Libmonster ID: RU-20299
Author(s) of the publication: V. D. POLIKARPOV

Memoirs of prominent revolutionary figures, publications, and research by historians are devoted to the activities of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), its role as the combat headquarters of the October Armed Uprising and the organ for defending the gains of October in the first weeks of Soviet power. The result of extensive work in this area was the publication in 1966-1967 of the three-volume collection of documents and materials "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee". This publication is based on the committee's fund, published in its entirety. It is accompanied by documents found in other archives, as well as press materials, including those that at least indirectly characterize the activities of the Petrograd VRK.

An important source for the history of the Petrograd VRK is the memoir testimonies written by members of the VRK N. I. Podvoysky, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, V. I. Nevsky, K. A. Mekhonoshin, A.D. Sadovsky, K. S. Eremeev, G. I. Chudnovsky, some of the MRC commissars, S. I. Shulga, an employee of the Bureau of Commissars, and other active workers. 1 . They fill in significant gaps in the documentary base of the history of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Since the publication of the three-volume edition of documents and materials, no previously unknown sources on the history of the Petrograd MRC have been identified. This does not mean, however, that all materials on this topic have been exhausted by those already published. This is evidenced by a series of valuable sources stored in the Central State Academy of Sciences of the USSR and not yet in the field of view of researchers. These are correspondence and minutes of meetings of the East Committee of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the Central Committee of the RSFSR, related to the publication of the minutes of the Petrograd MRC, which was supposed to be published in 1927-1931, and comments on the minutes and memoirs of a number of its active figures that are of the greatest interest. They cover the entire history of the MRC, from its formation to its liquidation, and shed light on a number of issues that are still unclear. Comments provide an assessment of the protocols and help in their source analysis. Memoirs and some brief remarks of the members of the MRC S. I. Gusev, K. A. Mekhonoshin, J. H. Peters, M. Ya. Latsis, F. I. Goloshchekin, I. V. Balashov, I. S. Unshlikht, A.V. Galkin and the employee of the MRC secretariat Ya. Netupskaya draws the attention of researchers to such facts and aspects of the committee's activities that are not reflected not only in its report.

1 Most of them are listed in the collection "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee". Documents and Materials, vol. 1, Moscow, 1966, pp. 15-16.

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protocols, but also in other documents. By evaluating the minutes as sources for the history of the MRC, they help to determine the relationship between the committee's practical activities and their reflection in the minutes.

On March 1, 1927, a meeting of representatives of the Istpart and Tsentrarchiv was held with the participation of a group of former employees of the committee on the issue of publishing the minutes of the MRC. At the meeting, the head of the History Department, M. A. Savelyev, raised the question: "The protocols printed in proofs begin on October 29. Have the previous protocols been preserved? Can I restore them?". The minutes of the meeting say that a former employee of the secretariat, E. Bogoraz, reports that she started writing the minutes on October 27. No one knows where these protocols are located. " 2 I. G. Dykov, referring to the first days of the work of the MRC and, in particular, the first meeting (October 20), stated: "Unfortunately, the first minutes of the MRC have not been preserved"3. G. E. Reichberg, considering that this statement is not true . expressed "without sufficient grounds", he suggested that the protocols before October 29 "apparently were not conducted yet" 4 .

Now this dispute can be resolved with the help of the certificate of S. I. Gusev, who was the secretary of the Petrograd Supreme Soviet from October 26, 1917. In his letter, addressed in March 1928 to the Istpart of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), it says:: "As to the minutes of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I can report the following: for the first two days after the uprising, the minutes of its meetings were not kept, because, firstly, there was no time for minutes during those days, and secondly, it was impossible to find reliable comrades who would undertake this technical task. They were engaged in other, more lively, political work." S. I. Gusev paints in his letter a picture of the daily work of the MRC, introducing new data unknown from the previously published memoirs of other employees. "The morning sessions of the MRC," he says, " usually began at 10-11 o'clock, ended around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the evening sessions began at 7 - 8 o'clock in the evening and ended at 2 - 3 o'clock in the morning. The composition of meetings was fluid: some members of the Committee left, others came, and such a change continued during meetings, without interfering with the work of the Committee and without causing interruptions. It also happened that meetings began in one composition, and ended in another. The most" permanent " members of the Committee were Dzerzhinsky and Uritsky. In the intervals between meetings, as well as at night, there was always a member of the Committee on duty, sometimes two members, who were immediately in the room where the meetings took place, and slept."5
On October 26, 27, and 28, K. A. Mekhonoshin alternated between acting as Chairman and Secretary of the MRC 6 . His memoirs, "A few Remarks on the Protocols of the Supreme Soviet of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, " sent to Istpart and Tsentrarchiv on September 17, 1928, confirm what S. I. Gusev said. "In those days," wrote K. A. Mekhonoshin, " the Military Revolutionary Committee had no departments with it, and, alas, at that time no protocols were kept. In fact, there were no actual meetings. Is it possible to call this purely "peaceful" word the continuous combat activity conducted by the collective of members of the Military Revolutionary Committee

2 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, 1743, ll. 17-18. Original version.

3 I. G. Dykov. Petrograd VRK-combat Bolshevik headquarters of the armed uprising in October 1917 "Voprosy Istorii", 1957, No. 7, p. 23.

4 G. E. Reichberg. Protocols of the Petrograd Supreme Revolutionary Committee as a historical source. "Source studies of the history of Soviet society", Moscow, 1964, p. 39.

5 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. 1743, l. 38. Certified copy.

