Chapter V: From Bourgeoisie to Bolsheviki (3)

But the Bolsheviki were meanwhile holding mass meetings among the troops, preaching defeatism and surrender and urging the soldiers not to obey the orders of "bourgeois" officers. The Provisional Government was not blind to the peril of this propaganda, but it dared not attempt to end it by force, conscious that any attempt to do so would provoke revolt which could not be stayed. The Bolsheviki, unable to control the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council, sought in every possible manner to weaken its influence and to discredit it. They conspired to overthrow the Provisional Government. Their plot was to bring about an armed revolt on the 24th of June, when the All-Russian Congress of Soviets would be in session. They planned to arrest the members of the Provisional Government and assume full power. _At the same time, all the soldiers at the front were to be called on to leave the trenches_. On the eve of the date when it was to be executed this plot was divulged. There was treachery within their own ranks. The Bolshevik leaders humbly apologized and promised to abandon their plans. Under other conditions the Provisional Government might have refused to be satisfied with apologies, might have adopted far sterner measures, but it was face to face with the bitter fact that the nation was drunk with the strong wine of freedom. The time had not yet arrived when the masses could be expected to recognize the distinction between liberty within the law and the license that leads always to tyranny. It takes time and experience of freedom to teach the stern lesson that, as Rousseau has it, freedom comes by way of self-imposed compulsions to be free.

The offensive which Kerensky had urged and planned began on July 1st and its initial success was encouraging. It seemed as though the miracle of the restoration of the Russian army had been achieved, despite everything. Here was an army whose killed and dead already amounted to more than three million men,[20] an army which had suffered incredible hardships, again going into battle with songs. On the 1st of July more than thirty-six thousand prisoners were taken by the Russians on the southwestern front. Then came the tragic harvest of the Bolshevist propaganda. In northeastern Galicia the 607th Russian Regiment left the trenches and forced other units to do the same thing, opening a clear way for the German advance. Regiment after regiment refused to obey orders. Officers were brutally murdered by their men. Along a front of more than one hundred and fifty miles the Russians, greatly superior in numbers, retreated without attempting to fight, while the enemy steadily advanced. This was made possible by the agitation of the Bolsheviki, especially by the mutiny which they provoked among the troops in the garrison at Petrograd. On the 17th of July, at the very time when the separatist movement in the Ukraine, the resignation of the Constitutional Democrats from the government, and the revolt and treachery among the troops had produced a grave crisis, seizing the opportunity afforded by the general chaos, the Bolsheviki attempted to realize their aim of establishing what they called a "dictatorship of the proletariat," but which was in reality the dictatorship of a small part of the proletariat. There was no pretense that they represented a majority of the proletariat, even. It was a desperate effort to impose the dictatorship of a small minority of the proletariat upon the whole nation. For two days the revolt lasted, more than five hundred men, women, and children being killed in the streets of Petrograd.

On the 20th Prince Lvov resigned as Premier. In the mean time the Bolshevist uprising had been put down by Cossack troops and the leaders were in hiding. Kerensky stepped into Lvov's position as Premier and continued to address himself to the task of bringing order out of the chaos. There could not have been any selfish ambition in this; no place-hunter would have attempted to bear the heavy burden Kerensky then assumed, especially with his knowledge of the seriousness of the situation. He knew that the undertaking was practically hopeless, yet he determined never to give up the struggle so long as there was a single thing to be done and his comrades desired him to do it.[21]

There had been created a revolutionary body representing all the organized workers, called the United Executive Committee of the All-Russian Councils of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates, a body of more than three hundred elected representatives of the various Soviets. They represented the views of many millions. This body vigorously denounced the Bolsheviki and rallied to the support of Kerensky and his colleagues. In a Manifesto to the people the Bolsheviki were charged with responsibility for the blood of all who had been slain in the uprising. On July 21st a second Manifesto was issued by the Committee calling upon the workers to uphold the government so long as the authorized representatives of the working class determined that to be the proper course to follow. The charge that Lenine, Zinoviev, Trotzky, and others were acting under German instructions and receiving German money spread until it was upon almost every tongue in Petrograd. On July 24th Gregory Alexinsky, a well-known Socialist, in his paper, _Bez Lisnih Slov_, published a circumstantial story of German intrigue in the Ukraine, revealed by one Yermolenko, an ensign in the 16th Siberian Regiment, who had been sent to Russia by the German Government. This Yermolenko charged that Lenine had been instructed by the authorities in Berlin, just as he himself had been, and that Lenine had been furnished with almost unlimited funds by the German Government, the arrangement being that it was to be forwarded through one Svendson, at Stockholm.[22] By a vote of 300 to 11 the United Executive Committee of the All-Russian Councils of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates adopted the following resolution:

