The Fall of the Provisional Government
Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed from
Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day. In front
of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were standing at
the closed gates.
“What side do you belong to?” I asked. “The Government?”
“No more Government,” one answered with a grin, “_Slava Bogu!_ Glory to
God!” That was all I could get out of him….
The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small boys
hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed even
less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the day
before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had blossomed
out on the walls during the night—to the peasants, to the soldiers at
the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:
FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:
The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public Safety,
composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and representatives
of the following revolutionary democratic organizations: The
_Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasant Deputies,
the Army organisations, the _Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and
others.
Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.
November 7th, 1917.
Though I didn’t realize it then, this was the Duma’s declaration of war
against the Bolsheviki.
I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed on
sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a second-hand
copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on large-sized sheets in
the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_ had huge headlines: “ALL
POWER—TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD!
LAND!” The leading article was signed “Zinoviev,”—Lenin’s companion in
hiding. It began:
Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the present
situation.
Either—the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger and
death….
Or—the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
nonsensical war!…
_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the Cossacks
undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of Chief of the
City Militia Meyer; arrests, counter-arrests, skirmishes between
clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red Guards. (See App. IV,
Sect. 1)
On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
shoulders in a tired manner and replied, “_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they won’t
be able to hold it more than three days. They haven’t the men to run a
government. Perhaps it’s a good thing to let them try—that will furnish
them….”
The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac’s Square was picketed by
armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young officers,
walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors wouldn’t let
them leave….
Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian Republic
met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of soldiers,
rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.
“_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!” snapped one, while another went running
toward the door.
At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a red
flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: “S.R.S.D.” (_Soviet
Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained toward St.
Isaac’s. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth of Novaya
Ulitza—boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile of lumber
barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a neighbouring
wood-pile were being built up along the front of the building to form
breastworks….
“Is there going to be any fighting?” I asked.
“Soon, soon,” answered a soldier, nervously. “Go away, comrade, you’ll
get hurt. They will come from that direction,” pointing toward the
Admiralty.
“Who will?”
“That I couldn’t tell you, brother,” he answered, and spat.
Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian Republic.
“We walked in there,” he said, “and filled all the doors with comrades.
I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz who sat in the
president’s chair. ‘No more Council,’ I says. ‘Run along home now!’”
There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get around
to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling sailor
stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, “If you were Saint
Michael himself, comrade, you couldn’t pass here!” Through the glass of
the door I made out the distorted face and gesticulating arms of a
French correspondent, locked in….
Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform of a
general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in the face.
“I am General Alexeyev,” he cried. “As your superior officer and as a
member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to pass!”
The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the corner of his
eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew very agitated when
he saw who it was and saluted before he realised what he was doing.
“_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_—your High Excellency—” he stammered,
in the manner of the old régime, “Access to the Palace is strictly
forbidden—I have no right—”
An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.
“I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night,” said I, pointing
to them.
“Oh,” he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
“The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
minds….”
Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn up,
and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could reach.
We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All the
entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a cordon of
troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by an uneasy
throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who seemed to be
carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it in front of the
main gateway, everything was quiet.
We couldn’t make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
our American passports, saying “Official business!” and shouldered
through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in their
brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars, politely
took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the dark, gloomy
corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old attendants were
lounging about, and in front of Kerensky’s door a young officer paced
up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if we could interview the
Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his heels.
“No, I am sorry,” he replied in French. “Alexander Feodorvitch is
extremely occupied just now….” He looked at us for a moment. “In fact,
he is not here….”
“Where is he?”
“He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
there wasn’t enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to the
English Hospital and borrow some.”
“Are the Ministers here?”
“They are meeting in some room—I don’t know where.’
“Are the Bolsheviki coming?”
“Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call every
minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have _yunkers_
in the front of the Palace. Through that door there.”
“Can we go in there?”
“No. Certainly not. It is not permitted.” Abruptly he shook hands all
around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in a
temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside. On the
other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for that the vast
spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An old _shveitzar_
ran up. “No, _barin,_ you must not go in there.”
“Why is the door locked?”
“To keep the soldiers in,” he answered. After a few minutes he said
something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
unlocked the door.
Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said nothing.
