*
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39. K. A. Gvozdev: Menshevik labor leader and one of the founders of the Petrograd Soviet.
Because such a mob could serve no other purpose than to provide a forum for speechmaking, and because, in addition, the intellectuals believed they knew what was best for the “masses,” the decision-making authority of the Soviet quickly shifted to the Ispolkom. This body, however, was not representative of the workers and soldiers, for its members were not elected by the Soviet but, as in 1905, nominated by the socialist parties. Members of the Ispolkom represented not the workers and soldiers but their respective party organizations, and could be replaced at any time by others from these parties. This was a deliberate policy of the radical intellectuals, as the following incident illustrates. On March 19, the Soldiers’ Section voted to enlarge the Ispolkom by adding nine soldiers and nine workers. The Ispolkom rejected this proposal on the grounds that its enlargement would take place at the All-Russian Consultation of Soviets scheduled to meet at the end of the month.77 The intellectuals who ran the Ispolkom even sought to keep its composition secret. They released the names of its members only at the end of March, after leaflets appeared on the streets of Petrograd demanding that its composition be made public*
40. Soldier section of the Petrograd Soviet meeting in the State Duma.
Rather than serving as the executive organ of the Soviet, therefore, the Ispolkom was a coordinating body of socialist parties, superimposed on the Soviet and speaking in its name. The Ispolkom’s earliest cooptation occurred on March 6, when it invited the Party of Popular Socialists to send a spokesman. Two days later a Socialist-Revolutionary was added to represent a group calling itself “Republican Officers.” On March 11, the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania and that of Latvia were accorded one place each. On March 15, a Bolshevik delegate was added. This manner of staffing the Ispolkom became formalized on March 18 with the adoption of the principle that every socialist party had a right to three seats: two from its Central Committee and one from its local organizations.†
The principle had three consequences. It expanded artificially the representation of the Bolshevik Party, which had a small following among the workers and virtually none among the soldiers. It strengthened as well that of the moderate socialists, which had the effect of giving the Ispolkom a political complexion that in time would put it at odds with the country’s increasingly radical mood. And, most importantly, it bureaucratized the Ispolkom: this self-appointed executive organ of the “worker and soldier masses” became in effect a committee of radical intellectuals, with hardly a worker or soldier in its midst—intellectuals who pursued their own visions and ambitions:
The bureaucratic divestiture for the benefit of organizations proceeded irreversibly. Representation was set by virtue of adherence to an organization, not by virtue of elections, which existed only for show. Yet nothing indicates that these democrats meant consciously to violate or parody democratic procedures. No protest or discussion disturbed the atmosphere of unanimity, except over the number of representatives who were to be admitted and the choice of organizations defined as “representative.” Over this, there developed a veritable political struggle. The Bolshevik proposal was intended to double the number of their representatives, to assure them of a surplus of votes through the addition of Latvian Bolsheviks. The representatives of the other organizations did not object: all in all, this procedure assured the non-Bolsheviks in equal measure of an even more consistent surplus of those elected. In that manner, every tendency and every subtendency of Social Democracy or of the SRs had a right to two representatives in the bureau, even if behind it stood no more than a handful of activists. Conversely, the thousands of soldiers and workers who had really made February, disappeared] forever from the scene. Henceforth, the “representatives” [spoke] in their name.
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41. Executive Committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet. In front, holding briefcase, N. D. Sokolov. On his left, leaning forward, N. S. Chkheidze.
Surprisingly, the gatherings of the Ispolkom, although involving small numbers of politically literate persons, were not much more orderly than those of the Soviet at large—at any rate, in the first weeks of its existence. As described by the representative of the Trudoviki, V. B. Stankevich, they also were a madhouse:
At this time, the Ispolkom carried extraordinary weight and importance. Formally it represented only Petrograd, but in fact it was the revolutionary organ of all Russia, the highest authoritative institution which was everywhere listened to with intense attention as the guide and leader of the insurgent people. But this was complete illusion. There was no leadership and there could not have been any.…
The meetings took place daily beginning at 1 p.m., sometimes earlier, and ran late into the night, except when the Soviet was in session and the Ispolkom, usually in a body, went over to join it. The agenda was usually set by the “commune” [
mir
], but it was very rare not only for all items on it but even for a single issue to be resolved, insofar as during the sessions there always emerged extraneous questions, which had to be dealt with outside the agenda.… Issues had to be resolved under the pressure of an extraordinary mass of delegates and petition-bearers from the Petrograd garrison, from the front, from the backwaters of Russia. All these delegates demanded, no matter what, to be heard at the plenary session of the Ispolkom, for they were unwilling to deal with individual members or commissions. When the Soviet met as an entity or in its Soldiers’ Section, affairs disintegrated catastrophically.…
The most important decisions were often reached by completely accidental majorities. There was no time to think matters over, because everything was done in haste, after many sleepless nights, in confusion. Everyone was physically exhausted. Sleepless nights. Endless meetings. The lack of proper food: people lived on bread and tea, and only occasionally got a soldier’s meal, served without forks or knives.
