July 20 – July 7, 1917: Kerensky Prime
Minister. The Provisional Government takes steps to resolve the cabinet
crisis precipitated by the resignation of the bourgeois-liberal Cadet ministers
on July 15 – July 2. Some of the ministries that had belonged to the Cadets
were given to right-socialist members of the Central Executive Committee of the
Soviets. The Menshevik Tseretilli, for example, was made Minister of the
Interior; this put him in charge of what to do about the Bolsheviks.
Kerensky was
rewarded, for his efforts if not his results, by being made Prime Minister. He
also retained the Ministries of War and the Marine. The reshuffled cabinet
(Trotsky designates it a “transitional government”) launched two lines of
policy: the right-socialist Compromisers, in the absence of the Cadets, wanted
to enact whatever parts of the program of the recent Soviet Congress they
could; Kerensky sought to gratify his friends further to the right by breaking
up centers of Bolshevik influence.
Meanwhile, a
decree subjecting Lenin to arrest had already been issued. Likewise Zinoviev. According
to Deutscher, Stalin’s biographer, Stalin took the leading role in the ensuing
intrigue. Lenin, says Deutscher, thought perhaps he should turn himself in, to
do otherwise would be considered an admission of guilt. Stalin pointed out to
him the risks of putting himself in the hands of the Provisional Government.
Stalin brought the matter to the Executive Committee, but found they were
unable to guarantee Lenin’s safety. Instead Lenin took refuge in the home of
the workman Alliluyev for a few days. There Stalin served as barber, removing
Lenin’s characteristic beard and moustache. A few days later Alliluyev and
Stalin guided Lenin to a suburban train station, whence he travelled undercover
to suburban villages and eventually to Finland. Alliluyev later became Stalin’s
father in law.
Trotsky omits
this, saying instead that from his hiding place, Lenin sent to the Inquiry
Commission of the Soviet to ask for a meeting. Lenin and Zinoviev waited all
day at the agreed place, but the Soviet’s representatives never appeared.
July 20-21 – July 7-8, 1917: War News from
Tarnopol. News of the successful German counterattack at Tarnopol comes to
Petrograd. Beginning the next day, the right-wing “patriotic” press printed
everything it could find out about the attack, including the designations and
positions of the Russian units involved – a serious breach of military secrecy.
Not satisfied with this, the press began to exaggerate the disaster, the better
to shift the blame from the Provisional Government to the Bolsheviks.
On July 20 – July
7, the summer offensive on the Western Front began, too late to save the
Southwestern Front. On July 21 – July 8, the summer offensive on the Northern
Front began, without changing that result. That same day, General Kornilov,
commander of the Southwestern Front, gave orders to fire at retreating troops.
Beginning July 21 – July 8, 1917:
Transitional Government in Action. Once formed, the transitional government
pursue two lines of action. As Trotsky does not give dates for some of their
actions, I’ve simply made the lists that follow.
Actions to
suppress Bolshevik influence:
·
Breaking up the militant formations of the
Petrograd garrison, including the Machine Gun regiment. It seemed like a good
idea, but many among the tens of thousands of troops sent to the front as
replacements were Bolsheviks advanced in party discipline and theory. They
proved to be influential.
·
Outlawing processions in the streets and
disarming the workers
·
Ordering the Kronstadt garrison to turn over
Midshipman Raskolnikov and other leaders of the July Days
·
Arresting Bolshevik and left-Social
Revolutionary leaders in the Baltic Fleet
Actions to
realize the program of the Soviet Congress:
·
On July 21 – July 8, issuing a declaration
concerning, as Trotsky says, “a collection of democratic commonplaces”
July 22 – July 9, 1917: The Government of
Salvation. The Menshevik Dan, citing fears of a counter-revolutionary
military dictatorship, offers a three-part resolution in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets:
·
That the revolution is in danger.
·
That the Provisional Government is the
“Salvation of the Revolution.”
·
That therefore this government should have
“unlimited powers.”
It passed the Central
Executive unanimously with only the Bolsheviks abstaining.
On this day, the
summer offensive on the Rumanian Front began. Rumanian troops supported the
Russian 4th Army in the attack, which had to be thrown back by a
force of mixed nationalities commanded by the German General Mackensen.
