58. General Lavr Kornilov.
Boris Savinkov, the acting director of the Ministry of War, a man ideally suited for the role of an intermediary because he enjoyed the confidence of both Kerensky and Kornilov, drafted early in August a four-point program calling for the extension of the death penalty to troops in the rear, the militarization of railroad transport, the application of martial law to war industries, and the restoration to officers of disciplinary authority with a corresponding reduction in the power of army committees.8 According to him, Kerensky promised to sign the document, but kept on procrastinating and on August 8 said that he would “never, under any circumstances, sign a bill about the death penalty in the rear.”9 Feeling deceived, Kornilov kept on bombarding the Prime Minister with “ultimata” which so irritated Kerensky that he came close to dismissing him.10 Since Kornilov knew of Kerensky’s deep interest in the revitalization of the armed forces, his failure to act confirmed him in the suspicion that the Prime Minister was not a free man but a tool of the socialists, some of them known since the July putsch to be consorting with the enemy.
Kornilov’s badgering placed Kerensky in a difficult situation. He had managed since May to straddle the gulf between the government and the Ispolkom by conceding to the latter veto powers over legislation and going out of his way not to antagonize it, while, at the same time, vigorously pursuing the war, which won him the support of the liberals and even moderate conservatives. Kornilov compelled him to do something he wished at all costs to avoid—namely, to choose between the left and the right, between the interests of international socialism and those of the Russian state. He could be under no illusion: giving in to Kornilov’s demands, most of which he thought reasonable, would mean a break with the Soviet. On August 18, the Plenum of the Soviet debated, on a Bolshevik motion, the proposal to restore the death penalty in the armed forces. It passed with a virtually unanimous vote of some 850 delegates against 4 (Tsereteli, Dan, M.I. Liber, and Chkheidze) a resolution rejecting the application of capital punishment to front-line troops as a “measure intended to frighten the soldier masses for the purpose of enslaving them to the commanding staff.”11 Clearly, there was no chance of the Soviet’s approving the extension of the death penalty to troops not in the combat zone, let alone the subjection of defense and transport workers to military discipline.
In theory, Kerensky could have stood up to the Soviet and cast his lot with the liberals and conservatives. But that alternative was foreclosed for him by the very low esteem in which he was held by these circles, especially after the failure of the June offensive and his indecisive reaction to the July putsch. When he made an appearance at the Moscow State Conference on August 14, he was acclaimed by the left only: the right received him in stony silence, reserving its ovation for Kornilov.12 The liberal and conservative press referred to him with unconcealed contempt. He had no choice, therefore, but to opt for the left, accommodating the socialist intellectuals of the Ispolkom while trying, with diminishing conviction and success, to advance Russia’s national interests.
His desire to placate the left was evident not only in the failure to carry out the promised military reforms but also in the refusal to take resolute measures against the Bolsheviks. Although he had in hand a great deal of damning evidence, he failed to prosecute the leaders of the July putsch in deference to the Ispolkom and the Soviet, which regarded the charges against the Bolsheviks as “counterrevolutionary.” He showed a similar bias in reacting to a proposal from the Ministry of War to take into custody both right-wing and left-wing “saboteurs” of Russia’s war effort. He approved the list of right-wingers to be arrested, but hesitated when coming to the other list, from which he eventually struck more than half the names. When the document reached the Minister of the Interior, the SR N. D. Avksentev, whose countersignature it required, the latter reconfirmed the first list, but crossed out from the second all but two of the remaining names (Trotsky’s and Kollontai’s).13