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In this initial period, according to Stankevich, “one could always have one’s way with the Ispolkom if one insisted stubbornly enough.” Under these conditions, rhetoric substituted for analysis and good intentions for reality. Later, toward the end of March, when Irakli Tsereteli, a leading Georgian Menshevik, returned from Siberian exile and took over the chairmanship, the sessions of the Ispolkom acquired a somewhat more orderly appearance, in good measure because its decisions were predetermined at caucuses of the socialist parties.
Thus, in no time, the Petrograd Soviet acquired a split personality: on top, speaking on behalf of the Soviet, a body of socialist intellectuals organized as the Executive Committee; below, an unruly village assembly. Except for its intelligentsia spokesmen, the Soviet was a rural body wedged into the most cosmopolitan city of the Empire. And no wonder: Petrograd had been a predominantly peasant city even before the war, when peasants had formed 70 percent of its population. This rural mass was augmented during the war with 200,000 workers brought in from the countryside to staff the defense industries and 160,000 recruits and reservists, mostly of the same origin.
Consistent with the traditional Menshevik and SR view of the Soviets as organs of “democratic” control over the “bourgeoisie,” the Ispolkom decided on March 1, with a majority of 13–8, not to join the government which the Duma was in the process of forming.* By this decision, the socialist intelligentsia reserved for itself the right to steer and criticize the government without having to bear governmental responsibility: a position very much like the one which the parliamentary opposition had enjoyed vis-à-vis tsarism. As in the case of the Duma leadership’s hesitancy to claim political power, the radical intelligentsia was inspired not only by theoretical but also by personal considerations. The events of February 26–27, 1917, may appear in the eyes of posterity as marking an irreversible break with the past, but this is not how they appeared to contemporaries. At this time, only Petrograd had risen in rebellion—no one else followed its
lead. Punitive expeditions from the front could arrive at any moment. A contemporary of these events, and their historian, Serge Melgunov, observes that at this point several thousand well led and armed men could easily have retaken control of Petrograd, after which the lives of the intellectuals would have been at great risk.80 It seemed, therefore, more prudent to let the “bourgeois” Duma take charge and manipulate it from behind the scenes.
In this fashion, on February 27, 1917, there emerged in Russia a peculiar system of government called dvoevlastie, or dyarchy: it lasted until October 25–26, when it yielded to the Bolshevik dictatorship. In theory, the Provisional Committee of the Duma—soon renamed the Provisional Government—bore full administrative responsibility, and the Soviet confined itself to functions of control, much as a legislature might in relation to an executive. The reality, however, was very different. The Soviet, or more precisely its Ispolkom, administered and legislated on its own often without so much as informing the government. Second, the partners in this arrangement were unable to cooperate effectively because they had very different objectives in mind. The Duma leaders wanted to contain the Revolution; the Soviet leaders wanted to deepen it. The former would have been happy to stop the flow of events at the point reached by nightfall on February 27. For the latter, February 27 was a mere stepping-stone to the “true”—that is, socialist—revolution.
Having decided they had no alternative but to form a cabinet in defiance of the Tsar’s wishes, the Duma leaders were still inhibited by two considerations: lack of legitimacy and lack of means to control the unruly mobs. The more conservative members of the Provisional Committee, among them Shulgin and Guchkov, were of the opinion that one more attempt should be made to persuade Nicholas to let the Duma name the cabinet. But the majority thought this futile, preferring to seek legitimacy from the Petrograd Soviet, or, more precisely, from the socialist intelligentsia in the Ispolkom.
