stepan-norris and zeitlin, left out (2003)

Chapter One

(1): long 'Red Decade', early 30s to late 40s (bookended by 1933 and 1950, really)

(2): CIO originated in 1935, to 'organize the unorganized'-- broke, after charges of dual unionism, to become officially independent in November 1938

(3): by 1947, its international unions represented 80% of the country's industrial workers!

(4): Communists were best organized political group, within the CIO

(4-5): C Wright Mills as classic 'left' position on CP in unions--dictatorial, undemocratic, slavish to Moscow, etc.

(14-15): Communist Camp--stalwarts were UE, the ILWU, the MM; 'uncertain and shifting' were UAW, ACW, UPWA; anti-communist camp were USWA (especially powerful, of course), TWIA, URW.

(16): degeneration really begins in 1947 and 1948, they're arguing, as they are disoriented by Truman and the Marshall Plan, and their own failed and "uneven" support for Wallace in 1948

(17): in 1949-1950, when the CIO expelled 11 'communist-dominated' internationals, one estimate was that it lost up to a million members! (CIO's total memership in 1948, at its height, was 4.3 million). at their height, in 1946, they represented some 27% of the CIO's membership.

(20): key--the guiding thread of this book, then, is the importance of the 'intraclass struggle within the class struggle' [it is difficult, though, to speak about a 'relative autonomy'--for what is sometimes missing, I think, is the way in which the larger 'class struggle' redounds on this intraclass struggle. and, of course, the willingness to set this in the perspective of the longue duree. but these are only partial criticisms.]

(22-23): absolutely--their denials/ignorance of Stalin's terror, etc. should not obscure the critical democratic achievements of the rank-and-file of Communist trade unionists.

Chapter Two

(24-25): organizing 'The Rouge' in 1941--the last citadel to fall to the CIO

(26-30): key argument--Communists not in power, they're arguing, due to their 'organizational discipline'/monolithic activism, etc., but because of their actual, effective organizing. there is an element of contingency that we can admit, but we have to understand it as socially determined contingency--there are "indelible connections" between the 'insurgent practices' and whether a union was communist, or not.

(32): CIO, remember, is product of two phases of class struggle.

1. 1920s, industrial unionism against AFL craft
2. after early 1930s, in response to labor upsurge

(32-33): key--thus, we can think of 'four insurgent political practices'

1. earlier Red organizing
2. whether the union seceded from the AFL 'from below', or whether it was an officers' revolt
3. whether the union was organized independently, or whether it was done by a CIO organizing committee
4. whether it was formed through amalgamation, or as a unitary organization

(33): earlier phase of organizing was carried by the TUEL (within the AFL, boring holes) and then, in 1929, the TUUL (new industrial unions, outside the AFL), after the demise of the Wobblies

(37): key premise, which needs to be at the heart of our interrogation of their thesis--"objective conditions do not create organizations."

(38): argument--earlier Red organizing makes it more likely that the international is Communist

(40-41, 43): argument--same goes from workers' insurgency (UAW) vs. officers' revolt (SWOC)

(46): argument--same goes for amalgamation (UE) vs. unitary

(48-49): in sum--their theoretical model, quite useful table/diagram

(51-52): in sum--these four insurgent political practices increased the odds of Communist victory. BUT they are careful to warn against voluntarism, because all of this was made possible by the Great Depression. Men are not 'corks on a river', but a river exists nonetheless? [certainly, as phrased here, this theoretical tack is hardly objectionable]

Chapter Three

(54-57): key--Michels' iron law of oligarchy cannot, at all, take into account the intraclass struggles that took place--the fact that democratic unions existed, and that oligarghic unions existed. It is therefore totally ahistorical. [of course, there is a limit to which we want to push the notion of 'contingency', here, but as a rejoinder this is very important. but let's probe, here]

(59): three features of a democratic union

1. democratic constitution
2. institutionalized opposition
3. active membership

(66): constitution as a 'real reflection' of the internal political dynamics--as them, congealed

(69-82): argument--the four insurgent political practices and the likelihood of being democratic--amalgamation and secession from AFL had significant impact (but there all bound up with each other, don't forget, so there are indirect effects)

(85): diffuse vs. narrow ideology--Communism as former, business unionism as latter

(87-89): argument--Communist-leadership and democracy positively correlated (this holds even when you control for insurgent practices, factions, etc.--even though they recognize that this is not favorable, because each is implicated in the other)

(93): in sum--a theoretical model; quite useful, again.

