Martov went on to read a Menshevik-Internationalist declaration expressing the view that the Provisional Government's foreign and domestic policies, because they were neither consistent nor sufficiently revolutionary, had contributed significantly to the crisis facing Russia. The declaration concluded that the revolutionary democracy (i.e., the whole spectrum of democratic institutions and socialist parties) could save the country and the revolution only if the divisions that had already appeared in its ranks were not exacerbated, if all the powers of a revolutionary government were concentrated on combating the mounting threat of counterrevolution, and if decisive steps toward reform could convince the army that in rebuffing the enemy it was shedding blood for land, freedom, and an early peace.14 A few days later, at a plenary session of the Executive Committees on July 17, after the Kadets had made plain their terms for entry into the government, Martov insisted that the soviets had no choice but to assume full governmental power. "Either the revolutionary democracy will take responsibility for the revolution upon itself," he declared, "or it will lose the ability to influence the revolution's fate."15
Events would soon show that Martov's vision of a revolutionary soviet government uniting all socialist elements, carrying out a broad program of reform, vigorously challenging the counterrevolution, and striving in every way to arrange an immediate compromise peace corresponded quite closely to the aspirations of the politically conscious Petrograd masses. We shall see, for example, that precisely these goals were expressed in the discussions and resolutions of most district-level soviets in the aftermath of the July days. Within the SR-Menshevik leadership at this time, however, Martov's views were shared by a relatively small minority. Discussion of political issues at the Executive Committees plenum on July 17 culminated in an endorsement of the position adopted by the Executive Committees on July 9.16
In view of the commitment of most Mensheviks and SRs to the Provisional Government and to coalition politics, it is not surprising that in negotiations to form a new cabinet the moderate socialists ultimately gave up considerable ground to the Kadets. These negotiations took place on July 21 and 22, after Kerensky, frustrated in his previous efforts to create a new government, abruptly tendered his resignation, which the remaining ministers refused to accept. Instead, they met with representatives of the various competing political parties, central Soviet organs, and Provisional Committee of the State Duma and agreed to give Kerensky complete freedom in forming a government. Armed with this mandate, Kerensky proceeded at this point to engage ministers on a nonrepresentative basis. Under this mutually acceptable arrangement, cabinet members would not act as representatives of their respective parties and socialist ministers would no longer be formally responsible to the Soviet. Although individual ministers might support the declaration of July 8, the cabinet as a whole would not be pledged to it. In practice this meant that the Soviet's leverage over the government was further reduced, while the principles put forward by the socialists, even in the scaled-down version of July 8, were no longer a part of the government's program.
On this basis, the second coalition, headed by Kerensky and composed of eight socialists and seven liberals, came into being. The most influential figures in the new cabinet were Kerensky (in addition to becoming prime minister, he retained the War and Naval Ministry) and two of his close associates, Nikolai Nekrasov (deputy prime minister and minister of finance) and Tereshchenko (foreign affairs). To almost everyone's surprise, Chernov managed to remain the minister of agriculture. Among those missing from the new cabinet was Tsereteli; in ill health and overwhelmingly tired of cabinet politics, he now opted to concentrate his energies on the affairs of the Soviet.17
The government crackdown on the Bolsheviks began very early on the morning of July 5 with the dispatch of a large detachment of military school cadets to raid the Pravda editorial offices and printing plant. The cadets arrived at their destination only a little too late to catch Lenin, who had left the premises moments earlier. A few members of the Pravda staff were beaten up and arrested during the raid. The cadets made a thorough search of the press, in the course of which they wrecked furniture and equipment and dumped bales of freshly printed newspapers into the nearby Moika Canal. Featured accounts of this episode in many Petrograd newspapers the next day triumphantly disclosed that the cadets had turned up a letter in German from a German baron; the letter was said to have hailed Bolshevik activity and expressed the hope that the party would acquire predominant influence in Petrograd. "German Correspondence Found" was the way a headline in Malenkaia gazeta summed up this discovery.18
On July 4 the cabinet specifically authorized the command of the Petrograd Military District to remove the Bolsheviks from the Kshesinskaia mansion. Before dawn on July 6 a full-scale attack force commanded by A. I. Kuzmin and composed of the Petrogradsky Regiment; eight armored cars; one company each from the Preobrazhensky, Semenovsky, and Vol- ynsky guards regiments; a detachment of sailors from the Black Sea Fleet; some cadet detachments; students from the Aviation Academy; and a front-line bicycle brigade—all supported by heavy artillery—prepared to storm the Bolshevik headquarters. Warned of the impending attack, some second-level party leaders at the mansion seriously contemplated resistance and even began preparations in this regard. But in the end it was recognized that the situation was hopeless, and the Bolsheviks made a successful dash to the Peter and Paul Fortress, then still occupied by friendly forces.19
In the Kshesinskaia mansion, Kuzmin's troops seized a substantial quantity of arms and arrested seven Bolsheviks who were working frantically to complete the evacuation of party files. Moreover, they discovered in an attic some pogromist Black Hundred leaflets, evidently left there in tsarist times. (The Black Hundreds were extreme rightist groups that organized pogroms in late tsarist Russia.) To Petrogradskaia gazeta, this find indicated that the Bolsheviks were in league with the extreme right, as well as with the Germans. A headline in the paper on July 7 read: "Lenin, William II, and Dr. Dubrovin [a notorious member of the extreme right] Working Together! It Is Proved the Leninists Organized the Uprising in Association with the Black Hundreds!"