The Committee for Salvation
Friday, November 9th….
Novotcherkask, November 8th.
In view of the revolt of the Bolsheviki, and their attempt to depose
the Provisional Government and to seize the power in Petrograd… the
Cossack Government declares that it considers these acts criminal and
absolutely inadmissible. In consequence, the Cossacks will lend all
their support to the Provisional Government, which is a government of
coalition. Because of these circumstances, and until the return of the
Provisional Government to power, and the restoration of order in
Russia, I take upon myself, beginning November 7th, all the power in
that which concerns the region of the Don.
Signed: ATAMAN KALEDIN
_President of the Government of the Cossack Troops._
_Prikaz_ of the Minister-President Kerensky, dated at Gatchina:
I, Minister-President of the Provisional Government, and Supreme
Commander of all the armed forces of the Russian Republic, declare that
I am at the head of regiments from the Front who have remained faithful
to the fatherland.
I order all the troops of the Military District of Petrograd, who
through mistake or folly have answered the appeal of the traitors to
the country and the Revolution, to return to their duty without delay.
This order shall be read in all regiments, battalions and squadrons.
Signed: _Minister-President of the Provisional_
_Government and Supreme Commander_
A. F. KERENSKY.
Telegram from Kerensky to the General in Command of the Northern Front:
The town of Gatchina has been taken by the loyal regiments without
bloodshed. Detachments of Cronstadt sailors, and of the Semionovsky and
Ismailovsky regiments, gave up their arms without resistance and joined
the Government troops.
I order all the designated units to advance as quickly as possible. The
Military Revolutionary Committee has ordered its troops to retreat….
Gatchina, about thirty kilometers south-west, had fallen during the
night. Detachments of the two regiments mentioned—not the sailors—while
wandering captainless in the neighbourhood, had indeed been surrounded
by Cossacks and given up their arms; but it was not true that they had
joined the Government troops. At this very moment crowds of them,
bewildered and ashamed, were up at Smolny trying to explain. They did
not think the Cossacks were so near…. They had tried to argue with the
Cossacks….
Apparently the greatest confusion prevailed along the revolutionary
front. The garrisons of all the little towns southward had split
hopelessly, bitterly into two factions—or three: the high command being
on the side of Kerensky, in default of anything stronger, the majority
of the rank and file with the Soviets, and the rest unhappily wavering.
Hastily the Military Revolutionary Committee appointed to command the
defence of Petrograd an ambitious regular Army Captain, Muraviov, the
same Muraviov who had organised the Death Battalions during the summer,
and had once been heard to advise the Government that “it was too
lenient with the Bolsheviki; they must be wiped out.” A man of military
mind, who admired power and audacity, perhaps sincerely….
Beside my door when I came down in the morning were posted two new
orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee, directing that all
shops and stores should open as usual, and that all empty rooms and
apartments should be put at the disposal of the Committee….
For thirty-six hours now the Bolsheviki had been cut off from
provincial Russia and the outside world. The railway men and
telegraphers refused to transmit their despatches, the postmen would
not handle their mail. Only the Government wireless at Tsarskoye Selo
launched half-hourly bulletins and manifestoes to the four corners of
heaven; the Commissars of Smolny raced the Commissars of the City Duma
on speeding trains half across the earth; and two aeroplanes, laden
with propaganda, fled high up toward the Front….
But the eddies of insurrection were spreading through Russia with a
swiftness surpassing any human agency. Helsingfors Soviet passed
resolutions of support; Kiev Bolsheviki captured the arsenal and the
telegraph station, only to be driven out by delegates to the Congress
of Cossacks, which happened to be meeting there; in Kazan, a Military
Revolutionary Committee arrested the local garrison staff and the
Commissar of the Provisional Government; from far Krasnoyarsk, in
Siberia, came news that the Soviets were in control of the Municipal
institutions; at Moscow, where the situation was aggravated by a great
strike of leather-workers on one side, and a threat of general lock-out
on the other, the Soviets had voted overwhelmingly to support the
action of the Bolsheviki in Petrograd…. Already a Military
Revolutionary Committee was functioning.
