Kerensky’s State Conference

One hundred years ago today, plus three years, minus a week (that is, on August 25^th, new style), Prime Minister Kerensky stage-managed a “State Conference” in Moscow at which, by alternating speakers from the left and right, he endeavored to depict himself as the indispensable man in the middle, the only one capable of governing amid the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary tendencies of the time. One of the speakers from the right, General Kornilov, would soon make his own play for control of those tendencies.

 Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on the State Conference here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

Kerensky’s State Conference

One hundred years ago yesterday, plus two, Prime Minister Kerensky convened a state conference in Moscow. It was political theater, in which he played the role of the indispensable man between the bourgeois Cadets on the right and the (uninvited) Bolsheviks on the left. Read about it here.

Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

October 16 – October 3, 1917: A Moscow Resolution

The Bolshevik Central Committee learns of a resolution of the Moscow Regional Bureau condemning them for irresolution on the question of insurrection. Trotsky says that “beyond a doubt” Lenin was behind the resolution and its “bitter” tone.

The committee left the matter on the table for a time; the result will be seen in the sequel.

After October 10 – September 27, 1917: Northern Regional Conference of Soviets

In another “well calculated blow” (according to Trotsky) in the battle over the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks arrange for a conference of soviets of the northern region. This was a region of Bolshevik strength; the soviets of Petrograd, its suburbs, Moscow, Kronstadt, Helsinki, and Reval would send delegates, to arrive on October 13 (October 26, new style), a week before the declared date for the Congress of Soviets.

September 18 – September 5, 1917: The Bolshevik Resolution in Moscow

The Moscow Soviet votes in favor of a Bolshevik resolution of no confidence in the Provisional Government. The resolution also condemned the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets for its policy favoring coalition with the Cadets in the government. In Moscow, as before in Petrograd, the praesidium of the Soviet therefore resigned.

Bolshevik resolutions of similar import were also passed by regional conferences of soviets in Siberia on this day and in Kiev a few days later. The Baltic Fleet did the same.

A supplementary post follows this one in the chronological order.

August 25 – August 12, 1917: State Conference in Moscow

Stage managed by Prime Minister Kerensky, the State Conference opens in Moscow. Delegates had a little trouble getting there: a protest strike called by the Bolsheviks and their left-socialist allies shut down the railroad stations and tramways. Even the waiters in the restaurants joined the strike, and the city lights went out too. Some 400,000 workers were on strike; one-day strikes took place in Kiev, Kostreva, and Tsaritizn as well.   

Poised at the center of the uneasy compromise between the left and right elements invited to the conference, Kerensky made the first speech at about 4:00 p.m. He warned the left (meaning the Bolsheviks, not in attendance) against insurrection, and he warned the right (explicitly naming Kornilov) against counter-revolution. As self-described “supreme head” of the state, he, Kerensky, would know how to deal with any such threats.

Kerensky defended his war policy without attempting to explain the failure of the June offensive. When he invited the delegates to rise and salute the ambassadors of the Entente, only the Menshevik Martov and a few others remained seated, despite catcalls from the officers’ loge.

Miliukov later wrote in his history of the revolution that despite Kerensky’s efforts to project the power of the office he held, “he evoked only a feeling of pity.”

Other ministers of the Provisional Government then spoke. Among them, the Minister of Industry asked the capitalists to restrain themselves in the matter of profit; the Minister of Finance spoke of his plan to decrease the direct tax on the possessing classes by increasing other indirect taxes. This drew loud cheers from the right. Chernov, the Social Revolutionary Minister of Agriculture, was not permitted to speak. Of course, the Provisional Government had no agrarian policy to speak of.

The dramatic pattern devised by Kerensky for the conference was anticipated by the alternation of left and right speakers who held ministries in the Provisional Government. 

July 19 – July 6, 1917: Bolsheviks Evicted

At 3:00 a.m., elements of the Petrograd garrison loyal to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets take up positions around Bolshevik headquarters. (In an interesting digression, Trotsky explains how the palace of the ballerina Kshesinskaia came to be their headquarters, and how this circumstance became an element of propaganda against the party.) A Social Revolutionary spokesman for the Soviet ordered the occupants to leave. Obligingly, a hundred or more Kronstadt sailors dashed out and made it over the Neva River to the Peter and Paul fortress.

When the troops entered the palace, they found no-one there but a few of the party’s employees. That left the Peter and Paul, and its garrison of soldiers of the Machine Gun regiment, Kronstadters, and Red Guards from Vyborg to be dealt with. The Bolshevik Central Committee sent Stalin to conduct this negotiation; he and his Menshevik comrade were successful. This episode marked the end of the July Days.

Except in the provinces. The spirit of the July Days caught on in Moscow, where, though moderate Bolsheviks carried a vote against insurrection, there were demonstrations on July 19 (July 6, old style). The Riga Soviet adopted the slogan, “All power to the soviets!” on that day, and Ekaterinburg a few days later. There was also a work stoppage in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. Clashes occurred then and in the days that followed in Riga, Nizhni-Novogorod, Kiev, and even Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. But it was not enough to make a proletarian revolution possible that summer.

Meanwhile in Petrograd, the workers went back to the factories. The only people demonstrating in the streets were the soldiers Kerensky had sent from the front. Gunfire and looting continued. Trotsky again states that machine gun fire from “experienced provocateurs” was aimed at the newly arrived troops in an effort to stir them up against the workers. On this occasion, unlike on similar occasions during the February Revolution, officers stood between the soldiers and the workers, who were not permitted to explain that they had not fired the guns.

June 14 – June 1, 1917: Bolshevik Majorities

Workers at a Moscow factory elect a majority Bolshevik factory committee. The party won a plurality of seats on the Moscow Soviet during this time as well, and a large majority at a June conference of factory and shop committees in Petrograd were Bolshevik.

However, elections to the local dumas continued to favor moderate socialists. For example, a June election to the Moscow duma gave 60% of the delegates to the Social Revolutionaries. This reflected the large turnout of petit bourgeoisie in elections such as these.

April 3 – March 21, 1917: Eight-hour Day

The Moscow Soviet promulgates the eight-hour day in the factories of the city.