Kornilov’s Insurrection Collapses

 

One hundred years ago today, plus three, General’s Kornilov’s attempt at insurrection had fallen completely apart. His soldiers had no stomach for an attack on the revolutionary soldiers  and workers in the capital, and the general in direct command of those troops had shot himself dead after an interview with Prime Minister Kerensky. Soon Kornilov himself would be locked up.

 Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

Kornilov Stalls

 

One hundred years ago today, plus three, only two days after it had started, General Kornilov’s advance on the capital began to peter out. Then socialist agitators went to work – they even brought some of the Cossacks over to the revolution!

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

Kornilov Advances

 

One hundred years ago yesterday, plus three, General Kornilov’s troops continued their advance on the capital. Or tried to. They wanted to go by rail, but the railroads were controlled by workers sympathetic to the socialist revolution. Soon things were not going smoothly at all.

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

Kornilov’s Manifesto

 

One hundred years ago today, plus three, plus two days (September 9, new style), General Kornilov issued a manifesto of accusations against the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks that was the signal for a counter-revolutionary insurrection. Then, contrary to his fellow plotter Prime Minister Kerensky’s wishes, he ordered troops he had previously placed in position to move towards Petrograd.

 Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

A Plot Hatched

One hundred years ago today, plus three, Kerensky’s emissary to Kornilov returned from headquarters to Petrograd with an agreed upon scheme for overthrowing the Provisional Government under the guise of suppressing the Bolsheviks. The only open question: who was double-crossing whom.

 

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

Fall of Riga

One hundred years ago today, plus three, while the commander-in-chief General Kornilov was busy arranging his forces to pose a threat to the coalition government – and revolution – in Petrograd, a German counterattack took Riga, the capital of Latvia.

 Actually this suited the general perfectly well. Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

Kornilov Makes a Move

One hundred years ago today, plus three, General Lavr Kornilov, recently made commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces facing the Germans and Austrians, ordered movements apparently unconnected with the conduct of that war. He put Cossack cavalry nearer to Petrograd on the north and south; the southern force was joined by a division of mountain troops from the Caucasus.

 

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Kornilov’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

 

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.

 

Kornilov’s Insurrection

One hundred years ago today, plus two, Kerensky’s choice for overall command in the war against Germany and her allies, General Kornilov, turned his forces instead in the direction of Petrograd. His manifesto, also issued that day, made it sound as if, not the Bolsheviks, but the Provisional Government itself was the target of the move.

Of course, Kerensky, head of that government, did not think particularly well of Kornilov’s plans. Read about it here.

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

Kerensky’s Government

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 4^th 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 11^th 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.

State Conference in Moscow

Week Before August 25 – August 12, 1917: Plans for a General Strike. To forestall a Bolshevik plan to denounce the State Conference as counter-revolutionary and then walk out, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets passes a resolution effectively limiting the party’s access to the floor. So the Bolsheviks turned in their credentials.

Then the Moscow Soviet voted, pretty narrowly, against a calling a general strike to welcome the conference delegates. The Bolsheviks took counsel with Menshevik and Social Revolutionary workers in the soviet who had voted for the strike, and with leaders of the trade unions. Together they decided upon a one-day protest strike, in preference to a demonstration that might have made targets of the marchers as during the July Days in Petrograd.

Another secret committee consisting of two Bolsheviks, two Mensheviks, and two Social Revolutionaries made arrangements to prevent the Cavaliers of St. George, with their allies among officers and junkers, from forming a cordon along the line of Kornilov’s expected procession through the city.

Meanwhile, Kornilov sent four divisions of cavalry towards Petrograd, possibly at Kerensky’s request, and a regiment of Cossacks to Moscow. This was a stratagem of counter-revolution rather than of war against Germany.

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 writes 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 talk about.

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. 

August 26 – August 13, 1917: State Conference in Recess. Apparently, August 13 fell on a Sunday in the old style calendar for 1917 in Russia. So the State Conference went into recess for the day.

Kornilov took a few moments to confide in Miliukov that he felt the (expected) fall of Riga to the Germans would be too great an “opportunity” to pass up. As we will see, he’d already set the date for his insurrection. He let Miliukov know about that too.

