Later in the day, the Ispolkom voted to prohibit all demonstrations for the next forty-eight hours. It denounced anyone who led armed men into the streets as a “traitor to the Revolution.”69
On April 21, analogous Bolshevik demonstrations under identical slogans took place in Moscow.
The disorders in Petrograd subsided toward the evening of April 21 from lack of mass support: demonstrators loyal to the government proved to be at least as militant as and considerably more numerous than those who followed the Bolshevik lead. In Moscow, Bolshevik riots went on for yet another day, terminating when angry mobs surrounded the rioters and tore anti-government banners from their hands.
The instant it became apparent that the putsch had failed, the Bolsheviks disclaimed all responsibility. On April 22, the Central Committee passed a resolution which conceded that the “petty bourgeois” mass, after some initial hesitation, had come out in support of the “pro-capitalist” forces, and condemned anti-government slogans as premature. The task of the party was defined as enlightening the workers about the true nature of the government. There were to be no more demonstrations and the instructions of the Soviet had to be obeyed. The resolution, most likely moved by Kamenev, represented a defeat for Lenin, whom Kamenev charged with “adventurism.” Lenin lamely defended himself by blaming the anti-government character of the demonstration on hotheads from the Petrograd Committee.
But even while defending himself, he inadvertently revealed what had been on his mind:
This was an attempt to resort to violent means. We did not know whether at that anxious moment the mass had strongly shifted to our side.… We merely wanted to carry out a peaceful reconnaissance of the enemy’s strength, not to give battle …
70
How to reconcile his admission that the April riots were “an attempt to resort to violent means” with the claim that they were meant as a “peaceful reconnaissance” Lenin did not explain.*
For the time being, the crowds followed the Ispolkom and, through its agency, the government. In this context, it is understandable why the socialist intellectuals opposed the use of force. But crowds are fickle, and the main lesson of April was not how weak the Bolshevik Party was but how unprepared the government and the leaders of the Soviet were to meet force with force. Analyzing the lessons of the April days a few months later, Lenin concluded that the Bolsheviks had been “insufficiently revolutionary” in their tactics, by which he could only have meant that they were wrong in not making a grab for power.71 Still, he drew much encouragement from this opening skirmish: according to Sukhanov, in April his hopes “sprouted wings.”72
The April riots provoked the first serious government crisis. Barely two months after tsarism had collapsed, the intelligentsia saw the country disintegrating before their very eyes—and now they no longer had the tsar and the bureaucracy to blame. On April 26, the government issued an emotional appeal to the nation that it could no longer administer and wished to bring in “representatives of those creative forces of the country which until then had not taken a direct and immediate part” in administration, that is, the socialist intelligentsia.73 The Ispolkom, still afraid of being compromised in the eyes of the “masses,” on April 28 rejected the government’s feeler.74
The event that caused the Ispolkom to change its mind was Guchkov’s resignation, on April 30, as Minister of War. As he explains in his memoirs, Guchkov had concluded that Russia had become ungovernable: the only salvation lay in inviting into the government “healthy” forces as represented by General Kornilov and leaders of the business community.75 Since this was not possible, given the attitude of the socialist intellectuals, he stepped down. According to Tsereteli, Guchkov’s resignation, accompanied as it was by Miliukov’s request to be relieved of his responsibilities, was symptomatic of a crisis of such dimensions that it could no longer be dealt with by palliative measures.76 The “bourgeoisie” was abandoning the government. On May 1, the Ispolkom reversed itself and without consulting the plenum of the Soviet, voted 44–19, with two abstentions, to permit its members to accept cabinet posts.77 The negative votes were cast by the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks-Internationalists (followers of Martov), who wanted the Soviet to assume full power. Tsereteli provided an explanation of the majority’s reasoning. The government, he said, had admitted its inability to save the country from the impending catastrophe. In these circumstances, the “democratic” forces had the duty to step in and help save the Revolution. The Soviet could not take power on its own behalf and in its own name, as Martov and Lenin wanted, because by so doing it would push into the arms of reactionaries those numerous elements in the country which, although not committed to democracy, were willing to cooperate with the democratic forces. What he meant another Menshevik, V. Voitinskii, spelled out in arguing for a coalition with the “bourgeoisie” and in obliquely opposing the slogan “All Power to the Soviets” on the grounds that the peasants stood “to the right” of the soviet,78 and presumably would refuse to recognize as government a body in which they were not represented.
