THE JULY REVOLUTION
Every one who has read the old “Arabian Nights” will remember the
story of the fisherman who caught a black bottle in one of his nets.
When the bottle was uncorked a thin smoke began to curl out of the
neck. The smoke thickened into a dense cloud and became a huge genie
who made a slave of the fisherman. By the exercise of his wits the
fisherman finally succeeded in getting the genie back into the bottle,
which he carefully corked and threw back into the sea. Kerensky tried
desperately to get the genie back into the bottle, and every one hoped
he might succeed. Up to date, however, there is little to indicate that
the giant has even begun materially to shrink. Petrograd is not the
only city where the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates has
assumed control of the destinies of the Russian people. Every town has
its council, and there is no question, civil or military, which they do
not feel capable of settling.
I have before me a Petrograd newspaper clipping dated June 12. It is
a dispatch from the city of Minsk, and states that the local soviet
had debated the whole question of the resumption of the offensive, the
Bolsheviki claiming that the question was general and that it ought
to be left for the men at the front to decide. They themselves were
against an offensive, deeming it contrary to the interests of the
international movement and profitable only to capitalists, foreign as
well as Russian. Workers of all countries ought to struggle against
their governments and to break with all imperialist politics. The
army ought to be made more democratic. This view prevailed, says the
dispatch, by a vote of 123 against 79.
This is typical. In some cities the extreme socialists are in the
majority, in others the milder Minsheviki prevail. In Petrograd it
has been a sort of neck and neck between them, with the Minsheviki
in greater number. But as the seat of government Petrograd has had a
great attraction for the German agents, and they are all Bolsheviki
and very energetic. Early in the revolution they established two
headquarters, one in the palace of Mme. Kchessinskaia, a dancer, high
in favor with some of the grand dukes, and another on the Viborg side,
a manufacturing quarter of the city. Here in a big rifle factory and a
few miles down the Neva in Kronstadt, they kept a stock of firearms,
rifles and machine guns big enough to equip an army division.
The leader of this faction, which was opposed to war against Germany
but quite willing to shoot down unarmed citizens, was the notorious
Lenine, a proved German agent whose power over the working people
was supreme until the uprisings in July, which were put down by
the Cossacks. Lenine was at the height of his glory when the Root
Commission visited Russia, and the provisional government was so
terrorized by him that it hardly dared recognize the envoys from
“capitalistic America.” Only two members of the mission were ever
permitted to appear before the soviet or council. They were Charles
Edward Russell and James Duncan, one a socialist and the other a labor
representative. Both men made good speeches, but not a line of them,
as far as I could discover, ever appeared in a socialist newspaper. In
fact, the visit of the commission was ignored by the radical press, the
only press which reaches 75 per cent of the Russian people.
In order to make perfectly clear the situation as it existed during the
spring and summer, and as it exists to-day, I am going to describe two
events which I witnessed last July. Both of these were attempts of the
extreme socialists to bring about a separate peace with Germany, and
had they succeeded in their plans would have done so. Moreover, they
might easily have resulted in the dismemberment of Russia.
The 18th of June, Russian style, July 1 in our calendar, is a day
that stands out vividly in my memory. For some time the Lenine
element of the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council had planned to get up
a demonstration against the non-socialist members of the provisional
government and against the further progress of the war. The Minshevik
element of the council, backed by the government, spoiled the plan
by voting for a non-political demonstration in which all could take
part, and which should be a memorial for the men and women killed in
the February revolution, and buried in the Field of Mars, a great open
square once used for military reviews. As the plan was finally adopted
it provided that every one who wanted to might march in this parade,
and no one was to carry arms. Great was the wrath of the Lenineites,
but the peaceful demonstration came off, and it must have given the
government its first thrill of encouragement, for events that day
proved that the Bolsheviki or Lenine followers were cowards at heart
and could be handled by any firm and fearless authority.
It was a beautiful Sunday morning, this eighteenth of June, when I
walked up the Nevski Prospect, the Fifth avenue of Petrograd, watching
the endless procession that filled the street. Two-thirds of the
marchers were men, mostly soldiers, but women were present also, and
a good many children. Red flags and red banners were plentiful, the
Bolshevik banners reading “Down with the Ten Capitalistic Ministers,”
“Down with the War,” “Down with the Duma,” “All the Power to the
Soviets,” and presenting a very belligerent appearance.
With me that day was another woman writer, Miss Beatty of the San
Francisco _Bulletin_, and as we walked along we agreed that almost
anything could happen, and that we ought not to allow ourselves to get
into a crowd. For once the journalistic passion for seeing the whole
thing must give place to a decent regard for safety. We had just agreed
that if shooting began we would duck into the nearest court or doorway,
when something did happen--something so sudden that its very character
could not be defined. If it was a shot, as some claimed, we did not
hear it. All we heard was a noise something like a sudden wind. That
great crowd marching along the broad Nevski simply exploded. There is
no other word to express the panic that turned it without any warning
into a fleeing, fighting, struggling, terror-stricken mob. The people
rushed in every direction, knocking down everything in their track.
