Kornilov was not a particularly complicated person and his behavior in July–August 1917 can be explained without resort to conspiracy theories. His first and foremost concern was with Russia and the war. He was alarmed by the vacillating policies of the Provisional Government and its dependence on the Soviet, which with its meddling in military matters had made the conduct of military operations all but impossible. He had reason to believe that the government was penetrated by enemy agents. But even though he considered Kerensky unfit for his post, he felt for him no personal animosity and regarded him as indispensable in the government. Kerensky’s behavior in August caused him to doubt whether the Prime Minister was his own man. His inability to carry out the military reforms which Kornilov knew Kerensky wanted convinced Kornilov that the Prime Minister was a captive of the Soviet and the German agents in it. When Savinkov told him of the impending Bolshevik putsch and asked for military assistance to suppress it, Kornilov saw a chance to help the government liberate itself from the Soviet. He had every reason to expect that after the putsch had been liquidated an end would be put to the “duality of power” and Russia would receive a new and effective regime. Of this he wanted to be a part. General Lukomskii, who was at his side throughout these critical days, provides what sounds like a reasonable explanation of Kornilov’s thinking during the brief interval between Savinkov’s visit to Mogilev and his break with Kerensky:
I presume that General Kornilov, being convinced of Bolshevik action in Petrograd and of the necessity of suppressing it in the most ruthless manner, assumed that this will naturally lead to a governmental crisis and the creation of a new government, new authority. He decided to participate in the formation of that authority along with some members of the current Provisional Government and major public and political figures on whose full support he had apparently reasons to rely. From his words I know that General Kornilov had discussed the formation of the new government, which he would join in the capacity of Commander in Chief, with A. F. Kerensky, Savinkov, and Filonenko.82
It is hardly justified to define as “treasonous” efforts by the Commander in Chief to revitalize the armed forces and help restore effective government. As we have seen, Kornilov rebelled only after having been accused, without cause, of being a traitor. He was the victim of Kerensky’s boundless ambition, sacrificed to the Prime Minister’s futile quest to shore up his eroding political base. A fair summary of what Kornilov wanted and failed to achieve is provided by an English journalist who observed the events at first hand:
He wanted to strengthen the Government, not to weaken it. He did not want to encroach upon its authority, but to prevent others from doing so. He wanted to compel it to be what it had always professed to be but [had] never really been—the single and unchallenged depository of administrative power. He wanted to emancipate it from the illicit and paralyzing influence of the soviets. In the end, that influence destroyed Russia, and Kornilov’s defiance of the Government was a last desperate effort to arrest the process of destruction.83
If it is correct that Kerensky provoked the break with Kornilov to enhance his authority, he not only failed but achieved the very opposite. The clash fatally compromised his relations with conservative and liberal circles without solidifying his socialist base. The main beneficiaries of the Kornilov Affair were the Bolsheviks: after August 27, the SR and Menshevik following on which Kerensky depended melted away. The Provisional Government now ceased to function even in that limited sense in which it may be said to have done so until then. In September and October, Russia drifted rudderless. The stage was set for a counterrevolution from the left. Thus, when Kerensky later wrote that “it was only the 27th of August that made [the Bolshevik coup of] the 27th of October possible,” he was correct, but not in the sense in which he intended.84
As noted, Kerensky never carried out any serious punitive actions against the Bolsheviks for the July putsch. According to the chief of his counterintelligence, Colonel Nikitin, on July 10–11 he even deprived the Military Staff of the authority to arrest Bolsheviks and forbade it to confiscate weapons found in their possession.85 At the end of July, he looked the other way as the Bolsheviks held their Sixth Party Congress in Petrograd.
