As part of our build up to the 93rd anniversary of the Russian Revolution of Nov 1917, we reproduce the first of two extracts from Lenin’s widow Krupskaya’s book ‘Reminiscences of Lenin." Dealing wth the October events and the build up to the revolution itself, this account provides a marvelous picture of the unfolding struggle.

One note of caution however. This book (currently out of print but available to read online at www.marxists.org) was published in 1933, by which time Stalin had seized control of the Bolshevik party and the machinery of state. To even mention Trotsky (or for that matter any other Old Bolshevik who had fallen foul of Stalin anf his cohorts) let alone give praise, was a virtual sentence of death. As such, the book was shaped by a need to emphasize the role of certain people. not least Stalin, and eliminate others e.g Trotsky. Krupskaya’s actual feelings about Stalin are now well known but at the time to have written openly, or even ‘in code,’ would have quickly resulted in only one outcome, even for a widow of Lenin.

Krupskaya’s “Reminiscences of Lenin”:  

The October Days (Part One)

The seizure of power in October had been carefully thought out
and prepared by the Party of the proletariat–the Bolshevik
Party. The uprising during the July days had started
spontaneously, but the Party, keeping a sober mind, had
considered it premature. The truth had to be faced, and that
truth was that the masses were still unprepared for an
uprising. The Central Committee therefore decided to postpone
it. It was no easy thing to restrain the insurgents whose
fighting blood was up. But the Bolsheviks did their duty,
painful though it was, for they appreciated the vital importance
of choosing the right moment for the insurrection.

A couple of months later the situation had changed, and Ilyich,
who was compelled to hide in Finland, wrote a letter to the
Central Committee and to the Petrograd and Moscow committees
between the 12th and 14th September, in which he said: "Having
obtained a majority in the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies in both capitals, the Bolsheviks can and must take
power into their hands." He then proceeds to show why the power
had to be seized precisely at that of all times. The surrender
of Petrograd would lessen the chances of success. There was talk
of a separate peace between the British and German
imperialists. "To offer peace to the nations precisely now is to
win," wrote Ilyich.

In his letter to the Central Committee he deals at length with
the question of how to determine the moment for the insurrection
and how to prepare it. "To be successful, insurrection must rely
not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced
class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a
revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second
point. Insurrection must rely upon such a crucial
moment in the history of the growing revolution when the
activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height,
and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and
in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute
friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third
point."

At the end of his letter Ilyich indicated what had to be done in
order to treat the insurrection in a Marxist way, i.e., as an
art. "And in order to treat insurrection in a Marxist way, i.e.,
as an art, we must at the same time, without losing a single
moment, organize a headquarter staff of the insurgent
detachments, distribute our forces, move the reliable regiments
to the most important points, surround the Alexandrinsky
Theatre," occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress, arrest the general
staff and the government, and move against the cadets and the
Savage Division such detachments as will rather die than allow
the enemy to approach the centres of the city, we must mobilize
the armed workers and call them to fight the last desperate
fight, occupy the telegraph and the telephone exchange at once,
place our headquarter staff of the insurrection at the
central telephone exchange and connect it by telephone with all
the factories, all the regiments, all the points of armed
fighting, etc.

"Of course, this is all by way of example, only to illustrate
the fact that at the present moment it is impossible to remain
loyal to Marxism, to remain loyal to the revolution, without
treating insurrection as an art." (Works, Vol.26, pp. 4,
8-9.)

Living in Finland, removed from the actual scene, Ilyich was
terribly worried lest the opportune moment for the insurrection
should be missed. On October 7 he wrote to the Petrograd City
Conference, as well as to the Central Committee, the Moscow
Committee the Petrograd Committee and the Bolshevik members of
the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. On the 8th he wrote a letter
to the Bolshevik delegates to the Congress of Soviets of the
Northern Region, and worried about whether his letter would
reach them. On the 9th he came to Petrograd himself and put up
illegally in the Vyborg District, whence he directed
preparations for the insurrection.

That last month Ilyich thought of nothing else, lived for
nothing else but the insurrection. His mood and his deep
conviction communicated themselves to his comrades.

