THE REVOLUTION AT THE FRONT
The first warning of the approaching storm reached us through a soldier
from our Company who had returned from leave at Petrograd.
“Oh, heaven!” he said. “If you but knew what is going on behind your
backs! Revolution! Everywhere they talk of overthrowing the Tsar. The
capital is flaming with revolution.”
These words spread like wildfire among the men. They gathered in
knots and discussed the significance of the report. Would it mean
peace? Would they get land and freedom? Or would it mean another huge
offensive before the end of the war? The arguments, of course, took
place in whispers, behind the backs of the officers. The consensus of
opinion seemed to be that revolution meant preparation for a general
attack against the Germans in order to win a victory before the
conclusion of peace.
For several days the air was charged with excitement and expectation.
Everybody felt that earth-shaking events were taking place and our
hearts echoed the distant rumblings of the storm. There was something
reticent about the looks and manners of the officers, as if they were
keeping important news to themselves.
Finally, the joyful news arrived. The Commander gathered the entire
Regiment to read to us the glorious words of the first manifesto,
together with the famous Order No. 1. The miracle had happened!
Tsarism, which had enslaved us and flourished on the blood and sweat
of the toiler, was overthrown. Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood! How
sweet were these words to our ears! We were transported. There were
tears of joy, embraces, dancing. It all seemed a dream, a wonderful
dream. Who could have believed that the hated régime would be destroyed
so easily and in our own lifetime?
The Commander read to us the manifesto, which concluded with a fervent
appeal to us to hold the line with greater vigilance than ever, now
that we were free citizens, and to defend our newly won liberty from
the attacks of the Kaiser and his supporters. Would we defend our
freedom? A multitude of throats shouted in a chorus, that passed over
No Man’s Land and reverberated in the German trenches, “Yes, we will!”
Would we swear allegiance to the Provisional Government, whose desire
it was that we should prepare to drive the Germans out of Free Russia
before returning home to divide up the land?
“We swear!” thundered thousands of men, raising their right hands, and
thoroughly alarming the enemy.
Then came Order No. 1, signed by the Petrograd Soviet of Workmen and
Soldiers. Soldiers and officers were now equal, it declared. All the
citizens of Free Russia were henceforth equal. There would be no more
discipline. The hated officers were enemies of the people and should
no longer be obeyed and kept at their posts. The common soldier would
now rule the army. Let the rank and file elect their best men and
institute committees; let there be Company, Regimental, Corps and Army
committees.
We were dazzled by this wealth of fine-sounding phrases. The men went
about as if intoxicated. For four days the festival continued unabated,
so wild with delight were the men. The Germans could not at first
understand the cause of our rejoicings. When they learned it they
ceased firing.
There were meetings, meetings and meetings. Day and night the Regiment
seemed to be in continuous session, listening to speeches that dwelt
almost exclusively on the words of peace and freedom. The men were
hungry for beautiful phrases and gloated over them.
All duty was abandoned in the first few days. While the great
upheaval had affected me profoundly, and the first day or two I
shared completely the ecstasy of the men, I awoke early to a sense
of responsibility. I gathered from the manifestoes and speeches that
what was demanded of us was to hold the line with still more energy
than before. Was not this the meaning of the revolution so far as we
were concerned? When I put this question to the soldiers they answered
in the affirmative, but they had not the strength of will to tear
themselves away from the magic circle of speech-making and visions.
Such was their dazed condition, that they seemed to me no longer sane.
The front had become a veritable lunatic asylum.
One day, in the first week of the revolution, I ordered a soldier to
take up duty at the listening-post. He refused.
“I will take no orders from a _baba_,” he sneered, “I can do as I
please. We have freedom now.”
It was a bitter shock to me. Why, this very same soldier would have
gone through fire for me a week before. And now he was sneering at me.
It seemed incredible and overwhelming.
“Ha, ha,” he jeered. “You can go yourself.”
Flushed with vexation I seized a rifle and answered:
“Can I? I will show you how a free citizen ought to guard his freedom!”
And I climbed over the top and made my way to the listening-post where
I remained on duty for the full two hours.
