Spies and Commissars Read online

  Lvov’s hand of cards held no trumps even before the first post-Romanov crisis occurred in early May. Pavel Milyukov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, shared the deposed emperor’s war aims and expected to acquire the Straits of the Dardanelles for Russia once the Central Powers were defeated, something he made very clear in telegrams to Paris and London. Unfortunately this was in contradiction to the understanding between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government that Russia would fight only a defensive war. Workers in the telegraph offices informed the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders about Milyukov’s telegrams. A protest demonstration was organized. The Lvov cabinet met in a panic, and Milyukov felt compelled to resign along with the Minister for Military Affairs Alexander Guchkov. Lvov also brought Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries into his reconstructed cabinet, hoping that a coalition of liberals and socialists could pull the country together. The Allied diplomats in Petrograd felt relieved. It seemed to them that the new government stood a realistic chance of restoring order to Russia and keeping its armed forces active on the eastern front.

  The Bolsheviks had joined in the protest but they had also called for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and inception of a socialist order. Until Lenin’s return to Russia there had been confusion among them. The Bolshevik leaders in the capital who had survived the arrests in the previous winter favoured the kind of radical extremism that Lenin advocated from far-off Switzerland. The Russian Bureau of the Bolsheviks took seriously its old factional doctrine about the desirability of a socialist dictatorship. The Bureau was headed by Vyacheslav Molotov, then only twenty-seven years old. Molotov called for unconditional struggle against the Provisional Government. The moment for Bolsheviks to prevent the liberals from achieving power had already passed, but Molotov believed that Bolshevism required that he and his comrades should seek to reverse the outcome. This remained the official policy of the Russian Bureau until the arrival of senior figures such as Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin from Siberian exile. The Bolshevik Central Committee fell into their hands as they insisted on a policy of conditional support for the Provisional Government. But there were many Bolsheviks in Petrograd and the provinces who thought Molotov had been right, and it was not difficult for Lenin to persuade the faction to sanction the revolutionary course he had proposed in his ‘April Theses’.4

  Bolshevik militants stood against Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, whom Lenin denounced as ‘social-traitors’, in elections to the soviets, trade unions and factory-workshop committees. Their party newspaper, Pravda, predicted that conditions for working people would not improve until a socialist revolution had occurred. They adopted slogans of Peace, Bread and Land and promised national self-determination to the non-Russians. They demanded the installation of a government based on the soviets, and declared that the era of socialism was at hand throughout Europe. Lenin and his comrades contended that Lvov’s cabinet was a capitalist government motivated by militarist and imperialist objectives. Only a minority of workers and soldiers as yet accepted this, and hardly any peasants had heard of Bolshevism; but the drip-drip effect of Bolshevik propaganda was noticeable. Covertly helped by funds from the German government, which was willing to finance any organization that would pull Russia out of the war, the party expanded its printing facilities and grew in size as tens of thousands of people signed up for membership. Lenin himself attracted massive attention as the champion of the antigovernmental cause and Trotsky and other left-wing Marxists joined the Bolsheviks as the likeliest instrument of revolutionary socialism in Russia. The Provisional Government was put on notice that it could take nothing for granted.

  Lvov now presided over a divided cabinet. Socialist ministers undertook reforms in industrial relations; they also permitted peasants to cultivate land left unsown by gentry landlords. The liberals in the cabinet, led by the Constitutional-Democrats (usually known as Kadets), worried that socialism was being installed by stealth. They wanted to resume military operations on the eastern front, which was in fact agreed by Alexander Kerenski in his new post as Minister for Military Affairs. Inside the cabinet, however, the debate continued. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were pushing for a more active search for peace, and ministers duly sanctioned Russian involvement in an international socialist conference in Stockholm where this would be the core of the agenda. But at the same time Kerenski was laying plans for an offensive against the Austro-Hungarian forces on the southern sector of the front.

  This display of commitment delighted the Allies. It did not displease Lenin and Trotsky, who said it proved that the coalition was as aggressive as they had always contended. The Bolsheviks exploited the popular unease by calling for an armed demonstration in Petrograd against government policy. This was set to coincide with the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets in mid-June. Suspecting that the Bolsheviks were plotting to overthrow the Lvov cabinet, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries decided to organize their own unarmed demonstration through the centre of the city. They dominated the Congress of Soviets; but when they asserted that no single party wished to take power in Russia, Lenin shouted from the floor: ‘There is such a party!’ The Bolshevik Central Committee, confident that its fortunes were improving, organized a yet further demonstration. The Kronstadt naval garrison — a hotbed of anticabinet feelings — promised to sail over to the capital and bring their rifles. Lenin chose this moment to take a few days’ holiday in the countryside. This was an artificial display of nonchalance. Anatoli Lunacharski, one of Trotsky’s sympathizers and someone who would soon join the Bolshevik party, later admitted that the demonstration was intended to ‘probe’ the scope for a socialist insurrection.