In agreeing to join a coalition government, the Ispolkom posed a number of conditions: a review of inter-Allied accords, an effort to end the war, further “democratization” of the armed forces, an agrarian policy that would set the stage for the distribution of land to the peasants, and the prompt convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The government, for its part, demanded that the Ispolkom acknowledge it as the exclusive bearer of state authority, empowered to resort to force if the situation required it, as well as the sole source of commands to the armed forces. Representatives of the government and the Ispolkom spent the opening days of May negotiating the terms of the coalition. Agreement was reached during the night of May 4–5, following which a new cabinet was installed in office. The placid and inoffensive Prince Lvov stayed on as Prime Minister; Guchkov and Miliukov formally resigned. The Foreign Ministry portfolio was given to the Kadet M. I. Tereshchenko—a strange choice, for Tereshchenko, a young businessman, had little experience and was unfamiliar to the public. But it was common knowledge that, like Kerensky, he belonged to the Freemasons: suspicions were voiced that he owed his appointment to Masonic connections. Kerensky took over the Ministry of War. He, too, had no background for the post, but his prominence in the Soviet and his rhetorical gifts were expected to inspire the troops as they were preparing for the summer offensive. Six socialists entered the coalition government, among them Chernov, who took the portfolio of Agriculture, and Tsereteli, who became Minister of Post and Telegraphs. The cabinet would have a life of two months.
The May accords somewhat eased the anomalies of dvoevlastie, which had confused the population as to the ultimate source of authority. They were indicative not only of a growing sense of desperation but also of the growing maturity of the socialist intelligentsia, and, as such, were a positive development. On the face of it, a government that united the “bourgeoisie” and “democracy” promised to be more effective than one in which the two groups confronted each other as antagonists. But the agreement also raised fresh problems. The instant the socialist leaders of the Soviet joined the government, they forfeited the role of an opposition. By entering the cabinet, they automatically came to share blame for everything that went wrong. This allowed the Bolsheviks, who refused to join, to pose as the sole alternative to the status quo and the custodians of the Russian Revolution. And since under the hopelessly incompetent administration of liberal and socialist intellectuals events were bound to go from bad to worse, they emerged as the only conceivable saviors of Russia.
The Provisional Government now faced the classic predicament of moderate revolutionaries who take the reins of power from the fallen authority. “Little by little,” writes Crane Brinton in his comparative study of revolutions,
the moderates find themselves losing the credit they had gained as opponents of the old regime, and taking on more and more of the discredit associated by the hopeful with the status of heir of the old regime. Forced
on the defensive, they make mistake after mistake, partly because they are so little used to being on the defensive.
Emotionally unable to bear thinking of themselves as “falling behind in the revolutionary process” and to break with rivals on the left, they satisfy no one and are ready to give way to better-organized, better-staffed, more determined rivals.79
In May and June 1917, the Bolshevik Party still ran a poor third to the other socialist parties: at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in early June, it had only 105 delegates as against 285 for the SRs and 248 for the Mensheviks.* But the tide was running in its favor.
The Bolsheviks enjoyed many advantages. In addition to their unique position as the sole alternative to the new Provisional Government and their determined and power-hungry leadership, there were at least two others.
