15) Kerensky and Kornilov

"That is the moral of the opponents of violence in politics: they renounce violence when it comes to introducing changes in what already exists, but in defence of the existing order they will not stop at the most ruthless acts"

Kerensky

Kornilov

 The Elements of ‘Bonapartism’

The name of Kornilov was appearing with increasing regularity in the right-wing press as the future saviour of the country. Leading industrialists, Kadets and other generals were all giving him their support.

Kornilov was noted for his personal bravery but also for his complete lack of strategic ability – a “man with a lion’s heart and the brain of a sheep” (72) as a fellow general described him. More to the point, an E.C. report back in March had summed him up as “a general of the old stripe who wants to put an end to the revolution” (73). His political ignorance made him easy prey for seekers of adventure – and those looking for a figurehead for the counter-revolution.

The Kadet Party also tried to push for a reform of the church to help them win support from the people against the revolution. However, “the preparations for the Council of Churches were met with complete indifference by the people. The interests and passions of the masses were finding their expression in socialist slogans, not theological texts. Belated Russia enacted her history in an abridged edition: she found herself obliged to step over, not only the epoch of the reformation, but that of bourgeois parliamentarism as well” (74).

The dual power between the Compromisers and the bourgeoisie signified a social crisis, a nation utterly divided. Each side recognised the need for a strong government based on an individual balancing above all classes – in Marxist terms, a ‘Bonapartist’ regime.

The Compromisers’ candidate for Bonaparte was Kerensky but the bourgeoisie looked to Kornilov. Not surprisingly, the two men hated each other – “a translation of the contradictions of the dual power into the explosive language of personal ambition” (75).

Of course, while appearing to be above all classes, a Bonapartist regime exists, in the final analysis, to protect one social system. Napoleon protected the bourgeois revolution and its property, rent and profits. However, he had been able to successfully build his position with the support of a victorious army that had given land to the peasants.

“The misfortune of the Russian candidates for Bonaparte [was] they were confronted by a great revolution which had not yet solved its problems or exhausted its force. The bourgeoisie was trying to compel the peasant, still without land, to fight for the estates of the landlords. The war had given nothing but defeats. There was not the shadow of an industrial boom. If the proletariat had retreated it was only to close up its ranks. The peasantry were only drawing back for their last assault upon the lords. The oppressed nationalities were assuming the offensive against a Russifying despotism. In search of peace, the army was coming closer and closer to the workers and their party. There was no equilibrium. The revolution was still full-blooded. No wonder Bonapartism proved anaemic” (76).

In truth, Kerensky was no powerful Bonaparte in control of events. He took his orders from Miliukov – and ambassador Buchanan. Kerensky refused to take action against the threat of reaction while his government repressed the workers and soldiers. “That is the moral of the opponents of violence in politics: they renounce violence when it comes to introducing changes in what already exists, but in defence of the existing order they will not stop at the most ruthless acts” (77).

The bourgeois strategists realised what a useful asset Kerensky was to them. He was able to give a revolutionary colour to their counter-revolutionary policies. “ ‘Imagine how it would have been,’ remarked Lenin, ‘if Guchkov had attempted to issue orders for an offensive, to disband regiments, to forbid congresses. But Kerensky could permit himself this ‘luxury’ – only, it is true, until he had squandered that incredibly quick-melting confidence which the people had placed to his credit …’ ” (78).

By August, however, a growing number of the possessing classes were losing patience at the failure of the Kadets to overthrow Kerensky. It was the mirror image of the workers’ and soldiers’ impatience with the Bolsheviks in the ‘July Days’.

“Just as out of the eagerness of the Petrograd masses arose the semi-insurrection of July, so out of the impatience of the property owners arose the Kornilov insurrection of August. And just as the Bolsheviks found themselves obliged to take the side of an armed insurrection, in order if possible to guarantee its success, and in any case to prevent its extermination, so the Kadets found themselves, for like purposes, to take part in the Kornilov insurrection” (79).

