The end of August was marked by the rising of General Kornilov. It was the immediate result of the mobilisation of the counter-revolutionary forces, to which the offensive of July had given a great impetus. At the celebrated State Conference at Moscow in the latter half of August, Kerensky tried to take up a position midway between the propertied classes and lower middle-class democrats. The Bolsheviks were regarded as standing altogether outside the law. Kerensky threatened them with ‘blood and iron’ amidst a storm of applause from the propertied sections of the Conference and the treacherous silence of the lower middle-class democrats. But Kerensky’s hysterical cries and threats did not satisfy the leaders of the counter-revolutionary cause. They saw only too well the revolutionary wave that was spreading throughout the country, enveloping the workers, the peasants, and the army, and they considered it imperative to employ immediately the most extreme measures in order to teach the masses an unforgettable lesson. In agreement with the propertied bourgeoisie, which saw in him its hero, Kornilov took this risky matter on his shoulders. Kerensky, Savinkov, Filonenko, and other Socialist Revolutionaries in or about office took part in his plot, but all of them betrayed Kornilov as soon as they saw that if he should come out victorious they themselves would be thrown overboard. I lived through the episode in prison and followed it up in the papers: free access to the papers was the only important difference between Kerensky’s prison regime and the old one. The adventure of the Cossack General fell through; in six months of the Revolution the masses had developed sufficient spirit and strength of organisation to repel any open counter-revolutionary attack. The coalitionist Soviet parties were frightened to the last degree by the possible developments of the Kornilov plot, which threatened to sweep away not only the Bolsheviks, but the whole of the Revolution, together with its leading parties. The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks then set out to ‘legalise’ the position of the Bolsheviks, but only by half and with numerous reservations, scenting possible dangers in the future. The same Kronstadt sailors who, after the July occurrence, had been branded as hooligans and counter-revolutionaries, were now summoned to Petrograd to defend the Revolution against the Kornilov danger. They came without demur, without taunts, without any reminders of the past, and took up the most responsible positions. I had then a perfect right to remind Tsereteli of the words I had thrown at him in May, when he was abusing the men of Kronstadt: “When a counter-revolutionary general tries to tie a knot round the throat of the Revolution, the Cadets will be soaping the rope and the Kronstadt sailors will come to help us and to die with us.”
The Soviet organisations displayed everywhere at the rear and at the front their vitality and strength in the fight against the Kornilov rising. Scarcely anywhere did matters come to actual fighting. The revolutionary masses simply paralysed the General’s plot. Just as in July the Coalitionists could find no soldiers to fight against us among the Petrograd garrison, so now Kornilov could find no soldiers at the front to fight against the Revolution. He could only act at all by deceit, and the efforts of the propagandists soon put an end to his designs.
Judging by the papers, I hoped for a very rapid development of events and for an early passing of the government authority into the hands of the Soviets. The growth of the influence and strength of the Bolsheviks was undoubted, and it had now received an irresistible impetus. The Bolsheviks had warned against the Coalition, against the July offensive, and had foretold the Kornilov rebellion. The popular masses could now see that we had been right. At the most anxious moments of the Kornilov plot, when the Caucasian ‘Savage’ Division was marching on Petrograd, the Petrograd Soviet, with the unwilling connivance of the government, had armed the workers. The regiments which had been summoned against us had long ago become transformed in the hot atmosphere of Petrograd, and were now entirely on our side. The Kornilov attempt was bound finally to open the eyes of the army to the inadmissibility of any further understanding with the bourgeois counter-revolutionaries. One might, therefore, have expected that the suppression of the Kornilov attempt would be followed by an immediate effort of the revolutionary forces, guided by our party, to obtain power. But events developed more slowly. In spite of the intensity of revolutionary feeling, the masses had become warier since the severe lesson of the July Days, and forswore all spontaneous action, waiting for a direct call and guidance from their leaders. But the leaders of our party, too, were in a waiting mood. In these circumstances the winding up of the Kornilov adventure, although it had fundamentally altered the correlation of forces in our favour, did not lead to any immediate political changes.