Kerensky subsequently claimed that his elevation of Kornilov was dictated by the latter's merits as a commander in the field38 and by his enlightened position on reform in the army, particularly his view of the future role of political commissars and democratic committees.39 Yet this explanation does not ring true. Kornilov's achievements on the battlefield were undistinguished, and, the July 16 telegram notwithstanding, his predilection for the application of massive military force to curb disorder at home and at the front was a matter of record. It was probably Kornilov's reputation for severity and toughness, rather than his alleged readiness to accommodate revolutionary change, that now made him attractive to Kerensky. What the army needed, Kerensky appears to have concluded, was a strong personality at its head. On this he was basically in agreement with Savinkov and Filonenko. To the new prime minister, anxiously working to consolidate his political position, the selection of Kornilov had the added advantage of being extremely popular with disgruntled liberals and conservatives and with the nonsocialist press in Petrograd.40
It is also well to keep in mind that Kerensky's options in the matter of a new commander were quite limited. That the ineffective Brusilov had to go was by now universally acknowledged. Yet judging by the proceedings of the council at Stavka, most senior Russian commanders were at least as reactionary and personally antagonistic to Kerensky as Kornilov. Kerensky might have considered two relatively junior officers who were not invited to Stavka on July 16: Kornilov's replacement as commander of the Eighth Army, General Cheremisov, and the commander of the Moscow Military District, General Verkhovsky. However, precisely because they rejected the idea that repressive measures alone could restore discipline in the army, and because they were willing to work with committees and commissars and to purge the officer corps of ultrareactionaries, Cheremisov and Verkhovsky were suspect among many of the elements whose support Kerensky sought to win. As to the danger of independent political action by Kornilov, Savinkov (who now stepped up to the post of deputy minister of war) and Filonenko (who was simultaneously named commissar at staff headquarters) doubtless expected that since they had been able to moderate Kornilov's behavior in the past, it would be possible to continue to do so; very likely they transmitted this assurance to Kerensky.
It immediately became apparent to Kerensky that controlling Kornilov, surrounded in Mogilev by right extremists, would not be easy. The day after his appointment (July 19), in a bluntly worded telegram drafted by Zavoiko and leaked at once to the press, Kornilov made his assumption of command of the army contingent upon Kerensky's acceptance of a series of demands altogether as ominous as those voiced by Denikin at the Stavka council. Kornilov insisted that, as commander-in-chief, he would not be subject to regulation of any kind and that he would be responsible "only to [his] conscience and to the people as a whole." He demanded total independence in regard to operational directives and appointments of commanders. Special courts and the application of capital punishment to enforce discipline were to apply to soldiers in the rear as well as those at the front. Kornilov further demanded government acceptance of all the other recommendations he had made to the Stavka council.41 Additionally, on July 20 the new commander-in-chief wired Kerensky insisting that the appointment of Cheremisov as commander of the southwestern front be rescinded.42
There is evidence that after receiving these telegrams, Kerensky began to have second thoughts about the appointment of Kornilov as supreme commander and seriously considered dropping the idea.43 Yet he was now in an extremely awkward position. Kornilov's appointment had been made public, and, thanks to Zavoiko, the general's "conditions" were also widely known. The Kadets, all other liberal and conservative groups, and the non- socialist press had already formed in solid ranks behind Kornilov. Their attitude was expressed by Novoe vremia on July 20: "It was difficult, in fact probably impossible, to find a more suitable general and supreme commander in these days of mortal danger being experienced by Russia. The Provisional Government was forced to choose between meetings at the front, the disintegration of the army, the destruction of southern Russia—and the saving of the state. And it found in itself the courage and decisiveness to make the choice." A break with Kornilov at this point probably would have put an end to the delicate negotiations then underway to form a new coalition government with the Kadets. And so a compromise of sorts was hastily arranged between Kornilov and Kerensky. Kornilov, for his part, pledged responsibility to the government and dropped his insistence on the immediate implementation of his other conditions. The government, in turn, committed itself to giving the demands of the generals a sympathetic hearing and to acting on them with all deliberate speed. Kerensky also agreed to find another post for Cheremisov; although this concession was of no apparent import at the time, Kerensky was ultimately to pay very dearly for it.44
General Kornilov subsequently made two trips from Mogilev to Petrograd in an effort to persuade the cabinet to implement his recommendations. The first visit took place on August 3. On this occasion Kornilov brought along a formal proposal (another example of Zavoiko's writing talent) embodying most of the demands for the repression of troops at the front and rear and for the restoration of officers' authority that had been made by Denikin and Kornilov at the Stavka council, as well as the conditions pressed by Kornilov on July 19. Although Kornilov no longer insisted on unlimited authority for himself in the August 3 proposal, he now reversed his earlier stand regarding the future role of commissars, calling for strict limitation, rather than expansion, of their authority.45 He also envisioned a narrower, more tightly controlled role for democratic committees then he had suggested in his memo of July 16. Still, as Kerensky later acknowledged, he, Savinkov, and Filonenko were ready, in principle, to support all these measures. They found Kornilov's formal proposal so crude in style and potentially inflammatory in language, however, that all three agreed the document could not be submitted even to a closed session of the cabinet. Filonenko was therefore assigned to rework the proposal in more diplomatic terms for presentation to the government by Kornilov on August 10.46 While given an audience by the cabinet before leaving the capital on August 3, Kornilov did not mention his recommendations for reform, restricting his comments to general observations on prevailing conditions in the army.
When the Petrograd press got wind of the contents of Kornilov's proposal47 the news set off a fierce and prolonged public controversy between the center and right, staunchly supportive of Kornilov and his program, and the moderate and extreme left, united once again in opposition (particularly to the extension of capital punishment to the rear and the curbing of democratic committees). In an antagonistic front-page editorial on August 4, Rabochaia gazeta, for example, lashed out at the Kadets (and indirectly at Kornilov) for advocating a return to the ways of the old regime, complaining that it was precisely this traditionally severe discipline that had made the old army a reliable instrument of the autocracy. "Kadets," the editorial demanded, "tell us directly, which people do you have in mind as military dictators—whom are you preparing for the part of Napoleon?" Among rank-and-file workers, soldiers, and sailors, the alarm over Kornilov's program rekindled the still-smoldering protest against the restoration of capital punishment at the front. Thus, on August 7, it will be recalled, the Workers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet adopted a strongly worded resolution demanding that capital punishment be rescinded.48