Everywhere the same thing happened. The common soldiers and the
industrial workers supported the Soviets by a vast majority; the
officers, _yunkers_ and middle class generally were on the side of the
Government—as were the bourgeois Cadets and the “moderate” Socialist
parties. In all these towns sprang up Committees for Salvation of
Country and Revolution, arming for civil war….
Vast Russia was in a state of solution. As long ago as 1905 the process
had begun; the March Revolution had merely hastened it, and giving
birth to a sort of forecast of the new order, had ended by merely
perpetuating the hollow structure of the old regime. Now, however, the
Bolsheviki, in one night, had dissipated it, as one blows away smoke.
Old Russia was no more; human society flowed molten in primal heat, and
from the tossing sea of flame was emerging the class struggle, stark
and pitiless—and the fragile, slowly-cooling crust of new planets….
In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the Ministries
of Labour and of Supplies—the only two created by the all-Socialist
Government of August.
If ever men stood alone the “handful of Bolsheviki” apparently stood
alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them. (See
App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military Revolutionary
Committee struck—for its life. “_De l’audace, encore de l’audace, et
toujours de l’audace_….” At five in the morning the Red Guards entered
the printing office of the City Government, confiscated thousands of
copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma, and suppressed the official
Municipal organ—the _Viestnik Gorodskovo Samoupravleniya_ (Bulletin of
the Municipal Self-Government). All the bourgeois newspapers were torn
from the presses, even the _Golos Soldata,_ journal of the old
_Tsay-ee-kah_—which, however, changing its name to _Soldatski Golos,_
appeared in an edition of a hundred thousand copies, bellowing rage and
defiance:
The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have
suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance long.
The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you, Messrs. the
Bolsheviki! We shall see!…
As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street
before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there stood
Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one surrounded by
about a hundred men and women—clerks, students, shopkeepers,
_tchinovniki_—shaking their fists and bawling insults and menaces. On
the steps stood boy-scouts and officers, distributing copies of the
_Soldatski Golos._ A workman with a red band around his arm and a
revolver in his hand stood trembling with rage and nervousness in the
middle of a hostile throng at the foot of the stairs, demanding the
surrender of the papers…. Nothing like this, I imagine, ever occurred
in history. On one side a handful of workmen and common soldiers, with
arms in their hands, representing a victorious insurrection—and
perfectly miserable; on the other a frantic mob made up of the kind of
people that crowd the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering,
abusing, shouting, “Traitors! Provocators! _Opritchniki!_”[15]
[15] Savage body-guards if Ivan the Terrible, 17th century.
The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands
lettered in red, “Militia of the Committee of Public Safety,” and half
a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all commotion.
Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. “They’re going to dissolve
the Duma,” he said. “The Bolshevik Commissar is with the Mayor now.” As
we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying out. He had been to demand
that the Duma recognise the Council of peoples’ Commissars, and the
Mayor had given him a flat refusal.
In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting,
gesticulating—Government officials, intellectuals, journalists, foreign
correspondents, French and British officers…. “The City Engineer
pointed to them triumphantly. “The Embassies recognise the Duma as the
only power now,” he explained. “For these Bolshevik murderers and
robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is rallying to us….
In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for Salvation.
Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the tribune, reporting,
to immense applause, new adhesions to the Committee; Executive
Committee of Peasants’ Soviets, old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Central Army
Committee, _Tsentroflot,_ Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary and Front
group delegates from the Congress of Soviets, Central Committees of the
Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties.
“Yedinstvo” group, Peasants’ Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos,
Municipalities, Post and Telegraph Unions, _Vikzhel,_ Council of the
Russian Republic, Union of Unions,[16] Merchants’ and Manufacturers’
Association….
[16] See Notes and Explanations.
“…. The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a
dictatorship—and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but _against_
the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to feel
revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the
Revolution….
“The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible
demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution…. If rumours
are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to
profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs, it
is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of
democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will follow
troubles from the Left….
“The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens
buying the _Golos Soldata_ and newsboys selling the _Rabotchaya Gazeta_
are arrested in the streets….
“The hour of resolutions has passed…. Let those who have no longer
faith in the Revolution retire…. To establish a united power, we must
again restore the prestige of the Revolution….
“Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved—or we shall
perish!”
