THE REVOLUTION IN PETROGRAD.
I did not learn of the course of events in Petrograd and at G.H.Q.
until some time had elapsed, and I will refer to these events briefly
in order to preserve the continuity of my narrative. In a telegram
addressed to the Emperor by the members of the Council of the Empire on
the night of the 28th February, the state of affairs was described as
follows:--
"Owing to the complete disorganisation of transport and to the lack
of necessary materials, factories have stopped working. Forced
unemployment, and the acute food crisis due to the disorganisation of
transport, have driven the popular masses to desperation. This feeling
is further intensified by hatred towards the Government and grave
suspicions against the authorities, which have penetrated deeply into
the soul of the nation. All this has found expression in a popular
rising of elemental dimensions, and the troops are now joining the
movement. The Government, which has never been trusted in Russia, is
now utterly discredited and incapable of coping with the dangerous
situation."
Preparations for the Revolution found favourable ground in the
general condition of the country, and had been made long since. The
most heterogeneous elements had taken part in these activities; the
German Government, which spared no means for Socialist and defeatist
propaganda in Russia, and especially among the workmen; the Socialist
parties, who had formed "cells" among the workmen and in the regiments;
undoubtedly, too, the Protopopov Ministry, which was said to have been
provoking a rising in the streets in order to quell it by armed force,
and thus clear the intolerably tense atmosphere. It would seem that all
these forces were aiming at the same goal, which they were trying to
reach by diverse means, actuated by diametrically opposed motives.
At the same time, the progressive block and social organisations began
to prepare for great events which they considered inevitable, and other
circles, in close touch with these organisations or sharing their
views, were completing the arrangements for a "_Palace coup d'état_" as
the last means of averting the impending Revolution.
Nevertheless, the rebellion started as an elemental force and caught
everybody unawares. Several days later, when General Kornilov
visited the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workmen
and Soldiers' Deputies, prominent members of that body incidentally
explained that "the soldiers mutinied independently of the workmen,
with whom the soldiers had not been in touch on the eve of the
rebellion," and that the "mutiny had not been prepared--hence the
absence of a corresponding administrative organ."
As regards the circles of the Duma and the social organisations, they
were prepared for a _coup d'état_, but not for the Revolution. In
the blazing fire of the outbreak they failed to preserve their moral
balance and judgment.
The first outbreak began on February 23rd, when crowds filled the
streets, meetings were held, and the speakers called for a struggle
against the hated power. This lasted till the 26th, when the popular
movement assumed gigantic proportions and there were collisions with
the police, in which machine-guns were brought into action. On the
26th an ukaze was received proroguing the Duma, and on the morning of
the 27th the members of the Duma decided not to leave Petrograd. On
the same morning the situation underwent a drastic change, because
the rebels were joined by the Reserve battalions of the Litovski,
Volynski, Preobrajenski, and Sapper Guards' Regiments. They were
Reserve battalions, as the real Guards' Regiments were then on the
South-Western Front. These battalions did not differ, either in
discipline or spirit, from any other unit of the line. In several
battalions the Commanding Officers were disconcerted, and could not
make up their minds as to their own attitude. This wavering resulted,
to a certain extent, in a loss of prestige and authority. The troops
came out into the streets without their officers, mingled with the
crowds, and were imbued with the crowds' psychology. Armed throngs,
intoxicated with freedom, excited to the utmost, and incensed by street
orators, filled the streets, smashed the barricades, and new crowds of
waverers joined them. Police detachments were mercilessly slaughtered.
Officers who chanced to be in the way of the crowds were disarmed and
some of them killed. The armed mob seized the arsenal, the Fortress of
Peter and Paul, and the Kresti Prison.
On that decisive day there were no leaders--there was only the tidal
wave. Its terrible progress appeared to be devoid of any definite
object, plan, or watchword. The only cry that seemed to express the
general spirit was "_Long live Liberty_."
