In the early afternoon of July 6 government troops reoccupied the Peter and Paul Fortress, one of the last strongholds of leftist resistance. By then, several of the military units dispatched from the northern front had reached the capital. The bicyclists, an armored car division, and the second squadron of the Little-Russian Dragoons had arrived in the morning, in time to participate in the taking of the Kshesinskaia mansion and the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Fourteenth Mistavsky Hussar Regiment, in full battle dress, reached Petrograd in the early evening. Preceded by standard-bearers holding aloft a red banner with the legend "We Have Come to Support the All-Russian Executive Committees of Soldiers', Workers', and Peasants' Deputies," the regiment marched off to the General Staff building to report to the government.20 The minister of agriculture, Viktor Chernov, welcomed some of the troops on the Palace Square. "It makes me sad to speak of why you have come," he said. "But I believe this will be your first and last such visit. . . . We hope and believe that [in the future] no one will dare act contrary to the will of the majority of the revolutionary democracy."21
Between July 6 and 12 the cabinet issued a series of hastily formulated directives aimed at restoring order and punishing political troublemakers. At a marathon session the night of July 6-7 it was decreed that "all organizers and leaders of the armed movement against the government established by the people and all those making appeals and instigations in support of it should be arrested and brought to trial as traitors to their nation and the revolution."22 Simultaneously, the government published new penal regulations which included the following: (1) Anyone guilty of making public appeals for murder, plundering, robbery, pogroms, and other heinous crimes, as well as for violence against any part of the population, is to be punished by confinement in a prison or fortress for no longer than three years; (2) those guilty of making public appeals for disobedience of lawful government directives are to be punished by confinement in a fortress for not more than three years or by incarceration in a prison; anyone guilty of inciting officers, soldiers, and other military personnel to disobey the laws in effect under the new democratic system in the army, or the directives of military authorities consistent with them, is to be punished according to regulations pertaining to acts of treason.23
Kerensky, named prime minister on July 7, had not been in Petrograd at the height of the July days, having left the capital for a tour of the front late on the afternoon of July 3. While at the front, he had received detailed reports on the developing crisis in the capital. In response, he shot off a
telegram to Lvov demanding that "traitorous actions be decisively suppressed, insurgent units disarmed, and all instigators of insurrections and mutineers brought to trial."24 While at the front, moreover, Kerensky was shown the latest issue of Tovarishch, a Russian-language propaganda weekly published by the Germans for circulation among enemy troops. An article in this issue suggested to Kerensky that the Germans had known in advance of the insurrection in the capital; naturally, this reinforced his belief that Lenin was a German agent.25
Incensed to the point of distraction, Kerensky boarded a train to return to the capital on the morning of July 6; at the railway depot in Polotsk, the carriage in which he was sleeping was partially wrecked by a bomb.26 Although physically unharmed, Kerensky was understandably unnerved by the incident. It is not surprising that, upon his arrival in Petrograd on the evening of July 6, he was fuming and champing at the bit to have done with the Bolsheviks. From this time on, Kerensky stood at the forefront of cabinet ministers speaking out for a tough policy toward the extreme left. Addressing a crowd of soldiers and workers from a windowsill of the General Staff building a short while later (as two officers held his legs to prevent a fall), he pronounced: "I will not allow anyone to encroach upon the triumphs of the Russian revolution." With voice rising to fever pitch, he shouted: "Damnation to those traitors who abandon their brothers who are shedding blood at the front. Let those who betray their country in its days of trial be damned!"27 In an interview with the Associated Press several days later, after he had been officially installed as prime minister, Kerensky declared with equal vigor: "[Our] fundamental task is the defense of the country from ruin and anarchy. My government will save Russia, and if the motives of reason, honor, and conscience prove inadequate, it will beat her into unity with blood and iron."28
First and foremost, the July insurrection was, of course, a garrison mutiny. At its July 6-7 session, the cabinet ordered that nonmilitary units participating in the July uprising be disarmed and dissolved, their personnel to be transferred at the discretion of the war and naval ministers. A detailed plan supplementing this order bore Kerensky's handwritten notation: "Agreed, but I demand that this be carried out forcefully, without deviation." About the same time, Kerensky issued a strong condemnation of the Kronstadt sailors, implying that they were acting under the influence of "German agents and provocateurs." All commands and ships of the fleet were ordered to turn over to the authorities in Petrograd for investigation and trial "all suspicious persons calling for disobedience to the government and agitating against the offensive."29
Steps aimed at halting the disintegration of the army at the front were also initiated at this time. Thus military commanders were authorized to fire on Russian units fleeing the field of battle on their own. Bolshevik
Soldiers of the First Machine Gun Regiment after being disarmed on July 8, 1917.
newspapers were banned from all theaters of military operations. Political meetings among front troops were strictly forbidden. Most significant, the government decreed the reinstitution of capital punishment for military offenses in the battle zones, simultaneously authorizing the creation of ad hoc "military revolutionary" courts with authority to impose the death sentence.30
To prevent rebel workers and sailors caught in the central sections of Petrograd from fleeing to the comparative safety of the left-bank factory districts, the drawbridges over the Neva were kept open. At the same time, the country's borders were sealed, to keep "German agents" from escaping abroad. Street assemblies were temporarily banned. The ministers of war and of the interior were empowered to shut down newspapers encouraging disobedience of military authorities or appealing for violence; by virtue of this order, the Bolshevik papers Pravda, Soldatskaia pravda, Okopnaia pravda, and Golos pravdy were closed. In a move obviously directed primarily toward disarming workers, all civilians in the capital were ordered to turn over to the government all weapons and military supplies in their possession; failure to hand over arms was to be considered theft of public property and prosecuted accordingly.31
On July 7 the cabinet made N. S. Karinsky, prosecutor of the Petrograd court of appeals, responsible for investigating all matters relating to the organization of the July uprising; in view of this, the All-Russian Executive Committees agreed to drop the Soviet's planned independent inquiry into the insurrection.32 Even before the prosecutor's office was able to launch its investigation, however, the authorities in Petrograd had begun rounding up key Bolsheviks. The cabinet specifically ordered the arrest and detention of