This passivity derived in large measure from Kerensky’s desire to appease the Ispolkom, which rallied to the Bolsheviks. As we have seen, on August 4 it adopted a resolution, moved by Tsereteli, to stop further “persecution” of those involved in what was delicately called the “events of July 3–5.” At the August 18 session, the Soviet voted to “protest decisively the illegal arrests and excesses” committed against the representatives of the “extreme currents of the socialist parties.”86 In response, the government began to release one by one prominent Bolsheviks, sometimes on bail, sometimes on the guarantee of friends. The first to be freed (and cleared of all charges) was Kamenev, who regained freedom on August 4. Lunacharskii, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, and Alexandra Kollontai were set free shortly afterward. Others followed.
In the meantime, the Bolsheviks were reasserting themselves as a political force. They benefited from the political polarization which occurred during the summer when the liberals and conservatives gravitated toward Kornilov and the radicals shifted toward the extreme left. Workers, soldiers, and sailors, disgusted with the vacillations of the Mensheviks and SRs, abandoned them in droves in favor of the only alternative, the Bolsheviks. But there was also political fatigue: Russians who had gone in droves to the polling stations in the spring grew tired of elections which did nothing to improve their condition. This held especially true for conservative elements who felt they stood no chance against the radicals, but it also applied to the liberal and moderate socialist constituencies. This trend can be demonstrated by the results of the municipal elections in Petrograd and Moscow. In the voting for the Petrograd Municipal Council on August 20, one week before the Kornilov incident, the Bolsheviks increased the share of the votes they had gained in May 1917 from 20.4 percent to 33.3 percent, or by more than one-half. In absolute numbers, however, their votes increased only by 17 percent due to the drop in the number of those casting ballots. Whereas in the Spring elections, 70 percent of those elegible had gone to the polls, in August the proportion dropped to 50 percent; in some districts of the capital city, half of those who had previously voted abstained.* 87 In Moscow, in the September municipal elections the decline in voter participation was even more dramatic. Here, 380,000 ballots were cast compared to 640,000 the previous June. More than half of them went to the Bolsheviks, who picked up 120,000 votes while the socialists (SRs, Mensheviks, and their affiliates) lost 375,000 voters; most of the latter presumably had chosen to stay home.
MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN MOSCOW
(in percentage of seats)88
One effect of this polarization was the erosion of the political base on which Kerensky had counted in his bid for unchallenged power. The poor showing by the socialist parties in the Petrograd municipal elections in mid-August may have been an important factor in Kerensky’s behavior later that month. For with his political base melting away, what better way of enhancing his popularity and influence with the left than as the vanquisher of the “counterrevolution,” even if only an imaginary one?
