Comrade Kerensky. Boris Kolonitskii

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СКАЧАТЬ and republicans of many hues. It is tempting to explain this as having been achieved through Masonic connections, but it needs to be said that such an ‘explanation’ is no more than an intellectual skeleton key. Conspiracy theories can be used to explain any social occurrence, but their cognitive value is minimal. It is more useful to observe here that Kerensky was greatly assisted simply by his non-partisan, non-factional status. He was not signed up to any party programme, and his non-partisanship was most dramatically evident in his attitude to the war. At different times and in different companies he expressed different views, and this cannot always be explained away as political mimicry. As a politician, he was striving – sometimes perhaps instinctively – to create a broad, flexible ideological framework conducive to achieving his unwavering goal of a revolution during the war. For some of Kerensky’s negotiating partners this was revolution in order to continue successful prosecution of the war; for others it was in order to bring the war to an end. It was not only Kerensky who engaged in forming such associations, but his role was highly noticeable. This practice at creating coalitions out of such ill-assorted constituents was of great value to Kerensky during the revolution in his negotiations with representatives of very diverse elites.

      Kerensky’s experience as a defence barrister in political trials and as a radical deputy in the State Duma was important for creating his public persona and for consolidating his authority as a tribune of the people and fighter for workers’ rights, as well as for his position as a champion of the law, a defender of national minorities, and a representative of the radical intelligentsia in the realm of big politics. All these facets of Kerensky’s image came into play at the time of the February Revolution.

4 ‘Hero of the revolution’

      In the first issues of the Petrograd newspapers produced after the overthrow of the monarchy, a greeting to Kerensky was published from the Socialist Revolutionaries: ‘The Conference of Petrograd Socialist Revolutionaries sends greetings to you, Alexander Fyodorovich, as a steadfast, tireless fighter for a government of the people, a Leader of the revolutionary people who has joined the Provisional Government to defend the rights and freedom of the toiling masses.’¹³⁹

      The authors of the address approved of Kerensky’s becoming a member of the government and, unlike most of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet, gave him a mandate to join it. Such trust stemmed from his personal prestige based on his reputation as a steadfast and tireless fighter, and he was singled out from other fighters as a ‘Leader of the revolutionary people’. The awarding of such a title was a considerable rarity at that time and resulted from the great appreciation of Kerensky’s role in the February Revolution. The first legally convened forum of a party which was to play a major role in subsequent events proclaimed him a revolutionary Leader, substantially enhancing his status in the eyes of all the Socialist Revolutionaries’ supporters.

      The speeches Kerensky delivered on the eve of the revolution were of great importance for his image as a steadfast fighter and leader, and were much quoted. In retrospect the speeches were perceived as bold and accurate prophecies. Journalists favourably inclined towards him wrote of the Leader’s inspired and accurate predictions and of the sense of the impending revolutionary storm which his speeches had conveyed.

      Different writers used similar words.¹⁴⁰ The gift of ‘foresight’, even of ‘clairvoyance’, which journalists attributed to Kerensky marked him out as a unique Leader. One speech, banned by the tsarist censorship, was published during the revolution under the title ‘The prophetic words of A. F. Kerensky, pronounced on 19 July 1915 in the State Duma’.¹⁴¹ The foreword to another edition of his speeches declared: ‘We can see that his last speeches in the Duma were prophetic, and that the first socialist minister of free Russia showed himself to be one of our most far-sighted statesmen.’ His prophetic speeches were evidence that the minister was endowed with the ‘ardent heart of a revolutionary patriot and the sage foresight of a statesman’ – small wonder that Kerensky’s political allies published them after the February Revolution. His allies drew the attention of readers to the exclamations and remarks of the Duma’s chairman, Mikhail Rodzyanko, and of other liberal deputies who formed the Provisional Government, in which these moderate politicians interrupted the speeches of the ‘revolutionary deputy’ as he foretold the destruction of tsarism.¹⁴² Readers were given to understand that, in the Duma, Kerensky alone had possessed the gift of political foresight and the fortitude of a revolutionary. Accordingly, his was a special place in the government.

The selection of texts for publication is also instructive, with Kerensky’s speeches of late 1916 and early 1917 much republished and talked about. The opposition’s attack on the regime had intensified in the autumn. On 1 November a famous speech by the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, Milyukov, with its refrain of ‘stupidity or treason?’, had resounded in the State Duma. This sensational speech eclipsed an even more radical speech by Kerensky, who that same day attacked the government so vehemently that the chairman deprived him of the floor. Not, however, before he had managed to brand the tsar’s ministers ‘traitors to the country’s interests’ and effectively called for overthrow of the government.

      Three days later Kerensky went even further, declaring that the state had been taken over ‘by an enemy power’ and a regime of occupation installed. This time it was the head of state himself who was accused of treason: ‘Ties of family and kinship take priority over the interests of the state…. The interests of the old regime are closer to people living abroad than to those inside Russia.’ Kerensky called for destruction of the regime, ‘this dreadful ulcer of the state’. On 16 December he repeated that compromise with the government was impossible and called on liberals to take decisive action; a professional lawyer, he argued that, under the circumstances, the duty of a citizen was not to obey the law. For that he was deprived of the floor. A speech he made on 15 February became particularly famous: Kerensky denounced ‘state anarchy’ and demanded ‘surgical methods’, calling for the physical removal of ‘violators of the law’. The orator declared that he shared the views of the party ‘which has openly inscribed on its banner the possibility of terror, the possibility of armed struggle with those representing the government, the party which has openly acknowledged the necessity of tyrannicides.’ In the forum of the Duma he acknowledged his support of the terrorist tactics of the illegal Socialist Revolutionary Party. He excoriated a ‘system of unaccountable despotism’ and demanded the destruction of a ‘medieval regime’. Responding to the chairman’s remark that such language was inadmissible, Kerensky went even further and made absolutely clear that he was ‘talking about what the citizen Brutus did in classical times.’ This was perceived as a public call for regicide. Kerensky’s friends were sure that after such statements he would be arrested, and they expressed their sympathy in advance. He himself did not believe that parliamentary immunity would save him and told friends that, if the Duma was dissolved, he would be arrested.¹⁴³ It was a mood which may have influenced how Kerensky behaved in February 1917: he had burned his bridges, and only a swift replacement of the regime could keep him out of prison.

Kiriakov called his speech on 15 February ‘his first historic and by now manifestly revolutionary speech’.¹⁴⁴ He was referring to the exceptional role Kerensky was to play in the coup. On the very eve of the February Revolution, Kerensky was receiving letters asking him for the text of his speeches which had been banned by the censorship, but of which thousands of typewritten and handwritten copies were disseminated throughout Russia. The speeches were distributed also in the form of leaflets, with many copies reaching the army. The Duma’s right-wingers expostulated that Kerensky was ‘Wilhelm’s aide’. Kerensky’s speeches did not go unnoticed in the imperial residence either: in a letter from the empress to the tsar, dated 24 February, she expresses a characteristic wish: ‘I hope that Duma man Kedrinsky [she means Kerensky] will be hung for his horrible speeches – it is necessary (wartime law) and it will be an example.’¹⁴⁵ However, some members of even the highest levels of society were not unappreciative of the speech: ‘Today … Kerensky said much that was true, and we all think as he does about СКАЧАТЬ