At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with gilded
cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several smaller
ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the parquetted floor
lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon which occasional
soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a litter of
cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with expensive
French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps of
the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of
tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle of white
Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace. They looked
at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room after room,
until at last we came out into a series of great state-salons, fronting
their long and dirty windows on the Square. The walls were covered with
huge canvases in massive gilt frames—historical battle-scenes…. “12
October 1812” and “6 November 1812” and “16/28 August 1813.” … One had
a gash across the upper right hand corner.
The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.
As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me from
the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent French,
“I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are foreigners.”
He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he removed his cap.
“Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs—Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
absolutely at your service.” It did not seem to occur to him that there
was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering through
the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to complain of the
state of Russia.
“Not only these Bolsheviki,” he said, “but the fine traditions of the
Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all students
in the officers’ training schools. But are they gentlemen? Kerensky
opened the officers’ schools to the ranks, to any soldier who could
pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who are
contaminated by the Revolution….”
Without consequence he changed the subject. “I am very anxious to go
away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
you my address.” In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a piece
of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
still—“_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
Peterhof._”
“We had a review this morning early,” he went on, as he guided us
through the rooms and explained everything. “The Women’s Battalion
decided to remain loyal to the Government.”
“Are the women soldiers in the Palace?”
“Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won’t be hurt if any
trouble comes.” He sighed. “It is a great responsibility,” said he.
For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square before
the Palace, where three companies of long-coated _yunkers_ were drawn
up under arms, being harangued by a tall, energetic-looking officer I
recognised as Stankievitch, chief Military Commissar of the Provisional
Government. After a few minutes two of the companies shouldered arms
with a clash, barked three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across
the Square, disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.
“They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange,” said some one.
Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said they
had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their names—Robert
Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian. But now they
didn’t want to be officers any more, because officers were very
unpopular. They didn’t seem to know what to do, as a matter of fact,
and it was plain that they were not happy.
But soon they began to boast. “If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But if
we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
himself….”
At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on the
Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces, and
the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, “Here they come! Here they
come!” … But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The _izvoshtchiki_
came back, the people lying down stood up. Through the Red Arch
appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step, one of them
supported by two comrades.
It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the Square
had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government buildings
seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner, and right in
the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face, came up and
insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the back of the house,
because they were going to put out the lights in the café. “There will
be much shooting,” he said.
When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing and
was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and sailors
stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked back up to the
Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered staring at the
brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud tones.
“No, comrades,” one was saying. “How can we shoot at them? The Women’s
Battalion is in there—they will say we have fired on Russian women.”
As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Let’s go on through and attack!”
The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
above the roaring engine. “The Committee says to wait. They have got
artillery behind the wood-piles in there….”
Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and there
were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams, the
crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
moving-picture shows—life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre—all theatres were open—but it was too
exciting out of doors….
In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers wheeling
into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various uniforms were
coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great deal of talking….
Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their fists
at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers argued
feebly, with embarrassed grins…. Armoured cars went up and down the
street, named after the first Tsars—Oleg, Rurik, Svietoslav—and daubed
with huge red letters, “R. S. D. R. P.” _(Rossiskaya Partia_)[13]. At
the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an armful of newspapers, and was
immediately stormed by frantic people, offering a rouble, five roubles,
ten roubles, tearing at each other like animals. It was _Rabotchi i
Soldat,_ announcing the victory of the Proletarian Revolution, the
liberation of the Bolsheviki still in prison, calling upon the Army
front and rear for support… a feverish little sheet of four pages,
running to enormous type, containing no news….
[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).
On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had gathered,
staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny red spark
glowed and waned.
“See!” said a tall peasant, pointing to it. “It is a provocator.
Presently he will fire on the people….” Apparently no one thought of
going to investigate.
The massive façade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in
the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying from
the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the
outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At the inner
gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly
spelled out our passes and looked us up and down. The canvas covers had
been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway,
and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd
of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines
going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder
of feet, calling, shouting…. There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A
crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and
round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their
shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_
pinched flat, a leader or so—Lunatcharsky, Kameniev—hurrying along in
the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of
the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev—a quick moving little
man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without
preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution just passed:
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, saluting the
victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
well.
The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be
created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country can
be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.
The new Workers’ and Peasants’ Government will propose immediately a
just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.
It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen’s control over
production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a
general control over the banks, which it will transform into a state
monopoly.
