The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  This lack of interest in administering and implementing the laws which poured out of their chanceries, the new leaders rationalized with professions of faith in the wisdom of the “people.” Knowledge of politics derived largely from literary sources habituated the Russian intelligentsia to think of democracy, not as an ideal, attained by patient effort, but as a reality inhibited from asserting itself only by the legacy of tsarism. They were convinced—or perhaps needed to convince themselves—that in order to give democracy a chance, it was essential not to govern. In a country that throughout its history had been accustomed to centralized government and obedience to directives from above, the revolutionary government adopted an extreme form of political laissez-faire—and this in the midst of an unprecedented war, inflation, agrarian stirrings, and a host of other pressing problems.

  But even under these circumstances it might have been possible to give the country some sort of rudimentary order had the Provisional Government not promoted anarchy by dissolving the provincial bureaucracy and the police. It is quite misleading of Kerensky to say, in self-justification, that it was the Imperial regime that had destroyed the administrative apparatus of Russia.149 In fact, this was mainly accomplished by Points 5 and 6 of the eight-point program which the Provisional Committee had adopted on March 1–2 in its agreement with the Ispolkom.150 On March 5, all governors and deputy governors were dismissed, their authority being transferred to the chairmen of the provincial zemstvo boards (gubernskie zemskie upravy). This action was most perplexing. Although some of the officials had resigned on their own upon learning of the Tsar’s abdication, and others were arrested by local citizens, in many provinces the governors welcomed the new government and took part in ceremonies honoring it.151 The government acted as it did in the belief that the men of the old regime could not be trusted to be loyal to the new order and would sabotage it at the first opportunity.152 This assumption was of dubious validity because the Provisional Government quickly acquired an aura of legitimacy in the eyes of the tsarist bureaucrats, accustomed to obeying central authority. If the government wanted to make certain of their loyalty, it only had to release Nicholas’s farewell address to the armed forces, in which, as we shall note, he urged Russians to obey the Provisional Government—a document the government chose to withhold from the public. The removal of the governors, the traditional mainstays of Russia’s administration, left a vacuum in the provinces. One can understand why the revolutionary government would have wanted to place its own men in these positions, but it is difficult to see why the old governors could not have been retained at their posts for the short time needed to find their replacements. This action resembled the abolition by the French National Assembly in 1789 of the office of intendant, the principal agent of royal absolutism, which had the immediate effect of depriving Paris of nearly all control over the countryside.153 It may even have been modeled on it. But France had much stronger social institutions than Russia as well as a sense of national cohesion that Russia lacked. The effect of these measures in France was, therefore, much less drastic: unlike revolutionary Russia, France never fell apart.

  The dissolution of the old provincial bureaucracy proved immensely popular with the intelligentsia, whose rhetoric about the “masses” and “democracy” camouflaged strong careerist impulses. In city after city, usually under the auspices of the local soviet, they set up their offices, complete with staffs of assistants and secretaries, telephones, stationery, and rubber stamps. However, lacking the experience of those whom they replaced, they merely mimicked them.

  More understandable, although in the long run no less destabilizing, was the dissolution of the police and gendarmerie, symbols of state authority for the mass of the country’s population. This decision implemented Point 5 of the eight-point accord. The Department of Police was abolished on March 4: the act was a mere formality, since it had ceased to operate on February 27, when a mob sacked its headquarters. On the same day, the government ordered the dissolution of the Okhrana and Corps of Gendarmes. The day after, it sent instructions to the local authorities to form citizens’ militias commanded by elected officers and operating under the authority of zemstva and Municipal Councils. Such militias, to the extent that they were constituted, enjoyed no authority: Nabokov notes that in a number of areas they were even taken over by criminal elements.154 Two weeks after the Revolution, Russia was without a police force of either a political or a civil kind. When, in April 1917, the government found itself challenged by Bolshevik-led mobs, it had no force on which to rely.