The whole Revolutionary Democracy desires that the Bolsheviki
group accused of having organized disorders, or inciting revolt,
or of having received money from German sources be tried publicly.
In consequence, the Executive Committee considers it absolutely
inadmissible that Lenine and Zinoviev should escape justice, and
demands that the Bolsheviki faction immediately and categorically
express its censure of the conduct of its leaders.

Later on, under the "terror," there was some pretense of an "investigation" of the charge that Lenine and others had received German money, but there has never been a genuine investigation so far as is known. Groups of Russian Socialists belonging to various parties and groups have asked that a commission of well-known Socialists from the leading countries of Europe and from the United States, furnished with reliable interpreters, be sent to Russia to make a thorough investigation of the charge.

The United Executive Committee of the workers' organizations adopted a resolution demanding that all members and all factions, and the members of all affiliated bodies, obey the mandate of the majority, and that all majority decisions be absolutely obeyed. They took the position--too late, alas!--that the will of the majority must be observed, since the only alternative was the rule of the majority by the aggressive minority. Repressive measures against the Bolsheviki were adopted by the Kerensky Cabinet with the full approval of the Committee. Some of the Bolshevik papers were suppressed and the death penalty, which had been abolished at the very beginning of the Revolution, was partially restored in that it was ordered that it should be applied to traitors and deserters at the front. Lenine and Zinoviev were in hiding, but Trotzky, Kamenev, Alexandra Kollontay, and many other noted Bolsheviki were imprisoned for a few days.

It was Kerensky's hope that by arranging for an early conference by the Allies, at which the war aims would be restated in terms similar to those which President Wilson had employed, and by definitely fixing the date for the Constituent Assembly elections, September 30th, while sternly repressing the Bolsheviki, it might be possible to save Russia. But it was too late. Despite his almost superhuman efforts, and the loyal support of the great majority of the Soviets, he was defeated. Day after day conditions at the front grew worse. By the beginning of August practically the whole of Galicia was in the hands of the Germans. Russian soldiers in large numbers retreated before inferior numbers of Germans, refusing to strike a blow. Germans furnished them with immense quantities of spirits, and an orgy of drunkenness took place. The red flag was borne by debauched and drunken mobs. What a fate for the symbol of universal freedom and human brotherhood!

It was a time of terrible strain and upheaval. Crisis followed upon crisis. Chernov resigned his position as Minister of Agriculture. Kerensky resigned as Premier, but the members of the Provisional Government by unanimous vote declined to accept the resignation. They called a joint meeting of all the Cabinet, of leaders of all political parties, of the Duma, of the Soviets of workers, peasants, and soldiers. At this meeting the whole critical situation was discussed and all present joined in demanding that Kerensky continue in office. The political parties represented were the Social Democrats, the Socialist-Revolutionists, the Democratic Radicals, the Labor Union party, the Popular Socialists, and the Constitutional Democrats. From these groups came an appeal which Kerensky could not deny. He said:

"In view of the evident impossibility of establishing, by means of a compromise between the various political groups, Socialist as well as non-Socialist, a strong revolutionary government ... I was obliged to resign. Friday's conference, ... after a prolonged discussion, resulted in the parties represented at the conference deciding to intrust me with the task of reconstructing the government. Considering it impossible for me in the present circumstances, when defeat without and disintegration within are threatening the country, to withdraw from the heavy task which is now intrusted to me, I regard this task as an express order of the country to construct a strong revolutionary government in the shortest possible time and in spite of all the obstacles which might arise."

