The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  These publications spread Lenin’s message, but in a veiled form. The method employed was “propaganda” which did not tell readers what to do (that was the task of “agitation”) but planted in their minds ideas from which they would themselves draw the desired political conclusions. In appeals to the troops, for example, Bolshevik publications did not incite to desertion, since this would have made them liable to prosecution. In the first issue of Soldatskaia Pravda, Zinoviev wrote that the paper’s objective was forging an indestructible bond between workers and soldiers so that the troops would come to understand their “true” interests and not allow themselves to be used for “pogroms” against the workers. On the issue of the war, he was equally circumspect:

  We

  do not

  favor

  dropping guns

  now. This is no way to end the war. Now the main task is to understand and explain to all soldiers for what purpose this war was begun,

  who

  began the war, who needs the war.

  91

  The “who,” of course, was the “bourgeoisie” against whom the soldiers were to turn their guns.

  Such organizational and publishing activities required a great deal of money. Much, if not most, of it came from Germany.

  German subversive activities in Russia in the spring and summer of 1917 have left few traces in the documents.* Reliable people in Berlin, using reliable intermediaries, delivered cash to Bolshevik agents by way of neutral Sweden, without written requests or receipts passing hands. Although the opening of the German Foreign Office archives after World War II has made it possible to establish with certainty the fact of German subsidies to the Bolsheviks and with some approximation the sums involved, the exact uses to which the Bolsheviks put the German money remains obscure. According to Minister of Foreign Affairs Richard von Kühlmann, the chief architect of Germany’s pro-Bolshevik policy in 1917–18, the Bolsheviks used the German subsidies mainly for purposes of party organization and propaganda. On December 3, 1917 (NS), in a confidential report, Kühlmann thus summarized Germany’s contribution to the Bolshevik cause:

  The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important war aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain. The task therefore was gradually to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the front—in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks. It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were able to build up their main organ,

  Pravda

  , to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party.

  92

  The total money assigned by the Germans to the Bolsheviks in 1917–18—to help them first take power and then to keep it—has been estimated by Eduard Bernstein, who had good connections in the German Government, at “more than 50 million deutsche marks in gold” ($6 to $10 million, which at that time would have bought nine or more tons of gold).93*

  Some of these funds the Germans channeled to Bolshevik agents in Stockholm, the principal of whom was Jacob Fürstenberg-Ganetskii. Responsibility for maintaining contact with the Bolsheviks was assigned to the Russian expert at the German Embassy in Stockholm, Kurt Riezler. According to the counterintelligence service of the Provisional Government, directed by Colonel B. Nikitin, the Germans deposited the money for Lenin at the Diskontogesellschaft in Berlin, which forwarded it to the Nye Bank in Stockholm. Ganetskii would make withdrawals from the Nye Bank, ostensibly for business purposes, but in fact for deposit at the Siberian Bank in Petrograd on the account of a relative of his, one Eugenia Sumenson, a lady of the Petrograd demimonde. Sumenson and one of Lenin’s lieutenants, the Pole M. Iu. Kozlovskii, operated in Petrograd a spurious pharmaceutical business as cover for financial dealings with Ganetskii. The transfer of German funds to Lenin could thus be disguised as legitimate business.94 After her arrest in July 1917, Sumenson confessed to having turned over the moneys which she withdrew from the Siberian Bank to Kozlovskii, a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee.95 She admitted to having taken out of her bank account for this purpose 750,000 rubles.96 Sumenson and Kozlovskii maintained with Stockholm a coded business correspondence, some of which the government intercepted with the help of French intelligence. The following telegram is an example:

  Stockholm from Petrograd Fürstenberg Grand Hotel Stockholm. Nestles sends no flour. Request. Sumenson. Nadezhdinskaia 36.

  97

  The Germans also used other means of subsidizing the Bolsheviks, one of which consisted of smuggling into Russia counterfeit ten-ruble bank notes. Quantities of such forged money were found on pro-Bolshevik soldiers and sailors arrested in the aftermath of the July putsch.98

  Lenin kept very much in the background in these transactions, entrusting financial dealings with the Germans to his lieutenants. Still, in a letter to Ganetskii and Radek of April 12, he complained he was receiving no money. On April 21 he acknowledged to Ganetskii that Kozlovskii had given him 2,000 rubles.99 According to Nikitin, Lenin corresponded directly with Parvus badgering him for “more materials.”* Three of these communications were intercepted on the Finnish border.100

  Kerensky tackled his responsibilities as Minister of War with admirable energy, for he was convinced that the survival of democracy in Russia depended on a strong and disciplined army and that the army’s flagging spirits would be best uplifted by a successful offensive. The generals thought that if the army remained inactive much longer it would fall apart.101 He hoped to repeat the miracle of the French army in 1792, which stopped and then threw back the invading Prussians, rallying the nation to the revolutionary government. A major offensive was projected for June 12, in fulfillment of obligations to the Allies undertaken before the February Revolution. It had been originally designed as a purely military operation, but it now acquired an added political dimension. A successful offensive was expected to enhance the government’s prestige and reinfuse the population with patriotism, which would make it easier to deal with challengers from the right and the left. Tereshchenko told the French that if the offensive went well, measures would be taken to suppress mutinous elements in the Petrograd garrison.102

