Sorry that this has taken so long to get out. I really wanted to write an interlude on the developments in the soviets, the reasons why they were shifting leftwards and the processes of how this was possible as organs of direct democracy, but I couldn't find the words and in the end decided to just continue with the main body of the work. I want to say thanks to the forty people who voted for my timeline in the Turtledove awards. That's very kind of you and if we ever meet I'll buy you a drink.
Saving Soviet Democracy: A Russian Revolution Timeline
by GiantMonkeyMan
Chapter 9:
By the beginning of August, the faltering of the left-wing parties in the face of reaction had already begun to swing around and the left was once again rapidly growing. This was exemplified nowhere clearer in the defections from the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries, and the inexorable shift in the internal politics of the Soviet as workers and soldiers voted eclectically to withdraw their moderate candidates in favour of Bolsheviks or Left-SRs. The soviets were organised on the principle that at any time the workers, soldiers, and peasants could vote to withdraw their delegates and vote in a new delegate and all through August district soviets would see the weighting of party representation swing leftward. A clear signifier of the impact would resound out from the meeting of the Soviet Workers' Section on August 7th. The Workers' Section had last met in July, in the midst of the upheaval, and had condemned the Bolshevik support of the aborted uprising. The August meeting was supposed to be based around some organisational questions, particularly in how workers could better prepare for the national defence, but quickly the minutes were torn up by the intervention of the Bolsheviks.
The Bolshevik delegates, supported enthusiastically by the Left-SRs and the Socialist-Internationalists, demanded the meeting be altered to discuss the plight of the imprisoned revolutionary internationalists. Volodarsky gave an impassioned speech condemning the imprisonment of stalwart comrades, the Central Executive Committee in particular received his wrath. The Social Revolutionary Avram Gots talked about the necessities of the war effort and the Menshevik Fyodor Dan defended the authorities' crackdown. For the first time, however, the moderate socialists were outnumbered. The meeting voted overwhelmingly for the Bolshevik motion that the persecution of the left-wing comrades was "a blow to the revolutionary cause, a shameful stain" and that it served only the counter-revolution. Shliapnikov's motion condemning the reintroduction of the death penalty was also passed and a vote to create a special commission to explore and organise support for political prisoners also was introduced.
Such were the shifts in representation within the soviets that the Moscow District Soviet narrowly endorsed the one-day general strike in response to Kerensky's State Conference. The Moscow Soviet had been firmly in the hands of the SRs and the Mensheviks until the very beginning of August when the defections to the Left-SRs and the Socialist-Internationalists tipped the balance. The strike was peaceful and there was enough moderate socialist influence that the slogans most of the workers gathered under were not combative or overtly revolutionary however a significant demonstration of close to 20,000 workers called for the freedom of political prisoners and the end of the war. There was a grudging co-operation between the revolutionary organisations and the reformists in Moscow, not out of any shared vision but rather due to the growing sense of momentum to the counter-revolution. Kerensky's government was being squeezed between two rapidly growing extremes.
Kerensky himself wanted to take centre stage at the conference but his two hour introductory speech, seemingly an attempt to threaten and cajole both the right and the left, showed how isolated he truly was. The Kadet leader Miliuikov would write, "He appeared to want to scare somebody and to create an impression of force and power. He only engendered pity". Kerensky's government, in trying to please both the right and the left, had failed to discover firm allies and now the man himself, in trying to assert his authority, found little more than scorn. At various points either the right side of the chamber would applaud an attack on "those who would overthrow the government with bayonets" or the left would politely clap a criticism of "those who would use force of arms against the power of the people" but never at all did the entire chamber join in praise except when the man had finally finished. It would take more than platitudes to unite a disparate nation.
The Menshevik Chkheidze read out the official position of the Soviet Executive, defending the gains of the revolution, and the left side of the chamber cheered whilst the right remained silent and scowled. The delegation from the Soviet was strict in its organisation as the moderate leaders didn't want the rumblings of the extreme wing to reveal the divisions. Even Chernov was refused the opportunity to speak at the Conference, not even to respond to criticisms directed towards him from the benches of the right-wing. The Bolsheviks boycotted the State Conference as Chkheidze and Tseretelli refused to allow them to speak, instead Yakov Sverdlov came from Petrograd to speak at the demonstration of the striking workers, alongside popular Muscovite Bukharin. In an example of his astute political manoeuvring, Sverdlov, after giving some of his own words condemning the repression of the Provisional Government, read an official statement from the left-SR Maria Spiridonova, officially a fugitive in hiding, and then spoke of Lenin's clever machinations in the legal proceedings facing the political prisoners. The Bolsheviks were more than willing to take on the mantle of leaders of the revolutionary left, particularly when there were no other revolutionaries there to contradict them.
