THE CONDITION OF THE ARMY AT THE JULY ADVANCE.
Having outlined a whole series of conditions which exercised an
influence on the life, spirit, and military efficiency of the once
famous Russian Army, I shall now pass to the sorrowful tale of its fall.
I was born in the family of an officer of the line, and for twenty-two
years (including the two years of the Russo-Japanese War) before the
European War served in the ranks of modest line units and in small Army
Staffs. I shared the life, the joys and the sorrows of the officer and
the soldier, and devoted many pages in the Military Press to their
life which was my own. From 1914 to 1920, almost without interval, I
stood at the head of the troops and led them into battle on the fields
of White Russia, Volynia, Galicia, in the mountains of Hungary, in
Roumania, and then--then in the bitter internecine war which, with
bloody share, ploughed up our native land.
I have more grounds and more right to speak of the Army and in the
name of the Army than all those strangers of the Socialist Camp, who,
in their haughty self-conceit, as soon as they touched the Army,
began breaking down its foundations, judging its leaders and fighters
and diagnosing its serious disease, who even now, after grievous
experiments and experiences, have not given up the hope of transforming
this mighty and terrible weapon of national self-preservation into a
means for satisfying party and social appetites. For me, the Army is
not only an historical, social, national phenomenon, but nearly the
whole of my life, in which lie many memories, precious and not to be
forgotten, in which all is bound up and interlaced into one general
mass of swiftly passing days of sadness and of joy, in which there are
hundreds of cherished graves, of buried dreams and unextinguishable
faith.
The Army should be approached cautiously, never forgetting that not
only its historical foundations, but even such details of its life
as may, perhaps, seem strange and absurd, have their meaning and
significance.
When the Revolution began that old veteran, beloved by both officers
and soldiers, General P. I. Mishtchenko, being unable to put up with
the new régime, retired from the Army. He lived at Temir-Han Shoura,
never went outside his garden fence, and always wore his General's
uniform and his crosses of St. George, even in the days of Bolshevik
power. One day the Bolsheviks came to search his house, and, among
other things, wanted to deprive him of his shoulder straps and
decorations. The old General retired to a neighbouring room and shot
himself.
Let whoever will laugh at "old-fashioned prejudices." We shall
reverence his noble memory.
And so the storm-cloud of the Revolution broke.
There was no doubt whatever that such a cataclysm in the life of the
nation could not but have a grave effect. The Revolution was _bound_
to convulse the Army, greatly weakening and breaking all its historic
ties. Such a result was normal, natural and unavoidable, independently
of the condition of the Army at the moment, independently of the mutual
relations of Commanders and subordinates. We can speak only of the
circumstances which arrested or hastened the disintegration of the Army.
A Government appeared.
Its source might have been one of three elements: The High Command
(a military dictatorship), the Bourgeois State Duma (the Provisional
Government), or the Revolutionary Democracy (the Soviet). It was the
Provisional Government that was acknowledged. The attitude of the other
two elements towards it was different; the Soviet practically robbed
the Government of its power, while the High Command submitted to it
implicitly, and was therefore obliged to carry out its plans.
The Government had two courses open to it; it could combat the
disintegrating influences which began to appear in the Army by stern
and ruthless measures, or it could encourage them. Owing to pressure
from the Soviet and partly through want of firmness and through
misunderstanding of the laws of existence of armed forces, the
Government chose the second course.
This circumstance decided the fate of the Army. All other circumstances
could but influence the duration of the process of disruption and its
depth.
[Illustration: Types of soldiers of the Old Army. This company was sent
to the West European Front.]
The festive days of touching and joyous union between the officers
and the soldiers vanished rapidly, being replaced by tiresome, weary
week-days. But they had been in the past, those days of joy, and,
therefore, no impassable abyss existed between the two Ranks, over
which the inexorable logic of life had long been casting a bridge.
The unnecessary, obsolete methods, which had introduced an element of
irritation into the soldiery, fell away at once, as of themselves; the
officers became more thoughtful and industrious.
Then came a torrent of newspapers, appeals, resolutions, orders, from
some unknown authority, and with them a whole series of new ideas,
which the soldier masses were unable to digest and assimilate. New
people appeared, with a new speech, so fascinating and promising,
liberating the soldiers from obedience and inspiring hope that they
would be saved from deadly danger immediately. When one Regimental
Commander naïvely inquired whether these people might not be tried
by Field Court-Martial and shot, his telegram, after passing through
all official stages, called forth the reply from Petrograd that these
people were inviolable, and had been sent by the Soviet to the troops
for the very purpose of explaining to them the true meaning of current
events.
When such leaders of the Revolutionary Democracy, as have not yet lost
their feeling of responsibility for crucified Russia, now say that the
movement, caused by the deep class differences between the officers
and the soldiers and by "the enslavement" of the latter, was of an
elemental nature, which they could not resist, this is deeply untrue.
