Petrograd and Moscow, since military resistance was no longer possible. Lenin and his colleagues would either have met the fate of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany or would have been dispersed to the four corners of the vast Russian land.
Lenin, of course, was not the Bolshevik Party. But the Bolshevik Party became the instrument it did because of Lenin. It is doubtful whether any man before him ever wielded such power in a political party; certainly not in an organization that professed to be democratic or socialistic.
If Lenin had not been on the scene, not a single revolutionary leader could have substituted for him. Not Stalin, by his own confession. Not Zinoviev, Lenin’s closest follower, who ran out on the October Revolution. Not Kamenev, whose mind Lenin changed at the same time he changed Stalin’s, but who acted like Zinoviev. Not Trotsky. Although the record shows that Trotsky was the only outstanding Russian figure whose theoretical position and practical programme were identical with those of Lenin before April, 1917, he would have failed where Lenin succeeded. For one thing, he arrived in Russia a month after Lenin did. By that time Lenin had completed the re-education of the Bolshevik Party. Trotsky would have had to do this, but he was not a member of the organization. His own party was numerically insignificant and relatively uninfluential. Finally, he owed whatever authority he enjoyed in the Bolshevik Party, which he joined in August, to Lenin’s recognition of his capacities and Lenin’s constant protection against the suspicion and opposition of the second-line Bolshevik leaders. Trotsky, alone, was doomed to failure because, despite his other great gifts, he lacked the organizational genius so necessary for political success. His imperious manner provoked people instead of reconciling them to his capacities. He could win an audience but, unlike Lenin, he could not win over party opponents. And he openly betrayed an impatience with mediocrity which no one forgives in a newcomer.
4
What would have been the consequences for history if the October Revolution had not occurred or, occurring, had failed? It is easier to say what would not have happened than to say with any great degree of definiteness what would have happened.
