From October to Brest-Litovsk | Page 9

of August occurred the revolt of Korniloff; this was the
immediate result of the mobilization of the counter-revolutionary forces
to which a forceful impulse had been imparted by the attack of July
18th. At the celebrated Moscow Congress, which took place in the
middle of August, Kerensky attempted to take a middle ground
between the propertied elements and the democracy of the small
bourgeoisie. The Maximalists were on the whole considered as
standing beyond the bounds of the "legal." Kerensky threatened them
with blood and iron, which met with vehement applause from the
propertied half of the gathering, and treacherous silence on the part of
the bourgeois democracy. But the hysterical outcries and threats of
Kerensky did not satisfy the chiefs of the counter-revolutionary
interests. They had only too clearly observed the revolutionary tide
flooding every portion of the country, among the working class, in the
villages, in the army; and they considered it imperative to adopt
without any delay the most extreme measures to curb the masses. After
reaching an understanding with the property-owning bourgeoisie--who
saw in him their hero--Korniloff took it upon himself to accomplish
this hazardous task. Kerensky, Savinkoff, Filonenko and other
Socialist-Revolutionists of the government or semi-government class
participated in this conspiracy, but each and every one of them at a
certain stage of the altering circumstances betrayed Korniloff, for they

knew that in the case of his defeat, they would turn out to have been on
the wrong side of the fence. We lived through the events connected
with Korniloff, while we were in jail, and followed them in the
newspapers; the unhindered delivery of newspapers was the only
important respect in which the jails of Kerensky differed from those of
the old regime. The Cossack General's adventure miscarried; six
months of revolution had created in the consciousness of the masses
and in their organization a sufficient resistance against an open
counter-revolutionary attack. The conciliable Soviet parties were
terribly frightened at the prospect of the possible results of the
Korniloff conspiracy, which threatened to sweep away, not only the
Maximalists, but also the whole revolution, together with its governing
parties. The Social-Revolutionists and the Minimalists proceeded to
legalize the Maximalists--this, to be sure, only retrospectively and only
half-way, inasmuch as they scented possible dangers in the future. The
very same Kronstadt sailors--whom they had dubbed burglars and
counter-revolutionists in the days following the July uprising--were
summoned during the Korniloff danger to Petrograd for the defence of
the revolution. They came without a murmur, without a word of
reproach, without recalling the past, and occupied the most responsible
posts.
I had the fullest right to recall to Tseretelli these words which I had
addressed to him in May, when he was occupied in persecuting the
Kronstadt sailors: "When a counter-revolutionary general attempts to
throw the noose around the neck; of the revolution, the Cadets will
grease the rope with soap, while the Kronstadt sailors will come to
fight and die together with us."
The Soviet organizations had revealed everywhere, in the rear and at
the front, their vitality and their power in the struggle with the
Korniloff uprising. In almost no instance did things ever come to a
military conflict. The revolutionary masses ground into nothingness the
general's conspiracy. Just as the moderates in July found no soldiers
among the Petrograd garrison to fight against us, so now Korniloff
found no soldiers on the whole front to fight against the revolution. He
had acted by virtue of a delusion and the words of our propaganda
easily destroyed his designs.
According to information in the newspapers, I had expected a more

rapid unfolding of subsequent events in the direction of the passing of
the power into the hands of the Soviets. The growth of the influence
and power of the Maximalists became indubitable and had gained an
irresistable momentum. The Maximalists had warned against the
coalition, against the attack of the 18th of July, they predicted the
Korniloff affair--the masses of the people became convinced by
experience that we were right. During the most terrifying moments of
the Korniloff conspiracy, when the Caucasian division was approaching
Petrograd, the Petrograd Soviet was arming the workingmen with the
extorted consent of the authorities. Army divisions which had been
brought up against us had long since achieved their successful rebirth
in the stimulating atmosphere of Petrograd and were now altogether on
our side. The Korniloff uprising was destined to open definitely the
eyes of the army to the inadmissibility of any continued policy of
conciliation with the bourgeois counter-revolution. Hence it was
possible to expect that the crushing of the Korniloff uprising would
prove to be only an introduction to an immediate aggressive action on
the part of the revolutionary forces under the leadership of our party for
the purpose of seizing