All the fundamental slogans, all the programmes, tactics, instructions
and text-books, forming the foundation of the "democratisation" of
the Army, had been drawn up by the military sections of the secret
Socialist parties long before the War, outside of "elemental" pressure,
on the grounds of clear, cold calculation, as a product of "Socialist
reasoning and conscience."
True, the officers strove to persuade the men not to believe the
"new words" and to do their duty. But from the very beginning the
Soviets had declared the officers to be foes of the Revolution; in
many towns they had been subjected to cruel torture and death, and
this with impunity. Evidently not without some reason, when even the
"Bourgeois" Duma issued such a strange and unexpected "announcement"
as the following: "This first day of March, rumours were spread among
the soldiers of the garrison of Petrograd to the effect that the
officers in the regiments were disarming the soldiers. These rumours
were investigated and found to be false. As President of the Military
Commission of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, I declare
that the most decided measures _will be_ taken to prevent such action
on the part of the officers, up to the shooting of those guilty of it.
Signed, COLONEL ENGELHARDT."
Next came Order No. 1., the Declaration and so forth.
Perhaps, however, it might have been possible to combat all this verbal
ocean of lies and hypocrisy which flowed from Petrograd and from the
local Soviets and was echoed by the local demagogues had it not been
for a circumstance which paralysed all the efforts of the Commanders,
viz., the animal feeling of self-preservation which had flooded the
whole mass of the soldiers. This feeling had always existed. But it
had been kept under and restrained by examples of duty fulfilled, by
flashes of national self-consciousness, by shame, fear and pressure.
When all these elements had disappeared, when for the soothing of a
drowsy conscience there was a whole arsenal of new conceptions, which
justified the care for one's own hide and furnished it with an ideal
basis, then the Army could exist no longer. This feeling upset all the
efforts of the Commanders, all moral principles and the whole regiment
of the Army.
* * * * *
In a large, open field, as far as the eye can see, run endless lines of
trenches, sometimes coming close up to each other, interlacing their
barbed wire fences, sometimes running far off and vanishing behind a
verdant crest. The sun has risen long ago, but it is still as death
in the field. The first to rise are the Germans. In one place and
another their figures look out from the trenches; a few come out on to
the parapet to hang their clothes, damp after the night, in the sun.
A sentry in our front trench opens his sleepy eyes, lazily stretches
himself, after looking indifferently at the enemy trenches. A soldier
in a dirty shirt, bare-footed, with coat slung over his shoulders,
cringing under the morning cold, comes out of his trench and plods
towards the German positions, where, between the lines, stands a
"postbox"; it contains a new number of the German paper, _The Russian
Messenger_, and proposals for barter.
All is still. Not a single gun is to be heard. Last week the Regimental
Committee issued a resolution against firing, even against distance
firing; let the necessary distances be estimated by the map. A
Lieutenant-Colonel of the gunners--a member of the Committee--gave
his full approval to this resolution. When yesterday the Commander
of a field battery began firing at a new enemy trench, our infantry
opened rifle fire on our observation post and wounded the telephone
operator. During the night the infantry lit a fire on the position
being constructed for a newly arrived heavy battery.[26]
Nine a.m. The first Company gradually begins to awaken. The trenches
are incredibly defiled; in the narrow communication trenches and those
of the second line the air is thick and close. The parapet is crumbling
away. No one troubles to repair it; no one feels inclined to do so,
and there are not enough men in the Company. There is a large number
of deserters; more than fifty have been allowed to go. Old soldiers
have been demobilised, others have gone on leave with the arbitrary
permission of the Committee. Others, again, have been elected members
of numerous Committees, or gone away as delegates; a while ago, for
instance, the Division sent a numerous delegation to "Comrade" Kerensky
to verify whether he had really given orders for an advance. Finally,
by threats and violence, the soldiers have so terrorised the regimental
surgeons that the latter have been issuing medical certificates even to
the "thoroughly fit."
In the trenches the hours pass slowly and wearily, in dullness and
idleness. In one corner men are playing cards, in another a soldier
returned from leave is lazily and listlessly telling a story; the air
is full of obscene swearing. Someone reads aloud from the _Russian
Messenger_ the following:
"The English want the Russians to shed the last drop of their blood for
the greater glory of England, who seeks her profit in everything....
Dear soldiers, you must know that Russia would have concluded peace
long ago had not England prevented her.... We must turn away from
her--the Russian people demand it; such is their sacred will."
Someone or other swears.
"Don't you wish for peace. _They_ make peace, the ----; we shall die
here, without getting our freedom!"
Along the trenches came Lieutenant Albov, the Company Commander. He
said to the groups of soldiers, somewhat irresolutely and entreatingly:
"Comrades, get to work quickly. In three days we have not made a single
communication trench to the firing line."
The card players did not even look round; someone said in a low voice,
"All right." The man reading the newspaper rose and reported, in a free
and easy manner:
"The Company does not want to dig, because that would be preparation
for an advance, and the Committee has resolved...."
