Selective Multiculturalism

I was thinking recently. On one hand I am not one ethnicity racist person and have good relationship with people of different cultures. On the other hand, I am not super accepting and welcome just everyone, I am selective and get along only with some people.

That made me think of a middle ground between ethnonationalism and global one people multiculturalism. A kind of common values union, selective multiculturalism or even multicultural racism. Even actual Nazi of WWII era actually had selected ethnicities they deemed worthy of cooperation. 

That way I and people I can get along with can coexist and problematic people can be excluded and segregated.

Modern worlds practice this sort of approach as well, places like North Korea are ostracized by majority of the world.

Chart of My Ideologies vs their Opposites

I hope this chart will not only help you better understand the ideologies I support vs those I oppose.

By Africa I mean only the most dysfunctional and high birth rates states of Sub-Saharan Africa and Sub-Saharan Africans, such as Somalia, Zimbabwe, Niger, Central African Republic, Rwanda or whatever is Robert Kony doing, not just all black people. Too long to fit this whole definition.

How Labor Party Can Revive its Fortunes

 

The short answer is by embracing left wing populism.

The long answer is I will explain why below.

Populism is Popular and Electable.

Left Wing Populism and Populism in General are currently on the rise throughout the world. In some counties such as Greece they even win elections outright (Syriza) and in others such as Spain, they participate in government in coalition with traditional left wing (Podemos).

They are popular in Australia as well. Pretty much every reasonably successful crossbench 3rd party is populist in one way or another. The Greens promise to boost to all social security payments and increase government expenditure in general. Nick Zenophon Team and later Center Alliance promise to revive local manufacturing, One Nation too advocates to increased spending, reviving manufacturing but also limit immigration to reduce competition on labor market. Even right-wing spoiler parties such as Palmer's United or Jaquie Lambie Network vaguely promise improvement of living conditions.

In total populism, mostly left-wing populism, now readily amounts to around 20% of the electoral vote. Combine that with Labor own 30% and you have guaranteed electability for a foreseeable future.

Right wing press does attack populism because they understand its danger to their electoral prospects. Murdoch press routinely mislabels One Nation as far right despite them being mostly economically left-wing.

However, populism is here to stay.  The reason is changing socio-economic conditions.

Socio-Economic Conditions

Labor and Labor like parties rose to power and electability when working class (employee class) became a majority among the population. This was preceded by establishment of large factories and other large organization that employed a lot of people. Before that employees were not a majority in society and working class was not the base of political power. Before 19th century people used to work differently, it was more entrepreneurial and independent time.

Throughout 20th century large organizations dominated the economy and with them working class, trade unions and Labor Party were powerful and electable without any special effort on their part.

However, with advance in automation that started to change. Factories close and organizations employ less and less people. Progressively shrinking the working class and with them trade unions and Labour Party.

That does not affect only working class, the vaunted middle class shrinks just as much if not more so. Parties that used to represent middle class have long gone to make way for left wing populism instead.

However, all these people who lost jobs or job prospects due to socio-economic change do not become right wing voters. Far from it. Instead, they become even more left-wing than working class, a new left if you like.

New left is not the same as old far left. That is why new parties such as Podemos and Syriza win governments and traditional far left communists stagnate as before.

The reason for that is that traditional far left is falling behind is because all forms of socialism, democratic or not, fundamentally requires its supporters to be some kind of employees. It has no relevance or benefit for people who are not employees, for example those who are unemployed.

New Class

All these unemployed, underemployed, seasonal workers, day workers, informal workers, hustling, gig-economy and so on people together form a new socio-economic class. You can call them underclass as they are economically worse off than working class. Marx used to call them lumpen proletariat in contrast to working class (simple) proletariat. More modern and less offensive term is precariat, that emphasizes precarity of their economic prospects and future.

Unlike working class that have strong connection with their place of employment and each other, precariat is isolated and disconnected from each other. Different members of precariat experience vastly different economic, social and living conditions. The only thing that unites them is that they are all poor and struggle to meet ends meet on day-to-day basis.

Because of the above they cannot readily benefit from any structural economic change. Therefore, the only policy that can appeal is to give them money and things directly. Simple and plain free stuff. Hence why majority of them tend to support various far left or left-wing populist parties. It's not traditional socialism or even democratic socialism but rather extreme social-democracy and welfarism.

Precariat is Possibly Unfortunate Future

Because of current socio-economic conditions and development trends precariat will keep getting bigger and bigger. Simultaneously Labor's working class will keep getting smaller and smaller. 

