July Days (1917, Russia)

Background

By early July 1917 Petrograd was gripped by wartime economic collapse and social polarisation. After the February Revolution deposed Nicholas II, the dual power of the Provisional Government, dominated by liberal intellectuals and industrialists, and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, led by Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, divided authority between them [P229]. Workers and soldiers grew distrustful of the government's continuation of the war, of food shortages and spiralling prices, of rumours that militant factories would be evacuated, and of the threat of unemployment, and this radicalisation translated into growing support for the Bolsheviks [P230]. On 18 June (1 July O.S.) the Soviet sponsored a demonstration on the Field of Mars as a show of unity and support for the government, but many in the crowd of about 500,000 carried Bolshevik slogans: 'All Power to the Soviets', 'Down with the ten capitalist ministers', 'Time to end the war' [P65][P230]. On the same day the government launched an offensive on the south-western front, which produced initial gains before a German counteroffensive shattered the army [P14][P232].

Two things precipitated the crisis. On 2 July the Kadet ministers resigned in protest at the agreement the government delegation had concluded with the Ukrainian Central Rada and at the government's declaration on the Ukrainian question, leaving the coalition on the verge of collapse [P73][P234]. Shortly afterwards the high command ordered the First Machine Gun Regiment to send thirty machine-gun crews to the front at once [P64]. Formed as a training unit that had sent one march company a week, the regiment reacted bitterly; on 21 June (4 July O.S.) its committee resolved not to send march companies until the war took on a revolutionary character [P64][P70]. On 2 July the Anarchist-Communist leadership decided to call the soldiers of the First Machine Gun Regiment out in revolt the following morning [P74].

The events of 3–5 July (O.S.)

On the morning of 3 July a meeting opened at the regiment's barracks, where the anarchist I. Bleikhman and others called for armed action [P81]. When Prime Minister Lvov's announcement that the Kadet and other ministers had left the cabinet reached the workers and soldiers during the day, they drew their own conclusion: with the 'capitalist ministers' gone, the moment had come to take power [P82]. The regiment sent delegates to Kronstadt urging the sailors to arm and march on Petrograd, and an organising commission for the demonstration was set up there [P85]. The Bolshevik Central Committee learned of the events around four in the afternoon and resolved not to take part, but the machine gunners' delegates answered that they would rather leave the party than defy the regiment's decision [P86]. Kamenev telephoned Kronstadt asking Raskolnikov to hold the sailors back, only to be told it was impossible [P87].

The machine gunners moved at about seven in the evening and by eight were at the Kshesinskaya mansion [P89][P92]. Around eleven at night, as the demonstrators passed the Gostiny Dvor, a grenade exploded and shooting broke out, leaving dead and wounded; in response the Central Committee, the Petersburg Committee, the Military Organisation and the Interdistrict Committee decided to lead a 'peaceful, but armed demonstration' from the morning of 4 July [P93][P94]. The appeal urging restraint was pulled from the Pravda typesetting, leaving a blank space in the next day's paper [P94]. On the morning of 4 July about twenty thousand Kronstadt sailors landed in Petrograd and marched to the Kshesinskaya mansion, where Sverdlov, Lunacharsky and Lenin addressed them from the balcony. Lenin's speech was his last public appearance before the victory of the October Revolution [P100]. The Second Machine Gun Regiment, Putilov workers and workers from the Vyborg district joined, and by midday the square before the Tauride Palace was filled with tens of thousands of soldiers from seven regiments, sailors and workers whom neither the Soviet, nor the district military staff, nor the Bolsheviks controlled [P107][P108]. Estimates of the crowd range from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand [P103].

The Socialist Revolutionary Minister of Agriculture, Viktor Chernov, was seized by a group of demonstrators and dragged into a car, despite his protests that he was not the wanted minister; a worker thrust a fist at him shouting 'take it, when it is offered', and he was freed through Trotsky's speech to the crowd [P115][P117][P119]. Rabinowitch regards the pro-Bolshevik Kronstadt sailors as his captors [P121][P122]; Trotsky attributed the arrest to half-criminal, provocateur elements, a version supported only weakly [P117][P120].