The decision was curious in the extreme. The Soviet, after all, was a private body, irregularly constituted and directed by representatives of socialist parties whom no one had elected. The best that could be said for it was that it represented the workers and soldiers of the city of Petrograd and environs, at most 1 million citizens in a nation of 170 million. From the point of view of legitimacy, the Fourth Duma—even allowing for the restricted franchise on which it had been chosen—had a better claim to speak for the country at large. But its leaders believed that in numbers lay safety: cooperation with the socialist parties would enable them better to restrain the mobs as well as to cope with a potential counterrevolution. At this point, the Ispolkom was solidly in the hands of Mensheviks, who acquiesced to the Duma’s assuming formal governmental authority. The decision to seek legitimacy from the Soviet, as represented by the Ispolkom, was therefore psychologically understandable. But it hardly provided the new government with the legitimacy it needed. When on March 2 Miliukov, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, was challenged from the audience which he was addressing, “Who elected you?” he could only answer, “We have been elected by the Russian Revolution”81—a claim that any other aspirant to power could make with equal right.*
The socialist intellectuals in the Ispolkom had no intention of giving the new government carte blanche. They were prepared to support it only on condition that it accept and implement a program of action to its liking: the Russian formula was postol’ku-poskol’ku (“to the extent that”). To this end, it worked out on March 1 a nine-point program82 to serve as a basis of cooperation with the new government. Representatives of the two bodies met at midnight of March 1–2. Miliukov negotiated on behalf of the Duma committee; the Ispolkom was represented by a multiparty delegation headed by Chkheidze. Rather unexpectedly, the Duma committee raised no objection to most of the terms posed by the Ispolkom, in good measure because they sidestepped the two most controversial issues dividing the liberals from the socialists—namely, the conduct of the war and agrarian reform. In the course of negotiations which lasted well into the night, Miliukov persuaded the socialists to drop the demand to have officers elected by the troops. He also succeeded in altering the demand for the immediate introduction of a “democratic republic,” leaving open the possibility of retaining the monarchy, something he ardently desired.83 The two parties reached agreement on what now became an eight-point program, to be issued in the name of the newly formed “Provisional Council of Ministers” with the approval of the Ispolkom, but without its countersignature. The program was meant to serve as the basis of the government’s activity during the brief period that lay ahead until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. It called for:
1. Immediate amnesty for all political prisoners, including terrorists;
2. Immediate granting of the freedom of speech, association, and assembly, and the right to strike, as promised by the tsarist government in 1906 but never fully implemented;
3. Immediate abolition of disabilities and privileges due to nationality, religion, or social origin;
4. Immediate preparations for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, to be elected on a universal, secret, direct, and equal ballot;
5. All police organs to be dissolved and replaced by a militia with elected officers, to be supervised by local government;
6. New elections to organs of local self-government on the basis of universal, direct, equal, and secret vote;
7. Military units that had participated in the Revolution to keep their weapons and to receive assurances they would not be sent to the front;
8. Military discipline in the armed forces to be maintained, but when off duty soldiers were to enjoy the same rights as civilians.
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This document, drawn up by exhausted politicians in the middle of the night, was to have the direst consequences. The most pernicious were Points 5 and 6, which in one fell swoop abolished the provincial bureaucracy and police that had traditionally kept the Russian state intact. The organs of self-rule—that is, the zemstva and Municipal Councils—which were to replace them had never borne administrative responsibilities and were not equipped to do so. The result was instant nationwide anarchy: anarchy that the new government liked to blame on the old regime but that was, in fact, largely of its own doing. No revolution anywhere, before or after 1917, wreaked such administrative havoc.
Points 1 and 7 were only slightly less calamitous. It was, of course, impossible for a democratic government to keep in prison or exile political activists confined for their opinions. But the blanket amnesty, which covered terrorists, resulted in Petrograd’s being flooded with the most extreme radicals returned from Siberia and abroad. They traveled at the government’s expense, impatient to subvert it. When the British detained Leon Trotsky in Canada as he was making his way home from New York, Miliukov interceded and secured his release. The Provisional Government would issue entry visas to Lenin and his associates returning from Switzerland, who made no secret of the intention to work for its overthrow. The government thus let loose foes of democracy, some of them in contact with the enemy and financed by him—actions difficult to conceive of a more experienced government. And, finally, by allowing the Petrograd garrison to retain weapons and by pledging not to send it to the front, the new government not only surrendered much authority over 160,000 uniformed men but ensconced in the capital city a disgruntled and armed peasantry whom its enemies could turn against it.
Later on March 2, Iurii Steklov, a Mezhraionets, presented on behalf of the Ispolkom the eight-point accord to the Soviet for approval. It was agreed that the Soviet would appoint a “supervisory committee” (nabliudatel’nyi komitet) to keep an eye on the government. After the changes had been renegotiated, the Provisional Committee announced its assumption of power.* At Miliukov’s request, the Ispolkom appealed to the nation to support the new government. The statement was lukewarm in tone and hedged with conditions: democracy should support the new authority “to the extent” that it carried out its obligations and decisively fought the old regime.85<
br />
Thus, from the moment of its creation, Russia’s democratic government owed its legitimacy to and functioned at the sufferance of a body of radical intellectuals who, by seizing control of the Soviet executive, had arrogated to themselves the right to speak on behalf of “democracy.” Although this dependence was in some measure conditioned by the need to gain the Soviet’s help in calming the insurgent mobs, the liberals and conservatives who formed the first Provisional Government saw nothing wrong with the arrangement. It is they, after all, who requested from the Ispolkom a declaration in support of the government. They also had few objections to the terms on the basis of which the Ispolkom had consented to back them. According to Miliukov, apart from the two points that had been dropped or revised and Point 7, everything in the declaration drafted by the Ispolkom was not only fully acceptable to the Duma committee or allowed an acceptable interpretation but “flowed directly from the newly formed government’s personal views of its tasks.”86 Indeed, the demands that the Ispolkom draft formulated under Points 1, 5, and 6 the Kadets had presented to Stolypin as early as 1906.87
The new cabinet was hand-picked by Miliukov. Its composition, agreed upon in the evening of March 2, was as follows:
The Russian Revolution Page 47