I talked to the soldiers, appealing to their sense of honour and
arguing that the revolution imposed greater responsibilities upon the
man in the ranks. They agreed that the defence of the country was the
most important task confronting us. But had not the revolution brought
them also freedom, with the injunction to take upon themselves the
control of the army, and to abolish discipline? The men were full of
enthusiasm, but obedience was contrary to their ideas of liberty.
Seeing that I could not get my men to perform their duties, I went to
the Commander of the Company and asked to be released from the army and
sent home.
“I see no good in staying here and doing nothing,” I said. “If this is
war, I want to be out of it. I can do nothing with my men.”
“Have you gone out of your mind, Yashka?” said the Commander. “Why, if
you, who are a peasant yourself, one of them, beloved by all the rank
and file, cannot remain, what can we officers do? It is our duty as
soldiers to stay to the last, until the men come to their senses. I am
having my own troubles, Yashka,” he confided to me, in a low voice. “I
cannot have my way, either. So you see, we are all in the same boat. We
have just got to put up with it.”
It was altogether contrary to my inclinations, but I remained. Little
by little things improved. The soldiers’ committees began to exercise
their functions, but they did not interfere with the purely military
department of our life. Those of the officers who had been disliked
by the men, or whose records were typical of Tsaristic officials,
disappeared with the revolution. Even Colonel Stubendorf, the Commander
of the Regiment, had gone, retiring perhaps because of his German name.
Our new Commander was Kudriavtzev, a popular officer.
Discipline was gradually re-established. It was not the old discipline.
Its basis was no longer dread of punishment. It was a discipline
founded on the high sense of responsibility that was soon instilled
into the grey ranks of our army. True, there was no fighting between
us and the enemy. There were even the beginnings of that fatal
fraternization plague which was later to be the ruin of the mighty
Russian Army. But the soldiers responded to the appeals from the
Provisional Government and the Soviet in the early weeks of the spring
of 1917. They were ready to carry out unflinchingly any order from
Petrograd.
Those were still the days of immense possibilities. The men worshipped
the distant figures in the rear who had brought them the boon of
liberty and equality. We knew almost nothing of the various parties
and factions. Peace was the sole thought of the men. They were told
that peace could not come without defeating or overthrowing the Kaiser.
Therefore, we all expected the word for a general advance. Had that
word been given at that time nothing in the world could have withstood
our pressure. Nothing. The revolution had given birth to elemental
forces in our hearts that defied and ever will defy description.
Then there began a procession of speech-makers. There were delegates
from the army, there were members of the Duma, there were emissaries
of the Petrograd Soviet. Almost every day there was a meeting, and
almost every other day there were elections. We sent delegates to
Corps Headquarters and delegates to Army Headquarters, delegates to a
congress in Petrograd and delegates to consult with the Government. The
speakers were almost all eloquent. They painted beautiful pictures of
Russia’s future, of universal brotherhood, of happiness and prosperity.
The soldiers’ eyes would light up with the glow of hope. More than once
even I was caught by those eloquent and enticing phrases. The rank and
file were carried away to an enchanted land by the orators and rewarded
them with tremendous applause.
There were speakers of a different kind, too. These solemnly appealed
for a realization of the immediate duty which the revolution imposed
upon the shoulders of the army. Patriotism was their keynote. They
called us to defend our country, to be ready at any moment for an
attack to drive out the Germans and win the much-desired victory
and peace. The soldiers responded to these calls to duty with equal
enthusiasm. They swore that they were ready. Was there any doubt that
they were? No. The Russian soldier loved his Mother Country before. He
loved her now a hundred-fold more.
The first signs of spring arrived. The rivers had opened, the ice
fields had thawed. It was muddy, but the earth was fragrant. The winds
were laden with intoxicating odours. They were carrying across the
vast fields and valleys of Mother Russia tidings of a new era. There
was spring in our souls. It seemed that our long-suffering people and
country were being restored to a new life and one wanted to live, live,
live.
But there, a few hundred feet away, were the Germans. They were not
free. Their souls did not commune with God. Their hearts knew not the
immense joy of this wonderful spring. They were still slaves, and they
would not let us alone in our freedom. They thrust themselves over the
fair extent of our country and would not retire. They must be driven
out before we could embark upon a life of peace. We were ready to drive
them out. We were awaiting the order to leap at their throats and show
them what Free Russia could do. But why was the order postponed? Why
wait? Why not strike while the iron was hot?
