David MANDEL (1947 - )
Professeur titulaire, département de sciences politique, UQÀM
(1981)
“The Intelligentsia
and the Working Class
in 1917.”
Un document produit en version numérique par Jean-Marie Tremblay, bénévole,
professeur de sociologie au Cégep de Chicoutimi
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David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
2
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David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
3
Cette édition électronique a été réalisée par Jean-Marie Tremblay, bénévole, professeur de sociologie au Cégep de Chicoutimi à partir de :
David MANDEL
“The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.”
Un article publié dans la revue CRITIQUE. A Journal of Socialist
Theory, no 14, 1981, pp. 67-87. Glasgow, England.
M Mandel, politologue, professeur titulaire au département de science politique de l’UQÀM, nous a accordé le 7 avril 2011 son autorisation de diffuser
électroniquement le texte de cette conférence.
Courriel : mandel.mark-david@uqam.ca
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Pour le texte : Times New Roman, 14 points.
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Édition numérique réalisée le 2 octobre 2012 à Chicoutimi,
Ville de Saguenay, Québec.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
4
Ouvrages publiés par l’auteur
Former "state socialist" world. Montréal : Black Rose Books,
1996.
La perestroïka : économie et société. Actes du 9e colloque annuel
de l'Association d'économie politique (AEP) tenu à l'Université du
Québec à Montréal les 20 et 21 octobre 1989 / sous la dir. de David
Mandel. Sillery : Presses de l'Université du Québec , 1990, 220 pp.
Collection : Études d'économie politique, no 7.
The Petrograd workers and the Soviet seizure of power : from the
July days 1917 to July 1918. Variante du titre : The Petrograd workers
and the fall of the old regime. London : Macmillan, 1984. Collection :
Studies in Soviet history and society, xv, 211-447 pp.
La conception ouvrière du contenu social de la Révolution de
1917 : le cas de Pétrograd. Montréal : Université du Québec à Montréal. Département de science politique.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
5
David Mandel (1981)
“The Intelligentsia
and the Working Class in 1917.”
Un article publié dans la revue CRITIQUE. A Journal of Socialist
Theory, no 14, 1981, pp. 67-87. Glasgow, England.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
6
[67]
David MANDEL *
“The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.”
Un article publié dans la revue CRITIQUE. A Journal of Socialist
Theory, no 14, 1981, pp. 67-87. Glasgow, England.
Tereshchenko, sugar manufacturer and Minister for External Affairs in the last Provisional Government, was not engaging in mere
small talk when he asked the sailor escorting him to jail after the
storming of the Winter Palace, 'How will you manage without the intelligentsia ?' 1 This question, in fact, points to a key process in the
Revolution of 1917 - the growing alienation between the working
class and the intelligentsia, and especially that part of it that referred
to itself as 'democratic' or 'socialist' 2 This was a process whose roots
reached back to 1905, and perhaps even earlier, but which attained its
culmination only in October 1917, in the overwhelming hostility of
the intelligentsia to Soviet Power and their refusal to cooperate with it.
In contemporary usage the term intelligent was synonymous with a
person earning (or looking forward to earning, i.e., a student) his or
her living in an occupation recruited from among those with an academic or at least secondary education, or the equivalent. For example,
when in April 1917 the senior personnel of the Petrograd Post Office
*
1
2
David Mandel teaches in the Department of Policial Science at McGill University, Montreal.
Cited in S.P. Melgunov, The Bolshevik Seizure of Power, (ABC-CAO : 1972),
90.
The term 'democratic' or 'socialist intelligentsia' was used by way of contrast
with the 'bourgeois intelligentsia', i.e., people like P.V. Miliukov, professor of
history and leader of the Kadet (liberal) Party, who was identified with the interests of the propertied classes- census society. It is the former, members or
sympathisers of the socialist parties and of the lower classes, of 'revolutionary
democracy', that are the main focus of this paper.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
7
attempted to form their own union in reaction to the egalitarian
tendencies of the Union of Post and Telegraph Employees, they called
themselves 'The Provisional Organising Bureau of Intelligentnykh
Employees of the Petrograd Central Post Office and Branches', emphasising their 'education, upon which you have expended at least a
quarter of your lives', and contrasting themselves to their opponents,
people 'who cannot even spell their names correctly'. 3 Similarly, Levin, a Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) member of the Central Soviet
of Factory Committees in Petrograd, wrote in December 1917 : 'People who have had the good fortune to receive a scientific education are
abandoning the people ... And in the latter instinctively grows a hatred
for the educated, for the intelligentsia'. 4
[68]
But aside from the objective definition, the term had also a moral
component : the intelligentsia were the people preoccupied with the
'accursed questions', with the historical fate of the nation. Pitirim Sorokin referred to them as 'the carriers of intellect and conscience'. 5
And in the Russian context, this moral connotation also carried with it
a strong undertone of service to the people.
Historically, this moral element had, to a significant degree, corresponded to reality. At least since the mid-nineteenth century, the politically active element of the intelligentsia had opposed the autocracy
and, though only a minority of the educated stratum, it nevertheless
tended to set the tone for the entire intelligentsia. For the next halfcentury the main problem confronting it was to bridge the seemingly
impassable gulf separating it from the people, to draw the dormant
masses into the revolutionary movement for the overthrow of autocracy. There were, to be sure, periods when attempts were made to
change the regime from within, most notably after the great reforms
and after the Revolution of 1905. Moreover, a significant segment of
the intelligentsia gave its support to the liberal movement, which,
3
4
5
K. Bazilevich, Professional'noe dvizhenie rabotnikov sviazi (Moscow : 1927),
33.
Znamia truda, (December 17, 1917).
Volia naroda, (November 6, 1917). Sorokin was Kerenskii's personal secretary, later to become one of the deans of American academic sociology.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
8
though opposed to the autocracy, was also against revolution. Nevertheless, by the eve of 1917 there was not a single class or stratum of
any significance in Russian society, including the intelligentsia, that
actually supported the regime. True to the academic literature on revolutions, the prerevolutionary situation was indeed characterised by the
'alienation of the intelligentsia from the ancien regime'. 6
But a closer look at developments within Russian society and especially at the issue of the socialist intelligentsia's self-definition in
relation to the propertied classes on the one hand, and to the workers
and peasants, on the other, reveals that its relationship to the revolutionary movement was in reality much more complex. For already in
1905 one can discern signs of a movement away from radicalism and
from the popular masses, although it was not really until the period of
reaction of 1907-11 that the workers became fully aware of what they
termed the 'betrayal of the intelligentsia', a betrayal that seemed to
have come amazingly swiftly. 7
In his study of the SR Party, Radkey writes of
a metamorphosis of... the populist intelligentsia from insurrectionaries in 1905 to jaded democrats in the period between the
revolutions and then to fervent patriots, partisans of the Entente,
and devotees of the cult of the state in the coming war... They
clung to the old S.R. label even though the old faith was gone,
aside from the residue of interest in political liberation... 8
A similar process was taking place within social democracy.
Haimson finds that the private correspondence of the Menshevik leaders in 1909-1911
6
7
8
For a 'classic' formulation of this view, see C. Brinton, Anatomy of Revolution,
(1938), 56.
L.M. Kleinbort, Ocherki rabochei intelligentsii, (Petrograd : 1923), 176-177.