"Look here, you understand nothing at all about it, and, moreover, why
do you speak for the whole Company? Even if we remain on the defensive
we are lost in case of an alarm; the whole Company cannot get out to
the firing line along a single trench."
He said this, and with a gesture of despair went on his way. Matters
were hopeless. Every time he tried to speak with them for a time, and
in a friendly way, they would listen to him attentively; they liked to
talk to him, and, on the whole, his Company looked on him favourably
in their own way. But he felt that between him and them a wall had
sprung up, against which all his good impulses were shattered. He
had lost the path to their soul--lost it in the impassable jungle of
darkness, roughness, and that wave of distrust and suspicion which
had overwhelmed the soldiers. Was it, perhaps, that he used the wrong
words, or was not able to say what he meant? Scarcely that. But a
little while before the War, when he was a student and was carried away
by the popular movement, he had visited villages and factories and had
found "real words" which were clear and comprehensible to all. But,
most of all, with what words can one move men to face death when all
their feelings are veiled by one feeling--that of self-preservation?
The train of his thoughts was broken by the sudden appearance of the
Regimental Commander.
"What the devil does this mean? The man on duty does not come forward.
The men are not dressed. Filth and stench. What are you about,
Lieutenant?"
The grey-headed Colonel cast a stern glance on the soldiers which
involuntarily impressed them. They all rose to their feet. He glanced
through a loop-hole and, starting back, asked nervously:
"What is that?"
In the green field, among the barbed wire, a regular bazaar was
going on. A group of Germans and of our men were bartering vodka,
tobacco, lard, bread. Some way off a German officer reclined on the
grass--red-faced, sturdy, with an arrogant look on his face--and
carried on a conversation with a soldier named Soloveytchick; and,
strange to say, the familiar and insolent Soloveytchick stood before
the Lieutenant respectfully.
The Colonel pushed the observer aside and, taking his rifle from him,
put it through the loop-hole. A murmur was heard among the soldiers.
They began to ask him not to shoot. One of them, in a low voice, as if
speaking to himself, remarked:
"This is provocation."
The Colonel, crimson with fury, turned to him for a moment and shouted:
"Silence!"
All grew silent and pressed to the loop-hole. A shot was heard, and the
German officer convulsively stretched himself out and was still; blood
was running from his head. The haggling soldiers scattered.
The Colonel threw the rifle down and, muttering through his teeth
"Scoundrels!" strode further along the trenches. The "truce" was
infringed.
The Lieutenant went off to his hut. His heart was sad and empty. He was
oppressed by the realisation of his unwantedness and uselessness in
these absurd surroundings, which perverted the whole meaning of that
service to his country, which alone justified all his grave troubles
and the death which might perhaps be near. He threw himself on his bed,
where he lay for an hour, for two hours, striving to think of nothing,
to forget himself.
But from beyond the mud wall, where the shelter lay, there crept
someone's muffled voice, which seemed to wrap his brain in a filthy fog:
"It is all very well for them, the ----. They receive their hundred and
forty roubles a month clear, while we--so generous of them--get seven
and a half. Wait a bit, our turn will come."
Silence.
"I hear they are sharing the land in our place in the province of
Kharkov. If I could only get home."
There was a knock at the door. The Sergeant-Major had come.
"Your honour (so he always addressed his Company Commander in the
absence of witnesses), the Company is angry, and threatens to leave the
position if it is not relieved at once. The Second Battalion should
have relieved us at five o'clock, and it is not here yet. Couldn't they
be rung up?"
"They will not go away. All right, I shall inquire; but, all the same,
it is too late now. After this morning's incident the Germans will not
allow us to be relieved by day."
"They will allow us. The Committee members know about it already.
I think"--he lowered his voice--"that Soloveytchick has managed to
slip across and explain matters. It is rumoured that the Germans have
promised to overlook it, on condition that next time the Colonel comes
to visit the trenches we should let them know, and they will throw a
bomb. You had better report it or else, who knows?"
"All right."
The Sergeant-Major was preparing to leave. The Lieutenant stopped him.
"Matters are bad, Petrovitch. They do not trust us."
"God alone knows whom they trust; only last week the Sixth Company
elected their Sergeant-Major themselves, and now they are making a mock
of him; they won't let him say a word."
"What will things be afterwards?"
The Sergeant-Major blushed, and said softly:
"Then the Soloveytchicks will rule over us, and we shall be, so to
speak, dumb animals before them--that is how matters will be, your
honour."
The relief came at last. Captain Bouravin, the Commander of the Fifth
Company, came into the hut. Albov offered to show him the section and
explain the disposition of the enemy.
"Very well, though that does not matter, because I am not really in
command of the Company--I am boycotted."
"How?"
