1. The Kornilov revolt is treated in detail in my forthcoming
volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk.” The
responsibility of Kerensky for the situation which gave rise to
Kornilov’s attempt is now pretty clearly established. Many
apologists for Kerensky say that he knew of Kornilov’s
plans, and by a trick drew him out prematurely, and then crushed
him. Even Mr. A. J. Sack, in his book, “The Birth of the
Russian Democracy,” says:
“Several things&… are almost
certain. The first is that Kerensky knew about the movement of
several detachments from the Front toward Petrograd, and it is
possible that as Prime Minister and Minister of War, realising the
growing Bolshevist danger, he called for them….”
The only flaw in that argument is that there was
no “Bolshevist danger” at that time, the Bolsheviki
still being a powerless minority in the Soviets, and their leaders
in jail or hiding.
IN September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make
himself military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly
revealed the mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting
to crush the Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were
implicated; even Kerensky was under suspicion.1 Savinkov,
summoned to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the
Socialist Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov
was arrested by the Soldiers’ Committees. Generals were
dismissed, Ministers suspended from their functions, and the
Cabinet fell. Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including
the Cadets, party of the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist
Revolutionaries, ordered him to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky
declined to obey, and threatened to resign from the Cabinet if
the Socialists insisted. However, popular feeling ran so high
that for the moment he did not dare oppose it, and a temporary
Directorate of Five of the old Ministers, with Kerensky at the
head, assumed the power until the question should be settled.
The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist groups—“moderates” as well as revolutionists—in a passionate impulse of self-defence. There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government must be created, responsible to the elements supporting the Revolution. So the Tsay-ee-kah invited the popular organisations to send delegates to a Democratic Conference, which should meet at Petrograd in September.
In the Tsay-ee-kah three factions immediately appeared. The Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be summoned, and that they take over the power. The “centre” Socialist Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki Internationalists under Martov, and the “centre” Mensheviki, represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely Socialist Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the right wing Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under Avksentiev and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be represented in the new Government.
Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities followed suit.
Footnote 2 is at available at the bottom of the page.Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of the Tsay-ee-kah decided that after all they feared the danger of Kornilov less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of representation in the Democratic Conference,2 admitting more delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other conservative bodies. Even this packed assembly at first voted for a Coalition Government without the Cadets. Only Kerensky’s open threat of resignation, and the alarming cries of the “moderate” Socialists that “the Republic is in danger” persuaded the Conference, by a small majority, to declare in favour of the principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to sanction the establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament, without any legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes practically controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they occupied a disproportionate number of seats.
The fact is that the Tsay-ee-kah no longer represented the rank and file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no intention of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called. Its official organ, Izviestia (News), began to hint that the function of the Soviets was nearly at an end,3 Footnote 3 is produced at the bottom of the page. and that they might soon be dissolved—At this time, too, the new Government announced as part of its policy the liquidation of “irresponsible organisations”—i.e. the Soviets.
The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to meet at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of Russia. At the same time they withdrew from the Council of the Russian Republic, stating that they would not participate in a “Government of Treason to the People.”4 Footnote 4 is at available at the bottom of the page.
The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring tranquillity to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now in a position of power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that the Government had no legal right to declare Russia a republic. They demanded stern measures in the Army and Navy to destroy the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Committees, and denounced the Soviets. On the other side of the chamber the Mensheviki Internationalists and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries advocated immediate peace, land to the peasants, and workers’ control of industry—practically the Bolshevik programme.
I heard Martov’s speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the desk of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking in a voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger toward the right benches:
“You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait for a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon postponing peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian army, until Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the different imperialist groups. You are trying to impose upon the Russian people a policy dictated by the interests of the bourgeoisie. The question of peace should be raised without delay. You will see then that not in vain has been the work of those whom you call German agents, of those Zimmerwaldists who in all the lands have prepared the awakening of the conscience of the democratic masses.”
Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the pressure of the rising dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility divided the chamber into irreconcilable groups.
This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the Allied Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of foreign policy.
Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May, 1917, the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,had proclaimed the famous Russian peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a conference to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised for August; then postponed until September; then until October; and now it was fixed for November 10th.
The Provisional Government suggested two representatives—General Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and drew up a manifesto, the famous nakaz—instructions.5Footnote 5 is at available at the bottom of the page. The Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and his nakaz; the Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law in the British House of Commons, in answer to a question, responded coldly, “As far as I know the Paris Conference will not discuss the aims of the war at all, but only the methods of conducting it.”
At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the Bolsheviki cried, “See where the compromising tactics of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!”
Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia’s armies stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their hundreds upon hundreds of delegations, crying “Peace! Peace!”
I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous night after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof—soldiers, sailors, workmen, women, all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A soldier was speaking—from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division, wherever and whatever that was:
“Comrades,” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and despairing gestures. “The people at the top are always calling upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left unmolested.
“We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve on our Staff? Well we’re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we invite them into our Government.
“The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the Revolution then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to force me.’
“When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it!”
In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less soldier speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring that if the Government did not make an energetic effort to get peace, the army would leave the trenches and go home.
The spokesman for the Eighth Army:
“We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be left only empty trenches. Peace or supplies—either let the Government end the war or support the Army.”
For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:
“The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to the enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even to talk of such things, and at the same time doesn’t give us enough food to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with.”
6. Peace At Russia’s Expense The Ribot revelations of Austria’s peace-offer to France; the so-called “Peace Conference” at Berne, Switzerland, during the summer of 1917, in which delegates participated from all belligerent countries, representing large financial interests in all these countries; and the attempted negotiations of an English agent with a Bulgarian church dignitary; all pointed to the fact that there were strong currents, on both sides, favourable to patching up a peace at the expense of Russia. In my next book, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I intend to treat this matter at some length, publishing several secret documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Petrograd.Footnote 7 is at available at the bottom of the page.
From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia.&…6
News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with Soldiers’ Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused an order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had been surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and many killed.&…7
On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear Terestchenko’s declaration of the Government’s foreign policy, awaited with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and exhausted land.
A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech.8 Nothing. . . Only the same platitudes about crushing German militarism with the help of the Allies—about the “state interests” of Russia, about the “embarrassment” caused by Skobeliev’s nakaz. He ended with the key-note:
“Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders of a great ideal, and children of a great power.”
Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a “strong” imperialist policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that the Government would press for peace. I reproduce an editorial in Rabotchi i Soldat (Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet:
The Government’s Answer To The Trenches
The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually told the trenches the following:
1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but with the Governments.)
2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the Governments of our Allies.
3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair. (He did not mention the consequences.)
4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations? What about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet?9
The parleying of the British king with exiled counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention all this.)
5. The nakaz to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don’t like it and the Russian diplomats don’t like it. In the Allied Conference we must all ‘speak one language.’
And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is, faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When the Allies permit.
That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!
Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague outlines of a sinister power—the Cossacks. Novaya Zhizn (New Life), Gorky’s paper, called attention to their activities:
At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot down the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to follow him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have passed to an active political offensive (against it). From the back-ground of the Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the front of the stage.
Kaledin, ataman of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination. More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council of the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the newly-formed Cossack Section of the Soviets.
In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon Kerensky, arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be dropped, and reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the Soviets. Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported to have said, “In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a tyrant. As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not depend upon the Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they exist at all.”
At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of “the free Cossack people.”
In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been established. The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State. The Soviets of Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by armed Cossacks, and the headquarters of the Coal Miners’ Union at Kharkov raided. In all its manifestations the Cossack movement was anti-Socialist and militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great land-owners, like Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and Bardizhe, and it was backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of Moscow.
Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland, White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes, claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev extended the boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the richest agricultural lands of South Russia, as far east as the Urals, and began the formation of a national army. Premier Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate peace with Germany—and the Provisional Government was helpless. Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded separate Constituent Assemblies. And in all these countries there was the beginning of a bitter struggle between the authorities and the local Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast, aimless tides over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and Tver Governments, tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the repressive measures of the Government, were burning manor-houses and massacring land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed Moscow, Odessa and the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was paralysed; the army was starving and in the big cities there was no bread.