Kerensky was a very ambitious man who saw himself destined to lead democratic Russia. His only opportunity to realize this ambition was to take charge of the democratic left—that is, the Mensheviks and SRs—and to do so he had to pander to its obsessive fear of the “counterrevolution.” He not only saw but needed to see Kornilov as the focus of all the anti-democratic forces. Although he well knew what the Bolsheviks had intended with their armed “demonstrations” of April, June, and July, and could have easily determined what Lenin and Trotsky planned for the future, he persuaded himself that Russian democracy faced danger not from the left but from the right. Since he was neither uninformed nor unintelligent, this absurd assessment makes sense only if one assumes that it suited him politically. Having cast Kornilov in the role of the Russian Bonaparte, he reacted uncritically—indeed, eagerly—to rumors of a vast counterrevolutionary conspiracy allegedly being hatched by Kornilov’s friends and supporters.14
Precious days went by without the military reforms being enacted. Knowing that the Germans intended soon to resume offensive operations and hoping to stir things up, Kornilov requested permission to meet with the cabinet. He arrived in the capital on August 3. Addressing the ministers, he began with a survey of the status of the armed forces. He wanted to discuss military reforms, but Savinkov interrupted him, saying that the War Ministry was working on this matter. Kornilov then turned to the situation at the front and reported on the operations he was preparing against the Germans and Austrians. At this point, Kerensky leaned over and asked him in a whisper to be careful;15 moments later a similar warning came from Savinkov. This incident had a shattering effect on Kornilov and on his attitude toward the Provisional Government: he referred to it time and again as justification for his subsequent actions. As he correctly interpreted Kerensky’s and Savinkov’s warnings, one or more ministers were under suspicion of leaking military secrets. When he returned to Mogilev, Kornilov, still in a state of shock, told Lukomskii what had happened and asked what kind of government he thought was running Russia.16 He concluded that the minister about whom he had been warned was Chernov, who was believed to convey confidential information to colleagues in the Soviet, the Bolsheviks included.17 From that day on, Kornilov regarded the Provisional Government as unworthy to lead the nation.*
Not long after these events (on August 6 or 7), Kornilov ordered General A. M. Krymov, the commander of the Third Cavalry Corps, to move his troops from the Romanian sector northward, and, reinforced with other units, take up positions at Velikie Luki, a city in western Russia roughly equidistant from Moscow and Petrograd. The Third Corps consisted of two Cossack divisions and the so-called Native (or Savage) Division from the Caucasus, all undermanned (the Native Division had a mere 1,350 men) but regarded as dependable. Puzzled by these instructions, Lukomskii pointed out that Velikie Luki was too far from the front for these forces to be used against the Germans. Kornilov replied that he wanted the corps to be in position to suppress a potential Bolshevik putsch in either Moscow or Petrograd. He assured Lukomskii they were not intended against the Provisional Government, adding that if it proved necessary, Krymov’s troops would disperse the Soviet, hang its leaders, and make short shrift of the Bolsheviks—with or without the government’s consent.18 He also told Lukomskii that Russia desperately needed “firm authority” capable of saving the country and its armed forces:
I am not a counterrevolutionary … I despise the old regime, which badly mistreated my family. There is no return to the past and there cannot be any. But we need an authority that could truly save Russia, which would make it possible honorably to end the war and lead her to the Constituent Assembly.… Our current government has solid individuals but also those who ruin things, who ruin Russia. The main thing is that Russia has no authority and that such authority must be created. Perhaps I shall have to exert such pressure on the government. It is possible that if disorders break out in Petrograd, after they have been suppressed I will have to enter the government and participate in the formation of a new,
strong authority.