The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single
proletarian anywhere in sight….
Then Weinstein:
“We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly
grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation—then we can pass from
the defensive to action!”
The _Vikzhel_ representative announced that his organisation was taking
the initiative in forming the new Government, and its delegates were
now discussing the matter with Smolny…. Followed a hot discussion: were
the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new Government? Martov pleaded for
their admission; after all, he said, they represented an important
political party. Opinions were very much divided upon this, the right
wing Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist
Socialists, the Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly
against….
“They have betrayed Russia,” one speaker said. “They have started civil
war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must be
mercilessly crushed….”
Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the Cadets.
We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who had
walked out of the Democratic Conference together with the Bolsheviki,
that night when Tseretelli and the “compromisers” forced Coalition upon
the democracy of Russia.
“You here?” I asked him.
His eyes flashed fire. “Yes!” he cried. “I left the Congress with my
party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years and
more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their methods are
intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants…. When the
peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes before they are
done for.”
“But the peasants—will they act? Doesn’t the Land decree settle the
peasants? What more do they want?”
“Ah, the Land decree!” he said furiously. “Yes, do you know what that
Land decree is? It is _our_ decree—it is the Socialist Revolutionary
programme, intact! My party framed that policy, after the most careful
compilation of the wishes of the peasants themselves. It is an
outrage….”
“But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the
peasants’ wishes, why will they oppose it?”
“You don’t understand! Don’t you see that the peasants will immediately
realise that it is all a trick—that these usurpers have stolen the
Socialist Revolutionary programme?”
I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.
He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction.
“Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised the
counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The Revolution
is lost.”
“But won’t you defend the Revolution?”
“Of course we will defend it—to the last drop of our blood. But we
won’t cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way….”
“But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the city.
Won’t you join with them?”
“Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won’t support the
Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the Bolsheviki
are equally enemies of the Revolution.”
“Which do you prefer—Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?”
“It is not a question to be discussed!” he burst out impatiently. “I
tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are to
blame. But listen—why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is
coming…. Day after to-morrow we shall pass to the offensive…. Already
Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new Government. But we
have them now—they are absolutely impotent…. We shall not cooperate….”
Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard, finally
exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it, wounding a
young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into a cab,
surrounded by an excited throng, the clamour of whose voices floated up
to us. As we looked, suddenly an armoured automobile appeared around
the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this way and that.
Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd crowds do, falling
down and lying still in the street, piled in the gutters, heaped up
behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to the steps of the Duma
and a man stuck his head out of the turret, demanding the surrender of
the _Soldatski Golos._ The boy-scouts jeered and scuttled into the
building. After a moment the automobile wheeled undecidedly around and
went off up the Nevsky, while some hundreds of men and women picked
themselves up and began to dust their clothes….
Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of
_Soldatski Golos,_ looking for places to hide them….
A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.
“Here’s a proclamation from Krasnov!” he cried. Everybody crowded
around. “Get it printed—get it printed quick, and around to the
barracks!”
By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of the
troops concentrated under Petrograd.
Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of the
Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have remained
faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to guard
inviolable your oath of Cossack—I call upon you to save Petrograd from
anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save Russia from the
indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men, bought by the gold
of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.
The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great
days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the
edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with the
help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help of the
Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all the
Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its ranks,
and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people, has sworn
to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the Troublous Times
of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered Moscow, menaced by the
Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your Government still exists….
The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt.
Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German mentality
with which they regard Russia—stricken down but not yet
surrendered—have alienated from them the entire people.
Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd;
send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their
country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of
innocent blood.
Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the building
was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red band around
his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he left and old
Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.
“A special meeting of the Duma!” he cried. “Immediately!”
In the big hall proceedings were halted. “All members of the Duma for a
special meeting!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know—going to arrest us—going to dissolve the Duma—arresting
members at the door—” so ran the excited comments.
In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor announced
that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting all exit and
entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest and the dispersal
of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned speeches from members,
and even from the galleries, responded. The freely-elected City
Government could not be dissolved by _any_ power; the Mayor’s person
and that of all the members were inviolable; the tyrants, the
provocators, the German agents should never be recognised; as for these
threats to dissolve us, let them try—only over our dead bodies shall
they seize this chamber, where like the Roman senators of old we await
with dignity the coming of the Goths….
Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by
telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the
Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with
representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the
so-called Council of People’s Commissars. Resolution, to address
another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the
defence of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in
permanent session….
In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had
telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee
said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the
troops would be withdrawn….
As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very
agitated.
“Are you going to dissolve the Duma?” I asked.
“My God, no!” he answered. “It is all a mistake. I told the Mayor this
morning that the Duma would be left alone….”
Out on the Nevsky, in the deepening dusk, a long double file of
cyclists came riding, guns slung on their shoulders. They halted, and
the crowd pressed in and deluged them with questions.
“Who are you? Where do you come from?” asked a fat old man with a cigar
in his mouth.
“Twelfth Army. From the front. We came to support the Soviets against
the damn’ bourgeoisie!”
“Ah!” were furious cries. “Bolshevik gendarmes! Bolshevik Cossacks!”
A little officer in a leather coat came running down the steps. “The
garrison is turning!” he muttered in my ear. “It’s the beginning of the
end of the Bolsheviki. Do you want to see the turn of the tide? Come
on!” He started at a half-trot up the Mikhailovsky, and we followed.
“What regiment is it?”
“The _brunnoviki_….” Here was indeed serious trouble. The _brunnoviki_
were the Armoured Car troops, the key to the situation; whoever
controlled the _brunnoviki_ controlled the city. “The Commissars of the
Committee for Salvation and the Duma have been talking to them. There’s
a meeting on to decide….
“Decide what? Which side they’ll fight on?”
“Oh, no. That’s not the way to do it. They’ll never fight against the
Bolsheviki. They will vote to remain neutral—and then the _yunkers_ and
Cossacks—”
The door of the great Mikhailovsky Riding-School yawned blackly. Two
sentinels tried to stop us, but we brushed by hurriedly, deaf to their
indignant expostulations. Inside only a single arc-light burned dimly,
high up near the roof of the enormous hall, whose lofty pilasters and
rows of windows vanished in the gloom. Around dimly squatted the
monstrous shapes of the armoured cars. One stood alone in the centre of
the place, under the light, and round it were gathered some two
thousand dun-colored soldiers, almost lost in the immensity of that
imperial building. A dozen men, officers, chairmen of the Soldiers’
Committees and speakers, were perched on top of the car, and from the
central turret a soldier was speaking. This was Khanjunov, who had been
president of last summer’s all-Russian Congress of _Brunnoviki._ A
lithe, handsome figure in his leather coat with lieutenant’s
shoulder-straps, he stood pleading eloquently for neutrality.
“It is an awful thing,” he said, “for Russians to kill their Russian
brothers. There must not be civil war between soldiers who stood
shoulder to shoulder against the Tsar, and conquered the foreign enemy
in battles which will go down in history! What have we, soldiers, got
to do with these squabbles of political parties? I will not say to you
that the Provisional Government was a democratic Government; we want no
coalition with the bourgeoisie—no. But we must have a Government of the
united democracy, or Russia is lost! With such a Government there will
be no need for civil war, and the killing of brother by brother!”
This sounded reasonable—the great hall echoed to the crash of hands and
voices.
A soldier climbed up, his face white and strained, “Comrades!” he
cried, “I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all: there
must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace, whether it be
the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow. Peace! We at the
front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight either Germans or
Russians—” With that he leaped down, and a sort of confused agonised
sound rose up from all that surging mass, which burst into something
like anger when the next speaker, a Menshevik _oboronetz,_ tried to say
that the war must go on until the Allies were victorious.
“You talk like Kerensky!” shouted a rough voice.
A Duma delegate, pleading for neutrality. Him they listened to,
muttering uneasily, feeling him not one of them. Never have I seen men
trying so hard to understand, to decide. They never moved, stood
staring with a sort of terrible intentness at the speaker, their brows
wrinkled with the effort of thought, sweat standing out on their
foreheads; great giants of men with the innocent clear eyes of children
and the faces of epic warriors….