The State Conference is called

At the end of July, the government announced that it was calling a state conference in Moscow on August 13th. The Compromisers desperately hoped they could use it to appeal to the bourgeoisie to reach an agreed compromise. Kerensky hoped the event would allow him to display his qualities as saviour of the nation! But the bourgeoisie – and the Bolsheviks – knew that the real struggle was for power – of either the bosses or workers.

The representatives were to come from all classes and organisations but “the government took care to make sure in advance that the conference should contain an equal number of representatives from the possessing classes and the people. Only by means of this artificial equilibrium could the government of the salvation of the revolution still hope to save itself” (80).

When the Conference assembled, it became clear that, in fact, the ‘balance’ had been set decisively in favour of the right-wing. For every peasant deputy, there were equal numbers of landlords. For each Soviet representative, there were three times as many delegates from the state Duma!

The Compromisers knew they couldn’t afford to allow any Bolshevik speakers to sabotage their plans. The E.C. ruled that party factions could only speak if allowed by the conference praesidium. To their shock, the Bolsheviks replied by announcing that they would not take their seats. Instead, they were going out to speak to the workers of Moscow.

In expectation of a more welcoming environment than Petrograd, the reaction had chosen Moscow as the venue for a number of counter-revolutionary conferences in August. But they were about to find out that the mood of the city’s workers was rapidly catching up with those of their brothers and sisters in the capital.

The combined effect of the provocative speeches being made by the reaction in their own city, together with Bolshevik agitation, had stung the workers and soldiers of Moscow into action. Now the demand came from the shop floor of the Moscow factories to call a general strike in opposition to the state conference.

The Moscow Soviet with Compromisers, elected some time beforehand, at its head, voted to oppose the strike. But it was now far out of step with the real mood of the workers. The trade unions called the action in any case. Most of the district soviets voted in support. One even voted by 175 to 4 to demand the recall of the delegates to the Moscow Soviet that had voted against it!

Despite this, the night before the strike was a nervous one for the Bolsheviks. They remembered only too well how, just a few weeks earlier, the July demonstrations had been so poorly supported in Moscow. Just as then, the Compromisers in the Moscow Soviet were doing everything they could to dissuade the workers from taking action.

The Bolsheviks had no need to worry. The August 12th strike was solid. 400,000 workers took part in Moscow and its suburbs. Its effects made sure that every conference delegate was made personally aware of the Moscow workers’ hostility to the government. There were no lights, no trams running. Even the waiters had gone on strike!

Similar action, general or partial, had taken place in Kiev and other cities too. This one-day action fitted the needs of the moment perfectly. It avoided an armed clash that would only have played into the hands of the reaction. Above all, it demonstrated with absolute clarity that the Petrograd workers no longer needed to fear isolation from those of Moscow and the other main cities.

“The new Petrograd organ of the party, ‘The Proletarian’, managed before it was shut down to put a question to the Compromisers: ‘From Petrograd you went to Moscow – where will you go from there?’ Even the masters of the situation must have put this question to themselves” (81).

The Bolsheviks had used the events to hammer home their message that the State Conference was really being called to prepare a conspiracy against the revolution. This was no exaggeration. In the days before the Conference, Kornilov had ordered four cavalry divisions to get ready to move on Petrograd. A Cossack regiment sent to Moscow ‘to preserve order’ had only been held up by Kerensky’s command. Rumours of an impending insurrection spread.

Later testimony suggests that the Conference wasn’t planned as a date for the actual overthrow. Kornilov had apparently chosen August 27th as the date for his action. He hoped Riga would by then have fallen to the Germans, so he could use this defeat as a pretext for his coup. He certainly did little to defend Riga even though it was strategically critical for the defence of Petrograd.

But even the Compromisers could take no chances. The Moscow Soviet elected its own secret defence committee of six people – including two Bolsheviks. “The Bolsheviks, who had been forbidden entry into the barracks since the July Days, were now freely admitted: without them it was impossible to win over the soldiers. While in the open arena the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were negotiating with the bourgeoisie for the creation of a strong power against the masses led by the Bolsheviks, behind the scenes these same Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries in co-operation with the Bolsheviks … were preparing the masses for a struggle against the conspiracy of the bourgeoisie” (82).

