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

TROTSKY IN THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION 301
Lenin who had arrived, heavily disguised, moved that the
conference should confirm the decision on insurrection, and
that the Central Committee should at once issue a call to action.
The representativ.c of the Petrograd Committee spoke about
apathy in the masses, but declared that the call for insurrection,
if it came from the Soviet, not from the party, would stir up
the masses and meet with response. Krylcnko, leader of the
party's military branch, on which the execution of Lenin's plan
entirely depended, declared that only a minority of the branch
was for insurrection, but even this minority fayourcd initiative
by the Soviet, not by the party. Volodarsky spoke in the same
vein. Zinoviev and Kamenev emphatically restated their
objections to armed action in any form. Stalin reproached them
with lack of faith in European revolution, and remarked that
while the party leaders were engaged in confused argument, the
Soviet was already 'on the road to insurrection'. Miliutin, for
Moscow, spoke ambiguously. Sokolnikov held that the rising
ought to be started only after the opening of the Congress of the
Soviets. From all sides there came anxious voices about the
apathy and the weariness of the masses. Lenin recapitulated his
arguments, but he made a concession to the adherents of
Trotsky's plan and submitted that 'the Central Committee and
the Soviet should in due time indicate the right moment and the
practical methods of attack' . 1 Tentatively 20 October was fixed
as the day of action.
The Central Committee had fixed this date because it was
the eve of the expected opening of the Congress. Only three or
four days were left for preparations. Yet no sooner had the
Central Committee confirmed its decision on insurrection than
Zinoviev and Kamenev made a vigorous attempt to frustrate it.
They denounced the plan, this time not within the Bolshevik
caucus hut in the pages of Gorky's newspaper. Thus, from the
men suppm;ed to act as members of the General Staff of the
insurrection, the outside world received a warning about what
was pending. Lenin, beside himself with indignation, demanded
1
Loe. cit., and Lenin, Sochinmya, vol. xxvi, p. 165. At this session a 'Military
Centre' was appointed, consisting of Svcrdlov, Stalin, Bubnov, Uritsky, and
Dzerzhinsky. It was to 'become part of the Military Revolutionary Committee of
the Soviet', i.e. to serve under Trotsky. On his membership of this 'Centre', which
throughout the rising never acted as a separate body, Stalin and the Stalinist
historians later based the claim that Stalin had been the actual leader of the rising.