The "Kornilov affair" remains something of a mystery, although Ukraintsev's testimony and certain other evidence indicate that Kerensky, rather than Kornilov, should be blamed for its peculiar course and its
being a fiasco. Apparently the prime minister and the commander in chief had decided that loyal troops should be sent to Petrograd to protect the government. Apparently, too, that "protection" included the destruction of Soviet power in the capital. In any case, when Kornilov dispatched an army corps to execute the plan, Kerensky appealed to the people "to save the revolution" from Kornilov. The break between the prime minister and the general stemmed probably not only from their different views on the exact nature of the strengthened Provisional Government to be established in Russia, and on Kerensky's position in that government, but also from the strange and confusing activities of the man who acted as an intermediary between them.
The revolution was "saved." From the ninth to the fourteenth of September the population of the capital mobilized for defense, while the advancing troops, faced with a railroad strike, encountering general opposition, and short of supplies, became demoralized and bogged down without reaching the destination; their commanding officer committed suicide. Only the Bolsheviks really gained from the episode. Their leaders were let out of jail, and their followers were armed to defend Petrograd. After the Kornilov threat collapsed, they retained the preponderance of military strength in the capital, winning ever more adherents among the increasingly radical masses.
The Provisional Government, on the other hand, came to be bitterly despised by the Right for having betrayed Kornilov - whether the charge was entirely justified is another matter - while many on the Left suspected it of having plotted with him. The cabinet experienced another crisis and was finally able to reconstitute itself - for the third and last time - only on the twenty-fifth of September, with ten socialist and six nonsocialist ministers, Kerensky remaining at the head. It should be added that the Kornilov fiasco, followed by the arrest of Kornilov and several other generals, led to a further deterioration of military discipline, making the position of officers in many units untenable.
The October Revolution
The Bolsheviks finally captured a majority in the Petrograd Soviet on September 13 and in the Moscow Soviet a week later, although the executive committee elected by the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets continued, of course, to be dominated by moderate socialists. Throughout the country the Bolsheviks were on the rise. From his hideout in Finland, Lenin urged the seizure of power. On October 23 he came incognito to Petrograd and managed to convince the executive committee of the party, with some division of opinion, of the soundness of his view. Lenin apparently considered victory a great gamble, not a scientific certainty, but
he correctly estimated that the fortunate circumstances had to be exploited, and he did not want to wait until the meeting of the constituent assembly. His opinions prevailed over the judgment of those of his colleagues who, in more orthodox Marxist fashion, considered Russia insufficiently prepared for a Bolshevik revolution and their party lacking adequate support in the country at large. Leon Trotsky - a pseudonym of Leon Bronstein - who first became prominent in the St. Petersburg Soviet of 1905 and who combined oratorical brilliance and outstanding intellectual qualities with energy and organizational ability, proved to be Lenin's ablest and most active assistant in staging the Bolsheviks' seizure of power.
The revolution succeeded with little opposition. On November 7 - October 25, Old Style, hence "the Great October Revolution" - Red troops occupied various strategic points in the capital. In the early night hours of November 8, the Bolshevik-led soldiers of the Petrograd garrison, sailors from Kronstadt, and the workers' Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace, weakly defended by youngsters from military schools and even by a women's battalion, and arrested members of the Provisional Government. Kerensky himself had managed to escape some hours earlier. Soviet government was established in Petrograd and in Russia.
Part VI: SOVIET RUSSIA
XXXV
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it.*
The conception of a community as an organic growth, which the statesman can only affect to a limited extent, is in the main modern, and has been greatly strengthened by the theory of evolution… It might, however, be maintained that the evolutionary view of society, though true in the past, is no longer applicable, but must, for the present and the future, be replaced by a much more mechanistic view. In Russia and Germany new societies have been created, in much the same way as the mythical Lycurgus was supposed to have created the Spartan polity. The ancient law giver was a benevolent myth; the modern law giver is a terrifying reality.
Communist ideology, the Communist party, and Communist direction have constituted the outstanding characteristics of Soviet Russia, that is, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. To be sure, other factors, ranging from the economic backwardness of the country to its position as a great power in Europe, Asia, and the world, have proved to be of major importance. Still, it would not be an exaggeration to say that, whereas other elements in the situation have exercised very significant influences on Soviet policies, without communism there would have been no Soviet policies at all and no Soviet Union. Moreover, it is frequently impossible to draw the line between the communist and the noncommunist aspects of Soviet Russia and between communist and noncommunist causes of Soviet behavior because the two modes have influenced and interpenetrated each other and because Soviet leaders have viewed everything within the framework of their ideology.
Marxism
The doctrine of communism represents a variant of Marxism, based on the works of Marx and Engels as developed by Lenin. Working for several decades, beginning in the 1840's, Marx and Engels constructed
* Italics in the original.
a huge and comprehensive, although not entirely consistent, philosophical system. The roots of Marxism include eighteenth-century Enlightenment, classical economics, Utopian socialism, and German idealistic philosophy - in other words, some of the main traditions of Western thought. Most important, Marx was "the last of the great system-builders, the successor of Hegel, a believer, like him, in a rational formula summing up the evolution of mankind." While an exposition of Marxism would require another book, certain aspects of the doctrine must be constantly kept in mind by a student of Soviet history.