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

302 THE PROPHET ARMED
the immediate expulsion from the party of the two 'strikebreakers
of the revolution'. His demand fell on deaf ears. In the
Bolshevik newspaper Stalin tried to reconcile the adversaries,
although this was a matter in which reconciliation was impossible:
an insurrection either is or is not madc. 1
Trotsky utilized even the confusion among the Bolshevik
leaders to further his plan. On 17 October he received with
well concealed relief the news that the Menshcvik Central
Executive had again postponed the Congress of the Soviets for
a few days. This gave him a little more time for the last preparations.
But the other camp might also have benefited from
the delay; and Zino\'iev's and Kamenev's disclosures threatened
to arouse its vigilance. On 18 October two embarrassing questions
were put to Trotsky in the Soviet, one about the widespread
rumours on insurrection, and the other about his order
to the arsenals for the issue of rifles to Red Guards. His answer
was a masterpiece of diplomatic camouflage: 'The decisions of
the Petrograd Soviet are published', he said. 'The Soviet is an
elected institution, every deputy is responsible to the workers
and soldiers who have elected him. This revolutionary parliament
... can have no decisions which are unknown to the
workers. W c conceal nothing. I declare on behalf of the Soviet:
we have not decided on any armed action.' This was literally
true: the Soviet had decided nothing of the sort. As its President
he was expected to give an account only of the Soviet's work.
He was under no obligation to make a public confession of a
confidential decision taken by a private body such as the Central
Committee of the party.
But he did not stop at this denial, which might have confounded
friends as well as foes. Nor did he tie his hands. 'If the
course of events', he added, 'compels the Soviet to decide on
armed action, then the workers and the soldiers will come out in
response to its appeal like one man.' He admitted that he had
ordered rifles for the Red Guards, but he covered himself by
the familiar precedent: the Menshevik Soviet had done the
same. 'The Petrograd Soviet', he added defiantly, 'will go on
organizing and arming workers' guards .... We must be ready.
We have entered a period of more acute struggle. We must
be constantly prepared for attack by the counter-revolution.
1
Protokoly Tm1. Kom., pp. 127-9·