Now a Bolshevik was speaking, one of their own men, violently, full of
hate. They liked him no more than the other. It was not their mood. For
the moment they were lifted out of the ordinary run of common thoughts,
thinking in terms of Russia, of Socialism, the world, as if it depended
on them whether the Revolution were to live or die….
Speaker succeeded speaker, debating amid tense silence, roars of
approval, or anger: should we come out or not? Khanjunov returned,
persuasive and sympathetic. But wasn’t he an officer, and an
_oboronotz,_ however much he talked of peace? Then a workman from
Vasili Ostrov, but him they greeted with, “And are _you_ going to give
us peace, working-man?” Near us some men, many of them officers, formed
a sort of _claque_ to cheer the advocates of Neutrality. They kept
shouting, “Khanjunov! Khanjunov!” and whistled insultingly when the
Bolsheviki tried to speak.
Suddenly the committeemen and officers on top of the automobile began
to discuss something with great heat and much gesticulation. The
audience shouted to know what was the matter, and all the great mass
tossed and stirred. A soldier, held back by one of the officers,
wrenched himself loose and held up his hand.
“Comrades!” he cried, “Comrade Krylenko is here and wants to speak to
us.” An outburst of cheers, whistlings, yells of _“Prosim! Prosim!
Dolby!_ Go ahead! Go ahead! Down with him!” in the midst of which the
People’s Commissar for Military Affairs clambered up the side of the
car, helped by hands before and behind, pushed and pulled from below
and above. Rising he stood for a moment, and then walked out on the
radiator, put his hands on his hips and looked around smiling, a squat,
short-legged figure, bare-headed, without insignia on his uniform.
The _claque_ near me kept up a fearful shouting, “Khanjunov! We want
Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!” The whole
place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche
bearing down upon us, great black-browed men forcing their way through.
“Who is breaking up our meeting?” they shouted. “Who is whistling
here?” The _claque,_ rudely burst asunder, went flying—nor did it
gather again….
“Comrade soldiers!” began Krylenko, in a voice husky with fatigue. “I
cannot speak well to you; I am sorry; but I have not had any sleep for
four nights….
“I don’t need to tell you that I am a soldier. I don’t need to tell you
that I want peace. What I must say is that the Bolshevik party,
successful in the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Revolution, by the help of you
and of all the rest of the brave comrades who have hurled down forever
the power of the blood-thirsty bourgeoisie, promised to offer peace to
all the peoples, and that has already been done—to-day!” Tumultuous
applause.
“You are asked to remain neutral—to remain neutral while the _yunkers_
and the Death Battalions, who are _never_ neutral, shoot us down in the
streets and bring back to Petrograd Kerensky—or perhaps some other of
the gang. Kaledin is marching from the Don. Kerensky is coming from the
front. Kornilov is raising the _Tekhintsi_ to repeat his attempt of
August. All these Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries who call
upon you now to prevent civil war—how have they retained the power
except by civil war, that civil war which has endured ever since last
July, and in which they constantly stood on the side of the
bourgeoisie, as they do now?
“How can I persuade you, if you have made up your minds? The question
is very plain. On one side are Kerensky, Kaledin, Kornilov, the
Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, Cadets, Dumas, officers…. They
tell us that their objects are good. On the other side are the workers,
the soldiers and sailors, the poorest peasants. The Government is in
your hands. You are the masters. Great Russia belongs to you. Will you
give it back?”
While he spoke, he kept himself up by sheer evident effort of will, and
as he went on the deep sincere feeling back of his words broke through
the tired voice. At the end he totered, almost falling; a hundred hands
reached up to help him down, and the great dim spaces of the hall gave
back the surf of sound that beat upon him.
Khanjunov tried to speak again, but “Vote! Vote! Vote!” they cried. At
length, giving in, he read the resolution: that the _brunnoviki_
withdraw their representative from the Military Revolutionary
Committee, and declare their neutrality in the present civil war. All
those in favour should go to the right; those opposed, to the left.
There was a moment of hesitation, a still expectancy, and then the
crowd began to surge faster and faster, stumbling over one another, to
the left, hundreds of big soldiers in a solid mass rushing across the
dirt floor in the faint light…. Near us about fifty men were left
stranded, stubbornly in favour, and even as the high roof shook under
the shock of victorious roaring, they turned and rapidly walked out of
the building—and, some of them, out of the Revolution….
