ABSTRACT
The majority of Russia’s socialists would work to smother that fighting, to seek a compromise and prevent at all costs the outbreak of a Red versus Green civil war. In The Russian Revolution and the Civil War, written on 8–9 September 1917, V. I. Lenin mapped out two possible scenarios for the Russian Revolution, one a continuation of the theme of coalition aired in On Compromises, and the other a bold call for civil war. The Railway Workers’ Union wanted to stop what appeared to be the nascent civil war between the Bolsheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), a Red versus Green civil war within the democratic camp. Planning to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force and thus pour fuel on the simmering Red–Green civil war, he had fled Petrograd in search of loyal troops. The Railway Workers’ Union talks were aimed at preventing a Red versus Green civil war between Bolsheviks and SRs by forming a coalition socialist government.