August 27 – August 14, 1917: State Conference Concludes. As the second and final session of the State Conference in Moscow begins, the left applauds Prime Minister Kerensky when he enters, and the right applauds General Kornilov. Then Kerensky proposed an ovation for the army, and everyone joined in.

When Kornilov was invited to speak, the delegates rose in thunderous applause. All, that is, except the delegates of the soldiery. A shouting match ensued; Kerensky called for order. Kornilov’s speech blamed the legislation of the Provisional Government for reducing the army to a “crazy mob.” He warned the conference that if Riga (in Latvia, then threatened by the Germans) were taken, was the “road to Petrograd is open.” The Bolshevik paper in Moscow commented that as defeat at Tarnopol “made Kornilov commander-in-chief, the surrender of Riga might make him dictator.”

After a speech by an archbishop of the Church Council condemning the government for unbelief, General Kaledin, representing the Cossack armies, spoke. He endorsed Kornilov’s policies for prosecution of the war: militarizing the railroads and factories, permitting death penalty in the rear, and putting the Petrograd garrison under Kornilov’s command. And he added another one: abolish the soldiers’ committees formed at the company and regimental levels after the February Revolution. The right liked this a lot better than the left.

The left spoke next, in the person of Cheidze, president of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets. He defended the soldiers’ committees and the soviets, but spoke against forcible expropriation of lands by the peasantry. Neither did the next speaker, representing the Executive Committee of the peasants’ soviet, make any contribution to the resolution of the agrarian question. Now the contradictions between left and right had become palpable, and it was becoming possible to perceive the paralysis of the Provisional Government in which these irreconcilable differences were joined.

Proving that the device of putting people in the audience to serve as objects of rhetoric and applause is not new, the prisoners of Schlusselburg were announced. These survivors of the 1905 revolution were thus honored by, among others, their formerly tsarist jailors, now turned bourgeois liberal: Generals Alexiev, Kornilov, Kaledin; the archbishop; Rodzianko and Guchov, next to speak.

Guchov, the Provisional Government’s first war minister, had to admit the government was “the shadow of a power.” Rodzianko, president of the bourgeois-dominated State Duma, recommended that body, on account of its constitutional legitimacy, as a guide to the Provisional Government. This drew laughter from the left, as the legitimacy of the Duma had evaporated when its creator, the tsar, had been deposed.

Then Kerensky read a telegram from President Wilson, who preferred the result of the February Revolution to tsarism, saying the American and Russian governments “are pursuing no selfish aims” in the war.

The agenda swung back towards the left. Tseretilli defended the role of the soviets and the soldiers’ committees in the revolution.

Then back to the right. Miliukov recounted what he considered the “mistakes of the revolutionary democracy,” all of which, it just so happens, had led to the resignations of Cadet ministers. Among the “capitulations” he described were allowing the solders’ committees to be formed, and failing to suppress seizures of land by the peasants. This latter comment was directed at the Minister of Agriculture, Chernov.

The Menshevik Tseretilli spoke again, promising even harsher measures against the Bolsheviks.

After that the pendulum swung right to left and back ceaselessly. General Alexiev, formerly the tsar’s commander-in-chief, called for discipline in the army. He was answered by left-leaning officers who defended Kerensky. Officers crippled by the war speak for the right; crippled enlisted men for the left. The head of the railroad workers’ union spoke against the counter-revolution, and was answered by a magnate of the industry and a bank economist. Trotsky lists many more such pairings.

The conference was reaching the bottom of Kerensky’s agenda. An anarchist, oddly, received the applause of the right. Plekhanov, the oldest of the first Russian Marxists still living, was applauded from both sides. He mentioned, a little prematurely, the “unhappy memory of Lenin.”

That evening a representative of the Union of Horse Breeders (all large landowners, of course) spoke against land reform and in favor of the war. Then, to clamorous applause, Tseretilli shook hands with a railroad magnate. Even Miliukov thought this was insincere, but necessary.