Parties that will manage to win this class over will end up shaping the politics of the 21st century.

That is not because its good or ethical, that is just economic reality.

The Greens, One Nation, Centre Alliance, Palmer's United and most of 3rd parties currently in Austria are trying to win precariat over with their populist policies. Even some parties connected with right wing tories are trying to get some of the precariat to vote for them. 

However fundamentally precariat and tories could not be any more different. There is huge animosity from right wing towards so called dole bludger, typical representative of the precariat.

That puts Labor in a good position to win precariat over, but currently Labor does nothing to appeal to this ever-growing demographic. 

How Labor Can Appeal to Precariat

While idea of winning educated well-off middle class might appeal to many in Labor much more than dealing with unwashed precariat, however for better or worse the future will be with precariat.

To win precariat Labor will have to branch out and embrace left wing populism or promising free stuff and money for nothing. 

For decades already tories kept accusing Labor of pondering to dole bludgers, it's time to actually start doing that. Work ethics and such might get in the way of such approach, economic prospects of precariat are too precarious to care over something like that.

If the core of Labor is against such measures, then Labor can simply sponsor a loosely affiliated sister party. Right wing was doing it almost since the inception of the federation. Their Coalition consists of real tory party, called Nationals and its centrist-populist appanage designed to leach vote from other classes, called Liberals. Liberals have long outgrown their partner party in size but continues to be connected to it. National Party politicians continue to control important portfolios whenever Coalition is in power.

Labor too can set up something like Welfare Party and begin competing for precariat vote with Greens and others. Alternative names can be Radical Party or even Tenants Party. Together these new parties and Labour can govern jointly just like Coalition does. The left-wing union can be called Alliance to avoid confusion with right wing Coalition, either in advance or only after they take power.

Conclusion

For good or for bad Precariat is here to stay. Parties could either win this new and growing social class or be left behind like the UK's original Liberals who keep languishing as LibDems since the end of WWI.

Fundamentally if Liberals is the party for those who are somewhat well off, then their opposite should be the party of the poor. The new major left-wing party would be party of the poor. It can be Labor, but it can also be someone else. Its not too late for Labor to try winning the precariat.

On Politics in Australia

There is one peculiar anomaly in politics in Australia. While majority of the people do not support right wing policies, the right-wing Coalition managed to cling to power for much longer periods of time compared to left wing Labor. Coalition often ended up implementing some of their right-wing policies despite opposition not only from Labor but also most of the crossbench as well. Meanwhile Labor keeps doubt itself and fails to achieve much even when in power.

While its convenient to blame this to right wing media, dominated by newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch News Corp, that is not entirely correct. Fundamentally newspapers are legacy medium that hardly consumed by people younger than 60 years old. Young people do not consume Murdoch press, but they do not vote Labor either, that means Murdoch have nothing to do with it. At the very least Murdoch is far not all there is to a problem.

Fundamental problem is that Liberals a lot more cunning and savvy that Labor. They better understand different demographics and have a big bag of tricks to mislead people into voting for them. In contrast Labor is over reliant on their innate appeal to working class and completely helpless when it comes to expanding its appeal to any other groups. The reasons these parties ended up so different in that regard lies in their history. I will write about each party separately, starting with Libs.

Liberal History

Modern Liberals have many differently named predecessors: United Australia Party, Australia Party, Nationalist Party, National Labour, (Commonwealth) Liberals, Protectionist, Free Trade. Some like to simplify that to simply the same party under different names, but that loses important details. These different iterations of modern center-right party represent periods of existential crises in the party history where they often had to take drastic measures to stay relevant and not be relegated to ash heap of history. They happened because changes to economics and demographics necessitated expansion of party base and inclusion of ever-increasing groups into the party. I will cover each of them separately.

The ancient most predecessors of modern Liberals were Protectionist Party and Free Trade Party. These parties actually competed with each other in elections. They were organic parts the original two-party system. It hard to tell which of them was more rightwing compared to the other as they both represented businessowners. 

Protectionists represented businesses that manufactured locally and favored high tariffs to make local produce more competitive than imported goods. Free Trade represented traders and importers who wanted tariffs low so that their shipping would be more profitable. These two parties competed in election and had a fair bit of rivalry that even made Protectionists to support Labour government against the Free Traders.

However eventually these former bitter rivals came to the conclusion that their mutual differences with Labor are higher than those with each other and merged into Commonwealth Liberals. That produced a more familiar form of two-party system, with one left and one right wing party. Political battlelines stop being about interests of different business groups, they became about interests of employees vs interests of managers and business owners. 

Hext merger came from within Labor itself. Billy Hughes, once a rather popular Labor leader, decided to split from Labour and with his supporters formed National Labour Party. After a minority government supported by original Liberals, they eventually merged with them into a Nationalist Party.

That was the point where right wing realized they can no longer survive without some support from working class and rallied Hughes and a few prominent former Labour members into their ranks under banner of Nationalism. That for the first time added some of the core Labor base to that of the tory. That however also diluted the policies the party stands for, as traditional business owners' interests had to co-exist with patriotic fervor of National Labor working class. 

Huges was eventually expelled from Nationalist party, but soon formed Australia Party that eventually went to merge with Nationalists to form United Australia Party.

The base of the Nationalists again dwindled too far to keep party electable, so they had to resort to populist tactics to lure yet more supporters away from Labour as well as from all other corners of society.

Notice how right wing all too willing to adopt the name that is much closer to the splinter party they are merging into. That represent conscious self-awareness that their tory policy is not popular with people, and they are much better off to be seen as some new catch all party. 

Names themselves cannot be more catch all and generic. Australian Party ostensively represents everyone in Australia, at least claims to. Make it United Australia Party to double on that catch all effect. 

By now it's no longer party of anything, but rather simply anti-Labour party that united people of vastly different worldviews and interests, that have nothing in common with each other.

How Liberals Invented Middle Class

The final exercise in broadening party support came in 1949, when Robert Menzies created modern Liberal Party. While that took the party name back to the original merger of Protectionists and Free Trade, the appeal of the party broadened yet again. This time with the help of the newly invented middle class.

Middle class is essentially an upper crust of well-off members of working class, the Labor' Party base. Labor themselves created them with their policies that benefited working people and allowed them to become somewhat well off. Afterwards these well-off workers were scooped by their rivals with campaign of fears that their wealth might disappear if Labour takes power again.

Ever since Labor engaged Liberals in tug of war over this vaunted middle class, whose socio-economic situations makes their allegiance muddy. This is a game Liberals created and Labor foolhardily walked into.

Modern Liberals

All that makes modern Liberal Party not a party that represents anyone or stands for anything. Rather it's a shrewd political machine that just scraps together votes from any corner they could possibly find and somehow divert to themselves. John Howard described it as broad church but is more of a rag tag group of people that have nothing in common with each other who are sometimes mislead into voting for the Liberals. Because of that they hardly have any policies aside from opposition to Labour, lowering the taxes and doing nothing.

If they would try something else, like rework industrial relationships for example, it would expose differences between different blocks of supporters. That is also why leaders such as Tony Abbot are liked by some in the party and despised by others: this exposes vast gaps between different interests' groups in the party.

The party is fully self-aware of that. The very same Tony Abbot knew full well that people would not vote for him if they knew what his policies were, so he simply avoided saying anything about his policies and focused instead on criticizing Labor ones.

When even that is not enough then, to further prop their ailing electoral prospects, Liberals create a number of spoiler parties such as Democratic Labour Party, Family First Party to further broaden their support and catch votes of those who would not vote for tories but willing to vote against Labour for one or another reason. 

More recently they done that again with yet more of these spoiler parties, such as Palmer United Party that later reclaimed tory old United Australia Party name, Australian Conservatives and a few others.

They also managed to rope-in some popular small party independents, such as David Leyonhjelm of Liberal Democrats, despite Liberal Democrats having little in common with the Liberals.

Finally, the vaunted middle class, that Liberals claim to represent, and Labor wants to win back, sometimes realizes that neither party truly stands for its interests and once their even tried to form their own party Australian Democrats, one and only true party of middle class. They only managed limited success before disappearing into oblivion. Teal Independents is possibly one other such attempt, or they could be simply another one of Liberal spoiler party tricks instead.

Some analysts claim that Democrats place was taken by The Greens, however that is misleading. The Greens are not centrist middle-class party, but rather far-left populist party that represents diverse array of mostly poor and disenfranchised voters to whom their appeal with their populist rhetoric and promises of free stuff.

Labor Party

Labor party situation is the opposite of that of the Liberals. If Liberals needed to constantly broaden their support at expense of, among other things, parts of Labor base, then Labor mostly struggles to keep their large base united and prevent people from leaving for other parties. Unlike Liberals they have never really tried to win any support outside of their target demographic, working people, employees who work for fixed (mostly hourly) wage.

