Before it
adjourns, the Democratic Conference completes the two remaining items on its agenda.
The first was to pass a resolution, any resolution, to influence the
configuration of the next government. The second was to populate the
conference’s permanent version, to be called the Council of the Republic, “Pre-Parliament”
for short.
To the first end,
Tseretilli offered a resolution that appeared not to endorse a coalition in the
government with the Cadets, but in fact made exactly this possible. It called
on the Pre-Parliament to “cooperate in the creation of a government,” for the
existing government to sanction the Pre-Parliament for that purpose, and for
the Pre-Parliament to sanction the government thus created. The resolution
passed, 829 to 106.
But, Trotsky says,
Tseretilli’s resolution was a “disguised capitulation.” For one thing, it left
Kerensky in the driver’s seat; the conference had not voted itself any leverage
over him. For another, the composition of the government would depend on the
composition of the Pre-Parliament, that is, on the second item on the agenda.
The conference, in which a majority in favor of including the Cadets in a
coalition government could not be had, was to name 350 of its delegates, about
15%, to the Pre-Parliament. They would be joined by 120 delegates to represent
the bourgeoisie, and the government would name 20 Cossacks. A body so
constituted might be able to form a
consensus for naming some Cadet ministers. Thus “disguised capitulation.”
The Pre-Parliament
was to convene about two weeks later. Trotsky observes that as an attempt by the
Compromisers to recover lost power and prestige, the Democratic Conference was
the functional equivalent of Kerensky’s State
Conference in Moscow. It was also about equally successful.
Meanwhile, on
Trotsky’s motion, the Petrograd Soviet demanded that the All Russian Congress
of Soviets be convened. It had been agreed at the first congress, in June, to
reconvene every three months. Now, the resolution said, the Congress was
necessary for “self-defense” of the soviets against renewed efforts by the
counter-revolution. Moreover it would give the Bolsheviks a position of
strength vis a vis the
Pre-Parliament. The resolution also called on the soviets to retain the official,
governmental, and managerial functions they had up to then acquired and were
exercising.
No comments:
Post a Comment