As the end approached, a young Cossack officer pointed out that “the working Cossacks were not with Kaledin,” the Cossack general who had spoken earlier in the day. The right did not like this; an officer called out, “German marks!” This caused an explosion, nearly a fight. But it showed that the split in Russian society so plain at the conference extended even to the Cossack armies.

At last, Kerensky took the floor again. As the man in the middle between left and right, he urged “better understanding” and “better respect.” Then he relapsed into a self-absorbed melodrama reminiscent of Hitler’s maxim, the strong man is strongest when alone, but without the strength. A passage from Miliukov quoted by Trotsky describes the speech; it left “the hall…stupefied, and this time both halves of it.”

August 29 – August 16, 1917: Leftward Movement. A conference of the Social Revolutionary party demands that the League of Officers be expelled from Kornilov’s military headquarters at Moghiliev.

The damage the State Conference caused to Kerensky’s government, by revealing deep differences in Russian society that it was too paralyzed even to patch over, was becoming evident. The masses, Trotsky says, were instead moving to the left.

Kornilov’s Insurrection

August 30 – August 17, 1917: Kornilov’s Demands. Prime Minister Kerensky orders Commissar Savinkov to draft a law for putting General Kornilov’s demands into effect. The demands were already on the record of the State Conference in Moscow:

·         Militarizing the railroads and factories

·         Permitting the death penalty in the rear

·         Putting the Petrograd garrison under Kornilov’s command

·         Abolishing the soldiers’ committees

August 31 – August 18, 1917: Against the Death Penalty. The Petrograd Soviet demands abolition of the death penalty by a vote of 900 to 4. The four voting against the resolution were among the right-socialists most closely tied to the Compromisers and the Provisional Government: Tseretilli, Cheidze, Dan, and Lieber.

September 1 – August 19, 1917: Breach in the Front. The Germans take the offensive, breaching the Russian lines of the Northern Front at Ikskul. (This must have been on the road to Riga, the capital of Latvia, but it appears the place no longer exists.)

Kornilov took this occasion to again demand personal control of the Petrograd garrison.

September 2 – August 20, 1917: Kornilov Orders Movements. A corps of cavalry Kornilov had positioned on the railroad net south of Petrograd before the State Conference edges nearer the capital. A formation of mountaineers from the Caucasus, called the Savage Division because, it was said, they didn’t care whom they killed, had joined them.

Another cavalry division, of Cossacks, was in place north of Petrograd, near the Finnish frontier.

An election to the city Duma of Petrograd took place on this day. The Social Revolutionaries polled 200,000 votes, some 375,000 fewer than in the previous election. The Cadets won 50,000 votes and the Mensheviks 23,000. In a sign of increasing strength, the Bolsheviks matched the 200,000 vote total of the Social Revolutionaries.

Meanwhile Zinoviev wrote in Pravda against insurrection, citing the example of the Paris Commune of 1871. Stalin, editor of Pravda, printed the article without comment or emendation. Lenin responded two weeks later, explaining the mistakes of the Commune and what the Russian Revolution would have to do differently.

September 3 – August 21, 1917: Riga Falls. German troops march into Riga, having pushed aside the mostly unprepared 12^th Army. The army’s commander defended the performance of his troops, saying the “most thoroughly propagandized” formations fought the hardest. These included a brigade of Latvian sharpshooters who counterattacked under red banners, and the marines of the Baltic Fleet. Bolshevik influence predominated in these formations; moreover, they were fighting to defend their national capital and home port.

But if the 12^th Army was as a whole unprepared, this suited General Kornilov’s plans perfectly well. Trotsky observes that the generals of the Northern Front in Latvia were in on Kornilov’s plot, but didn’t have to do anything affirmative, like ordering withdrawals or conspiring with the Germans, to ensure that Riga would fall. They could just await the expected result.

Nevertheless the bourgeois papers blamed the peasant infantry.

Meanwhile Kornilov assembled the high command at headquarters in Moghiliev and let some of them in on his plot. Among other measures then taken, the cavalry were given grenades, thought to be an effective weapon against urban crowds and buildings.

