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 troops, excluding 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.”
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