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies calls upon the
workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and
all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its
conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will
assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of
Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the
countries of Western Europe will aid us in conducting the cause of
Socialism to a real and lasting victory.
“You consider it won then?”
He lifted his shoulders. “There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
just beginning….”
On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
looking black and biting his grey beard. “It’s insane! Insane!” he
shouted. “The European working-class won’t move! All Russia—” He waved
his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had both
opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin’s terrible
tongue….
It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
Government no longer existed.
“The characteristic of bourgeois governments,” he said, “is to deceive
the people. We, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are
going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the
needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants.”
Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
world-wide Social Revolution…. And Zinoviev, crying, “This day we have
paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible
blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and
particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner….”
Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the
victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be
marching against Petrograd—a delegation must be sent to tell them the
truth.
Cries, “You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets!”
Trotzky, coldly, “The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has
been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!”
So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamorous
mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers,
packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every
window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of
the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or
wild exultation the ringing of the chairman’s bell. There was no heat
in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies. A foul blue
cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air.
Occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the
comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry
“Don’t smoke, comrades!” and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist
delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him.
Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights’ sleepless work
on the Military Revolutionary Committee.
On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_—for the last
time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the
first days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of
the first period of the Russian revolution, which these men had
attempted to guide in careful ways…. The three greatest of them were
not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country towns all
doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had contemptuously
retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with
consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken,
who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence
for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido,
Fillipovsky,—white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the
second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over
their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot,
holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a
long arm…. It was 10.40 P. M.
Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon’s
uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by
the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door….
“We have the power in our hands,” he began sadly, stopped for a moment,
and then went on in a low voice. “Comrades! The Congress of Soviets in
meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary
moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it
unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become
much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a member of the
_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our party comrades are in
the Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute
the duty put on them by the _Tsay-ee-kah.”_ (Confused uproar.)
“I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies open!”
The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left Socialist
Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was decided to
base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to
their feet protesting. A bearded soldier shouted at them, “Remember
what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_ were the minority!” Result—14
Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1
Internationalist (Gorky’s group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre
Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take part in the
presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the
Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain
circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering
applause and hoots. One voice, “Renegades, you call yourselves
Socialists!” A representative of the Ukrainean delegates demanded, and
received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped down, and in
their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame
Kollentai, Nogin…. The hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared,
these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less than four months
ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of
insurrection!
The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of Power;
second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky,
rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all factions, it
was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet,
then to give the floor to members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the
different parties, and finally to pass to the order of the day.
But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of
the crowd, persistent, disquieting,—the dull shock of guns. People
looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came
over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, “The civil
war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful
settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint
we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war. Our brothers
are being shot down in the streets! At this moment, when before the
opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of Power is being
settled by means of a military plot organised by one of the
revolutionary parties—” for a moment he could not make himself heard
above the noise, “All of the revolutionary parties must face the fact!
The first _vopros_ (question) before the Congress is the question of
Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in
the streets!… We must create a power which will be recognised by the
whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the
revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the
developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst
of counter-revolution…. The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in
the formation of a united democratic authority…. We must elect a
delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist parties and
organisation….”
Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and
the delegates, screaming at each other…. So, with the crash of
artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new
Russia was being born.
The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
supported Martov’s proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
that the All-Russian Peasants’ Soviets had refused to send delegates to
the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
invitation. “Some delegates are present,” he said. “I move that they be
given votes.” Accepted.
Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded the
floor. “The political hypocrites who control this Congress,” he
shouted, “told us we were to settle the question of Power—and it is
being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party which
has risked such an adventure!” Uproar. Followed him Gharra: “While we
are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a battle on in the
streets…. The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki refuse to be
involved in what is happening, and call upon all public forces to
resist the attempt to capture the power….” Kutchin, delegate of the
12th Army and representative of the Troudoviki: “I was sent here only
for information, and I am returning at once to the Front, where all the
Army Committees consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only
three weeks before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of
the Army and a crime against the people—!” Shouts of “Lie! You lie!”…
When he could be heard again, “Let’s make an end of this adventure in
Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
save the country and the Revolution!” As he went down the aisle in the
midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him, threatening….
Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee, speaking suavely
and persuasively: “I speak for the delegates from the Front. The Army
is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and furthermore, the Army
does not consider the Congress of Soviets necessary at this time, only
three weeks before the opening of the Constituent—” shouts and
stamping, always growing more violent. “The Army does not consider that
the Congress of Soviets has the necessary authority—” Soldiers began to
stand up all over the hall.
“Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?” they cried.
“The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army, the
Second F— regiment, the First N— Regiment, the Third S— Rifles….”
“When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the soldiers!
What do the soldiers say about it?” Jeers and hoots.
“We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has happened
and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise all
self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress…. The place to
fight is out on the streets!”
Immense bawling outcry. “You speak for the Staff—not for the Army!”
“I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!”
“Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!” were hurled at him.
On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with the
Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which would
find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed for several
minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the Menshevik
declaration:
“Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid of
the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and therefore
withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to meet for
discussion of the situation!”
“Deserter!” At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard protesting
against the bombardment of the Winter Palace…. “We are opposed to this
kind of anarchy….”
Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
hand:
“Comrades!” he cried and there was a hush. “My _familia_ (name) is
Peterson—I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
statements would have some value _if their authors had been
representatives of the Army_—” Wild applause. _“But they do not
represent the soldiers!”_ Shaking his fist. “The Twelfth Army has been
insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great Soviet and
the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_ our Committee
refused to call a meeting of the representatives of the masses until
the end of September, so that the reactionaries could elect their own
false delegates to this Congress. I tell you now, the Lettish soldiers
have many times said, ‘No more resolutions! No more talk! We want
deeds—the Power must be in our hands!’ Let these impostor delegates
leave the Congress! The Army is not with them!”
The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon, the
delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after hammer-blow had
fallen from that tribune, welding them together but beating them down.
Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising against them? Was it true
that the Army was marching on Petrograd? Then this clear-eyed young
soldier had spoken, and in a flash they knew it for the truth…. _This_
was the voice of the soldiers—the stirring millions of uniformed
workers and peasants were men like them, and their thoughts and
feelings were the same…
More soldiers … Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
they stood for division according to political parties, and not groups.
“Hundreds of delegates from the Front,” he said, “are being elected
without the participation of the soldiers because the Army Committees
are no longer the real representatives of the rank and file….”
Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk could not
represent the Army in this congress,—but only the high command. “The
real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their hearts the
transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they expect very
much from it!”… The tide was turning.
Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish Social
Democrats—his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling with rage.
“What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!” He raised his voice and
hand. “Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn’t permit us to remain
here and be responsible for these crimes. Because the firing on the
Winter Palace doesn’t cease, the Municipal Duma together with the
Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Executive Committee
of the Peasants’ Soviet, has decided to perish with the Provisional
Government, and we are going with them! Unarmed we will expose our
breasts to the machine guns of the Terrorists…. We invite all delegates
to this Congress—” The rest was lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and
curses which rose to a hellish pitch as fifty delegates got up and
pushed their way out….
Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, “Keep your seats and we’ll go on
with our business!” And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel face,
letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, “All these so-called
Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki, Socialist
Revolutionaries, _Bund_—let them go! They are just so much refuse which
will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!”
Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. “In this way we have done
everything possible to avoid blood-shed….”
We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where the
Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed, engulfing and
spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars armed with power
of life and death to all the corners of the city, amid the buzz of the
telephonographs. The door opened, a blast of stale air and cigarette
smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of dishevelled men bending over a
map under the glare of a shaded electric-light…. Comrade
Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a mop of pale yellow hair,
made out passes for us.
When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one huge
park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of which
could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon. A great motor-truck
stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine. Men were tossing
bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside them.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“Down-town—all over—everywhere!” answered a little workman, grinning,
with a large exultant gesture.
We showed our passes. “Come along!” they invited. “But there’ll
probably be shooting—” We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a
raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on
top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate, and
then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the
workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top
speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side…. One man
tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of papers
into the air. We imitated him, plunging down through the dark street
with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind. The late
passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around bonfires on the
corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them. Sometimes armed men
loomed up ahead, crying “_Shtoi!_” and raising their guns, but our
chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible and we hurtled on….