6 "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee", vol. 1, pp. 141, 200, 226.

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sometimes in this or that composition, when every single member of the Committee was often forced to make decisions on behalf of the entire Committee, taking sole responsibility for their actions? " 7
S. I. Gusev's letter adds to the existing data on the multi-pronged activities of the MRC. "Before the organization of the Council of People's Commissars and departments of the new All-Russian Central Executive Committee, "it says," the Military Revolutionary Committee was not only an organ of insurrection, but also the only authority that was approached with a huge number of very diverse cases that were not related to the functions of the Committee. Distribution of calico and kerosene, establishment of tariff rates for employees of new government apparatuses, issuance of permits for the right to bear arms, release of loaded steamships abroad, issuance of funds to individual factories to continue production, release of goods from customs, organization of a canteen in Smolny, resolution of personal conflicts, etc. - up to applying for divorce cases, - More than a thousand such questions were resolved by the Supreme Executive Committee, but all such questions, which were not directly related to the tasks of the Committee, almost did not reach it and found only a weak reflection in the minutes (like, for example, the question of the stoker for Smolny). They were resolved either by the Committee member on duty or by the secretary (smaller matters). No protocols were kept for these decisions. Decisions were made under the signature on the relevant document and attached to the Committee's seal. The Committee's reception room, especially in the first two weeks after the uprising, was a constant stream of people coming and going. The reception area itself was hard to get through: so many people gathered in it. During the day, the reception passed more than one thousand people, giving information, instructions, etc. Work in the reception area subsided, but did not stop completely, by 3 o'clock in the morning. At 5 o'clock in the morning, there was usually a natural break, but from 7 o'clock in the morning a new stream of people burst into the reception area, and the reception staff (the first days - only 2 - 3 comrades) had to be torn apart, giving answers to dozens of questions raining down on them from all sides"8 .

Here Gusev raised the question of the degree of reflection of the daily work of the IAC in the protocols. In this regard, there is an opinion in the literature that they provide "a fairly complete picture of the range of issues that the MRC considered at its meetings", that its activities were "sufficiently fully reflected in the protocols"9 . K. A. Mekhonoshin, in his comments to the protocols, spoke about them more cautiously: "These protocol records are in the form of documents that are used by the MRC. In general, they reflect more or less accurately the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee. As a material for the researcher, they are of undoubted interest. It goes without saying that when publishing these entries, it is necessary to provide them with appropriate comments. " 10 S. I. Gusev, recognizing that the protocols, "although not fully, provide extremely valuable concrete material reflecting the turbulent events of the October Revolution," explains in the final part of his letter:: "The protocols of the MRC were conducted, especially in the first days, unsatisfactorily, some of the decisions were not included in them at all, decisions were written down hastily, the recordings of speeches were extremely short and far from always accurate, and sometimes directly incorrect. The protocols themselves were either not edited at all, or they were edited haphazardly." Yet he draws attention to the side of the protocols that made them a valuable source: "Despite

7 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. 1743, l. 40. Original.

8 Ibid., pp. 38-39.

8 G. E. Reichber, G. Decree, op. cit., pp. 38, 63.

10 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. " 1743, l. 42.

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to all these shortcomings, the protocols exude the spirit of insurrection, unshakeable proletarian revolutionary determination and iron Bolshevik firmness", "together with other materials, they provide a concrete detailed answer to the question: how to make a revolution?" 11 .

Highly appreciating the protocols, A. S. Bubnov, a former member of the party's Military Revolutionary Center in the VRK, in 1924-1929. head of the Political Department of the Red Army and a member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) -, answered the request of the Eastpart and Tsentrarchiv on January 31, 1929.: "The materials of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee are of undoubted interest." 12 On January 13, 1928, in a letter to V. V. Maksakov, executive editor of the magazine "Red Archive", in which it was originally intended to publish the minutes of the MRC,I. S. Unshlikht, a former member of the VRK, and in 1925-1930, Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, writes: "The direct participant, when reading the protocols, remembers all the grandiose work that was done in the past. which at that time was conducted by the Military Revolutionary Committee. The work of the Committee among our broad party masses will be presented in a completely different form when the minutes are read... I believe that publishing the protocols in this form will detract from the importance of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee. A lot of small facts, a lot of decisions caused by the demands of everyday work, for the reader reduce the work of the Committee almost to the role of a technical performer... It would help the reader a lot and make it easier for him to understand if small comments were added to individual protocols or to a group of protocols that would illuminate the overall picture of the work " 13 .

J. H. Peters, a former member of the Supreme Revolutionary Committee, wrote on December 15, 1928, that the protocols "did not include very much of value from the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee... There are a great many defects and omissions in the materials, and it could not have been otherwise, for in the first period of the work of the Soviet organs-after the October Uprising, when all the employees of the Central Executive Committee and the Soviet left Smolny together with the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries - the typists, secretaries, and protocol clerks employed for technical work were very inexperienced workers, and Sometimes it was necessary to wait more than an hour to receive a mandate of 2-3 printed lines." Peters 'conclusion was:" I believe that these protocols can only serve as material exclusively for reconstructing the events of October in memory. In my opinion, it is necessary to instruct all of us-participants in the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee-to write our memoirs, and on the basis of these memoirs we will get a more or less clear idea of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee."14
From the above remarks, it can be seen that S. I. Gusev, K. A. Mekhonoshin, and Y. X. Peters were confused by the incompleteness of reporting in the protocols of the MRC's activities, the imperfection of protocol records, and the lack of protocols for the first days of October. I. S. Unshlikht was puzzled by something else: the abundance of small facts in the protocols in the absence of a general picture of the MRC's activities. All this made it necessary to write comments that could fill in the gaps in the protocols to some extent. However, the history of the MRC had not been developed by that time, and the considerations of the WRC members could not replace research.