The Mensheviks and SRs spouted socialist slogans, but they would not push them to their logical conclusions. This confused their constituency and helped the Bolsheviks. They insisted that since February 1917 Russia had a “bourgeois” regime which they controlled through the soviets: but if this was so, why not be rid of the “bourgeoisie” and vest full power in the soviets? The socialists called the war “imperialist”: if it was so, why not lay down arms and go home? “All Power to the Soviets” and “Down with the War,” though still unpopular slogans in the spring and summer of 1917, had about them a certain inexorable logic—they made “sense” in the context of ideas which the socialists planted in the mind of the population. Because the Bolsheviks had the courage to draw from the common socialist premises the obvious conclusions, the socialists could never really stand up to them: to have done so would have been tantamount to denying themselves. Time and again, whenever the followers of Lenin brazenly challenged democratic procedures and struck for power, the socialists would try to talk them out of it, yet, at the same time, they would prevent the government from reacting. It was difficult to stand up to the Bolsheviks if their only sin was seeking to reach the same goal by bolder means: in many ways, Lenin and his followers were the true “conscience of the Revolution.” Their intellectual irresponsibility combined with the moral cowardice of the socialist majority created a psychological and ideological environment in which the Bolshevik minority battened and grew.
But perhaps the single greatest advantage the Bolsheviks enjoyed over their rivals lay in their total unconcern for Russia. The conservatives, the liberals, and the socialists, each in their own way, sought to preserve Russia as a national entity, in defiance of the particular social and regional interests that the Revolution had unleashed and that were pulling the country apart. They appealed to the soldiers to maintain discipline, to the peasants to wait for the land reform, to the workers to keep up production, to the ethnic minorities to hold in abeyance demands for self-rule. These were unpopular appeals because the absence in the country of a strong sense of statehood and nationhood encouraged centrifugal tendencies and favored the advancement of special interests at the expense of the whole. The Bolsheviks, for whom Russia was no more than a springboard for a world revolution, had no such concerns. It suited them very well if spontaneous forces “smashed” existing institutions and destroyed Russia. For this reason, they encouraged to the fullest every destructive trend. And since these trends, once unleashed in February, were difficult to restrain in any event, they rode the crest of a swelling wave; by identifying themselves with the inevitable, they gained the appearance of being in control. Later on, when in power, they would in no time renege on all their promises and reconstruct the state in a more centralized, autocratic form than the country had ever known: but until then, their indifference to the fate of Russia proved for the Bolsheviks an immense, perhaps decisive asset.
The rapid disintegration of Russia from lack of firm leadership resulted in the weakening of all national institutions, including those run by the socialists, a process which gave the Bolsheviks an opportunity to outflank the Menshevik and SR leadership in the All-Russian Soviet and the major trade unions. Marc Ferro has noted that after the formation of the coalition government, the authority of the All-Russian Soviet in Petrograd declined while that of the regional soviets rose. A similar process occurred in the labor movement, where the national trade unions lost authority to local “Factory Committees.”80 The regional soviets and Factory Committees were managed by politically inexperienced individuals amenable to Bolshevik manipulation.