Labor was left scarred by Billy Hughes, DLP and others splitting the party so instead of working on broadening the base, the work on keeping their base together and united. That is why unlike rag tag Cronenberg Liberals, Labor only has two neatly organized fractions: Socialist Left and Labor Unity.

Labor got caught into tug of war over middle class, created by Liberals, and lost many of their policies that actually benefited working class in a near futile attempt to win back middle class. Which did sometimes benefit the party in the past.

Party made so many mistakes that would have buried someone like Liberals long ago, but because Labour's base is very strong, the party could never sink completely. Unionized working class would always vote for their party. Despite partly hardly doing anything useful for them since Whitlam and Hawke, only few of them deserted it.

In general majority of people in our current society are employees and that make Labor a much more natural choice for them compared to Liberals. Liberals had to scratch their heads to invent cunning schemes to get votes, Labor can just sit on their hands doing nothing and government would just fall into their hands.

All that made Labor complacent and blind to reality of Australian life. If you can win without making a single smart move, them why bother thinking. So far this approach occasionally kept delivering government to Labor.

The party exists within dual bubble of their own internal politics as well as that of productivity political narrative, invented by Liberals. and unable to see changes in economy and society around them. It is foolish to trust the lingo and narrative of Liberals, but Labor Unity does so, nonetheless.

Labor claims to be democratic socialist, but by now their policies can hardly be even called social democracy. They too stuck in Canberra bubble and Liberal party invented, productivity, economy and competitiveness narrative, that they completely lost touch with reality.

The right-wing creep is because as people get wealthier, they favor conservative right-wing policies. That is why Liberals managed to snatch upper crust of former Labor's working class, that they dubbed middle class.

However, this problem affects politicians within Labor Party itself. Many of them have investment properties or stock market investments. That would make them fall for the Liberal economic drivel and favor policies that improve economic indicators over the policies that actually help working class or the poor.

By now party is too much focus one token leftwing polices such as feminism as well as public service pet projects rather than things that can indeed improve lives of working people.

Future of the Left Wing

So far Labor managed maintain electability, however, voters increasingly desert Labor to various left-wing alternatives. It is hard to say how long the party can last without changing its approach.

Analysts like to describe One Nation as far-right, but when it comes to economic policies, they are much closer to the left that to the right. Despite the smear campaign against them in media, the party endures and manages to keep significant percentage of vote. Cunning Liberal shadow puppeteers managed to pit One Nation against both Greens and Labor for the benefit of the Libs and detriment of all the other three.

The populist far-left Greens alone managed to consistently hold around the third of primary vote support. I will repeat it here again that unlike Democrats, The Greens are not centrist middle-class party, but rather far-left populist party that represents diverse array of mostly poor and disenfranchised voters to whom their appeal with their populist rhetoric and promises of increased social security payments, social housing and other free stuff.

So far that did not endanger Labor's electability, as Greens preferences flow to them anyway, but that alone is telling of how many people wish for a different left-wing party that represents them. Just think of these 11-12% vs Labor own 32% something. 

One Nation and NXT did manage to carve out some as well. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that Labour only represents half of all left-wing vote with the remaining half represented by other small parties or not represented by anyone and simply lost in cracks of electoral process.

Reasons for Changes to Left Wing

One can ask if Labour have endured before, then they can do so again, but there is a reason why that is not the case. The reason is socio-economic change.

Back in 20th century a number of people who work as employees kept constantly increasing. All these large organizations had to be manned by people. All these people were Labour's core base. Majority of them supported Labor even if Libs managed to chip away few here and there.

Nowadays however many large factories are closing, for example that Holden Factory in Elizabeth. That alone turned all these formally Labor voters, who used to work there, into potential future Greens voters. That is just one example.

A lot of people are unemployed or underemployed, some participate in gig economy or just get by with irregular work. All this ever-growing segment of society is economically left wing but is not represented by Labor at all. Because of that they chose to vote Greens, One Nation or any other 3rd party.

This trend will continue and because of that all these 3rd parties will continue to grow. If nothing is done, they will eventually replace Labor as new left-wing party. Just like UK's Labour replaced Liberals and main left-wing party. If Labor will not try to broaden its appeal, it might as well end up just like UK Liberals.

How Bolsheviks Actually Took Power

The official narrative of the so-called October Revolution is that on 7 November soldiers and sailors assaulted the Winter Palace, arrested provisional government and then declared that all power belongs to the Soviets. That makes for a good revolution themed movie, but in reality, that was not what happened. That narrative was constructed much later for propaganda purposes.

