Robert Service - Spies and Commissars

Few options were available to him as he sought to widen his base of support. On 25 August he opened a State Conference that brought together every anti-Bolshevik group from the Kadets through to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. His idea was to demonstrate that Russian politicians were still capable of responding to the country’s needs in times of war. He spoke with something like his earlier panache and was fêted by female admirers as he left the proceedings.

But it escaped nobody’s attention that the Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov was greeted rapturously by the liberals and right-ofcentre groupings. Kerenski assured Kornilov that he still desired to reinforce the eastern front and bring the city soviets to heel. Kornilov consented to send reliable troops from the front to quell the Petrograd disorder. As the trains started to move them to the capital, Kerenski changed his mind for fear that Kornilov might be scheming against him. He gave orders for Kornilov to pull back his contingent. This exasperated Kornilov, who concluded that Kerenski now lacked the nerve to act for the good of the country. The situation was not helped by the confusing reports received by Kerenski from his own military adviser Boris Savinkov. The advance on Petrograd continued and developed into an outright mutiny. Kerenski in panic turned to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, asking them to go out and cajole Kornilov’s force into disobeying his commands. Bolsheviks joined in the effort and the mutiny collapsed. Kornilov was put under arrest. Kerenski drew a sombre lesson. Noting that the Kadets had cheered on Kornilov as the hope of Russia, he called a Democratic Conference at the end of September that excluded all those liberals who had failed to stand by the Provisional Government. Kerenski saw this as the only way to obtain broad popular approval.

Hatred for the Romanovs remained strong among workers, and Kerenski worried that things might run out of control. His first thought was to arraign the former emperor before a proper court and, if he was found not guilty, send him off to England and his cousin George V. But the Provisional Government, with all its pressing difficulties, formulated no decisive policy. A commission was appointed to investigate Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and the rest of the Romanov family. The public agitation against the Romanovs induced the Provisional Government to enquire whether the British would give asylum to the Romanovs. Kerenski, when Minister of Justice in the first cabinet, had gone to see the former Emperor Nicholas at Tsarskoe Selo and pass on best wishes from his Windsor cousins, but the family was deprived of liberty for its own protection. But now, although Lloyd George had no objection, George V worried that the ex-tsar’s arrival in Britain would make the house of Windsor unpopular. 5The British authorities replied in the negative. The Provisional Government held an unminuted discussion and decided to deposit the Imperial family in Tobolsk in Siberia. Its distance from the main centres was a primary advantage and the old governor’s residence was chosen for them. Nicholas told Kerenski: ‘I’m not worried. We trust you.’ The planned destination was kept secret; and although monarchist militants tried to reach him in Tobolsk there was no serious attempt at a rescue. 6

Other policies of the Provisional Government were less effective. Manufacturers despaired of order being restored to the factories; many closed down their businesses and moved their accounts abroad. Few landowners dared to stay on their estates. Bankers focused their endeavours on preserving their assets and cut off financial credits to industry. The urban economy was crashing to the ground and conditions worsened for all social strata. Shopkeepers were pulling down their shutters. Mass unemployment rose steadily in the cities. Whereas the industrial workforces had once struck for higher pay and better conditions, the priority became to keep enterprises open and save jobs. Kerenski raised the prices paid for agricultural produce so as to entice the peasantry into selling to government procurers. The result was disappointing. Peasants complained about receiving rubles that were useless for purchasing farm equipment that was unavailable. Armed units had to be put at the ready to march into the countryside in order to feed the cities and the front. At the same time there were disturbing reports from the trenches that troops were deserting in an ever swelling stream. Discipline was falling apart in the Russian Army. The entire state was ceasing to exist and Russia fell to its knees.

The Bolshevik party benefited from this collapse. Increasingly its militants were again operating in the open; indeed they had never disappeared from view outside Petrograd and Moscow. Trotsky was released from prison and returned to public platforms to heap the blame for Russia’s misfortunes on the Provisional Government. Lenin in his Helsinki refuge declared that the Kornilov affair proved that there were only two alternatives: military dictatorship or socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks attended the Democratic Conference only to state their case against Kerenski and walk out.

Far from being delighted by this, Lenin thought the Bolsheviks were allowing themselves to become distracted from the organizing of an insurrection. He got articles couriered to Petrograd from his places of hiding. He nagged his comrades about the urgent need to overthrow the cabinet — and it was becoming clear that he could count on Trotsky, the newly recruited Bolshevik, to support his strategy. Although the Central Committee did not always accede to Lenin’s ideas, it never wholly ignored them. The anti-Bolshevik press went on building up his importance, representing him as a demonic figure with a mesmeric power over the Bolsheviks and Trotsky was depicted as his political twin. In the Petrograd Soviet there was anxiety among Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries whenever Trotsky appeared. He replaced Kerenski as the great orator of the Revolution. From early September he was Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and other city soviets throughout Russia quickly began to go over to the Bolsheviks. The mood in the party grew confident that some new kind of coalition would eventually be formed with willing Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders. Kerenski and his cabinet appeared about to be consigned to oblivion, and opinion grew among workers and soldiers in favour of a government composed exclusively of dedicated socialists.

Lenin’s thoughts were fixed on an uprising; he denied that ‘Kerenski’s clique’ could be removed without violence. He returned incognito to Petrograd to put his case at the Bolshevik Central Committee. A nocturnal meeting was held on 23–24 October when he harangued fellow leaders as only he could do. Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev opposed him. They doubted that the working class was firmly in favour of an uprising. They questioned whether Europe was on the point of experiencing socialist revolutions; they feared that any premature move by the Bolsheviks would expose them to an irresistible counter-strike. But Lenin beat them back and the vote went ten to four in his favour. The Central Committee met again six days later with Bolshevik leaders from the rest of Russia. For the second time Lenin faced down his opponents after a blistering dispute. Official Bolshevik policy was set definitively in the direction of seizing power. 7

The principle of insurrection but not the practicalities were debated. As Lenin went back into hiding on the outskirts of the capital, it was Trotsky who devised tactics and strategy. The Petrograd Soviet had recently established a Military-Revolutionary Committee to oversee the garrisons. Trotsky saw that he could use this body to rally support among troops and co-ordinate armed action against the Provisional Government. This would have the advantage of making the coup appear less as a Bolshevik party coup d'etat than as a step towards installing rule by soviets. What happened in Petrograd could then be copied in other cities. And once Kerenski had been arrested or expelled from the Winter Palace, power could be presented to the Second Congress of Soviets that was scheduled to meet in the next few days. Lenin was not pleased: he wanted instant action. Kamenev and Zinoviev broke ranks by divulging their trepidation about the Central Committee decisions. Everyone in Petrograd now knew that the Bolsheviks were about to embark on drastic measures. Kerenski and his ministers did not intend to go down without a fight. They made efforts to rally support from garrison commanders as the moment of armed collision grew closer. They felt certain that Russia’s woes would increase a thousandfold if it fell under Bolshevik rule.