Today, the activities of the Petrograd MRC are revealed in the works of historians, and issues that require further study are identified. Invaluable help in their research can be provided by those materials that are related to the attempt to publish the protocols of the MRC in 1927-1931.

11 Ibid., pp. 38-39.

12 Ibid., l. 87. Original.

13 Ibid., l. 15. Original.

14 Ibid., pp. 71-72. Original version.

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"I have reviewed the protocols of the Revolutionary Committee and am returning them," a former member of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee, A.V. Galkin, wrote to Istpart on March 19, 1927. - I can't add or correct anything, because I've forgotten a lot. But the record is extremely incomplete. For example, there is not a word about my report after the search of the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, [records] of the meeting when representatives of the Moscow merchant class (very curious) and a friend were received. " 15 A.V. Galkin, obviously, remembered more than others the episode of receiving a delegation of Moscow commercial and industrial organizations to the VRK because he issued a pass in Smolny on 20 members of this delegation 16, but he was wrong, claiming that this fact fell out of the Minutes - in the minutes of the evening meeting on November 18, there is a record of the delegation's speech at the meeting and F. E. Dzerzhinsky's response to its appeal 17 . Another thing is that the recording was, as usual, brief. This can be seen from the comments of Ya. A. Netupskaya (dated July 4, 1928), who worked in the MRC secretariat. "I remember most vividly," she writes, " the delegation of Moscow's commercial and industrial workers who insisted on the release of the capitalist ministers (Protocol No. 49 of November 19 , 18). In addition to the reasons given in the protocol, the delegation put forward another argument in favor of releasing the capitalist ministers: "You have released the socialists, [although] the socialists are more dangerous to you than our comrades." Unfortunately, this phrase is omitted in the protocol for some reason. " 19
The responses of former members of the Petrograd MRC to the appeal of Istpart and Tsentrarchiv of March 8, 1927 contain many amendments and factual additions to the protocols. Here is one of the remarks of J. H. Peters: "In the minutes I have absolutely failed to find the resolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee on my and Comrade Stalin's death. Lashevich was sent to the Northern Front [in the area] of the 12th Army. When the struggle with Kerensky dragged on, after the trip of Comrade Skrypnik's report to the Gatchina Front and his report to the Military Revolutionary Committee, the latter issued a resolution that Lashevich and I, in view of the fact that the road near Gatchina was cut off, should go through Finland to Helsingfors, take a steamer through Revel, to the Riga Front, and take measures to delay assistance to Kerensky from the other side and organize the organization of attacks on it by the 12th army " 20 . This fact is quite remarkable: it shows little reflected in the documents of the organizational work of the MRC in coordinating the actions of the Red Guard of Petrograd and the revolutionary troops of the active army in the fight against the Kerensky - Krasnov mutiny. Peters ' testimony is confirmed by published documents: the order of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union dated October 29, 1917 to the Commissar of the Finnish Railway to issue M. M. Lashevich a pass to Helsingfors, two orders of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Central Committee (b) that Lashevich left the 12th Army on November 2, 22 . Peters ' testimony reveals the meaning of these documents, explaining the purpose of the trip of the VRK envoys through Helsingfors and Revel to the front.

F. I. Goloshchekin, a former member of the Petrograd MRC, and in 1928 secretary of the regional Committee of the CPSU(b) of Kazakhstan, points out the facts of another

15 Ibid., l. 76. Autograph.

16 "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee", vol. 3, p. 153.

17 Ibid., p. 143.

18 Ya-A. Netupskaya has an inaccuracy here: we are talking about the protocol of November 18.

19 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, 1743, l. 75. Autograph.

20 Ibid., pp. 71-72.

21 "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee", vol. 1, pp. 300, 307.

22 " Correspondence of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) with local party organizations (November 1917-February 1918)", Moscow, 1957, p. 430.

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orders - not dropped out of the protocols, but such that they could not get into them and were not recorded in any documents at all. "There is no doubt for me," he wrote in the Central Archive on June 6, 1928, " that the protocol records do not reflect the entire sum of the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee. I can judge this at least from my memories of my activities there. Along with a number of functions that I performed in the Military Revolutionary Committee, I clearly remember that the main function that was assigned to me was to receive delegations from the front: to explain the meaning and purpose of the October Revolution, to find out the mood of the units, to establish communication with them, to supply literature, etc. every day there were more and more delegations from the front, they were registered, several delegations were brought together, and in one of the large halls I gathered them, presented [data] about the October Revolution, listened to the mood at the front and the attitude towards the coup, and then at the end invited V. I. Lenin. " 23
M. Ya. Latsis did not make any comments on the protocols, but sent on April 23, 1928, under the heading "To the protocols of the Petrograd MRC", a short note with memories of the work of the Bureau of Commissars of the MRC, which he headed. He says: "The appointment of commissars was made after a preliminary discussion of the issue in the Bureau of Commissars. This Bureau was formed immediately on the day after the coup, and, if I am not mistaken, at the suggestion of Comrade. Podvoysky district. At first, this work was supervised by com. Nevsky, but the next day he handed the job over to me. From then on, I headed the Bureau of Commissars until my appointment to the People's Commissariat of Education. The work of the Bureau of Commissars consisted in identifying from among the party workers and party members in general a suitable person for the post of commissar to that military unit or institution where our people were not present. At first, commissars were planned only for the city and surrounding areas, and then they began to be sent to the province as well. " 24
In 1957, when publishing a collection of reports from the commissars of the Petrograd MRC, the compilers stated that due to the lack of documents, "the activities of the emissaries of the Petrograd MRC remained unenlightened." 25 No significant progress has been made in this area so far, and the functions of commissars and emissaries are sometimes equated in the literature. In the memoir of M. Ya. Latsis, there is an explanation of the fundamental difference between the status of commissioner and emissary of the VRK. He's writing: "The comrades sent to the provinces were most often given mandates not for a commissar, but for an emissary, so as not to impose a stranger on them in cases where they had one of their own. If the emissary sent by us turned out to be a suitable employee, he was nominated for the position of commissioner by the places themselves." This also characterizes the style of work of the MRC in a certain way: the extraordinary organ of the proletarian dictatorship protected the initiative of the people.

