Putin accuses Lenin of mining the country, although he himself does the same

1.Putin at a press conference once again accused Lenin of laying a time bomb under the USSR - in the form of a federalist principle of territorial structure (by the way, he should also accuse Yeltsin and Gorbachev of deliberately stepping on this mine) ... And the left once again stood up as a wall to defend Lenin - they say, it could not have been otherwise, since separatist sentiments were too strong after the collapse of the Russian Empire.

2. Although otherwise it was very much even possible - to prevent the collapse of the country. It was necessary to change the course in an evolutionary way, for which there were serious opportunities - if the opposition directed the street not to change the government, but to change the course. Moreover, the authorities had already planned this very change of course - for example, the GOELRO plan was invented during the tsar's time. Not to mention that the country was on the verge of victory - Germany was running out of steam in a war on two fronts, and Russia just needed to hold out (even without the planned spring offensive) for at least six months.

3. But the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, did everything in their power to destroy the country. They sowed defeatist sentiments in the army and society - Lenin openly called for the defeat not only of the government, but also of the Fatherland in the war:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1235516.html
And they also organized massive strikes (during the war!) And other destabilizing actions - yes, in the spring of 1917 they had little strength, but in the summer they became a very serious factor in the collapse of the state. They actually blocked the work of the Provisional Government - and at the same time hypocritically accused him of inability to govern the country.

4. That is, they destroyed the country (together with the liberals and other destructive forces, including the authorities, of course, are guilty), and then they laid a time bomb under its new format, justifying that it was impossible otherwise. Created a problem to solve it at the cost of a future problem. The vicious circle of Russian dope:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1452097.html
And EM-exit from it:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/962210.html

5. But Putin himself also laid a time bomb - the Minsk-mine agreement:
http://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1351086.html
Justifying that otherwise, they say, is impossible - the risk of the Third World War is great, etc. (by the way, this risk is immeasurably higher in Syria). Although, like the Bolsheviks, he contributed to the emergence of a problem instead of preventing it - he helped Maidan defeat Yanukovych:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1410015.html
And now he gives out "leftovers from the master's table" for victories - on the example of the Crimean bridge:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1886921.html

6. The Evolutionary March is the prevention of strife, not the victory in it:
http://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1562500.html
According to the universal Principle of Least Action (within the framework of the Razviteism worldview):
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1832679.html
Directly on the topic of separatism threatening the Russian Federation:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1882497.html
Therefore, only EM has the right to accuse Lenin of planting a separatist mine under the USSR, and Putin of planting a Bandera-Ukrainian mine under the Russian Federation. Since both the guardians (led by Putin) and the anti-Putinists work together for unrest (with all the disagreements between them):
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1739813.html
For example, even the hero of the Russian Spring, Strelkov, helps Bandera - for all his hatred of them:
https://evolution-march.livejournal.com/1884570.html

By the way, today Lenin would have adopted EM tactics - since he is a pragmatist, not a dogmatist, unlike the current left, fixated on the 1917 scenario.

On August 30, 1918, in Moscow, terrorist Fanny Kaplan shot at the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin. Over the past hundred years, this assassination attempt has been overgrown with so many conjectures and myths that it can claim to be one of the most confusing political cases in Soviet history.

For some reason, lovers of juicy details, when talking about a terrorist act, recall Kaplan's acquaintance with the brother of the Soviet leader Dmitry Ulyanov, although even if their relationship had romantic overtones, they had no influence on the decision to kill Ilyich. Fans of conspiracy theories in the spirit of Nikolai Starikov will stubbornly seek a large-scale conspiracy with a potential foreign trail. And journalists and publicists, satisfied with the variety of theories, will gladly emphasize that the attempt on Lenin's life still remains a "dark and mysterious" page in history.

Having sorted out the five main misconceptions that most often surface when discussing this story, we come to the conclusion that today there are no fundamental secrets left in it.

The first delusion. Kaplan did not shoot at Lenin

This alternative hypothesis is the most popular in mass journalism. It completely turns our view of the assassination attempt and makes us look at Fanny Kaplan as an accidental victim of circumstances. The version was substantiated in the émigré literature and then spread in the perestroika and modern press. The most frequent argument in it is the fact of the terrorist's very poor eyesight. Indeed, how can a nearly blind woman shoot another man well?

Fanny Kaplan joined the terror in the years of the first Russian revolution. A young Jewish girl came to the attention of the police in 1906 due to the accidental explosion of a makeshift bomb, which she, along with her friend Viktor Garsky, kept in a hotel room in Kiev. The passport in the name of Kaplan, by the way, was fake, but it was with this name that the girl was sent to the Nerchinsk penal servitude. During the explosion, she was injured and as a result, already in Siberia three years later, she became completely blind.

Fanny Kaplan's prison shot in Chita. Photo of 1907

A doctor who called in to hard labor found that the pupils of the blind woman still react to light and treatment is possible. Kaplan's eyesight returned thanks to the efforts of local doctors, and after the revolution she underwent an additional course of treatment at the Kharkov eye clinic. According to the testimony of the Socialist-Revolutionary Peter Sokolov, in the summer of 1918, Fanny Kaplan shot very well: during the exercises she hit the target 14 times out of 15 possible. Thus, there are no facts about Kaplan's poor eyesight in the last year of her life.

An amnesty in 1917 freed the revolutionary. Thanks to her acquaintance in hard labor with Maria Spiridonova and other Socialist-Revolutionaries, her views were finally determined in the mainstream of this party. Let us recall that the Socialist Revolutionary Party has more than once practiced individual terror, the ideological foundations of which can be found even in the populist movement. A sharp rejection of the Bolshevik policy against the background of the Socialist-Revolutionary tradition led Kaplan to the obvious idea - to kill Lenin.

The situation was complicated by the fact that after 1917 the supporters of terror did not constitute the majority in the leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. (Here and below, we are talking about the Right Socialist Revolutionaries.) Nevertheless, the party could permit an individual act, which in this case should not be carried out on behalf of the party, and indeed the terrorist could not declare his party affiliation. It was precisely this permission that Kaplan received from a member of the Central Committee of the party, Dmitry Donskoy, at the end of August 1918.

Staging of the assassination attempt on Lenin. Investigative photo

On August 30, near the Michelson plant, Vladimir Lenin, leaving after a rally surrounded by a crowd, was twice wounded by the shooting Fanny Kaplan. Almost immediately she was detained and under investigation adhered to the position adopted by the SRs regarding the individual act:

“I shot Lenin because I considered him a traitor to the revolution, and his further existence undermined faith in socialism.<…>I consider myself a socialist, now I don't belong to any party.<…>What socialist group I belong to now, I do not deem it necessary to say. "

Perhaps, being in the crowd, it was not she who shot in the end? When supporters of such an opinion refer to those interrogated who did not directly see the shooter, they forget that out of 17 testimonies we have 7 testimonies, which refer to the woman who shot. Some of them leave no doubt at all that the woman who shot and the detained woman are one person. Worker Semyon Titov showed:

“When Comrade. Lenin came to the rally, then the woman who shot at Comrade. Lenin, came to the Michelson plant about five minutes later comrade. Lenin and stood next to me and for about ten minutes very strictly watched Comrade. Lenin ...<…>But when Comrade Lenin began to take the handle of the car with his hand, at that time the woman I was following sat down and started shooting. Then the audience scattered in all directions. I, too, ran to the side, began to follow her, where she would run. At this time, a gentleman ran up to her, knocked out a revolver from her and began to raise Comrade. Lenin, and she walked ten steps away, and we immediately detained her and took her to the Zamoskvoretsk military commissariat. "

Second misconception. Poisoned bullets were used to fire

In the summer of 1922, a trial took place over the leaders of the Right Social Revolutionaries. Among the many accusations, they were charged with involvement in the attempt on Lenin's life. According to the official version of the Soviet authorities, some members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party directly helped Kaplan to organize the terrorist attack. This was admitted by Grigory Semyonov and Lydia Konopleva, mentioning, in particular, the bullets poisoned with curare poison. According to them, the poison did not work, because at high temperatures during the shot, it loses its properties.