On the same day, the Provisional Government placed two Romanov grand dukes under house arrest. They needn’t have bothered, Trotsky says, as the counter-revolution had no interest in restoring the monarchy, and the Bolsheviks were not fooled by the gesture.

September 4 – August 22, 1917: Kerensky’s Plotter. Prime Minister Kerensky sends the adventurer Savinkov to General Kornilov’s headquarters at Moghiliev to demand that cavalry be placed at the government’s disposal. Of course a corps was already stationed on the railroad net south of Petrograd.

But there was now a quid pro quo for the demand: the proposed law acceding to Kornilov’s political demands for the conduct of the war. (Savinkov had been tasked with drafting it.) This in turn was part of the rationale for the request for troops: the law was among a number of provocations the plotters thought would bring the Bolsheviks into the streets. Then the cavalry would come in, impose martial law, and, for good measure, do away with the soviets.

Trotsky marshals the evidence against Kerensky (including minutes of the headquarters meetings with Savinkov kept by the general staff), and chronicles Kerensky’s actions as the insurrection approached. In fact, Kerensky expected that he, not Kornilov, would be made dictator when the insurrection had finished off the soviets, and Kerensky’s own Provisional Government along with them.

Meanwhile Kornilov took action to discredit the soldiery, issuing orders to shoot “deserters” and requiring commanders to submit lists of Bolshevik officers in their commands.

The soldiers and the officers of the Rumanian Front and Black Sea Fleet protested these kinds of imputations. Izvestia defended the soldiers, and editorialized about the counter-revolutionary clique in the army. A Menshevik conference, without debate, called for abolition of the death penalty. Even Tseretilli felt compelled to hold his silence.

September 5 – August 23, 1917: Kerensky Chimes In. Kerensky offers his contribution to the controversy over the fall of Riga, saying the soldiers were “concealing their cowardice under idealistic slogans.” It might have seemed odd for Kerensky to so harshly criticize troops that might have to defend his government against an insurrection by counter-revolutionary elements in the army, but then again, he was already part of Kornilov’s plot.

The Russian ambassador telegraphed that French President Poincare and his Foreign Minister had many questions about Kornilov at a recent Paris reception. So word of the plot was apparently getting out.

September 6 – August 24, 1917: Demand for Democracy. Central Executive Committee of the Soviets calls for an end to “counter-revolutionary methods” and a transition to democracy. Though details on both steps seem to have been lacking, Trotsky observes, “This was a new language.” It put pressure on Kerensky from the left.

September 7 – August 25, 1917: The Plot is Hatched. Commissar Savinkov returns to Petrograd with news of his success. The agreed plan was to publish the law as Kornilov demanded, await the immediately expected Bolshevik demonstration, and then send in the cavalry to put down the demonstrators and establish martial law. Under martial law, of course, anything could happen, including an emergency dictatorship under (one of) the plotters.

Of course, the Social Revolutionary resolution calling for headquarters to expel members of the League of Officers was ignored. The League was part of the plot; on the appointed day, they were to raise an armed fifth column in the streets of Petrograd.

The date was set for August 27 (September 9, new style), the six-month anniversary of the February Revolution.

In another provocation, the Bolshevik paper Proletarian was suppressed.

Sometime between September 7-8 – August 25-26, 1917: Double-Crossings. 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 26^th, September 8, new style), Kornilov’s camp thought the success of their plot was at hand.

September 8 – August 26, 1917: The Price of Grain. The Provisional Government doubles the price of grain. This served the bourgeois landowners better than it served the workers. The Petrograd Soviet protested, but the provocation did not, as the plotters of the insurrection must have hoped, bring the Bolshevik masses into the streets. Instead the Central Committee warned against “provocational agitation,” and the Bolsheviks, with their allies in the labor unions and factory committees, all announced that they were not calling for a demonstration.

The Cadet ministers took this opportunity to resign the Provisional Government, as Miliukov says, “without prejudicing…their future participation.” Knowing what was afoot, they preferred to await events. Not knowing, but very suspicious, the Compromiser ministers also sat on the sidelines for the day. The government thus effectively ceased to exist, leaving Kerensky with whatever powers it formerly possessed.