"Just so. They have elected the 2nd Lieutenant, my subaltern,
as Company Commander, and degraded me as a supporter of the old
régime, because, you see, I had drill twice a day--you know that the
marching contingents come up here absolutely untrained. Indeed, the
2nd Lieutenant was the first to vote for my removal. 'We have been
slave-driven long enough,' said he. 'Now we are free. We must clean out
everyone, beginning with the head. A young man can manage the regiment
just as well, so long as he is a true Democrat and supports the freedom
of the soldier.' I would have left, but the Colonel flatly refused to
allow it, and forbids me to hand over the company. So now, you see, we
have two commanders. I have stood the situation for five days. Look
here, Albov, you are not in a hurry, are you? Very good, then; let us
have a chat. I am feeling depressed. Albov, have you not yet thought of
suicide?"
"Not as yet."
Bouravin rose to his feet.
"Understand me, they have desecrated my soul, outraged my human
dignity, and so every day, every hour, in every word, glance or gesture
one sees a constant outrage. What have I done to them? I have been in
the service for eight years; I have no family, no house or home. All
this I have found in the regiment, my own regiment. Twice I have been
badly wounded, and before my wounds were healed have rushed back to the
regiment--so there you are! And I loved the soldier--I am ashamed to
speak of it myself, but they must remember how, more than once, I have
crept out under the barbed wire to drag in the wounded. And now! Well,
yes, I reverence the regimental flag and hate their crimson rags. I
accept the Revolution. But to me Russia is infinitely dearer than the
Revolution. All these Committees and meetings, all this adventitious
rubbish which has been sown in the Army I am organically unable to
swallow and digest. But, after all, I interfere with no one; I say
nothing of this to anyone, I strive to convince no one. If only the War
could be ended honourably, and then I am ready to break stones on the
highway, only not to remain in an Army democratised in such a manner.
Take my subaltern; he discusses everything with them--nationalisation,
socialisation, labour control. Now I cannot do so--I never had time
to study it, and I confess I never took any interest in the matter.
You remember how the Army Commander came here and, amidst a crowd of
soldiers, said: 'Don't say "General"; call me simply Comrade George.'
Now I cannot do such things; besides, all the same, they would not
believe me. So I am silent. But they understand and pay me off. And,
you know, with all their ignorance, what subtle psychologists they
are! They are able to find the place where the sting hurts most. Now,
yesterday for instance...."
He stooped down to Albov's ear, and continued in a whisper:
"I returned from our mess. In my tent, at the head of my bed, I have
a photograph--well, just a treasured memory. There they had drawn an
obscenity!"
Bouravin rose and wiped his brow with his handkerchief.
"Well, let us take a look at the positions. God willing, we shall not
have to stand it long. No one in the Company wants to go scouting. I
go myself every night; sometimes there is a volunteer who accompanies
me--he has a hunter's strain in him. Should anything happen, please,
Albov, see to it that a little packet--it is in my bag--is sent to its
destination."
The company, without waiting for the completion of the relief, wandered
away in disorder. Albov plodded after them.
The communication trench ended in a broad hollow. Like a great ant-hill
the regimental bivouac stretched in rows of huts, tents, smoking
camp-kitchens and horse-lines. They had once been carefully masked by
artificial plantations, which had now withered, lost their leaves, and
were merely leafless poles. On an open green soldiers were drilling
here and there--listlessly, lazily, as if to create an impression
that they were doing something; after all, it would be awkward to
be doing absolutely nothing at all. There were few officers about;
the good ones were sick of the trivial farce into which real work was
now transformed, while the inferior ones had a moral justification
for their laziness and idleness. In the distance something between a
mob and a column marched along the road towards the regimental staff
quarters, carrying crimson flags. Before them went a huge banner
bearing the inscription, in white letters, visible in the distance:
"Down with War!"
These were reinforcements coming up. At once, all the soldiers drilling
on the green, as if at a signal, broke their ranks and ran towards the
column.
"Hey, countrymen! What province are you from?"
An animated conversation began on the usual anxious themes: how did
matters stand with the land; would peace be concluded soon? Much
interest, also, was shown in the question as to whether they had
brought any home-brewed spirits, as "their own regimental" home brew,
manufactured in fairly large quantities at "the distillery" of the
Third Battalion, was very disgusting, and gave rise to painful symptoms.
Albov made his way to the mess-room. The officers were gathering for
dinner. What had become of the former animation, friendly talk, healthy
laughter and torrents of reminiscences of a stormy, hard, but glorious
life of war? The reminiscences had faded, the dreams had flown away,
and stern reality crushed them all down with its weight.
They spoke in low voices, sometimes breaking off or expressing
themselves figuratively: the mess servants might denounce them, and
also new faces had appeared among themselves. Not so long ago the
Regimental Committee, on the report of a servant, had tried an officer
of the regiment, who wore the Cross of St. George and to whom the
regiment owed one of its most famous victories. This Lieutenant-Colonel
had said something about "mutinous slaves." And though it was proved
that those were not his own words and that he had only quoted a speech
made by Comrade Kerensky, the Committee "expressed its indignation at
him"; he had to leave the regiment.
