THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, 1917-1920 The Petrograd Revolution of Nov. 7 swept Russia. There were a few days of street fighting in Moscow and sporadic resistance elsewhere, but by the end of the month the Soviets held power throughout the country. In the urban centres the victory was won under the red flag of class warfare, with the watchword "All Power to the Workers' Soviets " The words "land," "bread" and "peace" gave the Bolsheviks the support of the soviets of peasants and soldiers.
The soviets were the only strong political force in a social structure whose disintegration was nearly complete. They were the organs of the proletariat, upon which the Bolsheviks, taught by the Marxist doctrine of revolution, were resolved to build their State. They challenged not only the weakened capitalism of Russia but the capitalist system throughout the world. In the first days of success they exaggerated the effect of war-weariness upon the masses of western Europe and underestimated the effect of war-hatred. Their dream of a new proletarian Utopia and their appeals to fellow-workers of the world to throw off the burdens of Capital and War prepared the way for the conflict that was soon to plunge the new State into a three-year fight for life.
and the control of the factory soviets over industry was estab lished by successive decrees in the next two months.
The peace campaign began on Nov. 9, when Trotsky sent out a wireless invitation to all the belligerent powers to conclude an immediate armistice. The Allied Governments at once protested, and their representatives in Russia tried to enlist the commander in-chief of the army, General Dukhonin, against the Council of Commissars. Dukhonin was replaced by Krylenko, a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, by a Soviet decree of Nov. 22. Soon afterwards the late commander was torn to pieces by a mob of soldiers. That deed showed that Lenin had gauged the temper of the army and that the Allied insistence that Russia should go on fighting would be fruitless. In addition to their natural class hostility to a "Red" government, the Allied Powers seemed convinced that Lenin and his associates were acting in the interests and possibly in the pay of Germany. Washington was at first more friendly, but the American ambassador in Petrograd, Mr. Francis, soon indicated that he shared the view of his Allied colleagues The attitude of the German Government was equivocal. It accepted the armistice proposal, but it does not seem to have contemplated such severe conditions as were afterwards em bodied in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. After brief negotiations within the German lines a ten-day truce was signed on Dec 5, 1917. The Central Powers agreed not to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to the Western, but they moved several di visions to France before the end of the year.