His last letter from Finland to the Bolshevik delegates to the
Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region is a document of the
utmost importance. Here it is":

"…Armed insurrection is a special form of political
struggle, one subject to special laws which must be attentively
pondered over. Karl Marx expressed this truth with remarkable
saliency when he wrote that armed ‘insurrection is an art
quite as much as war.’

"Of the principal rules of this art, Marx noted the following:

"1) Never play with insurrection, but when beginning it
firmly realize that you must go to the end.

"2) Concentrate a great superiority of forces at the
decisive point, at the decisive moment, otherwise the enemy,
who has the advantage of better preparation and organization,
will destroy the insurgents.

"3) Once the insurrection has begun, you must act with the
greatest determination, and by all means, without
fail, take the offensive. The defensive is the death of every
armed rising.’

"4) You must try to take the enemy by surprise and seize the
moment when his forces are scattered.

"5) You must strive for daily successes, even if small
(one might say hourly, if it is the case of one town), and at
all costs retain the ‘moral ascendancy.’

"Marx summed up the lessons of all revolutions in respect to
armed insurrection in the words of ‘Danton, the greatest master
of revolutionary policy yet known: de l’audace, de l’audace,
encore de l’audace.

"Applied to Russia and to October 1917, this means: a
simultaneous offensive on Petrograd, as sudden and as rapid as
possible, which must without fail be carried out from within and
front without, from the working-class quarters and from Finland,
from Revel and from Kronstadt, an offensive of the
whole fleet, the concentration of a gigantic
superiority of forces over the 15,000 or 20,000 (perhaps
more) of our ‘bourgeois guard’ (the officers schools), our
‘Vendean troops’ (part of the Cossacks), etc.

"Our three main forces–the navy, the workers and
the army units–must be so combined as to occupy without
fail and to hold at the cost of any sacrifice: a) the
telephone exchange; b) the telegraph office; c) the railway
stations; d) above all, the bridges.

"The most determined elements (our "shock forces" and
young workers, as well as the best of the sailors) must
be formed into small detachments to occupy all the more
important points and to take part everywhere in all
important operations, for example:

"To encircle and cut off Petrograd; to seize it by combined
attack of the navy, the workers, and the troops–a task
which requires art and triple audacity.

"To form detachments composed of the best workers, armed with
rifles and bombs, for the purpose of attacking and surrounding
the enemy’s ‘centres’ (the military cadets’ schools, the
telegraph office, the telephone exchange, etc.). Their watchword
must be: ‘Rather perish to man than let the enemy
pass!’

"Let us hope that if action is decided on, the leaders will
successfully apply the great precepts of Danton and Marx.

"The success of both the Russian and the world revolution
depends on two or three days of fighting." (Works, Vol. 26,
pp. 151-53.)

This letter was written on the 21st, and the 22nd already found
Ilyich in Petrograd. The next day there was a meeting of the
Central Committee, at which a resolution was carried on his
motion calling for an armed uprising. Zinoviev and Kamenev voted
against it and demanded that a special plenary meeting of the
Central Committee should be called. Kamenev demonstratively
announced his resignation from the Central Committee. Lenin
demanded that the severest measures of Party penalty should be
imposed upon them.

Intensive preparations for the uprising were going forward and
breaking down all opportunist resistance. On October 26 the
Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet passed a resolution
to set up a Military Revolutionary Committee. On October 29 an
enlarged meeting of the Central Committee was held together with
representatives of the Party organizations. The same day, at a
meeting of the Central Committee, a Military Revolutionary
Centre was set up to direct the uprising, consisting of Stalin,
Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky and others.

On the 30th the proposed organization of a Military
Revolutionary Committee was endorsed by the Petrograd Soviet as
a whole and not only its Executive Committee. Five days after
this a meeting of the regimental committees acknowledged the
Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee as the leading organ
of the military units in Petrograd, and passed a resolution not
to obey the orders of the Staff unless they were endorsed by the
Military Revolutionary Committee.

