The July Days¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter narrates the pivotal July 1917 crisis in Petrograd, arguing that the reformist leaders of the Soviets—the Mensheviks and SRs—bore decisive responsibility for the counter-revolutionary turn. By refusing to break with the bourgeois Cadets and take power themselves, they handed the initiative to the forces of reaction, who were regrouping after February. The immediate catalyst was Kerensky's offensive of 1 July, launched on the very day workers and soldiers demonstrated for peace. The Bolsheviks warned at the Congress of Soviets that any offensive would strengthen imperialist morale and the officer corps, whatever its military outcome—a warning later embodied in General Kornilov. When the offensive failed, it produced demoralisation and collapse.
The chapter draws on Lenin's writings from April 1917 and Trotsky's history of the Russian Revolution to reconstruct the Bolsheviks' strategic reasoning. A ministerial crisis over the Ukrainian question on 2 July exposed the Provisional Government's incapacity to solve the national question. Yet the more the crisis deepened, the more the 'socialist' ministers clung to the bourgeois liberals, with Kerensky moving rapidly rightward. The Bolsheviks responded by intensifying their demand that the Mensheviks and SRs break with the capitalists—a paradoxical tactic explained by Trotsky: a purely Soviet government would initially be dominated by the SRs and Mensheviks, but constant re-elections would reflect the masses' radicalisation, shifting the struggle for power onto the peaceful terrain of the Soviets.
The chapter's narrative thrust centres on the tension between spontaneous mass action and Bolshevik discipline. The First Machine Gun Regiment, influenced by the Bolshevik Military Organisation, concluded that the Provisional Government must be overthrown. But the Central Committee opposed any seizure of power in Petrograd alone, recognising that the provinces were not ready and that the Bolsheviks remained a minority in the Soviets. "Events should not be anticipated. Time is on our side," the Committee insisted. Nevertheless, on 3 July, soldiers, sailors and workers poured onto the streets spontaneously, incensed at being sent as cannon fodder to the front. The Bolsheviks initially tried to restrain the movement, then—late that night—decided to participate to give it an organised and peaceful character. Lenin hurried back from holiday to find a chaotic situation.
The chapter polemicises sharply against the characterisation of the July Days as a Bolshevik putsch or pogrom. It notes that anarchist and Black Hundred elements attempted to incite attacks on the Tauride Palace and the arrest of SR leader Chernov—whom Trotsky had to rescue from Kronstadt sailors. The reactionary press later exploited these incidents to slander the Bolsheviks. The chapter also polemicises against the reformist leaders who, terrified of the masses, recovered their nerve the moment 'reliable' troops arrived from the front, then declared the Bolsheviks a counter-revolutionary party, suppressed Pravda, and unleashed a wave of raids, arrests and beatings. The chapter's central claim is that the July Days marked the moment when the pendulum swung violently to the right—not because the Bolsheviks attempted a putsch, but because the Soviet leaders refused power when it was thrust upon them.