Kerensky later told the story that Savinkov came to him on the night of the 26^th (September 8, new style) and offered to submit himself to arrest for his role in the Kornilov conspiracy. Whether that part of the story is true or not, Kerensky did make him governor-general of Petersburg instead. Thus, Trotsky observes, Kerensky and Savinkov were jointly responsible both for carrying out and for preventing the conspiracy.

Kerensky did not promulgate the decree acceding to Kornilov’s demands, neither on this day, as originally planned, nor afterwards.

September 9 – August 27, 1917: Kornilov’s Insurrection. On the day set for the movement on Petrograd to begin, Prime Minister Kerensky telegraphs General Kornilov, ordering him to present himself at the capital. Instead Kornilov issued a manifesto declaring that “the Provisional Government, under pressure from the Bolshevik majority in the Soviets, is acting in full accord with the plans of the German general staff,” which, he added, included an advance up the coastline from Riga. So he, Kornilov, was going to do something to save the Provisional Government from itself. At least he was acting consistently with the plans of the conspiracy – though of course the “Bolshevik majority” did not exist and though, even on the six-month anniversary of the February Revolution, the streets of Petrograd were quiet.

Next Kerensky ordered Kornilov to hold up the movements by rail of the Savage Division and cavalry corps towards Petrograd, but Kornilov refused. Kerensky removed him from command. This likewise had no effect on the tendency of events. Next Kerensky issued an order to the Petrograd garrison, saying Kornilov had treacherously removed troops from the front and sent them against the capital. Kornilov answered by saying the traitors were already there, in Petrograd.

There had been nothing about Kornilov’s movements in the morning papers, but word of his manifesto and break with Kerensky spread through the capital. By evening, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets had formed its Committee of Struggle Against the Counter-Revolution. The committee drew its membership from all three socialist parties including the Bolsheviks, from trade unions, and from the Petrograd soviets generally.

The Mensheviks now began to advocate a program considerably to the left of where they stood before: for declaring a republic, for dissolving the State Duma, and for agrarian reform. The Committee also agreed the cabinet of the Provisional Government should continue, with socialists replacing the resigned Cadets.

The Bolsheviks declared themselves and the Red Guards ready to resist Kornilov’s attempt. Through their Military Organization, they had already issued instructions for the revolutionary troops of the garrison to remain at arms, but not to demonstrate.

On the other side, only the command of the Southwestern Front supported Kornilov. Accordingly, they smashed the printing presses of organizations thought to be loyal to the government.

Overnight, September 9-10 – August 27-28, 1917: A Proposal from the Soviet. The joint Central Executive Committee of the Soviets debates its response to the situation created by General Kornilov’s insurrection well into the morning hours. After midnight, the Soviet got word that Kerensky would not agree to democratic reforms. He insisted on the notion of a directory, that is, a reconcentration of power in a smaller cabinet with himself at the head.

Tseretilli nevertheless went from the Smolny Institute to the Winter Palace to submit the Soviet’s proposal. When Kerensky refused it, he returned to Smolny, arriving at about 7:30 a.m. on the 28^th (September 10, new style). Wearied, the Soviet was ready to concede Kerensky’s plan for a directory.

Kornilov’s Defeat

September 10 – August 28, 1917: Kornilov Advances. Petrograd receives news about the movement in its direction of General Kornilov’s forces. Reportedly: at 12:30 p.m., General Krymov reached Luga, 87 miles from the capital; at 2:30 p.m., trains loaded with Kornilov’s troops were passing through Oredezh station; at 3:00 p.m., Luga’s garrison surrendered; at 6:00 p.m., troops were advancing past Narva and approaching Gatchina, 28 miles from the capital.

The stock markets actually went up!

Little did the bourgeoisie know, this is what was really happening: Railroad workers were tearing up the tracks on the insurrection’s line of march. They isolated Moghiliev, Kornilov’s headquarters, from the rest of the railroad net. They put the railroad bridges under guard. Rail dispatchers and engineers were sending parts of Kornilov’s units one way, other parts another way, so that troops got separated from commanders and staff, from their own weapons and supplies, and from each other. Telegraph operators were not only holding up messages, but retransmitting them to the Committee of Defense. Other workers dug trenches – in hours instead of days.

