Ten Days That Shook The World (22 page)

In Petrograd sixteen Ministries were on strike, led by the Ministries of Labor and of Supplies-the only two created by the all-Socialist Government of August.

If ever men stood alone the "handful of Bolsheviki" apparently stood alone that grey chill morning, with all storms towering over them. (See App. VI, Sect. 1) Back against the wall, the Military Revolutionary Committee struck-for its life. "De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.... At five in the morning the Red Guards entered the printing office of the City Government, confiscated thousands of copies of the Appeal-Protest of the Duma, and suppressed the official Municipal organ-the Viestnik Gorodskovo Samoupravleniya (Bulletin of the Municipal Self-Government). All the bourgeois newspapers were torn from the presses, even the Golos Soldata, journal of the old Tsay-ee-kah-which, however, changing its name to Soldatski Golos, appeared in an edition of a hundred thousand copies, bellowing rage and defiance:

The men who began their stroke of treachery in the night, who have suppressed the newspapers, will not keep the country in ignorance long. The country will know the truth! It will appreciate you, Messrs. the Bolsheviki! We shall see!...

As we came down the Nevsky a little after midday the whole street before the Duma building was crowded with people. Here and there stood Red Guards and sailors, with bayonetted rifles, each one surrounded by about a hundred men and women-clerks, students, shopkeepers, tchinovniki-shaking their fists and bawling insults and menaces. On the steps stood boy-scouts and officers, distributing copies of the Soldatski Golos. A workman with a red band around his arm and a revolver in his hand stood trembling with rage and nervousness in the middle of a hostile throng at the foot of the stairs, demanding the surrender of the papers.... Nothing like this, I imagine, ever occurred in history. On one side a handful of workmen and common soldiers, with arms in their hands, representing a victorious insurrection-and perfectly miserable; on the other a frantic mob made up of the kind of people that crowd the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue at noon-time, sneering, abusing, shouting, "Traitors! Provocators! Opritchniki! [*]" [* Savage body-guards if Ian the Terrible, 17th century]

The doors were guarded by students and officers with white arm-bands lettered in red, "Militia of the Committee of Public Safety," and half a dozen boy-scouts came and went. Upstairs the place was all commotion. Captain Gomberg was coming down the stairs. "They're going to dissolve the Duma," he said. "The Bolshevik Commissar is with the Mayor now." As we reached the top Riazanov came hurrying out. He had been to demand that the Duma recognize the Council of peoples' Commissars, and the Mayor had given him a flat refusal.

In the offices a great babbling crowd, hurrying, shouting, gesticulating-Government officials, intellectuals, journalists, foreign correspondents, French and British officers.... "The City Engineer pointed to them triumphantly. "The Embassies recognize the Duma as the only power now," he explained. "For these Bolshevik murderers and robbers it is only a question of hours. All Russia is rallying to us....

In the Alexander Hall a monster meeting of the Committee for Salvation. Fillipovsky in the chair and Skobeliev again in the tribune, reporting, to immense applause, new adhesions to the Committee; Executive Committee of Peasants' Soviets, old Tsay-ee-kah, Central Army Committee, Tsentroflot, Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary and Front group delegates from the Congress of Soviets, Central Committees of the Menshevik, Socialist Revolutionary, Populist Socialist parties. "Yedinstvo" group, Peasants' Union, Cooperatives, Zemstvos, Municipalities, Post and Telegraph Unions, Vikzhel, Council of the Russian Republic, Union of Unions,  [*] Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association.... [* See Notes and Explanations.]

".... The power of the Soviets is not democratic power, but a dictatorship-and not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but against the proletariat. All those who have felt or know how to feel revolutionary enthusiasm must join now for the defence of the Revolution....

"The problem of the day is not only to render harmless irresponsible demagogues, but to fight against the counter-revolution.... If rumors are true that certain generals in the provinces are attempting to profit by events in order to march on Petrograd with other designs, it is only one more proof that we must establish a solid base of democratic government. Otherwise, troubles with the Right will follow troubles from the Left....

