Lenin's decision to seize power

THIS article* attempts to assess a more or less accidental circumstance as an important and possibly key factor in Lenin's decision, made some time during I2-I4 September (Old Style) I9I7, to press upon his party the policy of seizing power. Lenin's decision is widely held to have been one of the most influential historically ever made by one man. The circumstance was the conjuncture of events at that time in Finland, where Lenin was in refuge from the Provisional Government. After Lenin's arrival in Russia in April, the Bolshevik opposition to the Provisional Government solidified. Lenin sensed correctly a growing undercurrent of sentiment against the war, or at least his theoretical view of the First World War as the dying gasp of imperialism corresponded with rising anti-war feelings in urban, northwest Russia. This area, referred to within the Provisional Government as 'the rotten corner of Russia',l contained most of the radical intelligentsia and the highest proportion of working class (and the smallest proportion of peasantry). Petrograd was also an important reserve centre for the Russian northern front with a garrison of over I75,000. These troops were not what one would normally think of as reserves because of the peculiar Russian policy of maintaining a battalion or a company of frontline regiments in permanent reserve as training, replacement, and convalescent units. The lack of a viable larger command structure, such as a regular division or corps would have possessed, made these units particularly susceptible to spontaneous influences, as demonstrated by their actions in the February revolution. Afterwards, the Provisional Government protected their position by agreeing to a new set of military rules and regulations (Order Number One of the Petrograd Soviet) and by promising not to remove them from the city. Volatile and combustible material, these forces were not reliable for maintaining order, nor at first for coordinated insurrection.2 As dissatisfaction with

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