Already on November 5 the Military Revolutionary Committee had
appointed commissars to the military units. The next day,
November 6, the Provisional Government decided to prosecute the
members of the M.R.C., and arrest the commissars appointed to
the military units. The military cadets were called out to the
Winter Palace. But it was too late. The military units stood for
the Bolsheviks. The workers stood for the transfer of power to
the Soviets. The M.R.C. was working under the direct
guidance of the Central Committee, most of whose members,
including Stalin, Sverdlov, Molotov, Dzerzhinsky and Bubnov,
were members of the M.R.C. The uprising had begun.

On November 6 Ilyich was still in hiding at the flat of our
Party member Marguerite Fofanova in the Vyborg District (House
No. 92/1, Flat No. 42 on the corner of Bolshoi Sampsonievsky and
Serdobolskaya streets). He knew that the uprising was about to
take place, and fretted because he was not in the thick of it at
such a crucial moment. He sent two messages through Marguerite
saying that the uprising could not be delayed a moment
more. That evening, at last, Eino Rahja, a Finnish comrade, came
to see him. Eino, who was in close touch with the factories and
the Party organization and served as a medium through whom
Ilyich maintained contact with the organization, told Ilyich
that the guards patrolling the city had been doubled, that the
Provisional Government had given orders to raise the bridges
across the Neva in order to cut off communication between the
working-class quarters, and that the bridges were being guarded
by detachments of soldiers. Obviously, the uprising was
starting. Ilyich had intended asking Eino to send for Stalin,
but had gathered from what Eino had told him that that was
almost impossible. Stalin was probably at the M.R.C. in Smolny,
the tramcars were probably not running, and it would take him a
long time to get there. Ilyich decided to go to Smolny himself
at once. He hurried away, leaving Marguerite a note, saying: "I
am going where you did not want me to go.
Good-bye. Ilyich."

That night the Vyborg District was arming in preparation for the
uprising. One group of workers after another came to the
District Committee to receive weapons and instructions. That
night I went to see Ilyich at Fofanova’s flat, only to learn
that he had gone to Smolny. Zhenya Yegorova (Secretary of the
Vyborg District Party Committee) and I tacked on to a lorry that
our people were sending to Smolny. I was anxious to know whether
Ilyich had reached Smolny in safety or not. I do not remember
now whether I actually saw Ilyich in Smolny or only learned that
he was there. At any rate, I know I did not talk to him, because
he was completely absorbed in the business of directing the
uprising, and when he did a thing he never did it by
halves.

Smolny was brilliantly lit up, a scene of intense activity. Red
Guards, representatives from the factories, and soldiers came
from all over to receive instructions. Typewriters rattled away,
telephones rang, our girls sat sorting out piles of telegrams,
and on the second floor the M.R.C. was in continuous
session. Armoured cars stood throbbing on the square outside, a
held gun stood ready for action, and stacks of firewood had been
built up in case barricades were needed. Guns and machine-guns
stood at the entrance, sentries at the doors.

By 10 a.m. on October 25 (November 7, New Style), a manifesto
"To the Citizens of Russia" issued by the M.R.C. of the
Petrograd Soviet came off the press. It said:

"The Provisional Government has been overthrown. The power of
state has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd
Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,
the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.

"The cause for which the people have fought–the immediate
proposal of a democratic peace, the abolition of landlord
ownership of the land, workers’ control over production and the
creation of a Soviet Government–is assured.

"Long live the revolution of the workers, soldiers and peasants!" (Works, Vol. 26, p. 207.)

Although it was obvious that the revolution was victorious, the
M.R.C. continued its activities as intensively as ever,
occupying the government offices one after another, organizing
guard duty, etc.

At 2.30 p.m. a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies was held. The Soviet hailed with acclamation
the report that the Provisional Government no longer existed,
that some of its ministers had been arrested and the rest were
awaiting their turn, that the Pre-parliament had been dismissed,
and the railway stations, the general post and telegraph offices
and the State Bank occupied. The Winter Palace was being
stormed. It had not been captured yet, but its fate was sealed,
and the soldiers were displaying wonderful heroism. The
uprising had been a bloodless one.