The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary factions, could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported the interests of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to restore order among the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent, Government authorities suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the Economic Council, established to rebuild the shattered economic life of the country, came to a deadlock between the opposing forces of capital and labour, and was dissolved by Kerensky. The old régime military men, backed by Cadets, demanded that harsh measures be adopted to restore discipline in the Army and the Navy. In vain Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister of Marine, and General Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only a new, voluntary, democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the soldiers’ and sailors’ Committees, could save the army and navy. Their recommendations were ignored.
The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The trial of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois press defended him, speaking of him as “the great Russian patriot.” Burtzev’s paper, Obshtchee Dielo (Common Cause), called for a dictatorship of Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!
I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the Council of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled face, eyes near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard streaked with grey.
“Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We should get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the Germans. Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the bunglers are the German agents. Kornilov should have won.”
On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists, Purishkevitch’s Narodny Tribun (People’s Tribune), Novaya Rus (New Russia), and Zhivoye Slovo (Living Word), openly advocated the extermination of the revolutionary democracy.
On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German squadron in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in danger, the Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the capital. First the great munitions works were to go, distributed widely throughout Russia; and then the Government itself was to move to Moscow. Instantly the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the Government was abandoning the Red Capital in order to weaken the Revolution. Riga had been sold to the Germans; now Petrograd was being betrayed!
The bourgeois press was joyful. “At Moscow,” said the Cadet paper Ryetch (Speech), “the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists.” Rodzianko, leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in Utro Rossii (The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the Germans would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets and get rid of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:
Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, “Let God take care of Petrograd.” They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that I rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will bring nothing but disaster upon Russia.
With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be destroyed. But there will be nothing to regret; most of the battleships are completely demoralised. . . .
In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation was repudiated.
Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not only by the Government but by all the “moderate” Socialists. The Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of the Trade Unions, the Peasants’ Soviets, but most of all the Tsay-ee-kah itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting. Izviestia and Golos Soldata (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers founded by the Petrograd Soviet but now in the hands of the Tsay-ee-kah, fiercely assailed it, as did the entire artillery of the Socialist Revolutionary party press, Dielo Naroda (People’s Cause) and Volia Naroda (People’s Will).
Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees, instructing them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn public resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the democracy was opposed to the meeting so near the date of the Constituent Assembly, representatives from the Front, from the Union of Zemstvos, the Peasants’ Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of Officers, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions, protesting. The Council of the Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval. The entire machinery set up by the Russian Revolution of March functioned to block the Congress of Soviets.
On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat—the workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the industrial workers, the Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti Factory-Shop Committees; and the insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some places the people, prevented from electing their regular Soviet delegates, held rump meetings and chose one of their number to go to Petrograd. In others they smashed the old obstructionist committees and formed new ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved and cracked the crust which had been slowly hardening on the surface of revolutionary fires dormant all those months. Only an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and factories, violently denouncing “this Government of civil war.” One Sunday we went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through oceans of mud, between stark factories and immense churches, to Obukhovsky Zavod, a Government munitions-plant out on the Schlüsselburg Prospekt.
The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the mass of simple faces upturned to us.
Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face of an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the Soviets. Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its enemies, who were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the army, creating opportunities for a new Konilov.
A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried, “Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution until they die. We will hold the forth with all our strength until the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!”
Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: “Now is the time for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we must get used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us. They are trying to provoke us. But let them know that they can go too far—that if they dare to lay their hands upon the organisations of the proletariat we will sweep them away like scum from the face of the earth!”
The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers, Rabotchi Put and Soldat (Soldier), there appeared a new paper for the peasants, Derevenskaya Byednota (Village Poorest), poured out in a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, Rabotchi i Soldat. Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:
The fourth year’s campaign will mean the annihilation of the army and the country. There is danger for the safety of Petrograd. Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people’s misfortunes. The peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are threatened with starvation. The bourgeoisie and its Generals want to restore a blind discipline in the army. Supported by the bourgeoisie, the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up the meeting of the Constituent Assembly.
