Their concern had been induced by the somersault in social relations since February 1917, a concern that was also the product of the collapse of the coercive institutions of tsarism; for the personnel of the Okhrana and the local police had been arrested or had fled in fear of vengeance at the hands of those whom they had once persecuted. The provincial governors appointed by Nicholas II were at first replaced by ‘commissars’ appointed by the Provisional Government. But these commissars, too, were unable to carry out their job. What usually happened was that locally-formed committees of public safety persuaded them to stand down in favour of their recommended candidate.30
The main units of local self-assertion were the villages, the towns and the provinces of the Empire. But in some places the units were still larger. This was the case in several non-Russian regions. In Kiev a Ukrainian Central Rada (or Council) was formed under the leadership of socialists of various types; and, at the All-Ukrainian National Congress in April, the Rada was instructed to press for Ukraine to be accorded broad powers of self-government. The same idea was pursued by the Finns, whose most influential party, the social-democrats, called for the Sejm (parliament) to be allowed to administer Finland. Similar pressure was exerted from Estonia — which had been combined into a single administrative unit by the Provisional Government itself — and Latvia. In the Transcaucasus the Provisional Government established a Special Transcaucasian Committee; but the Committee operated under constant challenge from the socialist parties and soviets established by the major local nationalities: the Georgians, Armenians and Azeris.31
Among these various bodies, from Helsinki in the north to Tbilisi in the south, there was agreement that their respective national aspirations should be contained within the boundaries of a vast multinational state. Autonomy, not secession, was demanded. The country was no longer officially described as the Russian Empire, and even many anti-Russian nationalist leaders were reluctant to demand independence in case this might leave them defenceless against invasion by the Central Powers.
The peoples in the non-Russian regions were typically motivated less by national than by social and economic matters.32 The demand for bread and social welfare was general, and increasingly there was support for the slogan of peace. Furthermore, peasants were the huge majority of the population in these regions and nearly all of them favoured parties which promised to transfer the agricultural land into their keeping. Georgians, Estonians and Ukrainians were united by such aspirations (and, of course, the Russian workers, peasants and soldiers shared them too). The problem for the Provisional Government was that the Rada, the Sejm and other national organs of self-government among the non-Russians were beginning to constitute a tier of unofficial regional opposition to policies announced in Petrograd.
Thus the centralized administrative structure, shaken in the February Revolution, was already tottering by spring 1917. The Provisional Government had assumed power promising to restore and enhance the fortunes of state. Within months it had become evident that the Romanov dynasty’s collapse would produce yet further disintegration. The times were a-changing, and hopes and fears changed with them.
PART ONE
3
Conflicts and Crises
(1917)
Disputes intensified after the February Revolution about the future of the old Russian Empire. Hardly any politicians, generals or businessmen advocated a return of the monarchy; it was widely taken for granted that the state would become a republic. Yet the precise constitutional form to be chosen by the republic was contentious. The Kadets wished to retain a unitary administration and opposed any subdivision of the empire into a federation of nationally-based territorial units. Their aim was to rule through the traditional network of provinces.1 In contrast, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries wanted to accede to the national aspirations of the non-Russian population. In particular, they intended to grant regional self-government to Ukraine, which had been merely a collection of provinces in the tsarist period. When the Kadets argued that this would ultimately bring about the disintegration of the state, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries replied that it offered the sole way to prevent separatist movements from breaking up the state.
The Kadets played for time, stipulating that any regional reorganization would have to await decision by the Constituent Assembly. But popular opinion was shifting against them on many other policies. In particular, the liberal ministers were regarded as having expansionist war aims even after the resignation of Milyukov, the arch-expansionist, from the cabinet.
Yet the Kadets in the Provisional Government, despite being faced by problems with the non-Russians, felt inhibited about making a patriotic appeal exclusively to the Russians. Liberal ministers were understandably wary lest they might irritate the internationalist sensibility of the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. In any case, Russian nationalism was not very attractive to most Russians, who could see for themselves that their non-Russian fellow citizens were as keen as they were to defend the country. There was a general feeling that ordinary folk of all nationalities were oppressed by the same material difficulties. Not having been very nationalistic before the Great War, Russians did not suddenly become so in 1917. On the whole, they responded most positively to slogans which had a direct bearing on their everyday lives: workers’ control, land, bread, peace and freedom. And they assumed that what was good for their locality was good for the entire society.
Yet although the Russians did not act together as a nation, Russian workers, peasants and soldiers caused difficulties for the cabinet. It was in the industrial cities where the soviets, trade unions and factory-workshop committees were concentrated; and since Russians constituted a disproportionately large segment of factory workers, they were to the fore in helping to form these bodies. Furthermore, such bodies were instruments of political mobilization; they were also dedicated to the country’s rapid cultural development.2 And they established their internal hierarchies. In early June, for example, soviets from all over the country sent representatives to Petrograd to the First All-Russia Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. This Congress elected a Central Executive Committee to co-ordinate all soviets across the country. A potential alternative framework of administration was being constructed.