The July Days

June saw strikes among the most exploited workers -- dyers, clerks, laundry workers, the unskilled. A combination of inflation, lock-outs and frustration with the government and soviets was raising the temperature. A demonstration on June 18th saw a striking slogan on a banner from one factory -- "The right to life is higher than the rights of Private Property". This stood out amongst the morass of party slogans, which were basically 'Down with the Government'. It was the workers who saw the issue in more fundamental terms. With the Putilov works coming out on strike, the skilled metal workers were now joining the movement. The Bolsheviks urged restraint. Lenin was moved to say in 'Pravda' on June 21st : "We understand your bitterness, we understand the excitement of the Petersburg workers, but we say to them: Comrades, an immediate attack would be inexpedient." Many rank-and-file worker Bolsheviks complained at this, not liking having to play "the part of the fire hose". At a meeting at the Putilov works a Bolshevik said workers should wait for the Party to state whether a demonstration was opportune or not, and got a sharp reply : "Again you want to postpone things. We can't live that way any longer (...)" [19] In weighing up the Bolshevik attitude, workers bore in mind that the February strikes had been against the 'leaders' advice, and that action from below had won the eight hour day.

In early July, the factories came out and the Red Guards were armed and ready. On July 3rd, the Bolsheviks did all they could to hold back the machine-gun regiments, and Tomsky complained at a Bolshevik conference "The regiments which have come out have acted in an uncomradely manner, not having invited the Central Committee of our party to consider the question of a manifestation." He urged the issue of an appeal to hold back 'the masses'. Lenin spoke to demonstrators on the morning of the 4th, stressing the need for a peaceful march, to the amazement of the armed sailors, who were looking for an endorsement of action. The march was purely a working class affair, thousands pouring out of the poor districts of Petrograd, with the demand "All power to the soviets !" But the Soviet wasn't so keen: a worker had to shout at Chernov, one of the moderate socialist leaders of the Soviet -- "Take power, you stupid bastard, it's being handed to you on a plate."

Instead of taking power, the Soviet leaders and their socialist allies in the Provisional Government organised loyal troops to put down the advocates of such a course ! Some 400 workers and soldiers were killed to allow the moderate socialists to appear respectable to the bourgeoisie. As the party untainted by this and similar events, the Bolsheviks were bound to attract workers' support. Having successfully reduced the July movement to a demonstration, the Bolsheviks got on with 'organising'. At the height of the July Days, Kamenev said "Our present task is to give the movement an organised character." Winning votes and positions was the parallel of this approach. When the Bolsheviks won control of the workers' section of the Petrograd Soviet, in Trotsky's estimation this was on a par with achieving socialism itself: "From the lips of the Bolshevik orators the demonstrators learned of the victory just won in the workers' section, and that fact gave them as palpable a satisfaction as would an entrance upon the epoch of soviet power." [20]

Despite their restraining influence, the Bolsheviks found themselves subject to repression at the hands of the socialists, who banned their papers and arrested leading party militants where they could. The moderate socialists doubtless believed their own propaganda, that it was 'agitators' that had stirred up trouble in the workers. Their own failure to meet the people's demands was left out of account. The theme of the repression was well expressed by the White General, Kornilov, at the end of July: "We need three armies -- in the trenches, one in the factories or the rear, and one in the railways to link them (...) all three must be as disciplined as the front-line one." Before long, Trotsky would be saying the same thing.

Notes

[19] quoted in Trotsky, p528.

[20] Trotsky, p528.