While the petty-bourgeois lackeys were doing their best to hoodwink the masses, the bourgeoisie and the landlords were feverishly mobilising their forces for a new blow at the revolution.
Lenin had long ago pointed out that the bourgeoisie employs two methods of combating the toilers:
“In every country,” he wrote in 1910, “the bourgeoisie inevitably elaborates two systems of rule, two methods of fighting for its own interests and for the retention of its domination, and these two methods at times succeed each other and at times are woven together in various combinations. They are, firstly, the method of force, the method of refusing all concessions to the labour movement, the method of supporting all the old and moribund institutions, the method of relentlessly rejecting reforms. . . . The second method is the method of ‘liberalism,’ of steps towards the development of political rights, towards reforms, concessions and so forth.”(1)
The bourgeoisie has always resorted to the “knout and gingerbread,” as these two methods are figuratively described. And it was to the “knout and gingerbread” that the Russian bourgeoisie resorted with great thoroughness on the eve of the October Revolution.
Under the direct influence of the defeat of Kornilov and the rapid spread of revolutionary sentiments, the bourgeoisie hastened to make a number of concession to the people. On September 1—six months after the overthrow of the autocracy—the Provisional Government at last proclaimed Russia a republic. How little importance was attached to this can be judged by the fact that none of the foreign governments were informed of the change in the form of government; the signboard, as it were, was repainted “for internal consumption” only, and with the sole purpose of temporarily pacifying the masses.
Having conceded what would anyhow have been swept away by the revolution sooner or later, the bourgeoisie once again devoted itself to the Bolsheviks, the leaders of the revolutionary masses. Accusations of espionage and treason were unscrupulously levelled against them right and left. The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois newspapers launched a campaign of calumny against the leaders of the Bolshevik Party. Fraudulent leaflets were distributed at the mills and factories calling on the proletariat, supposedly in the name of the Bolshevik Party, to overthrow the government immediately. Lenin wrote with reference to this savage campaign:
“Tsarism persecuted crudely, savagely, bestially. The republican bourgeoisie persecutes filthily, striving to besmirch the reputation of the hated proletarian revolutionary and internationalist by means of slander, lies, insinuations, defamation, rumours, etc., etc.”(2)
To the accompaniment of the vicious baying of the venal press and the hysterical squeals of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik newspapers, the bourgeoisie took several steps in preparation for an offensive. General Kornilov was still at liberty, but the “republican” Governor-General Palchinsky ordered the suppression of the Bolshevik newspaper Rabochy (Worker), which had demanded a fight to a finish against Kornilovism. The Bolsheviks arrested at the time of the July demonstration were still languishing in prison, but Kornilov’s accomplices, the contributors to the unscrupulous monarchist organ, Novoye Vremya, and Guchkov, the prominent instigator of the counter-revolutionaries, were released from the custody under which they had been placed by the soldiers and sailors.
The government grew bolder and bolder. On September 4 Kerensky ordered the dissolution of all the committees formed to combat Kornilov and the disarmament of all revolutionary detachments. Kerensky ordered a punitive expedition under the command of General Korovnichenko to be sent to Tashkent, where the Soviet had become the real governing power. Kerensky sent Korovnichenko the following telegram:
“You are instructed to set out with the greatest possible despatch. You are not to enter into negotiations with the rebels. Vacillation can no longer be tolerated. The most resolute measures must be taken.”(3)
But neither “gingerbread” nor the “knout” were of any avail, and the ominous tide of revolution continued to sweep over the country.
It was clear that the Provisional Government could no longer cope with the growing revolution. While demanding a vigorous policy from its executive organ, the government, and while assisting it in every way, the bourgeoisie surreptitiously prepared to take other measures should the revolution succeed. It set about uniting and concentrating its forces, and at the same time disarming revolutionary Petrograd.
The bourgeoisie decided first of all to prepare the Cossacks for action. On October 3 a delegation from the Cossack Council visited Konovalov, the Vice-Premier, and proposed that in the elections to the Constituent Assembly the Cossacks should form a separate voting body. To this the Provisional Government agreed, realising that this measure would enable the commanders to retain control over the rank-and-file Cossacks.
But the revolutionary situation in Petrograd and the vigilance exercised by the masses, who carefully watched every step taken by the counter-revolutionaries, greatly hampered the work of preparation. The bourgeoisie resolved to expedite the line up of its forces in the Cossack regions.