Somebody was bound to take the movement in hand. After violent
discussions, much indecision and wavering, that part was assumed by the
Duma. A Committee of the Duma was formed, which proclaimed its objects
on February 27th in the following guarded words:--
"In the strenuous circumstances of internal strife caused by the
activities of the old Government, the temporary Committee of the
members of the Duma has felt compelled to undertake the task of
restoring order in the State and in society.... The Committee expresses
its conviction that the population and the army will render assistance
in the difficult task of creating a new Government, which will
correspond to the wishes of the population, and which will be in a
position to enjoy its confidence."
There can be no doubt that the Duma, having led the patriotic and
national struggle against the Government detested by the people, and
having accomplished great and fruitful work in the interests of the
army, had obtained recognition in the country and in the army. The
Duma now became the centre of the political life of the country. No
one else could have taken the lead in the movement. No one else could
have gained the confidence of the country, or such rapid and full
recognition as the Supreme Power, as the power that emanated from
the Duma. The Petrograd Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies was
fully aware of this fact, and it did not then claim _officially_ to
represent the Russian Government. Such an attitude towards the Duma
at that moment created the illusion of the _national_ character of
the Provisional Government created by the Duma. Alongside, therefore,
with the troops that mingled with the armed mob and destroyed in their
trail everything reminiscent of the old power, alongside with the
units that had remained faithful to that power and resisted the mob,
regiments began to flock to the Taurida Palace with their commanding
officers, bands and banners. They greeted the new power in the person
of Rodzianko, President of the Duma, according to the rules of the old
ritual. The Taurida Palace presented an unusual sight--legislators,
bureaucrats, soldiers, workmen, women; a chamber, a camp, a prison,
a headquarters, Ministries. Everyone foregathered there seeking
protection and salvation, demanding guidance and answers to puzzling
questions which had suddenly arisen. On the same day, February 27th,
an announcement was made from the Taurida Palace:--
"Citizens. Representatives of the workmen, soldiers and people of
Petrograd, sitting in the Duma, declare that the first meeting of
their representatives will take place at seven o'clock to-night on
the premises of the Duma. Let the troops that have joined the people
immediately elect their representatives--one to each company. Let the
factories elect their deputies--one to each thousand. Factories with
less than a thousand workmen to elect one deputy each."
This proclamation had a grave and fateful effect upon the entire course
of events. In the first place, it created an organ of unofficial,
but undoubtedly stronger, power alongside with the provisional
Government--the Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers' deputies, against which
the Government proved impotent. In the second place, it converted the
political and bourgeois revolution, both outwardly and inwardly, into
a social revolution, which was unthinkable, considering the condition
of the country at that time. Such a revolution in war time could not
fail to bring about terrible upheavals. Lastly, it established a close
connection between the Soviet, which was inclined towards Bolshevism
and defeatism, and the army, which was thus infected with a ferment
which resulted in its ultimate collapse. When the troops, fully
officered, smartly paraded before the Taurida Palace, it was only
for show. The link between the officers and the men had already been
irretrievably broken; discipline had been shattered. Henceforward, the
troops of the Petrograd district represented a kind of Pretorian guard,
whose evil force weighed heavily over the Provisional Government. All
subsequent efforts made by Gutchkov, General Kornilov and G.H.Q. to
influence them and to send them to the front were of no avail, owing to
the determined resistance of the Soviet.
The position of the officers was undoubtedly tragic, as they had to
choose between loyalty to their oath, the distrust and enmity of the
men, and the dictates of practical necessity. A small portion of the
officers offered armed resistance to the mutiny, and most of them
perished. Some avoided taking any part in the events, but the majority
in the regiments, where comparative order prevailed, tried to find in
the Duma a solution of the questions which perturbed their conscience.
At a big meeting of officers held in Petrograd on March 1st, a
resolution was carried: "To stand by the people and unanimously to
recognise the power of the Executive Committee of the Duma, pending the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly; because a speedy organisation
of order and of united work in the rear were necessary for the
victorious end of the war."