Imagine this struggle being repeated in every barracks of the city, the
district, the whole front, all Russia. Imagine the sleepless Krylenkos,
watching the regiments, hurrying from place to place, arguing,
threatening, entreating. And then imaging the same in all the locals of
every labour union, in the factories, the villages, on the battle-ships
of the far-flung Russian fleets; think of the hundreds of thousands of
Russian men staring up at speakers all over the vast country, workmen,
peasants, soldiers, sailors, trying so hard to understand and to
choose, thinking so intensely—and deciding so unanimously at the end.
So was the Russian Revolution….
Up at Smolny the new Council of People’s Commissars was not idle.
Already the first decree was on the presses, to be circulated in
thousands through the city streets that night, and shipped in bales by
every train southward and east:
In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen by the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies with
participation of peasant deputies, the Council of People’s Commissars
decrees:
1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place at the
date determined upon—November 12.
2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government, Soviets
of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, and soldiers’
organisations on the front should make every effort to assure free and
regular elections at the date determined upon.
In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, _The President
of the Council of People’s Commissars_,
VLADIMIR ULIANOV-LENIN.
In the Municipal building the Duma was in full blast. A member of the
Council of the Republic was talking as we came in. The Council, he
said, did not consider itself dissolved at all, but merely unable to
continue its labours until it secured a new meeting-place. In the
meanwhile, its Committee of Elders had determined to enter _en masse_
the Committee for Salvation…. This, I may remark parenthetically, is
the last time history mentions the Council of the Russian Republic….
Then followed the customary string of delegates from the Ministries,
the _Vikzhel,_ the Union of Posts and Telegraphs, for the hundredth
time reiterating their determination not to work for the Bolshevik
usurpers. A _yunker_ who had been in the Winter Palace told a
highly-coloured tale of the heroism of himself and his comrades, and
disgraceful conduct of the Red Guards—all of which was devoutly
believed. Somebody read aloud an account in the Socialist Revolutionary
paper _Narod,_ which stated that five hundred million rubles’ worth of
damage had been done in the Winter Palace, and describing in great
detail the loot and breakage.
From time to time couriers came from the telephone with news. The four
Socialist Ministers had been released from prison. Krylenko had gone to
Peter-Paul to tell Admiral Verderevsky that the Ministry of Marine was
deserted, and to beg him, for the sake of Russia, to take charge under
the authority of the Council of People’s Commissars; and the old seaman
had consented…. Kerensky was advancing north from Gatchina, the
Bolshevik garrisons falling back before him. Smolny had issued another
decree, enlarging the powers of the City Dumas to deal with food
supplies.
This last piece of insolence caused an outburst of fury. He, Lenin, the
usurper, the tyrant, whose Commissars had seized the Municipal garage,
entered the Municipal ware houses, were interfering with the Supply
Committees and the distribution of food—he presumed to define the
limits of power of the free, independent, autonomous City Government!
One member, shaking his fist, moved to cut off the food of the city if
the Bolsheviki dared to interfere with the Supply Committees…. Another,
representative of the Special Supply Committee, reported that the food
situation was very grave, and asked that emissaries be sent out to
hasten food trains.
Diedonenko announced dramatically that the garrison was wavering. The
Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders of the
Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats on the
Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to continue the
propaganda….
Then the old Mayor stepped into the tribune: “Comrades and citizens! I
have just learned that the prisoners in Peter Paul are in danger.
Fourteen _yunkers_ of the Pavlovsk school have been stripped and
tortured by the Bolshevik guards. One has gone mad. They are
threatening to lynch the Ministers!” There was a whirlwind of
indignation and horror, which only grew more violent when a stocky
little woman dressed in grey demanded the floor, and lifted up her
hard, metallic voice. This was Vera Slutskaya, veteran revolutionist
and Bolshevik member of the Duma.
“That is a lie and a provocation!” she said, unmoved at the torrent of
abuse. “The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government, which has abolished the
death penalty, cannot permit such deeds. We demand that this story be
investigated, at once; if there is any truth in it, the Government will
take energetic measures!”