(94): in sum--oligarchy and democracy as "alternative possible paths"; the outcome as contingent, not determined [again, I think this works as a rejoinder, but it would be hard to stand on its own, as an insight. surely there is some need to take a longer perspective (remember that we are looking at variation within the long 'Red decade')]

Chapter Four

(96): contrast between Fordist hierarchy and industrial democracy

(97): turning point for the UAW Local 600 was 1952, when Ford moved to 'de-centralize' (here they track the figures: 58,000 in 1941 voted for CIO (fraction had voted instead for AFL); had about 60,00 dues-paying members in the late 40's; decline begins in 1952.)

(99-102): the coupling of activism and socialism explains Local 600's rich political life, they argue. the 'insurgent practices' gave rise to a 'colossal overproduction' of experienced organizers.

(103-104): key--a contingent, strategic decision to build radical democracy in a diverse workforce--a "double-edged realm of possibility" [the implication being, of course, that the other strategy was also 'open'. but can this satisfy us? we want to give credit where credit is due; but we don't want to abandon explanation.]

(108-109): progressive militance at Rouge

(112): Reuthers' only answer to 'Stalinism' at Rouge, was 'bureaucratic force'

(113): argument--the left-wing units, at Rouge, were the most contentious/democratic

(114-115): argument--it was the Communists who were most tolerant of political opposition in the unions

Chapter Five

(121): Reuther and the 5-year contracts, in 1950--this "class accord" marked the end, as Davis argues. From 'struggle' to negotiation.

(124): Local 600 files a suit against Ford and the long contract.

(125): 'decentralization', then, was just as much a 'political' decision, as an economic one

(127-129): key--here, positioning themselves against 'functionalist' Marxist and pluralist understandings of the labor agreement, which unanimously see it as a harbinger of 'accord.' here, instead, they stress the diversity amongst agreements--and thus, the importance of not acceding to a notion of structural 'predetermination' [i have a question, though, about whether their interlocutors are speaking at cross-purposes--Gramsci is speaking of the 'trade union', whereas Burawoy seems to be speaking about 'collective bargaining'/labor agreement. but ultimately this isn't as important as the issue at hand--again, the spectre of overstatement]

(131): Walt Disney at the HUAC--trying to make a communist out of Mickey Mouse!

(133): key--here we get into dangerous territory; they want to talk about the 'hegemony of capital' as relational, dynamic, etc. of course--and to some extent what they have done is important. but within limits. and the critical thing, also, is to decide where we will place those limits. their framing suggests something much more loose than seems legitimate.

(133-134): three provisions of the contract

1. prerogatives of management--labor or management?
   
2. union's freedom of action--right to resist and ability to impose sanctions
3. methods for handling disputes--what kind of grievance procedure?

(139-141): six indexes for measuring prolabor vs. procapital tendencies

1. management prerogatives--management or labor?
   
2. right to strike
3. contract term--long or short?
   
4. trade-off provision
5. grievance procedure--shop floor, or not?

(141-142): key argument--they find a 'sharp' difference between the Communist-led international unions and the others. this is incompatible with the 'functionalist' argument. [yes. but is not incompatible with a larger claim about structural determination]

(144): we want to control, also, across the four time periods:

1. immediate pre-WWII years of the Great Depression
2. the WWII years
3. immediate postwar offensive of organized labor, coupled with right-wing resurgence in Congress and Taft-Hartley in 1947
4. advent of the Cold War, attacks on Communist-led unions

(147): repression of communists--in January 1948, the CIO board votes to endorse Truman--this marks the beginning of the end for Communists within the CIO, in a sense. by late 1949 they vote to expel unions who follow Communist line. By late 1950, 11 miscreant unions are thrown out. 1954 is the coup de grace, when communist-infiltrated unions can be deprived of rights under the NLRB.