  In preparation for the offensive Kerensky carried out reforms in the army. Alekseev, probably the best strategist in Russia, impressed him as a defeatist, and he replaced him with Brusilov, the hero of the 1916 campaign.* He tightened military discipline, giving officers wide discretion to deal with insubordinate troops. Emulating the commissaires aux armées which the French army introduced in 1792, he sent commissars to the front to raise the soldiers’ morale and to arbitrate between them and the officers: it was an innovation of which the Bolsheviks would make extensive use in the Red Army. Kerensky spent most of May and early June at the front, delivering stirring patriotic speeches. His appearances had a galvanizing effect:

  “Triumphal progress” seems a weak term to describe Kerensky’s tour of the front. In the violence of the agitation by which it was accompanied it resembled the passage of a cyclone. Crowds gathered for hours to catch a glimpse of him. His path was everywhere strewn with flowers. Soldiers ran for miles after his motor car, trying to shake his hand or kiss the hem of his garment. At his meetings in the great halls of Moscow the audiences worked themselves up into paroxysms of enthusiasm and adoration. The platforms from which he had spoken were littered with watches, rings, bracelets, military medals, and bank notes, sacrificed by admirers for the common cause.

  103

  An eyewitness who compared Kerensky to “a volcano hurling forth sheaves of all-consuming fire,” wrote that for Kerensky

  all impediments between himself and the audience are intolerable.… He wants to be all before you, from head to foot, so
that the only thing between you and him is the air, completely impregnated by his and your mutual radiations of invisible but mighty currents. For that reason he will hear nothing of rostra, pulpits, tables. He leaves the rostrum, jumps on the table; and when he stretches out his hands to you—nervous, supple, fiery, all quivering with the enthusiasm of prayer which seizes him—you feel that he touches you, grasps you with those hands, and irresistibly draws you to himself.

  104

  The impact of these speeches, however, evaporated as soon as Kerensky left the scene: professional officers dubbed him “Persuader in Chief.” As he afterward recalled, he found the mood of the frontline troops on the eve of the June offensive ambivalent. German and Bolshevik propaganda had as yet had little influence: its effect was confined to garrison units and the so-called Third Divisions, which were reserve units made up of fresh inductees. But he encountered a widespread sense that the Revolution had made it pointless to fight. “After three years of bitter suffering,” he writes, “millions of war-weary soldiers were asking themselves: ‘Why should I die now when at home a new, freer life is only beginning?’ ”105 They received no answer from the Soviet, the institution they trusted the most, because its socialist majority adopted a characteristically ambivalent attitude:

  51. Kerensky visiting the front: summer 1917.

  If one looks through any typical resolution passed by the [Soviet’s] Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary majority one finds an utterly negative characterization of the war as imperialistic, a demand that it be stopped as quickly as possible and an unobtrusive phrase or two, inserted at Kerensky’s urgent demand, suggesting, with dubious logic and no emotional appeal whatever, that, pending a general peace, it would be a good thing if the Russian soldiers would continue to fight.

  106

  The Bolsheviks, as aware as the government of the disaffection and demoralization of the garrison units, decided early in June to exploit this mood. On June 1, the Military Organization voted to hold an armed demonstration. Since this unit took orders from the Central Committee, it can be taken for granted that the decision was adopted with the latter’s approval and probably on its initiative. On June 6, the Central Committee discussed bringing into the streets 40,000 armed soldiers and Red Guards to march under banners condemning Kerensky and the coalition government and then, at the appropriate moment, “go on the offensive.”107 What this meant we know from Sukhanov, who learned of the Bolshevik plans from Nevskii, the chairman of the Military Organization:

  The target of the “manifestation,” set for June 10, was to be the Mariinskii Palace, the seat of the Provisional Government. This was to be the destination of the worker detachments and regiments loyal to the Bolsheviks. Specially designated persons were to demand that members of the cabinet come out of the palace and answer questions. As the ministers spoke, specially designated groups were to voice “popular dissatisfaction” and excite the mood of the masses. Once the temperature had reached the appropriate level, the Provisional Government was to have been arrested on the spot. Of course, the capital was expected to react immediately. And depending on the nature of this reaction, the Bolshevik Central Committee, under one name or another, was to proclaim itself the government. If, in the course of the “manifestation,” the atmosphere for all this would prove sufficiently favorable, and the resistance shown by Lvov and Tsereteli weak, resistance was to have been overcome by the force of Bolshevik regiments and weapons.

  *

  One slogan of the demonstrators was to have been “All Power to the Soviets,” but inasmuch as the Soviet refused to proclaim itself a government and indeed prohibited armed demonstrations, this slogan, as Sukhanov reasonably concludes, could have only meant that power was meant to pass into the hands of the Bolshevik Central Committee.108 Since the demonstration was timed to coincide with the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets (scheduled to open on June 3), the Bolsheviks may have planned to confront the congress with a fait accompli and either compel it, against its will, to take power or claim power in its name. Lenin actually made no secret of his intentions. When, at the congress, Tsereteli stated that there was no party in Russia willing to assume power, Lenin shouted from his seat: “There is!” The episode became legend in Communist hagiography.