On October 7 the Rada of the Kuban Cossacks resolved to form a South-Eastern Alliance, embracing the Cossack troops of the Kuban, Terek, Don and Astrakhan, the Gortsi (highlanders) of the Northern Caucasus and the steppe peoples of the Don Region and the Astrakhan Province. The Rada was fairly frank as to the motives and purpose of this decision. It was designed to protect the Cossack territories, “the healthy parts of the state,” from the general disintegration, and to create a strong national power in Russia to combat both the foreign foe and “anarchy within the country.” General Alexeyev, one of the counter-revolutionary leaders, frankly stated in the letter of instructions sent out by General Headquarters that the region selected
“is an area where relative calm and a comparative state of order and stability reign. . . . From here . . . as though from a spot of oil, a patch of the required character and value will begin to spread.”(4)
In pursuance of the plan of the bourgeoisie, the Provisional Government decided at a confidential meeting held on October 4 to flee from revolutionary Petrograd to Moscow, which was closer to the Cossack territories. Fearing, however, that the proletariat and the revolutionary garrison might prevent the flight, the government decided not to inform the Pre-parliament of its decision, but to prepare public opinion by means of preliminary negotiations. The question arose at this meeting whether the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets should be transferred to Moscow. The government decided that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was a private organisation and that nobody would prevent its removal to Moscow, but that the government would under no circumstances assume responsibility for finding it quarters. The petty-bourgeois leaders of the Soviet had served their purpose, and their masters were ready to kick them out as superfluous menials.
The fears of the Provisional Government proved well-founded. The Bolshevik Party was on the alert. It explained to the masses that the purpose of the government’s manœuvre was to surrender the revolutionary capital to the German troops, just as Riga had recently been surrendered, to crush the revolution in Petrograd with the aid of German bayonets, and then to proceed to suppress the revolution all over the country.
That this actually was the plan of the bourgeoisie was blurted out by Rodzyanko. Speaking at the Congress of Public Men in Moscow, Rodzyanko proposed that Petrograd should be surrendered, and he justified this measure in the following way:
“It is feared that the central institutions in Petrograd will perish. To this I replied that I would be very pleased if all these institutions perished, because they have brought Russia nothing but evil. . . . After Riga was surrendered a state of order was established there such as had never been seen before: ten of the ringleaders were shot, the police were restored and the city is absolutely safe and is illuminated.”(5)
The revolutionary workers and soldiers of the capital vigorously protested, and under pressure of the masses the petty-bourgeois mediators again began to fuss and to persuade the government to abandon the plan of removing to Moscow.
The Provisional Government continued to manœuvre, and offered another piece of “gingerbread.” On October 6, when the movement of protest against the evacuation was at its height, the government decided to dissolve the Fourth Duma, which was a highly influential centre of counter-revolution. The workers had been demanding the dispersion of this hotbed of reaction from the very first days of the revolution.
Indignation at the conduct of the government reached such a pitch that on October 12 Kerensky was obliged to appear before the Defence Commission of the Pre-parliament and declare that, far from intending to leave Petrograd, he even proposed to convene the Constituent Assembly in that city. The Commission adopted a reassuring resolution, promising that the government would defend Petrograd to the last ditch, and advised Kerensky to issue a statement to the population to this effect.
While Kerensky in the Pre-parliament was beating his breast and vowing fidelity to the revolution, preparations for the flight from the capital were being continued behind the scenes. On this very day, the Chancellery of the Provisional Government had finished drawing up a plan of evacuation. If even the Chancellery was ready to leave, it can be judged how advanced the execution of the plan already was.
On the following day, October 13, Kerensky, this time at a meeting of the Pre-parliament itself, denied the rumours that the government was preparing to flee from Petrograd, and declared that the press had distorted the designs of the government, which, he asserted, had never even discussed “the possibility of surrendering Petrograd to the enemy.”(6)
Thus, in public, they lied and wriggled, spread slanders and issued assurances, while in secret they made persistent preparations to surrender the capital.
The counter-revolutionaries had grown insolent and openly announced their programme. On September 30 a meeting of the Council of the Conference of Public Men was held in Moscow. This body had been elected before the Kornilov adventure at the first Congress of Public Men, the purpose of which was to unite all the forces that were combating “anarchy.” A new Congress of Public Men was appointed for October 12. M. Rodzyanko, one of the most active leaders of the Conference of Public Men, spoke of this Congress in the following terms:
“I attach the greatest significance to the Congress of Public Men to be held on October 12, which must openly, loudly and courageously speak of all that is going on. It must declare that the government cannot sit between two stools. Either the Bolsheviks, or a Ministry of Salvation!”(7)
Rodzyanko openly acknowledged that the prime purpose of the Conference of Public Men was to put an end to Bolshevism. This was the purpose that inspired all the proceedings of the second Congress of Public Men, at which Generals Brusilov and Ruzsky spoke. Both referred to the disintegration of the army and demanded vigorous measures.
