We find it imperative to declare that, in having joined the Soviet and struggling to have it assume full power, we did not renounce for an instant for the benefit of the Soviet, which is in principle hostile to us, the right, separately and independently, to take advantage of all the freedoms to mobilize the working masses under the banner of our proletarian class party. We also categorically refuse henceforth to submit to such anti-democratic restrictions.
Even if state authority were to pass entirely into the hands of the Soviet
—and this we favor—and the Soviet would try to place fetters on our agitation,
we would not submit passively
, but risk prison and other punishments in the name of the idea of international socialism …
112
This was a declaration of war on the Soviet, an assertion of the right to act in defiance of it if and when the Soviet became the government.
On June 16, the Russian army, generously supplied with guns and shells by the Allies, opened a two-day artillery barrage, following which it charged. The brunt of the Russian assault fell on the Southern Front and aimed at Lwow, the capital of Galicia. The Eighth Army, commanded by Kornilov, distinguished itself. Secondary offensive operations were launched on the Central and Northern Fronts. As the government had hoped, the offensive inspired patriotic manifestations. In this atmosphere, the Bolsheviks did not dare to oppose the campaign: at the Congress of Soviets in June, neither Lenin nor Trotsky opposed motions in its support.113
52. Russian soldiers fleeing Germans: July 1917.
The Russian operation against the Austrians made good progress for two days, and then it ground to a halt as the troops, feeling they had done their duty, refused to obey orders to attack. They were soon in headlong flight. On July 6, the Germans, having once again come to the assistance of their hard-pressed Austrian allies, counterattacked. At the sight of German uniforms, the Russians took to their heels, looting and spreading panic. The June offensive was the dying gasp of the old Russian army.
Since the old Russian army engaged in no significant operations after July 1917, this may be an appropriate place to tally the human casualties Russia suffered in World War I. It is difficult to determine these losses with reasonable accuracy because of the poor quality of Russian war statistics. In standard sources, Russian casualties are given as the highest of any belligerent power: Cruttwell, for instance, estimates 1.7 million Russian dead and 4.95 million wounded, which would slightly exceed the losses suffered by Germany and considerably those suffered by Britain and France, which had stayed in the war sixteen months longer than Russia. Other foreign estimates go as high as 2.5 million dead.114 These figures have been shown to be highly inflated. Official Russian sources speak of 775,400 battlefield fatalities. More recent Russian estimates indicate somewhat higher losses: 900,000 battlefield deaths and 400,000 from combat wounds, for a total of 1.3 million, which is equal to the fatalities suffered by the French and the Austrians but one-third less than the Germans.115
The Russians had far and away the largest number of war prisoners in enemy hands. The 3.9 million Russian captives in German and Austrian POW camps exceeded threefold the total number of prisoners of war (1.3 million) lost by the armies of Britain, France, and Germany combined.116 Only the Austro-Hungarian army, with 2.2 million prisoners, came close. For every 100 Russians who fell in battle, 300 surrendered. In the British army, the comparable figure was 20, in the French, 24, and in the German, 26.117 In other words, Russians surrendered at a rate twelve to fifteen times that of Western soldiers.
The failure of the June offensive was a personal calamity for Kerensky, who had counted on it to rally the divided country around him and the government. Having gambled and lost, he grew distraught, irascible, and excedingly suspicious. In this mood he committed cardinal mistakes that turned him from an adored leader into a scapegoat, despised by the left and right alike.
In the atmosphere of demoralization and despair brought about by the failure of the June offensive, Lenin and his lieutenants ventured on yet another putsch.
No event in the Russian Revolution has been more willfully lied about than the July 1917 insurrection, the reason being that it was Lenin’s worst blunder, a misjudgment that nearly caused the destruction of the Bolshevik Party: the equivalent of Hitler’s 1923 beer-hall putsch. To absolve themselves of responsibility, the Bolsheviks have gone to unusual lengths to misrepresent the July putsch as a spontaneous demonstration which they sought to direct into peaceful channels.