  On June 6, four days before the projected Bolshevik demonstration, the Bolshevik high command met to make final preparations. The proceedings of this conference are known to us only from truncated minutes, in which the most important entry, Lenin’s remarks, have been severely cut.109 The idea of a putsch ran into stiff resistance. Kamenev, who had criticized Lenin’s “adventurism” in April, again took the lead. The operation, he said, was certain to fail: the issue of the soviets assuming power was best left to the Congress. V. P. Nogin, from the Moscow branch of the Central Committee, was still more outspoken: “Lenin proposes a revolution,” he said. “Can we do it? We are a minority in the country. One cannot prepare an offensive in two days.” Zinoviev also joined the opposition, arguing that the projected action placed the party at great risk. Stalin, E. D. Stasova, the secretary of the Central Committee, and Nevskii vigorously supported Lenin’s proposal. Lenin’s arguments are not known, but judging from Nogin’s remarks it is obvious what he wanted.

  The Petrograd Soviet and the Congress of Soviets, on behalf of which the demonstration was to take place, were kept completely in the dark.

  On June 9, Bolshevik agitators appeared in the barracks and factories and informed the soldiers and workers of the demonstration scheduled for next day. The organ of the Military Organization, Soldatskaia Pravda, issued detailed instructions to the demonstrators. Its editorial ended with the words: “War to a victorious conclusion against the capitalists!”110

  The congress, which was in session at this time, was so spellbound by its rhetoric that it did not even know of the Bolsheviks’ preparations until almost too late. It first learned what the Bolsheviks were up to in the afternoon of June 9 from Bolshevik posters. All the parties present—the Bolsheviks, of course, excepted—voted immediately to order a cancellation of the demonstration, and sent out agitators to workers’ quarters and barracks to spread the message. The Bolsheviks met later that day to deal with new developments. Following discussions, of which no published record exists, they decided to bow to the will of the congress and cancel their demonstration. They further agreed to participate in a peaceful (i.e., unarmed) manifestation scheduled by the Soviet for June 18. Apparently the Bolshevik high command felt it inopportune as yet to challenge the soviets head on.

  A Bolshevik coup had been averted, but the Soviet gained a victory of dubious value because it lacked the moral courage to draw from this incident the proper conclusions. On June 11, some 100 socialist intellectuals representing all the parties in the Soviet, the Bolsheviks included, met to discuss the events of the preceding two days. The Menshevik spokesman, Theodore Dan, criticized the Bolsheviks and moved that no party be allowed to hold demonstrations without the Soviet’s approval and that armed units be brought out only in demonstrations sponsored by the Soviet. The penalty for violating these rules would be expulsion. Lenin chose to absent himself, and the Bolshevik case was defended by Trotsky, who had recently arrived in Russia and though not, as yet, formally a member, had drawn very close to the Bolshevik party. In the midst of the discussion, Tsereteli asked for the floor to oppose Dan’s motion which he thought too timid. Pale, his voice quivering from excitement, he shouted:

  That which has happened … was nothing but

  a conspiracy—a conspiracy to overthrow the government

  and have the Bolsheviks

  take power

  , power which they know they will never obtain in any other way. The conspiracy was rendered harmless as soon as we discovered it. But it can recur tomorrow. It is said that the counterrevolution has raised its head. This is untrue. The counterrevolution has not raised its head; it has lowered its head. The counterrevolution can penetrate only by one door: the Bolsheviks. What the Bo
lsheviks are doing now is not propaganda of ideas but conspiracy. The weapon of criticism is replaced by the criticism of weapons. May the Bolsheviks forgive us, but we shall now adopt different methods of struggle. Revolutionaries unworthy of holding weapons must be deprived of them. The Bolsheviks must be disarmed. One must not leave in their hands those excessive technical means which they have had at their disposal until now. We must not leave them machine guns and weapons. We shall not tolerate conspiracies …

  *

  Tsereteli received some support but the majority was against him. What proof had he of a Bolshevik conspiracy? Why disarm the Bolsheviks who represented a genuine mass movement? Did he really want to render the “proletariat” defenseless?111 Martov denounced Tsereteli with particular vehemence. The next day, the socialists voted in favor of Dan’s milder motion, which meant that they refused to disarm the Bolsheviks and dismantle their subversive apparatus. It was a critical failure of nerve. Lenin had directly challenged the Soviet, and the Soviet averted its eyes. The majority preferred to make believe that the Bolsheviks were a genuine socialist party using questionable tactics rather than, as Tsereteli argued, a counterrevolutionary party bent on seizing power. The socialists thus lost the opportunity to delegitimize the Bolsheviks, to deprive them of a powerful political weapon, the claim that they acted on behalf and in the interest of the soviets against alleged enemies.

  This cravenness was not lost on the Bolsheviks. The day after the defeat of Tsereteli’s motion, Pravda put the Soviet on notice that the Bolsheviks had no intention, now or in the future, of submitting to its orders: