks in the struggle for power. 1917-1918. - M., 2005. S. 70. . Curzio Malaparte in his 1931 work "Technique of the coup d'état" calls Lenin the main strategist of the "proletarian revolution", and Trotsky - the main tactician of the October uprising Curzio M. Technique of the coup d'état [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //society. polbu.ru/malaparte_revolution/ch07_all.html (date of access: 04/26/2015). . Based on the material presented in the chapter, we cannot but agree with this. Indeed, before Lenin's arrival at Smolny, all the levers of control over the coup were in the hands of Trotsky. Based on numerous documents, eyewitness accounts, analysis of Lenin's works of that period, we can conclude that in October Trotsky proved himself to be one of the main leaders of the revolution, as a person who fell into his native element. In a short time, Trotsky became one of the most famous revolutionaries not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Before the October Revolution, this man was always far from military affairs and suddenly became one of the most important military figures in a gigantic country. I think that for the political portrait of L.D. Trotsky absolutely needs touches that characterize him as the creator and conductor of the military policy of the RCP (b).

As for the main aspects of his life related to the Civil War, we know that on March 14, 1918, Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Military Affairs, and somewhat later People's Commissar for Naval Affairs, and in September Lev Davidovich headed the Revolutionary Military Council. In these posts, Trotsky proved himself to be a resolute, purposeful leader, capable of rallying people to carry out the most difficult tasks. The role that Trotsky played in the formation of units of the regular Red Army is well known. Lev Davidovich put three principles at the basis of military organizational development. General military training of the working people, which was supposed to ensure a constant influx of a more or less trained reserve into the army. The wide involvement of military specialists of the tsarist army in the work, which made it possible to build a truly professional armed forces. And the widespread planting in the Red Army of ideological overseers - commissars, which guaranteed the protection of the interests of the revolution and the Bolshevik party. Thanks to Trotsky's perseverance during the Civil War, more tsarist officers fought on the side of the Reds than on the side of the Whites.

Undoubtedly, Trotsky's merit was the Defense of Petrograd, for the success in which he was awarded the order Red banner. In 1920, the Red Army, led by Trotsky, managed to achieve a decisive turning point in the course of the Civil War.

During his activities as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, Trotsky also made many enemies, in particular Stalin, from the conflict with which further political clashes arose, which we will consider in the next chapter.

