The Russian Revolution полностью

The Kornilov Affair raised Bolshevik fortunes to unprecedented heights. To neutralize Kornilov’s phantom putsch and stop Krymov’s troops from occupying Petrograd, Kerensky asked for help from the Ispolkom. At a night session of August 27–28 the Ispolkom approved, on a Menshevik motion, the creation of a “Committee to Fight the Counterrevolution.” But since the Bolshevik Military Organization was the only force which the Ispolkom could invoke, this action had the effect of placing the Bolsheviks in charge of the Soviet’s military contingent:⁸⁹ in this manner, yesterday’s arsonists became today’s firefighters. Kerensky also appealed directly to the Bolsheviks to help him against Kornilov by using their influence with the soldiers, which had grown appreciably at this time.⁹⁰ An agent of his requested the sailors of the cruiser Aurora, known for their Anarchist and Bolshevik sympathies, to assume responsibility for the protection of the Winter Palace, Kerensky’s residence and the seat of the Provisional Government.⁹¹ M. S. Uritskii would later claim that these actions of Kerensky’s “rehabilitated” the Bolsheviks. Kerensky also made it possible for the Bolsheviks to arm themselves by distributing 40,000 guns to the workers, a good share of which fell into Bolshevik hands; these weapons the Bolsheviks kept after the crisis had passed.⁹² How far matters had progressed with the rehabilitation of the Bolshevik Party may be judged by the decision of the government on August 30 to release all the Bolsheviks still in detention except those few against whom it had initiated legal proceedings.⁹³ Trotsky was one of the beneficiaries of this amnesty: freed from the Kresty prison on September 3 on 3,000 rubles’ bail, he took charge of the Bolshevik faction in the Soviet. By October 10 all but twenty-seven Bolsheviks were at liberty⁹⁴ and preparing for the next coup, while Kornilov and other generals languished in the Bykhov Fortress. On September 12, the Ispolkom requested the government to offer guarantees of personal security and a fair trial to Lenin and Zinoviev.⁹⁵

A no less important consequence of the Kornilov Affair was a break between Kerensky and the military. For although the officer corps, confused about the issues and unwilling to defy the government openly, refused to join in Kornilov’s mutiny, it despised Kerensky for his treatment of their commander, the arrest of many prominent generals, and his pandering to the left. When, in late October, Kerensky would call on the military to help save his government from the Bolsheviks, his pleas would fall on deaf ears.

On September 1, Kerensky proclaimed Russia a “republic.” One week later (September 8) he abolished the Department of Political Counterintelligence, depriving himself of the principal source of information on Bolshevik plans.⁹⁶

It was only a question of time before Kerensky would be overthrown by someone able to provide firm leadership. Such a person had to come from the left. Whatever the differences dividing them, the parties of the left closed ranks when confronted with the specter of “counterrevolution,” a term which in their definition included any initiative to restore to Russia effective government and a viable military force. But since the country had to have both, the initiative to restore order had to emerge from within their own ranks: the “counterrevolution” would come disguised as the “true” revolution.

In the meantime, Lenin, in his rural hideaway, was busy redesigning the world.

Accompanied by Zinoviev and a worker named N. A. Emelianov, he arrived in the evening of July 9 at Razliv, a railroad junction in a region of country dachas. Lenin had his beard shaved off, following which, disguised as farm laborers, the two Bolsheviks were led to a field hut nearby, which would serve as their home for the next month.

Lenin, who had an aversion to memoirs, left no reminiscences of this period in his life, but there exists a brief account by Zinoviev.⁹⁷ The two lived in concealment, but maintained contact with the capital by means of couriers. Lenin was so irritated by attacks on him and his party that for a while he refused to read newspapers. The events of July 4 preyed on his mind: he often wondered aloud whether the Bolsheviks could not have taken power and every time reached a negative conclusion. With the late summer rains flooding their hut, it was time to move. Zinoviev returned to Petrograd while Lenin went on to Helsinki. To cross into Finland, he used false papers identifying him as a worker: judging by the passport photograph, which shows him cleanly shaven and wearing a wig, the disguise gave him something of a rakish appearance.