* * * * *
Owing to the unrestrained orgy of power in which the successive
rulers appointed at Rasputin's suggestion had indulged during their
short terms of office, there was in 1917 no political party, no class
upon which the Czarist Government could rely. Everybody considered
that Government as the enemy of the people. Extreme Monarchists
and Socialists, the united nobility, labour groups, Grand Dukes
and half-educated soldiers--all were of the same opinion. I do not
intend to examine the activities of the Government which led to the
Revolution, its struggle against the people and against representative
institutions. I will only draw a summary of the accusations which were
justly levelled by the Duma against the Government on the eve of its
downfall:
All the Institutions of the State and of society--the Council of the
Empire, the Duma, the nobility, the Zemstvos, the municipalities--were
under suspicion of disloyalty, and the Government was in open
opposition to them, and paralysed all their activities in matters of
statesmanship and social welfare.
Lawlessness and espionage had reached unheard-of proportions. The
independent Russian Courts of Justice became subservient to "the
requirements of the political moment."
[Illustration: Funeral of the first victims of the March Revolution in
Petrograd.]
Whilst in the Allied countries all classes of society worked
whole-heartedly for the defence of their countries, in Russia that
work was repudiated with contempt, and the work was done by unskilled
and occasionally criminal hands, which resulted in such disastrous
phenomena as the activities of Sukhomlinov and Protopopov. The
Committee "of Military Industries," which had rendered great services
in provisioning the Army, was being systematically destroyed. Shortly
before the Revolution its labour section was arrested without any
reason being assigned, and this very nearly caused sanguinary
disturbances in the capital. Measures adopted by the Government without
the participation of social organisations shattered the industrial life
of the country. Transport was disorganised, and fuel was wasted. The
Government proved incapable and impotent in combating this disorder,
which was undoubtedly caused to a certain extent by the selfish and
sometimes rapacious designs of industrial magnates. The villages were
derelict. A series of wholesale mobilisations, without any exemptions
granted to classes which worked for defence, deprived the villages
of labour. Prices were unsettled, and the big landowners were given
certain privileges. Later, the grain contribution was gravely
mismanaged. There was no exchange of goods between towns and villages.
All this resulted in the stopping of food supplies, famine in the
towns, and repression in the villages. Government servants of all kinds
were impoverished by the tremendous rise in prices of commodities, and
were grumbling loudly.
Ministerial appointments were staggering in their fitfulness, and
appeared to the people as a kind of absurdity. The demands of the
country for a responsible Cabinet were voiced by the Duma and by the
best men. As late as the morning of February 27th, the Duma considered
that the granting of the minimum of the political desiderata of Russian
society was sufficient to postpone "the last hour in which the fate
of the Mother Country and of the dynasty was to be settled." Public
opinion and the Press were smothered; the Military Censorship of all
internal regions (including Moscow and Petrograd) had made the widest
use of its telephones. It was impregnable, protected by all the powers
of martial law. Ordinary censorship was no less severe. The following
striking fact was discussed in the Duma:
In February, 1917, a strike movement, prompted to a certain extent
by the Germans, began to spread in the factories. The Labour members
of the Military Industries Committee then drafted a proclamation, as
follows:--"Comrades, workmen of Petrograd, we deem it our duty to
address to you an urgent request to resume work. The labouring class,
fully aware of its present-day responsibilities, must not weaken itself
by a protracted strike. The interests of the labouring class are
calling upon you to resume work." In spite of Gutchkov's appeal to the
Minister of the Interior and to the Chief Censor, this appeal was twice
removed from the printing press, and was prohibited.
The question is still open for discussion and investigation as to
what proportion of the activities of the old régime in the domain
of economics can be attributed to individuals, what to the system,
and what to the insuperable obstacles created in the country by a
devastating war. But no excuse will ever be found for stifling the
conscience, the mind, and the spirit of the people and all social
initiative. No wonder, therefore, that Moscow and the provinces joined
the Revolution without any appreciable resistance. Outside Petrograd,
where the terror of street fighting and the rowdiness of a bloodthirsty
mob were absent (there were, however, many exceptions), the Revolution
was greeted with satisfaction, and even with enthusiasm, not only by
the Revolutionary Democracy, but by the real Democracy, the Bourgeoisie
and the Civil Service. There was tremendous animation; thousands of
people thronged the streets. Fiery speeches were made. There was great
rejoicing at the deliverance from the terrible nightmare; there were
bright hopes for the future of Russia. There was the word:
"LIBERTY."
