I have put this at: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base/podvoisky.htm Podvoisky's article "Lenin-Organiser of the Victorious October Uprising" was originally published in Krasnaya Gazeta, November 6, 1927. It marked the tenth anniversary of the October Rising. Podvoisky was an Old Bolshevik. A publisher before the revolution, he never lost his taste for the arts (after the Revolution, when Soviet Russia was wracked by famine and civil war, the Commissariat of Education gave Isadora Duncan a house and grounds to start a school of dance -- Duncan had traded the Opera houses of Europe for a bare existence in Communist Russia. Podvoisky told her: "In your life you have known great theaters with applauding publics. That is all false. You have known trains du luxe and expensive hotels. That is all false. Ovations-false. All false. Now you've come to Russia...if you want to work for Russia...go alone amoungst the people. Dance you dances in little barns in the winter, in open fields in the summer. Teach the people the meaning of your dances. Teach the children. Don't ask for thanks.") John Reed, author of Ten Days That Shook The World, wrote: "Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civilian whose brain conceived the strategy of insurrection." Also in 1927, Sergei Eisenstein made"October" -- the film version of Reed's book -- and Podvoisky played himself (Vasili Nikandrov took the role of Lenin). In his memoir, Podvoisky describes the October Rising without mentioning either Leon Trotsky or Joseph Stalin. But Trotsky relied much on Podvoiskys account,n his History of the Russian Revolution. Trotsky would write: The direction of this organization ever since March had been in the hands of two old Bolsheviks to whom the organization was to owe much in its further development. Podvoisky was a sharply outlined and unique figure in the ranks of Bolshevism, with traits of the Russian revolutionary of the old type -- from the theological seminaries -- a man of great although undisciplined energy, with a creative imagination which, it must be confessed, often went to the length of fantasy. The word "Podvoiskyism" subsequently acquired on the lips of Lenin a friendly -- ironical and admonitory flavor. But the weaker sides of this ebullient nature were to show themselves chiefly after the conquest of power, when an abundance of opportunities and means gave too many stimuli to the extravagant energy of Podvoisky and his passion for decorative undertakings. In the conditions of the revolutionary struggle for power, his optimistic decisiveness of character, his self-abnegation, his tirelessness, made him an irreplaceable leader of the awakening soldiers. Nevsky, a university instructor in the past, of more prosaic mould than Podvoisky, but no less devoted to the party, in no sense an organizer, and only by an unlucky accident made soviet Minister of Communications a year later, attached the soldiers to him by his simplicity, sociability, and attentive kindness. Around these leaders stood a group of close assistants, soldiers and young officers, some of whom in the future were to play no small rtle. On the night of July 4th the Military Organization suddenly came forward to the center of the stage. Under Podvoisky, who easily mastered the functions of command, an impromptu general staff was formed. Brief appeals and instructions were issued to all the troops of the garrison. In order to protect the demonstration from attack, armored cars were to be placed at the bridges leading from the suburbs to the capital and at the central crossings of the chief streets. The machine-gunners had already, during that night, established their own sentries at the Peter and Paul fortress. The garrisons of Oranienbaum, Peterhoff, Krasnoe Selo and other points near the capital, were informed of tomorrow's demonstration by telephone and special messenger. The general political leadership, of course, remained in the hands of the Central Committee of the party. What Podvoisky does give is a gripping, blow-by-blow account of the Rising, and an extraordinary insight into the role played by Vladimir Lenin. Podvoisky says: "... my relations with Vladimir Ilyich had been most cordial. But at that moment... I saw the full extent of [his] responsibility for the fate of the country and the revolution... " "... an armed insurrection means arming wide sections of the working class... revolutionary enthusiasm is not enough for victory..." My autograph copy of Podvoisky's memoirs was given me by Nina Sverdlova-Podvoiskaya, grand-daughter of Podvoisky himself and of Yakov Sverdlov, leading Bolshevik and first president of the Soviet Republic. I met Sverdlova-Podvoiskaya in 1985 in the Old Bolshevik commune where she lived, in Serpukhovskaya Ulitsaya, Moscow. A socialist publisher before the October Revolution, Nikolai Podvoisky was Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. He was a leading organiser of the October Rising, which was coup de theatre as well as coup d'etat. Mark _______________________________________________ Crashlist website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