The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the country. This paper stands for the people and by the people—the poor classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be saved by the completion of the Revolution—and for this purpose the full power must be in the hands of the Soviets.
This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets—both in the capital and in the provinces.
Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.
Landlord estates—without compensation—to the peasants.
Workers’ control over industrial production.
A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.
It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same paper—the organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as German agents:
The German Kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead people, wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the German workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than we do, to—stand up against this damned war!
This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would speak really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and would appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German troops, fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German language. Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over Germany.
In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the chamber deepened day by day.
“The propertied classes,” cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, “want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy.”
Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists, spoke against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of the Cadets: “We must have immediately strong discipline in the army. Since the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist that it is a crime to undertake social and economic reforms in war-time. We are committing that crime, and yet I am not the enemy of these reforms, because I am a Socialist.”
Cries from the Left, “We don’t believe you!” Mighty applause from the Right.
Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to tell the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to realise that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian territory.
Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national unity, once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him coldly, interrupting with ironical remarks.
| 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies |
| 100 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Peasants’ Deputies |
| 50 delegates | Provincial Soviets Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies |
| 50 delegates | Peasants’ District Land Committees |
| 100 delegates | Trade Unions |
| 84 delegates | Army Committees at the Front |
| 150 delegates | Workers’ and Peasants’ Cooperative Societies |
| 20 delegates | Railway Workers’ Union |
| 10 delegates | Post and Telegraph Workers’ Union |
| 20 delegates | Commercial Clerks |
| 15 delegates | Liberal Professions—Doctors, Lawyers, Journalists, etc. |
| 50 delegates | Provincial Zemstvos |
| 59 delegates | Nationalist Organisations—Poles, Ukraineans, etc. |
This proportion was altered twice or three times. The final disposition of delegates was:
| 300 delegates | All-Russian Soviets Workers’, Soldiers’ & Peasants’ Deputies |
| 300 delegates | Cooperative Societies |
| 300 delegates | Municipalities |
| 150 delegates | Army Committees at the Front |
| 150 delegates | Provincial Zemstvos |
| 200 delegates | Trade Unions |
| 100 delegates | Nationalist Organisations |
| 200 delegates | Several small groups |
3.On September 28th, 1917, Izviestia, organ of the Tsay-ee-kah, published an article which said, speaking of the last Provisional Ministry:
“At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of all classes of the Russian people, the first rough form of the future liberal parliamentary ré#233;gime, has been formed. Ahead of us is the Constituent Assembly, which will solve all questions of fundamental law, and whose composition will be essentially democratic. The function of the Soviets is at an end, and the time is approaching when they must retire, with the rest of the revolutionary machinery, from the stage of a free and victorious people, whose weapons shall hereafter be the peaceful ones of political action.”
The leading article of Izviestia for October 23d was called, “The Crisis in the Soviet Organisations.” It began by saying that travellers reported a lessening activity of local Soviets everywhere. “This is natural,” said the writer. “For the people are becoming interested in the more permanent legislative organs—the Municipal Dumas and the Zemstvs….
“In the important centres of Petrograd and Moscow, where the Soviets were best organised, they did not take in all the democratic elements…. The majority of the intellectuals did not participate, and many workers also; some of the workers because they were politically backward, others because the centre of gravity for them was in their Unns…. We cannot deny that these organisations are firmly united with the masses, whose everyday needs are better served by them….
“That the local democratic administrations are being energetically organised is highly important. The City Dumas are elected by universal suffrage, and in purely local matters have more authority than the Soviets. Not a single democrat will see anything wrong in this….
“&… Elections to the Municipalities are being conduct in a better and more democratic way than the elections to the Soviets&… All classes are represented in the Municipalities…. And as soon as the local Self-Governments begin to organise life in the Municipalities, the rôle of the local Soviets naturally ends….
