The coalition with the compromisers (the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries—Trans.) enabled the bourgeoisie to institute a sort of division of labour within the government. The “Socialist” Ministers came out before the people with “democratic” speeches and proposals, while the leaders of the bourgeoisie, screened by the compromisers, mobilised their forces for a new offensive against the revolution. The State Duma resumed its activities under the guise of “private conferences.” The first of these conferences was held on April 22. Rodzyanko defined the purpose of these conferences as follows: people were expecting the Duma delegates “to indicate how the ship of State should be steered.”(1) And N. V. Savich, an Octobrist, added: “It is our business to mould public opinion.”(2)
The Minister of Agriculture in the May Coalition Government was V. M. Chernov. A leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and its theoretician, he was also reputed to be an expert on the agrarian question. Having received a Ministerial portfolio, Chernov should have endeavoured to put the muddled Socialist-Revolutionary theories into practice. But it was not for this purpose that the Socialist-Revolutionary leader had been invited to join the government. Prince Volkonsky, a big landlord in the Tambov Province, wrote a letter to Chernov at the beginning of June explaining what the landlords expected of him.
“Only by prescription from above,” the Prince bombastically wrote, “can uniformity of action be attained, only in this way can cold water be poured on the coals of greed heated by the passions of the class war, the smoke of which bids fair to becloud all conception of social benefit and the flames to devour the fortunes of those who fan them. . . . They [the peasants—Ed.] must be authoritatively told that there are actions which in times like ours are unnatural. They must be told this, and they can be told this by you alone, from St. Petersburg. Every word uttered here, locally, is under suspicion: they will not believe one because he is a landlord, another because he is a merchant, a third because, ‘of course,’ he is a ‘lawyer,’ and, generally, because they are all ‘bourgeois’ and ‘old-régime.’ . . . You, M. le Ministre, are new-régime. . . . Say the word, and they will believe you. There is still time, but not much.”(3)
The landlords recommended V. Chernov to pose as “new-régime,” in the expectation that the Socialist-Revolutionary leader would be believed and that he would be able to pour cold water on the “coals of greed,” as people like Volkonsky called the seizure of the landed estates by the peasants.
Chernov began to the best of his ability to pour water on the conflagration that was spreading in the countryside. Such was the real purpose of the numerous bills he initiated. He was invested with the halo of a champion of the interests of the peasants. Chernov was called “the muzhiks’ Minister,” but, it was added, it was unlikely that he could do anything, because he did not enjoy the support of the government. This legend was energetically disseminated by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who feared that, for all the bills he initiated, the activities of the Minister would undermine the peasants’ confidence in their party. The halo of a champion of the muzhiks that surrounded the name of Chernov was advantageous to the landlords themselves, for it fostered the hope among the peasants that a peaceful arrangement could be arrived at with the owners of the land. Somewhat later, when the Cadets began to accuse Chernov of carrying through the programme of his party and of conniving at the “peasant disorders,” he hastened to disavow the honorary title of “the muzhiks’ Minister.” On July 1 Chernov wrote:
“It is precisely the purpose of my bills to divert local public activity into legal channels, for otherwise it inevitably overflows its banks and, like a flood, causes much of destruction.”(4)
Such were Chernov’s aims—namely, to prevent the peasant flood from overflowing its banks and to avert the break-up of the landed estates. But in the midst of rising revolution this was a difficult task. The “muzhiks’ Minister” made continual blunders: at one time, pushed on by the peasant organisations, he would run too far ahead; at another, intimidated by the angry outcry of the Cadets, he would lag behind. The Chief Land Committee refused to acknowledge Chernov’s creations. P. A. Vikhliayev, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, was obliged at one meeting of the Chief Land Committee to admonish its members that the Minister of Agriculture could not be transformed into the horn of a gramophone and that he must be allowed a certain measure of independence. The “gramophone,” of course, was not the Chief Land Committee, which did not engage in practical work, but the organisation of the landed proprietors and the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. It was from these bodies that the Provisional Government actually received its practical instructions.
