Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Trotsky was immediately co-opted onto the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet and, disgusted by the Mensheviks’ participation in the Provisional Government, soon joined the Bolsheviks (along with many of his followers in the so-called Inter-district Group of the RSDLP, such as A. V. Lunacharskii and V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko). On 3 August 1917, he was elected to the party Central Committee (even though he was currently in prison, as a consequence of his part in the alleged coup of the July Days); having been released from the Kresty prison on 2 September 1917, in the aftermath of the Kornilov affair, he was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet (12 September 1917). In that capacity, he founded (and from 8 October 1917 chaired) the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, which would prepare, organize, and lead the October Revolution. (On 6 November 1918, none other than J. V. Stalin wrote in Pravda: “All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky.”) In particular, Trotsky has been credited with resisting Lenin’s call to seize power before the meeting of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 25 October 1917, although others would argue that his key act came in the two or three days before that date, when he secured the support, or neutrality, of a majority of the units of the Petrograd Garrison, and during the following week, when he masterminded the Red Guards’ defeat of the Kerensky–Krasnov Uprising around Petrograd.

In the days following the October Revolution, Trotsky also sided firmly with Lenin against other members of the Bolshevik leadership who wanted to give in to the demands of the powerful railway workers’ union, Vikzhel′, for the creation of an all-socialist, coalition government. With the creation of the (initially all-Bolshevik) Sovnarkom, he was appointed People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs (26 October 1917), in which capacity he was responsible for conducting most of the negotiations with the Central Powers following the armistice of 13–14 November 1917. Now recognized as second in command within the party, Trotsky resisted V. I. Lenin’s demands that a treaty (no matter how injurious to Russia) should be signed immediately. He instead dragged out the negotiations, in order to reveal the rapacious nature of the imperialist enemies of the Soviet state and thus provoke (he hoped) revolution in Western Europe. When this tactic of “neither war nor peace” failed, and the Germans renewed their advance during the Eleven-Days War (18 February 1918), Trotsky reluctantly abstained in a vote in the party Central Committee, allowing Lenin’s faction to win and to move toward signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918). On 13 March 1918, soon after the treaty was signed, Trotsky resigned his post and became People’s Commissar for Military Affairs (14 March 1918–6 July 1923) and chairman of the Supreme Military Council (14 March–2 September 1918), adding the post of People’s Commissar for Naval Affairs to that portfolio in April 1918. (The People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs and the People’s Commissariat for Naval Affairs were formally merged on 6 July 1923, with Trotsky serving as People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs to 26 January 1925). The post of commander in chief was then abolished, and Trotsky gained full control over military policy.