  Thus, a task immensely difficult to begin with—to govern a country at war and in the grip of revolutionary euphoria—was rendered impossible by rash actions dictated by a doctrinaire vision of democracy, belief in the wisdom of the people, and distaste for the professional bureaucracy and police. Russia in the spring of 1917 may well represent a unique instance of a government born of a revolution dissolving the machinery of administration before it had a chance to replace it with one of its own creation.

  Initially, however, this was not apparent. In the first weeks after its assumption of power, the Provisional Government enjoyed overwhelming support. The entire country swore allegiance to it, including the grand dukes, the generals, and thousands of junior officers. Even the ultras of the United Gentry, headed by the archreactionary Alexander Samarin, voted in its favor.155 Foreign powers promptly accorded it diplomatic recognition, beginning with the United States (March 9), followed by Britain, France, Italy, and the other Allies. But this display of support from the population and foreign powers was deceptive, encouraging the new cabinet in the illusion that it was firmly in control, whereas it was floating on thin air. Vladimir Nabokov wrote in his memoirs of the Provisional Government: “I primarily remember an atmosphere in which everything experienced seemed unreal.”156

  One of the difficulties in understanding the course of the February Revolution lies in the ambivalent nature of dvoevlastie, or dual power (dyarchy).

  In theory, under dvoevlastie the cabinet functioned as the combined executive and legislative, being in both capacities subject to the veto power of the Soviet as represented by the Ispolkom. But in practice, the Soviet not only controlled the Provisional Government but legislated on its own. With Order No. 1, it assumed effective control over the armed forces. As we shall see, it also dictated Russia’s war aims. Thus the government was not even allowed authority in the realm of military and foreign policy. In more mundane matters, such as food supply and labor relations, transport and communications, the Ispolkom acted as the ultimate authority without bothering to coordinate with the government.

  The leaders of the Soviet made no secret of the fact that the Provisional Government existed only at their sufferance. At the All-Russian Consultation of Soviets on March 29, Tsereteli, the Menshevik chairman of the Ispolkom, said that the Provisional Government owed its existence to an agreement which the Petrograd Soviet concluded with “the bourgeois privileged [tsen-zovye] elements of society.”157 Another member of the Ispolkom, the Trudovik V. B. Stankevich, boasted that the Soviet had the power to dismiss the Provisional Government in fifteen minutes by giving it appropriate orders over the phone.158 The apologists for the system of “dual power” later claimed that the leaders of the Soviet did all they could to bolster the government: far from subverting it, they are said to have provided it with its principal source of support.159 The historical record does not bear out this claim. It indicates that even as it intervened to help it suppress disorders, the Ispolkom ceaselessly undermined the government’s authority and prestige.

  Its leaders delivered speeches which humiliated the government and lowered its standing in the eyes of a population accustomed to seeing authority treated with respect. A good example is the speech of Chkheidze on March 24 to a delegation of students who came to the Soviet with a banner hailing the Provisional Government. Chkheidze addressed them as follows:

  I see on your banner the slogan “Greetings to the Provisio
nal Government,” but for you it can be no secret that many of its members, on the eve of the Revolution, were trembling and lacked faith in the Revolution. You extend greetings to it. You seem to believe that it will carry high the new standard. If this is so, remain in your belief. As for us, we will support it for as long as it realizes democratic principles. We know, however, that our government is not democratic, but bourgeois. Follow carefully its activity. We shall support all of its measures which tend toward the common good, but all else we shall unmask because at stake is the fate of Russia.

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  Such remarks by the second most influential political figure in the Soviet and a leading candidate for President of the Russian Republic give lie to the claims of the apologists for the Soviet that they loyally supported the government. By treating it as an inherently counterrevolutionary institution, kept honest only by the Soviet, they played directly into the hands of their enemies on the left who would argue that if that was the case, then the government should be removed and the Soviet assume full authority.