M. Latsis describes the general working procedure of the Bureau of Commissars as follows: "1) The Bureau accepted requests for commissars and drew up requirements. 2) Through district committees and acquaintances [employees] selected suitable persons to fill positions. 3) Issued a mandate and signed by the head of the department. The Bureau of Commissars sent it to the Chairman of the MRC for signature"26 .

Among the memoirs of the members of the MRC, written in 1928 at the suggestion of Istpart and Tsentrarchiv, there is also a manuscript by I. V. Balashov " How

23 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. 1743, l. 79. Original.

24 Ibid., l. 73. Original.

25 "- Reports of the commissars of the Petrograd VRK". M. 1957, p. 5.

26 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. 1743, l. 73^

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A Military Revolutionary Committee was created." A soldier of the 3rd Infantry Reserve Regiment, Balashov was a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet from the first day of its existence - from February 27, 1917, was elected to the presidium of the soldiers ' section and to the executive committee of the Council, was a delegate to the 1st and 2nd All-Russian Congresses of Soviets, a deputy of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the he was active in the MRC. By party affiliation, Balashov was a left SR in 1917 and headed their All-Russian military organization. According to his political aspirations, Balashov was close to the Bolsheviks, in 1918 he broke with the left SRS and joined the RSDLP (b). In 1920, he was in charge of the political department of the Caucasian Front, and later was responsible for party and Soviet work.

"The formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee," writes Balashov on September 16, 1928, "was preceded by a struggle between the soldiers' section of the Petrograd Soviet, the so-called Maly Soviet, and the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District. The history of these organizational prerequisites was as follows. Since the February coup, the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Petrograd Soviet had enjoyed the confidence of the garrison, which was growing stronger every day. In the soldiers ' section, all military assets were concentrated, firmly and constantly connected with their electors. The organizational significance of the soldiers ' section among the mass of soldiers was so great that a significant part of the conflicts between the Provisional Government and the Soviets arose on military grounds... Since September 1917, relations between the Military Department and the district headquarters were carried out through a control group of members of the collegium of the soldiers 'section, united in a Special meeting under the commander of the Petrograd Military District (Sadovsky, Balashov, Efremov, Roskan and Mekhonoshin)" 28 .

In his memoirs, Balashov exaggerated the role of these organizations in the revolution. He did not quite correctly identify the political person of the military department of the Central Executive Committee of the 1st convocation and the military department of the Petrograd Soviet. At the same time, just as the latter in September, after the Kornilov affair, was in the process of accelerated Bolshevization along with the entire Soviet, the military department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee remained an instrument of compromisers, and the relations between the two departments were quite acute. By the way, on the basis of a conflict between them, the board of the military department of the Petrograd Soviet on August 29, 1917, demanded that A.D. Sadovsky and I. V. Balashov be brought into the Bureau of the Provisional Military Committee under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and if this demand was rejected, it threatened to appeal to the assembly of representatives of the garrison .29
But the actual side of Balashov's excursion into the prehistory of the VRK still deserves attention. A special meeting under the Commander-in-Chief really existed as a permanent body. It was formed by a resolution of the Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet on May 11, 1917, " under the chairmanship of the Commander - in-Chief or his deputy, 2 to 3 staff officers, one representative from the city, one from the zemstvo, two officers from officer organizations, and 7 representatives from the Council (5 soldiers and 2 non-soldiers)." The resolution also granted this meeting the right to authorize the "withdrawal of marching companies from Petrograd"30 . The significance of this fact will become clear if we bear in mind that during the preparation of the October Armed Uprising, the focus of the struggle of the soldiers of the Petrogradsky District was on the following issues:

27 " Minutes of meetings of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets R., S., kr. and kaz. deputies of the Second convocation", Moscow, 1918.

28 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, d. 1743, l. 25. Original.

29 " Documents of the revolutionary struggle of 1917 (From the personal archive of A. D. Sadovsky)". "History of the USSR", 1957, N 4, pp. 157-158.

30 "Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers ' Deputies. Minutes of meetings of the Executive Committee and the Bureau of the EC. " - M.-L. 1925, p. 230.