And in Petrograd itself, workers eager to join the Red Guard were arming themselves with 40,000 stand of rifles. The workers of the Putilov factory turned out 100 cannon for defense of the city. The chauffeurs union provided transportation and delivered messages for the Soviet’s Committee of Defense. Clerks of the metal workers union prepared and distributed the necessary paperwork. The printers union decided, favorably to the interests of the Soviet, what would go into print. Counter-revolutionary elements were put under arrest.

Governor-general Savinkov had little or nothing to do with the organization of the defense.

Significantly, the Menshevik Dan, on behalf of the Petrograd Soviet, decreed that units of the Petrograd garrison should not carry out any movements unless orders were countersigned by the Committee of Defense. This was the same tactic the Soviet had employed during the April Days. It effectively deprived Kerensky of command over the city’s troops. Not only did he not control resistance to Kornilov on behalf of the Provisional Government, he did not have forces to support his own ambitions as against both Kornilov and the Provisional Government.

I might observe, without revealing too much too soon, that this was all good practice for the October Revolution.

September 10 – August 28, 1917: Kerensky Negotiates. Kerensky summons Commissar Savinkov to the Winter Palace. When he arrived at about 4:00 a.m., General Alexiev and Foreign Minister Tereshchenko were already there. They began talking as if there had been some kind of misunderstanding between Kerensky and Kornilov, thinking to deceive the public with this explanation. Kerensky asked the press not to print anything about his rift with Kornilov, but it was already too late.

The cruiser Aurora sailed to the Winter Palace from Kronstadt that day at about noon. The revolutionary sailors were thus on guard, whether over or for Kerensky was still to be determined.

Towards evening, Miliukov arrived at the palace and offered to mediate between Kerensky and Kornilov. Kerensky seems to have welcomed this, accepting Miliukov’s argument that the balance of power then lay with Kornilov. Miliukov did not disclose that he and his friends on the bourgeois right had Alexiev in mind to succeed Kerensky.

Later still, word came to the palace that Russia’s allies in the Entente were willing, “in the interests of humanity,” to bridge the difficulties between Kornilov and Kerensky. British Ambassador Buchanan had given Foreign Minister Tereshchenko a note to this effect.

Kerensky called the “retired” Cadet ministers to the palace. But before they could reach any decisions, alarming (but false) news that the enemy was nearing the capital was received. So they began to talk again about forming a directory with Alexiev in it. Miliukov’s plan was about to bear fruit.

Then there came a knock at the door. It was Tseretilli, returned from the Soviet to announce its demands. There would be no negotiations with Kornilov; instead the Committee of Defense would continue the struggle. 

Kerensky and his cohorts had no answer for this, no means of compelling the Soviet to abandon its decision. The meeting broke up, the Cadet ministers having resigned the cabinet for good this time. After everyone took his leave, Kerensky spent the night in nearly “complete solitude,” no longer, presumably, singing opera.

Meanwhile Krymov was actually withdrawing from Luga on the evening of the 28^th (September 10, new style). The Committee of Defense took control of the Southwestern Front through the soldiers committees. The Rumanian, Western, and Caucasian Fronts telegraphed the Winter Palace in support of the revolution and against Kornilov. The Northern Front, which Kornilov had suborned, got a new commander who later volunteered for the Red Army.

Kaledin, the Cossack general and political leader, was in the Don steppes, riding around the countryside and testing the mood of the people. Effectively neutral, he was emphatically not forming another front against the Provisional Government. Likewise, the fifth column in Petrograd promised by the League of Officers never showed itself. The provocateurs who were supposed to have drawn the Bolsheviks into the streets left for Finland, taking their allotment of money – what they hadn’t already spent on parties – with them.

Overnight, September 10-11 – August 28-29, 1917: The Savage Division Stalls. The Savage Division enters the battle unprepared. Some of its arms were still well down the railroad line, supposedly expected at Pskov. Overnight, the division came to a halt.

Two days later, the tracks leading to Pskov had been cut. In the result, the division never engaged troops supporting the Provisional Government at all.