The Moscow State Conference

To an independent observer, the State Conference debates would have had an air of unreality about them. Both the bourgeoisie and the Compromisers sought to pretend that the reality of the gathering storm of the revolutionary masses was just an unwelcome illusion. In this fantasy world, the exhausted Coalition was spoken of as a means to future salvation, the weak-willed Kerensky as a forceful statesman, the hated Kornilov as a beloved leader of the people.

The speeches from the two aspiring rulers, Kornilov and Kerensky, brought very different reactions from the divided delegates. Kerensky spoke on the 12th to applause – but mainly from the ‘left’ half of the hall.“ ‘Many provincials,’ writes Miliukov, ‘saw Kerensky in this hall for the first time, and they went out half disappointed and half indignant. Before them stood a young man with a tortured pale face, and a pose like an actor speaking his lines. This man seemed to be trying to frighten some-body and create upon all an impression of power and force of will. In reality he evoked only a feeling of pity’ ” (83).

The next day, Kornilov had arranged for himself a grand entry into Moscow for the Conference. A crowd of delegates, officers, and other wealthy supporters greeted his train at the station. Kornilov’s biography and portrait were scattered from cars and his posters pasted all over the city. Politicians, industrialists and bankers all came to visit him in his private carriage as if he were already ruler of the country.

On the 14th, it was Kornilov’s turn to take the floor. Trotsky again quotes from Miliukov’s account: “The short, stumpy but strong figure of a man … appeared … darting … piercing glances from his small black eyes in which there was a vicious glint. The hall rocked with applause. All leapt to their feet with the exception of … the soldiers” (84).

Only after a storm of abuse between the soldiers and the right-wing delegates had subsided could Kornilov speak. His central point, in keeping with his plan for insurrection, was to condemn the measures introduced by the revolution to undermine the rule of his military commanders at the front and to frighten delegates with the impending fall of Riga. To applause from the Right and angry protests from the Left, the Cossack General Kaledin then spelt out the demands of the military leaders to abolish the soldiers’ new rights.

Cheidze, president of the EC, responded, giving the official declaration of the Compromisers. He defended the soviets and the soldiers’ committees, saying that only they could save the country from ‘anarchy’ and guarantee the continuation of the war. But any concrete proposals to solve the land or national questions, let alone seek an end to the war, were conspicuous by their absence. “In general, the document seemed to have been especially designed to provoke the indignation of the masses without giving satisfaction to the bourgeoisie”. (85).

There were numerous other speakers on the 14th and 15th, but few prepared to even hint at the real situation facing them, most deliberately concealed the truth. For example, to applause the Kadet Nabokov renounced any question of Russia negotiating a separate peace – even though secretly many Kadets actually saw this as the only solution to the desperate military situation. Miliukov pledged his full support to a government he was already conspiring to overthrow. Rodzianko spoke of the patriotism of the military manufacturers – when the press had just revealed how he had got rich supplying worthless wood for rifles!

Kropotkin, founder of anarchism in Russia, was given a chance to take the floor and “asked only to join his voice ‘to those voices which are summoning the whole Russian people to break once and for all with [anti-war] Zimmerwaldism.’ Landlords, industrialists, generals … extended to the apostle of anarchism a well-earned ovation. Like every sect which founds its teaching not upon the actual development of human society, but upon the reduction to absurdity of one of its features, anarchism explodes like a soap bubble at the moment when the social contradictions arrive at the point of war or revolution” (85).

Far from displaying a united nation with a strong government, the Moscow State Conference revealed, as Miliukov himself stated, “that the country was divided into two camps between which there could be no essential reconciliation or agreement” (86).

As it drew to a close, a young Cossack officer spoke to make clear that even the Cossacks were split between the generals and the ranks. When an officer cried out ‘German marks!’ in response, the storm of protest was so fierce it almost descended into a fist-fight. Kerensky tried to calmly close the conference before suddenly bursting into hysterical shrieks and cries of despair. “The hall was stupefied, and this time both halves of it. The social symbol of the State Conference wound up with an insufferable monologue from a melodrama” (87).