Yet the iron was allowed to cool. There was a flood of talk in the
rear; there was absolute inactivity at the front. And as hours grew
into days and days into weeks there sprang forth out of this inactivity
the first beginnings of fraternization.
“Come over here for a drink of tea!” a voice from our trenches would
address itself across No Man’s Land to the Germans. And voices from
there would respond:
“Come over here for a drink of vodka!”
For several days they did not go beyond such mutual invitations. Then
one morning a soldier from our ranks advanced openly into No Man’s
Land, announcing that he wanted to talk things over. He stopped in the
centre of the field, where he was met by a German and engaged in an
argument. From both sides soldiers flocked to the debaters.
“Why do you continue the war?” asked our men. “We have overthrown the
Tsar and we want peace, but your Kaiser insists on war. Get rid of your
Kaiser and then both sides will go home.”
“You don’t know the truth,” answered the German. “You are mistaken.
Why, our Kaiser offered peace to all the Allies last winter. But your
Tsar refused to make peace. And now your Allies are forcing Russia to
continue in the war. We are always ready for peace.”
I was with the soldiers in No Man’s Land and saw how the German
argument impressed them. Some of the Germans had brought vodka with
them, which they gave to our soldiers. While they were returning to the
positions, engaged in heated arguments over the story of the Kaiser’s
peace offer, Commander Kudriavtzev came out to rebuke them.
“What are you doing? Don’t you know that the Germans are our enemies?
They want to entrap you.”
“Kill him!” a voice shouted in the crowd. “We have been deceived long
enough! Kill him!”
The Commander got out of the way quickly before the crowd had caught
up the shout of the ruffian. This incident, when the revolution was
still in its infancy, was an early symptom of the malady to which
the Russian army succumbed in months to come. It was still an easily
curable malady. But where was the physician with foresight to diagnose
the disease at its inception and conquer it while there was time?
We were relieved and sent to the reserve billets. There a mass meeting
was organized in honour of a delegate from the Army Committee who came
to address us. He was welcomed by Krylov, one of our most enlightened
soldiers, who spoke well and to the point.
“So long as the Germans keep their Kaiser and obey him we will not have
peace,” he declared. “The Kaiser wants to rob Russia of many provinces
and to enslave their populations. The German soldiers do his will just
as you did the will of the Tsar. Isn’t that the truth?”
“The truth! The truth, indeed! Right!” the multitude roared.
“Now,” resumed Krylov, “the Kaiser liked the Tsar and was related to
him. But the Kaiser does not and cannot love Free Russia. He is afraid
that the German people will take lesson from us and start a revolution
in their country. He is, therefore, seeking to destroy our freedom
because he wants to keep his throne. Is this plain?”
“Yes! Yes! Good! It’s the truth!” shouted thousands of throats,
cheering wildly for Krylov.
“Therefore,” continued the speaker, “it is our duty to defend our
country and our precious liberty from the Kaiser. If we don’t destroy
him, he will destroy us. If we defeat him, there will be a revolution
in his country and the German people will get rid of him. Then our
freedom will be secure. Then we shall go home and take possession of
all the available land. But we can’t return home with an enemy at our
back. Can we?”
“No! No! No! Certainly not!” thundered the swaying mass of soldiers.
“And we can’t make peace with a ruler, who hates us at heart and who
was the secret accomplice of the Tsar. Isn’t this true?”
“True! True! True! Hurrah for Krylov!” bawled the vast gathering,
applauding vigorously.
Then the delegate from the Army Committee mounted the speaker’s
stock. The soldiers were in high spirits, thirsting for every word of
enlightenment.
“Comrades!” the delegate began. “For three years we have bled, suffered
from hunger and cold, confined in the muddy and vermin-infested
trenches. Myriads of our brethren have been slaughtered, maimed for
life, taken into captivity. Whose war was it? The Tsar’s. He made
us fight and perish while he and his associates revelled in wealth
and luxury. Now the Tsar is no more. Why, then, comrades, should
we continue his war? Do you want to lay down your lives again by
thousands?”
“No! No! No! We have had enough of war!” thousands of voices rang out.