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The question of the withdrawal of the revolutionary troops from the capital turned out to be a challenge for the garrison against the district headquarters and the Provisional Government. On this basis, a conflict broke out between the garrison and the district headquarters, and this struggle stimulated the creation of the MRC. A former member of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee, A.D. Sadovsky, in his memoirs of 1920, pointed out that the Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief included M. P. Efremov and K. A. Mekhonoshin .31 Balashov also named four Bolsheviks - Sadovsky, Yefremov, Roskan, and Mekhonoshin-as members of the conference. In the minutes of the meetings of this meeting of September 19 and 22, Savostyanov, Balashov, Somov, Sadovsky, Skalov, Kuznetsov and Efremov are listed as present .32
"In mid - October," Balashov continues, " Colonel Polkovnikov, the district commander, without discussing the issue in a Special Conference, issued an order for the garrison, the essence of which was to try to strengthen the influence of the officers in the units and to make the first decisive action against the Special Conference from Smolny that bound him. On the same day, the Military Department of the Petrograd Soviet responded by telephone message in parts about the validity of the headquarters ' orders only after they were approved by the Military Department (Maly Soviet). Late in the evening, the headquarters invited members of a Special meeting to settle the conflict. The military department sent a troika: Sadovsky, Lazimir and Efremov. At headquarters, they were received by Kozmin (Polkovnikov's assistant), who was counted on there as a socialist who would most likely be able to negotiate with the Soviets. There was no agreement. In the morning of the next day, according to the report of Sadovsky and Lazimir, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to form the headquarters of the military revolutionary defense. Sadovsky, Lazimir and Balashov were assigned to work out the regulations. The events, however, did not coincide with the statutory order. Only the very need to create a combat organ hung in the air. In the evening, at a meeting of regimental committees convened by the Military Department, during the discussion of measures to curb the headquarters, the mood for organizing their command was clearly defined. The Presidium of the Small Soviet (military collegium) actually became the sole head of the garrison. The district headquarters died. In the morning of the next day, at a meeting of the Soviet, a registration took place - the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee was elected. Its first members from the soldiers ' section included: Sadovsky, Krylenko, Balashov, Lazimir, Dashkevich and others, from the workers (probably from the workers ' section - V. P.): Dzerzhinsky, Skrypnik, Peters, Unschlicht and others. Then the Military Revolutionary Committee was replenished with delegates from the Second Congress of Soviets to its permanent membership. " 33
There are some inaccuracies here that can easily be identified with the help of other evidence and documents, but at the same time Balashov provides information that complements our understanding of the history of the Petrograd MRC. A. D. Sadovsky's memoirs published in 1922 stated, in particular: "Even earlier (that is, before the first days of the activity of the VRK. - V. P.), the district headquarters had a conflict with the garrison and the soldiers' section of the Council on the creation and operation of a Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief from representatives of the Military Department of the Council. There were tensions, clashes, etc. over the issue of the scope of rights and the meeting's control over the district. But then (it was in the second half of September) the district felt quite firm and did not make any concessions. " 34 Speaking of the second half of September,

31 Proletarian Revolution, 1922, No. 10, p. 76.

32 TSGVIA USSR, f. 1343, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 30, 51. Certified copies.

33 TsGAOR USSR. f. 5325, op. 9, 1743, ll. 25-26.

34 Proletarian Revolution, 1922, No. 10, p. 76.

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Sadovsky, presumably, is more accurate than Balashov, who attributed the above facts to the middle of October. But Balashov more specifically reveals the essence of the conflict between the district headquarters and the soldiers 'representation in the Special Conference, and from his memoirs it becomes known the immediate reason for the Bolsheviks to raise the question of creating a "headquarters for military revolutionary defense", as the MRC and A.D. Sadovsky called this predecessor. 35
Balashov's account of Sadovsky, Lazimir, and Yefremov's trip to the district headquarters contradicts the testimony of K. A. Mekhonoshin in his memoirs published in 1922: he wrote about his trip to the headquarters together with Sadovsky and Lazimir on October 22 or 23, and with different goals and results. 36 But at the same time, it should be borne in mind that the trip of representatives of the soldiers ' section of the Council and the MRC to the district headquarters was not the only one, they went there both before and after the formation of the MRC. The chairman of the Volyn Regiment's regimental committee, A. Khokhryakov, who participated in one of the trips, called it "a kind of reconnaissance to the enemy's operational headquarters"37 , and a former member of the MRC, V. I. Nevsky, confirmed that "several such scouts were made"38 .

Balashov writes about the morning meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, at which it was decided to create a "headquarters for military revolutionary defense", but, undoubtedly, this is not a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but of the executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, held on the morning of October 9. From the report of this meeting, published the next day in Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee (no other information has been preserved), it is not clear which of the Bolsheviks proposed to organize a revolutionary headquarters. Balashov also names the names of the speakers (Sadovsky and Lazimir) and points out that Sadovsky, Lazimir and Balashov were assigned to work out the draft regulations on this headquarters. This resolves the disputes that have arisen in the literature about whether Lazimir developed this project alone or together with the Bolsheviks, and specifies the message of A. D. Sadovsky that the project "was developed by the Board of the Military Department" 39.

It is not very clear what Balashov means when he writes: "The events, however, did not coincide with the statutory order." But it can be assumed that what is meant is the Menshevik resolution adopted by the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet at its morning session on October 9, which gave a conciliatory character to the "committee of revolutionary defense" being created and regarded it as an auxiliary body to the district headquarters. It was precisely with this "statutory order" provided for by the Mensheviks that events "did not coincide": in the evening of the same day, the plenum of the Soviet adopted a Bolshevik resolution demanding that the projected " revolutionary defense committee "should" take all measures to arm the workers and, thus, ensure the revolutionary defense of Petrograd as well and the security of the people from the Kornilovites " 40 . This meant that, although the committee itself had not been created at that time, "the need to create a combat body" was becoming obvious. The resolution of the plenum gave the commission assigned to prepare the regulations on the "committee of revolutionary defense" guidance in determining its tasks and organizational principles.

