Moscow:
Trud, August 16th, 1918, p. 2:
NIKOLAY AVKSENTIEV FOR PRESIDENT!
Nikolay Avksentiev, who served as Speaker for the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the Constituent Assembly, has announced his willingness to compete against People’s Supreme Commissioner Boris Kamkov in the race for the position of their party’s Federal Presidential candidate in the following speech which he gave before thousands of supporters in his home town of Penza:
“My dear comrades! I am honored by your trust and support, and I shall hereby follow your suggestion and humbly declare my intention to stand as our proud party’s candidate for the highest office in our wonderful young republic! You know that I am seeking neither glory nor gain, and that my sole intention is to serve this great new Union just like you, your brothers, sons, and husbands are serving it right now, undaunted by the risk to their lives. I believe that, in the function which I have filled for an entire year, I have shown the qualities required for this immense task: I have worked tirelessly in the formulation of a solid constitution and built alliances across party lines, and I shall continue to integrate yet more groups [1] and gather the best men and women [2] for the service of our Union.
Let no-one misunderstand my candidacy as an expression of criticism directed against Comrade Kamkov! I feel deep admiration for the colossal work he has achieved in safeguarding our Revolution, setting our young republic safely on the rails towards peace, justice and well-being, and steering our Motherland from its darkest moments to the doorstep of an equitable and just peace.
But I believe the immediate future poses yet more serious challenges to us, and I am convinced they must be addressed in new ways. Our Marxist coalition partners are forging alliances, day and night, with their political next-of-kin in every country of the world, and they are using the influence which positions in the Commission offer to them to foster their agenda and strengthen Marxist revolutionaries worldwide. We are not mounting a very convincing answer to this – neither are we consistently coming to the aid of our brethren beyond the Union’s borders, nor are we undertaking serious attempts to limit party-political instrumentalisation of the government.
I believe this has to change. The toilers of the Bulgarian countryside are rising against their militarist government, and their brethren in uniform who are sick of dying for nationalist ambitions have begun to come to their aid, and our comrades [3] stand prepared to take over the reigns of government and end their nation’s shameful participation in the aggression of the Central Powers. We must lend them our unwavering support, without hesitation [4], for else their Revolution might be drowned in the blood of their workers and soldiers. And Bulgaria is just one example. The Marxists look down on the Eastern half of our continent and call it underdeveloped and bemoan the absence of an industrial proletariat which could rise and carry their banner. We must not let ourselves be infected by this arrogant outlook, for the toilers of Europe’s East are looking to us for inspiration and guidance in their quest to build new, democratic and socialist nations in which the toilers of the countryside and the town can live together in dignity and justice, enjoying the full fruits of their labour and partaking in their equal and unrestricted political, cultural and social rights.
On the other hand, we must also draw a clear line as to how far even members of an elected government are allowed to pursue the particularist agenda of a single party, so that they may not bring harm to the general well-being and the interests of the entire Union. One such boundary is the building of a new Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the choosing of our future diplomats. We must be very clear about the opportunities and challenges posed to our Union in the negotiations brought about by the impending end of the war and the construction of a new global order of peace. Ensuring a fair and lasting settlement and securing the safety of our Revolution, our Republic and our Union requires prudence and experience. We must not affront our allies beyond necessity with an ideological agenda of the sort which Leon Trotsky, who looks to be the most promising candidate among the field of IRSDLP(u) contenders, wishes to pursue [5]. But we must also not sell ourselves cheaply by acting with naivety, like Julius Martov, the perennial candidate of the idealists, would have us do. I promise to deliver to all the nations of our Union the best possible deal, earned through hard but fair and principled but competent bargaining.
This requires us not to relent now that we have driven the Germans back to Narva in the North [6], and our Romanian allies have broken through at Galaţi [7]. In the West our allies have achieved a formidable victory together at Villers [8], and in Greece our five allied armies have weakened the Bulgarian tsar’s forces so much that his people have gained the opportunity to throw off his yoke. Even as far as the Bosphorus, Mehmet Talaat has stepped back and convinced the other pashas, whose hands are red with the blood of innocent women and children, to do the same, making it possible for the new sultan [9] to ask for an honorable peace [10], which he will undoubtedly do before this month ends. The end of this horrible carnage, in which our peoples have lost millions of human lives - young men who will not be able to stride with us towards the better future whose door has opened wide for us now - is in sight at last! We must not throw away our and their sacrifices now [11]. We must not relent now, for our brothers and sisters in Minsk and Riga and in Wilno and Warsaw are still awaiting the removal of the German yoke, and although we are and shall always remain the party of peace, this peace will come all the more quickly if we continue to pursue and firmly expel those who have murdered, plundered and raped our Motherland instead of leaving this task to others and abandoning half our continent to the sufferings of chaos and anarchy.
