In the February 1917 revolution, which toppled the tzarist monarchy, soviets--councils elected by workers, soldiers, and peasants, first formed in the 1905 revolution--reemerged, and constituted a dual power counterposed to the increasingly unstable capitalist regimes that followed. At first, the majority still had illusions in the class-collaborationist parties. By October, however, when the Bolshevik-led insurrection took place, the Bolsheviks were the elected majority in the Petrograd soviet.

The following is reprinted from The History of the Russian Revolution by Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky. The excerpts are taken from the book's last chapter, titled, "Conclusion." Footnotes are taken from the glossaries at the end of the book.
 
BY LEON TROTSKY  
A remarkable consecutiveness of stages is to be observed in the development of the Russian revolution--and this for the very reason that it was an authentic popular revolution, setting in motion tens of millions. Events succeeded each other as though obeying laws of gravitation. The correlation of forces was twice verified at every stage: first the masses would demonstrate the might of their assault, then the possessing classes, attempting revenge, would reveal only the more clearly their isolation.

In February [1917] the workers and soldiers of Petrograd rose in insurrection--not only against the patriotic will of all the educated classes, but also contrary to the reckonings of the evolutionary organizations. The masses demonstrated that they were inconquerable. Had they themselves been aware of this, they would have become the government. But there was not yet a strong and authoritative revolutionary party at their head. The power fell into the hands of the petty-bourgeois democracy tinted with a protective socialist coloration. The Mensheviks¹ and Social Revolutionaries² could make no other use of the confidence of the masses but to summon to the helm the liberal bourgeoisie, who in their turn could only place the power slipped to them by the Compromisers³ at the service of the interests of the Entente.

In the April days the indignation of the regiments and factories--again without the summons of any party--brought them out on the streets of Petrograd to resist the imperialist policy of the government wished on them by the Compromisers. This armed demonstration attained an appearance of success.

Miliukov,⁴ the leader of Russian imperialism, was removed from the government. The Compromisers entered the government, superficially as plenipotentiaries of the people, in reality as call-boys of the bourgeoisie. Without having decided one of the problems which had evoked the revolution, the coalition government violated in June the de facto armistice that had been established on the front, throwing the troops into an offensive. By this act the February regime, already characterized by the declining trust of the masses in the Compromisers, dealt itself a fatal blow. The period opened of direct preparation for a second revolution.

At the beginning of July the government, having all the possessing and educated classes behind it, was prosecuting every revolutionary manifestation whatever as treason to the fatherland and aid to the enemy. The official mass organizations--the soviets, the social patriotic parties--were struggling against a coming-out with all their power. The Bolsheviks for tactical reasons were trying to restrain the workers and soldiers from coming into the streets. Nevertheless the masses came out. The movement proved unrestrainable and universal. The government was nowhere to be seen. The Compromisers hid. The workers and soldiers proved masters of the situation in the capital. Their offensive went to pieces, however, owing to the inadequate readiness of the provinces and the front.

At the end of August all the organs and institutions of the possessing classes stood for a counter-revolutionary overturn: the diplomats of the Entente, the banks, the leagues of landed proprietors and industrialists, the Kadet party,⁵ the staffs, the officers, the big press. The organizer of the overturn was no other than the supreme commander-in-chief with the officer-apparatus of an army of millions to rely on. Military detachments specially selected from all fronts were thrown against Petrograd under pretense of strategic considerations and by secret agreement with the head of the government.

In the capital everything, it seemed, was prepared for the success of the enterprise: the workers had been disarmed by the authorities with the help of the Compromisers; the Bolsheviks were under a steady rain of blows; the more revolutionary regiments had been removed from the city; hundreds of specially selected officers were concentrated in shock brigades--with the officer schools and Cossack detachments they should constitute an impressive force. And what happened? The plot, patronized it would seem by the gods themselves, barely came in contact with the revolutionary people when it scattered in dust.

These two movements, at the beginning of July and the end of August, relate to each other as a theorem and its converse. The July days demonstrated the might of the self-dependent movement of the masses. The August days laid bare the complete impotence of the ruling groups. This correlation signalized the inevitability of a new conflict. The provinces and the front were meanwhile drawing closer to the capital. This predetermined the October victory.

"The ease with which Lenin and Trotsky overthrew the last coalition government of Kerensky," wrote the Kadet, Nabokov, "revealed its inward impotence. The degree of this impotence was an amazement at that time even to well-informed people." Nabokov himself seems hardly aware that it was a question of his impotence, that of his class, of his social structure....

Eight months after the overthrow of the monarchy the workers stood at the head of the country. And they stood firmly. "Who would believe," wrote one of the Russian generals, Zalessky, expressing his indignation at this, "that the janitor or watchman of the court building would suddenly become Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals? Or the hospital orderly, manager of the hospital; the barber a big functionary; yesterday's ensign, the commander-in-chief; yesterday's lackey or common laborer, burgomaster; yesterday's train oiler, chief of division or station superintendent; yesterday's locksmith, head of the factory?"

Who would believe it?" They had to believe it. It was impossible not to believe it, when ensigns routed the generals, when burgomasters from the ranks of common labor put down the resistance of yesterday's lords, train oilers regulated transport, and locksmiths as directors revived industry....

The language of the civilized nations has clearly marked off two epochs in the development of Russia. Where the aristocratic culture introduced into world parlance such barbarisms as tzar, pogrom, knout, October has internationalized such words as Bolshevik, soviet, and piatiletka [five-year plan]. This alone justifies the proletarian revolution, if you imagine that it needs justification.
 

1. Mensheviks--Moderate socialist party claiming allegiance to Karl Marx, but believing that the working class must combine with the liberal bourgeoisie to overthrow tzarism and establish a democratic republic.

2. Social Revolutionaries--Peasant socialist party, formed at the beginning of the century from a fusion of several tendencies of the Narodniks. Representing the wavering interests of the small peasant proprietor in the revolution, this party split into a group of Left Social Revolutionaries, anarchist in their leanings but participating for a time in the Bolshevik government, and the Right Social Revolutionaries who supported Kerensky [head of the capitalist Provisional Government].

3. Compromisers--General name for the leaders of the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary parties in the Soviet, who, although professing socialist principles, compromised with the Kadets upon essential points, voluntarily handing over the power to them.

4. Miliukov--Head of the Kadet party, Minister of Foreign Affairs and actual boss of the Provisional Government.

5. Kadets--Popular name for the Constitutional Democrats (K.D.'s)--subsequently also called the Party of the People's Freedom--the great liberal party favoring a constitutional monarchy or even ultimately a republic, a party of the progressive landlords, middle bourgeoisie and bourgeois intelligentsia, headed by Miliukov, a professor of history.  
 
 
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