I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light
read:
TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
The Provisional Government is deposed. The State Power has passed into
the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands
at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a
democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land,
labor control over production, creation of a Soviet Government—that
cause is securely achieved.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
_Military Revolutionary Committee_
_Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies._
[Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows]
Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the
Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our
calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just after
the surrender of the Winter Palace.
A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a
goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, “Look out! Here the provocators
always shoot from the windows!” We turned into Znamensky Square, dark
and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy’s brutal statue and
swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles ready,
peering at the windows. Behind us the street was alive with people
running and stooping. We could no longer hear the cannon, and the
nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter and
more deserted were the streets. The City Duma was all brightly lighted.
Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line of sailors,
who yelled furiously at us to stop. The machine slowed down, and we
climbed out.
It was an astonishing scene. Just at the corner of the Ekaterina Canal,
under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn across the
Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column of fours. There
were about three or four hundred of them, men in frock coats,
well-dressed women, officers—all sorts and conditions of people. Among
them we recognised many of the delegates from the Congress, leaders of
the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries; Avksentiev, the lean,
red-bearded president of the Peasants’ Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky’s
spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and at the head white-bearded old
Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies
in the Provisional Government, arrested that morning and released. I
caught sight of Malkin, reporter for the _Russian Daily News._ “Going
to die in the Winter Palace,” he shouted cheerfully. The procession
stood still, but from the front of it came loud argument. Schreider and
Prokopovitch were bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
“We demand to pass!” they cried. “See, these comrades come from the
Congress of Soviets! Look at their tickets! We are going to the Winter
Palace!”
The sailor was plainly puzzled. He scratched his head with an enormous
hand, frowning. “I have orders from the Committee not to let anybody go
to the Winter Palace,” he grumbled. “But I will send a comrade to
telephone to Smolny….”
“We Insist upon passing! We are unarmed! We will march on whether you
permit us or not!” cried old Schreider, very much excited.
“I have orders—” repeated the sailor sullenly.
“Shoot us if you want to! We will pass! Forward!” came from all sides.
“We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on Russians and
comrades! We bare our breasts to your guns!”
“No,” said the sailor, looking stubborn, “I can’t allow you to pass.”
“What will you do if we go forward? Will you shoot?”
“No, I’m not going to shoot people who haven’t any guns. We won’t shoot
unarmed Russian people….”
“We will go forward! What can you do?”
“We will do something,” replied the sailor, evidently at a loss. “We
can’t let you pass. We will do something.”
“What will you do? What will you do?”
Another sailor came up, very much irritated. “We will spank you!” he
cried, energetically. “And if necessary we will shoot you too. Go home
now, and leave us in peace!”
At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment, Prokopovitch
had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella, he made a
speech:
“Comrades and citizens!” he said. “Force is being used against us! We
cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant men! It
is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by
switchmen—” (What he meant by “switchmen” I never discovered.) “Let us
return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the country and
the Revolution!”
Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and back
up the Nevsky, always in column of fours. And taking advantage of the
diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the direction of
the Winter Palace.
Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of soldiers
and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan Cathedral a
three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street, slewed sideways
from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs. Soldiers were standing
in every doorway talking in low tones and peering down toward the
Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: “It is possible that we have
done wrong….” At the corners patrols stopped all passersby—and the
composition of these patrols was interesting, for in command of the
regular troops was invariably a Red Guard…. The shooting had ceased.
Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: “The _yunkers_
have sent word they want us to go and get them out!” Voices began to
give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a dark mass moving
forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the clinking of arms.
We fell in with the first ranks.
Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we
poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in a
low voice: “Look out, comrades! Don’t trust them. They will fire,
surely!” In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching
together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the Alexander
Column.
“How many of you did they kill?” I asked.
“I don’t know. About ten….”
After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army
seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow
forward. By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the Winter
Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three hundred men
were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers. Over the barricade
of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside gave a triumphant
shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown down by the _yunkers_
who had stood there. On both sides of the main gateway the doors stood
wide open, light streamed out, and from the huge pile came not the
slightest sound.
Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right
hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of
the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. A
number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards
and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of
their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain
plates, glassware…. One man went strutting around with a bronze clock
perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers,
which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody
cried, “Comrades! Don’t touch anything! Don’t take anything! This is
the property of the People!” Immediately twenty voices were crying,
“Stop! Put everything back! Don’t take anything! Property of the
People!” Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were
snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the
bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their
cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly
spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be
heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, “Revolutionary
discipline! Property of the People….”