The project developed by Sadovsky, Lazimir and Balashov for the formation of a revolutionary headquarters for the defense of Petrograd was discussed

35 Ibid., p. 75.

36 Ibid., p. 87.

37 " The October Armed Uprising in Petrograd. Memoirs of active participants in the revolution", L. 1956, p. 85.

38 Ibid., pp. 152-153.

39 "Proletarian Revolution", 1922, No. 10, p. 75.

40 "Rabochy put", 11. X. 1917.

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On October 11, the board of the military department of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, and on October 12, at a closed meeting of the executive committee (here the body already being created was called the Military Revolutionary Committee), was adopted, but only the plenum of the Council could legalize it. Decisive in this matter was the meeting of the soldiers ' section of the Soviet, held on the evening of October 13 (Balashov calls it a meeting of regimental committees, which discussed the question of "measures to curb the staff") under the chairmanship of A. D. Sadovsky. The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries here hoped to give a decisive battle to the idea of creating a MRC, forcing discussion on the assembly, and at the very least removing the issue from the agenda. But something unexpected happened for them: Sadovsky proposed to adopt the draft Regulation on the MRC reported by Lazimir without debate, and the assembly agreed with this decision by 283 votes to 1, with 23 abstentions .41 According to O. A. Pyatnitsky, Lenin, after reading about this in the newspapers, exclaimed: "The St. Petersburg Soviet chose the Military Revolutionary Committee for the speech - the Soviet chose the Military Revolutionary Committee even without a debate, despite the fact that the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries demanded the opening of the debate." 42 Therefore, the significance of this meeting can hardly be considered exaggerated in the memoirs of Balashov, who points out that from this moment on, the presidium of the soldiers ' section of the Petrograd Soviet actually became the head of the garrison. But Balashov's report that a Military Revolutionary Committee was set up at the plenum of the Soviet the next morning is not entirely accurate: this happened on October 16, 43 . And on the same day, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, which was sitting under the chairmanship of V. And Lenin, creates for the leadership of the uprising a Military Revolutionary Center consisting of five members of the Central Committee (A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov, I. V. Stalin, M. S. Uritsky), which is part of the VRK. Since October 20, the MRC, as reported by Rabochy Put, "has started the most intensive activity" 44 .

Referring to the period of the creation of the VRK, K. A. Mekhonoshin, in his remarks to its protocols, characterizes the struggle of the Bolsheviks with compromising elements around the nature and tasks of the committee. "During the formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee," he writes, " as is well known, two trends fought: the Menshevik - SR movement, which, in view of the complicated situation and the loss of influence over the masses,sought to create a new body invested with special powers to strengthen the defencist positions and exert more decisive influence on the masses in order to maintain the authority of the military command, the direction that wanted to hide behind the new organ as a screen; and another direction - the Bolshevik one, which was going to create a revolutionary headquarters for the uprising. From the moment of its formation, the Military Revolutionary Committee in the growth of the movement quickly and imperceptibly exfoliated the Menshevik-SR admixture, from hour to hour concentrating in its hands all the connections of the vast mass movement and turning into the true center of the insurrection. The last to leave the Committee were the left Social Revolutionaries, just before the fall of the Winter Palace. They left only to return a couple of hours later - after winning a victory. At that time, the Military Revolutionary Committee was the direct executive organ of the Central Committee of the Party and completely united in its hands the entire leadership of the movement. " 45
An active employee of the soldiers ' section of the Council, a member of the Special Meeting under the Commander-in-Chief of the district troops, and then a member of the Pet-

41 E. D. Orekhova. To study sources on the creation of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. "Source studies of the history of Soviet society". Issue 2. Moscow, 1968, p. 44.

42 O. Pyatnitsky. From my work in the Moscow Committee. "From February to October (in Moscow)". Issue 1. Moscow, 1923, p. 59.

43 "Rabochy put", 18. X. 1917.

44 "Rabochy put", 24. X. 1917.

45 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, 1743, l. 40.

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Mekhonoshin worked in the midst of the soldiers ' mass of the Petrograd garrison, which together with the workers formed the vanguard of the October Revolution. He was at the same time one of the leading members of the Military Organization attached to the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), and in all his activities among the soldiers he steadily followed the line of the Leninist Party. His testimonies about the political preparation of the revolutionary staff of the uprising and its role in organizing the uprising are of particular value.

The above facts show that the Military Revolutionary Committee was born in the struggle against the Menshevik-SR influences that were corrupting the soldier masses. The struggle for the creation of the MRC unfolded just at the time when Lenin and the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party put on the order of the day the question of preparing an armed uprising. On October 10, the Central Committee of the Party decided on the practical preparation of the insurrection and elected a Politburo for its political leadership; on October 9-13, the Bolsheviks in the military department and the soldiers ' section of the Petrograd Soviet fought resolutely for the creation of an insurrection headquarters, overcame the fierce resistance of the compromisers and achieved victory over them in the garrison. On October 16, both the plenum of the Soviet and the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks simultaneously adopted organizational decisions on the MRC. This conspicuous synchronicity in the actions of the Central Committee of the Party and the soldiers ' organs was not an accident. It was before the representatives of the Petrograd garrison that Lenin made a statement on October 29, 1917, that the policy pursued by the Bolshevik Party in leading the masses in October was "not the policy of the Bolsheviks, not a 'party' policy at all, but the policy of the workers, soldiers and peasants, that is, of the Bolsheviks." It was taken "not from the Bolsheviks, but from the soldiers at the front, from the peasants in the countryside, and from the workers in the cities." 46 These words were a fundamental generalization of the interaction between the workers 'and peasants' masses and their political vanguard, which developed in the course of the development of the socialist revolution.