  If the Ispolkom shied away from this logical conclusion of its premise, it was because it lacked the courage of its convictions. The socialists who controlled it wanted the Provisional Government to serve as a lightning rod for popular discontent, while they manipulated affairs from behind the scenes: they wanted to rule without reigning. As Trotsky was later to boast, this gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to seize power by demanding that the Soviet become de jure what it was de facto.

  The relationship between the two organs of authority was symbolized by their respective locales. The Soviet and its Executive elbowed their way into Taurida Palace, the seat of the Duma and the center of opposition under tsarism. The Provisional Government installed itself first in Mariinskii Palace, the seat of the Imperial Council of Ministers, and in July moved to the Winter Palace, a tsarist residence.*

  The Ispolkom legislated in every field of activity. Yielding to the pressure of workers, it decreed an eight-hour working day in all enterprises, including those working for defense. On March 3 it ordered the arrest of members of the Imperial dynasty, not excepting Nikolai Nikolaevich, the designated Commander in Chief.161 The logic of its self-assigned role as the organ of “democratic control” over the “bourgeoisie” quickly led the Ispolkom to adopt repressive measures reminiscent of the worst days of tsarism. Thus, on March 3, it “authorized” the postal and telegraphic services to function, but subject to “surveillance” by Soviet organs.162 Press censorship followed. On March 5, the Ispolkom ordered the closing of all publications of a “Black Hundred” orientation, including the right-wing daily Novoe vremia, which had the temerity to come out without securing its permission.163 Two days later, the Ispolkom advised newspapers and journals they were not to publish without express authorization from the Soviet—that is, itself.164 This attempt to restore pre-1905 censorship provoked such an outcry it had to be rescinded.165 But it is indicative of the rapidity with which the socialist intelligentsia, while professing the most lofty democratic ideals, violated a cardinal principle of democracy—namely, freedom of opinion.

  The Ispolkom continued to bureaucratize. As early as March 3, it created a network of “commissions” to deal with pressing problems, such as food supply, railroads, post and telegraphs, and finances—a regular shadow government that duplicated and, through duplication, controlled the operations of the government. The principal institution serving this purpose was the “Contact Commission” of five socialist intellectuals (N. S. Chkheidze, M. I. Skobelev, Iu. M. Steklov, N. N. Sukhanov, and V. N. Filippovskii) created on March 7. Its task was to “inform the Soviet of the intentions and actions of the Provisional Government and the latter about the demands of the revolutionary people, to exert pressure on the government to satisfy all these demands, and to exercise uninterrupted control over their implementation.”166 Thus, by a verbal sleight of hand, the wishes of a body of intellectuals appointed by the socialist parties became the wishes of the “revolutionary people.” According to Miliukov, initially the government satisfied all the demands of the Contact Commission. Tsereteli concurred, declaring in late March that “there were no instances when, on matters of importance, the Provisional Government did not seek agreement” with the Contact Commission.167 To make certain this practice continued, on April 21 the Ispolkom asked the Provisional Government to make no “major” political moves without informing it beforehand.168

  For reasons stated, the Ispolkom paid particular attention to the armed forces. “To facilitate contact,” on March 19 it appointed commissars to the Ministry of War, the Army headquarters, and the headquarters of the diverse fronts and fleets. These commissars were to follow instructions sent them by the Ispolkom. In the front-line zone, no orders issued by the military were to go into effect without prior approval of the Ispolkom and its commissars. The latter helped to resolve disputes that arose within the armed forces and between the military command and the civilian population in or near the combat zone. The Minister of War directed the military commanders to assist the Soviet commissars in executing their duties.169

  The Ispolkom kept on expanding. On April 8 nine representatives (all SRs and Mensheviks) from the Soldiers’ Section were added to the ten already in the Ispolkom: they were the first elected members of that body. The ten previously appointed members were reelected: no Bolshevik won a seat. The representatives of the Workers’ Section were handpicked by the Menshevik, Bolshevik, and SR parties.170

  During the first month of its existence, the Petrograd Soviet served only the capital city, but then it expanded its authority over the entire country. The All-Russian Consultation of Soviets, convened in Petrograd in late March, voted to have the Ispolkom admit into its membership representatives of the provincial city soviets and frontline army units, which transformed the Petrograd Soviet into the All-Russian Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.171 Sixteen delegates from other parts of Russia were added to what now became the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK or CEC). By now its membership had grown to seventy-two, among whom were twenty-three Mensheviks, twenty-two SRs, and twelve Bolsheviks.