The guiding hand of the landlords was clumsily revealed in the very first measures taken by the “muzhiks’ Minister.” The first thing the Ministry of Agriculture began to fuss with was the prohibition of the purchase and sale of land—one of the peasants’ chief demands. Feverish speculation in land had begun with the outbreak of the revolution. Landlords sold off their estates—chiefly to foreigners, who were confident of their immunity. Landlords broke up their estates and transferred them to sham owners. Land was neglected and left uncultivated. The peasants demanded an immediate embargo on the purchase and sale of land. They had to be pacified. Chernov drafted a bill prohibiting transactions in land until further notice. On the basis of this draft, Pereverzev, the Minister of Justice, a Popular Socialist, sent a telegraphic circular to the public notaries on May 17 temporarily prohibiting transactions in land.
The landlords at once gave the Ministers to understand that they had reckoned without their host. The Council of the United Societies of the Nobility sent a memorandum dated May 24 expressing surprise that the precipitate telegram of the Minister of Justice had not been refuted in the press. The landlords explained to the Minister that prohibiting transactions in land meant depriving the landlords of the right to dispose of their property and limited their enjoyment of it, and that, finally, it was a reversion to serfdom, because it tied the landlord to land which he might want to dispose of. In conclusion, the Council of the United Societies of the Nobility reminded the Provisional Government that in its declarations it had repeatedly promised to leave the settlement of the land question to the Constituent Assembly. The protest of the landlords was supported by the Committee of Congress of Representatives of Joint Stock Companies, by the land banks and by the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. At the end of May, Minister of Justice Pereverzev explained in a telegraphic circular that the embargo on transactions in land did not extend to mortgages or the transfer of mortgages. This concession virtually nullified the embargo on transactions in land.
On June 24 a report appeared in the press to the effect that the Minister of Agriculture had introduced a new bill prohibiting the purchase and sale of land. While the “muzhiks’ Minister” was introducing this bill, Demyanov, the Assistant Minister of Justice, definitely abolished every restriction on land transactions and explained that such transactions must be effected and endorsed strictly in accordance with existing legislation.
Behind all this business of the embargo on transactions in land stood Rodzyanko, the Chairman of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, whom Lenin called “this former President of the former State Duma . . . this former agent of Stolypin the Hangman.”(5)
Skobelev, the Minister of Labour, also served as a screen for the bourgeoisie.
There had been no special Ministry of Labour in the government before; there had only been a Labour Department of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Those who controlled the factories also controlled labour questions. But since the government had decided to crowd up and make room for several Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, “labour” had to be taken out of the charge of the bourgeois Minister, and on May 5 a new Ministry was created. When the Department of Labour was still part of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, a Special Committee for the Preliminary Drafting of Labour Legislation had been set up. The Committee consisted of eight representatives from the Soviet, eight from the employers, one representative each from the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Cities and two representatives from the Central War Industry Committee. No serious improvements could be expected from a committee constituted in this way. The labour representatives were always in the minority. This Special Committee drafted a law on trade unions. The bourgeois representatives strove to limit the rights of the trades unions. Skobelev preserved the Special Committee, which continued its old practices under the new “Socialist” Minister. The bill for an eight-hour day never got beyond the offices of the Ministry of Labour. The bourgeoisie had achieved its purpose: the agreement with the Soviet for the introduction of an eight-hour day proved to be nothing more than a temporary concession.
On April 23 the former, non-coalition government had passed a law on “workers’ committees in industrial enterprises.” These committees were entrusted with cultural and educational work in mills and factories, with regulating relations between workers and with representing the latter in negotiations with the managers. Nothing was said of the part the committees were to play in production; it was left to the employers and the workers to decide by “mutual agreement” whether members of the committees were to be relieved of their regular work; even the formation of the committees—which were known as factory committees—was not obligatory. Not only did Skobelev not change this state of affairs, but he openly declared that the factory committees had outlived their day. Skobelev proved to be a good champion of the interests of the capitalists.
Skobelev did not confine his activities to his own department. He helped other Ministers, especially Konovalov, who had formerly been in charge of labour himself. The Provisional Government had said nothing definite in its declaration of May 6 on the subject of combating economic disruption. Konovalov considered it his main business to postpone the settlement of urgent questions. Here, as in the other Ministries, numberless commissions and committees were set up which managed to pigeon-hole every question that came before them. V. A. Stepanov, the Assistant Minister of Commerce and Industry, a Left Cadet and member of the Fourth State Duma, related at a conference of members of the latter body on May 20 how the question of increasing wages had been discussed in his Ministry. Industrialists from the South of Russia, headed by the Cadet N. N. Kutler (a large landowner, who after the 1905 Revolution had been put in charge of the Department of Land and Agriculture), submitted a statement to the Provisional Government asserting that the workers’ demands placed industry in a hopeless position. They declared that an increase in wages would not only swallow up their entire profit, but would make it impossible to pay wages without a considerable increase in the price of goods. The Minister of Commerce and Industry invited representatives from the factory owners and the workers to come to Petrograd. After a discussion lasting two days, it was decided to set up a special commission.
“To-day,” V. A. Stepanov reported at the conference of the Duma, “this committee, divided into sections, met for the first time and examined the available material. It is of course very difficult to say what will come of it. It may be, God grant, that this hope will be fulfilled and that this commission will succeed in arriving at some understanding. Some of the workers said in private conversation that if such is the real position, they are prepared to moderate their demands—to what extent it is of course difficult to say. But then a very thorny question remains: what if these delegates, having satisfied themselves of the correctness of the figures, express their consent to moderate the demands; will this consent be tantamount to a renunciation of demands by the 800,000 workers they represent; or will it not rather end by their being deprived of their mandates as traitors who have betrayed the interests of the workers and have not justified their confidence? If this consent is not received, resort must be made to these two commissions [one for the verification of the manufacturers’ figures, and the other for the study of a minimum wage—Ed.] as a last attempt . . . to find a solution to the problem.”(6)
On May 23 the commission rejected every one of the workers’ demands. The question was transferred from committee to commission, and from commission to section with the sole purpose of delaying settlement.
In the middle of May the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet adopted a resolution on the necessity for State regulation of the national economy and for the establishment of special bodies for this purpose. Under the pressure of the Soviets, the Provisional Government on May 27 instructed several of the Ministers to draft a bill providing for the organisation of a supreme body to regulate the economic life of the country. Konovalov resigned, declaring that this was an “excessive demand.” He was replaced by the Assistant Minister of Commerce and Industry, the Left Cadet V. A. Stepanov. The Committee on the development of the productive forces of Russia which had been set up by Konovalov on May 5, and which had done nothing since, on July 8 prepared a draft for a declaration on economic policy by the Provisional Government. It was not until June that the government endeavoured to review its own actions: it was not until June that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in the person of Stepanov, began seriously to reflect on the grave condition of the country, with a description of which the draft began. At one of the meetings of the Council of Congresses of Representatives of Commerce and Industry, its Chairman, the Cadet N. N. Kutler, a prominent figure in banking and industrial circles, demanded that the Provisional Government
“should announce its economic programme stating whether it intends to socialise industry or to preserve the capitalist system.”(7)
Apparently, Kutler feared that on joining the first coalition government the Socialist Ministers, for all one knew, might set about introducing Socialism. Stepanov first of all replied to these fears of Kutler and the bourgeoisie generally.