The investigation of 1918 did not establish the fact of poisoning. The bullets, however, were notched, but this was done in artisanal conditions, so that the proper bursting effect did not follow. Lenin was generally lucky: two wounds did not touch the vital organs, and already in mid-September, having risen to his feet, he asked the doctors not to bother him again with calls and questions.

V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918 " (1920s)

At the trial four years later, Professor Shcherbachev concluded that the curare poison does not cease to act even at temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius. In addition, no complications of Lenin's condition, which could speak of poisoning, were simply discovered. However, the image of the insidious Social Revolutionaries, putting poison in the bullets, was so beautiful that official Soviet propaganda could not pass by it. The misconception about poisoned bullets comes across in journalism to this day.

The third misconception. The assassination attempt was organized by the Socialist Revolutionary Party

In world history, almost every attempt on the life of a politician was accompanied by versions that it was carried out by some political organization. This plot was no exception.

The testimonies of Semyonov and Konopleva ideally fit the ideological scheme that was laid down in the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, published the day after the assassination attempt. In it, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Sverdlov, asserted: "We have no doubt that traces of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, traces of the hirelings of the British and French, will be found here too." The obvious benefit of such confessions for the devastating process of 1922 makes us pay attention to the personalities of their authors.

Fanny Kaplan. Study for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918 "

Semyonov and Konopleva were arrested in the fall of 1918, but then there was no question of any involvement in the assassination attempt of Kaplan. A few months later, they were released, and, as the researchers rightly point out, from that time on, their cooperation with the Cheka began. In 1921, both joined the ranks of the RCP (b).

Soon, Semyonov published in a separate brochure incriminating materials about the terrorist activities of the Social Revolutionaries after the October Revolution, and Konopleva confirmed them in writing. Their testimony at the trial against the SRs contained a number of inconsistencies, not to mention the poisoned bullets and other obviously invented facts. In this regard, one should be very careful to trust their direct statements - it is not easy to figure out where they are true and where is fiction.

Many cases when the Central Committee of the party after the revolution spoke out directly against the tactics of terror, believing that the murder of Lenin or Trotsky would unleash the wrath of the working class on them, speaks against the version of the responsibility of the Socialist-Revolutionaries for the assassination attempt. The permission for an individual act, given by Kaplan Donskoy, did not formally contradict the party's policy, but even this decision was made by him personally and would hardly have received collective approval. For example, the Socialist-Revolutionary Boris Babin-Koren, according to his wife's testimony, believed that Donskoy should have reported to the Central Committee about Kaplan's intention, set her under surveillance and, if possible, isolate her.

Vladimir Lenin. Study for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918 "

Even if Donskoy himself was sympathetic to terrorist ideas and decided at his own peril and risk to push Kaplan to implement the attempt, the boundaries of his responsibility for the events of August 30, 1918 remain vague. On the one hand, there are facts that he ordered Semyonov to provide assistance to Kaplan, but what the size of this assistance should be, Semyonov could understand in his own way. On the other hand, at the trial against the Social Revolutionaries, Donskoy showed that he even reprimanded Semyonov for issuing a revolver to Kaplan.

Researchers will have to figure out the small details of the prehistory of the assassination for a very long time. But it can be argued for certain that the party of the Right Social Revolutionaries did not plan and did not sanction the assassination of Lenin.

The fourth misconception. In the assassination attempt, you can find the "Kremlin trace"

The assumption that the real organizers of the assassination attempt were Lenin's closest associates goes side by side with the delusion that Kaplan was not involved. If Fanny Kaplan did not shoot and is an innocent victim, then who could wish for Lenin's death? His possible heirs - for example, Yakov Sverdlov.

The formal head of the Soviet state, in the very first hours after the assassination attempt, accused the Social Revolutionaries and abroad of him, and a few days later he sanctioned the death sentence of Kaplan and proposed personnel changes in the country's leadership. Cooperation with the Cheka of Semyonov and Konopleva fits into this picture: it becomes clear why the confessed participants in the assassination attempt on Lenin were not brought to justice - because they were already working for Dzerzhinsky, who, in turn, helped Sverdlov. True, there is no evidence that these two Social Revolutionaries began to cooperate with the Chekists before their arrest in the fall of 1918, but you can always think of the opposite.

Browning No. 50489. Study for the painting by V.N. Pchelin “Attempt on V.I. Lenin in 1918 "

The foldable concept of the "Kremlin conspiracy" against Lenin is based solely on speculation. Note that it appeared already in late emigre literature, when several generations of people changed. This is not accidental, since such a version would have seemed implausible to contemporaries of the revolutionary era. After the formation of the Stalinist system of government and the idea that the Soviet regime is the regime of the sole power of the leader, it is difficult for us to understand that the Bolshevik party during the revolution acted as a collective.

The redistribution of power in 1918 was simply unnecessary. Lenin did not try to squeeze out of the leadership neither Sverdlov, nor Dzerzhinsky, nor Trotsky, which made it senseless for them to remove their leader. The loss of such a major political figure during the Civil War was dangerous at all. In addition, in the revolutionary environment, the psychology of the perception of “us” as comrades-in-arms continued to work. Even ten years later, during a tough internal party struggle, Stalin did not physically remove the authoritative Trotsky. And in the first months after the revolution, it is very difficult to imagine a secret conspiracy in the Bolshevik leadership with the aim of murder.

A.M. Gerasimov "Shot at the People" (1960)

Sverdlov's harsh actions, without any conspiracy theories, are explained by the unexpectedness of the assassination attempt itself. The death of Lenin would inevitably lead to the question of his deputy, and therefore some rearrangements could be discussed in advance. And the search for the "internal enemy" and the quick execution of Fanny Kaplan had a very obvious goal - to unleash a wave of "red terror".

Fifth misconception. Kaplan survived after 1918

“On my order, the sentry took Kaplan out of the room in which she was, and we ordered her to get into a car that had been prepared in advance.

It was 4 pm on September 3, 1918. Retribution has come to pass. The verdict was carried out. I, a member of the Bolshevik Party, a sailor of the Baltic Fleet, commandant of the Moscow Kremlin, Pavel Dmitrievich Malkov, performed it myself. And if history would repeat itself, if the creature that raised its hand to Ilyich had appeared in front of the barrel of my pistol again, my hand would not have trembled, pulling the trigger, as it did not flinch then ... "

So in the memoirs of the commandant Malkov, the death of Fanny Kaplan is described. Despite the fact that the death penalty is documented in many sources, even in the early Soviet years, here and there rumors appeared that Kaplan survived. Perhaps this was a manifestation of the public's long-standing penchant for stories of unfortunate, forgotten, and mysterious prisoners.

B.E. Vladimirsky “Speech by V.I. Lenin at the Michelson factory "(1925)

The version received a full-fledged factual already in our century. In 2004, the Ukrainian newspaper Fakty i Kommentarii published an interview with a certain Pyotr Vovchik under the heading: "My grandmother, Fanny Kaplan, never shot Lenin!" I meant, of course, my great-aunt:

“- In 1936, Fanny sent her sister, my grandmother Anya… a message,” Pyotr Matveyevich continues his story. - We were visited by a resident of the village of Chervonnoye, who, during dispossession of kulaks, had to wander around the Siberian camps with his family. There he met Fanny. She handed us a tiny piece of paper on which it was written: “I am alive, healthy, not guilty. Pray for me. "

<…>

And one woman told me that she was with Fanny in the camps. This woman claimed that Kaplan died around 1955 in one of the prisons in Moscow, where she was transported from ... Ulan-Ude! "

Unfortunately, the sources of these family legends have not been established. But even without good reason, they were reflected in the popular press and even in the article about Fanny Kaplan on Wikipedia.