O. Radkey, The Sickle under the Hammer, (New York, Columbia University
Press : 1963), 469-470. See also Znamia truda, (November 15, 1917), on how
the populist intelligentsia tended, in contrast to the workers, towards a defencist position during the war.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
9
[69]
is replete with despondent statements... about the wholesale
withdrawal ,from political and social concerns that seemed to
have accompanied the radical intelligentsia's recoil from the
underground struggle. Most party members, these letters suggest, had in fact withdrawn from party activities and were wholly absorbed in the prosaic if arduous struggle to resume a normal, day-to-day existence. 9
In the Bolshevik wing, which dominated the labour movement in
1912-1914, the period of labour's recovery from the defeat of 1905
and the ensuing reaction, an especially bitter sense of betrayal is felt
in the memoirs of workers. Shliapnikov wrote of an 'ebb' that had begun in 1906-1907 and left so few intellectuals among the Petersburg
Bolsheviks that there were hardly enough 'literary forces' to meet the
needs of the Duma faction and the daily newspapers.
In place of the raznochintsy-intelligenty, young students, the
worker-intelligentsia appeared with callouses and a highly developed intellect and continuous ties with the workers. 10
Kiril Orlov (Ivan Egorov), a skilled Petersburg metalworker and
member of the Bolshevik Petersburg Committee during the war, recalled :
During the war there was absolutely no party intelligentsia
among the entire membership of the P(etersburg) C(ommittee).
Somewhere in the city, it lived a totally separate existence, nes9
L.H. Haimson, 'The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia, 1905-1917',
in M. Cherniavsky, The structure of Russian History, (New York ; Random
House : 1970), 346.
10 A. S. Shliapnikov, Kanun semnadisatovo goda, (Moscow-Petrograd : 1923),
9.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
10
tled around Maxim Gorky, but neither the proletariat nor its districts knew or had any information about it. We felt that we, the
proletarians, were alone. There was not even anyone to write a
small pamphlet or an appeal. They all sat with their arms folded, grieved and fled from illegal work, as the devil flees from
incense. The workers were left to their own resources. 11
And if this was the sentiment in the capital, the feeling of betrayal
was even stronger in the provinces. Martsionovskii, a Bolshevik carpenter, wrote :
In a whole series of cities where I took part in illegal work, almost everywhere the party committee consisted exclusively of
workers. The intelligentsia was absent, with the exception of
those on tour who came for two or three days. In the most difficult years of the reaction, the workers remained almost without
leaders from the intelligentsia. They said that they were tired,
that young people were coming to relieve them. But the youth
in the meanwhile got carried away with artsybashevshchina.
Some sought new gods, others went abroad and the rest led
philistine lives. But that was the period after the destruction of
our organisation. Somewhat after that, the intellectuals decided
that it was not good to be revolutionaries and they actively set
to organising a new current of liquidators. At the start of the
imperialist war, they stood for the defence of the country and
denied their fundamental slogans, taking with them many
workers who had not yet had time to thin things through... We,
the underground workers, had to work without the intelligentsia, with the exception of individuals. But on the other hand, after the February Revolution, they showed up, they beat their
breasts and shouted 'We are revolutionaries', etc., but in fact,
11
K. Orlov, Zhizn'rabochego revoliutsionnera. Ot 1905 k 1917 g., (Leningrad :
1925), 29.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
11
[70] none of them had conducted revolutionary work, and we
had not seen them in the underground. 12
But as Martsionovskii indicates, a certain rapprochement between
the workers and the intelligentsia did take place during the 'honeymoon period' of national unity created by the February Revolution.
For in February the propertied classes, even while grating their teeth,
did finally rally to the revolution, thereby facilitating its victory ; and
the working class followed the 'conciliationist' wings of social democracy and populism into a political alliance (albeit a very guarded and
hesitant one) with the propertied classes, 'census society'. This was the
system of dual power.
But the rosy atmosphere of February proved short lived. In a matter of months - in some cases only weeks - the workers set out on the
path of opposition to census society and 'their' government. Already.
at the end of May the Petrograd Conference of Factory Committees
voted 297 v. 89 (with 45 abstentions and 46 votes cast for the anarchist resolution making no reference to the state) for the transfer of
power to the Soviets, i.e., for a regime in which the propertied classes
would not be represented - for a dictatorship of the toiling classes, of
revolutionary democracy. 13 On the evening of July 3 the Workers'
Section of the Petrograd Soviet, for the first time on a purely political
issue, also voted for Soviet power. 14 By late September 1917 the Bol12
A. Martsionovskii, Zapiski revoliutsionnera-bol'shevika, (Saratov, 1923), 89.
This was Martsionovskii's perception of the situation. In fact, in the capitals at
least, students played a not insignificant role in 1912-14, especially in the early stages (see for example, E.E. Kurze's article in Istoria rabochikh leningrada, vol. I, (Leningrad : 1972, 419). But this was not even remotely comparable to their role in 1905 or in the liberation movement preceding it. At any
rate, as far as the intelligentsia as a whole is concerned, Martsionovskii's picture is essentially accurate. The epithet 'artsybashevshchina' used by Martsionovskii here is derived from the name of a prerevolutionary novelist whose
work was condemned in the revolutionary movement as decadent and pornographic - M.P. Artsybashev.
13 Oktiabr'skaia revoliutsia i fabzavkomy, (Moscow-Leningrad : 1927), vol. 1,
197 (henceforth cited as FZK).
14 Novaiazhizn', July 4,1917. In fact, the first resolution for soviet power was
passed by this body as early as the end of May in connection with the gov-
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
12
sheviks had won majorities in the Soviets of virtually every town in
Russia that had any large-scale industry or a garrison of significant
size. At the Second All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers'
Deputies, October 25-27, out of some 650 delegates there were 390
Bolsheviks and 90 Left SRs. 15 (The Left SRs would enter a coalition
Soviet government within a few weeks.) The chief reason for this shift
among the workers was their growing conviction that census society
was counterrevolutionary. And, in fact, it was fast becoming clear to
all that the propertied classes would like nothing better than to see an
end to the Soviets and other workers' organisations, something that
was demonstrated rather graphically in their support for the Kornilov
uprising, with its aim of installing a military dictatorship and crushing
the [71] labour movement. 16 Even the Democratic Conference in the
second half of September, a conference carefully packed by the Menshevik and SR leaders of the Central Executive Committee of Soviets
with the more conservative elements of revolutionary democracy, in
effect voted against the formation of a government that included representatives of census society. 17
ernment's plan to 'unload' Petrograd of her industrial enterprises (see Izvestia,
June 2, 1917).
15 W.H. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, (New York : Grosset and Dunlap,
1965), vol. 1 : 320. See also Novaia zhizn', October 26, 1917 : Znamia truda,
October 27, 1917 ; and N. Sukhanov, Zapiski a revoluitsii, (Berlin-PetrogradMoscow : 1922), vol. 7 : 216.
16 The most prominent representatives of census society were declaring this with
increasing candour and frequency at various public forums. Even after Komilov's defeat and arrest, Miliukov continued to defend him in public, declaring
him an honest man and patriot. See Sukhanov, op. cit., vol. 6 : 302.
17 V. Vladimirova,Revoluitsia 1917g., (Moscow-Leningrad : 1926), vol. 4 : 240.
See also Sukhanov, op. cit., vol. 6 : 93-137 passim. According to the regulations of the Soviet, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was to be
convened at this date, three months after the First Congress. But such a congress would undoubtedly have voted to take power. For this reason, the Menshevik-SR leaders decided to postpone it and call a 'Democratic Conference'
instead. The amended resolution on state power called for a coalition, but
without Kadets, since that party was compromised in the Kornilov Affair.
