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The Russian Revolution: Petrograd’s letter to the newspaper ‘ibL’Humanité’/ib

Abstract

In 1919, the bookshop Félix Alcan in Paris published a 276-page book entitled: Towards the Russian disaster. Letters from Petrograd to the newspaper L’Humanité. October 1917-February 1918. The author Boris Kritchewsky was born in Russia in 1866, dying in Paris the same year as his book. On 25 October 1917, L’Humanité had preceded the text of its first letter, dated 2 October 1917, by the following explanation: “Today we are giving the first letter from our Special Envoy to Russia. Our colleague Boris Kritchewsky, who for several years had talented to L’Humanité about foreign policy issues, will regularly send us from Petrograd correspondence on Russian events. Our readers will certainly follow these studies by an informed and visionary writer with interest. They will find a valuable source of documentation on the devastating phases of the young Russian revolution. A Russian socialist activist, Kritchewsky had been the correspondent in Paris of two major German socialist newspapers (Vorwärts and Neue Zeit), he was sympathising with the French revolutionary trade union and in the years before the war he worked in L’Humanité under the pseudonym of Bernard Veillard, in the international news section, alongside Jean Longuet (Marx’s grandson) and Spanish Antonio Fabra Ribas. The book consists of 17 letters, running from 2 October 1917 to 23 February 1918. The Humanity published all the letters that preceded the coup d’état “bolcheviste”, as it was said at the time, and only one after the coup d’état. There is no doubt about the confusing situation in Russia and the influence exerted within the French Socialist Party by the future accomplices of the bolchevists (Marcel Cachin in particular) explain these outdated delays in Kritchewsky. The letter we publish in full, after publishing extracts from it in Nos. 56 and 120 of Commentaire (Winter 1991 and Winter 2007), hoping that a publisher will re-publish this book in its entirety, is the eighth. It is dated 11 November 1917. She told about the decisive force that allowed the bolchevists in Lenin and Trotski to confiscate power in Petrograd. To enlighten the reader, let’s summarise the timeline of this revolution. On 12 March 1917, it was formed in Petrograd by a provisional government led by Prince Georges Lvov (Alexandre Kerenski, the only socialist of that government, is Minister for Justice). On 16 March, the tsar Nicolas II abdic in favour of his brother Michel, Qua’np pagenum = “286”/b itself abdic the following day in favour of the Interim Government. At the end of March Finland, Poland and Estonia became independent. Social reforms are outlined and referred to the future Constituent Assembly. The Socialists had organised a Council of Deputies, Workers and Soldiers (Soviet) in Petrograd on 12 March, which was gradually opposed to the Interim Government, particularly as regards military operations against Germany. On 16 April Lenin and other bolcheviks arrive in Petrograd, the German authorities transported from Zurich to Russia through Germany. Mr Trotski joined them in early May from England. Bolcheviks oppose mencheviks within the Socialist Party and social revolutionaries. On 16 May Kerenski became Minister of the Interim Government War and relaunched a Russian offensive in June, failing on 7 July. On 16 July, bolcheviks tried to take power in Petrograd. They fail to do so. Lenin flies in Finland. On 20 July Prince Lvov resigned and was replaced by Kerenski. General Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief, opposes him. It is defeated, but Kerenski becomes dependent on the bolcheviks that now dominate the Soviet and Petrograd. On 6 November, the bolcheviks (with the help of garment troops) took over the Hiver Palace and stopped members of the Interim Government. Kerenski managed to avoid his arrest and exile. On 7 November, a Council of People’s Commissioners was set up by Lenine, comprising Trotski and Staline. The Constituent Assembly was elected on 25 November. Bolcheviks are in the minority. When it meets in Petrograd on 18 January 1918, it will be dispersed by the Red Army. When reading Kritchewsky’s book, a long time ago, Boris Souvarine told us all the price he gave for this exceptional testimony. J.-C.

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