The weapon of the assassination attempt on Lenin. From the album “VChK. Main documents "

A review of popular misconceptions about Fanny Kaplan's assassination attempt on Lenin shows that there is always room in history for the search for sensations and unexpected discoveries. The history of this failed murder, of course, still has its blind spots today. In particular, we do not fully know who and to what extent knew about Kaplan's intentions and could help her.

But even the possible presence of a "support group" in the person of supporters, accomplices and associates does not negate the generally accepted version. The assassination attempt on Lenin was Fanny Kaplan's individual terrorist act. Based on the traditions of the populists and Socialist-Revolutionaries, it is much more like the terror of the Russian revolutionaries of previous years than the political contract killings of the modern era.

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Great Russian Revolution, the "Historian" magazine has planned a series of round tables dedicated to the events of 1917. The first round table in this series was held in the "cradle of the Russian revolution" - St. Petersburg- and was dedicated to the theme "Lenin and the Revolution". We bring to the attention of our readers the most interesting excerpts from the speeches of the participants in the discussion that took place.

Arrival of V.I. Lenin to Petrograd on April 3 (16), 1917. Hood. K.N. Aksenov / RIA Novosti

STRATEGY OR TECHNOLOGY?

Vladimir Rudakov, Candidate of Philology, Editor-in-Chief of the "Historian" magazine, member of the ISEPS Expert Council

"The main subject of the destructive element"

One of the key moments of the 1917 revolution was Lenin's visit to Russia. First of all, because his return from emigration became a borderline in determining the position of the Bolshevik Party regarding the events that took place at that time. After all, it was this party during 1917 that was one of the main driving forces of the revolutionary process.

Despite the controversy over the assessments of Lenin's activities, there is a consensus in the scientific community that if he had not appeared in April 1917 in Petrograd, the position of the Bolshevik Party would have been completely different, which means that the course of the Russian revolution of 1917 would have been different. Here we can refer to one of Lenin's main partners in the struggle - Leon Trotsky. According to him, it is not clear what development the revolutionary events would have received if Lenin had not reached Russia in April 1917.

Arriving in Petrograd, Lenin published the famous April Theses. What was more in them - the strategy of the revolutionary struggle or the tactics? I think both were enough. There were also hints of what we would now call "the technology of seizing power."

First, the Bolsheviks at that time were a small political force, a force to some extent marginalized. And Lenin very talentedly groped for the key issues (primarily the agrarian and the question of war and peace), the appeal to which made the Bolshevik party very popular.

Secondly, Lenin knew that there was a political force in the country that, unlike the socialists who were guided by the Western ideas of the proletarian revolution, understood the needs of agrarian Russia better than others. It was the party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The agrarian program of the SRs met the aspirations of the absolute majority of the peasant population. Lenin understood before many people: whoever implements this program will be the "master of minds", or, to be more precise, the master of the situation in the country. That is, here the tactics of seizing power, put forward by Lenin, consisted in playing ahead of the curve, intercepting the program popular among the peasant masses and trying to implement it.

So the April Theses is, of course, a strategy formulated by a politician who has just returned to the country, but it is also the tactics and technology of revolutionary struggle proposed by him. The contours of this course are the radicalization of the agenda, playing ahead of the curve, the use of "forbidden techniques" in a political battle.

We can safely say that in April 1917 two powerful factors converged: on the one hand, the revolutionary element, which began to unfold in Russia even before Lenin's arrival, and on the other, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin), who, having arrived in Petrograd, immediately became one of the main subjects of this element, great in its destructive potential.

Vladimir Kalashnikov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI" IN AND. Ulyanova (Lenin)

"Catch up with the West or die"

The main thing in the "April Theses" is the substantiation of the new strategic course of the Bolshevik party: to take power and begin the transition to socialism. The previous strategy, adopted in 1905, proceeded from the assumption that, as a result of the democratic revolution in Russia, power would, at best, end up in the hands of petty-bourgeois parties supported by the peasants, who constituted the majority of the population. Why did Lenin consider it possible to pursue the seizure of power under the conditions of 1917? He gave the following answer: the Provisional Government will not give the people peace and land, and thus will open the way to power for the Bolsheviks, ready to fulfill the radical demands of the masses. Subsequent events showed that Lenin accurately calculated the potential of all political forces and prepared his party in advance for the likely development of events. From the above, it is easy to conclude that the technology of taking power should be based on an accurate analysis of the political situation.

Lenin's new strategy was based on taking into account the experience of 1905, as well as the special conditions of the world war. Comprehending the experience of the First Revolution, Lenin was shocked by the orders that the peasants then sent to the State Duma: they demanded not just the division of the landlord's land, but in principle opposed the preservation of private ownership of land. Such demands took the Russian revolution beyond the bourgeois one. Already in March 1917, Lenin wrote: a proletarian revolution in Russia is possible only on the basis of a peasant revolution, provided that the peasants are faithful to their agrarian demands of 1905. This is the main premise that determined the appearance of the April Theses strategy.

The premise was based on a bold assumption: the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which back in 1906 made peasant orders its agrarian program, would not fulfill this program under the conditions of 1917, since the very fact of the world war would push the Socialist-Revolutionaries into a coalition with the bourgeois parties. Such a coalition blocked the possibility of implementing a radical agrarian program. Of course, neither in April nor later was it possible to predict with absolute certainty the line of conduct of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They could take power and give the peasants land at any moment. In other words, the success of the Bolsheviks depended on the actions of their main rivals. Lenin understood this, but he saw a chance - and he was not mistaken.

The same situation arose with regard to the question of peace. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks already in March made the slogan "Peace without annexations" their official demand, but in the bloc with the Cadets, the demand turned out to be impracticable: the Cadets could not abandon the struggle for Constantinople and the Black Sea Straits and sought to continue the war. As a result, the Bolsheviks became the only party ready to give the peasants land and end the war.

The seizure of power gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to begin the transition to socialism. The need for such a transition stemmed from the peculiarities of the era of imperialism - the era of wars for the redivision of the world. In 1917, Lenin was the only politician who clearly formulated the imperative for Russia in the twentieth century: "catch up with the West." And he outlined the alternative: "catch up or die." In socialism, Lenin saw an instrument of acceleration - the ability to concentrate the main means of production in the hands of the state and develop them according to a plan on the basis of the social unity of a society free from exploiters.

And how to build socialism in a backward country? The April Theses proposed the concept of transitional steps. The first and main step is the abolition of private ownership of land. Further - the nationalization of banks and syndicates, workers' and Soviet control over production and distribution. These steps towards socialism were realistically feasible in the conditions of Russia.

The strategy was calculated on the internal potential, and this is the answer to the question whether Lenin staked on the victory of the world revolution as a condition for the victory of the proletarian revolution in Russia. There is not a word about this in the April Theses. And the September thesis “catch up with the West or perish” generally made sense only in one situation: if there was no world revolution. Lenin put on the world revolution as a factor that allowed Soviet Russia to survive in a hostile environment. This bet turned out to be correct: the revolutions in Germany, Austria, Hungary did not win, but they did take place and created an environment in which the West was unable to suppress the victorious revolution in Russia.

The April Theses armed the party with a strategy that made it possible to solve the key tasks facing the country in the twentieth century. During the Soviet period, Russia - for the only time in its history - sharply closed its gap with the West, becoming one of two superpowers in the field of defense, science and culture.

THE LENIN FACTOR

Alexey Lubkov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Advisor to the Administration of the Moscow Institute of Open Education

"For him, the space of the human spirit simply did not exist."

