Chernov Lynched During "July Days"

The time is July 1917. The scene is Petrograd. A huge pro-Bolshevik crowd is marching on the Tauride Palace, demanding "all power to the Soviets." The Soviet and its Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary leaders are at the mercy of the crowd. Some of the non-Bolshevik leaders of the Soviet try to appease the crowd by lecturing it on the need for democracy, discipline, etc. This simply infuriates the crowd further. One of the lecturers, the Socialist Revolutionary Minister of Agriculture, Chernov, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Chernov is seized by some sailors and pushed into a car.

This is a moment of great danger to the Bolsheviks. The lynching of a socialist minister who is still popular among the peasants would be blamed on them. Trotsky rushes to the scene, and urges the Kronstadt sailors not to soil their cause by hurting "Socialist Chernov." The sailors remain unconvinced. Finally, Trotsky resorts to a democratic way of settling the issue, "Whoever is for violence, raise your hands." As the historian Adam Ulam will later note, sometimes it is much easier to indulge in violence than to vote for it. No hands are raised, and the leader of the "revolutionary democracy" is released, shaken but unharmed. http://books.google.com/books?id=dN5V8WX5WP0C&pg=PA347

What if Chernov had in fact been lynched? In OTL, Kerensky's crackdown on the Bolsheviks after the failure of the "July days" was both short-lived and half-hearted. With the lynching of Chernov, things could be different. Of course, the Bolsheviks would say that the lynching was the work of provocateurs (very unlikely) or of some anarchists among the sailors (much more likely), but I still think that a shocking event like this would galvanize the Provisional Government and the Menshevik/SR majority of the Soviet (which will be less vulnerable than in OTL to the argument that the main enemy remains on the right) into cracking down hard on the Bolsheviks. Can the Bolsheviks still ride out the storm and come to power?

Interesting Question

I think its a hard one to judge.

Chernov was quite popular in 1917 and the historical record has not always represented the SRs as the potential powerhouse they were.

People often point to the results of the Constituent Assembly elections, but the SR were also, in places, a well organised party with deep roots in Universities and rural areas.

If he had been lynched?

I think the reaction probably depends on the extent to which Trotsky is on scene. If he is "on record", so to speak, as opposing the lynching then this probably becomes more of a crack-down on the radical elements within the Workers and Soldiers Soviets rather than the party itself. Then again, if Trotsky holds his vote and its goes in favour of lynching that gives opponents of the Bolsheviks a powerful propaganda moment to draw upon - Bolsheviks evoke mob rule and then can't even control the mob.

One question that springs to mind is what this does to the SR. Chernov was leading, by 1917, a divided party. Does this split push the Left SRs back towards the party? Meaning that characters like Spiridnova and Blomkin don't lead left SRs over to the Bolsheviks? I'm not sure who Chernov's deputy was or who would emerge as leader, but I think this would have a major impact on both the party and the July Days.

Quite possibly a combination of popular sympathy and revulsion at the "Bolshevik" outrage pushes the SR vote higher still in the election in November.