For the second time Kerensky was Premier at the head of a Coalition Ministry. No other government was possible for Russia except a strong despotism. Theorists might debate the advisability of such coalition, but the stern reality was that nothing else was possible. The leader of the peasants, Chernov, returned to his old post as Minister of Agriculture and the Constitutional Democrats took their share of the burden. There were six parties and groups in the new Cabinet, four of them of various shades of Socialism and two of them liberal bourgeoisie. Never before, perhaps, and certainly only rarely, if ever, have men essayed a heavier or more difficult task than that which this new Provisional Government undertook.

Heroically Kerensky sought to make successful the efforts of General Kornilov, as commander-in-chief, to restore order and discipline in the army, but it was too late. The disintegration had gone too far. The measures which the Revolutionary Democracy had introduced into the army, in the hope of realizing freedom, had reduced it to a wild mob. Officers were butchered by their men; regiment after regiment deserted its post and, in some instances, attempted to make a separate peace with the enemy, even offering to pay indemnities. Moreover, the industrial organization of the country had been utterly demoralized. The manufacture of army supplies had fallen off more than 60 per cent., with the result that the state of affairs was worse than in the most corrupt period of the old régime.

XI

It became evident to the Provisional Government that something big and dramatic must be done, without waiting for the results of the Constituent Assembly elections. Accordingly, it was decided to call together a great extraordinary council, representing all classes and all parties, to consider the situation and the best means of meeting it. The Extraordinary National Conference, as it was called, was opened in Moscow, on August 26th, with more than fourteen hundred members in attendance. Some of these members--principally those from the Soviets--had been elected as delegates, but the others had been invited by the government and could not be said to speak as authorized representatives. There were about one hundred and ninety men who had been members of one or other of the Dumas; one hundred representatives of the peasants' Soviets and other peasant organizations; about two hundred and thirty representatives of the Soviets of industrial workers and of soldiers; more than three hundred from co-operatives; about one hundred and eighty from the trade-unions; about one hundred and fifty from municipalities; one hundred and fifty representatives of banks and industrial concerns, and about one hundred and twenty from the Union of Zemstvos and Towns. It was a Conference more thoroughly representative of Russia than any that had ever been held. There were, indeed, no representatives of the old régime, and there were few representatives of the Bolsheviki. The former had no place in the new Russia that was struggling for its existence; the repressive measures that had been found necessary accounted for the scant representation of the latter.

It was to this Conference that President Wilson sent his famous message giving the assurance of "every material and moral assistance" to the people and government of Russia. For three days the great assembly debated and listened to speeches from men representing every section of the country, every class, and every party. Kerensky, Tseretelli, Tchcheidze, Boublikov, Plechanov, Kropotkin, Breshkovskaya, and others, spoke for the workers; General Kornilov and General Kaledine spoke for the military command; Miliukov, Nekrasov, Guchkov, Maklakov, and others spoke for the bourgeoisie. At times feeling ran high, as might have been expected, but throughout the great gathering there was displayed a remarkable unanimity of feeling and immediate purpose; a common resolve to support the Provisional Government, to re-establish discipline in the army and navy, to remain loyal to the Allies, and reject with scorn all offers of a separate peace, and to work for the success of the Constituent Assembly.

But, notwithstanding the unity upon these immediately vital points, the Moscow Conference showed that there was still a great gulf between the classes, and that no matter how they might co-operate to meet and overcome the peril that hung over the nation like the sword of Damocles, there could be no unity in working out the great economic and social program which must be the basis for the Social Democratic commonwealth which the workers sought to establish, and which the bourgeois elements feared almost as much as they feared the triumph of Germany. In some respects the Conference intensified class feeling and added to, instead of lessening, the civil strife. The Bolsheviki were not slow to exploit this fact. They pointed to the Conference as evidence of a desire on the part of the Socialist Ministers, and of the officials of the Soviets, to compromise with the bourgeoisie. This propaganda had its effect and Bolshevism grew in consequence, especially in Petrograd.