What was in the first place for Lenin? In other words, is Russia for a revolution or a revolution for Russia? And what is the 1917 revolution for Russia? A platform for promoting a world experiment, "firewood", "fuel" for the world revolution, or concern for the aspirations of the people, workers, workers, peasants, sailors, soldiers?

Rhetorical questions, because in fact Lenin's project, if I may say so, from 1917 until his illness in 1922, primarily assumed the development of the world revolutionary process. Both Russia and the Russian people in this process were assigned only a subordinate role.

The Bolsheviks were internationalists, cosmopolitans and, in our view today, largely Russophobes. Although I agree that our modern idea cannot be transferred to that period, their negative characteristics of Russia, their nihilistic attitude to both Russian culture and the Russian people are well known.

Let's not deny that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was not only an outstanding political tactician, but also an outstanding political thinker. However, his trouble was that for him the space of the human soul, the human spirit simply did not exist. For him, as for Marx, man was "a certain sum of relations of production." This is a purely sociological project, socio-economic: how we draw it - a person - how we shape it, so it will be. And all the wealth of Russian culture, all the discussions about the tears of a child were worth nothing to him, and this was not just a delusion, but a fatal mistake and the main prerequisite for the fact that our outstanding Soviet project eventually collapsed.

It was the underestimation, the inability to comprehend the space of the human spirit that ruined the Soviet project. Even at the mental level, the Bolsheviks had no idea about those complex problems, the internal struggle that took place in society, including at the level of the elite. And the elite, whether in power or in opposition to power, should be responsible for the fate of the country. In the mid-1980s, the Soviet elite could not bear this responsibility ...

Alexander Eliseev, candidate of historical sciences, publicist

"I do not believe in a democratic alternative"

Since we are discussing issues related to the technology of seizing power, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the first thing upon his return to Russia, Lenin was forced to fight for power in his own party. Because his "April Theses" were initially met with hostility.

The majority in Lenin's party did not immediately approve of them. When he presented his theses, it caused a storm of misunderstanding and indignation. Even Grigory Zinoviev, who arrived with Lenin, and he, seeing the reaction of his comrades-in-arms, thought how he could disown Lenin, dissociate himself, and distance himself. The then triumvirate, who led the party before his arrival, also spoke out against Lenin - these are Stalin, Kamenev, Muranov, and with them many prominent leaders of the Bolshevik Party of that time, including Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin and others.

In this situation, Lenin develops a powerful work to convince his comrades-in-arms. He appeals to the grassroots masses of the party members. To those who joined the party after February, to those who did not have enthusiasm for the party intelligentsia who headed the party and insisted that everything should be according to Marx: “We will go through the capitalist path to the end and only then we will make a socialist revolution. " This mass of party members supported Lenin in the most active way.

The struggle did not last long, but it was distinguished by Lenin's very energetic influence on the party leaders. The majority soon took his side: Stalin was the first, followed by the rest. Perhaps only Kamenev persisted longer than others, but then all the same he followed Lenin.

It was then, in April 1917, that Lenin made a very powerful coup not only of Russian but also of international significance. Because if it were not for his position, if he had not imposed his April Theses, then the Bolsheviks both were and would remain a left-wing Social Democratic party. And, only after accepting his theses - about Soviet power, about the need for further development of the revolution, they turned from left-wing social democrats into real communists.

Well, then a struggle for power began, relying on the Bolshevik Party: the creation of a party press, the formation of the Red Guard, work with various public organizations, etc.

The question arises: maybe it would be a blessing for Russia if there were no such turn? The Bolsheviks would have remained left-wing Social Democrats, they would have united with other socialist parties. By the way, this process was going on very actively before Lenin's arrival: in early April, a bureau was already created to unite socialist parties (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, national socialist parties). After all, if it were not for Lenin, then with a high degree of probability this democratic bloc of socialist parties would have arisen and, perhaps, the very democratic alternative that we often talk about would appear.

To be honest, I do not believe in this alternative, because the February Revolution, no matter how you treat it, awakened such a huge social energy that this energy had to find some kind of radical outlet. And it certainly could not have been realized within the framework of parliamentary bourgeois democracy - it was too fragile a vessel to contain it.

If the Bolsheviks had not accepted Lenin's plan, would have remained in the position of social democracy, another radical force would have appeared. By the way, the anarchists were already on the heels of the Bolsheviks, they were very popular, and not only among the army and declassed elements, as is often believed, but also among the workers.

So if it were not for the Bolsheviks, then another radical force would certainly have arisen. The only question is how much she could manage the state. But the energy would still be released and would take a form that is by no means democratic - in the understanding that is now being put into the word "democracy".

RUSSIA AND FOREIGN FORCES

"There is a consensus of external players"

The interest of some foreign forces in what happened 99 years ago in Russia, namely in the destruction of the state, certainly took place. This has always been the case when Russia clearly demonstrated its sovereignty and development trends independent of external players. These players have always gladly supported certain destructive forces within the country - both financially and methodologically, and at the level of providing shelter to activists and leaders. The major powers have always had interests in Russia and tried to influence its domestic and foreign policy. Our centuries-old history is oversaturated with such facts.

I regard Lenin's return to Russia as a result of the consensus of the British, German and, as far as I understand, American special services, which took place, despite the war.

There is no need to look for any conspiracy behind this statement: they say, Lenin is a German spy, etc. Of course, he is not a German spy. He simply did not consider it shameful to take money from everyone. This is an absolutely Leninist approach: if our paths temporarily coincide, then why not take money from a potential enemy?

Sometimes they say that Lenin, they say, was eager for his homeland after February, looking for possible ways - even in makeup, even on foot ... I assure you: he did not rush anywhere. Literally in January 1917, he spoke at a meeting in Switzerland and explained that here we, sitting at this table, will not see the revolution in Russia, and our children, perhaps, will survive. He didn’t believe it would happen so soon. The leaders remained abroad and did not intend to actively participate in what was happening in Russia. They allowed the networks of their activists to be used in the all-Russian strike in February - that's all. And these networks were used.

Suddenly, in March-April, the leaders themselves are announced in Russia. Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bundists. I think that this re-emigration for the most part did not take place at their will, but in spite of it. And it is unlikely that many who returned to Russia really wanted this. They lived for themselves, and not bad, quite comfortably, in various lovely places in Europe, they were paid for their life, the publication of their publications. Lenin wrote a lot, it is well known. If he lived in our time, he would be a kind of top blogger. Now there are also a certain number of such people who live somewhere abroad, their work is paid for by the structures there, and they sit and write various "interesting" things about their country. Only the means of delivery of information have changed and the format. And the meaning remains the same.

Of course, Lenin was one of the most powerful and brilliant political strategists of his time. Based only on a dwarf party, which had only networks, but was not massive, he managed to simulate everything in six months that by the end of 1917 he became practically the sole leader of a huge country.

It is very important for us today to understand these mechanisms. I am aware that I am probably voicing controversial thoughts from the standpoint of academic science, but I look at those events primarily as a political scientist, through the prism of the present day and modern political technologies. It's not just the Bolsheviks. We are talking about all the activists of a radical revolutionary plan who, in one way or another, were supported from the outside.

We must remember that we voluntarily, ourselves, twice in the twentieth century, destroyed our own state. Yes, then we managed to restore it twice. But I'm not sure that by destroying it a third time, we can restore it again. Any revolution is bad. States must change, meet the challenges of the times, but for this they do not need to be destroyed.

Oleg Nazarov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, columnist for the "Historian" magazine

"Their interest in the change of power in Russia is understandable."

Before the outbreak of World War I, the West viewed Russia as its semi-colony - as a market for its goods and a source of raw materials. And when the war began, the main interest of Great Britain and France was to maximize the contribution of their allied Russia to this war. For our great-grandfathers to perish first of all.

1915 was a very difficult year for Russia. As a result of the retreat of the Russian imperial army, Galicia was abandoned. Losses in killed, wounded and prisoners amounted to 500 thousand people.