In the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, L. Trotsky undoubtedly played an important role as the ideologist of spontaneous Victory, with its transfer to Europe, and then to the world space. This moment of Victory (at any cost!) was clearly presented to me after watching the TV movie "Trotsky". However, the glorification of one of the most cruel leaders of the October Revolution is completely inappropriate in the year of its centenary. Yes, it was Lev Davidovich who played a significant role in the October Revolution in Petrograd in 1717, heading the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. The revolution in Russia was inevitable, no matter who led the uprising itself: Stalin, Zinoviev or Kamenev. Most likely, Comrade Koba would have done this, since V.I. Lenin personally could not participate in the uprising (the provisional government ordered his arrest). But, the whole prehistory of his activities, after he returned in April from emigration to Russia, was aimed at preparing an uprising. No matter who and what nasty things were talking about the leader of the Bolshevik Party, but in the terrible period between the two revolutions - February and October, it was he, and no one else, who prepared the transition of the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the proletarian one.
Yes, Trotsky was able, six months earlier, to catch the smell of victory in the upcoming revolutionary events and appreciate the role of the Bolsheviks, having gone over from the camp of the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks. The well-groomed esthete, who appeared before the viewers in a tuxedo, with a bow tie and a proud posture, not subject to anyone (the role of Trotsky was excellently played by Khabensky), who overthrew (?) Sigmund Freud himself, looks so convincing and bright that you begin to believe it was him - Lev Davidovich, and not some kind of leader of the Bolshevik Party, who actually prepared and carried out the revolution in Russia. In fact, this is far from the case, or rather not at all. The scriptwriters did everything to make the modest boy, a small-town Jew, the standard of the Russian revolution. Trotsky himself meant nothing before the October Revolution. But, in the absence of V.I. Lenin, he quickly won the trust of soldiers and revolutionary sailors with his spellbinding rhetoric about world revolution. Lev Davidovich was in the right place and in right time when the question of the day of the revolutionary uprising in Petrograd was debated among the leadership of the Bolshevik Central Committee. It belongs to Lenin catchphrase, which determines all the genius of this person: "Today - early, tomorrow - late, we perform at night!" Zinoviev and Kamenev, who did not agree with Lenin's opinion, immediately published their considerations in a Bolshevik newspaper, which, naturally, was read by the secret police of the provisional government. Lenin had no choice but to hide in safe houses, knowing that the order had been given for his arrest and destruction. In this situation, Lev Davidovich made a completely logical decision - to lead the uprising. Since the revolution is inevitable, Lenin is underground, Zinoviev and Kamenev are not fighters, and Comrade Koba-Stalin is not so popular among the soldiers who did not support him, tired of the war. The sailors and soldiers did not want to go to the front again, they were captivated by Trotsky's bewitching speeches and the idea - to take power into their own hands throughout the world.
The curly-haired revolutionary, in glasses and a leather cap, and the same leather trousers and jacket, with an ardent look and completely sweet speeches about the end of the war, about the land for the peasants, about the power of the soldiers' and workers' councils, was clearly to the liking of the soldier masses.
Everything else became a matter of technique and revolutionary impulse. The shot of the Aurora, the capture of banks, post office, telegraph and the Winter Palace, almost without blood and resistance But in fact, the development of the uprising and all subsequent revolutionary events were carefully calculated by the Bolsheviks, led by V.I. Lenin. By the way, Comrade Koba, unloved by the screenwriters, in working overalls, with a mustache and a grin on his face, as the authors of the series showed him, was one of the developers of the revolution that had taken place. But his role in the revolution, like Lenin, is almost not shown in any way.! So, a successful participant in the revolutionary movement in Russia, who accidentally appeared on the historical stage of those fateful events, no more. The historical truth is quite different: Comrade Koba-Stalin is a professional revolutionary, with extensive experience in working among the proletarian masses. He was not able to break the persecution of the tsarist regime, arrests, prisons and exile, he turned from a revolutionary militant into a consistent Bolshevik revolutionary. Stalin had authority among the Bolshevik elite and among the workers in factories and factories. He was much closer to a simple worker than Trotsky, and had the most direct relation to the coup in Petrograd. Detachments of workers' squads, which were subordinate to Comrade Stalin, were, of course, controlled by the Bolsheviks. Therefore, it was not in vain that in all important places during the uprising, workers' detachments acted, establishing revolutionary order.
Although, it was Leon Trotsky who gave the soldiers and sailors permission to loot. This is his: "Rob - loot!" became a favorite slogan of a drunken sailor and opened Pandora's box in the very first days of the revolution in Petrograd. However, the detachments of workers led by Koba, as the most cohesive and responsible participants in the revolution, prevented mass robberies and looting.
The role of Stalin, and even more so V.I. Lenin, in the October Revolution of 1917, in this series is hushed up or presented as not significant, but the figure of Trotsky rises - this means moving away from historical truth, It was V.I. Lenin developed and theoretically substantiated the possibility of a revolution in one country, if there were appropriate prerequisites for this.
But, Trotsky, obsessed with the thirst to win always and everywhere, especially after the October Revolution in Petrograd, he, like a card player, continued to gamble, putting the "world revolution" on the line. All or nothing! This is the essence of Trotsky! While the card was in the suit, he entered the taste and became furious from the spilled blood of his rivals. "Do not spare any of the enemies of the revolution!" - the main slogan of Trotsky during the years of the revolution and the Civil War in Russia.
Yes, of course, Trotsky created, or rather, was one of the creators of the Red Army, but the red terror, with the executions of soldiers who fled the battlefield, or for warning, is somehow mentioned in the film in passing. But to send abroad the intelligentsia, the elite of Russia, by the way, the role of Lev Davidovich in this matter has not been proven, but it is well shown. He would have gladly shot them with the help of Dzerzhinsky in the cellars of the Lubyanka, but Trotsky did not leave the idea of ​​a world revolution and the Russian intelligentsia abroad could be useful to him as a catalyst. By the way, she came in handy. Many Russian emigrants and philosophers supported Trotsky when he found himself abroad and became an ardent fighter against the Soviet Vast. In particular, the famous philosopher Ivan Ilyin wrote letters to Adolf Hitler, urging him to do away with the commissars in Russia.
I already wrote above that in the film the role of V.I. Lenina is shown in some fits and starts and is not convincing. Like the one where Trotsky, after a successful military coup in Petrograd, imagined himself superior to Lenin and the party. An indicative scene, which did not exist in real life, about when, allegedly, V.I. Lenin says to Trotsky: - "You will never become the ruler of Russia, you are a Jew, and in Russia a Russian peasant will not obey a Jew!" Strictly speaking, the authors of the film were lying: V.I. Lenin's mother's Jewish blood flowed, and even after the Bolsheviks came to power, Soviet Russia for almost thirty years the Georgians ruled, the same comrade Koba - Joseph Dzhugashvili.
AND last years Trotsky's life abroad, in Mexico, is shown somehow not convincingly: forgotten and abandoned by everyone, he writes dirt on Stalin and waits for his death every day, every hour. He is afraid of everything, his loved ones and even his mistress Frida. And he died, not as a hero of the revolution, but killed by a communist artist with an ice ax climber, as a traitor. In his dying memoirs, Trotsky saw himself as the murderer of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, in the name of the world revolution, and rejoiced at this.
Unfortunately, the viewer knowledgeable of history, will completely misunderstand the role and significance of Trotsky in the Russian revolution. That's actually what I wanted to say!