Then followed the disastrous military and political events which made it practically impossible for the Kerensky government to stand. At the front the soldiers were still revolting, deserting, and retreating. Kornilov was quite helpless. Germany began a new offensive, and on September 2d German armies crossed the Dvina near Riga. On September 3d Riga was surrendered to the Germans in the most shameful manner and panic reigned in Petrograd. Then on the 9th came the revolt of Kornilov against the Provisional Government and the vulgar quarrel between him and Kerensky. Kornilov charged that the Provisional Government, under pressure from the Bolsheviki, was playing into the hands of the German General Staff. Kerensky, backed by the rest of the Cabinet, ordered Kornilov's removal, while Kornilov despatched a division of troops, drawn from the front, against Petrograd.

It was a most disastrous conflict for which no adequate explanation can be found except in the strained mental condition of all the principal parties concerned. In less strenuous times, and in a calmer atmosphere, the two leaders, equally patriotic, would have found no difficulty in removing misunderstandings. As things were, a mischievous intermediary, and two men suffering the effects of a prolonged and intense nervous strain, provided all the elements of a disaster. Kornilov's revolt was crushed without great trouble and with very little bloodshed, Kornilov himself being arrested. The Soviets stood by the Provisional Government, for they saw in the revolt the attempt to set up a personal dictatorship. Even the Bolsheviki were temporarily sobered by the sudden appearance of the "man on horseback." Kerensky, by direction of his colleagues, became commander-in-chief of the Russian armies. Always, it seemed, through every calamity, all parties except the Bolsheviki agreed that he was the one man strong enough to undertake the heaviest and hardest tasks.

Toward the end of September what may be termed the Kerensky régime entered upon its last phase. For reasons which have been already set forth, the Bolsheviki kept up a bitter attack upon the Provisional Government, and upon the official leaders of the Soviets, on account of the Moscow Conference. They demanded that the United Executive Committee of the Soviets convoke a new Conference. They contended that the Moscow Conference had been convoked by the government, not by the Soviets, and that the United Executive Committee must act for the latter. The United Executive Committee complied and summoned a new National Democratic Conference, which assembled on September 27th. By this time, as a result of the exhaustion of the patience of many workers, many of the Soviets had ceased to exist, while others existed on paper only. According to the _Izvestya Soveta_, there had been more than eight hundred region organizations at one time, many scores of which had disappeared. According to the same authority, the peasants were drawing away from the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets. The United Executive Committee, which had been elected in June, was, of course, dominated by anti-Bolsheviki--that is, by Menshevik Social Democrats and by Socialist-Revolutionists.

The Democratic Conference was not confined to the Soviets. It embraced delegates from Soviets of peasants, soldiers, and industrial workers; from municipalities, from zemstvos, co-operatives, and other organizations. It differed from the Moscow Conference principally in that the delegates were elected and that it did not include so many representatives of the capitalist class. The petty bourgeoisie was represented, but not the great capitalists. There were more than a thousand members in attendance at this Democratic Conference, which was dominated by the most moderate section of the Social Democrats. The Socialist-Revolutionists were not very numerous.

This Conference created another Coalition Cabinet, the last of the Kerensky régime. Kerensky continued as Premier and as commander-in-chief of the army. There were in the Cabinet five Social Democrats, two Socialist-Revolutionists, eight Constitutional Democrats, and two non-partisans. It was therefore as far as its predecessors from meeting the standards insisted upon by many radical Socialists, who, while not Bolsheviki, still believed that there should be at least an absolute Socialist predominance in the Provisional Government. Of course, the new Coalition Ministry infuriated the Bolsheviki. From his hiding-place Lenine issued a series of "Letters to the Comrades," which were published in the _Rabochiy Put_, in which he urged the necessity of an armed uprising like that of July, only upon a larger scale. In these letters he scoffed at the Constituent Assembly as a poor thing to satisfy hungry men. Meanwhile, Trotzky, out of prison again, and other Bolshevik leaders were agitating by speeches, proclamations, and newspaper articles for an uprising. The Provisional Government dared not try to suppress them. Its hold upon the people was now too weak.