In the same 1915, the British and French undertook an operation to capture the Black Sea straits. This operation also had a geopolitical background. Since the beginning of the war, the Allies have sought to avoid clarity in the definition of the future of Constantinople and the Straits, which caused great concern for the Russian Foreign Ministry. The Dardanelles operation continued until the end of 1915 and ended in a major Allied failure. The British and French suffered heavy losses and were forced to go home. Under New Year unexpectedly for the Turks, Russian troops went on the offensive on the Caucasian front. In February 1916, they took Erzurum, and then Trebizond.

In the wake of this success, Russian diplomacy also intensified. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov wrote in his Memoirs that on March 27, 1916, the British ambassador George Buchanan handed him “a memorandum drawn up by him on the basis of instructions from London, which confirmed the consent of the British government to the annexation of the straits and Constantinople by Russia on the condition that the war would be brought to a victorious end and Great Britain and France would fulfill their wishes at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and“ some regions lying outside it "..."

Further, Sazonov notes: “The development and refinement of the territorial acquisitions of our allies at the expense of the Ottoman Empire were carried out later, in personal negotiations between me and their special delegates, Sir Mark Sykes and Mr. Pico. In April 1916, at the end of these negotiations ... I informed the allied representatives in Petrograd in a letter to the allied representatives in Petrograd about the consent of the imperial government to their demands for the annexation of Mesopotamia by England and France - Syria and Cilicia under the condition of Russia acquiring Erzurum, Trebizond, Van and Bitlis up to the point on the Black Sea coast, which was to be determined when drawing new borders. The part of Kurdistan, lying to the south of Van and Bitlis, should have likewise gone to Russia ... "

So, I draw your attention to the date: 100 years ago, in April 1916, the Allies agreed to transfer the Straits, Constantinople and all the Turkish territories listed above to Russia. It is not hard to guess that the British and French made such a promise without much desire. In this regard, their interest in the change of power in Russia is understandable. If other people came to power, the issue of territorial acquisitions could be discussed anew. It is significant that in 1916 contacts between the British and French with the liberal opposition intensified. But this is a topic for another conversation.

I'll pay attention to the next date. The position of the West was fully manifested on March 1 (14), 1917. Even before the abdication of Nicholas II and the formation of the Provisional Government, the English and French ambassadors to Russia told the Chairman of the State Duma Mikhail Rodzianko that the governments of Great Britain and France "enter into business relations with the Provisional Executive Committee of the State Duma, the spokesman for the will of the people and the only legitimate provisional government in Russia." ...

Obviously, the desire of official Paris and London to get rid of Nicholas II, and with him from those promises that were given to the Russian emperor.

The interim government in its policy tried to meet all the wishes of the West. But it was not easy for him to do it. As predicted by the Russian monarchist Pyotr Durnovo, the "opposition-intellectual parties" were "unable to hold back the diverging waves of the people, which they themselves raised." During 1917, the influence of the Provisional Government in the country and at the front was rapidly declining. As a result, when the Bolsheviks went to storm the Winter Palace, there were no people willing to defend the "spokesman for the will of the people".

How the British and French reacted to the next change of power in Russia is best shown by the third date, to which I draw your attention. On December 23, 1917, representatives of France and Great Britain Georges Clemenceau and Robert Cecile signed a secret convention on the division of southern Russia into spheres of interest and areas for future operations of British and French troops. The English "sphere of action" included the Caucasus, the Cossack regions of the Don and Kuban, Central Asia, and the French - Ukraine, Bessarabia and the Crimea. Thus, official London and Paris agreed that from now on they would consider Russia not as an ally in the Entente, but as a territory for the implementation of their interventionist plans.

Since Soviet times, it is customary to date the beginning of foreign intervention in the spring of 1918. However, this periodization is contradicted by both the fact of the conclusion of the Anglo-French convention, and the invasion of Bessarabia by the troops of Romania - our other "faithful ally" in the Entente.

It was later that the West began to justify its interference in the internal affairs of Russia by the Brest-Litovsk Peace and the need to fight Germany. But the sequence of events was different. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded in March 1918, and the signing of the Anglo-French convention and the Romanian invasion of Bessarabia took place two and a half months earlier. Then, in December 1917, the negotiations of the Bolsheviks with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance were just beginning ...

RANDOM OR REGULARITY?

Alexander TSIPKO, Doctor of Philosophy, Member of the ISEPS Expert Council

"We paid off for the fact that we had two nations in one people"

Lenin is a special type of professional revolutionary. Trotsky described this type in Moya Zhizn something like this: “Where did we get such a passion? We just think so. If we don't kill, we will be killed. Life or death".

At the same time, Lenin, of course, was a Russophobe. Remember the article on tax in kind? He argues: we must return to state capitalism, like the Germans; Russia is barbaric, lazy, there is no discipline, labor, order. This is his view, but this peculiarity of the perception of Russians, of Russia can be traced not only among the Bolsheviks.

Look at representatives of Russian social thought of different directions: their attitude towards the Russian person is absolutely the same. This is what he says about the Russian man Alexey Khomyakov: tragedy. Fedor Stepun: Chinese underestimation of the value of human life, astounding cruelty. Konstantin Leontiev notices: “Dostoevsky tells me that I must love a person. Why should I love him ?! How does he work - yes. But look at everyday life - it is cruel, cunning. "

It seems to me that we often do not take into account that in this sense - in the sense of his attitude to everything Russian - Lenin was a typical representative of the Russian intelligentsia. And hence his heightened criticism of the Russian people.

In addition, it must be borne in mind that Lenin is an internationalist. And this is manifested in everything, including in his plan for the creation of the USSR. He constructs a system of the Union, which will be able to ensure the further development of the world proletarian revolution. He bluntly says that the structure of the Union, which will ensure the right of nations to self-determination, is precisely what meets the tasks facing the world proletariat.

I completely agree that in a country where 90% of the people are illiterate and a very narrow stratum of the elite, everything perishes as soon as a strong central government falls (in this case, the autocracy). And if the Bolsheviks hadn't come, other extremists would have come. But Lenin would never have won, the Bolsheviks would never have won, if the Russians had formed as a nation, as a unity of the elite and the people. But this just did not happen. In fact, we paid for the fact that we had two nations in one people, and this tragic split, in my opinion, resonates in our days.

Alexey PLOTNIKOV, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Higher School of Economics

"A revolution is never meaningless"

Like any revolution, the February one - although it was, as you know, a purely bourgeois-democratic revolution - is not very much in our honor today. Apparently, therefore, in recent times I have not come across more or less professional publications that would give an idea of ​​what this phenomenon really was. Most often they write that there was a riot because of bread, because of interruptions in its delivery to the capital, making it clear that if this had not happened, there would have been nothing else.

We really love this "if". But history does not know the subjunctive mood, and I believe that the February revolution took place precisely because the revolution in Russia was objectively overdue. Ripe and overripe. And the point here is not in bread and queues at St. Petersburg bakeries, but in the general mass of contradictions that had accumulated by the beginning of 1917 in society - both in relations between the ruling class and the broad masses, and in relations within the ruling stratum itself.

Probably, due to our mentality, we really like to hold on to the last for some old, outdated institutions. And this, unfortunately, often leads to the fact that the social situation reaches a boiling point, gets out of control and protest breaks out.

As a result, we get, to paraphrase the classic a little, "senseless and merciless" revolution. Although, if you look at it, unlike the rebellion that Pushkin wrote about, a revolution is never meaningless. Merciless - yes, first of all, because everything has been accumulating for too long and for too long at the level of power it goes along the line of “pulling and not letting go”. But it is not meaningless, because as a result of bloody and merciless decisions, at the cost of incredible losses, the country overcomes those barriers that, alas, it could not overcome otherwise - evolutionarily and peacefully - and which for many years hampered its development in the previous period.