General Brusilov called upon all who desired “order” to organise and unite:
“When you are organised and strong you will be respected and feared, and the order we all yearn for so passionately will be established.”(8)
This subject was also dealt with by the first speaker at the Congress, A. S. Belorussov. The subjects discussed amounted to a complete programme of counter-revolution.
“The prime and principal aim,” the speaker said, “is to improve the state of organisation of the elements represented in the Conference and to transform the germ that now exists into a close network covering the whole country and uniting all those who are concerned for the State and the national interests.”(9)
The land question was dealt with by the representative of the All-Russian Landowners’ Alliance, Dimitrenko, who demanded that the government should wage a determined fight against the peasant movement.
The counter-revolutionaries not only refused to agree to any settlement of the agrarian question, but insisted that the land should be left absolutely intact in the hands of the landlords. The Landowners’ Alliance demanded:
1. That the Provisional Government should urgently pass a law compensating landlords for losses caused by the destructive activities of the peasants;
2. That the practice of electing Commissars should be discontinued and that Commissars to localities should be appointed from the centre and should be answerable only to the central government;
3. That Commissars should be in a position to protect the persons and property of citizens, and for this purpose effective forces should be placed at their disposal.
On the question of the army, the Congress put forward the same programme as Kornilov: the restoration of the authority of the generals and the abolition of the Commissars and army committees. The Congress demanded the immediate restoration of the military salute and of the disciplinary powers of officers of all ranks. The resolution demanded that the officer ranks should be purged
“of the element which is disgracing them and which has recently taken part in all soldiers’ movements.”(10)
The Congress delegates demanded that the Alliance of Officers of the Army and Navy should be accorded the status of a government institution. The counter-revolutionaries insisted that the Provisional Government should reinstate the generals and officers who were dismissed after the February Revolution.
Thus, on the main questions of current policy, the Congress of Public Men adopted decisions which fully coincided with the proposals made by Kornilov.
The Congress not only revived Kornilov’s programme, but also outlined the form of organisation necessary to ensure the fulfilment of this programme.
“There is only one solution,” the speaker on the question of local government said at the Congress, “namely, to suspend the constitutional guarantees and temporarily to proclaim what is known as a state of emergency. The solution is a drastic one, but under present conditions it is unavoidable. But this state of martial law cannot, of course, be ushered in by local bodies, even though they call themselves Soviets of Workers’ Deputies or other organs of so-called revolutionary democracy. . . . This state of emergency must be strictly regulated by law and exercised by one person.”(11)
A military dictatorship—this is what was to save the country from revolution.
Simultaneously with the Congress of Public Men, a congress of the Cadet Party, a congress of cities and a congress of co-operative societies were held in Moscow. Their delegates attended the Congress of Public Men, whose programme was adopted as the programme of all the counter-revolutionaries. The platform of the Cadets, drawn up by Milyukov, clearly shows what the enemies of the people demanded:
1. War to a victorious finish in agreement with the Allies. No anti-annexationist, democratic declarations to be made, even in the spirit of the demands of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.
2. The restoration of the fighting capacity of the army, to be achieved by limiting the army committees to commissary and educational functions and by restoring the disciplinary powers of the commanders.
3. A government enjoying undivided power and independent of the Soviets.
4. A strong government of a military character.
5. The restoration of government authority in the provinces.
6. Independent courts of justice.
Having published their programme, the Kornilovites proceeded to withdraw the revolutionary troops from Petrograd and to dispatch them to the front. Headquarters of the Petrograd Military Area ordered that the regiments of the Petrograd garrison should be re-formed and dispatched to the front on the plea of military urgency.
The attempt to flee from the revolutionary capital having failed, it was decided to clear the latter of revolutionary troops and to give a free hand to the counter-revolutionaries. That this precisely was the intention and not the defence of the country, is borne out in correspondence between the Minister of War and the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front.