Miss Beatty went down like a log, but she was up again in a flash, and
we flung ourselves against a high iron railing guarding a shop window.
Directly beside us lay a soldier who had had his head cut open by the
glass sign against which he was thrown. Many others were injured.
[Illustration: Typical crowd on the Nevski Prospect during the
Bolshevik or Maximalist risings.]
Fortunately the panic was shortlived. It lasted hardly five minutes, as
a matter of fact. All around the cry rose that nothing was the matter,
that the Cossacks were not coming. The Cossacks, once the terror of the
Russian people, in this upheaval have become the strongest supporters
of the government. Nothing could better demonstrate the anti-government
intention of the Bolsheviki than their present fear and hatred of the
Cossacks. So the “Tavarishi” took up their battered banners and resumed
their march. No one ever found out what started the panic. Some said
that a shot was fired from a window on one of the banners. Others said
that the shot was merely a tire blowing out. Some were certain that
they heard a cry of “Cossacks,” and some cynics suggested that the
pick-pockets, a numerous and enterprising class just now, started the
panic in the interests of business. This was the only disturbance I
witnessed. The newspapers reported two more in the course of the day. A
young girl watching the procession from the sidewalk suddenly decided
to commit suicide, and the shot she sent through her heart precipitated
another panic. Still a third one occurred when two men got into a
fight and one of them drew a knife.
The instant flight of the crowds and especially of the soldiers must
have given Kerensky hope that the giant could be got back into the
bottle, especially since on that very day, June 18, Russian style, the
army on one of the fronts advanced and fought a victorious engagement.
The town went mad with joy over that victory, showing, I think, that
the heart of the Russian people is still intensely loyal to the allies,
and deadly sick of the fantastic program of the extreme socialists.
Crowds surged up and down the street bearing banners, flags, pictures
of Kerensky. They thronged before the Marie Palace, where members of
the government, officers, soldiers, sailors made long and rapturous
speeches, full of patriotism. They sang, they shouted, all day and
nearly all night. When they were not shouting “Long live Kerensky!”
they were saying “This is the last of the Lenineites.” But it wasn’t.
The Bolsheviki simply retired to their dancer’s palace, their Viborg
retreats and their Kronstadt stronghold, and made another plan.
On Monday night, July 2, or in our calendar July 15, broke out what
is known as the July revolution, the last bloody demonstration of the
Bolsheviki. I had been absent from town for two weeks and returned to
Petrograd early in the morning after the demonstration began. I stepped
out of the Nicholai station and looked around for a droshky. Not one
was in sight. No street cars were running. The town looked deserted.
Silence reigned, a queer, sinister kind of a silence. “What in the
world has happened?” I asked myself. A droshky appeared and I hailed
it. When the izvostchik mentioned his price for driving me to my hotel
I gasped, but I was two miles from home and there were no trams. So I
accepted and we made the journey. Few people were abroad, and when I
reached the hotel I found the entrance blocked with soldiers. The man
behind the desk looked aghast to see me walk in, and he hastened to
tell me that the Bolsheviki were making trouble again and all citizens
had been requested to stay indoors until it was over.
I stayed indoors long enough to bathe and change, and then, as
everything seemed quiet, I went out. Confidence was returning and the
streets looked almost normal again. I walked down the Morskaia, finding
the main telephone exchange so closely guarded that no one was even
allowed to walk on the sidewalk below it. That telephone exchange had
been fiercely attacked during the February revolution, and it was one
of the most hotly disputed strategic positions in the capital. Later
I am going to tell something of the part played in the revolution by
the loyal telephone girls of Petrograd. A big armored car was plainly
to be seen in the courtyard of the building, and many soldiers were
there alert and ready. I stopped in at the big bookshop where English
newspapers (a month old) were to be purchased, and bought one. The
_Journal de Petrograd_, the French morning paper, I found had not been
issued that day. Then I strolled down the Nevski. I had not gone far
when I heard rifle shooting and then the sound, not to be mistaken,
of machine gun fire. People turned in their tracks and bolted for
the side streets. I bolted too, and made a record dash for the Hotel
d’Europe. The firing went on for about an hour, and when I ventured
out again it was to see huge gray motor trucks laden with armed men,
rushing up and down the streets, guns bristling from all sides and
machine guns fore and aft.
