Society and Politics

A Century of Struggle

100 years ago, in October, 1917 the Petrograd Soviet (Workers Council) in response to orders given by the Kerensky Provisional Government to move the majority of the Petrograd Garrison, which at that point was as central to he revolutionary movement as the city's factories, to the frontline established a Revolutionary Military Council in order to defend the revolution.

The RevMilSov used every opportunity present to protect and expand the power of the Soviets in preparation for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets and for the insurrection called by Lenin to topple the provisional government. As Lenin wrote in one off his mass appeals

"Comrades! Look around you, see what is happening in the countryside, see what is happening in the army, and you will realize that the peasants and soldiers cannot tolerate it any longer...Go to the barracks, go to the Cossack units, go to the working people and explain the truth to them. If power is in the hands of the soviets...there will be a workers and peasants' government in Russia; it will immediately, without losing a single day, offer a just peace to all belligerent peoples...if power is in the hands of the soviets, the landowners estates will immediately be declared the inalienable property of the whole people...No, not one more day are the people willing to suffer postponement."

For many it seemed clear that Russia was at a crucial point in the system of dual power between the Provisional government and the Soviets. However many were also reluctant to take action, not wanting to repeat the failure of the July Days by acting too early. The Provisional Government however would put an end to this uncertainty by giving the Petrograd Garrison deployment orders to the front, "In unision" Rabinowitz wrote, "The garrison troops proclaimed their lack of confidence in the provisional government and demanded transfer of power to the Soviets" in response to this the Revolutionary Military Soviet replaced the Provisional Governments representatives with its own Commissars and issued and order that no orders given to the garrison that were not signed by the RevMilSov were to be considered valid.

The Soviets had effectively disarmed the provisional government, without firing a single shot, meanwhile preparation for the Congress of Soviets continued to be made and in a final attempt to crackdown on them the Kerensky government ordered all bridges to be raised, the same order the Tsar had given during the February Revolution, in order to limit movement in the city. the Soviets Coordinated out of a former girl's boarding school, the Smolny Institute and it became a hub of activity, units reporting in, catching up on the latest news, and then reporting back to their posts.

So fed up with the Kerensky government were the people that a company (~100 soldiers) were able to capture the Nikolaevsky Train Station without a single blow, around the city similar detachments seized Government buildings, Bridges, and communications centerts. The State Bank on the Ekantarinsky canal was seized by a group of 40 sailors without any resistance. In fact Trotsky comments that: "The job was done. It was not necessary to employ force, for there was no resistance. The insurrectionary masses lifted their elbows and pushed out the lords of yesterday."

Late on October 25 detachments of armed workers seized the Winter Palace where Kerensky and other top officials had holed up, while Kerensky had fled hours earlier the remaining ministers were arrested without a fight. Finally the Morning the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted a decree transfering all power to the Soviets, at last the people's demands for democratic self-governance had been answered and the Kerensky Government had been toppled.

Of course this would not last forever but we must remember this day for what it was and what it signified, an uprising of the working class workers, peasants, and soldiers all uniting against their oppressors and seizing control for themselves. And I find this especially relevant in today's world 100 years later.

With the world growing increasingly divided between Left and Right, with Antifa, the SDF (Syrian, Democratic Forces), and groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and newcomers like the many groups organizing for free speech and solidarity in universities standing beside the venerable giants of the ISO, IWW, and more joining to fight the Reactionaries of the Alt-Right, ISIS and other Daesh, and the others that are being enabled by the White House Supremacist that is Trump alongside others like Macron or the Tories.

Many rights now are just as conflicted as the Russian masses before Red October, but here we have no councils of workers to decide our next best course of action, decades of repression has made sure of that. So when our Petrograd comes how will we be ready for it? It took years of oppression by the Tsar and the Bourgeois as well as the Bloody hell scape World War 1 to spur the workers revolution in Russia, in our modern society of drones, mass surveilance, and missiles that could wipe out all of Texas I fear we cannot wait for them to act first. To delay now would mean decades of suffering and subjugation at best and at worst would leave us wandering an irradiated nuclear wasteland while the ones responsible sit and wait in luxurious fallout shelters built for the occasion.

As stated many times throughout this century the world has reached a tipping point, we can either transition to Socialism, leaving the vestiges of Capitalist society in the form of Hunger, Unemployment, and Exploitation to be condemned to the dustbin of history beside Feudalism and Monarchy, or descend into Barbarism and watch our fellow men be torn apart in wars and condemned to lives of servitude and misery