Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/316

 cf the counter-revolution, from the Centre to the Right, prepared to destroy the coming Congress, the imperialistic bourgeoisie by means of a military coup d'etat.

The prevailing situation and the logic of events compelled the Bolsheviki to supplement their program for the Congress with a movement for an insurrection to overthrow the Provisional Government. At first, this proposal met with small response; but Lenin, basing himself upon facts, declared in a systematic press campaign in Pravda that armed insurrection was absolutely necessary to assure the convocation of the Congress and to thwart the plans for a coup d'etat being organized by the reactionary forces. The Provisional Government was planning the evacuation of Petrograd, Rodzianko declared the loss of Petrograd would dispose of the revolutionary workers and the Baltic Fleet. Realizing that the Petrograd troops were with the Bolsheviki, Kerensky on October 27 ordered the garison to the front; the troops refused, and retaliated by organizing the Military Revolutionary Committee, which played such an important part in the events culminating in the revolution of November 7. The action of the troops was ratified by the Petrograd Soviet. It was then discovered that the General Staff was formulating plans to seize Petrograd with the aid of reactionary regiments and forcibly prevent the meeting of the Soviet Congress; and insurrection became inevitable, reinforced by the argument of Lenin that the insurrection should not wait until the Congress met, but that the Congress should be confronted with the accomplished fact of the overthrow of the Provisional Government.

On November 6, the day before the insurrection, Kerensky appeared before the Preliminary Parliament, and made a statement "authorised by the Provisional Government." Part of the statement follows:

"I considered it my duty to cite for you the most definitely phrased passage from a number of proclamations published in the local paper Rabochy Put in the form of 'Letters to the Comrades' by Ulyanov-Lenin, the much-sought offender against the state who is now in hiding. This said offender against the state called upon the proletariat of Petrograd and upon the troops to repeat the experiment of July 16–17, and argued in favor of the necessity of an