Meanwhile, the German counterattack on the Southwestern Front was already a
“catastrophe” for the Russian 11th Army, according to its
commissars. Its commander, General Kornilov, gave orders to shoot retreating
troops.
July 23 – July 10, 1917: A Visit from the
Junkers. The offices of the Menshevik party receive the same treatment
(from the same people) that the Bolsheviks suffered a
few days before.
July 24 – July 11, 1917: Lenin Spirited
Away. Lenin, shorn of his beard and moustache, is escorted by Stalin and
the workman Allilulev to a suburban train station, whence he eventually makes
his way to Finland.
It became
Stalin’s job to maintain liaison with Lenin while he was in hiding.
July 25 – July 12, 1917: Decrees of the
Provisional Government. The right- and left-leaning factions in the
Provisional Government both gain legislative victories on this day. To please
his generals, Kerensky put through a decree restoring the death penalty at the
front. The left, still fumbling to formulate an agrarian policy, managed to put
through a half-hearted measure limiting the sales of land. It pleased no-one.
Kerensky also
removed General Polotsev from command of the Petrograd garrison at about this
time, giving one explanation to the left in the Provisional Government and
another to his friends on the right.
July 26 – July 13, 1917: Bolsheviks
Unseated. The Menshevik Dan carries a resolution in the Central Executive
Committee of the Soviets providing, “Any person indicted by the courts is
deprived of membership in the Executive Committee until sentence is
pronounced.” This of course would apply only to Bolsheviks, and specifically to
Lenin and Zinoviev. Kerensky took this opportunity to shut down the Bolshevik
press, which had resurfaced after the smashing of Pravda’s printing presses at the end of the July Days.
The Bolshevik
press no longer existing, Trotsky prevailed on the author Maxim Gorky’s paper
to print an open letter to the government. He said the decree under which Lenin
and others were subject to arrest applied with equal force to himself. We’ll
see the result in the sequel.
Week of July 26 – July 13, 1917: The State
Duma is Heard From. At about this time, the Provisional Committee of the
State Duma passes a resolution denouncing the “Government of Salvation.” The
State Duma was an institutional relic of tsarism; though it had been
democratically elected, it had no official role in the dual government.
Nevertheless the resolution was enough to bring the cabinet down. All the
ministers handed in their portfolios to Kerensky, who now became the sole focal
point of the government.
Kerensky
apparently suffered the ministers to continue in their posts for the time
being, but took advantage of the situation to negotiate with the Cadets for the
formation of a new governing coalition. The Cadets, guided by Miliukov, laid
down four conditions in their opening position:
·
Ministers responsible only “to their own
conscience”
·
Unity with the Entente
·
Discipline in the armies
·
Social reforms to be decided by the Constituent
Assembly, that is, only after it had been convened
While this was
going on, the right-socialist Ministers Tseretilli, of Interior, and
Peshekhonov, of Food Supply, took action, or at any rate made pronouncements,
designed to protect landlords from the peasants who wanted their lands.
Chernov, the Social Revolutionary Minister of Agriculture, resigned when
accusations of German contacts shifted to him.
July 29 – July 16, 1917: Kerensky to the
Front. Kerensky, now Prime Minister as well as War Minister, returns to the
front to confer with his generals. Commander-in-Chief General Brussilov
reported the “complete failure” of the offensive. On the bright side, some
90,000 replacements were expected at the front once the militant formations of
the Petrograd garrison were disbanded.
Former
Commander-in-Chief Alexiev wanted to abolish the soldiers’ committees elected
by enlisted troops (to the exclusion of officers) at the company and regimental
levels. These committees had made important contributions representing the
peasants (most enlisted men in the Russian armies came from the peasantry) in
the soviets. In this connection, Brussilov, oddly, claimed that officers are
“real proletarians.”
General Kornilov,
a Cossack by birth, was not present, as the German advance against his command
on the Southwestern Front continued. But before returning to Petrograd, Prime
Minister Kerensky sacked General Brussilov and appointed General Kornilov
commander-in-chief. Kornilov put conditions on his acceptance of the
appointment:
·
Responsibility only to “his own conscience and
the people”
·
Power to appoint senior commanders
·
Restoration of the death penalty in the rear. It
had already been restored “at the front,” over soldiers in direct contact with
the enemy.