We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing. There
order was also being established. “Clear the Palace!” bawled a Red
Guard, sticking his head through an inner door. “Come, comrades, let’s
show that we’re not thieves and bandits. Everybody out of the Palace
except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted.”
Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in their
hands. Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen and paper.
Shouts of “All out! All out!” were heard far and near within, and the
Army began to pour through the door, jostling, expostulating, arguing.
As each man appeared he was seized by the self-appointed committee, who
went through his pockets and looked under his coat. Everything that was
plainly not his property was taken away, the man at the table noted it
on his paper, and it was carried into a little room. The most amazing
assortment of objects were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of
ink, bed-spreads worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small
oil-painting, desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap,
clothes of every description, blankets. One Red Guard carried three
rifles, two of which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four
portfolios bulging with written documents. The culprits either sullenly
surrendered or pleaded like children. All talking at once the committee
explained that stealing was not worthy of the people’s champions; often
those who had been caught turned around and began to help go through
the rest of the comrades. (See App. IV, Sect. 3)
_Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four. The committee seized
upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the search with remarks
like, “Ah, Provocators! Kornilovists! Counter-revolutionists! Murderers
of the People!” But there was no violence done, although the _yunkers_
were terrified. They too had their pockets full of small plunder. It
was carefully noted down by the scribe, and piled in the little room….
The _yunkers_ were disarmed. “Now, will you take up arms against the
People any more?” demanded clamouring voices.
“No,” answered the _yunkers,_ one by one. Whereupon they were allowed
to go free.
We asked if we might go inside. The committee was doubtful, but the big
Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden. “Who are you anyway?”
he asked. “How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys? (There were
five of us, two women.)
“_Pazhal’st’, touarishtchi!_ Way, Comrades!” A soldier and a Red Guard
appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards with
fixed bayonets. After them followed single file half a dozen men in
civilian dress—the members of the Provisional Government. First came
Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking sullenly at
the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply around; he stared at
us with cold fixity…. They passed in silence; the victorious
insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only a few angry
mutterings. It was only later that we learned how the people in the
street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired—but the sailors
brought them safely to Peter-Paul….
In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace. There was still a
great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found apartments in
the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of _yunkers_ which
did not exist. We went upstairs and wandered through room after room.
This part of the Palace had been entered also by other detachments from
the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues, tapestries and rugs of
the great state apartments were unharmed; in the offices, however,
every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the papers scattered over
the floor, and in the living rooms beds had been stripped of their
coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The most highly prized loot was
clothing, which the working people needed. In a room where furniture
was stored we came upon two soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish
leather upholstery from chairs. They explained it was to make boots
with….
The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms stood
nervously about, from force of habit repeating, “You can’t go in there,
_barin!_ It is forbidden—” We penetrated at length to the gold and
malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the Ministers had
been in session all that day and night, and where the _shveitzari_ had
betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table covered with green
baize was just as they had left it, under arrest. Before each empty
seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were scribbled over with
beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of proclamations and
manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as their futility became
evident, and the rest of the sheet covered with absent-minded
geometrical designs, as the writers sat despondently listening while
Minister after Minister proposed chimerical schemes. I took one of
these scribbled pages, in the hand writing of Konovalov, which read,
“The Provisional Government appeals to all classes to support the
Provisional Government—”
All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was
surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the Front
and with provincial Russia. The Bolsheviki had captured the Ministry of
War early in the morning, but they did not know of the military
telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone line
connecting it with the Winter Palace. In that attic a young officer sat
all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals and
proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put on his
hat and walked calmly out of the building….
Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn’t notice a
change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As we
strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by the time
we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the afternoon
with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after us. One giant
of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with sullen suspicion.
[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows]
Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by A.I.
Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional
Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the situation
became more and more evident. The geometrical figure beneath was
probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for the end.
“Who are you?” he growled. “What are you doing here?” The others massed
slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter. _“Provocatori!”_ I
heard somebody say. “Looters!” I produced our passes from the Military
Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took them gingerly, turned them
upside down and looked at them without comprehension. Evidently he
could not read. He handed them back and spat on the floor. _“Bumagi!_
Papers!” said he with contempt. The mass slowly began to close in, like
wild cattle around a cowpuncher on foot. Over their heads I caught
sight of an officer, looking helpless, and shouted to him. He made for
us, shouldering his way through.