(149): KEY--nonetheless, even taking into account the official CP line during WWII, and all this--communists were more militant. this is remarkable, and very important.

(152-153): key--why is this? because unionists' were, and had to be, accountable to their rank-and-file. so it was the leadership of the CP that shifted, but the rank-and-file couldn't move, with them.

(156): further controls don't remove this 'stark' effect

(158): KEY--functionalist arguments must ignore the mechanisms by which 'structrual determination' happens--this, they're arguing, is to do violence to the notion of 'sociohistorical' causality. [i accept this as a critical intervention, with my earlier reservations noted. very useful.]

Chapter Six

(160-161): what difference does democracy make? perception that autocratic unions are more 'efficient'.

(162-163): important--they are arguing that democracy, actually, is critical to the forging of a coherent 'class identity' (which will, in turn, be critical to union power).

(165): argument--democracy gives you prolabor contracts.

(174, 179-180): argument--UE best, UAW second, and USWA a distant third on prolabor measures and wages, too.

(184): important--trade unionism is not, unlike some arguments, inherently depoliticizing. if it were so, how could you explain the breadth of political consciousness across trade unions?

(187): the Communists were least well-paid of all the organizers

(187-188): key--analysis shows that union democracy makes a real difference in the daily lives of workers. the larger theoretical claim, here, is that political relations within classes (given objective limits and possibilities') are relatively autonomous determinants of the relations between classes. [again, everything rests on the limits--but insofar as we agree to this, i have no real issue with this way of framing things. in the FN, also, they are acknowledging that they have abstracted away from employer's resistance, etc.--all of which would be one way into the question of 'objective conditions' and the State]

Other

(210): argument--communists and democratic unions fought for women's rights, as well

(225): UE was reluctant to fight for blacks' rights, for fear of opening a second front

(227-228): Local 600 and a thoroughgoing commitment to interracial community

(231): the Left-wing was central to interracial solidarity

(234-235): for most of its two decades of existence, CIO was a tremendous force for interracial solidarity (though it was hardly monolithically good, in this regard)

(254-255): CP and the racial question--it is critical to distinguish between what the leaders were saying, and what the activists were doing (the latter were the most consistent and principled in fighting for the rights of black workers)

(256): Operation Dixie, 1946--faded soon after it started, precisely because the CIO leadership was anxious to ban political agitation. it fell in on itself, more-or-less, as a result.

(264-265): overtly anti-Communist phase in CIO history begins from 1946 (this is also the date that Truman begins the government's loyalty program, under pressure from right-wing Congress). After the defeat of Henry Wallace, these escalate (Wallace had held massive interracial meetings in the South)

Conclusion

(266-269): summary of the book's findings

(271): Harry Bridges on 1949 explusion of the UE

(273): key--the 'difference' it could have made, had the Communists cohered [the analytical trouble, though, is when you treat this, as is implied, as simple contingency. Davis' formulation is more attractive, for this reason--you want to be able to explain this. without losing the sense of possibility and contingency, certainly. there is also, here, little discussion of the CP's own follies--very different discussion of their support of Wallace, for example]

(274): after the purges, in 1950 AFL was twice the size of the CIO

(275): without the Reds, 'Jim-crowism' in the CIO

(276-277): CIO's self-immolation left it powerless as industry, then, relocated [but here we have the spectre of the structural--could a powerful CIO have stopped this slide? how do we make sense of 'capital''s dominance, while accepting a partially contingent reading of this conjuncture?]