The Bolsheviks enjoyed little influence in the major national trade unions, which were dominated by the Mensheviks. But as transport and communications deteriorated, the large national unions, centered in Petrograd or Moscow, lost touch with their members, scattered over the vast country. The workers now tended to shift loyalties from the professional unions to the factories. This process occurred despite the immense growth of the national trade union membership in 1917. The worker organizations which enjoyed the most rapid rise in power and influence were the Factory Committees, or Fabzavkomy. These had come into existence at the beginning of the February Revolution in the state-owned defense plants, after the disappearance of their government-appointed managers. From there, they spread to privately owned enterprises. On March 10, the association of Petrograd industrialists agreed with the Ispolkom to introduce Factory Committees in all the plants in the capital.81 The following month, the Provisional Government gave them official recognition, authorizing Factory Committees to act as representatives of workers.82
Initially, the Fabzavkomy adopted a moderate stance, concentrating on increasing production and arbitrating industrial disputes. Then they radicalized. Unhappy over worsening inflation and shortages of fuel and raw materials which led to plant closures, they charged the employers with speculation, false bookkeeping, and resort to lockouts. Here and there, they chased away the proprietors and managers and attempted to run the factories on their own. Elsewhere, they demanded a stronger voice in the management. The Mensheviks viewed with disfavor these anarcho-syndicalist institutions and sought to integrate the Factory Committees into the national trade unions. But the trend ran in the opposite direction as the immediate, day-to-day concerns of the workers became increasingly more linked with fellow workers employed under the same roof than with their occupational counterparts elsewhere. The Bolsheviks found the Fabzavkomy an ideal device with which to neutralize Menshevik influence in the trade unions.83 Although they disapproved of the syndicalist idea of “workers’ control” and after seizing power would liquidate this institution, in the spring of 1917 it was in their interest to promote it. They helped form Factory Committees and organized them nationally. At the First Conference of Petrograd Factory Committees, which they convened on May 30, the Bolsheviks controlled at least two-thirds of the delegates. Their motion calling for workers to be given a decisive vote in factory management as well as access to the firms’ accounting books passed with an overwhelming majority.84 The Fabzavkomy were the first institution to fall under Bolshevik control.*
Because he envisaged the power seizure as a violent act, Lenin needed his own military detachments, independent of both the government and the Soviet and accountable only to his Central Committee. “Arming the workers” was central to his program for the coup d’état. During the February Revolution, crowds had looted arsenals: tens of thousands of guns had disappeared, some of them concealed in factories. The Petrograd Soviet organized a “People’s Militia” to replace the dissolved tsarist police, but Lenin refused to have the Bolsheviks join it: he wanted a force of his own.85 So as not to be accused of building up an instrument of subversion, he disguised his private army, initially called “Workers’ Militia,” as an innocuous guard to protect factories from looters. On April 28, this militia was incorporated into a Bolshevik Red Guard (Krasnaia Gvardiia), which had the additional mission of “defending the Revolution” and “resisting reactionary forces.” The Bolsheviks ignored objections of the Soviet to this, their own army.86 In the end, the Red Guards proved something of a disappointment because they turned either i
nto an ordinary civil police or else merged with the People’s Militia, in either case failing to develop that spirit of class militancy that Lenin had expected of them.87 In October, when needed, they would be conspicuous by their absence.
In preparation for their coup, the Bolsheviks also engaged in propaganda and agitation among the garrison and frontline troops. Responsibility for this work was assigned to the Military Organization which, according to one Communist source, had agents and cells in three-fourths of the garrison units.88 From them, it obtained information on the mood of the troops, and through them it carried out anti-government and anti-war propaganda. The Bolsheviks won very few adherents among the men in uniform, but they were successful in fanning the troops’ discontent, which had the effect of making the soldiers less likely to obey calls of the government or the Soviet to move against them. According to Sukhanov, although even the most disgruntled garrison soldiers did not favor the Bolsheviks, their mood was one of “neutrality” and “indifference,” which made them receptive to anti-government appeals. In this category was the garrison’s largest unit, the First Machine Gun Regiment.89
The Bolsheviks influenced minds mainly by means of the printed word. By June, Pravda had a run of 85,000 copies. They also put out provincial papers, papers addressed to special groups (e.g., female workers and ethnic minorities), and a multitude of pamphlets. They paid particular attention to the men in uniform. On April 15, they brought out a soldiers’ newspaper, Soldatskaia Pravda, which attained a printing of 50,000–75,000 copies. They followed it with a paper for sailors, Golos Pravdy, and another one for frontline troops, Okopnaia Pravda, printed in Kronshtadt and Riga, respectively. In the spring of 1917, they distributed to the troops about 100,000 papers a day, which, given that Russia had 12 million men under arms, was enough to supply one Bolshevik daily per company. In early July, the combined printing of the Bolshevik press was 320,000 copies. In addition, Soldatskaia Pravda printed 350,000 pamphlets and broadsheets.90 This was a most remarkable achievement, considering that in February 1917 the Bolsheviks had had no press.
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