However, since there were no politically significant elements in census society that did not support the Kadets or were not in full solidarity with its positions, the resolution was meaningless and, accordingly, overwhelmingly de-
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
13
On the background of the re-emerging class polarisation, the rift
between the workers and the intelligentsia also resurfaced - and with a
vengeance. At a conference on adult education in the early fan of
1917, Lunacharskii, a Bolshevik intellectual active in cultural affairs,
gave the report on the state of worker-intelligentsia cooperation in the
cultural sphere. He spoke of the great thirst for knowledge among the
working class that was going unsatisfied because 'at present, one observes that the proletariat itself is isolated from the intelligentsia...
thanks to the fact that the proletariat has crossed over to the banner of
the extreme left wing of democracy, while the intelligentsia found itself on the right'. Although this characterisation provoked protests
among the representatives of the intelligentsia, Lunacharskii insisted
that 'the proletariat is not to blame, but rather the intelligentsia, which
has a strongly negative attitude to the political tasks the proletariat has
put forward'. 18
Very revealing in this respect is V. Polonskii's survey of Russian
journalism for 1917, 'that collective physiognomy that until recently
reflected the soul of our so-called intelligentsia, our spiritual aristocracy' :
... One could hardly find another group of people aside from
the intelligentsia in whose thoughts and moods the revolution
has wreaked such cruel havoc. I have before me a pile of newspapers, magazines, brochures. Among the current material one
most often finds that theme which is most prominent in our intelligentsia's consciousness : 'the intelligentsia and the people'.
And as one reads, the picture that emerges is most unexpected.
Until recently, the. predominant type of intelligent was the intelligent-narodnik, the well-wisher, sighing sympathetically
over the lot of our 'smaller brother'. Now, alas ! this type is an
anachronism. In his place appears the malevolent intelligent,
feated. This was the dilemma of the 'compromisers' : they kept insisting on a
coalition with the propertied classes when there was really no one left in census society of any political significance that did not want to crush the popular
revolution, and the 'compromisers' with it.
18 Novaia zhizn', October 18, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
14
hostile to the muzhik, the workers, the entire dark toiling mass.
'Today's' are no longer striving, like the earlier type, to fill in
some sort of abyss separating them from the muzhik, just the
opposite : they want to set themselves apart from the muzhik
with a clear and impassable line... Such is the portentous and
sudden shift that one observes. In literature, it [72] expresses itself exceedingly clearly. In a large number of articles devoted
to the people and the intelligentsia are treated as a benighted.
brutal. greedy. unbridled mass. rabble : and their present leaders
- as demagogues, worthless nullities. emigres. careerists who
have taken as their motto that of the bourgeoisie of old France :
Après nous, le déluge... If you recall what yesterday's defenders
and advocates of the people have written lately about the rule of
the mob (okhlokratia). the extremely alarming fact of our present situation becomes indisputable : the intelligentsia has completed its departure from the people. The intelligentsia had just
enough strength left to bid good night to the *one who suffers
all in the name of Christ, whose rough eyes do not cry. whose
sore lips do not complain'. And it was enough for that eternal
sufferer to rise to its feet. to mightily shrug its sholders and take
in a full breath for the intelligentsia to feel itself disappointed.
And it is not the excesses of the October Days nor the madness of Bolshevism that are the cause of this. The departure of
the intelligentsia, the transformation of the 'populists' into 'evilwishers', began long ago, almost on the morrow of the (February) Revolution. 19
The clearest Political expresion of the deepening rift is to be found
in the continuous growth throughout 1917 of the Bolsheviks' electoral
support at the expense of the moderate socialists.
19
Ibid., January 4, 1918. The fact that Polonskii was writing for Novaia zhizn',
the MenshevikInternationalist paper that was hostile to the October Revolution and the 'madness of Bolshevism', gives his characterisation added weightnamely, that the 'departure' was not the result of the October Rising or the
Bolsheviks' policies, but began much before that.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
15
RETURNS IN THE PETROGRAD DISTRICT
DUMA ELECTIONS (MAY 2 7 - JUNE 5, 1917) ;
CITY DUMA ELECTIONS (AUGUST 20, 1917) ;
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY (NOVEMBER 12-14, 1917)
(in %)
May
August
November
Bolsheviks
20.4
33.4
45.0
Menshevik-SR.
56.0
44.0
19.2
Kadet
21.9
20.8
26.2
Other
1.7
1.8
9,6
Sources : Rech', June 3, 8, 9, 1917 ; Delo narodna, August 23-24, 1917 ; Nasha
rech', November 17, 1917,
The breakdown by district as well as other independent data show
that the Bolshevik vote in Petrograd came overwhelmingly from the
workers and soldiers (in October, the garrison stood at approximately
90,000 men and the industrial work force at about 400,000). The correlation between the ratio of industrial workers employed in a district
to the total registered voters, on the one hand, and the relative size of
the Bolshevik vote, on the other was r = 0.7594 (at a significance of
p(F) 0.0005). 20 While the workers abandoned [73] the moderate socialists, opting for a break with the properties classes, the middle strata of society - the small owners, artisans, and especially senior and
20
Essentially, this means that the more industrial workers employed in a district,
the greater the Bolshevik share of the vote ; 0.7594 is a very high correlation.
For the number of registered votes see Nasha rech', November 17, 1917 ; the
number of industrial workers by district - Z.V. Stepanov, Rabochie Petrograda v period podgotovki i provedenia oktiabr't skovo vooruzhennovo vossatnia,
(Leningrad : 1965, 30).
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
16
middle-level white-collar employees, the professional and technical
intelligentsia - either stayed put or shifted into the Kadet camp.
Within the socialist parties themselves, a parallel process occurred.
According to Radkey, with the breakup of the SR Party in September
1917
it is clear... that nearly all the sailors and a large majority of the
workers and army went with the L(eft) SR, most of the intellectuals and white collar workers stayed where they were, and the
peasantry divided into two camps. the larger loyal to the (Right)
SR but the lesser one already sizable and steadily growing...
From every quarter came complaints of a dearth of intellectuals
which seriously impeded the activity of the new party. Sukhanov termed it the party of the rural plebs and ranked it even
lower on the cultural scale than the Bolsheviks, the party of the
urban plebs. 21
Similarly, at the Second Petrograd Conference of the Bolshevik
Party in July 1917, Volodarskii complained of the 'wholesale desertion of the intelligentsia', adding :
The intelligentsia, in accord with its social background, has
crossed over to the defencists and does not want to carry the
revolution further. It does not come to us, and everywhere it.
has taken the position of resisting the revolutionary steps of the
workers. 22
A few weeks later, at the Sixth Party Congress, he gave the following report on the Petrograd Organisation :
21
22
Radkey, op. cit., 159.
Vtoraia i tret'ia obshchegorodskie konferentsii bol'shevikov v iule i sentiabre
1917g., (Moscow-Leningrad : 1927), 28.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
17
Work is being conducted by local forces from the worker masses. There are very few intelligentnye forces. All organisational
work is done by the workers themselves. The members of the
C.C. (heavily intelligent in composition) took little part in our
organisational work. Lenin and Zinoviev very rarely, as they
were preoccupied with other work. Our organisation has grown
from below. 23
Of course, in the provinces matters were even worse. The Bolshevik Central Committee was being constantly bombarded with urgent
requests to send 'literary forces', 'at least one intelligent'. Sverdlov, the
party secretary, almost invariably replied that no one could be spared,
that the situation in the capital was hardly better. 24
In the eyes of the rank-and-file workers there was also a growing
identification of Bolsheviks with workers and Mensheviks and SRs
with intellectuals. For example, in June 1917 the factory committee at
a certain Moscow tea-packing plant was still exclusively Menshevik,
except for one member. When asked by a visiting Menshevik
joumalist why he too was not a Menshevik, he replied that he belonged to no party but voted for the Bolsheviks because 'on their list
there are workers. The Mensheviks are all gospoda (gentlemen) doctors, lawyers, etc.' He added also that the Bolsheviks stood for soviet power and workers' control. 25 Speaking on [74] October 14 at the
soviet of Orekhovo Zuevsk (a textile town in the Central Industrial
Region), a certain Baryshnikov stated :
Due to the fact that the ideology and politics of the working
class presume a radical reformation of the current system, the
relationship of the so-called intelligentsia, the SRs and Mensheviks (!), to the workers has-grown very strained. And there-
23
24
Shestoi vserossiiskii s'ezd RSDRP(b). Protokoly, (Moscow, 195 8), 45.