(278-287): "The Great Purge" of American Working Life

(286): one out of every five working people was put through screening, required to take an oath

(287288): key--argument, here, is that repression did not determine the fate of the CP. it was their incapacity in the face of this repression; their inability come up with a new strategy. specifically, a "corrupted internationalism" from 1945-1956--here focusing on two things: (1) reverse backing of Roosevelt-Wallace to back a third party ticket for Wallace, that destroyed the 'center-left alliance'; (2) going back into the mainstream [after ten pages of documenting repression, this is odd. and more importantly, it is unclear that these were the strategic blunders. entirely inverts Davis' argument, to an extent--but he also dates the fall much earlier. ]

(293): why the CP did an about-face in December 1947 and supported Wallace as a third party candidate, when they knew it would split the CIO? [clearly they have started the narrative of decline far too late--but let's think about this more, viz-a-viz the Davis]

(294): Cominform founded in October 1947--"united fronts from below"

Epilogue

(309-316): the debate over the 'Third Trade Union Federation' -- Foster saying the CP must stay within the trade union movement, and not make the mistake of the late 20's (shift to TUEL, from TUUL). an 'exquisite irony', because there he listened to the Comintern; had he listened to the same advice, he would have pushed for the 3rd Federation. implication, in this book, is that there was support amongst the trade unionists; moreover, that the communists could only have worked within their own trade union (election in Local 600 very close, in 1951) [anyway--all this has the character of guesswork, as they admit. not much use in pursuing this, right now]

---

TUEL: 1922-1929
TUUL: 1929-1935

James Matles
John Lewis
Walter Reuther--comes to be UAW president in 1946; by 1947, he wins a majority of the executive board.

Though militants no longer have any known hideout in Swat, they are still able to strike fairly regularly through suicide bombings. An act of terror happens just when one starts experiencing normal life in Swat. Before the latest bombing, another suicide bomber had struck on Nov 30 last year killing the NWFP Assembly member Shamsher Ali Khan while the MPA was receiving well-wishers at his home on the occasion of Eid. Such occasional attacks cannot be discounted in future as a significant number of Taliban militants managed to escape during last year's military operation. Though many of them were subsequently captured and some were summarily put to death in custody, those still at large would prefer to fight on and attempt revenge against the security forces, the police and ruling politicians.

The Punjab is the only province, which witnessed budget deficit of Rs 25.496 billion, and contributed a lot in the overall fiscal deficit of the country that stays at 2.7 per cent. However, Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan experienced no deficit in the first six months of the current financial year, showing that they went in surplus. Sindh has gone in surplus of Rs4.747 billion, the NWFP Rs13.050 billion and Balochistan Rs14.534 billion.

KHAR: Security forces secured more areas near the Pak-Afghan border in Charmang valley in Bajaur’s Nawagai subdivision, official sources said on Monday. The sources said security forces continued advance into Charmang and took control of several areas. Forces set ablaze the houses of 15 commanders of militants in Charmang.

Coming to Pakistan, fiscal deficit rose dramatically to 7.6 percent of GDP in financial year (FY) 08 from 4.3 percent of GDP in FY07. During FY09, fiscal deficit was reduced to 5.2 percent of GDP though the budgetary target was 4.3 percent. For FY10, the current fiscal year, the fiscal deficit target is 4.9 percent of GDP. This envisages expenditure-GDP ratio of 19.4 percent (compared with 19.3 percent during FY09) and revenue-GDP ratio of 14.5 percent (compared with 14.1 percent during FY09). The GDP growth target for FY10 as set out in the budget was 3.3 percent. However, as per State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) projections, the economy will grow at 3 percent. It may be mentioned that during 1990s, average fiscal deficit-GDP ratio was 7 percent, well above the current level of around 5 percent. However, decline in fiscal deficit has more to do with fall in expenditure than increase in revenue. During 1990s, average expenditure-GDP ratio was 23.6 percent, while revenue GDP ratio was 16.8 percent, well above the current levels of expenditure (19.3 percent) and revenue (14.1 percent).
(...) Development spending for FY08 (including both federal and provincial) was Rs 452 billion. The FY09 budgetary estimates for development spending were Rs 516.6 billion; however, actual spending was Rs 448.8 billion. For FY10, development spending estimates were Rs 763.1 billion, which were revised to Rs 616 billion and are now projected to be only Rs 510 billion. During the first half of FY10, the actual development spending was Rs 116 billion, which suggests that even Rs 510 billion projections are on the higher side.