"The garrison of Petrograd cannot remain indifferent when citizens buying the Golos Soldata and newsboys selling the Rabotchaya Gazeta are arrested in the streets....

"The hour of resolutions has passed.... Let those who have no longer faith in the Revolution retire.... To establish a united power, we must again restore the prestige of the Revolution....

"Let us swear that either the Revolution shall be saved-or we shall perish!"

The hall rose, cheering, with kindling eyes. There was not a single proletarian anywhere in sight....

Then Weinstein:

"We must remain calm, and not act until public opinion is firmly grouped in support of the Committee for Salvation-then we can pass from the defensive to action!"

The Vikzhel representative announced that his organization was taking the initiative in forming the new Government, and its delegates were now discussing the matter with Smolny.... Followed a hot discussion: were the Bolsheviki to be admitted to the new Government? Martov pleaded for their admission; after all, he said, they represented an important political party. Opinions were very much divided upon this, the right wing Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Populist Socialists, the Cooperatives and the bourgeois elements being bitterly against....

"They have betrayed Russia," one speaker said. "They have started civil war and opened the front to the Germans. The Bolsheviki must be mercilessly crushed...."

Skobeliev was in favor of excluding both the Bolsheviki and the Cadets.

We got into conversation with a young Socialist Revolutionary, who had walked out of the Democratic Conference to gather with the Bolsheviki, that night when Tseretelli and the "compromisers" forced Coalition upon the democracy of Russia.

"You here?" I asked him.

His eyes flashed fire. "Yes!" he cried. "I left the Congress with my party Wednesday night. I have not risked my life for twenty years and more to submit now to the tyranny of the Dark People. Their methods are intolerable. But they have not counted on the peasants.... When the peasants begin to act, then it is a question of minutes before they are done for."

"But the peasants-will they act? Doesn't the Land decree settle the peasants? What more do they want?"

"Ah, the Land decree!" he said furiously. "Yes, do you know what that Land decree is? It is our decree-it is the Socialist Revolutionary program, intact! My party framed that policy, after the most careful compilation of the wishes of the peasants themselves. It is an outrage...."

"But if it is your own policy, why do you object? If it is the peasants' wishes, why will they oppose it?"

"You don't understand! Don't you see that the peasants will immediately realise that it is all a trick-that these usurpers have stolen the Socialist Revolutionary program?"

I asked if it were true that Kaledin was marching north.

He nodded, and rubbed his hands with a sort of bitter satisfaction. "Yes. Now you see what these Bolsheviki have done. They have raised the counter-revolution against us. The Revolution is lost. The Revolution is lost."

"But won't you defend the Revolution?"

"Of course we will defend it-to the last drop of our blood. But we won't cooperate with the Bolsheviki in any way...."

"But if Kaledin comes to Petrograd, and the Bolsheviki defend the city. Won't you join with them?"

"Of course not. We will defend the city also, but we won't support the Bolsheviki. Kaledin is the enemy of the Revolution, but the Bolsheviki are equally enemies of the Revolution."

"Which do you prefer-Kaledin or the Bolsheviki?"

"It is not a question to be discussed!" he burst out impatiently. "I tell you, the Revolution is lost. And it is the Bolsheviki who are to blame. But listen-why should we talk of such things? Kerensky is coming.... Day after tomorrow we shall pass to the offensive.... Already Smolny has sent delegates inviting us to form a new Government. But we have them now-they are absolutely impotent.... We shall not cooperate...."