The July 3–5 action was precipitated by the government’s decision to dispatch units of the Petrograd garrision to the front for the anticipated enemy counteroffensive. Inspired primarily by military considerations, this decision was also meant to rid the capital of the units most contaminated by Bolshevik propaganda. To the Bolsheviks this move spelled disaster since it threatened to deprive them of the forces which they intended to use in their next bid for power.118 They responded with a furious propaganda campaign among the garrison troops, attacking the “bourgeois” government, protesting the “imperialist” war, and urging them to refuse to go to the front. No country with a tradition of democracy would have tolerated such incitement to mutiny in time of war.
The Bolsheviks had their main base of support in the 1st Machine Gun Regiment, the largest unit of the garrison, with 11,340 men and nearly 300 officers, among the latter numerous left-wing intellectuals. Many of the men were misfits expelled from their original units for incompetence or insubordination.119 Billeted in the Vyborg District, close to the radicalized factories, it was a seething mass. The Bolshevik Military Organization had here a cell of some thirty members, including junior officers, whom it provided with regular training in agitational techniques.120 Bolsheviks as well as anarchists frequently addressed the regiment.
On June 20, the regiment received orders to dispatch to the front 500 machine guns with crews. The next day the troops held a meeting, at which they adopted a resolution—judging by its content, of Bolshevik origin—that they would go to the front only to fight a “revolutionary war”—that is, in defense of a government from which the “capitalists” had been removed and the Soviet had all the power. If, the resolution went on, the Provisional Government attempted to disband it, the regiment would resist.121 Emissaries were dispatched to other units of the garrison in quest of support.
The Bolsheviks, who played a major role in this mutiny, feared precipitous action likely to provoke a patriotic backlash. They had many enemies, ready to pounce on them at the slightest provocation: according to Shliapnikov, “our supporters could not appear alone on Nevsky without putting their lives at risk.”122 Their tactics, therefore, had to combine boldness with prudence: they agitated vigorously among the troops and workers to maintain a high level of tension, but opposed impulsive actions which could get out of hand and end in an anti-Bolshevik pogrom. On June 22, Soldatskaia Pravda appealed to soldiers and workers to refrain from demonstrating without explicit instructions from the party:
The Military Organization is not calling for public appearances. Should the need arise, the Military Organization will call for a public appearance in agreement with the leading institutions of the party—the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee.
123
The Soviet went unmentioned. Such calls for restraint, subsequently cited by Communist historians as evidence that the Bolshevik Party bore no responsibility for the July riots, prove nothing of the kind: they merely show that the party wanted to keep tight control of events.
The first wave of discontent in the regiment was contained when the Bolsheviks dissuaded it from demonstrating and the Soviet refused to endorse its resolution. Resigned, the regiment dispatched 500 machine guns to the front.124
At this time, the government, jointly with the Soviet, also quelled incipient violence at Kronshtadt. The garrison at this naval base near Petrograd was under strong anarchist influence but its political organization was in the hands of
the Bolsheviks headed by F. F. Raskolnikov and S. G. Roshal.125 The sailors had their grievance, namely the government’s forceful ejection of anarchists from the villa of ex-Minister Peter Durnovo, which they had seized after the February Revolution and made into headquarters. The anarchists at the villa behaved in so disorderly a fashion that on June 19 troops were sent to retake it and arrest the squatters.126 Incited by the anarchists, the sailors threatened on June 23 to march on Petrograd to free the prisoners. They, too, were restrained by the joint efforts of the Soviet and the Bolsheviks.
