The Russian Revolution полностью

I am not a counterrevolutionary … I despise the old regime, which badly mistreated my family. There is no return to the past and there cannot be any. But we need an authority that could truly save Russia, which would make it possible honorably to end the war and lead her to the Constituent Assembly.… Our current government has solid individuals but also those who ruin things, who ruin Russia. The main thing is that Russia has no authority and that such authority must be created. Perhaps I shall have to exert such pressure on the government. It is possible that if disorders break out in Petrograd, after they have been suppressed I will have to enter the government and participate in the formation of a new, strong authority.¹⁹

Having heard Kerensky tell Kornilov more than once that he, too, favored “strong authority,” Lukomskii concluded that Kornilov and the Prime Minister should have no difficulty cooperating.²⁰

Kornilov returned to Petrograd on August 10 at the urging of Savinkov, but against the wishes of the Prime Minister. Having heard rumors of attempts on his life, he arrived with his Tekke guards, who mounted machine guns outside Kerensky’s office. Kerensky refused to grant Kornilov’s request to meet with the full cabinet and received him instead in the presence of Nekrasov and Tereshchenko, his kitchen cabinet. The general’s sense of urgency stemmed from the knowledge that the Germans were about to initiate offensive operations near Riga, threatening the capital. He reverted to the subject of the reforms: restoration of discipline at the front and in the rear, including the death penalty for Russians who worked for foreign powers, and militarization of defense industries as well as transport.²¹ Kerensky found much of what Kornilov requested, especially in regard to defense industries and transport, “absurd,” but he did not refuse to tighten discipline in the armed forces. Kornilov told the Prime Minister he understood he was about to be dismissed and “advised” against such action as likely to provoke disorders in the army.²²

Four days later Kornilov made a sensational appearance at the State Conference which Kerensky had convened in Moscow to rally public support. At first Kerensky refused Kornilov’s request that he be allowed to address the conference, but then relented on condition that he confine himself to military matters. When Kornilov arrived at the Bolshoi Theater, he was cheered and carried aloft by crowds; the delegates on the right gave him a tumultuous welcome. Although in his rather dry speech Kornilov said nothing that could be construed as politically damaging to the government, for Kerensky this event was a watershed: he interpreted the outpouring of sympathy for the general as a personal affront. According to his subsequent testimony, “after the Moscow conference, it was clear to me that the next attempt at a blow would come from the right, and not from the left.”²³ Once this conviction lodged in his mind, it became an idée fixe; everything that happened subsequently only served to reinforce it. His certainty that a right-wing coup was underway received encouragement from cables sent by officers and private citizens demanding that he keep Kornilov at his post and confidential warnings from army headquarters of conspiracies by staff officers.²⁴ The conservative press now opened up a barrage against Kerensky and his cabinet. Typical was an editorial in the right-wing Novoe vremia which argued that Russia’s salvation lay in the unquestioned acceptance of the authority of the Commander in Chief.²⁵ No evidence exists that Kornilov inspired this political campaign: but as its beneficiary, he came under suspicion.

59. Kornilov feted on his arrival at the Moscow State Conference: August 14, 1917.

Viewed dispassionately, the outpouring of sympathy for the commanding general was an expression of unhappiness with Kerensky’s leadership, not a symptom of the “counterrevolution.” The country yearned for firm authority. But the socialists were insensitive to this mood. Better versed in history than in practical politics, they firmly believed that a conservative (“Bonapartist”) reaction was inevitable.* As early as August 24–25, before anything had happened to justify it, the socialist press spoke of counterrevolution: on August 25, the Menshevik Novaia zhizn’ announced, under the heading “Conspiracy,” that one was in full swing and expressed the hope that the government would prosecute it with at least as much zeal as it had displayed against the Bolsheviks.²⁶

Thus, the plot was written: it only remained to find the protagonist.