See Perepiska sekretariata TseKa RSDRP(b) s metsnymy organizatsiamy,
mart-oktiabr'1917 (Moscow : 195 7), passim.
25 Rabochaia gazeta, June 20, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
18
fore, there already exists no ties between us, and in the eyes of
the working class they have once and for all defined themselves
as servants of bourgeois society. 26
As the workers shifted to the left, it became increasingly difficult
to find educated spokesmen for their positions. Workers' conferences
became increasingly plebian affairs. A report on the Conference of
Railroad Workers was characteristic : 'Almost a total absence of intelligentsia. Even the praesidium consists almost completely of the
« rank-and-file »'. 27
It was the July Days that forced the workers to directly confront
the implications of their growing isolation from the intelligentsia. On
July 3 and 4 the majority of Petrograd's industrial workers along with
a part of the garrison came out in a peaceful demonstration to 'force'
the Central Executive Committee of Soviets to put an end to the coalition and take power on its own. But the unthinkable happened : not
only did the soviet leadership not heed the will of the workers, it actually stood by while the government undertook a campaign of repressions against the workers and left socialists. (Some, like Tsereteli,
leader of the Central Executive Committee and Minister for Internal
Affairs in the Provisional Government, directly sanctioned the repressions. In most other cases, however, there were protests, but they were
weak and ineffective because these people refused to contemplate a
break with the government and census society.)
This turn of events drastically altered the political situation. Now it
appeared that power could be won only against the resistance of the
moderate socialists and their supporters. Among other things, this
meant that the socialist intelligentsia would be overwhelmingly hostile
26
Nakanune Oktiabr'skovo vooruzhennovo vosstania v Petrograde, (Moscow :
1957) 152.
27 Znamia truda, November 17, 1917. This conference was called by the manual
workers (rabochie) in the railroad depots and workshops of Moscow and Petrograd in opposition to the Menshevik-Intemationalist-ed All Russian Railway
Union, which encompassed all employees of the railroads, up to and including
the Minister of Paths of Communications himself. The composition of this
workers' conference was about two-thirds Bolshevik, the rest being Left SRs
with a smattering of Menshevik-Internationalists.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
19
to such a regime. As a result, the aftermath of the July Days saw the
workers deeply shaken and confused over how to proceed toward their
goal of a government without census society, a government of revolutionary democracy that would undertake an active peace policy, organise the collapsing economy, give land to the peasants, and deal
firmly with the even more vociferous and threatening forces of counterrevolution.
For the workers, the major significance of the intelligentsia lay in
the latter's near monopoly of the skills and knowledge needed in running the economic and state machinery of the country. To take power
without their support, let alone in the face of their active resistance,
was a very frightening prospect. This emerges with great force from
the protocols of the Second Conference of Factory Committees of Petrograd of August 10-12, 1917. The general consensus among the delegates was that Russia's industry was [75] fast heading for total collapse, aided by the sabotage of the industrialists on the local level and
by their opposition to state regulation of the economy on the national
level. The workers themselves would have to assume full control of
production. As one delegate stated :
We have to exert all our energy in this struggle (to prepare our
own economic apparatus to take over at the moment of capitalist collapse). Especially as class contradictions are revealed
more and more and the intelligentsia leaves us, we have to rely
only on ourselves and take all our organisations into our workers' hands. 28
The whole assembly was painfully aware of the tremendous difficulty of the task. 'Throughout all the reports', noted one delegate, 'runs
the cry of a lack of (qualified) people, like a red thread'. 29 'Tsarism
did everything to leave us unprepared', lamented another, 'and natural-
28
29
FZK I. 189.
Ibid., 188.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
20
ly, everywhere, in both political and economic organs, we lack (qualified) people'. 30
How were they to proceed in such circumstances ? A Menshevik
worker, Sedov, argued that in the given situation there could be no
question of the workers taking power on their own.
We are alone. We have few workers capable of understanding
state affairs and of controlling. It is necessary to organise
courses in government affairs and in control of production. If
we take power the masses will crucify us. The bourgeoisie is
organised and has at its disposal a mass of experienced people.
But we do not, and therefore we will not be in a position to hold
power. 31
However, the great majority of the delegates adhered to the position expressed by the delegate from the Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Factory :
The bourgeoisie knows its interest better than the petty bourgeois parties. The bourgeoisie completely understands the situation and has expressed itself very clearly in the words of
Riabushinskii, who said that they will wait until hunger seizes
us by the throat and destroys all that we have won. But while
they are grabbing for our throats, we will light and we will not
back down from the struggle. 32
30
31
Ibid.
Ibid., 208 Riabushinskii was a big banker and industrialist, politically on the
left wing of his class. It was in a speech in May 1917 in which he bitterly attacked the soviets that he made this statement. He subsequently became notorious in workers' circles, the very symbol of the kapitalist-lokautchik (lockouter).
32 [Aucune référence dans le texte de l’auteur publié dans la revue CRITIQUE.
JMT.]
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
21
Over and over again, the speakers exhorted each other to shuck off
the old habits of dependence upon the intelligentsia.
The working class has always been isolated. It always has to
conduct its policy alone. But in a revolution the working class
is the vanguard. It must lead the other classes, including the
peasantry. It all depends on the activity of workers in various
organisations, commissions, etc., where we must be a majority
of workers. Against the advancing hunger we must pit the activity of the masses. We have to disown the Slavic spirit of laziness and together cut a path through the forest that will lead the
working class to socialism. 33
[76]
Someone suggested that the conference limit the number of working sections because of the complexity of the issues and the shortage
of 'active forces'. But Voskov, a carpenter from the Sestroretsk Arms
Factory, retorted :
The absence of intelligenty in no way impedes the work of the
sections. It is high time the workers abandon the bad habit of
continually looking over their shoulder at the intelligenty. It is
necessary that all participants at the conference enter some section and work there independendy. 34
The workers needed to prepare themselves psychologically as well
as technically for what lay ahead.
In fact, their worst fears did materialise in October. The Mensheviks and SRs walked out of the Congress of Soviets, refusing to enter
any government responsible solely to the soviets (and also, consequently, with a Bolshevik majority) ; the senior and middle-level ad-
33
34
Ibid., 206.
Ibid., 167.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
22
ministrative and technical personnel in the state machinery and credit
institutions responded with a strike 35 ; and their counterparts in the
industrial enterprises firmly refused either to recognise the new government or to cooperate with workers' control. 36 The depth of the
hostility to the insurrection and the new regime that was characteristic
of the socialist intelligentsia (and which in its intensity and bitterness
had no counterpart even among the most defencist workers) can be
felt in the resolution of the Executive Bureau of the Socialist Group of
Engineers in late October 1917 :
A band of utopians and demogogues, utilising the fatigue of the
workers and soldiers, by means of utopian appeals to social
revolution, through deliberate deceit and slander of the Provincial Government, has attracted to it the dark masses, and despite
the will of the huge part of the Russian people, on the eve of the
Constituent Assembly has seized power in the capitals and certain cities of Russia. With the aid of arrests, violence against the
free word and press, with the aid of terror, a band of usurpers is
trying to maintain itself in power. The Bureau of the Socialist
Group of Engineers, decisively protesting against this seizure,
against the arrest of Kerenskii, against murders, violence,
against closure of newspapers, against persecutions and terror,
declares that the acts of the usurpers have nothing in common
with socialist ideals and destroy the freedom won by the people... True socialists cannot give the slightest support either to
the usurpers of power or to those who will not decisively and
firmly break with them. 37
35
Among the strikers were the mostly socialist employees of the Ministry of
Labour, led by the Menshevik S. Schwarz, and also the higher and middle
employees of the municipal governments, including teachers and doctors. See
Novaia zhizn', November 13, December 8, 22 and 30, 1917.
