Comrade Kerensky. Boris Kolonitskii

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СКАЧАТЬ reminding people of the biography of a hero who was sacrificing his health, and perhaps even his life, to the cause of the revolution. ‘He has given a full decade of his young life to Russia, sparing neither his strength, his health, nor his very life.’²⁴¹

      Whenever Kerensky’s authority was under threat, he and his supporters sought to shore it up by recalling his biography as a champion of freedom and authenticating his reputation with the aid of authoritative endorsement from veterans of the revolutionary movement.

      * * *

      All manner of conflicts of the time are reflected in the controversies around the accounts of Kerensky’s life, and these conflicts are, in many ways, of interest. Particular aspects of Kerensky’s life – his social antecedents, his family ties with the bureaucratic elite, and a number of scenes caused by his actions in the State Duma – were omitted or hushed up. Others recur in the various biographies and biographical articles, in resolutions and newspaper reports, and, indeed, in autobiographies, in Kerensky’s speeches and even in the orders he issued. The biographical elements of particular importance for establishing his revolutionary credentials were occasions when he was persecuted by the old regime, his clandestine activities, his legal defence of political cases in court, and his bold and ‘prophetic’ speeches in the State Duma. Then there were his actions in late February, of which the most spectacular was bringing the mutinous soldiers into the Tauride Palace. The references back to his biography served to substantiate the status of a ‘tried and tested’, tireless champion of freedom, a prerequisite for the image of a revolutionary Leader. Much was made also by some biographers of the gift of foresight they believed he possessed. To have been able to ‘prophesy’ the revolution was surely also grounds for qualifying as a charismatic leader.

For decades before the revolution, Russian revolutionaries had developed the genre of glorification of their martyrs, heroes and teachers. Their techniques of political hagiography were exploited by Kerensky, his supporters and his adversaries. The cult of champions of freedom became the official political religion of the new Russia, and initiatives to establish it enhanced politicians’ authority. Simultaneously, Kerensky’s political collaboration and friendship with authoritative veterans of the liberation movement enabled him to turn their sacralization to his own account.

      Even as he actively participated in building up the cult of champions of freedom, Kerensky was a part of the cult, enhancing his own reputation within it by being a contender for the role of true Leader of the people. His heroic biography as an ardent revolutionary fitted well into the sanctified history of the revolutionary movement, which became core to the politics of memory of the new Russia.

      The controversy surrounding the biography of Kerensky, who was claiming the status of Leader of the revolution, was rooted in the affirmation of the clandestine political subculture as the basis of new Russia’s political culture. The discussions in effect led to the establishment of a canon of texts and images, symbols and rituals deemed appropriate to inform the cult of the revolutionary leader. In the process some came to acknowledge Kerensky as an authentic Leader. Others did not. As far as the set of qualities the ideal revolutionary Leader needed to possess, both sides were in agreement. The existing cult of fallen or still living champions of freedom provided the requisite discursive framework for forming the cult of the Leader.

      The creativity manifest in the cultural politics of the first months of the revolution, in which Kerensky himself played an active role, exerted no little influence on Soviet political culture. The latter was also to include a cult of ‘champions of freedom’, a canon for describing the life of the Leader, and a combining of the patriotic military and revolutionary traditions. The texts, symbols, ceremonies and rituals, created on a foundation of revolutionary tradition to resolve current political tasks at the time of the February Revolution, were to prove applicable to the tasks of later years.

Notes

      1 1. Edinstvo, 14 May 1917.

      2 2. Irina Zhdanova, ‘“Vek propagandy”: Upravlenie informatsiei v usloviiakh voiny i revoliutsii v Rossii v marte–oktiabre 1917 g.’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 3 (2008): 129–36, here p. 130.

      3 3. Aleksandr Kerenskii, Rechi A. F. Kerenskogo o revoliutsii, s ocherkom V. V. Kir’iakova ‘Kerenskii kak orator’ (Petrograd: Kopeika, 1917), p. 50.

      4 4. V. B. Zhilinskii, ‘Organizatsiia i zhizn’ okhrannogo otdeleniia vo vremena tsarskoi vlasti’, Golos minuvshego, nos. 9/10 (1917): 255.

      5 5. O. L-v, ‘A. C. [sic] Kerenskii pod nabliudeniem okhranki’, Novaia zhizn’, 20 April 1917. The author of this publication may have been O. L. Leonidov, who is mentioned in the text. See also ‘Tsarskaia okhranka ob A. F. Kerenskom’, Petrogradskaia gazeta, 27 June 1917.

      6 6. A file of documentation relating to Kerensky was found in Saratov (he was elected to the State Duma as a representative of Saratov province). Zhivoe slovo, 12 March 1917.

      7 7. Here and hereafter the figures for print runs are taken from Knizhnaia letopis’ for 1917.

      8 8. Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii (Po materialam Departamenta politsii) (Petrograd: Tsentral’nyi komitet Trudovoi gruppy, 1917), p. 3.

      9 9. Rechi A. F. Kerenskogo (Kiev: Blago naroda, 1917), pp. iii–iv.

      10 10. Anon, Syn Velikoi Russkoi Revoliutsii Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii: Ego zhizn’, politicheskaia deiatel’nost’ i rechi (Petrograd: Petrogradskii listok, 1917).

      11 11. Vasilii Kir’iakov, Zapiski deputata 2-i Gosudarstvennoi Dumy (St Petersburg: Vernyi put’, [1907]).

      12 12. Rafail Ganelin, Rossiia i SShA, 1914–1917: Ocherki istorii russkoamerikanskikh otnoshenii (Leningrad: Nauka, 1969), p. 371.

      13 13. Vasilii Kir’iakov, ‘A. F. Kerenskii’, Niva, no. 19 (1917): 287–8; no. 20 (1917): 294–7.

      14 14. Kir’iakov, Niva, no. 20, p. 294.

      15 15. Ibid., p. 287; V–i V. [Vasilii Vasil’evich Kir’iakov], A. F. Kerenskii (Petrograd, 1917), p. 3.

      16 16. Ibid., p. 36.

      17 17. Ibid., p. 35.

      18 18. Ibid., p. 16.

      19 19. Vasilii Kir’iakov, Dedushka i babushka russkoi revoliutsii: N. V. Chaikovskii i E. K. Breshko-Breshkovskaia (Petrograd: Novaia Rossiia, 1917).

      20 20. Oleg Leonidov, Vozhd’ svobody A. F. Kerenskii (Moscow: Koshnitsa, 1917). Leonidov continued to publish popular biographies of political and military figures in the Soviet period. See [Oleg Leonidov], Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov: Zhizn’ i boevaia rabota, ed. Sergei Orlovskii (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1925); M. V. Frunze: Biografiia (Moscow: Ogonek, 1925); S. M. Budennyi, vozhd’ krasnoi konnitsy: Materialy dlia biografii S. M. Budennogo i istorii I Konnoi armii (Leningrad: Gubkompom, 1925); etc. Leonidov also wrote screenplays on themes from the history of the revolution, for example, Moskva v Oktiabre (Bor’ba i pobeda) (1927). Other screenplays were Deti kapitana Granta (1936) and Ostrov sokrovishch [Treasure Island] (1937).

      21 21. Oleg Leonidov, Vozhd’ svobody A. F. Kerenskii, 2nd, supplemented edition (Moscow: Koshnitsa, 1917), pp. 5–6, 17.

      22 22. Ibid., pp. 31, 32.

      23 23. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

      24 24. Ibid., pp. 8, 16, 31.

      25 25. Ibid., pp. 3, 24, 25, 26.

      26 26. СКАЧАТЬ