19
Having heard Kerensky tell Kornilov more than once that he, too, favored “strong authority,” Lukomskii concluded that Kornilov and the Prime Minister should have no difficulty cooperating.20
Kornilov returned to Petrograd on August 10 at the urging of Savinkov, but against the wishes of the Prime Minister. Having heard rumors of attempts on his life, he arrived with his Tekke guards, who mounted machine guns outside Kerensky’s office. Kerensky refused to grant Kornilov’s request to meet with the full cabinet and received him instead in the presence of Nekrasov and Tereshchenko, his kitchen cabinet. The general’s sense of urgency stemmed from the knowledge that the Germans were about to initiate offensive operations near Riga, threatening the capital. He reverted to the subject of the reforms: restoration of discipline at the front and in the rear, including the death penalty for Russians who worked for foreign powers, and militarization of defense industries as well as transport.21 Kerensky found much of what Kornilov requested, especially in regard to defense industries and transport, “absurd,” but he did not refuse to tighten discipline in the armed forces. Kornilov told the Prime Minister he understood he was about to be dismissed and “advised” against such action as likely to provoke disorders in the army.22
Four days later Kornilov made a sensational appearance at the State Conference which Kerensky had convened in Moscow to rally public support. At first Kerensky refused Kornilov’s request that he be allowed to address the conference, but then relented on condition that he confine himself to military matters. When Kornilov arrived at the Bolshoi Theater, he was cheered and carried aloft by crowds; the delegates on the right gave him a tumultuous welcome. Although in his rather dry speech Kornilov said nothing that could be construed as politically damaging to the government, for Kerensky this event was a watershed: he interpreted the outpouring of sympathy for the general as a personal affront. According to his subsequent testimony, “after the Moscow conference, it was clear to me that the next attempt at a blow would come from the right, and not from the left.”23 Once this conviction lodged in his mind, it became an idée fixe; everything that happened subsequently only served to reinforce it. His certainty that a right-wing coup was underway received encouragement from cables sent by officers and private citizens demanding that he keep Kornilov at his post and confidential warnings from army headquarters of conspiracies by staff officers.24 The conservative press now opened up a barrage against Kerensky and his cabinet. Typical was an editorial in the right-wing Novoe vremia which argued that Russia’s salvation lay in the unquestioned acceptance of the authority of the Commander in Chief.25 No evidence exists that Kornilov inspired this political campaign: but as its beneficiary, he came under suspicion.
59. Kornilov feted on his arrival at the Moscow State Conference: August 14, 1917.
Viewed dispassionately, the outpouring of sympathy for the commanding general was an expression of unhappiness with Kerensky’s leadership, not a symptom of the “counterrevolution.” The country yearned for firm authority. But the socialists were insensitive to this mood. Better versed in history than in practical politics, they firmly believed that a conservative (“Bonapartist”) reaction was inevitable.* As early as August 24–25, before anything had happened to justify it, the socialist press spoke of counterrevolution: on August 25, the Menshevik Novaia zhizn’ announced, under the heading “Conspiracy,” that one was in full swing and expressed the hope that the government would prosecute it with at least as much zeal as it had displayed against the Bolsheviks.26
Thus, the plot was written: it only remained to find the protagonist.
In the middle of August the Germans launched the expected assault on Riga. The undisciplined and politicized Russian troops fell back and on August 20–21 abandoned the city. To Kornilov this was ultimate proof that Russia’s war effort had to be urgently reorganized, or else Petrograd itself would soon share Riga’s fate. To understand the atmosphere in which the Kornilov affair unfolded, the military backdrop must never be left out of sight: for although contemporaries as well as historians have treated the Kornilov-Kerensky conflict exclusively as a struggle for power, for Kornilov it was first and foremost a critical, possibly final effort to save Russia from defeat in the war.
In the middle of August, Savinkov received from reliable French intelligence sources information that the Bolsheviks planned another putsch for the beginning of September: the information was published on August 19 in the daily Russkoe slovo.* The date coincided with what headquarters believed to be the next phase of German operations, an advance from Riga on Petrograd.27 The origin of this intelligence is not known: it appears to have been faulty for there is nothing in Bolshevik sources to indicate preparations for a coup at this time. Savinkov conveyed this intelligence to Kerensky. Kerensky seemed un-fazed: then, as later, he thought a Bolshevik coup a figment of his opponents’ imagination.28 But he quickly realized the utility of information on an alleged Bolshevik putsch as an excuse to disarm Kornilov. He requested Savinkov to proceed immediately to Mogilev to carry out the following missions: (1) liquidate the officer conspiracy at headquarters reported on by Filonenko; (2) abolish the Political Department at Army Headquarters; (3) obtain Kornilov’s consent to have Petrograd and its environs transferred from his command to that of the government and placed under martial law; and
(4) request from General Kornilov a cavalry corps for the purpose of imposing martial law in Petrograd and defending the Provisional Government from any and all assaults, and, in particular, from an assault of the Bolsheviks, who had already rebelled on July 3–5 and who, according to information of foreign intelligence, are once again preparing to rise in connection with German landings and an uprising in Finland.
