Stalin, Volume 1

by Stephen Kotkin

  178. Voprosy istorii, 1966, no. 2: at 12–3 (quoting I. G. Korolev).

  179. VI s”ezd RSDRP, 250.

  180. VI s”ezd RSDRP, 28, 30–6; Sochineniia, III: 17.

  181. During the Bolshevik Party Congress, on July 27, the Georgian Bolshevik Grigol “Sergo” Orjonikidze, who was conducting negotiations on Lenin’s possible appearance to stand trial, asked representatives of the St. Petersburg Soviet how they stood vis-à-vis the Provisional Government’s arrest order for Lenin as a German spy. The Mensheviks could have exacted sweet revenge, tricking Bolshevik negotiators by claiming they would defend Lenin to the death, then betraying him. But the head of the Soviet’s presidium, the Georgian Menshevik Karlo Chkheidze—whom Lenin had demonstratively insulted in April upon returning to Russia—was a man of principle. “If today they arrest Lenin, tomorrow they will arrest me,” he said. “The leaders of the Mensheviks and SRs do not believe in the guilt of Lenin. . . . They should have energetically demanded investigation of the case of Lenin and Zinoviev, but they did not do that. . . . We should not turn in comrade Lenin under any circumstances . . . we should . . . safeguard our comrades out of harm’s way until they are guaranteed a fair trial.” VI s”ezd RSDRP, 310–1.

  182. Tyrkova-Williams, From Liberty to Brest Litovsk, 167; Orlovsky, “Corporatism or Democracy,” 67–90. A Conference of Public Figures, also in Moscow, held between August 8 and August 10 at the initiative of the industrialist Ryabushinsky and chaired by Rodzyanko, was said to be a venue for discussing a putsch. Some 400 people attended, and many side private meetings took place. Moskovskie vedomosti, August 11, 1917; Sevost'ianova, Delo Generala Kornilova, II: 223–4 (Lvov’s testimony); Katkov, The Kornilov Affair, 142–3 (quoting Maklakov).

  183. Izvestiia, August 13, 1917. By contrast, see Russkoe slovo, August 12, 13, 14, 15, and 17, 1917.

  184. Pokrovskii and Iakovlev, Gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie, 335.

  185. Izvestiia, August 13, 1917.

  186. Kornilov also spoke with Kerensky by telephone that night. Russkoe slovo, August 15, 1917: 3–4. Kornilov is said to have believed Kerensky did not want him to attend the Conference. Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1546–54 (Lukomsky). Kerensky evidently summoned Kornilov on August 14 before the session. Miliukov, Istoriia vtoroi, I/ii: 134–5; Miliukov, Russian Revolution, II: 108.

  187. Holquist, Making War, 90–1 (citing N. M. Mel’nikov, “A. M. Kaledin,” Donskaia letopis’, 3 vols. [Vienna; Donskaia istoricheskaia komissiia, 1923–4], I: 24–5).

  188. Kornilov concluded: “I believe in the genius of the Russian people, I believe in the reason of the Russian people, and I believe in the salvation of the country. I believe in the bright future of our native land, and I believe that the fighting efficiency of our army and her former glory will be restored. But I declare that there is no time to lose. . . . Resolve is necessary and the firm, steadfast execution of the measures outlined. (Applause).” Pokrovskii and Iakovlev, Gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie, 60–6; Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1474–8; Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, IV: 54–5.

  189. Stalin, “Protiv moskovskogo soveshchaniia,” Rabochii i soldat, August 8, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 193–5.

  190. Stalin, “Kuda vedet moskovskoe soveshchane?” Proletarii, August 13, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 200–5 (at 201)

  191. “Will the State Conference be able to insist on the implementation of the Supreme Commander’s demands or not?” the rightist paper New Times had worried at the outset. “Will everything remain as before?” Novoe vremia, August 13, 1917: 5. See also Rech’, August 12–17, 1917. For all the immediate reactions in the press to Kornilov’s speech, see Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1515–22. A second conference of public figures would take place in October 12–14, with Rodzyanko again as chairman, remarking “the political horizon of our country has become darker still. . . . We are called reactionaries, we are called Kornilovists.” Russkie vedomosti, October 13, 1917: 5; Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1745–7.

  192. Miliukov, Russian Revolution, II: 100; Savich, Vospominaniia, 247, 250–1.

  193. Kerensky, Delo Kornilova, 81. “General Korniloff came to the Moscow Conference in great pomp,” Kerensky later wrote. “At the station he was met by the entire elite of the capital. . . . On the streets of Moscow pamphlets were being distributed, entitled, ‘Korniloff, the National hero.’” Kerensky, The Catastrophe, 315. See also Miliukov, Istoriia vtoroi, II: 133; Miliukov, Russian Revolution, II: 107.

