During March 1917, the Bolsheviks in Russia, cut off from their leader, pursued a course that hardly differed from that of the Mensheviks and SRs. A resolution of the Central Committee passed that month described the Provisional Government as an agent of the “large bourgeoisie” and of “landowners,” but did not advocate that it be opposed. On March 3 the Petrograd Committee, the most powerful of the Bolshevik organizations, adopted the Menshevik-SR position calling for support of the government postol’ku-poskol’ku—that is, “to the extent that” it advanced the interests of the “masses.”10 Both in theory and in practice the leading Bolsheviks in Petrograd followed a line diametrically opposed to that of Lenin. They could not have been pleased, therefore, with Lenin’s advice contained in the telegram of March 6, which reached them after a delay of one week: the published minutes of the Petrograd Committee meetings do not record the discussion that followed its receipt.
This pro-Menshevik orientation was strengthened with the arrival in Petrograd from exile of three members of the Central Committee, L. B. Kamenev, Stalin, and M. K. Muranov, who, by virtue of seniority, assumed direction of the party and the editorship of Pravda. In their articles and speeches, the three rejected the position Lenin had taken at Zimmerwald and Kientaclass="underline" instead of turning the war between nations into a civil war, they wanted the socialists to agitate for the immediate opening of peace negotiations.11 On March 15 or 16, the Petrograd Bolsheviks held a party conference; the fact that neither its minutes nor its resolutions have been published strongly suggests that many participants adopted an anti-Leninist position on the critical issues of the attitude toward the government and the war.12 It is known, however, that on March 18, at a closed meeting of the Petrograd Committee, Kamenev argued that although the Provisional Government was unmistakably “counterrevolutionary” and destined to be overthrown, the time for that lay in the future: “the important thing is not to take power: it is to hold on to it.”13 Kamenev spoke in the same vein at the All-Russian Consultation of Soviets at the end of March.14 At this time the Bolsheviks gave serious thought to reunification with the Mensheviks: on March 21, the Petrograd Committee declared that it was both “possible and desirable” to merge with those Mensheviks who accepted the Zimmerwald and Kiental platforms.*
Given these attitudes, it is understandable that the Petrograd Bolsheviks reacted with shock and disbelief when Alexandra Kollontai appeared before them bearing the first and second of Lenin’s “Letters from Afar.” Here, Lenin elaborated on his telegram of March 6/19: no support for the Provisional Government, arming the workers.15 The program struck them as utterly fantastic, thought up by someone out of touch with the situation in Russia. After hesitating for several days, they printed in Pravda the first “Letter from Afar” but without the passages in which Lenin attacked the Provisional Government.16 They refused to publish the second installment and those that followed.
At the All-Russian Conference of Bolsheviks held in Petrograd between March 28 and April 4, Stalin introduced and the delegates approved a motion calling for “control” over the Provisional Government and cooperation with the other “progressive forces” for the purpose of combating the “counterrevolution” and “broadening” the revolutionary movement.† The “un-Bolshevik” behavior of the Bolsheviks when on their own and their rapid shift after Lenin’s arrival demonstrates that their conduct was based, not on principles that the members could assimilate and apply, but on their leader’s wilclass="underline" that the Bolsheviks were bound together, not by what they believed, but in whom they believed.
The Germans had their own designs on the Russian radicals. The war was going nowhere and they had come to realize that their one remaining chance of winning was to break up the enemy alliance, preferably by forcing Russia out of the war. In the fall of 1916 the Kaiser mused along these lines:
From the strictly military point of view, it is important to detach one or another of the Entente belligerents by means of a separate peace, in order to hurl our full might against the rest.… We can organize our war effort, accordingly, only insofar as the internal struggle in Russia exerts influence on the conclusion of peace with us.17
Having failed in 1915 to eliminate Russia from the war by military means, the Germans now resorted to political steps, exploiting the internal divisions inside revolutionary Russia. The Provisional Government was totally committed to the Allied cause: so much so that some Germans believed the February Revolution to have been engineered by the British.18 The pronouncements of Foreign Minister Miliukov on Russia’s war aims gave the Central Powers little grounds for optimism. The only hope of breaking Russia away from the alliance, therefore, lay in supporting radical extremists who were opposed to the “imperialist” war and wanted it transformed into a civil war: in other words, the Zimmerwald-Kiental left, of which Lenin was the undisputed leader. Back in Russia, Lenin could give the Provisional Government no end of trouble by inciting class antagonisms, playing on the people’s war-weariness, and perhaps even grasping for power.
The strongest advocate of the “Lenin card” was Parvus. He had made one approach to Lenin in 1915: on that occasion, Lenin had refused to cooperate, but the situation was different now. In 1917 Parvus lived in Copenhagen where, as a cover for his intelligence activities, he operated an import company. He also had a spurious scientific institute from which to conduct espionage.19 His business agent in Stockholm was Jacob Ganetskii, Lenin’s trusted associate. Familiar with Russian émigré politics, Parvus placed high hopes on extremists like Lenin. He assured the German Ambassador to Denmark, Count V. Brockdorff-Rantzau, that if let loose, the anti-war left would spread such anarchy that after two or three months Russia would find it impossible to remain in the war.20 He singled out Lenin for particular attention as “much more raving mad” than either Kerensky or Chkheidze. With uncanny foresight he predicted that once Lenin returned to Russia he would topple the Provisional Government, take over, and promptly conclude a separate peace.21 He understood well Lenin’s lust for power and believed he would strike a deal in order to be able to cross German territory to Sweden. Under Parvus’s influence, Brockdorff-Rantzau cabled to Berlin:
We must now unconditionally seek to create in Russia the greatest possible chaos.… We should do all we can … to exacerbate the differences between the moderate and extremist parties, because we have the greatest interest in the latter gaining the upper hand, since the Revolution will then become unavoidable and assume forms that must shatter the stability of the Russian state.22