  The Provisional Government was crippled by internal dispute. Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary ministers were insisting on granting regional autonomy to Ukraine; they wanted to recognize its Central Rada — the as yet unofficial elected body that combined a broad range of Ukrainian organizations — as the legal holder of administrative authority in Kiev. The Kadets objected to this as the first step to breaking up the entire multinational state. They resigned from the cabinet when Lvov sided with the socialists. Yet the rump of the cabinet held firm. Loyal troops in Petrograd were sent out to break up the Bolshevik-led demonstration. Dozens of civilians were killed. The Ministry of Internal Affairs seized the opportunity to suppress the Bolshevik party in the capital and manipulate public opinion by the release of documents pointing to the secret German subsidy. A warrant was issued for Lenin’s arrest. Lenin fled to sanctuary in Finland; Trotsky flaunted his sympathy with the Bolsheviks and was taken into custody. The rest of the Bolshevik leadership in Petrograd went underground and waited for the political storm to blow over.

  Lvov had run out of energy in the emergency; he could see no future for his premiership and handed over power to Kerenski, who spent weeks putting together a fresh cabinet. The June military offensive was a disaster and the Central Powers marched deep into Ukraine. War-weariness spread to garrisons and trenches. Food supplies to Russian cities dipped. Industrial conflict intensified in factories and mines as owners faced down the demands for higher wages. Inflation racked the financial system. Law enforcement was pitiful while garrison troops showed allegiance exclusively to the nearby soviets. Peasants began to use the gentry’s pastures and woods without compensation, and it was obvious that a vast land grab was in the offing. The outlying regions of the old Russian Empire grew restless; and as the economic crisis sharpened, local administrations took to ignoring Petrograd and engaging in self-rule. The socialist ministers who had served under Lvov resigned in order to devote themselves to shoring up the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the Petrograd Soviet. Kerenski held supreme power but was politically isolated. His oratory was losing its impact. His capacity to impose the decrees of the Provisional Government was diminishing.

  Few options were available to him as he sought to widen his base of support. On 25 August he opened a State Co
nference that brought together every anti-Bolshevik group from the Kadets through to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. His idea was to demonstrate that Russian politicians were still capable of responding to the country’s needs in times of war. He spoke with something like his earlier panache and was fêted by female admirers as he left the proceedings.

  But it escaped nobody’s attention that the Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov was greeted rapturously by the liberals and right-ofcentre groupings. Kerenski assured Kornilov that he still desired to reinforce the eastern front and bring the city soviets to heel. Kornilov consented to send reliable troops from the front to quell the Petrograd disorder. As the trains started to move them to the capital, Kerenski changed his mind for fear that Kornilov might be scheming against him. He gave orders for Kornilov to pull back his contingent. This exasperated Kornilov, who concluded that Kerenski now lacked the nerve to act for the good of the country. The situation was not helped by the confusing reports received by Kerenski from his own military adviser Boris Savinkov. The advance on Petrograd continued and developed into an outright mutiny. Kerenski in panic turned to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, asking them to go out and cajole Kornilov’s force into disobeying his commands. Bolsheviks joined in the effort and the mutiny collapsed. Kornilov was put under arrest. Kerenski drew a sombre lesson. Noting that the Kadets had cheered on Kornilov as the hope of Russia, he called a Democratic Conference at the end of September that excluded all those liberals who had failed to stand by the Provisional Government. Kerenski saw this as the only way to obtain broad popular approval.

  Hatred for the Romanovs remained strong among workers, and Kerenski worried that things might run out of control. His first thought was to arraign the former emperor before a proper court and, if he was found not guilty, send him off to England and his cousin George V. But the Provisional Government, with all its pressing difficulties, formulated no decisive policy. A commission was appointed to investigate Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and the rest of the Romanov family. The public agitation against the Romanovs induced the Provisional Government to enquire whether the British would give asylum to the Romanovs. Kerenski, when Minister of Justice in the first cabinet, had gone to see the former Emperor Nicholas at Tsarskoe Selo and pass on best wishes from his Windsor cousins, but the family was deprived of liberty for its own protection. But now, although Lloyd George had no objection, George V worried that the ex-tsar’s arrival in Britain would make the house of Windsor unpopular.5 The British authorities replied in the negative. The Provisional Government held an unminuted discussion and decided to deposit the Imperial family in Tobolsk in Siberia. Its distance from the main centres was a primary advantage and the old governor’s residence was chosen for them. Nicholas told Kerenski: ‘I’m not worried. We trust you.’ The planned destination was kept secret; and although monarchist militants tried to reach him in Tobolsk there was no serious attempt at a rescue.6

  Other policies of the Provisional Government were less effective. Manufacturers despaired of order being restored to the factories; many closed down their businesses and moved their accounts abroad. Few landowners dared to stay on their estates. Bankers focused their endeavours on preserving their assets and cut off financial credits to industry. The urban economy was crashing to the ground and conditions worsened for all social strata. Shopkeepers were pulling down their shutters. Mass unemployment rose steadily in the cities. Whereas the industrial workforces had once struck for higher pay and better conditions, the priority became to keep enterprises open and save jobs. Kerenski raised the prices paid for agricultural produce so as to entice the peasantry into selling to government procurers. The result was disappointing. Peasants complained about receiving rubles that were useless for purchasing farm equipment that was unavailable. Armed units had to be put at the ready to march into the countryside in order to feed the cities and the front. At the same time there were disturbing reports from the trenches that troops were deserting in an ever swelling stream. Discipline was falling apart in the Russian Army. The entire state was ceasing to exist and Russia fell to its knees.

