Leon Trotsky, The Lessons of October - Platypus

Leon Trotsky 49be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow, infact, they risk losing everything.” 5All these letters, every sentence of which was forged on the anvil of revolution,are of exceptional value in that they serve both to characterize Leninand to provide an estimate of the situation at the time. The basic andall-pervasive thought expressed in them is anger, protest, and indignationagainst a fatalistic, temporizing, social democratic, Menshevik attitude torevolution, as if the latter were an endless film. If time is, generally speaking,a prime factor in politics, then the importance of time increases a hundredfold in war and in revolution. It is not at all possible to accomplishon the morrow everything that can be done today. To rise in arms, to overwhelmthe enemy, to seize power, may be possible today, but tomorrowmay be impossible. But to seize power is to change the course of history. Isit really true that such a historic event can hinge upon an interval of twentyfourhours? Yes, it can. When things have reached the point of armedinsurrection, events are to be measured not by the long yardstick of politics,but by the short yardstick of war. To lose several weeks, several days,and sometimes even a single day, is tantamount under certain conditionsto the surrender of the revolution, to capitulation. Had Lenin not soundedthe alarm, had there not been all this pressure and criticism on his part,had it not been for his intense and passionate revolutionary mistrust, theparty would probably have failed to align its front at the decisive moment,for the opposition among the party leaders was very strong, and the staffplays a major role in all wars, including civil wars.At the same time, however, it is quite clear that to prepare the insurrectionand to carry it out under cover of preparing for the Second Soviet Congressand under the slogan of defending it, was of inestimable advantageto us. From the moment when we, as the Petrograd Soviet, invalidatedKerensky’s order transferring two-thirds of the garrison to the front, wehad actually entered a state of armed insurrection. Lenin, who was not inPetrograd, could not appraise the full significance of this fact. So far as I remember,there is not a mention of it in all his letters during this period. Yetthe outcome of the insurrection of October 25 was at least three-quarterssettled, if not more, the moment that we opposed the transfer of the Petrogradgarrison; created the Revolutionary Military Committee (October 16);appointed our own commissars in all army divisions and institutions; andthereby completely isolated not only the general staff of the Petrograd zone,but also the government. As a matter of fact, we had here an armed insurrection— an armed though bloodless insurrection of the Petrograd regimentsagainst the Provisional Government — under the leadership of theRevolutionary Military Committee and under the slogan of preparing the5 CW, Vol.26, ”Letter to Central Committee Members” (October 24, 1917), pp.234–35