“Everyone Who is Against the Bolsheviks is With Us”: The Activities of the Shulgin — Filonenko Organization in Petrograd (January — March 1918)

Abstract

The article investigates the activities of the anti-Bolshevik underground in late 1917 — early 1918. After the October upheaval, various opposition groups began to form, all with the aim of organizing an uprising against the Bolsheviks and their allies. In this case, they planned to rely on spare military units of the Petrograd garrison, especially the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky reserve regiments. In order to increase their influence on them, the conspirators sought to transfer the maximum number of their members to rank-and-file and command staff. Because of this common activity, one group headed by former general B. V. Shulgin established contact for joint actions with the former High Commissioner of the Provisional Government M. M. Filonenko, and through him with the Military Commission of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Despite a very different political orientation, which led to mutual distrust and competition for influence, they gathered forces for joint actions. The demobilization of the Petrograd garrison, opposed by the soldiers, seemed to be an opportunity for the underground. However, sudden pre-emptive actions by the new authorities in mid-March 1918 on the forcible disarmament of military units, which the conspirators planned to use, led to the disintegration of the organization and the removal of the threat of an armed uprising for the time being.