The personnel of the officers, too, was much changed. Of the original
staff, some two or three remained. Some had perished, others had been
crippled, others again, having earned "distrust," were wandering about
the Front, importuning Staffs, joining shock battalions, entering
institutions in the rear, while some of the weaker brethren had simply
gone home. The Army had ceased to need the bearers of the traditions
of its units, of its former glory--of those old Bourgeois prejudices,
which had been swept into the dust by the Revolutionary creative power.
Everyone in the regiment knows already of that morning's event in
Albov's Company. He is questioned about details. A Lieutenant-Colonel
sitting next him wagged his head.
"Well done, our old man. There was something in the Fifth Company, too.
But I am afraid it will end badly. Have you heard what was done to the
Commander of the Doubov Regiment, because he refused to confirm an
elected Company Commander and put three agitators under arrest? _He was
crucified._ Yes, my boy! They nailed him to a tree and began, in turn,
to stick their bayonets into him, to cut off his ears, his nose, his
fingers."
He seized his head in his hands.
"My God! Where do these men get so much brutality, so much baseness?"
At the other end of the table the ensigns are carrying on a conversation
on that ever harassing theme--where to get away to.
"Have you applied for admission to the Revolutionary Battalion?"
"No, it is not worth while. It seems that it is being formed under the
superintendence of the Executive Committee, with Committees, elections
and "Revolutionary" discipline. It does not suit me."
"They say that shock units are being formed in Kornilov's Army and at
Minsk also. That would be good...."
"I have applied for transfer to our rifle brigade in France. Only I do
not know what I am to do about the language."
"Alas! my boy, you are too late," remarked the Lieutenant-Colonel from
the other end of the table. "The Government has long ago sent 'emigrant
comrades' there to enlighten minds. And now our brigades, somewhere
in the South of France, are in the situation of something like either
prisoners of war or disciplinary battalions."
This talk, however, was realised by all to be of a purely platonic
character, in view of the hopelessness of a situation from which there
was no escape. It was only a case of dreaming a little, as Tchekhov's
_Three Sisters_ once dreamed of Moscow. Dreaming of such a wondrous
place, where human dignity is not trampled into the mud daily, where
one can live quietly and die honourably, without violence and without
outrage to one's service. Such a very little thing.
"Mitka, bread!" boomed out the mighty bass of 2nd Lieutenant Yassny.
He is quite a character, this Yassny. Tall and sturdy, with a
thick crop of hair and a copper-coloured beard, he is altogether
an embodiment of the strength and courage of the soil. He wears
four crosses of St. George, and has been promoted from the rank of
Sergeant for distinction in action. He does not adapt himself to his
new surroundings in the least, said "levorution" for "revolution" and
"mettink" for "meeting," and cannot reconcile himself to the new order.
Yassny's undoubted "democratic" views, his candour and sincerity,
have given him an exceptionally privileged position in the regiment.
Without enjoying any special influence, he can, however, condemn,
rudely, harshly, sometimes with an oath, both people and ideas, which
are jealously guarded and worshipped by the regimental "Revolutionary
Democracy." The men are angry, but suffer him.
"There is no bread, I say."
The officers, absorbed in their thoughts and in their conversation, had
not even noticed that they had eaten their soup without bread.
"There will be no bread to-day," answered the waiter.
"What is the meaning of this? Call the mess-sergeant."
The mess-sergeant came, and began to justify himself in a bewildered
manner; he had sent in a request that morning for two pouds of bread.
The head of the Commissariat had endorsed it "to be issued," but the
clerk, Fedotov, a member of the Commissariat Committee, had endorsed it
in his turn "not to be issued." So the storehouse would not issue any
bread.
No one made any objection, so painfully ashamed was everyone both of
the mess-sergeant and of those depths of inanity which had suddenly
broken into their life and swamped it with a grey, filthy slime.
Only Yassny's bass voice rang out distinctly under the arches of the
mess-room:
"What swine!"
Albov was just preparing for a nap after dinner when the flap of his
tent was lifted, and through the aperture appeared the bald head of the
Chief of the Commissariat--a quiet, elderly Colonel, who had joined the
Army again from the retired list.
"May I come in?"
"I beg your pardon, Colonel."
"Never mind, my dear fellow, don't get up. I have just come in for a
second. You see, to-day at six o'clock there is to be a regimental
meeting. It will hear the Report of the Committee for verifying
the Commissariat, and apparently they will go for me. I am no
speech-maker, but you are a master of it. Take my part, should it be
necessary."
"Certainly. I did not intend going, but once it is necessary, I shall
be there."
"Thank you, then, my dear fellow."
By six o'clock the square next to the regimental Staff quarters was
completely covered with men. At least two thousand had turned up.