  The Bolshevik party benefited from this collapse. Increasingly its militants were again operating in the open; indeed they had never disappeared from view outside Petrograd and Moscow. Trotsky was released from prison and returned to public platforms to heap the blame for Russia’s misfortunes on the Provisional Government. Lenin in his Helsinki refuge declared that the Kornilov affair proved that there were only two alternatives: military dictatorship or socialist revolution. The Bolsheviks attended the Democratic Conference only to state their case against Kerenski and walk out.

  Far from being delighted by this, Lenin thought the Bolsheviks were allowing themselves to become distracted from the organizing of an insurrection. He got articles couriered to Petrograd from his places of hiding. He nagged his comrades about the urgent need to overthrow the cabinet — and it was becoming clear that he could count on Trotsky, the newly recruited Bolshevik, to support his strategy. Although the Central Committee did not always accede to Lenin’s ideas, it never wholly ignored them. The anti-Bolshevik press went on building up his importance, representing him as a demonic figure with a mesmeric power over the Bolsheviks and Trotsky was depicted as his political twin. In the Petrograd Soviet there was anxiety among Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries whenever Trotsky appeared. He replaced Kerenski as the great orator of the Revolution. From early September he was Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and other city soviets throughout Russia quickly began to go over to the Bolsheviks. The mood in the party grew confident that some new kind of coalition would eventually be formed with willing Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leaders. Kerenski and his cabinet appeared about to be consigned to oblivion, and opinion grew among workers and soldiers in favour of a government composed exclusively of dedicated socialists.

  Lenin’s thoughts were fixed on an uprising; he denied that ‘Kerenski’s clique’ could be removed without violence. He returned incognito to Petrograd to put his case at the Bolshevik Central Committee. A nocturnal meeting was held on 23–24 October when he harangued fellow leaders as only he could do. Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev opposed him. They doubted that the working class was firmly in favour of an uprising. They questioned whether Europe was on the point of experiencing socialist revolutions; they feared that any premature move by the Bolsheviks would expose them to an irresistible counter-strike. But Lenin beat them back and the vote went ten to four in his favour. The Central Committee met again six days later with Bolshevik leaders from the rest of Russia. For the second time Lenin faced down his opponents after a blistering dispute. Official Bolshevik policy was set definitively in the direction of seizing power.7

  The principle of insurrection but not the practicalities were debated. As Lenin went back into hiding on the outskirts of the capital, it was Trotsky who devised tactics and strategy. The Petrograd Soviet had recently established a Military-Revolutionary Committee to oversee the garrisons. Trotsky saw that he could use this body to rally support among troops and co-ordinate armed action against the Provisional Government. This would have the advantage of making the coup appear less as a Bolshevik party coup d'etat than as a step towards installing rule by soviets. What happened in Petrograd could then be copied in other cities. And once Kerenski had been arrested or expelled from the Winter Palace, power could be presented to the Second Congress of Soviets that was scheduled to meet in the next few days. Lenin was not pleased: he wanted instant action. Kamenev and Zinoviev broke ranks by divulging their trepidation about the Central Committee decisions. Everyone in Petrograd now knew that the Bolsheviks were about to embark on drastic measures. Kerenski and his ministers did not intend to go down without a fight. They made efforts to rally support from garrison commanders as the moment of armed collision grew closer. They felt certain that Russia’s woes would increase a thousandfold if it fell under Bolshevik rule.

  The situation was deeply unpromisin
g for the Provisional Government. Germany’s army marched into Riga on 3 September and the Russian Army was scattered into retreat. The railway network was disrupted as troops piled on to any train moving towards their home regions. The economy was disintegrating. In the cities a winter of unemployment and food shortages was the prospect for all but the wealthy in the cities. In the villages of Russia and Ukraine agitation for the transfer of all arable land to the peasantry grew. Whole regions ignored government decrees. A French propaganda film of model guns and planes was shown in Petrograd to encourage Russian patriotic enthusiasm. This was never going to be popular since Russia’s war was all but over.8

  By October the mood on Petrograd streets was flagging. Outwardly there was normality. The trams were running. The post and telegraph system was working. But people were talking about what the Germans might do next; they wondered whether zeppelins and aeroplanes might be used to drop bombs on the capital. The authorities took the necessary precautions. Air-raid sirens were given frequent tests. There were rehearsals for the measures to be taken in case of an attack, and firemen doubled the number of practice exercises. Street gas lamps were banned. Crime and disorder had been bad enough since March when the gendarmes fled. Now they were worse.9 These were weeks of sombre news as the war went in favour of the Central Powers. German forces seized the two islands at the extreme northern edge of the Gulf of Riga in mid-month. Russian armed forces were pushed eastwards. Although they held on to Estonian territory, they had to withdraw their strategic defence to the Gulf of Finland for the first time.10 Supplies in the capital’s shops dwindled. There was no tobacco on sale and anyone wanting chocolate had to queue for it with a ration book.11