It was in the air. It was reproduced in speeches, drawings, in music,
in song. It was stimulating. It was not yet stained by stupidity, by
filth and blood.
Prince Eugene Troubetskoi wrote: "This Revolution is unique. There
have been bourgeois revolutions and proletarian revolutions, but such
a national Revolution, in the broadest sense of the word, as the
present Russian Revolution, there has never been. Everyone took part
in this Revolution, everyone made it: the proletariat, the troops,
the bourgeoisie, even the nobility ... all the live forces of the
country.... May this unity endure!" In these words the hopes and fears
of the Russian intelligencia, not the sad Russian realities, are
reflected. The cruel mutinies at Helsingfors, Kronstadt, Reval, and the
assassination of Admiral Nepenin and of many officers were the first
warnings to the optimists.
* * * * *
In the first days of the Revolution the victims in the Capital were
few. According to the registration of the All-Russian Union of Towns,
the total number of killed and wounded in Petrograd was 1,443,
including 869 soldiers (of whom 60 were officers). Of course, many
wounded were not registered. The condition of Petrograd, however, out
of gear and full of inflammable material and armed men, remained for a
long time strained and unstable. I heard later from members of the Duma
and of the Government that the scales were swaying violently, and that
they felt like sitting on a powder-barrel which might explode at any
moment and blow to bits both themselves and the structure of the new
Government which they were creating. The Deputy-Chairman of the Soviet
of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies, Skobelev, said to a journalist:--
"I must confess that, when in the beginning of the Revolution, I
went to the entrance of the Taurida Palace to meet the first band of
soldiers that had come to the Duma, and when I addressed them, I was
almost certain that I was delivering one of my last speeches, and that
in the course of the next few days I should be shot or hanged."
Several officers who had taken part in the events assured me that
disorder and the universal incapacity for understanding the position in
the Capital were so great that _one solid battalion_, commanded by an
officer who knew what he wanted, might have upset the entire position.
Be that as it may, the temporary Committee of the Duma proclaimed on
March 2nd the formation of a Provisional Government. After lengthy
discussions with the parallel organs of "Democratic Power," the Soviet
of Workmen and Soldiers' Deputies, the Provisional Government issued a
declaration:--
"(1) Full and immediate amnesty for all political, religious and
terrorist crimes, military mutinies and agrarian offences, etc.
"(2) Freedom of speech, the Press, meetings, unions and strikes.
Political liberties to be granted to all men serving in the Army within
the limits of military requirements.
"(3) Cancellation of all restrictions of class, religion and
nationality.
"(4) Immediate preparation for the convocation of a Constituent
Assembly elected by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage for
the establishment of a form of government and of the Constitution of
the country.
"(5) The police to be replaced by a people's Militia, with elected
chiefs, subordinate to the organ of Local Self-Government.
"(6) Members of Local Self-Governing Institutions to be elected by
universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage.
"(7) The units of the Army that have taken part in the Revolutionary
movement are not to be disarmed or removed from Petrograd.
"(8) Military discipline to be preserved on parade and on duty. The
soldiers, however, are to be free to enjoy all social rights enjoyed by
other citizens.
"The Provisional Government deems it its duty to add that it has no
intention of taking advantage of wartime to delay carrying out the
aforesaid reforms and measures."
This Declaration was quite obviously drafted under pressure from the
"parallel power."
In his book, _Mes Souvenirs de Guerre_, General Ludendorff says: "I
often dreamt of that Revolution which was to alleviate the burdens
of our war. Eternal chimera! To-day, however, the dream suddenly and
unexpectedly came true. I felt as if a heavy load had fallen off my
shoulders. I could not, however, foresee that it would be the grave of
our might."
One of the most prominent leaders of Germany--the country that had
worked so hard for the poisoning of the soul of the Russian people--has
come to the belated conclusion that "Our moral collapse began with the
beginning of the Russian Revolution."