The crowd moved, chattered, laughed--just such a Russian crowd as
on the Khodynka in Moscow or the _Champs de Mars_ in Petrograd at a
holiday entertainment. The Revolution could not transform it all at
once, either mentally or spiritually. But, having stunned it with a
torrent of new words and opened up before it unbounded possibilities,
the Revolution had destroyed its equilibrium and made it nervously
susceptible and stormily reactive to all methods of external influence.
An ocean of words--both morally lofty and basely criminal--flowed
through their minds as through a sieve, which passed through the
trend of the new ideas and retained only those grains which had a
real applied meaning in their daily life, in the surroundings of
the soldier, the peasant, the workman. Hence the absolute absence
of results from the torrents of eloquence which flooded the Army at
the instance of the Minister of War; hence, too, the illogical warm
sympathy with both speakers of clearly opposed politics.
Under such conditions, what practical meaning could the crowd find in
such ideas as duty, honour, interests of the State, on the one hand;
annexations, indemnities, the self-determination of peoples, conscious
discipline, and other dim conceptions on the other.
The whole regiment had turned out; the soldiers were attracted by
the meeting, as by any other spectacle. Delegates had been sent by
the Second Battalion, which was in the trenches--about one-third of
the battalion. In the middle of the square stood a platform for the
speakers; it was decorated with red flags, faded with time and rain;
they have been there since the platform was erected for a review by the
Commander of the Army. Reviews are now held not among the ranks, but
from a tribune. To-day the agenda of the meeting contain two questions:
"(1) The Report of the Commissariat Committee on the anomalies in the
supply of Officers' rations; and (2) the report of Comrade Sklianka,
an orator specially invited from the Moscow Soviet to speak about the
formation of a Coalition Ministry."
During the preceding week a stormy meeting, which nearly ended in a
riot, had been held in connection with the complaint of one of the
companies that the soldiers had to eat lentils, which they hated,
and thin soup, simply because all the groats and butter were taken
for the officers' mess. This was clearly nonsense. Nevertheless, it
was resolved to appoint a Committee for investigation, which would
report to a general meeting of the regiment. The Report was drawn up
by a member of the Committee, Lieutenant-Colonel Petrov, who had been
removed the year before from the post of Chief of the Commissariat and
was now settling accounts with his successor. In a petty, cavilling
way, with a sort of mean irony, he enumerated slight, irrelevant,
inaccuracies in the Commissariat Department of the regiment--there were
no serious ones--and dragged out his Report endlessly in his creaking,
monotonous voice. The crowd, which at first had kept quiet, now hummed
again, having ceased to listen. From different sides voices were heard:
"Enough!"
"That will do!"
The Chairman of the Commission ceased reading and suggested that "those
comrades who wished" should express their opinions. A tall, stout
soldier ascended the platform, and began speaking in a loud, hysterical
voice:
"Comrades, you have heard? That is where the soldiers' property goes.
We suffer, our clothes are worn out, we are covered with lice, we go
hungry, while they pull the last piece of food out of our mouths."
As he spoke a spirit of nervous excitement kept growing in the crowd,
muffled murmurs ran through it, and shouts of approval burst from it
here and there.
"When will there be an end to all this? We are worn out, weary to
death."
Suddenly 2nd Lieut. Yassny's deep voice was heard from the rear ranks,
drowning the voices both of the speaker and of the crowd.
"What is your Company?"
Some confusion took place. The orator was dumb. Shouts of indignation
were flung at Yassny.
"What is your Company, I ask you?"
"The Seventh!"
Voices were heard in the ranks:
"We have no such man in the Seventh Company."
"Wait a bit, my friend," boomed Yassny, "was it not you that came in
to-day with the new lot ... you were carrying a large placard? When
have you had time to get worn out, poor fellow?"
The spirit of the crowd changed in an instant. It began to hiss, laugh,
shout, and crack jokes. The unsuccessful orator disappeared in the
crowd. Someone shouted:
"Pass a resolution!"
Lieutenant-Colonel Petrov mounted the platform again, and began to
read out a ready resolution for transferring the officers' mess to
privates' rations. But no one listened to him now. Two or three voices
shouted "That's right!" Petrov hesitated a little, then put the paper
in his pocket and left the platform. The second question, concerning
the removal of the Chief of the Commissariat and the immediate election
of his successor (the author of the report was the candidate proposed)
remained unread. The Chairman of the Committee then announced:
"Comrade Sklianka, member of the Executive Committee of the Moscow
Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, will now address the
meeting."
They were tired of their own speakers--it was always one and the
same thing--and the arrival of a new man, somewhat advertised by
the Committee, aroused general interest. The crowd closed up round
the platform and was still. A small, black-haired man, nervous and
short-sighted, who constantly adjusted the eyeglasses which kept
slipping off his nose, mounted the platform, or rather quickly ran
up on to it. He began speaking rapidly, with much spirit and much
gesticulation.