Looking ahead, I would like to note that, from my point of view, the second stage of the revolution, which in our historiography is traditionally called the Great October Socialist Revolution, was also absolutely objective and natural. In recent years, the term "coup", which has been used in vain - through ignorance or deliberately - is completely inconsistent with the nature and, most importantly, the scale of the phenomenon that we are now discussing.

There is another rather difficult question: who was Lenin - a statesman or a revolutionary? Of course, first of all he was a revolutionary. At the same time, his recognition of the right of nations to self-determination was always accompanied by an absolutely firm conviction that the class-conscious proletarians should unite.

Dmitry CHURAKOV, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University

"Russia was a knot of contradictions"

What can be called characteristic of the period that ended with the 1917 revolution? This historical moment marked the transition of Russia from a traditional agrarian society to a modern industrial one. Hence the split between the civil society-oriented intelligentsia and the traditionalist majority of the population, which did not accept this transition.

I agree with Lenin's definition that Russia at that time was a knot of contradictions.

The first is the gap between the rates of economic development of the country, which at that time were quite high, on the one hand, and the remaining rather archaic political and social institutions, on the other.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the monarchy was increasingly turning from autocratic to bureaucratic. It could no longer play the role that was clearly manifested in the past as a nationwide center, a spokesman for the interests of various strata of the population. The tsar was actually pushed aside from making the most important political decisions by the bureaucracy. The dominant political minority in the country put its own interests, often selfish ones, above national interests.

A second collision was brewing between Russia's rapid internal development and its serious lag behind our geopolitical opponents in the international arena. The process of transformation of Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, which is often called the fashionable term "modernization", but not always suitable for Russian conditions, was complicated by the need to take into account the threats posed by both possible internal instability and from the growing instability of the external - in the international arena. ...

It was difficult to consolidate funds for the solution of large national projects. Here it is enough to recall the Stolypin reform, when the government had to collect crumbs of resources to achieve its goals. On a psycho-mental level, this led to a heightened sense of social justice and raised egalitarian expectations. During the 1917 revolution, they developed into very serious anti-bourgeois sentiments, which reduced the possibility of some kind of compromise in the spirit of social partnership.

In addition, the task was to find a solution to the social issue that had become aggravated during the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, taking into account national specifics and national traditions. And it was necessary to accelerate the processes of reorganization that were already taking place so that no one outside would be tempted to teach our country wisdom. Due to these and many other circumstances, the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries became critical for the Russian Empire.

There were many scenarios for solving all these problems, some were probable, some were only speculative. Theoretically, there are three main scenarios: conservative, liberal and socialist.

However, the question arises: was it possible that an important fork had been passed by February 1917 and there was no longer any alternative to revolutionary upheavals? It seems to me that at the beginning of 1917, the global historical fork had not yet been passed and much depended on the behavior of the upper classes. And the tops just turned out to be not up to par. It is known that not only the Duma opposition, but also the clergy and some members of the imperial family were actively involved in various conspiratorial anti-government actions. Most of the government shared the beliefs of the opposition Progressive Bloc. And only two or three ministers were loyal to the supreme power. And after the abdication of Nicholas II, the forks could be only local in nature, changing the appearance, but not the general vector of development of the “second Russian turmoil”.

Vladimir BULDAKOV, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences

"In many ways, events worked for Lenin"

How did Lenin win in 1917? In fact, due to the April crisis, which, it seemed, had no direct relation to Leninist attitudes. Crisis provoked by Lenin's longtime adversary - the leader of the Cadets Pavel Milyukov, thereby unwittingly rendering him a tremendous service.

Miliukov had an unspoken nickname in the Central Committee of his party "the genius of tactlessness." Sometimes, at a critical moment, he contrived to do something that changed the course of events in no way in his favor. If Milyukov had not come out with an answer to the Allies in the Entente about Russia's readiness to fight to the bitter end, the April crisis would not have happened. By that time, it was clear that a significant part of the population, especially soldiers, was no longer for war until victory, but for peace at all costs, peace at any cost. The masses did not present any other alternative to the development of events. Milyukov's tactlessness pushed the course of history.

Something similar happened in August of the same year as a result of the so-called "Kornilov mutiny". Then, as Lenin said, "two candidates for dictators quarreled among themselves." This time Alexander Kerensky provoked to perform Lavra Kornilova... And it immediately became clear that the soldiers would no longer follow the generals. Events cannot be reversed.

The most amazing thing is that many had a presentiment of this. After the April crisis, some cadets said: "Kerensky will be the next prime minister, and there, you see, it will reach the Bolsheviks." Only the pace of events was unclear.

Lenin was helped by his opponents. In September 1917, at the Democratic Conference convened by moderate socialists, a scholastic dispute flared up: what combination of power would be "correct" - whether a coalition with the bourgeoisie, or not; whether to include cadets in it, or not. Meanwhile, the agrarian revolution was gaining momentum, the strike movement was growing. With their verbiage, the socialists untied Lenin's hands. As a result, the comrades-in-arms, who doubted the correctness of his slogans, began to think: "But he was right, insisting that the Bolsheviks should take power."

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was clearly illegitimate in comparison with the First. But remember: the Mensheviks with the Socialist-Revolutionaries left him, thereby also pushing the course of events, which they later bitterly regretted.

It turns out that Lenin was more likely to follow the events than to control them. He won by betting on a progressive social split, although he declared the need to save the country from imminent catastrophe with the help of the "advanced class." The chaos of the collapse of the empire worked for him, and not the logic of the expected world revolution.

If a civil society existed in Russia by 1917, everything could have gone differently. But civil society in the estate empire, while maintaining the Pale of Settlement, could not exist by definition. People's consciousness was not formatted for democracy. The so-called "communicative mind" has been blocked by authoritarianism. The masses were driven by the nearest social instinct. Lenin differed from other politicians in that he counted on him, calling him, however, "revolutionary creativity" ...

Russian revolution

Lenin in 1917

The February revolution did not nominate gifted leaders either in the Provisional Government - an organ of power established by the Provisional Committee The State Duma- not in the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, a spontaneously emerging entity that claimed to represent the "people." In that revolutionary year, the desire for popular representation grew more and more. As the country disintegrated, local committees and councils grew like mushrooms throughout the former empire as the revolution spread from the capitals to the provinces. The bonds of loyalty, habit, and fear that held the vast multinational empire together disappeared as soon as Russia shattered into small pieces.

Standard descriptions of 1917 by Soviet historians portray the growing anarchy as a backdrop to the activities of V.I. Of course, the importance of Lenin's leadership in 1917 can hardly be overestimated. The October Revolution is inconceivable without his tactical genius and indomitable energy. However, both should be considered together with other factors explaining the success of the coup: these are the numerous mistakes of the Provisional Government, the organizational and oratorical gift of Trotsky, who arrived in Petrograd in May and only later formally joined the Bolshevik faction; the effectiveness of the party's military organization - and, of course, sheer luck. Moreover, although Lenin did his best and used all his party power to persuade his supporters to support his position (even if it was undergoing overwhelmingly rapid changes), he did not always succeed - right up to the very end.

The Bolshevik Party in 1917 was characterized by open polemics. The views of the right-wing and moderate Bolsheviks often prevailed, to the detriment of Lenin's. Despite the retreats and obvious defeats - both within the party and in the wider arena of revolutionary Russia - Lenin remained confident in his ability to lead the party to the victory of the revolution and imperiously charged those around him with this confidence. Lenin's main strength in 1917 was his firm determination to make the most of changing circumstances and his willingness to adapt his slogans to the fickle demands of the masses. He did not hesitate, for example, to enlist the support of the peasantry in order to hasten the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. With cold-blooded stubbornness, he subordinated all means to one goal - the seizure of revolutionary power for the sake of translating into practice his own vision of socialist Russia.