In reality Lenin and Bolsheviks did not declare they seized power until 1918. Provisional government members were never arrested, Kerenski lived in exile for many years afterwards. Soldiers and sailors did not assaulted Winter Palace.

What actually happened during these October days is that Lenin peacefully negotiated a transfer of power with Kerenski, under certain conditions. 

Lenin argued that because he won elections to Petrograd Soviet, that indicates that public supports Bolsheviks and Provisional government needs to reflect will of the people. Some of the members of Kerenski own Social Revolutionary party (left SRs) actually support a coalition government with leftist Bolsheviks rather than with centrists and rightists that currently governs under Kerenski. Kerenski himself took power as Prime Minister from Prince Lvov after failed May uprising in order to better reflect leftist popular sentiment. 

Because of the above, Lenin argued that now that people want Bolsheviks, he should be given opportunity to form new provisional government. 

On his end Lenin promised that he will respect provisional nature of government. He will not implement any radical reforms. Will not arrest anyone. He will oversee final stages of the elections to Constitutional Assembly and will respect the outcomes of these elections. He will also respect in principle that it would be up to Constitutional Assembly to make any major decisions about future governance in Russia.

Only under these conditions Lenin and Bolsheviks were allowed to form 6th provisional government with Lenin becoming its 3rd Prime Minister after Prince Lvov and Kerenski himself. Lvov had two governments and Kerenski three because other ministers under them were changing hands at different times. For example, in 2nd Lvov government, Kerenski was minister of the Army and navy before becoming Prime Minister sometime later.

Lenin and his 6th provisional government governed in this capacity all the way to the first session of the Constitutional Assembly. There Lenin and Bolsheviks lost to Social Revolutionary Party of Kerenski but had second largest fraction overall.

Bolsheviks proposed to the Constitutional Assembly that all power in the country should be given to Soviets, such as the Petrograd Soviet mentioned above. The assembly voted that proposal down.

The next day Red Guards forcefully dissolved the assembly, by shutting the doors to the building where its sessions took place, in the infamous "guards are tired" incident. The Bolshevik takeover was complete.  

Discontent politicians united with the Imperial Army Officers into White Movement to oppose Bolsheviks take over. Civil War has begun.

However, that was only how it all looked like for an average inhabitant of Petrograd, then capital. During the October events Bolsheviks did not arrest the government or took power in one fell swoop. In fact, life of average city inhabitant hardly changed that much that October.

Instead, Bolsheviks took something much less glamorous than Winter Palace, that ended up being much more useful for taking and keeping the power that a palace or government: Post, Telegraph and Telephone.

Post, Telegraph and Telephone were the only means of communications, available between the capital and the rest of the country. By having effective control over these institutions Bolsheviks had full control over the flow of information. In my previous article about Russian Revolution, I already covered how tampering with communication could mess up the government. Now that Bolsheviks had effective control over the communications they put them to immediate use.

First, they immediately announced to the country that they seized all the power and arrested the provisional government. Then they started to issue various orders to other places in Russia, placing loyalists to all important positions in key cities, particularly Moscow.

At the same time, they effectively prevented anyone from Petrograd from sending their own messages. Officials in post office would claim they would send it, but in reality, would simply destroy anything that was not authorized by Bolshevik government.

This control over the information is what allowed Bolsheviks to actually seize power and not any other events.

By the time of Constitutional Assembly Bolsheviks managed to build themselves a stronghold of power in Moscow and other key cities. Because of that They could safely dissolve the Constitutional Assembly. By that time, they were sure that structures of power they build in Moscow and other cities could support their power against the rest of the country. After the infamous 'guards are tired" incident they even moved capital to Moscow, to prevent their now numerous opponents from trying a counter coup. Petrograd was full of politically savvy people who opposed Bolsheviks, Moscow was apolitical place that was used to follow orders from above, perfect to the new seat of power after the coup.

These events show how important it is to control flow of information as well as how much one can achieve when they have monopoly of information. The reason why Putin bans all independent media in Russia is to maintain such monopoly on information. When no one says otherwise, people would even believe that there are Nazis in Ukraine.

That is also a reason to question all the information people give you. You never know how untrue it can be.

Also, sometimes small things that are overlooked by others, can be keys to power.

How Kievan Rus was and how it split up into Several Different States.

During the Kievan Rus each Prince used a slightly different version of the emblem.