A commission composed of members of all parties was immediately
appointed, and with the Mayor, sent to Peter Paul to investigate. As we
followed them out, the Duma was appointing another commission to meet
Kerensky—to try and avoid bloodshed when he entered the capital….
It was midnight when we bluffed our past the guards at the gate of the
fortress, and went forward under the faint glimmer of rare electric
lights along the side of the church where lie the tombs of the Tsars,
beneath the slender golden spire and the chimes, which, for months,
continued to play _Bozhe Tsaria Khrani_[17] every day at noon…. The
place was deserted; in most of the windows there were not even lights.
Occasionally we bumped into a burly figure stumbling along in the dark,
who answered questions with the usual, _“Ya nieznayu.”_
[17] “God Save the Tsar.”
[Graphic, page 166: Pass to Reed from Department of Prisons translation
follows]
Pass from the Department of Prisons of the Soviet Government to visit
freely all prisons of Petrograd and Cronstadt. (Translation)
Commissar
Chief Bureau of Prisons
6th of November, 1917.
No. 213
Petrograd, Smolny
Institute, room No. 56—
PASS To the representative of the American Socialist press, JOHN REED,
to visit all places of confinement in the cities of Petrograd and
Cronstadt, for the purpose of generally investigating the condition of
the prisoners, and for thorough social information for the purpose of
stopping the flood of newspaper lies against demorcracy. Chief
Commissar Secretary
On the left loomed the low dark outline of Trubetskoi Bastion, that
living grave in which so many martyrs of liberty had lost their lives
or their reason in the days of the Tsar, where the Provisional
Government had in turn shut up the Ministers of the Tsar, and now the
Bolsheviki had shut up the Ministers of the Provisional Government.
A friendly sailor led us to the office of the commandant, in a little
house near the Mint. Half a dozen Red Guards, sailors and soldiers were
sitting around a hot room full of smoke, in which a samovar steamed
cheerfully. They welcomed us with great cordiality, offering tea. The
commandant was not in; he was escorting a commission of
_“sabotazhniki”_ (sabotageurs) from the City Duma, who insisted that
the _yunkers_ were all being murdered. This seemed to amuse them very
much. At one side of the room sat a bald-headed, dissipated-looking
little man in a frock-coat and a rich fur coat, biting his moustache
and staring around him like a cornered rat. He had just been arrested.
Somebody said, glancing carelessly at him, that he was a Minister or
something…. The little man didn’t seem to hear it; he was evidently
terrified, although the occupants of the room showed no animosity
whatever toward him.
I went across and spoke to him in French. “Count Tolstoy,” he answered,
bowing stiffly. “I do not understand why I was arrested. I was crossing
the Troitsky Bridge on my way home when two of these—of these—persons
held me up. I was a Commissar of the Provisional Government attached to
the General Staff, but in no sense a member of the Government…”
“Let him go,” said a sailor. “He’s harmless….”
“No,” responded the soldier who had brought the prisoner. “We must ask
the commandant.”
“Oh, the commandant!” sneered the sailor. “What did you make a
revolution for? To go on obeying officers?”
A _praporshtchik_ of the Pavlovsky regiment was telling us how the
insurrection started. “The _polk_ (regiment) was on duty at the General
Staff the night of the 6th. Some of my comrades and I were standing
guard; Ivan Pavlovitch and another man—I don’t remember his name—well,
they hid behind the window-curtains in the room where the Staff was
having a meeting, and they heard a great many things. For example, they
heard orders to bring the Gatchina _yunkers_ to Petrograd by night, and
an order for the Cossacks to be ready to march in the morning…. The
principal points in the city were to be occupied before dawn. Then
there was the business of opening the bridges. But when they began to
talk about surrounding Smolny, then Ivan Pavlovitch couldn’t stand it
any longer. That minute there was a good deal of coming and going, so
he slipped out and came down to the guard-room, leaving the other
comrade to pick up what he could.
“I was already suspicious that something was going on. Automobiles full
of officers kept coming, and all the Ministers were there. Ivan
Pavlovitch told me what he had heard. It was half-past two in the
morning. The secretary of the regimental Committee was there, so we
told him and asked what to do.
