Why it took so long to indict Bolsheviks arrested after the July uprising and why not one was tried are complex questions. There is, first of all, the problem of why the government did not actively prosecute cases in connection with the German-agent charges. Several related factors may have been responsible for this. Though it is now7 evident that funds from German sources were funneled to the Bolsheviks during the revolutionary period, we know that at the time of the July uprising, the government's case was far from complete. Then, too, Lenin—the central figure in the alleged conspiracy—was never caught. Many of those arrested after the July days were picked up and imprisoned merely for a loose word; prosecuting them could have led only to embarrassment for the government.
Charges of complicity in organizing an insurrection leveled against many jailed lower-level Bolshevik leaders, particularly those from the Military Organization, were based on significantly more solid grounds; published portions of the official inquiry into the background and development of the July uprising indicate that the government had gathered a good deal of persuasive evidence of the significant role played by activists from the Military Organization and the Petersburg Committee in its organization and expansion.7 Why some of these people were not speedily brought to trial is a real puzzle. Part of the explanation may be that their cases became swamped among the many more altogether flimsy ones being pursued at the same time. In addition, many of those Bolsheviks whose important roles in organizing the July uprising could be established most definitely were also accused of the much more difficult to substantiate charge of having conspired with the Germans. No doubt this affected the disposition of their cases.
More fundamentally, what the available evidence reveals most clearly is that the harassed Provisional Government, only five months old, was simply ill-equipped to deal effectively with a judicial problem of this nature and magnitude. In the aftermath of the February days, institutions and procedures had been established to investigate and prosecute officials of the old regime. Not until after the July days, however, was the Provisional Government forced to address itself to the problem of handling a major popular rebellion—appropriate procedures had to be established on a piecemeal, ad hoc basis. Within the cabinet, differences of opinion regarding which statutes of the tsarist criminal code were applicable to the existing situation caused delays. Moreover, while the government had the good judgment to concentrate overall responsibility for investigating and prosecuting accused insurgents in the hands of a single authority (N. S. Karinsky, prosecutor of the Petrograd court of appeals), several subordinate military and civil agencies were also necessarily involved. Coordination between these agencies was either very poor or nonexistent; this caused further confusion and delay.
Then, too, it is well to remember that in the aftermath of the July days, the work of the Provisional Government and of its individual departments was especially disorganized. In retrospect, it is obvious that the government's most crucial problem, if it was to survive, was somehow to ease mass unrest and to deal decisively with the extreme left. But to the harried men of the Provisional Government, this was by no means apparent. As we have seen, from July 2, when the first coalition collapsed, until July 2 3, when Kerensky finally succeeded in putting together a full cabinet, Russia was without a properly functioning government. It appeared that the Bolsheviks were permanently suppressed and most of Kerensky's time was understandably taken up by political discussions aimed at forming a new coalition and planning for the stabilization of the front. After all-night negotiating sessions in the Winter Palace, Kerensky would leave Petrograd for Mogilev, Pskov, or some other front-line location to consult with his military commanders.
During this period individual ministers were shuffled from cabinet post to cabinet post like cards in a deck. This was the case in the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Justice, the departments most intimately involved in proceedings relating to the "affair of July 3-5." After Lvov's resignation on July 8, Tsereteli became interior minister; on July 24, he was replaced by Nikolai Avksentiev, who served until the end of August, when he, too, stepped down. At the Ministry of Justice, Ivan Efremov replaced the departed Pereverzev on July 11. In the cabinet announced on July 23, Alexander Zarudny became minister of justice; Zarudny was replaced by Pavel Maliantovich on September 25. The result of these continual ministerial changes was chaos; it could not have been otherwise.
Meanwhile, public demands to do something about imprisoned leftists mounted—from liberals and conservatives, anxious to expose the Bolsheviks fully and without delay, and from socialists, equally determined that the Bolsheviks be either properly indicted and tried or set free. Evidently in the hope of silencing these critics, Karinsky on July 21 released a report on the progress of his inquiry. This report assigned exclusive blame for stimulating, organizing, and directing the July uprising to the Bolsheviks. As regards charges of espionage against the party, the report concluded that, among others, Lenin, Zinoviev, Kollontai, Sakharov, Raskolnikov, and
Kerensky departing for the front.
Roshal had entered into an agreement with Russia's enemies uto assist in the disorganization of the Russian army and the rear . . . ; for this purpose, with the money received from these states they organized an armed insurrection against the existing order."8 In his report, Karinsky provided only the weakest circumstantial evidence to support these charges, making frequent allusions to more substantial proof which could not then be made public. Predictably, the report triggered an outcry from the left. As Novaia zhizri' put it: "It is difficult to understand why instead of an objective account of what happened we get what amounts to an indictment. . . . The conclusions do not follow from the premises. . . . The portions of the report dealing with treason are so ambiguous and superficial, it is staggering to think that they could have been released by the prosecuting authority."9
In view of the tendentious nature of Karinsky's report, Martov recommended to the Central Executive Committee that the government be prevailed upon to permit arrested leftists to defend themselves during investigative proceedings. He also urged that an attempt be made to have representatives of the Central Executive Committee included in the government's commission of inquiry. A measure of the great upset triggered by Karinsky's action is the fact that despite dislike for the Bolsheviks and fundamental loyalty to the government, a majority of committee members immediately accepted both recommendations. They also adopted a public statement in which they strongly protested the publication of materials from the preliminary investigation of the July 3-5 cases before the completion of the investigation and condemned "this clear violation of the law" as an ominous sign that the new court system had inherited the worst features of the old tsarist courts. Meanwhile, many of the jailed Bolsheviks had yet even to be formally questioned, and to workers and soldiers their plight became a cause celebre. Whatever opportunity may have existed in the immediate aftermath of the July days to decisively scandalize the Bolsheviks and their cause quickly passed, and the government was forced gradually to release those Bolsheviks in its hands.