Lenin’s appearance at the meeting of the Soviet was greeted with
a tumultuous ovation. It was characteristic of Ilyich that he
made no big speeches in connection with the victory. He spoke
instead about the tasks confronting the Soviet power, which had
to be tackled in real earnest. He said that a new period in the
history of Russia had been ushered in. The Soviet Government
would carry on without the bourgeoisie. A decree would be issued
abolishing private ownership of the land. A real workers’
control would be established over industry. The struggle for
socialism would be launched. The old machinery of state would be
broken up and scrapped, and a new authority, the authority of
the Soviet organizations, would be set up. We had the force of a
mass organization which would carry all before it. The task of
the day was to conclude peace. To do that Capital had to be
defeated. The international proletariat, among whom signs of
revolutionary unrest were beginning to appear, would help us to
secure
peace.

This speech struck home with the members of the
Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies. Yes, a new
period in our history was beginning. The strength of the mass
organizations was invincible. The masses had risen, and the
power of the bourgeoisie had fallen. We shall take the land
from the landowners, and give the law to the factory owners,
and, most important of all, we shall secure peace. The world
revolution will come to our assistance. Ilyich was right. His
speech was greeted with a storm of applause.

The Second Congress of the Soviets was to be opened that
evening. It was to proclaim the power of the Soviets and give
official recognition to the victory of the revolution.

Agitation was carried on among the delegates when they began to
arrive. The government of the workers was to lean upon the
peasantry, rally it behind them. The party that was supposed to
express the views of the peasantry were the
Socialist-Revolutionaries. The rich peasantry, the kulaks
had their ideologists in the person of the Right
Socialist-Revolutionaries. The ideologists of the peasant
masses, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were typical
representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, which wavered between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The leaders of the
Petrograd Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionaries were
Natanson, Spiridonova and Kamkov. Ilyich had met Natanson during
his first emigration. At that time–in 1904–Natanson
had stood fairly close to the Marxists, except that he had
believed the Social-Democrats to be underestimating the role of
the peasantry. Spiridonova was a popular figure at that
time. During the first revolution, in 1906, she, then a girl of
seventeen, had assassinated Luzhenovsky, the suppressor of the
peasant movement in the Tambov Gubernia. After being brutally
tortured, she was condemned to penal servitude in Siberia, where
she remained until the February Revolution. The Left
Socialist-ReVolutionaries of Petrograd were strongly influenced
by the Bolshevik temper of the masses. They were more favourably
inclined towards the Bolsheviks than any of the others. They saw
that the Bolsheviks were out in all earnest to confiscate all
the lands of the landowners and hand them over to the
peasants. The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries believed in
introducing a system of equalized land-tenure; the Bolsheviks
realized that a complete reconstruction of agriculture on
socialist lines was necessary. However, Ilyich considered that
the most important thing at the moment was to confiscate the
landowners’ lands. As to what turn further reconstruction would
take, experience itself would show. And he gave his thoughts to
the drafting of a decree on the land.

The reminiscences of M. V. Fofanova contain a very interesting
item. "I remember," she writes, "Vladimir Ilyich asking me to
get him all the back numbers of Izvestia, the organ of
the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies, which I did, of
course. I do not remember exactly how many numbers there were,
but they made a solid batch of material for study. Vladimir
Ilyich spent two days over it, working even at night. In the
morning he says to me: ‘Well, I think I’ve studied these
S.-R.’s inside out. All that remains is for me to read the
mandate of their peasant electors.’ Two hours later he called me
in and said cheerfully, slapping one of the newspapers (I saw it
to be the August 19 issue of the Peasant Izvestia):
‘Here’s a ready-made agreement with the Left S.-R.’s. It’s no
joke–this mandate has been signed by 242 local deputies. We
shall use it as the basis for our law concerning the land and
see if the Left S.-R.’s dare to reject it.’ He showed me the
paper with blue pencil markings all over it and added: ‘The
thing is to find a means by which we could afterwards reshape
their socialization idea after our own pattern.’ "

Marguerite was an agronomist by profession and she came up
against these problems in her work. It was, therefore, a subject
on which Ilyich willingly spoke to her.

Would the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries quit the congress or not?