"Soldier comrades! Three months have passed already since the Petrograd
workers and Revolutionary soldiers threw off the yoke of the Czar and
of all his Generals. The Bourgeoisie, in the person of Tereshtchenko,
the well-known sugar refiner; Konovalov, the factory owner; the
landowners, Gutchkov, Rodzianko, Miliukov, and other traitors to the
interests of the people, having seized the supreme power, have tried to
deceive the popular masses.
"The demand of the people that negotiations be commenced at once for
that peace which we are offered by our German worker and soldier
brethren--who are just as much bereft of all that makes life worth
living as we are--has ended in a fraud--a telegram from Miliukov to
England and France to say that the Russian people are ready to fight
until victory is attained.
"The unfortunate people understood that the supreme power had fallen
into even worse hands, _i.e._, into those of the sworn foes of the
workman and the peasant. Therefore the people shouted mightily: 'Down
with you, hands off!'
"And the accursed Bourgeoisie shook at the mighty cry of the workers
and hypocritically invited to a share in their power the so-called
Democracy--the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, who always
associated with the Bourgeoisie for the betrayal of the interests of
the working people."
Having thus outlined the process of the formation of the Coalition
Ministry, Comrade Sklianka passed in greater detail to the fascinating
prospects of rural and factory anarchy, where "the wrath of the
people sweeps away the yoke of capital" and where "Bourgeois property
gradually passes into the hands of its real masters--the workmen and
the poorer peasants."
"The soldiers and the workmen still have enemies," he continued. "These
are the friends of the overthrown Czarist Government, the hardened
admirers of shooting, the knout, and blows. The most bitter foes of
freedom, they have now donned crimson rosettes, call you 'comrades' and
pretend to be friends, but cherish the blackest intentions in their
hearts, preparing to restore the rule of the Romanovs.
"Soldiers, do not trust these wolves in sheep's clothing! They call
you to fresh slaughter. Well, follow them if you like! Let them pave
the path for the return of the bloody Czar with your corpses. Let your
orphans, your widows and children, deserted by all, pass again into
slavery, hunger, beggary, and disease!"
The speech undoubtedly had a great success. The atmosphere grew
red-hot, the excitement increased--that excitement of the "molten
mass," in the presence of which it is impossible to foresee either the
limits or the tension, or the tracks along which the torrent will pour.
The crowd was noisy and agitated, accompanying with shouts of approval
or curses against "the enemies of the people" those parts of the speech
which especially touched its instincts, its naked, cruel egotism.
Albov, pale, with burning eyes, made his appearance on the platform.
He spoke excitedly of something or other to the chairman, who then
addressed the crowd. The chairman's words were inaudible amidst the
noise; for a long time he waved his hands and the flag which he had
pulled down, until at last the noise had subsided somewhat.
"Comrades, Lieutenant Albov wishes to address you!"
Shouts and hisses were heard.
"Down with him! We do not want him!"
But Albov was already on the platform, gripping hard, bending downwards
towards the sea of heads. And he said:
"No, I will speak, and you dare not refuse to listen to one of those
officers whom this man has been abusing and dishonouring here before
you. Who he may be, whence he has come, who pays him for his speeches,
so profitable to the Germans, not one of you knows. He has come here,
befogged you, and will go on his way to sow evil and treason. And you
have believed him. And we, who along with you have now carried our
heavy cross into the fourth year of the War--we are now to be regarded
as your enemies? Why? Is it because we never sent you into action,
but led you, bestrewing with officers' corpses the whole of the path
covered by the regiment? Is it because that, of the officers who led
you in the beginning, there is not one left in the regiment who is not
maimed?"
He spoke with deep sincerity and pain in his voice. There were moments
when it seemed as if his words were breaking through the withered crust
of those hardened hearts, as if a break would again take place in the
attitude of the crowd.
"He, your 'new friend,' is calling you to mutiny, to violence, to
robbery. Do you understand who will benefit when, in Russia, brother
rises against brother, so as to turn to ashes, in sack and fire,
the last property left not only to the 'capitalists,' but to the
poverty-stricken workers and peasants? No, it is not by violence,
but by law and right, that you will acquire land and liberty and a
tolerable existence. Your enemies are not here, among the officers,
but there--beyond the barbed wire. And we shall not attain either to
freedom or to peace by a dishonourable, cowardly standing in one and
the same place, but in the general mighty rush of an _advance_."
Was it that the impression of Sklianka's speech was still too vivid or
that the regiment took offence at the word "cowardly"--for the most
arrant coward will never forgive such a reminder--or, finally, was it
the fault of the magic word "advance," which for some time past had
ceased to be tolerated in the Army? But anyhow Albov was not allowed to
continue his speech.
The crowd bellowed, belched forth curses, pressed forward more and
more, advancing toward the platform, and broke down the railing. An
ominous roar, faces distorted with fury, and hands stretched forth
towards the platform. The situation was becoming critical. 2nd Lieut.
