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Updated: June 2, 2025
A republic was proclaimed on the 15th, and the government entrusted to a council of five with Kerensky at its head. It lived no longer than its numerous predecessors in the revolution. Kerensky was rash enough to renew his breach with the Bolsheviks who had helped him to ruin Kornilov, and in November they rent the man of words. Trotzky organized the blow.
Kerensky now took fright at the bugbear of a military restoration, denounced Kornilov as a traitor, and threw himself on the support of the Soviets. The cry that the revolution was in danger ruined Kornilov's chances; his surrender was arranged by Alexeiev's mediation, while Krymov committed suicide. Such were Russian politics during the week in which the Germans overran the Dvina.
Such was the rôle of different persons in this story. It is only later, when all the documents will be shown, that the story can be verified, but at all events it is beyond doubt that the Revolutionary Socialist party was in no wise mixed in this conspiracy. The conspiracy of Kornilov completely freed the hands of the Bolsheviki.
Detachments of volunteers and of soldiers were directed toward the locality where Kornilov was, to get information and to organize a propaganda among the troops that followed the General, and in case of failure to fight hand to hand. As they quit in the morning they did not know how things would turn; they were rather pessimistic with regard to the issue of the insurrection for the Socialists.
In the midst of these speeches Kornilov declared the Congress dissolved; to this Comrade Ovtchinnikov, president of the Conference, replied that the Congress would not be dissolved except by force, and, besides, that the document read by Kornilov did not authorize him to pronounce its dissolution.
They spoke loudly for a counter-revolution and for counter-revolutionaries who await but the propitious moment to take hold of the government, while in reality the complete failure of the insurrection of Kornilov showed that the counter-revolution could rest on nothing, that there was no place for it then in the life of Russia.
In the early part of the month the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' became more and more radical in its demands, both as to the share it was to have in the control of the army and as to the disciplinary measures under which soldiers were to live. So serious became the crisis that Minister of War General Gutchkov, as well as Generals Kornilov, Brussilov, and Gurko resigned their commands.
The Bolsheviki alone, said its organs, had saved the Revolution; to them alone was due the failure of the Kornilov insurrection. The Bolsheviki agitation assumed large proportions. Copies of the Pravda, spread lavishly here and there, were poisoned with calumny, campaigns against the other parties, boasting gross flatteries addressed to the soldiers and appeals to trouble.
The human torrent rushed along its corridors, committees and commissions sat in its side apartments. They asked one another what was happening, what was to be done. News succeeded news. One thing was certain. Petrograd was not prepared for the fight. It was not protected by anything, and the Cossacks who followed Kornilov could easily take it.
Cossack rebellions under Kaledin and Kornilov broke out on the Don and under Dutoff in the Urals; and Scherbachev collected a mixed anti-Bolshevik force on the borders of the Ukraine. But peace negotiations began between the Germans and Bolsheviks at Brest-Litovsk on the 22nd. The plausible German Foreign Secretary, Von Kühlmann, presided, and Austria was represented by Count Czernin.
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