‡The Bolshevik estimates of 500,000 or more demonstrators (V. Vladimirova in PR, No. 5/17, 1923,40) are vastly inflated: the crowd which took part in the demonstration probably did not exceed one-tenth that number. An analysis of the garrison units known to have participated indicates that at most 15–20 percent of the troops were involved, and very likely considerably fewer: see B. I. Kochakov in Uchënye Zapiski Leningradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, No. 205 (1956), 65–66, and G. L. Sobolev in IZ, No. 88 (1971), 77. It was Bolshevik policy then and later greatly to exaggerate the number of demonstrators in order to justify the claim that they were not leading the “masses” but responding to their pressures: see the account by an eyewitness, A. Sobolev, in Rech,’ No. 155/3,897 (July 5, 1917), 1.
*Miliukov, Istoriia Vtoroi Russkoi Revoliutsii, I, Pt. 1 (Sofia, 1921), 243–44. Other versions of the Chernov incident are in Vladimirova, PR, No. 5/17 (1923), 34–35, and Raskolnikov, ibid, 69–71.
*Nikitin, Rokovye gody, 148. Nevskii says that the Military Organization, in anticipation of possible defeat, deliberately kept half its forces in reserve: Krasnoarmeets, No. 10/15 (October 1919), 40.
*NZh, No. 68 (July 7, 1917), 3. Pereverzev’s account of these events can be found in a letter to the editor, NoV, No. 14, 822 (July 9, 1917), 4. He is said also to have published recollections in PN, October 31, 1930, but this issue of the paper was unavailable to me.
*Zhivoe slovo, No. 54/407 (July 8, 1917), 1. Cf. Lenin, PSS, XXXII, 413. Lvov told the editors that premature revelation would allow the guilty to escape.
* A. Kerensky, The Crucifixion of Liberty (New York, 1934), 324. They were: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kollontai, Kozlovskii, Sumenson, Parvus, Ganetskii, Raskolnikov, Roshal, Semashko, and Lunacharskii. Trotsky was not on the list, presumably because he was not yet a member of the Bolshevik Party, which he joined only at the end of July. He was taken into custody later.
*Zarudnyi in NZh, No. 101 (August 15, 1917), 2. Nikitin, Rokovye gody, 158, says more than 2,000.
*On August 4, Tsereteli presented and the Ispolkom adopted a motion protesting the persecution of persons involved in the July events on the grounds that such persecution marked the beginning of the “counterrevolution”: NZh, No. 94 (August 6, 1917), 3.
*Richard Abraham, Alexander Kerensky (New York, 1987), 223–24. Pereverzev was fired in the early hours of July 5 on the initiative of Nekrasov and Tereshchenko, but stayed in his post two days longer.
11
The October Coup
It is the law of nature that predators must be more intelligent than the animals on which they prey.
—Manual of Natural History
It was only from that quarter [the right] that we faced any real danger at that time.
—Alexander Kerensky1
In September 1917, with Lenin in his hideaway, the command of Bolshevik forces passed to Trotsky, who had joined the party two months earlier. Defying Lenin’s pressures for an immediate power seizure, Trotsky adopted a more circumspect strategy, disguising Bolshevik designs as an effort to transfer power to the soviets. With supreme mastery of the technique of the modern coup d’état, of which he was arguably the inventor, he led the Bolsheviks to victory.
Trotsky was an ideal complement to Lenin. Brighter and more flamboyant, a much better speaker and writer, he could galvanize crowds: Lenin’s charisma was limited to his followers. But Trotsky was unpopular with the Bolshevik cadres, in part because he had joined their party late, after years of acerbic attacks on it, and in part because he was unbearably arrogant. In any event, being Jewish, Trotsky could hardly aspire to national leadership in a country in which, Revolution or no, Jews were regarded as outsiders. During the Revolution and Civil War he was Lenin’s alter ego, an indispensable companion in arms: after victory had been won, he became an embarrassment.
