After the
failure of the July
Offensive
on the Eastern
Front,
the Russian prime minister, Alexander Kerensky
replaced General Alexei
Brusilov
with General Lavr Kornilov, as Supreme
Commander of the Russian
Army.
The two men soon clashed about military policy. Kornilov wanted Kerensky
to restore the death-penalty for soldiers and to militarize the factories.
On 7th
September, Kornoilov demanded the resignation of the Cabinet and the
surrender of all military and civil authority to the Commander in
Chief. Kerensky responded by dismissing Kornilov from office and ordering
him back to Petrograd.
Kornilov
now sent troops under the leadership of General Krymov to take control
of Petrograd. Kerensky was now in danger and so he called on the Soviets
and the Red Guards to protect Petrograd.
The Bolsheviks, who controlled these
organizations, agreed to this request, but in a speech made by their
leader, Vladimir Lenin, he made clear they
would be fighting against Kornilov rather than for Kerensky.
Within
a few days Bolsheviks had enlisted
25,000 armed recruits to defend Petrograd. While they dug trenches
and fortified the city, delegations of soldiers were sent out to talk
to the advancing troops. Meetings were held and Kornilov's troops
decided to refuse to attack Petrograd. General Krymov committed suicide
and Kornilov was arrested and taken into custody.
(1)
In his book My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution, Morgan
Philips Price described Kornilov making a speech in Moscow on
25th August, 1917.
A wiry
little little man with strong Tartar features. He wore a general's
full-dress uniform with a sword and red-striped trousers. His speech
was begun in a blunt soldierly manner by a declaration that he had
nothing to do with politics. He had come there, he said, to tell the
truth about the condition of the Russian army. Discipline had simply
ceased to exist. The army was becoming nothing more than a rabble.
Soldiers stole the property, not only of the State, but also of private
citizens, and scoured the country plundering and terrorizing. The
Russian army was becoming a greater danger to the peaceful population
of the western provinces than any invading German army could be.
(2)
Harold Williams, Daily
Chronicle (29th September, 1917)
The Kornilov
Affair has intensified mutual distrust and completed the work of destruction.
The Government is shadowy and unreal, and what personality it had
has disappeared before the menace of the Democratic Assembly. Whatever
power there is again concentrated in the hands of the Soviets, and,
as always happens when the Soviets secure a monopoly of power, the
influence of the Bolsheviks has increased enormously. Kerensky has
returned from Headquarters, but his prestige has declined, and he
is not actively supported either by the right or by the left.
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