“&… There are two factors in the falling off of
interest in the Soviets. The first we may attribute to the
lowering of political interest in the masses; the second, to the
growing effort of provincial and local governing bodies to
organise the building of new Russia…. The more the
tendency lies in this latter direction, the sooner disappears
the significance of the Soviets….
“We ourselves are being called the
‘undertakers’ of our own organisation. In reality, we
ourselves are the hardest workers in constructing the new
Russia….
“When autocracy and the whole bureaucratic
règimeell, we set up the Soviets as a barracks in which
all the democracy cod find temporary shelter. Now, instead of
barracks, we are building the permanent edifice of a new system,
and naturally the people will gradually leave the barracks for
more comfortable quarters.”
4. Trotzky’s Speech At The Council Of The Russin
Republic “The purpose of the Democratic Conference,
which was called by the Tsay-ee-kah, was to do away
with the irresponsible personal government which produced
Kornilov, and to establish a responsible government which would
be capable of finishing the war, and ensure the calling of the
Constituent Assembly at the given time. In the meanwhile behind
the back of the Democratic Conference, by trickery, by deals
between Citizen Kerensky, the Cadets, and the leaders of the
Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, we received the
opposite result from the officially announced purpose. A power
was created around which and in which we have open and secret
Kornilovs playing leading parts. The irresponsibility of the
Government is offically proclaimed, when it is announced that
the Council of the Russian Republic is to be a
consultative and not legislative body. In the
eighth month of the Revolution, the irresponsible Government
creates a cover for itself in this new edition of
Bieligen’s Duma.
“The propertied classes have entered this Provision
Council in a proportion which clearly shows, from elections all
over the country, that many of them have no right here
whatever. In spite of that the Cadet party, which until
yesterday wanted the Provisional Government to be responsible to
the State Duma—this same Cadet party secured the
independence Assembly the propertied classes will no doubt have
as favourable position than they have in this Council, and they
will not be able to be irresponsible to the Constituent
Assembly.
“If the propertied classes were really getting ready for
the Constituent Assembly six weeks from now, there could be no
reason for establishing the irresponsibility of the Government
at this time. The whole truth is that the bourgeoisie, which
directs the policies of the Provisional Government, has for its
aim to break the Constituent Assembly. At present this is the
main purpose of the propertied classes, which control our entire
national policy—external and internal. In the industrial,
agrarian and supply departments the politics of the propertied
classes, acting with the Government, increases the natural
disorganisation caused by the war. The propertied classes, which
are provoking a peasants’ revolt! The propertied classes,
which are provoking civil war, and openly hold their course on
the bony hand of hunger, with which they intend to overthrow the
Revolution and finish with the Constituent Assembly!
“No less criminal also is the international policy of the
bourgeoisie and its Government. After forty months of war, the
capital is threatened with mortal danger. In reply to this
arises a plan to move the Government to Moscow. The idea of
abandoning the capital does not stir the indignation of the
bourgeoisie. Just the opposite. It is accepted as a natural part
of the general policy designed to promote counter-revolutionary
conspiracy. &… Instead of recognising that the salvation
of the country lies in concluding peace, instead of throwing
openly the idea of immediate peace to all the worn-out peoples,
over the heads of diplomats and imperialists, and making the
continuation of the war impossible,—the Provisional
Government, by order of the Cadets, the Counter-Revolutionists
and the Allied Imperialists, without sense, without purpose and
without a plan, continues to drag on the murderous war,
sentencing to useless death new hundreds of thousands of
soldiers and sailors, and preparing to give up Petrograd, and to
wreck the Revolution. At a time when Bolshevik soldiers and
sailors are dying with other soldiers and sailors as a result of
the mistakes and crimes of others, the so-called Supreme
Commander (Kerensky) continues to suppress the Bolshevik
press. The leading parties of the Council are acting as a
voluntary cover for these policies.
“We, the faction of Social Democrats Bolsheviki, announce
that with this Government of Treason to the People we have
nothing in common. We have nothing in common with the work of
these Murderers of the People which goes on behind official
curtains. We refuse either directly or indirectly to cover up
one day of this work. While Wilhelm’s troops are
threatening Petrograd, the Government of Kerensky and Kornilov
is preparing to run away from Petrograd and turn Moscow into a
base of counter-revolution!