The event which made it possible for the Bolsheviks to recover from the July debacle was one of the more bizarre episodes in the Russian Revolution, known as the Kornilov Affair.*
57. Leon Trotsky.
General Lavr Kornilov was born in 1870 into a family of Siberian Cossacks. His father was a peasant and soldier; his mother, a housekeeper. Kornilov’s plebeian background contrasted with that of Kerensky and Lenin, whose fathers belonged to the uppermost strata of the service nobility. He had spent his early years among the Kazakh-Kirghiz and retained a lifelong affection for Asia and Asians. Upon graduating from military school, he enrolled in the General Staff Academy, which he completed with honors. He began active service in Turkestan, leading expeditions into Afghanistan and Persia. Kornilov, who mastered the Turkic dialects of Central Asia and became an expert on Russia’s Asiatic frontier, liked to surround himself with a bodyguard of Tekke Turkomans, dressed in red robes, with whom he spoke in their native language and to whom he was known as “Ulu Boiar,” or “Great Boyar.” He took part in the war with Japan, following which he was posted to China as military attaché. In April 1915, while in command of a division, he suffered serious wounds and was taken prisoner by the Austrians, but escaped and made his way back to Russia. In March 1917, the Provisional Committee of the Duma asked Nicholas II to appoint Kornilov commander of the Petrograd Military District. This post he held until the Bolshevik riots in April, when he resigned and left for the front.
Unlike most Russian generals, who were first and foremost politicians, Kornilov was a fighting man, a field officer of legendary courage. He had a reputation for obtuseness: Alekseev is reputed to have said that he had “a lion’s heart and a sheep’s brain,” but this is not a fair assessment. Kornilov had a great deal of practical intelligence and common sense, although like other soldiers of this type he was scornful of politics or politicians. He was said to hold “progressive” opinions, and there is no reason to doubt him that he despised the tsarist regime.2
Early in his military career Kornilov displayed a tendency to insubordination, which became more pronounced after February 1917 as he observed the disintegration of Russia’s armed forces and the impotence of the Provisional Government. His opponents later would accuse him of dictatorial ambitions. The charge can be made only with qualifications. Kornilov was a patriot, ready to serve any government that advanced Russia’s national interests, especially in time of war, by maintaining internal order and doing whatever was necessary to win victory. In the late summer of 1917 he concluded that the Provisional Government was no longer a free agent but a captive of socialist internationalists and enemy agents ensconced in the Soviet. It is this belief that made him receptive to suggestions that he assume dictatorial powers.
Kerensky turned to Kornilov after the July putsch in the hope that he would restore discipline in the armed forces and stop the German counter-offensive. On the night of July 7–8 he put him in charge of the Southwestern Front, which bore the brunt of the fighting, and three days later, on the advice of his aide, Boris Savinkov, offered him the post of Commander in Chief. Kornilov was in no hurry to accept. He thought it pointless to assume responsibility for the conduct of military operations until and unless the government tackled in earnest the problems hampering Russia’s entire war effort. These were of two kinds: narrowly military and more broadly political and economic. Having consulted other generals, he found wide agreement on what needed to be done to restore the fighting capacity of the armed forces: the army committees, authorized by Order No. 1, had to be disbanded or at least greatly reduced in power; military commanders had to regain disciplinary authority; measures had to be taken to restore order to the rear garrisons. Kornilov demanded the reintroduction of the death penalty for military personnel guilty of desertion and mutiny at the front as well as in the rear. But he did not stop there. He knew of the war mobilization plans of other belligerent countries and wanted something similar for Russia. It seemed to him essential that employees of defense industries and transport—the sectors of the economy most critical to the war effort—be subjected to military discipline. To the extent that he wanted greater authority than his predecessors, it was in emulation of General Ludendorff, who in December 1916 had received virtually dictatorial powers over the German economy: it was to enable the country to wage total war. This program, which Kornilov worked out jointly with the chief of staff, General A. S. Lukomskii, became the main source of conflict between himself, representing the officer corps and non-socialist opinion, and Kerensky, who had to act under the watchful eye of the Soviet. The conflict was irreconcilable because it pitted irreconcilables: the interests of Russia against those of international socialism. As Savinkov, who knew both men well, put it: Kornilov “loves freedom.… But Russia for him comes first, and freedom second, while for Kerensky … freedom and revolution come first, and Russia second.”3