But even as they were restrained, the Machine Gunners were subjected to a steady barrage of inflammatory propaganda. The Bolsheviks called for the transfer of all power to the Soviet, to be followed by reelections to the Soviet which would leave it exclusively in Bolshevik hands; this, they promised, would immediately bring peace. They also demanded the “annihilation” of the “bourgeoisie.” The anarchists incited the troops to “pogroms on the Miliukov streets—Nevsky and Liteinyi.”127
According to V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, in the evening of June 29 an unexpected visitor appeared at his dacha in Neivola near the Finnish city of Vyborg, a short ride by commuter train from Petrograd. It was Lenin. Having traveled in a roundabout way—“from conspiratorial habit”—he explained that he was extremely exhausted and needed rest.128 It was most unusual behavior, quite out of character for Lenin. He was not in the habit of taking vacations in the midst of important political events even when he had better cause to feel exhausted, as in the winter of 1917–18. In this case, the explanation is doubly suspect because in two days the Bolsheviks were to open a conference of their Petrograd organizations which it is hard to conceive Lenin would have wanted to miss. His “conspiratorial” behavior is also puzzling, since he had no ostensible need to conceal his movements. The reason for his sudden disappearance from Petrograd, therefore, must be sought elsewhere: it is virtually certain that he had gotten wind that the government, having obtained enough evidence of his financial dealings with the Germans, was about to arrest him.
On June 21, Captain Pierre Laurent of French intelligence turned over to Russian counterintelligence fourteen intercepted communications between the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and their people in Stockholm indicative of dealings with the enemy; soon he produced fifteen more.129 The government claimed later that it had delayed arresting the Bolsheviks because it wanted to catch Lenin’s principal Stockholm agent, Ganetskii, on his next trip to Russia with incriminating documents.130 But in view of Kerensky’s behavior after the putsch, there are grounds for suspicion that behind the government’s procrastination lay fear of antagonizing the Soviet.
At the end of June, however, the authorities had enough evidence to proceed and on July 1 ordered the arrest of twenty-eight leading Bolsheviks within the week.131
Someone in the government alerted Lenin to this danger. The most likely suspect is the same Procurator of the Petrograd Judiciary Chamber (Sudebnaia Palata), N. S. Karinskii, who, according to Bonch-Bruevich, on July 4 would leak to the Bolsheviks that the ministry was about to make public information incriminating Lenin as a German agent.132 Lenin may also have been alerted by indications that on June 29 intelligence agents began shadowing Sumenson.133 Nothing else explains Lenin’s sudden disappearance from Petrograd and his furtive escape to Finland, where he was out of reach of the Russian police.*
Lenin hid in Finland from June 29 until the early-morning hours of July 4, when the Bolshevik putsch got underway. His role in the preparations for the July escapade cannot be established. But physical absence from the scene of action need not mean he was uninvolved: in the fall of 1917, Lenin would also hide out in Finland and still take an active part in the decisions leading to the October coup.
The July operation began in the Machine Gun Regiment when it learned that the government was about to disband it and disperse its men to the front.* On June 30, the Soviet invited regimental representatives to discuss their problems with the military authorities. The following day, regimental “activists” held their own meetings. The mood of the men, tense for some time, reached a feverish pitch.
On July 2, the Bolsheviks organized for the regiment a concert meeting at the People’s House (Narodnyi Dom).134 All outside speakers were Bolsheviks, among them Trotsky and Lunacharskii: Zinoviev and Kamenev were also scheduled to appear, but failed to show up, possibly because, like Lenin, they feared arrest.135 Addressing an audience of over 5,000 men, Trotsky berated the government for the June offensive and demanded the transfer of power to the Soviet. He did not tell the troops in so many words to refuse to obey the government, but the Military Organization had the meeting pass a resolution in this spirit: it accused Kerensky of following in the footsteps of “Nicholas the Bloody” and demanded all power to the soviets.136
The troops returned to the barracks too excited to sleep. They held an all-night discussion in the course of which voices were raised demanding violent action: one of the slogans proposed was “Beat the burzhui.”137
A pogrom was in the making. The Bolsheviks, gathered at Kshesinskaia’s, were uncertain how to react: join or try to abort it. Some argued that since the troops could not be held back, the Bolsheviks should take charge; others thought it was too soon to move.138 Then, as later, the Bolsheviks were torn between the desire to ride to power on the wave of popular fury and the fear that spontaneous violence would provoke a nationalist reaction of which they would be the principal victims.