29
This fourth task particularly deserves being kept in mind because Kerensky’s subsequent claim that Kornilov had sent the cavalry against Petrograd to overthrow his government would provide grounds for charging the general with treason.
The purpose of Savinkov’s mission to Mogilev was to abort a counterrevolutionary conspiracy allegedly being hatched there and to do so under the pretext of preparations against a Bolshevik putsch. Kerensky later obliquely admitted that he had asked for military units—that is, the Third Cavalry Corps—to be placed under his command because he wanted to be “militarily independent of headquarters.”30 Withdrawing the Petrograd Military District from Kornilov’s command served the same end.
Savinkov arrived in Mogilev on August 22 and stayed there until August 24.31 He began his first meeting with Kornilov saying that it was essential for the general and the Prime Minister, for all their differences, to cooperate. Kornilov agreed: while he considered Kerensky weak and unfit for his responsibilities, he was needed. He added that Kerensky would be well advised to broaden the political base of the government by bringing in General Alekseev and patriotic socialists like Plekhanov and A. A. Argunov. Turning to Kornilov’s reform proposals, and assuring him that the government was prepared to act on them, Savinkov produced a draft of the latest reform project. Kornilov found it not entirely satisfactory because it retained the army committees and commissars. Would these reforms be acted on soon? Savinkov responded that the government did not want as yet to make them public for fear of provoking a violent reaction from the Soviet. He now informed Kornilov that the government had information that the Bolsheviks were planning fresh disturbances in Petrograd at the end of August or the beginning of September: the premature release of the military reform program could spark an immediate uprising of the Bolsheviks, in which the Soviet, which also opposed military reforms, could make common cause with them.
Savinkov next turned to the subject of measures to deal with the anticipated Bolshevik coup. The Prime Minister wished to withdraw Petrograd and its suburbs from the Petrograd Military District and place it under his direct command. Kornilov was displeased by this request, but yielded. Since one could not predict the reaction of the Soviet to the proposed mili
tary reforms and in view of the anticipated Bolshevik putsch, Savinkov went on, it was desirable to reinforce the Petrograd garrison with reliable combat troops. He requested Kornilov in two days to move the Third Cavalry Corps from Velikie Luki to the vicinity of Petrograd, where it would come under the government’s command; as soon as this was done, he was to notify Petrograd by telegraph. If necessary, he said, the government was prepared to carry out “merciless” action against the Bolsheviks and, should it side with them, the Petrograd Soviet as well. To this request Kornilov readily assented.
Kornilov also agreed to ask the Union of Officers at headquarters to move to Moscow, but he refused to do away with the Political Department. He further promised to liquidate any anti-government plots at headquarters that might come to his attention.32
In the morning of August 24, as he was about to depart for Petrograd, Savinkov made two additional requests. Although Kerensky would later make much of Kornilov’s failure to carry them out, it is known from Savinkov’s recollections that they were made on his own initiative.33 One was that General Krymov be replaced as commander of the Third Corps before its dispatch to Petrograd: Krymov’s “reputation,” in Savinkov’s opinion, could create “undesirable complications.” The other was that the Native Division be detached from the Third Corps on the grounds that it would be embarrassing to have Caucasian natives “liberate” the capital of Russia.
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