“We warn the Moscow workers and soldiers to be on their
guard. Leaving this Council, we appeal to the manhood and wisdom
of the workers, peasants and soldiers of all Russia. Petrograd
is in danger! The Revolution is in danger! The Government has
increased the danger—the ruling classes intensify it. Only
the people themselves can save themselves and the country.
“We appeal to the people. Long live immediate, honest,
democratic peace! All power to the Soviets! All land to the
people! Long live the Constituent Assembly!”
7.
Russian Soldiers In France
Official Report of the Provisional Government.
“From the time the news of the Russian
Revolution reached Paris, Russian newspapers of extreme tendencies
immediately began to appear; and these newspapers, as well as
individuals, freely circulated among the soldier masses and began
a Bolshevik propaganda, often spreading false news which appeared
in the French journals. In the absence of all official news, and
of precise details, this campaign provoked discontent among the
soldiers. The result was a desire to return to Russia, and a
hatred toward the officers.
“Finally it all turned into rebellion. In
one of their meetings, the soldiers issued an appeal to refuse to
drill, since they had decided to fight no more. It was decided to
isolate the rebels, and General Zankievitch ordered all soldiers
loyal to the Provisional Government to leave the camp of Courtine,
and to carry with them all ammunition. On June 25th the order was
executed; there remained at the camp only the soldiers who said
they would submit ‘conditionally’ to the Provisional
Government. The soldiers at the camp of Courtine received several
times the visit of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies
abroad, of Rapp, the Commissar of the Ministry of War, and of
several distinguished former exiles who wished to influence them,
but these attempts were unsuccessful, and finally Commissar Rapp
insisted that the rebels lay down their arms, and, in sign of
submission, march in good order to a place called Clairvaux. The
order was only partially obeyed; first 500 men went out, of whom
22 were arrested; 24 hours later about 6,000
followed…. About 2,000 remained….
“It was decided to increase the pressure;
their rations were diminished, their pay was cut off, and the
roads toward the village of Courtine were guarded by French
soldiers. General Zankievitch, having discovered that a Russian
artillery brigade was passing through France, decided to form a
mixed detachment of infantry and artillery to reduce the rebels. A
deputation was sent to the rebels; the deputation returned
several hours later, convinced of the futility of the
negotiations. On September 1st General Zankievitch sent an
ultimatum to the rebels demanding that they lay down their arms,
and menacing in case of refusal to open fire with artillery if the
order was not obeyed by September 3d at 10 o’clock.
“The order not being executed, a light fire
of artillery was opened on the place at the hour agreed
upon. Eighteen shells were fired, and the rebels were warned that
the bombardment would become more intense. In the night of
September 3d 160 men surrendered. September 4th the artillery
bombardment recommenced, and at 11 o’clock, after 36 shells
had been fired, the rebels raised two white flags and began to
leave the camp without arms. By evening 8,300 men had
surrendered. 150 soldiers who remained in the camp opened fire
with machine-guns that night. The 5th of September, to make an end
of the affair, a heavy barrage was laid on the camp, and our
soldiers occupied it little by little. The rebels kept up a heavy
fire with their machine-guns. September 6th, at 9 o’clock,
the camp was entirely occupied…. After the disarmament of
the rebels, 81 arrests were made….”
Thus the report. From secret documents discovered
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, we know that the
account is not strictly accurate. The first trouble arose when the
soldiers tried to form Committees, as their comrades in Russia
were doing. They demanded to be sent back to Russia, which was
refused; and then, being considered a dangerous influence in
France, they were ordered to Salonika. They refused to go, and the
battle followed…. It was discovered that they had been left
in camp without officers for about two months, and badly treated,
before they became rebellious. All attempts to find out the name
of the “Russian artillery brigade” which had fired on
them were futile; the telegrams discovered in the Ministry left it
to be inferred that French artillery was used….
After their surrender, more than two hundred of the mutineers were shot in cold blood.