July 18 – July 5, 1917: Demonstrations Suppressed

At dawn, Bolsheviks pass through empty streets distributing a leaflet calling for an end to the demonstrations. The workers’ districts were quiet but “vigilant,” Trotsky says.

But the city streets had already gone over to the reaction. Trotsky does not make it entirely clear which troops carried out the arrests and destruction that followed. But he refers to them as “Cossacks” or “junkers,” terms normally reserved for reactionary units serving the Provisional Government under the command of General Polotsev. At any rate, Trotsky does not directly accuse the regiments that had gone over to the Soviet that morning, and the troops from the front, sent by Kerensky, did not arrive until later in the day.

So, at 6:00 a.m., a car “loaded with junkers” drove up to the offices of Pravda. When they left, everything, including the printing presses, was a wreck. On the streets of the bourgeois neighborhoods, troops were arresting workers, soldiers, sailors, and anybody who had anything favorable to say about Lenin or the Bolsheviks. Some of the Red Guards joined the Kronstadt sailors in the Peter and Paul fortress, now surrounded by streets under the control of government troops.

That afternoon, members of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets went to Bolshevik headquarters for a conference. Agreement was reached that the Bolsheviks would induce the Kronstadters to turn over the Peter and Paul to the government, and the government would not purge or suppress the Bolshevik party, and would release those already under arrest unless the arrest was for criminal activity.

Some hours later, the mood in the Soviet, in the streets, and among the garrison was changing. Agitation accusing the Bolsheviks of funding the demonstrations with German money took hold. Then troops from the front began to arrive. The Provisional Government held all the cards; indeed, the Bolsheviks had already laid down their hand that morning. Violent speeches filled the Tauride Palace; Now that the “correlation of forces…has changed,” the Bolsheviks had become the common enemy. Kamenev rose to remind the Central Executive of the agreement reached earlier that afternoon.

Kamenev’s reminder was too late. With the aid of troops. Prime Minister Prince Lvov had already given General Polotsev orders to clear out the palace of the ballerina Kshesinskaia and arrest any Bolsheviks found inside. Trotsky believes the right-socialist ministers in the Provisional Government knew of and consented to the order.

The Bolskeviks took countermeasures. The Military Organization put the Kronstadt midshipman Raskolnikov in command at the palace. This was at about 5:00 p.m. Raskolnikov sent for a warship from Kronstadt, but reconsidering this rash measure, rescinded the request. Cossacks, armored cars, and machine guns took position all around.

Thus the situation stood for the balance of the day.