The Coalition Government forms

The Soviet leaders may not have wanted the power, but the ‘April Days’ – discussed in the last lesson - had shown, once again, that the real power in the capital lay not with the Provisional Government, but with the Soviet. Now it needed a leadership prepared to take it!

The lessons of the April events were absorbed by many workers and soldiers, but not so often by their soviet delegates. There was a mismatch between the votes in the Soviet at the end of the April Days and the changing views of the masses. Trotsky explains that even Soviet representation can lag behind the mood of the masses. It often takes major events like those of April to teach workers that their representative needs changing. It took a little time for delegates to be reselected, although this was now a process that many workers and Bolsheviks were calling for – as included in the Bolshevik C.C. resolution at the end of April discussed in the previous lesson.

However, the action of the masses had pushed the workers’ leaders further to the right. The Soviet E.C. united behind conservatives like Tseretelli, pushing more radical elements like Sukhanov to one side. In fact, the compromise between the Soviet E.C. and the bourgeoisie was forced to take its next logical step - that of forming a coalition government.

The ‘liberal’ capitalists had realised that their position was now too weak to be able to rule without the direct participation of the socialists. For weeks now, it had been clear in the provinces that the local soviets were really in charge of events, not the government commissars. The correlation of forces meant that the socialists were being forced against their will to take control of administration, fix prices, and make investigations and arrests and so on. Now, the Provisional Government’s impotence had also been revealed in Petrograd itself.

The bourgeoisie desperately needed the soviet leaders to assume some direct responsibility for events, to deflect some of the criticism away from the government, and also to hold back the workers.  The Allied embassies also exerted pressure for a Coalition government, hoping it would be able to call for an offensive on the Russian front. Such an attack would muddy the image of the revolution in the eyes of the British and French soldiers who were looking to it as a hope for peace. A delegation of Allied patriotic ‘socialists’ was sent to Russia to help Thomas in his treacherous work of convincing the Soviet of the need for war.

Nevertheless, a layer of the Soviet leaders, particularly the Mensheviks, tried to resist the pressure for coalition. This was not, of course, through a principled opposition to alliances with the bourgeoisie, but because they rightly feared that it would make it easier for the masses to lose their illusions about the dual power. However, Trotsky explains that, for now, those illusions were still there and that “the masses, in so far as they were not yet for the Bolsheviks, stood solid for the entrance of the socialists into the government. If it is a good thing to have Kerensky as a minister, then so much better six Kerenskys.” [Chapter Eighteen of Trotsky’s ‘History of the Russian Revolution’ ³⁶ ]

So, the joint pressure of both the masses and the bourgeoisie forced the E.C. leaders, after some hesitation, to accept the liberals’ invitation to join a Coalition government. On May 1^st, the E.C. voted in favour of the Coalition by 41 to 18, with just 3 abstentions. The 18 votes against came from the Bolsheviks and the small group of ‘Menshevik-Internationalists’: the left-Mensheviks around Martov.

To maintain face, the Compromisers demanded - as their price for coalition - that Miliukov's predatory foreign policy had to change. Guchkov had already resigned as War Minister of his own accord, but now, on May 2^nd, in order to save the bourgeoisie, Miliukov, its recognised leader, was also pushed out of the government, abandoned by the democrats, the Allies and his own Kadet Party. The soldiers’ demands of the ‘April Days’ for these two hated Ministers to resign had been achieved! Miliukov’s attempt to push the revolution into a civil war that would give the power back to the reaction had failed. But, since the Compromisers did not want to take the power, after the April crisis, the road of compromise and coalition was the only one left open.

The Petrograd Soviet formally endorsed the Coalition at is meeting on May 5^th, the day that Trotsky was finally able to arrive in Petrograd. He spoke in the debate warning “that the ‘double sovereignty’ is not destroyed, but 'merely transferred into the ministry’ ”, adding in conclusion, “three revolutionary articles of faith; do not trust the bourgeoisie; control the leaders; rely only on your own force.” [ Chapter Eighteen ³⁶ ]

Prince Lvov remained as Premier of the new Coalition Government, with Miliukov’s place as Minister of Foreign Affairs now taken by the millionaire, Tereschenko. The Compromisers managed to wriggle out of taking full responsibility by only accepting six out of the fifteen portfolios. Of the well-known leaders, the Social-Revolutionary Chernov became Minister of Agriculture, Kerensky the Minister of War, while Tseretelli took just the portfolio of Posts and Telegraphs, to leave himself time for the E.C.