What had happened was this. The “Red Guard,” an armed band of workmen
allied with the Bolsheviki, together with all the extremists who could
be rallied by Lenine, and these included some very young boys, had been
given arms and told to “go out in the streets.” This is a phrase that
usually means go out and kill everything in sight. In this case the
men were assured that the Kronstadt regiments would join them, that
cruisers would come up the river and the whole government would be
delivered into the hands of the Bolsheviki. The Kronstadt men did come
in sufficient numbers to surround and hold for two days the Tauride
Palace, where the Duma meets and the provisional government had its
headquarters. The only reason why the bloodshed was not greater was
that the soldiers in the various garrisons around the city refused to
come out and fight. The sane members of the Soviet had begged them
to remain in their casernes, and they obeyed. All day Tuesday and
Wednesday the armed motor cars of the Bolsheviki dashed from barrack
to barrack daring the soldiers to come out, and whenever they found a
group of soldiers to fire on, they fired. Most of these loyal soldiers
are Cossacks, and they are hated by the Bolsheviki.
Tuesday night there was some real fighting, for the Cossacks went to
the Tauride Palace and freed the besieged ministers at the cost of the
lives of a dozen or more men. Then the Cossacks started out to capture
the Bolshevik armored cars. When they first went out it was with
rifles only, which are mere toy pistols against machine guns. After
one little skirmish I counted seventeen dead Cossack horses, and there
were more farther down the street. As soon as the Cossacks were given
proper arms they captured the armored trucks without much trouble. The
Bolsheviki threw away their guns and fled like rabbits for their holes.
Nevertheless a condition of warfare was maintained for the better part
of a week, and the final burst of Bolshevik activity gave Petrograd,
already sick of bloodshed, one more night of terror. That night I shall
not soon forget.
The day had been quiet and we thought the trouble was over. I went to
bed at half-past ten and was in my first sleep when a fusilade broke
out, as it seemed, almost under my window. I sat up in bed, and within
a few minutes, the machine guns had begun their infernal noise, like
rattlesnakes in the prairie grass. I flung on a dressing gown and ran
down the hall to a friend’s room. She dressed quickly and we went down
stairs to the room of Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, the English suffragette,
which gave a better view of the square than our own. There until nearly
morning we sat without any lights, of course, listening to repeated
bursts of firing, and the wicked _put-put-put-put_ of the machine
guns, watching from behind window draperies, the brilliant headlights
of armored motors rushing into action, hearing the quick feet of men
and horses hastening from their barracks. We did not go out. All a
correspondent can do in the midst of a fight is to lie down on the
ground and make himself as flat as possible, unless he can get into a
shop where he hides under a table or a bench. That never seemed worth
while to me, and I have no tales to tell of prowess under fire.
I listened to that night battle from the safety of the hotel, going
the next day to see the damage done by the guns. A contingent of
mutinous soldiers and sailors from Kronstadt, which had been expected
for several days by the Lenineites, had come up late, still spoiling
for a fight; had planted guns on the street in front of the Bourse and
at the head of the Palace Bridge across the Neva, and simply mowed
down as many people as were abroad at the hour. Nobody knows, except
the authorities, how many were killed, but when we awoke the next day
we discovered that, for a time at least, the power of the Bolsheviki
had been broken. The next day the mutinous regiments were disbanded in
disgrace. Petrograd was put under martial law, the streets were guarded
with armored cars, thousands of Cossacks were brought in to police the
place, and orders for the arrest of Lenine and his lieutenants were
issued. But it was openly boasted by the Bolsheviki that the government
was afraid to touch Lenine, and certain it is that he escaped into
Sweden, and possibly from there into Germany.
I should not like to believe that the government actually connived at
his escape, since there was always the menace of his return, and the
absolute certainty that he would remain an outsider directing force
in the Bolshevik campaign. It is more probable that in the confusion
of those days of fighting he was smuggled down the Neva in a small
yacht or motor boat to the fortress of Kronstadt, and from there was
conveyed across the mine strewn Baltic into Sweden. Rumor had it that
he had been seen well on his way to Germany, but it is more likely
that his employers kept him nearer the scene of his activities. He was
guilty of more successful intrigue, more murder and violent death than
most of the Kaiser’s faithful, and deserves an extra size iron cross,
if there is such a thing. In spite of all that he has done he has
thousands of adherents still in Russia, people who believe that he is
“sincere but misguided,” to use an overworked phrase. The rest of the
fighting mob were driven from their palace, which they had previously
looted and robbed of about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of costly
furniture, china, silver and art objects. They were hunted out of their
rifle factory, and finally surrendered to the government after they
had captured, but failed to hold the fortress of Peter and Paul. They
surrendered but were they arrested and punished? Not a bit of it. They
were allowed to go scot free, only being required to give up their
arms. The government existed only at the will of the mob, and the mob
would not tolerate the arrest of “Tavarishi.”