Food security ranking of 131 districts in Pakistan, according to FIP 2009, indicates that 48.5 percent of the total population in 76 out of 131 districts of Pakistan is food insecure. The population in another 26 districts is on borderline and extremely vulnerable to any external shock. The 10 most food insecure districts according to this report include Dera Bugti, Musa Khel, Upper Dir, North Waziristan, Muhmand, Dalbidin, South Waziristan, Orakzai, and Panjgur. Other worst food insecure districts, according to FIP2009 are Bajur, Laki Marwat, Lower Dir, Shangla and Malakand etc. The international community might not have heard of these districts in the context of food insecurity. However, many people would easily recall that these districts are perceived as the "axis of evil" within Pakistan. There is no empirical evidence to prove that food insecurity is the only cause of militancy in the above-mentioned districts. However it is an established fact that food insecurity leads to violence and conflict.

ahmed shawki, "80 years since the Russian Revolution"

(...) [conditions as seen by Trotsky, 1932]

1. The rotting away of the old ruling classes—the nobility, the monarchy, the bureaucracy.

2. The political weakness of the bourgeoisie, which had no roots in the masses of the people.

3. The revolutionary character of the peasant question.

4. The revolutionary character of the problem of the oppressed nations.

5. The significant weight of the proletariat.

To these organic preconditions we must add certain conjunctural conditions of the highest importance.

6. The revolution of 1905 was a great school, or in Lenin’s words, the ‘dress rehearsal’ of the revolution of 1917. The soviets, as the irreplaceable organizational form of the proletarian united front in the revolution, were created or the first time in the year 1905.

7. The imperialist war sharpened all the contradictions, tore the backward masses out of their immobility and thereby prepared the grandiose scale of the catastrophe.

But all these conditions, which fully sufficed for the outbreak of the revolution, were insufficient to assure the victory of the revolution. For this victory one condition more was needed:

8. The Bolshevik Party.

(...) The consequences of such uneven and combined development are made clear by looking at Russia’s economy. Trotsky points out that while "peasant cultivation as a whole remained, right up to the revolution, at the level of the seventeenth century, Russian industry in its technique and capitalist structure stood at the level of the advanced countries, and in certain respects even outstripped them."

(...) [absolutely]--Lenin believed that "by directing socialism towards a fusion with the working-class movement, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels did their greatest service," because the previous "separation of the working-class movement and socialism gave rise to weakness and underdevelopment in each: the theories of the socialist, unfused with the workers’ struggle, remained nothing more than utopias, good wishes that had no effect on real life; the working-class movement remained petty, fragmented, and did not acquire political significance, was not enlightened by the advanced science of its time."

(...) unlike the Mensheviks, Lenin refused to subordinate the demands of the working class to those of the bourgeoisie or to compromise the independence of the labor movement politically and organizationally. Though Russia’s economic level permitted only a bourgeois revolution, the development of a combative working class meant that the bourgeoisie would be incapable of taking the lead... Because of this, Lenin argued, the working-class would take the lead in the democratic revolution. He went on to argue that since the peasantry had a real interest in ending Tsarism and destroying the remnants of feudalism, the "only force capable of gaining ‘a decisive victory over Tsarism’ is the people, i.e., the proletariat and the peasantry.… The revolution’s ‘decisive victory over Tsarism’ means the establishment of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry…

(...) [for Trotsky] "But if the working class must lead the revolution, then the working class cannot be expected to stop its struggle after the overthrow of the autocracy. Lenin’s "democratic dictatorship" is an impossibility"

(...) [the permanent revolution] But this proposition clearly leads to a difficulty—one that all Russian Marxists understood: Russia was economically and culturally too backward for socialism. How did Trotsky propose to overcome this problem? Given that Russia in isolation did not have the economic prerequisites to build socialism, the Russian revolution would have to be a prelude to revolutions in Europe and elsewhere.

