After everyone wishing to do so had spoken out, Stalin read the resolution of the Central Committee conference in its entirety. A proposal that a committee be established to revise the resolution as a whole failed by a narrow margin of three votes, after which the resolution was considered point by point. Early in this phase of the discussion an unidentified delegate from the Vyborg District requested, to no avail, that the chair read Lenin's theses (this despite the fact that copies of both "The Political Situation" and "On Slogans" were in the possession of the chairman).37
As each point in the resolution was reached, one of the "Leninists," either Molotov, Slutsky, or Saveliev, rose to propose amendments in line with the theses. Either because defending the Central Committee resolution was uncomfortable for Stalin or because supporters of the resolution were dissatisfied with Stalin's earlier performance, Volodarsky rebutted these amendments. In response to a delegate's protest that Volodarsky had no right to the floor inasmuch as he had not been the main speaker, the chair ruled that Volodarsky "represents the conference at which the resolution was originally adopted." At one point in the torrid parliamentary battle over amendments, after Slutsky tried unsuccessfully to insert a clause in the resolution declaring that the counterrevolution had triumphed, Volodarsky blurted out in exasperation: "We are witnessing an attempt, at whatever the cost, to muscle through points that have already been rejected. The whole crux of our argument [i.e., with Lenin] is whether we are witnessing a temporary or a decisive victory of the counterrevolution." Retorted Saveliev: "I sense a flippant attitude toward Lenin's theses here."38
All told, Molotov, Slutsky, and Saveliev introduced some eighteen amendements to the resolution read by Stalin, all but one of which were rejected. As a result, in most respects the resolution that the conference ultimately passed was a copy of the one adopted by the Central Committee conference.
The bitterness that the controversy over a new tactical course engendered at this time was revealed in the voting. Twenty-eight delegates came out in favor of the resolution, with three against and twenty-eight abstentions. Justifying their abstentions, some delegates from the Moskovsky District explained that they were not voting because of the "inadequacy of the resolution." Molotov declared that he was abstaining because "at such a crucial time it is impossible to adopt a vague resolution." Finally, Viktor Nar- chuk, speaking for eleven delegates from the Vyborg District, explained that his group had decided to abstain because "the conference had not heard Lenin's theses and because the resolution was defended by someone other than the main speaker."39
The Bolshevik agency damaged most severely after the July uprising was undoubtedly the Military Organization. From the time of its formation, the Military Organization's chief purposes w ere to win the support of the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison and to organize them into a disciplined revolutionary force. By midsummer considerable progress had been made in regard to the first objective. Several thousand soldiers had joined either the Military Organization itself or Club Pravda, party cells had been established in most garrison units, and in several units Bolshevik influence was paramount. Plans formulated by the government in the wake of the July days to disarm and dissolve Bolshevized regiments that had been actively involved in the uprising were only partially realized; still, a high percentage of the party's most experienced and effective unit-level leaders were now jailed, the immensely popular Soldatskaia pravda was silenced, and links between the Military Organization's top leadership and the troops were temporarily severed. Bolsheviks were effectively excluded from military barracks and, generally speaking, the party's operations in the garrison were all but halted.
More markedly than in the case of workers, soldiers of the Petrograd garrison appear to have turned against the Bolsheviks after the July experience. This was probably in part because a relatively higher percentage of soldier-Bolsheviks were undisciplined, politically inexperienced newcomers whose loyalties to the party were tenuous. In addition, however strong their desire for peace, soldiers tended to be more patriotic than workers and were consequently more likely to be swayed by the charge that the Bolsheviks were working for the Germans. Then too, as suggested earlier, garrison soldiers hoped, not without foundation, that by repudiating the Bolsheviks they might avoid transfer to the front. For these reasons and probably for others as well, units of the garrison immediately after the July days often conducted their own political housecleaning, isolating known Bolsheviks from contact with troops and in some cases turning them in to the authorities.
On July 10, for example, at a meeting of soldiers' committees in the First Reserve Infantry Regiment, it was agreed to arrest leading Bolsheviks in the unit and to draw up a list of personnel guilty of making appeals for radical action, presumably for use by the government. A formal resolution that these committees adopted two days later declared that chief responsibility for the behavior of the First Reserve Infantry Regiment on July 4 rested with the Bolsheviks Vasilii Sakharov and Ivan and Gavril Osipov, and a soldier of unknown party affiliation, Eliazar Slavkin. The resolution accused the four of carrying on dangerous agitation and making inflammatory speeches that hypnotized the troops; moreover, on July 4 they had allegedly committed a uvile provocation" by erroneously reporting that mass action had been authorized by the Soviet.40
At the same time, garrison units anxious to clear themselves of charges of involvement in the July days adopted fervent pledges of support to the government and the Executive Committees. Typical of such resolutions was one adopted at a mass meeting of soldiers from the Litovsky Guards Regiment on July 9:
Having consciously refrained from taking part in the armed movement of July 3 and 4, we condemn this action as dangerous and shameful to the revolutionary cause. . . . We call on everyone to obey the firm will of the Executive Committees and the Provisional Government. . . . We appeal to our garrison comrades to join their powerful voices to our resolution, in so doing expressing the unified and conscious will of the garrison, which is directed toward defending liberty from attacks by German agents who are allied with counterrevolutionaries and who make use of the ignorance and backwardness of certain segments of the soldiers and worker masses.41
As if assaults by the authorities and harsh criticism by garrison soldiers were not enough, in mid-July the Military Organization was also forced to endure attacks from embittered elements within the Bolshevik Party itself. Among top Bolshevik officials, the value of maintaining a distinct military arm had been the subject of continued controversy from the time that Social Democratic military organizations were first formed after the 1905 revolution. Supporters of military organizations contended that regular military forces were a key factor in every modern revolution. Moreover, they argued that the situation and concerns of soldiers and sailors differed so markedly from those of civilian elements of the population that military organizations possessing a great degree of autonomy and independence were an absolute necessity if the former were to be won to the side of the revolution, making possible its success. On the other hand, critics of military organizations argued that the potential costs of such organs in terms of duplication of effort and loss of control far outweighed whatever benefits might be derived from them. It is not surprising, then, that the apparent involvement of the Bolshevik Military Organization in the preparation of the July uprising without authorization from the Central Committee intensified criticism of the organization; officials of the Petersburg Committee, as well as elements of the national party leadership, evidently took part in these attacks on the Military Organization.42