“‘Arrest everybody coming and going!’ he says. So we began to do it. In
an hour we had some officers and a couple of Ministers, whom we sent up
to Smolny right away. But the Military Revolutionary Committee wasn’t
ready; they didn’t know what to do; and pretty soon back came the order
to let everybody go and not arrest anybody else. Well, we ran all the
way to Smolny, and I guess we talked for an hour before they finally
saw that it was war. It was five o’clock when we got back to the Staff,
and by that time most of them were gone. But we got a few, and the
garrison was all on the march….”
A Red Guard from Vasili Ostrov described in great detail what had
happened in his district on the great day of the rising. “We didn’t
have any machine-guns over there,” he said, laughing, “and we couldn’t
get any from Smolny. Comrade Zalking, who was a member of the _Uprava_
(Central Bureau) of the Ward Duma, remembered all at once that there
was lying in the meeting-room of the _Uprava_ a machinegun which had
been captured from the Germans. So he and I and another comrade went
there. The Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries were having a
meeting. Well, we opened the door and walked right in on them, as they
sat around the table—twelve or fifteen of them, three of us. When they
saw us they stopped talking and just stared. We walked right across the
room, uncoupled the machine-gun; Comrade Zalkind picked up one part, I
the other, we put them on our shoulders and walked out—and not a single
man said a word!”
“Do you know how the Winter Palace was captured?” asked a third man, a
sailor. “Along about eleven o’clock we found out there weren’t any more
_yunkers_ on the Neva side. So we broke in the doors and filtered up
the different stairways one by one, or in little bunches. When we got
to the top of the stairs the _yunkers_ held us up and took away our
guns. Still our fellows kept coming up, little by little, until we had
a majority. Then we turned around and took away the _yunkers’_ guns….”
Just then the commandant entered—a merry-looking young non-commissioned
officer with his arm in a sling, and deep circles of sleeplessness
under his eyes. His eye fell first on the prisoner, who at once began
to explain.
“Oh, yes,” interrupted the other. “You were one of the committee who
refused to surrender the Staff Wednesday afternoon. However, we don’t
want you, citizen. Apologies—” He opened the door and waved his arm for
Count Tolstoy to leave. Several of the others, especially the Red
Guards, grumbled protests, and the sailor remarked triumphantly,
_“Vot!_ There! Didn’t I say so?”
Two soldiers now engaged his attention. They had been elected a
committee of the fortress garrison to protest. The prisoners, they
said, were getting the same food as the guards, when there wasn’t even
enough to keep a man from being hungry. “Why should the
counter-revolutionists be treated so well?”
“We are revolutionists, comrades, not bandits,” answered the
commandant. He turned to us. We explained that rumours were going about
that the _yunkers_ were being tortured, and the lives of the Ministers
threatened. Could we perhaps see the prisoners, so as to be able to
prove to the world—?”
“No,” said the young soldier, irritably. “I am not going to disturb the
prisoners again. I have just been compelled to wake them up—they were
sure we were going to massacre them…. Most of the _yunkers_ have been
released anyway, and the rest will go out to-morrow.” He turned
abruptly away.
“Could we talk to the Duma commission, then?”
The Commandant, who was pouring himself a glass of tea, nodded. “They
are still out in the hall,” he said carelessly.
Indeed they stood there just outside the door, in the feeble light of
an oil lamp, grouped around the Mayor and talking excitedly.
“Mr. Mayor,” I said, “we are American correspondents. Will you please
tell us officially the result of your investigations?”
He turned to us his face of venerable dignity.
“There is no truth in the reports,” he said slowly. “Except for the
incidents which occurred as the Ministers were being brought here, they
have been treated with every consideration. As for the _yunkers,_ not
one has received the slightest injury….”
Up the Nevsky, in the empty after-midnight gloom, an interminable
column of soldiers shuffled in silence—to battle with Kerensky. In dim
back streets automobiles without lights flitted to and fro, and there
was furtive activity in Fontanka 6, headquarters of the Peasants’
Soviet, in a certain apartment of a huge building on the Nevsky, and in
the _Injinierny Zamok_ (School of Engineers); the Duma was
illuminated….
In Smolny Institute the Military Revolutionary Committee flashed
baleful fire, pounding like an over-loaded dynamo….