Another Menshevik, Skobelev became Minister of Labour while, to give supposed balance, a big Moscow industrialist, Konovalov, became Minister of Trade and Industry. In fact, as discussed in the next lesson, Konovalov soon resigned, unable to alter the ailing economy in the direction of his bourgeois friends. Trotsky comments that Skobelev soon forgot his initial rhetoric against capitalist profit and settled down to the job of quelling strikes and restraining the workers!

As Trotsky explains: “in entering the Coalition, the Compromisers counted on a peaceful and gradual dissolution of the soviet system. They imagined that the power of the soviets, concentrated in their persons, would now flow over into the official government. The Coalition Government was ... to become a bridge to the bourgeois parliamentary republic.” [ Chapter Eighteen ³⁶ ]

However, in a period of revolution, this perspective was impossible. The soviets were not about to disappear, they were, despite their leaders, the fighting organisations of the oppressed classes with real power in society. So, for example, the new city dumas, although predominantly given Menshevik and SR majorities in the elections, were unable to take over from the soviets. Trotsky explains that these “municipal governments gave equal representation to all classes of the population, reduced to the abstraction of citizenship, and behaved in the revolutionary situation very much like a diplomatic conference expressing itself in qualified and hypocritical language while the hostile camps represented by it are feverishly preparing for battle.” [ Chapter Eighteen ³⁶ ]

Nevertheless, the Coalition Government was in no hurry to take the risk of setting up a parliamentary regime in which the Constituent Assembly would be dominated by non-bourgeois parties - as the elected city dumas already were. The discussions about the electoral law for the Assembly went on endlessly, deliberately never deciding on a date for elections.

The Offensive

While the masses discussed in the Soviets, and the right-wing organised in their own secret meetings, the Coalition Government continued as an impotent and hypocritical disguise for the dual power regime. The Declaration of the new government amounted to very little, its only definite intention being to prepare the army “for defensive and offensive activity to prevent the possible defeat of Russia and her Allies”. Buchanan, the British ambassador, wrote: “The Coalition Government in Russia is for us the last, and almost the only, hope for salvation of the military situation on that front.” Indeed, the Allied diplomats had every reason to be pleased with the efforts of Kerensky and Tseretelli to convince the army that an offensive was required. Kerensky toured the front, hypocritically telling the soldiers that: “You will carry on the points of your bayonets - peace” [ Chapter Eighteen ³⁶ ]

Gradually the E.C. became reconciled to supporting the offensive, formal support being given for it at the All-Russian Soviet Congress in early June. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, agitated boldly against both the offensive and the Coalition Government. Lenin, speaking at the June Congress, answered accusations that the Bolsheviks were in favour of a separate peace with Germany by saying: “We say: No separate peace, not with any capitalists, and least of all with the Russian capitalists. But the Provisional Government has made a separate peace with the Russian capitalists. Down with that separate peace!” [Chapter Nineteen of Trotsky’s ‘History of the Russian Revolution’ ³⁷ ]

Lenin explained through Pravda that the only way to arrive at a just peace was through a revolution -transferring power to the Soviets who could then make an appeal to the oppressed classes of other countries for peace without annexations and seizures. Workers could never believe such an appeal from a Provisional Government containing capitalists who, by their very nature, fight for robbery of lands and colonies. He explained that the questions of peace and socialism were tied to the international revolution. This might not seem an easy solution, but, as Lenin said in a speech on May 14^th: “Nothing but a workers’ revolution in several countries can defeat this war. The war is not a game, it is an appalling thing taking toll of millions of lives, and it is not to be ended easily.” [Lenin, ‘War and Revolution’ ³⁸ ]

But the dual power regime was unable to organise a strong military force at the front. Like the rest of society, the army was split on class lines - with its reactionary officer caste taken from the privileged classes and the mass of the soldiers from the oppressed classes. Trotsky explains how the soldiers’ committees, created by ‘Order No. 1’, (see Lesson Ten) were becoming filled with ‘Compromisers’ – but they were playing the same role as the soviet leadership in trying to blunt the soldiers’ revolutionary will.

