Kornilov Affair - Historiography

Historiography

Several schools of thought surrounding the Kornilov Affair offer contrasting interpretations and have provoked debate among historians. One take on the Kornilov Affair was put forward by Aleksandr Kerensky himself, the main target of the coup. In the years after the event, Kerensky described the affair as a right wing conspiracy that "...developed slowly, systematically, with cool calculation of all the factors involved affecting its possible success or failure." Kornilov, argued Kerensky, was drawn into this conspiracy long after the preparatory work had been completed. In a 1966 interview with Soviet journalist Genrikh Borovik, Kerensky expressed the view that Winston Churchill had played a central role in the conspiracy.

In his 1970 work, The Kornilov Affair: A Reinterpretation, Harvey Asher suggests that Kerensky and Kornilov had an agreement to use the military to restore order within Russia. Asher then goes onto argue that, upon learning that Kornilov favoured the idea of a military dictatorship from Lvov, Kerensky reneged on their agreement for fear that he might be removed from power. Another interpretation of the Kornilov affair is that it was the result of a misunderstanding between Kerensky and Kornilov, caused by the interference of Vladimir Lvov.

The American historian Richard Pipes put forward another interpretation of the event in his work The Russian Revolution: 1899-1919. Pipes argued that far from there being a Kornilov plot there was in fact a "'Kerensky plot' engineered to discredit the general as the ringleader of an imaginary but widely anticipated counter revolution, the suppression of which would elevate the Prime Minister to a position of unrivalled popularity and power, enabling him to meet the growing threat from the Bolsheviks."