In mid-August a series of explosions and fires of unknown origin ripped through a number of factories engaged in war work.1 The food situation in Petrograd, already alarming, suddenly became desperate,2 primarily because of continuing chaos in domestic railway and water transport systems. On August 21 there came perhaps the blackest news of all—the Germans had occupied the city of Riga, a vital seaport on the Baltic. Now hordes of anxious citizens, at least those who were financially able to do so, made hurried preparations to abandon Petrograd in expectation of further civil disorders and an early enemy assault on the capital. A sudden dramatic rise in the number of houses and apartments advertised for rent bore eloquent testimony to the prevailing panic.
No one was more troubled by these ominous signs of continuing political, social, and economic disintegration than Kerensky. Yet fearful that naked repression untempered by reform would arouse the Soviet and bring the Petrograd masses into the streets once again, and unable to unite his cabinet behind a reform program of any kind, he was incapable of significantly influencing the course of events. In view of the resulting paralysis of national leadership, increasing numbers of industrial and business figures, representatives of gentry interests, military officers—in short, a broad specturm of liberal, not to speak of conservative, opinion—and even Allied representatives in Russia concluded that the second coalition government was no more viable than the first. For these groups, the lone remaining hope of restoring order at the front and arresting chaos in the rear seemed to be an alliance of antisocialist liberal and conservative forces and the establishment of a strong dictatorship dedicated to the task of eliminating conflicting sources of political authority (most importantly, the Soviet), bridling the revolution, and marshaling the Russian population in defense of the motherland.
By August 1917 this orientation was shared by most Kadets and by such important centrist political pressure groups as the All-Russian Union of Trade and Industry and the Union of Landowners, both based in Moscow.3 It has recently been shown that while a minority of Kadet leaders responded to the events of late July and August by calling for continued support of coalition government and close cooperation with moderate socialists in the satisfaction of mass demands for reform, the main body of the party, headed by Miliukov, shifted decisively rightward.4 At the same time, Kadets of this persuasion tended, by and large, to shy away from direct participation in preparations for a coup d'etat (this appears to have been the position of the All-Russian Union of Trade and Industry and the Union of Landowners as well). Believing that any effort to establish a dictatorship not endorsed by both the cabinet and the Soviet would most likely fail, for the time being they sought simply to exert pressure, both within and outside the government, for the most forceful measures possible to restore law and order and the fighting capacity of the armed forces.5
Other sizable center and rightist political groups, impatient with Kerensky at this time, had no such reservations about how a dictatorship should be established. Predictably, among the most prominent of these more militant groups were various organizations representing military officers. Embittered elements of the officer corps had first begun to consider possibilities for a military dictatorship as early as April 1917; subsequently their number grew rapidly, and representatives of a host of military organizations began swarming around army headquarters in Mogilev like bees in a hive, concocting elaborate schemes to halt and reverse the changes wrought by the February revolution. In July and August the most important of these militant pressure groups representing officers were the Union of Officers of the Army and Navy, whose Central, or "Main," Committee was permanently headquartered in Mogilev, and the Military League and the Union of Saint George Cavaliers, both based in Petrograd.6
Among civilian organizations of similar orientation functioning during the summer of 1917, the Society for the Economic Rehabilitation of Russia and the Republican Center were probably the most prominent. The Society for the Economic Rehabilitation of Russia, first formed in April 1917 and headed by Alexander Guchkov and Aleksei Putilov, initially united influential figures in the fields of business, industry, and insurance t^> finance the preparation and dissemination of anti-Bolshevik propaganda ana to support candidates for election to the Constituent Assembly.7 But aSsthe political crisis in Russia deepened, the society began to work closely with top military personnel and to devote increasing attention to the support of preparations for the establishment of a military dictatorship. The evolution of the Republican Center was similar. Founded in May under the auspices of the powerful Siberian bank by conservative business and military leaders to support a propaganda campaign aimed at "braking the spontaneous [revolutionary] movement,"8 the Republican Center soon acquired an active military section. Headed by Colonel L. P. Desimeter and including representatives of all of the more important militant officer groups operating at the time, this organ concerned itself almost exclusively with technical preparations for the seizure of power.
It remains to be recorded that during the spring and summer of 1917 these military and civilian rightist organizations considered several prominent military figures for the post of dictator, among them Generals Alek- seev and Brusilov and Admiral Kolchak.9 By late July, however, the obvious favorite had become General Lavr Kornilov, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian army. Short, lean, noticeably bandylegged in stature, straightforward and tough in manner, Kornilov was distinguished by his narrow beard, his thick, graceful mustache, and the slanted eyes and high cheekbones of his Mongolian forebears. Born into the family of a cossack officer in 1870 and raised in a remote corner of Siberia, Kornilov received a narrowly military education and began his professional career as an explorer of Chinese Turkestan and the eastern provinces of Persia. He saw action in Manchuria in the Russo-Japanese War and served from 1907 to 1911 as military attache in the Russian legation in Peking. During the first months of World War I he advanced rapidly in rank, and early in 1914 he received command of an infantry division. Shortly thereafter, in the spring of 1915, the bulk of his division was annihilated by Austrian forces; Kornilov himself was captured while wandering in the woods and subsequently spent close to a year in a Hungarian prison camp.10
An impression of Kornilov's state of mind during his confinement was recorded by General E. I. Martynov, who shared quarters with the general in captivity and under whom Kornilov had served in Manchuria. According to Martynov, during those months of rising popular indignation against the tsarist regime in Russia, Kornilov, gnawed by thwarted ambition, passed the hours of enforced leisure engrossed in books about Napoleon, a pastime which only caused him further frustration. Martynov maintained that at that time Kornilov was sympathetic to the Black Hundreds. Reading in the Austrian press of the struggle between progressive Duma leaders and the Russian government, Kornilov talked incessantly of the pleasure he would derive from hanging "all those Guchkovs and Miliukovs."11