The condition
about responsibility troubled Kerensky; it made no mention of responsibility to
the government. Finding he couldn’t fire Kornilov, Kerensky extracted an oral
statement to the effect that by “the people,” the general meant the
“Provisional Government.”
July 31 – July 18, 1917: Cadet Demands.
Prime Minister Kerensky accedes to the conditions
the Cadets imposed on their participation in a new coalition government. But
then the Cadets made a new one: The government’s declaration of July 21 – July
8 (“democratic commonplaces” according to Trotsky) was unacceptable to them,
and they walked away from the negotiation.
Also on this day,
the socialist-majority Provisional Government issued a decree dissolving the
Finnish Seim (i.e., their parliament), in which left-socialists dominated. They
also issued a threat to punish railroad workers for irregularities in the
operation of the railroads. Further, to commemorate the third anniversary of
the start of the war, the ministers sent a nice note to Russia’s allies in the
Entente, mentioning how the government had just put down an insurrection caused
by German intrigues. All these actions revealed the weakness of the
right-socialist Compromisers in the government during a time when the counter-revolution
was gaining strength.
August 3 – July 21, 1917: Kerensky Resigns.
Aware that he occupied an “indispensable” position between the
right-socialist Compromisers and the bourgeois-liberal Cadets, but impatient
with the negotiations, Kerensky resigns as Prime Minister and leaves Petrograd.
For the second time, the right-socialist ministers remaining in the government
turned in their portfolios. They hoped
Kerensky would agree, if given unlimited discretion, to return as Prime
Minister. The Cadets felt they needed Kerensky too, and proved to be agreeable
to this solution.
August 6 – July 24, 1917: Second Coalition
Formed. After an all-night debate, the Central Executive Committee of the
Soviets agrees to give Kerensky “unconditional and unlimited” powers. For their
part, the Cadets agreed they too would join the government. Kerensky used the
powers thus granted to appoint a ministry, the Second Coalition Government, to
suit himself alone and without further negotiation.
Though the
majority of ministers were Menshevik or Social Revolutionary, the ministry was
dominated by Kerensky and his bourgeois friends. Chernov, the Social
Revolutionary who had resigned a few days earlier after being accused of
contacts with the Germans, was reappointed Minister of Agriculture.
One of Kerensky’s
first acts was to arrest Trotsky and Lunacharsky. Trotsky had publicly
declared this was the logical thing for the Provisional Government to do
(with respect to himself), as he was as “implacable an enemy” to the government
as Lenin or the other Bolsheviks who had been indicted after the July Days.
August 8 – July 26, 1917: Sixth Congress of
the Bolshevik Party Convenes. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party assembles its Sixth Congress in
Petrograd “semi-legally,” as Trotsky says. The Central Committee elected
by this Congress later voted for the armed insurrection now known as the
October Revolution.
About the first
thing the Congress did was pass unanimously a resolution that Lenin and the
other Bolsheviks who had been indicted should not turn themselves in. Stalin
had argued they should, but only “If,
however, power is wielded by an authority which can safeguard our comrades
against violence and is fair-dealing at least to some extent ....” But no-one
believed these conditions would ever be met. Lenin himself was still in hiding,
so the Congress named him “honorary” chairman instead.
The report on party organization revealed
membership had tripled, to 240,000, in the previous three months.
The main business of the Congress was to rethink
the party’s program in light of the July Days and other recent events. For
example, since the Compromisers had led the Petrograd Soviet into complicity
with the counter-revolutionary tendencies of the Kerensky ministry, the
Bolsheviks dropped the slogan “All Power to the Soviets!” The Congress also
adopted a resolution identifying the conditions under which an insurrection
would be the correct response. Lenin’s underground writings, and communications
through a secret liaison, usually Stalin, contributed
to the result.
The Inter-District Organization of United
Social-Democrats or Mezhraiontsy
(sometimes translated “Interdistrictites,” though I have been calling them
“Trotskyites” after their most prominent member) joined the Bolshevik party
while the Congress sat. The Mezhraiontsy
had at last dropped their project of union between the Bolsheviks and the
Mensheviks; the latter were now deeply involved with the Compromisers. Among
the prominent social democrats who then became Bolsheviks were (the
links lead to Wikipedia) Leon Trotsky, Adolf Joffe, Anatoly
Lunacharsky, Moisei Uritsky, David Riazanov, V. Volodarsky, Lev Karakhan, Dmitry Manuilsky, and Sergey Ezhov (Tsederbaum).