The state was centered on modern Kyiv in modern Ukraine, but also included Great Novgorod from modern Russia. Because of that both Russia and Ukraine claim to be rightful successor to this state, while ridiculing the other's claim to the same. Ukraine even uses a version of Tryzub of Vladimir the Great as its Coat of Arms to further emphasize this claim.

Kievan Rus was mostly running trading between Constantinople and the Baltic Sea. To that end their used rivers in the area. Valdai hills and Seliger Late is the source of reivers that flow to both Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. To Black Sea they used Dnipro that flows through Kyiv, Smolensk and some areas in Belarus. To the Baltic Sea they used Lovat River, the Ilmen Lake, then Ladoga Lake and Neva River. Along this path they build a number of outposts to rest, resupply and store things. These outposts later grew into modern cities.

Some Kievan Rus rulers such as Vladimir the Great had many male children. Only the eldest could inherit the Kyiv itself and rule there, so the youngest went to explore various areas around the rivers to find some suitable place to found their own cities and principalities. The more successful of these ended up founding their own principalities and dynasties: Chernigov, Pereslavl, Halych, Volyn and Podolia in modern Ukraine. Polotsk in modern Belarus. Ryazan and Rostov-Vladimir-Suzdal-Moscow in modern Russia. One such young princeling went northeast and eventually founded Rostov on Lake Nero in modern Yaroslavl oblast in Russia. From that town and that branch of Rurikids eventually grew a dynasty that ruled in Moscow and renamed itself Russia.

Kornilov Affair and Miscommunication between him and Kerenski

One of the elements that happen during Russian Revolution period of 1917-18 was so called Kornilov's Affair. 

Ostensively Kornilov wanted to seize power by force and sent General Karpov's Corps to Petrograd (modern St. Peterburg, then capital) to do so. However, Kerenski responded to this threat by freeing and rearming Bolshevik's Red Guards. Rearmed Red Guards then stopped General Karpov's Army Corps close to Petrograd and disarmed it. 

Kerenski managed to protect his power and prevented Russia from becoming a military dictatorship similar Franko's Spain or Pinochet's Chilie. Several months later however Kerenski lost that power to the same Bolsheviks and Red Guards he freed to protect that power.

In the accounts of these events there were several irregularities. Most important is the stark difference in narratives of Kerenski on one side and people close to Kornilov on the other. Before the Kornilov's Affair Kerenski and Kornilov communicated with each other via letters. 

When Kerenski retold the content of these letters, he claimed that in them Kornilov's proposed making himself Supreme Ruler of Russia and abolishing position of Prime Minister. When Kerenski refused this proposal, Kornilov responded with sending military to Petrograd, because he believed Kerenski was controlled by Bolsheviks. Thus, Kerenski had no choice but to protect himself from a military coup.

While Generals close to Kornilov however deny that they wanted to take any power by force and only sent military to Petrograd on request of Kerenski.

While Kerenski's account seems more credible simply because the fact of sending military to Petrograd does smell of coup, there are still several issues with that version. First is that it would be stupid for Kornilov to disclose such plans in advance in correspondence. It would be more prudent to keep coup intentions hidden until the last moment. Second is the fact that General Karpov surrendered instead of fighting against Red Guards. If they intended to stage the coup, they would likely have fought in this situation. 

There could be counter arguments, like Kornilov could have believed that Kerenski was the kind of person to give up power voluntary or that soldiers of Karpov's Corps simply defected to Red Guards, a typical problem for Civil War era White Army. 

However, I think there is a different reason why events have unfolded this way: tampering with correspondence. 

To put it simply someone sympathetic to Bolsheviks or affiliated with them, simply switched letters midway between Kerenski and Kornilov. One of the intermediaries in charge of delivering letters could have easily done something like that. Then someone with good forging skills have altered content of the letters and pass the fabricated letters to each recipient. 

Kornilov would have get a request to reinforce Petrograd with a army corps that Kerenski did not send. Kerenski would get a proposal to give up his power to Kornilov, that Kornilov did not sent. 

Both of these letters were deliberately fabricated by Bolsheviks to clash Kornilov and Kerenski. After all it were Bolsheviks who benefited from the whole mess most. Their Red Guards, who were imprisoned after unsuccessful May coup, were now freed and could try to take power again. 

Differences in account between Kerenski and Generals as well as the other reasons outlined above all point out towards this conclusion. Finally, Bolsheviks are known to be dishonest and had a history of fabricating facts to suit their objectives.

This Bolshevik's tampering with correspondence between Kornilov and Kerenski was the likely reason behind the Kornilov Affair. These events paved way for them to take power in later stages of the revolution.