It is not by chance that on October 9-13 the question of creating a revolutionary headquarters was raised with all the urgency:" the need to create a combat body, "its own command," hung in the air, " I. V. Balashov characterizes the mood of the soldier masses. The conflict between the soldiers and the district command stimulated this mood, accelerated the transition to active actions. The vanguard of the proletariat not only took these sentiments into account, but also expressed them most fully, leading the rest of the revolutionary mass. Even before the decision of the Central Committee of the Party on the practical preparation of the insurrection, on October 9, the question of creating a revolutionary headquarters was raised by the Bolsheviks, and they were strongly supported by the mass of soldiers represented by their numerous representatives in the Soviet. This question had been raised earlier, in September, when the Bolsheviks in the Petrograd Soviet proposed a resolution warning of the impending counter-revolution. "The counter-revolution can only be repulsed by the organized centers of revolutionary democracy - the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers 'and Peasants' Deputies and their subsidiary organs, which in the Kornilov days already proved their strength in the struggle against the onslaught of the enemies of the revolution." The resolution specified what kind of organs were meant: "The revolutionary committees created by them (the Soviets-V. P.) in the Kornilov days must have their entire apparatus ready."47 . This resolution of the Bolsheviks was adopted by the Soviet on September 21 by an overwhelming majority.

Lenin had written to the Central Committee of the party a week earlier that the Bolsheviks "must not lose a moment in organizing the headquarters of the insurgent detachments."-

46 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, pp. 36-37.

47 Rabochy Put', 23. IX. 1917.

page 32

dov " 48 . Having taken the initiative on October 9 in raising the question of creating a revolutionary headquarters, the Bolsheviks acted in the spirit of Lenin's line of development of the revolution, in accordance with the will of the workers and soldiers of Petrograd. This question, according to A. D. Sadovsky, was discussed simultaneously in the Military Organization of the Bolsheviks and in the military department of the Petrograd Soviet .49
During the formation of the MRC, the meetings of representatives of the regimental and company committees of the Petrograd Garrison on October 18-21 served as perhaps the most vivid illustration of the loss of influence on the masses by the compromisers, which Mekhonoshin writes about. The MRChas not yet started functioning - the meeting on October 18 was called by the military department of the Petrograd Soviet. Representatives of almost all military units declared that they were ready to oppose the Provisional Government at the first call of the Soviet and its military department. Members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee M. I. Skobelev and A. R. Gotz, who appeared at this meeting, were not allowed to speak; they left the meeting in protest .50 Here, as before, there is a clash between the military department of the Petrograd Soviet and the Central Executive Committee. On the same day, in the evening, the bureau of the military department of the Central Executive Committee sent out a telephone message to all the committees of the Petrograd and surrounding districts: the meeting called by the military department of the Petrograd Soviet on October 18 "was conducted biasedly, and representatives of the Central Executive Committee were not even given the floor." The Committee of S. R. and S. D. to present its view on the current moment in an anxious and responsible time", besides, about 10 parts were not submitted, so the CEC invites five representatives from all parts 'committees to discuss the current moment' at 5 p.m. on October 19. How did some recipients react to this invitation? The plenum of the Tsarskoye Selo Soviet, for example, considering that the meeting called by the Petrograd Soviet on October 18 "was quite legitimate and competent," recognized the sending of delegates at the invitation of the Central Election Commission on October 19 as "completely unnecessary."51 However, the meeting still took place. On behalf of the Central Election Commission, Menshevik leader F. Dan scarecrowed the delegates: "If the Petrograd garrison succumbs to the call for action to seize power by the Soviets, the events that took place on July 3 - 5 will undoubtedly repeat in the streets of Petrograd." But this threat did not frighten, but outraged the soldiers, and the majority of the delegates confirmed the readiness of their units to act at the call of the Petrograd Soviet. The meeting, as it was called in addition to the military department of the Petrograd Soviet, was decided, on the proposal of P. E. Lazimir, to be considered unauthorized .52
On October 21, representatives of the committees of the garrison units again gathered in Smolny-this time at the invitation of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. The demand for the transfer of power to the Soviets and the approval of the formation of the MRC was unanimous. Socialist-revolutionary M. Budkevich, a member of the Central Election Commission, who had gone up to the rostrum, was forced to leave the rostrum amid shouts of "down" as soon as he spoke about the untimely and impossible seizure of power by armed force .53 Evidence of the complete and irrevocable break between the compromising military department of the Central Executive Committee and the mass of soldiers was its declared readiness to "take the liquidation of the Bolshevik action into its own hands" and to authorize "all orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Petrograd Military District concerning the liquidation of such actions". From October 19, "full coordination of actions" was established between the military department of the Central Executive Committee and the headquarters of District 54. Social revolutionaries delegated to

48 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 247.

49 Proletarian Resolution, 1922, No. 10, p. 75.

50 "Rabochy put", 20. X. 1917.

51 "The October Armed Uprising in Petrograd". Documents and materials, Moscow, 1957, p. 222.

52 "Izvestiya CEC". 20. X. 1917.

53 "Rabochy put", 22. X. 1917.

