It should be emphasized that the actions of the counterespionage bureau, the minister of justice, and later Aleksinsky and Pankratov were taken without the sanction of the full cabinet. As it turned out, at the time of the July uprising ministers Nekrasov, Tereshchenko, and Lvov felt strongly that while the Bolsheviks were indeed receiving money from the Germans, the evidence against Lenin then in the hands of the government was inconclusive, and that premature disclosure would prevent any possibility of ever substantiating it.35 During the evening of July 4 Lvov had personally appealed to all newspapers to withhold publication of the charges against Lenin.36 Of course, the information already passed to regimental representatives could not be prevented from spreading throughout the garrison. And the impact of the disseminated charges, together with rumors of massive troop movements from the front, was decisive. At 1:00 a.m., July 5, previously neutral regiments began marching to the Taurida Palace, where the Ail-Russian Executive Committees were in session, to proclaim their loyalty to the Soviet and the government. The immediate crisis having passed, the Executive Committees quickly adopted a resolution pledging support to what remained of the Provisional Government. The resolution also called for the convocation in two weeks of a meeting with representatives of provincial soviets for the purpose of reaching a final decision regarding the composition of a future cabinet and the question of establishing a soviet government.37
These developments late on July 4—that is, the dispatch of loyal troops from the front and the abrupt shift in the mood of a number of garrison regiments—were, of course, fully as damaging for the Bolshevik cause as they were providential for the Provisional Government. By late evening, the effect of both factors on the mood of previously passive garrison units was already becoming apparent. In these circumstances there wasn't time even to gauge the mood of the provinces. At two or three o'clock in the morning, July 5, a gathering of Central Committee members took stock of the developing situation and resolved to call on workers and soldiers to terminate the street demonstrations.
The party's retreat was made public in an unobtrusive back-page announcement in Pravda on July 5. "It has been decided to end the demonstrations," the announcement explained, "because the goal of presenting the slogans of the leading elements of the working class and the army has been achieved." This explanation was transparently false; the goal of the radical elements in the Petrograd garrison and of the Bolshevik extremists who had triggered the July uprising in the first place had been the overthrow of the Provisional Government. In belatedly supporting the movement, most party leaders probably held out the hope that the pressure of the streets would be enough to force the All-Russian Executive Committees to take power into their own hands. As it turned out, neither the extremists' aims nor the more limited hopes of party moderates were realized. The impatient workers, soldiers, and sailors of Petrograd who until now had flocked behind the Bolsheviks emerged from the July experience compromised and, temporarily at least, demoralized. At the same time the resolve of the government, of all moderate and conservative political groups, and of the well- to-do classes generally, to restore order at whatever cost and to have done with extremists once and for all was greatly intensified. Whether this defeat for the left would be decisive remained to be seen. In the meantime, isolated and exposed, the Bolsheviks were forced to turn to the unenviable task of somehow explaining their role in the unsuccessful insurrection, defending themselves against treason charges, and generally protecting themselves from the inevitable onslaught of reaction.
THE BOLSHEVIKS UNDER FIRE
T
he attack on the Bolshevik Party in the wake of the July days was launched by Zhivoe slovo, a reactionary, scandalmongering boulevard newspaper aptly characterized by Lenin as a "yellow, base, dirty little rag."1 Zhivoe slovo stood for law, order, and strong rule at home, and unrelenting war to total victory against the Central Powers. It regarded as archenemies socialists generally and the extremist Bolsheviks in particular. One can easily imagine with what glee Zhivoe slovo's editors received the Aleksinsky-Pankratov charges on the evening of July 4. Interpreting subsequent efforts by Prince Lvov and others to delay their publication as proof that radicals in the highest levels of government were part of the nefarious plot to sell out Russia to the foreign foe, they published the sensational statement in full on the morning of July 5, prefaced by a front-page banner headline: "Lenin, Ganetsky, and Kozlovsky German Spies!" (lakov Ganetsky and Mechislav Kozlovsky were Bolsheviks through whom German money had allegedly been funneled to the party.)
The Bolsheviks promptly protested. A short note in Pravda on July 5, written even before Zhivoe slovo reached the streets, warned readers that hostile circles might be planning a campaign to slander the Bolshevik leadership. Immediately after the appearance of the Aleksinsky-Pankratov statement, Lenin dashed off several scathing newspaper essays vehemently denying the charges against him and attempting to rebut them.2 Simultaneously, other top Bolshevik leaders implored Soviet officials to protect them from being crucified by the press. In response, the Central Executive Committee issued an appeal urging the public to refrain from commenting on the accusations against the Bolsheviks until a special committee of inquiry to be set up by the Soviet had had time to conduct a thorough investigation.3 Once Zhivoe slovo had opened the floodgates, however, neither the protests of the Bolsheviks nor the entreaties of Soviet leaders
Cartoon from Petrogradskaia gazeta, July 7, 1917, labeled "A High Post for the Leaders of the Rebellion." The caption reads: "Lenin wants a high post? . . . Well? A position is ready for him!!!" (An exact copy, redrawn for this volume.)
could prevent the eruption of an ugly scandal concerning the Bolsheviks' alleged German ties. By midday on July 5 Petrograd buzzed with rumors that "Lenin is a provocateur." The statement by Aleksinsky and Pankratov was immediately reproduced as a leaflet and within hours copies were being handed out by the hundreds on street corners. By the next day many Petrograd newspapers were treating the charges as established fact and openly competing with one another to produce sensational accounts of Bolshevik treachery.
Newspaper headlines on July 6 and 7 convey the ferocity of this campaign. "A Second and Great Azevshchina," proclaimed a headline in the rightist Malenkaia gazeta, its editor recalling the scandal that had rocked the Russian revolutionary movement in 1908 when it was revealed that the Socialist Revolutionary Party leader Evno Azev was working for the police. The editor of a popular nonparty daily, Petrogradskii listok, did not dig as far back for his headline. "Horrors!" he captioned his story in reference to July 4, when both the government and the Soviet were at the mercy of rioting workers and soldiers. "Petrograd was seized by the Germans."
Accusations against the Bolsheviks made on July 9 by the venerable Georgii Plekhanov, father of the Russian social democratic movement and editor of the newspaper Edinstvo, were no less explicit.4 In response to a government telegram published the previous day, which declared, "It has been definitely established that German agents took part in organizing the July disturbances," Plekhanov observed: "If the government is convinced of this, the riots cannot be treated as if they were merely the regrettable result of tactical confusion. . . . Apparently, the disruptions . . . were an integral part of a plan formulated by the foreign enemy to destroy Russia. Therefore stamping them out must be a constituent part of any plan for Russia's national defense." Concluded Plekhanov: "The revolution must crush everything in its way immediately, decisively, and mercilessly."