Outside there was a shot. We ran to the windows. A Red Guard, finally exasperated by the taunts of the crowd, had shot into it, wounding a young girl in the arm. We could see her being lifted into a cab, surrounded by an excited throng, the clamor of whose voices floated up to us. As we looked, suddenly an armored automobile appeared around the corner of the Mikhailovsky, its guns sluing this way and that. Immediately the crowd began to run, as Petrograd crowds do, falling down and lying still in the street, piled in the gutters, heaped up behind telephone-poles. The car lumbered up to the steps of the Duma and a man stuck his head out of the turret, demanding the surrender of the Soldatski Golos. The boy-scouts jeered and scuttled into the building. After a moment the automobile wheeled undecidedly around and went off up the Nevsky, while some hundreds of men and women picked themselves up and began to dust their clothes....

Inside was a prodigious running-about of people with armfuls of Soldatski Golos, looking for places to hide them....

A journalist came running into the room, waving a paper.

"Here's a proclamation from Krasnov!" he cried. Everybody crowded around. "Get it printed-get it printed quick, and around to the barracks!"

By the order of the Supreme Commander I am appointed commandant of the troops concentrated under Petrograd.

Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the Don, of the Kuban, of the Transbaikal, of the Amur, of the Yenissei, to all you who have remained faithful to your oath I appeal; to you who have sworn to guard inviolable your oath of Cossack-I call upon you to save Petrograd from anarchy, from famine, from tyranny, and to save Russia from the indelible shame to which a handful of ignorant men, bought by the gold of Wilhelm, are trying to submit her.

The Provisional Government, to which you swore fidelity in the great days of March, is not overthrown, but by violence expelled from the edifice in which it held its meetings. However the Government, with the help of the Front armies, faithful to their duty, with the help of the Council of Cossacks, which has united under its command all the Cossacks and which, strong with the morale which reigns in its ranks, and acting in accordance with the will of the Russian people, has sworn to serve the country as its ancestors served it in the Troublous Times of 1612, when the Cossacks of the Don delivered Moscow, menaced by the Swedes, the Poles, and the Lithuanians. Your Government still exists....

The active army considers these criminals with horror and contempt. Their acts of vandalism and pillage, their crimes, the German mentality with which they regard Russia-stricken down but not yet surrendered-have alienated from them the entire people.

Citizens, soldiers, valorous Cossacks of the garrison of Petrograd; send me your delegates so that I may know who are traitors to their country and who are not, that there may be avoided an effusion of innocent blood.

Almost the same moment word ran from group to group that the building was surrounded by Red Guards. An officer strode in, a red band around his arm, demanding the Mayor. A few minutes later he left and old Schreider came out of his office, red and pale by turns.

"A special meeting of the Duma!" he cried. "Immediately!"

In the big hall proceedings were halted. "All members of the Duma for a special meeting!"

"What's the matter?"

"I don't know-going to arrest us-going to dissolve the Duma-arresting members at the door-" so ran the excited comments.

In the Nicolai Hall there was barely room to stand. The Mayor announced that troops were stationed at all the doors, prohibiting all exit and entrance, and that a Commissar had threatened arrest and the dispersal of the Municipal Duma. A flood of impassioned speeches from members, and even from the galleries, responded. The freely-elected City Government could not be dissolved by any power; the Mayor's person and that of all the members were inviolable; the tyrants, the provocators, the German agents should never be recognized; as for these threats to dissolve us, let them try-only over our dead bodies shall they seize this chamber, where like the Roman senators of old we await with dignity the coming of the Goths....

Resolution, to inform the Dumas and Zemstvos of all Russia by telegraph. Resolution, that it was impossible for the Mayor or the Chairman of the Duma to enter into any relations whatever with representatives of the Military Revolutionary Committee or with the so-called Council of People's Commissars. Resolution, to address another appeal to the population of Petrograd to stand up for the defense of their elected town government. Resolution, to remain in permanent session....

In the meanwhile one member arrived with the information that he had telephoned to Smolny, and that the Military Revolutionary Committee said that no orders had been given to surround the Duma, that the troops would be withdrawn....

As we went downstairs Riazanov burst in through the front door, very agitated.

"Are you going to dissolve the Duma?" I asked.