September 11 – August, 29, 1917: Kornilov’s Insurrection Stalls. From headquarters in Moghiliev, General Kornilov orders General Krymov, in command of the advance on Petrograd, to concentrate his troops. But this was impossible; Krymov didn’t know where his troops were. The railroad workers had sent them hither and yon on eight different rail lines. Meanwhile, Kerensky telegraphed Krymov telling him Petrograd was quiet, his troops were not needed.

The capital received reports of a battle at Antropshio Station. Maybe this was in fact a reconnaissance in force that Krymov had actually ordered; it retired without engaging revolutionary troops.

The revolutionary Kronstadt sailors docked at Petrograd that morning, adding their numbers to those of the garrison and the armed workers. The sailors had replaced Kornilovist officers with men of their own choosing. Their representatives visited Trotsky in prison, but did not free him. Even though Kerensky had been refusing continuous requests of the Central Executive Committee to free the political prisoners taken after the July Days, Trotsky advised the sailors not to arrest the members of the Provisional Government – yet.

In Vyborg (the city near the Finnish frontier, not the workers’ district near Petrograd), the commanding officer had withheld news of the insurrection from his troops. When they found out, they shot him. Bolshevik-leaning units from the Vyborg garrison were also on the march to Petrograd. In the Baltic Fleet, they shot a number of officers who refused to take oaths of allegiance to the revolution. At Helsinki, the Soviet and fleet brought over the Cossacks of the garrison to the defense of the revolution.

When the railroad workers refused to move the trains at Luga, the garrison there, loyal to the revolution (and not having surrendered, as reported in Petrograd the day before), began to fraternize with Kornilov’s troops stranded there. Here too, even the Cossacks came under the influence of the Bolshevik agitators among the revolutionary soldiery.

Neither was the Savage Division immune. Their officers wanted to arrest the delegation of Moslems the Bolsheviks sent to negotiate, but the soldiers refused this order as lacking hospitality to their co-religionists. In the result, the soldiers set up a red banner bearing the words “Land and Freedom” over a staff car.

Kornilov’s troop concentration near Pskov had also evaporated.

September 12 – August 30, 1917: The Insurrection Collapses. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets announces the “complete demoralization” of the forces in Kornilov’s insurrection. General Krymov presented himself to Kerensky at the Winter Palace and was treated to a theatrical speech. He shot himself dead on the way back to the War Ministery.

General Krasnov, the commander of Kornilov’s cavalry advance, saw the same thing other Kornilovist officers had been seeing: animated agitators among his troops. These particular troops began to arrest their officers and put themselves under soldiers committees they themselves had elected. Going further, they formed a soviet and sent a delegation to the Provisional Government.

The Kronstadt sailors were also making their views felt. They sent a delegation to the Central Executive demanding representation there, but had to be satisfied with four non-voting seats.

The Bolsheviks in Finland went even further, assuming governmental functions that, Trotsky says, anticipated the October Revolution itself.

Meanwhile Kerensky dismissed Governor-general Savinkov and replaced him with another individual, who himself was dismissed three days later.

September 13 – August 31, 1917: Change in Command, etc. Prime Minister Kerensky appoints himself commander-in-chief in preference to General Kornilov. General Alexiev was made chief of staff. Kornilov asked for terms; meanwhile, said Kerensky, his orders as against the Germans should be obeyed.

Alexiev was sent to headquarters at Moghiliev. The Compromisers in the Soviet wanted Kornilov’s head; the Moscow Church Council was against it as not Christian. Kerensky placed Kornilov and a few other headquarters conspirators under house arrest instead.

Meanwhile Alexiev was trying to persuade the big bourgeoisie to supply stipends for the conspirators, under the explicit threat that Kornilov was in a position to reveal their conspiratorial roles. For essentially the same reason, Miliukov dropped out of sight; his party, the Cadets, officially explained that he had “gone to the Crimea for a rest.”

On the same day, Kerensky assembled the Directory he had been planning. He kept Tereshchenko as Foreign Minister, and added a general (who had to be promoted from colonel), an admiral, and a Menshevik.