“In view of the present meagreness of Russia’s resources Socialism in itself would not save her from impoverishment,”(8)
he said in the preamble to the statement. In the body of the draft statement itself he further explained that:
“Socialism must rest on the powerful foundation of universal organisation, which does not exist in Russia; on the full development of productive forces, the proper utilisation of which Russia has in fact not yet undertaken; finally, the transition to Socialism by one State alone is even impossible.”(9)
Stepanov assembled the Menshevik arguments of the Second International to the effect that the victory of Socialism in one country alone is impossible and made deft use of them in his draft statement. Finally, he declared:
“That it is impossible for Russia to adopt a Socialist organisation of her national economy at the present time apparently arouses no doubt either among the members of the Provisional Government or among the realistically- minded circles of the revolutionary democracy. A declaration should be made by the government to this effect in order to avoid all misunderstanding.”(10)
Minister Skobelev, representing the “realistically-minded circles of the revolutionary democracy” to which Stepanov referred, hastened to remove every possibility of “misunderstanding.” On June 16, in an interview given to Moscow journalists, he confirmed Stepanov’s thesis by declaring that when speaking of the regulation of industry by the State he in nowise meant Socialist production. The bourgeois could be quite easy in their minds: Stepanov and “Socialists” like Skobelev would conscientiously protect them from Socialism.
Food affairs were transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture to the newly created Ministry of Food, which was placed under the charge of the statistician Peshekhonov, a Popular Socialist and “ultra-moderate Narodnik,” as Lenin described him. Peshekhonov made it clear that his appointment to the Ministry would entail no radical change in Shingaryov’s policy. The new Minister was referring to the preservation of the grain monopoly and the fixed prices, but as a matter of fact he left intact the entire policy of the former Minister. Landlords and merchants were speculating in grain and completely nullifying the fixed prices. The keeping of strict accounts of grain stocks might have been a valuable method of combating profiteering. This had already been stipulated by the law of March 25, which provided that accounts of the amount of grain produced should be kept. Shingaryov had left the profiteers and landlords unmolested. So did the “Socialist” Minister. In reply to a questionnaire sent out by the Moscow Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, four-fifths of the provinces, thirty-two out of thirty-eight, stated that no accounts of the amount of grain produced had been kept, while four provinces stated that their accounts were inexact. In answer to the question whether a grain monopoly had been instituted, one province replied that the monopoly had been instituted, three stated that no monopoly had been instituted, twenty-three stated vaguely that “it is being introduced” and six that it had been instituted partially. Peshekhonov not only failed to organise control over grain deliveries, but even failed to secure the keeping of elementary accounts of them. The result was that profiteering in grain developed without let or hindrance. The food lines grew longer and longer, and workers’ wives were obliged to stand in queues for hours on end.
Skobelev, Peshekhonov and Chernov were living illustrations of Lenin’s thesis:
“The Minister renegades from Socialism were mere talking machines for distracting the attention of the oppressed classes.”(11)
[1] The Bourgeoisie and Landlords in 1917, Private Conferences of Members of the State Duma, Moscow, 1932, p. 21.
[2] “Private Conference of Members of the State Duma,” Ryech, May 6, 1917, No. 105.
[3] “The Bourgeoisie and the Provisional Government,” Proletarskaya Revolutsia, 1926, No. 10 (57), pp. 246-47.
[4] “Statement by V. M. Chernov in Reference to Prince G. E. Lvov’s Letter,” Dyen, No. 107, July 12, 1917.
[5] Lenin, “How the Peasants Were Deceived—and Why,” Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 378.
[6] The Bourgeoisie and the Landlords in 1917. Private Conferences of Members of the State Duma, Moscow, 1932, p. 64.
[7] V. Reichardt, “The Efforts of the Russian Bourgeoisie To Maintain Its Economic Mastery (February-October, 1917).” Krassnaya Letopis (Red Chronicles) , 1930, No. 1 (34), p. 18.
[8] “The Economic Condition of Russia Before the Revolution,” Krassny Arkhiv, 1925, No. 3 (10), pp. 88-93.
[9] Ibid., pp. 88-93.
[10] Ibid., p. 87.
[11] Lenin, “Lessons of the Revolution,” Selected Works, (Eng. ed.), Vol. VI, p. 199.
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