Rocked by the failed Kornilov revolt, Kerensky's provisional government had collapsed. Worse from his point of view was the new insistence from his own Social Revolutionary party that he should not lead another government containing capitalist ministers.
He was reducod to a directorato of five. Meantime from his hiding place, Lenin wrote two letters to the Bolshevik central committee urging the leadership to prepare the seizure of power. While the objective conditions had not existed in July, the situation had changed in September:
The point is to make the task clear to the party. The present task must be an "armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow (with its region), the seizing of power and overthrow of the governmant!
The vanguard of the working class had now swung behind the Bolsheviks, as demonstrated by their dominant positions in the main soviets (they had won control in Petrograd, Moscow, PAGE IV people feeling a power behind them, ‹nowing that the morrow belonged to them."
The Baltic fleet in the meantime sent a telegram to the central executive committee calling for the removal of "The Bolsheviks acted like people feeling a power behind them, knowing that the morrow belonged to them" Kerensky, and began holding up the movement of government freight.
A similar state of affairs was also developing within the army, where fraternisation began again after the witch-hunting of July, and more and more of the most hated officers were arrested or murdered.
The Bolsheviks stepped up their agitation throughout the country; the question was increasingly starkly posed - which class was to rule?
Day by day the rival government of the soviets grew, strengthened as the capitalists began themselves to sabotage the war effort in an attempt to discredit the revolution - only to be usurped by factory committees, which
Military preparations
Meanwhile the committee of revolutionary defence (now renamed the military revolutionary committee) had gone about its work with a will, setting up departments of defence, supplies, communications and intelligence. One regiment after another was placing itself under the committee's command, refusing to go to the front unless ordered by the soviet.
The prolonged period of dual power was giving way to the power of the soviets. The provisional government found itself more and more isolated, with ever fewer dependable troops.
On October 21, the Petrograd garrison conference called on the all-Russian congress of soviets to 'Take the power in its hands, and guarantee to the people peace, land and bread'.
The next day the Petrograd soviet had called a peaceful review of its for"We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.
He went on to outline the soviet terms tor peace - no annexations, no indemnities, and the right of peoples to self-determination. He then read out the proclamation to the peoples and governments of all the belligerent nations, which was unanimously adopted by the congress.
Next Lenin read the decree on the land. All private ownership of land was abolished; all landowners estates were transferred to land committees and peasants' soviets. The land decree was debated and passed with only one vote against: the working class vanguard had honoured its commitment to the agrarian revolution, and the peasant delegates were overjoyed.
Despite the material and political problems which were to beset the revolution, the conquest of power by the armed working class headed by a conscious marxist revolutionary party stands as a turning point in history.
This was, and, 75 years later still is, OUR revolution.
JOHN LISTER