On June 21, Captain Pierre Laurent of French intelligence turned over to Russian counterintelligence fourteen intercepted communications between the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and their people in Stockholm indicative of dealings with the enemy; soon he produced fifteen more.129 The government claimed later that it had delayed arresting the Bolsheviks because it wanted to catch Lenin’s principal Stockholm agent, Ganetskii, on his next trip to Russia with incriminating documents.130 But in view of Kerensky’s behavior after the putsch, there are grounds for suspicion that behind the government’s procrastination lay fear of antagonizing the Soviet.
At the end of June, however, the authorities had enough evidence to proceed and on July 1 ordered the arrest of twenty-eight leading Bolsheviks within the week.131
Someone in the government alerted Lenin to this danger. The most likely suspect is the same Procurator of the Petrograd Judiciary Chamber (Sudebnaia Palata), N. S. Karinskii, who, according to Bonch-Bruevich, on July 4 would leak to the Bolsheviks that the ministry was about to make public information incriminating Lenin as a German agent.132 Lenin may also have been alerted by indications that on June 29 intelligence agents began shadowing Sumenson.133 Nothing else explains Lenin’s sudden disappearance from Petrograd and his furtive escape to Finland, where he was out of reach of the Russian police.*
Lenin hid in Finland from June 29 until the early-morning hours of July 4, when the Bolshevik putsch got underway. His role in the preparations for the July escapade cannot be established. But physical absence from the scene of action need not mean he was uninvolved: in the fall of 1917, Lenin would also hide out in Finland and still take an active part in the decisions leading to the October coup.
The July operation began in the Machine Gun Regiment when it learned that the government was about to disband it and disperse its men to the front.* On June 30, the Soviet invited regimental representatives to discuss their problems with the military authorities. The following day, regimental “activists” held their own meetings. The mood of the men, tense for some time, reached a feverish pitch.
On July 2, the Bolsheviks organized for the regiment a concert meeting at the People’s House (Narodnyi Dom).134 All outside speakers were Bolsheviks, among them Trotsky and Lunacharskii: Zinoviev and Kamenev were also scheduled to appear, but failed to show up, possibly because, like Lenin, they feared arrest.135 Addressing an audience of over 5,000 men, Trotsky berated the government for the June offensive and demanded the transfer of power to the Soviet. He did not tell the troops in so many words to refuse to obey the government, but the Military Organization had the meeting pass a resolution in this spirit: it accused Kerensky of following in the footsteps of “Nicholas the Bloody” and demanded all power to the soviets.136
The troops returned to the barracks too excited to sleep. They held an all-night discussion in the course of which voices were raised demanding violent action: one of the slogans proposed was “Beat the burzhui.”137
A pogrom was in the making. The Bolsheviks, gathered at Kshesinskaia’s, were uncertain how to react: join or try to abort it. Some argued that since the troops could not be held back, the Bolsheviks should take charge; others thought it was too soon to move.138 Then, as later, the Bolsheviks were torn between the desire to ride to power on the wave of popular fury and the fear that spontaneous violence would provoke a nationalist reaction of which they would be the principal victims.
The company and regimental committees of the Machine Gun Regiment held further meetings on July 3: the atmosphere was that of a village assembly on the eve of a peasant rebellion. The main speakers were anarchists, the most prominent among them I. S. Bleikhman, “his shirt open on his breast and curly hair flying on all sides,”139 who called on the troops to take to the streets, weapons in hand, and stage an armed uprising. The anarchists did not spell out the objective of such action: that “the street itself will show.”140 The Bolshevik agitators who followed the anarchists did not take issue with them; they only urged that before acting the regiment seek instructions from the Bolshevik Military Organization.
But the troops, determined to avoid front-line duty and whipped into frenzy by the anarchists, would not wait: by a unanimous vote they decided to take to the streets, fully armed. A Provisional Revolutionary Committee was elected to organize the demonstration, under the chairmanship of a Bolshevik, Lieutenant A. Ia. Semashko. This happened between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m.
Semashko and his associates, several of whom belonged to the Military Organization, sent out patrols to learn whether the government was taking countermeasures and to confiscate automobiles. They also dispatched emissaries to factories and barracks and to Kronshtadt.
The emissaries met with a mixed reception. A few units of the garrison agreed to join: mainly elements of the 1st, 3rd, 176th, and 180th Infantry Regiments.141 The others refused. The Preobrazhenskii, Semenovskii, and Izmailovskii Guard Regiments declared “neutrality.”142 In the Machine Gun Regiment itself, despite threats of physical violence, many companies voted to stay on the sidelines: in the end only one-half of the regiment, some 5,000 men, participated in the putsch. Many factory workers also refused to take part.
For lack of adequate documentation, it is difficult to determine the attitude of the Bolsheviks toward these developments. In his report to the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party later that month, Stalin claimed that at 4:00 p.m. on July 3 the Central Committee took a stand against an armed demonstration.143 Trotsky confirms Stalin’s claim.144 It is not inconceivable that the Bolshevik leaders, without Lenin to encourage them and afraid that a mutiny under their slogans but without their guidance could end in disaster, initially opposed it, but one would feel more confident of this judgment if the protocols of the Central Committee for that day were made available.
As soon as it learned of the proposed demonstration the Ispolkom appealed to the troops to desist:145 it had no desire to bring down the government and to assume the power that the Bolsheviks were so insistently thrusting into its hands.
That afternoon there appeared before the Executive Committee of the Kronshtadt Soviet two anarchist deputies from the Machine Gun Regiment, wild in appearance and seemingly illiterate.146 They let it be known that their regiment, along with other military units and factory workers, was taking to the streets to demand the transfer of power to the Soviet. They needed armed support. The chairman of the Executive Committee responded that the sailors would take part in no demonstration which the Petrograd Ispolkom had not authorized. In that event, the emissaries said, they would appeal directly to the sailors. Word went out and 8,000 to 10,000 sailors assembled to hear a hysterical speech about the government’s persecution of anarchists.147 The sailors prepared to embark for Petrograd: it was unclear to what purpose, but beating up the burzhui, with some looting on the side, could not have been far from their minds. Roshal and Raskolnikov managed to restrain them long enough to call Bolshevik headquarters for instructions. After communicating with headquarters, Raskolnikov told the sailors the Bolshevik Party had decided to take part in the armed demonstration, whereupon the assembled sailors voted unanimously to join in.*