Comrade Kerensky. Boris Kolonitskii

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СКАЧАТЬ feverish pace of his actions during the February Days. ‘Those first days he never left the Duma, working day and night, and only when they had worked themselves to a standstill did he and other deputies force themselves to take a short nap, collapsing where they were, on the sofas and chairs in the offices of the Duma.’ At times those close to him literally forced him to drink a cup of coffee or a glass of brandy. The journalist Alexander Polyakov recalled, ‘On the steps of a small staircase leading to the journalists’ box, A. F. Kerensky was sprawled, completely exhausted, and his wife was spooning egg yolks she had brought in a tumbler from home into his mouth.’ At times the deputy seemed only semi-conscious, which mesmerized the agitated crowd. Kerensky was to recall rather nostalgically that state of extreme stress. For him, the February Days remained the most important and ‘real’ period in his life. ‘It’s worth living to have felt such ecstasy,’ he explained.¹⁸⁸

      He was sometimes depicted later as a bloodthirsty mutineer, but those assertions appeared in the press only in the autumn. For example, Vladimir Purishkevich’s newspaper claimed in October that Kerensky had done nothing during the uprising to prevent officers from being beaten and humiliated.¹⁸⁹ In the first months of the revolution, however, Kerensky’s role was described only in positive terms and confirmed his status as Leader. It is perhaps only to be expected that his biographers saw the success of the coup as being due to Kerensky’s actions, but his contribution was rated highly in political resolutions adopted at the time. If journalists supportive of him exaggerated his role, so did many rank-and-file participants in the events. For example, Nikolai Kishkin, the Provisional Government’s commissar in Moscow, declared in early March, ‘I can testify that, but for Kerensky, we could never have achieved as much as we have. His name will be inscribed in letters of gold in the annals of history.’¹⁹⁰

      Kerensky’s reputation as the revolution’s champion was central to creating his image of ‘the Leader of the people’. When Kerensky was seeking to bolster his authority, he frequently harked back in his speeches to those days. His supporters, defending their Leader’s decisions and deflecting attacks on him, also referred back to the exceptional role he had played in ‘the February Days’.

      Kerensky’s 1917 biographies dwell particularly on that period, usually bringing in his ‘prophetic’ speeches and his arresting of representatives of the old regime, while his actions leading to the entry of the mutinous troops into the Duma are seen as uniquely endorsing him as the best politician to stand at the head of the revolution.

5 ‘Champion of freedom’ and the cult of champions of freedom

      In 1917 many people were calling Kerensky a champion of freedom. For example, on 26 July 1917, representatives of the Kuzhenkino garrison passed a resolution that

… all elements of the country who love their motherland must rally round the Provisional Government, giving it their full support and confidence, in the hope that the coalition government, under the leadership of such a proven champion of freedom for working people as everybody’s favourite politician, our comrade KERENSKY, will devote all its energy to defending the motherland and revolution from the insolent attempts to encroach of both the foreign enemy and enemies of the revolution both on the right and the left.¹⁹¹

      Those drafting the resolution adopted a tactic of legitimation which can be found in other texts of the time: a political Leader deserves support because he has been tested by years of fighting for the freedom of the people; his irreproachable revolutionary reputation is a guarantee that he will faithfully implement the political programme of the government he heads.

      Kerensky’s actions in earlier years, and especially during the coup, contributed to establishing just such a reputation, and it comes as no surprise that in many of these greetings he is described as a ‘champion of freedom’. The conference of the Petrograd Socialist Revolutionaries in early March had described him as a ‘steadfast, tireless champion of a government of the people’.¹⁹² ‘We send heartfelt greetings to a champion of freedom. May heaven bless your future great achievements,’ political exiles encouraged him.¹⁹³ It mattered that veterans of the revolutionary struggle were using such language about him, particularly impressing the masses who were now in the process of becoming politicized.

      National organizations called Kerensky ‘a magnificent champion of freedom for Russia and its nationalities’. Those composing other resolutions hailed him as ‘a champion of social liberation’. Kerensky was called ‘a champion of the freedom of the working people’, ‘a proven champion of the happiness and freedom of working people’, ‘a tireless champion and defender of the dispossessed people and its freedom’, and ‘a champion of freedom for the insulted and humiliated’.¹⁹⁴ In many other resolutions the revolutionary minister was called a ‘champion of freedom’, ‘a champion of freedom for the people’, ‘a champion for the liberation of the motherland’, and ‘our dear and tireless champion of freedom and rights’.¹⁹⁵ Particular significance was seen in the length of his political service and faithfulness to his chosen political path. Kerensky was regularly described as a ‘proven’, ‘indefatigable’, ‘tireless’, ‘steadfast’ champion.

      As we have seen, Kerensky’s 1917 biographers created and affirmed his revolutionary reputation, thereby asserting his right to political leadership at a time of revolution. Actually, in this he was not alone. The status of adversary of the old regime became an important source of political legitimation, so not a few leaders of the time were celebrated by their supporters as ‘champions of freedom’.

In March many people in Russia thought it appropriate to congratulate Rodzyanko, the chairman of the State Duma and of its Provisional Committee, on the success of the revolution.¹⁹⁶ Those congratulating him were not always entirely clear about his status. He was referred to as ‘the Head of the Free Russian State’, ‘the Head of Free Russia’, ‘the President-Minister’, ‘the Chairman of the Provisional Government’. Rodzyanko was also called ‘a champion of freedom’, ‘the liberator of Russia’¹⁹⁷ and sometimes even ‘the Leader of freedom’.¹⁹⁸ Some of these titles awarded to him were later used to characterize other leaders, including Kerensky: Rodzyanko, chairman of the State Duma, was called, for example, ‘the genius of Free Russia’.¹⁹⁹ More commonly, however, he was called the ‘first citizen’, ‘the first free citizen of this free country’, ‘the best citizen’ and ‘the first citizen of free Russia’. The barrister Iosif Balinsky greeted Rodzyanko as follows: ‘Long live the State Duma … Long life to its splendid chairman, the first and most worthy citizen among equal citizens of free Russia.’²⁰⁰

      Some projects of memory politics were associated with Rodzyanko’s name. The Yekaterinoslav City Council hastened to perpetuate the memory of their august major local landowner: resolving to instal a marble statue of him in the hall of their duma, naming the town square after him and, in addition, planning to erect a monument to Liberation in the city centre with a statue of Rodzyanko in the middle of the composition.²⁰¹

      The political parties glorified their leaders, recalling their revolutionary past. This method of enhancing authority was deployed with particular energy when the party leaders were under fire from opponents. The Socialist Revolutionaries, for example, fought back against attacks in the conservative and liberal press on Chernov, whom they dubbed a ‘highly prominent champion of the freedom and happiness of working people’.²⁰²

      When Lenin and the ‘Leninists’ found themselves furiously attacked, the Bolsheviks felt the time had come to publish several biographical sketches of their own, making known their Leader’s contribution to the revolutionary struggle.²⁰³ They declared: ‘It is not right to refer to false, sordid accusations against Comrade Lenin because Lenin is an old party Leader, not just one since March.’²⁰⁴ This form of words could be seen as concealed criticism of politicians who had come to СКАЧАТЬ