“Well,” continued the delegate, “I agree with you. We have had enough
of war, indeed. You are told that our enemy is in front of us. But what
about our enemies in the rear? What about the officers who are now
leaving the front and fleeing to safety? What about the landowners who
are holding fast to the large estates bestowed on them by former Tsars?
What about the bourgeoisie who have sucked our blood for generations
and grown rich through our sweat and toil? Where are they all now? What
do they want us to do? They want you to fight the enemy here so that
they, the enemies of the people, can pillage and loot in the rear! So
that when you come home, if you live to come home, you will find all
the land and the wealth of the country in their hands!”
“It is the truth! The truth! He’s right!” interrupted the vast crowd.
“Now you have two enemies,” resumed the speaker. “One is foreign and
the other is of your own race. You can’t fight both at once. If we
continue the war the enemy at your back will rob you of the freedom,
the land and the rights that the revolution has won for you. Therefore,
we must have peace with the Germans in order to be able to fight these
bourgeois vampires. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes! Yes! It’s the truth! It’s the truth! We want peace! We are tired
of the war!” came in a chorus from every side.
The passions of the soldiers were inflamed. The delegate was right,
they said. If they remained in the trenches they would be robbed of
the land and of the fruits of the new freedom, they argued heatedly
among themselves. My heart ached when I saw the effect of the orator’s
words. All the impression of Krylov’s speech had been effaced. The very
same men who so enthusiastically responded to his appeal to do their
duty now applauded just as fervidly, if not more so, the appeal of the
delegate for a fratricidal war. It maddened me. I could not control
myself.
“You stupid fools!” I burst out. “You can be turned one minute one way
and the next minute the opposite way. Didn’t you cheer Krylov when he
said truly that the Kaiser was our enemy and that we must drive him out
of Russia first before we can have peace? And now you have been incited
to start a civil war so that the Kaiser can simply walk over Russia and
get the whole country into his power. This is war! War, you understand,
war! And in war there can be no compromise with the enemy. Give him an
inch and he will take a mile! Come, let us get to work. Let us fulfil
our duty.”
There was a commotion among the soldiers. Some expressed their
dissatisfaction loudly.
“Why stand here and listen to this silly _baba_?” said one.
“Give her a blow!” shouted another.
“Kick her!” cried a third.
In a moment I was being roughly handled. Blows were showered on me from
every side.
“What are you doing? Why, it’s Yashka! Have you gone crazy?” I heard a
friendly voice appeal to the men. Other comrades hurried to my aid and
I was rescued without suffering much injury. But I decided to ask for
leave to go home and get away from this war without warfare. I would
not be thwarted by the Commander. No, not this time.
The following day Michael Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, arrived
at our sector. We were formed for review, and although the men were
somewhat lax in discipline they made up for it in enthusiasm. Rodzianko
was given a tumultuous welcome as he appeared before the crowd.
“The responsibility for Russia,” he said, “which rested before on the
shoulders of the Tsar and his Government now rests on the people, on
you. This is what freedom means. It means that we must, of our own good
will, defend the country against the foe. It means that we must all
work together, forget our differences and quarrels and present a solid
front to the Germans. They are subtle and hypocritical. They give you
fair words but their hearts are full of hatred. They claim to be your
brothers, but they are your enemies. They seek to divide us so that it
will be easier for them to destroy our liberty and country.”
“True! True! Right! Right! It is so! It is so!” the throng voiced its
approval.
“Free Russia will never be secure until the Kaiser’s soldiers are
driven out of Russia,” the speaker continued. “We must, therefore,
prepare for a general offensive to win a great victory. We must work
together with our Allies who are helping us to defeat the Germans. We
must respect and obey our officers, as there can be no army without
chiefs, just as there can be no flock without a shepherd.”
“Correct! Correct! Well said! It’s the truth! It’s the truth!” the
soldiers shouted from every corner.
“Now, my friends, tell me what you think of launching an attack against
the enemy?” asked the President of the Duma. “Are you ready to advance
and die, if necessary, to secure our precious freedom?”
“Yes, we are! We will go!” thundered the thousands present.
Then Orlov, the chairman of the Regimental Committee, a man of
education, rose to answer for the rank and file. He expressed what all
of us at the front had in our minds:
“Yes, we are ready to strike. But we want those millions of soldiers
in the rear, who spread all over the country, overflowing the cities,
overcrowding all the railroads and doing nothing, to be sent back to
the front. Let us advance all together. The time for speeches has
passed. We want action, or we will go home.”