Peaceful demonstration or uprising: the dispute over responsibility

According to Rabinowitch the uprising originated before the cabinet crisis, in plans made from 1 July (14 July O.S.) by the First Machine Gun Regiment to protest in arms against transfer to the front; Lenin and the Central Committee, unsure of the strength of their support and having already aborted the planned armed demonstration of 10 June (23 June O.S.) as premature, urged restraint [P239]. But the fact that party leaders only decided, in the early hours of 4 July, to coordinate an action already underway as a peaceful though armed movement for Soviet power shows how limited their control was. The Bolshevik Military Organisation and the Petersburg Committee, along with rank-and-file members, pushed participation, and the Central Committee failed to enforce its own decision to call the demonstrations off [P29][P239].

Richard Pipes assessed the events as an early attempt by Lenin to seize power and argued that the final step of the coup, the arrest of the Soviet and government leadership, was not taken out of Lenin's indecision rather than insufficient preparation [P191][P239]. Rabinowitch and social historians reject the emphasis on Lenin's political manoeuvring, pointing instead to wavering and divisions inside the Bolshevik organisations [P239]. David Mandel holds that the workers did not intend violence and armed themselves in self-defence against provocateurs who fired along the march routes [P239]. Rabinowitch disputes the characterisation of a peaceful protest, pointing to the government-overthrow demands of the Anarchist-Communist-influenced machine gunners, to armed demonstrators firing on the bourgeoisie, and to right-wing elements, provocateurs and general panic [P239]. Historians also disagree on what to call the events, variously 'armed demonstration', 'July uprising', 'July mutiny', 'July rehearsal' and 'July putsch' [P190][P191]. These disputes over the nature of the July Days and over the responsibility of the Bolshevik leadership remain unresolved [P53].

Suppression and reprisals

The Volyn Regiment was called out to defend the Tauride Palace [P106], and on 4 July the Cossack and horse-artillery detachment under Colonel Rebinder opened fire at the corner of Shpalernaya and Liteyny; six Cossacks and four horse artillerymen were killed and many wounded [P125][P127]. Some accounts put the dead of 3–4 July at several hundred [P24]. Rabinowitch's study of newspapers, documents and memoirs concludes that the responsibility for the armed clashes was shared by militant demonstrators, provocateurs, right-wing elements and sheer panic and confusion, rather than resting with one side [P105].

Kronstadt sailors and others held out in the Peter and Paul Fortress but surrendered on 6 July after negotiations [P131][P139]. Trotsky, formally not yet a member of the Bolshevik party, demanded his own arrest in solidarity and was taken to the Kresty prison; he was one of the few non-Bolsheviks to defend the Bolsheviks against popular fury [P187].

On the morning of 5 July cadets occupied the editorial office and press of Pravda, which Lenin had left a few minutes earlier [P134]. On 7 July the Provisional Government ordered Lenin's arrest; he went underground and then fled to Finland [P24][P151]. The government's arrest list included Lenin, Zinoviev, Lunacharsky, Kollontai, Raskolnikov and Roshal [P140]. Reprisals spread across the country: around 800 Bolsheviks were arrested and party premises, printing plants and district offices were wrecked [P186][P243]. The party press was suppressed, Pravda reappearing under other names such as Rabochy i Soldat, and Bolshevik papers were banned in the army [P170]. The First Machine Gun Regiment was largely disbanded or sent to the front [P171], the Red Guard was disarmed [P172], and on 12 July Kerensky reinstated the death penalty for soldiers at the front [P36].

Consequences

The Provisional Government pressed the Soviet aside and for a time effectively curtailed dual power. Kerensky became prime minister on 8 July [P33], and the Soviet recognised the new cabinet as a 'government of the salvation of the revolution' [P163]. The Menshevik Dan warned that 'today the Bolshevik committee has been exposed, tomorrow the Soviet of Workers' Deputies will fall under suspicion, and then war on the revolution will be declared holy'. At the same time the Petrograd Soviet effectively ignored the accusations of treason against Lenin, and the SR-Menshevik Central Executive Committee described the Bolsheviks as 'misguided but honest fighters' [P174].

Suppression temporarily weakened Bolshevik influence and restricted the party's public activity [P2]. Yet the government failed to disband unreliable regiments, and Bolshevik organisations soon resumed work [P243]. The episode exposed the Provisional Government's inability to satisfy popular demands, destroyed hopes that the Soviet would peacefully assume power, and placed dictatorship, rightist or proletarian, firmly on the agenda [P243]. By autumn the slogan 'All Power to the Soviets' had become a majority demand, and the October Revolution was built on that experience [P2].