On February 27, the general strike in Petrograd developed into an armed uprising. Workers and soldiers seized the Arsenal plant and the Peter and Paul Fortress, members of the government were arrested, and the formation of new authorities began: the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and the Provisional Government. On March 2, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, who also signed the abdication the next day.

soldiers during February Revolution 1917

During the days of the February Revolution, Leon Trotsky was in New York and worked in the New World newspaper for Russian émigrés. Having received news about the events in Petrograd, he went to Russia.

Road<...>to Petrograd passed imperceptibly, like a tunnel. This was the tunnel - into the revolution

Trotsky L.
"My life"

On May 4, 1917, Trotsky arrived in Petrograd at the Finland Station, where he was met by a large delegation. He immediately unfolds a stormy activity: he sits in the Petrograd Soviet, speaks at anti-war rallies in educational institutions, factories, theaters and squares. Trotsky arrived in Petrograd. May 4 (17), 1917

I would return, exhausted, after midnight, discover in an anxious half-sleep the best arguments against political opponents, and at seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier, I was torn from sleep by a hated, unbearable knock on the door: I was summoned to a meeting in Peterhof, or the Kronstadters sent for me a boat

Trotsky L.
"My life"

The circus "Modern" becomes a particularly favorite place for performances for Trotsky. The speaker's speeches were so popular that the hall was always completely packed. However, when Trotsky tried to speak in the Petrograd Soviet, he was interrupted by shouts: “This is not the Modern circus for you!”

Every square vershok was occupied, every human body was compacted. Every minute the galleries threatened to collapse under an unbearable human weight. I spoke as if from a warm cave human bodies. When I made a grand gesture, I would certainly offend someone, and the response of a grateful movement made me understand that I should not be upset, not come off, but continue

Trotsky L.
"My life"

July demonstration on Nevsky Prospekt, Petrograd, 1917 Newsreel

From 3 to 5 July, armed demonstrations took place in Petrograd. The soldiers propagandized by the Bolsheviks demanded the resignation of the Provisional Government. Repressions began against the Bolsheviks and the Left Social Revolutionaries. The authorities introduced martial law in the city, disarmed the soldiers and workers, issued an order for the arrest of Lenin, Trotsky and other Bolshevik leaders. Kerensky, Minister of War of the Provisional Government, began to persecute the Bolsheviks and accused them of spying for Germany. Lenin had to flee. Trotsky was arrested and placed in the Petrograd prison "Crosses".

In early August, at the illegal VI Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the Bolsheviks proclaimed a course towards an armed uprising and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. At the same time, both Lenin and Trotsky were elected honorary chairmen of the congress in absentia.

Bolshevism seemed like an insignificant bunch. So he was officially treated. The Party itself was not yet aware of its tomorrow's strength. And at the same time, Lenin confidently led her to the greatest tasks. I harnessed myself to work and helped him

Trotsky L.
"My life"

Another rebellion changed the situation. On August 25, the Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, Kornilov, sent troops to Petrograd in order to establish a military dictatorship. This caused Kerensky to turn to the Bolsheviks for help to stop the offensive. Trotsky was released from the "Crosses".

Lavr Kornilov welcomed in Moscow, 1917

Directly from Kresty, I went to the newly formed committee for the defense of the revolution, where I met with the very gentlemen who put me in prison as a Hohenzollern agent and had not yet had time to clear the charges against me.

Trotsky L.
"My life"

The defeat of Kornilov benefited the Bolsheviks. The influence and size of the party began to grow sharply. The Bolshevization of the Soviets began.

Persecuted, persecuted, slandered, our party has never grown as fast as of late. We could hardly keep up with the tide. The number of Bolsheviks in the Petrograd Soviet grew from day to day.

Trotsky L.
"My life"

In September, Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. He actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and began active preparations for the uprising. Trotsky remained the leader of the party, in fact, until the return to Russia of Lenin, who had been hiding all this time in Finland.
On October 12, the Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC) was formed under the Petrograd Soviet, headed by Trotsky. VRK and became the organizer of the October Revolution.

Smolny, headquarters of the Bolsheviks during the revolution

On October 24 (November 6), soldiers and sailors, Red Guard workers blocked key objects in the city - bridges, railway stations, a telegraph and a power plant. Trotsky directed what was happening from Smolny.

On the night of October 26-27 (November 8-9), the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which consisted of more than half of the Bolsheviks, proclaimed the establishment Soviet power. Trotsky was elected to the presidium.

Late in the evening, while waiting for the opening of the meeting of the Congress of Soviets, Lenin and I rested next to the meeting room, in an empty room where there was nothing but chairs. Someone spread a blanket on the floor for us, someone - it seems Lenin's sister - got us pillows. We lay side by side, body and soul departed like a too-taut spring. It was a well-deserved break!

Trotsky L.
"My life"

At the Congress, a new government was created - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin. Trotsky became People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
At the same time, two Decrees were put forward - the "Decree on Peace", which called for a just peace between the warring countries without indemnities and annexations, and the "Land Decree", announcing the abolition of private property and the confiscation of landowners' lands and estates.