This instruction subverted the authority of the military commander of Petrograd. Unable to carry out his duties, Kornilov asked to be relieved and assigned to the front. At the beginning of May he assumed command of the Eighth Army.
Later in the day, the Ispolkom voted to prohibit all demonstrations for the next forty-eight hours. It denounced anyone who led armed men into the streets as a “traitor to the Revolution.”69
On April 21, analogous Bolshevik demonstrations under identical slogans took place in Moscow.
The disorders in Petrograd subsided toward the evening of April 21 from lack of mass support: demonstrators loyal to the government proved to be at least as militant as and considerably more numerous than those who followed the Bolshevik lead. In Moscow, Bolshevik riots went on for yet another day, terminating when angry mobs surrounded the rioters and tore anti-government banners from their hands.
The instant it became apparent that the putsch had failed, the Bolsheviks disclaimed all responsibility. On April 22, the Central Committee passed a resolution which conceded that the “petty bourgeois” mass, after some initial hesitation, had come out in support of the “pro-capitalist” forces, and condemned anti-government slogans as premature. The task of the party was defined as enlightening the workers about the true nature of the government. There were to be no more demonstrations and the instructions of the Soviet had to be obeyed. The resolution, most likely moved by Kamenev, represented a defeat for Lenin, whom Kamenev charged with “adventurism.” Lenin lamely defended himself by blaming the anti-government character of the demonstration on hotheads from the Petrograd Committee.
But even while defending himself, he inadvertently revealed what had been on his mind:
This was an attempt to resort to violent means. We did not know whether at that anxious moment the mass had strongly shifted to our side.… We merely wanted to carry out a peaceful reconnaissance of the enemy’s strength, not to give battle …70
How to reconcile his admission that the April riots were “an attempt to resort to violent means” with the claim that they were meant as a “peaceful reconnaissance” Lenin did not explain.*
For the time being, the crowds followed the Ispolkom and, through its agency, the government. In this context, it is understandable why the socialist intellectuals opposed the use of force. But crowds are fickle, and the main lesson of April was not how weak the Bolshevik Party was but how unprepared the government and the leaders of the Soviet were to meet force with force. Analyzing the lessons of the April days a few months later, Lenin concluded that the Bolsheviks had been “insufficiently revolutionary” in their tactics, by which he could only have meant that they were wrong in not making a grab for power.71 Still, he drew much encouragement from this opening skirmish: according to Sukhanov, in April his hopes “sprouted wings.”72
The April riots provoked the first serious government crisis. Barely two months after tsarism had collapsed, the intelligentsia saw the country disintegrating before their very eyes—and now they no longer had the tsar and the bureaucracy to blame. On April 26, the government issued an emotional appeal to the nation that it could no longer administer and wished to bring in “representatives of those creative forces of the country which until then had not taken a direct and immediate part” in administration, that is, the socialist intelligentsia.73 The Ispolkom, still afraid of being compromised in the eyes of the “masses,” on April 28 rejected the government’s feeler.74
The event that caused the Ispolkom to change its mind was Guchkov’s resignation, on April 30, as Minister of War. As he explains in his memoirs, Guchkov had concluded that Russia had become ungovernable: the only salvation lay in inviting into the government “healthy” forces as represented by General Kornilov and leaders of the business community.75 Since this was not possible, given the attitude of the socialist intellectuals, he stepped down. According to Tsereteli, Guchkov’s resignation, accompanied as it was by Miliukov’s request to be relieved of his responsibilities, was symptomatic of a crisis of such dimensions that it could no longer be dealt with by palliative measures.76 The “bourgeoisie” was abandoning the government. On May 1, the Ispolkom reversed itself and without consulting the plenum of the Soviet, voted 44–19, with two abstentions, to permit its members to accept cabinet posts.77 The negative votes were cast by the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks-Internationalists (followers of Martov), who wanted the Soviet to assume full power. Tsereteli provided an explanation of the majority’s reasoning. The government, he said, had admitted its inability to save the country from the impending catastrophe. In these circumstances, the “democratic” forces had the duty to step in and help save the Revolution. The Soviet could not take power on its own behalf and in its own name, as Martov and Lenin wanted, because by so doing it would push into the arms of reactionaries those numerous elements in the country which, although not committed to democracy, were willing to cooperate with the democratic forces. What he meant another Menshevik, V. Voitinskii, spelled out in arguing for a coalition with the “bourgeoisie” and in obliquely opposing the slogan “All Power to the Soviets” on the grounds that the peasants stood “to the right” of the soviet,78 and presumably would refuse to recognize as government a body in which they were not represented.
In agreeing to join a coalition government, the Ispolkom posed a number of conditions: a review of inter-Allied accords, an effort to end the war, further “democratization” of the armed forces, an agrarian policy that would set the stage for the distribution of land to the peasants, and the prompt convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The government, for its part, demanded that the Ispolkom acknowledge it as the exclusive bearer of state authority, empowered to resort to force if the situation required it, as well as the sole source of commands to the armed forces. Representatives of the government and the Ispolkom spent the opening days of May negotiating the terms of the coalition. Agreement was reached during the night of May 4–5, following which a new cabinet was installed in office. The placid and inoffensive Prince Lvov stayed on as Prime Minister; Guchkov and Miliukov formally resigned. The Foreign Ministry portfolio was given to the Kadet M. I. Tereshchenko—a strange choice, for Tereshchenko, a young businessman, had little experience and was unfamiliar to the public. But it was common knowledge that, like Kerensky, he belonged to the Freemasons: suspicions were voiced that he owed his appointment to Masonic connections. Kerensky took over the Ministry of War. He, too, had no background for the post, but his prominence in the Soviet and his rhetorical gifts were expected to inspire the troops as they were preparing for the summer offensive. Six socialists entered the coalition government, among them Chernov, who took the portfolio of Agriculture, and Tsereteli, who became Minister of Post and Telegraphs. The cabinet would have a life of two months.
The May accords somewhat eased the anomalies of dvoevlastie, which had confused the population as to the ultimate source of authority. They were indicative not only of a growing sense of desperation but also of the growing maturity of the socialist intelligentsia, and, as such, were a positive development. On the face of it, a government that united the “bourgeoisie” and “democracy” promised to be more effective than one in which the two groups confronted each other as antagonists. But the agreement also raised fresh problems. The instant the socialist leaders of the Soviet joined the government, they forfeited the role of an opposition. By entering the cabinet, they automatically came to share blame for everything that went wrong. This allowed the Bolsheviks, who refused to join, to pose as the sole alternative to the status quo and the custodians of the Russian Revolution. And since under the hopelessly incompetent administration of liberal and socialist intellectuals events were bound to go from bad to worse, they emerged as the only conceivable saviors of Russia.