Table Of ContentALEXANDER RABINOWITCH
PRRUDEro REVOLUTION .
. .
. .
· THE PETROGRAD-BOLSHEVIKS AND · . .
.· · THE·.JULY1917.UPRISING ··. ,
. .
Prelude to
Revolution
Prelude to
Revolution
The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July
9 7 Uprising
1 1
ALEXANDER RABINOWITCH
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS
First Midland Book Edition 1991
© 1968 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
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or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
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Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
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Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rabinowitch, Alexander.
Prelude to rernlution: the Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917
uprising I Alexander Rabinowitch. - 1st :\1idland book ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-253-34768-8 (cloth). - ISBN o-2;J-20661-8 (paper)
1. Leningrad (R.S.F.S.R.)-History-Rernlution, 1917-192 1.
2. Rossiiskala sotsial-demokraticheskala rabochala partila.
3. Soviet Union-History-Revolution, 1917-1921. I. Tide.
DK265.8.L4R3 1991
947.084'1-dc20 91-8422
I 2 3 4 5 95 94 93 92 91
Contents
Preface to the Midland Edition vu
Prologue 3
I. The Historical Background 8
II. The Struggle Begins 32
Ill. The Abortive June 10 Demonstration 54
IV. The Rise of Unrest 97
v.
The July Uprising Begins 135
VI. The July Uprising: Culmination
and Collapse 177
VII. The July Uprising: Retreat and Reaction 206
VIII. Conclusion: The Party Divided 229
Selected Bibliography 236
Notes 253
Index 291
Preface to the Midland Edition
Over twenty years have passed since the publication of Prelude to
Revolution. This book was my initial foray into Bolshevik party his
tory and among the first substantial products of independent Ameri
can scholarship on the 191 7 Russian rernlution. 1
The appearance of Prelude to Revolution in the United States coin
cided with the reimposition of Stalinist approaches to history in the
Soviet Union following Nikita Khrushchev's ouster in 1964. For
some Soviet writers, the exposure of"bourgeois falsifiers" once again
became a major activity. At the time Soviet writers could attack
Western historians with impunity because their works were inac
cessible to Soviet readers. Prelude to Revolution appeared to have been
singled out for special venom because with solid documentation it
challenged such precepts of Stalinist orthodoxy as the fundamental
unity of the Bolshevik Party and its leading role behind Lenin in
1917, not to speak of the officially prescribed view of the July upris
ing as nothing more than a spontaneous, peaceful protest march.
Two illustrations will convey the tenor of this attack. In a review
article, "The Events of July 191 7 in Contemporary Bourgeois Histo
riography," published in 197 1, N. V. Romanovsky dismissed my use
of sources (although they were mainly published documents, Bol
shevik memoirs, and contemporary newspapers) and rejected my
findings regarding the underlying causes and character of the July
movement. Not surprisingly, Romanovsky's most caustic comments
were directed toward my view of the fundamental nature of the Bol
shevik Party in 191 7, and of the important role of ultra-radical ele
ments within it in June and July. "In Rabinowitch's depiction,"
wrote Romanovsky, "the Bolshevik Party becomes a motley conglom
erate: the terms 'extreme left wing,' 'right wing,' 'leftism,' 'moder
ates,' 'radicals,' 'extremists'-these and similar terms abound." "The
correct approach to differences of opinion existing within the party,''
Romanovsky explained, "should be based on the fact that at no time
did they disrupt the programmatic and organizational unity of the
party, or deter it from following the course set by Lenin." 2
The Leningrad historian G. L. Sobolev commented in a similar
vein in his book The October Revolution in American Historiography.
"According to Rabinowitch's firmly held conviction," wrote Sobo
lev, "the key to understanding Bolshevik politics in June and July
191 7 is to be found in the Western concept of 'the divided party,' in
line with which the Bolshevik Party in 1917 was not a monolithic
organization but was divided into factions differing significantly in
outlook and politics. 'Creatively' applying this concept to the period
he studies," Sobolev continued, "the author of Prelude to Revolution
identifies 'three distinct Bolshevik Party organizations-the Cen
tral Committee, the All-Russian Military Organization, and the
Petersburg Committee-each with its own responsibilities and in
terests."' Sobolev added that the author's "creativity" did not stop
there, since I had "discovered" yet another "influential" political
force-the anarchists-who had much in common with the Bolshe
viks. "Only an uninformed reader, unfamiliar with anarchist prin
ciples and the Bolshevik program in 191 7,'' he concluded, "would
not find such a claim absurd." 3 With the publication of a Russian
language edition of Prelude to Revolution in Moscow in 1991, Soviet
readers finally have the opportunity to judge for themselves the mer
its of such criticism!