In the afternoon of the first day of the conference, the much celebrated commander of the army arrived to cheering crowds and middle class women showered him with petals. He first went to the Iversky shrine, the place where the Tsars had traditionally prayed, and later he met with business leaders who told him they would help fund a right-wing authoritarian government. For the past week, all the right-wing newspapers, and more than a few centrist liberal papers, had been singing the man's praises. His victories were exaggerated and his losses ignored and liberal newspaper
Novoe vremia suggested that "it was difficult, in fact probably impossible, to find a more suitable general and supreme commander in these days of mortal danger being experienced by Russia". He was prepared to speak the next day and Kerensky was worried that he would steal the show, insisting that he should only speak on military matters. The general had other ideas. When he rose to the podium, all the politicians of the government, and all the business leaders and officers at the right side of the chamber, rose to their feet and clapped. Remaining sat were those of the left, for once united if only under the gaze of the symbol of counter-revolution, in particular the soldier delegates remaining sitting received the ire of the right-wing with cries of "Get up!" resounding through the chamber and being resoundingly ignored.
Much to Kerensky's relief, Kornilov wasn't a great speaker, with none of the flair or verbosity of a politician, but through him spoke the voice of all the counter-revolution. He was blunt: the war was going poorly, soon Riga would be lost, and after Riga perhaps Pskov or beyond. "By a whole series of legislative measures introduced after the revolution by people strange to the spirit and understanding of an army, the army has been converted into a crazy mob trembling only for its own life." His meaning was implicit. The government and the anti-war left had, through their prevaricating and lack of support for the armed forces, allowed a German advance that could soon threaten Petrograd itself. The Archbishop Platon, one of the reactionary members of the Church Council, would tell Kornilov after the days proceedings, "If a miracle is necessary for the salvation of Russia, then in answer to the prayers of his church, God will accomplish this miracle" and the Moscow Bolshevik newspaper would print what this "miracle" might entail, "The Tarnopol defeat made Kornilov commander-in-chief, the surrender of Riga might make him dictator".
The final day of the Conference did little to heal the great chasm between the left and the right. "It is hard for me," Kerensky was to bitterly claim, "because I struggle against the Bolsheviks of the left and the Bolsheviks of the right, but people demand that I lean on one or the other... I want to take a middle road, but no-one will help me." The industrial strikes were spreading, the rail network was strained leading to great shortages of food in the cities, crime was rapidly growing out of control. One Bolshevik newspaper reported that the reason for the lack of basic goods "lies in the intentional derangement of all economic life by the messiers capitalists, factory owners, plant owners, landowners, bankers, and their hangers-on" but the reality was more complex with the mass of strikes and meetings that workers attended definitely contributing to the drop in productivity. There was no easy option for Kerensky, only a series of bad ones. A few days later, the siege of Riga ended in a victory for the Germans. As a result, many of the propertied classes arranged to leave Petrograd, fearing the capital city would soon be next or that the industrial unrest would make living in the city impossible. As a result, the idea of resorting to the mailed fist of authority began to have a seductive appeal for the man.
Kornilov had no real understanding of the differences between the various leftist parties and tended to lump the reformists willing to co-operate in with the far-left; General Martynov said that Kornilov was "an absolute ignoramus in the realm of politics". The counter-revolution looked to Kornilov not due to his political acumen but his worth a symbol, his valour and patriotism. He was effectively to be a figurehead with all the interests of business and the Old Order behind him. Kerensky and Kornilov reached a détente by the middle of August, with Kerensky thinking that he could utilise Kornilov to suppress dissent and then maintain his own position of power, particularly in light of the Petrograd City Duma elections on the 20th.
Proletarii, one of the few unbanned Bolshevik newspapers, would write in the build up to the election, "Every worker, peasant, and soldier must vote for our list because only our party is struggling staunchly and bravely against the raging counter-revolutionary dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and large landowners." It was a shocking victory for what would become known as the Soviet Alliance.