The Democratic Conference introduced one innovation. It created a Preliminary Parliament, as the new body came to be known, though its first official title was the Provisional Council of the Republic. This new body was to function as a parliament until the Constituent Assembly convened, when it would give place to whatever form of parliamentary body the Constituent Assembly might create. This Preliminary Parliament and its functions were thus described:

This Council, in which all classes of the population will be
represented, and in which the delegates elected to the Democratic
Conference will also participate, will be given the right of
addressing questions to the government and of securing replies to
them in a definite period of time, of working out legislative acts
and discussing all those questions which will be presented for
consideration by the Provisional Government, as well as those
which will arise on its own initiative. Resting on the
co-operation of such a Council, the government, preserving, in
accordance with its pledge, the unity of the governmental power
created by the Revolution, will regard it its duty to consider the
great public significance of such a Council in all its acts up to
the time when the Constituent Assembly gives full and complete
representation to all classes of the population of Russia.

This Preliminary Parliament was really another Duma--that is, it was a very limited parliamentary body. Its life was short and quite uneventful. It assembled for the first time on October 8th and was dispersed by the Bolsheviki on November 7th. When it assembled there were 555 members--the number fixed by the decree of the Provisional Government. Of these, 53 were Bolsheviki, but these withdrew almost at the opening with three others, thus reducing the actual membership of the body to less than five hundred. Even with the Bolsheviki withdrawn, when Kerensky appeared before the Preliminary Parliament on November 6th and made his last appeal, a resolution expressing confidence in his government was carried only by a small majority. Only about three hundred members were in attendance on this occasion, and of these 123 voted the expression of confidence, while 102 voted against it, and 26 declined to vote at all.

The Bolsheviki had forced the United Executive Committee to convene a new All-Russian Congress of Soviets, and the date of its meeting had been fixed at November 7th. While the elections and arrangements for this Congress were proceeding, the Bolsheviki were actively and openly organizing an uprising. In their papers and at their meetings they announced that on November 7th there would be an armed uprising against the government. Their intentions were, therefore, thoroughly well known, and it was believed that the government had taken every necessary step to repress any attempt to carry those intentions into practice. It was said that of the delegates to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets-numbering 676 as against more than one thousand at the former Congress of peasant Soviets alone--a majority were Bolsheviki. It was charged that the Bolsheviki had intimidated many workers into voting for their candidates; that they had, in some instances, put forward their men as anti-Bolsheviki and secured their election by false pretenses; that they had practised fraud in many instances. It was quite certain that a great many Soviets had refused to send delegates, and that many thousands of workers, and these all anti-Bolsheviki, had simply grown weary and disgusted with the whole struggle. Whatever the explanation might be, the fact remained that of the 676 delegates 390 were generally rated as Bolsheviki, while 230 were Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviki. Not all of the Socialist-Revolutionists could be counted as anti-Bolsheviki, moreover. There were fifty-six delegates whose position was not quite clearly defined, but who were regarded as being, if not Bolsheviki, at least anti-government. For the first time in the whole struggle the Bolsheviki apparently had a majority of delegates in a working-class convention.

On the night of the 6th, a few hours before the opening of the Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviki struck the blow they had been so carefully planning. They were not met with the resistance they had expected--for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained. Kerensky recognized that it was useless for him to attempt to carry on the fight. The Bolsheviki had organized their Red Guards, and these, directed by military leaders, occupied the principal government buildings, such as the central telephone and telegraph offices, the military-staff barracks, and so on. Part of the Petrograd garrison joined with the Bolsheviki, the other part simply refusing to do anything. On the morning of November 7th the members of the Provisional Government were arrested in the Winter Palace, but Kerensky managed to escape. The Bolshevik _coup d'état_ was thus accomplished practically without bloodshed. A new government was formed, called the Council of People's Commissaries, of which Nikolai Lenine was President and Leon Trotzky Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" was thus begun. Kerensky's attempt to rally forces enough to put an end to this dictatorship was a pathetic failure, as it was bound to be. It was like the last fitful flicker with which a great flame dies. The masses wanted peace--for that they would tolerate even a dictatorship.