“I’m the Commissar,” he said to me. “Who are you? What is it?” The
others held back, waiting. I produced the papers.
“You are foreigners?” he rapidly asked in French. “It is very
dangerous….” Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
“Comrades!” he cried. “These people are foreign comrades—from America.
They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen about the
bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army!”
“How do you know that?” replied the big soldier. “I tell you they are
provocators! They say they came here to observe the revolutionary
discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been wandering freely
through the Palace, and how do we know they haven’t got their pockets
full of loot?”
_“Pravilno!”_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
“Comrades! Comrades!” appealed the officer, sweat standing out on his
forehead. “I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee. Do
you trust me? Well, I tell you that these passes are signed with the
same names that are signed to my pass!”
He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening onto
the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going through
pockets… “You have narrowly escaped,” he kept muttering, wiping his
face.
“What happened to the Women’s Battalion?” we asked.
“Oh—the women!” He laughed. “They were all huddled up in a back room.
We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them—many were in
hysterics, and so on. So finally we marched them up to the Finland
Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they have a camp.
(See App. IV, Sect. 4)….”
We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure armies
on the move, electric with patrols. From across the river, where loomed
the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout…. Underfoot the
sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the cornice of the
Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_ had struck; that
was the only damage done by the bombardment….
It was now after three in the morning. On the Nevsky all the
street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only signs
of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires. The city
was quiet—probably never so quiet in its history; on that night not a
single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
But the City Duma Building was all illuminated. We mounted to the
galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed,
red-shrouded Imperial portraits. About a hundred people were grouped
around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking. He urged that the
Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the
anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the
Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution. And as we looked on,
the Committee for Salvation was formed—that Committee which was to
develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki, appearing, in
the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name, and sometimes as
the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public Safety….
Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet
delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets,
old Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the Republic—among
whom Vinaver and other Cadets. Lieber cried that the convention of
Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ was
still in office…. An appeal to the country was drafted.
We hailed a cab. “Where to?” But when we said “Smolny,” the
_izvoshtchik_ shook his head. _“Niet!”_ said he, “there are devils….”
It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver willing to
take us—and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two blocks away.
The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and
around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly
asking everybody the latest news. The corridors were full of hurrying
men, hollow-eyed and dirty. In some of the committee-rooms people lay
sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them. In spite of the seceding
delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with people, roaring like
the sea. As we came in, Kameniev was reading the list of arrested
Ministers. The name of Terestchenko was greeted with thunderous
applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter; Rutenburg came in for less;
and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a storm of hoots, angry cries,
cheers burst forth…. It was announced that Tchudnovsky had been
appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
Now occurred a dramatic interruption. A big peasant, his bearded face
convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his fist on
the presidium table.
“We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of
the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace! Comrades! Do you
know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom
fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into Peter-Paul
prison—the historical tomb of Liberty?” In the uproar he pounded and
yelled. Another delegate climbed up beside him, and pointed at the
presidium.
“Are the representatives of the revolutionary masses going to sit
quietly here while the _Okhrana_ of the Bolsheviki tortures their
leaders?”
Trotzky was gesturing for silence. “These ‘comrades’ who are now caught
plotting the crushing of the Soviets with the adventurer Kerensky—is
there any reason to handle them with gloves? After July 16th and 18th
they didn’t use much ceremony with us!” With a triumphant ring in his
voice he cried, “Now that the _oborontsi_ and the faint-hearted have
gone, and the whole task of defending and saving the Revolution rests
on our shoulders, it is particularly necessary to work—work—work! We
have decided to die rather than give up!”
Followed him a Commissar from Tsarskoye Selo, panting and covered with
the mud of his ride. “The garrison of Tsarskoye Selo is on guard at the
gates of Petrograd, ready to defend the Soviets and the Military
Revolutionary Committee!” Wild cheers. “The Cycle Corps sent from the
front has arrived at Tsarskoye, and the soldiers are now with us; they
recognise the power of the Soviets, the necessity of immediate transfer
of land to the peasants and industrial control to the workers. The
Fifth Battalion of Cyclists, stationed at Tsarskoye, is ours….”
