July Days - Bolshevik Involvement

Bolshevik Involvement

The demands which the workers and soldiers took to the streets with in the July Days were influenced by the Bolshevik Party. 'All Power to the Soviets' and other slogans put forth by the Bolsheviks were taken up by the workers and soldiers on the streets. The demonstration was organized by the Bolshevik Military Organization without authorization from the Central Committee after pressure from rank and file soldiers. During the afternoon of 3 July the Central Committee with the support of Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev decided to take action to restrain the developing situation.

Under the pressure of what seemed like a developing mass demonstration of workers and soldiers in the streets, the leadership of the Bolshevik Military Organization, the Petersburg Committee and later on the Central Committee, reversed their decision, coming out in support of the street demonstrations. Both Trotsky and Zinoviev persistently argued that the street protests remain peaceful. After this decision, the Bolshevik Military Organization actively organized and supported the demonstration, mobilizing reinforcements from the front lines and dispatching armored cars to capture key posts including bridges and the Peter and Paul Fortress.

No public record was ever made of the internal debates of the Bolshevik Party around the July Days. There were some within the Bolshevik Party who advocated an intensification of activity on 4 July. Most prominent among those were Nikolai Podvoisky and Vladimir Nevsky, leaders of the Bolshevik Military Organization, V. Volodarsky, a member of the Petersburg Committee and Martin Latis of the Vyborg District Bolshevik Organization, who was highly critical of the Central Committee's decision to hold back the masses. Others in the Bolshevik Party, including V.I. Lenin were split on what to do. On 5 July at two or three o'clock in the morning, after the Provisional Government dispatched a number of loyal troops from the front to the streets of Petrograd and won the support of a number of previously neutral garrisons of troops, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party decided to call off the street demonstrations.