isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

THE PROPHET ARMED
Manifesto, Trotsky urged the Soviet to call off the general
strike. Its continuance offered no prospect offurther success and
might lead to more bloodshed. The Soviet unanimously
accepted this view, and on 21 October the strike came to an
end. The Soviet then announced that a solemn funeral of
workers who had been killed during the strike would take place
on 23 October. On the 22nd it was learned that General Trepov
was preparing the gendarmerie to suppress the demonstration,
and that the Okhrana was scheming a pogrom of Jews. The
. same night Trotsky stood before the Soviet, pleading for the
cancellation of the funeral. 'The Soviet declares (ran a motion
he submitted]: the proletariat of Petersburg will give the Tsarist
government the last battle not on a day chosen by Trepov, but
when this suits the armed and organized proletariat.' 1 The
Soviet swallowed its pride and cancelled the funeral of its
martyrs. There was anguish in this humiliation: would the
proletariat be able to give battle on the day chosen by itself
only ifit had armed and organized itself? And how was it to be
armed? On the same day the Soviet resolved to organize fighting
squads, whose immediate task was to prevent the pogrom.
Later, at the trial of the Soviet, conclusive evidence was to be
produced that the pogrom had indeed been planned and that
only the Soviet's action had averted it. But the fighting squads,
even the one that guarded the Soviet, were at best armed with
revolvers; and most had only sticks and pieces of iron. This call
to arms was, nevertheless, to be one of the main counts in the
indictment of the Soviet. 2
The Soviet maintained a vigorous political initiative, however.
The October Manifesto had promised freedom of the press;
but the pseudo-liberal Prime Minister Witte ordered the censorship
to function as before. In reply, the compositors and the
printers, encouraged by the Soviet, declared that they would
neither set nor print newspapers and books submitted to the
censors; and, by forcing the hands of the government, the
publishers, and the writers, th