The company and regimental committees of the Machine Gun Regiment held further meetings on July 3: the atmosphere was that of a village assembly on the eve of a peasant rebellion. The main speakers were anarchists, the most prominent among them I. S. Bleikhman, “his shirt open on his breast and curly hair flying on all sides,”139 who called on the troops to take to the streets, weapons in hand, and stage an armed uprising. The anarchists did not spell out the objective of such action: that “the street itself will show.”140 The Bolshevik agitators who followed the anarchists did not take issue with them; they only urged that before acting the regiment seek instructions from the Bolshevik Military Organization.
But the troops, determined to avoid front-line duty and whipped into frenzy by the anarchists, would not wait: by a unanimous vote they decided to take to the streets, fully armed. A Provisional Revolutionary Committee was elected to organize the demonstration, under the chairmanship of a Bolshevik, Lieutenant A. Ia. Semashko. This happened between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m.
Semashko and his associates, several of whom belonged to the Military Organization, sent out patrols to learn whether the government was taking countermeasures and to confiscate automobiles. They also dispatched emissaries to factories and barracks and to Kronshtadt.
The emissaries met with a mixed reception. A few units of the garrison agreed to join: mainly elements of the 1st, 3rd, 176th, and 180th Infantry Regiments.141 The others refused. The Preobrazhenskii, Semenovskii, and Izmailovskii Guard Regiments declared “neutrality.”142 In the Machine Gun Regiment itself, despite threats of physical violence, many companies voted to stay on the sidelines: in the end only one-half of the regiment, some 5,000 men, participated in the putsch. Many factory workers also refused to take part.
For lack of adequate documentation, it is difficult to determine the attitude of the Bolsheviks toward these developments. In his report to the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party later that month, Stalin claimed that at 4:00 p.m. on July 3 the Central Committee took a stand against an armed demonstration.143 Trotsky confirms Stalin’s claim.144 It is not inconceivable that the Bolshevik leaders, without Lenin to encourage them and afraid that a mutiny under their slogans but without their guidance could end in disaster, initially opposed it, but one would feel more confident of this judgment if the protocols of the Central Committee for that day were made available.
As soon as it learned of the proposed demonstration the Ispolkom appealed to the troops to desist:145 it had no desire to bring down the government and to assume the po
wer that the Bolsheviks were so insistently thrusting into its hands.
That afternoon there appeared before the Executive Committee of the Kronshtadt Soviet two anarchist deputies from the Machine Gun Regiment, wild in appearance and seemingly illiterate.146 They let it be known that their regiment, along with other military units and factory workers, was taking to the streets to demand the transfer of power to the Soviet. They needed armed support. The chairman of the Executive Committee responded that the sailors would take part in no demonstration which the Petrograd Ispolkom had not authorized. In that event, the emissaries said, they would appeal directly to the sailors. Word went out and 8,000 to 10,000 sailors assembled to hear a hysterical speech about the government’s persecution of anarchists.147 The sailors prepared to embark for Petrograd: it was unclear to what purpose, but beating up the burzhui, with some looting on the side, could not have been far from their minds. Roshal and Raskolnikov managed to restrain them long enough to call Bolshevik headquarters for instructions. After communicating with headquarters, Raskolnikov told the sailors the Bolshevik Party had decided to take part in the armed demonstration, whereupon the assembled sailors voted unanimously to join in.*
Delegates from the Machine Gunners appeared also before the workers of Putilov, many of whom they won over to their cause.148
Around 7 p.m. those units of the Machine Gun Regiment that had voted in favor of a demonstration assembled in their barracks. Advance elements, riding in confiscated automobiles with mounted machine guns, were already dispersed in the central parts of Petrograd. At 8 p.m. the soldiers marched to Troitskii Bridge, where mutinous troops from other regiments joined them. At 10 p.m. the mutineers crossed the bridge. Nabokov observed them at this instant: “They had the same dull, vacant, brutal faces that we all remembered from the February days.”149 Having made their way across the river, the troops divided into two columns, one of which went to Taurida, the other to Mariinskii, the seats of the Soviet and the government, respectively. There was some desultory shooting, mostly in the air, and a bit of looting.
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