Vikzhel
[2] The revolt against Tsarism soon collapsed, however, and the government of Tsar Nicholas II pushed back with a December 14 (O.S.)
[3] So-called "punitive expeditions" aboard armored trains were quickly dispatched to take action against organized strikers.
[3] Some 150 railway strikers and bystanders were killed in massacres following the imposition of martial law.
[1] This gathering elected a governing council, an All-Russian Executive Committee, to conduct the affairs of the railway union between conventions.
[1] Vikzhel rapidly developed amidst the chaos into which the country had descended, establishing itself as the largest and best organized union in Russia by the fall of 1917.
The spontaneous street riots known as the July Days had fizzled and been suppressed, leading to a public discrediting of the Bolshevik Party that had belatedly supported such direct action and a turn in public opinion towards firm central government.
[10] Moreover, Kornilov's public status among middle class society was momentarily high, enhanced by the short-lived military successes of the army's June offensive, with which he was credited.
[13] In August Kornilov prepared the ground for a political offensive, visiting Petrograd and putting forward a plan to put the Petrograd Military District — previously controlled by Kerensky's Ministry of War — under his own personal authority.
[14] He also visited Moscow, upstaging the tepid reception given to the arrival of government ministers to a formal state conference with a carefully orchestrated railway ceremony featuring a military honor guard, saber-wielding Turkmen guards, and a military band.
[15] An uneasy political dance followed between Kerensky and Kornilov, in which each attempted to use the other to bolster his own claim as supreme leader of a future Russian government.
[18] Kerensky proved unable to by himself to divert the movement of Kornilov's troops to the capital, however, his telegraphic advice that "Petrograd is completely calm and no insurrections are expected" falling upon deaf ears.
[19] On August 27, troops personally loyal to Kornilov boarded trains heading for the capital city.
[21] That same day Vikzhel established a special committee dedicated to the military emergency created by Kornilov.
[23] Delayed troops riding the rails were isolated and surrounded, the situation explained and illegal orders repudiated, and new vows of loyalty sworn to the revolutionary government.
[26] For its part Vikzhel attempted to help establish a broad coalition against one-party Bolshevik rule and the inevitable civil war which was expected to follow, joining with representatives of moderate socialist political parties to form a group called the Committee to Save the Country and Revolution with a view to the successful launch of the multi-party Constituent Assembly and to achievement of a "democratic peace" in the ongoing war with the German empire.
general strike threat which put Bolshevik leaders into negotiations with other political parties did not generate an immediate agreement, however.
Lenin and the Bolshevik Party stalled for two days as discord grew in the streets of Petrograd.
[26] The Bolsheviks, sensing a radical mood among the union's rank and file which was supportive of the Communist demand for a unified socialist government, went over Vikzhel's head, generating a split of left wing delegates to the congress.