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened at 10.45
p.m. on October 25 (November 7, New Style). That evening the
congress was to be constituted, was to elect a presidium and
define its powers. Of the 670 delegates only 300 were
Bolsheviks; 193 were Socialist-Revolutionaries and 68
Mensheviks. The Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and
Bundists foamed at the mouth and thundered denunciations at the
Bolsheviks. They read out a declaration of protest against the
"military plot and seizure of power engineered by the Bolsheviks
behind the backs of the other parties and factions represented
on the Soviet" and walked out. Some of the
Menshevik-Internationalists quitted too. The Left
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who formed the overwhelming majority
of the S.-R. delegates (169 out of 193), remained. Altogether
fifty delegates quitted the congress. Vladimir Ilyich was not
present at the opening night.

While the Second Congress of Soviets was being opened the Winter
Palace was being stormed. Kerensky had escaped the day before,
disguised as a sailor, and was rushed off to Pskov in a
motor-car. The Military Revolutionary Committee of Pskov did not
arrest him, although it had direct orders signed by Dybenko and
Krylenko to do so, and Kerensky left for Moscow to organize a
crusade against Petrograd, where the soldiers and workers had
taken the power into their own hands. The other ministers,
headed by Kishkin, entrenched themselves in the Winter Palace
under the protection of the military cadets and the women’s
shock battalion, which had been drawn up there for the
purpose. The Mensheviks, Right S.-R.’s and Bundists were frantic
with rage over the siege of the Winter Palace and went into
hysterics at the congress. Erlich declared that some of the
town-councillors had decided to go unarmed to the Palace Square
and risk being shot down because the palace was being
shelled. The Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants
Deputies, and the Menshevik and S.-R. groups decided to join
them. After the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had
walked out an interval was called. When the proceedings were
resumed at 3.10 a.m. the congress was informed that the Winter
Palace had been taken, the ministers arrested, the officers and
cadets disarmed, and the Third Bicycle Battalion, which Kerensky
had sent against Petrograd, had gone over to the revolutionary
people.

When there was no doubt left that victory had been won and that
the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries would not quit the congress,
Vladimir Ilyich, who had hardly slept the previous night and had
taken an active part all the time in directing the uprising,
left Smolny and went to sleep at the Bonch-Bruyeviches’, who
lived in Peski, not far from Smolny. He was given a room to
himself, but he could not fall asleep for a long time. He got up
quietly so as not to wake anybody and began to write the Decree
on Land, which he had already thought out in every
detail.

Addressing the congress on the evening of October
26 (November 8, New Style) in support of the Decree on Land,
Ilyich said:

"Voices are being raised here that the decree itself and the
mandate were drawn up by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. What of
it? Does it matter who drew them up? As a democratic government,
we cannot ignore the decision of the rank and file of the
people, even though we may disagree with it. In the fire of
experience, applying the decree in practice, and carrying it out
locally, the peasants will themselves realize where the truth
lies…. Life is the best teacher and it will show who is
right. Let the peasants solve this problem from one end and we
shall solve it from the other. Life will oblige us to draw
together in the general stream of revolutionary creative work,
in the elaboration of new state forms…. The peasants have
learnt something during the eight months of our revolution; they
want to settle all land questions themselves. We are therefore
opposed to all amendments to this draft law. We want no details
in it, for we are writing a decree, not a programme of action."
(Works, Vol. 26, pp. 228-29.) We have all of Ilyich in those
words–an Ilyich free from petty conceit (it does not matter
who said it, so long as it says the right thing), taking into
consideration the opinion of the rank and file, appreciating the
power of revolutionary creative work, clearly understanding that
the masses are best convinced by practice and experience, and
that the hard facts of life would show them that the Bolsheviks’
point of view had been correct. The Decree on Land submitted by
Lenin was adopted. Sixteen years have passed since
then. Landlord ownership has been abolished, and step by step,
in a struggle against the old proprietary habits and views, new
forms of farming have been created –collective farming,
which now embraces the bulk of peasant households. The old
small-farm methods and small-owner mentality are becoming a
thing of the past. A strong and powerful basis for socialist
farming has
been created.