36 Zaniatia pervoi moskovskoi oblastnoi konferentsii, (Moscow : 1918), 47-48,
cited in N. Lampert, The Technical Intelligentsia in the Soviet Union 19261935, PhD thesis, C.R.E.E.S., University of Birmingham, U.K. : 1976, 19.
37 A.L. Popov, Oktiabr'skii perevorot, (Petrograd : 1919), 364.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
23
Also characteristic of the times was the general support for the new
regime among the manual workers and lower white-collar personnel
in the public organisations and credit institutions and their condemnation of their striking superiors. Thus, after the October Revolution the
Soviet government dismissed the Petrograd City Duma for its refusal
to recognise the new [77] regime and called new elections, which
were boycotted by all but the Bolshevik and Left SR parties. At the
first meeting of the new Duma, Kalinin, its head, reported that the 'intelligentnye employees were clearly disrespectful when... (I) tried to
speak with them and showed their intention of resisting. But the municipal workers (rabochie) and lower employees were happy about the
transfer of power to the workers'. 38
Alexander Blok, one of the few of the older generation of prominent literary figures to embrace the October Revolution, characterised
the state of mind of the intelligentsia in the winter of 1918 in the following manner :
'Russia is going under' 'Russia is no more' 'Eternal memory to
Russia' - that is what I hear on all sides... What did you think ?
That the revolution was an idyll ? That creativity does not destroy anything in its path ? That the people is a good little
boy ?... The best people even say, 'There hasn't been any revolution'. The ones who were obsessed with hatred of 'tsarism' are
ready to fling themselves back into its arms, just to be able to
forget what is going on now. Yesterday's 'internationalists'
weep for 'Holy Russia'. Born atheists are ready to light votive
candles for the victory of the external and internal foes... So we
have been hacking away at the very branch we were sitting on ?
A lamentable situation. With voluptuous malice we stuck firewood, shavings, dry logs into a heap of timber damp from the
snows and rains ; but when the sudden flame flares up to the
38
Novaia zhizn, December 5, 1917. See also Oktiabr'skoe vooruzhennoe vosstanie v Petrograde, (Moscow : 1957), 368, 514-75 ; and C. Volin, Deiatel' nost'
men' shevikov v profsoiuzakh pri sovetskoi vlasti, Inter-University Project on
the History of Menshevism, paper No. 13, October 1962, 28.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
24
sky (like a banner), we run around, crying 'Oh, ah, we're on
fire !' 39
The workers did not take the final step in October with a light
heart. In fact, the majority of workers, while yearning desperately for
soviet power, hesitated and temporised before the 'action', until the
more decisive minority forced the issue by beginning the uprising, at
which point the overwhelming mass of workers rallied to its support. 40 Yet even now, many workers were reluctant to accept their
isolation and supported the slogan of a 'homogeneous socialist government', i.e., a coalition of all socialist parties (although many insisted, like Lenin and Trotsky, that only internationalists - Left SRs and
Menshevik-Internationalists - should be allowed in, the defencists
having been written off once and for all).
But the negotiations between the parties finally broke down, largely over the issue of whether the government would be responsible to
the Soviets or not. The defencists rejected this, demanding that the
Soviet representatives form only a minority in the parliamentary body
to which the government would be responsible. The Bolsheviks, on
their part, felt that the demand for representation for the Moscow and
Petrograd city dumas and the like, was an attempt to re-introduce the
coalition through the back door and, in any case, to prevent a Bolshevik (and soviet) majority in the government. Thus, in an article entitled '2 x 2 = 5', the Menshevik-Internationalist Bazarov argued :
39
Znamiatruda, January 18, 1918, translated in M. Raeff, ed., Russian Intellectual History, 1966, 364, 369, 371.
40 This and what follows are based on D. Mandel, The Development of Revolutionary Consciousness Among the Industrial Workers of Petrograd February
1917 - November 1918, PhD thesis, Department of Sociology, Columbia University : 1977, especially the chapter 'October Insurrection'.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
25
[78]
At certain factories at present, resolutions are being passed
that demand at the same time a homogeneous democratic government based upon an accord of all socialist parties and the
recognition of the current (overwhelmingly Bolshevik) TsIK
(Central Executive Committee of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies) as the organ to which the government should be
responsible... (But) at present a purely soviet government can
only be Bolshevik. And with each day it becomes clearer that
the Bolsheviks cannot govern : decrees are issued like hotcakes
and cannot be put into practice... Thus, even if what the Bolsheviks say is true, that the socialist parties have no masses behind them but are purely intellectual... even then large concessions would be necessary. The proletariat cannot rule without
the intelligentsia... The TsIK can be only one of the institutions
to which the government is to be responsible. 41
Once it became clear to the workers that the real issue was soviet
power and not merely the personal vanity of the party leaders, the issue was decided for them : they gave their full support to the allBolshevik government For example, on October 29, the workers of
the Admiralty Shipyards called on all workers
regardless of party hue, to exert pressure on their political centres to achieve an immediate accord of all socialist parties, from
Bolsheviks to Popular Socialists inclusive, and to form a socialist cabinet responsible to the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and
Peasants' Deputies on the following platform : Immediate proposal of democratic peace. Immediate transfer of land to the
hands of the peasant committees. Workers' control of produc-
41
Novaia zhizn', November 4, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
26
tion. Convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the assigned
date. 42
Yet only eight days later, after the negotiations on a socialist coalition had broken down, the same workers, with only three abstentions,
voted
to speak out for full and undivided soviet power and against coalition with parties of defencist conciliators. We have sacrificed
much for the revolution and we are prepared, if it is necessary,
for new sacrifices, but we will not give up power to those from
whom it was taken in a bloody battle. 43
All the same, when the Left SRs also concluded that 'even if we
had got such a "homogeneous government", it would really have been
a coalition with the most radical part of the bourgeoisie' 44 and decided to enter the soviet government, thus symbolising a union between
the workers and the poorer peasants, the workers breathed a collective
sigh of relief : now there was at least unity among the nizy, the lower
classes. The Putilov workers declared :
We, the workers, as one person, greet this unification as one
we have long desired and we send all our warm greetings to our
comrades working on the platform of the Second All-Russian
Congress of Toiling People of the poorest peasantry, workers,
and soldiers. 45
42
Leningradskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i sotsialisticheskovo stroitel'stva, opis' 9, fond 2, delo 11, list 45.
43 Ibid.
44 Znamia truda, November, 8, 1917.
45 Ibid., No. 75, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
27
The October Revolution tore Russian society into two, leaving the
bulk of the intelligentsia either on the census side of the barricades or
[79] dangling somewhere in between. 46 And the workers responded
to this perceived betrayal with growing bitterness. As the Left SR
Levin wrote :
At the moment when the old bourgeois chains of state are
being smashed by the people, the intelligentsia is deserting the
people. Those who had the good fortune to receive a scientific
education are abandoning the people who carried them on their
exhausted and lacerated shoulders. And as if that were not
enough, in leaving, they mock their helplessness, their illiteracy, their inability to painlessly carry out great transformations,
to attain great achievements. And this last is especially bitter for
the people. And in the latter instinctively grows a hatred for the
'educated', for the intelligentsia. 47
The workers'attitude toward the intelligentsia (socialist or otherwise) in the first months after the October Revolution are summed up
in the following impressions of a trip to Moscow in December 1917,
printed in Novaia zhizn' :
... If the external traces of the insurrection are few, the internal split within the population is deep indeed. When they buried
46
Sorokin's definition in November 1917 of the 'creative forces' of society (as
opposed to 'pseudo-democracy') is telling : Onto the stage must now come, on
the one hand, the intelligentsia, the carrier of intellect and conscience, and on
the other, the genuine( !) democracy, the cooperative movement, the Russia of
the dumas and zemstvos, and the conscious( !) village. Their time has come'
(Volia naroda, November 6, 1917). Conspicuous by their absence are the
workers and soldiers, and, of course, all the 'unconscious' villages, the peasants who supported the Left SRs and the Bolsheviks. All the organisations
named were still dominated by moderate socialists and Kadets and lacked any
mass political support.