Yassny pushed his way through to Albov, took him by the arm, and
forcibly led him to the exit. The soldiers of the First Company had
already rushed up to it from all sides, and with their aid Albov, with
great difficulty, made his way out of the crowd, amidst a shower of
choice abuse. Someone shouted out after him:
"Wait a bit, you ----; we will settle accounts with you!"
Night. The bivouac had grown quiet. Clouds had covered the sky. It was
dark. Albov, sitting on his bed in his narrow tent, illuminated by
the stump of a candle, was writing a report to the Commander of the
Regiment:
"The officers--powerless, insulted, meeting with distrust and
disobedience from their subordinates--can be of no further use. I beg
of you to apply for my reduction to the ranks, so that there I might
fulfil my duty honestly and to the end."
He lay down on his bed. He gripped his head in his hands. A kind of
uncanny, incomprehensible emptiness seized him, just as if some unseen
hand had drawn out of his head all thought, out of his heart all pain.
What was that? A noise was heard, the tent-pole fell down, the light
went out. A number of men on the tent. Hard, cruel blows were showered
on the whole of his body. A sharp, intolerable pain shot through his
head and his chest. Then his whole face seemed covered with a warm,
sticky veil, and soon everything became still and calm again, as if all
that was terrible and hard to bear had torn itself away, had remained
here, on earth, while his soul was flying away somewhere and was
feeling light and joyous.
Albov awoke to feel something cold touching him: a private of his
company, Goulkin, an elderly man, was sitting at the foot of his bed
and wiping away the blood from his head with a wet towel. He noticed
that Albov had regained consciousness.
"Look how they have mangled the man, the scum! It can have been no
other than the Fifth Company--I recognised one of them. Does it hurt
you much? Perhaps you would like me to go for the doctor?"
"No, my friend, it does not matter. Thank you!" and Albov pressed his
hand.
"And their Commander, too, Captain Bouravin, has met with a misfortune.
During the night they carried him past us on a stretcher, wounded
in the abdomen; the _sanitar_ said that he would not live. He was
returning from reconnoitring, and the bullet took just at our very
barbed wire. Whether it was a German one or whether our own people did
not recognise him--who knows?"
He was silent for a while.
"What has come to the people one simply can't understand. And all
this is just put on. It is not true--that which they say against the
officers--we understand that ourselves. Of course, there are all sorts
among you. But we know them very well. Don't we see for ourselves that
you, now, are for us with all your heart. Or let us say 2nd Lieut.
Yassny. Could such a one sell himself? And yet, try to say a word, to
take your part--there would be no living for us. There is a great deal
of hooliganism now. It is only hooligans that men listen to. My idea is
that all this is taking place because men have forgotten God. Men have
nothing to be afraid of."
Albov closed his eyes from weakness. Goulkin hastily arranged the
blanket, which had slipped to the floor, made the sign of the cross
over him, and quietly slipped out of the tent.
But sleep would not come. His heart was full of an inexhaustible
sadness and an oppressive feeling of loneliness. He yearned so much to
have some living being at hand, so that he might silently, wordlessly
feel its proximity, and not remain alone with his dreadful thoughts. He
regretted that he had not detained Goulkin.
All was quiet. The whole camp was sleeping. Albov leaped from his bed
and lit the candle again. He was seized with a dull, hopeless despair.
He had no more faith in anything. Impenetrable darkness lay before
him. To make his exit from life? No, that would be surrender. He
must go on, with clenched teeth and hardened heart, until some stray
bullet--Russian or German--broke the thread of his wearisome days.
Dawn was coming on. A new day was beginning, new Army week-days,
horribly like their predecessors.
* * * * *
Afterwards?
Afterwards the "molten element" overflowed its banks completely.
Officers were killed, burnt, drowned, torn asunder and had their heads
broken through with hammers, slowly, with inexpressible cruelty.
Afterwards--millions of deserters. Like an avalanche the soldiery moved
along the railways, water-ways and country roads, trampling down,
breaking and destroying the last nerves of poor, roadless Russia.
Afterwards--Tarnopol, Kalush, Kazan. Like a whirlwind robbery, murder,
violence, incendiarism swept over Galicia, Volynia, the Podolsk and
other provinces, leaving behind it everywhere a trail of blood and
arousing in the minds of the Russian people, crazed with grief and weak
in spirit, the monstrous thought:
"O Lord! if only the Germans would come quickly."
This was done by the soldier.
That soldier of whom a great Russian writer, with intuitive conscience
and a bold heart, has said:[27]
"... How many hast thou killed during these days, oh soldier? How many
orphans hast thou made? How many inconsolable mothers hast thou left?
Dost thou hear the whisper on their lips, from which thou hast driven
the smile of joy for evermore?
"Murderer! Murderer!
"But why speak of mothers, of orphaned children? A more terrible moment
came, which none had expected--and thou didst betray Russia, thou didst
cast the whole of the Motherland, which had bred thee, under the feet
of the foe!
"Thou, oh soldier, whom we loved so--and whom we still love."