MRC commissar who twice entered the Winter Palace to parley and talked its defenders into walking away
Inside the Winter Palace, Palchinsky ordered his arrest. The cadets protested: 'His detention damages our honour. We guaranteed his safety.' The commissar walked free, and soon the cadets walked out too.
A Jewish youth from Ekaterinoslav who joined the revolutionary movement at fifteen, Chudnovsky followed Trotsky through emigration in Paris and New York, returning via the Mezhraiontsy to the Bolsheviks in May 1917. As an MRC commissar during the October insurrection, he twice entered the Winter Palace to parley (arrested the first time by Palchinsky, then freed at the cadets' insistence), and his promise of safe passage to those who would lay down their arms persuaded waves of defenders to quit the building before the final entry. Appointed extraordinary commissar of the South-Western Front, he fought German occupation forces and the Ukrainian Central Rada; captured and sentenced to death by the Rada in December 1917, he was freed by Soviet troops entering Kiev, but died surrounded near Liubotyn in April 1918; accounts differ on whether he fell fighting or shot himself.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1905–1910Joined revolutionary movement, Menshevik; exiled to Yenisei Governorate
- 1913–1916Emigre with Trotsky: Paris (Nashe Slovo), Copenhagen, New York (Novy Mir)
- 1917.05–08Returned to Russia; Mezhraiontsy → Bolsheviks; anti-war agitation in the army
- 1917.10Petrograd MRC commissar to Preobrazhensky Regiment; Winter Palace parleys; fought at Pulkovo
- 1917.11–12Extraordinary commissar, South-Western Front; captured by Rada, sentenced to death
- 1918.01–04Freed by Soviet troops; commissar of civil affairs, Kiev; surrounded near Liubotyn, shot himself
Related historical events
- 1914–1918First World Waranti-war agitator in the armyHe agitated against the war in the army in 1917.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionMRC Commissar and NegotiatorDuring the October Revolution siege of the Winter Palace, he entered the palace twice as an MRC commissar and negotiator; his presence inside was one of the key mechanisms by which the defenders melted away without a bloody assault.
- 1917–1921Ukraine’s revolution and warsextraordinary commissar on the South-Western FrontAs extraordinary commissar of the South-Western Front, he fought German occupation forces and the Ukrainian Central Rada.
Winter Palace parleys and the collapse of the defence
On 25 October 1917 Chudnovsky entered the Winter Palace as a parliamentarian. According to Palchinsky's diary, men of the Oranienbaum ensign school seized him, and that school's own cadets pressed for his release; he and ensign Dashkevich were freed separately. When he came again, Palchinsky noted briefly: 'Chudnovsky again. His arrest.'
The practical effect of the parleys showed in the defence itself. Palchinsky recorded units slipping away one by one and disarmament proceeding without resistance, and concluded that the palace was taken 'the result not of one side's strength, but of the other's weakness.' He also called the arrangement under which those who laid down their arms were let go a 'Bolshevik trap' - a phrase dropped when the diary was printed in Krasny Arkhiv in 1933.
Chudnovsky recorded the same events himself: his account 'In the Winter Palace before the surrender' appeared in Pravda on 8 (21) November 1917. Later historians confirmed that the events around 25 October were not a single storm but a long siege combining repeated ultimatums and negotiations with the repeated arrest and release of parliamentarians.