47 Znamia truda, December 17, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
28
the Red Guard and Bolshevik soldiers (following the victory of
the insurrection in early November), I was told, one could not
find a single intelligent or university or high-school student in
the extraordinarily grandiose procession. And during the funeral of the Junkers (Officer's school cadets who fought on the side
of the Provisional Government) there was not a single worker,
soldier or pleb in the crowd. The composition of the demonstration in honour of the Constituent Assembly was similar- the
five soldiers following behind the SR Military Organisation's
banner only underlined the absence of the garrison.
Now the abyss between the two camps has been especially
deepened by the general strike of municipal employees : teachers of municipal schools,, higher personnel of the hospitals,
senior tram employees, etc. This strike places the work of the
Bolshevik municipal government before extreme difficulties,
but it exacerbates the hatred in the nizy of the population for all
the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie even more. I myself saw a
conductor make a high school student get out of the car : 'They
teach you, alright, but it seems they don't want to teach our
children !'
The strike of the schools and the hospitals is seen by the urban nizy as a struggle of the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia
against the popular masses. 48
Why did this rift between the people and the socialist intelligentsia
occur ? Before attempting to answer this, one should perhaps ask if
the workers' perception of a 'betrayal' was at all justified. After all,
viewed from one perspective, it was the workers who left the intelligentsia by shifting to the left and opting for a break with census society and, in the longer run, for social revolution.
48
Novaia zhizn, December 12, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
29
The causes of the workers'shift can roughly be summed up as follows : they decided to break with census society when they had
reached the conclusion that it was counterrevolutionary, that the propertied classes were out to destroy the political and social (though not
socialist) gains of the [80] February Revolution. October was first and
foremost an act of defence of the actual and promised achievements of
February in conditions where society had split into two irreconcilably
hostile camps. And although October was seen as opening the way to
socialism, all the measures taken in October and the following months
were seen either as completing the democratic revolution or as fundamentally defensive actions aimed at preserving the revolution in the
new citcumstances. 49 When the October Revolution is viewed in this
light, the workers' sense of betrayal can be better understood.
There was also the moral element of the intelligentsia's self-image
as 'servants of the people'. As the Menshevik-Internationalist paper,
itself hostile to the October Revolution. put it. now each worker could
ask the striking doctors and teachers : 'You never struck in protest of
the regime under the Tsar or under Guchkov. Why do you strike now,
when power is in the hands of the people we recognise as our leaders ? 50 Even people like Martov, whose selfless dedication to the
cause of the working class cannot be doubted, felt like washing his
hands of everything rather than doing 'what seems to be our duty - to
stand by the working class even when it is wrong... It is tragic. For
after all, the entire proletariat stands behind Lenin and expects the
overturn to result in social emancipation - realising all the while that it
has challenged all the antiproletarian forces'. 51
Why then did the socialist intelligentsia 'run away' as the workers
saw it ? Writing of the populists, Radkey offers one explanation :
49
50
The causes of this shift are dealt with in detail in D. Mandel. op. cit.
Novaia zhizn'. December 6. 1917. Actually. this was not quite accurate. in
1905, the intelligentsia, organised in the Union of Unions, did participate in
the strike movement in the fall. But that was the first and last time. They gave
no active support to the colossal strike movements of 1912-1914 and 19151916.
51 L.H. Haimson, The Mensheviks, (Chicago : 1975). 102-103. In fact, Martov's
sense of duty won out, and the Mensheviks, as a party, reoriented themselves.
playing the role of a more or less loyal opposition.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
30
In the trough of the revolution (many) had gone into public service or social work as civil servants in zemstvos and municipalities. as functionaries in the cooperative societies, where the
daily routine and outlook induced were alike deadening to the
revolutionary split. Others had entered the professions. All were
getting older. 52
But such an explanation is problematic, not least because it remains totally undocumented. In any case, it seems rather unlikely that
so profound a transformation as the economic integration of the intelligentsia into the existing order could have taken place in some tenodd years. And one cannot but wonder how the populist intellectuals
earned their living before 1907. Surely they were not all professional
party activists and hungry students. And if the generation of 1905 was
getting old, what of the students of 1917 ? They were young and unsettled, yet even the right-wing Menshevik Potresov, at a debate in
May 1918 on 'The Russian Students and the Liberation Movement',
stated that 'In February we saw the common joy of the students and
petty bourgeois. In October the students and the bourgeois have become synonymous'. 53
[81]
In my view, the background for the 'flight' should be sought in the
growing class polarisation in Russian society that began to openly
manifest itself already in the fall of 1905, when the bourgeoisie,
frightened by the militancy of the workers now pushing for 'social'
demands (the eight-hour day) and enticed by the concessions offered
by the shaken autocracy, retreated from revolution and turned against
the workers' movement notably, cooperating with the state factory
administrations in a mass lockout in November 1905 54). Henceforth,
the labour movement would never again enjoy, except perhaps for a
52
53
Radkey. op. cit., 469-470.
Znamia bor'by, May 21, 1918.
54 Ia. A. Shuster, Peterburgski rabochie v 1905-1907 gg., (Leningrad : 1976),
166-168.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
31
brief period immediately after the February Revolution, the allnational sympathy it had known in the years leading up to 1905. It
was during the next upsurge, in 1912-1914, when one already could
not separate the economic from the political collective actions of the
workers, and with the bourgeoisie working closely with the state in
fighting the labour movement, that the Bolsheviks became the undisputed leaders, effectively ousting the Mensheviks from all industrial
labour organisations. 55 For the Bolsheviks, in contrast to the Menshevik wing of social democracy, rejected any political cooperation with
census society in the struggle against autocracy, arguing that 1905 had
proved that the propertied classes feared the workers and peasants
more than they wanted to see an end of Tsarism ; that, in fact, they
would join with the state in putting down any revolutionary attempt.
The mass of the socialist intelligentsia, on the other hand, however
opposed to the autocracy, found it very difficult to adhere to such an
independent movement of the nizy of society that was increasingly
opposing itself not only to Tsarism but to census society as well. 56
This explanation, however, raises the further question : why did the
polarisation of society have this effect on the intelligentsia ? Perhaps
the best way to answer this is to first look at what they themselves
were saying.
I. Gordienko, a Bolshevik metalworker, tells of an encounter with
Gorky that he and two fellow workers from the 'red' Vyborg District
of Petrograd arranged because they found the attacks of Novaia zhizn'
on the Bolsheviks very upsetting. 'Why, among its editorial board,
was A.M. Gorky ? More than once we posed the question to each other : Can it be that A. M. Gorky has completely moved away from
US ?’ 57 As all three workers hailed originally from Nizhnii-
55
56
L. H. Haimson, op. cit.
It is interesting, however, that, besides Trotsky, no one before 1917 seems to
have followed to their logical conclusion the implications of this for the postrevolutionary regime that would emerge from such a movement.
57 After October, Novaia zhizn' became the target of especial working class anger for indulging in bitter criticism of the ineptitude of the new regime while
at the same time the group it represented, the Menshevik-Internationalists,
adopted a 'neutral' position refusing to participate in the regime. Thus, at the
February 1918 Conference of Factory Committees, a speaker bitterly attacked
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
32
Novgorod, Gorky's home town, they used this as an excuse to pay him
a visit. Before long, the conversation turned to politics :
[82]
Aleksei Maksimovich. lost in thought said : 'It's hard for you
boys, very hard'. 'And you, Aleksei Maksimovich, you're not
making it any easier'. I replied. 'Not only doesn't he help. but he
is even making it harder for us', said Ivan Chugurin.
