Petrograd Soviet - German Advance and Committee of Revolutionary Defense

German Advance and Committee of Revolutionary Defense

On October 6, with a German advance threatening the city, the government - after advice from the military – made plans to evacuate to Moscow. The Ispolkom attacked the move and Trotsky had the still-Menshevik Soldiers' Section vote on a resolution condemning the evacuation. The Provisional Government gave way and delayed any evacuation plans indefinitely. Its attempts to dispatch Petrograd garrison units to the front were resisted by the troops and by the Ispolkom.

On October 9, the Soviet considered the creation of a Committee of Revolutionary Defense. The Bolsheviks and Leon Trotsky amended the resolution to create a Military Defense Committee, to control the security of Petrograd against both German and domestic threats. The Plenum of the Soviet voted in favour of a committee to "gather... all the forces participating in the defense of Petrograd... to arm the workers... ensuring the revolutionary defense of Petrograd... against the... military and civilian Kornilovites."

The Ispolkom approved the resolution, against Menshevik resistance, on October 12, and the measure was formally approved by the Soviet on October 16 (despite warnings from the Mensheviks and SRs), creating the Military Revolutionary Committee (Voenno-Revoliutsionnyi Komitet), also called the Milrevcom or Military Committee.

The Military-Revolutionary Committee was chaired by Pavel Lazimir, with Nikolai Podvoisky as his deputy. Basically, it was the front for the activities of the Bolshevik's Military Organization. Podvoisky would take official control of the Committee on the day of the uprising, with Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko as secretary. The Ispolkom and the Provisional Government had been cut out of control of the forces in the Petrograd Military District, and without orders, the garrison would remain neutral.

The Military Staff was side-lined when the Milrevcom took exclusive control of the garrison troops in the name of the Soldiers' Section of the Soviet on the night of October 21. The commander of the District, Colonel Polkovnikov, refused to allow this control, and he and his staff were condemned in a Milrevcom public statement as "a direct weapon of the counter-revolutionary forces." The military command responded with an ultimatum to the Soviet, which lead to delaying negotiations and meetings over October 23–October 24.

The Bolshevik uprising began on October 24, as liberal forces attempted to shut down Pravda and take other steps to secure the government. The Milrevcom sent armed groups to seize the main telegraph offices and lower the bridges across the Neva. Over the night of October 24, the Bolsheviks took control quickly and easily.

An announcement declaring the end of the Provisional Government and the transfer of power to the Petrograd Soviet was issued by the Milrevcom at 1000 hours on October 25 – in fact written by Lenin. In the early afternoon, an Extraordinary Session of the Petrograd Soviet was convened by Trotsky, to preempt the Congress of Soviets. It was packed with Bolsheviks and Left SR deputies.

The Second Congress of Soviets opened that evening in the Assembly Hall in Smolnyi. The six hundred or so delegates chose a Presidium of three Mensheviks and twenty-one Bolsheviks and Left SRs. The Ispolkom rejected the workings of the Congress the following day, and called on the Soviets and the army to defend the Revolution.

In the evening session of October 26, the Congress approved the Decree on Peace, the Decree on Land and the formation of a new government - the Council of People's Commissars (Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov, abbreviated to Sovnarkom) – until the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. The previous Soviet Ispolkom was dismissed and replaced by a new group of 101 members (62 Bolsheviks) under Lev Borisovich Kamenev. The Sovnarkom was accountable to the CEC/VTsIK in theory, but the organization was in every aspect powerless.