After the balloting, it took several days to tabulate the results and there were immediate rumours that the electoral office were trying to suppress the news. The Bolsheviks received the largest share of the vote with 168,509 votes accounting for 61 seats, the Union of Left Social Revolutionaries, a relatively new formation, managed to capture 63,447 votes or 26 seats, and the Socialist-Internationalist Party gained 19,085 votes or 7 seats - for a total of 94 seats. The SRs had performed badly compared to the last city elections in May, receiving only 142,734 votes accounting for 52 seats and the Mensheviks had almost disappeared with only 11,830 votes which accounted for 4 seats. The Kadets completed the tally with 114,483 votes or 42 seats. The Bolsheviks effectively formed a minority City Duma government with the support of the Left-SRs and the SIP but could be outvoted in terms of numbers by the combined presence of the SRs, the Kadets, and the remnants of the Mensheviks.
The City Dumas had little in the way of legislative power but regardless it was a propaganda coup for the Bolsheviks and the other left-wing parties and brought dismay to the parties of government. It also signalled to both Kornilov and Kerensky that something needed to be done about this looming threat but in reality Kornilov had been moving before the results had even been collated as on the 20th, the same day of the city election, two cavalry divisions advanced towards Petrograd. The reactionaries had arranged that officers barracked in the capital would seize control of Kresty prison in order to carry out swift justice on the imprisoned radicals. The right-wing were salavating at the thought of a coup, hungering for the cutting down of the Soviet leadership and the far-left fringe both. Kerensky was split between wanted to crush the looming threat of far-left radicalism and the realisation that the right-wing didn't want to answer to him, or any sort of democracy, at all.
When Savinkov, the deputy Minister of War, went to Kornilov's Headquarters on behalf of Kerensky, his message was a contradiction. Kerensky wanted Kornilov's assurance that he would dismantle the reactionary Union of Officers, one of the General's core supporting organisations, but also that he should advance the Third Cavalry Corps on Petrograd. The conspirators for the coup had been mobilising regardless of Kerensky's intransigence. The Reval "Shock Battalion of Death" was to proceed to Tsarskoe Selo on the outskirts of Petrograd to the south, General Dolgorukov's First Cavalry Corps was to mobilise from Finland to the city's north. The date of the coup was set for the six-month anniversary of the February revolution, August 27th. It was hoped that the left would engage in more rioting as a pretext for martial law. "It is time," Kornilov said to his chief-of-staff, "to hang the German agents and spies, Lenin first of all, and disperse the Soviet of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies – yes, and disperse it so it will never get together again."
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In the early months of 1917, there were many resolutions of cautious support for the Provisional Government. There were more resolutions demanding that Russia's war goals be clarified than there were in outright opposition to the war. Such resolutions reflected and helped to foster the spirit of compromise that characterized Moscow's revolution. But beginning in May, resolutions denouncing the Provisional Government replaced those supporting it, and the economy supplanted the war as the most talked-about issue. Inflation began to spiral uncontrollably about this time, and the number of strikes increased as well. Here in May was the first indication of how serious the economy and the question of the management of the economy would become for political stability. By August, resolutions began to focus on outright opposition to the Provisional Government: Workers spoke out against the Moscow state conference and against the growing indications of counterrevolution, given substance late in that month with the Kornilov mutiny.
- Moscow in 1917: The View from Below by Diane Koenker
Kornilov ascended. The right rose in ovation. ‘Shouts ring out,’ states the record. ‘ “Cads!” “Get up!” ’ No one on the left benches obeyed. To Kerensky’s intense relief, Kornilov, never a confident speaker, gave a speech both inexpert and surprisingly mild. The continuing roars of rightist approval were for him qua figurehead, rather than for anything in particular that he said. After Kornilov, speaker after speaker excoriated the revolution that had wracked Russia, and hankered loudly for the restoration of order. General Kaledin, the elected leader – ataman – of the Cossacks of the Don region, announced to the delight of the right that ‘all soviets and committees must be abolished’. A young Cossack officer, Nagaev, quickly insisted that working Cossacks disagreed with Kaledin, eliciting corresponding ecstasy on the left.
- October by China Mieville
That soldiers should be shot for refusing to fight in a war foisted by predatory allies upon a renegade socialist government was too much for these SR's, and Maria Spiridonova constituted herself a sort of female angel of vengeance, blasting the Provisional Government in countless meetings over the country for having brought this "greatest shame" upon the revolution. Nothing bore more eloquent testimony to the moral degradation of the revolution, she felt, than this "organized judicial murder," the fruit of the agitation of "the journalist Savinkov" and the negation of everything in the SR program, to say nothing of its spirit. [...] from this time dates the slide of the "praetorian guard," as the SR military support in the soviets was called, in the direction of left-wing Social Revolutionism, and then on beyond into Bolshevism. As the soldier mass moved to the left, pulling after it a large section of the peasantry, it destroyed in barracks and village alike the sinews of agrarian socialism and prepared the way for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Black Sea Fleet had from the outset been a stronghold of Social Revolutionism, remoteness or some other factor having preserved it from the extremism rampant in Baltic naval centres; but now, under the impact of capital punishment and multiplying signs of reaction, the sailors became alarmed and would listen only to Bolshevik agitators. There was a swift change in sentiment, and the moderate socialists, fighting to hold their lines, themselves began to waver in their steadfast support of the Provisional Government.