Ekh, boys, boys, you are such fine lads. I feel sorry for you.
Listen in this sea, no, in this ocean of petty bourgeois peasant
elemental forces, you are only a speck of sand. How many of
you solid Bolsheviks are there ? A handful. In life you are like a
drop of oil in the ocean, a thin, thin ribbon. The slightest wind,
and it will snap.'
'You speak in vain, Aleksei Maksimovich. Come to us, to
the Vyborg District. Take a look around. Where there were 600
Bolsheviks there are now thousands Thousands, but raw, unshod, and in other cities even these are lacking.' 'The same is
taking place, Aleksei Maksimovich, in the other cities and villages. Everywhere the class struggle is intensifying.'
'That's why I love you, for your strong faith. But that's also
why I fear for you. You will perish, and then everything will be
thrown back hundreds of years. It's terrible to contemplate.'
the 'sabotaging intelligentsia of Gorky's Novaia zhizn', who are busy criticising the Bolshevik government and themselves do nothing to lighten the task of
this government' (Novaia zhizn', January 27, 1918). See also the letter of the
Putilov workers to the 'bitter backward writers' of Novaia zhizn', ibid., December 22, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
33
A couple of weeks later the three returned to find Sukhanov and
Desnitskii (another Novaia zhizn' editor) there.
Again, Aleksei Maksimovich referred to the sea of petty
bourgeois. He grieved that there were so few of us old underground Bolsheviks, that the party was so young and inexperienced... Sukhanov and Lopata affirmed that only a madman
could talk of a proletarian revolution in so backward a country
as Russia. We protested determinedly. We said that behind the
facade of all-Russian democracy they were definding the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie...
During the conversation, Aleksei Maksimovich walked over
to the window that overlooked the street, then quickly came
over to me, seizing me by the sleeve and taking me to the window. 'Take a look', he said in an angry and hurt voice. What I
saw was really disgraceful. Near a bed of flowers on the freshly
cut green lawn, a group of soldiers were seated. They were eating herring and tossing the waste onto the flower bed.
'And it's the same thing at the People's House (a popular
place for political meetings and cultural events) : the floors are
waxed, spittoons have been placed in every comer and next to
the columns, but just look at what they do there', said Maria Fedorovna (Gorky's wife), who managed the People's House, angrily. And with this crowd the Bolsheviks intend to create a socialist revolution', said Lopata spitefully. 'You have to teach,
educate the people and then make a revolution.'
'And who will teach and educate them ? The bourgeoisie ?'
one of us asked. 'And how would you go about doing it ?' asked
Aleksei Maksimovich, now smiling. 'We would like to do it differently', I replied. 'First overthrow the bourgeoisie, then educate the people. We'll build schools, clubs, people's houses...'
'But that's unrealisable', declared Lopata. 'For you, it is ; not
for us', I answered. 'Well, maybe they will, the devils, eh ? said
Aleksei Maksimovich. 'We definitely will achieve it', one of us
replied, 'and it will be all the worse for you'.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
34
'Oho ! You're threatening. How will it be worse for us ?'
asked Aleksei Maksimovich, laughing. 'In this way : with or
without you, we will do what we must under the leadership of
Il'ich, and then they will ask you where you were and what you
were doing when we were having such a bad time of it.' 58
In the fall of 1917, Lenin gave a strikingly similar account of a
conversation he had had not long before the July days with a well-todo lawyer.
This lawyer was once a revolutionary, a member of the Social Democratic and even Bolshevik Party. Now he is all fright,
all anger at the rampaging and irreconcilable workers : 'Alright,
I understand the inevitability of a social revolution ; but here,
given the decline in the level of the workers caused by the
war... that isn't a revolution, it's an abyss'.
[83]
He would be prepared to recognise the social revolution if
history led tip to it just as peacefully, calmly, smoothly and accurately as a German express train comes into a station. The
very proper conductor opens the door of the car and proclaims :
'Station Social Revolution. Alle aussteigen (everybody out) !' In
that case why not transfer from the position of an engineer
working for the Tit Tityches (big bourgeoisie) to the position of
an engineer working for the workers' organisations..
This man has seen strikes. He knows what a storm of passions the most ordinary strike arouses, even in the most peaceful of times. He, of course, understands how many millions of
times more powerful this storm must be when the class struggle
has raised up the entire toiling people of a huge country, when
war and exploitation have brought millions of people almost to
despair, people whom the landowners have tortured, whom the
capitalists and Tsarist bureaucrats have plundered and op-
58
I. Gordienko, Iz boevovo proshlovo, (Moscow : 1957), 98-101.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
35
pressed for decades. He understands all this 'theoretically', he
recognises all this only with his lips, he is simply frightened by
the 'extraordinarily complex situation'. 59
Finally, Sukhanov, a journalist and left Menshevik, who by October came out against the coalition but nevertheless was also against
soviet power, offered the following explanation for his position :
We stood against the coalition and the bourgeoisie alongside
the Bolsheviks. We did not merge with them because some aspects of positive Bolshevik creativity as well as their methods
of agitation revealed to us the future odious face of Bolshevism.
It was an unbridled, anarchistic, petty bourgeois stikhia, which
was eliminated by Bolshevism only when it again had no masses behind it. 60
This fear of the stikhia - the 'elemental', 'benighted', 'uncultured',
anarchistic' masses - is a basic motif in all the statements of the socialist intelligentsia. It is certainly a constant theme in Menshevism since
1905 and goes far toward explaining their rejection of the Bolsheviks'
(pre- 1917) tactic of a 'democratic dictatorship of the workers and
peasants'. For them, the peasants, as well as the 'unconscious' worker
elements still tied to their peasant origins (who, ironically, were the
last to abandon the Menshevik and SR position of support for the coalition government in 1917), were the personification of this stikhia.
Having thus rejected the peasants as suitable allies for the workers,
they were, in a sense, compelled to insist on the existence of significant liberal and progressive elements among the bourgeoisie that the
workers could nudge towards revolution.
Put in its mildest form, the socialist intelligentsia was saying that
the popular masses were simply not up to the task they had taken upon
59
V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., (Moscow, 1962), vol. 34,
321-322. 'Tit Titych' was a despotic rich merchant in Ostrovsky's play Shouldering Another's Troubles.
60 Sukhanov, op. cit., vol. 6, 192.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
36
themselves (the more leftist elements would even say - that they had
been forced to take upon themselves). They were, as Lenin's lawyer
lamented, too I uncultured', not like the German workers. Those elements closer to the labour movement were even ready to admit that
the workers, and especially their conscious stratum, were as fit for ruling as any group in the old society ; but they hastened to add, as Gorky did, that they were too few, too weak numerically to create anything positive in peasant Russia. As for a revolution in the developed
West coming to Russia's aid, this was too uncertain. Better to wait for
it to happen first. 61
[84]
While not doubting the sincerity of the socialist intelligentsia's
fears, one cannot help but feel that these, at least to a significant extent, served as rationalisations for other motives, of which, no doubt,
they were not even aware in many cases. After all, as Polonskii points
out and other evidence brought above confirms, this shift from 'defender of the people' to 'evilwisher' did not suddenly occur in October
1917, after the 'illegitimate' seizure of power. As noted, its beginnings
reach back to 1905, if not earlier. October merely made the split final,
while allowing it to appear that it was the 'undemocratic' nature 'of the
insurrection that so upset the socialist intelligentsia rather than the fact
that power had been transferred to the soviets, organs solely of the workers, soldiers and peasantry. And yet, not even the Bolshevik
leaders knew in October that the new government would disperse the
Constituent Assembly. On the contrary, they pledged to hold the elections and convene the assembly at the set dates. This was in quite
sharp contrast to the eight months of postponements of elections by
the Provisional Government (largely due to the pressure of the liberals), a government elected by no one and in its final stages officially
responsible to no one. Even if the Bolshevik-led Petrograd Soviet had
61
On this, the position of the workers and their Bolshevik leaders was that to
wait meant to give the counterrevolution the chance for a new offensive on the
background of an economic situation that continued to deteriorate as the government sat back and did nothing. They also felt that they did not have to wait
for the revolution in the West, that a working class revolution in Russia that
would propose a general peace would give that slumbering revolution a
mighty shot in the arm.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
37
made the insurrection 'behind the back' of the Congress, as the Mensheviks and SRs claimed, there could be no denying that the new government had been confirmed by the majority of the Congress, itself
democratically elected by the workers and soldiers (peasants in army
greatcoats) of Russia. And yet the socialist intelligentsia supported the
Provisional Government to the end and met the Soviet government
with bitter and active opposition.
