Christaaay ’s Reviews > History of the Russian Revolution > Status Update

Chaptee 25: "Could the Bolsheviks Have Seized the Power in July?"

"...the leadership of the party was completely right in not taking the road of armed insurrection. It is not enough to seize the power—you have to hold it…The proletariat of the capital, although inclining toward the Bolsheviks in its overwhelming majority, had still not broken the February umbilical cord attaching it to the Compromisers.”

Chapter 24: The July Days: Culmination and Rout

“Skirmishes, victims, fruitlessness of the struggle, and indefiniteness of practical aim—that describes the movement. A public reaction set in against the Bolsheviks"

I listened to this before the liveshow, but I wanted to reread it with eyes on the page. I've officially decided I prefer reading this on ebook - the chunky physic copy is just too intimidating.

Finished chapter 23! My physical copy and ebook call it chapter 23, and my audiobook calls it chapter 24 bc the latter counted the introduction to part 2 as a chapter.

On July 3 & 4 1917, armed workers and soldiers flock to a demonstration at the Tauride Palace to demand "All Power to the Soviet" in protest of the government's resistance to their demands.

“Trotsky inquired for the last time: Can we nevertheless try to make it an unarmed demonstration? No, there can be no question of that.”

“This universal wild cry of spite and rage against the Bolsheviks is the common complaint of Kadets, Social Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks against their own flabbiness. They are in a majority. They are the government. They are all together in a bloc. And they see that nothing comes of it. What can they do but rage against the Bolsheviks?”

Finished ch 22! I decided to be less painstakingly thorough and read quicker

Finished Chapter 21: Shifts in the Masses!
Underlying big moments of the revolution, such as the February revolution in the July days, “molecular processes were taking place, welding the heterogeneous parts of the working class into one political whole. In this, again, the chief role was played by the strike.”

Finished chapter 20: The Peasantry! About how peasants in rural areas began to follow the lead of the city workers and soldiers, often at the urging of soldiers home from the front. They demanded that landlords give up their land to those who actually WORKED on the land, and then took it when the govt took too long parceling it out. “The [rural] districts had their Miliukovs, their Kerenskys, and their Lenins.”

Chapter 19: The Offensive

In June of 1917, Russian soldiers gave up fighting in wwi.

"The soldiers felt themselves again deceived. The offensive had not led to peace but war. The soldiers did not want war. And they were right."

“A prolongation of the war could give the Russian people nothing but new victims, humiliation, disasters—nothing but an increase of domestic and foreign slavery.”

Ch. 18 - "The First Coalition"
Soviets kept choosing to let the bourgeoisie liberals make the decisions (aka keep fighting in wwi). The liberals were jealous about the obvious power of the soviets; so together they created a “coalition” govt that essentially was a puppet of the liberals.

Trotsky's “three revolutionary articles of faith: do not trust the bourgeoisie; control the leaders; rely only on your own force"

Finished Ch. 17: The April Days! The Soviets could have take power any time they wanted, but since they were dominated by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, they kept compromising with the liberal bourgeoisie govt.

"Every mass action…is a warning addressed to the leadership. This warning is at first mild…but becomes more and more resolute. By July it had become a threat. In October we have the final act."