  194. Dumova, “Maloizvestnye materialy po istorii kornilovshchiny,” 78; Savich, Vospominaniia, 246–50. See also Rosenberg, Liberals, 196–233, who shows Cadet party complicity in as well as division over a possible Kornilov dictatorship. After Kornilov’s imprisonment, Miliukov, on the pretext of taking a holiday, would quietly depart the capital. The newspaper he edited, Rech’, was now subjected to Provisional Government censorship. Novoe vremia, further to the right, was shut down altogether.

  195. George Katkov adduced persuasive evidence that Kerensky engaged in a provocation, but Katkov allowed that “we may presume that Kornilov had certain plans in mind in the event of the government’s not taking the desired action.” General Lukomsky, a confidant of Kornilov, had admitted just such plans on the part of Kornilov. Katkov, Russia, 1917. Katkov, The Kornilov Affair, 65; Lukomskii, Vospominaniia, I: 228–9; Loukomsky, Memoirs of the Russian Revolution, 100–1.

  196. That is why some members of the general staff, disgusted as they were, saw no other way to prosecute the war than by cooperating with the distasteful “democratic” forces (soldiers’ committees). Wildman, “Officers of the General Staff and the Kornilov Movement.”

  197. Lukomskii, Vospominaniia, I: 228, 232. “Gentlemen,” the Savage Division commander Chavachadze had told his men in June 1917, “I am sorry indeed that the young officers who joined our colors recently will have to start their fighting career by doing a rather repulsive sort of police work.” Kournakoff, Savage Squadrons, 321.

  198. Lih, Lenin, 140.

  199. Rabochii, August 25, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 251–5.

  200. For an overview, see Munck, Kornilov Revolt. Kerensky and his minions shaped most of the historical record on the Kornilov affair. But R. R. Raupakh, a member of the investigatory commission, collected depositions from witnesses in a way to protect Kornilov. Allan K. Wildman, “Officers of the General Staff and the Kornilov Movement,” in Frankel, Revolution in Russia, 76–101 (at 101, n36). Kornilov was practically the only participant who did not write an account (he died the next year); for Kornilov’s September 1917 deposition, see Katkov, Russia, 1917, appendix.

  201. “The Kornilov affair represented, on the one hand, a reaction against the disintegration of the old army and, on the other, a juncture of two intrigues, which weren’t exactly the same but closely interwoven and headed in the same direction”—i.e. Kerensky’s and Kornilov’s. Shklovsky, Sentimental Journey, 63. There is a third view that the affair involved misunderstanding on both sides; misunderstanding there was aplenty, but matters were darker than that.

  202. Russkoe slovo, August 31, 1917 (N. V. Nekrasov); Martynov, Kornilov, 101. Amid the relentless rumors of a Bolshevik coup, August 27 stood out for being the six-month anniversary of the February Revolution, and may have been part of Kornilov’s calculations of dates.

  203. Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, IV: 98. See also Ukraintsev, “A Document on the Kornilov Affair” (Ukraintsev was a member of the Investigatory Commission established by Kerensky and he punctures Kerensky’s account). See also Pipes, Russian Revolution, 448–64; and Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks Come to Power, 117–27.

  204. Lukomskii, Vospominaniia, I: 242; Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, IV: 100–1; Novaia zhizn’, August 31, 1917; Kerenskii, Delo Kornilova, 104–5; Abraham, Kerensky,
277; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 457–9.

  205. Chugaev, Revoliutsionoe dvizhenie, 446; Golovin, Rossiiskaia kontr-revoliutsiia, I/ii: 37; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 460.

  206. Trotsky, My Life, 331.

  207. Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks Come to Power, 148–9.

  208. Krymov is said to have stated that “The last card for saving the motherland has been beaten—living is no longer worthwhile,” and to have left a suicide note for Kornilov, but no text survives. Martynov, Kornilov, 135–42, 14–51; Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, IV: 143, 343–50; Kerenskii, Delo Kornilova, 75–6; Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1586–9.

  209. Stalin, “Protiv soglasheniia s burzhuaziei,” Rabochii, August 31, 1917, in Sochineniia, 236–7. See also Stalin, “My trebuem,” Rabochii, August 28, 1917, in Sochineniia, 256–60.

  210. Gilliard, Thirteen Years, 243; Steinberg and Khrustalëv, Fall of the Romanovs, 198 (for Nicholas II’s own diary entry).

