against such treasonable pretensions, and conceded an auton- omy bordering on complete separation. Some of the Cadet members of the Provisional Government Prince Lvov, and Shingarev protested and resigned, but their withdrawal was hardly noticed. Kerensky was placed definitely at the head of the Government and continued his campaign of eloquent appeals.
In the general confusion the group of relentless realists, the Bolsheviks thought the moment opportune to show their hand. On July 14 a military revolt broke out in Petrograd: regiments converted by the extremists the first machine-gun regiment at their head seized strategic points in the capital; cruisers and destroyers flying the black and red flag of terror- istic Revolution came into the Neva from Kronstadt. For three days it seemed doubtful whether the Provisional Govern- ment would be able to hold its own. The attempt was, however, somewhat premature. Part of the Petrograd garrison remained passive, and this made it possible for some loyal troops to sup- press the rebellion. The Government was afraid, however, to strike hard: Trotsky, Lunacharsky and Kamenev were let out after a brief arrest; Lenin had disappeared as soon as it became evident that the outbreak had miscarried. Apart from the usual irresolution of ministers who had not learnt to govern during their long apprenticeship in the ranks of a critical Opposition, the hands of the Executive power were tied by the pressure from the Soviet of Workmen, Peasants and Soldiers. The Social Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, although dis- agreeing with the Bolsheviks and afraid of them, worshipped the word " Revolution," and were loth to adopt coercive meas- ures against their comrades of the extreme Left. Stern meas- ures against the extremists might have seemed a return to the oppression of the Tsarist regime, and the Socialists preferred risking their own safety to the danger of being accused of the crime of " lese-Revolulion."
So the see-saw of contradictory decrees and measures con- tinued for some time. While the military chiefs addressed passionate appeals to the Government for a restoration of dis- cipline, for stern punishment of deserters, for abolition of the political authority of the Army Committee, Socialists, even moderate ones, defended the " new discipline " of the noble revolutionary army, minimized its defeats and demoralization, and consoled themselves with the prospect of a rebirth of the nation under the mighty influence of the revolutionary spirit. In the meantime, the peasants were grabbing the estates and the live stock of the squires, burning houses, and killing some of the unpopular owners. The Minister of Agriculture, Chernov, looked upon this lawlessness of self-help as a perfectly natural outbreak of the policy of expropriation. The factory workers and workshop artisans in the towns were not less insistent in the assertion of their rights; wages went up by leaps and bounds, while the work done became more and more careless and casual. Owners and engineers were sometimes thrown out of their establishments, seized by the proletarians. It happened, indeed, that after trying their hand at management for some time the workmen requested or compelled their former employ- ers to return as managers, but such isolated cases did not counter- balance the general effect of disorder and slackness. The decay of Russian industries was proceeding fast. The efforts of mili- tary chiefs and responsible leaders to arrest the spread of treason, disorganization, and demoralization were denounced by the Socialists of the Soviet and their representatives in the Pro- visional Government as counter-revolutionary attempts.
The Second Revolution. Prince Lvov recognized that it was no longer possible for Liberals to work with Chernov and his companions. He resigned from the premiership, and the Cadets in the Ministry followed him. Kerensky became prime minister. Although he retained the portfolio of War and Marine, he set himself the task of constructing a " strong revolutionary " Government. In order to find a basis for a national coalition he called a conference in Moscow, in which all classes, groups and principal institutions of the Russian State were to be repre- ented. The Bolsheviks refused to take part and ridiculed the
ea of a congregation of that kind. On Aug. 26 about 2,000
XXXII. 1 1
delegates met in the Grand Theatre, representatives of the various parties, of Zemstvos and municipalities, of universi- ties, of army, of factory workmen, of peasant communities, etc. The meeting might have been a first step towards the regenera- tion of Russia, if the leaders had clearly realized that the danger did not lie in counter-revolution but in disorganization. But Kerensky opened the discussion by a speech in which warnings as to the danger to the country were intermixed with the usual revolutionary catchwords, and no lead was given in the direction of any practical reform. Kornilov, as commander-in-chief, delegates of the officers, and many of the former political leaders, spoke strongly of the necessity of reestablishing discipline, of a strong executive, of national work to be carried on by all parties and classes. But the delegates of the Left, who were in the majority, not only turned a deaf ear to all such exhortations, but manifested openly their contempt and dislike for the old ideals of patriotism. Among the worst were the soldiers delegated by various army committees. The whole attempt was a failure; instead of bracing up the political consciousness of the nation it revealed a state of complete paralysis on the part of the so- called rulers of the country.
At the beginning of September Riga fell, after a half-hearted and disconnected defence by the XI. Army. In the Soviet, Tseretelli tried to bring through the reintroduction of capital punishment for treason and desertion, and although he suc- ceeded in collecting a narrow majority, this measure, insisted upon by the officers, was nullified by motions in the opposite direction for example, by a demand that the arrested Bolsheviks should be liberated. It was evident that no serious effort to arrest anarchistic effervescence could be expected either from the Pro- visional Government or from the Soviet: they felt spellbound as soon as the sacred word " Revolution " was pronounced by the enemies of the State. The commander-in-chief, Kornilov, was not the man to submit meekly and without a" struggle to the fatal policy of drift. He threw his authority into the scales against social disorder, and tried to force the Provisional Govern- ment to side with him. With this object in view he ordered some cavalry divisions on which he could rely to march toward Petrograd. He began negotiations with Kerensky through the medium of Boris Savinkov, a Social Revolutionary and active terrorist, who was acting as Assistant Minister of War at the time. This is how Savinkov related the main occurrences of this momentous crisis:
" When, on the 5th-6th of September, at Headquarters I again told him that in the near future the Provisional Government would examine the bill which was being prepared by the order of the Prime Minister, for the measures to be taken at the base, he believed that the Government was no longer hesitating, and when bidding me farewell on the 6th of September at Headquarters he declared that he would give full support to the Prime Minister, for the good of the country. On my return to Petrograd I reported my con- versations with General Kornilov to the Prime Minister, and on the evening of the 8th of Sept. the bill for legalizing measures at the base (i.e. severe penalties for breaches of discipline) was to have been examined by the Provisional Government. But on the 8th of Sept. I was summoned to the Winter Palace, and the Prime Minister told me something that was a complete surprise to me. He told me that V. N. Lvov had come to him with an ultimatum from Gen. Kornilov, who demanded that the supreme authority should be given over to the Commander-in-Chief, with all military and civil power over the country, and that he, the Commander-in-Chief, was to form a Cabinet in which I was to be Minister of War and the Prime Minister was to be Minister of Justice. The ultimatum was in writing, but was signed, not by Gen. Kornilov, but by V. N. Lvov himself. Then the Premier called Kornilov up on the Hughes apparatus, and asked him without reading out to him the text of the declaration signed by V. N. Lvov whether he was ready to sign the ultimatum pre- sented by V. N. Lvov. Gen. Kornilov replied, ' Yes, 1 am ready to sign.' On the same day (8th of Sept.), the Prime Minister sent a telegram to Gen. Kornilov at Headquarters, demanding that Kornilov should immediately give up his post and leave the army." (Tyzkova- Williams, 214, 215.)
Komilov's attempt to assume power was obviously conducted in a very clumsy manner: he was not a statesman, but a soldier, and the people around him were in no way able to make up for his deficiencies in political training. It is almost inconceivable how he could have chosen as his messenger the half-witted