Many times during that eventful year, Lenin's consistent line served as a reference point in the chaos of events. As a politically fragmented Russia plunged into social turmoil, Lenin's unshakable faith in his righteousness stood in stark contrast to the vacillations and vacillations of not so strong-willed politicians. What he wrote amazes with a variety of tonality: here are almost utopian reflections (the book "State and Revolution"), and polemically sharpened appeals to his associates, whom he sometimes convinces, then shames, trying to persuade them to believe that an armed uprising is necessary. Without falling into too much exaggeration, we can say that Lenin achieved power because one of all insisted on having it. His final triumph over the disagreements that seemed insoluble, later prompted his comrades-in-arms to endow Lenin with almost magical properties, making him an object of cult. Lenin's tasks, formulated by him in the famous April Theses, fully reflected his extreme voluntarism. Although Russia had just entered the "bourgeois" phase of development, Lenin called for the refusal of all cooperation with the "bourgeois" Provisional Government, insisting that the power that it shared with the Soviets should be transferred to the latter. The theoretical premise of Lenin's speech boiled down to the following: the period of the political hegemony of the bourgeoisie in Russia is already coming to an end - after six weeks, while the Social Democrats allotted the rule of the bourgeoisie for several decades. Waiting for the end of the bourgeois stage of development meant being present at the introduction of capitalism and the strengthening of parliamentary democracy, knowing for sure that neither he nor his generation would live to see the socialist revolution, to which they devoted their lives. What if, moreover, predictions should not be particularly trusted? How close are the democracies of the West to the socialist revolution? Is it possible that the process of maturation of a bourgeois republic will actually halt Russia's movement towards socialism? And if the socialist revolution does not happen soon, who will lead the revolutionary vanguard in thirty to fifty years? Certainly not Lenin. These disturbing doubts are clearly discernible in the articles and speeches of Lenin for the next seven months. Lenin took an unpopular position of protest against Russia's continued involvement in the war, softening his original (even more unpopular) demand in a speech he made to a Bolshevik audience on the night of his visit to Petrograd - an immediate end to hostilities. Over time, he managed to convince the entire party organization to go over to his side.

On the home front, the revolution rapidly leveled itself, thanks (as Lenin had foreseen) not the revolutionary vanguard, but mainly as a result of the spontaneous actions of the very elements on which Lenin least counted in his early theoretical constructions: the peasants seized the estates; soldiers, sailors and workers have multiplied the ranks of Bolshevik supporters - especially since the summer of 1917. The impatient spurring of immediate and radical social change has resulted in an outbreak of violence. On July 3, riots broke out in the capital, which only strengthened the government's negative attitude towards the Bolsheviks.

The Bolshevik leaders were not without reason alarmed by the appeal of the Provisional Government to the loyal troops and its open threat to expose Lenin's treacherous ties with Germany. Lenin's opponents accused him of treason from the moment of his appearance in Petrograd; the campaign of persecution intensified after the failure of the July Days, when Alexander Kerensky, head of the Provisional Government, issued an order for the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks. Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Kamenev and Alexandra Kollontai - the most famous woman in the Bolshevik party - were imprisoned; Lenin and Zinoviev fled to Finland. The chances of the Bolsheviks rose again at the end of August, partly due to their relentless propaganda, but even more in connection with the attempted rebellion undertaken by the popular Supreme Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov: the rebellion prompted Kerensky, who now needed the support of the Bolsheviks, to release their leaders from prison. In relation to Lenin and Zinoviev, the threat of arrest, however, persisted. So, Lenin remained underground, far from the revolutionary events that he longed to lead, right up to the very eve of the coup, relying, as always, on the pen to guide the course of history.

In August and September, Lenin wrote The State and Revolution, an anarchist pamphlet that accurately reflected the revolutionary process in Russia in those months. At a time when the country was becoming more and more uncontrollable, and power in the villages, in the army, in factories passed to spontaneously emerging committees, Lenin incited readers to destroy the state. The pamphlet opens with a word in defense of the "revolutionary soul" of Marxism, which prophetically outlined the fate of its own theory.

“During the life of the great revolutionaries, the oppressive classes paid them with constant persecution, greeted their teaching with the wildest malice, the most furious hatred, the most reckless campaign of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to turn them into harmless icons, so to speak, to canonize them, to grant a certain glory to them. name to "comfort" the oppressed classes and to fool them by emasculating content revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge, vulgarizing it. "

Lenin seeks to revive the fighting essence of Marx's teachings, not in the least suspecting that after death he himself will turn into a "harmless icon." In State and Revolution, he set out to give legitimacy to the call for the total destruction of the old order and for its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat. In September, he was ready to strike a decisive blow - to start an armed uprising.

The Bolsheviks now constituted the majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. The Bolsheviks had never enjoyed such widespread support among the soldiers, sailors and workers of both capitals. This was caused by the inability of the Provisional Government to cope with the current problems - to curb inflation, ensure the delivery of food, solve transport difficulties, but also by the relentless propaganda campaign launched by Lenin and his supporters. General anarchy was inevitable: not taking advantage of a convenient moment, the Bolsheviks risked losing the advantage of "spontaneity". In September, Lenin wrote to the Central Committee, calling for the immediate start of preparations for an armed uprising. According to Lenin, the failure of the Kornilov revolt testified to the sympathetic attitude of the army to the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks: the army, in search of enemies of the revolution, had to look to the right and fraternize with those on the left.

Lenin's letters caused general confusion. As in April, Lenin took a position directly opposite to that held by the majority of the party leadership. The reaction of party comrades-in-arms was so negative that the Central Committee intended to destroy these letters so that they would not become known to the Petrograd workers and incite them to a new uprising, which would inevitably lead to new general arrests. In the end, the letters were saved, but at the same time reliable measures were taken to prevent appeals to the masses and all preparations for an uprising were canceled. A week later, at a meeting of the Central Committee, Lenin's call for an armed uprising was not even brought up for discussion. Week after week, in letters and articles, Lenin in every possible way inclined the members of the Central Committee to his side. He shamed and stigmatized those who, like Zinoviev and Kamenev, were held back from action by fear and sanity. In fact, all of Lenin's associates hesitated in one way or another and waited, believing an armed uprising to be superfluous in view of the forthcoming Second All-Russian Congress Soviets (originally scheduled for October 20 and then postponed until October 25), through which a peaceful transfer of power to the coalition government could be achieved; but only Lenin was convinced that the variety he intended social order must be achieved exclusively through an armed coup. The decisive vote took place in the Central Committee on October 10. By ten votes against two (Zinoviev and Kamenev voted against), the resolution on the armed uprising was adopted. After that, Lenin continued to persistently admonish his comrades-in-arms to implement the resolution - all the more so as the surging wave of anarchy eroded the last foundations of the Provisional Government, which was rapidly losing the support of the popular masses.

Lenin in October. Throughout Soviet history, many books, articles, paintings and films have portrayed this dramatic confrontation between man and the moment. "And from there, / for days / looking around these, / Lenin's head / you will see first," Vladimir Mayakovsky exclaimed pathetically in his epic poem, written by him shortly after Lenin's death. And in fact: Lenin's energy and decisiveness, displayed by him in the critical period between the failure of the Kornilov revolt and October 25, played a decisive role in the success of the coup; they also served as an impetus for the later development of the cult.

All of Lenin's abilities were uniquely suited to this critical moment - the most important thing turned out to be a supernatural ability to identify the enemy's most vulnerable spots and a certain emotional state that combined rage, courage and hysteria. On the evening of October 24, disguised beyond recognition (his cheek was tied with a scarf, his bald head was covered by a wig), Lenin risked leaving the safe house and headed to the Bolshevik headquarters at the Smolny Institute. On the morning of October 25, Lenin issued a declaration announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown and that power had passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. Lenin's signature under the declaration was absent, but now the fate of Russia was determined by the way of his thinking: the power of the pen over minds was reinforced by the army, navy and political police.