The decrees on Peace and Land were passed at the evening session
on October 26 (November 8). On these points agreement was
reached with the S.-R.’s. On the question of forming a
government, however, the position was worse. The Left S.-R.’s
had not quitted the congress because they had realized that such
an action would have cost them their influence among the peasant
masses, but the withdrawal on October 25 of the Right S.-R.’s
and the Mensheviks, and their outcries against the adventurism
of the Bolsheviks, the seizure of power, etc., etc., had
deeply affected them. After the Right S.-R.’s and the others had
left the congress, Kamkov, one of the leaders of the Left
S.-R.’s, declared that they stood for a united democratic
government, and that the Left S.-R.’s would do everything they
could to have such a government set up. The Left S.-R.’s said
they wanted to act as mediators between the Bolsheviks and the
parties who had left the congress. The Bolsheviks did not refuse
to negotiate, but Ilyich understood perfectly well that nothing
would come of such talks. The Bolsheviks had not seized the
power and made the revolution in order to hitch a swan, a pike
and a crab to the Soviet cart, to form a government that would
be incapable of pulling together and getting things
done. Cooperation with the Left S.-R.’s, in Ilyich’s opinion,
was possible.

A talk on this question with representatives of the Left S.-R.’s
was held a couple of hours before the congress opened on
October 26. I remember the surroundings in which that conference
was held. It was a room in Smolny with small settees upholstered
in dark red. On one settee sat Spiridonova, and next to her
stood Ilyich, arguing with her in a sort of gentle earnest
manner. No agreement was reached with the Left S.-R.’s. They did
not want to join the government. Ilyich proposed the appointment
of Bolsheviks alone to the posts of socialist ministers.

The congress session of October 26 (November 8) opened at 9
p.m. I was present. I remember the speech Ilyich made in
submitting his draft Decree on Land. He spoke calmly. The
audience listened with rapt attention. During the reading of the
Decree I was struck by the expression of one of the delegates
who sat a little way off. He was an elderly looking peasant, and
under the stress of powerful emotion his face had assumed a
wax-like appearance and his eyes shone with a peculiar
light.

The death sentence, introduced by Kerensky at the front, was
repealed, decrees on Peace, on Land and on Workers’ Control were
passed, and a Bolshevik Council of People’s Commissars was
formed as follows: Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)–Chairman of the
Council; A. I. Rykov-People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs;
V. P. Milyutin –Agriculture; A. G. Shyapnikov–Labour;
V. A. Ovseyenko (Antonov), N. V. Krylenko and
P. Y. Dybenko–Committee of Military and Naval Affairs;
V. P. Nogin–Trade and Industry;
A. V. Lunacharsky-Education; I. I. Skvortsov (Stepanov)
–Finance; L. D. Bronstein (Trotsky)–Foreign Affairs;
G. I. Oppokov (Lomov)–Justice; I. A. Teodorovich–Food
Supply; N. P. Avilov (Glebov)–Post and Telegraph; and
J. V. Djugashvili (Stalin)–Chairman of the People’s
Commissariat for the Affairs of Nationalities. The post of
Commissar of Ways of Communication was left open.

Eino Rahja relates that when the list of first People’s
Commissars was being discussed at a meeting of the Bolshevik
group, he had been sitting in a corner listening. One of the
nominees had protested that he had no experience in that kind of
work. Vladimir Ilyich had burst out laughing and said: "Do you
think any of us has had such experience?" None had any
experience, of course. But Vladimir Ilyich envisaged the
People’s Commissar as a new type of minister, an organizer and
manager of one or another branch of state activity, who was
linked closely with the masses.

Vladimir Ilyich’s mind was hard at work all the time on the
problem of new forms of administration. He was thinking of how
to organize a machinery of government that would be free from
the taint of bureaucratism, that would lean on the masses,
organize their cooperation and assistance, and show itself
capable of training a new type of administrative worker on this
job. In the resolution of the Second Congress of Soviets
concerning the formation of a workers’ and peasants’ government,
this is expressed in the following words:

"The management of the different branches of state activity is
entrusted to commissions whose make-up should ensure the
implementation of the programme proclaimed by the congress in
close unity with the mass
organizations of the workers, sailors, soldiers, peasants and
employees. The government power is vested in a collegium of
chairmen of the said commissions, i.e., the Council of People’s
Commissars." (Works, Vol. 26, p. 230.)

