At its meeting on July 17, responding to scores of alarming reports of counterrevolutionary "excesses" in every district, the Interdistrict Conference adopted a resolution declaring that unmistakable indications of "an enlivened, actively organizing counterrevolutionary movement" had been reflected in the events of July 3-5 and the immediately succeeding days. The resolution called on the Petrograd Soviet to display energy and firmness in exposing counterrevolutionary cells and to insist that the government take decisive steps to combat the counterrevolution. It also demanded, among other things, a full investigation of all improper raids and arrests and the immediate release of political prisoners against whom substantial charges had not yet been made.73
One can easily imagine the dismay of district soviet deputies two days later upon reading detailed press accounts of the Duma Provisional Committee's sensational meeting of July 18. At an emergency session of the Interdistrict Conference on July 21 every deputy taking the floor insisted on the immediate dissolution of the Provisional Committee. Indeed, several speakers advocated immediate, concrete measures to insure that this was accomplished. A spokesman for the Rozhdestvensky District Soviet, for one, proposed that the conference march en masse to the Taurida Palace in order to make their views known to the Central Executive Committee; this suggestion was accepted with the proviso that in addition to demanding the dissolution of the Duma, the district soviet deputies also insist on the restoration of full rights to democratic committees in the army, the rehabilitation of the leftist press, the halting of attempts to disarm workers, the immediate release of all political prisoners not yet charged with specific violations of the law, the prosecution of Purishkevich and Maslenikov, rescission of the
policy of breaking up regiments of the Petrograd garrison, and the immediate abolition of capital punishment at the front.74
At the same time, individual district soviets responded to the pleas of Purishkevich and Maslenikov for "liberal use of the noose" against the left with protest declarations of their own. Typical of these public statements was the following one passed by unanimous vote in the Vyborg District Soviet:
The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of the Vyborg District, having learned of the private meeting of members of the former State Duma and of their emergence on the national political arena, considers that the Duma, as an institution of the old autocratic system, ... is subject to immediate dissolution. The soviet insists that the Provisional Government issue a decree dissolving this counterrevolutionary institution and categorically protests against the Black Hundred Duma members who had the audacity to stand up and refer to revolutionary organs as a handful of fanatics, transients, and traitors. . . . The soviet demands a decisive struggle against counterrevolutionary elements and, in particular, against former members of the State Duma and believes that they should be made to stand trial for insulting the entire democracy, represented by the soviet.75
Significantly, by the end of July even relatively moderate district soviets were more concerned with consolidating all leftist groups, including the Bolshevik Party, in defense of the revolution than with penalizing the Bolsheviks for their behavior weeks earlier. To formerly hostile deputies in the district soviets, the Bolsheviks now appeared as simply the left flank of the revolution, which was threatened with destruction.
This spirit of letting bygones be bygones, and alarm in the face of the counterrevolution, emerged at the Interdistrict Conference's emergency meeting of July 21. In a stirring appeal for the unification of all democratic forces to combat the advancing counterrevolution, Viktor Rappaport, a Menshevik-Internationalist, voiced the view that while the counterrevolution had begun with attacks on the Bolsheviks, blows against leftist groups close to the Bolsheviks could also be expected. "The counterrevolution is mobilizing," Rappaport declared, "and we cannot afford to dissipate our resources."
Judging by their subsequent comments, most of the assembled district soviet spokesmen shared this sentiment. A three-man committee, including one member of the Interdistrict Committee (Manuilsky) and two Menshevik-Internationalists (Gorin and Rappaport) was appointed to draw up a declaration on the counterrevolution and the existing political situation for consideration by each district soviet and, ultimately, for transmittal to the Central Executive Committee. In the document drawn up by this committee (the Interdistrict Conference's first public statement on broad
national issues), the July uprising was characterized as "a spontaneous act of military units and workers," the direct result of the political crisis partly caused by the Kadets. According to the declaration, the counterrevolution had utilized the events of July 3-4 for an open assault on the revolutionary democracy in general and its left flank in particular. Meanwhile, the post-July days persecution of the Bolsheviks had divided the forces of the revolution, isolating its left flank. The breakup of regiments loyal to the revolution, mass arrests, the destruction of the labor press had all served simply to weaken the revolutionary democracy. Expressing the opinion that another coalition government would lead only to a deepening of the existing political crisis and would open the doors more widely to the advancing counterrevolution, the declaration concluded that only a strong revolutionary government, composed exclusively of elements from the revolutionary democracy and conducting internal and foreign policies according to the program outlined by the Congress of Soviets, could save Russia and the revolution.76
Reflected in this declaration was the desire, articulated by Martov in the Executive Committees at this time, to unite all genuinely revolutionary elements in an exclusively socialist, soviet government which would combat the counterrevolution, pursue a meaningful reform program, and work for an immediate peace. This strong impulse to band together in defense of the revolution was also vividly expressed in a resolution, supported by the Bolsheviks and passed on August 1, by deputies of the Narva District Soviet:
In view of the extreme dangers threatening our country from both within and without, we . . . believe that disorganization in the ranks of the revolutionary democracy ... is intolerable and harmful. Furthermore, we believe that all political groupings and multifarious shades of opinion come from "above." The majority of those "below" don't understand, don't know, indeed can't even comprehend ... all of their disputes. We appeal ... to all who are participating in the common revolutionary struggle and who value our newly won freedom ... to respond to our call. We recommend that they rally around the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies as the highest organ of the democracy. We propose that those above find a common language so that united we can struggle against the enemies of the revolution.77
THE BOLSHEVIK RESURGENCE
O
n the night of July 26, in a spacious private assembly hall in the heart of the Vyborg District, some 150 Bolshevik leaders from all over Russia gathered for the opening of the party's long-awaited Sixth Congress.1 This national assembly of Bolshevik officials began with the election of Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Kollontai, and Lunacharsky to the posts of honorary congress co-chairmen and ended, fifteen sessions and eight days later, with the singing of the "Internationale." In the interim, the delegates listened to formal greetings and statements of encouragement from the Petrograd Trade Union Soviet, the American Socialist Workers' Party, "jailed soldiers and officers of the Petrograd garrison," twenty-one military regiments in Riga, several thousand Putilov factory workers, three Petrograd district soviets, the Muslim social democratic organization in Baku, and more than a dozen other various and sundry labor organizations and political institutions. The delegates received detailed, firsthand status reports from representatives of the Central Committee, the Petersburg Committee, the Military Organization, and the Interdistrict Committee (which now formally merged with the Bolshevik Party), as well as from emissaries of nineteen major provincial party organizations. Most important, they hammered out official positions on the question of Lenin's refusal to submit to the authorities2 and on broad political problems such as the war issue and the current Russian economic and political situation. Finally, lest the assembled delegates had overlooked anything, they reconfirmed all of the resolutions adopted by the April Conference.