However, the majority of the commanding staff found themselves unable to impose their will on the revolutionary soldiers. Trotsky notes, looking ahead to the later Civil War: “It was only possible either to take the commanding corps as it was from the nobility and the bourgeoisie, as the Whites did, or bring forward and train up a new one on the basis of proletarian recruiting, as did the Bolsheviks. The petty bourgeois democracy could do neither one thing nor the other. All they could do was to persuade, plead, and deceive everybody, and when nothing came out of it, turn over the power in despair to the reactionary officers.” [ Chapter Nineteen ³⁷ ]

Kerensky carried out endless pointless changes in the top commanders, hastening the breakdown of the army. Trotsky comments, “Compromisism in a time of revolution is a policy of feverish scurrying back and forth between classes. Kerensky was the incarnation of scurrying back and forth.  Placed at the head of an army, an institution unthinkable without a clear and concise regime, Kerensky became the immediate instrument of its disintegration.” [ Chapter Nineteen ³⁷ ]

The soldiers themselves didn’t want an offensive, and no threats from their commanders were about to change their minds – after all nothing could be a worse threat than death in the trenches. Trotsky relates how it seemed to the commanding staff that it only took one bold soldier to speak out and, such was the mood, a whole regiment could be convinced not to support the offensive. Many regiments declared that they would not fight.

A delegation of patriotic SR sailors from the Black Sea attempted to convince the northern front of the need for attack, but without success. On the other hand, a delegation from the Baltic fleet travelled south and persuaded the Sebastopol sailors to disarm their commanders!

The more the Compromisers in the soldiers’ committees attempted to convince the ranks of the offensive, the more their authority declined. A new note was sounded when “the commander of the 61st Regiment tried to frighten his soldiers with punishment at the hands of the government. One of the soldiers answered: ‘We overthrew the former government, we'll kick out Kerensky',” [ Chapter Nineteen ³⁷ ]

It was clear to the commanding staff that the offensive would be a failure. As Trotsky wrote, the government could not decide on “an immediate annulment of landlordship - that is, the sole measure which would convince the most backward peasant that this revolution is his revolution; in such material and spiritual conditions an offensive must inevitably have the character of an adventure.” (122).

The bourgeoisie, while loudly agitating for the war, actually refused to put their money where their mouths were and agree to finance it through the so-called ‘Liberty Loan’. Even some of the Allied commanders realised the Russian army was hopelessly split but still the Allies continued to push for the offensive, even threatening to stop military supplies if it did not start soon. After all, the offensive was being mounted for political reasons, not military ones, to turn the masses’ interests to war and against revolution. The officers clung on to the desperate hope that an attack- and perhaps even a few victories - would change the psychology of the ranks.

The offensive began on June 16^th on the south-western front, the other fronts intending to join in soon after. A few early successes against thin German defences did raise morale at first, the soldiers feeling that this would strengthen Russia’s negotiating position for peace. It also brought joy to the French stock-exchange, as the socialist newspapers happily announced.

Trotsky notes wryly: “Those socialists were trying to estimate the stability of the revolution by the stock-ticker. But history teaches that bourses feel better the worse it goes with revolutions”! He adds, “one of the companies refused even to toss a leaflet to the enemy announcing the capture of Galich, until a soldier could be found to translate the German text into Russian. In that it expressed the utter lack of confidence of the soldier mass in its ruling staff, both the old one and the February one.”

Predictably, however, after a few kilometres advance, the Germans began to push the Russian army back, retreats and desertions began and, with the last hopes of peace seemingly gone, the front collapsed. The planned advances on the other fronts in July never really even materialised.

The workers and garrison of Petrograd had never had any illusions in the offensive. The Vyborg Soviet, now completely dominated by the Bolsheviks, declared on June 24^th: “We … protest against the adventure of the Provisional Government, which is conducting an offensive for the old robber treaties ... and we lay the whole responsibility for this policy on the Provisional Government and the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary parties supporting it.” [ Chapter Nineteen ³⁷ ]

The offensive accelerated the turn of the soviets towards the Bolsheviks. The Petrograd Soviet adopted a resolution greeting the offensive on June 20^th, but by only 472 votes against 271, with 39 abstaining. Trotsky notes that “The Bolsheviks, together with the left groups of Mensheviks and S-R's, constitute already two-fifths of the Soviet. This means that in the factories and the barracks the opponents of the offensive are already an indubitable majority.” [ Chapter Nineteen ³⁷ ]

Trotsky describes how soldiers dragged patriotic bourgeois demonstrators off the Nevsky and threatened them with being sent to the front. A machine-gun regiment declared that it would go to the front “only when the war shall have a revolutionary character” and that if anyone tried to disband them, they would disband the Provisional Government! This threatening tone was a clear sign that the masses were shifting to the left.