The Democratic
Conference debates several alternatives to Kerensky’s Directory over the next
few days.
The Compromisers
had drawn back from earlier statements, of the kind that inspired an offer
of a deal from Lenin, that the Cadets might be excluded from a new
formulation of the Coalition Government. At the conference, Trotsky argued
against their inclusion because, as a party, they had not unambiguously
denounced the Kornilov insurrection while it was taking place. The response was
that, if it was a mistake to blame the whole Bolshevik party for the actions of
a few during the July Days, it was also a mistake to blame the whole Cadet
party for the actions of those members who abetted Kornilov. Trotsky answered
by making a distinction: it is not a question of inviting individual Cadets
“into the jails,” but of inviting the party as a whole “into the ministry.” The
conference should do the former, but because the bourgeois press either “openly
welcomed” Kornilov or “kept mum,” it should not do the latter.
A sailor from the
Baltic Fleet spoke even more directly to this point, saying, “Against the
creation of a Coalition Ministry the sailors have raised their battle flag!”
Trotsky expresses
the alternatives before the conference this way: the centrists wanted a
coalition, but without the Cadets; delegates on the right favored Kerensky and
wanted to bring the Cadets into the government; the left, including the
Bolsheviks, called for a government of the soviets, or at any rate a ministry
of socialists – to the exclusion of the Cadets. These positions, of which that
of the centrists was the most unstable, governed the formulation of the
resolutions placed before the conference.
A centrist
resolution in favor of a coalition passed, 766 to 688, but then a left
amendment for excluding the Cadets also passed, 595 to 493. When the question
was on the resolution as amended, the right and left joined in voting against
it with 813 votes, leaving only 133 centrist votes in favor.
The organizers of
the conference were at a loss. They convened a rump committee of party leaders,
but their vote was also disappointing: 50 for coalition, 60 against. The
committee was able to agree, unanimously, that whatever government should
happen to be formed, should be responsible to the Democratic Conference. It
then resolved that the conference should become a permanent body. Finally it
voted to add members of the bourgeois parties to that body, 56 to 48.
Then Kerensky
turned up again and told the conference he would not take part in a government
of only one party or group of parties. Note that this involves admitting that
he would not be able to sustain his Directory if the conference should prefer a
new coalition.
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