Commissar
Savinkov returns to headquarters to clear up a few details. General Kornilov
listened, and maybe he seemed to agree, but in the end he did as he wished.
Against Kerensky’s orders, he put General Krymov in command of the advance on
Petrograd and the Savage Division in the vanguard.
Kerensky had also
ordered an adjustment to Kornilov’s demand for military control of Petrograd.
Kornilov could have command of the military district in which Petrograd was
located, but the government would retain control of the garrison in the city
itself. Since he figured the balance of forces would still be in his favor when
his cavalry got there, this did not bother Kornilov much.
Meanwhile Lvov, a
church official (not the former Prime Minister), had also been shuttling
between Kornilov’s headquarters and those of Kerensky at the Winter Palace.
Lvov began to realize that two plots, not just one, had been hatched.
Kerensky’s did not match up with Kornilov’s, particularly on the very important
point of who the dictator would be. So Kerensky sent Lvov back to Moghiliev
with the proposal that the two camps would together work out a “transformation”
of the government. He arrived there after Savinkov had already left the second
time.
Kornilov’s camp
took the message Lvov delivered as a sign of weakness. Kornilov told Lvov that
once the (expected) Bolshevik insurrection had been suppressed, the plotters
should seek “the immediate transfer of power by the Provisional Government into
the hands of the supreme commander-in-chief,” adding “whoever he may be.” Then
he politely suggested that Kerensky and Savinkov seek refuge with him at Moghiliev,
to be safe from the Bolsheviks.
When Lvov
delivered this proposal, Kerensky immediately telegraphed Kornilov, asking him
to confirm it. Then Kerensky replied as though he would be arriving at
headquarters the following day. But of course he didn’t. Another Kornilov
proposal, that Kerensky become Minister of Justice in a cabinet headed by…someone
else, made Kerensky so angry be put the messenger, Lvov, under arrest at the
Winter Palace. Trotsky says Lvov spent the evening listening to Kerensky sing
opera in the next room.
Back at
headquarters, on the same evening (August 26th, September 8, new
style), Kornilov’s camp thought the success of their plot was at hand.
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