When external peace is achieved – and I have not the slightest doubt that it shall be achieved very soon if we only remain firm – our Union must find its internal peace, too, and I promise that my presidential agenda will be one of peaceful coexistence and balance. The unfortunate events in Finland have taught us not to entrust the Union to a reckless adventurer like Trotsky. Instead, we need more consensual and stable agreements like the Concordance which Tapa Tchermoev and I have submitted to the Constituent Assembly and to the popular council of the nascent Mountainous Federative Republic of the Northern Caucasus [12] for ratification.
The chances for such a inner peace have never been better than they are now, and we could not stand proud before our children and grandchildren if we were to waste this opportunity. The Cossacks of the Don have deposed Alexey Kaledin and appear determined to take up their proud roles in the construction of a free Ukrainian Federative Republic now – so when the worst collaborators of Markov and the oppressive German regime have been apprehended, we must end the Special Provisions immediately. I solemnly swear, should the peoples of our Union elect me as their president, to dissolve the VeCheKa within the first six months of my term in office.
Harmony must return to our towns and villages - our factories and homes. Therefore, whatever composition the new Union Council and the new Duma shall be, I promise to all of you that I shall not sign any law which reverts even a single letter of the Reform Acts with which the toilers of the countryside have received the land which is rightfully theirs, and which have made the former tenants of the cities the kings of their own castles. To the liberals who demand compensation, I have to say that there is not a single ruble in our coffers for such an undertaking. The war has left us with nothing, and the task of reconstruction shall demand from us every possible resource – promising compensation is irresponsible, I assure you, and I will not support it. But neither should we rock the boat even more now, like Trotsky and others from the left wing of the Social Democrats, who attempt to pressure our soviets into socializing the factories and workshops as well. Over the next few years, we must dedicate all our efforts to rebuilding the strength of our commonwealth. We must be equal to the task of employing all its productive forces, of undertaking the unprecedented effort of educating our entire populace and endowing our children with the best possible preparation, of rooting out urban and rural famine, poverty and epidemic diseases.
If this is the socialism you have struggled for in this Revolution, then I am your candidate to build it up in our hopeful and glorious Union. Thank you for your trust!”
[1] This is code for the electoral alliance with the Popular Socialist Labour Party (Trudoviks) and with several smaller centrist and centre-left parties in other federative republics which he has prepared. Avksentiev has risen to the position of the leader of the right wing of the SRs, and as such, he is attempting to reach out well into what used to be the Centre of Russia’s political spectrum, while Boris Kamkov (can we call him the “incumbent” although the position is not identical in name and competencies?) is going to be the candidate of the SR’s left wing. It comes as no surprise that Avksentiev’s candidacy is portrayed favourably in “Trud”, the newspaper edited by Vadim Rudnev, who is also from the SR’s right wing.
[2] For what it’s worth, in a few days, Alexander Kerensky is going to declare himself for Avksentiev and will be offered the position of foreign minister in Avxentiev’s shadow cabinet.
[3] The BANU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_Agrarian_National_Union
[4] The UoE is still part of the Five Nation Army whose latest attacks on the Thracian front have caused mutinies on the Bulgarian side more than a month ahead of OTL’s schedule, which also means an earlier uprising of agrarian-affiliated rebels.
[5] We shall find out in a few updates whether this is an adequate prediction or rather simply scare-mongering aimed at winning over centrist votes.
[6] This was nothing to brag about. Given Hutier’s hopeless position, the fact that he was able to extract himself with more or less the entire Eighth Army unscathed after the preliminary armistice had run out does not attest to UoE military prowess at all – it was the best case Hutier could have hoped for given the circumstances.
[7] I have decided to retcon and swap the mutinies. In Italy, it would have been Czech regiments which mutinied. The Slovenes are mutinying in Romania instead now. I can’t find any sources stating that there were any Slovenian regiments deployed to Romania IOTL, but given the time which has passed since the PoD ITTL, I will handwave them into being there by virtue of the butterfly effect, unless someone argues that there is some serious implausibility in this.
[8] TTL’s equivalent to the Battle of Hamel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamel , in which the Australians, the British and the US conducted a concerted attack using all the different branches of the Entente military. It was a sort of experiment in coordinated air, tank, gas and directed artillery overkill, which overwhelmed relatively weak German fortifications and earned the Entente territorial gains of more than ten miles and many prisoners with far fewer losses of their own. See this video for illustration:
As a consequence, the coal fields of Béthune are back in Entente hands.
[9] Mehmet V has died on schedule, and Mehmet VI took his place a little over a month ago.
[10] I don’t think so.
[11] Oh yes, Avksentiev is a defencist through and through and has been long before peace talks with the Germans failed.
[12] The latest new autonomous member of the UoE, and the first one which is predominantly Muslim.