Then the delegate of the Third Cycle Battalion. In the midst of
delirious enthusiasm he told how the cycle corps had been ordered
_three days before_ from the South-west front to the “defence of
Petrograd.” They suspected, however, the meaning of the order; and at
the station of Peredolsk were met by representatives of the Fifth
Battalion from Tsarskoye. A joint meeting was held, and it was
discovered that “among the cyclists not a single man was found willing
to shed the blood of his brothers, or to support a Government of
bourgeois and land-owners!”
Kapelinski, for the Mensheviki Internationalists, proposed to elect a
special committee to find a peaceful solution to the civil war. “There
isn’t any peaceful solution!” bellowed the crowed. “Victory is the only
solution!” The vote was overwhelmingly against, and the Mensheviki
Internationalists left the Congress in a Whirlwind of Jocular insults.
There was no longer any panic fear…. Kameniev from the platform shouted
after them, “The Mensheviki Internationalists claimed ‘emergency’ for
the question of a ‘peaceful solution,’ but they always voted for
suspension of the order of the day in favour of declarations of
factions which wanted to leave the Congress. It is evident,” finished
Kameniev, “that the withdrawal of all these renegades was decided upon
beforehand!”
The assembly decided to ignore the withdrawal of the factions, and
proceed to the appeal to the workers, soldiers and peasants of all
Russia:
TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS
The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies has opened. It represents the great majority of the Soviets.
There are also a number of Peasant deputies. Based upon the will of the
great majority of the workers’, soldiers and peasants, based upon the
triumphant uprising of the Petrograd workmen and soldiers, the Congress
assumes the Power.
The Provisional Government is deposed. Most of the members of the
Provisional Government are already arrested.
The Soviet authority will at once propose an immediate democratic peace
to all nations, and an immediate truce on all fronts. It will assure
the free transfer of landlord, crown and monastery lands to the Land
Committees, defend the soldiers rights, enforcing a complete
democratisation of the Army, establish workers’ control over
production, ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the
proper date, take means to supply bread to the cities and articles of
first necessity to the villages, and secure to all nationalities living
in Russia a real right to independent existence.
The Congress resolves: that all local power shall be transferred to the
Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, which must
enforce revolutionary order.
The Congress calls upon the soldiers in the trenches to be watchful and
steadfast. The Congress of Soviets is sure that the revolutionary Army
will know how to defend the Revolution against all attacks of
Imperialism, until the new Government shall have brought about the
conclusion of the democratic peace which it will directly propose to
all nations. The new Government will take all necessary steps to secure
everything needful to the revolutionary Army, by means of a determined
policy of requisition and taxation of the propertied classes, and also
to improve the situation of soldiers’ families.
The Kornilovitz-Kerensky, Kaledin and others, are endeavouring to lead
troops against Petrograd. Several regiments, deceived by Kerensky, have
sided with the insurgent People.
Soldiers! Make active resistance to the Kornilovitz-Kerensky! Be on
guard!
Railway men! Stop all troop-trains being sent by Kerensky against
Petrograd!
Soldiers, Workers, Clerical employees! The destiny of the Revolution
and democratic peace is in your hands!
Long live the Revolution!
_The All-Russian Congress of Soviets of_ _Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies._ _Delegates from the Peasants’ Soviets._
It was exactly 5:17 A.M. when Krylenko, staggering with fatigue,
climbed to the tribune with a telegram in his hand.
“Comrades! From the Northern Front. The Twelfth Army sends greetings to
the Congress of Soviets, announcing the formation of a Military
Revolutionary Committee which has taken over the command of the
Northern Front!” Pandemonium, men weeping, embracing each other.
“General Tchermissov has recognised the Committee-Commissar of the
Provisional Government Voitinsky has resigned!”
So. Lenin and the Petrograd workers had decided on insurrection, the
Petrograd Soviet had overthrown the Provisional Government, and thrust
the _coup d’etat_ upon the Congress of Soviets. Now there was all great
Russia to win—and then the world! Would Russia follow and rise? And the
world—what of it? Would the peoples answer and rise, a red world-tide?
Although it was six in the morning, night was yet heavy and chill.
There was only a faint unearthly pallor stealing over the silent
streets, dimming the watch-fires, the shadow of a terrible dawn
grey-rising over Russia….