Military Revolutionary Committee

Facsimile of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee proclamation of the disbanding of the Russian Provisional Government

The Military Revolutionary Committee (Russian: Военно Революционный Комитет; Voyenny Revolyutsionny Komitet), was the name for military organs created by Bolsheviks Party organizations under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution (October 1917 – March 1918). The committees were powerful directing bodies of revolt, installing and securing the Soviet power. They executed a role of provisional extraordinary organs of Proletariat power.

The most notable ones were those of the Petrograd Soviet, the Moscow Soviet, and at Stavka. The Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee was created on 29 October [O.S. 16 October] 1917.

Creation

The idea for organization of the armed revolt battle center belongs to Lenin. In his letter "Marxism and Revolt" directed to the Central Committee of RSDLP(b) in September of 1917, he putting on the agenda the task of preparing an armed uprising wrote:

And to treat the revolt in a Marxist way, that is, as an art, we at the same time, without losing a moment, must organize headquarters of the insurgent groups ...

The decision of Central Committee of RSDLP(b) of October 23 and 29, 1917 on enhanced preparation for the armed revolt hastened the creation of uprising bodies at central and local levels. The MRC were elected from representatives of the Bolsheviks' party, soviets, factory or soldier committees, Bolshevik Military Organizations (Voyenka), Red Guards, and others. The committees were of various levels such as gubernial, city, county, district, volost; while in the Army were frontlines, army, corps, division, and regimental. On occasions the functions of the Military Revolutionary Committee were performed by revolutionary committees. The military revolutionary committees were not uniform in terms of their social and party composition, however most of them were predominantly represented by bolsheviks.

The first headquarters of armed uprising became the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee that was created by the Petrograd Soviet on October 25, 1917. Prior to a victorious moment of the uprising in Petrograd, there were over 40 Military Revolutionary Committees in the country the main activity of which was military and technical preparations for the forthcoming revolt.

List of military revolutionary committees

During the "Triumphant advance of Soviet power" there was a mass establishment of MRCs. Many MRCs appeared on initiative of the arrived delegates of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Big squad of commissars, emissaries, agitators was sent to various country's regions by the Petrograd MRC on direction of the Central Committee of RSDLP(b). The Bolshevik's party composed the committees of experienced organizers.

Creation date	Name	Head (composition)	Notes
October 29	Petrograd MRC	Pavel Lazimir (Andrei Bubnov, Moisei Uritsky, Yakov Sverdlov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Joseph Stalin)
October 31	12th Army MRC	Ya. Cherin (Karl Gailis, Janis Krumins)	until November 8, 1917 existed illegally in Cēsis
November 4	Estland MRC	I.Rabchinsky (Jaan Anvelt, Viktor Kingissepp)
	Pskov MRC	Vasili Panyushkin	Northern Front (from November 8, 1917)
November 7	Moscow MRC
	Voronezh revkom	A.Moiseyev
November 8	Ryazan MRC	A.Syromyatnikov
November 9	Minsk MRC	Aleksandr Myasnikyan (Moisei Kalmanovich, Vilhelms Vilis Knoriņš, Kārlis Landers)	Western Front and Northwestern Region (later)
	Samara MRC	Valerian Kuybyshev
	Tula revkom	Grigory Kaminsky
November 10	Tom MRC	Aleksei Belenets
November 11	Kiev MRC	Leonid Pyatakov (Andriy Ivanov, Volodymyr Zatonsky, Oleksandr Horvits)	recreated as Kiev revkom on January 28, 1918
	Smolensk revkom	S.Ioffe
November 21	Dagestan MRC	Ullubi Buinaksky
November 27	Orenburg MRC	Samuil Tsvilling
December 1	Southwestern Front MRC	G.Razzhivin (Vasili Kikvidze)
December 15	Romanian Front MRC	Pyotr Baranov (Aleksandr Krusser, Vladimir Yudovsky)
December 20	Barnaul MRC	Matvei Tsaplin)
December 23	Kharkov MRC	Comrade Artyom (Valery Mezhlauk, Moisei Rukhimovich)
???	Yekaterinoslav MRC	Nikolay Krestinsky
???	Vinnitsa MRC	Nikolai Tarnogrodsky
???	Odessa MRC	Vladimir Yudovsky
???	Shuya MRC	Mikhail Frunze
???	Simferopol MRC	Jānis Miller
December 29	Sevastopol revkom	Jānis Daumanis (Yuri Gaven)
January	Astrakhan revkom	Mina Aristov
January 10	Caucasus Army MRC	Grigory Korganov (Boris Sheboldayev)
January 23	Don MRC	Fyodor Podtyolkov (Mikhail Krivoshlykov)
January 30	Kuban - Black Sea MRC	Yan Poluyan
March 2	Semirechye MRC	Pavel Vinogradov

Influence

In the weeks following the October insurrection, military revolutionary committees based on the MRC of Petrograd were set up throughout the other soviets and helped cement Bolshevik control. These other MRCs were formed by locals but agents from the Petrograd MRC were often in positions to give advice or direction. By the end of October 1917, representatives from the Petrograd MRC were on assignments in at least forty-four cities as well as 113 military units throughout Russia, Turkestan, and the Caucasus.

See also

• Revolutionary Military Council

Further reading

• Resis, Albert (July 1977). Lenin on Freedom of the Press. Russian Review, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 274–296.
• Rigby, T.H. (Jan. 1974). The First Proletarian Government. British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 37–51.
• Utechin, S.V. (Oct. 1958). Bolsheviks and Their Allies after 1917: The Ideological Pattern. Soviet Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 113–135.
• Lenin, V. Marxism and Revolt. Full collection of articles (Марксизм и восстание, Полн. собр. соч.). Ed. 5. Vol. 34
• Questionnaires of councils of the Central Industrial district (October 1917 – January 1918). "Historical Archives". 1960