  To direct and systematize its work, the Ispolkom created on March 14 another bureaucratic body, a Bureau. In mid-April, the Bureau had twenty-four members (eleven Mensheviks, six SRs, three Trudoviki, and four “non-faction” Social-Democrats). The Bolsheviks initially refused to join on the grounds that they had been offered insufficient places.172

  The Ispolkom and its Bureau supplanted the incorrigibly undisciplined Soviet Plenum, which convened less and less frequently; when it did, it was to approve by acclamation the decisions of the Executive. In the first four days of its existence (February 28-March 3), the Plenum met daily. In the rest of March it met four times, in April six. No one paid much attention to its noisy proceedings. The separate Workers’ Section and Soldiers’ Section met somewhat more frequently.

  Although the Ispolkom, with its Bureau, and the Soviet, which followed their bidding, posed as the authentic voice of the country’s masses, they had among their members no representatives of peasant organizations. The peasants, 80 percent of the population, had their Peasants’ Union, which kept aloof from the Soviet. The All-Russian Soviet thus spoke for only a fraction of the country’s inhabitants, 10 to 15 percent at best, if allowance is made for the peasantry and the “bourgeoisie,” neither of which was represented.

  Operating under such difficult conditions, the Provisional Government concentrated on “democratic” legislation, which was easy to turn out and certain to secure the approval of the Soviet. Cabinet meetings took place in the evening and sometimes late at night. The ministers arrived exhausted and were observed to doze off.

  In the weeks that followed its assumption of power, the government passed numerous laws, some designed to rectify the abuses of the old regime, others to implement the eight-point program. Soldiers received full civil rights, and those serving in the rear were no longer subject to courts-martial. A
ll civil disabilities due to religious or ethnic affiliation were lifted. The death penalty was abolished. The right of association and assembly was assured. Poland was promised full independence after the war (although qualified to the extent that it would remain “united with Russia in a free military union”) and Finland was guaranteed the restoration of her constitutional rights. This legislative industry was the most productive sector of the Russian economy.173 The trouble was that whereas laws that enhanced freedom were promptly acted upon, no one paid attention to those that imposed new obligations.

  On the three issues that mattered most—land reform, the Constituent Assembly, and peace—the government acted in a dilatory manner.

  Except for the areas adjacent to the large cities, the news of the Tsar’s abdication traveled at a snail’s pace to the rural districts, held in the grip of a savage winter. Most villages first learned of the Revolution four to six weeks after it had broken out, i.e., in the first half of April, with the onset of the spring thaw.174 The peasants interpreted the news to mean they were free to resume assaults on private landed property halted ten years earlier by Stolypin. The Black Repartition got underway once again, as the communal peasants, at first cautiously and then with increasing boldness, raided landed property, first and foremost that belonging to fellow peasants who had withdrawn from the commune and taken title to private land. The earliest reports of agrarian disturbances reached Petrograd in the middle of March,175 but they assumed mass proportions in April. The instigators were often army deserters and criminals released from prison in February; sometimes whole communes fell under their influence. In this initial phase of the agrarian revolution, the peasants attacked mainly isolated households and estates, cutting down trees, stealing seed grain, and chasing away prisoners of war employed as farmhands.176 As in 1905, physical violence was rare. The government appealed on April 8 to the peasants to desist from illegal seizures. It also appointed a commission under A. I. Shingarev, the Minister of Agriculture, to draft a program of agrarian reform for submission to the Constituent Assembly.177