“The initiative of sending troops from the Petrograd garrison,” General Cheremisov, the Commander of the Northern Front, replied by secret wire to the Minister of War and to the Chief of Staff, General Dukhonin, “was yours and not mine. I replied to your proposal . . . in the affirmative and requested you to send me all regiments fit to fight. When it became clear that the regiments of the Petrograd garrison are unwilling to go to the front, i.e., are not fit to fight, I declared in private conversation with your representative—an officer—that in view of the unwillingness displayed by these units to go to the front they are not a military asset to us, because we would evidently have a lot of trouble with them . . . but in view of your express desire to dispatch them to the front, I did not refuse to take them, nor do I refuse to take them now, if you continue to regard their removal from Petrograd as essential.”
The general to whom the troops had been consigned frankly admitted that they were of no value for military purposes, but that he accepted them solely because the government had to get rid of them.
This new action of the government was resisted by the people even more vigorously than its attempted flight from Petrograd. The regiments refused to obey the orders of the Staff, and some of them, as for instance the Finland Reserve Regiment of the Guards, expressed lack of confidence in the government and demanded the transfer of power to the Soviets.
The treacherous character of the compromisers was once more revealed in this fight against the provocative policy of the Provisional Government. Having but recently, during the preparations for the government’s flight, been kicked, they crawled back like whipped curs to lick their master’s boot. On October 9, the day the order for the withdrawal of troops from Petrograd was published, a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet was held at which the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks got a resolution passed (by 13 votes to 12) calling upon the garrison “actively to prepare, in the event of necessity, for the withdrawal of the regiments of the garrison from Petrograd for the defence of the approaches to the city.”(12) The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks recommended that a Committee of Revolutionary Defence should be elected to organise the defence of the capital.
The meeting of the Executive Committee was immediately followed by a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. By an overwhelming majority, the delegates rejected the Menshevik resolution and adopted the resolution of the Bolsheviks:
“Kerensky’s government is ruining the country. . . . The salvation of Petrograd and the country lies in the transfer of power to the Soviets.”(13)
On October 12, at a meeting behind closed doors, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet decided against the dissenting votes of two Mensheviks, that the troops should not be removed from Petrograd and that a Revolutionary Military Committee of the Soviets should be set up. According to its statutes, confirmed at that same meeting, the functions of the Revolutionary Military Committee were to be to determine the minimum forces required for the defence of the capital, which forces were not to be withdrawn, to keep records and a register of the garrisons of Petrograd and its environs, to protect the city from counter-revolutionary riots, to maintain revolutionary discipline among the workers and soldiers and to arm the workers. The Revolutionary Military Committee was to consist of the presidiums of the Petrograd Soviet and of its Soldiers’ Section and of representatives of a number of military, labour and party organisations. It was decided to organise a garrison conference under the auspices of the Revolutionary Military Committee for the purpose of establishing contact with the regiments. On October 13, by a majority of 283 to 1, with 23 abstentions, the Soldiers’ Section of the Soviet endorsed the plan of organisation of the Revolutionary Military Committee.
Resisting the provocative attack of the counter revolutionaries, the revolution assumed the offensive. The arming of the workers and the creation of the Revolutionary Military Committee were preparations for an attack on the bourgeois government.
And this was just the way the Provisional Government understood it. At a meeting of the government held that same night, October 13, a report was made on the formation of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Polkovnikov, the Commander of the Petrograd Military Area, reported how the day had passed in the barracks and the working-class districts. It was decided to adopt a series of measures for the protection of the capital, to crush the action of the Bolsheviks by armed force, and to postpone Kerensky’s departure for the front.
[1] Lenin, “Differences Within the European Labour Movement,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XV, p. 7.
[2] Lenin, “Political Blackmail,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XXI, p. 93.
[3] “Order by A. F. Kerensky,” Novaya Zhizn, No. 132, September 20, 1917.
[4] “Letter from General M. V. Alexeyev, to Lieut.-General M. K. Diederichs,” The White Cause, Vol. I, Berlin, 1926, p. 77.
[5] M. V. Rodzyanko, “The Current Situation,” Utro Rossii, No. 242, October 8, 1917.
[6] “The Provisional Council of the Republic,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 235, October 14, 1917.
[7] “The Conference of Public Men,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 320, October 8, 1917.
[8] “The Moscow Conference,” Novoye Vremya, No. 14897, October 14, 1917.
[9] “The Conference of Public Men,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 234, October 13, 1917.
[10] “The Moscow Conference,” Novoye Vremya, No. 14898, October 15, 1917.
[11] “The Conference of Public Men,” Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 236, October 15, 1917.
[12] “The Petrograd Executive Committee on the Defence of Petrograd,” Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, No. 193, October 10, 1917.
[13] “Resolutions of the Petrograd Soviet,” Rabochy Put, No. 32, October 23, 1917.
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