  211. Officers in the capital had been alerted to prepare to respond. (Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland, 182–3.) The officers took little or no action, but then again, there was no action to be taken: the episode had ended even before Krymov had set foot in Petrograd. Therefore, it is not correct that “hard-core support” was “exceedingly slight.” (Allan K. Wildman, “Officers of the General Staff and the Kornilov Movement,” in Frankel, Revolution in Russia, 98.) Also—it must be kept in mind—Kerensky spread lies and deliberately sowed confusion about what was going on, sowing uncertainty and inaction among potential supporters of Kornilov. (Pipes, Russian Revolution, 460–1.) For uncertainty among elites about Kornilov, see Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland, 234. That said, Wildman is right that Kornilov enjoyed his strongest support among the most senior officers at headquarters, linked as alumni of the general staff academy.

  212. “How was it that Kornilov sent his troops while he himself sat quietly at headquarters?” Zinaida Gippius observed in her diary during those days. She perceived, in real time, a provocation by Kerensky instead of a Kornilov coup. Gippius, Siniaia kniga, 180–1 (August 31, 1917).

  213. Kerensky’s obvious betrayal of Kornilov was noted at the time by one contemporary correspondent, Harold Williams, a New Zealander. Zohrab, “The Socialist Revolutionary Party,” 153–4.

  214. Kolonitskii, “Pravoekstremistskie sily,” pt. 1: 111–24. Kornilov’s supporters among industrialists and financiers in Petrograd and Moscow, meanwhile, may have damaged him by their mutual animosities. White, “The Kornilov Affair.”

  215. Most of the high command despised the soldiers’ committees (soviets), unable to comprehend that the army’s disintegration had been partly contained by the committees’ advent. Wildman, End of the Russian Imperial Army, I: 246.

  216. See the analysis of the sympathetic fellow-lawyer, Vladas Stanka [V. B. Stankevich], Kerensky’s political commissar-in-chief to the military, who argued that Kerensky’s actions, though ultimately ineffective, were the only ones compatible with upholding democratic values. Stankevich, Vospominaniia, 215–22. See also Keep, Soviet Studies.

  217. Nielsen and Weil, Russkaia revoliutsiia glazami Petrogradskogo chinovnika, 9 (September 19, 1917).

  218. Golovin, Rossiiskaia kontr-revoliutsiia, I/ii: 71, 101. Pipes cites, as final verdict on Kornilov’s motives, the observations of the British eyewitness. Wilcox, Russia’s Ruin, 276; Pipes, Russian Revolution, 464.

  219. Alexeyev apparently had accepted in order to try to protect Kornilov and other arrested traitors. Ivanov, Kornilovshcina i ee razgrom, 207.

  220. “The prestige of Kerensky and the Provisional Government,” wrote Kerensky’s wife, “was completely destroyed by the Kornilov Affair; and he was left with almost no supporters.” Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 455 (quoting O. L. Kerenskaia, “Otryvki vospominanii,” 8, in House of Lords Record Office). The Directory endured until September 25, when it was replaced by the so-called third coalition (and final incarnation) of the Provisional Government. Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, II: 1659–61.

  221. At the Third All-Russia Congress of trade unions in Petrograd on June 20–28, 1917, the Bolsheviks claimed 73 delegates out of 211; the Mensheviks, SRs, and other moderate socialists had a majority that defeated Bolshevik motions against cooperation with the “bourgeoisie.” Tret’ia Vserossiiskaia konferentsiia professional’nykh soiuzov (Moscow: VTsSPS, 1917). In the June 1917 municipal elections in Moscow, the SRs had triumphed (58 percent); the Bolsheviks came in fourth, after the Cadets and Mensheviks. Colton, Moscow, 83.

  222. Duvall, “The Bolshevik Secretariat,” 57; Steklov, Bortsy za sotsializm, II: 397–8; Ia. S. Sheynkman, “Sverdlov,” Puti revoliutsii [Kazan], 1922, no. 1: 7; Podvoiskii, Krasnaia gvardiia, 23; Sverdlova, Iakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov [1957], 301, 336; Sverdlov, Izbrannye proizvedennye, II: 38, 48–9, 277; Schapiro, Communist Party, 173. Sukhanov’s wife Galina worked in Sverdlov’s secretariat.

  223. Sukhanov, Zapiski, I: 201.

  224. Lih, “The Ironic Triumph of ‘Old Bolshevism,’” (citing Listovki Moskovskoi organizatsii bol’shevikov, 1914–1925 gg. [Moscow: Politcheskaia literatura, 1954]).

  225. Mel’gunov, Bolshevik Seizure of Power, 4.

  226. Kerensky, The Catastrophe, 321; Trotskii, Istoriia russkoi revoliutsii, II: 136–40; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, I: 277; Wildman, End of the Russian Imperial Army, II: 185; Kolonitskii, “Kerensky,” 146.