I recall the talks
I had with Ilyich on this subject during the few weeks he lived
at Fofanova’s. I was working at the time with tremendous
enthusiasm in the Vyborg District, keenly observing the
revolutionary activities of the masses and the radical changes
that were taking place in the whole pattern of life. On meeting
Vladimir Ilyich I would tell him about life in the district. I
remember telling him about an interesting sitting of a People’s
Court which I had attended. Such courts had been held in some
places during the Revolution of 1905–in Sormovo for one
thing. Chugurin, a worker, whom I had met as a student of the
Longjumeau Party school near Paris and with whom I was now
working at the Vyborg District Council, was a native of
Sormovo. It was his suggestion to start organizing such courts
in the Vyborg District. The first court sat at the People’s
House. The place was packed with people standing shoulder to
shoulder on the floor, benches and window sills. I do not
remember now exactly what cases came before the court. They were
not really offences in the strict sense of the word, but
incidents of everyday life. Two suspicious characters were tried
for attempting to arrest Chugurin. A tall swarthy watchman was
"tried" for beating his young son, exploiting him and keeping
him away from school. Many working men and women from among the
public made warm speeches, The
"defendant" kept wiping the sweat from his brow, and then, with the
tears streaming down his face, promised not to ill-treat his son any
more. Strictly speaking, it was not a court, but a public control of
citizens’ behaviour; we were witnessing proletarian ethics in the
making. Vladimir Ilyich was greatly interested in this "court" and
questioned me about it in detail.

Mostly I told him about the new forms of educational work. I was
in charge of the Department of Education at the District
Council. The children’s school did not function in the summer,
and most of the time I was busy with political education. In
this respect my five years’ experience at the Sunday Evening
School in the Nevskaya Zastava District in the nineties came in
very useful to me. These were different times, of course, and we
could go ahead with the job unhampered.

Delegates from some forty factories got together every week and
we discussed ways and means of carrying out one or another
measure. Whatever we decided was immediately carried out. For
example, we decided to do away with illiteracy, and the factory
delegates, each at his own place of employment, organized the
registration of illiterates, secured school premises and
raised the necessary funds by bearing down upon the factory
managements. A representative of the workers was attached to
each such school and he saw to it that the school was supplied
with all that it needed in the way of blackboards, chalk, ABC
books, etc. Special representatives were appointed to see that
right teaching methods were used and to find out what the
workers had to say about it. We briefed these representatives
and had them report back to us. We got together delegates of
the soldiers’ wives and discussed conditions in the children’s
homes, organized their inspection over the children’s homes,
gave them instructions, and carried out extensive explanatory
work among them. We got together the librarians of the district,
and together with them and the workers discussed the forms of
work of the public libraries. A powerful impulse was given to
the initiative of the workers, and the Department of Education
rallied around itself considerable forces. Ilyich said at the
time that this was just the style of work that our government
offices and future ministers would have to adopt, a style of
work modelled after these committees of working men and women,
who were in the thick of things and were familiar with the
conditions of life and work of the masses and with everything
that agitated their minds at the moment. Vladimir Ilyich was
all the more keen to draw me out on these subjects in that he
believed I understood how to enlist the masses on the job of
running the government.

He had some strong things to say
afterwards about the "rotten" bureaucratism that had wormed its
way in everywhere. Eventually, when the question came up of
raising the responsibility of the People’s Commissars and the
Commissariats’ department managers, who often shuffled it off on
to the boards and commissions, the question of oneman management
arose. Ilyich unexpectedly got me appointed a member of the
commission under the Council of People’s Commissars which was
set up to investigate this question. He said we must be careful
that one-man management should in no way override the initiative
and independent activity of the commissions, or weaken the ties
with the masses; one-man management had to be combined with an
ability to work with the masses. Ilyich tried to make use of
everyone’s experience for building up a state of a new type. The
Soviet Government, at the head of which Ilyich now stood, was
faced with the task of setting up a type of state machinery such
as the world had never yet seen, a machinery that relied on the
support of the broad masses; the task was to remodel the whole
social fabric and all human relations along new socialist
lines.

But first of all the Soviet power had to be defended against the
enemy’s attempts to overthrow it by force and disrupt it from
within. Our ranks had to be strengthened.