From the book History of Russia XX - early XXI centuries the author Tereshchenko Yuri Yakovlevich

CHAPTER I Russia in 1917

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On June 18, 1917, the Russian army launched an offensive on the Southwestern Front. The Western Front also moved forward after him. On June 19, a demonstration was held in Petrograd in honor of the army, portraits of Kerensky were carried. A meeting-concert was held in the Petrograd circus. Kerensky suggested singing the Marseillaise. The orchestra conductor handed him his baton, and Alexander Fedorovich conducted the orchestra and the audience.

"Death to the Bolsheviks!"

But the Germans quickly launched a counteroffensive. The Russian troops stopped and then retreated. The soldiers didn't want to fight. They retreated in whole units and ceased to obey the command.

The influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was strong enough, so the army as a whole obeyed Kerensky's order to go on the offensive. But his failure dealt a crushing blow to the authority of the Provisional Government. On July 3, riots broke out in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks tried to take advantage of the soldier's revolt to take power, but nothing came of it.

“Towards evening, armed crowds of soldiers and workers took to the streets of Petrograd,” recalled the head of the political department of the War Ministry, Fyodor Stepun. - Everywhere there were meetings, orators-Bolsheviks and anarchists unrestrainedly smashed the Provisional Government, but behind all this there was neither a central leadership role nor a pre-worked out plan. Somehow, trucks armed with machine guns were rushing around the city blindly, rifles were somehow firing of themselves ... Lenin did not direct the movement, but only kindled and fanned it, as if trying on the impending seizure of power. "

But troops loyal to the government, primarily the Cossack regiments, thwarted the attempted coup.

Maxim Gorky wrote to his wife from Petrograd:

“The worst is the crowd, the man in the street and that“ worker ”, that soldier who acted on the 3rd and 4th. This is a bastard, cowardly, brainless, not having a drop or a shadow of respect for herself, not understanding why she got out into the street, what she needs, who is leading her and where? You should have seen how whole companies of soldiers, at the very first shot, threw rifles, banners and beat their heads with their heads the windows of shops, doors, climbing into every crack! This is a revolutionary army, a revolutionary free people! "

Leonid Krasin, who departed at that time from the Bolsheviks (after October, he will enter the Soviet government), wrote to his wife:

“Well, the Bolsheviks did make a mess, or, to be more exact, it was not so much they who did it, but the agents of the General Staff and, perhaps, some of the Black Hundreds. Pravdists and others like it gave their firm and found themselves the next day after their speech in a classically stupid position ... , they owe themselves a failure. It is difficult to imagine more organizational helplessness and squalor, the absence of a hint of any conscious and set goal ... The coincidence of this whole story with the German offensive at the front is too obvious for any doubt to remain who is the real culprit and organizer of the rebellion. "

The Petrograd District Chamber conducted the judicial investigation of the Bolshevik case. The Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government, Pavel Pereverzev, handed over to the newspapers the materials prepared by his apparatus on the ties of the Bolsheviks with the Germans. The Zhivoye Slovo newspaper published an article under the headline "Lenin, Ganetsky and Company are Spies!"

This is what the Living Word wrote:

“On May 16, 1917, the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief forwarded to the Minister of War the protocol of the interrogation of April 28 of this year, ensign of the 16th Siberian Rifle Regiment Ermolenko. From the testimony given by him to the head of the Intelligence Department of the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the following is established. On April 25 of this year, he was transferred to our rear at the front of the 6th Army for agitation in favor of an early conclusion of a separate peace with Germany ...

The officers of the German General Staff ... he was informed that the same kind of agitation is being conducted in Russia by an agent of the German General Staff ... Lenin. Lenin was instructed to strive with all his might to undermine the confidence of the Russian people in the Provisional Government ... Money and instructions are sent through proxies ... The military censorship established a continuous exchange of telegrams of a political and monetary nature between German agents and Bolshevik leaders. "

On the morning of July 5, troops occupied the editorial office of the Bolshevik Pravda. The crowd rioted the "German nest". On July 6, the Provisional Government made a decision to bring to justice “all those who took part in organizing and leading an armed uprising against state power”. On the same day, the government banned revolutionary propaganda in the army and introduced the death penalty at the front.

“The newspapers,” recalled Kerensky's aide and well-known sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, “published documents confirming that before returning to Russia, the Bolshevik leaders received large sums of money from the German General Staff. The news sparked widespread and unanimous outrage.

Traitors! German spies! The killers! Death to them! Death to the Bolsheviks! "

“I remember very well how angry whispers and speeches threatening the Bolsheviks arose everywhere,” Stepun wrote. - Janitors, shopkeepers, cabbies, hairdressers, the entire petrograd crowd of Petrograd was just waiting to start beating up the "comrades", Jews and traitors ... Kerensky could proudly declare from the open window of the district headquarters to the assembled crowd that the Russian revolutionary democracy would not allow any encroachments no matter where they come from, to its sacred conquests: "Long live the land and freedom, long live the Constituent Assembly!"

Scared and hid?

The leaders of the Provisional Government did not approve of the act of Minister Pereverzev, who gave the materials of the investigation to journalists. He retired and went to the front. The new Minister of Justice Pavel Malyantovich ordered: "to arrest Ulyanov-Lenin Vladimir Ilyich."

Lenin said doomily to Leon Trotsky:

Now they will shoot us. The most suitable moment for them.

Boris Nikitin, the chief of counterintelligence in the Petrograd military district, regarded the Bolshevik leaders as paid German agents. Nikitin took with him an assistant prosecutor and fifteen soldiers and drove to Lenin's apartment. Vladimir Ilyich and close to him Grigory Zinoviev, a member of the Central Committee and one of the editors of Pravda, fled from the city, fearing trial and prison.

“One of the main reasons that sympathies for Lenin personally, and, consequently, for the Bolsheviks, at that time greatly fell, I see in his unwillingness to stand trial,” recalled Vaclav Solsky, a member of the Minsk Council of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. - On the masses of this kind, and in the behavior of Lenin the masses saw primarily personal cowardice, they act much more strongly than the most serious political accusations. Lenin at the rallies was much less often accused of being a German agent than of being a coward and hiding while his friends and party comrades were arrested. "

The execution of his older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, may have left an indelible imprint on the psyche of Vladimir Ilyich. But Nadezhda Krupskaya, judging by Nikitin's recollections, was not at all frightened:

“We found Lenin's wife Krupskaya in the apartment. There was no limit to the impudence of this woman. Do not hit her with the butts. She greeted us with shouts: “Gendarmes! Just like in the old regime! " - and did not stop making comments on the same topic throughout the entire search ... As expected, we did not find anything significant in Lenin's apartment. "

The sailors of the Baltic naval crew, who met Lenin at the Finland Station, published a statement in the newspapers:

“Having learned that Mr. Lenin returned to us in Russia with the permission of His Majesty the Emperor of Germany and the King of Prussia, we express our deep regret at our participation in his solemn entry into St. Petersburg. If we knew which ways he got to us, then instead of solemn cries of "hurray", our indignant exclamations would be heard: "Down with, back to the country through which you came to us."

It seemed that the Bolsheviks were finished.

The military counterintelligence reported to the Provisional Government that it could not find and arrest Lenin. Deputy Minister of War Boris Savinkov, a famous militant Social Revolutionary, dismissively remarked:

Catching Lenin is none of my business. But if I had done this, then on the third day Lenin would have been found and arrested ...

TO BE CONTINUED

The investigative bodies of the Provisional Government came to the conclusion that the July mutiny was organized with German money and the Bolsheviks were carrying out the will of the German General Staff.

Beginning in the numbers "MK" dated December 19, January 9, then - every Monday, as well as April 28, May 5, June 9.