  227. Stalin, “Svoim putem,” Rabochii put’, September 6, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 272–4.

  228. Stalin, “Dve linii,” Rabochii put’, September 16, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 293–5.

  229. V. I. Lenin, “Letter to the Bolshevik Central Committee, the Moscow and Petrograd Committees and the Bolsheviks Members of the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets,” in Selected Works, II: 390. See also Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, xxxi (RGASPI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 4269, l. 1); and PSS, XXXIV: 435–6.

  230. Browder and Kerensky, Russian Provisional Government, III: 1641–2.

  231. “Every discussion in a public place in Russia now concerns food,” wrote one foreigner after having traveled the Volga valley. Price and Rose, Dispatches from the Revolution, 65. As of October 15, there were perhaps three to four days’ worth of food reserves in the capital. Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie, II: 351–2. In early October, the Putilov factory director reported that he had run completely out of coal and that thirteen of the factory’s shops were shutting down. Ekonomicheskoe polozhenie, II: 163–4.

  232. Kitanina, Voina, khleb i revoliutsiia (Leningrad, 1985), 332–3 (October 13, 1917); Golovine, Russian Army, 175–6.

  233. Abraham, Kerensky, 244.

  234. Daniels, Red October, 61.

  235. Stalin, “Kontrrevoliutsiia mobilizuetsia—gotovtes’ k otporu,” Rabochii put’, October 10, 1917, in Sochineniia, III: 361–3.

  236. Trotskii, O Lenine, 70–3; Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution [1961], 148–9; Slusser, Stalin in October, 226–36; Protokoly Tsentral’nogo komiteta RSDRP (b, 55; Kudelli, Pervyi legal’nyi Peterburgskii komitet bol’shevikov, 316 (Kalinin); Abrosimova, Peterburgskii komitet RSDRP (b), 508; Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks Come to Power, 209–16.

  237. Novaia zhizn’, October 18, 1917: 3. Kamenev worried about the supposedly well-organized and loyal government troops, Cossacks and junkers (cadets), and warned that a failed uprising would possibly destroy the party for good. Raskolnikov claims he argued with Kamenev but neither could convince the other. F. F. Raskolnikov, “Nakanune Oktiabr’skoi revoliutsii” [written 1921–2], RGVA, f. 33 987, op. 2, d. 141, l. 463–500, Volkogonov papers, container 17.

  238. PSS, XXXIV: 419–27; Protokoly Tsentral’nogo komiteta RSDRP (b), 106–7. In forcing the party to a coup, Lenin had threatened to resign from the Central Committee and publicly oppose it, carrying on from the lower ranks, a right he a
ccorded no one else (Protokoly Tsentral’nogo komiteta RSDRP (b), 74).

  239. Novaia zhizn’, October 18, 1917; Protokoly tsentral’nogo komiteta RSDRP, 106–18; Slusser, Stalin in October, 234–37.

  240. M. V. Fofanova, “Poslednoe podpol’e V. I. Lenina.”

  241. Izvestiia, October 14, 1917: 5; Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, V: 70–1. See also Sukhanov, Zapiski, VII: 40–1; Gronsky, The War and the Russian Government, 112. Trotsky had addressed the Petrograd Soviet about MRC, saying, “They say we are setting up a headquarters for the seizure of power. We make no secret of it.” Trotskii, Sochineniia, III: 15.

  242. When the Provisional Government finally announced elections for the Constituent Assembly for November 12, many in the Soviet wanted to cancel the Second Congress of Soviets, but the Bolsheviks helped keep it on course by having the agenda be drafting legislative proposals for the Constituent Assembly.

  243. Avdeev, Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, V: 109; Novaia zhizn’, October 18, 1917: 3.

  244. The MRC elected a five-member leadership (three Bolsheviks and two Left SRs), and asserted authority over the garrison. Chugaev, Petrogradskii voenno-revoliutsionnyi komitet, I: 63.

  245. Sukhanov, Zapiski, VII: 91; Volkogonov, Trotsky, 88.

  246. Chugaev, Petrogradskii voenno-revoliutsionnyi komitet, I: 84, 86; Ditetrich Geyer, “The Bolshevik Insurrection in Petrograd,” in Pipes, Revolutionary Russia, 164–79.

  247. Trotsky spoke to the same group and confirmed Stalin’s presentation, noting that a consolidation or defensive posture would enable the congress to open. Presumably, the votes were at hand for approving a transfer of “all power to the soviets.” Rabinowitch, Bolsheviks Come to Power, 252–4; Alexander Rabinowitch, “The Petrograd Garrison and the Bolshevik Seizure of Power,” in Pipes, Revolutionary Russia, 172–91. Later both Trotsky and Stalin claimed this “defensive” posture had been camouflage. Trotskii, O Lenine, 69; Mints, Dokumenty velikoi proletarskoi revoliutsii, I: 3 (Stalin).