Early August (old style) also saw the convocation
of the bourgeois-aligned Congress and Trade and Industry and Congress of
Provincial Commissars. The latter consisted mainly of Cadets, while the opening
speaker at the former happened indiscreetly to mention the “bony hand of
hunger” in a tirade against taxes on commerce. As this was a not very thinly
veiled threat of factory lock-outs, Trotsky says, the phrase “entered...into
the political dictionary of the revolution,” and eventually “cost the
capitalists dear.”
August 9 – July 27, 1917: Bolshevik Influence. Volodarsky reports to the Bolshevik Congress that
the party has “colossal…unlimited influence” in the factories. As the power of
the Central Executive Committee atrophied under the Compromisers, this was to
become a valuable resource in the October Revolution.
Early August – End of July, 1917: State Conference Hatched. At about the end of July (old style), the
Provisional Government announces it will hold a State Conference in Moscow some
two weeks hence. As we’ll see, the event was managed to suit Kerensky’s
theatrical sense of politics and his role in it.
Mid-August – Early August, 1917: The State and Revolution. Lenin drafts the preface to The State and Revolution while in exile in Finland. It seems as
though someone sent him the manuscript – he had left it behind in Switzerland
the previous March – via Stockholm. When he got it in July, he wrote Kamenev: “Entre nous. If they bump me off, I ask
you to publish my little note-book….” It was not published until after the October
Revolution.
Proscription and exile gave him a chance to
substantially complete the book. It was meant to help the proletariat
understand its coming role in the revolutionary state, leading to the withering
away of the state entirely.
August 16 – August 3, 1917. The Congress
Elects the Central Committee. Last on the agenda of the Sixth Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. is the election of the party’s Central Committee. Lenin was made
chairman; Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev were members. Two former Mezhraiontsys
also sat on the committee, Trotsky for foreign affairs and Uritsky for interior
affairs.
Only one vote out of 134 was cast against Lenin. This (seemingly the
same) individual was joined by one or two others in voting against Zinoviev,
Kamenev, and Trotsky.
August 17 – August 4, 1917: The Narrow
Composition. The “narrow composition” selected by the Bolshevik Central
Committee takes office. It was apparently an executive committee that included
only those members of the Central Committee who were not in hiding (Lenin,
Zinoviev) or in prison (Trotsky). It was dissolved October 23 -October 10
before the October Revolution began.
August 19 – August 6, 1917: The
Counter-Revolution Mobilizes. The Union of the Twelve Cossack Armies passes
a resolution against removing Kornilov from command. The League of Cavaliers of
St. George passed a similar resolution during this time, one that included the
threat of union with the Cossacks.
On the same day a
letter appeared in the party paper of the Social Revolutionaries detailing the
insults and abuses, including arbitrary executions, of the junkers (army
officers drawn from the rural aristocracy and military preparatory academies)
at and behind the front. All three incidents reflect the mobilization of the
military forces of the counter-revolution.
Meanwhile the
narrow composition of the Bolshevik Central Committee selected the party’s
Secretariat from its membership. And before the Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets, Kamenev advocated attendance at the Stockholm Conference. But the
previous April, considering it an instrument of imperialism and not internationalism, the Bolshevik
party conference had voted against participation. Though Kamenev stated he was
speaking only for himself, this was nevertheless considered a breach of party
discipline. Lenin’s
response came from exile in Finland about ten days later, strongly
insisting that Kamenev had no right to speak for himself and in contradiction
to the party’s democratically determined position.
August 20 – August 7, 1917: Black Hundreds
Freed. The Provisional Government frees members of the Black Hundreds,
right-wing nationalist and tsarist (not to mention anti-Semitic) organizations
outlawed by the February Revolution. These organizations, established during
the Revolution of 1905 for the support of the tsar, had since been in decline.
Releasing them constituted another step towards mobilizing the forces of the
counter-revolution.
At about this
time, the government postponed the convocation of the promised Constituent
Assembly – again – this time
to November 28 (old style). They also sent the tsar and his family to Tobolsk
in the Urals, well out of the way of a tsarist counter-revolution.
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