(...) [February 1917] The February revolution brought a bourgeois government headed by Prince Lvov to office—but it also created another center of power: the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Indeed, in the first days after the fall of the Tsar, effective power was in the hands of the Soviets. The old state had collapsed and the bourgeoisie was reluctant to take power. But so too was the leadership of the Soviets—then in the hands of the Mensheviks and the peasant party, the Social Revolutionaries (SRs). In their view, the aim of the revolution was the achievement of a bourgeois democratic republic. They were ready and eager to support the new government to see that the tasks of the "bourgeois revolution" were carried out. As the Menshevik Potresov expressed it: "at the moment of the bourgeois revolution, the [class] best prepared, socially and psychologically, to solve national problem is [the] bourgeoisie."

(...) [April Theses] The new editors of Pravda, Kamenev and Stalin, who returned from exile in Siberia, "Pronounced that the Bolsheviks would decisively support the Provisional Government ‘insofar as it struggles against reaction or counter-revolution’ forgetting that the only important agent of counter revolution at the time was this same Provisional Government," writes Tony Cliff caustically.64 Although there was considerable opposition within the party to the political line adopted towards the Provisional Government, it would take Lenin’s return from exile, on April 3, 1917, to decisively shift the party—indeed, the whole course of the revolution.

(...) The response to Lenin’s speech was that of stunned silence. He was denounced from all sides. "A man who talks that kind of stupidity is not dangerous," exclaimed Stakevich, a moderate socialist. Bogdanov, a Menshevik: "That is raving, the ravings of a lunatic! It is indecent to applaud this claptrap!" A member of the Bolsheviks, Zalezhki, noted: "On that day (April 4) Comrade Lenin could not find open sympathizers even in our own ranks." Lenin’s speech, she remembers "produced on everyone a stupefying impression. No one expected this. On the contrary, they expected Vladimir Ilych to arrive and call to order the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee and especially Comrade Molotov, who occupied a particularly irreconcilable position with respect to the Provisional Government.

(...) In effect, Lenin was adopting Trotsky’s ‘permanent revolution’ position. The first stage of the revolution had created a situation of "dual power," in which the working class and rebellious soldiers were not yet conscious of the need to sweep away the bourgeois Provisional Government. The task now was to win over a majority of the proletariat to the side of Bolshevism.

(...) Lenin’s isolation among the leaders of the Bolsheviks can be gauged by the outcome of a debate and vote on Lenin’s views at a Petrograd Committee meeting on April 8. Those opposing Lenin handily won the vote thirteen to two, with one abstention. Similar results were recorded in Moscow and other local Bolshevik committees. But several factors worked in Lenin’s favor. First, many of the rank and file members of the party were already unhappy with the line of accommodation to the Provisional Government being pushed by Kamenev, Stalin and the former Duma deputy M.K. Muranov. Indeed some members in Petrograd had called for their expulsion from the party. Moreover, even if the Bolsheviks’ Petrograd leadership tailed behind the Mensheviks and SRs, the Bolshevik members did not have the same instincts as those of the Mensheviks. As Trotsky notes, the whole history and training of the Bolsheviks led them in the direction of identifying with the masses rather than the new bourgeois government.

(...) Second, the very course of the revolution, and in particular the government’s continued escalation to the war effort, was a confirmation of the validity of Lenin’s views. Third, the numbers of workers, soldiers and peasants drawn into the revolution continued to grow—as did their hostility to the government and their gravitation to the Bolsheviks; fourth, the Bolshevik party itself entered a period of explosive growth. In the two months since February, party membership swelled from 24,000 to 80,000. Finally, Lenin carried enormous political weight among the cadres of the Bolshevik party. Indeed, Trotsky is undoubtedly right in saying that only Lenin could have reoriented the party so quickly and with so little damage. By mid-April, Lenin’s attempts to win over the party reached an important turning point: He succeeded in winning a majority at a conference of Bolsheviks held in Petrograd on April 14. By the end of April, Lenin had decidedly won the party over to his views.

