‡The Bolshevik estimates of 500,000 or more demonstrators (V. Vladimirova in PR, No. 5/17, 1923,40) are vastly inflated: the crowd which took part in the demonstration probably did not exceed one-tenth that number. An analysis of the garrison units known to have participated indicates that at most 15–20 percent of the troops were involved, and very likely considerably fewer: see B. I. Kochakov in Uchënye Zapiski Leningradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, No. 205 (1956), 65–66, and G. L. Sobolev in IZ, No. 88 (1971), 77. It was Bolshevik policy then and later greatly to exaggerate the number of demonstrators in order to justify the claim that they were not leading the “masses” but responding to their pressures: see the account by an eyewitness, A. Sobolev, in Rech,’ No. 155/3,897 (July 5, 1917), 1.
*Miliukov, Istoriia Vtoroi Russkoi Revoliutsii, I, Pt. 1 (Sofia, 1921), 243–44. Other versions of the Chernov incident are in Vladimirova, PR, No. 5/17 (1923), 34–35, and Raskolnikov, ibid, 69–71.
*Nikitin, Rokovye gody, 148. Nevskii says that the Military Organization, in anticipation of possible defeat, deliberately kept half its forces in reserve: Krasnoarmeets, No. 10/15 (October 1919), 40.
*NZh, No. 68 (July 7, 1917), 3. Pereverzev’s account of these events can be found in a letter to the editor, NoV, No. 14, 822 (July 9, 1917), 4. He is said also to have published recollections in PN, October 31, 1930, but this issue of the paper was unavailable to me.
*Zhivoe slovo, No. 54/407 (July 8, 1917), 1. Cf. Lenin, PSS, XXXII, 413. Lvov told the editors that premature revelation would allow the guilty to escape.
* A. Kerensky, The Crucifixion of Liberty (New York, 1934), 324. They were: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kollontai, Kozlovskii, Sumenson, Parvus, Ganetskii, Raskolnikov, Roshal, Semashko, and Lunacharskii. Trotsky was not on the list, presumably because he was not yet a member of the Bolshevik Party, which he joined only at the end of July. He was taken into custody later.
*Zarudnyi in NZh, No. 101 (August 15, 1917), 2. Nikitin, Rokovye gody, 158, says more than 2,000.
*On August 4, Tsereteli presented and the Ispolkom adopted a motion protesting the persecution of persons involved in the July events on the grounds that such persecution marked the beginning of the “counterrevolution”: NZh, No. 94 (August 6, 1917), 3.
*Richard Abraham, Alexander Kerensky (New York, 1987), 223–24. Pereverzev was fired in the early hours of July 5 on the initiative of Nekrasov and Tereshchenko, but stayed in his post two days longer.
11
The October Coup
It is the law of nature that predators must be more intelligent than the animals on which they prey.
—Manual of Natural History
It was only from that quarter [the right] that we faced any real danger at that time.
—Alexander Kerensky1
In September 1917, with Lenin in his hideaway, the command of Bolshevik forces passed to Trotsky, who had joined the party two months earlier. Defying Lenin’s pressures for an immediate power seizure, Trotsky adopted a more circumspect strategy, disguising Bolshevik designs as an effort to transfer power to the soviets. With supreme mastery of the technique of the modern coup d’état, of which he was arguably the inventor, he led the Bolsheviks to victory.
Trotsky was an ideal complement to Lenin. Brighter and more flamboyant, a much better speaker and writer, he could galvanize crowds: Lenin’s charisma was limited to his followers. But Trotsky was unpopular with the Bolshevik cadres, in part because he had joined their party late, after years of acerbic attacks on it, and in part because he was unbearably arrogant. In any event, being Jewish, Trotsky could hardly aspire to national leadership in a country in which, Revolution or no, Jews were regarded as outsiders. During the Revolution and Civil War he was Lenin’s alter ego, an indispensable companion in arms: after victory had been won, he became an embarrassment.
The event which made it possible for the Bolsheviks to recover from the July debacle was one of the more bizarre episodes in the Russian Revolution, known as the Kornilov Affair.*
57. Leon Trotsky.