Comrade Orlov was boisterously acclaimed. Indeed, he said what we all
so keenly felt. It wasn’t just to the men in the trenches to allow
hundreds of thousands of their comrades to keep holiday in the rear
without interruption. Rodzianko agreed with us. He would do his best
to remedy this injustice, he promised. But, privately, in reply to
the insistent questions of the officers why the golden opportunity
for an offensive was being wasted, he confessed that the Provisional
Government and the Duma were powerless.
“It is the Soviet, Kerensky and its other leading spirits, who have the
decision in such matters,” he said. “They are shaping the policy of the
country. I have urged them not to delay, but to order a general attack
immediately.”
Chairman Orlov then presented me to Rodzianko with a little speech
in which he recounted my record since the beginning of the war. The
President of the Duma was greatly surprised and moved.
“I want to bend the knee to this woman,” he said, shaking my hand
warmly. He then asked what was my feeling about conditions at the
front. I gave vent to the bitterness that was in my heart.
“I can’t stand this new order of things. The soldiers don’t fight the
Germans any more. My object in joining the army was to defend the
country. Now, it is impossible to do so. There is nothing left for me,
therefore, but to go away.”
“But where shall you go?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I suppose I shall go home. My father is old, and my
mother is ailing, and they are almost reduced to begging for bread.”
Rodzianko patted me on the shoulder.
“Come to me in Petrograd, little heroine, and I will see what I can do
for you.”
I joyfully accepted the invitation, and told my comrades that I should
be leaving soon. I was provided with a new outfit and one hundred
roubles by the Commander. The news spread that Yashka was going away
and about a thousand soldiers, many of whose lives I had saved in
battle, presented me with a testimonial.
A thousand signatures! They were all the names of dear comrades who
were attached to me by ties of fire and blood. There was a record, on
that long scroll, of every battle which we had fought and of every
episode of life-saving and self-sacrifice in which I had taken part. It
made my heart beat with joy and my eyes fill with tears, while deep in
my soul something ached and yearned.
It was May, but there was autumn in my breast. There was autumn also
in the heart of Mother-Russia. The sunshine was dazzling. The fields
and the forests rioted in all the glories of spring. There was peace in
the trenches, calm in No Man’s Land. My country was still celebrating
joyously the festival of the newly-born Freedom. It was scarcely two
months old, this child of generations of pain and suffering. It came
into being with the first warm wind, and how deep were the forces that
it aroused in us, how infinite the promises it carried! My people
still entertained the wonderful illusions of those first days. It was
spring, the beginning of eternal spring to them.
But my heart pined. All joy was dead in it. I heard the autumn winds
howling. I felt instinctively an immense tragedy developing, and my
soul went out to Mother Russia.
The entire Regiment was formed in line so that I could bid them
farewell. I addressed them as follows:
“You know how I love you, how I have cared for you. Who picked you
up on the field of battle? Yashka. Who dressed your wounds under
fire? Yashka. Who braved with you all dangers and shared with you all
privations? A _baba_, Yashka. I bore with your insults and rejoiced in
your caresses. I knew how to receive them both, because I knew your
souls. I could endure anything with you, but I cannot endure this any
longer. I cannot bear fraternization with the enemy. I cannot bear
these incessant meetings. I cannot bear this endless chain of orators
and their empty phrases. It is time to act. The time for talk is gone.
Otherwise, it will be too late. Our country and freedom are perishing.
“Nevertheless, I love you and want to part from you as a friend.”
Here I stopped. I could not go on. My comrades gave me a hearty
good-bye. They were sorry, very sorry, to lose me, they said, but of
course I was entitled to my opinion of the situation. They assured me
that they respected me as ever and that, when they had been at home
on leave, they had always told their mothers to pray for me. And they
swore that they would always be ready to lay down their lives for me.
The Commander placed his carriage at my disposal to go to the railway
station. A delegate from the Regiment was leaving the same day for
Petrograd, and we went together. As the horses started, tearing
me away from the men, who clasped my hands and wished me luck and
God-speed, something tore a big hole in my heart, and the world seemed
desolate....