Who were the true leaders of the October Revolution?

Arthur Ransome as witness

Arthur Ransome (1884-1967) was one of the most versatile figures in English literature.

Although best known for his children’s books, his journalistic career -particularly his first-hand accounts of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia- possesses exceptional historical and political significance. The three works he wrote between 1915 and 1921 -The Truth About Russia, Six Weeks in Russia in 1919, and Crisis in Russia- stand among the rare and invaluable sources that portray the revolution’s true character from several angles.

Arthur Ransome during his time in Russia, 1917

The fact that these three books by Ransome have not yet been translated into Turkish, and that his testimony remains largely absent from debates on the October Revolution, is undoubtedly a serious shortcoming.

We hope that this omission will, albeit belatedly, be remedied in the not-too-distant future.

To those who can read English, we wholeheartedly recommend these works -all freely accessible online in full- which hold historical and literary importance comparable to John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World.

Initially dispatched to Russia as an informal emissary of the Foreign Office -tasked with assessing events on the ground and how they might influence Britain’s imperialist war aims- Ransome was expected to gauge the intentions of the Bolshevik leadership.

Yet his first-hand observations, together with his direct encounters with the Bolshevik leaders, drew him into a profound ideological transformation.

This transformation was not merely political; it was also an ethical and intellectual stance. Ransome came to regard the October Revolution as a “creative endeavour”, choosing to resist rather than partake in the smear campaigns then rife in the West.

Ransome’s trilogy

The Truth About Russia: Written as a rejoinder to claims portraying the Bolsheviks as “German agents” in an effort to discredit them, this book underscores the legitimacy of the revolution and the depth of its popular support.

Six Weeks in Russia in 1919: A work I revisited while preparing this article, it offers Ransome’s observations from his six-week stay in Moscow. He describes the conditions of daily life in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the functioning of the Soviet administration, and his impressions of the ongoing civil war, as well as his encounters with Bolshevik leaders.

Crisis in Russia: The final instalment in Ransome’s “October Revolution trilogy”, this book examines the economic and social crises faced by Soviet Russia in the aftermath of civil war and foreign intervention. Ransome confronts the widely accepted myths in the West with remarkable courage.

These three works serve both as historical documents and literary narratives. Ransome’s language, his keen powers of observation, and the depth of his character portrayals help readers grasp the October Revolution not only in its political and socio-economic dimensions, but also in its profoundly human aspects.

Six weeks in Russia

As noted above, Six Weeks in Russia in 1919 is a detailed account of Ransome’s six-week stay in Moscow. Alongside his meetings with Bolshevik leaders, it includes his observations on the living conditions of the people, the social and economic reforms implemented in the wake of the revolution, and his critiques of the anti-revolutionary propaganda circulating in the West. Ransome portrays the Bolsheviks -particularly the two principal figures of the October Revolution, Lenin and Trotsky- as vivid and human personalities.

In the book, he describes the October Revolution as “the boldest page in history” and emphasises that the Bolsheviks fought “with clean shields”.

To conclude, as we have done throughout the series “Who were the true leaders of the October Revolution?”, let us once again provide a breakdown of how often each Bolshevik leader is mentioned in the book.

In Six Weeks in Russia in 1919, Ransome refers to:

• Lenin - 42 times
• Kamenev - 22 times
• Trotsky - 12 times
• Bukharin - 11 times
• Zinoviev - 5 times

Strikingly, Stalin’s name does not appear at all.

This is by no means a surprising fact.

Contrary to the Stalinist myth -constructed step by step from the mid-1920s onwards and built entirely on distortions and falsehoods- Stalin remained, even by 1919, two years after the revolution, a secondary figure within the Bolshevik leadership. As Suhanov famously put it, during the October Revolution Stalin was little more than a “grey blur”.