Bolshevization of the soviets

The food apportionment policy has failed; bread rations in Petrograd and Moscow have been reduced to 0.5 pounds per person per day.

Even the Menshevik newspaper Svobodnaya Zhizn stated that the convocation of the Assembly was postponed by the government for "a terribly long time, which no European revolution knew".

Leon Trotsky, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet on October 16, 1917, noted that "a laborer who came from the village and stood idle for hours in the "tails" [lines] is naturally imbued with hatred for those who are better dressed and richer, because the rich man gets all the products without cards, paying twice.

Richard Pipes in his work "The Bolsheviks in the Struggle for Power" draws attention to the general radicalization of Russian public opinion that occurred in August – October 1917.

Society increasingly rejected moderate alternatives, tending to support either the right-wing Kornilovites (the "military dictatorship") or the radical socialists (Bolsheviks).

The Menshevik Party lost popularity, partly due to its wide participation in the Provisional Government, and gained only 2–3% of the vote in the Constituent Assembly elections.

The Soviets at all levels from the moment they were formed during the February Revolution are 100% leftist; in addition, during 1917 there was a strong movement to the left of the Provisional Government due to the increase in the number of "socialist ministers".

On October 3, 1917, the All-Russian Democratic Conference formed a new representative body, the Pre-Parliament, in which the Bolsheviks received only 58 seats out of 555.

Lenin stated that "the sole purpose of [the Pre-Parliament] is to distract the workers and peasants from the growing revolution" and on October 12, 1917 called the decision of the Bolsheviks to participate in his work "shameful" and "a blatant mistake".

On October 20, 1917, the head of the Bolshevik faction in the Pre-Parliament, Trotsky announced the Bolsheviks' final refusal to continue to participate in the work of this body, stating that "...a power has been created in and around which the explicit and secret Kornilovites play a leading role... the amount to which, as all elections in the country show, they have no right... With this government of high treason... we have nothing in common... long live the immediate, honest democratic world, all power to the Soviets, all the land to the people, long live the Constituent Assembly!".

[1] Lenin, "immediately providing" land to the peasants and preaching the seizure, in fact subscribed to anarchist tactics and the Socialist Revolutionary program.

It is clear that all "confiscation" and all "free", scattered right and left with royal generosity, were captivating and irresistible in the mouth of friends of the people.

All this has been pouring endless waves all over Russia in recent weeks... All this was heard daily by hundreds of thousands of hungry, tired and embittered...

And finally, in Smolny they worked on creating a new, more than suspicious "defense" body...[2] The Socialist Revolutionary – Menshevik All-Russian Central Executive Committee refused to recognize the legitimacy of this congress, accusing the Bolsheviks of violating election procedures.

On the other hand, the leadership of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), primarily Lenin personally, considered the possibility of declaring the Congress of the Northern Region the highest authority.

This activity took place against the backdrop of the unwillingness of the Mensheviks and right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries to convene the Congress in general, as in fact predetermining the will of the Constituent Assembly on the issue of power in the country.

At the same time, at the beginning of October, out of 974 Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies operating in the country, 600 were in favor of dispersing the Provisional Government and destroying the "dual power" system.

As early as September 15, he began to actively persuade his supporters to begin preparations for a new uprising (the letters "The Bolsheviks Must Take Power" and "Marxism and the Uprising"), without waiting for Kerensky to surrender Petrograd to the Germans or still assemble the Constituent Assembly (whose elections after a long delay was finally appointed by the Provisional Government on November 12).

Trotsky calls Lenin's proposals to raise an insurrection immediately "too impulsive" and suggests postponing it until the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets is convened.

Lenin continues to persuade the Bolsheviks to start an uprising immediately, without waiting for the Congress, and calls the supporters of its transfer "October 25 fetishists".