- The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism by Oliver Radkey
The new public assertiveness by the conservative right was extensively discussed in the socialist and nonsocialist press, creating an image of July-August as a period of a shift to the right. Curiously, while the newspapers talked constantly of a rightist resurgence in their editorials and front pages, careful reading of the news articles of the inside pages suggested quite another development: a continued radicalisation of the lower levels of society and political activity. The leftward drift that began in the late spring was barely disturbed by the July Days and their aftermath. Its continuation manifested itself in various ways, but perhaps most unequivocally in the electoral results of late July and August in worker and soldier organisations. Reelections at factories and regiments replaced moderate representatives to soviets, factory committees and soldiers' committees with more radical ones: Mensheviks by Bolsheviks, moderate SRs by Left SRs and Bolsheviks. Worker self-assertiveness continued, as for example in the Red Guards, which survived post-July efforts to disband them and became ever more radical, more "Bolshevik" in outlook. An antigovernment and anti-Revolutionary Defensist leadership was taking control of the lower-level popular political institutions.
- The Russian Revolution, 1917 by Rex A. Wade
In talking about the Petrograd City Duma elections, it's important to note that the Bolsheviks vote was a complete shock to many but represented a part of that significant shift in public conciousness away from the moderate parties and towards the radical. Here is both Alexander Rabinowich and Oliver Radkey on the numbers:
After the balloting for the City Duma, it took several days to tabulate the final vote. When the results were in, the Bolsheviks, showing surprising strength in every section of the capital, received 183,624 votes, giving them sixty-seven seats in the new Duma. The Bolshevik tally was second only to that of the SRs, who received 205,659 votes and seventy-five seats; this represented an improvement of 14 percent over the Bolsheviks' performance in the district duma elections of late May. The Kadet vote was 114,483 votes, giving them forty-two seats, while the Mensheviks trailed with 23,552 votes and eight seats.
- The Bolsheviks Come to Power by Alexander Rabinowitch
Here's the numbers given by Oliver Radkey in The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism, edited for visual purposes.
Parties - Votes (Seats)
Social Revolutionaries: 205,666 (75)
Mensheviks: 23,552 (8)
Bolshevik: 183,694 (67)
Kadets: 114,485 (42)
Minor Parties: 17,107 (-)
Residue: 4,875 (-)
Total: 549,379
In this timeline, the Bolshevik vote count is actually
smaller. I made this decision in part to signify the existence of the Socialist-Internationalist Party: Trotsky's Mezhraiontsy never joined the Bolsheviks and some of the Mensheviks who might have jumped ship to the Bolsheviks would have instead joined the SIP. Incidentally, this is why the Menshevik vote is even worse. In this timeline, I had to consider how an early split of the Social Revolutionaries could have played out. I decided that the Left-SRs would not be as huge as they potentially could have been, this is because they're a relatively new organisation whose leadership has been scattered, but their vote count dropped the main SR party's results by enough that now the Bolsheviks are the largest party. The Soviet Alliance is forming before our eyes, taking up half the support of the capital, and conciousness is only shifting further left.
In the wake of the Moscow Conference Kornilov continued preparations to concentrate an imposing array of troops from the front around Petrograd. [...] As nearly as one can piece together from scattered, sometimes contradictory evidence, an elaborate scheme for a rightist putsch in Petrograd to coincide with the approach of front troops was worked out by the Main Committee of the Union of Officers and the Military Section of the Republican Centre and Military League. This plan appears to have been linked to a series of fund-raising rallies scheduled by the Soviet leadership in Petrograd for Sunday, August 27, the six-month anniversary of the February Revolution. The conspirators evidently assumed that the rallies would be accompanied by disorders which could be used as a pretext for proclaiming martial law, wrecking Bolshevik organisations, dispersing the Soviet, and establishing a military dictatorship.
- The Bolsheviks Come to Power by Alexander Rabinowich.