54 "The October Armed Uprising in Petrograd", p. 270.

page 33

At the beginning of the armed insurrection, the organizations from which it was originally formed were withdrawn by their Central Committee from the Petrograd MRC55 . Only the most revolutionary representatives of the left SRS, who had become close to the Bolsheviks, remained in the MRC and continued to work with all their energy. At a meeting of the SR faction of the Second Congress of Soviets on October 24, in response to the decision of the Central Committee of the SR Party to withdraw from the MRC, Balashov stated:: "The Left SRS have decided to remain in the Revolutionary Committee." 56 From the memoirs of K. A. Mekhonoshin, it becomes known that one of the left SRS before the capture of the Winter Palace still hesitated and left the MRC, "only to return in a couple of hours after the victory was won." Such fluctuations did occur. One of the leaders of the left Social Revolutionaries, B. Kamkov, explained them at the congress of his party on November 22, 1917 by saying that the left Social Revolutionaries considered it possible to remove the Provisional Government "bloodlessly", without an uprising, by a decision of the Congress of Soviets, so they were opposed to creating a "technical apparatus for the uprising"; having entered the VRK, they considered it "not as a as an organ of direct seizure of power, but as an organ of defense of the revolution against the impending attack of the counter-revolution", then they saw that the MRC"turned into an organ of insurrection", and they began to be afraid of the specter of civil war .57
However, at the time when the insurrection had already begun, one of the leaders of their faction at the Second Congress of Soviets, P. V. Bukhartsev, answered Lenin's question about their attitude to an armed insurrection.: "Lazimir, Balashov, Nesterov, Alexandrovich... with you for an immediate uprising", in the cabinets of the faction in Smolny hidden for this purpose machine guns with ribbons " 58 .

The vacillations of the left SRS did not stop even after the Soviets took power. On November 1, the bulletin of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) reported: "The Left Social Revolutionaries have declared in principle that they take part in all the work of the Revolutionary Committee."59 But on November 4, some of them (A. Ustinov, M. Levin, G. Zaks) announced their withdrawal from the VRK 60 . The reason was now the disagreement of the left SRS with the decisive measures taken by the Soviet Government against the counter-revolutionary newspapers. In fact, this was a denial of the right of the dictatorship of the proletariat to take firm, decisive measures, to use the means of power to suppress the resistance of the exploiters.

Mekhonoshin dwelled in his memoirs on the characteristics of the second, post-October period of the MRC's activity. "The next few days after the coup," he writes, " brought with them an increase and complexity of the work. The Military Revolutionary Committee was forced to separate out and organize a whole series of special bodies - first of all, the military headquarters, then the food and supply authority, the commission of Inquiry, the transport department, and so on. At that time, the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissariats had already begun to take shape. It is quite natural that the direct management of the "departments" of the Military Revolutionary Committee gradually began to pass to the Council of People's Commissars and its organs. The activities of the staff, for example, bypassing the Committee, were managed by the Central Committee and Vladimir Ilyich. The period to which these protocols relate is precisely the following:

55 "The Voice of a Soldier", 25. X. 1917; "The cause of the people", 26. X. 1917.

56 "Izvestiya TSEK", 25. X. 1917.

57 " Minutes of the First Congress of the Party of Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Internationalists)", Moscow, 1918, pp. 40-41.

58 A. I. Overclocking. Central Executive Committee of Soviets in the first months of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Moscow, 1977, p. 89.

59 "Minutes of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). August 1917-February 1918", Moscow, 1958, p. 237.

150 "Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee", vol. 2, pp. 65, 108.

page 34

during this second period, when the functional organs of the Committee grew and expanded, either developing into the corresponding People's Commissariats or merging with them, and the leadership role of the Committee itself in relation to them was increasingly transferred to the Council of People's Commissars. From that moment on, the Military Revolutionary Committee began to play a secondary role, carrying out separate assignments of the government and leading the fight against counter-revolution and the protection of revolutionary order. And these functions, as the special bodies were strengthened, were transferred to the latter, and the Committee ended its independent existence in early December. In the process of changing the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the composition of its employees also changed. The main core of the original staff dispersed as leaders to different departments and People's commissariats and was unable to participate in the work of the Committee. The Committee was replenished with new comrades. While noting these changes, we should not underestimate the second period of activity of the Military Revolutionary Committee. As can be seen from the present minutes, it took a whole month of intense work before the newly organized bodies were able to fully assume all the functions of the Committee. And even after its liquidation, for a long time the need for the existence of such a comprehensive, flexible and authoritative body, as the Military Revolutionary Committee remained until the very end, was quite definitely felt."61
Since the memoirs cited above were written, considerable progress has been made in the development of the history of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. Studies have appeared, among which the works of I. G. Dykov, E. N. Gorodetsky, E. D. Orekhova, G. E. Reichberg, I. M. Razgon, and Yu. S.Tokarev occupy a prominent place. As a result of extensive work on identifying sources in the archives, it became possible to publish a three-volume collection of documents on the activities of this body. The main drawback of its protocols - an incomplete reflection of the activities of the MRC in them-was overcome by publishing numerous documents together with them. The history of the MRC received coverage not only in special works of historians, but also in mass publications devoted to the history of the struggle for Soviet power. The memoirs and comments on the protocols of the MRC of active employees of the VRC found in the Central State Administration of the USSR will undoubtedly serve as a valuable source for an even more in-depth study of the history of the Petrograd MRC - the combat headquarters of the Great October Revolution and the first central organ of the proletarian dictatorship.

61 TsGAOR USSR, f. 5325, op. 9, 1743, l. 41.

page 35


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