Happily, Western evaluations of Prelude to Revolution were kinder
than those of Soviet critics. If Soviet writers objected to my exten
sive use of early published Bolshevik memoirs and of the contempo
rary Bolshevik press to demonstrate that the near-monolithic unity
and "iron discipline" of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 were largely
myth and the primary source of confusion about the party's role in
the events of June and July, Western reviewers found my analysis
and documentation in this regard compelling. Thus, Marc Ferro, the
leading French historian of the Russian revolution, wrote in Anna/es
that I had "broken through the protective wall surrounding the his
tory of the Communist Party during the rernlution of 1917" and
"clarified a puzzle long obscured by Stalinist, Trotskyist, and other
sacred texts." "Pursuing clues like a true Sherlock Holmes," I had
"discovered and proven the unexpected-that in July 1917, the Bol
shevik Party was divided not only by strategic and theoretical con
flicts but also by the existence of relatively autonomous party
branches." By establishing the existence of three decision-making
centers, separate from the two major schools of thought led by Ka
menev and Lenin, I had "demonstrated that the Bolshevik Party in
1917 was simultaneously democratic in principle but decentralized
and undisciplined in actual operation."'
Reviews by the Israeli historian Israel Getzlcr and by the British
historian John L. H. Keep emphasized some of these points. Getzler
concluded that Prelude to Revolution made the July days "intelligible
as the run-away climax to uncoordinated Bolshevik policies and ac
tivities." Citing the thoroughness of the research, Keep speculated
that had I been given access to archives, my account of developments
at the regimental or factory level might have been fuller, but that it
was doubtful that there were party documents hidden from view
that would have significantly altered my main conclusions.6
For me, however, the most heartening aspect of responses by
Western historians to mv first book was not that most felt it had
clarified important aspects of a puzzling historical event, nor even
that it presented a new view of the party in 1917 with broad ana
lytical implications. Rather, what was and still is satisfying was that
the book, along with several other works on the revolutionary period
published at that time by \Vestern scholars, seemed to reviewers to
demonstrate that despite continuing problems with access to Soviet
archives, it was possible to make significant contributions to histori-
cal literature on the basis of published sources and archival materials
in the West and sources accessible in Soviet libraries.
Subsequent Western historical research has greatly advanced our
understanding of the events of 191 7. 7 With reference to the period
and issues with which I deal, among the most important works arc
studies of factory workers by S. A. Smith, Da\"id Mandel, .\1ichael
Boll, Rex \Vade, and William G. Rosenberg and Diane P. Koenker;
of soldiers at the front by Allan Wildman; and of Baltic fleet sailors
by Evan Mawdsley and Israel Getzler. Other important works in
clude biographies of V. I. Lenin by Robert Service, of L. D. Trotsky
by Irving Howe, of Iu. 0. Martov by Israel Getzler, and of A. F.
Kerensky by Richard Abraham; books on the various competing
political parties by Rosenberg, Ziva Galili, Paul A.Yrich, Rex Wade,
and Michael Melancon; books on the development of the rernlution
outside Petrograd by Ronald G. Suny, DonaldJ. Raleigh, and Diane
P. Koenker; and broader studies of the February revolution by
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and of the October rernlution by John L. H.
Keep and Marc Ferro."
The focus and the interpretations reflected in these books vary
considerably. However, I think it is fair to say that, with one or t\vo
exceptions, they do not challenge the basic conclusions of Prelude to
Revolution with regard to the fundamental political, economic, and
social causes of popular unrest during the spring and summer of
191 7, the character of the Bolshevik Party at that time, and the
party's role in the July uprising. Nonetheless, although all of these
works make valuable contributions to existing knowledge, some key
questions about the organization of the July uprising remain.
Among the issues still requiring clarification, how significant was
the role of the Anarchist-Communists in the preparation of the abor
tive June 10 demonstration and the July uprising, and how extensive
and important was collaboration between Anarchist-Communists
and Bolsheviks at the local level in this period? Other murky issues
concern Lenin's relationship to the events of June and early July. Al
though it is apparent that in the weeks preceding the July uprising,
Lenin and a majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee consid-