(...) [precursors of July] No sooner had Lenin won the party over did the opposite danger come to the fore. The same militants who supported Lenin’s "no support for the Provisional Government" slogan tended to be involved in head-on clashes with the government. The slogan of "no support" was soon transformed into one of "Down with the Provisional Government." Lenin now swung from the party’s left to its right, calling such slogans "premature" and "adventurist." Petrograd’s workers were well ahead of the rest of the country, and the danger existed of a premature confrontation with the government which would leave the most militant sections of the movement isolated.

(...) [key] The government’s response to this crisis was to try to expand its base of support—especially among the Mensheviks and the SRs who still held a majority in the Soviets. In late April, these parties entered the Provisional Government. The right-wing SR Alexander Kerensky became minister of war. From May onwards, the revolution’s advance required fighting not only the bourgeoisie, but the leaders of the Mensheviks and SRs. From May to the October seizure of power, there is a visible and steady decline in the levels of support to both Mensheviks and SRs and a sharp swing to the left.

(...) The unavoidable confrontation came in July. Nearly a million demonstrators took to the streets of Petrograd on July 4, demanding an end to the war and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, having failed to restrain the demonstrators, decided to join them. In the confrontations that followed, there were hundreds of casualties. There is little doubt that had the Bolshevik Party called for the overthrow of the government, it could have achieved that aim. But Lenin and others were clear that the rest of Russia wasn’t yet ready to overthrow the Provisional Government.... [repression ensues]

(...) General Kornilov launched a coup attempt in late August. On August 26, he sent a representative to demand the surrender of the Provisional Government. He had the backing of all the top generals, big business and the British and French governments. But Kornilov’s coup failed largely because of the organized resistance led by the Bolsheviks. Lenin’s response to the Kornilov revolt was clear and immediate: "The Kornilov revolt is a most unexpected and downright unbelievably sharp turn in events. Like every sharp turn, it calls for a revision and change of tactics."81 The Bolshevik Party must lead the resistance to Kornilov, Lenin argued, because a successful coup from the right would be a tremendous setback to the revolution. Thus, Bolsheviks and their supporters were organized to fight Kornilov. This did not mean, however, extending support to the government. "Even now we must not support Kerensky’s government. This is unprincipled.… We shall fight, we are fighting against Kornilov, just as Kerensky’s troops do, but we do not support Kerensky. On the contrary, we expose his weakness.

(...) ON SEPTEMBER 1, the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 5, the Moscow Soviet followed suit. On September 9, Trotsky was elected president of the Petrograd Soviet. A clear majority of the working class was behind the Bolsheviks. Lenin launched an offensive within the party to prepare for an armed uprising and seizure of power. He met stiff resistance from the Bolshevik Central Committee. For almost a month, Lenin insistently argued for the party to prepare for an insurrection...

(...) [this is just great:] Like every other ruling class, the Russian bourgeoisie and aristocracy thought that nothing and no one could do without it. The conservative daily Novoe Vromia, wrote on the morning after the insurrection (October 26, 1917):

Let us suppose for a moment that the Bolsheviks do gain the upper hand. Who will govern us then: the cooks perhaps, those connoisseurs of cutlets and beefsteaks? Or maybe the firemen? The stable boys, the chauffeurs? Or perhaps the nursemaids will rush off to a meeting of the Council of State between the diaper washing sessions? Who then? Where are the statesmen? Perhaps the mechanics will run the theaters, the plumbers foreign affairs, the carpenters, the post office. Who will it be? History alone will give a definitive answer to this mad ambition of the Bolsheviks.