Of course, the level of culture among the vast majority of the
population, the peasantry, was abominably low. Nor was it that much
better among the mass of unskilled workers, mostly women who had
come from the countryside to work in the expanding war industry. But
what sort of culture did the propertied classes represent ? Had not the
Russian Bourgeoisie greatly helped to push the autocracy into the
world war for the sake of Constantinople and the Straits, for markets
and the greater glory of Russia ; into a world slaughter that claimed in
the millions lives on the Russian side alone ? And did they not, even
after February and throughout 1917, when the popular masses insisted
on a democratic, nonannexationist peace, continue to support the old
war aims to the bitter end ? Had they not given their tacit blessing and
support to General Kornilov, who intended to drown the revolution in
the blood of the people just as the Tsar had done with the Revolution
of 1905 ? Had the industrialists not resisted state regulation of the
economy, despite its existence in all the other warring countries,
thereby making the collapse of industry (which they now blamed solely upon the workers) inevitable ?
[85]
Sukhanov relates a seemingly trivial anecdote, but one that argues
on much the same level as did the socialist intelligentsia when discussing the low level of culture among the masses, their spitting on
floors and throwing herring bones on the grass. At the Preparliament,
which counted among its members the most prominent public figures
of census society as well as the representatives of 'revolutionary democracy', Trotsky made a speech pointing out that the census members had voted against a resolution for making the government responsible before the Preparliament. And yet, they were represented in
that body much more strongly than they could ever hope to be in the
Constituent Assembly, elected by direct and universal suffrage. From
this fact Trotsky concluded that the bourgeoisie never really meant to
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
38
convene the Constituent Assembly or to make it sovereign. Sukhanov
recalled the reaction on the Right to this statement :
The noise and skandal intensified. Someone shouted : Merzavets !
(The Russian equivalent
of 'son of a bitch' or 'bastard'). At a meeting of the nizy (the
plebs) such a shout had not been heard during the entire course
of the revolution. Now we were in good company, and the kabak atmosphere of the State Duma (the Tsarist 'parliament',
whose members were overwhelmingly landowners, bourgeois,
or intellectual) was resurrected. 62
But if, all the same, one grants that the intelligentsia's concern
about the uncultured masses was genuine and legitimate, could one
not ask if their tactic of noncooperation and even sabotage made
sense ? Would it not have been more rational, even from their own
point of view, as the bearers of culture, to throw in their lot with the
masses and try to have at least some influence on the movement that
was rolling forward with or without them ? After all, as noted earlier,
even the moderate socialists by now were unable to deny that the
mood among the propertied classes was strongly counterrevolutionary
(though they were still unable to bring themselves to break totally
with them).
In fact, of course, there were individual members of the intelligentsia who, while hostile to the Bolsheviks and the October Revolution,
nonetheless did not stand aside, and for just the reasons noted above.
For example, a certain Brik, evidently a cultural figure in Petrograd,
wrote to Novaia zhizn' in early December 1917 :
To my surprise, I find myself on the Bolshevik list to the Duma
(i.e., the muncipal government). I am not a Bolshevik and am
against their cultural policy. But I cannot let matters slide. It
62
Ibid, 249.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
39
would be a disaster if the workers were left to themselves to set
policy. Therefore, I will work - but under no (external) discipline. Those who refuse to work and wait for the counterrevolution to restore culture are blind. 63
In December, the Union of Internationalist Teachers (not a Bolshevik-led organisation) left the All-Russian Union of Teachers over the
issue of the [86] strike, stating that it was 'impermissible that schools
should be used as a political weapon'. They called upon all teachers to
'cooperate with the regime to create a new socialist school'. 64
The point is that the reaction of the great majority of the socialist
intelligentsia to the October Revolution does not follow quite logically from the reasons they offered for their stand. And this, again, leads
one to ask if there might not have been additional motives behind their
irreconcilable position. It seems to me that the vast majority of the
socialist intelligentsia were, in fact, as the Left SRs ultimately concluded in November 1917, radical democrats, 'the most radical part of
the bourgeoisie'. So long as the task had been to overthrow the semifeudal autocracy, to make a 'bourgeois-democratic' revolution, they
supported and even spurred on the popular movement. But when it
began to emerge that this task in Russian conditions - and even more
so in Russia in the midst of world war - would necessarily transform
itself into a struggle against the bourgeoisie itself and (largely implicitly until 1917) against the social order the bourgeoisie represented,
then the socialist intelligentsia began to feel the ground tremble beneath their feet, they began to fear that the position they enjoyed in
this society would be threatened. And despite everything, they did enjoy certain privileges in terms of income, prestige, and a certain professional autonomy, however narrowly defined in practice. These
privileges, and their genuine mistrust and fear of the masses, bound
them to the existing social (i.e., capitalist) if not political order.
Of course, much of the intelligentsia's action was premised upon
the belief, extremely widespread in October, that the new regime
would be shortlived. When this proved to be false, a large part of the
63
64
Novaia zhizn', December 5, 1917.
Ibid, December 6, 9, 13, 1917.
David Mandel, “The Intelligentsia and the Working Class in 1917.” (1981)
40
intelligentsia returned to serve the new regime. But they did so cap in
hand, totally compromised and under suspicion. This effectively deprived them of any independent influence on the course of postrevolutionary developments. This abyss between the intelligentsia and
the people, much wider than that of the nineteenth century, when it
had been a question of awakening the still slumbering masses, was not
one that could be easily filled over.
In retrospect, it might seem only too easy to argue that the intelligentsia was right. After all, a major theme in Lenin's last years was
the urgent need to raise the abominably low cultural level of Russia.
And certainly, the generally low level of culture, especially political
culture, was an important factor in the progressive elimination of soviet and party democracy and the ultimate rise of Stalin. But one must
also ask if the socialist intelligentsia, of course with important exceptions, did not help to ensure by its own actions that its fears would
come true.
The material upon which this paper is based pertains mainly to Petrograd and the other larger industrial centres of Russia, which together
[87] contained the great bulk of the intelligentsia. But to round off the
picture an analysis should be made of those elements of the intelligentsia that did not meet October with hostility. Unfortunately, limitations of time and space perforce make this a topic for another paper.
However, a very cursory evaluation of some of the available evidence
seems to indicate that these elements, always a minority even outside
the larger cities and in the countryside, were to be found most frequently among the less well-to-do stratum, e.g., among the 'third element' of the zemstvos, those who - through their life and work among
the masses, through their understanding and sympathy for their needs
and struggle - were able to cast aside their fears and remain loyal to
their conception of the intelligent as one who puts his or her education
at the service of the people.
END